Curt Doolittle

Category: Civilization, History, and Anthropology

  • CLANS AND WESTERN UNIVERSALISM HBD_Chick finds yet another exceptional paper on

    http://hbdchick.wordpress.com/2012/08/31/the-return-of-the-return-of-chinese-clans/CHINESE CLANS AND WESTERN UNIVERSALISM

    HBD_Chick finds yet another exceptional paper on the impact of different cultural institutions:

    “The Return Of The Return of Chinese Clans”

    “In a clan, moral obligations are stronger but are limited in scope, as they apply only toward kin. In a city, moral obligations are generalized towards all citizens irrespective of lineage, but they are weaker, as identication is more difficult in a larger and more heterogeneous group. We refer to this distinction as limited vs generalized morality.“

    “Institutional mechanisms also differ between the clan and the city: clan enforcement mainly relies on informal institutions, whereas the city relies more on formal enforcement procedures. In terms of economic effciency, these two arrangements have clear trade-offs. The clan economizes on enforcement costs, whereas the city exploits economies of scale because it sustains cooperation in a larger and more heterogeneous community.”

    Source date (UTC): 2012-09-01 01:24:00 UTC

  • @UmeshPatil @Hughman It is not racism to point out the truth. The west had the e

    http://drezner.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/08/02/mitt_romney_is_living_every_social_scientists_nightmare @UmeshPatil @Hughman It is not racism to point out the truth. The west had the extraordinary luck to have the church forbid marriage to cousins, and to award women property rights. Combined with the manorial system, which required that a man demonstrate finess in order to obtain land to work, and therefore the ability to raise a family and reproduce, the west obtained the nuclear family, the work ethic, universalism, property rights, and a near absence of corruption endemic to all other human social orders. Culture matters. India’s power failed because corruption is endemic, and corruption is endemic because of familialism. Europeans are a dying culture because it turned on itself and lost its confidence after the world wars, and because feminism decreased the breeding rate of its women to below replacement levels and governments had to resort to immigration in order to maintain it’s intergenerational redistribution programs.And if that bothers you, race matters too. Because people demonstrably prefer to be around those who look like them, and the distribution of talents does differ between the races. Races might not matter if people did not aggregate and associate by race. But they do. Status signals are the human information system. And status signals are cheaper within group than across groups. So race matters.Many scientific realities are unpleasant. It is impolitic to discuss these realities. But they are still realities none the less. Choosing not to discuss them, is quite different from disbelieving them. One is a demonstration of manners. The other is a demonstration of ignorance.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-08-03 02:01:00 UTC

  • The average European and particularly the average working class European always

    The average European and particularly the average working class European always appears on average so much better educated than his American peer. This may be a selection effect since I can only interact with those who are competent English speakers. But the test data seems to confirm it. And while it is heretical to state that the heterogeneity of the American population accounts for those scores, it remains that peers of Europeans in the USA are less literate and less numerate.

    On the other hand, the average American is extraordinarily conscious of the country’s military, political, and financial role in the world – even though the cannot choose whether to be pleased or frustrated by it.

    I am one of those Americans that tends to resent Europeans who treat us with disdain despite our expensive subsidy of their economies.

    American foreign policy is not conducted on emotive or moral grounds, but strategic grounds. Always. Good or bad.

    The world would be a better place if we withdrew from europe and forced them to bear the same burdens we do.

    Perhaps then our values would converge. It is not understood on either side of the pond that two centuries ago Americans thought precisely about Europe what Europeans think about America today.

    And people around the world congratulate themselves on their moral choices despite the fact that geography, demographics, and economic conditions are the source of their opinion, not their deliberate choice.

    The usa will be energy independent soon which will put us in strategic conflict with Europe. We will no longer have material reason nor the means to play policeman to the world.

    Maintaining a stable price of oil as well as food and currency is too much of a burden for the American people.

    So something will change here one way or another.

    And self congratulatory moral convenience will change with it.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-08-01 13:35:00 UTC

  • INFLUENCE OF GEOGRAPHY ON ECONOMY, POLITY, AND CHARACTER I argue frequently that

    http://www.amazon.com/dp/1400069831/ref=tsm_1_fb_lkTHE INFLUENCE OF GEOGRAPHY ON ECONOMY, POLITY, AND CHARACTER

    I argue frequently that everything boils down to geography, demographics and institutions. In that order.

    Kaplan’s book arrives in September. And despite sixty years of ignoring geography in our schools, he shows how geography still influences our economies, polities and characters, and how, because of geography, we can anticipate future conflicts.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-07-27 12:02:00 UTC

  • ACCIDENTAL OBSERVATIONS: THE METAPHYSICS OF REACTIONARIES: AMISH VS HASSIDIM In

    ACCIDENTAL OBSERVATIONS:

    THE METAPHYSICS OF REACTIONARIES:

    AMISH VS HASSIDIM

    In a coffee shop in Leavenworth. An Amish family, father, perhaps 60, mother about the same, and adult daughter perhaps 30, ordering iced mocha coconut coffee drinks with whipped cream. I didn’t take a photo, because I didn’t want to be rude. So description will have to do: they were dressed impeccably, and had nearly perfect, radiant, clear skin. The man was gentlemanly and spoke with a few other customers, asking about where they lived, and other friendly idle talk. The women were obviously avoiding eye contact and conversation.

