Curt Doolittle

Form: Mini Essay

  • BOOKS ON THE PRESS (left wing slant) The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in Amer

    http://observer.com/2017/01/these-books-explain-the-media-nightmare-we-are-supposedly-living-in/INTERESTING BOOKS ON THE PRESS

    (left wing slant)

    The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America by Daniel Boorstin In 1960, before talk radio, before Fox News or blogs, Boorstin wrote a scathing indictment of the deliberately false reality molded around us by our media culture. Consider the constant talk of “the narrative” in media, the way we cover premieres and press conferences. These are not real things—they become real only by nature of their media coverage. And the public plays its role in the farce. Boorstin was the Librarian at the Library of Congress—he knows his history and he knows what matters. You can’t read this book without beginning to see the ways you are manipulated by politicians and organizations on a daily basis.

    Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business / Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology by Neil Postman The spiritual sequel to The Image is Amusing Ourselves to Death. Postman says that culture conforms to fit the constraints of its dominant cultural medium. In his era it was television—which meant compelling visual events, developing stories you must stay tuned for, it meant style and appearance over actionable information. You realize that the last thing we have to fear is a malicious Orwellian news industry, because what we have is so much worse: culture incentivized to be as shallow, fabricated and captivating as possible, at the expense of what is actually real or true or meaningful. Technopoly, Postman’s next book, is equally compelling; it tells us why the inventors of a technology are absolutely the worst people to listen to when it comes to deciding how to use it.

    The Filter Bubble by Eli Pariser In The Filter Bubble, Eli Pariser warns of the danger of living in bubbles of personalization that reinforce and insulate our worldview. Pariser is a great media thinker and has also written some important work recently on fake news. The only criticism one might have of the filter bubble is that his creations, Moveon.org and Upworthy are hugely responsible for creating their own versions of the problem.

    Getting It Wrong: Ten of the Greatest Misreported Stories in American Journalism by W. Joseph Campbell The media loves to puncture every myth but its own. Even some of the most seminal books on media repeat easily disprovable myths like Hearst’s “you furnish the pictures, I’ll furnish the war,” Edward Morrow taking down McCarthy, the New York Times suppressing the Bay of Pigs and LBJ saying “We lost Cronkite, we lost Middle America.” Authors use them like filmmakers use well-known songs in nostalgic movies: instant, inarguable mood setters. But they are not true. Taking the time to destroy these false images is important work. It reminds you that the media can’t get its own history right, let alone the rest of the world’s. That it sees itself occupying a role in society and culture that it does not quite deserve. This will help you with your news diet today—and add a touch of salt to it. Campbell’s book on yellow journalism is also a great, evenhanded biography of the controversial moment in media time.

    Within the Context of No Context and My Pilgrim’s Progress: Media Studies, 1950-1998 by George W.S. Trow Rich Cohen described Trow’s work to me as half brilliant and half insane. I think that’s right. Within these pages are some of the most cogent analysis of the 50s, of our media culture, of what a world looks like when the current generation grew up on garbage television and no important traditions. Within the Context of No Context first appeared as an essay in the New Yorker—a rare instance for the magazine to devote a significant chunk to one single piece of writing—and was later published in book form. It is his best known work and examines the destructive effects of television on American culture; the book was later described as “a cold description of where things are going. There aren’t many books that are unafraid to be that negative.” My Pilgrim’s Progress analyzes the cultural state of the U.S. in the 1950’s and is a tough book to read, but I am glad I did.

