Curt Doolittle

Form: Mini Essay

  • Why Haven’t Western Countries Signed The International Convention On The Protection Of The Rights Of All Migrant Workers & Members Of Their Families?

    All human rights are reducible to property rights, because all rights that can be brought into existence are reducible to property rights.  The International charter of human rights consists, in all but the last three line items, of statements of private property rights.  The last three, are not rights but ‘ambitions’ and were reluctantly admitted to the charter at the time under pressure of the then-communist governments.  These last three are not human rights but political obligations that developed countries use to hold undeveloped political authorities accountable for their acitons.

    This accountability is part of the post-war consensus, enforced by the United States as a world policeman,  that granted all states rights to respect for their borders if they obeyed human rights.  (Which Russia recently violated, destroying the postwar consensus.)

    The proposed charter is a license for the theft of property from high trust western polities by peoples of low trust cultures who are themselves unable to create high trust polities.  As such it cannot be considered a ‘right’ but instead a luxury good, or perhaps a license for limited theft.

    The rapid abandonment of socialism and communism and the worldwide adoption of capitalism have eliminated the privileged status of Western peoples because of the artificial shortage of labor.  Now that this shortage has been eliminated, western cultures no longer have labor advantages, and only have institutional advantages. As such increasing the immigration, power, or privileges of expensive underclasses is no longer affordable.

    https://www.quora.com/Why-havent-western-countries-signed-the-International-Convention-on-the-Protection-of-the-Rights-of-All-Migrant-Workers-Members-of-Their-Families

  • Capitalism: Cronyism Or Collectivism?

    I’M GOING TO PROVIDE AN INTERESTING AND POSSIBLY NOVEL ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION.

    Neither Capitalism (the voluntary organization of production, and distributed control of property) nor Socialism (the involuntary organization of production, and the centralized control of property) is possible.   Both systems result in totalitarian oligarchies.  Economic operation under socialism is impossible.  Economic concentration under capitalism is undesirable (by the masses).  The general argument is that capitalist oligarchies destroy each other in a constant process of creative destruction, and that socialist oligarchies do not.  This appears to be fairly obvious from both the logic and the evidence.

    Given the impossibility of either, the open question is the following:

    1) HOW DO WE MAINTAIN SYMMETRY OF COSTS OF THE SOCIAL ORDER NECESSARY FOR THE VOLUNTARY ORGANIZATION OF PRODUCTION GIVEN THE ASYMMETRY OF ECONOMIC PRODUCTIVITY OF INDIVIDUALS
    Under agrarianism, when we developed political universalism, we were equally able to contribute to the economy, because human physical effort and human mental discipline were the only determinants of relative productivity.  However, increasingly, the ability to work with abstract ideas has evolved to become competitively advantageous, while labor and learning by observation and imitation have lost all value in the economy.  As such, some individuals are highly productive and others are not. And there is no evidence of this difference in productivity.

    Capitalism is the name we use for the distribution of property to individuals where they may voluntarily organize and participate in production, and where they possess the incentive to participate in production, even if their only property is their body, time, and effort.

    When we respect property: private, shareholder and commons, and when we respect norms : manners, ethics, morals, myths, traditions and rituals, we pay for access to society and the market, and the system of production.  Unfortunately,

    Conversely, respect for law, order, manners, ethics, morals, traditions and norms – all of which ask us to forego opportunities for gratification, fall increasingly on the unproductive classes.  So if the lower classes must both observe laws, order, property, manners, ethics, morals, traditions and rituals, while at the same time they are unable to participate in the economy, then it is no longer logical for them to continue to forgo all these opportunities and pay the high cost of deprivation, when they obtain only access to the market for good and services, but not the ability to participate in the voluntary organization of production that forgoing opportunities for gratification makes possible. 

