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Didn't know that, but yeah I could totally see that making Lewis more sympathetic. I've never particularly liked SBF even before he imploded, but I don't want

Didn't know that, but yeah I could totally see that making Lewis more sympathetic. I've never particularly liked SBF even before he imploded, but I don't want him spending the rest of his life in jail for a non-violent crime. I'd rather see him banned from finance and banking and sentenced to a million or so hours of teaching programming and computer science to underserved poor children, or something similarly constructive. He has these amazing skills that could be put work benefitting society, and instead we lock him away so the prison-industrial complex can profit. Such a waste, let's rethink that.

paulryanrogers 3y ago
Does SBF have amazing skills in CS (or anything) to share? EDIT: Looks like he graduated MIT with a physics degree, so I'd hope so. Then again, maybe we don't want con men teaching kids.
- SkyMarshal 3y ago
  Well, amazing is relative. To underserved kids in poor school districts yeah his skills are probably amazing. And while an MIT Physics degree doesn't explicitly teach software engineering craftsmanship, his first employer Jane Street has high standards for that, and may have, depending on what he actually did there. But compared to, say, Jeff Dean, his skills are garbage, tofu-dreg, and devoid of any real craftsmanshift or integrity. Pick your point on the continuum. But I'd rather have high-skilled conmen like Sam, Michael Milken, etc. answering for their crimes and rehabilitating by helping others and being constructive, than wasting away in jail, and potentially teaching other criminals there, or becoming more criminal themselves.
  - paulryanrogers 3y ago
    What makes you think con men would actually be constructive and teach impressionable young people useful skills? My guess is they'd exploit the situation for their own gain, even if only subconsciously. SBF was the face of Effective Altruism for a time. Perhaps they can clean trash off highways or work soup kitchens.
CPLX 3y ago
It’s not violence by the literal definition of the word, but I’m not a fan of this particular point of view. Financial crime at this scale absolutely causes people to die unless you think several billion dollars worth of resources is ineffective at keeping people alive. The people who engage in fraud at this scale create far more human misery than your average mugger, though I think both should be adequately punished.
- albntomat0 3y ago
  To what degree was the money lost by SBF/etc going to be put towards saving lives, versus the dreams of the average crypto person?
  - nytesky 3y ago
    Well, a LOT of crypto investor are limited means and the least likely to be able to afford to lose it. Sure they shouldn’t have risked their life savings, but they aren’t getting ahead in normal ways so they hooked onto this rocket, and FTX was considered safe and above board for a long time. There are real mental and physical impact to loss of majority of your wealth, which can lead to homelessness, exhaustion from working more to cover shortfalls, marital strife, abuse, suicide. Considering this wasn’t just insiders like high net worth investors angel investing, but everyday people, yeah it hurts a lot of people in real ways. Probably a lot more than the Madoff crowd for example.
    - albntomat0 3y ago
      My view is that folks lost their life savings on crypto on FTX is only a more extreme version of those who lost their live savings on crypto on some other exchange. The fraud is terrible, but only exasperates the problems of those gambling with limited resources to absorb loses.
  - CPLX 3y ago
    Do you routinely evaluate the contents of a wallet stolen by a mugger or of a car stolen by a carjacker in this way?

paulryanrogers 3y ago

Does SBF have amazing skills in CS (or anything) to share? EDIT: Looks like he graduated MIT with a physics degree, so I'd hope so. Then again, maybe we don't want con men teaching kids.

SkyMarshal 3y ago
Well, amazing is relative. To underserved kids in poor school districts yeah his skills are probably amazing. And while an MIT Physics degree doesn't explicitly teach software engineering craftsmanship, his first employer Jane Street has high standards for that, and may have, depending on what he actually did there. But compared to, say, Jeff Dean, his skills are garbage, tofu-dreg, and devoid of any real craftsmanshift or integrity. Pick your point on the continuum. But I'd rather have high-skilled conmen like Sam, Michael Milken, etc. answering for their crimes and rehabilitating by helping others and being constructive, than wasting away in jail, and potentially teaching other criminals there, or becoming more criminal themselves.
- paulryanrogers 3y ago
  What makes you think con men would actually be constructive and teach impressionable young people useful skills? My guess is they'd exploit the situation for their own gain, even if only subconsciously. SBF was the face of Effective Altruism for a time. Perhaps they can clean trash off highways or work soup kitchens.

CPLX 3y ago

It’s not violence by the literal definition of the word, but I’m not a fan of this particular point of view. Financial crime at this scale absolutely causes people to die unless you think several billion dollars worth of resources is ineffective at keeping people alive. The people who engage in fraud at this scale create far more human misery than your average mugger, though I think both should be adequately punished.

albntomat0 3y ago
To what degree was the money lost by SBF/etc going to be put towards saving lives, versus the dreams of the average crypto person?
- nytesky 3y ago
  Well, a LOT of crypto investor are limited means and the least likely to be able to afford to lose it. Sure they shouldn’t have risked their life savings, but they aren’t getting ahead in normal ways so they hooked onto this rocket, and FTX was considered safe and above board for a long time. There are real mental and physical impact to loss of majority of your wealth, which can lead to homelessness, exhaustion from working more to cover shortfalls, marital strife, abuse, suicide. Considering this wasn’t just insiders like high net worth investors angel investing, but everyday people, yeah it hurts a lot of people in real ways. Probably a lot more than the Madoff crowd for example.
  - albntomat0 3y ago
    My view is that folks lost their life savings on crypto on FTX is only a more extreme version of those who lost their live savings on crypto on some other exchange. The fraud is terrible, but only exasperates the problems of those gambling with limited resources to absorb loses.
- CPLX 3y ago
  Do you routinely evaluate the contents of a wallet stolen by a mugger or of a car stolen by a carjacker in this way?