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> SBF seems really, really screwed.

It still astonishes me how deluded he was by his own reality distortion field. He continued to incriminate himself repeatedly after it was clear to everybody else that he needed to stop digging the hole he was in.

Just breathtaking levels of PR and legal naivete.

I'd be more surprised if he'd managed to reach that point without having operated under weight of great delusion.

For the delusion to continue beyond Ground Zero was a given, a fait accompli of self-confirmation bias.

Of course. Those with good levels of PR, legal advice, and friends in power, can do worse and get a slap on the wrist.

Who do you have in mind, specifically?

On a second thought, nobody. All is well in this best of possible worlds and justice prevails over the rich and powerful. After all they got SBF, and that Holmes lady, didn't they? Maddoff too!

Oh, they got Epstein too AND his girlfriend. Well, the guy did organize sex parties on a private island with underage girls, coke, and prostitution, and had elites, politicians, academics, even some royalty and a president or two as frequent guests, but who's counting? Why even drag them to testify?

And, of course, since justice prevails you can't and shouldn't point at anyone who got through it and only got a slap on the wrist for some minor stuff, or was summarily found innocent, or had the charges thrown, or was never even charged with anything! What could they be other than innocent?

Since that's the case, who would want to anger people with good PR, great legal advice, and friends in power, by making such baseless accusations? In a public forum of all places!

Yet one another person with 130 IQ who thinks he's 150 IQ.

The problem is also shared, unfortunately, by you as well on the first point: that IQ is a meaningful measure and a comprehensive signal of ability. The field of microvascular neurosurgery is orthogonal to stock trading and orthogonal again to international intellectual property law. There are occasions for intersection but there is no substitute for accumulated domain experience that takes time and energy to deliberately follow each path towards mastery. This is why someone similar to an entrepreneur is usually best served by adopting an attitude of inquisitive curiosity and deference to subject matter experts.

I don't think it's reasonable to argue that IQ isn't a meaningful measure of ability. IQ tests appear to measure how complicated a pattern is immediately obvious to a person. All else being equal, why wouldn't a person who is able to immediately recognise more complicated patterns, do better?

What "ability" are you talking about or conflating with other abilities? Correlation cargo culting goes nowhere useful except making the card-carrying MENSA people feel self-assured of their own arrogance.

I’m talking about effectiveness in any complex domain. It shouldn’t be controversial to suggest that someone who notices fewer details/patterns won’t (on average) be as effective at complex work.

High ability to immediately recognize complex patterns might not correlate with high ability to navigate systems more complex than what you can recognize immediately.

edit to add: I think most interesting systems are more complex than what a person can understand immediately.

The point is that for every moment that a high IQ person is observing, they are learning more than a lower IQ person. For the same amount of time invested, a high IQ person is going to have built a more complete picture to work with. It’s not the only factor, but it’s obviously a significant one.

it's called g factor. it means ability at one task is highly correlated with ability on another task. block assembly is highly correlated with vocab. I personally have observed that people who are good at math also tend to be above average at writing/verbal too despite not practicing it much. i don't think it's a coincidence.

They're not orthogonal. People who are very good at one thing are usually very good at a lot of things.

This idea of "IQ is meaningless, he's good at X doesn't mean is good at Y" is what dumb people tell themselves.

> naaah

no surer sign that a defensive middlebrow poser is about to hold forth.

I would've said "know-it-all bullshit artist" but you were much more tactful. You're hired for all of my external communications that I suck at. ;)

I'm not even sure he's above average, it seems to me like he could have closed down Alameda, hired some compliance professionals to bring FTX into compliance with the law, and been a) a billionaire and b) not in jail for his trouble. He seems to be really pretty thick

I'm not even sure he's above average...He seems to be really pretty thick

He got into MIT where he excelled and then a job at Jane Street. Even really smart people get rejected from MIT and Jane Street. he may be a fool and delusional but he's not thick .

Yes, exactly, that's why he's 130 IQ (okay, probably a bit more) and not 150 IQ. While 130 IQ wouldn't ordinarily be good enough to get into MIT for a non-affirmative action applicant, he's the son of two prominent Stanford professors. They will have encouraged him to have academic interests and given him all the resources to appear precocious during his teenage years - research during high school is an obvious way his parents could have burnished his college application, and most research doesn't require especially high levels of intelligence, particularly at the lab assistant level that a high schooler would be employed at. Easy enough for his parents to call in some favors to get his name added to a paper. In a pinch, SBF probably indicated somewhere on his application who his parents are - not in a bombastic way, but something that the application committee would pick up on. Academics at HYPS-level schools tend to help each other out.

