Curt Doolittle

Category: Human Behavior and Cognitive Science

  • Property In Everything: The Source Of Egalitarian Sentiment

    20RDP_CHIMP_SPAN-articleLarge-v2

    [T]he human moral sense is not so much egalitarian as that egalitarianism is the outcome of four competing instincts: the desire to constrain alphas, with the desire to be them, with the desire to breed them, with the desire to raise young who perpetuate our genes. We know that humans try to constrain alphas. We know that we had to do so in order to develop cooperation. It is possible that it’s the singular reason we developed cooperation – unlike our ape relatives. Once we suppress violence with the institution of property, alphas demonstrate their superiority with asset accumulation in all its forms. There is a vast difference from constraining an alpha from creating involuntary transfers because of a concentration of capital of some kind, and constraining alphas in order to improve one’s signaling potential. The first is to prevent theft. The second is an act of theft. The institution of property answers everything.

  • MONOGAMY Let me put it this way: monogamy is not in a man’s interest at all. Or

    MONOGAMY

    Let me put it this way: monogamy is not in a man’s interest at all. Or rather, it is only in the interest of the 30% of men who are undesirable. And many men are undesirable because men vary more than women, particularly at the extremes.

    Monogamy creates artificial scarcity of men. It’s a bad deal for women in gene selection, but it’s a good deal for women in an agrarian economy in terms of support for her offspring. For the upper fifth of men, monogamy is a very high cost of opportunity. For the Tiger Woods’ of the world, its an absurdity.

    The question we have to ask, is if we lose the family, and we lose monogamy, then what will a) those undesirable men do and b) how will men start to signal?

    I look around the world and I look at history, and this is the stuff that heady murder is made of.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-12-07 18:24:00 UTC

  • THE BEST WAY TO DISPROVE THE SUPERIORITY OF ANY IDEOLOGY IS TO SHOW THAT ALL IDE

    THE BEST WAY TO DISPROVE THE SUPERIORITY OF ANY IDEOLOGY IS TO SHOW THAT ALL IDEOLOGIES ARE NOTHING BUT REPRODUCTIVE STRATEGIES GIVEN VERBAL JUSTIFICATION IN AN ATTEMPT TO GAIN POLITICAL POWER TO DISTORT PROPERTY IN FAVOR OF FUNDING ONE GROUP’S REPRODUCTIVE STRATEGY AT THE EXPENSE OF OTHERS.

    This means that the only ‘good’ ideology is one that produces the best biology.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-12-07 18:15:00 UTC

  • THE CONSERVATIVE-LIBERAL BABY GAP “…some of the key qualities that differ betw

    THE CONSERVATIVE-LIBERAL BABY GAP

    “…some of the key qualities that differ between the two ideological groups include the fact that liberals tend to get married later (or not at all), and that conservatives tend to live in more sparsely populated areas of the country (and population density appears to severely impact fertility).”

    Population density DECREASES opportunity costs but INCREASES physical costs. Liberals (like libertarians) are more excited by new (cheap) experiences than conservatives. Urbanity makes experiences easier to find, more numerous, cheaper. But these experiences are obtained in exchange for higher geographic costs that come from density (rent and home ownership, taxes, and petty crime).

    Source date (UTC): 2012-12-07 16:59:00 UTC

  • THE ONLY WAY TO KILL IDEOLOGY: IT”S REPRODUCTION SILLY To demonstrate that all i

    THE ONLY WAY TO KILL IDEOLOGY: IT”S REPRODUCTION SILLY

    To demonstrate that all ideologies are justifications for attempts to acquire power that supports one’s reproductive strategy.

    This is an intentionally loaded overstatement, perhaps, But it brings home the point that people vote by race, gender and class. They support their reproductive strategy.

    Well, there is more to it you say.

    Um. Not really. Not in the aggregate. Ideology is necessary only because of democracy. If instead, we had monarchies, and rigid property rights, then people would not have access to political power, and instead would be limited to economic power. And economic power can only be obtained through satisfying the wants of others – or by corporatism or alliance with the state.

