SBF's effective altruism and rationalism considered an aggravating circumstance in sentencing
SBF's effective altruism and rationalism considered an aggravating circumstance in sentencing
Sam Bankman-Fried maintains that his crimes were victimless and resulted in zero losses, and therefore warrant only six years of imprisonment. Prosecutors argue that 40–50 years are justified.
For thursday's sentencing the us government indicated they would be happy with a 40-50 prison sentence, and in the list of reasons they cite there's this gem:
- Bankman-Fried's effective altruism and own statements about risk suggest he would be likely to commit another fraud if he determined it had high enough "expected value". They point to Caroline Ellison's testimony in which she said that Bankman-Fried had expressed to her that he would "be happy to flip a coin, if it came up tails and the world was destroyed, as long as if it came up heads the world would be like more than twice as good". They also point to Bankman-Fried's "own 'calculations'" described in his sentencing memo, in which he says his life now has negative expected value. "Such a calculus will inevitably lead him to trying again," they write.
Turns out making it a point of pride that you have the morality of an anime villain does not endear you to prosecutors, who knew.
Bonus: SBF's lawyers' list of assertions for asking for a shorter sentence includes this hilarious bit reasoning:
They argue that Bankman-Fried would not reoffend, for reasons including that "he would sooner suffer than bring disrepute to any philanthropic movement."
Holy FUCKING shit this cannot be real. No. He could not have written this.
My estimation of SBF as a wretch just fuckin plummeted.
'Come out against the woke agenda'
I'm reminded of the person on twitter who went 'Wonder when his sex crimes come out' after Russell Brand rebranded as a conspiracy rightwinger. Note: This tweet was made before his sex crimes came out.
Notably missing: grabbing a couple of millions and run of to a non extradition country.
He is so sure he can get out on top that running away doesn't even hit his brainstorm top 19 list. He doesn't write the list on paper and burn it later, because for it to backfire he would need to fail.
Insane confidence man.
ah, it’s always fun when
the quiet part out loud CONFIDENTIAL.docxleaks. this sub-mediocre rich little jackass really did convince himself all he needed to do was control the narrative and flood Twitter with nonsense and he’d come out of this an unscathed alt-right grifter. what’s fucking amazing is that he still tried a bunch of these tactics (specifically #15 and a lot of the ones throwing shade on the bankruptcy team) even though the prosecution had this document the entire time- Say you’re crazy
- Say they’re crazy
- Get muscular dystrophy when you’re a kid
- Marry J. Edgar Hoover
- Take up residence in Albania
- Stretch yourself on a rack so that you become over 6 1/2 feet tall
- Marry your mother
- Marry your father
- Blow up the state of liberty…
Hey I think some of these are pretty good ideas
https://archive.org/details/2917616.0001.001.umich.edu/page/3/mode/1up
- THE BASILISK WILL COME FOR YOU ALL
These clowns are so fucking incompetent at being evil geniuses that they need a document outlining their Evil Plan™ and not once think how that might be a stupid idea.
at this point, multiple people involved in crypto have been famously caught with a
crimes.txtfile on their unencrypted desktop, in signal chats named some shit like financial crimes and real gamers clubhouse where they talk about the crimes and Fortnite they’re doing, or with toilet phones protected by ziplock bags with crime burner phone (with evidence of my crimes) written on the bag with a sharpie
ACAB and abolish prisons, but we can leave finance cops and SBF until quite late in the process
come the fabulous gay luxury space communism future, when scarcity itself becomes all but obsolete, we will absolutely have to make it clear that, at the mind-buggeringly long and rambling cadre meetings discussing the disbursement of the few items that remain restricted, Sam's opinion is not invited
Utilitarianism is just a vapid philosophy, and so gross.
morality of an anime villain
Plenty of anime villains would be insulted by this.
IANAL: His defense team must truly suck ass. To let the prosecution build the case that he is essentially amoral and profit driven is just baffling. To let SBF speak in any capacity at all is more baffling. The only way they could bungle this further is if they asked for more time than the prosecution was asking for.
