Curt Doolittle

Theme: Agency

  • MORAL SUPERIORITY BY REJECTION OR ACTION? Well, you can claim moral superiority

    MORAL SUPERIORITY BY REJECTION OR ACTION?

    Well, you can claim moral superiority and reject the rest of society – accomplishing nothing other than a dramatic disapproval: the equivalent of a raspberry. Or you can make a plan, rally fellow warriors, and change society to suit your will. The moral question is simple: if you seek to impose greater suppression of free riding, and increase the requirement for voluntary exchange you are in fact, increasing the moral content of society. If you are increasing predation, parasitism and free riding, then you are acting immorally. But whether you use violence to achieve either end is immaterial. Violence can be put to good (suppression of free riding, parasitism and predation) or ill (increasing free riding, parasitism and predation.) So contrary to feminine sentiment, violence not only solves most conflict, it is necessary for the solution of conflict. Violence is a virtue, if put to virtuous ends. And the suppression of free riding, parasitism and predation is a virtuous end.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Philosophy of Aristocracy

    The Propertarian Institute

    L’viv Ukraine

    Source date (UTC): 2015-01-06 09:09:00 UTC

  • RE: Sebastian Ortiz It’s cool. In principle, Seb’s basically arguing that I am c

    RE: Sebastian Ortiz

    It’s cool. In principle, Seb’s basically arguing that I am correct in my analysis – but that he chooses a different preferred evolutionary strategy.

    And I am perfectly OK with that. He demonstrates that Propertarian analysis will allow you to argue for your preferred model. That is what I am looking to accomplish: a universal language of political analysis.

    That I prefer aristocratic egalitarianism rather than ghetto parasitism is a choice, not a truth. That he prefers the parasitic ethic, and that the parasitic ethic may indeed be a superior evolutionary strategy, is his choice. It may indeed be a wiser choice since the west, at least under Anglo dominance, has become suicidal.

    So I don’t disagree with him. In fact, I applaud his use of Propertarian argument to advance his strategy.

    I don’t claim that western aristocratic egalitarianism is the best for everyone. I claim only that it will evolve prosperity for a broad population faster than all possible alternatives, merely because transaction costs are lowest in a high trust homogenous polity. This in turn WILL allow for redistribution in the Scandinavian model, as long as immigration is prohibited, and lower class reproduction is limited.

    All forms of parasitism by a minority on a host appear to be successful for the parasite. Mandarins included. Russians included. Most of history included. However, that does not mean that non-parasitic cooperation will not defeat them all. The west was a minority and despite smaller numbers, and poorer populations, farther from the source of the bronze, iron, and steel ages. But truth telling allows a large population – albeit at high cost – to innovate (adapt, reorganize) faster.

    While Sebastian is correct, that selective reproduction and outcasting members who cannot memorize rituals, who then practice high trust internally, but low trust externally, can maintain asymmetric prosperity, and genetic advantage, in a host civilization as long as the host does not exterminate them.

    The problem appears to be that hosts tend to exterminate them. And if not for the status-seeking of evangelical anglos, the germans might have been successful in eliminating both the jews and the gypsies.

    So I am not sure it is a very safe strategy. There are a lot of jewish tombstones across central Asia in cities where there used to be jews, but no longer are. The Gypsies are here in the west to escape extermination. And without anglo imperialism and the post-war consensus, I kind of doubt the emphasis on human rights that has been western Christiandom’s claim to high status, and moral authority will survive under post-western ethics. And we are, as you can see, entering the post-western era.

    So I will argue that Seb is correct, that parasitism is the best possible strategy for small populations who add high-IQ value to host polities – as long as they avoid politics and power.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-01-05 12:51:00 UTC

  • Explaining “Sympathize With Intent”

    CURT: CAN YOU EXPLAIN “SYMPATHIZE WITH INTENT”?

    —“Can you please elaborate on this statement: ‘We know the first principles of human cooperation: we can sympathize with intent.’” —Chris Shaeffer

    [C]hris – Another good question.

    Apes cannot seem to sympathize with intentions to any degree, in the sense that they cannot imagine what we mean by cooperating. The example given is that you can train a monkey to wash dishes but he does not understand the idea of cleaning the plate as an objective, only the experience of playing with water and plate. Dogs however, can understand our intentions. If we point to something they can understand the idea of acting on a subject. We are capable of doing this it appears, from a very young age. And moreover, if we use language to describe a situation another will ‘understand’ our motivations under those conditions. If someone does not understand, we can likewise explore how he or she might not understand and attempt to assist them in forming associations. So we can ‘sympathize’ with other humans. And we are marginally indifferent from one another (at least within our peer groups).

