“Libertarianism is applied autism.” – Steve Sailer For some reason this phrase affected me pretty deeply. UNIVERSAL ENFRANCHISEMENT A GIVEN? Libertarianism, as I practice it, and as I believe Mises and Hayek practiced their ‘liberalism’ (universal enfranchisement), is the scientific pursuit of political theory using the system of measurement we call economics, and the objective of material prosperity. Which was of course, the great achievement of the innovations of capitalism, empiricism (of which capitalism is a member) and the harnessing fossil fuels. Or rather, These philosophers were engaged in an attempt to define scientific political theory under the ASSUMPTION of universal enfranchisement. I still practice my philosophical inquiry under that same assumption of universal enfranchisement – the prohibition on the deprivation of the choice of “cooperation or boycott” from others. But once you assume some justification for not depriving others of choice, (a) we run into the problem of diverse interests and desires so that we now need a means of choosing between preferences, and the DEMONSTRATED preference of everyone is greater prosperity, for the simple reason that prosperity increases everyone’s choices and greatly reduces the cost of ANY choice. PRIMACY OF PROSPERITY – ECONOMICS AND COOPERATION So, the second assumption of “liberalism” is the priority of economic good. That is, that cooperation facilitates production of prosperity. MERITOCRACY OR NOT? The third assumption of “liberalism” is natural rotation (Meritocracy). But like prices and contracts, humans do not willingly rotate downward if there is any impact upon their status. In fact, people place higher value on their status than almost any other asset that they have. LIBERTY OR CONSUMPTION? The fourth assumption of ‘liberalism’ is that humans desire liberty, rather than that they desire choice and consumption. When in fact, only libertarians and conservatives demonstrate a preference for liberty, and almost all other humans on the planet do not. They demonstrate ONLY a preference for consumption. OTHER ALTERNATIVES TO LIBERTARIANISM EXIST 0) Libertarianism (full enfranchisement, with meritocratic rotation) 1) Select enfranchisement (Pre-enlightenment European, and early American with selective rotation) 2) Totalitarian humanism (Chinese Corporatism and European Corporatist models ceremonial enfranchisement ) 3) Totalitarianism (pre-communist Chinese and most empire and state models) Libertarians are unique. Conservatives are unique. Most of the world does not want to engage in trial and error. They can’t. It’s too hard for them. Then again, why does universal enfranchisement imply monopoly? Why can’t we construct many small states some of which practice communal property and others that practice private property and everything in between? Because the statists could not profit from us? Because that is how humans MUST function precisely because we are not equal in ability whatsoever. A large organization has only so many people at the top. In many small organizations there are only so may people at the top, but there are many more organizations for people to reach the top of. Just as companies and economies have spread out into multiple flexible organizations, so must governments. That is the obvious conclusion: size allows you to conduct war and that is all. As such, if someone attempts to construct a scale empire, they have no other reason than warfare to do so. Our goal then should be to destroy large states so that war is nearly impossible to conduct.
