Curt Doolittle

Source: Original Site Post

  • Can We Construct A Fixed Constitution?

    [A]lexander I am fairly certain that it is possible if not necessary to construct a finished constitutional basis for rule of law. It may be impossible to imagine the means of production of commons that we call government within that rule of law. Because the basis of the rule of law appears to be a universal logical necessity. Yet the basis of government production of commons under rule of law is a mere technology that must adapt to innovations in knowledge. Just as the common law must constantly innovate in order to prohibit newly found means of imposing costs upon others against their will. So from this perspective the hierarch of law is:

      Which is a bottom up construction of a constitutional order. Curt Doolittle. The Propertarian Institute. Kiev, Ukraine.

    • Running Rothbardian Libertinism Into the Ground

      [R]othbard “appropriated” the term “libertarianism” and instead gave us anarcho capitalism as the reinterpretation of cosmopolitan ethics of the eastern european borderlands, under Russian, Lithuanian, and Polish rule. It is the ethic of the ghetto. Of the people who do not produce commons or defense. There is nothing ‘libertarian’ in Rothbarianism, and nothing moral in his or Block’s attempt to construct moral and legal rules. The word “is” remains extremely confusing for english speakers, since it refers both to “exists as”, and can be used as a shortcut for AVOIDING or CONFLATING, or DECEIVING the method by which something exists. So I prefer to state libertarianism as the reciprocal insurance of all individuals in a polity against the undesired imposition of costs upon that which has been transformed at the cost of individual actions or inactions – whether that cost be imposed by an individual(violence, theft, fraud, externality) a group of individuals (conspiracy), or an organization devoted to the construction of commons (government). Liberty can only be constructed by this means: mutual insurance against the involuntary imposition of costs. There is no free lunch. And arguments in favor of ‘belief’ in liberty, or belief that we should leave one another alone, are merely fraudulent attempts to obtain the experience of liberty without paying the very high cost of both insuring one another against impositions of costs, and the high cost of refraining from imposing costs upon others, and the high cost of creating commons that produce disproportionate returns, including the commons of Liberty itself. And as empirical evidence we should note that the cosmopolitans lost eastern Europe just as their ancestors lost Spain and Jerusalem. There are no free rides. Liberty is rare because it is expensive. And because only a militia of warriors possesses the incentive to construct it. But the returns on the high trust society warrant it. Because westerners dragged man out of ignorance, mysticism, disease, and poverty in the ancient and modern worlds because of it. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine SOURCE http://ex-army.blogspot.com/…/running-libertarianism-into-g…? AND ORIGINAL POST http://www.everyjoe.com/…/pol…/why-im-no-longer-libertarian/

    • Running Rothbardian Libertinism Into the Ground

      [R]othbard “appropriated” the term “libertarianism” and instead gave us anarcho capitalism as the reinterpretation of cosmopolitan ethics of the eastern european borderlands, under Russian, Lithuanian, and Polish rule. It is the ethic of the ghetto. Of the people who do not produce commons or defense. There is nothing ‘libertarian’ in Rothbarianism, and nothing moral in his or Block’s attempt to construct moral and legal rules. The word “is” remains extremely confusing for english speakers, since it refers both to “exists as”, and can be used as a shortcut for AVOIDING or CONFLATING, or DECEIVING the method by which something exists. So I prefer to state libertarianism as the reciprocal insurance of all individuals in a polity against the undesired imposition of costs upon that which has been transformed at the cost of individual actions or inactions – whether that cost be imposed by an individual(violence, theft, fraud, externality) a group of individuals (conspiracy), or an organization devoted to the construction of commons (government). Liberty can only be constructed by this means: mutual insurance against the involuntary imposition of costs. There is no free lunch. And arguments in favor of ‘belief’ in liberty, or belief that we should leave one another alone, are merely fraudulent attempts to obtain the experience of liberty without paying the very high cost of both insuring one another against impositions of costs, and the high cost of refraining from imposing costs upon others, and the high cost of creating commons that produce disproportionate returns, including the commons of Liberty itself. And as empirical evidence we should note that the cosmopolitans lost eastern Europe just as their ancestors lost Spain and Jerusalem. There are no free rides. Liberty is rare because it is expensive. And because only a militia of warriors possesses the incentive to construct it. But the returns on the high trust society warrant it. Because westerners dragged man out of ignorance, mysticism, disease, and poverty in the ancient and modern worlds because of it. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine SOURCE http://ex-army.blogspot.com/…/running-libertarianism-into-g…? AND ORIGINAL POST http://www.everyjoe.com/…/pol…/why-im-no-longer-libertarian/

