Curt Doolittle

Category: Commentary, Critique, and Response

  • Botton On The Home EPISODE 1 EPISODE 2 EPISODE 3

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80fb7Lt0z58De Botton On The Home

    EPISODE 1

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80fb7Lt0z58

    EPISODE 2

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaL8S7vRA2s

    EPISODE 3

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OTfsZewsbc

    Source date (UTC): 2016-10-08 06:53:00 UTC

  • Translating Nietzsche Into Propertarian Language

    “Nietzche: Man is a tortured being trapped between god and beast” Doolittle: Man is a purely rational actor having to constantly choose between the short personal gratification at the expense of others and long term gratification through cooperation with others. With the optimum solution for both short and long term is to achieve personal perfection without causing retaliation by others that would destroy those ambitions. Most of us struggle in one way or another with the constant problem of achievement without causing retaliation (rejection, resistance, restitution, punishment).

    And at the same time we struggle with internal impulse and the impatient desire to achieve our ends and the frustration of having to worry about others rather than only the self. Nietzche uses romantic, poetic, narrative language to make this rather boring statement of cooperative economics. But by using that ancient primitive poetic language he fails to inform us as to the cause. And given that cause how to succeed. Hence why I say that Nietzche and propertarianism are compatible. The question is WHICH IS MORE ACTIONABLE? Read him for inspiration and integration with your soul. Choose Propertarianism as the means of achieving it. In retrospect I see my work as succeeding where Spencer failed. We had Darwin and Nietzche, but because of competition from the ‘new age’ provided by marx economically pseudoscientifiic and immoral Marx and immoral and correlative pseudoscientific keynes, the generation that included Spencer, pareto, weber and durkheim, and the generation that included Mises, Popper, Hayek, Brouwer, and Bridgman all failed. THey failed for the same reason the Greeks failed: they worked from the position of virtue and morality (contribution to commons) instead of simply grasping the reductio simplicity of man: we are all rational actors and choose cooperation when beneficial, and non-cooperation when it is beneficial, and we judge all our actions by the cost vs the likely return, given our experience. Man is not moral per se, he just evolved intuitions to assist him if he DOES wish to act morally because it is in his interest, and he must be cautioned that he will incur retaliation if he acts immorally by imposing costs upon others. So we understand man’s behavior as purely rational, and moral intuitions as warnings that we are likely to incurr retaliation for our actions.

  • Translating Nietzsche Into Propertarian Language

    “Nietzche: Man is a tortured being trapped between god and beast” Doolittle: Man is a purely rational actor having to constantly choose between the short personal gratification at the expense of others and long term gratification through cooperation with others. With the optimum solution for both short and long term is to achieve personal perfection without causing retaliation by others that would destroy those ambitions. Most of us struggle in one way or another with the constant problem of achievement without causing retaliation (rejection, resistance, restitution, punishment).

    And at the same time we struggle with internal impulse and the impatient desire to achieve our ends and the frustration of having to worry about others rather than only the self. Nietzche uses romantic, poetic, narrative language to make this rather boring statement of cooperative economics. But by using that ancient primitive poetic language he fails to inform us as to the cause. And given that cause how to succeed. Hence why I say that Nietzche and propertarianism are compatible. The question is WHICH IS MORE ACTIONABLE? Read him for inspiration and integration with your soul. Choose Propertarianism as the means of achieving it. In retrospect I see my work as succeeding where Spencer failed. We had Darwin and Nietzche, but because of competition from the ‘new age’ provided by marx economically pseudoscientifiic and immoral Marx and immoral and correlative pseudoscientific keynes, the generation that included Spencer, pareto, weber and durkheim, and the generation that included Mises, Popper, Hayek, Brouwer, and Bridgman all failed. THey failed for the same reason the Greeks failed: they worked from the position of virtue and morality (contribution to commons) instead of simply grasping the reductio simplicity of man: we are all rational actors and choose cooperation when beneficial, and non-cooperation when it is beneficial, and we judge all our actions by the cost vs the likely return, given our experience. Man is not moral per se, he just evolved intuitions to assist him if he DOES wish to act morally because it is in his interest, and he must be cautioned that he will incur retaliation if he acts immorally by imposing costs upon others. So we understand man’s behavior as purely rational, and moral intuitions as warnings that we are likely to incurr retaliation for our actions.

