I’m not naive, but thanks for the heads-up on that one, anyway 
You can jump off a cliff, does gravity choose to function partially, or are you deciding to align yourself with gravity?
Anything that is PARTIALLY true or functional, exists in it’s own functional domain… take flying for instance, birds have been able to do it for thouands of years but we just learned the last few hundred years (as far as we know). So there you go: Fate was tied to our ability to understand (or try) to fly.
So yes fate plays a role, remember you didn’t CHOOSE to be born, your parents chose for you, that my friend is fate in a partial manner because once you are born and old enough, then you get some amount of control over what you do (even if small). I’m not a total reductionist like naturalists are, since their philosophy would not allow for anyone to be personally responsible… and while I certainly do agree with a lot of it, again, it’s a partial thing, (a compound object, or multi-faceted).
I pretty much said the same above, but look at it this way… .when I say fate, I mean stuff about the world you can’t change (i.e. the iraq war), fate would be you not being able to control someone elses choices (i.e. force someone to love you). So yeah, fate exists but so does a limited amount of free will… i.e. you can shape a beach full of sand and make sandcastles out of the sand, so you thereby have some amount of control over shaping the environment, just not very much.
Degree of freedom is limited to how much power is available.
The only group I claim to be happily part of is the capitalists. I like capitalism. I am considered lower middle class right now. I have been middle and upper. I enjoy working and getting luxuries. Do I cheat? Not knowingly. But, if you are willing to sell yourself short I won’t argue with you. My family comes first way before yours does. Oh, I will defend your family from dangers and if you need help I will help but, not at the sacrifice of my family. Helping you will help us. Sorry I am a human, a predator species.
I can’t hate or resent the rich I deal with them the same as I deal with the poor. They too sell themselves short.
Poor folks call the rich snobs even as they think they are better than the rich. Now that is snobbery. Some of the most snobbiest people are the self righteous poor.
Mine is mine and if I choose to share I will happily do so. If I don’t, you will have to fight me to get it from me. I make no apologies for being a capitalist. It is human nature to try and be the best. Perhaps it is only some peoples nature to be Alpha and others to be Beta. whichever it is I know I am an Alpha and quite happy.
That’s ok, you’re just following your lower class nature (feral). 
But truthfully, all the “idealogies” are false metaphors… we all depend on each other because of all the technological and cultural changes that have occured, we can’t go back even if we wanted to.
I’m non-idealogical person, and you should hate (the bad) rich people, they can devalue your dollar on a whim, and strategically price you out of the market and you have no say in it.
The fact your view is wholly dependent on your lack of knowledge about how money works, and the economy, if you truly knew how it worked you’d think a little differently.
They parasitically control most of the worlds resources through usury, and flaws in the concept of ownership and backhanded tactics.
Sorry, I know how the economy works. Nope, don’t think any differently.
It does not bother me that most people sell themselves short. That makes it better for me. When you are top dog you get the choicest. Not a darn thing wrong with that. When you are top dog you control your surroundings and those around you. Not a darn thing wrong with that.
If folks let themselves be controlled well, not my problem, it actually makes it better for me. Gives me a chance to move on up around them.
You can call it parasitic and sure it is in a way but, hey, until you get control too darn bad. Change it.
I for one am content, it works for me. Been up, been down all because of me not because of the system. Heading back up the slope now. The only debt we have now is our mortgage. We know the system. The system works for anyone that can get their butts in gear, learn it and then have the strength to work it. It does not take a high school education ,nor a college education. It just takes a will to learn and effort. If you sell yourself short then you only have you to blame.
Hi superculture. Thank you for your comments. You said; â€fate exists but so does a limited amount of free will…
If free will is limited, then how can it be free? Doesn’t “free†mean an absence of restrictions?
Would you say it is true that at any given moment, when a person wills a thing, at that moment they cannot will any other thing at all? Passion
There is a theory in the law that you cannot own or sell that which is not yours. Thus, if X steals a widget from Y, X can’t legally give it to Z or sell it to Z.
Z, as an innocent good faith purchaser for value can’t say “Hey, I paid good money for that widget so it’s mine. Go take your fight up with X.†The law will not allow it. Rather, the law gives the widget back to Y and tells Z to go take it up with X.
So, if my daddy steals a widget from your daddy, and then dies and gives the widget to me, I can’t plead innocence in defense of my right to keep the widget. My daddy simply cannot give me what he never owned. Likewise, if your daddy dies, that makes no difference. You are his heir and entitled to what was his. The widget is yours. And, at law, you are entitled to any natural enhancement in value, including a reasonable amount of interest based upon a fiduciary obligation of reasonable investment and preservation of principle.
Now, flash-forward the same analysis for several generations. We end up with all generations standing on a pile of their ancestors bones. Some people stand higher on that pile than others. None of them pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps (That is a very appropriate metaphor because it is a physical impossibility, notwithstanding the fact that the proponents of it don’t know how stupid it sounds).
Those who stand higher on the pile make work, and may actually think they are solely responsible for where they stand. They may even admit they received some help from their ancestors but they rarely acknowledge the bones upon which they stand that belonged to the victims of their ancestors (think slavery, American Indians, and the working poor). Further, the longer the pile is permitted to grow without redress, the greater the disparity and the greater the advantage to those higher on the pile. It keeps compounding to their advantage.
