Related questions
@CarsonGale Should I interpret this comment as a suggestion that I shouldn't have made it, or just informing me of your emotional reaction to it?
I'm making this market partially to draw attention to the immense amount of hate that is currently being targeted towards the two of them, often over things that have nothing to do with FTX, such as their looks and lifestyle choices. It's pretty hard to make me feel sympathy towards (probable) thieves and scammers, but Twitter has managed to make it happen.
@IsaacKing I just saw this comment & am realizing you made it in part to draw attention to the vitriol and not as a method of vitriol.
What surprised me initially was that you seem like a kind and measured person, so the market contents seemed out of character.
@CarsonGale Ah, I see. I'm not a fan of the idea that asking a question is an endorsement of any particular answer. I think the existence of transgressive/taboo questions is usually a sign of an epistemically-unhealthy community. (See for example Askhole.)
No, I'm not at all happy with how social media is treating SBF and Caroline right now. Even EA is being more vitriolic than I'm comfortable with. (The forums is decent. The Facebook memes page is worse.) Unfortunately there's not much I can do about that, but I was hoping that seeing a market that shows a high chance they commit suicide might make people realize what effect their words can have.
(I think it's likely any suicide would be motivated more by the threat of jail time and financial ruin than social media bullying, but still.)
I'm not a fan of the idea that asking a question is an endorsement of any particular answer. I think the existence of transgressive/taboo questions is usually a sign of an epistemically-unhealthy community.
(With appropriate exceptions for questions that encourage doxxing or other bad behavior, such as the dating life market you mentioned.)
@IsaacKing That all makes sense, and I share the discomfort with the bullying. I thought this tweet from Vitalik was insightful.
https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/1591643652815831040?t=nz605Xe9NScJF-h91bFbdg&s=19
It's complicated, but my dislike of this market is two-fold: (i) markets on people's personal lives should be made with consent. You lose some of that when you become a public figure, but where not necessary for the public interest it generally seems like a good rule of thumb to avoid markets on personal lives. And (ii) I think a market, while not an explicit endorsement, does imply there is a reason to beg the question.
I.e., if there was a good reason to speculate on this then it seems fine to do so. But w/o a good reason it seems bad for the same reasons most people would be uncomfortable with a market like this being made about them.
I followed Caroline on tumblr, and most of the team met SBF in the Bahamas and thought he was cool. I spent last weekend doomscrolling twitter, EA forum, the sequoia article, Caroline's tumblr - vacillating between "they're frauds with no integrity" and "they're my people." When I see randos on twitter dunking on them for being vegan/poly/autistic/etc part of me takes it personally. Part of me feels betrayed. Part of me wants to give them a hug. Part of me wants to see them in jail. None of me wants to see them be hurt.
I hope they have people close to them to lean on. I don't think it's really the place of people who don't know them well to try to be that though.
I think this market was a very polemical way to start this conversation, and I wouldn't have personally made it, but I can see @IsaacKing's point of view.
@Sinclair Fair enough. I definitely have a tendency to cross boundaries without realizing it. I'm going to leave this market up, but I'll plan to think more carefully about markets like this in the future before creating them.
