Curt Doolittle

Form: Mini Essay

  • MEN AND WOMEN HAVE DIFFERENT REPRODUCTIVE STRATEGIES AND THE NUCLEAR FAMILY SOLV

    MEN AND WOMEN HAVE DIFFERENT REPRODUCTIVE STRATEGIES AND THE NUCLEAR FAMILY SOLVED THAT CONFLICT UNDER AGRARIANISM

    But we are seeing, especially in the lower classes, the degeneration of the nuclear family. As a consequence we are seeing polarity in the democratic political systems. Systems that were designed for nuclear families under the property rights system of agrarian production.

    There would never have been a progressive president without the female vote. All we are seeing in politics is the conflicting moral codes which are distributed disproportionately between the genders expressed as divisiveness. While we thing of this as a way of life, or a vision of the future, and to some degree it is, what the statistics show is that it’s little more than who is married or unmarried to whom at what age.

    The other thing it shows is that males are checking out of society as fast as single mothers are becoming politically active. Males will be the minority voters for the foreseeable future.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-09-01 01:29:00 UTC

  • OPAQUE PHILOSOPHY – IN HUMBLING COMPANY I’ve been extremely self critical about

    OPAQUE PHILOSOPHY – IN HUMBLING COMPANY

    I’ve been extremely self critical about the opacity of my writing, and struggling to make it digestible. It’s brutally difficult to follow Spinoza’s advice: “Speak in a manner comprehensible to the common people.” And, while I’ll never be able to address common people, I think I’ve finally reduced propertarianism to something that’s at least reasonably accessible, and analytically clear, regardless of one’s political preferences and moral codes. Perhaps I can get it down to twenty pages if I can figure out how to elegantly and succinctly tie the biology of moral codes, to the necessity of property, to the institutions necessary for property. Maybe thirty pages. My first draft was almost three hundred. So obviously i’m making progress.

    I still have years worth of work ahead of me. I’ve used Rothbard’s ideas to reframe classical liberalism and conservatism, and then social democracy, into Propertarian language. But the excruciating work of defending these ideas against the legion of very smart people both past and present is so daunting I become easily overwhelmed every time I pull my head out of one little problem or the other.

    And I don’t really find those defensive problems interesting. This is where my lack of academic training fails me. It is one thing to solve a conceptual problem. It is quite another to create an edifice with which to defend it against crushingly great minds. It is either the mark of an incredible fool, unconscionable hubris, or accidental ignorance, to take on this category of problem, and to even mention one’s feeble efforts in the same sentence with minds like this.

    Spinoza spent his entire life on two hundred pages. How did Murray work on one book for seven years full time? Rawls? And Rawls clearly needed to do a lot more work than he did. You have to be amazed by someone like Rothbard, who I’m honestly in awe of. If you look at his writing, while he oversimplifies the problem of political theory almost absurdly, he’s at least accessible and his breadth just daunting, even if you disagree with his premise.

    On the other hand, after re-reading those who don’t oversimplify the problem, namely Rawls and Nozick, I feel like the bar isn’t all that high. I mean, those works are highly influential despite being painfully inaccessible. Which is a small comfort. A very small comfort. But a comfort none the less.

    One cannot distill complex ideas to first principles expressed in analytical language unless one understands the problem thoroughly. The genius of Rothbard’s insight is a barrier to adoption because of his passion for his particular ethics of anarchism. But his Propertarianism is applicable to all political philosophy and ideology. In fact, it’s the only thing that makes them commensurable.

    Shoulders of giants and all that. Humbling. Witheringly humbling.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-08-26 23:35:00 UTC

  • CONTRA THE ATHEISTS American christianity is a revolt against the state, not an

    CONTRA THE ATHEISTS

    American christianity is a revolt against the state, not an advocacy of mysticism. The purpose of all religion; to place limits upon the state. To determine the limits of rule. To place control of society into the hands of small local groups, each with a variety of different interpretations and preferences. To make the individual in control of his or her life, and his or her destiny.

    Seeing christianity as a movement consisting of irrational statements toward an irrational end, is very different from seeing it as practical means of achieving a rational end, regardless of the irrationality of its arguments.

