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"I was too ignorant to run a giant investment company/pseudo-bank correctly" shouldn't get you off though. He needs to face the same charges regardless of wheth

"I was too ignorant to run a giant investment company/pseudo-bank correctly" shouldn't get you off though. He needs to face the same charges regardless of whether he was malicious or stupid.

mikeyouse 4y ago
And he absolutely will... People are ridiculously acting like he got away with something because he's not in Federal prison yet. It hasn't even been a month since it all blew up.
BobbyJo 4y ago
The day the "too dumb" defense works is the day we can open all the cell doors and close down the prisons, because that's everyone's defense.
- chx 4y ago
  There's more to it being a defense: > Delinquents and criminals average IQ scores 8 to 10 points lower than noncriminals, which is about one-half a standard deviation. IQ and criminal behavior are negatively correlated at about r = -. 20 (Hirschi and Hindelang; Wilson and Herrnstein).
  - noduerme 4y ago
    Did they adjust for dumber criminals being more likely to be caught?
    - bigDinosaur 4y ago
      How does one adjust for uncaught criminals?
      - bombcar 4y ago
        Get a control group of smart people and have them start doing crimes and see if they get caught. We call this “financialization”.
      - totalZero 4y ago
        Elapsed time between crime and capture might be a good regressor.
      - Nasrudith 4y ago
        Chronic unsolved crimes gets some of it at least. If say, thirty percent of murders are cold cases then you know they aren't all getting caught. Other constraints would hint at the possible count potential murderers. If two people are killed on the same day two days of travel apart then you have at least two murderers. That doesn't help with estimating levels of non-detected crimes of course.
  - oblio 4y ago
    > Bankman-Fried attended Canada/USA Mathcamp, a summer program for mathematically talented high-school students. He attended high school at Crystal Springs Uplands School in Hillsborough, California. From 2010 to 2014, Bankman-Fried attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There, he lived in a coeducational group house called Epsilon Theta. In 2014, he graduated with a bachelor's degree in physics and a minor in mathematics. There's no way he can plead stupidity.
sillysaurusx 4y ago
That’s not a given. The #1 criteria of fraud is intent. If you can’t prove intent, there was no fraud. We may not like it, but that’s how the system is set up.
- HarryHirsch 4y ago
  Yes, it's intentionally set up like that to facilitate crime.
  - DiggyJohnson 4y ago
    The “intentional” part of your claim is extremely dubious, even if I agree with it if you omit that word. I don’t think there’s an unintentional relationships which facilitates and under-punishes fraud, but I don’t think there’s a conspiracy afoot.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  The gov't says 'reckless indifference to the truth' qualifies as intent.
  - myself248 4y ago
    Reckless indifference to the truth, then, should condemn both SBF and his aggrieved. All involved knew what they were doing, or took extraordinary measures to blind themselves to knowing.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
throwawaysleep 4y ago
Fraud requires intent.
dsfyu404ed 4y ago
>He needs to face the same charges regardless of whether he was malicious or stupid. We're not gonna invalidate a huge amount of legal precedent spanning centuries for one dude. Intent matters. (That said I think he's lying and knew what was going on the whole time)
dmix 4y ago
Being dumb never got anyone off of a crime. I'm pretty sure he will face serious consequences regardless. The "bumbling kid" narrative won't help him there. But it's relevant in discussions when I've seen him called worse than Madoff who engaged in a very overt crime. Again we don't know exactly how much SBF tried to directly profit off the business yet and how much it was a concerted plot to scam people. ...And since the internet requires you to be extremely obvious, that is not saying he's not a bad guy or absolved of responsibility or whatever.
- landemva 4y ago
  > Again we don't know exactly how much SBF tried to directly profit off the business The article has some large numbers. "Bankman-Fried received an incredible $1 billion in personal loans, as well as a $2.3 billion loan to an entity called Paper Bird in which he had 75% control."
SilasX 4y ago
Even if true, wouldn't that mean he was defrauding the VCs by representing that he could run a pseudo-bank correctly? Out of the frying pan...

