WEBVTT - The Sam Bankman-Fried Update 0:00:01.800 --> 0:00:05.640 Welcome to the movies you liked as an adolescent and 0:00:05.680 --> 0:00:08.920 are now ashamed of shame cast. I'm Robert Evans and 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:14.480 today in the seat of eternal self hatred Jamie Loftus. Jamie, 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:18.040 you have just admitted, prior to the show starting that 0:00:18.160 --> 0:00:22.400 you once loved the Dana Carve Vehicle Master of Disguise. 0:00:22.800 --> 0:00:24.240 What do you have to say for yourself? 0:00:24.960 --> 0:00:27.960 I feel fucking sick with myself, Robert, I haven't been 0:00:27.960 --> 0:00:31.639 able to sleep in the twenty years since its release. 0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:35.120 In my defense, it came out on my birthday, which 0:00:35.120 --> 0:00:37.120 I feel like had a lot to do with why 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:39.920 I considered it my favorite movie. I felt a kingship 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:40.199 with it. 0:00:40.520 --> 0:00:44.240 Yeah, birthdays are like a performance enhancing drug for movies 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:45.440 that you see when you're eleven. 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:48.520 Absolutely true, the blood. 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:50.879 Doping of positive movie memories. 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:54.280 And furthermore, it's the most famous children's movie that was 0:00:54.280 --> 0:00:57.240 shooting on nine to eleven, And so I thank you. 0:00:57.360 --> 0:01:02.480 I wows felt like it would have been disloyal to 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:07.080 my country to say a word against the Master of Disguise, 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:11.039 particularly the turtle Turtle scene. However, you know, I think 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:15.000 the movie certainly doesn't hold up and I feel fucking 0:01:15.120 --> 0:01:16.960 sick with myself every single day. 0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:22.120 Yeah, I wonder because famously Dana Carvey was dressed as 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:24.840 the Turtle Man when those planes hit those towers, and 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:30.319 James Cameron was twenty thousand feet below sea level exploring 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:32.360 the bottom of the ocean, and I wonder if they 0:01:32.400 --> 0:01:35.200 ever cross paths at like a Hollywood event and started 0:01:35.200 --> 0:01:37.280 talking about nine to eleven, So what are you up 0:01:37.319 --> 0:01:38.160 to on that day? 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:43.240 And then Marlo Alberg just leans in apropos of nothing 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:43.880 and is like. 0:01:44.040 --> 0:01:47.920 If I was there, I would have stopped it. Oh, Jamie, 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:51.280 you know, I can honestly say nine to eleven was 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:53.080 the first time I felt like this country let me 0:01:53.200 --> 0:01:58.080 down because it delayed the release of the seminal Tim 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:02.560 Allen film Big Trouble, which it sure it sure did, 0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:05.960 features a classic Patrick Warburton performance, by the way, it 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:09.720 sure do. Goddamn right. You see his ass, everybody, if 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:12.600 you want to see Patrick Warburton's ass, it's in that movie. 0:02:13.240 --> 0:02:17.079 He is so underrated. I absolutely love love that man. 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:18.640 A total of talent. 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:24.000 Friends, just to say, this is behind the ba this. 0:02:23.919 --> 0:02:27.560 Is behind the Bastards. A podcast about none of the 0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:32.200 things that we were talking about. Uh, and today, actually, Jamie, 0:02:32.360 --> 0:02:35.080 I've got you back in the hot seat, back in 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:38.120 the office, which is more of an ephemeral feeling than 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:40.280 a physical space, making. 0:02:40.080 --> 0:02:43.119 Me an answer for my sins right off the jump. 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:46.720 Yeah, by talking again about our friend Sam Bankman Freed, 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:50.160 who you and I chatted about right after his life 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:53.560 collapsed last year, and I like we should do an update. 0:02:54.480 --> 0:02:56.800 I think we should too, because I'll be honest, I 0:02:57.000 --> 0:03:01.480 have done truly everything I can to avoid knowing more 0:03:01.520 --> 0:03:04.080 about him, so I would say I know basically nothing 0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:05.480 about him since we last spoke. 