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suy  1yr ago (astralcodexten.substack.com)   Edited 1yr ago   3826 thread views

Scott Alexander on Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX and Effective Altruism

astralcodexten.substack.com

I made this a top level post because I think people here might want to discuss it but you can remove it if it doesn't meet your standards.

Edit: removed my opinion of Scott from the body

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Reading Scott's post about feeling anxious and betrayed made me think back to Zero HP Lovecraft's tweet about the quokka, the Australian mammal. I don't have much else to say besides how frustrating it is to see a full grown adult act so naively. Don't have much charity left for someone so easily manipulated.

I think you kinda underestimate how easy is to manipulate a grown adult outside of their area of expertise. Especially if the manipulation is towards the result that they want to achieve (which is how any skillful conman would do it). Especially if the target is commonly living in a low-threat environment where it's usually ok to trust people and most of people you encounter aren't actually out to get you. It's probably easier to manipulate a very smart professor than a very dumb prison inmate - because the latter won't just believe any word you say regardless of what you say, just on general principle that they don't know you.

I think the point is more about the degree of Scott's emotional investment, and the nature of his emotional reaction, rather than the mere fact that he made poor judgement calls in an area outside of his expertise.

People let other people down all the time, whether it's through malice or incompetence. The world is filled with unscrupulous individuals, especially the world of the rich and powerful and well-connected. Just because someone SAYS they follow the principles of EA and rationalism doesn't mean they're actually a good person. How could someone with Scott's erudition fail to realize that? How could he not be emotionally prepared for an outcome like that? I think that was the point of suy's comment.

I think it's matching the environment. In Scott's environment, most people aren't highly skilled sociopath conmen, so trusting people makes sense. The reverse side of it is that once in a while there will be a highly skilled sociopath conman that will totally take advantage. I'm not sure I can really tell this way is better than be eternally suspicious and distrusting and live all your life on guard against the conmen - but I think both models have their tradeoffs and both are plausible.

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