Curt Doolittle

Source: Original Site Post

  • Pinker’s Criticism of Group/Multi-level Selection

    [F]irst, both Pinker and Haidt are making the enlightenment error of equality of individuals, and of individualism instead of a population of man as a division of intertemporal knowledge and labor. (See my video on the subject.) We evolve first under this inter-temporal distribution of biases, and second under cultural adaptation, and third under everything else. Genders, distribution of gender bias, and the fact that genders are constructed from a female base, guarantee that.

    Second, as far as I know, Pinker is making an argument against the evolution by multi-level selection of altruism. This is the purpose of his article. And I agree with him. And in Propertarianism I explain why.

    Third, (if you read the comments it’s obvious) is that group and multi-level selection are pretty rigorous mathematically described facts. Pinker isn’t saying that it isn’t. He’s saying that we can’t fantasize that altruism developed because of group selection (I argue that aggression defeats altruism and is currently doing so – high trust westerners are not aggressive enough.)

    Fourth, (if you read the comments) the argument is partly a problem of verbalism. And to some degree, pinker is playing too much psychologist and telling us not to think in fuzzy terms, and not so much that multi-level selection doesn’t occur. It’s that it doesn’t occur the way we think it has. Now, it is this point I disagree with since as far as I know, the very great differences between the competing populations is determined by a wide variation in the distribution of only four things: (1) intelligence, (2) aggression, (3) impulsivity, and (4) fear of unfamiliar people. And that list may be in fact reducible to two: impulsivity and intelligence. Just as a wide variety of behavior is reducible to the solipsistic(female bias) and autistic(male bias) spectrum. Great complexity arises from the interaction of only two or three spectra. Emotions are a great example: as far as I know, we have only three, and our rich range of emotional experience is produced by combinations of levels of those emotions. And as I have written extensively, all of these emotions can be explained as reactions to change in state of property-en-toto (reactions to acquisition or loss).

    Fifth, and I think this isn’t terribly complicated: norms are sticky and group strategy is sticky, and populations breed to take advantage of status under norms. This is just a mathematically describable problem and as far as I know it’s pretty solid:

    Sixth, as far as I know, Haidt’s correct identification of moral intuitions, holds under Propertarianism. So whatever Haidt’s justification for these traits, it is immaterial. In my first few propertarian arguments I made the point that MY CONTRIBUTION was to tie Haidt’s OBSERVATIONS and descriptions, to CAUSALITY. And that Propertarianism correctly describes that causality: acquisitiveness, and the utility of cooperation only in so far as it improved acquisition.

    CLOSING

    So the debate here is not concrete. Pinker is doing no more than making a cautionary argument against the development of altruism by selfish creatures, as anything other than yet another selfish act. And he is correct.

    Everyone else is saying that cultural norms drive reproductive adaptation. And they are correct. And that multi-level selection is the product of cultural biases incorporated in genes.

    So this whole argument is a lot of nonsense between geeks as to the effect of their as-yet-imprecise language on the non-scientific community. And it is not so much a debate about facts.

    And furthermore, you have to look at these men as part of the REACTION to postmodern lies – they are all engaged in trying to overthrow the deceits of 150 years of postmodern reactionary thought. I am not sure that they have (As I have) joined The Dark

    Enlightenment, in trying to overthrow not just the postmoderns and the pseudoscientists, but the enlightenment fallacy of equality and democracy. They are concerned about the consequences of language because they are well aware of the consequences of language.

  • The Human Operating System

    [S]omething I wrote yesterday helped me clarify my argument on human anti-equalitarianism.

    – First: with very slight hormonal variation, we are able to reproduce in a distribution (division) of inter-temporal perception, cognition, knowledge and labor. And, that the initial division of perception cognition knowledge and labor began as a reproductive division of labor.

    – Second, that our information system consists of mutually beneficial consent through demonstration of voluntary exchange.

    – Third, that through denying people sustenance by other than market means, we forcibly incorporate them into this information system.

    – Fourth, that western truth telling, common law, property rights, rule of law, and forcible expansion of rule of law, construct the most efficient and therefore rapidly adaptive system by which we expand and enforce the quality of our information system.

    – Fifth, the side effect of this enforcement of market participation is the constant improvement our our genetics in no small party by the allocation of reproduction to the productive.

    – Sixth, that insuring individuals provides incentives that keep them within the information system.

    – Seventh, but reproduction via redistribution cannot be a ‘right’ because it is a forcible cost put upon others. In other words, your right of reproduction and insurance is predicated upon your ability to pay for your offspring. Or in moral terms reproduction without production is ‘a lie’ inserted into our information system.

    This list explains a great deal. Forgive me for using analogies, but it is a fairly short and tight description of the properties of the human operating system.

