Curt Doolittle

Form: Mini Essay

  • Fascinating how the depression affected families differently. My mother’s (Frenc

    Fascinating how the depression affected families differently. My mother’s (French) lived in a large custom built home on a huge farm, with typical parlor, living room, dining, kitchen, porches, and four or five bedrooms. But they were devastated by the depression, and despite the number of lawyers and professors on my mother’s side I’m not sure they’ve yet recovered. On my father’s side they were business owners and during the depression bought vast tracks of land at rock bottom prices – and frankly lived off the incremental sale of that land as well as their inheritances – until my father’s generation they kept the original investments and did not draw upon them. This is how intergenerational families are created – demand for behavior driven by demand for inheritance of not only wealth but opportunity and prestige. However, through the excessive inflation that wealth (which was rather absurd at the in the early 20th century) it was obvious to my by the 80’s that it is nearly impossible to hold wealth between generations at these rates of inflation, unless it is in land (really: proximity to discounted opportunity costs) that has some chance of appreciating. That said my father’s people are businesspeople independent of land and soldiers and a few politicians, while my mother’s people are business people dependent upon land, with politicians, and lawyers, and academics. What has happened to both sides of the family is that they have been taxed and conquered through immigration, while the only people that profit from taxation and immigration are the financial sector and the state.

    Source date (UTC): 2019-01-02 11:06:00 UTC

  • Who is the most influential living philosopher?(repost)(worth repeating)( Intere

    Who is the most influential living philosopher?(repost)(worth repeating)(

    Interesting question. Let’s look at how we can ask this question. 😉

    Spectrum:

    Technical Innovation <-> Practical Utility <-> Popular Influence

    Successful Technical

    Hard to argue that the Russel-Frege-Kripke chain didn’t provide answers but it’s also hard to argue that they weren’t wasting their time. Because Babbage-Cantor-Goedel-Turing produced superior methods and answers.

    Failed Technical

    The failure of Brouwer(Physics), Bridgman(mathematics), Mises (economics), Hayek(Law), and Popper(Philosophy) to understand that the ‘ideal’ disciplines had failed to include operations as a test of possibility, operational grammar to prevent pretense of knowledge,

    Influential and Contributory:

    Searle(cognition), Jonathan Haidt(morality), Daniel Kahneman(cognition), Nassim Taleb (probability and cognitive biases). Unfortunately we can’t list Popper(via negativa), Hayek(Social Science = Law), Keynes(Monetary Marxism), Turing, and Rawls who are demonstrably more influential but not living.

    Popular Influence But Otherwise Meaningless:

    Dennet et all.

    Categorical Construction:

    Scientific <—————-> Ideal <—————–> Experiential

    Descriptive Causality Experiential Causality

    Scientific Categories Normative Categories Arbitrary Categories

    Operational Analytic Literary Conflationary Continental

    Aristotle Plato (many)

    Tends to Result In:

    Truth Utility Preference

    Markets, Regulation Command

    Nash Equality Pareto Equality Command Equality

    Natural Hierarchy Political Hierarchy Bureaucratic Hierarchy

    Classical Liberalism Social Democracy Socialism

    Rapid Adaptation Windfall Consumption Redirected Consumption

    Hyper Competitive Competitive in Windfalls Competitive when Behind

    Observations

    I would make the following observations:

    1) The continental (German) program has been a failed attempt, since the time of Kant (through Heidegger), to produce a secular, rational, version of Christianity. The French program (Rousseau through Derrida) has been a demonstrably successful program but a devastatingly destructive one. The Abrahamic program’s second revision (Marx, Freud, Boaz, Cantor, Mises, Rothbard, Strauss) has been catastrophic. And between the French Literary, Continental Rational, and Abrahamic Pseudoscientific movements, the attempt to restore the Aristotelian(scientific)/ Stoic(Mindfulness) / Roman(Law) / Heroic(Truth, Excellence, Beauty) program responsible for human progress in the ancient and modern world has been nearly defeated.

    2) The analytic program was exhausted with Kripke, and in retrospect the analytic attempt to produce both formal logic of language, and a science of language will be considered a failure. For example, there is nothing in analytic philosophy that is not better provided by Turing.

    3) The principle function of academic philosophy today appears consist of the self correction of existing errors prior to exhaustion of the philosophical program (termination of the discipline) in the same way that the analytic program exhausted itself. (If you list philosophers and their innovations this is what appears to be occurring. The discipline is exhausting itself as a dead end).

    4) The principal influences on intellectual history are being provided by the sciences. In particular they are eliminating the last refuge of philosophy: the mind. And science is doing so via-negativa: through the incremental definition and measurement of cognitive biases (errors).

