(Be it clear, I’m not analogizing myself to Novik in that metaphor. I’m analogizing Peter Singer and classical Givewell-style EA to Novik. I asked SBF if he wanted to meet with me ever, he never got around to it, I do not think he was a Yudkowsky fan and he hung out with some EAs who definitely weren’t.)
Caroline Ellison is the disgraced and probably criminally responsible CEO of Alameda, involved in FTX’s downfall.
Despite Yudhowsky’s citing of Peter Singer, almost none of SBF’s FTX FF money went to Peter Singer’s causes of global poverty and animal welfare. No one in these causes was invited to the Bahamas with the other attendees. Yudhowsky was hosted by SBF in the Bahamas and is a regrantor of FTX FF.
There are many reasons why SBF would not want to meet with him, for many of the same reasons SBF might not want to meet with me or most readers.
As many readers of the forum know, Caroline Ellison’s blog is bizarre seeming, intimate and sometimes salacious, which is why its content has not been cited widely on the EA forum until now, when Yudhowsky used one element in this top level post.
I think a reasonable person would say that many of Ellison’s interests that are orthogonal to mainstream beliefs, are highly associated with certain parts of EA, that are local to the Bay Area, near Stanford, Ellison’s Alma Mater and the rationalist community.
One example is Ellison’s interest in “HBD”. These are highly associated with the “rationalist” culture and do not appear in EA in many other US cities and other countries. The reason why I will not further elaborate is that it is speculative, inflammatory, hostile to try to single out the SSC/LW/Rationalist community, which has been done here explicitly here with Yudhowsky, with “Peter Singer” and “Givewell-style EA”.
I was passing through the Bahamas and asked if FTX wanted me to talk to the EAs they had on fellowships there. They paid for my hotel room and an Airbnb when the hotel got full, for a week. I’m not sure but I don’t think I remember getting to see SBF at all while I was at the hotel. Didn’t go swimming or sunning or any such because I am not a very outdoors person. It does not seem entirely accurate to characterize this as “was hosted by SBF in the Bahamas”.
The Future Fund basically turned down all my ideas until the regrantor program started; I made two recommendations and I expect neither of them will pay out now unless they moved very fast.
Unless I specifically defend an idea, I think that a lot of what gets said in the San Francisco Bay Area is also not something I’d accept as my fault. Eg there was a lot of drug use involved in this going wrong, which I’m sure did not start from me, and I’ve suggested increasingly loudly and openly of late that people cut back on the drug use; maybe it’s Bay-associated idk, but it sure is not Yudkowsky-endorsed.
I did think Will MacAskill was from the Singer side of things, so I admit to being surprised if the highly-legible side of effective altruism got nothing, unless it was a room-for-more-funding issue with Givewell+OpenPhil having already snapped up all the fruit hanging lower than GiveDirectly. I will consider myself tentatively corrected on that point unless I hear otherwise or have investigated.
the Singer side explicitly starts by trying to twist people’s brains up internally, and at some point we should all maybe have a conversation about that.
It would be wild to see anyone defend or explain the terms “Singer side” or “twisting people’s brains” in this context, much less the intentional act implied.
This is a flat out attack that uses ideas and sentiment from actual criticisms of MIRI/LW, which I do not cite, because it is inflammatory. This is likely to preempt anticipated future criticism using these arguments.
I am writing here because the EA community should know now, that sentiment in global health and poverty, and animal welfare, is extremely low, especially among limited talent.
As EAs know, the FTX money favored longtermist causes. In the aftermath of the FTX collapse, EA is globally harmed, further disadvantaging these causes already in the shadow of this money.
The departure of this talent could be a wholesale disaster for EA, and leave it in a permanent weakened state. It is not being discussed, like dangers, such as the risk of FTX, due to the dynamics of EA discourse, which is easily dominated by full time influencers like Yudhowsky.
In this vulnerable state, undue attempts to associate Peter Singer, “EA”, and undue attempts to dissasociate “LW” and “rationality”, are an incredibly uncooperative defection.
Another example of this uncooperative behavior is the LW treatment of the Gopalakrishnan’s post, while received mixed reception, claims to point out serious misconduct.
On balance, negative claims of this supposed behavior is highly associated with SF and the EA/LW communities there.
The author implicates LW as well as EA, for example she says,
LessWrong style jedi mindtricks while they stand to benefit from the erosion of your boundaries.
My experience resonates with a few other women in SF I have spoken to. They have also met red pilled, exploitative men in EA/rationalist circles. EA/rationalism and redpill fit like yin and yang. Akin to how EA is an optimization of altruism with “suboptimal” human tendencies like morality and empathy stripped from it, red pill is an optimized sexual strategy with the humanity of women stripped from it.
This is the response by a member of the LW team, which reads more like an attempt to dissociate this conduct with LW and put it squarely with EA, instead of stating that the post seems tendentious or unproductive.
For onlookers: this thread contains three examples of this dishonest behavior, that range from optics management, to shameless attacks (“brain twisting” by Peter Singer people ???).
This is an intentional, premeditated strategy by Eliezer and LW/MIRI staff, where:
Potential criticisms involving FTX personel’s behavior is attached to all of EA, instead of what a reasonable person reading Ellison’s blog, would find more associated to parts of EA local to the SF area, shielding LW/MIRI from this criticism.
