Curt Doolittle

Theme: Productivity

  • WHY ARE HAPPY PEOPLE HAPPY? Advice for teens and twenties. Unfortunately, pervas

    WHY ARE HAPPY PEOPLE HAPPY?

    Advice for teens and twenties.

    Unfortunately, pervasive happiness comes in large part from biological predisposition due to the different productivity of inherited cerebral chemistry. These problems are exacerbated by lack of exercise, diet, low level allergic reaction, and minor illnesses that are often difficult if not impossible to detect until late in life. Thankfully prescription chemistry, exercise, and diet generally compensate for the average person long enough to change behavior and disposition.

    2) Remember that until we mature fully, from the time we start adulthood, in males, lots of previous avenues for positive emotional stimulation are being shut off, and in females, lots of possible avenues for stimulation are being exaggerated. Each by different biochemistry. These changes place extraordinary challenges on our moods as we search for ways to maintain stable pleasurable inputs amidst ether decreasing avenues for getting them, or increasing sensitivity to negatives amidst a scarcity of positives. The only known way to combat it is actually exercise and socialization. But the school system’s emphasis on keeping people of similar age together instead of mixing ages, among a majority of adults, makes it very difficult for both teens and twenties, who are surrounded by people in similar periods of biologically induced psychological confusion.

    3) What can you do? Eat clean. Get hard exercise just a few times a week. (Yes, two hour sessions of very physical sex that make you sweat do count a little bit). If you get bored with exercise it just isn’t hard enough in a short enough period. And get drugs if you need to. As a side effect, a good deal of them actually make you quite a bit smarter – albiet slowly. And that’s always good for everyone.

    4) Magic bullet? The magic bullet is team sports. It doesn’t matter which one. This allows our very human pack instinct to give you feedback without having to search for ‘spirituality’ or some other private means of achieving the feeling of safety and participation in the pack. (Yes, that’s what that spiritual feeling is caused by and why we like it so much.) As a nerd, I understand the problem with team sports, but hey, I played competitive video games. It works, just gotta get exercise elsewhere. Walking fast while shopping will do it believe it or not. Book on tape and walking fast is great for the brain. ‘Cause that nonsense you were taught from 5th-12th grade, other than math, is probably absolutely useless in today’s society. And because of multiculturalism, the teachers can’t teach you anything meaningful about history. And history is the only reasonable record of what humans actually do, rather than what we wish they did.

    Cheers

    Source date (UTC): 2013-03-30 06:58:00 UTC

  • COMPETITION AS VIRTUE The only moral duty I can be sure of, is to produce goods

    COMPETITION AS VIRTUE

    The only moral duty I can be sure of, is to produce goods and services for the market, that are free from involuntary transfer, and to do so at a profit.

    It’s the only empirical test that my ideas are proven beneficial to, and by, my fellow man.

    Everything else is fantasy. 😉

    Source date (UTC): 2013-03-20 08:55:00 UTC

  • On Rent Seeking

    RENT SEEKING In public choice theory as well as in economics, rent-seeking means seeking to increase one’s share of existing wealth without creating new wealth. Simple Version: “Corruption from outside the government inside of inside the government.”

    NOUN 1. the fact or practice of manipulating public policy or economic conditions as a strategy for increasing profits. “cronyism and rent-seeking have become an integral part of the way our biggest companies do business”

    ADJECTIVE 1. engaging in or involving the manipulation of public policy or economic conditions as a strategy for increasing profits. “rent-seeking lobbyists” Rent-seeking results in reduced economic efficiency through misallocation of resources, reduced wealth-creation, lost government revenue, heightened income inequality, and potential national decline. [I]n its original sense, rent seeking is the act of gaining partial ownership of land in order to gain control of a part of its production. In government it is the act of gaining privileges, redistribution or partial monopolies. In its broadest sense it is the act of obtaining some sort if claim on the productivity of others rather than producing something ones self, or through voluntary exchange. We all seek rents. We all seek opportunity for benefitting from either the actions of our organizations, the actions of others, or the grant of state state monopolies. Women seek mates as monetary rents and men to ease the burden of childrearing. We all seek rents. We could argue that rent seeking is the primary incentive for cooperation. Because so few of us are productive enough through direct exchange of our efforts. The only rent thats totally moral is interest. Interest is free of involuntary transfer. Interest, in the sense that we rent money to others, contrary to our superstitions, is moral. Now, It is possible to seek rents via interest. Either through usury or through leveraging the state’s fiat money. One can collect interest on production. On can collect interest on consumption. Neither of these things is necessary. Both are voluntary. Neither produce negative externalities. They create whole sequences of positive externalities. But collecting interest on externalities is immoral if it creates externalities that produce involuntary transfers. Rothbards ghetto ethics actually encourage involuntary transfers. Under the false presumption that the market will solve the problem through competition. But Since all things being equal, profit from externalities is greater than the same loan without externalities, just the opposite is true. The market will encourage externalities. Also, ghetto ethics assume that judges will not hold people accountable for those externalities and require restitution of them. But they have and will. Because it is consistent with the ethics of property to do so.

