Theme: Cooperation

  • Ancient Group Strategies Writ Large

    – FORESTLANDS: Aristocratic Ethics: What will someone not retaliate against even if we agree to it?(rulers/teleological ethics:outcomes) The ethics of warriors who must hold territory. This is a very high cost strategy because while professional warrior aristocracy is militarily superior, smaller numbers mean threats must be constantly suppressed when small, as soon as identified. – BORDERLANDS: Cosmopolitan(Jewish) Ethics: What will someone consent to Regardless of future resentment and retaliation? (borderland/subculture/deontological ethics:rules) The ethics of diasporic, migrating traders, or herding peoples who can prey upon the locals who hold territory. This is a very low cost (parasitic) ethics that avoids all contribution to the host commons, but requires preserving the ability to exit (migrate). It is the raider strategy by systemic and verbal rather than physical means. – STEPPELANDS: Russian(Orthodox) Ethics: What can I get away with now by negotiation and subterfuge, and hold by force later? (steppe raiders) The ethics of steppe people surrounded by competitors, always hostile and unpredictable. This is a difficult and expensive but only possible strategy, when one is surrounded by hostile opportunity seekers. While seemingly expansive, it’s actually a fearful one – aggression as the only possible means of controlling defensive positions across open territory. – RIVERLANDS: Chinese Ethics: What can I get away with now, but over time make impossible to change later? The ethics of long term ruling bureaucratic class. Sun Tzu strategy, and Confucian hyper familism. This is an exceptionally cost-effective strategy if one possesses a territorial resource (heartland), and can fortify that heartland. Riverlands strategy defends against Steppland and Desertland strategies. – DESERTLANDS: Muslim Ethics: (I am still working on this one because I don’t get that it’s causal, but opportunistic.) What can I justify now in order to make this minor advance now? And thereby accumulate wins by wearing down opponents over long periods. The ethics of opportunism. As far as I can tell islam is just an excuse for justifying opportunism. We can consider this the combination of religion and justifying opportunism – a long term very successful strategy becuase it’s very low cost. – HOSTILELANDS: African Ethics (pre-christian). Africa is akin to the Desertlands because of the sheer number of competitors, the hostility of the disease gradient, the plethora of wildlife, combined with the primitiveness of the available technologies. This is the only possible strategy until one or more core states can evolve, and create sufficient stability in some regions. (this is occurring now). CIVILIZATIONS NOT STATES It is a mistake (always), to consider conflicts within states over local power (capital allocation), as of the same consequence as conflicts between civilizations over borders. Because the former is a kinship conflict over priorities, while the latter is a genetic conflict over group evolutionary strategies. Curt Doolittle The Philosophy of Aristocracy The Propertarian Institute

  • “All improvement in cooperation comes from parallel increases in informational q

    —“All improvement in cooperation comes from parallel increases in informational quality++ and theft/fraud/conspiracy suppression–.”— Something I posted on twitter in response to this question. Man is a rational actor. He acts in his rational self-interest at all times, choosing immoral and moral actions by intuitive cost vs benefit; and we can find no exceptions other than kin selection – and arguably that is also in one’s self-interest. For this reason we do not make the world a better place, but instead, we create institutions that raise the cost of unhelpful behaviors, and reduce the cost of helpful behaviors. Some of the methods we use to suppress immoral behaviors are obvious (law, restitution, punishment), and some are not (the conversion of property from material goods to partial-title) because they make theft more difficult. Others are difficult to admit to: that the differences between wealthier and poorer societies is generally explained by the relative sizes of the upper and lower genetic classes, meaning that no amount of effort will help some countries prosper because there are just too many people at the bottom to incentivize with the inventiveness and productivity at the top, using organization provided by the middle. So while a one-child policy is necessary in Africa, the Muslim world, and south america it cannot be implemented without the equivalent of the Red Army or the Revolutionary Guard. Which India’s weakness – even literacy has been a problem. So we cannot eliminate a tendency as much as eliminate generations with those tendencies, and provide institutions that preserve positive and suppress negative tendencies. Man evolves locally and fast. But we must help man do so just as we did under agrarianism – which was not a kind process to those who could not transition to it. They are largely gone. Just as the various other incarnations of man are gone. And we eliminated them from the planet, while walking on foot, over a comparatively small number of millennia. If we look back over the past century, most of the harm was done by the communist movement, the facist movement to resist it, and the capitalist movement to eradicate it. The communist movement promised utopian results to backward nations that had not transitioned through the enlightenment. Just as Islam is a utopian movement promising utopian results to backward nations, and using the same strategy as communism except distributed on moral and religoius grounds using weaponized reproduction rather than distributed on economic and political grounds using direct rebellion – a slower path to the same ends: changing the order to one suitable to the underclasses and less suitable to the middle and upper classes. The pseudoscientific communist economic movement(Marx) was accompanied by the pseudoscientific social science movement (boaz) and the pseudoscientific psychological movement (freud), and less harmflly the pseudoscientific mathematical moveent( Cantor). And then when by the pseudoscientific cultural movvement (the frankfurt school). So my prescription for improvement for mankind is that we can continue the suppression of new methods of theft and fraud by defending the informational commons the same way we defend the air, land, and water from pollution, our physical commons, infrastructure and monuments from physical damage, and our rule of law, govenrment from damage, and our religions and traditions from damage: By outlawing pseudoscience. We could not outlaw pseudoscience until very recently because we have only begun to understand truth at scale in the 20th century. But now that we know, we can force upon people a warranty of due diligence in speech inserted into the commons the same way we force a warranty of due diligenc upon people who provide goods and services. Those due diligences are (Painfully Briefly): 1 – categorical consistency (identity and non conflation) 2 – internal consistency (logical) 3 – external correspondence (empirical consistency) 4 – existential possibility (operational language) 5 – ethical consistency (consisting of fully informed, productive, warrantied, voluntary transfer, limited to externalities of the same.) 6 – scope consistency (defining limits, full accounting, and parsimony) We have many such other requirements in the law, and we use these requirements with academics when publishing. And there is no reason we do not demand these same warranties of political speech, which is far more consequential than academic speech. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute KIev, Ukraine http://www.drewgl.com/posts/4241