    Winchell: Gossip, Power and the Culture of Celebrity by Neal Gabler I knew Walter Winchell’s name and I knew he was a famous journalist, but that’s it. I had no idea that he was unquestionably the most famous media figure of the 20th century (2/3 of American adults read his column daily. It was syndicated in 2,000 newspapers. Even FDR took his advice). I also had no idea that he was basically a monster. This biography is a fascinating look at the way that ambition and power eats at the human soul. It’s also a reminder that there have always been problems in the media and that fake news is not new. (In fact, something like 50% of his column was inaccurate or partly inaccurate). There was great stuff in this book on McCarthyism, Damon Runyon, the Roaring 20s and the Golden Age of Hollywood. I followed it up by reading Winchell’s autobiography, Winchell Exclusive. It was interesting to watch him essentially prove all the negative things said about him in the biography—he was vindictive, cruel, shallow, self-obsessed, but of course, also creative and compelling. Both are important reads for anyone in media. The other Stoic lesson for me in these two books was to read about all the gossip and the scandals of some of the most famous people in the world…and how almost none of them turned out to matter in anyway. A sobering reminder for sure. If you want a shorter read on Winchell the fictional take on him in Sweet Smell of Success: And Other Stories by Ernest Lehman is great (perhaps the greatest fictionalization of a journalist or PR person too—though I also love The Harder They Fall and All The King’s Men). This book is actually a collection of short stories, two of which are about Hunsucker, a ruthless and cruel journalist and the press agent who does his bidding. It’s wonderfully written because it was written by Ernest Lehman, who would go on to write the screenplays for “Hello Dolly,” “The King and I” and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

    News from Nowhere: Television and the News; Between Fact and Fiction: The Problem of Journalism; The Big Picture: Money and Power in Hollywood by Edward J Epstein In Trust Me, I’m Lying I used economic reasons to explain why bloggers act the way they do. I could not have done this without the father of this line of thinking, Edward Jay Epstein. From his 1973 Harvard thesis, which was later published as News from Nowhere, that pioneered the study of network news (the first and last person to get access to their inner sanctum) to his wonderful books on the movie business, Epstein finds, exposes, and explains the hidden economic factors that determine the courses of entire industries. I followed in his footsteps for my book at almost every turn. I had the privilege of meeting him, which only increased my advocacy for his methods. I am morally obligated to press his books into your hands just as they were pressed into mine by my mentors.

    Lincoln and the Power of the Press: The War for Public Opinion by Harold Holzer Not very often do I find a book that combines the two things I have studied with great effort over the last few years: media and the Civil War. I was very excited to read this book and found it utterly fascinating (though admittedly not for everyone). As you can see from my much longer Observer piece about it there are a lot of parallels between Lincoln’s media environment and the toxic one we live in today. Then, as now, it’s the media who manipulates itself and often, a good president must in turn figure out how to play it, just to get back to even. If you want a slightly lighter take on the role of media during the Civil War, then you might really like Junius and Albert’s Adventures in the Confederacy: A Civil War Odyssey which is about two Civil War reporters taken prisoner during the battle of Vicksburg.

    It’s Not News, It’s Fark: How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap As News by Drew Curtis There are few people who have read more news stories than Drew Curtis, founder of Fark.com. Creating and running one of the web’s first and biggest news aggregators gave him one of the best perspectives you could hope for in a book about the media. Plus, he’s actually funny—not a boring, old and condescending media studies nerd. Everything you need to know about spotting, catching and protecting yourself from media fluff and sensationalism is in this book. Read it.

    Public Opinion by Walter Lippmann This is a seminal text in media studies and the first place to coin the term ‘manufacture of consent.” It is, like Sinclair’s The Brass Check, still relevant all these years later—there’s a reason James Carey considered it “the founding book of modern journalism.” Lippmann’s belief was that intellectuals and government had an important and essential role in shaping public opinion—and that if they were to fail in their job, the fabric of society crumbles. There is a lot of blow back today against the ‘elites’—Lippmann’s book explains why they matter. And what we’re seeing right now is a good example of what happens when their role is diminished (we get chaos).

    The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm This book famously opens with “Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. He is a kind of confidence man, preying on people’s vanity, ignorance or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse.” I would argue that this the first self-aware and self-critical book I’ve come across in all the reading I’ve done about media. We need more like it.

    Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky This book is like the works of Ayn Rand—if you don’t go any further after reading it, it arrests your development. Chomsky’s most important concept here is what he calls Tacit Collective Action. Media outlets, no matter their ideological positions, are shaped much more by their similarities as businesses and as a social clique. In this way, they collaborate and conspire together, even when they are not aware of doing so. It’s this action that builds up a Trump candidacy—even when they claim to be repulsed by it. It’s this that delivers trivialities over real information, or makes the press generally subservient to power (they crave access). Anyway, this is an important book, but I’ve listed it last because it must be paired with others.

