FTX Lobbyist Tried to Buy Pacific Island to Create a New Superspecies, Lawsuit Says (cnbc.com) 76
An anonymous reader shared this report from CNBC:
Sam Bankman-Fried's younger brother, who was a top lobbyist for failed crypto exchange FTX, considered purchasing the island nation of Nauru in the Pacific to create a fortified apocalypse bunker state, a lawsuit filed in Delaware bankruptcy court shows.
Gabe Bankman-Fried was looking at buying Nauru in the "event where 50%-99.99% of people die" to protect his philanthropic allies and create a genetically enhanced human species, according to the suit filed Thursday by attorneys from Sullivan & Cromwell, which is seeking to recover billions of dollars following the collapse of FTX... Along with an unnamed philanthropic officer of FTX, Gabe Bankman-Fried considered buying Nauru, in part to foster "sensible regulation around human genetic enhancement, and build a lab there...."
In addition to serving as a haven in case of apocalypse, "probably there are other things it's useful to do with a sovereign country, too," according to a memo between the younger Bankman-Fried and the philanthropic advisor, which was noted in the suit.
"A representative for Nauru confirmed the island nation was not and has never been for sale."
Gabe Bankman-Fried was looking at buying Nauru in the "event where 50%-99.99% of people die" to protect his philanthropic allies and create a genetically enhanced human species, according to the suit filed Thursday by attorneys from Sullivan & Cromwell, which is seeking to recover billions of dollars following the collapse of FTX... Along with an unnamed philanthropic officer of FTX, Gabe Bankman-Fried considered buying Nauru, in part to foster "sensible regulation around human genetic enhancement, and build a lab there...."
In addition to serving as a haven in case of apocalypse, "probably there are other things it's useful to do with a sovereign country, too," according to a memo between the younger Bankman-Fried and the philanthropic advisor, which was noted in the suit.
"A representative for Nauru confirmed the island nation was not and has never been for sale."
Re: Why do people with money always want to GMO? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because they think their wonderful genes and industrious hard work were what got them their pile of money, not pure luck of a set of circumstances that happened to pay off.
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Correct, and witnessing this while it is happening tells you a lot about humans.
Re: Why do people with money always want to GMO? (Score:3, Interesting)
You dont know that it would be their genes for sure. If I was going to breed a super race for coming apocalypse I would start with Ethiopians. Great heat dissipation through enhanced surface area and afros, big heads for large brains, gorgeous women. I am white btw, evolved for a northern climate that no longer exists.
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And all this despite it becoming blatantly obvious whenever they try their hand at something else and they fail, fail and fail.
Not Exactly Geniuses... (Score:3)
Because they think their wonderful genes and industrious hard work were what got them their pile of money
Yes, but it is very clear that they are not exactly geniuses. Nauru might be a suitable location for surviving a nuclear apocalypse but as a coral atoll only a few metres above sea level, it's not a great place to survive global warming's sea level rise which is a known and present threat, not a hypothetical one.
Re: Not Exactly Geniuses... (Score:2)
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Nauru is not a coral atoll.
Its highest point is > 50m above sea level (higher than ~95% of Florida). Enough to survive even the worst sea level rise predictions.
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It's also both hot and humid and people from just about anywhere else find it uncomfortable to live there.
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Have you tried getting over 1520 in the SAT (median SAT of MIT, Stanford, Caltech)? That's not luck dumbass or even above normal circumstance, it's willingness to study. You don't need anything more than a few math and English books to get that score. And if you've got a bad situation you write about that in your essay. Also colleges at the Stanford level cover full tuition and expenses of anyone from a poor family.
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If you ditch standardized scores only the wealthy will get into top tier universities. They can hire a team of consultants to game all the weirdo metrics like local school GPA (tons of ways to do that), reference letters, and also BS things like "started a non-profit to help XYZ demographic group" or "led protests against ABC" .. Standardized scores are a good indicator of motivation, aptitude. and willingness to put in work, since everything you need to get a full score in both the Math and English tests a
Re:Why do people with money always want to GMO? (Score:4, Insightful)
Considering how poorly [gizmodo.com] the human body is "designed", it wouldn't take much.
