Curt Doolittle

Source: Original Site Post

  • Do You Consider Yourself an Austrian?  Well, Austrian Econ Is the Closest to Natural Law

    I have evolved (by accident) into a specialist in natural law (reciprocity) and rule of law (non-discretion), resulting in markets(voluntary cooperation) in all walks of life. Part of this specialization is an extraordinarily precise criteria for truthful speech, the result of which is completing the scientific method. So since Austrian econ is the closest possible model to rule of law, I tend to consider myself somewhere between austrian and chicago, with a bias to austrian in law, and a bias toward chicago in the production of commons. Austrian econ is an appropriated term. Because there are two branches : Mengerian, which is fully integrated into mainstream thought, and Misesian, which is not. I’ve written exhaustively about the failures of Mises and Rothbard even if Mises came very close to one of the most important discoveries in economic history. He calls this positivist (justificationary) discipline ‘praxeology’, but this is a pseudoscientific claim. If however, we combine mises with popper (falsificationism), and mathematical intuitionism and the operationalist movement in physics, you realize that mises tried to make a positive axiomatic logic out of economics, rather than realize he had discovered falsificationism in economics. And then rothbard came along and ruined Mises reputation so badly that we can’t rescue it. To say you are an Austrian today probably means nothing other than that you seek to improve institutions of cooperation, and are rather firm in the belief that the business cycle must be allowed to self correct regularly or it will only increase and expand corrections until a ‘collapse’. To be a ‘praxeologist’ in the positivist stense requires you’re a bit of an idiot – because in fact, economic phenomenon at any scale must eventually be discovered empirically. On the other hand, as a falsificationist, to say ‘If I can’t construct that observed phenomenon from rational human choices then it can’t be true” means you’ve learned the lesson that Mises inarticulately tried to teach us. And if you study both austrian econ and the law you understand that mises and rothbard (and hoppe) were confused, in that mainstream econ violates natural law (reciprocity), spends down accumulated capital of the most precious categories to increase population that overloads the earth, and is objectively immoral by ever standard. As far as I know Austrian Econ today favors the study of behavior, entrepreneurship(individual choice), political economy(institutional impact on economies), and preservation of rule of law over rule by discretion. So the state is the provider of cooperative institutions. As far as I know Chicago tends to maintain these but emphasize monetary policy moreso – with the state as insurer of last resort. As far as I know Saltwater (Mainstream) tends to seek to maximize consumption at the expense of rule of law – replacing it with rule by discretion, with the state as the direct manipulator of the economy. These are actually moral predispositions which is why people self select into these specializations.
    May 27, 2018 2:49pm

  • Contractualism

    —“Curt, would you say the English model of “contracts” paved the way for removing people from blood, soil and kinship loyalty?”— Um. It looks like Scandinavian and maybe northern european groups in general were organized as militial freemen back into prehistory – they could choose their leadership and form ‘private corporations’ so to speak to raid, conquer, and settle land. This ancient european custom led to Germanic law in general which lead to anglo-saxon law in particular, incorporated manorialism (sort of like land owners seeking franchisees), and prior to and up into the Hansa, iteratively developed ‘rule of law’ or rather ‘rule without rulers’, and english law is essentially contractualism, and the British and American constitutions contracts. At present we call this the ‘anglo saxon model’ in which (until say the 1970’s) has been employed across the anglosphere (britan, america, canada, australia, new zealand). This ‘contractualism’ is not existent elsewhere. Because militial civilization (sovereignty, reciprocity, truth, duty, voluntary organization/markets) was not possible or did not evolve elsewhere. So I think it’s been a battle between contractual, kinship-contract, and dominance/ownership models throughout time with the militial and naval developing contractual, and the militial and army developing kin-contract, and we have been largely free of the rest of the world’s ‘dominance/ownership’ and ‘religious kinship’ models. And I think until the postwar years we preserved it. (Women and other groups cannot function in this model. The enlightenment was wrong, women’s suffrage was wrong, universal suffrage was wrong.)

