[publius_0xf3]

It's funny. I lost tens of thousands of dollars thanks to this individual, yet his sentence brings me no joy or arouses any emotion at all. I'm utterly indifferent to his fate for some reason and I don't know why. Yet if he had been a mugger who stole a much smaller amount of money from me on the street, I think I would've been far more vengeful.

Should I feel vindictive? Or is it healthy to forget about it and move on? I'm not sure.

[freedomben]

Purely speculation on my part, but I tend to feel similarly, and I think the reason is that the mugger includes a physical threat of violence.

Evolutionarily, the emergence of an economy with capital at modern-day scales are so new that we haven't had time to really adjust emotionally. It kind of reminds me of the various birds on previously untouched-by-humanity islands that had no fear of humans and would just sit there and allow a human to club them to death, until their species went extinct. They had no time evolutionarily to develop an innate (emotional) fear of humans.

Physical violence/robbery on the other hand is a long-standing human tradition, and something we are hardwired to react to emotionally (Amygdala vs. PFC, etc). We can of course override our Amygdalas with our PFCs to some extent (in the medium to long-term), but the "gut reaction" core is still there.

Another possible reason (for me at least) is that ethically I have a lot of inner turmoil over violent punishments (which physical incarceration absolutely is IMHO) for nonviolent crimes. Of course reality is much more grayscale than that given that crimes like SBFs could leave a family destitute and starving, which is violence-adjacent if not outrightly violent. A violent sentence for a violent crime intuitively feels a lot more "let the punishment fit the crime" than a violent sentence for a nonviolent crime.

Anyway, I don't have answers, but throwing some speculation onto the pile.

[bgitarts]

I had a business partner/family member steal money from me in our business. It very much hurt and was a painful experience hoping for vengence. Perhaps SBF being distant from you is what makes you indifferent.

[nerpderp82]

This is the pain of losing trust and getting taken advantage of by someone that is close to you.

[freedomben]

Yes that's fair criticism regarding my feelings, but GP feels the same and they had stolen $10K. So the distance from it can't be all there is to it.

I'm also pretty distant from a mugging that might happen today, but I find myself getting angry about it, so that also seems to contradict the theory that it's about distance (though to be clear, I largely agree with you and I suspect distance is going to be a factor for most or maybe the vast majority of people).

[amelius]

I think humans also feel no anger towards deadly diseases. Maybe it is more comparable to that.

However, I do know that people can feel very ashamed from scams like phishing attacks and caller scams.

[freedomben]

After thinking about it, I think some humans do feel anger towards deadly diseases. If not anger, certainly fear. My aunt died of cancer, and most of our family was pretty mad at "cancer." I remember seeing a Twitter thing going around that was basically a lot of people tweeting things like "fuck cancer" and encouraging others to donate to the cause.

Maybe that's not really "anger," but it kind of feels and seems like it

[buffington]

I lost my dad to cancer. I was very much furious with cancer while being well aware of the irrationality of feeling that way. Still am, and it's been a few years. It's easy to be furious at cancer, and the pure random destructive wastefulness of it.

[fasa99]

For cancer and forces of nature, there is anger, there is a sense of unfairness, but we ask "why" and the instinctive answer is there - force of nature. To the robber metaphor, for example I've had cars try to run me off the road on my bicycle, so I approach the driver and it becomes immediately clear this is an insane person with major problems, and I think "oh, force of nature, this person is completely insane" - similar how "not guilty by way of insanity" is a real thing. Again we get an answer "why" - because this person is insane.

For me the deep insult that causes anger is if this is intentional, this is a person, they willfully did this of sound mind. Perhaps why a Madoff might make someone angry, but not SBF. In my view, SBF was a step or two removed from a big "too big too fail" 2008 bank that offered an interest rate to account holders by making investments with some risk. It seems to me SBF was operating along similar lines, 8% interest rate if I recall, but his intent wasn't to steal so much as illegally hide risk and hope for the best - and in his case, he was small enough to fail.

[iamthirsty]

There no intent to personally harm with a disease/virus — it's just what they do and one of the players in the game of life.

Versus someone calling you specifically to cause harm, especially when they can comprehend the harm they are intending to inflict, in your example.

[Nasrudith]

Predators also 'play the game of life' and humanity is downright vindictive about any who prey upon them. I personally suspect the real difference is how incredibly hard it is to target a disease. Hell, just identification of what a disease really is was spotty for millennia.

[zem]

the classic article "if only gay sex caused global warming" goes into the psychology behind perceived harm and threats https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-jul-02-op-gilbe...

[roguas]

> we haven't had time to really adjust emotionally.

I think we adjusted, but we just apply broader context. No one would recommend going all-in on FTX with your life savings. Likely no one involved is really poor and this affected his life strongly. People lost money for their retirement retro vehicle, it's fairly easy to adjust to that.

This not saying it's ok, but its annoyance in effects mostly or should be(I think likely there are may be people, who put too much money, but then again internet financial advisory board all appears and says: HA! Told ya not to do it!).

[skaag]

I'm an indirect victim via BlockFi (headed by Zach Prince), which did business with FTX and lost my money as a result. I held 33 ETH in a BlockFi BIA account, and only recently got 4 ETH back. I don't know if I will ever recover the rest of my funds.

I don't know what your financial situation is but I'm not rich, and it is extremely painful to look at ETH trading at above $3000 and realizing my rainy day fund has been stolen by criminal nincompoops.

My personal values dictate that I be significantly more careful with money when it is someone else's money. Even if you gave me $20 to get you a Burrito, I'll get you the best deal, tip the minimum, and give you your exact change. I'd even give you a few cents more just in case because I don't want to be owing you anything.

So when a group of people behaves irresponsibly with people's money it boils my blood. He deserves every jail year he got, just on the hubris alone.

[aurareturn]

>So when a group of people behaves irresponsibly with people's money it boils my blood. He deserves every jail year he got, just on the hubris alone.

I don't want to rub on your wound but you need to take some responsibility as well. You knew crypto was risky. You knew many exchanges have scammed and went under, taking their customer's funds with them. It's arguable that every crypto exchange is shady and it's inevitable that every single one them will fall.

You should also blame the laws because exchanges and most crypto are clearly securities. But our law makers have been slow to respond and have probably been paid off by crypto money.

[javier2]

Not that I would lose sleep in anger over my missing ETH (I was not hit by this, I did not have anything touching FTX), but I think your take is a little unreasonable when FTX clearly acted in a way that is directly illegal to do as a financial institution. I don't keep my life savings in crypto either, too risky, but still.

[aurareturn]

Crypto has been largely unregulated. People who gamble with crypto should know that.

In fact, the same crypto bros argue that they should NOT be regulated.

