Something most of the think pieces, and interviews with Michael Lewis, discount is just how geeked out on amphetamines this guy was.

not to nitpick, but at least in my experience, "geeked out" is a strange turn of phrase here

"Geeking out" can mean to overshare or obsess about one's geeky passions but it's also used to mean someone who's tweaking on speed.

The drug-using definition predates the nerd-culture definition from what I can tell (the Urban Dictionary entry is older for one thing).

Both predate the internet so that’s not entirely unimpeachable evidence but I can confirm as a first hand source :)

> He was sorta aware that there was a whole world out there with consequences but he just completely ignored it.

Well, this is bog-standard psychopathy. It’s not really that interesting. If he had been born into a lower station in life and gone around doing check-fraud or something, no one would really care. The SBF story is just really one about how class and connections act as an insane multiplier for unrestrained criminality.

Do you have a link to ZM's writing on SBF?

The book review in OP: https://thezvi.substack.com/p/book-review-going-infinite

And his recap of the FTX situation: https://thezvi.substack.com/p/sadly-ftx

Zvi is a really good blogger, just in general. Hyper-prolific and extremely intelligent.