Curt Doolittle

Form: Mini Essay

  • MISES POSITION IN INTELLECTUAL HISTORY? (reposted from elsewhere) (I think this

    MISES POSITION IN INTELLECTUAL HISTORY?

    (reposted from elsewhere) (I think this will blow your mind a little bit.)

    THE MOST IMPORTANT ARTICLE YOU WILL READ ON MISES?

    Mises Human Action as Cosmopolitan Stoicism.

    He was almost right. If Rothbard and the Rothbardians had not damaged his legacy so severely, he would not be ostracized by the main stream intellectual community. At present any mention of his name associates a public intellectual, an economist, or philosopher, with the pseudoscientific lunatic fringe.

    Praxeology is a failed attempt at Operationalism, sure – but no one ELSE came close to developing economic operationalism but Mises. I only did it because I have the luxury of a century of additional development in computability (especially Turing), and because it’s clear now that the analytic program (attempt to convert philosophy into a science) has been a failure, and that the success in reforming both science and psychology has almost entirely been because of Operationalism.

    Had Mises joined with Brouwer and Bridgman, the three of them might have saved us from a century of pseudoscience. But without a philosopher of ethics to unify them, Popper in the philosophy of science, Mises in Economics, Brouwer in mathematics, and Bridgman in physics all failed to come to the correct conclusion: that they were not in fact articulating logical constraints – because there is no logical constraint to theory-development. The logical constraint is only in the statement of promise (that you are telling the truth) that such a theory can be expressed existentially, as a sequence of operations (actions) or operational measures of observations. And as such, one’s theory, in any discipline, is free of content that was added by error, imagination, or deception. Man can testify to observation in the execution of recipes – all else is imagination. As such the practice of the sciences (or rather, the practice of *disciplined testimony* which the sciences developed, but which consists of nothing unique to the physical sciences) is a moral one, with ethical constraints.

    As such, praxeology, mathematical intuitionism, operationalism, operationism, Popper’s critical preference, and the scientific method, as well as the discipline of science as currently practiced, are moral constraints, not logical ones. One can intuit a theory by whatever means possible. One can believe whatever he wishes to justify. But one’s promise of testimony to the actions that did or may produce consequences is a moral one, not a logical one.

    As far as I know, the only meaningful reason to study economics for use in ethics and politics, is to justify the rule of law (Nomocracy), under the single rule of property rights, where property rights is as defined under Propertarianism, as property-en-toto (demonstrated property). And where that body of law suppresses sufficient involuntary transfer of property-en-toto, that the formation of a Nomocratic polity is possible. And where the formation and perpetuation of that polity is possible, because transaction costs are sufficiently suppressed that a rational choice for Nomocracy is possible, over a rational choice for statism. And that the normative preference of nomocratic rule over statist rule is maintained by the constant exercise of that body of law in daily life, rather than a phillosophical-rational, religio-moral, pedagogically-instructional, or normatively-habituated means of persistence.

    If we look at his human action as an attempt to develop an economic version of stoicism – a mental discipline – I think it is probably a better frame of reference for his work than as economics or analytic philosophy.

    As such I see him as creating a Cosmopolitan version of stoicism (economic/intellectual character) rather than western (Aryan if you will) stoicism (political/craftsmanship character).

    Both forms of stoicism are early attempts at operationalizing philosophy for disciplinary action as an individual member of a complex division of labor in which we possess fragmentary information.

    Since I quote him endlessly for his analysis of money and fiduciary media, which again, he (“a sequence of human actions” = “operational observations”) correctly uses operational analysis to isolate and articulate the causal rather than normative properties – I am clearly an advocate. But I am not an advocate of the misuse of Mises’ errors – his failed attempt to develop economic operationalism – to justify Rothbardian libertinism – an outright assault on the production of both high trust, and the commons – both of which are the primary competitive advantages constituent in the western indo-european (Aryan if you will) evolutionary strategy.

    I walk by Mises’ childhood home every day. It has tempered my criticism. I see him making natural errors of Cosmopolitanism – as Hayek said “a victim of his upbringing”. Just as the Germans have made endless errors in conflating religion and philosophy to preserve their hierarchy and duty as a group competitive strategy. Just as British (Anglo/Irish/Scots if not the Belgae) have fought to preserve their island universalism despite the necessary suicide that results from universalism outside of their island (or the american island, or the Australian island.)

