Curt Doolittle

Source: Original Site Post

  • In A Hundred Years Time, What Do You Think People Will Consider To Be The Great Moral Failure Of Our Era? For The Purposes Of This Question, Let Us Define ‘our Era’ As 2000-2013.

    I WILL TRY TO GIVE  YOU A BETTER ANSWER

    1) Hayek argued that the 20th centuries and its wars would be remembered as an era of mysticism ushered in by Marx and Freud, culminating in the reliigon of Postmodernism (liberalism) – the most recent incarnation of Zoroastrianism – saying false things repeatedly in order to achieve one’s ends.  We have been fighting against this religion in science and technology for a few decades now, and this misdirection, starting in the 60’s and achieving it’s heights in the 1970’s, has consumed much of the research time in academia.

    2) it appears that this battle has resulted in a considerable number of insights into technology.  But, as our economy crumbles from having consumed the last wave of technological innovation (information technology), progress on research and development continues.

    3) The wildcard is the great upheavals that will happen in the world as western technological superiority for the past 500 years is neutralized by the adoption of consumer capitalism worldwide, and inexpensive labor in previously unindustrialized countries, lowers the RELATIVE advantage of western countries.  THe primary advantage the northern european countries had, as did the anglo countires founded by the british empire, was that the high trust society of the out-bred families (nation as a family) created a homogenous enough culture that this commercial trust could create extraordinary competitive organizations.  I suspect that the cultures that come to dominate these areas will not perpetuate the high trust society and the nuclear family for cultural reasons, and that the continued decline in the nuclear family will do the same. So that the only material cultural advantage of the west will be lost.

    4) The reason you cannot judge moral consequences in the future is that morality is a product of the reproductive strategy of people at later times, under later technologies, using later political organizations, and they tend to demonize things that are convenient, not true.  For example, aristocracy and manorialism were very important to western development  as was the church.  WIthout these institutions we could not have achieved our technical advantage over the rest of the world.  We demonized the monarchies in order to sieze power.  But there is very little evidence that supports any of our claims about victorian industrial evils or evils of kings and princes. In fact, the evidence is pretty much the other direction.  SO if we demonize things that were good, and we still admire things that aer terribly evil (socialism and communism) then why should we thing that there is a rational basis for future moral contrivances, other than whatever convenience suits their cause at the time?

    Hopefully this provides some thought and context. I suspect hayek will be correct amongst intellectuals if he is remembered for it.  Otherwise, it is just as likely that they will think were are stupid for our form of social security instead of the singaporean – for purely logical reasons.   Why didn’t we adopt the singaporean model of social security?  It might be that they accuse us of doing it for relgious reasons – and they would be right.

    https://www.quora.com/In-a-hundred-years-time-what-do-you-think-people-will-consider-to-be-the-great-moral-failure-of-our-era-For-the-purposes-of-this-question-let-us-define-our-era-as-2000-2013

  • Is Having A Job A Right?

    SOME OK ANSWERS BY OTHERS, BUT I WILL GIVE A BETTER ONE

    A right is something provided by a contract. We can in theory create a contract that states that every person has  a right be as attractive as a victoria’s secret model.  The problem is, that the provision isn’t enforceable  because (a) we don’t know how to do that (b) it probably isn’t possible (c) the consequence of even trying would probably be really bad (somehow… although I can’t think of any at the moment.)

    NEGATIVE RIGHTS, are things do by avoiding doing something: killing, torturing, harming, stealing, fraud, are all things we can avoid doing.  And since it means avoiding something, we can, every single one of us, avoid killing, torturing, harming, stealing, fraud and all such damage to life and property.

    Jobs are called POSITIVE RIGHTS. They require resources, and resources that no one has to provide.

    One can have a right to a job in the sense that no one can be prohibited from working, who is willing, by a government. That is a negative right. It says no one may restrain another from engaging in the voluntary trade of his effort in exchange for something that he wants (money.)  But one cannot have the right to have a job provided, because (a) we don’t know how to do that (b) it probably isn’t possible (c) the consequences of even trying would be really bad.

