WISDOM
Genius isn’t omniscience.
It’s just spending more time on a problem than anyone has before.
And spending that time standing on the shoulders of others.
Omniscience is for the gods.
Men are mortal, and reason is frail.
And we are almost always proven by later men, to be fools.
We can never know. We can only try.
And observe what succeeds or fails.
This is the meaning of wisdom.
And humility and skepticism are it’s products
Source date (UTC): 2013-03-31 07:33:00 UTC
IS PROPERTARIANISM THE INTELLECTUAL CURE TO POSTMODERNISM?
I am not sure yet. If the enlightenment was completed (corrected) then could it posit a defense against postmodernism? If we recognaize that democracy is net ‘bad’ because we no longer are families with similar interests and reproductive strategies, then possibly yes. But we must have a solution to the problem of collective investment in commons.
I am pretty sure I have solved this problem. I am not positive. But pretty sure.
More from Hicks:
“Tracing postmodernism’s roots back to Rousseau, Kant, and Marx explains how all of its elements came to be woven together. Yet identifying postmodernism’s roots and connecting them to contemporary bad consequences does not refute postmodernism. What is still needed is a refutation of those historical premises, and an identification and defense of the alternatives to them. The Enlightenment was based on premises opposite to those of postmodernism, but while the Enlightenment was able to create a magnificent world on the basis of those premises, it articulated and defended them only incompletely. That weakness is the sole source of postmodernism’s power against it. Completing the articulation and defense of those premises is therefore essential to maintaining the forward progress of the Enlightenment vision and shielding it against postmodern strategies.”
Hicks, Stephen R. C. (2010-10-19). Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault (Kindle Locations 4640-4648). Ockham’s Razor Publishing / Scholargy. Kindle Edition.
Source date (UTC): 2013-03-30 08:22:00 UTC
PROGRESSIVE VERBAL DECEPTION
In postmodern discourse, truth is rejected explicitly and consistency can be a rare phenomenon. Consider the following pairs of claims.
1) On the one hand, all truth is relative; on the other hand, postmodernism tells it like it really is.
2) On the one hand, all cultures are equally deserving of respect; on the other, Western culture is uniquely destructive and bad.
3) Values are subjective—but sexism and racism are really evil. Technology is bad and destructive—and it is unfair that some people have more technology than others.
4) Tolerance is good and dominance is bad—but when postmodernists come to power, political correctness follows.
There is a common pattern here: Subjectivism and relativism in one breath, dogmatic absolutism in the next.
Hicks, Stephen R. C. (2010-10-19). Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault (Kindle Locations 4281-4291). Ockham’s Razor Publishing / Scholargy. Kindle Edition.
The only possible conservative strategy is the one they adopted. Equal irrationalism and dogma.
Source date (UTC): 2013-03-30 08:16:00 UTC
TODAY THERE ARE 45,000 WORDS IN THE PROPERTARIAN GLOSSARY
“To converse with me, first you must define your terms.” – Voltaire
I took that statement to heart, and about three years ago, started compiling my glossary. It is still a draft. And I’ve learned quite a bit writing it. Much of it needs a good editing pass. Some of the terms are still marked with ‘Undone’.
Today, it’s just over 45,000 words, or 180 novel length pages, and perhaps 120 academic lengthy pages. I would expect that when I’m done it is no less than a third larger. Making the definitions of terms as I use them, a 200 Page academic book, or full novel-sized paperback.
Oh. That’s WORDS not TERMS. 🙂
Source date (UTC): 2013-03-17 02:53:00 UTC
One is articulate if one speaks articulately. Most definitions say ‘speaks clearly’. However, the term “clearly” itself is subjectively inarticulate. To speak articulately is to express concepts as a unified set of causal relations. The problem with any unified set of causal relations is that the set of causal relations a) must be expressed as a series of actions (to avoid the platonic or subjective errors), b) must bridge the gap between different audiences with greater and lesser knowledge. c) and the steps in those causal relations must be short enough that the audience can follow them. Net is to articulate something well requiers we understand it well. and understand others well enough to calculate how we can bridge the gap between those states of understanding.
