
For centuries, humans have been punching each other in the face—metaphorically, mostly—trying to figure out why we do the stupid stuff we do, and whether we should get a pat on the back or a kick in the teeth for it.
Back in the day, the philosophers had a “brilliant” idea: free will.
That mystical, magical notion that we, in all our glory, are in charge of our own lives. You know, like we’re the puppet masters of our existence, pulling the strings.
Ancient Greece to the Enlightenment, everyone was tripping over themselves, trying to figure out whether we’re free spirits or just cosmic marionettes.
Then along comes Baruch Spinoza—probably sitting in a dark corner somewhere, sipping on some two-buck chuck—dropping the truth bomb: “Guess what, folks? You’re not in charge. You’re just little gears in a big, deterministic machine. No free will, just a cosmic puppet show on repeat.”
Fast forward a few centuries, and we land in the modern day with compatibilism.
This little gem says, “Yeah, you’re right. Determinism and free will can coexist.” But here’s the catch: It also says that in this world of predetermined chaos, blaming or praising anyone is just a parlor trick we pull on ourselves.
It’s a game we invented to make life feel meaningful. You can blame the guy who cuts you off in traffic, but he’s just doing what he’s always done, shaped by his past.
Praise someone for success? That’s just a result of luck, timing, and circumstances—nothing they truly chose.
Praise and blame are just illusions, smoke and mirrors, keeping us feeling like we’re in control when, in reality, we’re all just riding the same chaotic wave.
1. Blame Is a Smokescreen—You’re Just Following Orders
This is where it starts to get dirty. Look at your life. Really look at it. You think you’re making decisions, but you’re not. You’re just following some ancient programming handed down to you by genetics and the environment.
The old school philosophers like Kant and Mill liked to say we’re free to choose, and therefore, we should be praised or blamed.
But then, in strolls compatibilism, throwing back a shot and laughing. “You’re not in control, my friend.”
You didn’t choose to be born into a specific environment, with certain parents, and with a personality that bends like a reed in the wind.
No, all those little choices you think you’re making are just reactions to things that were set in motion long before you even showed up.
A lot of people like to scream “personal responsibility” and push blame around like it’s a hot potato.
But here’s the thing: You can’t blame a chess piece for moving according to the rules of the game.
So why are you blaming people for following their own set of deterministic rules?
Compatibilism says blame is just a nasty little illusion, a comforting story we tell ourselves to avoid facing the ugly truth—that we’re all just meat bags reacting to stimuli.
2. Praise? Just a Way to Feel Better About Our Own Insecurity
Let’s get one thing straight—praise doesn’t come from any moral achievement. It’s not earned; it’s given. And, often, it’s just a cheap way for us to feel like we’re better than someone else.
You praised your kid for doing well in school, right? Nice, but don’t kid yourself. That praise wasn’t for them—it was for you. It’s a performance to make you feel like a good parent, a moral being.
In a deterministic world, your kid’s success was set in motion long before their first day of kindergarten. Praise? It’s a social construct to reinforce the illusion of moral order, but when you pull the curtain back, you see it’s just smoke and mirrors.
In a world that’s fixed, praise becomes a way for the fragile ego to bolster itself.
It’s empty—like giving a dog a treat for being a good dog when the dog is just doing what dogs do.
If you think your praise means something, you’re no better than a sad man at a bar, nursing his drink and pretending his life has meaning.
3. We’re All Just Robots—Free Will Is a Fairy Tale for the Weak
Compatibilism shows us we’re all just running programs. The universe is deterministic, and our actions are the byproducts of cause and effect.
There’s no magic hand that gives you free will, no sudden leap of consciousness that lets you break free from the chains.
Your thoughts, desires, and actions are the result of a cocktail of biology, genetics, environment, and history.
The idea that you’re choosing your actions freely is a nice story to tell, but it’s a lie, a well-worn myth we’ve been told for centuries to make us feel like we’re in control.
Take someone like Raskolnikov from Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. He thinks he’s in control when he commits murder, but it’s all just a result of his mental state, his environment, and the philosophical poison he’s absorbed.
Sure, he might have believed he was free, but in reality, he was a product of his circumstances—a puppet on strings.
