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Just a general statement on people commenting on this saga: Sam wasn't doing effective altruism. He was lying about doing effective altruism. It's weird to me

Just a general statement on people commenting on this saga: Sam wasn't doing effective altruism. He was lying about doing effective altruism. It's weird to me that people talk about this as an indictment of EA...but this rings similar to me as claiming that this is an indictment of DeFi or cryptocurrency generally. Sam/Caroline weren't doing DeFi, and neither were they really doing anything related to cryptocurrency. This was just a pretty staightforward scam.

Tenoke 4y ago
How was he not doing EA? He was lying AND donating to causes. I'm very pro-EA but that's a weird claim.
- balozi 4y ago
  Doesn't altruism literary mean selflessness-ism? Can you be selfless with stolen property?
  - kingTug 4y ago
    Yeah, that was the theme of Robinhood. Of course sbf is no robinhood.
    - robswc 4y ago
      Agreed. I know several people that think capital gains are "unethical" and would have no qualms about stealing that. They would think they're doing good.
- wmf 4y ago
  Prominent EAers like McAskill have said (before this scandal) that EA is only valid if the money is earned honestly. They say that they never intended EA to be "steal to give".
  - spywaregorilla 4y ago
    Those concepts seem obviously separate to me.
  - ohashi 4y ago
    Sounds nice in theory, but when the outcome is people behaving like this and using it as a justification it rings hollow. The idea seems centered around making the most money possible as a core tenet. That alone is a pretty corrupting thing to build your whole ideology on judging from how we've seen humanity behave for thousands of years.
    - chrchang523 4y ago
      Yeah. I see a fork in the road here: 1. They can band together to save the EA brand by demonstrating an unusually high commitment to accountability. The simplest way I see to do this is to contribute 2x what they received from FTX (as a group, it's impractical for them to do this on the individual level) to making the financial fraud victims whole. 2. They could "declare bankruptcy", switching to less ambitious but epistemically safer approaches to philanthropy. I wouldn't blame them for doing this, (1) is a big ask.
  - robocat 4y ago
    “Geeks, MOPs, and sociopaths in subculture evolution” — https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths SBF definitely seems like a sociopath in this model. BTW: the best criticism I have read on Effective Altruism is: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/criticism-of-criticism-of-criticism https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/criticism-of-criticism...
  - karpierz 4y ago
    What does it mean to earn money honestly? If I'm an investment banker, is that honest? Car salesman? International arms dealer? Like it or not, the execution of EA is to make as much as possible without regard for the consequences of how you make it. The whole premise is that the ends justify the means. What they really mean by "honestly" is in a manner that doesn't reflect poorly on EA, which is tangential to whether or not the money is earned morally.
- hackerlight 4y ago
  Because EA is about overall impact. (At least that's one strand of thought in EA, for those that lean more towards utilitarianism.) He hurt so many people and caused so much distrust that his overall impact is negative. It is therefore against the principles of EA. That's not the No True Scotsman fallacy.
  - gilleain 4y ago
    That's convenient. So when EA has a positive impact, it's EA. When it has a negative impact it's definitely NOT EA. Do I have that right?
    - hackerlight 4y ago
      Yeah, I guess. EA by definition is doing good.
  - adam_arthur 4y ago
    Or he was the lynchpin in killing crypto and thus brought a great good to the world in the end (at big expense to those caught in it). I don’t believe that, but seems equally valid
- KptMarchewa 4y ago
  Definition of altruism requires selflessness. He was anything but.
- tlogan 4y ago
  Effective altruism is about taking a desire to do good. So I’m not sure how criminals can be doing EA. Is el Mencho doing EA? He gave some toys and even suggested that they will stop killing priests.
wahnfrieden 4y ago
be careful about portraying any time an EA practitioner shows up negatively as "well they weren't actually doing EA" / adopting that line of defense from the EA community. obviously that community now wants to distance themselves from bad press
knorker 4y ago
It wouldn't be an indictment of DeFi/cryptocurrencies if it weren't for... you know... this being basically the main pattern used in all of DeFi/cryptocurrencies. https://web3isgoinggreat.com/ https://web3isgoinggreat.com/
- p0pcult 4y ago
  You're conflating coin count with their relative size. This is not the main pattern in either BTC or ETH.
