Curt Doolittle

Category: Epistemology and Method

  • When We Say “Scientific” What Operations Are We Referring To?

    WHEN WE SAY “SCIENTIFIC” WHAT OPERATIONS ARE WE REFERRING TO?(important) (scientific method) (informational commons) It’s not the subject matter, nor the method of inquiry, nor the method of hypothesizing that’s classifiably scientific or that places any limits on what we call scientific investigation. ORIGINATION OF HYPOTHESIS: INCREASED INFORMATION AVAILABLE TO PERCEPTION We can produce an hypothesis through free association, or random selection. The method of arrival doesn’t tell us anything. In general we must increase the amount of information that we possess either by concentrating time, expanding time, expanding scale, decreasing scale, increasing precision of physical instrumentation, increasing precision of logical instrumentation, increasing precision of institutional instrumentation. Once we have increased information by reducing it to an analogy to experience that we CAN perceive, we can then compare and make judgments and offer hypotheses that transcend the limitations of perception, time, scale, and instrumentation. The function of the discipline of science – and that which we call the scientific method – is to test each dimension of a hypothesis to determine whether it survives. And by survival increase the burden that we place on the testing; and by failure discover new potential ideas (avenues) for inquiry (free association). Because of this, the discipline of science, with which we practice the scientific method, functions (like its origins in law), as a warranty of due diligence against error, bias, wishful thinking, suggestion(and substitution), overloading(pseudorationalism, pseudoscience, propaganda), and deceit. In the process of due diligence, we search (a process of wayfinding), for possible causal explanations. INVESTIGATION: CONSTRUCTION OF INSTRUMENTATION The act of scientific *investigation* consists not in the warranties, but in developing categorical, logical, physical, and institutional instrumentation with which to reduce what we cannot directly experience, to that which we can experience, so that we can detect marginal differences, and make decisions, which serve as inputs to our free association (search of memory for patterns). So just as we use justification for moral and legal argument, and criticism for truth and scientific argument. Just as we use the golden rule to assert desirable ends, and the silver rule to prevent negative ends, we also construct instrumentation to assert positive tests, and we apply the scientific method, to conduct negative tests. Most science requires the invention of tools to extend our perception such that we can reduce the imperceptible to an analogy to experience with which we can make comparisons and render judgments. DUE DILIGENCE: WARRANTY OF TRUTHFULNESS But why must we perform due diligence? True Enough? True Enough For What Purpose ——————————————————————— Comprehension? Further Association? Planning action? Acting? Risking? – or – Communication? Negotiation? Advice? Ethical license? Moral license? Risk of loss license? Risk of harm license? Risk of Death License? There are greater consequences to our utterances than there are to our thoughts. What happens in your bedroom is beyond the reach of the commons, and so long as it does not enter the commons there is not a moral question. What happens in your living room among guests may enter the commons or not. What actions and words you speak in public are de facto within the commons. If you PUBLISH and especially do so for any form of profit, then you are manufacturing a good (or harm) that is not only entered into the commons but for the duration of its existence. There is no difference between shipping a poisonous medicine, an incorrect recipe or plan, a product that if misused can harm, or a product that can harm without extraordinary due diligence. We tolerate emotional outbursts from one another. We tolerate error from one another, we tolerate bias sometimes, we tolerate suggestion infrequently, and we react negatively do deception and harm. Moral intuitions evolved to cause us to retaliate even at very high cost, against those who engage in parasitism by any means, including the imposition of harm directly or indirectly. NO MAN WANTS TO PAY THE COST OF REGULATION AGAINST HARM – HE PREFERS TO EXTERNALIZE THE COSTS PARASITICALLY, FOR TESTING HIS UTTERANCES. Parasitism in production, consumption, defense, and information are all natural human behaviors: we take discounts where we can get away with them. But the history of civilization is the history of incremental suppression of parasitism from murder, to violence, to theft, to fraud, to conspiracy. And the (Popperian) insight that science occurs not only personally, interpersonally, and socially, and that we do harm by pseudoscientific and insufficient diligence, because we have insufficient incentive to warranty our utterances. The scientific method, at least for scientists, asks us to use instrumentation and judgement to warranty our utterances against error, bias, wishful thinking, suggestion, overlaoding, and decet. It just so happens that in an effort to speak the truth, through these process of warranties, we are more likely to discover that truth. THE X/Y AXIS OF DECIDABILITY IN THE SUFFICIENCY OF WARRANTY x—> Epistemic process, Y —> Due diligence against harm. There is no difference between the production of any good whether physical, normative, institutional, or intellectual. It follows the same process from free association, to individual rational testing, to individual or group hypothesis, to thorough testing, to theory to social application testing, to law, to universal metaphysical assumption about the nature of the universe we live in: physical and totally deterministic, or sentient, and less so. What differs only is which output we value that is produced in that process AND the level of ‘truthfulness’ necessary to act upon it without harm to ourselves or others. COSTS PROVIDE DECIDABILITY IN CHOICE We must always, if we are to avoid error and immorality, remember that the reason that the ancients failed to solve the problem of social science was that they ignored costs. Whether this was a polite mannerism of the wealthy crippling their reason, or the natural consequence of cost exposing our different interests, or fear of overlapping religion and politics, morality and law, and drawing their ire. The separation is either an error, a bias, or a deceit. The reasons we did not solve the problem of social science, are the same reasons popper did not correctly identify the scientific equivalent of the mathematical axiom of choice: cost. The universe takes the least cost route. Man takes the least cost route. Scientific investigation can and does proceed successfully by taking the least cost route. And it is the least cost route to information expansion that we CAN and do use to provide decidability in matters of inquiry. And that is what we do. Man is a very simple creature. We observe changes in state of assets that we value (calorically). These changes in assets produce chemical reactions we call emotions. Our mind evolved to assist us in obtaining those emotions. Our minds use memory to conduct wayfinding. We then criticize our wayfinding. And of the possible found ways, we take that which provides the greatest return in the shortest time, for the least effort, with the greatest degree of certainty, ad the lowest risk. Becuase we are merely a part of nature. And memory is very useful for the production of energy, and the conservation of energy, despite its extremely high cost of operation. Curt Doolittle The Philosophy of Aristocracy The Propertarian Institute

