'How to Lose $35 Billion with Philosophy'

"What are the odds that the clueless young bro who created the
biggest financial fiasco of the year is connected to the clueless
young bro who created the biggest financial fiasco of the decade?"

"In the last few days, you may have heard about Leopold Aschenbrenner—the wonder kid hedge fund manager who lost tens of billions over the course of a few days. It’s the biggest financial fiasco of the year.

"If you didn’t read about it in the news, don’t worry. Hollywood will certainly make it into a movie. This 25-year-old hot shot’s financial empire was literally collapsing while guests were showing up for his blowout wedding at a fake Tuscan villa in Carmel, California. The screenplay practically writes itself....

"This tyro’s investing strategy looks more like gambling addiction than high finance. Aschenbrenner borrowed to the hilt, using four time leverage to buy AI stocks by the truckload. Then he added to his risk by shorting companies he was sure AI would replace. In other words, instead of hedging his AI position—which is standard practice (and why they call them hedge funds), he doubled down, setting himself up for a failure of Biblical proportions.

"When you take chances like this, even a small downturn in AI stocks will wipe out your entire capital. That’s pretty much what happened last week.

"I wanted to learn more about the young man behind this collapse—so I went to his Wikipedia page. There I discovered his connection to fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried and the latter’s Effective Altruism philosophy.

"What are the odds that the clueless young bro who created the biggest financial fiasco of the year is connected to the clueless young bro who created the biggest financial fiasco of the decade?

"But there it is.

And—another coincidence!—the woman who assisted Bankman-Fried, and served 14 months in prison for fraud and money laundering, also helped run her college’s Effective Altruism club.

This is getting to be a trend.

"But, of course, none of this is coincidence...."

~ Ted Gioia from his post 'How to Lose $35 Billion with Philosophy'

"If Effective Altruism was a movement that simply called on charities to more rigorously measure their impact, they would be an unequivocal force for good in the world. But that is not all that it argues for. Effective Altruism is a crusading movement that argues you have a moral obligation to 'do the most good' in the world, and it defines 'the most good' in strictly utilitarian terms.

"'The most good' means promoting humanity’s well-being. Morally, you are to be indifferent between your own life and the lives of others. Since those others vastly outnumber you, this means in practice a demand for radical self-sacrifice.

"No, Effective Altruists don’t take this to its ultimate, consistent conclusion. You don’t have to literally turn yourself into a meal for others to feast on. But the closer you can strive to lower your own standard of living in order to raise the standard of living of those worse off than you, the better. (See “Peter Singer is Truly Awful.”)

"And it’s not just your wealth that you’re supposed to sacrifice. You’re supposed to sacrifice the irreplaceable moments of your life: instead of choosing a career that you love, Effective Altruists urge you to choose a career that will maximize your earnings so you’ll have more wealth to give away. You’re even supposed to give away your internal organs to strangers. (See “How Many Kidneys Does Sam Harris Have?”)

"In short, the basic moral premise Effective Altruists crusades for is that you don’t have a right to exist for the sake of your own happiness—you exist as a tool to serve others.

"But that raises a troubling question: why bother saving lives in the first place? So that there are more servants to serve servants to serve servants? If more people exist, but exist in the soul-crushing state of living death Rand describes in [her early novel] 'We the Living,' is that really a victory? If the happiness of a single individual is not sacrosanct, if we are all to throw away our lives to maximise some 'general good' that is good for no one in particular, then what the hell is the point?

"Effective Altruists may be reducing deaths—but they are enemies of life. And, actually, it’s not even clear they are reducing deaths...."

~ Don Watkins from his 2023 post 'Has Effective Altruism done anything good for the world?' [emphases in the original]

Crypto scammer Sam Bankman-Fried in his proper place

"Sam Bankman-Fried [CEO of the fraudulent FTX cryptocurrency exchange], was a leading advocate for and financial sponsor of the 'effective altruist' movement. ...

