> While there might be a lot of people who still cling to its earlier more modest ambitions, the core of the movement changed. I know this is true, and I'm tot

> While there might be a lot of people who still cling to its earlier more modest ambitions, the core of the movement changed. I know this is true, and I'm totally willing to admit that my out-of-date impressions of the "movement" are probably coloring my resistance a bit. I've seen some of the "longtermism" stuff and it's crazy to see what was once a legimately "rational" community devolve in that manner. SBF is definitely an example of the worst of the dumb ideas associated with the movement (at least, if you take him at his word). But dammit, there's still reasonable ways to engage with these ideas, and I hate to see a perfectly good baby thrown out just because it took a shit in the bathwater. > Is there a perfectly straight line between Scott Alexander's writings and some alleged Adderall abuse of a particular EA advocate? I don't know, but there's probably contributing factors there. There might be, and there might not be. I'm sure they read the article in question. Just doesn't seem fair to me to take reasonably ... reasonable writing from Scott and then somehow lay SBF's drug abuse at his feet. I assumed the "54 billion lives" thing was a joke, and I make that assumption because I find Scott to be generally smart and reasonable. If he meant it seriously, well, no mincing - that's pretty dumb. > Beliefs like this may have made SBF far more dangerous. One interpretation of his actions is that he justified building a massive fortune from fraud in the present, because he planned to save billions of lives from rogue AI in the future. I have a really hard time buying that SBF truly thought he was some kind of hero here, but that may be my own bias. I'm somewhat reminded of the back-and-forth about Islamism that was in vogue 5-10 years ago, where folks just couldn't seem to believe that groups like ISIS actually believed all that jihad stuff. So I might be making the same kind of error. Maybe he really does see himself as some kind of AI savior - but it still feels equally reasonable that he just identified a way to convince nominally smart people to give up their money to enrich himself.