Sovereignty: A Recipe

/ Butch Leghorn / 1 Comment

When you speak in operational language, then it is possible to construct proofs or recipes, much as you would write lines of code. Sovereignty is the highest value of the West. This is a recipe for how it is constructed.

“If you would be sovereign, you must fight. If you would win, you must confederate. If you would confederate, you must compromise. If you would compromise, you must accept limits on your actions. Sovereignty will be won only by those who desire to exercise it within limits considered reasonable by their peers.”

This is a graphic created for an upcoming video on heroism.

recipeofsovereignty

Spectrum: Self-Ownership

/ Butch Leghorn / 1 Comment

Spectra

A key component of Propertarian insight is the idea of continua or spectra of phenomena, which is also related to equilibria. Natural phenomena can often be analyzed along spectra and seen to shift between equilibria. When discussing a phenomenon, the ability to identify a spectrum to which the phenomenon belongs allows for both categorization and identification of limits.

Self-Ownership

When discussing political philosophy, the terms slavery, freedom, liberty and sovereignty are often used.These particular states can be mapped along a spectrum, where the axis is self-ownership. Sovereignty is of particular importance to Propertarian philosophy because sovereignty appears to be the defining, fundamental value of Western Civilization. This topic is discussed in Propertarian Podcast 009, it is a major topic of my recent TheRightStuff.biz article, and of an upcoming video on my channel. This image was created as part of the content of that video.

The graphic lists only a few examples of many different titles which indicate the level of self-ownership (and all the privileges, rights and responsibilities attendant upon those ranks) of an individual within society: slave, juvenile, villein, tribune, lord, etc.

It should be noted that the notion of sovereignty, of radical self-ownership being displayed in a comparatively widespread distribution among Western men, could be viewed as the defining characteristic of the West.

spectrumsovereigntyslavery

Propertarian Podcast #007 Market Fascism

/ Butch Leghorn / 4 Comments

Intro Music: Tri-Tachyon  Enter the Tesla Machine

THE INFORMATION CONTENT OF VIOLENCE:

It’s an article of faith among many libertarians that violence, and particularly aggressive violence, is necessarily negative sum.

Prices contain information and markets broker them (in a subjective utility maximising way.) Violence only short circuits that, disrupts markets, destroy price signals, and makes everyone worse off.

But this is not correct.

In the first place, market transactions aren’t necessarily positive sum. If they are fraudulent or create negative externalities for those not party, they can be negative sum.

And in the second place, violence is itself a signal, and transmits information. A threat expresses a subjective evaluation just as an offer does in the marketplace. “Hey, don’t do that or we’re going to fight.”

And the initiation of hostilities demonstrates the authenticity of that information just as a payment does in the marketplace. One undertakes real cost, and real risk, in resorting to violence.

(In contrast, whining, and playing the victim DO NOT demonstrate the authenticity of grievances in the way that resorting to violence does, and so are liable and likely to prove negative sum, if indulged, just as theft is liable and likely to prove negative sum, in the marketplace, because it does not make a sufficient demonstration and exchange of value.)

Markets and prices on the one hand, and violence and threats on the other, are both necessary components to a stable, functional, and efficient society and economy. To suppress either wholly in favor of the other, would be to forego the benefits they offer, and to pervert incentives towards destructive outcomes.

No society which does either will be able to compete, long term, against one which makes a more sensible tradeoff between them, making best use of information supplied by both exchange and conflict.

Violence is the means of expressing the subjective evaluations not captured by price signals, which are as vast and varied as those which are.

I like markets and shit, suitably tempered by prohibition on what is demonstrably harmful.

Offers and prices are the way of communicating positive values in the marketplace, with payment the authentication made that such communication is accurate.

Threats are the means of communicating negative values in the marketplace with initiation of violent hostilities the authentication that such communication is accurate.

Prices may be reckoned in money, or in blood.

But either way, decentralized methods of decision making are generally best, with authority only better in select cases, and those too, vetted and delimited by decentralized means.

