I think most people reading this thread should totally ignore this story for at least 2 weeks. Meantime: get back to work.
For >90% of readers, I suspect:
It’s not action relevant right now.
It’s very distracting.
It would be better to just read a sober update on the situation in a couple of weeks from now, after dust has settled.
I think this is true even of most people who have a bunch of crypto and/or are FTX customers, but that’s more debatable and depends on exposure.
These are the standard problems with following almost any BREAKING NEWS story (e.g. an election night, a stock market event, an ongoing tragedy).
Agree, but still find it hard to stop watching? You are glued to your screen and this is unhelpful. This is an opportunity to practice the skill of ignoring stuff that isn’t action-relevant, and allocating your attention effectively.
Not actively trading crypto or related assets? Just ignore this story for a while, and get back to work.
Added 2022-11-09 2200 GMT:
If I had a good friend who has a lot of crypto and who may be concerned about losing more than they can afford to lose, I would call them.
Given what I’m seeing online, the situation looks grim for people with big exposure to crypto in general, and those with deposits at FTX in particular.
(To repeat what I said in other comments on this post: I don’t follow crypto closely. My takes are not investment advice.)
Peter—I have mixed feelings about your advice, which is well-expressed and reasonable.
I agree that, typically, it’s prudent not to get caught up in news stories that involve high uncertainty, many rumors, and unclear long-term impact.
However, a crucial issue for the EA movement is whether there will be a big public relations blowback against EA from the FTX difficulties. If there’s significant risk of this blowback, EA leadership better develop a pro-active plan for dealing with the PR crisis—and quick.
The FTX crisis is a Very Big Deal in crypto—one of the worst crises ever. Worldwide, about 300 million people own crypto. Most of them have seen dramatic losses in the value of their tokens recently. On paper, at least, they have lost a couple of hundred billion dollars in the last couple of days. Most investors are down at least 20% this week because of this crisis. Even if prices recover, we will never forget how massive this drop has been.
Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) himself has allegedly lost about 94% of his net worth this week, down from $15 billion to under $1 billion. (I don’t give much credence to these estimates, but it’s pretty clear the losses have been very large).
Millions of crypto investors are furious. They blame the FTX leadership, especially SBF. And some of them are blaming FTX’s difficulties on SBF’s utilitarianism, e.g. tweeting things like ‘never trust a utilitarian with your money’.
This could all blow over. The financial contagion from FTX might be contained. Crypto prices might recover soon. Binance dominating the crypto exchange space might become the new normal. Other billionaires might step up to fill any funding gap (once the asset markets recover in a year, or two, or five).
But I think it would be prudent for EA leadership to treat this FTX crisis as a potentially serious PR crisis for EA—and not just a massive financial crisis for EA funding. SBF’s close association with EA creates some potential PR risk for the EA movement, especially among crypto investors.
It all depends on how mainstream media spins the FTX story. The next couple of weeks will be critical. If crypto news, financial news, and/or mainstream news starts blaming SBF personally for these difficulties, or uncovers evidence of financial wrong-doing, or links the FTX crisis someone to utilitarian moral reasoning and/or EA, that could be really bad for our movement.
I have no idea what the optimal PR response would be. I’m not a PR expert. But PR crisis management experts do exist, and I would strongly urge EA leadership to consult some of them. Soon.
This FTX crisis might not be an existential risk to EA, but it might be a global catastrophic risk at both the financial and the public relations levels. And we have learned to take GCRs seriously, haven’t we?
PS let me be clear: I have a lot of respect for SBF; I don’t have any real idea what happened with FTX; I’m not assigning any blame; and I hope the crisis can be resolved with minimal damage to investors and the crypto industry.
If there’s significant risk of this blowback, EA leadership better develop a pro-active plan for dealing with the PR crisis—and quick.
I think it would be prudent for EA leadership to treat this FTX crisis as a potentially serious PR crisis for EA—and not just a massive financial crisis for EA funding.
I’ve been talking to key people a fair bit since yesterday, broadly pushing the line and level of concern that you suggest. My current take is that the “pro-active plan” work is happening quickly and with appropriate investment.
Hmm, I don’t really buy this. I think at Lightcone I am likely to delay any major expenses for a few weeks and make decisions assuming a decent chance we will have a substantial funding crunch. We have a number of very large expenses coming up, and ignoring this would I think cause us to make substantially worse choices.
My guess is that if we talked about specifically who should follow this, we’d end up agreeing that >90% of readers of this thread should largely ignore for now. I vaguely recall that some 5000 people read the forum every week.
I do think that one person from each major EA org should be following along, and providing regular updates to their team for reasons of morale and (e.g.) suggestions on how to approach social media and the enquiries from journalists that we might expect to receive.
I also think that one person (from CEA) should be point person on this and put together a small team to support them, consult stakeholders, etc, if necessary.
FWIW I called around a bit last night and my understanding is that there is a very competent “point person”, and I am satisfied that they and the small group supporting them will help the community navigate this in a good/excellent way over the next days and weeks.
I’m in a similar boat. This has caused me to delay some sizeable spending decisions for 1-2 weeks.
I think the information is pretty useful to a handful of people, though I imagine that for most readers, it’s not decision-relevant on a short timescale.
