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Answer by Nathan Young43
41
13

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

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Showing 3 of 6 replies (Click to show all)
12
Chris Leong
Hmm… part of me worries that this might be a bit too contentless/applause-lightly to provide useful information?
10
Michael_PJ
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 Young2
1
1

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"

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See in context
by Nathan Young
1 min read19 answers 0

34

CommunityBuilding effective altruismCommunity experiencesFTX collapseSurveys
Frontpage
FTX Poll Post - What do you think about the FTX crisis, given some time?
Answers
43
Nathan Young
I think EA institutional processes need to change to significantly to ...
30
Nathan Young
I am concerned that if I criticise CEA/OpenPhil under my own name I mi...
23
Nathan Young
I think EA culture needs to change significantly to make things like t...
21
Nathan Young
I have heard enough from core EAs about their thoughts regarding the F...
20
Nathan Young
I want to be able to push for answers from community leaders [1]i...
19
Nathan Young
The FTX crisis has reduced my commitment to the EA movement
17
Sanjay
I'm fed up of hearing about / thinking about FTX and SBF. I just want ...
9
Nathan Young
My friends are less receptive to EA since the crisis
6
Nathan Young
Community issues (FTX, Time, Bostrom) should not take more than 5% of ...
6
Nathan Young
SBF and perhaps others behaved immorally
5
Nathan Young
I think about FTX hardly at all
5
Nathan Young
I think about FTX a lot
5
Nathan Young
SBF and perhaps others behaved stupidly
4
Nathan Young
I would like a 5 min google survey done on this topic.
4
Nathan Young
I would like to move on from discussion of FTX, but for whatever reaso...
4
Nathan Young
The FTX crisis has made it harder for me to do work
2
Nathan Young
Anon submission Will MacAskill should resign from the board of EVF - un...
1
Nathan Young
The FTX crisis has caused me to not take actions I would have otherwis...
-6
Nathan Young
Anon submission Nick Beckstead should resign from the board of EVF - un...
No comments

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

Nathan Young

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 Leong12
3
1

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

Reply
Michael_PJ10
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.

Reply
2
Nathan Young
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 Young11
7
3

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

Reply
ChanaMessinger10
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]


 

Reply
Nathan Young6
5
5

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

Reply

Nathan Young

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

Nathan Young

23
28
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I think EA culture needs to change significantly to make things like the FTX crisis less likely in future

OllieBase15
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]

Reply

Nathan Young

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16
47

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

Nathan Young3
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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.

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[anonymous]12
0
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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

 

Reply
-2
Nathan Young
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]
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 Young-1
18
2

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

Reply

Nathan Young

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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.

  1. ^

    ie as opposed to organisational leaders

Nathan Young

19
25
31

The FTX crisis has reduced my commitment to the EA movement

Nathan Young11
2
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To just the movement, not the ideals.

Reply

Sanjay

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

Nathan Young

9
42
11

My friends are less receptive to EA since the crisis

[anonymous]14
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.

Reply
Dawn Drescher6
3
2

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

Reply
5
Dawn Drescher
(I don’t agree or disagree with that statement. For my actual friends all the harassment scandals were a much bigger deal.)
[anonymous]6
4
4

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

Reply

Nathan Young

6
36
20

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

Nathan Young

6
70
0

SBF and perhaps others behaved immorally

Nathan Young

5
13
30

I think about FTX hardly at all

Nathan Young

5
9
21

I think about FTX a lot

Nathan Young

5
55
1

SBF and perhaps others behaved stupidly

Nathan Young7
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.

Reply

Nathan Young

4
6
3

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

Nathan Young

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.

Nathan Young

4
44
8

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

Nathan Young

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]22
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)

Reply

Nathan Young

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 Drescher6
2
0

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.
Reply
Ivy Mazzola3
0
0

[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.

... (read more)
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Robi Rahman3
0
0

Applying for grant funding, for example.

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Jason2
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.

Reply

Nathan Young

-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 Häberli19
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?

Reply
Robi Rahman13
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.)

Reply
1
Nathan Young
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 🔸20
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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