Curt Doolittle

Source: Facebook

  • DANGER OF EXCLUSIVITY IN ECONOMETRICS Economists, like all methodologists, extra

    http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2012/01/how-to-save-economics.htmlTHE DANGER OF EXCLUSIVITY IN ECONOMETRICS

    Economists, like all methodologists, extrapolate the conclusions they draw from their methods beyond the scope of their methods. (See Kahneman.)

    Psychologists place extraordinary emphasis on the meaning of emotional stimuli, rather than the outcomes that would be achieved by training emotions to favor more beneficial outcomes in the material world. Cognitive psychologists reverse this preference.

    Liberals extrapolate their bias for nesting and care-taking, and their preference for consensus, to the ability of humans to plan, and cooperate on the scale of a state or economy.

    We are all prisoners of our methods and biases, and our only the mastery of the methods of multiple fields of inquiry makes us critical enough of our abilities.

    The Austrians are largely correct in their analysis of micro, as well as the impact of modern macro. We do not really know if the various permutations of MMT will work or not. But it is abundantly clear that modern macro applies only to small homogenous societies. And in diverse heterogeneous societies, micro and social behaviors are more influential than the power of monetary and fiscal policy to compete with.

    Humans act consistently over time. Humas vary greatly. And the less on of the greeks, and the mandate in western aristocratic tradition, is the ever present and inescapable frailty of human reasoning, and the consequential warning against human hubris, the only solution to which is competition and the balance of power demonstrated by commercial and military success.

    In other words – actions are scientific and theories are not.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-01-25 11:48:00 UTC

  • HEALTH CARE It is amazing how even the most rival health care in the states is s

    HEALTH CARE

    It is amazing how even the most rival health care in the states is so superior to that of Canada.

    And we are going to ruin it.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-01-24 11:57:00 UTC

  • Jan 01, 1997Place: Bellevue, Washington (47.6172, -122.199)Address: Bellevue, Wa

    Jan 01, 1997Place: Bellevue, Washington (47.6172, -122.199)Address: Bellevue, Washington 98004

    Source date (UTC): 2012-01-23 14:04:00 UTC

  • DO YOU TALK TO YOURSELF? Why do people talk to themselves? The humorous response

    DO YOU TALK TO YOURSELF?

    Why do people talk to themselves? The humorous response is “So that I have someone intelligent to talk to.” But humor aside, the traditional psychologist’s argument has been that by involving more senses, verbalization helps to block out distractions, and to focus our thinking – especially when alone, and when under stress or when we want to plan.

    But in Daniel Kahneman’s language, it means “System 2’s intentional system can more easily take control of System 1’s automatic system”. I tend to think of it as intentionally inserting stimulation into system 1.

    System 1 is very, very loud in my head. That’s why I like to be around people. They keep me linked to the real world despite the bright and intense mental reality that emerges from System 1, in someone who has such exceptional memory. I think all mild “Aspies” have this problem, and all Autistic people are complete victims of it.

    Does this sound like I’m happy to intellectualize talking to myself? It does. It also explains why I’m more likely to do it when I’m tired and surrounded by a lot of stimulation: the need to crowd out the sensory data so that I can focus on whatever it is I’m trying to concentrate upon. Most Aspies and all Autistics cannot as easily filter stimuli as well as normal people.

    Perhaps I’ll feel a smidgen less guilty about talking to myself when I’m trying to plan the rest of my day from now on – but I doubt it.

    =====

    PLEASE READ

    Please read “Thinking Fast And Slow”. For those people who haven’t kept up with research in psychology, he’s condensed the past half century into a few narratives which will help you understand our world better. And most importantly for conservatives and libertarians, he’s helped explain why conservatives are right in their concern about human hubris in everything – because we are intuitive more than rational and our intuition is terrible at statistics. In fact, the fact that we need the field of statistics is an attempt to overcome our incompetence in judgements about complex relations.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-01-23 11:01:00 UTC

  • FUTURE NOIR The world is a beautiful place. The essence of Conservatism is joy a

    FUTURE NOIR

    The world is a beautiful place. The essence of Conservatism is joy at present happiness over future utopian perfection. The minute and subtle improvement of the existing art and artifice over the crass flatulence of dramatic public assaults on our senses. The self knowledge of contribution, over the attention seeking of public recognition. It is the politics of the private. The harmony of uncoordinated achievement, made possible by uncoordinated plans.

    NYC is a declining, decaying memory of it’s Anglo Dutch past. It has become the mirror of the extended slum of Los Angeles, separated only by the architecture and order of it’s anglo heritage, and the interdependence between it’s financial sector and the war machine that is washington DC. The city’s gothic legacy is obscured by the implicit praise of temporal consumption and the consequential irrelevance of a mandate for production. It is a society only in that it is so perversely anti-social.

    There is nothing beautiful about it. Nothing to be learned from it. It is the expression of consumer sedition. The brightly burning flurry of consumption by locusts. It’s a dead carcass being feasted upon by every passing scavenger, and attracting vermin by the scent of its decay.

