Curt Doolittle

Form: Short Note

  • “we need a nosology of thought”– Sure we have lists of all sorts of biases. But

    –“we need a nosology of thought”–

    Sure we have lists of all sorts of biases. But we don’t have a categorical listing of the various errors of philosophical thought. Most of which are artifacts of language.

    –“The Logical Positivists, to their credit, at least tried to frame a nosology of thought less pitifully inadequate than the common one. They acknowledged three ways in which thought can go wrong: contingent falsity, self-contradiction, and meaninglessness. A proposition is meaningless, they said, if it is not a tautology and not verifiable either. Propositions about the precession of the equinoxes, for example, are verifiable, while propositions about the procession of the Holy Ghost are not. And verifiability, they said, consists in standing in a certain logical relation to observation-statements.”—

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-20 12:58:00 UTC

  • WARRANTY : THE CHURCH, ACADEMY AND GOVERNMENT The church, the academy, and the g

    WARRANTY : THE CHURCH, ACADEMY AND GOVERNMENT

    The church, the academy, and the government, like commerce, all share in a similar bias: that of obtaining customers for their services, regardless of the merit or consequence of consuming those services. The church sold immortality, indulgences, and the forgiveness of sin. The academy sells equality, diversity, socialism and the promise of prosperity. The government sells laws, redistribution, the myth of unity, and the promise of risk abatement. Yet the church, nor the academy nor the government warranty those wares. No other industries have such privileges: selling false promises that profit the seller at the expense of the buyer. An the church, academy and government criticize the entrepreneur, who alone among them, must warranty his wares.

    There is a good reason we cannot trust the church, the academy, and the government: we desire benefits for our family and tribe and they seek to profit from the largest possible numbers of customers.

    How is it then that would could ensure that church, academy and government had the same incentives as private industry?

    Universal standing and requirement of warranty.

    The common law works – if the church, academy, and government let it. But then, they have every incentive not to let the common law serve us.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-20 12:16:00 UTC

  • Untitled

    http://ish.re/CV6F

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-20 11:33:00 UTC

  • 10 Economists

    http://ideas.repec.org/top/top.person.all10.htmlTop 10 Economists

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-20 11:08:00 UTC

  • Damn. Looks like there will be collateral damage to Popper. Dialectic an unaccou

    Damn. Looks like there will be collateral damage to Popper.

    Dialectic an unaccountability for one’s words, as well as for one’s hypotheses.

    Reimagining platonism to do it.

    Our heroes fail us.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-20 09:58:00 UTC

  • Another July Conqueror

    Another July Conqueror

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-20 07:42:00 UTC

  • THE DANGER OF POWER A POWER VACUUM (worth repeating) —“Power vacuums are much

    THE DANGER OF POWER A POWER VACUUM

    (worth repeating)

    —“Power vacuums are much worse than abuses of power.”—

    It’s contrary to our psychology, since we tend to get very wrapped up in abuses of power (European colonialism, current Chinese conquest of their region, American policing of the postwar consensus). Especially progressives, but only to a slightly lesser extent, libertarians.

    Power vacuums drastically decrease all opportunity costs in exchange for unpredictable risk. Power structures increase both opportunity costs, and the predictability of risk.

    And history shows that (a) war for control of trade routes is one of the best possible investments you can make after formal institutions of cooperation (trust, property, contract, law, weights and measures), and (b) nearly all peoples will gladly pay risks of expansion of territory and trade route. (c) These changes produce our great conflicts.

    The postwar era, when viewed by historians, will appear as a short term anglo victory after the great european civil wars in which the naval anglo offshoot of germanic civilization, went to war with its army just as did Athens and Sparta, with the same consequences. However, Greece managed to radically transform the world far after its loss of military and economic power.

    Anglo civilization will apparently do the same: fade.

    Unless we choose to change it.

    Cheers.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-19 07:31:00 UTC

  • Untitled

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3qkf3bajd4

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-18 19:30:00 UTC

  • )

    😉

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-18 04:20:00 UTC

  • You know, it seems like if you make enough progress in philosophy, then you run

    You know, it seems like if you make enough progress in philosophy, then you run out of people to talk to. 🙂

    It’s true in all fields, really. Philosophy isn’t special. But I don’t think I’d mind running out of people to discuss human-machine interfaces with. While I’d mind running out of people to discuss politics and philosophy with.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-17 20:06:00 UTC