I've tried to have this type of conversation many times with many people over the past few years. I've found that not only are they resistive to this sort of take, but it frequently makes people angry if you try to take this position in the argument. And this is even with people who I can debate politics with for hours without it devolving into a shouting match.

I'm not sure what it is about the idea that triggers this reaction, but it's always very exciting for me when I find other people who are having the same lines of thought on these matters as I am.

We're just extremely complex machines, and IMO that means free-will is just an illusion. If we're deterministic machines, there is no free will.