"Whatever the role of Bankman-Fried’s philosophy in FTX’s collapse, effective altruism is increasingly influential and warrants scrutiny. In essence, effective altruism stresses the importance of using a [long-term] rational, scientific approach to calculate the most efficient way to help the most people, especially through charitable giving, as opposed to giving your money away for sentimental reasons. It attracts an audience of highly intelligent, scientifically oriented, secular people.

"But the more we learn about the causes the effective altruist leadership has embraced, the more we should question the moral foundation of the movement. As we’ll see, this is something that even the movement’s fiercest critics have been unwilling to do. ...

"[Some] critics of longtermist altruism claim that its obsession with sci-fi hypotheticals is inexcusable when there are real people suffering and dying in our world today. ... Still others claim the problem isn’t amoralism, but excessive idealism ... None of these critics seriously consider the intellectual content of the ideal of altruism itself ... [especially] longtermism’s call for all of us to sacrifice to the distant future. ...

"Remember, 'the future is big.' If altruism is to be understood in the popular utilitarian way, by looking to consequences of one’s actions for the largest number of people, why wouldn’t one look to the very long-term future where most of the other people will be? ... [after all] a utilitarian concerned with the impersonal consequences of our actions should regard distance in time as no more morally significant than distance in space.

"Although they’re criticised for reaching absurd conclusions, longtermists like MacAskill and Bankman-Fried are just following the logic of the path that’s been laid down by eminent moral philosophers. To simplify that path: morality is really about caring more about others than about yourself, since there are so many more others than you who need your equal attention. And the best way to be concerned with the most others who are far away from your rather insignificant, fragmented self is to concern yourself with the vast future beyond your interests.

"If longtermism is absurd, but the longtermists are just following the logic of the altruist moral ideal, we should take seriously that this ideal is the real source of longtermist absurdities. ...

"In the wake of the FTX scandal, [Bankman-Fried's teacher] William MacAskill himself weighed in on Twitter to condemn Bankman-Fried, arguing that serious effective altruists do not use naked 'end justifies the means' reasoning, and instead value integrity and honesty. Yet, as one philosopher responding to MacAskill noted, utilitarians who see some utility in “common sense morality” can be reliably counted on to say we can suspend it when there are big enough stakes.

"Any philosophy is subject to cynical use and manipulation by insincere advocates. But a philosophy that gives a pass to anyone who is not acting for his own sake but only for the sake of others is uniquely subject to abuse. A philosophy that says give up what you love and work for others is a tool in the hands of anyone who is willing to speak on behalf of others to gain power over those willing to give up what they love. It’s an especially dangerous tool when those who gain the power convince themselves that it is noble to use it, not for their own sake, but for the sake of a nameless, faceless future [for which they claim to speak].

"How, indeed, would one apply such a philosophy without abusing the lives of the people who practice it? Ayn Rand put her finger on the essence of the altruist morality long before advocates of altruism began to make their meaning as explicit as the effective altruists now have. In her novel 'Atlas Shrugged,' she puts these words in the mouth of one character whose workplace has adopted a similar philosophy: 'Do you care to imagine what it would be like, if you had to live and to work, when you’re tied to all the disasters and all the malingering of the globe? . . . To work — on a blank check held by every creature born, by men whom you’ll never see, whose needs you’ll never know, whose ability or laziness or sloppiness or fraud you have no way to learn and no right to question — just to work and work and work — and leave it up to the [altruists] of the world to decide whose stomach will consume the effort, the dreams and the days of your life. And this is the moral law to accept? This — a moral ideal?'"

~ Ben Bayer in his 2023 explanatory post 'Effective Altruism’s Faith-Based Sacrifice for the Future'

"It stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there's someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master."

