Curt Doolittle

Theme: Incentives

  • THE ‘LICENSING’ QUESTION The problem with licensing etc is that it’s a poor subs

    THE ‘LICENSING’ QUESTION

    The problem with licensing etc is that it’s a poor substitute for an Insurer. In other words, you regulate the market going in, rather than regulate the risk of harm. SImilar to the problem of Chinese Bureaucracy – or bureaucracy in general. There is absolutely value to demanding insurance that limits one’s actions to that for which restitution is possible. And there is absolutely value in institutional enforcement of the requirement that men can take no action that they may not pay restitution for. This is a simple test of reciprocity.

    in most of history, the government is the insurer of last resort. So licensing is a cheap (discounted) means of limiting insurance claims (harms).

    And no, we cannot claim rights to engage in any transaction the consequences of which we cannot pay restitution for, any more than we can claim rights to any action that we cannot pay restitution for.

    A license is a government-as-insurer-of-last-resort method of limiting the fraud, consequence, and externalities of actions that those who would seek to ‘learn’ or ‘profit’ by the externalization of risk of their failure. And the very high cost of dispute resolution and restitution.

    An requirement that one is covered by insurance and exposed to the courts, means that the government is no longer responsible for insurer of last resort (regulation), but that professions self regulate or risk prosecution in the courts, and regulation if they fail. This technique seems to work as long as the golden fleece of western civilization prevails: the courts as a priesthood of truth and reciprocity does not fail.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-06-30 10:06:00 UTC

  • PENDER STRIKES INTERGENERATIONAL GOLD —“Would it be good policy, to provide fo

    PENDER STRIKES INTERGENERATIONAL GOLD

    —“Would it be good policy, to provide for parental retirement savings account accessible only after 70, to garnish 2% of the income of only one’s *own* children after they turn 22? This would align the incentives of parents with their kids to keep them debt-free in their youth, with the lowest cost of living with the highest income… and probably encourage looking into alternatives to $$$ college that increasingly has low ROI other than STEM majors.”—Steve Pender

    Source date (UTC): 2017-06-30 09:09:00 UTC

  • PRIVATE RESEARCH IS BETTER THAN GOVT RESEARCH ( A HALF LIE) Half truth. (a lie a

    PRIVATE RESEARCH IS BETTER THAN GOVT RESEARCH ( A HALF LIE)

    Half truth. (a lie actually). Basic Research: the atomic bomb, the space program, weapons research, and the large hadron collider, the human genome project, cannot be paid for by private industry.

    Private industry however can perform applied research, and is far better at it than government might ever be.

    And it’s pretty clear that government ‘lending’ for the purpose of private industry’s applied research is the best of all – IFF we capture returns for the polity (directly or indirectly) by doing so.

    In other words, ‘market failure’ is not really failure, but ‘market reach’ is limited. There is often extraordinary value either directly (war) or indirectly (jump starting applies research) or very indirectly (leading knowledge capture and localizing talent). That the private market has no way of capturing the benefits of directly, yet rewards the public market (commons) profoundly.

    (Hell, there are quite a few of us who knew how to solve the Hard AI Problem, the issue was that no private investors would possibly fund that big an investment risk, and no government agency could tell the difference between possible solution and bullshit. So AI that we see today should have (in my opinion) been solved over a decade ago.)

    —“According to the National Science Foundation, 29 percent of federal R&D money goes to universities, 29 percent goes to industry, and another 29 percent goes to researchers who work directly for federal agencies. About 10 percent goes to federally funded labs operated by private contractors.”—

    That seems about right to me by back-of-the-napkin analysis. I would prefer that we provide investments and capture returns rather than ‘fund’ whenever possible, but this is merely a choice of providing incentives to whom.

    My primary complaint is that we must pay to access research publications and that just needs to end immediately.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-06-28 13:54:00 UTC

  • NO IT’S NOT SOCIALISM IT”S BANKING AND INVESTING ON A NATIONAL SCALE –“What if

    NO IT’S NOT SOCIALISM IT”S BANKING AND INVESTING ON A NATIONAL SCALE

    –“What if I told you that any government ownership of industry is socialism?’— (a well meaning fool)

    That is not true. Any government ownership is separate from government management. Any management at cost (loss), at non-profit, and for profit determines returns for shareholders. The empirical evidence is that government investment in research and development, and in serving as financier and insurer of last resort has be disproportionately beneficial for peoples. We might argue instead that it is *necessary*. The only question is whether the government forces a monopoly or partial monopoly in favor of such an industry, and whether the management operates at a loss, at non-profit, or for profit. And whether those profits are distributed to employees, managers, or owners (citizens). In fact, we should, as citizens, ask why the majority of investment returns are not returned to the commons (government) for use by the citizenry when government (citizens) provide funding and insurance of last resort. In other words, the financial sector as it is structured today other than as early stage investors, appears to be parasitic upon those institutions (industries) for which the government serves as both financier and insurer of last resort.

    The question is whether government manages (bad) or not. Not whether government invests or not.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Propertarian Institute

    Kiev, Ukraine.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-06-28 11:59:00 UTC

  • That we need markets so that we can cooperate on means if not ends, and that we

    That we need markets so that we can cooperate on means if not ends, and that we need markets for commons so we can produce commons necessary for the differences in our distributions is hard to argue with.

