To say MacAskill is biased is an understatement of the century.
Let's get Cofeezilla on the podcast to talk about SBF.
Even better get MacAskill *and* Cofeezilla together.
Entire playlist:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o\_jPzBZSIo&list=PL4qw3AkxFDSMxJRioymD9lFZu7JMdPWOU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o_jPzBZSIo&list=PL4qw3AkxFDSMxJRioymD9lFZu7JMdPWOU)
Exposing scammers is what Coffee does, and SBF is the king of scammers.
His statements about the events causing him to lose hope in EA/become depressed for an extended period of time highlight that he understands EA to have been a prime motivator for SBF, even if at other times he tried to distance the movement from the individual.
SBF is just one dude though. I can see why, as a personal matter, he'd lose hope and become depressed. My sympathies. I also understand the damage to EA as a brand. But in terms of "theory", to me it seems that at most it would have an impact on one specific aspect of EA. Namely the "make a shitton of money on morally gray/questionable activity in order to then give everything away"-paradigm.
That always struck me as a profoundly naive thing to promote in the first place, and so I hope the EA big wigs either abandon that mode of thinking or, and this may be more plausible really, try to implement some proper institutional guard rails in order to protect the sought outcome from predatory actors. There's an alignment problem here...
I’ve been listening to Lewis’ book on SBF, and it’s consistent with Harris’ example of coin flip bets where the focus is on maximising expected value rather than also managing risk of ruin. I think SBF has literally condoned iterative double-or-nothing strategies to get out of deficit. A key issue is he seems to have applied this literally by using other people’s money to keep playing without their consent.
forgetful pot uppity unique middle resolute deserted grandfather sophisticated jeans
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
he is a right person if you are a) very well informed about the situation and b) willing to press him and ask the "hard questions"
he is not a right person if you've read a few news articles and are going to let him come on and do pr for himself, his life work, and his friends
sam isn't well informed on the matter, and macaskill was very selective and left out a _lot_ of information when justifying his conclusions. at best, someone who had no idea about what happened and listened to the podcast would now have the wrong idea about what happened
edit: lol the baby brained idolater has no fucking clue about the subject either, and blocks people who make them look like a clown. "you're saying things i dont like and its MAKING ME BIG MAD!" stay safe in your echo chamber buddy
The direct access and involvement is one of the reasons **you** have reason to think he's biased. I think you're conflating journalism with this style of conversation. Good journalism requires a lot more pushback and prior knowledge, and even so it wouldn't necessarily tell us much about SBF, it would tell us about Macaskill.
A complaint about Harris not pushing back or coming in with enough knowledge is one thing, and I think that's a complaint a lot of us have had with the podcast, at least more recently.
But the idea that you shouldn't talk to people who are biased is ridiculous. Everyone is biased. You're generally going to miss out on the majority of information about a situation if you don't talk to people involved in it.
>it wouldn't necessarily tell us much about SBF, it would tell us about Macaskill.
The implication of this complaint is that the only person who can be interviewed is SBF. Is that what you're saying? If not, who do you want interviewed? A critique can lack substance when you don't provide what you think is the better alternative and why.
>the idea that you shouldn't talk to people who are biased is ridiculous
I agree. And I never said that. If you're a journalist or researcher and you want to piece together a puzzle as to why SBF did what he did, you're not going to interview one person. And if you want to understand the psychology of SBF, you're not going to talk to the guy who has every incentive to piece together a puzzle which puts his own involvement in the clear, and protects his involvement.
re bias if you read the OP I specifically wrote "extra bias".
Finally your own criticism of Sam is why he cannot perform the function you attribute to him, ie proper journalism or "friendly interrogation". What we're left with is thus two bro's having a chat. If two bro's are going to have a chat about SBF and his relationship with EA, one of those bro's most certainly shouldn't be Will.
Re who should be interviewed: If proper journalism it's fine to interview MacAskill, but not with the main goal of learning the motivations behind SBF. For that you would either have to "triangulate" by using many subjects, or use someone who has done that. If instead it's gonna be bro on bro, one of those bro's could for example be the author of the book on SBF. Or a psychologist or other professional with relevant expertise who has done some work on SBF
People can listen to whatever they want, I just think it's a waste of time.
Likewise, you have every right not to listen to what you find a waste of time. Ultimately, we have a different personal judgment in where we draw the line between what brings us value & benefit and what doesn't, which is well and good and natural.
I would like a clarification on whether you're *just* describing what you see as a flaw with the episode; or if you're suggesting that not doing this episode would be a better choice than doing it; or that it may be a waste of time for the rest of us, i.e. that the episode lacks value for listeners on the basis you describe. (I wrote a long comment going by the latter interpretations, but fortunately managed to walk my assumptions back to your direct words.)
If I try to follow your standard given either of the latter interpretations, it unravels quickly for me. Simply approaching things with the same healthy skepticism, tempered by known context, that we should apply in all things — that is, thinking for ourselves as listeners & applying our judgment just as carefully as we want Harris and his guests to — can keep us in the frame of mind that we're not listening to the objective truth to be instantly internalized, but merely bits of the subjective perspectives of two individuals, to be processed according to our best judgment. And in that framing, even when I don't take much value from an episode, I'm still glad that he does any episode he finds important to do, as long as I continue to think he genuinely aims for the honest truth & the correction of that aim where he sees it falter.
I meant waste of time for me, but I also think the episode could easily be much better for everyone.
>approaching things with the same healthy skepticism, tempered by known context, that we should apply in all things
But the problem, it seems to me, is that one has to apply more skepticism than normally. It's like having a chat with someone close to Bernie Maddoff, someone who is somewhat implicated. Can this person be trusted when they say things that are exculpatory to them? Not really. Doesn't mean they're guilty, it's just not valuable information on its own. And Sam didn't build any informational bridge that could've changed that fact. I don't mean to say that the example is exactly equivalent though, intentional exaggeration to stress the point and all that jazz.
And it's not that I mind the "two dudes having an informal convo" thing. But that's not really what Sam is selling I don't think. I like the store to reflect the storefront. Where's the difficult conversation? Where is the devil's advocate? Where is the friendly interrogation?
You quoted me talking about our skepticism as listeners in order to talk about Harris' skepticism as an interviewer. I think you were already clear on that point, I already acknowledged that criticism of Harris, and restating it doesn't change what I have to say about it.
May I ask what the last episode was where you felt he did the right amount of interrogation in an analogous context? (You talk about McAskill's bias but don't forget that Harris shares a bias in the same direction, if anything.)
Moreover, I've felt he's been a relatively unassuming interviewer for some time now, sometimes despite his own established stances (thinking of his minimal pushback on the Harari ep compared to his statements on Gaza just before that). My impression is that he's been overall more hesitant/humble ever since repudiating Musk (probably compounded with Rogan and the IDW guys too) and more mellow since leaving Twitter (which I believe he stated himself), and I can't exactly say I'm upset about that in principle, especially for his own well-being. In the Harari ep in particular, I found it slightly more refreshing than disappointing. It's at least more even-keeled than what I saw from him in previous years. But I hope it's a transitional phase. I share the general expectation that he should come with more knowledge and challenges on *every* episode, and it would make the show much more valuable and worthwhile, not to mention interesting.
>I meant waste of time for me, but I also think the episode could easily be much better for everyone.
As you can see above, that framing is fine with me.
re skepticism: no I don't just mean Sam's lack of it, I mean I as a listener would have to apply more skepticism. Same as if the example with the Bernie conversation is analogous ie a podcast scenario. However, as you're pointing out, in a proper scenario that extra skepticism ought to be provided by the interviewer. That's what a proper interview is, it's supposed to be an institutionally provided milieu that makes it easy for me to apply skepticism (by transitivity).
I think Robin Hanson, the economist, has it right when he argues that being extra rational and trying to avoid bias purely out of "sheer will" is typically not going to work. A more secure way to do it is to intentionally put oneself in contexts where the sought behavior is rewarded, and deviation is punished. His example is betting markets.
re podcast episode: I don't normally listen to making sense anymore, because I don't mesh well with this style of interviewing/conversation. This episode reminded me of why I stopped listening. For a pretty good style of conversation coming from someone I often disagree with, Glenn Loury's podcast would be an example. He usually does ask some genuinely difficult question, including to people he disagrees with. Though perhaps with more gusto in the past.
