[J]ust as you cannot know anything about an economy without a market of exchanges of goods and services resulting in prices by which you can make decisions, you cannot know anything about society without a market of exchanges of commons resulting in prices by which you can make decisions.
Author: Curt Doolittle
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Markets Provide Information
[J]ust as you cannot know anything about an economy without a market of exchanges of goods and services resulting in prices by which you can make decisions, you cannot know anything about society without a market of exchanges of commons resulting in prices by which you can make decisions.
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Q&A: “Does The Propertarian Institute Give Classes?”
[T]he leadership (which is a small group that started at Hoppe’s Property and Freedom Society and grew from there) wants me to finish the first book. And for historical reasons it is better for a movement to have a finished ‘tome’ or ‘canon’ to work from before we start any formal training. We have ambitions to run additional conferences, and to employ a small number of people full time at the institute. We do currently host anyone who comes to visit us in Kiev or L’viv, and we do enjoy those visitors. My progress the past year has been affected by my startup company but that delay has also led to more time solving certain problems such as the reason altruistic people can be so easily lied to by means of half truth and suggestion. The longer this work takes me the better it gets. So I am not troubled by the delay. On the other hand, as most of us can observe, ‘consilience’ is occurring worldwide and particularly in the west, as the western enlightenment fallacy comes crashing to its multitude of ends. So in order to provide a manual for revolution and restoration of western high trust society, the reformation of classical liberalism, and the means of incrementally suppressing deceit just as we have incrementally suppressed all other forms of parasitism, I must finish while the ‘iron is hot’. Great minds may think alike, but minds of similar moral bias eventually think alike at all levels of society. And that consilience is occurring. I am just one part of a huge shift in thinking not seen since the enlightenment: the end of one philosophical framework’s usefulness for mankind, and the beginning of another. To some degree it is great privilege to live in these times. We can take credit for change. And that change may last for millennia. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine
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Q&A: “Does The Propertarian Institute Give Classes?”
[T]he leadership (which is a small group that started at Hoppe’s Property and Freedom Society and grew from there) wants me to finish the first book. And for historical reasons it is better for a movement to have a finished ‘tome’ or ‘canon’ to work from before we start any formal training. We have ambitions to run additional conferences, and to employ a small number of people full time at the institute. We do currently host anyone who comes to visit us in Kiev or L’viv, and we do enjoy those visitors. My progress the past year has been affected by my startup company but that delay has also led to more time solving certain problems such as the reason altruistic people can be so easily lied to by means of half truth and suggestion. The longer this work takes me the better it gets. So I am not troubled by the delay. On the other hand, as most of us can observe, ‘consilience’ is occurring worldwide and particularly in the west, as the western enlightenment fallacy comes crashing to its multitude of ends. So in order to provide a manual for revolution and restoration of western high trust society, the reformation of classical liberalism, and the means of incrementally suppressing deceit just as we have incrementally suppressed all other forms of parasitism, I must finish while the ‘iron is hot’. Great minds may think alike, but minds of similar moral bias eventually think alike at all levels of society. And that consilience is occurring. I am just one part of a huge shift in thinking not seen since the enlightenment: the end of one philosophical framework’s usefulness for mankind, and the beginning of another. To some degree it is great privilege to live in these times. We can take credit for change. And that change may last for millennia. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine
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How Do We Know The ‘Right’ Taxation?
Q&A:
—“How does one find out if taxes are indeed limited? How does one figure out whether “the price is right” under a monopoly?”—
[I] think what you might mean is how we know what commission to calculate. And given that commissions and sales taxes are well understood phenomenon I’m not sure how that’s particularly difficult. Most shopping malls charge ‘commissions’ or ‘fees’ that are a percentage of revenue. They can be universal or particular, but that question is empirical not moral. ***As an adjunct to rule of law, and therefore free of discretion, the formula must remain constant. But the formula itself is irrelevant. The point being that the purpose of any producer of commons would be to increase common revenues, not decrease common profits.*** In other words, the problem is in providing the correct incentive to those who specialize in the production of commons, and to prevent loading framing and overloading in their arguments. Otherwise a sales tax that individuals vote in favor of initiatives is kind of hard to argue with.
