I am a bit worried people are going to massively overcorrect on the FTX debacle in ways that don’t really matter and impose needless costs in various ways. We should make sure to get a clear picture of what happened first and foremost.
DC
Experiment in Retroactive Funding: An EA Forum Prize Contest
[Question] Will Three Gorges Dam Collapse And Kill Millions?
Mosul Dam Could Kill 1 Million Iraqis.
thank machine doggo
We appreciate you! ❤️
I recommend a mediator be hired to work with Jacy and whichever stakeholders are relevant (speaking broadly). This will be more productive than a he-said she-said forum discussion that is very emotionally toxic for many bystanders.
“Jon Wertheim: He made a mockery of crypto in the eyes of many. He’s sort of taken away the credibility of effective altruism. How do you see him?
Michael Lewis: Everything you say is just true. And it–and it’s more interesting than that. Every cause he sought to serve, he damaged. Every cause he sought to fight, he helped. He was a person who set out in life to maximize the consequences of his actions—never mind the intent. And he had exactly the opposite effects of the ones he set out to have. So it looks to me like his life is a cruel joke.”
😢
Archive: https://archive.ph/uwawF
[Question] Which is better for animal welfare, terraforming planets or space habitats? And by how much?
I like “quality risks” (q-risks?) and think this is more broadly appealing to people who don’t want to think about suffering-reduction as the dominantly guiding frame for whatever reason. Moral trade can be done with people concerned with other qualities, such as worries about global totalitarianism due to reasons independent of suffering such as freedom and diversity.
It’s also relatively more neglected than the standard extinction risks, which I am worried we are collectively Goodharting on as our focus (and to a lesser extent, focus on classical suffering risks may fall into this as well). For instance, nuclear war or climate change are blatant and obvious scary problems that memetically propagate well, whereas there may be many q-risks to future value that are more subtle and yet to be evinced.
Tangentially, this gets into a broader crux I am confused by: should we work on obvious things or nonobvious things? I am disposed towards the latter.
I have strong downvoted as a strong disendorsement of getting involved in hot-button, highly publicized military conflicts such as this, where the sign of the donation is unclear. I think this could be slightly contributing to the risk of escalating to nuclear war, and may actually prolong the war, increasing the amount of deaths. I think it’s terrible that this is so highly upvoted and there’s no debate.
(Parenthetical update: I would definitely be in favor of people here supporting effective altruist-identifying individuals they know in Ukraine, including arming them if they need that.)
The post should be updated stating he is deceased.
Hypercerts: A new primitive for public goods funding
It would be helpful to know what events have been hosted there by now.
[Question] What are people’s objections to earning-to-give?
Yeah a significant consideration for me in whether to be less professionally involved in EA is exhaustion from centralized funding and the weird power dynamics that ensue. I would rather build products that lots of people can use and lots of investors or donors would find attractive to give money to than be beHolden to a small coterie of grantmakers no matter how well-intentioned.
Discussion about inclusivity is really conspicuous by it’s absence within EA. It’s honeslty really weird we barely talk about it.
Are you sure? Here are some previous discussions (most of which were linked in the article above):
http://effective-altruism.com/ea/1ft/effective_altruism_for_animals_consideration_for/ http://effective-altruism.com/ea/ek/ea_diversity_unpacking_pandoras_box/ http://effective-altruism.com/ea/sm/ea_is_elitist_should_it_stay_that_way/ http://effective-altruism.com/ea/zu/making_ea_groups_more_welcoming/ http://effective-altruism.com/ea/mp/pitfalls_in_diversity_outreach/ http://effective-altruism.com/ea/1e1/ea_survey_2017_series_community_demographics/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/effective.altruists/permalink/1479443418778677/
I recall more discussions elsewhere in comments. Admittedly this is over several years. What would not barely talking about it look like, if not that?
- 27 Oct 2017 17:55 UTC; 6 points) 's comment on Why & How to Make Progress on Diversity & Inclusion in EA by (
Fiction can be a powerful tool for generating public interest in an issue, as Toby Ord describes in the case of asteroid preparedness as part of his appearance on the 80,000 Hours Podcast:
I think general additional asteroid preparedness awareness is net negative because it increases the amount of dual-use asteroid deflection capabilities moreso than it increases the amount of non-dual-use asteroid defense capabilities.
The sign though of asteroid awareness is probably dominated by the number of people who go on to think about and work on other existential risks, which in itself may either be really good by preventing x-risks or may be dual-use in itself, causing general mass awareness of x-risks as a category to be net bad.
I was really looking forward to maybe implementing impact markets in collaboration with Future Fund plus FTX proper if you and they wanted, and feel numb with regard to this shocking turn. I really believed FTX had some shot at ‘being the best financial hub in the world’, SBF ‘becoming a trillionaire’, and this longshot notion I had of impact certificates being integrated into the exchange, funding billions of dollars of EA causes through it in the best world. This felt so cool and far out to imagine. I woke up two days ago and this dream is now ash. I have spiritually entangled myself with this disaster.
I don’t want to be the first commenter to be that guy, and forgive me if I’m poking a wound, but when you have the time and slack can you please explain to us to what extent you guys grilled FTX leadership about the integrity of the sources of money they were giving you? Surely you had an inside view model of how risky this was if it blew up? If it’s true SBF has had a history of acting unethically before (rumors, I don’t know), isn’t that something to have thoroughly questioned and spoken against? If there was anyone non-FTX who could have pressured them to act ethically, it would have been you. As an outsider it felt like y’all were in a highly trusted concerted relationship with each other going back a decade.
In any case, thank you for what you’ve done.