Evacuating a planet under invasion and sustained orbital bombardment, outnumbered, can be considered leaving? Sure.
But context is important.
They can be asked how they feel about it.
Kinda hard to make the case of âbut staying was dangerousâ after touting how willing the Caldari people are to endure sustained hardships. The Caldari who stayed certainly seem to have embodied that resilient endurance, though.
Goes both waysâdid Heth ask them if they wanted him to invade? Did he ask them whether or not theyâd prefer to have the planet doomsdayed rather than continuing to survive in their traditional lifestyle? Have any of the current âgif bak muh hohmâ crowd asked them how they feel about this? You asked me âwhy?â about my position that the traditionalist Caldari could see the Megacorporate Caldari as outsiders. Iâve explained, as best I could, why they might.
And I gotta say, the complete failure to ask their opinion about their fate? That might also factor into why they might view Megacorporate Caldari as ânot usâ. Cuz yâall clearly donât give a ratâs arse about their families, names, and traditions.
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Really?
Ok then
Do you? Can you name any of them?
Have you asked? You, personally, Morgana. Have you?
âŚNot really sure where to post about this, so Iâll just do it in here. Donât think itâs really deserving entirely of its own thread.
I spent a couple days visiting my Clanhome again (My crewâs getting really good at water landing ships). Helped fish, tend to the underwater farms, spent some time with my parents and siblings. Trust me, Iâm going somewhere with this.
The fish species are getting weird on Krirald III.
Like, one of them looks like slightly flattened cylinder with a big bladder on the top and bottom. Which apparently contain pure freshwater. Why? No idea.
And then thereâs the one that looks like itâs sprouted legs with suction cups on them. Swims around the support pylons for some of the underwater habs and sticks itself to windows.
Plus, thereâs the new neon purple kelp that seems to be spreading everywhere. All the fish seem to love it, and it makes a half decent salad base with my momâs spice mix in the dressing. Which she still refuses to tell me. One day, Iâll figure it out.
Weirdness aside, itâs always nice to visit home. Be surrounded by people you love and who love you back.
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Thatâs⌠a very interesting lesson to draw from that particular story, and I think I see how you get there⌠but Iâm not sure youâre not unconsciously misreading things to support a position you know others oppose, specifically, endorsing the Proving. And I donât want to muck up that thread, so I thought, hey, why not discuss your take on it over here? SoâŚ
See, they do make a choice. They make the choice not to try to kill one another. You might argue that itâs a terrible choice, that theyâre choosing indecisiveness, but in the story, they both see the otherâs knife, and both choose to step back.
Itâs decidedly not indecision that drives the decision made by the members of the Clan. We know this. Weâre told why the Clan splits:
The realization of betrayal splits the Clan, not the failure to follow-through on betrayal. Some might reject the indecisiveness as part of the third group, âwho want nothing with either of themâ, but thatâs not the fundamental breaking point that shatters the Clan.
And beyond that, because we know they clearly do make that choiceâweâre explicitly told that they both choose to put down the knivesâIâm not sure you come to the take-away that they made no choice at all. They each made several, in fact: first, they chose to remain intractable in their position. Then they each chose to deal with a spirit (a terrible idea in the first place). Third, they chose to bring the daggers to a public gathering. Then each chooses to wield the dagger.
At this point, when they first see the dagger in the otherâs hand, one of them could have chosen to seek reconciliation. But they donât. One of them could have chosen to see it all as the manipulations of the spirit, and ask forgiveness⌠but they donât.
Itâs at this point that they become passive. And yes, that passivity plays into the destruction of the Clan. But even that passivity is a choice. At least, thatâs what I was raised to believe: in order to do nothing⌠we have to choose to do nothing.
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It makes so much sense that this is something you were raised with, Arrendis. Iâm not sure itâs true, definitely in all cases (indecision is a thing), but it might be a wise thing to teach a small one, even so, at least if the culture youâre raising them into is one that demands individuals accept responsibility both for action and inaction.
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Iâve never encountered a case of indecision where the person is truly incapable of making a decision. All of the ones Iâve seen, itâs more that there are factors making each option undesirable, and so they vacillate⌠and in that situation, arenât they just choosing not to decide? Itâs still a choice, even if the choice⌠is indecision.
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Thatâs definitely the way youâve been brought up to think of it at least!
