Curt Doolittle

Theme: Truth

  • Why I’m Harping On Karl Smith

    There are only two people who make rational arguments on the ‘left’. They’re you and Krugman. We all know he’s a political shill. I’m in the camp that says you’re a moral man, and just missing the point of it all. But if you don’t understand the disastrous externalities created by our statism (re: Nial Ferguson, Rothbard, Mises, and Hayek), then it may not matter if you are a moral man or not. The time frame of data that you mine so carefully (and so well) is too short to incorporate the consequences of long term expansion of the state. Only history will show you that. And the history of political economy is pretty clear on these matters. On my side of the fence, we’ve given up on Krugman. Myself, I’m looking for the people who unify the two points of view – who use macro without the disastrous externalities of expanding the state. You might be that man. On the other hand, I might just have false hopes. It might be impossible to find someone who can put out a daily column in a major newspaper uniting both sides and creating a political movement that gets us out of permanent political decline. Someone emailed me yesterday to lighten up on you. I would. But the stakes are too high. I have hope that you’re “neo” so to speak. 🙂 You are articulate enough. You’re skeptical enough. You’re fast enough. You’re humble enough. You understand the data. And you rely upon moral sentiments. A decent editor and you’re there. Or rather, you’re there if you understand that the state bureaucracy creates ‘bads’. 🙂 Curt

  • Glossary for use in evaluating political arguments. (Given that almost all polit

    http://www.capitalismv3.com/?page_id=2874A Glossary for use in evaluating political arguments. (Given that almost all political debate is Eristic, it’s useful to know what ‘Eristic’ means.)

    Source date (UTC): 2011-06-18 18:36:00 UTC

  • The Questionable Ethics Of Climate Scientists And Economists

    Karl Popper (who wrote the Logic of Scientific Discovery) and Thomas Kuhn (who wrote the structure of scientific revolutions) approached the problem of knowledge in the domain of DISCOVERY, which we call the physical sciences. At the same time, the CLOSE FRIEND of Karl Popper, Friedrich Hayek, worked on the problem of hubris in the social sciences. Hayek ended up combating Keynes over the frailty of models and reason. Keynes wrote ‘A Treatise On Probability” and then the “General Theory” which led to the governmental use of economic calculation that all of us live under, by trying to solve for unemployment – something Hayek (correctly) stated was not possible in the long run and would lead (as it has) to our bankruptcy. Hayek stated that traditional knowledge that was handed down, and perpetuated by trial and error, was ‘true’ even if we did not understand it rationally as yet. And that our record of rational judgment was exceedingly frail, and that history was filled with examples (past and present) of ridiculous scientific error. Keynes won in the short term however, because his theory solved the problem of socialism by replacing a false pretense of REASON (a managed economy), with the false pretense of PROBABILITY ( a monetarist economy) in the field of national economics. In other words, Keynes gave politicians power over our economies. The power that has led us to our financial crisis. BOTH Popper and Hayek were countering two problems. A) the use of the fairly new field of statistical analysis and it’s limitations at prediction due to what Nassim Taleb calls the LUDIC FALLACY. And B) the rise of Socialism, and the socialist hubris of central planning . These men, plus Hayek’s mentor Ludwig von Mises, effectively undermined and predicted the impossibility of a socialist economy. Both men stated that human minds are frail and capable of very limited reason and prediction. More importantly, that the Anglo RECORD OF WHAT WORKS, or EMPIRICISM, is a superior form of KNOWLEDGE to the French (and then Marxian) fantasy of RATIONALISM. The fact that the average american does not understand this by doctrinare education difference is probably equal to the use of today’s mysticism in Islam or medieval christianity. It is a means of keeping people ignorant. We have attempted to replace mysticism with science without also teaching history (mythology) which teaches us the error of hubris. We do not teach history because in a pluralistic society, history includes value judgments and value judgements are class, race, and culture judgements. However, aside from class, race and culture, we are taught only the error of the churches, without the errors of silly scientists who were little better than shaman. We did not teach our children HUBRIS. Greek mythology teaches one lesson above all others: Hubris.