Form: Mini Essay
-
The Assumptions of ‘Liberalism’ (And Libertarianism)
“Libertarianism is applied autism.” – Steve Sailer For some reason this phrase affected me pretty deeply. UNIVERSAL ENFRANCHISEMENT A GIVEN? Libertarianism, as I practice it, and as I believe Mises and Hayek practiced their ‘liberalism’ (universal enfranchisement), is the scientific pursuit of political theory using the system of measurement we call economics, and the objective of material prosperity. Which was of course, the great achievement of the innovations of capitalism, empiricism (of which capitalism is a member) and the harnessing fossil fuels. Or rather, These philosophers were engaged in an attempt to define scientific political theory under the ASSUMPTION of universal enfranchisement. I still practice my philosophical inquiry under that same assumption of universal enfranchisement – the prohibition on the deprivation of the choice of “cooperation or boycott” from others. But once you assume some justification for not depriving others of choice, (a) we run into the problem of diverse interests and desires so that we now need a means of choosing between preferences, and the DEMONSTRATED preference of everyone is greater prosperity, for the simple reason that prosperity increases everyone’s choices and greatly reduces the cost of ANY choice. PRIMACY OF PROSPERITY – ECONOMICS AND COOPERATION So, the second assumption of “liberalism” is the priority of economic good. That is, that cooperation facilitates production of prosperity. MERITOCRACY OR NOT? The third assumption of “liberalism” is natural rotation (Meritocracy). But like prices and contracts, humans do not willingly rotate downward if there is any impact upon their status. In fact, people place higher value on their status than almost any other asset that they have. LIBERTY OR CONSUMPTION? The fourth assumption of ‘liberalism’ is that humans desire liberty, rather than that they desire choice and consumption. When in fact, only libertarians and conservatives demonstrate a preference for liberty, and almost all other humans on the planet do not. They demonstrate ONLY a preference for consumption. OTHER ALTERNATIVES TO LIBERTARIANISM EXIST 0) Libertarianism (full enfranchisement, with meritocratic rotation) 1) Select enfranchisement (Pre-enlightenment European, and early American with selective rotation) 2) Totalitarian humanism (Chinese Corporatism and European Corporatist models ceremonial enfranchisement ) 3) Totalitarianism (pre-communist Chinese and most empire and state models) Libertarians are unique. Conservatives are unique. Most of the world does not want to engage in trial and error. They can’t. It’s too hard for them. Then again, why does universal enfranchisement imply monopoly? Why can’t we construct many small states some of which practice communal property and others that practice private property and everything in between? Because the statists could not profit from us? Because that is how humans MUST function precisely because we are not equal in ability whatsoever. A large organization has only so many people at the top. In many small organizations there are only so may people at the top, but there are many more organizations for people to reach the top of. Just as companies and economies have spread out into multiple flexible organizations, so must governments. That is the obvious conclusion: size allows you to conduct war and that is all. As such, if someone attempts to construct a scale empire, they have no other reason than warfare to do so. Our goal then should be to destroy large states so that war is nearly impossible to conduct.
-
The Assumptions of 'Liberalism' (And Libertarianism)
“Libertarianism is applied autism.” – Steve Sailer For some reason this phrase affected me pretty deeply. UNIVERSAL ENFRANCHISEMENT A GIVEN? Libertarianism, as I practice it, and as I believe Mises and Hayek practiced their ‘liberalism’ (universal enfranchisement), is the scientific pursuit of political theory using the system of measurement we call economics, and the objective of material prosperity. Which was of course, the great achievement of the innovations of capitalism, empiricism (of which capitalism is a member) and the harnessing fossil fuels. Or rather, These philosophers were engaged in an attempt to define scientific political theory under the ASSUMPTION of universal enfranchisement. I still practice my philosophical inquiry under that same assumption of universal enfranchisement – the prohibition on the deprivation of the choice of “cooperation or boycott” from others. But once you assume some justification for not depriving others of choice, (a) we run into the problem of diverse interests and desires so that we now need a means of choosing between preferences, and the DEMONSTRATED preference of everyone is greater prosperity, for the simple reason that prosperity increases everyone’s choices and greatly reduces the cost of ANY choice. PRIMACY OF PROSPERITY – ECONOMICS AND COOPERATION So, the second assumption of “liberalism” is the priority of economic good. That is, that cooperation facilitates production of prosperity. MERITOCRACY OR NOT? The third assumption of “liberalism” is natural rotation (Meritocracy). But like prices and contracts, humans do not willingly rotate downward if there is any impact upon their status. In fact, people place higher value on their status than almost any other asset that they have. LIBERTY OR CONSUMPTION? The fourth assumption of ‘liberalism’ is that humans desire liberty, rather than that they desire choice and consumption. When in fact, only libertarians and conservatives demonstrate a preference for liberty, and almost all other humans on the planet do not. They demonstrate ONLY a preference for consumption. OTHER ALTERNATIVES TO LIBERTARIANISM EXIST 0) Libertarianism (full enfranchisement, with meritocratic rotation) 1) Select enfranchisement (Pre-enlightenment European, and early American with selective rotation) 2) Totalitarian humanism (Chinese Corporatism and European Corporatist models ceremonial enfranchisement ) 3) Totalitarianism (pre-communist Chinese and most empire and state models) Libertarians are unique. Conservatives are unique. Most of the world does not want to engage in trial and error. They can’t. It’s too hard for them. Then again, why does universal enfranchisement imply monopoly? Why can’t we construct many small states some of which practice communal property and others that practice private property and everything in between? Because the statists could not profit from us? Because that is how humans MUST function precisely because we are not equal in ability whatsoever. A large organization has only so many people at the top. In many small organizations there are only so may people at the top, but there are many more organizations for people to reach the top of. Just as companies and economies have spread out into multiple flexible organizations, so must governments. That is the obvious conclusion: size allows you to conduct war and that is all. As such, if someone attempts to construct a scale empire, they have no other reason than warfare to do so. Our goal then should be to destroy large states so that war is nearly impossible to conduct.
