Oh man. I knew guys working at Enron (I lived in Houston at the time) when it all unwound. Here's three things:
1. One of the IT guys – in his early 20s — showed up in a brand new 350Z (stickers on). This was his "severance" pay. I'm pretty sure one of the upper-mgmt had bought it for themselves, but it was "about the right amount".
2. Another friend was in the accounting group — he had been out of school for just a month-or-so — and had been a tag-along to AA. He came to work one day and his boss looks at him and says "you, me, and X are moving to Switzerland. Today." I didn't see him for years. He had no idea what was going on.
3. I got a lot of swag. The last Enron BBQ had custom t-shirts made. On the front is the Enron logo. On the back are all their mottos? Things like "trust", "honesty", etc. It's one of my most treasured t-shirts of the dot-com era.
I didn’t have a direct connection to anyone at Enron, but in 2006 I was working at a small Democratic consultancy in Washington DC and we got a new office just off of K Street. After we moved in, we were digging around in closets to find ideal placement for equipment and found a rolled-up blueprint for the building in one of them. The details showed that it had been built out for Enron lobbying. We joked that we were going to be haunted by the ghost of Ken Lay — the former CEO of Enron — as he had just died and it was the top of the news.
It’s a chair of Theseus: had two new gas lifts, new arm pads and a new mesh base since I’ve had it. But the good thing about Aerons is that parts are easily available.
Gas lifts I got direct from HM who sent out engineers to fit them: not cheap but I didn’t trust myself to do it. The other parts were lightly used from eBay.
> 1. One of the IT guys – in his early 20s — showed up in a brand new 350Z (stickers on). This was his "severance" pay. I'm pretty sure one of the upper-mgmt had bought it for themselves, but it was "about the right amount".
> apparently someone thinks it's a good and funny idea to make a big joke out of a company that ruined people, and this is about as much oxygen as i'm inclined to give it
As if Enron hasn't been the butt of about a million jokes for the last 25 years.
I'm not sure why it became popular to denigrate people for making jokes about bad things.
Mel Brooks has the point of view that there are some things that are so bad that the only appropriate response is to make jokes about it.
It's ok to not like jokes if you find the topic hurtful, jokes don't have to please everybody. Everyone deals with trauma in their own way
At the same time declaring the unacceptablity of a joke because people suffered is to presume how those people feel about it and manage that suffering. Many of those people will manage it with humour themselves.
OK Making a joke
OK Criticizing a joke
x Implying disdain for a joke
x Implying a joke should not be made
OK Implying disdain for a criticism
OK Implying a criticism should not be made
I'm the person who originally called out the response. The issue I had with it was related to the "Implying a joke should not be made", but one step further. It's this common pattern I feel like has popped up in the last 10 years with social media that I find really annoying and manipulative.
The person in the post was implying that the joke shouldn't be made because some theoretical person somewhere might be offended by it. They aren't saying they're offended by it because most people don't care if they offend some random person on the internet. Instead they try to find a group that is disadvantaged and frame their offense at the joke as a attempt to protect that group. They're trying to create a scenario where either you agree with them or you're punching down. It's manipulative and gross and it's become such a staple of social media debates that I don't even think people realize when they do that.
I would actually have no problem if that person said, "I think it's offensive to make jokes about Enron and you shouldn't do that", but that isn't what they did. They're essentially trying to guilt trip people into agreeing with their opinion.
I think I basically agree with you, it raises my hackles when I see rhetorical devices being used to push positions I disagree with, it feels transparently manipulative in a way that is disrespectful to the audience (me)
But I think that you're overlooking some of the specifics of Molly's post, and this particular joke.
Molly believes that memecoins are basically Ponzi schemes. So what she claims that this joke is in bad taste it is not just because it is making fun of a famous case of financial fraud which ruined people, but crucially because of the context of launching and promoting another financial fraud.
edit: in her own words
> fwiw i don't really have an issue with someone doing an enron parody for parody's sake
>
> however i am concerned about a very suspiciously-timed memecoin that cropped up, and the possibility that this is all just a play to go viral to pump a token.
