Curt Doolittle

Author: Curt Doolittle

  • IS A PRIVELEGE EARNED I have a problem with causing suffering as punishment or f

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/12/16/from-moderate-democrats-to-white-evangelicals-nearly-every-demographic-group-believes-torture-can-be-justified/?tid=sm_fbINDIVIDUALISM IS A PRIVELEGE EARNED

    I have a problem with causing suffering as punishment or for personal gratification. I have no problem with torture for the purpose of gathering information – particularly non-destructive torture. I certainly have no problem with killing, and I think we don’t do nearly enough of it. It’s cheap, effective, and provides exceptional incentives.

    Moreover, In individual societies we must limit punishment to the individual. In traditional societies, to the family, to primitive societies to the tribe, to corporeally organized to the state, and to religiously organized societies to all members.

    If you act as your own agent, for your own personal gain, then you have merely committed a crime. If you act on behalf of others you have committed a conspiracy.

    For these reasons we must hold groups accountable for the actions of their members, because actors acting on their behalf are their agents, and only those members possess the knowledge and incentives to contain the actions of their members.

    Individualism is a privilege earned by members of a society for suppression of the actions its members.

    Punish the group for the actions of the individuals and they will contain their group members – that’s what we do.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-12-18 02:35:00 UTC

  • AT HIS BEST – COOL

    http://youtu.be/Pmz10uQsTYEHAIDT AT HIS BEST – COOL

    Source date (UTC): 2014-12-18 02:13:00 UTC

  • MICHAEL PHILLIP ON THE INCENTIVES OF MONARCHY Though subject to normal human fai

    MICHAEL PHILLIP ON THE INCENTIVES OF MONARCHY

    Though subject to normal human failings, the long time horizons of monarchy is one of its distinct advantages. As economist Mancur Olson pointed out that, the longer the time horizon of the ruler, the more their interests tended to converge with those of their subjects. One tends to be somewhat more careful and accommodating the longer you and your children are going to be living with the consequences of your decisions. Of the three major Axis powers, the two monarchies (the Kingdom of Italy and the Empire of Japan) found it easier to exit from fighting precisely because they were monarchies; there was someone with sufficient authority to say enough. Nazi Germany had to wait until Hitler was dead (and assassination proved to be a less reliable alternative).

    Source date (UTC): 2014-12-18 02:04:00 UTC

  • Intellectual Property (IP) In Propertarianism

    [H]ere is where I end up. And it hasn’t changed much in two years.

    1) Trademarking.
    Yes. It’s a weight and measure. And it’s testable. Violating trademarks is fraudulent.

    2) Copyrighting.
    Possibly – but only if under the model of the creative commons. Meaning free for non commercial use. I don’t care about patents anywhere near as much as I care about ending copyrights on user copyable media. It is very, very, hard to argue that pop music, film and literature are a public good – and I think the evidence is the opposite.  Artists and writers will do their work regardless of compensation, and without compensation those who lack are will be dis-incentivized from producing it.

    The difference between my position on copyrighting and the rothbardian, is that since high trust is necessary for the rational voluntary formation of even a moderately anarchic polity, then the criteria for moral action necessary for a high trust society will be: “Truthfully stated, fully informed, warrantied, productive, voluntary exchange, free of negative externality” – and those criteria are violated by commercially profiting from the creative works of another.

    While it is hard to say that one should be cast as a criminal for duplicating a non-scarce good, it is another to say that one has the right to profit from it instead of its creator. It would violate the requirement that we all contribute to production rather than act parasitically in order for cooperation to be inter-temporally rational. (ie: Non-retaliatory.)

    I can’t agree that a publisher can make money selling a book without a commission to the author. But I can agree that an author cannot prevent the copying of a book. Same for film, music, and art. And I take this position not because I like it but because I cannot logically find an alternative to it. Humans will retaliate against parasitism, and that is what defines property-en-toto.

    3) Patents.
    Possibly in rare circumstances, but only for very, very, specific public (Citizen-Shareholder) investments that would not be served by the market otherwise. It is arguable that such criteria is not in fact meaningfully similar enough to a patent to call it patenting. But the idea of funding off-book research and development at private expense in hope of public reward is difficult to morally argue against – particularly in medicine and physical science. If we wanted to put a ten billion dollar bounty on the invention of a fusion reactor that met X criteria it is hard to say that wouldn’t be a good investment.

    Again, I am not sure that this qualifies as a ‘patent’, but to prohibit a voluntarily organized polity from offering a market bounty for the off book production of a high risk good is hard to find argument against.

    Curt Doolittle
    The Propertarian Institute
    Kiev, Ukraine.

  • Intellectual Property (IP) In Propertarianism

    [H]ere is where I end up. And it hasn’t changed much in two years.

    1) Trademarking.
    Yes. It’s a weight and measure. And it’s testable. Violating trademarks is fraudulent.

