Curt Doolittle

Author: Curt Doolittle

  • (INTRODUCTORY READING 5) THE STRUGGLE TO PRODUCE A MORAL ECONOMIC SCIENCE ——

    (INTRODUCTORY READING 5)

    THE STRUGGLE TO PRODUCE A MORAL ECONOMIC SCIENCE

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    THE BRANCHES OF AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS

    The German branch of Austrian economics offered an alternative proposition: that we can and should pursue inquiry into economics as a means of discovering how we may improve our institutions while preserving moral principles of cooperation. This position favors kin selection without encouraging parasitism.

    The mainstream (anglo) position is instead, that we should pay the cost of immoral actions via our institutions if the aggregate benefits are justifiable. This is a philosophical bias that ist he result of the heavily outbred culture of the anglos who for all intents and purposes function as kin, and operate under the principle of kin selection. This position encourages parasitism.

    By contrast, the Jewish branch of Austrian economics attempted, and failed, to cast this argument as one of science(instrumentalism and empiricism) versus logic(axiomatic deduction), while at the same time naming this axiomatic argument a ‘science’, despite not relying upon the scientific method – thus constructing a pseudoscience (meaning: using the term science for credibility without relying on the scientific method to establish credibility). This position seeks to make both parasitism and contribution to the commons impossible.

    Just as universalism is common to the English, and duty common to the German, this attempt to create a pseudoscientific authoritarian philosophy was a result of the cultural bias of Judaism which itself relies upon authoritative law and contractual agreement rather than the european aristocratic egalitarian cultural demand for testifiable truth regardless of circumstances. Contract is a sufficient substitute for truth in low trust polities. But it is not a substitute for truth in high trust polities.

    A TALE OF THREE CULTURES

    Of these three positions, the German was the optimum: scientific, rational, and moral actions to achieve moral ends.

    The anglo position uses science and aggregates and accepts immoral actions in order to attempt to achieve moral ends.

    The German position uses science, reason and individualism in order to preserve moral conditions while achieving economic optimums.

    The Jewish position relies upon pseudoscience to achieve individual optimums but ignores morality and commons altogether – because judaic law is constructed contractually, not on principle (truth telling), and as a diasporic culture, it does not require contribution to the commons as do land holding social orders.

    Each of these cultural strategies is beneficial for island dwelling anglo universalists(truth), continent-dwelling german martial culture (duty), and disasporic un-landed jewish culture (contract).

    However, if we separate the pragmatism of cultural group evolutionary strategy from that which is true independent of those cultural strategies – cultural definitions of true – only the German model survives scrutiny as containing the full suite of properties: truth, duty, commons, individual and collective morality, under science and reason.

    THE PREFERENCE FOR THE AUSTRIAN MODEL IS A PREFERENCE FOR A MORAL DICIPLINE OF ECONOMICS

    Had not the world wars disrupted the Austrian school and destroyed german civilization in a fractious civil war, this debate might have evolved and been completed earlier, instead of devolving into mainstream half-moral anglo aggregate morality, and a discredited heterodox school.

    But at present the Austrian vision of a moral economics constructed for nations, preserving kin selection, preventing parasitism, preserving both individual and aggregate morality, preserving the commons, requiring truth-telling, and operating under ratio-scientific methods, is displaced for two reasons:

    1) The post-war dominance of (dysgenic, suicidal) anglo universalism justified under Keynesian socialism and Rawlsian ethics. A suicidal strategy only possible under the unique conditions of western altruistic punishment. (See Wiki) Westerners are the only people to develop universal high trust and to break the familial cycle of corruption. However, this appears to have created a weakness in that we extend this trust suicidally and ignore the reproductive and evolutionary importance of the family, tribe, and nation, and in creating that high trust society in the first place.

