"To get yourself into SBF’s mindset, consider whether you would play the following godlike game for real."

"In this game, there’s a 51 percent chance that you create another Earth but also a 49 percent chance that you destroy all human life. If you’re using expected value thinking, and if you think that human life has positive value, you must play this game. SBF said he would play this game. And he said he would keep playing it, double or nothing, over and over again. With expected value thinking, the slightly higher chance of creating more value requires endlessly risking the annihilation of humanity. Expected value is why SBF constantly played video games, even while Zooming with investors. He calculated that he could add the pleasure of the game to the value of the calls. The key to understanding SBF is that he plays people like they’re games too. With his long-suffering EA girlfriend, her expected value went up when he wanted sex and then down right afterward.... This is the perfection of the EA philosophy: Maximize the value of the use of any given resource. And aren’t other people resources that can produce value?"

Writes Leif Wenar, in "The Deaths of Effective Altruism/Sam Bankman-Fried is finally facing punishment. Let’s also put his ruinous philosophy on trial" (Wired).

"[His mother] said he had no interest in small talk but would 'engage passionately and relentlessly with ideas to the point that can exasperate and exhaust others.'"

"In middle school Bankman-Fried became interested in utilitarianism and began to wrestle 'systematically and globally' with the question of how to alleviate the suffering of others, she said. It caused him to become vegetarian and then vegan. He battled with depression and they later learnt that he suffered from 'anhedonia' — an inability to experience pleasure — she said. 'He has never felt happiness or pleasure in his life and does not think he is capable of feeling it,' she said. When she questioned him on this, asking him about a photograph she had up on the mantelpiece showing him grinning broadly, he replied that he was not happy at the time but had 'learnt how to pretend for the sake of others.'... 'He told us he didn’t care about himself,' she wrote. 'All he cared about was living long enough to make a significant difference in the world.'"

From "Sam Bankman-Fried: ‘awkward nerd’ lied at trial, judge tells sentencing/Crypto investors lost $8 billion and prosecutors call it one of the biggest financial cons in history. His defenders — especially his lawyer parents — see it differently" (London Times)

UPDATE: Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years, the NYT reports. He'd faced a maximum of 110 years. Prosecutors had recommended 40 to 50 years, and defense lawyers asked for 6 1/2 years. 

What would it take to get us to notice this once much-talked-about topic that had fallen entirely out of the news?

The topic is NFTs.

I'm reading "More Than 20 Report Burning Eyes After NFT Festival in Hong Kong/Bored Ape Yacht Club, the collective that hosted the three-day event, said it was investigating possible causes, including UV lights used at a party on Saturday night" (NYT)

"Will this scatter the Effective Altruism herd? Or will they bleat that he Did It Wrong, and the movement can never fail only be failed by the weak, &c.?"

A good question, asked in the Metafilter discussion, "Jury finds Sam Bankman-Fried guilty."

That made me notice that I hadn't heard much about effective altruism lately (but isn't it always hard to notice what is not being said?).

I went looking for recent SBF stories that talked about effective altruism. Hard to find anything — that is, I found the absence of talk — but I did find this at CoinDesk: "Sam Bankman-Fried Demonstrates Ineffective Altruism at Its Worst/The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

That sounds like it's going to be the he-did-it-wrong "bleat" that the Metafilter commenter was predicting, but it's not:

"Sam Bankman-Fried... was found guilty on all seven charges of fraud and conspiracy."

The NYT reports.

Sam Bankman-Fried, the tousle-haired mogul who founded the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, was convicted on Thursday of all seven charges of fraud and conspiracy after a monthlong trial that laid bare the hubris and risk-taking across the crypto industry. These charges carry a maximum sentence of 110 years....

The jury of nine men and three women began deliberating at 3:15 p.m. and was out for a little over four hours including dinner.

"Ellison has testified that his unkempt boy genius look was an act. In court, Bankman-Fried wore... his trademark crazy mane now trimmed..."