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How Do We Know The ‘Right’ Taxation?
Q&A:
—“How does one find out if taxes are indeed limited? How does one figure out whether “the price is right” under a monopoly?”—
[I] think what you might mean is how we know what commission to calculate. And given that commissions and sales taxes are well understood phenomenon I’m not sure how that’s particularly difficult. Most shopping malls charge ‘commissions’ or ‘fees’ that are a percentage of revenue. They can be universal or particular, but that question is empirical not moral. ***As an adjunct to rule of law, and therefore free of discretion, the formula must remain constant. But the formula itself is irrelevant. The point being that the purpose of any producer of commons would be to increase common revenues, not decrease common profits.*** In other words, the problem is in providing the correct incentive to those who specialize in the production of commons, and to prevent loading framing and overloading in their arguments. Otherwise a sales tax that individuals vote in favor of initiatives is kind of hard to argue with.
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The Purpose of Forming A Polity? Discounts.
[C]ommons produce opportunities (lower opportunity costs) and reduce risk (reduce transaction costs), the purpose of which is to incentivize people to seize opportunities. In other words, it is not that the externalities are non-excludable (because many are) but that ***the purpose of forming a polity is the production of discounts on opportunity costs, transaction costs, and switching costs.*** This is the source of wealth. we are not wealthier in time and effort, we have used time and effort to decrease costs such that everything is cheaper in time and effort. Externalities may be non excludable, but the creation of negative externalities is open to prohibition, and universally prohibited. That’s what distinguishes ‘moral’ (external) and ‘ethical’ (internal). We prohibit both internal (unethical) and external (immoral) actions all the time in all cultures in all civilizations. (and we likewise fail to for that matter.) Lets define ‘underproduced’ as referring to a structure of production of a good or service that is impossible to construct under the voluntary organization of production. The method of producing such ‘underproduced’ goods then is subsidy. Which is exactly how we do it. We take money from other structures of production (distort them), and we instead buy (incentivize) people to produce the ‘underproduced’ good or service. This is called a mixed economy. And everywhere I know of practices a mixed economy. The question I think at hand, is not whether a mixed economy in fact produces greater wealth for all members, it is whether acts of parasitism and genetic warfare are employed within this mixed economy because of the consequences of reliance upon monopoly government. And I think the vote is in: yes. Democracy is used by the worst people to prey upon the best. There is no value in burning middle and upper class genes to increase lower middle and lower class genes. And that is what we are doing. That is all we are doing, when we engage in producing ‘unproducables’. Curt Doolittle The Philosophy of Aristocracy The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine
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The Purpose of Forming A Polity? Discounts.
[C]ommons produce opportunities (lower opportunity costs) and reduce risk (reduce transaction costs), the purpose of which is to incentivize people to seize opportunities. In other words, it is not that the externalities are non-excludable (because many are) but that ***the purpose of forming a polity is the production of discounts on opportunity costs, transaction costs, and switching costs.*** This is the source of wealth. we are not wealthier in time and effort, we have used time and effort to decrease costs such that everything is cheaper in time and effort. Externalities may be non excludable, but the creation of negative externalities is open to prohibition, and universally prohibited. That’s what distinguishes ‘moral’ (external) and ‘ethical’ (internal). We prohibit both internal (unethical) and external (immoral) actions all the time in all cultures in all civilizations. (and we likewise fail to for that matter.) Lets define ‘underproduced’ as referring to a structure of production of a good or service that is impossible to construct under the voluntary organization of production. The method of producing such ‘underproduced’ goods then is subsidy. Which is exactly how we do it. We take money from other structures of production (distort them), and we instead buy (incentivize) people to produce the ‘underproduced’ good or service. This is called a mixed economy. And everywhere I know of practices a mixed economy. The question I think at hand, is not whether a mixed economy in fact produces greater wealth for all members, it is whether acts of parasitism and genetic warfare are employed within this mixed economy because of the consequences of reliance upon monopoly government. And I think the vote is in: yes. Democracy is used by the worst people to prey upon the best. There is no value in burning middle and upper class genes to increase lower middle and lower class genes. And that is what we are doing. That is all we are doing, when we engage in producing ‘unproducables’. Curt Doolittle The Philosophy of Aristocracy The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine
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Q&A: Curt, Why Attack Cantor? It’s Useful. (Lying is also useful, but it’s not true.)
