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Comment by akira2501 | Hacker News Reader

There are plenty of better examples. Sam is essentially just a common crook. He put his hand in his own companies cookie jar. This idea that he's going to "be studied" just plays into his own paid for media created mythos.

This is the same guy who tried to make "effective altruism" part of his image. That was a pretty strong signal that the outcome we all witnessed was highly likely.

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I don’t think the intriguing part of SBF is the crime he committed, which is a pretty common one. For me, it is how he, after getting caught, hurts his own case being proactive in doing and saying stuff publicly.

The common type of white collar criminal remains in silence and follow orientations from their very well paid lawyers. And it is a pretty proven strategy that leads to minimal or no relevant punishment. If SBF was a common criminal in this sense, he possibly could leave all of this judged not guilty by the justice.

I think this underestimated the abilities of the “common white collar criminal” — there are lots of chat logs of SBF and his coconspirators saying essentially “we’re doing fraud.”

Common white collar criminals say “let’s take this offline” in their chat transcripts.

Well there’s another high-profile case in the works where there are lots of transcripts of the coconspirators saying (occasionally explicitly), “we’re doing fraud.”

He reminds me of a few people Ive known who have a kind of "it'll all work out in the end" syndrome.

All very privileged and sheltered.

I think it's a case of "I'm smarter than everybody else so I can talk my way out of these charges"

Like Hans Reiser trying to beat the murder charges, representing himself in court.

This is a trap very smart successful people fall into. They think they can figure out anything better than somebody who spent years learning the trade and acquiring the experience, just because they are so smart. Sometimes it's true, but often it's an illusion which can have life changing and sometimes deadly consequences.

Even in jail, he'll be 'a rich guy in jail', able to buy all the favours and protection that can be bought in such a place.

I probably won't attract many friends by separately pointing out that "it'll all work out in the end" was also the primary investment strategy of virtually every crypto "investor" who lost money, but that's another matter...

IANAL but it seems all this stupidity may cost him what really matters: he may lose any chance of minimum security prison. That’s the real prize if prison time is all but guaranteed.

He could still get a decade in ClubFed with work release which… while obviously not great, is a hell of a lot better than living under guard in a low or medium security prison.

> Even in jail, he'll be 'a rich guy in jail'

Doesn't that require him to still have money?

It requires his friends, family and other connections to have money. Which for people like him seems to be basically a given.

> This idea that he's going to "be studied" just plays into his own paid for media created mythos.

It’s not as if people are saying he’s going to be studied because he’s fascinating. I don’t think he ever tried to cultivate the image that he’s idiotic bordering on the pathological, because that discrepancy seems to be study-worth.

It’s like on one side, there are Musk actions, some call them insane and idiotic, but they can be explained away, theoretically, and then there’s SBF where even the most adamant supporter would just stand there, open-mouthed.

The only reason some people struggle to understand the behavior of Musk, SBF, Trump, and others is because of an assumption that a certain level of wealth or power implies some level of rational behavior.

That assumption is often, but not always correct.

We aren't astonished or confused when a broke high school dropout maxes out their credit card on Candy Crush in-app purchases and drives drunk and crashes into a tree. Some people are stupid and stupid people are going to make stupid, thoughtless decisions.

People are more surprised when the rich and powerful do dumb shit like this because of a presumption that they must have been consistently able to not do dumb shit in order to acquire their stature.

But that assumption is very often wrong. Trump had his father slowly plow $700m of his wealth into his son in order to burnish his own image. Musk inherited wealth. SBF came from prestige and then lucked into a historical moment where fake Internet money could temporarily be exchanged for real money.

These people are just fucking morons with limited ability to delay their gratification or think through the consequences of their actions who happened to win the lottery. Most of the time, it's because they lived an entire childhood where they never needed to learn to think about the consequences of their actions because they were completely insulated from them.

Musk did not “inherit wealth”, and I need a source on Trump getting $700m

Musk absolutely inherited his wealth. His parents benefited directly from apartheid.

His anti-apartheid politician parent?

Unless you have a primary source, no he didn’t.

Great job making an impossible standard, by demanding a primary source rather than a secondary one.

https://i.imgur.com/qOluudx.mp4

I despise Elon Musk but I’m not going to stoop to making things up just because I don’t like him. It’s called integrity. There are plenty of verifiable things to not like him for.

Take your juvenile behavior back to Reddit.

> I need a source on Trump getting $700m

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/02/us/politics/d...

It's probably only appealing to the tech set because he came from a upper middle family with law professor parents and fooled some silicon valley money... So basically he existed in the social circle of the academics and Palo alto tech elite.

It's a status thing as much as the crime. Who he had access to and what knowledge everyone involved could have had to detect it earlier. If that is real idk but that's the pitch

Crypto is a bit unique though. Not many markets would have tolerated this behaviour.

> Judge Kaplan: This defendant tries to go right up to the line - his use of the VPN to watch a football game over an account he wasn't authorized, there it is..

> Judge Kaplan: He subscribed from the Bahamas and used a VPN as if he were in the Bahamas when he was in Palo Alto and could have watched it on public TV. It shows the mindset. All things considered I am going to revoke bail.

No, a common crook shuts his mouth and says “talk to my lawyer.” This is a guy with a God complex

> No, a common crook shuts his mouth and says “talk to my lawyer. ”

... and then the lawyer wakes up and has to deal with his real client, who has done no such thing.

> This is the same guy who tried to make "effective altruism" part of his image. That was a pretty strong signal that the outcome we all witnessed was highly likely.

Why do you think that was such a strong signal?

My 2 cents is that it's because anyone who tries to convince you that themselves getting rich can somehow save the world is already deep into narcissistic sociopath territory.

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