    Further, further reading:

    In terms of shorter related reads, I suggest Fakes in American Journalism by Max Sherover, a 100 year old manifesto of media criticism which stands up incredibly well. This Scribner’s article on privacy and journalism is important—it was cited by Brandeis in his famous “Right to Privacy” article. Michael Schudson’s Discovering the News is great and so is Manufacturing the News by Mark Fishman. Eric Alterman’s book on the rise of the pundit class is good—even he couldn’t have predicted their horrible offspring of “surrogates.” It’s also worth reading Jonah Berger’s book on why things spread virally (for instance, the number one predictor of viral New York Times articles is how angry they make a reader). My last recommendations would be biographies of the news barons. The Uncrowned King, about the newspaper years of William Randolph Hearst is good. So is Bennett’s New York Herald which is about the forgotten media genius whose paper Herald Square in New York City is named after.

    Ryan Holiday is the best-selling author of Trust Me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator. Ryan is an editor-at-large for the Observer, and you can subscribe to his posts via email. He lives in Austin, Texas.

    http://observer.com/2017/01/these-books-explain-the-media-nightmare-we-are-supposedly-living-in/

    Source date (UTC): 2017-06-20 20:24:00 UTC

  • THE VALUE IS ALL IN ORGANIZING, NOT IN LABORING —“This is profound. How about

    THE VALUE IS ALL IN ORGANIZING, NOT IN LABORING

    —“This is profound. How about expanding it and making it into its own post? Who organizes violence? Who organizes reproduction? Etc.”—Ben Smith

    THE ECONOMICS OF TIME

    our only existential commodity is time. It is very scarce. when we divide labor we produce multiples of returns on time that are not achievable by any other means. In this sense we are not wealthier than cave men, we have simply made all things cheaper.

    When we come together in groups we have the choice of flight, cooperation, or conflict. If we cooperate that means at the very least we do not prey upon each other. At best it means that we engage in a division of labor. But most importantly, we reduce opportunity costs – the time necessary to find an opportunity.

    So while our second commons is cooperation, (property), our first commons is opportunities. When we cooperate we do not allow one another to seize opportunities. Instead, we only allow one another to homestead opportunities. This is why competition succeeds: we compete for opportunities created by proximity and property. And we empirically test our hypotheses by our success or failure in seizing those opportunities via the market.

    Now, we hold this set of opportunities (territory) by defending them from others. We defend them from others who would take them without homesteading. We defend them from others who would reallocate that property and those opportunities.

    The military ‘owns’ the territory. All of it. Everyone else is merely a customer. That’s simply an operational fact.

    So the military organizes the territory. Within it, the government organizes the commons. Within the commons the capitalists organized production; the bourgeoise organize production distribution and trade. Within the commons the people organize families. And Labor (important distinction) organizes physical things as needed by transforming them from one state to the next. So nearly all work is using incentives to organize people, while labor organizes that which is not human.

    Now we come together into markets (cities) where opportunity costs are low, but territorial costs are high, and commons are cheap. Others distribute to suburbia and rural areas where opportunity costs are higher, territorial costs are lower, and commons are terribly expensive.

    Some countries intelligently solve this problem (french concentration in cities, and protectionism in the rural areas; or german mandatory family sized apartments in cities) or really poorly (british homes are tiny, dark, expensive, hovels by comparison), new york is moving the way of tokyo, and much of asia is returning to pre-civilized eras where one rents a cubicle for sleeping and lives outside of that area the rest of the day.

    The costs of commons differ by density. If we were to vote on commons then votes should consist of the inverse of population density, since the cost of commons in rural areas is absurd, and this is what accounts for the differences in urban and rural behavior: accurate perception of differences in costs of commons.

    Landlordism (manorialism) has proven an exceptional method for allocating territory to those who are most productive with it, and pushing out those who are unproductive. In America we already have Georgist taxation on land. It hasn’t changed anything. Property rents vary by location but mostly by the built capital upon that location. So it doesn’t make any difference. The russians tried the opposite and it led to shitty life everywhere.

    If you said that the resources are a commons, then yes, that makes sense. If you said that taxes on rental properties are not empirically matched to total service costs I would say that was easy to test and it’s unlikely to be true.

