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This post is co-authored with Ben Garfinkel. It is cross-posted from the CEA blog. A PDF version can be found here.
Summary: Some strategic decisions available to the effective altruism m...
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TL;DR: I'm releasing a website that ranks philanthropists according to EA principles and research, and allows users to re-rank the list using their own assumptions. I'd like feedback and help making it better. I'd especially like ideas for how to make the results more trustworthy. Funding may be available.
Crossposted to LessWrong.
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Disclaimer: Although I work on the Groups Team at CEA, I’m writing this in a personal capacity, and this post does not constitute an endorsement by CEA.
Agency - the realisation that you really can just do things.
TL;DR
Biosecurity needs people (of any background) who are agentic and have a high execution velocity and track record....
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Question:
Is blaming EA for FTX like blaming Elie Wiesel for Bernie Madoff?
Background:
Elie Wiesel was a Nobel Peace Prize winner and Holocaust survivor who trusted his personal finances and his foundation's endowment to Bernie Madoff. Wiesel's foundation and personal finances were decimated when Madoff's Ponzi scheme fell apart. Madoff is famous for a Ponzi scheme that destroyed the finances of thousands of investors of tens of billions of dollars.
Question:
Is the analogy apt?
Unfortunately, it's probably a really bad look to imply that we're akin to Holocaust survivors.
I don't think this is apt. FTX was formed by a team of people who very much seemed to be EA-aligned and EA-inspired at the time of forming. Elie and Madoff had no such connection - Elie's only interaction with Madoff was as a victim.
You can quite reasonably make the claim that EA has very little blame, but certainly if you were going to rank both scenarios, we would at least be somewhat more at fault than Elie was.