Where does free will end?

jgnat

Our rights, our justice system, and democracy depends on the concept that we have free will. This extends all the way to those of us who spurn convention to live an off-beat life. Our constitution (US), charter of rights (Canada), do not enshrine convention, they enshrine freedom. Assumed is that our intentions cannot be subverted, and that our intelligence is autonomous and our own.

Want to live freehold, subsistence, in a dirt-floored shack you built yourself? ( Thoreau, Walden ) Go for it.

Gonna live commune-style with a bunch of hippies and share the raising of your children? (The Farm) Knock yourselves out.

The idea that we can be influenced against our will shakes the foundation of these very institutions. Yet there are many who believe that this is indeed how governments are made. We are polled, studied and tracked perhaps more than any previous generation. My Google and Amazon are better predictors of my tastes than my own family. Commercials appeal to our basest instincts in their hopes to sway us to one product over another. Puppies, kittens, and small children dominate (My Dad is an Alien). There's appeal to fear, too. (George W Bush - Wolves at the door). If elections are rigged and people as a whole successfully manipulated, why even bother to vote, to support a democracy?

As I said, these institutions depend on the concept of an intelligent populace, free to make their own decisions.

So where do high-control groups come in to this? At what point is a person's freedom to choose overriden? Does the same coercive techniques work on everyone? If we are so easily manipulated, must we revisit the foundation of our institutions? Must we be protected from ourselves?

If so, who would be the arbiter of good association over bad? Would our society end up being constrained by convention rather than by freedom?

Keep this in mind when our governments and justice system use caution when legislating against high-control groups. There's a fundamental question at work here about our freedom to choose, about our mind's ability to make informed choices.

jgnat

Here's another thought to add to the conversation. Las Vegas grooms addicts using algorithms on their solitary machines designed to maximize "time on device". Shull in her book "Addiction by Design" asks whether addiction to gambling machines stems from the consumer, the product, or the interplay between the two.

thecrushed

This is something I've considered myself albiet not quite so succinctly. Critical thinking skills at its best!

sabastious

Keep this in mind when our governments and justice system use caution when legislating against high-control groups. There's a fundamental question at work here about our freedom to choose, about our mind's ability to make informed choices.

The Watchtower targets the achilles heel of free will: the family unit. The choices that people make in their adult lives directly hinge on the quality and quantity of parenting during childhood. It's paramount for a child to feel safe while developing and the Watchtower does everything it can to strip that idea away. My mother has been terrorfied of the end of the world for her whole life. She was conditioned from birth and she raised my siblings and I, along side my father, in total irrational fear. Fear extinguishes free will because our fight or flight responses are automatic and machine like.

The tragic thing about the Witness life is that it's completely unnecessary. There is opporunity in the free world and now is the time to seize it. But like a selfish parent the Watchtower uses archaic methods to determine for their children what is good for them and what is not. It's the fear mongering that creates the frenzy and robs the children of their dignity and ultimately their free will.

-Sab

wasblind

our mind's ability to make informed choices.

Here's a personal example of not makin' an informed choice jgnat,

When the witnesses came to my door, I did not have the complete information

needed to make a sound decision about them, nor did I bother to look it up

after I was caught up, The right to free will began to end when I was told to avoid sites on the net or anything else

that gave a different view. Without seein' both sides I remained in my lopsided mindset

Many people do the same in politics, to their own detriment

.

jgnat

thecrushed, thank you. This train of thought has been running roller-coasters through my head for some time. Believe me, it took a while to write it down.

sabastious - thank you for your perspective. If fear-based persuasion is the culprit, can we legislate against it?

wasblind - from a legal perspective, yours would be called a case of “buyer beware”. You chose to put off a thorough examination before buying in.

I would characterize the pull for my husband, a convert, to be for a reboot on life. If he’s wrong, he sure has wasted many years and man-effort! He’d rather not consider the implications.

wasblind

You chose to put off a thorough examination before buying in.

I surely did

jgnat

It's a funny thing, isn't it, wasblind. I spoke to another former convert, Blondie's husband. An intelligent and observant man, I asked him how he managed to get sucked in. He was pensive and sheepish. He wasn't sure. The attraction of his future wife was part of it I imagine.

His eyes were fully opened was watching the shenanigans in the back room. He knew then that it wasn't right.

There's a bit of embarrassment at getting sucked in isn't there? I've seen that with survivors of spousal abuse, too. We begin to doubt our own ability to spot the fakers. There's a fear that we have some underlying psychological need that draws us to the abusers, or the abusers to us.

I've decided that anyone can be conned. Perhaps the only difference between the battered partner and the one who gets away is that the latter blows off the loser on the first date. There has to be a fundamental sense of self and self-worth.

breakfast of champions

It's paramount for a child to feel safe while developing and the Watchtower does everything it can to strip that idea away.

This is an excellent point, Sabastious. The more I study about the brain and human behavior, free will is something in short supply in the first place. Much of how we think and act is a reflection of what our culture/society/parents primes us with. When a child is raised on a fear-based framework, he really has no choice but to act and think on autopilot - when the brain believes it is under threat, it doesn't stop to think, it reacts. When that happens, free will is pretty much out the window. Sadly, I think its more of the rule than the exception.

sabastious

If fear-based persuasion is the culprit, can we legislate against it?

I struggle to think of a feasible manner in which to enforce any law against fear-based persuation within the family unit. The Bible instructs people to be "God fearing" and that concept has a range of application. If parents suddenly become too irresponsible the civilization they reside within suffers for it. Actions that are based from fear of the supernatural are extremely prevalent in every culture on earth whether it be feeling guilt for not attending church or killing innocent civilians for the greater good.

It's lazy parenting that is the culprit which unfortunately is a choice. Religion always supplies for a real demand within the minds of people. For whatever reason or other many people today don't want to parent so they use religious fear as a crutch. Organizations like the Watchtower feed off of this limitation of the human psyche. The fear first exists within the parent's mind and they seek out something to absorb it instead of dealing with the problem responsibly. That's the demand and the fear mongering charlatans exist because of it as the supply.

I think it's important to redefine what a religion actually is as well as a charitable organization. Right now organizations like the Watchtower are considered religions when they are actually for profit cults that prey on the minds of children. I hope that in the future cults are unlawful altogther, but I have a hard time figuring out how that would be possible given the state that government is currently in.

-Sab

Where does free will end?

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