    My own reaction was precognitive and involuntary: I treat these people with sacred reverence. They are the souls of the germanic peoples. Certainly more so than priests, public intellectuals, or politicians. Probably because there is no question as to the honesty of there commitment and no political art of persuasion we must defend ourselves from. They are a statement of truth, purely by their actions.

    Most of us with northern european heritage long for our medieval, agrarian, communal, and familial past, even as we celebrate our longer lives, greater health, lack of hunger, freedom from brutal physical labor, and insulation from violence. These people are the embodiment of the idea of our past, perhaps more so than the actuality of it.

    I suppose the Jews may think of their Hassidic sect with the same reverence. (Although as I understand it, opinions about the hassidim – particularly their overbreeding and communist dependence upon redistribution in Israel – like most opinions in the Jewish community, vary pretty widely.)

    Because I simply haven’t spent time thinking about this topic before, it’s pretty obvious that both reactionary sects represent the different world views of Germanic and Hebrew peoples: social actions and individual responsibility versus individual thoughts, and collectivism. Action versus mysticism, both wrapped in religious ritual and insular pacifism that protects their alternate reality from competition with the chaos of the modern world. This difference can be reduced to: the people of the land and action versus the people of the mind and words.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-07-25 14:31:00 UTC

  • Is Iraq An Unofficial “vassal” Of Iran?

    All civilizations have a ‘core state’ (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The…)  except islam, which last relied upon the Turks as the core state.  Iran wants to become the core state of islamic civilization, control middle eastern oil, capture the profits from it, and build a military strong enough to ensure it’s centrality, with those profits.  If possible, the strategic route to making this come about is to create an alliance, dependency, or at least lack of opposition with Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, where Pakistan and Iran hold nuclear weapons. 

    That is the Iranian strategic objective.

    Whether or not Iraq is a Vassal of Iran is an improper use of language. Iraq is no longer capable of opposing Iranian strategic initiatives, and is subject to iranian political pressure.  So it is perhaps better to categorize Iraq as successfully within the sphere of influence of Iran, and therefore contributing to the potential of Iran to become the Core State of Islamic civilization — against the wishes of the southern states.

    https://www.quora.com/Is-Iraq-an-unofficial-vassal-of-Iran

  • Why Does Racism Exist And From Where Did It Originate?

    For a set of reasons:
    1) Mating selection is determined by both genetic markers (physical properties) and status signals (social properties).
    2) There are differences in desirability between the races due to different morphological attributes, despite the near universal human preference for a set of attributes. 
    3) There are different DISTRIBUTIONS of certain talents across the races. (linguistic intelligence, and spatial intelligence in particular.) This difference in distributions causes the development of different norms and preferences within groups, which in turn alters the complex signals we both observe and send.
    4) Because of this economy of signaling, Status Signals ‘within group’ are lower cost than status signals ‘across groups’. (Partly because we have just have higher familiarity within the group). Each of us is more likely to get more positive, and fewer negative status signals within group than across groups. And those signals are richer and more complex.
    5) These signals affect our relationships and the trust that can develop in them.  Where that trust is necessary for relaxed interaction, goal determination, task coordination, and risk taking.
    6) In the working and lower classes, external racial groups usually will work for less money or will displace them in their earning capacity and therefore also deprive them of status signals.  Racism is a means of forming political solidarity themselves, as well as with their elites, for the purpose of preserving their advantage – or gaining their advantage.
    7) In the middle and upper middle classes, racism is a vehicle for maintaining political power (law) and social power (norms) and assets (their own accumulated status signals) for themselves and their groups.

    This set of facts is demonstrated by our demonstrated universal preference to work (largely) and live (largely) with people who share our same ethnicity and social class. The data illustrates that preference over and over again.  In simple terms, we are ‘judged’ more easily, and therefore included more easily among those with whom we share physical, intuitive, conceptual, and habitual similarities. However, at the extremes, the very successful and prosperous tend to form a worldwide-class and the lower classes seek mates more opportunistically, and there are social signaling benefits to certain racial groups (a mating between a below average white woman and an above average black man may increase the social standing and quality of mates of both. So the racial norm is a majority-middle preference. 

    While there is a noticeable rise in the inbreeding going on between asians and whites,  women still seem to demonstrate an extraordinary preference for men within their race (men are less discriminating) of upwards of 80%.  But this preferences is a middle class statistic obtained from dating sites. And it becomes very hard to make the same statements about the lower classes outside of what’s stated in the census (about 15% intermarriage).  The reason is that some races are pretty indistinct (black/hispanic) because of high interbreeding already.

    I hope this was helpful. This is only a sketch of a complex topic. But it’s enough of a trail of bread crumbs that it might help answer your question.

    https://www.quora.com/Why-does-racism-exist-and-from-where-did-it-originate

  • Why Are There Very Few Conservative Jewish People?

