Libertine’s justify and complain. Libertarians understand and plan. Violence is a virtue and its mastery an art.
Source date (UTC): 2014-12-12 07:21:00 UTC
Theme: Agency
-
DEEPLY FELT JOY Accidentally looking at the Linkedin’s suggested connections and
DEEPLY FELT JOY
Accidentally looking at the Linkedin’s suggested connections and seeing the hundreds (thousands) of people who have worked for me across various companies that I have started, and the progress they have made in their careers.
Nothing. Better.
Source date (UTC): 2014-12-12 05:51:00 UTC
-
Freedom is Wasted On Those Seeking Consumption
Guest Post by Anonymous
–“The founding fathers knew that freedom is wasted on those who are not pursuing virtue. They envisioned America, not as a hedonist utopia, but as a place where one was free to pursue a virtuous life. The French, on the other hand, began their revolution as a revolution our modern progressives would love to implement now: they executed all the priests and clergy they could get their hands on, burned churches, slaughtered the upper classes, erected a statue to “Reason”, and created an a theocratic tyranny of relativism, that suffered no dissent. They descended into such a sustained orgy of violence and destruction, that the only thing that could stop it was the military dictatorship of Napoleon.”–
[T]he founding fathers did not understand virtue as excellences: production, rather than consumption: transforming the world for the betterment of man.
Becoming gods.
-
Freedom is Wasted On Those Seeking Consumption
Guest Post by Anonymous
–“The founding fathers knew that freedom is wasted on those who are not pursuing virtue. They envisioned America, not as a hedonist utopia, but as a place where one was free to pursue a virtuous life. The French, on the other hand, began their revolution as a revolution our modern progressives would love to implement now: they executed all the priests and clergy they could get their hands on, burned churches, slaughtered the upper classes, erected a statue to “Reason”, and created an a theocratic tyranny of relativism, that suffered no dissent. They descended into such a sustained orgy of violence and destruction, that the only thing that could stop it was the military dictatorship of Napoleon.”–
[T]he founding fathers did not understand virtue as excellences: production, rather than consumption: transforming the world for the betterment of man.
Becoming gods.
-
Adults and Institutions, Children and Beliefs
[C]hildren talk of beliefs. Adults talk of institutions.
Children talk of “Want and Belief” Adults of “Expectations and Habits”.
The mind plans with what it has available. We need develop means of creating habits that produce expectations.
People then plan with those expectations – because that is what is available to them.
As far as I know only property, homesteaded and voluntarily exchanged, allows such planning by the individual, and decidability by third parties in the case of conflict.And far as I know the only means of creating ‘scientific’ rules of human cooperation is the organically evolved common law, constructed upon the one rule of property and the one operation of voluntary exchange.
Just as with mathematics we can take the concept of a single unit and simple operations we create all of mathematics, with the concept of property and the simple operation of voluntary exchange, we can create all of human cooperation in equally rich variety.
In the logic of human cooperation that we inarticulately call moral prohibitions and ethical rules, and which we can easily embody in law, we need only one unit “property” and one operation “exchange”.
All commons can be constructed as long as the principles of existence, calculability, and operation-ability are maintained, such that all propositions are decidable without dependence upon information external to the operation.
The only moral society is one in which property, morality and law are synonyms.
Curt Doolittle
The Propertarian Institute
Kiev Ukraine. -
Adults and Institutions, Children and Beliefs
[C]hildren talk of beliefs. Adults talk of institutions.
Children talk of “Want and Belief” Adults of “Expectations and Habits”.
The mind plans with what it has available. We need develop means of creating habits that produce expectations.
People then plan with those expectations – because that is what is available to them.
As far as I know only property, homesteaded and voluntarily exchanged, allows such planning by the individual, and decidability by third parties in the case of conflict.And far as I know the only means of creating ‘scientific’ rules of human cooperation is the organically evolved common law, constructed upon the one rule of property and the one operation of voluntary exchange.
Just as with mathematics we can take the concept of a single unit and simple operations we create all of mathematics, with the concept of property and the simple operation of voluntary exchange, we can create all of human cooperation in equally rich variety.
In the logic of human cooperation that we inarticulately call moral prohibitions and ethical rules, and which we can easily embody in law, we need only one unit “property” and one operation “exchange”.
All commons can be constructed as long as the principles of existence, calculability, and operation-ability are maintained, such that all propositions are decidable without dependence upon information external to the operation.
The only moral society is one in which property, morality and law are synonyms.
Curt Doolittle
The Propertarian Institute
Kiev Ukraine. -
Contra Locke on Self Ownership
Guest Post by Michael Phillip
[L]ocke’s argument starts with the notion that we own ourselves. It does not rest on us being the creation of our own labour, but a notion of self-ownership. By “mixing our labour” with things acquired from nature we “create” property by a process of extension of our self-ownership.