  • Contractualism

    —“Curt, would you say the English model of “contracts” paved the way for removing people from blood, soil and kinship loyalty?”— Um. It looks like Scandinavian and maybe northern european groups in general were organized as militial freemen back into prehistory – they could choose their leadership and form ‘private corporations’ so to speak to raid, conquer, and settle land. This ancient european custom led to Germanic law in general which lead to anglo-saxon law in particular, incorporated manorialism (sort of like land owners seeking franchisees), and prior to and up into the Hansa, iteratively developed ‘rule of law’ or rather ‘rule without rulers’, and english law is essentially contractualism, and the British and American constitutions contracts. At present we call this the ‘anglo saxon model’ in which (until say the 1970’s) has been employed across the anglosphere (britan, america, canada, australia, new zealand). This ‘contractualism’ is not existent elsewhere. Because militial civilization (sovereignty, reciprocity, truth, duty, voluntary organization/markets) was not possible or did not evolve elsewhere. So I think it’s been a battle between contractual, kinship-contract, and dominance/ownership models throughout time with the militial and naval developing contractual, and the militial and army developing kin-contract, and we have been largely free of the rest of the world’s ‘dominance/ownership’ and ‘religious kinship’ models. And I think until the postwar years we preserved it. (Women and other groups cannot function in this model. The enlightenment was wrong, women’s suffrage was wrong, universal suffrage was wrong.)

  • Will Aliens Use the Same Grammar?

    (and thus be comprehensible?) Um. I don’t think they’ll be different, for reasons I hope to publish this year. Although there is a substantial difference… Chomsky can take 40 minutes to communicate an idea, and if you look at his sentence structure and vocabulary it’s extraordinary. I cannot match Chomsky’s context-retention during his discourses. This is how I know he’s smarter than I am. His ability to ‘maintain state’ while communicating complex relations and stories is exceptional. Despite working at it terribly hard, I find ‘simplification’ extremely difficult, and I find I use a variation on latin grammar, more 19th century sentence structure, and overwhelm the audience very easily with content. If you listen to young adults they often have trouble forming complete sentences, paragraphs, and narratives with any degree of precision (they require shared context). Some people (me when I was younger) and many people in the tech field for example, speak very very fast with very high word counts. Some people cannot manage that at all. Some people use large vocabularies to concentrate more content in fewer words while preserving or increasing precision. Some groups use terms (english, german) and some tones (chinese). Where terms are more precise because they are less demanding of deduction. Some groups use (awful) high context grammar, and some low context grammar. It appears that once you develop the ability to communicate in language all that matters is the increasing content and precision of that communication method. So we evolved from simple vocal sounds serialized. Others might evolved from parallel tones. Maybe others from some other form of display. Language must at least originate with analogy to experience, so its possible that creatures with different senses or processing (octopods) might use analogies that took us time to decode. So if you look across just that set of dimensions you can imagine that some very smart species would speak very quickly, in very precise very dense grammar, with a very large vocabulary, with long sentences (transactions), and long narratives, in serial (informationally limited) or more parallel (informationally dense) means. And thisso their context retention ability and processing ability would be higher than ours. That said, for reasons that chomsky defends his universal grammar (and for the same reasons that while base number would change and the vocabulary will change, all mathematical systems would be the same) Once you grasp that the term ‘grammar’ means ‘continuous disambiguation’, but that actions in the real world cause languages to eventually converge on the descriptive through nothing other than competition, then This continuous disambiguation is important because it corresponds to falsification (eliminative), just as continuous construction correspondes to justificationism (cumulative). And as such it turns out that since falsehood has a higher truth content than truth claims, the via negativa of continuous disambiguation is the counter intuitive but descriptive and necessary means of communication of truth content. (Apologies if this is too dense an argument.)

  • Will Aliens Use the Same Grammar?

