3 ms·

This is a great, great article. I'm always interested in the Hindsight Bias: people say "oh, it was obvious it was fraud." Well, not really. If you're one of t

This is a great, great article. I'm always interested in the Hindsight Bias: people say "oh, it was obvious it was fraud." Well, not really. If you're one of those: tell us what opinions you have NOW that everyone else doesn't also have. That's the test: what do you see that isn't generally accepted? What I especially like about this article is, in the "How can we do better?" section he tells you how you can avoid falling in with the conventional wisdom.

bambax 3y ago
> I'm always interested in the Hindsight Bias: people say "oh, it was obvious it was fraud." Well, not really. Well, I don't know about that. On one side, there were people who were convinced it was a fraud, some of which were very vocal and public about it. On the other side there were people who didn't care, or wanted to believe. But there was not one serious and knowledgeable person who took a strong good look at FTX and concluded it was legit. I think that's a tell.
- AlbertCory 3y ago
  well, if you thought "fraud" but didn't say so: still, no credits for you.
- fshbbdssbbgdd 3y ago
  It’s so easy to say stuff like this in hindsight. > But there was not one serious and knowledgeable person who took a strong good look at FTX and concluded it was legit. Sequoia invested in FTX. Are we going to no-true-Scotsman them out?
  - AlbertCory 3y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman I had to look that up. I've heard the expression but didn't realize it was that much of a thing. Exactly. "No one but a chump believed in FTX." If you were a chump, you keep quiet and hope no one remembers and throws it back at you.
lmm 3y ago
> Well, not really. If you're one of those: tell us what opinions you have NOW that everyone else doesn't also have. That's the test: what do you see that isn't generally accepted? But it was generally accepted at the time that it was all a fraud. You didn't have to be some kind of bold contrarian visionary to see that, you just had to not be a chump. (I don't know what kind of answers you're looking for - Tether is also a fraud? AirBNB was always a scam? But those are just as uninteresting as calling out this crypto nonsense a few years back was)
- AlbertCory 3y ago
  > I don't know what kind of answers you're looking for just the proof that someone's not just practicing Survivor Bias: "Yeah, I knew it all along." I can dig through some lengthy HN debates about crypto back then. If you were one of the naysayers, congratulations. Plenty of people were not.

bambax 3y ago

> I'm always interested in the Hindsight Bias: people say "oh, it was obvious it was fraud." Well, not really. Well, I don't know about that. On one side, there were people who were convinced it was a fraud, some of which were very vocal and public about it. On the other side there were people who didn't care, or wanted to believe. But there was not one serious and knowledgeable person who took a strong good look at FTX and concluded it was legit. I think that's a tell.

AlbertCory 3y ago
well, if you thought "fraud" but didn't say so: still, no credits for you.
fshbbdssbbgdd 3y ago
It’s so easy to say stuff like this in hindsight. > But there was not one serious and knowledgeable person who took a strong good look at FTX and concluded it was legit. Sequoia invested in FTX. Are we going to no-true-Scotsman them out?
- AlbertCory 3y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman I had to look that up. I've heard the expression but didn't realize it was that much of a thing. Exactly. "No one but a chump believed in FTX." If you were a chump, you keep quiet and hope no one remembers and throws it back at you.

lmm 3y ago

> Well, not really. If you're one of those: tell us what opinions you have NOW that everyone else doesn't also have. That's the test: what do you see that isn't generally accepted? But it was generally accepted at the time that it was all a fraud. You didn't have to be some kind of bold contrarian visionary to see that, you just had to not be a chump. (I don't know what kind of answers you're looking for - Tether is also a fraud? AirBNB was always a scam? But those are just as uninteresting as calling out this crypto nonsense a few years back was)

AlbertCory 3y ago
> I don't know what kind of answers you're looking for just the proof that someone's not just practicing Survivor Bias: "Yeah, I knew it all along." I can dig through some lengthy HN debates about crypto back then. If you were one of the naysayers, congratulations. Plenty of people were not.