Richard Matheson’s I Am Legendtells Robert Neville’s story, the last human on Earth. This story tells of a vampiric disease decimating the Earth, killing Neville’s daughter, wife and neighbors.
Neville, driven by both revenge and self-preservation for three years, hunted, killed, and experimented on vampires. While the vampires were comatose during the day, Neville drove stakes into their hearts and injected different concoctions. He then took them captive to be interrogated.
Neville, wandering through the suburbs, was stunned to see a woman, alive and breathing, walking across a farm. Robert hadn’t seen his daughter in years, so he brought her home.
As the two became friends and lovers, Robert’s bond with Ruth grew. Robert could not shake the feeling that Ruth was not who she claimed to be. After all, he hadn’t seen a human for years. What if it was a vampire that was resistant to sunlight?
He could no longer suppress his concern and asked her to have her blood tested for vampiris bacteria. She reluctantly agreed and Robert promised to cure her if the test was positive.
She begged Robert not to see the results as he leaned towards his microscope, but by then it was too late.
Ruth was standing over Neville, sobbing quietly, as his vision turned black.
Neville awoke to find Ruth gone, but with a note.
Ruth revealed that she and a group had found a drug to stave off the effects of vampiris bacteria. This allowed them to survive. Ruth and other “living vampires” retained their intelligence, emotions and had formed a new group. While Neville’s vampires were mostly reanimated bodies, Ruth and her fellow vampires had retained their intelligence, emotions and had begun forming a society. Ruth was chosen by the group as a spy for Robert. She enjoyed this task because Robert had murdered her husband. Ruth realized later that Robert had done what he needed to do in order to survive. This was no different than her group.
Ruth warned Robert that they were coming for him and warned him to get away.
Robert did not flee and the intruders eventually found him at night. Robert fired on the intruders who broke through his front door. He was then wounded and taken as a prisoner by the return fire.
Ruth visited Robert in his prison cell and informed him that the new justice council voted for him to be executed. Ruth was there to comfort her ex-lover, and offered him a pill that would make his death painless.
Robert spent the past three years fighting against vampires and desperately trying to hold on to his old life. In this moment as he felt the judgment of the new society, Robert realized that he was the monster.
Robert believed he was the last hope for humanity, a heroic figure struggling to survive a world gone to hell. No matter how brutal his actions were, he justified them as part of the fight to save humanity. It was always the end that justified the means. Robert, in this new world and society, was the villain who hunted down their wives and husbands, their friends and families.
Robert spent many years trying to find a cure for this vampiric illness. To this new vampiric society, Robert was the illness that needed to cleansed.
Sam Bankman Fried (SBF), the golden boy of crypto, was a lovable nerd. SBF, a lovable geek who ran one of the most trusted crypto exchanges in an industry plagued with greed and fraud was a shining star.
Many newly-minted cryptocurrency millionaires lived lavish lives, yelling “Have Fun Staying Poor!” Bankman-Fried, who was angry at those who missed the digital gold rush and drove an old Corolla while playing League of Legends, slept on beanbags, drove a used Corolla and drove around in a used Corolla.
Sam, unlike many of his peers, publicly denounced materialism and embraced an wholesome philosophy. Altruism
Effective altruism, a field of research and a community of practitioners that seeks to discover the best ways to assist others and to put these into practice. What is the most effective form of altruism in practice? You should make as much money as you can to have the biggest impact.
If you have $100,000, you can buy Christmas gifts for those who are less fortunate and make charitable contributions. What if you had $100,000,000,000? You can cure malaria and purify the water supply.
Sam wanted as much money as he could to help as many people.
He was on the right track to achieving this goal for a time. SBF’s Alameda Research is a quantitative trading company that (allegedly) made million through bitcoin arbitrage in the Asian markets. The crypto wizard then performed an even more impressive performance: he built a $32B cryptocurrency exchange, FTX in only three years.
SBF stepped in to save crypto platforms as they imploded one after another over the past year. They bailed out and acquired company after company. The king was crypto.
The music stopped last weekend. The crypto’s golden child was tainted. SBF quietly transferred $10B of customer funds from FTX into Alameda in order to fill the 11-digit gap in the trading group’s balance sheet. Clients who wanted to withdraw their capital were shocked to discover that their money had vanished.
Harvey Dent said to Bruce Wayne in The Dark Knight: “You will either die as a hero or you will live long enough for yourself to become a villain.” “
The villain arc of SBF began last week.
How did this sudden fall from grace occur? Although I cannot be sure of someone’s true intentions, I do have an idea.
Sam’s altruism would be rendered ineffective if Alameda failed. He would need to raise a large sum of money if he wanted to maximize his “effectiveness” as an altruist. Sam’s quantitative firm was facing a serious hole in its balance sheet. After weighing his options, he decided to use client money to bail out the trading group.
He likely thought that with a cash injection, they could generate sufficient profits to recapitalize Alameda. The original funds would then be moved back to FTX. No harm, no foul. This might have worked better if the clients had not tried to withdraw $6B in just 72 hours.
We’ll never find out, but clients tried to withdraw $6B after Binance CEO sounded an alarm. Then, when the money was not there, all hell broke lose.
Moving $10B in client money secretly is objectively a bad thing. In 2021, Sam’s response if asked if he ever would secretly move $10B in client money would have probably been “Of Course Not!” “
The human mind is remarkably rational in crisis situations, and actions that were previously unthinkable become possible when the situation is dire. The “effective altruist”, who knows his dream is over if his trading company crashes, will do whatever it takes to keep the firm going, even if this means misusing client funds. He can tell himself that it’s all fine, because the money will be returned to clients after they have generated enough cash to save Alameda.
Sam didn’t think he was being selfish. He was doing the exact opposite. He took this risk to help as many people possible! It was really admirable.
This series of rationalizations can lead to people making really, really poor decisions.
In our own minds, no one is a bad guy. We all think that the end justifies the means when it comes to making decisions. We can tell ourselves stories that are quite seductive.
When the results of your rationalizations harm others, nobody cares about “good intentions”, ‘apologies’ or’mistakes.
Robert Neville’s quest for a cure was not noticed by anyone when it led to the death of friends and relatives. Sam’s altruism cost them $10B.
Let’s face it, “altruism”, in its original form, was never compatible to fraud. Neither the court or the public will accept “good intentions” that have gone wrong.