Well⌠and I ask this for the purpose of discussion⌠is there really another way to think about it? You seem to indicate there is, but I donât know what youâre actually suggesting.
Well ⌠you seem to have this sort of âhyper-agencyâ vision of how people are in your head, Arrendis-- choices, choices, always and forever making choices. And, I feel like you want to see it this way because you want it to be true so that people can be held properly responsible for these choices and their outcomes.
For alternatives, well, there are a lot of gradations here-- like, where someone dithers until time is up and the choice makes itself, or passes out of their hands, or changes in some fundamental way that makes the original choice completely different from how it was at first. You, Iâm sure, would regard the dithering in the first place as a âchoice,â but as someone whoâs done my share of dithering Iâd more describe it as a âhavenât finished gaming out the possibilities and am not willing to make an arbitrary call.â You could also describe that as âchoosing to think about it more,â but for a lot of people itâs so functionally-automatic that âchoiceâ seems like the wrong word for it.
Some choices (hand to hand combat, especially at the deadly end, is a classic example) even have to be made so quickly that thereâs no real time for a reasoned response at all, demanding not choice but instant reaction. Those trained or otherwise induced by instinct or whatever to enter that state of being-- call it âthe zone,â call it "no-mindâ; far as I can tell itâs all the same thing-- slip into a state without decision or conscious thought, allowing them to react where another would face a choice, instantly time-out, and die.
(This kind of altered state is a part of my own martial and spiritual practice, though I have some reason to think others find it kinda creepy when I do it. Teacher-- uh, Thal Vadam-- called it a âberserkerâ state, but that doesnât seem right.)
You can find piles of places, both in fiction and in reality, where someone is being advised not to âthinkâ or, âno hesitation,â or whatever. This is the state thatâs being invoked: theyâre being prepared to react, instantly and without thought, usually on the theory that hesitation is going to mean immediate defeat and likely death.
Moving on, studies of human psychology also suggest that most choices are made at an emotional level long before the reasoning level; the outcome is pre-selected, so the only real question is how to justify it. âReasonâ in this model is an engine for rationalizing decisions already made, or at best a tie-breaker. Few decisions are truly, consciously made.
But! My actual view is the diametric opposite to yours: Iâm a determinist. I consider free will an illusion from the word âgo,â and therefore decision-making an illusion as well. Nobody ever truly âchoosesâ; their circumstances, broadly construed, dictate the outcome because what is âchoosingâ is a biochemical reaction with a very high opinion of itself. Quite the opposite of universal agency and universal responsibility, weâre all ultimately just leaves swept along on the currents of cause and effect.
This is easy to forget, and furthermore difficult to draw a good basis for, for instance, harming people from-- after all, if everybodyâs fundamentally just a leaf on the current, just like me, Iâm in no position to judge even a kybernaut. A society that actually believes this usually approaches things like crime and punishment less from a standpoint of moral judgment, and more a standpoint of safety and maintaining public order: certain acts, however justified the actor may have felt, cannot be tolerated and must therefore be punished.
Certainly treason would fit that description. But, ideally, to the degree possible, consequence should fall dispassionately. Only, of course, judges, constables, and so on are human, too-- just like a capsuleer.
I may believe ultimately that the kybernauts are just playing their own part in this grand scheme of interaction we call the universe, acting in their roles as I act in mine, but that doesnât mean I can forgive them or that I believe we, as a society, should.
It does mean I believe in practicing humility, moderation, curiosity, and compassion in dealing with others and the world, basically without exception. We are tentative, flickering things, to the degree weâre here at all, and one who pursues their own dream with a full heart will soon find themselves trampling others even without intention.
Itâs worth remembering how easy it is to become someoneâs villain. Where itâs avoidable, maybe we should try not to.
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Youâre right, I would call the âditheringâ a choice. There isnât always time to game out all of the possibilities⌠in fact, there never really is, because there are always more complications and potential complications than you can really be aware of.
But let me be clear here: the brain makes choices and decisions all the time, without the conscious mindâs permission or awareness. The conscious mind is a lie the brain tells itself in order to rationalize some of those decisions, to understand the âwhyâ of what it does, and try to construct a coherent framework for its own responses to incomprehensibly large numbers of aggregate stimuli.
