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Scott Alexander on Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX and Effective Altruism

astralcodexten.substack.com

I made this a top level post because I think people here might want to discuss it but you can remove it if it doesn't meet your standards.

Edit: removed my opinion of Scott from the body

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I think it's matching the environment. In Scott's environment, most people aren't highly skilled sociopath conmen, so trusting people makes sense. The reverse side of it is that once in a while there will be a highly skilled sociopath conman that will totally take advantage. I'm not sure I can really tell this way is better than be eternally suspicious and distrusting and live all your life on guard against the conmen - but I think both models have their tradeoffs and both are plausible.