His video series on investing and chemistry are like an adult version of Khan Academy. Martin literally sat on-air for weeks on end with a Chemistry textbook and went chapter-by-chapter explaining each topic in pretty good detail.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8gjB1PSXv_oAUSAQ16S0fA/vid...

This gives me an idea to create a hand-curated list, "Useful Knowledge From Terrible People".

> I also enjoyed his trollish sense of humor.

I think that makes the title that much easier to understand. I'm an old-fuddy-duddy (for example, I say things like 'fuddy-duddy'), but to me there are two forms of trolling.

One where you're doing it to get their reaction and entertainment when they get it. I find this usually fun - the person doing it has fun, any audience has fun, and the person has that anguish-relief-joy cycle. When you do this to someone, you aren't gaining joy from the first emption your stoking, you get joy when it's found out and that emotion changes. The trolling itself is building anticipation. An example: My wife bought me a PalmPilot (back when those were a thing) but secretly took it out of the package to charge it, then gifted the surprisingly-not-much-lighter box to me. After my moment of feeling like I'd have to wait longer for my new toy (to try and return it) she revealed it fully-charged, and we had a laugh.

The second way is subtly different. The trolls are still poking at a person's emotions. They can SAY the target should get it and enjoy it ("relax, it's just a joke"), but really the goal is to entertain the troll and any audience. The targets of this trolling don't get a laugh. They get anxiety/hate/fear/dread/panic/anger or whatever, and the troll gains satisfaction from that, not from when that ends. Example: Posting political/moral thoughts that you don't have, but that are deliberately chosen to invoke outrage within the forum you are posting to, then moving on to the next once that's gotten enough reaction.

I'm obviously biased, but while I can appreciate the first kind, the second kind just seems to be increasing the misery in the world for a laugh. Laughs aren't so hard to get in other ways. Misery is miserable, by definition.

So if someone is described as a "troll" I tend to be leery rather than eager. When I encounter someone, it's very easy to find EITHER kind of trolling annoying. Perhaps because your brain is trying to fit people into a context/schema and trolling disrupts that. Brains don't tend to react well to that sort of thing. Known friends and family don't cause that reaction.

I don't know anything about Shkreli other than what I've read, but if you say "most hated man in America" and "trollish sense of humor", my instinct is to nod knowingly.

Love this. Glee from seeing somebody else suffer belongs in the 17th century, not today, and whatever "humor" value it may have does not give cause to dissociate it from its very nature of cruelty.

The old internet adage is that anonymity and lack of face-to-face interaction is what's caused this rude sense of humor to flourish.

The second is really the original essence of trolling. Evoking a reaction from people by pretending to be something you're not. Ken M is a classic example of this.

I don't mind it that much because I think it is a good reminder to people that they shouldn't take the internet too seriously.

> For someone called the "most hated man in America", he actually seemed like a nice person.

Not to be an ass, but many horrible people are skilled at manipulating an audience and crafting a particular persona. This man couldn't have defrauded his investors without a great degree of charisma and the ability to appear trustworthy and likable.

Used to watch them as well, really bright guy, entirely self taught. I TA'd organic chem and he might have had a deeper understanding than I do.

He really needed to learn when to stop talking, and where to draw the line with his actions, sadly.

He's exceptionally intelligent and I think he also has one or more kinds of personality disorder

>he actually seemed like a nice person. I also enjoyed his trollish sense of humor.

I see where you're coming from and don't want to get pedantic, but isn't as trollish sense of humor by definition at least a little mean-spirited?

The funniest comedy routines I have ever seen by the most prominent comedians are almost always disparaging of a person, group, or idea held dear by many people. Simmer on that and ask yourself if mean-spiritedness really matters in this context.

> seemed like a nice person

> ask yourself if mean-spiritedness really matters in this context

Yes?

> The funniest comedy routines I have ever seen by the most prominent comedians are almost always disparaging of a person, group, or idea held dear by many people.

I suggest that says more about you than about anything else.