There is a basic valid point here, but I would really want to distinguish between “fringe” and “extreme” views.
Sam was not a “fringe” member of the EA community. He was extremely central and occupied a pretty central node in the social graph (due to the connections associated with the FTX Future Fund and lots of EAs working at FTX). I agree with you that his beliefs were extreme. Indeed I think it’s not that rare for the core of a community to have more extreme beliefs than the fringes, especially as a movement starts growing a lot and is appealing to broader swaths of people each year.
I think this is a large enough conflation that I would recommend changing the title.
There is a basic valid point here, but I would really want to distinguish between “fringe” and “extreme” views.
Sam was not a “fringe” member of the EA community. He was extremely central and occupied a pretty central node in the social graph (due to the connections associated with the FTX Future Fund and lots of EAs working at FTX). I agree with you that his beliefs were extreme. Indeed I think it’s not that rare for the core of a community to have more extreme beliefs than the fringes, especially as a movement starts growing a lot and is appealing to broader swaths of people each year.
I think this is a large enough conflation that I would recommend changing the title.
Good point, thank you. I agree that it’s important to distinguish between “fringes” and “extreme views”—I’ll edit the post soon.
Edited!