  • “All improvement in cooperation comes from parallel increases in informational q

    —“All improvement in cooperation comes from parallel increases in informational quality++ and theft/fraud/conspiracy suppression–.”— Something I posted on twitter in response to this question. Man is a rational actor. He acts in his rational self-interest at all times, choosing immoral and moral actions by intuitive cost vs benefit; and we can find no exceptions other than kin selection – and arguably that is also in one’s self-interest. For this reason we do not make the world a better place, but instead, we create institutions that raise the cost of unhelpful behaviors, and reduce the cost of helpful behaviors. Some of the methods we use to suppress immoral behaviors are obvious (law, restitution, punishment), and some are not (the conversion of property from material goods to partial-title) because they make theft more difficult. Others are difficult to admit to: that the differences between wealthier and poorer societies is generally explained by the relative sizes of the upper and lower genetic classes, meaning that no amount of effort will help some countries prosper because there are just too many people at the bottom to incentivize with the inventiveness and productivity at the top, using organization provided by the middle. So while a one-child policy is necessary in Africa, the Muslim world, and south america it cannot be implemented without the equivalent of the Red Army or the Revolutionary Guard. Which India’s weakness – even literacy has been a problem. So we cannot eliminate a tendency as much as eliminate generations with those tendencies, and provide institutions that preserve positive and suppress negative tendencies. Man evolves locally and fast. But we must help man do so just as we did under agrarianism – which was not a kind process to those who could not transition to it. They are largely gone. Just as the various other incarnations of man are gone. And we eliminated them from the planet, while walking on foot, over a comparatively small number of millennia. If we look back over the past century, most of the harm was done by the communist movement, the facist movement to resist it, and the capitalist movement to eradicate it. The communist movement promised utopian results to backward nations that had not transitioned through the enlightenment. Just as Islam is a utopian movement promising utopian results to backward nations, and using the same strategy as communism except distributed on moral and religoius grounds using weaponized reproduction rather than distributed on economic and political grounds using direct rebellion – a slower path to the same ends: changing the order to one suitable to the underclasses and less suitable to the middle and upper classes. The pseudoscientific communist economic movement(Marx) was accompanied by the pseudoscientific social science movement (boaz) and the pseudoscientific psychological movement (freud), and less harmflly the pseudoscientific mathematical moveent( Cantor). And then when by the pseudoscientific cultural movvement (the frankfurt school). So my prescription for improvement for mankind is that we can continue the suppression of new methods of theft and fraud by defending the informational commons the same way we defend the air, land, and water from pollution, our physical commons, infrastructure and monuments from physical damage, and our rule of law, govenrment from damage, and our religions and traditions from damage: By outlawing pseudoscience. We could not outlaw pseudoscience until very recently because we have only begun to understand truth at scale in the 20th century. But now that we know, we can force upon people a warranty of due diligence in speech inserted into the commons the same way we force a warranty of due diligenc upon people who provide goods and services. Those due diligences are (Painfully Briefly): 1 – categorical consistency (identity and non conflation) 2 – internal consistency (logical) 3 – external correspondence (empirical consistency) 4 – existential possibility (operational language) 5 – ethical consistency (consisting of fully informed, productive, warrantied, voluntary transfer, limited to externalities of the same.) 6 – scope consistency (defining limits, full accounting, and parsimony) We have many such other requirements in the law, and we use these requirements with academics when publishing. And there is no reason we do not demand these same warranties of political speech, which is far more consequential than academic speech. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute KIev, Ukraine http://www.drewgl.com/posts/4241

  • Can We Find Class Movements In Conservatism, Libertarianism, And Progressivism?

