For thursday’s sentencing the us government indicated they would be happy with a 40-50 prison sentence, and in the list of reasons they cite there’s this gem:
- Bankman-Fried’s effective altruism and own statements about risk suggest he would be likely to commit another fraud if he determined it had high enough “expected value”. They point to Caroline Ellison’s testimony in which she said that Bankman-Fried had expressed to her that he would “be happy to flip a coin, if it came up tails and the world was destroyed, as long as if it came up heads the world would be like more than twice as good”. They also point to Bankman-Fried’s “own ‘calculations’” described in his sentencing memo, in which he says his life now has negative expected value. “Such a calculus will inevitably lead him to trying again,” they write.
Turns out making it a point of pride that you have the morality of an anime villain does not endear you to prosecutors, who knew.
Bonus: SBF’s lawyers’ list of assertions for asking for a shorter sentence includes this hilarious bit reasoning:
They argue that Bankman-Fried would not reoffend, for reasons including that “he would sooner suffer than bring disrepute to any philanthropic movement.”
i expect that if you listened to the water pipes in MDC Brooklyn, you could hear SBF tapping out a full explanation of his crimes in Morse code, especially why it was all Caroline’s fault
@dgerard @sneerclub he’s gonna start a Basilisk cult in prison, isn’t he. Get out in 25 years and head straight for the executive suite in the temple his followers will have built for him.
oh god he totally will won’t he
I expect we’ll soon hear the laments of how prison impacts ev, maybe combined with some utterly twisted argument for prison abolition (along with their own deeply fucked replacement suggestion)
the important point is that prison abolition should start with financial so-called “'”‘“crimes”’“'”,
@dgerard “B-B-BUT prison is meant to be for TEH POORS!! This is WRONG!!!”
that’s why they specifically put in how Sam ripped off his investors too
One of the docs Molly links to has a whole argument about how white collar criminals are soft wee precious blorbos and really should get a nice cuppa and a teddy instead of jail time.
well, that’s certainly an “attempt was made”-grade opinion
Come on, that comes in the book soon to be released from prison. Also included in the book, how he is justified in hating books and all who read them as all his book smart lawyers gave him 30 years in prison on the appeal!
by Michael Lewis, published by Kindle Print