Where does our free choice start?

An opinion from the Internet:

”I disagree with the idea that ‘it isn’t our fault’. A series of choices from the dawn of civilization, lets say agriculture has led us to where we are now. Instead of sharing the wealth of food we acquired by controlling the propagation of food. We hoarded it in stores, or fed it to animals as a calorie bank, thereby allowing another facet of our ultimate demise, death acceptance. Now we hold no real love of life, all life is ours to destroy if it suits our whim and fancy.

When thinking of whose fault it is or isn’t and our place in nature, I like to consider our closest relatives, the chimpanzees and bonobos. Very similar genetically to each other and to us. But each lives in a starkly different culture. The chimps hoard and glutton, while the bonobo share and love. Is it genetics that bring one to act one way while the other lives so different? I say nurture over nature. Since we don’t have evidence that bonobos will not act against their cultural norms if implanted into a chimp tribe, I tend to think it is a simple matter of choice.

I think it all come down to death culture acceptance. A much more harsh observation, death-worship. Don’t like the weeds, institute pestilence instead of fostering desirable substitutes. Don’t like your neighbor, make war. Make the greedy choice for your own sustenance, famine. And of course death, anything that gets in my way, kill it.

The biblical 4 horsemen are not disembodied spirits but rather active choices we make.

Alternately we can chose life, love, prosperity or growth.”

I fully agree with you in the end, it all comes down to choice. But in order to have the ability to choose, we need different options to choose from. And until now, human beings had no options.

Until now, there has been no human civilization that operated in any other way than being self-serving, self-justifying, egocentric, overconsuming and ruthlessly competitive. The only difference in between human civilizations – from the early hunter-gatherer times till today’s society – has been the state of development of the human ego. Initially it was hardly discernable, when humans acted almost identical to the rest of nature, and then it gradually grew and intensified, thus we created more and more selfish, exploitative and destructive ways of living.

When we look at “natural examples,” the problem is that our observations are also skewed by our self-serving, self-justifying and subjective viewpoint and perception. But when we look at the system through a slightly more objective viewpoint, we can see that all inanimate, vegetative and animate parts of nature simply survive and fulfill their roles in the “food chain” or “circle of life”, in their unique and individaul ways which we simply cannot comprehend and feel – being detached from nature’s integral system due to our human egos.

And then we also have the “Disney culture” brainwashing us, separating animals and even plants to “good vs. evil” ones based on how we perceive them. But plants and animals are simply and instinctively occupying and fulfilling their place in the system, precisely how they are supposed to, in order to contribute to the general balance and homeostasis that life depends on.

Human free choice will start from the moment when we honestly and objectively recognize the human ego behind everything we have ever done and we still do, and we also see and accept that there is another way of existence, when instead of existing solely for our own sake at the expense of others we start existing only for the sake of others and the whole system.

And when also have the method and the ability to change and further develop ourselves, then we have a choice and then starts our actual responsibility for our existence and actions.

As long as we remain blindly and instinctively under the sole control of the selfish and exploitative human ego, without even recognizing this control over ourselves, there is nothing we can do and we are not actually responsible for our actions, regardless of how destructive we have been and we still are.