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I was ready to reply with an “um actually it is an arbitrary number” but… no… it is literally a random number. How did someone commit that and sleep at night?

I was ready to reply with an “um actually it is an arbitrary number” but… no… it is literally a random number. How did someone commit that and sleep at night? It’s amazing that some people still defend SBF. Among his sycophants is Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball, The Big Short, and now “Going Infinite” which somehow manages to gloss over the rampant fraud happening at FTX since inception.

monero-xmr 3y ago
Can you link to anyone defending him? The Michael Lewis book was a character study. I can’t think of a single person who defends what happened.
- maxbond 3y ago
  He describes it as a "letter to the jury" (which I interpret as an statement of intention to reframe the popular understanding of what happened - presumably Lewis knows that jurors aren't supposed to read editorials about the case & is speaking figuratively) and casts SBF in a sympathetic light while casting aspersions on the executives executing the bankruptcy. Like GP mentioned, it glosses over the red flags and such to present a different narrative of Lewis' choosing. I think it's fair to characterize Lewis as carrying water. It's also a character study, sure, but there's no contradiction there.
  - dxf 3y ago
    Matt Levine's take on _Going Infinite_: "Many of the reviews that I have read of the book complain that Lewis does not sufficiently explain that Bankman-Fried is Guilty and Bad, Actually, but that is not the book that he wanted to write... If you want to read a moral condemnation of crypto theft, you can get that anywhere. You go to Michael Lewis for character and story. Also, reading those reviews you would think that the book is a defense of Bankman-Fried, but it is actually quite damning."
  - benjaminwootton 3y ago
    I saw a few clips of an interview with Lewis here - https://youtu.be/B2z8ikGLRh8?si=pqF-jUI4SeWsI4Fg https://youtu.be/B2z8ikGLRh8?si=pqF-jUI4SeWsI4Fg The interviewer maybe edits for effect, but Lewis seems very biased towards SBF.
- bitcharmer 3y ago
  Have you watched 60 minutes with Michael Lewis? He's openly defending SBF
usefulcat 3y ago
> Among his sycophants is Michael Lewis, author of ... Also Flash Boys, which was basically a book-length advertisement for the IEX exchange.
- mortehu 3y ago
  Fun fact for those who have read the book: IEX recently started paying market makers for displaying liquidity on their exchange. https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/fed-meeting-interest-rate-decision-today-july-2023/card/-flash-boys-exchange-iex-has-criticized-rebates-now-it-s-adopting-them--f1OqAkiTZCdf2Yixrxt8 https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/fed-meeting-interest-rate-d...
- doubloon 3y ago
  and The Blind Side, in which he missed the fact that a couple put an athlete into a conservatorship so they could profit from his royalties.
zeitgeistcowboy 3y ago
I’d say it’s less random than the headline makes it seem. It’s a random value with mean of 7500 and standard deviation of 3000 pulled from a normal distribution. And, it’s multiplied by the daily volume. So, there may be some thought here. It’s adding about $7,500 per trading unit volume. Not saying it’s legal or anything.
- searealist 3y ago
  So basically, your claim is that a normal distribution is less random than a uniform distribution? Can’t say I agree.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - stavros 3y ago
    As I understand it, the claim is that the volume being added is tiny compared to the real volume.
  - sillysaurusx 3y ago
    Well, by definition it is. It’s why we have names like normal and uniform.
    - uxp8u61q 3y ago
      By definition it's not. It's just as random. These names just tell you a few key properties of the distribution.
      - nomel 3y ago
        > just as random Let’s do a lottery together. We each throw in some money. Since they’re both just as random, I’m sure you won’t mind if I use a normal distribution, and choose each of our positions on the number line. :) Your assertion is missing some needed qualifiers.
      - 3y ago
dheera 3y ago
[flagged]
- automatic6131 3y ago
  [flagged]
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > he did commit many of the moral breeches that are committed by existing governmental and financial institutions at scale without any legal repercussions Example? Bankman-Fried committed outright fraud. He lied and stole money. This is simply incomparable to what anyone in finance is doing, much less being left unpunished for.
  - dheera 3y ago
    I disagree. Banks take my money and lend it out to others, like businesses who are losing money, not profitable, and want venture debt. They take MY money, and give it to unprofitable businesses, with the hope that they'll be some day profitable. "But that's how banks work", you say. Only because you drunk the Kool-Aid. Only because banks are so damn good at managing risk that we haven't questioned the practice. But at the end of the day, it's my money, and they shouldn't have the right to lend it against my will. "But you could store money under your mattress", you say. If taxpayer money can provide me with the necessary security guards for that, sure. If not, I don't consider it an option. SBF was just worse than Bank of America at managing the risk, and got into deep shit. SVB got into deep shit but because the law allows them to legally commit the same fraud of lending out money they don't own, the law protected them with FDIC funds. Bank of America is equally in the wrong, though, it's a messed up system that we just accept because everyone around you accepts it.
    - RandomLensman 3y ago
      Banks are forced to have some capabilities in risk management and controls because they are regulated and supervised to that effect. You can buy short-dated treasury bills if you want direct tax payers support for your money, for example. Giving money to a bank is lending the money to the bank with your permission, but there are other debtors available.
sanderjd 3y ago
HAHAHA this was my first thought too! To be fully pedantic: it's both things! It's a random number chosen from an arbitrarily sized range around an arbitrary number :)
- SilasX 3y ago
  Semi-related: AIUI, in most places where you legitimately want a “random number”, what you actually want is a number that is knowably, causally unrelated to the other figures so you know you’re screening off accidental correlations. In practice, random numbers accomplish this, but randomness isn’t quite the same thing as what you’re striving for. So, for example, the problem with “randomly” picking 4 every time (a la xkcd) is that it introduces a spurious correlation between the places where it’s used.
  - eptcyka 3y ago
    4 doesn't originate from XKCD, it originates from Playstation 3's firmware. Ultimately, 4 is a random number, so the developer in question could argue he was technically correct, it's the specification that's wrong.
    - hcs 3y ago
      The xkcd reference was a joke used in the fail0verflow CCC PS3 presentation in 2010. I don't know what the reused nonce was but it probably wasn't 4, and the xkcd comic is from 2007.
    - SilasX 3y ago
      I appreciate the background, but I'm not aware of any usage of "X a la Y" that implies "Y is the first ever instance of X".
jmcgough 3y ago
> How did someone commit that and sleep at night? # TODO: stub for now until we have an actual insurance fund
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
wmf 3y ago
The book isn't as damning as it could be but I wouldn't call it sycophantic. There's plenty of negative information.
bitcharmer 3y ago
I have many of his books on my shelf. Each and every one was a great read. However, his defiant defense of SBF makes me question every thing I learned from them. They are still great reads but now I'm more inclined to just treat everything by Michael Lewis as frivolous fiction only loosely based on reality. It's a shame, he lost a lot of credibility with his latest publication. Even more after his 60 minutes interview.

