Curt Doolittle

Form: Mini Essay

  • FORCIBLE REDISTRIBUTION IS MISSED OPPORTUNITY FOR EXCHANGE Forcible redistributi

    FORCIBLE REDISTRIBUTION IS MISSED OPPORTUNITY FOR EXCHANGE

    Forcible redistribution via taxation deprives us of the ability to ask for something in exchange for our earnings.

    What we would most often like in exchange are conformity to norms (predictability of signals), and social status (reward).

    If redistribution is politically necessary to prevent friction in politics, but undesired by the population, then the government needs to be broken up.

    The reason being that governments that act on the behalf of constituencies can negotiate trade policy to effectively form redistribution from those who DESIRE to trade with others, versus those that do not.

    Conformity is how we prefer to determine whether someone has access to our market. However, if they do not conform, that does not mean that they cannot extract from us something that we wish to give them in exchange for granting us access to THEIR market.

    It isnt necessarily mandatory that governments possess a monopoly over territory. Collective trade bargaining can be conducted by currency differences. But only if currency is entirely digital – so that we can make use of many of them.

    Technology makes interesting political options available to us today,t he same way that the invention of money made new political options available in the past.

    It’s fascinating.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-12-19 16:49:00 UTC

  • OUR WEALTH OF VIOLENCE Under anarchy, we agree NOT to use our natural capacity f

    OUR WEALTH OF VIOLENCE

    Under anarchy, we agree NOT to use our natural capacity for violence, theft and fraud, and by each of us agreeing to not use violence theft and fraud, we obtain property rights. Property rights are the RESULT of forgoing violence, theft, fraud, fraud by omission, obstruction, externalization and shaming and rallying. When we forgo all of these forms of involuntary transfer, nothing is let to us but that narrow means of cooperation we call honest, fully informed, voluntary exchange.

    By many of us agreeing not to use our natural capacity for violence, theft fraud, fraud by omission, obstruction, externalization, shaming, rallying, and organized extortion, and instead forcing ourselves to cooperate voluntarily, by honest, fully informed, voluntary exchange, we create a market.

    Governments are monopolistic insurers, usually formed by nobility, and oligarchy, or a conquerer.

    Under a monopoly government, we pay our wealth of violence to the state, as the first, and ultimate tax. And in return, we expect defense, arbitration of differences.

    We also agree to paying for the necessity of supporting defenders (warriors and soldiers), administrators (sheriffs), and arbitrators (judges), in exchange. It is a convenient division of labor to hire specialists. Warriors, sheriffs and judges are necessary arbiters of war, violence, theft and fraud.

    Although, in English history, the militia is the check and balance on the insurers, rather than competing insurers. In fact, the militia, of armed men, is the only check on monopoly government.

    Violence is the answer, and the only answer.

    We were born with a wealth of violence. We let the state borrow our violence on our behalf, as a division of labor, so that we may specialize in what we wish to. But if the state does not justly use our violence, it is our obligation and our moral right, and our personal necessity, to withdraw our wealth of violence from the state, and to use that wealth to enact a new order.

    I am tired of poor people being dragged into court, fined and losing work for no other reason than choosing to eat or sleep or work, rather than pay taxes, fines, and fees. I am tired of families struggling or the elderly struggling, so that the impulsive and unconstrained bearers of children can obtain succor at their expense.

    I am tired of white males being prosecuted for trying to take great risks to create wealth and protect it so that they no longer must take great risks.

    Withdraw your wealth of violence. Cease paying your tax of violence. Become a protestor of the violence tax, and return your violence to your own control, and use. Take back your first and greatest wealth.

    VIOLENCE IS OUR FIRST NATURAL RIGHT.

    USE IT.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-12-17 14:07:00 UTC

  • INTERESTING DEVELOPMENT TEAM AND PROCESS (cultural observations) (transparency i

    INTERESTING DEVELOPMENT TEAM AND PROCESS

    (cultural observations) (transparency into the process)

    The standard dev model that we practice in Seattle, and in san francisco isn’t followed here in Kiev. It’s partly cultural, in that males here are ‘different’ in their trust, expectation, and collaboration methods. Its partly that most of the development here is support, web, and ‘do it cheap’ work. So no matter who you talk to, almost everyone sounds like a 1999 tech boom developer.

    So, you can’t sort of hire people and expect them to have the full suite of product developer skills and habits.

