Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience

Post by morelisp » Sun, Nov 13, 2022, 6:13 PM UTC

etcet wrote: post #97

morelisp wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. All the debates about whether SBF's EA ties were "authentic" or he strayed over time or whatever are missing the point. EA is a morally bankrupt, barely coherent, stupid ideology designed to justify pre-hoc teenage technocratic fantasies. In that sense, no matter what SBF believed in his heart of hearts he's a poster child for EA all the way.

I'm seeing so many of these posts and I just don't understand how this perception of EA has formed. What charities are you giving to? EA would say you should give to fight global poverty and improve global health as fighting malaria is more effective than say, giving to a local arts community. What's bankrupt, barely coherent, stupid, and technocratic about that?

Post by timkam » Sun, Nov 13, 2022, 7:36 PM UTC

beowulfey wrote: post #54

timkam wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similarly, I don't think it's correct to characterize SBF's background as 'middle class'. Apparently, both of his parents are Profs at Stanford Law School. Most likely, they are wealthy or even rich and SBF could benefit from their network, gaining access to the American elites without too many questions asked.

I wouldn’t assume his family is wealthy, just because they are in academia. You don’t go to academia for the money. (Although I’m not sure exactly what you mean by wealthy vs rich)

Post by braingenious » Mon, Nov 14, 2022, 1:14 AM UTC

synu wrote: post #33

braingenious wrote: post #25

I cannot imagine writing something this embarrassing and deeming it worthy of public consumption. There is a very, very weird phenomenon of people that consider themselves to be very clever inexplicably carrying water for others that also consider themselves to be very clever, regardless of the material conditions or facts at hand. It’s like Scott Aaronson is applying to be in a club that Mr Fried is the bouncer for.…

The best way to drive social media engagement as a “thought leader” is pick a slightly contrarian viewpoint and then just keep doubling down forever, no matter what. People will flock to you who want external validation of whatever they wish was true, and you can build a quite successful brand.

Post by ETH_start » Mon, Nov 14, 2022, 8:38 AM UTC

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…

Post by versteegen » Mon, Nov 14, 2022, 12:20 PM UTC

tsimionescu wrote: post #99

versteegen wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In your post above, you justified not giving 1B to charity because it could be bet until it raised to 150B. But there is no reason why, by the same logic, you couldn't justify playing that 150B to raise it to any number rather than giving it away to charity today.