    I will venture this post is one of the more important things that has been written about Mises in recent history, and my arguments, if not my criticisms will assist us in RESCUING Mises from the lunatic fringe, and RESCUING his work for use in intellectual discourse – as the first attempt at saving Economics through operationalism, the way that science and psychology (if not also mathematics and logic) have been saved by operationalism.

    **I see myself as rescuing ALL of the Misesian/Hoppeian program from the fruitcake fringe: by laundering German, Jewish and British enlightenment fallacies – the attempt to universalize local evolutionary strategy – rather than simply adopt scientific epistemology (operationalism) as the only neutral tool for the use of studying group evolutionary strategies.**

    Although it is, I am sure, somewhat difficult for those religiously devoted to immoral, libertine, Rothbardianism to either understand or accept.

    I am quite sure I do not err in this analysis. A statement which I am aware further taunts libertines. But which my fellow aristocrats (libertarians-proper) both understand and expect from me as a promise. Because the anglo-empirical model of truth telling, quite opposite from the cosmopolitan, is that truth is the name for testimony. And as such I testify that to the best of my knowledge my statement is true. And that I bear the reputational consequences of my promise that this statement is true. This is the polar opposite of the Popperian, Analytic, and Cosmopolitan version of true: that truth is the unknowable province of god alone, and as such we can only ‘do what we can’, and as such are unaccountable for our words.

    This ethic, this definition of truth, as performative – as operational, is what Kant was searching for, but could not find. And it is why both Jewish and German philosophy are dead ends. And it is why english philosophy became lost through its influence by the germans and the cosmopolitans.

    We lost a century of philosophy to cosmopolitan pseudoscience in economics, politics, ethics and logic. Germans lost centuries to pseudo-philosophical religio-moralism. Mises can be seen in context as the most successful – if still failed – attempt to rescue german and cosmopolitan thought from its religious constraints.

    – Cheers.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Philosophy of Aristocracy

    The Propertarian Institute

    Kiev Ukraine

    Source date (UTC): 2014-10-17 03:44:00 UTC

  • THE LOGIC OF DIVORCE Data suggests that the no fault divorce was one of the wors

    THE LOGIC OF DIVORCE

    Data suggests that the no fault divorce was one of the worst legislative failures in history.

    Now, my view is that we either relegate marriage to the equivalent of a power of attorney, and eliminate common property entirely, or that we return to fault, for the distribution of common property in the event of failure.

    Single motherhood is responsible for the rise in inequality, as much as is third world immigration, and the failure of the education system to create competitive labor, and the university system for selling defective and un-warrantied products.

    Propertarianism would recommend that we eliminate common property because it is not in fact a commons: that which is unavailable for consumption. As such marital assets cannot be considered a commons since they are available for consumption. And so this law is a deception.

    Conversely, fault based divorce increases the risk of exiting the marriage, and increases the incentives for preserving it.

    Likewise alimony and child support are both destructive in that they merely ignore the cost of maintaining two households- especially given that males can no longer trade their productivity, while women can still trade their sex and affection.

    My intuition is that marriage with high penalty was an extremely useful institution inseparable from Liberty, capitalism, and the civic society. It forces concentration of wealth and it’s highly eugenic when in nuclear and absolute nuclear form.

    We are currently practicing the worst of all possible choices.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-10-15 03:04:00 UTC

  • FROM ELSEWHERE: CLASSIFYING ONE’S SELF AS ‘AUSTRIAN’: INVESTIGATION VERSUS EXPLA

    FROM ELSEWHERE: CLASSIFYING ONE’S SELF AS ‘AUSTRIAN’: INVESTIGATION VERSUS EXPLANATION.

    I think most people who self identify as austrian outside of their employment:

    (a) mean that they use the austrian model of incentives and partial knowledge to understand the world we live in.

    (b) are merely using “I am” for the purpose of brevity, rather than the fully articulated: “I practice austrian economic models when I think of social questions.”

    The thing is, we can test statement (b), and have tested it, and it turns out that people can actually make use of that model, and that their use of that model is highly predictive, and highly explanatory.

    So given that the misesian austrian program (versus the christian austrian program) evolved as a legal-rational one, rather than an empirical one, I am not sure that the average person who uses the Austrian model is not practicing Austrian thought. I disagree that he is practicing empirical investigation, but I agree that he is practicing rational explanation.

    So given that to ‘be’ something is a verbalism (obscurantism using the verb to-be), and that Austrian thought falls into both empirical study, and rational explanation, I think that the debate as to whether one self identifies as Austrian or not, is simply a verbal criticism in itself.

