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Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience

scottaaronson.blog

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Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience

#21

Post by chaosbolt »

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 (founder of Celcius) didn't go to prison either.

On the other hand, Do Kwon (Terra) is a fugitive and interpol is looking for him, and Satish Kumbhani (Bitconnect) got indicted but disappeared so the cops are looking for him.

So yeah you have to turn off your pattern recognition or else be called a bad name.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience

#22

Post by versteegen »

googlryas wrote: post #4
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.

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...

> 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 it's not at all like betting everything and ending up homeless if you lose the bet. At $20B vs $150B the catastrophe of losing $20B starts to become more significant, but I would absolutely still take that bet.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience

#23

Post by pearjuice »

>From everything I’ve read, SBF’s mission to earn billions, then spend it saving the world, seems something like this imagined Apollo mission

How can the author pretend SBF his actions are comparable to a "tiny crack in an oxygen tank"? He willingly and knowingly defrauded customers and investors. Arguably as early as years ago and already provably months ago when he started bailing out crypto companies with funds defrauded from customers and funding his (failing) trading firm with customer funds.

Personally with all the lies and deception I'm starting to believe his entry and reign in crypto is one big fraud. There's no record of his geographical Bitcoin arbitrage whatsoever except hearsay. His exposure to tradfi (jane street) is limited and he didn't do anything impactful there. His "baby" Solana is a glorified Excel sheet working on a few centralized nodes. Most of his networth has always been in illiquid coins he created himself. And to see how this drama has unfolded, I find it hard to believe how he is into EA and not just obsessed with having influence and driving up his money-highscore as if it's a game.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience

#24

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

Gatsky wrote: post #9
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…

Well he was into EA when he was a nobody at University… I doubt that it was all for show. Generally, in public downfalls like this, people over ascribe the causes to moral turpitude. There aren’t enough details here to say either way yet. There is a good book about this sort of thing Mistakes were made (but not by me). [1] I think the blog post is very good, providing a unique perspective, and wonderfully written. [1…

No, EA's cultish aspects played a huge role in this.

SBF got his start in crypto doing arbitrage with Japan, because setting up a trading account in Japan was hard. He got someone to do it through the EA community.

Most of the people who are in positions of power in his companies came from the EA community. And no joke a bunch of them are all in romantic relationships with each other too. You've got the CEO of his trading firm, who SBF dated, posting on tumblr about how poly relationships should be a vicious power struggle to get to the top.

I think you're way underestimating just how weird and cultish this whole clique is, and how moral criticism is actually valid here as the ideology is in a central role. These people cast themselves as noble heros making the world better in the net, when in reality they're total nepotistic weirdos.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience

#25

Post by braingenious »

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.

I know that it garners fewer clicks, but wouldn’t it be more honest to just say “Damn. I wish I had been rewarded with billions of dollars for my shitty behavior, and further (since I’m imagining myself in this scenario) it all worked out in such a way that I was deified for this grift.”

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience

#26

Post by eterm »

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…

To be accurate, Mark Karpeles was sentenced to prison, albeit a suspended setence.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience

#27

Post by pr0crastin8 »

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.

From all this talk of Effective Altruism, it seems we actually need a greater push for "Effective Justice".

Individuals and companies need to be better held to account for the scale of societal (and environmental) damage that they cause.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience

#28

Post by user_named »

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #24
Gatsky wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well he was into EA when he was a nobody at University… I doubt that it was all for show. Generally, in public downfalls like this, people over ascribe the causes to moral turpitude. There aren’t enough details here to say either way yet. There is a good book about this sort of thing Mistakes were made (but not by me). [1] I think the blog post is very good, providing a unique perspective, and wonderfully written. [1…

No, EA's cultish aspects played a huge role in this. SBF got his start in crypto doing arbitrage with Japan, because setting up a trading account in Japan was hard. He got someone to do it through the EA community. Most of the people who are in positions of power in his companies came from the EA community. And no joke a bunch of them are all in romantic relationships with each other too. You've got the CEO of his tr…

No post body was provided.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience

#29

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

user_named wrote: post #28
jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, EA's cultish aspects played a huge role in this. SBF got his start in crypto doing arbitrage with Japan, because setting up a trading account in Japan was hard. He got someone to do it through the EA community. Most of the people who are in positions of power in his companies came from the EA community. And no joke a bunch of them are all in romantic relationships with each other too. You've got the CEO of his tr…

Quoted post unavailable.

Yeah, I think we can criticize the stupid here without crossing that line.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried and the geometry of conscience

#30

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

juletide wrote: post #7

> 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…

I really enjoyed his book and have learned an enormous amount from his blog on QM, QC, etc.

However, it's clear he has some very neurotic attitudes surrounding sexuality. I don't say this lightly and without empathy. I was raised by evangelical extremists. I'm talking the kind of people where the school I went to debated whether it was sinful to allow the girls to wear pants instead of dresses during a blizzard. I never received any form of sex education or guidance on the topic. You get the basic picture. I get where he's coming from.

But he's just wrong to be so overly concerned about being seen as a sexual predator. I don't know what the solution for him his other that introspection and perhaps therapy, but I do wish he'd have enough self awareness to realize that perhaps, this is not the topic he should be offering sage like advice blogs about.

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