Curt Doolittle

Form: Mini Essay

  • LOVE YOUR WORKING CLASS “Noblesse Oblige” Those yummy white collar jobs? Calcula

    LOVE YOUR WORKING CLASS

    “Noblesse Oblige”

    Those yummy white collar jobs? Calculating? Organizing Incentives? Managing Credit and Debt? Moving information? They are ultimately dependent upon those people who have blue collar jobs, and service jobs. That does not mean that they have some claim to the fruits of your labor, but it does mean that outside of the fruits of your labor, that advancing policy that creates work for them is in your interests.

    The voluntary organization of production that we call capitalism is constructed by all our efforts to forgo consumption and respect property in order to create a market for the production distribution trade and consumption of goods and services.

    Take care of the little people who try. Get rid of the little people who complain.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-08-12 11:05:00 UTC

  • EMPHASIS ON GOVERNMENT RATHER THAN JURIDICAL DEFENSE FROM IT We are always ruled

    EMPHASIS ON GOVERNMENT RATHER THAN JURIDICAL DEFENSE FROM IT

    We are always ruled. We are often governed. The law is the minimum rule. We can never escape law and commons and hold territory.

    We spend far too much ink on how to insure good rule, government, rulers, and governors.

    And we cannot make a good ruler or governor. We spend too little ink on universal standing and juridical defense from rulers and governors.

    This is because we not only seek advocacy of political orders in order to rally allies with whom me seek advantage from both rule and government – but would be constrained ourselves by rule of law if our preferred leaders obtained it.

    All political advocacy in favor of one form of rule, or one form of government, and another, is an attempt to circumvent the cost of exchange.

    But if I am correct – and the science increasingly suggests so – then we libertarians are partly morally blind, progressives are almost entirely morally blind (libertarians and progressives) and conservatives not only see clearly but are over-sensitive. And all attempts at political power are merely attempts to circumvent voluntary exchanges of cooperation that occur in the family, tribe and market.

    Rule that prohibits parasitism in the tribe, market and government forces us to conduct voluntary exchanges (compromises) none of which are optimum for the long term capital accumulators (conservatives), medium time frame producers (libertarians) and short time frame consumers(progressives).

    Just as we use voluntary exchange in the market to organize production, distribution, trade, and consumption, we organize the production of commons via government. But if government is not a vehicle for the facilitation of trade between the long(conservative), medium(libertarian), and short(progressive) factions, it is no different from not possessing a free market for the production goods and services, an not possessing money to signal demand.

    When free market advocates call for infinitely open markets this imposes costs on the other factions. When socialists call for redistribution this imposes costs on the other factions. When Conservatives call for the payment of normative costs, this imposes a cost on the other factions.

    But if we instead of imposing costs upon one another, conduct trades, then those costs are the expenses that we pay to cooperate on means despite our cognitively biased different ends.

    Cooperation lets a species specialize. Cooperation by voluntary exchange lets us specialized without dying off and producing a new generation.

    Cooperation by voluntary exchange collects information from the specialists in intertemporal reproduction: short consumption progressives, medium productive libertarians, and long term, conservative capital accumulators.

    By satisfying the wants of all through voluntary exchange, together we ‘calculate’ the optimum possible reproduction for all, the same way that the market calculates the optimum possible production for all.

    If I have not converted you to market production of commons (a market government) consisting of at least four if not five houses, each of which splits by gender, then hopefully at least I will help you understand mankind’s long struggle to increase the scope and rewards of cooperation by the use of market and voluntary exchange to produce the information necessary for us to act in our collective interests.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Philosophy of Aristocracy

    The Propertarian Institute

    Kiev, Ukraine (Tallinn, Estonia)

    Source date (UTC): 2015-08-12 09:41:00 UTC

  • CONTRA TECHNO COMMERCIALISM While technology (a)decreases the cost of relationsh

    CONTRA TECHNO COMMERCIALISM

    While technology (a)decreases the cost of relationship acquisition, (b)decreases the cost of property registries, (c) decreases the cost of and often need for, escrow services (financial transaction costs), (d) reduces the need for regulation, (e) decreases the cost of geographic and temporal constraints, technology does NOT change the fundamental problem of cooperation: the incremental suppression of parasitism and the decidability of conflicts across different or competing regulations, norms, property allocations, and institutional processes. Technology reduces costs. Good law reduces costs. And that is the best that we can do. Everything else is achieved by trial and error. Because we cannot necessarily know what is good. We can only know with confidence that which is bad: parasitism.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-08-12 07:50:00 UTC