    THe international declaration of human rights contains a number of provisions (22-26) are positive rights, which were included in order to satisfy the then-powerful communist governments, the same way the north was required to allow for slavery in the constitution inorder to gain the compliance of the south.

    The question is whether positive rights are possible to provide. Or whether it is only possible to provide insurance against destitution (which appears possible).  This important question isn’t yet answered because we haven’t been doing it long enough to be sure. It certainly appears that both Europe and the USA are having significant economic, cultural and demographic problems because of these policies – which can only be satisfied with the use of ponzi schemes.

    (And yes, I am happy to argue with anyone on this point including our favorite left wing Nobel Prize winner.)

    Cheers
    Curt

    https://www.quora.com/Is-having-a-job-a-right

  • Has The Canadian Government Ever Acknowledged The Country Formation Was A Crime?

    A crime is a violation of a contract, where laws are properties of a contract for norms within a society fo people with similar goals, manners, ethics, morals, language and reproductive strategies. Even if the contract is nautural law, and even if natural law only applies to people within a government, not across governments.  Human rights are a post-war extension of natural rights.  We have attempted to legitimize conquest only in those cases where those extended rights are violated. While it is arguable that natural rights existed at the time, it is also arguable that human rights did not exist at the time.

    But since none of these contracts apply, conquest is not a crime. There was no contract. The reason for conquest, whether by violence, or immigration, or import of religion, or revolution, is to replace one set of rights and obligations with another set of rights and obligations.

    You may dislike conquest. You may argue in retrospect that we should not conquer primitive peoples. You may argue that we should not conquer primitive peoples even if we are more beneficial conquerors than any of our competing conquerors, and therefore commit the lesser of evils.

    Conquest is not a crime unless immigration, new religion, new political parties, are a crime. Immigration, religion and political parties are implemented under the threat of violence, and therefore the only difference is the rate and means by which one conducts conquest, and the rapidity at which rights, obligations and the allocation of property is rearranged. 

    It is not clear that the french revolution, and its bloody excesses, nor the philosophy that it created, which led to marxism, and 100M murderous deaths because of marxism was not a conquest. It was. And nothing good came of it.

    Conversely, it is quite clear that the conquest spread by anglo-empirical-science, acounting, property rights and capitalism were a conquest, that in turn, raised billions out of mysticism, ignorance and poverty.

    https://www.quora.com/Has-the-Canadian-government-ever-acknowledged-the-country-formation-was-a-crime

  • What Reservations Do You Have About Liberal Principles?

    Liberalism is the political wing of a religion.  That religion is Postmodernism.  Postmodernism was created as a linguistic attack on reason, in order to find a solution to seizing political power, given the failure of socialism in theory and in practice.

    Irrational contradiction is a necessary and pervasive tactic in the postmodern religion. Instead of believing in mystical divinities, this religion attributes false properties to mankind, then advocates belief in natural contradictions, very similar to jewish and christian contradictions, in order to avoid attacks by reason against their arguments.  THere is absolutely NOTHING different between the religion of liberals (Postmodernism) and the religion of social conservatives (christianity) except that postmodernism puts power in the state, and american protestant christianity is an organized opposition to the state. Both of which are fighting for power to control the state, in order to protect their interests.

    EXAMPLES OF LIBERAL (POSTMODERN) IRRATIONALITY

    (from Hicks)

    THE POSTMODERN RELIGION, AND ITS POLITICAL WING: LIBERALISM
    The left is a kleptocracy, and its religion is postmodernism.

    “In postmodern discourse, truth is rejected explicitly and consistency can be a rare phenomenon. Consider the following pairs of claims.

    1) On the one hand, all truth is relative; on the other hand, postmodernism tells it like it really is.

