PDV
1yr ago
Nah. The scam is unrelated. Yeah, they overtly endorsed "double or nothing coin flips and high leverage", but that wasn't the scam. The scam was what they did when things went bad. If SBF had just let Alameda collapse in August (and massively damage FTX with it), that would have been a vindication of their philosophy and a success by their standards and those of most EAs.
The only thing that went wrong was that FTX, seeing Alameda on the verge of bankruptcy, gave them $8 million of customer money rather than let it happen. That was a classic panic response of someone running a bad hedge fund. Everything before that was fine.
PDV
1yr ago
His promo video talks about "climate change" and "pandemic preparedness"
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Literally no one is working on pandemic preparedness seriously. None of his funding was for COVID, it was for biosecurity work which could stop the next pandemic. We haven't even gotten gain of function research to stop receiving federal funding; this was and is desperately needed.
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While lots of people talk a
goodkinda-mediocre game about climate change, almost none of them are working on actual fixes. Money going toward carbon capture would be fantastic. (And TBH I think if this hadn't flamed out, some of FTX or Alameda's people would have eventually taken the money and eaten the bullet of dumping iron filings in international waters, previously the highest-profile potential EA Crime.)
It's high time we moved to post-rat anyways. The idea of rationalizing your way through the worlds most complex problems was a dead end.
the rest of the internet where you submit a post with relevant information trying to add nuance to a debate and it turns into just trying to figure out which "side" you're supporting.
Observe the actual post-rats. They're just non-rationalists with a couple cultural signifiers; no more effective, and in general much less, than anyone else in the community or the adjacency. They have absolutely reverted to the condemnable behavior you're mentioning. Post-rationalism is a crock of shit and has been since the minute it started.
It's not. Double or nothing with leverage is just normal finance with EA goals. The scam is what they did when they hit 'nothing' - rather than take the L, they siphoned off customer money for one last big bet. (And it might have worked, if they got another six months.)
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