    Monarchy denies people access to power. Democracy simply is communism by slower means.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-12-06 16:09:00 UTC

  • LIBERAL-CONSERVATIVE BABY GAP (One of many reasons why whites are becoming more

    http://jaymans.wordpress.com/2012/11/30/expectations-and-reality-a-window-into-the-liberal-conservative-baby-gap/THE LIBERAL-CONSERVATIVE BABY GAP

    (One of many reasons why whites are becoming more conservative.)

    Source date (UTC): 2012-12-03 02:03:00 UTC

  • STUPID STUFF: CELEB TRAIN WRECKS Why are celebrity train wrecks so fascinating?

    STUPID STUFF: CELEB TRAIN WRECKS

    Why are celebrity train wrecks so fascinating? I mean, Lohan, Sheen, on one end, Spears in the middle, and Moore and Stone on the other.

    Most of human existence is pretty transparent to me. Tediously obvious even. But the crazy stuff people do never ceases to amaze me, and I find it endlessly fascinating – even if I wish I didn’t. Even if I’m embarrassed that I do.

    But somehow I love to live in a world where we have all these entertaining characters who tests the limits. Not of criminality. Not of violence. But of some insanely uncontrollably misdirected passion.

    When I was younger I used to love to watch the Dead-Heads go to concerts. I have no interest in them. I dont want to know them. But they’re all happy and adorable in a completely ‘white’ kind of way. And I just loved living in a world with people like that in it. Where it’s perfectly OK to be peaceful counter-culture.

    It’s beautiful – in a sort of twisted way.

    But American civic culture has declined with the ascent of the government, the decline of the family, and the misplaced admiration for division-inducing multiculturalism. And so our countercultures, except for possibly the burning man phenomenon, are almost entirely forms of politica agitation.

    I wont’ get into why this state of affairs exists. It’s a depressing distraction. I’ll just appreciate that a few outrageous individuals can buck the prohibition on revelrous passions.

    Even if it’s just vicarious.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-11-29 16:35:00 UTC

  • QUESTION: ON IMPULSIVITY (TIME PREFERENCE) AND POPULATIONS What is the percentag

    QUESTION: ON IMPULSIVITY (TIME PREFERENCE) AND POPULATIONS

    What is the percentage of individuals with high time preference (high impulsivity) that will block the creation of norms, and therefore institutions, consisting of low time preference (low impulsivity)?

    I have been trying to get my arms around this problem for the past few years, and my travels lately, into a low trust, but low impulsivity society have helped me understand it a bit more clearly.

    Unless groups with low time preference have the right of exclusion (ostracization) then there is no defense against even ten percent of the population having a high time preference.

    I know that at something under ten percent, populations stop integrating and start seeking identity and political power. But at what point do populations of high time preference individuals, regardless of identity or power seeking (no elites to represent their interest) prevent the formation of low time preference norms and therefore low time preference institutions?

    Source date (UTC): 2012-11-15 13:06:00 UTC

  • IN INCIDENCE OF AUTISM THE RESULT OF ASSORTIVE MATING. (personally I’m not sure

    http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/11/childhood-autism-and-assortative-mating.htmlINCREASE IN INCIDENCE OF AUTISM THE RESULT OF ASSORTIVE MATING. (personally I’m not sure that thus isn’t a ‘good’)

    Source date (UTC): 2012-11-12 06:56:00 UTC

  • EX WIFE LEVIED THIS CRITICISM AGAINST ME DURING OUR DIVORCE WTF? Cute tactic as

    http://spp.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/10/02/1948550612461284.shortMY EX WIFE LEVIED THIS CRITICISM AGAINST ME DURING OUR DIVORCE

    WTF? Cute tactic as a means of trying to deny me access to my son as leverage to get more money. Well, how does that explain my extenuated rotund period? 🙂 Until I dated again, I certainly didn’t push fashion. Personally, if I didn’t have to raise money and sell ideas to other people, I’d wear jeans and untucked collared shirts half unbuttoned, with long hair and sneakers. I’d look like a rumpled professor. And I certainly would’t shave my chest any longer. That’s the inner me. OK? I think ‘adornment’ equates to having to sell s**t for a living. It’s the people that dont sell s**t for a living that dress up that always bother me. If selling s**t is sociopathic then we’re all in for an interesting world someday.

    In fact. WTF. Save teh dressup for the club scene.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-11-06 07:43:00 UTC