Curt Doolittle

Form: Mini Essay

  • PHILOSOPHICAL PSYCHOLOGY AND MORAL PROFILING Just realized that I have to add a

    PHILOSOPHICAL PSYCHOLOGY AND MORAL PROFILING

    Just realized that I have to add a bit of psychology to Propertarianism. Right now I address the different moral biases as reproductive strategies. And I think that’s a baked cake. I also addressed the IQ over 105 issue. I also addressed the Pareto distribution (Power Curve) problem.

    But I haven’t addressed the Solipsism – Autism issue. And I haven’t addressed their opposite: the ability to CORRECTLY empathize with various world views. And I think propertarianism allows us to do that pretty concretely.

    Now, I can’t often read facial expressions well (mild face blindness). And my range of emotion is probably narrower (although amplified). But I can understand almost any feelings that are verbally articulated. So maybe this gives me a little advantage. I simply can’t intuit all that much unless I work at it. So I got good at working at it. (Probably because I still want to be accepted just as much as any other person does.)

    MORAL PROFILING RATHER THAN PERSONALITY PROFILING

    We used to take personality tests. And I think those are useful. But since MOST OF OUR BEHAVIOR is MORAL, and our moral actions more active, then we should TEST FOR MORAL COMPASS not so much as test for personality.

    Personality matters WITHIN your moral compass, and sure, your personality influences your choice of moral compass, but if the truth be told, I would rather understand your moral (and political) interests if I debate with you. And I would rather understand your personality if I have to WORK with you. Those are two different things.

    PHILOSOPHICAL PSYCHOLOGY

    Owen Flanagan (FB: owen.flanagan), who is still my favorite ethicist proposed a list of questions that any philosophical psychology should answer. I have, I think, successfully answered all his questions in Propertarianism. It was a good test to subject my work to. And his challenge was priceless in that regard.

    I think that both the study of Morals by Haidt, and the study of cognitive biases by Kahneman have settled the biological, and evolutionary biological, causes. I think I have done the job of completing ethics pretty thoroughly. I might have (although I’m not sure) settled the problem of epistemology as well by solving ethics. Although it’s a bit hard for others to grasp right now that we may be morally accountable for our spoken words.

    But we are still plagued by universalism – “one-ness” from consent, rather than one-ness from cooperation. Both the anglo enlightenment, “aristocracy of everyone” and the continental enlightenment “priesthood of everyone” or french “proletariat of everyone”. Whereas, under the monarchies, there was no ‘everyone’. There were many tribes. And that was a better political model than “seizing government to make an ‘everyone’”.

    I’m going to see what I can find on mixing personality profiles and moral profiles. That ought to be interesting.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-03-04 14:45:00 UTC

  • THE FUTURE OF ECONOMICS AND COOPERATIVE SCIENCE (interesting) I doubt that econo

    THE FUTURE OF ECONOMICS AND COOPERATIVE SCIENCE

    (interesting)

    I doubt that economics will ever evolve to be predictive, since we would adapt to any prediction. I do not doubt that economics will evolve to be almost universally descriptive. or at least sufficiently so that further inquiry won’t provide additional knowledge about mankind and human behavior.

    I **DO** believe that we can construct a science of COOPERATION instead of a science of ‘economics’. I think this categorization of cooperation as economic has taken root, and it may be impossible to fix at this point. However, the study of economic activity is the use of easily recorded economic data to capture the demonstrated behavior and preferences of human beings better than any other form of test can possibly do.

    But the science we are constructing through economics, cognitive science, and experimental psychology, is the the science of COOPERATION.

    That science, for all intents and purposes has yielded, and will yield, only one fundamental set of principles. And that single fundamental set of principles will undoubtably be categorized as what we USED to call, “POLITICAL ECONOMY”.

    Because all human cooperation requires institutions that facilitate organization of invention, production, distribution and consumption by voluntary means, while at the same time prohibiting free riding in all it’s forms: criminal, unethical, immoral, conspiratorial and conquest.

