It’s extremely difficult to communicate how normalized something like the above has become, and how much of the “tech” and business success in the 2010s was the result of similar financial engineering and loose capital.
Succeeding in this way, while not lying, is not exactly honest either. But in this moral space, I strongly put all of my support behind SBF and his decisions as a person, based on his choices and goals.
It’s not just that most people don’t understand, they are wildly brandishing their opinions and producing a weird ignorant cloud—it’s hard to explain, but maybe this person might understand.
Zooming out, I think this is important because basically, it’s possible EA is worse off, A LOT worse off, by having a billionaire come in and flame out like this, than not being there at all.
I guess there’s several issues that need to be dealt with. But the one issue that I think is important and hard to handle well, is the perceptions of competency and spirit of EA.
Throwing off someone because they had a business failure, or pointing out their conduct disproportionately, because they are on the “way down”, is at least as bad as sucking up to them and ignoring it on the way up, and to me, plausibly way worse.
So it’s good to see SBF for who he is, and the work he did and decisions are quite likely entirely valid. That is why I wrote my parent comment and the first paragraphs of this comment.
I have no particular opinion on SBF’s character, but this paragraph seems ungenerous. Other than being a prolific poster and generally swell guy, Nathan doesn’t seem particularly prominent in the EA community. Certainly not as much as Jonas Vollmer, who’s a key figure at many EA orgs. And what appeal to authority did Ben’s comment make?
What you said is valid in general. As a reply/rebuttal, I think your focus/association with “lying” is misdirected or stilted.
Basically, what probably happened to FTX is something like the financial engineering described in this link in this top level post: https://dirtybubblemedia.substack.com/p/is-alameda-research-insolvent. This take, which is quite hostile, doesn’t involve lying per se.
It’s extremely difficult to communicate how normalized something like the above has become, and how much of the “tech” and business success in the 2010s was the result of similar financial engineering and loose capital.
Succeeding in this way, while not lying, is not exactly honest either. But in this moral space, I strongly put all of my support behind SBF and his decisions as a person, based on his choices and goals.
Before ending today’s weird sojourn into corporate finance, I want to point out it’s really disappointing how this has been discussed. I don’t think the modesty and general intuition most people have expressed is very good, the quality of the modal post wasn’t very good (for its first ~10 revisions), and clearly voted up because of who the authors are; clueful, fair comments are shouted down, while EA leaders making making similar appeals to authority/applause lines are voted up.
It’s wild you are at 30⁄23 here.
It’s not just that most people don’t understand, they are wildly brandishing their opinions and producing a weird ignorant cloud—it’s hard to explain, but maybe this person might understand.
Zooming out, I think this is important because basically, it’s possible EA is worse off, A LOT worse off, by having a billionaire come in and flame out like this, than not being there at all.
I guess there’s several issues that need to be dealt with. But the one issue that I think is important and hard to handle well, is the perceptions of competency and spirit of EA.
Throwing off someone because they had a business failure, or pointing out their conduct disproportionately, because they are on the “way down”, is at least as bad as sucking up to them and ignoring it on the way up, and to me, plausibly way worse.
So it’s good to see SBF for who he is, and the work he did and decisions are quite likely entirely valid. That is why I wrote my parent comment and the first paragraphs of this comment.
I have no particular opinion on SBF’s character, but this paragraph seems ungenerous. Other than being a prolific poster and generally swell guy, Nathan doesn’t seem particularly prominent in the EA community. Certainly not as much as Jonas Vollmer, who’s a key figure at many EA orgs. And what appeal to authority did Ben’s comment make?
Well, besides ignoring Nathan Young’s huge clout, yes, this seems fair.