Curt Doolittle

Category: Civilization, History, and Anthropology

  • How Does Civilization Lead To Racism?

    As we developed polities, economies, empires, and civilizations we cooperate in greater numbers, with greater anonymity, first across families, then tribes, then nations, and then races.

    People in every region, in every race, in every era act POLITICALLY as a group even if they act pragmatically when acting individually in daily life.

    The more possible it is to use political, economic, or military power to increase status for a group, the more likely it is to cause racial tensions.

    Those states that have been most successful at minimizing racial and tribal tensions have been those that preserve majority control of political, economic, and military institutions such that while people may cooperate as individuals, they cannot compete as groups.

    https://www.quora.com/How-does-civilization-lead-to-racism

  • Is There A Biological Category Between “race” And “population Group”?

    Races refer to visible differences in physical characteristics that define one as kin or non-kin, and causes us to respond according to our sensitivity to kin selection.

    We generally divide people in to major races (four), sub-races (at least thirty), and then into regional or tribal groups, and then into clan, groups.

    So the axis of decidability in race is kin selection: demonstration of genetic affiliation in association, cooperation, reproduction, production, politics, ‘religion’, and war.

    By contrast, a ‘population group’ is a political and demographic term, invented in the era of ‘political correctness’ as an alternative to the use of the word ‘race’ or ‘subrace’, or ‘mixed race’ primarily because of crossbreeding that is producing various overlapping subgroups in this period of world migrations. It is not a term that refers to the demonstration of kin selection behavior by humans (and all other animals).

    So as far as I know “population group” is a catch all term for the current era and the correct terminology for any subset would simply be “population sub group”, or whatever variation you feel you audience would comprehend. And I would recommend resisting the temptation to creative terminology that attempts to add scientific categorization for that which we cannot currently categorize.

    https://www.quora.com/Is-there-a-biological-category-between-race-and-population-group

  • Now, if the west relied upon high trust warranty, how could we rely once again o

    Now, if the west relied upon high trust warranty, how could we rely once again on high trust, or must we move to low trust Skin?

    Source date (UTC): 2017-03-02 21:38:48 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/837416926099931136

    Reply addressees: @nntaleb

    Replying to: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/837123578634125312

    IN REPLY TO:

    @nntaleb

    Skin in the game, almost finished https://t.co/6sEm1JDeWg

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/837123578634125312

  • Without low trust SKIN IN -or- high trust WARRANTY OUT, western civ kept high tr

    Without low trust SKIN IN -or- high trust WARRANTY OUT, western civ kept high trust population but low trust economics and policy.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-03-02 21:37:46 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/837416665272942592

    Reply addressees: @nntaleb

    Replying to: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/837123578634125312

    IN REPLY TO:

    @nntaleb

    Skin in the game, almost finished https://t.co/6sEm1JDeWg

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/837123578634125312

  • High trust civilization (the west) could use warranty rather than skin. So what

    High trust civilization (the west) could use warranty rather than skin. So what happened that the west stopped demanding warranty?

    Source date (UTC): 2017-03-02 21:36:08 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/837416253845299205

    Reply addressees: @nntaleb

    Replying to: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/837123578634125312

    IN REPLY TO:

    @nntaleb

    Skin in the game, almost finished https://t.co/6sEm1JDeWg

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/837123578634125312

  • WESTERN CIV ON SKIN IN THE GAME Your narrative is exceptional – as wisdom. But w

    WESTERN CIV ON SKIN IN THE GAME

    Your narrative is exceptional – as wisdom. But wisdom cannot be converted into law unless in a formal, deflationary argument.

    The west differs from the east. We never conflated law with other fields. And the skin of the loan IN put = the warranty OUT put.

    High trust civilization (the west) could use warranty rather than skin. So what happened that the west stopped demanding warranty?

    Without low trust SKIN IN -or- high trust WARRANTY OUT, western civ kept high trust population but low trust economics and policy.

    Now, if the west relied upon high trust warranty, how could we rely once again on high trust, or must we move to low trust Skin?

    When you discuss cultural deltas I hear (a) levantine low trust with (b) mathematical and literary platonism. Not Natural Law.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-03-02 16:47:00 UTC

  • James Augustus My central argument is that Europe benefited by having an evoluti

    James Augustus

    My central argument is that Europe benefited by having an evolutionary environment that allowed for a high frequency of cultural, institutional and intellectual iterations, and that truth, sovereignty and natural law produce an existential advantage, so that what survived is what we call Western Civilization and its peoples.