    • The Power To Enforce Laws That Have Been Discovered

      (by Eli Harman)

      “Make lying illegal and you’ll outlaw the truth. So what other “LAWS” do you want to make? What other power do you want to give to those who have power?”

      [Y]ou misunderstand. My aim isn’t to give power, but to take it, and to hold it. In specific, the power I seek is not that of MAKING laws, but of enforcing those that I DISCOVER to be conductive to human flourishing and cooperation, by such processes as shall prove most conducive to the discovery of such laws, meaning, in large part, distributed processes. But that is not the whole part, because hierarchy and authority have their place too. Some conflicts are not decidable under law, because there may be no objectively “right” or “best” answer. But the role of authority is in pronouncing judgement in such cases, when there is nevertheless some benefit to being on the same page. And in the never-ending clash and conflict between authorities, we must suppose truth, wisdom, and justice to confer some advantages, though not all will embody or exhibit them, and none perfectly.

    • The Power To Enforce Laws That Have Been Discovered

      (by Eli Harman)

      “Make lying illegal and you’ll outlaw the truth. So what other “LAWS” do you want to make? What other power do you want to give to those who have power?”

      [Y]ou misunderstand. My aim isn’t to give power, but to take it, and to hold it. In specific, the power I seek is not that of MAKING laws, but of enforcing those that I DISCOVER to be conductive to human flourishing and cooperation, by such processes as shall prove most conducive to the discovery of such laws, meaning, in large part, distributed processes. But that is not the whole part, because hierarchy and authority have their place too. Some conflicts are not decidable under law, because there may be no objectively “right” or “best” answer. But the role of authority is in pronouncing judgement in such cases, when there is nevertheless some benefit to being on the same page. And in the never-ending clash and conflict between authorities, we must suppose truth, wisdom, and justice to confer some advantages, though not all will embody or exhibit them, and none perfectly.

    • Refuting Immoral Attacks on Propertarianism

      (from an exchange) [W]hy would you even try to criticize Propertarianism unless you either don’t understand it, are immoral, or both?

        I have spent a lot of my life in these subjects and I am all too well aware of the power of so called “scribblers” to reorder human thinking. The question I have for anyone that criticises these ambitions is why they prefer pseudoscience to science, obscurantism to philosophy, propaganda to information, deceit to truthfulness. There is no safe answer with which one can retort. Especially since the evidence of transformation of polities to greater correspondence (truth) is now overwhelming in every era. So if you don’t like me or my arguments you are welcome to attempt to refute them. But constant offers if opinion and a failure to construct argument are just pissing in fire hydrants. Basically you are forcing a cost of refutation upon me by shaming rather than engaging in the pursuit of truth. First, this violates the principle of cooperation under which it is rational to forgo predation in favour of cooperation. Second it is a rather obvious tactic. And the question it presents us with is why are you motivated to preserve lying, shaming, rallying which is merely the postmodern equivalent is saying its unchristian and a violation of gods will. So if we focus the lens in your incentives and abilities, then why is it that you as one who imposes costs upon others rather than seeking the truth, and imposes those costs though fraudulent methods of criticism, and who seeks to preserve the institutional tolerance for the forms of fraud that you employ … Why is it that you feel your pseudo rational non empirical, truth preventing, arguments should be more tolerable in politics than their rationalist and supernatural predecessors? Why are you so afraid of truth and voluntary exchange? Why are you so immoral that you will impose costs by fraud upon others? In other words, why are you demonstrably an immoral person? Except to perpetuate immorality? Truth built the west. Truth can restore it. (A couple of middle class guys hanging around Paris nearly overthrew the world.)