~ Ayn Rand from her chapter '"The Soul of a Collectivist,' in her 1963 book For the New Intellectual

Utilitarianism is bunk

"[Utilitarians], in the fashion of [Jeremy] Bentham, pronounce the greatest happiness of the greatest number to be the social end, although they fail to make it intelligible why the happiness of the greater number should be cogent as an end upon those who happen to belong to the lesser number."

~ Felix Adler from his essay “The Relation of Ethics to Social Science,” in H.J. Rogers, ed., Congress of Arts and Science (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1906), vol. 7, p. 673 [cited in Murray Rothbard's article 'Utilitarian Free-Market Economics']

We're reminded today of a man ranked by Hayek as one of the greatest classical liberals.  In this guest post by Jim Powell, we learn about William Ewart Gladstone, who so often started on the wrong side of an issue, and so frequently thought his way to the right side ...

William Ewart Gladstone’s Great Campaigns for Peace and Freedom

by Jim Powell

IN THE HEYDAY OF CLASSICAL LIBERALISM, British politics was dominated by one man: William Ewart Gladstone. He entered Parliament at age 23, first held a cabinet post at 34, and delivered his last speech as a Member when he was 84. He served as Prime Minister four times.

Nobel Laureate F.A. Hayek ranked Gladstone among the greatest classical liberals. Lord Acton believed Gladstone’s supremacy was undisputed. Paul Johnson declared there is no parallel to his record of achievement in English history. One might add there are few parallels anywhere.

As Chancellor of the Exchequer in four ministries, Gladstone fought the most powerful interest groups. He helped abolish more than 1,000—about 95 percent—of Britain’s tariffs. He cut and abolished other taxes year after year. Imagine, if you possibly can, our income tax with a single rate of 1.25 percent. That’s what was left of the British income tax when Gladstone got through hammering it down. He wasn’t satisfied, because he wanted to wipe it out.

Gladstone believed the cost of war should be a deterrent to militarism. He insisted on a policy of financing war exclusively by taxation. He opposed borrowing money for war, since this would make it easier, and future generations would be unfairly burdened.

Gladstone’s most glorious political campaigns came late in life: to stop British imperialism and to give the oppressed Irish self-government. Gladstone showed that even in such lost causes, friends of freedom had the strength and courage to put up a tremendous fight that would never be forgotten.

TO BE SURE, GLADSTONE WASN'T A perfect hero. Having matured in an era when his government had limited power and committed few horrors, Gladstone figured it could do some good. For instance, he approved taxes for government schools. But part of the problem was that government revenues soared as Gladstone cut tariffs and other taxes, and political pressure became overwhelming for government to spend some of the loot.

Despite his errors, Gladstone towered above his rivals. His most famous opponent was Benjamin Disraeli, the Tory who promoted higher taxes, more powerful government, and imperial conquest. Gladstone’s liberal rivals were mostly fans of Viscount Palmerston, best known for his bullying of weaker countries. During the late nineteenth century, Gladstone’s chief Liberal rival was Joseph Chamberlain, a socialist who became a vigorous imperialist. Without Gladstone’s influence, there probably would have been fewer gains for liberty, and the losses probably would have come faster.

Gladstone’s enduring contribution was to stress the moral imperative for liberty. Influential British philosophers Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill had almost banished morality from political discussion, as they touted the greatest-good-for-the-greatest-number principle, but Gladstone brought out the moral dimension of taxes, trade, everything. Whatever he did, remarked historian A.J.P. Taylor, was a holy cause. 

Gladstone’s moral fervor was a key to his popular appeal. As historian J.L. Hammond observed: It is safe to say that for one portrait of anybody else in working-class houses, there were ten of Gladstone.

Gladstone vanquishes Disraeli

The public interest ..."

