Curt Doolittle

Theme: Cooperation

  • EPISTEMOLOGY AND HUMAN REASON –“the question for me is what role does epistemol

    EPISTEMOLOGY AND HUMAN REASON

    –“the question for me is what role does epistemology play in the desire for cooperation over reason?”—-

    To frame this question a bit better:

    Epistemology refers to that discipline in which we attempt to understand the means by which we eliminate ignorance, error, bias and deceit, and therefore produce what we call knowledge: that which improves our agency (ability to act).

    There is however only one method of obtaining knowledge:

    0) investigation (observation)

    1) experience (perception)

    2) free association (identity)

    3) wayfinding (hypothesis) (or possibility)

    4) criticism (theory)

    5) survival in the market for its use (law)

    6) integration (adoption into ‘metaphysical’ assumptions)

    It doesn’t matter whether we are talking about a scientific theory, an engineering problem, a method of production, taking a product to market, the affect of policy on capital at different points in time, or the exploration of various mathematical relations at increasingly complex causal densities.

    Most of our work has been in epistemology has been in the identification of methods of criticism (measurement) both instrumental(tools) and mental (logical). Most of my work has been in formalizing this process by completing the program that the philosophers of science in the 20th century failed to.

    Humans don’t practice epistemology. Humans simply do the only thing possible: stumble upon an idea through free association, and then incrementally remove their ignorance until it fails, or … is at least sufficient to obtain what it is that they seek.

    Now to answer this question … –“the question for me is what role does epistemology play in the desire for cooperation over reason?”—-

    I am not sure what you are asking. My understanding is that people act rationally with the information available given their agency (abilities), the demand, risk and reward before them. GIven that it is very hard to circumvent punishment by other humans for free riding, parasitism, predation, and extermination – and given the extraordinary returns on cooperation at least over time, what we see is that unless there is a windfall available (you gain enough that no future cooperation can do better than the act of immorality) people tend to favor cooperation in almost all circumstances. This does not apply for people who have been subject to trauma , the victims of genetic defect, developmental disorders, or brain damage. And this looks like ‘the evil 3%’ of the ‘white’ population. But as a general rule, excepting outliers, then yes.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-04-09 17:59:00 UTC

  • THINKING OF SOVEREIGNTY AT THE GROUP EVOLUTIONARY SCALE NOT THE INDIVIDUAL SCALE

    THINKING OF SOVEREIGNTY AT THE GROUP EVOLUTIONARY SCALE NOT THE INDIVIDUAL SCALE: LIBERTY OR FREEDOM

    —“I think that [Doolittle] wants to incentivize cooperation within the group so that the group will succeed in its environment and in competition with other groups. In these situations, it does not matter whether individuals cooperate in order to benefit themselves or in order to benefit the group, and their justifications do not matter; the cooperation which allows the group to succeed matters (to us). I feel like I have missed a few details, so maybe someone will help fill them in.”– Brandon Vaughn

    ANSWER:

    Correct.

    The western group competitive (evolutionary) strategy is non-parasitism, truth, high trust, to produce normative commons, the returns upon which – whether genetic, normative, institutional or physical capital – are greater than groups that cannot produce such commons can compete with.

    Commons are the west’s competitive advantage. And we alone other than the japanese seem able to produce them at any substantial scale.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-04-09 13:03:00 UTC

  • The proceeds from cooperation are so much more rewarding than non cooperation, t

    The proceeds from cooperation are so much more rewarding than non cooperation, that in all but the rarest of circumstances, an individual cannot survive without cooperation. Yet, just as one is limited by the shortest time, the least effort, his current knowledge, the surest returns and the lowest risk – one is also limited in his value in cooperation to others, and their value to others, at the various scales of production that each input and output of the organization of people who currently survive prevail.

    (from elsewhere)

    Source date (UTC): 2017-04-09 11:14:00 UTC

  • Series: 1) Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have done unto you. 2) Silve

    Series:

    1) Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have done unto you.

    2) Silver Rule: Do not unto others are you would not have done unto you.

    3) Bronze Rule: Do unto others as they have done unto you.

    (there is an iron rule out there somewhere on the edge of intuition that I dont’ have time to mine at the moment.)

    Source date (UTC): 2017-04-08 09:42:00 UTC

  • by Eli Harman, James Augustus, and Joel Davis (worth repeating) Eli Harman: I wo

    by Eli Harman, James Augustus, and Joel Davis

    (worth repeating)

    Eli Harman:

    I wouldn’t characterize “radical traditionalism” as “reproductive egalitarianism.” It results in a different distribution of reproductive opportunities than unrestrained female hypergamy, but not an equal one, and only a MORE equal one in some, but not all senses.

