Moreover, I felt Will’s statement was quite strong in outright denouncing SBF, and had this qualifier as an afterthought; not in the foreground.
I just don’t understand how you can say that. Almost every tweet had the qualification in the foreground. Certaintly it wasn’t an afterthought. His offer to apologize was in the 4th tweet, before he even condemns Sam. (Edit: link to thread)
Based on publicly available information, it seems to me more likely than not that senior leadership at FTX used customer deposits to bail out Alameda, despite terms of service prohibiting this, and a (later deleted) tweet from Sam claiming customer deposits are never invested.
I read “more likely than not” to be ~60% confidence, which doesn’t show a very high level of understanding of the situation (which is not very acceptable for someone who should have been monitoring this situation very closely). It also colors the rest of what I read as someone who doesn’t think that there is much certainty to be had here.
I am not certain that this is what happened. I haven’t been in contact with anyone at FTX (other than those at Future Fund), except a short email to resign from my unpaid advisor role at Future Fund. If new information vindicates FTX, I will change my view and offer an apology.
But if there was deception and misuse of funds, I am outraged, and I don’t know which emotion is stronger: my utter rage at Sam (and others?) for causing such harm to so many people, or my sadness and self-hatred for falling for this deception.
I want to make it utterly clear: if those involved deceived others and engaged in fraud (whether illegal or not) that may cost many thousands of people their savings, they entirely abandoned the principles of the effective altruism community.
If this is what happened, then I cannot in words convey how strongly I condemn what they did. I had put my trust in Sam, and if he lied and misused customer funds he betrayed me, just as he betrayed his customers, his employees, his investors, & the communities he was a part of.
For years, the EA community has emphasised the importance of integrity, honesty, and the respect of common-sense moral constraints. If customer funds were misused, then Sam did not listen; he must have thought he was above such considerations.
If FTX misused customer funds, then I personally will have much to reflect on. Sam and FTX had a lot of goodwill – and some of that goodwill was the result of association with ideas I have spent my career promoting. If that goodwill laundered fraud, I am ashamed.
Emphasis mine, but I’m afraid we’re either talking about different statements, or read these tweets very differently.
Yeah, I can understand how some people might have been uncertain about what happened, but given what was public at the time, anyone following closely would not have been as uncertain as you at that time.