Also worth noting here is that, as expected, EA’s have in general condemned this idea and SBF has gone against the standard wisdom of EA in doing this. I feel like EA’s principles were broken, not followed, even though I agree SBF was almost certainly a committed effective altruist. The update, for me, is not “EA as an ideology is rotten when taken very seriously” but rather “EA’s are, despite our commitments to ethical behaviour, perhaps no more trustworthy with power than anyone else.”
This has caused me to pretty sharply reduce my probability of EA politicians being a good idea, but hasn’t caused a significant update against the core principles of EA.
“EA’s are, despite our commitments to ethical behaviour, perhaps no more trustworthy with power than anyone else.”
I wonder if “perhaps no more trustworthy with power than anyone else” goes a little too far. I think the EA community made mistakes that facilitated FTX misbehavior, but that is only one small group of people. Many EAs have substantial power in the world and have continued to be largely trustworthy (and thus less newsworthy!), and I think we have evidence like our stronger-than-average explicit commitments to use power for good and the critical reflection happening in the community right now suggests we are probably doing better than average—even though, as you rightly point out, we’re far from perfect.
Fair point. I think, in a knee-jerk reaction, I adjusted too far here. At the very least, it seems that EA’s are at least somewhat more likely to do good with power if they have that aim rather than people who just want power for power’s sake. It’s still an adjustment downwards on my part for the EV of EA politicians, but not to 0 compared to the median candidate of said candidate’s political party.
In Bayesian terms the update should be in the direction of EAs being less trustworthy than the average person, if you agree that the average CEO of a firm like FTX wouldn’t have done what SBF did.
Also worth noting here is that, as expected, EA’s have in general condemned this idea and SBF has gone against the standard wisdom of EA in doing this. I feel like EA’s principles were broken, not followed, even though I agree SBF was almost certainly a committed effective altruist. The update, for me, is not “EA as an ideology is rotten when taken very seriously” but rather “EA’s are, despite our commitments to ethical behaviour, perhaps no more trustworthy with power than anyone else.”
This has caused me to pretty sharply reduce my probability of EA politicians being a good idea, but hasn’t caused a significant update against the core principles of EA.
I wonder if “perhaps no more trustworthy with power than anyone else” goes a little too far. I think the EA community made mistakes that facilitated FTX misbehavior, but that is only one small group of people. Many EAs have substantial power in the world and have continued to be largely trustworthy (and thus less newsworthy!), and I think we have evidence like our stronger-than-average explicit commitments to use power for good and the critical reflection happening in the community right now suggests we are probably doing better than average—even though, as you rightly point out, we’re far from perfect.
Fair point. I think, in a knee-jerk reaction, I adjusted too far here. At the very least, it seems that EA’s are at least somewhat more likely to do good with power if they have that aim rather than people who just want power for power’s sake. It’s still an adjustment downwards on my part for the EV of EA politicians, but not to 0 compared to the median candidate of said candidate’s political party.
In Bayesian terms the update should be in the direction of EAs being less trustworthy than the average person, if you agree that the average CEO of a firm like FTX wouldn’t have done what SBF did.