Will SBF be given the damnatio memoriae treatment on 80,000 Hours website.
48
48
970
resolved Jan 21
Resolved
NO

This market resolves yes if all mention and images of SBF are removed from the Career Guide and examples of Earning to Give by January 20, 2023.

Close date updated to 2023-01-20 5:59 pm

Get Ṁ1,000 play money

🏅 Top traders

#NameTotal profit
1Ṁ555
2Ṁ369
3Ṁ177
4Ṁ156
5Ṁ140
Sort by:

Resolved 'No' on three counts.

1) the traditional meaning of damnatio memoriae is attempted removal of the person's name on monuments. This sense guides interpretation of the market criteria.

2) Those market criteria include removing all mention and images of SBF. Sam is still featured (though with a warning label) on an earning to give page.

3) Although Sam is no longer a side note in the Career Guide, he still has his own Stories page with the traditional text after a long caveat. This is not full damnatio.

bought Ṁ10 of YES

Searching the site, "bankman-fried" has 14 mentions on the entire site. None are categorized as "career review" or contained in the Career Guide--they are podcasts, blog posts, and the list of previous donors.

You searched for bankman-fried - 80,000 Hours (80000hours.org)

The examples given at the Earning to Give page are Alexander Gordon-Brown and Jeff Kaufman.

Earning to give in a high-paying role, such as quantitative trading - Career review (80000hours.org)

Their official statement on the matter says, "In the meantime, we will start by removing instances on our site where Sam was highlighted as a positive example of someone pursuing a high-impact career, since, to say the least, we no longer endorse that. We are leaving up discussions of Sam in places that seem important for transparency..."

Regarding the collapse of FTX - 80,000 Hours (80000hours.org)

I think, following the market description, this is enough to resolve YES. He was not completely removed from the entire website, but he was removed from the Career Guide and examples of Earning to Give.

@whenhaveiever According to market rules, all mention of SBF must be removed from examples of Earning to Give. He is still mentioned here: https://80000hours.org/2014/04/how-much-do-people-pursuing-earning-to-give-actually-give/

predicted NO

I had the impression that 80k were pretty transparent about their decision making and errors, but it is interesting that their mistakes page hasn't been updated since 2020. https://80000hours.org/about/credibility/evaluations/mistakes/

sold Ṁ94 of YES

Right now there is a disclaimer on top of the SBF "story" page. I think it's ~50% likely they will just update the disclaimer and otherwise leave the page as-is. https://80000hours.org/stories/sam-bankman-fried/