https://www.quora.com/What-books-should-be-banned-for-being-offensive-to-women
https://www.quora.com/What-is-post-modernism
https://www.quora.com/What-books-should-be-banned-for-being-offensive-to-women
(Legal Equality is Necessary, Economic Equality is Unattainable, and Genetic Equality is Undesirable – Your Genes Matter) A friend posted an interestingly common white lament, that provides an excellent jumping off point for criticizing postmodern values.
Lee: I am in the top 1% economic class of the world. This is due purely to an accident of birth and nothing more. … Whatever intelligence or resolve I may have is due to the genetic lottery. … But these genetic endowments do not mean that I have been randomly placed in the economic hierarchy by the greedy powers that be. My limited intelligence and conscientiousness is actually worth something to my employer. Jeorg: Unless conscientiousness is also genetic. Lee: Yes… It is likely that we have some control. Setting an alarm clock requires forethought … François-René: “is genetic” and “we have some control” are not mutually incompatible. At all.
[W]e have many genetic predispositions that we override. We do this through incentives via habits, traditions, myths, norms, laws and institutions. But there is a very great difference between redirection, avoidance and suppression through incentives and changing or eliminating genetic dispositions. The statement that you have no right to advantage because of the accident of your birth, is logically interesting because its the down side of western individualist thought. You cannot exist without your familial relations.
[pullquote]You are a reflection of a long sequence of choices.[/pullquote]
Does it make sense to you that humans can instinctively identify those traits and reward them? Does it make sense that the evolutionary consequences of not doing so would be detrimental? Even suicidal for a species? It is important in disputes that law treat us equally because it is necessary for the preservation of suppressing violence by forcing all competition into voluntary exchange. Otherwise the institution cannot provide the incentive to suppress our instincts and redirect our efforts. But [pullquote] the western illusion that those values necessary to create incentives for us as an individual economic unit can insulate us from our family, and clan, and the necessary operation of our reproductive evolutionary system is a postmodernist, socialist fiction that assumes economic and legal equality can be extended to genetic equality[/pullquote] – contrary to all evidence and reason. The rawlsian veil of ignorance is a complex rhetorical device for the neurolinguistic programming of the masses precisely to confuse them into the illusion of biological equality and to divorce the individual from his ancestry so that his loyalties are to the state and rather than to his familial genetic heritage. The blank slate, likewise is a device for the same purpose. So are diversity and open immigration. Other civilizations do not make this error. Ours is in numeric decline partly because of it. So no you are not an individual comparable to other individuals except to the blindfolded statue of justice under the law and the gavel. Socially you are the representation of a sequence of choices embeded in genes and are the recipient of more opportunities for influence and reproduction because of it. And dysgenia, and even extinction would of necessity occur if humans acted otherwise. We are in a constant battle against the evolutionary red queen, and against reproductions regression toward the mean. The only solution is assortive mating and the concentration of influence, opportunity, capital and reproduction behind such genes. [O]ne more thing. Time preference, and ‘frustration budget’ are genetically determined. IQ is significantly heritable (it’s complex though), and social classes are organized almost entirely by IQ. Variation in social classes is determined by time preference, frustration budget, or what we tend to call the discipline-impulsiviness spectrum. Variation in the social classes is also determined by attractiveness: symmetry, height, thickness of skin, clarity of skin, and a variety of other factors that suggest genetic fitness. Economic classes vary from social classes because under consumer capitalism, a Watkins or Crick does not produce as many paying customers as the designer of velcro, or fast, consistent, cheeseburgers. Economic outliers are determined by lottery. But that is not to discount the value of lottery. If the lottery reward does not exist, then there is no motivation for high risk. So yes, discipline and looks matter in society because they matter to our genes, and they matter to humanity as a species.
