Theme: Responsibility

  • A couple of years ago I was in a lawsuit with a particularly screwed up individu

    A couple of years ago I was in a lawsuit with a particularly screwed up individual named Muti (who some of us know) who lied to me and everyone else in a venture, about the source of money he committed to contribute. When he fell thru, and he was exposed. And got a note from him. He signed it. A friend witnessed it. I shut down the venture, and paid everyone myself out of my pocket. At the time I was in the middle of divorce and had just finished my second round of cancer and therapy. So this particular douche bag tries every scumbag maneuver in the book, and because judges are stupid, pulled up an arcane bit of logic and misapplied it. It was so bizarre that I was stunned a judge could be that stupid. The fact is, he was just fucking lazy and wanted to get on to the next piece of paper. So we went to arbitration and what they didn’t get, was that I was willing to lose it all on the chance that I would win in court. Immoral people just don’t get it. They think you’re greedy. But it’s not the money. I’d already planned to give it to my ex-wife. But if I won, Id force the guy out of his house cause he was out of cash. Now, I really don’t want to do that either. But if he didn’t settle for a reasonable amount, then I’ll just go to court and roll the dice. Since I don’t get the money either way, it’s just a function of whether it’s moral or not.

    Americans have removed the legal system from most of their lives (which is one of the reasons that we are overpopulated with lawyers) and the courts have built up a pretty good body of law to encourage that. But it’s the very opposite of the common law. It’s a mess. And it’s incomprehensible to ordinary people. And it’s just plain immoral.


    Source date (UTC): 2013-10-08 17:18:00 UTC

  • If you negotiate morally, it is much easier to accuse the opposition of unethica

    If you negotiate morally, it is much easier to accuse the opposition of unethical conduct and walk away unassailably. I do this pretty often as a vehicle for killing the other side’s posturing, or replacing their negotiator.


    Source date (UTC): 2013-10-08 16:34:00 UTC

  • DEAR ASCENTIUM FOLK (karma) The investment banker, Erik Anderson, of WestRiver C

    DEAR ASCENTIUM FOLK

    (karma)

    The investment banker, Erik Anderson, of WestRiver Capital, that destroyed your beautiful company, and even once we’d rescued it from him with the ultimate Hail Mary, pulled all the money out that we’d worked two years to get, and drove it into near insolvency, has been terminated by the parent company, removed from the board, and removed from his duties.

    Can’t recreate that one. The window passed. But sometimes there is at least some sense of justice in the world. It’s cathartic to me, at least. And I’m not shy about it. He’s every example of what Americans deservedly hate about the financial sector. And yet another example of why the financialization of our economy was a cultural and economic disaster.

    Maybe there is a special cell in hell. 😉

    Just sayin’.


    Source date (UTC): 2013-10-08 15:37:00 UTC

  • ON THE HIERARCHY OF ETHICAL MODELS AND ARGUMENTS. HIERARCHY OF ETHICAL SYSTEMS 1

    ON THE HIERARCHY OF ETHICAL MODELS AND ARGUMENTS.

    HIERARCHY OF ETHICAL SYSTEMS

    1) Virtue Ethics (imitation)

    2) Rule Ethics (deontological ethics)

    3) Outcome Ethics (teleological ethics)

    All of us that we describe as functioning humans can imitate the virtuous. As we mature we can understand the value of normative rules. As we gain wisdom and knowledge we can grasp the different outcomes that are produced by nuances. But more importantly, ethics are the list of rules by which we are forgiven for our errors, and lauded for our successes. We will not be chastised as a child for imitating virtue even if we err. We will not be chastised as an adult for following ethical rules, even if we err. We will not be chastised in our late maturity for following teleological ethics even if we err.

    HIERARCHY OF ETHICAL ARGUMENTS

    1) Sentimental

    2) Moral

    3) Rational

    4) Scientific

    5) Economic

    6) Ratio-Scientific (including economics)

    WE HUMANS EXIST IN VARIOUS AGES, with various knowledge, with various cognitive abilities. We must all cooperate given those differences. We must give the young and inexperienced what they can use, and the wizened and aged what they can use. And we must work together with our youth and age to cooperate for mutually beneficial ends.

    FOR ANY POLITICAL MOVEMENT TO SUCCEED it must produce the entire suite of arguments. Because humans can only grasp some maximum level of argument given their abilities and knowledge at any given point. If you wait until all members can argue ratio-scientifically then you will never achieve your political goals. If you argue sentimentally and morally you can never defeat your opponents.


    Source date (UTC): 2013-10-08 05:00:00 UTC

  • FUNNY QUESTION: “Curt, Why are you so dedicated to Veronika?” ANSWER: “Well, I a

    FUNNY

    QUESTION: “Curt, Why are you so dedicated to Veronika?”

