Well, to the universe, sure. But not to us. It doesn't matter to us, living our lives here, with our minds being wired how they are, what's true of the universe as a whole. It doesn't change our experiences, or our needs as social creatures.
"Wiring" can be changed. Frankly, within a nihilistic framework, it probably
should be changed.
Honestly, if nihilism truly is the way of the world, then our empathy is ultimately more of a hindrance than a benefit. We should all consider ourselves
fortunate to be born as socially-functional sociopaths.
I mean... Just think of how many problems could be solved that way!
Troubled by an endemic underclass of citizens draining public resources? Well, why not simply purge them?
Hell! Do the environment a favor and grind them up into food and commercial products for everyone else while you're at it!
The same goes for the elderly, the sick, and most others. They aren't really a
benefit to you, me, or society in general, after all. :shrug:
Recognizing that our concerns probably aren't the central focus of the entire universe doesn't turn people into "dick bags" unless you're already a sociopath to begin with, or a toddler. Nearly all secular people are relativists or nihilists to some degree, whether they know it or not, and yet secular-dominant places are the best on earth.
That has little to do with the people actually living there, however, or any supposedly "superior" sense of morality found therein.
To the contrary, the modern West is more livable because it is more advanced, and therefore has more resources to spread around. It simply happens to be the case that fat, happy, and well entertained human beings are less likely to resort to violence or predatory behavior than those who live in want.
Frankly, even then, this is hardly absolute. I'd actually argue that the average well-to-do person living in today's "Liberated" society is probably considerably more inter-personally unpleasant, self-serving, and "amoral" than those living a few generations ago. It simply matters less.
But even for those with rather muted senses of empathy, there are still quite obvious rewards: being successful in society, which is hard when you're a dickbag unless you simultaniously have a very high IQ.
That depends on how you define "dick bag behavior" in the first place. Obviously, running around insulting everyone you see would be counter-productive.
However, actions like snubbing the homeless, telling a person in need to "**** off," or deliberately going out of one's way to work a social system in such a way as to gain status and power at someone else's expense not only tend to be "socially acceptable," but are often effective means of getting ahead in life.
