[epgui]

I'm not sure that I understand your point. I don't consider something worse just because it's called a war, and I don't mean to suggest in any way that this isn't a real and serious problem: in fact, I compared it to pollution, and I consider pollution to be a serious and urgent problem.

I just feel like the war metaphor is not great: it evokes unnecessary violence and connotes confrontation. We wage war against each other, but we can solve serious problems together. Neither war nor problem-solving are zero-sum games, arguably, but not everyone can win in war.

[Applejinx]

Yes, it does evoke unnecessary violence. If it's modern warfare and a guy is piloting a drone over a little screen and kills dozens of people, it's still war and violence even if he's not bayoneting them directly. If it's postmodern warfare and a guy is piloting a meme over a keyboard and kills hundreds of thousands of people, that's still war too. Ingenious war, but still war.