  - knorker 4y ago
    I think it is fair to BTC and ETH, just by saying MtGox and DAO split. The former was, what, 4% of all BTC that will ever be, and the latter was socialism for those close to the developers, capitalism for everyone else. Those were really big deals. It's just that they happened when it was less mainstream. Doesn't make it not a pattern.
    - p0pcult 4y ago
      Nor does one data point for each make a pattern.
slibhb 4y ago
It's an indictment of EA because many prominent EA people were associated with FTX/Sam. That shows poor judgement and, on some level, EA is about smart people making judgements about long-term good. How can we trust them to make those judgements when they decide to hitch their wagon to FTX?
- gruez 4y ago
  >That shows poor judgement and, on some level, EA is about smart people making judgements about long-term good. How can we trust them to make those judgements when they decide to hitch their wagon to FTX? Charities in general aren't exactly known for conducting thorough due diligence on their donors. Sure, it might make sense to make sure the person you're getting money from isn't some sort of ruthless dictator or embroiled in some scandal, but "runs crypto trading firm" is a pretty plausible story.
  - slibhb 4y ago
    I wasn't talking about charities specifically, I was referring to stuff like this: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xafpj3on76uRDoBja/the-ftx-future-fund-team-has-resigned-1 https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xafpj3on76uRDoBja/... At least one of the people involved (MacAskill) is a big name in EA circles.
    - gruez 4y ago
      What's the argument here? That The people involved should have seen it coming, and their failure to seen it coming reflects badly on them? I think the arguments from my previous comment still apply. People in general don't do thorough due diligence on who they work with. As long as there isn't anything obviously bad about a person, it seems fairly reasonable to cooperate with someone who shares your goal and is willing to contribute resources. From what I can tell, SBF/FTX's public image was reasonably clean prior to the blow up. The wikipedia article[1] only lists some minor controversies (eg. FDIC cease and desist). This definitely isn't something like bitfinex/tether where there's a long controversy spanning years[2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTX_(company)#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTX_(company)#History [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tether_(cryptocurrency) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tether_(cryptocurrency)
c7b 4y ago
The justifications in EA's long-termism are very similar to SBF's 'expected-value-reasoning', and the idea of buying out politicians to promote your cause is straight out of the EA playbook, fully justified by the philosophy. Just saying 'don't break laws while getting rich' is a band-aid, the problems exposed here run deeper.
- gruez 4y ago
  >the idea of buying out politicians to promote your cause is straight out of the EA playbook, fully justified by the philosophy By "buying out", do you mean literal bribery, or just lobbying? If it's the latter, are you also against other organizations (eg. unions, environmental groups, activists) that try to fund raise/lobby for their preferred candidates?
- mejutoco 4y ago
  EA sounds to me like Machiavelli. In summary: the end justifies the means. I thought this was covered in any ethics class before highschool, I cannot see what is so interesting about it.
vrc 4y ago
Just the capitalized term EA to me reads like a scam. It’s a new term created to explain some behavior that is simply injurious to the broader population, claiming that its for their benefit. I’m just not sure I buy it.
- rglover 4y ago
  Especially when the definition of what is "effective" is totally subjective and up to the adherents belief system(s). Which sadly appears to have been funneling "donations" to bog standard NGO/political nonsense, not impactful things like making sure kids can eat or caring for veterans who've been disposed of.
  - Tenoke 4y ago
    That's not really an accurate characterization. The most promoted cause by EA has been the Against Malaria Foundation because it saves the most money per $ spent. If you donate to GiveWell (a basic recommended way to donate in EA) they mostly donate to Malaria and similar causes. Obviously, some members do a lot more but Political causes aren't the standard, that stuff is.
    - rglover 4y ago
      Most-promoted, but is it the most funded? For example, their landing page just links to the AMF's donors list page while claiming EA provided "significant support" with the only mentions of EA being people they've inspired to donate in relatively small amounts (relative to the billions moving through FTX). I'd imagine they're buried in there somewhere but if they're a major supporter I'd assume they'd be plastering that number all over the place. Sorry, but this whole FTX thing isn't just an "oopsie." They knew exactly what they were doing and tried to justify it with a few targeted donations. The landing page alone only showcases 6 initiatives, 50% of which are exactly what I described above.
