Curt Doolittle

Author: Curt Doolittle

  • “One such classification system is Fiske’s Relational Model that has the followi

    “One such classification system is Fiske’s Relational Model that has the following classes:

    1. Communal Sharing,

    2. Authority Ranking,

    3. Equality Matching,

    4. Market Pricing / Rational Legal.

    The last of these is the framework usually used by libertarians.”

    The reason we use it, is because, in a complex division of labor, greater than the family, extended family, or village, it is the only one in which we can be relatively certain that we are not free riding or rent seeking.

    There is simply no other combination of technologies that are available to us. NONE. Equality is impossible except among family members.

    Even if it were technically possible, I am not even sure it is desirable.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-18 11:04:00 UTC

  • THE PHILOSOPHICAL DIFFERENCE OF NECESSITY ON MEANS VS PREFERENCE ON ENDS The dif

    THE PHILOSOPHICAL DIFFERENCE OF NECESSITY ON MEANS VS PREFERENCE ON ENDS

    The difference between my set of statements and the various replies above, is one that is common in western philosophy.

    Because western philosophy was created and developed by its aristocratic classes, and those classes that performed sufficiently to afford the luxury of philosophy, and sought enfranchisement.

    Namely: necessity.

    Marx, for all his error, does not make this mistake, nor does perhaps our most influential moral philosopher: Adam Smith against whom Marx, like Freud against Nietzsche, is a reactionary.

    So, the difference in our approaches to philosophy, is that I start with necessity, and then choose preference from the available options.

    From that position I take the mutually moral and scientific requirements that:

    (a) it is only moral to compel necessities not preferences.

    (b) The only moral preferential political action is one that others voluntarily comply with.

    (c) the evidence is that most of our attempts to interfere with social orders, other than increasing participation in them, has proven to be a failure when we attempt to achieve ends, rather than provide means.

    There are many preferences that we could seek to pursue, the externalities of which are counter productive to the prosperity that decreases the possibility of choices.

    As such, philosophical discourse on luxuries is interesting. However, we should not lose sight of the fact that what we are discussing is the luxuries that our implementation of necessities has made possible.

    Discussing luxuries is a nice parlor game. It is like young men fantasizing about which supercar they can buy if they save for the next ten years. But I do not work on philosophy for entertainment. I work on it for the purpose of identifying possible solutions to looming problems: what is necessary for continued expansion of our ability to cooperate in a division of knowledge and labor so vast that we can exist with such wealth?

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-18 04:17:00 UTC

  • You sort of, I suspect, deterministically, get to where you understand why Socra

    You sort of, I suspect, deterministically, get to where you understand why Socrates wanted to just walk-on-out of Athens. Because It’s just seems hopeless.

    But it’s not. It’s just too high a standard to hold others too.

    Just because equality is not possible, that doesn’t mean a chance for dramatic improvement isn’t readily available, or even probable.

    So, you just plant a bunch of seeds, because the people in your moment, may not be the one’s who harvest them.

    And in all reality, it’s just that, while you think the relative distance is very great, you’re only a teensy-tiny bit ahead of the curve in absolute terms.

    And someday that marginal difference will be assumed to be as natural, obvious and taken for granted as gravity; and the prior state of affairs as inconceivable a distance as your perception of the difference between the past norms and your present understanding.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-17 14:34:00 UTC

  • 12th Century Ethnic Slurs (What on earth is a ‘tail-bearer’?) “‘the English were

    12th Century Ethnic Slurs

    (What on earth is a ‘tail-bearer’?)

    “‘the English were drunks and tail-bearers, the French arrogant, weak and effeminate, the Germans furious, with disgusting manners, the Normans vain and boastful, the Poitevins traitors and adventurers. The Burgundians were reputed to be vulgar and stupid. They reproached the Bretons for being frivolous and fickle, often teasing them about Arthur’s death. They called the Lombards greedy, malicious and cowardly; the Romans seditious, violent and avaricious; the Sicilians tyrannical and cruel; the Brabanters bloodthirsty, arsonists, brigands and rapists; the Flemish self-indulgent, rich, gluttonous, and weak and soft as butter.” — “Ethnic Stereotyping in Twelfth-Century Paris” in Difference and Identity in Francia and Medieval France [pgs. 117-118

    Humans Never Change : We gossip and shame. Signal Machines. We do it with words instead of leaving a chemical trail. But it’s the same behavior just at a higher level of complexity

    Via HBD Chick.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-17 01:36:00 UTC

  • “This guy wants to tell me we’re living in a community? Don’t make me laugh. I’m

    –“This guy wants to tell me we’re living in a community? Don’t make me laugh. I’m living in America, and in America you’re on your own. America’s not a country. It’s just a business. Now f___kin’ pay me.”–

    Killing Them Softly (2012)

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-16 14:33:00 UTC

  • WHAT ARE OUR SCHOOLS DOING TO MAKE CHILDREN MENTALLY UNSTABLE? —“…kids are s

    WHAT ARE OUR SCHOOLS DOING TO MAKE CHILDREN MENTALLY UNSTABLE?

