the actions he [SBF] was convicted of are nearly universally condemned by the EA community
I don’t think that observing lots of condemnation and little support is all that much evidence for the premise you take as given—that SBF’s actions were near-universally condemned by the EA community—compared to meaningfully different hypotheses like “50% of EAs condemned SBF’s actions.”
There was, and still is, a strong incentive to hide any opinion other than condemnation (e.g., support, genuine uncertainty) over SBF’s fraud-for-good ideology, out of legitimate fear of becoming a witch-hunt victim. By the law of prevalence, I therefore expect the number of EAs who don’t fully condemn SBF’s actions to be far greater than the number who publicly express opinions other than full condemnation.
(Note: I’m focusing on the morality of SBF’s actions, and not on executional incompetence.)
Anecdotally, of the EAs I’ve spoken to about the FTX collapse with whom I’m close—and who therefore have less incentive to hide what they truly believe from me—I’d say that between a third and a half fall into the genuinely uncertain camp (on the moral question of fraud for good causes), while the number in the support camp is small but not zero.[1]
And of those in my sample in the condemn camp, by far the most commonly-cited reason is timeless decision theory / pre-committing to cooperative actions, which I don’t think is the kind of reason one jumps to when one hears that EAs condemn fraud for good-type thinking.
‘By the law of prevalence, I therefore expect the number of EAs who don’t fully condemn SBF’s actions to be far greater than the number who publicly express opinions other than full condemnation.’
It seems like you can always use this to claim “sure, everyone says they don’t think X, but they could be lying for reputational purposes” whenever X is taboo, but some (most!) taboo things are genuinely unpopular. That seems dangerously unfalsifiable. Of course, the actual conclusion of “more people believe taboo things than will admit to it” is true in almost all cases. But if almost no one will admit to having an opinion, the real prevalence can still be low even if higher than the visible prevalence.
I agree that on things that are taboo to support (like this) we should expect support to be greater than publicly acknowledged support. However, a near-universal lack of public support is still evidence of a genuine lack of support. We could debate how much evidence it is. Talking to EAs 1-on-1 I also have barely found any that say they support the kind of actions that SBF was accused of, but many that condemn those actions. Again, not perfect evidence, but it provides a bit of additional evidence.
I don’t think that observing lots of condemnation and little support is all that much evidence for the premise you take as given—that SBF’s actions were near-universally condemned by the EA community—compared to meaningfully different hypotheses like “50% of EAs condemned SBF’s actions.”
There was, and still is, a strong incentive to hide any opinion other than condemnation (e.g., support, genuine uncertainty) over SBF’s fraud-for-good ideology, out of legitimate fear of becoming a witch-hunt victim. By the law of prevalence, I therefore expect the number of EAs who don’t fully condemn SBF’s actions to be far greater than the number who publicly express opinions other than full condemnation.
(Note: I’m focusing on the morality of SBF’s actions, and not on executional incompetence.)
Anecdotally, of the EAs I’ve spoken to about the FTX collapse with whom I’m close—and who therefore have less incentive to hide what they truly believe from me—I’d say that between a third and a half fall into the genuinely uncertain camp (on the moral question of fraud for good causes), while the number in the support camp is small but not zero.[1]
And of those in my sample in the condemn camp, by far the most commonly-cited reason is timeless decision theory / pre-committing to cooperative actions, which I don’t think is the kind of reason one jumps to when one hears that EAs condemn fraud for good-type thinking.
‘By the law of prevalence, I therefore expect the number of EAs who don’t fully condemn SBF’s actions to be far greater than the number who publicly express opinions other than full condemnation.’
It seems like you can always use this to claim “sure, everyone says they don’t think X, but they could be lying for reputational purposes” whenever X is taboo, but some (most!) taboo things are genuinely unpopular. That seems dangerously unfalsifiable. Of course, the actual conclusion of “more people believe taboo things than will admit to it” is true in almost all cases. But if almost no one will admit to having an opinion, the real prevalence can still be low even if higher than the visible prevalence.
I agree that on things that are taboo to support (like this) we should expect support to be greater than publicly acknowledged support. However, a near-universal lack of public support is still evidence of a genuine lack of support. We could debate how much evidence it is. Talking to EAs 1-on-1 I also have barely found any that say they support the kind of actions that SBF was accused of, but many that condemn those actions. Again, not perfect evidence, but it provides a bit of additional evidence.