      - gruez 4y ago
        >Most-promoted, but is it the most funded? For example, their landing page just links to the AMF's donors list page while claiming EA provided "significant support" with the only mentions of EA being people they've inspired to donate in relatively small amounts This seems totally expected if you think of effective altruism as a movement focused on figuring out where your money would be best spent, rather than as some sort of organization that wants your money. This is reflected in what SBF did. He didn't donate all his money to effective altruism like it's a cult or whatever, he set up a charity and hired various people to decide which worthy projects should be funded. >(relative to the billions moving through FTX). And why would you compare that to "the billions moving through FTX"? FTX isn't EA, nor does FTX operate as some sort of non-profit. FTX does have a charitable arm, but they only issued $160 million worth of grants, nowhere near "the billions" you speak of. You can see their grant list here: https://ftxfuturefund.org/our-grants/ https://ftxfuturefund.org/our-grants/
shapefrog 4y ago
He said "I'm doing EA" - the EA community said "He is amazing he is doing the best EA" What makes you think that he wasn't doing effective altruism
- thepasswordis 4y ago
  The part where it turned out that he was just robbing people.
  - snoot 4y ago
    According to him, he just made some mistakes labelling things and it got out of hand.
  - shapefrog 4y ago
    A modern day robinhood - stealing from the rich and giving to the poor
hcurtiss 4y ago
Nobody has tried actual communism.
bradgessler 4y ago
Yeah, everything I've read about the corporate governance of Sam's enterprises seems like it should have been turned up pretty quickly under the most basic diligence. I can see how "Main Street" investors got completely screwed over, but what I don't understand is how any sort of institutional money flowed into FTX and propped it to the massive scale it achieved. That deserves closer examination.
brindlejim 4y ago
Kind of. Sam was not doing what EAism says you should do. But he was embedded in the EA movement, close to many of its other members, and abetted by people like Will. So if you look at EA descriptively, Sam was very much doing EA. He was lying about his business. But he wasn't lying about giving the money away. That was very real, and a big part of what "doing effective altruism" is. Sam/Caroline were also doing crypto. The two movements -- EA and crypto -- clearly want to excommunicate them. But both those movements were happy to work with them when they appeared to be successful, non-fraudulent billionaires. Nobody knows you when you're down and out.
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
  > But both those movements were happy to work with them when they appeared to be successful, non-fraudulent billionaires. Are you claiming failure to do "due diligence" ? Because otherwise, that seems fairly normal.
  - brindlejim 4y ago
    I am claiming two things: 1) EA as a movement and as a principle has been at best equivocal on whether or not it's OK to deliberately harm a few people in order to benefit many people. There's a very strong argument that SBF was pursuing utilitarian goals as espoused by EA. Riches amplify our flaws. He committed EA on a grand scale, and it turns out that SBF's version of take-no-prisoners utilitarianism is a) illegal, b) harmful to millions of people, and b.1) that includes his own movement. 2) SBF and Caroline did crypto. They didn't do crypto and secretly scam people and therefore they are not really doing crypto. Scamming is at the heart of crypto. If you want scamming not to be at the heart of crypto, then accept that you will need a centralized authority with a mandate for violence to impose rules of behavior, much as we have with the rest of finance.
- thepasswordis 4y ago
  >But both those movements were happy to work with them when they appeared to be successful, non-fraudulent billionaires. Yes? I don't understand the point of this statement. "When Alice appeared to donating to her local charity, we liked her, but when it turned out she was lying to us, we didn't like her anymore. We like charity/EA/crypto, and think those are all good things. So when people are doing them, that is good. If they use that goodwill to exploit other people, we don't like that. That is a functioning system.
drowsspa 4y ago
Back during the Brazilian dictatorship, they used to say "we have to grow the cake to split it afterwards". What actually surprises me is that EA was apparently taken seriously. It does explain a lot of the fake goodness Silicon Valley is well known for.
