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suy  2yr ago (astralcodexten.substack.com)   Edited 2yr ago   4226 thread views

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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We're not talking about the state of Miami selling them the naming rights to a stadium for $125 million dollars

This seems more like the charities than the others. There isn't really some fiduciary duty to investigate people giving you money in your legitimate business. If I sell books and some weirdo buys 10000 of my books, there's no reason for me to investigate why the weirdo is a book enthusiast who wants 10000 copies of "The Underpants Gnome"

Yes, I don't actually think it would be good if states selling stadium naming rights were expected to do that sort of investigation. Leave it for their investors and law enforcement. But I see people making arguments that EA charities accepting FTX's donations gave them advertising/credibility and this reflects EA being naive or short-sighted-utilitarians or whatever. Well a lot more people heard about FTX from the "FTX Arena" than by reading articles about philanthropy, and I'm not seeing articles on how the state of Miami must have been horribly naive to accept FTX's money.

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