    (and thus be comprehensible?) Um. I don’t think they’ll be different, for reasons I hope to publish this year. Although there is a substantial difference… Chomsky can take 40 minutes to communicate an idea, and if you look at his sentence structure and vocabulary it’s extraordinary. I cannot match Chomsky’s context-retention during his discourses. This is how I know he’s smarter than I am. His ability to ‘maintain state’ while communicating complex relations and stories is exceptional. Despite working at it terribly hard, I find ‘simplification’ extremely difficult, and I find I use a variation on latin grammar, more 19th century sentence structure, and overwhelm the audience very easily with content. If you listen to young adults they often have trouble forming complete sentences, paragraphs, and narratives with any degree of precision (they require shared context). Some people (me when I was younger) and many people in the tech field for example, speak very very fast with very high word counts. Some people cannot manage that at all. Some people use large vocabularies to concentrate more content in fewer words while preserving or increasing precision. Some groups use terms (english, german) and some tones (chinese). Where terms are more precise because they are less demanding of deduction. Some groups use (awful) high context grammar, and some low context grammar. It appears that once you develop the ability to communicate in language all that matters is the increasing content and precision of that communication method. So we evolved from simple vocal sounds serialized. Others might evolved from parallel tones. Maybe others from some other form of display. Language must at least originate with analogy to experience, so its possible that creatures with different senses or processing (octopods) might use analogies that took us time to decode. So if you look across just that set of dimensions you can imagine that some very smart species would speak very quickly, in very precise very dense grammar, with a very large vocabulary, with long sentences (transactions), and long narratives, in serial (informationally limited) or more parallel (informationally dense) means. And thisso their context retention ability and processing ability would be higher than ours. That said, for reasons that chomsky defends his universal grammar (and for the same reasons that while base number would change and the vocabulary will change, all mathematical systems would be the same) Once you grasp that the term ‘grammar’ means ‘continuous disambiguation’, but that actions in the real world cause languages to eventually converge on the descriptive through nothing other than competition, then This continuous disambiguation is important because it corresponds to falsification (eliminative), just as continuous construction correspondes to justificationism (cumulative). And as such it turns out that since falsehood has a higher truth content than truth claims, the via negativa of continuous disambiguation is the counter intuitive but descriptive and necessary means of communication of truth content. (Apologies if this is too dense an argument.)

  • Conservatism Understood

    1. A conservative questions the overestimation of reason, and above all questions consensus. Conservatism is familial, stoic, pragmatic, and empirical. In other words risk averse to capital. 2. As a means of questioning, a conservative requires reciprocity (tort): american < british < anglo saxon < germanic < european < norther indo european in law. That law evolved from the oath (tell the truth, never steal, never flee, in combat). 3. A Conservative requires ‘empirical’ results – and where empirical fails, the ‘traditional’ is adequate, since traditional survived empirical tests in competition in reality. 4. A Conservative accumulates genetic, cultural, normative, institutional, physical, and territorial capital – attempting to pass on to future generations of his family, more than he himself inherited. 5. Conservatism is a eugenic group evolutionary strategy that increases accumulated capital through intergenerational transfer, using intergeneration lending, in order to produce increasingly ‘noble’ families. 6. Ergo successful individuals in the market for craftsmanship, successful purchase of the franchise through military service, successful individuals in the market for marriage and child rearing, successful individuals in the market for industry, successful families in the market for noble (intergenerational) families. 7. In other words, conservatism(aristocracy) is a eugenic group evolutionary strategy. And while bipartite manorialism was practiced from 700, and aggressive hanging of up to 1% of the population every year after 1000, and an attempt to escape church-state nobility, and create an entrepreneurial nobility (meritocracy), succeeded by 1600, there was a great reaction to the english revolution, and a greater reaction to the french revolution. Thus while Locke,smith,hume,adams, and jefferson promised an aristocracy available to everyone, Burke, after the french revolution, and germans after that, recognized that the peasantry was even worse at rule (see russia) than the nobility. The problem with today’s conservatism is that darwin and spencer were famous before the war, after the second world war, conservatism and eugenics were effectively banned from discourse, academy, and science. As such conservatives never (until perhaps 2000) restored empirical discourse to conservatism, because eugenics are antithetical to the experiment with democracy. This changed incrementally beginning in 76, through the 80s, and aggressively since 2000, and more aggressively since 2008. 1 – Soveriengty requires reciprocity 2 – Reciprocity requires rule of law (tort), jury(thang, senate, house of lords, supreme court), and an independent judiciary. 3 – Rule of law forces markets, since it incrementally suppresses each innovation in parasitism. 4 – Markets cause hierarchies, because they are necessary to voluntarily organize production. 5 – Markets are eugenic, because they are empirical means of testing industry and impulse. 6 – But they make possible liberty for those with property, freedom for those who labor, and subsidy for those who impose no costs on sovereignty, liberty, freedom, or property.** DOMESTICATION Man domesticated the human animal after he had learned to domesticate the non-human animal. And he did so by the same means. And the result in both domestication of the human and non human animal is the same: eugenics. May 28, 2018 10:37am