  • ANARCHO CAPITALISM VS COSMOPOLITAN ANARCHO CAPITALISM (from elsewhere) Both Aris

    http://www.propertarianism.com/n4qL7ARISTOCRATIC ANARCHO CAPITALISM VS COSMOPOLITAN ANARCHO CAPITALISM

    (from elsewhere)

    Both Aristocratic (British, Critical, and Legal), and Cosmopolitan (Ashkenazi, Justificationary, and Moral) Anarchism, advance the open market. They are opposite methods of expressing the same argument:scientific prohibition and justificationary advocacy.

    Both evolved as ethno-centric evolutionary strategies: agrarian islanders evolving into seafaring traders, and diasporic pastoralists into diasporic traders. Both groups, in the Enlightenment, (the Anglo first, French second, Germans third, and Cosmopolitans last) attempted to universalize and evangelize their group evolutionary strategy as a universal ethic – just as groups attempt to universalize their myth and religion. Given freedom from the church and landed aristocracy, the middle class sought to justify their ascent into political power by expanding their middle class ethics as a universal, just as the nobility had justified its ethics as a universal.

    But aside from differences in method of argument, Aristocratic and Cosmopolitan ethics vary considerably in the causality their arguments depend upon, and in the scope of their ethical prohibitions, and in their means of enforcement of those prohibitions. As well as their unstated assertion of the behavioral nature of, and rational interests of, man. Upon the outcome of models. And lastly upon the empirical evidence.

    Causality and Scope

    Aristocratic ethics depend upon the causal property of non-retaliation – prohibiting conflict that destroys capital and impedes cooperation – in order to preserve the disproportionate returns on cooperation. In aristocratic ethics, only productive, fully informed, and warrantied voluntary exchange, free of externality by the same criteria is ethical.

    Cosmopolitan ethics depend upon the presumption of the sufficiency of satisfaction, and justify non-retaliation with the excuse of volition, thereby justifying outwitting or fooling or taking advantage of the asymmetry of knowledge of the parties. While outright ‘fraud’ misrepresentation is available contractually, it is not mandated by the ethics.

    In Aristocratic ethics, the person who fails to fully inform is the party at fault – increasing trust, economic velocity, and capital. In Cosmopolitan, Desert and Steppe ethics, the person who errs is the party at fault – thereby decreasing trust, economic velocity and capital.

    In Aristocratic ethics exchanges must be productive. In Cosmopolitan ethics they need not be. Aristocracy prohibits blackmail which undermines cooperation and Cosmopolitan ethics justify blackmail as voluntary. Again, aristocracy seeks to preserve cooperation, trust, economic velocity, and Cosmopolitanism seeks to preserve profiting regardless of consequences.

    Why? Because in Aristocratic society, the army consists of a universal militia and a heavily armored and equipped professional warrior class. Aristocracy preserves the high trust ethic of warriors across all classes, as a means of preserving cohesion in defense of the territory and commons. For diasporic raiders and traders who engage in various levels of parasitism, they need not defend a commons, nor refrain from parasitism on hosts or opponent’s commons, nor preserve cooperation with hosts, because there are other hosts to move to, and no value in constructing fixed capital or commons, and no value in preserving the reciprocal insurance of the militia in defense of land and capital. Land holding is terribly expensive. Land holding and truth telling are terribly expensive. But they eliminate the need for a central state. If a group demonstrates in-group bias, parasitically consumes a host’s commons, does not build its own commons, and does not pay the high normative, material, and personal risks to life and limb to defend territory, then it is much easier to accumulate that wealth internally than it is for hosts who must pay all those costs.

    Enforcement

    Aristocracy enforces high trust ethics by economic ostracization(boycott), productive ostracization(prevention of holding land), restitution, punishment and culling (usually hanging). The west culled .5%-1% of malcontents every year from about 1100 through about 1800 (the industrial revolution absorbed more labor and lowered demand for criminality). Cosmopolitanism instead, enforces ethics by disenfranchising those who cannot pass the tests of adulthood. By economic ostracization (boycotting), by reproductive boycotting (ostracization), or what we call ‘shunning’. And given that groups who demonstrate and advocate low trust and parasitic relations with non members, and that this behavior generates hostility by non-members, ostracization traditionally amounted to a virtual death sentence.