monero-xmr 3y ago

Can you link to anyone defending him? The Michael Lewis book was a character study. I can’t think of a single person who defends what happened.

maxbond 3y ago
He describes it as a "letter to the jury" (which I interpret as an statement of intention to reframe the popular understanding of what happened - presumably Lewis knows that jurors aren't supposed to read editorials about the case & is speaking figuratively) and casts SBF in a sympathetic light while casting aspersions on the executives executing the bankruptcy. Like GP mentioned, it glosses over the red flags and such to present a different narrative of Lewis' choosing. I think it's fair to characterize Lewis as carrying water. It's also a character study, sure, but there's no contradiction there.
- dxf 3y ago
  Matt Levine's take on _Going Infinite_: "Many of the reviews that I have read of the book complain that Lewis does not sufficiently explain that Bankman-Fried is Guilty and Bad, Actually, but that is not the book that he wanted to write... If you want to read a moral condemnation of crypto theft, you can get that anywhere. You go to Michael Lewis for character and story. Also, reading those reviews you would think that the book is a defense of Bankman-Fried, but it is actually quite damning."
- benjaminwootton 3y ago
  I saw a few clips of an interview with Lewis here - https://youtu.be/B2z8ikGLRh8?si=pqF-jUI4SeWsI4Fg https://youtu.be/B2z8ikGLRh8?si=pqF-jUI4SeWsI4Fg The interviewer maybe edits for effect, but Lewis seems very biased towards SBF.
bitcharmer 3y ago
Have you watched 60 minutes with Michael Lewis? He's openly defending SBF

usefulcat 3y ago

> Among his sycophants is Michael Lewis, author of ... Also Flash Boys, which was basically a book-length advertisement for the IEX exchange.

mortehu 3y ago
Fun fact for those who have read the book: IEX recently started paying market makers for displaying liquidity on their exchange. https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/fed-meeting-interest-rate-decision-today-july-2023/card/-flash-boys-exchange-iex-has-criticized-rebates-now-it-s-adopting-them--f1OqAkiTZCdf2Yixrxt8 https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/fed-meeting-interest-rate-d...
doubloon 3y ago
and The Blind Side, in which he missed the fact that a couple put an athlete into a conservatorship so they could profit from his royalties.

