> And while yes currently people do not live in a vacuum it is a very good starting point as humans are naturally selfish.

Humans are not naturally selfish. Snakes are naturally selfish. Most reptiles are naturally selfish. Humans are intrinsically social animals that rely on group coherence to survive. If humans were naturally selfish then basically all of society would not exist. American culture may reward selfishness, but that does not mean that we are naturally so.

> the argument isn't about about the REASON rights exist. The argument is about what they are and where they come from.

Tomato, tomahto. An argument about where rights come from is intrinsically an argument about why they exist. The definition of a right you're positing is that it's "something a person has intrinsically". While that may make your arguments that follow from that presupposition logically consistent, the presupposition itself has no merit, and therefore all of the arguments that follow from that definition rely on an unfounded assertion.

> As for the REASON rights exist well... There is no reason, that's like asking the reason why gravity exist or the reason natural laws exist or reason people exist. The answer quite literally is just because they do.

That's simply not true. You can look to the morality that other species have and you realize that what a particular animal deems as "moral" or not (which may stem from whatever their sense of a "right" is) relies entirely on the social structure of that animal, e.g. its sense of fairness, compassion, empathy, theory of mind.

> I was talking about these types of rights from the logical consistency standpoint. Said consistency is what often draws people to this definition of rights most often.

Fair point. However in my view, an argument's conclusions have no merits if the axiom itself is bad. Subscribing to an axiom because it gives you nice logical properties is a basically meaningless way to discover what our rights should be. My argument is that the entire position is flawed and anyone who uses the argument that rights exist because they're intrinsic are starting from a weak position, and thus all the conclusions that follow are weak. Using the logical consistency of the argument as a reason for using the original axiom is totally, fundamentally flawed because corollaries cannot be used to assert the axiom is true (it is a self-referencing logical loop). Using "intrinsic rights" as an argument means there is zero room for debate as everyone will then claim that their rights are true because they said so.

The problem with that argument is that it doesn’t account for the fact that there are differences in opinions on what rights even are. If rights simply existed in a cosmological sense then there should be concrete ways to prove that one right exists while another doesn’t. If it’s just “something you have” without further explanation, then the assertions you make about rights have no reason behind them. It’s just declaring by fiat that a right exists, without providing any argument for why it exists. Thus it’s an argument from opinion, not an argument from evidence. The argument is literally “it exists because it exists” which is woefully inadequate.

I agree with what you’re saying. Most people who make arguments about natural rights have not clearly defined what a right even is. Most take it to mean this right which is conferred to you by the laws of nature, or of some spiritual or natural moral obligation that is correct just because the morality of the universe deems it so. It’s a self referencing argument that has no basis. It’s true because it is.

The only logically consistent way you can define a right is that which is based on what you personally value. A personal value is an axiom because it is a self evident phenomenon, and natural rights are corollaries that stem from that axiom. As a social species, we value certain things such as cooperation, compassion, and mutually beneficial behaviors because that is what we evolved to do. This is why people generally agree on what a right should be but aren’t able to describe a logically consistent basis for why they feel that way. They are afraid to admit their values have no logical basis outside of biology.

Many other species of animals don’t have the same values as us. Many female spiders will cannibalize their mates after breeding. Hyenas will brutally murder their prey. Lions will murder the offspring of their competitors. We would say that no human has the right to act this way, but why do we then apply a different standard to animals? They certainly don’t feel guilt about their ways. It is because their values are different from ours. This also why some will disagree on whether or not a particular “right” should even exist in the first place. Should I have a right to own a gun? What about a tank? What about a nuclear bomb? At what point does owning an increasingly deadly weapon no longer become a right? The answer depends entirely on your values and what you deem appropriate. So it is with rights themselves.

The layoffs that have happened have basically reverted the headcount of many companies to what they were 6 to 12 months prior. This isn't as drastic as what many people are making it out to because headcounts saw meteoric rises the last couple of years. Many companies felt emboldened to make risky business bets during the roaring times of 2020 and 2021. They sucked away talent from smaller companies who couldn't pay as well, so now we'll likely revert to where we were a year ago.