(advanced)
—“I’ve been following your work for some time. I’m going through your reading list and am intrigued. One thing however was bugging me for some time. Namely, your attack on Cantor you gave on one of your interviews. I’d greatly appreciate if you could expand on this a little. For example infinities of different sizes were very helpful in answering a very practical question of decidability of the halting problem.Could you give some very brief explanation?”—
[M]any analogies and models are useful, but are not true. Fairy tales are useful, and may in fact be the ultimate form of pedagogy but they are not true. Lying is profoundly useful. Propaganda is perhaps the most useful of technologies. I will see if I can do this topic justice. I am not sure I can do it briefly. So I will give a few hints and see if you can make the connections rather than write five pages of text that I don’t have time for right now. Lets understand that my criticism is an attempt to require mathematicians to practice their work ethically and morally and free of externality. And that as a cosmopolitan, I criticize cantor for unscientific method of argument that produces ‘meantinful’ but ‘untrue’ externalities, in a case where scientific statements that are equally meaningful but produce no untrue externalities will suffice. I am particularly concerned about this for the reasons the Intuitionists were concerned: Einstein should not have been revolutionary, and should have occurred a century earlier. And for the same reasons scientists publish in operational definitions and postmodernist pseudoscientists publish in ‘meaning and allegory’ – non-operational statements. Becuase there is a very great difference between a Name of something extant, and an Analogy to Experience. The former is laundered of imaginary content and the latter loaded with it. Or more precisely, the former is more true and the latter almost always false. Cantor’s insight would be trivial if we taught the foundations of mathematics to children instead of taught by wrote memorization. The foundation being ‘pairing off’. Mathematics evolved from the very simple act of putting stone in a bag for every sheep one took out to the pasture at night, and one out of the bag for every sheep that one brought in. This is ‘pairing off’. Cantor returns us to the basis of mathematics by reminding us that we are at all times, paring off. And that we can pair off different bags of stones as well. We can also create a bag that in theory will always have more stones in it because in practice we can always find more stones on the beaches with which to refill the bag. We can use stones of different colors, sizes and textures. We can also name stones. But humans can only remember so many names so we invented positional naming: what we call ‘numbers’, consists of a sequence of operations by which we generate names, each of which is unique and whose name is positionally commensurable with all other names of stones regardless of size, texture and color. The point I make here is that mathematics consists of sequences of operations, all of which use pairing off (category), positional naming(identity), and functions (collections of operations) to express ratios. All of which are existentially possible operations, that because of ‘pairing off’ correspond to the real world. We can however, construct general rules of arbitrary precision by ignoring correspondence with any real world entity and instead comparing ratios of names against names. This arbitrary precision however eliminates contextual decidability. We now must construct a what we call a ‘limit’ for any ratio to be decidable. This limit corresponds to a real-world context. For example, the square of two cannot logically exist without an expressed limit to the number of operations that must be performed. Yet neither can one perform an unlimited number of operations. So we have a general logical rule, not a number, because that number is existentially impossible to exist other than as a function decidable by contextual limit (limit of arbitrary precision). Furthermore, we can use symbols to form recipes for these operations, and additional symbols for functions (collections of operations into a recipe). In this sense only natural numbers scientifically exist. All other ‘numbers’ that we refer to are existentially and necessarily, irrefutably, names of functions, not in fact numbers. We can use these functions as we use numbers, but they remain functions at all times out of existential necessity. Applying the name ‘number’ to a ‘function’ is a verbal convenience, like so many verbal conveniences in mathematics. But it is not ‘true’. This is the most common pseudoscientific fallacy in mathematics, and has been understood for over a century. Religious mysticism works. Mathematical Platonism ‘works’. Both have the same scientific standing: pseudoscience or utter falsehood. We criticize the externalities of religious mysticism. I criticize the externalities of philosophical rationalism. Mathematicians of great skill still talk in terms of a non-existent mathematical reality instead of ‘the deterministic consequences of an axiomatic definition that appears to the human mind real because we are unable to imagine those relations as entirely deterministic.” So let us look at infinity. Can any infinity exist? Well no extant infinity can exist, because there is nothing