The cherry-picking is not essential. And rarely ever is. For example, most of the book focused on imperialism (because it’s a fact of history) and how the agricultural revolution changed everything. This pseudo-intellectual article of either pure laziness or malice gave zero context to those points or the broader themes of the book. If you’ve read any of the Medium author’s other pieces, you’d know that’s his standard narrative, so the “hate crime” angle is par for the course.