-
Were The Conservatives Right All Along
(interesting) We cannot, like mathematicians tried to do, define something into existence. We can define rules of deduction, but not define something into existence. Truth consists of correspondence and cause, not definition. Definitions are our choice. Truth is not. That is the entire purpose of ‘truth’ – that which we cannot choose. So, if instead of some artificial scheme, we understand that PROPERTY is nothing but what remains, after we suppress all possible DISCOUNTS, by every means possible. Then, does that mean that the conservatives were right all along? That, since discounts, as a spectrum, are suppressible by a spectrum of actions which include the organized threat of violence, ostracization, boycott, reduction of opportunity, and the consequential limits on consumption, then the conservatives, correctly value NORMATIVE CONFORMITY TO SUPPRESSION OF DISCOUNTS, and that the model of property articulated by rothbard, taken as it was from the low trust society he was familiar with, In effect, Rothbard’s ethics are an attempt to preserve ‘cheating’ as a viable means of profiting from others, whereas conservative, aristocratic, ‘high trust’ ethics are an effort to suppress ALL cheating. Rothbard masks this cheating by stating that competition will suppress such cheating. But empirically, and praxeologically, this is demonstrably and logically false. So what are we left with no possible conclusion that either he committed a significant error or, that Rothbard’s ethics are an attempt, intentionally, to preserve cheating: which is precisely what the left correctly argues – albeit in their amateurish terms. The formation of a government, which is a monopoly that suppresses violence and theft, and then by taxation, suppresses free riding on the government’s suppression of violence, then, as a consequence, because of its monopoly, only displaces free riding with rents. The formal question remains the same, which is that rule of law, or liberty, is a prohibition on discretionary compulsion, but is only possible by the prohibition of all discounts. And the only possible means of both suppressing discounts, and preventing the conversion of free riding into rents, is to rely on competition for the suppression of these discounts. That is, I think, the fundamental equilibrial analysis of political order. The sequence is: 1) Suppression of discounts results in property rights. 2) Property rights lead to the division of labor, and prosperity. 3) Property (capital) and prosperity lead to greater opportunity for discounts. 4) The cost of suppressing discounts increases demand for specialized suppression. 5) The specialized suppressing discounts leads to free riding (fee avoidance) 6) The specialized suppression of free riding (taxation) leads to opportunity for rent seeking. 7) Opportunity for rent seeking leads to bureaucracy. 8) Bureaucracy leads to subjugation and expropriation. 9) Expropriation leads to circumvention (Religiosity, black markets, tax evasion, nullification, secession and revolt and revolution) 10 (fragmentation) The only solution is rule of law: no state, merely laws, and judges who resolve disputes. Governments must be local and under direct democracy. Everything else provided competing firms. CHEERS
-
Were The Conservatives Right All Along
(interesting) We cannot, like mathematicians tried to do, define something into existence. We can define rules of deduction, but not define something into existence. Truth consists of correspondence and cause, not definition. Definitions are our choice. Truth is not. That is the entire purpose of ‘truth’ – that which we cannot choose. So, if instead of some artificial scheme, we understand that PROPERTY is nothing but what remains, after we suppress all possible DISCOUNTS, by every means possible. Then, does that mean that the conservatives were right all along? That, since discounts, as a spectrum, are suppressible by a spectrum of actions which include the organized threat of violence, ostracization, boycott, reduction of opportunity, and the consequential limits on consumption, then the conservatives, correctly value NORMATIVE CONFORMITY TO SUPPRESSION OF DISCOUNTS, and that the model of property articulated by rothbard, taken as it was from the low trust society he was familiar with, In effect, Rothbard’s ethics are an attempt to preserve ‘cheating’ as a viable means of profiting from others, whereas conservative, aristocratic, ‘high trust’ ethics are an effort to suppress ALL cheating. Rothbard masks this cheating by stating that competition will suppress such cheating. But empirically, and praxeologically, this is demonstrably and logically false. So what are we left with no possible conclusion that either he committed a significant error or, that Rothbard’s ethics are an attempt, intentionally, to preserve cheating: which is precisely what the left correctly argues – albeit in their amateurish terms. The formation of a government, which is a monopoly that suppresses violence and theft, and then by taxation, suppresses free riding on the government’s suppression of violence, then, as a consequence, because of its monopoly, only displaces free riding with rents. The formal question remains the same, which is that rule of law, or liberty, is a prohibition on discretionary compulsion, but is only possible by the prohibition of all discounts. And the only possible means of both suppressing discounts, and preventing the conversion of free riding into rents, is to rely on competition for the suppression of these discounts. That is, I think, the fundamental equilibrial analysis of political order. The sequence is: 1) Suppression of discounts results in property rights. 2) Property rights lead to the division of labor, and prosperity. 3) Property (capital) and prosperity lead to greater opportunity for discounts. 4) The cost of suppressing discounts increases demand for specialized suppression. 5) The specialized suppressing discounts leads to free riding (fee avoidance) 6) The specialized suppression of free riding (taxation) leads to opportunity for rent seeking. 7) Opportunity for rent seeking leads to bureaucracy. 8) Bureaucracy leads to subjugation and expropriation. 9) Expropriation leads to circumvention (Religiosity, black markets, tax evasion, nullification, secession and revolt and revolution) 10 (fragmentation) The only solution is rule of law: no state, merely laws, and judges who resolve disputes. Governments must be local and under direct democracy. Everything else provided competing firms. CHEERS
-
Respecting The Person Or The Ideas Or Conflating The Two
(interesting) (tolerance as tax evasion) Do you separate respect for the person from respect for their ideas or do you make the solipsistic error of conflating a persons beliefs which they can change with their physical body which they cannot? One can say: i) that we coexist peacefully, ii) that we compete peacefully, iii) that we cooperate on different ends peacefully, iv) that we cooperate on the same ends peacefully. If someone possesses a catastrophic error, and you wish to cooperate with them, what is the impact of letting them hold on to silly ideas? Well, they can have whatever silly idea they want as long as it doesn’t affect your ability to cooperate on ends together. It is possible to possess ideas, values, beliefs, traditions, myths, metaphysical value judgments that are not merely differences in tastes, but which actively PREVENT cooperation on certain types of ends and means. If your culture denies reality, provides no means of correction of knowledge, provides no means of correction of individual thought, and at the same time, we know we must use science to understand that which we cannot perceive and sense directly, and such that TEACHING COOPERATION ON MEANS IF NOT ENDS In solipsistic argument, respect is for the purpose of raising children who do not yet have the ability to cooperate in the world. At some point we must become adults, or be the wards, subjects and victims of adults forever. One becomes an adult at the very point where one abandons solipsistic argument (the one you’re making probably) and distinguishes between the meaningless errors of children which they may grow out of, and the meaningful errors of adults that they may not grow out of. Tolerance in children is necessary for pedagogy. Tolerance in adults is only logically necessary for tastes, but not for truths. If you do not correct the errors in thinking of yourself and your fellow citizens then you are a conspirator in the conspiracy of ignorance, and a threat to society – and to man. Just as you are a threat to a society and to man if you fail to enforce and adhere to manners, ethics, and morals. TOLERANCE AS “FREE RIDING, CHEATING AND STEALING” If you do not enforce and adhere to manners (ethics of signals), ethics (participatory ethics), and morals (ethics of externalities) then you are not paying the behavioral ‘tax’ for living in a society – you are a tax cheater so to speak in the normative system of costs. if you are less ABLE to pay normative taxes, that is the same as if you are less ABLE to pay real taxes – in both cases these are statements of your willingness and ability. In other words, if you let adults around you believe that which is economically dangerous to the polity, then you are just trying to save yourself the cost of paying for the normative infrastructure, just like any other tax cheat is trying to save himself the cost of paying for physical infrastructure. You can say that you are not competent (productive enough) to pay that normative tax, but if that is so, then you of course, like any other person who evades taxes, no right to speak about norms.