    2) Copyrighting.
    Possibly – but only if under the model of the creative commons. Meaning free for non commercial use. I don’t care about patents anywhere near as much as I care about ending copyrights on user copyable media. It is very, very, hard to argue that pop music, film and literature are a public good – and I think the evidence is the opposite.  Artists and writers will do their work regardless of compensation, and without compensation those who lack are will be dis-incentivized from producing it.

    The difference between my position on copyrighting and the rothbardian, is that since high trust is necessary for the rational voluntary formation of even a moderately anarchic polity, then the criteria for moral action necessary for a high trust society will be: “Truthfully stated, fully informed, warrantied, productive, voluntary exchange, free of negative externality” – and those criteria are violated by commercially profiting from the creative works of another.

    While it is hard to say that one should be cast as a criminal for duplicating a non-scarce good, it is another to say that one has the right to profit from it instead of its creator. It would violate the requirement that we all contribute to production rather than act parasitically in order for cooperation to be inter-temporally rational. (ie: Non-retaliatory.)

    I can’t agree that a publisher can make money selling a book without a commission to the author. But I can agree that an author cannot prevent the copying of a book. Same for film, music, and art. And I take this position not because I like it but because I cannot logically find an alternative to it. Humans will retaliate against parasitism, and that is what defines property-en-toto.

    3) Patents.
    Possibly in rare circumstances, but only for very, very, specific public (Citizen-Shareholder) investments that would not be served by the market otherwise. It is arguable that such criteria is not in fact meaningfully similar enough to a patent to call it patenting. But the idea of funding off-book research and development at private expense in hope of public reward is difficult to morally argue against – particularly in medicine and physical science. If we wanted to put a ten billion dollar bounty on the invention of a fusion reactor that met X criteria it is hard to say that wouldn’t be a good investment.

    Again, I am not sure that this qualifies as a ‘patent’, but to prohibit a voluntarily organized polity from offering a market bounty for the off book production of a high risk good is hard to find argument against.

    Curt Doolittle
    The Propertarian Institute
    Kiev, Ukraine.

  • (I am not anti-Russian. If anything, just the opposite. I had hoped to live ther

    (I am not anti-Russian. If anything, just the opposite. I had hoped to live there. Living in Moscow was an ambition. I find the company of Russians more comforting than nearly any other group – except maybe Ukrainians. I am just anti Russian-expansion of their low trust, highly corrupt society into areas that contain White Christians capable of evolving into a high trust society in the absence of Russian violence, corruption and nihilism. Ukraine was part of Poland and Austria-Hungary, not Russia. Russians are invaders and conquerors.)

    Source date (UTC): 2014-12-17 16:07:00 UTC

  • HERE IS WHERE I END UP ON IP in PROPERTARIANISM. And it hasn’t changed much in t

    HERE IS WHERE I END UP ON IP in PROPERTARIANISM.

    And it hasn’t changed much in two years.

    1) Trademarking.

    Yes. It’s a weight and measure. And it’s testable. Violating trademarks is fraudulent.

    2) Copyrighting.

    Possibly – but only if under the model of the creative commons. Meaning free for non commercial use. I don’t care about patents anywhere near as much as I care about ending copyrights on user copyable media. It is very, very, hard to argue that pop music, film and literature is a public good – and I think the evidence is the opposite.

    The difference between my position on copyrighting and the rothbardian, is that since high trust is necessary for the voluntary formation of even a moderately anarchic polity, then the criteria for moral action necessary for a high trust society will be: “Truthfully stated, fully informed, warrantied, productive, voluntary exchange, free of negative externality” is violated by commercially profiting from the creative works of another. While it is hard to say that one should be cast as a criminal for duplicating a non-scarce good, it is another to say that one has the right to profit from it instead of its creator. It would violate the requirement that we all contribute to production rather than act parasitically in order for cooperation to be inter-temporally rational. (ie: Non-retaliatory) I can’t agree that a publisher can make money selling a book without a commission to the author. But I can agree that an author cannot prevent the copying of a book. Same for film, music, and art. And I take this position not because I like it but because I cannot logically find an alternative to it. Humans will retaliate against parasitism, and that is what defines property-en-toto.

    3) Patents.

    Possibly in rare circumstances, but only for very, very, specific public (Citizen-Shareholder) investments that would not be served by the market otherwise. It is arguable that such criteria is not in fact meaningfully similar enough to a patent. But the idea of funding off book research and development at private expense in hope of public reward is difficult to morally argue against – particularly medicine and physical science. If we wanted to put a ten billion dollar bounty on the invention of a fusion reactor that met X criteria it is hard to say that wouldn’t be a good investment.

    Again, I am not sure that this qualifies as a ‘patent’, but to prohibit a voluntarily organized polity from offering a market bounty for the off book production of a high risk good is hard to find argument against.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Propertarian Institute

    Kiev, Ukraine.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-12-17 15:13:00 UTC

  • “Meaning” Is A Great Way of Lying

    [I]t really doesn’t matter what an author says or intends. What matters is whether its true or not- and I do not mean internally consistent, I mean externally correspondent. When we roll a bag of conceptual marbles down the hill, we do not control them – reality does. When we roll our sentences into the public it does not matter what we say or how we say it but whether what we say is true and truthful.


