(posted as a comment about putin on the economist) You’re largely correct but there is a middle position that would be more correct than the one you mentioned. Putin has done a great deal for his people, and we cannot underestimate, and we must respect and admire him for the change in their quality of life. He had his vision of restoring 1-the scope of the Russian empire, and 2-orthodox civilization. But he is also very afraid, not so much for himself, but for his people, and their future. They have not the economy, nor the population to return to great power status in the 21st century. While he has improved order in the country, and he as improved rule of law – enough – he still has an undiversified resource economy, a secret service that runs the drug and smuggling trade, relies upon Chechens as enforcers, and is surrounded (like a mafia godfather) by those that would replace him with glee. Prior to his invasion of Ukraine he was possibly the most respected and influential politician in the world. When Ukraine was successful in ousting the puppet president who denied them EU membership – contrary to everyone’s wildest imaginings – there were immediate uprisings in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and chants everywhere that Russia was next to join the western sphere. But Putin sees American spies and manipulation everywhere, where we Americans see our politicians, state department, intelligence services, and NGO’s as a bunch of largely overpaid incompetent ‘clowns’ that couldn’t do anything right if they tried. And he believed his puppet. The correct answer, however, was that the young militant men in the streets, having lost relatives and friends, if they found him, would certainly kill him. When the ambassadors confirmed the circumstance, Putin sent Russian special forces to fetch him, loaded the presidential jet with money, sent it to Dubai (I followed it) and he snuck off to Russia – I have no idea how, since it did not appear in an obvious way on radar tracking systems. So for Putin, he could lose his only warm water port (Crimea) to NATO (not that I can grasp for a moment how anyone would think closing the Bosphorus to Russia would be a challenge. And worse, he’s been trying to repair and modernize the armed forces, but all the manufacturing was done in the Donbas Basin in Ukraine. So in what I see as a panic, in typical Russian fashion, he did not call up Germany, UK, and USA and say: “Folks it is a strategic problem for us face even the smallest chance of losing that port, and we propose that we acquire it from Ukraine on a 99 year irrevocable lease, after which it returns to Russian sovereignty. Because honestly, otherwise, I am derelict in my duty if I let it pass out of our strategic hands. And I am sorry but I must have tacit approval from you on this phone call, and I ask you to use moral judgment in this matter.” Now it really doesn’t matter what anyone says really, because Putin gets on the air, tells Ukrainians that he’s terribly proud of them, but that this poses a strategic problem for Russia, so we propose 20% discount on market price of gas in exchange for a 99 year lease on Crimea and the Donbas. This will ensure that you are successful, the people in the Donbas can keep their manufacturing and mining jobs, obtain Russian pensions, and the rest of Ukraine will have an easier time financing its modernization program.” And really, he just then sends in the soldiers HONESTLY, and it’s all done, because (a) Ukrainians see the people in the east as ‘degenerates’ that hold onto the dream of communism, (b) they just care that they can go to Crimea for holidays, (c) the price of gas is a serious burden for such a poor country. Now part of the reason we have this problem between west and Russia is the Russian inability to admit vulnerability even in such matters. So just as when Putin approached the USA about nato membership, and the Americans were stupid, he didn’t take his message to the American people and educate them. Just as he didn’t take the Crimean problem to other world leaders and educate them. Just as he didn’t take his message to the Ukrainian people and educate them. I suspect it is almost incomprehensible to a Russian that Americans are actually naive utopian idealists, but they really do believe they do the right thing – despite overwhelmingly contrary evidence. But as the Israelis have demonstrated, taking your case to the American people via the press if you’re trying to exchange something and be reasonable is a guaranteed win. So I view Putin in fairly charitable terms, as a man who saw his world fall apart, his people suffer, and himself as the hero who can restore them and their world, and possibly go down in history as an example for them. He has one problem really: *He doesn’t sell, he only tells.* And he has no one on his staff that ‘sells’ the Russian position. Which is pretty damned rational really. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine
Source: Original Site Post
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Do We Choose Our Rulers?
Actually, it depends on the organization’s SIZE, and method of adapting. – For very large organizations, it’s that no one wills change of leader sufficiently, because of the cost of change. – For medium organizations, people choose the leader possible for the group to preserve its power. – For small organizations, it’s absolutely true that people choose leaders. Choice of leadership is a game: it’s the best one we can get among those that enough people want, not the leader we want. Leadership is necessary if for no other reason than to maintain group solidarity while providing decidability, although consensus building is why we prefer to use them. leaders prevent defection. I could go on about this, but leaders exist because we need them to. We choose the ones we CAN choose, and we change or resist change dependent upon the cost of doing so. In markets we need only negative leaders (judges), but it is very hard to defect and survive. In the production of commons we need positive leaders (deciders), but it is very hard to defect and survive. In commercial organizations we need both judges and deciders, but we have the opportunity to defect, and we are constantly aware of the choices. This is then, the same reason we are compensated, not for production, but for our value in the ORGANIZATION of production. As far as I know, this well researched, well understood, and effectively a law of organization. Economics in everything. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute (ps: any moral argument is suspect. if the argument is not reduced to costs, someone is likely trying to fool you.)