    The question is whether we need variation in the law by which we reconcile disputes, and whether we need variation in truth vs falsehoods. While it is possible to speak truthfully in most modern languages with some effort, it is not clear that cooperation is possible between the more truthful and higher trust polity, and the less truthful and lower trust polity. Or between polities that are both low trust and both high in falsehoods but that are incompatible because those differences are irreconcilable.

    All humans can cooperate perfectly under aristotelian (testimonial) truth, perfect reciprocity, and markets of voluntary cooperation. But this means that those of the best genetic ability will eventually replace those that are less so. So there is group evolutionary advantage to hostility, differences, uncooperativeness, falsehood, and deceits.

    Which is what we see…

    Source date (UTC): 2017-06-27 07:31:00 UTC

  • TRUTH IS A DISINCENTIVE FOR ‘OTHERS’ AND AN INCENTIVE FOR US Truth in public spe

    TRUTH IS A DISINCENTIVE FOR ‘OTHERS’ AND AN INCENTIVE FOR US

    Truth in public speech will impose a cost on us. It will impose nothing more than the cost of additional effort on the right. It will impose a very high cost on the left, especially the (((professional))) left – an intolerable one. It will impose such an intolerable cost on parasites that they will leave. And it will impose an intolerable cost on those who invade to degrade our civilization, that they will never want to come. Meanwhile, we will get nothing but wealthier, and we will again evolve our civilization under truthful public speech in matters of the commons as we did by truthful speech that we call ‘science’ in matters of the physical world.

    We have a ‘stupid’ contingent of our own. A pretty big one. And always have. But the ‘stupid’ contingent can only live above its station if their elites (us) drag them along with us.

    So while the ‘stupid’ contingent is a problem for us when they even glance in our direction, they do place a burden on parasitic leftist speech, they have been successful in disrupting the leftist narrative, and in the end, they will either take to the streets and help, or not.

    As usual, the radicals take to the street first and the others follow once they think there is a chance of success.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-06-26 11:19:00 UTC

  • As luxury (wealth) increases people can increase radius of externalities that th

    As luxury (wealth) increases people can increase radius of externalities that they consider. This is why nations do not worry about pollution until they have to, and once they have to they turn it into a virtue. In the west we are so deep in luxury our primary trade is in virtue signals – the most egregious demonstration of conspicuous consumption. Conspicuous altruism is conspicuous consumption – usually wherever other pay the cost of their altruism.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-06-24 17:53:00 UTC

  • ( F–king republicans and their ‘tax credit’ nonsense….. Three tiers: fast fan

    ( F–king republicans and their ‘tax credit’ nonsense….. Three tiers: fast fancy service for those of us with cash, fast less fancy service for those with private health care, and slower much less fancy care for medicare medicaid. Why? Pay for time and customer service not medical care. Wealthy people pay exorbitantly for concierge service and extending the last year of life, private pay for customer service, and public don’t – because of europe-like delays. )

    Source date (UTC): 2017-06-23 07:55:00 UTC

  • ARE HUMANS ALIKE? 1) The Wise make arguments to incentives and institutions 2) T

    ARE HUMANS ALIKE?

    1) The Wise make arguments to incentives and institutions

    2) The Fools make arguments to law and government

    3) The Youth make arguments to morality and shame

    4) The Children make arguments to approval and disapproval.

    1) we are alike ‘enough’ or we could not empathize.

    2) we are alike ‘enough in empathy that we can cooperate

    3) we are alike ‘enough’ that we can cooperate on means if not ends.

    4) we are unlike ‘enough’ to choose not to cooperate on means or ends.

    5) we are unlike ‘enough’ to conflict in ethics and politics

    6) we are unlike ‘enough’ that we war nearly constantly.

    7) we are unlike ‘enough’ to engage in culture-cide, and genocide.

    AFAIK,

    (a) median intelligence is proxy for neoteny (domestication) but not

    morality, and;

    (b) median intelligence determines demand for habits, norms, traditions and institutions, and ;

    (c) norms, traditions, and institutions determine the degree of trust that is possible even if unachieved, and;

    (d) the degree of trust determines the productivity of a polity relative to its competitors.

    Therefore

    (e) the standard of any polity is determined not by its best but by the size of its worst. In other words, the only way to improve a polity is the reduction of the scale of the underclasses.

    MARKET LIMIT

    The limit to all markets from commercial to reproduction to association, is whenever the benefit to the self, even in fully informed, productive, voluntary exchange, produces externalities that impose costs upon the retained capital (in all forms) of others.

    Ergo, there is a limit to free trade, and a limit to free association before one is merely profiting from the imposition of costs upon others while claiming one is virtuous.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-06-23 07:41:00 UTC

  • ITS HARD TO GET A MILITIA TO GO TO WAR WITHOUT BOOTY TO CLAIM Now, look how much

    ITS HARD TO GET A MILITIA TO GO TO WAR WITHOUT BOOTY TO CLAIM

    Now, look how much booty a militia can get its hands on!!!

    Talk about wealth creation….

    Source date (UTC): 2017-06-22 06:42:00 UTC