- gruez 4y ago
  >What actually surprises me is that EA was apparently taken seriously. It does explain a lot of the fake goodness Silicon Valley is well known for. What's the appropriate level of seriousness to take stuff like effective altruism or other charitable endeavors? Should we go full nihilist and assume that everyone is greedy and only donating for selfish reasons?
  - drowsspa 4y ago
    Filthy rich people looking for a framework in which they can get to enjoy being rich, not advocating for any real change in the system, and feel morally superior because they're donating some meaningless amount to charities? Yeah, some cynicism is very much warranted for. And before you say it, it's meaningless to donate even 90% of your fortune to someone like them. Specially to those glorified PR operations that are the charities they tend to support.
cwkoss 4y ago
When people use moral identifiers, like 'altruist' or 'philanthropist' , etc. they are trying to shortcut past the normal societal repetitional mechanisms to be viewed as a moral person. The people who want to take these shortcuts tend to be the least moral people. Same force that leads the immoral to be more likely loudly publicly identify with a religion. EA may be an interesting perspective, but I'm immediately wary of anyone who self-identifies as an "effective altruist".
- gruez 4y ago
  >EA may be an interesting perspective, but I'm immediately wary of anyone who self-identifies as an "effective altruist". The logic makes sense on the surface. For instance, if someone self-identifies himself as a philanthropist/altruist and makes an effort to make that known I'll be a bit suspicious. However, effective altruism is a movement/community, so it seems reasonable to be able to identify yourself as belonging to that community. For instance, if you're part of the YIMBY movement, and you're involved in a significant way (eg. are a leader, gives talks, and contributes financial resources), it seems reasonable for you to mention that at least occasionally. It just so happens that the community that SBF is involved with is called "effective altruism", so if you're a member of the community you get called an "effective altruist". Given what they do, I think the naming is entirely reasonable and nothing cynical is happening.
  - cwkoss 4y ago
    It's certainly true at all EAs aren't bad people. I'm just arguing that self identifying EAs are disproportionately bad people due to the attraction they have towards being labeled as such. Good EAs are less likely to be vocal about the label.
    - gruez 4y ago
      > I'm just arguing that self identifying EAs are disproportionately bad people Is there evidence backing this assertion? Or are we just going with "SBF was an effective alturist, SBF was bad, therefore self identifying EAs are disproportionately bad people"?
bhawks 4y ago
First and foremost a huge number of people saw their savings and investment wiped out by sociopaths that defrauded them and continuously lied to everyone's face as the charade came crumbling down. SBF and his cadre seem likely to escape any form of justice. Indeed there is a chance they'll be able to keep a portion of their ill-gotten gains. Those directly effected and their friends and family are hurt and angry. Those are the normal feelings to have. They will express them. Now is the time for listening and supporting, not correcting details. There are other parties that have long standing disagreements with both the EA and crypto communities. Many of them are taking this moment to dogpile and dump on those movements to prove their point. I believe the right response is to reflect and self improve. The crypto community is drastically embracing self custody and defi. Moving transactions on chain will help prevent this type of fraud (and it's the core point of crypto to begin with). This is a reasonable path forward. I'm not plugged into EA but I hope there are similar efforts being made to learn and rebuild. The best parts of both communities is focused on changing core primitives of human society at a scale never attempted before. If they're going to succeed they will have to overcome much bigger challenges than what this recent disaster caused. It will take time, openness and dedication. I think both communities really need to realize and prepare for the fact that they're challenging areas that are extremely attractive to sociopaths and psychopaths - money, morality and ultimately power. The community must be able to identify, contain and limit the damage caused by bad actors.
bmitc 4y ago
This type of scam likely couldn’t have happened for so long in today’s world with standard currencies and securities because those are tightly regulated and controlled. So yes, their scam does have something to do with cryptocurrencies, especially since they were minting their own in FTT.