[lupire]

Cryptocurrency is different because the primary value proposition is the "law of the jungle" market economics. The value of your tokens comes from the general swirl of criminal activity. You can't say you deserve the upside but not the downside risk.

[NerdiDotOrg]

Is false

[goalonetwo]

As someone who lost a little bit through this whole debacle I think it is because we willingly gave our money to FTX. We wanted to believe in this story that was too good to be true. We got fooled and we are slightly ashamed.

When you get mugged you have no choice on what is happening. The actions are being forced physically on you. With FTX We chose to go that way so it somehow feels like we are as much to blame as SBF (and to be honest, we are).

[tim333]

I deposited some money with FTX and expected them not to steal it in the same way you expect a bank not to steal your deposits. I didn't gift to them or expect anything too good to be true. If a bank manager steals customer deposits to pay his gambling debts I put the blame 100% on the manager 0% on the customers.

[KennyBlanken]

Why on earth would you "expect them not to steal it in the same way you expect a bank not to steal your deposits" when a cryptocurrency exchange / hedge fund is not subject to even a fraction of the regulations banks are?

Especially when prior to FTX's collapse, numerous other crypto exchanges were turning out to be scams or going under, and even back then there was plenty of evidence that crypto was being used and manipulated by nation-states and criminal organizations? And it was practically a meme that crypto was full of shysters and scams?

Comparing putting your money into a too-good-to-be-true crypto hedge fund is nothing like "a bank manager stealing money to pay off his gambling debts." I won't name a culpability breakdown but there is no way you have 0% responsibility here.

[px43]

> a cryptocurrency exchange / hedge fund is not subject to even a fraction of the regulations banks are?

US ones are. Shady ass casinos in the Bahamas like what SBF was running aren't though. Exchanges like Coinbase have been operating in the US under heavy US regulations for over a decade, and have never had anything close to a solvency issue. It's absolutely ridiculous that SBF was getting invited to basically write US policy despite FTX not even being a US based exchange.

[resolutebat]

FTX.US was very much a thing, and despite SBF's promises to regulators and others that it was completely separate, it imploded along with the rest.

[tim333]

FTX wasn't a "too-good-to-be-true crypto hedge fund".

[cjaybo]

It quite literally was, hence you losing your money and SBF serving time in prison.

[Aeolun]

That’s strange. If I invest my money into any form of securities it’s pretty clear to me that the value of that capital might go to zero overnight.

If I invested it in crypto? I would value it at zero for the rest of eternity.

[jjav]

> That’s strange. If I invest my money into any form of securities it’s pretty clear to me that the value of that capital might go to zero overnight.

What is strange about it? Losing money through investment risk is part of the deal when you invest, losing money because the fund manager decides to steal it is not part of the deal.

[Aeolun]

Crypto is more like handing money out to joe random on the street corner because he promises he’ll be there again next Friday with a 10% interest rate.

[jjav]

I mean yes, of course it is.

But there is still a difference between risk and fraud.

Risk would be if joe random tells you he'll "invest" your money in lottery tickets and then give you a 10% return if he wins or nothing if the "investment" goes bad.

Fraud is when he tells you that, but takes your money and buys himself some stuff.

Either way you lost all your money but in the second case you can sue the guy for fraud. In the first case he did as promised and lost the money but you only have yourself to blame for doing a dumb investment.

[javier2]

I still clearly expect the broker not to steal my stock positions and gamble with them...

[literallycancer]

Bank deposits are usually insured, aren't they?

[jjav]

> As someone who lost a little bit through this whole debacle I think it is because we willingly gave our money to FTX.

That's not the whole picture though. If I invest in some risky stock (or even what I thought was not a risky one) and it tanks, sure I feel bad but it's part of the deal so it's ok.

But if I invest in something risky and I lose the money not through investment risk but simply because the fund manager outright stole my money, I'd be very angry.

[harambae]

“You can’t cheat an honest man” as the expression goes.

Not literally true - completely innocent people do get victimized - but there’s certainly a reason for the expression.

[BeFlatXIII]

"Can't con an honest John" for the rhyming edition.

[StressedDev]

This response is not helpful and I know of honest people who have been cheated. Basically, the response boils down to “if you got cheated, you are dishonest and deserved it”. Bullshit.

[acdha]

In this case, it’s somewhat more fair: everyone involved was trying to find much higher returns than they could get in regulated financial markets so while it’s sad that they were defrauded it’s also part of the risk they voluntarily took on by using cryptocurrency.

[rootusrootus]

A lot of folks keep making that argument. What it sounds like you're saying is that Average Joe should really understand that crypto implicitly carries a risk of fraud and you are likely to lose your money. We should shout that from the rooftops. If you deposit BTC/whatever with someone, they are probably going to steal it. When they do, we will remind you that this was a foreseeable outcome.

I'm starting to think that these organizations need to be regulated as banks, stat.

[themanmaran]

Any institution where you invest or deposit money carries a risk of fraud.

Banks have steadily become less and less fraudulent over the last century.

Crypto exchanges have also steadily become less fraudulent, but still carry a much larger risk than the financial institutions to which people have become accustomed.

[wredcoll]

> What it sounds like you're saying is that Average Joe should really understand that crypto implicitly carries a risk of fraud and you are likely to lose your money

That is what a lot of people have been saying for a very long time now!

I don't mean this in a way to blame the victims of the crypto fraudsters, merely to explain the somewhat exasperated responses by people who feel like they've been trying to warn people who have been ignoring them.

> I'm starting to think that these organizations need to be regulated as banks, stat.

I mean, why do you think they don't want to be regulated and brag that they aren't? To make you more money?

[ragazzina]

It is funny - especially when you consider a mugger on the street would need your money much more than SBF ever would.

[zarathustreal]

Money _should be_ the least of the concerns of a mugger on the street. Subjecting yourself to lawlessness exposes you to real danger and kinda detracts from your ability to participate in commerce.

Granted, I haven’t seen any scientific evidence to suggest that a lack of money causes a lack of ability to reason (and thus a lack of responsibility for one’s own actions) but my own anecdotal experience does suggest it

[Aeolun]

I think it’s the opposite? A lack of ability to reason leads to lacking money.

[blululu]

Not really. The use of a gun/knife/lethal force implies a much different risk profile (you could easily die or be crippled for life). It's not about the money - it's about the violence.

[xmprt]

That's a fair point. With FTX you might feel some sense of responsibility because you voluntarily gave up your money (whether it was fraud by deception or not). But a mugger is infringing on your freedom to walk around at night.

[umeshunni]

Yeah, in one case, a few numbers in a database somewhere changed.

In the other, you could be left for dead in an alley in Oakland.

