Curt Doolittle

Form: Quote Commentary

  • BURNHAM’S MANAGERIAL ELITE –“Burnham identified the new elite as the men “able

    BURNHAM’S MANAGERIAL ELITE

    –“Burnham identified the new elite as the men “able to control contemporary mass industry, the massed labor force, and a supra-national form of political organization.” He assumed that this control could be exercised by means of a compelling political formula. So, rational behavior for the elite would be to get the masses to accept unscientific myths. If they failed to sustain beliefs in the myths, the fabric of society would crack and they would be overthrown. In short, the leaders—if they themselves were scientific—must lie.”–

    Burnham was right. Except, that the alternative was not to possess a supra-national political organization, but to prohibit them entirely. The purpose of the large state was war – a creation of Napoleon.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-02 17:41:00 UTC

  • CAUSE OF HUMAN EXCEPTIONALISM: “SHARED INTENTIONALITY” (book recommendation) –“

    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GG0C9WK/THE CAUSE OF HUMAN EXCEPTIONALISM: “SHARED INTENTIONALITY”

    (book recommendation)

    –“Human thought, in Tomasello’s conception, is different from that of all other organisms because humans alone have the capacity to think about the thoughts of others, and do so collectively. Tomasello’s greatest strength is his insistence on relying on data to support his hypotheses, particularly the fascinating studies he summarizes comparing pre‐ linguistic children to our great ape relatives. (Publishers Weekly 2013-12-02)”–

    –“What is it that differentiates humans from other animals? It’s the question that keeps evolutionary anthropologists like Michael Tomasello up nights. But after 20-plus years wrestling with the thorny subject, he puts forward his ‘shared intentionality hypothesis,’ designed to account for how early humans learned to coordinate their actions and communicate their thoughts with collaborators. (New Scientist 2014-01-04)”–

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-02 03:25:00 UTC

  • “Gods are important for the wisdom and virtues they represent. This is a point i

    –“Gods are important for the wisdom and virtues they represent. This is a point in favor of polytheism. Not all wisdom and virtues are equally important for everyone.”–

    Eli Harman

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-02 02:41:00 UTC

  • HAPPY MAY DAY!!!! BELTANE! –“May Day is related to the Celtic festival of Belta

    HAPPY MAY DAY!!!! BELTANE!

    –“May Day is related to the Celtic festival of Beltane and the Germanic festival of Walpurgis Night. May Day falls half a year from November 1 – another cross-quarter day which is also associated with various northern European paganisms and the year in the Northern Hemisphere – and it has traditionally been an occasion for popular and often raucous celebrations.”–

    I want a raucous celebration to attend. 😉

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-01 05:33:00 UTC

  • Untitled

    http://poseidonawoke.blogspot.com/2014/04/meme-libertarian-leon-and-moral.html

    Source date (UTC): 2014-04-30 16:56:00 UTC

  • Untitled

    https://ph.news.yahoo.com/harsh-conditions-men-dont-want-pretty-face-230237617.html;)

    Source date (UTC): 2014-04-30 15:13:00 UTC

  • CIVILIZATION HAS LIBERATED MANKIND —“”When we review the names of Muslim philo

    http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/3264.htmWESTERN CIVILIZATION HAS LIBERATED MANKIND

    —“”When we review the names of Muslim philosophers and scholars whose contribution to the West is pointed out by Western writers, such as Ibn Rushd, Ibn Al-Haitham, Ibn Sina, Al-Farbi, Al-Razi, Al-Khwarizmi, and their likes, we find that all of them were disciples of the Greek culture and they were individuals who were outside the [Islamic] mainstream. They were and continue to be unrecognized in our culture. We even burned their books, harassed them, [and] warned against them, and we continue to look at them with suspicion and aversion. How can we then take pride in people from whom we kept our distance and whose thought we rejected?…”—

    —“Indeed, it is not, nor is it indebted to any other previous civilization. Western civilization has its foundation in Greece in the sixth and fifth centuries BC; then it stopped in the Middle Ages, but resumed its progress in modern times, when its benefits have come to include all nations. It is really extraordinary in every meaning of the word – excellence, uniqueness, and novelty… It has components and qualities which distinguish it from all previous and subsequent civilizations. It is the product of philosophical thinking invented by the Greeks. The Europeans have based themselves on this kind of thinking, especially on its critical aspect, which developed the capability of producing objective knowledge that is always open to review, correction and progress…”—

    –“The only civilization which possesses the ingredients of perpetual progress is Western civilization, with its Greek foundation and its amazing contemporary formation. … Western civilization believes that it is impossible to possess absolute truth and that human perfection is impossible, so man must strive to achieve it while recognizing that it is impossible to reach. Thus it is the only civilization which is constantly growing and constantly reviewing and correcting itself and achieving continuous discoveries. …”–

    Thanks Adam Voight. This made my day. He compliments the right things. Ignores the bad things, and correctly identifies the difference between following teachings, and acting politically in the name of teachings.

