Choices, choices, choices, choices, choices, choices. You make thousands of them everyday. And nearly everyone of them changes the outcome of everyone on earth who is connected to the modern global society. Think about it... you're walking down the street and you get a text. You can either stop in your track to check this text message or you can do so while you keep walking..... You choose to keep walking. You don't realize someone is walking in the opposite direction towards you, the two of you almost bump into each other but instead just freeze up for a second and a half, smile at each other and keep walking. The other person walks to their car and start driving. The light turns yellow, the driver almost makes it but... no. "If only I had another second". It turns green and he continues driving, there's a pedestrian who wants to cross the street but she has to wait for the same car to drive. This person loses three seconds. Goes to the store and is third in line, would've been second if she was there two seconds earlier. The man in front of her finishes quicker because he's second instead of third and goes on with his life. Everything this man does for the rest of this day is about a minute earlier than it would've been in a different scenario. Eventually someone in a city four hours away gets hit by a car and dies. Because of a chain of reactions that traveled over hours, almost a day if not two or three. From person to person, choice to choice lead to this victim being at the wrong place at the wrong time. If only you had stopped to answer your text. In a philosophical sense... you're a murderer. And eventually another person's choice will kill you.
Just as much as you can say we all caused someone's death, which I don't disagree with.. you can say that we all saved someone's life as well. How you look at the countless, intertwined chains of cause and effect really depends on your general outlook on life.
That is just the old butterfly effect haha. Butterfly lands on a tree, distracts a squirrel who drops its acorn, acorn lands on a rabbit which jumps out into the road, a driver swerves to miss the rabbit and drives into a ravine, the car lands on a school bus which then explodes, that causes a forest fire and 175 people die.
Our lives and deaths are made and changed by the lives and deaths of others Lets give this up before it's too late. lol
Imagine if the justice system worked on this basis lol...all murder mystery's would be solved like a million millenniums later...long after the person that caused the death of a person died
By posting this, YOU are NOW reading it...and by reading it, YOU are NOT walking out to get in your car...which would otherwise be hit by another car...which NOW is just passing the direct point in space and time that had your number on it. You OWE me MAN.
I think your intentions are what matter the most. If you intend on killing a million people you're a bad person even if you don't succeed. But if you had no intention of hurting anyone and you accidently kill one million people then you're not really evil. You're clumsy as fuck but not evil.
By this logic we control everything on this planet because if we didn't exist surely the world would be a much different place. Control or cause usually implies a much more direct action that people knowingly partake in. For example if Ted decides he's gonna shoot the first person who he sees wearing a red hat. Can we really say that Suzy caused her own death by wearing a red hat that day. I mean yes you could say that it's her fault but it has very little meaning because one can't reasonably predict that wearing a red hat will lead to geting shot.
It's not Suzy's fault. It's the fault of whomever caused whatever line of events through various people that lead one person to put Suzy on a path to buy that ugly hat. But "fault" is not the right word. It's not anyone fault unless intentional. But it's equally true that Ted saved 100 people by killing Suzy.
This morning I was just about to leave my door to catch my bus, I decided to go back inside and grab a pack of gum off the table. After that I went to catch my bus but missed it by like 3 seconds. If I didn't go get that gum I would have made it to work on time
Yeah this is the Butterfly Effect. Does the flap of a Butterfly's wings in Brazil, set off a Tornado in Texas?