[rootusrootus]

> a few numbers in a database somewhere changed

That is very crass. Tell that to someone who lost a big chunk of their savings. "Just numbers in a database" indeed.

[acdha]

If someone put a big chunk of their savings into a speculative vehicle, they should be having a moment of contemplation about why they ignored basic investment advice. It’s not a happy moment for anyone but at some point you do have to take responsibility for your decisions.

[hirako2000]

If the loss was due to the speculative asset going the unexpected direction sure. But here was fraud.

Would you say the same if a pension fund ran with your retirement, since it is invested in some stock index, most likely in previous metals, and probably a slice in crypto?

[rootusrootus]

What does it being a speculative vehicle have to do with FTX stealing the money? These people did not lose money because their speculative investment lost value. On the contrary, it has gone up considerably in the meantime but FTX pocketed all of the gains.

[csomar]

Sure because it’s impossible to have another Madoff in the traditional Wall Street system? No. And some people have found themselves in clawback if they made their money back. Imaging someone investing in Madoff for 25 years and finding out that the investment is a scam, losing their capital but also the state is now after them for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

[robocat]

It is just as crass to say people "lost" their savings.

Who were these hypothetical savers putting their money in a safe place?

Few people should have been unaware of the risks they were taking by investing in crypto.

Certainly not saying they deserve to be defrauded, but I am saying they took obvious risks and then got burned by those risks.

[rootusrootus]

The obvious risk was that FTX would just take their money? I would have thought the obvious risks were crypto tokens losing value. They didn't get burned by that, except in the sense that their tokens were no longer theirs while the value went way up.

[hgomersall]

It's kind of farcical when you put it like that. So much misery and sorrow is caused by the state of that database being problematic for some people.

[Aeolun]

You could, but I don’t think that’s the goal of most muggers.

[jejeyyy77]

lol I don't consider how much a criminal "needs" the money.

[ragazzina]

So a person stealing their eleventh billion and a person stealing to eat something are the same for you?

[jejeyyy77]

that would have to do with the amount they are stealing - not how badly they need it.

so, yes, someone who is hungry and stealing bread is the same as someone who is full and stealing bread should get the same punishment.

[stass]

Both are completely immoral.

[snapcaster]

What do you see as the value of removing all nuance?

[laurels-marts]

Need money for what though. Alcohol, drugs and gambling? The vast majority of crimes are not committed due to an inability to obtain food.

[danparsonson]

Source?

[bdcravens]

Perhaps previous exit scams in the crypto space dulled your senses?

If anything, I feel like you should share your story to protect others, especially during times when crypto is peaking (like now) and others are tempted to jump in: use exchanges to buy/sell and get out, store your keys on a cold storage device, and transfer out fiat ASAP.

[CivBase]

Surely the better takeaway is to just not bet on crypto in general? It's supposed to act like a currency, not a stock. So long as people keep feeding into these pump-and-dump schemes they'll keep happening.

Money doesn't come from nowhere. For every dollar you make on crypto, somone loses a dollar. All these BS coins do is shuffle wealth from the unlucky gamblers to the lucky ones. Go spend your money at a casino instead.

[fragmede]

> For every dollar you make on crypto, somone loses a dollar.

If that's not true of the stock market, why would that be true of crypto?

[CivBase]

This is oversimplifying, but stocks are essentially purchasing a stake in ownership of the company. The company uses that money to advance its mission - ideally generating more profits which are shared with the stockholders (dividends). It's that stake in ownership and expected dividends that give stocks inherent value.

There is no company behind crypto currencies that holders get ownership of. There is no product or service to drive profits. There are no dividends, voting power, or anything that gives inherent value to the coins. It's all pure speculation. Just money getting shifted around among the holders - with exchanges taking a cut off the top of each transaction.

[fragmede]

I'm sorry, but what am going to do with my Class C shares of Google which have no voting rights? They also haven't paid dividends. My buying of them didn't give Google any money, either. My infinitesimal ownership in Google doesn't get anything other than it's a number in a database somewhere that hopefully goes up. There's underlying assets there, sure, but as we've seen with GME, TSLA, and now NVDA, it's all just vibes.

In this case though, FTX had their own token FTT that gave people that owned it voting rights in FTX and "staking rewards" aka dividends. It's not worth anything today due to the fraud that SBF perpetrated, but that sure smells a awful lot like a stock to me.

[hgomersall]

Right. There seems to be a real aversion to accepting that trading shares is really just middle class gambling.

[Fargren]

>>My buying of them didn't give Google any money, either.

You buying the stock raised the price of the stock. Google uses the stock as compensation. The higher the price, the easier they can hire, and the less cash they need to offer to employees while still being attractive.

[gambiting]

>>My buying of them didn't give Google any money, either.

really? how can that be true?

[hcks]

Why would someone sell the share for less than this "inherent" value then? Or conversely why would some buy for more than that?

[jjav]

> Why would someone sell the share for less than this "inherent" value then?

Because the inherent value includes things we know about such as the assets the company has, but it also includes the speculative future earnings which we can't be sure about.

[kelnos]

Because people don't always agree on what that value is. Information is never perfect.

And sometimes some people just need the cash, and are willing to sell at a discount.

[gambiting]

They don't though? Share buy/sale price is directly correlated to the value of the company.

[kelnos]

> This is oversimplifying

Yes, and in doing so you've managed to blissfully ignore all the speculation and outright gambling that goes on in the stock market.

I'm not a crypto defender; I think it's mostly useless and a waste of people's time and money. But let's not paint a big rosy picture of the rest of our financial system. That's just not where the truth lies.

[CivBase]

I did no such thing. I only answered the question I was asked. For some reason a bunch of people interpreted that as a defense of short-term stock trading.

[skaag]

Publicly traded companies make money by creating value and selling products or services. At least, the good companies that actually sell something (you'll find a bunch of them don't do crap or are just outright scams).

Take Apple or Coca Cola for example: They have well established lines of products and lines of business. You know people will keep buying iPhones and MacBooks and AirPods and whatever else Apple makes. You know people will keep buying Coca Cola drinks forever and ever.

The popular blockchains do not create any intrinsic value (Looking at Bitcoin and Ethereum). They are heavy and cumbersome and can't handle planetary scale. Some blockchain solutions promise secure, fee-less transfers (for example IOTA and NANO). In my opinion, those blockchains at least partially implement the true promise of Crypto that, if successful, would be able to replace the existing financial system which is extremely wasteful.

