I think this is a ridiculous idea, but the linked article (and headline of this post) is super clickbait-y. This idea is mentioned in two sentences in the court documents (p. 20 of docket 1886, here). All we know is that Gabriel, Sam’s brother, sent a memo to someone at the FTX Foundation mentioning the idea. We have no idea if Sam even heard about this or if anyone at the Foundation “wanted” to follow through with it. I’m sure all sorts of wild possibilities got discussed around that time. Based on the evidence it’s a a huge leap to say there were desires or plans to act on them.
Actual text from the complaint to save everyone time:
One memo exchanged between Gabriel Bankman-Fried and an officer of the FTX Foundation describes a plan to purchase the sovereign nation of Nauru in order to construct a “bunker / shelter” that would be used for “some event where 50%-99.99% of people die [to] ensure that most EAs [effective altruists] survive” and to develop “sensible regulation around human genetic enhancement, and build a lab there.” The memo further noted that “probably there are other things it’s useful to do with a sovereign country, too.”
I agree that the media coverage implies SBF endorsed the content of this memo more than is warranted based on this text alone. But I would guess there was serious discussion of this kind of thing (maybe not buying Nauru specifically, but buying other pieces of land for the purpose of building bunkers/shelters).
In this EAG Fireside Chat from October 2021, Will MacAskill says: “I’m also really keen on more disaster preparedness work, so like, buying coal mines I’m totally serious on… but also just other things for if there’s a collapse of civilization… at the most extreme you might have, like, a hermetically sealed bunker that no pathogens can enter into” (42:26). So I don’t think “Buy Nauru” falls into the category of “all sorts of wild possibilities got discussed around that time” versus a plausible extension of an idea that had become somewhat mainstream within EA at that point.
Buying a coal mine ( a common occurrence that normal people do, though it turns out Will misunderstood the process in a way that probably invalidated the plan ) seems sufficiently different from buying a country ( a very rare occurrence with no established process, normal people do not do ) that I don’t think you should take Will’s serious interest in the former as much evidence about the latter.
Yeah, I did not mean to suggest anything about Will’s support for buying small island nations. The point is just that when buying land (albeit coal mines, not Nauru) and building bunkers are mentioned in the same breath in a very public discussion at a very public EA event:
I think this makes it harder for the EA community to put as much ideological space between itself and “buy Nauru” as we might like to. Clearly “buy island nation” and “buy coal mines/build bunkers” are different, but I don’t know that they’re sufficiently different that I would say “wow, Gabe really went out on a limb in coming up with this; I doubt this idea was inspired by others he was exposed to through conversations with people in the EA community.”
This makes me think that more extreme versions of these ideas were being floated behind closed doors (/on Signal). If I’m right about this, then I suspect we’ll see more evidence of this during the trial, and I will happily eat my words in a few months if we don’t.
Maybe a more precise way of putting this:
If “buy coal mines/build bunkers” = A, and “buy Nauru” = E, then my view is that: 1) A and E aren’t that far apart (just separated by B, C, and D) and 2) I suspect B, C, and D were being discussed.
One way for us to find that out would be for the person who was sent the memo and thought it was a silly idea to make themselves known, and show the evidence that they shot it down or at least assert publicly that they didn’t encourage it.
Since there seems to be little downside to them doing so if that’s what happened, if no-one makes such a statement we should increase our credence that they were seriously entertaining it.
Didn’t vote, but I think your comment didn’t grapple with legal exposures. They are likely higher for FTXFF affiliated persons than anyone else still in EA, and the FTX estate isn’t going to shell out for legal advice and analysis so they can manage EA PR risks.
I think your adverse-inference reasoning can be valid in some cases, even those with legal implications if involving orgs.
I didn’t downvote your original comment, but I think the sample space of possible options is quite wide, and it shouldn’t be too difficult for a reasonable person to generate a subset of them.
I will try to refrain from making further meta-level observations.
I think this is a ridiculous idea, but the linked article (and headline of this post) is super clickbait-y. This idea is mentioned in two sentences in the court documents (p. 20 of docket 1886, here). All we know is that Gabriel, Sam’s brother, sent a memo to someone at the FTX Foundation mentioning the idea. We have no idea if Sam even heard about this or if anyone at the Foundation “wanted” to follow through with it. I’m sure all sorts of wild possibilities got discussed around that time. Based on the evidence it’s a a huge leap to say there were desires or plans to act on them.
Actual text from the complaint to save everyone time:
I agree that the media coverage implies SBF endorsed the content of this memo more than is warranted based on this text alone. But I would guess there was serious discussion of this kind of thing (maybe not buying Nauru specifically, but buying other pieces of land for the purpose of building bunkers/shelters).
In this EAG Fireside Chat from October 2021, Will MacAskill says: “I’m also really keen on more disaster preparedness work, so like, buying coal mines I’m totally serious on… but also just other things for if there’s a collapse of civilization… at the most extreme you might have, like, a hermetically sealed bunker that no pathogens can enter into” (42:26). So I don’t think “Buy Nauru” falls into the category of “all sorts of wild possibilities got discussed around that time” versus a plausible extension of an idea that had become somewhat mainstream within EA at that point.
Buying a coal mine ( a common occurrence that normal people do, though it turns out Will misunderstood the process in a way that probably invalidated the plan ) seems sufficiently different from buying a country ( a very rare occurrence with no established process, normal people do not do ) that I don’t think you should take Will’s serious interest in the former as much evidence about the latter.
Yeah, I did not mean to suggest anything about Will’s support for buying small island nations. The point is just that when buying land (albeit coal mines, not Nauru) and building bunkers are mentioned in the same breath in a very public discussion at a very public EA event:
I think this makes it harder for the EA community to put as much ideological space between itself and “buy Nauru” as we might like to. Clearly “buy island nation” and “buy coal mines/build bunkers” are different, but I don’t know that they’re sufficiently different that I would say “wow, Gabe really went out on a limb in coming up with this; I doubt this idea was inspired by others he was exposed to through conversations with people in the EA community.”
This makes me think that more extreme versions of these ideas were being floated behind closed doors (/on Signal). If I’m right about this, then I suspect we’ll see more evidence of this during the trial, and I will happily eat my words in a few months if we don’t.
Maybe a more precise way of putting this:
If “buy coal mines/build bunkers” = A, and “buy Nauru” = E, then my view is that: 1) A and E aren’t that far apart (just separated by B, C, and D) and 2) I suspect B, C, and D were being discussed.
One way for us to find that out would be for the person who was sent the memo and thought it was a silly idea to make themselves known, and show the evidence that they shot it down or at least assert publicly that they didn’t encourage it.
Since there seems to be little downside to them doing so if that’s what happened, if no-one makes such a statement we should increase our credence that they were seriously entertaining it.
Could someone say why they downvoted this comment?
Didn’t vote, but I think your comment didn’t grapple with legal exposures. They are likely higher for FTXFF affiliated persons than anyone else still in EA, and the FTX estate isn’t going to shell out for legal advice and analysis so they can manage EA PR risks.
I think your adverse-inference reasoning can be valid in some cases, even those with legal implications if involving orgs.
Two people downvoted this comment O_o
I didn’t downvote your original comment, but I think the sample space of possible options is quite wide, and it shouldn’t be too difficult for a reasonable person to generate a subset of them.
I will try to refrain from making further meta-level observations.