I consider measurement omission a narrow aspect of a broader issue. Objectivism, on the other hand, presents measurement omission as a huge, broad principle. There's a disagreement there.

When looking at stuff, we always must choose which attributes to pay attention to, because there are infinitely many attributes which are possible to look at. (This idea partly comes from Karl Popper.) We have to find ways to omit or condense some stuff or we'll have too much information to handle. Like Peikoff's principle of the crow, we can only deal with so much at once. So we use techniques like integrating, condensing, omitting, and providing references (like footnotes and links).

Regarding infinite attributes, let's look at a table. A table has infinitely many attributes you can define and could pay attention to. Most of them are dumb and irrelevant. Examples: the number of specks of dust on the table, the number of specks of dust with weight in a certain range, the number of specs of dust with color in a certain range. And just by varying the start and end of those ranges, you can get infinitely many attributes you could measure.

The way we choose to pay attention to some attributes in life, and not others, is not especially about measurement. Some attributes aren't measurements. I think some attributes aren't quantifiable in principle. Some attributes may be quantifiable in the future, but we don't know how to quantify them today. For example, do you feel inspired when looking at a painting? We don't know how to measure inspiration or what units to quantify it in.

Deciding which attributes are relevant to what you're doing requires judgement. While many cases are pretty easy to judge, some cases are more borderline and tricky. How do you judge well? I'm not going to try to explain that right now, I just want to say I don't think omitting measurements answers it overall (the measurement omission stuff definitely does help with some cases).

I'm creating a Fallible Ideas Newsletter. Sign up to be emailed periodic news related to my philosophy work, as well as interesting ideas and links. You can expect 2-4 emails per month.

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I made four philosophy apps for iOS. The material was an iOS exclusive, but you can now buy it for your computer. It's 4 essays and 3 keynote slide presentations from the following apps:

• Psychiatry
• Why Philosophy?
• Don't Fight
• Basic Observations

Buy on Gumroad

I especially recommend the essay about mental illness (how it's a myth, what's actually going on) for anyone who hasn't read it.

It's in pdf and txt format, so you don't need a slide viewer. There's no DRM (copy protection) because that stuff is a hassle for the user. I want you to easily put this on any of your devices, convert it to a different format you prefer, whatever. But please don't steal from me by sending it to others. If you'd like to share the ideas with someone, please link them to buy their own copy.

Over 99% of people create tons of their own problems.

Helping these people is ineffective. If they are helped to solve one problem, they'll just use the free time/energy/etc to create a new problem.

Over 99% of people are very passive.

Helping these people is ineffective. You can hand them solutions and then they sit there passively. Solving problems requires action.

Over 99% of people are very bad at understanding explanations.

Helping these people is ineffective. You can tell them solutions and they don't understand what you say. And they don't know how to (and/or don't want to) use conversation to find out.

Over 99% of people have a bad sense of life.

Helping these people is ineffective. You can offer them a better life and they don't want it.

In general, adults don't have bad lives by misfortune or accident. They have a life that fits them. It's on purpose. It's what they want.

Justin made a great Trump video: Our Best Days Are Yet to Come

I liked it so I made a Trump video too: Make Detroit Great Again

My goal was to combine Trump speaking about inner cities with illustrative video footage. That helps make the meaning of terms like "ruined cities" more real to people.

It took two days and around 75 elements in Final Cut Pro X. It's not all that difficult to make a video. You just do one thing at a time. Eventually you have a bunch of stuff. I recommend it. My timeline looks like this:

Whose video is better? Tell us the in comments below...

with startups people say the idea is worthless. there's only value in executing on an idea. making an actual business is the hard part. ideas are a dime a dozen.

in philosophy i think ideas have large value.

one difference is i mean fleshed out ideas. the worthless startup ideas are super vague and lacking detail. one of the reasons they lack value is when you try to build the company you have to figure out the 99% of the idea you left out initially.

what is the implementation of philosophy ideas, anyway? what do you do with them to add value?

you can work out the conclusions a principle leads to. but people won't be persuaded without understanding it themselves. and a list of conclusions is too inflexible and too hard to use if you don't understand the reasoning for them.

you can't do someone else's learning for them. they have to learn it. you can make some material to help an idea be easier to learn. you can organize it, add examples, answer common questions and criticisms, etc. i already do some of that.

if someone learns an idea well enough it's easy to use it in their life. the people who "know" or "agree with" an idea, but struggle to implement it, only know and agree with it by some low, inadequate standards. with a startup, implementing the business is a huge part of it. but with an idea, knowing it properly is 99% of the work.

if someone half-knows an idea, you could help them implement it early, or help them learn the rest. i think learning the rest is the way to go. it's the same principle as powering up until stuff is easy, then acting. implementing ideas when they are hard to implement is early action when you'd be better off powering up more. only doing powering up and easy things is way more efficient. doing hard things is hard and consumes tons of resources (time, attention, energy, effort, sometimes help from helpful people, sometimes money, etc). this connects to the powering up from squirrel morality.

backing up, let's list some meanings of implementing philosophy ideas:

• learn them yourself
• learn them for someone else
• use them in your life
• get them to be used in someone else's life
• teach someone to use them in their life
• work out the details of the ideas
• be a politician or something and apply them to decisions for a country
• figure out how to persuade yourself of the ideas, not just know what the ideas are, and do it
• figure out how to persuade others of the ideas and do it
• figure out how to persuade others to learn the ideas and do it
• change your culture
• change all cultures

i think a good idea, including the details of how it works, why all known rival ideas are mistaken, answers to known criticisms, etc, is a great value. that includes information about why it matters and what problems it solves, so people can see the importance and value.

