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I wish there was more focus on the “buying political influence with dark money” angle, and less on “young tech guy gets rich and destroys the economy” angle of

I wish there was more focus on the “buying political influence with dark money” angle, and less on “young tech guy gets rich and destroys the economy” angle of the story. As a group of mostly young tech guys and girls, we should be concerned about the narrative society, especially Wall Street and their media outlets, convey about us. Recall when redditors buying GME stock was being blamed for the many ills of capitalism. The whole robbinhood saga. The scapegoat is always a smart, wealthy young technologists. SBF is more of a Soros than an Aaron Swartz. Wall Street loves to blame Silicon Valley, but it’s bs.

mise_en_place 4y ago
- TacticalCoder 4y ago
  When? After the SBF fraud was exposed?
- oh_sigh 4y ago
  What does that have to do with SBF and others at FTX being Jews?
- ars 4y ago
  He was accused of saying "Kanye Was Right" about Jews. That's pretty blatant antisemitism, and you should be ashamed of yourself for trying to imply anything else. I'm flagging your post.
esotericimpl 4y ago
gruez 4y ago
>As a group of mostly young tech guys and girls, we should be concerned about the narrative society, especially Wall Street and their media outlets, convey about us. Recall when redditors buying GME stock was being blamed for the many ills of capitalism. The whole robbinhood saga. Source? I hate statements like these because it sounds like there's a central blame committee out there handing down blames (or at least some sort of consensus), when in reality in all likelihood it's a hot take by some Bloomberg columnist.
- conorcleary 4y ago
  /r/Superstonk - Read through the sources on the sidebar. If you disagree with OP, keep reading.
  - gruez 4y ago
    I can see exactly zero sources linked in the sidebar that addresses my comment. Also, keep in mind that my contention wasn't that such articles didn't exist. They exist, just like the ragebait articles about "how millennials are killing the diamond industry" exist. My point was that such articles are just that: ragebait hot takes designed to get clicks. They're not reflective of general sentiment. Referencing this articles as evidence that there's some sort of concerted PR campaign against "us" is foolish.
memish 4y ago
They did this whole piece about him donating to effective altruism, but they didn't even mention that he's a top political donor, let alone investigate it. FTX’s Collapse Casts a Pall on a Philanthropy Movement Sam Bankman-Fried, the chief executive of the embattled cryptocurrency exchange, was a proponent and donor of the “effective altruism” movement. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/13/business/ftx-effective-altruism.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/13/business/ftx-effective-al...
- mynameishere 4y ago
  You can't mention that he's the #2 political donor without mentioning that those donations went to the Democratic party and that the #1 political donor is George Soros. Any kind of negative reporting against either is absolutely forbidden. You also get into the possibility that there was a cycle of money that went: US Taxpayer Dollars -> Ukraine -> FTX -> Democratic Party -> Further Money to Ukraine. That's influence buying of the absolute ugliest sort and the NY Times is unlikely to even hint at it.
  - jjtheblunt 4y ago
    which is because the NYT is pwned by the Democrats somehow undisclosed?
    - MichaelCollins 4y ago
      pwned? They're not hacked, just partisan.
      - jjtheblunt 4y ago
        yeah i understand...un-editable typo oops ftw.
- twiddling 4y ago
  https://givingpledge.org/pledger?pledgerId=445 https://givingpledge.org/pledger?pledgerId=445
loceng 4y ago
Any narratives against the establishment - whomever FTX et al are toeing the line with - are downvoted/suppressed, including on HN.
- rurp 4y ago
  What are you talking about? This has been well covered in the news and discussed in multiple HN threads. Just a few recent examples in the news: https://www.axios.com/2022/11/15/ftz-crypto-bankman-fried-democrats-midterms-campaigns https://www.axios.com/2022/11/15/ftz-crypto-bankman-fried-de... https://fortune.com/crypto/2022/11/15/politicians-sam-bankman-fried-donations-ftx-charity/ https://fortune.com/crypto/2022/11/15/politicians-sam-bankma... https://fortune.com/crypto/2022/11/15/politicians-sam-bankman-fried-donations-ftx-charity/ https://fortune.com/crypto/2022/11/15/politicians-sam-bankma... https://cointelegraph.com/news/sbf-has-been-a-significant-donor-in-us-midterm-elections https://cointelegraph.com/news/sbf-has-been-a-significant-do... https://nypost.com/2022/11/14/sam-bankman-fried-broke-crypto-bank-for-dems/ https://nypost.com/2022/11/14/sam-bankman-fried-broke-crypto...
  - loceng 4y ago
    That's a straw man, I didn't say it wasn't getting coverage.
    - rurp 4y ago
      I don't think a heavily reported on and discussed story meets any normal definition of "suppressed".
      - loceng 4y ago
        Quite a shallow perspective: we'd have to critically think and discern, analyze the various narratives of each article, to see what narratives/talking points are being pushed by different sources, and which are being avoided being spoken of. Your response is akin to only citing studies funded by arguably bad actors with monetary ties to the pharmaceutical industry and the status quo establishment (captured by big pharma lobbying), while simply avoiding and immediately/automatically dismissing the 93 Ivermectin studies that in total show an average 83% rate of prophylaxis; as a preventative-proactive medication, if the protocol is providing an adequate dose, early enough, and for long enough - those 3 variables of which in all studies showing no efficacy for Ivermectin against COVID aren't using the best practices determined by frontline doctors who experimented to determine the correct, minimum protocol(s). In fact "highly reported on" is a necessary tactic in order to try to capture and flood the search engines with articles, using the same keywords, in order to add noise and make it difficult for people to find contradicting narratives to the ones the establishment who's captured these systems wants you to see.
sdiacom 4y ago
Isn't buying political influence with money what most people with absurd amounts of money do? I don't like it one bit either, but it's hardly unique to SBF. With SBF, there seems to be this attempt at drawing guilt-by-association because of his donations to the Democratic Party. I don't think this makes a lot of sense. For an example on the other end of the parliamentary spectrum, say, if Musk's future Twitter profits (good luck with that) were to come from the savings from firing half of the company's employees, and he then donated those to the Republican Party, it would be absurd to blame the Republican Party for the loss of jobs that it indirectly benefited from. Obviously firing employees is not equivalent to fraud, and donating illicit profits could be part of a scheme to launder them. But unless a causal link can be proven, it all looks like speculation to me.
- lazide 4y ago
  Buying useful things with money to make more money is pretty much the definition of a businessman, after all. And it seems like the ROI on politicians is amazing.
  - jongjong 4y ago
    That makes a good case for smaller, more decentralized governments with less power. That would increase the lobbying costs. The US is just insane if you think about it; if a lobbyist manages to get 1 beneficial law passed in the US, that law will affect over 300 million people! Think of the profit opportunity on a per-law basis... They only need to work a handful of politicians to get such results. It's too easy.
    - lazide 4y ago
      It’s the classic federalism vs decentralized argument for sure. Centralization can result in amazing efficiencies and higher standards, or amazingly large graft and powerful and effective despotism.

