Curt Doolittle

Author: Curt Doolittle

  • Humans can play a piano, let alone invent one. I mean. wow. Really. Humans are a

    Humans can play a piano, let alone invent one. I mean. wow. Really.

    Humans are awesome.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-02-07 08:38:00 UTC

  • YOU CAN’T CONVINCE PEOPLE, WE DON’T NEED TO, AND YOU’RE IMMORAL IF YOU TRY TO. (

    YOU CAN’T CONVINCE PEOPLE, WE DON’T NEED TO, AND YOU’RE IMMORAL IF YOU TRY TO. (CONVINCE THEM OF ANYTHING THEY SHOULD PREFER, RATHER THAN STATE THAT WHICH WE PREFER, AND THEY MUST GRANT US OR PAY THE CONSEQUENCES.)

    (from elsewhere)

    Yeah… I agree that you can’t persuade people. but that’s mostly because of the investment cost: the fact that the intuitionistic searching we do (that which we cannot observe) determines the subjective probability (possibility) of answers. And I suspect some of our learning isn’t open to re-weighting (what we call metaphysical value judgements), because all consequential development is dependent upon those pre-rational, pre-cognitive, unobservable, weights.

    I am never going to convince a person highly invested in ‘meaning’, highly invested in ‘rationalism’, or highly invested in ‘postmodern construction of social reality’ any more than I am going to convince their precursors: metaphorical and historical analogists, or mystics and magians, or even those few cultures who never developed any post-experiential thought such as mythic history (and yes they do exist.)

    Furthermore, I’m not going to convince someone like Wilber (Nor do I feel the need to ) to adopt the level of scientific argument I’m working on, because his inquiry is into the personal and experiential, just as mine is in the political and INEXPERIENTIAL. I want to prevent people from doing harm (law). People like him want to help people find happiness(religion).

    I cannot convince the feminine (submissive) bias in favor of buddhism, to switch to the male (dominance) bias in favor of stoicism, even though both are only concerned with mindfulness, and happiness achieved through mindfulness. The difference between them being buddhist discipline in escapism, and stoic action in reality. Any more than I can convince a hedonist to prefer either, or scientific ascetic like myself to do either.

    We cannot convince others.

    And the only reason we even think of it, is so that we can form alliances in order to obtain power by means of gossip and ostracism, or authority, law and violence, or to encourage consumption for the purpose of profiting from it.

    We don’t need ideals and monopolies. We are not only unequal, but very different – different casts, that perform different functions in the inter-temporal division of reproductive labor.

    There is only one ‘law’ that must be observed for all of us to have the possibility of happiness, and that law is the prohibition on parasitism, without which violence is our only rational recourse.

    And propertarianism is the only logical means of providing decideablity between individuals in a heterogeneous polity of heterogeneous interests, working in our self interest, through nothing but signals and information, in a voluntary order of cooperation toward one end: the persistence of our genes, and the persistence of man.

    A monopolist of preferences, whether socialist conservative, or libertarian, is a tyrant. It doesn’t matter which point in the spectrum you advocate. Monopoly in political systems requires the elimination of choice.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Propertarian Institute

    Kiev, Ukraine.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-02-07 06:25:00 UTC

  • MALINVESTMENT Whenever Investment is Provided by Those Without Occupational Depe

    MALINVESTMENT

    Whenever Investment is Provided by Those Without Occupational Dependence Upon Income From Practice Of Craft.

    It is tragically simple to detect malinvestment.

    Some malinvestment often produces extraordinary ends at the top, where experimentation is being performed.

    The remaining malinvestment is simply malinvestment – the seeking of rewards by those without the knowledge and ability to construct them.

    Flocking and schooling create malinvestment.

    Central bankers create flocking and schooling in consumption industries which obscure ‘growth’ in productivity (waste)

    Investors create flocking and schooling to speculative innovations (gambling).

    Entrerpreneurs create flocking and schooling to PRODUCTIVE innovations.

    Now, you can get into all sorts of niche arguments over this, but once we come to terms on terms, my arguments will stand. You might argue that in the short term, our moral obligation is to keep money moving and consumption moving. And I agree with that. I just disagree with that being a measure of ‘good economics’ or good policy, and instead, a necessary tragedy given insufficient innovation, and excessive human reproduction.

    On the other hand, a declining population producing increasing productivity is the only logical and rational goal that we can pursue over the medium and long term.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-02-07 03:44:00 UTC

  • I miss you Eli Harman 🙂

    I miss you Eli Harman 🙂

    Source date (UTC): 2015-02-07 00:39:00 UTC

  • REPEAT AFTER ME: The Hierarchy of Logical Claims 1) In the choice between meanin

    REPEAT AFTER ME: The Hierarchy of Logical Claims

    1) In the choice between meaningful and logically consistent, meaningful fails.

    2) In the choice between logically consistent and externally correspondent, logical consistency errs.

    3) In the choice between externally correspondent and operationally possible, external correspondence errs.

    4) I the choice between operationally possible and objectively moral, operationally possible errs.

    5) In the choice between objectively moral, and competitive necessity, objectively moral fails.

