Free Trade?

“Lunch time comes around and you are tired of your store bought cookies that mom packs everyday. Your buddy across the table has a chocolate chip muffin that was baked the night prior. Your friend looks disappointed at the muffin and longingly at your cookies. Likewise, you are staring and drooling over the delicious muffin, so you propose a trade, the cookies for his muffin. Your friend agrees and both of you are happy.” Using the above analogy the basic premise of free trade is found, however the person with the cookies could bake the muffin themselves and not have to trade away the cookies, but the effort and resources involved is much more difficult than the trade. Learning how to bake, spending money and the materials needed, and the time requirement all are more demanding than the trade; the problem then arises when the person with the muffin realizes this and decides to take advantage over the cookie person. They may require more than just cookies, or may require that the person with the cookies only trades their cookies for his muffin. Or the reverse could happen and one can make both easily, but decides to only make one and trades with the other because it allows the person to bake/buy more muffins/cookies and thus allows a greater range of trade. This analogy describes the process of trade and some of the reasons why countries trade with one another but it does not develop the problems trading have because the analogy works only on the individual scale, on the larger scale problems such as; draining a country of its resources, depletion of world cultures, and the abuse of labor forces, arise but are combated with the arguments; globalization provides economic growth, stability throughout the world, and the promotion of human rights. Globalization is a powerful, unstoppable, force that has a good and bad side, however it is going to happen and in the end globalization will benefit the world more than harm it. As a force globalization will bring potential peace and stability to the world.
Drained Resources vs. Economic Growth
An argument against globalization claims that the countries in power drain the weaker countries to stay in power. A prime example is Brazil. Brazil’s largest natural export is wood that is cut down from rainforest and other places. This resource is only partially renewable in time and so is depleted faster than recreated. Brazil uses this resource to trade for manufactured and process goods like equipment and necessary materials for the industrialization of the country. Therefore Brazil loses resources in the hopes to become a stronger industrialized nation, the argument against this process is that because other countries provide the funds and materials to industrialize Brazil in exchange for the natural resource, they drain Brazil of what is the base necessity for anything brazil could make and also produce what brazil could produce at a cheaper cost, therefore Brazil may never become strong enough to compete with the world powers and thus never grow. However this is speculation by those who are against industrialization through globalization. The speculation cannot be conclusive because enough time has not passed to see Brazil complete its process, but a growth can be seen in Brazil’s economy over the pass 20 years, after it started the process of industrialization, therefore the process of free trade has helped Brazil so far and therefore is a strong indication that globalization is more helpful than detrimental.
Depletion of World Culture vs. Global Stability
“The beauty of globalization is that it can free people from the tyranny of geography” (Legrain, 2). An argument against globalization is that it prompts cultural imperialism. The country that spreads the most in trade will build more of their culture with the countries they trade with and deplete that country of its own culture. Arguments that support this claim are MTV, McDonalds, Coke, and Hollywood. However the arguments miss one important fact, the use of these industries in the countries. In Thailand MTV promotes Thai music singers, McDonalds specializes its food for the culture it serves, in France McDonalds serves pizza along with burgers and fries while in China it serves noodles as well as the burger and fries. The only strong argument is Hollywood and that has large weaknesses because the top directors and stars are not American as well as a majority of studios are foreign owned, Hollywood just happens to have a start in Hollywood but is a promotion of culture in its own countries. All of this trade of culture between countries promotes stability. It is harder to trade products and gain economic growth when warring with a country you trade with. Also this trading promotes democracies and democracies rarely war with one another. Some claim it to be the Imperial Peace proposition but that differs greatly from the democratic peace proposition. America is allied with most of the western hemisphere and does not war with democracies, however US allied democracies war with US autocracies more than with US allied democracies. Therefore the imperialism peace proposition cannot apply. Democracies are able to promote peace for the strong argument that commerce is strongest in democracies and that commerce promotes moral capital, which has a civilizing and pacifying effect on statesmen and civilians. (Weede, Globalization Can Prevent War). Therefore free trade does not promote culture imperialism but promotes peace and is more likely to prevent war.
