Curt Doolittle

Author: Curt Doolittle

  • Genetic Bias Toward Philosophical Systems

    [R]OMAN ON THE GENETIC USE OF PHILOSOPHY FOR STATUS SEEKING

    —If I understand correctly, your novelty is arguing that ideas are the structure and genes are man’s accommodation of them. You can say ideas (civilization) and genes inform each other. Perhaps the influence of ideas is underestimated. I don’t think it’s correct to say that one completely determines the other. Different civilizations (ideas, norms, institutions), create different reproductive incentives which lead to genetic differentiation of groups and, after a very long time (many millennia) may cause species to diverge. My hunch is that people’s genetics (moral intuition) will cause them to look at a philosophy and ask “how can I seek status within this system?” Genetics may determine what strategy individuals adopt: Express it. Protect it. Enforce it. Pretend to express it while cheating. Openly Flout it. Ignore it. Undermine it.— Roman Skaskiw

  • Genetic Bias Toward Philosophical Systems

    [R]OMAN ON THE GENETIC USE OF PHILOSOPHY FOR STATUS SEEKING

    —If I understand correctly, your novelty is arguing that ideas are the structure and genes are man’s accommodation of them. You can say ideas (civilization) and genes inform each other. Perhaps the influence of ideas is underestimated. I don’t think it’s correct to say that one completely determines the other. Different civilizations (ideas, norms, institutions), create different reproductive incentives which lead to genetic differentiation of groups and, after a very long time (many millennia) may cause species to diverge. My hunch is that people’s genetics (moral intuition) will cause them to look at a philosophy and ask “how can I seek status within this system?” Genetics may determine what strategy individuals adopt: Express it. Protect it. Enforce it. Pretend to express it while cheating. Openly Flout it. Ignore it. Undermine it.— Roman Skaskiw

  • Institutions not Genetics. Epigenetic or Otherwise.

    [E]pigenetics is interesting but it doesn’t help me with institutions. As far as I can tell, we don’t need to ‘persuade’ anyone of anything. We just need to outlaw the entire spectrum of lying in addition to fraud theft violence and murder and to create universal standing in matters of the commons, and natural incentives will take care of the rest.

    I differ from the right in the sense that while our personalities may in fact be 80/20 genetic, I am not sure that the resulting genetic composition isn’t 80/20 institutions. In fact, I’m pretty sure of it.

    So we can use institutions to produce genetic outcomes.

    That is better than warfare. 

  • Institutions not Genetics. Epigenetic or Otherwise.

    [E]pigenetics is interesting but it doesn’t help me with institutions. As far as I can tell, we don’t need to ‘persuade’ anyone of anything. We just need to outlaw the entire spectrum of lying in addition to fraud theft violence and murder and to create universal standing in matters of the commons, and natural incentives will take care of the rest.

    I differ from the right in the sense that while our personalities may in fact be 80/20 genetic, I am not sure that the resulting genetic composition isn’t 80/20 institutions. In fact, I’m pretty sure of it.

    So we can use institutions to produce genetic outcomes.

    That is better than warfare. 

  • WORTH REPEATING. IMPORTANT PIECE. Aristocracy is Negative: Critical and Scientif

    WORTH REPEATING. IMPORTANT PIECE.

    Aristocracy is Negative: Critical and Scientific, a Republic is Positive: Justificationary and Rational.

    See how critical rationalism plays here?

    Source date (UTC): 2015-07-19 10:11:00 UTC

  • WE HAVE A CHOICE (revised) Truth, Trade and Liberty (propertarianism) –vs– Lie

    WE HAVE A CHOICE (revised)

    Truth, Trade and Liberty (propertarianism)

    –vs–

    Lies, Takings, and Authority (socialism)

    Source date (UTC): 2015-07-19 09:56:00 UTC

  • Untitled

    http://www.propertarianism.com/2015/07/19/eli-apologizes-for-american-yankees/FYI

    Source date (UTC): 2015-07-19 09:34:00 UTC

  • WHAT IS CRITICAL RATIONALISM? Critical Rationalism is an epistemology developed

    WHAT IS CRITICAL RATIONALISM?

    Critical Rationalism is an epistemology developed for scientific inquiry. It is the inverse of justificationary rationalism.

    ASSERTIONS:

    1) That justificationism tells us us nothing about truth content (you can support something as much as you want but that does not make it true.)

    2) That the means of creating an hypothesis are irrelevant. Instead, if hypothesis survives all possible criticism, it remains a truth candidate.

    3) That the evolutionary sequence: intuition, hypothesis, theory, law, and tautology applies universally, and that justificationary language is merely false.

    4) That even if we identify a very parsimonious truth candidate with broad explanatory power, we may never know if it is the most parsimonious truth candidate possible (“the truth”).

    5) That we cannot choose between the likelihood of competing theories (“critical preference”). (I see this as a guiding logical or moral principle but not an empirical one.)

    SUMMARY

    One’s testimony (promise of truth) can rely upon:

    ……..1) Justification: An Impersonal Proof of Truth;

    –or–

    ……..2) Criticism: A Personal Warranty against imaginary content, error, bias, wishful thinking, and deception.

    Since the first is impossible, we are left with the second.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Propertarian Institute

    Kiev Ukraine (London)

    Source date (UTC): 2015-07-19 08:35:00 UTC

  • Michael Philip on Malthus (Smart)

    [F]rom Michael Philip

    I view Malthus as a tempered social revisionist who knocked down myths, thought in terms of social science mechanisms (he had both supply and demand and Keynesian macro in surprisingly sophisticated forms, not to mention an early form of Darwin’s theory of evolution), and was painfully aware of the importance of contingent human choices. He is one of the five most underrated, and also least understood, economists. To be sure, he favored small government and opposed the Poor Laws. But he was skeptical enough about the notion of a voluntary self-regulating order that I would not quite call him a classical liberal. I read his economics as starting with the Bible, and asking whether any mechanisms might bring us to a less tragic outcome than what is found in the Old Testament. He was never quite sure of the answer, and his mix of moralizing and skepticism later attracted Keynes.

  • Michael Philip on Malthus (Smart)

    [F]rom Michael Philip

    I view Malthus as a tempered social revisionist who knocked down myths, thought in terms of social science mechanisms (he had both supply and demand and Keynesian macro in surprisingly sophisticated forms, not to mention an early form of Darwin’s theory of evolution), and was painfully aware of the importance of contingent human choices. He is one of the five most underrated, and also least understood, economists. To be sure, he favored small government and opposed the Poor Laws. But he was skeptical enough about the notion of a voluntary self-regulating order that I would not quite call him a classical liberal. I read his economics as starting with the Bible, and asking whether any mechanisms might bring us to a less tragic outcome than what is found in the Old Testament. He was never quite sure of the answer, and his mix of moralizing and skepticism later attracted Keynes.