Realistically, you have more power to get your way if there is only one leader. If there are multiple candidates, one of them might try to win your support by offering you something you want. Or you might be able to influence the coalition backing a particular candidate in some way. But there is no guarantee your candidate will win, and if not, you are SOL.

A king has to choose whether to give you enough to obtain your support, threaten enough to obtain your submission, or simply kill you. But in the latter cases, he must still give enough people, enough things, that they are willing to threaten or kill you on his behalf. And he is also forgoing more benefits by obtaining your submission rather than your support or your death rather than your submission.

It is within your power to make your support (including the cost of what you ask for it) worth more than your submission, and your submission worth more than your death. And so, if you are wise, and the king is wise, he will prefer to offer enough to obtain the first.

If the king is unwise, then you can fight. And others will rally to your cause if your claimant seems wiser.

Ending democracy, ipso facto, is a step in the right direction. Democracies have shitty incentives (Hoppe.) But even more damaging in the long term, democracies breed shitty people because democracies are vote farms and (if all votes count the same) the most economical way to farm votes is to breed dependent parasites.

Lysander Spooner said “a ballot either signifies a bullet, or it signifies nothing.” But a bullet is more honest.

All states require the voluntary consent and support of enough individuals and groups to compel the submission of the remainder.

And the coalition that performs this function always arises by negotiation and exchange (you want this benefit, or that, to participate in our coalition? Well, we want these concessions in return.)

Democracies actually set a fairly low bar for popular support at 51%. And a democracy will never be ruled by a coalition much larger than 51%. If you’re getting more than 51% of the vote, you’re leaving rents on the table. You could take more, or give less, and still win the election.

Additionally, if your aim is to maximise the profitability of an electoral victory, in terms of rents extracted, you will build your coalition of the cheapest votes, the most worthless and parasitic individuals.

A rich man’s vote is expensive, you have to not take most of his stuff. But if you do, you can buy many votes.

As the 51% feed on the productive, their numbers will grow. That’s what happens when you feed parasites. But as we said, you don’t want to win more than 51% of the vote. So the ruling coalition in a democracy is always in the position of being able to give its most productive members the boot and throw them to the wolves, to begin consuming them in turn. This is why democracies always become weaker and more parasitic, why “Cthulu only swims left” and we can observe, in every democratic polity, a persistent “ratchet effect.”

In contrast, a wise authoritarian will begin building his coalition of supporters with the best. And while he need not attract 51% support to maintain his rule, there is no reason to stop there.

Support is generally less costly and more profitable than submission.

So a sensible authoritarian will continue bargaining for support until there is no one left in need of compulsion except those who have nothing to offer which is worth what they demand in exchange for peaceful cooperation, whose demands are too costly or unreasonable to merit entertaining; in short, people who probably should be coerced.

So in summation, I do expect authoritarian regimes, on the whole, to be more friendly to liberty than democratic ones.

And this expectation is borne out by an examination of historical monarchies, especially European ones.

The allegation is often made (by libertarian anarchists) that what states do is fundamentally incalculable, but that it is always negative sum. In other words, we cannot know the absolute value of any state or state policy, but we can be certain about its sign.

Voluntary trades in the marketplace – as the argument goes – are always mutually beneficial (else they wouldn’t occur) and positive sum.

State policies differ in requiring coercion. If they did not require coercion, they could occur in the marketplace. But if they do, then someone is losing out, so there is no way to be sure they represent a net gain. Without the mechanism of voluntary exchange, the information transmitted by prices in a marketplace are absent and no calculation is possible. In all likelihood they represent a net loss, certainly a loss relative to the opportunity cost of the purely voluntary marketplace foregone.

But it doesn’t seem that states ever would have become ubiquitous or persistent if this were true. Empirically, state-ridden peoples have proven competitive against stateless ones. If error and parasitism were the whole story, they would not be. States, after all, are in constant conflict and competition with one another and with alternatives (or at least they were at one time.)