that's enough.

if someone learned it, they'd be able to use it and benefit a ton. and it already says why they should learn it, why alternatives are worse, etc.

lots of people still won't learn ideas in that scenario. why? because they are irrational. they hate learning and change. they don't respond well to logical reasoning about what's best. they get emotional and defensive. all kinds of crap.

does an idea have to also deal with someone's irrationalities in order to have value? i don't think so, though it'd sure be valuable if it did.

another issue is people have to apply ideas to their lives. this is easy if you know enough and aren't irrationally sabotaging things, but it's not zero. so it's a sense in which the idea is incomplete. a good idea will basically have instructions for how to adjust your actions to a different details, but you still have to think some to do it. it's like "some assembly required" furniture. which certainly does have value even though you have to screw in a few screws yourself.

The European Union is trying to shakedown Apple for $14.5 billion dollars. It's awful. There's lots of complaints to make. I thought of a more obscure issue I think is interesting and important:

Steping back, what's going on overall? Some people want to charge higher taxes in Europe.

Normally tax increases work like this:

First you pass a law to increase taxes. Then the law goes into effect at a later date (giving companies time to prepare for it). Companies frequently raise their prices to pay for the new taxes. So the government screws customers and blames companies in the pursuit of unearned money to spend.

Let's suppose Apple will pay whatever the taxes are, but they'll raise their prices accordingly. I don't know if that's exactly how Apple wants to handle it, but it could be.

When new taxes are announced first, and then charged second, then Apple can set prices accordingly.

But Apple can't raise their prices for past sales.

Yet, here the government is trying to raise the taxes on past sales! That's really unfair. Demands for taxes after a sale, instead of before, prevent Apple from setting prices how they want to to deal with the taxes.

Apple may be thinking: "if only we'd known you wanted more taxes, we could have dealt with it, no problem, with higher prices to pay for them. but you didn't tell us until after the sales already happened and now we haven't charged enough money to pay these taxes. it's too late. fuck this!"

(Yes I know taxes are still problematic in various ways even if you have the opportunity to raise prices to pay them.)

The Super-Secret Handshake of the Black Community

the article opens by saying stuff i'd agree is how this normally works. it says:

Trump is finding out that there is a super-secret club handshake in the black community. And the only white people who have been provided that code are white liberal progressive socialists.

so: blacks won't listen to reasonable white republicans, only racist leftists offering them a free lunch (at taxpayer expense. which is never actually delivered. the dems have not actually treated the black community well, they just promise to).

however i don't think this applies to Trump because he's saying different things than Republicans normally do.

i don't think Trump is finding this out. i think he knows and what he's doing will work well anyway.

Trump is calling the Democrats racist – which they are – and explaining how they've been screwing over blacks for the last 60 years – which they have. democrats are the ones who have overseen the inner cities and chosen the policies that have failed so badly.

democrats are also straightforwardly racist in that they seek to make race matter in society and policy, e.g. with affirmative action, rather than pursuing race-blind policies. democrats are the party that categorizes people into groups (blacks, women, etc) and then tries to treat each group differently. (which i think really sucks).

many republicans respond with "i'm not racist, i have a black friend" or other lines that are equally shitty. so they don't get anywhere with the black vote.

Trump is appealing to the reasonable black people. there is a vocal minority of black people who are totally anti-white racist, hardcore leftists, and will not listen to any republican including trump. they include the people inciting or participating in violence. but you know what? the majority of black people are decent Americans who do not want violence in their communities and don't hate whites or cops. republicans have done a bad job of speaking to them, and some republicans have actually been appeasing the loud extremists like the democrats do (but without winning any BLM votes away from the dems). trump's message can appeal to e.g. non-BLM black voters.

it's a similar story with hispanics. the democrats pander to hispanics with lies and break their promises. a lot of stupid republicans then try to pander back by being e.g. pro-amnesty. a vocal minority of hispanics voters really want amnesty. but you know what? a lot of hispanics came here because they wanted to live in America, not in Mexico. a lot of blacks and hispanics don't want a ton of unskilled immigrants, legal or illegal, to compete for jobs with. lots of hispanics who came to the US are not loyal to their original countries and don't actually particularly care about helping other strangers from that country move to America. Trump's message can appeal to the hispanics who came here because they like America and prefer it to stay roughly how it is.

What amazes me is that here we have someone challenging the failed progressive policies of the inner city and his sincerity is questioned? Why has no one EVER questioned the sincerity of the Democrats who have run the inner cities of America for decades?

yeah. this is a major theme of David Horowitz.

btw he may be the source of Trump saying a lot of this stuff. in my understanding one of Trump's main speechwriters is a long time horowitz friend and fan.

the article brings up Soros. that is another major Horowitz theme. Soros is a really bad guy who is behind a lot of stuff. this book is really important:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003R4Z2N6/

Unless you have the super-secret handshake code, you cannot talk about black on black shootings and murders.

and yet Trump is doing it. sure a lot of the media may yell and scream about it, and a vocal minority of leftists may insult the hell out of Trump for it (which they were going to do anyway). but so what? i think Trump's strategy is working just fine. lots of quieter and more reasonable people are listening.

the people who only hear CNN's summary of what Trump said probably won't be persuaded because it's so distorted. by the people who listen to an actual Trump speech may well see he's got a point.