    With this understanding, Keynesian credit expansion for the purpose of increasing employment is suicidal. And by contrast, the Propertarian “shareholder” system is a natural extension of the human information system. In Propertarianism, I suggest inserting liquidity through the consumer directly, but limiting reproduction for dependents to one child, and limiting immigration to highly skilled individuals, and moving and therefore exporting capital and Propertarian institutions to groups of people, rather than moving people to capital.

    We have spent most of our scientific history (our search for truth) considering problems of mass and velocity. We have spent much of our economic history considering money and credit. But in both cases, we were mistaken – as the physicists and as Hayek have informed us. The model for all human understanding is that of information. Physics must be understood as information, and mass as a generalization of it. The economics of human cooperation must be understood as information, and physical representations a generalization of states of information.

    Hoppe’s criticisms of Hayek are purely psychological, and only half right. Hayek correctly unites physics and economics by combining information and institutions. And yes, Hayek placed his emphasis on the institutions without fully appreciating property. Hoppe places emphasis on property without fully appreciating institutions – particularly norms. Hoppe incorrectly defines property to suit rothbardian separatist ends, rather than as a general and universal rule of human evolution. And very likely, without fully appreciating the distribution of human character traits – he is an odd, somewhat angry and frustrated duck himself – so it is no wonder. Hayek understands man correctly – and is a saint of a man if there was one. But neither man of either character grasped the very great specialization in our perception and cognition – nor that they are both useful and necessary.

    The only end to our evolutionary development is to increase intelligence, decrease impulsivity and aggression, to the point where we still perform our different reproductive functions relying upon our emotional intuitions, but where we are able to rationally observe them for what they are, and enjoy them, rather than be driven by them. Thankfully this requires only increasing our median intelligence by a standard deviation. Unfortunately for other groups, it means they are nearly prohibited from it.

    Curt Doolittle
    The Propertarian Institute
    Kiev, Ukraine

  • The Human Operating System

    [S]omething I wrote yesterday helped me clarify my argument on human anti-equalitarianism.

    – First: with very slight hormonal variation, we are able to reproduce in a distribution (division) of inter-temporal perception, cognition, knowledge and labor. And, that the initial division of perception cognition knowledge and labor began as a reproductive division of labor.

    – Second, that our information system consists of mutually beneficial consent through demonstration of voluntary exchange.

    – Third, that through denying people sustenance by other than market means, we forcibly incorporate them into this information system.

    – Fourth, that western truth telling, common law, property rights, rule of law, and forcible expansion of rule of law, construct the most efficient and therefore rapidly adaptive system by which we expand and enforce the quality of our information system.

    – Fifth, the side effect of this enforcement of market participation is the constant improvement our our genetics in no small party by the allocation of reproduction to the productive.

    – Sixth, that insuring individuals provides incentives that keep them within the information system.

    – Seventh, but reproduction via redistribution cannot be a ‘right’ because it is a forcible cost put upon others. In other words, your right of reproduction and insurance is predicated upon your ability to pay for your offspring. Or in moral terms reproduction without production is ‘a lie’ inserted into our information system.

    This list explains a great deal. Forgive me for using analogies, but it is a fairly short and tight description of the properties of the human operating system.

    With this understanding, Keynesian credit expansion for the purpose of increasing employment is suicidal. And by contrast, the Propertarian “shareholder” system is a natural extension of the human information system. In Propertarianism, I suggest inserting liquidity through the consumer directly, but limiting reproduction for dependents to one child, and limiting immigration to highly skilled individuals, and moving and therefore exporting capital and Propertarian institutions to groups of people, rather than moving people to capital.

    We have spent most of our scientific history (our search for truth) considering problems of mass and velocity. We have spent much of our economic history considering money and credit. But in both cases, we were mistaken – as the physicists and as Hayek have informed us. The model for all human understanding is that of information. Physics must be understood as information, and mass as a generalization of it. The economics of human cooperation must be understood as information, and physical representations a generalization of states of information.

    Hoppe’s criticisms of Hayek are purely psychological, and only half right. Hayek correctly unites physics and economics by combining information and institutions. And yes, Hayek placed his emphasis on the institutions without fully appreciating property. Hoppe places emphasis on property without fully appreciating institutions – particularly norms. Hoppe incorrectly defines property to suit rothbardian separatist ends, rather than as a general and universal rule of human evolution. And very likely, without fully appreciating the distribution of human character traits – he is an odd, somewhat angry and frustrated duck himself – so it is no wonder. Hayek understands man correctly – and is a saint of a man if there was one. But neither man of either character grasped the very great specialization in our perception and cognition – nor that they are both useful and necessary.

    The only end to our evolutionary development is to increase intelligence, decrease impulsivity and aggression, to the point where we still perform our different reproductive functions relying upon our emotional intuitions, but where we are able to rationally observe them for what they are, and enjoy them, rather than be driven by them. Thankfully this requires only increasing our median intelligence by a standard deviation. Unfortunately for other groups, it means they are nearly prohibited from it.

