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Theres always a choice, and choices have consequences. The kind of people who believe they had no choice are the worst because it shows a total lack of remorse

Theres always a choice, and choices have consequences. The kind of people who believe they had no choice are the worst because it shows a total lack of remorse for their selfish decisions. Phrases like “Look what YOU made me do” and “It’s societies fault” are warning signs that they learned nothing and you have a likely repeat offender on your hands.

neuralzen 8y ago
The problem to me is more an issue of repeat offenders not knowing what they dont know. They can't conceive of a better option, so they choose the option they understand, which is not usually a particularly helpful one, for themselves or others. We expect them to use better tools, but we dont help then find or make them, just punish them for using the wrong ones.
- colordrops 8y ago
  This thread is great. Very insightful comments about a topic not discussed nearly enough.
baumgarn 8y ago
people can learn, but only after the fact.
- socceroos 8y ago
  That's not true though, is it.
  - btschaegg 8y ago
    There's a wonderful quote from Douglas Adams on that: > Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
- labster 8y ago
  Books are magical devices which allow humans to bypass this part of their nature, 5 stars highly recommended
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
75dvtwin 8y ago
I do not know how to express this in civilized terms. But I feel that biological parents that raised children, who later on become evil and take other people lives -- are responsible, some how. I am mentally, far from being contempt, with all these psychopaths (who (most of them), also have seen at some point in their lives, have seen a professional phycologist, regularly) -- go and kill defenseless kids or church/synagogue goers. These evil humans (if they can be called that) -- should not have existed, and if they existed -- their evilness must, somehow, have been detected earlier. And that's where the parents, and, perhaps, the meds-prescribing phycologists/physiatrists come in. I realized, that in not too distant past -- the kings and czar's suppressed uprising by executed not just the active uprisers, but their whole families, including wives and kids. As a deterrent. I am not talking about that, but, may be there a way that parents can be held accountable to the actions of their children (even if they are more adults by the time they commit heinous crimes). May be that will also act as deterrent against pure evil that visits those humans.
- jeena 8y ago
  But more often than not it's not the parents or phycologists/physiatrists wrong doing which leads to someone doing something awful. How would you even determine that?
- dwighttk 8y ago
  So are you saying that evil murderers are not responsible for their evil murders because they didn’t have a choice but their evil parents are responsible, some how?
- 75dvtwin 8y ago
  I am saying that serial murders, mass shooters & home grown terrorists had patterns and footprints -- that should, somehow have been detected by their parents and physiatrists. I do not know how to detect this stuff, but I feel morally responsible , for behavior of my children, for example. Why should I not be partially criminally liable for their misdeeds? God forbid, a child drinks alcohol or smokes some chemical substance, then gets behind a wheel of a car -- and kills a family going to a picnic. I am not even thinking of more serious premeditated horrible crimes. As I said in the beginning of my post, I do not know how to express this correctly -- but I feel that there is more role (and accountability) that parents and doctors treating mental illness/behaviors -- should bear.
zkomp 8y ago
In your own head you, it is probably benificial to think there is free will and you have choices. But besides that, how can you ever believe such a thing without appealing to authority or religion. There cant be any free will; You are fully determined to execute on the given path. But that does not remove any responsibility - your unfree will is still yours just as the concequences, no... (I mean, your will is determined in part by your gut. Everything you ever ate could tip the balance in some way.)
vanderZwan 8y ago
> Theres always a choice, and choices have consequences. You're missing the point: you don't always have a choice about which choices are given to you, and that has consequences too.
- e40 8y ago
  Your reply and the parent, to me, encapsulate everything that is wrong with humans today. You are 100% right. The person to which you replied doesn't see the issue. This lack of empathy is causing so many cascading failures in human society. (To the GP of this reply, you might have misunderstood. I'm not really talking about you, personally, just using this short conversation as an example. Please don't take it personally.)
  - eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y ago
    Glad someone else pointed that out. That comment felt so inhumane and perfectly shows how people cannot appreciate the privilege they are born into. And privilege does not always mean money.
intralizee 8y ago
> Theres always a choice, and choices have consequences. You're making the assumption of how your choice could have been anything different. That's an illusion and studying determinism is helpful in understanding why you're simply a biological input/output machine in a system being society. Even with the possibility of randomness existing as quantum mechanics suggests possible.. it wouldn't make a person have any choice. Personally I think quantum mechanics is just a result from a deterministic system that at this point in time is too complex for humans to analysis as determinism. It's common knowledge that an outcome results from an action and maybe even consequences happen when the world is under the free will illusion. The problem is the actions were all based on the preceding outcomes and where nobody had any control. > The kind of people who believe they had no choice are the worst because it shows a total lack of remorse for their selfish decisions > Phrases like “Look what YOU made me do” and “It’s societies fault” are warning signs that they learned nothing and you have a likely repeat offender on your hands. Ethics & morals help society strive for the best interest of humanity. The majority of society at any point in time, hasn't understood free will is an illusion and from my understanding of history. We're only capable of theorizing but from my experience, I have been able to remove resentment to persons who wronged me and because they had no control in how they became who they are with the actions they produced against me. I don't believe persons should be punished when they had no control. The best outcome is society learning how to prevent a similar unfavorable outcome and people rehabilitating the persons who were unfavorable by the universe to do a wrong. I's a huge assumption to assume people will be repeat offenders under the belief of knowing free will is an illusion and when you're contrary to the ideology as you haven't been able to live under it for an extended period of time.
- derangedHorse 8y ago
  Everything you base your comment on is a huge assumption. You don’t know that humans are just an input/output system, you’re just using some kind of inductive logic to come to that conclusion. Because everything you see seems to have a cause and effect relationship, you impose it on the laws of nature. I’m not saying that the theory is false, but I can definitely say that you’re putting a lot of belief in it being true without any real evidence. Taking your thought process and building off the idea that everything is deterministic, we can frame the concept of “free will” as something that’s defined within that image of reality. In this case, why should you deny the concept of “free will” within a deterministic environment? Why not just define it as the random process that governs all of our ideologies? Additionally, why should you show sympathy to those in worse situations if everything is deterministic? If society feels a need to punish criminals and remove them from society that’s another deterministic outcome that you yourself should know makes no difference either way in the grand scheme of things. Why someone would be deterministically wired to counter an argument by using their belief of a deterministic world on HN is beyond me though.

