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It is funny - especially when you consider a mugger on the street would need your money much more than SBF ever would.
by ragazzina 3y ago
It is funny - especially when you consider a mugger on the street would need your money much more than SBF ever would.
- blululu 3y agoNot really. The use of a gun/knife/lethal force implies a much different risk profile (you could easily die or be crippled for life). It's not about the money - it's about the violence.
- xmprt 3y agoThat's a fair point. With FTX you might feel some sense of responsibility because you voluntarily gave up your money (whether it was fraud by deception or not). But a mugger is infringing on your freedom to walk around at night.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- umeshunni 3y agoYeah, in one case, a few numbers in a database somewhere changed. In the other, you could be left for dead in an alley in Oakland.
- rootusrootus 3y ago> a few numbers in a database somewhere changed That is very crass. Tell that to someone who lost a big chunk of their savings. "Just numbers in a database" indeed.
- acdha 3y agoIf someone put a big chunk of their savings into a speculative vehicle, they should be having a moment of contemplation about why they ignored basic investment advice. It’s not a happy moment for anyone but at some point you do have to take responsibility for your decisions.
- rootusrootus 3y agoWhat does it being a speculative vehicle have to do with FTX stealing the money? These people did not lose money because their speculative investment lost value. On the contrary, it has gone up considerably in the meantime but FTX pocketed all of the gains.
- acdha 3y agoThink about what happened as soon as a grownup entered the room and saw their records? Real financial companies have tons of regulatory and insurance requirements for things like audits, reserves, etc. to prevent things like that from happening but the entire point of his field was “that stuff’s just slowing me down and we don’t need it!” because everyone was focused on getting rich and overrode their judgment. It’s the next level of risk up from people who buy stocks because the price is going up without checking the fundamentals. If all you do is hang around with other people hyping the same thing, it’s really easy to focus on the “number goes up” part and not want to be the person spoiling the party by asking about value.
- hirako2000 3y agoIf the loss was due to the speculative asset going the unexpected direction sure. But here was fraud. Would you say the same if a pension fund ran with your retirement, since it is invested in some stock index, most likely in previous metals, and probably a slice in crypto?
- acdha 3y agoYes, it’s fraud but it was also in a system which intentionally was set up outside of the normal protections against fraud. The relationship between Alameda and FTX wouldn’t have been allowed for a traditional finance company, for example. He’s a crook and I’m not defending him in any way but at some level this is like buying a Rolex off of a guy in Times Square and then being surprised that it’s not real.
- hirako2000 3y ago
- robocat 3y agoIt is just as crass to say people "lost" their savings. Who were these hypothetical savers putting their money in a safe place? Few people should have been unaware of the risks they were taking by investing in crypto. Certainly not saying they deserve to be defrauded, but I am saying they took obvious risks and then got burned by those risks.
- rootusrootus 3y agoThe obvious risk was that FTX would just take their money? I would have thought the obvious risks were crypto tokens losing value. They didn't get burned by that, except in the sense that their tokens were no longer theirs while the value went way up.
- Aeolun 3y agoUh, yes. They should have. One of the whole shticks of this whole thing is that the money transfers anonymously. Once you are gifting someone money with a credit card for some numbers in a database under their control? In the ** bahamas?
- robocat 3y agoI agree it wasn't obvious FTX would just take all the money, but it was obvious that you could lose all your money. "The very first Bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox, collapsed in 2014". Different reason, similar outcome. And Bitcoin was down 2/3 from peak when FTX collapsed. Close to losing it all. And enough doomsayers to know any gambler was running that risk. And countless prior examples in lots of markets showing that speculation in risky assets is very risky! You often don't know the specifics of why something is risky, so even if a particular outcome was unlikely, that doesn't mean an investment was "savings".
- hgomersall 3y agoIt's kind of farcical when you put it like that. So much misery and sorrow is caused by the state of that database being problematic for some people.
- Aeolun 3y agoYou could, but I don’t think that’s the goal of most muggers.
- zarathustreal 3y agoMoney _should be_ the least of the concerns of a mugger on the street. Subjecting yourself to lawlessness exposes you to real danger and kinda detracts from your ability to participate in commerce. Granted, I haven’t seen any scientific evidence to suggest that a lack of money causes a lack of ability to reason (and thus a lack of responsibility for one’s own actions) but my own anecdotal experience does suggest it
- Aeolun 3y agoI think it’s the opposite? A lack of ability to reason leads to lacking money.
- jejeyyy77 3y agolol I don't consider how much a criminal "needs" the money.
- ragazzina 3y agoSo a person stealing their eleventh billion and a person stealing to eat something are the same for you?
- stass 3y agoBoth are completely immoral.
- mandmandam 3y ago[flagged]
- samatman 3y agoIt is always immoral to point a weapon at a stranger and demand the contents of his pockets. No circumstance whatsoever justifies such behavior. None.
- mandmandam 3y agoI said "stealing to eat". Because the claim was "stealing is never moral and is just as bad no matter the amount". You heard "point a weapon at a stranger and demand the contents of his pockets". And, since this seems to be really confusing to a lot of people here for some reason, stealing tens/hundreds of millions of dollars from people is in fact unambiguously worse than mugging someone for their wallet. It's far more violent, and causes far more suffering.
- samatman 3y agoThe context was, in fact, mugging: which is when someone points a weapon at a stranger and demands the contents of his pockets. Receipts: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39854970 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39854970
- laurels-marts 3y agoNeed money for what though. Alcohol, drugs and gambling? The vast majority of crimes are not committed due to an inability to obtain food.
- danparsonson 3y agoSource?