As someone who only recently got involved with EA (I read some books in early 2022, then took an in-depth EA course last summer), I’ve been watching this and have a few general thoughts on what I’ve seen & what I think about EA going forward (Not just as an ideology but as a community). Sorry if this seems a bit off-topic since I can’t say I feel particularly ‘compromised’.
Personally, I was not surprised that FTX collapsed & was a fraudulent organization. I had been following the crypto space for a few years and SBF was an incredibly obvious con man in my view. I didn’t even know that Future Fund was part of FTX until the situation blew up and I was like “oh great” when I heard EA come up in the news.
I was rather disappointed in EA leadership for not being more cautious about SBF intrusion into the space. When someone shows up from an industry well-known for fraud and instantly becomes a meaningful % of overall movement funding, someone has to do an in-depth audit before distributing goodwill.
However, I think the way the EA community reacted to the situation on this forum was positive. I also think that leadership going through this experience will substantially reduce the likelihood of a similar (or worse) thing happening again in the future (both near and long term) since they will enforce much stronger regulations. It may have been good for EA to suffer a disaster that rattled everyone but has not destroyed the movement.
Overall, I was generally pleased with how most of the community responded (I think the infighting narrative was overblown). Going forward, I’m happy to describe myself as an Effective Altruist, and I think that we’ve got a bright future ahead. In fact, I think EA is likely to be more positively impactful than much of the rest of the trillion-dollar global nonprofit industry.
To people who have been beating themselves up about it: It wasn’t your fault, don’t beat yourselves up about it. I have seen most people react very intelligently and understand this for what it was: A major failure of leadership & regulations, and an opportunity to ensure that it doesn’t happen again while also not getting derailed from the strong philosophical basis that EA has.
I’m mostly not talking about infighting, it’s self-flagellation—but glad you haven’t seen the suffering I have, and I envy your chill.
You’re missing a key fact about SBF, which is that he didn’t “show up” from crypto. He started in EA and went into crypto. This dynamic raises other questions, even as it makes the EA leadership failure less simple / silly.
Agree that we will be fine, which is another point of the list above.
You’re missing a key fact about SBF, which is that he didn’t “show up” from crypto. He started in EA and went into crypto. This dynamic raises other questions, even as it makes the EA leadership failure less simple / silly.
Ah, thank you this does add good context. If I was an EA with any background in finance, I’d probably be very upset at myself about not catching on (a lot) earlier. Since he’d been involved in EA for so long, I wonder if he never truly subscribed to EA principles and has simply been ‘playing the long game’. I’ve seen plenty of examples of SBF being a master at this dumb game we woke westerners play where we say all the right shibboleths and so everyone likes us.
I had heard of him only a few times before the crash, and mostly in the context of youtube clips where he basically described a Ponzi scheme, then said that it was ‘reasonable’. The unfortunate thing is that FTX’s exchange business model wasn’t inherently fraudulent. There was likely no way for anyone outside the company to know he was lending out users’ money against their own terms of service (apart from demanding a comprehensive audit).
Ultimately it doesn’t look like he’s going to get away with it, but it’s good to be much more cautious with funders (especially those connected to an operating non-public company) going forward.
Since he’d been involved in EA for so long, I wonder if he never truly subscribed to EA principles and has simply been ‘playing the long game’.
I explained in this comment and the comment reply below it why I think it’s clear that he did believe in EA principles (except for the part of “EA principles” that are explicitly against fraud and so on).
As someone who only recently got involved with EA (I read some books in early 2022, then took an in-depth EA course last summer), I’ve been watching this and have a few general thoughts on what I’ve seen & what I think about EA going forward (Not just as an ideology but as a community). Sorry if this seems a bit off-topic since I can’t say I feel particularly ‘compromised’.
Personally, I was not surprised that FTX collapsed & was a fraudulent organization. I had been following the crypto space for a few years and SBF was an incredibly obvious con man in my view. I didn’t even know that Future Fund was part of FTX until the situation blew up and I was like “oh great” when I heard EA come up in the news.
I was rather disappointed in EA leadership for not being more cautious about SBF intrusion into the space. When someone shows up from an industry well-known for fraud and instantly becomes a meaningful % of overall movement funding, someone has to do an in-depth audit before distributing goodwill.
However, I think the way the EA community reacted to the situation on this forum was positive. I also think that leadership going through this experience will substantially reduce the likelihood of a similar (or worse) thing happening again in the future (both near and long term) since they will enforce much stronger regulations. It may have been good for EA to suffer a disaster that rattled everyone but has not destroyed the movement.
Overall, I was generally pleased with how most of the community responded (I think the infighting narrative was overblown). Going forward, I’m happy to describe myself as an Effective Altruist, and I think that we’ve got a bright future ahead. In fact, I think EA is likely to be more positively impactful than much of the rest of the trillion-dollar global nonprofit industry.
To people who have been beating themselves up about it: It wasn’t your fault, don’t beat yourselves up about it. I have seen most people react very intelligently and understand this for what it was: A major failure of leadership & regulations, and an opportunity to ensure that it doesn’t happen again while also not getting derailed from the strong philosophical basis that EA has.
I’m mostly not talking about infighting, it’s self-flagellation—but glad you haven’t seen the suffering I have, and I envy your chill.
You’re missing a key fact about SBF, which is that he didn’t “show up” from crypto. He started in EA and went into crypto. This dynamic raises other questions, even as it makes the EA leadership failure less simple / silly.
Agree that we will be fine, which is another point of the list above.
Ah, thank you this does add good context. If I was an EA with any background in finance, I’d probably be very upset at myself about not catching on (a lot) earlier. Since he’d been involved in EA for so long, I wonder if he never truly subscribed to EA principles and has simply been ‘playing the long game’. I’ve seen plenty of examples of SBF being a master at this dumb game we woke westerners play where we say all the right shibboleths and so everyone likes us.
I had heard of him only a few times before the crash, and mostly in the context of youtube clips where he basically described a Ponzi scheme, then said that it was ‘reasonable’. The unfortunate thing is that FTX’s exchange business model wasn’t inherently fraudulent. There was likely no way for anyone outside the company to know he was lending out users’ money against their own terms of service (apart from demanding a comprehensive audit).
Ultimately it doesn’t look like he’s going to get away with it, but it’s good to be much more cautious with funders (especially those connected to an operating non-public company) going forward.
I explained in this comment and the comment reply below it why I think it’s clear that he did believe in EA principles (except for the part of “EA principles” that are explicitly against fraud and so on).
That’s evidence that he’s deceptive, but note that he meant to refer to stuff like corporate responsibility, not his utilitarianism.