      • Refuting Immoral Attacks on Propertarianism

        (from an exchange) [W]hy would you even try to criticize Propertarianism unless you either don’t understand it, are immoral, or both?

          I have spent a lot of my life in these subjects and I am all too well aware of the power of so called “scribblers” to reorder human thinking. The question I have for anyone that criticises these ambitions is why they prefer pseudoscience to science, obscurantism to philosophy, propaganda to information, deceit to truthfulness. There is no safe answer with which one can retort. Especially since the evidence of transformation of polities to greater correspondence (truth) is now overwhelming in every era. So if you don’t like me or my arguments you are welcome to attempt to refute them. But constant offers if opinion and a failure to construct argument are just pissing in fire hydrants. Basically you are forcing a cost of refutation upon me by shaming rather than engaging in the pursuit of truth. First, this violates the principle of cooperation under which it is rational to forgo predation in favour of cooperation. Second it is a rather obvious tactic. And the question it presents us with is why are you motivated to preserve lying, shaming, rallying which is merely the postmodern equivalent is saying its unchristian and a violation of gods will. So if we focus the lens in your incentives and abilities, then why is it that you as one who imposes costs upon others rather than seeking the truth, and imposes those costs though fraudulent methods of criticism, and who seeks to preserve the institutional tolerance for the forms of fraud that you employ … Why is it that you feel your pseudo rational non empirical, truth preventing, arguments should be more tolerable in politics than their rationalist and supernatural predecessors? Why are you so afraid of truth and voluntary exchange? Why are you so immoral that you will impose costs by fraud upon others? In other words, why are you demonstrably an immoral person? Except to perpetuate immorality? Truth built the west. Truth can restore it. (A couple of middle class guys hanging around Paris nearly overthrew the world.)

        • No Race Is Prohibited from Transcendence

          [L]ARGELY BECAUSE OF RATES OF REPRODUCTION, RACIAL DIFFERENCES ARE HORMONAL (NO RACE IS PROHIBITED FROM TRANSCENDENCE ASSUMING CONTROL OF REPRODUCTION OF THE UNDERCLASSES) Lets Stick With Occam’s Razor As far as I can tell, the central problems affecting the Chinese people are (a) lack of verbal intelligence (b) a written and spoken language that does not assist in improving verbal intelligence, (c) hierarchy to compensate for lack of verbal intelligence (d) the perpetuation of Sun Tzu’s central argument for ‘deceive and delay’ in which dishonesty, face, and conflict avoidance are considered good social mores. But if we look at the inability for Chinese to speak the truth, it is in no small part because IT IS EXPENSIVE and VERBALLY DIFFICULT to tell the truth. Now, I generally prefer institutional and normative causes to genetic, just as europeans developed truth telling, individualism, the jury, and polycentrism because of their verbal acumen, it appears that the Chinese developed lying, hierarchy, authority, centralism to compensate for their inability to articulate ideas. We have Chinese Engineers on one side of the spectrum, Jewish lawyers and propagandists on the other, and europeans in the middle – and europeans differ in that they weaponized ‘truth’ rather than either delay and deceive, or cunning verbal deception. Asians can’t drive and have verbal limitations. Africans can drive, but have a problem with verbal and abstract limitations. East asians appear to have larger average cranial capacity and hence better memories and modeling capability. It appears that ashkenazim have more white matter (I am trying to make sure this is correct, but it appears so) as a result of higher exposure to malaria. So my working hypothesis is that we Sapiens vary almost exclusively in growth pattern and hormonal distribution, and that much of this hormonal distribution is in sexual maturity (most african, least east asian), and sexual bias (solipsistic female-verbal, autistic male-spatial). Small things in large numbers have vast consequences. And hormonal variation can create the entire spectrum of homo sapiens behavior. I suspect that science will eventually eliminate all other possibilities and that this will be the final analysis. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine

        • No Race Is Prohibited from Transcendence

          [L]ARGELY BECAUSE OF RATES OF REPRODUCTION, RACIAL DIFFERENCES ARE HORMONAL (NO RACE IS PROHIBITED FROM TRANSCENDENCE ASSUMING CONTROL OF REPRODUCTION OF THE UNDERCLASSES) Lets Stick With Occam’s Razor As far as I can tell, the central problems affecting the Chinese people are (a) lack of verbal intelligence (b) a written and spoken language that does not assist in improving verbal intelligence, (c) hierarchy to compensate for lack of verbal intelligence (d) the perpetuation of Sun Tzu’s central argument for ‘deceive and delay’ in which dishonesty, face, and conflict avoidance are considered good social mores. But if we look at the inability for Chinese to speak the truth, it is in no small part because IT IS EXPENSIVE and VERBALLY DIFFICULT to tell the truth. Now, I generally prefer institutional and normative causes to genetic, just as europeans developed truth telling, individualism, the jury, and polycentrism because of their verbal acumen, it appears that the Chinese developed lying, hierarchy, authority, centralism to compensate for their inability to articulate ideas. We have Chinese Engineers on one side of the spectrum, Jewish lawyers and propagandists on the other, and europeans in the middle – and europeans differ in that they weaponized ‘truth’ rather than either delay and deceive, or cunning verbal deception. Asians can’t drive and have verbal limitations. Africans can drive, but have a problem with verbal and abstract limitations. East asians appear to have larger average cranial capacity and hence better memories and modeling capability. It appears that ashkenazim have more white matter (I am trying to make sure this is correct, but it appears so) as a result of higher exposure to malaria. So my working hypothesis is that we Sapiens vary almost exclusively in growth pattern and hormonal distribution, and that much of this hormonal distribution is in sexual maturity (most african, least east asian), and sexual bias (solipsistic female-verbal, autistic male-spatial). Small things in large numbers have vast consequences. And hormonal variation can create the entire spectrum of homo sapiens behavior. I suspect that science will eventually eliminate all other possibilities and that this will be the final analysis. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine

        • First Principles: Parasitism is Bad, Cooperation is Good

          [F]IRST PRINCIPLES: PARASITISM IS BAD, COOPERATION IS GOOD. Curt Doolittle I start with parasitism is bad. Erskine Fincher You can’t start with “X is bad.” You first have to define your standard of good and bad, and before that you need to explain why one even needs a standard, and before that you need to explain how you are able to know any of that. The problem isn’t that individual libertarians don’t have answers to these questions. The problem is that the Libertarian Movement itself is agnostic on the subject of foundational philosophy, because it wants to accommodate the widest number of “allies” possible, even if those allies hold contradictory opinions that undermine its position. That’s why you end up with prominent cranks like Augustus Sol Invictus, and presidential candidates like Ron Paul, who want to restrict a woman’s right to abortion, and entire factions of states’ rights advocates who think that while denying individual rights at the federal level is bad, denying them at the state level is perfectly fine. Curt Doolittle Erskine, you absolutely can start with x is bad if x is the reason humans cooperate, and without x they won’t cooperate. Because the incentive to cooperate, and the disincentive to cooperate, are the first principles of all cooperation. I used to think libertarian thought was fairly good, but it’s actually a half truth just like everything else. Erskine Fincher Why is non-cooperation bad? What do you mean by cooperation? What do you mean when you say that something is bad? What makes a thing bad? Curt Doolittle What makes non-cooperation bad: 1) disproportionately diminished productivity 2) deprivation 3) competitive incompetence 4) conquest 5) extermination. What makes something bad in the abstract 1) dissatisfaction 2) deprivation 3) suffering 4) conquest 5) enslavement 6) death Then we have the difference between oral statement and demonstrated action (common in all walks of life) People say that they prefer something to the current state but demonstrate that they do not. People prefer complaining about others rather than expending the effort to change their lot. Libertarians prefer social democracy to libertarian society. Demonstrated preference differs from demonstrated ‘goods’. People demonstrate a preference for acquisition, inventory, and experience at all times. What they demand comes at a cost. Yet they are unwilling to pay for it. So they do not clearly prefer it despite their protestations. Erskine Fincher I’m not going to go through each one of those. Let me just take one as an example of how you are not getting down to fundamentals. Why is deprivation bad? The Spartans considered it good. Christian monks considered it good. Deliberate self-deprivation has been practiced by lots of groups as a way of disciplining their desires. Is that bad? If so, why? Curt Doolittle (lost post?) Is it deprivation if you choose it? It’s only deprivation if you don’t choose it. Curt Doolittle Let me start it differently: Why don’t I kill you and take your territory, women, goods, enslave your children? That is a good for me. Clearly a good for me. Why not? (This is the Genghis Kahn argument that helps illustrate the fallacy of Rothbard’s Crusoe’s Island, and the existence of rights prior to contract.) Curt Doolittle (It helps to illustrate the difference between a personal good and an aggregate good. And while it may seem difficult to determine an aggregate good ‘by starting in the middle’ we then see that by starting at the first cause, limits the choice in the middle.) Curt Doolittle So you’re saying that if I think I can kill you and take your things then that killing you and taking your things is a good. And that if I cannot that cooperating with you is the next best good? And that boycotting you is the least best good? There are only three choices right? Take, cooperate, ignore? Erskine Fincher Because the initiation of force is a violation of the principle of individual rights–a principle which supports your own life–and a negation of reason, which is man’s fundamental tool of survival, and that which undermines your survival cannot be good. Curt Doolittle Well no such principle exists unless we enter into a contract constructing it. (CD: note that a ‘principle’ exists for the purpose of decidability) So Why does Genghis Kan not just kill you, take your women, enslave your children, take your territory and goods? Why not? Erskine Fincher Does the Law of Gravity not exist if we don’t enter into a contract constructing it? Curt Doolittle it is ‘good’ for him to do so, in the sense that it is personally preferable. But the term ‘good’ does not mean preferable, it means a common good. Erskine Fincher You are confused about the nature of moral principles. They are not subjective social constructs. Erskine Fincher They are requirements for human life. Curt Doolittle We don’t create gravity but we create contract provisions. You are confusing a natural law of cooperation without which we cannot cooperate and gain the benefits of cooperation with the fact that cooperation is only beneficial when conquest is not more beneficial. No they are not requirements for human life erskine, they are requirements for the construction of a division of labor. If the Khan kills you and takes your things and rapes your women and then 15% of all asian people are his offspring then by any measure that is ‘good’ for him. There are what, three men that most of europe is descended from? Clearly it was ‘good’ for them. Erskine Fincher Well, you’re wrong, but I can’t stick around to explain why. Need to get my shower and leave the house. I have monsters to slay, and worlds to save. Take care. Curt Doolittle So: (a) since there are only three choices conquest, cooperation, and boycott, of these, conquest the shortest best at the highest cost, cooperation longest at low cost, and avoidance at no cost but no gain (b) cooperation is a good because the returns on cooperation are much higher than non-cooperation. (the Kahn did not kill and rob the Chinese because it was more profitable by far to tax them (just as it is for current governments). (c) It is convenient to start (as does Hoppe) with the assumption of cooperation as a steady state. Whereas cooperation is a PREFERENCE, not a necessity, and not an assumption. (d) the way we make cooperation preferable is to raise the cost of conquest, and maintain the disadvantage of boycott. In this way we create a world in which the only rational choice is cooperation. We do this through insuring one another against conquest and prohibiting one another from participating in trade with those who we boycott. (e) But we must limit the harm done in cooperation, since man readily engages in parasitism under the cloak of the promise of cooperation: killing, harming, stealing, blackmail, fraud, fraud by omission, fraud by obfuscation, fraud by indirection, free riding, privatization of commons, socialization of losses, conspiracy, conversion, immigration, and conquest. So we construct property rights: so that we promise to insure one another against infringement upon them. Property rights exist as an insurance by a group to protect a range of property, that is a subset of possible property (that which I bear cost to obtain without imposing cost upon the inventory of others). So we insure one another. (f) So the production of rights (mutual insurance) is and always will be a collective effort not an individual one. BTW: It is beyond conceivable that I err. Sorry. And it might sound arrogant but it’s inescapable. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine