Curt Doolittle

Form: Critique

  • ILLIBERAL IMMORAL ROTHBARDIANS: MORE ON BLOCK AND BLACKMAIL –“Walter Block has

    ILLIBERAL IMMORAL ROTHBARDIANS: MORE ON BLOCK AND BLACKMAIL

    –“Walter Block has made a career out of making himself and libertarianism look stupid. “–Craig J. Bolton

    I owe Walter somewhat for his assistance in my intellectual development. But like Rothbard, to whom Walter is the closest current author, he relies on the same ethics of the ghetto, and the entire elaborate structure of argumentative nonsense.

    Rothbard made us look stupid but he gave us hope. Promoting blackmail not only makes us look stupid, but it proves we are stupid, and it removes any hope of obtaining and holding liberty.

    Property rights are not given by god, by natural law, or by a logical inference from the necessary conditions for debate.

    The source of property rights is the organized use of violence to suppress free riding (“cheating”) in every arena of life, such that the only means of survival is mutually productive cooperation in the market for goods and services.

    Property rights are the CONSEQUENCE of the organized suppression of ‘cheating’ – they are not the CAUSE of their own existence.

    Blackmail, like all the other rothbardian inverted logic, is not productive, and mutually beneficial even if it is consensual. It’s ‘cheating’. It’s free riding. IT’s not productive. And the only reason we should agree to abandon our use of violence, and cooperate, is for mutually beneficial ends.

    The entire rothbardian program was a disaster, and we can see that in the electoral data, in the literature. And in our impact on policy. Like Marx and Freud, and to some degree Cantor, Rothbard was yet another manufacturer of elaborate nonsensical arguments based upon false assumptions leading to catastrophic effects.

    Liberty originated ONLY with aristocratic egalitarianism. It did not originate in the ghetto. And it’s time to falsify Rothbardian obscurantist drivel, and return liberty to aristocracy: the organized application of violence to suppress all free riding and thereby deny opportunity for sustenance via every possible action EXCEPT the market.

    It’s time to ridicule and outcast parasitic rothbardian ethics from libertarian discourse. And if that means forcing people like Walter to continually recant their previous positions, or be labeled as proponents of one of the greatest intellectual scams in history, and by consequence an unethical, immoral, and socially detrimental man.

    If we cannot reform the Rothbardians and redirect them to abandoning the ethics of the ghetto, we must find the donors to these causes and publicly out them as conspirators against liberty.

    Because that is what they are. And I am ashamed that I was once one of them.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-29 05:00:00 UTC

  • ROBERT HIGGS MISSES THE POINT I don’t like internecine battles. I criticize them

    ROBERT HIGGS MISSES THE POINT

    I don’t like internecine battles. I criticize them all the time. However, the reasons that we are criticized are very often justifiable, because we have too many rothbardians spewing dogma the consequences of which they do not understand. Yet, those who have higher moral standards **DO** understand. Especially conservatives who also want liberty, but who understand, better than libertarians, the threshold of morality necessary for us to rationally grant any liberty to one another at all.

    Rothbard did great work on history but his philosophy was a catastrophe. It doomed our movement from the start.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-27 02:42:00 UTC

  • ROTHBARD’S ETHICAL GHETTO Rothbardian ethics are just an excuse to suppress the

    ROTHBARD’S ETHICAL GHETTO

    Rothbardian ethics are just an excuse to suppress the strong’s ability to use violence while maintaining the cunning’s ability to entrap, lie, cheat and steal.

    Liberty was created at the point of a sharp metal object, by heroic males, as a means of suppressing all forms of cheating on the backs of others.

    Rothbard’s pretense is simply a means of justifying parasitism on that hard won liberty.

    There is nothing libertarian about Rothbardian ethics.

    Its just a complex philosophical lie to justify immoral and unethical theft.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-26 16:15:00 UTC

  • ROTHBARDIAN ETHICS ARE A PARASITIC SCAM. Rothbard’s ethics are just another a pa

    ROTHBARDIAN ETHICS ARE A PARASITIC SCAM.