mise_en_place 4y ago

TacticalCoder 4y ago
When? After the SBF fraud was exposed?
oh_sigh 4y ago
What does that have to do with SBF and others at FTX being Jews?
ars 4y ago
He was accused of saying "Kanye Was Right" about Jews. That's pretty blatant antisemitism, and you should be ashamed of yourself for trying to imply anything else. I'm flagging your post.

esotericimpl 4y ago

gruez 4y ago

>As a group of mostly young tech guys and girls, we should be concerned about the narrative society, especially Wall Street and their media outlets, convey about us. Recall when redditors buying GME stock was being blamed for the many ills of capitalism. The whole robbinhood saga. Source? I hate statements like these because it sounds like there's a central blame committee out there handing down blames (or at least some sort of consensus), when in reality in all likelihood it's a hot take by some Bloomberg columnist.

conorcleary 4y ago
/r/Superstonk - Read through the sources on the sidebar. If you disagree with OP, keep reading.
- gruez 4y ago
  I can see exactly zero sources linked in the sidebar that addresses my comment. Also, keep in mind that my contention wasn't that such articles didn't exist. They exist, just like the ragebait articles about "how millennials are killing the diamond industry" exist. My point was that such articles are just that: ragebait hot takes designed to get clicks. They're not reflective of general sentiment. Referencing this articles as evidence that there's some sort of concerted PR campaign against "us" is foolish.

memish 4y ago

They did this whole piece about him donating to effective altruism, but they didn't even mention that he's a top political donor, let alone investigate it. FTX’s Collapse Casts a Pall on a Philanthropy Movement Sam Bankman-Fried, the chief executive of the embattled cryptocurrency exchange, was a proponent and donor of the “effective altruism” movement. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/13/business/ftx-effective-altruism.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/13/business/ftx-effective-al...