  • THE FUTURE ECONOMY “…From 1780 to 1840, output per worker rose 46% and the rea

    THE FUTURE ECONOMY

    “…From 1780 to 1840, output per worker rose 46% and the real wage index rose by only about 12%, noting that none of these numbers are close to exact. … The significant real wage gains come after 1840 and — in my view — even more after 1870. After 1830 TFP is growing at the higher rate of about 1% a year, still not impressive by the standards of the early 20th century however.

    During the early 19th century, there is much creative ferment, but much less in terms of products which translate into gains in living standards for the average person.

    …

    Eventually all of the creative ferment of the industrial revolution pays off in a big “whoosh,” but it takes many decades, depending on where you draw the starting line of course. A look at the early 19th century is sobering, or should be, for anyone doing fiscal budgeting today. But it is also optimistic in terms of the larger picture facing humanity over the longer run.”. – Tyler Cowen

    Source date (UTC): 2013-03-04 15:50:00 UTC

  • ARE OPPORTUNITIES FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP? And an aside on the morality of business

    http://www.quora.com/Entrepreneurship/What-is-the-most-effective-yet-efficient-way-to-get-rich-2/answer/Reem-Yared/comment/1778627?srid=u4Qv&share=1WHERE ARE OPPORTUNITIES FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP?

    And an aside on the morality of business.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-02-22 00:37:00 UTC

  • What Is The Most Effective Yet Efficient Way To Get Rich?

    Read “millionaire mind” and “millionaire next door”.

    Statistically speaking: run a small business. Sell it to a larger business.

    Create balance sheet wealth.

    https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-most-effective-yet-efficient-way-to-get-rich-2

  • NO ONE EVER Had this much fun building financial software. Seriously. We own it.

    NO ONE EVER

    Had this much fun building financial software. Seriously.

    We own it. End of story.

    Where else is partying until dawn a job requirement?

    Lol.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-02-05 19:52:00 UTC

  • ARENT WRONG AFTER ALL. Just because we became more prosperous when freed man fro

    http://www.aei-ideas.org/2013/02/how-to-stop-the-robots-from-taking-all-our-jobs/LUDDITES ARENT WRONG AFTER ALL.

    Just because we became more prosperous when freed man from heavy labor so that he could engage in manufacturing, calculating and servicing, that doesnt mean we will equally benefit from freeing man from manufacturing and calculating.

    Mos of us can move from heavy to piece labor. But few of us can manipulate abstract calculative ibjects and pocesses.

    The future is one of increasing visibility and value of differences in ability.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-02-05 01:08:00 UTC

  • INVESTING IN THE ARTS So far, in the past sixty days, I’ve helped a great little

    INVESTING IN THE ARTS

    So far, in the past sixty days, I’ve helped a great little rock band start its first album. And a painter finance a show.

    I have another target in mind, but I have to find the right one.

    Why? Not out of some desire for signaling. But for catharsis.

    No one helped me. I fought like a dog for everything. Health and all. Aspie and all.

    So f__k them. 🙂 I did it on my own. And ill help people anyway.

    And ill keep doing it impulsively and at random to people who don’t expect it.

    Its the best revenge i can think of.

    And it fills me with joy.

    🙂

    Source date (UTC): 2013-01-28 12:16:00 UTC

  • I’VE BEEN SAYING FOR EIGHT YEARS : MSFT IS DEAD AND TAKING SEATTLE WITH IT. -AN

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2013/01/20/sell-microsoft-now-game-over-ballmer-loses/LIKE I’VE BEEN SAYING FOR EIGHT YEARS : MSFT IS DEAD AND TAKING SEATTLE WITH IT.

    -AN ENTREPRENEURIAL CATHARSIS. A MANAGERIAL CONTRAST. AND THE VALUE OF AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS AND PRAXEOLOGY-

    Microsoft has created an absurd environment in seattle. It has given more of its profits to employees that any company in history.

