Curt Doolittle

Form: Dialogue

  • YOU DON’T HAVE THE RIGHT TO SPREAD IGNORANCE ( Nick Heywood and Curt Doolittle )

    YOU DON’T HAVE THE RIGHT TO SPREAD IGNORANCE

    ( Nick Heywood and Curt Doolittle )

    Why do you have the right to ignorance?

    Well, there is a difference between enjoying the luxury of ignorance at other’s expense, and distributing ignorance by your words and deeds.

    And there is a difference between general knowledge that allows us to escape our ignorance, and the means of testing information against error, bias, wishful thinking, suggestion, overloading, pseudoscience and deceit, that allows us to increase our knowledge and decrease our ignorance, and to speak truthfully and avoid speaking untruthfully.

    And since the animal man evolved to negotiate and deceive as well as describe and inform, and since we evolved to act rationally – meaning morally when in our interests and immorally when in our interests – the reason it has taken us thousands of years to develop the technology of truth telling that we call ‘science’, is because it is unnatural to us. We evolved to negotiate, not testify.

    So just as we must learn manners, ethics, morals, and laws to obtain access to and participate in the benefits of that market for cooperation that we call the ‘social order’, we must learn the ethics of knowledge: how to eliminate error, bias, wishful thinking, suggestion, loading and framing, overloading, pseudoscience, and deceit.

    And we must teach one another manners, ethics, morals, laws – not only defensively: to limit the ill-mannered, unethical, immoral, and illegal – but also as investment: to increase the number of people with whom we have an option to cooperate at ever lower costs, in the production of private and common goods, services, and information, for mutual benefit.

    So defensive and investment reasons we must invest constantly in the teaching of manners, ethics, morals, and laws, including the ethical science of interpreting and giving testimony: truth telling.

    And conversely we must punish those who cause harm to manners, ethics morals and law; cause harm to the production of private and common goods, services, and information.

    But how do we punish? By the incremental suppression of ill-mannered, unethical, immoral, illegal, speech:

    DEPRIVATION OF OPPORTUNITY TO SPEAK

    1st with ridicule & shame

    (Ya f’n idiot! What are ya thinkin’? Or ya not thinkin’?!?)

    DEPRIVATION OF OPPORTUNITY TO COOPERATE:

    2nd with ostracism

    (I’m afraid I can’t associate with you. You’re deceitful and just repeat lies you’ve been convinced of as true in order to influence)

    DEPRIVATION OF GOODS, SERVICES AND INFORMATION

    3rd loss of privilege

    (I can’t trade with you or offer service, ya on ya own!)

    DEPRIVATION OF CHOICE

    4th loss of liberty

    (You’re a danger. You lose the ability to make your own decisions. You demonstrate a high risk to other’s welfare)

    DEPRIVATION OF ACTION

    5th loss of freedom!

    (Off to Jail ya go ya f’er! Or war in the case of the state 😉 )

    DEPRIVATION OF EXISTENCE

    6th loss of life

    (hanging)

    Source date (UTC): 2016-11-18 07:40:00 UTC

  • Why Is Religion – Meaning Myth And Ritual – Necessary?

    —“Why are mythology and ritual necessary?”—Doug Decidability, opportunity costs and transaction costs.

    —“??????”—Doug We coordinate our actions a little bit by clear deliberate choices. But mostly we cooperate by many thousands of tie-breakers that we default to loose theories of the ‘good’: narratives. In other words, religions provide means by which, in those many thousands of choices, where no choice is preferable to us, to prefer the choice that contributes to the advancement of the commons. Otherwise like Bouridan’s Ass we must find some method of choosing. This insight is profoundly important. Think of religions as a wishing well into which we toss the spare change of choice. But these choices reflect a group evolutionary strategy. And these strategies are not equal. THE MANY SMALL DEFEAT THE FEW GRAND.

  • Why Is Religion – Meaning Myth And Ritual – Necessary?

