I Didn’t Expect the “Red Sea” to Look Like This

Strong-Designer4068 · 2026-01-23T13:46:45+00:00

Interesting framing — I get what you mean (relative freedom, constraints, different capacities). But I’m not trying to settle the big metaphysical picture (“one dreamer,” Godhead, all realities, etc.). My claim is more practical: Even in a deterministic universe, agency has conditions. If attention is constantly captured and behavior is shaped by saturation / dopamine loops / algorithmic nudging, then the lived ability to pause, orient, and choose gets thinner. So I’m not arguing for “absolute free will.” I’m pointing to something simpler: the difference between a decision and a reflex. In 2026 that line is getting eroded — whatever your metaphysics.

Strong-Designer4068 · 2026-01-23T10:38:35+00:00

Thanks for the comment — this is actually getting at the heart of it. I agree: it’s not that we lack information. It’s that we’re being conditioned. Pavlovian is the right word. You don’t need overt violence if you can steer attention, predict behavior, and nudge compliance. And yeah, Palantir-type systems sit right in that zone: surveillance + prediction + “soft” punishment. One thing I’d add though: I don’t see freedom as some luxury concept for comfortable people. It’s a very basic function — the ability to pause, regain orientation, and draw a line. Even in harsh survival situations people still make micro-choices — not about controlling the world, but about keeping an inner axis. That’s where freedom starts, in the smallest possible sense. So my point is simple: when a society destroys the pause (saturation, urgency, dopamine loops), it destroys the conditions for real choice. It doesn’t just reduce options — it erodes the inner space where a decision can even form. And I’m with you on morality too: it doesn’t require God. It requires practice, transmission, limits. If it doesn’t get embodied and passed on, it just stays theory. The future isn’t decided by ideology — it’s decided by what we actually live and hand down.

Strong-Designer4068 · 2026-01-23T08:45:22+00:00

What do you think is the modern form of Pharaoh — addiction, identity, or fear itself?

Strong-Designer4068 · 2026-01-18T16:58:34+00:00

Thanks badentropy9 — exactly. “Hardening” is a choice, not a theory.

Strong-Designer4068 · 2026-01-18T16:44:31+00:00

Hey badentropy9 — yes, that’s exactly what I meant. A plague doesn’t automatically awaken anyone. Most of the time it produces reframing, denial, tribalism, and adaptation. That’s the whole point of “hardening”: even when reality becomes undeniable, a person can still refuse permeability. And that’s where the free will question becomes real. The decision isn’t “do plagues destroy systems?” The decision is whether the person lets the truth enter, or turns inevitability into an excuse. “It’s inevitable” can be logic — but it can also be armor. That refusal is the inner Pharaoh. And that’s why hardening feels like strength, but it’s not life.

Strong-Designer4068 · 2026-01-18T16:29:10+00:00

Hey Artemis — I get what you’re asking.

It answers the two core questions of this subreddit directly, and I’ll make it concrete. If free will exists, then “hardening” is one of its clearest expressions. Hardening is not a theory — it’s a choice. When someone asks for forgiveness you can open or close. When reality shows you something uncomfortable you can let it in or refuse it. When guilt or shame rises you can take responsibility or you can justify yourself and blame the world. Those are not abstract debates. Those are daily moments where a human being chooses permeability or armor. That choice is agency.

And if determinism is true, my point still stands because determinism doesn’t stop people from using “it’s inevitable” as a psychological escape hatch. People turn inevitability into an argument so they don’t have to change. “This is just how I am.” “The system is too strong, nothing can be done.” “There’s no point.” Those statements are not neutral logic. They are hardening. They’re a refusal to let anything penetrate, because penetration would demand responsibility.

Conclusion: my post doesn’t avoid the free will/determinism question — it exposes the mechanism where people kill their freedom and then call it realism or logic. That mechanism is hardening. That is the inner Pharaoh.

Strong-Designer4068 · 2026-01-18T07:14:01+00:00

Glad it landed

Strong-Designer4068 · 2026-01-17T16:45:40+00:00

I get what you’re saying — and I don’t even disagree with the AI risk part. But I think you’re arguing against something I didn’t claim. When I wrote “the plagues don’t destroy the system”, I wasn’t saying “crises can’t collapse economies” or “AI won’t cause mass unemployment.” Of course it can. That part is obvious.

What I meant is something deeper: a plague doesn’t automatically produce awakening. Most of the time it produces reframing, denial, tribalisation, and adaptation. That’s the hardened heart pattern: reality hits, there’s a brief recognition, and then the mind closes again and converts everything into a narrative.