    So unless you can make a fairly strong portfolio case then it’s hard to argue.

    Landlords organize density the way investors organize industry, the way entrepreneurs organize talents, the way managers organize labor.

    All the value is in organizing people. The labor isn’t worth shit.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-06-20 13:00:00 UTC

  • WILL SYRIA BE ANOTHER VIETNAM? (ESSAY ON WORLD BALANCES OF POWER) Iran is the pr

    WILL SYRIA BE ANOTHER VIETNAM? (ESSAY ON WORLD BALANCES OF POWER)

    Iran is the problem.

    a) Russian population ~145M but with autocracy, missiles and oil, a world power.

    b) Iran + Iraq + Syria + Lebanon + Yemen = ~150M. But with autocracy, missiles and oil a world power.

    Iran is recreating the persian empire under arab rather than persian culture as the ottoman declined. Just as Russia created its empire by conquest of the mongolian empire as it declined.

    The purpose of Vietnam was proxy for war with China, since the USA failed to finish the conquest of communist china during the second world war.

    The purpose of the cold war was a proxy for war with russia, since the USA failed to finish the conquest of communist russia during the second world war.

    The purpose of syria is a proxy for the war with Iran, since the USA failed to finish the conquest of islamism during the gulf wars.

    The question is only whether the USA has the economic and cultural reserves itself to survive the defeat of iran.

    My expectation is that the arabs are sufficiently inferior as a genetic, cultural, and institutional system, and that the Persians have been sufficiently decimated, that the transformation of Iran will not follow the pattern of the more advanced civilizations of russia and china.

    Semitic Abrahamism’s ‘communism’ was economic and ideological, where the combination of french abrahamic postmodernism and arab abrahamic islamism are purely religious systems that do not need to provide empirical results.

    Since these strategies do not ask for direct redistribution from the middle and upper classes, but slowly appropriate culture and institutions, it is hard to see how they will not succeed in conquest by immigration.

    So it’s not a question of whether syria will become another vietnam, but whether it is worth it or not to take the battle home to Iran before she becomes another Russia or China and we cannot fight her except by proxy.

    Unlike previous ‘battles of modernization’ in which the west has tried to drag primitive cultures into modernity (consumer capitalism), it is not clear that americans will take the battle to Iran until the discussion is put in such clear terms: that this is just the continuation of the battle against Abrahamism in byzantine/syrian-christian, jewish-communist, and islamic forms. And that we have been fighting this battle for over 2000 years. And that until 1800 we were losing that battle.

    Worse, while Russia – as a low trust polity – is Iran’s ally, it appears irrational for russia to advance Iran’s interests given that so much of Russia’s resources are in muslim regions of the former soviet empire. And that russia would have a very hard time competing against a restored and expansionist Iranian Empire on her southern border.

    Strategically Russia’s intersets are with Germany, not with Iran or China. But Americans lost that opportunity. So perhaps it is in the west’s interest to allow the rise of iran, and withdraw the USA from continental affairs, so that russia’s only option is to ally with europe.

    The alternative for Russia is incremental conquest and conversion.

    There is no economic or strategic value to west, russia, or east of the islamic peoples.

    For all intents and purposes, once the oil is gone the middle east is just a hostile and alien sub-saharan africa.

    That’s my analysis and I’m pretty sure around the globe, in every general staff, that this is the same thought OTHER than Russians, who are still a little bit ‘off’ in their desire for a restoration.

    It takes 500M people to be a world power in economics. The anglos have about that many. The europeans about that many. The muslims like the chinese have more than a billion, and no concern for economics. the chinese have more than a billion totally homogenous and do care about economics. The west cares most about economics -too much, but is no longer homogenous.

    That last paragraph is worth pondering for a few years.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-06-20 08:24:00 UTC

  • Can Syria Become Another Vietnam For The Us And Russia?

    Iran is the problem.

    a) Russian population ~145M but with autocracy, missiles and oil, a world power.
    b) Iran + Iraq + Syria + Lebanon + Yemen = ~150M. But with autocracy, missiles and oil a world power.

    Iran is recreating the persian empire under arab rather than persian culture as the ottoman declined. Just as Russia created its empire by conquest of the mongolian empire as it declined.