0:03:05.720 --> 0:03:08.400 Yeah, It's it's amazing because normally, you know, I'm an 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:11.320 empathetic being, Like Sam has a face that I've just 0:03:11.360 --> 0:03:13.399 always wanted to hit from the first time I saw 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:16.760 a picture of him. And normally when somebody goes through 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:19.639 this much shit, when like their life is this ruined, right, 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:22.720 Like I might I feel a little less like hitting 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:25.080 them because the world has hit them, but I still 0:03:25.160 --> 0:03:26.920 kind of want to sock him in the fucking jaw. 0:03:28.440 --> 0:03:30.079 Every time I see this guy. 0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:35.840 Let me just check it has his face changed. 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:39.000 He wears suits sometimes now when he goes to court, 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:41.720 He's not wearing the basketball shorts. 0:03:41.200 --> 0:03:44.640 Helpful and well, oh that's true. God, yeah, that's like 0:03:44.720 --> 0:03:50.240 two different versions of an embarrassing, desperate way to present. Okay, 0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:51.880 he's wearing a he's wearing a suit. 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:54.640 Now, yeah, he's wearing a suit. Now it looks like shit, 0:03:54.840 --> 0:03:58.040 but whatever. Of course, I try not to judge people 0:03:58.040 --> 0:04:01.640 on how they look unless that's part of the Cohn 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:04.560 and Sam as a guy for whom the dressing like 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:09.240 a slab was always part of his his like techbro genius, 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:13.160 you know, persona that he was putting on like a 0:04:13.440 --> 0:04:19.039 fooled every puddy. A mug shot, Oh yeah, yeah, there's 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:20.640 got I believe there's a mugshot of him out at 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:24.320 this point, certainly when he went at the Bahamas. So 0:04:24.360 --> 0:04:27.120 when we last left our buddy Sam in November of 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:29.200 twenty twenty two, he had been arrested in the Bahamas 0:04:29.200 --> 0:04:31.880 and extradited to the United States, where he was charged 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:35.000 with so many financial crimes that he might theoretically spend 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:36.880 more than one hundred and fifteen years in prison. 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:38.000 Wow. 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:41.280 Now, in the days and months since, a lot has happened, 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:43.159 and a lot more has come out about how the 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:46.680 former crypto mogul behaved before and after his fall. I 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:49.320 want to start with some of the latter information, because 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:51.800 by far, the most entertaining story to drop as a 0:04:51.800 --> 0:04:55.279 result of these serried legal filings against Sam is that 0:04:55.600 --> 0:04:58.960 he was using the nonprofit arm of FTX to attempt 0:04:59.000 --> 0:05:00.960 to buy a sovereign name he could use as an 0:05:00.960 --> 0:05:04.719 apocalypse shelter. That is by far the funniest story that's 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:08.279 dropped about these guys in the days months since. 0:05:09.000 --> 0:05:10.400 What was the plan there? 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:16.440 Oh, that's a great question, Jamie. So let's talk about 0:05:16.480 --> 0:05:20.360 the island of Nauru. It's an island in the southwest Pacific. 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:22.599 I think it's about twenty one hundred miles away from 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:25.279 the coast of Australia, which, given the fact that Australia 0:05:25.360 --> 0:05:27.159 is really out in the middle of nowhere, is pretty 0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:32.080 close to Australia. It is presently the world's smallest island nation. 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:34.600 It's got a population of about twelve thousand or so, 0:05:34.760 --> 0:05:38.279 not a ton of people, and as an incredibly tiny country, 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:40.760 one of its primary assets is simply the fact that 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:44.320 it is a sovereign nation. Because there's things that countries 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:47.080 can do then nothing else can do, like issue certain 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:49.800 kinds like passports and visas and do certain kinds of 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:52.440 things with banking. Right, So, if you're a really tiny 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:56.080 country that doesn't have like a shitload of natural resources, 0:05:56.360 --> 0:05:59.360 one thing you can export is the benefits of your sovereignty. 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:03.040 To say, really rich people who who might want certain 0:06:03.200 --> 0:06:05.560 things that you can do as a country. 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:07.599 Plan is coming to get. 