One of the things most misunderstood is the concept of free will. Most people have the misconception that we all have free will and (more or less) can "do whatever we want." In reality, this is actually false . While we have the ability to make certain choices, those choices are all constrained to certain norms on average, based upon the reward of dopamine. As Dave Pollard writes about a year ago, " Everything we do is dopamine-driven , based on experiences that have, through positive reinforcement or coercion, been dictated by our entirely ‘unconscious’ behavior since we were born. There is no ‘us’ somehow apart from these evolutionarily conditioned animal bodies, to intervene to do things differently." Now, Dave explains why assigning blame is pretty much useless and nothing more than theater here . Nate Hagens adds this to the mix. Update 3-24-24: A new article about Robert Sapolsky's book, Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will , explains ...