Curt Doolittle

Source: Original Site Post

  • Yes, Again.

    Dec 8, 2019, 8:28 PM

    —“You can reply with this snarky bulls—t or you can tell me why exactly governments exist if not to advance and protect the common good. Give me a competing theory of government. I’m not saying none exist. I’m just asking what yours is.’–Matt Walsh @MattWalshBlog

    1) Governments, in all cases, evolved like all organizations, using force to profit from the revenue generated by incremental domestication of humans, into production, versus having that revenue captured by others. Citizen customers provide higher returns than serfs and slaves. 2) This ‘voluntary laborer’ versus Socialist Worker, Serf or Slave is why communism, socialism, capitalism and anarchism fail, because the largest number of productive people have traditionally provided one of the resources necessary to conquer others and obtain those revenues. 3) So the very opposite of Walsh’s OP is true: Governments exist to provide the maximum extraction (rents) at while maintaining the minimum incentives necessary for the strong to take possession of the government by force, and themselves take the proceeds. All else is lies. 4) We can test this theory in every organization at every scale in every city, state, empire in history. Because all organizations grow to accumulate rent-seeking until lacking sufficient (all) capital reserves to incentivize adaptation to shocks, trade route loss, or conquest. 5) In the current era the means of holding power is to produce enough undermining of rule of law, undermining of the markets of cooperation between genders classes and tribes, disinformation, especially economic, that conquest by immigration is possible before its perceived. 6) Which is why I am certain that ‘never again’ will be ‘yes again’ because the people who undermine civilizations as a group strategy never seem to learn from their thousands of years of failure. 7) I never err. Ever.

  • Yes, Again.

    Dec 8, 2019, 8:28 PM

    —“You can reply with this snarky bulls—t or you can tell me why exactly governments exist if not to advance and protect the common good. Give me a competing theory of government. I’m not saying none exist. I’m just asking what yours is.’–Matt Walsh @MattWalshBlog

    1) Governments, in all cases, evolved like all organizations, using force to profit from the revenue generated by incremental domestication of humans, into production, versus having that revenue captured by others. Citizen customers provide higher returns than serfs and slaves. 2) This ‘voluntary laborer’ versus Socialist Worker, Serf or Slave is why communism, socialism, capitalism and anarchism fail, because the largest number of productive people have traditionally provided one of the resources necessary to conquer others and obtain those revenues. 3) So the very opposite of Walsh’s OP is true: Governments exist to provide the maximum extraction (rents) at while maintaining the minimum incentives necessary for the strong to take possession of the government by force, and themselves take the proceeds. All else is lies. 4) We can test this theory in every organization at every scale in every city, state, empire in history. Because all organizations grow to accumulate rent-seeking until lacking sufficient (all) capital reserves to incentivize adaptation to shocks, trade route loss, or conquest. 5) In the current era the means of holding power is to produce enough undermining of rule of law, undermining of the markets of cooperation between genders classes and tribes, disinformation, especially economic, that conquest by immigration is possible before its perceived. 6) Which is why I am certain that ‘never again’ will be ‘yes again’ because the people who undermine civilizations as a group strategy never seem to learn from their thousands of years of failure. 7) I never err. Ever.

  • Definition: Externality

    Dec 10, 2019, 11:03 PM “Externality” is a technical term and it’s meaning is obvious. If you do something that indirectly and negatively affects a third person, that’s an externality. It means ‘outside of your direct perception’. That’s not complicated. At all. ie: the ridiculous example of a butterfly flapping its wings in china causes tornado in America. The less ridiculous example of playing your music loud at night keeping up the neighbors. “Indirect consequences”.

  • Definition: Externality

    Dec 10, 2019, 11:03 PM “Externality” is a technical term and it’s meaning is obvious. If you do something that indirectly and negatively affects a third person, that’s an externality. It means ‘outside of your direct perception’. That’s not complicated. At all. ie: the ridiculous example of a butterfly flapping its wings in china causes tornado in America. The less ridiculous example of playing your music loud at night keeping up the neighbors. “Indirect consequences”.

  • Karl Popper’s Demarcation Problem Is Solved.

    Dec 11, 2019, 9:58 AM As far as I know (and this is my area of specialization), western success in science, technology, medicine, and economics was due to the transfer of our legal tradition (by Aristotle to Bacon to Hume to Hayek), and the failure of our philosophers to understand that transfer. So, the demarcation in law between testifiability and fiction, is legal due diligence (falsification). Man can perform due diligence against every dimension perceivable by man: categorical consistency (identity), internal consistency (logical), operational consistency (existential possibility), external consistency (empirical), rational consistency (rational choice), reciprocal consistency (rational choice between parties in cooperation), completeness (full accounting within stated limits), warrantied by possibility of restitution. In other words, the demarcation between science and non-science is falsificationary, and not only the test of falsifiability, but due diligence against falsehood in all dimensions perceivable by man. And this brings us to where else Popper failed: cost. Philosophers generally work in sets, and the law, engineering in operations, and while sets are largely verbal constructs free of cost, action, operations, engineering, science, law and economics include costs. This is why there is a high correlation between moralizing and philosophy, and a high correlation between science and law. Because moralizing does seeks general rules regardless of cost, and sciences and law seek general rules including costs. Why does this matter? Popper never performed a study of scientific research, he just used reason to state that choices in scientific investigation was undecidable. But it’s demonstrably false. the problem in scientific exploration like any form of action (engineering), is that as distance from human scale increases either smaller or larger, the costs of investigation increases, and as such we pursue the information we can afford to. And this turns out to be the optimum means of investigation. And this corresponds to the physical and human world’s behavior: nature must take the least cost action possible, and humans do as well – as long as we make a full accounting of causes (incentives). Cheers

  • Karl Popper’s Demarcation Problem Is Solved.

