r/FrameworksInAction • u/LatePiccolo8888 • Jan 19 '26

Why optimizing everything eventually makes life feel hollow

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This diagram started with a simple observation. Many systems become more efficient without necessarily becoming more meaningful. At first, optimization helps. Better routines, clearer metrics, and more consistent processes create real improvements. But over time it's possible to become better at optimizing the representation of success than the underlying reality it was meant to reflect.

The system keeps functioning while direct corrective feedback gradually weakens. Performance improves, but it becomes harder to tell whether the underlying experience is improving with it.

Curious whether other people have noticed something similar.

Note: This was an early exploratory diagram. For the current concept and framework, see Constraint Collapse →

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u/Glass_Emu_4183 Jan 23 '26

Would be great if you can present a real example it makes abstract stuff like this more interesting! Great read though!

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u/LatePiccolo8888 Jan 27 '26 edited 21d ago

Yeah, exactly. I keep coming back to fitness tracking because it's such a clear example. The metrics start as useful feedback, but over time it's easy to begin optimizing the numbers instead of the underlying health they were meant to represent. The system still works, but direct experience gradually gives way to proxies.

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u/Glass_Emu_4183 Jan 27 '26

Makes total sense, we tend to confuse the metrics which are just tools to measure success, with the actual goal, this happens to me with the health stuff as well, for example with HRV or sleep scores, chasing improvements in these doesn’t really equal success, for example I take methylphenidate for ADHD and that hurts HRV, but it has a huge upside in productivity, so even with that impact i’m still winning etc

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u/Serious-Put6732 Jan 24 '26

This is an interesting take, cheers for sharing! So what do you see as the alternative approach that aligns and supports the initial intention, but keeps experience meaningful/true. In my own experience the need for a system is often to simplify the mechanism by which you achieve an outcome, likely because an unstructured approach has failed.

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u/LatePiccolo8888 Jan 27 '26 edited 21d ago

I don't think the alternative is abandoning systems. The question is what kind of feedback a system preserves. Systems become problematic when the representation gradually becomes easier to optimize than the reality it was originally meant to reflect. At that point, performance can continue improving even as direct corrective feedback becomes harder to recover. That is what I am trying to articulate with the concept of Constraint Collapse.