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Does the Sam Bankman-Fried transformation into Bankrupt Fraud tell us something about the failures of effective altruism?
I saw Bankman mentioned on themotte a number of times over the past two years. I’m pretty sure he was mentioned over on SSC, too. After Scott, he was the person who immediately came to mind when I thought of figures associated with EA. Many normies and finance types will only think of Bankman when EA is brought up. (I refuse to use the “SBF” acronym because it was consciously chosen as imitation of HSBC and other institutions, and despite his name the man is not a bank.)
I think the EA’s failure to have any effective impact on Bankman’s moral calculus is its complete absence of emotional salience. Traditional moral systems usually try to maximize moral salience. (Stoicism was short-lived and immersed in a Hellenistic culture that emphasized honor through salient stories, and while “mindfulness” is emotional neutral, traditional Buddhism emphasizes benevolence through stories.)
Consider Christianity. Its stories are designed for emotional salience, using novelty/paradox/shock in key moments to illustrate the moral point. Mankind’s Hero was born in a manger to a lowly family, faced persecution from the very people who claimed moral superiority, took on followers who were poor and irrelevant, and died the death of a painful criminal for the purpose of saving all of humanity. The paradoxes and surprises are meant to enhance the emotional experience, and thus the effect, of the moral point. Within the Gospel narrative, we have parables, also emphasizing salience. You have the wealthy and high status patrician who looks down on his lower class sinful neighbor, and the latter is announced as just and not the former. We have metaphors involving specks in the eye, wheat cultivation, farm animals, and storing grain, all of which would be immediately understood by the target audience. The parable form itself can be construed as the most expedient way of expressing a moral point to the largest possible audience.
While Effective Altruism may be logically sound, in the sense that the optimal actions are clearly delineated and argued, it may also not be very effective in obtaining an end result. There is an ocean of difference between a logical assessment of morality and the effectively-felt transformation of an individual into a moral actor who follows the moral commandments. To walk over this ocean of difference or to part its waters requires a moral system (if not a religion, close to it) that is focused on making morality felt. Otherwise, as in the case of Bankman-Fried, our passions and our greeds prevent us from following through on what we ought. This conflict over Ought and Will is, of course, explored throughout the New Testament, with the inability to perfectly follow moral commandments (the law) being solved in the Person of Christ, who makes morality possible to follow through his being born (a human) and through his friendship (fellowship), which effects the salience necessary to turn the follower moral.
I haven't been following this, except to kinda smirk about EA and their great pal, Sam Bankman-Fried (when they or he or all of 'em tried funnelling tons of money into that Oregon race to get Carrick Flynn elected, that's when I knew EA had jumped the shark. Stick to getting mosquito nets distributed, once you start meddling in politics you have now become just another special-interest lobbying group and are not 'doing good by doing better' by being Really Smart And Maths And Statistical Analysis And Stuff anymore).
So the vague impression I've got is that he made all his (illusory) wealth out of crypto, which I'm inclined to regard as magic beans anyway, and that it was all a huge Ponzi Scheme where he was literally robbing Peter to pay Paul, he couldn't keep the balls in the air, another big firm was going to come in and take over and save them but has now pulled away, and so it's all come crashing down amidst accusations of fraud and other juicy financial misdeeds.
But now I'm seeing even wilder stuff, about meth-smoking polycules in a Bahamian compound? What the frick, guys, tell me more? I mean, polycules par for the course if we're talking about Bay Area rationalist EA types who are all incestuously related when it comes to "met at university, lived in group homes, dated, founded start-ups together, my ex is getting a job in another ex's company and is dating a third ex of both of us" type of shenanigans, but the rest of it is wild. Some of it is calling it a "$300m compound", other reports are 'just' a "luxury penthouse" in the Bahamas but some Tweets that people are passing around are crazy.
Spill the beans for juicy gossip, anyone who is in the know! Or at least heard rumours from a friend of a guy whose cousin had a room-mate who swept the floors in the luxury meth polycule compound 😁
I'm guessing this is not going ahead anymore, either?
EDIT: Okay, it may not be meth-smoking so much as "taking stimulants for ADHD or just regularly like college students do so they can cram" usage (much more boring if you're going to be part of a multi-billion implosion), but maybe, juuuuust maybe, normie idiot non-meth users are not so dumb after all?
Also, I'm looking at photos of the various people involved and how on God's green earth did any of them get handed huge wads of cash to play with? Ellison looks like she should still be in college, for pete's sake, not CEO of a trading firm. Was there nobody over the age of thirty around to decide about giving them access to such sums?
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