Curt Doolittle

Form: Outline

  • DOMINANCE IN THE FACE OF IGNORANCE – REASON IS DISCOUNTED BY TIME 1) Dominance i

    DOMINANCE IN THE FACE OF IGNORANCE – REASON IS DISCOUNTED BY TIME

    1) Dominance is both useful and necessary in the face of ignorance. Nurture is extremely slow and expensive. A parent is not sacrificing when nurturing as he or she is perpetuating his or her genes. Everyone else pays a cost. They are sacrificing something else that they could do in order to nurture. So they are selective with their investments. And most of us make small bets on many different options in the hope that we find a few investments worth making.

    2) It is helpful to possess 6 or 7 points of IQ difference in communication (1/2 standard deviation). It is valuable to possess as much as 15 points, in order to translate complex concepts into digestible form (one standard deviation). But at 30 points (two standard deviations) we are effectively different species, and communication begins to be impossible on anything other than sensory grounds. Compassion is possible across the gulf, but argument is not.

    3) Since demonstrated intelligence consists of four basic properties 1) g, (an aggregate), 2) short term memory, 3) general knowledge, and 4) biases and wants, and because general knowledge conveys patterns that IQ alone could not identify on its own, accumulating vast knowledge will compensate considerably for (g) – (the Flynn effect of scientific knowledge for example.) The only way to accumulate this knowledge given our pervasive ignorance is through skeptical empiricism (science), or what this group refers to as critical rationalism (which is a weak term compared to skeptical empiricism, and why Taleb is an improvement on, via expansion, Popper and Kuhn.)

    4) It is a work of ‘fraud’ to claim that it is a moral obligation for anyone to invest time in anyone else without compensation in exchange. It’s just a another form of theft. Only with exchange do we know we have not wasted our time and the world’s resources. And only with voluntary exchange do we know that no one is stealing from another. Only with exchange do we know we are not contributing to ill manners. In debate we exchange our efforts in the hope that we will learn, the same way boxers practice fighting in the ring, fencers on the pisté, or orators on the stage. And that is compensation enough – it is a cheap price of entry for the richest competition man has yet made outside of war.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-07-08 07:24:00 UTC

  • LIBERTARIANISM: SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL. 1) “Do not confuse absence of volatility wit

    LIBERTARIANISM: SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL.

    1) “Do not confuse absence of volatility with absence of risk.”

    2) “Avoid optimization; learn to love redundancy. … Redundancy (in terms of having savings and cash under the mattress) is the opposite of debt. … Overspecialization also is not a great idea.”

    3) “What is fragile should break early, while it’s still small. Nothing should ever become too big to fail.” …. “Compensate complexity with simplicity.”

    4) “No socialization of losses and privatization of gains”…..”No incentives without disincentives: capitalism is about rewards and punishments, not just rewards.”

    5) “[Build] an economic life closer to our biological environment: smaller firms, a richer ecology, no speculative leverage — a world in which entrepreneurs, not bankers, take the risks, and in which companies are born and die every day without making the news.”

    LIBERTARIANISM IS LOVE OF THE SMALL: ITS JUST MATH.

    (All quotes from Nassim Taleb’s Black Swan)

    Source date (UTC): 2013-07-07 11:02:00 UTC

  • THE PURPOSE OF PHILOSOPHY (Draft One) 1) All language is allegory to experience.

    THE PURPOSE OF PHILOSOPHY

    (Draft One)

    1) All language is allegory to experience. The most complex terms are simply increasingly loaded combinations of basic experiences.

    2) Our experiences are limited. We can only sense so much on our own, with the physical bodies that we have to work with.

    3) Language allows us to collect a greater range of experiences than we can on our own. Even experiences separated by time and space.

    4) Our ‘calculative’ (not computational) ability is limited. We can only ‘figure out’ so much on our own.

    5) Language allows others to help us calculate what we could not calculate on our own.

    6) Systems of measurement allow us to ‘sense’ what we cannot sense with our senses alone.

    7) Systems of calculation and computation let us compare and contrast what we cannot figure out on our own.

    8) Language, Measurement, and Calculation and Reason allow us to extend our perceptions, and to create symbols that we can manipulate with the limited abilities that we do possess.

    9) The purpose of philosophy is to test, integrate, reconstruct, rearrange, evaluate, prioritize and articulate our body of knowledge to our advantage given the new information available to our senses by way of our tools, measurements, communications, and calculations, so that we can make best use of the information at our disposal.

    The assumption in this line of reasoning, this set of priorities, is that with more knowledge we have more choices to determine how to make ourselves most happy through the accumulation of experiences.

    The other line of reasoning, is that human beings are able at present to be happy if they seek to obtain

    The problem is that humans demonstrate a preference for the consumption provided by the first, and demonstrate a preference to expend the intellectual and physical labor of the second. More accurately: they want others to expend the effort on the first, and to reserve for themselves the experiences of the second.