I think most people reading this thread should totally ignore this story for at least 2 weeks. Meantime: get back to work.
For >90% of readers, I suspect:
It’s not action relevant right now.
It’s very distracting.
It would be better to just read a sober update on the situation in a couple of weeks from now, after dust has settled.
I think this is true even of most people who have a bunch of crypto and/or are FTX customers, but that’s more debatable and depends on exposure.
These are the standard problems with following almost any BREAKING NEWS story (e.g. an election night, a stock market event, an ongoing tragedy).
Agree, but still find it hard to stop watching? You are glued to your screen and this is unhelpful. This is an opportunity to practice the skill of ignoring stuff that isn’t action-relevant, and allocating your attention effectively.
Not actively trading crypto or related assets? Just ignore this story for a while, and get back to work.
Added 2022-11-09 2200 GMT:
If I had a good friend who has a lot of crypto and who may be concerned about losing more than they can afford to lose, I would call them.
Given what I’m seeing online, the situation looks grim for people with big exposure to crypto in general, and those with deposits at FTX in particular.
(To repeat what I said in other comments on this post: I don’t follow crypto closely. My takes are not investment advice.)
Peter—I have mixed feelings about your advice, which is well-expressed and reasonable.
I agree that, typically, it’s prudent not to get caught up in news stories that involve high uncertainty, many rumors, and unclear long-term impact.
However, a crucial issue for the EA movement is whether there will be a big public relations blowback against EA from the FTX difficulties. If there’s significant risk of this blowback, EA leadership better develop a pro-active plan for dealing with the PR crisis—and quick.
The FTX crisis is a Very Big Deal in crypto—one of the worst crises ever. Worldwide, about 300 million people own crypto. Most of them have seen dramatic losses in the value of their tokens recently. On paper, at least, they have lost a couple of hundred billion dollars in the last couple of days. Most investors are down at least 20% this week because of this crisis. Even if prices recover, we will never forget how massive this drop has been.
Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) himself has allegedly lost about 94% of his net worth this week, down from $15 billion to under $1 billion. (I don’t give much credence to these estimates, but it’s pretty clear the losses have been very large).
Millions of crypto investors are furious. They blame the FTX leadership, especially SBF. And some of them are blaming FTX’s difficulties on SBF’s utilitarianism, e.g. tweeting things like ‘never trust a utilitarian with your money’.
This could all blow over. The financial contagion from FTX might be contained. Crypto prices might recover soon. Binance dominating the crypto exchange space might become the new normal. Other billionaires might step up to fill any funding gap (once the asset markets recover in a year, or two, or five).
But I think it would be prudent for EA leadership to treat this FTX crisis as a potentially serious PR crisis for EA—and not just a massive financial crisis for EA funding. SBF’s close association with EA creates some potential PR risk for the EA movement, especially among crypto investors.
It all depends on how mainstream media spins the FTX story. The next couple of weeks will be critical. If crypto news, financial news, and/or mainstream news starts blaming SBF personally for these difficulties, or uncovers evidence of financial wrong-doing, or links the FTX crisis someone to utilitarian moral reasoning and/or EA, that could be really bad for our movement.
I have no idea what the optimal PR response would be. I’m not a PR expert. But PR crisis management experts do exist, and I would strongly urge EA leadership to consult some of them. Soon.
This FTX crisis might not be an existential risk to EA, but it might be a global catastrophic risk at both the financial and the public relations levels. And we have learned to take GCRs seriously, haven’t we?
PS let me be clear: I have a lot of respect for SBF; I don’t have any real idea what happened with FTX; I’m not assigning any blame; and I hope the crisis can be resolved with minimal damage to investors and the crypto industry.
I’ve been talking to key people a fair bit since yesterday, broadly pushing the line and level of concern that you suggest. My current take is that the “pro-active plan” work is happening quickly and with appropriate investment.
Peter—thanks very much for your quick reply. That’s reassuring to hear!
Vitalik EA takeaway thread
Hmm, I don’t really buy this. I think at Lightcone I am likely to delay any major expenses for a few weeks and make decisions assuming a decent chance we will have a substantial funding crunch. We have a number of very large expenses coming up, and ignoring this would I think cause us to make substantially worse choices.
Yep, I would emphasise “most” in my post above.
My guess is that if we talked about specifically who should follow this, we’d end up agreeing that >90% of readers of this thread should largely ignore for now. I vaguely recall that some 5000 people read the forum every week.
I do think that one person from each major EA org should be following along, and providing regular updates to their team for reasons of morale and (e.g.) suggestions on how to approach social media and the enquiries from journalists that we might expect to receive.
I also think that one person (from CEA) should be point person on this and put together a small team to support them, consult stakeholders, etc, if necessary.
FWIW I called around a bit last night and my understanding is that there is a very competent “point person”, and I am satisfied that they and the small group supporting them will help the community navigate this in a good/excellent way over the next days and weeks.
Back to work (nearly) everyone! :)
I’m in a similar boat. This has caused me to delay some sizeable spending decisions for 1-2 weeks.
I think the information is pretty useful to a handful of people, though I imagine that for most readers, it’s not decision-relevant on a short timescale.
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