When it comes down to it, do we actually want to believe in free will? This article from Philosophy News (UK) argues that free will comes at a cost some of us may not want to pay:
"One of the most enduring philosophical questions concerns the tension between free will and determinism. The question of whether the future is predetermined or whether we are active agents occupies the minds of philosophers, insomniacs, bank tellers, robbers, nurses and perhaps dolphins, and it remains uncertain whether or not we have any choice in thinking of such things. ... The very idea of freedom is entrenched in our personal and moral codes: it is hardly controversial to say that we do not want to be bound by forces beyond our control, subservient to the whims of other people and of the universe. But the question of whether we should want freedom is so rarely asked. To question freedom itself is, for many, tantamount to insanity. Why wouldn’t we want to be free – especially when so many people have suffered the injustices of oppression, and still suffer them every day? But the desire for freedom is more than just a desire for liberty from oppression. It reflects an intuitive desire for self-determination, to be the author of one’s own life. For our lives to have meaning, the argument goes, it is necessary for us to have some control over what kind of people we are and the trajectory our lives will take. ... For [Danish existentialist Søren] Kierkegaard, freedom signifies a specific kind of anxiety, or dread, relating to the infinite number of possibilities presented to us by freedom. It compels dizziness. When we’re choosing what sort of milk to buy, what sort of career we might want, and to which destination we should travel, we are plagued by the burden of freedom. ... This anxiety relates to what the French call ‘ appel du vide’ – the ‘call of the void’ (nothing to do with apples). When looking down from a great height, or sitting in an exit row beside the door on a plane, some people feel the compulsion to jump or to pull the door open mid-flight, not because they are suicidal or eager to kill people, but just because they are curious about whether or not they are even capable of bringing about such an action – whether they are capable of disobeying their most primitive instincts of self-preservation and survival. This demonstrates the dizziness of freedom. They understand exactly what would happen, but they’re unsure of whether they could bring themselves to actually do it, to test the extent to which they are free. In other words, for Kierkegaard, our existential feeling of dread or anxiety is spurred by the knowledge of what we need to do to prove that we are free. ... Clearly, free will signifies the freedom that we can freely make the wrong choices, and that there are indeed wrong choices to be made. This is the kind of freedom that some would eagerly exchange for a prison of determinism. It can be far more appealing to comfort ourselves with the tonic of ‘inevitability’. Here enters what [Slovenian philosopher] Slavoj Žižek described as the ‘temptation of meaning’ that occurs when tragedy strikes. For some people, it is better to think that misfortune is some kind of cosmic punishment than to think of it as merely a random occurrence. 'When something horrible happens, our spontaneous tendency is to search for a meaning. It must mean something… Even if we interpret a catastrophe as a punishment, it makes it easier, in a way, because we know it’s not just some terrifying blind force' (Examined Life: Excursions with Contemporary Thinkers, Astra Taylor, 2009, p.157). As Žižek explains, in the middle of a catastrophe, 'it’s better to feel that God punished you than to feel that ‘it just happened.’ If God punished you, it’s still a universe of meaning' (p.158). ... We know we can choose not to open the door or jump, but we’re unsure whether we can choose to jump or open the door. ... While many philosophers are anxious about the moral consequences of a deterministic universe, freedom itself reveals to us the horrific possibility of choosing poorly rather than wisely." philosophynow.org/issues/141/Do_We_Want_To_Be_Free
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A recent report from the British nonprofit Save the Children finds that approximately one out of every six children on earth is living in a conflict zone, and "165 million of these children are affected by high intensity conflicts." This map shows the areas with the largest numbers of children living in conflict zones, including Honduras, with a total population of fewer than 10 million. For the complete report, see www.savethechildren.org.uk/content/dam/global/reports/education-and-child-protection/war_on_children-web.pdf
Prime Number Magazine hosts a free writing contest every month. The catch? Each story submitted has to be 53 words long. :-) A new prompt is released on the 1st of every month with submissions due by the 15th. Here's December's prompt: "Today, December 1, is National Giving Day, when people are encouraged to give to their favorite charity or business. But we think it should also mean giving to someone you love or giving someone another chance. We give all the time: we give up, give back, give a hoot, and give a hand." For more information, see www.press53.com/53word-story-contest
Satellite imagery suggests China has built a new Tibetan village; the problem is it's more than 2 km inside the neighboring Himalayan country of Bhutan, and a new road and piles of construction materials suggest additional Chinese development is underway. The new village is near Doklam, a strategic plateau where the borders of India, China, and Bhutan meet. The borders are disputed, and the area became a source of conflict between India and China nearly 3.5 years ago when China tried building a road, again in Bhutanese territory, that could have potentially compromised India's access to its northeastern states through the narrow Siliguri Corridor. (Map from www.nytimes.com/2020/11/27/world/asia/china-bhutan-india-border.html)
This article from The Washington Post features an Indian entrepreneur who is recycling some of the mountains of personal protective equipment generated by the COVID-19 pandemic into bricks used for building. "As coronavirus cases spread around the world earlier this year, Binish Desai found himself increasingly nervous. It wasn't only the pandemic that worried him, but the waste it was generating. Masks and protective gear were being used a single time and then discarded by the tons, eventually destined for landfills or bodies of water. 'I have eco-anxiety,' said Desai, a 27-year-old environmental activist and innovator in western India. When he sees waste, he said, he automatically begins thinking about ways to use it. By September, he had come up with a solution: Take the used protective gear and mold it into bricks for buildings. He already has made more than 40,000 such bricks for projects including homes and factories, and is gearing up to produce 15,000 a day. ... Exactly how much waste the pandemic is creating worldwide is not clear, but experts say it is significant. One study estimated — on the basis of a projection for Italy — that the world could be using up to 129 billion face masks a month. [In] India, home to more than 1.3 billion people, ... [n]early 20,000 tons of coronavirus-related biomedical waste were generated between June and September, according to figures from India’s environmental watchdog." www.washingtonpost.com/road-to-recovery/covid-ppe-waste-recycling-india/2020/11/24/298a5c12-285f-11eb-9c21-3cc501d0981f_story.html
An analysis of voting patterns in the 2020 presidential election by the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program finds that Joe Biden won 51.5% of the popular vote, but the counties that voted for him represent 70% of total U.S. economic output as measured by GDP. This economic-political divide represents an increase over 2016 when Hilary Clinton won 51.1% of the popular vote and counties representing 64% of GDP. www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2020/11/09/biden-voting-counties-equal-70-of-americas-economy-what-does-this-mean-for-the-nations-political-economic-divide/
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