Abuse of Labor vs. Human Rights
One of the most convincing and probably incorrect arguments against globalization and free trade is the abuse of Labor pools in third world countries. The argument is appealing when compared with strong economic countries. The argument compares wages and conditions in countries like America with those in countries like Malaysia. The argument claims that Multi-national Corporations abuse the labor pools by paying them less than what they pay people in other countries and by overworking them. This is a completely ridiculous argument in those terms because paying a worker in Malaysia 8 dollars an hour will flood their economy with wealth creating inflation of prices for everyday basic needs and those who do not work in the corporation factories/plants cannot afford to live anymore. A person must look at the wages of the host country and compare those with the wages multi-national corporations pay. A close look at this will show that corporations on average pay more than other jobs in the host country, providing wealth but not an excessive amount of wealth that will flood the local economy. The opposing argument is the promotion of Human Rights. When a corporation comes in and pays wages to the employees that are normally higher than the other jobs it causes those in other jobs to demand higher wages and thus starts the promotion of human rights. Labor forces start to pool together and make demands on bother country and employers which allows them to gain some power and rights over conditions; this in turn creates activists who seek rights to benefits and eventually creates unions and other such facilities. This promotion of human rights and welfare is the result of just one person getting paid more than their neighbors. The idea of jealousy and capitalism thus promotes human rights and therefore promotes globalization. So in the end globalization and free trade provides opportunities that were not available before and thus makes globalization a force that helps labor pools, not abuse them.
The Perspective of Multi-National Corporations
As a student in Dr. Cremona’s International Political Economics class I was able to participate in a mock setting of the conference between multi-national corporations, the IMF, and the World Trade organization against interest groups, the devos economist and union leaders. During this activity I was the role of a multi-national corporation, namely Nike. As Nike I did research into products and their environmental safety, what the company does to promote wellness in other nations, and their policy. The conference resolved many issues I had with globalization and I learned a few things. The Nike Corporation is actually not the sludge it is presented as. The company does provide subsidized or free housing, it offers medical benefits and it pays more than the minimum wage of whichever country it belongs to. It has implemented a policy of retrieving old shoes and recycling them to create new shoes, saving base resources and staying green. The conference did have a downside in the idea of accepting a Tobin tax to create new roads and to help starving people. The agreement was of a Tobin tax about .05%. This tax seemingly small does equate to millions of dollars a year to help people across the globe.

In the end globalization promotes human welfare and rights, allows for economic growth of a country and promotes peace and cultural diffusion. Globalization provides opportunities that are not available before hand and so is a force that works to the benefit of the world. The arguments of Cultural Imperialism, Drained Resources, and labor Abuse are only the short-sightedness of those who do not grasp the entire concept of globalization. As the allusion in the beginning stated, every one gains what they want with free trade in the end.

Platonic Virtue

“You, Socrates, began by saying that virtue can't be taught, and now you are insisting on the opposite, trying to show that all things are knowledge, justice, soundness of mind, even courage, from which it would follow that virtue most certainly can be taught” (Protagoras 361b).
Socrates believes that virtue can be taught as a neutral objective science, opposite of what Socrates argued at the beginning of Protagoras. In which the opposite was true, Protagoras believed he could teach virtue while Socrates believed it could not be taught. In the breakdown of their argument, one position that was agreed upon was that everything had an opposite, temperance, wisdom, courage, each which is considered to be a virtue has an opposite.
“’So whatever is done in a certain way is done from a certain quality, and whatever is done in the opposite way is done from it’s opposite?’
‘I agree’” (Protagoras 332c).
Looking at the entirety of the Protagoras one can see the flip flop that Protagoras and Plato make. If reflected upon the entire subject matter, one could argue that Protagoras goes from being teacher to student, as well as Socrates going from philosopher to student. Who or what ends up in control is the argument itself, which places both men into a more humble state. Each man going from believing what can and cannot be taught until they argue the complete opposite of their original point and starting the argument anew. Taking the agreement from the text above, each man went to the opposite of the original, so which quality did the men exchange places in. The most humorous answer will be that both men started believing in the wisdom of their arguments so that both ended up in folly. Where then lies the answer to the dilemma, that of which is ‘can virtue be taught?’
Virtue is defined as the quality of doing what is right and avoiding what is wrong (wordnet.Princeton.edu). Can a quality be taught to an individual? Can a person be taught to be kind, wise, intelligent, cruel, ignorant, or courageous? These are things that conventional society sees as being taught and just in a persons nature. That the capacity for these qualities are encoded in a person and that our upbringing either brings out these qualities or it does not. In accordance to the question, whether a persons qualities can be taught, I would have to say nay, the qualities that distinguish us from one another can not be taught. A man cannot be taught to walk through fire, or taught to smile at every person he sees. If it is naturally in the person to do these things, they will do it but if it is not in a person to do these things, they will not do them. A prime example will be that of a person whom faints at the site of blood, you cannot teach this man to be a surgeon.