In general, I don't think you should distain or imply distain for much at all. Similarly dictating the actions of others should probably have a high bar.
If you are suggesting that I am implying distain for criticism or that critism should not be made, that was certainly not my intent. I would much rather question why it is happening, place it in context, and perhaps suggest alternatives, instead of taking a knee jerk "This is bad, you are bad" approach.
I think there is a difference between "I don't like the joke/topic" and "apparently..."
The latter points out the obvious (of course someone wanted to make the joke, it was made) simply to try to garner sympathy and paint the joke-teller in a negative light.
Do you mean that Molly is going too far by not just criticizing the joke, but also, by implication, criticizing the joke-teller?
If Molly had said "I don't think that this joke is funny, and it is in poor taste to make light of victims of accounting fraud" do you think that would have been better and wouldn't have implied anything about the joke-teller?
Will probably be one of the more ethical players in the crypto space. I'm excited for my electricity prices to go back down, currently paying ~$85 to PGE for a "delivery fee" which is absolutely criminal
This article is a much better analysis than anything I'd seen before about the rise and fall of Enron. An attempt to really dig into how and why it appeared to be and felt like an unstoppable rocketship of brilliance at the time that damn near everyone bought into, not just a hurr durr it's a bunch of fraud take.
I'm also really into collecting swag from defunct companies—Enron, Lehman Brothers, and Nortel are my favorites. Lately, though, it feels like it's getting harder and harder to find anything from these companies on eBay or Etsy.
If Enron had issued their original shares on a blockchain, there would be people queuing up to insist that minor details like all their execs going to jail for lying to pump the price were irrelevant because their fixed supply made them an excellent store of value....
Don't worry more than enough grandmothers, young boys etc will be buying crypto as the market heats up and people like Marc Andreessen, Jake Paul etc look to offload their holdings.
This has got to be some kind of performance art? What's next? Madoff investments? Epstein airlines? Jimmy Saville daycare centre? R. Kelly women's shelter?
But really, that website just reads like a parody. Then again, with these delusional crypto people one can never be sure...
Oh man. I knew guys working at Enron (I lived in Houston at the time) when it all unwound. Here's three things:
1. One of the IT guys – in his early 20s — showed up in a brand new 350Z (stickers on). This was his "severance" pay. I'm pretty sure one of the upper-mgmt had bought it for themselves, but it was "about the right amount".
2. Another friend was in the accounting group — he had been out of school for just a month-or-so — and had been a tag-along to AA. He came to work one day and his boss looks at him and says "you, me, and X are moving to Switzerland. Today." I didn't see him for years. He had no idea what was going on.
3. I got a lot of swag. The last Enron BBQ had custom t-shirts made. On the front is the Enron logo. On the back are all their mottos? Things like "trust", "honesty", etc. It's one of my most treasured t-shirts of the dot-com era.
I didn’t have a direct connection to anyone at Enron, but in 2006 I was working at a small Democratic consultancy in Washington DC and we got a new office just off of K Street. After we moved in, we were digging around in closets to find ideal placement for equipment and found a rolled-up blueprint for the building in one of them. The details showed that it had been built out for Enron lobbying. We joked that we were going to be haunted by the ghost of Ken Lay — the former CEO of Enron — as he had just died and it was the top of the news.
You must place the blueprint on his grave, lest you be cursed forever!....yarg!
I’m sitting on an ex-Enron Aeron right now, one good thing to come out of their original collapse and the following London-office fire sale.
Wow, I knew Aeron’s were good, but 25 years of use?
It’s a chair of Theseus: had two new gas lifts, new arm pads and a new mesh base since I’ve had it. But the good thing about Aerons is that parts are easily available.
> But the good thing about Aerons is that parts are easily available.
The tilt lock on mine recently broke. Any suggestions on where to look for replacements?
Gas lifts I got direct from HM who sent out engineers to fit them: not cheap but I didn’t trust myself to do it. The other parts were lightly used from eBay.
25 years doesn’t seem like a long time for a desk chair to me.
