Curt Doolittle

Theme: Incentives

  • University provides is a market for validation, not a market for education

    University provides is a market for validation, not a market for education.

    Source date (UTC): 2016-02-04 13:18:00 UTC

  • Politicians vote their obligations. You cannot fix this. Man follows incentives.

    Politicians vote their obligations.

    You cannot fix this. Man follows incentives.

    Replace elected politicians with juries chosen by lot.

    Replace bills with petitions.

    Source date (UTC): 2016-02-01 06:25:00 UTC

  • MEN, WOMEN, FRIENDSHIPS, OPPORTUNITIES, AND DISCOUNTS Men tend to have a larger

    MEN, WOMEN, FRIENDSHIPS, OPPORTUNITIES, AND DISCOUNTS

    Men tend to have a larger number of looser friendships, and women a small number of deeper friendships.

    This is partly because of how we judge each other – women need psychological similarity whereas men need utilitarian similarity.

    It is also a matter of what we do with friends. And what we need friends for. Women put men in the friend zone for certain reasons: capital extraction. (discounts).

    Men put women in the friend zone for three reasons: long options on sex, long options on her associations, long options on her emotional support (as a psychologist).

    And men put men in the friend zone for lots of reasons: the safety of the pack. assistance in self improvement. Options on opportunities. And someone to imitate or learn one or more skills from.

    Now also, men have many strategies available to us: research information to create opportunities. Create relationships and collect and exchange information to identify opportunities. Organize in pursuit of opportunities. Produce and opportunistically seize identifiable opportunities. Produce consistently independent of possible opportunities. Produce as little, consume as little, and relax as much as possible. These strategies depend upon our natural abilities. (this is probably something that doesn’t occur to people)

    I would say that if you mean that we should be cautious with others rent-seeking and discounting, that this is true as far as it goes.

    I think it is better to seek to understand the individual male’s strategy, and to limit one’s self to it.

    I mean, those guys in college that figure out how to make money doing just about everything – they are amazing. But so is the scientist and so is the craftsman, and so is the laborer.

    I think what isn’t amazing – what we must watch out for – is a disconnect between a man’s abilities and his strategy.

    The same for women. I think we are too easily led (I certainly am) by their attention, when we have zero option of obtaining returns.

    Parasitism is not unique to gender. We are just wired to tolerate the parasitism of women because options (lottery tickets) on sex are so valuable to us.

    Men give women attention, the way that the poor buy lottery tickets: a very, very, very remote hope that they know will never occur. So that they buy the experience of the fantasy.

    So I think your (James) message is to preserve all your capital. But I am too well aware that every person I meet is a cheap put on opportunity, and I treat them as such. Hence, make a good impression but always be too busy to invest in the fulfillment of others’ opportunities unless it benefits you as much or more than them.

    In business I usually say this “Work with partners with whom you have equal economic interest”. Otherwise you do not have the same interests.

    Cheers

    Source date (UTC): 2016-01-25 02:44:00 UTC

  • Computer sales are down constantly. But apple’s computer sales keep increasing.

    Computer sales are down constantly. But apple’s computer sales keep increasing. See? Status+Quality Matters.

    Apple + New “Desktop” Replacement + Emulation + Killer Desktop App.

    They HAVE to go there. As far as I know they don’t have any other choice on the horizon, and they don’t have the creativity to do otherwise.

    Apple + New “Desktop” Replacement + Emulation + Killer Desktop App. + Apple AI? That gets really fucking interesting.

    Source date (UTC): 2016-01-23 10:07:00 UTC

  • WILL CHANGE BUT NOT OCCUPATIONS —”It seems plausible that the future, too, wil

    http://www.voxeu.org/article/technological-progress-thing-pastTECH WILL CHANGE BUT NOT OCCUPATIONS

    —”It seems plausible that the future, too, will create occupations we cannot imagine, let alone envisage.”— Joel Mokyr

    But have professions really changed in 2500 years?

    Looks much more like a limited set of roles adapting to technology.

    All we seem to see is shifting to increasingly abstract tools, and abandoning the tail jobs as utility of tail technologies dissipate..

    Tech changes, But do occupations?

    Research, Invention, Entrepreneurship, Investment, Production, Distribution, Trade, and Consumption, and Reproduction all continue.

    Those are our Occupations. Technology is merely a product.

