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Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience

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Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience

#81

Post by thrasibule »

arcticbull wrote: post #10
oldgradstudent wrote: post #2

> 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…

> ... possibly the fastest evaporation of such a vast personal fortune in all human history. That title would probably go to Zucc after the most recent set of earnings. But the previous title holder was none other than Mr. Cyber Hornets himself, the man who just about popped the Dot Com bubble - Michael Saylor. Saylor lost $6B in a single day (and $10B in 2 weeks) after reporting that his firm had cooked the books in…

Bill Hwang of the Archegos blow up has got to be up there too. He lost 20bn in a couple of days.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience

#82

Post by chaosbolt »

oldgradstudent wrote: post #53
chaosbolt wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't go to prison when you are the 2nd biggest donor to the current president's campaign. Mark Karpales didn't go to prison for Mt Gox, he spent some months in jail because they were afraid he might leave Japan + Japan isn't like the west he prpbably doesn't have connections there, then left and worked for different financial companies and then started another company assessing risk or something. Alex Mashinsky…

These things take a ridiculous amount of time. Theranos was exposed as a fraud in 2015. but only now, in 2012, Elizabeth Holmes' trial has reached sentencing with the prosecution asking for 15 years. It's an unbelievable amount of for persecutors to untangle the web of transactions to be able to prove to a jury the existence and scale of fraud. I would bet that both Mashinsky and SBF will spend a lot of quality time…

>I would bet that both Mashinsky and SBF will spend a lot of quality time in a federal prison.

They won't, Mashinsky will NEVER go to prison for Celsius, and SBF, if somehow was to go to prison, will commit suicide on his first day there (suicide will be commited upon him but potato potato).

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience

#83

Post by versteegen »

tsimionescu wrote: post #34
versteegen wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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... But that would be the rational thing to do... $1B less donated to charity is only roughly 1/20 as bad as $20B donated to charity is good, because there are also other people donating large amounts. In other words i…

It's easy to see that this logic leads to a Zeno's paradox where you can never donate anything because it would cut into potential future profits that you could donate in the future. Since it leads to contradiction, it is obviously wrong in some of its assumptions.

No, because you are talking about compounding returns (which I was not), but improving people's lives today gives far greater long-term benefits than investing the money at reasonable return and donating more in the future, for well-known reasons.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience

#84

Post by MrMan »

michaelt wrote: post #55
bmitc wrote: post #3

Earlier 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.

> 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. Setting aside the case of this crypto conman, is being holier-than-though the valid criticism it feels like - or is that just my instinct to protect my ego, when the guy sitting next to me and earning the same salary donate…

most of the good done in the world thee days is paradoxically perhaps achieved through commerce, not charity per se. and even charities are mostly effective in the sense that they get money flowing into the economy, where people can trade value for value and attend to their material needs, etc etc. most charity is not as effective as simply achieving some equity in income distribution, or barring that just overall higher levels of income and lower costs for the inputs that go into the economy.

dont get fooled by people who think they can put good-ness into a box labelled "giving", I dont believe its that simple.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience

#85

Post by MrMan »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #74
ETH_start wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>You're taking a point of concentrated wealth in a system designed to create that concentration and comparing it to 1 individual and using that to support the system. I wasn't able to follow. Could you rephrase or elaborate on the last part?

Effective Altruism asks "what's the most I can do?" and come up with the answer, "become a king and give my(!) money I earn(!) to effective charities". That only makes sense if your starting place in the system makes becoming a king possible. Meanwhile, if they asked "what's the most we can do?" then the answer is unlikely to involve kings and more likely involves changing the system that gives them the opportunity t…

this is going in the right direction, in my opinion.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience

#86

Post by zajio1am »

whoooooo123 wrote: post #64
Reason077 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

I'm so lost. I'd never heard of this guy or FTX until a couple of days ago. Can someone give me a link to the best and (this is important) most succinct summary of what the hell happened here? Why did all this money vanish, and what crimes did SBF commit?

Here is a detailed description: https://www.coppolacomment.com/2022/11/the-ftx-alameda-nexus...

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience

#87

Post by michaelt »

MrMan wrote: post #84
michaelt wrote: post #55

Earlier 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. Setting aside the case of this crypto conman, is being holier-than-though the valid criticism it feels like - or is that just my instinct to protect my ego, when the guy sitting next to me and earning the same salary donate…

most of the good done in the world thee days is paradoxically perhaps achieved through commerce, not charity per se. and even charities are mostly effective in the sense that they get money flowing into the economy, where people can trade value for value and attend to their material needs, etc etc. most charity is not as effective as simply achieving some equity in income distribution, or barring that just overall hi…

Doesn't that imply an EA enthusiast earning to give at a wall street hedge fund is doubly good, because they're charitably giving mosquito nets to developing nations while engaging in commerce and making money flow around the economy?

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience

#88

Post by quickthrowman »

chaosbolt wrote: post #21
xiphias2 wrote: post #8

There'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.

You don't go to prison when you are the 2nd biggest donor to the current president's campaign. Mark Karpales didn't go to prison for Mt Gox, he spent some months in jail because they were afraid he might leave Japan + Japan isn't like the west he prpbably doesn't have connections there, then left and worked for different financial companies and then started another company assessing risk or something. Alex Mashinsky…

Why would anyone help him out when he won’t be able to donate in the next election cycle? I’m just speculating since I’m not a billionaire lobbying congress, but I’d imagine there’s little reason to help someone who cannot donate in the future.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience

#89

Post by versteegen »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #74
ETH_start wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>You're taking a point of concentrated wealth in a system designed to create that concentration and comparing it to 1 individual and using that to support the system. I wasn't able to follow. Could you rephrase or elaborate on the last part?

Effective Altruism asks "what's the most I can do?" and come up with the answer, "become a king and give my(!) money I earn(!) to effective charities". That only makes sense if your starting place in the system makes becoming a king possible. Meanwhile, if they asked "what's the most we can do?" then the answer is unlikely to involve kings and more likely involves changing the system that gives them the opportunity t…

> the answer is unlikely to involve kings and more likely involves changing the system that gives them the opportunity to be kings.

Certainly true. Unfortunately, we don't seem to be able to reach the consensus needed to make such changes to the system. Hence we have to ask instead "What can I do?"

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience

#90

Post by sooheon »

iib wrote: post #5
oldgradstudent wrote: post #2

> 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…

I always saw it as a rebranding of "trickle down", but for private companies and individuals.

More than "trickle down", it now seems to be "I'll hand down".
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