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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   29313 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 12, 2022

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Sam Bankman-Fried has been arrested.

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested by Bahamian authorities this evening after the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York shared a sealed indictment with the Bahamian government, setting the stage for extradition and U.S. trial for the onetime crypto billionaire at the heart of the crypto exchange’s collapse.

Bankman-Fried was expected to testify before the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday. His arrest is the first concrete move by regulators to hold individuals accountable for the multi-billion dollar implosion of FTX last month.

There had been some speculation on when and even whether he would be arrested. Just yesterday someone told me to expect it to take two years. So, why right before tomorrow's hearing? And why not wait for him to give more interviews and provide more evidence?

Will everyone who said he would walk away Scot Free because he's in bed with NYT or Dems or whoever please adjust your priors or whatever?

Every once in while we get these triumphalist "this latest happening proves the game is clearly not rigged, where are all the naysayers now!" posts. Half of them end up being proven wrong within a week (the last one I remember was "see, Cloudflare is clearly standing up for free speech! It's not true the wokes control the corporate sector with an iron grip!", and I literally never saw a progressive "please adjust your priors" people adjust their priors.

SBF was 100% going to get charged. The posters here were reacting to the tender treatment he got in the NYT and Vox right after the scandal, compared to how those outlets and journalist personalities would normally treat a "tech bro scandal" (e.g. Coinbase, David Sacks, Joe Lonsdale). A lack of pure vitriol from journalists was weird, and on the part of NYT, was likely the result of a political editorial decision. But there's only so much damage control anyone can run for massive securities fraud.

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