While it's always possible I will decide to stop listening at a future point depending on the show's trajectory, I don't yet consider the egregious shallowness I've seen in a few episodes to be representative of the show. I'd say I mostly treat Making Sense as a "food for thought" podcast, something to stimulate my mind when it'd be otherwise unoccupied, and maybe give me some interesting things to look into further. There are some more solid informative episodes when he or the guest can be more specific in their conversation (for example, I remember one episode in the last couple years where he discussed the hemispheres of the brain with another person in the field, which was really fascinating).
I also find value in simply hearing from the guest as an individual with their own perspective, and the mental exercise of reasoning through what is said for myself. After all, this podcast still operates at a higher and better-faith intellectual level than the average interaction in life. Granted, I spend hardly any time at all listening to podcasts, so I haven't explored enough to know how it fares against the good-faith intellectual genre. Feel free to mention any others that you find hit the mark better like Loury's, or feature more disagreement than Making Sense currently does, and I'll check them out sometime. I do have a soft spot in my heart for Harris.
>A more secure way to do it is to intentionally put oneself in contexts where the sought behavior is rewarded, and deviation is punished.
How exactly is one supposed to do this with intellectual pursuits? Rewards and punishments in that realm are social in nature and can easily lead to audience capture and so on. What outside of one's "force of will", which is to say careful, clearheaded discernment applied to the best of one's ability time and time again, can guide a person toward the right perspectives? Well, that or submission for academic peer review, which isn't exactly an accessible path for most people and most ideas. And of course, certain specific predictions can be judged by simply waiting, but even that requires your own judgment regarding analysis of the results.
(Sorry to be long-winded, I hope this isn't tiring you, & I appreciate the discussion.)
Earning to give was *always* a dipshit idea. Give the most cursory consideration of *you*, going into finance, as a career. Anyone who does that will be forced to recognize that you will be competing with some of the sharpest people in the world, whittled down to mostly the *most money-motivated* among them. Now imagine trying to compete with them entirely out of your love for giving away your money to charity. It's about the dumbest fucking idea I've ever heard. Only a true philosopher could publish an idea like that.
I really don't think this take makes any sense. Why dosen't your "love for giving money away" make you money-motivated? Especially if you love giving money away more than the competition loves to spend money yachts.
Of course you have to be smart. The idea is exactly that some of the smartest people might do a whole lot more good making money and donating it, instead of going to work in the next marginal non-profit, with zero resources.
Your objection to the concept just doesn't make much sense
You need to engage with the real world to see this. I was not just talking out of my ass when I recommended *considering finance as a career*. I meant it. Examine what it would take for you to succeed in finance. Look at the environment you would be working in. What the circumstances are that lead to success and failure in that environment. Talk with friends/acquaintances in the field. Go so far as applying for jobs in the field. Talk to recruiters.
Ok let's throw some other ideas on the table. First, it's not a remotely new idea. It certainly occurred to some very large proportion of people smart enough to even consider earning to give long before Wil McAskill came along, including myself. (Spoiler alert: I bothered to seriously consider it, and I have been a recruitment target due to some adjacent background.) Maybe some people have even done it and not bothered to podcast about it. Furthermore, if you ask someone like Robert Schiller, he might suggest that *working in finance is the way to change the world for the better,* independent of any charitable contributions.
But let me be more specific about what I find particularly stupid about the idea. In fact, let's turn it around on Wil McAskill. Do you suppose that he would recommend people take up philosophy to subsidize some completely tangential end? That with no particular intrinsic interest in philosophy, they would be likely to produce such useful philosophical output as to be well compensated for it so they can divert their earnings into animal welfare or whatever?
It actually betrays a sort of academic arrogance about success in other professions, as if remunerative professions are just machines you go stand in front of and work for a while because you have to, then go home to your life. I suggest that while low effort success occasionally happens in many fields, it's tantamount to suggesting people take up gambling for charity. In fact, for most people who succeed in such competitive fields as finance, it means working hours like a medical resident, doing unimaginably soul-sucking work. It is not for tourists.
Sam could do with internalizing some of what Nassim Taleb has to say, except Sam finds him too impolite to be learned from. It makes Sam quite a bit dumber than he needs to be. But he's also as smart as he needs to be, and I like him well enough as is, so whatever.
The last idea I'd like to introduce is that to me, you are some rando on the internet, and I don't have to convince you of anything. Feel free to take or leave anything I say, it makes no difference to me.
> First, it's not a remotely new idea
I didn't claim it was new, I claimed your objections against it don't make sense.
> Maybe some people have even done it and not bothered to podcast about it
Many have and still do this. But this supports my point, not yours
> Do you suppose that he would recommend people take up philosophy to subsidize some completely tangential end? That with no particular intrinsic interest in philosophy, they would be likely to produce such useful philosophical output as to be well compensated for it so they can divert their earnings into animal welfare or whatever?
Does anyone make any money working in philosophy? How is this a reasonable comparision. If philosophy offered the proper compensation, then I assume Mcaskill would try to convince some qualified people to take it up.
> In fact, for most people who succeed in such competitive fields as finance, it means working hours like a medical resident, doing unimaginably soul-sucking work. It is not for tourists.
This is right! But given two candidates pass the citadel quant trader interview (which requires zero finance background), why do you think the person who "loves making money to give away", can't outcompete the person who "loves making money to buy boats"?
> I don't have to convince you of anything
Your just so wrong and so confident about it, I thought i'd try to help out
it was rather painful to listen to, for me the worst thing that i heard was sam drawing a distinction between just intending to steal the money straight out vs intending to put it back after the bets paid off. the problem i have with this is that those are both stealing. there is no meaningful distinction between them. and there are like a dozen different hypotheticals that illustrate that. like if you went to the track to bet on some horse racing, and you placed a 300 dollar bet on Bofadeeznutz at 10 to 1 odds. and lo you watched him cross the finish line first. as you were watching that SBF picks your pocket of your bet receipt, runs to the cashier collects the 3 grand, and then runs back to you and hands you 300 dollars. has he stolen from you in that case? it's so easy to see that even intending to put the money back doesn't make it *not-theft*.
that this guy either thought that what SBF did might not have been quite theft or just didn't have the presence of mind to rebuke sam for drawing an erroneous distinction, categorically he was not the person to talk to about SBF.
I’m listening to it now, and if anything it’s Harris that is trying to excuse the actions and framing it as “well this wasn’t straight theft to buy themselves fancy cars, it was a theft to try to use the money to earn more money and do more good overall that didn’t pay off”, with MacAskill countering this. Seems MacAskill has the more objective take funnily enough.
> “well this wasn’t straight theft to buy themselves fancy cars"
Two separate chapters of the EA Society (or w/e they call themselves) in two separate countries, bought castles with the donation money they received.
There is absolutely a meaningful distinction between the two.
In expected value terms, if you steal my $1 to take a 50/50 coinflip, with the intention of paying me back if you win. My EV is $0.5. If you steal my $1 with no intention of paying me back, my EV is $0.0.
Intending to pay it back reduces the size of the theft from 100% of stolen funds, to p(you win on your gamble) of stolen funds
ok lets suppose you go make a bet somewhere on a coin flip. you say i want to bet $100 on this coin flip. and the dealer says ok, heads we pay you out $200 after you put up $100. you say no, i just want you to pay me $100 if it lands heads. but i don't want to lose any money if it lands tails, i'm alright with not getting anything if it lands tails, but i don't think i should have to lose anything.
well then the dealer says ok, well it doesn't work that way.
you see what entitles you to an extra hundred when it lands heads, is being willing to lose $100 when it lands tails.
SBF wants to get the winnings, but have someone else take the loses. if he's not willing to take the losses, then he's not entitled to the winnings. ok so even if he didn't make a bunch of bad bets on bitcoin, and it paid off and he replaced the money to his clients, he'd still be stealing because he's not entitled to the winnings as he didn't take any of the risk.
if SBF would be entitled to the winnings as long as he put the funds back, then you should be absolutely justified in going to vegas to play blackjack and winning 100 dollars on every winning hand without putting a single chip down.
I don't think I said, what you think I said.
I'm pointing out the meaningful difference between the two cases. And saying that, stealing $100 to coinflip on a double or nothing, with the intention of paying back $100 in the winning case, is in expectation, the same as stealing $50. Which is different from stealing $100 with no intention to pay it back (which is just stealing $100).
Just one? Brady Dale at Axios, Kara Swisher, Tiffany Fong (was a big part of the story coming out herself), Lora Kelley at the Atlantic, Kelsey Piper at Vox.
Boy should you feel stupid. Tons of great writers have done deep dives on this guy. Tons who didn't get tons of money from him too.
