The co-founder of failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX pleaded not guilty to a seven count indictment charging him with wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering.
An attorney for FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried said in federal court Tuesday his client has to subsist on bread, water and peanut butter because the jail he’s in isn’t accommodating his vegan diet.
I think it’s crazy the number is people here who think that jail/prison is supposed to primarily be about punishment. Do they not understand the concept of recitavism?
Recidivism:
the tendency of a convicted criminal to reoffend.
“the prison has succeeded in reducing recidivism”
Good bot.
I… think that is a human
Goodest bot.
W’ell compromise, Good Cyborg.
I think that’s an American thing compared to the rest of the world. Their prisons seem to be very much about punishment over rehabilitation.
Former Christian fundamentalist here. I think it’s a religious thing, actually. It’s very common in conservative religion in America to believe that there are good and evil things and people, and all you need to do is punish evil things and people. Any problems that exist are punishment from God for allowing evil instead of punishing it. Everything will be solved magically by God once you and your society are “righteous” enough (disapproving enough of evil), something which will never actually happen because this will literally just make things worse, providing more evidence of God’s wrath.
This religious belief has influences far beyond the fundamentalist religion it came from, and it really helps explain why so many right wing movements are so contradictory and hypocritical.
Everyone else is out here thinking things like “if there’s a problem, we need to figure out the solution” while a solid third or more of the American people is literally thinking that they just need to hurt the right people and God will fix it.
(Source: I grew up in the Christian right)
By rest of the world you mean Europe? Latinamerican, African and Asian jails are nightmares compared with US’s ones.
I assumed I was largely dealing with Americans on here. Are those other countries jails bad due to a desire to punish or lack of funding available as they aren’t rich nations?
I would guess that’s depends on the country, all of those have problems with funding, but they differ on the punitive philosophy. For example argentinean prisoners can get jobs that pay the legal minimum wage and all the normal labor rights any worker enjoys, in Brazil they can read books and wrote essays about them to commute prison time, but their jails still lack proper infrastructure and are overcrowded.
I am all for mitigating recidivism. I also think some people are just evil and won’t reform. Someone who did the things SBF did won’t reform.
See also: This asshole.
I’m surprised there are no prison rape jokes this time, people love those
It is certainly odd, though I bet that’s going to change. For some strange reason people love talking about that stuff and even though it hasn’t appeared in this thread yet it probably will soon.
Edit: it already happened, someone decided to say that they wondered how chewed he’s going to be. You all just can’t help yourself with the rape jokes, can you?
What does the idea of punishing people even solve in the first place? It doesn’t help them, in fact it actually hurts them. It doesn’t teach them how to be better people, so they’re likely to do the same thing again. Oh yeah and it wastes resources on punishing these people, resources that could be going to regular people but are instead essentially being wasted to torture someone instead of trying to help them.
I bet somebody’s going to come out of the woodwork and try and argue that prison helps people somehow, by punishing them and making them scared, though I’ve found that making people scared is the wrong way of going about making them into a better person, because scared people just like animals will react, and it’s not pretty when they do.
Punishing evildoers doesn’t hurt me, it only helps me. What does hurt me and millions of other Americans is when looney-bin cultists like you take the worst offenders and exploit them to manipulate and bully their victims and the victims’ supporters into caving to your insane demands just so you can make yourself feel better. That’s what actually hurts people.
That’s some mental gymnastics to claim someone disagreeing with you is hurting people.
If SBF was free, he would clearly not be able to reoffend. Some folk go to prison for “rehabilitation,” some to die, but his sentence is a punishment.
Grifters find a new way to grift all the time. He’d reoffend as soon as he was able.
Then he should not be released.
Nah, the vegans absolutely will demand Sam Bankman-Fried’s release on the basis that he’s not getting gourmet vegan meals anymore, simply because all they really care about is their veganism and not other people.
All the loonies care about are themselves.
He hasn’t been sentenced or convicted yet.
