Too Much Philanthropy News! (The downfall of Sam Bankman-Fried, plus Bezos's big pledge & Scott's latest gifts).

Philanthropisms

In this episode we take a look at a few of the biggest stories from what has been a notable newsworthy couple of weeks for philanthropy - focusing on the fallout from the spectacular implosion of crypto billionaire and high profile Effective Altruist Sam Bank-Fried. We also take a look at a big philanthropy pledge from Jeff Bezos and the latest on Mackenzie Scott's radical no-strings-attached big giving. Including:
SBF:

• What the hell has happened in the SBF story?
• What impact might this have on wider efforts to promote the idea of cryptophilanthropy?
• Will SBF's downfall lead to further calls to clamp down on big money donations in politics, given his prominent support for the Democracts in recent years?
• Is it likely to mean more skepticism about philanthropic funding for journalism, given that some feel SBF's significant donations to news outlets led to him receiving less critical coverage?
• Does his downfall present an existential crisis for Effective Altruism (EA)?
• Should we distinguish between different ways of understanding EA: EA-as-movement, EA-as-ideology, EA-as-academic-field? What is the likely impact on each of these?
• Do EA movement leaders have questions to answer about whether they were complicit in what was going on at FTX, or just naive? And what are the ramifications of either?
• Did SBF's EA beliefs lead him to adopt a radical "end justifies the means" view that allowed him to justify bad behaviour?
• Is this situation a killer blow for EA's "give to earn" idea?

Scott & Bezos

• How excited should we be about pledges to give big in the future?
• What details do we have about what Bezos is actually planning to do?
• Why does the idea that "giving money away is hard" have such a long history? How is Mackenzie Scott challenging this idea?
• How should we understand "effectiveness" when it comes to philanthropy?
• Why has Bezos given $100m to Dolly Parton...?

Related Content

• Rhod's Alliance Magazine piece, "Effectively over: What Does Sam Bankman-Fried’s downfall mean for philanthropy and Effective Altruism?"
• Vox, "Effective altruism gave rise to Sam Bankman-Fried. Now it’s facing a moral reckoning".
• SBF's ill-advised interview with Vox's Kelsey Piper
• Evan Huber's EA Forum post, "We must be very clear: fraud in the service of effective altruism is unacceptable"
• Why Philanthropy Matters article, "Why Am I Not an Effective Altruist?"
• Philanthropisms podcast on cryptophilanthropy
• Philanthropisms podcast on the philosophy of philanthropy
• Rhod's piece on "Marcus Rashford, Dolly Parton and public perceptions of Philanthropy"