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Answer by Nathan YoungMar 08, 20231

19

9

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?

Showing 3 of 4 replies (Click to show all)

JasonMar 9 20232

0

0

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.

3

Ivy Mazzola

Mar 8 2023

[I feel like] the crisis has (at least) 2 sides for EA paths: 1. 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. 2. 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. But I agreevoted for #1. I guess I'd count the relevant critical behavior as having started before November, back when I was making other decisions, and I definitely messed up because of misinformed belief

6

Dawn Drescher

Mar 8 2023

Possible examples: 1. You lost a lot of money, so you can’t go down a risky career path anymore. 2. You were about to found a charity funded by FTX. 3. You were about to do a degree funded by FTX.

[ Question ]

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

by Nathan Young

Mar 8 20231 min read19 answers 0

34

CommunityBuilding effective altruismCommunity experiencesFTX collapseSurveys

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

I think EA institutional processes need to change to significantly to ...

I am concerned that if I criticise CEA/OpenPhil under my own name I mi...

I think EA culture needs to change significantly to make things like t...

I have heard enough from core EAs about their thoughts regarding the F...

I want to be able to push for answers from community leaders [1]i...

The FTX crisis has reduced my commitment to the EA movement

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

My friends are less receptive to EA since the crisis

Community issues (FTX, Time, Bostrom) should not take more than 5% of ...

SBF and perhaps others behaved immorally

I think about FTX hardly at all

I think about FTX a lot

SBF and perhaps others behaved stupidly

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

I would like to move on from discussion of FTX, but for whatever reaso...

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

Anon submission Will MacAskill should resign from the board of EVF - un...

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

Anon submission Nick Beckstead should resign from the board of EVF - un...

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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19 Answers sorted by
Top

Mar 08, 2023

43

41

13

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

3

1

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

Michael_PJMar 9 202310

1

1

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.

2

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

7

3

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

ChanaMessingerMar 8 202310

9

2

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

5

5

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

Mar 08, 2023

30

29

31

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

Mar 08, 2023

23

28

19

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

OllieBaseMar 8 202315

9

2

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]

Mar 08, 2023

21

16

47

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

Nathan YoungMar 8 20233

13

9

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.

[anonymous]Mar 8 202312

0

0

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.

6[anonymous]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

18

2

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

Mar 08, 2023

20

26

8

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

Mar 08, 2023

19

25

31

The FTX crisis has reduced my commitment to the EA movement

Nathan YoungMar 8 202311

2

1

To just the movement, not the ideals.

Mar 08, 2023

17

13

25

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

Mar 08, 2023

9

42

11

My friends are less receptive to EA since the crisis

[anonymous]Mar 8 202314

10

4

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

3

2

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

5

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.)

[anonymous]Mar 8 20236

4

4

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

Mar 08, 2023

6

36

20

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

Mar 08, 2023

6

70

0

SBF and perhaps others behaved immorally

Mar 08, 2023

5

13

30

I think about FTX hardly at all

Mar 08, 2023

5

9

21

I think about FTX a lot

Mar 08, 2023

5

55

1

SBF and perhaps others behaved stupidly

Nathan YoungMar 8 20237

2

0

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.

Mar 08, 2023

4

6

3

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

Mar 08, 2023

4

9

6

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

Mar 08, 2023

4

44

8

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

Mar 08, 2023

2

8

14

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

Habryka [Deactivated]Mar 8 202322

11

8

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)

Mar 08, 2023

1

19

9

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

2

0

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

0

0

[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

0

0

Applying for grant funding, for example.

JasonMar 9 20232

0

0

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.

Mar 08, 2023

-6

16

13

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

1

0

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

3

0

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.)

1

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

7

0

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.

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