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:11.960 So there's a number of ways in which Naru has 0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:14.120 kind of taken advantage of this to get by. One 0:06:14.160 --> 0:06:16.840 of them is that they've sort of sold access to 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:20.680 their land to Australia to use, so that Australia has 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:23.839 used them for years as an offshore processing center for 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:27.920 asylum seekers. I think this stopped most recently in twenty nineteen, 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:29.680 but there's been a couple of waves of this and 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:32.560 it was not a pleasant place, right. Conditions were so 0:06:32.720 --> 0:06:36.320 brutal in sort of the offshore processing center on Nauru 0:06:36.480 --> 0:06:39.880 from twenty twelve to twenty nineteen that several residents carried 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:44.039 out like deadly forms of protests, sowing their own lipshut 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:46.760 or lighting themselves on fire as a protest of the 0:06:46.800 --> 0:06:52.000 conditions they were facing. Pretty ugly scene in the late 0:06:52.080 --> 0:06:54.600 nineteen nineties. Kind of prior to this period, NARU was 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:58.440 the chief money laundering location for the emerging Russian oligarch class. 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:00.960 They helped a lot of these. All the archetypes you've 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:03.279 heard about in the context of Putin laund are about 0:07:03.320 --> 0:07:05.960 seventy billion dollars in the ill gotten funds during the 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:07.839 early stages of the Russian Federation. 0:07:08.720 --> 0:07:10.320 I have a good bastard's cameo. 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:14.120 Oh yeah, no, Naro's nar who's adjacent to a whole 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:18.119 lot of shitty people. Great, yeah, here, it's a lovely place. 0:07:18.840 --> 0:07:22.040 Narus also designated a money laundering state by the US 0:07:22.080 --> 0:07:24.600 Treasury in two thousand and two, which led to sanctions, 0:07:24.600 --> 0:07:26.800 which I think is probably why they moved to like 0:07:26.920 --> 0:07:29.920 letting Australia offshore migrants there for a while. And since 0:07:29.960 --> 0:07:33.920 Australia stopped doing that in twenty nineteen, Sam Bankman, Freed 0:07:34.000 --> 0:07:36.720 and his fellow effective altruists felt like they might have 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:39.320 had an opportunity there, right, Like Naru's kind of looking 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:42.160 for some new cash flow. They're looking for a sovereign 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:44.080 nation to do some things for. 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:48.360 Well, it's an opportunity to be effective. 0:07:48.280 --> 0:07:53.360 Yeah, yeah, to be effectively altruistic towards yourself. Specifically, Sam 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:56.280 and his brother Gabriel Bankman Freed is actually the guy 0:07:56.400 --> 0:08:02.520 sort of like organizing this attempted endeavor using ftx's charitable 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:05.960 donation's arm and their goal was to purchase the entire 0:08:06.000 --> 0:08:09.640 island in order to construct what Gabe called a bunker, 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:12.640 shelter that would be used to quote ensure that most 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:16.120 effective altruists survive in the event that between fifty percent 0:08:16.160 --> 0:08:18.240 and ninety nine point nine to nine percent of the 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:20.840 world population perishing a catastrophe. 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:25.000 Jesus, And that's like a pretty common this. I feel 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:27.679 like the Gabe of the situation is a very common 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:33.200 character in bat like just the devious brother. I mean, 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:35.760 I hate the bastard most of all, but I really 0:08:35.800 --> 0:08:38.640 detest the devious brother as well. There's just it just 0:08:38.720 --> 0:08:41.439 weeks of insecurity get your own grift man. 