"I was too ignorant to run a giant investment company/pseudo-bank correctly" shouldn't get you off though. He needs to face the same charges regardless of whether he was malicious or stupid.

mikeyouse 4y ago

And he absolutely will... People are ridiculously acting like he got away with something because he's not in Federal prison yet. It hasn't even been a month since it all blew up.

BobbyJo 4y ago

The day the "too dumb" defense works is the day we can open all the cell doors and close down the prisons, because that's everyone's defense.

chx 4y ago
There's more to it being a defense: > Delinquents and criminals average IQ scores 8 to 10 points lower than noncriminals, which is about one-half a standard deviation. IQ and criminal behavior are negatively correlated at about r = -. 20 (Hirschi and Hindelang; Wilson and Herrnstein).
- noduerme 4y ago
  Did they adjust for dumber criminals being more likely to be caught?
  - bigDinosaur 4y ago
    How does one adjust for uncaught criminals?
    - bombcar 4y ago
      Get a control group of smart people and have them start doing crimes and see if they get caught. We call this “financialization”.
    - totalZero 4y ago
      Elapsed time between crime and capture might be a good regressor.
    - Nasrudith 4y ago
      Chronic unsolved crimes gets some of it at least. If say, thirty percent of murders are cold cases then you know they aren't all getting caught. Other constraints would hint at the possible count potential murderers. If two people are killed on the same day two days of travel apart then you have at least two murderers. That doesn't help with estimating levels of non-detected crimes of course.
- oblio 4y ago
  > Bankman-Fried attended Canada/USA Mathcamp, a summer program for mathematically talented high-school students. He attended high school at Crystal Springs Uplands School in Hillsborough, California. From 2010 to 2014, Bankman-Fried attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There, he lived in a coeducational group house called Epsilon Theta. In 2014, he graduated with a bachelor's degree in physics and a minor in mathematics. There's no way he can plead stupidity.

sillysaurusx 4y ago

That’s not a given. The #1 criteria of fraud is intent. If you can’t prove intent, there was no fraud. We may not like it, but that’s how the system is set up.

HarryHirsch 4y ago
Yes, it's intentionally set up like that to facilitate crime.
- DiggyJohnson 4y ago
  The “intentional” part of your claim is extremely dubious, even if I agree with it if you omit that word. I don’t think there’s an unintentional relationships which facilitates and under-punishes fraud, but I don’t think there’s a conspiracy afoot.
rootusrootus 4y ago
The gov't says 'reckless indifference to the truth' qualifies as intent.
- myself248 4y ago
  Reckless indifference to the truth, then, should condemn both SBF and his aggrieved. All involved knew what they were doing, or took extraordinary measures to blind themselves to knowing.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

throwawaysleep 4y ago

Fraud requires intent.

dsfyu404ed 4y ago

>He needs to face the same charges regardless of whether he was malicious or stupid. We're not gonna invalidate a huge amount of legal precedent spanning centuries for one dude. Intent matters. (That said I think he's lying and knew what was going on the whole time)

dmix 4y ago

Being dumb never got anyone off of a crime. I'm pretty sure he will face serious consequences regardless. The "bumbling kid" narrative won't help him there. But it's relevant in discussions when I've seen him called worse than Madoff who engaged in a very overt crime. Again we don't know exactly how much SBF tried to directly profit off the business yet and how much it was a concerted plot to scam people. ...And since the internet requires you to be extremely obvious, that is not saying he's not a bad guy or absolved of responsibility or whatever.

landemva 4y ago
> Again we don't know exactly how much SBF tried to directly profit off the business The article has some large numbers. "Bankman-Fried received an incredible $1 billion in personal loans, as well as a $2.3 billion loan to an entity called Paper Bird in which he had 75% control."

SilasX 4y ago

Even if true, wouldn't that mean he was defrauding the VCs by representing that he could run a pseudo-bank correctly? Out of the frying pan...