    6) In the choice between competitive necessity and kin selection, competitive necessity fails.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-02-07 00:34:00 UTC

  • The Purpose of Being Well Read No Matter What Your IQ. via @FFloodgates

    The Purpose of Being Well Read No Matter What Your IQ. http://freedomsfloodgates.com/2015/02/04/the-purpose-of-being-well-read-no-matter-what-your-iq/ via @FFloodgates

    Source date (UTC): 2015-02-06 15:19:07 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/563718536997388288

  • ****BELIEF = JUSTIFICATION**** You may not know what you justify. But your mind

    ****BELIEF = JUSTIFICATION****

    You may not know what you justify.

    But your mind forces you to justify it.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-02-06 12:36:00 UTC

  • FWIW: My positions Regarding Russia are : (a) That the Russian criticism of west

    FWIW: My positions Regarding Russia are :

    (a) That the Russian criticism of western socialism, neo-puritanism, progressivism, and libertarianism, just like Western conservative criticisms, and the prediction of the outcome by both Russians and western Conservatives – are correct.

    (b) The world is not a better place with a bigger Russian empire moving west, but it is a better place moving south and east.

    (c) Russians are demonstrably not capable of self government, nor of government of others because of their low trust society. They retain their Mongolian and Tatar ethics and morality.

    (d) Their low trust society, persistent in the modern world, is a function of lack of property rights, and lack of rule of law, which creates rule by corruption.

    (e) Without a martial aristocracy, a militia, and a middle class that depends upon commerce, or the equivalent class produced by a church that needs the common law to defend itself from the state, it is impossible to develop a judiciary that can impose rule of law.

    (f) The west however retains rule of law, and must retain rule of law, to maintain our competitive advantage against lower trust, more aggressive socieites.. And that we do not need to give up trust and rule of law in order to purge anglo neo-puritanism, anglo puritanism, jewish socialism, and jewish libertinism, from the west – and restore german aristocratic stoicism.

    That is a pretty straightforward argument.

    Curt Doolittle

    Source date (UTC): 2015-02-06 12:22:00 UTC

  • (worth repeating) (from elsewhere) (archived) Subjective Value is descriptive, i

    (worth repeating) (from elsewhere) (archived)

    https://mises.org/…/economics-and-its-ethical-assumptions

    Subjective Value is descriptive, in that the decision of the personal utility of acting on a want or fear (value) is limited to the judgement (intuition) of the individual (subjective). The individual’s willingness to act to obtain, or act to avoid something is determined by his his intuitions, desires, preferences, wants, and fears alone. Value: willingness to bear cost in exchange.

    This concept is obvious. However, the implications for economics are not: that the individual’s perception of his willingness to bear a cost, and his judgement of the cost that he put into something, are not something he perceives rationally when interacting with others. Instead, he anticipates that his desires for consumption are objective, and that his desires for exchange are objective, but that his opponent’s interests are subjective. In other words, he cognitively biases both incoming and outgoing assets in his favor. (This is probably a form of error correction on nature’s part, to make sure that the marginal difference between goods obtained via cooperation is actually in our benefit.)

    Satisfaction and Frustration quotients vary between individuals (and families, and classes and tribes). So not only are we more or less willing to act (bear a cost) to have or avoid one thing or another, but our desire to fulfill another want, or avoid another stress is subjective as well. (Frustration ‘budgets’ being common.) And our desire to consume a satisfaction quickly or slowly is equally subjective.

    Economics may or may not tell you what to desire, but it may help you with the means. But this “nonsense argument” puts us into conflict between our personal values, our moral intuitions and our institutional requirements for achieving both.

    Mises’ “…So far as Economics is concerned…” (imaginary needs) thinks this is incorrect. But that is only if one assumes that trade is the starting point for cooperation, rather than the need to cooperate in the first place as necessary for rationally forgoing violence.

    (More another time…..)

    I think propertarianism (operationalism with property) is much clearer than classical arguments.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-02-06 12:21:00 UTC

  • REPEAT AFTER ME: The Warranty of Truthfulness 1) Internally Consistent – meaning

    REPEAT AFTER ME: The Warranty of Truthfulness

    1) Internally Consistent – meaning “logical”

    2) Externally Correspondent – meaning “observably predictive”

    3) Voluntarily transferred – meaning “ethical and moral”

    4) Parsimoniously Stated – meaning “the limits are defined”

    5) Operationally Defined – meaning “existentially possible”

    6) Thoroughly Falsified – meaning you have tried to demonstrate these statements are false, and failed.

    If you cannot demonstrate these, then you cannot warranty your statement is free of imaginary content, error, bias, obscurity, misrepresentation, and deceit.

    REPEAT AFTER ME: The Hierarchy of Logical Claims

    1) In the choice between meaningful and logically consistent, meaningful fails.

    2) In the choice between logically consistent and externally correspondent, logical consistency errs.

    3) In the choice between externally correspondent and operationally possible, external correspondence errs.

    4) I the choice between operationally possible and objectively moral, operationally possible errs.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-02-06 06:36:00 UTC