• @sc_griffith
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    191 year ago

    The question of whether you interpret Whytham Abbey as a sign of lavish spending and motivated reasoning or as a a very reasonable investment largely depends on your view of EA and whether you trust EA/CEA/EVF

    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.

    • @maol
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      71 year ago

      a castle is not an “investment”, it’s a money pit.

      • David GerardOPMA
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        111 year ago

        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

        • @maol
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          91 year ago

          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.

          • Coll
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            311 months ago

            When the second castle (bought by ESPR with FTX-money) was brought up on the forum, Jan Kulveit (one of the main organizers of ESPR) commented:

            Multiple claims in this post are misleading, incomplete or false.

            Then never bothered to actually explain what the misleading and false claims actually were (and instead implied the poster had doxxed them). Then under the post this thread discusses he has the gall to comment:

            For me, unfortunately, the discourse surrounding Wytham Abbey, seems like a sign of epistemic decline of the community, or at least on the EA forum.

            I guess Jan doesn’t think falsely implying the person who is critical of your chateau purchase is both a liar and a doxxer counts as ‘epistemic decline’.

        • @gerikson
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          61 year ago

          Big Elon energy there.

      • Charlie Stross
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        91 year ago

        @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.

        • @maol
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          101 year ago

          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.

            • @blakestaceyMA
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              91 year ago

              Is one truly fulfilling the fantasy if one’s lair is not in a volcano?

      • @froztbyte
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        61 year ago

        doesn’t the money pit go around it? 🤔

    • @locallynonlinear
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      41 year ago

      Because we all know Bob won’t just fuxking wipe his ass in private. He needs to know we saw it all.

      • @froztbyte
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        41 year ago

        why the s/c/x/, out of curiousity?