In these comments, People who:
- think vegetarian is close enough to vegan.
- don’t realise vegan items are no longer vegan if they’re for example, cooked in butter.
- want prisoners to rot in jail from the inside out, literally.
I don’t think prison should be punitive, but I REALLY don’t think jail should be punitive. You haven’t been proven guilty of anything when you’re in jail.
All of the food served in prison/jail is dogshit and it’s not ok. Edible food is a human right. People with ethically based diet restrictions should be protected the same way that religiously based diet restrictions are.
Belief in a make believe sky-daddy doesn’t make one persons ethical dietary choices more important than another’s. Maybe the Satanic Temple can step in and help out the incarcerated vegans. That seems up their alley.
Yes from everything I hear American prisons are all around horrible (by first world standards). This doesn’t seem surprising.
You’re there to be punished by your freedom of movement being taken away. Not by being forced to eat inedible food.
If prisons are going to get nutritious food, then school children need to get it first.
They both should, this should be the bare minimum for being a human existing in society.
Sysco provides the food to both in many cases.
… Or Aramark
Shudders
How about: at least in my town at police department holding cells, they make you pay and they go get takeout. There’s no legitimate reason to not offer a choice of takeout
I have noticed for a supposedly progressive network, there are a lot of posts recently on news stories about prisoners supporting capital punishment and wishing prison violence on them. Very odd stuff.
I’m hesitant to say PINO but there is definitely a cadre of folks who want (for example) food and shelter for the homeless and for their enemies to starve to death in a ditch.
Yeah, it’s amazing how fast some people can dehumanise their perceived enemies yet stil think they’re the good guys.
This has been repeated in case studies around the world since then but the Nuremberg Trials were the first public use of “But of course the other officers at Auschwitz were terrible people but I am not a terrible person!” The psychology would be interesting if it weren’t so frikkin horrific. But I suspect SBF isn’t that so much as a complete and total narcissist and sociopath.
Some of these “enemies” dehumanise themselves very easily. Narcisistic sociopaths who actively and openly brag about manipulating “idiots”, saying they’re the best shit to ever grace the earth and downplay their crimes while laughing all the way to the bank to withdraw ill gotten gains? Yeah, real hard to believe they’d ever want to redeem themselves.
Couple that with the general feeling that rich assholes always get lightly punished whenever they’re caught and it’s even easier to understand the bloodlust for “proper punishment” against them.
I think it has more to do with rich people getting away with murder because they are rich while homeless people getting the worst punishment for stealing a loaf of bread or sleeping on a bench.
And the rest of society getting sick and tired of it, so I see their sentiment.
I don’t believe in capital punishment though, let alone a death sentence.
The thing is, if the rich are getting treated like this in prison, surely it’s going to be even worse for literally anyone else.
It already is
Hell yeah there should be support for capital punishment.
Move to Iran then, you may like it there.
He is Vegan. Irrespective of how we feel about what he did, the failure to address his core ethical beliefs is completely unacceptable. If his belief was rooted in ideas of a higher being or afterlife, everyone would acknowledge how fucked up it is. Not that I’m planning on going to jail anytime soon, but the thought that I would not be able to abide by that daily practice of my life would be incredibly distressing. Unless he is doing it for environmental reasons (I don’t know) he likely seeks total animal liberation, and you’re going to force feed him stolen animal secretions? Coproducts of dead baby cows, blended up chicks, and beings bred into painful bodies? The alternative is malnutrition? I would highly consider Jainism or Sikhism on this fact alone. Fuck you if you think he should be forced to go against these ethical beliefs. It is 100% a human rights violation IMO.
his core ethical beliefs is completely unacceptable
his core ethical beliefs
core ethical beliefs
ethical
Nobody said the guy is entirely ethical ¯\(ツ)/¯
I don’t think being forced to consume death/murder is the answer to him not being ethical with people’s funds.
So you aren’t killing the plants and vegetables you eat as a vegan?
