I have not made a single personal swipe in this entire comment tree. I have stated (implied) that certain views are not consistent with a cursory introduction to the topic at hand.

I absolutely assumed a basic familiarity with the concept of a state from a comment on the relationship between states. That is good faith and basic respect for the human you are conversing with as I view it.

Overall, I have kept a tone I would prefer be kept towards myself; fake politeness is just condescending.

That being said: Your site, your rules, and your power to arbitrarily interpret and enforce said rules. I.e., message received, regardless of my thoughts on your interpretation of events.

Other than that let's be very clear that there was no personal attack. You left out the part where I explain why I think the comment was made in bad faith. I.e. the part that makes it not a personal attack. And a part which I, upon request, elaborated on in the same comment tree.

As you said: Words matter.

This makes EU countries more reliable partners for cooperation than China. The same goes for the US from an European perspective, and even with everything going on over there it is still not remotely close.

All states are fundamentally adversaries because they have conflicting interests. To your point however, adversaries do indeed cooperate all the time.

If you are getting at the fact that it is sometimes beneficial for adversaries to collaborate (e.g., the prisoner dilemma) then I agree. And indeed, both Norway and Sweden would be completely lost if they declared war on the other tomorrow. But it doesn’t change the fundamental nature of the relationship.

Control Theory does not work (in the general) for politics for the simple reason that incentives are misaligned. That is to say that control theory itself obviosuly works, but for it to be a good solution in some political context you must additionally prove the existance of some Nash equilibrium where it is being correctly applied.

Edit: See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs (CGP Grey - Why Do All Governments Work the Same Way?)

Web technologies are an unrivaled technological marvel for what they are, but it is disingenuous to imply they represent anything near the peak of what we are capable of in the context of performance.

The idea, moreover, is the generalization of ethics to an environment with multiple actors, such as Earth. And it is, of course, inconsistent with many ethical systems: A competing idea in equally simple terms is “might makes right.”

And the idea, furthermore, does not change over time. So if you substitute it into my previous comment, you will see that the argument within holds.

Finally, and as a side note, I strongly agree that the state of possible actions, and as the “list” of possible infringements changes with, e.g., technology. An 1800s philosopher would, for example, never have considered the applicability of any theory of rights to the operation of a nuclear power plant.

1. My answer is not vague. You are refusing to look up the critical definition. 2. Everything you have brought up (except for the theism bit, which is just completely off-topic) was preemptively addressed in my initial comment.

Either you accept the definition of God-given rights, which is certainly not consistent with your opening statement.

Or you don’t, at which point any following argument regarding its proper usage is moot.

You seem to have gone with the latter, which makes your comment irrelevant. And that is regardless of its truthfulness. To be clear I disagree with it, but getting into that would contribute to derailing the conversation.

It is a well and widely understood term whose usage should not invite “correction”.

Referring to God-given rights invokes their definition, which should make the inconsistency I was referring to clear.

As guiding questions: What is the difference between negative and positive rights? And what are the relationship to the concept of “God-given” rights?

Since you would be extremely off-topic if you tried to extend this argument to, e.g., Daniel Negreanu engaging in a game of poker, I wanted to explicitly preclude individuals competently engaging in whatever activity is being deemed 'problematic.'

It was mostly to help the 'other side' stay on topic; otherwise, I could trivially refute their arguments by counterexamples, e.g., Daniel Negreanu.

If that is not intentional (which I suspect it is not, so no offense intended), then I believe a quick search on “God-given rights” should help you make whatever case you want to in a logically consistent manner. It is a well-defined concept that has a specific meaning over a specific domain. I get the feeling “negative rights vs. positive rights” might be a useful search phrase as well.