Curt Doolittle

Theme: Institution

  • THE VALUE IS ALL IN ORGANIZING, NOT IN LABORING —“This is profound. How about

    THE VALUE IS ALL IN ORGANIZING, NOT IN LABORING

    —“This is profound. How about expanding it and making it into its own post? Who organizes violence? Who organizes reproduction? Etc.”—Ben Smith

    THE ECONOMICS OF TIME

    our only existential commodity is time. It is very scarce. when we divide labor we produce multiples of returns on time that are not achievable by any other means. In this sense we are not wealthier than cave men, we have simply made all things cheaper.

    When we come together in groups we have the choice of flight, cooperation, or conflict. If we cooperate that means at the very least we do not prey upon each other. At best it means that we engage in a division of labor. But most importantly, we reduce opportunity costs – the time necessary to find an opportunity.

    So while our second commons is cooperation, (property), our first commons is opportunities. When we cooperate we do not allow one another to seize opportunities. Instead, we only allow one another to homestead opportunities. This is why competition succeeds: we compete for opportunities created by proximity and property. And we empirically test our hypotheses by our success or failure in seizing those opportunities via the market.

    Now, we hold this set of opportunities (territory) by defending them from others. We defend them from others who would take them without homesteading. We defend them from others who would reallocate that property and those opportunities.

    The military ‘owns’ the territory. All of it. Everyone else is merely a customer. That’s simply an operational fact.

    So the military organizes the territory. Within it, the government organizes the commons. Within the commons the capitalists organized production; the bourgeoise organize production distribution and trade. Within the commons the people organize families. And Labor (important distinction) organizes physical things as needed by transforming them from one state to the next. So nearly all work is using incentives to organize people, while labor organizes that which is not human.

    Now we come together into markets (cities) where opportunity costs are low, but territorial costs are high, and commons are cheap. Others distribute to suburbia and rural areas where opportunity costs are higher, territorial costs are lower, and commons are terribly expensive.

    Some countries intelligently solve this problem (french concentration in cities, and protectionism in the rural areas; or german mandatory family sized apartments in cities) or really poorly (british homes are tiny, dark, expensive, hovels by comparison), new york is moving the way of tokyo, and much of asia is returning to pre-civilized eras where one rents a cubicle for sleeping and lives outside of that area the rest of the day.

    The costs of commons differ by density. If we were to vote on commons then votes should consist of the inverse of population density, since the cost of commons in rural areas is absurd, and this is what accounts for the differences in urban and rural behavior: accurate perception of differences in costs of commons.

    Landlordism (manorialism) has proven an exceptional method for allocating territory to those who are most productive with it, and pushing out those who are unproductive. In America we already have Georgist taxation on land. It hasn’t changed anything. Property rents vary by location but mostly by the built capital upon that location. So it doesn’t make any difference. The russians tried the opposite and it led to shitty life everywhere.

    If you said that the resources are a commons, then yes, that makes sense. If you said that taxes on rental properties are not empirically matched to total service costs I would say that was easy to test and it’s unlikely to be true.

    So unless you can make a fairly strong portfolio case then it’s hard to argue.

    Landlords organize density the way investors organize industry, the way entrepreneurs organize talents, the way managers organize labor.

    All the value is in organizing people. The labor isn’t worth shit.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-06-20 13:00:00 UTC

  • OF ANCIENT LEGAL CODES

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ancient_legal_codesLIST OF ANCIENT LEGAL CODES

    Source date (UTC): 2017-06-20 09:23:00 UTC

  • DAVID FRIEDMAN’S BOOK ON LIBERTINE LEGAL SYSTEMS ALL (Feedback) (Joseph Valerius

    http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Lega…/LegalSystemsContents.htmON DAVID FRIEDMAN’S BOOK ON LIBERTINE LEGAL SYSTEMS

    ALL (Feedback) (Joseph Valerius thanks for inviting me to respond.)

