Photo by Todd Quackenbush on Unsplash

We tend to think of society as a super-organism that follows strict rules and runs like clockwork. At a macroscopic level, this description is fairly correct. But at an individual level, things tend to differ quite a lot.

Unlike other organisms, humans have the luxurious advantage of deciding whether or not they will do something at any given time. Unless someone is holding a gun to your head, you are pretty much free to do whatever you want, every second of every day. Free will hasn’t always played out well for humanity, but it’s undeniable that we have it in copious amounts.