"... into a more conventional style. 'Mr Bankman-Fried, would you agree that you know how to tell a good story?' [the prosecutor Danielle] Sassoon asked. Bankman-Fried deflected, saying, 'I don’t know, it depends on what metric you use.' Sassoon [asked]... him about a colleague [said]... he had said cutting his hair would have a negative value for him because 'I think it’s important for people to think I look crazy,' he was quoted as saying. Ellison likewise testified that Bankman-Fried carefully curated his unglamorous image. 'I don’t think I said that in that way,' Bankman-Fried said. He had previously testified that he did not cut his hair because he was busy and lazy, not as a strategic decision. When Sassoon asked him if he recalled telling another investor, who asked him to wear a suit, that 'a T-shirt and shorts' were part of his brand, Bankman-Fried said he did not recall the comment.... 'You think of yourself as a smart guy?' the prosecutor asked. 'In many ways, not all ways,' Bankman-Fried replied..... 'In private you said things like "fuck regulators"?" Sassoon asked. 'I said that once,' Bankman-Fried admitted."

From "Sam Bankman-Fried denies messy hair part of ‘tech genius’ persona during trial/Disgraced former CEO of crypto exchange FTX admits to disparaging regulators on third day of testimony" (The Guardian).

"He wore what he always wore: a wrinkled T-shirt and cargo shorts. His bare knee jackhammered up and down at roughly four beats per second..."

"... while his eyes darted left and right and collided with his interviewers’ gaze only by chance. His general demeanor was that of a kid pretending to be interested when his parents hauled him into the living room to meet their friends. He’d done nothing to prepare, but the questions were so easy that it didn’t matter. Crypto Wunderkind, read the Bloomberg chyron, while the numbers on the left of the screen showed that, in just the past year, bitcoin’s price had risen by more than 500 percent. That first TV show Natalie watched from her own desk, but later, during future interviews, she’d walk around behind Sam to confirm that, yes, his eyes moved around so much because he was playing a video game. On live TV!"

Writes Michael Lewis, in "Play it again, Sam/Inside Bankman-Fried’s last year in the crypto game" (WaPo). 

It's a long article, and Lewis has a whole book: "Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon." — #CommissionsEarned.

"Often, on live TV, Sam would not only play a video game but respond to messages, edit documents and tweet. The TV interviewer would ask him a question and Sam would say, 'Ahhhh, interesting question' — even though he never found any of the questions interesting. And Natalie knew he was just buying time to exit whatever game he was playing and reenter the conversation. Natalie didn’t know how a person was supposed to behave on live television, but she suspected it wasn’t like this.... Sam was odd on TV, but he was also odd in real life.... She decided against media training — or anything that might make Sam seem less like Sam...."

"For prosecutors, bail is meant to be a strong disincentive to flee, not to make a statement about justice."

"In fact, the legal system would prefer defendants who aren’t a danger to others to stay out of prison, reducing costs. (The annual cost of detaining an inmate in New York City, for example, is over $500,000.) Mr. Bankman-Fried had another point of leverage: U.S. prosecutors had wanted to extradite him from the Bahamas quickly, to avoid both the perception of slow-moving justice and his getting hurt in a Bahamian jail before being moved to the U.S. If he had fought extradition, he would most likely have lost that fight, but it would have cost the U.S. time and money. In return, he wanted to stay out of prison before trial.... [W]hile prosecutors could herald a $250 million bail, one of the highest in history, he was ultimately released on something closer to his own recognizance... a standard arrangement. Prosecutors did demand that his parents post their home as collateral and co-sign the bail deal...."

From "How Sam Bankman-Fried Negotiated His Way Out of Jail/Intense legal wrangling led to the disgraced crypto mogul paying virtually nothing to live with his parents ahead of his upcoming trial" (NYT).

"Bankman-Fried to be released on $250 million bond, live with parents."

WaPo reports. 

Bankman-Fried’s appearance comes as two of his closest former colleagues pleaded guilty to criminal fraud charges. The two associates — Caroline Ellison, the former chief executive of Alameda Research, Bankman-Fried’s hedge fund, and Gary Wang, co-founder of FTX and its former chief technology officer — are cooperating with federal prosecutors, a development that spells deepening legal peril for Bankman-Fried....

Ellison, who was at times romantically linked to Bankman-Fried, pleaded guilty to seven counts that mirror a significant portion of Bankman-Fried’s indictment....

"Sam Bankman-Fried Said to Agree to Extradition After Chaotic Hearing."

The NYT reports. 