And this is something you yourself bring up, so I know we both understand that. But thatâs still a decision. Just because the illusory consciousness isnât involved, that doesnât mean you arenât responsible. âDitheringâ as you call itâchoosing to waste time more time than you have in analysis of potentials, and thus allowing yourself to be rendered indecisiveâis a result of training and conditioning. And you can be trained out of it, too.
At the same time, I donât necessarily disagree with your view that the universe is fundamentally deterministic. It might be. It might not be. Thatâs the thing: we donât know. We canât know. So weâre left with two positions we can take: either we should proceed as though we have free will, or we should proceed as if we donât.
Obviously, I take the position that we should proceed as though we have free will. That doesnât mean I actually believe we have free will. I donât believe one way or the other. But proceeding as if we donât have free will⌠that, to me, demands a permissiveness and passivity that I just cannot bring myself to choose.
If we take that position, then weâre not responsible for our actions. Nobody is responsible for any of their actions. And that leads to where I take issue with your assessment that a society that truly believes in a deterministic universe can, let alone must, punish bad actors in the name of safety and maintaining public order. Even in the name of safety and public order, no action can be punished: the actor didnât have the capacity to not take that action. Punishing the bad actor means that no matter their claim, that society doesnât truly believe in a deterministic universe. Because punishment itself declares a belief in responsibility.
So does holding grudges, by the way. If thereâs something that you canât forgive, that means thereâs something that needs forgiveness, something for which there is blame. And blame⌠is assigning personal responsibility. Agency. Because you canât be responsible for something you couldnât not do. Itâs like saying someone is responsible for falling when thereâs nothing below them in a gravity field. Or that a volcano must be punished for erupting.
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Haha-- ah. I donât claim to be a paragon of my own system of morality, Arrendis, any more than you do. Iâm human. I get mad about stuff. I sometimes judge people harshly even if I shouldnât.
Wisdom is something I aspire to, even if the most I can really claim to be is âclever,â which is a very troublesome thing to try to substitute for wisdom.
Anyway. . . .
So-- hereâs a fun thing, Arrendis. That bit you said about society and how it approaches responsibility? Societyâs got the same conundrum you do. Even if society does believe in a deterministic universe, it canât act purely as though it does, at least in a simplistic way-- because that would introduce intolerable elements into the societyâs shared context.
In other words, refusing to punish acts that the society doesnât, at heart, really consider necessarily morally culpable results in societal breakdown-- there have to be rules, and they have to be enforced, or things go to bits. If you literally let people get away with murder, youâre going to have a murder problem, so you canât let people get away with murder.
But, you donât need to necessarily declare a murderer a âbad actor.â Itâs not about culpability; itâs about order, about creating an environment where part of the deterministic calculation on whether so-and-so does X is whether X is a crime and apt to result in punishment.
So the society ends up approaching it not all that differently from a society that believes in free will. The society that doesnât might just end up being a tad more sympathetic to criminals.
Put it this way: the society that believes in free will pursues punishment as a sort of moral corrective-- giving bad people what they deserve. The society that doesnât, pursues it as a sort of treatment-- approaching criminal conduct as a disease rather than a moral failing. You donât blame a tumor for being literally cancer, but you might have to excise it to save the body; a bacterial infection is blameless (itâs just a bunch of microorganisms doing what they do), but that doesnât mean you can just leave it alone.
Criminal behavior is a societal disease. You treat it accordingly.
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But would a society that truly believes in a deterministic universe establish a set of rules that establishes personal responsibility? Would such a society even function? Consider:
Children would be raised with the viewpoint that their actions are inevitable responses to stimuli. They canât help but have those reactions. They canât ever truly control their response, so to attempt to teach children self-control means the society doesnât truly believe in a deterministic universe. Without impulse control, do people do work they feel is boring? Tedious? Or even just taxing? Are any coordinated long-term efforts feasible?
These questions might be trickier if a deterministic understanding were something that came easily to people rather than something from the âcounterintuitive, yet trueâ file, Arrendis. Mostly the places where this belief really manifests are in the margins: what makes life livable for people doesnât differ all that much from place to place, whatever they believe.
If anything, it seems as though social order is perhaps stronger in deterministic societies, which donât waste a lot of time on moral judgment and get right to how to get people to do what is desired.