    (Short answer: yes) CURT: —I tend to refer to the various conservatisms as class-movements within the aristocratic egalitarian system of cooperation, with the national socialists and 88’ers and such as the upper proletariat and lower working class(soldiery, labor, and demand), the traditionalists as the upper working class(nco’s, information and advocacy), the legalists as the middle class(officers, organization and choice), and the martial and judicial castes as the upper class (Monarchy, generals, force and limits).- Curt Doolittle IVAN: —“Are there similar class-movements among progressives and libertarians? And, could it be stated that class-movements among all three groups are consequence of division of moral intuitions on one hand, and perception, cognition, labour and advocacy on the other? I guess, among libertarians, there would be: libertines (lower), an-caps(middle) and international traders (high). And among progressives there would be members of syndicate (lower), social justice warriors (middle) and globalist (high).”— Ivan Ilakovac

  • Can We Find Class Movements In Conservatism, Libertarianism, And Progressivism?

    (Short answer: yes) CURT: —I tend to refer to the various conservatisms as class-movements within the aristocratic egalitarian system of cooperation, with the national socialists and 88’ers and such as the upper proletariat and lower working class(soldiery, labor, and demand), the traditionalists as the upper working class(nco’s, information and advocacy), the legalists as the middle class(officers, organization and choice), and the martial and judicial castes as the upper class (Monarchy, generals, force and limits).- Curt Doolittle IVAN: —“Are there similar class-movements among progressives and libertarians? And, could it be stated that class-movements among all three groups are consequence of division of moral intuitions on one hand, and perception, cognition, labour and advocacy on the other? I guess, among libertarians, there would be: libertines (lower), an-caps(middle) and international traders (high). And among progressives there would be members of syndicate (lower), social justice warriors (middle) and globalist (high).”— Ivan Ilakovac

  • What Are Civil Societies?

    Civil Society means that commons are produced by voluntary actions of citizens rather than by the direction by and payment from government. Civil societies require high trust. Only northern europeans developed high trust at scale. Ergo civil societies are rare, and the western governments since the war have destroyed most of it through government intervention in under a century.

  • What Are Civil Societies?

    Civil Society means that commons are produced by voluntary actions of citizens rather than by the direction by and payment from government. Civil societies require high trust. Only northern europeans developed high trust at scale. Ergo civil societies are rare, and the western governments since the war have destroyed most of it through government intervention in under a century.

  • Q&a: What Do You Mean By The Disproportionate Value Of Cooperation?

    No matter how hard 100 men work independently they can never achieve what that can cooperatively. And if they fight instead then the difference in assets between conflict and cooperation produces a measurement of the value of cooperation. Or to fall back on Adam smith. A division of labor between ten is not ten times the productivity of on man but ten thousand times the productivity of one man. Ergo, cooperation is so rewarding that it is not only impossible to survive without it but impossible to compete without it and foolish to exist without it.

  • Q&a: What Do You Mean By The Disproportionate Value Of Cooperation?

    No matter how hard 100 men work independently they can never achieve what that can cooperatively. And if they fight instead then the difference in assets between conflict and cooperation produces a measurement of the value of cooperation. Or to fall back on Adam smith. A division of labor between ten is not ten times the productivity of on man but ten thousand times the productivity of one man. Ergo, cooperation is so rewarding that it is not only impossible to survive without it but impossible to compete without it and foolish to exist without it.

  • Eli Harman on Cooperation

    Cooperation is rational in that it can be vastly preferable to non-cooperation or conflict. But it also requires altruism because most preferable of all is to defect while OTHERS cooperate with you. And foregoing that temptation (on behalf of others, more than yourself) is a price that one must pay in order to cooperate. Cooperation is self-enforcing among kin. And defection is self-defeating among kin. Kinship makes altruism reciprocal because genes which code for kinship altruism help other instances of themselves, and therefore spread and outcompete genes which code for, or don’t code against, defection against kin (which parasitize other instances of themselves.) Cooperation between non-kin is possible but it is more difficult and costly, it requires more technology: reputation, active enforcement, full accounting, quid pro quo, exchange, warranty, adjudication, punitive measures, etc… Cooperation between non-kin is therefore more technical than between kin and would best be left to specialists while most people live most of their lives, and do most of their business, among kin – to minimize costs and maximize benefits.