    That illustrates the difference between land holding (punishing) and non-landholding (ostracizing) means of maintaining control.

    Prohibition vs Advocacy

    Aristocratic Pessimistic Prohibition(law) vs Cosmopolitan Optimistic Advocacy(morality).

    So law which prohibits violations of the incentive to cooperate in the production of land-holding, commons, capital formation, and reproduction is very different from the moral advocacy which advocates the concentration of capital and preserves parasitism. This is why Law is the means of constructing a negative philosophy under aristocracy, and why Moral argument is the means of constructing a positive advocacy of preferred behavior (musts) dictated by gods.

    Evolutionary Strategies

    Aristocratic ethics are an evolutionary strategy for land-holding, farmers, craftsmen and warriors mutually dependent upon one another for defense of the land in the absence of a standing army. Cosmopolitan ethics are an evolutionary strategy for a minority of migratory traders (who can move on without paying the cost of retaliation), and who favor exchange and cunning rather than honesty and production. The even less ethically constrained version of cosmopolitan ethics is that of gypsies, that practice theft, charlatanry, prostitution and suppress internal attempts to engage in production and trade instead of the group strategy of parasitism. The even less ethically constrained version is that of desert and steppe raiders (bandits) that engage in pastoralism for subsistence, and raiding for wealth.

    So the question is, how is it POSSIBLE to construct an anarcho-capitalist (stateless) social order without Aristocratic ethics, embodied in rule of law, using a common organic law, under strict construction, under universal standing, and a universal militia?

    It isn’t. That’s why it hasn’t been.

    Truth. Trust. Commons. Law. Science.

    Welcome to Aristocracy.

    The only Anarcho Capitalism Possible.

    The only liberty possible.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Philosophy of Aristocracy

    The Propertarian Institute

    Kiev, Ukraine (Tallinn, Estonia)

    PS: See why western libertarians are morally blind:

    Moral Blindness: URL:http://www.propertarianism.com/n4qL7

    Libertarian Moral Blindness: URL:http://www.propertarianism.com/AE9oE

    Source date (UTC): 2015-08-12 04:43:00 UTC

  • ANARCHO CAPITALISM VS COSMOPOLITAN ANARCHO CAPITALISM Both Aristocratic (British

    http://www.propertarianism.com/2014/04/27/we-are-morally-blind-limited-in-our-perceptions-and-memory-and-severely-in-our-reason-the-last-thing-we-should-do-is-construct-large-risk-prone-intentionally-managed-states/ARISTOCRATIC ANARCHO CAPITALISM VS COSMOPOLITAN ANARCHO CAPITALISM

    Both Aristocratic (British, Critical, and Legal), and Cosmopolitan (Ashkenazi, Justificationary, and Moral) Anarchism, advance the open market. They are opposite methods of expressing the same argument:scientific prohibition and justificationary advocacy.

    Both evolved as ethno-centric evolutionary strategies: agrarian islanders evolving into seafaring traders, and diasporic pastoralists into diasporic traders. Both groups, in the Enlightenment, (the Anglo first, French second, Germans third, and Cosmopolitans last) attempted to universalize and evangelize their group evolutionary strategy as a universal ethic – just as groups attempt to universalize their myth and religion. Given freedom from the church and landed aristocracy, the middle class sought to justify their ascent into political power by expanding their middle class ethics as a universal, just as the nobility had justified its ethics as a universal.

    But aside from differences in method of argument, Aristocratic and Cosmopolitan ethics vary considerably in the causality their arguments depend upon, and in the scope of their ethical prohibitions, and in their means of enforcement of those prohibitions. As well as their unstated assertion of the behavioral nature of, and rational interests of, man. Upon the outcome of models. And lastly upon the empirical evidence.

    Causality and Scope

    Aristocratic ethics depend upon the causal property of non-retaliation – prohibiting conflict that destroys capital and impedes cooperation – in order to preserve the disproportionate returns on cooperation. In aristocratic ethics, only productive, fully informed, and warrantied voluntary exchange, free of externality by the same criteria is ethical.

    Cosmopolitan ethics depend upon the presumption of the sufficiency of satisfaction, and justify non-retaliation with the excuse of volition, thereby justifying outwitting or fooling or taking advantage of the asymmetry of knowledge of the parties. While outright ‘fraud’ misrepresentation is available contractually, it is not mandated by the ethics.