Or you perceive no ethical quandaries about murdering plants?
Or plants don’t count because they don’t have the same type of nervous system that allows us to communicate in an ethically direct fashion?
Are trees ethically more important than plants you can ethically eat, thus perceived as more ethically protected under such auspices?
And what’s your ethical stance on property development groups clear cutting small pine tree forested areas near existing residential/industrial/commercial zoned areas to create more affordable single family and multi-family homes for low income families?
If I’m more specific, what Vegans care about is conscious experience. They don’t care if something is alive or has some form of reactive biological intelligence.
There is no scientific consensus as to the potential for consciousness in plants/trees. Almost nobody affirms that they are. You’ll find generally that when we discuss consciousness we describe beings with brains, or if we get in to gray areas, beings that at least have some form of nervous system.
So if plants and trees are not conscious, and they don’t experience reality, and there is no subject, then there is no one to grant rights to. If we were talking about some random planet that had no conscious life on it, a planet that for some reason could never support conscious life but could support plant life, I would have no ethical quandary with a space fairing civilization taking all of those resources and leaving the planet with not but rock.
The need for residential housing complicates the ethics of forest habitat removal but not by that much if we consider what a vegan world looks like. Roughly 37.5% of the world’s habitable land could be redistributed as that land currently is required for animal agriculture that otherwise wouldn’t be. Roughly the size of North America and Brazil combined. You’d have loads of land that could be reforested but also some land that could be reused for housing purposes. As for current reality, I think there’s a strong argument that group housing or apartment blocks would be far better for both people and the planet.
So you aren’t killing the plants and vegetables you eat as a vegan?
Pro tip to everyone on the internet. If you find yourself writing this, please shut the fuck up.
Yeah, can’t be out here forcing cultists to think about what they’re actually saying
Vegans are all well aware the philosophy is about reducing suffering for sentient beings. Nobody thinks “being alive” is an ethical metric. Rather, the bad faith argument about “plants feel pain” (which is absolute horse shit) is constantly spouted like it’s some kind of refutation of veganism. Not to mention this idiotic “cultist” slur that’s leveraged to make it seem like veganism isn’t the single approach that’s actually grounded in reality.
And if that means brigading and defending pieces of shit who rob other human beings of their hard-earned money and has stolen billions of dollars, giving bad faith arguments, deconstructing justice as a fundamental concept and in general being a bunch of fucking cultists, who cares. You’ll happily accuse people who want to see people like him be punished, even in a court of law, of being subhuman savages while happily acting as if the ends justify the means to enforce your evil ideological bullshit. And who cares who is harmed by your words and actions? People don’t matter, animals do.
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Nah, fuck him.
You can be vegan for good reasons but I feel like he’s just doing it to make a show.
I also think it’s for show. Having worked in a jail kitchen, they serve lots of cheap food like beans and rice but also have vegetables and other foods that’d be considered vegan. I suspect what’s happening is that he isn’t getting gourmet meals like he was previously accustomed to, so he’s refusing to eat anything else to gain sympathy points.
He has been Vegan since at least April 2021. He was not arrested until December 2022. It’s not a circus show. The dude’s ethical beliefs in regards to Veganism are not in question. They need to be respected.
Ironic he can respect animals more than people. He won’t find much sympathy here.
I respect animals more than people in most instances, I’ve had much worse experiences with other people than most animals in my life.
I agree, only because it’s about veganism that there is a supportive reaction. If they were not respecting his Christian/Muslim beliefs for example no one here would bat an eye, especially here.
I think the true argument is that dietary preference is a bit of a slippery slope. One could easily claim that they abide by a diet of only steak, truffles and lobster.
Obviously that is not feasible for a prison kitchen to fulfil. I do agree though that an effort could be made. I’m not sure if religious preference is catered to (no pork f.i.) and I could even see a point of not serving meat at all.
