Curt Doolittle

Form: Argument

  • TRUTH AND ETHICS IN ARGUMENT In my quest to cleanse libertarianism of platonism,

    TRUTH AND ETHICS IN ARGUMENT

    In my quest to cleanse libertarianism of platonism, and possibly put at least one nail in the coffin of Postmodern thought, Ive come up with two avenues of argument :

    1) Operational language: Operational language (action) forces us to distinguish between platonic and real. The moment something must be described as actions, it becomes scientific. If it is not described as actions, and observable actions, then it’s not. It’s fantasy. (Platonic)

    2) Ethics: I am pretty sure the requirement to speak in operational language is not a matter of ‘truth’ but of ‘ethics’. In other words, its unethical not to speak in operational language, precisely because it allows us to confuse the platonic and the real. This approach is consistent with the ETHICAL constraint libertarians demonstrate as a preference: the visibility of voluntary and involuntary transfers.

    It is much easier to argue using BOTH of these lines of argument at the same time. Mathematical and logical platonists can have their cake imaginary cake, but they can’t actually eat it. Because if you use mathematical and logical platonism to cross the line into economics and politics, you’re now a crook. Worse, you’re advocating thievery.

    In this case, the first platonic argument that I want to kill off is the constraint that ‘magical numbers’ (infinity) and magical sets ‘infinite sets’, place constraints on theories. (They don’t) Semantic ally meaningful combinations open to sympathetic testing are very low in number. And as I’ve said elsewhere, our problem in the construction of theories is one of words, but cognitive bias, instrumentation and measurement.

    Kenneth Allen Hopf has helped me with this argument, by positioning Popper’s advice as moral, or perhaps more narrowly, ethical. Just as, I would argue, is Nassim Taleb’s improvement on Popper, and Poincaire, and perhaps those of Mandelbrot as well.

    This school of thought is called ‘finitism’ in mathematics. The finitist movement stalled with Russell, Cantor and set theory, at which point it became impossible without using operational language, to prove finitism. So mathematical and set theory today is platonic. Most mathematicians and logisticians are platonists.

    Of course, I’m working on moral and ethical theory, because any political system must rely upon some ethical basis, or it’s not logical to discuss ‘politics’ (persuasion) – it’s just engineering of human beings as if they’re cattle.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-06 14:07:00 UTC

  • I think … It might be illogical to say we ‘have’ property rights. Or that we g

    I think … It might be illogical to say we ‘have’ property rights. Or that we give people property rights. I think the only logical, and ethical statement is, that you can earn them by exchange of them. And if you don’t want to earn them in exchange, then those of us who have earned our property rights by extending property rights to others – well, we are free to use our violence against any and all of those who do not. If you do not exchange property rights, you have no property rights either. and all rights are reducible to property rights. Including the right to life. If you do not respect property rights then we have no moral constraint upon is for your treatment. (??)

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-06 05:02:00 UTC

  • AND PROPERTY ARE SYNONYMS – LOVE IS AN INCENTIVE, NOT A NECESSARY REQUIREMENT –

    http://blog.talkingphilosophy.com/?p=7337MARRIAGE AND PROPERTY ARE SYNONYMS – LOVE IS AN INCENTIVE, NOT A NECESSARY REQUIREMENT – ROMANTIC NOTIONS TO THE CONTRARY

    The are only two things that distinguish marriage from any other arbitrary relationship for the purpose of securing affection, sex, companionship, love, care-taking, cost-reduction-of-cohabitatin, and a division of labor in child rearing.

    1) PROPERTY: When you marry, you form a corporation with shared assets, and a two person board of directors, from which the state must divide assets upon the disbanding of the corporation. Prior to the institution of private property, you could just marry and un-marry by saying so in public. In fact, the western Celts practiced serial marriage this way until the 19th century, and the European jews until the middle ages. In most primitives societies, women were literally property, but in Europe the church granted women property rights back in the 1200’s. So the need to resolve property disputes increased as the complexity and amount of property increased, and the productivity of individuals, and therefore their ability to obtain and use property increased.

    2) KINSHIP: We have evolved laws to avoid conflict by stating that the other shareholder has certain powers (of attorney) to act as Voluntary Kin in periods of duress, and it that takes precedence over other involuntary Kinship ties: blood relatives. In this sense when we marry we sell ourselves to the corporation as an asset.

    THE STATE AS MONOPOLY

    The state is the arbiter of property disputes – that’s what a state is: a territorial monopoly on the use of violence; and in particular for the use of violence in the resolution of disputes. The moment that you enter into a marriage that produces common property, you force the state into your marriage because only the state can resolve conflicts over property.

    Anyone can form a corporation. A ship captain, a priest, or certain state officials. The formation’s not a state matter. It’s just an exchange like any other exchange. But the state must break it. And if the state must break it then it must of necessity develop criteria for doing so in order to apply a decision that meets the standard of consistent “law” rather than arbitrary judicial decision.