    Marxism is based on a false assumption. Democracy is based upon many false assumptions. Inter-temporal redistribution is based upon many false assumptions. Why is it that Religious Conservatism must be based upon true assumptions?

    All movements are political. I find the argument about the FORM of religious doctrine always somewhat childish – judging a book by its cover. The CONTENT of religious doctrine can be analyzed. The RESULTS of applying religious doctrine can be criticized.

    There is no evidence that most of what we debate in society is rational. And as Caplan has tried to show us, it may not be possible for public discourse to be rational. FORM does not matter. CONTENT matters,and content can be judged by the RESULTS it produces.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-08-15 13:48:00 UTC

  • The average European and particularly the average working class European always

    The average European and particularly the average working class European always appears on average so much better educated than his American peer. This may be a selection effect since I can only interact with those who are competent English speakers. But the test data seems to confirm it. And while it is heretical to state that the heterogeneity of the American population accounts for those scores, it remains that peers of Europeans in the USA are less literate and less numerate.

    On the other hand, the average American is extraordinarily conscious of the country’s military, political, and financial role in the world – even though the cannot choose whether to be pleased or frustrated by it.

    I am one of those Americans that tends to resent Europeans who treat us with disdain despite our expensive subsidy of their economies.

    American foreign policy is not conducted on emotive or moral grounds, but strategic grounds. Always. Good or bad.

    The world would be a better place if we withdrew from europe and forced them to bear the same burdens we do.

    Perhaps then our values would converge. It is not understood on either side of the pond that two centuries ago Americans thought precisely about Europe what Europeans think about America today.

    And people around the world congratulate themselves on their moral choices despite the fact that geography, demographics, and economic conditions are the source of their opinion, not their deliberate choice.

    The usa will be energy independent soon which will put us in strategic conflict with Europe. We will no longer have material reason nor the means to play policeman to the world.

    Maintaining a stable price of oil as well as food and currency is too much of a burden for the American people.

    So something will change here one way or another.

    And self congratulatory moral convenience will change with it.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-08-01 13:35:00 UTC

  • ATTEMPT TO USE A UN TREATY TO CIRCUMVENT THE CONSTITUTION AVOIDED I really prefe

    ATTEMPT TO USE A UN TREATY TO CIRCUMVENT THE CONSTITUTION AVOIDED

    I really prefer to stick with political theory itself, rather than get involved in individual initiatives. But this is a great day to celebrate the avoidance of a terrible abuse of our system of government.

    It’s not common knowledge that Treaties have the same legal power as the constitution. They are effectively amendments. The Obama administration has been trying to accomplish through the treaty process what it could not accomplish through the democratic electoral, or legislative process.

    This is only one of the initiatives that the administration is using to circumvent the constitutional protections we enjoy. And it’s the first one to be defeated. Hopefully it will be only the fist to be defeated.

    Congratulations to everyone who wrote letters, emails and made phone calls.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-07-27 16:54:00 UTC

  • ACCIDENTAL OBSERVATIONS: THE METAPHYSICS OF REACTIONARIES: AMISH VS HASSIDIM In

    ACCIDENTAL OBSERVATIONS:

    THE METAPHYSICS OF REACTIONARIES:

    AMISH VS HASSIDIM

    In a coffee shop in Leavenworth. An Amish family, father, perhaps 60, mother about the same, and adult daughter perhaps 30, ordering iced mocha coconut coffee drinks with whipped cream. I didn’t take a photo, because I didn’t want to be rude. So description will have to do: they were dressed impeccably, and had nearly perfect, radiant, clear skin. The man was gentlemanly and spoke with a few other customers, asking about where they lived, and other friendly idle talk. The women were obviously avoiding eye contact and conversation.

    My own reaction was precognitive and involuntary: I treat these people with sacred reverence. They are the souls of the germanic peoples. Certainly more so than priests, public intellectuals, or politicians. Probably because there is no question as to the honesty of there commitment and no political art of persuasion we must defend ourselves from. They are a statement of truth, purely by their actions.