    We call conflict of ambitions a desire for ‘free riding’. In fact, we can argue that more human calculation is performed for the purpose of pursuing free riding than any other end except sex.

    Curt Doolittle.

    Kiev, Ukraine.

    (NOTE 1: “Calculation, in its broadest sense, refers to any comparison that permits a judgement. So while numeric computation is included in the definition of calculation, but so is ‘Where can I get a peanut butter sandwich?’ and ‘Do I like chocolate or vanilla ice cream more today?’. We use ‘calculation’ to distinguish simplistic processes from reasoning, which has a higher standard of demands – namely substitution and transformation.)

    (NOTE 2: This approach abandons the metaphysical program.)

    Source date (UTC): 2013-07-01 10:22:00 UTC

  • MISSION? 1) Give conservatives a language for rational articulation of their ide

    MISSION?

    1) Give conservatives a language for rational articulation of their ideas, culture, and values.

    2) Strive to speak in a manner comprehensible to the common people.

    Freaking hard. Really. I think the second is harder than the first. 😉

    Source date (UTC): 2013-05-01 11:09:00 UTC

  • LIBERTARIANISM Etymology. History. Konkin’s History of the Libertarian Movement.

    LIBERTARIANISM

    Etymology. History. Konkin’s History of the Libertarian Movement.

    1 – One is a libertarian by sentiment.

    2 – Libertarians hold either this sentiment or a moral bias, or a political bias that supports this sentiment. Or a philosophical position that supports this sentiment.

    3 – Classical liberalism, the american tradition, constitutionalism and the cult of the founding fathers all profess liberty, they are therefore libertarian, but the philosophy is classical liberalism not libertarianism.

    4 – Libertarianism is an articulated philosophy written by rothbard as a means of providing an argumentative ethical response to socialism and postmodernism.

    5 – Libertarianism is an ideology that makes use of rothbard’s arguments, but also which is inspirationally argued on moral grounds rather than rhetorically defended.

    6 – Anarcho capitalism is an extension of rothbardian libertarianism to expressly include Austrian economics, and has greater emphasis on institutions (via hoppe and block) and less on moral or abstract ethical arguments (rothbard).

    In colloquial language libertarianism is used imprecisely, instead of the correct ‘libertarian’ to refer to all libertarian biases, preferences, ideologies and philosophy,whether they be sentimental classical liberal, libertarian, liertarianism, or anarcho capitalism, or some other variation such as objectivism.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-03-31 11:40:00 UTC

  • NULLIFICATION IS CHEAPER THAN REVOLUTION OR SECESSION 1) Nullification. Inexpens

    NULLIFICATION IS CHEAPER THAN REVOLUTION OR SECESSION

    1) Nullification.

    Inexpensive. Weakens tyranny, allows greater social experimentation, preserves existing economy, promotes local opportunity while preserving federated trade, credit, insurance and military assets.

    2) Secession.

    Expensive. Eliminates tyranny, allows greater social experimentation. Creates opportunity, improves the economy, and autonomy. Allows adaptation of institutions. *Can* weaken credit, insurance, and military assets. Can also improve them.

    3) Revolution.

    Devastatingly expensive. Damages the economy, social capital, institutional capital, trade, credit, insurance, and military assets.

    Revolution carries a very high cost. The choice between Nullification and Secession is simply whether the value of the federated services of insurance, trade, credit and military are more or less valuable. Assuming that the federated system is anywhere near solvent, nullifying LAWS while retaining legitimate functions of a federal system – largely as insurer of last resort – inexpensively reduces the state to it’s only beneficial function.

    We needed a federal government because we had a vast continent that could be occupied by competitive international powers. This federated system allowed us to conquer that territory, and insure no foreign power did so instead. This strategy worked.

    But that was the ONLY REASON for the federal government at the time.

    At present, the federal government has only one redeeming value, and that is as insurer of last resort, and provider of military services too costly for independent states to field on their own.

    Nullification is the systematic means by which to devolve the united states federal government from a law-making body to a body that does nothing but provide insurer of last resort services.

    (Originally under Dave Quick’s excellent post on nullification – Here for record purposes.)

    Source date (UTC): 2013-01-15 04:27:00 UTC

  • DOOLITTLE’S GUIDE TO POLITICAL DEBATE (From Capitalismv3.com)

    http://www.capitalismv3.com/menu/tools-and-techniques-for-political-debate/the-code-of-conduct-for-effective-debate/CURT DOOLITTLE’S GUIDE TO POLITICAL DEBATE

    (From Capitalismv3.com)

    Source date (UTC): 2013-01-03 05:24:00 UTC

  • TRUTH AND PROPERTY 1) Property requires we make only true statements in order no

    TRUTH AND PROPERTY

    1) Property requires we make only true statements in order not to create acts of fraud.

    2) The only test of true Statements is warranty.