Tenoke 4y ago

How was he not doing EA? He was lying AND donating to causes. I'm very pro-EA but that's a weird claim.

balozi 4y ago
Doesn't altruism literary mean selflessness-ism? Can you be selfless with stolen property?
- kingTug 4y ago
  Yeah, that was the theme of Robinhood. Of course sbf is no robinhood.
  - robswc 4y ago
    Agreed. I know several people that think capital gains are "unethical" and would have no qualms about stealing that. They would think they're doing good.
wmf 4y ago
Prominent EAers like McAskill have said (before this scandal) that EA is only valid if the money is earned honestly. They say that they never intended EA to be "steal to give".
- spywaregorilla 4y ago
  Those concepts seem obviously separate to me.
- ohashi 4y ago
  Sounds nice in theory, but when the outcome is people behaving like this and using it as a justification it rings hollow. The idea seems centered around making the most money possible as a core tenet. That alone is a pretty corrupting thing to build your whole ideology on judging from how we've seen humanity behave for thousands of years.
  - chrchang523 4y ago
    Yeah. I see a fork in the road here: 1. They can band together to save the EA brand by demonstrating an unusually high commitment to accountability. The simplest way I see to do this is to contribute 2x what they received from FTX (as a group, it's impractical for them to do this on the individual level) to making the financial fraud victims whole. 2. They could "declare bankruptcy", switching to less ambitious but epistemically safer approaches to philanthropy. I wouldn't blame them for doing this, (1) is a big ask.
- robocat 4y ago
  “Geeks, MOPs, and sociopaths in subculture evolution” — https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths SBF definitely seems like a sociopath in this model. BTW: the best criticism I have read on Effective Altruism is: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/criticism-of-criticism-of-criticism https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/criticism-of-criticism...
- karpierz 4y ago
  What does it mean to earn money honestly? If I'm an investment banker, is that honest? Car salesman? International arms dealer? Like it or not, the execution of EA is to make as much as possible without regard for the consequences of how you make it. The whole premise is that the ends justify the means. What they really mean by "honestly" is in a manner that doesn't reflect poorly on EA, which is tangential to whether or not the money is earned morally.
hackerlight 4y ago
Because EA is about overall impact. (At least that's one strand of thought in EA, for those that lean more towards utilitarianism.) He hurt so many people and caused so much distrust that his overall impact is negative. It is therefore against the principles of EA. That's not the No True Scotsman fallacy.
- gilleain 4y ago
  That's convenient. So when EA has a positive impact, it's EA. When it has a negative impact it's definitely NOT EA. Do I have that right?
  - hackerlight 4y ago
    Yeah, I guess. EA by definition is doing good.
- adam_arthur 4y ago
  Or he was the lynchpin in killing crypto and thus brought a great good to the world in the end (at big expense to those caught in it). I don’t believe that, but seems equally valid
KptMarchewa 4y ago
Definition of altruism requires selflessness. He was anything but.
tlogan 4y ago
Effective altruism is about taking a desire to do good. So I’m not sure how criminals can be doing EA. Is el Mencho doing EA? He gave some toys and even suggested that they will stop killing priests.

wahnfrieden 4y ago

be careful about portraying any time an EA practitioner shows up negatively as "well they weren't actually doing EA" / adopting that line of defense from the EA community. obviously that community now wants to distance themselves from bad press

knorker 4y ago

It wouldn't be an indictment of DeFi/cryptocurrencies if it weren't for... you know... this being basically the main pattern used in all of DeFi/cryptocurrencies. https://web3isgoinggreat.com/ https://web3isgoinggreat.com/

p0pcult 4y ago
You're conflating coin count with their relative size. This is not the main pattern in either BTC or ETH.
- knorker 4y ago
  I think it is fair to BTC and ETH, just by saying MtGox and DAO split. The former was, what, 4% of all BTC that will ever be, and the latter was socialism for those close to the developers, capitalism for everyone else. Those were really big deals. It's just that they happened when it was less mainstream. Doesn't make it not a pattern.
  - p0pcult 4y ago
    Nor does one data point for each make a pattern.

