I was thinking through such a possibility descriptively, and how the EA community might respond, without trying to prescribe the EA community in a real-world scenario. I didn’t indicate that well, though, so please pardon me for the error.
To clarify, given the assumptions that criticisms of SBF’s or FTX’s investments or donations might be used to attack EA as a movement by association, and the EA community also had some responsibility to distance itself from those efforts, it wouldn’t be that hard to do so. I personally disagree with the second assumption.
I’m of the opinion the EA community has no such responsibility but it seems at least some others do.
SBF seems to have made some mistakes with his recent forays into politics but they don’t strike me to have been as bad as at least a significant minority of the EA community believes. My opinion is that the need some felt for the EA community to distance itself from SBF’s political activities was excessive.
The various stakes FTX have taken in crypto companies during this downturn are obviously not done in lieu of donations—they are business decisions, presumably done with the intention of making more money, as part of the process of making FTX a success. Whether they are good decisions in this light is hard for me to say, but I’d be inclined to defer to FTX here.
I agree with all of this. There are plenty of companies that have taken long(er)-term bets like the one FTX is making that have turned out to be among the best business decisions of the 21st century. Facebook, Amazon and companies Elon Musk has bought were not profitable for almost a decade. They were marred by criticisms and predictions of how they were always on the brink of imminent collapse. That was all bogus.
It’s worth keeping survivorship bias in mind and the fact that some bets made like this wound up as catastrophic business decisions. Yet it’s not justified to assume by default FTX’s investments in this way will end up as bad rather than good decisions. That’s especially true in the absence of more information. The author hasn’t provided any such information and is not likely to have access to such information either.
It seems like more pandering. I’m guessing the author is the kind who would’ve maligned Musk when he was a Democrat but now because Musk is a Republican defend decisions he might have criticized before.
I was thinking through such a possibility descriptively, and how the EA community might respond, without trying to prescribe the EA community in a real-world scenario. I didn’t indicate that well, though, so please pardon me for the error.
To clarify, given the assumptions that criticisms of SBF’s or FTX’s investments or donations might be used to attack EA as a movement by association, and the EA community also had some responsibility to distance itself from those efforts, it wouldn’t be that hard to do so. I personally disagree with the second assumption.
I’m of the opinion the EA community has no such responsibility but it seems at least some others do.
SBF seems to have made some mistakes with his recent forays into politics but they don’t strike me to have been as bad as at least a significant minority of the EA community believes. My opinion is that the need some felt for the EA community to distance itself from SBF’s political activities was excessive.
I agree with all of this. There are plenty of companies that have taken long(er)-term bets like the one FTX is making that have turned out to be among the best business decisions of the 21st century. Facebook, Amazon and companies Elon Musk has bought were not profitable for almost a decade. They were marred by criticisms and predictions of how they were always on the brink of imminent collapse. That was all bogus.
It’s worth keeping survivorship bias in mind and the fact that some bets made like this wound up as catastrophic business decisions. Yet it’s not justified to assume by default FTX’s investments in this way will end up as bad rather than good decisions. That’s especially true in the absence of more information. The author hasn’t provided any such information and is not likely to have access to such information either.
It seems like more pandering. I’m guessing the author is the kind who would’ve maligned Musk when he was a Democrat but now because Musk is a Republican defend decisions he might have criticized before.