Curt Doolittle

Source: Facebook

  • (COMMENT) CLASS IN POSTMODERNISM (LITERATURE) You know, I don’t read ‘literature

    (COMMENT) CLASS IN POSTMODERNISM (LITERATURE)

    You know, I don’t read ‘literature’ any longer. I lost it. It’s all nonsense now. I just see structure, intent, character. It all feels tedious and mechanical. Like a lot of work for little reward. When, I can skim five papers on some subject and maybe get a gem out of one of them.

    And I’m taking this lovely little class in Postmodernism. Why? Because, honestly, I ‘get it’ in the sense that I understand it’s methods, processes, arguments and consequences.

    But I actually don’t ’empathize’ with it. I can’t even begin to have any emotional attachment to it whatsoever. It’s just IMPOSSIBLE to suspend disbelief. It’s worse that reading a trashy horror novel that’s predictable.

    It’s like a play written by a narcissist about a tragedy of his own creation.

    Experiences aren’t rare or unique except to the solipsist, to whom each of his own experiences is dramatically novel, and needing of expurgation.

    Marx does’t tell us anything other than capitalism is so productive that we are each of us almost irrelevant to each other as economic entities. He doesn’t say that this is good, because we get everything so cheaply that the poorest of us lives better than kings of old.

    If you want to fix alienation, then just ask, what you do with the time you used to use working and struggling? We freed women from household labor. Wasn’t that enough? Men from physical drudgery. WTF.

    SO YOU”RE BORED? SO YOU”RE POOR?

    Ok. Well lets fix the fact that you’re bored and poor.

    But you have the choice to be bored and poor and fat and comfy and unfulfilled because of capitalism.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-31 12:31:00 UTC

  • HEILBRONER You know, I read ‘The Worldly Philosophers’ many years ago. And I tho

    HEILBRONER

    You know, I read ‘The Worldly Philosophers’ many years ago. And I thought that given his style and sympathy for Marxism that I’d read his book on Marxism.

    And I would really like to say something intelligent here. But the fact of the matter is, that the guy is a great historian. And he doesn’t understand economics AT ALL.

    I mean. I can’t even read it. It’s absolutely ridiculous.

    Ack.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-31 11:52:00 UTC

  • MORALITY Manners are a promise prior to a transaction (or action). Ethics are a

    MORALITY

    Manners are a promise prior to a transaction (or action). Ethics are a promise internal to the transaction (or action). Morals are a promise external to and antecedent to any transaction (or action).

    The promise is quite simple. A promise to avoid involuntary transfer.

    That’s it. Ethics isn’t complicated.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-31 06:44:00 UTC

  • IF ‘EQUALITY’ MEANS WE CAN ONLY MOVE DOWNWARD INTO DEGENERATION?

    http://www.wnd.com/2013/08/shhh-teen-mob-that-raped-2-women-was-black/WHAT IF ‘EQUALITY’ MEANS WE CAN ONLY MOVE DOWNWARD INTO DEGENERATION?

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-31 06:34:00 UTC

  • WE ARE NOT ‘BOOMERS’. I AM NOT A BOOMER. THE BOOMERS DESTROYED CIVILIZATION. WE

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_JonesNO WE ARE NOT ‘BOOMERS’. I AM NOT A BOOMER. THE BOOMERS DESTROYED CIVILIZATION. WE HAVE NOTHING IN COMMON WITH THEM. AT ALL.

    Generations are not determined by dates, or head-counts, but by shared experiences – the perception of changes either within or beyond our control.

    People of my generation are members of the ‘JONES GENERATION’. We missed the sixties and were formed by the seventies: The fantasy of the excessiveness of the 60’s followed by our perception of “the great fall”: Gas Lines, unemployment, post-Watergate, post-Vietnam, the Iran Hostage crisis, a cowardly president in blue jeans, doomsday movies and books, and a pervasive fear of the accelerating cold war, with technology as the only promise of redemption, and star wars as our mythological call to arms. My generation includes the tech giants that changed our world.

    I’d burn the boomers at the stake and alternately throw gasoline, salt. vinegar, and lemon juice on them if I could. So please don’t call me or my generation ‘boomers’.

    Because boomer doesn’t mean ‘population boom’. It means ‘destroyer of civilization.’

    As Charleton Heston famously said while looking at the remains of the statue of liberty: “Damn you! Damn you all to Hell!”

    —- NOTES —–

    “Generation Jones is a term coined by Jonathan Pontell to describe the cohort of people born between 1954 and 1965. Pontell defined Generation Jones as referring to the second half of the post–World War II baby boom. The term also includes first-wave Generation X.”

    “In his book, Pontell observes that this age group felt the bright promise and optimism shown to children in the 60s, only to have those hopes crushed by hard economic realities brought by recession, rising energy costs, high interest rates and tight employment when they came of age in the 70s. Hence the term “jonesin’” means to be yearning or even craving something and not yet finding fulfillment.”

    “They didn’t buy into or were too young to understand the Baby Boomer tantrums; yet they were a tad to old to join the Gen-Xers in the mosh pits.”

