On Liberty

There's a question: If the universe is deterministic, that is, every effect has a cause that determines it to happen with no alternative, how can humans have free will? Surely the rapist is but a product of his upbringing, yadda yadda yadda. It is a false question.

You observe yourself decide. You know you could have decided differently. You were free to. But why did you decide what you did? Because of reasons. What is a reason to act but a cause of an effect by two different names?

This is the subject/object dichotomy. It is not a dichotomy, but two viewpoints of the same thing. You want a child — your reproductive instincts are using you as a breeding cow. A machine turns on because you pushed a button — it chooses to start because you gave it a reason to. All is mind and all is matter, and you cannot have one without the other. The reason for having the reason, and so on, is just because that's who you are. The rapist rapes because he's a rapist, and so he must hang.

Man points gun at your head, tells you to rape. Not your fault, you were an object, “had no choice”. You therefore don't deserve to hang. So surely it is a useful fiction, but we can do better. What is the purpose of society? The same as everything alive: itself. You excise the cancer to preserve life — society kills the rapist to preserve the proper social function of sex.

TV spews porno, you masturbate. You want to because it feels good or you become a slave to carnal sin, who cares. Society shames you and kills the pornographer to preserve the proper social function of sex, or society will die. Society burns the books, purges the heretics, breeds its folk, indoctrinates its children, or society will die. “Muh freedum!” No. “We live in a society.” Though care must be taken: A social purpose of a cultural practice is shrouded in time.

We are not all born equal, because there is no “us” that exists isolated from all that is extremely obviously unequal. It's a fiction to not excise the cancer.