    In Aristocratic ethics, the person who fails to fully inform is the party at fault – increasing trust, economic velocity, and capital. In Cosmopolitan, Desert and Steppe ethics, the person who errs is the party at fault – thereby decreasing trust, economic velocity and capital.

    In Aristocratic ethics exchanges must be productive. In Cosmopolitan ethics they need not be. Aristocracy prohibits blackmail which undermines cooperation and Cosmopolitan ethics justify blackmail as voluntary. Again, aristocracy seeks to preserve cooperation, trust, economic velocity, and Cosmopolitanism seeks to preserve profiting regardless of consequences.

    Why? Because in Aristocratic society, the army consists of a universal militia and a heavily armored and equipped professional warrior class. Aristocracy preserves the high trust ethic of warriors across all classes, as a means of preserving cohesion in defense of the territory and commons. For diasporic raiders and traders who engage in various levels of parasitism, they need not defend a commons, nor refrain from parasitism on hosts or opponent’s commons, nor preserve cooperation with hosts, because there are other hosts to move to, and no value in constructing fixed capital or commons, and no value in preserving the reciprocal insurance of the militia in defense of land and capital. Land holding is terribly expensive. Land holding and truth telling are terribly expensive. But they eliminate the need for a central state. If a group demonstrates in-group bias, parasitically consumes a host’s commons, does not build its own commons, and does not pay the high normative, material, and personal risks to life and limb to defend territory, then it is much easier to accumulate that wealth internally than it is for hosts who must pay all those costs.

    Enforcement

    Aristocracy enforces high trust ethics by economic ostracization(boycott), productive ostracization(prevention of holding land), restitution, punishment and culling (usually hanging). The west culled .5%-1% of malcontents every year from about 1100 through about 1800 (the industrial revolution absorbed more labor and lowered demand for criminality). Cosmopolitanism instead, enforces ethics by disenfranchising those who cannot pass the tests of adulthood. By economic ostracization (boycotting), by reproductive boycotting (ostracization), or what we call ‘shunning’. And given that groups who demonstrate and advocate low trust and parasitic relations with non members, and that this behavior generates hostility by non-members, ostracization traditionally amounted to a virtual death sentence.

    That illustrates the difference between land holding (punishing) and non-landholding (ostracizing) means of maintaining control.

    Prohibition vs Advocacy

    Aristocratic Pessimistic Prohibition(law) vs Cosmopolitan Optimistic Advocacy(morality).

    So law which prohibits violations of the incentive to cooperate in the production of land-holding, commons, capital formation, and reproduction is very different from the moral advocacy which advocates the concentration of capital and preserves parasitism. This is why Law is the means of constructing a negative philosophy under aristocracy, and why Moral argument is the means of constructing a positive advocacy of preferred behavior (musts) dictated by gods.

    Evolutionary Strategies

    Aristocratic ethics are an evolutionary strategy for land-holding, farmers, craftsmen and warriors mutually dependent upon one another for defense of the land in the absence of a standing army. Cosmopolitan ethics are an evolutionary strategy for a minority of migratory traders (who can move on without paying the cost of retaliation), and who favor exchange and cunning rather than honesty and production. The even less ethically constrained version of cosmopolitan ethics is that of gypsies, that practice theft, charlatanry, prostitution and suppress internal attempts to engage in production and trade instead of the group strategy of parasitism. The even less ethically constrained version is that of desert and steppe raiders (bandits) that engage in pastoralism for subsistence, and raiding for wealth.

    So the question is, how is it POSSIBLE to construct an anarcho-capitalist (stateless) social order without Aristocratic ethics, embodied in rule of law, using a common organic law, under strict construction, under universal standing, and a universal militia?

    It isn’t. That’s why it hasn’t been.

    Truth. Trust. Commons. Law. Science.

    Welcome to Aristocracy.

    The only Anarcho Capitalism Possible.

    The only liberty possible.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Philosophy of Aristocracy

    The Propertarian Institute

    Kiev, Ukraine (Tallinn, Estonia)

    PS: See why western libertarians are morally blind:

    Moral Blindness: URL:http://www.propertarianism.com/n4qL7

    Libertarian Moral Blindness: URL:http://www.propertarianism.com/AE9oE

    Source date (UTC): 2015-08-12 04:42:00 UTC

  • ALT RIGHT, CONSERVATIVE OR RADICAL? My thing is truth. Propertarianism solves th

    ALT RIGHT, CONSERVATIVE OR RADICAL?