Wearing a navy blue suit and a white shirt unbuttoned at the cuff, he slumped in his seat, with his head down and his leg shaking. Soon the proceedings were thrown into turmoil. “Whatever trail got him here this morning, it did not involve me,” [SBF's lawyer Jerone] Roberts told the judge in front of a packed courtroom. He said Mr. Bankman-Fried’s court appearance had happened “prematurely” and without his involvement.

"Fallen crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried is being held in a Bahamian jail known to be overrun with rats and maggots..."

"... one so bad that a warden has called it 'not fit for humanity.' The accused fraudster, once estimated to be worth $32 billion, is being held in the island’s only correctional facility, Fox Hill Prison, until at least Feb. 8 after failing to get bail while fighting against extradition to the US. The jail was the focus of a damning report last year by the US Department of State into possible human rights violations, including violence and abuse by staff. 'Inmates removed human waste by bucket,' the government report noted of the jail where often six inmates are crammed into tiny cells that are only 6 feet by 10 feet. 'Some inmates developed bedsores from lying on bare ground,' the report said...."

The NY Post reports.

"[N]o one took the idea that a life of the boundless mind was reflected in a life freed from petty concerns like clothing further than Mr. Bankman-Fried..."

"Not for him the physical cage of a suit and tie. Instead, the T-shirt, cargo shorts and sneakers, often worn with white running socks scrunched down at the ankle. And not just any T-shirt and cargo shorts, but what could seem like the baggiest, most stretched out, most slept in, most consciously unflattering T-shirts and shorts; the most unkempt bed-head. While the look may have evolved naturally, it became a signature as he rose to prominence, a look he realized was as effective at pushing the Pavlovian buttons of the watching public (and the investing community) as the Savile Row suits and Charvet ties of Wall Street.... 'It’s the ultimate billionaire white boy tech flex: I’m so above convention. I’m so special I am not subject to the same rules and propriety as everyone else.'"

Writes Vanessa Friedman in "Hey Silicon Valley, It’s Time to Wear a Suit Sam Bankman-Fried’s choices may signal an end to the schlubby mystique" (NYT)(internal quote by investor/podcaster Scott Galloway).

Federal prosecutors said... that they expect evidence to show that Mr. Bankman-Fried 'defrauded FTX customers by misappropriating their funds for his personal use..."

"... including to invest for his own account, to make tens of millions of dollars of political contributions, and to cover billions of dollars in expenses and debts of Alameda Research, a cryptocurrency hedge fund also founded by the defendant."

The NYT reports. 

"Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced founder of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, was arrested in the Bahamas on Monday…”

“… after U.S. prosecutors filed criminal charges, according to a statement by the government of the Bahamas," the NYT reports.

Lawyers involved in the case were surprised at the suddenness of the news, which came the evening before Mr. Bankman-Fried was scheduled to testify in a House committee hearing.

"The classic advice, right: Don’t say anything. Recede into a hole. And that’s not who I am. It’s not who I want to be."

"I don’t have — I think I have a duty to talk to people. I have a duty to explain what happened. And I think I have a duty to do everything I can to try and do what’s right. If there is anything I can do to try and help customers out here. And I don’t see what good is accomplished by me just sitting locked in a room pretending the outside world doesn’t exist."

Said Sam Bankman-Fried, prompted about whether his lawyers are telling him it's a good idea to be talking and quoted in "Transcript of Sam Bankman-Fried’s Interview at the DealBook Summit/In a discussion with Andrew Ross Sorkin of The New York Times, Sam Bankman-Fried blamed 'huge management failures' and sloppy accounting for the collapse of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange" (NYT).

He says he's not focusing on his own liability: "There’s going to be a time and a place for me to think about myself and my own future. But I don’t think this is it. Right now, look, I've had a bad month. This has not been a fun month for me. But that’s not what matters here...."

He takes risks. And he doesn't focus on the future.

"I’m addicted to reading," said the journalist to Sam Bankman-Fried, who said "Oh, yeah? I would never read a book."

I read that scintillating anecdote in a nonbook — a WaPo scribbling called "Sam Bankman-Fried doesn’t read. That tells us everything" by Molly Roberts.

If an 8-word spontaneous remark "tells us everything" in your view, Ms. Roberts, can I infer that you agree with SBF's anti-book statement?