    As such, the science of cooperation, including:

    a) The formal logic of human organization (reproduction/family/production)

    b) The formal logic of ethics (voluntary exchange)

    c) The formal logic of cooperation ( law, contract)

    d) The formal logic of institutions. (commons via extra-market exchange)

    The major shifts will be:

    a) the abandonment of universalism and the universalizabiltiy of morals.

    b) abandonment of majoritarianism in favor of government of exchanges.

    c) The adoption of the Austrian theory of the business cycle as preservation of the integrity of monetary information.

    d) The adoption of Propertarian constraints on political argument and action.

    d) The segmentation of economics into the study of policy across specific time spectra.

    e) Abandonment of employment as the objective of policy, and instead the emphasis on the productivity of human capital, and the development of employment into a preference for increasing one’s standard of living.

    f) Abandonment of open immigration.

    g) Adoption of Self Determination as a human right.

    I do not know if we can obtain secession without using violence. However, we can popularize and probably enforce nullification such that secession is not as necessary as it is today.

    (More to come)

    Source date (UTC): 2014-03-04 11:57:00 UTC

  • GOOD ECONOMICS AND BAD ECONOMICS / GOOD PHILOSOPHY AND BAD PHILOSOPHY I love Hop

    GOOD ECONOMICS AND BAD ECONOMICS / GOOD PHILOSOPHY AND BAD PHILOSOPHY

    I love Hoppe’s speech on good and bad economics. And regardless of my criticism of deductivism (a priorism) when economics is in fact, entirely empirical (not positivist, but empirical), I agree with him that economics doesn’t have ‘flavors’ but instead either makes true, internally consistent, and externally correspondent statements, or it does not. Worse, bad economics create bad behavior and bad economic conditions.

    Now, philosophy is the same. While the discipline of philosophy attracts people who prefer many different FLAVORS of philosophy, the fact is that philosophy is either GOOD or it is BAD. In the sense that it is either TRUE and correspondent with reality, and encourages us to act in correspondence with reality, or it is FALSE and does not encourage us to act in correspondence with reality.

    Now since philosophy consists of suites of statements, it’s possible for some philosophies to, as sets produce mixed goods and bads. But it is also possible for philosophies to produce net bads, and net goods.

    In the end analysis, we will settle on one optimum philosophy. And that philosophy will be ‘the way’ (constructivism, intuitionism) which we now refer to as ‘the scientific method’.

    Not that it has much to do with science. It just arose from the discipline of science.

    There is good philosophy (Philosophical Constructivist Realism, and Moral Propertarian Realism) and there is bad philosophy: everything else.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-03-03 08:33:00 UTC

  • GEEK ERA *STUDY* OF A WORK – HUNTING FOR NECESSARY ARGUMENTS. Reading is differe

    GEEK ERA *STUDY* OF A WORK – HUNTING FOR NECESSARY ARGUMENTS.

    Reading is different from studying. Studying means to me, not understanding the author’s arguments so much as understanding what his various arguments could imply.

    0) I read the TOC and random paragraphs in the interesting chapters.

    1) If it’s worth reading in depth, I read it once – really, just to understand the author’s theory.

    2) I convert it to text – usually from pdf to text file. A couple chapters at a time. I can almost always find it on line. If I can’t then I literally scan it a chapter at a time by hand.

    3) I edit the text file so that it’s suitable for spoken works.

    4) I convert it to computer generated speech.

    5) I listen to it, usually three or four times. Sometimes more.

    I ‘study’ the work until I can’t find a single idea in there left to benefit from.

    The truth is, that most authors’ theories can be deduced from the TOC and the book jacket. Just as most books are really better stated as a ‘paper’ than a book. They’re simple.

    A lot of work is predicated upon theories that are nonsensical. And I simply can’t put up with reading them. Others are biased (Fukuyama’s) but I can see through the bias. Some are simply wrong, or failed attempts as pseudoscience (Mises praxeology and Rothbard’s ethics), some are obscurantist pseudo-scientific masks for ignorance (Freud), some obscurantist and fraudulent (Heidegger), some mystical (religion), and as such, I consider most of them ‘evil’ and I just ignore them.

    History tends to be a little less victim of stupidity than philosophy. And as Durant said, the answers to questions of man are in history, not in philosophy. There are no answers there.

    Very few works are substantial enough (like Hayek’s) to actually STUDY. Some works are just so large (histories) that I find I have to listen to them a few times before I’ve exhausted the possibilities that the author has made possible.