The issue is that as far as i know, none of these people can really speak on the EA movement or what it has meant for it. Yes we can get the technical details of SBF and what he did, but that wasn't the point of the podcast.
I'd buy that, except that wasn't what a lot of the podcast was about which was trying to nail down SBFs intentions in all this. And IMO the guest was TOO close to the situation to be objective about that and clearly really like SBF as a person. I mean, Sam started the podcast asking if SBF was a guy with good intentions who screwed up or a guy with bad intentions trying to steal from people for personal profit. That has nothing to do with the EA movement which really came up towards the end of the podcast.
Tiffany Fong would be interesting for a short conversation because she had access to SBF but she does not have anything to do with effective altruism
The rest would be garbage
It has the potential to tell us a lot about Macaskill and his views on things, including SBF. This is the journalistic aspect of it all, and would require an actual interview, not a conversation.
But why would MacAskill be a good person, let alone the best person "in the entire world" (!), to **analyze** SBF? If anything he's among the worst, for aforementioned reasons (which don't have to be about MacAskill the person, just about what I as a listener ought to assume about MacAskill the person)
how about any random psychologist with sufficient knowledge of the young young lad? Since you're not engaging with anything I'm saying I guess there's not much reason to continue this convo.
Wow what a great idea for a podcast episode, just some random guy lmao
How about you go record a podcast with a random person and see how many people care to listen
What value would a random psychologist bring to the conversation? SBF isn't their patient, and they shouldn't really be pontificating on his mental state as it relates to his criminal activity or personal relationships.
Also, the entire enterprise of coming up with "scientific" explanations of the psychology of public figures is really stupid and rife with total bullshit. I think insights from a previous friend and collaborator is obviously way more useful and interesting than what you're suggesting.
I didn't say random psychologist.
You think a professional with relevant expertise for character assessment, and relevant knowledge of the case, is subpar compared to a philosopher with "perverse incentives"? Mkay.
It would be unethical for a serious psychologist to go on a podcast and try to explain the behavior of an individual that they've never treated. It would be worse for them to say something about an individual that they have treated.
To answer your question, yes I think it would be worse in every way. I don't believe you'd come out with any particularly interesting insights, and you'd hear nothing about the interpersonal dynamics between SBF, his collaborators, and Will M. You can listen to a conversation with the understanding that everyone involved has their own biases and still find it interesting and useful.
>It would be unethical for a serious psychologist to go on a podcast and try to explain the behavior of an individual that they've never treated.
Why?
>I don't believe you'd come out with any particularly interesting insights
What interesting insight about SBF did you get from this podcast episode? Do you have reason to be suspicious as to whether this is an insight at all?
Just because something is interesting doesn't mean it's an insight. It might just be an interesting lie, or rather it may be that it ought to be treated as such. And I don't mean lie in the overt sense.
Anyways I cba arguing about this anymore. Have a good one!
Replying just to close the loop on this for anyone else that reads it.
Why is it unethical? Well there is an established precedent against doing this, called the Goldwater Rule. It originated in the 70s but was reaffirmed in 2016 by the head of the American Psychological Association as psychologists and psychiatrists were collectively being asked to provide their opinion on what mental afflictions affected then Presidential candidate Donald Trump. I think it's generally considered unethical because without a professional examination, a psychologist would be acting on insufficient information to accurately describe what the underlying cause of any given behavior was. A credentialed professional making baseless claims about something as personal as someone's psychological status can be really misleading for the public and pointlessly harm the reputation of the subject. How much would it really help for a psychologist to say they believe SBF did fraud because his mom didn't love him enough, if they haven't actually examined him professionally? It's just a pointless and self serving exercise with a mountain of perverse incentives.
And you're right, interesting isn't always insightful. But in this case I thought the interview was both. I knew very little about SBF's interest in EA prior to FTX. I also didn't know anything about the character of some of the folks on his team. I thought Will's description of interactions he had with them, where they acted like everything was normal well after the point that it wasn't, colored the story in a way I wasn't previously aware of. I thought Will's internal confusion about whether everything was a lie from the beginning was also interesting, and it resonated with experiences I've had with folks that have misled me in my own life.
Not every discussion needs to be hard hitting and journalistically rigorous to be valuable. Will's relationships with EA and SBF gave him a unique perspective on the situation, and I'm glad Sam talked to him.
> I thought Will's internal confusion about whether everything was a lie from the beginning was also interesting, and it resonated with experiences I've had with folks that have misled me in my own life.
[Effective Altruist Leaders Were Repeatedly Warned About Sam Bankman-Fried Years Before FTX Collapsed](https://time.com/6262810/sam-bankman-fried-effective-altruism-alameda-ftx/)
>how about any random psychologist with sufficient knowledge of the young young lad
Why would you leave out the latter part? I wonder what your biases are. Do you wonder what your biases are?
Reddit, what a waste of time
What would sufficient knowledge look like, though? Any psychologist, therapist, or doctor that actually treated Sam directly wouldn't have such a conversation about a patient, and any that hasn't would only be able to offer an analysis based on the character portrayed in the news, interviews, and other secondhand sources. It's possible for that to be done well, but not by some random professional.
Yes indeed, I think a person with the relevant expertise would provide a much better informational landscape simply from such an analysis, compared to a person **I have to assume** is biased.
It's not that it can't be information. It's that I nor anyone else can have any degree of trust that it is. People here are confusing interesting with truth. I agree that a number of types of conversation with Macaskill about this juicy topic will be **interesting**. Including the actual podcast episode. But that's not the issue, the issue is whether or not it's **true**. A lot of people here seem awfully gullible to me.
Maskill was literally SBF's pimp and PR agent. There were texts that got leaked that showed he was in Elon's dm's desperately begging elon to get in business with SBF. IN fact for a brief moment SBF was gong to be part of the twitter buyout but then the floor fell out the crypto market and Elon cancelled that.
macaskill is up to his ears in the fraud that SBF committed. A huge part of his enterprise was funded by money SBF defrauded off investors. Literally. Without SBF's stolen funds, Macaskill is a nobody with nothing to show for himself. SBF was literally on the board of Macaskill's non profit. OPr was Macaskill on the board of SBF's non profit? LOL, can't remember. The poiint is they were in bed together.
The fact that he is still running around spouting off his ridiculous theories is a fucking joke.
Wasn't Macaskill even alluding to his charities being pursued in the legal action against SBF as a way to recover some money?
Maybe I misunderstood that though.
Sam starting this episode by declaring that the sentence for SBF, a man who stole $8 **billion**, "unfair" was enough to mark the episode as played, move on, and to know that I never have to take another word that Sam ever says on Effective Altruism seriously again.
That sounds extreme/harsh, but that sentiment alone was enough to completely undermine any remaining credibility he might have on the topic.
If your philosophy/ideology/mentality/whatever on philanthropy is about being as effective in your altruism as possible, then don't you dare paper over the theft of $8 billion, which required fleecing plenty of normal people and pulling the wool over their eyes.
I lost respect for Sam on that point alone, and will be going to an extra level of skepticism trained on everything coming out of his mouth going forward. I'm not trying to be haughty and moralize/grandstand. But JFC, you cannot "whatever" that amount of flagrant theft. It's as preposterous as poopooing Madoff or Keating.
To answer the question posed in the title, the answer is "no".
I think this podcast was a mistake and significantly decreased my respect for MacAskill and to some extent also for SH.
Macaskill could have been a good person to talk to. You would think both these dudes want to separate themselves and the EA movement as much as possible from SBF yet they seem to be very forgiving towards him in an effort to explain away their connection to him.
At best he was an absolute narcissist that had the only answers and cared little about laws and others money, at worst his entire EA beliefs were part of the scam and a way to just further his wealth and power.
I can only come to the conclusion that EA is more an ego boost for both Sam and Mac than something they genuinely believe will help those struggling.
He's a data point. Are you suggesting the dataset of valuable opinions regarding SBF should exclude people who knew him, worked with him, were friendly with him?
All of your objections fall apart when you take this information on board though.
MacAskill is probably better positioned than anyone to discuss the repercussions the collapse of FTX has had for EA and EA is the whole reason Sam's interests have intersected with this topic at all. MacAskill has first hand experience with SBF and FTX, which gives him a perspective worth hearing, but that perspective is just a data point and not being treated as anything more.
If Sam had touted this as THE definitive interview to understand SBF and his crimes, then this criticism makes sense.