  • A Critique of Philosophy

    A CRITIQUE OF PHILOSOPHY: AN ANALYSIS OF IDENTITY AS AN EXAMPLE OF THE PROBLEMS OF RATIONAL PHILOSOPHY VS EMPIRICAL SCIENCE AND TESTIMONIALISM (very juicy good stuff in this post) We demonstrate that we consider our lives our property (we retaliate gainst loss of monopoly control over them). We demonstrate that we consider our bodies our property (harm). We demonstrate that we consider our actions our property (liberty). We demonstrate that we consider our mates, offspring, and kin our property (kin selection). We demonstrate we consider what we have homesteaded (found), made (transformed), or obtained by trade (acquired) our property. We demonstrate that we treat those things in which we have obtained an interest in as our property(physical commons). We even demonstrate that we treat our norms, traditions, institutions, and myths as property in which we hold an interest (behavioral commons). And at present, there is conflict over, and we demonstrate an interest in information about us (privacy – although this appears to be inversely status driven). James Ragsdale posted questions on identity, (and I work on this problem a bit), which asks: —“Would you convert your brain to a digital version (still located in your skull), or upload your brain (to a computer), in order to escape death and achieve a longer conscious life (or a potential immortality)? Would that upload be you?”— Now, my first reaction is the pseudoscientific term ‘to be’, which conflates experience, action, observation, and intention. This single question form is the origin of most nonsense (pseudoscientific) questions that appear philosophical but are just word games created by mixing the point of view: intentional, experiential, objective action, and observation. The verb to-be is a cheat word that allows the speaker to force suggestion into the arugment on behalf of the audience which creates confusion over the question, rather than over the problem itself. Next we see this question: —“A replicator reconstitutes you on Mars, but leaves the original you on Earth. Would you say that you exist on Earth and on Mars? “— Like the use of the word ‘is’, the word ‘you’ conflates your physical body, the memories others have of your actions, the informational records of your actions, your memories of your thoughts and actions, and the value you hold (property) in monopoly access to the memories of your observations, thoughts, and actions. So again, as is common in philosophy, which like religion, was developed as much to AVOID the truth (manners, ethics, morals and law), as it was to assist us in investigating the truth WITHIN the limits of manners, ethics morals and laws, this phrasing is a play on words that invokes suggestion (informational subsitution by the audience), by the use of the conflationary term “you”. Today’s equivalent in the financial sector avoids casting blame. Today’s equivalent in political speech is political correctness. But why does philosophy maintain ancient forms of deception, and do philosophers fear the truth? Lets continue with identity and see if we can answer that question a little further on. WHAT DO WE REFER TO IDENTITY? I treat the statement ‘identity’ as an error that conflates: – Demonstrated Status and Self-Perception-of-Status, – Methods of decidability that we use to generate status and self-status for others and ourselves (demonstrations of contribution to group commons). – Titles (‘Credit’. Or records of ownership to status-producing goods, ideas, narratives, and memories) – Reputation (records in memory) of your behavior good and bad. – Branding (our value to others) was much more important in history when marginal differences in knowledge were limited, and things like young eyesight and hearing, or mature strength, or maturing fertility, or family members provided us with value – because knowledge either rarely existed or was rarely difficult to discovered if someone else possessed it. QUESTION 1: IDENTITY IS IN FACT, PROPERTY? Identity is then an instrument of status measurement? So just as we could not measure the world without formulae, we could not measure and pursue status without identity? QUESTION 2: MEMORIES ARE PROPERTY ? Anyone fully knowing our mind eliminates our ability to negotiate with others, and knows our full catalogue of sins. This is even worse than problems of experience (inter-personal), reputation(gossip), and privacy (records), because it extends to our un-published(not-acted-upon) thoughts (free associations, dreams, fantasies, and