    My thing is truth. Propertarianism solves the problem of cooperation in morally heterogeneous societies by the construction of a market for commons just as we constructed a market for goods and services: but incrementally suppressing parasitism in the production of commons (government) just as we incrementally suppressed parasitism in the production of goods and services (the market).

    In that sense I am a radical(progressive), and propertarianism is radical (an alteration of the status quo. That propertarianism alters the status quo by suppressing the parasitism of dysgenic socialists, is either an improvement in truth or a devolution of free riding.

    I take the objective and empirical position that independent of human perception, propertarianism provides the means of the pursuit of all forms of capital (including genetic) as well as human experience, by suppressing parasitism, and suppressing the reproduction of parasites, through a one-child policy.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Propertarian Institute

    Kiev, Ukraine.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-08-10 03:12:00 UTC

  • THE VALUE OF TRUTH INCREASES WITH THE SCALE OF THE CONSEQUENCES The more parsimo

    THE VALUE OF TRUTH INCREASES WITH THE SCALE OF THE CONSEQUENCES

    The more parsimonious the statement of correspondence the more truth content and decidability. (This is a very loaded sentence.)

    As scale increases or decreases, and as consequence increases, and as the number of people affected increase, then the value of truth increases.

    Conversely, loose general rules expressed allegorically or in parable of one king or another are equally useful for individual action.

    For these reasons we increasingly favor increases in precision (parsimony) as the division of labor and scale of polity have increased.

    Because our collective actions are of greater consequences to those external to the decision.

    That is the explanation for the value of different systems of thought.

    Wisdom can be found many places but truth that survives falsification or criticism is a different thing altogether.

    In matters of money or life and death I think most moral men prefer to be adjudicated by truth.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-08-07 12:33:00 UTC

  • Property Is Not An Absolute. But The Imposition Of Costs Is.

    (important concept) (learning propertariansm) [T]he informational content of Property Rights is less than the informational content of the Prohibition on the Imposition of Costs Upon the Property-en-toto of Others.

    Property Rights are not an epistemological or decidable absolute in Propertarianism, but the positive assertion of the negative prohibition of the imposition of costs. One possesses rights to restitution for violations of property en toto not to the property itself, which one need no ‘right’ to – one need only acquire it without imposing costs upon others that both generate the demand to retaliate, and that violates the incentive to cooperate, and therefore is merely a moral consideration. So: – property exists prior to cooperation, – morality preserves cooperation, by prohibitions and positive assertions (advice) – law records both positive morality and negative on immorality – law records positive property rights and methods of restitution (or punishment). Property is not an absolute. The imposition of costs is. Property rights are constrained by the reality of temporal existence, and the prohibition on the imposition of costs upon others. The model is that if your store of grain exists during an era of crisis, that you may not use the opportunity to either determine who lives or dies, or to profit from suffering of others. It means that one sells the grain to them at prices that prevent your loss (an imposition of costs upon you). It means that in the example of the value of water in a desert, you will ensure that the sale of water to a dying man is not an imposition of costs, but not a means of increasing profits. It means that if he lacks the money to pay, that you must give him water now, as long as he commits to paying, and that you are due damages from him if you must collect. Profit from suffering violates the principle of productive exchange and the avoidance of retaliation. This fact amounts to a ‘shall-issue service to my kith and kin’, and that I shall seek profit only from mutually productive exchange, and not that I shall maximize profits in all circumstances. It means that one does not take opportunistic profits from the suffering of others without alternative. This fact separates the aristocracy of Propertarianism from the Libertinism of cosmopolitan libertarianism. Curt Doolittle The Philosophy of Aristocracy The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine (Tallinn, Estonia)

  • Property Is Not An Absolute. But The Imposition Of Costs Is.

    (important concept) (learning propertariansm) [T]he informational content of Property Rights is less than the informational content of the Prohibition on the Imposition of Costs Upon the Property-en-toto of Others.