    Just read through these chapters quickly – I know this material already. As usual David’s work is readable and enjoyable. My central criticism is that ‘different from ours’ plus the choice of legal system’s included, implies an arbitrary equality (difference) rather than an honest statement of intent by which these particular legal systems are chosen according to their shared properties.

    1) The list is interesting because it includes so many failed peoples, and does not include many successful peoples. By successful, I mean, those that can hold territory, create their own institutions, and defend them against competitors. Why is it that most of these legal systems could not produce sufficient productivity and as a consequence sufficient investment in the commons to hold territory against competitors?

    2) Why NOT include these systems of law:

    Hammurabi’s Code

    Early Roman Law

    Late (Stoic) Roman Law

    Frankish Law (Saliq Law)

    Germanic and Anglo Saxon Law

    Continental (Napoleonic) Law

    Soviet Law

    International law

    (FWIW: in intelligence gathering and in propaganda production, what is mentioned tells us more about the speaker than what is mentioned. Just as in straw man arguments, we learn more about the speaker from what he avoids speaking of than we do of what he speaks. Just as in marxist propaganda and postmodern propaganda we learn that heaping of undue praise, and straw man arguments as excuses for criticism serve as the principal means of deception by suggestion.) So I don’t like the selection without qualification of its purpose: what did so many legal codes fail, and why did others succeed?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ancient_legal_codes

    3) The list is even more interesting if we look at which produced high trust societies – where high trust is the most expensive commons, which is why no one outside of the Hajnal Line produces it. Societies that progressed through the agrarian phase and succeeded in holding territory emerged with superior demographics through the reduction of the scale of the underclass. Societies that did not progress through holding territory and the agrarian phase either failed to develop truth, reason, technology, science, formal institutions, and particularly institutions of competitive law.

    4) The Han are the largest homogenous ethnic group, that other than northern europeans, has held the same territory, for the longest period of time. There is a reason that history of only two peoples is worthy of study: the Han and the European: the han could not produce trust but they held territory, produced reason and technology. The Europeans held territory less effectively (particularly against islamic invasion), produced reason, trust, technology and science.

    5) Laws express a group’s evolutionary strategy both in-group and out-group. And it is trivially easy to judge a set of laws by their survival from competition – their evolutionary success or failure.

    6) There is only one universal criteria of decidability in matters of conflict: non imposition of costs against that which others have born costs to obtain an interest: reciprocity. And that is how international law functions today.

    The origin of all legal codes that I know of is the need to suppress retaliation cycles (feuds) in eras where property was largely insured by kin (brothers, uncles, cousins), and where crimes and punishments (or restitutions) were asymmetric, which led to exacerbation of retaliation cycles. So if we look at early legal codes, they emphasize not rules, but standardization of punishments.

    As legal codes mature, they include standardization of crimes, not just punishments. in fact, the word ‘liberty’ refers to the permission to retain local law and custom independent from the ruling law (territorial defense and taxation).

    As legal codes mature further, they include weights and measures (prohibitions against metric fraud). And further as they mature they include prohibitions against verbal fraud. At present for example, we lack prohibitions on a great deal of verbal fraud using pseudoscience (we call this set of frauds economics and financialization). But nearly all the social sciences consist largely of pseudoscientific frauds yet to be prohibited.

    As legal codes mature further they include prohibitions on externalities. And if we go through david’s list, it’s easy to see which of these legal codes prohibits externalities, and which LICENSE or actually encourage externalities. (poly-logical, poly-ethical) legal codes in particular. (Jewish and Islamic ethics in particular).

    The most interesting is the chinese structure for families (it’s a crime to report on your parents) vs the soviet (it’s a requirement to report on them). Or the class based systems where punishments are progressive as are taxes today. Or the egalitarian systems that prohibit differences by class or group.

