Yes, the pyramids were Pharoahic burial building project, but they also provided jobs, housing and food for lots of people. The desire of kings and nobles to live in grand style meant that to enjoy such a life they had to have lots and lots of worker bees around create such fancy houses and provide a never ending supply of fancy goods and services for them.
It's simple. You don't have an army of rich lawyers to thwart them. You are an easier target.
I contribute book reviews on Amazon (the Canadian site) on occasion (no, I don't use my full name there).
And I could take it as an attack on my person. I simply choose not to, because I believe there's enough nuance described for me to make that separation. If I'm wrong, so be it, but I don't need to make an incredibly self-deprecating statement to make someone else seem unreasonable in their worldview. There's no value to that kind of defeatist claim, except as an argument to absurdity (or general nihilism, but I've never gotten that notion from you).
Yes they are. For example, that dude Grady Harp apparently splits his time between being a surgeon and writing crazy numbers of Amazon book reviews. Point is, the internet has extreme participation inequality and most of the content you see is by a tiny fraction of the users. Those people tend to be pretty unusual
There is no possible way that any one real person could write that many reviews. For one thing, it's expected that they've actually read the book, and how could they possibly have time for that if they spend all their time writing?
Actually, he looks pretty suspicious. It looks like virtually all of his reviews are glowing 5 star reviews. I think he takes solicitations from publicists. It could be multiple people, too. Another one was this lady Harriet Klausner (she died a few years ago). It looks like she was a single, real person, but she didn't actually read the books, at least not closely.
There's a rather snobbish, nose-in-the-air Star Trek tie-in novelist who posts on TrekBBS (Christopher L. Bennett), who once boasted that Harriet Klausner just loved one of his novels (he also boasted that Kevin J. Anderson did, as well, about a different novel).
I've read the link and I understand the precedent. I'm also no expert (or even close) on US law. However there are distinct differences between judges ruling on a case and private companies that I feel I should raise, as well as citing this link about whom ICE actually arrests.
Not that, for me personally, that would make an argument to absurdity a good thing, anyhow. They're inherently reductionist, and rarely useful in meaningful discussions (opinionionion, etc).
Indeed, you are not talking about what I am talking about. I don't think you are arguing in bad faith, but you are reaching pretty hard here.
As for PM exchanges, I can't comment on them, or be reasonably expected to know them!
Oh, I definitely think people should be expected to clarify a ton of stuff. I was just surprised (again, in a relatively short space of time) at the tactic chosen. It's a bit meta, but probably the only point I actually still disagree on, so I'll go with it: I stand by my criticism of arguments to absurdity - especially in this context. If you're getting snarky (however mildly, even just to illustrate a point) over apparently how much of a terrible person you are, not only does it indicate that the original argument isn't been taken seriously, but it's also a defensive statement to make. So, in two ways, you're indicating that there isn't an argument there. This criticism is kinda voided by the PM exchange, but just getting it out there on the record
I mean, I see what you're getting at, I just see Mary's post as far less specifically-targeted than that. There was a lot more room for nuance than calling a group of people literally stupid (as supposed to saying they were stupid for doing so, for example - as usual, the wording makes all the difference).
