[polygamous_bat]

I know Christian priests who have lived their entire lives in poverty serving their community. I've also read about priests in the Catholic churches using their position to molest children. The problem happens when the Catholic Church itself systematically covers up for them.

Similarly, if SBF claimed to follow EA that would not be as big of an issue. The problem happens when you consider that he was also championed by EA as the poster boy, and now everyone is realizing he has been a scammer all along.

Moreover, the way I saw the value proposition of EA is that "we are better at doing math to calculate the effectiveness of charities, finding out which ones are scammy, and also to assess risks to humanity, so you should trust us to do that." That value proposition really blows up when top-line EA couldn't do their due diligence and figure out an eight billion dollar hole in the ground even when their whole existence depended on it.

[lern_too_spel]

Was he championed by "EA" (is that some organization I am unaware of?) as a posterboy, or was he championed by puff pieces paid for by investors, which cited the founder's pedigree and his belief in EA in order to bolster the company's reputation?

[skinnymuch]

He was well liked enough in EA communities like Less Wrong, EA discourse, and the diff real time chats. It definitely wasn’t only puff pieces.

[lern_too_spel]

I still don't understand GGP's point. Is the logical conclusion really that because other EAs couldn't recognize SBF as a scammer, we should not even try to measure the impact of charitable donations?

I might note that EA makes logical sense to me, and I pretty much ignored SBF because, as I've often noted in this forum, the entire crypto space is filled with scammers and suckers.

[polygamous_bat]

> Is the logical conclusion really that because other EAs couldn't recognize SBF as a scammer, we should not even try to measure the impact of charitable donations?

My (logical) conclusion is that since other EAs couldn't recognize SBF as a scammer, we should double- and triple-check all of their math about risk and effectiveness, instead of trusting them. Not saying the idea of charitable giving has lost merit, rather its primary champions in the last decade have lost a ton of credibility.

[eddsh1994]

I think one strong argument against this is SBF/FTX was highly funded by sophisticated investors and VCs. If they didn't catch it, why should anyone else? People believed FTX was making money through tx fees and front-running via Alameda. The classic "due diligence was done by others" scenario.

Saying this, people were skeptical of SBF in EA, worried about so many eggs in one basket, and didn't like crypto as a source of funding. It's a large group with many views!

I agree with double- and triple-checking all the math about risk and effectiveness. I'm interested in donating to effective charities that use my dollar in the best way and if you correctly find better ones to do so I'd donate :)

[yboris]

Are you suggesting that the skill of detecting a scammer (who actively was giving away large amount of money - using a very strong, costly signal) and the skill of estimating effectiveness are similar enough that having an example in failure of one suggests trouble for the other?!

[lern_too_spel]

Is it more beneficial for EAs to check the math of charities or to check the math of other people claiming to be EAs by gaining unauthorized access to their financial data?

[polygamous_bat]

When you are putting all your metaphorical eggs on one FTX baskets by relying on SBF to run your high profile programs, I would say you should ask hard questions or diversify. Then again, my risk assessment is different from EAs, which is why I propose triple checking their math.

[anthonypasq]

this is the dumbest critisicm ever. Everyone was perfectly justified in championing him around as a posterboy because no one in the world besides him and a few coworkers knew he was a fraud. and now that everyone knows hes a fraud, they no longer parade him around.

youre really going to get mad at the EA movement for not realizing FTX was a fraud when literally, and i actually mean literally, no one knew it until a couple weeks ago. He bamboozled every government and financial institution in the world, but the humble EA movement should have known.

[ben_w]

While it may feel a bit unfair for those reasons, it's not at all dumb.

Why?

Effective Altruism can't be fully effective if it can't spot scammers.

Yes this is hard, yes extra hard when the first encounter is them parachuting a promise of a billion dollars into your lap… but while I have no solutions and absolutely don't blame anyone who took that money, it's not dumb to criticise.

In fact, I'd say that failures you couldn't spot in advance are the learning opportunities; failures you did spot in advance would make you a co-conspirator in my view, even if not by law.

[anthonypasq]

expecting effective altruism to not trust every single institutional indicator of legitimacy (dozens of governments, central banks, the entire media) is dumb.

its a fairly decentralized movement, its just a random collection of people donating money.

[ben_w]

I don’t blame for the same reason I wasn’t expecting, that doesn’t mean it isn’t a learning opportunity.

If you skip the learning opportunity, then I will blame, given the association with big-R Rationality causes an expectation.

[anthonypasq]

there's absolutely no indication they aren't using this as a learning opportunity. William MacAskill who is one of the leaders of the movement has already put out multiple posts about this whole affair.