Molly White is running a blog bitching about NFTs and crypto

[journo]

"She holds left-wing views that skew towards socialism.[3] "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molly_White_(writer)

I think the last thing White does in her free time is read socialist or any economic political theory, or even think about politics.

The only political things I've heard her say was making fun of the economic school behind the Sanders campaign (aka MMT, Stephanie Kelton, Bill Mitchell etc). This doesn't prove anything except a mild animosity to popular economic theory in socialist circles, as there are others, but she hasn't commented on them. I also doubt she's ever followed any economic school more obscure than the one used by the least radical socialist politician. She also denigrated arguably the originator of socialism, Charles Fourier, in an exchange once, with a disinterested and snarky handwave. Outside denigrating economic ideas bubbling in socialist circles or making fun of early socialist thinkers, I've never heard them be political.

Why include someone's (possibly entirely made up) personal politics in their Wikipedia article if they aren't at all a politico and the cited news piece was about something completely separate from her politics?

The way I read that phrase was, "Molly is a Democrat". Because I've never, ever seen her opine on socialism, socialist political parties, or economics. But hey, any Democrat in the media is "socialist leaning" too as long as they take opportunistic photos with union leaders though right? So not much of any honest bar to claim someone as that in Democratic Party circles.

[ericbarbour]

That reminds me: some journalists are now using her as a "go-to source" for commentary about Bankman-Fried and crypto in general. This is probably a bad idea but that's never stopped lazy and incompetent reporters in the past.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/09/27/ ... e-podcast/

Plus, she's been saving embarrassing deleted tweets made by Musk and Co.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/twitter- ... 44953.html

https://gizmodo.com/x-twitter-ceo-share ... 1850862068

[journo]

That reminds me: some journalists are now using her as a "go-to source" for commentary about Bankman-Fried and crypto in general. This is probably a bad idea but that's never stopped lazy and incompetent reporters in the past.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/09/27/ ... e-podcast/

Plus, she's been saving embarrassing deleted tweets made by Musk and Co.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/twitter- ... 44953.html

https://gizmodo.com/x-twitter-ceo-share ... 1850862068

The page patrollers have spoken
https://web.archive.org/web/20230928213 ... 1177676023

Molly is a socialist, according to them, because
1. she maybe said so in an article which isn't RS
2. if someone says they are then they are
3. It is a "socialist purity test" to have to come up with a time someone ever did or say anything meaningfully socialist in the past

then veterans deleted the discussion and reverted an edit more than 5 times and insisted on publishing her purported personal location for no good reason

[ericbarbour]

then veterans deleted the discussion and reverted an edit more than 5 times and insisted on publishing her purported personal location for no good reason

This is a routine occurrence--"rationality" doesn't fly very far on WP talkpages.

Someone on the talkpage did make a very incisive point: WP hates JK Rowling so much, there is now a "Political Views" article. I seem to recall that the first person to get such an article was Lyndon LaRouche. Back in 2004. And that was because LaRouchies and anti-LaRouchies were fighting over WP content related to him and his movement.

And oh btw, in case you're wondering, Chip Berlet is still fucking around on WP today. Berlet was one of LaRouche's most determined foes and willing to abuse any WP policy to get what he wanted. He had total maniacs like Adam Carr and especially Will Beback to support his rage-edit-war.

Berlet's "bibliography", full of self-published newsletter screeds that would not pass WP:RS, is still there. Chip is allowed to glorify himself when he's not abusing someone he considers a "crypto-nazi" or the like. He manicures the rather pathetic article about his obscure political-research group.

[journo]

then veterans deleted the discussion and reverted an edit more than 5 times and insisted on publishing her purported personal location for no good reason

This is a routine occurrence--"rationality" doesn't fly very far on WP talkpages.

Someone on the talkpage did make a very incisive point: WP hates JK Rowling so much, there is now a "Political Views" article. I seem to recall that the first person to get such an article was Lyndon LaRouche. Back in 2004. And that was because LaRouchies and anti-LaRouchies were fighting over WP content related to him and his movement.

And oh btw, in case you're wondering, Chip Berlet is still fucking around on WP today. Berlet was one of LaRouche's most determined foes and willing to abuse any WP policy to get what he wanted. He had total maniacs like Adam Carr and especially Will Beback to support his rage-edit-war.

Berlet's "bibliography", full of self-published newsletter screeds that would not pass WP:RS, is still there. Chip is allowed to glorify himself when he's not abusing someone he considers a "crypto-nazi" or the like. He manicures the rather pathetic article about his obscure political-research group.

Is it commonplace to say someone is x merely because they supposedly identify as x? I haven't personally seen them call self-identified socialists with no history of socialist politics like Hélder Câmara a socialist, only a "self-identified socialist". White seems to be an exception. They more or less said they'd call her whatever political ideology she wants to be called without investigation or qualifiers, whether it's as a straight liberal or a genderqueer socialist. Like a self-serve buffet of word salads, for administrators only.

[journo]

Molly has tweeted about this person named Sam Fried, on Twitter alone, by name, over 130 times.

Counting not-by-name, and blogs and other outlets, this number may reach the hundreds.

I'm starting to think she doesn't like him very much

I can only describe her publishings as 'gleefully cheering for a non-violent offender she never met to go to jail', and 'mean-girl mockery of nerdy fall-guy for crypto'. She even went to NY just to see his trial.