As for Jane Street, it is a hard place to get into, but MIT is one of the few places where there's an established interview pipeline, which definitely makes it possible for a non-genius to have some a chance of passing. Before Cracking the Coding Interview, it was much harder to learn how FAANG interviews worked ahead of time - same thing applies.

Saying that SBF is "average", if that means 100 IQ, is ludicrous, but SBF is merely very bright, not a genius.

130 a long way from 'pretty thick'.

Yet, he can't stop running his mouth incriminating himself further. They had a chat group literally named wire fraud ..

A first semester law/finance student from a bottom tier university would know to shut your mouth and not document your crimes..

It’s not an intelligence thing, it’s a function of psychology. He’s in denial about how much trouble he’s in. Who wouldn’t be? It’s hard to admit to yourself you’re facing years of jail time.

Running his mouth is his way of living in a reality where he still has a measure of control over things.

This is more on the spectrum of delusion and delusion has nothing to do with intelligence. Very intelligent people can be highly delusional.

You don’t question his family connections being the reason he got into these places rather than merit?

Unlikely - there is no non-fraudulent ‘meat’ in those businesses.

Hey!

The big problem:

Mens Rea

> 1. SBF agreed to be extradited from the Bahamas to face ~X charges in the US.

Would it be more accurate to say that the Bahamas agreed to extradite SBF? If not, then it doesn't make sense why the Bahamas would need to complain about the additional charges instead of SBF if they weren't involved in the agreement.

Although FWIW SBF is the last person who should be complaining about having the rug pulled from under them.

SBF agreed to waive his right to fight extradition from the Bahamas in Bahamian court. This let the Bahamas make an agreement to extradite him.

His team are just arguing everything that they can. It's likely that SBF was treated more poorly in a Bahamas prison than in a US prison. I recall that he waived extradition fairly quickly after being incarcerated there.

Is time in a foreign prison awaiting extradition counted for the purposes of “time spent”? Because if not, if you know you are going to be extradited in the end, it might be in your interests to agree to extradition.

Even so, he still seemed to have received "royal treatment" while there compared to less high-profile (or Bahamian) defendants. They even let him have his Adderall, allegedly...

Not op but...

He agreed to be extradited voluntarily.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/19/business/sbf-extradition-baha...

Not being sympathetic to SBF here, but that's quite the legal gotcha.

No wonder people don't trust the law/lawyers.

It's not a legal gotcha.

"An extradition treaty between the United States and the Bahamas, where FTX was based, says a country must consent before defendants can be tried on charges brought after their extradition.

Prosecutors said they asked the Bahamas to agree to those charges, which include conspiracy to bribe Chinese officials and commit bank fraud, but did not know when the Caribbean country would grant its consent." via https://www.reuters.com/legal/bankman-fried-loses-bid-toss-c...

If he had contested the extradition, then the Bahamas would be deciding to extradite him on the old and the new charges. He decided to come back for the original charges and now the Bahamas decides whether they will allow the US to bring the new charges - basically whether they would have extradited him for those new charges.

The legal gotcha would be if he returned and then the Bahamas couldn't consent to them bringing additional charges - that they couldn't extradite him for the new charges. If I commit fraud and have a traffic violation, I can't voluntarily come back to the US for the traffic violation and then say "the Bahamas can't extradite me for the fraud charge because I voluntarily came back for traffic violation!" No, the Bahamas would then need to decide if they want to extradite me on the fraud charge. If they don't give consent for that charge, I'm only facing the traffic violation and then I can leave back for the Bahamas. If the Bahamas says "yea, we would have extradited him for the fraud charge so go for it," then they can charge me with the fraud as well.

Why is it a gotcha? These kinds of treaties in general only care about the 'feelings' of nation-states, not individuals. The rule exists because countries often have some say in whether to extradite, and they make that decision based on known facts.

In this case, it's a statement from the US to the Bahamas about what they intend to do to SBF once he's in custody. If the US then goes on and punishes SBF even harder than what they originally told the Bahamas, the Bahamas might feel lied to. Think of it as a "we wouldn't have extradited if we knew he was facing the death penalty" kind of scenario. This rule thus exists to give the Bahamas a chance to remedy that.

Death penalty happens to be the one thing that usually figures in extradition treaties with the USA: the USA must guarantee that the death penalty will not be applied. Of course there are some other countries which still use the death penalty, but they are usually not the sort of placed which have extradition treaties.

