November 12, 2022 ☼ crypto ☼ ftx
Source: stephendiehl.com (Link)
FTX collapsed. Just like we always knew it would. The crypto industry is the weakest it’s ever been; the empty lies of their phony populist narrative laid bare, their debauchery and corruption exposed for the world to see. And with them fatally weakened, it’s time to put the final nail in the metaphorical coffin and end this madness.
The history of corporate scandals is littered with quasi-messianic figures, and Sam-Bankman Fried (often denoted by the initialism SBF) is simply the latest in the long line of financiers so drunk on their egos and self-perceived intelligence to be blind to the portents of their inevitable downfall. Sam is unique in that his grandiosity stems not purely from unrestrained greed and narcissism—although there is plenty of that—but his philosophical north star of Effective Altruism, an extreme form of Benthamite utilitarianism which espouses the belief that we should extend our ethical locus of concern to all possible sentient beings that may exist in the future. The philosophy attempts to derive, from first principles, an ethical calculus by which we should optimize our actions according to some suppositional fitness function that maximizes the scope and happiness of all future minds. Its adherents believe themselves as ordained prophets sent by the future to guide the progress of humanity according to their oracular pronouncements.