I think what you said is fair. Writing as a collaboration.
I sort of want to peel the curtain back for onlookers here, since apparently few in EA is doing this before or after.
Basically, a journalist’s role, including and maybe especially EA journalists, is basically the OG “epistemic” immune system, as rationalists would say. They are an institution, specifically supposed to ferret out problems, including subtle things like smells.
I spoke to a very respected reporter at EAG, who I met for the first time ever, and within the first 60 seconds and within 5 minutes he was warning me about a “broken stair”, someone I had a positive opinion of, had a history of issues. There was limited direct benefit to him for doing this and some risk. Reporters get credibility and live and die by this, it’s what they do.
Dylan Matthews gets a lot of credit for saying something like this:
Now, we know, Kelsey and Matt know, and everyone else knows, it’s a bit of a mess up that neither of them seemed to be in a position to make the statement, “Hey, SBF has a penthouse, uses a private jet. Maybe we shouldn’t let Will hang it all on the Corolla, because it might make EA and Will look stupid”. It’s non-positive, and maybe even slightly implausible they didn’t know.
Kelsey’s story, which most EAs know, relied on EA communication norms to get that level of candor, is probably partially motivated, and people in journalism know this.
As someone who isn’t vegan, declares they aren’t vegan, and thinks it’s not helpful to animal welfare that this is a norm, I think it is disgusting if SBF harvested veganism to his ends.
However, we still don’t know how substantive most of these stories are. (To be clear, SBF seems to be just trying to talk his way out of things at this point and his credibility should be zero). However, things like the “hack”, turned out to be literally the Bahamas ordering him to seize money, showed that stories are noisy.
Overall, this Twitter thread about FTX catering, then moving to EAG’s food, then moving to CEA’s conduct, is a stretch and I find it a bit performative.
I think what you said is fair. Writing as a collaboration.
I sort of want to peel the curtain back for onlookers here, since apparently few in EA is doing this before or after.
Basically, a journalist’s role, including and maybe especially EA journalists, is basically the OG “epistemic” immune system, as rationalists would say. They are an institution, specifically supposed to ferret out problems, including subtle things like smells.
I spoke to a very respected reporter at EAG,
who I met for the first time ever, and within the first 60 secondsand within 5 minutes he was warning me about a “broken stair”, someone I had a positive opinion of, had a history of issues. There was limited direct benefit to him for doing this and some risk. Reporters get credibility and live and die by this, it’s what they do.Dylan Matthews gets a lot of credit for saying something like this:
Now, we know, Kelsey and Matt know, and everyone else knows, it’s a bit of a mess up that neither of them seemed to be in a position to make the statement, “Hey, SBF has a penthouse, uses a private jet. Maybe we shouldn’t let Will hang it all on the Corolla, because it might make EA and Will look stupid”. It’s non-positive, and maybe even slightly implausible they didn’t know.
Kelsey’s story, which most EAs know, relied on EA communication norms to get that level of candor, is probably partially motivated, and people in journalism know this.
Moving to this thread about catering:
As someone who isn’t vegan, declares they aren’t vegan, and thinks it’s not helpful to animal welfare that this is a norm, I think it is disgusting if SBF harvested veganism to his ends.
However, we still don’t know how substantive most of these stories are. (To be clear, SBF seems to be just trying to talk his way out of things at this point and his credibility should be zero). However, things like the “hack”, turned out to be literally the Bahamas ordering him to seize money, showed that stories are noisy.
Overall, this Twitter thread about FTX catering, then moving to EAG’s food, then moving to CEA’s conduct, is a stretch and I find it a bit performative.