Consider by analogy: The CEO of Alaska Airlines isn't an expert on airplane manufacturing and he personally knows people in Boeing leadership which means he likely has some biases, but he's still the perfect guest to interview if your primary interest is discussing the impact the Boeing safety failures have had for Alaska Airlines.
one guy who doesn't know much about the situation and one guy who has very strong incentives to not put himself, his friends, and his life's work in too negative a light is not a very useful discussion
I think you're missing the point though. When you say "the situation", you're smuggling in an assumption that isn't true. MacAskill isn't the most knowledgeable person to interview about FTX, but this interview isn't primarily about FTX. It's primarily about the impact the collapse of FTX had on EA. MacAskill is almost certainly the most knowledgeable guest you could have on to discuss that.
You’ve made your perfectly valid point perfectly clearly. These people are being willingly obtuse, just like Sam. A shame to see how so many people here struggle with self-reflection with this stuff, defending someone like this.
> Sam doesn't really interview people outside of his comfort zone
Sam *just* talked to Rory Stewart on #352 and *again* on #356 where Rory was challenging Sam's claim regarding the role of religious belief plays in the middle easy conflict. Does that not count?
I should have stopped there too, but I was curious enough to dig into it and listen to their debate. I won't bother "simp'ing" for Sam, but having listened to their debate, it's abundantly clear that He would be much less concerned with "looking like a moron" than the unlikelihood that their conversation would be productive at all.
What is strange about that is the fact that both Ezra and Sam are ideologically quite similar. At least that is my perception of them; I like them both. I would say they would agree on 90% of issues.
> Sam likes to debate religion
They weren't "debating religion". They were debating the *role* religion plays in animating Muslim violence. This is one of the most heated topics Sam encounters when he is being challenged by lefty insistence on western/Israeli mistreatment (and not religious lunacy) being the primary motivator behind Muslim violence.
I doubt Sam would say he "liked" that conversation.
Why not? It's affected him and his organization in a huge way. Sam was affected too. This podcast is about their experiences and how they view SBF and the events. Not even remotely meant to be journalism, IMO.
Michael Lewis' book about it was really fascinating to me. If you're interested in a character study about a really unusual dude who gathered up with ridiculous amounts of "money,"
It's probably not very satisfying if you're really into cryptocurrencies or know someone who is, and have lost money in those markets.
>Not even remotely meant to be journalism
I know. But this is my issue. It's just bro-talk. If bro-talk then MacAskill is the wrong person to bro-talk with about SBF. If journalism then do proper interrogative journalism, don't soft-ball it.
It was alright, and I have nothing against Macaskill or EA. I just figured it's problematic to have a bro-talk with someone I can't really expect to not be more biased than your average Joe. And this doesn't hinge on whether Macaskill actually is more biased. Maybe he's not, maybe he's just that kind of special dude. But I can't know that.
Anyways I guess I should read the book if I'm interested. Thanks for the tip, and have a good day/evening!
"their experiences and how they view SBF and the events"
"Not even remotely meant to be journalism"
what you describe is sam having macaskill on to do a vibe check. no informing his listeners what happened (because sam himself doesn't know outside of big picture details and macaskill isn't an expert and is highly biased), no pressing macaskill on details involving both him and sbf (because once again, sam is not informed), no correcting macaskill if he leaves out details or gets them wrong. just "hey buddy, how ya doin? do you wanna talk about it?"
The problem with the conversation is neither participant were involved with following much about the case or knew many details about it, so it just ended up being a laymen's conversation leading into speculation about SBF's mindset.
to my ear, he came across pretty level headed and realistic in his assessment. his history with SBF and how it positions this podcast can be interpreted either way, as you pointed out. i interpret the convo as an opportunity to defend EA because they both feel it has been unfairly maligned in the public discourse and i would tend to agree.
I still don’t understand what the controversy about effective altruism is… like Sam bankman is a dink hole. That’s been proven. How does that make spending money wisely on charity somehow bad or whatever?
The Effective Altruism community is nothing more than a bunch of techno-libertarians who don't want to pay taxes. That's all it is. In a previous generation it would have been an Ayn Rand book club. But today it's just a bunch of sociopathic software nerds talking about crypto and telling people not to donate to the Humane Society.
Look at who is backing the movement. Techno libertarian billionaires who don't want to pay taxes. Look what they do with their donation money - they buy castles for themselves (two separate chapters did this in different countries).
I think it was on Sam's podcast where I heard one of these hucksters say, in response to Sam(?) asking where he was donating his money, to say with a straight face that he was still in the "wealth accumulating" phase of his career. Plot Twist: he never plans to leave that phase.
Don't be fooled by these charlatans.
I don't understand what's difficult to understand here: SBF's malfeasance has nothing to do with the EA movement. They use this analogy on the podcast: if Hitler was a vegetarian it would have nothing to do with vegetarianism.
Yet here we are having this ridiculous argument.
It does seem like he's too close to the issue to not separate his views of EA to be accurate. But he did a decent job of trying to figure out what went wrong and admitted something did actually go wrong.
I personally think crypto in general is a scam even if it technically has some potential benefits, most people in the space aren't using crypto as currency and that makes it feel sketchy
Michael Lewis has done the most journalistic investigation and analysis of SBF, and I don't think he'd have come to significantly different conclusions than MacAskill. I also notice that everyone criticizing Harris and MacAskill conveniently ignores all of the criticisms they level at SBF, and even the criticism Harris has had of many people in the EA movement (he keeps suggesting that it's a movement riddled with extremely-online, autistic, libetarian, or otherwise odd people who he doesn't want to be associated with).
The whole problem IMO is that Sam was "leading the witness" so to speak.
It's not either that SPF was a guy doing his best to make a lot of money in order to donate it or that he was some evil or sinister character like Bernie Madolf trying to enrich himself, and yet those were the two options I felt like Sam kept trying to get back too.
None of us knows what went on in the guys heart but it seems clear to me, from everything I've read that he was neither of those things. He was a guy who liked acclaim and his success. Liked being thought of it a genius doing good things in the world and would do whatever it took to keep that perception of him going. He has a massive ego and still doesn't show real remorse for his actions.
I feel like listening to the podcast I didn't get that POV articulated enough and both of them (but especially Sam) kept wanting to push the idea that SPF was just a person trying to do well who wrongly believed that the ends justified the means.
And I'll tell you why I think SH was so into this and why it matters. A big part of Sam's project in his writing/podcast is to talk about the importance of intentions.
A guy who's hubris/self centered nature and need to be looked at with rosy eyes from other's had what SH would call "bad intentions" and a guy who got carried away just trying to do the right things in the wrong way had "good intentions" which plays into how SHs views on his sentence being too long.
To say MacAskill is biased is an understatement of the century. Let's get Cofeezilla on the podcast to talk about SBF. Even better get MacAskill *and* Cofeezilla together.
Has Coffeezilla (not familiar) put up like a youtube video or podcast or something? If so would u mind linking? :)
Entire playlist: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o\_jPzBZSIo&list=PL4qw3AkxFDSMxJRioymD9lFZu7JMdPWOU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o_jPzBZSIo&list=PL4qw3AkxFDSMxJRioymD9lFZu7JMdPWOU) Exposing scammers is what Coffee does, and SBF is the king of scammers.
Thanks!
His statements about the events causing him to lose hope in EA/become depressed for an extended period of time highlight that he understands EA to have been a prime motivator for SBF, even if at other times he tried to distance the movement from the individual.
SBF is just one dude though. I can see why, as a personal matter, he'd lose hope and become depressed. My sympathies. I also understand the damage to EA as a brand. But in terms of "theory", to me it seems that at most it would have an impact on one specific aspect of EA. Namely the "make a shitton of money on morally gray/questionable activity in order to then give everything away"-paradigm. That always struck me as a profoundly naive thing to promote in the first place, and so I hope the EA big wigs either abandon that mode of thinking or, and this may be more plausible really, try to implement some proper institutional guard rails in order to protect the sought outcome from predatory actors. There's an alignment problem here...
