SBF's effective altruism and rationalism considered an aggravating circumstance in sentencing - eviltoast
Sam Bankman-Fried wants only six years for his "victimless" crime
www.citationneeded.news
Sam Bankman-Fried maintains that his crimes were victimless and resulted in zero losses, and therefore warrant only six years of imprisonment. Prosecutors argue that 40–50 years are justified.

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:

  1. 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.”

  • self@awful.systemsMEnglish
    1·
    8 months ago

    ah, it’s always fun when the quiet part out loud CONFIDENTIAL.docx leaks. this sub-mediocre rich little jackass really did convince himself all he needed to do was control the narrative and flood Twitter with nonsense and he’d come out of this an unscathed alt-right grifter. what’s fucking amazing is that he still tried a bunch of these tactics (specifically #15 and a lot of the ones throwing shade on the bankruptcy team) even though the prosecution had this document the entire time

    • David Gerard@awful.systemsMEnglish
      2·
      8 months ago

      the sentencing is in five and a half hours and i can’t wait for SBF to try to get up and just explain one more time

      • self@awful.systemsMEnglish
        4·
        8 months ago

        if my real-life friends were cooler, I’d have already arranged a watch party, drinking game, and post-sentencing celebratory cocktails

        fuck it, we’re doing cocktails

        The SBF

        • fill a highball glass to 2/3rds with ice and apple cider
        • float a shot of Skrewball peanut butter whiskey on top
        • to commemorate SBF’s long history of bad decisions, garnish with a serving of your choice of citrus-flavored THC drinkable
        • don’t actually do the above step you will throw up in front of your disappointed family
        • swlabr@awful.systemsEnglish
          1·
          8 months ago

          Here’s my cocktail suggestion:

          50 Shades (Sam Bankman) Fried:

          Ingredients:

          • 50 different liquors/liqueurs, as many different densities and colours as possible

          Equipment:

          • Transparent cylindrical urn with spigot

          Steps:

          1. Sort the ingredients in decreasing order or liquid density.
          2. Pour 1/50th of the container capacity of each liquid in order into container, slowly and carefully to retain layers.

          (Do not actually make this)