Elliot Temple

Philosopher

Other Websites:

Critical Fallibilism Fallible Ideas Curiosity Blog

Philosophy Consulting

Solutions To Your Problems

All problems can be solved by knowing how. I tell you how.

I figure out your problems and their solutions. I help you learn anything you’d like to learn.

The most important philosophy is about reason: how to think and how to learn. Because reason applies to all topics, I can help with virtually anything (just ask). I have a track record of successfully applying philosophy to solve problems outside of philosophy.

Reason is needed in every field. If you think the wrong way, you’ll make mistakes, no matter how much you study your field. And a specialist who doesn’t know the best methods of learning can easily spend five years learning what could have been learned in one year. Philosophy is the most important field because it’s necessary for every other field. So people should stop paying lip service to “critical thinking” and neglecting philosophy. One consequence is I’ve often used philosophy knowledge to find mistakes in academic papers and specialist books.

As fallible human beings, we all make mistakes. Mistakes cost time and money. Mistakes lead to failures, fights and regrets. And you’re not aware of over half the mistakes you make! Philosophy is the field which covers the topic of mistakes. It’s a huge risk not to use the latest and most advanced knowledge about reducing, identifying and fixing mistakes. But you don’t have to learn all about philosophy yourself. I can apply my expertise to your situation.

You may know that I participate in free, public discussions and I post free writing online because I enjoy it. Paid consulting is different. It means I do only my best work and personalize it for you. And I organize it more than blog posts and discussions. Plus, consulting offers privacy for your personal issues. For more info, see my blog post Differences Between My Free Resources and Paid Help.

Do you have difficulty applying philosophy concepts to your personal problems? Are you stuck in your own unique way? Would you benefit from a different style of help than my normal writing? Is your life passing you by and you need an energetic wakeup call? Do you waste your time and don’t do the things you think you want to do? Personalization can help you. Normally I write for my benefit; you’ll find custom work for your benefit is more helpful.

Your life could be better. I can help. Email me at elliot@elliottemple.com

Who Am I?

I’m Elliot Temple. I love thinking and have sought out and studied great philosophy. I’ve especially studied the philosophy of ideas (epistemology), moral philosophy and liberalism. I have broad interests including economics, science, relationships and education. Thinkers I’ve studied extra extensively include Ayn Rand, Karl Popper, William Godwin, Edmund Burke, Thomas Szasz, Ludwig von Mises, Xenophanes, Ann Coulter, David Horowitz and Richard Feynman.

I learned a great deal from over 5,000 hours of discussions with physicist, philosopher and author David Deutsch. He was the leading Popperian philosopher at the time.

I’ve written over 50,000 discussion contributions. (Watch me write!) I’ve already considered many obscure issues. You’ll be surprised by what I’m familiar with.

Many philosophers try to impress people by writing confusing ideas. I’ve worked to discuss in a clear, simple way. Good ideas make sense. Don’t buy into the myth that some genius philosophers can understand super advanced ideas which are beyond you.

I apply philosophy concepts to learn new things quickly and effectively. Learning things well is what I like to do. I do professional computer programming. I ranked top 10 nationally, and first in California, in scholastic chess tournaments. I’ve been world class at several computer games and my guides have two million views. I have expert knowledge in parenting/education, physics, economics, evolution, psychiatry, social dynamics, relationships, business, politics, and some parts of history.

My original Critical Fallibilism philosophy builds on the best previous philosophies (Critical Rationalism, Objectivism and Theory of Constraints) and offers unique value that isn’t available anywhere else. I think and write fast. I can explain anything in a way that you can understand. I have tons of energy and can always brainstorm plenty of criticisms and ways for you to make progress. Nothing offends me and I have extreme patience.

How This Works Best

I only accept clients when I’m confident about providing a mutually beneficial outcome. This works best with people who are actively learning my philosophy from my articles, videos and other non-consulting materials. Alternatively, I can consider projects with a budget of at least $10,000 USD. I understand that some people have more money than time, and I can be flexible to help them too.