    However, there is no reason that the state must be the arbiter or such disputes. There is no reason churches cannot perform divorces, in which the assets divisions have the force of law. Unfortunately this wold produce two canons of law, and leave the state responsible for resolving appeals, so it would simply result in the state centralizing decision making power again.

    THE OPTION TO MAINTAIN PRIVATE PROPERTY

    However, an easier solution is that if when we marry we do NOT create a corporation and place ourselves and all our assets into it, but instead, maintain each individual’s property separately, and specifically state ownership percentages on anything else that is split now or future, then the only legal issue is the power of attorney to act as one another in financial matters, and to act as primary kin in the event one is incapacitated.

    HISTORY

    The civic and political problem is only that our laws developed as monopolies under control of the state – and even then, largely because the church did not perform divorces and the state wished to intercede in the civil space in order to advance the interests of the feminist political movement on the one hand, and react to the reality that women were becoming active in the work force, earning income, and acquiring real property in sufficient numbers that they required legal peerage to protect them from abuse by rent-seeking males.

    So there is no reason that we must have a monopoly of marriage terms. And there is only one reason that the state should be involved in dissolutions: common property. That is, property of the corporation called the marriage being distributed to various parties in the event of a disbandment of the corporation.

    CRITERIA FOR THREE TYPES OF MARRIAGE

    Further, there is no reason marriages cannot consist of multiple forms, regardless of who makes them.

    1) Corporate Property and Power of Kin

    2) Several property and Power of Kin

    3) Corporate Property without power of kin

    Several Property without power of kin is the normal state of human beings. So that’s the definition of not being married. But one can be in a state of marriage as long as one has either the power of kin (genetic assets) or power of common property (material assets).

    ITS ALL ABOUT PROPERTY

    Love and romance have nothing to do with marriage. You may get married BECAUSE of love and romance and all the other factors. But marriage is a change in control of property – including the self – by authorizing non-kin to act as Kin, and to either pool property or not.

    That it is hard to see the binding power of a marriage having any meaning whatsoever without the pooling of assets is enough of a logical constraint that we can define marriage as a property institution, and nothing more.

    That fact may be painful to admit to ourselves. But marriage is a contract over of property rights, with one of the assets being each other. It is, and always will be. ‘Cause nothing else makes much sense. ‘Cause nothing else enforces fidelity like the loss property.

    Humbling. I know.

    ->Comment in response to this post at Talking Philosophy:

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-03 05:07:00 UTC

  • Call me an absolutist, but if you are a soldier you’re altogether different from

    Call me an absolutist, but if you are a soldier you’re altogether different from a contractor.

    We have ancient traditions for objecting to policy. You resign in protest. You bear the burden. And then you do or say whatever you want.

    But if you stay in your post you are a spy, an agent, and by consequence a threat to all others you serve with, by virtue of nothing more than spreading distrust.

    There is nothing unique about Manning. There have been thousands of him. What is rare is that he was not an officer and a gentleman, nor a man of honor to the men with him in service.

    I am sorry he was too stupid to do the right thing the right way. But it is hard to understand how one can be in the service and not understand its moral code.

    I’m as glad as everyone else to see the usa embarrassed. And anyone who reads my chatter knows that i want to reduce the scope of the military and state.

    But i cant support one immorality over another. Especially when what he exposed was trivially embarrassing and little more.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-07-30 13:21:00 UTC

  • The purpose of democratic representative government is to provide legitimacy for

    The purpose of democratic representative government is to provide legitimacy for the form of corruption preferred by the majority.

    The irony is that there isnt, and never has been, any need for majority rule. Think about how absurd it is. The choice of going to war is possibly the exception. But that majority rule should or need determine either law or the use of tax money is logically ridiculous.

    There is no more reason to force us to all agree on where to place street lamps this year than there is for us to agree on which brand tuna fish to eat.

    Its ridiculous.

    The greeks put in place extended enfranchisement so that their ruler could stack the government. The british so that the middle class could take control of government. The americans so that the lower class and women could at least try to control government.

    But democratic representative government using majority rule is just a means of legitimizing one form of corruption or another.

    The absurdity is that with modern communication technology there isn’t any reason for representative government at all.

    So we have pervasive corruption without any reason.

    No reason whatsoever.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-07-28 11:47:00 UTC

  • FINAL WORD ON METHOD: AUSTRIAN AND OTHERWISE Any statement about human behavior

    FINAL WORD ON METHOD: AUSTRIAN AND OTHERWISE

    Any statement about human behavior that cannot be expressed as a sequence of human actions open to subjective, sympathetic, testing of the rationality of the individual’s incentives, is in fact, not scientific.

    The reason we like to use correlative aggregates is that they obscure involuntary transfers. The reason we like to use causal, operational language, that describe human actions, is because it makes visible involuntary transfers.

    And while morality APPEARS to differ around the world, because different cultures use different allocations of property rights between the commons, family, Pater, and individual – because the productive and reproductive strategies must be reflected in a group’s property rights – the fact is that human morality, universally, without exception, is determined by a prohibition on involuntary transfer according to those cultural allocations of property. Period. Morality is property. Period. End of discussion.