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:43.719 Especially since they're framing it not as look, you know, 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:45.360 when you got like a guy like Peter teal right, 0:08:45.400 --> 0:08:47.800 and everybody knows Peter Teel's got like an evil rich 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:50.080 guy bunker to wait out the end of the world 0:08:50.120 --> 0:08:52.400 if it happens, and like, fuck Peter teal but at 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:55.160 least that's Peter Tel's not pretending I have a bunker 0:08:55.200 --> 0:08:57.880 to like, save the world by putting aside just the 0:08:57.920 --> 0:08:59.640 best people. He's like, no, I'm a giant piece of 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:02.440 shit and I'm going to save myself if things go wrong. Okay, 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:05.520 like fucking Peter Teel, but at least it's honest. They're 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:08.240 framing it as my blood bunker for just boys. Yeah, 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:12.520 it's me and my blood boys. Jabe is like, no, 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:14.880 we have to in the event there's an apocalypse, we 0:09:14.960 --> 0:09:17.600 have to save all the eas because they're the best people, 0:09:17.880 --> 0:09:20.200 and that's what's best for the world that will do. 0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:23.440 We're utilitarians, right, The greatest good for the greatest number 0:09:23.440 --> 0:09:25.520 of people is to save all of the best people, 0:09:25.720 --> 0:09:28.319 which is me and my friends, the other finance kids 0:09:28.480 --> 0:09:30.800 who call themselves effective altruists, so they don't have to 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:33.040 feel bad for the fact that all they do is 0:09:33.080 --> 0:09:36.040 play the stock market like every other piece of shit anyway. 0:09:36.240 --> 0:09:37.680 So lucky that they all met each other. 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:41.760 So lucky all the good people I would love, I 0:09:41.800 --> 0:09:45.320 would love honestly, Like, look, when the strike is over, 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:47.920 somebody at a network, bring me on. I will write 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:52.040 you a banger fucking script about an apocalypse where just 0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:54.360 the EA guys are left in their bunker. Trying to 0:09:54.400 --> 0:09:55.400 figure out society. 0:09:55.520 --> 0:10:01.040 Okay, another incentive to end the strike would fucking rip. 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:03.360 Yeah, yeah, we could do. We could do quite a tale. 0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:05.439 We could have some fun with this one, Jamie. 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:10.400 I don't I think that there would be some effective altruism, 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:13.600 uh like ridiculous enough to do cameos. 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:16.320 Oh, I believe we could get We could get fucking 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:20.000 William mccaskell in. There no problem bring his Scottish ass 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:20.520 on board. 0:10:20.679 --> 0:10:22.440 Yeah, vain little perverts. 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:26.320 Oh, and they're all They're all I'm gonna be honest, 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:28.679 kind of stupid. So I bet we could trick him, 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:32.560 like you don't have journalistic ethics with an HBO show. Yeah, 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:34.880 we could just say we're bringing them on for an interview. 0:10:35.120 --> 0:10:37.560 We could like film around him, liking what was that 0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:46.240 fucking movie with uh? Oh yeah, Steve Martin where they 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:49.600 where they have to film the fake movie around Uh 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:50.960 what is it Chris rock Ship. 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:54.880 Oh, it's the It's oh. 0:10:55.960 --> 0:10:58.000 See now you're now now now it's I know, it's 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:00.160 driving me nuts. We have to figure this out. Uh. 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:02.160 I rewatched it recently. 0:11:02.679 --> 0:11:03.319 It holds up. 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:06.800 It does hold up. It's like one of the best movies. 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:09.280 Bofinger fucking dope. 0:11:09.400 --> 0:11:09.800 Younger. 0:11:09.960 --> 0:11:12.400 We could do a bow Finger with William mccaskell where 0:11:12.440 --> 0:11:15.360 he thinks he's getting interviewed for a documentary and we're 0:11:15.400 --> 0:11:18.400 really making him the bad guy off our HBO series, 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:22.760 bringing Steve Martin to fuck it. He's still he still 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:23.120 got it. 0:11:23.840 --> 0:11:26.199 Yeah, he's got good politics. He'd be great. 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:31.360 Yeah. Uh glad, glad we remembered it. Watch Bowfinger, guys. 0:11:31.400 --> 0:11:34.200 It holds up truly if you take anything away from today, 0:11:34.280 --> 0:11:36.560 it really does. I was shocked at how well it helped. 