    —“…kids are so sophisticated now but also so stressed out. She said students suffering from depression and anxiety are at high risk for drug use, and suicide rates nationwide are climbing.”–

    The suburban heroin user is white. The average age of first use is 18.

    One-third of those surveyed starting using it after being addicted to or misusing prescription pain pills such as OxyContin or Vicodin.

    More than 75 percent of respondents had a concurrent mental health condition, such as depression, ADHD or bipolar disorder, and used heroin to self-medicate.

    Two-thirds of those surveyed displayed “sensation-seeking behaviors,” which researchers translated to mean they got a thrill out of driving to the West Side of Chicago to buy heroin without getting caught.

    Users have little knowledge about heroin when they first try it.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-16 13:41:00 UTC

  • The ongoing struggle to extend in-group trust to out-group members. Or, the ongo

    The ongoing struggle to extend in-group trust to out-group members.

    Or, the ongoing struggle to extend the cooperation demonstrated between consanguineous relations, to beyond those relations, such that it is possible for us to evolve a division of knowledge and labor, in which there is as little risk of misappropriation of our efforts in the market, as there is within the consanguineous family. While inside the family free riding is a form of mutual insurance, manageable by threat of deprivation and ostracization, the fact remains that one’s genetic kin prosper even at the cost of unequal distribution of gains and losses. But outside the kin, the same free riding, and unequal distribution of gains and losses, is neither of benefit to kin, nor controllable by ostracization and deprivation. There is always another group to prey upon if one is mobile enough. And it takes but a minority of predators engaging in immoral activity to render all external trust intolerable, and thereby undermine the people’s economy, polity, and competitive survival.

    Simple property

    If it was hard to create the institution of simple-private-property such that we could prosecute and suppress the crimes of violence and theft.

    Low trust private property

    If it was hard to create the institution of low-trust private property such that we could prosecute and suppress the crimes of fraud and blackmail.

    High trust warrantied private property

    It was hard to create the institution of high-trust, warrantied, private property such that we could prosecute and suppress the crimes of fraud by omission, negligence, and externalization.

    High Trust Political Institutions

    It was hard to create the formal institutions of high political trust american classical liberalism in an attempt to suppress corruption in government, all forms of free riding.

    “Perfect-Trust” Informal and Formal Institutions

    So, the why would it not be even more difficult to create formal and informal institutions such that we could prosecute and suppress the crimes of deception by obscurantism, mysticism and loading?

    Because cooperation across reproductive strategies is impossible without trust that operates independently of our differences in property rights.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-16 12:02:00 UTC

  • (strangeness) Young women. Here. In the apartment. Getting ready to go out for a

    (strangeness)

    Young women. Here. In the apartment. Getting ready to go out for a girl’s night. Teasing me by walking around half clothed.

    My life is either wonderful or insane. Maybe both. But I’m not sure myself…. But there are worse lives to live.

    But,why am I so much of a joy for people to tease? It’s because I’m easy to make fun of. Isn’t it?

    Sigh.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-16 11:27:00 UTC

  • We humans are notoriously challenged with multi-dimensional problems. We evolved

    We humans are notoriously challenged with multi-dimensional problems. We evolved to run to intercept something running from us, and avoid something running at us – and we further evolved, to throw a rock, spear or arrow at something moving in relation to us. That is a very complex calculation to perform.

    It’s pretty interesting to go through the analysis of why we can only visualize three to five things, and only really remember five to seven, without hard work and mastering certain tricks.

    Our emotions for example seem very complex to us, but they ‘re constructed by as few as three different axis.

    Our personalities probably consist of no more than five or six major determinants, although numbers of properties is often discussed in the thirties.

    So if the number of axis that affect our philosophy is more than two or three it’s no wonder that we have trouble mentally reconciling them. Because it’s possible that we cannot usefully reduce these axis any further.

    But we try anyway. We strive for the simplistic ideal type at all times. But we fail. We sometimes under pressure consider a spectrum. And at others under confusion consider two or three axis (say, like the Nolan chart). But beyond the three dimensional we tend to fail.

    AXIS 1 (mind)

    [reality]

    sensation

    memory

    perception (awareness? awareness of change in state?)

    searching

    imagination

    AXIS 3 (instrumentation)

    identity (categorizing, naming – including numbering)

    logic (language of justification, argument or maybe persuasion?).

    relation (mathematics: logic of constant relations – ie: axiomatic)

    causality (physics: logic of constant causal relations – ie:determinism)

    organization (economics: logic of inconstant relations)

    AXIS 3 (truth)

    inconsistency

    internal consistency

    external consistency (correspondence)

    truth (internal and external correspondence)

    identity

    AXIS 4 (action and population)

    observation (accretion)

    action (choice)

    cooperation. (contract)

    spontaneous cooperation (market)

    unconscious cooperation (metaphysical value judgements)

    AXIS 5 (incentive)

    ignorance

    preference

    priority

    obligation

    necessity

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-16 11:18:00 UTC

  • False theories are different from incomplete theories

    http://phys.org/news/2014-01-einstein-wrong.html#jCpAgreed. False theories are different from incomplete theories.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-16 08:45:00 UTC