In fairness, SBF was also secretly a prominent Republican donor, right? Didn’t he basically suggest in the infamous interview with Kelsey Piper that he was essentially cynical about politics and just trying to gain influence with both parties to help advance FTX and Alameda’s interests?
He was a Republican donor, but from what I understand, not really a MAGA donor. My impression was that he was funding people on both sides, who were generally in favor of their interests—but that their interests did genuinely include issues like bio/ai safety.
I think it’s very reasonable to try to be bipartisan on these issues.
Fair point. I certainly don’t think it is established (or even more than 50% likely) that SBF was purely motivated by narrow personal gain to the exclusion of any real utilitarian convictions at all. But I do think he misrepresented his political convictions.
In fairness, SBF was also secretly a prominent Republican donor, right? Didn’t he basically suggest in the infamous interview with Kelsey Piper that he was essentially cynical about politics and just trying to gain influence with both parties to help advance FTX and Alameda’s interests?
He was a Republican donor, but from what I understand, not really a MAGA donor. My impression was that he was funding people on both sides, who were generally in favor of their interests—but that their interests did genuinely include issues like bio/ai safety.
I think it’s very reasonable to try to be bipartisan on these issues.
Fair point. I certainly don’t think it is established (or even more than 50% likely) that SBF was purely motivated by narrow personal gain to the exclusion of any real utilitarian convictions at all. But I do think he misrepresented his political convictions.
I think it’s clear he misrepresented his political convictions, especially to the public (as opposed to close friends and some EAs).
But I think there’s separately decent evidence that he was thinking of himself as ultimately advancing utilitarian goals.
Not that that makes it okay—it’s very possible to consider yourself trying to help any noble goals—then using that to justify really bad actions.
That’s my read of the evidence as well, but I haven’t examined it closely.