“'The common good' (or 'the public interest') is an undefined and undefinable concept: there is no such entity as 'the tribe' or 'the public'; the tribe (or the public or society) is only a number of individual men. Nothing can be good for the tribe as such; 'good'' and 'value' pertain only to a living organism—to an individual living organism—not to a disembodied aggregate of
relationships.
    “'The common good' is a meaningless concept, unless taken literally, in which case its only possible meaning is: the sum of the good of all the individual men involved. But in that case, the concept is meaningless as a moral criterion: it leaves open the question of what is the good of individual men and how does one determine it? ...
    "So long as a concept such as 'the public interest' (or the 'social' or 'national' or 'international' interest) is regarded as a valid principle to guide legislation [however, then] lobbies and pressure groups will necessarily continue to exist. 

    "Since there is no such entity as 'the public,' since the public is merely a number of individuals, the idea that 'the public interest' supersedes private interests and rights can have but one meaning: that the interests and rights of some individuals take precedence over the interests and rights of others."

~ Ayn Rand, a composite quote from her essays 'What is Capitalism?' and 'The Pull Peddlers,' collected in her book Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal

Not everything that's measured is important. And not everything's that's important can be measured.

"What gets measured gets managed. But I’m saying something stronger here. If we are not careful, what gets measured is all we manage. We don’t just pay more attention to what is in the light. We forget what is in the shadows. We forget about the rest of the things that do not get captured in measures we become accustomed to studying and using.
    "Our desire to quantify complexity seduces us into ignoring [valuable] things that are less easily measured.... Other factors get forgotten [whose] effects, if real, are virtually impossible to quantify.... These intangibles are hard to keep in mind....

This is one of the first mistakes we can make with [a raw number] — we forget that it only captures part of what we care about. The other mistake we make is that a measure isn’t the thing itself...."

~ Russ Roberts, from his post 'Apples and Oranges: A Critique of Utilitarianism'

ACT needs its own “Clause Four Moment”

With the ACT Party’s vote numbers now almost down to Libertarianz levels, the obvious questions are being asked about whether the party any longer has a purpose, other than simple being a reliable coalition appendage for what the party’s luminaries call “the centre-right.” (In other places, they would probably call it the “conservative” side of the tent.)

Digging out old files over the weekend, I came across the very first copy of Ayn Rand’s Objectivist Newsletter from 1962, which throws some light on the woes of the ACT Party 2017.

Politics, she explains, is not a primary. Political goals cannot be achieved “without a wider ideological context."

Politics is based on three other philosophical disciplines: metaphysics, epistemology and ethics — on a theory of man’s nature and man’s relationship to existence. It is only on such a base thart one can formulate a consistent political theory and achieve it in practice. When, however, men attempt to rush into politics without such a base, the result is that embarrassing conglomeration of impotence, futility, inconsistency and superficiality which is loosely designated today as ‘conservatism’ [aka the ‘centre-right’].

Does that describe what folk here have seen of the ACT Party people this year? I fear so. Nice people, most of them, but having rushed into politics with little more than a naive and muddled utilitarianism they now see their party backed into the ghetto, every election, of explaining MMP to voters (three MPs for the price of one!) instead of being able to proudly and articulately promote their principles.

They might be reminded that, as Rand continued:

A half battle is worse than none: it does not end in mere defeat — it helps and hastens the victory of your enemies.

Is that not what we’ve seen?

A full battle might begin with tightening up those principles, and a programme of education so their candidates can articulate them.

They also desperately need troops on the ground. But both candidates and troops — and voters — may be more forthcoming if the other long overdue prescription for the party’s woes be undertaken. By which I mean dragging out the toxic carcasses of the former leaders still stinking up the political room, and very publicly euthanasing them.

How they do that is up to them, but if they wanted a model for how such a fumigation is done they could do worse than look at how and why Tony Blair dragged out the carcass of the Militant Tendency and undertook the battle over Clause 4 to make New Labour.

In short, they need their own “Clause Four Moment."

Without that they will just be rearranging deckchairs while the ship goes down. Neither voters nor spear carriers will be attracted unless those earlier sins be explunged. Whatever else may or may not be done, without that the party will guarantee its doom as a vital political force.