    The world has moved on. No civilization in history has survived urbanization.

    Although we did not know why until recently. The formal institutions of economic calculation we call ‘property’ which require that we act, and the informal institutions of manners, ethics, morals which constrain us from acting, can no longer operate in concert. We have made significant progress in the development of our formal institutions, by implementing credit ratings – the equivalent of ‘reputation’. Credit is an institutional memory of our formal and informal adherence to the social contract.

    But it is not enough. When combined with easy credit, consumption increases without corresponding increases in productivity. And from that one act, men become locusts, and the fecundity of the upper classes is consumed by the malthusian fertility of the lower classes.

    And over time, only the most durable monuments of stone leave a record of our having existed at all.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-01-23 10:24:00 UTC

  • HAPPINESS Having seen a couple of plays, walked the entire theater and shopping

    HAPPINESS

    Having seen a couple of plays, walked the entire theater and shopping district, and cohabited with my felling north easterners for a few days, I’m decidedly relaxed and happy. And that in itself is remarkable.

    Despite having an inner clock that’s naturally happy I haven’t felt so in a very long time – due to illness, undiagnosed allergies, extraordinary responsibilities, divorce, and the resulting stresses from each – any one of which is enough to shorten one’s life.

    Unfortunately, the puritan ethic in both my genes, memory, class and culture, forbids me from even acknowledging happiness, and the iconically robed ascetic angel of consience on my shoulder warns me to ignore it and soldier onward.

    So I hope I don’t tempt the vengeance of puritan christian fate, or the humor of the pagan gods of my ancestors by being thankful for a bit of happiness.

    Perhaps I’ll leave a votive offering in the park so that they forgive my indulgence. 🙂

    Source date (UTC): 2012-01-23 10:08:00 UTC

  • Linguini with porcini mushrooms in a buttery truffle cream sauce, bordering but

    Linguini with porcini mushrooms in a buttery truffle cream sauce, bordering but not crossing into too salty. Flawless. Inspiring.

    An accidental and surprising excellence in a random restaurant.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-01-22 19:27:00 UTC

  • SEMINAR (A Play) Staring Alan Rickman Caught the play this afternoon despite the

    SEMINAR (A Play)

    Staring Alan Rickman

    Caught the play this afternoon despite the mixed reviews. Rickman is worth seeing no matter what he’s in, so I went on that alone. It’s certainly not Chekov, but it’s very well acted, enjoyable, and honest. And for those of us who aren’t amused by musicals, we’re a little desperate for off broadway content these days. I’ll agree that it seems as though it’s on the verge of being something very special but doesn’t quite make it there. But that said, for anyone who is haunted by artistic pressures, it’s certainly worth seeing, and a good use of time and money.

    I don’t feel like I’m writing a ringing endorsement, but I mean to be. And personally I found it timely.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-01-22 18:34:00 UTC

  • NYC COFFEE SHOPS – Think Coffee Hit two of the top ten shops so far. Currently a

    NYC COFFEE SHOPS – Think Coffee

    Hit two of the top ten shops so far. Currently at Think Coffee near NYU. The shops so far don’t compare to Seattle or Moscow, although the ceremony here at Think Coffee is appropriate and the coffee tastes perfect – roasted dark but short of the burned flavor preferred by Pete’s and Starbucks fans. And it’s brewed carefully – one cup at a time in some cases. The baked goods are authentic and fresh. The help is the usually anti-conformist middle proletarian, but it suits the environment. Wireless, and lots of plugs for laptops.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-01-22 11:07:00 UTC

  • WRITING SKILLS Online writing has improved significantly since that paper was wr

    http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/01/how-well-can-you-communicate-over-email-or-blog-posts-how-about-in-person.htmlONLINE WRITING SKILLS

    Online writing has improved significantly since that paper was written. We err. We fail. We get slapped around. And we learn.

    Or at least, most people do.

    The three biggest problems with online discourse are: a) that it’s very difficult to negotiate a contract on the meaning of terms, and as such, most debates are eristic or autistic. b) that the medium does not tolerate the level of exposition needed to convey vast differences in the categories and judgements that are under discussion. c) almost no one, even the very best people, are able to articulate their positions by other than allegorical means, or without relying on the assumption that the methodology underlying their reasoning, is merely a convenience, not a representation or means of identifying true statements. (My glossary is fifty pages long. and it’s not anywhere near complete.)

    Conservatives are the worst offenders because they rely on sentimental, historical and allegorical concepts, which if fully articulated as human actions, are demonstrably true. But since they’re so poorly expressed, usually as post-religous moral statements, they are all but useless in debate.

    FWIW: I am absolutely nothing like my online persona, and everyone who meets me in person comments on it. Interpersonal relations are, well, personal. Debate online is political – purposeful. If I learned anything from the 20th century its that Friedman’s and Rothbard’s antagonistic relentlessness was more successful than Hayek’s modest civility.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-01-20 17:20:00 UTC