0:11:36.640 --> 0:11:42.480 Yeah, startlingly good movie, pretty good, like scientology joke. So, 0:11:42.960 --> 0:11:47.240 Gabriel Bankman freed ran ftx's charitable donations wing, which included 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:49.720 a ton of money, for what many people have characterized 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:53.440 as political bribes. I'm not saying that he was bribing 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:55.480 politicians for FTX. I'm saying that's what a lot of 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:58.400 people have characterized what he was doing as. Now that 0:11:58.559 --> 0:12:00.480 much has been known for a why, But it was 0:12:00.520 --> 0:12:03.800 not until the current management of what remains of FTX 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:07.040 sued Sam. Because again there's new management that's trying to 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:09.280 recover as much money as possible and they're throwing Sam 0:12:09.320 --> 0:12:11.600 under the bus. Because why wouldn't they, And that's how 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:13.520 all this stuff got revealed because they have all of 0:12:13.640 --> 0:12:17.000 ftx's internal communications, so they found a bunch of shit 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:20.240 like that Sam was having Gabriel try to buy the 0:12:20.280 --> 0:12:23.959 island of Nauru. Now it is unclear how serious their 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:26.800 attempt to buy this island was a representative of the 0:12:26.840 --> 0:12:29.880 island's government has been like, no, no, no, we were 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:32.360 never putting our island for sale. This was never a 0:12:32.360 --> 0:12:35.520 thing that was going to happen. And maybe that is 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:38.240 the case, maybe they were just being idiots fucking around. 0:12:38.520 --> 0:12:41.320 But in a memo between Gabriel and an FTX officer, 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:44.800 the discussion was centered around the idea of buying the island, 0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:47.120 of being in control of it as a sovereign country, 0:12:47.440 --> 0:12:50.040 not just purchasing land, which is cool. 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:51.920 I mean that's a lot of work for a bit. 0:12:52.080 --> 0:12:54.400 Not that I put it past him, but I'm just like, 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:55.839 it's not sounding like. 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:59.559 Yeah, no, I think I don't put it past It's 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:03.840 possible that Naru whatever is telling whatever government officials telling 0:13:03.840 --> 0:13:06.400 the truth they were never considering selling the island. But 0:13:06.440 --> 0:13:09.280 it's also possible that Gabe at all believed they could 0:13:09.320 --> 0:13:10.679 buy the island, right. 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:14.079 Right, they may in fact be that dumb. 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:18.120 Yeah, yeah, yeah, Now there were discussions between these FDx 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:22.280 guys about using Naru as a base for human genetic experimentation. 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:25.520 You get the feeling that what their goal was to 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:30.480 create modified posthuman godlike bodies for their fellow effective altruists 0:13:30.480 --> 0:13:34.200 so that they live forever and dominate mankind after the 0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:36.520 collapse is undying immortals. 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:43.360 That just sent the ugliest photoshopped image like it was involuntary. 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:50.439 How quickly the like no neck, huge chest photoshops super. 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:55.679 So absolutely absolutely, Hey yeah, it sounds like a mix 0:13:55.760 --> 0:13:59.920 between that one video game with the big robot dinosaur 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:03.800 and those sci fi books by that guy who wound 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:08.319 up being real anti Muslim But yeah, oh yeah. 0:14:08.120 --> 0:14:09.520 A lot would be a lot of guys. I wonder 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:10.040 which guy. 0:14:10.320 --> 0:14:14.720 Oh it's I think Ilium and olympos okay, I forget 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:16.760 the name of the author, but the premise of the 0:14:16.760 --> 0:14:19.280 book is that like in the future, a bunch of 0:14:19.400 --> 0:14:22.120 rich guys turn themselves into gods and decide to like 0:14:22.240 --> 0:14:25.160 recreate the Trojan War with themselves as the Greek gods, 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:28.560 and they like resurrect a bunch of dead archaeologists to 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:31.160 make sure that they get the details right. It's it's fun, 0:14:31.280 --> 0:14:33.840 it's it's it's quite a series, except for the weird 0:14:33.880 --> 0:14:39.200 moments of bigotry. Oh that good stuff. Dan Simmons I think, 0:14:39.320 --> 0:14:43.480 is the author anyway. So, yeah, they're talking about we 0:14:43.560 --> 0:14:47.320 want to create a human genetic experimentation base, and they're like, 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:50.440 we want to figure out what the sensible regulations around 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:53.080 human genetic enhancement are, but we also want to build 0:14:53.080 --> 0:14:57.480 a lab. And while they're talking about this, Gabriel ads cryptically, 0:14:57.720 --> 0:14:59.920 probably there are other things it's useful to do with 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:03.000 