Curt Doolittle

Form: Short Note

  • The General Challenge of Improving Demonstrated Intelligence Is In Making Fewer Errors.

    —“General knowledge, scientific knowledge, and testimonial truth will pretty much reduce any error you might accumulate through normal human cognitive bias. And, from what I can see, the general challenge of improving demonstrated intelligence is not getting smarter, it is making fewer errors. I know engineers who are not particularly smart, but they demonstrate the intelligence that they do have very well, because engineering-thinking is pretty scientific and practical. I see this in doctors as well as engineers. Whether they’re exceptional or not matters less. Their entire profession is built upon the scientific principle of doing no harm. So they may fewer errors. Too bad economists and politicians don’t do the same.”—

  • The General Challenge of Improving Demonstrated Intelligence Is In Making Fewer Errors.

    —“General knowledge, scientific knowledge, and testimonial truth will pretty much reduce any error you might accumulate through normal human cognitive bias. And, from what I can see, the general challenge of improving demonstrated intelligence is not getting smarter, it is making fewer errors. I know engineers who are not particularly smart, but they demonstrate the intelligence that they do have very well, because engineering-thinking is pretty scientific and practical. I see this in doctors as well as engineers. Whether they’re exceptional or not matters less. Their entire profession is built upon the scientific principle of doing no harm. So they may fewer errors. Too bad economists and politicians don’t do the same.”—

  • Improve Us Rather than Criticize Others

    [W]ell, you know, I consider myself a serious philosopher who engages in tongue-in-cheek sarcasm and humor, ideological inflammation, and macho nonsense now and then for entertainment purposes – and often to signal that I do not live in an ivory tower. But I definitely don’t do conspiracy theory, and I try to avoid ridicule, since they are evidences of intellectual weakness that I don’t want to demonstrate. Basically I want to know how we get better, not how others fail.

  • Improve Us Rather than Criticize Others

    [W]ell, you know, I consider myself a serious philosopher who engages in tongue-in-cheek sarcasm and humor, ideological inflammation, and macho nonsense now and then for entertainment purposes – and often to signal that I do not live in an ivory tower. But I definitely don’t do conspiracy theory, and I try to avoid ridicule, since they are evidences of intellectual weakness that I don’t want to demonstrate. Basically I want to know how we get better, not how others fail.

  • Use of the Word ‘Natural’ in Economics

    (re: Tyler Cowen/ Scott Sumner / Econlib ) (important idea )

    —“Economic activity consists of interactions between people, and it’s not ever independent of human influence, and so it’s never “natural”.—

    [O]ne can however, increase the truth content of human relations, or one can decrease the truth content of human relations. One can increase the truth content of human relations in times of shock. One can decrease the truth content of human relations in order to accelerate consumption. So human relationships are in a natural state any time we improve institutions that improve information by reducing informational asymmetry, or distributing information that was previously unavailable (prices, interests rates, money supply, etc). Human relations are in an unnatural state when we insert disinformation in order to fool people into acting other than they would in the natural state. For this reason it is perhaps more accurate to distinguish not between natural and artificial, but truth and deception, morality and immorality. The most accurate model of the social sciences, like the physical sciences is information. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine

  • Use of the Word ‘Natural’ in Economics

    (re: Tyler Cowen/ Scott Sumner / Econlib ) (important idea )

    —“Economic activity consists of interactions between people, and it’s not ever independent of human influence, and so it’s never “natural”.—

    [O]ne can however, increase the truth content of human relations, or one can decrease the truth content of human relations. One can increase the truth content of human relations in times of shock. One can decrease the truth content of human relations in order to accelerate consumption. So human relationships are in a natural state any time we improve institutions that improve information by reducing informational asymmetry, or distributing information that was previously unavailable (prices, interests rates, money supply, etc). Human relations are in an unnatural state when we insert disinformation in order to fool people into acting other than they would in the natural state. For this reason it is perhaps more accurate to distinguish not between natural and artificial, but truth and deception, morality and immorality. The most accurate model of the social sciences, like the physical sciences is information. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine

  • Bankers Rarely Know They’re Work is Immoral

    (worth repeating) [W]ell to be honest, they don’t even know that themselves. I think a better test is the evidence of the volume of insider trading in the stock market, and the manipulation of the market by large houses in order to bait and trap retail investors on momentum plays. Other immoralities are anti-consumer nonsense like penalties for cell phone usage, entrapment into contracts one cannot afford, baiting people into mortgages they can’t manage, the multitude of investment and insurance schemes, and the entirety of the democratic political process which is a race-to-corruption. Most if not all but a few bankers are too ignorant (and from too low in their class rankings) to have any idea what they are really doing. I don’t think most politicians know that they are corrupt.

  • Bankers Rarely Know They’re Work is Immoral

    (worth repeating) [W]ell to be honest, they don’t even know that themselves. I think a better test is the evidence of the volume of insider trading in the stock market, and the manipulation of the market by large houses in order to bait and trap retail investors on momentum plays. Other immoralities are anti-consumer nonsense like penalties for cell phone usage, entrapment into contracts one cannot afford, baiting people into mortgages they can’t manage, the multitude of investment and insurance schemes, and the entirety of the democratic political process which is a race-to-corruption. Most if not all but a few bankers are too ignorant (and from too low in their class rankings) to have any idea what they are really doing. I don’t think most politicians know that they are corrupt.

  • 21st CENTURY RELIGION – PART II – ANTI MONOPOLISM

    [T]he other point I try to make is that while the world practices political monotheisms (Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity), that this is a POLITICAL statement not a factual one. In china they practice Maoism in the leadership, Confucianism in the upper classes, Lao Tzu in the lower, and Buddhism as a moral binding principle across all. In the west we demonstrably practice (a) Aristotelianism, Natural Law and Legalism, (b) Christianity – political and moral religion (c) Paganism – myths and traditions, as well as nature worship) I know I am ‘inspired’ by trees just as our ancient ancestors were, and I understand completely why the churches were intentionally built upon our sacred groves. My politics and law may be aristotelian, my morality and commons may be christian, but my mind, heart and soul are pagan through and through. Whether it’s genetic or not we don’t know yet. Cheers Curt

  • 21st CENTURY RELIGION – PART II – ANTI MONOPOLISM

    [T]he other point I try to make is that while the world practices political monotheisms (Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity), that this is a POLITICAL statement not a factual one. In china they practice Maoism in the leadership, Confucianism in the upper classes, Lao Tzu in the lower, and Buddhism as a moral binding principle across all. In the west we demonstrably practice (a) Aristotelianism, Natural Law and Legalism, (b) Christianity – political and moral religion (c) Paganism – myths and traditions, as well as nature worship) I know I am ‘inspired’ by trees just as our ancient ancestors were, and I understand completely why the churches were intentionally built upon our sacred groves. My politics and law may be aristotelian, my morality and commons may be christian, but my mind, heart and soul are pagan through and through. Whether it’s genetic or not we don’t know yet. Cheers Curt