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[–] 3 points 46 minutes ago

It's luck all the way down. Nobody is ultimately responsible for everything they have (or haven't) achieved in life.

They didn't choose the place they were born in, they didn't choose the parents they were born to, they didn't choose their genetics and if you believe in such a thing, they didn't choose their soul either. They didn't choose to be healthy, they didn't choose to be able-bodied, they didn't choose to be driven, intelligent, lazy, anxious, charismatic or any of the other traits that end up shaping what they do with their life.

Everything that follows from that point is just the unfolding of those starting conditions plus whatever random events and influences came afterwards. There is no separate "you" standing outside of all that and freely deciding how to play the hand. The feeling of choosing is real as an experience, but the choice itself is the product of prior causes.

We do things for two reasons: either we want to or we have to. There is no third option. And we don't get to pick what we want either.

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  • [–] 15 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (2 children)

    Taylor Swift. Utterly mediocre pop music somehow gets her a billion dollars and the undying loyalty of like half the US population. If that isn't some genie shit I don't know what is.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 hours ago

    She was mediocre at first but shes been cooking pretty hard with her preformances and the scale of everything. I think shes earnt her billion. She could take over most nations with the army of fans she has.

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  • [–] 24 points 13 hours ago

    Elon Musk. I am convinced he made a deal with the Devil.

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