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by swid 3 hours ago
It’s funny you defend your independence by giving explanations of how you changed your peanut butter buying habits. The point was we don’t care what kind of peanut butter you buy; it’s not a meaningful kind of choice to have.
1 comments

First, whether something is meaningful or not, depends on the subject.

Independence here isn't about whether your mind exists in a parallel world - devoid of external inputs - it's whether your input is required for an action to happen or not. They didn't simply comply with a choice from above, they experimented and came with an option that works for them. It doesn't matter whether that's a common choice or not, but who held the final authority in it.

In centralized systems, your input is, in theory, basically irrelevant/in practice, completely irrelevant unless you happen to the central authority.