    [callout]We have attempted to replace mysticism with science without also teaching history (mythology) which teaches us the error of hubris. We do not teach history because in a pluralistic society, history includes value judgments and value judgements are class, race, and culture judgements.[/callout]

    To the physical sciences, which is the process of DISCOVERY of what EXISTS already, is the objective of study. The holy grail is to discover the first-causal properties of the physical universe. To economists, the problem is one of INVENTION. This is called Hume’s problem, or the problem of induction. That is, what can humans INVENT given their current state of knowledge. THe problem of economic science, which is the ONLY social science we yet possess, is similar to climate science in complexity, yet additionally more complicated because there is no process of EQUILIBRATION in the intellectual world. (there is no human equivalent to the law of thermodynamics – there is in fact, energy added to the system. We call it ‘increases in production’.) Nor is time constant. In fact, that’s what productivity does: it creates more ‘time’ by using less of it to produce more calories. Instead, of an equilibrium as in nature, the mind of man invents new ideas all the time from permutations of existing patterns and disrupts all attempts at equilibria. Both forms of our theories, whether physical science or economic science, can only be tested by FALSIFICATION. Unless you can stipulate ACTIONS by which we can prove climate hypothesis false, they are not in fact, scientific. For example, Einstein said that the absence of red shift would falsify one of his theories. The first principle of Greek Rationalism is SKEPTICISM as a warning against HUBRIS. Hubris is a danger because of the cognitive biases humans of necessity possess because we attribute higher value to that which we study most. TRUTH IN SCIENCE IS PREDICTION AND FALSIFICATION. Models are not truth. They are tools for rationalizing data. The carpenter may not understand the metallurgy of his chisel. He may not understand the distribution channel for his wood. The scientist is often using chisels and wood that he or she does not understand. If he or she understood, then he or she would understand that the peer review process CANNOT WORK. DOES NOT WORK, and QUANTIFIABLY, given the record, DOES NOT WORK. Furthermore, he or she would understand that only FALSIFICATION, not correspondence with a model, is the means of proving a theory. Since these two problems DISCOVERY (Physical Science) and INVENTION (induction) are the two fundamental problems of the universe, it is not surprising that we are still incompetent at both. What is surprising is that in both PHYSICAL SCIENCE and in ECONOMIC SCIENCE, the cognitive bias we bring to our studies, in which we confuse the practical utility of the limited tools and methods of our craft, consistently overwhelms and suppresses the knowledge that in fact, out tools are rough approximations with very poor records of prediction. And that only a combination of prediction and falsification demonstrate the veracity of any theory in either domain.

    [callout]A financier who violates one of these principles, or a lawyer, or a craftsman, is held accountable for violating the ethics of his craft. With free speech, comes the same ethical constraint on Physical and Economic scientists. That is because there is HARM put upon populations whenever our work products are put into the public domain such that they may be used for the purpose of policy. The reason is, that all public policy is the application of VIOLENCE[/callout]

    A financier who violates one of these principles, or a lawyer, or a craftsman, is held accountable for violating the ethics of his craft. With free speech, comes the same ethical constraint on Physical and Economic scientists. That is because there is HARM put upon populations whenever our work products are put into the public domain such that they may be used for the purpose of policy. The reason is, that all public policy is the application of VIOLENCE: the forcible taking of resources and the coercion of individual behavior under the treat of violence. The scientist or the economists is appealing for the application of violence to his purposes. Therefore, a scientist is operating ethically by publishing FACTS. He or she is NOT operating ethically when he publishes theories or predictions unless the theory is accompanied by falsification. Failure to include how to falsify one’s theories is by definition a form of deception. If we made it possible to sue scientists the way we can sue doctors and CEO’s then no doubt the quality of work would increase dramatically. And the fact that we cannot sue scientists for the harm that they cause, puts them in the realm with fortune tellers and astrologists.

  • Response To Judith Curry On Scientific Storytelling

    Copied here from http://judithcurry.com/2011/03/06/climate-story-telling-angst. On Climate ETC: Judith Curry writes:

    If climate scientists were to use their past accomplishments to bolster their current claims, there would be less controversy, as it’s more difficult to undermine the credibility of established achievements.

    Which is a distracting straw man argument that posits the climate issue as one of communication rather than credibility. I responded with:

    [callout]Why do I know that what I say here will not make a difference? Because researchers in the physical sciences have perverse incentives because of the economic structure of labor in academic research. Therefore, scientists will not change their behavior because it would cause them to pay the cost of that change, and that cost is too high in relation to ALL THEIR OTHER COSTS AND BENEFITS. …. In other words: People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.[/callout]

