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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   29714 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 12, 2022

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eventually

This will likely turn into a bigger story.

Maybe objectively, but I can't imagine my boomer relatives picturing this guy as a villain in the same way, and thus they won't be able to care as much. "Evil patent troll businessman jacks up the price of important medicine 1000%**" is an easy story for normies to digest and understand, while "Finance tech bro guy gets money from investors and turns it into imaginary (?) fake(?) digital internet money and then spends the real money which he argues he was allowed to do but actually there were two different companies involved and etc. etc.**" is a lot harder to understand and thus harder to get outraged about.

I remember the 2008 financial crisis, and while there was general outrage at "banks," I don't recall a lot of hate targeted at specific individuals involved in the subprime mortgage and exotic derivative stuff because it's just too hard to understand. In contrast Bernie Madoff was excoriated because "Lying greedy bastard pulls giant pyramid scheme con" is easy to grasp.

I imagine this will just make normies think "gee, crypto sure is a shit show, that guy should probably go to jail I guess" and that's about it. I feel like there's an ACX essay to be written titled "Be Nice, At Least Until You Can Coordinate Illegibility of Your Crimes to the Public"

**not saying this is an accurate summary -- it's an approximation of these events will be remembered in the public memory

"Finance tech bro guy gets money from investors and turns it into imaginary (?) fake(?) digital internet money and then spends the real money which he argues he was allowed to do but actually there were two different companies involved and etc. etc.**" is a lot harder to understand and thus harder to get outraged about.

it can be (accurately) summarized to "weird rich guy on drugs stole more money that you can imagine and lost almost all of that"

True, but the victims were mostly wealthy and/or crypto weirdos, no? I don't think my mom will know anyone who lost money in crypto, or even know anyone who knows anyone. But a lot of people know other people who pay a lot ("too much") for medicine, or who got ripped off by a MLM or ponzi scheme.

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