25 years seems excessive. Funk, for murder they get 10 years in Sweden. Yes, fraud is bad but he didn't kill nobody. I think 5 years would have had been enough.
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Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison
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Re: Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison
#522An uncle once commented about a cousin of ours that he demonstrated how it's possible to screw things up so badly that you can't possibly recover. I think that's true for Sam. I hope it's not true for the people in his orbit; I hope they can get out from under this and try to find meaning, ideally from repairing the harm they've done. As Rick Heicklen writes, "We are not ever going to be Sam. But we could be Caroline…
FWIW, I didn't find Lewis's book as bad (or amoral) as it's often made out to be. Yes, he didn't put his judgement in every paragraph, but his description of SBF was: a) absolutely damning! SBF's lack of empathy, his notion that (given that everyone else is stupid) he knew best and should basically ignore the advice of everyone else (particularly his elders), his naive utilitarianism without any deontological/virtue…
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Re: Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison
#523It's funny. I lost tens of thousands of dollars thanks to this individual, yet his sentence brings me no joy or arouses any emotion at all. I'm utterly indifferent to his fate for some reason and I don't know why. Yet if he had been a mugger who stole a much smaller amount of money from me on the street, I think I would've been far more vengeful. Should I feel vindictive? Or is it healthy to forget about it and move…
Maybe had already internalized the idea that money "invested" in crypto is doomed to theft, or collapse. Slot machine players have a similar vibe -- the money is already gone, even before it enters the machine.
Re: Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison
#524I love HN, it's one of the few places you can get reasoned conversation online. But this is one of those subjects where it gets weird. SBF was directly responsible for millions, if not billions, of direct monetary loss to identified individuals. Yet the top comments on HN are all discussing whether incarceration is retribution, spite, deterrence, or rehabilition. The USA incarcerates people for tiny financial damages…
I've noticed the same trend. HN (as a collective) doesn't believe in punishing white-collar crimes with incarceration. I guess it hits too close to home.
Realistically, I mainly believe in punishing violent crimes with incarceration. Most white collar criminals could be sufficiently contained with house arrest and restrictions on visits/internet access/etc. Just realistically, you can keep a financier in an apartment they pay for, but probably not a good idea for someone who's murdered and burglared.
Re: Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison
#525I sincerely wish every centralized exchange had their own SBF to burn them down. The negative impact of "investors" has been terrible for crypto. They've turned what should have been a trustless medium into a caricature of traditional banking with all of its downsides and none of the benefits. Whats the point of computing all the hashes if you end up handing your coins to some guy who pinky promises to pay them back at some point in the future with interest?
Re: Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison
#526The difference between opinions in this thread is interesting. I think it's mainly because some see a punishment as revenge and others as correction. But, as user publius_0xf3 is showing, revenge does not work. The victims don't get their money back. If this sentence is used as correction I also think it does not work. Would such a correction really take 25 years? His life is over. I don't see how such a long time is…
He was judged before a jury of his peers and found wanting. It's not revenge, it's being held accountable for his actions. Some crimes, like murder, can't just be "corrected". The solution we've landed on as a society is for there to be a punitive cost to be paid by the responsible individual. In this case, it's jail time.
SBF caused an incredible amount of irreparable harm with his actions, which almost certainly has resulted in suicides. He deserves this punishment.
Re: Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison
#527It's funny. I lost tens of thousands of dollars thanks to this individual, yet his sentence brings me no joy or arouses any emotion at all. I'm utterly indifferent to his fate for some reason and I don't know why. Yet if he had been a mugger who stole a much smaller amount of money from me on the street, I think I would've been far more vengeful. Should I feel vindictive? Or is it healthy to forget about it and move…
I'm an indirect victim via BlockFi (headed by Zach Prince), which did business with FTX and lost my money as a result. I held 33 ETH in a BlockFi BIA account, and only recently got 4 ETH back. I don't know if I will ever recover the rest of my funds.
I don't know what your financial situation is but I'm not rich, and it is extremely painful to look at ETH trading at above $3000 and realizing my rainy day fund has been stolen by criminal nincompoops.
My personal values dictate that I be significantly more careful with money when it is someone else's money. Even if you gave me $20 to get you a Burrito, I'll get you the best deal, tip the minimum, and give you your exact change. I'd even give you a few cents more just in case because I don't want to be owing you anything.
So when a group of people behaves irresponsibly with people's money it boils my blood. He deserves every jail year he got, just on the hubris alone.
Re: Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison
#528Been following SBF for a long time and this quote my local rabbi told me once comes to mind:
"spxneo, if you deceive people that demands to be deceived, you will be rich. if you are truthful with those people that demands to be deceived, you will become enemies. if you are truthful with people that demands truth, you will be neither friends nor enemies and poor."
Re: Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison
#529It's funny. I lost tens of thousands of dollars thanks to this individual, yet his sentence brings me no joy or arouses any emotion at all. I'm utterly indifferent to his fate for some reason and I don't know why. Yet if he had been a mugger who stole a much smaller amount of money from me on the street, I think I would've been far more vengeful. Should I feel vindictive? Or is it healthy to forget about it and move…
It is funny - especially when you consider a mugger on the street would need your money much more than SBF ever would.
Not really. The use of a gun/knife/lethal force implies a much different risk profile (you could easily die or be crippled for life). It's not about the money - it's about the violence.
Re: Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison
#530Earlier quoted context omitted.
Low? That's high! He didn't kill anyone. A sentence of 25 years completely destroys his life. He's been made an example of.
As far as I am concerned, when you steal from me, you robbed me of piece of my life. The time I spend earning that money, instead of being with friends or just pursuing a hobby or just wasting it on HN. How many lifetimes worth of time were destroyed by his fraud. It's definitely not high punishment.
I mean... At the end of the day everyone 'invested' their money here. The risks of high interest Bitcoin accounts were well known and elucidated by all reputable sources. If you lost money in this, I'm truly sorry, but realistically what did you expect. It wasn't even a bank (and remember if your bank loses money, no one's going to jail as long as they followed regulations).