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You can't optimize your way to being a good person

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Re: You can't optimize your way to being a good person

#11

Post by nonrandomstring »

unsui wrote: post #7
burgh wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does not lead to obsessive/compulsive behaviour if you simply optimize your emotional and awareness skills first.

> It does not lead to obsessive/compulsive behaviour if you simply optimize your emotional and awareness skills first. I don't think you understand what optimizing entails. Optimization is inherently antithetical to balance, in principle. Optimization is looking for local/global maxima. Balance is releasing the need from seeking local/global maxima entirely. I mean, you could try to seek balance through optimization.…

Surfing really helps. And maybe if you get it on a physical/body level then "going with it" seeps into your mind somehow?

Re: You can't optimize your way to being a good person

#12

Post by roughly »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #6

I'm a moral incompletist. That is, no consistent system of axioms whose theorems can be listed by an effective procedure is capable of proving all truths about moral actions. Either moral systems are complete, or they are consistent. Consistency and completeness are requirements for optimization, so the idea of moral optimization is dead on arrival for me. It's simply not possible, and like the author one will drive…

That's a good way to phrase it, and something I agree with. I'd heard the phrase "epistemological modesty" a while back, and it goes nicely with this - I think a great deal of harm is done in this world by people looking at other people suffering and either convincing themselves or being convinced that there's a greater systemic reason why those people need to suffer. Epistemological modesty suggests whatever grand designs we're contemplating are likely wrong, moral incompletionism suggests they can never be fully right, and both together suggest it's immoral to ignore suffering today because of some imagined future for some other people.

Re: You can't optimize your way to being a good person

#13

Post by poincaredisk »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #6

I'm a moral incompletist. That is, no consistent system of axioms whose theorems can be listed by an effective procedure is capable of proving all truths about moral actions. Either moral systems are complete, or they are consistent. Consistency and completeness are requirements for optimization, so the idea of moral optimization is dead on arrival for me. It's simply not possible, and like the author one will drive…

>Either moral systems are complete, or they are inconsistent.

So you mean "incomplete or inconsistent"? It sounds like this is what you meant.

Then I disagree. Two examples of a complete and consistent (and computable) moral system:

* everything is good

* everything is evil

Re: You can't optimize your way to being a good person

#14

Post by f1shy »

burgh wrote: post #5
unsui wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

therapy will generally recommend removing the need to optimize entirely, in order to achieve an emotional homeostasis (particularly given that the need to optimize often leads to obsessive/compulsive behavior). so, no

It does not lead to obsessive/compulsive behaviour if you simply optimize your emotional and awareness skills first.

I think you are overestimating how much an average person can change itself. I’ve seen therapy helping to surmount some hurdles, but completely changing a person, in a positive way, rarely. Again keyword: average.

Re: You can't optimize your way to being a good person

#15

Post by matwood »

Clubber wrote: post #8

I always tell my daughter to be a kind person because there is currently an oversupply of assholes. I try to compliment someone on something whenever I go out and about. I like your hair, I like your shirt, etc. It's the simple things. The author and their anecdotes seem like compulsive behavior/thinking. They'll hopefully get over it once life beats them down a bit more. Just be good to people, don't over think it.

> I try to compliment someone on something whenever I go out and about.

And if you can't do that, just ask people how are they doing.

Re: You can't optimize your way to being a good person

#16

Post by kelseyfrog »

poincaredisk wrote: post #13
kelseyfrog wrote: post #6

I'm a moral incompletist. That is, no consistent system of axioms whose theorems can be listed by an effective procedure is capable of proving all truths about moral actions. Either moral systems are complete, or they are consistent. Consistency and completeness are requirements for optimization, so the idea of moral optimization is dead on arrival for me. It's simply not possible, and like the author one will drive…

>Either moral systems are complete, or they are inconsistent. So you mean "incomplete or inconsistent"? It sounds like this is what you meant. Then I disagree. Two examples of a complete and consistent (and computable) moral system: * everything is good * everything is evil

d'oh. Thank you, You're right. Edited to reflect what I was trying to say.

Re: You can't optimize your way to being a good person

#17

Post by jimt1234 »

Clubber wrote: post #8

I always tell my daughter to be a kind person because there is currently an oversupply of assholes. I try to compliment someone on something whenever I go out and about. I like your hair, I like your shirt, etc. It's the simple things. The author and their anecdotes seem like compulsive behavior/thinking. They'll hopefully get over it once life beats them down a bit more. Just be good to people, don't over think it.

> there is currently an oversupply of assholes.

My grandpa used to say, "There are more horses' asses than there are horses."

Looks like there's a history around that quote: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2024/11/15/horses-ass/

Re: You can't optimize your way to being a good person

#18

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

"Being a good person" has been a theme in my entire adult life. I'm a member of an organization that stresses personal improvement (amongst other things).

"Being a good person" can vary, by culture and context.

For example, some cultures prescribe brusqueness, and direct communication, while other cultures want us to always "beat around the bush," before coming to the point. Think New York City, versus Richmond, Virginia.

These are just communication styles, but they can be interpreted as attacking, or dishonesty. In either case, it's entirely possible for someone to label the other as "not-nice," when the opposite may actually be the case.

I have found that fundamental Empathy, and reducing my own self-centeredness helps. Accepting others, and always looking for the good, before the bad, has helped me.

And, as has been pointed out, the older I get, the less simple my relationships are, with others.

Re: You can't optimize your way to being a good person

#20

Post by trod1234 »

You can be a good person by minimizing being objectively evil. If you can't see things you can't optimize things, which the title suggests, but the content itself is lacking in proper support while not covering certain obvious aspects, not lacking in volume. They were quite mistaken about a number of things.

Objectively, evil people (at least in the past) is characterized by a willful blindness to the consequences of said person's evil actions. Evil acts being objectively destructive acts.

Altruism and its derivatives as belief systems are evil.

They are value systems where a person's worth is only based upon what they give up to others. Under such belief systems, if you aren't selfless, you are evil and have no worth.

People use false claims and false justification under these systems, of all sorts, to blind themselves and by extension result in destructive acts towards the ideal of what the system considers good.

To be selfless, and impose that on others, eventually to the point of destruction (others), and eventual self-destruction (self). Its all quite wrong.

You can't optimize towards truth or beneficial outcomes, if you don't recognize the truth or those outcomes. Generally speaking, there are far more things that you can do that are destructive, than there are those that are beneficial.

Its also of primary important to retain an objective grip on reality. Blindness leads to delusion.

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