Also in the Yglesias post Rob wrote the OP in response to, Yglesias misrepresents SBF’s view then cites the 80k podcast as supporting this mistaken view when in fact it does not. That’s just bad journalism.
Until very recently, for example, I thought I had an unpublishable, off-the-record scoop about his weird idea that someone with his level of wealth should be indifferent between the status quo and a double-or-nothing bet with 50:50 odds.
There’s no way that is or ever has been SBF’s view. I don’t buy it and think Yglesias is just misrepresenting SBF’s view. Of course SBF wouldn’t be completely indifferent between keeping whatever his net worth was and taking a 50% chance of doubling it and a 50% chance of losing it all.
That I had this information made me nervous on behalf of people making plans based on his grants and his promises of money — I didn’t realize this is actually something he’s repeatedly said publicly and on the record.
Yglesias then links to the allegedly offending passage, but I have to say that the passage does not support Yglesias’ assertion than SBF is/was completely risk neutral about money. Choosing a 10% chance of $15 billion over a 100% chance of $1 billion is not risk neutral. It still allows for quite a bit of risk aversion.
I didn’t relisten to the full 80k interview to see if something SBF said does justify Yglesias’ assertion but from memory I feel quite sure it doesn’t exist.
It still doesn’t fully entail Matt’s claim, but the content of the interview gets a lot closer than that description. You don’t need to give it a full listen, I’ve quoted the relevant part:
Thanks for finding and sharing that quote. I agree that it doesn’t fully entail Matt’s claim, and would go further to say that it provides evidence against Matt’s claim.
In particular, SBF’s statement...
At what point are you out of ways for the world to spend money to change? [...] [I]t’s unclear exactly what the answer is, but it’s at least billions per year probably, so at least 100 billion overall before you risk running out of good things to do with money.
… makes clear that SBF was not completely risk neutral.
At the end of the excerpt Rob says “So you kind of want to just be risk neutral.” To me the “kind of” is important to understanding his meaning. Relative to the individual making the “gamble my $10 billion and either get $20 billion or $0, with equal probability” bet, for the altruistic actor it’s “it’s not so crazy”. Obviously it’s still crazy, but also clearly Rob’s point that it’s not as crazy as the madness of an individual doing this for their own self-interested gain is completely valid, given the difference in how steeply returns to spending diminish for a single individual versus all moral patients in the world (present and future) combined.
Yglesias’ statement that SBF thought “someone with his level of wealth should be indifferent between the status quo and a double-or-nothing bet with 50:50 odds” is clearly false, though only a few words different than SBF’s agreement with Rob that an altruist doing this is “not so crazy” as a person doing it for self-interested reasons. So I agree “the content of the interview gets a lot closer than that description,” but I also think Yglesias just did a bad job interpreting the interview. But who knows, maybe SBF misspoke to Yglesias in-person and most of the reason Yglesias had for believing SBF took that view was actually the words SBF spoke to him in person.
Also in the Yglesias post Rob wrote the OP in response to, Yglesias misrepresents SBF’s view then cites the 80k podcast as supporting this mistaken view when in fact it does not. That’s just bad journalism.
There’s no way that is or ever has been SBF’s view. I don’t buy it and think Yglesias is just misrepresenting SBF’s view. Of course SBF wouldn’t be completely indifferent between keeping whatever his net worth was and taking a 50% chance of doubling it and a 50% chance of losing it all.
Yglesias then links to the allegedly offending passage, but I have to say that the passage does not support Yglesias’ assertion than SBF is/was completely risk neutral about money. Choosing a 10% chance of $15 billion over a 100% chance of $1 billion is not risk neutral. It still allows for quite a bit of risk aversion.
I didn’t relisten to the full 80k interview to see if something SBF said does justify Yglesias’ assertion but from memory I feel quite sure it doesn’t exist.
It still doesn’t fully entail Matt’s claim, but the content of the interview gets a lot closer than that description. You don’t need to give it a full listen, I’ve quoted the relevant part:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/THgezaPxhvoizkRFy/clarifications-on-diminishing-returns-and-risk-aversion-in?commentId=ppyzWLuhkuRJCifsx
Thanks for finding and sharing that quote. I agree that it doesn’t fully entail Matt’s claim, and would go further to say that it provides evidence against Matt’s claim.
In particular, SBF’s statement...
… makes clear that SBF was not completely risk neutral.
At the end of the excerpt Rob says “So you kind of want to just be risk neutral.” To me the “kind of” is important to understanding his meaning. Relative to the individual making the “gamble my $10 billion and either get $20 billion or $0, with equal probability” bet, for the altruistic actor it’s “it’s not so crazy”. Obviously it’s still crazy, but also clearly Rob’s point that it’s not as crazy as the madness of an individual doing this for their own self-interested gain is completely valid, given the difference in how steeply returns to spending diminish for a single individual versus all moral patients in the world (present and future) combined.
Yglesias’ statement that SBF thought “someone with his level of wealth should be indifferent between the status quo and a double-or-nothing bet with 50:50 odds” is clearly false, though only a few words different than SBF’s agreement with Rob that an altruist doing this is “not so crazy” as a person doing it for self-interested reasons. So I agree “the content of the interview gets a lot closer than that description,” but I also think Yglesias just did a bad job interpreting the interview. But who knows, maybe SBF misspoke to Yglesias in-person and most of the reason Yglesias had for believing SBF took that view was actually the words SBF spoke to him in person.