Curt Doolittle

Author: Curt Doolittle

  • Updating Our Ancient Trinity: Truth, Beauty and Morality


    [T]he greeks just couldn’t figure out what they meant by “Goodness”.  But, I have. It’s productivity on the Obverse, and prohibition of free riding on the Reverse.

    It’s do not unto others that you wold not have done unto you: impose no cost is the fee for entry into the fruits of the commons, and heroism: contribution to the commons at self sacrifice, in exchange for status.

    Our ancient indo european ancestors were right all along.

    Contribute to the commons.

    That is the west’s unique evolutionary strategy.

  • Updating Our Ancient Trinity: Truth, Beauty and Morality


    [T]he greeks just couldn’t figure out what they meant by “Goodness”.  But, I have. It’s productivity on the Obverse, and prohibition of free riding on the Reverse.

    It’s do not unto others that you wold not have done unto you: impose no cost is the fee for entry into the fruits of the commons, and heroism: contribution to the commons at self sacrifice, in exchange for status.

    Our ancient indo european ancestors were right all along.

    Contribute to the commons.

    That is the west’s unique evolutionary strategy.

  • 2015 ECONOMIC RISK PERIODS August (vacations cause contemplation) October (Fed +

    2015 ECONOMIC RISK PERIODS

    August (vacations cause contemplation)

    October (Fed + remaining-quarter-analysis)

    January (post-holiday contemplation)

    You see, workplace momentum has an exaggerated effect on economies. It’s more prevalent (and an unstated virtue of american work environments) that there is less room for contemplation, and high pressure of momentum. So what we see in august and in January, are periods of contemplation wherein people assess their recent memory, and change their plans.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-05-17 06:39:00 UTC

  • TERRITORIAL, and TECHNOLOGICAL COMPETITIVE VALUE (profound) I’ve been arguing fo

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/17/upshot/dont-be-so-sure-the-economy-will-return-to-normal.html?smid=tw-upshotnyt&_r=0&abt=0002&abg=0NORMATIVE, TERRITORIAL, and TECHNOLOGICAL COMPETITIVE VALUE

    (profound)

    I’ve been arguing for two decades that we have had 500 years of ‘unusual’ as we spread the voluntary organization of production around the world (often by force), and conquered and exploited two new continents. And that what we see is the new normal. There aren’t enough asymmetries to exploit any longer to maintain the prior asymmetry of wealth.

    Or rather, normative asymmetries (institutions) are terribly productive and last for generations if maintained, territorial asymmetries are almost as productive, and can last for generations if trade routes are maintained, while technological asymmetries are decreasingly durable.

    Or as technologists tend to say: “technology is not a competitive advantage” because it is so easily neutralized.

    Conversely, territorial, trade route, and normative asymmetries produce for the long run.

    Hence my (and Taleb’s) concern about fragility. And my concern that the progressive fantasy of technology as savior, and norm as inhibitor is backwards.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-05-17 06:36:00 UTC

  • (worth repeating) “My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosop

    (worth repeating)

    “My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs)… …the proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.” ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

    Source date (UTC): 2015-05-17 06:20:00 UTC

  • NO MARKET FAILURES? Market Failure is a Propertarian Trigger Word I am working o

    NO MARKET FAILURES?

    Market Failure is a Propertarian Trigger Word

    I am working on the Market Failure topic today. And I honestly can’t think of any that are not caused by positive actions of government.

    Or the failure of the common law, because of it’s lack of independence from government.

    Or a failure to prohibit free riding on commons, by requiring some form of contribution to the commons in order to benefit from it.

    Or the interference of government in the suppression of dysgenic reproduction.

    Or a failure to accept/acknowledge that dysgenia is the WORST POSSIBLE form of externality production.

    I don’t make the argument government is unnecessary or undesirable. I make the argument that the law is the law and independent, and the production of commons is a competitive advantage, as long as it produces no dysgenic externalities.

    —

    Types of market failure:

    1) Positive externalities – Goods / services which give benefit to a third party, e.g. less congestion from cycling

    2) Negative externalities – Goods / services which impose cost on a third party, e.g. cancer from passive smoking

    3) Merit goods – People underestimate the benefit of good, e.g. education

    4) Demerit goods – People underestimate the costs of good, e.g. smoking

    5) Public Goods – Goods which are non-rival and non-excludable – e.g. police, national defence.

    6) Monopoly Power – when a firm controls the market and can set higher prices.

    Inequality – unfair distribution of resources in free market

    7) Factor Immobility – E.g. geographical / occupational immobility

    Agriculture – Agriculture is often subject to market failure – due to volatile prices and externalities.

    #propertarianism

    Source date (UTC): 2015-05-17 04:53:00 UTC

  • Our Classes

    Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum. It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humour and the like). There are many variations of passages of Lorem Ipsum available, but the majority have suffered alteration in some form, by injected humour, or randomised words which don’t look even slightly believable. If you are going to use a passage of Lorem Ipsum, you need to be sure there isn’t anything embarrassing hidden in the middle of text. All the Lorem Ipsum generators on the Internet tend to repeat predefined chunks as necessary, making this the first true generator on the Internet. It uses a dictionary of over 200 Latin words, combined with a handful of model sentence structures, to generate Lorem Ipsum which looks reasonable. The generated Lorem Ipsum is therefore always free from repetition, injected humour, or non-characteristic words etc. The standard chunk of Lorem Ipsum used since the 1500s is reproduced below for those interested. Sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 from “de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum” by Cicero are also reproduced in their exact original form, accompanied by English versions from the 1914 translation by H. Rackham.

  • Our Classes

    Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum. It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humour and the like). There are many variations of passages of Lorem Ipsum available, but the majority have suffered alteration in some form, by injected humour, or randomised words which don’t look even slightly believable. If you are going to use a passage of Lorem Ipsum, you need to be sure there isn’t anything embarrassing hidden in the middle of text. All the Lorem Ipsum generators on the Internet tend to repeat predefined chunks as necessary, making this the first true generator on the Internet. It uses a dictionary of over 200 Latin words, combined with a handful of model sentence structures, to generate Lorem Ipsum which looks reasonable. The generated Lorem Ipsum is therefore always free from repetition, injected humour, or non-characteristic words etc. The standard chunk of Lorem Ipsum used since the 1500s is reproduced below for those interested. Sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 from “de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum” by Cicero are also reproduced in their exact original form, accompanied by English versions from the 1914 translation by H. Rackham.

  • Dear god. Thank you for the courage (insanity) to give up everything and move to

    Dear god.

    Thank you for the courage (insanity) to give up everything and move to this strange new (insane) world to start an amazing (insane) business building an (insane) enormous product in an era of (insane) uncomfortable risk in hopes of producing (insane) extraordinary returns.

    Your (insane) devoted admirer.

    Me.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-05-16 10:08:00 UTC

  • Curt Doolittle shared a post

    Curt Doolittle shared a post.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-05-16 04:03:00 UTC