Curt Doolittle

Author: Curt Doolittle

  • Do Machiavellian Philosophies Carry Over Into The Modern World?

    You’d need to define what you mean by Machiavellian tactics.  Machiavelli was the first political scientist after Aristotle, and arguably the father of politics as a scientific endeavor.  He entreated rulers to move away from ancient traditions, religious or abstract moral principles, to material, logical, evidence based, principles necessary for the state to persist in the interests of its citizens. At the time of his writing, trade was moving north, and the principalities were being both threatened externally and undermined from within. 

    In this sense, almost all political action in the contemporary world is Machiavellian.

    So if you mean some other sense, then state it, and I’ll try to answer.

    https://www.quora.com/Do-Machiavellian-philosophies-carry-over-into-the-modern-world

  • How Corrupt Is The U.s. Government?

    Government by it’s nature, because it is a monopoly, and concentrates capital, draws corruption.  In the USA, corruption tends to be systemic rather than individual. Meaning that the system encourages politicians to work for special interests, and government workers to collect extraordinary benefits – on avearage have retirement benefits equivalent to something like 750K in savings, compared to 50K for the average citizen — plus they cannot be fired and unlike the rest of us are insulated from market pressures.  Monetary corruption, meaning, the privatization of public funds or goods, in exchange for favors, is actually amazingly rare in the USA.  Almost all of it is systemic.

    Americans are somewhat unique in their belief that it is possible to construct virtuous politicians and insert them into a system that encourages systemic corruption. We attempt to change the human to fit the system, rather than change the system to fit human nature.

    https://www.quora.com/How-corrupt-is-the-U-S-Government

  • Do Machiavellian Philosophies Carry Over Into The Modern World?

    You’d need to define what you mean by Machiavellian tactics.  Machiavelli was the first political scientist after Aristotle, and arguably the father of politics as a scientific endeavor.  He entreated rulers to move away from ancient traditions, religious or abstract moral principles, to material, logical, evidence based, principles necessary for the state to persist in the interests of its citizens. At the time of his writing, trade was moving north, and the principalities were being both threatened externally and undermined from within. 

    In this sense, almost all political action in the contemporary world is Machiavellian.

    So if you mean some other sense, then state it, and I’ll try to answer.

    https://www.quora.com/Do-Machiavellian-philosophies-carry-over-into-the-modern-world

  • Question: From the GSH perspective, does a woman have the right to bear a child

    Question: From the GSH perspective, does a woman have the right to bear a child that she cannot support, thus mandating transfers, and sacrifices, from others to her? The reason I ask is that while protestant christianity certainly contains content that is absurd, the effect of its “chinese room” (see Searle) is a prohibition on involuntary transfers, and a requirement for responsible independence. Democratic Secular Humanism appears rational, but encourages involuntary transfers. Christianity implies inequality is natural. DSH advocates (at least statistically) believe that humans are equal. So, there is madness on both sides. Or, would you suggest DSH as a political movement is separate from GSH as a personal philosophical movement?

    Source date (UTC): 2012-07-04 09:01:00 UTC

  • Is Democracy A Viable System For Everyone?

    Democracy is, at best, a means of peacefully transferring power. If you mean, can representative democracy (a republic) or even a direct democracy (versus an economic democracy), serve the interests of everyone, the answer is apparently “no” for the following reasons.
    a) Majority rule is a means by which a group with similar moral codes and material interests can set PRIORITIES for the use of scarce resources.  It is not possible to use majority rule for groups with competing moral codes and competing material interests to resolve conflicts over GOALS.  Democracy is a means of obtaining majority rule.
    b) the lower, working and lower middle classes are and will always be, the largest pool of potential voters.  Therefore elites with a variety of interests will simply compete for their votes.
    c) the protestant west was unique in that the church managed to break familial bonds by the long term prohibition of intermarriage, and by granting women property rights. Combined with germanic individualism, and the common law, this made possible the fairly low level of corruption in the west, that is endemic elsewhere.  It also gave rise the the universalist ethic, which is contrary to the natural familial and tribal ethic. This is a very long topic on it’s own, but basically the west is fairly unique.  China and India cannot solve the problem of corruption for example from different ends of the spectrum. India remains familial and china authoritarian.
    d) We have fairly good data now, that moral codes vary considerably, and that they are slanted toward the reproductive strategies of the two genders.  Therefore those things that serve one moral code often violate another.  Those things that violate some moral codes (famlilialism) are necessary for democracy to function.
    e) it appears that the philosophers were right, and that a population that can vote itself payments from others will create a fragile economy.  This is a particular weakness of the western model versus say the Singaporean and Galveston models, whereby individual accountability is maintained.
    f) there are dominant cognitive biases on the left and right. the left is victim of the false consensus bias, and the right overestimates threats and risks, and the libertarians overestimate human beings.  These cognitive problems are impossible to resolve by majority rule.