    I guess one of the things that helps us study others is that, we write to understand and communicate to others our understanding. Books are experiments. I know some people seem to have much higher reading comprehension to me, because they’re trying to understand the author’s point of view. And I sort of don’t work that way. Instead, I simply am looking for theories. For arguments. Not justifications. But NECESSARY arguments.

    NECESSARY is very different from JUSTIFICATIONARY.

    And if you HUNT for NECESSARY arguments you will find very few of them. And when you do, it’s like finding buried treasure.

    There are very few necessary arguments.

    And fully informed, warrantied, voluntary exchange is one of them.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-03-01 12:47:00 UTC

  • THE RUSSIAN ‘SPIN’ I completely understand (a) Putin’s ambition to create an eas

    THE RUSSIAN ‘SPIN’

    I completely understand (a) Putin’s ambition to create an eastern trade zone, (b) his desire to restore Russia to the world stage (c) the right of people in lands that contain an ethnically Russian majority to self determination, (d) the territorial investment and historical relation with Crimea, (e) the strategic importance of the black sea ports, (f) his fear that the revolution against corruption here in Ukraine will (justly) spread to Russia and unseat him.

    What I don’t get is his SPIN, and his media’s spin, that the current government is somehow not legitimate when given the extraordinary corruption here was on a scale so significant that it affected the GDP.

    I mean, corruption is always immoral, but at some point its pervasive enough that it becomes not just immoral but material, and at some other point it becomes not just material but catastrophically destructive. And the corruption here is in the catastrophic category. I mean, you can’t claim that anyone conducting that level of corruption is legitimate. You simply can’t. It will backfire on you.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-02-28 01:15:00 UTC

  • Which Situation Is More Likely To Lead To Progressive Outcomes: A Republican Party That Continues To Support Extreme Candidates & Positions, Or One That Is More Mainstream And Thus Successful, But Also Open To Compromise?

    In about 1980, those of us on the conservative side, understood that progressive state would ‘win’ by de-homogenizing society into factions rather than unifying society, and then buying votes by doing it. 

    We also understood that it is economically impossible to construct the democratic socialists state – meaning control over the results of production. They Keynesian proposition is, for very complex reasons, a series of very long term ponzi schemes. (Which I can argue in extraordinary detail but this post isn’t the venue for it.)

    As such we saw the progressives (socialists of various ideologies) as succeeding in the destruction of anglo-germanic (protestant, north-sea) civilization, by driving it  into bankruptcy.

    So we understood that there were two basic strategies to follow

    1 – Since socialism is unscientific, and irrational (a secular religion) we can adopt the same means of opposition to secular religion: throughout history the most effective means of resisting the state is religion. Religions allow populations to establish the terms by which they will be governed.

    2 – Since the socialist state is an unsustainable ponzi scheme, we could attempt to bankrupt the state BEFORE it can destroy our civilization. We could bankrupt the state through expansion of the military and private sector, while the left bankrupted the state through the public service and bureaucratic structure.

    3 – Since the power of the state is fiat money, and the state requires the financial system to distribute fiat money, we could ‘hire’ the financial sector to compete with the state.

    All three of these tactics worked.  Unfortunately we didn’t count on the following:

    1 –  The rate of collapse of the family.  The protestant ethic requires the adoption of the absolute nuclear family wherein people cannot reproduce until they can afford their own home.   The feminists have succeeded in destroying the family in the black and hispanic communities, and it has now spread to the white lower classes as well.  By destroying absolute nuclear marriage you destroy the protestant moral intuitions of society.  You destroy male feeling of responsibility for society, destroy female responsibility for controlling her reproduction, and you destroy the economic efficiency of two person households that delay their reproduction until they can afford to pay for it.    At present the ANF is practiced only by white protestants and Catholics who have adopted it.  Basically, family structure determines one’s wealth or poverty, and the economic efficiency of the nation. Feminists succeeded in destroying it, and this was more useful to the socialists than their own polices. 

