Curt Doolittle

Theme: Responsibility

  • WE ARE MORALLY BLIND, LIMITED IN OUR PERCEPTIONS AND MEMORY, AND SEVERELY IN OUR

    WE ARE MORALLY BLIND, LIMITED IN OUR PERCEPTIONS AND MEMORY, AND SEVERELY IN OUR REASON. THE LAST THING WE SHOULD DO IS CONSTRUCT LARGE RISK-PRONE INTENTIONALLY MANAGED STATES.

    I have to accept the evidence, but I do not like it.

    I would like very much to believe that we grasp the world as it is. And it appears that, at least with the help of instrumentalism (logic and science), we can grasp the physical world with a high degree of accuracy – at least, sufficiently to make use of it for our purposes.

    The cooperative world of human beings consists of inconstant relations, we desperately try to reduce to an ideal type, a stereotype, a single simple rule, a universal value. But it is more complex than the physical world that consists of constant relations. For that reason we may be limited to a logic of cooperation and every prohibited from a mathematics of cooperation – except at the highest levels.

    The data is conclusive: we are far more morally blind than I had expected. Our moral and ethical intuitions are genetically weighted but our moral biases evolve and are emergent – still invariant. Our metaphysical assumptions (assumptions about the way the world functions) are far more unconscious and unalterable than I’d expected. And very, very, very few of us are capable of working hard to modify those assumptions. (The process of which I am at this moment writing about.)

    Libertarians can speak of morality in it’s logical language: economics. But that is partly because libertarians are both severely affected by moral blindness, less dependent upon others for information and decision making, and less vulnerable to deception. Libertarians not only are blind to morality, but discount it because it’s not useful to them.

    Our language, common protocol that it is, fools us into a sense of similarity.

    Progressives are interesting in that the world appears simple to them, and is simple to them computationally, because like any form single-variable calculation, it is in fact much simpler to reason with. But they are also the most morally blind demographic: progressives dysgenically and anti-socially apply their moral simplicity to all matters – like the mother of a serial killer who believes her son is merely misunderstood, and incapable of the crime. That analogy is all one needs to understand the moral blindness of progressives.

    Conservatives have the worst computational problem. They weigh all of the moral instincts about the same. Which means that they must contend with seven or more different weights and values that must be compared at any given time – something that the single-axis human capacity for reason cannot possibly manage, and abandons to the wind. So conservatives speak in moral language. Partly because it is simply too complicated to speak in any other. And largely because we have only recently understood these underlying intuitions. While Machiavelli, Hume, Pareto, Durkheim and others have attempted to derive the answers, only in the past twenty years with the help of science, anthropology and experimental psychology, have we been able to understand them.

    We humans speak to justify our genes. That is about all.

    The very last thing that we should try to engage in, is the politics of anything larger than an extended and homogenous family.

    The market – in this case, a market of communities (states) – is the only possible means of computing and calculating the future by scientific means.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-04-15 06:51:00 UTC

  • YES, LAW=MORALITY IF ALL ETHICS ARE REDUCIBLE TO PROPERTY RIGHTS (important piec

    YES, LAW=MORALITY IF ALL ETHICS ARE REDUCIBLE TO PROPERTY RIGHTS

    (important piece)

    There is no distinction between legal and moral (criminal, ethical, moral) content in disputes. This fallacy is a central problem of the logic of libertarian property theory.

    The first question is whether we compensate people for defense of property rights (criminal ethical and moral) or expect them to pay those costs even if they cannot participate in production (which I argue is immoral.)

    I argue that this is a mere matter of compensating people via commission on overall production for their action in defense of the means of production (a low transaction cost society where voluntary organization of production is possible). And that people who participate in production and who choose to be involved in production should capture their wealth.

    Our error is in not acknowledging the costs of respecting property rights. Which are very high. And that is why respect for property rights, especially high trust property rights of the protestant northern europeans, is so rare. It’s terribly expensive, even if dramatically more productive.

