Curt Doolittle

Theme: Education

  • Skye Stewart You made me think. Why does reading a novel ‘work’? Aside from the

    Skye Stewart

    You made me think.

    Why does reading a novel ‘work’? Aside from the truth or falsehood, good or bad measurement, why do we learn from reading narratives?

    Now, I am trying to eliminate deception in matters of public political speech – at least that kind of deception that was introduced in the 19th century by Marx, Boaz, Cantor and Freud, but expanded by Keynes and nearly the entire discipline of academic philosophy, psychology, and sociology.

    But I don’t really attack mythology and religion. And I am perfectly happy with ‘rule of thumb’ science. It doesn’t appear to matter whether something is precise, scientific, and causally explicable if it empirically produces positive ends. It matters if something produces negative ends, is immoral (imposes costs).

    So when I say that I am OK with imprecise IQ tests, personality tests, and moral tests, that is because the test data is not the output that is in question. It’s whether the individuals now possess a non-subjective means of categorization and comprehension.

    In philosophical terms, it’s epistemelogically justificationary if I were to demand a high standard of good things. When the purpose is critical instead: to demand a high standard in order to advocate bad things.

    Thanks for provoking thoughts.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-02-14 05:33:00 UTC

  • The Purpose of Being Well Read No Matter What Your IQ. via @FFloodgates

    The Purpose of Being Well Read No Matter What Your IQ. http://freedomsfloodgates.com/2015/02/04/the-purpose-of-being-well-read-no-matter-what-your-iq/ via @FFloodgates

    Source date (UTC): 2015-02-06 15:19:07 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/563718536997388288

  • The Purpose of Being Well Read No Matter What Your IQ.

    [T]he data is pretty good you know. You don’t have to be a genius. You just have to be well read. Being well read means reading the right books, not just any books – but the right books at your level of experience.

    Now, the more causally accurate the argument, the less allegorical and more operationally descriptive it is. The more operationally descriptive it is, the further it is from experience. The further it is from experience the greater the detail needed to construct an analogy to experience. This is why simple narratives are easier to comprehend. They reduce complexity.

    However, by reducing complexity, they obscure causality.

    So that’s a hard way of stating that for about every 15 points of IQ we have entire literatures saying similar things at higher and lower orders of precision, and therefore greater and lesser degrees of content, that have higher correspondence with reality, or higher correspondence with our levels of perception and cognition.

    The more literate you become, the more you grasp that there are a limited number of fundamental ideas. That those fundamental ideas are counter-intuitive. That evolution did not provide us with intrinsic means of grasping or using those fundamental ideas. 

    But that to cooperate in large numbers and to understand the structure of ourselves, our actions, and the universe in which we act, we must somehow master them. Either at high operational correspondence that few of us can master, or at low operational correspondence but high intuitive correspondence that all of us can master.

    LAYERS OF INCREASING COMPLEXITY:
     – Intuitive expressions <- pre rational reactions  
     – Moral arguments <- normative arguments
     – Allegorical Arguments <- abstract arguments (most people)
     – Historical Arguments <- facts (educated people)
     – Scientific (Empirical) Arguments <- specialists in causal relations
     – Economic Arguments <- specialists in emergent relations
     – Ratio-scientific Arguments <- synthesis of specialized arguments
     – Constructivist Explanations <- description of reality

    It gets harder as you climb that ladder. Most of us can manage allegorical. But beginning with Historical arguments one enters the realm of empirical rather than intuitive, and that requires a lot more knowledge at each rung on the conceptual ladder.

    If you cannot explain something in constructive (operational) language you do not understand it. But if you can at least explain something, then you are at least able to determine possible courses of action.

    SO HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT TO READ?

    You read what you can. You climb the ladder as far as you can. At some point you will get good at climbing the ladder. At some point you will realize that you can climb no further. For some of us, we learn how to add rungs to the ladder itself.