Since virtue is the quality of doing what is right as previously defined, then virtue is either doing what is morally right and/or doing what is right in accordance to the law. To seek out what virtue is, it will be better to split virtue into morally right and lawfully right, then try to combine the two into a more exact definition to virtue.
Morally right is conventionally seen as doing what is believed by the individual to be the right thing at the individual time. Whether or not what the result, if an individual believed it to be right, they were acting in accordance to moral virtue. A utilitarian viewpoint would agree to doing the greater good as being right. While a Machiavellian would believe it to be seemingly good for the greater cause while enacting one’s own ends. In both cases an individuals philosophy led cause to what is morally right for them. Therefore to be virtuous in a moral sense would be sticking with one’s own individual philosophy in all cases presented against them. Which means a completely ignorant person is morally virtuous if they stick to their ideals.
In terms of doing what is good in accordance to the law we have a different virtuous man. This person is the one who follows the law and reports on what they see as unlawful. This would be considered a citizen in ancient philosophy. Therefore a citizen is doing good in accordance to the law. Now following the law of a tyrant will still make you virtuous in the law-abiding sense because ignorance cannot be helped in such situations. “Where ignorance is bliss, tis folly to be wise” ~ Thomas Grey.
What about confliction between being morally good and law-abiding. The morally good man may decide to break the law in a case of need, such as a robin-hood. What of the law-abiding man who reports the thefts of a robin-hood? Two virtuous people are in conflict at this point, one being morally virtuous while the other law-abiding. Therefore virtue must have tiers. Which virtuous person is to be considered more virtuous?
The most virtuous a person can be is one who is knowledgeable and able to make decisions based on reason, loosely following John Stuart Mill. When a person makes decisions on their reason and knowledge they are not making a decision based on law but based on their own morals or personal philosophy. Therefore it could be said that the better virtuous person is one who does what is right based on what is morally right as opposed to a person who does what is right based on the law. So virtue is defined as doing what is morally right in accordance to one’s own philosophy. How does a person teach this?
Virtue cannot therefore be taught because each individual must develop their own philosophy, a person can be taught philosophy itself as a subject matter but this will only indirectly teach a person virtue. Does this make virtue objective as Socrates believes? No, virtue is now defined upon the individual and thus this will make every person virtuous as long as they listen to their reason and do what is right.
Virtue is therefore embedded within every reasonable person who sticks to and follows their own philosophy. Virtue cannot be taught and is subjective. there is no end means to virtue which makes it an objective science as Socrates believe, but it makes virtue an un-teachable science because a person cannot be taught their own qualities.

Us Hegemony = World Peace

The answer to such a question on U.S. policy is tricky. Should the U.S. even pursue a Global hegemony? The United States shouldn’t pursue such a cause, but will and has already started to pursue such causes. The case against any global hegemony is the same, it creates animosity between the super state and other states, power holds as long as tactics are used to keep a hold on that power, and those tactics tend to become rougher and more ruthless, international consideration is not taken into effect, and when the Super State falls as hegemony, it falls hard causing power rifts in its wake. However, since the United States has already begun its ascent as a hegemony, the question of whether or not it will lead to international peace is convoluted. As long as the U.S. remains a strong hegemony it will maintain peace, either through military, economic, or cultural force.
Military Force
In the case of Militant force, the United States will be able to maintain peace as a Hegemony. The reasoning behind this is simplistic in tactics. Ensure no other countries Military power comes close to the U.S. The united States has the most sophisticated military technology, and to ensure it stays this way a policy on non-private military corporations will have to be maintained and instead be incorporated into the US military research and development. Treat this sector of US Military as a private sector, allowing innovative and creative individuals to take reign of any enterprise; ensuring strong growth in military technology minimizing the sale of these technologies to foreign powers. This tactic will keep the US military as the most advanced military force and therefore the most powerful. Though the policy seems pretty straightforward, the hardship is keeping up a face of democracy and free market, while controlling a portion of the market. It could be said that this policy is not a breach of government because it ensures liberty to the world, but this is balderdash and will be seen as such, therefore any project such as this must be kept secret and military industries will have to remain as a cover for this type of operation.
