Curt Doolittle

Form: Mini Essay

  • All Cultures Developed Religions Of Some Sort

    Mystical Political Religion and the concept of good and evil was invented by the Persians to separate the persian people from the indians who were, at that time, similar peoples. Mystical religion was invented to cause conflict and political division. All cultures developed religions of some sort. If by religion we mean a body of habituated knowledge consisting of Myths and Rituals – but which in modern terms we call ‘education’. History and Political systems are in effect, Myths and Rituals too. If we look at history, the lower clases make use of and rely on mystical religion for insurance and education, the (admittedly small) middle classes on craft, guild, contract and trade, and the the upper classes on politics and bureaucracy, and the different classes cooperate by sharing those different cooperative strategies. So, even the ancient politicians learned how to use education for political purposes. Thats where we get mystical religion from. (See Nietzsche if you can manage it. Gimbutas, Weber and Armstrong otherwise.)

    [callout]History and Political systems are in effect, Myths and Rituals too. If we look at history, the lower clases make use of and rely on mystical religion for insurance and education, the (admittedly small) middle classes on craft, guild, contract and trade, and the the upper classes on politics and bureaucracy, and the different classes cooperate by sharing those different cooperative strategies.[/callout]

    Moral principles are, without exception, under analysis, economic principles – and as economic principles they can be rationally articulated, or embedded in a narrative like a fairy tale, so that they may be taught to children who cannot grasp more abstract, rationally articulated ideas. There is no need for religion to achieve moral education. The fact that all religions, even post-buddha buddism, have developed a myth of afterlife is to add the force of violence to mysticism. The fact that we teach mystical religious principles instead of rationally articulated moral principles makes it impossible to create political compromises between religious traditions – which encourages conflict. More importantly, religious traditions are economic strategies – they promote the values of particular social orders. (west=fraternal and technical, middle=tribal and mystical, east=familial and bureaucratic) This difference is why the west developed the industrial revolution twice (greece and england) and no one else ever has. It’s simply a better strategy for experimentation. (See Hayek, Weber and Armstrong)

  • On Happiness: Prospective and Retrospective

    To be happy, people desire access to new stimuli – ‘relishes’ as Aristotle put it, or ‘new experiences’ as we put it today. People prefer working on optimistic ends. They prefer to work successfully to accumulate new stimuli, rather than at planning to prevent negative stimuli, or at planning to conserve resources so that they can preserve the current stimuli. And they enjoy operating at the maximun that their abilities allow while still succeeding in their plans. The human mind craves something to do. It just wants to do something it can succeed at doing. Throughout history, any number of people have tried to take ownership of the term ‘happiness’ and to define it according to their preferences. Usually, someone picks a point on the temporal spectrum and claims that ‘true happiness’ comes from either pleasure, freedom from stress, or a life that is retrospectively well lived. Temporal priority is an important attribute of happiness, because Time Bias (Time Preference) or the tendency for people to pursue outcomes of shorter or longer distance in the future is correlative with social status. These terms below use the temporal spectrum to accommodate the most common priorities.

    • ‘Pleasure’
    • ‘Prospective Happiness’
    • ‘Retrospective Happiness’

    Happiness is both a reward for our anticipation of the opportunity for stimulation, and our reward for the exercise of good judgement in obtaining that stimuli. The priority that each of us give to these different properties of Prospective and Retrospective Happiness are different, and dependent upon a combination of our abilities and skill at forecasting, planning, succeeding, obtaining group membership, and avoiding stress. We would all be happier amidst the plenty in the Garden of Eden wherein our basic wants and needs were fully and freely satisfied, and there was little else to do but enjoy one another’s company. At least, we would, until our biological Alphas decided that hoarding the best resources and controlling access to mates was more entertaining than communalism. But in our real world, we are somewhat challenged in achieving happiness because of the unresolveable conundrum of living not in the garden of eden – which is a place of plenty – but in a universe of scarcity. And having to transform the scarce resources of the real world into increasingly complex products and services through a division of labor and knowledge in which many hands may indeed make light work, but which, because of the many hands, requires cooperation among people of different ages and abilities and interests to make that work light. To coordinate people within such a complex system, we must rely upon the information provided by an uncaring and anonymous pricing system rather than our natural empathy, observable interactions, personal commitments and habituated relationships that constitute the much more limited information system inherited from our tribal biology. And it is the conflict between our a) tribal instincts and sentiments, the need for belonging to a group, the status signals that come from that membership, and b) the anonymity and confusion that come from our dependence upon the pricing system, that make our prosperity and freedom from the vicissitudes of nature possible. This conflict appears to be an unresolvable conflict that satisfies our pleasures, but limits our happiness. Never in history have so many people had it so well, but claimed so little happiness – except perhaps since the first invasion of north america by modern man. But it need not be an unresolvable conflict if we separate thinking and acting locally as if we are in a tribe governed by our instincts, from thinking and acting socially and politically as if we are in a market, governed by prices. Unless we understand that difference, happiness will be elusive. You cannot be happy if want the impossible. That runs contrary to our biological want to have our plans succeed rather than fail.

