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

Optimization vs Moral Goodness

• Some argue you can “optimize” toward being better, via therapy or deliberate practice, but good therapy often reduces compulsive optimization rather than feeding it.
• Others say optimization is inherently about chasing maxima and is opposed to balance; attempting to “optimize” emotions or morality risks anxiety, OCD‑like behavior, and over‑attention to distant issues at the cost of local life.
• Several comments suggest that overthinking morality leads to analysis paralysis; being decent often requires less abstraction and more action.

Limits of Moral Systems

• One line of discussion applies incompleteness ideas: any formal moral system is likely incomplete or inconsistent, so “moral optimization” on a single framework is doomed.
• This leads to “epistemic modesty”: accept that no system captures all moral truth, so using grand theories to justify current suffering is dangerous.
• Others stress that “good” and “evil” themselves are constructed within systems; attempts to anchor them in physics or entropy are challenged.

Kindness, Empathy, and Everyday Practice

• Many emphasize small, concrete habits: kindness to strangers, compliments, parking farther away to leave close spots for those with mobility issues, “do no harm.”
• Empathy is widely valued but debated: some distinguish emotional vs cognitive empathy and warn that excess emotional empathy can bias decisions or cause burnout.
• Several stories illustrate choosing leniency (not pressing charges, not demanding someone be fired) out of empathy, with commenters split on whether this is wise or naive.

Consequences, Justice, and “Toxic Empathy”

• A substantial subthread disputes whether refusing to prosecute a non‑lethal crime is compassionate or “toxic empathy” that ignores future victims and deterrence.
• There is also discussion of the US prison system: some see incarceration as mainly producing worse offenders; others argue that consequences and structured intervention can stop criminal escalation.

Effective Altruism and Optimization Culture

• Some see effective altruism as exactly the kind of moral optimization the article criticizes; others defend it as simply “if you care about X, use methods that best achieve X.”
• Skeptics point to association with high‑profile fraud and label EA a cultish scam; defenders reply that one bad actor doesn’t invalidate the idea.

Religious and Philosophical Frames

• Religious commenters frame goodness as love of God and neighbor, emphasize effort over perfection, and sometimes explicitly reject trolley‑problem tradeoffs.
• Others argue utilitarianism mischaracterizes morality; being a “good specimen of human nature” and living in accord with our nature is offered as an alternative criterion.

Reactions to the Article

• Several find the piece patronizing, vague, or saying little beyond “don’t obsess”; others think the core warning—against moral perfectionism and self‑optimization spirals—is valid.