Curt Doolittle

Theme: Governance

  • WARRANTY : THE CHURCH, ACADEMY AND GOVERNMENT The church, the academy, and the g

    WARRANTY : THE CHURCH, ACADEMY AND GOVERNMENT

    The church, the academy, and the government, like commerce, all share in a similar bias: that of obtaining customers for their services, regardless of the merit or consequence of consuming those services. The church sold immortality, indulgences, and the forgiveness of sin. The academy sells equality, diversity, socialism and the promise of prosperity. The government sells laws, redistribution, the myth of unity, and the promise of risk abatement. Yet the church, nor the academy nor the government warranty those wares. No other industries have such privileges: selling false promises that profit the seller at the expense of the buyer. An the church, academy and government criticize the entrepreneur, who alone among them, must warranty his wares.

    There is a good reason we cannot trust the church, the academy, and the government: we desire benefits for our family and tribe and they seek to profit from the largest possible numbers of customers.

    How is it then that would could ensure that church, academy and government had the same incentives as private industry?

    Universal standing and requirement of warranty.

    The common law works – if the church, academy, and government let it. But then, they have every incentive not to let the common law serve us.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-20 12:16:00 UTC

  • ON NOZICK’S DEFERENCE TO COSMOPOLITANISM —“The completeness of Nozick’s compos

    ON NOZICK’S DEFERENCE TO COSMOPOLITANISM

    —“The completeness of Nozick’s composition is remarkable: he touches somewhere in the book, however lightly, almost every note of American decadence. Gandhi is there. The necessary deference to feminism is there. The necessary reproof to “racism” is there. Carlos Castaneda is there, referred to as though he were a thinker, which he is not… . Drugs of course are there, and in no unfavorable light: drugs may have their place, Nozick thinks, in “the treatment for philosophical parochialism.” Has he left anything out? Is there anyone in post-Vietnam America who needs to be placated, whom he has not placated? This was obviously a worry, and there is a nervous catch-all reference to “children’s rights, the treatment of animals, domination and ecological awareness.””—-

    –“Nozick looked forward to a new version of philosophy that would replace arguments with a kinder, gentler alternative—explanations—because arguments, after all, attempt “to get someone to believe something, whether he wants to believe it or not.”—

    From David Stove

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-20 06:24:00 UTC

  • Race is only a problem because of democracy – because of monopoly rule, and the

    Race is only a problem because of democracy – because of monopoly rule, and the power granted to the winners of monopoly rule, over others. Instead, polycentrism, and aristocratic egalitarianism, are merely a means of cooperating between families, on behalf of families. Under democracy heads of classes are forced into conflict for power. Under aristocracy we are placed only into market competition. An aristocrat has no possible reason for conflict with other aristocrats from any background in the world. Democracy is the reason for racial conflict. Otherwise we can just cooperate or engage in conflict as we have always done – regardless of race, and entirely because of economics.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-20 02:41:00 UTC

  • THE DANGER OF POWER A POWER VACUUM (worth repeating) —“Power vacuums are much

    THE DANGER OF POWER A POWER VACUUM

    (worth repeating)

    —“Power vacuums are much worse than abuses of power.”—

    It’s contrary to our psychology, since we tend to get very wrapped up in abuses of power (European colonialism, current Chinese conquest of their region, American policing of the postwar consensus). Especially progressives, but only to a slightly lesser extent, libertarians.

    Power vacuums drastically decrease all opportunity costs in exchange for unpredictable risk. Power structures increase both opportunity costs, and the predictability of risk.

    And history shows that (a) war for control of trade routes is one of the best possible investments you can make after formal institutions of cooperation (trust, property, contract, law, weights and measures), and (b) nearly all peoples will gladly pay risks of expansion of territory and trade route. (c) These changes produce our great conflicts.

    The postwar era, when viewed by historians, will appear as a short term anglo victory after the great european civil wars in which the naval anglo offshoot of germanic civilization, went to war with its army just as did Athens and Sparta, with the same consequences. However, Greece managed to radically transform the world far after its loss of military and economic power.

    Anglo civilization will apparently do the same: fade.

    Unless we choose to change it.

    Cheers.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-19 07:31:00 UTC

  • THE NEW WORLD “DISORDER” – THE COST OF POWER VACUUM Flight MH17 and the new worl

    THE NEW WORLD “DISORDER” – THE COST OF POWER VACUUM

    Flight MH17 and the new world disorder – Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/10976498/Flight-MH17-and-the-new-world-disorder.html

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-18 20:34:00 UTC

  • THREE OPTIONS FOR GOVERNMENT FREE OF CORRUPTION The only way to avoid the princi

    THREE OPTIONS FOR GOVERNMENT FREE OF CORRUPTION

    The only way to avoid the principle-agent problem in politics is simply NOT to use agents. In order to avoid using agents, we have three choices:

    1) Anarchic Contractual Government (no commons)

    2) Direct Democracy (auctions to fund proposals for commons)

    3) Demarchy / Lottocracy (randomly selected juries that judge policy proposals).

    THe problem of politics is not the production of commons. It’s politicians, bureaucracy, and the inability to secede.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-17 20:01:00 UTC

  • The team is working on FB style blocking and banning in Oversing today. Blocking

    The team is working on FB style blocking and banning in Oversing today. Blocking is an individual thing but banning is managed by a configurable vote/based workflow. I havent figured out the weighting of votes yet but I assume it will be managed by your Karma level. In other words, the better your reputation the more influential your vote. Likewise a bunch of douchebags cant ban someone easily,

    But for all intents and purposes you and your peers can effectively “fire” someone in Oversing by making it impossible to obtain work.

    Anyway, they are using my account to test the feature and its giving me subconsious feelings of rejection every time, and elation when I am forgiven. 😉

    So i guess it sorta works. 🙂

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-16 04:58:00 UTC

  • IS WARFARE NOT CRIME

    http://www.nationalreview.com/article/382333/dont-put-terrorists-trial-daniel-pipesTERRORISM IS WARFARE NOT CRIME

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-14 15:20:00 UTC

  • Martial Aristocratic Egalitarianism (Monarchy and Feudalism) Producer Aristocrat

    Martial Aristocratic Egalitarianism (Monarchy and Feudalism)

    Producer Aristocratic Egalitarianism (Classical Liberal Democracy)

    Consumer Equalitarianism (Mixed Economy Democracy)

    Contractual? Voluntary? Aristocratic Egalitarianism ( Voluntary Contractualism?)

    Not able to get my arms around how to describe this particular evolutionary vector.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-13 07:56:00 UTC

  • are philosophers stupid about politics?

    http://www.stephenhicks.org/#article/26345Why are philosophers stupid about politics?

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-13 01:02:00 UTC