    Nothing marx, freud and rothbard say for example is truthfully expressed, so we cannot judge an author by his own terms, but on whether his arguments are operationally possible in reality.


    Meaning is a great way to lie. Which is useful in myths and religious dogma. It was useful in pseudosciences. It was useful in the fallacy of psychologizing. It was useful by the postmoderns. It is useful in all public speech. But it is just a perfect vehicle for lying.


    I run into this all the time, when criticizing certain authors. My favorite is still the typical economist’s reply that ‘we don’t concern ourselves with that’.


    Which makes me crazy because they do affect that which they claim to ignore, without admitting that it is precisely what they ignore that allows them to justify their work.
    Marx is better though. Best. Liar.Ever.

  • “Meaning” Is A Great Way of Lying

    [I]t really doesn’t matter what an author says or intends. What matters is whether its true or not- and I do not mean internally consistent, I mean externally correspondent. When we roll a bag of conceptual marbles down the hill, we do not control them – reality does. When we roll our sentences into the public it does not matter what we say or how we say it but whether what we say is true and truthful.


    Nothing marx, freud and rothbard say for example is truthfully expressed, so we cannot judge an author by his own terms, but on whether his arguments are operationally possible in reality.


    Meaning is a great way to lie. Which is useful in myths and religious dogma. It was useful in pseudosciences. It was useful in the fallacy of psychologizing. It was useful by the postmoderns. It is useful in all public speech. But it is just a perfect vehicle for lying.


    I run into this all the time, when criticizing certain authors. My favorite is still the typical economist’s reply that ‘we don’t concern ourselves with that’.


    Which makes me crazy because they do affect that which they claim to ignore, without admitting that it is precisely what they ignore that allows them to justify their work.
    Marx is better though. Best. Liar.Ever.

  • WAS THE REVOLUTION COOPTED BY NAZIS? (OMG – Americans are stupid.) –“Taking you

    WAS THE REVOLUTION COOPTED BY NAZIS? (OMG – Americans are stupid.)

    –“Taking you at your word that you are living in Kiev, let me take this opportunity to ask: What do say to the charges that the revolution was instigated by the U.S.? Could it have happened without U. S. support? Was it in fact co-opted by nazis, neo or otherwise?”—

    From Curt Doolittle:

    Well, you can search for me on Google or Facebook, I’m pretty prolific, and I’m readily visible here in Kiev. 🙂

    The people here BEGGED for support from the states and got almost NOTHING. A few of us hammered the news media. But we got nothing. You can’t say that schoolgirls spending lunch money on bandages and trucking in in the cold to tend the young men on the front lines, or housewives and clerical workers showing up by the millions is somehow a CIA plot. (Which if you knew anything about the intelligence community would seem absurd.)

    And it’s absolutely insulting to locals to insinuate that they’re ignorant pawns of some global intrigue rather than artificially and desperately poor for no reason other than leftover Russian (soviet) bureaucrats in one of the most politically corrupt nations on earth. There is no rule of law here. None. Courts and police are bought. Last may I think I paid something on the order of 3K in bribes just to get people to do their jobs – not for any special treatment.

    Most people here look across the border into Poland and see what they COULD have. Most people look to Russia and see murderers who came in the middle of the night to kill relatives and families after Stalin killed millions of Ukrainians in the Holodomor: the Ukrainian Holocaust.

    The only difference between Canadians and Ukrainians’ which neighbor they have. Similar sizes and populations and similar (gentle) temperaments.

    I love these people and there is nothing on earth that justifies letting people who wish to be free come under Russian corruption ever again.

    Americans are ignorant, stupid and benevolent sheriffs yes. They fail to grasp what it means to live in a low trust society. The do not grasp that the lower the trust in a society the more necessary authoritarian rule is. That only generations of commercialism will change a low trust polity in to a moderate trust polity – even so corrupt and politically volatile as the Italians and the Romanians. Just as Russians fail to grasp that Americans actually believe they are acting in the moral interest of less advanced peoples. Americans foolishly believe that they yearn for liberty and prosperity, and merely need to be given the opportunity for self government. And look at the damage we have done. Russians cannot believe we do this with american idealism rather than russian pragamatism. That is because our idealism is as foreign to them as it would be to space aliens.

    Yet here in Ukraine we have a white, christian people (many of whom go to church, and yes, that’s important at this stage of development), who have very similar ethics, work habits, history, education, literature and mythology.

    And they want to be free.

    Yet in the coal mines of the east, in the decaying factories of the soviet era, in the desperate partly Russified slums, the idea of getting checks however small from the government from oil revenues is worth living under the rule of gangsters.

    Most of Ukraine would have been happy to divorce and set them free. But Ukrainian’s are unified now, and their view is ‘if we do not stop the enemy in Donbas, then he will be first in kiev and then in L’viv and we will be under the boots of gangsters and tyrants and murderers yet again.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Propertarian Institute

    Kiev Ukraine.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-12-17 14:36:00 UTC