    Most of us with northern european heritage long for our medieval, agrarian, communal, and familial past, even as we celebrate our longer lives, greater health, lack of hunger, freedom from brutal physical labor, and insulation from violence. These people are the embodiment of the idea of our past, perhaps more so than the actuality of it.

    I suppose the Jews may think of their Hassidic sect with the same reverence. (Although as I understand it, opinions about the hassidim – particularly their overbreeding and communist dependence upon redistribution in Israel – like most opinions in the Jewish community, vary pretty widely.)

    Because I simply haven’t spent time thinking about this topic before, it’s pretty obvious that both reactionary sects represent the different world views of Germanic and Hebrew peoples: social actions and individual responsibility versus individual thoughts, and collectivism. Action versus mysticism, both wrapped in religious ritual and insular pacifism that protects their alternate reality from competition with the chaos of the modern world. This difference can be reduced to: the people of the land and action versus the people of the mind and words.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-07-25 14:31:00 UTC

  • FROM QUORA: “Is Democracy a viable system for everyone?” ANSWER: By Curt Doolitt

    FROM QUORA: “Is Democracy a viable system for everyone?”

    ANSWER: By Curt Doolittle, The Propertarian Institute.

    Democracy is, at best, a means of peacefully transferring power. But, if by this question, you mean, can representative democracy (a republic) or even a direct democracy (versus an economic democracy), serve the interests of everyone, the answer is apparently “no” for the following reasons.

    a) Majority rule is a means by which a group with similar moral codes and material interests can set PRIORITIES for the use of scarce resources. Because moral codes conflict at the most basic level, It is not possible to use majority rule for groups with competing moral codes and competing material interests to resolve conflicts over GOALS. Democracy is a means of obtaining majority rule.

    b) The lower, working and lower middle classes are and will always be, the largest pool of potential voters. Therefore elites from all moral codes and interest groups w will simply compete for the votes of these groups.

    c) The protestant west was unique in that the church managed to break familial bonds by the long term prohibition of intermarriage, and by granting women property rights. Combined with germanic individualism, and the common law, this made possible the fairly low level of corruption in the west, that is endemic elsewhere. It also gave rise the the universalist ethic, which is contrary to the natural familial and tribal ethic. This is a very long topic on it’s own, but basically the west is fairly unique. China and India cannot solve the problem of corruption for example from different ends of the spectrum. India remains familial and china authoritarian.

    d) We have fairly good data now, that moral codes vary considerably, and that they are slanted toward the reproductive strategies of the two genders. Therefore those things that serve one moral code often violate another. Those things that violate some moral codes (famlilialism) are necessary for democracy to function.

    e) It appears that the philosophers were right, and that a population that can vote itself payments from others will create a fragile economy. This is a particular weakness of the western model versus say the Singaporean and Galveston models, whereby individual accountability is maintained.

    f) There are dominant cognitive biases on the left and right. the left is victim of the false consensus bias, and the right overestimates threats and risks, and the libertarians overestimate human beings. These cognitive problems are impossible to resolve by majority rule.

    I have to rush so hopefully this brief outline will illustrate the problem

    Source date (UTC): 2012-07-16 01:09:00 UTC

  • QUESTION FROM QUORA: What is being done to prevent the development of a “cold wa

    QUESTION FROM QUORA: What is being done to prevent the development of a “cold war” between China and the US in the coming years?

    Answer by Curt Doolittle, The Propertarian Institute.

    The USA is attempting to allow China to peacefully rise by use of commercial power rather than military power. Commerce creates consumption which addicts citizens to consumerism, which then makes it difficult for governments to jeopardize without insurrection. That is the only strategy. The USA prefers the world consist of good commercial citizens.

    The fundamental problem though, is that China is a populous and very poor country that also contains conquered and rebellious territories, open to insurrection, and the wealthy coasts can be militarily devastated, and driven to starvation by blockading access to the South China Sea. The Chinese are quite aware of this vulnerability, plus they have a ‘chip’ on their shoulders from both british conquest, the failure of Marxism, and extended poverty, and the impact of those events upon the cultural mythology of Chinese superiority as the center of the world.