    2) WHY MONOPOLY FORM OF GOVERNMENT?
    Then second question is whether a society, under an homogenous government, practicing homogenous manners, ethics, morals, rituals, and myths,  really needs to exist as it has in the past.  Why for example, cannot the upper classes make use of a libertarian government, while the lower classes make use of a socialist government?  There is no reason really.  Most of western history relied upon state (nobility) and church (laity), or aristocracy (farmers) and labor (slaves – in the old world not new world sense).  The idea that we must possess a single economic and political system for people with different needs was an artifice of the enlightenment and most of our wars, and in fact, the war that nearly ended western civilization (ww1+ww2) was largely caused by the attempt to create an ideology justifying a monopoly form of government over people with dissimilar economic and political interests. 

    For economic cooperation to be possible one must possess uniform individual property rights, or economic cooperation and calculation is not possible.

    However, individuals can choose to collectivize their property, and others to atomize it, as suits their interests, and then the lower classes can negotiate with the upper classes for access to the lower classes as a market, the way states with different economies conduct trade policy with states with higher or lower standards of living and therefore costs.

    The reason we are in conflict is artificial.  We do not need to choose between socialism and capitalism.  We do not need to blend the two.  We can make use of both as we desire. Monopoly is just another word for tyranny, if our interests are sufficiently dissimilar, because our abilities to engage in productivity are sufficiently dissimilar.

    https://www.quora.com/Capitalism-CRONYISM-OR-COLLECTIVISM

  • What Are Ethics For An It Professional?

    INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ETHICS

    This is an interesting question in the sense that it’s a clear application of the problem of asymmetry of information, understanding, and power, in the control of a utility (a commons).

    In any niche where one has power and influence over others, because of an asymmetry of knowledge of a common resource that the others cannot  understand without extraordinary personal investment, and where he possesses power over others’ use of a common resource, we encounter the challenges of:

    (a) Free-riding: pretending to work in exchange for payment, while not providing market-value in return, because one is not subject to competition which would discover and cure one’s free-riding.

    (b) Corruption : seeking favors or privileges by granting favors or privileges.

    (c) Privatization : obtaining personal benefit from a common resource that could be consumed by others.

    (d) Punishment : deliberately punishing individuals and groups by virtue of one’s control over the provision of the common resource.

    (e) Harm : Deliberately causing the failure of individuals or groups by virtue of one’s control over the function of the common resource.

    (f) Functioning As An Agent: allowing one’s self to be used to free ride, engage in corruption, privatization punishment or harm.

    Take no personal benefit, give no favors, do no harm, preserve ethical independence from agency,  and make decisions at all times by the business value of the work to be performed.

    Ethical Challenges

    Political hierarchies exist by in all bureaucracies, whether private or public, which operate independently from market competition, which constantly discovers inefficiencies (corruption).

    While one an usually adhere to (a) thru (e) in one’s job, it is very hard in a bureaucracy not to be pressured into (f) (Agency) in a bureaucracy. In fact, the trading of such favors (corruption) is the currency that forms the economy of bureaucracies that are insulated from the market.

    Historical Influences
    In the 20th century, ethical pragmatism (outcome-based ethics)  has replaced ethical absolutism (rule-based ethics) due to the constant pressure of left intellectuals’ attack on western high-trust ethics.  This has allowed the ethical pragmatism of lower trust polities to spread in western culture.  As such it is difficult to operate ethically in private life, commercial life and public life, because such unethical action is beneficial to the individual while harmful to society. 

    This is why westerners are the only people to develop high trust societies. It’s very hard.

    https://www.quora.com/What-are-ethics-for-an-IT-professional

  • Is Multiculturalism Good For Independent Thinkers Who Don’t See Themselves As Part Of Any Group In A Multiculural City/society?

    SHORT TERM LUXURY FOR LONG TERM EXPENSE

    Multiculturalism is permissible as a short term luxury that increases consumption by servicing a multitude of consumers, without requiring that consumers pay the cost of adapting to the norms of the host culture.  For this reason, both the sellers and the consumers obtain what they want at a discount. Unfortunately the discount is short term, as multiculturalism decreases trust, and increases political friction,  both of which increase transaction costs.  This is why, over the long term, multiculturalism occurs at the expense of the high trust society’s norms that made the wealth possible, that made the temporary luxury of multiculturalism possible.

