Curt Doolittle

Theme: Responsibility

  • The Truth: Making Honest Can't VS Should Arguments


    If you’re making a “CAN’T” argument, then just admit it’s because you can’t. If you’re making a “SHOULD or SHOULDN’T” argument, then state why you should or shouldn’t. But if you’re making a can’t argument while saying it’s because you shouldn’t, then that’s not truth that’s deception.

    It’s true that you CAN’T hold Russia accountable for attacking Ukraine, breaking the postwar consensus, and restarting nuclear proliferation, but that doesn’t me you shouldn’t.

    Truth is true. Lie is Lie. Unknown is Unknown. It’s not complicated.

    CLARITY

    Truth: Testimonial truth. Speaking truthfully.
    Honest: Testimonial truth. Speaking truthfully.
    Under testimonial truth, Honestly and Truthfully are synonymous.

    CONTEXT:
    Diplomats should not posture that they have the capacity to act, and choose not to act under the cover of justifications, when they have no capacity to act. This is dishonest. Politics is a dishonest business.

    ———-
    –“THE TRUTH: MAKING HONEST CAN’T VS SHOULD ARGUMENTS–

    If you’re making a “CAN’T” argument, then just admit it’s because you can’t. If you’re making a “SHOULD or SHOULDN’T” argument, then state why you should or shouldn’t. But if you’re making a can’t argument while saying it’s because you shouldn’t, then that’s not truth that’s deception.
    It’s true that you CAN’T hold Russia accountable for attacking Ukraine, breaking the postwar consensus, and restarting nuclear proliferation, but that doesn’t me you shouldn’t.

    Truth is true. Lie is Lie. Unknown is Unknown. It’s not complicated.
    ———–

    Caine conveniently reduced the scope of the argument to the first sentence in order to remove the information necessary to render the argument correspondent with reality. (Usually this is merely the error of novices, or people who don’t read the entire argument; but it falls under the category of either a fallacy -straw man- or a deception – selective inclusion of information in the argument. I assume that this is merely the error of a novice. As such cain is applying the technique of formal languages to correspondent and natural languages. This is a common error of ‘logicism’ (that is the word Max was looking for). I categorize all these kinds of errors as ’empty verbalisms’. But Max was attempting to say the same thing. (I am more patient – the curse of aspie-ness.)

    —” If one can not do something (it is not reasonably possible)” is no different from “shouldn’t” in the vast majority of cases when people utter those words.—-

    This is yet another fallacy given that the counter argument that Cain put forward was a fallacy of formal language, minus the information necessary for it to be correspondent – then you Greg, counter with an argument to normative speech.

    So now we have gone from a correspondent argument, to an internally consistent argument to a normative usage argument. Now, I suspect that in the end, Neither Cain nor Greg is probably aware of the different properties of these systems and you are justifying intuition not formal criticism.

    I made a rhetorical statement, because i do not make verbalist statements. I am an active opponent of logicism as psuedoscientific when applied outside of formal bounds. I’m an operationalist
    ———–
    I didnt make an absolute statement now did I?
    ———-

    Nope. No hole there at all. Rock solid.

    NOW LETS LOOK AT YOUR ARGUMENTS

    —If Nuclear war is unacceptable for you then in this context it’s both Can’t and Impossible Max, there he can muse on his Moral Should or not, Be or not to be all day long, 24/7—

    FULLY EXPANDED:
    “If you can conduct nuclear war then
    you cant conduct nuclear war and
    its impossible to conduct nuclear war
    but you prefer not to conduct nuclear war.”

    WELL THAT DOESN”T WORK. LETS BE MORE CHARITABLE

    Nuclear war is unacceptable. (Meaning you prefer not to conduct nuclear war.)
    AND
    You can conduct nuclear war, but you prefer not to.
    OR
    You can’t conduct nuclear war, and it’s immaterial whether you prefer to or not.

    “Can’t physically” != “Prefer not to.”

    WELL THAT DOESN”T WORK. SO LETS SEE WHAT ELSE WE HAVE

    … But really we just get back to the central argument which is that you’re holding a double standard. You allow yourself the laxity of informal language with ‘…in this context…’ but do not allow me the same laxity of informal language given the context. Instead, you pull out a sentence and argue that I made a statement I did not. Then, you go and make the statements I just illustrated were nonsense above.