Just think about how much money it costs to implement FIAT: You have to print it, which is very expensive (both notes and coins). You then have to move it around using heavy armored vehicles. You have to secure it in extremely expensive vaults. You then need to keep securing it across the entire vertical: Every business that takes cash has to deal with theft, securing the cash, fake notes, etc. Even credit cards are very expensive to maintain. Cards have to be printed & mailed out all the time. It's all plastic, and it all ends up in landfills. The inks are toxic, as are the metals in the chips. The equipment required to process cards is expensive, breaks and needs to be replaced, is annoying, slow, ridden with fraud and theft and chargebacks and a host of other issues.

I implemented EMV and 3D-Secure for card processing, a few years ago. I also implemented cash processing equipment. It ALL sucks. You have no idea how Crypto is a breath of fresh air compared to those crappy standards and mechanisms that take an insane amount of time and money and bureaucracy to implement and maintain.

A really good blockchain that does secure, fee-less transactions in less than a second and can handle planetary scale, now that is the holy grail! You don't need equipment, you already have a phone. The merchants get their money instantly, and they are done, that's it. They have their money. Done. They need to pay their vendors? They pay them, done! They could even instantly pay their vendors at the moment of sale. Can you imagine how revolutionary that is? how this completely changes the game for commerce?

The entire crypto world has been held back by greedy assholes, tens of thousands of scammers (how many ICOs and rug pulls have screwed countless users?!), governments, government bodies and banks, and unregulated companies that behave irresponsibly with customer funds (for example FTX and BlockFi). Leadership that lacks vision and initiative (Any 1st world country that accepts crypto and leads with it, would make its citizens rich, by definition, on a planetary scale).

[p-e-w]

> Publicly traded companies make money by creating value and selling products or services.

But their stock price is (mostly) independent of that. It is indeed true that at least with short-term trading, your gain is someone's loss, and vice versa. There is a difference between cryptocurrency and companies, but there is little difference between trading in cryptocurrency, and trading in traditional company stocks.

[fragmede]

Absolutely totally utterly fee-less is unrealistic. Operating the network costs something. Visa/MC get to take their cut, why should a replacement system be run as a charity? that's not sustainable.

What's your opinion of Solana?

[B56b]

You're basically just describing fee-less digital currency. The problem is that achieving the fee-less part by using a blockchain makes some extremely undesirable tradeoffs. To name a few:

  -Money laundering becomes impossible to prevent when no entity has control over identity verification of the users. 
  
  -All transactions are public, so normal users who won't be trying to lie about their identity lose all financial privacy.
  
  -Undoing transactions due to fraud or simple error becomes extremely cumbersome and ultimately requires re-centralization of authority that crypto supposedly was created to avoid.

Digital fiat transactions operating in the current financial system are the best of all worlds, and unsurprisingly they are already extremely common.

[Zpalmtree]

Crypto is one of the only markets where someone with virtually zero investment can become very rich. It's not easy, but smart traders can make a lot of money. You are not doing that at the casino.

[CivBase]

Same can be said about the lottery. I don't recommend that as an investment either.

[immibis]

Crypto is supposed to act like a stock. Very few people actually want decentralized digital dollars. Compared to the number of people who want decentralized digital get rich quick schemes.

[skaag]

Except greed...

[forgotmyinfo]

If it isn't obvious already that cryptocurrency is one giant grift, then I don't know how many more stories are going to help. The SEC or Congress or someone with power needs to just make it illegal, or else this kind of thing will keep happening. It happened before we got our shit together in the early 20th century, but we collectively realized markets were actively doing shady things, and then we legislated to fix things. Will we do it again?

[dfxm12]

You should feel how you want to feel. However, I think certain politicians and most mass media outlets push you to have more compassion for white collar criminals and to think of others as less than human. When you hear them talk/print "tough on crime", they never seem to include white collar criminals in that. When the current admin expanded the IRS enforcement, they pushed back.

It's no surprise. After all, these politicians and the owners of such outlets are likely to be a little guilty of ripping people off a few thousand here and there as well...

[micromacrofoot]

Mugging is much more violent and personal. SBF didn't see you and think "that's the person I'm going to get" he essentially created a fraud machine that you and hundreds of others got caught up in. Very impersonal.

[phone[phone]]

But no less financially destructive

[miduil]

It's a bit of a different scale/topic, but I found the discourse here quite insightful. It talks about the method "Restorative Justice" by going through a concrete example where this was lacking. Really heartwarming to listen to.

https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/how-to-make-amends/

[coryrc]

"Restorative Justice" is more bullying from authorities and taking time from the victim.

From your link: "Victims may help decide on the punishment for the person who harm them. They often get answers and an apology. Offenders might receive reduced sentences." -- how about increased sentences because of how the victim feels? No, it's all about going easier on offenders. All the authorities involved are pushing victims to "go easy" on offenders aka bullying, victimizing them once again.

Someone, not a thief, hopefully filled the seat in the master's program Donovan was eligible for.

[smcin]

Restorative Justice means different things in different [US] states and counties, for different types of crime, it depends on whether the state's attitude to felony convictions and expungement is medieval or not (like in FL, KY), and the wide discretion prosecutors have to charge/plead something as a felony, misdemeanor or not to charge at all, plus the discretion police have on what to arrest for. And especially, it depends on the DA, who is an elected official:

* That HiddenBrain story was about a VA conviction for felony grand larceny for stealing a bike whose value exceeded the grand larceny threshold ($1000). In that case the victim (an English guy who supported the UK equivalent) emphatically did consent to restorative justice approach and expected a non-custodial conviction could be quickly expunged, but the VA system doesn't work that way. So all his intervention effectively did was spare jail time to the thief, but not all the other consequences.

* Compare to the 2021 Oakland, CA gang-related freeway shooting death of 23mo toddler Jasper Wu [0] in a rolling gunbattle between two rival gangs (one of them using an AR-15) on highway I-880 at 2:07pm in the afternoon, Wu was hit in the head by a stray 7.62mm rifle bullet in the rear of his mother's car. Three accused were charged with murder (one since had charges dropped), but then 4/2023 [1], new incoming DA Pamela Price, in the name of restorative justice, wrote an internal memo of her intention to "bring balance back to sentencing and reduce recidivism"- by not allowing prosecutors to "file or require defendants plead to sentencing enhancements." Not adding the special circumstances charge would drastically reduce any likely sentences, and exclude a life sentence (Price points out that she did add the gang-enhancer, but not the special circumstances charge) [3]. The victim's family were not consulted before Price's decision, and objected. [2] Price sent a series of emails to members of the Asian American community and county supervisors. In one, she claims "certain vocal members of the local Chinese community and media including reporter Dion Lim... misled the public." In another email one week later, Price addresses "Chinese communities" calling many "misinformed" and blamed [them] for "spreading misinformation."

The matter is pretty politically divisive in the East Bay [3]. DA Price refuses to budge on this and there is currently in 2024 a major recall effort against her [4].

