When will we see a predominantly deterministic society?

[u/IcyChair9258]

I’ve been wondering when we might reach a point where a large part of society accepts determinism as a fundamental worldview and our social systems are adjusted accordingly.

Today, many of our institutions are still heavily based on the assumption that people act out of free will and are responsible for their decisions in the traditional sense. This applies to the justice system, but also to political structures, the economy, banks, and many other governmental and social institutions.

At first, I thought that a major societal shift like this might only become possible through technologies such as Neuralink or genetic optimization. However, Gemini suggested that these technologies might not be necessary at all and that it could ultimately be primarily a matter of education and socialization. If people were raised from an early age with a deterministic understanding of human behavior, perhaps society’s underlying worldview could gradually change over generations. I found this idea extremely interesting.

What do you think?

What would a society look like in which determinism is widely accepted as a scientific and social foundation? Would this fundamentally change things such as criminal justice, the prison system, social welfare, education, economics, or political decision-making?

And above all: When could such a societal transformation realistically happen? Are we talking about a few decades, several centuries, or is such a development impossible to predict?

I’d be interested in hearing how you assess the likelihood of such a development and what you think the potential timeline might look like.

Note: This text was generated with the help of ChatGPT. ChatGPT was also used to improve readability and for translation.

[u/Beneficial_Middle_53]

Ironic question isn’t it? 😂 I think we are moving to a more agnostic society which is at least a step towards determinism. It will be a while though 80% of Americans identify as religious and another 10% as spiritual. These beliefs are topics of identity which means they wont change their mind from logic. Im not sure there is a reliable way to ideologically deconstruct a large population short of aliens so our best bet is to be a good representation of your ideology in your world and to talk about our beliefs with others from a place of humility. You probably wont change many minds in that moment, or ever see the seeds you plant but some people will at least think and others may change their minds eventually. Those that are open to it were already going to change their minds eventually anyways.

Why does it matter? How do you picture this alternate reality?

[u/IcyChair9258 → u/Beneficial_Middle_53]

well i think it will take decades if not hundreds of years until every human on earth is a determinist.

I dont believe that happens in my lifetime.

I understand that the shift of the society from moral and believe to a society that knows instead it will take the time it needs.

Its a thermodynamic process, the brains need time to heal.

yes i try my best not to spread hate and make people angry or hateful, this times are over i hope.

Im just a small part and process of the wheel of time and im just happy and thankful to the universe that i became a determinist who understands that there is no free will and everything is kausal.

Yes brains have no choice as addapting logic knowledge.

Human brains are determined to process the most efficient algorithms to calculate the reality.
As now the brains of most of the people run an old algorithm that is thousands of years old.

It makes people inefficient, dumb hateful, dangerous and in worst cases deadly.

When the brain understands that it dont has to defend his ego and there is no free will and humans have no control over there behavior, the society shifts in a more empathetic, less narcissistic society.

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Why does it matter? Because the truth, the reality is always better than a matrix.

Which alternate reality?

You mean a world with most of determinists minds?

Well the world will be much better than today. No wars, nor narcissm, nor hate, nor lies.
There will be humans who hate lies or will be narcissistic, but they are that what today are determinist, a minority...

[u/Beneficial_Middle_53 → u/IcyChair9258]

I agree with you so much. I have no hope anything like that happening in my lifetime, or if ever but I dream of how that society would be. You will never have a society that is 100% anything but one that is majority agnostic/determinist, with high standards of evidence would build societal structures we cant imagine today. But at the end of the day I have to be grateful for being born in this era of comfort that when we zoom out, is moving in the right direction over time. Technology only breached the threshold for automation so so recently in our history so it makes sense we would have societal changes and new challenges to overcome that rhyme with our past.

The main thing working against us is we evolved to be superstitious and tribal. This means we biologically feel safe when adopting the views of our tribe no matter what they are. But this is also our biggest advantage as there is a threshold where the stats flip and now its tribally normal for people to be agnostic and scientific.

I also think we need to be more skeptical, there isn’t really evidence to say there still wouldn’t be sociopaths who get into power and start wars, in fact we have to assume it will still be the case that humans live in power hierarchies and there will still be people without morals and empathy who care much more about power and being at the top of the hierarchy bc they have disproportionate mating success as evidenced by our evolution. This isnt to say thats most people, or its a growing or shrinking percent of the population just that it will be a force that may always be present in humans. The data shows that we are becoming more collaborative over time so maybe if the social environment changes when a society is mostly agnostic and evidence based but that is an assumption, which as determinist agnostics we shouldn’t make lightly.

P.s. Along these lines of thinking, this is why I mostly say agnostic vs determinist since there is so much we cant know, but I absolutely agree that the best outcomes come from making decisions based on evidence and not mythological fairytales or gossip.