    I’m an economist. (A political economist. I’m not an econometrician – the kind of people who in economics make the same mistakes as physical scientists – forecasting.) Whether economists are scientists is still open for debate, but we have a similar problem of credibility in our field, even though economics and politics are more naturally interdependent than are the physical sciences and politics. Regarding Past Achievements. If we study both the history of science, the history of political activism, and the history of marketing we end up with a very different conclusion than you state above, and storytelling wont’ cure it: 1) Science is riddled with as many faulty conclusions as successful achievements – in fact, of necessity, far more faulty conclusions than successful achievements. (Everything from the notorious Phlogiston theory, to the Mathusian error, to the 70’s fascination with ‘global cooling’ and the upcoming ice age. Furthermore, Apocalyptic pronouncements are almost universally false if we look at the history of ideas across all fields. The universe is far more equilibrial than we are. Christendom in particular, is anti-apocalyptic because the apocalyptic vision is attached to ancient sentiments.) 2) Far more than 90% of research papers that achieve public attention contain errors in reasoning that invalidate the premise. (Depends upon whose study you look at — but, it’s bad no matter how you look at it.) A random selection of papers from PhD’s and candidates from any number of fields from any university’s library will contain amateurish exaggerated conclusions from insufficient data, and erroneous interpretation. (Reasons? First, because graduate ‘training’ work is publicized, and second, because the short form peer reviewed process for scientific achievement appears to be far less valuable than the long form book process for scientific achievement.) 3) Nearly all research work that reaches the public contains overreaching editorial content that invalidates the research. This is a combination of the desire for attention by researchers and editorial license that seeks attention on the part of publishers. 4) Good science is meticulous. Bad science is not. (I lost a quarter of a million dollars of my own money backing climate science, and the November 09 scandal was the reason for it. The field must take responsibility for the shoddy science.) 5) It certainly seems that economics as a profession is more skeptical of it’s calculations than are the physical sciences, partly because economic variables are so complex that we are afraid to make pronouncements. We realize we can be descriptive of the past but we cannot be PREDICTIVE of the future in economics. The same applies for highly complex systems of all kinds, even the environment – the heuristics of which is not terribly different in intertemporal terms than are social constructs. And, as an economist I can observe that the physical sciences are reversing the accumulated prestige of the field for a single reason: the perverse incentives of the graduate training process in research universities. 6) Movements need to be skeptical of their acolytes. For example, certain musicians who employ the compositional structure of hymns to rock music, must sometimes specifically eschew association with Christian groups because they know it will impact their credibility with the broader audience. The fact that the international communist movement has effectively co-opted the green movement means that the entire research program is now effectively discounted as a political movement. The global warming movement must associate itself with commerce if it is to succeed. And it is not impossible to do so. Moral arguments are UNIVERSALLY masks for wealth transfers. Without exception. Scientists are notoriously ignorant of economics and politics. Where science succeeds, is where it unifies with the pragmatism of commerce. Not where it aligns with religion and politics. In economic terms, science as a profession is discounted in the marketplace because of a record of exaggerated claims and faulty advertising. It isn’t that scientists need to tell better stories. It’s that science needs to produce better work, and be extremely cautious with public pronouncements. Scientism is a religion if it believes it has a lock on forecasting the future, even of simple physical events. So, it’s about credibility. The degree to which the academic scientific community in the west, since the 1970’s has undermined scientific credibility is not understood in the incestuous circle of academia. To counter this effect: Write books that fully articulate an idea, not micro-papers. Falsify your own work. Seek to justify opposing views. Ruthlessly attack others who undermine scientific credibility in the public debate. Reduce the number of graduate students and hide their work unless it is extremely well argued. (this is a contrary incentive) It’s not about achievements. Because the achievements are currently dwarfed by a ocean of contrary-indicators. In fact, if we look at the data, it is not in academia that the great inventions are coming from. In fact, it’s not from the large commercial capital bureaucracies either – they only refine discoveries. Innovation appears to be coming almost entirely from the efforts of individuals. It’s not about storytelling. It’s about doing good science. And right now, climate science is insufficiently articulated for human beings to justify paying the huge cost associated with the apocalyptic visions. Human beings are rational. They just need a rational argument and to understand the costs and benefits in relation to ALL THEIR OTHER COSTS AND BENEFITS. Why do I know that what I say here will not make a difference? Because researchers in the physical sciences have pervers incentives due to the economic structure of labor in academic research, and the failure to separate research from teaching lines of business and faculty in large universities. Therefore, scientists will not change their behavior because it would cause them to pay the cost of that change, and that cost is too high in relation to ALL THEIR OTHER COSTS AND BENEFITS FOR THEM. In other words: People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

