FTX Poll Post - What do you think about the FTX crisis, given some time?

Nathan Young

Tl;dr

The community holds views on things
We should understand what they are
I think I am building a sense of the community feeling, but perhaps it’s very inaccurate
agreevote to agree, disagreevote to disagree, upvote to signify importance downvote to signify unimportance
Doing polls on the forum is bad, but I think it’s better than nothing. I have some theories about what people feel and I’m trying to disprove them
If you want more accurate polling then someone could run that
I’m open to the idea that poll comments in general are annoying or that I run them too soon (though people also DM to thank me for them) but this is a top level post - if you don’t like it just downvote it
If you do like it, upvote it. Probably others will like it too
Add your own questions or DM me and I will add them.

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Nathan Young

Mar 08, 2023

I think EA institutional processes need to change to significantly to make things like the FTX crisis less likely in future

Chris LeongMar 9 202312

Hmm… part of me worries that this might be a bit too contentless/applause-lightly to provide useful information?

Michael_PJMar 9 202310

Yeah, I think this would be much better as a poll on a specific course of action. "Something needs to change... nothing in particular, but something" is an easy feeling to fall into.

Nathan Young

Mar 9 2023

Feel free to add some. Also when noone has said their thinking, I think it's reasonable to be like "we should consider whether something should change"

Nathan YoungMar 8 202311

I would like a place to report concerns to anonymously, like the community health team but for misbehaviour/fraud/etc.

ChanaMessingerMar 8 202310

I think EA institutional processes need to change to make things like the FTX crisis less likely in future

[Taking out "significantly", in case that's significant for the karma, idea stolen from OllieBase below]

Nathan YoungMar 8 20236

I would like to see a red team focused on investigating funders reputationally assocaited with EA.

Nathan Young

Mar 08, 2023

I am concerned that if I criticise CEA/OpenPhil under my own name I might miss out on jobs/funding opportunities.

Nathan Young

Mar 08, 2023

I think EA culture needs to change significantly to make things like the FTX crisis less likely in future

OllieBaseMar 8 202315

I think EA culture needs to change to make things like the FTX crisis less likely in future

[Taking out "significantly", in case that's significant for the karma]

Nathan Young

Mar 08, 2023

I have heard enough from core EAs about their thoughts regarding the FTX crisis

Nathan YoungMar 8 20233

I would like to hear their thoughts because I want to know they take it seriously. If they don't, I don't want to keep being a member of this community.

Dustin MoskovitzMar 8 202312

Will's version https://twitter.com/willmacaskill/status/1591218014707671040

People debate if I'm core I guess, but I left some taking it seriously thoughts here https://twitter.com/moskov/status/1591592375553781760

-2

Nathan Young

Mar 8 2023

Leaving poll speak and speaking for myself. Thanks for those, though personally, I think twitter threads are pretty cheap in the spectrum of reasonable conceivable actions here. If someone apologises to me, I don't just want to hear them say what they got wrong, I want to hear how they will change to avoid it happening again and see them take those steps.

Dustin Moskovitz

Mar 8 2023

Sure but that was explicitly carved out as a different sub-poll here so these seemed relevant to this narrow phrasing. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/PeqArqXzSPmAijzrz/ftx-poll-post-what-do-you-think-about-the-ftx-crisis-given?commentId=xc9zcoGy93yN28qti

Nathan YoungMar 8 2023-1

I want to hear their thoughts because I want to hear concrete changes to make this less likely in future.

Nathan Young

Mar 08, 2023

I want to be able to push for answers from community leaders ^[1]if those same people will speak publicly for the EA community in other circumstances.

^{^}
ie as opposed to organisational leaders

Nathan Young

Mar 08, 2023

The FTX crisis has reduced my commitment to the EA movement

Nathan YoungMar 8 202311

To just the movement, not the ideals.

Sanjay

Mar 08, 2023

I'm fed up of hearing about / thinking about FTX and SBF. I just want to move on now.

Nathan Young

Mar 08, 2023

My friends are less receptive to EA since the crisis

Dustin MoskovitzMar 8 202314

My friends are less receptive to EA since the crisis, but it seems like it's because of multiple scandals/storylines from recent months, rather than FTX itself.

Dawn DrescherMar 8 20236

My friends are less interested in the EA community since the crisis but equally interested in EA values and goals.

Dawn Drescher

Mar 8 2023

(I don’t agree or disagree with that statement. For my actual friends all the harassment scandals were a much bigger deal.)

