Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/05/01/is-control-over-your-life-just.html
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Recently passed a second hand bookshop that I used to visit decades ago, to buy cheap books to take with me on holidays.
Went in, remembered I once bought The Dice Man there.
Found and bought it again, out of pure nostalgia.
Have yet to throw a dice…
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I have often reflected on the idea that my life might be very different if I had taken one, small, seemingly insignificant action, instead of another. I don’t want to give dice that power, but I appreciate the concept.
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It seems this is predicated on the idea that luck is descriptive of random chance rather than a supernatural force with the power to effect an outcome that most people who believe in the concept of luck subscribe to.
The clickbait crap articles saying science has proven luck is a real thing should be following shortly.
As for the subject of self determination vs random chance in influencing the outcome of a persons life, I’m not so sure there is an answer to this artificially binary choice. It seems to me that for some people it is the choices they have made which have had the greatest impact upon their lives just as random chance has been the greatest influence on others. I expect most of us fall somewhere in the middle.
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the dice, man
they roll everywhere and everywhen
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Is control over your life just an illusion?
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See also I Ching and Tarot.
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I do this all the time to accomplish a neutral-priority to do list. Random.org and flipping a coin save me from decision fatigue all the time. But, it looks like I should add some off the wall ideas to the list also.
This was an episode of The Big Bang Theory.
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The first thing the dice tell him to do is go downstairs and rape his neighbour. And you idolise this book why?
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Fun way to take a road trip - have the navigator roll dice to determine which exit to take, whether to turn left, right, or go straight, etc. You end up seeing things that you’d’ve never thought to look for and finding things you wouldn’t’ve known existed. It’s also just plain fun and liberating to not have to plan the trip or care about the destination.
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Gideon discovered this approach to decision making a while ago.
Saves having to come up with 6 options, which is useful for those who suffer from choice paralysis.
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Yeah, first thing I thought of. I found this book hilarious, as a teen, long ago, but even then that was an uncomfortable twist.
Side note: all this “OMG Friends/The Simpsons/Judd Apatow movies are suddenly problematic in the metoo era” stuff is wrecking my head. It was plain as day that there was troubling stuff there (and Friends/Simpsons are FAR from the worst examples). Popular culture has long been suffused with disempowering and cruel stereotypes. NB This is not a defence of it, I’m as angry as I ever was - more so, now that I’m a parent - and metoo/timesup is fantastic. Just saying that we’ve been living with disgusting shit in our entertainment for way too long and anyone with eyes to see could’ve called it out anytime. Again, it’s brilliant that we’re doing so now.
Usually the store posts aren’t so philosophical. You are making me lose my faith in my cloud certification validation.
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From what I recall of the book, one of the major points is that, as you relinquish control over your decisions, you also
- dissociate from responsibility over them (the dice made me do it),
- feel increasingly at ease with that lack of volition,
- start to replace that kind of decision-making with choosing ever-more risky/thrill-seeking/repugnant possibilities for the dice
I never read it as endorsing the premise; thinking it does so seems to me to be like thinking Trainspotting glorifies drug-use.
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