    2) On the one hand, all cultures are equally deserving of respect; on the other, Western culture is uniquely destructive and bad.

    3) Values are subjective—but sexism and racism are really evil.

    4) Technology is bad and destructive—and it is unfair that some people have more technology than others.

    5) Tolerance is good and dominance is bad—but when postmodernists come to power, political correctness follows.

    There is a common pattern here: Subjectivism and relativism in one breath, dogmatic absolutism in the next. Postmodernists are well aware of the contradictions—especially since their opponents relish pointing them out at every opportunity.

    Consider three more examples, this time of clashes between postmodernist theory and historical fact.

    1) Postmodernists say that the West is deeply racist, but they know very well that the West ended slavery for the first time ever, and that it is only in places where Western ideas have made inroads that racist ideas are on the defensive.

    2) They say that the West is deeply sexist, but they know very well that Western women were the first to get the vote, contractual rights, and the opportunities that most women in the world are still without.

    3) They say that Western capitalist countries are cruel to their poorer members, subjugating them and getting rich off them, but they know very well that the poor in the West are far richer than the poor anywhere else, both in terms of material assets and the opportunities to improve their condition.

    In the modern world, Left-wing thought has been one of the major breeding grounds for destruction and nihilism. From the Reign of Terror to Lenin and Stalin, to Mao and Pol Pot, to the up-surge of terrorism in the 1960s and 1970s, the far Left has exhibited repeatedly a willingness to use violence to achieve political ends and exhibited extreme frustration and rage when it has failed.”

    – Excerpted from Hicks, Stephen R. C. Explaining Postmodernism, chapter six.

    https://www.quora.com/What-reservations-do-you-have-about-liberal-principles

  • How Does A Police Officer Determine If A Woman Is Lying?

    It’s actually pretty simple. They try to figure out who tells the first lie, or provides the least believable explanation.

    It is VERY easy to tell when people are lying. If you spend time at it, it’s patently obvious. The problem is, most of the time, everyone is lying.   Which is why you shouldn’t bother to lie to police. Just remain mute and let them do their thing, no matter what they say. If you must say anthing at all, then the only advice you can give anyone is to make sure that you are very clear what it is that the policeman is asking you.  Because every word you use is not evidence as you intend it, but evidence as the officer iterprets it.  

    If you say nothing other than your name and address, the worst that will happen is that you will ride in a car, go through some process, and come home the next morning a little tired. It is fear of this process that causes people to try to lie their way out of something.

    Most importantly, the police don’t try to solve crimes. They try to find reasons to arrest people, so that they can separate them, so that there isn’t any greater conflict. The only reason they odn’t arrest people is when it’s too much work to do the paper, and they’re afraid that you might spend time and money criticizing them.  But you should never even dream that the police are there to make good judgements or solve crimes.  They exist to make arrests and let the court make judgements.

    If there is a risk that their careers will be affected by a decision then they will be hostile and basically find every possible charge that they can dream up, and let the court system figure it out later.  This is their only defense against charges of impropriety or poor judgement.

    You are never in a debate or argument with a policeman. You are being interrogated, and they are trying to either catch you in a lie or make you lie and if they find that they will assume everything is your fault.

    If you are a man and the complainant is a woman, unless you can show blood it is your fault, always, everywhere. Women are never accountable for their words or actions unless they create visible harm to you.  The general assumption is that they are fairly harmless.  The general assumption is that men are dangerous.

    These are not irrational, or empirically false assumptions.

    That said, if the woman has a seedy past and the man has any assets at all it’s an even bet she’s lying. Statistically speaking we have pretty good numbers now on false rape and assault accusations.  It’s a substantial number, and I don’t keep up with it, but it’s not less than 5% and I think the 10% number looks believable.  

    The best advice is to stay away from easy women, women who are drunk, or who use drugs.