  • Conservatism Understood

    1. A conservative questions the overestimation of reason, and above all questions consensus. Conservatism is familial, stoic, pragmatic, and empirical. In other words risk averse to capital. 2. As a means of questioning, a conservative requires reciprocity (tort): american < british < anglo saxon < germanic < european < norther indo european in law. That law evolved from the oath (tell the truth, never steal, never flee, in combat). 3. A Conservative requires ‘empirical’ results – and where empirical fails, the ‘traditional’ is adequate, since traditional survived empirical tests in competition in reality. 4. A Conservative accumulates genetic, cultural, normative, institutional, physical, and territorial capital – attempting to pass on to future generations of his family, more than he himself inherited. 5. Conservatism is a eugenic group evolutionary strategy that increases accumulated capital through intergenerational transfer, using intergeneration lending, in order to produce increasingly ‘noble’ families. 6. Ergo successful individuals in the market for craftsmanship, successful purchase of the franchise through military service, successful individuals in the market for marriage and child rearing, successful individuals in the market for industry, successful families in the market for noble (intergenerational) families. 7. In other words, conservatism(aristocracy) is a eugenic group evolutionary strategy. And while bipartite manorialism was practiced from 700, and aggressive hanging of up to 1% of the population every year after 1000, and an attempt to escape church-state nobility, and create an entrepreneurial nobility (meritocracy), succeeded by 1600, there was a great reaction to the english revolution, and a greater reaction to the french revolution. Thus while Locke,smith,hume,adams, and jefferson promised an aristocracy available to everyone, Burke, after the french revolution, and germans after that, recognized that the peasantry was even worse at rule (see russia) than the nobility. The problem with today’s conservatism is that darwin and spencer were famous before the war, after the second world war, conservatism and eugenics were effectively banned from discourse, academy, and science. As such conservatives never (until perhaps 2000) restored empirical discourse to conservatism, because eugenics are antithetical to the experiment with democracy. This changed incrementally beginning in 76, through the 80s, and aggressively since 2000, and more aggressively since 2008. 1 – Soveriengty requires reciprocity 2 – Reciprocity requires rule of law (tort), jury(thang, senate, house of lords, supreme court), and an independent judiciary. 3 – Rule of law forces markets, since it incrementally suppresses each innovation in parasitism. 4 – Markets cause hierarchies, because they are necessary to voluntarily organize production. 5 – Markets are eugenic, because they are empirical means of testing industry and impulse. 6 – But they make possible liberty for those with property, freedom for those who labor, and subsidy for those who impose no costs on sovereignty, liberty, freedom, or property.** DOMESTICATION Man domesticated the human animal after he had learned to domesticate the non-human animal. And he did so by the same means. And the result in both domestication of the human and non human animal is the same: eugenics. May 28, 2018 10:37am

  • Natural Conflict Between the Classes of Conservatives

    “I don’t daydream, I do.” “I don’t seek experiences but results.” “I don’t seek like minds, but like doers.” “I don’t seek shared values, but shared incentives and goals.” “I don’t seek pleasure in what I do, I seek profitability which in turn allows me to choose among possible pleasures.” “I don’t seek to follow a plan to a goal, but seek and exploit opportunities discovered in pursuit of goals.” “I don’t seek motivation, I have motivation for the simple reasons of search for novelty and search for competition. If you need motivation you are not suited for leadership.” “I don’t seek to lead, only to perform functions that need performing, when no one better is at hand.” Just as between women and men, women are more dependent upon intuition and men more on reason, some men are likewise dependent upon intuition and some on reason, and some on experience and some on results, and some on fantasy and some on reality. The people who attain, function in, and remain in power positions work harder, work longer, create more relationships, process more information, and calculate more empirically, with fewer anchors to intuition. than their competitors. There is a sort of mental and masculine weakness in the Right that is evident in all right wing thought back to Burke, and before him, throughout the philosophers and theologians, all the way back to plato. The best example of these in modernity are Nietzsche( heroic nonsense) , Kirk (romantic nonsense), Evola (occult nonsense), Where the can be contrasted by Machiavelli, Smith, Hayek, and most recently Pat Buchanan. Now, just as we see the female solipsistic to male autistic spectrum. We see the Fantatisizer <—– observer —– participant —-> Doer spectrum. And careful analysis will show that it’s an introvert (fantasizer) <—-> Extrovert(Doer) spectrum. Some people go from books to searching for problems. Some people from real problems to books. Likewise some people learn for entertainment, and some people learn in furtherance of action. Likewise some people think and act to avoid cooperation with groups, and some people think and act to create organization of groups. Likewise some people seek to act on their terms, while other people act to take advantage of other’s terms. I view the ‘esoteric, occult, literary’ wing of conservatism, man-child aesthetics. Some of us do, others of us follow doers, and others watch doers and followers, and others dream of doing, following, and watching. So that is the class of conservatives: doers searching for tools with which to act, to dreamers searching for fantasies they never can or must act on. There is a class of conservatives who favor the occult, which is an escape from conformity (learning others). There is a class of conservatives who favor the theological (which is to some degree social but conformity is enforced by the theology). There is a class of conservatives who favor literature, which is a proxy for learning from others – usually a substitute for limited personal contacts. There is a class of conservatives who act politically and argumentatively on ‘getting things done’ and ‘enacting change’ by ‘possible means’. All this spectrum describes is social immaturity and undesirability to social maturity and desirability. So when someone says his preferred method of understanding conservatism he is telling you a great deal about his desirability as a cooperative actor.
    May 28, 2018 4:49pm

