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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   29720 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 12, 2022

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Every once in while we get these triumphalist "this latest happening proves the game is clearly not rigged, where are all the naysayers now!" posts. Half of them end up being proven wrong within a week (the last one I remember was "see, Cloudflare is clearly standing up for free speech! It's not true the wokes control the corporate sector with an iron grip!", and I literally never saw a progressive "please adjust your priors" people adjust their priors.

If the "game" was rigged to an extent that you could avoid jail for large-scale financial crime by bribing a few democrats, there wouldn't be many big fraudsters in jail. There isn't a game that can be rigged or not, there's many very complicated aspects of society, some or all of which may be evil, but each so in complicated ways that allow society to continue and grow - the game is rigged is not a useful way to understand them. It's not just 'the libs/elites are good' or 'the elites are mean'.

Every once in while we get these triumphalist "this latest happening proves the game is clearly not rigged, where are all the naysayers now!" posts.

The person you are replying to didn't claim "the game is clearly not rigged". They are pointing out that the numerous predictions that SBF was not going to be prosecuted were wrong, and predictably wrong. I'm pretty sure I predicted that he would definately be indicted and go to jail. I predicted this because it seemed obvious that his connections would not in fact protect him: the case is too clear-cut, the public too furious, and there's zero benefit to be gained. I can't think of a single example of a democratic supporter being caught anywhere approaching this clearly, for a crime anywhere near as significant and clear-cut as this one, and actually being protected.

I personally believe that the game is rigged. But the way the game is rigged is that things don't get to this point. The rigging works at the margins, not by providing obvious immunity to blatant, high-profile criminals who've been caught red-handed.

SBF was 100% going to get charged. The posters here were reacting to the tender treatment he got in the NYT and Vox right after the scandal, compared to how those outlets and journalist personalities would normally treat a "tech bro scandal" (e.g. Coinbase, David Sacks, Joe Lonsdale). A lack of pure vitriol from journalists was weird, and on the part of NYT, was likely the result of a political editorial decision. But there's only so much damage control anyone can run for massive securities fraud.

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