1
loving the EA forum on how the problem with spending the charity money on a castle was the public relations
(forum.effectivealtruism.org)
this post was submitted on 29 Nov 2023
1 points (100.0% liked)
SneerClub
989 readers
1 users here now
Hurling ordure at the TREACLES, especially those closely related to LessWrong.
AI-Industrial-Complex grift is fine as long as it sufficiently relates to the AI doom from the TREACLES. (Though TechTakes may be more suitable.)
This is sneer club, not debate club. Unless it's amusing debate.
[Especially don't debate the race scientists, if any sneak in - we ban and delete them as unsuitable for the server.]
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
The question of whether you interpret Bob's habit of wiping his ass with donation money as a sign of lavish spending and motivated reasoning or as a a very reasonable investment largely depends on your view of Bob and whether you trust Bob.
Those who do not trust Bob will say he could use toilet paper or at least smaller denominations. People who do trust Bob will point out that keeping guests comfortable is very important to Bob, that toilet paper doesn't have the right softness and that Bob can save more lives if he doesn't have to worry about hemorrhoids.
While there may be no obvious, evidence based conclusion to reach, I think we can all agree that Bob should have managed perception of his ass wiping money more thoughtfully.
a castle is not an "investment", it's a money pit.
@maol 25 years ago I saw one for sale in the Scottish borders for £250K. An absolute steal—if you could afford the £25K/year for heating and the extra £100K+ to repair the leaky roof. Never mind the £50K to install double glazing and insulation and the £200K or so in renovation it urgently needed. Etc.
There's a reason there aren't any aristocrats living in the shagging things anymore - you need a big staff and a lot of resources to run them! They only made economic sense when there were throngs of peasants to work in them for cheap or free, and people had very different expectations when it came to energy, heating and lighting.
It's hard to see what OpenAI could have gotten out of this purchase, except the chance to fulfil their Bond villain fantasies.
loved how they got the second castle in the Czech republic for a mere 4m EUR, and didn't at any point question why a whole fucking castle was on sale for just 4m EUR
They bought a second one? This is too much. I suppose Sam Bankman-Fried already proved EAies were terrible at picking investments when he decided to pursue purchasing Nauru (arguably the Most Unfortunate Island In The World) as a bolt-hole in case of apocalypse.