Hey there! I first heard of effective altruism from 80,000 Hours and am trying to figure out my contribution to the world. Previously wanted to pursue a research career in undergraduate but have since put that on hold.
jiayang
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Just added my bio, thanks for the tips!
Oh, I would have thought it’s the other way around—sometimes people don’t want to be known as EA-aligned because that can have negative connotations (being too focused on numbers, being judgmental of “what’s worthy”, slightly cult-like etc). I think “high-impact organisation” may be a good idea as well.
To be honest I feel like this is all part of the high-risk high-reward that is crypto . This is not the first crash and probably won’t be the last. I would treat this as an interesting exercise for EAs in general who are considering similar high-risk high-reward careers—it’s a good time to ask yourself if you are prepared to take on the high-risk part if it comes down to that, with a very vivid example now.
Of course, there were things that could be handled by FTX/Alameda better (and also Binance if they were truly benevolent), but interesting thought experiment to consider for the rest of us not directly involved, and for us to personally extract some use out of this.
I’ve worked in crypto since March this year (though not in crypto trading, so I’m sheltered from the worst of it) and I’ve enough money locked up in FTX and BlockFi for it to sting, so I’m learning some lessons here too.