Speculation as gambling, and the idea that this wasn't valuation for capital raising purposes, but to find "the next biggest fool", seems to me to be the point of the article.

Further, a stock being sold short to the point where it was greater than 100% of the float isn't insidious, just indicative that the borrower of the stock isn't selling it back to the same person those shares were borrowed from. It's analogous to the fractional reserve currency system, and it creates liquidity / velocity, but it isn't de facto bad.

Now, was it really stupid for Melvin et al to push it that far short, making it an incredibly easy squeeze? Heck yeah.