    I’ll give you the underlying answer, even if it might take a bit of contemplation for it to make sense.

    1) Minority peoples tend to be progressive. This has to do with the problem of ‘signaling’ (status) as well as access to opportunity and power. There  is nothing special about jewish progressivism other than they’re an exceptional minority, their exceptionalism is verbally oriented, (and western germanic culture is more technically oriented) so they have more impact on society because of their preference for and dominance in media.  There are plenty of conservative jews here and in Israel.  

    2) Conservatism in the USA, is the remnant of aristocratic agrarian manorialism, coupled with the anglo classical liberal political instituions, under a weak federal government we call ‘the church’.  It is a social and political strategy for a division of powers that can militarily hold land using weak forces. The west had to keep the ‘magian and totalitarian’ east at bay since the time of the Ancient Greeks – maybe earlier. So, Western moral content is structured to hold territory necessary for farming, even against superior numbers. By contrast, Judaism is a dasporic culture of merchants and traders and its moral content does not contain the same prescriptions as does aristocratic christianity (Germanized christianity).  The most obvious of these differences are a) the Bazaar exchange ethic vs the Warrior exchange ethic.  Whereby christians take account of external costs and jews do not.  b) The western concept of warranty is not present in the jewish ethic.  c) western universalism is unique in human history.  Jewish ethics are familial and tribal not universalist. 

    These are long held historical differences in the moral codes of the different societies.  There is some argument as to whether they have some biological basis to them. But that won’t be settled by science for decades yet.  The two societies operate on different principles. They are to some degree symbiotic. 

    You might consider reading Power and Weakness by Kagan. http://web.clas.ufl.edu/users/zs…  The weak are generally pacifist ad progressive and the strong are generally expansionist and conservative.  It is a natural human reaction to various circumstances.

    This may be a lot to grasp but these genetic, historical, environmental and strategic differences lead to the different biases between conservative christians and liberal jews.

    https://www.quora.com/Why-are-there-very-few-conservative-Jewish-people

  • Why Are Many Muslim Countries Run By Dictators?

    The Muslim countries were part of the Ottoman empire.  The Ottomans could not modernize for complex reasons, and could not compete with western expansion.

    When the empire fell, the westerners attempted to establish order in the conquered territories, by creating small states. And they promoted leaders in those states.

    Oil has been a strategic necessity in the 20th century and Muslim countries are sitting on it.

    The west was concerned about the expansion of world communism into the Muslim countries and thereby an alliance between those oil producers and Russia and china.  This would have dramatically endangered the west.

    The west attempted successfully to suppress the world communist movement in the Muslim countries by supporting leaders who could hold the popular communist movements at bay, while permitting oil to trade on the market.

    Dictatorship is a natural and common form of government and the idea that it is not is a modern contrivance.  Democracy as we understand it is a luxury that is the product of our technological development. Not the other way around  It is an intellectual mistake to think of it otherwise.  The rest of the world has decided that western democracy is for westerners. THe reason the west is different, and less corrupt, is that we managed to break family bonds of loyalty that are the very reason for existence in the rest of the world. The rest of the world may not achieve our form of democracy because corruption is endemic because they retain the primacy of tribal and familial bonds over that of the collective.

    The USA’s strategy since the second world war has been to prevent the rise of communist and socialist governments until the middle classes in each country can become developed enough to desire capitalism and democratic government, at which point they believe that most countries will become peaceful and predictable members of the world system of trade. 

    The USA pays for and administers the world system of trade.  In exchange we are able to print money and sell it, while deflating it. The rest of the world then uses these dollars to buy oil. I this way we tax the rest of the world for paying for our military program that defends the system of trade.  This is coming to an end.  The USA is seeking to prolong the need for the  dollar for the average American will experience a dramatic decline in his standard of living if the dollar is no longer in demand for oil purchases.

    Iran and Russia are attempting to create alternative oil exchanges not using dollars in order to undermine the ability of the USA to economically finance it’s military and therefore control oil prices.

    Muslim people understand this and it is what is driving their desire to oust dictators and restore their ’empire’ to its former prominence.  They are stifled by corruption, ignorance and poverty.

    The USA does not care who emerges as the leader of that civilization but it would prefer that it was Turkey and not Iran. Iran sees it as its destiny. And if successful iran will unite syria, iraq, iran and pakistan into a political and military block that will control world oil prices.  Russia believes that it will have control over this region, and so are allies. But they are likely mistaken that they will have anything other than a militant neighbor on their southern borders.

    If you can understand this you will understand the world we live in.

    https://www.quora.com/Why-are-many-Muslim-countries-run-by-dictators

  • would like to see a similar chart containing the social class of the protagonist

    http://io9.com/5911520/a-chart-that-reveals-how-science-fiction-futures-changed-over-timeI would like to see a similar chart containing the social class of the protagonists (Futurama:lower, Gibson: lower middle, Star Trek: Middle, Asimov: upper middle, Herbert’s Dune: Upper.) Because I think that would tell us just as much about class changes as it does about the presence of technological change.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-05-19 16:59:00 UTC