    “Between Woodstock and Lallapalooza….”

    “We are practical idealists…”

    “…craving…”

    “…forged in the fires of social upheaval while too young to play a part….”

    “…experiencing the fall and blaming them for it….”

    The name “Generation Jones” derives from ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ competition of our populous birth years.”

    “Yuppies, not hippies.”

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-31 06:32:00 UTC

  • Here you go, Curt

    Here you go, Curt.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-29 20:56:00 UTC

  • THE IMMORALITY AND UN-NECESSITY OF MATHEMATICAL PLATONISM (I’m getting closer. F

    THE IMMORALITY AND UN-NECESSITY OF MATHEMATICAL PLATONISM

    (I’m getting closer. From a post elsewhere. And, yes. ‘unnecessity’ is a word. Really. I checked.) 🙂

    My argument, is that of mathematics can be stated operationally, and non-platonically, without negative externality, and that mathematicians have tragically produced the new mysticism in postmodernism for purely utilitarian and self interested reasons.

    Can we create a “standard of truth”? In other words, can two or more of the theories of truth be organized such that one is more narrowly constrained and more parsimonious than the other? I think that correspondence theory of truth is pretty much the accepted practice, while deflationary and formal theories are adaptations to the needs of particular problems. That And that pluralistic theory attempts to compensate for these differences.

    We can measure truth on two axis. The first is completeness of correspondence: it’s parsimony and explanatory power. And the second is the presence and severity of negative externalities. That means that a utilitarian standard of truth is a convenience and a necessary standard of truth is not. And it means that a necessary standard of truth that produces negative externalities is unavoidable and moral and a pragmatic standard of truth is both avoidable and immoral. Morality being a higher standard than disciplinary utility.

    If you read the background on intuitionist mathematics, then that’s enough. And I don’t have to repeat it here. I think that ‘defining truth’ independent of correspondence is a non sequitur, and is conveniently circular use of the term ‘truth’. Internal consistency is not equal to external correspondence. Nor is it immune from criticism. I think if you read, even just the wiki article on the different forms of truth, including the difference between Formal (linguistic) and Substantive (correspondence) theories of truth, then that’s enough, and I don’t need to repeat it here. I think it’s not difficult to grasp that the different theories of truth have different standards – certainly intuitionist has a higher standard than classical. I think it’s not difficult to grasp that math has a lower standard than science. I think that it’s not difficult to grasp that the standards in classical mathematics are utilitarian. And I think it’s not difficult to grasp that utilitarian actions, if they produce externalities, allow us to criticize that utility. And to demand change if necessary. For example: free speech is one thing, but shouting fire in a theater is another. And while justifying and spreading postmodernism, is less immediate, it is more consequential.

    I have not taken it on myself to play Wittgenstein’s game. I am not sure I am up to it. But I believe I can attack the mathematician’s justification of the logic of sets well enough to put the blame for postmodernism on the people within the discipline. And I can denounce their motives. I may be wrong. But I think I can do it. At least. I can do it well enough.

    MARGINAL INDIFFERENCE is the only criteria for performative truth that I know of that is universally applicable in all circumstances.

    This set of criteria satisfies the requirements of even the PLURALIST theory of truth. It allows us to use correspondence, marginal indifference, and externalities as the criteria of truth, without the need to resort to the ‘religion’ and ‘theology’ of platonism, and the external consequences of teaching generations of students a new theology that is dependent upon magic.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-29 15:14:00 UTC

  • WHY NOT BASIC ECONOMICS IN THE CORE? (Re-posted from elsewhere) You know, math a

    WHY NOT BASIC ECONOMICS IN THE CORE?

    (Re-posted from elsewhere)

    You know, math and economics can be taught as very simple stories. As narratives. Why you can get out of school reading Chaucer, but not knowing how to balance a checkbook, the power of compound interest, the basic currency system, and simple macro economics, is just …. completely beyond me. It’s like, they want us to be ignorant. (And no. I don’t mean that. I’m not a conspiracy nut. I just think it’s ideological not practical.) This stuff isn’t magic. The narrative doesn’t even require algebra. You can draw it as pictures without numbers. We’re all slaves to this system and all but a few of us are ignorant of it.

    It’s freaking criminal.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-29 13:51:00 UTC

  • This weekend I’m going to go collect all my postings on all the progressive web

    This weekend I’m going to go collect all my postings on all the progressive web sites over the past five years, where I argue that it’s not possible to pass economic legislation that the opposition considers immoral. And all the postings where I recommended how to achieve a compromise. And all the postings where I recommended how we could price-correct the housing bubble, and show that I was right. And that this is why the progressives are looking around for a new strategy.

    And lastly, why I’m completely irrelevant to the discourse. lol

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-29 08:59:00 UTC

  • DEMOGRAPHICS. ITS ALL DEMOGRAPHICS

    http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/a-brief-history-of-cycles-and-time-part.htmlITS DEMOGRAPHICS.

    ITS ALL DEMOGRAPHICS

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-29 08:48:00 UTC