I have an IKEA desk chair I bought (from IKEA) for under $100 in 2010 that is in great shape, other than the fake leather flaking from the arms.
I would expect an Aeron-priced chair to last longer than I do.
AA?
The accounting firm that collapsed for signing off on Enron's fraudulent financials.
Arthur Anderson.
Thomas A. Anderson is back!
Nit: Andersen, not Anderson.
Alcoholics anonymous?
significant organizational overlap there
> 1. One of the IT guys – in his early 20s — showed up in a brand new 350Z (stickers on). This was his "severance" pay. I'm pretty sure one of the upper-mgmt had bought it for themselves, but it was "about the right amount".
I wouldn't even be all that mad
[dead]
This is a parody apparently
https://bsky.app/profile/molly.wiki/post/3lcdqpash6q2a
> apparently someone thinks it's a good and funny idea to make a big joke out of a company that ruined people, and this is about as much oxygen as i'm inclined to give it
As if Enron hasn't been the butt of about a million jokes for the last 25 years.
I'm not sure why it became popular to denigrate people for making jokes about bad things.
Mel Brooks has the point of view that there are some things that are so bad that the only appropriate response is to make jokes about it.
It's ok to not like jokes if you find the topic hurtful, jokes don't have to please everybody. Everyone deals with trauma in their own way
At the same time declaring the unacceptablity of a joke because people suffered is to presume how those people feel about it and manage that suffering. Many of those people will manage it with humour themselves.
> It's ok to not like jokes if you find the topic hurtful
But it's not okay to say so?
It is ok to say that you didn't like it. The line is when you imply that it was wrong to have made it.
I feel like saying "Someone thinks it's a good and funny idea..." Carries the implication of distain and that the joke shouldn't have been made.
Express yourself, but be compassionate, don't bully, shame, school, or any other emotive attack.
Am I understanding this right?
I'm the person who originally called out the response. The issue I had with it was related to the "Implying a joke should not be made", but one step further. It's this common pattern I feel like has popped up in the last 10 years with social media that I find really annoying and manipulative.
The person in the post was implying that the joke shouldn't be made because some theoretical person somewhere might be offended by it. They aren't saying they're offended by it because most people don't care if they offend some random person on the internet. Instead they try to find a group that is disadvantaged and frame their offense at the joke as a attempt to protect that group. They're trying to create a scenario where either you agree with them or you're punching down. It's manipulative and gross and it's become such a staple of social media debates that I don't even think people realize when they do that.
I would actually have no problem if that person said, "I think it's offensive to make jokes about Enron and you shouldn't do that", but that isn't what they did. They're essentially trying to guilt trip people into agreeing with their opinion.
I think I basically agree with you, it raises my hackles when I see rhetorical devices being used to push positions I disagree with, it feels transparently manipulative in a way that is disrespectful to the audience (me)
But I think that you're overlooking some of the specifics of Molly's post, and this particular joke.
Molly believes that memecoins are basically Ponzi schemes. So what she claims that this joke is in bad taste it is not just because it is making fun of a famous case of financial fraud which ruined people, but crucially because of the context of launching and promoting another financial fraud.
edit: in her own words
https://bsky.app/profile/molly.wiki/post/3lcdurxh5mk2mAh, with the additional context that makes a little more sense. I just saw the single post and wasn’t aware that it was a bit tongue in cheek
In general, I don't think you should distain or imply distain for much at all. Similarly dictating the actions of others should probably have a high bar.
If you are suggesting that I am implying distain for criticism or that critism should not be made, that was certainly not my intent. I would much rather question why it is happening, place it in context, and perhaps suggest alternatives, instead of taking a knee jerk "This is bad, you are bad" approach.
Have I not done that?
> Have I not done that?
No. My impression was that you were saying Molly's comment went too far and that she shouldn't have made it.
> It is ok to say that you didn't like it. The line is when you imply that it was wrong to have made it.
Maybe we have different ideas about what it means to "cross a line", it's an imprecise idiom.
I think there is a difference between "I don't like the joke/topic" and "apparently..."
