Shkreli

[Steven Koteff]

In light of the clock stuff, I wonder if you guys have any nuanced thoughts
on this Shkreli dude. (
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/12/business/martin-shkrelis-latest-plan-to-sharply-raise-drug-price-prompts-outcry.html
)

Maybe it doesn't even allow for much nuance because it's so
one-dimensionally evil. Actually I find it kind of fascinating for that
reason--he's like a comic book villain almost. Like a character out of
Batman. Ditto Trump, really.

I'll tell you what, guys, as someone who attended two relatively
high-powered colleges/MBA-breeding-grounds in the last ten years, and who
interacted with a lot of people who are going to be running the country,
this Shkreli guy doesn't seem that aberrant.

Reality has a liberal bias, it was reaffirmed on a thread here a few days
ago. Okay. I do think in a lot of ways the center of this country is
trending leftward (I mean, not *actually *leftward in any bedrock
ideological/enlightened sense, but at least in terms of contemporary
politics). And I think we'll see this bear out increasingly as the country
gets younger. I really do. And I think the Republican party knows this and
is attempting to use fear as ever, but in even more preposterous ways, to
sort of head off that current. I don't think it will really succeed.

But I do think that once the pendulum swings in the direction of the center
leaning leftward in the coming years, it will sort of free up some of the
most fundamentally-right-wing people to become increasingly open about
certain ideas we find abhorrent: xenophobia, unabated capitalism, etc. I
think Trump is an important sign of this. Of course he won't be elected,
but he is dangerous in other ways. More importantly though I think he is a
sign of something dangerous. He is a relic. He is what happens when the
wolf doesn't even bother to wear sheep's clothing anymore, right? Shkreli
is part of the next generation of the wolfpack. Ever a fucking arms race,
dudes.
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