    2) The marginalization of the Austrian ambition for a moral economics because of the adoption of marxist ideological and propaganda techniques in advocating the pseudoscientific Jewish Austrian program – in no small part by the Mises Institute (without whom, and the use of the new medium of the internet, the pseudoscientific branch would likely have been extinguished.) As such the term Austrian is categorized under pseudoscientific and anti-scientific, rather than as the german branch originally evolved: the institutional means of improving moral cooperation in the pursuit of prosperity.

    ADVANCES IN SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY

    Mises’s praxeology is a failed attempt at developing economic Intuitionism and Operationalism. Economics is of necessity, like all scientific investigation, a ratio-empirical methodology for the study of phenomenon beyond our direct perception. In his failure he attempted to create a pseudoscience to justify his authoritarian preferences.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-12-24 05:28:00 UTC

  • NEEDING BETTER CRITICISM I need better criticism. I think that I finally underst

    NEEDING BETTER CRITICISM

    I need better criticism.

    I think that I finally understand his arguments well enough, that if I could talk to David Miller I could get useful criticism of my work by attempting to argue that he and remaining Critical Rationalists are correct as far as they go, but since all ignore (“discount”) costs, as do all members of the sciences, and most members of philosophy, that this is casting as false, that which is merely cost effective.

    Y-AXIS – Degree of Criticism

    0).Induction (guessing) is adequate for searching for hypotheses.

    1) …Confirmation is adequate for constructing hypotheses

    2) …..Justification is adequate for indifferent consequences.

    3) …….Scientific (truthful), consisting of Logical (internally consistent), Experimental (externally correspondent), Operational (existentially possible), Falsifiable and Falsified (parsimonious), is adequate for statements of analytic truth.

    4) ……….and most importantly Moral ( Warrantable – absent involuntary transfers), is adequate for truthful, warrantable speech.

    X-AXIS – Degree of Warranty (risk)

    We can subjectively test these criteria with the question of warranty:

    0) That which I am unwilling to act upon due to personal cost.

    1) That which I am willing to act upon in spite of personal cost.

    2) That which I am willing to warranty in the event of personal cost to others.

    3) That which those I cooperate with are willing to warranty in the even of personal cost to themselves and others.

    If you will not warranty your speech, then you should not speak, since a high trust people will hold you accountable for your speech, because information is as important a commons as is land, air and water.

    (Scientists practice this discipline already, although they use ostracism rather than legal reparations or punishment, as I suggest we should apply to public speech on matters of possible involuntary transfers. I am not sure for example, why the Japanese female geneticist who committed fraud should not be prosecuted and forced to perform restitution at triple damages, just as our recent bankers should have been prosecuted and forced to pay restitution at triple damages.)

    Now, this criteria assumes a high trust polity that demands truthful and moral speech. And a society that states that it practices science in the absence of truthful and moral speech is stating a contradiction. And no society that did otherwise would or could invent science.

    WHAT CAN WE WARRANTY?

    We can warranty that our statement somewhere in this spectrum:

    0) Sensible (intuitively possible)

    1) Meaningfully expressible ( as an hypothesis )

    2) Internally consistent and falsifiable (logically consistent – rational)

    3) Externally correspondent and Falsifiable ( physically testable – correlative)

    4) Existentially possible (operationally construct-able/observable)

    5) Voluntarily choose-able (voluntary exchange / rational choice)

    6) Market-survivable (criticism – theory )

    7) Market irrefutable (law)

    8) Irrefutable under original experience (Perceivable Truth)

    9) Ultimately parsimonious description (Analytic Truth)

    10) Informationally complete and tautologically identical (Platonic Truth – Imaginary)

    And we can state what criteria any proposition tested on this spectrum satisfied. And we can conversely state whether a proposition is required to satisfy each criteria.

    All disciplines are subject to this list, and to testimony. All that differs is whether the properties are necessary for application of the theory to the context (scale) at hand.

    Only such statements made under this warranty, are classifiable as moral: consisting of Truthful, fully informed, productive, voluntary exchange free of negative externality.

