it doesn’t seem good for people to face hardship as a result of this
I agree, but the tradeoff is not between “someone with a grant faces hardship” and “no one faces hardship”, it’s between “someone with a grant faces hardship” and “someone with deposits at FTX faces hardship”.
I expect that the person with the grant is likely to put that money to much better uses for the world, and that’s a valid reason not to do it! But in terms of the direct harms experienced by the person being deprived of money, I’d guess the median person who lost $10,000 to unrecoverable FTX deposits is made a fair bit worse off by that than the median person with a $10,000 Future Fund grant would be by returning it.
I agree, but the tradeoff is not between “someone with a grant faces hardship” and “no one faces hardship”, it’s between “someone with a grant faces hardship” and “someone with deposits at FTX faces hardship”.
I expect that the person with the grant is likely to put that money to much better uses for the world, and that’s a valid reason not to do it! But in terms of the direct harms experienced by the person being deprived of money, I’d guess the median person who lost $10,000 to unrecoverable FTX deposits is made a fair bit worse off by that than the median person with a $10,000 Future Fund grant would be by returning it.