One cannot control their thoughts.

I want to know what you mean by this.

I don’t know that i fully disagree with you, I don’t get to will myself to instantly think any thought, but i have a plethora of tools at my disposal to manage my thought processes. when i find myself thinking thoughts that violate my values i introduce counter thoughts to balance it all out, or sometimes i just cut it off with a “we’re done here for now” kinda vibe. I can control what kind of thoughts pop into my head in response to external stimuli by altering my values. Meditation and prayer also provide a means to alter or dissipate the flow of thoughts. Many of my values are at odds with each other, so i must partake in a seemingly constant exercise of identifying and resolving the dissonances in my values either internally (changing my values) or externally (attempting to alter the world around me to match my values).

As a software engineer who values humanity has done a good bit of work with “the cloud”, i think your dad has the right set of feelings towards the cloud. That fucking cloud can go get bent