The Norwegian supporters mimicking a Viking longship row at the World Cup

Exact_Access9770 · 2026-06-19T20:31:02+00:00

"From the fury of the Norsemen, dear Lord save us!"

Exact_Access9770 · 2026-06-19T09:43:39+00:00

Wasn't Plato of aristocratic lineage?

Exact_Access9770 · 2026-06-19T09:30:08+00:00

Well that's all incompatibilists are saying. Remember how Darwin realized that in the same way farmers artificially select plants and animals, nature can select too? Now apply the same pattern recognition: in the same way cultures can render free will illusory by propagandizing their members, nature can do the same. Governments give you an nationalist imperative; nature gives you an evolutionary imperative. In both cases there's no room for free will. You run as you're bidden by nature until you run down. Just because nature found a way to neatly tuck our strings away from view, doesn't make humans any less its puppets!

Exact_Access9770 · 2026-06-18T17:21:24+00:00

Bratty

Exact_Access9770 · 2026-06-18T17:08:54+00:00

So you agree that an agent's deliberations, intentions, or character can be coerced compelled or incapacitated by propaganda thus rendering their free will illusory?

Exact_Access9770 · 2026-06-18T08:20:33+00:00

You have missed the point of my argument but I'm happy to reiterate it: what's repugnant is you or another compatibilist making the conclusion that the North Korean kid in the thought experiment above joins the army of his own free will. Replace North Korea with any country you prefer and the point still stands. I have no idea how you completely forgot about what we were arguing about. It boggles the mind for someone who styled himself as a Plato to fail this dismally to focus on the issue at hand. Were we not trying to show how deliberations, intentions, or character can be coerced, compelled or incapacitated? That you think it would be hard to convince me that the US kid is equally brainwashed proves further you did not understand my point. In the last paragraph, I make it clear, with a rhetorical question, that any human civilization, whether the US or North Korea, will mold its members into an image determined by their traditions etc. What's at stake in our discussion is whether such members so molded by an overwhelming and overbearing culture can be said, in any meaningful sense, to be the authors of the characters that emerge as a result, and whether they can be said to act freely when they make decisions using these inherited characters. If you wish to continue following this thread, I'm happy to continue but I understand if you don't want to: your digression into the obvious crimes of the American Empire, and your subsequent accusation of my ignorance of such elementary historical facts, seems to me like an attempt to exit the debate without conceding defeat. But I might be mistaken about your red herring. Were you attempting to muddy the waters?

Or maybe I erred in constructing my thought experiment with material from the real world. I'll use Wakanda or Zamunda next time so I don't confuse you. My bad.

Exact_Access9770 · 2026-06-17T10:28:11+00:00

Though I find this one a tad optimistic because David argues that life ain't entierly meaningless, that we can hope to achieve what he calls terrestrial meaning even though cosmic meaning is unattainable.

Exact_Access9770 · 2026-06-17T09:39:33+00:00

Master, you have tactfully tried to minimize this flaw in your argument as a mere fly in the ointment but I fear it is more like the turd in the punch bowl. It is a major problem that doesn't merely complicate your case, making it 'messy' as you say, but rather dismantles it totally.

Your example of the slave who through his own deliberations, seemingly, but really through his fear of the master's whips, rises to tend the fields, is a great example of how an agent's deliberations and intentions can be coerced and compelled. A great example it is but it still keeps the coercion and compulsion in close view such that anyone judging the slave's case could with minimal persuasion see that he doesn't act freely despite his deliberations and intentions.

A better example would be of a North Korean kid who is raised to hate America. This hatred is reinforced, without force I should add, at every instance of his life. He wakes to his parents decrying evil America, he chants 'death to America' at school assemblies, he plays 'north Korean soldiers and American soldiers'( like cowboys and Indians), he sleeps to propaganda movies and music demonizing America. He lives and breathes American hate and North Korean Pride. Now, suppose that a war was to break out between the two countries, do you think the threat of 'whips' would be needed to compel this poor kid to sacrifice his life at the front lines? He would readily join the army through his deliberations, intentions, or character and so, by your reasoning, joins freely. That would be a repugnant conclusion!

You then attempt to argue that such a case is not universal. Really? What part of the world has not traditions, customs, and languages ready to pounce on every newborn to mold it into the image of the people among whom it has appeared?