  • If You Want To Celebrate, Join A Church – A Wet Blanket On The World Bank’s Sentimental Talk.

    (Copied here for documentation purposes.) Over on The World Bank OTAVIANO CANUTO solves for happiness by actively working against it.

    We economists tend to see well-being, and poverty in particular, as a matter of finances and income. But fortunately, at least in the Bank, we have come a long way from that simplistic view. Reducing poverty is not only about increasing productivity and income. It is about enabling people to have a broad sense of well-being and opportunities to express and make choices about their lives.

    [callout]If you want to be a priest, join a church. If you want to move people run for office. If you want to celebrate, join a club. If you want to be a scientist, and to better mankind, stick with pragmatic improvement of the material well being of individuals by consciously upgrading their cooperative institutions so that they are ‘calculable’ and rational rather than political and sentimental. In other words, don’t make the problem worse by celebrating the ends, rather than the means.[/callout]

    But, the road to economic Hades is paved with good intentions:

      If you want to be a priest, join a church. If you want to move people run for office. If you want to celebrate, join a club. If you want to be a scientist, and to better mankind, stick with pragmatic improvement of the material well being of individuals by consciously upgrading their cooperative institutions so that they are ‘calculable’ and rational rather than political and sentimental. In other words, don’t make the problem worse by celebrating the ends, rather than the means. The happiness of man has been achieved by increases in the institutional ability for people to break up the world into little objects and apply increasingly fragmentary knowledge to the satisfaction of the wants of others outside of his or her social circle, and independent of his or her cultural memes, by using the information provided by the pricing system, and by the predictability created by institutional protections for his or her risk taking. Sentimental talk in economics and in politics is destructive and always has been. It is evidence of the failure of the political system utilized by the group making the statements. People on the ascent make arguments to productive group action – they ask us to pay opportunity costs for a collective end, for the purpose of increasing potential productive security. By contrast, all moral arguments are by definition false. And that’s the reality of it. Our job is to be the one academic discipline, and the one social science, that isn’t solving for the satisfaction of humanity’s tribal sentiments despite their natural conflict with a division of knowledge and labor and the pricing system, but that solves for the truth of what makes people actually happy by giving them choices. Humans want a discount. Always. So when you’re trying to determine if your arguing for conviction or convenience, make sure you’re not just looking for the discount that comes from embracing convenience. If you want to celebrate. Celebrate both the means – institutions of calculation and cooperation, and their happy ends. (Now that I’ve been a wet blanket I’m going to go celebrate the day with family.)

    • Yes, It Would Be Nice If We Could Withdraw The Empire And It’s Costs – In Exchange For Reduced Standard Of Living

      Having created, by accident, the empire, and having done so for the purpose of exporting our market system, and its trade routes, we are stuck with the very real consequences of creating power vacuums if we withdraw our military power, and create opportunity for the greater cost of NOT acting as we are acting. We have, after all, made a nice profit out of bringing the Hindu and Sinic cultures into the modern era. We have, and continue, to make a profit bringing the Islamic cultures into the modern era – by exporting debt (that we may questionably have to pay for) rather than by collecting tariffs or taxes for having done so. These efforts have been made under the rubric of political democracy for the purpose of popular opinion, but are actually for the institutional purpose of creating an economically incentivized and politically enfranchised middle class that is invested in perpetuating the world market system. I do not think that there is disagreement among political economists that we would be better off without having to support the empire. But when faced with the very real, and very negative impact that a withdrawal would have on the average (pampered) american, and on the average (schumpeterian) public intellectual, practical heads prevail.