    —“Why are mythology and ritual necessary?”—Doug Decidability, opportunity costs and transaction costs.

    —“??????”—Doug We coordinate our actions a little bit by clear deliberate choices. But mostly we cooperate by many thousands of tie-breakers that we default to loose theories of the ‘good’: narratives. In other words, religions provide means by which, in those many thousands of choices, where no choice is preferable to us, to prefer the choice that contributes to the advancement of the commons. Otherwise like Bouridan’s Ass we must find some method of choosing. This insight is profoundly important. Think of religions as a wishing well into which we toss the spare change of choice. But these choices reflect a group evolutionary strategy. And these strategies are not equal. THE MANY SMALL DEFEAT THE FEW GRAND.

  • WHY IS RELIGION – MEANING MYTH AND RITUAL – NECESSARY? —“Why is mythology and

    WHY IS RELIGION – MEANING MYTH AND RITUAL – NECESSARY?

    —“Why is mythology and ritual necessary?”—Doug

    Decidability, opportunity costs and transaction costs.

    —“??????”—Doug

    We coordinate our actions a little bit by clear deliberate choices.

    But mostly we cooperate by many thousands of tie-breakers that we default to loose theories of the ‘good’: narratives.

    In other words, religions provide means by which, in those many thousands of choices, where no choice is preferable to us, to prefer the choice that contributes to the advancement of the commons.

    Otherwise like Bouridan’s Ass we must find some method of choosing.

    This insight is profoundly important.

    Think of religions as a wishing well into which we toss the spare change of choice.

    But these choices reflect a group evolutionary strategy. And these strategies are not equal.

    THE MANY SMALL DEFEAT THE FEW GRAND.

    Source date (UTC): 2016-11-15 09:02:00 UTC

  • (Saving in progress) 1) —“Hello Curt! Briefly, and simply, would you tell me t

    (Saving in progress)

    1) —“Hello Curt! Briefly, and simply, would you tell me the difference between a dictatorship and a monarchy?”—

    CURT:

    Great question.

    A Dictator is not bound by rule of law. He exercises discretionary rule.

    A Monarch in the european sense, is bound by rule of law, and exercises discretion only within the bounds of rule of law.

    Most cultures other than china limit rulers to some sort of traditional boundaries or religious boundaries. But only christian monarchies were semi-bounded by whatever natural law the church and tradition were able to limit them with. Anglo saxons were quite good at limiting the power of the monarchy, and that is the tradition that carries with us.

    2) —“Regarding how aristocratic families earn their status, a King is nominated to lead? He is lifted up to the top of a society rather than oppressing the people?”—

    CURT:

    For most of european history, kings were elected. The reason they adopted inheritance was to end succession conflicts. But the consequence was the extension of time preference and the increased production of competitive commons.

    3) —“Things we’re more stable that way I guess. I suppose even with a “bad” King, the people could more or less go about their business

    Why are modern royalty so impotent? I was raised on Queen Elizabeth and all things British (plus James Bond ). Where are they now when we could use some Leadership?”—

    CURT:

    (Great questions. I’m going to answer this in the main thread so that everyone benefits. I’m doing some other things right now so it might take some time. )

    Source date (UTC): 2016-10-19 11:19:00 UTC

  • JOSH AND CURT ON ARYIANISM’S USE OF DOMINANCE AND HEROISM (important concept) (w

    JOSH AND CURT ON ARYIANISM’S USE OF DOMINANCE AND HEROISM

    (important concept) (western civilization)

    —“You will not find some emotional appeal for heroism therein. Heroism is not mere emotionalism, but a state of deep detachment, the sovereign psychology.”— Josh.

    Thats dominance, not heroism. That’s Excellence as an expression of dominance.

    Heroism cannot exist without a commons to benefit from the hero.

    It may be true that heroism is merely the reward for dominance on behalf of the tribe.

    It may be true that heroic status is merely compensation for breaking the ingroup moral bias against what would otherwise be interpreted as ‘dangerous’ displays of dominance. In other words, it may be true that heroism is a means of insuring the dominant that they will be free of retribution by ingroup members, by reversing the prohibition on dominance.

    It may be excuse making by the population as a means of defense against dangerous displays of dominance.

    You might be correct in that its dominance not heroism that inspires, and heroic status is merely a reward.

    You might be correct in that heroism provides training for the young in the appropriate uses of dominance. (This is my interpretation).

    In this sense your statement is correct: That we seek to be free of the evolutionary norm that inhibits our desire for alpha dominance, and that heroism is a normative institution that justifies the mature, and incentivizes the young, and limits abuses to those that benefit the commons (ingroup members).

    But you cannot conflate heroism, with dominance as you have done above.

    So since dominance exists in all cultures, but only the west has constructed a (universal) heroic society, where the incentive to apply dominance is constantly rewarded, and heroism is a pedagogical means of channeling it to good uses, and punishing it for bad uses, then I think we can come to agreement.

    I guess in this sense, the heroic tradition is our central ‘teaching’. “Your dominance is an asset to the tribe so long as it is channeled for the tribe’s benefit. And if we channel all our men’s dominance rather than suppress it, then we are concentrating a scarce and valuable resource into a constant evolutionary cycle.

    This plays into the argument that we develop faster than the rest because we do not seek to limit our people by limiting what they can do, only limiting what they cannot do. Most tribes do the opposite: they create rules of repetitive conduct (for stupid creatures) that focus effort in static directions, rather than focusing efforts of men in innovative and creative directions.

    So through heroism (training for competition) and through dominance, and reward for ‘good cunning’ and punishment for ‘bad cunning’, and through the enfranchisement of all who will fight, we create a constant stream of predators at-the-ready in constant competition with one another, producing constant innovations in war, politics, industry, family, craft, and arts.

    And this is why heroism (encouraging the mastery of dominance) is so effective a strategy: it creates a market (calculator) for excellence in dominance.

    It just took me overnight to think it through. I knew you were not so much wrong as not using the right language because conflation is natural to you, but if we agree that heroism is value/virtue that we train so that we do not need to suppress dominance, but instead, FOCUS dominance, so that we are a more competitive ‘tribe’ then I think we can agree that almost all men of ability seek to excercise their dominance just as much as a beautiful woman seeks to exercise hers so to speak.

    If you had not written this post I would not have been able to put this question into words, so yet again, I have to thank you for your insights and criticism, which over the past few years has been extremely helpful and influential.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Propertarian Institute

    Kiev, Ukraine

    Source date (UTC): 2016-10-18 08:53:00 UTC

  • A Conversation Between Taleb and Doolittle

    Rob De Geer I want you and Nassim Taleb to tango. My two favorites at the moment. Curt Doolittle We can talk and educate, but we can’t really ‘debate’ because we are saying very similar things. I think I would frame the argument, and that my terminology would be so superior that it was inescapable, and that it would show that we’re in violent agreement – and that I understand what he is doing but he doesn’t know about or understand what I’m doing. So (a) I would ‘win’ only in the sense that I would frame the discourse with a superior descriptive language, and (b) we would both win, and perhaps mankind would win, by showing that we are not necessarily outliers but representatives of a scientific movement to counteract the pseudosciences of the 20th century. Rob De Geer OOOooo I want to see it more because of those statements. Curt Doolittle I think the big difference between Taleb and I, besides our obvious and genetic cultural differences and our equally big round heads, is that my ‘ego’ is purely a marketing position, and his is a natural extension of his background and character. My mother’s Catholicism worked on me. 🙂 In other words, It would be good for mankind but I don’t see him engaging me until I publish. Even though my work would fend off many of the criticisms he receives. I’m not actually keen on being famous. He is. Different currencies for different souls. Curt Doolittle (after thinking a bit) Taleb’s LITERARY method relies on ANALOGY and won’t necessarily help him get to an answer. His mathematics are excellent but don’t seem to be providing him enough parsimony. And for the same reasons I criticize apriorism as a special cast of empiricism, I don’t *THINK* until we determine what it is we need to measure and how to measure it, that we can measure it empirically. This is why I prefer my method, which should provide us with an understanding of what we need to measure so that we can measure it. All these distortions accumulate throughout the economy and they burn down accumulated capital of every sort: genetic, cultural, normative, reproductive, productive, fixed, and monumental. Both top down (empiricism) or bottom up (operationalism) help us solve different categories of problems – and then we use the opposite technique to test our hypothesis. We need both tools. I’ve been hoping Nassim would get a little closer than his demonstration that we require logarithmically increasing amounts of information to gain any insight into outliers and black swans. I think there is an operational explanation for this, and that just as we measure economies with sets of anchor measures, we can measure for black swans with sets of anchor measures. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine

  • A Conversation Between Taleb and Doolittle

    Rob De Geer I want you and Nassim Taleb to tango. My two favorites at the moment. Curt Doolittle We can talk and educate, but we can’t really ‘debate’ because we are saying very similar things. I think I would frame the argument, and that my terminology would be so superior that it was inescapable, and that it would show that we’re in violent agreement – and that I understand what he is doing but he doesn’t know about or understand what I’m doing. So (a) I would ‘win’ only in the sense that I would frame the discourse with a superior descriptive language, and (b) we would both win, and perhaps mankind would win, by showing that we are not necessarily outliers but representatives of a scientific movement to counteract the pseudosciences of the 20th century. Rob De Geer OOOooo I want to see it more because of those statements. Curt Doolittle I think the big difference between Taleb and I, besides our obvious and genetic cultural differences and our equally big round heads, is that my ‘ego’ is purely a marketing position, and his is a natural extension of his background and character. My mother’s Catholicism worked on me. 🙂 In other words, It would be good for mankind but I don’t see him engaging me until I publish. Even though my work would fend off many of the criticisms he receives. I’m not actually keen on being famous. He is. Different currencies for different souls. Curt Doolittle (after thinking a bit) Taleb’s LITERARY method relies on ANALOGY and won’t necessarily help him get to an answer. His mathematics are excellent but don’t seem to be providing him enough parsimony. And for the same reasons I criticize apriorism as a special cast of empiricism, I don’t *THINK* until we determine what it is we need to measure and how to measure it, that we can measure it empirically. This is why I prefer my method, which should provide us with an understanding of what we need to measure so that we can measure it. All these distortions accumulate throughout the economy and they burn down accumulated capital of every sort: genetic, cultural, normative, reproductive, productive, fixed, and monumental. Both top down (empiricism) or bottom up (operationalism) help us solve different categories of problems – and then we use the opposite technique to test our hypothesis. We need both tools. I’ve been hoping Nassim would get a little closer than his demonstration that we require logarithmically increasing amounts of information to gain any insight into outliers and black swans. I think there is an operational explanation for this, and that just as we measure economies with sets of anchor measures, we can measure for black swans with sets of anchor measures. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine

  • Q&A: The  Importance of Aristotle?

