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It was all for charity. People are mean. https://twitter.com/The_Prologuist/status/1589678498549207042 https://twitter.com/The_Prologuist/status/15896784985492

It was all for charity. People are mean. https://twitter.com/The_Prologuist/status/1589678498549207042 https://twitter.com/The_Prologuist/status/158967849854920704...

AmericanOP 4y ago
Look, I’m a savvy investor who builds marketing teams and would never fall for this, but I think other people will, so I’m going to invest.
- stephc_int13 4y ago
  The greater fool game is probably fun, but I am too dumb to play it.
- bananapub 4y ago
  this is essentially why cryptoscams get VC money - sufficient clout and "reputation" amongst nerds is enough to make the scam work and let you get out before it's game over.
oliwary 4y ago
We should have trusted Larry David on FTX... https://youtu.be/noekVG8XLQI?t=45 https://youtu.be/noekVG8XLQI?t=45
- stephc_int13 4y ago
  This is smart.
orangepurple 4y ago
Is this satire? I can't tell.
- stephc_int13 4y ago
  It is not. Well, it depends on how you look at it. Define satire?
ilikehurdles 4y ago
He earned $1b and gave away $9b. It’s not leverage, it’s philanthropy.
deleted 4y ago
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deleted 4y ago
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wwarner 4y ago
I think the consequentialist underpinnings of EA are part of the story. Consequentialism revisits our ideas of right and wrong by looking at outcomes. Any reasonable person can look at a law and conclude that there might be a reason to break it under certain circumstances. Certainly, one might argue, financial regulations are arbitrary and that the only way to succeed in your larger goal is to break the rules. EA specializes in this type of reframing, especially when the imagined benefits hugely outweigh the immediate costs, and in this case it's easy to see how self-serving it can be.
- googlryas 4y ago
  Agreed. There's also the question of the stopping point - or how do you balance earning vs giving. Some day SBF is still worth $900M. Is he giving that away? Probably not, because he thinks it's easier to make a ton of money with a half ton of money. So he'll hoard his money in the hopes of making more money, but from the perspective of the starving person, his behavior is the same as a greedy billionaire who keeps their money for their own personal use. For all his talk of altruism, what has he actually done so far? Compared with, say, Mackenzie Scott, who is actually putting her money where her mouth is? From what little I could find, perhaps he has written $160M worth of grants, and it is questionable if those will even be paid out, or who they went to, or over what time period. So that is 0.6% of his wealth at peak. For reference, people who make less than $30-50k/yr(who generally have a negligible net worth and are sustained by their income) donate on average 5%[0] of their income to charity each year. An average Joe or Jane appears to be literally 10x more altruistic than SBF from what I can find. [0]https://www.definefinancial.com/blog/charitable-giving-statistics/ https://www.definefinancial.com/blog/charitable-giving-stati...
- nullc 4y ago
  > think the consequentialist underpinnings of EA are part of the story I've thought before that EA is charity for sociopaths. Nothing recently has shaken that view. There are plenty of EA quotes that support the 're-framing' point you make, stuff ling Singer saying "take advantage of strategies other people are biased against using". Fortunately, with FTX collapsed there is a little less risk that someone will actually fund them to move forward with the idea of genociding all the wild animals on earth (on the basis of it being the most efficient way to reduce total suffering because wild animals are suffering). So, I guess that's a little silver lining on the FTX implosion.

It was all for charity. People are mean. https://twitter.com/The_Prologuist/status/1589678498549207042 https://twitter.com/The_Prologuist/status/158967849854920704...

AmericanOP 4y ago

Look, I’m a savvy investor who builds marketing teams and would never fall for this, but I think other people will, so I’m going to invest.

stephc_int13 4y ago
The greater fool game is probably fun, but I am too dumb to play it.
bananapub 4y ago
this is essentially why cryptoscams get VC money - sufficient clout and "reputation" amongst nerds is enough to make the scam work and let you get out before it's game over.

oliwary 4y ago

We should have trusted Larry David on FTX... https://youtu.be/noekVG8XLQI?t=45 https://youtu.be/noekVG8XLQI?t=45

stephc_int13 4y ago
This is smart.

orangepurple 4y ago

Is this satire? I can't tell.

stephc_int13 4y ago
It is not. Well, it depends on how you look at it. Define satire?

ilikehurdles 4y ago

He earned $1b and gave away $9b. It’s not leverage, it’s philanthropy.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

wwarner 4y ago

I think the consequentialist underpinnings of EA are part of the story. Consequentialism revisits our ideas of right and wrong by looking at outcomes. Any reasonable person can look at a law and conclude that there might be a reason to break it under certain circumstances. Certainly, one might argue, financial regulations are arbitrary and that the only way to succeed in your larger goal is to break the rules. EA specializes in this type of reframing, especially when the imagined benefits hugely outweigh the immediate costs, and in this case it's easy to see how self-serving it can be.

googlryas 4y ago
Agreed. There's also the question of the stopping point - or how do you balance earning vs giving. Some day SBF is still worth $900M. Is he giving that away? Probably not, because he thinks it's easier to make a ton of money with a half ton of money. So he'll hoard his money in the hopes of making more money, but from the perspective of the starving person, his behavior is the same as a greedy billionaire who keeps their money for their own personal use. For all his talk of altruism, what has he actually done so far? Compared with, say, Mackenzie Scott, who is actually putting her money where her mouth is? From what little I could find, perhaps he has written $160M worth of grants, and it is questionable if those will even be paid out, or who they went to, or over what time period. So that is 0.6% of his wealth at peak. For reference, people who make less than $30-50k/yr(who generally have a negligible net worth and are sustained by their income) donate on average 5%[0] of their income to charity each year. An average Joe or Jane appears to be literally 10x more altruistic than SBF from what I can find. [0]https://www.definefinancial.com/blog/charitable-giving-statistics/ https://www.definefinancial.com/blog/charitable-giving-stati...
nullc 4y ago
> think the consequentialist underpinnings of EA are part of the story I've thought before that EA is charity for sociopaths. Nothing recently has shaken that view. There are plenty of EA quotes that support the 're-framing' point you make, stuff ling Singer saying "take advantage of strategies other people are biased against using". Fortunately, with FTX collapsed there is a little less risk that someone will actually fund them to move forward with the idea of genociding all the wild animals on earth (on the basis of it being the most efficient way to reduce total suffering because wild animals are suffering). So, I guess that's a little silver lining on the FTX implosion.