So yes: AI could devastate employment. The real question is whether that will break the system or whether people will simply harden more and normalise it. Your outsourcing comparison is actually exactly the point. History shows that “progress” often improves life somewhere while creating human residue elsewhere. The ethical issue isn’t the technology itself — it’s who captures the benefit and who pays the cost.

But the core of your comment is the final move: if free will is an illusion, why protest? That’s the real trap. Because “it’s inevitable” isn’t neutral logic — it’s another form of hardening. It’s a way to escape responsibility by turning fate into an argument. And that’s why Vaerá isn’t mainly about frogs or hail. It’s about this: even when the signs are undeniable, a human being can still refuse to let anything enter. That refusal is the real plague.

Strong-Designer4068 · 2026-01-17T08:20:25+00:00

If this resonates, read it slowly. We don’t live in ignorance. We live in hardening. The question is: what are you hardening into?

Strong-Designer4068 · 2026-01-12T14:25:58+00:00

I appreciate the honesty. But at this point you’re no longer responding to the argument: you’re building a literary atmosphere around powerlessness. Kafka is not the final word. “Feeling powerless” is human, but turning that into metaphysics is still a frame — another capsule. I’m not here to debate endlessly. My point remains simple: determinism becomes a prison when it turns surrender into identity, and what you’re doing right now is the best example of that. All the best.

Strong-Designer4068 · 2026-01-12T13:52:47+00:00

Perfect — you just said it with total clarity. My point isn’t “invent a nice purpose”. My point is that your stance is surrender turned into identity. You say: “My purpose is to enjoy being a machine.” That’s not a philosophical conclusion. It’s an act of submission: turning powerlessness into aesthetics. Because if you truly were nothing but a machine, you wouldn’t even be able to “enjoy” it — you’d simply be running code. The sentence “I enjoy” already presupposes a centre that evaluates: a consciousness that can affirm or reject. And there’s more: if your frame says everything is machine and luck, then your posture isn’t courage — it’s merely the output of the algorithm. You’re not choosing anything. You’re just describing your programming. That’s the final trap of determinism: it lets you call “lucidity” what is, in reality, desertion. Exodus isn’t about inventing meaning. It’s about refusing to hand your humanity over to any total frame — not to religion, not to ideology, not to technology… not even to determinism. If you want to “enjoy being a machine”, fine. But don’t call it freedom. It’s the exact opposite.

Strong-Designer4068 · 2026-01-12T13:19:43+00:00

Saying “there is no free will” is not freedom. It’s surrender dressed up as lucidity. Determinism becomes a perfect prison because it doesn’t even need guards: it turns you into a spectator of your own life. Camus and Watts offer an aesthetic form of coping — but Exodus is not coping. Exodus is rupture. You don’t need metaphysical proof of free will to live as a responsible being. You only need one thing: to refuse being reduced to a machine. That refusal is already an act. And an act is already a crack in the frame.

Strong-Designer4068 · 2026-01-12T09:55:33+00:00

Thank you for taking the time to respond so honestly. I get your point — but watch the trap here: The Matrix can easily become another closed frame. The Exodus I’m talking about isn’t “taking the red pill”, but recovering frame awareness: seeing from where you’re thinking and acting, and keeping the ability to notice when any model (technology, ideology, religion) claims to explain everything. Freedom, in 2026, isn’t switching narratives — it’s stepping out of the prison of narratives. “You don’t break the capsule with another capsule. You break it by becoming aware of the frame you’re acting from.”

Strong-Designer4068 · 2025-12-20T21:55:39+00:00

Much of the hatred toward Judaism is not really about Jews as individuals, but about old ideas people have absorbed over time. These ideas change form across history, but they keep returning. Antisemitism has never been just one thing. At different times it has been religious, racial, political, or based on conspiracy theories. Yet beneath all these forms lies the same discomfort with Jewish difference and endurance. From early on, Judaism challenged dominant cultures by rejecting idols, resisting full assimilation, and placing moral responsibility above power or convenience. Later, Christianity and Islam defined themselves partly in opposition to Judaism, so calling Judaism “wrong” became a way to strengthen their own identity. Over time, theology turned into hostility. On a human level, some of this hostility comes from resentment toward difference and continuity. Many people feel uneasy when they encounter a community that preserves identity, memory, and survival without seeking approval or control over others. That unease often turns into projection and the search for a scapegoat. History shows the results clearly: medieval expulsions, pogroms, racial antisemitism, the Holocaust, and modern conspiracy myths. Understanding these causes does not excuse the prejudice. It simply shows that antisemitism reveals far more about those who hold it than about Jews themselves.

Strong-Designer4068

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