    Second, I’ve learned a lot over the years, partly at Microsoft, and that is to produce a feature complete product, and then refine it. The reason for this is that most product management and technology people in most organizations try to overly simplify the software. And I didn’t want that. The web only exacerbated this problem, and so did the apple and iPhone design ethic. Microsoft has taken it too far, in that they have thrown the kitchen sink into their products. But we are trying to develop something very special (the full impact of which will take another year of work to be visible). And I need a rich desktop level of application written for the web, with rich features.

    I am perfectly happy throwing away code if I’m going to produce something better. And so I prefer low investment up front, and then to harden later. If you know what you want to build, and you’re clear abou tit, then you can work with high up front investment. But I can’t do that because we’re engaged in research and development, and so we must buy experimentation cheaply.

    So, we sort of work like this:

    1) I have this enormous list of features.

    2) Starting from the foundation on the back end we have built from the back to the front, and are now building from the front user experience and modifying that back end.

    3) I make a list of features we need to work on, make the drawings, fill out an excel spreadsheet, and work with Denis on the general design. It is very loose. If there are any strategic questions we round-table them and get everyone’s interest and criticism.

    4) Denis implements the user interface, improves the design and finds all the holes in it. Then we debate back and forth. I want a rich desktop interface that i can sell. Denis is always trying to minimize the information density and produce something reasonably clean.

    5) Vitalii refines the UI and makes al the complex JS work.

    6) Kirill integrates the back end, because he basically ‘owns’ the core engines: Organizational Dimension System, Workflow, Messaging, Currencies, and the Database.

    7) Heavy lifting (stuff that has to be ‘right’) and performance is done by Alex.

    8) Then I do the testing and bug reporting.

    9) Then they all divvy up the bugs and changes I put through and do the work at their discretion.

    It took a while but it’s a pretty good workflow. It’s not anything like ‘feature teams’ that I’ve generally used. It’s totally organic. And it works.

    But, since we are done with the R&D phase, and have our model figured out, soon I’ll have to basically double or more, the size of the staff, and harden the application rather than conduct R&D. And that means more than doubling the burn rate.

    I’d originally planned to spend all of my own money, but the government’s latest torture of me has changed that, and I’m going to pull in some early money.

    Given that I expect no less than 10x, I’m pretty sure that’s an easy raise.

    (Thanks for listening. Apparently people like this ‘working in public’ thing, like watching pre-industrial silversmiths, cobblers, and potters constructing their wares in open shops. I wish more people did this. It promotes honesty. And we all can learn from each other.)

    Curt

    Source date (UTC): 2013-12-17 05:34:00 UTC

  • THERE IS NO ‘WE’. AMERICANS ARE UNITED ONLY BY HOLLYWOOD, EMPIRE AND TAXES. (ins

    THERE IS NO ‘WE’. AMERICANS ARE UNITED ONLY BY HOLLYWOOD, EMPIRE AND TAXES.

    (insightful)

    The reasons to stay together can be expressed most accurately as a difference in costs. The costs of being together are not yet sufficient to pay the cost of not being together. Now, this argument can be fallacious under assumptions of equality of interest. So the correct statement is, that 5% of males are not yet willing to employ violence to alter the circumstances.

    (And I am trying to give them moral, rational, and scientific arguments to support that 5%.)

    America will survive as long as new waves of immigrants can leave behind family structures and obtain property and property rights in america FASTER than the existing people seek rents and free riding on the political system that makes those new people arrive.

    As such, the american continent, has been, and always will be, either a gold rush where statists profit, or the best and largest and longest running PONZI scheme in human history.

    I think it’s both.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-12-17 04:35:00 UTC

  • INTERESTING THOUGHT ON THE FUTURE We know that the vast majority of people rebel

    INTERESTING THOUGHT ON THE FUTURE

    We know that the vast majority of people rebel against operational language, science, liberty, property rights, risks to their identity and status. We know, as my friend Adam Voight keeps reminding me, that meritocracy is painful for those who can’t or dont’ desire to compete in it. And that they need a way out.

    Now, if property rights basically forbid free riding and rent seeking, and forbid illusions about our value to others. If propertarian and praxeological language forbid or ability to steal by political means. If Science and naturalistic philosophy forbid our ability to lie to ourselves to seek comfort. If even MORE property is transferred from material to abstract objects, thereby prohibiting theft. If governments can see into every aspect of our lives, and forbid us our vents. IF rather than just prevent the vent of violence. What if governments prevent the vent of self deception? If.. they cause us to confront reality, absent all the comforting lies we tell each other?

    I can’t believe that this state of affairs is possible. I only believe that the government bureaucracy will profit from trying to MAKE it possible.

    And I think I know what that means.

