Dae

Tl;Dr, yes*

I find this discussion to be an exercise in frustration. There’s a lot of philosophical jargon that gets glazed over and nuances that often get ignored. I also think it’s an incredibly complex and complicated topic that we simply do not have enough information available to us to determine in a scientific manner.

For instance: what kind of “free will” are we talking about? Often it’s “Libertarian Free Will,” that is, absolute agency uninfluenced by any external factors. This much is disproven scientifically, as our brains run countless “subconscious” calculations in response to our environment to hasten decision making and is absolutely influenced by a myriad of factors, regardless of if you’re conciously aware of it or not.

However, I think that the above only “disproves” all notions of free will if you divorce your “subconscious” from the rest of your being. Which is where the complication and nuance comes in. What is the “self?” What part of you can you point to as being the “real you?”

From a Christian perspective, you might say the “self” is your soul, which is not yet proven by science, and thus the above has no bearing on, as it cannot take the soul into account. But from the opposite side of the spectrum, from a Buddhist perspective, there is no eternal, unchanging, independently existing “self.” And as such, the mind in its entirety, concious awarness or not, is just another part of your aggregates, and from that perspective it can be argued that a decision is no less your own just because it was not made in your conscious awareness.

With my ramblings aside, I am a Buddhist and so my opinion is that we do have free will, we’re just not always consciously aware of every decision we make. And while we cannot always directly control every decision we make, we can influence and “train” our autopilot reactions to make better decisions.

Relatable tbh. I think a good part of it was depression in my younger years, but, I used to be an incredibly angry person.

It took a long time for me to accept that the truth is, you don’t get angry about shit you don’t care about. Hard to accept that half the things I’d get angry at weren’t worth it. The other half anger just wasn’t a helpful response. Been a long process of learning to have a better reaction for me.

I don’t think that matters. This is likely a decision handed down by upper management. And that’s what makes it depressing; what could’ve continued to be some of the greatest creators of Sci-Fi video games instead have mismanaged their talent and shot both their feet off.

Man, as somebody who grew up with Halo, it’s really depressing to see how they seem to just be utterly incapable of an original thought anymore.

For once, I’m not utterly ashamed to be born in this wretched fucking state!

I might feel some pride again if we vote out Abbot!

Congrats to Canada, but with how the current administration is going, don’t get too excited; he might be coming back.

Cults follow a life-cycle of explosive growth. Then once they reach a certain threshold, they slow. And either they become something like Mormonism or Jehovah’s Witnesses, where they face slow growth/decline, close to equalibrium, or they begin collapsing in grotesquely spectacular fashion like Heaven’s Gate and Jone’s Town.

MAGA is falling into this latter category, in which the cult grows desperate as it loses members and clamps down harder, making ever-higher demands, making more members nope out, locking the cult into a vicious cycle of free-falling desperation. This is good.

What is not good is that the precedent set is Heaven’s Gate and Jone’s Town, both of which did something absolutely tragic and evil, and MAGA has great political power right now. They will absolutely be doing something truly and historically evil on the way out, and we need to be prepared.

My own therapist recommended a book that was already very helpful less than a chapter in called “Unmasking Autism.” It may help you with learning more about what it means to be autistic.

I feel that man! It takes a long time to get through it. If you’re able, therapy is a huge help with it, but otherwise it will sort itself out. Just take your time to process it all and learn to accept yourself! Sharing with those closest to you and getting their acceptance is also an amazing and helpful experience!

The hardest part about figuring out you’re autistic is just the fact that so many of the symptoms are things that are perfectly normal, but you experience it to either an abnormally high or low degree. And you really only have your own experiences to go off of, so when you find out that one of your experiences is a symptom of autism, it’s like “wait, you mean to tell me that’s not normal?”

And that first discovery starts down the rabbit hole and before you know it, your entire life is flipped upside down and you spend months re-evaluation your entire life and putting the pieces together.