My gut feeling is that people who were expecting to live on any granted money for the next few months should be able to do so until they’ve had time to sort out another income stream—it doesn’t seem good for people to face hardship as a result of this. Using other funding sources to pay back money from FTX that has already been spent also does not seem good. I’m not sure about funding beyond that.
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 have mixed feelings on this one for reasons RavenclawPrefect noted. At a minimum, you would need a narrow definition of “hardship” for the grant recipient. Because keeping the money imposes costs on innocent victims, a recipient being unemployed for a time would not necessarily rise to the level of “hardship.” If the consequence is—e.g., a moderate reduction in savings, that isn’t enough in my book to potentially override the depositors’ moral interest.
Also, it would not be potentially appropriate in my book to give the individuals extra time so that they can find another position in EA or a position doing the work they would like. The argument for providing severance is to avoid financial hardship to these individuals and would need to be strictly limited to the minimum necessary. If the community feels it important to give a longer off-ramp so that the individual can find another EA job and/or job that is a good fit, then the community needs to subside that rather than expecting depositors to do so.
My gut feeling is that people who were expecting to live on any granted money for the next few months should be able to do so until they’ve had time to sort out another income stream—it doesn’t seem good for people to face hardship as a result of this. Using other funding sources to pay back money from FTX that has already been spent also does not seem good. I’m not sure about funding beyond that.
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 have mixed feelings on this one for reasons RavenclawPrefect noted. At a minimum, you would need a narrow definition of “hardship” for the grant recipient. Because keeping the money imposes costs on innocent victims, a recipient being unemployed for a time would not necessarily rise to the level of “hardship.” If the consequence is—e.g., a moderate reduction in savings, that isn’t enough in my book to potentially override the depositors’ moral interest.
Also, it would not be potentially appropriate in my book to give the individuals extra time so that they can find another position in EA or a position doing the work they would like. The argument for providing severance is to avoid financial hardship to these individuals and would need to be strictly limited to the minimum necessary. If the community feels it important to give a longer off-ramp so that the individual can find another EA job and/or job that is a good fit, then the community needs to subside that rather than expecting depositors to do so.