sovereign country. I don't know what he means by that, 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:07.600 but yeah, probably huh. So that could be as banal 0:15:07.760 --> 0:15:10.320 is just like money laundering, which NARU obviously is quite 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:13.520 a history of, or issuing things like passports. But given 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:16.040 the fact that all these dummies are permanently poisoned by 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:18.680 a mixture of sci fi fandoms and weird futurist cults, 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:20.440 I think it's safe to say we all dodged a 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:22.360 bullet by the fact that they never got too far 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:26.520 in this scheme. Now, my favorite thing about this whole 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:29.120 idea is how dumb it is. On its face, there 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:32.720 are some countries that could act as really good apocalypse 0:15:32.720 --> 0:15:34.920 shelters for the super rich. Right, Switzerland is one. A 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:37.840 lot of rich people have their apocalypse shelters in Switzerland. 0:15:38.160 --> 0:15:41.200 New Zealand is another. But the problem for that is that, 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:44.640 like Switzerland and New Zealand are both functional states. Obviously, 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:47.280 if you're a billionaire there, you can have some outsized influence, 0:15:47.320 --> 0:15:49.440 but you're not just gonna run everything because there's other 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:53.440 interests and like a functional system of government in place 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:56.200 in all of those places. I think Sam and them 0:15:56.240 --> 0:15:58.480 were hoping that since Naru's small enough, they could just 0:15:58.600 --> 0:16:01.920 utterly dominate the government, but they ignored the fact that 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:05.000 it's like one of the worst places imaginable to have 0:16:05.200 --> 0:16:08.400 as an apocalypse shelter. For one thing, the island does 0:16:08.440 --> 0:16:10.880 not grow much food, which means it has to import 0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:13.080 in ninety percent of what it needs to sustain its 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:15.400 very small population it has. 0:16:15.560 --> 0:16:17.480 It's all good, we have so much money. 0:16:17.960 --> 0:16:22.280 It's okay, we'll just keep importing it. Yeah. It also 0:16:22.360 --> 0:16:25.120 has very little fresh water, and most of its infrastructure 0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:27.400 is on the coast and vulnerable to both rising sea 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:30.560 levels and hurricanes. It is very close to the bottom 0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:32.600 of places that you would want to have as a shelter. 0:16:34.200 --> 0:16:38.760 So very funny. All these people are silly, now, Jamie. 0:16:39.360 --> 0:16:43.160 The main reason current FTX is revealing all this is 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:46.520 that they are suing the old management of the country company, 0:16:46.600 --> 0:16:49.400 i e. SAM, to try and reclaim a billion or 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:52.920 so dollars they argue was funneled illegally into nonsense like 0:16:52.960 --> 0:16:55.440 this and into the pockets of bankment Freed and his 0:16:55.520 --> 0:16:59.160 lieutenants in the months before FTX collapsed due to insolvency. 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:03.640 Suit against SAM also includes some more confounding lines described 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:05.719 in this paragraph from an article on the suit by 0:17:05.760 --> 0:17:09.359 crypto news site decrypt. The lawsuit further says that the 0:17:09.359 --> 0:17:12.679 projects run by the FTX Foundation were frequently misguided and 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:16.720 sometimes dystopian. These included a three hundred dollars one thousand 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:19.200 dollars grant to an individual to write a book about 0:17:19.200 --> 0:17:22.480 how to figure out what humans utility function are, as 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:24.800 well as a four hundred thousand dollars grant to an 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:28.840 entity that posted YouTube videos related to rationalist and effective 0:17:28.840 --> 0:17:34.399 altruism material, including videos on grabby aliens. Now does that 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:37.320 all seem like nonsense to you, Jamie? 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:40.000 I don't know. Robert let's hear them out about the 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:41.280 grabby alien. 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:44.520 Don't worry, I'm going to explain all of this horseshit 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:44.960 to you. 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:50.439 Uh my god, what kind of Rick and Morty ass nonsense? 