    SO WHAT? BECAUSE IF WE ADD COSTS, THEN SCIENCE THEN IS THE NAME FOR A MORAL DISCIPLINE OF WARRANTABLE TRUTH TELLING ACROSS ALL DOMAINS

    one philosophy. one method. one discipline. across all disciplines.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-12-24 05:18:00 UTC

  • THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN “OPERATIONAL” AND “INTUITIONISTIC” (important) I use the

    THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN “OPERATIONAL” AND “INTUITIONISTIC”

    (important)

    I use the term Operational in preference to Intuitionistic because the term “intuitionistic” is an uncomfortable one (like “rent-seeking”) that is open to easy misinterpretation, and the term “operational” invokes the meaning that I want it to: actions that humans can possibly take.

    But this is a personal act of argumentative license. There is a significant difference between the terms Operational(actions we take to observe and measure) and Intuitionistic(physical and mental operations that it is possible for humans to perform).

    In practice, when speaking tests of existential possibility, macro economic measures must be performed operationally, often using logical and physical instrumentation. But tests of existential possibility, rationality, and voluntary and involuntary transfer, require only sympathetic testing (reducing economic phenomenon to at least loosely rational sequence of actions that are subjectively believable).

    So just as mathematical operations must be mentally possible and logically consistent (maintaining a balance of ratios), so must sequences of human actions be mentally possible (posses information to do so), subjectively consistent (what we often mistakenly call ‘rational’, but meaning preferential), and if physical action required, physically possible.

    Lest someone leap to conclusions, The difference between mathematical systems and real world systems, is the difference between axiomatic(closed) and real (open) in which humans are constantly subject to information by which they can rearrange the priority of preferences in vast overlapping networks, as well as attempt to outwit one another (contrarian opportunism).

    As such, since in an axiomatic system all information is present, and in a real-world(open) system, all information can never be present, our ability to deduce outcomes is dependent on the degree to which the information is closed (invariant): the more open the system is to new information the less predictive it can be – and as Taleb has demonstrated, shocks generate more resultant signals than predictable signals, and the information required to anticipate signals in the tail is many thousands of times higher than the same predictability within the primary distribution. Therefore while we can deduce general trends in economic phenomenon, we cannot deduce all economic phenomenon with any degree predictive success. Yet we can (usually) explain observed phenomenon given time.

    This means that the Austrian program is largely correct: that economic policy will produce deterministic results. But the position of the main stream opposition is that the good achieved by manipulation is greater than the harm caused by economic distortion. (This remains the central subject of contention, since it will be very hard to prove on way or another.)

    The general trend in economics has been one in which we attempt to provide that improvement by disallowing a shortage of money that would impede growth, by targeting various empirical measures of questionable use, and using the maximum borrowing capacity of the state as a means of inter-temporally adjusting investments in infrastructure and commons. But this emphasis has led to ignoring the means by which economies perform: demographics, education policy, industrial policy, rule of law, homogeneity of culture, and trust. In other words: taking human capital for granted under the false assumption of equality and the good of diversity.

    And this is problematic, because the first most important criteria for economic performance in the absence of external inputs of technology, or military conquest, or possession of unique territory, is trust. And the corporeal state, multiculturalism, and universalism appear to erode that trust systematically – with predictable results.

    BACK TO INTUITIONISM AND OPERATIONALISM

    So, while I may switch from Operationalism (broader) to Intuitionism (narrower) at present I prefer the broader term because of its general meaning and broader scope even though in economics the term Intuitionism is probably closer to corresponding with the purpose I intend: a requirement for the existential possibility of operations in order to criticize our assumptions (premises).

