Sam Harris speaks with William MacAskill about the implosion of FTX and the effect that it has had on the Effective Altruism movement. They discuss the logic of “earning to give,” the mind of SBF, his philanthropy, the character of the EA community, potential problems with focusing on long-term outcomes, AI risk, the effects of the FTX collapse on Will personally, and other topics.
I haven’t listened to the podcast myself. I’m crossposting it here anyway since I saw it discussed in a recent Zvi roundup, which also mentioned a negative reception on r/samharris.
One thing that stood out to me reading the comments on Reddit, was how much of the poor reception that could have been avoided with a little clearer communication.
For people such as MacAskill, who are deeply familiar with effective altruism, the question: “Why would SBF pretend to be an Effective Altruist if he was just looking to do fraud?” is quite the conundrum. Of all the types of altruism, why specifically pick EA as the vehicle to smuggle your reputation? EA was already unlikeable and elitist before the scandal. Why not donate to puppies and Harvard like everyone else?
I actually admire MacAskill for asking that question. The easy out, would be to say: “how could we have been so foolish, SBF was clearly never a real EA”. But he instead grapples with the fact that SBF seems to have been genuinely motivated by effective altruism, and that these ideals must have played some part in SBFs decision to commit fraud.
But for any listener who is not as deeply familiar with the effective altruism movement, and doesn’t know its reputation, the question comes off as hopelessly naive. The emphasis they hear is: “Why would SBF, a fraudulent billionaire, pretend to be an Effective Altruist?” The answer to that is obvious—malicious actors pretend to be altruistic all the time!
I see EA communication make this mistake all the time. A question or idea whose merit is obvious to you might not be obvious to everyone else if you don’t spell out the assumptions it rests on.
There’s already a thread on this afaict.
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ETwyzQFccHP54ndi4/sam-harris-and-william-macaskill-on-sbf-and-ea
Argh, I only posted this because I’d checked the forum - quite thoroughly, or so I thought—and was surprised to see no existing post on the subject.