Sam Bankman-Fried perfected unadulterated hedonism. People forget that—more than food or fancy houses—being famous for being a good person and believing you are a good person is EXTREMELY pleasurable. SBF’s life & lifestyle were defined by a constant search for pleasure. 🧵 (1/8)

SBF engaged at the highest levels of preformative virtue, supporting everything from EA to progressivism—and spared no expense to ensure his virtue was recognized. Meanwhile, he never offered anything to causes that could be controversial. (2/8)

SBF was surrounded by people who understood the immense risks associated with demographic collapse (@leopoldasch & @willmacaskill) yet FTX FF avoided efforts tied to the topic like the plague (be they direct like Pronatalist.org or indirect like education reform). (3/8)

If you are unaware why demographic collapse is such a big, inevitable problem see: docs.google.com/document/d/1Wx6D3iFcB9eEE4EbQRogI9W-DunauGO3lj8SZDR6vYM/edit (4/8)

Compare someone like SBF to someone like @elonmusk. A lot of the things Musk does piss people off (even us sometimes), but in doing so he demonstrates that he doesn’t do what he does just for praise. The fact that saying this will piss some people off is proof of that. (5/8)

When someone believes they are good and follows the dominant social narrative defining good, they are both highly motivated to define any action they take as good (because a “good person” took it) and not question themselves (b/c society backs them up). (6/8)

But also, let's not kid ourselves: SBF might have signaled austerity, but at every point of his life in which he could have *not* indulged, he chose to indulge. That was true from the way he structured his relationships to his diet and the way he dressed. (7/8)

When someone signals they’re a good person but doesn’t break from the predominant social narrative, note that wanting to be a good person & wanting people to *think* you’re a good person are not aligned missions. In reality, the good guy sometimes has to play the villain. (8/8)