Social pressure to conform can get pretty intense; you get things like âhelps encourage friend to conformâ being a recognized ingredient of âbeing a good friend.â My own dissent from the Stateâs approach to marriage and reproduction is actually based in an individualistic streak that would be pretty aberrant back home (along with my mixed blood, which is probably at the heart of the complex of issues that are where this streak comes from). I donât fit in. I canât, even if I tried (and Iâm sure my predecessor did try).
I might have the training of a novice monk, but I doubt Iâd be seen as fit to guide anyone. In multiple senses, Iâm a pretty lousy Achur. Maybe I canât be blamed for what I am, but my homeworld has no real place for me. I am definitely an outsider because of it.
That was even before (and a root cause of) my predecessor murdering Grandfather, which she seems to have done because she agreed with you about pod death, and the proper thing for an angry ghost to do is to seek vengeance against the persons responsible (deserving or not).
Anyway ⌠coming back to the core matter of how this all works in practice: day to day, people are mostly just ⌠people. Someone perceived to be lazy isnât going to get a pass just because âlazyâ isnât inherently wrong. Actually they might get treated very cruelly (since cruelty also isnât inherently wrong) to sort of try to hammer them into shape like a stubborn chunk of iron. People have their likes, their dislikes, their fights, their loves, their judgments; in the end, more than creatures of deterministic or free-will worldview, theyâre just ⌠people.
The people who traditionally should manifest the deterministic worldview most purely is the clergy-- monks, like Motherâs clan-- because theyâre the only ones who usually get educated on the full picture and the time to meditate on the implications in detail. Everyone else might have some sense of it, but âtalking like a monkâ is a local term for being vague, arcane, and confusing.
The flip side of driving our own laity a little crazy is, monks are also (as youâd expect for spiritual guides) the people anybody can talk to and expect-- indeed, arguably be entitled to-- a sympathetic ear. A police officer might take a dim view of criminals and see little similarity between them and himself (and be all the closer to becoming one because of it), but a monkâs duty in principle is to help anyone find their peace within the society.
Weâre expected to provide guidance and wisdom. âConsequencesâ are somebody elseâs domain. Authority. Government.
⌠At least, historically, and in theory. See, the last couple of centuries Achuraâs been kind of the clusterâs weirdest theocracy: our religious leaders are now basically the only ones we have.
Iâm not at all sure itâs good for us, but I donât have anybody else to put forth as a better alternative (and itâs not like I of all people would be listened to on such a subject anyway), so afraid as I am for my casteâs role and place in our society ⌠I guess weâll continue to see how this goes.
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Except thatâs not a deterministic viewpoint at all. âhelps encourage friend to conformâ pretty directly implies the friend has the capacity to choose one path over another. You donât encourage a domino to fall. Asteroids donât get âencouragedâ to find enough mass to form a planet. Either it does, or it doesnât. Something might be an influencing factor, but it wonât be âencouragementâ, because to encourage is to influence a choice.
But, again, that both implies and invokes choice. Why would someone be perceived as âlazyâ in the first place? They are as they are. The concept of laziness is dependent on choiceâsomeone who cannot not be idle isnât lazy, any more than a planet is lazy for not getting out there and making itself a star. They simply are.
But why would that be deterministic at all?
Mm. You can see it all that way, sure, if thatâs the way you see it-- as Iâd expect from someone who insistently believes (or is convinced that she has to believe, or else) in free will.
Perspective tricks, surrounding complex interactions and beings. The dynamics are fractal. Are you encouraging a choice or hammering something (someone) into shape?
Arrendis, over a lot of years Iâve learned that talking about this stuff with someone who wonât entertain the possibility is pretty useless. You and I have had this conversation before, to a similar impasse, and Iâm discussing it with you now for two reasons: first, you literally asked; second, there is this.
Entertaining that possibility, even briefly, is the farthest youâve ever gone on this.
Itâs encouraging, but constant blanket denials and âyou canât honestly believeâ what I believe are just ⌠boring. Once we get to this point, where you insist on clinging to your perspective and denying me mine, I donât really see a point in continuing. If you need a punching bag Ms. Remilia is right over there talking like she really cares about the Caldari State.
Iâll see you next time.
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So, you know how, whenever we have these discussions, we get to a point where I tell you that youâre misrepresenting what Iâm saying?
