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The Bankman-Fried/FTX Saga just gets better and better. A "why oh why" article in the Wall Street Journal has plums to be plucked out, such as these.
(And if Will MacAskill wants to repair his reputation, he better make some moves sharpish because the media are painting him as Sam's guru who encouraged and indeed enabled him).
Yeah, does anyone think that someone who doesn't know the first thing about EA or any of the people here, when reading this, is going to come away with a good view of all concerned? Personally I'm very amused that veganism has been dragged into this: "guy who swindled billions is against meat eating" 🤣 So let's count 'em up: that's utilitarianism, Effective Altruism, cryptocurrency, and veganism all tainted by association!
As for MacAskill, it sounds like he was in contact with Bankman-Fried up until quite recently:
He has distanced himself now, but unfortunately that may be too little, too late:
But wait, that isn't the best bit:
Oh yes. Just imagine it. Instead of Musk buying Twitter, it could have been Bankman-Fried. If people are getting het-up about Twitter potentially collapsing, what would they think if Twitter was caught up in the undertow of the FTX collapse? 😈
Congratulations to Effective Altruism. For those of you not understanding why this whole thing isn't good for Effective Altruism: You are now officially a group! Just like Atheism became a group through the infamous fedora/quote maker incident, you too are now an easily identifiable and targetable entity. No one will ever need to engage with what you say.
If anyone cares to ask what the difference is between Effective Altruism and just Altruism: Altruism is when you create a pyramid scam to rob people with money and give the money to powerless people who don't have money. Like Robin Hood. And then you go the way of Robin Hood, either getting killed or jailed for life.
Effective Altruism, on the other hand, is when you create a pyramid scam to rob people with money and give very powerful people with even more money all of the money. That way, unlike Robin Hood, when the jig is up nothing will happen to you, and you can go back to your polycule.
Do you actually have this cynical of a view on humanity? I personally would hate to live with the idea that all altruism and kindness in the world is fake and done for selfish reasons.
The Litany of Gendlin:
What is true is already so.
Owning up to it doesn't make it worse.
Not being open about it doesn't make it go away.
And because it's true, it is what is there to be interacted with.
Anything untrue isn't there to be lived.
People can stand what is true,
for they are already enduring it.
I reject this as an absolute statement for all knowledge. Social constructs have a very different relationship to truth than object-level facts. Social consensus on altruism brings altruism into being and gives it meaning.
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