  • On Definitions and Moral Arguments

    And one more thing that I just see too much of – arguments over definitions. I. A definition is a contract between two or more people on the properties, causal relations and utility of those relations. I.I A term is the name for the set of properties, and causal relations and the utility of those relations. I.II One cannot debate what a term ‘means’ in the abstract. One can only (a) debate the validity of properties, causal relations and utility with others, (b) debate the assumedly normative properties, causal relations and utilities associated with the term and (c) debate what properties, causal relations and utility that someone else attributed to the term. But the properties, causal relations, and utility of an object of consideration are either true or they are not. In general, even most educated people rarely understand such terms that they commonly employ such as ‘true’, ‘freedom’ and ‘law’, or ‘right’, because they cannot express these concepts using non-contradictory, necessary and sufficient properties, causal relations and utility. Instead they rely on either normative, or personally biased usage, as convenient tools for justifying their existing biases. II. There is no other description of the term ‘definition’ that is applicable to the concept of rational debate. Since any non-contractual definition is an appeal to authority that is outside of the contract of debate between the parties. III. One cannot impose a definition. This is a logical fallacy. One can only negotiate it, or describe the properties and causal relations, then debate over the properties and relations, and the utility of those properties and relations. Debating about the ‘meaning’ of a term as normative, is not the same as debating the utility of it’s necessary properties. IV. One cannot QUOTE a definition as a means of appealing to an authority. This is a logical fallacy. You can only use a definition of a term as a means of clarifying your use of that term as a shorthand for the purpose of conveying properties, causal relations and the utility of those properties and causal relations. V. One cannot rely on a normative usage of the term as an appeal to authority. This is a logical fallacy. You can only use this as a starting point for debating on the true and false properties, causal relations, and utility of the properties and relations. Once at the starting point, one must then negotiate over the properties, causal relations and utility of the properties and causal relations. VI. One may defend one’s usage of the term by refering to a normative usage, or a quoted definition as justification for your USAGE of the term. But this does not mean that the properties, causal relations, and utilty of the property and causal relations is true, or even normative. (Evolution for example is assumed to be directional by most people, when in fact, it only favors complexity within a niche, which in turn leads to fragility.) VII. MORAL ARGUMENTS ARE UNIVERSALLY FRAUDULENT ATTEMPTS AT EXTORTION. PERIOD.

  • On Definitions and Moral Arguments

    And one more thing that I just see too much of – arguments over definitions. I. A definition is a contract between two or more people on the properties, causal relations and utility of those relations. I.I A term is the name for the set of properties, and causal relations and the utility of those relations. I.II One cannot debate what a term ‘means’ in the abstract. One can only (a) debate the validity of properties, causal relations and utility with others, (b) debate the assumedly normative properties, causal relations and utilities associated with the term and (c) debate what properties, causal relations and utility that someone else attributed to the term. But the properties, causal relations, and utility of an object of consideration are either true or they are not. In general, even most educated people rarely understand such terms that they commonly employ such as ‘true’, ‘freedom’ and ‘law’, or ‘right’, because they cannot express these concepts using non-contradictory, necessary and sufficient properties, causal relations and utility. Instead they rely on either normative, or personally biased usage, as convenient tools for justifying their existing biases. II. There is no other description of the term ‘definition’ that is applicable to the concept of rational debate. Since any non-contractual definition is an appeal to authority that is outside of the contract of debate between the parties. III. One cannot impose a definition. This is a logical fallacy. One can only negotiate it, or describe the properties and causal relations, then debate over the properties and relations, and the utility of those properties and relations. Debating about the ‘meaning’ of a term as normative, is not the same as debating the utility of it’s necessary properties. IV. One cannot QUOTE a definition as a means of appealing to an authority. This is a logical fallacy. You can only use a definition of a term as a means of clarifying your use of that term as a shorthand for the purpose of conveying properties, causal relations and the utility of those properties and causal relations. V. One cannot rely on a normative usage of the term as an appeal to authority. This is a logical fallacy. You can only use this as a starting point for debating on the true and false properties, causal relations, and utility of the properties and relations. Once at the starting point, one must then negotiate over the properties, causal relations and utility of the properties and causal relations. VI. One may defend one’s usage of the term by refering to a normative usage, or a quoted definition as justification for your USAGE of the term. But this does not mean that the properties, causal relations, and utilty of the property and causal relations is true, or even normative. (Evolution for example is assumed to be directional by most people, when in fact, it only favors complexity within a niche, which in turn leads to fragility.) VII. MORAL ARGUMENTS ARE UNIVERSALLY FRAUDULENT ATTEMPTS AT EXTORTION. PERIOD.

  • In the contest between Denial, Skepticism and Faith, the only rational position

    In the contest between Denial, Skepticism and Faith, the only rational position is Skepticism. The problem is, that since we are never certain of our knowledge, the boundary between skepticism and denial is simply a difference in the perception of risk and reward between the people debating. Therefore, whenever such a debate arises, these are not questions of truth. They are questions of cost and benefit.

    🙂

    Source date (UTC): 2010-12-05 13:48:00 UTC

  • Recommended A Book On Philosophy? Hmmm. Maybe a Library of them.

    Last weekend a friend of mine surprised me by confessing to have an interest in philosophy (which surprised me, I thought all he was interested in was traveling and fly-fishing) and recommended a book, Philosophy of Language , by Scott Soames. I am wondering, what do folks here think of Soames and of his book, Philosophy of Language? Epistemology and the philosophy of science are my main philosophical interests, but I have read Kripke’s Naming and Necessity (at Ali’s urging) several years ago (LOVED it!) and am ready for another book on the general subject of philosophy of language and (because another friend of mine recommended it) I was about to purchase Soames’ book, but thought to pass it by y’all first just to make sure (if I can) that it is a good choice. If anyone has a better “one book read” suggestion on the philosophy of language, please let me know.