    I know…. I know….  That’s like telling moms not to shop at Walmart for the discounts, but that’s just reality.  Women don’t come at a discount.  The cost is always higher than the savings. 🙂  Its reproductive math.  It has to be that way. 🙂

    https://www.quora.com/How-does-a-police-officer-determine-if-a-woman-is-lying

  • Why Should I Provide My Knowledge To Quora For Free?

    Because you don’t know it’s knowledge until it’s tested.  And the only way to test knowledge (arguments) is to make them. Just like the only way to test experiments is to run them.

    https://www.quora.com/Why-should-I-provide-my-knowledge-to-Quora-for-free

  • Has Anyone Benefited Tangibly From Answering On Quora, And If So By What Terms Were These Benefits?

    I think this is an interesting question.  
    1) Entertainment of yourself and others.
    2) Promotion of yourself, others, or certain ideas.
    3) Assistance of others (which is theoretically the purpose)
    4) Experimentation and refinement of your arguments.

    (1) is obvious but isn’t very valuable to anyone.
    (2) is probably a misuse (free riding) and tedious.
    (3) is the target idea but the question is what percentage of answers meet this criteria (not many).
    (4) is the scientific approach to debate structures.

    Personally, how I benefit from Quora is that it provides a large body of questions that are asked by people who are curious, and arguments by a large numbrer of people with erroneous knowledge, and as such, it’s a great place to learn how to talk or write about a subject if you don’t really understand how ‘ordinary people’ think of a topic.  The fact that answers are often bad, is actually useful because it provides insight into why people arrive at poor conclusions.  Because it is one thing to state a solution, and another to provide a route to it, that corrects the erroneous assumptions of others.

    https://www.quora.com/Has-anyone-benefited-tangibly-from-answering-on-Quora-and-if-so-by-what-terms-were-these-benefits

  • The Religion of Postmodernism as a Reformation of Christianity

    [T]HE PURPOSE OF RELIGION IS TO CONCENTRATE POLITICAL POWER Either as a resistance, or as a military force. That is the purpose of a religion. EIther to take power, or to resist power. Religions concentrate human efforts. POSTMODERNISM IS A REFORMATION OF CHRISTIANITY Postmodernism is just the most recent religion in a long history of religions. 7) Postmodernism is a reformation of Protestantism. – Resisting Capitalism in response to the failure of socialism in both theory and practice (1960ad). 6) Socialism is a reformation of catholicism – French, then german, then worldwide resistance to anglo industrial capitalism. (1850ad) 5) Protestantism is a reformation of Catholicism. – Germanic countries exiting Mediterranean taxation and occupation. (1520ad) 4) Islam is a reformation of Judaism and Christianity – Enabling arab conquest of the Byzantines and Sassanids who were exhausted by war with each other. (600ad) 3) Christianity (Catholicism) is a reformation of Judaism. – adaptation to the roman conquest. (80ad), and eventual success by mobilizing the underclasses and women. Made possible by exhaustion of seafaring Rome by conquering landed Europe. 2) Judaism is a reformation of Zoroastrianism. – Exiting persian conquest, as a means of unifying various tribes. (650bc) 1) Zoroastrianism was authored by Zarathustra (Zoroaster) ( 1500-1000bc) Exiting the stone age, and adapting to the agrarian revolution, in order to concentrate political and military power, possibly to separate western tribes from eastern tribes. Religion is the means by which we make people believe untrue things in order to get them to cooperate according to one scheme or another.