Economic Force
In terms of economic control, the US Hegemony will need to remain the largest and fastest growing economy. This entails an economic policy of real GDP growth, and a minimizing of leisure time. Holidays will need to be removed and the work week expanded to include either Saturday or Sunday indefinitely, while jobs will have to go from nine to five, and become seven to seven jobs. Twelve hour days on a six day work week. This will insure economic productivity and efficiency. Jobs must leave a total service industry and technology research will need to grow, innovation is the key to a successful market. However, drastic policy changes such as this will cause much dissent, and therefore won’t be able to work, unless a threat is able to be proven to international peace. An economic threat such as an opposing governments economy growing rapidly and sharply, that holds to a different set of ideals. Once scared into the American people along with a decline of US Hegemony economy will in later years create an economic boon and such policies will be followed intently, for the citizenship will gladly lose leisure time in order to ensure their way of life and such prosperity will lead other nations to wanting this way of life.
Social Force
The last is a social power, the US Hegemony will need to ensure that its culture is the most desired, filled with fun and entertainment to captivate other nations into emulation. The quality of life enjoyed by the citizens of a US Hegemony must appear and be greater than any other. This will cause citizens of other nations to revolt or push for a joining to US Hegemony and ensure a growing hegemony, thus increasing the potential for International Peace. Once the majority of the International community is homogenous with the culture of the Hegemony, it should create a relationship between all people. What the US needs to do to ensure this is to create an atmosphere that attracts all peoples, ranging from parks of thrill and entertainment all the way to developed theater and cultured arts, to even majestic natural scenery. The US already has some of these things done by its policy of economic freedom and the low population in relation to its size. Disney world and the Rocky mountains are the two extreme examples the US has at its disposal to make such policy work. What the US Hegemony will need to do is take control of these places politically and enhance their appeal and make them easier to arrive at and afford. If the US takes a policy of lessening the prices of theme parks, and builds upon its natural beauty some more, it makes it easier to battle down resistance for other countries to emulate, and once emulation is obtained, the transferal of culture will be much easier.
The United States has already begun becoming a hegemony by using military and economic force in other places of the world to enforce its form of ideals. This process has been increasingly called globalization, but in reality it is the Americanization of the world. Recent developments in the international community, such as the E.U. and the growth of China has started to affect US globalization policy and I am sure that in a few more years we will see the American backlash against such power threats with cultural expansion and stricter economic and military policy.

Fall of Liberal democracy

The world’s social development has all the signs of a person with Dissociative personality disorder, all the kinks of a child that was used and abused and now trying to cope with its past by developing two distinct personalities. We have the worlds original personality, a tribal state in which everything is neatly ordered and separated but conflicts constantly and a new persona, a fast paced, fast moving, globalizing shared network of a world. However, as in the movie Identity, when these personalities meet and conflict, only one outcome is possible, a personality dies. In his book, Jihad vs. McWorld, Benjamin R Barber looks at the economic aspect of this conflict as well as its cultural relevance. I will look more closely into the technological aspect of this conflict, the internet and spread of information. For it is in this arena I believe liberal democracy will either fail and be replaced, or be reborn from the ashes and rise to a greater power.
Technology: Friend or Enemy
I may be a bit unfair in calling technology an enemy. It has many positive uses, it transmits information to anyone in the world faster, it allows access to data that may never have been seen, it draws the world closer together in understanding. The problem with technology is not technology, it is its lack of regulation and the control McWorld has taken over it. “As we have already noticed, the market has no particular interest in the civic possibilities of technology – unless they can generate a respectable profit” (Barber 270). McWorld, or the market of globalization as I wish to truly call it, has only one goal in mind, profit. It cares not about the people that make up its market, only how to get people to consume its product to turn a buck as the saying goes. So what does this mean, is technology, a giant that could make decisions easier, allow people to have information on the processes going on in their world and nation so they can be well informed when voting, or even up rise to have the power to vote, or is it a digital demon, gathering information on how people shop, through the use of ad-ware virus’ that watch which websites you visit so they can send you pop-ups that will make you buy products, steal your information and your identity, bombard you with images of things you wouldn’t normally be privileged to because of the immorality of it all. I am inclined to see it as the latter, a digital demon that steals the very individuality that we desperately need.
There is truly only one viable “holy water” for this demon, it is our governments. The very institutions that we pay or owe sovereignty to, in exchange for protection, are not doing their jobs in this new structure. This isn’t new though, the demon of technology has existed for nearly a century in America. “The Federal Commission Ac of 1934 promised to ‘encourage the larger and more effective use of radio in the public interest’… the ‘public airwaves’ are auctioned off to private vendors who sell them back at exorbitant rates to the public” (Barber 272). Where is our liberal democracy in this, our protectors from such actions? They are backing slowly away from regulating such demons and leaving them to McWorld. The market controls these demons and is amp to let them run rampart, as long as the market is turning a buck.
