Curt Doolittle

Author: Curt Doolittle

  • College education, outside of STEM, in the age of AI, is just impoverishment, wh

    College education, outside of STEM, in the age of AI, is just impoverishment, when with industrial repatriation, and basic apprenticeship, income is superior, requires no debt, and allows you to escape the education ‘signal game’ that causes you to use income to purchase signal goods instead of intertemporal goods.

    Source date (UTC): 2025-11-18 18:00:32 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1990842574291267897

  • The Criteria for Something to Function as Money Money is not an essence; it is a

    The Criteria for Something to Function as Money

    Money is not an essence; it is a role performed within a system of cooperation. Something functions as money only when it satisfies a sequence of necessary conditions for reducing the cost of triadic exchange (A → B → C).
    The criteria fall into three layers:
    1. Minimum Functional Criteria (Necessary)
    2. Economic Performance Criteria (Necessary and Contingent)
    3. Civilizational Stability Criteria (Systemic)
    Each builds on the prior.
    These are the non-negotiable, causal preconditions for anything to serve as money.
    1.1 Divisibility
    Must be decomposable into smaller, proportionate units without destroying value.
    Causal role: enables trade at arbitrary scales.
    1.2 Portability
    Must be transferable at low cost, low friction, low risk.
    Causal role: permits exchange beyond face-to-face barter.
    1.3 Durability
    Must resist decay, wear, or corruption.
    Causal role: preserves intertemporal accounting.
    1.4 Recognizability
    Must be easily and reliably identifiable by participants.
    Causal role: reduces transaction costs and reduces fraud.
    1.5 Non-counterfeitability
    Must impose high cost on imitation or forgery.
    Causal role: maintains integrity of the unit and trust in the system.
    1.6 Fungibility
    All units must be interchangeable without distinction.
    Causal role: eliminates the need to track identity or lineage of specific units.

    A thing that does not meet these six cannot function as money.
    These determine whether money functions efficiently, predictably, and at scale.
    2.1 Store of Value (intertemporal stability)
    Must preserve purchasing power across time with tolerable variance.
    Causal consequence: supports saving, capital formation, and long planning horizons.
    2.2 Medium of Exchange (transactional efficiency)
    Must be widely accepted with sufficiently low friction and low default risk.
    Causal consequence: maximizes velocity without eroding trust.
    2.3 Unit of Account (pricing logic)
    Must be a stable measure against which goods can be compared.
    Causal consequence: ensures commensurability across markets.
    2.4 Scarcity (non-arbitrary supply)
    Total supply must be constrained by natural law, protocol, or political constraint.
    Causal consequence: prevents inflation from political exploitation.
    2.5 Low Opportunity Cost of Holding
    Holding money must not impose prohibitive loss compared to alternative stores.
    Causal consequence: encourages liquidity and smooth exchange.
    2.6 Network Liquidity
    Money must achieve a threshold of adoption where it becomes self-reinforcing.
    Causal consequence: replaces bilateral trust with systemic trust.
    These determine whether money can support long-term cooperative equilibria in a polity.
    3.1 Governance Legibility
    Rules governing issuance, redemption, and circulation must be transparent, operational, and warrantable.
    Causal consequence: prevents concealed taxation and political rent-seeking.
    3.2 Constraint Against Discretionary Debasement
    Supply manipulation must be either physically impossible (gold), computationally impossible (proof-of-work), or politically impossible (constitutional constraint).
    Causal consequence: preserves reciprocity across generations.
    3.3 Interoperability With Legal Order
    Money must be enforceable in courts and compatible with contracts and restitution.
    Causal consequence: anchors money within institutional cooperation.
    3.4 Risk Insurability
    Must not impose catastrophic systemic risk on holders due to issuer default or protocol failure.
    Causal consequence: preserves the commons of trust.
    3.5 Cultural Compatibility
    Population must treat the money as legitimate, appropriate, and reciprocal.
    Causal consequence: enables coordination without coercion.
    1. Money reduces the friction of cooperation by providing a universal intermediary measure.
    2. To do so, it must satisfy minimum physical/operational preconditions (divisible, portable, durable, recognizable, non-counterfeitable, fungible).
    3. Once those conditions are met, it must meet economic performance criteria enabling saving, exchange, and pricing.
    4. Once those are met, it must avoid governance failure—because money is a commons subject to political predation.
    5. Failure at any layer forces regression to barter, credit networks, foreign currencies, or black-market substitutes.
    6. Therefore, money is a function, not a substance: an instrument that minimizes conflict in exchange by providing commensurability across time, space, and persons.
    Cheers
    CD

    Source date (UTC): 2025-11-18 17:58:42 UTC

    Original post: https://x.com/i/articles/1990842114465521914

  • BTW: FWIW: –“If a man works an honest job instead of doing crime, he should rec

    BTW: FWIW:

    –“If a man works an honest job instead of doing crime, he should receive respect regardless of the pay.”–

    This is the military ethic of doing one’s duty is sufficient for respect.

    Source date (UTC): 2025-11-18 17:44:42 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1990838588511301857

  • Science: Follow us at the natural law institute if you want to evolve from philo

    Science:
    Follow us at the natural law institute if you want to evolve from philosophical libertarianism to scientific revolution on top of classical liberalism. ;).