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Do We Choose Our Rulers?
Actually, it depends on the organization’s SIZE, and method of adapting. – For very large organizations, it’s that no one wills change of leader sufficiently, because of the cost of change. – For medium organizations, people choose the leader possible for the group to preserve its power. – For small organizations, it’s absolutely true that people choose leaders. Choice of leadership is a game: it’s the best one we can get among those that enough people want, not the leader we want. Leadership is necessary if for no other reason than to maintain group solidarity while providing decidability, although consensus building is why we prefer to use them. leaders prevent defection. I could go on about this, but leaders exist because we need them to. We choose the ones we CAN choose, and we change or resist change dependent upon the cost of doing so. In markets we need only negative leaders (judges), but it is very hard to defect and survive. In the production of commons we need positive leaders (deciders), but it is very hard to defect and survive. In commercial organizations we need both judges and deciders, but we have the opportunity to defect, and we are constantly aware of the choices. This is then, the same reason we are compensated, not for production, but for our value in the ORGANIZATION of production. As far as I know, this well researched, well understood, and effectively a law of organization. Economics in everything. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute (ps: any moral argument is suspect. if the argument is not reduced to costs, someone is likely trying to fool you.)
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What Are Conservatism, Libertarianism, Progressivism?
A Genetic Predisposition – an Instinct An Intuition – an instinct and experience A Tradition – a surviving portfolio of habits An Ideology – a Justification A Philosophy – a Moral Model A FormalPhilosophy – An Institutional Model A SocialScience (law)
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What Are Conservatism, Libertarianism, Progressivism?
A Genetic Predisposition – an Instinct An Intuition – an instinct and experience A Tradition – a surviving portfolio of habits An Ideology – a Justification A Philosophy – a Moral Model A FormalPhilosophy – An Institutional Model A SocialScience (law)
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A Nation? Nationalism? Vs Statism?
A State, and bureaucracy, provide fertile ground for parasitism, for the sole reason that a majority of men do not demand Rule of Law, under Natural Law, using Judge Discovered Law, and accumulating in the Common Law. A nation is quite good at preventing alternative ‘tax farms’, brought into being by conquest using war, religion, immigration, trade. And arguably, as an extension of the tribe, the nation is best at it. Those that could not form sedentary societies were destroyed by those that could. Since a sedentary society is productive, not parasitic. Jews, Gypsies, underclass immigration, and we ‘migratory occidental craftsmen’, vary in value from catastrophically harmful, to a net loss, to of some limited economic value by providing expertise – we are a questionable exception, not a definite rule. All of us live under the political orders that survive competition, not those we choose to have were that competition were absent. Man was not in the past, nor is he today, good. He is rational. He chooses predation when it is rational, parasitism when rational, production when it is rational, and trade when it is rational. We create institutions to deny him the rational choice of predation or parasitism, and thereby force all people into either production or trade. From that thing we call ‘rule’, by rule of law, we can possibly eliminate all discretion but judicial discretion, and judicial discretion only within the limits of that law. But in no case can we eliminate organized production of commons and survive competition. The west advanced faster than the rest, because we created the most difficult commons for any people to produce: truth, property, jury, and natural, common, judge-discovered law. In other words: social science. It’s our invention of social science, (law) that we applied to other fields. And that law is insured, and enforced, by the organized application of violence by ‘the peers’ – those men who demand rule of law. Those who cannot pay for war, cannot as a consequence, pay for staving off war by others. Wishing for liberty does not make liberty so. Violence alone does. We fight for liberty under natural law, judge-discovered common law, with universal standing and rule of law (universal application), or we shall not have it. For we will fail to rais the price of rule to some other means of decidability, organization of property. And our only sincere permanent allies in such a long term war are our kin. Ergo. Nationalism: kin under natural law, with a market for reproduction, a market for production and consumption, and a market for commons. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine
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A Nation? Nationalism? Vs Statism?