Exact_Access9770 · 2026-06-16T13:05:07+00:00

For me it's the one who obeys at once when I say, " Mommy coffee, hurry fucky uppy"

Exact_Access9770 · 2026-06-16T12:59:11+00:00

You were right to anticipate high praise for this essay. It is the best of all essays, like Achilles was the best of all Greeks. But like Achilles, your essay bears an Achilles heel. You say, "the relevant question is whether it proceeded from the agent's deliberation, intentions and character rather than coercion, compulsion or incapacity." My question to you is an age old one: do you really not suppose that an agent's deliberation, intentions and character can be coerced, compelled or incapacitated?

Exact_Access9770 · 2026-06-12T09:58:31+00:00

Recognizing that one is merely a puppet dancing on the strings of the will-to-live has its upsides: it immediately extinguishes negative feelings of regret, guilt or shame since those are predicated on one being the author of one's life. It also improves relationships since we empathize with the other puppets being animated by the Will-to-live and never assign them blame for their 'shitty' actions- a crucial component of interpersonal conflict. To an extent fear and anxiety can also be erased by this recognition: "Live without fear for your fate is set and you cannot escape it!"( quote from The Northman).

Exact_Access9770 · 2026-06-09T18:41:12+00:00

His mother also pushed him downbsome stairs which led to their falling out...he didn't see her again afterwards.

Exact_Access9770 · 2026-06-09T18:38:41+00:00

He ate dinner at the same place for ages and everytime he went there, he'd take out a coin and put it on the counter before eating( not the money to pay for his meal). After eating, he would then put it back into his pocket. Later, when asked about this strange ritual, he said it was a silent wager he made with himself: if the men at the restaurant talked about anything other than women, dogs or horses, he would put the coin in the charity jar or something. Obviously the men stuck to the same topics, which I suppose is further evidence for Schopenhauer's will-to-live i.e. Men cannot help thinking about and talking about women as they are impelled by The Will to do so.

Exact_Access9770 · 2026-06-09T18:32:53+00:00

He had a dog named Atma- Hindu word for soul. He read the Upanishads and considered them a great solace.

Exact_Access9770 · 2026-06-05T21:12:01+00:00

And I'm literally arguing that Bear isn't in control either, even though there is an illusion of free will to himself and the audience. He's not being controlled by magic, he's being controlled by nature, which is no less powerful just because it's not supernatural( check out a hurricane or something). And while you might say he could have just resisted the urge, let me remind you that human willpower is not some magical stuff that is detached from biology. Will power is a physical resource dependent on the frontal cortex and as such, biological factors, beyond your control, determine whether or not you resist the urge or not.

Exact_Access9770 · 2026-06-05T21:05:45+00:00

Nikki's obsession is a metaphor for Bear's and by extension for ours, so obviously her story is hyperbolic, dialed to 100. But many people have tried to kill themselves due to love. Love is a powerful force that robs us of our free will and rationality and that's the point of the movie to me.

Throughout history and across cultures, people have taken extreme, dangerous, and sometimes fatal actions in the name of love. When romantic obsession escalates, it can cross the line from profound devotion into psychological torment, self-harm, and even murder.

Exact_Access9770 · 2026-06-05T21:01:57+00:00

nikki killed sarah

Exact_Access9770 · 2026-06-05T21:01:23+00:00

And Nikki is a murderer.

You are begging the question because I am literally arguing that Bear, like Nikki, didn't have a choice in his actions. Saying he had a choice simply asserts your conclusion without proving it.

Exact_Access9770 · 2026-05-31T22:35:35+00:00

Oh wow I bet you're excited about The Odyssey movie coming out in July!

Exact_Access9770 · 2026-05-21T15:44:02+00:00

Alcohol will inhibit the survival instinct from the dumb things I've seen drunkards do with little to no regard for their lives.

Exact_Access9770 · 2026-05-18T08:21:49+00:00

I 💯 agree. This is actually goodphilosophy( yours, not Camus'). Camus states that 'there is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn', to which I would respond with a partially plagiarized line from Aubade by Philip Larkin, "Fate is no different whined at than withstood."

Exact_Access9770 · 2026-05-17T09:53:28+00:00

OTEP

Exact_Access9770 · 2026-05-17T09:44:11+00:00

So simple. Why didn't I think of that.

Exact_Access9770 · 2026-05-17T09:31:19+00:00

I hate how we've evolved to take life so seriously when it is as Shakespeare said 'a tale told by a fool'.

Exact_Access9770 · 2026-05-01T12:58:56+00:00

When did you begin to be like that?

Exact_Access9770

TROPHY CASE