CANADA VS UKRAINE?
I am on the train, looking out the window. It looks just like Canada. A big place with few people. The same climate. The people are white and christian. They are calm and peaceful like Canadians. They like their beer and food like Canadians.
–“Ukraine is Canada, with Russia instead of America as a neighbor.”–
That tells you everything you need to know about the difference between east and west.
Source date (UTC): 2014-11-13 08:36:00 UTC
Kier,
I love you for this post. Really.
[T]he greeks lost writing for 600 years after the sea peoples.
Europe fell into ignorance after the fall of rome, and the despotic, forced introduction of submissive Christianity.
The world fell into verbal-mysticism, pseudo-science, and pseudo-rationalism starting with Marx, justified by the great war, and continuing until about 1995 – when again, science attempted to rescue us from pseudo-science, verbal-mysticism, and pseudo-rationalism.
The list of civilizations – social orders of institutions, property rights, languages, rituals, traditions, myths, and norms – that have disappeared is somewhere around fifty depending upon whom you refer to – and most all of them are gone and without western efforts at uncovering them – forgotten.
I think though, that whig history is still the best theory of history, because it is the most scientific explanation of history: we evolve, we adapt, or we perish – if we do not perish then we are virtuous.
Now, my response to your argument though, is quite different: why is it that civilizations fail to persist? What do they do wrong? What have we done wrong since the enlightenment that has allowed us material wealth, while committing suicide – while culturally regressing from high arts to mere vulgarity and consumption? Why are we vulnerable to whatever it is we are vulnerable?
Why did the greeks, the Romans, the Habsburgs, the Germans, and now the Anglos fall? Why was Europa easy to conquer with mysticism under rome? Why are we so comfortable with science – when no other culture appears to be? Why were we so easy to fall victim to cosmopolitan pseudo-sicence, and pseudo-philosophy, german psuedo-rationalitiy, and the anglo fallacy that all men wish to join the aristocracy?
The whig theory of history is true under the conditions that we followed throughout our history. The question is, and I think you’re posing it well, why then, at certain periods in our history, do we regress rather than continue the whig theory of history?
The answer is I think fairly simple.
(BTW: In deference to John Kersey: my position is that there is nothing good in the bible whatsoever, that is not better in the western canon than in the levantine tradition. The church formed a weak federal state selling a mystical snake oil, but it was the weak federal state and the church’s incentives as a weak federal state as opposition to the monarchy that allowed it to create value. The church could burn every reference to the levant and all its consequences, draw entirely from western people as statesmen, scholars, care-givers, generals, artists, and scientists, and beginning with natural law achieve the same ends without appealing to tyrannical authority. History well written, would be one of natural law, and misguided well intentioned fools in the church. Our god is constructed of demonstrated character of men who bring about whig history through virtuous acts. We need no other. And there is no better.)
Kier,
I love you for this post. Really.
[T]he greeks lost writing for 600 years after the sea peoples.
Europe fell into ignorance after the fall of rome, and the despotic, forced introduction of submissive Christianity.
The world fell into verbal-mysticism, pseudo-science, and pseudo-rationalism starting with Marx, justified by the great war, and continuing until about 1995 – when again, science attempted to rescue us from pseudo-science, verbal-mysticism, and pseudo-rationalism.
The list of civilizations – social orders of institutions, property rights, languages, rituals, traditions, myths, and norms – that have disappeared is somewhere around fifty depending upon whom you refer to – and most all of them are gone and without western efforts at uncovering them – forgotten.
I think though, that whig history is still the best theory of history, because it is the most scientific explanation of history: we evolve, we adapt, or we perish – if we do not perish then we are virtuous.
Now, my response to your argument though, is quite different: why is it that civilizations fail to persist? What do they do wrong? What have we done wrong since the enlightenment that has allowed us material wealth, while committing suicide – while culturally regressing from high arts to mere vulgarity and consumption? Why are we vulnerable to whatever it is we are vulnerable?
