Curt Doolittle

Theme: Cooperation

  • HIERARCHY OF MORAL REALISM (ETHICAL REALISM) Hierarchy of Moral (ethical) statem

    HIERARCHY OF MORAL REALISM (ETHICAL REALISM)

    Hierarchy of Moral (ethical) statements may be categorized from strongest to weakest as:

    (a) Necessary for human cooperation (criminal prohibitions)

    (b) Beneficial for human cooperation (ethical and moral prohibitions)

    (c) Beneficial for human organization of cooperation (conspiratorial prohibitions.)

    (d) Contractual and assiting in cooperation (consensual)

    (e) Arbitrary and for the purpose of signaling cooperation (signals, and manners)

    (f) False (meaningless or inhibiting cooperation)

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-28 05:46:00 UTC

  • SIMPLE GENERAL RULES : PHYSICAL SCIENCE VERSUS COOPERATIVE SCIENCE The physical

    SIMPLE GENERAL RULES : PHYSICAL SCIENCE VERSUS COOPERATIVE SCIENCE

    The physical universe consists of very simple general rules that produce very complex results.

    The moral universe, likewise consists of very simple rules that produce very complex results.

    By speaking in the language of construction – in operational language – we can teach people those very general rules.

    Just as we have simplified the physical world through the use of the operational language of the physical sciences, we can simplify the political world through the use of the operational language of cooperation.

    The language of American Conservatism is lost in layers of allegorical loading and framing. They know how to USE terms but they do not understand the construction of those terms.

    If we give conservatives knowledge of ethical and moral construction, they will then be able to argue their aristocratic egalitarian ethics in rational language.

    Ethics it turns out, is a very simple subject. With very simple general rules.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-26 16:34:00 UTC

  • IRRATIONAL, AND EVOLUTIONARILY DESTRUCTIVE, ROTHBARDIAN PARASITIC ETHICS. It is

    IRRATIONAL, AND EVOLUTIONARILY DESTRUCTIVE, ROTHBARDIAN PARASITIC ETHICS.

    It is irrational and very likely an evolutionary impossibility for an organism to tolerate extraction or parasitism from it’s own kind except in matters of limited kin selection.

    The evolution of cooperation requires that we deny others the ability to free ride on our efforts, cheat against us, or steal from us, while still insuring each other against periods of incapacity to produce.

    So why would any group tolerate rothbardian ethics EXCEPT as a means of predation and parasitism on neighbors?

    They wouldn’t.

    Rothbardian ethics are irrational. Aggression either must include prohibition on cheating, non-predatory exchange, and all other forms of extractive parasitism, or else aggression is an insufficient test of rational property rights. The only tolerable means of cooperation is PRODUCTIVE, FULLY INFORMED, WARRANTIED, VOLUNTARY EXCHANGE.

    Everything else is just an excuse for suppressing the strong’s violence while maintaining the cunning’s ability to lie cheat and steal.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-26 12:23:00 UTC

  • THE ETHICAL SPECTRUM: CRIMINAL, ETHICAL, MORAL, CONSPIRATORIAL, CONQUEST The spe

    THE ETHICAL SPECTRUM: CRIMINAL, ETHICAL, MORAL, CONSPIRATORIAL, CONQUEST

    The spectrum describes means by which we act parasitically rather than productively. In a perfect world we only act productively with all parasitism eliminated. (No perfect world is possible I suppose, but it helps illustrate the point.)

    Human history from from our consanguineous communal (Bonobo-like) pre-history to our current state as individualist, single-parent, autonomous producers insured through a corporation we call the state, required, first and foremost, the continuous expansion of prohibition on free riding (parasitism) in all its forms, thereby pressing each individual human into the market.

    At some point our productivity increased sufficiently that a few people could specialize in thinking.

    But today, less than half of the population is actually engaged in productive labor and it’s heading toward a third. So soon, 2/3 of people extant live independent of productive labor.

    Given that malthusian limits controlled our population for most of history, it’s pretty impressive that so many people can be sustained by the combination of so few, plus fossil fuels of course.

    Or stated otherwise, 2/3 of the people life a life of luxury.

    I am not sure, but I cannot find anyone else who has described this system in detail. Very Weberian.

    SPECIFIC TERMS:

    By Conquest I mean organized (war) and unorganized conquest (immigration, religious invasion, political invasion).

    By Conspiratorial I mean organized conspiracies of extraction such as protection rackets including the government.

    By moral I mean those extractions (parasitic and non productive) actions we take on third parties.

    By ethical I mean those extractions (parasitic and non productive) we take directly on others who are involved with us by non physical action such as lying, cheating, obscuring, fraud, etc.

    By criminal I mean those extractions that we take against persons and their property by physical action (violence and theft).