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:53.600 It is some Rick and Morty ass nonsense. It's much 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:55.960 dumber than anything in Rick and Morty because at least 0:17:56.000 --> 0:17:58.800 some of the people there understand story structure. 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:02.160 Unlike the at Please understand that it's a joke. 0:18:02.160 --> 0:18:05.320 But it's a bit. Yes, yeah, so if you aren't 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:08.520 terminally adhered to one of the stupidest subcultures in the 0:18:08.560 --> 0:18:11.359 broader tech sphere, that probably does seem like nonsense, and 0:18:11.440 --> 0:18:13.840 it is. But let's start with the bit about paying 0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:16.720 someone three hundred grand to write about what a human's 0:18:16.840 --> 0:18:20.479 utility function is? Now, yes, what is a utility function? 0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:25.080 Great question? In economics, a utility function is the measure 0:18:25.119 --> 0:18:28.719 of welfare or satisfaction of a consumer as a function 0:18:28.760 --> 0:18:32.200 of the consumption of real goods like food. In simple terms, 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:34.840 it's a way of describing the satisfaction or other benefits 0:18:34.880 --> 0:18:38.680 gained by consuming a specific resource. This is important to 0:18:38.800 --> 0:18:41.399 rational choice theory, which is a theory that states that 0:18:41.480 --> 0:18:45.680 individuals use rational calculations to make rational choices to achieve 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:49.359 outcomes aligned with their own objectives. Now, most people who 0:18:49.400 --> 0:18:52.280 aren't economists think that talking about the economy this way 0:18:52.320 --> 0:18:55.480 is silly, because people are not in fact rational actors, 0:18:55.480 --> 0:18:58.120 and in fact, we make shitty decisions all the time, 0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:01.840 guided by misinformation or pressure that causes us to inaccurately 0:19:01.840 --> 0:19:04.920 interpret the potential value of something like a college education 0:19:05.320 --> 0:19:07.520 versus the cost of say, student loans. 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:11.960 Right, one could argue that Sam Bankman, Freed and co. 0:19:12.119 --> 0:19:14.840 Are a great example of a wonderful example of the 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:20.560 IR But that's economics. This is not an economics podcast. 0:19:20.560 --> 0:19:22.879 I'm not an economist, And the way that Bankman, Freed 0:19:22.960 --> 0:19:26.000 and his fellow Eas talk about utility functions is not 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:28.800 the same as how economists talk about it. Right, So 0:19:28.840 --> 0:19:30.960 when economists are talking about this, it's part of how 0:19:30.960 --> 0:19:34.320 to kind of figure out why people might make rational 0:19:34.400 --> 0:19:37.679 choices by understanding like the value of sort of the ranked, 0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:40.600 like preference they give to certain things that they might 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:44.520 expend resources on. Broadly speaking, when Bankman, Freed, and Eas 0:19:44.560 --> 0:19:48.440 talk about utility functions, what they mean is something even 0:19:48.520 --> 0:19:51.040 more abstract. And I'm going to quote from a summary 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:53.760 from a write up on a effective altruism dot Org, 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:55.760 a website you should avoid at all costs. 0:19:56.160 --> 0:19:56.440 Quote. 0:19:56.480 --> 0:19:58.840 I'm really not looking forward to finding out how this 0:19:58.960 --> 0:20:01.640 somehow relates to to the grabby aliens. 0:20:02.000 --> 0:20:05.280 I'm sorry in a very dumb way, Jamie. 0:20:05.359 --> 0:20:09.120 Quote Okay, good eas and rationalists love dropping the term 0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:12.159 in every conversation. Using the term utility function can be 0:20:12.560 --> 0:20:15.760 immensely helpful when aiming to maximize positive impact or do 0:20:15.880 --> 0:20:18.959 the most good. The concept of a utility function provides 0:20:19.000 --> 0:20:22.360 a systematic way to quantify and compare the potential benefits 0:20:22.359 --> 0:20:25.399 of different actions, thus helping to guide decision making towards 0:20:25.400 --> 0:20:28.840 the most effective outcomes. By representing values, goals, or beneficial 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:32.560 outcomes numerically, utility functions allow for a structured comparison and 0:20:32.640 --> 0:20:35.879 prioritization of actions. If, for example, your goal is to 0:20:35.920 --> 0:20:39.720 alleviate global suffering, you could assign values to different charitable 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:43.520 actions based on their estimated impact, thus creating utility function. 0:20:43.800 --> 0:20:46.399 This function can then guide you to allocate your resources 0:20:46.440 --> 0:20:48.479 like time or money, where they will generate the greatest 0:20:48.560 --> 0:20:52.639 utility or good. Now, that just seems like you're saying 0:20:53.000 --> 0:20:55.359 you should try to figure out how your money's gonna 0:20:55.400 --> 0:20:58.080 be spent best right before you spend it. But that's 0:20:58.119 --> 0:21:00.280