No, EA's cultish aspects played a huge role in this.

SBF got his start in crypto doing arbitrage with Japan, because setting up a trading account in Japan was hard. He got someone to do it through the EA community.

Most of the people who are in positions of power in his companies came from the EA community. And no joke a bunch of them are all in romantic relationships with each other too. You've got the CEO of his trading firm, who SBF dated, posting on tumblr about how poly relationships should be a vicious power struggle to get to the top.

I think you're way underestimating just how weird and cultish this whole clique is, and how moral criticism is actually valid here as the ideology is in a central role. These people cast themselves as noble heros making the world better in the net, when in reality they're total nepotistic weirdos.

Considering what she looks like, she would be at the bottom of any poly pyramid.

Yeah, I think we can criticize the stupid here without crossing that line.

My comment was about how there is often more to the story than a simple bad guy narrative when someone acts in reprehensible ways. You seem to be saying the same thing, so I agree with the sentiment. As to the role that EA played in it, I don’t know enough to say, and you don’t provide any sources. My point was that I don’t think he was pretending to be an EAist.

To be in a cult you only need to spew their Shibboleth, you don't need to actually believe it.

Seems that he always benefited from membership in the cult.