Curt Doolittle

Theme: Cooperation

  • SIZE OF NATIONS I argue in favor of small countries (not states) for simple reas

    http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/size-nations#.ULl0k5CpEjE.facebookTHE SIZE OF NATIONS

    I argue in favor of small countries (not states) for simple reasons:

    1) the high trust normative economy can develop with lowest transaction costs.

    2) Government’s emphasis is on selection of priorities using scarce resources, not profiting and expanding from conflict resolution between opposing minorities.

    3) Societies are more egalitarian when norms are homogenous.

    4) It is extremely difficult for small states to conduct war because they have limited access to credit via fiat money.

    5) They are better, happier, places to live. (the USA is still living off it’s stored social capital that peaked with the baby boom. Although that’s just about depleted.)

    Source date (UTC): 2012-11-30 22:16:00 UTC

  • QUESTION: ON IMPULSIVITY (TIME PREFERENCE) AND POPULATIONS What is the percentag

    QUESTION: ON IMPULSIVITY (TIME PREFERENCE) AND POPULATIONS

    What is the percentage of individuals with high time preference (high impulsivity) that will block the creation of norms, and therefore institutions, consisting of low time preference (low impulsivity)?

    I have been trying to get my arms around this problem for the past few years, and my travels lately, into a low trust, but low impulsivity society have helped me understand it a bit more clearly.

    Unless groups with low time preference have the right of exclusion (ostracization) then there is no defense against even ten percent of the population having a high time preference.

    I know that at something under ten percent, populations stop integrating and start seeking identity and political power. But at what point do populations of high time preference individuals, regardless of identity or power seeking (no elites to represent their interest) prevent the formation of low time preference norms and therefore low time preference institutions?

    Source date (UTC): 2012-11-15 13:06:00 UTC

  • ETHICS : PRAXEOLOGY AND THE EQUILIBRIA OF VOLUNTARY TRANSFER COMPENSATE FOR LACK

    ETHICS : PRAXEOLOGY AND THE EQUILIBRIA OF VOLUNTARY TRANSFER COMPENSATE FOR LACK OF CARDINALITY IN SUBJECTIVITY

    The structural problem with the discipline of ethics, and perhaps philosophy in general, which is understandable given its period of origin, is not so much it’s lack of measurement – which given the ordinal nature of preferences is irrelevant – but it’s lack of equilibrial concepts with which to compensate for lack of measurement – even if it does account for externalities, albiet differently in european, asian and magian frameworks. This absence manifests itself in ideal types, general rules, and attempts at statements of perfection. When in fact, the ‘golden mean’, which Aristotle gave us, teaches us to consider ideas on a spectrum. Ideas with optimums can be compared with each other. Furthermore, voluntary and involuntary transfers – which are the source of all human cooperative behavior – can be used to inform us about whether our optimums will be demonstrably true, or ideological falsehoods.

    Ethics without praxeology is idealism, not analysis. Ethics without equilibrial forces of property, voluntarily transferred, is simply deception.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-11-04 06:55:00 UTC

  • WORTH AND TRUST? The title is a charmer and a bit misleading. But the net is, th

    http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/09/net_worth_makes.html#.UFvkMMUvnW0.facebookNET WORTH AND TRUST?

    The title is a charmer and a bit misleading. But the net is, that there are a lot fewer wealthy people walking around today.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-09-20 23:52:00 UTC

  • SACRED – “SACREDNESS” AS A COMMONS

    SACRED – “SACREDNESS” It is very hard to build the concept of ‘sacred’ into the values of a population. External threat, common strife, shared ambition, education, and indoctrination all can achieve it. Sacred concepts are a form of The Commons. They are a community property. And a community property, whether real land, built capital, formal institution, or cherished narrative, may be used by all, but not consumed by any. Conservatives invest in a large portfolio of such commons, and as such treat them as sacred. Conservatism is, by and large, a government of norms. It is intrinsically anarchic, but not intrinsically libertarian. And as such, ‘Sacredness’ is pervasive in conservative culture. Rothbardian Libertarians disavow the existence of a commons, other than the institution of property itself – a seeming contradiction. But the purpose of that denial is to forbid the existence of a state which must arbitrate the use of such commons. Hoppeian Libertarians restored the commons into libertarianism, while prohibiting any commons that consists of an organizations of human beings- thereby forbidding the existence of a state, while allowing for the existence of contractual, private government. Social democrats treat all property as a commons, and the means of distributing it as a commons. But they treat nothing as sacred other than the emotional predisposition to prevent harm and express care-taking. Sacredness is an act of self denial, and progressives avoid deprivation at all costs. As such, all forms of property other than the current-consensus for the purpose of reducing conflict, are absent. With that absence must also go the sacred. Under this analysis, Sacredness is not exclusive to conservatism. It is only that conservatism treats moral capital – forgoing opportunities, and building moral capital in the population – as of high value, Rothbardian libertarianism of little to none, and to progressives, an antithesis of their world view. This is somewhat confusing unless we take into account that those with predispositions toward libertarianism and progressivism are searching for experience and stimulation. While conservatives are searching for improving the excellence of established themes. This is why conservative art tends to be illustrative and progressive art tends to be experiential. Contrary to popular, studied, and academic belief, the debate as to whether the enormous power of fiat money eliminates the need for sacredness – forms of property we call norms which require self denial – is not over. Fiat money can be used Conservatism is not so much about the seen as unseen. Its pretense is a form of respect of the sacred. And the sacred consists of common property that they pay for with constant acts of self denial. Having paid this high price for the commons, it is no wonder why they object to the consumption of it by progressives, or the destruction of its institutions by Rothbardians.

