As a former EA, I basically agree with this, and I definitely agree that we should start shifting to a norm that focuses on punishing bad actions, rather than trying to infer their mental state.
On SBF, I think a large part of the issue is that he was working in an industry called cryptocurrency that is basically has fraud as the bedrock of it all. There was nothing real about crypto, so the collapse of FTX was basically inevitable.
Even if you accept that all cryptocurrency is valueless, it is possible to operate a crypto-related firm that does what it says it does or one that doesn’t.
For example, if two crypto exchanges accept Bitcoin deposits and say they will keep the Bitcoin in a safe vault for their customers, and then one of them keeps the Bitcoin in the vault while the other takes it to cover its founder’s personal expenses/an affiliated firm’s losses, I think it is fair to say that the second of these has committed fraud and the first has not, regardless of whether Bitcoin has anything ‘real’ about it or whether it disappears into a puff of smoke tomorrow.
On SBF, I think a large part of the issue is that he was working in an industry called cryptocurrency that is basically has fraud as the bedrock of it all. There was nothing real about crypto, so the collapse of FTX was basically inevitable.
I don’t deny that the cryptocurrency “industry” has been a huge magnet for fraud, nor that there are structural reasons for that, but “there was nothing real about crypto” is plainly false. The desire to have currencies that can’t easily be controlled, manipulated, or implicitly taxed (seigniorage, inflation) by governments or other centralized organizations and that can be transferred without physical presence is real. So is the desire for self-executing contracts. One might believe those to be harmful abilities that humanity would be better off without, but not that they’re just nothing.
More specifically, the issue with crypto is that the benefits are much less than promised, and there’s a whole lot of bullshit claims on crypto like it being secure or not manipulatable.
On one example of why cryptocurrencies fail as an a currency, one of it’s problems is that it’s fixed supply and no central entity means the value of that currency swings wildly, which is a dealbreaker for any currency.
Note, this is just one of the many, fractal problems here with crypto.
Crypto isn’t all fraud. There’s reality, but it’s built out of unsound foundations and trying to sell a fake castle to others.
I definitely agree that we should start shifting to a norm that focuses on punishing bad actions, rather than trying to infer their mental state.
Do you have limitations to this in mind? Consider the political issue of abortion. One side thinks the other is murdering babies; the other side thinks the first is violating women’s rightful ownership of their own bodies. Each side thinks the other is doing something monstrous. If that’s all you need to justify punishment, then that seems to mean both sides should fight a civil war.
(“National politics? I was talking about...” The one example the OP gives is SBF, and other language alludes to sex predators and reputation launderers, and the explicit specifiers in the first few paragraphs are “harmful people” and “bad behavior”; it’s such a wide range that it seems hard to declare anything offtopic.)
You’ve actually mentioned a depressing possibility around morality, and it’s roughly that without shared ethical assumptions, conflict is the default, and there’s nothing imposing any constraints except social norms, which can break down.
My answer for people in general is: Try to see what others think, but remember that sometimes, bad outcomes will happen to stop worse outcomes, and you should always focus on your own values to decide the answers.
As a former EA, I basically agree with this, and I definitely agree that we should start shifting to a norm that focuses on punishing bad actions, rather than trying to infer their mental state.
On SBF, I think a large part of the issue is that he was working in an industry called cryptocurrency that is basically has fraud as the bedrock of it all. There was nothing real about crypto, so the collapse of FTX was basically inevitable.
Even if you accept that all cryptocurrency is valueless, it is possible to operate a crypto-related firm that does what it says it does or one that doesn’t.
For example, if two crypto exchanges accept Bitcoin deposits and say they will keep the Bitcoin in a safe vault for their customers, and then one of them keeps the Bitcoin in the vault while the other takes it to cover its founder’s personal expenses/an affiliated firm’s losses, I think it is fair to say that the second of these has committed fraud and the first has not, regardless of whether Bitcoin has anything ‘real’ about it or whether it disappears into a puff of smoke tomorrow.
I don’t deny that the cryptocurrency “industry” has been a huge magnet for fraud, nor that there are structural reasons for that, but “there was nothing real about crypto” is plainly false. The desire to have currencies that can’t easily be controlled, manipulated, or implicitly taxed (seigniorage, inflation) by governments or other centralized organizations and that can be transferred without physical presence is real. So is the desire for self-executing contracts. One might believe those to be harmful abilities that humanity would be better off without, but not that they’re just nothing.
More specifically, the issue with crypto is that the benefits are much less than promised, and there’s a whole lot of bullshit claims on crypto like it being secure or not manipulatable.
On one example of why cryptocurrencies fail as an a currency, one of it’s problems is that it’s fixed supply and no central entity means the value of that currency swings wildly, which is a dealbreaker for any currency.
Note, this is just one of the many, fractal problems here with crypto.
Crypto isn’t all fraud. There’s reality, but it’s built out of unsound foundations and trying to sell a fake castle to others.
Do you have limitations to this in mind? Consider the political issue of abortion. One side thinks the other is murdering babies; the other side thinks the first is violating women’s rightful ownership of their own bodies. Each side thinks the other is doing something monstrous. If that’s all you need to justify punishment, then that seems to mean both sides should fight a civil war.
(“National politics? I was talking about...” The one example the OP gives is SBF, and other language alludes to sex predators and reputation launderers, and the explicit specifiers in the first few paragraphs are “harmful people” and “bad behavior”; it’s such a wide range that it seems hard to declare anything offtopic.)
You’ve actually mentioned a depressing possibility around morality, and it’s roughly that without shared ethical assumptions, conflict is the default, and there’s nothing imposing any constraints except social norms, which can break down.
My answer for people in general is: Try to see what others think, but remember that sometimes, bad outcomes will happen to stop worse outcomes, and you should always focus on your own values to decide the answers.