    For example, it does result in a downward redistribution of reproductive opportunity to lower status men. But by enforcing assortative mating, rather than harem building, it also gives higher status men access to more desirable women, because of reduced competition for mates, at the expense of having access to fewer women. And assortative mating under monogamy gives more desirable women access to greater paternal investment in their offspring, by allowing them exclusive access to the resources of high status males. Meanwhile, low desirability women have their access to the genes and resources of high status men diminished.

    At least 3 out of 4 quadrants on that chart end up plausibly better off, on net. Only low desirability women (civilization’s most bitter enemies) end up unambiguousely worse off. And that’s why it proved to be such a durable and productive tradeoff for so long.

    James Augustus:

    I don’t disagree with you.

    I considered some form of this argument (though a more legal one) when writing my comment but in the interest of brevity, I decided to exclude it at the expense of having someone point out the positive externalities produced by forcing the lower-middle classes into contractual reproduction (marriage).

    But with that being said, I don’t doubt that many ‘traditionalist’ are moral, high status males stating natural law pre-scientifically (morally), but that doesn’t necessarily mean that most of the men in the traditionalist camp aren’t low status males seeking discounts on reproductive access.

    Eli Harman

    Well, even if so, they are proposing an exchange or a compromise that is mutually beneficial to everyone but feminists and a vanishingly small percentage of the most reproductively desirable males who are also the least cooperative and most present oriented (who would purchase greater short term reproductive success for themselves at the expense of leaving their more numerous offspring a much worse society to live in, and a much smaller inheritance.)

    The alternative to overriding those groups’ preferences seems to be rampant dysgenic parasitism that makes everyone else worse off.

    James Augustus

    Bingo.

    I haven’t written a formal argument yet, but I suspect that one of the ‘negative consequences’ of the upper-class’s low fertility rate is that there is less ‘downward flow’ of good genes (as males, are downwardly mobile, especially under Aristocracy due to property being distributed to a single male heir as a means of preserving holdings across generations).

    When the upper is reproducing at sufficient numbers the middle has an increased probability of acquiring higher quality genes. This incrementally raises the lower bound.

    Following C Murray’s research, I think it is clear that the upper-middle classes still follow a life-long, monogamous reproductive strategy, the middle is incrementally unable to pay the cost of maintaining that strategy, and the lower are incrementally free to do what they’ve always done (externalize the cost of their behavior/reproduction).

    Joel Davis:

    A tentative argument I have made in favour of monogamy as a group competitive advantage, was focused more on sexual selection itself.

    Monogamy forces individuals to select the best possible mates, ergo it forces individuals to have the highest probability of generating the highest quality offspring.

    At the very top end of genetic distribution, we have geniuses. And, as a group, our strategy has major reliance upon these geniuses to continuously adapt and improve it.

    Our capacity to generate geniuses we can surely state as our capacity to generate maximum genetic quality.

    Enforcing quality over quantity in reproduction (monogamy) therefore increases the probability of genius production.

    James Augustus:

    At the upper-end of the spectrum monogamy is a strategy to defend, maintain and increase holdings (property-en-toto) across generations. It also serves to reduce conflict and it produces decidability in the transfer of that inventory (to the first born son).

    Where we see property (bourgeoisie & Aristocracy), we see monogamy, and where we see monogamy, we see that property maintained across a longer time horizon.

    Otherwise, for the lower-middle to lower, monogamy isn’t “natural” because in the absence of property there isn’t sufficient incentive to pay the cost of long-term pair bonding (marriage).

    Which isn’t to say that we cannot force them into marriage (which essentially would be the case if we reduce their ability to produce negative externalities). We can (and have) accomplish(ed) this via law (masculine) and church (feminine).

    ————

    If we look at the historical record of man’s accomplishments, we observe an inverse correlation between ‘genius’ and reproductive fitness. Or our very best don’t busy themselves with the task of producing offspring.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-04-04 11:49:00 UTC

  • people universally require protection of natural law in order to participate in

    people universally require protection of natural law in order to participate in the market for association, cooperation, reproduction.

    But they have not demonstrated the Agency necessary for responsibility for capital. Others have responsibility for capital but not the capital of others. Others have responsiblity for the capital of others, but not the capital of territorires or tribes.

    How can we determine one’s ability without demonstration of it? we can’t. that’s what the academy does with education, muslims do with religion, and the chinese did with bureaucracy. the students master soething, but is it evidence of mastery in reality? no.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-04-03 17:25:00 UTC

  • UNIVERSAL TRANSLATOR FOR ARISTOCRATIC NEGOTIATIONS “I cooperate with you on beha

    UNIVERSAL TRANSLATOR FOR ARISTOCRATIC NEGOTIATIONS

    “I cooperate with you on behalf of myself, my family and my kin for profit. I cooperate reciprocally to preserve the opportunity for profit, and lower the total cost of making profits through cooperation. But I cooperate with you, your family, and your kin, if and only if it is more rewarding than not cooperating with you, your family and your kin. And my investment in our cooperation, and my contribution to the common good, is in not preying upon you, killing you and your sons, taking your territory, your property, your things, raping and enslaving your wives and daughters, and that of all of your kin. So let us not imagine ourselves as equals. We merely carry on the pretense of equality in order to obtain cooperation at the lowest cost. And let us not suggest that we possess any debt to one another. We do not. For as long as I have the ability to take from you against your will, it is simply a calculation of profit and loss. And if you should attempt to suggest there is a false debt, then you are no longer cooperating but engaging in fraud, and I will, and mine will, prefer not to cooperate, but to prey upon you. If for no other reason than to ensure by example, that no others attempt to create such a fraud, and increase my costs and therefore reduce my returns on cooperation.”

