Curt Doolittle

Theme: Incentives

  • Emotions: They’re Just “Treats And Scoldings” For Being A Good Labrador Retrievers On Behalf Of Our Genes.

    All our emotions are explicable as rewards or punishments for the discovery of, pursuit of, obtaining of, hoarding of, consumption of, resources of every conceivable kind. That’s it. The universe is a simple place with simple rules of operation. Man is a simple creature with simple rules of operation. We seek to acquire, preserve, and consume, that which is to our advantage.

    It’s just that we’re pretty amazing in the scope of things we can use to our advantage. We haven’t discovered anything new to eat on this planet in 200 years. Think about that. It’s a big planet when there are just a few tens of millions of us. We haven’t found a new basic chemical reaction in quite a while. We haven’t found a basic metallurgical reaction in quite a while. We are pretty good at searching and finding. Actually, we’re scary good at it. To the point where the basic problem of scientific investigation today is just the cost of basic research given the energy requirements for many of our investigations. It’s the accumulation of logical, mechanical, and cooperative tools that we create from basic resources, that make it possible for us to envision so many new possibilities. It’s so awesome. But our emotions are just drugs: rewards and punishments for being a good labrador retriever for our genes.

  • ADDING DEPTH TO TALEB’S INSIGHT THAT MINORITY RULE IS SUPERIOR TO MAJORITY. (Shh

    ADDING DEPTH TO TALEB’S INSIGHT THAT MINORITY RULE IS SUPERIOR TO MAJORITY. (Shhh. Its all in the incentives.)

    Nassim,

    (edited for clarity)

    I’ll fortify your thought experiment a bit. To the best of my knowledge the general argument that reflects the evidence is this:

    1) The slower the rotation of elites, the more consistent the policies, the least ‘virtue signaling expenditure’, the least waste, and the least fragility. Consistent policy allows long-term low-cost investment in commons. Preserves knowledge in the administrators.

    2) The longer term the incentives the more capital will be accumulated in all its forms. So, Monarchies have the best intertemporal incentives, houses of ‘lords’ so to speak the next best, Westminster/German model parliaments the next, and democratically elected representatives in the American model the worst incentives. Germans seem to produce consistent policies, yet can still be removed from office.

    3) Minorities face higher consequences if deposed from power than members of a majority, and they are easier to depose, so they have both incentive to rule well (reduce cost of defense), and to maintain rule(preserve their investments). (The HAN, RUSSIANS/Muscovites), and the TEUTONS/Germanics understood this. The Europeans no longer do. They lost this sentiment in the world wars. Aside from Jefferson’s attempt to codify natural law in an extant document and order, America has been a very bad influence on the world since its revolution.)

    4) The more thorough the rule of law, the higher the trust, the faster the economic velocity. So, Rule of law (common, judge-discovered, natural law) is more important in producing good policy than the form of government if the aristocracy (martial class) is large enough. If a professional bureaucracy can form prior to the expansion of the franchise, then Continental Law can function as well as Common Law with a smaller aristocracy (martial class).

    5) So, most civilizations fail to defeat i) Malthus, ii) Rent Seekers(corruption), iii) Familism(corruption) for any one of these reasons: (a) inability to form a military/martial/nobility class capable of enforcing rule of law and profiting from its enforcement (Nobility). (b) inability to concentrate wealth without ever-expanding corruption (Homogeneity), (c) inability to direct proceeds to the production of commons(universalism), (d) inability to create a class capable of sustained policy development (minority control)

    So it’s not so much that it’s minority rule, but that it’s CONSISTENT rule, with intertemporal incentives, while still able to ‘throw the bums out’, with rule of law limiting their actions, and suppressing corruption. And minority rule tends to be more consistent. (And monarchies were more tolerant.)

    Net: incentives of representative governments constantly trying to hold to their positions produce the worst policy because they have the worst of all incentives: urgency and unaccountability.

    Reversal: If you are in a heterogeneous, tribal, familial, civilization, lacking a militia (universal military), and a large enough middle class to demand and require rule of law, and if you have its opposite (universal theocracy), and if you do not have harsh winters to reduce the size of the underclasses without invoking moral hazard, you will have a very difficult time creating prosperity compared to a homogenous, outbred, militial civilization, with harsh winters, and putative rule of law. Nobility makes an administrative class, makes a middle class makes a working class, makes an over-reproductive underclass, and rents expand by all classes until the civilization is fragile or stagnant and cannot respond to shocks or competitors.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Propertarian Institute

    Kiev, Ukraine

    Source date (UTC): 2016-10-02 02:35:00 UTC

  • Maybe Some People Catch On. But Others Don’t: Unity By Trade.

      (important) I have to continue to crush the Rothbardian fallacy just like I have to continue to crush the neocon fallacy, and the postmodern fallacy. The socialist fallacy has been crushed. And we are in the process of crushing the Keynesian fallacy and the democratic fallacy.