What solution is there in such a mess? What can a citizen do when their government listens to a very different set of pleas? We demand less regulation from our government in a liberal democracy because we believe it doesn’t have a right to censor what we can be privy to. There is no direct physical harm and so the government cannot really come into protect us. So as we become more and more enthralled into the technology demons that surround us, and as we forget their very nature, we lose ourselves to them. How many hours does a person spend online? How many of those are doing something that is informative and constructive. I do not know any actual numbers but as a net junkie myself… I can presume it isn’t many. With sites such as face book, MySpace, and the new advent of twitter, we socialize with people more often, but alone. No longer are people in the community talking and participating in local events because the people they wish to talk to are also in front of a computer. The technology demons have stolen our identities and our citizenship. However there may be hope if anyone will open Barbers book and take a look.
For these demons to become smaller and eventually turned into angels, we must make technology a civic system. Join 4-h clubs or YMCA’s that allow us to participate face to face and within the community and use the internet to set up these events so that everyone can be informed. Censor the mindless dribble that exists on the internet. I don’t believe we need to have websites devoted solely to timers that count how long you are on the webpage (yes it exists, http://www.online-stopwatch.com/). “Harry C. Boyte and other supporters of renewed citizenship have argued that we learn to be citizens not first in politics but in the ‘free spaces’ of school, church, 4-H club, and YMCA” (Barber 276).
Tribalism’s’ Role
The old face of our world, a past persona that is regaining its strength. What hope does it have to achieve in the new McWorld. Tribalism may be the key to unlocking McWorld’s greatest potential as not a market force but a way to create an international civic society. It may appear odd that such a diverse and sectionalized system as tribalism is the solution but it has a great potential to bend McWorld. Tribalism accepts the technology growth and the spread of information but without the glamour of consumerism. A grand example although a horror in and of itself is Al-Qaeda’s use of the internet and media to portray its messages. We don’t see any product placement, no corporation trying to get us to buy a product. We see a group that is discontent using technology as a civic means. It may not be the best way to use technology civically, but it did get its point across. Americans paid attention to it, and we did so without a market being involved for a product or profit. Technology therefore has the potential for civic use, and has been used as such but from where? Not our fast paced, fast food, fast everything McWorld, but from a world steeped in culture, and history, a tribal world. Liberal democracy has failed to do what a terrorist organization was capable of doing. It took over the demons of technology and used them to foreword its own good. I do not advocate the purpose behind what they have done by no means. It is horrible to kill people to get a point across, but by the means in which it was done, I applaud. Using the very demons of a world they are battling to show everyone what it has done and get the message that they won’t accept it anymore. That is what true civic duty is, to rise up against the oppressive forces and take control to better your society. How did tribalism have such success in this? I believe it is because tribalism instills a sense of civic duty into its people. Most of the time this duty is in the form of military but in a peaceful tribal state, could it not also be used to create a better paradise, to exchange information without being forced to buy anything, or have parts of your very self be stolen away from you. Public airwaves exist in most of these tribal states, by public I mean government controlled airwaves that display what the government believes is proper. In the hands of America this system could be a way for civilians to express their own sense of being to the world.
How then can the two be infused, tribalism’s grasp over the demons of technology and liberal democracies individuality, justice, and freedom. What does a liberal democracy have going for it? It has the people, the morals and the means to be a very powerful civic force. It portrays justice, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. What does tribalism hold for itself? It has the control, the will, and the civic duty. What is needed to create a synthesis of these ideals into something better? A society that is free, and just, but with a governmental power that will regulate, protect, and instill civic duty, this seems to be improbable, how you can be free and regulated, as well as just but protected. The only feasible route is to use tribalism to instill civic duty and transform that sense of civic duty into a way that people want to be protected from and regulate the technology demons. This is neither tribalism in nature, nor that of a liberal democracy; it is something different, new, and necessary. Democracy needs a new face, and this face can only come from a synthesis of these conflicting worlds.

Friendship?

