Creda Graeves

You can't create someone for their sake. [Philosophy and other stuff]

[credagraeves]

personal

Yesterday I was in the grocery store feeling really suicidal. I was sleep deprived and feeling physically sick, too. I was feeling really useless and deciding to die for like the 100th time that week. Then I saw a freezer door open. People often leave freezer doors open at that grocery store. I always close them to help prevent some wasted electricity and potentially unsafe food. This day too, I saw the open freezer, and as usual, I closed it. Didn't care about how sick or suicidal I was, only cared about that freezer door. And it's not that profound, but when I realised this I started crying. I really fucking wanna do good. I hope I can get better so I can do much more than closing freezer doors.

[credagraeves]

The medical neglect of mental health

Most people taking antidepressants never had proper tests, or even any tests done to try to rule out nutrient deficiencies. Nutrition is often not considered in treatment of depression and anxiety. People deficient in basic nutrients like magnesium, vitamin d, b12, or iron are put on antidepressants for years and even decades. It is somewhere between unlikely and absolutely impossible that their mental health will ever meaningfully improve without the nutrient deficiency or deficiencies addressed. Their medical needs are neglected. It is a tragedy. I am not arguing this in a "natural is good" way. I hate that kind of thing. It is just the fact that your body and brain cannot function properly without the basic nutrients it needs. Introducing antidepressants before addressing nutrition is completely backwards and basically insanity.

[credagraeves]

Believing in just about any other supernatural thing is more respectable than believing in free will. At least ghost don't violate causality.

[credagraeves]

How most people get their worldview, and being falsely accused by the police

I had a very upsetting experience recently. My mom was terminally ill, unable to care for herself, and I had to call the cops out because of an aggressive family member. The aggressive family member then complained to the cops that I am not caring for my mom. Which the cops took an issue with, despite that being none of their business, as I have no legal responsiblity to be my mother's carer. One of the cops just couldn't let it go - he brought it up over and over again. He was very upset. I didn't react to it at first because there is no point in arguing with them, just when they were going away, and again the cop said that children should care for their parents, I curiously asked: "why do you think that?" He replied: "Because that's the norm". He was this upset because of a view he literally has not thought about for a second. This philosophy of his just sat there, never examined, and he is taking it seriously. I have said to him, "I have an opinion too" and he replied with: "I am not interested in your opinion!". So, he is just happy with this unexamined belief, and is not even thinking about having an argument about it. And I should care about his opinion, for some reason. Long story short, the situation was insanely ironic and I still can't believe this happened to me: the cops falsely accused me with a false report, no doubt at least partly because of me having a different view to them. It quickly got dismissed in court because I had evidence that my report was correct and justified, but the cops genuinely tried to punish me for not sharing their view. My point, and the thing I have been thinking about lately: most people don't have a high need for cognition. They use logic when it is necessary, and then put it down as soon as possible. They use consensus and their feelings as the decider of what to think. And the maddening thing is that despite this, they hold their views in high regard. They should understand that you don't get to have your opinon matter if you have not thought about it for even a second. That opinion is literally worth zero. You should never communicate opinions like that, and obviously you should not try to enforce them.

[credagraeves]

I have really internalised the non-existence of free will, and life is pretty interesting like this. It is impossible to take people seriously when they are condemning other people - machines being mad at machines, surreal to see.

[credagraeves]

My goal happens to be knowing what reality is, and I have to somehow think around the fact that I can never experience it, and that my brain, like any other brain, is not built for that purpose.

[credagraeves]

That being religious in space thing was so embarrassing.

[credagraeves]

The existential loneliness is pretty fucking crushing but I would never give this for anything. I feel so bad for people who are scared to look at reality and their main motivations being emotional comfort and belonging. What is real being a second thought or an uncomfortable monster to push away.

[credagraeves]

I should really do something with these... And I will. There are gonna be two, maybe even three posts coming from this!

[credagraeves]

"This is a parent's worst nightmare!" - you put someone here fully knowing all the nightmares that can happen, talking like you are a victim makes no actual sense. You made a person, you put it in harm's way. Be quiet.

[credagraeves]

Free will believers have the burden of proof

There is not even a logical mechanism ever conceived with which free will could work, much less a physical one, much less was it ever demonstrated it actually can happen, much less demonstrated it actually happens. The position that there is no free will, on the other hand, is perfectly consistent with what we know about the universe. I think some would argue now that they feel like they have free will, though, so there must be. To which I would just say, feeling like it doesn't mean that it is actually the case. You can't just know things like that about your experience based on just your experience.

The logical thing to do would be is to treat no free will as the default position.

[xxxcessive99]

I think the idea of free will is largely misunderstood. Philosophically people want free will to mean this perfect independence, some insanity level of choice free from all influence and context. Realistically what free will/freedom is is just the ability to act on your feelings freely, within reason. Free will just means being able to eat a sandwich if you feel like eating a sandwich, nobody is beating you over the skull and forcing you to eat oatmeal instead, which is slavery.

[credagraeves]

I am talking about libertarian free will, that is what most people mean when they say free will. What you are talking about is called "compatibilism", when you define free will to just mean acting according to one's own desires. In theory, compatibilists and hard determinists like me believe the same thing about the universe: everyone is just following physics, and people can't "choose otherwise". But compatiblists usually do something fucky. They take this the free will as they define it and still argue that people have responsiblity, they can be blamed or praised for their actions, and they can deserve punishment even if it has no benefits - just because they did something bad. They talk like as if the "free will" they believe in allows for that - it does not. But they renamed what people call free will, redefined it to mean no free will (as most people understand it), and keeping the things people associate with free will.

[credagraeves]

Free will believers have the burden of proof

There is not even a logical mechanism ever conceived with which free will could work, much less a physical one, much less was it ever demonstrated it actually can happen, much less demonstrated it actually happens. The position that there is no free will, on the other hand, is perfectly consistent with what we know about the universe. I think some would argue now that they feel like they have free will, though, so there must be. To which I would just say, feeling like it doesn't mean that it is actually the case. You can't just know things like that about your experience based on just your experience.

The logical thing to do would be is to treat no free will as the default position.

[credagraeves]

Free will is the last widely accepted supernatural belief in the secular world.

[credagraeves]

It bothers me when scientists say how "lucky" we are to exist. They talk about actual facts for a few minutes, I get comfortable, feeling good, and then they just throw that shit in there

[credagraeves]

"no uterus, no opinion" aka the value of a claim depends on who says it

Always floors me when people say that men can't have an opinion on abortion because they "don't have a uterus". They just openly admit they do not believe people are capable of empathizing, and that they think the validity of reasoning of what someone is saying depends on who they are..? It's funny by the way, if a man says they support abortion, people rarely tell him he can't have an opinion. To be clear, I am a woman and literally pro-abortion. :) And bad logic pisses me off.

[credagraeves]

As someone who doesn't believe in free will, it is so hilarious to me when people very seriously say someone "needs to take accountability for their actions".

[credagraeves]

I have just realised I have been an antinatalist for almost 10 years!

I was starting working in an office with two women the same age as me who both had children. That's when I started thinking about maybe having kids one day. After just a few weeks, the thought "having kids is immoral" kept popping into my head. And I have just remembered, I googled it back then. I searched up when exactly that was, and wow it's been almost 10 years! I don't believe morals are a real thing anymore (not sure I ever believed that one, but I did use the word) but obviously I am very much still believing that coming into existence is a bad thing and you can't create someone for their sake.