When a young male (let's say 14 to 19) is a danger to himself and others, society gives the supporting family two options:1. Watch people die.2. Kill your own son.Those are your only options. I chose #1 and watched my stepson die. I was relieved he took no one else with him.— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) July 6, 2022
Check out his own self-selected Twitter avatar. :galaxy-brain: :farquaad-point: :centrist: :soypoint-2:
like it is the foundation to my conception that people deserve human compassion because they didn’t choose their lives.
While that can seem admirable in some ways, it also has a paralysis aspect because it also implies that :porky-happy: and related people that hurt other people and exploit them "didn't choose their lives." Does choice even truly exist at that point, because if people don't choose, what does? Does the word even have meaning at all if we go that far?
Whether or not choice is real by some abstract definition that exists outside of our lived subjective reality, telling :porky-happy: that they were predestined to act how they did is probably not going to have the same effect, deterministically or not, than telling :porky-happy: that their workers may eventually show them consequences for their actions.
I think it's philosophically paralyzing to go so far as to say that making choices to harm others and destroy things around them isn't really a choice at all. Even the "illusion" of choice can incentivize behavior changes or at least mitigation, such as the fear of punishment tied to making bad choices (which are assumed to be choices, not "illusions" for purposes of crime and punishment) which does tend to deter specific kinds of people prone to harming others even if it isn't universally effective.
Likewise, the "illusion" of having the choice to do good things for other people is self-fulfilling even if it's an "illusion." People tend to enjoy the feeling that they chose to do something to help other people, "illusion" or otherwise. Stripping that supposed illusion away may actually make those people less deterministically prone to acting in such ways.
While that can seem admirable in some ways, it also has a paralysis aspect because it also implies that :porky-happy: and related people that hurt other people and exploit them "didn't choose their lives." Does choice even truly exist at that point, because if people don't choose, what does? Does the word even have meaning at all if we go that far?
Whether or not choice is real by some abstract definition that exists outside of our lived subjective reality, telling :porky-happy: that they were predestined to act how they did is probably not going to have the same effect, deterministically or not, than telling :porky-happy: that their workers may eventually show them consequences for their actions.
I think it's philosophically paralyzing to go so far as to say that making choices to harm others and destroy things around them isn't really a choice at all. Even the "illusion" of choice can incentivize behavior changes or at least mitigation, such as the fear of punishment tied to making bad choices (which are assumed to be choices, not "illusions" for purposes of crime and punishment) which does tend to deter specific kinds of people prone to harming others even if it isn't universally effective.
Likewise, the "illusion" of having the choice to do good things for other people is self-fulfilling even if it's an "illusion." People tend to enjoy the feeling that they chose to do something to help other people, "illusion" or otherwise. Stripping that supposed illusion away may actually make those people less deterministically prone to acting in such ways.