-
Respecting The Person Or The Ideas Or Conflating The Two
(interesting) (tolerance as tax evasion) Do you separate respect for the person from respect for their ideas or do you make the solipsistic error of conflating a persons beliefs which they can change with their physical body which they cannot? One can say: i) that we coexist peacefully, ii) that we compete peacefully, iii) that we cooperate on different ends peacefully, iv) that we cooperate on the same ends peacefully. If someone possesses a catastrophic error, and you wish to cooperate with them, what is the impact of letting them hold on to silly ideas? Well, they can have whatever silly idea they want as long as it doesn’t affect your ability to cooperate on ends together. It is possible to possess ideas, values, beliefs, traditions, myths, metaphysical value judgments that are not merely differences in tastes, but which actively PREVENT cooperation on certain types of ends and means. If your culture denies reality, provides no means of correction of knowledge, provides no means of correction of individual thought, and at the same time, we know we must use science to understand that which we cannot perceive and sense directly, and such that TEACHING COOPERATION ON MEANS IF NOT ENDS In solipsistic argument, respect is for the purpose of raising children who do not yet have the ability to cooperate in the world. At some point we must become adults, or be the wards, subjects and victims of adults forever. One becomes an adult at the very point where one abandons solipsistic argument (the one you’re making probably) and distinguishes between the meaningless errors of children which they may grow out of, and the meaningful errors of adults that they may not grow out of. Tolerance in children is necessary for pedagogy. Tolerance in adults is only logically necessary for tastes, but not for truths. If you do not correct the errors in thinking of yourself and your fellow citizens then you are a conspirator in the conspiracy of ignorance, and a threat to society – and to man. Just as you are a threat to a society and to man if you fail to enforce and adhere to manners, ethics, and morals. TOLERANCE AS “FREE RIDING, CHEATING AND STEALING” If you do not enforce and adhere to manners (ethics of signals), ethics (participatory ethics), and morals (ethics of externalities) then you are not paying the behavioral ‘tax’ for living in a society – you are a tax cheater so to speak in the normative system of costs. if you are less ABLE to pay normative taxes, that is the same as if you are less ABLE to pay real taxes – in both cases these are statements of your willingness and ability. In other words, if you let adults around you believe that which is economically dangerous to the polity, then you are just trying to save yourself the cost of paying for the normative infrastructure, just like any other tax cheat is trying to save himself the cost of paying for physical infrastructure. You can say that you are not competent (productive enough) to pay that normative tax, but if that is so, then you of course, like any other person who evades taxes, no right to speak about norms.