    Curt Doolittle

    The Propertarian Institute

    Kiev, Ukraine

    Source date (UTC): 2014-12-24 04:56:00 UTC

  • Science Is A Moral Discipline In Which We Struggle to Speak Truthfully

    [S]cience is a moral discipline wherein we criticize our ideas, so that we can speak them truthfully: 1 — We test our relations for categorical consistency (identity) 2— We test our reasoning with logic for internal consistency. 3— We test our observations with external correspondence. 4— We test the existential possibilities of our premises by defining them in operational language 5— We test the rationality of our choices by subjective testing of incentives – all human action is rationally self interested. 6— We test the morality of our display, word, and deed by reciprocity: reciprocal tests of rationality. 7— We test the consequences of our theories for externalities (involuntary transfers). 8— We test the completeness of our statements with a tests of full accounting and limits. 9— We test the coherence of our statements with this list of constant relations both categorical, internal, external, existential, complete, and limited, including the rational when a matter of personal action, and reciprocal when a matter of interpersonal and political action. Once we have tested our theories by these means, then we can say that we speak truthfully – and as such do no harm. Because scientific method consists of due diligences necessary to warranty that we speak truthfully.  And by truthfully we mean consistent, correspondent, complete, rational, and moral, and laundered of ignorance, error, bias, wishful thinking, suggestion, obscurantism, fictionalism and deceit. Curt Doolittle Testimonialism and Propertarianism The Philosophy of Aristocracy The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine

  • Science Is A Moral Discipline In Which We Struggle to Speak Truthfully

    [S]cience is a moral discipline wherein we criticize our ideas, so that we can speak them truthfully: 1 — We test our relations for categorical consistency (identity) 2— We test our reasoning with logic for internal consistency. 3— We test our observations with external correspondence. 4— We test the existential possibilities of our premises by defining them in operational language 5— We test the rationality of our choices by subjective testing of incentives – all human action is rationally self interested. 6— We test the morality of our display, word, and deed by reciprocity: reciprocal tests of rationality. 7— We test the consequences of our theories for externalities (involuntary transfers). 8— We test the completeness of our statements with a tests of full accounting and limits. 9— We test the coherence of our statements with this list of constant relations both categorical, internal, external, existential, complete, and limited, including the rational when a matter of personal action, and reciprocal when a matter of interpersonal and political action. Once we have tested our theories by these means, then we can say that we speak truthfully – and as such do no harm. Because scientific method consists of due diligences necessary to warranty that we speak truthfully.  And by truthfully we mean consistent, correspondent, complete, rational, and moral, and laundered of ignorance, error, bias, wishful thinking, suggestion, obscurantism, fictionalism and deceit. Curt Doolittle Testimonialism and Propertarianism The Philosophy of Aristocracy The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine

  • Operationalism: From Law Through Mathematics

    (cerebral)(interesting) [I] hope that this spectrum: law, economics, assists us in understanding the position of praxeology in the list of moral constraints that require operational and intuitionistic tests of propositions, prior to making truth claims. LAW: STRICT CONSTRUCTION Strict Construction is an abused term where the courts instead use the terms Textualism and Original Intent. But under propertarian property rights theory Strict Construction refers to requiring that any law passed be accompanied by argument showing that such a law is specifically authorized by the constitution. In other words, laws constitute the permissible legal operations. And none of them can violate property rights. This is important because otherwise, if discretion is required, then judges can insert deception, imaginary content, bias and error into the body of law. (As they have done, circumventing the legislature, the constitution, and property rights.) As such the principle of Propertarian Strict Construction (as opposed to textualism’s strict construction) requires that we operationally define the construct of all any law. This principle is important because laws have the greatest affect on a polity – and often the greatest unintended effect upon individuals and the polity. ECONOMICS: PRAXEOLOGY Intuitionism (praxeology) in economics is important because manipulation of the economy causes redistributions, gains and losses. As a moral constraint, it is only slightly less influential than law. PSYCHOLOGY: OPERATIONISM Operationism in psychology was important in the recent transformation of psychology from a pseudoscience, to an experimental discipline, and because psychologists do produce, and did produce negative externalities – harm, to others. Not the least of which was multiple generations suffering from illnesses cast as cognitive problems. http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/199/1/operat.htm MEDICINE: PROTOCOLISM (MEDICAL OPERATIONALISM) Medical treatments and tests are discussed as protocols. PHYSICS: OPERATIONALISM Operationalism is physics was important because it demonstrated that we expended a great deal of time and money by NOT practicing operationalism and that Einstein’s innovation should have been much earlier and could have been if we had practiced it. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/operationalism/ MATHEMATICS: INTUITIONISM Intuitionism in mathematics was less important because there are few if any externalities produced by classical mathematical operations other than the psychological fallacy that there exists some separate mathematical reality. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/intuitionism/ ECONOMIC INTUITIONISM/OPERATIONALISM IS MEANINGFUL Therefore the HIGHEST moral requirement for demonstration of construction is in the domain of economics wherein the greatest externalities are caused by economic policy. https://www.facebook.com/groups/750292715060100/