    3) The only means of issuing warranty is upon informational symmetry.

    Human beings detest involuntary transfers. Any definition of property that permits involuntary transfer is an attempt to sanction theft by fraud. And therefore any definition of property that does not include warranty and symmetry is in fact, an act of fraud.

    Property( Warranty( Symmetry)) = TRUTH.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-12-19 02:31:00 UTC

  • THE THREE PROPERTIES OF ART: 1) NARRATIVE – VALUE JUDGEMENTS (CONCEPTUAL CONTENT

    THE THREE PROPERTIES OF ART:

    1) NARRATIVE – VALUE JUDGEMENTS (CONCEPTUAL CONTENT),

    2) DECORATION – PATTERN AND FERTILITY (AESTHETIC CONTENT),

    3) CRAFT – MASTERY OF MATERIALS (MATERIAL SCIENCE CONTENT)

    Art carries myth, and value judgment. It is a symbolic narrative. Decoration carries patterns. Or it conveys the idea of fertility, plenty, or evidence of human effort or care, which to humans, are the universal symbols for beauty. Craft is an expression of material science: our mastery of the materials themselves.

    These three differences in content demarcate the fine arts from the decorative arts, from craft. “High Art” combines all three dimensions of concept, aesthetic, and craft, for the purpose of creating cultural unity.

    Almost all educated people can use these techniques to evaluate any artistic creation. a) what is the mythical, political, philosophical, narrative content? b) Are patterns (composition) and beauty (presence of resources such as fertility) rendered with sophistication and insight? c) how craftsmanly is the work produced? if you answer these three questions any work can be judged – and the nonsense that you should just ‘feel’ art and fail to understanding it simply a marketing ploy by hucksters.

    Three pressures have devolved our high arts.

    1) The Medium That Is Movies

    Movies are so profitable, seen so widely, distributed so cheaply, naturally narrative, and aesthetically effective that they have absorbed almost the entire artistic production of the nation. All prior arts seem iconic and quaint by comparison.

    But the internationalization of movies has forced the eradication of the western mythological narrative from our scripts. Western heroism is appealing to males everywhere. But western exceptionalism is a curse. This problem is fascinating and threatens the industry because only blockbusters draw large crowds, but the heroic content of movies is limited to either familial sentiments, zombies, or aliens, because we can no longer criticize or demonize the competing heroic symbolism of other cultures given the need to exploit their population as a market.

    2) Economics

    The demand for decorative arts in the home, and craftsmanship (design of household goods) because of the vast numbers of the populace that have joined the consumer (middle) classes, has created demand for inexpensive decorative arts for every social class, each of which has different value judgements. The decrease in prices from industrial production has made it possible for more people to enter the arts, but at the cost of an inability of the market to sufficiently filter out would-be artists incapable of synthesizing art, design, and craft.

    3) The European cultural loss of identity and self confidence.

    The combination of socialism’s pressure for equality rather than excellence, feminism’s pressure to demonize christian white males, and the postwar self hatred of our aristocratic western origins have conspired not only to take power in government but to redefine beauty not as excellence but as rebellion.

    The myths that gave rise to our desire for excellence, greatness, and the high-trust-society, have been driven out of fashion by consumerism, socialism, feminism, and self doubt.

    We have, as a tribe, race, and people, surrendered our myths to the age of skepticism – when all cultures, along with their arts, go to die.

    But that should not prevent the few of us who aspire to excellence from acquiring the skill with which to analyze, interpret, and make judgements about the arts, using the very simple method I have outlined here:

    Narrative and its value judgements.

    Design and it’s aesthetic devices.

    Craft and it’s material devices.

    Cheers.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-10-27 05:47:00 UTC

  • REASONS FOR USA WAR WITH IRAN OVER ISRAEL (From my post at The Times Of Israel)

    REASONS FOR USA WAR WITH IRAN OVER ISRAEL

    (From my post at The Times Of Israel)

    1) Obama will either support israel or lose the election.

    2) The conservatives will support israel for the following reasons:

    a) for sentimental reasons (protecting the little guy)

    b) for ideological reasons (they’re our jews, and our allies)

    c) for strategic reasons (a base of operations for protecting oil)

    d) for geopolitical reasons (the usa cannot tolerate a nuclear iran as the core state of islam creating a unified anti-commercial ideological political alliance from syria to pakistan which can hold the world hostage over oil)

    e) because iran is building an exchange that is not denominated in dollars. If this exchange is successful it will deprive the USA of the ability to export and deflate debt as an indirect means of progressively taxing foreign states for US military protection of the system of finance and trade. While speaking of this is impolitic both inside and outside the country, it’s just the reality of how the international system operates.

    f) And while the finance system is in bed with the democrats, the oil system is in bed with conservatives.

    So those are the reasons. And its pretty hard to argue with them if you want the average american to hold onto anything approximating his current standard of living.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-05-04 15:20:00 UTC