    The purpose of Vietnam was proxy for war with China, since the USA failed to finish the conquest of communist china during the second world war.

    The purpose of the cold war was a proxy for war with russia, since the USA failed to finish the conquest of communist russia during the second world war.

    The purpose of syria is a proxy for the war with Iran, since the USA failed to finish the conquest of islamism during the gulf wars.

    The question is only whether the USA has the economic and cultural reserves itself to survive the defeat of iran.

    My expectation is that the arabs are sufficiently inferior as a genetic, cultural, and institutional system, and that the Persians have been sufficiently decimated, that the transformation of Iran will not follow the pattern of the more advanced civilizations of russia and china.

    Semitic Abrahamism’s ‘communism’ was economic and ideological, where the combination of french abrahamic postmodernism and arab abrahamic islamism are purely religious systems that do not need to provide empirical results.

    Since these strategies do not ask for direct redistribution from the middle and upper classes, but slowly appropriate culture and institutions, it is hard to see how they will not succeed in conquest by immigration.

    So it’s not a question of whether syria will become another vietnam, but whether it is worth it or not to take the battle home to Iran before she becomes another Russia or China and we cannot fight her except by proxy.

    Unlike previous ‘battles of modernization’ in which the west has tried to drag primitive cultures into modernity (consumer capitalism), it is not clear that americans will take the battle to Iran until the discussion is put in such clear terms: that this is just the continuation of the battle against Abrahamism in byzantine/syrian-christian, jewish-communist, and islamic forms. And that we have been fighting this battle for over 2000 years. And that until 1800 we were losing that battle.

    Worse, while Russia – as a low trust polity – is Iran’s ally, it appears irrational for russia to advance Iran’s interests given that so much of Russia’s resources are in muslim regions of the former soviet empire. And that russia would have a very hard time competing against a restored and expansionist Iranian Empire on her southern border.

    Strategically Russia’s intersets are with Germany, not with Iran or China. But Americans lost that opportunity. So perhaps it is in the west’s interest to allow the rise of iran, and withdraw the USA from continental affairs, so that russia’s only option is to ally with europe.

    The alternative for Russia is incremental conquest and conversion.

    There is no economic or strategic value to west, russia, or east of the islamic peoples.

    For all intents and purposes, once the oil is gone the middle east is just a hostile and alien sub-saharan africa.

    That’s my analysis and I’m pretty sure around the globe, in every general staff, that this is the same thought OTHER than Russians, who are still a little bit ‘off’ in their desire for a restoration.

    It takes 500M people to be a world power in economics. The anglos have about that many. The europeans about that many. The muslims like the chinese have more than a billion, and no concern for economics. the chinese have more than a billion totally homogenous and do care about economics. The west cares most about economics -too much, but is no longer homogenous.

    That last paragraph is worth pondering for a few years.

    https://www.quora.com/Can-Syria-become-another-Vietnam-for-the-US-and-Russia

  • Can Syria Become Another Vietnam For The Us And Russia?

    Iran is the problem.

    a) Russian population ~145M but with autocracy, missiles and oil, a world power.
    b) Iran + Iraq + Syria + Lebanon + Yemen = ~150M. But with autocracy, missiles and oil a world power.

    Iran is recreating the persian empire under arab rather than persian culture as the ottoman declined. Just as Russia created its empire by conquest of the mongolian empire as it declined.

    The purpose of Vietnam was proxy for war with China, since the USA failed to finish the conquest of communist china during the second world war.

    The purpose of the cold war was a proxy for war with russia, since the USA failed to finish the conquest of communist russia during the second world war.

    The purpose of syria is a proxy for the war with Iran, since the USA failed to finish the conquest of islamism during the gulf wars.

    The question is only whether the USA has the economic and cultural reserves itself to survive the defeat of iran.

    My expectation is that the arabs are sufficiently inferior as a genetic, cultural, and institutional system, and that the Persians have been sufficiently decimated, that the transformation of Iran will not follow the pattern of the more advanced civilizations of russia and china.

    Semitic Abrahamism’s ‘communism’ was economic and ideological, where the combination of french abrahamic postmodernism and arab abrahamic islamism are purely religious systems that do not need to provide empirical results.