Youâre misrepresenting what Iâm saying. Youâre implying, with what you just said, that Iâm engaging in blanket denials of the possibility that the universe is deterministic. You reference my willingness to entertain the possibility that the universe is deterministic. You then specifically point out that youâre talking about me entertaining the possibility that the universe is deterministic. Then you invoke âblanket denialsâ without any further qualifiers or descriptors. So hopefully, you see where my takeaway there is that youâre saying Iâm issuing blanket denials of the possibility that the universe is deterministic.
Now, maybe thatâs not what you meant. Iâm sure youâll insist, despite me telling you otherwise, âyou know what I meantâ, but if itâs not? Then no, I really donât.
So, if you are trying to say that Iâm issuing blanket denials of the possibility that the universe is deterministic⌠youâre misrepresenting what Iâve said. After all:
None of my statements have said the universe isnât deterministic. Iâve said the examples youâve provided donât show any determinismâinstead, they show consistent intention to invoke or influence choice. Your examples being flawed doesnât mean the universe isnât deterministic. It just means your examples are flawed.
Your examples fit a society that has decided, within the current generation or two, to treat the universe as deterministic. They still show the need to persuade, to âencourageââyour word, originally. Youâll never get a society to truly believe a thing, uniformly and universally, without doubt, in that kind of time-frame.
They wonât have the centuries of philosophy that shape and guide the society along that path, either. When you start to look at a truly deterministic society, you have to look beyond questions like âdo they have a concept of moralityâ? Because of course they donât. But theyâll also lose concepts like persuasion, or punishment, because theyâre dependent on choice. Why would such a society see any use in encouragement? Why would they think in terms of encouragement? If thereâs no true choice to be made, thereâs no encouraging.
Language and entire modes of thought change, with that kind of belief. Why think about what might have been, when nothing was ever possible except exactly what is? Theyâd lose concepts like pejoratives, too. Thereâs no âlazyâ because being lazy requires choosing not to apply yourself, just as being industrious means youâve chosen to apply yourself. Without choice, an idle individual is just idle. An active, productive individual is just productive. Thereâs no value judgment involved, because a value judgment is based on âit could have been differentâ.
Desires, wants, these would, of course, remain, because emotional reactions donât obey rational belief structures. But would attempts to modulate them remain? After all, if someone is going to modulate their anger, or their lust, or their hunger, or their jealousy, then theyâll do that. If someone else is going to provide the stimulus needed to modulate the emotional response, theyâll do it. But why would they? In a purely deterministic worldview, is âwhyâ even a relevant question? It happens because it happens, and understanding the mechanisms will only happen if it will happen.
Now, does any of that mean determinismâs impossible? Not at all. Itâs completely possible. But, again based purely on an awareness of emotional responses and their lack of willingness to conform to rational belief, true acceptance of a deterministic reality may not be. To truly accept determinism at more than a conscious levelâwhich, as weâve both described, is itself a shallow, illusory, superficial level in the first placeâit seems like it would mean losing the fight/flight, anger/fear response.
But, again, none of that means the universe being deterministic is impossible. Iâve issued no blanket denials of that, because after all, not only do I not know, I probably canât know. And âdenialâ is just an assertion of active belief in the negation, which is not a position Iâm anywhere near taking on the fundamental nature of reality.
I appreciate the invitation to discussion, even if it comes with a little shade. For one, Iâm not âsupporting a position [I] know others oppose.â Ms. Rhiannon invited comment specifically asking âwhat does it say to you?â I simply answered the question. Moreover, I only offered my interpretation because Ms. Rhiannon explicitly solicited it. If you thought me a Kybernaut evangelist, no doubt you mistook me for someone else. 
I prefer âopen doorâ evangelism; by which I mean, my door is always open and anyone with a desire to learn our culture has no shortage of paths to reach it.
In any case! . . . I had originally planned to respond with a much lengthier reply leaning on my expertise in critical theory of literature,(1) but then:
(A) The trumpets of warfare sounded in Wirashoda and required my complete, and undivided attention; and
(B) A far more interesting discussion evolved in this space re: determinism v. free will, and so whatever I might have said about the extent of context, subtext, text-text & etc. was no longer particularly appealing.
And so, that was that. How many tens of thousands of years have humans had the debate over free will? I do not know, but marvel that it remains a compelling subject even now.
(1) God, if the conservative wing of the Hedion University faculty saw me use the word âliteratureâ in reference to a Matari text, theyâd probably file petition to revoke my degrees. Hah!
I can confirm, I literally landed in the structure and got an appointment. Itâs that easy.
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