However, the argument is incomplete and therefore incorrect.

We can reasonably expect voluntary, fully-informed, exchanges – free of externality – to be Pareto improvements. (They make someone better off and no one worse off.)

But in the first place, market transactions don’t always live up to this standard, because they are not necessarily fully informed nor free of externality.

And in the second place, some of the things states do might; because they are of the nature of voluntary exchanges.

An individual exchanges the sum total of costs a state imposes (on them) for the sum total of benefits it offers (to them) every time they voluntarily choose not to move to the jurisdiction of another state. (And these exchanges can be made more precisely calculable by reducing the exit costs and increasing the number and variety of states on offer.)

Furthermore, all states require the voluntary consent of at least enough individuals and groups to successfully compel the submission of the remainder. And the coalition that arises to perform this function arises by a process of reciprocal exchange (You want such and such a boon to participate in our coalition? Well we want this concession and that from you in exchange.)

In brokering these exchanges, a Monarchy offers several advantages over a democratically elected government.

A democracy will be inherently and irreparably susceptible to negative-sum corruption because of the problem of concentrated benefits and dispersed costs. A policy which benefits 1,000 people $10,000 each may be politically profitable even if it costs a million people $100 each. The concentrated interest will be relatively less hampered by information costs and coordination problems. So it will be able to muster more votes and resources in defense of the policy than those harmed will be able to muster against it, though the harm be much greater.

Nothing would stop anyone from proposing such a policy to a king. And a king could get away with implementing it. But a king, who owns his realm and title, as well as its capital value, would not benefit from doing so. The future revenue he could expect to derive from his realm and subjects would decline as a result. And so his incentive would be to veto such proposals.

Furthermore, in a majority democracy, if your ruling coalition encompasses more than 51 percent of voters, it’s leaving rents on the table. If you’re getting, say, 70 percent of the vote, that simply means you’re delivering more value than you need to and failing to extract as much as you could. You could take a little more and give a little less without losing the election. So in a democracy, we can expect the ruling coalition at any given time to consist of about 51% of voters (and those the worst 51%) and that does indeed seem to be what we see.

But conflict and compulsion, though inevitable and irresolvable under democracy, are costly and actually largely unnecessary. So we can expect a wise monarch to start building his coalition of supporters with the best and keep working his way down the list until the only people that remain in need of compulsion are those who have nothing to offer which is worth what they demand in exchange for voluntary cooperation: in short, people who probably should be coerced.

Curt’s Most Accessible Video Yet

/ Butch Leghorn / 1 Comment

This video is Curt’s most accessible video yet. It’s very exciting to see these new, conversational videos. I understand: the scope of Curt’s work is so large, encompassing all of our science, that it is very difficult to comprehend, even for smart people. I think a couple of listens through this video will pay massive dividends and help us to spread this new rational, scientific language through which we can defend Western Civilization.

 

Propertarian Podcast #003

/ Butch Leghorn / 1 Comment

August 28, 2016

On Monotheism, Pseudoscience and the Domestication of Man

Rik’s Questions: “I would like to better understand the idea of falsehood and deliberately non empirical acts and how these are actually affecting the genetic property of individuals. I am also interested in the concept of an alternate and competing judicial system to create a stateless private system of government.”

“Truth/Falsehood: How are we susceptible to falsehood, how does this manifest itself? What are the techniques of falsehood”

“Competing judicial systems. What would that look like?”

“Religion: How we can use religion to further the Western evolutionary strategy?”

 

00:00:00 – Intro

00:01:00 – Formulating and clarifying questions:

How are we susceptible to deception?
How do we prevent deception?
What would a fix to the problem look like?
What is the role of the Church?

00:06:00 – Separation of Law, Science and Religion vs Monotheism

Monotheism = deception/conflation + authoritarianism

00:10:00 – Propertarianism: Natural Law as the Philosophy of the West

Non-Parasitism to keep us in a productive state

00:11:40 – Q: Why are we susceptible to deception? A: Our moral biases.