    2 – The rate of immigration.   Immigration of peoples who do not only fail to share the absolute nuclear family as a constraint on reproduction and incentive for economic production, but who do not adopt that family constraint and incentive upon arrival.  As such communities retain not their food and rituals, but also their family structure, moral code and resulting political preferences.  Furthermore they now retain their languages.  As such there is no ‘nation’ of people with similar interests, just a corporation – an empire – over peoples with dissimilar interests.

    So, it is no longer possible to sustain the protestant ethic, the high trust society, the rule of law, the common law, private property rights,  the absolute nuclear family, and the constraint on the reproduction of the lower classes that was unique to northern european civilization – and one of its greatest sources of prosperity. 

    Conservatives understand this, even if they say it in allegorical rather than such precise terms.

    So the purpose now is to create a faction that delegitimizes the state, and drives us to either change, secession or civil war.

    If all people have the right to culture and self determination, then so do conservatives – north sea european protestants – have the right to self determination.  As such conservatives will do whatever possible to save their civilization from further conquest and further genocide. It is one thing to say that people have moved to america to take advantage of the northern european political institutions. It is another thing to state that northern european protestants should willingly accept the extermination of their way of life.

    So from the conservative position, the options now are to bankrupt the state – delegitimize america as the world’s financial backer –  and force a compromise, or otherwise force rebellion and revolution in an effort at self preservation.

    That is probably the most honest and accurate answer you will find.

    https://www.quora.com/Which-situation-is-more-likely-to-lead-to-progressive-outcomes-a-Republican-Party-that-continues-to-support-extreme-candidates-positions-or-one-that-is-more-mainstream-and-thus-successful-but-also-open-to-compromise

  • Which Situation Is More Likely To Lead To Progressive Outcomes: A Republican Party That Continues To Support Extreme Candidates & Positions, Or One That Is More Mainstream And Thus Successful, But Also Open To Compromise?

    In about 1980, those of us on the conservative side, understood that progressive state would ‘win’ by de-homogenizing society into factions rather than unifying society, and then buying votes by doing it. 

    We also understood that it is economically impossible to construct the democratic socialists state – meaning control over the results of production. They Keynesian proposition is, for very complex reasons, a series of very long term ponzi schemes. (Which I can argue in extraordinary detail but this post isn’t the venue for it.)

    As such we saw the progressives (socialists of various ideologies) as succeeding in the destruction of anglo-germanic (protestant, north-sea) civilization, by driving it  into bankruptcy.

    So we understood that there were two basic strategies to follow

    1 – Since socialism is unscientific, and irrational (a secular religion) we can adopt the same means of opposition to secular religion: throughout history the most effective means of resisting the state is religion. Religions allow populations to establish the terms by which they will be governed.

    2 – Since the socialist state is an unsustainable ponzi scheme, we could attempt to bankrupt the state BEFORE it can destroy our civilization. We could bankrupt the state through expansion of the military and private sector, while the left bankrupted the state through the public service and bureaucratic structure.

    3 – Since the power of the state is fiat money, and the state requires the financial system to distribute fiat money, we could ‘hire’ the financial sector to compete with the state.

    All three of these tactics worked.  Unfortunately we didn’t count on the following:

    1 –  The rate of collapse of the family.  The protestant ethic requires the adoption of the absolute nuclear family wherein people cannot reproduce until they can afford their own home.   The feminists have succeeded in destroying the family in the black and hispanic communities, and it has now spread to the white lower classes as well.  By destroying absolute nuclear marriage you destroy the protestant moral intuitions of society.  You destroy male feeling of responsibility for society, destroy female responsibility for controlling her reproduction, and you destroy the economic efficiency of two person households that delay their reproduction until they can afford to pay for it.    At present the ANF is practiced only by white protestants and Catholics who have adopted it.  Basically, family structure determines one’s wealth or poverty, and the economic efficiency of the nation. Feminists succeeded in destroying it, and this was more useful to the socialists than their own polices. 

    2 – The rate of immigration.   Immigration of peoples who do not only fail to share the absolute nuclear family as a constraint on reproduction and incentive for economic production, but who do not adopt that family constraint and incentive upon arrival.  As such communities retain not their food and rituals, but also their family structure, moral code and resulting political preferences.  Furthermore they now retain their languages.  As such there is no ‘nation’ of people with similar interests, just a corporation – an empire – over peoples with dissimilar interests.

