Curt Doolittle

Theme: Agency

  • ***That one is ruled by a tyrant says much about the tyrant. THAT ONE IS RULED B

    ***That one is ruled by a tyrant says much about the tyrant. THAT ONE IS RULED BY AN INCOMPETENT SAYS MUCH ABOUT THE RULED.***

    Source date (UTC): 2014-03-02 07:34:00 UTC

  • SOCIAL STATUS IS AS HERITABLE AS ANY BIOLOGICAL TRAIT (because our social status

    SOCIAL STATUS IS AS HERITABLE AS ANY BIOLOGICAL TRAIT

    (because our social status is a reflection of our biological properties.)

    —“…overall social mobility rates are much lower than those typically estimated by sociologists or economists. The intergenerational correlation in all the societies for which we construct surname estimates — medieval England, modern England, the United States, India, Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Chile, and even egalitarian Sweden — is between 0.7 and 0.9, much higher than conventionally estimated. Social status is inherited as strongly as any biological trait, such as height.” — Gregory Clark, _The Son Also Rises_

    SORRY LIB’S IT’S ALL GENES

    Source date (UTC): 2014-03-01 19:41:00 UTC

  • THE VIRTUE OF SUPERIORITY “….the Nietzschean argument [is] that the act of dem

    THE VIRTUE OF SUPERIORITY

    “….the Nietzschean argument [is] that the act of demanding recognition and achieving self-worth may be inherently aristocratic and inegalitarian insofar as this demand is driven by a high emotional desire to be recognized as a superior rather than as an equal. “

    (The fear of being left behind.)

    Source date (UTC): 2014-03-01 13:28:00 UTC

  • In my drunkenness, i hope it is permissible to say that as a man who has cheated

    In my drunkenness, i hope it is permissible to say that as a man who has cheated death three times, i cherish every friend i have, every single day.

    Each day is a gift from the gods. And my friends are more precious to me than air.

    But then i am a sentimental little twerp. 😉

    Looking death in the face more than once changes you forever. You no longer fear it. You fear only not accomplishing that which defeats death. 😉

    And defeating death is a revenge without peer.

    Cheers

    Source date (UTC): 2014-02-27 16:20:00 UTC

  • DOMINATION, CHARITY, OR CHEAP STATUS SIGNALS? There is a great difference betwee

    DOMINATION, CHARITY, OR CHEAP STATUS SIGNALS?

    There is a great difference between these levels of interest: domination, management, insurance, and charity.

    The world is a pretty charitable place really.

    If a people ASK for charity we should be as charitable as their behavior warrants. But the Japanese for example, pretty much refused our assistance (wrongly). And our assistance in most places (Haiti included) has been more damaging than good. Our attempts to help Africa have almost all been damaging to Africa – and the scholarly review of our failures is not even a matter of dispute any longer.

    Involving ourselves both at the state level and via multitudes of NGO’s that the EVIDENCE shows CLEARLY cause more harm than good; or involving ourselves as the world’s police force – which the evidence suggests causes more harm than good (we have been wrong more than right); or acting as the evangelists of the religion of Universal Secular Christianity that we call “Social Democracy” which the evidence again CLEARLY demonstrates that we cause more harm than good – is just an elaborate way of using our wealth to generate status signals for ourselves at other people’s expense.

    We are not smarter than the rest of the world. We are wealthier. We are wealthier because we have had longer to convert our society to ratio-scientific thought. And we are wealthier because we have the common law (in anglo countries), we used our technological leadership to conquer the two most remote continents (Australia and north america); and because we have influenced Continental law by two major wars of conquest in which we dictated terms. And because we inherited the british empire’s control of the seas built up over 500 years, when it committed suicide in the wars. And because we forced the world onto the petro-dollar standard in order to finance our global war on communism.

    Those are the reasons we are wealthier. And while we have done a lot of good by converting the rest of the world unwillingly to CONSUMER CAPITALISM – which is our greatest contribution – we have also done a lot of harm with our wealth – motivated by good intentions, in practice, out of ignorance.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-02-24 04:05:00 UTC

  • I learned something simple today that should have been obvious: how to be happy

    I learned something simple today that should have been obvious: how to be happy with age. It’s not finding something safe, secure, and boring. That’s actually a bad dream to have. Instead, it’s constantly finding ways to add value to others’ lives.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-02-20 15:39:00 UTC

  • ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND PAIN TOLERANCE This winter has reminded me once again that

    ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND PAIN TOLERANCE

    This winter has reminded me once again that entrepreneurship is determined in no small part by your willingness to work hard while enduring a great deal of emotional and psychological pain at high risk.

