MonkeyPlug

Do you think there is an important distinction to be made here between being "published" and being "self-published"? Not to detract from your accomplishments, but those processes aren't analogous.

That's been my experience too. I don't have anything against self-publishing, but it's a bit shady to not be up front about it. If you really want to be technical, anyone who makes a comment on Reddit is a published author.

Right, I agree with you, but there's something disingenuous when a self-published author isn't clear about their pay-for-play when answering questions like "what's the best way to find a publisher or to get the attention of a publisher?" The answer to this question should be "I paid someone some money and the publication of my work wasn't a based on its quality." and definitely not some version of "follow your dreams...".

Also, when they say something like "I can't believe I'm finally published!" How can they not believe it when they paid the amount required for the publication?

Is it true that flight attendants “dust the crops” around passengers they don’t like? I also heard, when you’re collecting the trash of bad passengers you like to ask “You’re trash, your family’s trash”. Is that true?

The reason I doubt the existence of free will is that all choice seems to be heavily (maybe entirely) dictated by our experience and personality traits. What do you think of the following "thought experiment": a person has two choices, A or B. His choosing of A feels like it was made freely, but all of his life experience and the qualities of his personality (which are also shaped by experience) have some immeasurable effect on this choice. Now, after choosing A, imagine that time can be rewound to the point just prior to his choosing. He has no memory of the previous choice. Would it be possible for him to choose anything but A in his second choosing? I would argue that it's not likely, and that this is because of the weight of his experiences and personality.

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I have absolutely no evidence to support this, but it sticks in my mind when I consider free will. Maybe you, or someone else, can point out an error in my reasoning.