    I made no universal statement. I did not make a statement regarding the necessary membership of sets. I stated that it is dishonest to posture. You may not have understood that. But this is your own hasty reading.

    I then defended my position with an argument over your head.

    And I am back to making the same argument in simple terms.

    NOW LETS SEE ABOUT AD HOMINEM(s)
    —Scholar—
    Well, I don’t see that as an insult. I don’t claim to be an academic. I don’t claim to be any thing. I claim I am correct. Otherwise that would mean I made an appeal to authority, which would be a fallacy. My arguments stand or they don’t, and they stand.

    —Buffoon—
    Says the guy who just made a clown of himself, did so with passion, did so under the cover of ad hominems.

    –Falling back—

    I didn’t make a mistake. My entire argument stands. I am good at what I do. Sorry. Just how it is. Get over it.

    Curt

  • The Truth: Making Honest Can’t VS Should Arguments


    If you’re making a “CAN’T” argument, then just admit it’s because you can’t. If you’re making a “SHOULD or SHOULDN’T” argument, then state why you should or shouldn’t. But if you’re making a can’t argument while saying it’s because you shouldn’t, then that’s not truth that’s deception.

    It’s true that you CAN’T hold Russia accountable for attacking Ukraine, breaking the postwar consensus, and restarting nuclear proliferation, but that doesn’t me you shouldn’t.

    Truth is true. Lie is Lie. Unknown is Unknown. It’s not complicated.

    CLARITY

    Truth: Testimonial truth. Speaking truthfully.
    Honest: Testimonial truth. Speaking truthfully.
    Under testimonial truth, Honestly and Truthfully are synonymous.

    CONTEXT:
    Diplomats should not posture that they have the capacity to act, and choose not to act under the cover of justifications, when they have no capacity to act. This is dishonest. Politics is a dishonest business.

    ———-
    –“THE TRUTH: MAKING HONEST CAN’T VS SHOULD ARGUMENTS–

    If you’re making a “CAN’T” argument, then just admit it’s because you can’t. If you’re making a “SHOULD or SHOULDN’T” argument, then state why you should or shouldn’t. But if you’re making a can’t argument while saying it’s because you shouldn’t, then that’s not truth that’s deception.
    It’s true that you CAN’T hold Russia accountable for attacking Ukraine, breaking the postwar consensus, and restarting nuclear proliferation, but that doesn’t me you shouldn’t.

    Truth is true. Lie is Lie. Unknown is Unknown. It’s not complicated.
    ———–

    Caine conveniently reduced the scope of the argument to the first sentence in order to remove the information necessary to render the argument correspondent with reality. (Usually this is merely the error of novices, or people who don’t read the entire argument; but it falls under the category of either a fallacy -straw man- or a deception – selective inclusion of information in the argument. I assume that this is merely the error of a novice. As such cain is applying the technique of formal languages to correspondent and natural languages. This is a common error of ‘logicism’ (that is the word Max was looking for). I categorize all these kinds of errors as ’empty verbalisms’. But Max was attempting to say the same thing. (I am more patient – the curse of aspie-ness.)

    —” If one can not do something (it is not reasonably possible)” is no different from “shouldn’t” in the vast majority of cases when people utter those words.—-

    This is yet another fallacy given that the counter argument that Cain put forward was a fallacy of formal language, minus the information necessary for it to be correspondent – then you Greg, counter with an argument to normative speech.

    So now we have gone from a correspondent argument, to an internally consistent argument to a normative usage argument. Now, I suspect that in the end, Neither Cain nor Greg is probably aware of the different properties of these systems and you are justifying intuition not formal criticism.

    I made a rhetorical statement, because i do not make verbalist statements. I am an active opponent of logicism as psuedoscientific when applied outside of formal bounds. I’m an operationalist
    ———–
    I didnt make an absolute statement now did I?
    ———-

    Nope. No hole there at all. Rock solid.

    NOW LETS LOOK AT YOUR ARGUMENTS

    —If Nuclear war is unacceptable for you then in this context it’s both Can’t and Impossible Max, there he can muse on his Moral Should or not, Be or not to be all day long, 24/7—

    FULLY EXPANDED:
    “If you can conduct nuclear war then
    you cant conduct nuclear war and
    its impossible to conduct nuclear war
    but you prefer not to conduct nuclear war.”