Distribution of Labor in sensing the world

Division on the Genetic Level:

  • Women – Sensitive to children/reproduction means, short-term
  • Brother – Hunting partner, mid-term. Seeking production to secure mates
  • Headman – Completely defensive, long-term keep tribe competitive to preserve genetic capital

What happens with this division, what is moral depends on which position you hold in the trichotomy above.

Division along Classes and status signals

  • Underclass
  • Low class
  • Middle class
  • Upper class

00:17:00 – Rik Storey on Monotheism

00:19:00 – Use of monotheism rather than exchange between classes

Western method of market exchange between classes (government houses echanging on behalf of classes.) Trades of behaviors and rewards = production of commons.

Current state: authoritarianism by the mob.

Market makes use of all information available from all the groups comprisinng the division of labor of cognition

00:23:30 – Propertarianism = Finishing the Enlightenment

Overview of problems with French, German, Jewish, Anglo and Russian Enlightenments

Finishing the Enlightenment:

  • End Babylonian, Egyptian, Jewish (Fertile Crescent) Mysticism
  • End French Authoritarianism/Moralism: excusing the middle classes to murder and steal from the landed aristocracy (upper classes)
  • End German (continental) ‘Philosophy’ (rationalism) (writing fiction/mythology as ‘philosophy’). Germans make fantasy out of verbalism (load, frame, distort meaning). Myth/fantasy/science fiction is fine, just don’t pretend it’s philosophy.
  • End Jewish Pseudoscience
    – Freud : Authoritarian Psychology  (forced conformity)(reaction to Nietzsche)
    – Boas : (reaction to Darwin)
    – Marx : Myth of Oppression

00:27:00 – The Great Deception vs The Truth

Conflation of Law, Science, Religion, History and Myth/Literature into Monotheism vs Competition/Separation between Law, Science, Religion and Myth.

Deception

  • Hermeneutic/Jewish/Talmudic tradition of making excuses.
  • Mises: asserts a logic = a science
  • Cantor: asserts mathematical platonism = mathematical operationalism. Turms math into a pseudoscience
  • Marx: Utopian version of history (Myth of Oppression vs Truth of Domestication)

The Truth

Aryan/Teutonic/Aristocracy = Paternalism = Human Domestication

German oath = Natural Law

  1. Tell the Truth
  2. Don’t Steal
  3. Take responsibility for the commons (reciprocal insurance)

Ending these last mysticisms and pseudoscience will complete the Enlightenment.

Mysticism (religion)/Pseudoscience/Myth(Literature)/History is simply a method of communicating these rules across the division of cognition and labor. Need separate means for the genetic distribution (woman – brother – father)(trichotomy), and need separate means crossing the scale of classes (every 10 points of IQ).

Polytheism = The necessary separate mysticism for the divisions of cognition and labor. Allows for separation and competition between Law, Science, Myth (literature) and Religion.

Monotheism = Authoritarian, one-size-fits-all enforcement = conflation of Law, Science, Myth (literature) and Religion.

Howdy, I’m Butch and you are listening to the Propertarian Podcast #3 on August 8, 2016.

00:34:00 – The Unasked Question: Why didn’t we complete the Enlightenment, and instead fell prey to the Pseudosciences?

Summary: The Problem with Surpassing Human Scale

Answer: Instrumentalism (extension of the perception of truth) is hard. We surpassed human scale (reached biomechanical limits and conceptual limits), now we require instruments (technologies both machine and conceptual) to manage our affairs. These deceptions all pretend to be ‘instrumentation’ (science), but they aren’t because they contain error. This created a market for lies, demand for falsehood. What is then missing? The ability to find and eliminate error. The solution: Testimonialism (the science of falsification or elimination of error). We can complete the Enlightenment by eliminating falsehood from our Science, and writing Law according to scientific principles.

00:43:00 – How to Reduce Error (Testimonialism)(falsification).

Here Curt executes an impressive dissertation on epistemology, to show the roots of the counter to empiricism (and the necessity of instrumentalism ).