slibhb 4y ago

It's an indictment of EA because many prominent EA people were associated with FTX/Sam. That shows poor judgement and, on some level, EA is about smart people making judgements about long-term good. How can we trust them to make those judgements when they decide to hitch their wagon to FTX?

gruez 4y ago
>That shows poor judgement and, on some level, EA is about smart people making judgements about long-term good. How can we trust them to make those judgements when they decide to hitch their wagon to FTX? Charities in general aren't exactly known for conducting thorough due diligence on their donors. Sure, it might make sense to make sure the person you're getting money from isn't some sort of ruthless dictator or embroiled in some scandal, but "runs crypto trading firm" is a pretty plausible story.
- slibhb 4y ago
  I wasn't talking about charities specifically, I was referring to stuff like this: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xafpj3on76uRDoBja/the-ftx-future-fund-team-has-resigned-1 https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xafpj3on76uRDoBja/... At least one of the people involved (MacAskill) is a big name in EA circles.
  - gruez 4y ago
    What's the argument here? That The people involved should have seen it coming, and their failure to seen it coming reflects badly on them? I think the arguments from my previous comment still apply. People in general don't do thorough due diligence on who they work with. As long as there isn't anything obviously bad about a person, it seems fairly reasonable to cooperate with someone who shares your goal and is willing to contribute resources. From what I can tell, SBF/FTX's public image was reasonably clean prior to the blow up. The wikipedia article[1] only lists some minor controversies (eg. FDIC cease and desist). This definitely isn't something like bitfinex/tether where there's a long controversy spanning years[2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTX_(company)#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTX_(company)#History [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tether_(cryptocurrency) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tether_(cryptocurrency)

c7b 4y ago

The justifications in EA's long-termism are very similar to SBF's 'expected-value-reasoning', and the idea of buying out politicians to promote your cause is straight out of the EA playbook, fully justified by the philosophy. Just saying 'don't break laws while getting rich' is a band-aid, the problems exposed here run deeper.

gruez 4y ago
>the idea of buying out politicians to promote your cause is straight out of the EA playbook, fully justified by the philosophy By "buying out", do you mean literal bribery, or just lobbying? If it's the latter, are you also against other organizations (eg. unions, environmental groups, activists) that try to fund raise/lobby for their preferred candidates?
mejutoco 4y ago
EA sounds to me like Machiavelli. In summary: the end justifies the means. I thought this was covered in any ethics class before highschool, I cannot see what is so interesting about it.

vrc 4y ago

Just the capitalized term EA to me reads like a scam. It’s a new term created to explain some behavior that is simply injurious to the broader population, claiming that its for their benefit. I’m just not sure I buy it.