    Source date (UTC): 2025-11-18 17:41:16 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1990837725122228728

  • A First Principle: Men are loyal over time. Women are only devoted within time.

    A First Principle: Men are loyal over time. Women are only devoted within time.

    Again, sex differences are largely a division of temporal labor with women evolved for in-time support of children and mothers, and men evolved for the over-time support of the tribe as a system.

    Source date (UTC): 2025-11-18 17:36:15 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1990836463391645926

  • My job is to get it right regardless of whether we like it or not. Unfortunately

    My job is to get it right regardless of whether we like it or not. Unfortunately, a lot of the time, I don’t really like what I find. Conversely, I’m amazed we humans manage the achievements we do, despite the challenges. 😉

    Source date (UTC): 2025-11-18 17:33:39 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1990835811043193006

  • Untitled Media Post

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    Source date (UTC): 2025-11-18 15:39:54 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1990807183454593121

  • I agree.. And I practice this ethic every day

    I agree.. And I practice this ethic every day.

    Source date (UTC): 2025-11-18 15:18:08 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1990801704695238795

  • An HOMOGENOUS, cold winters, high trust society

    An HOMOGENOUS, cold winters, high trust society

    Source date (UTC): 2025-11-18 15:17:39 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1990801583337328970

  • A Neutral Comparison of Curt Doolittle’s Ideas with Jordan Peterson, Nassim Tale

    A Neutral Comparison of Curt Doolittle’s Ideas with Jordan Peterson, Nassim Taleb, Hans Hoppe

    Below is a neutral, clear comparison of Curt Doolittle’s ideas with Jordan Peterson, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, and Hans-Hermann Hoppe—written for a general audience.
    What they share
    • Both emphasize order over chaos.
    • Both think societies need rules, discipline, and personal responsibility.
    • Both talk about evolutionary psychology and how human behavior is shaped by deep biological tendencies.
    • Both warn that dishonest or ideological language can destabilize society.
    How they differ
    Peterson Doolittle Focuses on personal meaning, myth, psychology. Focuses on law, incentives, and social systems. Uses stories, archetypes, and symbolism. Uses formal, technical, almost engineering-style language. Concerned with individual mental health and personal improvement. Concerned with building a “scientific” rule of law. Wants people to voluntarily improve their character. Wants institutions to enforce reciprocal behavior.
    Simple summary:
    Peterson is about personal transformation; Doolittle is about institutional transformation.
    What they share
    • Both focus on skin in the game—people should bear the consequences of their actions.
    • Both criticize intellectuals, journalists, and “cheap talk” that misrepresents reality.
    • Both rely on evolutionary ideas, heuristics, and real-world incentives instead of utopian theories.
    • Both dislike overcomplicated academic models detached from reality.
    How they differ
    Taleb Doolittle Emphasizes uncertainty, randomness, antifragility. Emphasizes reciprocity, legal clarity, system design. Focuses on risk, finance, statistical errors. Focuses on cooperation, commons, and institutional failure. Writes in aphorisms, insults, and stories. Writes in formal logic-like structures and definitions. Believes systems should adapt organically. Wants a precise legal framework to prevent parasitism.
    Simple summary:
    Taleb cares about how systems survive shocks; Doolittle cares about how systems enforce cooperation.
    What they share
    • Both attempt to derive political conclusions from logical or formal reasoning.
    • Both favor strong property rights and strict responsibility.
    • Both criticize democracy for enabling “free riding” and short-term incentives.
    • Both think social order depends on predictable rules and disciplined behavior.
    How they differ
    Hoppe Doolittle Builds from libertarian natural rights. Rejects natural rights; bases everything on reciprocity. Focused on economics and praxeology. Focused on law, institutions, and cooperative strategies. Prefers a minimal state or private law. Focuses on a “scientific” legal order, not necessarily small. Worldview grounded in libertarian ethics. Worldview grounded in evolutionary biology and group strategy.
    Simple summary:
    Hoppe justifies order through libertarian ethics; Doolittle justifies it through reciprocity and evolutionary theory.
    • Peterson: “Improve yourself; fix the chaos inside you.”
    • Taleb: “Avoid fragility; make sure people have skin in the game.”
    • Hoppe: “Property rights and voluntary order are the foundation of society.”
    • Doolittle: “Reciprocal law and truthful speech are the foundation of cooperation.”
    Thinker Primary Focus Style Core Concern Peterson Psychology & meaning Mythic, narrative Helping individuals function better Taleb Risk & uncertainty Story-driven, abrasive Making systems survive shocks Hoppe Libertarian political theory Logical, deductive Consistent property-based order Doolittle Cooperation & law Technical, operational Preventing parasitism & institutional decay
    • Doolittle is the most systematic and institution-focused of the four.
    • Peterson is the most personal and psychological.
    • Taleb is the most empirical and anti-fragile/uncertainty-focused.
    • Hoppe is the most ideological and libertarian.
    If you want, I can also create:
    🔹 A Venn diagram of all four
    🔹 A “which thinker matches your worldview?” quiz
    🔹 A deeper dive into similarities with any one of them
    🔹 A more academic or more humorous version
    Just tell me your style.

    Source date (UTC): 2025-11-18 08:08:16 UTC

    Original post: https://x.com/i/articles/1990693527404367904