    Dec 11, 2019, 9:58 AM As far as I know (and this is my area of specialization), western success in science, technology, medicine, and economics was due to the transfer of our legal tradition (by Aristotle to Bacon to Hume to Hayek), and the failure of our philosophers to understand that transfer. So, the demarcation in law between testifiability and fiction, is legal due diligence (falsification). Man can perform due diligence against every dimension perceivable by man: categorical consistency (identity), internal consistency (logical), operational consistency (existential possibility), external consistency (empirical), rational consistency (rational choice), reciprocal consistency (rational choice between parties in cooperation), completeness (full accounting within stated limits), warrantied by possibility of restitution. In other words, the demarcation between science and non-science is falsificationary, and not only the test of falsifiability, but due diligence against falsehood in all dimensions perceivable by man. And this brings us to where else Popper failed: cost. Philosophers generally work in sets, and the law, engineering in operations, and while sets are largely verbal constructs free of cost, action, operations, engineering, science, law and economics include costs. This is why there is a high correlation between moralizing and philosophy, and a high correlation between science and law. Because moralizing does seeks general rules regardless of cost, and sciences and law seek general rules including costs. Why does this matter? Popper never performed a study of scientific research, he just used reason to state that choices in scientific investigation was undecidable. But it’s demonstrably false. the problem in scientific exploration like any form of action (engineering), is that as distance from human scale increases either smaller or larger, the costs of investigation increases, and as such we pursue the information we can afford to. And this turns out to be the optimum means of investigation. And this corresponds to the physical and human world’s behavior: nature must take the least cost action possible, and humans do as well – as long as we make a full accounting of causes (incentives). Cheers

  • Why Global Capital Hates Sovereign Default

    Dec 19, 2019, 12:09 PM by Michael Churchill Global capital hates defaults because they puncture the whole perma-debt system that keeps overall interest rates lower than they would be otherwise. It’s socialization of risk taken to the meta-level. The most obvious example at present is Argentina, whose debt profile is ludicrously unsustainable. They are a ward of the IMF. Without foreign help Argentine dollar bonds would collapse to zero overnight. But you know with smoke and mirrors you can sort of keep them trading — sometimes at 40 cents on the dollar, sometimes at 75. But either way nothing collapses. To give an idea of scale, Argentina’s foreign-owned dollar bonds are about $150 billion face value. So it’s a lot … enough to create a mini tidal wave if they went to zero … but not the end of the world. The knock on effect would be the removal of the safety net. So everybody else’s yields on dollar bonds would go from 3% to 4.5% right quick. Other countries in shaky terrain are Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Egypt and Lebanon. That said, MOST emerging markets are quite solvent. Basically 97% of the other EMs not mentioned above are fine. Much better than 20 years ago.

    CD: I want to point out that it’s in the US’s strategic interest now to NOT generate global stability. And in particular, causing a collapse in Pakistan would be extremely useful for much of the world.

  • Why Global Capital Hates Sovereign Default

    Dec 19, 2019, 12:09 PM by Michael Churchill Global capital hates defaults because they puncture the whole perma-debt system that keeps overall interest rates lower than they would be otherwise. It’s socialization of risk taken to the meta-level. The most obvious example at present is Argentina, whose debt profile is ludicrously unsustainable. They are a ward of the IMF. Without foreign help Argentine dollar bonds would collapse to zero overnight. But you know with smoke and mirrors you can sort of keep them trading — sometimes at 40 cents on the dollar, sometimes at 75. But either way nothing collapses. To give an idea of scale, Argentina’s foreign-owned dollar bonds are about $150 billion face value. So it’s a lot … enough to create a mini tidal wave if they went to zero … but not the end of the world. The knock on effect would be the removal of the safety net. So everybody else’s yields on dollar bonds would go from 3% to 4.5% right quick. Other countries in shaky terrain are Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Egypt and Lebanon. That said, MOST emerging markets are quite solvent. Basically 97% of the other EMs not mentioned above are fine. Much better than 20 years ago.

    CD: I want to point out that it’s in the US’s strategic interest now to NOT generate global stability. And in particular, causing a collapse in Pakistan would be extremely useful for much of the world.

  • Definitions via Hayek

    Dec 19, 2019, 2:37 PM DEFINITIONS VIA HAYEK Liberalism: “limiting the coercive powers of all government” Democracy: “limiting the coercive power of government only to current majority opinion.” OPPOSITIONS From Liberalism to Totalitarianism From Democracy to Authoritarianism

  • Definitions via Hayek

    Dec 19, 2019, 2:37 PM DEFINITIONS VIA HAYEK Liberalism: “limiting the coercive powers of all government” Democracy: “limiting the coercive power of government only to current majority opinion.” OPPOSITIONS From Liberalism to Totalitarianism From Democracy to Authoritarianism