@jimrandomh Could you give @KatjaGrace the option to make such short posts quick takes?

As for the post itself, I find its premise unlikely. Suppose that a person's usual antics are sources of happiness for those who care about the person, but rare tragedies and especially stupid actions also affect the friends' welfare. This gives the person extra duty not to do anything especially stupid, but doesn't make people caring about one another a source of externalities. It also could have an effect of reducing the frequency of stupid life-altering actions.

I remember this discussed in spiritual-ish self-help sort of stuff, plausibly De Mello^[1]. I would also expect something like that to be found in the foundational texts of Daoism, maybe Buddhism, too.

Well, actually, the whole thing about the tails of ["welfare" and "preference" (and other stuff) as the foci of altruistic caring] coming apart has gotten quite a lot of treatment, e.g., https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/oXQDcyXJpMQTbaTMS/in-search-of-benevolence-or-what-should-you-get-clippy-for.

1. ^{^}

   not an endorsement, but the law of equal and opposite advice applies.

This is the interpersonal version of some types of fiscal externalities. Fiscal externalities are those from how you paying more taxes affects others; and from how you becoming eligible for welfare programs also affects others. That second part is a care externalitye

I found this essay that (on the government policy level) we should ignore fiscal externalities fairly persuasive, though I would've phrased parts of it differently. In particular I think people should be thought of as having no obligation to count themselves as 'responsible' for others caring about them, whether that be interpersonally or in governmental policy or in impersonal social norms.

Sometimes, however, you care about the others enough that 'responsibility' is irrelevant. As an example, while I don't think those choosing whether or not to end their life should be considered 'responsible' for making others sadder, many report times where they only kept going because someone they cared about (stereotypically, their mother) would be sad. I have been motivated by the caring of my younger self before - to violate a promise to her feels like betraying my closest friend, and this feeling persisted even during depressing times when I thought dismally of my then-current self.

I wonder how much normal social norms socially internalize responsibility for caring externalities. I suspect we internalize them too much compared to what I'd want in a society. The main counterargument is that the examples I just gave were all highly positive - but I suspect that they don't rely on social responsibility.