    Like all fundamental philosophical questions (of which I only know half of a dozen that exist), the central question is either you have a right to reproduce if you cannot support your offspring. Is that immoral and therefore illegal? That question determines whether your arguments are simple and rational or complex and non-rational (incalculable).

    This division of labor and compensation does not require nonsense-bullshit moralizing from continental and cosmopolitan schools of thought (ie:deception, obscurantism, authoritarianism, and loading, framing,) to load and frame the argument. It is merely respect for individual property rights through and through.

    Low property rights with low ethical and moral standards will produce high demand for the state, while high property rights with high ethical and moral standards will produce low demand for the state.

    As such, for any libertarian order, the relationship between law and morality is one-to-one. There is no difference.

    However, it is a practical necessity to pay those who cannot engage in production but who can engage in creating the social, legal and economic means of production, for their efforts. And failing to do so is criminal as well as immoral.

    This approach gives everyone in the society (local polity that facilitates the voluntary organization of production) the same interests: suppression of the predatory state monopoly, while at the same time maintaining parity between law and morality.

    There is no need for emotional loading and framing if you actually do a bit of thinking. But libertarians are often lighter on the discipline of thinking than they let on.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Propertarian Institute

    Kiev

    Source date (UTC): 2014-04-05 05:58:00 UTC

  • Why Are Libertarians Less Sensitive To The Transaction Costs Of Immoral And Unethical Actions?

    (the most important bit of philosophy that you will read today) [A]s intelligence increases morality increases, and concern about morality decreases. The reasons are still being debated, but the general theory is that (a) smarter people can identify dishonesty more easily, and (b) smarter people can rely upon wit and cunning as a competitive advantage so that they have less trouble competing honestly. To which I would like to add (c) that the higher you are in the food chain the more abstract property you are dealing with and therefore the harder it is to steal it. Libertarians tend to be very bright. But libertarians also test as abnormally insensitive to moral questions. The connection between the two facts is pretty obvious. We libertarians are less concerned with immorality because it’s easy for us to defend against. I don’t take the position that we’re less moral. Only that immorality is less of a challenge for us SO WE DISCOUNT THE TRANSACTION COSTS of immoral activity, whereas everyone else does NOT discount those transaction costs. This explains why libertarians are more easily fooled by Rothbardian ethics than conservatives (aristocratic egalitarians) and progressives (socialists). The moral economy is less valuable to us than to conservatives and progressives. We discount the cost of immoral and unethical behavior. But if we want to build a polity – the fact is: we’re wrong. Those transaction costs increase as intelligence and general knowledge decrease. And so it’s just not rational for a body of people to adopt Rothbardian ethics. They aren’t moral ENOUGH for suppression of immoral and unethical behavior, and the high transaction costs imposed upon people who must deal with pervasive immoral and unethical behavior. [P]rivate property is what remains when a polity suppresses all free riding: violence, theft, fraud, cheating, externalizing, privatizing, conspiracy, corruption and extortion. And people will not grant one another private property rights and reduce demand for the state unless suppression of free riding (immoral and unethical behavior) is present FIRST. Curt Doolittle

  • Why Are Libertarians Less Sensitive To The Transaction Costs Of Immoral And Unethical Actions?