      [callout] Property rights are indeed the basis for prosperity. However, property rights are an institution that is created by the application of organized institutional violence. This fact is usually lost of ideological libertarians. [/callout]

      As I understand it, the general thinking among the strategic thinkers (those who study military, political, and economic relationships, rather than just political, financial and social relationships) is that if we bear the burden long enough, the world will evolve into a sufficiently middle class economy (a synonym for democratic) that the purpose of the empire will decline at a rate equal to the relative importance of the american economy, allowing us to withdraw without creating shocks to the international system. A failure to understand military history is what separates ideological political economy from practicable political economy. Property rights are indeed the basis for prosperity. However, property rights are an institution that is created by the application of organized institutional violence. This fact is usually lost of ideological libertarians.

    • You Can’t Define Away ‘Structural Unemployment’

      The term “Structural unemployment” has a technical definition and a colloquial definition. And authors frequently criticize the colloquial as not matching the technical, rather than the premise put forth by the colloquial. However, the colloquial definition is correct. That is, that there are people trained and experienced in skills that will not return to the economy, and that there are few if any sectors of expansion available to absorb them in any potential recovery, and if unemployed long term, they may be permanently ostracized from the work force. As an aside, it is unlikely that the USA will return to a consumer-debt economy. We will not be ABLE to. Not unless we play tariff and protectionist games, and deprive other geographies of their ability to arbitrage prices. The high current level of liquidity is limited to the financial sector, and even there, to a narrow band of the financial sector. There are no savings going on anywhere, and instead there is debt reduction going on everywhere.. The country is operating at higher efficiency out of fear and necessity — a combination which cannot persist indefinitely. So, the colloquial concept of Structural Unemployment is accurate in it’s usage.

    • Notes From An Agency Tour: #1 A Little Preamble

      March 15th, 2011

      Ok, so before I get started here, let me avoid a little criticism right from the start. I’m not a typical agency guy. While I’m the CEO of a fairly large agency, I’ve also been founder, CEO or a principle at companies in a variety of fields from technology to law. And in each field we humans see the world through different lenses. I have a lens too. And fundamentally, I’m a political economist.

      A political economist is a certain kind of geek. It means I think in terms of society, incentives, habits, beliefs, institutions and organization, as well as money and all that money entails. And it also means that i’m not politically correct, or even very tempered in my observations.

      That’s not my job. Something is either true or not, and useful or not. Whether people like it or not isn’t something I worry too much about. There are plenty of people who can do that. THere aren’t that many of us that predict trends.

      Furthermore, on top of being a little controversial, I’m a contrarian. That term has a technical meaning. It means that I look for the point at which fashions and trends ‘fail’, or ‘top out’, and the consequences of those trends and their failures.

      Lastly, the division of knowledge and labor in the world is also divided into time periods. So some people think in short term, some medium term, and some long term, and people like me look at the very long term, and I try to understand how organizations react to changes in society.

      So, I see the world through those lenses. And through those lenses I try to find patters that will inform us and our clients about the likely course of events, or the reason some events occurred. In other words, my job is trends.

      And it turns out, whether by luck or skill, I”m pretty good at trends. That puts me at odds with most marketers. In fact, you would be surprised how many of my postings the board of directors asks me to take down. It’s one of the reasons I don’t write on this industry very often. It’s because I’m largely a critic of it. I’m a critic of it because I understand that marketing is a social science and companies, people’s livelihoods, as well as our national competitiveness are significantly impacted by whether we are good at marketing or not.