    Rothbard’s ethics are just another a parasitic scam seeking to replace low transaction cost state parasitism, with high transaction cost universal parasitism. Aristocratic Egalitarians (protestants) had it right: universal responsibility for the universal suppression of all involuntary extractions, thereby forcing every living soul to compete in the market for goods and services, where his efforts produce a virtuous cycle.

    1) We can describe all involuntary extractions of property as one of the following: Criminal, unethical, immoral, and conspiratorial (statist). Attached is one of my diagrams that illustrates this spectrum. The curve on the right is the DEMONSTRATED demand curve for liberty. Because it represents the REPRODUCTIVE return on forgone opportunities (opportunity costs).

    2) All costs are opportunity costs. That definition of property is the human behavioral definition of property, not some artificially constructed definition of property that was created to justify aggression against property by non physical means. (Which is the very purpose of Rothbard’s argument.) If all costs are opportunity costs then it is not possible to make the argument for bribery except as an excuse to justify theft. (and it is an excuse to justify theft, which is why it’s almost universally rejected except by social outcasts.)

    The human intuitive perception of property, the human normative description of property, and the reproductively and cooperatively NECESSARY and non-arbitrary definition of property, is defined by the requirements for decreasing transaction costs of cooperation. From the most severe and direct (crime) to the most indirect and imperceptible (displacement via outbreeding or immigrating. A fact which is illustrated in the diagram.)

    3) As I’ve said. Either the NAP is insufficient, or the definition of property rights is insufficient. I’m able to construct an argument that the NAP is sufficient as long as the definition of property rights is DESCRIPTIVE.

    But it is not possible to rationally choose an arbitrary description of private property limited to that which is necessary for economic production (private property) and its dependent ethics, and not ALSO leave unanswered the further definitions of property in all its forms that create the trust necessary for rational risk taking in a polity.

    My original assumption was that first mises made the error because of his obsession with commodity prices, which are a reductio example of property, and that rothbard further expanded that error with his appeal to predatory extractive ghetto ethics, as an group evolutionary theory. And I can forgive both authors for such errors. We cannot expect all men to be wise in all matters.

    But as time has progressed I’ve understood the damage that has resulted from the emphasis on a FAILED minority strategy (low trust society), to a successful majority strategy (high trust societies) in producing both eugenic reproduction and expanding wealth.

    4) What is circular reasoning, is the arbitrary definition of rothbardian private property rights as a means of justifying involuntary extraction via PRIVATE SECTOR PARASITISM, as a means of replacing involuntary extraction via STATE PARASITISM.

    Rothbard’s ethics, statism and socialism, are parasitic. ROTHBARD’S ETHICS ARE PARASITIC. Only high trust property rights are fully productive and NOT parasitic. ONLY those high trust ethics. ONLY THOSE AND NO OTHER. Northwestern europeans managed to almost exterminate all involuntary extraction and forcing all human action into the market for goods and services. All of it. Forbidding all other means of free riding.

    Apriorism is an interesting tool for deceiving mediocre minds via overloading. It works in mathematical philosophy for the same reason it works in ethical philosophy: because these reductive arguments rely on aggregation of concepts that obscure the causal properties. So, yes, rothbardianism is a parasitic scam.

    5) If we can get past that point we will get to the dispute over whether it is rational for people to exchange pervasive parasitism, pervasive transaction costs in daily life, for limited parasitic rents, corruption and conspiracy via the state.