    But to unite libertarians both artisanal, bourgeoisie and martial, I have to kill off the competing lies. Why? because the truth is uncomfortable for each of us. But it is only the truth that illustrates our common goals, and the high cost we must each pay to create liberty by the organized use of violence to deny it to others. And in that organization we must understand we must each sacrifice class perfection in order to achieve class maximum good: the artisan, the bourgeoisie, and the martial must limit their gains to that which imposes no cost upon the other two. To be an army we must obey the natural law discovered by warriors: impose no cost upon your brothers. We insure one another’s property. All of it. In every form. That which one expends his life’s efforts upon determines his investment in his property. The scale of that investment is not determined by his efforts, but by its value to others in providing incentives to change state of the universe from the current condition to one more favorable. So between effort and scale we know value exists. But even if we have difficulty measuring it other than by comparison, that value is never zero, and as such must be respected. This is the reciprocal exchange of insurance of property between warriors that creates the institution of property and if sufficiently rigorous, the condition of liberty. And no other means exists by which to construct either. Liberty cannot be obtained by permission, only by construction. Curt Doolittle the Philosophy of Aristocracy The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine

  • Maybe Some People Catch On. But Others Don’t: Unity By Trade.

      (important) I have to continue to crush the Rothbardian fallacy just like I have to continue to crush the neocon fallacy, and the postmodern fallacy. The socialist fallacy has been crushed. And we are in the process of crushing the Keynesian fallacy and the democratic fallacy.

    But to unite libertarians both artisanal, bourgeoisie and martial, I have to kill off the competing lies. Why? because the truth is uncomfortable for each of us. But it is only the truth that illustrates our common goals, and the high cost we must each pay to create liberty by the organized use of violence to deny it to others. And in that organization we must understand we must each sacrifice class perfection in order to achieve class maximum good: the artisan, the bourgeoisie, and the martial must limit their gains to that which imposes no cost upon the other two. To be an army we must obey the natural law discovered by warriors: impose no cost upon your brothers. We insure one another’s property. All of it. In every form. That which one expends his life’s efforts upon determines his investment in his property. The scale of that investment is not determined by his efforts, but by its value to others in providing incentives to change state of the universe from the current condition to one more favorable. So between effort and scale we know value exists. But even if we have difficulty measuring it other than by comparison, that value is never zero, and as such must be respected. This is the reciprocal exchange of insurance of property between warriors that creates the institution of property and if sufficiently rigorous, the condition of liberty. And no other means exists by which to construct either. Liberty cannot be obtained by permission, only by construction. Curt Doolittle the Philosophy of Aristocracy The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine

  • The Virtue of Disorder

    Disorder is merely an opportunity to obtain a discount on the high cost of constructing an alternative order. Great strategists accumulate resources with which to create and exploit opportunities. Fools rush headlong into battles.

  • The Virtue of Disorder

    Disorder is merely an opportunity to obtain a discount on the high cost of constructing an alternative order. Great strategists accumulate resources with which to create and exploit opportunities. Fools rush headlong into battles.

  • Stuck on Malinvestments.

    ADHERENCE TO FALSIFIED THEORIES ISN”T DEMONSTRATING INTELLIGENCE – JUST LOSS AVOIDANCE GIVEN ONE’S OVERINVESTMENT IN MALINVESTMENT Sure I spent a lot of time at LvMI. But you know, once you know your theory is bullshit it’s time to seek another. There is only one source of liberty: the organized application of violence to suppress parasitism by all means in every area of life.

    The organization of acquisition, inventory, transformation, and consumption, the organization of reproduction, the organization of production, distribution and trade, the organization of commons production and the organization of territorial limits. It is by the suppression of parasitism that we create the Liberty we seek.

  • Stuck on Malinvestments.

    ADHERENCE TO FALSIFIED THEORIES ISN”T DEMONSTRATING INTELLIGENCE – JUST LOSS AVOIDANCE GIVEN ONE’S OVERINVESTMENT IN MALINVESTMENT Sure I spent a lot of time at LvMI. But you know, once you know your theory is bullshit it’s time to seek another. There is only one source of liberty: the organized application of violence to suppress parasitism by all means in every area of life.

    The organization of acquisition, inventory, transformation, and consumption, the organization of reproduction, the organization of production, distribution and trade, the organization of commons production and the organization of territorial limits. It is by the suppression of parasitism that we create the Liberty we seek.

  • Why Will Fiat Currency Always Exist?

    The truth is that fiat currency is such an advantage that a people cannot compete without it. Competing currencies and commodities exist but they are not anywhere near as price stabilized as fiat money CAN be. So we are always going to have it. Probably digital will replace it and it will have to because the abuse of it has gotten out of hand. What real purpose does government debt serve over simply printing money and paying with it? You pay the price of interest in order to delay the equlibrial neutrality of money working through the economy. In other words, the faster new money moves the faster prices in the existing cycle of production adjust. Fast adjustment is bad if it interferes with production ( planning ) cycles. So instead we pay interest and sell government debt so that we inflate away the interest at about the same rate that prices adjust in the economy.

  • Why Will Fiat Currency Always Exist?

    The truth is that fiat currency is such an advantage that a people cannot compete without it. Competing currencies and commodities exist but they are not anywhere near as price stabilized as fiat money CAN be. So we are always going to have it. Probably digital will replace it and it will have to because the abuse of it has gotten out of hand. What real purpose does government debt serve over simply printing money and paying with it? You pay the price of interest in order to delay the equlibrial neutrality of money working through the economy. In other words, the faster new money moves the faster prices in the existing cycle of production adjust. Fast adjustment is bad if it interferes with production ( planning ) cycles. So instead we pay interest and sell government debt so that we inflate away the interest at about the same rate that prices adjust in the economy.