These two cases are pretty much the opposite end of the spectrum to each other. They also show how politicized the actions of an elected DA can be, depending on the mood of the electorate that put them in office. They also show that DAs can completely disregard the victim's/family's wishes.

[0]: ABC7News 12/2022: Jasper Wu case timeline: A 13-month investigation into Oakland freeway shooting death of toddler https://abc7news.com/jasper-wu-oakland-freeway-shooting-todd...

[1]: 3/2023 Jasper Wu's family voices concerns over murder suspects' possible shorter sentences https://abc7news.com/jasper-wu-alameda-county-district-attor...

[2]: 4/2023 After meeting with DA Price, Jasper Wu's family is still worried they won't get 'justice' https://abc7news.com/alameda-county-district-attorney-pamela...

[3]: 6/2023 Jasper Wu case: murder suspects appear in court, charges reduced in toddler's slaying https://www.ktvu.com/news/jasper-wu-case-murder-suspects-app...

[4[: Alameda County DA Pamela Price https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Price

[thenoblesunfish]

Maybe on some level you felt that the risk of this kind of thing was part of the investment decision? Presumably this was high risk, high return sort of stuff. As others say, the mugger is threatening you physically - SBF just cheated (I assume, haven't read the details) at a game, wild west new types of badly regulated investments.

[Lance_ET_Compte]

We see this among political figures that swindle hundreds of millions, fail to pay taxes, etc. over and over again. They are granted absolution and even admired.

Someone who steals food does time in jail.

[KenArrari]

A mugger is less likely to be deterred by fear of punishments. It usually comes from desperation and impulsiveness, it's not like they've carefully weighed their chances of being caught. SBF probably thought "If I get away with this I get a billion dollars and if I don't I just get a slap on the wrist and go back to normal life".

I think not letting anger factor into it is good, but we also have to make sure the deterrence is there to prevent the inevitable future SBF.

[__loam]

I didn't lose a penny and I'm giddy about it. Justice has been done.

[freedomben]

> I didn't lose a penny and I'm giddy about it. Justice has been done.

How can you be giddy about a human being locked in a cage for 25 years? Would you be giddy if he were being flogged, or hanged? As long as there has been recording, flogging and hangings were common punishments and usually defended as "justice has been done." Incarceration really isn't far from medieval punishments.

I'm by no means suggesting that nothing should be done, and maybe 25 years in prison is a just sentence (that's debatable, but for moving forward let's assume it is), but it still leaves me with a sick feeling. I just can't relate whatsoever with feeling "giddy" over it.

[__loam]

> How can you be giddy about a human being locked in a cage for 25 years?

Said human is responsible for the financial ruin of thousands of people. It's entirely likely that some small portion of those people committed suicide.

White collar criminals, especially those as pedigreed as SBF, are rarely held accountable for their actions. The maximum sentence was 110 years so he got off pretty lightly here and it's entirely possible he serves less than 25 years for good behavior.

So yeah, I'm excited to see an at least somewhat positive outcome here. A criminal was held accountable for their actions.

[fragmede]

> White collar criminals, especially those as pedigreed as SBF, are rarely held accountable for their actions.

Eg, Andy Bernstein got charged $200, scaled down to FAANG engineer salary for insider trading. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39838351

[freedomben]

Genuinely, thank you for your reply. I appreciate you sharing your perspective :-)

[kbos87]

I don't entirely disagree with your point, and I see the real harm done here. But if I were a juror on this case, I'd have a really hard time being a part of taking away a full third of another human beings' life for what he did. There's no doubt that he knowingly did something wrong, he hurt people, and he deserves some level of punishment. But when I really think about what he did relative to the potential for 25 years in prison, that strikes me as barbaric.

[phone[phone]]

I'd be able to do it easily and sleep at night like a baby.

How many hours, days, weeks, months, and years did he steal from the people who bought crypto in FTX? Most of them were workers, using their wages (which means trading their working hours for money) to buy crypto. How many years of their time did he lose?

If there was real justice in the world, they'd take the amount of money he lost, divide it by the average hourly rate of the account holders, convert that to years, and then make him serve each and every single one.

[CogitoCogito]

I think treating petty criminals so badly and going easy on white collar criminals is barbaric. A third of his life is nothing compared to the damage he caused. I find it incredible that you would feel sorry for him.

[freedomben]

> I think treating petty criminals so badly and going easy on white collar criminals is barbaric.

Where do you see GP arguing that we should treat petty criminals as badly as we do?

[quonn]

It‘s not a third, it will probably be 1/6 in practice. And what should it be? 3 years? 5? If it‘s just than it will incentivize others to try the same. In fact many do, I know plenty of crypto guys running a bunch of dodgy offshore companies, there is a long tail.

[__loam]

If you think 25 years is too much, I don't think you actually understand what he did, how many people he did it to, and why what he did was bad. Think about the years of savings he destroyed.

[biftek]

Our prison system is undeniable terrible but we also so rarely see white collar criminals get what they deserve. Most of these guys get a slap on the wrist and somehow fail upwards.

And he's almost guaranteed to serve a smaller portion of that time for "good behavior".

[fortran77]

It's amazing how light a setence Theranos' Elizabeth Holmes got compared to this. She may have actually killed people.

[rootusrootus]

Many people see justice served as a win for society, a reason to be hopeful that the future will be better. One life out of billions is valuable only to that person and their immediately family, it would be odd to feel sick over someone else getting punished for defrauding so many others of their life savings.

[freedomben]

> it would be odd to feel sick over someone else getting punished for defrauding so many others of their life savings.

that's a pretty extreme strawman of my position. Don't you think there's some spectrum between 25 years of prison time and no punishment? And if you don't, then how would you feel about flogging or hanging as I mentioned above? Does it seem odd to you for someone to feel sick about a public hanging in the town square, even if the person is guilty of the crime?

[adolph]

> some spectrum between 25 years of prison time and no punishment

That isn’t the range at hand. SBF got something between what prosecutor and defender asked and much lower than theoretical max.

  Max:        110y
  Procecutor: 40-50y
  Defender:   6.5y
  Actual:     25y

[mlcrypto]

Very lenient and it doesn't set a deterrent at all for people like SBF. Basically you can go off the charts on the sentencing guidelines and commit 3 counts of perjury in court and still have the same Expected Value as if you stopped the crime at a smaller scale

[selfmodruntime]

> How can you be giddy about a human being locked in a cage for 25 years?

The guy is a massive fraudster who not only cost thousands of people their savings, but - maybe even worse - he did significant damage to crypto finance reputation.

He was an already wealthy entrepreneur who could’ve at any point chosen not to be a massive fraud. Actions have consequences. Good riddance.