But the bottom line is that you can’t let the prisoner make food demands like that and be considered unethical if not fulfilled. Medically there’s not really a case here. Water and bread sounds a bit brutal, but it’s not likely that he has no choice at all, it’s also a bit of an act that his legal team will no doubt will utilise in court to claim ‘inhuman circumstances’
There are plenty of items on a typical prison menu he can eat without eating “baby cow”, or “blended up chicks” as you put it. There is no need to live off bread and water when there are vegetables, fruit, salad, juice, rice, beans etc. I’m sure this will be pointed out to him and also the limits of what a system will accommodate - dietary or religious needs. Also, his ethics are why he is in prison in the first place so boo hoo for him.
Thats all just speculation.
It’s not speculation. You can google “federal prison menu” and see the national menu that prisons supply. Here is the 2022 menu. You will note as you read that menu that there are obviously vegan food items that SBF could eat from every single meal of every single day of the week. Breakfast? Fruit, coffee, bread, branflakes… Lunch? Beans, sweet potatoes, mash, salad, rice, baked potato… Dinner? Tacos, salads, tofu, soups, tater tots, cornbread, corn on the cob, hummus… In most cases he even has a viable main option, and even if he can’t he could always trade his main to someone else for a side of theirs. Not to mention stuff he can buy in the commissary - ramen noodles, candy, crackers, cookies etc.
So in summary, SBF is lying and trying to drum up sympathy for his own self-inflicted situation. I’m sure prison food sucks compared to what mommy makes or what his ill gotten fortunes could buy, but he is not reduced to bread and water.
And yet the federal prison menu has no relevance to “ Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn”
The MDC is administered by the federal bureau of prisons and plainly states in its own literature that it offers the nationalised standard menu. So me pointing you at the link to the nationalised standard menu couldn’t be more relevant. It’s literally what they have to eat in this place and other federal facilities.
No one is forcing him to do anythig. He has bread and water, or he is supposed to receive a special vegan menu?
Edit: Also imagine the girl that killed many new born babies, would you also be like: “give her a vegan diet, poor girl!?” BFR
He is not supposed to be malnourished. If the option is malnutrition, or disregard of ethical beliefs, I’d argue they actually are forcing him.
Would you think the same if a mass murderer was requesting vegan food? For example the girl that killed new born babies on purpose, would you also be like: “poor girl, give her a vegan menu!”
What problem does feeding a mass murderer dead animals solve exactly? Do you not think it’s disrespectful to animals to treat them as fodder for petty vengeance?
It solves the problem of not allowing them to use suckers like you to manipulate everyone else to doing what he wants.
If I had to rely on that much hyperbole to make the point, I’d reconsider my position, myself.
It’s obvious that’s what’s happening. Vegans are coming out in droves arguing people shouldn’t ever be put in jail simply because SBF is a vegan and they care more about their own than anyone else. They’re circling the wagons around this guy, and they never considered that he could just be lying, exaggerating or purposefully playing to them to get them to do exactly what they’re doing.
What they’re doing isn’t accomplishing any good. Neither are you when you defend them. All it’s causing is discord.
Yes
Yes. A convicted murderer sitting in prison is still a human being with human rights. Fuck this dehumanizing system that only knows punishment. It’s no wonder that the recidivism rate in the US is one of the highest in the world.
Irrespective of how we feel about what he did
What he has been accused of doing. He has not been proven guilty. I’m not saying he’s not guilty but until proven so, whatever happened to “innocent until proven guilty”?
Yes earlier in the thread it was very mob like. That’s me just placating I suppose. He has not been proven guilty and they’re already starving him. Doubly wrong.
SBF is in prison and has been relieved of his freedom.
The penal system must offer him a diet that satisfies his daily nutritional requirements because he is not free to do so on his own.
The state is not required to support his “ethical beliefs.”
Just give the guy vegan food ffs. Fucking Americans are so obsessed with making life as shitty as possible for anyone any chance they get.
For anyone? Ever heard of this guy?