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-26 08:08:00 UTC

  • TRUST Definition: “Your confidence that another will act with a necessary degree

    TRUST

    Definition: “Your confidence that another will act with a necessary degree of reciprocity (mutually beneficial) for the matter at hand, despite the opportunity to act out of an equal degree of self interest.”

    This definition addresses the spectrum of low trust exchanges to consanguineous interactions to high trust mutual insurance. Most definitions assume an equality of relations that never actually exists and as such those other definitions always seem wanting.

    It also explains when we are actually trusting someone, versus asking for a donation. 🙂 Trust is a matter of reciprocity given the relationship you have to someone else.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-26 06:06:00 UTC

  • ARISTOCRACY : TO LOVE THE FIGHT FOR THE COMMON GOOD Heroism. To fight on behalf

    ARISTOCRACY : TO LOVE THE FIGHT FOR THE COMMON GOOD

    Heroism. To fight on behalf of your people. To revel in it. To actively LOOK for chances to fight on behalf of your people. To swagger. To tempt. To incite.

    And to take no glory for yourself.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-23 16:15:00 UTC

  • THE ROTHBARDIAN CART BEFORE THE HORSE Rothbard got it backwards. You don’t start

    THE ROTHBARDIAN CART BEFORE THE HORSE

    Rothbard got it backwards. You don’t start with property rights as an assumption. You start in a state of nature with pervasive free riding in any population.

    Crusoe’s island is an obscurant argument. We do not start the development of ethics on an island where the ‘government’ is provided by the sea.

    Instead, we start in a tribe of consanguineous relations all of whom engage in free riding – and we must use violence, shame or remuneration to stop them from free riding so that we can accumulate capital.

    Property is what’s left as you increasingly suppress various forms of involuntary extraction. Property is not the cause. It is the consequence.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-23 15:57:00 UTC

  • “One such classification system is Fiske’s Relational Model that has the followi

    “One such classification system is Fiske’s Relational Model that has the following classes:

    1. Communal Sharing,

    2. Authority Ranking,

    3. Equality Matching,

    4. Market Pricing / Rational Legal.

    The last of these is the framework usually used by libertarians.”

    The reason we use it, is because, in a complex division of labor, greater than the family, extended family, or village, it is the only one in which we can be relatively certain that we are not free riding or rent seeking.

    There is simply no other combination of technologies that are available to us. NONE. Equality is impossible except among family members.

    Even if it were technically possible, I am not even sure it is desirable.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-18 11:04:00 UTC

  • The ongoing struggle to extend in-group trust to out-group members. Or, the ongo

    The ongoing struggle to extend in-group trust to out-group members.

    Or, the ongoing struggle to extend the cooperation demonstrated between consanguineous relations, to beyond those relations, such that it is possible for us to evolve a division of knowledge and labor, in which there is as little risk of misappropriation of our efforts in the market, as there is within the consanguineous family. While inside the family free riding is a form of mutual insurance, manageable by threat of deprivation and ostracization, the fact remains that one’s genetic kin prosper even at the cost of unequal distribution of gains and losses. But outside the kin, the same free riding, and unequal distribution of gains and losses, is neither of benefit to kin, nor controllable by ostracization and deprivation. There is always another group to prey upon if one is mobile enough. And it takes but a minority of predators engaging in immoral activity to render all external trust intolerable, and thereby undermine the people’s economy, polity, and competitive survival.

    Simple property

    If it was hard to create the institution of simple-private-property such that we could prosecute and suppress the crimes of violence and theft.

    Low trust private property

    If it was hard to create the institution of low-trust private property such that we could prosecute and suppress the crimes of fraud and blackmail.

    High trust warrantied private property

    It was hard to create the institution of high-trust, warrantied, private property such that we could prosecute and suppress the crimes of fraud by omission, negligence, and externalization.

    High Trust Political Institutions

    It was hard to create the formal institutions of high political trust american classical liberalism in an attempt to suppress corruption in government, all forms of free riding.

    “Perfect-Trust” Informal and Formal Institutions

    So, the why would it not be even more difficult to create formal and informal institutions such that we could prosecute and suppress the crimes of deception by obscurantism, mysticism and loading?

    Because cooperation across reproductive strategies is impossible without trust that operates independently of our differences in property rights.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-16 12:02:00 UTC

  • Why does the UK demonstrate lower trust than the USA, but people in the UK *SAY

    Why does the UK demonstrate lower trust than the USA, but people in the UK *SAY IN SURVEYS* that they have higher trust.

    I think there are better tests of trust in every country: banking policy and regulation.

    The more. The less.

    But I can’t find any papers on Banking policy trust levels in SSRN.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-15 07:36:00 UTC