Preempt anticipated future criticism using these arguments
In a time of “evaporative cooling”—Eliezer may try to shift EA’s state and shift it to his faction
This is despite the fact there are structural reasons this has limited gains (there’s already a LW!)—this is less than zero sum.
Note the direct attempts to reference or associate Will MacAskill in this behavior.
LW/MIRI is doing this unilaterally, no other side in EA has criticized LW. This is because there are no other paid influencers, morale is low. This is shameless.
This is coordinated and happening on the EA forum.
Caroline Ellison is the disgraced and probably criminally responsible CEO of Alameda, involved in FTX’s downfall.
Despite Yudhowsky’s citing of Peter Singer, almost none of SBF’s FTX FF money went to Peter Singer’s causes of global poverty and animal welfare. No one in these causes was invited to the Bahamas with the other attendees. Yudhowsky was hosted by SBF in the Bahamas and is a regrantor of FTX FF.
There are many reasons why SBF would not want to meet with him, for many of the same reasons SBF might not want to meet with me or most readers.
As many readers of the forum know, Caroline Ellison’s blog is bizarre seeming, intimate and sometimes salacious, which is why its content has not been cited widely on the EA forum until now, when Yudhowsky used one element in this top level post.
I think a reasonable person would say that many of Ellison’s interests that are orthogonal to mainstream beliefs, are highly associated with certain parts of EA, that are local to the Bay Area, near Stanford, Ellison’s Alma Mater and the rationalist community.
One example is Ellison’s interest in “HBD”. These are highly associated with the “rationalist” culture and do not appear in EA in many other US cities and other countries. The reason why I will not further elaborate is that it is speculative, inflammatory, hostile to try to single out the SSC/LW/Rationalist community, which has been done here explicitly here with Yudhowsky, with “Peter Singer” and “Givewell-style EA”.
I was passing through the Bahamas and asked if FTX wanted me to talk to the EAs they had on fellowships there. They paid for my hotel room and an Airbnb when the hotel got full, for a week. I’m not sure but I don’t think I remember getting to see SBF at all while I was at the hotel. Didn’t go swimming or sunning or any such because I am not a very outdoors person. It does not seem entirely accurate to characterize this as “was hosted by SBF in the Bahamas”.
The Future Fund basically turned down all my ideas until the regrantor program started; I made two recommendations and I expect neither of them will pay out now unless they moved very fast.
Unless I specifically defend an idea, I think that a lot of what gets said in the San Francisco Bay Area is also not something I’d accept as my fault. Eg there was a lot of drug use involved in this going wrong, which I’m sure did not start from me, and I’ve suggested increasingly loudly and openly of late that people cut back on the drug use; maybe it’s Bay-associated idk, but it sure is not Yudkowsky-endorsed.
I did think Will MacAskill was from the Singer side of things, so I admit to being surprised if the highly-legible side of effective altruism got nothing, unless it was a room-for-more-funding issue with Givewell+OpenPhil having already snapped up all the fruit hanging lower than GiveDirectly. I will consider myself tentatively corrected on that point unless I hear otherwise or have investigated.
Yudkowsky wrote this above.
It would be wild to see anyone defend or explain the terms “Singer side” or “twisting people’s brains” in this context, much less the intentional act implied.
This is a flat out attack that uses ideas and sentiment from actual criticisms of MIRI/LW, which I do not cite, because it is inflammatory. This is likely to preempt anticipated future criticism using these arguments.
I am writing here because the EA community should know now, that sentiment in global health and poverty, and animal welfare, is extremely low, especially among limited talent.
As EAs know, the FTX money favored longtermist causes. In the aftermath of the FTX collapse, EA is globally harmed, further disadvantaging these causes already in the shadow of this money.
The departure of this talent could be a wholesale disaster for EA, and leave it in a permanent weakened state. It is not being discussed, like dangers, such as the risk of FTX, due to the dynamics of EA discourse, which is easily dominated by full time influencers like Yudhowsky.
In this vulnerable state, undue attempts to associate Peter Singer, “EA”, and undue attempts to dissasociate “LW” and “rationality”, are an incredibly uncooperative defection.
Another example of this uncooperative behavior is the LW treatment of the Gopalakrishnan’s post, while received mixed reception, claims to point out serious misconduct.
On balance, negative claims of this supposed behavior is highly associated with SF and the EA/LW communities there.
The author implicates LW as well as EA, for example she says,
This is the response by a member of the LW team, which reads more like an attempt to dissociate this conduct with LW and put it squarely with EA, instead of stating that the post seems tendentious or unproductive.
The above comment is not intellectually honest.
For onlookers: this thread contains three examples of this dishonest behavior, that range from optics management, to shameless attacks (“brain twisting” by Peter Singer people ???).
This is an intentional, premeditated strategy by Eliezer and LW/MIRI staff, where:
Potential criticisms involving FTX personel’s behavior is attached to all of EA, instead of what a reasonable person reading Ellison’s blog, would find more associated to parts of EA local to the SF area, shielding LW/MIRI from this criticism.
Preempt anticipated future criticism using these arguments
In a time of “evaporative cooling”—Eliezer may try to shift EA’s state and shift it to his faction
This is despite the fact there are structural reasons this has limited gains (there’s already a LW!)—this is less than zero sum.
Note the direct attempts to reference or associate Will MacAskill in this behavior.
LW/MIRI is doing this unilaterally, no other side in EA has criticized LW. This is because there are no other paid influencers, morale is low. This is shameless.
This is coordinated and happening on the EA forum.