You are how you act

Agency, Feelings, and Training Your Responses

• Several commenters dispute the claim that you can “always decide what to do next,” noting emotions and impulses often override conscious choice.
• Others argue that noticing emotional states and training yourself to pause is a skill: reflection, practice, and techniques like meditation can gradually weaken impulsive control.
• A caveat is raised: over‑suppressing can lead to emotional disconnection; better to acknowledge emotions in the moment, decide whether they’re useful, and let them pass.
• Stoicism, Buddhism, and therapeutic ideas (e.g., examining thoughts that generate emotions) are cited as longstanding frameworks for this kind of training.

Free Will vs. Determinism

• Some invoke neuroscience and classic experiments to argue free will is an illusion; “agency” is a useful fiction layered over deterministic processes.
• Others push back: even if we’re “finite state machines,” inputs (like being told you must choose) still change outcomes, so acting as if we have agency remains pragmatically important.
• A few note that saying “we must pretend we choose” is internally inconsistent if no choice exists at all.

Actions, Intentions, and “Fake It Till You Make It”

• Supporters of the article’s Franklin-style view like its focus on repeated actions shaping character and on virtue as habit rather than essence. People with autism and narcissistic traits echo that “doing the right thing” despite inner resistance can still build a good life and protect others.
• Critics say this ignores intentions and moral psychology: many traditions (Aristotle, religious ethics, etc.) treat motive and act as a single moral unit. Purely behaviorist views risk absolving well‑intentioned but harmful actions, or validating fraud.
• “Fake it till you make it” draws heavy skepticism: repeated deception mainly turns you into a liar, especially in startup/“hustle” contexts. Others defend a narrow use for combating imposter syndrome or building small virtues.

Authenticity, Masks, and Identity

• Some argue the “mask becomes the face”: sustained outward behavior can reshape inner dispositions, for better or worse.
• Others worry this endorses inauthentic, performative selves in service of usefulness and social reward, deepening modern authenticity problems.

Body, Mood, and Limits of Willpower

• Commenters stress that mood and behavior are strongly influenced by physical health (sleep, gut, etc.). Willpower is finite; trying to “will” yourself out of a neglected body is unreliable.
• A suggested synthesis: mind intentionally cares for body; body in turn supports mind, forming a feedback loop.

Moral “Scorekeeping” and Good Deed Math

• The article’s Franklin framing is contrasted with “good deed math”: doing some good to justify unrelated harms.
• Some say the piece underplays this danger and veers toward “ends justify the means” entrepreneurialism, where success is retroactively taken as evidence of goodness.

Critiques of the Philosophical Framing

• Multiple commenters see the Rousseau vs. Franklin dichotomy as a caricature: Rousseau is more nuanced than “pure inner self,” and many traditions (including American religious views) aren’t even mentioned.
• Others note that defining “the modern American self” through just two Enlightenment figures is historically and philosophically shallow.

Author’s Credibility and Meta/Facebook Ethics

• A large subthread attacks the author’s role at Meta: past internal memos prioritizing growth despite harms, addictive newsfeed design, and cooperation with military/“lethality” efforts are cited as evidence he embodies the very moral problems he’s now theorizing about.
• Meta’s content moderation and censorship (especially around Israel/Palestine and hate speech) are criticized as inconsistent and politically skewed.
• Some see the essay as self‑justification or culture‑shaping message to employees: “don’t overthink, just build,” conveniently decoupling moral intent from large‑scale consequences.

HN Meta-Discussion

• Several commenters call the piece shallow “pseudo‑intellectualism” and lament that such think‑pieces get upvoted over more technically substantial or hard‑won content.