becoming a billionaire requires playing dirty and causing more harm than good in order to take enough reins of the capitalist command economy and redirect the flow of valuable goods and services so that you accumulate rent rapidly, usually from stock ownership, which is an incredibly unfavorable type of loan; I don't think EAs are unethical enough to become billionaires.
The original thesis was basically right: a lot of naive people were conned into working hard for FTX, capital flowed cheaply, no one asked for a CFO or audit, all the early employees of Alameda were screwed over but assumed it was for the greater good.
The dark side is it attracted no one capable of creating even a mediocre exchanges (FTX was notorious for horrible latency, and apparently stored their private keys in google docs); and the hedge fund was midwit at best—super-Kelly betting is insane.
It really was a marketing machine: cheap altruistic laborers, cheap dumb money (they don’t make Sequoia partners like they used to), and pay-to-play schemes for enticing celebrities into endorsing it.
Everyone so high on “saving the world” that no one did their job in any meaningful way (zero diligence, zero accounting, zero security, etc.)
The entire thing devoid of any effort to build a fundamentally sound product or business.
—
Robin Hanson increasingly looking like a prophet—perhaps the real altruism really is just be good at what you do and provide more than you take; basic morality and ethics of what it meant to be a good citizen from Greek philosophers to Christian church onwards, perhaps also the best way to build a good business
Forbes' 35th annual billionaire list has 2,755 names – that's 660 more than in 2020. That's a 32% increase in the number of billionaires. (source)
Doesn't seem out of the question, but 10 new ones? Hmmm. Around half of my uncertainty is in the resolution criteria. Hard to know what would count. A lot more likely if they don't have to self-identify, but they still donate largely using EA principles.
There will probably still be people effectively being EAs, but imo recent events strongly will bias people towards not self-IDing
Market seems unreasonably depressed by SBF news. Taking a long position
tbc, they must identify as EAs when the market resolves - whether they identify as EAs now or at any other time does not matter.
@DwarkeshPatel you should change the description then. It says that the billionaires have to not be billionaires now and it seems to imply that they have to be EAs now.
@Max_Goerlitz Agreed - both for SBF & crypto more generally and potential drop to EAs reputation for potential billionaires to affiliate with
Do they have to be EAs now? And what about say, Vitalik, who I'd say is an EA but due to the price of ETH wasn't a billionare at the time?
I think this is one of the easiest bets I've ever taken. There are numerous crypto billionaires that have written articles showing support for AI safety and x-risk causes. e.g. Fred Ehrsam. Also, there are many crypto wealthy people that are close to becoming billionaires that have already pledged money to EA causes. All it takes is one more crypto bull market and that will mint around 10-50 new EA billionaires. Example: https://twitter.com/AriDavidPaul
Most people in the 'wealth creating phase' of their life don't focus on philanthropy. When bull markets happen, people step back and look outwards to see how they can make a difference in the world. Until then, they are just focused on making money.
EA forum views are currently growing exponentially. The more money EAs make via crypto and other means the more attention EA gets which attracts more wealthy people and so on.
@DrewSpartz Are you mostly betting that there's a 65% chance of crypto going significantly above 30k$ in the next 5 years?
@Lorenzo Yes, and to a lesser extent, tech stocks. I think non-crypto bull markets don't matter nearly as much because there's very little liquidity in traditional capital markets until you can get to an IPO. So even if you become a billionaire on paper, it doesn't really matter for EA.
@Lorenzo Also, I'm more betting on guys like SBF and Vitalik getting more influence over time. When you have a really respected figure such as Bill Gates, and he tells his billionaire friends to donate to his foundation, they do. I assume something similar will happen with Sam and Vitalik if there is another crypto bull market. Because they are very respected community figures that care a lot about making the world better.
