Dear TBB Reader,
Happy Advent!
As you might imagine, I thought of writing a piece on something related to Thanksgiving, but I felt that John Briggs’ latest piece sufficed in that regard. John wrote a wonderful piece on retrospective gratitude and the important role it plays in our lives. Be sure you read it here!
Before I dive into the contents of the article, I wanted to note something that I believe is important for our readers to know. We, the contributors at The Broken Binnacle, are not a news outlet of any kind. Nor do we desire to partake in the contentious politics of our time. All of us are constantly being bombarded by such news and partisan politics, and we do not intend to add to the dissonance. Our desire here at The Broken Binnacle is to be a respite from such things; somewhere you good people can watch fledgling publishers attempt to articulate the things that transcend the whims of the present. With that being said, we do want to make an effort to make our content relevant and interesting.
All of this to say that today’s article concerns a name you’ve likely been hearing around on the news, that being, FTX founder, Sam Bankman-Fried. I know I just stated that we are not a news outlet, but to lay out the context, I will give a brief overview of Sammy boy’s No-Money-November.
Bankman-Fried was the founder and CEO of what was, up until November, the third largest crypto trading platform, FTX. In short, what happened was that FTX had been using faulty accounting practices which, when revealed, caused everyone to panic ultimately resulting in a bank run. FTX filed for bankruptcy and the world is watching another Enron story unfold. More importantly for our purposes today was the fact that Sam Bankman-Fried was a subscriber to the philosophy of “Effective Altruism.” (EA) It is the philosophy of effective altruism, with Bankman-Fried as its manifestation, which will be the focus of this article.
During my time at business school, I had the opportunity to learn about some of the greatest accounting scandals in the United States’ history, the previously alluded to Enron scandal being one of them. In all of these cases, one could certainly say the cause was greed, desire for power and so on. All true, but I would contend that, more specifically, their demise was the result of the lies the leaders told themselves as a means of justifying their pursuit of profit. Bankman-Fried’s adherence to EA was one such justification.
In outline, EA is a utilitarian concept that looks to maximize the efficiency of doing good better. EA’s subscribers focus on “global health and development, social inequality, animal welfare, and risks to the survival of humanity over the long-term future.” Besides the bad stigma the word “utilitarian” gets, effective altruism doesn’t sound like such a bad thing at face value. And it is not particularly bad, except for when it is used as a guise to mask ulterior motives. And in Bankman-Fried’s case, it most certainly was. After all, it’s much easier to distract people from your nefarious ways when you’re pointing at the sky, convincing people that it’s going to fall on our heads. By building up the image that he was some philanthropic savior, which, to his credit, he was to some degree, he gave himself the license to do whatever he wanted.
The whole situation reminded me of something I remember from my undergraduate days. In one of my philosophy classes, the professor said “beware of those bearing gifts.” A strange phrase at a cursory glance, but upon cynical contemplation, one can see its merit. While gift-giving is a positive action in itself, what motivates it can undermine its goodness all together. Usually in such a case, the giver expects to receive something in return, or to win over your favor. Call me pessimistic, but I believe a majority of the multi-billionaire philanthropic scene is a sham in this ulterior sense.. Besides exploiting tax loopholes and such, billionaires giving away millions is less financially burdening than a college student giving $5 to the church. (I’ve only had to feel one of those financial burdens before, but I can imagine it must be hard for those students to part with $5.) If not attempting to compensate for their lack of true morality, by making some pseudo-moralistic thing like climate change the ultimate priority, I believe that EA and its subscribers are the gift-givers in which we should all be wary.
Now, I don’t know what was truly in Bankman-Fried’s heart, but I am pretty sure that whatever his motives, he was self-assured in his ways because he had created an infrastructure of justifications. Don’t we all do this? I certainly have, even in much smaller ways. Or if not justification, you can always turn a blind eye and hope to mitigate the evil in which you may be participating. Considering Bankman-Fried’s situation has turned out the way it has, we can say with some certainty that he either acted maliciously, or he lied to himself to justify everything he did. My bet is on the latter.
“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.” - Dostoyevsky
Beware of Those Bearing Gifts
Joseph, very relevant story - I see the Busch School lectures helped you in your thinking, although you have thinking down pretty well. I personally believe this was a pure evil play. Location of the company, some of the stories surrounding management, the blatant disregard for structure and financial control - all of this contributed to a decision for evil. This is my opinion. On the other hand you are right to question philanthropic endeavors - it all comes down to the "why" preceding the gift. often times the "why" centers around this world which would never be burdened by faith. But there are many that give to give, the "why" is Christ. People like that exist. Always enjoy your thought-provoking and well-written work.