Jianwen despised elitism in all its forms — she was keenly aware of the irony of this, coming from an Ivy-educated financial services technologist with a roomful of top-end VR gear like her. It was one group of elites who decided that democracy wasn’t “right” for her country, and another group of elites who decided that they knew best who deserved sympathy and who didn’t. The elites distrusted feelings, distrusted what made people human.

Byzantine Empathy, by Ken Liu; published in Solar Punk: Short Stories from Many Futures, edited by Francesco Verso.