You know I have little sympathy for these 'victims'. I used to speak in clubhouse rooms to the shills and the hodlers. The reaction to any dissent was astonishing. They were like a cult. In many ways the group was a cult. The promise of something for nothing created a lobby of the purist arrogance I've ever witnessed. I think they got exactly what they deserved. Those people earned their poverty.
Everyone profiled seems young enough to have time to bounce back.
Separate, but related note: how far down does culpability run? In finance, bonuses and similar are subject to clawbacks in cases of wrongdoing. Should that be the case for senior coders at these firms?
Nice moral question! For me criminal and civil liability: Equity partners / holders - please yes. Non equity and not abundantly proven operating in a criminal activity - please no. The in between - civil action in order to prove intent, not criminal. Culpability is a fluid concept. Once you know it’s fishy and don’t get out you bear a lot of culpability in my book. But if one is working for a wage and working on detailed problems given to you without the big picture (the ‘Snow Crash’-coder) then it’s another case.
At the end of the day most of Western society operates without any repercussions for bankers, government officials etc for what I perceive as corrupting behavior. The powers that be seem fine with that and even in countries where populists come to power, that balance hardly seems to move. I don’t think I can expect balanced law and order reform from populists, but I keep hoping. Rome got it right a few times in their thousand year empire (not to mention the many centuries where they got it wrong from the common man’s perspective).
I wonder who the "They" are in this story. They remind me of a high yield stock investment product I was suckered into and lost everything on around 2008. Every generation will have to learn "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch".