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I’d personally consider it pretty cruel and inhumans to force someone to violate their own ethics on a daily basis.
Then write your elected official if you have one. I don’t really care if he gets to live his best life.
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Can the state require you to eat the body or bodily fluids of someone you affirm has rights to bodily autonomy, someone we know to be wholly innocent because they lack agency?
No.
They’re required to make the offer. I believe the prison where he’s incarcerated has even offered him the option of vegetarian meals to complement his PB sandwiches.
I think that’s a very generous offer that’s he’s used his agency to reject because he’s a fool.
has even offered him the option of vegetarian meals
That doesn’t necessarily work at all. Vegans don’t eat food that contain or are prepared with any dairy or egg product. It’s very likely all of their vegetarian meals are not Vegan accessible.
Sounds like he will continue to enjoy peanut butter then :)
In case it wasn’t clear, you’re not corresponding with someone who cares if SBF is allowed to eat a vegan diet in prison.
It’s the precedent set for prisoners in general that you should have a problem with. He just so happens to be the one in the public eye that is affected right now. Forcing him to either go against his beliefs or be nutritionally deficient is not okay. Your feelings about SBF are not at issue. We can end this chain on that note.
Currently only religious beliefs are supported by the prison industry. If he couldn’t eat kosher, for example, I would agree that that’s a problem.
What if he was pescaterian? Or on a Keto diet? It’s this zone that I don’t think the state needs to entertain. SBF happens to be vegan and vegan is in the region in my mind.
I guess my question is: Is there a limit to the extent which the state should go to satisfy your dietary preferences?
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They are required in most civilised nations. You’re just too used to America’s punishment focused prison system, look at the prisons in Scandinavian nations and how they treat their prisoners.
I don’t think SBF needs rehabilitation or whatever the europeans call it. He needs a prison cell, 3 peanut butter sandwiches, and an hour of rec time… everyday… for twenty years.
rehabilitation or whatever the europeans call it
My god dude you’re like a walking parody. Please stop giving the US a bad name.
I have no shame in the believing prison can be used as a punishment. Shouldn’t be the only thing it’s used for, but it’s what this fella needs.
Oh for sure, punishment is historically a super effective solution after all.
Huh? Recidivism? What’s that?
If SBF would reoffend I’d gladly pay the taxes to give him another twenty years of sandwiches. I don’t care about healing this man.
He didn’t murder it rape anyone did he?
He robbed people of their savings. Imagine losing your retirement?
stolen animal secretions ethical beliefs
Theft from animals is unethical, while theft from humans is ethical (based on his actions and your logic). From this we can extrapolate that humans aren’t animals at all.
Thanks SBF! That clear up a lot.
I don’t believe his choices are THAT limited. Most prisons will have a self-service line with a choice of boiled veg, rice, beans, potatoes, pasta, fruit, grits, oats. Also, and just generally, boo hoo for him. Funny how his ethics extend to what he eats, but not who he steals from.
Also bread and water is a vegan diet, lol
I have a feeling the only reason this guy is facing consequences is because he defrauded other rich people.
That’s what happened with Elizabeth Holmes, too. She defrauded both her investors and the patients using her products. She was only convicted of one of those. Guess which one?
Yep. He fucked with the money.
Anytime a big corp gets caught fucking with poor people worse they get is a slap on the wrist fine maybe 10-25% of what they profited and maybe 1-2 years max in prison time for a few fall guys.
Wonder how chewed this dude is about to be.
We never get news articles on how the common prisoner views the food. Fuck this billionaire thief and fuck NBC news.
Yeast is alive he should go with just water. Also fuck him and everyone like him.
what is it with fraudsters and weird hair
Aliens.
what’s weird about letting your curly hair grow out regularly, it’s one of the regular styles of the world I thought
Could be an intentional filter. Those that are bothered by it won’t talk to them, so they don’t have to work harder to filter them.
oooooh - good call
Jail should accommodate a vegan diet, but it also seems like they are to some extent. PB sandwiches are food. As long as he can cobble together a nutritionally complete diet, it isn’t cruel to have boring meals. Obviously JUST peanut butter sandwiches won’t do it but I have to think they have potatoes, beans, rice on the menu too, stuff like that.
