It's interesting to consider Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, and the tree of knowledge in this context. From a certain perspective, we are captive by our physicality, by our material goods and our ability to get more, and by our mortality. It seems the question comes down to whether or not a will was exerted upon us. We don't consider our lifespan to be captivity, even if it is shorter than average as long as it wasn't imposed upon us. But if someone does something to shorten our life, or to reduce the quality of it, then it starts to look like captivity. Are drafted soldiers captives, even if they believe in the cause behind the war? Does it matter that more of them would resist if they were older, with more life experience and children?
Hm, certainly in a sense of: Is it always better to take the red pill? One could go even further: Does confirming to the above statement equal to making Freedom your god?It's interesting to consider Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, and the tree of knowledge in this context.
Adam and Eve ate an apple, gained the knowledge of sin, and as the story goes things went downhill from there. I think there's always the possibility that we might be better off without certain pieces of knowledge (the atom bomb), but we can also become better off via new knowledge at least as often (vaccines). Adam and Eve lived in a utopia. We don't. At the point where there is something to be gained, we should always be searching for new knowledge, hoping that a new piece of information might be the key that unlocks the cage we never knew we were in.
I'd think not -- if at the time of choosing to go to war they believed in the cause and genuinely wanted to go, then they're not captives. However, if after having experienced war and changing their minds, they weren't allowed to leave, then they would be captives. As you said, it all comes down to whether we acted of our own volition or not. That does get quite complicated when you ask yourself if it's possible to make someone want to do something without them knowing, though. It's possible to influence someone towards a certain choice and have the person believe that the choice was theirs. To me, that just goes to show that all we have is the illusion of free will.