rglover 4y ago
Especially when the definition of what is "effective" is totally subjective and up to the adherents belief system(s). Which sadly appears to have been funneling "donations" to bog standard NGO/political nonsense, not impactful things like making sure kids can eat or caring for veterans who've been disposed of.
- Tenoke 4y ago
  That's not really an accurate characterization. The most promoted cause by EA has been the Against Malaria Foundation because it saves the most money per $ spent. If you donate to GiveWell (a basic recommended way to donate in EA) they mostly donate to Malaria and similar causes. Obviously, some members do a lot more but Political causes aren't the standard, that stuff is.
  - rglover 4y ago
    Most-promoted, but is it the most funded? For example, their landing page just links to the AMF's donors list page while claiming EA provided "significant support" with the only mentions of EA being people they've inspired to donate in relatively small amounts (relative to the billions moving through FTX). I'd imagine they're buried in there somewhere but if they're a major supporter I'd assume they'd be plastering that number all over the place. Sorry, but this whole FTX thing isn't just an "oopsie." They knew exactly what they were doing and tried to justify it with a few targeted donations. The landing page alone only showcases 6 initiatives, 50% of which are exactly what I described above.
    - gruez 4y ago
      >Most-promoted, but is it the most funded? For example, their landing page just links to the AMF's donors list page while claiming EA provided "significant support" with the only mentions of EA being people they've inspired to donate in relatively small amounts This seems totally expected if you think of effective altruism as a movement focused on figuring out where your money would be best spent, rather than as some sort of organization that wants your money. This is reflected in what SBF did. He didn't donate all his money to effective altruism like it's a cult or whatever, he set up a charity and hired various people to decide which worthy projects should be funded. >(relative to the billions moving through FTX). And why would you compare that to "the billions moving through FTX"? FTX isn't EA, nor does FTX operate as some sort of non-profit. FTX does have a charitable arm, but they only issued $160 million worth of grants, nowhere near "the billions" you speak of. You can see their grant list here: https://ftxfuturefund.org/our-grants/ https://ftxfuturefund.org/our-grants/

shapefrog 4y ago

He said "I'm doing EA" - the EA community said "He is amazing he is doing the best EA" What makes you think that he wasn't doing effective altruism

thepasswordis 4y ago
The part where it turned out that he was just robbing people.
- snoot 4y ago
  According to him, he just made some mistakes labelling things and it got out of hand.
- shapefrog 4y ago
  A modern day robinhood - stealing from the rich and giving to the poor

hcurtiss 4y ago

Nobody has tried actual communism.

bradgessler 4y ago

Yeah, everything I've read about the corporate governance of Sam's enterprises seems like it should have been turned up pretty quickly under the most basic diligence. I can see how "Main Street" investors got completely screwed over, but what I don't understand is how any sort of institutional money flowed into FTX and propped it to the massive scale it achieved. That deserves closer examination.

brindlejim 4y ago

Kind of. Sam was not doing what EAism says you should do. But he was embedded in the EA movement, close to many of its other members, and abetted by people like Will. So if you look at EA descriptively, Sam was very much doing EA. He was lying about his business. But he wasn't lying about giving the money away. That was very real, and a big part of what "doing effective altruism" is. Sam/Caroline were also doing crypto. The two movements -- EA and crypto -- clearly want to excommunicate them. But both those movements were happy to work with them when they appeared to be successful, non-fraudulent billionaires. Nobody knows you when you're down and out.

PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
> But both those movements were happy to work with them when they appeared to be successful, non-fraudulent billionaires. Are you claiming failure to do "due diligence" ? Because otherwise, that seems fairly normal.
- brindlejim 4y ago
  I am claiming two things: 1) EA as a movement and as a principle has been at best equivocal on whether or not it's OK to deliberately harm a few people in order to benefit many people. There's a very strong argument that SBF was pursuing utilitarian goals as espoused by EA. Riches amplify our flaws. He committed EA on a grand scale, and it turns out that SBF's version of take-no-prisoners utilitarianism is a) illegal, b) harmful to millions of people, and b.1) that includes his own movement. 2) SBF and Caroline did crypto. They didn't do crypto and secretly scam people and therefore they are not really doing crypto. Scamming is at the heart of crypto. If you want scamming not to be at the heart of crypto, then accept that you will need a centralized authority with a mandate for violence to impose rules of behavior, much as we have with the rest of finance.
thepasswordis 4y ago
>But both those movements were happy to work with them when they appeared to be successful, non-fraudulent billionaires. Yes? I don't understand the point of this statement. "When Alice appeared to donating to her local charity, we liked her, but when it turned out she was lying to us, we didn't like her anymore. We like charity/EA/crypto, and think those are all good things. So when people are doing them, that is good. If they use that goodwill to exploit other people, we don't like that. That is a functioning system.