thoughts of punishment and retaliation (memories). Now sometimes it would be wonderful to have a twin with whom you shared identical interests. But at other times, depending upon one’s mental class (how many negative impulses you wrestle with), this can be information that we would not want others to know. (The Stoic Mind would be everyone’s friend in that world so much so that we would teach it as necessary as non-violence, and adherence to the law.) Or like privacy we would understand that all of us do silly things and none of us are free of sin, and as such these are not sins that we should ostracize over, but bad manners not for action in the commons. (The dating site that had members published is nothing more than a video game from all but .001 percent of users. Just as unfortunately social media is a simulation – a video game for many.) But since ‘you’ existentially are the record of your actions observed by others, then you and your clones are no more than twins, once your memories, experiences, and interactions fork. Unless you can reintegrate those experiences you remain individuals. But what happens to your ‘property’ when you’re cloned is somethingn else, isn’t it? QUESTION 3: THE CENTRAL PROBLEM OF PHILOSOPHY? I see this error throughout philosophy, which has been damaged by multiple separate movements: 1) the original greek idealism which failed to account for costs, and sought uniformity in excellence, rather than judgemental truth. 2) The Christian ethic, it’s idealism which failed to account for costs, and sought uniformity in submission rather than judgemental truth. 3) The middle-class idealistic signaling of victorian virtues which sought to imitate aristocratic airs (who did not admit to financial weakness). Victorian manners. 4) The Marxist-socialist utopian program which sought to invert this entire aristocratic history by demonizing such differences through various forms of critique, and the consequential postmodern (Christian Puritan) adoption of these techniques by the mainstream culture as an attempt to circumvent the frictions and political conflict created as heterogeneous people were no longer forced into the aristocratic order, natural law, the absolute nuclear family, individual productive responsibility, and concentrated in urban areas where normative tribalism is tolerable because of reduced interdependence. Is philosophy just an antique method of deception, an arcane set of ‘manners’, where we can adhere to comforting ritual and learn a little bit without ever having to encounter the truth, where that truth might very likely provide us in the personal and social domain, like science in the physical world, answers we prefer not to have to face, deal with and act differently becasue of? THE CENTRAL PROBLEM OF TRUTH We can, for example, suggest that this is the purpose of philosophy over science, just as there remains a difference between religion and philosophy: Religion -> Philosophy -> Science -> Truth. Wherein Religion constrains our thought to the moral but not rational, Philosophy constrains our thought to the rational but not possible (the physical – including costs), and science in the past concerned itself with the physical but not costs. And where truth abandons the fear of the last of our religious idealisms: COSTS. I find that through use of three extensions of philosophical argument: 1 – Operationalism: expression language that demands non-conflationary point of view (action), and therefore test of existential possibility; 2 – Costs and Full Accounting (avoidance of the frauds of i-suggestion, and ii-selective representation of information); and; 3- Objective Morality ( demand that all transfers are fully informed, productive, warrantied, voluntary, and limited to externalities of the same criteria); The distinction between Religion, Philosophy, Science, and Truth is eradicated, as are the distinctions between all investigatory disciplines other than whatever subset of causes we are seeking to study. And that almost all philosophical utterances and argumetns are asked as archaically, perhaps erroneously, (and perhaps dishonestly) as the philosophy considers truth claims under religious mysticism, and as the scientist considers truth claims under philosophical justificationism, and as the ‘Testimonialist’ (what I do) considers pseudoscientific statements by so-called ‘social scientists’ who if anything do not practice science. Cheers Curt Doolittle The Philosophy of Aristocracy The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine AUGUST 22

