This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Annals of Great Friday-at-6:00PM Announcements: "Caroline Ellison Has Joined Manifund."
For those needing a refresher, Caroline Ellison was Sam Bankman-Fried's lieutenant in charge at Alameda Research, the hedge fund he used to embezzle FTX customer funds. She pleaded guilty to felony wire fraud and conspiracy charges. Manifund is an effective altruism grantmaking and infrastructure provider spun-off from Manifold Markets.
I think this is definitive evidence that no, the Effective Altruism community did not properly internalize the lessons from the FTX crisis. This is going to get a lot of bad press, and it will be easy to criticize the decision as bad optics, but this is not simply "bad optics". Aella's Twitter feed is bad optics. This is bad practice. It is bad practice to hire people with bad decisionmaking records for decisionmaking roles. It is bad practice to establish a norm of soft-landings for people culpable in major scandals.
I had sort of expected Caroline to remain a semi-public figure associated with EA/AI/rationalism after her release from prison, but I didn't expect her to get hired for a financial infrastructure job. She should be blogging for pennies on Substack or working in the bednet mines.
That Substack post is so plainly dumb that it's remarkable. From my vantage, one of EA's most controversial attributes is that they're willing to discuss letting a small number of people die in order to improve the lives of many. I approve of these discussions!
This CEO (leader? whatever he is) then makes the most childish argument I've ever seen, which is "She's smart and I like her, so I'm hiring her, damn the consequences to my organization." It's as if he's shouting at the top of his lungs that his company does nothing important!
If you read the comments on the substack post, he even acknowledges that he knows he'll lose business over this. So here's a case where someone who is supposedly an "effective altruist" is making a decision to help one convicted felon in order to damage his company's future, likely permanently. I know that the only thing I'm going to remember out of this is "Oh, Manifund? Those are the retards that hired Caroline Ellison".
The only thing to take out of this is that Manifund is a non-serious organization that doesn't believe it has an important mission. Or that this clown thinks Caroline Ellison is so, so smart that by her employment alone, Manifund can be successful beyond the bounds of any other collection of employees. Or maybe, as mentioned by @Tractatus, they're fucking and she gives extraordinary head.
Edited to add: This also reinforced my belief that Caroline Ellison, and indeed most effective altruists, are likely lying scumbags doing the mental equivalent of making jerking off motions in a closet while claiming they're getting a good workout. If Caroline was ACTUALLY AN EFFECTIVE ALTRUIST she would never do anything visible in the movement again, because she is smart enough to understand how damaging having someone like her around is. Just by virtue of being willing to do this (nobody forced her!) it shows how much of a sham it all is.
It is not as if EA has any coherent definition of morality. Morality is whatever is convenient for utils. "Ellison is smart and she will do more good than bad eventually" is all that is needed for an argument. I really mean it, there is no stable grounding, no deontological laws or even heuristics that would inform you on what action to take inside EA. It is all about if you can produce some good sounding 20 page parable about baby eating aliens, thus making your decision correct and moral.
More options
Context Copy link
I don't think that, but I do think (whether you consider this to be worse or better than the above possibility) that there's a definite trace of "Excellent, let me hire on someone personally indebted to me, anxious about losing this job because they know they won't get anything comparable to it, and proven to be malleable under pressure of personal relationships into doing criminal acts" about this, almost as if "I got a suitcase of cash, a Swiss bank account, a fake passport, and a plane ticket to someplace without an extradition treaty to the USA, so long and thanks for all the free money suckers" is a possible future outcome for Manifold/Manifund/Mox and all that regranting cash. Especially given that he's hanging on for grim death to the 500 grand of dodgy FTX funding his organisation already received and damn the bankruptcy lawyers suing to get it back.
Not that being in the Bahamas helped SBF, but maybe Chen is smarter and a better planner?
At the very least, he's hiring on nepotism grounds, and I watch several Youtube channels of fictional revenge stories about why this is bad for companies to do 😁
isn't this going to cause problems when trying to hold onto the FTX funding. one of the criminals involved in FTX is hired and then becomes a benefactor of the stolen FTX funding. very suspicious.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link