As FTX was imploding, Will wrote on Twitter "If FTX misused customer funds, then I personally will have much to reflect on." It now seems very clear that FTX did misuse customer funds (1, 2), but to my knowledge Will hasn't shared any of his reflections publicly, beyond that initial Twitter thread. It seems odd to me for him to offer thoughts on the best way forward for the movement without acknowledging or having reckoned in a substantive way with his own role in the largest challenge faced by that movement to date.
If Will has published a post-mortem or analysis of what went wrong and I've missed it, I do apologise and will retract this comment (and would appreciate a link).
It's probably worth mentioning the Charity Commission inquiry into EV UK, as this could affect someone's interest in joining.
The inquiry will examine:
- the extent of any risk to the charity’s assets and the extent to which the trustees are complying with their legal duties with regard to the protection of the charity’s property.
- the governance and administration of the charity by the trustees, including relationships between the charity’s trustees and its funders and the identification and management of conflicts of interest and / or loyalty.
Thank you for this thorough explanation of your views. I am quite curious as to whether you have ever been pregnant. Of course, many people who have been pregnant are vehemently anti-abortion, but my own personal experience of (wanted) pregnancy made me convinced that forcing someone to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term is a crime against their humanity.[1] If you can't understand why this might be, I would suggest reading Judith Jarvis Thompson's violinist paper.
I don't want to relitigate whether abortion ought to be legal (or encouraged, or funded, or whatever), as I find the fact that my bodily autonomy is up for debate to be somewhat dispiriting, so I am going to bow out of this conversation now, but once again I appreciate your taking the time to explain your viewpoint.
'but what of the fetus's humanity?' idk man, the fetus is a possible human and the mother is an actual human, and I think actual humans are more important than possible ones. This is also why I'm not a longtermist.
Thanks, but that doesn't actually help me engage with the objections of those who are afraid of wokism (or SJW, or DEI) weakening the movement, because each of those terms can mean so many different things.
A sampling of ideas that seem like they could be included under the umbrella of "wokism" in an EA context:
As is probably evident from my comment history, I do happen to agree with all of these assertions. But I would be interested in engaging respectfully with someone who didn't. What I can't do is meaningfully respond to the idea that wokism, undefined, is threatening EA.
(edited to add - if anyone disagree voting would be willing to tell me what they disagree with, I would appreciate it)
Thanks! Will writes "The independent investigation commissioned by EV is still ongoing, and the firm running it strongly preferred me not to publish posts on backwards-looking topics around FTX while the investigation is still in-progress. I don’t know when it’ll be finished, or what the situation will be like for communicating on these topics even after it’s done."
To be honest, I don't find this particularly inspiring: it feels a lot like a cop-out. I also think that in this post he could have included a disclaimer about his own track record of errors of judgement, without going into detail about those errors. The fact that he chose not to is disappointing.