The Erosion of Free Will: Why Society's Loss of Belief in Freedom Is Dangerous

This is not correct in the case of Christianity, I can't comment on Judaism because I'm not familiar enough with it. In the Catholic tradition the importance and nature of free will varies a lot depending on the period, in Protestantism there's a significant emphasis on predestination. Starting with debates between Erasmus and Luther, but most strongly in Calvinism where ultimately fate is responsible for salvation alone.

>It’s not easy to accept that someone else may have chosen to hurt you, and even harder to accept the fact that you have chosen to hurt someone else. It’s easier to claim that we had no choice.

I think generally the opposite is the case. It's psychologically easier to accept that we're responsible for our actions because that imbues them with meaning. Hurt that is either inevitable or random is significantly harder to swallow because it renders us insignificant. A good example is probably the intentionality people ascribe to disease: "My cancer is punishing me and is the consequence of my actions", rather than accepting that your cells just went randomly haywire. It's easier to accept responsibility than to acknowledge you're powerless.

Religion and psychology aside from a secular or scientific point of view free will is a very instrumental concept. It's very clear from the way the author talks about it, suggesting we end up with pre-crime divisions and top-down societies that he's simply afraid of the consequences in case our attachment to free-will vanishes. That in itself though is not evidence for the existence or usefulness of free-will as a concept, it's just motivated reasoning.

Neither of these claims is justified or even explained by the author.

- Those who are Blue Tribe aligned have a high Care moral foundation which has brought them to the minmax conclusion of maximal paternalism. But paternalism requires you to reject the agency of those for whom you are Pater. You constrain them for their own good.

- Those who are Red Tribe aligned have a high Divinity moral foundation which has brought them in turn to the minmax conclusion of absolute state intervention in the manner in which the state must bind its subjects.

I don't claim to be of some third enlightened state who has no particular unique intelligence. Instead, I am merely of those who have a high Liberty moral foundation and so we often reject the state binding individuals - a result that can often lead to poor outcomes.

There is no total order on the 5-D MFT vectors we have, so ultimately the question is merely which of us can compete over what period. So, like tribes warring over territories, our beliefs fight over minds. And like technology gives tribes advantages, our power waxes and wanes.

Those who are of my tribe are innately disadvantaged: authoritarian unity provides time-proximate strength and high-Liberty groups must win every time and none of their victories will stick since they must necessarily permit the propagation of the ideas of low-Liberty groups (ToI etc etc).

Still, the only way to live is to live congruent with one's purpose, so that is how I shall live.