Theory A says that SBF genuinely believed in effective altruism when running FTX, and he does not have DAE. Additionally, this theory says that his unethical behaviors were just the result of some mixture of incompetence and bad luck (possibly, though not necessarily, exacerbated by a belief in naïve utilitarianism). In this theory, he did not intentionally defraud anyone, though he was, at the very minimum, extremely reckless. This theory says that he was either so incompetent that he didn’t know he was behaving unethically and breaking the law, or else he was able to justify his behaviors to himself (even if he felt very bad/guilty about his actions) via a naïve utilitarian calculus based on his guess that doing so would yield more utility in the world in the long-run for all conscious beings (compared to if he followed the law and behaved ethically).
Possibly nitpicky, but I don’t think “In this theory, he did not intentionally defraud anyone” is necessarily the case even if we assume theory A (SBF genuinely believed in EA principles and did not have DAE).
I’m not sure if there’s something here along the line of “if you believe in the ideas of EA then you would never intentionally defraud anyone / behave unethically under any reasonable interpretation / break the law”, which I think I feel less sure about, but at the minimum it’s plausible to think (as you point out) that SBF could have been a naive utilitarian, which could have made him more likely to intentionally defraud someone than if he wasn’t, all else equal.
Alternatively, you do mean this to be the “unintentional” theory, but in this case there should probably also be room to explore the hypothesis that he was acting more intentionally and as a naive utilitarian, and I think there is definitely some evidence out there to support this (and I would find this more compelling and probably more likely than theory C).
I do mean theory A to specifically be a theory where he did not intentionally defraud people. I don’t think the EA + non-DAE + naive utilitarianism + intentional fraud theory is one of the three most likely, that’s why I didn’t discuss it in detail, but I’d be interested in evidence for it (if you think there is evidence for that theory in particular that is not already mentioned in my post)
I think ultimately this is just “how much do you trust Sam’s testimony about himself (e.g. how plausible is it that he thinks it’s OK to take billions of customer money). Given his willingness to be misleading or lie about other things (e.g. whether or not Alameda received special treatment, the frugal image etc), this might be some reason to discount his own testimony.
I also think generally with large scale financial fraud you should expect that it is much easier to have nonzero idea of the fraud occurring than have zero knowledge of the fraud occurring; it seems not super relevant to me whether this is something SBF “let happen” or defrauding as an action was what SBF was actively pursuing, though you may disagree.
Possibly nitpicky, but I don’t think “In this theory, he did not intentionally defraud anyone” is necessarily the case even if we assume theory A (SBF genuinely believed in EA principles and did not have DAE).
I’m not sure if there’s something here along the line of “if you believe in the ideas of EA then you would never intentionally defraud anyone / behave unethically under any reasonable interpretation / break the law”, which I think I feel less sure about, but at the minimum it’s plausible to think (as you point out) that SBF could have been a naive utilitarian, which could have made him more likely to intentionally defraud someone than if he wasn’t, all else equal.
Alternatively, you do mean this to be the “unintentional” theory, but in this case there should probably also be room to explore the hypothesis that he was acting more intentionally and as a naive utilitarian, and I think there is definitely some evidence out there to support this (and I would find this more compelling and probably more likely than theory C).
I do mean theory A to specifically be a theory where he did not intentionally defraud people. I don’t think the EA + non-DAE + naive utilitarianism + intentional fraud theory is one of the three most likely, that’s why I didn’t discuss it in detail, but I’d be interested in evidence for it (if you think there is evidence for that theory in particular that is not already mentioned in my post)
I think ultimately this is just “how much do you trust Sam’s testimony about himself (e.g. how plausible is it that he thinks it’s OK to take billions of customer money). Given his willingness to be misleading or lie about other things (e.g. whether or not Alameda received special treatment, the frugal image etc), this might be some reason to discount his own testimony.
I also think generally with large scale financial fraud you should expect that it is much easier to have nonzero idea of the fraud occurring than have zero knowledge of the fraud occurring; it seems not super relevant to me whether this is something SBF “let happen” or defrauding as an action was what SBF was actively pursuing, though you may disagree.