On Background: Effective Altruism Still Has Friends (Michael Lewis's Against the Rules)

By Eevee🔹 @ 2023-06-13T22:04 (+25)

This is a linkpost to https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/against-the-rules/on-background-effective-altruism-still-has-friends

As many of you may know, Michael Lewis is working on a new book about Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX. He's done several "background" interviews to get to understand the people in his story better, and has been publishing some of them as a podcast series. This is his background interview with two members of the effective altruism community, Gabriel Mukobi and aL Xin. Here's the episode description:

One-time crypto-currency king Sam Bankman-Fried was a big proponent of a philosophical movement known as “effective altruism,” or EA. Advocates of EA say we should use data and reason to find the best ways of doing good. EA’s popularity grew as investors like Bankman-Fried used it to guide generous donations to causes. Micheal Lewis speaks with two college students who got involved in effective altruism through clubs at their universities. Gabriel Mukobi and aL Xin explain the philosophy behind effective altruism and what impact the rise and fall of Sam Bankman-Fried has had on the movement.