    I’d ask what he means by ‘philosophy’. Soams seems a little advanced for the common reader. I’d recommend Durant’s Story Of Philosophy. Furthermore, I think it’s also assumptive, since the entire anglo-analytical framework is a branch of logic, and is currently under significant attack, as either simply tautologically descriptive, or a as a deductive toolset. And as non-advisory and non-predictive, it’s questionable whether it has ethical content – meaning it’s questionable wither it can be used to determine action on it’s own, or whether it is a branch of logic to assist one in criticizing ethical action oriented statements in the face of a future about which one has insufficient knowledge. The counter proposition is best covered by Brand Blanchard (Yale) in Reason and Analysis, which is one of the best criticisms of the movement. Axis A) The historical Position is covered by Aristotle, Toynbee, Durant, Quigley, Gibbon, Braudel, Spengler, McNeil and, to add some depth Pomeranz, Mokyr, and Armstrong. The historians represent each of their cultural biases (french, english, american and german) but as a set are useful. To some degree weber belongs here to as he compared religions worldwide. Axis B) The ethical position is covered best by Marx and his disciples on the one end of the triangle (the peasantry), or Popper, Hayek, mises, rothbard, and perhaps Sowell and Parsons on the second (the middle class), and aristotle, machiavelli, sorel, michels, burnham, pareto, and weber on the third (nobility). The problem of the social sciences is stated by hume, but originates in the christian scholastics. He calls it induction. But that is an insufficient explanation of the problem which has distracted minds for centuries now. The technical solution to the social sciences was recommended by weber, and unfortunately the tool being used is largely quantitative economics – ie:trade, despite the fact that the status economy, the differences in IQ distribution among the classes, the power struggle between class elites, and the knowledge economy are as important as the monetary and trade economies. Axis C) In understanding ethics and politics it may be useful to understand that equality and the attempt to obtain power by claims for equality are the primary source of distraction in ethics. There are only three coercive technologies available to man, and that they are best exploited by different classes: inclusion/ostracization and access to opportunity and insurance or what we call moral coercion (talking), as practiced by the poorest classes. Remunerative coercion (money) as practiced by the moneyed and merchant classes. And violent coercion (law, violence, contract, and military action) as practiced by the managerial classes. The elites in each class use their own form of coercion and the three hierarchies constantly compete with one another to get their elites into power. This is perhaps the most easily applied means of analyzing human collective behavior. Contemporary philosophy as a discipline, is a tool for making one fit, but not for accomplishing anything alone. However, utility and wisdom in life’s actions are derived from a comparative study of history, wherein we discover what men actually do with the scribblings of philosophers. As Will Durant said after writing his history of philosophy: “I was interested in philosophy, but after my research, realized that there were no answers there. The answers are in history: the record of what men do.” I came to a similar conclusion and found that human sensation, perception, and reason is so limited that we have had to construct a number of terribly complex technologies that allow us to categorize, remember and compare those complexities that our hunter-gatherer biology was insufficient to sense, perceive, compare and calculate on it’s own. These tools include various complex contents of language, the narrative causal explanation, counting numbers, arithmetic, mathematics, accounting, and the iterative research program tools that we call the scientific method. POlitically we have invented various devices: ethics, morals, property, religious scripture, rhetorical debate, logic and it’s branches. Beyond the limits of perception and comparison of rhetoric, debate and politics, where we have exceeded the limits of those tools of consent, we have invented tools of cooperation in the extended order of others that we cannot sense or perceive, but must cooperate with none the less: the means of cooperating with entirely abstract perceptions: money, banking, prices, interest, contract, and abstract rule of law, and abstract property rights and options. We have invented all these technologies, mostly by accident, in order to solve the problems of coordinating our activities in a vast and complex division of knowledge and labor – because we must coordinate in that vast complex division of labor, because w are not wealthier than our cave men ancestors in the only human asset ‘time’ – we are simply vastly more productive, and