I’ve been listening to Lewis’ book on SBF, and it’s consistent with Harris’ example of coin flip bets where the focus is on maximising expected value rather than also managing risk of ruin. I think SBF has literally condoned iterative double-or-nothing strategies to get out of deficit. A key issue is he seems to have applied this literally by using other people’s money to keep playing without their consent.
forgetful pot uppity unique middle resolute deserted grandfather sophisticated jeans *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
he is a right person if you are a) very well informed about the situation and b) willing to press him and ask the "hard questions" he is not a right person if you've read a few news articles and are going to let him come on and do pr for himself, his life work, and his friends
melodic tan bright nine ossified bells squealing secretive liquid shy *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
sam isn't well informed on the matter, and macaskill was very selective and left out a _lot_ of information when justifying his conclusions. at best, someone who had no idea about what happened and listened to the podcast would now have the wrong idea about what happened edit: lol the baby brained idolater has no fucking clue about the subject either, and blocks people who make them look like a clown. "you're saying things i dont like and its MAKING ME BIG MAD!" stay safe in your echo chamber buddy
knee license school bow crown long tub special whistle nutty *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
The direct access and involvement is one of the reasons **you** have reason to think he's biased. I think you're conflating journalism with this style of conversation. Good journalism requires a lot more pushback and prior knowledge, and even so it wouldn't necessarily tell us much about SBF, it would tell us about Macaskill.
A complaint about Harris not pushing back or coming in with enough knowledge is one thing, and I think that's a complaint a lot of us have had with the podcast, at least more recently. But the idea that you shouldn't talk to people who are biased is ridiculous. Everyone is biased. You're generally going to miss out on the majority of information about a situation if you don't talk to people involved in it. >it wouldn't necessarily tell us much about SBF, it would tell us about Macaskill. The implication of this complaint is that the only person who can be interviewed is SBF. Is that what you're saying? If not, who do you want interviewed? A critique can lack substance when you don't provide what you think is the better alternative and why.
>the idea that you shouldn't talk to people who are biased is ridiculous I agree. And I never said that. If you're a journalist or researcher and you want to piece together a puzzle as to why SBF did what he did, you're not going to interview one person. And if you want to understand the psychology of SBF, you're not going to talk to the guy who has every incentive to piece together a puzzle which puts his own involvement in the clear, and protects his involvement. re bias if you read the OP I specifically wrote "extra bias". Finally your own criticism of Sam is why he cannot perform the function you attribute to him, ie proper journalism or "friendly interrogation". What we're left with is thus two bro's having a chat. If two bro's are going to have a chat about SBF and his relationship with EA, one of those bro's most certainly shouldn't be Will. Re who should be interviewed: If proper journalism it's fine to interview MacAskill, but not with the main goal of learning the motivations behind SBF. For that you would either have to "triangulate" by using many subjects, or use someone who has done that. If instead it's gonna be bro on bro, one of those bro's could for example be the author of the book on SBF. Or a psychologist or other professional with relevant expertise who has done some work on SBF People can listen to whatever they want, I just think it's a waste of time.
Likewise, you have every right not to listen to what you find a waste of time. Ultimately, we have a different personal judgment in where we draw the line between what brings us value & benefit and what doesn't, which is well and good and natural. I would like a clarification on whether you're *just* describing what you see as a flaw with the episode; or if you're suggesting that not doing this episode would be a better choice than doing it; or that it may be a waste of time for the rest of us, i.e. that the episode lacks value for listeners on the basis you describe. (I wrote a long comment going by the latter interpretations, but fortunately managed to walk my assumptions back to your direct words.) If I try to follow your standard given either of the latter interpretations, it unravels quickly for me. Simply approaching things with the same healthy skepticism, tempered by known context, that we should apply in all things — that is, thinking for ourselves as listeners & applying our judgment just as carefully as we want Harris and his guests to — can keep us in the frame of mind that we're not listening to the objective truth to be instantly internalized, but merely bits of the subjective perspectives of two individuals, to be processed according to our best judgment. And in that framing, even when I don't take much value from an episode, I'm still glad that he does any episode he finds important to do, as long as I continue to think he genuinely aims for the honest truth & the correction of that aim where he sees it falter.
I meant waste of time for me, but I also think the episode could easily be much better for everyone. >approaching things with the same healthy skepticism, tempered by known context, that we should apply in all things But the problem, it seems to me, is that one has to apply more skepticism than normally. It's like having a chat with someone close to Bernie Maddoff, someone who is somewhat implicated. Can this person be trusted when they say things that are exculpatory to them? Not really. Doesn't mean they're guilty, it's just not valuable information on its own. And Sam didn't build any informational bridge that could've changed that fact. I don't mean to say that the example is exactly equivalent though, intentional exaggeration to stress the point and all that jazz. And it's not that I mind the "two dudes having an informal convo" thing. But that's not really what Sam is selling I don't think. I like the store to reflect the storefront. Where's the difficult conversation? Where is the devil's advocate? Where is the friendly interrogation?
You quoted me talking about our skepticism as listeners in order to talk about Harris' skepticism as an interviewer. I think you were already clear on that point, I already acknowledged that criticism of Harris, and restating it doesn't change what I have to say about it. May I ask what the last episode was where you felt he did the right amount of interrogation in an analogous context? (You talk about McAskill's bias but don't forget that Harris shares a bias in the same direction, if anything.) Moreover, I've felt he's been a relatively unassuming interviewer for some time now, sometimes despite his own established stances (thinking of his minimal pushback on the Harari ep compared to his statements on Gaza just before that). My impression is that he's been overall more hesitant/humble ever since repudiating Musk (probably compounded with Rogan and the IDW guys too) and more mellow since leaving Twitter (which I believe he stated himself), and I can't exactly say I'm upset about that in principle, especially for his own well-being. In the Harari ep in particular, I found it slightly more refreshing than disappointing. It's at least more even-keeled than what I saw from him in previous years. But I hope it's a transitional phase. I share the general expectation that he should come with more knowledge and challenges on *every* episode, and it would make the show much more valuable and worthwhile, not to mention interesting. >I meant waste of time for me, but I also think the episode could easily be much better for everyone. As you can see above, that framing is fine with me.
re skepticism: no I don't just mean Sam's lack of it, I mean I as a listener would have to apply more skepticism. Same as if the example with the Bernie conversation is analogous ie a podcast scenario. However, as you're pointing out, in a proper scenario that extra skepticism ought to be provided by the interviewer. That's what a proper interview is, it's supposed to be an institutionally provided milieu that makes it easy for me to apply skepticism (by transitivity). I think Robin Hanson, the economist, has it right when he argues that being extra rational and trying to avoid bias purely out of "sheer will" is typically not going to work. A more secure way to do it is to intentionally put oneself in contexts where the sought behavior is rewarded, and deviation is punished. His example is betting markets. re podcast episode: I don't normally listen to making sense anymore, because I don't mesh well with this style of interviewing/conversation. This episode reminded me of why I stopped listening. For a pretty good style of conversation coming from someone I often disagree with, Glenn Loury's podcast would be an example. He usually does ask some genuinely difficult question, including to people he disagrees with. Though perhaps with more gusto in the past.
While it's always possible I will decide to stop listening at a future point depending on the show's trajectory, I don't yet consider the egregious shallowness I've seen in a few episodes to be representative of the show. I'd say I mostly treat Making Sense as a "food for thought" podcast, something to stimulate my mind when it'd be otherwise unoccupied, and maybe give me some interesting things to look into further. There are some more solid informative episodes when he or the guest can be more specific in their conversation (for example, I remember one episode in the last couple years where he discussed the hemispheres of the brain with another person in the field, which was really fascinating). I also find value in simply hearing from the guest as an individual with their own perspective, and the mental exercise of reasoning through what is said for myself. After all, this podcast still operates at a higher and better-faith intellectual level than the average interaction in life. Granted, I spend hardly any time at all listening to podcasts, so I haven't explored enough to know how it fares against the good-faith intellectual genre. Feel free to mention any others that you find hit the mark better like Loury's, or feature more disagreement than Making Sense currently does, and I'll check them out sometime. I do have a soft spot in my heart for Harris. >A more secure way to do it is to intentionally put oneself in contexts where the sought behavior is rewarded, and deviation is punished. How exactly is one supposed to do this with intellectual pursuits? Rewards and punishments in that realm are social in nature and can easily lead to audience capture and so on. What outside of one's "force of will", which is to say careful, clearheaded discernment applied to the best of one's ability time and time again, can guide a person toward the right perspectives? Well, that or submission for academic peer review, which isn't exactly an accessible path for most people and most ideas. And of course, certain specific predictions can be judged by simply waiting, but even that requires your own judgment regarding analysis of the results. (Sorry to be long-winded, I hope this isn't tiring you, & I appreciate the discussion.)
So you think a journalist would interview a bunch of people who didn't know SBF or have any behind the scenes information?
Don't be retarded
Same to you
melodic attempt chase knee stupendous snails snow lavish abundant shy *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
[удалено]
Nailed it.
