> To my mind, though, it’s important not to minimize the gravity of the fateful decision by conflating it with everything that preceded it. I confess to taking this sort of conflation extremely personally. For eight years now, the rap against me, advanced by thousands (!) on social media, has been: sure, while by all accounts Aaronson is kind and respectful to women, he seems like exactly the sort of nerdy guy who, s…
Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience
11–20 of 111 posts
Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience
#12One of the worst posts I've ever read from Scott, this reads as shockingly tone-deaf and blithely optimistic. He totally ignores the actual events that transpired and instead focuses on Sam's purported ideals, probably because Scott Aaronson feels a lot of kinship with him as a fellow nerd and therefore can't seem to believe anything other than "he just made a mistake somewhere". I don't want to pass judgment on Sam, as we don't fully know what happened yet, but Aaronson seems to be taking an extremely strong stance in support of Sam by saying "the worst thing he did is he incorrectly weighted money", which seems undue.
IMO, it seems like Sam had an astonishing amount of pride in himself -- purportedly installing backdoors, playing LoL while on calls with investors, antagonizing competitors, installing nobody with any experience -- and it was all accepted, even rewarded. I can't help but think that if he had trusted others a little bit more, he might have been able to make better decisions for the sake of his company and the world. If I could give him advice, something like that would be it.
Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience
#13> In the course of 2-3 days last week, SBF’s estimated net worth went from ~$15 billion to a negative number, possibly the fastest evaporation of such a vast personal fortune in all human history. No. His net worth was never $15B. His net worth might have been negative - less than that homeless living in a tent under the bridge. He was a fraud, a con man. There's no reason to assume his entire Effective Altruism inte…
Effective altruism seems to be a sort of cult that’s way for elites (that is, the upper class) to both make themselves feel better and to give them yet another vector of superiority over people. In Sam Bankman-Fried’s case, he seems to have let it be a justification for the huge risks and likely criminal actions he took.
I'm not sure if it's that far to be a cult because I was never in it, and the will to share is commendable.
To me it sounds like a way to justify making more money at all costs under the guise of a moral high ground. It'd feel more honest to do it without the cosplay around it and the "I donate better than you" holier than thou-ness.
I think it's more of a reactionary outburst from people who became wealthy enough to wonder about the purpose of their life and want to detach themselves from the late stage capitalist brand they get as cushy first world living while still reaping all the benefits.
I'm afraid if there were many good hearted people in that movement this single event will also discredit the rest. But maybe it was all a cult, who knows.
In this guy's case it sounds like a handy way to minimize whatever sentence he gets over this because he can argue "he did it out of pure intentions to help the world", which basically counts as insurance / marketing expenses for the scam.
Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience
#14> To my mind, though, it’s important not to minimize the gravity of the fateful decision by conflating it with everything that preceded it. I confess to taking this sort of conflation extremely personally. For eight years now, the rap against me, advanced by thousands (!) on social media, has been: sure, while by all accounts Aaronson is kind and respectful to women, he seems like exactly the sort of nerdy guy who, s…
The whole piece, "the geometry of conscience" is about guilt-by-association.
Rather than use the phrase, he takes "association" to be a distance metric, and guilt to be a measure of conscience.
I'd suppose quite a lot of people have, of late, felt the "guilt by association" culture inimical to a lot of social media. This is just his way of illustrating its impact on him.
A woman in a leadership position might likewise have said, "and I'm supposed to be JK Rowling, ..."
Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience
#15> In the course of 2-3 days last week, SBF’s estimated net worth went from ~$15 billion to a negative number, possibly the fastest evaporation of such a vast personal fortune in all human history. No. His net worth was never $15B. His net worth might have been negative - less than that homeless living in a tent under the bridge. He was a fraud, a con man. There's no reason to assume his entire Effective Altruism inte…
The author of the post seems a bit blind.
From what it seems, SBF is a pathological liar. He tried to lie at the last minute, assuring everything was fine and that others were to blame. After the last minute, he kept saying that if you filter out the mandatory "sorry" messages. It's not just Apollo 11 gone wrong, it was NOT Apollo from the start.
Maybe EA is a bit too far stretched, maybe it just attracts the wrong kind of individuals.
Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
Effective altruism seems to be a sort of cult that’s way for elites (that is, the upper class) to both make themselves feel better and to give them yet another vector of superiority over people. In Sam Bankman-Fried’s case, he seems to have let it be a justification for the huge risks and likely criminal actions he took.
SBF literally said he would wager the world for another world with 51% odds. There's no amount of money that will satisfy someone like that, even if his EA statements were heartfelt. Why would he give a billion dollars to charities, when he could risk it, flip it into $20B, and give it to charity? Why would he give $20B to charity when he could risk it, and flip it into $150B? etc...
I do wonder what addictions he has. It seems amphetamines and gambling are at least two. Or it’s possible they’re more sociopathic tendencies.
Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience
#17There's a guy in the clear stealing billions of dollars and nothing happens. People go to prison for stealing a car, this is literally 1000000 times bigger and he's not even arrested. He belongs to prison for a life time. All the other talk about crypto / regulation is just hiding how corrupt the system is for not arresting this guy instantly.
If the allegations of criminal activity are true, he will very likely end up in prison.
Obviously it will take time for investigations to gather evidence, prosecutors to file charges, etc. These are still very recent events. Just be patient!
Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience
#18One of the worst posts I've ever read from Scott, this reads as shockingly tone-deaf and blithely optimistic. He totally ignores the actual events that transpired and instead focuses on Sam's purported ideals, probably because Scott Aaronson feels a lot of kinship with him as a fellow nerd and therefore can't seem to believe anything other than "he just made a mistake somewhere". I don't want to pass judgment on Sam,…
Scott is incredibly smart but I have him down as very biased and take everything he writes that is not hard science with a huge grain of salt.
Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience
#19The author effectively covers this rebuttal with a catch-all early on, but this still reads a bit like a defense of "fake it until you make it". The implication being that SBF (or e.g. Elizabeth Holmse) were only _somewhat_ responsible for their fraudulent activities - and that any "normal" person would have trouble discerning whether or not their actions are fraudulent or merely "overly optimistic leadership".
I wish I could say the era of "move fast, break things" is over, but I have lost all faith. Can we please just stop all this craziness now? Good leadership should be about having good intuition, good instincts and planning for _long_ time horizons.
Instead the valley's "idols" are Zuckerberg and Elon and a bunch of quants obsessed with financial engineering.
Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience
#20Effective altruism weights large amount of utility that are distant from the user higher than non-utilitarian moralities such as familial obligations, purity, or fairness. From an EA perspective, SBF made a morally correct gamble since his intent was to donate all the winnings. The discounted utility of donating the potential winnings of shitcoins outweighed the utility of not doing so. Perhaps it would be wise to reconsider the premises of EA rather than run to its defense as the author has done here.