    CLOSING

    All costs are opportunity costs. Humans DEMONSTRATE that they behave this way in all circumstances. And it is rational for them to do so. And irrational for them not to. And Rothbardian ethics are an attempt to trade one parasitic scam for another. Nothing more.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-24 21:18:00 UTC

  • LIBERTY WITHOUT ROTHBARD: A RETURN TO ARISTOCRACY I see rothbardianism as a fail

    LIBERTY WITHOUT ROTHBARD: A RETURN TO ARISTOCRACY

    I see rothbardianism as a failed amateurish pseudo philosophical ideology, rejected by all but a meaningless minority, disproven by even the least talented of philosophers, contrary to all evidence in evolutionary biology, experimental psychology, anthropology and history, and economically irrational on praxeological grounds alone. And any chance we have of obtaining liberty whatsoever requires that we start with what we have that is supportable: that all rights are reducible to property rights, that the struggle for prosperity is the universal responsibility to suppress parasitism in every possible form, thereby forcing all human cooperation into the market for productive voluntary exchange. – and in doing so reconstruct liberty on its historical aristocratic grounds, such that it is not amateurish, contrary to the evidence, and irrational.

    Liberty is on life support. Rothbard gave it cancer. And I’m out to cure it.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-23 15:55:00 UTC

  • THE WEAKNESS OF POPPERIAN TRUTH : PRESERVING PLATONISM My understanding of CR’s

    THE WEAKNESS OF POPPERIAN TRUTH : PRESERVING PLATONISM

    My understanding of CR’s concept of Truth is Popperian via Tarsky: which in crudest form suggests that Statements are true if they are internally consistent. And furthermore, the truth content of any proposition (verisimilitude) consists of the explanatory power minus the falsificationary power. (I tend to follow Kripke on internal consistency for technical reasons.)

    This position narrows the value of explanatory power, improving truth claims, but is still a much looser definition of truth, and one that accommodates the platonic (Metaphysical realism). This is evident by the failure to unite the various definitions of truth into some coherent system.

    Whereas, in an effort correct Metaphysical Realism and to expunge platonism and obscurantism – and therefore obtain Scientific and Ethical Naturalism – I’ve tried to argue that the narrower criteria (the above comment) is the test of BOTH realism AND ethical action.

    I’ve stated before that I thought popper denied socialists the field, by making it impossible to argue that political preferences (scientific socialism) was in fact scientific enough that central planners could make claims necessitating that we be compelled to comply with their ideas. However, his definition of truth was insufficient to deny obscurantism and platonism. This is not a criticism it’s just a statement of insufficiency for prevention of abuse by way of popular government.

    This is a lot to grasp. But I thought I’d throw it out there.

    I didn’t think I would be able to get to it but it’s troubled me enough that I’m getting close.

    Thanks.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-22 09:15:00 UTC

  • ANOTHER NAIL IN THE ROTHBARDIAN COFFIN: NAP FAILS ON TRANSACTION COSTS ALONE –“

    ANOTHER NAIL IN THE ROTHBARDIAN COFFIN: NAP FAILS ON TRANSACTION COSTS ALONE

    –“Yes…transaction costs exist. But that simply means that a market can potentially give sub-optimal outcomes. It does nothing to undermine the internal coherence of NAP.”–

    It does everything to undermine the willingness of individuals to reduce their demand for the state.

    Science requires external correspondence not internal consistency. Internal consistency is a property of our logic not of reality. It is not materially useful if something is internally consistent if it fails the test of external correspondence.

    So if you feel that the NAP is sufficient for the rational reduction of demand for the state, you can make all the internally consistent statements that you wish, but unless you can empirically demonstrate that people will do so, your internally consistent argument is false.

    NAP is not false, but insufficient. It is insufficient because people attribute greater resistance to risk and therefore transaction costs, then they to do third party intervention.

    For example: Does the NAP forbid blackmail? Rothbard doesn’t forbid blackmail in his books. Walter block doesn’t either.

    Each marginal improvement in the trust necessary for marginal reduction in demand for the state, requires disproportionate suppression of additional means of cheating (involuntary transfer). The progression is not linear. We can measure it. We have.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-20 06:42:00 UTC

  • NONSENSE —“We would have to start with a clarification of the terms. Capitalis

    NONSENSE

    —“We would have to start with a clarification of the terms. Capitalism is an economic system that exists in various forms over time & in different places but it has certain core essential features”—

    THE UNIVERSAL REFUTATION OF SOCIALISM

    The vague term ‘economic system’ is a form of deception. Capitalism is a MEANS OF PRODUCTION.

    The capitalist means of production is possible because both the incentives to do what we do not wish to do, and the means of calculating how to do so, are available to us; such that by doing what we may not wish to do, we do what we are capable of doing, and by doing so satisfy the wants of others, such that we may finally satisfy our own wants.

    The socialist means of production is not possible. It is impossible. It is impossible because neither the means of calculation, nor the incentive to do what we do not desire to, exists in that method of production.

    Marxism is the biggest organized systemic set of lies since the invention of scriptural monotheism. It is the most murderous religion ever created by man – by replacing mystical allegory with verbal obscurantism and pseudoscience.

    If you cannot explain an economic argument in operational language you are either engaged in ignorance or deception or perpetuating deception out of ignorance.

    —“libertarian socialism”–

    Like socialist economy, ‘libertarian socialism’ is a contradiction in terms. One cannot create an economy under the socialist method of production. One cannot create socialism from libertarianism. The reason being that libertarian is defined by the necessity of private property, and socialism is defined by the necessity of community property.

    PERIOD.

    I am surprised that anyone still can get away with writing the irrational mystical obscurant deceptive lies of socialist dogma but given the durability of mystical scriptural religion I should not be.

    Socialism is pseudoscience. It is a religion dependent, like postmodernism, on the abuse of language in order to deceive mediocre and ignorant minds.

    My opinion is that it is only immoral. But I could easily make the argument that obscurant arguments for the purpose of conducting theft by conspiracy (socialism) are CRIMINAL acts.

    The fact that we tolerate free speech is because we feel we may err. However, we do not tolerate shouting fire in a theater, nor should we tolerate advocacy of suicide.

    Which is what socialism is: suicide.

    If you advocate socialism you are, ignorant or not, at the very least an immoral person. And arguably a criminal who deserves punishment.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-19 10:26:00 UTC

  • RIFFING A CRITIC: THE IMMORALITY OF PLATONISM (important piece) CRITIC: –“The w

    RIFFING A CRITIC: THE IMMORALITY OF PLATONISM

    (important piece)

    CRITIC:

    –“The word ‘operationalise’ is a mantra for you. I understand many things without being able to operationalise them, such as how to use English, how to ride a bicycle, etcetera . But it’s important to pint out that most of our understandings are incomplete – and sometimes for insuperable logical reasons. Understanding a scientific theory is never complete. It’s information content ( that set of statements that it logically excludes) is infinite and thus cannot be completely grasped by any mind. For example , newtons theory contradicts Einstein’ and therefore each is part of the information content of the other . It would be silly to require Newton to know this, and ipso facto silly to have required him to operationalise his understanding of his own theory. The point is understanding is much more than making operations.”–

    CURT:

    (a) operationalizing, demonstrating, constructing, using as instrument, each of these terms implies action in time. Each is is a test of whether something can exist or not; and whether something is loaded or not; and whether something is obscured or not.

    (b) There are many things I can do, but there are many things I should not do. I should not shout fire in a theater. And my question is whether it is moral, once understood, given that plantonism produces such externalities as it has, to refer to platonic NAMES as extant, rather than as names of functions for the purpose of brevity (and possibly comprehension.)

    I dont so much care about what one does in one’s bedroom, or in one’s math department, as I do about the construct of moral argument and law. However, since math is the gold standard of the logics (despite being the simplest of them), and contains the same errors, mathematical philosophy is useful in demonstrating the problem in a more simplistic domain. If such an error can occur in math (it does), then of course it can happen anywhere (it does).

    (c) In response to your question above, I would have to understand the meaning of “understand” as you use it.

    If you can ride a bike you can demonstrate it, whether you can articulate it or not. You understand how to RIDE. And it’s observable that you can ride.

    You can think without articulating it, and I an observe (and test via turing) that you appear to be thinking.

    But you would have to tell me how ‘understanding’ applies to abstract concepts like a large number (which you cannot imagine except as a name) or the square root of two, or, infinity. Both of which are concepts that you can use, but not understand.

    Because you can fail to use something. You can USE something even if you do not know how to construct it. You can construct something. You can possess the knowledge of how to construct something.

    But understanding of use is different from understanding of construction. And one must make different claims depending upon which of them one is referring to.

    You can say you understand how to USE something, but you may not in fact understand how to construct it.

    This lack of understanding (constructive vs utilitarian) places constraints upon your truth claims. Just as it places limits upon the math (which consists of proofs) and logic (which consists of proofs) but both of which may or may not correspond to reality – and instead only demonstrate internal consistency. In other words, internal consistency is a demonstration of internal consistency but it is not a demonstration of correspondence.

    Given a distinction between internal consistency and external correspondence, which is a higher standard of truth? What does internal consistency demonstrate and what does correspondence with reality demonstrate?

    What is the difference between that which is BOTH internally consistent and externally correspondent, and that which is EITHER internally consistent OR externally correspondent?

    (c) I am hardly scorning scholarship given that it’s pretty much what I do: read all day. But demonstrating the point that one can ride a bike and show me that he can, and one can conduct an argument and show me that he can, or one can say he can ride a bike, and one can say he can conduct an argument.

    But demonstration is a property of correspondence, which is a higher standard of truth than internal consistency. Because GENERAL RULES that are used for internal consistency come at the sacrifice of external correspondence – almost always because contextual correspondence provides greater precision (information) than does general rule independent of corespondent context.

    (d) Mathematics is quite simple because it is used to describe constant relations. It can describe more variation than the physical universe can demonstrate (which is both advantageous and a weakness). Economics does not consist of constant relations so that mathematics is of less use in predicting the future because those relations are not constant.

    Now, there is a great difference between internally consistent disciplines ( logic and math) and externally correspondent (science and economics). Mathematics and logic contain statements that are internally consistent yet not externally correspondent. Science and economics prohibit these statements. In those circumstances where there is a conflict, which is true?

    Furthermore, if something can be described in terms of correspondence why does one describe it in terms of internal consistency, except to create a general rule, through the loss of information provided by the context?

    (e) Now, the open questions apply to all of the logics: I can logically deduce general rules from the names of those functions that are incalculable and impossible (which is why mathematicians wish to retain the excluded middle, and require the axiom of choice). So why should I be prohibited from the logic of the excluded middle and the axiom of choice, when doing so comes at the cost of my ability to create general rules independent of context? Why should I be prohibited from using these deductive tools if their only purpose is to covert the analog (precision in context) to the boolean (general rule independent of context)?

    And the answer is, that of course, these “named functions” are entirely permissible for the purpose of creating and deducing general rules. These general rules demonstrably apply in a multitude of contexts.

    But just as calling fire in a theatre, or telling a lie, or stealing does in fact ‘work to achieve one’s ends’ that does not mean that it is moral to do so, because by such action, one externalizes the cost of one’s efficacy onto others (society).

    We do not permit theft. We do not permit fraud. We do not permit privatization of the commons. We resist privatizations of even the normative commons, and we try to resist socialization of losses. So, therefore why should we not resist efficacy in a discipline if it likewise produces externalities?

    Because that is what immorality and morality mean: the prohibition on the externalization of costs.

    Now, one could say that we should all have the right to pollute equally. One could say that we have the right to lie equally. One could say that we have the right to create obscurant language equally. One could say that we have the right to create Religious (magical) language equally. One could say that we have the right to create platonic language easily. Because in each of these circumstances, the utility to the users is in obtaining a discount on the cost of action, over the cost of NOT engaging in pollution, lying, obscurantism, mysticism, and platonism, because each is a form of theft from others for the purpose of personal convenience.