have made everything vastly less expensive. The extent of that division is so vast that it is incomprehensible to the human mind. We have invented forms of ‘calculation’ (in the wider sense) in all fields of knowledge, and ‘the scientific method’ is little more than an accounting system and accounting principles for different branches of human inquiry such as Law, religious doctrine, physical science, history, and even music and the arts: any venture where the past must be categorized and compared to the current circumstance, so that it may be used to either make choices in, or to forecast the future. Linguistic philosophy is but one tool in that arsenal, and to view it as more than an epistemic device for the analysis and criticism of our accounting method is an act of intellectual egoism or myopia that borders on immoral and unethical. The fundamental problem of human existence is ethics – actions. Ethics is the underlying problem of the social sciences. So far, we have succeeded in our efforts to understand the physical sciences – the act of discovery, more than we have succeeded in our social sciences – the act of invention. To some degree the physical sciences are no longer a ‘problem’ but simply work. The social sciences, or the act of invention, is on the other hand, fraught with difficulty. Largely because we knew only the tools of the much more simplistic physical sciences, and it’s perception extending technology of calculus, and for a century or more have been erroneously attempting to apply the methods of the physical sciences to the social sciences, without the understanding that those tools are far too limited to assist us in the process of cooperation and invention. And the stress created upon our societies by this divergent progress, has left our social orders in conflict as our breeding rates and opportunities expand faster than our wisdom and our tools of sensation, perception, calculation and ethical decision making, as well as our tools of politics and political systems, commerce, contract, property and trade. As such, the question of philosophy has been lost in academic philosophy’s attempt to apply the principles of discovery to the process of invention, largely so that the field may find academic (ie:social status) legitimacy among the new harder physical sciences, rather than be relegated to the ‘arts’. And for that reason, philosophy has been lost for almost a century – in a futile attempt to legitimize itself as a methodology rather than as a practical tool for solving meaningful human problems. And as such it has become either a puzzle (as is much of higher mathematics) a form of self-referential entertainment, or a religion which to hide oneself like brahmins and buddhists, from material reality. All religions often need a reformation. And contemporary philosophy is one of them. (as can be easily discerned by reading a random sampling of papers.) One reason that ethical and political philosophers seek to find absolute statements in philosophical content is best seen in the contrast between western natural law (political), eastern natural law (familial), and everyone else’s ‘law’ which is more doctrinal (tribal). Most philosophical doctrines simply attempt to rationalize cultural preferences. For example, despite all our academic emphasis, it turns out that the german model of social order is better than the anglo-american model of social order, despite losing two wars, the german emphasis on mastery in the working class is the most effective social model – the upper classes take care of themselves. Anglo emphasis on the middle class, and everyone else’s emphasis on the peasantry, turn out to be less effective in maintaining competitive advantage and are driven by social status sentiments rather than reason. Therefore, as an ethical statement, the only measure of a philosophy is the economic status of its adherents. The number of ideas I’ve posited here are too large, perhaps, but it’s only by such positioning that it’s possible to justify the recommendation that no book on philosophy is terribly helpful. While the problem of human social cooperation and individual fulfillment is ancient, and while we have made great progress int eh social sciences, we have been distracted by a significant number of philosophical errors: ie: we have incorrectly either defined the problem, or applied the wrong tools or both. The fundamental problem of philosophy is action, and action requires categorization, calculation, forecast, and cooperation in vast numbers. And most philosophical doctrines attempt to simplify the number of axis in order to fit the limits available to the craft. Because the craft has not made use of tools that will allow it to extend its perception. Language in particular is somewhat interesting because all language constructs are analogies to perception, and as such are limited by perception. Hopefully there is something interesting for you to work with in this posting. Curt PS: again,thanks to all here who have helped me.

