Fate, And The Complications Therin

[Seil]

So a while back, we talked about the movie Stranger Than Fiction, about an author dictating the life of Will Ferrel. People talked about disliking the principal of the film because

Originally Posted by Door Mat

I absolutely loathe the idea of predestination in the mystical, incomprehensible universal plot sense where if I can predict that I'll choke on some food and decide not to eat that food, a bridge promptly falls on me because the very fabric of creation wants me to die. If you can predict the future and see your own death, you can take measures to prevent it (unless it's completely out of your power to prevent, like an uncruable disease or old age). The concept of not being able to prevent a predicted death through disease, or old age, or overwhelming power isn't exactly new territory within philosophy, nor are its ramifications.

If a lot of people dislike the idea of pre-destination, what do you think of the new movie coming out, The Readjustment Bureau?

Now, the dictionary defines fate as

1.
something that unavoidably befalls a person; fortune; lot: It is always his fate to be left behind.
2.
the universal principle or ultimate agency by which the order of things is presumably prescribed; the decreed cause of events; time: Fate decreed that they would never meet again.
3.
that which is inevitably predetermined; destiny: Death is our ineluctable fate.
4.
a prophetic declaration of what must be: The oracle pronounced their fate.

And some people don't like the idea that they're not in control of what goes on in their lives. Other people might call those in the first group "control-freaks." I, myself, don't really care. Whether there's something laid out for me or whether I'm walking blind, it doesn't matter.

While it is unlikely that a group of individuals control the lives of billions of people, and that they've got a plan for each and every person, the underlying premise of the The Readjustment Bureau is still the same as Stranger Than Fiction; they're controlling lives.

Is that really a bad thing, that we're not in control of our destinies?