    (the most important bit of philosophy that you will read today) [A]s intelligence increases morality increases, and concern about morality decreases. The reasons are still being debated, but the general theory is that (a) smarter people can identify dishonesty more easily, and (b) smarter people can rely upon wit and cunning as a competitive advantage so that they have less trouble competing honestly. To which I would like to add (c) that the higher you are in the food chain the more abstract property you are dealing with and therefore the harder it is to steal it. Libertarians tend to be very bright. But libertarians also test as abnormally insensitive to moral questions. The connection between the two facts is pretty obvious. We libertarians are less concerned with immorality because it’s easy for us to defend against. I don’t take the position that we’re less moral. Only that immorality is less of a challenge for us SO WE DISCOUNT THE TRANSACTION COSTS of immoral activity, whereas everyone else does NOT discount those transaction costs. This explains why libertarians are more easily fooled by Rothbardian ethics than conservatives (aristocratic egalitarians) and progressives (socialists). The moral economy is less valuable to us than to conservatives and progressives. We discount the cost of immoral and unethical behavior. But if we want to build a polity – the fact is: we’re wrong. Those transaction costs increase as intelligence and general knowledge decrease. And so it’s just not rational for a body of people to adopt Rothbardian ethics. They aren’t moral ENOUGH for suppression of immoral and unethical behavior, and the high transaction costs imposed upon people who must deal with pervasive immoral and unethical behavior. [P]rivate property is what remains when a polity suppresses all free riding: violence, theft, fraud, cheating, externalizing, privatizing, conspiracy, corruption and extortion. And people will not grant one another private property rights and reduce demand for the state unless suppression of free riding (immoral and unethical behavior) is present FIRST. Curt Doolittle

  • WHY ARE LIBERTARIANS LESS SENSITIVE TO THE TRANSACTION COSTS OF IMMORAL AND UNET

    WHY ARE LIBERTARIANS LESS SENSITIVE TO THE TRANSACTION COSTS OF IMMORAL AND UNETHICAL ACTIONS?

    (the most important bit of philosophy that you will read today)

    As intelligence increases morality increases, and concern about morality decreases. The reasons are still being debated, but the general theory is that (a) smarter people can identify dishonesty more easily, and (b) smarter people can rely upon wit and cunning as a competitive advantage so that they have less trouble competing honestly. To which I would like to add (c) that the higher you are in the food chain the more abstract property you are dealing with and therefore the harder it is to steal it.

    Libertarians tend to be very bright. But libertarians also test as abnormally insensitive to moral questions. The connection between the two facts is pretty obvious. We libertarians are less concerned with immorality because it’s easy for us to defend against. I don’t take the position that we’re less moral. Only that immorality is less of a challenge for us SO WE DISCOUNT THE TRANSACTION COSTS of immoral activity, whereas everyone else does NOT discount those transaction costs.

    This explains why libertarians are more easily fooled by Rothbardian ethics than conservatives (aristocratic egalitarians) and progressives (socialists). The moral economy is less valuable to us than to conservatives and progressives. We discount the cost of immoral and unethical behavior.

    But if we want to build a polity – the fact is: we’re wrong. Those transaction costs increase as intelligence and general knowledge decrease. And so it’s just not rational for a body of people to adopt Rothbardian ethics. They aren’t moral ENOUGH for suppression of immoral and unethical behavior, and the high transaction costs imposed upon people who must deal with pervasive immoral and unethical behavior.

    Private property is what remains when a polity suppresses all free riding: violence, theft, fraud, cheating, externalizing, privatizing, conspiracy, corruption and extortion. And people will not grant one another private property rights and reduce demand for the state unless suppression of free riding (immoral and unethical behavior) is present FIRST.

    Curt Doolittle

    Source date (UTC): 2014-04-02 15:33:00 UTC

  • LOGIC: A SEQUENCE OF HUMAN ACTIONS : THE ONLY MORAL LOGIC This is where I’ve end

    http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mathematics-constructive/CONSTRUCTIVE LOGIC: A SEQUENCE OF HUMAN ACTIONS : THE ONLY MORAL LOGIC

    This is where I’ve ended up thanks to Constructive Mathematics (Intuitionism, Intuitional Mathematics, Neointuitionism).

    Logic: I apply the same requirement of operational language (strict construction) to logic – the logic of language. Of all the logics, the logic of language is the most misleading. I have the most work to do here. Much to the disappointment of practitioners of formal logic. Most of the mistakes I have come across (particularly in critical rationalism) are caused by erroneous elimination of action from that which depends upon action.

