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>Like Morgan on the Walking Dead. I do believe Martin is a good guy on the wrong path.

Not sure how you can defend that with this floating around.

    I’m definitely the real fucking deal. This
    is not a fucking act. I threatened that
    fucking guy and his fucking kids because
    he fucking took $3 million from me and
    he ended up paying me back. He called my
    bluff. He said, “You’re not fucking going to
    go after me.” [I said] “Yes I motherfucking
    will.” I had two guys parked outside of
    his house for six months watching his every
    fucking move. I can get down. I don’t think
    RZA knows that. I think he thinks I’m
    some powder puff white guy CEO that’s
    got too much money. No. No, no, no.

http://mic.com/articles/125657/turing-ceo-martin-shkreli-wan...

http://hiphopdx.com/interviews/id.2825/title.martin-shkreli-...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10750928

I don't know, I take that as a nerdy white dude who desperately seeks attention trying to impress the hip hop heads out there (that kind of talk is extremely common in the rap game).

I don't know whether he meant that particular statement but if you watch his stream for a while it becomes clear that he is a delusional sociopath.

or, you know, an insulated, spoiled kid. but that would require empathy

He grew up poor.

The two are not mutually exclusive, but point taken

I disagree with this form of dismissal as a rule.

If someone says something and then says "it was a joke", "it was a game", "I was just making a point", that doesn't cancel out the words and their impact - social atmosphere is not an intellectually pristine environment. You will change the atmosphere by yelling "fire" in a crowded theater and once it's done, there is no going back.

Likewise, if we dismiss someone's statement because "it was attention seeking", "they didn't really mean it", "something was misunderstood", "it's just part of the culture", that also doesn't cancel it out.

There are plenty of young, impressionable folks who latch on to ideas unthinkingly because they cannot take anything seriously at their age and level of maturity. But that is not usually the case with a 32-year-old adult like Shkreli, or people in hiphop culture, or people in actual street gangs.

Posturing language exists to make a claim to credibility. It serves a real purpose and is used in an instrumental way, for the purpose of conducting business on the terms of those who use it. The people who exploit this language the best contain in their personality some particular combination of motivation and lack of restraint, enabling their threats to be real to some degree.

Shkreli already displays such a personality among multiple facets. There is no reason to deny him the possibility of simply being a bad human being who is in need of careful monitoring by society.

>>> "You will change the atmosphere by yelling "fire" in a crowded theater and once it's done, there is no going back."

>>> "Posturing language exists to make a claim to credibility. It serves a real purpose and is used in an instrumental way, for the purpose of conducting business on the terms of those who use it."

>>> "enabling their threats to be real to some degree."

>>> "There is no reason to deny him the possibility of simply being a bad human being who is in need of careful monitoring by society."

Do you realize what you're advocating here? Also, referencing "fire in a crowded theater" is usually looked upon as a canary for those who don't know what they're talking about in regards to free speech

I don't think I'm following, other than the implication that chipsy is ignorant about free speech. For the sake of discussion, why not spell out your concerns?

FYI, the "fire in a crowded theater" phrase comes from Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. in Schenck v. United States[1]. Writing for the majority (actually it was a unanimous decision), Holmes wrote:

The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.

Many people nod their heads at this example, but they forget that Holmes was using it to justify the imprisonment of a man for leafletting against the draft. Those who earnestly reference "fire in a crowded theater" would likely stop if they knew its history. If anything, it argues against their point.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States

The idea that the history of a phrase or word dictates its meaning is patently absurd. If that were the case, you would be equally appalled by a man calling himself an "ordinary guy"… which comes from Guy Fawkes, a failed 17th century religious terrorist.

I don't think that's the same at all. I gave an example of a unique phrase where people agree with the original sentiment –even the exact words– of Holmes, only to backtrack when they discover what those words were used to justify. Your example is a single word whose various meanings are now completely disconnected from Guy Fawkes or religious extremism.

Well, no, I was specifically responding to the idea that he's a bad person because he made a few particular comments in a fricken' hip hop interview.

> Not sure how you can defend that with this floating around.

I bet the author of the parent comment to yours — like myself — was ignorant of this.

Nonetheless, being beat up in jail prior to being convicted of a crime (or after) isn't exactly part of what is supposed to be a fair judicial system.

We ought not to punish people for merely being accused of or indicted for a crime. Today it's this asshole, tomorrow it could be you.

People have really forgotten that its supposed to be "innocent until proven guilty".

Too many people have faith in the judicial system. I wish they would all have to defend themselves, just once, from an unsubstantiated criminal charge.

They would find out, very quickly, just how scary the system can be.

My lawyer friends tell me it is actually "innocent until proven broke" -- lucky for him, this guy has that area covered.

I read this and don't think of Shkreli as a powder puff white guy, but as someone who probably needs to puff a little less of the white powder.

