This article makes a fundamental mistake that many who have written about EA make - by treating the philosophical and real-world application of EA as the same thing. EA is such a new philosophy and movement that the philosophy and application of EA are not sufficiently divorced from one another, and the people at the core of "philosophy EA" are also involved in "application EA". So this is an easy mistake to make.

There are people in rooms discussing whether "the ends justify the means" (though I don't think anyone is seriously arguing in favor of SBF-type means). BUT THESE ARE PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS.

If you asked 1,000 effective altruists if they think what SBF did was acceptable (or gave a hypothetical ends justify the means at 10% of the severity of SBF), I would wager that 0 would say it was acceptable. SBF used EA as a shield to hide his fraudulent behavior, and EA (both the philosophy and application sides) have taken a hard look at what EA argues for, and to think that EA (even philosophy EA) would approve of SBF's behavior do not understand EA at all.

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I study EA and so I am loosely connected to the movement, but I don't consider myself an effective altruist.