> For starters, cars are obviously harmful: People get killed in car accidents.

This comment is a truly impressive strawman. Strawman abound in fora like HN, and everyone (unwittingly or otherwise) is probably guilty of them here or there, but this one is really worthy of note. You took a word ("obviously") that _I didn't even use in my definition_ and claimed that I'm using it as a "criteria [sic]" (as opposed to just using it with some simple illustrative examples). I usually assume that perhaps I was unclear or that someone misunderstood my comment, but you're not even attempting to pretend that you're not wholly misrepresenting my comment so that you can attack a claim no one made.

My actual definition (which you completely ignored) is that the definition of harm is applied to things that are harmful _per se_. Note that I wasn't making any statement about what I believe in, I was describing a distinction which is fundamental to modern ethics and policy, all over the world. I'll ignore the half of your comment that's impotently flailing at a claim _that no one made_ (as described above); The half that actually approaches coherency is an attempt to devise a litmus test for what would fall under this definition and what wouldn't (i.e. how do you discern things that are "inherently" harmful from those that aren't, given that you can construct a scenario of harm around literally every action anyone takes ("breathing is harmful if you take the last gulp of air from someone's oxygen tank!!")).

TW: Use of the word "obvious"[1]

The obvious[1] litmus test here is: is it possible to conceive of an example of someone performing the action without causing harm? To put it another way, is the action separable from harm? This is quite obviously[1] true for the examples given above: drug use, religion, etc. You can dream of (and many here have probably experienced) a thousand instances of drug use and acts of religion that harmed no-one else. This is in stark contrast to theft, violating agreements, etc.

> Are you going to argue that violating agreements is always harmful? Almost always?.... Do you have any basis for assuming there aren't people out there that e.g. just don't care? (because there certainly are)

Are you kidding me? This is true by definition. Inasmuch as utility is expressed by people making an agreement and wanting to hold you to it, the violated party in the agreement is being harmed. Note that this makes no statement as to whether _net_ harm is being done, and of course that this entire comment is all under the assumption that the person being harmed in each case is considered to have full agency as an adult (e.g., most people wouldn't consider it harmful to remove something dangerous from your child's possession, even though in the context of an adult possessor that would be considered theft).

If I'm interpreting your latter statement correctly in the quote above, you're talking about violating an agreement with the other party's consent? That's not violating an agreement by any common usage of the phrase, that's just mutually agreeing to call off an agreement.....The word violation makes it clear that it's done without the consent of all parties involved.

> At the same time you claim drug use in the other category, despite the large number of deaths tied to drug use. Religion has been the catalyst for massive amounts of deaths too. To some of us religion are "obviously" harmful to others _per se_.

Sigh. You can't just put the words "per se" at the end of a sentence when you don't know what they mean. Words have meaning. Use them with care. Christ.

You're preaching to the choir when you talk about finding religion to be harmful overall. But again, it's not harmful _per se_. Using the litmus test described above, an act of religion that harms no-one else is me praying briefly before going to sleep. This act is easily separable from someone killing someone else in the name of religion. I honestly never thought I would have to explain this to anyone who wasn't a very small child (and even then, I probably wouldn't have cause to talk about why people murder each other).

> It becomes very hard to take your argument seriously when your "obviousness" criteria [sic] are so obviously subjective and used to avoid having to justify your claims.

An interesting question here is whether a grade-school level of reading comprehension unleashed in a forum full of (ostensible) adults is inherently harmful. /s

[1] You apparently have an allergy to the word "obvious", so I'll clarify for your benefit here. I'm saying this is obvious because the fundamentally basic thought process described here is part of the underpinning of almost literally every single moral system in the history of mankind (even the most theocratic ones). Most of the differences between more dated moral/legal systems and today is the level of bluntness we're willing to tolerate when deciding whether an act is likely to be separable from harm.