We shouldn’t try to shut down a nonprofit based on kin associations. This would basically amount to kin punishment, and it would create a dangerous ethical precedent.
As for funding, probably most nonprofits in the community have received FTX funding directly or indirectly as of right now, and I don’t see how that should affect how we evaluate their work.
Let’s get back to the basics. The non-profit is 100% funded by stolen money. How much money? Who knows? I don’t know how many non-profits exist solely because of FTX, but this is an important issue to come clean about.
I am not asking something difficult, such as “giving back spent salaries”. As EY pointed out, if the money was given as a salary, it was given as a salary. However, GOING FORWARD, people should not be funded with stolen funds.
If a non-profit is funded 50⁄50 by FTX and OpenPhil, then yeah, having some funding shouldn’t affect how we evaluated their work. However, if it’s funded 100% by FTX, then we absolutely should assume the non-profit is net negative until someone else picks up the tab.
Somehow implying that this “not using stolen funds” is somehow a punishment is 100% proof that you are not at all serious about “fraud is not ok in service of EA.”
The brother issue isn’t a punishment issue, it’s a RISK issue. Any reasonable law enforcement / civil suits looking for co-conspirators will look at this non-profit first and foremost. This isn’t even a “risk,” it’s a near certainty.
I learned about this org not from EA but from a search about news on other sites with people pointing out how sketchy this is. To a person outside of the “bubble”, this looks really BAD and every person defending this looks deeply out of touch with how much hurt FTX has caused.
There’s a difference between arguing to stop using stolen funds “GOING FORWARD”, and shutting down an NGO just because it was funded by FTX in the past. The more obvious alternative is merely changing funding sources, which is what most NGOs affected by the FTX situation are already trying to do.
As for the last part, I think you’re really exaggerating the risk associated to having received FTX funds. It seems extremely unlikely regulatory agencies will start investigating NGOs just for having received funds from the FTX Future Fund. Even if such risk comes from an employee being SBF’s brother (which it shouldn’t because most regulatory agencies aren’t in the habit of persecuting kins without good suspicion), there’s no point in pre-emptively shutting down an NGO.
This whole line of reasoning feels very strongly like motivated reasoning, and I don’t think we should be taking decisions like shutting down NGOs lightly.
We shouldn’t try to shut down a nonprofit based on kin associations. This would basically amount to kin punishment, and it would create a dangerous ethical precedent.
As for funding, probably most nonprofits in the community have received FTX funding directly or indirectly as of right now, and I don’t see how that should affect how we evaluate their work.
You seem to be misreading my comment.
Let’s get back to the basics. The non-profit is 100% funded by stolen money. How much money? Who knows? I don’t know how many non-profits exist solely because of FTX, but this is an important issue to come clean about.
I am not asking something difficult, such as “giving back spent salaries”. As EY pointed out, if the money was given as a salary, it was given as a salary. However, GOING FORWARD, people should not be funded with stolen funds.
If a non-profit is funded 50⁄50 by FTX and OpenPhil, then yeah, having some funding shouldn’t affect how we evaluated their work. However, if it’s funded 100% by FTX, then we absolutely should assume the non-profit is net negative until someone else picks up the tab.
Somehow implying that this “not using stolen funds” is somehow a punishment is 100% proof that you are not at all serious about “fraud is not ok in service of EA.”
The brother issue isn’t a punishment issue, it’s a RISK issue. Any reasonable law enforcement / civil suits looking for co-conspirators will look at this non-profit first and foremost. This isn’t even a “risk,” it’s a near certainty.
I learned about this org not from EA but from a search about news on other sites with people pointing out how sketchy this is. To a person outside of the “bubble”, this looks really BAD and every person defending this looks deeply out of touch with how much hurt FTX has caused.
There’s a difference between arguing to stop using stolen funds “GOING FORWARD”, and shutting down an NGO just because it was funded by FTX in the past. The more obvious alternative is merely changing funding sources, which is what most NGOs affected by the FTX situation are already trying to do.
As for the last part, I think you’re really exaggerating the risk associated to having received FTX funds. It seems extremely unlikely regulatory agencies will start investigating NGOs just for having received funds from the FTX Future Fund. Even if such risk comes from an employee being SBF’s brother (which it shouldn’t because most regulatory agencies aren’t in the habit of persecuting kins without good suspicion), there’s no point in pre-emptively shutting down an NGO.
This whole line of reasoning feels very strongly like motivated reasoning, and I don’t think we should be taking decisions like shutting down NGOs lightly.
My initial guess is $200 million was given to EA, so this should be a first point to update on.