    5) Science, if understood as an organized attempt to produce deflationary truthful (descriptive) speech, and the use of scientific categories (necessary and universal), will continue to displace the discipline of philosophy, and the use of philosophical categories, terminology and concepts. And (assuming I am correct), what remains of the discipline of philosophy will be reducible to the continuous refinements of the scientific method’s production of constant descriptive categories, terminology, and operational grammar. And the cross disciplinary adaptation of local categories into universal categories.

    6) Science is less vulnerable to error , bias, suggestion and deceit, in no small part because the common problems of philosophy: suggestion, loading, framing, obscurantism, overloading, and the Fictionalisms (pseudoscience, pseudo-rationalism, and pseudo-mythology(theology)) are prohibited by the demand for Operational language, declared limits, and full accounting of consequences. It certainly appears that since the beginning of the 20th century we have been far busier eliminating errors of philosophy than philosophers have been busy discovering innovations.

    7) Greek philosophy arose out of the common law of torts. Roman philosophy explicitly functioned on the common law of Torts. The Abrahamic Dark Age (conflating idealism, law, and religion) followed, but we were rescued by the reconstruction of north sea trade and the English common law of Torts (Bacon). And as far as I can determine,

    8) As we have seen with continental and political philosophy, just as we saw with theology, and especially Abrahamic theology, the principle purpose of unscientific speech has been deception, propaganda, the propagation of ignorance, and the conduct of rule, and the expansion of warfare. With theologians and philosophers responsible for more deaths than generals and plagues. Between Zoroaster, Muhammed, and Marx, we have more deaths than all but the great diseases including malaria and the black plague. Philosophers and theologians have done more harm than good, largely functioning as a middle class opposition to the current form of rule.

    9) Philosophical language then is a dead language, and perhaps an immoral one – and rationalism a dead technology. And they will be incrementally combined institutionally and normatively into theology, with Literary Philosophy(Plato and his heirs), merely representing it’s position on the spectrum of Aristotelian/Stoic/Roman/English Law (science), Confucian Reason, French Literary Idealism, Platonic Rational Idealism, Continental and Augustinian Fictionalism, and Abrahamic and Zoroastrian Fictionalism.

    10) The use of non philosophical categories to construct *moral literature* in the French and Italian model will persist forever. Although largely as a means of resistance against the sciences, and the status social, economic, and political status quo.

    In this context we have to ask what we mean by Influential, or Great Philosophers, because:

    (a) Unless we are talking scientists who function as public intellectuals, philosophers, or Social Critics (practitioners of critique), or Moral Fictionalists (wishful thinkers), it really doesn’t appear that philosophy is a living or useful language or discipline.

    (b) it’s hard to argue there are any currently living and working rationalists of any substance. They are largely Moral Fictionalists.

    Let’s look at the list:

    Dennett, Harris, Hitchens, Dawkins. The atheists. It’s worth noting that Dawkins was correct and Gould was wrong – about almost everything. (Surprisingly). Harris and Hitches practice critique but nothing else.

    Zizek practices Critique and has nothing to offer – and is honest about it. I mean, what solutions does Zizek provide? None. And he says so.

    Chomsky practices Critique, has nothing to offer – and is dishonest about it. He is an interesting example of how people with high intelligence and verbal acumen can construct elaborate deceptions. Between Chomsky and Paul Krugman, a half dozen people could spend their entire careers demonstrating their use of cherry picking, loading, framing, overloading with incommensurables, straw men, and heaping of undue praise. His insight into ‘universal grammar’ but categories of increasing complexity is largely correct and we can see that in brain structure today. However, he speaks about world affairs by constantly making the error (intentionally), that rational choice is scalable – just as did Marx. And he has no concept of economics whatsoever, and no political statement can be made any longer independently of economics – especially once we understand that the term economics has nothing to do with money and everything to do with the voluntary organization of individuals through the use of incentives provided by money.

    Hofstadter is a good example as any, but again, he is a public intellectual and a literary aesthete. Did he really provide any insight that was not visible in the literature of the time?

    So in closing, I would say, that:

    1) There are no influential rationalists, because the program is complete and it’s been a dead end. The reasons for this would require I write a tome.

    2) That there are many scientists that serve as public intellectuals, and this will continue.

    3) There remain and always will be a market for (fantasy) moral literature.

    4) That scientific philosophy, if completed, as ‘the discipline of due diligence against ignorance, error, bias, wishful thinking, suggestion, overloading, and deceit, will replace the discipline of philosophy.

    But that won’t stop people over invested in a dead frame of reference from attempting to practice it. Why? Philosophy is cheap and science is expensive.

