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Effective altruism at its finest. LOL

gruez 4y ago
What does effective altruism have to do with VCs that invested in FTX and their due diligence? If anything effective altruism is downstream from that.
- ingenieros 4y ago
  Sam used the EA card and his generous donations to places like MIT's Media Lab in the same way Epstein did. This not only earned him tons of goodwill from the scientific community, but it also allowed him to rub shoulders with the likes of Tony Blair and Clinton. Who wouldn't want to invest in someone who is helping to make the world better and has all these aforementioned personalities and institutions helping to provide an air of legitimacy to his pursuits? (Also, the guy who coined the term EA sat on the board of his FTX fund and was helping to facilitate deals with people like Elon Musk) https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23458282/effective-altruism-sam-bankman-fried-ftx-crypto-ethics https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23458282/effective-altrui...
  - gruez 4y ago
    How does this relate to effective altruism as a whole? SBF does these things... therefore this kind of behavior is endemic in the effective altruism community?
    - pessimizer 4y ago
      That its community idealized and gathered around a man with no moral center who thought their entire movement was both a joke and a way to avoid scrutiny for his ongoing frauds. That, at the least, gives an indication that its intellectual underpinnings are not solid.
      - gruez 4y ago
        >That its community idealized and gathered around a man with no moral center You make it sound like SBF was the prophet/leader of effective altruism, but I don't think that's the case. The wikipedia article certainly doesn't paint him as some sort of leader, and only gives a passing mention to SBF. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_altruism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_altruism
        skinnymuch 4y ago
        Using Wikipedia as a barometer doesn’t always works. In this case it probably wouldn’t work even if SBF was much bigger than he was with EA. There’s a middle ground. He wasn’t a prophet but he wasn’t nobody either. He was a leading non-academic figure/celeb of EA that didn’t get too much pushback.
        gruez 4y ago
        >There’s a middle ground. He wasn’t a prophet but he wasn’t nobody either. He was a leading non-academic figure/celeb of EA that didn’t get too much pushback. That's the non-controversial opinion, but where does this leave OP's comment? Should we push back more on billionaires in movements? Should we assume that everyone who's in movements is in it for cynical reasons? Or maybe only billionaires? A new yorker article on effective altruism suggests that SBF got in before his crypto riches. How does that work? Did SBF suddenly turn cynical once his wealth crossed the $1B mark? [1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/15/the-reluctant-prophet-of-effective-altruism https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/15/the-reluctant-...
        nwiswell 4y ago
        > Should we assume that everyone who's in movements is in it for cynical reasons? This is an all-or-nothing fallacy. Perhaps we should view facially "altruistic" movements much more skeptically. Indeed in hindsight it seems like membership is much more advantageous for virtue signaling than for being more "effective" with your altruism (is it really so hard to figure out who will do the most good with your money?)
    - deleted 4y ago
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- deleted 4y ago
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What does effective altruism have to do with VCs that invested in FTX and their due diligence? If anything effective altruism is downstream from that.

ingenieros 4y ago
Sam used the EA card and his generous donations to places like MIT's Media Lab in the same way Epstein did. This not only earned him tons of goodwill from the scientific community, but it also allowed him to rub shoulders with the likes of Tony Blair and Clinton. Who wouldn't want to invest in someone who is helping to make the world better and has all these aforementioned personalities and institutions helping to provide an air of legitimacy to his pursuits? (Also, the guy who coined the term EA sat on the board of his FTX fund and was helping to facilitate deals with people like Elon Musk) https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23458282/effective-altruism-sam-bankman-fried-ftx-crypto-ethics https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23458282/effective-altrui...
- gruez 4y ago
  How does this relate to effective altruism as a whole? SBF does these things... therefore this kind of behavior is endemic in the effective altruism community?
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    That its community idealized and gathered around a man with no moral center who thought their entire movement was both a joke and a way to avoid scrutiny for his ongoing frauds. That, at the least, gives an indication that its intellectual underpinnings are not solid.
    - gruez 4y ago
      >That its community idealized and gathered around a man with no moral center You make it sound like SBF was the prophet/leader of effective altruism, but I don't think that's the case. The wikipedia article certainly doesn't paint him as some sort of leader, and only gives a passing mention to SBF. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_altruism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_altruism
      - skinnymuch 4y ago
        Using Wikipedia as a barometer doesn’t always works. In this case it probably wouldn’t work even if SBF was much bigger than he was with EA. There’s a middle ground. He wasn’t a prophet but he wasn’t nobody either. He was a leading non-academic figure/celeb of EA that didn’t get too much pushback.
        gruez 4y ago
        >There’s a middle ground. He wasn’t a prophet but he wasn’t nobody either. He was a leading non-academic figure/celeb of EA that didn’t get too much pushback. That's the non-controversial opinion, but where does this leave OP's comment? Should we push back more on billionaires in movements? Should we assume that everyone who's in movements is in it for cynical reasons? Or maybe only billionaires? A new yorker article on effective altruism suggests that SBF got in before his crypto riches. How does that work? Did SBF suddenly turn cynical once his wealth crossed the $1B mark? [1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/15/the-reluctant-prophet-of-effective-altruism https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/15/the-reluctant-...
        nwiswell 4y ago
        > Should we assume that everyone who's in movements is in it for cynical reasons? This is an all-or-nothing fallacy. Perhaps we should view facially "altruistic" movements much more skeptically. Indeed in hindsight it seems like membership is much more advantageous for virtue signaling than for being more "effective" with your altruism (is it really so hard to figure out who will do the most good with your money?)
  - deleted 4y ago
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deleted 4y ago
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