Personally, I feel like low empathy is a sign of low intelligence ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Emotions control so much of human behaviour so if you can't understand yours or others you won't be able to solve any problems with a human element.
You can see it in how people talk as well. Once you know what to look for.
Most of the time we attribute what we do ourselves to be situational vs intrinsic. The opposite for other people. Why are you angry? Because the situation. Why are they angry? Because they are an angry person.
When someone doesn't understand or care about emotions they don't grasp the signals that they are getting. And boy do they cause chaos.
Why did you sexually harass her? It is her fault for dressing sexy she must have wanted it. Right, not because you are horny?
Why did you pick that fight with your coworker? He is always doing x and knows it pisses me off. Right, not because you have anger issues and they do x because they were told to do x.
If you have no emotional intelligence you are going to view yourself as perfectly rational always right while the people around you view you as a human hand grenade.
It absolutely is. Empathy is about analyzing a situation from a perspective that isn't your own. That requires a lot of abstract thought. It's like giving someone two apples and then taking one away and asking them how many apples there are versus asking them to solve 2-1=x
As someone on the autism spectrum, I’m going to have to disagree. Yes, I’m as dumb as a pile of bricks in many social situations. But I shine when I’m given an engineering problem to solve.