My defense of SBF (as of Nov 2022)

I haven’t been following recent events around SBF closely, but since happening on this forum today, I wanted to 1) go on the record as sympathetic to these claims, and 2) share this post I wrote shortly after FTX imploded: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/w6aLsNppuwnqccHmC/in-defense-of-sbf

This was written primarily for the EA community, and is less of an investigation into what happened and more musings on what lessons the people should take. With the benefit of hindsight, I don’t think Section 1 holds as strongly; but I still stand by my points in 2 and 3.

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You make several excellent observations on loyalty, ambition, complex systems and black-and-white judgments that I haven’t seen elsewhere in relation to this case. I’m glad that you still stand by Sections 2 and 3 and that you’re still not afraid to say so :slightly_smiling_face:

Thanks for providing the link to your post on the EA Forum. I enjoyed reading your thoughts on it all and really appreciated your perspective. I hope as time goes by and more of the intrigue comes to light about all that went down, that people will begin to see Sam in a different light. I liked your “Truthful but mistaken.” Following up on your portrait of him, we’ve created a website - SamGotScrewed.com - which focuses more on the trial aspect and the role his autism played in his behavior and use the line - “Autism is an explanation… not an excuse.” I hope you will continue to speak out!

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Thanks for sharing this link - an interesting read from an EA perspective…