  • Rights, Punishment and Human Rights

    [W]hen someone violates NATURAL RIGHTS (life, liberty, property, by fraud, theft or violence) we punish them by removing their NATURAL RIGHTS, by imprisoning them. Natural rights are NECESSARY RIGHTS to engage in cooperation via exchanges within society: life, liberty, and property. We pay for our natural rights by forgoing our opportunity for fraud, theft and violence. We also pay for access to opportunities to interact with others by paying the cost of effort to deonstrate manners, and the cost of forgone opportunities for stealing from others by respecting ethics and morals. For violations of normative laws, we are ostracized from opportunity (boycotted) rather than punished or incarcerated. But we retain our natural rights as long as we can find someone to voluntarily exchange with us who does not refuse to boycott us because of our manners, ethics and morals. However, we do not remove anyone’s HUMAN RIGHTS any longer for any reason. This is in no small part, because we are wealthy enough that deprivation from society and consumption alone are enough to coerce people into respecting both natural laws, and for normative laws. The international declaration of human rights was created in no small part to control the abuse of individuals by communist countries. It is a DESIRED list of rights. This DESIRED list of rights is a CONTRACT between GOVERNMENTS. This contract is a TREATY. This treaty demands that member countries hold governments accountable for the treatment of individuals, and to sanction those countries if they do not. Even to the point of replacing a government for their abuses of their individuals. It is important that we understad that this charter is a treaty by governments that like a treaty for the promise of mutual defense, binds other countries such that they are required to use legal, financial and economic sanctions against countries that violate the rights that the charter agrees all people in all countries, regardless of government, possess. In effect, as a worldwide treaty, it is a worldwide constitution for that limits the powers of governemnts. This is waht RULE OF LAW means: it means that governemtns, and the people in them, are limited to the actions that are allowed in their constitutions. Rule of law does not mean that there are laws. It means that the government itself is bound by law. The Charter of human rights is a very simple document. It is vaguely divided into sections. The first few are restatements of NATURAL LAW. After that there are a variety of prohibitions against the government, that require that all people in society must be treated equally before the law. That they have the right to live ordinary lives, marry, have a family, make friends, earn a living, Articles 23, 24, 25, and 26, were necessary to gain the support of the socialist and communist countries, in the same way that the north was required to allow slavery in order to gain the signatures of the south during the american civil war. This is the primary problem with the declaration of human rights: is that these are not possible, not testable, and not achievable except in rare circumstances and for short periods of time – and they create a moral hazard as well as perverse incentives. These are POSITIVE rights. And positive rights can only exist as preferences, not rights. Article 29 specifies how you PAY FOR HUMAN RIGHTS, and that is by granting them to other people equally. Rights require exchange. Without exchange the term ‘rights’ is meaningless. One does not HAVE human rights as if they fall from heavens. One is granted them by others, and pays for them over one’s lifetime by granting the same rights to others. Otherwise the document is not terribly different from the American Bill of Rights. What I hope to get accross here is that these are not divine rights, nor necesary and therefore natural rights, they are human rights, and human rights are those that we choose to require, by threat of force and economic punishment, that all governments must hold to.