Well, I don't know what's in Bankman-Fried's mind or Roberts's, but I feel like the headline tells me everything I need to know about the latter. 

But I'll read the article anyway, because you are kind enough to read my blog post, which is also not a book, and which mostly is an outgrowth of my reading things that are not books (though 2 posts down is a post about a book (not really, just kidding, it's a short fragment arrived at by searching for an isolated word that came up in conversation)).

Roberts writes:

"When your founder spends almost $40 million on politics, is that not necessarily out of excitement to do good and be regulated appropriately?"

"... Is this very good, invisible, costly fabric that I was also given to have made into the finest robes to show my commitment to effective altruism … nothing? Is it nothing? Please tell me if it’s nothing."

Writes Alexandra Petri in "Come to think of it, maybe I don’t understand cryptocurrency" (WaPo).

"Bankman-Fried’s FTX spent hundreds of millions of dollars buying up top-grade real estate across the Bahamas’ most populous island, New Providence..."

"... including offices, apartments and vacation homes used by FTX’s senior executives, according to property records and FTX attorneys. A major chunk of the spending spree went to Albany, an ultraexclusive luxury community developed in 2010 by a British billionaire with investment from musician Justin Timberlake and golfers Tiger Woods and Ernie Els. Encircled by marshes and scrub forests, the 600-acre community of pearl-white towers is walled-off to practically everyone. A giant lawn at the community’s center, near a Rolex store, features a full-size replica of Wall Street’s famous Charging Bull sculpture. A lavish recording studio there, known as the Sanctuary, has been used by Drake, Mariah Carey and Alicia Keys. Bankman-Fried and nine of his closest allies moved into... a sprawling penthouse atop a luxury tower... overlook[ing] an oceanfront marina where action-movie-caliber speedboats are anchored...."

From "FTX’s Bahamas crypto empire: Stimulants, subterfuge and a spectacular collapse/Crypto wunderkind Sam Bankman-Fried had promised the island paradise a path to financial glory. His meltdown has left some Bahamians worried about the ripple effects" (WaPo).

"Sam literally said to me, ‘The only people I think I’d wear long pants for are Congress.'"

Said Andy Croghan — a colleague of Sam Bankman-Fried's — quoted in a May 2022 NYT article, "A Crypto Emperor’s Vision: No Pants, His Rules/Sam Bankman-Fried is a studiously disheveled billionaire who made a fortune overseeing trades that are too risky for the U.S. market. Now he wants Washington to follow his lead" (NYT).

Croghan was trying to get SBF to look more conventionally presentable. He says he said, "Sam, you’ve got to cut your hair, dude — it looks ridiculous." SBF retorted: "I honestly think it’s negative EV for me to cut my hair. I think it’s important for people to think I look crazy." 

When SBF did testify before Congress, he wore long pants and was more subtly weird by doing his shoe laces like this:

 

I wonder: Rewrite that headline.

If you puzzle: A command is not a wondering, you see my problem — one of my problems — with the headline "Why hasn't Sam Bankman-Fried already been forced back to the US for FTX fiasco, critics wonder: 'Lock him up'/SBF's father, Joseph Bankman, notably helped Sen. Elizabeth Warren draft tax legislation." (Fox News).

1. Whether you're a "critic" or not, you can't "wonder" "Lock him up." You might wonder why he's not locked up. But you can't wonder an imperative.

2. I guess you could ignore the colon — which indicates that what the critics wonder is "Lock him up." Then you could see the critics as wondering why SBF hasn't been "forced back to the US." That is something that can be wondered. A question mark might help.

3. I find it hard to believe anyone is wondering that. There are no charges against SBF — not yet. I found that article because I was googling to see if SBF was actively fleeing from legal consequences. Isn't that what most of us would expect him to do — what we would do under the circumstances?

4. And that subheadline! What's the point of that if not to insinuate that SBF has political connections that are the reason he's not already extradited and locked up? It's such a weak insinuation. SBF's father is eminent enough to have some connection to drafting a tax bill, and — if you go to the link in the article — you'll see it was just about simplifying tax filing.

5. If you go on to read the article, you'll see it's not really about what "critics," plural, are saying. It's just about what Judge Jeanine Pirro said on Fox News, on "The Five." And Jesse Watters "agreed."

6. Here's something to wonder: Why is Fox News so trashy?