      So, my job is to be right on long term trends.

      http://www.puretheoryofmarketing.com/

    • On Definitions and Moral Arguments

      And one more thing that I just see too much of – arguments over definitions. I. A definition is a contract between two or more people on the properties, causal relations and utility of those relations. I.I A term is the name for the set of properties, and causal relations and the utility of those relations. I.II One cannot debate what a term ‘means’ in the abstract. One can only (a) debate the validity of properties, causal relations and utility with others, (b) debate the assumedly normative properties, causal relations and utilities associated with the term and (c) debate what properties, causal relations and utility that someone else attributed to the term. But the properties, causal relations, and utility of an object of consideration are either true or they are not. In general, even most educated people rarely understand such terms that they commonly employ such as ‘true’, ‘freedom’ and ‘law’, or ‘right’, because they cannot express these concepts using non-contradictory, necessary and sufficient properties, causal relations and utility. Instead they rely on either normative, or personally biased usage, as convenient tools for justifying their existing biases. II. There is no other description of the term ‘definition’ that is applicable to the concept of rational debate. Since any non-contractual definition is an appeal to authority that is outside of the contract of debate between the parties. III. One cannot impose a definition. This is a logical fallacy. One can only negotiate it, or describe the properties and causal relations, then debate over the properties and relations, and the utility of those properties and relations. Debating about the ‘meaning’ of a term as normative, is not the same as debating the utility of it’s necessary properties. IV. One cannot QUOTE a definition as a means of appealing to an authority. This is a logical fallacy. You can only use a definition of a term as a means of clarifying your use of that term as a shorthand for the purpose of conveying properties, causal relations and the utility of those properties and causal relations. V. One cannot rely on a normative usage of the term as an appeal to authority. This is a logical fallacy. You can only use this as a starting point for debating on the true and false properties, causal relations, and utility of the properties and relations. Once at the starting point, one must then negotiate over the properties, causal relations and utility of the properties and causal relations. VI. One may defend one’s usage of the term by refering to a normative usage, or a quoted definition as justification for your USAGE of the term. But this does not mean that the properties, causal relations, and utilty of the property and causal relations is true, or even normative. (Evolution for example is assumed to be directional by most people, when in fact, it only favors complexity within a niche, which in turn leads to fragility.) VII. MORAL ARGUMENTS ARE UNIVERSALLY FRAUDULENT ATTEMPTS AT EXTORTION. PERIOD.

    • On Definitions and Moral Arguments

      And one more thing that I just see too much of – arguments over definitions. I. A definition is a contract between two or more people on the properties, causal relations and utility of those relations. I.I A term is the name for the set of properties, and causal relations and the utility of those relations. I.II One cannot debate what a term ‘means’ in the abstract. One can only (a) debate the validity of properties, causal relations and utility with others, (b) debate the assumedly normative properties, causal relations and utilities associated with the term and (c) debate what properties, causal relations and utility that someone else attributed to the term. But the properties, causal relations, and utility of an object of consideration are either true or they are not. In general, even most educated people rarely understand such terms that they commonly employ such as ‘true’, ‘freedom’ and ‘law’, or ‘right’, because they cannot express these concepts using non-contradictory, necessary and sufficient properties, causal relations and utility. Instead they rely on either normative, or personally biased usage, as convenient tools for justifying their existing biases. II. There is no other description of the term ‘definition’ that is applicable to the concept of rational debate. Since any non-contractual definition is an appeal to authority that is outside of the contract of debate between the parties. III. One cannot impose a definition. This is a logical fallacy. One can only negotiate it, or describe the properties and causal relations, then debate over the properties and relations, and the utility of those properties and relations. Debating about the ‘meaning’ of a term as normative, is not the same as debating the utility of it’s necessary properties. IV. One cannot QUOTE a definition as a means of appealing to an authority. This is a logical fallacy. You can only use a definition of a term as a means of clarifying your use of that term as a shorthand for the purpose of conveying properties, causal relations and the utility of those properties and causal relations. V. One cannot rely on a normative usage of the term as an appeal to authority. This is a logical fallacy. You can only use this as a starting point for debating on the true and false properties, causal relations, and utility of the properties and relations. Once at the starting point, one must then negotiate over the properties, causal relations and utility of the properties and causal relations. VI. One may defend one’s usage of the term by refering to a normative usage, or a quoted definition as justification for your USAGE of the term. But this does not mean that the properties, causal relations, and utilty of the property and causal relations is true, or even normative. (Evolution for example is assumed to be directional by most people, when in fact, it only favors complexity within a niche, which in turn leads to fragility.) VII. MORAL ARGUMENTS ARE UNIVERSALLY FRAUDULENT ATTEMPTS AT EXTORTION. PERIOD.