  • The Criminality of Rothbardian Ethics

    Moreover, the this is why libertarians were wrong in privatization. The difference between a commons and private goods, is that owners can consume private goods, and others cannot, whereas no-one can consume commons whether one was a contributor or not. Instead the market (locality) itself benefits from the *externalities* produced by the construction of the commons. So private property prohibits others from consumption, and commons prevent all from consumption. And whereas competition in the market creates incentives to produce private goods, competition in the construction of commons produces malincentives. Why? Because of loss aversion. Given that commons product benefits only be externality, they must be free of privatization in order to provide incentive to produce them. The libertarian solution was to make commons either impossible to produce due to malincentives, or to create vehicles for extraction by externality without contributing to production. pathways through two-dimensional space are particularly problematic since the only way to create private property is with a militia or military funded by the commons.

    The answer instead is to increase incentives for the private production of commons as a status signal and personal monument that outlast’s one’s lifetime, and can be inherited by one’s offspring. And to increase the scale of commons that can be produced by the public (market) production of commons that are free from privatization.

  • The Criminality of Rothbardian Ethics

    Moreover, the this is why libertarians were wrong in privatization. The difference between a commons and private goods, is that owners can consume private goods, and others cannot, whereas no-one can consume commons whether one was a contributor or not. Instead the market (locality) itself benefits from the *externalities* produced by the construction of the commons. So private property prohibits others from consumption, and commons prevent all from consumption. And whereas competition in the market creates incentives to produce private goods, competition in the construction of commons produces malincentives. Why? Because of loss aversion. Given that commons product benefits only be externality, they must be free of privatization in order to provide incentive to produce them. The libertarian solution was to make commons either impossible to produce due to malincentives, or to create vehicles for extraction by externality without contributing to production. pathways through two-dimensional space are particularly problematic since the only way to create private property is with a militia or military funded by the commons.

    The answer instead is to increase incentives for the private production of commons as a status signal and personal monument that outlast’s one’s lifetime, and can be inherited by one’s offspring. And to increase the scale of commons that can be produced by the public (market) production of commons that are free from privatization.

  • Curt: Who Are Your Influences?

    —“Every philosopher can point out influences of which he may call his teachers or derive his ideas from. Nietzsche for instance read Schopenhauer, Epicurus, Plato, and Heraclitus among his other influences. So let us hear yours. How many people have you read, and who do you derive your thoughts from? (Btw, wikipedia level understanding does not count. You can’t cite someone as an influence unless you have read his works)”— Well, I answer this question a few times a year. And it might surprise you but I read science, economics and history and I think most philosophy by almost all philosophers is little more than simply semi-secular theology or empty verbalism for the purpose of middle-class criticism of the status quo. So in general, except for a few cases, I view philosophy largely as a poor investment as likely to do one harm as good just as philosophers have done as much or more harm as good. I would go so far as to say most philosophers are seeking to be creative liars.

    My reading list is pretty extensive and published on my site. And I’ve read everything on it I think. Ramsey keeps all of the works in digital form in our library. And recently he has added new works to it that are relevant but that I have only skimmed. There is something in the content of the neutral point of view we find in encyclopedias.  And aside from those works, I found  the Germanic Fairy Tales, Pinnocchio, Johnny Tremain, Ivanhoe, Harlan Ellison, Heinlein, Ben Bova, and all the postwar science fiction authors fairly influential – they were all libertarian. I came to philosophy from artificial intelligence by way of Hayek and Popper – who were the first thinkers to suggest that we must study man using information not norms – just as we study physics now as information not forces. But Aristotle created a framework for the study of knowledge, and that framework has persisted throughout the centuries: existence, epistemology/truth, ethics, politics, aesthetics. This structure provides a hierarchy that as from the universe to the self to the interpersonal to the political to the universal. So when I wanted to create a language for the unloaded analysis and comparison of competing political strategies, and in particular to allow western aristocratic conservatives to rationally argue their strategy, I chose the structure of philosophy to do it because it’s the established language for discourse. The big change for me was popper and Hayek, and when I heard Hoppe lecture I knew something wasnt quite right but that the answer was in there somewhere. It took me years to get it right. By 2009 or so I had everything but one very hard problem. And solving that problem was the watershed: how to demand warranty of due diligence in matters of the commons. So while I write what we call philosophy, Propertarianism solves the Wilsonian Synthesis and united science, philosophy, morality, and law. What I am writing is natural law. The Only Possible Epistemology, Ethics and Politics of Sovereignty.

