[edwnj]

The main attraction was access to pretty much any shitcoin and advanced leverage+trading features:

- multiple sub accounts - 20x leverage with tiered liquidations - you could use your portfolio as collateral - advanced trading tools

This is why it was so shocking to see them collapse for doing such a stupidly bad thing, the guy seemed super smart (albeit vegan+commie).

[skinnymuch]

Where is he a commie? EA has insanely famous liberals like Steven Pinker on their side. If that’s what you’re trying to get at. Otherwise I’m puzzled since his main focus is EA.

[edwnj]

I know this gets into politics a bit. But when it comes to forming my worldview about these things there is usually the rational side then there is the gut instinct.

The rational side told me (and the best investors in the world) these guys were the smart people in the room, the wont do anything stupid.

Then you look at SBF: he is a major democratic donor, he supports UBI, his underlying driver is to make money to give it away, he is a vegan, he hangs around with clintons etc.

I believe ever since the bloody collapse of communism, the modern descendants of that ideology never label them selves as communists. They use different words to achieve the same end: stakeholder capitalism, effective altruism, UBI etc..

Its a huge leap and to clarify I'm not saying they are closeted or anything. I guess what I'm saying is we are living in a very weird world where nothing is as its seems.

Therefore its more important than ever to rely on ones gut instinct about a person. Its more important than ever to not disregard signals like a high iq person who is also a vegan or supports UBI.

I know this is a controversial opinion but its my 2 cents. I think the corruption of the intellect is the most fatal of threats.

The kind of damage avg people can do is often limited and can be seen from a mile away but these high iq people with a god complex can destroy entire civilisations with their good intentions. SBF is a good example, next is vitalik and Proof Of Stake ethereurm (IMO)..

[skinnymuch]

I don’t think SBF really cares about UBI. That’s pretty clear via his actions.

The problem with trying to put EA alongside post communist thinking is that actually identifying socialists and communists have huge issues with EA and can’t see how EA is the same as their ideology.

Being a capitalist is one of the biggest issues. Completely supporting the current structure of society and being able to selfishly take advantage of it by making the most money possible [and donating some of it] is not close to communist ideals. It’s better than being someone who is just selfish, but EA still allows one to selfishly take advantage of capitalism and privilege without issue. In the name of supposed altruism. Just the name is troublesome. Seeing oneself as so good.

Then going as far as celebrating this selfish behavior and making that a core part of the ideology. As well as fawning over overly rich classist and uber wealthy millionaires and billionaires who donate to one of the two major party presidents is not post-communist ideology.

To give some credit to EA, actual socialists and communists are be able to view EA people as allies at times. Not more than that though.

[svnt]

For people who don’t allocate many neurons to discriminating between worldviews, apparently philanthropy == communism.