[I] have a lot of friends who are good at chess, and I do think chess is a pretty good determinant of intelligence, and perhaps a better determinant of academic and career success. I was in a chess club through seventh or eighth grade, and really never got that good until the first machines came out because they played perfectly – too perfectly. But as an illustration, There are three reasons I am not very good at it: (a) Puzzles vs Problems ethic: I have a problem with puzzles as wasted effort, when I should be working on problems. Just as I have a problem going from books to problems, rather than from problems to books. So in effect I see playing games that require more than casual attention (cards), as an immoral waste of my time. (Which a certain girlfriend in college beat into me through insults as well.) So I cant make myself spend times on such things without feeling like I’m letting the time run out on my lifespan. (b) Working (short term) memory – one of the reasons I became interested in IQ is the understanding of both the myopia of my autistic thinking and what I began to understand was a problem for me in arithmetic calculation despite my abilities in mathematical reasoning. I work on certain categories of problems partly because I seemed to have a fairly weak working memory compared to other students. I have trouble adding and multiplying, or working with a lot of states: like origami requires. I have no problem reasoning. I can detect truth content pre-cognitively, and I can define spectra – lines of causality. I cannot however juggle many independent and as I see it – unrelated – states of things. (c) Limited lateral thinking. (which I suppose I could overcome with practice) but not only do I have trouble with humor – which depends upon it, with cunning in a game of chess (i tend to play aggressively with every move and am too concerned with optimum moves and can be baited by them), but I tend not to find ‘shortcuts’ so much as ‘truths’. Basically ‘if its in motion in time’ I intuit it. If it exists in states I don’t. Everything consists of flights of arrows. This tells me a lot really, because again, I see the world as a division of cognitive labor, with all these variations in smart people producing different ‘sensors’ that detect different ‘bits’ of reality, and our voluntary cooperation and trade as the information system by which we different sensors share that information. Man is a gloriously fascinating creature. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine
Source: Original Site Post
-
Yes We Can – Purge All Lies From This Earth
—We can purge all forms of lies from this earth. And in doing so, transform man into gods. For what is a god but a wielder of truth? And what is a devil, but a wielder of error, bias, wishful thinking, and deceit?—
(worth repeating)
-
Yes We Can – Purge All Lies From This Earth
—We can purge all forms of lies from this earth. And in doing so, transform man into gods. For what is a god but a wielder of truth? And what is a devil, but a wielder of error, bias, wishful thinking, and deceit?—
(worth repeating)
-
ROLE OF RELIGION IN THE 21st CENTURY – Part I
[F]OOD FOR THOUGHT: I usually position this question within intellectual history as the sequence: (a) anthropomorphism / narrative oral tradition / hunter gathering / Shamans vs Warriors / Tribalism (b) theism / writing / agrarianism / Temple and Church Bureaucracy vs Warriors / Tribal Unificationism (c) moralism (rationalism) and modernism / printing / capitalism / State/Temple-Merchant-State shared power / State Formation. (d) postmodern propaganda, pseudoscience and innumeracy / mass media, democratic secular socialist humanism / industrialism / State-Academy-Media against Warrior and Merchant Class and absent Temple class / (new world order formation???) (e) scientific / digital zero-distribution-cost / (worldwide search yet unfound???) / information era / (power structure still emerging but swinging toward authoritarian capitalism) / (new order formation – looks like return to higher tribalism? Nationalism?) I agree that ‘religion’ is with us to stay, but religion requires shared belief in a falsehood, for purposes of cooperating and organizing – usually as a resistance movement against human discretion and hubris. We know that religious experience (spirituality) is caused by the pack-response (submission to the pack). We know that religions and cults must be costly for members, to survive their initial members. We know that religions are advantageous for members in establishing limits of rule, moral norms, and metaphysical value judgements. For example, the TED movement is considered by many to be a postmodern church, and each lecture no different from a Sermon from the Pulpit, where technology and will provide the promise of salvation. We know that postmodernism is a religious revolt against the meritocratic unpleasantness of science. We know that evangelical christianity is a revolt against the secular state. (and it works). But where does this lead us? I have been working on this problem for a while now and I am struggling with it. Cheers Curt