    Source date (UTC): 2019-01-02 10:59:00 UTC

  • NEURAL ECONOMY AND THE FEMALE MIND —“Women turn more conservative when they ha

    NEURAL ECONOMY AND THE FEMALE MIND

    —“Women turn more conservative when they have children.”—Martin

    Or put another way, women evolved to carry a cognitive load, and will generate demand for that cognitive load, and the signals to reinforce it, in one way or another until they possess it.

    It makes evolutionary sense that women who don’t have children would express ‘care’ to all, then express it more exclusively to their children when they have that “inventory” to worry about (expend their caretaking energies).

    So women evolved to carry the cognitive load of caring about proportionality and caretaking almost exclusively (the young short term) while men tend to are about the full spectrum of moral intuitions equally (the tribe long term).

    Men demand a cognitive load, but it seems less open to substitution than women. Men, we always have the tribe to defend.

    Source date (UTC): 2019-01-01 11:18:00 UTC

  • Lemme’ tell ya’ somthin’. Somthin’ import’nt. There is a reason Sun Tzu, Machiav

    Lemme’ tell ya’ somthin’. Somthin’ import’nt.

    There is a reason Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, Smith/Hume, Nietzsche, and their kind all write what they do: to remind us that those sensibilities we apply at local scale, and that are so useful at local scale, do not scale to international scale.

    in other words, in every era some thinker must remind the dominant forces, that morality is a local contrivance for utilitarian purposes and not an intrinsic good.

    And that in order to maintain those utilitarian properties of our local order, some of us, at least the military, judiciary, and monarchy, must never make the mistake that civility is an advantage outside of the polity any more than socialism is an advantage outside of the family, or democracy outside of the neighborhood.

    That’s my job for this era.

    Source date (UTC): 2018-12-30 16:35:00 UTC

  • On suspicion, I’ve been watching videos of people surprised by their DNA results

    On suspicion, I’ve been watching videos of people surprised by their DNA results. And it’s really obvious they’re trying to spread multiculturalism rather than the history of defeat conquest and extermination evident in peoples genetics.

    If you understand the basic races and how they evolved and that all the data says is who you share genes with today, then you can grasp that if you’re south american you will have some north african, some iberian, and some european. And if you have slavery you will have either a touch of northeastern or a touch of central african.

    You will also learn that ONE DROP is a curse that stays with you and your line for freaking ever.

    If you are northern european you will be some mixture of atlantic-celtic, nordic, germanic, slavic.

    If you have mediterranean your origins are anatolian and greek, with old levantine and north african.

    If you are north african (berber etc) you are related to west eurasians. if you are arab you come from the border of somalia/ethiopia and the arab peninsula, and the later ‘marsh arabs’ of the north. If you are persian you are from central branch of west eurasians. if you are turkic you are from the eastern branch of the west eurasians.

    If you are from old europe (balkans) your admixture can be either very very old european (extinct), greek, slavic, turkic, and some middle eastern.

    Just because you share a few genes with the Ashkenazi does not mean you have any jewish ancestors, only that jews had common ancestors with yours.

    Just because you have italian markers does not mean you are italian because the north of italy is german, the south greek, and the Itals and Etru that preceded them are extinct other than fragments, and only germanic and greek remaining any dominance.

    The UK is a celtic and nordic country with a history of german rulers, and french language. The UK was the most thoroughly decimated (replaced, genocided) early european population by the IE expansion.

    France is a genetically split country between southern europeans (S/SW), celts(nw) and germans (E/SE), which is why it shows up as ‘general european’.

    If your genome says you have thai-southeast asian that just means that your native american ancestry with genes shared by people in east and southeast asia.

    Think about where people lived during the glacial period and that is where today’s races come from.

    The movement of people has not been that significant. aside from the genocides against the americans the north africans, and the levantines, and the balkans, we tend to retain our neolithic identities.

    What has happened is that large empires have exterminated subraces.

    In other words, genocide is the most influential action in history.

    And that’s not a very nice thing to understand.

    Source date (UTC): 2018-12-29 12:19:00 UTC

  • SACRED INVERSION There have been things in the world properly made sacred by inv

    SACRED INVERSION

    There have been things in the world properly made sacred by inversion; we’re doing our damnedest to reverse the sanctity of these things by making them “normal” once again.

    Jonathan Pageau gives a wonderful presentation on the perversion of “modern” art. He speaks to the world “turning upside down.” I see this as the world turning from sacred back to merely ordinary. 🙁 [The reversal of a necessary and brilliant upending]

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUcdDfmjoTQ.

