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Comment by bathtub365 | Hacker News Reader

Has he? I know he was scheduled to testify but he didn’t get the chance since he was arrested. Was this written testimony still entered into the record?

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Yes, I believe committee members referred to it yesterday during the hearing and asked for (and received) unanimous consent for SBF's statement to be put in the record.

They also commented at the utter disrespect for Congress by starting off written testimony with the phrase “I fucked up”. There’s no need for language like that and including it in written testimony is beyond stupid.

I wish more people would say "I fucked up" in Congressional testimony.

It's a lot better than 500 "I don't recall"s.

Depends on if it was genuine or not. "I fucked up" conveys something different to me than "I made a mistake". If it were written by a lawyer, "I knowingly committed a fraud for which I am deeply ashamed and accept full responsibility for my actions" just comes across as being insincere. Maybe it's the time we live in, and also knowing the individual's manners. The lawyerly phrasing always comes across to me as someone saying the things that they think people want to hear. Someone telling me they realized they fucked up comes across as much more sincere. It could just be me though?

Also, in today's world, I hold people in contempt that hold congress in respect. So what makes them feel disrespected isn't that high of an "ooooh, burn" kind of moment to see they felt slighted.

> in today's world, I hold people in contempt that hold congress in respect

Is that because you don't believe that most congressional representatives act according to the will of their constituents? Or because you don't believe that the will of most constituents is worthy of respect?

That's a decent question. Mainly, I feel like most congress critters should be required to wear patches of their corporate sponsors like NASCAR drivers. That's who I feel they represent much more than their constituents. In that sense, I feel they get no respect from me.

Don't get me started on the respect for the constituents themselves. That's such a non-HN friendly conversation.

Fair enough, thanks for responding. For the record, my belief is that you don't need to be so pessimistic - democracy is always messy, and I think the perception of corruption in the U.S. way exceeds the reality, and most reps are really trying to do what their constituents want... we just have constituencies that really want to bicker with each other. But, maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part. Good luck out there!

> I think the perception of corruption in the U.S. way exceeds the reality

So the stacked Supreme Court issuing absurd rulings is not actually corrupt, but just appears corrupt?

Citizens United and further erosions of campaign financing laws that give corporations direct access to politicians isn't actually corruption, just legal free speech?

My belief is that you have to be beyond naive to hand-wave away the current generation of bad-faith politic

>>So the stacked Supreme Court issuing absurd rulings is not actually corrupt, but just appears corrupt?

People ruling against what you want is not corruption.

You’re right, it’s not, so why are you bringing up?

Sure, did I say what I want anywhere?

Do you think that a ruling that went 7-2 and 8-1 in the past being reviewed for a third time for some reason that happens to go 6-3 along party lines makes sense in any light besides corruption and "legislating from the bench"? Please discuss.

I said the perceived corruption is bigger than the actual corruption. I didn't say "Citizens United is a good ruling." Not sure why you leaped to that.

But, since you brought it up, can you point out any laws passed since CU that were pushed by lobbyists, but were broadly unpopular with the general public? Or laws that failed to pass due to a lobbying effort, despite being broadly popular with the general public? Anything were we can trace this supposed corrupting effect of direct corporate influence and see a result that is actually contrary to what the electorate wants?

I agree it was a bad ruling and should be overturned, but I don't think the doomsday scenarios predicted after the ruling have actually happened. I'm open to being proven wrong though, show me what you got.

Supreme court doesn't pass laws, so we're crossing the streams of two subjects in the same comment thread.

The Supreme Court has decided that corporations are people and we're dealing with the aspects of that. The Supremes then decided that civil rights were okay to no longer have protections, so we're now dealing with that. The Supremes decided that men get to decide what health care women can have.

Why would Congress need to act when the Supremes are legislating from the bench on their behalf, only they don't take the hit because it was the Supremes that did it.

It is very obviously a manipulative tactic. It is almost at the top, which is the point in time everyone is listening to him.

He wants it to be crass because it is intended to be offensive, not very offensive, but just offensive enough that it sticks in peoples minds for a bit longer. He wants it to stick because it is his only defense and every second his audience are considering how disrespectful he is, they do not think about how he is lying.

The problem with "I fucked up" is not the language, it is the fact that it is false. And if congress is commenting on the former, but not the later, it had the intended effect.

"I screwed up" might have been better.

I do not think so. The point is to create a negative impression around the phrase, so that the focus is moved from the truth value of the statement to the totally irrelevant question of it being offensive or not.

It's interesting to me - pervasive expletives are so common now that you almost can't share otherwise inoffensive stuff with your grandmother half the time. I'm becoming a middle aged person who dislikes cursing... lol.

I don't think starting off with "I fucked up" shows contempt per se. It's the fact that he's at this hearing to basically explain how he fucked up, and his testimony explains this by... blaming everybody but himself, and pleading for the opportunity to fix stuff. In that context, he's trying to show sincerity and humility and honesty with a candid expression that it was his fault only to undercut by actively avoiding demonstrating any fault. The belief that anyone, much less Congress, is going to find that credible... that's contemptuous.

"I messed up" would be one example of a less distracting way to convey the same point. Persuasive writing, which SBF presumably desires to employ in this document, should never distract the reader from its thesis and ultimately its call to action.

SBF wants to persuade the reader of his thesis, which appears to be that he was acting in good faith and continues to advocate for his customers who are being materially harmed by the obstruction of the chapter 11 team. And his call to action is for his readers to help him resolve his disputes with the chapter 11 team.

Considering these goals, not only is opening with "I fucked up" a counterproductive phrase and a wasted opportunity for a more effective opening, but the rest of his testimony is even less persuasive on its merits alone. I'm not sure he advanced his progress toward either of those goals with his testimony.

But I do think he will find sympathy from some libertarian crypto advocates (at least those who can get past their suspicions that SBF is controlled opposition from a cabal of corrupt bureaucrats intent on regulating exchanges and introducing central bank digital currencies).

That's a pretty charitable reading. There's also an argument to be made for the intro intentionally distracting from the rest.

>>They also commented at the utter disrespect for Congress by starting off written testimony with the phrase “I fucked up”. There’s no need for language like that and including it in written testimony is beyond stupid.

While I agree that he shouldn't have used those words, I certainly wouldn't in any communications, I am not sure there is anyone in congress that is actually deserving of respect; morons everywhere you look.

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