I fully agree with the person you're responding to, and it is a gotcha. I also understand your point that the offended party is the Bahamas, but if the US said it would pursue some charges, why is it then trying more? Why is it that the mechanism is "one parry can do what it wants unless the other party complains" instead of "one party can only do what it agreed to"?

Also, I BET YOU that behind the scenes the us is telling the Bahamas "you better not complain about this or else we'll get you on that other thing". Because.... you think US prosecutors would leave this possibility to chance? Why would the Bahamas not complain?

That's right, this is why people view lawyers as dishonest.

"Why is it that the mechanism is "one parry can do what it wants unless the other party complains" instead of "one party can only do what it agreed to"?

Because that concept is consistent with all of US law - See third party standing, third party beneficiaries, etc.

In the US, you usually can't raise claims on behalf of others, whether they are constitutional, contractual, etc.

This was not a surprise to anyone involved - the US, SBF, the bahamas, the lawyers, etc.

They are all quite aware of this.

You can argue this mechanism sucks, or is bad, but the answer to your question is because that's what all of US law says everywhere - this is not some unique feature of extradition. It's a core concept common across both civil and criminal law.

Hey I'm sure this all makes sense to lawyers :-)

Anyway I understood your point, thanks for making the effort.

Let me go further - Lawyers didn't make this up. Elected officials did :)

Non-lawyer elected officials, actually.

Lawyers are just charged with knowing enough of the mess to be able to advise people - but don't shoot the messenger.

The criminal system is also deliberately adversarial, something lawyers didn't make up either.

The civil system is not, at least.

> Non-lawyer elected officials, actually.

What do you base this on? It depends on the year but Congress is usually 30-50% lawyers.

A lot of legislative drafting is carried out by lawyers in the Legislative Counsel (of the House of Reps, of California, etc.), anyway.

Unless you mean these rules were written before the Bar associations were a thing

These things are older than the US, for the most part.

Those that aren't are from very close to founding, done in conventions that were mostly not lawyers :)

These are mostly not modern doctrines created by Congress.

Given much of this comes from English Common Law, we get to blame time immemorial for how our legal system works.

> Why would the Bahamas not complain?

Because most countries are, in the general sense, not hugely interested in harboring (or even letting in) foreign criminals.

He's not a Bahamian national, they have zero reason to not turn him over.

The only reason they might want to keep him is to get their pound of flesh, given that he's also defrauded Bahamian citizens, but they seem to be quite happy with letting Uncle Sam foot the bill for prosecuting and jailing him.

> Why would the Bahamas not complain?

If the Bahamas wanted to keep him, they wouldn't have extradited him in the first place. Why would they want to protect SBF?

Yeah, it's an incredibly obvious loophole to suddenly "discover" new charges after the person is in your possession.

It's pretty standard, even outside extradition.

Third party standing for rights is basically not a thing in the US, except in rare cases (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_standing)

Even in other realms, this is usually the case - it's very rare for a third party beneficiary to be able to raise rights that belong to someone else.

For example, Bob writes some software and releases it under the GPL. Evilco takes it and ships binaries of it. You get a binary. You ask them for source. They say GFY.

You are a third party beneficiary of Bob's contract with Evilco. Bob has the right to sue them in court. However, you probably do not have the right to sue them for breach of contract.

(There is nuance i'm avoiding here about to make the point).

really? you think that when extraditing an alleged criminal, we should ask the alleged criminal if they want to be extradited? That can't be right...

Makes sense to me, and if SBF was as smart as he thinks he is, he should have thought of this possibility. Why would an individual think they have any authority to enforce an extradition agreement made between two countries? Completely nuts.

> Makes sense to me, and if SBF was as smart as he thinks he is, he should have thought of this possibility. Why would an individual think they have any authority to enforce an extradition agreement made between two countries?

This is not a crazy as you seem to think, and, in fact, if they cannot, this is a fairly recent (last 30-ish years) change in the state of the law. As the Supreme Court noted in U.S. v. Alvarez-Machain (1992), at that time, prosecution in violation of extradition agreement was invalid and the defendant absolutely could raise this issue independently. (A protest from the other government party may or may not, depending on the extradition agreement, be a factor in whether the prosecution is in violationof the agreement, but that’s a different and treaty-specific question, apart from whether or not an individual charged has the right to raise the invalidity of the prosecution under the treaty.)

Wait, this wasn't a lawyer misstep, this was some SBF: legal genius type sh*?

1. Extradition was probably inevitable.

2. He probably wanted out of the prison he was in.

3. He's out on bail right now, so he's got that going for him.