    But the important thing to remember is that there are a very small number of fundamental concepts, and a very small number of intuitive falsehoods that evolution cursed us with.

    At every 15 points of IQ someone is writing a book in your language. IN the level of abstraction that you can grasp.

    Read the best book you can. Try the next book up the ladder. stop when you cant climb. And the truth is, that if you want to live a full life, you do not need to add to the ladder, only to climb beyond the intuitive limits that evolution left us with. At that point you will be close enough to the truth (correspondence with reality independent of human cognitive limitations) that you are no longer hindered by your mortal coil.

    Curt Doolittle
    The Propertarian Institute
    Kiev

  • The Purpose of Being Well Read No Matter What Your IQ.

    [T]he data is pretty good you know. You don’t have to be a genius. You just have to be well read. Being well read means reading the right books, not just any books – but the right books at your level of experience.

    Now, the more causally accurate the argument, the less allegorical and more operationally descriptive it is. The more operationally descriptive it is, the further it is from experience. The further it is from experience the greater the detail needed to construct an analogy to experience. This is why simple narratives are easier to comprehend. They reduce complexity.

    However, by reducing complexity, they obscure causality.

    So that’s a hard way of stating that for about every 15 points of IQ we have entire literatures saying similar things at higher and lower orders of precision, and therefore greater and lesser degrees of content, that have higher correspondence with reality, or higher correspondence with our levels of perception and cognition.

    The more literate you become, the more you grasp that there are a limited number of fundamental ideas. That those fundamental ideas are counter-intuitive. That evolution did not provide us with intrinsic means of grasping or using those fundamental ideas. 

    But that to cooperate in large numbers and to understand the structure of ourselves, our actions, and the universe in which we act, we must somehow master them. Either at high operational correspondence that few of us can master, or at low operational correspondence but high intuitive correspondence that all of us can master.

    LAYERS OF INCREASING COMPLEXITY:
     – Intuitive expressions <- pre rational reactions  
     – Moral arguments <- normative arguments
     – Allegorical Arguments <- abstract arguments (most people)
     – Historical Arguments <- facts (educated people)
     – Scientific (Empirical) Arguments <- specialists in causal relations
     – Economic Arguments <- specialists in emergent relations
     – Ratio-scientific Arguments <- synthesis of specialized arguments
     – Constructivist Explanations <- description of reality

    It gets harder as you climb that ladder. Most of us can manage allegorical. But beginning with Historical arguments one enters the realm of empirical rather than intuitive, and that requires a lot more knowledge at each rung on the conceptual ladder.

    If you cannot explain something in constructive (operational) language you do not understand it. But if you can at least explain something, then you are at least able to determine possible courses of action.

    SO HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT TO READ?

    You read what you can. You climb the ladder as far as you can. At some point you will get good at climbing the ladder. At some point you will realize that you can climb no further. For some of us, we learn how to add rungs to the ladder itself.

    But the important thing to remember is that there are a very small number of fundamental concepts, and a very small number of intuitive falsehoods that evolution cursed us with.

    At every 15 points of IQ someone is writing a book in your language. IN the level of abstraction that you can grasp.

    Read the best book you can. Try the next book up the ladder. stop when you cant climb. And the truth is, that if you want to live a full life, you do not need to add to the ladder, only to climb beyond the intuitive limits that evolution left us with. At that point you will be close enough to the truth (correspondence with reality independent of human cognitive limitations) that you are no longer hindered by your mortal coil.

    Curt Doolittle
    The Propertarian Institute
    Kiev

  • IS THE WESTERN STRENGTH – IT IS WHAT SEPARATES US IN THE WEST FROM THE REST. Unf

    http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2015/01/30/382610842/china-cracks-down-on-university-textbooks-promoting-western-valuesTRUTH IS THE WESTERN STRENGTH – IT IS WHAT SEPARATES US IN THE WEST FROM THE REST.

