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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022

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I don’t think we can conclude this early that he enriched himself with billions of FTX customers proceeds

It’s even dumber than that. He didn’t use customer funds to enrich himself. He used customer funds to bail out his girlfriend’s hedge fund so she could keep trading shitcoins on margin.

his latest defence is FTX didn't have a bank account so customers were transferring money to Alemeda and then OOPSY DAISY the money was never transferred from Alemeda to FTX. (https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23462333/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-cryptocurrency-effective-altruism-crypto-bahamas-philanthropy) I'm not sure how that covers all the deposits because presumably you could transfer crypto as well.

there is a bunch of interesting DMS between the reporter and SBF including this:

REPORTER: you were really good about talking about ethics, for someone who kind of saw it all as a game with winners and losers

SBF: hehe

SBF: i had to be

SBF: it's what reputations are made of, to some extent

SBF: I feel bad by those who get fucked by it

SBF: by this dumb game we woke westerners play where we say all the right shibboleths and so everyone likes us

SBF--secretly based? Were people wrong about him being a Democratic operative hoping to advance globalist interests?

I think he is an operative of a single interest, himself.

This is what’s so interesting about the whole thing. Sam and Caroline aren’t ordinary your everyday scammers. These are batman villains. It’s not enough simply to stop them, they must be refuted.

I wonder how crypto prices going to zero would affect his his punishment. Would the damages be assessed at 2021 prices or hypnotical much lower prices?

Wild article. I wonder if he is speaking freely because he is oblivious to his legal jeopardy, because he has already resigned himself to spending the rest of his life in prison, or because he is already living in a cave in some non-extradition jurisdiction.

He posted on Twitter that he didn't think the convo would be published.

Prosecutors aren't limited to reviewing what has been published...

He seems to just be very chill. Maybe it was the drugs making him jittery, after all. https://twitter.com/psyopcop/status/1592977107281666049

Fair... but the interview seems pretty likely to be quoted back to him by prosecutors, and I don't understand how he couldn't foresee that, especially with two law professors as his parents.

No one can resist the siren call of #ThingsIWillRegretWriting, especially when it seems like their only chance to get their side of the story out there. And especially especially in a live interview where you don't have time to think.