    So, it is no longer possible to sustain the protestant ethic, the high trust society, the rule of law, the common law, private property rights,  the absolute nuclear family, and the constraint on the reproduction of the lower classes that was unique to northern european civilization – and one of its greatest sources of prosperity. 

    Conservatives understand this, even if they say it in allegorical rather than such precise terms.

    So the purpose now is to create a faction that delegitimizes the state, and drives us to either change, secession or civil war.

    If all people have the right to culture and self determination, then so do conservatives – north sea european protestants – have the right to self determination.  As such conservatives will do whatever possible to save their civilization from further conquest and further genocide. It is one thing to say that people have moved to america to take advantage of the northern european political institutions. It is another thing to state that northern european protestants should willingly accept the extermination of their way of life.

    So from the conservative position, the options now are to bankrupt the state – delegitimize america as the world’s financial backer –  and force a compromise, or otherwise force rebellion and revolution in an effort at self preservation.

    That is probably the most honest and accurate answer you will find.

    https://www.quora.com/Which-situation-is-more-likely-to-lead-to-progressive-outcomes-a-Republican-Party-that-continues-to-support-extreme-candidates-positions-or-one-that-is-more-mainstream-and-thus-successful-but-also-open-to-compromise

  • THE ALTERNATIVE TO PSEUDOSCIENCE The natural state of man is to adapt his family

    THE ALTERNATIVE TO PSEUDOSCIENCE

    The natural state of man is to adapt his family (reproductive organization), and his rules of cooperation (property rights, norms, rituals and myths) to the continuous changes in the structure of production made possible by his technical advancements.

    There exists no natural state of man, only natural PROPERTIES of man. Two of those properties are the necessity of voluntary cooperation and the problem of free riding that emerges from it.

    Any cooperative organism must solve the problem as it evolves: creating incentives both in favor of production and against free riding and parasitism.

    Expansion of production in a division of knowledge and labor increases the opportunity for free riding and parasitism because of increasing anonymity of the participants the structure of production.

    Expansion of production requires increases in the complexity of the tools of cooperation: those that assist in transforming the imperceptible to analogy to experience, such that increasing complexity is open to calculation; and such that information distribution expands as well.

    Each major advancement in human cooperation has been achieved by increasing the information processing capacity of the population such that not only actions are open to voluntary coordination, but also such that free riding is increasingly suppressed.

    When we invented government we traded pervasive high transaction costs from violence fraud and deception, for systemic free riding and corruption. Thanks to Hoppe we know how to construct some necessary institutions that will make it more difficult to conduct free riding and corruption.

    But the answer ‘no government’ is actually admission of failure. It is still necessary for groups to coordinate their interests in a commons that produces beneficial common goods. Just as it is beneficial for shopping mall owners and market owners to produce investments that are beneficial to both vendors and customers as well as owners. Just as it is beneficial for all of us to construct norms that prohibit all forms of free riding, discounting, cheating and stealing.

    Competing government do not solve the problem of high local transaction costs. So the argument in favor of heterogeneous competing polities works if and only if there is some monarch that profits from all equally and polices all equally. (Which is where ROthbard and Mises got their ideas from: the ghetto.) For people to grand one another property rights voluntarily without a superior state or empire, they will require universally low transaction costs – at least locally. People demonstrate this everywhere and anywhere in history.

    So we are left with a large number of private monarchies as the compromise between the minimum homogeneity required, and the maximum size wherein a polity maintains a commonality of interest.

    At present, large city states with homogenous polities (the nordics) that are able to create reasonable amounts of liberty.. Even heavy redistribution is often tolerable to homogenous polities. Landed heterogeneous polities are notoriously intolerant of redistribution because it’s actually bad for the productive classes.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-02-25 13:29:00 UTC

  • UKRAINE : PUNISHMENT IS NOT AN ACHIEVEMENT – it’s housekeeping. It’s all well an

    UKRAINE : PUNISHMENT IS NOT AN ACHIEVEMENT – it’s housekeeping.

    It’s all well and good to punish the old guard that preyed upon the people. On the other hand, retribution is not a strategy for fixing Ukraine. Nothing will be different. In fact, obsession with the past is merely a foolish or lazy person’s way of failing to deal with the future.