    Those employees have spent that money in the local market. It has created an affluent and educated community in King County. It’s a beautiful place to live.

    I’ve been working with Microsoft since they intentionally recruited me along with other thought leaders from the Borland camp in 1992.

    I’ve been instrumental or built four companies in the Microsoft space. With the most recent being the largest privately held firm servicing Microsoft customers.

    I”ve tried to save two products for Microsoft from outside the company, and in practice I am pretty sure that I’ve saved one (time will tell), and we know that we significantly improved the life of another.

    I spent half of 2005 working with senior people trying to implement change in how Microsoft marketed itself.

    What I learned, was that the incentives in the company made it impossible to change without a CEO who understood the problem, and would force the change, and a board that would back him.

    But interestingly enough. I had precisely the opposite problem. In our company we earned 40% of our revenues from Microsoft.

    So, I knew. I knew it was exit that dependency on Microsoft or die.

    My investor fought me. My management fought me.

    They fought me on the downturn in the economy that was inevitable.

    They fought me on the collapse of Microsoft spending that was inevitable.

    I lost the arguments. Because I could not produce evidence of a future that they could not sense on their own.

    That’s because there is no evidence of a future that they could sense on their own.

    And I had too little power to enforce such a change.

    I quit in May of 2009. They refused to accept it. And that was my mistake. Loyalty trumped wisdom.

    But nothing changes. The board over-invested in both Microsoft and TMobile, further extending our dependency.

    Microsoft constrained it spending. Then TMobile was ‘sold’. Business rapidly evaporated.

    I argued that the government would never, under any circumstance, allow the merger.

    That we should prepare campaigns for the duration of the dispute, and for the eventual failure.

    It was a tremendous gift. TMobile has great customer service. Customers love them. If you’re merger is rejected you have the best marketing opportunity in the world.

    With some significant gyrations, I saved the company in the fall of 2011 by a maneuver that is worthy of textbook inclusion.

    Then, I resigned again. This time for good.

    Am I happier today? Yes.

    Am I still angry about halving the size of the 100M company I built? Isn’t that obvious? Well, who wouldn’t be. It’s like someone kidnapped your child and sold her into drug slavery.

    Yes. I am happier today. I am also a little vindicated that the people who opposed me are humbled by it.

    Austrian Economics Explains Everything. If you are in business and do not understand Austrian Economics you are operating from a position of ignorance.

    Keynesian macro belongs to politicians and to investors who try to make money out of asymmetry of information in a complex economy.

    Macro policy is the system of creating lies in the economy so that people act as if those lies are truth, thereby reducing unemployment.

    Austrian economics is the system of understanding truths in the economy, despite the fact that the state creates systemic lies in order to reduce unemployment.

    The source of my predictive ability is due almost entirely to my understanding of Austrian Economics.

    Austrian Economics taught me to never be fooled by a trend. To look not at empirical evidence and extrapolate. That numbers describe the past but do not predict the future.

    It taught me to look at the INCENTIVES within any organization. The INCENTIVES that encourage consumers to buy a good or service.

    And the economic and social environment that enables the organization to serve the interests of consumers who REACT to that economic environment by changing their preferences in their signaling and purchasing.

    But with those incentives, do you know what really killed Microsoft?

    The US Government Killed Microsoft. They killed Bill Gates’ influence in the company. They killed his ability to execute in the company. The US Government killed Microsoft.

    They did because the government ignores Austrian Economics. We Austrians know that few if any companies hold more than a decade of dominance. It’s almost impossible to do so.

    We know that the only monopolies are created by government privilege and microsoft had no such privilege. It was vulnerable to the market. Which was precisely why it fought to win the browser war so hard.

    Organizations calcify around an existing market opportunity, the market changes, the organization is indebted so falls into the Innovator’s Dilemma. The staff develops rent seeking behavior and the company loses it’s advantage.

    Microsoft will change only when Ballmer leaves and one of the prior execs who understands the company and has experience working in the company under Bill Gates returns.

    Microsoft would have to acquire Dell just to keep pace with Apple in quality. But I would bet that the government will block it, and therefore put additional bullets into the company.

    But the culture at microsoft is ruined. internally it’s a government bureaucracy. The people are frustrated and disheartened by the bad management.

    A question? What portion of the USA’s increase in productivity from 1980 to 2006, and what percentage of the stock market profits created during that period, were from Microsoft?

    If you knew it would scare you.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-01-22 12:51:00 UTC