zeitgeistcowboy 3y ago

I’d say it’s less random than the headline makes it seem. It’s a random value with mean of 7500 and standard deviation of 3000 pulled from a normal distribution. And, it’s multiplied by the daily volume. So, there may be some thought here. It’s adding about $7,500 per trading unit volume. Not saying it’s legal or anything.

searealist 3y ago
So basically, your claim is that a normal distribution is less random than a uniform distribution? Can’t say I agree.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- stavros 3y ago
  As I understand it, the claim is that the volume being added is tiny compared to the real volume.
- sillysaurusx 3y ago
  Well, by definition it is. It’s why we have names like normal and uniform.
  - uxp8u61q 3y ago
    By definition it's not. It's just as random. These names just tell you a few key properties of the distribution.
    - nomel 3y ago
      > just as random Let’s do a lottery together. We each throw in some money. Since they’re both just as random, I’m sure you won’t mind if I use a normal distribution, and choose each of our positions on the number line. :) Your assertion is missing some needed qualifiers.
    - 3y ago

dheera 3y ago

[flagged]

automatic6131 3y ago
[flagged]
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> he did commit many of the moral breeches that are committed by existing governmental and financial institutions at scale without any legal repercussions Example? Bankman-Fried committed outright fraud. He lied and stole money. This is simply incomparable to what anyone in finance is doing, much less being left unpunished for.
- dheera 3y ago
  I disagree. Banks take my money and lend it out to others, like businesses who are losing money, not profitable, and want venture debt. They take MY money, and give it to unprofitable businesses, with the hope that they'll be some day profitable. "But that's how banks work", you say. Only because you drunk the Kool-Aid. Only because banks are so damn good at managing risk that we haven't questioned the practice. But at the end of the day, it's my money, and they shouldn't have the right to lend it against my will. "But you could store money under your mattress", you say. If taxpayer money can provide me with the necessary security guards for that, sure. If not, I don't consider it an option. SBF was just worse than Bank of America at managing the risk, and got into deep shit. SVB got into deep shit but because the law allows them to legally commit the same fraud of lending out money they don't own, the law protected them with FDIC funds. Bank of America is equally in the wrong, though, it's a messed up system that we just accept because everyone around you accepts it.
  - RandomLensman 3y ago
    Banks are forced to have some capabilities in risk management and controls because they are regulated and supervised to that effect. You can buy short-dated treasury bills if you want direct tax payers support for your money, for example. Giving money to a bank is lending the money to the bank with your permission, but there are other debtors available.

sanderjd 3y ago

HAHAHA this was my first thought too! To be fully pedantic: it's both things! It's a random number chosen from an arbitrarily sized range around an arbitrary number :)

SilasX 3y ago
Semi-related: AIUI, in most places where you legitimately want a “random number”, what you actually want is a number that is knowably, causally unrelated to the other figures so you know you’re screening off accidental correlations. In practice, random numbers accomplish this, but randomness isn’t quite the same thing as what you’re striving for. So, for example, the problem with “randomly” picking 4 every time (a la xkcd) is that it introduces a spurious correlation between the places where it’s used.
- eptcyka 3y ago
  4 doesn't originate from XKCD, it originates from Playstation 3's firmware. Ultimately, 4 is a random number, so the developer in question could argue he was technically correct, it's the specification that's wrong.
  - hcs 3y ago
    The xkcd reference was a joke used in the fail0verflow CCC PS3 presentation in 2010. I don't know what the reused nonce was but it probably wasn't 4, and the xkcd comic is from 2007.
  - SilasX 3y ago
    I appreciate the background, but I'm not aware of any usage of "X a la Y" that implies "Y is the first ever instance of X".

jmcgough 3y ago

> How did someone commit that and sleep at night? # TODO: stub for now until we have an actual insurance fund

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

wmf 3y ago

The book isn't as damning as it could be but I wouldn't call it sycophantic. There's plenty of negative information.

bitcharmer 3y ago

I have many of his books on my shelf. Each and every one was a great read. However, his defiant defense of SBF makes me question every thing I learned from them. They are still great reads but now I'm more inclined to just treat everything by Michael Lewis as frivolous fiction only loosely based on reality. It's a shame, he lost a lot of credibility with his latest publication. Even more after his 60 minutes interview.