    Math: In mathematics – the logic of names, numbers and relations. This work has been done by the generations before me. They just have not had the moral criticism I have given them as an argumentative weapon before in their attack on ‘magical’ mathematics.

    Physics: It’s already present in the canons of science, and is already universally applied in physics – the logic of causality. There is very little work to be done here other than to cast some branches of physics as non-logical as currently stated.

    Cooperation: I apply the same argument to the logic of cooperation (ethics). Ethics was the easiest problem to solve by the requirement for operational language (strict constructionism).

    i) The world is real, our actions are likewise real within that world.

    ii) There is only one MORAL and ETHICAL epistemological method, and that is the scientific method – or ‘the method’.

    iii) We have invented multiple methodologies of logic that help us isolate certain properties within this method.

    iv) Statements produced by this method are ‘theories’.

    v) Some theories can be logically treated axiomatically even though they are not in fact axioms but theories.

    Knowledge of use is not equal to knowledge of construction.

    MOTIVATIONS: ELIMINATION OF LOADING, FRAMING, DECEPTION, OBSCURANTISM, AND PSEUDOSCIENCE FROM POLITICAL DISCOURSE.

    Law is but another logic. Politics is discourse on law. There is no logical specialization to citizenship save the logic of cooperation and even that specialization will forever be above the masses. If we are to eliminate deception from political discourse, we must eliminate it in all the logics. I was not correct that immorality in language originated with mathematics. Only that mathematical legitimacy was used as a means for expanding pseudoscience.

    Just because something is convenient, if it is immoral, it remains immoral. Obscurantism, platonism, and use without comprehension of construction, are all forms of deception that insert magic and religion into the world.

    Most of these conveniences are easy means of compensating for the problem of reducing any ‘computation’ into the two or three second window of human cognitive ability. However, as long as we can construct from operations, any entity, we can forever use the name of that construction as a function – giving us a shorthand for it that fits within our cognitive window.

    I am sorry for labeling conveniences and contrivances as immoral, despite the cherished mythos that philosophers, logicians and mathematicians have warmed themselves in against the cold of realism. But no one else has yet attacked platonism as immoral. And I’ve done it I think pretty conclusively.

    If you can purvey platonism, then others can equally claim to purvey mysticism, obscurantism, pseudoscience, loading and framing. Because if utility is the only tests, then religion is clearly superior to rational politics, and pseudoscience an effective means of governing (keynesianism), and the mind finds greater comfort in loading, framing, conflation and justifying, than it does in grasping objective reality.

    Sorry, but if you can’t construct it, you don’t understand it. And the reason you don’t understand it is probably a cover for a lie.

    Certainly that’s what’s happened in math and logic. Most of philosophy, continental in particular is deception. Justification. Lie.

    The only moral statements are those under strict construction.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-03-28 12:45:00 UTC

  • (draft)(more work tomorrow) THE CONSTRAINTS CREATED BY MORALITY IN CONSTRUCTING

    (draft)(more work tomorrow)

    THE CONSTRAINTS CREATED BY MORALITY IN CONSTRUCTING THE INSTITUTION OF PROPERTY

    (undone)

    THE FAMLY STRUCTURE AS A CONSTRAINT ON PROPERTY AND MORALITY

    (undone)

    CAUSES OF PROPERTY

    I’ve articulated the cause of Property, Manners, Ethics and Morals as the necessity of cooperation and the consequential prevention of free riding. This is a ‘pre-property’ argument illustrating the cause of moral behavior, and the limits upon property because of it.

    PROPOSITION 0.0 : Time

    PROPOSITION 1 : Survival is the first universal good.