    The empirical economist investigates phenomenon, and the rational modeler explains phenomenon by deduction from incentives. And both classify themselves as Austrian but fail to distinguish between the two schools of Austrian methods.

    Unfortunately Mises (and all the fruitcake-fringe at the Mises institute) conflate the empirical attempt at defining general rules, and the deductive application of general rules (modeling) for the purpose of explanation.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-10-13 20:46:00 UTC

  • LEGAL INSTITUTIONS VERSUS RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS A Truth: contracts provide bett

    LEGAL INSTITUTIONS VERSUS RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS

    A Truth: contracts provide better memory and incentive than do beliefs.

    So if you want a behavior: moms teach children beliefs.

    Adults teach behaviors by institutions and incentives.

    We defend the intent of those institutions by contract.

    The first contract is a constitution enumerating the means of constructing those institutions.

    Prior to that contract property exists as that which we are able to defend.

    Property rights can only be constructed consequent to that contract.

    Anyone who speaks of encouraging belief or value instead of contract and institution merely has failed to mature into a political adult from a mere parent or shaman.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-10-13 06:45:00 UTC

  • WHITE LIES AS HONEST, ETHICAL AND MORAL (contrary perspective – truth telling as

    WHITE LIES AS HONEST, ETHICAL AND MORAL

    (contrary perspective – truth telling as potential verbalism)

    I have a really good lie detector, but I also know who is capable of fooling me. The value of lying increases rapidly under certain conditions, and decreases rapidly under others. So, in my life, under these conditions, I just don’t have an opportunity to work under conditions with the class of people who even desire to outright lie. Nor do I put people in a position where they can lie to me, or would want to. So, in my world, people don’t lie. They negotiate, fail to understand, and they err.

    I have no problem at all with white lies and I usually prefer that people tell them whenever possible if it’s ‘good manners’: as means of preserving confidences primarily. Even one’s own confidences. It is a signal that they are trustworthy rather than blabbermouths or social incompetents.

    I usually rely on distractions or incomplete truths in order to preserve confidences while at the same time sharing information that is not in confidence. I think, or at least, my experience is, that this is a sort of necessary, well-understood-language if not protocol among those with power.

    To some degree, great politicians do nothing EXCEPT tell white lies that convey information while preserving confidences. Great negotiators tell half truths for the same reason. The art is in never lying EVER while at the same time preserving confidences. And confidences are necessary for constructing networks of economic dependencies. The reason is that incentives can be manipulated under truth-telling, for unethical, immoral, and un-earned advantage. So in that case, white lies, particularly, distractions and incomplete information that eliminates the ability for others to use unethical, immoral, and un-earned advantage are both ethical and moral. (Wrap your head around that.)

    However, I’ve found that ordinary folk who live in a world of suspicion because they can’t function as good lie detectors, nor can they model incentives of others, get angry with you for this behavior. So it’s somewhat of a problem if you mix class-associations. Because as andy says,we all use only one means of lying.

    So, like violence, it is not the action itself that is moral or immoral, but whether one is violating a property right (including a confidence). Lying is never required because it is for one’s advantage – fraud), but distraction, obscurantism, and truth telling (the amount of information communicated) must be present in some terms, because otherwise you are assisting in a conspiracy to gain advantage where the seller does not want his incentives to be considered as part of the transaction.

    We have to separate negotiation over demand, for negotiation over supply. Incentives are external to the transaction. The question is only whether what is represented in the transaction is true or not.

    For some reason this gets lost in our ethical, moral, and legal theory.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-10-13 05:10:00 UTC

  • FOR THE POST-LABOR ERA Thoughts. 1) We use the word ‘abstractions’ and ‘calculat

    http://www.careeroverdrive.com/blog/the-accelerating-assault-to-digitize-automate-mechanize-robotize-you-out-of-a-job-podcast-textHOPE FOR THE POST-LABOR ERA

    Thoughts.

    1) We use the word ‘abstractions’ and ‘calculations’ but a better term is ‘ model ‘. (A subject I’m currently working on). Most people learn by imitation (observation and repetition). And some by imagining actions. Some by abstractions of actions. Some by models of universes. Some by inventing models of universes. And the problem is that the ability to construct models of any type requires a right shift in intelligence distribution of a standard deviation.