    Curt Doolittle
    The Propertarian Institute
    Kiev, Ukraine

  • The Decline in the USA’s Military Power Is Not A Problem for Americans – Only For Bureaucrats

    THE DECLINE IN USA’S MILITARY POWER IS NOT A PROBLEM FOR AMERICANS – ONLY FOR BUREAUCRATS
    (from elsewhere)
    http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2015/03/31/396604082/dozens-of-countries-join-china-backed-bank-opposed-by-washington

    [T]he USA pays for its military through the sale of petro-dollars and debt that it inflates away. It was this technique started under Nixon that allowed the USA to economically bankrupt the soviets via military competition. (Something easy enough to repeat with the Putinista Russians.)

    The sale of oil in euros was the first blow that limited future american military expansion. This allowed europeans to cease indirect payment for defense to the USA. The rise of China and demand for american debt sustained american military expansion. The attempt of Iran to create a bourse and take over this tax on world oil production by demanding middle eastern oil in the currency of their choice, is an effort to transfer this power. With nuclear weapons it becomes a possibility for them.

    China has set out to replace america as the global power in the current century. But to do so requires weakening the USA’s state department, and to weaken american financial interests. It is more important to weaken the relationship between capital and democracy. So for china, the use of such a bank, will extend its power, and more importantly, eliminate the correlation between demand for credit, demand for commerce, and the corresponding demand for democracy and human rights. In other words, china wants to spread authoritarian capitalism, by improving the standing of authoritarian capitalism.

    So in the long term, americans will have to retrench, because democracy is a failed experiment, social democracy a failed experiment, and authoritarianism with limited capitalism (aristocratic capitalism), superior to proletarian capitalism (social democracy).

    Americans would very much prefer to withdraw from world affairs. Especially that we are now marginally oil independent. Unfortunately, the left has succeeded in overwhelming americans through immigration, and thereby achieving through population-conquest what could not be achieved through ideas.

    But to state that this change in power is a ‘problem for americans’ is simply not true. It’s a problem for bureaucrats. But americans will merely experience a decline in standard of living to european levels of consumption. They will dramatically decrease their public spending on the military. Europe will dramatically increase its military spending on the military. And the world will equilibrate to less variation in purchasing power between nations. And the nations with the greatest purchasing power will be those that possess the best legal systems, with the greatest experimentation, and the least rents. In that race, americans may still win.

  • The Decline in the USA’s Military Power Is Not A Problem for Americans – Only For Bureaucrats

    THE DECLINE IN USA’S MILITARY POWER IS NOT A PROBLEM FOR AMERICANS – ONLY FOR BUREAUCRATS
    (from elsewhere)
    http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2015/03/31/396604082/dozens-of-countries-join-china-backed-bank-opposed-by-washington

    [T]he USA pays for its military through the sale of petro-dollars and debt that it inflates away. It was this technique started under Nixon that allowed the USA to economically bankrupt the soviets via military competition. (Something easy enough to repeat with the Putinista Russians.)

    The sale of oil in euros was the first blow that limited future american military expansion. This allowed europeans to cease indirect payment for defense to the USA. The rise of China and demand for american debt sustained american military expansion. The attempt of Iran to create a bourse and take over this tax on world oil production by demanding middle eastern oil in the currency of their choice, is an effort to transfer this power. With nuclear weapons it becomes a possibility for them.

    China has set out to replace america as the global power in the current century. But to do so requires weakening the USA’s state department, and to weaken american financial interests. It is more important to weaken the relationship between capital and democracy. So for china, the use of such a bank, will extend its power, and more importantly, eliminate the correlation between demand for credit, demand for commerce, and the corresponding demand for democracy and human rights. In other words, china wants to spread authoritarian capitalism, by improving the standing of authoritarian capitalism.

    So in the long term, americans will have to retrench, because democracy is a failed experiment, social democracy a failed experiment, and authoritarianism with limited capitalism (aristocratic capitalism), superior to proletarian capitalism (social democracy).

    Americans would very much prefer to withdraw from world affairs. Especially that we are now marginally oil independent. Unfortunately, the left has succeeded in overwhelming americans through immigration, and thereby achieving through population-conquest what could not be achieved through ideas.

    But to state that this change in power is a ‘problem for americans’ is simply not true. It’s a problem for bureaucrats. But americans will merely experience a decline in standard of living to european levels of consumption. They will dramatically decrease their public spending on the military. Europe will dramatically increase its military spending on the military. And the world will equilibrate to less variation in purchasing power between nations. And the nations with the greatest purchasing power will be those that possess the best legal systems, with the greatest experimentation, and the least rents. In that race, americans may still win.