  • Austyn Pember Can you give me (us) your opinion on the state of Etherium?

    Austyn Pember

    Can you give me (us) your opinion on the state of Etherium?

    Source date (UTC): 2016-10-07 17:57:00 UTC

  • No, Capitalism Isn’t Enough

    –“trust isn’t necessary just capitalism”— Diego Anonymous Diego,

    Let me correct you a bit – largely by providing you with more precise language. Capitalism – private production of goods and services by the universal distribution of private property rights – has always existed to some degree – it must for trade to exist. But, cooperation at *scale* using institutions, that creates what we call ‘consumer capitalism’ requires high trust society. Without high trust, states are necessary to organize sale and complex production, because of the risk required of all participants. States as the insurer of last resort, insure against ‘risk of defection’. This is why centrally managed economies can be used to transform states from a condition of backwardness, but cannot be used to maintain them once backwardness is reduced and society reordered, or to create persistently competitive states where self-ordering produces consistent market innovation. The only known way of producing high trust is evolution from common (negative) law, property rights for women, and the prohibition on inbreeding (cousin marriage). Common law insures against ‘risk of defection’. The only known way of producing common (negative) law is evolution from a militia (Anglo-Saxon model). The only known way of producing a professional bureaucracy is evolution from an army (french-german-prussian). (And this leads to napoleonic law of state vs people, not common natural-law of militias of universal equality) The only known way of producing a libertarian (anglo-saxon) political order is with militia and common law, combining to provide sufficient suppression of free riding such that commons can be produced without defection preserving competitiveness, and private goods can be produced competitively. One man may rule. An Oligarchy may rule. A professional bureaucracy may rule. Or all may rule – thereby ensuring that none rules. Rule of law (nomocracy); The civic production of commons (liberalism); The private production of goods and services (capitalism); And the condition under which we experience all three (liberty); Can each exist but they cannot exist without one another.

  • No, Capitalism Isn’t Enough

    –“trust isn’t necessary just capitalism”— Diego Anonymous Diego,

    Let me correct you a bit – largely by providing you with more precise language. Capitalism – private production of goods and services by the universal distribution of private property rights – has always existed to some degree – it must for trade to exist. But, cooperation at *scale* using institutions, that creates what we call ‘consumer capitalism’ requires high trust society. Without high trust, states are necessary to organize sale and complex production, because of the risk required of all participants. States as the insurer of last resort, insure against ‘risk of defection’. This is why centrally managed economies can be used to transform states from a condition of backwardness, but cannot be used to maintain them once backwardness is reduced and society reordered, or to create persistently competitive states where self-ordering produces consistent market innovation. The only known way of producing high trust is evolution from common (negative) law, property rights for women, and the prohibition on inbreeding (cousin marriage). Common law insures against ‘risk of defection’. The only known way of producing common (negative) law is evolution from a militia (Anglo-Saxon model). The only known way of producing a professional bureaucracy is evolution from an army (french-german-prussian). (And this leads to napoleonic law of state vs people, not common natural-law of militias of universal equality) The only known way of producing a libertarian (anglo-saxon) political order is with militia and common law, combining to provide sufficient suppression of free riding such that commons can be produced without defection preserving competitiveness, and private goods can be produced competitively. One man may rule. An Oligarchy may rule. A professional bureaucracy may rule. Or all may rule – thereby ensuring that none rules. Rule of law (nomocracy); The civic production of commons (liberalism); The private production of goods and services (capitalism); And the condition under which we experience all three (liberty); Can each exist but they cannot exist without one another.

