Curt Doolittle

Author: Curt Doolittle

  • EDUCATION: CUNNING VS MORAL The Perverse Incentives of the Academy. –“education

    EDUCATION: CUNNING VS MORAL

    The Perverse Incentives of the Academy.

    –“education makes one cunning, not wise, and not moral”–

    I was kind of ‘moved’ by Michael Philip’s post today on the motives of members of the academy. It’s been bothering me all day because not only is it true, but I think it qualifies as a bias, and a formal bias at that. Or rather, I think status-biases are probably a category of cognitive bias that I (we) should investigate, document, expand upon, and communicate with some frequency. Because most of the progressive status signals are constructed of cognitive biases (falsehoods).

    Cunning favors complexity. Dishonesty favors complexity. Speaking truthfully is in fact laborious – it requires a lot of effort. Speaking the truth however, is a very simple strategy, that requires very little cunning – maybe none at all. Because prohibiting the imposition of costs is a very simple rule. Voluntary exchange is a very simple rule. The rule of law under Propertarian Property Rights (Property-in-toto), is a very simple rule. That demand for the state will increase if their is a lag in the development of property rights, is a very simple rule. These are all very simple rules.

    If all moral propositions are decidable, (under propertarian logic, they are), then there is no room for cunning, except to lie. I fact, cunning is a contrary indicator of truth, and of morality.

    Yet cunning is such an attractive means of dominance display. For those of us trying to eliminate cunning, we can temporarily display dominance, but only in the art of refuting loading, framing, overloading and suggestion. And since I have no illusions that the incentives to construct complex lies via cunning verbalisms will ever disappear, then I suspect that the defense against cunning will always require wisdom and cunning.

    So I have a new to-do, which is to enumerate the cognitive biases we fall victim to in the pursuit of status signals.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-10-20 19:25:00 UTC

  • (Thought was having a bad allergy day. Now it seems like I have caught some kind

    (Thought was having a bad allergy day. Now it seems like I have caught some kind of nasty flu. kicking my a___. But thank god for laptops and the internet. Watching bad television as a child was so awful by comparison.)

    Source date (UTC): 2014-10-20 15:59:00 UTC

  • PROPERTARIANISM AND THE IS-OUGHT DIVIDE As far as I know, under Propertarianism,

    PROPERTARIANISM AND THE IS-OUGHT DIVIDE

    As far as I know, under Propertarianism, (a) “is” and “ought” are identical, and (b) all moral propositions are decidable. And as far as I know, satisfaction of those two conditions is the only requirement for a universal theory that solves the is-ought dichotomy.

    I would say that the prohibition on free riding (parasitism) is the general rule. But, that very moral, and very immoral peoples make use of different strategies. The moral proposition then could be suicidal. And the immoral proposition could be highly successful. We could have a universally moral world in theory and practice given a narrow distribution of talents. But we cannot have that world if immorality is advantageous. There is no way of attributing success to morality. In other words, morality is may not result in a successful evolutionary result.

    So the assumption that a universally applicable moral theory may be true, but the desirability of the application of a universally applicable moral theory may not be. (and appears not to be), precisely because immoral activity is more temporally advantageous than moral activity.

    One position to adopt is that we should then eradicate immorality from the practice of man, regardless of the consequences. The counter argument would be that it is somehow moral to provide an institutional framework in which immorality flourishes.

    My argument is to imposed the universal rule by means of nomocracy, deny redistribution to immoral peoples, and let evolution take its eugenic course. This is how the aristocratic egalitarians under manorialism functioned. It is quite the opposite of the Sinic method of constant deliberate culling of the population.

    Propertarianism a sufficient institutional solution for all moral people irrespective of their distributed abilities. But, the question remains: what do you do with groups who practice immorality as a positive strategy? Why are they any different from terrorists, conquerers or thieves?

    Why tolerate immorality?

    (I honestly don’t know what to do here. )

    Source date (UTC): 2014-10-20 15:56:00 UTC

  • SOCRATES ON VALOR —“Socrates was known for his courage in battle and fearlessn

    SOCRATES ON VALOR

    —“Socrates was known for his courage in battle and fearlessness, a trait that stayed with him throughout his life. After his trial, he compared his refusal to retreat from his legal troubles to a soldier’s refusal to retreat from battle when threatened with death.”—

    Seek moral battles. Never retreat. Never surrender. Show no mercy. Defeat your opponent completely.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-10-20 15:34:00 UTC

  • THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE CONSPIRACY THAT DOESN’T EXIST The point is that women

    THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE CONSPIRACY THAT DOESN’T EXIST

    The point is that women are just as capable as men and the data is overwhelming. However the statistical disparities are not the result of bias but of the distribution of talents and preferences between the genders.

    So my point was that no one is biased against female CEOs. And no one is biased against short CEOs. There are just a lot of tall capable men and humans like big strong smart men as their leaders.

    I can post all day that men and women are equally productive in the work force. Or that women assimilate into organizations more easily than men. Or that they mature earlier and have longer possible working lives than men. Or that women dominate the middle. And that women improve working conditions.

    But the moment I bring up that up here in the high iq range women don’t want to engage in constant combat, prefer to work relationships rather than abstract data, or that men up here outnumber women by an order of magnitude, or that women are less likely to take career risk in loyalty structures, the crazies come out of the woodwork.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-10-20 10:00:00 UTC

  • DECLINE — ‘The theory of the divine right of kings as it came to prominence in

    DECLINE

    — ‘The theory of the divine right of kings as it came to prominence in the seventeenth century had no place in medieval thought. Because of the mutuality of the relationship between ruler and people, should the ruler fail in his obligation—and his primary obligation was to rule under the law—then the bargain or compact was broken and the people released from their obligations to obey.’ — Andy Curzon

    Source date (UTC): 2014-10-20 09:43:00 UTC

  • Moral Foundations Theory expressed as Propertarian Property Rights via @feedly

    Moral Foundations Theory expressed as Propertarian Property Rights http://www.propertarianism.com/2014/09/28/moral-foundations-as-property-rights/ via @feedly

    Source date (UTC): 2014-10-20 08:10:18 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/524110347028819968

  • SHOULD THE GOVERNMENT INTERVENE AND MAKE ME A FORTUNE 500 CEO? Feminists are abs

    SHOULD THE GOVERNMENT INTERVENE AND MAKE ME A FORTUNE 500 CEO?

    Feminists are absurd. Now, here is the data. CEO’s of large companies are (a) really smart, and (b) tall. Now, there is a correlation between height and brain size which correlates with intelligence. But also, the very primitive power that superior height conveys is tangible, and measurable.

    Does that mean that the government should redistribute CEO positions from tall people to short people?

    Then why should we redistribute CEO positions (or any position in society) from socially superior people to socially inferior people?

    I have no problem with the fact that I can never play basketball well, and that in both soccer and volleyball I am working at a disadvantage. I have no problem that in business I am working at a disadvantage. I have no problem that even in the pursuit of desirable women that I am at a disadvantage. These are disadvantages. But I cannot comprehend wanting others to sacrifice the maximum that they can achieve in life to compensate for my disadvantage.

    Yet feminists will argue the opposite day in and day out. The fact is that women work fewer hours, are less willing to make economic sacrifices, less willing to take economic risks, are less loyal to internal political networks, and are vastly outnumbered at both the top and bottom of the intelligence and aggressive impulsivity scales.

    Just as I cannot possibly sense but 1/100’th of what an average women can about any other human being she encounters in the first fifteen seconds, I understand that nearly all women on earth, cannot make political assessments in the same short time frame.

    We are compatible. But we are not equal. And group competition requires we make the best use of our best, because everyone else is merely a commodity.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-10-20 05:13:00 UTC

  • WHY DO WE LET THEM LIE TO US? They lied to us and they taught us to lie. But why

    WHY DO WE LET THEM LIE TO US?

    They lied to us and they taught us to lie. But why were we weak? What made warriors into gullible victims? Why did the cosmopolitan lies, and the lies of the christians, succeed? Why could we not resist the christian lies, the cosmopolitan pseudoscientific lies, and the socialist, postmodern and feminist lies?

    (Altruism. Trust. Our Respect for the Commons.)

    Source date (UTC): 2014-10-20 04:55:00 UTC

  • Untitled

    http://www.propertarianism.com/2014/08/26/peace-is-an-idiots-obsession/

    Source date (UTC): 2014-10-20 04:09:00 UTC