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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

#741

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> kid He's a 32 year old man.

No no, he is rich so of course he is just a kid, lost in the sauce, accidentally squandering a few billion. Now, 16 year old male from a low income household, those are men, and should know the consequence of their actions better. /s This infantilizing is disgusting propaganda in and of itself.

It's not really propaganda, I think it popped up mostly because typical finance leaders are seen as being on the older side. As a Patrick Boyle video on the issue had put it, they had barely been in finance long enough to be trusted with the morning coffee run.

"Kid" is meant to be derogatory, highlighting the absurdity of traditional investors trusting openly irresponsible people with such little experience in such a heavily experience and regulation dependent field like finance. They behaved like spoiled children, with all the drugs and sex going around within the company, gaming while talking to investors etc. It doesn't make SBF look better.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison

#742
post #718

I don't understand why we need to put this guy in jail for 25 years. Similarly, Bernie Madoff, whose crimes were far worse, was sentenced to 150 years. For stealing money! Given that the risk of repeat offense is low, I just don't see the point of these sentences. I think they're mostly about notoriety. Meanwhile murderers and rapists get less time, and they're at high risk for re-offending.

You sound like someone that didn't lose millions due to SBF's negligence.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison

#743
post #718

I don't understand why we need to put this guy in jail for 25 years. Similarly, Bernie Madoff, whose crimes were far worse, was sentenced to 150 years. For stealing money! Given that the risk of repeat offense is low, I just don't see the point of these sentences. I think they're mostly about notoriety. Meanwhile murderers and rapists get less time, and they're at high risk for re-offending.

The judge felt if the sentence were too short he'd do it again.

Also - the real reason he's getting such a heavy handed punishment isn't because he stole money, it's because he stole money from the rich and the powerful.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison

#744
post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> kid He's a 32 year old man.

[dead]

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison

#745
post #694

It'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…

Sorry for your loss. I'm actually surprised the sentence is this low. This is Bernie Madoff territory. This doesn't get you your money back. It doesn't even necessarily make you feel better so what's the point? This gets into the philosophy of a criminal justice system. The noble idea behind the criminal justice system is to be restorative . The offender is to be reformed so they don't repeat their crimes and can bec…

The point of the system is to remove threats from society. It should be long enough such that the person will never pose a threat to society again. Justice was served in this case.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison

#746

It'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 probably because there is a difference between getting mugged and being scammed. With falling victim to SBF's scheme, you probably believe you are partly to blame and you had to face that fact yourself, did some work on it mentally at the very least in the background. Him getting punished does not make a difference, you probably punished yourself and that is what mattered. With a violent mugging encounter, you are blameless, so you need to see the other party get punished to process and to feel that the world will get slightly better / safer with the delivery of the punishment.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison

#747

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been posted a thousand times already, there is no parole for federal sentences.

I'm not versed in this at all. What is the DOJ's US Parole Commission? https://www.justice.gov/uspc "The mission of the U.S. Parole Commission is to promote public safety and strive for justice and fairness in the exercise of its authority to release and revoke offenders under its jurisdiction."

They changed the law in 1984 - but if you were sentenced to prison before that, you can still be paroled..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_parole_in_the_United_S...

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison

#748
post #62

I think that's about fair and reasonable. It's been said in Europe he would not have gotten more than years and it's probably true. 25 years is a really long time and even if he does only 20, still super long. Here's a live tweeting of the sentencing hearing; some of Judge Kaplan's remarks are really interesting. https://twitter.com/innercitypress/status/177334004374401064...

Tbh, a bunch of American (high profile) lawyers had estimated that he'd only get a couple of years, max, as he had no prior convictions - and the nature of the case.

Those slap-on-the-wrist punishments are reserved for members of the already-wealthy elite.

SBF was an outsider who stole from these people.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison

#749

To put this into its proper perspective, see table 7 here: https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-pu... In 2022, the average murderer in the Federal Southern District of New York (N = 58) was sentenced to a median of 231 months, which comes out to 19 years and change. No crime of any type had an mean or median sentence higher than 25 years; most were far less than half. So it should be really hard…

Money is not just paper with pictures on it. Money represents human labor. So him stealing billions effectively destroyed thousands of lifetimes of labor. If anything, his sentence is extremely light.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison

#750
Everyone has only 1 life, imprisonment of a life is one of the ultimate forms of torturing. This basically is killing his most meaningful years away.

I can only agree this form of imprisonment for murderers, rapists, ones who physically and mentally hurt people with permanent losses.

Ones can argue that he mentally & physically hurt others, but we need evidence. We should have a better system to force these individuals to pay back or make up the losses. Of course, he will never be able to pay back all the losses, but at least that's a better punishment and I'm almost certain every prisoner will agree to do. They will absolutely trade all of their finances for x years in exchange for freedom.

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