    Since these strategies do not ask for direct redistribution from the middle and upper classes, but slowly appropriate culture and institutions, it is hard to see how they will not succeed in conquest by immigration.

    So it’s not a question of whether syria will become another vietnam, but whether it is worth it or not to take the battle home to Iran before she becomes another Russia or China and we cannot fight her except by proxy.

    Unlike previous ‘battles of modernization’ in which the west has tried to drag primitive cultures into modernity (consumer capitalism), it is not clear that americans will take the battle to Iran until the discussion is put in such clear terms: that this is just the continuation of the battle against Abrahamism in byzantine/syrian-christian, jewish-communist, and islamic forms. And that we have been fighting this battle for over 2000 years. And that until 1800 we were losing that battle.

    Worse, while Russia – as a low trust polity – is Iran’s ally, it appears irrational for russia to advance Iran’s interests given that so much of Russia’s resources are in muslim regions of the former soviet empire. And that russia would have a very hard time competing against a restored and expansionist Iranian Empire on her southern border.

    Strategically Russia’s intersets are with Germany, not with Iran or China. But Americans lost that opportunity. So perhaps it is in the west’s interest to allow the rise of iran, and withdraw the USA from continental affairs, so that russia’s only option is to ally with europe.

    The alternative for Russia is incremental conquest and conversion.

    There is no economic or strategic value to west, russia, or east of the islamic peoples.

    For all intents and purposes, once the oil is gone the middle east is just a hostile and alien sub-saharan africa.

    That’s my analysis and I’m pretty sure around the globe, in every general staff, that this is the same thought OTHER than Russians, who are still a little bit ‘off’ in their desire for a restoration.

    It takes 500M people to be a world power in economics. The anglos have about that many. The europeans about that many. The muslims like the chinese have more than a billion, and no concern for economics. the chinese have more than a billion totally homogenous and do care about economics. The west cares most about economics -too much, but is no longer homogenous.

    That last paragraph is worth pondering for a few years.

    https://www.quora.com/Can-Syria-become-another-Vietnam-for-the-US-and-Russia

  • ON TRUTH: WORKING WITH SCIENCE, NOT PLATONISM (closing in on the final words on

    ON TRUTH: WORKING WITH SCIENCE, NOT PLATONISM

    (closing in on the final words on truth)

    You are making the error of set comparisons that is so common in rationalist ‘pseudoscience’, by which you use framing to create false dichotomies.

    DEFINITIONS

    —“Thus, if you try to define the concept of “truth” by appeal to the concept of “knowledge”,”—

    I don’t. I define the concept of TRUTH by the spectrum of survival from due diligence.

    I define KNOWLEDGE as anything from awareness to perfectly informed.

    INFORMATION CONTENT UNDER CONSIDERATION

    We work, I work, not with ideal types, but with series (a spectrum).

    We work, I work, not with sets but with supply demand curves.

    We work, I work, not with set operations, but with algorithmic (existential) operations.

    We work, I work, with the information content of reality, not a subset of reality.

    Ergo We work, I work, with actions(reality) not just language(ideals).

    In other words, I work with science, not platonism.

    SPECTRUM OF KNOWLEDGE

    1) True (decidable) in the given context of a given question. (truth candidate)(law)

    2) Truthful (actionable) in the given context of a given question. (truth candidate)(theory)

    3) Undecidable (inactionable) in the given context of a given question. (non-truth)(hypothesis)

    4) Suspect (undecidable) in the given context of a given question.(non-truth)(theory)

    5) False (decidable) in the given context of the given question.(non-truth)(law)

    WHAT DOES THIS RESULT IN?

    Truth by Triangulation

    One can only estimate by triangulation.

    Truth is a process of incremental improvement of estimations.

    And in fact. If you were to study all facets of man (I have) this is how truth is determined in all disciplines wherein men act upon their statements (‘Skin in the Game’), and those disciplines that are ‘just talk’ do not.

    Hence the similarity in nonsense between rationalism and religious law (Hermenutics) that it evolved from.

    Hence the similarity in not-nonsense between sciences, and the common empirical law that they evolved from.

    CLOSING

    If you understand the past two long posts I have made you will understand the entire history of philosophy in those few words.