  • A Critique of Philosophy

    A CRITIQUE OF PHILOSOPHY: AN ANALYSIS OF IDENTITY AS AN EXAMPLE OF THE PROBLEMS OF RATIONAL PHILOSOPHY VS EMPIRICAL SCIENCE AND TESTIMONIALISM (very juicy good stuff in this post) We demonstrate that we consider our lives our property (we retaliate gainst loss of monopoly control over them). We demonstrate that we consider our bodies our property (harm). We demonstrate that we consider our actions our property (liberty). We demonstrate that we consider our mates, offspring, and kin our property (kin selection). We demonstrate we consider what we have homesteaded (found), made (transformed), or obtained by trade (acquired) our property. We demonstrate that we treat those things in which we have obtained an interest in as our property(physical commons). We even demonstrate that we treat our norms, traditions, institutions, and myths as property in which we hold an interest (behavioral commons). And at present, there is conflict over, and we demonstrate an interest in information about us (privacy – although this appears to be inversely status driven). James Ragsdale posted questions on identity, (and I work on this problem a bit), which asks: —“Would you convert your brain to a digital version (still located in your skull), or upload your brain (to a computer), in order to escape death and achieve a longer conscious life (or a potential immortality)? Would that upload be you?”— Now, my first reaction is the pseudoscientific term ‘to be’, which conflates experience, action, observation, and intention. This single question form is the origin of most nonsense (pseudoscientific) questions that appear philosophical but are just word games created by mixing the point of view: intentional, experiential, objective action, and observation. The verb to-be is a cheat word that allows the speaker to force suggestion into the arugment on behalf of the audience which creates confusion over the question, rather than over the problem itself. Next we see this question: —“A replicator reconstitutes you on Mars, but leaves the original you on Earth. Would you say that you exist on Earth and on Mars? “— Like the use of the word ‘is’, the word ‘you’ conflates your physical body, the memories others have of your actions, the informational records of your actions, your memories of your thoughts and actions, and the value you hold (property) in monopoly access to the memories of your observations, thoughts, and actions. So again, as is common in philosophy, which like religion, was developed as much to AVOID the truth (manners, ethics, morals and law), as it was to assist us in investigating the truth WITHIN the limits of manners, ethics morals and laws, this phrasing is a play on words that invokes suggestion (informational subsitution by the audience), by the use of the conflationary term “you”. Today’s equivalent in the financial sector avoids casting blame. Today’s equivalent in political speech is political correctness. But why does philosophy maintain ancient forms of deception, and do philosophers fear the truth? Lets continue with identity and see if we can answer that question a little further on. WHAT DO WE REFER TO IDENTITY? I treat the statement ‘identity’ as an error that conflates: – Demonstrated Status and Self-Perception-of-Status, – Methods of decidability that we use to generate status and self-status for others and ourselves (demonstrations of contribution to group commons). – Titles (‘Credit’. Or records of ownership to status-producing goods, ideas, narratives, and memories) – Reputation (records in memory) of your behavior good and bad. – Branding (our value to others) was much more important in history when marginal differences in knowledge were limited, and things like young eyesight and hearing, or mature strength, or maturing fertility, or family members provided us with value – because knowledge either rarely existed or was rarely difficult to discovered if someone else possessed it. QUESTION 1: IDENTITY IS IN FACT, PROPERTY? Identity is then an instrument of status measurement? So just as we could not measure the world without formulae, we could not measure and pursue status without identity? QUESTION 2: MEMORIES ARE PROPERTY ? Anyone fully knowing our mind eliminates our ability to negotiate with others, and knows our full catalogue of sins. This is even worse than problems of experience (inter-personal), reputation(gossip), and privacy (records), because it extends to our un-published(not-acted-upon) thoughts (free associations, dreams, fantasies, and