The AITA commenters are sociopaths.

It's something I've been feeling a lot reading those posts. I know people in here don't take them too seriously assuming almost all of them are fake. I don't fully agree with this view but it's not relevant here. Even if they are fake though I still feel it's interesting to see the very real mindsets they elicit from commenters. And many times also worrying.

Because AITA feels extremely sociopathic to the point it's unsettling. Pretty much all posts have a "character" commenters decide is the victim and from there, their logic seems to be, that person has the right to do anything that benefits them personally regardless of what it does to others. You know the drill, divorce your partner for minor things, fully cut off any family that makes you uncomfortable in any way, take advantage of any hardship your ex might face to alienate them from your kids, etc.

This lack of empathy and assumption that everyone around the one character is a selfish monster too is honestly disturbing. Just now I saw a post (which inspired this), where OP asked if they are TA for cutting contact with their mom for divorcing their dad because he wanted to take care of his ailing mom instead of putting her in a home for them to travel.

To me, the NTA here is obvious. If you can't count on your partner to be by your side in times like this then the relationship is worthless. And honestly being in a similar situation right now, if my dad pulled something like that on my mom I couldn't see him the same way either.

But according to AITA OP is fully in the wrong, and you should put old people with problems in facilities with no empathy or expectations to care for them. I even saw several commenters expressing relief about family (mostly in laws) shortly dying after needing care and not burdening them much.

And of course, they all instantly assumed dad is a raging asshole that would dump all responsibility on the mom, or the MIL was terrible and deserved this etc. As if that behaviour is perfectly normal.

Maybe it's a culture thing. Americans charge their own kids rent so I'm not surprised they're not as empathetic to their elders as I am. But still it's unsettling.