For thursday’s sentencing the us government indicated they would be happy with a 40-50 prison sentence, and in the list of reasons they cite there’s this gem:
- Bankman-Fried’s effective altruism and own statements about risk suggest he would be likely to commit another fraud if he determined it had high enough “expected value”. They point to Caroline Ellison’s testimony in which she said that Bankman-Fried had expressed to her that he would “be happy to flip a coin, if it came up tails and the world was destroyed, as long as if it came up heads the world would be like more than twice as good”. They also point to Bankman-Fried’s “own ‘calculations’” described in his sentencing memo, in which he says his life now has negative expected value. “Such a calculus will inevitably lead him to trying again,” they write.
Turns out making it a point of pride that you have the morality of an anime villain does not endear you to prosecutors, who knew.
Bonus: SBF’s lawyers’ list of assertions for asking for a shorter sentence includes this hilarious bit reasoning:
They argue that Bankman-Fried would not reoffend, for reasons including that “he would sooner suffer than bring disrepute to any philanthropic movement.”
Turns out being a fucking sociopath is a good indicator of reoffence, who would’ve thinkity thunked.
Give him 50 years of being forced to talk to a normal person that swats him in the head with a newspaper every time he says “expected value”, we can rehabilitate this boy.
You know, I read the whole Molly white piece as an abolitionist who agrees with Sam that these sentences are barbaric, but struggling to figure out what rehabilitative process you can use with someone as horrible as Sam, and I think you might have just come up with it. Want to be in charge of the US criminal justice system?
I have zero qualifications, but I’m also not a bloodthirsty vengeful old guy, so it’d probably be a net improvement.