    ANSWER: “Well, I am very simple. I pretty much operate on loyalty as the first moral and ethical bias. And she’s amazingly similar in that respect. In fact, if I asked her to kill you, the only question she would ask me, would be where she should dump the body.”

    That gets a laugh every time. Not sure how true it is. But it makes people laugh.

    Really, it’s because I can’t believe any other woman would tolerate me. 🙂


    Source date (UTC): 2013-09-10 10:17:00 UTC

  • The Necessity, Virtue And Morality Of Organized Violence

    THE SOURCE OF PROPERTY: THE NECESSITY, VIRTUE AND MORALITY OF ORGANIZED VIOLENCE I (we) may not be able to coerce you into accepting freedom – individual monopoly of control over property obtained by voluntary exchange production or homesteading – as a superior form of cooperation to all other forms of cooperation. But you may not coerce me (us) into abandoning freedom as our preferred, committed, required, demanded and threatened form of cooperation. THE SOURCE OF PROPERTY IS VIOLENCE The source of property is the use of violence to create, obtain, and protect it. Only those who performed militial service created private property. Only those who performed militial service obtained private property. Only those who perform militial service will keep private property. A militia is a voluntary alliance of property owners whose common interest is the preservation of private property rights. A militia is not the same as an army, any more than freedom is the same as liberty. You create freedom by using violence. You request or desire liberty from someone else. The purpose of a libertarian government is to create private property through the organized application of violence to create it. And libertarian pacifists and moralists are in fact the reason we are losing it. VIOLENCE IS A VIRTUE. Violence is a virtue not a vice. If all rights are property rights. If property defines morality, then violence to create property is the first moral action upon which all other morality rests. We should encourage the mastery of violence in all men at all times, and the exercise of violence by all men at all times, in the defense of property rights, the highest form of morality that a man can display. Because by acts of violence to preserve property he pays the highest contribution to morality possible. Defense of property does not require words. It requires actions. FREEDOM IS SYNONYMOUS WITH MILITIA The only free people are, and must be, a people whose government is a militia, and whose resolution of disputes over property is decided by judges using the single rule of private property as their criteria for adjudication. A militia is synonymous with enfranchisement. No one else has paid for his or her right of property. They merely free ride on the expenses of others. Therefore, political democracy is synonymous with militial participation. No other meaning is possible. All other attributions are acts of theft by fraud. Militial participation requires no more than the personal use of violence to protect property rights. The use of the militia is to create and preserve property rights. The use of judges is to resolve conflicts without violence. The use of democratic government is not to create laws, but to create physical commons. The use of public intellectuals, is to carry on the public debate over which commons we may choose to invest in, and which not. The use of ‘religion’ and literature is to teach us these necessary and immutable laws of human cooperation so that we never forget them – and by forgetting them lose our freedom. You cannot obtain the right of private property at a discount. It is an extremely costly right to possess. It is an extremely costly right to maintain. Those who attempt to gain freedom – property – at a discount, will obtain an inferior product to those who pay for a better one. And the only currency of freedom -property – is violence. Be armed. Be willing. Be vigilant. And Act. —– Curt Doolittle Kiev, 2013 “Putting violence back into liberty one sentence at a time.”

  • INTENTIONS ARE A CHEAT AND A FANTASY : ONLY CONSEQUENCES EXIST A psychological a

    INTENTIONS ARE A CHEAT AND A FANTASY : ONLY CONSEQUENCES EXIST

    A psychological and hormonal trick that lets you do nothing meaningful, and possibly plenty that’s harmful, in exchange for the cheap high of feeling that you made a difference in the world.

    Because if you tried to so something that people actually wanted, by producing something people actually wanted, you’d fail.

    The only altruism is teaching someone to fish. Because if you try and succeed it was your victory. And if you try and fail, it is your failure. Rather than risk failure people try to obtain good feelings about themselves by good intentions.


    Source date (UTC): 2013-09-05 05:04:00 UTC

  • Ethics: Morality Defined

    Manners are a promise prior to a transaction (or action). Ethics are a promise internal to the transaction (or action). Morals are a promise external to and antecedent to any transaction (or action). The promise is quite simple. A promise to avoid involuntary transfer. That’s it. Ethics isn’t complicated.

  • Ethics: Morality Defined

    Manners are a promise prior to a transaction (or action). Ethics are a promise internal to the transaction (or action). Morals are a promise external to and antecedent to any transaction (or action). The promise is quite simple. A promise to avoid involuntary transfer. That’s it. Ethics isn’t complicated.

  • MORALITY Manners are a promise prior to a transaction (or action). Ethics are a

    MORALITY

    Manners are a promise prior to a transaction (or action). Ethics are a promise internal to the transaction (or action). Morals are a promise external to and antecedent to any transaction (or action).

    The promise is quite simple. A promise to avoid involuntary transfer.

    That’s it. Ethics isn’t complicated.


    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-31 06:44:00 UTC