    WELL THAT DOESN”T WORK. LETS BE MORE CHARITABLE

    Nuclear war is unacceptable. (Meaning you prefer not to conduct nuclear war.)
    AND
    You can conduct nuclear war, but you prefer not to.
    OR
    You can’t conduct nuclear war, and it’s immaterial whether you prefer to or not.

    “Can’t physically” != “Prefer not to.”

    WELL THAT DOESN”T WORK. SO LETS SEE WHAT ELSE WE HAVE

    … But really we just get back to the central argument which is that you’re holding a double standard. You allow yourself the laxity of informal language with ‘…in this context…’ but do not allow me the same laxity of informal language given the context. Instead, you pull out a sentence and argue that I made a statement I did not. Then, you go and make the statements I just illustrated were nonsense above.

    I made no universal statement. I did not make a statement regarding the necessary membership of sets. I stated that it is dishonest to posture. You may not have understood that. But this is your own hasty reading.

    I then defended my position with an argument over your head.

    And I am back to making the same argument in simple terms.

    NOW LETS SEE ABOUT AD HOMINEM(s)
    —Scholar—
    Well, I don’t see that as an insult. I don’t claim to be an academic. I don’t claim to be any thing. I claim I am correct. Otherwise that would mean I made an appeal to authority, which would be a fallacy. My arguments stand or they don’t, and they stand.

    —Buffoon—
    Says the guy who just made a clown of himself, did so with passion, did so under the cover of ad hominems.

    –Falling back—

    I didn’t make a mistake. My entire argument stands. I am good at what I do. Sorry. Just how it is. Get over it.

    Curt

  • Is It Possible To Reconcile Tort Reform And Libertarian Philosophy?

    Um.  This isn’t necessarily a libertarian issue so much as a logical one.  The problem is that jury determination of penalties is arbitrary, and incalculable so that risk is un-measurable, and that penalties of scale are just passed on to consumers.  This means that lawsuits can be pursued as lottery ticket purchases by all but the defendant, and that organizations must seek to escape rather than honestly resolve disputes.

    The libertarian argument would require the elimination of limited liability, the removal of employee indemnification, and of management and board liability. All of these existing protections were provided by the government in order to allow abuses of the law in order to increase employment and tax revenues. So, instead, libertarians would recommend that all employees and all employers carry insurance against malfeasance. And that insurance companies would require a great deal of contractual adherence, training in exchange, in order to cover losses.  Misbehavior would break the contract, pierce any corporate veil, and open every employee, manger, executive, and board member in the causal chain to personal suit.

    If you want a less corrupt america, then remove the government from the process – because the government is the cause.

    This is the best I can do in short form, but it should get the libertarian point across: the common law, civic participation, personal accountability, and insurance companies provide market incentives that bureaucratic monopolies do not.

    https://www.quora.com/Is-it-possible-to-reconcile-tort-reform-and-libertarian-philosophy

  • Untitled

    http://www.quora.com/Ethics/What-are-ethics-for-an-IT-professional/answer/Curt-Doolittle?share=1

    Source date (UTC): 2014-08-13 13:11:00 UTC

  • What Are Ethics For An It Professional?

    INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ETHICS

    This is an interesting question in the sense that it’s a clear application of the problem of asymmetry of information, understanding, and power, in the control of a utility (a commons).

    In any niche where one has power and influence over others, because of an asymmetry of knowledge of a common resource that the others cannot  understand without extraordinary personal investment, and where he possesses power over others’ use of a common resource, we encounter the challenges of:

    (a) Free-riding: pretending to work in exchange for payment, while not providing market-value in return, because one is not subject to competition which would discover and cure one’s free-riding.

    (b) Corruption : seeking favors or privileges by granting favors or privileges.

    (c) Privatization : obtaining personal benefit from a common resource that could be consumed by others.

    (d) Punishment : deliberately punishing individuals and groups by virtue of one’s control over the provision of the common resource.

    (e) Harm : Deliberately causing the failure of individuals or groups by virtue of one’s control over the function of the common resource.

    (f) Functioning As An Agent: allowing one’s self to be used to free ride, engage in corruption, privatization punishment or harm.

    Take no personal benefit, give no favors, do no harm, preserve ethical independence from agency,  and make decisions at all times by the business value of the work to be performed.