A State, and bureaucracy, provide fertile ground for parasitism, for the sole reason that a majority of men do not demand Rule of Law, under Natural Law, using Judge Discovered Law, and accumulating in the Common Law. A nation is quite good at preventing alternative ‘tax farms’, brought into being by conquest using war, religion, immigration, trade. And arguably, as an extension of the tribe, the nation is best at it. Those that could not form sedentary societies were destroyed by those that could. Since a sedentary society is productive, not parasitic. Jews, Gypsies, underclass immigration, and we ‘migratory occidental craftsmen’, vary in value from catastrophically harmful, to a net loss, to of some limited economic value by providing expertise – we are a questionable exception, not a definite rule. All of us live under the political orders that survive competition, not those we choose to have were that competition were absent. Man was not in the past, nor is he today, good. He is rational. He chooses predation when it is rational, parasitism when rational, production when it is rational, and trade when it is rational. We create institutions to deny him the rational choice of predation or parasitism, and thereby force all people into either production or trade. From that thing we call ‘rule’, by rule of law, we can possibly eliminate all discretion but judicial discretion, and judicial discretion only within the limits of that law. But in no case can we eliminate organized production of commons and survive competition. The west advanced faster than the rest, because we created the most difficult commons for any people to produce: truth, property, jury, and natural, common, judge-discovered law. In other words: social science. It’s our invention of social science, (law) that we applied to other fields. And that law is insured, and enforced, by the organized application of violence by ‘the peers’ – those men who demand rule of law. Those who cannot pay for war, cannot as a consequence, pay for staving off war by others. Wishing for liberty does not make liberty so. Violence alone does. We fight for liberty under natural law, judge-discovered common law, with universal standing and rule of law (universal application), or we shall not have it. For we will fail to rais the price of rule to some other means of decidability, organization of property. And our only sincere permanent allies in such a long term war are our kin. Ergo. Nationalism: kin under natural law, with a market for reproduction, a market for production and consumption, and a market for commons. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine
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Philosophers and Feeling vs Scientists and Reporting
Aug 25, 2016 11:31am Philosophers place greater weight upon FEELING, and the cognitive scientists place greater weight on REPORTING, which tells us nothing about TRUTH but a great deal about the instrumentation available to SUBJECTIVE introspective and OBJECTIVE empirical testing. My experience is that while in retrospect the initial stage of awareness is arguably ‘me’ or ‘i’, while in that state any such ‘experience’ (feeling) other than ‘satisfaction/dissatisfaction’, ‘urgency/calm’, ‘dominant/submissive stance’ does not seem to exist. So one can ‘feel’ first, but not understand, and the one can understand but not report upon, and finally one can feel, understand, and report upon. Interestingly, analyzing feelings can change them(association), and reporting upon feelings can change them(signaling) – sometimes falsely. (Which obvious in retrospect) Curt Doolittle
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Philosophers and Feeling vs Scientists and Reporting
Aug 25, 2016 11:31am Philosophers place greater weight upon FEELING, and the cognitive scientists place greater weight on REPORTING, which tells us nothing about TRUTH but a great deal about the instrumentation available to SUBJECTIVE introspective and OBJECTIVE empirical testing. My experience is that while in retrospect the initial stage of awareness is arguably ‘me’ or ‘i’, while in that state any such ‘experience’ (feeling) other than ‘satisfaction/dissatisfaction’, ‘urgency/calm’, ‘dominant/submissive stance’ does not seem to exist. So one can ‘feel’ first, but not understand, and the one can understand but not report upon, and finally one can feel, understand, and report upon. Interestingly, analyzing feelings can change them(association), and reporting upon feelings can change them(signaling) – sometimes falsely. (Which obvious in retrospect) Curt Doolittle
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Philosophy(choice) vs Logic(decidability)
—“CURT, YOUR CRITICISM OF PHILOSOPHY IS AN INTERESTING PHILOSOPHY”— Irony appreciated. Even if it’s just a play on words. The question is not whether it’s a personal philosophy (means of PREFERENTIAL or UTILITARIAN choice) but whether its a method of universal DECIDABILITY independent of preferences and utility. (truth). In other words, is it a “Law” of nature, as in a “Natural Law”. Propositions need only be reciprocally decidable . If they are decidable, then the question is why one would attempt to demonstrate that they are not? As in law, which is the origin of western philosophy, not until late conflated with religion, decidability is provided by (a) deception and (b) involuntary transfer. As far as I can tell, this is the purpose of most UNDECIDABLE philosophy, like religious law before it: fraud. Which is not what I expected when I started working on these issues. The philosophers are often circumventing costs, and transfers, and claiming that they’re pursuing truth. What I find, is that they are all too often, engaged in fraud. So instead of testing for truth, I first test for theft. This is the difference between the philosophical search for AGREEMENT and the legal search for theft. Ergo, It is law that is our western philosophy(prohibition, decidability, criticism) and everything else is religion (aspiration, negotiation, justification). The west didn’t conflate truth, law, politics, and religion. We have always preserved competition as means of ongoing calculation, and thereby avoided stagnation. But Egyptian-Judeo-Christian-Muslim totalitarianism did the opposite. They created authority (monopoly) by conflating different disciplines with different purposes. This is why Egypt froze, jews contributed nothing until they were forced by Europeans into the enlightenment, Muslims appear to have taken credit but not developed anything, and certainly, as soon as the common people adopted it, were insulated, and why the west stagnated for a thousand years, albeit under constant onslaught of the commercial Mediterranean by Muslim pirates and war. Seek first fraud, not agreement. Our civic cult is law. We are prosecutors. Curt Doolittle The Cult of Non-Submission The Philosophy of Aristocracy The Propertarian Institute