    Conversely, we can also subjectively test theories of incentives: whether an actor subjected to certain stimuli would either be able to make a decision, and which decisions are rational. So we can ‘test’ the first principles of human actions: incentives. And we can do so without the assistance of instrumentation (at least in cases of demonstrated preference – otherwise people are notorious for error, bias and deception). We cannot make the same claim of the physical universe. We cannot ‘intuit’ the universe’s first principles. Although Hawking seems to think we are within a century of discovering them. And should we be able to, we may be able to explain the universe with the same degree of explanation we can apply to economic (human) interactions.

    Mises attempts to express these phenomenon in axiomatic (logical and informationally complete) rather than scientific (theoretical and informationally incomplete) terms. Which is what got him cast out of the discipline and marginalized – rightfully. Despite his other contributions.

    If we see science as the universally accepted language of truthful speech, consisting of a set of warranties we expect each other to provide, rather than as a methodology for determining truth with which to persuade each other, then it is easier to make the argument that it does not matter how one investigates any particular discipline as long as when one publishes it, he does so in the formal language of truthful speech.

    This is, in practice, how the world actually functions. Although we still wrap all our disciplinary language in justificationisms.

    Curt Doolittle
    The Propertarian Institute
    L’viv, Ukraine

  • Explaining “Sympathize With Intent”

    CURT: CAN YOU EXPLAIN “SYMPATHIZE WITH INTENT”?

    —“Can you please elaborate on this statement: ‘We know the first principles of human cooperation: we can sympathize with intent.’” —Chris Shaeffer

    [C]hris – Another good question.

    Apes cannot seem to sympathize with intentions to any degree, in the sense that they cannot imagine what we mean by cooperating. The example given is that you can train a monkey to wash dishes but he does not understand the idea of cleaning the plate as an objective, only the experience of playing with water and plate. Dogs however, can understand our intentions. If we point to something they can understand the idea of acting on a subject. We are capable of doing this it appears, from a very young age. And moreover, if we use language to describe a situation another will ‘understand’ our motivations under those conditions. If someone does not understand, we can likewise explore how he or she might not understand and attempt to assist them in forming associations. So we can ‘sympathize’ with other humans. And we are marginally indifferent from one another (at least within our peer groups).

    Conversely, we can also subjectively test theories of incentives: whether an actor subjected to certain stimuli would either be able to make a decision, and which decisions are rational. So we can ‘test’ the first principles of human actions: incentives. And we can do so without the assistance of instrumentation (at least in cases of demonstrated preference – otherwise people are notorious for error, bias and deception). We cannot make the same claim of the physical universe. We cannot ‘intuit’ the universe’s first principles. Although Hawking seems to think we are within a century of discovering them. And should we be able to, we may be able to explain the universe with the same degree of explanation we can apply to economic (human) interactions.

    Mises attempts to express these phenomenon in axiomatic (logical and informationally complete) rather than scientific (theoretical and informationally incomplete) terms. Which is what got him cast out of the discipline and marginalized – rightfully. Despite his other contributions.

    If we see science as the universally accepted language of truthful speech, consisting of a set of warranties we expect each other to provide, rather than as a methodology for determining truth with which to persuade each other, then it is easier to make the argument that it does not matter how one investigates any particular discipline as long as when one publishes it, he does so in the formal language of truthful speech.

    This is, in practice, how the world actually functions. Although we still wrap all our disciplinary language in justificationisms.

    Curt Doolittle
    The Propertarian Institute
    L’viv, Ukraine

  • “What is unscientific is the claim that a subjective being can be represented by

    —“What is unscientific is the claim that a subjective being can be represented by a method that does not recognize subjectivity. No data can contain the information that it ‘supposedly’ contains. This is misrepresentation. And no person can interpret the data associated with another person since they are not that person at that time and place. This is not science it is hearsay.

    What the hermeneutic does not realize or care to reveal is that there is no alternative to the methodology of subjectivism in the human sciences if science is the pursuit. Science is not the captive of methodology but rather methodology (and it has to be the correct one) is the lens of science.”—Bruce Koerber

    Bruce,

    You know, you seem like a moral man, a deeply sentimental moral man, and I really don’t like fighting with moral men. But I have a job to do. And I think it’s an important job. And frankly you aren’t a problem because you are visibly a moral man. Like a wondering christian missionary you are trying to do good albeit doing good with mythology. And really, mythology is enough for simple people. Mythology conveys meaning by analogy. Meaning is all that is available to them since truth is too complicated for them to access and convert into new meaning. Truth devoid of meaning is expensive. Mentally expensive. Time intensive.