[kelnos]

There's a difference between feeling satisfied that you believe justice has been done, and feeling "giddy".

I think it's awful to have positive, happy feelings when bad things happen to other people, even when those people deserve it. I'm not saying I'm totally immune to feelings like that, but I try to work on my attitude. These sorts of feelings are a stain on one's soul (for lack of a better word, as I'm not religious).

[jug]

Giddy is maybe the wrong word but I am happy about it. He has acted indifferent during the trial which makes it likely that he could become a repeat offender. This was a strong motivation behind his sentence. If the judge is right in that, and who am I to not believe so, then it is probably correct to remove him from society for 25 years. This is an extremely dangerous individual who may lead hundreds or thousands to financial ruin and is indifferent about it.

[foobiekr]

Because he is a scamming, unethical asshole who would did profound damage to society.

[rendall]

> Incarceration really isn't far from medieval punishments.

Sincere question: in your ideal world, what would be done in this case?

I, too, am dubious that 25 entire years serves justice. On the other hand, many victims' entire life savings wiped out, hard-working people impoverished. How do we deter or redeem, here?

To answer my own question, in an ideal world, SBF would voluntarily work every day to pay everyone back.

[freedomben]

> Sincere question: in your ideal world, what would be done in this case?

Great question, and very hard. I don't really have a concrete answer, but generally speaking in my ideal world justice would focus on restoration to the victims. I concede that we may need some aspect of "punishment" to serve as a deterrent, but I think that punishment should benefit the victims, not the state. For example, stole $10k from somebody? Pay them back $25k. There should be no victimless crimes IMHO, and if "society" is the "victim" we should approach that one very skeptically and there should be very clear causation. For example, a dad who takes a few hits on a cannabis joint before bed is not "harming society" even though that has been the justification for draconian drug laws for decades.

I also fully concede that real life is going to be a lot messier and more nuanced than what I've captured, and that such a system would require a large mindshift from society in addition to just systemic reform. It may take a while to get there.

Disclaimer: If I actually had any ability to influence this I would want to spend a lot more time stuyding it and examining current research/science, and it's quite possible my opinion would adjust based on evidence.

[jamespo]

I think part of the issue and what the judge didn't like is he doesn't seem to have any remorse.

[kelnos]

Sure, and that certainly means any rehabilitation would be harder, and we'd be right to be skeptical of the results of that rehabilitation (as in, is he just pretending to be rehabilitated).

[tunesmith]

Ideally, a much higher-tech system would have highly tailored solutions for incapacitation, rehabilitation, and restoration. (There should be no considerations for "retribution".)

I'm conflicted on whether incapacitation should continue only until rehabilitation is achieved, or also until restoration is completed.

Prison is just a really blunt instrument for incapacitation, and sentences are a really blunt way to predict how long it would take to be rehabilitated.

[adolph]

> Ideally, a much higher-tech system would have highly tailored solutions for incapacitation

This is pretty interesting. If a person could be anesthetized for the entire sentence and then revived at the end of their period of incapacity, would that be acceptable?

[tunesmith]

Of course not, that would render rehabilitation impossible.

[__loam]

SBF lost billions of dollars. How does one work to pay that all back, especially with his crap reputation?

[kelnos]

The difficulty of doing so doesn't obviate the necessity of doing so.

At worst, he works for the rest of his life with his wages heavily garnished. If he holds investments, he'd be required to liquidate and surrender some percentage of them periodically.

Of course, someone in his position could just live off his parents and not play ball. So you'd need a contingency for that. Maybe prison still does have a place, but only for people who refuse to even try to make amends for what they did?

[rendall]

If I had the answer to that I'd be a billionaire.

[blendorgat]

Justice is not opposed to empathy. Everyone should look at SBF and feel empathy, and think, "losing the prime years of my life as he will would be horribly painful. Maybe I shouldn't commit fraud and steal thousands of people livelihoods like he did?"

[flextheruler]

Last I checked he’s not going to Treblinka. If you’re feeling sick about this you obviously need to read the court case and look into what low security federal prison is like.

[jojo100]

Don't spare too much of a thought for SBF. He won't go to the same prison you will.

[kelnos]

I'm not giddy or anything like that. Our prison system is terrible, and our legal system is often unjust. But I think I'm... satisfied? that a white-collar criminal is experiencing consequences for what he's done. Too often these sorts of people get away with a slap on the wrist at most, and go on to commit more grift.

[redox99]

If you get mugged, you feel it was outside your control. If you get scammed, you feel it was partly your fault that you were fooled.

[PlunderBunny]

After a new-years eve terrorist attack in Europe a few years ago, a former colleague (who was in a different country) told me she “would now never go to a public space for a new year celebration”. But she drove a car to and from work every week day. We over estimate the risk of things we have no control over, but as soon as we have even a little bit of control, we underestimate the risk.

[roguas]

or internet consortium of financial advisor will tell you: it is a bit of your own fault, you should always diversify

[irishloop]

No, you "shouldn't" feel vindictive. Vengeance doesn't really help anybody. We are all wronged, and we all wrong others. None of us is perfect.

Some are worse than others, and we have laws, and punishments, etc.

But I believe there is no morality to seeking pain in others; even if you believe they deserve it. It will not raise you up, so to speak.

[barfbagginus]

Did you learn your lesson to stay off of the crypto? If not, then that's why you feel nothing. It's part of your continued denial that crypto is pure evil. What's it going to cost you to ditch it, do you think? Another ten grand? More? I'm curious

[Repulsion9513]

Because it wasn't personal or individualized. You'd probably also be more vengeful if it was someone who had stolen your credit cards (or identity).

The same reason why the bigger the company, the more the public lets them get away with.

[dkarras]

It is probably because there is a difference between getting mugged and being scammed. With falling victim to SBF's scheme, you probably believe you are partly to blame and you had to face that fact yourself, did some work on it mentally at the very least in the background. Him getting punished does not make a difference, you probably punished yourself and that is what mattered. With a violent mugging encounter, you are blameless, so you need to see the other party get punished to process and to feel that the world will get slightly better / safer with the delivery of the punishment.

[kelnos]

I don't think this really tracks.

> With a violent mugging encounter, you are blameless

I was mugged a decade or so ago, and while I was certainly angry with the people who mugged me, I also punished myself a bit: I shouldn't have been walking down that particular street at 2am; I'd had a bit to drink and should have called a car. Or I should have been paying more attention to my surroundings; maybe I would have seen them early enough to get away, etc.

The point isn't whether or not the thoughts I had were rational. I don't think the type of crime matters; victims always have plenty of room to assign some blame to themselves, or at least second-guess their actions.