    Ethical Challenges

    Political hierarchies exist by in all bureaucracies, whether private or public, which operate independently from market competition, which constantly discovers inefficiencies (corruption).

    While one an usually adhere to (a) thru (e) in one’s job, it is very hard in a bureaucracy not to be pressured into (f) (Agency) in a bureaucracy. In fact, the trading of such favors (corruption) is the currency that forms the economy of bureaucracies that are insulated from the market.

    Historical Influences
    In the 20th century, ethical pragmatism (outcome-based ethics)  has replaced ethical absolutism (rule-based ethics) due to the constant pressure of left intellectuals’ attack on western high-trust ethics.  This has allowed the ethical pragmatism of lower trust polities to spread in western culture.  As such it is difficult to operate ethically in private life, commercial life and public life, because such unethical action is beneficial to the individual while harmful to society. 

    This is why westerners are the only people to develop high trust societies. It’s very hard.

    https://www.quora.com/What-are-ethics-for-an-IT-professional

  • What Are Ethics For An It Professional?

    INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ETHICS

    This is an interesting question in the sense that it’s a clear application of the problem of asymmetry of information, understanding, and power, in the control of a utility (a commons).

    In any niche where one has power and influence over others, because of an asymmetry of knowledge of a common resource that the others cannot  understand without extraordinary personal investment, and where he possesses power over others’ use of a common resource, we encounter the challenges of:

    (a) Free-riding: pretending to work in exchange for payment, while not providing market-value in return, because one is not subject to competition which would discover and cure one’s free-riding.

    (b) Corruption : seeking favors or privileges by granting favors or privileges.

    (c) Privatization : obtaining personal benefit from a common resource that could be consumed by others.

    (d) Punishment : deliberately punishing individuals and groups by virtue of one’s control over the provision of the common resource.

    (e) Harm : Deliberately causing the failure of individuals or groups by virtue of one’s control over the function of the common resource.

    (f) Functioning As An Agent: allowing one’s self to be used to free ride, engage in corruption, privatization punishment or harm.

    Take no personal benefit, give no favors, do no harm, preserve ethical independence from agency,  and make decisions at all times by the business value of the work to be performed.

    Ethical Challenges

    Political hierarchies exist by in all bureaucracies, whether private or public, which operate independently from market competition, which constantly discovers inefficiencies (corruption).

    While one an usually adhere to (a) thru (e) in one’s job, it is very hard in a bureaucracy not to be pressured into (f) (Agency) in a bureaucracy. In fact, the trading of such favors (corruption) is the currency that forms the economy of bureaucracies that are insulated from the market.

    Historical Influences
    In the 20th century, ethical pragmatism (outcome-based ethics)  has replaced ethical absolutism (rule-based ethics) due to the constant pressure of left intellectuals’ attack on western high-trust ethics.  This has allowed the ethical pragmatism of lower trust polities to spread in western culture.  As such it is difficult to operate ethically in private life, commercial life and public life, because such unethical action is beneficial to the individual while harmful to society. 

    This is why westerners are the only people to develop high trust societies. It’s very hard.

    https://www.quora.com/What-are-ethics-for-an-IT-professional

  • ELI ON ALTRUISTIC PUNISHMENT —“ALTRUISTIC PUNISHMENT: “I will bear a cost in o

    ELI ON ALTRUISTIC PUNISHMENT

    —“ALTRUISTIC PUNISHMENT: “I will bear a cost in order to impose a cost on someone for imposing costs on others.”

    Directly, no one wins, it’s a lose/lose/lose; costs all the way around.

    Indirectly, we all benefit from the maintenance of a normative commons that discourages people from imposing costs, negative externalities, on others or refraining from contributing to benefits, positive externalities, which are shared.

    This is a common human behavior and it is impossible to understand human behavior, or the evolution of societies and polities, without understanding altruistic punishment.”—

    Source date (UTC): 2014-08-10 09:22:00 UTC

  • IMPACT OF ORDINARY MAN? (Hampering the fantasies of ordinary people everywhere,

    http://www.quora.com/Can-a-common-man-with-average-intelligence-make-a-significant-change-in-the-society/answer/Curt-Doolittle?share=1THE IMPACT OF ORDINARY MAN?

    (Hampering the fantasies of ordinary people everywhere, but giving them a note of solace in return…. Can an ordinary person significantly change society?)