Compatibilism says that, in the end, we’re all just running on autopilot. So why bother blaming or praising anyone for doing what they were always going to do?
4. Moral Responsibility Is a Social Construct to Keep Us in Line
This is where it gets ugly. Our whole moral framework—blame, praise, reward, punishment—is just a social contract, designed to maintain order in a society of people who would rather not face the grim reality that we’re all slaves to fate.
We need these concepts of moral responsibility because without them, society would fall apart. If we all realized that no one has true free will, no one would take responsibility for anything.
It’s a neat little illusion we created to keep things running smoothly, like a stopgap for the chaos of an indifferent universe.
Sure, it feels nice to think people are good because they choose to be, but that’s a story we tell ourselves.
In a deterministic world, people are good because their environment, biology, and upbringing shaped them into that.
Moral responsibility is just a tool to stop us from spiraling into nihilism, the kind of nihilism that Bukowski himself probably would have raised his glass to—“Cheers to nothing!”
5. The Search for Meaning? It’s Just a Complicated Distraction
You know what the worst part is? We’re all chasing meaning. That’s what drives us to blame and praise each other.
We’re looking for some way to make sense of our lives, some excuse to explain the chaos.
But compatibilism hands you a dark little nugget of truth: the search for meaning is just a distraction. Meaning doesn’t exist.
There’s no grand narrative. We’re born, we live, we die. That’s it. Anything we add on top of that is just a desperate attempt to impose structure on a world that doesn’t care.
It’s like building a sandcastle on a beach just before the tide comes in to wash it away.
So we tell ourselves stories—praise, blame, moral responsibility—to keep us from realizing it’s all pointless.
We keep pretending we’re making a difference, that we’re in control of our lives. But the truth is, we’re just reacting to a series of dominoes falling. The universe isn’t asking for your approval. It doesn’t care if you blame or praise anyone.
Explaining It to a Bro
Alright, bro, listen up. Imagine you’re playing with a toy car, and you push it forward. The car moves, right? But you didn’t choose where it goes.
The car moves because of how you pushed it and because of how the wheels are made. That’s like how your life works. You didn’t choose where you were born, who your parents are, or what you’re like.
All of that stuff just happened. You’re like the car—moving because things happened before you were even born.
And that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with it. No one can really choose to be free. It’s all just part of the ride.
The Scientific Side: Hardwired for Determinism?
You ever heard of Benjamin Libet? No? Well, let me tell you—this guy’s the guy who busted open the idea of free will like it was a cheap bottle of vodka on a Tuesday night.
Libet was a neuroscientist, and he did this experiment that pretty much wiped the floor with everything you thought you knew about choice.
Turns out, our brains make decisions before we even know we’re making them. Yeah, let that one sink in. You think you’re some grand architect of your own fate, right? Well, guess what? Your brain’s already made up its mind about what you’re going to do next, long before you’ve even got the nerve to say, “Hey, maybe I’ll have a beer.”
The brain’s out there making moves, and your conscious mind? It’s just sitting in the backseat, watching the world go by, like a dog tied to a post, wagging its tail, thinking it’s got something to do with the action.
Libet’s experiment was simple—too simple, really, but sometimes the truth comes at you like a hammer to the skull.
He hooked people up to some fancy machines, strapped electrodes on their heads, and had them press a button whenever they felt like it.
But here’s the kicker: the machines showed that the brain started firing up the motors to push that button before the person even thought to do it.
You heard me right—your brain’s out there pulling the strings while you’re still trying to figure out which string to pull. The conscious thought? The “decision” to press the button? That comes in like a lazy afterthought, just tagging along for the ride.
What does that tell you about free will?
That whole idea that you’re the captain of your own ship? It’s like someone handed you the wheel and then blindfolded you, saying, “Go ahead, steer, buddy. You’re in control.”
But the whole time, the ship’s already heading for the rocks, and your hands are just there to keep the illusion alive. Those little choices you think you’re making? They’re nothing but the residue of some deep, primal brain activity that’s been going on in the background.
Your mind’s like that guy who walks into a room late, pretends he knows what’s going on, and just takes credit for everything that’s already been decided.
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