Just because they’re on the menu doesn’t mean they’re vegan. They’re often made with meat or meat stocks.
Jail should accommodate a vegan diet
I think that should go without saying, and the real question is why isn’t it the default? Why are we bothering to give prisoners (inherently relatively expensive/less sustainable) meat or dairy to begin with?
Because meat isn’t taxes properly so that having a decent meat based diet is cheaper than having a decent plant based one
Sure there are a lot of cheap vegan meals, too, but some of them are harder and/or take longer to prepare than cheap meat-based food
I’d guess the dairy/meat lobby would complain a lot of they didn’t have people forced to eat their stuff in prison
Id guess it’s a very nice baseline of product-sales
The only reason this is being talked about is because he was a billionaire. Boo hoo poor guy stole 7billion Dollars, and now can’t have the lifestyle he was used to
Is it accurate to call him a former billionaire? My understanding is that he essentially embezzled ~$50 billion investor money and never truly owned it himself. Didn’t he take a ~$1 billion “loan” from the company for example?
I think it’s more accurate to say “he had signature authority over accounts with billions in them” not “he was a billionaire” but idk…
So there IS a vegan option.
Bread and water.
Man, I guess stealing a billion dollars and getting busted and put in prison means your choices for stuff get reduced. Who would have thought?!
They said jail, not prison, and he’s “facing charges”. He’s not proven guilty yet
He’s in jail because he was intimidating and trying to bribe witnesses. And even in the jail he has special access to internet.
Man, I guess stealing a billion dollars and getting busted
and put in prisonmeans your choices for stuff get reduced. Who would have thought?!Better?
But is that fair? Shouldn’t prisons be places you can have all of the amenities you enjoyed in life before you broke the law? What are our taxes being spent on if not fiber internet and Netflix in every cell? Signed, SBFaltaccountNERDSlol
EDIT: F, you got me, you son of a bitch.
But I can’t be the only one who thinks these people defending him are extremely sus. They were in other threads too, like the one about the baby-killing nurse; they were in there defending her, making similar arguments to the ones found in here, and brigading and downvoting anybody who disagreed with them. I think it might be connected. Could they be from some kind of trolling group, I wonder?
It’s really not fair to reduce a philosophy like veganism to “choices for stuff” and denying your right to follow it, which is legally protected where I’m from at least, to “get reduced”. It’s not like he’s complaining that he can’t change the channel on the radio.
They should get him those vegan meals the airlines have in economy class. That would work, no? Vegan enough for him to eat, but not enjoy.
Airplane meals aren’t really that bad.
It is just that at that altitude, the pressure causes your taste to work worse than on the ground.
Honestly, as a vegetarian myself (not vegan though), lots of airlines these days have a single meal that satisfies Vegan, Vegetarian, Gluten Free, Low Sodium, Low Sugar, etc… I’m sure it saves them lots of money, but hot damn are they disgusting.
Absolutely the Best solution
A second attorney for Bankman-Fried, Christian Everdell, also said in court Tuesday that serious Sixth Amendment need to be addressed because Bankman-Fried has no way to prepare and participate in his defense. Everdell said that he has had no access to discovery materials for 11 days and that there are only six weeks left to the start of the trial.
[…]
But he was remanded to jail this month over allegations of witness tampering. His trial is set to begin Oct. 2. On Aug. 11, Kaplan denied his request to delay detention pending an appeal.
Starting to look like it wasn’t a smart move meddling in the case, Sam. Almost as if actions have repercussions.
Also his League of Legends ranking has suffered terribly since his incarceration. This is a major human rights issue.
I have to tip my hat to you on that one.
And yet they served organic food to the Qanon Shaman. Go figure.