    I have to rush so hopefully this brief outline will illustrate the problem.

    https://www.quora.com/Is-Democracy-a-viable-system-for-everyone

  • What Examples Are There Of Chaotic And Inexorable Processes Through The Free Market, Technology And The Global Society?

    I will answer this question if you will provide examples of “blind additions” and “these decisions”  and why our attempts at controlling them would be ‘better’. Without those bits of information it is very hard to deduce what it is that you’re asking.

    https://www.quora.com/What-examples-are-there-of-chaotic-and-inexorable-processes-through-the-free-market-technology-and-the-global-society

  • WATCH See? It’s not just me. Williamson weighs in and calls krugman a self promo

    http://newmonetarism.blogspot.ca/2012/07/macroeconomic-thought-is-driven-by.html?m=1KRUGMAN WATCH

    See? It’s not just me. Williamson weighs in and calls krugman a self promoter that demonizes straw men.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-07-01 15:15:00 UTC

  • The Two Sources Of Belonging

    We all want to belong to a group. Some of us less or more than others. But few of us want to be ostracized from it. We can obtain that sense of belonging through empathy if we are similar, and duty if we are not. Empathy through shared interpretation. Duty through shared action in pursuit of mutually beneficial ends. Women vary less. They sense more. At least, on average, they tend to belong through empathy. Men vary more. They sense less. They are action rather than perception oriented. Dominance is the corollary of empathy. We must learn to use our dominance against the physical world, and in defense of life and property, and not as a means of self expression or control of others. Misused empathy is just as dangerous as misused dominance. The damage we have done to the world by our supposedly charitable activities is as great as the damage we have done by war. We have lost the ancient understanding of our dual natures. To cohabitate and to cooperate politically we must master both empathy and dominance in relation to how we possess them. And in doing so create belonging by both empathy and duty.

  • “The nation is burdened with the heavy curse on those who come afterwards. The g

    “The nation is burdened with the heavy curse on those who come afterwards. The generation before us was inspired by an activism and a naive enthusiasm, which we cannot rekindle, because we confront tasks of a different kind from those which our fathers faced.”

    THERE IS NO WE. AN EMPIRE IS NOT A NATION.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-06-30 09:38:00 UTC

  • BELONGING We want to belong to the group. Some of us less or more than others. B

    BELONGING

    We want to belong to the group. Some of us less or more than others. But few of us want to ostracized from it.

    We can that sense of belonging through empathy if we are similar, and duty if we are not. Empathy through shared interpretation. Duty through shared action in pursuit of mutually beneficial ends.

    Women vary less. They sense more. At least, on average, they tend to belong through empathy. Men vary more. They sense less. They are action rather than perception oriented.

    Dominance is the corollary of empathy. We must learn to use our dominance against the physical world, and in defense of life and property, and not as a means of self expression or control of others.

    Misused empathy is just as dangerous as misused dominance. The damage we have done to the world by our supposedly charitable activities is as great as the damage we have done by war.

    We have lost the ancient understanding of our dual natures.

    To cohabitate and to cooperate politically we must master both empathy and dominance in relation to how we possess them.

    And in doing so create belonging by both empathy and duty.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-06-30 07:04:00 UTC