mynameishere 4y ago
You can't mention that he's the #2 political donor without mentioning that those donations went to the Democratic party and that the #1 political donor is George Soros. Any kind of negative reporting against either is absolutely forbidden. You also get into the possibility that there was a cycle of money that went: US Taxpayer Dollars -> Ukraine -> FTX -> Democratic Party -> Further Money to Ukraine. That's influence buying of the absolute ugliest sort and the NY Times is unlikely to even hint at it.
- jjtheblunt 4y ago
  which is because the NYT is pwned by the Democrats somehow undisclosed?
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    pwned? They're not hacked, just partisan.
    - jjtheblunt 4y ago
      yeah i understand...un-editable typo oops ftw.
twiddling 4y ago
https://givingpledge.org/pledger?pledgerId=445 https://givingpledge.org/pledger?pledgerId=445

loceng 4y ago

Any narratives against the establishment - whomever FTX et al are toeing the line with - are downvoted/suppressed, including on HN.

rurp 4y ago
What are you talking about? This has been well covered in the news and discussed in multiple HN threads. Just a few recent examples in the news: https://www.axios.com/2022/11/15/ftz-crypto-bankman-fried-democrats-midterms-campaigns https://www.axios.com/2022/11/15/ftz-crypto-bankman-fried-de... https://fortune.com/crypto/2022/11/15/politicians-sam-bankman-fried-donations-ftx-charity/ https://fortune.com/crypto/2022/11/15/politicians-sam-bankma... https://fortune.com/crypto/2022/11/15/politicians-sam-bankman-fried-donations-ftx-charity/ https://fortune.com/crypto/2022/11/15/politicians-sam-bankma... https://cointelegraph.com/news/sbf-has-been-a-significant-donor-in-us-midterm-elections https://cointelegraph.com/news/sbf-has-been-a-significant-do... https://nypost.com/2022/11/14/sam-bankman-fried-broke-crypto-bank-for-dems/ https://nypost.com/2022/11/14/sam-bankman-fried-broke-crypto...
- loceng 4y ago
  That's a straw man, I didn't say it wasn't getting coverage.
  - rurp 4y ago
    I don't think a heavily reported on and discussed story meets any normal definition of "suppressed".
    - loceng 4y ago
      Quite a shallow perspective: we'd have to critically think and discern, analyze the various narratives of each article, to see what narratives/talking points are being pushed by different sources, and which are being avoided being spoken of. Your response is akin to only citing studies funded by arguably bad actors with monetary ties to the pharmaceutical industry and the status quo establishment (captured by big pharma lobbying), while simply avoiding and immediately/automatically dismissing the 93 Ivermectin studies that in total show an average 83% rate of prophylaxis; as a preventative-proactive medication, if the protocol is providing an adequate dose, early enough, and for long enough - those 3 variables of which in all studies showing no efficacy for Ivermectin against COVID aren't using the best practices determined by frontline doctors who experimented to determine the correct, minimum protocol(s). In fact "highly reported on" is a necessary tactic in order to try to capture and flood the search engines with articles, using the same keywords, in order to add noise and make it difficult for people to find contradicting narratives to the ones the establishment who's captured these systems wants you to see.

sdiacom 4y ago

Isn't buying political influence with money what most people with absurd amounts of money do? I don't like it one bit either, but it's hardly unique to SBF. With SBF, there seems to be this attempt at drawing guilt-by-association because of his donations to the Democratic Party. I don't think this makes a lot of sense. For an example on the other end of the parliamentary spectrum, say, if Musk's future Twitter profits (good luck with that) were to come from the savings from firing half of the company's employees, and he then donated those to the Republican Party, it would be absurd to blame the Republican Party for the loss of jobs that it indirectly benefited from. Obviously firing employees is not equivalent to fraud, and donating illicit profits could be part of a scheme to launder them. But unless a causal link can be proven, it all looks like speculation to me.

lazide 4y ago
Buying useful things with money to make more money is pretty much the definition of a businessman, after all. And it seems like the ROI on politicians is amazing.
- jongjong 4y ago
  That makes a good case for smaller, more decentralized governments with less power. That would increase the lobbying costs. The US is just insane if you think about it; if a lobbyist manages to get 1 beneficial law passed in the US, that law will affect over 300 million people! Think of the profit opportunity on a per-law basis... They only need to work a handful of politicians to get such results. It's too easy.
  - lazide 4y ago
    It’s the classic federalism vs decentralized argument for sure. Centralization can result in amazing efficiencies and higher standards, or amazingly large graft and powerful and effective despotism.