    This fact illustrates the difference between progressive (mainstream) economics, and conservative (austrian) economics, Progressives want to hide and conservatives want to draw attention to, involuntary transfers. And the reason is that Progressives favor the feminine reproductive strategy of limitless population growth that all other non-sentient creatures demonstrate. And conservatives favor improvement of the tribe in relation to other tribes – which is something only humans do with intent.

    Everything else is just propaganda.

    Apodeictic nonsense included.

    Philosophy is justifying your preferred reproductive strategy and nothing else. The fact that we use language and reason is arbitrary. We are just like any other species, using what is available to us to reproduce. We’e just invented a very complex verbal dance. But its still a dance.

    And that’s all our nonsense is : a dance.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-07-24 06:09:00 UTC

  • SCIENCE AND THE THEORY OF ACTION : ACTIONS DEMARCATE THE REAL FROM THE UNREAL In

    SCIENCE AND THE THEORY OF ACTION : ACTIONS DEMARCATE THE REAL FROM THE UNREAL

    In praxeology, if statements cannot be expressed as human actions that are open to sympathetic testing of the rationality of incentives then the statements are not ‘scientific’.

    OPERATIONAL DEFINITIONS: (Operationalism) Operational definitions are definitions of theoretical constructs that are stated in terms of concrete, observable procedures (Actions). Operational definitions solve the problem of what is not directly observable by connecting unobservable traits or experiences to things that can be observed. Operational definitions make the unobservable observable. ( the concepts or terms used in nonanalytic scientific statements must be definable in terms of identifiable and repeatable operations.)

    Source date (UTC): 2013-07-21 12:34:00 UTC

  • Why Do We Live In Nation States?

    Because Nation-States are constructed of genetically related, extended families and  extended tribes, with shared language, culture, mythology, rituals, values, status signals, where competition for political power is ‘in the family’ and will not disrupt the existing order.  Humans are notoriously antagonized by redistributions outside of their value-status system, and by disruptions to the existing order.  Our data so far suggests that small homogenous nation states whose members are highly related, are highly redistributive, and highly trusting of one another, and if combined with low corruption and good rule of law produce the ‘scandinavian model’.

    The general argument is that the only reason for large states is to fund warfare, and that appears to be true.  Larger states require higher authoritarianism and less freedom, and complex political contrivances in order to deny others power using both political and extra-political competition.

    Furthermore large states can borrow disproportionately and create extraordinary economic leverage, and as such can use trade policy to give populations a competitive advantage.

    But in general, small is beautiful so to speak, and we would be less able to make war and more happy and peaceful if we lived in either city states or nation states.

    https://www.quora.com/Why-do-we-live-in-nation-states

  • Why Do We Live In Nation States?

    Because Nation-States are constructed of genetically related, extended families and  extended tribes, with shared language, culture, mythology, rituals, values, status signals, where competition for political power is ‘in the family’ and will not disrupt the existing order.  Humans are notoriously antagonized by redistributions outside of their value-status system, and by disruptions to the existing order.  Our data so far suggests that small homogenous nation states whose members are highly related, are highly redistributive, and highly trusting of one another, and if combined with low corruption and good rule of law produce the ‘scandinavian model’.

    The general argument is that the only reason for large states is to fund warfare, and that appears to be true.  Larger states require higher authoritarianism and less freedom, and complex political contrivances in order to deny others power using both political and extra-political competition.

    Furthermore large states can borrow disproportionately and create extraordinary economic leverage, and as such can use trade policy to give populations a competitive advantage.

    But in general, small is beautiful so to speak, and we would be less able to make war and more happy and peaceful if we lived in either city states or nation states.

    https://www.quora.com/Why-do-we-live-in-nation-states

  • The Source Of Private Property Is Violence

    [T]he source of property is the organized application of violence to create it. Even on Rothbard’s Crusoe island, the violence that creates the property of the island FOR Crusoe is provided by the barrier of the sea. (That the see is analogous to the ghetto, which is the model of rebellion rothbard was using whether he know it or not, is obvious and ironic.) But Rothbard’s logic is flawed. The correct analogy is that on an infinite flat plain evenly distributed with people, how do you create the institution of private property so that one person’s will and wisdom can concentrate capital for future production and use? By the application of violence to create that institution. Can an individual do it? Not against numbers. No individual is powerful enough. But can a group do it? Yes. A group requires another group to counter it, which produces diminishing returns for those members, who are more incentivized to also obtain property than reverse their claims. An organized group can create private property by the application of violence. The source of private property is the organized application of violence to create it. Arguments that try to justify private property by some other means, moral or utilitarian, are in fact, attempts to buy the right of private property at a deep discount. And nobody’s selling at that price. You have to rase the price pretty high. And violence is a very high price. The source of private property is violence. Private property is a right one gains in exchange for the commitment to others who share the desire for private property, to use violence to preserve private property for one and all. No other method is possible.