[m463]

I believe the justice system correlates with your feelings.

wrt outcome, it seems physical crimes are almost inconsequential in monetary damage compared to "white collar" crimes

I can't help but think of that clint eastwood line:

"It's a hell of a thing, killin' a man. Take away all he's got, and all he's ever gonna have."

I think physical damage, and also the psychological damage of violence has a permanence compared to money and property "damage"...

Not to make light of anything, but you can always get more stuff. (and over my lifetime I've noticed stuff has been easier to get)

[kelnos]

> you can always get more stuff.

I think there are millions of poor people in the world who would very much disagree with that statement. But I'd hope they'd still agree that their stuff isn't worth their lives.

[diamondfist25]

I lost hundreds of thousands of dollars with this guy. I was hateful when this whole thing was unwinding. Now I’m indifferent — I just hope John Ray can make the customers whole

[jmspring]

For me, I don't think I feel the same way as you (my loss was small). There have been many cases where white collar crime which has similar (or greater) financial ramifications as the example of mugging you give, but the punishment is generally significantly lower (if at all). Granted a mugging could have differing levels of direct emotional impact, but white collar crime generally ends in lighter sentences.

SBF and Elizabeth Holmes deserve their sentences.

[anonymoose33282]

I think “violence” is at times such a silly measuring stick for modern justice.

Instead, we should see it as lost/ruined human potential. What is worse, violently robbing one bank of $10k, or “peacefully” robbing a massive number of people for billions of dollars?

I sure as hell know what I think, and it’s absolutely not in line with SBF’s sentence. He should rot in Ryker’s with people who have, unfortunately, done less harm but still found their way there.

[jmspring]

25 years will be enough to where he’s doing time, wish it was more. Sadly his parents have enough cushion to where he won’t have to work when he is out.

Many people are in prison for doing less harm and for longer sentences than many white collar criminals.

[calvinmorrison]

similarly, more assets are seized by the police through asset forfeiture compared to total dollars stolen through theft.

Scammers deal many times the damage economically than shady car sales man

[ShamelessC]

It is _obviously_ healthy to forget about it and move on. Having said that, any anger at the guy is going to be not because he effected any one person, but because he effected so many - and because he embodied a particular attitude in the cryptocurrency world that lives on in so many others who haven't yet had their luck run out.

[anonu]

Are you expecting to recover any money from this? I understood everyone would be made whole at some point.

[rootusrootus]

> I understood everyone would be made whole at some point

That is only true if you define 'made whole' as giving back each customer the amount of money denominated in USD that they deposited with FTX. That is super convenient for FTX, which has benefited from the spike in BTC value, but not for the customer. To really be made whole, they would need to get back exactly what they deposited. 1 BTC in? 1 BTC out.

[philipov]

When you invest in monopoly money where the main feature is eliminating institutional protections, don't be surprised that institutions refuse to protect the value you pretend it has. The US government has no obligation to recognize BTC as a measure of fungible value.

[sirsinsalot]

Finally a take I agree with. The victims here are IMHO victims of their own greed. They wanted all the reward of putting money into unprotected and unregulated schemes and now many cry that the risks didn't go their way.

It doesn't make SBF less of a criminal but it does make the victims less victimised.

[rootusrootus]

> They wanted all the reward of putting money into unprotected and unregulated schemes and now many cry that the risks didn't go their way.

Is that not just victim blaming? This was not an investment gone bad, this was stolen funds. It would be one thing if they lost all their money because BTC value dropped to zero. But SBF stole the money.

[kelnos]

I really dislike the term "victim blaming", as too often it's used to shut down rational discussion about the facts of what happened. Not saying that's what you're trying to do here, but...

Often a victim of a crime could have taken different actions that would have prevented their victimization. That doesn't necessarily make it their fault, or even assign some portion of the blame to them. It's just a fact of circumstance.

A decade or so ago I was mugged by three men while walking home from a bar on a deserted, poorly-lit stretch of street at 2am on a Tuesday morning. It wasn't my fault that it happened, but I could have made other -- better -- choices leading up to that which would have prevented it from happening to me. We can argue whether or not it would have been reasonable to expect me to make those better decisions given my circumstances before getting mugged, but those are still the facts on the ground. I did not need to be walking home; I could have called a car or taken a bus instead. I did not need to be there, at that time, with my judgment, reaction time, and situational awareness impaired. This is about outcomes, not blame.

If I were looking to make some money and had a choice between buying conventional stocks or buying crypto, I'd hopefully consider the risks beforehand. By now I think it's fair to assume that most people who might buy crypto should have heard about a variety of scams, fraud, and outright theft that have occurred in the crypto space. All other things being equal (they're not, but let's say they are), a decision to buy stocks vs. crypto should take into account the expectation that there's a higher risk of losing the money to a scam when buying crypto. Again, that doesn't make it the crypto-buyer's fault when the person/company holding the crypto wallet for them steals it. But it's true that the crypto-buyer could have made different -- better -- decisions up front to avoid the possibility of that outcome.

[sirsinsalot]

I'm not blaming the victims, I'm blaming everyone involved, at any level. You consider them victims, I consider them to have discovered the "find out" half after "fuck about".

If I run about in the road and someone runs me down, I may be the victim of driver, but also my own stupidity.

Suffering the consequences of one's own decisions doesn't automatically infer victim hood by someone else entirely.

They ran about in the road.

[rootusrootus]

> The US government has no obligation to recognize BTC as a measure of fungible value.

And the very next reply says these are unregulated schemes. So what does the USG's opinion on BTC have to do with FTX's obligation to return the assets deposited with it, or whether their renumeration constitutes 'making customers whole'?

[kelnos]

> So what does the USG's opinion on BTC have to do with FTX's obligation to return the assets deposited with it, or whether their renumeration constitutes 'making customers whole'?

Given that the USG is the only entity that could legally require these customers be made whole, it has everything to do with it. Depositing US dollars into a FTX account is easy: the government believes in the value of the dollar and will want customers to get back the same number of dollars they put in. A court can and might order FTX's current custodians to do their best to make that happen.

But if a customer didn't give FTX any dollars, but gave them BTC? The USG has no obligation to recognize those Bitcoins as having any particular value, or even any value whatsoever. In fact the government may be incentivized to value BTC deposited at zero, because doing so might free up more dollars to compensate people who deposited dollars, assuming there isn't enough to compensate everyone fully.

[raverbashing]

Exactly this

Fiduciary amounts are in $. Yes if you deposited 1 BTC expect the equivalent value at the time of your deposit

[rootusrootus]

I feel like I'm experiencing whiplash. When it's convenient, crypto is unregulated and unprotected. But for this argument it is convenient to refer to it the matter as fiduciary, which implies trust, and declare that the only amount which matters is USD.