  • Natural Conflict Between the Classes of Conservatives

    “I don’t daydream, I do.” “I don’t seek experiences but results.” “I don’t seek like minds, but like doers.” “I don’t seek shared values, but shared incentives and goals.” “I don’t seek pleasure in what I do, I seek profitability which in turn allows me to choose among possible pleasures.” “I don’t seek to follow a plan to a goal, but seek and exploit opportunities discovered in pursuit of goals.” “I don’t seek motivation, I have motivation for the simple reasons of search for novelty and search for competition. If you need motivation you are not suited for leadership.” “I don’t seek to lead, only to perform functions that need performing, when no one better is at hand.” Just as between women and men, women are more dependent upon intuition and men more on reason, some men are likewise dependent upon intuition and some on reason, and some on experience and some on results, and some on fantasy and some on reality. The people who attain, function in, and remain in power positions work harder, work longer, create more relationships, process more information, and calculate more empirically, with fewer anchors to intuition. than their competitors. There is a sort of mental and masculine weakness in the Right that is evident in all right wing thought back to Burke, and before him, throughout the philosophers and theologians, all the way back to plato. The best example of these in modernity are Nietzsche( heroic nonsense) , Kirk (romantic nonsense), Evola (occult nonsense), Where the can be contrasted by Machiavelli, Smith, Hayek, and most recently Pat Buchanan. Now, just as we see the female solipsistic to male autistic spectrum. We see the Fantatisizer <—– observer —– participant —-> Doer spectrum. And careful analysis will show that it’s an introvert (fantasizer) <—-> Extrovert(Doer) spectrum. Some people go from books to searching for problems. Some people from real problems to books. Likewise some people learn for entertainment, and some people learn in furtherance of action. Likewise some people think and act to avoid cooperation with groups, and some people think and act to create organization of groups. Likewise some people seek to act on their terms, while other people act to take advantage of other’s terms. I view the ‘esoteric, occult, literary’ wing of conservatism, man-child aesthetics. Some of us do, others of us follow doers, and others watch doers and followers, and others dream of doing, following, and watching. So that is the class of conservatives: doers searching for tools with which to act, to dreamers searching for fantasies they never can or must act on. There is a class of conservatives who favor the occult, which is an escape from conformity (learning others). There is a class of conservatives who favor the theological (which is to some degree social but conformity is enforced by the theology). There is a class of conservatives who favor literature, which is a proxy for learning from others – usually a substitute for limited personal contacts. There is a class of conservatives who act politically and argumentatively on ‘getting things done’ and ‘enacting change’ by ‘possible means’. All this spectrum describes is social immaturity and undesirability to social maturity and desirability. So when someone says his preferred method of understanding conservatism he is telling you a great deal about his desirability as a cooperative actor.
    May 28, 2018 4:49pm

  • The Problem with The Category ‘psychology’.

      I distinguish between freudianism, psychologism, therapy, incentives/biases/limits/logic, neurochemistry, and cognitive science. When a person says “psychology” I usually have to deduce which of those they’re referring to. In my understanding psychology is used to refer to each of those. However, the first two are pseudosciences, therapy/self/help is something else, and the rest are sciences. Usually I am criticizing the use of the first two or the conflation of the first two with others. May 25, 2018 5:03pm