    Source date (UTC): 2017-04-03 15:38:00 UTC

  • “One of the better things you’ve written is that our Western culture sanctions t

    —“One of the better things you’ve written is that our Western culture sanctions the bravest and boldest of us to use our egotism to serve the group. We have developed what Kant called “sociable anti-socialibility’. We like the bad boy who is redeemed by fighting for a good cause”—Josh Jeppson

    .

    Source date (UTC): 2017-04-02 18:07:00 UTC

  • EXPLAINING PROPERTARIANISM TO MOM My mom. 80th birthday yesterday. Says to me ov

    EXPLAINING PROPERTARIANISM TO MOM

    My mom. 80th birthday yesterday. Says to me over coffee, that her friends can’t understand my work. And that she can’t understand my work. So I go into this little speech to try to make it accessible to those with life experience and last-century educations.

    She says that philosophy classes ruined religion for her. I said, that’s because philosophy, like religion, like science, claims that they’re methodologically ‘right’ – and that they have a monopoly on understanding. Rather than that they are methods of answering questions with different amounts of information, and different degrees of skill, and different degrees of ability.

    She asks me about precision.

    So I explain first how most of us want utility, and we need to find others to test our ideas, and to get cooperation, and to organize by rallying.

    Then how we might use science when we have a lot of information, history when we have a little less, philosophy when we have less information and can only rely on non-contradiction and internal consistency, and religion when we have exhausted our information and can only rely upon the wisdom of the past – ideas that have survived the test of centuries. That’s because with religion we need not require possibility, existence, consistency, or evidence, just wisdom. With philosophy we need not require possibility or existence or evidence, just consistency. With history we need not require causality, just evidence of existential possibility. And with science we require causality.

    So we have developed languages that suit the amount of information that we have. And what we must watch for, and be cautious of, is the misuse of method given the information available – because that is how people lie.

    Now, because people lie, we also have the opposite of those things that help us find ideas, get cooperation, and organize by rallying. Those things are mathematics, science, the limits of human beings, and the law of cooperation.

    Now, everyone wants to think about possibilities, and rally people to their cause, and to obtain information in support of, and confirmation of their cause as ‘not immoral’.

    But very few people want to think about how to test those things against ignorance, error, bias, and lies.

    So to tie this back to what I do, I work in the negative: the law. How to measure (math), tell the truth( science), and to test cooperation (natural law).

    In other words, I write about the laws of measurement, truth, and cooperation, as a defense against ignorance, error, bias, and lies.

    And this is a specialized field. A technical field. And as people with experience in teaching, they know what STEM disciplines are mathematics, science(physics, chemistry, biology, sentience), technology/engineering, economics/finance/accounting/law. These are means of transformation, measurement, and decidability independent of our perceptions. They measure what we cannot feel and experience.

    And there are non-stem disciplines: arts, religion, philosophy, politics, history, literature, education, psychology, sociology, social work, business, and its applications. These are not methods of measurement but of meaning – what we can feel and experience.

    Now I wouldn’t expect ‘friends’ to understand advanced math, science, tech, engineering, econ, finance, or law terminology. I don’t know why people would expect to understand what I write about.

    They won’t.

    But what is fascinating about humans is our continued faith that we have some ability to grasp the moral, right and true, and immoral, wrong and false, at SOME SCALE BEYOND THEIR PERCEPTION any more than we can make any other judgements without tools at any scale beyond that of our senses.

    And that is what STEM (and law) disciplines do: understand, measure, and decide that which is beyond our perceptions and ability to judge by personal experience.

    (Or, to tease my mother – it’s a man thing. Don’t worry about it. lol.)

    -Curt

    Source date (UTC): 2017-04-02 14:03:00 UTC

  • It’s not difficult. a) if they don’t impose costs on you, yours, or your commons

    It’s not difficult. a) if they don’t impose costs on you, yours, or your commons do the same. b) if they conduct productive, fully informed, warrantied, voluntary exchanges with you, yours, and your commons, do the same. c) if they are willing to conduct productive fully informed, warrantied voluntary exchanges with you but can’t, then impose rule of law for them as an investment, so that they can. d) if they impose ANY unwanted costs on you, yours, or your commons, then kill, rape, pillage, enslave and destroy them. No mercy.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-03-31 14:45:00 UTC