[Retric]

It’s not about the Gambling, it’s the fact these businesses are collecting a large number of easy victims in once place.

Imagine you’re a loan shark. Which of the following seems like a good place to look for customers: upscale restaurant, movie theater, random bar, theme park, baseball stadium, city park, or a sports betting venue.

[dist-epoch]

Imagine you're a luxury watch thief. Which of the following seems like a good place to look for customers: upscale restaurant, ... or a sports betting venue.

https://robbreport.com/style/watch-collector/luxury-watch-th...

[watwut]

By customers you mean "people to sell stolen watches to"? Cause if that is the question, neither of these is a good place. Affluent people wont buy obviously stolen watches directly in the restaurant, they will go through middleman that makes them look legit.

And people being there to bet wont be buying watches that much either.

[Retric]

Hanging out at the same restaurant is a terrible idea for a watch thief, you will be caught over time.

That’s not an issue for the loan shark.

[kriops]

Right. In other words, no one's God-given, negative rights are being infringed upon.

[Retric]

Rights are merely a simplification of complex interactions. Societies are more focused on what benefits themselves than such simplification.

The minimal effectiveness of enhanced interrogation plus the desire of the population not to risk being so interrogated means people are generally apposed to such. Tracking down a nuclear threat is considered something of an exception to this stance by the average person.

[kriops]

This is a simple fallacy.

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.

[Retric]

It’s not a rejection of the existence of God-given rights.

It’s a rejection of the idea that people’s list of them would be consistent through time. In 1,000 years people may come up with a list of God-given rights, but it won’t be the same list you use.

As such trying to come up with a list of God-given rights from a human perspective is inherently a flawed undertaking. God is beyond human comprehension.

[kriops]

Rights are not something you enumerate, i.e., they are not a “list.” The underlying idea of God-given rights is, simply put, that your freedom ends where mine begins and vice versa.

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.

[Retric]

> ends where mine begins and vice versa

That tipping point isn’t fixed.

> furthermore, does not change over time

Except it does “them’s fighting words” only died out very recently, but it provides a starkly different boundary between my rights and your rights.

Ritualized lethal combat was a thing for very long time, and took an incredibly long time to go away. Trial by combat and dueling grows out of a fundamentally different ethical framework not just a lack of technology. It seems antithetical to Christianity today, but that wasn’t always the case.