  • A Method For Moderating Dialogs

    “The Cult Of Offensive Moderation” Note: I am in the process of creating a plugin for political moderation of debates, without censorship. There is far too much censorship on debate sites and blogs. Especially censorship of in-group language. The sentiment of inclusion in Democratic Secular Humanism (our current religion in the west) is at odds with the change in our word-wide status and economic position as a polity. In-grop sentiments are becoming increasingly important again.

    [callout]Solution? Categorize posts in a debate as to whether they are:
    1) content free or off topic
    2) sentimental expressions
    3) mythical, Platonic, or scriptural reasoning
    4) Objective rational arguments
    5) scientific arguments (using survey data but which are very fragile in the social sciences) and
    6) economic arguments (which because of scale and aggregation allow cultural comparison.)
    If you could filter conversations by these arguments,the reader could participate in a conversation of his own level of capacity.[/callout]

    1) The strategy of moderating sentimental (non rational) expressions will not work, because it leads to regression – increasing sensitivity as a means of ostracizing people to the point where commenting becomes more an act of policing until the board declines. It increase the transaction cost of participation. 2) As someone who runs a large advertising agency that must help companies and groups understand ‘social interaction’, I spend a great deal of time trying to educate editorials that the ONLY thing people find interesting is CONFLICT. Talking head shows are either internally engaging in conflict (crossfire), or externally (oprah/hannity). Conflict leads to ratings and ratings to participation. WIthout conflict, in either a novel, sort story, or a talk show, there isn’t much to hold anyone’s attention. And the more attention that you hold (the more viewpoints included) the more likely one is to have a member of the audience identify with one of the participants, and become involved. 3) People learn by first identifying the SENTIMENTAL statements that they agree with, and then seeing those statements refuted. If you eliminate the religious nuts, or the racists, or the culture-ists, you’re actually killing off the social value as well as the attraction of your medium. Because all people operate by sentiments. They may learn to articulate those sentiments as mythology, as reason, as science, or as economics, but they are still, almost universally, articulating their sentiments – simply with a different degree of precision. 4) Personalities (contributors) cannot be allowed take over the board or its brand and become the show itself. That’s board-hijacking, rather than thread-hijacking. So if you have permanent troublemakers that begin to draw too much attention to themselves then it is better to heavily moderate them. But not because of the content and form of their arguments. You ban them because they dominate the conversation and make their own ‘show’ on your dime. Losing participants is dangerous for any medium. Even bad ones. Sanitizing a board usually ends up with no board at all. 5) Increasing the number of editors so that they split posts into new threads is better than banning or correcting. Remember – people are largely seeking attention for their niche fantasies. Ignoring people is the most effective means of negative reinforcement. 6) Sentiments (unarticulated expression) are the most common form of narrative. They are analogical arguments. Reason (to the degree that few people can actually articulate causal properties of categories), science (directly measurable subsets) and economics (indirectly measured supersets). Religion as we mean it, refers to scriptural command, or external non-human knowledge, in the monotheistic meaning. Polytheism and history are simply differences of degree. It is scripture. 7) it is particularly troubling to eliminate what is called hate-speech or inter-group expression of sentiments. That ‘s because the most important dialog of our age is the change in group sentiments now that the worldwide change in status and power hierarchies has come about because of the worldwide adoption of western economic and material technologies. SOLUTION? Editing and moderating are hard. It is very, very, difficult to ascertain the quality of an argument in the social sciences. We are fairly sure that the entire Marxist religion, masquerading as a political movement, is as irrational as the Islamic political movement masquerading as a religion, are both extremely dangerous to mankind. But since we live in a POLITY, and the member of that polity largely use SENTIMENTS rather than reason in debate, and that their beliefs and debates are highly influential upon the outcome (more than reason by a long shot), and that most people criticizing these sentimental arguments lack causal depth in their own arguments, then the best board, the best discussions, the best social outcome, is determined by keeping an argument on track, rather than censoring it. An alternate solution, (and I have done a little work on this) categorizing posts in a debate as to whether they are 1) content free or off topic 2) sentimental expressions 3) mythical, Platonic, or scriptural reasoning 4) Objective rational arguments 5) scientific arguments (using survey data but which are very fragile in the social sciences) and 6) economic arguments (which because of scale and aggregation allow cultural comparison.) If you could filter conversations by these arguments, you would be able to stack them by methodology, and the reader could participate in a conversation of his own level of capacity. DIFFERENT IDEOLOGIES Although, we should note, that as scripture, you will have a hard time actually arguing against catholic doctrine as it’s based upon natural law: the observation of what men actually do. WHich is, what appears to be, the general sentiment and strategy underlying most semi scientific argument on this board. (Which I admire). If you want to argue using reason, the libertarian methodology will most likely lead you to correct conclusions. However, libertarianism consists of a set of branches, some of which do NOT correspond to reality, including 1) Rothbard’s principle of non-violence which is a silly argument, since the entire problem of social order is non-violence 2) free trade would lead in the end, to as state of affairs not any different from world-governance 3) libertarians have not included the cost-of-forgone-opportunities which is how we pay for the creation of some set of property rights, and therefore, failed to account for the cost of developing social order. As such, it’s a platonic fantasy counter to evidence. Conservatism is the best strategy for preventing social destruction, revolution and un-meritous rotation of elites. It is very skeptical of power – power should be obtained by public service in the market, or in the military in the defense of the market. Any other grab at power is specious. That’s the sentimental origin of the western city-market building shareholder system we call ‘citizenship’. But conservative philosophy has not provided a solution to our vast increase in the division of knowledge and labor. It has not provided us with an updated set of institutions for the contemporary world. And FWIW : Conservatism is largely an unarticulated sentiment that is more complex than left-liberalism, as conservatives rely on at least five axis the most important of which is group persistence, and liberals only one (harm/care). The combination of harm/care simplicity, egalitarian equality, Keynesian macroeconomic policy (statistics, full employment, liquidity) and democratic government, are ideal tools for competing with a sentiment thats primary purpose is to avoid hubris, and protect the group for the long term. In other words, consumption on the left versus capitalization on the right.

