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Observations on FTX

Posted by mshupe 2 years, 5 months ago to Philosophy
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From the article - "The number of FTX creditors seeking restitution is estimated to be one million and nearly all of them are account holders. While government and media investigators try to sort out the money trails, there are two questions that deserve greater attention: 1) Why do so many people consider cryptocurrency to be an investment? 2) Why does the CEO of FTX appear morally self-satisfied with his behavior? Yet, two primary questions must be answered first: 1) How does one define ‘investment’? 2) How do we define a morally defensible code of conduct? Specifically, what are their attributes?"


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  • Posted by mccannon01 2 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I guess the trick for those that profited on crypto, including Bitcoin, to trade it all for food, ammo, and weapons before it evaporates when the SHTF.
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  • Posted by Dobrien 2 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    The beginning stages of justice require an evidentiary phase.This is an awakening to the masses of How these demons operate. From the start of the Russian actions in Ukraine, I stated it was the deep states money laundering hub.
    I am elated that in less than a year everybody can see one way that they do it. Proof is truth and that cannot be denied.
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  • Posted by 2 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Poetic Justice! Teacher's union leadership operates under the same moral code as FTX. The victims are the teachers, but they will be made whole through government redistribution.
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  • Posted by Dobrien 2 years, 5 months ago
    To the socialist Canadian Teachers pension fund who lost $95 million, call your friend Justin Trudeau. Maybe he got some of those SBF donations.
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 2 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    They have to find the Au first. And if they do that, they would have a cleverly designed lock to get through.
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 2 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Most, but not all. Bitcoin technically is a currency, whereas all of the others are deemed securities that do indeed get tracked by federal regulators. The whole FTX fiasco was an attempt to get the value of Bitcoin (not the same as other crypto investments) down so that they would be in tighter control.
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  • Posted by 2 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I think that's true for most or all digital currencies not Bitcoin. The backbone of Bitcoin is blockchain, and only a true decentralized ledger gives crypto its identity.
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 2 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    The government just looks the other way if Democrats are the beneficiaries, as the cartoon exemplifies.
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  • Posted by 2 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Yes, but Treasury department "investigations" followed by big settlements from big banks to non-profits run by Democrat donors work the same way.
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  • Posted by 2 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Thanks, I look forward to watching this, and happy to educate myself and comment when I finish. However, the first three minutes are nothing but hype.
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  • Posted by 2 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    To destroy which non-fiat currency? Aren't all currencies controlled by a central record keeping system fiat currencies - digital or otherwise?
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 2 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    The value was supposed to be protecting one's wealth via a currency that was not subject to the "arbitrary whims of hidden,
    ugly little bureaucrats" (from Galt's speech in Atlas Shrugged)

    "So long as men, in the era of savagery,
    had no concept of objective reality and
    believed that physical nature was ruled
    by the whim of unknowable demons –
    no thought, no science, no production
    were possible. Only when men
    discovered that nature was a firm,
    predictable absolute were they able to
    rely on their knowledge, to choose their
    course, to plan their future and, slowly,
    to rise from the cave. Now you have
    placed modern industry, with its
    immense complexity of scientific
    precision, back into the power of
    unknowable demons – the unpredictable
    power of the arbitrary whims of hidden,
    ugly little bureaucrats. A farmer will not
    invest the effort of one summer if he's
    unable to calculate his chances of a
    harvest. But you expect industrial giants
    – who plan in terms of decades, invest in
    terms of generations and undertake
    ninety-nine-year contracts – to continue
    to function and produce, not knowing
    what random caprice in the skull of what
    random official will descend upon them
    at what moment to demolish the whole
    of their effort. Drifters and physical
    laborers live and plan by the range of a
    day. The better the mind, the longer the
    range. A man whose vision extends to a
    shanty, might continue to build on your
    quicksands, to grab a fast profit and run.
    A man who envisions skyscrapers, will
    not. Nor will he give ten years of
    unswerving devotion to the task of
    inventing a new product, when he knows
    that gangs of entrenched mediocrity are
    juggling the laws against him, to tie
    him,, restrict him and force him to fail,
    but should he fight them and struggle
    and succeed, they will seize his rewards
    and his invention..."

    The whole point of FTX was to make crypto investing the opposite of a "firm, predictable absolute".
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 2 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    The people made rich were Democrat politicians by people who thought that they were protecting their individual wealth. It was a particularly devious form of looting. I thought seriously about investing in crypto and am glad I didn't.
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 2 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    This was a not very well-veiled attempt by the government to use a company to destroy a non-fiat currency by making it appear to be something without value.
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  • Posted by 2 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I don't think either are true. Every department of the federal government is a far greater looter. SBF did not actively try to destroy independence and ambition. He had no concept of it. He didn't even know how Bitcoin works. Toohey was ambitious and wanted to own minds to destroy them. SBF was a useful idiot for a Toohey.
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