    So I am sorry that I stepped on you in the FB forum. In my world I am just doing my job. And I think it is an important one: to rescue moral economics from the lunatic fringe, by restating it scientifically – meaning truthfully. But it’s my moral duty, as a moral man, to do this job. That is how I see it.

    So lets look at your argument here and I’ll expose it for what it is:

    –“What is unscientific is the claim that a subjective being can be represented by a method that does not recognize subjectivity.”—

    AND

    —“No data can contain the information that it ‘supposedly’ contains.”—

    No one supposes data contains anything. That is a false argument. Facts exist within theories. They correspond to theories or they do not correspond to theories. We ether seek to falsify theories (criticism) or we seek to ‘support’ theories (confirmation bias). If we seek to falsify a theory and the result does not falsify it, but continues to confirm it, then the theory survives. Some theories defeat other theories by this means. And we largely defeat theories by narrowing their scope (parsimony). Because few theories outside of the mystical are non-correspondent (that is why we come up with them), but they fail under criticism (they are insufficiently correspondent). So the argument you are making assumes positivism not observation and criticism. Science progresses not through positivism, but through observation (empiricism) and criticism, in which we attempt to launder imaginary relations (content) from our theories, so that what remains is truth candidate.

    —“This is misrepresentation. And no person can interpret the data associated with another person since they are not that person at that time and place. This is not science it is hearsay. “—

    If this is true then no study of deductive human action is possible – you have falsified your how hypothesis. Instead, your statement is only true at the experiential level not at the demonstrated level. We cannot predict an individuals action at any given moment, but we can do two things (a) explain it afterward given the conditions – or at least falsify some large number of the possibilities (b) collect records of preferences demonstrated under similar conditions. So like any empirical observation we cannot predict the state of any very small thing (a molecule of hydrogen in a cloud), however, we can construct general rules of aggregate movements (we can describe cloud formation, and we can describe general rules of human aggregate behavior in an economy: economic laws).

    —“What the hermeneutic does not realize or care to reveal is that there is no alternative to the methodology of subjectivism in the human sciences if science is the pursuit. Science is not the captive of methodology but rather methodology (and it has to be the correct one) is the lens of science.”—

    This is demonstrably false. While we may not claim something is true unless we can explain it as a series of possible (rational, arational and irrational) human actions, (and in Propertarianism, further constrained by fully informed voluntary exchange), meaning that we have subjected it to operational and intuitionistic (subjective) testing, we certainly CAN use empirical observations in an attempt to understand the phenomenon that we cannot deduce.

    (continued…)

    (…continued)

    This does not mean that you cannot attempt to perform deductive analysis and research. It means that yo cannot claim empirical analysis is unscientific, nor that economic analysis must be constrained to the deductive.

    This is why economics is no different from any other discipline. Truthful testimony must follow the same constraints no matter what discipline we discover. However, certain disciplines study different properties, and as such some disciplines such as chemistry rarely place contingency upon involuntary transfer (morality) and some such as economics and law always place contingency upon involuntary transfer. As such, in chemistry moral proof is an infrequent necessity, while as in economics it is a permanent necessity.

    As I have stated, (a) science is a moral discipline enumerating warranties that must be given for truthful testimony, (b) economics is bound by those same morals, and (c) operationalism and intuitionism are necessary constraints in all fields, and (d) morality is a necessary constraint in many fields – just less visible).

    Likewise internal consistency is necessary in mathematics, but external correspondence isn’t. Whereas in physics internal consistency and external correspondence and operational definitions are necessary, but morality is rarely a consideration. Whereas in economics, internal consistency, external correspondence, operational construction (proof of existence/falsification against imagination) and morality (falsification of involuntary transfer) are always necessary.

    This approach justifies Austrian economics, as a scientific and moral discipline. Whereas the misesian/rothbardian/hoppeian claims are both pseudoscientific and false both logically and demonstrably.

    So you see, I am trying to save Austrian Economics from the lunatic fringe by restating it as the moral discipline, consistent with all other disciplines, and where all disciplines are equally constrained by moral warranty.

    This is a profound innovation, and reconstruction of western thought and you should ponder it.

    Affections.

    Curt.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-01-04 07:04:00 UTC

  • A lot more living in the moment over here. It’s an interesting phenomenon: Havin

    A lot more living in the moment over here. It’s an interesting phenomenon:

    Having not enough.

    Having enough.

    Having more than enough.

    When you don’t have enough you must struggle to plan against risk.