    I just think that there are too few of us willing to work under those conditions.

    For me, I get one thing out of it: the sense of heroic achievement with ‘my guys’.

    Entrepreneurship is the closest thing we can do today to conducting warfare.

    You can get your high’s from sports, from the military, from entrepreneurship, and from intellectual achievement. I don’t have the physical ability to win at team sports (asthma), although I was better than fair at wrestling other sweaty men, and I will catch a football that comes close to me even if it kills me. And I think I’m probably going to make my dent in intellectual history.

    But there is no feeling in this world than leading a group of other men on the hunt to conquer some bit of territory – be it war, sport, business, or intellectual.

    Nothing like it at all.

    We still seek to be kings. And entrepreneurship is one of the paths available to us.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-02-18 07:52:00 UTC

  • The Philosophical Difference Between Necessity for Means vs Preference For Ends

      The difference between my set of statements and the various replies above, is one that is common in western philosophy. Because western philosophy was created and developed by its aristocratic classes, and those classes that performed sufficiently to afford the luxury of philosophy, and sought enfranchisement. Namely: necessity. Marx, for all his error, does not make this mistake, nor does perhaps our most influential moral philosopher: Adam Smith against whom Marx, like Freud against Nietzsche, is a reactionary. So, the difference in our approaches to philosophy, is that I start with necessity, and then choose preference from the available options. From that position I take the mutually moral and scientific requirements that: (a) it is only moral to compel necessities not preferences. (b) The only moral preferential political action is one that others voluntarily comply with. (c) the evidence is that most of our attempts to interfere with social orders, other than increasing participation in them, has proven to be a failure when we attempt to achieve ends, rather than provide means. There are many preferences that we could seek to pursue, the externalities of which are counter productive to the prosperity that decreases the possibility of choices. As such, philosophical discourse on luxuries is interesting. However, we should not lose sight of the fact that what we are discussing is the luxuries that our implementation of necessities has made possible. Discussing luxuries is a nice parlor game. It is like young men fantasizing about which supercar they can buy if they save for the next ten years. But I do not work on philosophy for entertainment. I work on it for the purpose of identifying possible solutions to looming problems: what is necessary for continued expansion of our ability to cooperate in a division of knowledge and labor so vast that we can exist with such wealth?

  • The Philosophical Difference Between Necessity for Means vs Preference For Ends

      The difference between my set of statements and the various replies above, is one that is common in western philosophy. Because western philosophy was created and developed by its aristocratic classes, and those classes that performed sufficiently to afford the luxury of philosophy, and sought enfranchisement. Namely: necessity. Marx, for all his error, does not make this mistake, nor does perhaps our most influential moral philosopher: Adam Smith against whom Marx, like Freud against Nietzsche, is a reactionary. So, the difference in our approaches to philosophy, is that I start with necessity, and then choose preference from the available options. From that position I take the mutually moral and scientific requirements that: (a) it is only moral to compel necessities not preferences. (b) The only moral preferential political action is one that others voluntarily comply with. (c) the evidence is that most of our attempts to interfere with social orders, other than increasing participation in them, has proven to be a failure when we attempt to achieve ends, rather than provide means. There are many preferences that we could seek to pursue, the externalities of which are counter productive to the prosperity that decreases the possibility of choices. As such, philosophical discourse on luxuries is interesting. However, we should not lose sight of the fact that what we are discussing is the luxuries that our implementation of necessities has made possible. Discussing luxuries is a nice parlor game. It is like young men fantasizing about which supercar they can buy if they save for the next ten years. But I do not work on philosophy for entertainment. I work on it for the purpose of identifying possible solutions to looming problems: what is necessary for continued expansion of our ability to cooperate in a division of knowledge and labor so vast that we can exist with such wealth?

  • I play on a lot of teams. I fight for my team. Sometimes, and pretty often reall

    I play on a lot of teams. I fight for my team. Sometimes, and pretty often really, one team or another doesn’t deserve all the fight you put in. Either because they aren’t worthy of your efforts. Or because they aren’t putting in the effort themselves. But the point of aristocracy is to practice individual heroism on behalf of the team whether they deserve it or not. Honor is yours to be won. You don’t ask permission for it. You don’t ask thanks for it. You don’t ask appreciation for it. Although you can never tolerate criticism for it. Your team is just an excuse to test yourself, demonstrate your superiority, and claim your honor. To craft yourself through constant testing into the best that you can be. We have but one life to live. Better to live it and die as having achieved the most that you can with it. And leave mediocracy to the weak.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-02-11 09:25:00 UTC