    The Iranian laws evolved to prevent retaliation cycles.

    Abrahamic religion was invented to lie.

    Greek philosophy to reform greek law – more reason.

    Stoic philosophy evolved out off greek law to speak the truth.

    Roman law evolved out of stoic philosophy.

    Western law evolved out of roman law and germanic pagan law.

    English law evolved more out of anglo saxon pagan law.

    Empiricism evolved out of germanic and anglo saxon law.

    Nothing else to be understood.

    In other words, if you’re practicing ‘cherry-picking’ using set operations on language, you’re engaging in pseudoscience.

    No dimension of reason’s subsets of reality is capable of proving itself without appeal to the next dimension of reality.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Propertarian Institute

    Kiev Ukraine

    Source date (UTC): 2017-06-19 13:43:00 UTC

  • PLEASE TRY TO BE SMARTER ABOUT APPLIED MATHEMATICS THAN I AM. IT’S EASY. I AM GL

    PLEASE TRY TO BE SMARTER ABOUT APPLIED MATHEMATICS THAN I AM. IT’S EASY. I AM GLAD PEOPLE DO THAT SO I DON”T HAVE TO. BUT DO NOT TRY TO BE SMARTER ABOUT THE FOUNDATIONS OF MATH (OR TRUTH) THAN I AM. OK?

    > Curt Doolittle :

    A priori consist of trivial examples of hypotheses. The deductive consist of trivial examples of the a priori.

    There exists only one epistemic method:

    observation > free association > wayfinding > hypothesis > self criticism > theory > market criticism > law.

    The non-contradictory, the a priori and the deductive are simply trivial cases.

    ===

    >Robert Mosimann :

    If such a simplistic view of the a priori and epistemic methods were true then

    Provide the observational evidence to establish the axioms of mathematics such as

    The axiom of infinity

    The Power set axiom

    The Generalized Continuum Hypothesis.

    How about the law of Contradiction itself

    Etc

    Only someone not knowing much science or mathematics would consider the a priori and deductive cases to be trivial.

    ====

    Curt Doolittle:

    You’re kidding me.

    Let’s just take the first one.

    “I promise that I observe that the method of constructing positional names that we commonly refer to as ‘natural numbers’, can be performed without limit, other than practical limit, and as such I can deduce that at least that single set of positional names satisfies the criteria of limitlessness independent of applied context that we commonly represent with the symbol *infinity*.”

    Ergo: “I can truthfully claim, as a general rule of scale independence – meaning that by removing the dimensions of time, space, operations, and cost, at least one condition of infinity is possible.”

    This is a trivial observation.

    The Continuum Hypothesis is the most interesting because it’s stated pseudo-scientifically and appears profound. But if stated scientifically (meaning informationally complete) then it’s also trivial:

    “I promise that I observe that the method of constructing position names beginning with the natural numbers all ratios thereof, that the rate of production of some positional names (numbers) will vary per operation.”

    Or the law of contradiction.

    “I promise that I observe that when I name a set of properties, relations, and values (category), that if I refer to (testify) a different set of properties, relations and values(category) by the same name I engage in either error or deception (falsehood).”

    These are trivial statements dressed upon pseudo-scientific garb, because of the remnants of archaic platonism in the field.

    The foundation of mathematics is trivial: correspondence and non-correspondence. Dimensions included, or dimensions ignored. The only challenge in mathematics is in applied math: like chess, the learning of observable patterns of transformations.

    Each dimension of reality we can speak of (identity, logical, empirical, operational(existential), rational, reciprocal, and fully accounted), and each dimension of constant relations (mathematics) we can speak of (identity, number(name), arithmetic(quantity), geometry(space), calculus(motion), and algebraic geometry (pure relations), can only be tested (proved) by appeal to the subsequent dimension. (No system of logic can prove itself). Hence the necessity of axiom of choice..

    Anyway. If there is anyone living who understands these matters better than I do, I would love to know. But as far as I know, there isn’t.

