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by gabcoh 1307 days ago
I don't know why it would feel like that. The EA community came out immediately and very forcefully in opposition to SBF and this perversion of EA philosophy since the FTX blow up [1] and they have been vocally opposed to shady practices in the service of EA since long before the last week.

[1]: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/XHrHsrQGyr4NnqCA7/...

4 comments

I encourage anyone reading that post to read some of the others on the forum as well.

> Alameda and later FTX are founded explicitly as Effective Altruist organizations, although they rely on commercial investment and seed funding. Early employees are mostly or all EAs. The hiring process filters aggressively for goodness of fit a lot of which is to what extent someone is an EA. They pitch FTX and Alameda as places to go work if you are looking to do good.

> SBF is influenced by his longtime friend Will MacAskill* and others by the principles of Effective Altruism.

* Will MacAskill is the co-founder of EA, close friend of SBF for 9 years, and the one that was trying to get Musk to accept an investment from SBF for Twitter.

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/f9rFsbsd4rGLQfpQg/...

Group distances themselves from person that made them look bad? Hmm, that's an unusual scenario.
In what way is "scam your way to billions so you can donate billions" incompatible with EA? Honestly it seems like it would be the expected outcome. EA is the pinnacle of "the ends justify the means"
Insofar as EA depends on the delusion that one is and always will be incredibly lucky, or was born into fortune. (Does it? Genuinely curious- it comes across rather tone deaf as an outsider)
> have been vocally opposed to shady practices in the service of EA

That isn't the impression I got from reading their forums-- rather, you can find some messages vocally opposed to "shady practices" but only because people keep promoting and arguing against the position.

You won't find such vocal opposition to shady practices elsewhere because elsewhere it isn't needed. In the world of charity for sociopaths, "scamming for good" is inside the overton window and has to be combated to prevent it from taking over.