I find talking about this stuff super interesting and relevant, since my opinions on these things are essentially what informs all my political beliefs. Long post time:

I feel like im in a fairly unique position because lack of free-will is actually the intuitive answer to me. I can't quite explain why but it feels more correct. It's mostly to due with the slight dissociative feelings I had when I was younger, and to a lesser degree now, where I feel "like im just watching a movie of myself living my life". I now see that as me unconsciously and intuitively being aware of my thoughts popping into my head as purely coded reactions to things, or thats my analysis at least. Regardless, I feel that sooooo much of how a person acts, their choices, their preferences, and their reactions to things can be traced back to external stimuli that even if compatibilism is more correct, things are close enough to a lack of free will that for practical purposes it can be assumed that we just have an illusion of free will but dont actually.

This then leads into my political beliefs. I feel that a deterministic no-free-will view of things is the best justification for an anti-hierarchical stance. If people don't choose their environments and experiences then everyone is just a victim of consequences. When im talking to friends and get to this point they like to point out that "so we just let criminals go free then?" to which I have a less scientific response to. My username references a quote from Night in The Woods where a character says "I believe in a universe that doesnt care, and people who do", which I also believe in, and I think is quite profound when you consider the utter vastness of the universe. If the universe is a near endless void of bleakness, then the actions of humans, passion, love, caring about fictional characters, is just flat out absurd. Despite that though, humans (and lots of other life) still does it, and this brave defiance in the face of the void I personally think creates meaning in itself. Almost a sort of "romantic nihilism" I say, where what matters in this universe is the passions of lifeforms that thrive in defiance of the void.

To thrive then is to explore passion and love and art and other things that are best achieved by ensuring that as many people (and other animals :im-vegan:) on earth can do so. And to do that means finding out why so many people are stuck working awful office jobs. Its not because of some people being bad and some people being good and/or choosing to do so, the systems that perpetuate these awful lives are propped up by "bad" people who are victims of circumstance of that same system. This wraps back around to my arguments on determinism where I feel that when trying to justify being anti-hierarchy, the most meaningful takeaway is that the focus should always be on the systems and environments that create "bad" people. And to give an answer to the many times people tell me "but like you cant just let a murderer walk free because they are a victim" I say that it becomes a complicated legal question to determine if they are harming more people's ability to "thrive" as described earlier, and if so then whatever actions to stop them are therefore justified because the net thriving is kept as high as possible. But if all the systems and environments that create criminals and "bad" people are fought against I believe that there will be very very few people, only the most unlucky, to have to put in fancy personal hotel prisons to let them enjoy their lives without hurting others.

My last thought in regards to free will is a response to a friend of mine that said "I worry that your viewpoint cheapens the good actions of people, because they are just lucky in their circumstances". I think my takes kinda lead to a healthy form of humility, recognizing that privilege runs very deep and in many forms but isn't always an issue, because those who are in a better position have the responsibility of leveraging their lives to help the less fortunate thrive as well. And the benefit of showing those who are "bad" the source of their problems instead of telling them to self loathe is absolutely worth it.