    Cheers.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-06-18 14:53:00 UTC

  • GROUP: LOYALTY AND BETRAYAL The central problem for any group, of any size, is t

    GROUP: LOYALTY AND BETRAYAL

    The central problem for any group, of any size, is to maximize all opportunities with positive externalities (loyalty) without tolerating the taking of opportunities with negative externalities (defection). Loyalty matters. There is always a limit to opportunism – in everything: trade, marriage, mating. And this is what corporatism licenses: defection (betrayal). Low trust peoples profit best when they can live among high trust peoples and exploit the difficulty of measuring betrayals through moral hazard internally, and defection and betrayal externally. Liberty, free trade, globalism. These are all terms for licensing betrayal. And maybe that is surprising. These three words propose moral falsehoods in order to betray the group. Rule of Law by Natural Law with Full Accounting leads to the same conditions as liberty, free trade, and globalism, but it forbids negative externalities against the group no matter how small. The question has never been what form of government do we need in order to construct a condition free of impositions upon us by others. That form of government is Nomocracy: Rule of Law under Natural Law. Every other form of government is just some other method of condoning one form of betrayal of the group or another.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-06-18 13:00:00 UTC

  • The ukrainians assume that if they give up the territory the russians will keep

    The ukrainians assume that if they give up the territory the russians will keep pushing to cut them off from the black sea (probably true) and unite russia with Transnistria. The russians have already taken ukrainian oil deposits in the black sea. They’ve already taken Crimea. They’ve already taken the donbas. They are just waiting for a period of geopolitical opportunity under which they can solidify their gains.

    By this act of aggression russia has broken the postwar consensus and ended the prohibition on involuntary changes in borders – which was the whole reason for the world wars.

    Putin repeatedly threatened all of eastern europe with reoccupation during 2014, and caused nato to re-pivot toward russia, after having nearly denuded nato in europe. There were only 60k total US personnel in all of europe. So this ‘surrounding russia’ stuff from the west’s perspective was ‘russia will unite with germany and we will achieve our long term goals if we can get russia to modernize her government and economy.’ (whch was Gorbachev’s position.)

    The western perspective is that the sanctions against russia were serious enough and threat threat of being cut off from the world financial system enough of a death sentence, that this contained russian reassertion.

    Now, this does not eliminate the fact that russia was right against the chechens. And that russia was right about serbia. and that russia was right about all the islamic countries. Or that the west is constantly wrong.

    This does not eliminate the fact that NATO did not add russia immediately to is membership when putin asked – or that westerners are too fucking stupid to understand russians well enough to just fucking do it. (americans are just too fucking stupid for words).

    This does not eliminate the fact that putin’s attack on populism (democracy) is an attack on hedonism in an effort do defend the family and the nation from regression. And that he is right and the west is wrong and suicidal.

    The problem is the international principle that “no agreement with russia is worth the paper it’s printed on” holds. And so 2014 fucked up the entire world order.

    In other words, putin fucked up. he could have done what was needed and he fucked up. He was the strongest most powerful man in the world and he ‘flinched’.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-06-17 19:47:00 UTC

  • COMPARING TESTIMONIALISM AND MATHEMATICS AS TESTS OF DESCRIPTIONS OF INCREASING

    COMPARING TESTIMONIALISM AND MATHEMATICS AS TESTS OF DESCRIPTIONS OF INCREASING DIMENSIONS OF REALITY

    (more very important ideas in here for serious philosophy students)

    Testimonialism = test all possible dimensions of reality.

    categorical, logical, empirical, operational, rational, reciprocal, and fully accounted (scope and limits).

    Just like math: identity, correspondence, positional name, arithmetic (quantity) operations, geometric (space) operations, Algebra (change) operations, Calculus (relative change) operations, algebraic geometry (pure relations) operations.

    So in both mathematics and testimony we test all possible dimensions of reality. The difference is that in mathematics we are familiar with the choice of which level of math is necessary to describe a problem, whereas in Testimony we are not yet familiar enough to understand which level of reasoning is necessary to describe a problem.

    So think of Testimonialism as differing from math in that mathematical objects consists of identical categories of constant relations in relation to the possible dimensions of reality. Whereas Testimonialism consists of any set of categories and any set of relations, in relation to the possible dimensions of reality.

    Or another way, mathematics and logic and empirical science and law are subsets of testimonialism. (truthful testimony)

    Source date (UTC): 2017-06-17 18:53:00 UTC