Why did the greeks, the Romans, the Habsburgs, the Germans, and now the Anglos fall? Why was Europa easy to conquer with mysticism under rome? Why are we so comfortable with science – when no other culture appears to be? Why were we so easy to fall victim to cosmopolitan pseudo-sicence, and pseudo-philosophy, german psuedo-rationalitiy, and the anglo fallacy that all men wish to join the aristocracy?
The whig theory of history is true under the conditions that we followed throughout our history. The question is, and I think you’re posing it well, why then, at certain periods in our history, do we regress rather than continue the whig theory of history?
The answer is I think fairly simple.
(BTW: In deference to John Kersey: my position is that there is nothing good in the bible whatsoever, that is not better in the western canon than in the levantine tradition. The church formed a weak federal state selling a mystical snake oil, but it was the weak federal state and the church’s incentives as a weak federal state as opposition to the monarchy that allowed it to create value. The church could burn every reference to the levant and all its consequences, draw entirely from western people as statesmen, scholars, care-givers, generals, artists, and scientists, and beginning with natural law achieve the same ends without appealing to tyrannical authority. History well written, would be one of natural law, and misguided well intentioned fools in the church. Our god is constructed of demonstrated character of men who bring about whig history through virtuous acts. We need no other. And there is no better.)
POPPER, HAYEK, HOPPE, BROUWER, BRIDGMAN, POINCARÉ – The` Least Wrong Philosophers. [D]ragging Germans and Cosmopolitans out of the well of authoritarianism. For my purposes, Popper and Hayek are just the best thinkers to build upon, because they’re the least wrong. Hoppe isn’t important so much for what he has said but how he has taught us to say anything we wish to say at all. And whether he likes it or not (I don’t much care are this point) my work is a continuation of his – dragging it out of the absurd primitivism of cosmopolitan and german rationalism, kicking and screaming all the way. I think that, as of yesterday, I was able to drag Popper out of the cosmopolitan tradition as well. Laundering him of his cultural habits. THE FORMULA If you haven’t solved morality you need authority. But if you have solved morality you don’t need authority. I solved morality and therefore I don’t need authority: there is no difference in morality and property other than the scope of morality that the community is willing and able to enforce. Conversely, the less morality that people are wiling and able to enforce, the more people will demand for an authoritarian government to either impose an arbitrary moral standard, or impose sufficient order that retaliation for immoral and unethical actions is prohibited. As such the primary determinant of whether a polity can obtain liberty under rule of law is determined by the difference between the rate of adaptation of the legal code and the rate of change in the accumulated forms of property demonstrated by the populace for use in their reproduction and therefore production. The reason the west was able to evolve then, faster than all other civilizations, both times that it managed to escape eastern mysticism, is because the rule of law, judges and the jury can produce adaptation faster than other cultural methods of adaptation. (pretty cool really) Curt Doolittle The Philosophy of Aristocracy The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine. de.aristocratia at gmail.com
POPPER, HAYEK, HOPPE, BROUWER, BRIDGMAN, POINCARÉ – The` Least Wrong Philosophers. [D]ragging Germans and Cosmopolitans out of the well of authoritarianism. For my purposes, Popper and Hayek are just the best thinkers to build upon, because they’re the least wrong. Hoppe isn’t important so much for what he has said but how he has taught us to say anything we wish to say at all. And whether he likes it or not (I don’t much care are this point) my work is a continuation of his – dragging it out of the absurd primitivism of cosmopolitan and german rationalism, kicking and screaming all the way. I think that, as of yesterday, I was able to drag Popper out of the cosmopolitan tradition as well. Laundering him of his cultural habits. THE FORMULA If you haven’t solved morality you need authority. But if you have solved morality you don’t need authority. I solved morality and therefore I don’t need authority: there is no difference in morality and property other than the scope of morality that the community is willing and able to enforce. Conversely, the less morality that people are wiling and able to enforce, the more people will demand for an authoritarian government to either impose an arbitrary moral standard, or impose sufficient order that retaliation for immoral and unethical actions is prohibited. As such the primary determinant of whether a polity can obtain liberty under rule of law is determined by the difference between the rate of adaptation of the legal code and the rate of change in the accumulated forms of property demonstrated by the populace for use in their reproduction and therefore production. The reason the west was able to evolve then, faster than all other civilizations, both times that it managed to escape eastern mysticism, is because the rule of law, judges and the jury can produce adaptation faster than other cultural methods of adaptation. (pretty cool really) Curt Doolittle The Philosophy of Aristocracy The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine. de.aristocratia at gmail.com
http://www.propertarianism.com/?p=6032WE COMPETE WITH TRUTH, FAMILY STRUCTURE, RATES OF REPRODUCTION, AND PROPERTY RIGHTS
(reposted from march, 2013)
The lesson I am learning from this is that living in a prosperous society is not necessarily an evolutionary advantage – it appears to be a disadvantage.