-
On Popper's Position, vs Action and Instrumentation
ON POPPER’S POSITION VS ACTION AND INSTRUMENTATION (reposted from cr page for archiving) All we can say is x set of recipes have y properties in common, and all known recipes have z properties in common, and therefore we will likely find new recipes that share z properties. Logic is one of the instruments we use to construct recipes. Logic is a technology. Just as are the narrative, numbers, arithmetic, math, physics, and cooperation. These are all instrumental technologies or we would not need them and could perform the same operations without them. Science, as in the ‘method’ of science, is a recipe for employing those instruments ‘technologies’. Science is a technology. It is external to our intuitions, and we must use it like any other technology, in order to extend our sense, perception, memory, calculation, and planning. So I simply view ‘fuzzy language’ as what it is. And statements reducible to operational language as the only representation of scientific discourse. Theory means nothing different from fantasy without recording, instrument, operations, repetition, and falsification. A theory is a fantasy, a bit of imagination, and the recipes that survive are what remains of that fantasy once all human cognitive bias and limitation is laundered by our ‘technologies’. Recipes are unit of commensurability against which we can calculate differences, to further extend and refine our imaginary fantasies. Just as we test each individual action in a recipe against objective reality, we test each new fantasy against the accumulated properties stated in our recipes. From those tests of fantasy against our accumulated recipes, we observe in ourselves changes in our own instruments of logic. Extensions of our perception, memory, calculation – knowledge – is the collection of general instruments that apply in smaller numbers, to increasingly large categories of problems. (This is the reason Flynn suspects, for the Flynn effect as well as our tendency to improve upon tests.) It is these general principles (like the scientific method) that we can state are ‘knowledge’ in the sense of ‘knowledge of what’ versus ‘knowledge of how’ (See Gifts of Athena). Recipes are knowledge of ‘what’. General principles of how the universe functions are knowledge of ‘how’. Popper failed to make the distinction of dividing the problem into classes and instrumentation. And he did so because, as I have stated, he was overly fascinated with words, and under-fascinated with actions. And while I can only hypothesize why he is, like many of his peers, pseudo-scientifically fascinated with words, rather than scientifically fascinated with actions, the fact remains, that he was. And he, like Mises and Hayek and their followers, failed to produce a theory of the social sciences. CR is the best moral prescription for knowledge because it logically forbids the use of science to make claims of certainty sufficient to deprive people of voluntary choice. Popper justified skepticism and prohibited involuntary transfer by way of scientific argument. A necessary idea for his time. In science, he prohibited a return to mysticism by reliance on science equal to faith in god. But that is his achievement. He was the intellectual linebacker of the 20th century. He denied the opposition the field. But prohibition was not in itself an answer. Instrumentalism is necessary. Calculation is necessary. Reduction of the imperceptible to analogy to experience is necessary. Morality consists of the prevention of thefts and discounts. Actions that produce predictable outcomes, not states of imagination. That is the answer.
-
On Popper’s Position, vs Action and Instrumentation
ON POPPER’S POSITION VS ACTION AND INSTRUMENTATION (reposted from cr page for archiving) All we can say is x set of recipes have y properties in common, and all known recipes have z properties in common, and therefore we will likely find new recipes that share z properties. Logic is one of the instruments we use to construct recipes. Logic is a technology. Just as are the narrative, numbers, arithmetic, math, physics, and cooperation. These are all instrumental technologies or we would not need them and could perform the same operations without them. Science, as in the ‘method’ of science, is a recipe for employing those instruments ‘technologies’. Science is a technology. It is external to our intuitions, and we must use it like any other technology, in order to extend our sense, perception, memory, calculation, and planning. So I simply view ‘fuzzy language’ as what it is. And statements reducible to operational language as the only representation of scientific discourse. Theory means nothing different from fantasy without recording, instrument, operations, repetition, and falsification. A theory is a fantasy, a bit of imagination, and the recipes that survive are what remains of that fantasy once all human cognitive bias and limitation is laundered by our ‘technologies’. Recipes are unit of commensurability against which we can calculate differences, to further extend and refine our imaginary fantasies. Just as we test each individual action in a recipe against objective reality, we test each new fantasy against the accumulated properties stated in our recipes. From those tests of fantasy against our accumulated recipes, we observe in ourselves changes in our own instruments of logic. Extensions of our perception, memory, calculation – knowledge – is the collection of general instruments that apply in smaller numbers, to increasingly large categories of problems. (This is the reason Flynn suspects, for the Flynn effect as well as our tendency to improve upon tests.) It is these general principles (like the scientific method) that we can state are ‘knowledge’ in the sense of ‘knowledge of what’ versus ‘knowledge of how’ (See Gifts of Athena). Recipes are knowledge of ‘what’. General principles of how the universe functions are knowledge of ‘how’. Popper failed to make the distinction of dividing the problem into classes and instrumentation. And he did so because, as I have stated, he was overly fascinated with words, and under-fascinated with actions. And while I can only hypothesize why he is, like many of his peers, pseudo-scientifically fascinated with words, rather than scientifically fascinated with actions, the fact remains, that he was. And he, like Mises and Hayek and their followers, failed to produce a theory of the social sciences. CR is the best moral prescription for knowledge because it logically forbids the use of science to make claims of certainty sufficient to deprive people of voluntary choice. Popper justified skepticism and prohibited involuntary transfer by way of scientific argument. A necessary idea for his time. In science, he prohibited a return to mysticism by reliance on science equal to faith in god. But that is his achievement. He was the intellectual linebacker of the 20th century. He denied the opposition the field. But prohibition was not in itself an answer. Instrumentalism is necessary. Calculation is necessary. Reduction of the imperceptible to analogy to experience is necessary. Morality consists of the prevention of thefts and discounts. Actions that produce predictable outcomes, not states of imagination. That is the answer.