    In large part these different ethics tell us a great deal about social orders, and the group’s evolutionary strategy. (Western market model is to profit from domestication. Han model is just a large extended family with identical interests. )

    7) We can judge (measure) the difference between legal systems by the methods of parasitism (ir-reciprocity) that they preserve. What kinds of parasitism do each of the listed legal systems preserve? Why did they preserve it. So it is possible to objectively compare the morality or immorality of different cultural systems by their judicial method and content.

    8) Diversity is bad – particularly ethnic diversity. High trust is good. Empirical law is good. Empirical law requires a method of decidability. The only universal method of decidability is perfect reciprocity. Perfect reciprocity is only possible under non-imposition of costs upon that which others have born costs to obtain an interest.

    9) The roman failure is reducible to the underinvestment in the Great Wall Against The Steppe and Desert Peoples that the chinese had managed to construct, and attempts to integrate undomesticated (inferior) peoples into the empire. Or better said: empires leave behind monuments, but cause the death of their originators. As such, as the Han and Medieval Europeans demonstrated, the optimum strategy is nationalism.

    10) Our lesson is that while conquest is profitable in the short term, the cost of colonialism is always higher in the long term than the benefit. And that the success of the only people who rely on fully on markets (europeans), was possibly only where they eradicated prior peoples. The fact that this is obvious from any study of evolutionary biology should not surprise us.

    Worse, wherever europeans (light haired european, dark haired iranian) expanded, wherever they integrated with the locals they were destroyed. They survived only in Europe and Persia. And were (it appears) eradicated by the arab conquest. Those that made it to india are simply outbred and gone.

    Our lessons are the trust of the europeans by use of militia and reason, and the security of the Chinese through isolation and reason.

    11) At present the only matters of contention in legal theory are:

    a) whether democratic polities should be permitted to construct legislation that circumvents reciprocity, or merely agree upon binding contracts within the limits of reciprocity.

    b) whether to contain the law to strict construction, textualism, and original intent (all of which may mean the same thing), or whether to allow judges discretionary control over the law.

    c) when the law is unclear whether to demand clarity from the legislature, or whether judges decide and compensate for weaknesses of the legislature.

    d) whether or not to rely on the common law’s argument to first principles and judicial review, or whether to rely on the continental law establishing intermediary first principles, regardless of judicial review.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Propertarian Institute

    Kiev Ukraine.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-06-20 09:18:00 UTC

  • ( Watching an Asian guy fail because he doesn’t grasp that western investors don

    ( Watching an Asian guy fail because he doesn’t grasp that western investors don’t haggle. Absolute transparency is required. Every word is a contract. You propose the deal you need. That proposal of ‘reasonableness’ is their test of you. If they see something they like they will respond with something. If you can tolerate the deal and can leverage investor, you take it. )

    Source date (UTC): 2017-06-19 21:02:00 UTC

  • THE MONARCHY AS A TRADE By Lorenz Fiorenza Monarchies are a family. Family is th

    THE MONARCHY AS A TRADE

    By Lorenz Fiorenza

    Monarchies are a family. Family is the foundation of social organization.

    As a rule, one has more investment in their direct family than their extended kin. Combine state with family and the monarch should be very, very invested in the well-being of the state.

    Families -usually- practice consistent trades. A working class family teaches their sons to be mechanics*, bougie family focuses on their jeweler business*, a monarchical family focuses on the administration and decorum of the nation*. ***or they cease to be a family and are erased from history.

    You make a profitable trade out of rule and rulers are very likely to make a multi-generational business out of it.

    If you fail, you get the Romanov solution.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-06-18 15:58:00 UTC

  • RUSSIA AND THE FAMILY OVER THE INDIVIDUAL —“Is “utopia” to be found in somethi

    RUSSIA AND THE FAMILY OVER THE INDIVIDUAL

    —“Is “utopia” to be found in something close to the Russian model but with a developed middle class, meaning combining the Russian model with European. And does Eastern-Europe (Poland, Ukraine, etc.) fit those criteria?”—

    Russia has preserved the family, and the west has heralded the individual. Russia has restored the military to the top of the order. The west has the academy (church) at the top of the order. Russia has high corruption for money, America has high corruption for (church) virtue signaling and money.

