this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2025
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Freedom no, that's not a binary state.
Free will? Yes. They have the capacity to react to their environment. The veal cow's sadness and suffering are evidence of the free will to react.
Sadness and suffering aren't choices, so where does will come in?
I'd say they are choices, just not concious choices.
You can demonstrate this by noticing the way different people have different reactions to the same experiences or events.
Easiest to see in people because of the greater awareness and agency but it applies to cows too because they're smart enough to have individual personalities
Some people have different reactions to pollen than others, is that free will too?
Yeah, totally.
I laugh at my hayfever, through the sneezing and the coughing. My husband gets angry.
So we have very different levels of "suffering" to the same experience.
Good example, thanks.
I meant I don't have any reaction to the experience of pollen, because I'm not allergic. Is that also free will?
I guess so. If you wanted to fake a reaction you could choose to, so the opposite must be true too, right? Choice happens at different levels, and most the choices we make happen at a level outside the conscious mind so quickly we wouldn't register them as choices
So I chose not to be allergic? Interesting! Why did you choose to be allergic? Are you stupid? Is it a fetish?
Do you choose to die when you get shot?
Given that this has moved from discussing the topic to personal attacks, I'd say this conversation has run its course.
Sorry, too far?
It ran its course when you said allergies are a choice. You're literally telling me that you choose to be allergic, and that I choose to not be allergic. What the fuck do I say to that? So, I tried to highlight how alien and impossible to understand you are to me.
Ask a Buddhist if suffering is a choice. They'll tell you "only if you desire it".
I mean, ask a torture victim if suffering is a choice. You'll get a different response
You might train yourself to not hold on to suffering, and not react to suffering, but the suffering still happens. It's not like monks are emotionless, unfeeling stone. They feel the suffering, acknowledge its presence, and then let it go like water off of a duck's back.
Which is all fine and good for them and their extensive training, but it'd be absurd to say that everyone has this capacity from birth.