The latter points out the obvious (of course someone wanted to make the joke, it was made) simply to try to garner sympathy and paint the joke-teller in a negative light.
Do you mean that Molly is going too far by not just criticizing the joke, but also, by implication, criticizing the joke-teller?
If Molly had said "I don't think that this joke is funny, and it is in poor taste to make light of victims of accounting fraud" do you think that would have been better and wouldn't have implied anything about the joke-teller?
I believe that's the crux, though I don't have a dog in the fight either way so I'm just guessing.
Without reason, you should assume that an intelligent audience can identify humor from malice or ignorance.
Everyone wants to hear you laugh, many are willing to hear you out if you suffer, nobody wants to hear anyone whine or bitch.
I mean you're allowed to do pearl clutching just don't be surprised when people call you out on it.
Dude people make 9/11 jokes. Tragedy plus time is comedy.
In that case, they should post a searchable archive of the Enron email data set (https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~enron/) as a "webmail" interface.
Yeah exactly. That would be funny. And a real parody.
Must be a well-funded parody, since they took out a full page ad in the Houston newspaper.
How is this parody? There is no 'funny' in it. Funny would be if it would be clearly tongue-in-cheek.
But yeah good find about that clause.
Fools parting from their money never gets old.
It's a "parody" in the same way that youtube pranks are "just a prank bro"
The kind of idiots who do this stuff think it's a get out of jail free card for bad behavior. DOGE was also a "joke"
Coffeezilla made a 7min video on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRklIlxciaM
For those too young for Enron, watch the documentary "The smartest guys in the room" :)
That Jeff Skilling was a bad boy!
Will probably be one of the more ethical players in the crypto space. I'm excited for my electricity prices to go back down, currently paying ~$85 to PGE for a "delivery fee" which is absolutely criminal
This article is a much better analysis than anything I'd seen before about the rise and fall of Enron. An attempt to really dig into how and why it appeared to be and felt like an unstoppable rocketship of brilliance at the time that damn near everyone bought into, not just a hurr durr it's a bunch of fraud take.
https://mattlakeman.org/2020/04/27/explaining-blaming-and-be...
I will pay top (possibly imaginary) dollar for original swag from the following companies:
- Enron
- Lehman Brothers
- Bear Sterns
- Madoff Securities
- FTX
I'm also really into collecting swag from defunct companies—Enron, Lehman Brothers, and Nortel are my favorites. Lately, though, it feels like it's getting harder and harder to find anything from these companies on eBay or Etsy.
Things from non-defunct companies of that time are hard to find too. That late 90s to 2000s aesthetic is the current throwback style. Y2K drip.
eBay has what you seek
No LTCM?
Fitting. Enron and crypto go together.
If Enron had issued their original shares on a blockchain, there would be people queuing up to insist that minor details like all their execs going to jail for lying to pump the price were irrelevant because their fixed supply made them an excellent store of value....
Then we'll have more of Enron and Trump in the next 4 years, the writing is on the wall. I wouldn't touch any of that crypto with a 10 foot pole.
Don't worry more than enough grandmothers, young boys etc will be buying crypto as the market heats up and people like Marc Andreessen, Jake Paul etc look to offload their holdings.
Maybe my Enron stock will rise above $0.00?
Oh man, that reminds me of the rolling blackouts in California.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000–2001_California_electrici...
It worked so well for RadioShack!
https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/22/22849943/radioshack-defi...
Looks like the main point of the site is to sell Enron branded merch.
it's a joke, by the person who did Birds Aren't Real: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/who-is-behind-enron-...
Is Mr. Robot's E-Corp, or Evil Corp as Elliot thinks of it, a parody of Enron?
hypothetical future value accounting ™
This has got to be some kind of performance art? What's next? Madoff investments? Epstein airlines? Jimmy Saville daycare centre? R. Kelly women's shelter?
But really, that website just reads like a parody. Then again, with these delusional crypto people one can never be sure...
Seems legit. Wink wink
Once a con, always a con.
Evil Corp!