I completely agree with you. Our primary education system is in no small part based on the Prussian system, which was developed after losing a battle to French, with the purpose of raising children into troops that would hold the line even in the face of certain death. This autocratic system of education is sometimes cited as enabling the rise to power of the Nazi party.
Also, to clarify the prof mentioned specifically that triple damages was a result of the fact that this was a willful and knowing violation. So in fact he's actually absolutely right to demand 2-3 times damages. This article is wrong about him being wrong
The HBS prof got it "right" in that he pushed for triple damages which is the highest plausible outcome of this case and has the potential to scare the defendant. This is the kind of "right" that the HBS prof's consulting clients (he consults in advertising fraud) want, not the actual kind. This article is practically an ad for the prof.
The cell example is very cool. It's not a Markov chain though. The probability that a cell grows from size 2 to size 3 (in probabilistic notation, P(2->3|2) ), for instance, would be 2/(sum of all cell sizes), and the sum of all cell sizes is growing by 1 each period (assuming the unit of food given per period is 1, etc. etc.)