Curt Doolittle

Theme: Institution

  • What Is The Military Intelligence Unit Within The Pentagon That Specifically Works To Create Plans For Hypothetical Conflicts With All Other Nations?

    In order to be able to respond quickly to unforeseen or unlikely circumstances, all countries with substantial militaries possess a General Staff. A General Staff is not an intelligence unit. The purpose of a General Staff is to envision scenarios, create plans for handling them, and to file them in case they might be needed. The more ‘creative’ and unlikely the plan the better. It consumes inputs and makes requests of intelligence services. These plans are updated regularly and discarded if they no longer make any sense. For example, Norman Schwartzkopf had written a plan for Desert Storm, and they pulled it out. More recently, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and capture of Crimea was the result of previously made plans. Countries have absurd numbers of them.

    The government also conducts ‘war games’ (Or did back when I was involved) where they invite you and a few others to role play various scenarios. Sometimes they are testing these plans or considering new ones.

    Most of the “whacky” reporting you hear about some “plan” originates in one of these ‘unlikely’ plans. And while ‘odd’ it is exceptionally good training for top talent. Particularly for the USA because the USA has such a logistics problem – the USA is an island. Getting weapons, people, and supplies off the island and to a location is hard and expensive work.

    https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-Military-Intelligence-unit-within-the-Pentagon-that-specifically-works-to-create-plans-for-hypothetical-conflicts-with-all-other-nations

  • Can Vancouver, Bc Become A New Silicon Valley?

    It’s unlikely. (Spoken as someone who has purchased a Canadian tech company)
    1. Canadian work ethic and 100 hour weeks at startups are incompatible.
    2. Employment regulations place too high a burden on small businesses.
    3. Shareholder requirements in Canada are too burdensome for high risk opportunities.
    4. Consumer banking in Canada is exceptional but commercial banking is like dealing with the government – depressing, incompetent, and ignorant.
    5. The VC community (if you want to call it that) is not competent in tech – better in mining and resources.
    6. The university system has no peer to California or NY/Boston
    7. Canada lacks sufficient population to produce sufficient engineers, capable of taking sufficient risks. At present it takes 500M people in a market to produce competitive intellectual work products at the level of global powers.

    https://www.quora.com/Can-Vancouver-BC-become-a-new-Silicon-Valley

  • THE LAYER CAKE OF SOCIAL ORDER RELIGION Religion evolved to provide understandin

    THE LAYER CAKE OF SOCIAL ORDER

    RELIGION

    Religion evolved to provide understanding of the word, virtues to imitate, and general prohibitions, across clans, tribes, and conquered nations, so that people could cooperate more easily and retaliate (feud) less frequently.

    Weapon: ostracization (death sentence)

    Records: memory of locals.

    LAW

    Law evolved to standardize punishments across clans, tribes, and conquered nations, to keep the peace, preserve productivity, preserve taxation, and legitimize (provide value by) rule.

    Weapon: violence, deprivation

    Records: written ledgers of crimes and punishments.

    CREDIT

    Credit rule evolved to increase productivity by the promise of consumption in the present, such that the primary form of social punishment was loss of consumption, status, and signaling.

    Weapon: deprivation of consumption, status, and signaling.

    Records: written and electronic records of creditworthiness.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-03-08 06:46:00 UTC

  • COMMON SHAREHOLDERS ARE NOT OWNERS OF ORGANIZATIONS Ownership: control. Ownershi

    COMMON SHAREHOLDERS ARE NOT OWNERS OF ORGANIZATIONS

    Ownership: control. Ownership (control) of WHAT? Ownership denies others use, consumption, transfer, and fruits. So what ownership do shares actually convey? RESIDUAL FRUITS.

    Shareholdership in practice provides a limited ownership to residual capital.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-03-06 06:36:00 UTC

  • A CORPORATION IS PRODUCED THROUGH LIMITED LIABILITY REQUIRING A MONOPOLY INSURER

    A CORPORATION IS PRODUCED THROUGH LIMITED LIABILITY REQUIRING A MONOPOLY INSURER OF LAST RESORT: STATE.

    A corporation CAN only occur in a state, because a corporation obtains limited liability from the state.

