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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

#771

Post by sandspar »

slibhb wrote: 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.

Maybe think of money as embodied energy. If you realize that he stole 15 years of retirement from thousands of people then it may make more sense. 15 good years of your life turned into 15 bad ones, repeat thousands of times.

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

#772

Post by robswc »

ebiester wrote: post #279
robswc wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those people are mostly hypocrites. Your complaint would be solved with less gray area. Businesses outside of the US should be able to do business with US citizens _without_ the consent of the US government. This comes with the caveat that if you, the customer, reject the "protection" of the US government, you are completely and totally SOL if things go south.

The hard part is that US citizens may not know they are doing business outside the jurisdiction of the US government. Are you rejecting the protection of the US government if the company is doing its best to obscure that fact and the associated risks? How about if they are advertising in the US? On the superbowl?

If they're putting life changing amounts of money into a company they should be doing a modicum of research on it. If someone gives $100k to a Nigerian prince, I don't think the US government should be spending thousands of dollars of resources on attempting to recover that money.

US citizens have never implicitly been allowed on these off-shore exchanges. You have to deliberately circumvent and lie to get an account.

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

#773

Post by Ctyra »

tombert wrote: post #344
bambax wrote: 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...

If I broke into a person's house and stole $1000, even if I didn't directly hurt that person, I could expect to get several years in prison, basically regardless of the state. Lets say three years to be conservative on this? Sam Bankman Fried stole billions of dollars [1], probably often around $1000 at a time from tens of thousands of people. If going with my logic, he should be getting a lot longer than 25 years, u…

> If I broke into a person's house and stole $1000, even if I didn't directly hurt that person, I could expect to get several years in prison, basically regardless of the state. Lets say three years to be conservative on this?

We are seeing this kind of crime on a regular basis in our neighborhood. The cops have pretty much given up. They also mentioned that even if they make an arrest, the bail is set so low, these guys would be out quickly. Overall, my impression is there is zero deterrence for these kind of crimes here (a pretty affluent neighborhood in one of the tech cities in the west coast)

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

#774

Post by [deleted] »

shookthrowaway wrote: post #656
skaag wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bee…

[flagged]

[deleted]

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

#775

Post by ibern »

slibhb wrote: post #727
uxp100 wrote: post #723

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For one thing, retribution is accepted in American law as a justification for punishment is my understanding. For a second thing, I’m not so sure the chance of a repeat offense is low.

I'm not arguing against retribution. I'm arguing that this particular retribution is not proportional. In terms of the chance of repeat offense...who would invest money with SBF at this point? It's not like he was mugging people, they voluntarily gave him their money.

Don't underestimate American stupidity.

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

#776

Post by StressedDev »

harambae wrote: post #709
goalonetwo wrote: post #690

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who lost a little bit through this whole debacle I think it is because we willingly gave our money to FTX. We wanted to believe in this story that was too good to be true. We got fooled and we are slightly ashamed. When you get mugged you have no choice on what is happening. The actions are being forced physically on you. With FTX We chose to go that way so it somehow feels like we are as much to blame as…

“You can’t cheat an honest man” as the expression goes. Not literally true - completely innocent people do get victimized - but there’s certainly a reason for the expression.

This response is not helpful and I know of honest people who have been cheated. Basically, the response boils down to “if you got cheated, you are dishonest and deserved it”. Bullshit.

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

#777

Post by chiefalchemist »

FabHK wrote: post #276
setgree wrote: post #176

An 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…

Not for nuttin' but that sounds like Aspergers. Mind you, I'm not a trained professional (to make that diagnosis). It's also no excuse.

That said, it makes a case for being aware of your blindspots (read: weaknesses). And if you think you have none... Well that's a blind spot. Fucking deal with it.

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

#778

Post by csallen »

slibhb wrote: post #738
bjt wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's about deterrence. Imagine you're considering committing a crime. You're looking at the upside and the downside. The equation on the downside looks like this: risk = size of punishment * probability of being caught. So how do you deter a potential criminal who is unlikely to get caught? You have to jack up the size of the punishment to compensate for that low probability. Economist Gary Becker started this school…

In other words he's not being punished for what he did; he's being punished to dissuade others from copying him. I think people should be punished for their actions and not to increase utility of society.

FWIW, I've read that multiple people committed suicide in despair of the financial ruin caused by SBF's fraud. So he did do things worthy of hefty punishment.

Stealing money may not inherently "feel" like a real crime, because money (especially digital crypto money) is a very intangible hypothetical thing. It does not resonate with our lizard brains like violence does.

However, it is a real crime. And harsh punishments like prison time are needed to remind us of that.

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

#779

Post by ellis0n »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #159

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…

It is bad to steal from lawyers, economists and judges at the same time. This has a negative impact on the court, in addition to the financial harm caused.

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

#780

Post by greedo »

FabHK wrote: post #276
setgree wrote: post #176

An 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…

So much of the apologia for SBF is disgusting. I don't need to have any humility, because I don't steal from people. I don't throw colleagues and lovers under the bus when I get caught stealing. I have humility and don't believe I'm the savior of crypto, the unbanked, etc etc. His entire worldview reeks of hubris and narcissism on a level I find disgusting and so common in "bro" culture. The idea that he can get out in 25 years makes me sad with our justice system.
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