-
ROLE OF RELIGION IN THE 21st CENTURY – Part I
[F]OOD FOR THOUGHT: I usually position this question within intellectual history as the sequence: (a) anthropomorphism / narrative oral tradition / hunter gathering / Shamans vs Warriors / Tribalism (b) theism / writing / agrarianism / Temple and Church Bureaucracy vs Warriors / Tribal Unificationism (c) moralism (rationalism) and modernism / printing / capitalism / State/Temple-Merchant-State shared power / State Formation. (d) postmodern propaganda, pseudoscience and innumeracy / mass media, democratic secular socialist humanism / industrialism / State-Academy-Media against Warrior and Merchant Class and absent Temple class / (new world order formation???) (e) scientific / digital zero-distribution-cost / (worldwide search yet unfound???) / information era / (power structure still emerging but swinging toward authoritarian capitalism) / (new order formation – looks like return to higher tribalism? Nationalism?) I agree that ‘religion’ is with us to stay, but religion requires shared belief in a falsehood, for purposes of cooperating and organizing – usually as a resistance movement against human discretion and hubris. We know that religious experience (spirituality) is caused by the pack-response (submission to the pack). We know that religions and cults must be costly for members, to survive their initial members. We know that religions are advantageous for members in establishing limits of rule, moral norms, and metaphysical value judgements. For example, the TED movement is considered by many to be a postmodern church, and each lecture no different from a Sermon from the Pulpit, where technology and will provide the promise of salvation. We know that postmodernism is a religious revolt against the meritocratic unpleasantness of science. We know that evangelical christianity is a revolt against the secular state. (and it works). But where does this lead us? I have been working on this problem for a while now and I am struggling with it. Cheers Curt
-
21st CENTURY RELIGION – PART II – ANTI MONOPOLISM
[T]he other point I try to make is that while the world practices political monotheisms (Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity), that this is a POLITICAL statement not a factual one. In china they practice Maoism in the leadership, Confucianism in the upper classes, Lao Tzu in the lower, and Buddhism as a moral binding principle across all. In the west we demonstrably practice (a) Aristotelianism, Natural Law and Legalism, (b) Christianity – political and moral religion (c) Paganism – myths and traditions, as well as nature worship) I know I am ‘inspired’ by trees just as our ancient ancestors were, and I understand completely why the churches were intentionally built upon our sacred groves. My politics and law may be aristotelian, my morality and commons may be christian, but my mind, heart and soul are pagan through and through. Whether it’s genetic or not we don’t know yet. Cheers Curt
-
21st CENTURY RELIGION – PART II – ANTI MONOPOLISM
[T]he other point I try to make is that while the world practices political monotheisms (Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity), that this is a POLITICAL statement not a factual one. In china they practice Maoism in the leadership, Confucianism in the upper classes, Lao Tzu in the lower, and Buddhism as a moral binding principle across all. In the west we demonstrably practice (a) Aristotelianism, Natural Law and Legalism, (b) Christianity – political and moral religion (c) Paganism – myths and traditions, as well as nature worship) I know I am ‘inspired’ by trees just as our ancient ancestors were, and I understand completely why the churches were intentionally built upon our sacred groves. My politics and law may be aristotelian, my morality and commons may be christian, but my mind, heart and soul are pagan through and through. Whether it’s genetic or not we don’t know yet. Cheers Curt
-
Can We Still Justify The Marriage Contract?
