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Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

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Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#271

Post by _dain_ »

peterpost2 wrote: post #82
monero-xmr wrote: post #22

A programmer who helped create Tornado Cash rots in a Dutch jail cell (not charged, might I add) while SBF, Do Kwan, Elizabeth Holmes, and Trevor Milton still remain free. SBF is actually in a $30 million penthouse playing League of Legends. Clown world

About the programmer in a dutch cell: that is not true, he is in "voorarrest" which is in an arrest house not in a jail cell. Maximum time for that is a 110 days(depending on the complexity of the case). And yes he is not charged but he has seen a judge who has heard both sides and decided there was a strong enough case to hold him there( which is quite rare i might add and generally only happens for severe cases).

we would laugh at this kind of dissembling gobbledegook if it came from a nonwestern country. the dutch need to charge him with something or release him. 110 days is preposterous.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#272

Post by eddsh1994 »

ShamelessC wrote: post #252
eddsh1994 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/ There’s a few, like less wrong, but this is the main one to many

Wait so less wrong is rooted in effective altruism? Ugh.

It’s intertwined but not totally. There are non-EA members of Less Wrong.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#273

Post by molsongolden »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #259
molsongolden wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He doesn't say he thinks it is okay to act unethically, he says that in general acting unethically doesn't matter the way he previously said it did because public perception is shaped more by winning than it is by whether the winner was ethical or unethical. Elsewhere in the DMs he says "I didn't want to do sketchy stuff [...] and I didn't mean to" and "it as never the intention". None of this reads like bombshell le…

The next bit of that exchange is: "each individual decision seemed fine and I didn't realize how big their sum was until the end" . That's a classic "ends justify the means" slippery slope. And even if he didn't want or mean to, he was more than happy to engage in that kind of behaviour if needed. Someone like that is absolutely a terrible person in my book. I would not trust or be friends with someone who has that a…

"each individual decision seemed fine and I didn't realize how big their sum was until the end"

This reads to me as "I was viewing all these situations in isolation instead of looking at the full system" not your reading which seems to be more "I thought I could get away with each individual thing".

To your last point, Parker Conrad was dragged through the mud and shunned everywhere when Zenefits imploded but he came right back with Rippling and is a tech darling now.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#274

Post by beambot »

encryptluks2 wrote: post #243
molsongolden wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He doesn't say he thinks it is okay to act unethically, he says that in general acting unethically doesn't matter the way he previously said it did because public perception is shaped more by winning than it is by whether the winner was ethical or unethical. Elsewhere in the DMs he says "I didn't want to do sketchy stuff [...] and I didn't mean to" and "it as never the intention". None of this reads like bombshell le…

Wow... > He comes across as maybe terrible or maybe someone who played a little too fast and loose with an explosively growing business of which he lost control. Same type of statement would be like... They came across as maybe terrible or maybe someone who just had a few too many drinks and then lost control of a new sports car that they were not familiar with and accidentally drove into a crowd of people.

LoL, exactly. "Well, it wasn't pre-meditated 1st degree murder... just good old grossly-negligent homicide."

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#275

Post by viscanti »

ufo wrote: post #265
viscanti wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He built a special backend endpoint so he could move money from FTX to Alameda without triggering any oversight or audits. They have him on fraud.

Or maybe it's just a hidden, poorly internally labeled fiat@ account, with a negative balance of 8bn dollars? (sic)

It's a bit of both.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#276

Post by TacticalCoder »

dragontamer wrote: post #130
roywiggins wrote: post #15

> I was trying to make sense of what, behind the PR and the charitable donations and the lobbying, Bankman-Fried actually believes about what’s right and what’s wrong — and especially the ethics of what he did and the industry he worked in. This seems like a weird thing to worry about right now, I imagine my question would be "hey, where'd all the deposits go?" Like, I'm sure it's all interesting in a psychological a…

> I imagine my question would be "hey, where'd all the deposits go?" But we know where they went. To Alameda Research. Then Alameda Research sent them somewhere else. The money isn't coming back, and Alameda Research's collateral of FTT tokens is worthless. So that's that, its done. Its actually quite a simple story here. FTX lent the money to someone else (even if Alameda Research is also owned by SBF), and that oth…

> So that's that, its done.

Not at all.

If Alameda really lost billions or tens in billions in trades, who was on the other side to collect the money? To random people who sold BTC at $64K and then all the way down?

Or were the losing trades a way to syphon billions somewhere else?

Seen the amount involved, the policital donations, the articles in the media portraying the guy as an altruistic genius and seen that tether/USDT/Bitfinex/Deltec are also in the Bahamas, it looks like, maybe, fucking maybe, it's time for actual journalism, actual research, actual congress hearings (at least one is coming in december btw), etc. about what's going on.

Do you really believe it's just a few trades gone wrong?

> Its actually quite a simple story here. FTX lent the money to someone else (even if Alameda Research is also owned by SBF), and that other group lost the money.

For a start you're forgetting the part where FTX was also pumping and then dumping tokens on their customers. Some tokens they created themselves. They're also somehow tied to hundreds of million of USDs getting frozen by authorities, where FTX then quickly raised money. That's fraud, too.

It's much more than "simple". There's serious shit going on.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#277

Post by molsongolden »

encryptluks2 wrote: post #261
molsongolden wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and that's a great analogy because it's possible that your person driving the new sports car did not intentionally get drunk and drive into a crowd of people. Most people wouldn't call that driver a sociopath who intentionally murdered a crowd of people, they'd say "wow, that person made a couple of really poor decisions and they really messed up and ended up ruining a lot of lives".

You do realize that states recognize ignoring the risk means that person was intentional and they are convicted of murder? Anything can be seen as a poor choice. By your logic Hitler made really poor decisions and ended up ruining a lot of lives.

It's possible for SBF to be both guilty of a variety of crimes and also not an intentionally terrible human.

I don't know if he is or isn't a sociopath who lied to everyone while stealing billions. I just find the "wow, this guy is a monster" outrage interesting as the source DMs here don't really uphold that portrayal.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#278

Post by nroets »

viscanti wrote: post #258
burkaman wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried, incompetence could be a legal strategy - https://www.axios.com/2022/11/16/ftx-sam-bankman-fried-incom... > Lawyers tell Axios the main criminal risk Bankman-Fried faces is an indictment on charges of fraud — one of the more common charges in white-collar prosecutions. But to convict, prosecutors must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that someone had knowledge or intent to commit fraud, whi…

He built a special backend endpoint so he could move money from FTX to Alameda without triggering any oversight or audits. They have him on fraud.

Specifically, FTX had a margin pool facility. Clients could specify the assets (not just dollars, but also Bitcoin, tether etc) that they wanted to lend in their wallet. Along with APR. It was strictly opt in.

The system also reported small amounts ($400m) last time I checked.

This misrepresentation is fraud.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#280

Post by [deleted] »

superfrank wrote: post #250
ceejayoz wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they could afford to hire an on-staff performance coach, they probably could and should have hired an on-staff accountant to manage literally billions of dollars rather than having the CEO put things in a spreadsheet.

Agreed. He absolutely could have caught this if he had cared to, but my guess is he was too caught up in the "move fast and break things" mindset to really give a shit and that's why I fully support him going to jail for this. I don't think he intentionally lost peoples' money, but I think he was intentionally reckless and for that reason he should be prosecuted.

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