  • Operationalism: From Law Through Mathematics

    (cerebral)(interesting) [I] hope that this spectrum: law, economics, assists us in understanding the position of praxeology in the list of moral constraints that require operational and intuitionistic tests of propositions, prior to making truth claims. LAW: STRICT CONSTRUCTION Strict Construction is an abused term where the courts instead use the terms Textualism and Original Intent. But under propertarian property rights theory Strict Construction refers to requiring that any law passed be accompanied by argument showing that such a law is specifically authorized by the constitution. In other words, laws constitute the permissible legal operations. And none of them can violate property rights. This is important because otherwise, if discretion is required, then judges can insert deception, imaginary content, bias and error into the body of law. (As they have done, circumventing the legislature, the constitution, and property rights.) As such the principle of Propertarian Strict Construction (as opposed to textualism’s strict construction) requires that we operationally define the construct of all any law. This principle is important because laws have the greatest affect on a polity – and often the greatest unintended effect upon individuals and the polity. ECONOMICS: PRAXEOLOGY Intuitionism (praxeology) in economics is important because manipulation of the economy causes redistributions, gains and losses. As a moral constraint, it is only slightly less influential than law. PSYCHOLOGY: OPERATIONISM Operationism in psychology was important in the recent transformation of psychology from a pseudoscience, to an experimental discipline, and because psychologists do produce, and did produce negative externalities – harm, to others. Not the least of which was multiple generations suffering from illnesses cast as cognitive problems. http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/199/1/operat.htm MEDICINE: PROTOCOLISM (MEDICAL OPERATIONALISM) Medical treatments and tests are discussed as protocols. PHYSICS: OPERATIONALISM Operationalism is physics was important because it demonstrated that we expended a great deal of time and money by NOT practicing operationalism and that Einstein’s innovation should have been much earlier and could have been if we had practiced it. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/operationalism/ MATHEMATICS: INTUITIONISM Intuitionism in mathematics was less important because there are few if any externalities produced by classical mathematical operations other than the psychological fallacy that there exists some separate mathematical reality. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/intuitionism/ ECONOMIC INTUITIONISM/OPERATIONALISM IS MEANINGFUL Therefore the HIGHEST moral requirement for demonstration of construction is in the domain of economics wherein the greatest externalities are caused by economic policy. https://www.facebook.com/groups/750292715060100/

  • Praxeology as Operationalism

    “[I]f we cast Praxeology a failed attempt at constructing the economic equivalent of Operationalism in physics, Operationism in psychology, and Intuitionism in mathematics, all of which are tests of the existential possibility of premises, then we can rescue praxeology from the domain of pseudoscience, and instead, use it as an additional moral constraint on scientific argument: that no economic statement can be testified to be true, unless it can be constructed from sympathetically testable human operations. As such, praxeology is an extension of falsification within the scientific method: a form of criticism, wherein all premises are suspect, and as such, so are all deductions. And only through logical, empirical, and operational criticism can we warrant that our theory stands sufficient scrutiny for us to claim without moral hazard, that it may be true.” – Curt Doolittle