Unless you wall out the rest of the world, that is.
Swiss do it mostly right.
Source date (UTC): 2014-11-11 06:44:00 UTC
LEGITIMACY PROBLEM I MUST DEAL WITH
a) the fact that I’m capturing western civilization’s dependence upon objective truth telling at high personal cost – heroism: sacrificial contribution to the commons in exchange for status and remembrance.
b) the fact that I’m doing this to demonstrate the basis for the scope of rights under rule of law necessary for liberty – despite that liberty is a minority desire.
c) that in doing so I have created a general rule for the analysis of all political systems, and construction of all political systems, under that universal rule of law.
d) that at the same time I am advocating for my ‘tribe’ – kin selection – or at least that all tribal aristocracies practice kin selection while cooperating, collaborating, working, and allying, with other aristocrats also engaging in kin selection.
And therefore that the work is suspect.
Well, of course al political theory is suspect. But that places no limits on Propertarianism, only on aristocratic egalitarianism that is constructed via Propertarianism. And even then, only whether you agree with kin selection (eugenic man) or whether you seek to defeat it (dysgenic man).
I will have to struggle with this problem a bit I think. Once I have the ability to conduct anti-liar arguments I think I will have done it. There is a general rule hidden in that work that I haven’t found, but I intuit that it’s there.
Source date (UTC): 2014-11-11 05:07:00 UTC
CULTURAL OBSERVATIONS
One thing I love about my life here is having ‘servants’. Full time cook, housekeeper etc. I have no car, and it costs less than a cheap car payment. But they are never really comfortable around you. I just treat them like family. But they’re always nervous. Very strange culture here. In the states, it’s more like it was in our medieval history: you know, you send your kids to work for the cousins across town who need help with the kids or with the farm or something. And you’re sort of family who gets paid a bit plus room and board (mostly just you get fed). Not the same here. Serfdom.
Source date (UTC): 2014-11-10 07:35:00 UTC
[I]t is irrelevant what you think of other cultures, and the people in them – unless they ignore you, it is only relevant what they think of you. Thinking is no counter to competition. It is merely self-congratulatory discounting to confuse conviction with convenience, and tolerance with letting the boat sink because bailing is someone else’s job.
Tolerance and submission are no more intrinsic goods than violence and domination. The question is only whether one is suppressing parasitism and forcing each other into the market, or one is permitting parasitism and allowing others to escape the transformationary struggle to enter the market.
So before you congratulate yourself on your tolerance and morality you must determine if you are expanding parasitism or suppressing it.
Curt Doolittle ( All – This is the propertarian analysis of the problem – the only answer is what we will obtain in exchange. The only viable material anotehr has to exchange is his adoption of norms and higher trust so that he does not increase transaction costs.)
FOR AMERICANS, ENTREPRENEURSHIP IS LIKE BREATHING.
It is absolutely impossible to explain to the rest of the world (particularly Ukrainians) how much better the average american is at business – as a universal general rule – than the minority of those people almost everywhere else.
Sure, context matters, but there is playing context and there is market function. And the more I travel, the more I understand that it’s not just our risk tolerance alone that makes us different – it’s immersion in a culture of entrepreneurship, wherein social activity itself is always conducted under the premise of selling.
We are ignorant and untalented on many levels. But the art of voluntary organization of production in the service of consumers is like breathing – it’s just what we do. We don’t really do anything else – we don’t know how.
Source date (UTC): 2014-11-08 12:54:00 UTC