thoughts of punishment and retaliation (memories). Now sometimes it would be wonderful to have a twin with whom you shared identical interests. But at other times, depending upon one’s mental class (how many negative impulses you wrestle with), this can be information that we would not want others to know. (The Stoic Mind would be everyone’s friend in that world so much so that we would teach it as necessary as non-violence, and adherence to the law.) Or like privacy we would understand that all of us do silly things and none of us are free of sin, and as such these are not sins that we should ostracize over, but bad manners not for action in the commons. (The dating site that had members published is nothing more than a video game from all but .001 percent of users. Just as unfortunately social media is a simulation – a video game for many.) But since ‘you’ existentially are the record of your actions observed by others, then you and your clones are no more than twins, once your memories, experiences, and interactions fork. Unless you can reintegrate those experiences you remain individuals. But what happens to your ‘property’ when you’re cloned is somethingn else, isn’t it? QUESTION 3: THE CENTRAL PROBLEM OF PHILOSOPHY? I see this error throughout philosophy, which has been damaged by multiple separate movements: 1) the original greek idealism which failed to account for costs, and sought uniformity in excellence, rather than judgemental truth. 2) The Christian ethic, it’s idealism which failed to account for costs, and sought uniformity in submission rather than judgemental truth. 3) The middle-class idealistic signaling of victorian virtues which sought to imitate aristocratic airs (who did not admit to financial weakness). Victorian manners. 4) The Marxist-socialist utopian program which sought to invert this entire aristocratic history by demonizing such differences through various forms of critique, and the consequential postmodern (Christian Puritan) adoption of these techniques by the mainstream culture as an attempt to circumvent the frictions and political conflict created as heterogeneous people were no longer forced into the aristocratic order, natural law, the absolute nuclear family, individual productive responsibility, and concentrated in urban areas where normative tribalism is tolerable because of reduced interdependence. Is philosophy just an antique method of deception, an arcane set of ‘manners’, where we can adhere to comforting ritual and learn a little bit without ever having to encounter the truth, where that truth might very likely provide us in the personal and social domain, like science in the physical world, answers we prefer not to have to face, deal with and act differently becasue of? THE CENTRAL PROBLEM OF TRUTH We can, for example, suggest that this is the purpose of philosophy over science, just as there remains a difference between religion and philosophy: Religion -> Philosophy -> Science -> Truth. Wherein Religion constrains our thought to the moral but not rational, Philosophy constrains our thought to the rational but not possible (the physical – including costs), and science in the past concerned itself with the physical but not costs. And where truth abandons the fear of the last of our religious idealisms: COSTS. I find that through use of three extensions of philosophical argument: 1 – Operationalism: expression language that demands non-conflationary point of view (action), and therefore test of existential possibility; 2 – Costs and Full Accounting (avoidance of the frauds of i-suggestion, and ii-selective representation of information); and; 3- Objective Morality ( demand that all transfers are fully informed, productive, warrantied, voluntary, and limited to externalities of the same criteria); The distinction between Religion, Philosophy, Science, and Truth is eradicated, as are the distinctions between all investigatory disciplines other than whatever subset of causes we are seeking to study. And that almost all philosophical utterances and argumetns are asked as archaically, perhaps erroneously, (and perhaps dishonestly) as the philosophy considers truth claims under religious mysticism, and as the scientist considers truth claims under philosophical justificationism, and as the ‘Testimonialist’ (what I do) considers pseudoscientific statements by so-called ‘social scientists’ who if anything do not practice science. Cheers Curt Doolittle The Philosophy of Aristocracy The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine AUGUST 22