    Sometimes I think it’s all hopeless but these little bits of intellectual sunshine are something to enjoy.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-04-30 14:24:00 UTC

  • JOSE TRIES TO BE THE FIRST CITY TO BRING SOUTH AMERICAN GHETTOS TO AMERICA. Less

    http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/04/29/san-jose-leaders-look-to-build-pods-microhouses-to-shelter-the-homeless/SAN JOSE TRIES TO BE THE FIRST CITY TO BRING SOUTH AMERICAN GHETTOS TO AMERICA.

    Lesson from the rest of the world. Shipping containers, sheet metal, cardboard, cement blocks and stolen wire cable, are all you need to shelter the homeless. Where they can reproduce like rats.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-04-30 13:08:00 UTC

  • ITS ALL GENES – THE WORLD IS A MUCH FAIRER PLACE THAN IT SEEMS. –” 1) First, it

    ITS ALL GENES – THE WORLD IS A MUCH FAIRER PLACE THAN IT SEEMS.

    –“

    1) First, it means the world is a much fairer place than we intuit. Innate talent, not inherited privilege, is the main source of economic success.

    2) Second, it suggests that the large investment made by the upper classes in the care and raising of their children is of no avail in preventing long-run downward mobility: the wealthy Manhattan attorneys who hire coaches for their toddlers to ensure placement in elite kindergartens cannot prevent the eventual regression of their descendants to the mean.

    3) Third, government interventions to increase social mobility are unlikely to have much impact unless they affect the rate of intermarriage between levels of the social hierarchy and between ethnic groups.

    4) Fourth, emphasis on racial, ethnic, and religious differences allows persistent social stratification through the barriers they create to this intermarriage. In order for a society to increase social mobility over the long run, it must achieve the cultural homogeneity that maximizes intermarriage rates between social groups.

    “–

    Justification. Dunning Kreuger. Envy. Reproductive Strategy. All guarantee that despite the fact his is true, it is in the lower majority’s interests to deny it. Unless we pay them well to have but one child, and punish them severely for having more. Personally I think that’s a pretty good deal. I’d have just one child if someone would pay me 10-20K a year for it, and would take it away if I had more.

    I don’t advocate redistribution for the purpose of equality. I advocate it for the purpose of suppressing breeding, and paying people to assist in the construction of property rights and the commons that facilitates the voluntary organization of production.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-04-30 12:57:00 UTC

  • WHY SO LITTLE SOCIAL ROTATION? IT’S PRETTY MUCH ALL NATURE. –“If genetics domin

    WHY SO LITTLE SOCIAL ROTATION? IT’S PRETTY MUCH ALL NATURE.

    –“If genetics dominates, then the persistence rate should be the same at the top and at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Moreover, endogamous social groups—groups whose members do not marry outside the group—will be completely persistent in their status, high or low. Groups that are on average high or low on the social scale will not succeed or fail socially because of any distinctive culture that they adopted. Instead their success or failure will be the result purely of their positive or negative selection from a larger population. The more distinctive they are now in social status, the smaller a share they will be of the descendants of their parent population.”–

    (INVOLUNTARY REDISTRIBUTION IS GENOCIDE)

    –“Only if genetics is the main element in determining economic success, if nature trumps nurture, is there a built-in mechanism that explains the observed regression. That mechanism is the intermarriage of the children of rich and educated lineages with successful, upwardly mobile children of poor and uneducated lineages. Even though there is strong assortative mating—because this is based on the social phenotype created in part

    by luck—those of higher-than-average innate talent tend to mate with those of lesser ability and regress to the mean. Similarly, those of lower-than-average innate talent tend to marry unlucky offspring of higher average innate talent.”–

    Source date (UTC): 2014-04-30 12:46:00 UTC