Ask HN: People to follow online like Caroline Ellison?

2 points by rathel 3 years ago | 3 comments

Abstracting from the company she was definitely not fit to lead, the more I researched her, the more she came through as an interesting personality. I binge read most of her Tumblr blog [1]. Guess I am platonically attracted to weirdos and misfits. And her takes on various stuff (SJ, relationships, society) really resonate with me.

But now that she's disappeared, whom in the same vein should I follow?

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20200419212155/https://worldoptimization.tumblr.com/

sn0w_crash 3 years ago |

This is a person who scammed millions of people and boasted about it as it was happening.

Their “ideas” on social justice and everything else they have to say should be questionable at best, and intentionally misleading at worst.

I would encourage you to find role models who are more than just good at distracting people from their criminal activities.

rathel 3 years ago | |

From what I was able to gather, the onus is on the SBF for misappropriating FTX customers' funds. On the Alameda side it does not seem like a typical scam in the sense of "get money and run with it". "Just" a desperation out of illiquidity due to a credit crunch. Keep in mind that SBF was a 90% owner in Alameda anyway.

I am however positive she should have stayed out of crypto. Everybody in this space becomes at least morally gray at some critical point, even if they started well-intentioned.

But regardless of CE's intentions, you're posing a philosophical question: should we evaluate worldviews for what they are, or by who is possessing them. I lean towards the first one.

sn0w_crash 3 years ago | | |

That’s a valid outlook and you’re free to do so, but we’ve seen enough scammers throughout history to know that simply having a good viewpoint does not mean much.

Remember that countless figures in the present day project great morals, progressive viewpoints, or socially conscious viewpoints, who turn out to be horrible people.

Even the Jeffrey Epsteins of the world project plenty of agreeable philosophies and worldviews.

Personally I am interested in a persons character, not that they speak about stuff I happen to agree with.

On the topic of Alameda, to pretend Caroline was not part of the scam loop is to remove her agency as a person who is at the head of an organization. She knowingly propagated this behavior, got rich off it, and continued it.