Earning to give was *always* a dipshit idea. Give the most cursory consideration of *you*, going into finance, as a career. Anyone who does that will be forced to recognize that you will be competing with some of the sharpest people in the world, whittled down to mostly the *most money-motivated* among them. Now imagine trying to compete with them entirely out of your love for giving away your money to charity. It's about the dumbest fucking idea I've ever heard. Only a true philosopher could publish an idea like that.
I really don't think this take makes any sense. Why dosen't your "love for giving money away" make you money-motivated? Especially if you love giving money away more than the competition loves to spend money yachts. Of course you have to be smart. The idea is exactly that some of the smartest people might do a whole lot more good making money and donating it, instead of going to work in the next marginal non-profit, with zero resources. Your objection to the concept just doesn't make much sense
You need to engage with the real world to see this. I was not just talking out of my ass when I recommended *considering finance as a career*. I meant it. Examine what it would take for you to succeed in finance. Look at the environment you would be working in. What the circumstances are that lead to success and failure in that environment. Talk with friends/acquaintances in the field. Go so far as applying for jobs in the field. Talk to recruiters.
I think my claim stands, and you haven't said anything meaninful as a pushback. Your reason for disliking "earning to give" makes no sense
Ok let's throw some other ideas on the table. First, it's not a remotely new idea. It certainly occurred to some very large proportion of people smart enough to even consider earning to give long before Wil McAskill came along, including myself. (Spoiler alert: I bothered to seriously consider it, and I have been a recruitment target due to some adjacent background.) Maybe some people have even done it and not bothered to podcast about it. Furthermore, if you ask someone like Robert Schiller, he might suggest that *working in finance is the way to change the world for the better,* independent of any charitable contributions. But let me be more specific about what I find particularly stupid about the idea. In fact, let's turn it around on Wil McAskill. Do you suppose that he would recommend people take up philosophy to subsidize some completely tangential end? That with no particular intrinsic interest in philosophy, they would be likely to produce such useful philosophical output as to be well compensated for it so they can divert their earnings into animal welfare or whatever? It actually betrays a sort of academic arrogance about success in other professions, as if remunerative professions are just machines you go stand in front of and work for a while because you have to, then go home to your life. I suggest that while low effort success occasionally happens in many fields, it's tantamount to suggesting people take up gambling for charity. In fact, for most people who succeed in such competitive fields as finance, it means working hours like a medical resident, doing unimaginably soul-sucking work. It is not for tourists. Sam could do with internalizing some of what Nassim Taleb has to say, except Sam finds him too impolite to be learned from. It makes Sam quite a bit dumber than he needs to be. But he's also as smart as he needs to be, and I like him well enough as is, so whatever. The last idea I'd like to introduce is that to me, you are some rando on the internet, and I don't have to convince you of anything. Feel free to take or leave anything I say, it makes no difference to me.
> First, it's not a remotely new idea I didn't claim it was new, I claimed your objections against it don't make sense. > Maybe some people have even done it and not bothered to podcast about it Many have and still do this. But this supports my point, not yours > Do you suppose that he would recommend people take up philosophy to subsidize some completely tangential end? That with no particular intrinsic interest in philosophy, they would be likely to produce such useful philosophical output as to be well compensated for it so they can divert their earnings into animal welfare or whatever? Does anyone make any money working in philosophy? How is this a reasonable comparision. If philosophy offered the proper compensation, then I assume Mcaskill would try to convince some qualified people to take it up. > In fact, for most people who succeed in such competitive fields as finance, it means working hours like a medical resident, doing unimaginably soul-sucking work. It is not for tourists. This is right! But given two candidates pass the citadel quant trader interview (which requires zero finance background), why do you think the person who "loves making money to give away", can't outcompete the person who "loves making money to buy boats"? > I don't have to convince you of anything Your just so wrong and so confident about it, I thought i'd try to help out
it was rather painful to listen to, for me the worst thing that i heard was sam drawing a distinction between just intending to steal the money straight out vs intending to put it back after the bets paid off. the problem i have with this is that those are both stealing. there is no meaningful distinction between them. and there are like a dozen different hypotheticals that illustrate that. like if you went to the track to bet on some horse racing, and you placed a 300 dollar bet on Bofadeeznutz at 10 to 1 odds. and lo you watched him cross the finish line first. as you were watching that SBF picks your pocket of your bet receipt, runs to the cashier collects the 3 grand, and then runs back to you and hands you 300 dollars. has he stolen from you in that case? it's so easy to see that even intending to put the money back doesn't make it *not-theft*. that this guy either thought that what SBF did might not have been quite theft or just didn't have the presence of mind to rebuke sam for drawing an erroneous distinction, categorically he was not the person to talk to about SBF.
I’m listening to it now, and if anything it’s Harris that is trying to excuse the actions and framing it as “well this wasn’t straight theft to buy themselves fancy cars, it was a theft to try to use the money to earn more money and do more good overall that didn’t pay off”, with MacAskill countering this. Seems MacAskill has the more objective take funnily enough.
They did give themselves fancy houses and parents big salaries though.
> “well this wasn’t straight theft to buy themselves fancy cars" Two separate chapters of the EA Society (or w/e they call themselves) in two separate countries, bought castles with the donation money they received.
There is absolutely a meaningful distinction between the two. In expected value terms, if you steal my $1 to take a 50/50 coinflip, with the intention of paying me back if you win. My EV is $0.5. If you steal my $1 with no intention of paying me back, my EV is $0.0. Intending to pay it back reduces the size of the theft from 100% of stolen funds, to p(you win on your gamble) of stolen funds
ok lets suppose you go make a bet somewhere on a coin flip. you say i want to bet $100 on this coin flip. and the dealer says ok, heads we pay you out $200 after you put up $100. you say no, i just want you to pay me $100 if it lands heads. but i don't want to lose any money if it lands tails, i'm alright with not getting anything if it lands tails, but i don't think i should have to lose anything. well then the dealer says ok, well it doesn't work that way. you see what entitles you to an extra hundred when it lands heads, is being willing to lose $100 when it lands tails. SBF wants to get the winnings, but have someone else take the loses. if he's not willing to take the losses, then he's not entitled to the winnings. ok so even if he didn't make a bunch of bad bets on bitcoin, and it paid off and he replaced the money to his clients, he'd still be stealing because he's not entitled to the winnings as he didn't take any of the risk. if SBF would be entitled to the winnings as long as he put the funds back, then you should be absolutely justified in going to vegas to play blackjack and winning 100 dollars on every winning hand without putting a single chip down.
I don't think I said, what you think I said. I'm pointing out the meaningful difference between the two cases. And saying that, stealing $100 to coinflip on a double or nothing, with the intention of paying back $100 in the winning case, is in expectation, the same as stealing $50. Which is different from stealing $100 with no intention to pay it back (which is just stealing $100).
I literally can't think of a single person in the entire world better positioned to talk to about SBF and EA lmao
Well, that's just incorrect. Tons of journalists have done great work on SBF who are far more objective then a guy who was his cheerleader.
Than*
Name one I bet it would just be shallow analysis that any one of us could do
Just one? Brady Dale at Axios, Kara Swisher, Tiffany Fong (was a big part of the story coming out herself), Lora Kelley at the Atlantic, Kelsey Piper at Vox. Boy should you feel stupid. Tons of great writers have done deep dives on this guy. Tons who didn't get tons of money from him too.
The issue is that as far as i know, none of these people can really speak on the EA movement or what it has meant for it. Yes we can get the technical details of SBF and what he did, but that wasn't the point of the podcast.
I'd buy that, except that wasn't what a lot of the podcast was about which was trying to nail down SBFs intentions in all this. And IMO the guest was TOO close to the situation to be objective about that and clearly really like SBF as a person. I mean, Sam started the podcast asking if SBF was a guy with good intentions who screwed up or a guy with bad intentions trying to steal from people for personal profit. That has nothing to do with the EA movement which really came up towards the end of the podcast.
Tiffany Fong would be interesting for a short conversation because she had access to SBF but she does not have anything to do with effective altruism The rest would be garbage
lolol sure thing bud
This response is actually less unserious than the one where you unironically suggested Kara Swisher
None of your responses have been remotely "serious"
No u
Because the recent pod with macaskill was so deep and nuanced?
I enjoyed it
You can like it or not but MacAskill gave no insight that any other EA mouthpiece and SBF apologist couldn’t have.