    It is an interesting way to look at what a polity will tolerate.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-12-15 10:31:00 UTC

  • WHY DID ICELAND DO IT RIGHT? A CRITIQUE OF CORPORATISM VS CAPITALISM Because cap

    WHY DID ICELAND DO IT RIGHT? A CRITIQUE OF CORPORATISM VS CAPITALISM

    Because capitalism requires, and is defined by, the fact that risk takers both win and lose, and they bear the burdens of both their wins and losses.

    There is nothing in capitalism that supports the privatizing of social gains, or the socialization of private losses. That isn’t CAPITALISM. That’s state CORPORATISM. The alliance between the state and the capitalists, AGAINST the general population.

    Without the counter-incentive of risk, only totalitarianism of rules and regulations can attempt to control natural human behavior to socialize risk and privatize reward. That is what free riding and rent seeking do.

    The purpose of competition in the market is to reward consumers by way of a competition between lenders, producers, distributors, and vendors. Whenever a competition exists, at least one party loses, but that is never the consumer – who always benefits. This is the most elegant form of redistribution ever created by man. It is a virtuous cycle.

    But if the state INSURES COMPETITORS, it breaks the virtuous cycle, and provides incentives for competitors to privatize gains, and to socialize losses.

    When you create debt of any kind, you are not in the clear with the profits until the debt is paid off. That is, you have earned only the right to USE the income from that debt, but it is not YOURS until the debt is paid off.

    This is counter to human loss aversion instincts. In our emotional machinery between our ears, we own what we have. But that is not true, and cannot be. A debt and corresponding credit function as a production cycle. The good is not MADE until it is paid off.

    Our legal system does not recognize this liability and that is why we fail to correctly adjudicate credit and debt, and why we fail to correctly implement policy to protect consumers and hold lenders accountable.

    The reason is quite simple: the state is trying to put credit out there all the time in every way possible so that it creates employment and taxes from employment.

    But the production cycles are lost in a sea of confusion and this immeasurable distortion in information is inconceivably complex, and impossible for economists to tease from the data.

    The left’s proposition is that ‘it will all work out’. The right’s proposition is that we are undermining the entire SCIENTIFIC nature of the anglo model of economy we call capitalism.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-12-15 07:55:00 UTC

  • THE HBD MOVEMENT ATTRIBUTES TOO MUCH TO GENETICS I agree that genetics play an e

    THE HBD MOVEMENT ATTRIBUTES TOO MUCH TO GENETICS

    I agree that genetics play an enormous role in the biases of the polity. I disagree that we cannot create institutions that redirect those differences to mutually beneficial ends.

    What I disagree with, is that any system of property rights is severable from the reproductive strategy of the people in the population.

    Furthermore, I, unfortunately, agree with the eugenicists: redistribution so that the lower classes can outbreed the upper classes has no support in logic, morality, or history.

    We can pay them not to have children. But we cannot pay them to have children.

    THat’s what we do wrong.

    One child per couple who requires benefits, with loss of benefits, and imprisonment, for breaking it, is the only moral solution to the problem of reproduction by those whose reproduction decreases the ability of the middle and upper classes to reproduce.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-12-12 13:37:00 UTC

  • ON SATIRE AND RIDICULE When we agree to enter into discourse, debate, even polem

    ON SATIRE AND RIDICULE

    When we agree to enter into discourse, debate, even polemic, we grant each other the right of free speech, in pursuit of the truth, for shared benefit. Otherwise there is no reason to lay down our weapons: we simply substitute the honesty of violence for the deception of words.

    Satire and ridicule are forms of deception. They are theft. A crime. A moral crime. And the majority of us sense it is a moral crime, even when we disagree with it.

    You cannot get around this logic. Satire and Ridicule, unless they are, like the greek drama, directed at ourselves, rather than others, a violation of the contract for cooperation.

    So one can state how and why we use it. But one cannot legitimize it. It’s not possible.

    (See Habermas)

    Source date (UTC): 2013-12-12 01:30:00 UTC

  • THE SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN EUROPEAN JEWISH AND EUROPEAN PROTESTANT

    THE SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN EUROPEAN JEWISH AND EUROPEAN PROTESTANT ETHICS

    Similarities between Ashkenazi and Northern European (Protestant) ethics: both the extended model of the jewish community, and the aristocratic ethics of the Northern European community, place onerous burdens on non-conforming, uncompetitive members, and force them out of the community where they will either reproduce elsewhere or reproduce poorly.

    Then eugenic result of these reproductive strategies is still evident in the Ashkenazi jewish population, and at least evident in the middle and upper classes of protestant civilization – although, if Lynn is correct, we protestants have lost intellectual parity with the jews over the past 150 years because we ceased our constraint on the reproduction of the lower classes and weakened our high investment parenting (and the state actively prohibits it via public education), while the jews continue their high investment parenting.

