Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison

cnn.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

991–1000 of 1001 posts

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

#991

Post by javier2 »

Aeolun wrote: post #946
tim333 wrote: post #811

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I deposited some money with FTX and expected them not to steal it in the same way you expect a bank not to steal your deposits. I didn't gift to them or expect anything too good to be true. If a bank manager steals customer deposits to pay his gambling debts I put the blame 100% on the manager 0% on the customers.

That’s strange. If I invest my money into any form of securities it’s pretty clear to me that the value of that capital might go to zero overnight. If I invested it in crypto? I would value it at zero for the rest of eternity.

I still clearly expect the broker not to steal my stock positions and gamble with them...

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

#993

Post by aurareturn »

javier2 wrote: post #990
aurareturn wrote: post #939

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. I don't want to rub on your wound but you need to take some responsibility as well. You knew crypto was risky. You knew many exchanges have scammed and went under, taking their customer's funds with them. It's arguable that every crypto exchange is shady and it's inevit…

Not that I would lose sleep in anger over my missing ETH (I was not hit by this, I did not have anything touching FTX), but I think your take is a little unreasonable when FTX clearly acted in a way that is directly illegal to do as a financial institution. I don't keep my life savings in crypto either, too risky, but still.

Crypto has been largely unregulated. People who gamble with crypto should know that.

In fact, the same crypto bros argue that they should NOT be regulated.

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

#995

Post by fasa99 »

freedomben wrote: post #831
amelius wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think humans also feel no anger towards deadly diseases. Maybe it is more comparable to that. However, I do know that people can feel very ashamed from scams like phishing attacks and caller scams.

After thinking about it, I think some humans do feel anger towards deadly diseases. If not anger, certainly fear. My aunt died of cancer, and most of our family was pretty mad at "cancer." I remember seeing a Twitter thing going around that was basically a lot of people tweeting things like "fuck cancer" and encouraging others to donate to the cause. Maybe that's not really "anger," but it kind of feels and seems lik…

For cancer and forces of nature, there is anger, there is a sense of unfairness, but we ask "why" and the instinctive answer is there - force of nature. To the robber metaphor, for example I've had cars try to run me off the road on my bicycle, so I approach the driver and it becomes immediately clear this is an insane person with major problems, and I think "oh, force of nature, this person is completely insane" - similar how "not guilty by way of insanity" is a real thing. Again we get an answer "why" - because this person is insane.

For me the deep insult that causes anger is if this is intentional, this is a person, they willfully did this of sound mind. Perhaps why a Madoff might make someone angry, but not SBF. In my view, SBF was a step or two removed from a big "too big too fail" 2008 bank that offered an interest rate to account holders by making investments with some risk. It seems to me SBF was operating along similar lines, 8% interest rate if I recall, but his intent wasn't to steal so much as illegally hide risk and hope for the best - and in his case, he was small enough to fail.

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

#996

Post by 1290cc »

SBF was a bright kid that was further enabled by his parents and the environment he grew up in. Imagine taking peoples life savings and being on speed while arbitraging exchanges? Thats some real hubris to not reflect that you might make a mistake at some point. The intellectual arrogance further indicts his parents who likely cheered him on.

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

#997

Post by reso »

ur-whale wrote: post #941
reso wrote: post #819

Sam is a crook, no doubt, but even now I find him a funny figure. His trial defence was awful. He sincerely believes he was trying to do the right thing, so spent his time on the stand defending his actions at length, instead of keeping his mouth shut except to express contrition. This probably cost him years of freedom. It's strange to say but there's an... authenticity to this that I find endearing.

> that I find endearing. SBF is an archetypical pathological liar combined with an ego the size of the empire state building. He's gotten away his entire life lying for a living all the while looking down on people around him for being his supposed intellectual inferiors. He's gotten so used to operating in that regime that he couldn't stop doing it even when in court, not realizing he was fighting for his life. The…

Silicon Valley culture encourages lying and some of its leaders are the biggest liars. I am more willing to believe that SBF is an earnest product of this culture who got in over his head and caused damage, than that he is some kind of medical outlier.
Post reply on HN