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I'm not even sure if he saw himself as redistributing money vs. creating value from scratch, from the productivity increases that cryptocurrency would usher in

by btown 3y ago

I'm not even sure if he saw himself as redistributing money vs. creating value from scratch, from the productivity increases that cryptocurrency would usher in when it became mainstream - and if he was the one to not "re-distribute," but simply distribute, some portion of those newfound gains, why, he would be the best possible steward because of his EA ideals! But, of course, what he didn't do was get the consent of his depositors to have their deposits rerouted and gambled with in the way that he did. Even if he had been right, if he had been able to ride the wave and cryptocurrency became everything he thought it could be - his actions were legally found to be fraudulent. In terms of a broader pattern with regards to consent and power dynamics, there's another inescapable data point of the EA movement's problems with internally handling sexual harassment allegations - I won't link to the time.com article on the EA movement, as it horrifyingly orientalizes and conflates polyamory with harassment, but assuming that the article's quotes from primary sources are accurate, it suggests a culture of protection for those who would abuse their power. I think that the EA community needs to grapple with the notion that just because one believes a certain pathway to be optimal, it does not absolve them of the need to gather explicit consent, given freely, with information discrepancies and power dynamics taken into account, from those who would be impacted. Optimization under constraints can still be optimization, and people's freedom to choose the extent to which they participate is the most important constraint of all.

landemva 3y ago
Sam wasn't really a crypto guy. He knew some things about finance and trading, and set up a prop shop offshore.
morelisp 3y ago
> it horrifyingly orientalizes and conflates polyamory with harassment I mean, Caroline Ellison herself is the one who said her relationship goals (which was to a large degree coterminous with company structure) was "best characterized as something like 'imperial Chinese harem'" no? It's not Time "orientalizing", it's one particular fucked up polycule. Which also happened to be one of the highest visibility ones in "the movement" (whether you take that as EA, crypto, Rationalism, Bay Area rich kid libertinism, whatever). Polyamory takes on a distinctly awful flavor when imported into EA (and before that Rationalist, which I would assume is where it reached EA from) communities. I would assume abuse and codependence before healthy relationships in these cases, because frankly I see 99% of this movement is at best emotionally immature.
- btown 3y ago
  Oh, no doubt - I'm certainly not trying to defend EA's particular flavor of polyamory. But from Time's perspective, you have a term like polyamory that the general public is not likely to be familiar with, and you only quote extreme and stereotyped viewpoints in defining it, without reference to any other definitions or statistics or lived poly experiences outside of EA's particular interpretations, you contribute to a culture of fear that all non-monogamous relationships are equally toxic. Perhaps horrifying was an exaggeration - but the omission in the reporting is irresponsible at best, and in the current culture, can cause real damage even to unrelated communities.
  - morelisp 3y ago
    IDK, if I wanted to avoid a culture of fear around non-monogamous relationships I would want the toxic ones to be outed and shut down ASAP - like long before they grew into continent-spanning pseudointellectual movements handling hundreds of millions of dollars. Asking for the article to dig into "but some are healthy too" is just "not all men" writ (only mildly) larger. I also think this is really a non-issue, millennials and later mostly don't care at all and the people who don't like them aren't going to be convinced by anything ever, let alone some more carefully-crafted magazine article.

by btown 3y ago

landemva 3y ago

Sam wasn't really a crypto guy. He knew some things about finance and trading, and set up a prop shop offshore.

morelisp 3y ago

> it horrifyingly orientalizes and conflates polyamory with harassment I mean, Caroline Ellison herself is the one who said her relationship goals (which was to a large degree coterminous with company structure) was "best characterized as something like 'imperial Chinese harem'" no? It's not Time "orientalizing", it's one particular fucked up polycule. Which also happened to be one of the highest visibility ones in "the movement" (whether you take that as EA, crypto, Rationalism, Bay Area rich kid libertinism, whatever). Polyamory takes on a distinctly awful flavor when imported into EA (and before that Rationalist, which I would assume is where it reached EA from) communities. I would assume abuse and codependence before healthy relationships in these cases, because frankly I see 99% of this movement is at best emotionally immature.

btown 3y ago
Oh, no doubt - I'm certainly not trying to defend EA's particular flavor of polyamory. But from Time's perspective, you have a term like polyamory that the general public is not likely to be familiar with, and you only quote extreme and stereotyped viewpoints in defining it, without reference to any other definitions or statistics or lived poly experiences outside of EA's particular interpretations, you contribute to a culture of fear that all non-monogamous relationships are equally toxic. Perhaps horrifying was an exaggeration - but the omission in the reporting is irresponsible at best, and in the current culture, can cause real damage even to unrelated communities.
- morelisp 3y ago
  IDK, if I wanted to avoid a culture of fear around non-monogamous relationships I would want the toxic ones to be outed and shut down ASAP - like long before they grew into continent-spanning pseudointellectual movements handling hundreds of millions of dollars. Asking for the article to dig into "but some are healthy too" is just "not all men" writ (only mildly) larger. I also think this is really a non-issue, millennials and later mostly don't care at all and the people who don't like them aren't going to be convinced by anything ever, let alone some more carefully-crafted magazine article.