neuralzen 8y ago

The problem to me is more an issue of repeat offenders not knowing what they dont know. They can't conceive of a better option, so they choose the option they understand, which is not usually a particularly helpful one, for themselves or others. We expect them to use better tools, but we dont help then find or make them, just punish them for using the wrong ones.

colordrops 8y ago
This thread is great. Very insightful comments about a topic not discussed nearly enough.

baumgarn 8y ago

people can learn, but only after the fact.

socceroos 8y ago
That's not true though, is it.
- btschaegg 8y ago
  There's a wonderful quote from Douglas Adams on that: > Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
labster 8y ago
Books are magical devices which allow humans to bypass this part of their nature, 5 stars highly recommended
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

75dvtwin 8y ago

I do not know how to express this in civilized terms. But I feel that biological parents that raised children, who later on become evil and take other people lives -- are responsible, some how. I am mentally, far from being contempt, with all these psychopaths (who (most of them), also have seen at some point in their lives, have seen a professional phycologist, regularly) -- go and kill defenseless kids or church/synagogue goers. These evil humans (if they can be called that) -- should not have existed, and if they existed -- their evilness must, somehow, have been detected earlier. And that's where the parents, and, perhaps, the meds-prescribing phycologists/physiatrists come in. I realized, that in not too distant past -- the kings and czar's suppressed uprising by executed not just the active uprisers, but their whole families, including wives and kids. As a deterrent. I am not talking about that, but, may be there a way that parents can be held accountable to the actions of their children (even if they are more adults by the time they commit heinous crimes). May be that will also act as deterrent against pure evil that visits those humans.