    So no, multiculturalism is a a form of overconsumption. We may like it but it’s not ‘good’ by any measure. It is in fact, one of the surest ways to lead to conflict and civil war.

    https://www.quora.com/Is-multiculturalism-good-for-independent-thinkers-who-dont-see-themselves-as-part-of-any-group-in-a-multiculural-city-society

  • Capitalism: Cronyism Or Collectivism?

    I’M GOING TO PROVIDE AN INTERESTING AND POSSIBLY NOVEL ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION.

    Neither Capitalism (the voluntary organization of production, and distributed control of property) nor Socialism (the involuntary organization of production, and the centralized control of property) is possible.   Both systems result in totalitarian oligarchies.  Economic operation under socialism is impossible.  Economic concentration under capitalism is undesirable (by the masses).  The general argument is that capitalist oligarchies destroy each other in a constant process of creative destruction, and that socialist oligarchies do not.  This appears to be fairly obvious from both the logic and the evidence.

    Given the impossibility of either, the open question is the following:

    1) HOW DO WE MAINTAIN SYMMETRY OF COSTS OF THE SOCIAL ORDER NECESSARY FOR THE VOLUNTARY ORGANIZATION OF PRODUCTION GIVEN THE ASYMMETRY OF ECONOMIC PRODUCTIVITY OF INDIVIDUALS
    Under agrarianism, when we developed political universalism, we were equally able to contribute to the economy, because human physical effort and human mental discipline were the only determinants of relative productivity.  However, increasingly, the ability to work with abstract ideas has evolved to become competitively advantageous, while labor and learning by observation and imitation have lost all value in the economy.  As such, some individuals are highly productive and others are not. And there is no evidence of this difference in productivity.

    Capitalism is the name we use for the distribution of property to individuals where they may voluntarily organize and participate in production, and where they possess the incentive to participate in production, even if their only property is their body, time, and effort.

    When we respect property: private, shareholder and commons, and when we respect norms : manners, ethics, morals, myths, traditions and rituals, we pay for access to society and the market, and the system of production.  Unfortunately,

    Conversely, respect for law, order, manners, ethics, morals, traditions and norms – all of which ask us to forego opportunities for gratification, fall increasingly on the unproductive classes.  So if the lower classes must both observe laws, order, property, manners, ethics, morals, traditions and rituals, while at the same time they are unable to participate in the economy, then it is no longer logical for them to continue to forgo all these opportunities and pay the high cost of deprivation, when they obtain only access to the market for good and services, but not the ability to participate in the voluntary organization of production that forgoing opportunities for gratification makes possible. 

    2) WHY MONOPOLY FORM OF GOVERNMENT?
    Then second question is whether a society, under an homogenous government, practicing homogenous manners, ethics, morals, rituals, and myths,  really needs to exist as it has in the past.  Why for example, cannot the upper classes make use of a libertarian government, while the lower classes make use of a socialist government?  There is no reason really.  Most of western history relied upon state (nobility) and church (laity), or aristocracy (farmers) and labor (slaves – in the old world not new world sense).  The idea that we must possess a single economic and political system for people with different needs was an artifice of the enlightenment and most of our wars, and in fact, the war that nearly ended western civilization (ww1+ww2) was largely caused by the attempt to create an ideology justifying a monopoly form of government over people with dissimilar economic and political interests. 

    For economic cooperation to be possible one must possess uniform individual property rights, or economic cooperation and calculation is not possible.

    However, individuals can choose to collectivize their property, and others to atomize it, as suits their interests, and then the lower classes can negotiate with the upper classes for access to the lower classes as a market, the way states with different economies conduct trade policy with states with higher or lower standards of living and therefore costs.