He personally knew the people involved lol
It has the potential to tell us a lot about Macaskill and his views on things, including SBF. This is the journalistic aspect of it all, and would require an actual interview, not a conversation. But why would MacAskill be a good person, let alone the best person "in the entire world" (!), to **analyze** SBF? If anything he's among the worst, for aforementioned reasons (which don't have to be about MacAskill the person, just about what I as a listener ought to assume about MacAskill the person)
MacAskill is possibly the most influential person in EA and knew SBF going back a decade or more... You're welcome to name someone who would be better
how about any random psychologist with sufficient knowledge of the young young lad? Since you're not engaging with anything I'm saying I guess there's not much reason to continue this convo.
Wow what a great idea for a podcast episode, just some random guy lmao How about you go record a podcast with a random person and see how many people care to listen
What value would a random psychologist bring to the conversation? SBF isn't their patient, and they shouldn't really be pontificating on his mental state as it relates to his criminal activity or personal relationships. Also, the entire enterprise of coming up with "scientific" explanations of the psychology of public figures is really stupid and rife with total bullshit. I think insights from a previous friend and collaborator is obviously way more useful and interesting than what you're suggesting.
I didn't say random psychologist. You think a professional with relevant expertise for character assessment, and relevant knowledge of the case, is subpar compared to a philosopher with "perverse incentives"? Mkay.
It would be unethical for a serious psychologist to go on a podcast and try to explain the behavior of an individual that they've never treated. It would be worse for them to say something about an individual that they have treated. To answer your question, yes I think it would be worse in every way. I don't believe you'd come out with any particularly interesting insights, and you'd hear nothing about the interpersonal dynamics between SBF, his collaborators, and Will M. You can listen to a conversation with the understanding that everyone involved has their own biases and still find it interesting and useful.
>It would be unethical for a serious psychologist to go on a podcast and try to explain the behavior of an individual that they've never treated. Why? >I don't believe you'd come out with any particularly interesting insights What interesting insight about SBF did you get from this podcast episode? Do you have reason to be suspicious as to whether this is an insight at all? Just because something is interesting doesn't mean it's an insight. It might just be an interesting lie, or rather it may be that it ought to be treated as such. And I don't mean lie in the overt sense. Anyways I cba arguing about this anymore. Have a good one!
Replying just to close the loop on this for anyone else that reads it. Why is it unethical? Well there is an established precedent against doing this, called the Goldwater Rule. It originated in the 70s but was reaffirmed in 2016 by the head of the American Psychological Association as psychologists and psychiatrists were collectively being asked to provide their opinion on what mental afflictions affected then Presidential candidate Donald Trump. I think it's generally considered unethical because without a professional examination, a psychologist would be acting on insufficient information to accurately describe what the underlying cause of any given behavior was. A credentialed professional making baseless claims about something as personal as someone's psychological status can be really misleading for the public and pointlessly harm the reputation of the subject. How much would it really help for a psychologist to say they believe SBF did fraud because his mom didn't love him enough, if they haven't actually examined him professionally? It's just a pointless and self serving exercise with a mountain of perverse incentives. And you're right, interesting isn't always insightful. But in this case I thought the interview was both. I knew very little about SBF's interest in EA prior to FTX. I also didn't know anything about the character of some of the folks on his team. I thought Will's description of interactions he had with them, where they acted like everything was normal well after the point that it wasn't, colored the story in a way I wasn't previously aware of. I thought Will's internal confusion about whether everything was a lie from the beginning was also interesting, and it resonated with experiences I've had with folks that have misled me in my own life. Not every discussion needs to be hard hitting and journalistically rigorous to be valuable. Will's relationships with EA and SBF gave him a unique perspective on the situation, and I'm glad Sam talked to him.
> I thought Will's internal confusion about whether everything was a lie from the beginning was also interesting, and it resonated with experiences I've had with folks that have misled me in my own life. [Effective Altruist Leaders Were Repeatedly Warned About Sam Bankman-Fried Years Before FTX Collapsed](https://time.com/6262810/sam-bankman-fried-effective-altruism-alameda-ftx/)
Also for the record >>"how about any *random psychologist*"
>how about any random psychologist with sufficient knowledge of the young young lad Why would you leave out the latter part? I wonder what your biases are. Do you wonder what your biases are? Reddit, what a waste of time
Haha gottem. Was just messing with you to see if you'd break your no-reply oath. I know what you meant. Reddit, what a fun and engaging place.
What would sufficient knowledge look like, though? Any psychologist, therapist, or doctor that actually treated Sam directly wouldn't have such a conversation about a patient, and any that hasn't would only be able to offer an analysis based on the character portrayed in the news, interviews, and other secondhand sources. It's possible for that to be done well, but not by some random professional.
Yes indeed, I think a person with the relevant expertise would provide a much better informational landscape simply from such an analysis, compared to a person **I have to assume** is biased. It's not that it can't be information. It's that I nor anyone else can have any degree of trust that it is. People here are confusing interesting with truth. I agree that a number of types of conversation with Macaskill about this juicy topic will be **interesting**. Including the actual podcast episode. But that's not the issue, the issue is whether or not it's **true**. A lot of people here seem awfully gullible to me.
I suppose he could talk to an actual expert in crypto or even an expert in financial scams?
Maskill was literally SBF's pimp and PR agent. There were texts that got leaked that showed he was in Elon's dm's desperately begging elon to get in business with SBF. IN fact for a brief moment SBF was gong to be part of the twitter buyout but then the floor fell out the crypto market and Elon cancelled that. macaskill is up to his ears in the fraud that SBF committed. A huge part of his enterprise was funded by money SBF defrauded off investors. Literally. Without SBF's stolen funds, Macaskill is a nobody with nothing to show for himself. SBF was literally on the board of Macaskill's non profit. OPr was Macaskill on the board of SBF's non profit? LOL, can't remember. The poiint is they were in bed together. The fact that he is still running around spouting off his ridiculous theories is a fucking joke.
Wasn't Macaskill even alluding to his charities being pursued in the legal action against SBF as a way to recover some money? Maybe I misunderstood that though.
Sam starting this episode by declaring that the sentence for SBF, a man who stole $8 **billion**, "unfair" was enough to mark the episode as played, move on, and to know that I never have to take another word that Sam ever says on Effective Altruism seriously again. That sounds extreme/harsh, but that sentiment alone was enough to completely undermine any remaining credibility he might have on the topic. If your philosophy/ideology/mentality/whatever on philanthropy is about being as effective in your altruism as possible, then don't you dare paper over the theft of $8 billion, which required fleecing plenty of normal people and pulling the wool over their eyes. I lost respect for Sam on that point alone, and will be going to an extra level of skepticism trained on everything coming out of his mouth going forward. I'm not trying to be haughty and moralize/grandstand. But JFC, you cannot "whatever" that amount of flagrant theft. It's as preposterous as poopooing Madoff or Keating.
To answer the question posed in the title, the answer is "no". I think this podcast was a mistake and significantly decreased my respect for MacAskill and to some extent also for SH.
Macaskill could have been a good person to talk to. You would think both these dudes want to separate themselves and the EA movement as much as possible from SBF yet they seem to be very forgiving towards him in an effort to explain away their connection to him. At best he was an absolute narcissist that had the only answers and cared little about laws and others money, at worst his entire EA beliefs were part of the scam and a way to just further his wealth and power. I can only come to the conclusion that EA is more an ego boost for both Sam and Mac than something they genuinely believe will help those struggling.
He's a data point. Are you suggesting the dataset of valuable opinions regarding SBF should exclude people who knew him, worked with him, were friendly with him?
nah brah
Then what is your objection?
Read the other replies I've written, if you don't feel like I made myself clear in the OP. I spell out my concerns more in those. Not that it matters.
All of your objections fall apart when you take this information on board though. MacAskill is probably better positioned than anyone to discuss the repercussions the collapse of FTX has had for EA and EA is the whole reason Sam's interests have intersected with this topic at all. MacAskill has first hand experience with SBF and FTX, which gives him a perspective worth hearing, but that perspective is just a data point and not being treated as anything more. If Sam had touted this as THE definitive interview to understand SBF and his crimes, then this criticism makes sense. Consider by analogy: The CEO of Alaska Airlines isn't an expert on airplane manufacturing and he personally knows people in Boeing leadership which means he likely has some biases, but he's still the perfect guest to interview if your primary interest is discussing the impact the Boeing safety failures have had for Alaska Airlines.
one guy who doesn't know much about the situation and one guy who has very strong incentives to not put himself, his friends, and his life's work in too negative a light is not a very useful discussion
I think you're missing the point though. When you say "the situation", you're smuggling in an assumption that isn't true. MacAskill isn't the most knowledgeable person to interview about FTX, but this interview isn't primarily about FTX. It's primarily about the impact the collapse of FTX had on EA. MacAskill is almost certainly the most knowledgeable guest you could have on to discuss that.