HAVE YOU EVER HAD AN ARGUMENT YOU HAD TO CRAFT OVER A DECADE?
That’s what Einstein meant. It’s hard.
Source date (UTC): 2013-03-05 08:45:00 UTC
ruth·less
/ˈro͞oTHləs/
Adjective
Having or showing no pity or compassion for others. feeling or showing no mercy;
Synonyms
merciless – pitiless – unmerciful – remorseless
Propertarian translation: disregard for externalities. Different from ‘cruel’ which is to intentionally cause externalities.
Source date (UTC): 2013-02-23 05:49:00 UTC
PROPERTARIANISM: A DEFINITION OF INTELLECTUAL HONESTY
(From a posting I made elsewhere)
Intellectual Honesty means, in practice, that in any argumentative or persuasive discourse, when given an incentive for deception, either of yourself and/or others, that you avoid such deception at all times. Or more simply, arguing to win, or to avoid blame, rather than arguing in pursuit of objective truth.
And objective truth means, that among peers, citizens or shareholders, that you will refrain from self benefit, at a cost to others through weak argument.
1. The Problem Of Antiquated Language.
The term ‘intellectual honesty’ is somewhat confusing. That is because our language is still antiquated. Our language is stil antiquated because we use moral terms with religious origins that rely upon norms, rather than propertarian terms with commercial origins that rely upon property. Because our morals are, universally, statements about property – when property is defined in its natural rather than legal sense. When we use propertarian terms, we can remove the obscurity cause by the imprecision of moral language, and see the voluntary and involuntary transfers that occur in any interaction between humans. Propertarian language is to morality, as the language of physical science is to human perception. Human emotions are reactions to changes in the state of property. And human political conflict is a reaction to changes in the perceived ‘fair’ definitions of property. And definitinos of fair property are determined by reproductive behavior and signaling, and therefore vary by class and gender.
2. Morality.
Morality is the term we use for stealing from, or failing to contribute to, the commons. Morals are, universally, a normative portfolio of prohibitions on stealing from the commons. Where the commons can be defined as anything from physical property, to the habituated common property that we call ‘norms’. Incentives then, can come from more than selfish benefits. In other words, morality varies by the various definitions of the commons. Notoriously conservatives place high value on the normative commons, and progressives discount it entirely. However, intellectual honesty requires that we accomodate for these moral differences. Most public
3. Externalities
In any debate, (economics and politics in particular) there are unknowns. In economics we know much less than economists suggest with their arguments. In part, that’s because of the scientistic error, or the error of positivism: We only have reasonably good data since 1945, and arguably, all economic data from that point onward is simply the effect of US Military and commercial dominance working its way through the world economy – and nothing else. Secondly, there are siginficant ways in which our societies are impacted by monetary policy, and some of them are positive (risk taking) and some of them are negative (fragility, overbreeding, overconsumption). These impacts are called externalities. Since externalities actually benefit some and harm others, and since these benefits and harms favor different political groups, policies are a source of conflict. And because these matters are complicated, and impossible to prove mathematically, then even the best (nobel prize winners included) often confuse a preference for one set of externalities with a truth about economic statements.
4. So, intellectual honesty requires consideration of more than just avoiding PERSONAL incentives, but moral and political externalities. And as such, an intellectually honest statement must include the following avoidances.
a) your ignorance vs knowledge
b) your likelihood of error in reasoning
c) your personal incentive to fool yourself or others
d) your preferences for moral biases.
e) your preferences for externalities
The problem with most intellectual debates is a failure to account for the full scope of a thru e.
5. Propertarian Language – Paying for right of free speech
In Propertarianism we would argue that intellectual honesty means that you forgo the opportunity to use deception, and suppress the human natural instinct for deception, and thereby pay for your right of free speech. As such free speech is property, gained through constant payment, by forgoing opportunities for self benefit – including the most simplistic psychic rewards from winning arguments, to the most sophisticated achievement of wealth and power.
Curt Doolittle
Source date (UTC): 2013-02-15 07:41:00 UTC
https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-good-examples-of-intellectual-honesty
https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-good-examples-of-intellectual-honesty