infinite that we can identify, and anythign we construct logically as infinite (a path around a circle) is limited by the boundaries of the universe, or limited by the number of operations we perform….. OR….. ***limited by the rate of operations we perform***. What Cantor’s ‘analogy’ does, is imagine that all operations are performed instantaneously, and that the rate of one set of operations is faster than another rate of operations. In other words, he’s using the time honored principle of GEARS. Now, is one infinity bigger than another? No. One set of operations produces more outputs per cycle of operations than another set of operations. One rate is faster than another rate. If we ignore the passage of time, then in any system the rate of production no matter how long will produce more operations in one than the other. But, just as length did not exist as the constant, as Einstein showed us, neither do rates, also as Einstein showed us. Lengths are externally dependent on the observer as are rates. Now, can any infinity exist? No. No infinity can exist. Infinity cannot exist any more than the square root of two can exist. Infinity is a name for a limit of arbitrary precision: information provided external to the calculation, useful when we wish to construct a scale independent general rule. So let me play economist here, and ask the question “what is the total cost of mathematical platonism and the ignorance of mathematicians of the very simple fact that much of their language is pseudoscience justified by special pleading?” The answer I suspect, is that mathematics is quite simple and most people are limited in the application of it and access to it, simply because it remains taught to the general public as an ancient form of mysticism, rather than a very basic principle: bags, stones, and moving them around. What has been the impact on physical science and mathematics? I am not sure. What has been the impact on the perpetuation of pseudoscience in the public mind: that appears to be vast. Half truths are a pretty serious problem as precision increases. This is the direction of man’s evolution: toward greater truth. And greater truth means greater parsimony: greater precision. And greater precision means greater correspondence. We can know names rather than analogies. When we speak in the language of truth, using the true names of the universe, we will indeed be gods of it. And mathematical platonism is for a variety of reasons one of the means by which modern pseudoscience in all walks of life has been perpetuated. Curt Doolittle The Philosophy of Aristocracy The Propertarian Institute, Kiev, Ukraine
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Q&A: Curt, Why Attack Cantor? It’s Useful. (Lying is also useful, but it’s not true.)
(advanced)
—“I’ve been following your work for some time. I’m going through your reading list and am intrigued. One thing however was bugging me for some time. Namely, your attack on Cantor you gave on one of your interviews. I’d greatly appreciate if you could expand on this a little. For example infinities of different sizes were very helpful in answering a very practical question of decidability of the halting problem.Could you give some very brief explanation?”—
[M]any analogies and models are useful, but are not true. Fairy tales are useful, and may in fact be the ultimate form of pedagogy but they are not true. Lying is profoundly useful. Propaganda is perhaps the most useful of technologies. I will see if I can do this topic justice. I am not sure I can do it briefly. So I will give a few hints and see if you can make the connections rather than write five pages of text that I don’t have time for right now. Lets understand that my criticism is an attempt to require mathematicians to practice their work ethically and morally and free of externality. And that as a cosmopolitan, I criticize cantor for unscientific method of argument that produces ‘meantinful’ but ‘untrue’ externalities, in a case where scientific statements that are equally meaningful but produce no untrue externalities will suffice. I am particularly concerned about this for the reasons the Intuitionists were concerned: Einstein should not have been revolutionary, and should have occurred a century earlier. And for the same reasons scientists publish in operational definitions and postmodernist pseudoscientists publish in ‘meaning and allegory’ – non-operational statements. Becuase there is a very great difference between a Name of something extant, and an Analogy to Experience. The former is laundered of imaginary content and the latter loaded with it. Or more precisely, the former is more true and the latter almost always false. Cantor’s insight would be trivial if we taught the foundations of mathematics to children instead of taught by wrote memorization. The foundation being ‘pairing off’. Mathematics evolved from the very simple act of putting stone in a bag for every sheep one took out to the pasture at night, and one out of the bag for every sheep that one brought in. This is ‘pairing off’. Cantor returns us to the basis of mathematics by reminding us that we are at all times, paring off. And that we can pair off different bags of stones as well. We can also create a bag that in theory will always have more stones in it because in practice we can always find more stones on the beaches with which to refill the bag. We can