    How do you fix both? Well, you simply stop playing dishonest games and institute in your constitution that which is important: familiy, and you institutionalize the commons in the service of the family and individuals can benefit only so long as they do not diminish the sacredness of the family. And that’s pretty easy to do. You just have to write it into the law. I can do that.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-06-17 10:16:00 UTC

  • MONTHEISM (MONOPOLY) VS MONOLATRISM (IDENTITY) Akhenaten implemented MONOLATRISM

    MONTHEISM (MONOPOLY) VS MONOLATRISM (IDENTITY)

    Akhenaten implemented MONOLATRISM – the worship of only one god, without the denial of the other gods. His purpose was to create a new capital, based it on the sun god, and eliminate the power of the priesthood (and the exorbitant costs of the priesthood.)

    MONOLATRISM differs from MONOTHEISM in that monotheism denies the existence of other gods, and ABRAHAMISM additionally claims scriptural dictation by man, thereby creating law, and additionally, conflates history with myth, claiming that events are historical in fact, rather than mere myths.

    Fundamentalism arises only in the counter-enlightenment, when science evolves to the point where science attempts to defeat myths, and devotees double-down on their myths, creating fundamentalism.

    Prior to the fundamentalist era, especially in the west, myth and reality were not necessarily the same, nor were they in conflict.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-06-16 16:18:00 UTC

  • AMAZON, FACEBOOK, GOOGLE, APPLE … I don’t see an problem with apple other than

    https://www.axios.com/the-growing-antitrust-concerns-about-u-s-tech-giants-2433870013.htmlOF AMAZON, FACEBOOK, GOOGLE, APPLE …

    I don’t see an problem with apple other than the near certainty of a severe correction in apple will have a profound impact all over the country as averages are affected just as they were after the justice department attacked Microsoft.

    I don’t see a meaningful problem with Amazon and I welcome the collapse of the retail real estate jungle.

    The problem with google and facebook is the same: they are both effectively infrastructure plays and that’s all, and since they are funded by advertising, they have a ‘truthfulness’ problem.

    The problem with facebook is that it’s increasingly irrelevant as an advertising platform and increasingly a Utility run by people with ‘an agenda’ worse than that of the state.

    I’d prefer highly regulating both of them, or to partly nationalize both of them, and eliminating advertising revenue and incentives.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-06-15 18:06:00 UTC

  • The pantheons of the west represent normal semi-dysfuncitonal families – like re

    The pantheons of the west represent normal semi-dysfuncitonal families – like realty. They are unequal. LIke reality. They constitute a hierarchy. Like reality. We can outwith them. Like reality. We can negotiate with them. like reality. We can ignore them. like reality. We can choose a favorite mentor. LIke reality. We can construct plays using archetypes, plots, virtues, like reality.

    The egyptians preserved their primitive animism and didn’t evolve into human characters. The reasons for which we can guess.

    The west did.

    BECAUSE MAN DISPLACED THE GODS IN THE WEST AND TOOK HIS SOVEREIGNTY FROM THEM.

    BY FIRE, BRONZE, WHEEL, HORSE, CHARIOT

    WESTERN MAN LOOKED TO DEFEAT THE SKIES NOT THANK THE EARTH

    Source date (UTC): 2017-06-15 14:46:00 UTC

  • Why do I want to combine church, school, and academy? Because the era where educ

    Why do I want to combine church, school, and academy? Because the era where education ends is over. Education will be continuous. Not a single large investment followed by debt, but a continuous part time investment from birth until death. Not classes organized by age, but by ability and interest. And there is no need for a church of lies. We will not need a church of continuous therapy for our failure to produce mindfulness. Only the teaching of the disciplines by which we produce in a division of labor, that security which we evolved in the tribe.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-06-15 14:21:00 UTC