    An important and interesting question, So I will do my best. Although you might not like the answer.

    1) Well, a common man certainly can make a positive impact on society merely by accumulating and making use of the Virtues.

    2) Common many have made positive impact accidentally on the world by virtuous action at the right moment in time. But that is not to say that they possessed a brilliant idea or persuasive character. It means only that as virtuous people they seized an opportunity when it came before them, even if they did not construct that opportunity themselves.

    3) The historical record suggests that most people who make a significant POSITIVE impact on society are not average. In fact, the record is almost absent of common individuals. The people who do make a significant impact tend to be above average, largely from the middle or upper middle classes – in other words, not common.

    4) The interesting question is whether the common man, correctly estimates that his reasons, opinions or imaginations, would produce what is a POSITIVE impact upon society. If you imagine what a child sounds like to an adult; what a student sounds like to a professor; what a common citizen sounds like to a statesman or scholar – the result is always the same: that we are always unconscious of our incompetence. If we were aware of our incompetence we might lack the will to do anything at all. So we evolved confidence in the face of ignorance out of necessity.

    So the question is really whether the common man has any significant value to add to society other than his assumption that he does. On the other hand, there are many people who are not average who none the less are not omniscient, always looking for ideas to use in changing the world.

    And so, it is possible that an ordinary fellow might stumble across a good idea. But even if he did, is it possible for his idea to compete with the many many ideas, of all the individuals who are above average, and who are ALSO struggling to change the world?

    The market for ideas is no different from the market for products and services. If you cannot sell your idea, that is because no one is buying it. If no one buys it then that is evidence that it isn’t wanted. If it isn’t wanted, then by definition, it isn’t ‘good’.

    The greeks had it right you know: wisdom is found in increasing the knowledge of your own ignorance.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-08-06 10:43:00 UTC

  • POST-DEMOCRATIC PATRIOTISM: THE ARISTOCRATIC CONTRACT I don’t like the word patr

    POST-DEMOCRATIC PATRIOTISM: THE ARISTOCRATIC CONTRACT

    I don’t like the word patriot, because it suggests fealty to church or state. Instead: the obligation of every man who accepts the aristocratic contract is to deny power to any and all over any and all.

    In this sense patriotism is impossible for members of the aristocracy because it implies a moral choice rather than a necessary contractual obligation to all other members of the aristocratic corporation.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-08-06 02:31:00 UTC

  • PATHOLOGICAL SELF DESTRUCTIVE ALTRUISM VS GUILT I had lunch with jewish conserva

    PATHOLOGICAL SELF DESTRUCTIVE ALTRUISM VS GUILT

    I had lunch with jewish conservative Paul Gottfried sometime in the 00’s. I don’t remember when. In a little restaurant in Auburn Alabama. I didn’t know much about him at the time. And he told me about his book and theory of white guilt. Which, of course, I disagreed with, because guilt is not something that my people worry too much about (WASPS). We worry about accomplishment. We worry about not doing harm. But guilt we tend to think of as mistakes and little else.

    I tend to agree with Paul a lot but I think he projected upon northern Europeans, a jewish passion, that we don’t feel. Wasps don’t feel guilty. We acknowledge our mistakes (sometimes slowly) and just try not to repeat them. We are good at punishing our own (which is the opposite of the jewish model, and why guilt is important to them).

    And we do punish our own. Altruistic punishment is an internal means of discipline. Right now we are punishing ourselves out of protestant altruistic punishment not out of guilt. This may seem the same but it is not.

    So Paul is wrong that its guilt(submission to authority). It’s altruistic punishment(nobility).

    —-callout—-

    —“Altruistic punishment is a behavior in which individuals punish others (defectors/free-riders/non-cooperators) at a cost to themselves in order to provide a public good or otherwise advance the fitness/utility of a larger group.”—

    —-callout—-

    Had someone figured this out before Macdonald and others popularized it (or had the idea held on past the thirties) we would have been perhaps able to defend ourselves a bit better.

    The aristocratic reaction to socialism was that it made no sense, but then again, if it worked it was hard to argue with. Conservatives experiment by doing, not bywords. We were afraid that it wouldn’t work. We were right.

    We were afraid the multiculturalism wouldn’t work.

    We were right.

    It’s expensive to incoroporate people into a high trust society and a high trust society requires homogeneous norms.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-08-01 04:56:00 UTC