This is wonderful – thank you so much for writing it.
Mutual dedication to one another’s ends seems like a thing commonly present in religious and ethnic communities. But it seems quite uncommon to the demographic of secular idealists, like me. Such idealists tend to form and join single-focus communities like effective altruism, which serve only a subset of our eudaemonic needs.
Agree about secular, single-purpose communities – but I’m not sure EA is quite the same.
I’ve found my relationships with other EAs tend to blossom to be about more than just EA; those principles provide a good set of shared values from which to build other things, like a sense of community, shared houses, group meals, playing music together and just supporting each other generally. Then again, I don’t consider EA to be the core of my identity, so YMMV.
This is wonderful – thank you so much for writing it.
Agree about secular, single-purpose communities – but I’m not sure EA is quite the same.
I’ve found my relationships with other EAs tend to blossom to be about more than just EA; those principles provide a good set of shared values from which to build other things, like a sense of community, shared houses, group meals, playing music together and just supporting each other generally. Then again, I don’t consider EA to be the core of my identity, so YMMV.