    • The Luddism Of Marxism And Anarcho Capitalism

      All human beings seek to game the market. The market system depends upon it. Without the desire to game the market and prices, we would have no innovation, no production increases, and no price decreases. In our market, innovation is the only ‘fair’ means by which we tolerate winning. Because winning in this market, means consumers reap the rewards of competition. Credit innovation is perhaps the most powerful advantage that the west has possessed. But all human beings seek to game the market. The market is a construct of man. As a construct it needs to be maintained. Not just from external forces, not jjust from governemnts, not just from cooperative organizations, but from individuals as well. Marxism is an effort to game the market. Anarchic libertarianism is an effort to game the market. Both seek to obtain the rewards of market activity at a discount. Both are luddite strategies. Both seek trade rather than market. Both are regressive strategies. The market, it’s incentives, it’s rules, and it’s communication system of prices are a construct of man. And like any other machine, it needs maintenance. It does not need direction – no human can provide the knowlege to guide it. Instead, It needs to protect against rust: the human propensity for corruption. The very propensity for curruption that guarantes that ihumans innovate to drive the market itself. And silly philosophies whether they be the marxist suppostion that people will not ‘cheat’ or the libertarian suppostiion that people will not act with corruption, are both no more than wishing that gravity did not exist, or that iron did not oxidize. Or, that there is a divine god who gives us scritpture and determines the course of our lives.

    • Cause And Effect In AGW Debate

      Over on Climate Etc, Judith Curry writes Blame on Heartland, Cato, Marshall, etc.

      The fossil fuel industries have been funding dedicated minions at the Heartland, Cato, and George C. Marshal Institutes (among others) to generate misinformation about global warming and global climate change. They have attempted to attack the climate science message (such attacks actually part and parcel of the scientific process), but without much success, since the foundations of climate science are more than strong enough to withstand such challenges. Having failed in discrediting the climate science message itself, they have resorted instead to attacking the climate science messengers with character assassination, political innuendo, stolen e-mails, etc.

      To which I replied:

      There is another answer: 1) Libertarians and libertarian theory are economic disciplines with economic history that they rely upon for judgement. Economics is a chaotic and mathematically rigorous discipline. It also consists of a long and deep history of narratives and logic within the history ideas. 2) Libertarians have, and continue, to represent the branch of logic that advocates that economic models are not predictive. Not only that they are not predictive, but that they CANNOT be predictive. Not only that they cannot be predictive but that statistical analysis is only relevant to closed systems – and economies, due to innovation, the plasticity of utility of resources, and changing human wants, renders categorical forecasting impossible. This logical framework is supported by the fact that economic models are in fact, not predictive. And this is one of the issues with current political methods: that we rely upon economic models for policy purposes despite the fact that they are decidedly not predictive. 3) External entities with economic interests fund libertarian institutions because they are disposed to view government solutions as detrimental to the economy, and because libertarians are naturally hostile to models which purport to be predictive. They are highly agitated because of the rapid increase in external competitive forces run by non-market governments, and their advantage is being weakened by both external competition and an increasingly academically unprepared and uncompetitive work force. 4) Libertarians do not generally take the position that AGW is true or false. Their position is that (a) the AGW models are highly questionable, (b) there are alternative explanations that seem more probable, and certainly that previous climate movements to date have been false, and (c) even if AGW is true, that the solution is to create a green social movement rather than a system of increased taxation. The current green movement is working. It has become a generationally dominant social value. People will not pay for the long term, whether it is saving, retirement, health care. They will not pay for what they suspect. The AGW movement will do far better and make better progress if it does not seek legislation and in fact, actively does NOT seek legislation, but eschews legislation. This will make it more acceptable. Otherwise all libertarians and conservatives hear is that it is an excuse to fund abusive government. It is hard for liberals to understand that they are the minority of 20%, and that libertarians are the thought leadership of the conservative party, and while they, like convicted marxists, are a minority, they provide the thought leadership of the majority and are more likely to, and have consistently created, more conservative policies – ie: policies that do not empower government to make economic decisions. We are in a period of economic and cultural and even political uncertainty. Until we exit this period (which according to economic history, may or may not ever happen) people will have nearer term priorities. They will not be charitable to future generations in the face of current circumstances of decline and uncertainty.