You might expect to only get the USD equivalent back, but not for one minute does that make you whole. A lot of money was in fact stolen.

[kelnos]

I don't think there's any one definition of being made whole here, and people could reasonably disagree on what that means.

Ignoring bitcoin entirely for a second, I might deposit $1000 in an (unregulated, let's say) investment account. Later that amount -- unrealized, of course -- goes up to $2000. But it turns out it was all a scam and the investment manager ran away with the money. I might think I'm entitled to the full $2000, even though that may have just been a number the fraudster typed into a database, not representing anything real. Or I might argue that making me whole means also compensating me for the lost opportunity cost of keeping the money somewhere else where I could have made, say, 10% in that time. Or I might just recognize that I was duped, there was no investment, my $1000 never actually grew, and that's all I'm entitled to getting back.

[calvinmorrison]

It's a protected security at this point, not an unregulated and unprotected. If someone stole shares of IBM I would be just as upset.

It seems like the government is interested in all the benefits of treating it as a security and none of the protections that people deserve

[DANmode]

The USD equivalent would still be higher than before due to the USD value of the asset that FTX systems would be reporting - if they hadn't been taken down in a criminal investigation, through no fault of the client.

[cdchn]

I think there is a lot of feeling of "I gambled with funny money and lost. Thats the game."

[flockonus]

It's good to process the emotions associated, if truly is none, then great! Still suggest meditating if something didn't get pushed under the mind's rug with the financial loss.

Definitely move on, this case had some external closure where most hurts in life don't.

[nemo44x]

> Should I feel vindictive? Or is it healthy to forget about it and move on? I'm not sure.

However you feel about it is the right way to feel about it. Everyone copes with things differently. Regardless, it would appear some type of justice has been done in this case.

[jmyeet]

Sorry for your loss.

I'm actually surprised the sentence is this low. This is Bernie Madoff territory.

This doesn't get you your money back. It doesn't even necessarily make you feel better so what's the point? This gets into the philosophy of a criminal justice system.

The noble idea behind the criminal justice system is to be restorative. The offender is to be reformed so they don't repeat their crimes and can become productive members of society. This is why we push for things like education in prison, access to mental health treatment and so on. It's for our collective good. Unfortunately, the criminal justice system in the US is predominantly retributive. We punish to make ourselves feel better. There is a ton of evidence of this and it lays bare other societal issues (eg racial disparity in sentencing).

One big argument is whether heavy sentences prevent others from committing crimes. This has been used to justify, for example, three strikes laws and 10+ year sentences for mere drug possession at the height of the war on drugs. None of this works. Such crimes are the result of over-policing, up-charging by prosecutors and material conditions.

But where it actually works is with rich people. Why? Because you fine a company or a rich person and that becomes the cost of doing business. It's factored in. But depriving the wealthy of their liberty is something the wealthy want to desperately avoid.

Case in point: the Sackler family, who are hugely responsible for the opiod epidemic by knowingly lying about the addictiveness of Oxycontin. If I had my way, the Sacklers would have every asset they own seized and they would all spend the rest of their lives in a prison cell.

Put SBF's sentence in context: this Californian man was sentenced to 10 years for carjacking and robbing a gas station with a BB gun [1]. That's roughly half of SBF's sentence. Who do you think has done more societal harm?

[1]: https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/los-angeles-man-sentenc...

[datavirtue]

The point of the system is to remove threats from society. It should be long enough such that the person will never pose a threat to society again. Justice was served in this case.

[calvinmorrison]

thats one of the purposes. As usual Judges are not as dumb as people think. There are plenty of people who have commited crime who are exceedingly unlikely to commit it again (most murderers have a lifetime average of 1). There are more factors, punishment being one.

[tomcar288]

i don't why this is downvoted. it seems pretty logical to me. if someone commits a crime and then goes to jail, they can't commit the crime again, right?

[michael1999]

Maybe had already internalized the idea that money "invested" in crypto is doomed to theft, or collapse. Slot machine players have a similar vibe -- the money is already gone, even before it enters the machine.

[thomastjeffery]

A mugger would have traumatized you. You can't put a price on [the lack of] trauma.

The harm you received was mostly financial, so the healthy way to recover is also mostly financial.

[rsoto2]

Mugging is more traumatic short term? In total, white collar wage-theft dwarfs property theft but you may not feel its effects immediately.

[x86x87]

which one would make you more angry: 1) being mugged in full daylight in an area with low crime rate (maybe near where you live) 2) being mugged walking in a dark alley somewhere in the "bad" part of the town?

How about if you chose going to 2) knowing very well that muggings are a real possibility and you should probably not go there?

[m3kw9]

Because is remote/digital vs physical, much less/more visceral

[WhrRTheBaboons]

revenge is a sword without a handle. it also hurts the wielder

it might not be "fair", but forgiveness is healthier for you

[paulpauper]

maybe tens of thousands of dollars was not that much relative to your net worth. some people lost it all

[kstrauser]

It’s ok and normal to feel both. If I lost tens of thousands of dollars, I’d be thinking of how much that would affect either the timing or the quality of my retirement. That would tend to make me inclined toward feeling pretty damn vindictive.

And yet, the damage is done. Feels of anger and vengeance are withdrawals from your balance of available happiness and they don’t actually affect the end result. The money’s gone. Mourn it, accept it, and move on.

I’d totally forgive anyone for wishing bad things on him if he destroyed their investment. It’s better to forgive, but sometimes that’s asking a bit much.

[fragmede]

> The money’s gone.

Hilariously with crypto, that's not necessarily true, for better or worse. The change in valuation of underlying crypto assets means that customers can sometimes be made "whole" - meaning they get back the value in USD they put in, but not including inflation and interest, so they're still poorer than they would be, but at least not out the whole amount. It's still not resolved, but it's possible creditors in Mt Gox will be made whole. 1 BTC was worth $760 when Mt Gox went down. Today 1 BTC is around $70k, meaning they have almost $10 billion in BTC with which to pay back creditors.

[Zpalmtree]

No you shouldn't feel vindictive because ultimately you lost funds by your own bad decisions, not Sam's

[ekms]

Did you get paid back yet? From what I read the ftx estate claimed to be able to make all claimants whole

[ekms]

Hm, not sure why people are downvoting this ^ Here's a source: https://www.wired.com/story/ftx-bankruptcy-bitcoin-value/

[dheera]

Honestly I feel more vindictive toward the IRS and CA FTB who steal way, way, way more of my money and don't do anything useful with it. I still get cars smashed and I don't have free healthcare or high-speed rail.

SBF's crime is a lot smaller in comparison.