Ah, but the problem with improving the human body is the same as the problem with improving a huge software system that's all poorly written spaghetti code. Everything is tied to everything else [theatlantic.com] in unpredictable ways which make it almost impossible to modify the system without unexpected effects.
That's what you get when your only option for software development is to copy an existing program, make a random change to the byte code, and then see if the new program works or not.
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That's what you get when your only option for software development is to copy an existing program, make a random change to the byte code, and then see if the new program works or not.
I know a valid vetting system that has worked (for various definitions of worked) for over a billion years. It is called 'letting Reality judge'. Sure, there are lots of inefficiencies that we think could be improved upon... but the whole 'we think' issue is a serious problem. Just let Reality judge the results and the process, as inefficient as it is, will eventually lead to improvements that are not even imagined. Do you think the first single-celled creature ever imagined that humans and sentience could
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"Why do people with money always want to GMO?"
"to believe you can significantly improve upon God's work"
I'm sensing two types of idiocy here:
1) Believing that all "GMO things" are bad. Gene gun "GMO crops" (blasted with gamma rays and having some random / huge effect) are much different than CRISPR modified organisms. That's like comparing a machine gun to a scalpel. To somehow compare them as the same is silly.
2) Believing that god somehow exists. Who told you that was true, and why did you believe them?
Crap; I'm out of mod points! (Score:1)
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I can understand the idea behind creating a refuge to be safe in the event of a global catastrophe. Don't understand how creating a genetic master race follows from that.
Also wonder about the practical aspects of creating a place where you have a million times more money than everyone else, when everyone else isn't there.
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There's Bond villain level insanity here. What it does confirm is that wealth does not confer sanity or even brains. It strikes me that within very narrow areas of expertise guys like Musk and Bankman-fried may possess considerable knowledge or abilities, but in the larger sphere of being a genuinely well-rounded human being, they are horribly deficient creatures.
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And this is also the reason why even highly technical majors (or perhaps especially technical majors) always include the requirement that you take some electives in the arts or soft sciences.
Obviously, it doesn't always work.
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Strange Love (Score:2)
I can understand the idea behind creating a refuge to be safe in the event of a global catastrophe. Don't understand how creating a genetic master race follows from that.
I imagine they're going to do the genetic "manipulation" the old-fashioned way, using precious bodily fluods. These billionaires are all men, so to efficiently pass down their genes to repopulate the world, the men will have to "work" very hard, and there will need to be a ratio of, say, 10 women for each man. This will necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned.
Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future o
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I was searching for that quote but you beat me to it. Good work!
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Seems mighty arrogant to believe you can significantly improve upon God's work without causing negative side effects.
Did you look at the human body lately? If this was designed, I'm not impressed. The mere fact that breathing and eating are done via the same route, hell, fish have a more sensible makeup.
And I'm not even gonna comment on why there's a sewage pipe right through the entertainment district. Seriously, what blundering bureaucrat thought this was a good idea? Did they have that designed in China with poor specs, done by the lowest bidder and assembled at the cheapest assembly plant?
Better Deisnged that you Think (Score:3)
The mere fact that breathing and eating are done via the same route
They are not done by the same route: you route a nose and a mouth and stomach and lungs. Yes, there is a connection between them so you can breathe through your mouth as well as your nose but that's a good thing because otherwise, you'd die of suffocation the first time you caught a bad cold.
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Whenever I look at our eye, that alone is a pretty good reasons to discount any claim that we're "designed". I mean, why would a designer give us the eye that is very obviously best at looking under water? Did he run out of time on Saturday and say "fuck this, let's use the fish eyes for now and I fix it on Monday" and he was fired over the weekend due to the crappy work he did?
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Thank you, Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Give credit where credit is due.
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Actually, I came to that conclusion myself, but it's kinda comforting that I wasn't the only one who noticed.
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Humans turned wolves into docile golden retrievers. Hardly an abomination.
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Re: Why do people with money always want to GMO? (Score:2)
Because they can't find a girl to fuck them.
