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Originally Posted by catsittingstill
You brought up the metaphor, I think it's fair if Elfwreck gets to use it too.
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I guess, but it doesn't help if she misses the point of the metaphor.
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Originally Posted by catsittingstill
.... if a vague rule is being enforced inconsistently it is certainly an issue that it is 1) unfair and 2) not going to achieve its stated purpose and therefore not just unfair, but unfair for nothing.
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And again... any set of standards that is sufficiently flexible is going to be regarded by someone as "unfair."
This is not a situation which is anywhere near as clear-cut as speeding. That's why I am trying to limit the metaphor specifically to questions of "universal enforcement."
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Originally Posted by catsittingstill
I am proposing no standard at all beyond what is legal.
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I hate to break it to you, but....
In the US, at least, that standard is rather subjective and dynamic. At one point in the 1960s, one Supreme Court justice famously (infamously?) defined obscenity as "I know it when I see it." The current standards would be applied differently from one jurisdiction to the next.
Nor is Amazon in any way, shape or form obligated to sell anything and everything solely because it is legal.
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Originally Posted by catsittingstill
I think you are quite right to point out that no standard can be fair. Where we differ is that I think the right solution is "therefore we should have no standard" and you appear to think the right solution is "therefore we must not mind that pulling books is unfair."
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Close enough.
A bit more precise formulation is, "you're occasionally going to have casualties." This also appears to be a rare exception, not the start of a massive wave of expulsions.
I also regard forcing a retailer to sell a specific product as a much worse restriction on liberty than allowing any individual to sell their content via the retailer
of their choice. She has other outlets, and nothing is stopping her from pursuing them.
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Originally Posted by catsittingstill
But I do mind. And I think that in particular, your apparent expectation that the author herself should not mind, even though a chunk of her livelihood is on the line, is unreasonable and unrealistic.
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Well, there's a few problems with this position.
She is dealing with transgressive ideas and content. For better and for worse, that is not always going to be socially acceptable. (And let's be real, that is obviously part of the appeal for her and her audience.)
So if she's going to write that kind of material, she has to face the fact that she might not have access to mainstream retailers to distribute her works. (If this was Walmart instead of Amazon, none of us would even blink.)
I don't blame her for feeling confused and miffed, or trying to poke at the black box to see how it operates. At the same time, she knows what she's doing is regarded by many people -- and not just right-wing or religious extremists -- as socially unacceptable. It's unrealistic for her to expect it to be treated exactly the same as
Pride and Prejudice.
She's writing adult material. She ought to have adult expectations on how it's likely to get received.