  • Spectrum: Signals of Belief Claims

    THE SPECTRUM OF SIGNALS OF BELIEF CLAIMS. We’ve been discussing this in my corner of the universe, and I tend to work with the following terminological sequence: Faith = recognition that you’re position is indefensible, but you report that you hold some position. Belief = a ‘signal’ in the report that you might decide in favor of the position were it of no cost to you, but that you aren’t accountable for the truth or falsehood of it. Know = that you are not signaling, but with present knowledge, will defend your claim that you will decide in favor of the position, even if it costs you minor reputation for defending it. Promise = that you are willing to commit status and reputation to defend the assertion that you will choose in favor of the position. Warranty = that you are willing to commit materially to defend the assertion that you will choose in favor of the position. Demonstrate = that you have chosen in favor of the position. We have a lot of evidence that says this hierarchy of costs reflects the ‘put’ that an individual is making on the proposition at hand. TYING TO EARLIER POST ON THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY as reducible to word games that attempt to escape accountability. https://www.facebook.com/curt.doolittle/posts/10154464857972264 Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute

  • Spectrum: Signals of Belief Claims

    THE SPECTRUM OF SIGNALS OF BELIEF CLAIMS. We’ve been discussing this in my corner of the universe, and I tend to work with the following terminological sequence: Faith = recognition that you’re position is indefensible, but you report that you hold some position. Belief = a ‘signal’ in the report that you might decide in favor of the position were it of no cost to you, but that you aren’t accountable for the truth or falsehood of it. Know = that you are not signaling, but with present knowledge, will defend your claim that you will decide in favor of the position, even if it costs you minor reputation for defending it. Promise = that you are willing to commit status and reputation to defend the assertion that you will choose in favor of the position. Warranty = that you are willing to commit materially to defend the assertion that you will choose in favor of the position. Demonstrate = that you have chosen in favor of the position. We have a lot of evidence that says this hierarchy of costs reflects the ‘put’ that an individual is making on the proposition at hand. TYING TO EARLIER POST ON THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY as reducible to word games that attempt to escape accountability. https://www.facebook.com/curt.doolittle/posts/10154464857972264 Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute

  • Tips On Writing Propertarian Arguments

    USE ACTIVE VOICE 1) Learn one ‘aggressive’ or ‘honest’ technique: “Active Voice not Passive Voice” ‘John threw the ball’ not ‘the ball was thrown by john’. Read “passive voice” on the internet. This is where you’re having trouble with operational language. USE FINANCIAL AND CRIMINAL, NOT EXPERIENTIAL AND MORAL TERMINOLOGY 2) make sure any MORAL term you use is converted into an economic or financial term showing not abridgment of your interpretation of the moral contract, but of objective theft independent of subjectively biased moral judgements SO THIS A cowardly man imposes costs upon kin and kith to the extent of being beyond redemption. SHOULD BE THIS A cowardly man imposes costs upon kin and kith to the extent of being beyond restitution. ANOTHER EXAMPLE “embodying” is yet another symbolism not an objective declaration or observation. instead: “demonstrating”, or possibly in this paragraph “forcing others to protect and produce for him…” CAUSES OF OUR PASSIVE VOICE We grow up with “Polite Speech” and polite speech asks us to avoid accusatory descriptions. This produces passive voice. We grow up with the habit of talking about the object (thing affected) rather than the subject (thing acting). This produces passive voice. John did this which caused these increases or decreases in those forms of capital, demonstrating that he is a thief or investor. YOU ARE MAKING FINANCIAL AND ECONOMIC TRANSACTIONS INSTEAD OF MORAL JUDGEMENTS Propertarian arguments represent A LEDGER of TRANSACTIONS against property. Think of your arguments as software that’s narrating a set of accounting entries, and rendering a judgment of profit or loss. SUMMARY Just stick with the idea of subject acted on object, which caused this result, thereby producing a transaction against property resulting in a profit or loss. CLOSING: OUR PURPOSE Our purpose is to change from the MORAL AND MONOPOLY frame of decision making on common goods, to the SCIENTIFIC AND MARKET frame of decision on common goods. So we are revolutionizing the commons by asking “We have different objectives, but we can still cooperate if we trade. so why wont you be honest with me and trade? If you will trade, then I will trade. But if you will not trade and you want to engage in fraud or theft or violence, then I will remain moral, and not engage in theft, or fraud, but I WILL engage in violence, so that in the future you engage in truth and trade, or that you are dead, so you cannot commit fraud and theft.” This is the MORAL argument we put forward in propertarianism. “Why won’t you trade with me? If you will not trade with me then you may boycott trade with me – I will understand. But if you try to commit fraud and theft, directly or indirectly, as an individual or a group of any size, then I and other moral men, will not engage in theft and fraud, but we will engage in violence to end, perform restitution for, and punish, – and if necessary kill – those who engage in fraud and theft rather than trade or boycott.”