    —“Hi, Curt. Currently going through your reading list. Trying to make myself the best propertarian I can so I can help spread the message. There are plenty of libertarians and conservatives who would take to propertarianism if they got the message. My question is to you what do you think the significance of Aristotle’s work is from a propertarian perspective?”— Well, Aristotle is as close as we come to the first ‘scientist’, Social: Aristotle, Machiavelli, Bacon, Locke, Smith and Hume, Jefferson, Darwin, Spencer, Durkheim. -vs- physical: Archimedes, Galileo, Copernicus, Davinci, Newton, Maxwell, Einstein Now, the way I use natural law was a product of the Stoics, not of Aristotle. And I tend to see the greek era as a combination of spartan aristocracy in law rationalized by the Romans, and Aristotelian intellectuals rationalized by the stoics. I would say that Aristotle, Machiavelli, Bacon, Locke, Smith, Hume and Jefferson, Darwin, Spencer, Durkheim, and Hayek, represent the attempt (and near failure) to make the case that natural law, discovered by judges by trial end error, is what constitutes social science. And that economics is an empirical branch of that science, as are evolutionary biology, and cognitive science. But those are explanatory fields, whereas natural, judge discovered, common law is a purely empirical field. And this is why I think of my work as uniting philosophy, morality(Ethics), science, sociology, psychology, and law, into a single universal language – as locke suggested – reducible to statements of the voluntary or involuntary transfer of property defined as that which humans demonstrate as property. So to summarize, I would say Aristotle is the father of western thought in this sense, and that between Aristotle’s idealism, stoic reason, and roman pragmatism, and finally English empiricism, we developed a chain of reasoning that nearly came to fruition in the last century – but Hayek, Popper, Mises, Brouwer, and Bridgman simply failed. Just as the conservatives failed to produce a competitor to cosmopolitan pseudosciences. And they failed because they subconsciously had to work around the truth: they were not benevolent Christians, but self-justifying Aryans (elites), and middle-class capitalism like middle-class voting, was a net negative for the simple reason that the success of the western model is reducible to truth, but that as a consequence our political system is reducible to benevolent domestication of animal man. And that was inconceivable to classical liberals so proud of their defeat of the aristocracy that had made their prosperity possible.

  • Q&A: The  Importance of Aristotle?

    —“Hi, Curt. Currently going through your reading list. Trying to make myself the best propertarian I can so I can help spread the message. There are plenty of libertarians and conservatives who would take to propertarianism if they got the message. My question is to you what do you think the significance of Aristotle’s work is from a propertarian perspective?”— Well, Aristotle is as close as we come to the first ‘scientist’, Social: Aristotle, Machiavelli, Bacon, Locke, Smith and Hume, Jefferson, Darwin, Spencer, Durkheim. -vs- physical: Archimedes, Galileo, Copernicus, Davinci, Newton, Maxwell, Einstein Now, the way I use natural law was a product of the Stoics, not of Aristotle. And I tend to see the greek era as a combination of spartan aristocracy in law rationalized by the Romans, and Aristotelian intellectuals rationalized by the stoics. I would say that Aristotle, Machiavelli, Bacon, Locke, Smith, Hume and Jefferson, Darwin, Spencer, Durkheim, and Hayek, represent the attempt (and near failure) to make the case that natural law, discovered by judges by trial end error, is what constitutes social science. And that economics is an empirical branch of that science, as are evolutionary biology, and cognitive science. But those are explanatory fields, whereas natural, judge discovered, common law is a purely empirical field. And this is why I think of my work as uniting philosophy, morality(Ethics), science, sociology, psychology, and law, into a single universal language – as locke suggested – reducible to statements of the voluntary or involuntary transfer of property defined as that which humans demonstrate as property. So to summarize, I would say Aristotle is the father of western thought in this sense, and that between Aristotle’s idealism, stoic reason, and roman pragmatism, and finally English empiricism, we developed a chain of reasoning that nearly came to fruition in the last century – but Hayek, Popper, Mises, Brouwer, and Bridgman simply failed. Just as the conservatives failed to produce a competitor to cosmopolitan pseudosciences. And they failed because they subconsciously had to work around the truth: they were not benevolent Christians, but self-justifying Aryans (elites), and middle-class capitalism like middle-class voting, was a net negative for the simple reason that the success of the western model is reducible to truth, but that as a consequence our political system is reducible to benevolent domestication of animal man. And that was inconceivable to classical liberals so proud of their defeat of the aristocracy that had made their prosperity possible.