“Friend request pending flashes across my television screen. I don’t know anything about this person at all besides their general location… Germany. All I know is that I am a much superior Halo player. Why does he or she, because I have no clue either way, want to be my friend, is it because I trounced him and he wants to learn from my own abilities? What is the purpose behind such a friendship, can I utilize it in anyway? And why me, Germany is too far away for me to even calculate the miles; we could never feasibly meet unless one of us is willing to pay a great price, or if I even want to meet this random stranger. Well, no harm can come from this, why not accept.” The entire previous passage took place instantly across the mind. To be friends was a whole process in which the passage was only a glimpse and yet a conclusion was instantly derived, is this the same for all friendship? The most important thoughts seemed to follow along the lines of; why does he wish to friend me, and the confusion of distance. It seems that with communications being the way they are today, friendship is no longer culturally bound, or even a location thing. Friendship is now a global enterprise and brings up pertinent question, how does causal determinism play in the role of an ever shrinking virtual world? “You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you cannot pick your friends nose!”, but we never pick our friends, friends just happen, so in a world where technology allows us to interact with people across the globe instantly, is there now a choice in the matter?
I.
A good solid definition of determinism is hard to come up with in the field of philosophy because of the definitions of words within a definition, it is therefore imperative to define determinism and its subsequent definitions following the first definition. Determinism shall be defined as: The world is governed by (or is under the sway of) determinism if and only if, given a specified way things are at a time t, the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law. Further explaining is necessary; the world shall be defined as: the entirety of space-time. The way things are at time t is another fuzzy thing but shall mean: the entirety of space given at a specific time. Lastly natural law needs to be defined as: the governing force of space-time that hold true. Therefore a clarified definition of determinism is; the entirety of space-time is governed by determinism if and only if, the entirety of space given at a specific time is thereafter fixed by the governing force of space-time.
So what does it all actually mean? The world has to be explained as the entirety of space-time, because to shorten the range allows for influences that are outside the determinable range. An example would be to limit the range of the world to only our solar system, I could be standing outside having a drink and an asteroid traveling near the speed of light could abruptly enter the solar system, this could have an influence on my actions that was indeterminable beforehand because it is a new event outside the sphere of influence, thus to be completely sure of all possibilities, the entire space-time must be acknowledged. We also further define the way things are at time t because in most cases, when determinism comes into play, we work on the reference of time as a frame by frame, however, determinism can also be seen backwards, the way things are now explain how things were in the prior frame, by adding a thereafter we set time as a foreword momentum in determinism, because we view things in the past as unchangeable, and to our reference frame, things in the past are unchangeable, and if they were changed, we right now wouldn’t know because we are still the results of that change and so it becomes bothersome to view time as multi-directional. The hardest concept to clarify is natural laws, and that is because the natural laws are still, in their entirety unknown, which, to the frame of reference we have, creates a plausible idea of freedom. The laws we do know however, are held to be true. Gravity, speed of light, motion, weight, matter, physics, quantum mechanics, through these physical sciences the physical laws or natural laws are unraveled, giving credence to things of a prior time having a direct effect on things in the present, and thus will have an effect on the future, thereby giving a set of constants in the equation of the universe that we can then work from. With a clear definition of determinism, it can then be applied to the question at hand, how does friendship fit into the picture, or better yet, how does the advancement of technology fit into the determinist theory in accordance to friendship?
II.
Without going into formal research a quick look at the history of friendship can be easily discussed and agreed upon. Friendship started out of necessity, the same way it is generally accepted that communities were created; to protect the interest of the individual with protection of the group. Any large groups will segment into factions and these factions started with ideas shared by individuals. The individuals who work together closely and share secrets, ideas, wealth are what I will call friends. So friends started out as people sharing a similar ideal and growing from that a bond together. And this has held true for a long period of time, before international relations and cultural boundaries, friends existed within communities. Normally people did not leave their communities and so made friends where they were, starting with childhood playing games and coming together.
With the historical sighting of friendship, it can be easily seen how causal determinism will just create friends. Never did a person go out to pick a friend from a group of people, he would just interact and bonds of friendship will be made. An individual’s personality and affluence will create the social and genetic background and events follow through until he is in a sleeping bag on the floor of another’s home sharing secrets and playing games until the early hours of the morning. Eventually, friendship crossed borders, but even these friendships were limited to travel time and letters, nothing overtly active in the friendship. The constant traveler was making constant friends but these friendships were nothing more than networking for future travels, an ease of convenience.
III.
Friendship today is no longer a dire necessary but more a social norm, a recluse has no network to rely on and so friendship is the budding of social networking. Still, this networking is cause-event related, insomuch as individuals still create friends from the surrounding area and this has cultural relevance and normally and affluent one also. If you grew up in the inner city, most of your friends live in the inner-city, if you grew up suburban, most of your friends are suburban. Most but not all, what about the friends who aren’t similar culturally, how did they come about?
