Curt Doolittle

Theme: Incentives

  • “By and large, it appears that there’s just a very high cost of temporal flexibi

    —“By and large, it appears that there’s just a very high cost of temporal flexibility in certain occupations.”—Claudia Goldin, Harvard

    the marginal difference in gender pay

    Source date (UTC): 2016-01-08 22:43:00 UTC

  • Does The Market Produce Truth Telling?

    [D]oes The Market Produce Truth Telling? Every polity possesses a market order – it must. Very few polities produce truth telling – truth telling is extremely expensive. Its expensive because its an investment in a commons (norm). And that investment is easily open to privatization (cheating). Ergo, groups demonstrate the minimum truth possible necessary to survive rather than the highest trust necessary to complete. Cheating is demonstration of a shorter(higher) time preference, and truth telling and longer(lower) time preference. With meritocratic ability (skill talent knowledge) determining the value of common investment(truth telling/production) versus private consumption (cheating/parasitism). Ergo the less genetic pacification (culling of the underclass), and the less pacification of parasitism (rule of law and property), the lower the trust and the greater the parasitism, and the greater the demand for the state. This is compatible with the Nozickian origins of social order (they will emerge out of cooperative necessity). But not with locke,hobbes,rousseu,hume who seem not to have (I could be wrong) identified the equilibrium between pure self interest and cheating and the extraordinary returns on morality and cooperation. Meaning Axelrod is right that the prisonner’s dilemma is the state of nature we must answer. So of all the prior era writers’ imaginings of the state of nature, appear to have been either wrong or insufficient.

  • Does The Market Produce Truth Telling?

    [D]oes The Market Produce Truth Telling? Every polity possesses a market order – it must. Very few polities produce truth telling – truth telling is extremely expensive. Its expensive because its an investment in a commons (norm). And that investment is easily open to privatization (cheating). Ergo, groups demonstrate the minimum truth possible necessary to survive rather than the highest trust necessary to complete. Cheating is demonstration of a shorter(higher) time preference, and truth telling and longer(lower) time preference. With meritocratic ability (skill talent knowledge) determining the value of common investment(truth telling/production) versus private consumption (cheating/parasitism). Ergo the less genetic pacification (culling of the underclass), and the less pacification of parasitism (rule of law and property), the lower the trust and the greater the parasitism, and the greater the demand for the state. This is compatible with the Nozickian origins of social order (they will emerge out of cooperative necessity). But not with locke,hobbes,rousseu,hume who seem not to have (I could be wrong) identified the equilibrium between pure self interest and cheating and the extraordinary returns on morality and cooperation. Meaning Axelrod is right that the prisonner’s dilemma is the state of nature we must answer. So of all the prior era writers’ imaginings of the state of nature, appear to have been either wrong or insufficient.

  • Translating Chinese Policy Into Words

    “[I]f we possess a reserve currency, and maintain the military means of defending it and our trade routes, then we can capture the premium on trafficking contracts, exchanges, and their negotiations currently captured by the British/American financial and trade route system – and by doing so may cause a drastic reduction in the USA’s ability to finance it’s system, provide competition to that trade system, provide one that is not as meritocratic but more suitable to our needs, and cause a significant drop in the american standard of living such that we restore our ancestral position as first-nation in the world.”

    “Agree with what you wrote Curt, but while the meritocratic system worked for the US initially, the US just doesn’t make them like it used to. Therefore, the US is now viewed as a country no longer interested in propagating the best products/standards/ideas throughout the world, but in only maintaining its 80-year financial/military/industrial advantage. In short, the US is in danger, if it hasn’t already, of becoming just another friggin’ country. It’s a shame, but the Chinese are incentivised to overturn the existing system and to create a new one. As American living standards drop, so does its military capabilities, and I suspect that’s what China is really after.” — Sean Ring

    Shared vision.