-
On Popper's Position, vs Action and Instrumentation
ON POPPER’S POSITION VS ACTION AND INSTRUMENTATION (reposted from cr page for archiving) All we can say is x set of recipes have y properties in common, and all known recipes have z properties in common, and therefore we will likely find new recipes that share z properties. Logic is one of the instruments we use to construct recipes. Logic is a technology. Just as are the narrative, numbers, arithmetic, math, physics, and cooperation. These are all instrumental technologies or we would not need them and could perform the same operations without them. Science, as in the ‘method’ of science, is a recipe for employing those instruments ‘technologies’. Science is a technology. It is external to our intuitions, and we must use it like any other technology, in order to extend our sense, perception, memory, calculation, and planning. So I simply view ‘fuzzy language’ as what it is. And statements reducible to operational language as the only representation of scientific discourse. Theory means nothing different from fantasy without recording, instrument, operations, repetition, and falsification. A theory is a fantasy, a bit of imagination, and the recipes that survive are what remains of that fantasy once all human cognitive bias and limitation is laundered by our ‘technologies’. Recipes are unit of commensurability against which we can calculate differences, to further extend and refine our imaginary fantasies. Just as we test each individual action in a recipe against objective reality, we test each new fantasy against the accumulated properties stated in our recipes. From those tests of fantasy against our accumulated recipes, we observe in ourselves changes in our own instruments of logic. Extensions of our perception, memory, calculation – knowledge – is the collection of general instruments that apply in smaller numbers, to increasingly large categories of problems. (This is the reason Flynn suspects, for the Flynn effect as well as our tendency to improve upon tests.) It is these general principles (like the scientific method) that we can state are ‘knowledge’ in the sense of ‘knowledge of what’ versus ‘knowledge of how’ (See Gifts of Athena). Recipes are knowledge of ‘what’. General principles of how the universe functions are knowledge of ‘how’. Popper failed to make the distinction of dividing the problem into classes and instrumentation. And he did so because, as I have stated, he was overly fascinated with words, and under-fascinated with actions. And while I can only hypothesize why he is, like many of his peers, pseudo-scientifically fascinated with words, rather than scientifically fascinated with actions, the fact remains, that he was. And he, like Mises and Hayek and their followers, failed to produce a theory of the social sciences. CR is the best moral prescription for knowledge because it logically forbids the use of science to make claims of certainty sufficient to deprive people of voluntary choice. Popper justified skepticism and prohibited involuntary transfer by way of scientific argument. A necessary idea for his time. In science, he prohibited a return to mysticism by reliance on science equal to faith in god. But that is his achievement. He was the intellectual linebacker of the 20th century. He denied the opposition the field. But prohibition was not in itself an answer. Instrumentalism is necessary. Calculation is necessary. Reduction of the imperceptible to analogy to experience is necessary. Morality consists of the prevention of thefts and discounts. Actions that produce predictable outcomes, not states of imagination. That is the answer.