The 'Philosophy' of Sam Bankman-Fried

Did Bad Philosophy Break the Crypto Market?

The news of the FTX collapse has created a new finance villain in Sam Bankman-Fried. But before Bankman-Fried was scamming people out of billions, he was singing the praises of Effective Altruism, a brand of philosophical ethics. So what is Effective Altruism, and did it contribute to FTX’s spectacular downfall? Let’s find out in this Wisecrack Edition on Did Bad Philosophy Take Down FTX?

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Written by Amanda Scherker and Michael Burns
Hosted by Michael Burns
Directed by Michael Luxemburg
Edited by Jackson Maher
Produced by Olivia Redden

Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound

#FTX #SBF #BWTHHYBL #philosophy

© 2022 Wisecrack / Omnia Media, Inc. / Enthusiast Gaming

[rustkitty]

Mr. Philosophy: EA is bad.
Gamers: Yeah, tell us something we don't know.

[kintarocrab]

SBF's philosophy was effective narcissism. By his own words, he only donated to make himself look better, he believed everyone else around him did the same. SBF also only donated to causes to further his own goals at the expense of anyone else around him.

[RTB]

"What if the people suck"
10/10 aside/tangent, this was a gut buster

[nina]

To me, EA and longtermism seem to be a way to intellectually pretend yourself out of real-life commitments. But then I am not an ivy-league educated philosophy major, just an old lawyer who still thinks everybody should have a good life now and here.

[Rland]

The thing I don't understand about longtermism is they don't seem to look at the long term impact of not taking care of people today. If you put everything in to the future and end up with a generation of uncared for and desperate people today I don't see how that will end up well long term.

[BenjaminIMeszaros]

What went wrong is that crypto is a scam, rotten to the core.

[ianharris]

Honestly, I think EA is simply the most attractive philosophical fig leaf for rapacious technocapitalism. For years now, every fresh college grad seems to set his/her sights on "making the world a better place" while making loads of money, inspired no doubt by BS from tech bros like Zuckerberg and Musk and drivel spouted on the TED stage (itself the propaganda arm of modern capitalism). EA is just a refinement/encapsulation of this thinking. I think Prof Srinivasan hit the nail on the head: EA is high-minded way to justify supporting a right-wing neoliberalism in which we gut democratic institutions, refuse to regulate or tax corporations or the ultra-wealthy and rely on their charity to ensure a minimum standard of livng.

[thefatfella]

I know it's not really the point of the video but, as someone who just recently bought a new bass guitar, the best thing I did was to be completely upfront with my wife about the purchase and to include her into the process making it a bit of a team effort. This way, there was no shock regarding the purchase and I got a beautiful new toy to noodle during my lunch hour. I also got bonus points for it being her favorite color.

[JaimeNyx]

When they had the quote basically saying "one life in the developed world is worth more than one life in the developing world", that sealed the deal of Effective Altruism's death sentence for me.

[littlestone]

I think it is a smoke-screen. But I think it's a deep one, that some billionaires actually do buy in to. If they're even slightly aware of how much of an awful person they have allow themselves to become in order to amass so much wealth and power, (which is what it's really about), they can kind of "justify" their disgustingly unethical behavior by convincing themselves that they're doing it all for some greater good in the "long run". That all the people that they have fcked over and back-stabbed and scammed, all the workers they treat like crap, and, as SBF's own buddy so eloquently put it, all the poor people in third-world countries that have to die for their lavish lifestyles to even be possible don't actually matter because "we're actually doing it for "the future of humanity"... Yeah, ok bruh, pull the other one.

[robertprije]

Thanks for this. I worked with SBF before he started FTX. There was a lot of proponents for ethical altruism at that workplace and, though it all seemed very sound and sensible from a Peter Singer perspective, a bunch of vegan Wall Street bros touting that their making loads of money is all selflessly motivated by optimising their ethical impact did feel a bit like self deceptive spin and confirmation bias.

[RexCogitans]

It serves as a real-life example of what, for decades, has been put as hypothetical issues with consequentialism.

[deadcard]

Dammit, now every time I hear EA, I'm going to instantly think of shady greed.

[billmozart]

I think SBF knew full well what he was doing, while simultaneously setting back people who don't care about their hair

[gentlemandemon]

I think it ultimately proves that you can't make billions of dollars ethically. No matter how good your lofty ambitions for future generations are, the focus on raising capital distracts from the actual effort required to make genuine systemic changes

[yannstermonster]

It’s crazy. I read an article about this guy earlier this year while I was waiting at my dentist’s office. The whole time I was thinking this SBF was full of it based on his responses in the article. Funny how these titans of the financial world tend to cause their own downfalls. The irony is astonishing.

[GregMilner]

It's really important to understand the following:

Longtermism <> Effective Altruism
Effective Altruism <> Utilitarianism

Don't be disuaded from looking into Utilitarianism just because some billionaire tech bros can't think clearly or empathize with regular folks. That's nothing new.

[RTB]

I'd be interested to know how the folks at Wisecrack mentally (or visually) organize all the schools of thought across history and thoughtout philosophy's branches. There's a lot!

[futseb]

As read on twitter "Imagine splitting your house in one billion shares, sell your wife one share for 1$, and ask around $ 500 millions to buy a half of it". That's the best description i could find of what is FTX blamed for.

[captainhydrodus]

I saw his first interview since he did all of this, he almost put snoop out of a job the kid was so damn high but it gave a small glimpse into how he truly felt I believe, the jackass is not sorry, Those he funneled money to are not sorry. His connections and cash flow tell you all you need to know, it was guaranteed a house of cards