Dustin MoskovitzMar 8 20236

My friends are less receptive to EA since the crisis primarily due to FTX

Nathan Young

Mar 08, 2023

Community issues (FTX, Time, Bostrom) should not take more than 5% of our collective time (as opposed to object level work)

Nathan Young

Mar 08, 2023

SBF and perhaps others behaved immorally

Nathan Young

Mar 08, 2023

I think about FTX hardly at all

Nathan Young

Mar 08, 2023

I think about FTX a lot

Nathan Young

Mar 08, 2023

SBF and perhaps others behaved stupidly

Nathan YoungMar 8 20237

A marginal defence of this being worth upvoting.

I care about sober behaviour while managing billions of dollars that one intends to donate. I think it will turn out that SBF's decisions were bad ex ante, even if they hadn't been fraudulent and even if they hadn't been been risk neutral. I think it will turn out they were just bad trades. And I think that's pretty notable given the quantities of money we are resources with here.

Again, i'm not saying that makes it okay, but I think this would have gone badly even with no fraud and I think that's bad.

Nathan Young

Mar 08, 2023

I would like a 5 min google survey done on this topic.

Nathan Young

Mar 08, 2023

I would like to move on from discussion of FTX, but for whatever reason, I don't currently feel I have closure.

Nathan Young

Mar 08, 2023

The FTX crisis has made it harder for me to do work

Nathan Young

Mar 08, 2023

Anon submission

Will MacAskill should resign from the board of EVF - until and unless the regulatory investigation by the UK charities commission clears him of wrongdoing

HabrykaMar 8 202322

Will MacAskill should resign from the board of EVF independently of the investigation by the UK charities commission (I don't expect the rules of the charity commission to line up very much with the rules of who I want to be an EA leader)

Nathan Young

Mar 08, 2023

The FTX crisis has caused me to not take actions I would have otherwise.

edit: I don't have great theories of what actions people mean. Could anyone give examples?

Dawn DrescherMar 8 20236

Possible examples:

You lost a lot of money, so you can’t go down a risky career path anymore.
You were about to found a charity funded by FTX.
You were about to do a degree funded by FTX.

Ivy MazzolaMar 8 20233

[I feel like] the crisis has (at least) 2 sides for EA paths:

Before the crisis exploded, it changed people's behavior. Falsely believing that there was more money than there was made a difference. Like if I had known much sooner that FTX was basically in debt, (eg they hadn't covered it up) I would have started my own company, but I did not because I thought there was no need to E2G.
After the crisis exploded and we came to realize that there wasnt as much money. This one is isn't as relevant to me personally because I haven't ruled anything out yet.

... (read more)

Robi RahmanMar 8 20233

Applying for grant funding, for example.

JasonMar 9 20232

Possibly broader alternative wording: The existence of the FTX Future Fund caused me to take actions that were to my detriment in retrospect, AND that I would not have taken those actions had the FTXFF never existed, had I known FTX was a fraud, and/or had I known the FTXFF would collapse.

Nathan Young

Mar 08, 2023

-6

Anon submission

Nick Beckstead should resign from the board of EVF - until and unless the regulatory investigation by the UK charities commission clears him of wrongdoing

Tobias HäberliMar 8 202319

This is currently at 14 agree votes and the same question for Will MacAskill is at -13 disagree votes.

Would be curious if this is mainly because of Nick Beckstead having been the CEO and therefore carrying more responsibility, or are there other considerations?

Robi RahmanMar 8 202313

To clarify, Nick Beckstead is not currently suspected of wrongdoing, as far as we know, is he? Last I heard, the UK charities commission was investigating the FTX Foundation in case they had something to do with the wrongdoing within FTX, but not related to any particular suspicion. (Please correct me if I'm wrong or they have announced anything new.)

Nathan Young

Mar 8 2023

The fact that some of the FTXFF funding went via weird orgs such as North Dimension reflects badly on someone at FTXFF, I think. I think on priors we'd expect something like this in relation to an $8bn fraud to lead to the removal of someone from a random board. So personally until I hear reasons for Beckstead to stay, I'll think he should go. I imagine that someone can make those arguments, but I'd like to actually hear them (Should I update before hearing them on expectation of hearing them, probably, but the fact it's been months and I haven't does feel bad to me)

Jeff Kaufman 🔸Mar 8 202320

I think on priors we'd expect something like this in relation to an $8bn fraud to lead to the removal of someone from a random board.

In general, I think the traditional approach of sacking people when something they're associated with explodes is very harmful, and I'm glad that most places I've worked at explicitly don't do this.

Effective Altruism Forum
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[ Question ]

FTX Poll Post - What do you think about the FTX crisis, given some time?

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