  • A Future for the Mises Institute?

    The Mises Institute would survive if and only if it transforms from advocacy of the pseudoscientific Ashkenazi enlightenment of Boaz, Marx, Cantor, Frankfurt, and Keynes, Mises and Rothbard, to the Scientific enlightenment of Hayek, Popper, Einstein, Darwin, Spencer, Pareto, Durkheim, and myself. It is one thing to say “all these men failed, and each brought a piece of the puzzle to the intellectual table, but none was able to assemble it.” it is another to say Mises and Rothbard were ‘Austrians” of the empirical enlightenment seeking to restate german ethics from rationalism to social science, rather Ukrainians/Russians/Poles of the Ashkenazi pseudoscientific enlightenment seeking to restate eastern European ethics in an evolution of Jewish law. ie: not science. It’s fairly clear that Mises didn’t even understand what the term meant. Otherwise we must seek to constantly publish that their advocacy of libertinism and low trust ethics is merely an attempt to perpetuate the landless libertine ethics of eastern European borderlands, and European ghettos, as a competitor to the landed high trust aristocratic ethics of the martial peoples of Europe and their ancestors. There is no libertine liberty of permission, nor can one possess a condition of liberty when one cannot retaliate for unproductive exchanges. The only existentially possible condition of liberty one can possess is that of the high trust produced by the universal, incremental, suppression of parasitism, and the limitation of man to productive, fully informed, warrantied, voluntary transfer, limited to externalities of the same. There is room in the intellectual space for restoration of the Austrian program of empirical social science of non-interference (voluntaryism). We already have honest schools of discretionary economic rule (mainstream Keynesian), non-discretionary economic rule of law (Chicago), but we have lost school of the non-discretionary, non-interference, where were seek only to improve the information provided by institutions not alter it deceptively for any reason. There may, in fact, be room in economic science and political policy for each of these schools because they range from the short term (fiscal-discretionary) to the medium term (monetary0-rule of law), to the long-term (institutional non-interference). But without the existence of all three there exists insufficient intellectual competition for each to be limited to its boundaries. Currently, our think tanks appear to follow the academic rule that thought only reforms with the death of its proponents. So we are stuck with romantic historicism of Heritage, the Moral Contractualism of Cato, the various smaller groups still hanging on economics rather than all of social science, and the Mises institute still dragging the limp body of failed eastern European libertinism into which they’ve overinvested their life’s works like the Ashkenazi enlightenment has dragged its peers on >>>>> ‘s chain: marxism/socialism and neoconservatism. All are nonsense that deny mankind’s demonstrated behaviors in an attempt – like its religious forbearer – to produce a psychic alternate reality that brings nothing but dark ages. I am not an advocate of any institution, but of liberty itself. And the only existentially possible liberty is that where we use the promise of organized violence to prevent the alternatives. Because liberty is unnatural to man. It requires productivity that is hard, unforgiving, genetically bound, prone to risk, and entirely meritocratic. That liberty is produced by a militia, a book of Natural Law, an independent judiciary treating the common natural law as sacred, and the total suppression of parasitism by every possible means, interpersonal, economic, and political. Hayek was correct in that the common law of natural law and property is the source of liberty. Mises discovered operationalism in economics, at the inspiration of weber and spencer. Popper discovered that darwin;s survival applied to knowledge, and that Hum’s criticism of induction was correct. Rothbard discovered that all ethics, morality and law could be represented as property rights. Hoppe discovered that representatives (agents) cannot possess beneficial incentives, and further explained that all political institutions could be converted into constructions of property rights – providing universal decidability. Haidt discovered that we all vote our reproductive interests, and I discovered that these interests can also be expressed as property rights. My meager contribution has been to unite these thinkers, providing the Wilsonian synthesis, and to extend the division of labor into the division of perception and advocacy on behalf of our reproductive strategies. This is the future of liberty. Truth and the incremental suppression of parasitism from all walks of life by the judical application and common law discovery of natural law: the law of property Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine