Curt Doolittle

Form: Critique

  • 1) The conservative strategy is to starve the beast as the only hope of preservi

    http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/29/four-phonies-update/Paul,

    1) The conservative strategy is to starve the beast as the only hope of preserving their freedom and their culture. In that context, their approach is entirely rational for Schumpeterian reasons: in the battle between the public intellectual who would undermine their culture, and the entrepreneur who would preserve it, they are funding the entrepreneur. Again, this is an entirely rational strategy. It is absolutely straightforward. Just as it is rationally Schumpeterian that the public intellectuals like yourself seek to fund the state.

    2) There is no community of common interest in the country any longer. The combination of immigration, relocation, the dissolution of the family, and the consequential abandonment of traditional values by the lower classes, when combined with the evolution of technology that rewards those who can process and use abstract rules and principles has guaranteed a permanent and irreversible conflict of values.

    This is a religious conflict. This era is a battle of the communal religion of the secular state, and the aristocratic religion of the traditional classical liberals. The left’s strategy is to enable the lower classes to have a beneficent lifestyle. The right’s strategy is to constrain the reproductive ability of the lower classes and concentrate investment in the middle classes. Even if they must suffer hardship to obtain their political ends. There is nothing new about this conflict of visions. Its the female sentiment and male sentiment writ large.

    Progressive economists are terrible historians and worse political philosophers. You cannot have consensus on policy in a divided electorate. Arguing over technicalities is simply a self congratulatory distraction.

    I cannot tell whether you are intellectually honest. You are framing the debate under a false assumption that is contrary to the data. Since you’re doing that, it’s either an accident or an intentional misrepresentation. I don’t know which.

    But by falsely framing the discourse, you do a disservice as a public intellectual, and hinder the resolution of the underlying conflict.

    Demographically, your side will win within thirty years assuming there is no unforeseen change. But it will not because you convince anyone.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-03-01 07:57:00 UTC

  • An Example Of Scientistic Hubris In Economics

    “Ben Bernanke has said that he could not save Lehman because it would be have been in violation of the law. My response is that it is not his responsibility to enforce the law. It is his responsibility to safe guard the lives of millions of people. … When the Capitol Police haul him away in chains then his responsibility to prevent the Great Recession ends. Until that moment the choice not to act, is his choice alone. … The constitution is no shield.” – Karl Smith, Modled Behavior

    Thus begins all violent ends. Government consists of institutions. People have the institutions that they choose to. People deserve the consequences of those institutions. They learn from those consequences. People choose or choose not to alter institutions to prevent repeats of the past. People deserve the consequences of choosing or not choosing to alter those institutions. Political externalities are so vast, economic consequences are a trifle by comparison. Politics is the exercise of power. Power is the ability to alter the probability of outcomes. It is the ability to transfer, or deny the transfer, of opportunities and rewards between groups. Let’s see what this economist has done: 1- The scientistic fallacy. 2 -The fallacy of goodwill. 3- The false consensus bias. 4-Fallacy of collective terms. 5-The denial of externalities. 6- The fallacy of the short run. So he errs. And in that error would open the door to far greater horrors than the one we suffer now. The west is unique: it is the only social order that employs the competition between organizations with competing interests who must enact rules which are used by ordinary people who run institutions to conduct the affairs of the polis. It is a ‘game’ form of government for a ‘game’ marketplace. It is the only instance of that model to survive. and as a consequence it breaks the consanguineous bonds that determine the fate of all other civilizations. So, Fix the laws. The rule of law is all we have. Without it, we cannot have a high trust society, and would quickly devolve into either india or south america. Politics is more complex than economics. Political externalities have greater consequences than economic externalities. And Scientistic hubris is legion.

  • AN EXAMPLE OF SCIENTISTIC HUBRIS IN ECONOMICS “Ben Bernanke has said that he cou

    AN EXAMPLE OF SCIENTISTIC HUBRIS IN ECONOMICS

    “Ben Bernanke has said that he could not save Lehman because it would be have been in violation of the law. My response is that it is not his responsibility to enforce the law. It is his responsibility to safe guard the lives of millions of people. … When the Capitol Police haul him away in chains then his responsibility to prevent the Great Recession ends. Until that moment the choice not to act, is his choice alone. … The constitution is no shield.” – Karl Smith, Modled Behavior

    Thus begins all violent ends.

    Government consists of institutions. People have the institutions that they choose to. People deserve the consequences of those institutions. They learn from those consequences. People choose or choose not to alter institutions to prevent repeats of the past. People deserve the consequences of choosing or not choosing to alter those institutions. Political externalities are so vast, economic consequences are a trifle by comparison.

    Politics is the exercise of power. Power is the ability to alter the probability of outcomes. It is the ability to transfer, or deny the transfer, of opportunities and rewards between groups.

    Let’s see what this economist has done: 1- The scientistic fallacy. 2 -The fallacy of goodwill. 3- The false consensus bias. 4-Fallacy of collective terms. 5-The denial of externalities. 6- The fallacy of the short run.

    So he errs. And in that error would open the door to far greater horrors than the one we suffer now.

    The west is unique: it is the only social order that employs the competition between organizations with competing interests who must enact rules which are used by ordinary people who run institutions to conduct the affairs of the polis. It is a ‘game’ form of government for a ‘game’ marketplace. It is the only instance of that model to survive. and as a consequence it breaks the consanguineous bonds that determine the fate of all other civilizations.

    So, Fix the laws. The rule of law is all we have. Without it, we cannot have a high trust society, and would quickly devolve into either india or south america.

    Politics is more complex than economics. Political externalities have greater consequences than economic externalities.

    And Scientistic hubris is legion.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-02-23 10:34:00 UTC

  • Karl Smith Is A Better Public Intellectual Than Paul Krugman

    Today, Karl reminds us that he has been harping for a long time on the fact that we could borrow money very cheaply during the recession — actually, with negative real costs — and put it to use in the economy. This post is another example of why Karl Smith is a better public intellectual than Paul Krugman, and why we need to get Karl a top ten news media publication vehicle. In the end, no matter how many insights Krugman has had in the field, he is an ideologue advancing a METHOD for intellectual, and personal reasons, not a practical intellectual seeking meaningful solutions to tactical problems. Krugman is the proverbial hammer looking for a rusty Keynesian, government-expanding, nail.

    [callout]Please encourage informed people to read Karl’s work on Modeled Behavior. Karl is both an exceptional analyst, a moral public intellectual, and an accessible teacher.[/callout]

    Karl Smith is the real thing: a public intellectual with potential to be the rarest of creatures: a statesman. A “skeptical empiricist” who is willing to employ a far wider toolset, constantly seeking innovative means of altering the economy. The only thing Karl needs to do is incorporate the practical reality of the use of political systems as the pursuit of power by interest groups, who have permanent, irresolvable, mutually exclusive, conflicting goals, not only because of differences in group preferences, ability and resources, but because of the conflict between the conservative constrained vision of hubristic human nature, and the progressive unconstrained vision of egoistic human nature. And the conflict between the conservative desire to regulate birth rates among the lower classes and to accumulate capital, and the progressive desire to expand the birth rates of the lower classes, and distribute and consume capital. Politics is the pursuit of power. Political systems exist to resolve conflicts between groups who compete for power. The “Common Good” is an accidental byproduct of the political competition between groups who seek expansion of power, rents, status, and opportunity. Karl, like most sentimental Progressives, (in contrast to his Smithian intellectual framework) believes that the future is uncertain and we can and must adapt to it. Conservatives believe that the scope of the kaleidic future can be narrowed if we ‘do no harm’ in the short term. One cannot make meaningful economic policy in a democratic polity without treating political powers as materially meaningful weights which must be applied to any model, and an integral part of any consequential recommendation for political action. Ignoring politics is unscientific. Plain and simple.

  • Defending Karl Smith

    On Modeled Behavior, a commenter pulls an ad hominem:

    Karl, I won’t call you a hack–you aren’t, but the first part of that post contained breathtaking partisan quackery.

    And I replied:

    Jon. Karl is not a quack. He honestly holds his positions and he can articulate why he holds them. He may be the only top blogger I can say that of. I know. I monitor the entire ecosystem. The truth is that none of us are certain. Economics and sociology are immature fields with a short history and insufficient data. We’re all trying to figure out the human race. And we’re all claiming that our preferences are somehow scientific, and independent of our underlying sentiments both paternal and maternal, and are ultimate truths rather than cognitive biases in a fragile equilibrium. They are not. It is the equilibrium that we don’t know how to measure, not our paternal and maternal sentiments. I disagree with Karl on the consequences of progressive Keynesian policy (spending). I don’t disagree with him on its operating principles. I think we just don’t know the answers yet, and that we shouldn’t create fragility in our very unique society until we do know.

    It is not useful to debate with foolish or deceitful people. Deception is eristic. Foolish is a waste of time. Karl Smith is the real thing. He may be the only top blogger that I can say that of. (And I can go through probably the top hundred bloggers and enumerate the irrational tactics that each of the others relies upon for no other reason than to avoid exposing the sentimental rather than rational basis of his arguments.)

  • What dimwit, wannabe, moron UI designer came up with Timeline? I mean, is there

    What dimwit, wannabe, moron UI designer came up with Timeline? I mean, is there even a business case for it? It’s certainly not better than the previous model. … idiots. I should just change my profile to “LEFT FOR GOOGLE+ BECAUSE OF SELF CENTERED EGOTISTICAL FACEBOOK POLICY”

    Source date (UTC): 2011-12-30 10:45:00 UTC

  • Can I say again how much I HATE, HATE HATE TIMELINE? Please tell me how this is

    Can I say again how much I HATE, HATE HATE TIMELINE?

    Please tell me how this is better at telling people about each other than the old model? Please? ‘Cause it’s not. It’s fine with me if we ALSO have a timeline. But not if we don’t have a profile section.

    TIMELINE IS HORRIBLE

    Source date (UTC): 2011-12-29 10:45:00 UTC

  • Ack. Squiggly blue mast with a crows nest. Just because you make something big a

    Ack. Squiggly blue mast with a crows nest.

    Just because you make something big and different doesn’t make it art – just a monument to your bad judgement.

    Art has content. Design doesn’t, it has form that manipulates our senses.

    Craft is the mastery of the transformation of materials.

    You can have one, two three or none of those properties, in varying degrees as long as you do not fail – overreach – in any dimension that you choose to employ.

    Otherwise, please keep your dirty dishes in the kitchen of your mind so we guests don’t see them.

    That’s aesthetics in a nutshell.

    Source date (UTC): 2011-12-24 14:10:00 UTC

  • My Friend Karl Smith’s Progressive Framing

    Karl States:

    “I actually think this issue brings up extremely deep philosophical questions that virtually no one I can find wants to engage in.”

    What are you talking about? No one wants to engage in those conversations? You haven’t posted an issue yet that hasn’t been addressed in the past century pretty thoroughly. Or at least, you should engage a few libertarian intellectuals. I think you mean, that it is impossible to affect the political dialog by framing policy questions by other than political means. There is only ONE political spectrum (progressive to conservative) but there are TWO political AXIS (incorrectly stated by Nolan) consisting of Individual Property Rights (Economic Freedom per Nolan), and Pseudo-Shareholder Appropriation Of Returns (Personal Freedom per Nolan). ***And so you yourself are framing the question falsely.*** Which is why you can’t get serious traction with your arguments (despite being the best blogger on center-progressive political economy). Now, you’d have to answer your own question here: why is it that a) people don’t frame it the way you prefer, and b) why is it that you frame it the way that you do? It’s the progressive vision versus the conservative vision. ie: you see the world as a run-rate system that has it’s own momentum that is unstoppable and the fruits of which can be siphoned and shared without consequence. Conservatives view the world as a struggle to concentrate capital resting on a fragile edifice that has been constructed by irrational but successful means, and which can be disassembled and lost without constant vigilance. Counter-intuitive results are produced on both sides of the aisle. For example, online pornography drastically reduces sex crimes – it seems obvious now, but it didn’t then. Cheap fattening food, cheap music, cheap movies and cheap video games, and easy access to pot give the unwashed proletariat something better to do than alcohol, hard drugs, violence, crime, rebellion and hanging on street corners like they did until fifteen years ago. Increasing incarceration and increasing punishment (especially three strikes) works to reduce crime. Eliminating the permanent welfare dependency decreased dependency. The inter-temporal redistribution system (social security) created a dependency bubble. The purpose of politics is to win control of the bloody hand of government so that your alliance of minorities can seek rents on the other alliance of minorities instead of working in the market for mutual gain — like we libertarians of the classical liberal bent recommend, by treating society as a portfolio of human capital that must be constantly improved for the benefit of all. All of us want the benefits of the market without the risks of participating in it. People seek to game the market through political rent seeking, through saving enough to live off their savings and investments, to under-consuming so that they have more leisure time. The market is hard.

  • Labor and Education Numbers Illustrate What’s Wrong With Progressives And Keynesianism

    On Modeled Behavior Karl Smith uses these diagrams, and from it concludes:

    “The United States is becoming more educated faster than the economy would absorb educated workers.”

    Actually, that statement would attribute value to education that is not demonstrated by the numbers in the market. It would just as likely suggest that ‘education’ has lost it’s meaning, and that being ‘educated’ is becoming disconnected from being ‘productive’ where ‘Productive’ is determined by the return on one’s skills in the marketplace. Islamic countries misallocate human capital too — by educating people in “islamic studies”. Just as westerners do by educating people into the vast literature and pseudoscience of the democratic mythos. We are still educating people as if they’re farm workers moving into industrial labor as if it’s 1949, and in college in particular, educating the middle class as if they are entering a world of comparative privilege – and the market is demonstrating the folly of it. If the absolute number of ‘hard’ degrees has remained constant since 1963, while the percentage of the population with degrees has increased so dramatically, then we cannot have kept pace with technology that increasingly requires hard degrees. SOLUTION?

      The market is smarter than planners, politicians and economists. ILLUSTRATING THE PROGRESSIVE FAILURE And this is the second post on Modeled Behavior in three days that illustrates what’s wrong with solving for employment using monetary policy instead of solving for inter-temporal productivity using ALL AVAILABLE POLICY. It assumes that inter-temporal redistribution of money for the purpose of increasing consumption regardless of productive ends has NO EFFECT on future productivity. (Thats the whole problem with Keynesianism isn’t it?) It’s the great progressive failure, It demonstrates the failure of progressive policy. It demonstrates the folly of the progressive hijacking of Keynesian ideas — just as progressives – democratic socialists – have hijacked the world ‘liberal’. (Keynesianism has become synonymous with irrational progressive philosophy despite that it does not have to be.) Progressivism is the philosophy of kicking the can down the road until the entire economy collapses from long term misallocation of human capital. From that perspective the IS-MP approach is even more destructive than IS-LM. FWIW: I’m not an anarchist, but a neo-classical liberal using Austrian methodology. Austrianism is a methodology of observation using Propertarian analysis. Austrian methods have been adopted by people with libertarian sentiments. Libertarianism is a philosophy that is an outgrowth of Catholic Natural Law, which is an a restatement of greek philosophy, which in turn is the science of ‘observation’ of human behavior. From this standpoint, Keynesianism is UNSCIENTIFIC because it denies the observation of some factors in order to provide confirmation of other factors. The purpose of the entire progressive project is the accumulation of state power using methods that produce consequences that are harmful to the polity over the long term. There is no free lunch. There is no ‘natural momentum’ to innovation in an economy. Consumption also consumes differences in innovation that make consumption possible. You can borrow across time, but it’s either an investment or a loss, and both investments and losses are cumulative. BTW: There is nothing that can be expressed in mathematics that cannot be expressed in human language. There is quite a bit that can be expressed in human language that cannot be expressed in mathematics. This is because mathematics is a process of maintaining ratios, and language is a process for determining causality. Curt