    Humans have a nature and thus bring a “collective subjectivity” to the value judgement of artistic endeavors. In other words it’s not “simply” subjective.

    By: G.K. Chesterton:

    “The family may fairly be considered, one would think, an ultimate human institution. Every one would admit that it has been the main cell and central unit of almost all societies hitherto, except, indeed, such societies as that of Lacedaemon, which went in for “efficiency,” and has, therefore, perished, and left not a trace behind. Christianity, even enormous as was its revolution, did not alter this ancient and savage sanctity; it merely reversed it. It did not deny the trinity of father, mother, and child. It merely read it backwards, making it run child, mother, father. This it called, not the family, but the Holy Family, for many things are made holy by being turned upside down. But some sages of our own decadence have made a serious attack on the family. They have impugned it, as I think wrongly; and its defenders have defended it, and defended it wrongly. The common defence of the family is that, amid the stress and fickleness of life, it is peaceful, pleasant, and at one. But there is another defence of the family which is possible, and to me evident; this defence is that the family is not peaceful and not pleasant and not at one.”

    Scott Adams, whom I have a great respect for misses the mark in his most controversial (and that’s saying a lot figuring most of his positions support Trump in some manner or another) video yet; the problem of the nuclear family.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyVK_T9m5R0

    Source date (UTC): 2018-12-29 08:47:00 UTC

  • FOR NEWBIES: WORK METHODOLOGY (worth repeating) The way I work is by relating id

    FOR NEWBIES: WORK METHODOLOGY

    (worth repeating)

    The way I work is by relating ideas across the spectrum in a series of shorter arguments – because I ‘whittle away’ at the stone so to speak, turning it to view it from different angles, working to gradually expose the figure (truth) below.

    I try to produce operational definitions in series, and to describe behavior as supply and demand using those series of definitions.

    Then I attempt to turn the fundamental insight into one or more aphorisms (summaries).

    Then to create a narrative that explains the topic and its applications.

    Then to weave these narratives together using the same constant language – this editing is what exhausts me and is why it takes me so long to produce a work.

    WORKFLOW

    I work from an outline of the complete scope of human thought.

    I work through the outline from metaphysics to group competitive strategy.

    Then I work with (many) sketches on FB. I move most of them to the web site.

    Then I collect the best of them into what I call ‘short courses’ or collections of posts.

    Then I take those ‘short courses’ and put them into the book.

    Then edit it all into an explanation.

    That’s my workflow.

    It’s actually painfully methodical. It just doesn’t look like it to the casual observer, because most people are desirous of rushing to judgment whereas i tend to exhaust a topic completely (very) before adding it to the canon. Then refine the network of concepts added to the canon once there.

    cheers.

    Source date (UTC): 2018-12-28 08:51:00 UTC

  • ABRAHAMISM IN ITS CURRENT STATE Abrahamism consists of the continuous advancemen

    ABRAHAMISM IN ITS CURRENT STATE

    Abrahamism consists of the continuous advancement of the female means of conflict and war: undermining, deceit, and exhaustive relentless diligence in seizing every opportunity to do so. It is the ‘gatherer’ and ‘herd’ strategy of continuous harm. Men tend not to do this, in-group. Instead men use threats of violence and organized violence.

    CORE POSTS

    https://www.facebook.com/curt.doolittle/posts/10156859732687264

    https://www.facebook.com/curt.doolittle/posts/10156825094652264

    https://www.facebook.com/curt.doolittle/posts/10156807132857264

    https://propertarianism.com/…/abrahamism-is-a-grammar…/

    https://propertarianism.com/…/definition-of-abrahamism…/

    https://propertarianism.com/2018/06/03/abrahamism/

    (Abrahamism, like Sovereignty, via-negativa Truth, The Grammars, and Natural Law are questions that will always require larger answers than people can easily absorb.)

    GETTING ANSWERS TO SUCH QUESTIONS

    – You can search my FB timeline by ‘curt doolittle abrahamism’. ( @[11019687:2048:Brandon Hayes] also keeps a long threads of related posts by all of us. I don’t think he keeps a ‘FB note’ listing those long posts as an index to his topic-posts, but if he does that would be a big help to people)

    – You can search the web site (it uses ElasticSearch now) by just entering ‘abrahamism’. My site is up to date through September first. I tend to update it once a quarter. Although I have gotten behind a number of times.

    WORK METHODOLOGY

    The way I work is by relating ideas across the spectrum in a series of shorter arguments – because I ‘whittle away’ at the stone so to speak, turning it to view it from different angles, working to gradually expose the figure (truth) below.

    I try to produce operational definitions in series, and to describe behavior as supply and demand using those series of definitions.

    Then I attempt to turn the fundamental insight into one or more aphorisms (summaries).

    Then to create a narrative that explains the topic and its applications.

    Then to weave these narratives together using the same constant language – this editing is what exhausts me and is why it takes me so long to produce a work.

    WORKFLOW

    I work from an outline of the complete scope of human thought.

    I work through the outline from metaphysics to group competitive strategy.

    Then I work with (many) sketches on FB. I move most of them to the web site.

    Then I collect the best of them into what I call ‘short courses’ or collections of posts.

    Then I take those ‘short courses’ and put them into the book.

    Then edit it all into an explanation.

    That’s my workflow.

    It’s actually painfully methodical. It just doesn’t look like it to the casual observer, because most people are desirous of rushing to judgment whereas i tend to exhaust a topic completely (very) before adding it to the canon. Then refine the network of concepts added to the canon once there.

    cheers.

    Source date (UTC): 2018-12-28 08:49:00 UTC

  • RE: Nassim Nicholas Taleb ON HIS IQ RANT I will still take this debate, but not

    RE: Nassim Nicholas Taleb ON HIS IQ RANT

    I will still take this debate, but not interwoven with twitter-spam. (a) g measures what we attempt to measure (b) chance of success corresponds to a distribution of traits, plus the utility of those traits, in service of the population under the bell curve within 1 SD.

    Those of us with exceptional abilities favor working with our region of the bell curve – puzzles – that are of INDIRECT value rather than DIRECT value. WE HAVE KNOWN THIS FOR DECADES.

    Lastly, we go to university etc to avoid the marketplace (‘work’). This is the value of higher education: to provide a non-market means of identifying selection. In this sense your criticism is correct. In the sense that you’re criticizing IQ measurements, you’re WRONG …PERIOD.

    All of this is OLD NEWS. If you want to encourage people to prosper by pairing their skills to those necessary to serve the market that they understand, then yes. If you mean very bright people are fooled by sophism, innumeracy, pseudoscience – then yes.

    But likewise, just as it has taken you many years to migrate from the positivist search for mathematical discovery of units of informational prediction, to the demand for warranty of due diligence (falsification), you too are vulnerable to innumeracy, pseudoscience, ‘literature’.

    Source date (UTC): 2018-12-27 15:37:00 UTC

  • A VIKING STORY Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the village The

    A VIKING STORY

    Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the village

    The men sharpened knives and the boys dreamt of pillage.

    The skulls were all hung by the chimney with care

    In hopes on the morrow, more would be there.

    The girls were nestled all snug in their beds,

    While visions of gold danced in their heads.

    And mamma in her gown, and I in my shirt,

    Had just caught our breath from a quick winter’s flirt.

    When out on the river there arose such a clatter,

    I sprang from the bed, to see what was the matter.

    Away to the Hall, I flew in a rush,

    Tore open the shutters, and threw up the sash.

    The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow

    Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below.

    When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,

    But a longboat with shields, and great men with their gear.

    With a bearded old wise man, lively and boldened,

    I knew in a moment it must be Lord Odin.

    More rapid than eagles his warriors they came,

    And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!

    “Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!

    On, Comet! On, Cupid! on, Donner and Blitzen!

    To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!

    Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!”

    As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,

    When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky.

    So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,

    With bags full of booty, and Lord Odin too.

    And then, in a twinkling, I heard at the door

    The laughter of brethren hardened by war.

    As I drew in my head, and was turning around,

    Lord Odin, through the portal, came with a bound.

    He was dressed all in grey, from his head to his foot,

    And his clothes were all fouled with snow and with soot.

    A bundle of booty he had flung on his back,

    And he looked like a merchant, just opening his pack.

    His eyes-how they twinkled! his laughter how merry!

    His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!

    The beard of his chin was as white as the snow,

    And his purses, hung neatly, from his belt, in a row.

    The stump of a pipe, he held tight, in his teeth,

    And the smoke it, encircled his head, like a wreath.

    He had a long face, pointed hat, and grey cloak,

    That shook when he laughed, like the bough of an oak.

    He was tall and thin, but a jolly old elf,

    And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself!

    But a wink of his eye, and a twist of his head,

    Soon gave me to know, I had nothing to dread.

    He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,

    And filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk.

    And laying his finger, aside of his cheek,

    And giving a nod, tossed my share to my feet.

    He sprang to his boots, and to men gave a whistle,

    And away we all flew like the down of a thistle.

    And I heard him exclaim, ‘ere we ran into the night,

    “Happy Viking to all, and to all a good-fight!”

    -Curt Doolittle

    (With Apologies to Dickens)

    Source date (UTC): 2018-12-24 11:05:00 UTC