    It is easy to look back at what survived and construct a rational narrative, but by doing so we are being fooled by randomness as Taleb is so succinct at pointing out.

    Evolutionary arguments are superior inasmuch as they point to what didn’t survive (via negativa) deterministically due to selection pressures.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-03-01 18:29:00 UTC

  • EUROPE AND EAST ASIA ‘HAVE DONE BETTER’ BECAUSE OF TERRITORIAL ADVANTAGE WITHIN

    EUROPE AND EAST ASIA ‘HAVE DONE BETTER’ BECAUSE OF TERRITORIAL ADVANTAGE WITHIN GEOGRAPHIC FORTRESSES

    Fortress Europa obtained non-territorial advantage by:

    A COLLECTION of hypotheses that include:

    a) europeans have higher neuroticism (creativity)

    b) europeans have lower clannishness (dislike of outsiders)

    c) europeans have dramatically reduced the size of the underclass ( produced a higher distribution of Iq, and lower distribution of testosterone)

    d) there seems to be a longstanding IQ advantage in the north and an intellectual tradition into pre-history in the british isles (the ‘athens’ of pre-literate europe).

    e) the yamnaya brought aryanism (realism, sovereignty, martial rule, hierarchical organization, testimony, jury, common law ) to europe. And that this has been our most meaningful competitive advantage.

    f) that each wave of europeans out of Ukraine has been as much an ‘improvement’ over the prior as each wave out of Africa was an ‘improvement’ over the prior – for the same reason; africa and the steppe are brutal evolutionary furnaces.

    As far as I know all these hypotheses survive all possible scrutiny without requiring a particular genetic advantage other than perhaps reduced clannishness common among circumpolar peoples.

    This is why I adhere to this solution. Because it does not depend upon ‘magical’ genetics evolving by accidental mutation in the european genome, but merely adaptation to local conditions from a marginally indifferent set of homo sapiens in the past.

    As far as I know all human variation is in intensity of expression of possibilities extant already in the genome.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-03-01 11:49:00 UTC

  • “Western Europe was the richest region in the world for nearly all the last 2,00

    —“Western Europe was the richest region in the world for nearly all the last 2,000 years. The only exception is 1000 AD. Secondly, Western Europe has virtually always been richer than Eastern Europe. This was true long before communism came into the picture. Third, in 1 AD Africa was richer than Eastern Europe and Eastern Asia. In 1 AD Africa was also richer than Africa in 1820 AD. Progress is not inevitable.”—

    http://thealternativehypothesis.org/index.php/2017/01/09/civilization-powered-by-the-west-threatened-by-the-rest/

    Source date (UTC): 2017-03-01 10:04:00 UTC

  • THE DISTILLATION OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION If you would be sovereign, you must fig

    THE DISTILLATION OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION

    If you would be sovereign, you must fight.

    If you would be sovereign and win, you must equally confederate.

    If you would be sovereign and confederate, you must equally compromise.

    If you would be sovereign and equally compromise, you must equally forgo opportunities for gain at another’s loss.

    If you would be sovereign and equally forgo equal opportunities to gain at another’s loss, your actions are limited to those that are productive, fully informed, warrantied, and voluntary, and limited to productive externalities.

    If you limit your actions to those, then the ONLY possible rule is rule by Common, judge-discovered, Natural Law of Non Imposition of Costs, and therefore, voluntary markets in everything: association, cooperation, reproduction, production, production of commons, production of dispute resolution, production of institutions, productions of monuments, production of war, productions of generations,

    This is Western Civilization: the choice of Sovereignty once made produces all that we have done. Small things in large numbers have vast consequences.

    If you would be Sovereign, and reap the benefits of Sovereignty, you must fight – fight to deny others all possible alternatives.

    If you will not fight you cannot be sovereign.

    You may beg the Sovereigns for commercial liberty, or physical freedom, or charity, in exchange for compensation. But you may never be in fact sovereign.

    by William Butchman, Eli Harman, and Curt Doolittle

    Source date (UTC): 2017-03-01 09:56:00 UTC