    Furthermore, their rise is complicated by the fact that they do not subscribe to the western moral code that currently is enforced by the United States on world trade — a code we take for granted but is antithetical to the Chinese. (We resolve conflicts quickly and rely upon honesty and they wait for opportunity using deception. This difference in ethics pervades both cultures.)

    The USA currently polices the world system of trade (largely the seas) because it took over the British naval bases at the end of the world wars. And petrodollars allow us to fund that policing. We sell dollars to other countries as debt, which they then use to buy oil, and then we inflate away the debt. This is how we ‘tax’ the developed world for our expensive military ‘services’. Services which they object to, but in particular, Europe and Japan do not object to not having to pay for directly themselves (nor could they).

    However, this system of indirect taxation which is breaking down, and the USA can no longer count on those advantages because of demographic reasons, competitive reasons due to internationalization of labor and technology, and monetary reasons due to the use of other currencies as petroleum and reserve currencies.

    General consensus among strategic thinkers is that the USA’s power will decline slowly and that Chinese rise will be moderated at some near point by simple economic pressures. The more radical thinkers suggest that most empires like the USA do not decline slowly, but very rapidly over a period of less than 50 years, and that the standard of living of the average american will be so significantly affected by the loss in purchasing power, that existing political tensions will be drastically exacerbated, sufficiently so that we will have our own problems of insurrection.

    In other words, both countries are more vulnerable to internal pressures due to China’s rise than they are to conflict with one another. The alternative school of thought suggests that when empires succumb to internal conflict, then they exaggerate external threats in order to pressure the citizens to stay united (see Iran for example). So that once the states and china experience internal pressures they will conduct a war over it. I tend to think this is unlikely because the USA’s citizens will have internalized it’s decline by that time.

    As I understand it, that is the current thinking in as short a summary as I can place it.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-07-15 15:39:00 UTC

  • FROM QUORA: Is Iraq an unofficial “vassal” of Iran?Edit Answer by: Curt Doolittl

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clash_of_Civilizations#Core_state_and_fault_line_conflictsQUESTION FROM QUORA: Is Iraq an unofficial “vassal” of Iran?Edit

    Answer by: Curt Doolittle, The Propertarian Institute.

    All civilizations have a ‘core state’ (see link below) except islam, which last relied upon the Turks as the core state. Iran wants to become the core state of islamic civilization, control middle eastern oil, capture the profits from it, and build a military strong enough to ensure it’s centrality, with those profits. If possible, the strategic route to making this come about is to create an alliance, dependency, or at least lack of opposition with Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, where Pakistan and Iran hold nuclear weapons.

    That is the Iranian strategic objective.

    Whether or not Iraq is a Vassal of Iran is an improper use of language. Iraq is no longer capable of opposing Iranian strategic initiatives, and is subject to iranian political pressure. So it is perhaps better to categorize Iraq as successfully within the sphere of influence of Iran, and therefore contributing to the potential of Iran to become the Core State of Islamic civilization — against the wishes of the southern states.

    We must understand that this is not an unwise strategic objective for the Iranians. And it is possibly achievable if they can accomplish it without inciting the USA to remove them as a potential power in the region.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-07-15 14:45:00 UTC

  • FROM QUORA: HOW CAN THE UNITED STATES REMAIN A GLOBAL POWER? By: Curt Doolittle,

    FROM QUORA: HOW CAN THE UNITED STATES REMAIN A GLOBAL POWER?

    By: Curt Doolittle, The Propertarian Institute.

    I am pretty sure that this represents the best overview of the USA’s current circumstances that exists today.

    There are six factors that play into power:

    1) geography,

    2) demographics,

    3) economy,

    4) currency,

    5) technology

    6) military.

    Given these factors, here are the changing conditions affecting the future of US power at the present time.

    1) The United States has a strategic geographic location, is a large country, and has quite a few natural resources. These factors are is enough to ensure relative importance in global affairs.

    2) The USA (along with the germanic countries) is reasonably free of government corruption, and it’s judiciary can be counted on to resolve contracts. Therefore it has commercial investment strengths that are difficult to duplicate. There is no other place to put risk capital anywhere close to that of the USA.