    …COROLLARY 1.1 : Action

    …COROLLARY 1.2 : Searching

    …COROLLARY 1.3 : Acquisition (identity)

    …COROLLARY 1.4 ; Storing (memory)

    …COROLLARY 1.5 : Planning (calculation)

    {PROPOSITION 2 : The second universal “good” is prosperity. Upon which all other ‘goods’ depend.}

    PROPOSITION 3 : The utility of cooperation in producing prosperity

    …COROLLARY 3.1 : the division of labor

    …COROLLARY 3.2 : the utility of voluntary organization

    …COROLLARY 3.3 : the necessity of property (monopoly of control)

    …COROLLARY 3.4 : the necessity of extending our perception (instrumentalism)

    ……COROLLARY 3.4.1 : (logic of cooperation – ethics)

    ……COROLLARY 3.4.x : (logic of money, prices, accounting etc)

    ……COROLLARY 3.4.x : (logic of identity – necessary properties)

    ……COROLLARY 3.4.x : (logic of naming – numbering)

    ……COROLLARY 3.4.x : (logic of relations – mathematics )

    ……COROLLARY 3.4.x : (logic of causality – physics)

    PROPOSITION 4 : The Prohibition on involuntary transfer

    …COROLLARY 4.1 : requirement for contribution to consumption

    (more later, but you get the idea.)

    IS PROPERTY THE CONSEQUENCE OF SCARCITY OR COOPERATION OR THE PROHIBITION ON FREE RIDING – OR ALL THREE?

    (undone)

    THE IMPACT OF FRAMING UNDER POWER AND WEAKNESS

    “I have this right or that” is an appeal by the weak against the strong. “I will not tolerate this or that” is demand, or threat, by the strong. And aristocracy cannot by definition act from a position of weakness.

    (undone)

    RIGHTS ARE POSITIVE ASSERTIONS IN FAVOR OF ONE’S SELF RATHER THAN MORE AGGRESSIVE LANGUAGE THAT PROHIBITS THE ACTIONS OF OTHERS.

    The problem is, that when we assert rights, and construct our ethics from rights, we lose the cause of those rights, and the broader scope of their cause. This causes us to defend rights, instead of consistently evolve positive assertions that reflect the underlying negative cause: the prohibition on free riding.

    THE PROTOCOL OF ARGUMENTATION AS “FRAMING”.

    (undone)

    THE DIALECTICAL PROBLEM OF POSITIVE CLAIMS AND NEGATIVE PROHIBITIONS

    The sayings “do unto others as you wold have done unto you” and “do noting to others that you would not have done to you” are nearly synonymous – but not entirely. Because of the assumption of homogeneity of interests in the golden rule vs heterogeneity of interests in the silver rule.

    The terms “incentives” and “calculation” are mutually dependent. on cannot have incentives without the ability to calculate and there is no reason to calculate if one has no incentive to. So, these terms are nearly synonymous – but not entirely. Because of the difference between the people who can depend upon incentives to act in the participation of production, and the people who rely on calculation in order to discover complex means of organizing production.

    The terms “prohibition on free riding” and “property rights” are likewise, mutually deponent concepts. They are nearly synonymous – but not entirely. Because of the scope of prohibitions under the rule of the prohibition on involuntary transfer, vs the scope of prohibitions under the rule of private property.

    REPAIRING LIBERTARIAN ETHICS

    This repairs libertarian ethics, sufficient for the common law, as the prohibition on involuntary transfer by any means other than competition (the negative version). And conversely (the positive version)

    Source date (UTC): 2014-03-18 19:04:00 UTC

  • PHILOSOPHICAL PSYCHOLOGY AND MORAL PROFILING Just realized that I have to add a

    PHILOSOPHICAL PSYCHOLOGY AND MORAL PROFILING

    Just realized that I have to add a bit of psychology to Propertarianism. Right now I address the different moral biases as reproductive strategies. And I think that’s a baked cake. I also addressed the IQ over 105 issue. I also addressed the Pareto distribution (Power Curve) problem.