(feminist trigger warning)(individualist trigger warning) RE: (https://www.reddit.com/…/renegotiating_the_marriage_contra…/ ) 1) Pretty good analysis. I’d recommend reading the origin and development of the family and property by Engels. That is a more accurate history. It’s short and well written. 2) Biologically, females were treated as (and therefore were) our property under hostile competition, they were an exchange of property between males in the pastoral era’s development of formal property, and ‘love’ (mate selection by attraction) is historically, a luxury good (and rare) – even if terribly eugenic for selection purposes. The development of property is what allowed males to re-take control of reproduction from females. 3) Polygamy was and is practiced by the majority of cultures, but all major religions and philosophies attempted to break this practice in order to ‘soak up’ the majority of ‘troublesome’ males who otherwise failed to reproduce (something like 30% of males failed to reproduce – although I have seen estimated numbers as high at 70%). And even once we encounter monogamy (property), something like 20-25% of births are caused by mates outside of marriage (which is a dirty secret that is showing up now that we have massive databases of family trees combined with genetics.) 4) Human Females still demonstrate r-selection behavior, much less in-group protection (more cheating), and lower loyalty. They are practical creatures. For most of history women were considered the root of all evil, and it was only in the victorian era that we stated otherwise – although this compromises the majority of our current literature. 5) One can position marriage as a compromise between reproductive strategies; or as a social convenience necessary for peace and prosperity; or as a epistemological necessity for the purpose of meritocratic calculation of reproductive utility, required of an advanced society and economy; Or all of the above. My standing concern is that women have more CONTROL than men do, and men higher RISK and shorter LIVES than women do. So to some degree, for us to persist, women remain a herd men control, or a herd other men control. Women are a resource – an expensive resource. 6) So under INDIVIDUALISM it is difficult to make take the position that marriage is beneficial for either man or woman. Under NATIONALISM (or tribalism or kinship) it is difficult to conceive of a condition under which males retain access to females without the cooperation, assistance, defense, of other males. 7) I want to protect my genes and my relations so I want my female kin to be free to do the best they can WITHOUT betraying my male relations control of the reproductive resource of women. In other words, private benefit of free reproduction is limited by public harm from free reproduction, because organization into groups matters. I think the last is the least pleasant most accurate analysis. And (unpleasantly) that is where I end up.
-
Can We Still Justify The Marriage Contract?
(feminist trigger warning)(individualist trigger warning) RE: (https://www.reddit.com/…/renegotiating_the_marriage_contra…/ ) 1) Pretty good analysis. I’d recommend reading the origin and development of the family and property by Engels. That is a more accurate history. It’s short and well written. 2) Biologically, females were treated as (and therefore were) our property under hostile competition, they were an exchange of property between males in the pastoral era’s development of formal property, and ‘love’ (mate selection by attraction) is historically, a luxury good (and rare) – even if terribly eugenic for selection purposes. The development of property is what allowed males to re-take control of reproduction from females. 3) Polygamy was and is practiced by the majority of cultures, but all major religions and philosophies attempted to break this practice in order to ‘soak up’ the majority of ‘troublesome’ males who otherwise failed to reproduce (something like 30% of males failed to reproduce – although I have seen estimated numbers as high at 70%). And even once we encounter monogamy (property), something like 20-25% of births are caused by mates outside of marriage (which is a dirty secret that is showing up now that we have massive databases of family trees combined with genetics.) 4) Human Females still demonstrate r-selection behavior, much less in-group protection (more cheating), and lower loyalty. They are practical creatures. For most of history women were considered the root of all evil, and it was only in the victorian era that we stated otherwise – although this compromises the majority of our current literature. 5) One can position marriage as a compromise between reproductive strategies; or as a social convenience necessary for peace and prosperity; or as a epistemological necessity for the purpose of meritocratic calculation of reproductive utility, required of an advanced society and economy; Or all of the above. My standing concern is that women have more CONTROL than men do, and men higher RISK and shorter LIVES than women do. So to some degree, for us to persist, women remain a herd men control, or a herd other men control. Women are a resource – an expensive resource. 6) So under INDIVIDUALISM it is difficult to make take the position that marriage is beneficial for either man or woman. Under NATIONALISM (or tribalism or kinship) it is difficult to conceive of a condition under which males retain access to females without the cooperation, assistance, defense, of other males. 7) I want to protect my genes and my relations so I want my female kin to be free to do the best they can WITHOUT betraying my male relations control of the reproductive resource of women. In other words, private benefit of free reproduction is limited by public harm from free reproduction, because organization into groups matters. I think the last is the least pleasant most accurate analysis. And (unpleasantly) that is where I end up.
-
Britain and The Consequences of Wealth
[E]xtreme wealth ruins a culture. Spain, France, Britain, America, in that order all suffer from creating elites during time of plenty that attempt to perpetuate and expand the institutions that they occupy even after the period of prosperity has ended. Worse, formerly hard working people are lifted up out of the peasant, working and middle classes, and protect their status as well – collapsing the culture of industry that made them able to afford the luxury and imprisoning them in perpetual maximization of rents. Leaving behind a vapid pretense of false signals. The average Brit spends his life trying to find a way to feel morally superior to someone else. The average american tries to find a way to feel economically and meritocratic-ally superior. Pretense reigns in the nation in decline.