Theme: Truth

  • Truth is Expensive, But The Returns Warrant It, and Morality Demands It

    [I]t was very expensive to create settlements by prohibiting predation by the development of armies and professional warriors. But we obtained the ability to accumulate capital, and to create a division of labor. It was very expensive to create property rights by prohibiting parasitism through law and indoctrination. But we obtained the ability to create a market, money, and prices. It was very expensive to create literacy by creating printing and education. But we dramatically expanded human productivity, and demonstrated intelligence. It was very expensive to create scientific thought through a century of education. But we dramatically reduced transaction costs, increased human productivity, and increased demonstrated intelligence. It will be equally expensive to create TRUTHFULNESS – or, perhaps, restore truthfulness to the scientific era. And the gains will will obtain from truthfulness will be equal to if not surpass the gains we obtained from literacy. A truthful world is as hard for us to imagine as a scientific world was for religio-rationalists to imagine, as it was for the pre-literate to imagine the literate, as it was for the barbaric to imagine the urban. That something is an expensive commons to produce is not a criticism. It is a question of returns. Mankind must eventually make this transition. We can do it now, and free ourselves of the threats to our civilization – the civilization that invented truth. Or we can experience a peak beyond which we fail to pass, as did the Greeks and the Romans. As did the Byzantines and Persians. As did the Austrians and Spanish. As did the French and German. And let our civilization pass from this earth – disappearing, and becoming subject to peoples more barbaric than we. I am willing to die to save my civilization, my race, my people from another dark age, and to instead transform mankind from the merely rational and scientific to the truthful stage of evolution. This isn’t a cost I expect everyone to agree to bear. But it is a cost I know many of us are willing to bear – and to bear gladly and heroically. We can purge all forms of lies from this earth. And in doing so, transform man into gods. For what is a god but a wielder of truth? And what is a devil, but a wielder of error, bias, wishful thinking, and deceit? Curt Doolittle The Philosophy of Aristocracy The Propertarian Institute Kyiv, Ukraine

  • Truth is Expensive, But The Returns Warrant It, and Morality Demands It

    [I]t was very expensive to create settlements by prohibiting predation by the development of armies and professional warriors. But we obtained the ability to accumulate capital, and to create a division of labor. It was very expensive to create property rights by prohibiting parasitism through law and indoctrination. But we obtained the ability to create a market, money, and prices. It was very expensive to create literacy by creating printing and education. But we dramatically expanded human productivity, and demonstrated intelligence. It was very expensive to create scientific thought through a century of education. But we dramatically reduced transaction costs, increased human productivity, and increased demonstrated intelligence. It will be equally expensive to create TRUTHFULNESS – or, perhaps, restore truthfulness to the scientific era. And the gains will will obtain from truthfulness will be equal to if not surpass the gains we obtained from literacy. A truthful world is as hard for us to imagine as a scientific world was for religio-rationalists to imagine, as it was for the pre-literate to imagine the literate, as it was for the barbaric to imagine the urban. That something is an expensive commons to produce is not a criticism. It is a question of returns. Mankind must eventually make this transition. We can do it now, and free ourselves of the threats to our civilization – the civilization that invented truth. Or we can experience a peak beyond which we fail to pass, as did the Greeks and the Romans. As did the Byzantines and Persians. As did the Austrians and Spanish. As did the French and German. And let our civilization pass from this earth – disappearing, and becoming subject to peoples more barbaric than we. I am willing to die to save my civilization, my race, my people from another dark age, and to instead transform mankind from the merely rational and scientific to the truthful stage of evolution. This isn’t a cost I expect everyone to agree to bear. But it is a cost I know many of us are willing to bear – and to bear gladly and heroically. We can purge all forms of lies from this earth. And in doing so, transform man into gods. For what is a god but a wielder of truth? And what is a devil, but a wielder of error, bias, wishful thinking, and deceit? Curt Doolittle The Philosophy of Aristocracy The Propertarian Institute Kyiv, Ukraine

  • “Yeah, well, I am sorry to slay false gods with the false promise of liberty, Bu

    —“Yeah, well, I am sorry to slay false gods with the false promise of liberty, But that goes with the territory. Truth leaves no room for mercy toward lies.”—


    Source date (UTC): 2015-11-07 12:57:00 UTC

  • “You can very much ignore the truth, but it will lead to disastrous consequences

    —“You can very much ignore the truth, but it will lead to disastrous consequences, because your perception of the truth has no bearing on the actual truth.”— Tristan Powers

    (imperfect language but it does the job. 🙂 – cd)


    Source date (UTC): 2015-11-07 08:36:00 UTC

  • “The truth can hurt or tickle, it can be bitter or sweet, it can draw thunderous

    —“The truth can hurt or tickle, it can be bitter or sweet, it can draw thunderous applause or furious rebuke. But it can’t be ignored.”— Shaun Moss


    Source date (UTC): 2015-11-07 07:29:00 UTC

  • IMPORTANT IDEA OF THE DAY: TRUTH IS EXPENSIVE, BUT THE RETURNS WARRANT IT, AND M

    IMPORTANT IDEA OF THE DAY: TRUTH IS EXPENSIVE, BUT THE RETURNS WARRANT IT, AND MORALITY DEMANDS IT.

    It was very expensive to create settlements by prohibiting predation by the development of armies and professional warriors. But we obtained the ability to accumulate capital, and to create a division of labor.

    It was very expensive to create property rights by prohibiting parasitism through law and indoctrination. But we obtained the ability to create a market, money, and prices.

    It was very expensive to create literacy by creating printing and education. But we dramatically expanded human productivity, and demonstrated intelligence.

    It was very expensive to create scientific thought through a century of education. But we dramatically reduced transaction costs, increased human productivity, and increased demonstrated intelligence.

    It will be equally expensive to create TRUTHFULNESS – or, perhaps, restore truthfulness to the scientific era. And the gains will will obtain from truthfulness will be equal to if not surpass the gains we obtained from literacy.

    A truthful world is as hard for us to imagine as a scientific world was for religio-rationalists to imagine, as it was for the pre-literate to imagine the literate, as it was for the barbaric to imagine the urban.

    That something is an expensive commons to produce is not a criticism. It is a question of returns.

    Mankind must eventually make this transition. We can do it now, and free ourselves of the threats to our civilization – the civilization that invented truth. Or we can experience a peak beyond which we fail to pass, as did the Greeks and the Romans. As did the Byzantines and Persians. As did the Austrians and Spanish. As did the French and German. And let our civilization pass from this earth – disappearing, and becoming subject to peoples more barbaric than we.

    I am willing to die to save my civilization, my race, my people from another dark age, and to instead transform mankind from the merely rational and scientific to the truthful stage of evolution.

    This isn’t a cost I expect everyone to agree to bear. But it is a cost I know many of us are willing to bear – and to bear gladly and heroically.

    We can purge all forms of lies from this earth.

    And in doing so, transform man into gods.

    For what is a god but a wielder of truth? And what is a devil, but a wielder of error, bias, wishful thinking, and deceit?

    Curt Doolittle

    The Philosophy of Aristocracy

    The Propertarian Institute

    Kyiv, Ukraine


    Source date (UTC): 2015-11-07 06:52:00 UTC

  • TERMS: HYPERTHETICAL AND HYPOTHETICAL —“Thought experiments have done yeoman’s

    TERMS: HYPERTHETICAL AND HYPOTHETICAL

    —“Thought experiments have done yeoman’s work in philosophy ever since the tale of the ring of Gyges in Plato’s Republic. There clearly is a place for them in testing our moral intuitions, yet they have been taken too far down the trolley track in contemporary ethical theory. At issue here is modality: the meaning of the possible for making sense of ethical life. Let me suggest two modes of the possible. One is the merely conceivable, which involves science fiction elements or extraordinarily rare circumstances, things that are not logically impossible or outright violations of the laws of nature. The other mode is the genuinely plausible, scenarios that are either actually possible (because they have happened) or feasible given a reasonable construal of existing realities. I would like to narrow the use of hypothetical to the latter set of plausible cases and coin a new term, hyperthetical, for the merely conceivable.”— Michael Philip

    Excellent reframing. I would suggest you take my approach of a minimum three points to make an argumentative line, and follow your own sentence structure: 1-Conceivable, 2-Plausible, and 3-Feasible. (I am going to steal it. thanks. )


    Source date (UTC): 2015-11-01 14:34:00 UTC

  • (Even though I consider Testimonialism as the completion of the critical rationa

    (Even though I consider Testimonialism as the completion of the critical rationalist program.)


    Source date (UTC): 2015-10-31 10:08:40 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/660397971457114112

    Reply addressees: @ne0colonial @SanguineEmpiric @wargfranklin

    Replying to: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/659871607570042880


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    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/659871607570042880

  • But I am not able to correct Popperians because the cultishness has gotten out o

    But I am not able to correct Popperians because the cultishness has gotten out of hand.


    Source date (UTC): 2015-10-31 10:08:09 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/660397840347373568

    Reply addressees: @ne0colonial @SanguineEmpiric @wargfranklin

    Replying to: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/659871607570042880


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    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/659871607570042880

  • +ian drake Science is, for ancient reasons, artificially separated from philosop

    +ian drake

    Science is, for ancient reasons, artificially separated from philosophy because while law and morality require justificationary reasoning, truth requires criticism; and survival from criticism leaves us with truth candidates. Science has evolved a methodology for cleansing error, imaginary relations, bias, wishful thinking, and deceit from our thoughts and words. Scientists are not calculators, but if they are indeed engaging in truth (science) then they must at some point make objective propositions.

    MY criticism of Lakoff, Chomsky and their ilk, is that they are practicing a long standing tradition of the Cosmopolitan enlightenment, which is to state a half truth in order to perpetuate a lie by means of suggestion. In the case of these immoral men, pseudoscience is the vehicle for their half truth. Because only pseudoscience can convey a half truth with the pretense of science.

    Of the various tests we subject our theories to, one is parsimony and its inverse: “full accounting”: weighing all consequences, not selecting consequences in a ‘ben franklin’ close (intentional selection bias, in order to create suggestion that overwhelms reason by appealing to intuition.)

    So when one practices the discipline of science, avoids parsimony, and avoids full accounting, one is not engaging in science but pseudoscience for the purpose of using suggestion to perpetuate a deception.

    The Cosmopolitans have a long history of half truths via pseudoscience: marx, freud, boaz, cantor, mises, and the frankfurt school. And their technique was adopted by the neo-puritans and feminists as socialism, keynesian economics, postmodernism, and political correctness.

    It has only been since about 2000 that science has begun to overthrow the deceits of these men. And I am quite confident that they will be remembered in history as what they demonstrate they are: pseudoscientists and propagandists with almost entirely political objectives.


    Source date (UTC): 2015-10-31 07:35:00 UTC