Theme: Reciprocity

October 27th, 2018 3:27 PM RESPONSE FROM 24 HRS PAST:  QUESTION To Rob Ellerman (cc: Jennifer Dean, Adam Voight, Danny Seis)

—“Why is fraud undesirable? If the fundamental question is – “why don’t I kill you and take your stuff” … is there also not a question, “why don’t I trick you and take your stuff?”—

[T]hose two are the same question, right? WHy don’t I NOT cooperate in and create incentive to continue to cooperate, vs why do I engage in non-cooperation by force, or by fraud?

—“Doesn’t the very nature of a proposition presuppose standards of value?”—

it’s hard to decompose “…standards of value…”. All value judgements presuppose SOMEONE’s value, or some normative habit that demonstrates value. Many statements consist of measurements (descriptions) not values (preferences, or goods). A measurement may be true or false but a preference or good is merely up to the individual. In matters of conflict reciprocity is always and everywhere a measurement not a preference. Because it is a measurement it is a good, regardless of the preference of the parties.

—-“Codes of moralistic conduct?”—

I think you mean positive morality like positive freedom and positive liberty and positive truth. None of which are in fact, moral, free, liberty or truth. Morality, freedom, liberty, and truth can only be known in the negative. What you are confusing with morality is DUTY. In other words, one has a POSITIVE DUTY to preserve NEGATIVE MORALITY. This confusion is common in germans and as I’ve written elsewhere one of my goals is to live in germany for a year or two so that I can put my arms around how that conflation is constructed in german culture. Now, one can INVEST in morality (invest for others) just as one can FORBEAR others agency (bear cost for others). This form of INVESTMENT is conflated with negative morality, into a positive morality, when it means doing GOOD, not doing the moral. So, just as we use ‘TRUE’ for all sorts of ‘agreement’ by conflation and inflation, we use ‘MORAL’ (which is a negative) for Not doing the immoral, doing our duty, and investing in the good. And this is an exceptional illustration of why my work is important, is that it makes analysis of what we do, what we speak, and what we intuit but not understand, possible to discuss in rational and scientific terms. Why? Because while I konw you are really intuiting “how do we teach people good” I think we know that already. Our problem isn’t that we can’t teach people good.our problem is that we have failed to prevent people from teaching people ‘the bad’. And we have failed to do so bcause our langauge is easy to usurp, and transform – which is how our people have been preyed upon by the marxists feminist and in particular, the postmodernists: by sophism, when we are extremely vulnerable to sophisms. So again, my job is not to improve the teaching of morality. it is to OUTLAW the teaching of IMMORALITY. And this gets to the heart of your question. It is one thing to say “here you must do this, out of all the possible things you can do, because it is the ultimate good”, and it is another thing to say “Um, you may not do that or do it in that way, because the consequences of doing so, no matter your intent, are always an ultimate bad”.

—“Is operationalism visa vi the scientific method applied to the social sciences justifiable by appeal to truth and then reciprocity?”—

I don’t understand ‘justifiable’. I think what you mean is something along the lines of, will operation and scientific discourse result in increasingly truthful speech? When I am saying, by teaching operational speech, and the table of the grammars, it will be much harder for people to be misled, and mislead others.

—“Or is reciprocity the justification for truth? If we are agnostic toward violence are we also agnostic toward fraud and pseudoscience?”—

Close enough, it is very hard to test reciprocity in the absence of truth. This is why we have free speech not free truthful speech: there was no test of it in the past. now we have it. And it is as solid as mathematics and logic.

—“Until such a time we decide were being reciprocal? How could someone possibly run a proper fascist aristocracy if you’ve got to watch your back all the time? (Just curious)”—

Speak the truth. It’s not difficult in the slightest. If you cannot speak the truth then why SHOULDN’T you watch your back? So now I want to investigate what you’re up to because just asking that question tells me something….

—“Would it be a perversion of your worldview to state that rational calculation is morality?”—

You use the word ‘is’ a lot and it means “i dunno what I’m talking about”. This is an example. Rational Calculation: the use of reason to transform inputs by operations into outputs: more loosely, an attempt to construct a plan or recipe or experiment”. Morality: forgoing an opportunity for gain by limiting one’s display word and deeds to the productive, fully informed, warrantied, voluntary transfer of demonstrated interest (property-in-toto), free of imposition of costs upon the demonstrated interests of others (externality). So I don’t know how to answer that question.

—“In addition, are the incentives only external and material – is there room for the soul in propertarian thought?”—

You want a religion (supernatural), or a philosophy (ideal) or scientific (real). I do the latter. the latter is via negativa. What kind of religion or philosophy you produce that is MORAL by the definition above, is of no more interest to me than whether you write romance novels or mysteries. A soul in religion is a supernatural reality, a soul in philosophy is a platonic ideal, a soul in science is primitive anthropomorphism of one’s accounting of moral and immoral actions as predictors of risk of ostracization or increase in opportunity of cooperation. The brain is very simple. It has very simple plots. We make a lot of stories to ‘illustrate’ and ‘enhance’ those very simple plots. It makes our feelings seem under our logical control and understanding when they are anything but. My role is to write the law within which all literature, philosophy, and religion are limited, such that our people care never again victims of liars (false prophets), snake oil salesmen (pseudoscientists), propagandists (sophists), and can continue to drag ourselves and mankind out of our war with the dark forces of time, ignorance, enemies, and the vicissitudes of nature. My job is engineering the infrastructure for human transcendence. How you decorate the place, the parties you host, and the stories you tell at them and gifts you exchange at them, are up to other (simpler) men.

—“Why don’t I trick you and take your stuff” … one reason would be the advantages of reciprocity – sure. However, wouldn’t another reason be because I know I can get away with it?”—

Which is what people do, and why we develop norms, traditions, laws, institutions, education, and religion to try to limit our acts of fraud (trickery), and why those of us most successful have the most options. This is even more important with small numbers who can only defeat enemies with technology and discipline.

—“If that is the case (I’ll call it ruthless pragmatism) — wouldn’t those within the politi lay in waiting … to kill you and take your stuff? Or simply slow burn you to death via parasitism and fraud? So long as via their calculation – it’s been determined to be a pragmatic endeavor?”—

I am not sure I understand where you are getting that chain of reasoning from. Here is the simple logic at hand. 1) current discourse since the victorian era, which was reconstructed from the greco-roman era, is to presume the value of continuous cooperation. this form leaves us with the choices : || “boycott < refuse cooperation < compromise < cooperate.” 2) This is not common form, since in much of the world, cheating lying and deceiving, or stealing are still ‘familial obligations of males’. And “Face” is more important than truth. These civilizations are poor, and weak, and only exist today because we went to war with each other, exhausted each other, and left the world insufficiently colonized. 3) What I have done is change the frame from presumption of the value of cooperation between ingroup members, to either (a) international (non-group), and (b) hostile group, and (c) genghis khan rule, so that we start from the presumption that it is profitable to engage in violence, predation fraud, etc rather than compromise or cooperation. This form leaves us with the choices: || boycott < refuse cooperation < compromise < cooperate > cheat > prey/conquer > enslave/genocide” Thus removing the presumption of the neutrality of ‘boycott, and refusing cooperation.”

—“I’m framing with your premises – that’s why it’s difficult … though I do so with sincere intentions”—

Not really. Because you’re framing “justificationism, positivism, prescription as WHAT TO DO, and I’m framing falsification, negativism, prohibition, as what NOT TO DO. So really I don’t think you’ve learned how to work with via negativa (science, and law) instead of via positiva (religion and philosophy.). I hope this helps. Curt