    But I haven’t addressed the Solipsism – Autism issue. And I haven’t addressed their opposite: the ability to CORRECTLY empathize with various world views. And I think propertarianism allows us to do that pretty concretely.

    Now, I can’t often read facial expressions well (mild face blindness). And my range of emotion is probably narrower (although amplified). But I can understand almost any feelings that are verbally articulated. So maybe this gives me a little advantage. I simply can’t intuit all that much unless I work at it. So I got good at working at it. (Probably because I still want to be accepted just as much as any other person does.)

    MORAL PROFILING RATHER THAN PERSONALITY PROFILING

    We used to take personality tests. And I think those are useful. But since MOST OF OUR BEHAVIOR is MORAL, and our moral actions more active, then we should TEST FOR MORAL COMPASS not so much as test for personality.

    Personality matters WITHIN your moral compass, and sure, your personality influences your choice of moral compass, but if the truth be told, I would rather understand your moral (and political) interests if I debate with you. And I would rather understand your personality if I have to WORK with you. Those are two different things.

    PHILOSOPHICAL PSYCHOLOGY

    Owen Flanagan (FB: owen.flanagan), who is still my favorite ethicist proposed a list of questions that any philosophical psychology should answer. I have, I think, successfully answered all his questions in Propertarianism. It was a good test to subject my work to. And his challenge was priceless in that regard.

    I think that both the study of Morals by Haidt, and the study of cognitive biases by Kahneman have settled the biological, and evolutionary biological, causes. I think I have done the job of completing ethics pretty thoroughly. I might have (although I’m not sure) settled the problem of epistemology as well by solving ethics. Although it’s a bit hard for others to grasp right now that we may be morally accountable for our spoken words.

    But we are still plagued by universalism – “one-ness” from consent, rather than one-ness from cooperation. Both the anglo enlightenment, “aristocracy of everyone” and the continental enlightenment “priesthood of everyone” or french “proletariat of everyone”. Whereas, under the monarchies, there was no ‘everyone’. There were many tribes. And that was a better political model than “seizing government to make an ‘everyone’”.

    I’m going to see what I can find on mixing personality profiles and moral profiles. That ought to be interesting.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-03-04 14:45:00 UTC

  • THE LOGIC OF LIBERTY AND PROPERTY INVERTED Instead of defining liberty as a stat

    THE LOGIC OF LIBERTY AND PROPERTY INVERTED

    Instead of defining liberty as a statement of victimhood – as rebellion by the weak: rights to property, we can state liberty as a positive – assertions by the strong: rights if exclusion and prohibitions on parasitism.

    NECESSARY RIGHTS

    1) Right of Private Property (right of exclusion from use)

    2) Right of Boycott (right of exclusion from trade)

    3) Right of Secession (right of exclusion from governance)

    Unless you have these three rights of exclusion, you are not free. You merely have permission.

    All rights are rights of exclusion. A fact which is missing from the logic of ethics.

    Freedom is the right to exclude, and that exclusion is what makes voluntary cooperation the only possible moral action we can take.

    By exclusion we boycott cooperation with those who do not engage in equally moral suppression of free riding.

    By the promise of violence we insure our boycott.

    This is the logic of aristocracy vs the logic of bourgeoisie and proletarian.

    The weak beg. The strong demand.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Propertarian Institute

    Kiev

    Source date (UTC): 2014-02-27 08:12:00 UTC

  • “EDUCATION MAKES MEN CUNNING, BUT NOT MORAL” I wonder why conservatives understa

    “EDUCATION MAKES MEN CUNNING, BUT NOT MORAL”

    I wonder why conservatives understand morality so much better than libertarians, while libertarians understand economics so much better than conservatives.

    People who give priority to liberty seem to demonstrate a higher demand for stimulation. We’re the minority. The Info-vores.

    We love our arguments. Our philosophy. Our cunning….

    Source date (UTC): 2014-02-27 04:03:00 UTC