i don't even believe in karma -- not the way people usually mean it when they say it. everyone seems to think it means "what goes around comes around." sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. what it really means, to me at least, is more like the butterfly effect, and it has nothing to do with justice, comeuppance, reward, punishment or anything like that. in fact, cause and effect is already a good phrase for what i think karma means. so why do we even need the word karma? it's not an english word, or at least it didn't used to be. it's fine. in the sense of this meme, nope, no karma. in the sense i just said, yeah, just another word for impartial cause and effect.

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Karma is bullshit.

There is of course a weak tendency for outcomes to have something to do with one's intentions and efforts. And there are, obviously, natural consequences. Smoke, and increase your odds of certain cancers and other maladies. But even that is a bit random. I know someone with longstanding addiction issues who is the picture of health anyway. Compare that to another person I know who was always a straight arrow and healthy living person but died just today of breast cancer metastasized to the brain.

The other bullshit here is that for a person to "deserve" or "earn" something there has to be a concocted moral system with carrots and sticks in place and this requires a Concoter. I understand that karma is supposed to be an impersonal system but it's still a system and while nature has self-organizing complexity there is no evidence that has convinced me that there's a feedback mechanism around how people exercise their agency.