  • Brad DeLong and Paul Krugman and Their Anti-Science Economics

    RE: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/friedman-ideas-great-recession-by-j–bradford-delong-2015-03

    [B]rad,


    I would counter, as I have since 2009, that you and your intellectual kindred fail to grasp that politics is moral not merely empirical. That humans are tribalists not universalists. That universalism suits the interests of the academy’s revenues, but not the interests of all polities. The human morality is roughly translatable into a prohibition on free riding. And that under plenty, humans share excess in exchange for status, and under duress humans punish free riders.

    What you have seen in the great recession is a evidence of moral expression that will always exist under democratic polities that are able to express moral instincts. Under the great recession we are punishing free riders built up under the era of plenty.

    You may call this irrational. But the use of this moral intuition is doing precisely what those who carry that instinct intuit that it should: punishing free riders – even and extreme personal expense. The middle class votes against its material interests out of altruistic punishment of free riders.

    Until we find an institutional means of controlling free riding, we will continue to see this behavior in high-trust high-altruistic-punishment societies. And it is only high trust high altruistic punishment societies that matter. Because they are always the only societies with wealth to distribute. Since those societies are the only ones that produce excesses.

    I will not live long enough I think, to restore morality to economics. But at some point someone will. Because good economics is empirical. And empirically – humans do, and must, act morally. And morality is a synonym for the prohibition on free riding.

    Democracy is incompatible with your interpretation of ‘good’ economics. And economics without morality is not scientific, but ideological and dysgenic.

    Curt Doolittle
    The Propertarian Institute
    Kiev, Ukraine.

  • Brad DeLong and Paul Krugman and Their Anti-Science Economics

    RE: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/friedman-ideas-great-recession-by-j–bradford-delong-2015-03

    [B]rad,


    I would counter, as I have since 2009, that you and your intellectual kindred fail to grasp that politics is moral not merely empirical. That humans are tribalists not universalists. That universalism suits the interests of the academy’s revenues, but not the interests of all polities. The human morality is roughly translatable into a prohibition on free riding. And that under plenty, humans share excess in exchange for status, and under duress humans punish free riders.

    What you have seen in the great recession is a evidence of moral expression that will always exist under democratic polities that are able to express moral instincts. Under the great recession we are punishing free riders built up under the era of plenty.

    You may call this irrational. But the use of this moral intuition is doing precisely what those who carry that instinct intuit that it should: punishing free riders – even and extreme personal expense. The middle class votes against its material interests out of altruistic punishment of free riders.

    Until we find an institutional means of controlling free riding, we will continue to see this behavior in high-trust high-altruistic-punishment societies. And it is only high trust high altruistic punishment societies that matter. Because they are always the only societies with wealth to distribute. Since those societies are the only ones that produce excesses.

    I will not live long enough I think, to restore morality to economics. But at some point someone will. Because good economics is empirical. And empirically – humans do, and must, act morally. And morality is a synonym for the prohibition on free riding.

    Democracy is incompatible with your interpretation of ‘good’ economics. And economics without morality is not scientific, but ideological and dysgenic.

    Curt Doolittle
    The Propertarian Institute
    Kiev, Ukraine.

  • What Are The Pros And Cons Of Us Humans Building A Global Utopia?

    We are all competing.  Economic competition merely allows us to compete toward mutually productive ends, instead of randomly destructive ends.  A utopia is only desirable by the losers.

    https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-us-humans-building-a-global-Utopia

  • What Is Peak Capitalism?

    A leftist dogma. A new name for regurgitated Marx.  And just as fallacious as his. 

    The entire world has adopted capitalism.  Because innovation, adaptation, production, distribution and trade are not possible without it. 

    The current argument is that low trust, traditional-family, and tribal-family  polities, particularly those that practice cousin-marriage, cannot operate without a dominant state, and that high trust, absolute nuclear families are uniquely able to operate without a dominant state – relying entirely on common law.  And that the unique circumstances that allowed northern europeans to develop the high trust society cannot be repeated without returning to manorial era suppression of the reproduction of the underclasses.  And certainly cannot survive the immigration of new castes of underclasses. 

    So when we refer to peak capitalism we refer to the expansion of the world’s low trust demographic distribution evolving into the majority – both in absolute numbers, and in aggregate economic and political influence.

    Capitalist meritocracy is only tolerable to the upper classes.  When europeans were the worlds dominant upper class, others tried to imitate it. Now that we have been displaced through reproduction and immigration, that meritocracy is no longer advantageous to the remainder of the planet.

    That is the most honest, probably most scientific, and most probably answer to the question.

    https://www.quora.com/What-is-peak-capitalism

  • What Are The Pros And Cons Of Us Humans Building A Global Utopia?

    We are all competing.  Economic competition merely allows us to compete toward mutually productive ends, instead of randomly destructive ends.  A utopia is only desirable by the losers.

    https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-us-humans-building-a-global-Utopia