  • Praxeology as Operationalism

    “[I]f we cast Praxeology a failed attempt at constructing the economic equivalent of Operationalism in physics, Operationism in psychology, and Intuitionism in mathematics, all of which are tests of the existential possibility of premises, then we can rescue praxeology from the domain of pseudoscience, and instead, use it as an additional moral constraint on scientific argument: that no economic statement can be testified to be true, unless it can be constructed from sympathetically testable human operations. As such, praxeology is an extension of falsification within the scientific method: a form of criticism, wherein all premises are suspect, and as such, so are all deductions. And only through logical, empirical, and operational criticism can we warrant that our theory stands sufficient scrutiny for us to claim without moral hazard, that it may be true.” – Curt Doolittle

  • Macro Economic Phenomenon are Emergent and Explainable but not Deducible

    [M]acro economic phenomenon are emergent, not deducible. They are often explainable. And the discipline of macro economics attempts to explain those phenomenon. Yet many phenomenon are still not yet explainable. Although rapid increase in economics in the past twenty years has improved the field dramatically.

    Any given price for example, is often not explainable. Nor did we nor could we have deduced the stickiness of prices. Nor can we deduce the time frame of phenomenon.

    It is true for example that in the long run, money may be neutral, but that does not mean that interference in the supply of money cannot be used to create beneficial temporary advantages even if they are neutralized over time.

    It is true that unemployment will increase with minimum wages, but the reasons for this are not those proposed by cosmopolitan-Austrians. They are because people lose the possibility of entry into the work force when they are young and become permanently unemployable. Empirical evidence does not support the assumption that minor increases are statistically meaningful. Only that, say, in the french model, do we see statistically meaningful permanent unemployment.

    So, emergent phenomenon are not deducible. They are instrumentally and empirically observable. And once observed may be explained by deduction. But this is indifferent from physical phenomenon, where phenomenon are emergent.

    But to say that we can deduce all economic activity – all human action – from first principles is demonstrably false. We cannot.

    To say that we can deduce all mathematical phenomenon, logical phenomenon, physical phenomenon from first principles is demonstrably false.

    At scale, beyond our perceptions, we must rely upon empirical evidence for observation, instrumentation to obtain that evidence, and deduction to theorize the construction of those phenomenon.

    The false-flag, straw-man argument against empiricism, states that we must be able to run tests, thereby constructing data sets, rather than merely observe phenomenon and explain that phenomenon. But science does not practice empiricism. It practices the scientific method. And physical science takes this experimental approach only to discover first principles, not to analyze emergent phenomenon. Red shift is not something we need to create conditions for, it is something we must simply observe.

    Conversely, experimentally constructed evidence is LESS reliable than naturally occurring evidence. So experimentation is a means of creating conditions for observation. Observation is what is required for analysis.

    Likewise, we do not need to discover the first principles of man, but we must discover and explain the emergent phenomenon of man’s actions.

    And even in those cases where we can construct a very loose economic principle, that does not mean that we cannot take action to alter the interstitial conditions and conduct experiments upon how we can effect those conditions and for how long. The Keynesian argument is that even if the Austrian business cycle is true, the good obtained in the interim is worth the risk, because states under fiat currency – unless they overextend by war and shock – cannot fail and become insolvent.

    In any and all cases of the anti-scientific arguments put forth by the rothbardian rationalists I will easily demonstrate that each case is a straw man argument.

    Because that is the technique of Critique: the marxist and cosmopolitan device of creating a straw man argument that is sufficiently obscurant that it is possible to load, frame, and overload the average, and even above average human mind.

    It is the greatest form of deception ever constructed by man.

    While we can look back in awe at monotheism as a great deception for the purpose of imposing authoritarian rule – despite its absurdity. And while we can look back in awe at how successful the marxists were. We can also grasp that libertinism (the cosmopolitan wing of Austrian economics) is yet another instance of the same technique: create an unbelievable lie, repeat it, and defend it with straw men. Libertinism is merely cosmopolitan separatism in new dress. It didnt’ work, it wont work, and it can’t work.

    Libertines cannot hold land. And he who holds land determines the basis of law. That is an inescapable law of human action.

    Curt Doolittle
    The Propertarian Institute
    Kiev, Ukraine