    [callout]The balance between liberalism (Pareto’s Instinct for Recombination, or Machiavelli’s Foxes) and conservatism (Pareto’s Preservation of Aggregates, or Machiavelli’s Lions) is a necessary conflict between the forces of stability that must allow change, but not disruption, and those that desire change regardless of consequences – because both innovation and stability are valuable to a civilization This debate in sentiments is particularly useful because reason is insufficient for solving this problem, largely because we have failed to make the same progress in induction and the social sciences that we have in deduction and the physical sciences. And partly because the physical sciences are vastly less complex than the more heuristic social science governed by the properties of the human mind.[/callout]

    The balance between liberalism (Pareto’s Instinct for Recombination, or Machiavelli’s Foxes) and conservatism (Pareto’s Preservation of Aggregates, or Machiavelli’s Lions) is a necessary conflict between the forces of stability that must allow change, but not disruption, and those that desire change regardless of consequences – because both innovation and stability are valuable to a civilization This debate in sentiments is particularly useful because reason is insufficient for solving this problem, largely because we have failed to make the same progress in induction and the social sciences that we have in deduction and the physical sciences. Partly because the physical sciences are vastly less complex than the more heuristic social science governed by the properties of the human mind. And just so we’re all living in rational reality not committing the error of confusing our own religion with neutral objective science, much of what is argued for on this board by well meaning products of our the past sixty years of western educational system, most often is doctrine of the RELIGION of Democratic Secular Humanism (which is a religion as it is contrary to the facts). Or of egalitarian equality, which is is a property of the Democratic Secular Humanist religion, and is also contrary to the facts. Or the assumption that freedom is the desire of the majority is counter to the facts. That is, as long as we realize that people are racist, culture-ist, class-ist, nationalist, cultist, members of competing civilizations, and they all are, because they all act that way under DURESS, and that it’s advantageous both for elites and for the underclass to be ‘anything-ist’, and that these traits are beneficial to economic man, beneficial to individuals, and an enduring part of the human experience. And if one doesn’t think so, then truth isn’t one’s objective, platonism is. Truth is correspondence with reality.

  • Paul Krugman Says “No” To Responses To Critics. I Explain The Consequences

    Would I Please Respond? I get a lot of comments along the lines of “Would you please respond to the criticism of your work in ______?” Um, no. Do you have any idea how many articles there are out there attacking me? I literally don’t have the time to respond to them all, or even to differentiate between the usual sliming and actually interesting critiques. Just saying.

    Paul, You know, it might not hurt to have some grad student compile the top five criticisms and respond to them. (You would certainly have plenty of volunteers.) Most of the time, I disagree with the preferences implicit in your goals, not your analysis. These differences aren’t arguments over some form of absolute truth but disputes founded in preferences, demographics, social order, culture, class and in race warfare. Your egalitarianism is mathematically accurate in application. But your failure to incorporate into your rhetoric that these differences are meaningful to people, and these differences bear material costs to those who you impose your egalitarianism upon — including costs to monetary, cultural, status, and political capital. Each of these costs affects their consequential opportunity costs. Taking people’s money is one thing. Taking their culture, their political power, and their social status is another. Taking it and funding things they absolutely disagree with vehemently is something else (foreign wars, or immigration). Imposing a permanent social cost structure upon a people who have a very uncertain view of the future, or one that is far more pessimistic than you do is not a matter of scientific argument. It’s one of fantastic and deceptive narrative. Unless you address these issues, both you and your critics will continue to wrestle with scientific but inapplicable, and possibly deceptive arguments on your end, and sentimental and inarticulate arguments on the conservative end. Both of you are struggling for power, the power to implement your ideas. Power is not obtained by honest debate. It is obtained by pragmatism. And whether you understand it or not, you’re talking past them just as much as they past you. But if you do address these issues, you will bring into the open the basic problem: the USA is a domestic as well as international empire with significant tensions both internally and externally. The loss of our ability to issue debt is simply ending our ability to mask these differences with consumer credit. And the underlying duress is emerging with the economic circumstances. Under duress people revert to tribalism. They do so because it is smart for them to do so. Conservatism has led to stability for centuries. It doesn’t have to be right. It just has to increase the cost of change enough that the most stable, least dangerous model evolves. Pick on the neocons for seizing their opportunity for Roman glory. That’s rational. They failed. Pick on conservatives for fighting socialism and communism, and rejecting redistribution of status, cultural dominance, and political power, and you’re simply wrong. Conservatism is a sentiment. That does not mean the sentiment is founded on irrational principles. It means the principles are either un-articulated, unable to be articulated, or people are unwilling to articulate them. And at least since Burke, if not since the English civil war, conservative sentiments have been very helpful for Anglo civilization. Perhaps even the cause of it. Perhaps the honest answer is to lead by addressing the real issue. Not circumventing it. It is rhetorically and politically convenient for both sides to avoid the real issues. But if we discussed the real issue there might be room for compromise.