This topic still interests me. I want to throw some more interest into the mix.
I'm going to bring up some scenarios, I want to know to what degree others agree. Blame it on my curiosity and strange desire to cement my thoughts into writing.
Are these things the result of someone's choice, are they avoidable by your choice, or are they unavoidable by choices?
My opinion on the right.
*
Natural disasters. Hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, earthquakes, blizzards, floods.
Unavoidable. We have not invented weather-modification systems.
Disasters that come with warning (hurricanes, some blizzards, some floods)
may be personally avoided by leaving the affected area before it strikes.
*
Personal natural disasters. Lightning strikes, drowning, hypothermia, etc.
For the most part, what are you doing outside during a thunderstorm?
*
Freak accidents. Getting hit by a drunk driver, being hit by a stray bullet, being impaled or crushed by random things flying out from faulty equipment.
I discussed "randomness" earlier. These type are almost always the result
of the choice of another person. They may be avoided yourself by making a
different choice (driving home a different route, walking into a different room,
planning to do things on a different day, not working on a certain project, etc.)
but you are never given the information necessary to tell you it's a good idea
to make a different choice.
*
Mental illness.
This brings up the never-ending nature/nurture argument. I lean to
the nurture side of middle. I believe the majority of mental illness is caused by
someone's choices, whether the individual's own or someone else.
I also believe genetics plays some role, giving some susceptibility to
mental illness but not causing it in most cases. This again is an uninformed
choice - you probably don't know that you and the person you marry will
give your child susceptibility to X.
There are also "random" genetic mutations. We don't always know what
triggers them, though it may very well be another uninformed choice.
Who knows.
*
Physical illness. Everything from allergies to the flu to ebola to menstrual cramps to infertility to acne to skin cancer to tension headaches to epilepsy to restless leg syndrome to ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) and on and on.
This is a touchy topic, just like mental illness.
I tend to think of most of this as that aforementioned uninformed choice.
There's no way of knowing that the guy who fathered your child happens
to have some gene that increases the chance for this strange disease,
and you just happen to be a carrier too ... but if you had chosen a
different guy or your mother had chosen a different guy, your child
(if they even exist) would not have the disease. That doesn't mean
anyone shouldn't have made the choices they did, because they had
no way of knowing.
Then there are some diseases that are direct results of choices where
the outcome was known. Fetal alcohol syndrome. Cervical cancer
caused by HPV caused by reckless sex. Skin cancer caused by
going tanning as a teenager. And so on.
*
Crime. Murder, robbery, rape, kidnapping, assault ...
This is obviously the result of the perpetrator's choices.
Whatever his motivation behind committing the crime, the
choice is still his. The victim in some cases may avoid it as a result
of an informed choice, in most cases it is another uninformed choice.
Crime as a result of mental illness has the same reasoning as given
for mental illness in general above.
*
Fill in the blank. :happy: Anybody have a scenario to throw out?
And now a story which shows how choices you may not know about (uninformed choices) affect the outcome of your life.
When she was in high school, my mom wanted to work in the medical field, I think she wanted to be a doctor. From what I know happened, she got diabetes and missed out on a lot of school or something and was not able to/decided not to pursue this. I'm going to assume this affected her choice of college, as she went to a liberal arts school. She met my dad there. They got married. I'm going to call that choice #1 and 2.
Because of difficult/impossible to control diabetes, she had more than one miscarriage (I think two). This is choice #3 ... why? Because every time they had sex, there was the possibility of pregnancy. Every pregnancy had the possibility of miscarriage. Doesn't mean they could have ever known what would happen. Uninformed choice.
After I was born, I was breastfed. Choice #4. (More info later.)
After I stopped breastfeeding, problems began in one of her breasts. In 1996, she had a mammogram and was told this was not due to cancer. Choice #5 was to believe these results. (Also semi-uninformed, because seriously, if you had a test done because you thought you might have cancer, and it said you didn't ... most people would probably believe it.)
In 1998, she was diagnosed with stage 4 (?) breast cancer which had spread extensively, especially to her spine and other bones. By this point, there was not much that could be done realistically, but they sure as hell tried. She died in November of 1999.
Now, explanation and analysis:
A lot of, if not most miscarriages in early pregnancy are due to low hormone levels, whatever reason causes them. Breast changes in pregnancy are caused by hormones. Before pregnancy, breast tissue is ... I guess you could call it "immature." It goes through changes during pregnancy that change the tissue ...
Women who have never been pregnant have a higher risk of developing breast cancer than those who have completed a pregnancy. Women who have had a miscarriage don't appear to have more risk, because of the hormone level thing discussed above. Breastfeeding gives some protection against breast cancer.
Now, my mom's miscarriages were
not caused by (pregnancy) hormone problems. They were because of blood sugar problems. This means that changes in the breast tissue were
started but not finished ... leading to much more risk of cancer.
Anyways ...
Choice #1 and 2 - If she had not gone to the college she did, she wouldn't have met my dad. She may have then remained single, meaning she never would have gotten pregnant, meaning she might not have gotten cancer.
Choice #3 - Obviously, if she never had sex she wouldn't have gotten pregnant. Duhrrrrr ...
Choice #4 - If she
hadn't breastfed me, the cancer might have progressed quicker. This could have either led to earlier detection (which could have made her live longer) or could have led to quicker death.
Choice #5 - If the cancer had been detected earlier, it could have made treatment more successful.
Summarizing ...
Each of these choices were uninformed choices. There was no way of knowing the final outcome (her death) but nevertheless they did all play into what transpired. In hindsight, it is easy to say "she should have ..." but in reality there is no way to know.
Why do I make such long posts?????
TL;DR?
