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The article picks a curious line to end on: "You know you have free will, but don’t feel like you need it." Which is odd, considering that the protagonist of
by weavejester 13y ago
The article picks a curious line to end on:
"You know you have free will, but don’t feel like you need it."
Which is odd, considering that the protagonist of the tale has done nothing but make choices throughout the whole story.
- swombat 13y agoMaking choices out of a selection determined by someone else is not freedom. They have this freedom even in places like North Korea...
- randallsquared 13y agoChoices don't seem be to constrained. Rather, there is more information about the likely outcome of making many of the most likely choices. Seems like a huge win to me. I can still be ignored or turned off. It's still possible to just walk out and go elsewhere.
- swombat 13y agoIt's worth considering this dystopia in parallel with this the oft-quoted saying that "In the future, there will be two kinds of people: those who tell computers what to do, and those who are told what to do by computers". Then throw in this: http://www.economist.com/news/business/21578360-brain-work-may-be-going-way-manual-work-age-smart-machines http://www.economist.com/news/business/21578360-brain-work-m... Perhaps the first group will dwindle faster than we think.
- weavejester 13y agoWe're all told what to do by computers anyway, it's just that they happen to be 3lbs of squishy biomatter inside our skulls.
- rbanffy 13y agoWhen someone controls (and/or biases) the information feed you base your decisions upon, your will is no longer completely free. We used to call it news media ;-)
- Blahah 13y agoBut it's the protagonist's own past choices that ultimately control what information he is fed. That, the environment, and some algorithms. Just like in the real world, but with a more egocentric concentration.