What's funny is that after all of this, I genuinely don't know what you believe. Like, if you say "work at Amazon is modern slavery", then you could mean at lea

What's funny is that after all of this, I genuinely don't know what you believe. Like, if you say "work at Amazon is modern slavery", then you could mean at least two things: a. "Amazon employees work very hard, without proper remuneration or appreciation." (definition 1.1) b. "Amazon employees are coerced by economic circumstances in such a way that their 'choice' to work there is in fact no choice at all. They are forced to obey Amazon, and for all practical purposes become Amazon's property." (definition 1) So which is it? I'm not sure if you're saying that (b) is obviously true, or that (b) is obviously ridiculous. In the first case, I--and most Americans--disagree. In the second, I'm with you; but I can assure you that people exist who aren't. Indeed, there are people who consider proletarian labor in a capitalist state to be different in its form from chattel slavery, but equivalent in its essential substance. This isn't mainstream, but neither is it hard to find--like, read some Emma Goldman speeches. I'm pretty sure I'm not a total moron. So I'm not surprised that you would disagree with me, since anything relating to labor rights tends to be controversial; but I don't think my argument is quite so "embarrassingly stupid" as you keep saying. That leaves the possibility that I'm insincere--I'm building some kind of rhetorical hall of mirrors, trying to trick you into believing something that I want you to believe, using arguments that I think are false. I think that's what you meant by "concern trolling'. If my assumptions are wrong, please correct me. Did you read David Leonard's article? He is the chair of the "Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman". So if he's concern-trolling, then he's put extraordinary work into his backstory. Do you think his position is right, or wrong? How do his adjuncts differ from Amazon's warehouse workers? If my comparison between adjuncts and warehouse workers seems odd to you, remember that many of the adjuncts are actually earning less per hour, with worse protections against arbitrary dismissal. (If you think I just made that up, double-check--the job market for humanities profs is brutal.) I have no way to prove this, but I don't mean anything that I write here in a backhanded manner. I asked if you thought this was a normal way for people to interact, and you said "yep". It's not. I think you realize that, since you call me a "toxic person" above. You can read through my comment history here. While I often disagree with people, both I and the other party generally keep a civil and productive tone. I think that's possible here too--even if in the end, each of us continues to think the other is wrong--and I'm not giving up hope for that yet. And finally: There are many English dictionaries in the world. All of them are compiled by imperfect humans, doing their best to capture the definition that emerges from the ways that millions of humans use words to convey meaning. At their best, they're a trailing description of how language is used--to enter the dictionary, a meaning must already be in use. There's nothing magical about them, and especially nothing magical about the simplified ones you can get free online. Like, how did "fag" go from a common word for gay men, to an unacceptable slur, to something partially reclaimed and in some cases used in a friendly manner? The dictionaries followed this; they didn't lead it.