    Then major difference in these ethical systems is that the scope of Northern European (North Sea / Protestant) ethic contains the warrior constraints which have a higher standard of prohibition on externality than the Ashkenazi, which in turn has a higher standard of prohibition, and more outcasting than the eastern european, mediterranean, and middle eastern.

    1) Requirement of fully asymmetric information in an exchange.

    2) Requirement of warranty to prove symmetry of exchange.

    3) Prohibition against externalization of costs.

    4) Requirement for value added to goods.

    5) Prohibition on profit from disadvantage.

    In addition:

    6) Requirement of contribution to the physical commons.

    7) Requirement for militia service in exchange for membership.

    These ethical extensions are caused by the origins of these two peoples as an homogenous majority of land holders in the cast of northern europeans, and a homogenous minority of diasporic non-land holders in the case of the european jews. Majoritarian Militial Warriors and Minority of diasporic, unlanded traders develop very different needs.

    All ethical systems must reflect reproductive necessity. What is perhaps most interesting is that by the time we enter the 20th century, the difference between Scottish presbyterians and european jews was indistinguishable by other than trinket symbolism and surname.

    It was the introduction of eastern european jews that increased 20th century domestic friction, which is now, only three generations later, accommodating. I think McDonald has pretty much settled the case on this topic. It is what it is. We each need our reproductive strategies to survive.

    I get a little flack for my criticism of Rothbard’s ethics as the failed attempt to reconcile the ethics of european aristocratic egalitarian liberty with Jewish ethics of the diasporic peoples. But the point of my argument is a necessary one. I cannot repair the ethics of liberty without correcting the properties of those ethics by expanding those set of ethical constraints to reflect the aristocratic high trust society.

    Because it is that high trust society that makes northern europeans unique in the world.

    Just as I get quite a bit of flack for attacking the assumption that feminist ambitions can be perpetuated without the near universal adherence to the absolute nuclear family.

    Just as I get quite a bit of flack for attacking the libertarian movement as autistically blind to moral diversity, and our attempt to assert moral monopoly on human cooperation. Morals must reflect reproductive needs, at least within groups, even if the only moral constraint between groups is can bear no difference between private property rights.

    I just get flack for these arguments. But the fact is that they are simply true. Its just objective. Our reproductive strategies determine our ethical codes.

    I cannot recommend institutional solutions to the problem of cooperation in a morally heterogeneous polity absent a tyrannical state unless I make it also clear that these reproductives strategies are rational, and moral for their adherents. It is not rational that individuals should prefer strategies and moral codes that are against their reproductive interests.

    So, as always, I apologize in advance for the murder of sacred cows, but it’s necessary for mutual benefit.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-12-10 10:51:00 UTC

  • SOCIAL CAPITAL : THE CONSERVATIVES : HOMOGENEITY=TRUST The conservative vision o

    SOCIAL CAPITAL : THE CONSERVATIVES : HOMOGENEITY=TRUST

    The conservative vision of man, is that he is a wild beast that must be tamed through constant training, and adhere to social structures that encourage his good behavior – particularly marriage. In the Mormon community for example, I have often heard is “An unmarried male between 17 and 22 is a threat to society.”

    But this is incorrect really. It’s the negative statement, not the positive. The positive is provided by Fukuyama (better than all others I think) “..shared norms or values that promote social cooperation, instantiated in actual social relationships..”

    Again, that’s still distracting, because it doesn’t address the behavioral issue that they mean to develop: TRUST. Social capital is the set of shared norms, values, habits, traditions that facilitate cooperation by increasing TRUST. Trust meaning predictability of taking risk with persons outside of your family group, without fear of loss attributable to one party taking advantage of the other through deception (fraud, lying) or asymmetry of information (fraud by omission).

    The west is a high-trust society. It is actually the ONLY high trust society. It is so because westerners have outbred (protestants at least) such that they actually were an extended family, with very rigid norms, and as such adaptation to norms demonstrated trustworthiness and avoidance of them untrustworthiness.

    There is nothing different about trust in any given society other than how far it extends outside the family.

    SO, conservatives, although they cannot articulated it, are constantly engaged in the process of fighting to maintain the homogeneity of the absolute nuclear family, and a set of conformative rules around the absolute nuclear family, and particularly prevention of free riding and cheating, because these ‘bad behaviors’ reduce trust and the ability to form dynamic and frictionless relationships for cooperation and mutual benefit.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-12-10 05:39:00 UTC