Quote of the Day: Utilitarianism v Rights

 

“Right is a principle; utility is only a result. Right is a cause; utility is only an effect. Say to a man: you have the right not to be put to death or arbitrarily plundered. You will give him quite another feeling of security and protection than you will by telling him: it is not useful for you to be put to death or arbitrarily plundered.”
~ Henri-Benjamin Constant (1767–1830), Principles of Politics

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[Hat tip Conza]

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“Scarcity” – Does it Prove Intellectual Property is Unjustified?

Guest post by Dale Halling from the State of Innovation blog.

Too many people today don’t understand property rights—even those people whom you might think would be most likely to.  Cato, Reason and the Mises Institute are just three out of many whose otherwise good work in many areas is undermined by their complete ignorance on property rights, especially intellectual property rights.

As Dale Halling explains, their error lies in their misunderstanding (or in some cases abject disinterest) in the derivation of property rights. “They have adopted the Utilitarian point of view that property rights are just an efficient way of allocating scarce resources.”  But this is not the justification for property rights, simply a beneficent consequence.  Cato, Reason, the Mises Institute et al confuse consequence for cause, and in so doing obliterate that which they should be defending.

Adam Mossoff explains has talked extensively on this nonsense, explaining that Jeremy Bentham’s ideas are at the root of these “libertarian” attacks on Intellectual Property.  “Bentham’s basic philosophy was Utilitarianism, i.e., the so-called ‘greatest good for the greatest number.’ Bentham argued the justification for property rights was scarcity and conflict resolution, not natural rights… This is the philosophical point of view used by the Cato Institute, the Von Mises Institute et al to attack patents and copyrights.”

The packaging of utilitarianism and property rights is a complete mess. Bentham himself was an opponent of rights altogether, famously calling them “nonsense on stilts,” so it’s no surprise that today’s Benthamites find themselves opposed as well.

The fact is however, as Mossoff explains, Utilitarianism’s ‘greatest good for the greatest number’ never even achieves its purported goal; its end result is always some form of  totalitarianism. “The reason for this [summarises Halling] is that utilitarianism is merely a justification for short term actions. Once something has been produced, it always looks like the greatest good is to redistribute the creation.” That this sounds like the underlying ethic of every socialist “workers paradise” ever invented is no accident; in fact it is the same ethic in theory, and leads to the same result in prcatice: poverty and coercion. Redistribution of already-produced creations might sound good to the unthinking, “however, this is clearly only true in the short term. In the long term it is clear that this always destroys the economy, rights, and rights-holders.  Stealing the product of one’s mind (mental labor is labor) is no different than banning free speech. It stifles the mind, which source of all economic progress (values).”

The confusion over the status of Intellectual Property must be repaired. Which means the package deal of using utilitarianism to ‘justify’ rights must be untangled. Craig Biddle explains very simply the correct derivation of rights here, wiping away several dangerous confusions in the process. And Dale Halling discuss the historical and theoretical fallacies behind the scarcity theory of property right here in this Guest Post. Enjoy!

The confusion over the status of Intellectual Property must be repaired. Which means the package deal of using utilitarianism to ‘justify’ rights must be untangled. Craig Biddle explains very simply the correct derivation of rights here. And Dale Halling discuss the fallacies behind the scarcity theory of property right here:at my post Scarcity: Does it Prove Intellectual Property is Unjustified and Scarcity -2 and Scarcity -3.  Mossoff points out that  (IP).

Scarcity – Does it Prove Intellectual Property is Unjustified?

A NUMBER OF ALLEGED SCHOLARS [1] have recently suggested that the logical basis for tangible property rights is scarcity.  Property rights efficiently allocate these resources and avoid conflicts between competing rights of individuals.  These scholars argue that ideas and invention are not subject to scarcity and therefore intellectual property rights should not exist.  These arguments seem to be particularly prevalent among libertarians, including the Cato Institute the Von Mises Institute and the open-source community.