use stones of different colors, sizes and textures. We can also name stones. But humans can only remember so many names so we invented positional naming: what we call ‘numbers’, consists of a sequence of operations by which we generate names, each of which is unique and whose name is positionally commensurable with all other names of stones regardless of size, texture and color. The point I make here is that mathematics consists of sequences of operations, all of which use pairing off (category), positional naming(identity), and functions (collections of operations) to express ratios. All of which are existentially possible operations, that because of ‘pairing off’ correspond to the real world. We can however, construct general rules of arbitrary precision by ignoring correspondence with any real world entity and instead comparing ratios of names against names. This arbitrary precision however eliminates contextual decidability. We now must construct a what we call a ‘limit’ for any ratio to be decidable. This limit corresponds to a real-world context. For example, the square of two cannot logically exist without an expressed limit to the number of operations that must be performed. Yet neither can one perform an unlimited number of operations. So we have a general logical rule, not a number, because that number is existentially impossible to exist other than as a function decidable by contextual limit (limit of arbitrary precision). Furthermore, we can use symbols to form recipes for these operations, and additional symbols for functions (collections of operations into a recipe). In this sense only natural numbers scientifically exist. All other ‘numbers’ that we refer to are existentially and necessarily, irrefutably, names of functions, not in fact numbers. We can use these functions as we use numbers, but they remain functions at all times out of existential necessity. Applying the name ‘number’ to a ‘function’ is a verbal convenience, like so many verbal conveniences in mathematics. But it is not ‘true’. This is the most common pseudoscientific fallacy in mathematics, and has been understood for over a century. Religious mysticism works. Mathematical Platonism ‘works’. Both have the same scientific standing: pseudoscience or utter falsehood. We criticize the externalities of religious mysticism. I criticize the externalities of philosophical rationalism. Mathematicians of great skill still talk in terms of a non-existent mathematical reality instead of ‘the deterministic consequences of an axiomatic definition that appears to the human mind real because we are unable to imagine those relations as entirely deterministic.” So let us look at infinity. Can any infinity exist? Well no extant infinity can exist, because there is nothing infinite that we can identify, and anythign we construct logically as infinite (a path around a circle) is limited by the boundaries of the universe, or limited by the number of operations we perform….. OR….. ***limited by the rate of operations we perform***. What Cantor’s ‘analogy’ does, is imagine that all operations are performed instantaneously, and that the rate of one set of operations is faster than another rate of operations. In other words, he’s using the time honored principle of GEARS. Now, is one infinity bigger than another? No. One set of operations produces more outputs per cycle of operations than another set of operations. One rate is faster than another rate. If we ignore the passage of time, then in any system the rate of production no matter how long will produce more operations in one than the other. But, just as length did not exist as the constant, as Einstein showed us, neither do rates, also as Einstein showed us. Lengths are externally dependent on the observer as are rates. Now, can any infinity exist? No. No infinity can exist. Infinity cannot exist any more than the square root of two can exist. Infinity is a name for a limit of arbitrary precision: information provided external to the calculation, useful when we wish to construct a scale independent general rule. So let me play economist here, and ask the question “what is the total cost of mathematical platonism and the ignorance of mathematicians of the very simple fact that much of their language is pseudoscience justified by special pleading?” The answer I suspect, is that mathematics is quite simple and most people are limited in the application of it and access to it, simply because it remains taught to the general public as an ancient form of mysticism, rather than a very basic principle: bags, stones, and moving them around. What has been the impact on physical science and mathematics? I am not sure. What has been the impact on the perpetuation of pseudoscience in the public mind: that appears to be vast. Half truths are a pretty serious problem as precision increases. This is the direction of man’s evolution: toward greater truth. And greater truth means greater parsimony: greater precision. And greater precision means greater correspondence. We can know names rather than analogies. When we speak in the language of truth, using the true names of the universe, we will indeed be gods of it. And mathematical platonism is for a variety of reasons one of the means by which modern pseudoscience in all walks of life has been perpetuated. Curt Doolittle The Philosophy of Aristocracy The Propertarian Institute, Kiev, Ukraine