  • Tips On Writing Propertarian Arguments

    USE ACTIVE VOICE 1) Learn one ‘aggressive’ or ‘honest’ technique: “Active Voice not Passive Voice” ‘John threw the ball’ not ‘the ball was thrown by john’. Read “passive voice” on the internet. This is where you’re having trouble with operational language. USE FINANCIAL AND CRIMINAL, NOT EXPERIENTIAL AND MORAL TERMINOLOGY 2) make sure any MORAL term you use is converted into an economic or financial term showing not abridgment of your interpretation of the moral contract, but of objective theft independent of subjectively biased moral judgements SO THIS A cowardly man imposes costs upon kin and kith to the extent of being beyond redemption. SHOULD BE THIS A cowardly man imposes costs upon kin and kith to the extent of being beyond restitution. ANOTHER EXAMPLE “embodying” is yet another symbolism not an objective declaration or observation. instead: “demonstrating”, or possibly in this paragraph “forcing others to protect and produce for him…” CAUSES OF OUR PASSIVE VOICE We grow up with “Polite Speech” and polite speech asks us to avoid accusatory descriptions. This produces passive voice. We grow up with the habit of talking about the object (thing affected) rather than the subject (thing acting). This produces passive voice. John did this which caused these increases or decreases in those forms of capital, demonstrating that he is a thief or investor. YOU ARE MAKING FINANCIAL AND ECONOMIC TRANSACTIONS INSTEAD OF MORAL JUDGEMENTS Propertarian arguments represent A LEDGER of TRANSACTIONS against property. Think of your arguments as software that’s narrating a set of accounting entries, and rendering a judgment of profit or loss. SUMMARY Just stick with the idea of subject acted on object, which caused this result, thereby producing a transaction against property resulting in a profit or loss. CLOSING: OUR PURPOSE Our purpose is to change from the MORAL AND MONOPOLY frame of decision making on common goods, to the SCIENTIFIC AND MARKET frame of decision on common goods. So we are revolutionizing the commons by asking “We have different objectives, but we can still cooperate if we trade. so why wont you be honest with me and trade? If you will trade, then I will trade. But if you will not trade and you want to engage in fraud or theft or violence, then I will remain moral, and not engage in theft, or fraud, but I WILL engage in violence, so that in the future you engage in truth and trade, or that you are dead, so you cannot commit fraud and theft.” This is the MORAL argument we put forward in propertarianism. “Why won’t you trade with me? If you will not trade with me then you may boycott trade with me – I will understand. But if you try to commit fraud and theft, directly or indirectly, as an individual or a group of any size, then I and other moral men, will not engage in theft and fraud, but we will engage in violence to end, perform restitution for, and punish, – and if necessary kill – those who engage in fraud and theft rather than trade or boycott.”

  • Belief is Quantifiable, But Justification Isn’t

    IS BELIEF QUANTIFIABLE? YES BUT JUSTIFICATION ISN”T. Belief is already quantifiable by the degree of risk you are willing to take to demonstrate it. It’s not justifiable, but it’s measurable. In most cases, belief is indistinguishable from self-signaling, and other-signalling, and signal vs risk explains the difference between reported belief, and demonstrated belief. In other words, any use of the word ‘belief’ epistemically is either suspect or outright false, unless (like many conveniences) it’s short for “as far as I know”, and not “I am justified in my claim”. THE GRAMMAR OF HEDGING (DETACHMENT)
    • I think I understand / I believe I understand / but it’s nt something I’d risk with my current understanding.
    • I can understand it but I don’t know if it’s possible. / I believe I understand but don’t know if it’s possible / and we shouldn’t do it if it’s costly.
    • As far as I know, it’s possible. / I believe its possible / hard to know if it’s possible/ we can try it if it’s not costly.
    • As far as I know, it’s likely or probable / I believe it’s likely / we might be able to do it / we can try to do it if it’s not too costly.
    • As far as I know, it’s pretty common. / I believe it’s pretty common / we probably can do this / we probably should do this.
    • As far as I know it’s hard to imagine otherwise. / I believe it’s pretty certain./ We should do this / we must do this.
    There is no possible justification for belief. There is possible justification for moral action according to norms. There is possible justification for legal action according to laws. But to conflate justification(knowable norms, laws, and axioms), with Truth (unknowns constantly open to revision) is to conflate excuse making, with warranty, the same way we conflate probability and guessing in the ludic fallacy. Our language arose from local, in-group use. In-group members use moral language, and we use legal language as if it’s moral language. But we live now in a SCALE of human organization far beyond the local, and we have not quite adapted our language, concepts, and institutions to correspond to the SCALE of human organization we live in. Very little of what we discuss is between people with common interests, kinship, knowledge, understanding, experience that was not artificially constructed through media propaganda. (ASIDE: Just as an illustration, when you’re talking to people and they hesitate or stutter, or rephrase, listen for how often they’re trying to take a declarative martial language (Germanic) and rephrase it probabilistically with hedges, the same way we took and hedged martial language with deferential language as economic equality spread through society and hierarchy disappeared. It will shock you to see that not only does pronunciation migrate but so concepts as they work through our language.) So to speak truthfully requires we no longer use the CONSTRUCTIVIST DECEIT: that we speak morally (with ingroup preference) and instead speak either in terms of justificationary axioms, morals, and laws, or we speak in critical (theoretical) epistemology of truths, and we leave behind the philosophical tradition of deception that circumvents costs when we discuss ingroup norms and policy, and include costs when we discuss external/outgroup policy, because we are now all members of outgroups thanks to the scale of our polities – especially in empire America. If it sounds like I just cast most of philosophical discourse into a category along with theological discourse as a great deception….. I did. Hence why I struggle daily to unite philosophy, science, and law into a single discipline with a single language, without room to engage in fraud. 😉 Cheers. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev Ukraine

