Executive summary: The author argues that friendship should be treated as a “sacred value” that is outside the scope of moral optimization, even though friendships can have positive or negative consequences.
Key points:
Recent stressful events in the EA community have raised questions about whether the community should take coordinated action to exclude certain individuals.
The author feels uncomfortable with the idea of morality dictating who one should be friends with, and believes friendship should be a “sacred value” outside the domain of moral optimization.
Sacred values are areas of life that are kept separate from the constant pressure to do more good, in order to make altruism more sustainable. Examples include having children, diet, and travel.
While friendships can have positive or negative consequences, the author argues that not intentionally optimizing friendships based on values is different from having no correlation between friendships and values.
Treating friendship as a sacred value may have some personal and broader costs, but the author believes it is important for individuals to figure out their own limits and what is sustainable for them in the long term.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, andcontact us if you have feedback.
Executive summary: The author argues that friendship should be treated as a “sacred value” that is outside the scope of moral optimization, even though friendships can have positive or negative consequences.
Key points:
Recent stressful events in the EA community have raised questions about whether the community should take coordinated action to exclude certain individuals.
The author feels uncomfortable with the idea of morality dictating who one should be friends with, and believes friendship should be a “sacred value” outside the domain of moral optimization.
Sacred values are areas of life that are kept separate from the constant pressure to do more good, in order to make altruism more sustainable. Examples include having children, diet, and travel.
While friendships can have positive or negative consequences, the author argues that not intentionally optimizing friendships based on values is different from having no correlation between friendships and values.
Treating friendship as a sacred value may have some personal and broader costs, but the author believes it is important for individuals to figure out their own limits and what is sustainable for them in the long term.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.