  • Translating Chinese Policy Into Words

    “[I]f we possess a reserve currency, and maintain the military means of defending it and our trade routes, then we can capture the premium on trafficking contracts, exchanges, and their negotiations currently captured by the British/American financial and trade route system – and by doing so may cause a drastic reduction in the USA’s ability to finance it’s system, provide competition to that trade system, provide one that is not as meritocratic but more suitable to our needs, and cause a significant drop in the american standard of living such that we restore our ancestral position as first-nation in the world.”

    “Agree with what you wrote Curt, but while the meritocratic system worked for the US initially, the US just doesn’t make them like it used to. Therefore, the US is now viewed as a country no longer interested in propagating the best products/standards/ideas throughout the world, but in only maintaining its 80-year financial/military/industrial advantage. In short, the US is in danger, if it hasn’t already, of becoming just another friggin’ country. It’s a shame, but the Chinese are incentivised to overturn the existing system and to create a new one. As American living standards drop, so does its military capabilities, and I suspect that’s what China is really after.” — Sean Ring

    Shared vision.

  • TRANSLATING CHINESE “If we possess a reserve currency, and maintain the military

    TRANSLATING CHINESE

    “If we possess a reserve currency, and maintain the military means of defending it and our trade routes, then we can capture the premium on trafficking contracts, exchanges, and their negotiations currently captured by the British/American financial and trade route system – and by doing so may cause a drastic reduction in the USA’s ability to finance it’s system, provide competition to that trade system, provide one that is not as meritocratic but more suitable to our needs, and cause a significant drop in the american standard of living such that we restore our ancestral position as first-nation in the world.”

    Source date (UTC): 2016-01-05 12:21:00 UTC

  • ( When we promise status signals in exchange for entry into the consumptive clas

    ( When we promise status signals in exchange for entry into the consumptive classes, that’s easy. But are we now short on signals?

    Source date (UTC): 2016-01-04 12:12:15 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/683984282553982977

    Reply addressees: @JonHaidt

    Replying to: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/681305231087517697

    IN REPLY TO:

    Original post on X

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    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/681305231087517697

  • On libertarian perma-bears. This is another instance of social discontent. A rea

    On libertarian perma-bears.

    This is another instance of social discontent. A reaction to rejection.

    I am an advocate of the Austrian business cycle and the accumulated fragility and damage from misallocation of all forms of capital in order to construct artificial consumption through artificial employment.This is a logical necessity. And is finally empirically obvious.

    But bearism is merely a signal that one is rejecting the current order. And little else.

    Contrarianism is an excellent strategy but one must ask why one evolved into a contrarian.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-12-29 16:37:00 UTC

  • WHY ARE WOMEN’S COMMODITIES OFTEN MORE EXPENSIVE THAN MEN’S (HINT: WASTE) Market

    WHY ARE WOMEN’S COMMODITIES OFTEN MORE EXPENSIVE THAN MEN’S (HINT: WASTE)

    Marketing and Advertising tend to reflect fictions not truths. Prices tend to reflect truths not fictions. For counter-intuitive price differences, find a way for human behavior to explain why a given price is true. (This is operationalism, or what we call incentives.)

    Women display higher sensitivity when selecting purchases. There are evolutionary reasons for women doing so. Men display lower sensitivity when selecting purchases . There are evolutionary reasons for men to do so. In all products that cater to women companies require greater variation in product lines. Fashion in particular. And in all product lines companies experience greater losses. Ergo, women’s products are more price-perishable.

    The fact that it’s difficult to sell to women, yet women dispose of most income, creates a lottery effect. Much of this lottery effect encourages entry into the market for women’s products. Women benefit from this lottery, both in discounts on goods and on greater variety of goods. Suiting their greater discretion.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-12-27 01:40:00 UTC

  • Women aren’t victims of overpaying for beauty products. The marketers who do the

    Women aren’t victims of overpaying for beauty products. The marketers who do the research are largely women.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-12-23 14:45:04 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/679674086063210496

    Reply addressees: @voxdotcom

    Replying to: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/679672826501197824

    IN REPLY TO:

    @voxdotcom

    The hidden tax women pay on just about everything https://t.co/EpGDCVGJ6K https://t.co/RlZdjGJpMH

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/679672826501197824