    What about Disciplines? Coercion by Force, Coercion by Exchange, Coercion by words.

    We have constant disciplines and occupations, but the technology merely rolls on through them.

    We have made the earth our anthill.

    Source date (UTC): 2016-01-23 05:31:00 UTC

  • Spencer DID what Mises IMAGINED, and Rothbard ADVOCATED. In other words, Spencer

    Spencer DID what Mises IMAGINED, and Rothbard ADVOCATED.

    In other words, Spencer used observation, evolution and incentives to explain the world of man. He practiced ‘praxeological’ reasoning not as an excuse maker like rothbard did: to justify what should be different. But Spencer used ‘praxeological’ reasoning to explain why people do what they do.

    ***This is the best example of the difference between the jewish cosmopolitan justificationary method of trying to construct law as a set of commands in order to act in discord with nature, versus the anglo enlightenment empirical method of observing and explaining what exists in nature – and how to act in accord with nature.***

    I work this way also. I find some empirical thing. I do my research. I try to explain it as a series of operations. If I can then that’s a truth candidate. If I can’t then it isn’t.

    What I do NOT do, is engage in the 20th century fallacy of correlation, unless I can also determine causation.

    Statistics assist us in hypothesizing. Actions tell us truth.

    Source date (UTC): 2016-01-22 04:39:00 UTC

  • So freaking obvious. I’m stupid. The cheapest thing a woman can do here is eat c

    So freaking obvious. I’m stupid. The cheapest thing a woman can do here is eat carefully and stay fit by walking. I mean, a woman in shape can wear a pair of jeans, a turtleneck, and cheap bangles, makeup and she looks amazing.

    Same for men you know. It’s hard to look bad in jeans and a sport shirt when you have low body fat and extra upper body strength.

    Source date (UTC): 2016-01-21 06:59:00 UTC

  • “Apple remains the most important stock to the entire market. The brutal 30% dro

    —“Apple remains the most important stock to the entire market. The brutal 30% drop in the stock from its high has erased $224 billion in investors wealth – which exceeds the market value of all but a handful of the stocks in the Standard & Poor’s 500. Apple’s profits are so large and important, they are expected to account for 7.2% of the operating earnings reported by all the companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500”—

    Like I said

    (a) Apple will have to go for the business market once the consumer market peaks

    (b) Enterprise software will have to catch up on its underinvestment in order to sell hardware.

    I was kind of hoping we had two more years before it happened so that we could get oversing up there.

    Source date (UTC): 2016-01-21 03:05:00 UTC

  • Yet another bit of feedback. Everyone is telling me the same thing: Entering an

    Yet another bit of feedback. Everyone is telling me the same thing: Entering an oversold position because of fears over china and oil. I think it has a few more weeks to play out. I am having trouble undrestanding why vaporizing institutional portfolios, and chaos in the international political debt cycle are going to affect consumers, or fundamentals. Usual suspects are quiet. So I’m sticking with it will level out soon and we will have a recovery once the stress wears off. (watch me be wrong…fuk)

    Source date (UTC): 2016-01-20 18:11:00 UTC

  • IS THE MOST ACCURATE FRAMING OF THE ECONOMIC MOVEMENTS CURRENTLY AVAILABLE TO US

    https://t.co/CYn1I4nXmXTHIS IS THE MOST ACCURATE FRAMING OF THE ECONOMIC MOVEMENTS CURRENTLY AVAILABLE TO US.

    1 – Austrian economics seeks to eliminate asymmetries of knowledge so that people can cooperate voluntarily under the optimum possible conditions. So as a movement, Austrian economics was a social science. In other words, they want to improve our information.

    2 – American (Chicago) economics seeks to identify rule of law, so that economics can be constructed as a formula under rule of law – eliminating discretionary toying with the economy, just as rule of law eliminates discretionary toying with the polity. In other words, they want to manipulate information as little as possible.

    3 – Saltwater (New York/California) economics seeks to identify the maximum disinformation that the government can insert into the economy with which to farm taxes, consume, and redistribute them, while preserving the incentive to keep working and risking capital (the hamster wheel), and to create sufficient knowledge of how to use disinformation that policy makers have full discretion.

    My @Quora answer to Is Keynsian economics better for America than Austrian economics?

    Source date (UTC): 2016-01-19 17:00:00 UTC