The friendships outside of normal boundaries must have a source for determinism to hold true. In the opening thought statement a friend request is pending from Germany, a different culture from a different side of the world, why did the person choose to accept the friend request. His simple answer was a “why not” but what was the full thought process and did he make an actual choice? The very first thought that crossed the pattern is, “was it because I am superior, and trounced him,” this pattern may be causally determined, a decision of skill and pride that the thinker has. The next lines of thought were about the location and possible benefits of the friendship, no actual benefit arises but a deeper look could be at the opportunity to beat the requester again. Playing once again on the pride card, since the thinkers pride is an innate thing it could be inferred that no matter what the thought process fully was, he was going to accept the friend request, leaving no actual choice in the matter.
What if the scenario was different? What if it was a purely random friend request, from a random person in a random part of the world? With the technological world so easily traveled, the distance becomes a null card, which leaves the cultural and affluence boundaries. However since both are playing Halo, it can be assumed that some similarities exist between the two, a competitive nature, a love of gamin, and even some financial means to purchase the system, television, game, internet access, and the capabilities to play the game over the system itself (which indeed costs an additional amount). Even here there are plenty of similarities which makes the questions of complete randomness, impossible. Another scenario is needed to further explore the possibility of freedom in friendship. Suppose the following, a person lives in a tight knit neighborhood with no communication to a world outside the community, and then one day a letter comes in with a complete stranger writing, “How was your day today? I have just completed my first day of classes…” and so forth. The letter was obviously transcribed because of some grammatical errors and by the description of the classes; it’s a completely foreign culture to the person receiving the mailings. This completely random event, in which the boundaries of culture and affluence are crossed, and the person receiving the mailing has no knowledge of anything written in the letter has a choice, to write back or not. Or is the possibility of a choice just an illusion? The receiver of the letter still has his upbringing and his own frame of mind, it would be in his or her personality to respond, not an actual choice in the matter. An opposition may claim that since personality is inherent the thought experiment is really a loaded question, and to that I ask, come up with one that isn’t loaded.
IV.
If all the above is considered to be true, it must follow then that friendship is also determined by factors prior to it in accordance to natural law. How does natural law play an effect on who I am as a person? If we take natural law and use it as an application to man-made laws and genetic law we get the person. I am made up of my genetic pool, these are the results of natural law, and they cannot be changed and is a constant. One cannot choose which genes they are born with as well as be able to be born without any genes; genetics are therefore a natural law. The man-made law or social law follows from the genetic laws of self-preservation. I do not wish to be killed; therefore we make a law against murder. Most man-made laws are either to prevent harm, or to punish those that create harm, either to myself or my property or my community/country. This all derives from the self-preservation given to us in our genetics. And so it can be followed that natural law creates social/man-made law.
If we accept that natural law is the governance by which determinism is possible and that natural law are a set of truths that cannot be changed, then it follows that laws made from these natural laws, though possibly flawed, are determinable and foreseeable, if both natural law and social law are determinable, then it follows that my upbringing is determinable, and if that is determinable as well as my genetic code, it then follows that everything I do is determinable, including the friends I make. Therefore, even with an ever shrinking technological world, a pure random even is an impossibility and the actions I take on what appears to be a random even are determinable, and so a random friend request across my television screen is something that was going to happen, as well as my acceptance of the request, because it was all determinable in accordance with natural laws given at a set time, in a set space.

Agent-Causal Theory by Me

An agent-causal account which relies on indeterminism and probability, as advanced by Clarke, should not be considered accounts of free-will but as an advancement for multi-verse determinism. The account holds free-actions are caused by prior events while denying the sufficient and necessary case of determinism. To provide such a world, the case forwards an indeterminate world based on probability, thus allowing free-actions that are caused by prior events but the prior events do not necessitate a single outcome but a probable outcome in which the agent’s beliefs and desires lead to action. This account resolves the relationship between the agent, reason for the action, and the action which provides credibility to agent-causation but is incomplete as a whole picture.
It is my opinion that the indeterminate case of agent-causation put forth by Clarke and O’Conner are incomplete in the failure to recognize the potential of the other possible actions the agent may cause and that the possible outcomes are determinable through the concept of a multi-verse. The only way to apply Clarke’s account of agent-causation to the concept of multi-verse is through the theory of eternalism. Thus, through eternalism, probabilistic causation is determinable.