  • People need institutions both formal and informal to help them cooperate despite

    People need institutions both formal and informal to help them cooperate despite their different feelings and objectives. instead we try to argue with one another in order to make each other agree independently of those institutions. As if any of us actually listens to or comprehends the other.

    Our institutions were designed to establish priorities among males who had extremely similar interests.

    But today we have clearly divergent interests. If only because of gender and family structure preferences. And our differences are magnified by the technology that has made us prosperous, the addition of feminine majority, and group diversity.

    If you diversify a population without altering its informal and formal institutions to allow for more complex cooperation – not upon ends but upon means – you will have institutional failure. The purpose of government is to help us cooperate despite our differences. The idea that we seek some form of truth in government is both an artifact of our prior homogeneity, the absurd bias of our democratic religion, and our belief in controlled choice rather than experimental cooperation.

    The market instead allows us to collaborate on means even though we might pursue different ends. Government as it is currently structured by contrast requires that we have similar ends or the fantasy that we can persuade one another to possess similar ends.

    When in fact it is both impossible for us to know what those similar ends should be, and given our various conflicting strategies about life in general, it is impossible for us to come to consensus on those ends. Or even understand all but a few of them.

    We are prisoners of a set of institutions that have failed us and that cannot help us cooperate in our current state.

    In most civilizations people abandon attempts at improving the government. That is the course we are on.

    Having our civic culture handed to administrative government accelerated that decline as well as our divergence. Cowering in our little spatial boxes we rail at one another about how to think and feel rather than architect institutions that would help us to cooperate on means even if we desire a multitude of ends. And that multitude of experimentation would lead to discovery of solutions none of us is wise enough to conceive on our own.

    Our vanity and hubris brought us here. Why is it that we think the next vanity of our intentions will be an exception to the rule?

    Source date (UTC): 2012-09-01 23:06:00 UTC

  • MEN AND WOMEN HAVE DIFFERENT REPRODUCTIVE STRATEGIES AND THE NUCLEAR FAMILY SOLV

    MEN AND WOMEN HAVE DIFFERENT REPRODUCTIVE STRATEGIES AND THE NUCLEAR FAMILY SOLVED THAT CONFLICT UNDER AGRARIANISM

    But we are seeing, especially in the lower classes, the degeneration of the nuclear family. As a consequence we are seeing polarity in the democratic political systems. Systems that were designed for nuclear families under the property rights system of agrarian production.

    There would never have been a progressive president without the female vote. All we are seeing in politics is the conflicting moral codes which are distributed disproportionately between the genders expressed as divisiveness. While we thing of this as a way of life, or a vision of the future, and to some degree it is, what the statistics show is that it’s little more than who is married or unmarried to whom at what age.

    The other thing it shows is that males are checking out of society as fast as single mothers are becoming politically active. Males will be the minority voters for the foreseeable future.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-09-01 01:29:00 UTC

  • CHILDREN CANNOT WALK ALONE The reason? a) population density b) anonymity c) los

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-462091/How-children-lost-right-roam-generations.htmlOUR CHILDREN CANNOT WALK ALONE

    The reason? a) population density b) anonymity c) loss of the Right Of Exclusion.

    The real problem here is (c). Unlike other cultures, Americans are prohibited by law from ostracizing people for undesirable behavior. England, Germany, France, and the other advanced nations, all require far greater adherence to norms than we do here in the states.

    The upper middle classe isolate themselves and their children in enclaves whose barrier is the price of a home. The religious move to the same neighborhoods and regions. Meanwhile we try to integrate child molesters into society in group homes, rather than put them in work camps in the middle of the desert.

    The right of exclusion is a good thing. Because with out it, there are terrible consequences.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-08-04 16:45:00 UTC

  • PENCIL – EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW IN ONE LESSON

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5Gppi-O3a8I PENCIL – EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW IN ONE LESSON

    Source date (UTC): 2012-08-04 06:14:00 UTC

  • The Two Sources Of Belonging

    We all want to belong to a group. Some of us less or more than others. But few of us want to be ostracized from it. We can obtain that sense of belonging through empathy if we are similar, and duty if we are not. Empathy through shared interpretation. Duty through shared action in pursuit of mutually beneficial ends. Women vary less. They sense more. At least, on average, they tend to belong through empathy. Men vary more. They sense less. They are action rather than perception oriented. Dominance is the corollary of empathy. We must learn to use our dominance against the physical world, and in defense of life and property, and not as a means of self expression or control of others. Misused empathy is just as dangerous as misused dominance. The damage we have done to the world by our supposedly charitable activities is as great as the damage we have done by war. We have lost the ancient understanding of our dual natures. To cohabitate and to cooperate politically we must master both empathy and dominance in relation to how we possess them. And in doing so create belonging by both empathy and duty.