    Unfortunately, the conservatives are the last bastion of truth telling in the west, and they may have to continue to adopt the left’s tactics in order to defend what little remains.

    Truth telling is an economic advantage in-group, but across groups, it is a weakness. Lying is to much of an advantage.

    CHINA IS A SYSTEM OF TRUTH-NOT-TELLLING, POSTMODERNISM IS A SYSTEM OF INTENTIONAL MISREPRESENTATION (WHICH PUTIN IS NOW MASTER OF), SOCIALISM AND POSTMODERISM ARE INTENTIONAL DECEITS.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-01-31 05:44:00 UTC

  • summary, it very much looks like more years of education are associated with an

    http://drjamesthompson.blogspot.com/2015/01/school.html—“In summary, it very much looks like more years of education are associated with an increase in intelligence test scores, but not anything like as strongly to underlying general intelligence or to underlying basic processing speeds.”—

    Source date (UTC): 2015-01-28 01:41:00 UTC

  • WHAT ARE WE TO ACCOMPLISH? Sheldon Richmond : ———-“So, one of the signs th

    WHAT ARE WE TO ACCOMPLISH?

    Sheldon Richmond :

    ———-“So, one of the signs that we want to look out for, and one of the most important signs, happens in how we approach communication. Are we really out to reach human beings? Are we really out to build a bridge to somebody whose context may be very different from our own? Do we still remember that a lot of what we now regard as self-evident once upon a time wasn’t self-evident? Or do we walk into a conversation on the premise: I’ll give you one chance, after which you’re irredeemably evil?”———

    The problem with this ambition, like all enlightenment visions, is that the scientific evidence is increasingly persuasive that we cannot convince anyone of anything. Instead well all sentimentally feel, verbally justify, politically advocate and demonstrate by vote, our reproductive interests by gender, class, age, and tribe. All talk is just attempt at negotiation with others in the hope to find allies in order to obtain power by which to increase the possibility that we may satisfy our reproductive interests.

    Libertarianism, like conservatism, and like progressivism, assumes a monopoly political order for the provision of commons both physical, institutional, and normative: that OUR reproductive strategy (non-contribution to the commons), is best for all. When in fact, what is best for all is three different political orders: socialist, propertarian (versus libertarian), and conservative (aristocratic). And that the only moral question, is not whether one organizational model is superior to another, but instead, that regardless of which order we prefer – that the only transfer between individuals regardless of order, is voluntary, and therefore moral.

    So the question I ask of libertarians (libertines excluded) is, if we cannot persuade anyone (and we demonstrably cannot meaningfully do so, and those we do convince are predominantly frustrated classical liberals), then the entire persuasive strategy, all our talk, is mere self gratification, justification, and illusion. We give ourselves hope, no differently from a mystic promising life after death to the poor and suffering.

    Progressives rebel, conservatives rebel less so. We talk to the wind, and even the wind doesn’t listen.

    This is despite the fact that we offer the single best solution to the provision of goods and services: the market. BUT WE FAIL TO GRASP THAT THE MEANS OF PRODUCING COMMONS ACROSS HETEROGENEOUS POLITICAL ORDERS REQUIRES GOVERNMENT TO CREATE SUCH A MARKET. Why? Because competition produces a virtuous cycle. Privatization of gains, and Socialization of losses in the market provide us with incentives. However, no commons can be produced if people can privatize the commons, or socialize losses into the commons. For this we require the contractual agreement NOT to privatize the commons – “permitting Usus without Fructus or Abusus”.

    The market for goods and services is an artificial construct produced by the organized application of violence to institute property rights, by prohibiting all imposition of costs upon others. The market for commons must likewise be constructed by the organized application of violence to institute property rights for shareholders, prohibiting parasitism upon the commons.

    Because otherwise people will not produce commons. That is why low trust societies have no commons, and norther european high trust societies bathe in them.

