I agree with you’re first half. I wonder if a startup or even a non-EA non-profit would be so self-flagellating for taking his money, even given they had heard some troubling reports. If not, I think EAs should chill out on thinking we could have been expected to do a deep investigation [Edit: apparently CEA did one on CEA/Alameda relations in 2019 but no comment yet on how it went] or hold-off on taking money. I mean everyone else had his expected net worth wrong too (Billionaire lists for example, and FTX’s own investors who should have been much more interested in internals than donation recipients). [Some data/insider info on how much big charities like WWF or Doctors Without Borders investigate donors would be great here, but without seeing that I’m assuming it was normal to accept money from SBF]
But as for the idea he was framed as a moral paragon by leaders, idk. I never got that vibe. Was I missing it? It seems more like he was framed, by news outlets and everyman EAs, and maaaybe some EA leaders on occasion but I actually don’t even remember this except for from Sam’s promos himself, as more of a cool-but-humble industrious guy than a moral leader or rep of the movement itself if anything. I mean did he ever speak at an EAG or something? What would it even look like if EA leaders were tying EA’s rep to his? Maybe he was mentioned some (usually non-EA) places as a notable personality in the movement.? But that doesn’t to me say “this guy’s put on a pedestal by leaders” and “emulate this guy” (in fact EAs wanted people to not emulate him and try direct work first). I honestly wonder if I missed something.
My weakly-held take is: You can’t help it if cool-seeming billionaires get fans, and it is hard to help it if those cool billionaires get associations with the things they fund and themselves talk about. Ex: Elon who people associate with AI safety even though he has never worked on it himself. Associations in the eyes of the public, and news outlets/bloggers/Twitter bumping those associations are gonna happen. I’m not sure EA leaders did anything to boost (or stem!) this effect (fine with being proven wrong though). I do hope/demand that next time, EA leaders are more protective of the EA brand and do try to stem this potential association effect. Like “Hey buddy, we already weren’t gonna put you on a pedestal for being associated with our brand, but actually you don’t get to do that either. Please keep involvement with us out of your public talks and self-promotion. We want to be known for the work we do, not who funds us” Dustin does this (keeps EA out of his professional brand). And most wealthy people prefer to donate discretely so it was maybe a red flag that SBF leaned right into being associated with EA, and would be a red flag in future too. Idk.
[Edit: You might consider the last part negligence, that EA leaders didn’t give SBF a slap on the wrist for EA-associating. If so maybe you still aren’t happy with leadership. But I just want to flag that if that is what happened that is still much better than leaders actively boosting him (could be wrong that the latter happened though) and would likely warrant different response. I guess I view the former as “mistakes of medium-size (but small for most leaders due to diffuse responsibility if there was no one whose job it clearly was to talk to Sam about this), passively made, not-unusual-behavior” whereas I’d view active pedestalling or active tying-EA-rep-with-SBF to be “big mistakes, actively made, unusual behavior”]
I agree with you’re first half. I wonder if a startup or even a non-EA non-profit would be so self-flagellating for taking his money, even given they had heard some troubling reports. If not, I think EAs should chill out on thinking we could have been expected to do a deep investigation [Edit: apparently CEA did one on CEA/Alameda relations in 2019 but no comment yet on how it went] or hold-off on taking money. I mean everyone else had his expected net worth wrong too (Billionaire lists for example, and FTX’s own investors who should have been much more interested in internals than donation recipients). [Some data/insider info on how much big charities like WWF or Doctors Without Borders investigate donors would be great here, but without seeing that I’m assuming it was normal to accept money from SBF]
But as for the idea he was framed as a moral paragon by leaders, idk. I never got that vibe. Was I missing it? It seems more like he was framed, by news outlets and everyman EAs, and maaaybe some EA leaders on occasion but I actually don’t even remember this except for from Sam’s promos himself, as more of a cool-but-humble industrious guy than a moral leader or rep of the movement itself if anything. I mean did he ever speak at an EAG or something? What would it even look like if EA leaders were tying EA’s rep to his? Maybe he was mentioned some (usually non-EA) places as a notable personality in the movement.? But that doesn’t to me say “this guy’s put on a pedestal by leaders” and “emulate this guy” (in fact EAs wanted people to not emulate him and try direct work first). I honestly wonder if I missed something.
My weakly-held take is: You can’t help it if cool-seeming billionaires get fans, and it is hard to help it if those cool billionaires get associations with the things they fund and themselves talk about. Ex: Elon who people associate with AI safety even though he has never worked on it himself. Associations in the eyes of the public, and news outlets/bloggers/Twitter bumping those associations are gonna happen. I’m not sure EA leaders did anything to boost (or stem!) this effect (fine with being proven wrong though). I do hope/demand that next time, EA leaders are more protective of the EA brand and do try to stem this potential association effect. Like “Hey buddy, we already weren’t gonna put you on a pedestal for being associated with our brand, but actually you don’t get to do that either. Please keep involvement with us out of your public talks and self-promotion. We want to be known for the work we do, not who funds us” Dustin does this (keeps EA out of his professional brand). And most wealthy people prefer to donate discretely so it was maybe a red flag that SBF leaned right into being associated with EA, and would be a red flag in future too. Idk.
[Edit: You might consider the last part negligence, that EA leaders didn’t give SBF a slap on the wrist for EA-associating. If so maybe you still aren’t happy with leadership. But I just want to flag that if that is what happened that is still much better than leaders actively boosting him (could be wrong that the latter happened though) and would likely warrant different response. I guess I view the former as “mistakes of medium-size (but small for most leaders due to diffuse responsibility if there was no one whose job it clearly was to talk to Sam about this), passively made, not-unusual-behavior” whereas I’d view active pedestalling or active tying-EA-rep-with-SBF to be “big mistakes, actively made, unusual behavior”]