    A new president and new parliament will do no good without reforming those aspects of life that directly affect the ability of Ukrainian people to prosper.

    1. Reform the judiciary. Add the Jury system. Look at the court data. Hire Ukrainian expatriates from German and English legal systems to audit the judiciary and to determine likely areas of corruption. Although most english and german speaking legal firms in Kiev have written extensively on how to cure Ukrainian judges’ notorious disrespect for the rule of law. This only requires honest effort. There is no secret here. Corruption in the judiciary is an open secret that everyone knows – and most people in western countries understand how to fix.

    2. Reform the Police on the Georgian or Russian model – pay the good one’s eliminate the others. Be merciless about reforming them. Any person can bring suit against an officer. Use citizen juries to try the police officers. If a policeman is fired by the jury, then he is permanently ineligible for service in any capacity in the government. This is sufficient incentive to protect the people from police corruption.

    3. “Universal Legal Standing Against Corruption” Treat corruption (even your own) as a crime against your people,and punish all of it, from the most political cheat, to the simplest credit thief, as a threat to the future of Ukraine and its people.

    4. Obtain the “universal right to bear arms” – it is the only source of freedom. Americans call this right “shall issue”. Meaning that the government must issue unless there is a reason not to. Do not settle for requiring a reason. Freedom from evil people in government is the only reason you need to bear arms. Ukraine is one of the only countries that understands the power of armed citizenry in securing its freedom from oppression. An armed society is not only a polite society but it is also a free society.

    5. Commit to a 10 year television and education campaign on ‘truth, trust and elimination of corruption in all walks of life.’ This is, believe it or not, one of the most important things that you can do in a low trust society like Ukraine. (If I spoke the language I’d drive initiative for it myself.) Ukrainians in my opinion are the best and most good people in the world. But trust is a technology. It can be taught like any other technology. And Ukrainians’ need to understand how to use that technology, rather than rely on centuries of experience without trust.

    GOOD ADVICE

    1. Try to get younger people into office who do not have adult experience under the Soviet model. It is very hard to change our intuitions about what we learn in our youth.

    2. Start teaching ‘rule of law’, ‘the common law’, commercial ethics, checkbook management, basic accounting, and basic economics to all students in all schools at an early age.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-02-24 06:30:00 UTC

  • DOMINATION, CHARITY, OR CHEAP STATUS SIGNALS? There is a great difference betwee

    DOMINATION, CHARITY, OR CHEAP STATUS SIGNALS?

    There is a great difference between these levels of interest: domination, management, insurance, and charity.

    The world is a pretty charitable place really.

    If a people ASK for charity we should be as charitable as their behavior warrants. But the Japanese for example, pretty much refused our assistance (wrongly). And our assistance in most places (Haiti included) has been more damaging than good. Our attempts to help Africa have almost all been damaging to Africa – and the scholarly review of our failures is not even a matter of dispute any longer.

    Involving ourselves both at the state level and via multitudes of NGO’s that the EVIDENCE shows CLEARLY cause more harm than good; or involving ourselves as the world’s police force – which the evidence suggests causes more harm than good (we have been wrong more than right); or acting as the evangelists of the religion of Universal Secular Christianity that we call “Social Democracy” which the evidence again CLEARLY demonstrates that we cause more harm than good – is just an elaborate way of using our wealth to generate status signals for ourselves at other people’s expense.

    We are not smarter than the rest of the world. We are wealthier. We are wealthier because we have had longer to convert our society to ratio-scientific thought. And we are wealthier because we have the common law (in anglo countries), we used our technological leadership to conquer the two most remote continents (Australia and north america); and because we have influenced Continental law by two major wars of conquest in which we dictated terms. And because we inherited the british empire’s control of the seas built up over 500 years, when it committed suicide in the wars. And because we forced the world onto the petro-dollar standard in order to finance our global war on communism.

    Those are the reasons we are wealthier. And while we have done a lot of good by converting the rest of the world unwillingly to CONSUMER CAPITALISM – which is our greatest contribution – we have also done a lot of harm with our wealth – motivated by good intentions, in practice, out of ignorance.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-02-24 04:05:00 UTC