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Does their breeding program involve acquiring a stable of 14 year old girls?
It's official (Score:5, Insightful)
Cryptobros are idiots.
Gee, this sounds familiar. (Score:3)
A "geneticallysuperior race". Where have I heard that one before?
Re: Gee, this sounds familiar. (Score:2)
Jeffrey Epstein?
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cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
euh wait...
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RFK Jr.?
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Hugo Drax?
Re:Gee, this sounds familiar. (Score:4, Funny)
Space Seed?
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Alex, what is "Doctor Strangelove"?
Hmmm ... (Score:2)
FTX Lobbyist Tried to Buy Pacific Island to Create a New Superspecies, Lawsuit Says (cnbc.com)
These rich assholes really are completely full of shit. The only thing funnier than thinking that a lobbyist would be the perfect genetic template for the creation of a new super species, is thinking that out of all the lobbyists on the planet most perfect specimen to choose as your super-species' genetic progenitor would be a Bankman-Fried.
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So... (Score:2)
Jurassic what? (Score:2)
do they have a supply of amber?
he's NOT Lazarus Long (Score:2)
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazarus_Long) Although it's probably not for trying...
Stunningly stupid - on several levels (Score:5, Insightful)
Has techbrodude realised that the highest point of Nauru is 71m above sea level, so is going to be fairly early (2200, maybe sooner) on the list of inundations. And before then, you're going to have decades to centuries of having to maintain your walls against the seawater seeping through them.
Utter idiot.
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Silly techbros... all of smart Bond villains picked a tropical island with a dormant volcano on it. Gives you a cool place to build your secret liar!
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The only intelligent use would be as a sort of SPAC... call it a Special Purpose Acquisition Country. You get the recognized sovereignty, treaty memberships, etc., and put all the good stuff in "embassies" in better locations.
This is kind of how the House of Lichtenstein operated. They were originally Austrian lords with a kaleidoscope of shifting land holdings all over the place. In 1699 they were able to buy a tiny lordship that was immediate, i.e. in fief only to the Holy Roman Emperor, and grew that int
Nauru is already inhabited by a Superspecies (Score:2)
What a lovely family (Score:2)
One brother is a multi-billion dollar scammer, the other is a supervillain in search of a lair.
Those two walking advertisements for contraception. I wonder if their parents are ashamed...
So seasteading by buying an island (Score:2)
I'm waiting for them to figure out you are now responsible for this country.
I thought they killed off James Bond (Score:2)
Well, some of the Bond villains were cooler than Bond himself.
just say no to doctor evil (Score:2)
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"I, as a mutant bounty hunter,"
Johnny Alpha, is that you?
He thought about buying it but, it's not for sale (Score:3)
There was an idea of a newslike article here but, there's no information in it.
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There was an idea of a newslike article here but, there's no information in it.
On its own, I think it's still informative on two counts:
1) The basic concept of buying a small and inhabited country and turning it into your personal fortress is incredibly entitled.
2) The idea that they'd genetically engineer super humans at the same time is nutty and signs of a not-very-serious thinker.
3) This incredibly entitled and not-serious brother of the founder was put in a position of significant authority.
4) Just where was the money supposed to come from? Was their rich person private state to
No, CONTEXT IS FUNDAMENTAL actually.... (Score:1)
I see they skipped the Lord of The Rings association for their behavior and went straight for Foundation...
At $1m per inhabitant (Score:2)
There's probably a lot of countries that could be bought out for under $50bn, which wouldn't worry a lot of rich people...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
We cannot allow ... (Score:2)
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"You cannot fight here. THIS IS THE WAR ROOM !"
Someone played too much .. (Score:1)
... Far Cry.
"Hold my beer," said Elon Musk. (Score:2)
With that level of cartoonish supervillainery (Score:1)
Khaaaaaan! (Score:1)
Oh, the Irony! (Score:2)
Why do I feel like I've seen this story before? (Score:2)
Gabe Bankman-Fried was looking at buying Nauru ... to protect his philanthropic allies and create a genetically enhanced human species ...
KAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHNN!!!