But, of course, what he didn't do was get the consent of his depositors to have their deposits rerouted and gambled with in the way that he did. Even if he had been right, if he had been able to ride the wave and cryptocurrency became everything he thought it could be - his actions were legally found to be fraudulent.
In terms of a broader pattern with regards to consent and power dynamics, there's another inescapable data point of the EA movement's problems with internally handling sexual harassment allegations - I won't link to the time.com article on the EA movement, as it horrifyingly orientalizes and conflates polyamory with harassment, but assuming that the article's quotes from primary sources are accurate, it suggests a culture of protection for those who would abuse their power.
I think that the EA community needs to grapple with the notion that just because one believes a certain pathway to be optimal, it does not absolve them of the need to gather explicit consent, given freely, with information discrepancies and power dynamics taken into account, from those who would be impacted. Optimization under constraints can still be optimization, and people's freedom to choose the extent to which they participate is the most important constraint of all.
I mean, Caroline Ellison herself is the one who said her relationship goals (which was to a large degree coterminus with company structure) was "best characterized as something like 'imperial Chinese harem'" no? It's not Time "orientalizing", it's one particular fucked up polycule.
Polyamory takes on a distinctly awful flavor when imported into EA (and before that Rationalist, which I would assume is where it reached EA from) communities. I would assume abuse and codependence before healthy relationships in these cases, because frankly I see 99% of this movement is at best emotionally immature.
I also think this is really a non-issue, millennials and later mostly don't care at all and the people who don't like them aren't going to be convinced by anything ever, let alone some more carefully-crafted magazine article.
And I doubt the idea that they were all liars that never believed in what they preached would withstand scrutiny.
Suppose, your ethics are unworkable or irrational and you are unwilling to question them. If you think about it, by necessity, you must become more amoral as time goes by. At the very least the luxury of a palace probably helps silence one's moral instincts.
See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Gest_of_Robyn_Hode#Summary
He's still (for the largest part) taking investment money from the top 1% or at least top 10% of the world and is (in his opinion) putting it to work saving actual lives. I don't think it's that hard to see how he could justify his actions to himself.
> and when things are settled, it's almost assuredly the whales that will get paid out first.
This is pure speculation on my part, but I'm pretty sure that "how is the remaining money re-distributed once my company implodes" didn't make it into his calculations. Also, where the remaining funds go is pretty irrelevant to the calculation anyway, as it's not going to be funneled towards EA causes.
Well, and to himself. At one point, didn't he own three private jets?
There is zero evidence that this was his intent.
There is a lot of evidence that he intended to maximize trading profits and use those profits to help people.
The fact that he failed does not mean that he intended to steal from the rich.
The federal jury seems to have disagreed, finding him guilty on all charges, all of which require intent. As do his co-conspirators who testified to their fraud.
This is such a bizarre take; this was one of the most lopsided financial prosecutions of all time and you're out here saying it had no foundation in fact at all?
The commenter was very clearly disputing SBF's _intent_ to steal. _You_ may doubt his good intentions for that theft (quite reasonably), but that's not the point that we are debating.
Juxtaposed with zero evidence of intent to steal.
I'm sorry, but I believe you have misread the thread completely.
the second problem is that we tend to redefine what things are based on the actions of those that promote them. it's the same thing that happens with religions. a lot of people now and in the past did things in the name of those religions that were a discredit to them.
the difficulty is to keep these things apart.
the consequence for me is that i can not associate myself with things like EA or blockchain development, because in the eye of the public now these do more harm than good. and for the same reason many not only leave their particular religion but disassociate themselves from the concept of religion itself.
at best i can see that high earners claim effective altruism for themselves, and are discrediting it with their actions, just like i said.
if you talk to people promoting effective altruism on the ground (which i had the opportunity to do recently) then you get a different picture.
That's pretty easy, actually. He seems to see himself as some kind of Robin Hood-esque figure, taking money from the rich and distributing it to the poor (or, more specifically, distributing the money of the rich to the places where its most effective).
The argument is about whether EA naturally leads to this "the ends superseed the means"-type of actions, which is what the article argues.