To me, FTX hosting EA events and fellowships in the Bahamas reeked of neocolonialism (which is a word I donāt like to bandy about willy-nilly). 90.6% of The Bahamasā population are Black,[1] whereas the majority of EAs are White.[2] Relative to many countries in the Americas, The Bahamas has a superficially strong economy with a GDP (PPP) per capita of $40,274, but a lot of this economic activity is due to tourism and offshore companies using it as a tax haven,[1] and itās unclear to me how much of this prosperity actually trickles down to the majority of Bahamians. (According to UN data, The Bahamas has a Gini coefficient of 0.57, the highest in the Caribbean.[3]) Also, Iāve never heard anyone talk about recruiting Bahamians into the EA movement or EA orgs.
I think it can sometimes fee a bit brutal to be downvoted with no explanation. I might say the Bahamas was glad to have FTX there and itās kind of patronising to deny them that opportunity because of their poverty and make it worse, right?
I get the sense FTX was actually giving quite a lot the Bahamas, though clearly not now and also unclear how much of that was corruption.
I disagree because I would only count something as neocolonialism if there was a strong argument that it was doing net harm to the local population in the interest of the ācolonisersā.
(Iām not trying to be dismissiveāI think there are ways to make this argument, perhaps something like: āobserving a retreat full of foreigners will cause Bahamians to experience resentment and a reduced sense of self-determination; those are unpleasant things to experience, and could also cause backlash against the EA movementā. My claim is just that talking about harms directly is a better starting point for discussion.)
Epistemic status: Hot take
To me, FTX hosting EA events and fellowships in the Bahamas reeked of neocolonialism (which is a word I donāt like to bandy about willy-nilly). 90.6% of The Bahamasā population are Black,[1] whereas the majority of EAs are White.[2] Relative to many countries in the Americas, The Bahamas has a superficially strong economy with a GDP (PPP) per capita of $40,274, but a lot of this economic activity is due to tourism and offshore companies using it as a tax haven,[1] and itās unclear to me how much of this prosperity actually trickles down to the majority of Bahamians. (According to UN data, The Bahamas has a Gini coefficient of 0.57, the highest in the Caribbean.[3]) Also, Iāve never heard anyone talk about recruiting Bahamians into the EA movement or EA orgs.
The BahamasāWikipedia
Every EA community survey ever, e.g. EA Survey 2020
Inequality in the BahamasāEtonomics
I think it can sometimes fee a bit brutal to be downvoted with no explanation. I might say the Bahamas was glad to have FTX there and itās kind of patronising to deny them that opportunity because of their poverty and make it worse, right?
I get the sense FTX was actually giving quite a lot the Bahamas, though clearly not now and also unclear how much of that was corruption.
I disagree because I would only count something as neocolonialism if there was a strong argument that it was doing net harm to the local population in the interest of the ācolonisersā.
I mean, it plausibly did cause net harm to the Bahamas in this case, even if that wasnāt what people expected.
It seems to me that youād be better off arguing that an event in the Bahamas causes harms to Bahamians directly, instead of drawing an analogy with colonialism. See The noncentral fallacyāthe worst argument in the world?
(Iām not trying to be dismissiveāI think there are ways to make this argument, perhaps something like: āobserving a retreat full of foreigners will cause Bahamians to experience resentment and a reduced sense of self-determination; those are unpleasant things to experience, and could also cause backlash against the EA movementā. My claim is just that talking about harms directly is a better starting point for discussion.)