jeena 8y ago
But more often than not it's not the parents or phycologists/physiatrists wrong doing which leads to someone doing something awful. How would you even determine that?
dwighttk 8y ago
So are you saying that evil murderers are not responsible for their evil murders because they didn’t have a choice but their evil parents are responsible, some how?
75dvtwin 8y ago
I am saying that serial murders, mass shooters & home grown terrorists had patterns and footprints -- that should, somehow have been detected by their parents and physiatrists. I do not know how to detect this stuff, but I feel morally responsible , for behavior of my children, for example. Why should I not be partially criminally liable for their misdeeds? God forbid, a child drinks alcohol or smokes some chemical substance, then gets behind a wheel of a car -- and kills a family going to a picnic. I am not even thinking of more serious premeditated horrible crimes. As I said in the beginning of my post, I do not know how to express this correctly -- but I feel that there is more role (and accountability) that parents and doctors treating mental illness/behaviors -- should bear.

zkomp 8y ago

In your own head you, it is probably benificial to think there is free will and you have choices. But besides that, how can you ever believe such a thing without appealing to authority or religion. There cant be any free will; You are fully determined to execute on the given path. But that does not remove any responsibility - your unfree will is still yours just as the concequences, no... (I mean, your will is determined in part by your gut. Everything you ever ate could tip the balance in some way.)

vanderZwan 8y ago

> Theres always a choice, and choices have consequences. You're missing the point: you don't always have a choice about which choices are given to you, and that has consequences too.

e40 8y ago
Your reply and the parent, to me, encapsulate everything that is wrong with humans today. You are 100% right. The person to which you replied doesn't see the issue. This lack of empathy is causing so many cascading failures in human society. (To the GP of this reply, you might have misunderstood. I'm not really talking about you, personally, just using this short conversation as an example. Please don't take it personally.)
- eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y ago
  Glad someone else pointed that out. That comment felt so inhumane and perfectly shows how people cannot appreciate the privilege they are born into. And privilege does not always mean money.

intralizee 8y ago

> Theres always a choice, and choices have consequences. You're making the assumption of how your choice could have been anything different. That's an illusion and studying determinism is helpful in understanding why you're simply a biological input/output machine in a system being society. Even with the possibility of randomness existing as quantum mechanics suggests possible.. it wouldn't make a person have any choice. Personally I think quantum mechanics is just a result from a deterministic system that at this point in time is too complex for humans to analysis as determinism. It's common knowledge that an outcome results from an action and maybe even consequences happen when the world is under the free will illusion. The problem is the actions were all based on the preceding outcomes and where nobody had any control. > The kind of people who believe they had no choice are the worst because it shows a total lack of remorse for their selfish decisions > Phrases like “Look what YOU made me do” and “It’s societies fault” are warning signs that they learned nothing and you have a likely repeat offender on your hands. Ethics & morals help society strive for the best interest of humanity. The majority of society at any point in time, hasn't understood free will is an illusion and from my understanding of history. We're only capable of theorizing but from my experience, I have been able to remove resentment to persons who wronged me and because they had no control in how they became who they are with the actions they produced against me. I don't believe persons should be punished when they had no control. The best outcome is society learning how to prevent a similar unfavorable outcome and people rehabilitating the persons who were unfavorable by the universe to do a wrong. I's a huge assumption to assume people will be repeat offenders under the belief of knowing free will is an illusion and when you're contrary to the ideology as you haven't been able to live under it for an extended period of time.

derangedHorse 8y ago
Everything you base your comment on is a huge assumption. You don’t know that humans are just an input/output system, you’re just using some kind of inductive logic to come to that conclusion. Because everything you see seems to have a cause and effect relationship, you impose it on the laws of nature. I’m not saying that the theory is false, but I can definitely say that you’re putting a lot of belief in it being true without any real evidence. Taking your thought process and building off the idea that everything is deterministic, we can frame the concept of “free will” as something that’s defined within that image of reality. In this case, why should you deny the concept of “free will” within a deterministic environment? Why not just define it as the random process that governs all of our ideologies? Additionally, why should you show sympathy to those in worse situations if everything is deterministic? If society feels a need to punish criminals and remove them from society that’s another deterministic outcome that you yourself should know makes no difference either way in the grand scheme of things. Why someone would be deterministically wired to counter an argument by using their belief of a deterministic world on HN is beyond me though.