She’s close. McCloskey’s close. It’s actually, that MORAL ARGUMENTS by public intellectuals, changed the in-group instinctual bias AGAINST competition, from an immoral and unethical practice to a moral and ethical virtue because it became clear that despite our instincts, and despite the immorality of competition, it produces a virtuous cycle. THis change in moral codes, despite being contradictory to our instincts, succeeded. For that bias tot work however, requires the nuclear family and the individual to form the productive social unit, rather than the family, extended family, village or tribe. Cities, where people could go to seek opportunities, generated wealth from trade, and the movement of people from the moral structure of the farm, to the new moral structure of the city, allowed increasing numbers of people exit the moral constraints of the extended family, village and tribe and participate as individual economic units in the cities. The reason that this new morality became accepted varied from country to country. But in large part it was made possible by the growing middle class, and a change in policy. In Europe this policy was demonstrated by Ricardo and Smith, and less directly by Hume. The colonies, which were entirely mercantile and lacking nobility, provided a vehicle for creating new forms of ‘nobility’ and therefore purely meritocratic status signals. Governments, eager to increase tax revenue, altered legislation and policy to support this trend (some of it bad, like breaking the common law’s prohibition on pollution). The middle class, who had adopted this new counter-intuitive moral code, slowly accumulated enough political power economically and therefore politically displace the landed aristocracy. In the case of the USA, there never was such an aristocracy and church – at least not one that survived the revolution. In england it merely meant expansion of power of the house of commons. In France it meant the murder of the entire aristocratic class, and the end of french contribution to civilization. In germany it produced. first a reaction to its conquest by napoleon. and second, a reactionary movement, as a defense against future napoleon’s by uniting the german people. Germany found cultural balance in unity where france had failed and unleashed the terrors and where england had bent itself into even more rigid classes to accommodate that rise. This process, (as I argue in my upcoming book), allowed us to force all involuntary transfers in society INTO THE MARKET FOR COMPETITION and out law all other forms of involuntary transfer. THis arrangement was generally limited to the family. But since the family was reduced to the NUCLEAR family in europe, this by definition meant that pretty much all of society except for children was bound by the prohibition against all involuntary transfers except by competition in he market. This is the singular most important advancement in human moral systems since the Silver and Golden Rules were articulated: Do nothing to others you would not want done to you, and if possible, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. [pullquote]There is no name for the moral principle of forcing all involuntary transfers into the market for competition.[/pullquote] We could argue that it is the copper or platinum rule. But that would be trite. And I have no particular instinct for naming it other than, the rule of the moral exclusivity of competition. Anyway. That’s one part of what I’m working on. QUOTE: “According to McCloskey, our modern world was not the product of new markets and innovations, but rather the result of shifting opinions about them. During this time, talk of private property, commerce, and even the bourgeoisie itself radically altered, becoming far more approving and flying in the face of prejudices several millennia old. The wealth of nations, then, didn’t grow so dramatically because of economic factors: it grew because rhetoric about markets and free enterprise finally became enthusiastic and encouraging of their inherent dignity.”
[I]t is all well and good to attempt to construct political and ethical philosophy as the family becomes the village, the tribe becomes the city with a division of labor, and the people become the nation with an anonymous market. It is necessary to do so. But preferences must compete with necessities. We may prefer something but it must in practice be possible. We can temporarily distort necessity, as we with fiat money – because we can. We can permanently distort morality by sanctioning competition as virtuous – because we can. But in human history there are many preferences and few necessities. Those tools that compensate for our limited intellectual abilities: our senses, perception, memory, reason, calculation, and planning are the necessities of human existence. We adapt our norms and institutions to those necessities. Not the other way around. We are not wealthier than our cave dwelling ancestors. The only human currency is time. But through the division of knowledge and labor we have increased the purchasing power of our time to levels unimaginable to those who came before us. [R]omantic, egoistic, anthropocentric vanities encourage us to believe we make directional choices in our evolution but we do not. We seize opportunities good and bad. We forgo opportunities good and bad. And we pay or gain the consequences – by trial and error. Then we congratulate ourselves on our wisdom, and justify to ourselves our errors. The future is opaque and kaleidic. At best, we can attempt to improve our suite of tools, and choose those norms and institutions that increase our sense, perception, memory, calculation, planning, and information sharing. So that we constantly narrow the scope of our trial and error, and in doing so, increase the purchasing power of our time in this earth.