    When you have enough, you don’t stress, and invest time in people as entertainment.

    When you have more than enough you don’t stress and invest in status and consumption.

    And for those who organise production under capitalism, signalling is important. And for the upper classes, investing in signals that will evolve into consumer goods under mass production is a necessary good.

    Then we have the envious who desire status that they do not earn. And as such want to reduce the status of others in what is the worst possible redistribution.

    And the we have the dishonest thieves who obtain status not from organising production or creating a Propertarian order, but who gain their status through assisting in the transfer of wrath and status from some to others by involuntary means.

    Like the woman who gains status from acts of charity distributing wealth earned by her father or husband, or the public intellectual or progressive voter who advocates and instructs by vote, the theft from productive to unproductive.

    Where the conservative says that receipt of charity requires demonstrated acts of moral behaviour – an act of exchange for support.

    The progressive privatises while the conservative constructs commons.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-01-04 04:57:00 UTC

  • CURT: CAN YOU EXPLAIN “SYMPATHIZE WITH INTENT”? —“Can you please elaborate on

    CURT: CAN YOU EXPLAIN “SYMPATHIZE WITH INTENT”?

    —“Can you please elaborate on this statement: ‘We know the first principles of human cooperation: we can sympathize with intent.’” —Chris Shaeffer

    Chris – Another good question.

    Apes cannot seem to sympathize with intentions to any degree, in the sense that they cannot imagine what we mean by cooperating. The example given is that you can train a monkey to wash dishes but he does not understand the idea of cleaning the plate as an objective, only the experience of playing with water and plate. Dogs however, can understand our intentions. If we point to something they can understand the idea of acting on a subject. We are capable of doing this it appears, from a very young age. And moreover, if we use language to describe a situation another will ‘understand’ our motivations under those conditions. If someone does not understand, we can likewise explore how he or she might not understand and attempt to assist them in forming associations. So we can ‘sympathize’ with other humans. And we are marginally indifferent from one another (at least within our peer groups).

    Conversely, we can also subjectively test theories of incentives: whether an actor subjected to certain stimuli would either be able to make a decision, and which decisions are rational. So we can ‘test’ the first principles of human actions: incentives. And we can do so without the assistance of instrumentation (at least in cases of demonstrated preference – otherwise people are notorious for error, bias and deception). We cannot make the same claim of the physical universe. We cannot ‘intuit’ the universe’s first principles. Although Hawking seems to think we are within a century of discovering them. And should we be able to, we may be able to explain the universe with the same degree of explanation we can apply to economic (human) interactions.

    Mises attempts to express these phenomenon in axiomatic (logical and informationally complete) rather than scientific (theoretical and informationally incomplete) terms. Which is what got him cast out of the discipline and marginalized – rightfully. Despite his other contributions.

    If we see science as the universally accepted language of truthful speech, consisting of a set of warranties we expect each other to provide, rather than as a methodology for determining truth with which to persuade each other, then it is easier to make the argument that it does not matter how one investigates any particular discipline as long as when one publishes it, he does so in the formal language of truthful speech.

    This is, in practice, how the world actually functions. Although we still wrap all our disciplinary language in justificationisms.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Propertarian Institute

    L’viv, Ukraine

    Source date (UTC): 2015-01-03 04:34:00 UTC

  • ALTRUISM (Promoting Bruce Charleton)

    http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-psychology-of-abstract-suicide.htmlSUICIDAL ALTRUISM

    (Promoting Bruce Charleton)

    Source date (UTC): 2015-01-01 05:46:00 UTC

  • There is an ancient myth that has more than a grain of truth to it: if you can n

    There is an ancient myth that has more than a grain of truth to it: if you can name a demon you can control it. We all have true names. Meaning if we are fully understood we lose the power of deception.

    I am hot on the trail of a conceptual demon.

    I think it may take me another year or more to discover it’s true name.

    But when I do, I will kill it.

    Or at least arm others who will kill it.

    I made it pretty far with truth.

    Now I must understand how lies are constructed.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-12-31 16:29:00 UTC

  • am not up to writing anything deep at the moment, but Pinker nails it regarding

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PS6wv3aET8I am not up to writing anything deep at the moment, but Pinker nails it regarding Chomsky’s misreading of human nature, and why he misreads human nature.

    I think my theory that the family is the source of the enilghtenment fallacy of equality, and that post familial individualism has made visible the inter-temporal division of reproductive labor that we see in our mental,moral and political biases.

    So I think Propertarian Class theory is currently the best working theory for the study of mankind.

    As far as I know I’ve nailed it.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-12-30 21:28:00 UTC