Synergy

"We" all thought it was a bit weird when propublica ran a "lab leak" story that was not exactly up to their usual standards. "We" all also thought it was a bit weird when many of the smartest boys on the internet suddenly started pushing it.

Yglesias continues to argue that SBF gave money to “good” causes. But is that true? For one thing, by SBF’s own admission, his goal in spending was to gain power to fight regulation. One favorite SBF charity is pandemic preparedness. To that end the Bankman-Frieds’ family foundation gave $5 million to ProPublica, which prepared a report on the lab-leak theory that was widely denounced as riddled with xenophobia and bad translations.

Underlying the whole ethos of effective altruism is the idea that the rich know best. The people who make the most money are somehow credited with having the best long-term interest of humanity at heart.

To see what’s wrong with this thinking, you’d have to have some familiarity with human history. Alas, Bankman-Fried is militantly anti-intellectual. As he told an interviewer for Sequoia Capital’s site, “I think, if you wrote a book, you fucked up, and it should have been a six-paragraph blog post.”

The group chats must be fun, is what I'm trying to say.