[brezelgoring]

>Perhaps if the CEO had gone to Stanford, he would have been better educated in effective altruism and have placed their needs higher

Careful, some might infer a snide on their church and bite back to you.

Not me, I share your view.

[autotune]

Is anyone actually defending effective altruism right now? SBF has effectively flushed it down the drain along with the investors he scammed.

[awinder]

Why would one conman’s association with an ideology condemn the entire ideology? Because he said he was using it as a ruse? Why are you still selectively believing the conman?

[nullc]

Because his actions were consistent with the ideology, at least as some viewed it.

The FTX failure was because they were extending leverage to customers to purchase and short extremely volitile cryptocurrencies, including obscure/illiquid/likely-worthless ones (which they marketed heavily). The fact that they also diverted or personally pocketed some hundreds of millions on the back of stimulant-mania induced exuberance at the value of the magic-bean collateral they were holding didn't help things, but it wasn't the proximal cause. If pilfering the company were the issue it looks like from the magnitudes disclosed so far they could have just operated out of it.

The reason it's easy to link to EA forum posts telling people to NOT scam for the "greater good" is because it's responding a common view: it's a natural conclusion of navel gazing utilitarian-consequentialist thinking, especially if amplified by viewing all ethical questions through the lens of extinction risk. Doubly so in the face of "rationalist" ideology which is prone to reject received conventional wisdom in favor of bespoke and often self-serving rationalizations. Ordinary non-utilitarian-consequentialist charity communities don't need regular reminders to not scam people.

"Is it infinitely good to do double-or-nothing coin flips forever? Well, sort of, because your upside is unbounded and your downside is bounded at your entire net worth. But most people don’t do this, because their utility is more like a function of their log wealth or something and they really don’t want to lose all of their money. (Of course those people are lame and not EAs; this blog endorses double-or-nothing coin flips and high leverage.)" -- Caroline Ellison CEO of Alameda Research, responding to Scott Alexander of SSC in Feb 2021

"take advantage of strategies other people are biased against using" -- Peter Singer, "The Most Good You Can Do"

[awinder]

Caroline quote is hysterical — that is both a mathematically and philosophically flawed argument. Befitting of someone who would blow out an $8B+ hole in another companies budget by… making leveraged double or nothing coin flip bets.

The source is down on the Singer quote (actually he’s quoting Wilbin) but the context of it is a discussion of how donated dollars travel further in poorer nations. I can’t find any related text around the quote that suggests any nefarious insinuation.

Absent the last several months was there really a lot of people confused on EA forums about the moral weight of intentional fraud? These are pretty elementary issues in non-insane branches of utilitarian moral philosophy…

[autotune]

Practically nobody in the mainstream had ever really heard of the ideology before said conman adopted it and tried to make it popular. Who are the most influential backers of it right now? Convince me it's worth doing some searching on and I will, but if you tell anyone outside of small circles that you are affiliated with the movement, you are going to be on the defensive side for the foreseeable future.

[buggy6257]

(disclaimer: no idea what effective altruism is about)

You seem to believe that "truly good" causes have a requirement to have "influential backers" behind them in order for you to consider doing them. That seems like a pretty silly way to decide what things are good/bad to do -- People did the same thing with FTX when Matt Damon's commercial aired, and look how that ended up for them. Maybe just research concepts for yourself and decide what's a good idea rather than waiting for a celebrity or rich person to tell you it's worth doing. Chances are, things celebrities tell you to do are the things LEAST worth doing.

[autotune]

It's not that "truly good" causes need an "influential backer," it's that I don't want to have to get into an argument with someone in real life who decides I am some kind of scammer due to being affiliated with a movement that has been getting nothing but bad press thanks to one individual. Time is precious, just like I can't spend time researching every single tool that gets posted on HN for production viability, I can't spend time researching every relatively obscure social movement out there to adopt for myself. I ignored the crypto craze due to listening to the right people, just like I can ignore EA by listening to the same ones.

[concordDance]

Me. The movement and ideas are good even if the most famous person connected to it is bad.

You don't hear about the vast majority of EAs who just quietly try and improve girl's education in Indian or distribute malaria nets (to mention two I know personally).

[Spellman]

Adding to this, groups like 80000 Hours and Evidence Action are EA and still worth it.

[throw_pm23]

This is like "communism is good, it was just badly implemented".

For a movement that prides itself on being evidence-based, there is a lot of evidence EA is willing to ignore.

[hahaxdxd123]

Isn't effective altruism just max_a E[benefit to society | a]?

I don't see how that can be discredited as a personal moral philosophy, even if you don't personally disagree with it.

SBF and FTX fraud doesn't discredit that it's more cost effective to educate people in certain areas than others.

[throw_pm23]

I discredit this philosophy because E[..] cannot be accurately estimated. So it should be P(no harm|a) > 1-eps before anything.

[seattle_spring]

Anyone I've seen in the IDW camp is still very much defending effective altruism. It's kind of terrifying.