Those at the bottom of the pile may not be smart enough to understand this, but they feel it. It simply won’t do to say “They hate us because we are rich.†That is like saying the terrorists hate us for our freedom. That is stupid. There are much more complex reasons underlying the hatred than mere jealousy. Rather, there is a fundamental understanding of equality that is being defied for reasons that have nothing to do with individual merit. Think of “Trading Places†with Dan Ackroid (sp?) and Eddie Murphy.
We are raised to believe that we, as Americans, are entitled to justice as a matter of right. We should not have to pay for it; same with equality. It is a sour pill when we come down to Earth, hard, and realize that we DO have to pay for justice and we DO have to pay for equality. Some have to pay more than others. Some paid with their lives and still got neither justice nor equality. They paid that price for us, their ancestors, and often as not, they did it all for naught. It’s what we do with their price that matters.
The interest on the debt keeps compounding. If it’s not paid, someone always drags out the lady guillotine sooner or later. And then you really start hearing the whine.
If we put the “enlightened†back in “enlightened self interest†or the “properly understood†back in “self-interest properly understood†then the price gets lower and we start pulling each other up on the pile and those down below quit trying to pull others down.
Just remember: “Never expect gratitude from a beggar.†(Forgot who said that.)
’
Thank you, thank you. I’ll be here all week. 
I’d go on about the disengenuous claim of so-called “liberal guilt” and the defensive response of “conservative guilt” etc. but I’ll hide and watch for while.
Actually no… the word “freedom” is poorly defined concept, since all freedom has limitations, or is bounded in some kind of sense. For instance, when you are in your house do the walls add FREEDOM (i.e. privacy) or do they take it away? Yet they are walls that restrict viewing and movement, but yet at the same time they give you freedom.
For instance, your freedom to exist is wholly dependent on the earth not falling apart, or the sun not exploding tomorrow, you freedom is limited by who or what is supplying your existence, you are not free or independent in the absolute sense, you have partial freedom…
Think of it like this… you exist in a space where you have some amount of control, and some LACK of control, you can’t control the weather or the sun, but you can shape the sand on the beach for example. Your freedom is limited by the power you possess and your what is supplying the energy for you existence. We all need energy to live, that is a fact of life, therefore, true “unbounded god like freedom” doesn’t exist, though many people in capitalism pretend it does.
You just have to know that all truth is context bound, for instance, we might say that if you jump off a cliff you will fall always, but what we really mean is:
You will fall when you jump off a cliff as long as gravity stays within (x and y) values. The statement (truth) is simply a comment/reflection on events AS THEY ARE in the moment of time in which they are said. They are not “universals”, since as change occurs, so does truth necessarily, this is lost on the “universalists” ideologues… hence why I stay a way from socialist/capitalist/communist debates, because they are all about power and not about actually thinking critically about how the world actually is and operates… they are obscurantist power words and it kind of frightens me how small their minds really are, because I went through that period of knowing my own minds smallness, most people will never see understand the extent of how large their ignorance really is… it’s enormous… I feel enormously ignorant everyday because I understand how much information and truth is out there that we can’t see or fit in our minds.
Language has a bad habit of obscuring the truth of how a thing actually works.
When you’re in your home, walls provide freedom, when you are outside space provides freedom.
But space itself is a something, not a nothing, and if you are a naturalist and believe all of nature is connected, then in a sense, you freedom always infringes upon (even in some unpercieved infinitely small way) on someone elses.
You can see this if you imagine everyone in the world drinking from the same huge resevoir… they all need water to live, but they all infringe (displace) a tiny fraction of each others freedom to live (i.e. the water being the will to freedom)
Don’t hate the playa.
Hate the game.
’
Let it spew forth.
You have me confused with REAL… real said that (the above bolded).
Half the time people don’t even think with proper definitions… just google definitions of words sometimes, there are many variations and meanings for the same word in different contexts… it’s not just purposeful manipulation, it’s our small minds inability to keep up with the complexity of our own language.
’
Hi superculture. Thank you for your follow up comments. I appreciate your thoughts. You said; †Your freedom is limited by the power you possess and your what is supplying the energy for you existence.â€
I hear you. But where does that leave fate? For example, isn’t it fair to say that at any specific moment, when an individual wills a thing, at that moment they cannot will any other thing? What do you think? Passion
Hi superculture. You said; “You have me confused with REAL… real said that (the above bolded).”
Yes, you are correct superculture. My apologies. Passion
Well it’s a BIG TOPIC, and our brains are small, you’d really need to take a few years off work and just go read and study. For example, what if you fell down a well, but you nervous system nerves were cut in critical places? Your will still works technically, but the signals from your brain never get to your muscles… your power is dependent on the collective interdependent parts and whole functioning of your body.
New scientific studies show that most thought is 98% unconscious (below your awareness), therefore our free will is in fact quite limited. For instance, you can hold back your own ability to go to the bathroom, but at some point your autonomic system is going to go crazy. We have multiple systems. For instance, go find a place that is really dark and makes you scared and bring a flashlight, leave the flashlight off, and then turn on the flashlight and look at the light, then slowly look off into complete blackness as you turn off the light, you should notice your body AUTOMATICALLY fills you with a sense of fear or put’s you slightly on edge.
There was an excellent discussion on human thinking @ the orwell comes to america conference I went to @ the NYPL, check out the webcast here… it’s buried in the sessions (sorry I forget exactly where)
"Well it’s a BIG TOPIC, and our brains are small,…
Terrific thoughts superculture. Free Will, fate, predestination, etc are all part of a big topic as you say. Passion