    The reason we are in conflict is artificial.  We do not need to choose between socialism and capitalism.  We do not need to blend the two.  We can make use of both as we desire. Monopoly is just another word for tyranny, if our interests are sufficiently dissimilar, because our abilities to engage in productivity are sufficiently dissimilar.

    https://www.quora.com/Capitalism-CRONYISM-OR-COLLECTIVISM

  • WE WERE WRONG AND MANKIND IS COMMITTING GENOCIDE AGAINST US FOR OUR SINS. You kn

    WE WERE WRONG AND MANKIND IS COMMITTING GENOCIDE AGAINST US FOR OUR SINS.

    You know, I’m chiseling away at correcting the enlightenment. I didn’t realize that’s what I was doing, but thats what, under the chisel, lies inside the stone, ready to emerge.

    – Fallacy of the Anglo Enlightenment – universalism and the aristocracy of everybody – the people of the island. (the navy)

    – The fallacies of the German enlightenment – the verbalist religion of german philosophers – the people of the land. (the armies)

    – The fallacies of the Jewish enlightenment – the new mysticism of verbal pseudoscience – the people without land (the priests)

    – The resistance of the Chinese to the enlightenment – the ruthless defense of power, tribe and family.

    – The resistance of the muslims to the enlightenment – the ruthless defense of the priesthood, tribe and family.

    The enlightenment authors used science to obtain power in an organized attack on the church and monarchy. But the result was that we let loose the barbarians not only in our own culture, but in every culture as well.

    Reproduction Reigns. The family reigns. The tribe Reigns. Universalism is suicide.

    ALL OTHER CULTURES ARE RIGHT TO RESIST US. WE WERE WRONG. AND THEY ARE DESTROYING US FOR IT. WE WERE WRONG. WE ARE STILL WRONG. AND WE ARE DYING BECAUSE WE ARE WRONG.

    We either tell the truth, and demand the truth in exchange, under penalty of violence, or we die.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-08-10 04:32:00 UTC

  • CAN THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE PEOPLE WHO DEVELOPED SCIENCE HAVE A DANGEROUS GAP? (Ye

    CAN THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE PEOPLE WHO DEVELOPED SCIENCE HAVE A DANGEROUS GAP? (Yes)

    If you had told me that western philosophy contained such a catastrophic hole that we could be nearly destroyed by ideas even worse than monotheism, I would have told you to write science fiction novellas.

    It turns out it’s true.

    We treat truth and universalism as normal. But when our knowledge exceeded human scale, we adopted platonic truth, and at the very same time, the continentals and cosmopolitans swamped us with pseudoscience.

    The european new right is wrong. We don’t need a religion. We don’t need to return to religion.

    We just need to speak the truth.

    And speaking the truth, it turns out, isn’t a philosophical proposition that is open to interpretation. You can either give an operational description or you can’t.

    The truth is, that we’ve been poisoned as seriously as we were when Justinian closed the greek schools, and imposed middle eastern mysticism upon us.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-08-07 09:40:00 UTC

  • DON’T BENEFIT, BUT DEPEND, ON INTUITION Scientific investigation is not logical

    http://www.quora.com/How-do-scientists-and-inventors-benefit-from-subjectivity-and-intuition/answer/Curt-Doolittle?share=1SCIENTISTS DON’T BENEFIT, BUT DEPEND, ON INTUITION

    Scientific investigation is not logical but intuitive, because it is conducted by free association. Because formal logic has attracted unmerited attention in the 20th century, the importance of the scientist in the ‘decidability’ (which is the correct term, believe it or not) between possible avenues of exploration has been lost. There is no such possible logical means of deciding how to investigate – other than perhaps the relationship between cost and content falsified. But even this proposition is impossible to decide logically, since the domain of possible solutions is limited only by the general knowledge of the scientist and his or her capacity for free association (identification of possible patterns – which we tend to reduce to IQ.)