    2) I think I have a ‘socio-economic’ solution to this problem, because while it is true that fewer people will engage in the production of market goods and services, the same nearly universal set of people will still be required to engage in the production of the market itself: the voluntary organization of production and consumption. And furthermore, that we can increasingly pay people to produce commons. And it is commons that will bring about the star trek cities and landscape we imagine in the future – not consumption.

    3) I could imagine requiring all physical structures for example, be built from hand-materials – that require labor. I could equally imagine regulating machines out of human-possible jobs.

    4) I could imagine MMT and heavy redistribution, where ‘working’ was a preference for above-standard-redistribution amounts, and therefore status, and luxury goods. Work was a vehicle for status rather than existence. And furthermore that child-bearing decreased your redistributed income.

    5) One thing I often think about is how an oligarchy of producers (like the greeks were) and a vast non-producing proletariat might follow their existing incentives. Meaning, why wouldn’t society return to feudalism of the productive, rather than a feudalism of the people who construct property rights necessary for production (warrior land-holders)? Because those are the incentives that I see.

    These are the models that I work with. So there is a bit of hope here that a socio-political solution will not only be possible but a beneficial adaptation. The fundamental problem is in preserving the incentives to conduct a voluntary organization of production (capitalism). However, under capitalism we falsely assume that the work necessary to create a voluntary organization of production (property rights) by every individual in society is not in itself an act of production that exposes individuals to high costs (it is).

    So individuals engage in production of the commons we call the market, even if they do not engage in production of particulars (goods and services). If you do not advocate for an involuntary structure of production (socialism), and you engage in production of the commons (property rights and therefore the market) and you pay for your shareholdership by doings so, then it is hard to see that it is not a violation of your rights to compensate you for your production of the commons (the market) by producing, respecting and policing property rights.

    This further preserves liberty because it allows for the institutional illegalization of socialism (the involuntary organization of production, in which individuals do not act to produce the commons of the voluntary organization of production.)

    Source date (UTC): 2014-10-13 04:26:00 UTC

  • SELF DECEPTION: THE ELEPHANT, THE RIDER, THE DEMON, AND THE MACHINE The “Rider”

    SELF DECEPTION: THE ELEPHANT, THE RIDER, THE DEMON, AND THE MACHINE

    The “Rider” may not be able to engage in self deception, but the “Elephant” can absolutely deceive the “Rider”.

    The Rider: Reason (System 2) (the calculative system)

    The Elephant: Intuition (System 1) (The “Search” system)

    The Demon : The Cooperative Instinct (System 0) (Biases Property to Reproductive strategy)

    The Machine : The “Property” Instinct : (System Null) (Acquisitiveness)

    I knew it was possible to engage in self-deception, but I wasn’t able to articulate it before. Since ‘self’ consists of three entities, and the ‘self’ we are cognizant of is only one of three agents, the elephant can train the rider. Easily it turns out.

    The Demon is not aware of itself, it merely responds to commands. The Rider is cognizant of the elephant, but the Elephant chooses between the rider and the Demon, and never tells the rider of the Demon.

    HUMANS ENGAGE IN SELF DECEPTION. THE SINGULAR SELF IS A FALLACY. THE ARGUMENT AGAINST SELF DECEPTION DEPENDS UPON THIS FALLACY.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-10-08 13:19:00 UTC

  • CURIOUS: CULTURAL OBSERVATIONS As a CEO my style is very American: meaning liber

    CURIOUS: CULTURAL OBSERVATIONS

    As a CEO my style is very American: meaning libertarian in management: I try to create as much of a bottom-up organization as possible with as little management as possible, and to attract the best talent possible, because the best talent wants to demonstrate creative expression – in a country where creative expression is a competitive value.

    The general thinking in the states is that employees know customers the best and so we need to empower them to serve customers. We get profits from helping them serve customers. The more we help them the more profits we make. The increase in credit capacity and the petro dollar has not been good for us in this respect, because it has given consumers a lot of free money to inflate the economy while reducing our discipline. In Europe consumers are much ‘poorer’ by every possible measure and so companies must fight for their attention. Conversely, people are much more patient with companies and regulations and rules than americans would be. So the culture tolerates the business climate and visa versa.

