There is enough stuff here for both sides to claim victory. What perturbs some folks though is the refusal on my part to pick one side over the other. As though this were the equivalent of solving a simple arithmetic problem.
I cannot imagine a more likely situation for hindsight bias than where one asserts that everything is caused by what came before it.
But are the ocean tides ebbing and flowing interchangable with the ebb and flow of folks from Hitler’s death camps…or from Pol Pot’s killing fields? Is this really all just the same stuff obeying the same laws of nature?
It would seem to be different…but not in any way that would really matter come judgment day.
Again, we all have this deep-seated intuitive sense that somehow “I” have something to do autononously with the choices “I” make. But we don’t know how to fully explain that. I agree that determinism seems to be a reasonable assumption. I just point out the implications of that.
And so have I. Note the rage this elicits. Either that what is being said is obvious or wrong because though they are utterly determined they somehow also know why they think the things they do.
Yes, they can become quite incensed when you refuse to embrace what you had absolutely no real choice but to reject.
And I don’t get how they don’t get that part.
Or, as you note, they come into venues like this one with the “urge to convince others” of their own point of view—as though they felt it was important to choose to do this. Like they chose this particular crusade when there are so many other things they could have chosen to do instead.
Isn’t the irony here obvious?
Or, again, is it something that I am missing?