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by ben_w 783 days ago

SBF was willing to repeatedly take double-or-nothing bets at 50/50 odds even though the expected utility of each bet is the same as not betting at all and the combined odds of bankruptcy very quickly asymptotes to 100% with increasing rounds.

Literally beheading him won't put off the next person like him. His current punishment is probably enough to put off anyone sane.

Assange isn't a whistleblower just by founding WikiLeaks any more than Musk is a brain surgeon by founding Neuralink, he's the figurehead.

Manning and Snowden get that title, but not Assange.

1 comments

graphe 782 days ago

No he was not. You think he'd repeatedly do Russian roulette with half the bullets? He had the odds with him with his legal advisors.

Madoff's sentencing is why SBF's parents taught him to disregard the law. If you don't understand the idea of figureheads being important, what would happen if the president was shot, or if Dali lama was chosen by china? America would still keep going as would tibetan Buddhism. The leaks seems to have stopped much more since assange is gone. HN is a platform and I'm sure we'd still exist without it, assange definitely does deserve credit.

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ben_w 782 days ago

""""The whole time that we were dating, he was also my boss at work, which created some awkward situations," she testified, according to The Wall Street Journal. Describing Bankman-Fried's attitude toward risk-taking, "Ellison recalled on the witness stand how Bankman-Fried once spoke of a coin-flip scenario where if the coin landed on tails, the world would end. But if the coin landed on heads, 'the world would be twice as good.' Bankman-Fried [said] he would take the bet if there were a chance of making the world better, Ellison said."""" - https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/10/sbfs-ex-girlfrie...

> what would happen if the president was shot

Judging by all the presidents who have been shot, at most an airport gets named after them or a statue gets built.

> or if Dali lama was chosen by china

Not much: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11th_Panchen_Lama_controversy

> The leaks seems to have stopped much more since assange is gone.

"Seems"? Plenty of new ones listed on the Wikileaks website.

> assange definitely does deserve credit

For what? Snowden went to… a newspaper. Didn't need Wikileaks. Plenty of whistleblowers did the same before Wikileaks. It's a new brand, but not a new thing.

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graphe 782 days ago

So his girlfriend said it therefore he would even though there's no evidence to show he ever did?

Have you used WikiLeaks? When was the last time it was consequencial or noteworthy?

Here's a recent article with Julian assange. https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/julian-assange-wi...

> He regrets that WikiLeaks is no longer able to expose war crimes and corruption as in the past. His imprisonment and US government surveillance and restrictions on WikiLeaks’ funding wards off potential whistleblowers. He fears that other media outlets are not filling the vacuum.

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ben_w 782 days ago

> So his girlfriend said it therefore he would even though there's no evidence to show he ever did?

That was simply the first search result. There's also the podcast interview:

https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/sam-bankman-frie...

(If you're going to argue that 51% != 50%, you missed the point)

> Have you used WikiLeaks?

I've been to their website.

I've not had any reason to leak stuff.

Which do you mean?

> When was the last time it was consequencial or noteworthy?

You tell me: https://wikileaks.org/-Leaks-.html