drowsspa 4y ago

Back during the Brazilian dictatorship, they used to say "we have to grow the cake to split it afterwards". What actually surprises me is that EA was apparently taken seriously. It does explain a lot of the fake goodness Silicon Valley is well known for.

gruez 4y ago
>What actually surprises me is that EA was apparently taken seriously. It does explain a lot of the fake goodness Silicon Valley is well known for. What's the appropriate level of seriousness to take stuff like effective altruism or other charitable endeavors? Should we go full nihilist and assume that everyone is greedy and only donating for selfish reasons?
- drowsspa 4y ago
  Filthy rich people looking for a framework in which they can get to enjoy being rich, not advocating for any real change in the system, and feel morally superior because they're donating some meaningless amount to charities? Yeah, some cynicism is very much warranted for. And before you say it, it's meaningless to donate even 90% of your fortune to someone like them. Specially to those glorified PR operations that are the charities they tend to support.

cwkoss 4y ago

When people use moral identifiers, like 'altruist' or 'philanthropist' , etc. they are trying to shortcut past the normal societal repetitional mechanisms to be viewed as a moral person. The people who want to take these shortcuts tend to be the least moral people. Same force that leads the immoral to be more likely loudly publicly identify with a religion. EA may be an interesting perspective, but I'm immediately wary of anyone who self-identifies as an "effective altruist".

gruez 4y ago
>EA may be an interesting perspective, but I'm immediately wary of anyone who self-identifies as an "effective altruist". The logic makes sense on the surface. For instance, if someone self-identifies himself as a philanthropist/altruist and makes an effort to make that known I'll be a bit suspicious. However, effective altruism is a movement/community, so it seems reasonable to be able to identify yourself as belonging to that community. For instance, if you're part of the YIMBY movement, and you're involved in a significant way (eg. are a leader, gives talks, and contributes financial resources), it seems reasonable for you to mention that at least occasionally. It just so happens that the community that SBF is involved with is called "effective altruism", so if you're a member of the community you get called an "effective altruist". Given what they do, I think the naming is entirely reasonable and nothing cynical is happening.
- cwkoss 4y ago
  It's certainly true at all EAs aren't bad people. I'm just arguing that self identifying EAs are disproportionately bad people due to the attraction they have towards being labeled as such. Good EAs are less likely to be vocal about the label.
  - gruez 4y ago
    > I'm just arguing that self identifying EAs are disproportionately bad people Is there evidence backing this assertion? Or are we just going with "SBF was an effective alturist, SBF was bad, therefore self identifying EAs are disproportionately bad people"?

bhawks 4y ago

First and foremost a huge number of people saw their savings and investment wiped out by sociopaths that defrauded them and continuously lied to everyone's face as the charade came crumbling down. SBF and his cadre seem likely to escape any form of justice. Indeed there is a chance they'll be able to keep a portion of their ill-gotten gains. Those directly effected and their friends and family are hurt and angry. Those are the normal feelings to have. They will express them. Now is the time for listening and supporting, not correcting details. There are other parties that have long standing disagreements with both the EA and crypto communities. Many of them are taking this moment to dogpile and dump on those movements to prove their point. I believe the right response is to reflect and self improve. The crypto community is drastically embracing self custody and defi. Moving transactions on chain will help prevent this type of fraud (and it's the core point of crypto to begin with). This is a reasonable path forward. I'm not plugged into EA but I hope there are similar efforts being made to learn and rebuild. The best parts of both communities is focused on changing core primitives of human society at a scale never attempted before. If they're going to succeed they will have to overcome much bigger challenges than what this recent disaster caused. It will take time, openness and dedication. I think both communities really need to realize and prepare for the fact that they're challenging areas that are extremely attractive to sociopaths and psychopaths - money, morality and ultimately power. The community must be able to identify, contain and limit the damage caused by bad actors.

bmitc 4y ago

This type of scam likely couldn’t have happened for so long in today’s world with standard currencies and securities because those are tightly regulated and controlled. So yes, their scam does have something to do with cryptocurrencies, especially since they were minting their own in FTT.