The ineffective altruist: Philosophical movement, which is stained through Bankman-Fried's sink

The ineffective altruist: Philosophical movement, which is stained through Bankman-Fried's sink

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Sam Bankman-Frieds ruthless, fraudulent behavior destroyed more than just his empire. He also shaped the millions of customers and companies that trusted him and clouded the reputation of a philanthropic movement: effective altruism.

Bankman-Fried was a great advocate of effective altruism-commonly referred to as EA. He set up a Future Fund under the FTX Foundation, financed by him and other FTX leaderships who promised donations to non-profit organizations.

But now, according to the recent bankruptcy applications, these promises have been left behind.

The entire team of the FTX Future Fund resigned last week; In an open letter, which on EA-Forum writes the team: "We are now unable to do our work or to work on grants, and we have fundamental questions about the legitimacy and integrity of the business that the FTX Foundation and Future Fund have financed."

What is effective altruism?

Effective altruism is a philosophical and social movement that was formalized at the University of Oxford. It describes itself as a scientific method that "uses evidence and reason in search of the best ways to do good."

Basically, the movement decides to tackle global problems by "finding the best ways to help others and put them into practice". It defines itself as a "intellectual project" that aims to "build a radically better world".

The movement encourages its participants to engage in careers who can tackle "pressing problems" or use their skills to "contribute to these problems" and "[Donate] to carefully selected charity organizations."

Bankman-Fried, The failed altruist

The Future Fund website described the fallen crypto personality as a person who "wanted to earn as much money as possible to give away everything they deserved for charitable purposes".

once the prominent risk capital company Sequoia Capital wrote a glowing review of the former billionaire.

In the article entitled "Sam Bankman-Fried Has a Saviour Complex and Maybe You Should Too" described the 30-year-old as "oldest son of two Stanford law professors", who uses logical arguments in a "utilitarian" family to understand the problems of the world.

It describes how Bankman-Fried came up for the first time in his fraternity Epsilon Theta on EA, where he met William Macaskill, who is now an extraordinary professor of philosophy in Oxford and one of the founders of EA.

"When junior [Bankman-Fried] wondered what he should do with his life. And Macaskill-[Peter] Singer's philosophical heritage-had the answer: The best way for him to maximize the good in the world would be to maximize his wealth," says the article.

"SBF's goal of life was clear: he wanted to be stone kingdom to the sake of charity. Everything else was only the risk of execution."

The FTX website claims that the company donated over 190 million US dollars. The platform encouraged to donate users and said that it would double donations of up to $ 10,000 daily. It was also pointed out that 1 % of all net fees from FTX via FTX Philanthropy Inc. would be donated.

Despite this external philanthropic efforts, Bankman-Fried was also busy spending money on Arena name rights and Super Bowl commercials and donating a considerable amount to US politicians in order to expand his influence in Washington, DC.

Since his fall, many have argued that Bankman-Fried had hidden behind the EA movement to justify his ambitions.

dustin Moscovitz, CEO and co -founder of Asana, tweeted Comfortable justification for such actions.

damage control

Many EA participants were horrified by Bankman-Frieds.

Robert Wiblin, moderator of the 80,000-hour podcast, tweeted: "No plausible ethics allows you to lose money in trading and then take the money of other people in order to complete even more risky betting, in the hope that this will help you get it back."

Macaskill, once a advocate of Bankman-Fried, stepped down from an unpaid consultant role in Future Fund and tweeted: "I would like to say it very clearly: If the participants have been deceived and participated in fraud (whether illegal or not), this can give up many costs of thousands of people, they have completely given up the principles of the effective altruism community."

er added Sam I had given my trust and if he had misused me, just like he cheated on me Customers, his employees, his investors and the communities he belonged to cheated. "

Many other community members also have dose macAskills feeling.

"Outside observers will see what EA has to say, and I think we have to say very clearly that fraud is nothing that we have ever supported," says Evan Hubinger, research assistant at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. wrote EA-Forum.

The actions of Bankman-Fried will have "permanent consequences", said Hubinger and added: "The damage that FTX inflicts on all its customers and employees will probably outweigh the altruistic financing that FTX has already provided for effective purposes."

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The contribution "The ineffective Altruist: Philosophical Movement Tainted by Bankman-Fried’s Downfall" is not a financial advice.