Can there be something good we could say about Bernie Madoff?
Madoff carried out a billion dollar Ponzi scheme over a 20 year period. Many good but unsuspecting nonprofits were harmed.
However this article points out something that Madoff did inadvertently that we can be grateful for.
A couple of artists had given Madoff their life savings and in the early stages of his Ponzi scheme he made them quite a bit of money.
They then made serious progress on their project. By the time that Madoff stopped generating funds for them they had spent all their money and were broke. Dirt broke.
What was their project?
They were building houses that were totally uncomfortable with slanted bumpy floors, windows in irrelevant locations and walls without doors. Their theory was that having to struggle daily with one's environment would lead to a significant increase in lifespan…. to immortality.
Increasing lifespan significantly is one of the oldest con games known to man. Think of Ponce de Leon and the fountain of youth.
It doesn't bother me that one Madoff failure resulted in the failure of two other con artists. In fact it is a case where a bad person turned out to be good for the many others who would've been gullible enough to buy into this immortal project.
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What the two artists did, Arakawa and Gins, did was interesting if treated solely as art.