    3) The liquidity provided by the USA stock market creates a ‘lottery’ that encourages high risk ventures, which is why so much commercial experimentation happens in the states. But statistically speaking, it looks very much like wall street in general produces ‘noise’ and little else. With the collapse of demand for complex financial products, and the rising awareness of the nature of the financial system, plus the backlash against the crash in order to increase taxes on the wealthy, this system appears fragile.

    4) The USA has the highest corporate taxes in the world which encourages companies to invest and make money overseas rather than domestically. Combined with the incentive to use overseas labor, these are strong incentives to create jobs elsewhere.

    5) The USA is plagued by an educational system designed for converting farmers to industrial laborers, and the rest of the advanced economies have converted to systems designed to create a more advanced labor force. Meanwhile a lot of cheaper labor has come online, putting pressure on the lower classes (unskilled labor).

    6) The USA benefits from a) status as a reserve currency, b) price stability in oil caused by threat of military intervention, c) status as a petro-currency, and d) the ability (because of these factors) to accumulate significant debt, then inflate it away rapidly. These benefits are all waning due to the USA’s relative decline in world economic power.

    7) USA’s budget is about 1/3 for Social Security and Medicare benefit programs, 1/3 for the military, and 1/3 for the entire rest of the budget. Taxes only cover 2/3 of the budget. 1/3 must be borrowed and inflated away. So, in practice, the USA cannot maintain the military complex necessary for world power unless it maintains an ability to generate debt, and inflate that debt away.

    8) The military infrastructure built up for the cold war is aging, and modern programs to produce innovative technology have been plagued with technical failures and very high costs. The wars in the middle east have ‘consumed’ existing ‘capital equipment”. The USA will have to invest in new technology and equipment in order to maintain and project power. In particular, the surface navy, which the USA relies upon to project its power worldwide, is an extremely vulnerable technology. We also lack the type of equipment to fight urban warfare, which dominates the future of life and warfare. And it is possible that the structure of the army is unsuited for the future of warfare (and the marines are correctly structured.) Western civilization has generally been more successful at war than other cultures despite being poorer and in smaller numbers, because of its reliance on technology, and willingness to rapidly adapt to technology. Technology is expensive. It is coming into question whether we can endure: a) a racially divisive domestic political ’empire’ which is clearly polarizing along racial and cultural lines. b) an aging population that requires high health and support costs. c) an unemployable unskilled class, and unemployably expensive low skilled working class d) a loss of relative economic power needed to pay for power projection, e) our status as a reserve currency, and our status as a petro currency, creating demand for US debt which is used to accumulate dollars which in turn is used for reserves and for the purchase oil. f) a decline in our abilty to issue and inflate debt as a means of paying for our military program that is not covered by taxes.

    9) Given the size of the economy and its geographic location, the USA will continue to hold onto relatively strong world power. It will however, be increasingly unable to project power, and its abilty to pay for programs necessary to modernize and keep pace with changing world powers is waning.

    10) In particular there are two scenarios that are obvious:

    a) if the Iran is successful in creating an Iranian/pakistani/syrian/iraqi block that becomes a nuclear enabled military force that is capable of dictating world oil prices, and therefore capable of demanding the use of any given currency, the USA will not be able to fund its military program, because all ‘profits’ from reserve currency status, and petro-dollar status, will be captured by Iran. (If I could only get Tom Clancy to write a book on that story. Because that’s the story people might desire to understand.)

    b) China is a geographically vulnerable country (with a huge chip on its shoulder due to its loss of position in world history, and its failure with communism.) It would be very, very, easy to starve chinese citizens and foment civil war there by simply controlling the south china seas. The chinese know this and are very concerned about the ‘conquered’ provinces as well as the conflict between rich and poor and south and north. China also has a significant advantage in IQ distribution and literacy that gives its economy an advantage in spite of endemic poverty. The USA does not have this advantage because of a different (lower) IQ and literacy distribution. The “bottom” quintiles of chinese society are much better than the ‘bottom’ quintiles of american society. As impolitic and unpleasant that fact may be.Edit

    Source date (UTC): 2012-07-15 14:23:00 UTC