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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 pe

by 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?
  - albntomat0 3y ago
    I do not. My comment was in response to the parent comment saying that financial crime “absolutely causes people to die” and “create far more misery than your average mugger”.
    - CPLX 3y ago
      It seems pretty easy to figure out why taking the equivalent of a hundred million wallets creates more misery than taking one of them right.
      - albntomat0 3y ago
        A large number of people, less than the “hundred million” that you mention (Wikipedia says FTX had “over one million” customers [0]) lost their highly speculative investment. Yes it’s a crime, and yes it’s serious. All I’m asking for is some nuance. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTX https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTX
        CPLX 3y ago
        What’s the nuance, that if someone makes a “speculative investment” they deserve to have the money stolen more than if they walk down a “risky alley” or something?
- maxbond 3y ago
  It's more that, if you take a meaningful amount of money from N people, the likelihood of financial hardship putting someone in mortal danger (eg, by causing them to lose access to housing or medication, or causing them to be suicidally despondent because they've lost their ability to retire) approaches 1 as N increases. When N is high enough that there are multiple people in mortal danger - it becomes pretty likely that some of them succumb. This is even discussed in the film version of The Big Short.
lmm 3y ago
> 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. Not convinced. I lost about $50k to mortgage shennanigans and about $800 to being mugged. Guess which one gives me nightmares years down the line.
- vishnugupta 3y ago
  Mugging is a bad example because it's not just about financial theft but for a brief period a credible threat to your life itself, so the trauma is clearly bound to scar you for a long time. Perhaps 800$ fraud on Amazon/Ebay is a more appropriate example.
  - lmm 3y ago
    The whole point was someone claiming that we should see large fraud as equivalent to violence. I don't think anyone's denying that a large fraud is worse than a small fraud, but that's not the point in dispute.
- CPLX 3y ago
  Agreed, violence has its own characteristics, and there certainly are qualitative differences. But as Stalin said, quantity has a quality all its own. When you steal large amounts of money like SBF did it’s different, but that doesn’t make it better.

by CPLX 3y ago

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?
- albntomat0 3y ago
  I do not. My comment was in response to the parent comment saying that financial crime “absolutely causes people to die” and “create far more misery than your average mugger”.
  - CPLX 3y ago
    It seems pretty easy to figure out why taking the equivalent of a hundred million wallets creates more misery than taking one of them right.
    - albntomat0 3y ago
      A large number of people, less than the “hundred million” that you mention (Wikipedia says FTX had “over one million” customers [0]) lost their highly speculative investment. Yes it’s a crime, and yes it’s serious. All I’m asking for is some nuance. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTX https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTX
      - CPLX 3y ago
        What’s the nuance, that if someone makes a “speculative investment” they deserve to have the money stolen more than if they walk down a “risky alley” or something?
maxbond 3y ago
It's more that, if you take a meaningful amount of money from N people, the likelihood of financial hardship putting someone in mortal danger (eg, by causing them to lose access to housing or medication, or causing them to be suicidally despondent because they've lost their ability to retire) approaches 1 as N increases. When N is high enough that there are multiple people in mortal danger - it becomes pretty likely that some of them succumb. This is even discussed in the film version of The Big Short.

lmm 3y ago

> 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. Not convinced. I lost about $50k to mortgage shennanigans and about $800 to being mugged. Guess which one gives me nightmares years down the line.

vishnugupta 3y ago
Mugging is a bad example because it's not just about financial theft but for a brief period a credible threat to your life itself, so the trauma is clearly bound to scar you for a long time. Perhaps 800$ fraud on Amazon/Ebay is a more appropriate example.
- lmm 3y ago
  The whole point was someone claiming that we should see large fraud as equivalent to violence. I don't think anyone's denying that a large fraud is worse than a small fraud, but that's not the point in dispute.
CPLX 3y ago
Agreed, violence has its own characteristics, and there certainly are qualitative differences. But as Stalin said, quantity has a quality all its own. When you steal large amounts of money like SBF did it’s different, but that doesn’t make it better.