We had the Enlightenment (perception of truth) at human scale, but now the challenge is to eliminate error from our instrumentation (our science) to perceive the Universe beyond human scale.

Full explanation of Testimonialism: how we counter error at every level and dimension.

Lack of Testimonialism in Economics.

Spectrum of Truth Tests to Warranty Testimony:

0) Sensible (intuitively possible)
1) Meaningfully Expressible ( as an hypothesis )
2) Internally Consistent and Falsifiable (logically consistent – rational)
3) Externally Correspondent, and Falsifiable ( physically testable – correlative)
4) Existentially Possible (operationally construct-able/observable)
5) Voluntarily Choose-able (voluntary exchange / rational choice)
6) Market-Survivable (criticism – theory )
7) Market Irrefutable (law)
8) Irrefutable under Original Experience (Perceivable Truth)
9) Ultimately Parsimonious Description (Analytic Truth)
10) Informationally Complete and Tautologically Identical (Platonic Truth – Imaginary)

00:56:00 – How do we construct a system of Law?

Rewrite Constititution in Operational Language with Strict Construction

Restore the market for juridical defense

Any legislation must follow natural law and be strictly constructed from it as a defense.

01:02:00 – What is the role of the Church in developing a system of Natural Law?

Church has been lost to Academia, Goverment and Media.

It failed to reform. It needs a reform to incorporate the insight of Natural Law, glory of man our attempt to transcend and sit at the right hand of the Father.

01:08:00 – Revolution

Revolution: state demands (intellectual), religion (spiritual), warrors to raise cost (military movement).

Demand that people must trade rather than steal, is the moral justification for war.

01:10:00 – Is genetic homogeneity a requirement?

Kin selection is real.

High trust society.

 

—

Rik Storey, blogger, contributor to ProudBoy Magazine and creator of YouTube channel That Libertarian Chap.

You can follow Curt on facebook (just search for Curt Doolittle), and on Twitter @curtdoolittle, and read is writings a Propertarianism.com.

You can follow me on Twitter @PoseidonAwoke and follow my blogs PropertarianForum.wordpress.com and PoseidonAwoke.wordpress.com. Thanks for listening and I’ll leave you with one last thought from Curt:

WE ARE THE MEN OF THE WEST

We hold formation despite our fear.
We speak the truth regardless of cost.
We attack the enemy despite our injuries.
And we will not rest until they are defeated.

Hail Victory.

 

Propertarian Podcast #002

/ Butch Leghorn / 1 Comment

August 25, 2016

Topic: Hillary Clinton’s Alt-Right Speech, Reno Nevada

With Eli Harman @MartianHoplite

Mentions:

The Twitter hashtag #AltRightMeans

Vox Day article An actual Alt Right take

Wall Street Journal article ‘Alt-Right’ Enters the Political Limelight

 

Production Notes

Skype call recorded with TotalRecorder Pro Edition 8.6.6040 and Blackout Edition Yeti Mic by Blue on Windows 10

Windows Sound Settings
> Playback
– Sound Blaster Recon3D1 enabled (default communications device)(physically turn down volume knob on desktop speakers while recording)
– Yeti enabled (default device)
> Recording
– Enabled: Microphone Sound Blaster Recon3Di (default device)
– Enabled: Microphone Yeti (default communications device)(selected in Skype and Total Recorder below)
– Ready: What U Hear (Sound Blaster Recon 3Di)
– Disabled: Microphone Array Sound Blaster Recon 3Di

Skype Settings
Call > Audio Settings
– Mic: Yeti > Volume: Max (auto checkbox = off)
– Speakers: Yeti > Volume 90% (this controls the level of the caller)(auto checkbox = off)

Total Recorder PE Settings
– Level +3dB (141%) (upped this level to get some peaks into yellow)
– Recording wizard
> Internet Telephony
— Playback: Speakers (Yeti)(headphones plugged into Yeti jack)
— Recording Device: Mic (Yeti)
— Record in different channels = No
> Recording Format
— MP3
— Middle Quality (CBR 56kBit/s, 22 050 Hz, stereo) (2hrs 5mins = 51MB)
> Pause Reduction and Split Settins
— Pause Reduction = No
— Auto-File Creation = No (I think this should be Yes in the future. With No, I was forced to stop and save periodically. I think this setting should allow me to hit stop and the file will already be saved. This seems safer in case of computer or application crash).

