Blindsight (Firefall, #1)

by Peter Watts

I shook my head. “I just observe, that’s all. I watch what people do, and then I imagine what would make them do that.” “Sounds like empathy to me.” “It’s not. Empathy’s not so much about imagining how the other guy feels. It’s more about imagining how you’d feel in the same place, right?” Pag frowned. “So?” “So what if you don’t know how you’d feel?” He looked at me, and his surfaces were serious and completely transparent. “You’re better than that, friend. You may not always act like it, but—I know you. I knew you before.” “You knew someone else. I’m Pod-man, remember?” “Yeah, that was someone else. And maybe I remember him better than you do. But I’ll tell you one thing.” He leaned forward. “Both of you would’ve helped me out that day. And maybe he would’ve got there with good ol’ fashioned empathy while you had to cobble together some kind of improvised flowchart out of surplus parts, but that just makes your accomplishment all the greater. Which is why I continue to stick it out with you, old buddy. Even though you have a rod up your ass the size of the Rio Spire.”