  • What Are Rights? The “Final Word” on Rights

    1) RIGHTS: A “right” is a claim against other members of a contract, wherein each party grants the other party something (a right) in exchange for somthing else (an obligation). Each person then has ‘rights’ as agreed upon in the contract, as well as obligations. This is the meaning of the term ‘right’. A right is something that you obtain from others in exchange for granting them something. There is no other logical meaning of the term, unless you invent a god or demon, or some equivalent that you are supposedly in contract with. (Although the term ‘right’ is abused by way of analogy and metaphor, which I will explain below.) 2) CONTRACTS: A contract can be discreetly created, such as a handshake, a promise, or an agreement. Or a contract can be written as a note, a written contract, or a constitution. A contract can be created by habituation as a “norm”, such as manners, ethics and morals. While very few people understand this, ethical and moral statements are those that compensate for asymmetry of information between members of a contract for norms. This contract for norms is we call a society. Manners are promises that you will respect ethical and moral norms. Ethics are rules that we follow to make sure that there are no involuntary transfers of prooperty due to asymmetry of information in an exchange. Morals are general rules that we will follow to make sure there are no involuntary transfers from others who are outside (external to) any action or exchange. (Having a chid that you cannot pay for, and expecting others to support it, is an involuntary transfer from others. That is why it’s generally been considered immoral.) One can voluntarily enter discreet contracts. But normative contracts are a necessity because people cannot peacefully and productively cooperate without them. One can generally move between groups with different normative contracts (societies, and communities) but it is all but impossible to avoid them entirely, and it is entirely impossible to exist in a community without adhering to that contract – usually people are excluded from opportunity, punished, imprisoned, ostracized, or deported, for violations of the normative contract. 3) NATURAL RIGHTS: Some contract rights are both necessary for humans to engage in contracts, and possible to grant in contracts. Such as surrendering our opportunity for violence theft and fraud, from those with whom we are in contract. If we surrender our opportunity to use violence theft and fraud, we define this set of forgone opportunities “property rights’. Because these rights are necessary for peaceful cooperation, and necessary for contracts to function, we call these necessary rights ‘Natural Rights’ – in an effort to limit the ability of governments to violate the contract rights that are necessary for human cooperation when they make laws. If we define our minds and bodies as our property. And we define those objects, that we freely obtained through exchange as our property, then there is only one natural right and that is property. It is the only right necessary, and the only right universally possible to grant to one another – because we must refrain from something, rather than do something. In this sense, there is only one possible human right, and all other rights derive from it. 3) HUMAN RIGHTS: Some contract rights are not necessary but beneficial. These rights generally can be categorized as forms of ‘insurance’. They cannot be direclty exchanged without an intermediary institution acting as the insurer. People cannot equally contribute to their costs. We call these rights ‘Human Rights’. 4) PRIVILEGES: Sometimes we attempt to seek privileges not rights – a privilege is something that unlike insurance, is something we are likely to obtain, and which comes at a cost to others, without our providing something else in exchange. These are not rights, but privileges at the expense of others. 5) RENTS (Corruption) In contemporary politics, unscrupulous people attempt to label privileges as rights, so that they can obtain something from others at no cost to themselves This is not seeking rights but seeking privileges. It is a form of corruption, which is just an indirect form of theft. In economics, seeking privileges from government is a form of corruption called ‘rent-seeking’. (Which admittedly, is an old and confusing name. In previous centuries, people would seek to obtain an interest in land so that they could collect rents on it.) Today, people seek an interest in tax revenue so that they can collect income from it. This is Rent-Seeking. The government, in practice, if not in theory, owns all land, and we rent it from the government by taxes. If you cannot pay your taxes, you cannot keep your land. Taxes today, are no different from taxes under feudalism. We have just replaced private landowners with a political bureaucracy. In both cases we are renting our land, and in many cases the homes we build, from the government. Taxes are our rents. And people who seek to own part of taxes are rent-seekers. 6) DIVIDENDS (REDISTRIBUTION) if you obey norms (manners, ethics and morals) and obey natural rights (property), you do so at a cost to you. If you think of society as a business (it is, because it must be), and the business is to grow the local market (it is, at least to maintain it), because everyone in the local market will profit from it. (they do). Then these businesses (societies) grow through phases, just as businesses do (or really, business go through phases like society does, just a lot faster because they’re smaller), and in certain early phases(startups) they require a lot of investments from their shareholders (citizens), and in other phases they produce tremendous surpluses (mature, commoditized businesses), then we can see that most of the problem we deal with in politics, is who makes what contributions, and who collects what dividends, and how those dividends are used. PROBLEMS WITH DETERMINING DIVIDENDS (REDISTRIBUTION) It is very hard to argue against dividends (redistribution) if people respect (adhere to) manners, ethics, morals, and natural rights (property rights), as well as whatever arbitrary laws are created that affect all people equally. The general argument, which is true, is that by adhering to maners, ethics, morals, natural rights and arbitrary laws, you earn the right to participate in the market for goods and services. And that dividends are a due only to those people who provide goods and services in the market. The problem with dividends (redistribution) is not the logical requirement for dividends (redistribution), but the problem with how to determine what a dividend is, how to collect them, who has earned them, and how to allocate them, and how to distribute them. But I will have to leave that discussion for another time.