If a con artist happens to give money to a beggar, you don’t go and try to get the money back off the beggar, it’s just gone.
It’s rough, but rough things happen in this world. I’m not saying anyone deserved to lose their money, but it’s not like people were unaware that investing in crypto is inherently risky.
This raises a good point. Charities such as AMF or GiveDirectly giving back money would be harming people who are mostly (much) worse off than the average FTX customer who’s lost money.
However, most of the FTX charitable donations seem to have been (via the Future Fund) to longtermist orgs that pay people in rich countries high salaries. It’s not unreasonable to suggest that these orgs/people take significant pay cuts to give money back, especially if they can still do their work living more frugally.
However, the difficulty lies with the amounts. The Future Fund has given out ~$200M. If the money lost by FTX customers amounts to ~$10B, that’s not going to make a dent. You can either pay everyone back 2%, which might be appreciated but mostly feel like nothing (or perhaps even a slap in the face?), or you could preferentially pay certain people back 100%, but then how do you choose who is in and who is out? (A lottery? Pay back smaller balances first? Means testing to pay back the poorest first?) Or should EA/Longtermism keep paying money back until everyone is whole? Seems like it would take years at best. It’s a mess :(
A lottery seems most reasonable to me. E.g.: keep selecting random individuals who haven’t gotten their money back; pay them (maybe up to some high cap?); repeat until you’ve paid out a total of ~$200M.
I’m not sure if it’s that simple. It seems quite likely that with a lottery there would be at least a few cases of relatively rich people (say people who had >$200k and lost $100k of it on FTX) getting paid back. This would inevitably lead to (justified) anger and complaints from people who were left much worse off (e.g. those who only had $10k and lost all of it). Maybe it needs to be means tested for hardship? It would take a lot more work, but perhaps there could be an application process and vetting by an independent (from EA) panel? That would still be open to manipulation though I guess (e.g. people shouting the loudest on social media).
I’d vote for an algorithm that is transparent and has limited if any discretion. Maybe the end result would be somewhat suboptimal to discretionary independent-panel vetting, but it would be critical that the process be seen as fair.
Plus, a complicated procedure will eat up a lot of the funds intended for victims, unless you think the EA community should both return any FTX money and pay for an involved claims process. That goes beyond mere disgorgement.
Dear God no.
If a con artist happens to give money to a beggar, you don’t go and try to get the money back off the beggar, it’s just gone.
It’s rough, but rough things happen in this world. I’m not saying anyone deserved to lose their money, but it’s not like people were unaware that investing in crypto is inherently risky.
This raises a good point. Charities such as AMF or GiveDirectly giving back money would be harming people who are mostly (much) worse off than the average FTX customer who’s lost money.
However, most of the FTX charitable donations seem to have been (via the Future Fund) to longtermist orgs that pay people in rich countries high salaries. It’s not unreasonable to suggest that these orgs/people take significant pay cuts to give money back, especially if they can still do their work living more frugally.
However, the difficulty lies with the amounts. The Future Fund has given out ~$200M. If the money lost by FTX customers amounts to ~$10B, that’s not going to make a dent. You can either pay everyone back 2%, which might be appreciated but mostly feel like nothing (or perhaps even a slap in the face?), or you could preferentially pay certain people back 100%, but then how do you choose who is in and who is out? (A lottery? Pay back smaller balances first? Means testing to pay back the poorest first?) Or should EA/Longtermism keep paying money back until everyone is whole? Seems like it would take years at best. It’s a mess :(
A lottery seems most reasonable to me. E.g.: keep selecting random individuals who haven’t gotten their money back; pay them (maybe up to some high cap?); repeat until you’ve paid out a total of ~$200M.
I’m not sure if it’s that simple. It seems quite likely that with a lottery there would be at least a few cases of relatively rich people (say people who had >$200k and lost $100k of it on FTX) getting paid back. This would inevitably lead to (justified) anger and complaints from people who were left much worse off (e.g. those who only had $10k and lost all of it). Maybe it needs to be means tested for hardship? It would take a lot more work, but perhaps there could be an application process and vetting by an independent (from EA) panel? That would still be open to manipulation though I guess (e.g. people shouting the loudest on social media).
I’d vote for an algorithm that is transparent and has limited if any discretion. Maybe the end result would be somewhat suboptimal to discretionary independent-panel vetting, but it would be critical that the process be seen as fair.
Plus, a complicated procedure will eat up a lot of the funds intended for victims, unless you think the EA community should both return any FTX money and pay for an involved claims process. That goes beyond mere disgorgement.