I’m a bit confused about how the first part of this post connects to the final major section… I recall people saying many of the things you say you wish you had said… do you think people were unaware FTX, a recent startup in a tumultuous new industry, might fail? Or weren’t thinking about it enough?
I agree strongly with your last paragraph, but I think most people I know who bounced from EA were probably just more of gold diggers, fad-follwing, or sensitive to public opinion and less willing to do what’s hard when circumstances become less comfortable (but of course they won’t come out and say it and plausibly don’t admit it to themselves). Of the rest, it seems like they were bothered by a combination of the fraud, how EAs responded to the collapse, and updated towards the dangers of more utilitarian-style reasoning and the people it attracts.
I’m going off memory and could be wrong, but in my recollection the thought here was not very thorough. I recall some throwaway lines like “of course this isn’t liquid yet”, but very little analysis. In hindsight, it feels like if you think you have between $0 and $1t committed, you should put a good amount of thought into figuring out the distribution.
One instance of this mattering a lot is the bar for spending in the current year. If you have $1t the bar is much lower and you should fund way more things right now. So information about the movement’s future finances turns out to have a good deal of moral value.
I might have missed this though and would be interested in reading posts from before 11⁄22 that you can dig up.
yeah, on second thought I think you’re right that at least the arg “For a fixed valuation, potential is inversely correlated with probability of success” probably got a lot less attention than it should have, at least in the relevant conversations I remember
I’m a bit confused about how the first part of this post connects to the final major section… I recall people saying many of the things you say you wish you had said… do you think people were unaware FTX, a recent startup in a tumultuous new industry, might fail? Or weren’t thinking about it enough?
I agree strongly with your last paragraph, but I think most people I know who bounced from EA were probably just more of gold diggers, fad-follwing, or sensitive to public opinion and less willing to do what’s hard when circumstances become less comfortable (but of course they won’t come out and say it and plausibly don’t admit it to themselves). Of the rest, it seems like they were bothered by a combination of the fraud, how EAs responded to the collapse, and updated towards the dangers of more utilitarian-style reasoning and the people it attracts.
I’m going off memory and could be wrong, but in my recollection the thought here was not very thorough. I recall some throwaway lines like “of course this isn’t liquid yet”, but very little analysis. In hindsight, it feels like if you think you have between $0 and $1t committed, you should put a good amount of thought into figuring out the distribution.
One instance of this mattering a lot is the bar for spending in the current year. If you have $1t the bar is much lower and you should fund way more things right now. So information about the movement’s future finances turns out to have a good deal of moral value.
I might have missed this though and would be interested in reading posts from before 11⁄22 that you can dig up.
yeah, on second thought I think you’re right that at least the arg “For a fixed valuation, potential is inversely correlated with probability of success” probably got a lot less attention than it should have, at least in the relevant conversations I remember