Tangible property rights include real property rights in land and buildings and personal property rights in things like cars and furniture.  Tangible or physical property is scarce since it can only be owned by one person at a time and it takes resources to create.  According to this theory, intangible or intellectual property such as patents and copyrights, and software in the case of the open source community, is not scarce so can not be accorded property rights status.  Intangible property can be owned by multiple people without excluding others from the same property, which according to them is the defining characteristic of property..  According to Tom G. Palmer for example, a proponent of this “scarcity” theory of property:

          It is this scarcity that gives rise to property rights.  Intellectual property rights, however, do not rest 
         on a natural scarcity of goods, but on an “artificial, self created scarcity.”[2]

Scarcity however is neither the historical nor logical basis of private property rights.  The historical justification of property rights is based on the right that a person owns himself.  If you do not own yourself, you are a slave.  If you own yourself then you own the fruits of your labor, physical and mental.  This is commonly referred to the “natural rights labor theory of property.”

In the pre-capitalist era, private property existed de facto, but not de jure, i.e., by custom and sufferance, rather than by right or by law.  In law and in principle, all property belonged to the head of the tribe, the king, and was held only by his permission, which could and often was revoked at any time, at his pleasure. [3]  [This is the basis of the fee simple title which is still issued these days in NZ, a legal fiction that remains as a vestige of this tradition that is unfortunately these days becoming a reality again all too quickly.]

The labor theory of property provided the first foundation of property rights as opposed to respecting property simply as a custom.  As a result, the scholars who suggest that property rights are based on scarcity are incorrect historically.

DESPITE THIS HISTORICAL INACCURACY, some of these alleged scholars might still argue that “scarcity” is still nonetheless a better theoretical framework for the justification of property rights.  But this is still not true.

The natural rights labor theory of property explains why slavery is immoral.  If you own yourself, then no one else has the right to own you.  It also explains why murder and manslaughter are immoral, why stealing is immoral, why assault and battery are immoral and why we have laws against all these actions.  The natural rights labor theory defines how property should be allocated and how people come into possession of property morally and legally.  The labor theory explains all of our basic criminal law and all of our basic property laws. 

But what does scarcity explain?  It offers no justification for why slavery, murder, manslaughter, assault and and theft are immoral, except that they are “inefficient at allocating resources.”  Thus, all of these crimes would be allowed if they were efficient at allocating resources.  [In effect, as Bob Jones one joked, their only argument against Hitler’s extermination of millions of human beings would be the size of his gas bill.]

The “scarcity” theory does not explain why these wrongs are wrong. But nor yet does it define who has ownership in any particular property, nor why they should have this ownership in property recognised.  It merely explains that private property ownership is an efficient manner in allocating scarce resources, then ignores completely the question of who is entitled to enjoy these rights.

The “scarcity” theory is neither complete nor accurate.

On top of that, it also requires the additional assumption that it is “preferable” [why? because we said so, that’s why] to have efficient allocation of resources. So it is neither complete, nor accurate, and in addition it begins begging other questions it also fails to answer.

IN SCIENCE, THE THEORY that has the greatest ability to explain the widest number of facts is considered to be the correct or better theory.  Here the “scarcity” theory of private property fails to integrate at all the facts it needs to explain while requiring additional assumptions it can’t explain.

It fails to recognise how a resource is created; it has no basis for explaining how a resource should be initially distributed; it does not explain how property law determines ownership; and it has no power at all to explain criminal law.

Trading scarcity for the labor theory of property is like trading the theory that “what goes up must come down” for Newton’s Law of gravity.  The fact of the matter is that the proponents of scarcity have confused cause with effect.  A system of private property results in efficient allocation of resource, but it is not the reason for private property – it is the effect of private property.

Dale Halling is an American patent attorney and entrepreneur, and the author of the book The Decline and Fall of the American Entrepreneur: How Little Known Laws are Killing Innovation.
Read his regular thoughts at his State of Innovation blog.