Yeti Settings
– Headphone Volume = 50%
– Pattern = Cardioid (#3, looks like a butt)
– Gain = 9:30 to 10 o’clock (approx 30%)

Post Production Notes

Use Mike Cernovich’s podcast improvement tips (But now skip Treble and Bass boost)
http://www.dangerandplay.com/2016/04/01/how-to-build-up-your-podcast/

How to edit your podcast in Audacity

I’ve edited podcasts for hours and had everything spliced together. It does not increase listens. I now spend 10 minutes editing podcasts to improve sound quality.

Noise Removal: Don’t talk for first five second of podcast to create a noise profile. Select those 5 seconds. Get noise profile. Then remove noise. Be sure to cut out those first five seconds of your podcast.

From there, apply these simple fixes to improve your podcast audio quality in Audacity.

  • Normalize | -1 Decibel
  • Compression | Threshold -15 to -20
  • Equalization: Do a treble boost, then do a bass boost.
  • Normalize | -1 Decibel
  • Hard Limit | -4 Decibel
  • Normalize | -1 Decibel
  • Export to mp3

My Steps

Back up raw podcast to separate file with ‘RAW_ORIGINAL’ label. Then edit the other file. Do not touch raw original, save it in case it is needed later or we screw up in post production.

Open a clean Audacity window and drop in the MP3. File > Save Project As… To safe file to disk. Added music bumpers by creating new tracks and copy/pasting from first episode Audacity file.

Noise Reduction
– select (click and drag in timeline) a quiet section (second or two)
(next time follow Mike’s advice and leave 5 seconds blank at beginning of podcast to get a better sound profile)
– Effect > Noise reduction > Step 1 > Click [Get Noise Profile] then close dialog
– select entire podcast (ctrl+a)
– Effect > Noise reduction >
— Noise reduction: 12 dB
— Sensitivity: 6.00
— Frequency smoothing: 0
— Noise: reduce
— Click [OK] to process, took about a minute

Normalize #1 (entire file still selected)
– Effect > Normalize
— Checked: Remove DC Offset
— Checked: Normalize Max Amplitude = -1.0 dB
— Unchecked: Normalize Stereo
— [OK]

Compressor (entire file still selected)
– Effect > Compressor
— Threshold: -17 dB
— Noise floor: -40 dB
— Ratio = 2:1
— Attack time: 0.2 sec
— Release time: 1.0 secs
— Checked: make up gain
— Unchecked: Compress based on peaks
— [OK]

 

Normalize #2 (entire file still selected)
– Effect > Normalize
— Checked: Remove DC Offset
— Checked: Normalize Max Amplitude = -1.0 dB
— Unchecked: Normalize Stereo
— [OK]

Hard Limit (entire file still selected)
– Effect > Limiter
–> Type: Hard Limit (0,0,-4,10)
— Input Gain (mono/left): 0
— Input Gain (right): 0
— Limit to dB: -4
— Hold to ms: 10
— Apply Make-up Gain = false/No
— [OK]

Normalize #3 (entire file still selected)
– Effect > Normalize
— Checked: Remove DC Offset
— Checked: Normalize Max Amplitude = -1.0 dB
— Unchecked: Normalize Stereo
— [OK]

Last I ran an Amplify at -.6, to reduce the levels because the above filters were causing the peaks all in the red. Maybe this was not a good idea, maybe they were perfect. Will have to listen and determine.

Basic Post Production is now done. I decided to do zero edits for pops, etc. I just don’t think it’s a big deal. We’ll see if I get any feedback in that regard.