If you think you can't optimize your way into something, your objective function or constraints are simply wrong. You can always optimize.
You can't optimize your way to being a good person
21–30 of 173 posts
Re: You can't optimize your way to being a good person
#22If you think you can't optimize your way into something, your objective function or constraints are simply wrong. You can always optimize.
Au contraire, I wear very large shoes, so my step size becomes a limiting factor at some point.
Re: You can't optimize your way to being a good person
#23If you spend all your time worrying about how to be a good person, chances are you're not being a good person. Just go do nice things. Volunteer somewhere. Be of service. And stop worrying so much
Re: You can't optimize your way to being a good person
#24Earlier 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.
If you imagine therapy as a way to condition some sort of gradient descent on emotions and awareness you can already see the problem.
The implication of your statement is you eventually reach some global optima. The reality is you become over-aware of some things and under-aware of others. This is the local optima and you've been caught in a bowl. Therapy "works" when your local optima is "good enough" for your own definition of done. However, it can often take several "bumps" out of those local optima to find it and once again you haven't really "optimized" like you are implying.
I would think the focus on optimization of emotional and awareness skills would simply lead to more, not less, anxiety. It sounds like the same problem people have with always being online and being a good "global citizen". In this example, like your example, when you feed your learning algorithm data about some war in a far off land you necessarily reduce the weight on your immediate surroundings.
Therefore, I believe it's impossible to "optimize" such things without making significant learning losses. Better to succumb to the brownian motion of life - imo.
Re: You can't optimize your way to being a good person
#25"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, Virg…
I've been accused of having "pathological empathy" before [1], and to this day I refuse to accept that empathy is a weakness.
Being able to fairly easily put myself in someone else's shoes is pretty much the only thing I actually like about myself. I feel like part of what defines us as a species is learning how to understand people who do not deserve us to understand them.
In 2023 my iPhone was stolen (story is parent to the linked comment). They eventually caught the kid who stole the phone, and I refused to press charges. Pretty much everyone thought I was dumb for doing that, but I didn't see it that way; I didn't see any good coming from throwing a 17 year old kid into jail, and I remember how stupid I was when I was 17.
I doubt he's going to have some Les Misérables moment and turn his life around, but I would hope that if I were caught for something stupid when I was 17 someone else would have extended me the same benefit of the doubt. I don't regret it.
Re: You can't optimize your way to being a good person
#26I'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…
Belief systems generally lack properties of identity to prove anything by logic or rational method.
The first thing you need to prove anything is an objective unique definition, which isn't generally possible in the realm of the mind for all people, because we generally lack knowing or sufficient perception, making comparisons subjective.
There could be optimization towards minimizing objectively destructive acts (evil), and the blindness associated with evil people , through rational objective practices and measures. Evil people being those who commit evil acts while blinding themselves in acts of self-violation, to the consequences of their actions; repeating them.
Quite a lot of people today are no longer capable and fall to delusion because they were indoctrinated with false education and frameworks of thinking following a critical turn.
When the insane are running an insane asylum, everyone in there dies from starvation, its just a matter of time waiting for the right circumstances.
Re: You can't optimize your way to being a good person
#27"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, Virg…
I've been accused of having "pathological empathy" before [1], and to this day I refuse to accept that empathy is a weakness. Being able to fairly easily put myself in someone else's shoes is pretty much the only thing I actually like about myself. I feel like part of what defines us as a species is learning how to understand people who do not deserve us to understand them. In 2023 my iPhone was stolen (story is pare…
I encounter stuff like that, almost every day.
It's really important for me to feel empathy for others. It is not the same as weakness.
I was always told that it's really important to understand our enemies, and that often includes admitting that they are human, and have human motives.
That's not the same as being weak.
I've also been told "If you want to understand rats, talk to an exterminator."
Re: You can't optimize your way to being a good person
#28Re: You can't optimize your way to being a good person
#29"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, Virg…
I've been accused of having "pathological empathy" before [1], and to this day I refuse to accept that empathy is a weakness. Being able to fairly easily put myself in someone else's shoes is pretty much the only thing I actually like about myself. I feel like part of what defines us as a species is learning how to understand people who do not deserve us to understand them. In 2023 my iPhone was stolen (story is pare…
I guess i would have done the same.
Do they throw 17 yos in jail, where you live? If so, do they do that over stealing a phone? If so... maybe it would be more moral in stepping into a political career and try to change some laws?
Re: You can't optimize your way to being a good person
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been accused of having "pathological empathy" before [1], and to this day I refuse to accept that empathy is a weakness. Being able to fairly easily put myself in someone else's shoes is pretty much the only thing I actually like about myself. I feel like part of what defines us as a species is learning how to understand people who do not deserve us to understand them. In 2023 my iPhone was stolen (story is pare…
I guess i would have done the same. Do they throw 17 yos in jail, where you live? If so, do they do that over stealing a phone? If so... maybe it would be more moral in stepping into a political career and try to change some laws?
I knew someone that spent about 18 years in Maximum Security adult prison, from 17, because he burgled the house of an important person.
One of the smartest people I ever knew. Probably had an IQ of 140. He was an HVAC tech, and had trouble staying employed.
It totally wrecked his life, and he ended badly.
Yes, we do that stuff in the US.