SUMMARY: INCREMENTALLY PRIVATIZE EVERYTHING. [G]reat analysis. Not sure how strong the solution is. (It isn’t strong at all) I don’t like to criticize the master of our movement. He should have had one of us edit it (Roman Saskiw) because there are too many small problems with it. I don’t like mixing analytical rigour and moralistic language. It doesn’t help us. Not when there isn’t any need for it. We can maintain rational rigour in our movement. That aside, I’ll just say that either of my two main solutions is better. My solution is grander. But it’s likely to work. Partly because it’s grander. Because it has worked so many times in history. Because momentum matters. Because the majority adopt the positions of those they trust. I’ve tried to limit the quotes to the necessary argument, and clarify in brackets what required it.
Hans-Hermann Hoppe. What Must Be Done . Ludwig von Mises Institute. (2013) THE GOAL
[The] ultimate goal … is the demonopolization of protection and justice. Protection, security, defense, law, order, and arbitration in conflicts can and must be supplied competitively— that is, entry into the field of being a judge must be free. – (Kindle Locations 166-168).
THE ARGUMENT
Every monopolist takes advantage of his position. The price of protection will go up, and more importantly, the content of the law, that is the product quality, will be altered to the advantage of the monopolist and at the expense of others. – (Kindle Locations 95-96)
…once there is no longer free entry into the business of property protection, or any other business for that matter, the price of protection will rise, and the quality of protection will fall. The monopolist will become increasingly less of a protector of our property, and increasingly more a protection racket, or even a systematic exploiter of property owners. He will become an aggressor against and a destroyer of the people and their property that he was initially supposed to protect.” (Kindle Locations 74-77)
What happens [under democracy, is that] the territorial protection monopoly [is transformed into] public [from] private property. Instead of a prince who regards [the institutions] as his private property, [an elected official, who has the incentives of] a temporary and interchangeable caretaker is put in charge of the protection racket. The caretaker does not own the protection racket. Instead, he is just allowed to use the current resources for his own advantage. He owns [The right to enjoy the use and advantages of another’s property short of the destruction or waste of its substance,] but he does not own the capital value. This does not eliminate the self-interest-driven tendency toward increased exploitation. To the contrary, it only makes exploitation less rational and less calculating, – (Kindle Locations 122-126).
…because entry into a democratic government is open— everyone can become president— resistance against State property invasions is reduced. This leads to the same result: increasingly under democratic conditions, the worst will rise to the top of the State in free competition. Competition is not always good. Competition in the field of becoming the shrewdest aggressor against private property is nothing to be greeted. – (Kindle Locations 127-130).
Under highly centralized democracy, … the security of private property has almost completely disappeared. The price of protection is enormous, and the quality of justice dispensed has gone downhill constantly. It has deteriorated to the point where the idea of immutable laws of justice, of natural law, has almost entirely disappeared from public consciousness. Law is considered nothing but State-made law— positive law. Law and justice is whatever the State says it is. There is still private property in name, but in practice private property owners have been almost completely expropriated. Rather than protecting people from invaders and invasions of person and property, the State has increasingly disarmed its own people, and stripped them of their most elementary right to self-defense. – (Kindle Locations 142-146).
Instead of protecting us, then, the State has delivered us and our property to the mob and mob instincts. Instead of safeguarding us, it impoverishes us, it destroys our families, local organizations, private foundations, clubs and associations, by drawing all of them increasingly into its own orbit. And as a result of all of this, the State has perverted the public sense of justice and of personal responsibility, and bred and attracted an increasing number of moral and economic monsters and monstrosities. – (Kindle Locations 157-160).
1) First: that the protection of private property and of law, justice, and law enforcement, is essential to any human society. But there is no reason whatsoever why this task must be taken on by one single agency, by a monopolist. [Instead]… it is precisely the case that as soon as you have a monopolist taking on this task, he will [of] necessity destroy justice and render us defenseless against foreign as well as domestic invaders and aggressors. – (Kindle Locations 162-165). 2) …because a monopoly of protection is [a violation of natural, moral, and economic laws, then], any territorial expansion of such a monopoly is [a violation of natural, moral, and economic laws]. … Every [attempt, or suggestion, to increase] political centralization must be on principle grounds rejected [and fought against.]. In turn, every attempt at political decentralization— segregation, separation, secession and so forth— must be supported. – (Kindle Locations 169-170). 3) … [the] democratic protection monopoly … must be rejected as a [violation of natural,] moral and economic [laws]. Majority rule and private property protection are incompatible. The idea of democracy must be ridiculed [,criticized, attacked, and delegitimized as systemic corruption]: it is nothing else but mob rule [ and organized expropriation, justified by majority rule]. – (Kindle Locations 170-172).
THE STRATEGY
1) one must attempt to restrict the right to vote on local taxes, in particular on property taxes and regulations, to property and real estate owners. Only property owners must be permitted to vote, and their vote is not equal, but in accordance with the value of the equity owned, and the amount of taxes paid.- (Kindle Locations 346-348). … all public employees— teachers, judges, policemen— and all welfare recipients, must be excluded from voting on local taxes and local regulation matters. These people are being paid out of taxes and should have no say whatsoever how high these taxes are. … The locations have to be small enough and have to have a good number of decent people.- (Kindle Locations 349-353). … Consequently, local taxes and rates as well as local tax revenue will inevitably decrease. Property values and most local incomes would increase whereas the number and payment of public employees would fall. – (Kindle Locations 353-354).
2) In this government funding crisis which breaks out once the right to vote has been taken away from the mob, as a way out of this crisis, all local government assets must be privatized. An inventory of all public buildings, and on the local level that is not that much— schools, fire, police station, courthouses, roads, and so forth— and then property shares or stock should be distributed to the local private property owners in accordance with the total lifetime amount of taxes— property taxes— that these people have paid. After all, it is theirs, they paid for these things. These shares should be freely tradeable, sold and bought, and with this local government would essentially be abolished. – (Kindle Locations 356-360).
3) Under the realistic assumption that there continues to be a local demand for education and protection and justice, the schools, police stations, and courthouses will be still used for the very same purposes. And many former teachers, policemen and judges would be rehired or resume their former position on their own account as self-employed individuals, except that they would be operated or employed by local “bigshots” or elites who own these things, all of whom are personally known figures.- (Kindle Locations 366-369). … Accordingly judges must be freely financed, and free entry into judgeship positions must be assured. Judges are not elected by vote, but chosen by the effective demand of justice seekers. – (Kindle Locations 373-374).
LOGIC, PRAXEOLOGY AND SCIENCE: DEPENDENCY AND DEMARCATION. REFORMING LIBERTARIANISM BY INCORPORATING SCIENTIFIC ARGUMENT RATHER THAN RELYING ON THE PURELY RATIONAL [T]hose three terms, Logic, Praxeology, and Science describe a spectrum. But what is the point of demarcation between each? Which of these domains is capable of testing which category of problems, and what constraints does any domain place upon the others, given that each is open to error, and requires the other to test its hypotheses. I’ve been working on this problem now for quite some time, and have almost got my arms around how to talk about it praxeologically: as observable human action: and therefore a test of possibility, rational choice and incentives. WHY DOES THIS MATTER I have, I think, reformed the concepts of property and morality, but I can’t reform the system of thought that we call libertarian political theory without reforming the distinction between logic (unobservable, internally testable), praxeology (observable and subjectively testable), and science (unobservable, and objectively & externally testable.) That work may have been done somewhere but I haven’t found it yet. And I have a very hard time slogging my way through metaphysical assumptions and highly loaded vocabulary of both logicians on one end and rationalists on the other. Current libertarian (Rothbardian) ethics rely upon very weak rational arguments. I’ve tried to systematically falsify each of them – there are only a handful really. And I think I have been successful. Current progressive (Rawlsian) ethics rely upon very weak rational arguments. I think that I can falsify that argument without much difficulty. Veil of ignorance being a logical fallacy so to speak. Conservatives don’t have an argument, so I have to explain their implied argument in libertarian terminology. [W]hat I find most interesting, from our perspective, as libertarians, is that we acknowledge that the common law is an organic process, and it functions because it must be digestible and applicable by ordinary people in juries. We understand that the english built an empirical society, not a rational one. And that the French took the british concept of liberty and made it into a rational one. Then the germans have tried, and continue to, make it a spiritual one. In other words, Rothbard’s arguments, and one of hoppe’s (his only weak one) rely on rationalism rather than empiricism. And while praxeology may be a test, and while reason may be a test, the purpose of empirical analysis is to extend our senses, and reduce what we cannot sense to analogies that we can perceive by proxy. Now, prior generations had to suffer with the limited tool of Rational argument, because they didn’t have data, and the socialistic system of central control produces data on short periodicity, and can justify itself with that data. While the libertarian and conservative argument is that the externalities produced outweigh the short term benefits. But we have to WAIT for our data, and therefore socialistic arguments gather momentum in and civic behavior alters while we wait. Thankfully we have data now. Our rational arguments were correct. The conservative arguments look like they are correct too. The only progressive argument we are unsure about at present is whether or not fiat money itself can function in a positive fashion, under some as yet undefined circumstance. (We argue that it can’t, out of hand, on rational grounds, but I’m not sure we can prove that there aren’t holes in our reason sufficient to undermine our position.) We are lucky. Time has passed. We’ve learned more than our preceding generations had available to learn. And as such we can debate and restate libertarian theory using scientific rather than rational arguments. And that is what I’m trying to do.
LOGIC, PRAXEOLOGY AND SCIENCE: DEPENDENCY AND DEMARCATION. REFORMING LIBERTARIANISM BY INCORPORATING SCIENTIFIC ARGUMENT RATHER THAN RELYING ON THE PURELY RATIONAL [T]hose three terms, Logic, Praxeology, and Science describe a spectrum. But what is the point of demarcation between each? Which of these domains is capable of testing which category of problems, and what constraints does any domain place upon the others, given that each is open to error, and requires the other to test its hypotheses. I’ve been working on this problem now for quite some time, and have almost got my arms around how to talk about it praxeologically: as observable human action: and therefore a test of possibility, rational choice and incentives. WHY DOES THIS MATTER I have, I think, reformed the concepts of property and morality, but I can’t reform the system of thought that we call libertarian political theory without reforming the distinction between logic (unobservable, internally testable), praxeology (observable and subjectively testable), and science (unobservable, and objectively & externally testable.) That work may have been done somewhere but I haven’t found it yet. And I have a very hard time slogging my way through metaphysical assumptions and highly loaded vocabulary of both logicians on one end and rationalists on the other. Current libertarian (Rothbardian) ethics rely upon very weak rational arguments. I’ve tried to systematically falsify each of them – there are only a handful really. And I think I have been successful. Current progressive (Rawlsian) ethics rely upon very weak rational arguments. I think that I can falsify that argument without much difficulty. Veil of ignorance being a logical fallacy so to speak. Conservatives don’t have an argument, so I have to explain their implied argument in libertarian terminology. [W]hat I find most interesting, from our perspective, as libertarians, is that we acknowledge that the common law is an organic process, and it functions because it must be digestible and applicable by ordinary people in juries. We understand that the english built an empirical society, not a rational one. And that the French took the british concept of liberty and made it into a rational one. Then the germans have tried, and continue to, make it a spiritual one. In other words, Rothbard’s arguments, and one of hoppe’s (his only weak one) rely on rationalism rather than empiricism. And while praxeology may be a test, and while reason may be a test, the purpose of empirical analysis is to extend our senses, and reduce what we cannot sense to analogies that we can perceive by proxy. Now, prior generations had to suffer with the limited tool of Rational argument, because they didn’t have data, and the socialistic system of central control produces data on short periodicity, and can justify itself with that data. While the libertarian and conservative argument is that the externalities produced outweigh the short term benefits. But we have to WAIT for our data, and therefore socialistic arguments gather momentum in and civic behavior alters while we wait. Thankfully we have data now. Our rational arguments were correct. The conservative arguments look like they are correct too. The only progressive argument we are unsure about at present is whether or not fiat money itself can function in a positive fashion, under some as yet undefined circumstance. (We argue that it can’t, out of hand, on rational grounds, but I’m not sure we can prove that there aren’t holes in our reason sufficient to undermine our position.) We are lucky. Time has passed. We’ve learned more than our preceding generations had available to learn. And as such we can debate and restate libertarian theory using scientific rather than rational arguments. And that is what I’m trying to do.
1% of people cause everything, and that 1% own 20% of everything 19% of people control everything and own 60% of everything by taking cues from the 1%. 80% of people are labor or consumers who own 20% and are directed by by the 19%. It’s not just america. It’s everywhere. It has to be that way, Because that is now knowledge is organized. And that’s partly because how IQ is distributed.