There are a series of problems with this argument. First, if we own ourselves, do we really think that we can therefore sell ourselves, either entire or by amputation and alienation of bits? And, if not, in what sense is this ownership? Is there not something perverse about a concept which implies an acceptable separation of our physical self (in whole or in part) from ourself.
To be property is to be owned by something that is not itself and which can be passed on to others. So, to be property, even of ourself, is to be lessened from what we feel is the proper status of being a moral agent.
A notion of self-dominion makes more sense; we control ourselves and property extends from that control. By taking some unowned thing from nature, we assert control over it; it is the assertion and acceptance of control which creates property.
As ever, slavery provides a limiting case. The institution of slavery contradicts Locke’s notion that we own ourselves. Slavery is morally obnoxious (a violation of self-dominion, and so human autonomy, in the most profound sense) but it does not make slaves any less property. It is the acknowledged assertion of control over the slave that creates slavery, not the labour of the slaveowner (even if it is directed to that end) extending the slaver’s self-ownership to cover the slave.
Do we really think that the process of enslaving is a process of the slaver “mixing their labour” with the slave? Surely not; neither as a description nor as some act of legitimation. No amount of applied labour by the slaver makes slavery legitimate nor is it what makes slaves property.
The process of enslaving is a process of getting acknowledged control over the slave. The more difficulty involved, the more the slaver has to act to do so, but the effort required does not affect any “level” of being property, merely whether it is worth the bother.
Locke’s use of the term ‘labour’ directs attention to the effort and not to what is being effected. (Hence the connection to the labour theory of value, which makes the same error.)
Note: My position is that the necessity of cooperation determines property, not self owenrship. Michael (as usual) is correct. – Curt -
Contra Locke on Self Ownership
Guest Post by Michael Phillip
[L]ocke’s argument starts with the notion that we own ourselves. It does not rest on us being the creation of our own labour, but a notion of self-ownership. By “mixing our labour” with things acquired from nature we “create” property by a process of extension of our self-ownership.
There are a series of problems with this argument. First, if we own ourselves, do we really think that we can therefore sell ourselves, either entire or by amputation and alienation of bits? And, if not, in what sense is this ownership? Is there not something perverse about a concept which implies an acceptable separation of our physical self (in whole or in part) from ourself.
To be property is to be owned by something that is not itself and which can be passed on to others. So, to be property, even of ourself, is to be lessened from what we feel is the proper status of being a moral agent.
A notion of self-dominion makes more sense; we control ourselves and property extends from that control. By taking some unowned thing from nature, we assert control over it; it is the assertion and acceptance of control which creates property.
As ever, slavery provides a limiting case. The institution of slavery contradicts Locke’s notion that we own ourselves. Slavery is morally obnoxious (a violation of self-dominion, and so human autonomy, in the most profound sense) but it does not make slaves any less property. It is the acknowledged assertion of control over the slave that creates slavery, not the labour of the slaveowner (even if it is directed to that end) extending the slaver’s self-ownership to cover the slave.
Do we really think that the process of enslaving is a process of the slaver “mixing their labour” with the slave? Surely not; neither as a description nor as some act of legitimation. No amount of applied labour by the slaver makes slavery legitimate nor is it what makes slaves property.
The process of enslaving is a process of getting acknowledged control over the slave. The more difficulty involved, the more the slaver has to act to do so, but the effort required does not affect any “level” of being property, merely whether it is worth the bother.
Locke’s use of the term ‘labour’ directs attention to the effort and not to what is being effected. (Hence the connection to the labour theory of value, which makes the same error.)
Note: My position is that the necessity of cooperation determines property, not self owenrship. Michael (as usual) is correct. – Curt -
(truth: I lucked out in no small part ’cause I was good-looking enough to compen
(truth: I lucked out in no small part ’cause I was good-looking enough to compensate for the liability. People give you lots of leeway if you’re attractive. And if you smile a lot, work at having good manners and listen to them carefully, they give you even more. But man it was very hard to be a child in my part of the world in that era. Damn. I haven’t thought about it much, but believe it or not I didn’t say much either. And that helped too. No point talking when no one understands you – smiling and listening work better. Books are your friends. Today kids like us have internet, computers and other toys to amuse ourselves with. But a small farm town with three television channels is a pretty boring place for an infovore. )
Source date (UTC): 2014-12-07 22:26:00 UTC
-
INTUITION AND THE EVOLUTION OF THE THE WHITE LIE Once our minds could evolve sel
INTUITION AND THE EVOLUTION OF THE THE WHITE LIE
Once our minds could evolve self awareness, our bodies had to evolve a means of persuading us to do that which we would not willingly do if we rationally conceived it.
The idea that rational insight into nature is beneficial is only half true. Once aware of death look what we do about it. But if we were cognizant of our position in the hierarchy, or any other number of truths, we would not so easily fulfill nature’s demands upon us to reproduce.
of course our intuitions lie to us.
Its necessary.
Just as it’s necessary to tell children nice white lies so they remain optimistic.
Source date (UTC): 2014-12-07 13:02:00 UTC