Curt Doolittle

Source: Facebook

  • Great piece. I would state the argument a bit more analytically: 1) In a democra

    http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2014/07/why-philosophers-should-stay-out-of-politics/Bas:

    Great piece. I would state the argument a bit more analytically:

    1) In a democracy, political debate has nothing to do with truth and everything to do with obtaining power by marketing, rhetoric, and ideology. Policy preferences are secondary to obtaining power to enact what must result in compromise policies.

    2) A philosopher’s only special function is to act as professional judge of reasoned arguments on logical or moral grounds. We can claim no other skill. Just as judges do NOT act on moral or logical grounds, but on legal grounds. (Law abides by a lower logical standard than philosophy.)

    3) If we determine the truth or falsehood of statements, arguments, and policy preferences, then we are performing as judges of reason.

    4) if we perform as advocates of policy then we are not acting as judges.

    5) Academia is corrupted by activism. This is the unfortunate consequence of competing for funds and attention.

    6) Since by necessity democracy imposes monopoly rule, models of government represent irreconcilable differences by which to make judgements: we must assume a particular good as a theory or a preference in the choice of political models to make judgements within. Now it is possible to make a judgement from each point of the ideological triangle, and that is perhaps the position we all should take in rendering our judgements. However if we are asked to choose one or the other it may be that the optimum solution to any problem is satisfied best by one model, and the next optimum solution to any problem satisfied best by another model.

    7) Therein rests the problem of philosophical neutrality under democracy: democracy imposes monopoly rule under which we cannot easily construct the best solution to any given problem using different forms of government.

    8) It may be possible to make use of all forms of government, but only under libertarian government is such institutional diversity possible. Why? because only fully atomic property rights allow for rational calculation of voluntary exchanges necessary for the construction of contractual government that provides the features of any form of government.

    As such is it is most logical to construct a libertarian government, but to advocate an administrative structure for any given policy problem best suitable to its execution.

    We can model the universe in mathematics because a number system consisting of individual units can represent any combination of units. We can model any political economy in libertarianism because individual property rights allow us the same logical freedom as unitary mathematics. The difference is that in math, we use an equal’s sine to test for truth, whereas in libertarianism we rely upon voluntary exchanges free of externalities.

    Cheers

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-23 12:48:00 UTC

  • Untitled

    http://youtu.be/E_dZCDbX7QM?feature=autosharec

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-23 12:48:00 UTC

  • Untitled

    http://thefreethoughtproject.com/americans-killed-cops-outnumber-americans-killed-iraq-war/#skTdpAQ0Zu5lhIRB.01

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-23 12:42:00 UTC

  • The less people compete for status as consumers, the more they compete for statu

    The less people compete for status as consumers, the more they compete for status by other means. While competing for status increases consumption which decreases prices and increases employment, the only reason we need increase employment and decrease prices is because we are engaging in increases in consumer production but not increases in innovation. In other words, there are two kinds of productivity increases: the kind that comes from consumption (population increases) and the kind that comes from innovation (regardless of population increases). So what this means is that we are working very hard to get dumber and more numerous?

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-23 08:45:00 UTC

  • PRICELESS : AUTISM AS A PERSONALITY TYPE —“Regarding autism, I don’t consider

    PRICELESS : AUTISM AS A PERSONALITY TYPE

    —“Regarding autism, I don’t consider it a disorder, merely a personality type.”—Virgiliu Pop

    I guess then we have to give solipsism the same treatment? That’s OK. Overly emotional moms are just as valuable as overly analytical engineers. 🙂

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-23 08:32:00 UTC

  • Life’s Little Joys A friend of mine (who works at the coffee shop) is absolutely

    Life’s Little Joys

    A friend of mine (who works at the coffee shop) is absolutely glowing today, and her feet barely touch the ground. So I asked her if it was the weather, the sun, or what?

    “I fell in love.” Followed by gushing smile.

    Live is awesome. Humans are wonderful things. 🙂

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-23 08:22:00 UTC

  • TRUTH IN INSTITUTIONS It isn’t necessary to construct formal and informal instit

    TRUTH IN INSTITUTIONS

    It isn’t necessary to construct formal and informal institutions to control the goodness of man. Such a thing requires no constraint. A government, a law, a philosophy, an ideology, a religion, and a mythos need only be constructed to constrain in bad in man: that which seeks to avoid meritocratic contribution to production. So any system of government, system of law, philosophical framework, ideological moralism, religious doctrine, mythical narrative must acknowledge the ill in man, and how to put his ill to good as does the market in converting self interest to the service of others.

    Any system that assumes the good in man, rather than the incentives for ill in man then, is but a system of deception in which those who would do ill, seek to corrupt the people and the society that do not.

    Utopianism is always and everywhere a cover for criminal, unethical and immoral action. Without exception.

    If the truth is not enough, then all that remains is deception.

    Truth is enough.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-23 07:29:00 UTC

  • They made freedom of speech and virtue of opinion morally superior to speaking t

    They made freedom of speech and virtue of opinion morally superior to speaking the truth and only the truth.

    Devious

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-23 07:12:00 UTC

  • TRUTH TELLING American culture, like english culture, was organized to enforce t

    TRUTH TELLING

    American culture, like english culture, was organized to enforce truth telling, truth telling alone will enforce private property rights. The goal of the Progressive (socialist) Intellectuals (new yorkers) was to assault the culture of truth telling, as provincial, since it imposed a threat to their evolutionary strategy.

    We focus on property rights encoded in law, such that we defend ourselves from the state. But Truth Telling if it is the law that prevents violence, alone prevents involuntary transfer, by outlawing the means of involuntary transfer – whereas Intersubjectively verifiable property rights and relativism allow for the perpetuation of multiculturalism (lying and stealing).

    In other words, it is not property rights but truth telling that forms the basis of moral society that depends upon property rights.

    Enforcement of IVP property rights is insufficient for the formation of a polity that respects property rights. Instead, such a polity must enforce truth telling, expressed as property rights.

    (Damn. I didn’t expect to come to that conclusion.)

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-23 04:22:00 UTC

  • THE IRONY OF CRITICAL RATIONALISTS? Why would you first argue that verification

    THE IRONY OF CRITICAL RATIONALISTS?

    Why would you first argue that verification (repeatability) of a test was insufficient, and that criticism (attempts to falsify the theory) in order to increase the empirical content (parsimony) of the theory. While then arguing against operationalism, which is a criticism of, and therefore test of, your observations, descriptions and deductions in order to increase teh empirical content?

    Why is it that you would want to test a theory but not its construction?

    Worse: what would the impact of this practice be on physical science? social science? law? Culture?

    Some ideas are cancerous.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-23 00:25:00 UTC