    So if you deny that one can use the falsehood of induction, or the falsehood of religion, or the falsehood of lying for utilitarian purposes, then why are you not equally prohibited from using the falsehood of infinity, and imaginary existence?

    Or are you selectively immoral when it suits you?

    CLOSING

    This should be a sufficient description of the relatedness of fields once they are united by morality. And that is the purpose of philosophy: comprehension that facilitates action by providing a framework for criticism of ideas.

    It should be sufficient for anyone with any philosophical or logical training to at least grasp.

    It should also be obvious that you will not be able to circumvent this argument.

    Thus endeth the lesson.

    Cheers

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-13 06:53:00 UTC

  • HOW MacDONALD ADDRESSES THE WESTERN/JEWISH CONFLICT VS A PROPERTARIAN EXPLANATIO

    HOW MacDONALD ADDRESSES THE WESTERN/JEWISH CONFLICT VS A PROPERTARIAN EXPLANATION – WHICH I THINK IS MORE PRECISE.

    (Fascinating. You know, I wouldn’t think this would be all that controversial. It’s politically incorrect. But you know, it is what it is. Groups need strategies. Western people are better killers than anoyone else on earth becuase they have better spatial reasoning, higher trust in one another and lower impulsivity. Westerners also tend to be extremely fascinated with technology, for thousands of years. And they used that to conquer the world despite their small numbers. We call this Imperialism.

    I can critique every culture, and it’s in fashion now to do so, as we all explore why the west succeeded and others did less so, particularly China.

    So why is it that this topic is so un-PC? Because it’s true?

    I care about this argument because it is addressable under propertarianism. In fact, under propertarian analysis it’s just blatantly obvious. So it’s an amazing sort of test of the explanatory power of propertarian argument: structure of production + structure of reproduction + structure of group in context of other groups = property rights. And thats because otherwise, the group would cease to survive. It can’t function any other way.

    Propertarianism renders all moral, ethical and institutional strategies commensurable.

    And yes, I know I get crap for this stuff but you know its REALLY fascinating. 🙂

    Kevin MacDonald’s Argument:

    —————————

    “My logic is as follows: I see conflicts of interest between

    ethnic groups as part of the natural world. The only difference between conflicts between Jews and non-Jews compared to garden variety ethnic conflict stems from the fact that for over a century, Jews have formed an elite in various European and European-derived societies, an elite with a peculiar profile: deeply ethnocentric and adept at ethnic networking; wealthy and intelligent, aggressive in pursuit of their interests, prone to media ownership and the production of culture, and hostile to the traditional peoples and cultures of the societies in which they form an elite.”

    “As an elite, Jews have wielded power that is vastly disproportionate to their numbers, so that anti-Jewish attitudes and behavior are to be expected when Jewish power conflicts with the interests of others.”

    “The various themes of moderm anti-Semitism all boil down to the Jewish role as a hostile elite whose attitudes and behavior are in conflict with the interests of others: economic domination in many parts of Eastern and Central Europe prior to World War II; cultural subversion via the Jewish role in the media and intellectual life (e.g., removing Christian symbols from public places); facilitating the displacement of native populations via mass migration into Western societies; dual loyalty because of Jewish sympathies with foreign Jews, especially Israel since 1948; and the history of Jews as a hostile elite in the USSR during the period when it became the most

    murderous regime in European history.”

    “Since I believe that these propositions are intellectually defensible, and since these propositions, if believed by non-Jews, would cause them to attempt to lessen Jewish power and thereby further their own interests, it is indeed the case that my work could be said to provide intellectual legitimacy to anti-Jewish attitudes and behavior.”

    “But this isn’t really any different from claiming that Zionist theories provide intellectual legitimacy to the dispossession of the Palestinians, or that psychoanalysis or the Frankfurt School provide intellectual legitimacy to anti-Western attitudes. At the end of the day, what counts is whether indeed my writings are intellectually defensible.”

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-07 19:12:00 UTC