    One can form a partnership, and one can issue shares to distribute ownership in a partnership, and one can create all sorts of different shareholder agreements, but a corporation of any of the three popular types (llc, S, C) differ in the method of taxation, the means of management, and the extent of limited liability.

    in a private law society lacking a constitution, and lacking a state as an insurer of last resort, there is no such possibilty of limited liabiilty. The solutoin is to obtain insurers, and pay insurers fees instead of taxes in order to limit your liabilities.

    This is another example of how libertarian thinkers take advantage of the ignorance of individuals as to the nature of the state: it is an insurer of last resort.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-03-05 22:44:00 UTC

  • Ostrom identified eight “design principles” of stable local common pool resource

    Ostrom identified eight “design principles” of stable local common pool resource management:

    1. Clearly defined (clear definition of the contents of the common pool resource and effective exclusion of external un-entitled parties);

    2. The appropriation and provision of common resources that are adapted to local conditions;

    3. Collective-choice arrangements that allow most resource appropriators to participate in the decision-making process;

    4. Effective monitoring by monitors who are part of or accountable to the appropriators;

    5. A scale of graduated sanctions for resource appropriators who violate community rules;

    6. Mechanisms of conflict resolution that are cheap and of easy access;

    7. Self-determination of the community recognized by higher-level authorities; and

    8. In the case of larger common-pool resources, organization in the form of multiple layers of nested enterprises, with small local CPRs at the base level.

    via Oliver Westcott

    Source date (UTC): 2017-03-05 20:47:00 UTC

  • OATH (n.) Old English að “oath, judicial swearing, solemn appeal to deity in wit

    OATH (n.)

    Old English að “oath, judicial swearing, solemn appeal to deity in witness of truth or a promise,” from Proto-Germanic *aithaz (source also of Old Norse eiðr, Swedish ed, Old Saxon, Old Frisian eth, Middle Dutch eet, Dutch eed, German eid, Gothic aiþs “oath”), from PIE *oi-to- “an oath” (source also of Old Irish oeth “oath”). Common to Celtic and Germanic, possibly a loan-word from one to the other, but the history is obscure.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-03-04 11:15:00 UTC

  • SALIC LAW (/ˈsælᵻk/ or /ˈseɪlᵻk/; Latin: Lex Salica), or Salian Law, was the anc

    SALIC LAW (/ˈsælᵻk/ or /ˈseɪlᵻk/; Latin: Lex Salica), or Salian Law, was the ancient Salian Frankish civil law code compiled around AD 500 by the first Frankish King, Clovis. Recorded in Latin and in what Dutch linguists describe as one of the earliest known records of Old Dutch. it would remain the basis of Frankish law throughout the early Medieval period, influencing future European legal systems.

    Salic law provided written codification of both civil law, such as the statutes governing inheritance, and criminal law, such as the punishment for murder. It has had a formative influence on the tradition of statute law that has extended to modern times in Central Europe, especially in the German states, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, parts of Italy, Austria-Hungary, Romania, and the Balkans.

    The best known tenet of the old law is the principle of exclusion of women from inheritance of thrones, fiefs and other property. The Salic laws were arbitrated by a committee appointed and empowered by the King of the Franks. Dozens of manuscripts dating from the 6th to 8th centuries and three emendations as late as the 9th century have survived.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-03-04 11:13:00 UTC

  • COMMON LAW (n.) mid-14c., “the customary and unwritten laws of England as embodi

    COMMON LAW (n.)

    mid-14c., “the customary and unwritten laws of England as embodied in commentaries and old cases” (see common (adj.)), as opposed to statute law. Phrase common law marriage is attested from 1909.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-03-04 11:09:00 UTC

  • TESTIFY (v.) late 14c., “give legal testimony, affirm the truth of, bear witness

    TESTIFY (v.)

    late 14c., “give legal testimony, affirm the truth of, bear witness to;” of things, c. 1400, “serve as evidence of,” from Anglo-French testifier, from Latin testificari “bear witness, show, demonstrate,” also “call to witness,” from testis “a witness” (see testament) + root of facere “to make” (see factitious). Biblical sense of “openly profess one’s faith and devotion” is attested from 1520s. Related: Testified; testifying; testification.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-03-04 11:08:00 UTC