  • Belief is Quantifiable, But Justification Isn’t

    IS BELIEF QUANTIFIABLE? YES BUT JUSTIFICATION ISN”T. Belief is already quantifiable by the degree of risk you are willing to take to demonstrate it. It’s not justifiable, but it’s measurable. In most cases, belief is indistinguishable from self-signaling, and other-signalling, and signal vs risk explains the difference between reported belief, and demonstrated belief. In other words, any use of the word ‘belief’ epistemically is either suspect or outright false, unless (like many conveniences) it’s short for “as far as I know”, and not “I am justified in my claim”. THE GRAMMAR OF HEDGING (DETACHMENT)
    • I think I understand / I believe I understand / but it’s nt something I’d risk with my current understanding.
    • I can understand it but I don’t know if it’s possible. / I believe I understand but don’t know if it’s possible / and we shouldn’t do it if it’s costly.
    • As far as I know, it’s possible. / I believe its possible / hard to know if it’s possible/ we can try it if it’s not costly.
    • As far as I know, it’s likely or probable / I believe it’s likely / we might be able to do it / we can try to do it if it’s not too costly.
    • As far as I know, it’s pretty common. / I believe it’s pretty common / we probably can do this / we probably should do this.
    • As far as I know it’s hard to imagine otherwise. / I believe it’s pretty certain./ We should do this / we must do this.
    There is no possible justification for belief. There is possible justification for moral action according to norms. There is possible justification for legal action according to laws. But to conflate justification(knowable norms, laws, and axioms), with Truth (unknowns constantly open to revision) is to conflate excuse making, with warranty, the same way we conflate probability and guessing in the ludic fallacy. Our language arose from local, in-group use. In-group members use moral language, and we use legal language as if it’s moral language. But we live now in a SCALE of human organization far beyond the local, and we have not quite adapted our language, concepts, and institutions to correspond to the SCALE of human organization we live in. Very little of what we discuss is between people with common interests, kinship, knowledge, understanding, experience that was not artificially constructed through media propaganda. (ASIDE: Just as an illustration, when you’re talking to people and they hesitate or stutter, or rephrase, listen for how often they’re trying to take a declarative martial language (Germanic) and rephrase it probabilistically with hedges, the same way we took and hedged martial language with deferential language as economic equality spread through society and hierarchy disappeared. It will shock you to see that not only does pronunciation migrate but so concepts as they work through our language.) So to speak truthfully requires we no longer use the CONSTRUCTIVIST DECEIT: that we speak morally (with ingroup preference) and instead speak either in terms of justificationary axioms, morals, and laws, or we speak in critical (theoretical) epistemology of truths, and we leave behind the philosophical tradition of deception that circumvents costs when we discuss ingroup norms and policy, and include costs when we discuss external/outgroup policy, because we are now all members of outgroups thanks to the scale of our polities – especially in empire America. If it sounds like I just cast most of philosophical discourse into a category along with theological discourse as a great deception….. I did. Hence why I struggle daily to unite philosophy, science, and law into a single discipline with a single language, without room to engage in fraud. 😉 Cheers. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev Ukraine

  • Informational Content in Operationalism vs Empiricism

    Aug 25, 2016 8:02am There is as great a difference in informational content and therefore truth (decidability), between Operationalism and Empiricism, as there was between empiricism and reason, and between reason, and storytelling. This is why, in the future, people will rely on Propertarianism and Testimonialism over ‘mere’ empiricism, the same way we empiricists rely on empiricism over rationalism. And this in turn, is why Propertarianism and Testimonialism and Operationalism will produce as great a leap forward in the ‘average’ human mind, as scientific thinking using general rules has produced an advance over rational thinking using particularist recipes.