    Property Rights are not an epistemological or decidable absolute in Propertarianism, but the positive assertion of the negative prohibition of the imposition of costs. One possesses rights to restitution for violations of property en toto not to the property itself, which one need no ‘right’ to – one need only acquire it without imposing costs upon others that both generate the demand to retaliate, and that violates the incentive to cooperate, and therefore is merely a moral consideration. So: – property exists prior to cooperation, – morality preserves cooperation, by prohibitions and positive assertions (advice) – law records both positive morality and negative on immorality – law records positive property rights and methods of restitution (or punishment). Property is not an absolute. The imposition of costs is. Property rights are constrained by the reality of temporal existence, and the prohibition on the imposition of costs upon others. The model is that if your store of grain exists during an era of crisis, that you may not use the opportunity to either determine who lives or dies, or to profit from suffering of others. It means that one sells the grain to them at prices that prevent your loss (an imposition of costs upon you). It means that in the example of the value of water in a desert, you will ensure that the sale of water to a dying man is not an imposition of costs, but not a means of increasing profits. It means that if he lacks the money to pay, that you must give him water now, as long as he commits to paying, and that you are due damages from him if you must collect. Profit from suffering violates the principle of productive exchange and the avoidance of retaliation. This fact amounts to a ‘shall-issue service to my kith and kin’, and that I shall seek profit only from mutually productive exchange, and not that I shall maximize profits in all circumstances. It means that one does not take opportunistic profits from the suffering of others without alternative. This fact separates the aristocracy of Propertarianism from the Libertinism of cosmopolitan libertarianism. Curt Doolittle The Philosophy of Aristocracy The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine (Tallinn, Estonia)

  • THINKING. TRUST. RUSSIA. Despite my criticism of Russian politics and culture si

    THINKING. TRUST. RUSSIA.

    Despite my criticism of Russian politics and culture since the invasion of Ukraine for purely dishonest reasons, I tend to have deep affection for Russian people, even when I think they are absurd, superstitious and crazy.

    Because I love that they are brave. Americans are brave by and large *outside of the millennial generation. Some brits are brave, if a minority. But continentals seem submissive and feminized to the core.

    So that is why I love Russians. Every crazy, lunatic, superstitious, conspiracy-theorizing, pseudoscientific, one of them – at least in the middle and upper classes. Russian working class is as boorish as the come, and the saddest example of white people( outside of California. lol).

    The wonderful thing about Russians is personal craftsmanship – pride in cunning in particular (which blows up as frequently as it succeeds). But they are very proud of their work, and very prideful in judging it. I find them very American in this regard.

    Unlike americans they do not easily trust one another, so while individual work is exceptional, collective work must be managed. And management is universally poor among Russians.

    The most obvious obstacle to Russian (and Ukrainian) trust is that admitting ignorance to others places you at the mercy of those who claim to possess knowledge that they almost always don’t have, but seek as a means of obtaining status, control, and as a consequence, work avoidance. Achieving ‘rest’ (laziness) is somehow seen as a reward, or bonus, or status symbol (Mafia Ethics – Russia is a Mafia Culture, just as Judaism is a Mafia Culture, and the two are closely related in that Judaism relies on cunning and Russian culture relies upon force).

    Russians ‘fence’ to demonstrate who should be in control. They lack the socratic and jesuit, and anglo technique of slowly ‘seeking to understand’ one another’s position. Women do this all the time. Instead Russian men seek to trip one another up or argue for position of authority rather than seek to collect Knowledge from each other and come to a consensus. Men do this all the time.

    This is how trust is built between peers. But Russians, like the Chinese and muslims, always seek hierarchy.

    The reason to do business with anglos and germans is because they are trustworthy and honest, and friction and risk are reduced. The reason other cultures like to work with their own is that they understand one another’s lie-signals and so they can lie honestly with one another and consider it manners. It is less economically productive but more comfortable for them. Conversely, when working with higher trust peoples, the feel weaker, or more nervous.

    Now, Muscovites are not equal to Russians. Many Moscow business people are like very poor versions of Germans. They are highly empirical, and work very hard. But they live in a world of corruption and theft, and fragile infrastructure. So they must be more skeptical than the westerners.

    I have more than a few times tripped up using anglo french political language with Russians and they view it as dishonest or patronizing. I must keep it in mind at all times.

    I am not an authority on this subject. I write so that I can understand it. I think I have come to understand, a bit, the Russian character. But I can only empathize so far. I know who I am and where I come from. We are the most trusting people on earth – to our own detriment.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-08-07 10:37:00 UTC