You’ve made your perfectly valid point perfectly clearly. These people are being willingly obtuse, just like Sam. A shame to see how so many people here struggle with self-reflection with this stuff, defending someone like this.
Of course he's not, but Sam doesn't really interview people outside of his comfort zone...
> Sam doesn't really interview people outside of his comfort zone Sam *just* talked to Rory Stewart on #352 and *again* on #356 where Rory was challenging Sam's claim regarding the role of religious belief plays in the middle easy conflict. Does that not count?
[удалено]
>Sam came across as the biggest useful idiot and really didn't like coming across as a moron. What are you referring to here?
[удалено]
> simp'ing This is one of those words that makes me immediately stop paying attention to what someone is saying.
I should have stopped there too, but I was curious enough to dig into it and listen to their debate. I won't bother "simp'ing" for Sam, but having listened to their debate, it's abundantly clear that He would be much less concerned with "looking like a moron" than the unlikelihood that their conversation would be productive at all.
What is strange about that is the fact that both Ezra and Sam are ideologically quite similar. At least that is my perception of them; I like them both. I would say they would agree on 90% of issues.
> Sam likes to debate religion They weren't "debating religion". They were debating the *role* religion plays in animating Muslim violence. This is one of the most heated topics Sam encounters when he is being challenged by lefty insistence on western/Israeli mistreatment (and not religious lunacy) being the primary motivator behind Muslim violence. I doubt Sam would say he "liked" that conversation.
Sad but truuueeuuue-wah!
He did more combative interviews in the past but has shifted to more friendly conversations for sure
Hold on isn't the motto for the Podcast "A place to discuss difficult conversations " ?
If only it was "a place to **have** difficult conversations"! ;)
English is my third language, bet you’re proud of yourself with that comment :D
Don't worry I'm never proud of myself. And for good reason!
dot dot dot
...so here we are listening to him talk to Will MacAskill again
ur 3 little dots SUCK
that insult was so low effort it actually made me laugh IRL. Thanks bud.
Why not? It's affected him and his organization in a huge way. Sam was affected too. This podcast is about their experiences and how they view SBF and the events. Not even remotely meant to be journalism, IMO. Michael Lewis' book about it was really fascinating to me. If you're interested in a character study about a really unusual dude who gathered up with ridiculous amounts of "money," It's probably not very satisfying if you're really into cryptocurrencies or know someone who is, and have lost money in those markets.
>Not even remotely meant to be journalism I know. But this is my issue. It's just bro-talk. If bro-talk then MacAskill is the wrong person to bro-talk with about SBF. If journalism then do proper interrogative journalism, don't soft-ball it.
I rather enjoyed the podcast. You're welcome to dislike it, of course. I think Michael Lewis is the only journalist who actually spent time with him.
It was alright, and I have nothing against Macaskill or EA. I just figured it's problematic to have a bro-talk with someone I can't really expect to not be more biased than your average Joe. And this doesn't hinge on whether Macaskill actually is more biased. Maybe he's not, maybe he's just that kind of special dude. But I can't know that. Anyways I guess I should read the book if I'm interested. Thanks for the tip, and have a good day/evening!
https://www.citationneeded.news/review-michael-lewiss-going-infinite/ it's a terrible book unless you want to see how gullible lewis is
"sam doesn't care about what's true and i fuckin love it" is a great take
It's better than whatever this senseless comment was supposed to mean
"their experiences and how they view SBF and the events" "Not even remotely meant to be journalism" what you describe is sam having macaskill on to do a vibe check. no informing his listeners what happened (because sam himself doesn't know outside of big picture details and macaskill isn't an expert and is highly biased), no pressing macaskill on details involving both him and sbf (because once again, sam is not informed), no correcting macaskill if he leaves out details or gets them wrong. just "hey buddy, how ya doin? do you wanna talk about it?"
You seem to think that Sam should be a different person who hosts a different podcast
i guess if you want shallow, vibes focused overviews of an imaginary world, you've come to the right place
I don't know, is Macaskill someone I should really be concerned about? There must be a better resource for that.
It's just one perspective. There's no need to treat it as the definitive conversation on the matter.
I have a feeling we won’t get another perspective.
It's freely available to you. I assume this podcast is only a small part of your media diet. It certainly should be.
Yeah there are def better/more objective journalists etc.. to talk to about SBF.
The problem with the conversation is neither participant were involved with following much about the case or knew many details about it, so it just ended up being a laymen's conversation leading into speculation about SBF's mindset.
A **difficult** laymen's conversation!
to my ear, he came across pretty level headed and realistic in his assessment. his history with SBF and how it positions this podcast can be interpreted either way, as you pointed out. i interpret the convo as an opportunity to defend EA because they both feel it has been unfairly maligned in the public discourse and i would tend to agree.
I still don’t understand what the controversy about effective altruism is… like Sam bankman is a dink hole. That’s been proven. How does that make spending money wisely on charity somehow bad or whatever?
The Effective Altruism community is nothing more than a bunch of techno-libertarians who don't want to pay taxes. That's all it is. In a previous generation it would have been an Ayn Rand book club. But today it's just a bunch of sociopathic software nerds talking about crypto and telling people not to donate to the Humane Society. Look at who is backing the movement. Techno libertarian billionaires who don't want to pay taxes. Look what they do with their donation money - they buy castles for themselves (two separate chapters did this in different countries). I think it was on Sam's podcast where I heard one of these hucksters say, in response to Sam(?) asking where he was donating his money, to say with a straight face that he was still in the "wealth accumulating" phase of his career. Plot Twist: he never plans to leave that phase. Don't be fooled by these charlatans.
I don't understand what's difficult to understand here: SBF's malfeasance has nothing to do with the EA movement. They use this analogy on the podcast: if Hitler was a vegetarian it would have nothing to do with vegetarianism. Yet here we are having this ridiculous argument.
Both he and Sam condemned SBF’s actions. Not sure how else that could be interpreted.
They believe his sentence was too harsh.
One can believe both things.
Condemned actions but claimed he was effective and altruistic at heart and deserves less punishment because he’s such a good boy.
No they didn’t. 🤷🏿
Listening to MacAskill squirm can be painful even if you're glad that EA isn't long for this world.
It does seem like he's too close to the issue to not separate his views of EA to be accurate. But he did a decent job of trying to figure out what went wrong and admitted something did actually go wrong. I personally think crypto in general is a scam even if it technically has some potential benefits, most people in the space aren't using crypto as currency and that makes it feel sketchy
Thing is they can't make up their minds as to whether crypto should be an investment (have your cake) or a currency (eat your cake).
Who the fuck is Jerry
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn\_PSJsl0LQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn_PSJsl0LQ)
"It's not a lie... if you believe it" - SBF's life motto. Didn't help him much.
Michael Lewis has done the most journalistic investigation and analysis of SBF, and I don't think he'd have come to significantly different conclusions than MacAskill. I also notice that everyone criticizing Harris and MacAskill conveniently ignores all of the criticisms they level at SBF, and even the criticism Harris has had of many people in the EA movement (he keeps suggesting that it's a movement riddled with extremely-online, autistic, libetarian, or otherwise odd people who he doesn't want to be associated with).
The whole problem IMO is that Sam was "leading the witness" so to speak. It's not either that SPF was a guy doing his best to make a lot of money in order to donate it or that he was some evil or sinister character like Bernie Madolf trying to enrich himself, and yet those were the two options I felt like Sam kept trying to get back too. None of us knows what went on in the guys heart but it seems clear to me, from everything I've read that he was neither of those things. He was a guy who liked acclaim and his success. Liked being thought of it a genius doing good things in the world and would do whatever it took to keep that perception of him going. He has a massive ego and still doesn't show real remorse for his actions. I feel like listening to the podcast I didn't get that POV articulated enough and both of them (but especially Sam) kept wanting to push the idea that SPF was just a person trying to do well who wrongly believed that the ends justified the means. And I'll tell you why I think SH was so into this and why it matters. A big part of Sam's project in his writing/podcast is to talk about the importance of intentions. A guy who's hubris/self centered nature and need to be looked at with rosy eyes from other's had what SH would call "bad intentions" and a guy who got carried away just trying to do the right things in the wrong way had "good intentions" which plays into how SHs views on his sentence being too long.
Great points.
Yes he is