Him being of albanian background, I wouldn't be suprised if he was connected to underground as well, specially seing him threatening people like this. This is definitely their style.

The guy was brought up in the US. Deducing that he's connected to underground based on his parent's origin is mental. If anything, the hyper-macho behavior is result of American upbringing.

He obviously is somehow obsessed with the Wu-Tang Clan, so I'd guess his life philosophy is a based on a combination of rap gangsters and wall street traders. Both very American. Sorry for oversimplifying.

Albanian is tribal organization and no wonder he would find role models in asian gangs. I can't know but seems likely to me that he picked up a lot of this at home.

"I do believe Martin is a good guy on the wrong path."

What makes you think he's a good guy? All the evidence points to the contrary, both morally and apparently ethically and legally based on this indictment.

This is so important. I also believe that this is the central conflict between the disenfranchised and the entitled. Yes, we despise evil, but we do nothing but help create it by turning on those we perceive as bad people the second we're given the go ahead.

"I can do better as a human being with empathy towards someone who is broken; sad and probably doesn't understand why people hate him."

If we ever want to stop hatred, if we ever want to stop violence, if we ever want to fundamentally stop the same alienated people who turn to mass violence as their destructive outlets, we have to do it with empathy.

This article is great, and I post it every time the gun control argument comes up after every mass shooting that comes up:

http://markmanson.net/school-shootings

Empathy is the only thing that will save us. It might not save us all, but we have to try.

>>The Wolf of Wall Street was a glorification of this type of behavior and a lot of people saw Jordan in that movie as a "Hero"

Interesting analogy, and I'm glad you pointed this out. I was disgusted by Wolf of Wall Street, and even more disgusted by how exalted Belfort became after. So many friends and acquaintances admired and aspired towards what they saw in the film - that was the worst part of it for me. I just can't relate.

OT but i'm happy to see someone else was also disgusted so much by that movie. I'm not a moralist but the glorification of such degenerated values in that movie was horrible to watch.

The glorification in the movie was there to make this exact point. Be disgusted that people took it as some sort of how-to be successful guide. Don't shoot the messenger.

That's the meaning I actually took from the movie, but I'm still not sure that was the purpose of the authors. A lot of people didn't understand it that way anyway.

Edit: tried to take, because it's still hard to assimilate

I loved the movie!

It was great inspiration for me to hope that one day I could hope to take a bunch of SSRI drugs and go on a murderous rampage in some random Wall Street hedge fund office!

(I'm mostly kidding)

Loved the movie. Doesn't mean I want to be like him. One of my favorite movies, The Talented Mr Ripley, leaves you feeling unsatisfied about the conclusion-- not a typical Hollywood ending.

Boiler Room is also a favorite, which of course is related to Wolf of Wall Street.

Anyone who got that message from the film is completely oblivious to its point. A similar movie with a more extreme premise would be American Psycho. No one aspired to kill prostitutes after seeing that film, I have no idea why Wolf of Wall Street is different.

I went to a talk by Alan Parker (probably more than 20 years ago). In it he talked about watching a screening of his film Midnight Express. There is a scene in the film where Billy, the main character, bites out the tongue of another man at the end of a fight. He intended the scene to be tragic. It was supposed to show how prison had brought Billy to a place where he had completely lost everything he used to be. But, to Parker's dismay, some of the audience cheered because all they could see was the vengeance that Billy was taking on the other character.

Parker said that he resolved after that not to use violence in a film in that way again.

To go anecdote for anecdote, I have never met anyone who has expressed admiration of or aspiration to what they saw in that film. I think your disgust and inability to relate is the more common view, but maybe I'm just naive.

A lot of people in finance think it's awesome, and generally speaking those guys run in different circles from computer people. Think coke and strippers.

While you are correct that hoping he gets beat up in jail isn't right, that does not suddenly mean he's some sort of martyr. We are accountable for our actions and his actions were to buy up drugs that people depend on and then gouge the shit out of them because they have few/no other options. No matter what way you slice it he is not a "good guy".

>My first reaction to his arrest was joy and then I saw comments about him getting "beat up in jail" to put it lightly.

>People who say those kinds of things are no better than him. Possibly worse.

If wishing bad things would happen to someone who has done bad things and actually raising the price of AIDS drugs fiftyfold to get rich are anywhere near each other in your moral calculus, I'm terrified of your moral calculus (especially that it may be common.)

The way I imagine it, rather than getting beaten up, the guy is simply held down and cut once with a razor. The other inmates take turns spitting into his wound and saying, "I wish I could afford the medications that keep my HIV under control. And now you do, too."

But I just imagine that. It's not like I would ever attempt to actually set up such a thing.

