Daily Archives: 21 October 2014

THE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE OF IMMORALITY

Curt:

–“Moral rules are objectively expressible and universal to man. It is more that acting morally is an advantage for groups with superior abilities and resources, and acting immorally is an advantage for groups with inferior abilities and resources. Parasitism is a successful strategy. It’s immoral, but then, all people who practice it, justify their immorality.”—

If others can exercise their competitive advantage by lying, cheating and stealing – even if by complex means, then why cannot truth tellers exercise their competitive advantage by the organized application of violence to ostracize, evict, conquer, enslave, or kill them?

Academia teaches only Cunning

Academia teaches only Cunning — not wisdom, not truth, and certainly not morality. Cunning favors complexity. Think about that next your phd friend explains their incomprehensible thesis.

Curt Doolittle:

CUNNING VS MORAL

–“education makes one cunning, not wise, and not moral”–

I was kind of ‘moved’ by Michael Philip’s post today on the motives of members of the academy. It’s been bothering me all day because not only is it true, but I think it qualifies as a bias, and a formal bias at that. Or rather, I think status-biases are probably a category of cognitive bias that I (we) should investigate, document, expand upon, and communicate with some frequency. Because most of the progressive status signals are constructed of cognitive biases (falsehoods).

Cunning favors complexity. Dishonesty favors complexity. Speaking truthfully is in fact laborious – it requires a lot of effort. Speaking the truth however, is a very simple strategy, that requires very little cunning – maybe none at all. Because prohibiting the imposition of costs is a very simple rule. Voluntary exchange is a very simple rule. The rule of law under Propertarian Property Rights (Property-in-toto), is a very simple rule. That demand for the state will increase if their is a lag in the development of property rights, is a very simple rule. These are all very simple rules.

If all moral propositions are decidable, (under propertarian logic, they are), then there is no room for cunning, except to lie. I fact, cunning is a contrary indicator of truth, and of morality.

Yet cunning is such an attractive means of dominance display. For those of us trying to eliminate cunning, we can temporarily display dominance, but only in the art of refuting loading, framing, overloading and suggestion. And since I have no illusions that the incentives to construct complex lies via cunning verbalisms will ever disappear, then I suspect that the defense against cunning will always require wisdom and cunning.

So I have a new to-do, which is to enumerate the cognitive biases we fall victim to in the pursuit of status signals.

Marxism’s home has always been academia. Why?

THE PERSISTENCE OF MARXISM

—“The persistence of Marxism in the West is a function of its persistence in academe. Without that, it would wither and die. Why does it persistent in academe? Because Marxism satisfies three deep cognitive wants for academics:

(1) It is a complex theoretical system. There is nothing that establishes one’s bona fides as a Very Clever Person more than mastering a complex theoretical system: the denser and more jargon-heavy the prose, the better. And Marx’s writings have plenty of dense, jargon-heavy prose.

(2) It is a system of grand intent. If one lives the life of the mind, then the grander one’s intellectual projects, the grander one’s cognitive sense of self: Marxism not only “explains” human history and society, it “reveals” the final end point of human and social transformation. What could be grander than such a project?

(3) It completely de-legitimises commerce. Under Marxism, the only legitimate economic role is to supply labour. All commerce is de-legitimised and all those engaged in it—including all those people who have far more wealth and organisational significance than academics—are de-legitimised, reduced to “exploiters” who are but immoral dust beneath the heels of academics in no way “polluted” by vulgar commerce.”—

Michael Philip