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His “bumbling fool” persona doesn’t really match the cold-hearted calculation that’s necessary for the criminal moves he pulls off. But he has perfected this ap

His “bumbling fool” persona doesn’t really match the cold-hearted calculation that’s necessary for the criminal moves he pulls off. But he has perfected this appearance to the point where even a significant portion of the otherwise so easily cynical HN crowd seems convinced that “someone this stupid can’t be all that evil”. It’s probably an incredible advantage for a conman to be underestimated to this extent. Case in point: Media referring to him as a boy genius, him moving back in with his parents, and his apparent video game addiction all to the contrary, the guy turns 31 next month. If that surprises you at least a bit, and I have to admit it did surprise me, then his antics have exactly the effect he wants.

sundvor 4y ago
The real surprise to me is that he has access to the internet at all; from a prison cell he certainly wouldn't.
warent 4y ago
Surprises you in what way? Did you think he was younger or older?
- codeflo 4y ago
  I edited the post to clarify.
vba616 4y ago
>“someone this stupid can’t be all that evil” I see how you write about how he is cold-heartedly calculating stuff, but not where you explain what his calculations are and how they lead here. It's not like "exit scams" are unprecedented in crypto. If he was planning to disappear to a non-extradition country with a secret wallet eventually, why didn't he do it when things blew up? The simplest assumption is he believed FTX could go on forever, because people were throwing billions of dollars at him. And he couldn't just turn off the belief when it all collapsed. See: B.F. Skinner.
- warent 4y ago
  My understanding is he was illegally funneling investor money into unrelated business activities and then lying to his investors. His fabrications are not accidental and therefore are calculated.
  - vba616 4y ago
    Suppose that he were publicly cackling and saying "everything is proceeding as I have foreseen...". Would you not call it BS, if he were asserting it as some sort of triumph? Because that seems to me isomorphic to what people are claiming when they say this was calculated. The only difference I see is the polarity, the positivity or negativity of how it's put.
- danaris 4y ago
  Stupidity is not a binary. It is entirely possible for him to have been fully aware of the criminality of his schemes, fully calculating in his execution of them, and also fully expecting to be able to get away with them, because he's a rich white guy, and may have(?) never faced any serious consequences in his life.
  - LocalH 4y ago
    Perception is a hell of a drug.
  - vba616 4y ago
    >Stupidity is not a binary. I do not even have the capacity to imagine stupidity as binary without someone else explaining their thought process. Words mean whatever you want them to mean. But to my previous comment and what I was trying to communicate, stupidity is not even a relevant dimension sometimes. If someone doesn't have a master plan for their whole life or decades at a time, not only is that not stupid or smart in some absolute or binary sense, it doesn't rate anywhere in between either. It doesn't rate on any scale from smart to stupid, I think, because people can succeed without planning, and fail with planning. Or the converse (contrapositive?) By the way, I can't help the word "binary" jumping out at me acontextually, because (I don't know if you've heard) there is or was a fairly large and scammy industry in "binary options" until it was banned in some jurisdictions. I haven't heard of SBF being connected, but some people at (or formerly at) Celsius reportedly were.

sundvor 4y ago

The real surprise to me is that he has access to the internet at all; from a prison cell he certainly wouldn't.

warent 4y ago

Surprises you in what way? Did you think he was younger or older?

codeflo 4y ago
I edited the post to clarify.

vba616 4y ago

>“someone this stupid can’t be all that evil” I see how you write about how he is cold-heartedly calculating stuff, but not where you explain what his calculations are and how they lead here. It's not like "exit scams" are unprecedented in crypto. If he was planning to disappear to a non-extradition country with a secret wallet eventually, why didn't he do it when things blew up? The simplest assumption is he believed FTX could go on forever, because people were throwing billions of dollars at him. And he couldn't just turn off the belief when it all collapsed. See: B.F. Skinner.

warent 4y ago
My understanding is he was illegally funneling investor money into unrelated business activities and then lying to his investors. His fabrications are not accidental and therefore are calculated.
- vba616 4y ago
  Suppose that he were publicly cackling and saying "everything is proceeding as I have foreseen...". Would you not call it BS, if he were asserting it as some sort of triumph? Because that seems to me isomorphic to what people are claiming when they say this was calculated. The only difference I see is the polarity, the positivity or negativity of how it's put.
danaris 4y ago
Stupidity is not a binary. It is entirely possible for him to have been fully aware of the criminality of his schemes, fully calculating in his execution of them, and also fully expecting to be able to get away with them, because he's a rich white guy, and may have(?) never faced any serious consequences in his life.
- LocalH 4y ago
  Perception is a hell of a drug.
- vba616 4y ago
  >Stupidity is not a binary. I do not even have the capacity to imagine stupidity as binary without someone else explaining their thought process. Words mean whatever you want them to mean. But to my previous comment and what I was trying to communicate, stupidity is not even a relevant dimension sometimes. If someone doesn't have a master plan for their whole life or decades at a time, not only is that not stupid or smart in some absolute or binary sense, it doesn't rate anywhere in between either. It doesn't rate on any scale from smart to stupid, I think, because people can succeed without planning, and fail with planning. Or the converse (contrapositive?) By the way, I can't help the word "binary" jumping out at me acontextually, because (I don't know if you've heard) there is or was a fairly large and scammy industry in "binary options" until it was banned in some jurisdictions. I haven't heard of SBF being connected, but some people at (or formerly at) Celsius reportedly were.