Her tweets also make fun of his seemingly genetically nerdy/ugly appearance, many times. Sam is Jewish. I guess its not unusual for white people to cruelly mock Jewish bodies. Jewfros are a nerd stereotype and yes they don't really respond to hair management without dangerous chemicals. If one goes to Israel one will find a lot of people walking around like that, not their fault though or anyone's fault. But keep in mind Molly is the same person, the main person, equating involuntary virgins to an ideological dangerous subculture on Wikipedia.

As far as Fried, I've been trading crypto on and off for many years like millions of other people, and I didn't even know that FTX existed until Google News people obsessed over its collapse. All I know is he's a disgraced former crypto exchange owner who is convicted for mismanaging and/or stealing funds. There's exit scams like that constantly. I don't get this particular obsession over other exchanges though. Were the mtgox/BTC-e/livecoin/etc criminal crypto exchange collapses not interesting enough? Is the obsession over FTX over other exchanges because this one involved more rich people money? Is it the fact Sam tried to put crypto in the world of celebs and a Super Bowl commercial that makes these people so interested in Sam?

Also, where is the negative attention on Ellison from Molly or any of these writers? Wasn't she charged / plead guilty on pretty much exactly what Sam was charged with?

[ericbarbour]

Her tweets also make fun of his seemingly genetically nerdy/ugly appearance, many times. Sam is Jewish. I guess its not unusual for white people to cruelly mock Jewish bodies. Jewfros are a nerd stereotype and yes they don't really respond to hair management without dangerous chemicals. If one goes to Israel one will find a lot of people walking around like that, not their fault though or anyone's fault. But keep in mind Molly is the same person, the main person, equating involuntary virgins to an ideological dangerous subculture on Wikipedia.

She's just doing what loads of other Wikipedia hypocrites like to do: openly play to an audience of fellow nerds. Hypocritically. Her Twitter/X audience is quite different from the usual angry-white-boy following, as she is going after THEM. Wonder how long this will last, with King of Nerds Musk controlling it.

And you can be DAMN sure that the Wiki-twits are encouraging her on IRC and Discord. Wouldn't be doing it without a lot of positive reinforcement. They have no intention of, or interest in, convincing anyone outside their Cult-Thing of anything relating to Bankman-Fried or other crypto-related malarkey. It's all echo chamber.

[journo]

I've spent now a total of 5 minutes researching this FTX thing, which isn't at all easy to understand.

It seems to boil down to FTX funnelling customer funds to a gambling business owned by Fried's girlfriend named Ellison. Ellison had inherited this business from Fried. Ellison's business had unlimited access to withdraw customer funds from FTX to her gambling business. According to Ellison herself she was "lying and stealing", including doctoring balance sheets to hide FTX customer fund transfer to her business. Fried then didn't have the customer funds to deal with decreased confidence in the exchange cuz they gambled and/or stole it it. The exchange becomes more clearly a house of cards, authorities move in, Ellison backstabs Fried for reduced sentencing. Fried goes to jail, Ellison will likely as well.

[Ognistysztorm]

I've spent now a total of 5 minutes researching this FTX thing, which isn't at all easy to understand.

It seems to boil down to FTX funnelling customer funds to a gambling business owned by Fried's girlfriend named Ellison. Ellison had inherited this business from Fried. Ellison's business had unlimited access to withdraw customer funds from FTX to her gambling business. According to Ellison herself she was "lying and stealing", including doctoring balance sheets to hide FTX customer fund transfer to her business. Fried then didn't have the customer funds to deal with decreased confidence in the exchange cuz they gambled and/or stole it it. The exchange becomes more clearly a house of cards, authorities move in, Ellison backstabs Fried for reduced sentencing. Fried goes to jail, Ellison will likely as well.

With all these, one of the biggest losers are the Effective Altruism movement where many people are now viewing it as indistiguishable from cults and FTX even though logically that's doesn't hold water at all. Thanks to FTX, the immediate and long term future of humanity may have been doomed for good.

[journo]

I've spent now a total of 5 minutes researching this FTX thing, which isn't at all easy to understand.

It seems to boil down to FTX funnelling customer funds to a gambling business owned by Fried's girlfriend named Ellison. Ellison had inherited this business from Fried. Ellison's business had unlimited access to withdraw customer funds from FTX to her gambling business. According to Ellison herself she was "lying and stealing", including doctoring balance sheets to hide FTX customer fund transfer to her business. Fried then didn't have the customer funds to deal with decreased confidence in the exchange cuz they gambled and/or stole it it. The exchange becomes more clearly a house of cards, authorities move in, Ellison backstabs Fried for reduced sentencing. Fried goes to jail, Ellison will likely as well.

With all these, one of the biggest losers are the Effective Altruism movement where many people are now viewing it as indistiguishable from cults and FTX even though logically that's doesn't hold water at all. Thanks to FTX, the immediate and long term future of humanity may have been doomed for good.

Most people have no clue who bankman-fried is or what "cryptocurrency" exactly is. I guarantee no one in my family has any idea for example.

Also, FTX, although it had some famous and extremely wealthy customers, wasn't even at the top of the crypto exchanges in users, being relatively small. It only had around 1 million users globally, about 1/20th of Robinhood users and 1/120th of Binance users.