Or I imagine that he goes in, and most everyone is kept segregated under extremely high security, with leg shackles and spit masks. He is put into a cell, and his cell mate has a horribly scarred face, but a bright, friendly grin, insomuch as the scars allow it. That night, he wakes up, unable to move, as the razor blade digs into his face. "I used to have that pretty face. Why should you get to keep it?" The next morning, his cell mate is taken away to solitary. A few weeks later, after his wounds heal, he gets a new cell mate. Lo, it's Martin Shkreli! So he flashes a bright, friendly grin as he thinks about his hidden razor blade. Rod Serling narrates us out, talking about the prison where all the other prisoners are copies of you.

We need to imagine prison as a terrible place, where bad people get punished as they rightly deserve, because we need to believe that putting people inside actually somehow serves justice in a useful way.

He won't get beat up in jail because he deserves it, but because he will find no one inside willing to watch his back, and the other inmates will attempt to extort some of that pharma-CEO cash out of him while he is within their reach.

I felt sick reading that, I think you need to get yourself checked out.

It's not any worse than Dante Alighieri's Inferno, or the mythic punishments for Sisyphus, Tantalus, Prometheus, or Loki. Nor is it as tediously psychological as Sartre's No Exit (Huis Clos).

I assure you, I am well aware of the boundary between fact and fiction. I am actually a bit worried that you find words and imagination to be cause for concern. That fear leads to censorship, which is far worse than any of the fantasy blurbs I have ever written.

My real-life hope for Shkreli is that he will be very, very bored for about three to four years (if convicted), and that all the folks he (allegedly) defrauded are able to get some restitution. He doesn't even need to be beaten with meaty thug fists. He just needs to be kept away from productive workers and other people's money. And maybe also the cocaine.

He doesn't understand why people hate him because he can't step down from his ego trip enough to honestly consider the consequences of his actions. Of all the maligned people in the news deserving of sympathy, an unrepentant Wall Street CEO gloating about profiting by unconscionable means shouldn't rise to consideration.

The reason there's so much antipathy lately toward white-collar criminals is backlash against judges and prosecutors being sympathetic and lenient toward their fellow clean-cut professionals. That antipathy has only manifested in angry protests and op-eds by the powerless, not the prosecutorial and judicial decisions that Shkreli is in the hands of now.

You could say we're all good guys on some kind of path. The typical third-world warlord is 'just being "successful" as it was always defined to him.'

Everyone should get society's best attempt at impartial justice and a compassionate, non-violent, and restorative treatment. But poor folks like Eric Garner are the ones who've been lacking this justice. Shkreli will probably get probation, a fine, and some community service like the handful of executives offered up after the last financial crisis.

> if you can't see the damage you're doing you can't feel > guilty about it.

According to this piece, they feel guilty about it,

Former Drone Pilots Denounce 'Morally Outrageous’ Program | NBC News

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ1BC0g_PbQ

I agree with you on the jail comments not being appropriate but doing something through proxy doesn't make you less culpable. drone pilots still get ptsd (the ones with a conscience at least). Shkreli isn't a good guy on the wrong path, he's an actual psychopath and while I honestly don't think any non-violent criminals "deserve" the hell that is US prison, if it keeps him from exploiting and harming more people it's a net gain for society and that's what's important.

it's a net gain for society and that's what's important

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_monster

(Assumes cardinal utility, but it still works.)

Not talking about utilitarianism, I'm talking about social stability.

I'm not sure how incarcerating people deemed to prove a "net social loss" by some nebulous criteria promotes social stability. Hell, if we're going to be this loose, why not just kill them so no resources are spent for prisoner care?

Have you tried some self-awareness? That might help you understand the point being made.

>I do believe Martin is a good guy on the wrong path.

In the 'even the worst guy in the world is a good guy once you look past what ever issues result in them being evil' way?

>He's just being "successful" as it was always defined to him.

There are SO many ways I could run with this.

Honestly, I think one could try to make the argument that there are no evil people, just broken ones. Is that what you are trying to say? If not, I find it hard to justify this guy as a good guy otherwise.

I don't think anyone is comparing the moral code of this guy compared with the moral code of the people who are outraged about him.

Like most businesspeople he probably adopts the ethos of getting away with what he can within the law, and possibly bending the law where he can get away with it. Google's offshore profit laundering system is an example of a similar approach.

I think it's a mistake to believe this guy is all that different from average in his moral behavior. Most of us never get the opportunity to price pharmaceuticals, but chances are most business owners don't simply give away the product to those who want it.

Differentiating between customers wanting and needing a product is a slippery slope.

there are people that are good, but either mislead or on the wrong path of some sort. in this case, the person lacks certain part of human-ness called empathy, which you call out; that's a clinical condition called sociopathy. you may notice the irony of invoking empathy on someone who doesn't have it and likely doesn't understand it, having never felt it. high functioning sociopaths can be a very serious danger to any society they're in and you have a great example here.

Anyone who doesn't periodically reflect on the consequences of their actions is a bad person. Especially in a world in which our actions are increasingly being done "through proxy".