    In other words, it’s is not that they benefit from it, it is that they DEPEND UPON IT.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-08-06 12:21:00 UTC

  • PERCEPTIONS: FAMILY STRUCTURE, TRUST AND CLASS Protestants practice the Absolute

    http://www.quora.com/Ethnic-and-Cultural-Differences-1/What-are-the-most-difficult-cultural-understandings-the-French-from-France-have-to-face-when-living-in-North-America/answer/Curt-Doolittle?share=1FRENCH PERCEPTIONS: FAMILY STRUCTURE, TRUST AND CLASS

    Protestants practice the Absolute Nuclear Family and the High Trust Society. In the Protestant (northern european) social model, high trust is extended to non-family members. In the catholic countries, they practice the extended family model, and high trust is retained for use only by family members, and not extended to ‘everyone you meet’.

    This explains the size of statism, and the authoritarianism in France, versus the libertarianism and rate of entrepreneurship in Anglo countries. The lower the trust in your polity, the more demand there is for authority to organize society, organize production and prevent conflicts. The more trust in your society, the less need demand (or need) there is for the authoritarian organization of society and production. This explains the difference between anglo high trust absolute nuclear, and french lower-trust extended families.

    Furthermore, as the original question positions, the high trust polity means that it is easier to take advantage of that trust and abuse it. So anglos demonstrate higher Altruistic Punishment of offenders, whereas the French do not.

    To French, Anglos appear to be ‘stupid’ and ‘dishonestly friendly’. And treat family members badly To anglos, the French appear to be ill mannered, if not outright rude, coddle laziness in the family; and the government appears to be predatory and corrupt. (In Quebec, it is possibly true.)

    SOME INTERESTING DATA

    1) In negotiations, who are the least hostile people in the world? Americans, Anglo-Canadians, and Germans. Who are the most hostile people in the world: the French. (The study counts the use of certain categories of words).

    2) In Canada, the Anglo immigrants came largely from the lower middle and middle classes. The French citizens of Quebec came disproportionately from the lower classes. This difference in classes provides greater insight into the different cultures than background alone.

    Curt Doolittle

    Source date (UTC): 2014-08-06 12:12:00 UTC

  • IMPACT OF ORDINARY MAN? (Hampering the fantasies of ordinary people everywhere,

    http://www.quora.com/Can-a-common-man-with-average-intelligence-make-a-significant-change-in-the-society/answer/Curt-Doolittle?share=1THE IMPACT OF ORDINARY MAN?

    (Hampering the fantasies of ordinary people everywhere, but giving them a note of solace in return…. Can an ordinary person significantly change society?)

    An important and interesting question, So I will do my best. Although you might not like the answer.

    1) Well, a common man certainly can make a positive impact on society merely by accumulating and making use of the Virtues.

    2) Common many have made positive impact accidentally on the world by virtuous action at the right moment in time. But that is not to say that they possessed a brilliant idea or persuasive character. It means only that as virtuous people they seized an opportunity when it came before them, even if they did not construct that opportunity themselves.

    3) The historical record suggests that most people who make a significant POSITIVE impact on society are not average. In fact, the record is almost absent of common individuals. The people who do make a significant impact tend to be above average, largely from the middle or upper middle classes – in other words, not common.

    4) The interesting question is whether the common man, correctly estimates that his reasons, opinions or imaginations, would produce what is a POSITIVE impact upon society. If you imagine what a child sounds like to an adult; what a student sounds like to a professor; what a common citizen sounds like to a statesman or scholar – the result is always the same: that we are always unconscious of our incompetence. If we were aware of our incompetence we might lack the will to do anything at all. So we evolved confidence in the face of ignorance out of necessity.

    So the question is really whether the common man has any significant value to add to society other than his assumption that he does. On the other hand, there are many people who are not average who none the less are not omniscient, always looking for ideas to use in changing the world.

    And so, it is possible that an ordinary fellow might stumble across a good idea. But even if he did, is it possible for his idea to compete with the many many ideas, of all the individuals who are above average, and who are ALSO struggling to change the world?

    The market for ideas is no different from the market for products and services. If you cannot sell your idea, that is because no one is buying it. If no one buys it then that is evidence that it isn’t wanted. If it isn’t wanted, then by definition, it isn’t ‘good’.

    The greeks had it right you know: wisdom is found in increasing the knowledge of your own ignorance.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-08-06 10:43:00 UTC