    The west’s competitive advantages came from our success in producing commons that no other culture could produced. Truth telling, trust, property rights, and liberty are the most beneficial commons that we produce by the organized application of violence. These produce economic velocity and innovative velocity. That velocity separated the west from the rest both in the classical period, and in the late medieval and enlightenment periods.

    The question is not how we create a libertarian society, but how we create a libertarian class producing our desired commons, in exchange with the socialist and aristocratic classes in producing theirs.

    If these different commons are produced by voluntary exchange then we have made use of the knowledge of the progressive short term consumptive, the libertarian middle term productive, and the conservative long term accumulative visions.

    None of us is ‘right’. It is a division of knowledge and labor.

    We understand the market. We are the smart people. It’s time we abandoned monopoly visions and started acting like it.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Propertarian Institute

    Kiev, Ukraine

    Source date (UTC): 2015-01-26 05:44:00 UTC

  • We are going to publish an article a week in Ukrainian, on how to achieve libert

    We are going to publish an article a week in Ukrainian, on how to achieve liberty and prosperity for Ukraine by creative competition as a means of reforming the bureaucracy.

    I will try to stay on message of course. Some of the messages:

    The value to Ukraine of long term war over the eastern regions.

    Why the oligarchical clans are not a material long term problem, but a potentially beneficial aristocracy to compete against the state.

    How Europe can fund Ukraine indirectly without expanding corruption – covering pensions.

    How to solve the problem of title to property.

    How to construct courts of lustration, legal reform, and commercial credit and contract, and providing young sheriffs for them – not police.

    How to slowly increase consumer credit, and worldwide investment in Ukraine.

    How to create a higher trust society and the economic rewards of doing so.

    How not to repeat Europe’s suicidal social errors and to preserve the sanctity of the traditional family.

    The potential for an Eastern European border alliance preserving the traditional family.

    The end of the postwar consensus on borders and the necessity of nationalism and nuclear weapons.

    Why are Ukrainians poor? The commons: Truth, trust, contract, credit, responsibility, law, and corruption.

    You are poor if and only if you do not police one another’s responsibility for physical, institutional and normative commons. It is your responsibility and your cost to bear, not someone else’s.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-01-14 07:48:00 UTC

  • THE LIMITS OF REASON VS THE POWER OF OVERLOADING How do we measure the limits of

    THE LIMITS OF REASON VS THE POWER OF OVERLOADING

    How do we measure the limits of reason that can be exceeded by overloading?

    Is it possible to create a normative (habituated) method of thinking that prohibits overloading?

    Is a requirement for operational definitions enough to prevent overloading? I have been working under the assumption that it is. But the more I study the use of deceit by overloading, the less sure I am.

    How do I develop a test of overloading?

    Source date (UTC): 2015-01-12 13:34:00 UTC

  • CULTURAL OBSERVATIONS I have always considered americans ignorant, but that igno

    CULTURAL OBSERVATIONS

    I have always considered americans ignorant, but that ignorance is cultural, not systemic. We are taught ‘how the world works’ from birth. Law, commerce, the environment, weather, and scientific method are systems we understand – and we look at the world as systems. Partway through my third year here, I have begun to see that it is not just a matter of language and culture, but people in this part of the world are just exposed to much less information than we are. So between exposure to much less information, less information about systems, zero awareness of commercial, legal, and political systems, they are handicapped compared to us. They are skilled in ‘small’ systems (the family and friends) but they are not schooled in american-scale systems: big complex things that work because people do what they promise. The vision the average (ignorant) american high school kid understands, (even in the lower classes) is almost inconceivable here to the average person. I know very well educated people here, and very smart people, but they think in the “Radius of Their Cultural Trust” like all of us do. And that means that they think ‘small’. They have small ambitions. Small companies. Small circles of trust. And they have small wallets because of it.

    Maybe today i’m sensitive but it really bothers me.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-01-10 13:30:00 UTC