I. Eternalism
To understand how probabilistic causation is determinable one must take the first steps to understand eternalism. In the metaphysical debate over time two theories are contended, eternalism and presentism. The conventional model of presentism holds time in three states; past, present and future, and as time passes, the moment that was the present becomes the past, and the future becomes the current present. In this way time “moves” forward into the future and leaves the past behind, thus making everything present. This is also known as the A-theory of time, as based on The Unreality of Time, Taggart. Eternalism views time as a dimension of physics, similar to space, in that everything exists at once, future events are already here as well as past events, this is also known as “Block Time” theory. This theory takes the objective flow of time out of the picture. Taggart mentions the eternalism flow of time as B-series, in that we describe events not in a temporal form as past or future but in terms of before and after.
Eternalism gains its strength through the foreground of physics, the field of special relativity to be exact. By showing that simultaneity is not absolute but relative, it is impossible to say in an absolute sense whether two events happen at the same time if the events are separated in space. Another way to visualize this will be to look through frames of reference to time with a thought experiment. We have two individuals, one riding in the center of a bus and the other sitting on the side of the road, it is dark outside and the lights inside the bus are off. The man sitting in the bus turns on his flashlight at the same moment the bus passes the man sitting on the side of the road. To the person on the bus, the light from the flashlight reaches both ends at the exact time, while to the person sitting on the side of the road, the light reaches the back of the bus before it reaches the front. This difference in perception is based on the motion of the bus, but the aspect of time in this case is different, thus ensuring that simultaneity is relative and not absolute. In other words, special relativity makes no distinction between past future or present.
Eternalism turns time into a dimensional objectivity, and that it cannot be changed, all events along time are now so to speak and that we feel a flow of time because of the relativity we take to it. A clock therefore does not measure time but instead measures the temporal amount between events, much like a tape measure marks distance. Is eternalism compatible with probable causation? And if so, what does it say about agent causation?
II. Multi-verse Theory
Eternalism is compatible with probable causation, no matter how strange the concept seems. Eternalism as stated is acknowledging time as relative to the individual while also being a dimension of physics, thus it would be assumed that eternalism falls more in line with determinism, however another theory has been proposed to place eternalism with probable causation, multi-verse theory, or modal realism as put forth by Leibniz and Lewis. The main tenets of Modal Realism are:
1. Possible worlds exist
2. Possible worlds are the same sort as out own (differ in content not in kind)
3. Possible worlds are irreducible entities.
4. Actuality is indexical.
5. Possible worlds are unified by the spatiotemporal interrelations of their parts; every world is spatiotemporally isolated from every other world.
6. Possible worlds are causally isolated from one another.
The fourth tenet relates to the concept of my world being the real world, where as it is only the real world because it is the world that I live in. The fifth and sixth tenets separate possible worlds from having any effect on other possible worlds,, which I believe effective cuts us off from being able to discover if multi-verse theory exists or doesn’t exist. Lewis defends modal realism with a few reasons. The strongest being that we have no reason no to believe modal realism. Another is the creation of experiments analyzing the what if, and that studying the “what-if” scenario has become its own accepted structure, so a world of the what if is plausibly acceptable.
Modal realism relates to eternalism in that by applying possible worlds to a relationship between eternalism and probable causation we can build a set of worlds in which each probability happens and that eternalism holds true for each of these worlds. Thus each probable world has time as a dimension of physics without interfering with any of the other possible worlds, and each probable world ends up being a deterministic world.
III. The Loss of Agent-Causation
Clarke’s agent-causal account of free-will falters in light of eternalism and modal realism. Where the agent-causal account accepts that events are caused and that the agent makes choices based on probability, the account of modal realism takes all the possibilities the agent could make and creates a world for each action. If the premise of eternalism holds true in that time is a dimensional aspect of physics and is relative to the individual then it follows that there is no future or past or present, there is only the frame of reference to time thus all events are happening, the stone age is happening at the same time as Martians building empires on earth (possible future) it is only a frame of reference that measures the events, thus determinism holds true with eternalism. Since determinism holds true for each possible world in modal realism, it then concludes that agent-causation through an event probable world is still determined. All possible outcomes the agent could make have their own world and each of these worlds is a determined one through eternalism.
To finish, eternalism is the theory that time is a dimension of physics, proven through special relativity, using simultaneity thought experiments it can be shown that time is relative not absolute. An indeterminate world that follows probabilistic causation is compatible with eternalism in the effect of modal realism theory. If eternalism holds in each possible world of modal realism then determinism holds in each world of modal realism. If an agent-causal account of free will is based on indeterminism, it then follows that each possible world of the agents choice exists and that each of these worlds are determined, thus each of the agents possible choices still fall into deterministic settings through eternalism.