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Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison

cnn.com

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

#781

Post by cutemonster »

lazide wrote: post #329
FabHK wrote: 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…

What is your definition of 'evil' if not self-serving, lacking in empathy for others, and amoral? Would he have to torture puppies for fun to check all the boxes? Because if so, Hitler loved dogs.

Maybe "evil" is a word for fiction stories only. In SBF's case, maybe "narcissist" is better (includes the properties you listed, and can like dogs)

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

#784

Post by donohoe »

smoovb wrote: post #782

Excessive. It's not hard to take away his ability to do harm again, he is not a threat to society. In fact, put him to work righting all his wrongs. This judge and sentence a waste of taxpayer money.

Here is a quote from Dept. of Justice

"Four major goals are usually attributed to the sentencing process: retribution, rehabilitation, deterrence, and incapacitation. Retribution refers to just deserts: people who break the law deserve to be punished. The other three goals are utilitarian, emphasizing methods to protect the public."

Given the scale of fraud, the money involved, and the nature of SBF at trail, I would disagree.

https://www.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh241/files/archives/n...

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

#785

Post by forgotmyinfo »

publius_0xf3 wrote: post #449

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…

[flagged]

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

#786

Post by janalsncm »

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…

Honestly, comparing billion dollar fraud to murder is a bit tricky for me. In the one hand we could try to give a dollar value to a life, maybe a million dollars. But I don’t know if stealing a million dollars is equivalent to murder, since money is fungible and people are not. The government can make the victim of theft whole. For murder, that is not possible.

On the other hand maybe a more reasonable approach would be to treat criminals as people who need to be quarantined for as long as they’re dangerous. If we could identify a treatable disease (a tumor for example) and know with 100% certainty that treating that disease could prevent further crimes, I personally wouldn’t have an issue with it. We have an impulse to punish evil, and severely punish very evil things, but it’s more of a primitive drive than anything productive. (Of course the exception is the extent to which punishment can deter crime.)

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

#787

Post by cm2187 »

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…

They are not mistakes, they are crimes. Anyone who worked in finance for more than a week can recognise their actions as such.

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

#788

Post by forgotmyinfo »

bdcravens wrote: post #459
publius_0xf3 wrote: post #449

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…

Perhaps previous exit scams in the crypto space dulled your senses? If anything, I feel like you should share your story to protect others, especially during times when crypto is peaking (like now) and others are tempted to jump in: use exchanges to buy/sell and get out, store your keys on a cold storage device, and transfer out fiat ASAP.

If it isn't obvious already that cryptocurrency is one giant grift, then I don't know how many more stories are going to help. The SEC or Congress or someone with power needs to just make it illegal, or else this kind of thing will keep happening. It happened before we got our shit together in the early 20th century, but we collectively realized markets were actively doing shady things, and then we legislated to fix things. Will we do it again?

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

#789

Post by dinobones »

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…

You think a 25 year sentence is impossible to recover from? I think he can still leave a meaningful life coming out in his mid 50s.

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

#790

Post by forgotmyinfo »

ghnws wrote: post #297
marcinzm wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If anything, it's excessive if you consider the nature of the crime relative to the nature of murder or kidnapping. I suspect the resulting number of shortened lives amongst all the people who lost $8 billion worth of their money due to the fraud is more than the number caused by a single murder.

Hopefully no-one bet their life on unregulated extremely risky investments.

[flagged]
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