If I remember correctly SBF taking the stand was completely against his lawyers' recommendations, and in general he seems to have a really hard time doing what people who know better tell him to, such as don't DM journalists about your crimes and definitely don't start a substack detailing how you felt justified in doing them, and also trying to 'explain yourself' to prosecution witnesses is witness tampering and will get your bail revoked.
There's a limit to what anyone can achieve with this calibre of client. This is also his second defence team after the others refused to put up with his shit any more. He has a new, third defence team handling his appeal.
Is he the type of guy to go 'wait if I just explain my stance more and more they will eventually understand'?
Did he try to Rationalist blogpost monologue his defence team because he also wanted to do that to the judge? The idea of him trying to verbose from first principles the law in his own defense sounds very funny to me. Poor lawyers
E: Officially perjured himself 3 times. Oof.
Here is the document that mentions EA as risk factor, some quotes below
Fourth, the defendant may feel compelled to do this fraud again, or a version of it, based on his use of idiosyncratic, and ultimately for him pernicious, beliefs around altruism, utilitarianism, and expected value to place himself outside of the bounds of the law that apply to others, and to justify unlawful, selfish, and harmful conduct. Time and time again the defendant has expressed that his preferred path is the one that maximizes his version of societal value, even if imposes substantial short term harm or carries substantial risks to others... In this case, the defendant’s professed philosophy has served to rationalize a dangerous brand of megalomania—one where the defendant is convinced that he is above the law and the rules of the road that apply to everyone else, who he necessarily deems inferior in brainpower, skill, and analytical reasoning.
"Almost all of the letters lamented the likelihood that victims will not be able to enjoy the gains on their crypto assets, as the bankruptcy proceedings are likely to pay out claims in dollars based on the price of Bitcoin and other assets on the date of bankruptcy ($16,871, in Bitcoin's case) rather than their prices today (around $70,000, or over four times as much)" oh no what a shame
Your honor, My client caused no damages.
As clearly seen in the impact statements the only thing that was lost was crypto currencies and as they state they would have been held on to if not lost. By holding on to the crypto currencies, the victims shows a common delusion in the crypto sphere, namely that crypto has value. In all certainty they would have held on until said crypto was lost, stolen or had collapsed. The true expected value was zero.
"Only" 25 years. Oh, well.
I remember people convinced his big donations to Democrats would enable him to walk.
Edit I'm pretty sure those same people are gonna defend the judge's opinion that SBF is the worst defendant he's ever met with the fact he's autistic.
quite an underwhelming choice, that one :/
"SBF died for our sins". "Archangel LTD".
Oh my what a humble and altruistic boy genius.
He also brainstormed ideas to rehabilitate his image, including "Go on Tucker Carlsen [sic], come out as a republican", seek support from "random subgroups" including the alt-right or "some other displaced group", "come out as extremely pro crypto, pro freedom", embrace the narrative that "SBF died for our sins", condemn the bankruptcy lawyers, or applaud the bankruptcy lawyers.
This person...he's not fit to live in a normal society. He also planned to launche another crypto exchange after ftx. He's going to do that again and again...if they let him free (they won't)
embrace the narrative that “SBF died for our sins”
Huh? This is so absurdly self-aggrandizing that I struggle to comprehend what he's even saying. What did he imagine "our sins" were, and how did getting imprisoned absolve them?
That confused me as well. Is he having a crisis or an episode fueled by some religios ideas?
I know nothing about this and have only seen some extremely obnoxious cryptobros on Twitter, but my guess of the narrative is that it would operate on SBF paving the way for them via doing crypto, where crypto is seen as rebellious against a rules-based, above board, banking order that’s trying to shut them out, keep them submissive and down, out of the game, etc.
I certainly find it aggravating!
What is the thumbnail? Asofterworld?
which thumbnail? not seeing it from my client/interface
That is so bizarre that I thought it was parody. I guess Poe’s Law applies to ratty effective altruists.
SBF is a patsy for citadel
The info will come to light very soon 🤣