    But where this shows up is lack of rotation in Europe, and less radical innovation, while we get better engineering out of germans (again, who I think ‘do it right’) in education at least – if not in an oppressiveness that is beyond my comfort. And without the humor that my anglo peers survive on. 🙂

    I wonder how Oversing will play in european countries? Will europeans be able to handle(tolerate) that much transparency? That much honesty? That much measurement? That much social rather than hierarchical feedback? That much customer service? Or will just young competitors make use of such a product? Or will more hierarchical companies turn off the transparency and use it as command and control? Young people get it. Technology people worldwide seem to get it. Ukrainian’s get it. Russians get it. South American’s get it.

    Hmmm…. What else….

    In the states we try to push independent thinking farther down the chain than is possible. And we don’t train the bottom to be capable. We pretend everyone can become a member of the middle (or upper middle) class and fail the majority by doing so. (we have the world’s most absurd education system in that regard. for the upper half it’s awesome. but for the lower half its a tragedy.)

    Germany does it about right. They focus on making the lower half excellent and so the upper half has better assets to work with that way. And it shows. Maybe Finland does it better. But they have a more homogenous society to work with so they can create a better universal educational system. But Finn’s are too timid in business. Germans are the most honest after americans. I notice that it’s actually easier to deal with germans than other americans and I have to stop myself from couching everything inoffensively when talking.

    I don’t really understand the UK system. And I have had very bad experiences there. So maybe I’m biased. People turn out more literate. The middle turns out pretty well and the top excellent. But the bottom is… not as bad as the states in incompetence, but worse than the states in rent seeking behavior. Our bottom end can’t find work but they don’t try to avoid it. I don’t understand the class in the UK that seeks to avoid labor at all costs, and do the minimum whenever possible. It could be that class exists all over Europe but I only have access to it in the UK and Canada. And it’s really visible to me in both the UK and Canada.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-10-08 11:53:00 UTC

  • WHY ARE CLASSICAL LIBERALS (LIBERTARIANS) CONCERNED WITH “RIGHTS”? ANSWER: RULE

    WHY ARE CLASSICAL LIBERALS (LIBERTARIANS) CONCERNED WITH “RIGHTS”? ANSWER: RULE OF LAW.

    Our only known method of eliminating authority, is to create rules of behavior under rule of law, where (a) all rights are expressed as property rights, (b) all obligations and prohibitions apply to all, without exception, (c) all rights evolve from property rights by judicial application of the principles of property rights: (i)requirement for production/ prohibition on parasitism / non-conflict, via (ii) homesteading/first-use/abandonment and voluntary-exchange/construction, under (iii) the presumption of reasonable knowledge, and reasonable actor (Propertarianism:sympathetic testing), (iv) truthful testimony, (v) judged by peers – to new circumstances. Propertarianism requires also, (vi) such judgements be expressed as (vi.i) original intentions and (vi.ii) strict construction, and (vi.iii) in operational language.

    NOTES

    1) Progressives: Moral intuitions are insufficient for judgement in these matters, regressive, and dysgenic for these matters. Reason is insufficient for these matters. Our reason has ALWAYS failed us, in no small part because we are victims of cognitive bias that only disciplined application of science can moderately mitigate.

    2) Conservatives: Moral traditions are insufficiently adaptive in real time for these matters. Our traditions evolved when technology was relatively static. and our traditions failed us when technology changed faster than our traditions could adapt.

    3) Libertines: amorality is insufficient for the formation of a polity that does not resort to either retaliation or authority to prevent retaliation.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-10-08 11:18:00 UTC

  • CULTURAL OBSERVATIONS: UK VS USA (worth repeating) I always want to smack Brits

    CULTURAL OBSERVATIONS: UK VS USA

    (worth repeating)

    I always want to smack Brits for incompetence. But their view of competence is pleasing the boss, while our view is pleasing the customer while making sure the boss merely gets his cut.

    —

    It’s very interesting how much pride Americans take in customer service, and how they treat rules other than those about money as guidelines, and that rigorous attention to rules is a sign of incompetence.

    Whereas for Brits, rigorous adherence to rules is not only a civic duty, a moral mandate, but a matter of pride.

    These differences are expressions of American distaste for hierarchy and Continental fear of a vacuum of it.

    It also reflects American risk taking ( the stock market in the USA) versus British (the bond market in London .)

    And the difference in proactive rules in Europe, and reactive rules in the States.

    It explains American use of lawyers to resolve conflicts rather than European rules and processes to prevent them occurring.

    Everything is easier in the states by orders of magnitude for this reason.

    You will feel safer in Europe. You can get rich in the states just by working hard.

    It’s fascinating really.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-10-08 09:50:00 UTC