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Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

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Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#151

Post by perardi »

reducesuffering wrote: post #20

He has to still be on methamphetamine-precursors. (Was confirmed in an image on his desk[0]; selegiline) [0] https://milkyeggs.com/?p=175

Sigh. No.

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/the-psychopharmacology...

Selegiline metabolizes to the inactive isomer of meth: l-methamphetamine. Which is very much not trucker crank—it’s an over-the-counter decongestant.

Was he on good ol’ non-meth-amphetamine, in the form of Adderall? Sure. But rather a lot of people are on Adderall, and most of them haven’t created a market-shattering boondoggle.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#152

Post by burkaman »

expazl wrote: post #124

It this real? Is he really THAT stupid? His defense against "you took user deposits and gambled the money" is "No, I took user deposits, loaned them to myself and then gambled the money". I mean this is like nested layers of stupidity. You'd be stupid to do this, you'd be stupid to think it's not a major crime, you'd be stupid to think that this was in any way acts as a defense of your crime and you'd be stupid to ac…

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, which can be tricky, they say.

> That’s why the defense against such charges typically centers on something like, "It wasn't fraud, I was just really bad at my job."

> "Typically, in a fraud case, the person at the top argues that he was inattentive, delegated to others, and wasn’t focused on the details," Mariotti tells Axios. "The point is to argue that he was sloppy or inattentive, not a fraudster."

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#153

Post by ratg13 »

While most of the important points have been commented on, I would be really interested in more info about the hack.

It seems like everyone, (even these characters), don’t even care because it’s “only a few hundred million”

And it does seem like whoever this was might get away with it because everyone is focused on the larger issue. Which is understandable.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#154

Post by quirk »

expazl wrote: post #124

It this real? Is he really THAT stupid? His defense against "you took user deposits and gambled the money" is "No, I took user deposits, loaned them to myself and then gambled the money". I mean this is like nested layers of stupidity. You'd be stupid to do this, you'd be stupid to think it's not a major crime, you'd be stupid to think that this was in any way acts as a defense of your crime and you'd be stupid to ac…

I think he probably declared it. "I declare bankruptcy".

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#155

Post by [deleted] »

burkaman wrote: post #152
expazl wrote: post #124

It this real? Is he really THAT stupid? His defense against "you took user deposits and gambled the money" is "No, I took user deposits, loaned them to myself and then gambled the money". I mean this is like nested layers of stupidity. You'd be stupid to do this, you'd be stupid to think it's not a major crime, you'd be stupid to think that this was in any way acts as a defense of your crime and you'd be stupid to ac…

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…

[deleted]

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#156

Post by twoodfin »

wging wrote: post #77
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…

It makes a lot of sense given the nature of SBF’s charitable donations and the purported rationale(s) behind them. Kelsey Piper is pretty deeply associated with the EA movement, which is heavily interested in picking the right ways to deploy money to solve the world’s problems, and much of SBF’s charitable giving was too.

It does seem like the (some now erstwhile) EA billionaires supposed that buying professional, high-tier take-havers/explanatory-journalists was going to be an effective way to mainline their ideology. SBF had his eye on Matt Yglesias, for example.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#157

Post by SilverBirch »

This is just classic. "OH I'm a crook? Well everyone's a crook!". No Sam. You're a crook, and we're not really intersted in taking moral lessons.It just reads like the lowest effort teenage coping mechanisms. And you know what? Andreesen will fund his next venture. Because it's about class, not returns.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#158

Post by nailer »

Beltalowda wrote: post #64
nailer wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tornado Cash is private banking. The writer of the code did nothing wrong by writing it.

He wasn't arrested for "writing the code", but for direct involvements (and making large sums of profit) for money laundering. Whether he is guilty of that: we'll see what comes up in the trail, but he certainly wasn't arrested "for writing code".

I have heard that too but it’s hard to know (either way) what he was arrested for as he hasn’t been charged after three months detention.

The police statement is https://www.fiod.nl/arrest-of-suspected-developer-of-tornado... - it seems to say he facilitated money laundering. Which could mean simply writing code or could mean doing more.

More info on https://www.notion.so/FreeAlex-campaign-1f8db0a2fdfc48b3b86a... which is a horrible notion site with a strange and awful UI.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#159

Post by Invictus0 »

burkaman wrote: post #152
expazl wrote: post #124

It this real? Is he really THAT stupid? His defense against "you took user deposits and gambled the money" is "No, I took user deposits, loaned them to myself and then gambled the money". I mean this is like nested layers of stupidity. You'd be stupid to do this, you'd be stupid to think it's not a major crime, you'd be stupid to think that this was in any way acts as a defense of your crime and you'd be stupid to ac…

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…

The notion that someone that made it through MIT physics, worked for several years at Jane Street, and actively cultivated the persona of a genius can't understand that making a million tokens, selling one of them to yourself for a dollar, and then calling yourself a millionaire is nonsense, is frankly preposterous.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#160

Post by 323 »

expazl wrote: post #124

It this real? Is he really THAT stupid? His defense against "you took user deposits and gambled the money" is "No, I took user deposits, loaned them to myself and then gambled the money". I mean this is like nested layers of stupidity. You'd be stupid to do this, you'd be stupid to think it's not a major crime, you'd be stupid to think that this was in any way acts as a defense of your crime and you'd be stupid to ac…

Maybe he's going for the insanity defense.

Could be legit, he's literally digging, admitting to blatant criminal behaviour like it's normal stuff.

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