It’s not financially efficient for most individuals to hire me to repeat things that I already said in an article or video. I want to help people and share my philosophy, so I like to produce materials which many people can learn from. If someone wants me to spend some time helping only them, not the public, then I need to be providing a large amount of value to make up for the downside of only helping one person or a small group. It’ll work best for your finances to learn from my public educational material and then only hire me to answer questions, help you get unstuck, or discuss a private matter.

It’s easier for me to work with people who are more familiar with my ideas and communication style, particularly forum posters. That lets me provide more value more quickly.

And there are two basic ways I can help. Either I can help with your thinking or I can do some thinking myself to benefit you.

If I’m helping with your thinking, that will involve learning about and applying my philosophy. So it makes sense for you to learn from my public resources. I can only explain how my philosophy helps with your problems if you’ve learned about my philosophy.

If I’m thinking of solutions for you and making them happen under my leadership, that’s hard. It’s only worthwhile when there’s a large amount of value at stake.

Rate

Rates vary by project but I charge a lot. I can charge hourly. I like value pricing (fixed project bids related to the value provided to the customer). I’m flexible with project formats to fit people’s situations.

To hire me, email elliot@elliottemple.com. Please give me at least a rough idea of your budget. You can ask about the price for your project or, if you want, make an offer and negotiate.

I work with businesses too. If you’re hiring me for a business, tell me that in your email.

I always appreciate project inquiries. I often point people in the right direction even if we don’t do a paid project. You won’t waste my time.

I don’t work with people who have high interest debt (e.g. on credit cards). I don’t want to contribute to people having debt problems. Please get out of debt and, in the mean time, use my free resources.

Sometimes I give out discounts to people who have made a lot of progress learning my philosophy or who have significant accomplishments. Feel free to ask.

References

I’ve hired Elliot on several occasions to look into philosophical issues for me. Elliot is not afraid to tell people the truth, rather than what they want to hear or what other people want them to hear. – Josh Jordan, software developer

Elliot’s advice has helped me tons. He’s really good at thinking and arguing. A bargain at any price. He’s like an Ayn Rand Enhanced Edition. – Justin Mallone, philosopher and lawyer

Elliot saved my life and my kids’ lives. – Rami Rustom, business owner

Elliot helped me turn good and get away from evil. And he helped me quit lying. – Lulu Rustom

Elliot has a lot of philosophical knowledge. He is skilled at argument and at problem solving. He is the best person you could go to for philosophy consulting. – Alan Forrester, philosopher and physicist

I hired Elliot to help with some career decisions. I think he understood my problem and situation well, and he delivered a document with relevant suggestions. – Anonymous

Details

I decide whether I want to do a project. I turn down projects contrary to my values, e.g. writing pro-socialism arguments.

I work with ideas. Writing is the overall best format for dealing with ideas, so I most often write solutions. I can also create videos, slideshow presentations, diagrams, etc.

I work online. I communicate with calls, email and instant messages.

You can tell me what you want. Or I can work with you to figure out what you need.

It works better if you put effort into this. For example, if you send me a long document, organize it with sections and footnotes, and do an editing pass.

Limited Time or Money

Improving your life in a big way will require lots of time or money from you. If you’re busy, I can work around that. Or I can help guide you to make progress on your own time in order to minimize the price. I can also refer you to a great but cheaper philosophy consultant.

If you don’t have much time or money, here’s some free advice: multitask reading audiobooks and text-to-speech books while doing other activities like driving, walking, shopping, cooking, being bored at work or school, exercising, or waiting. Good authors to read are me, Ayn Rand, David Deutsch, Karl Popper or something which fits you. Because books sell to a large audience, you can get hundreds of hours of work from very smart people for a few bucks.

I also run the cheap Critical Fallibilism Discussion Forum.

Difficult Projects

The hardest clients to work with successfully are passive and dishonest people. Passive people say they like a solution or idea, and don’t have any questions or objections, but then don’t act on it. Dishonest people hide their problems and opinions. Most people are passive and dishonest, and also dishonestly believe they aren’t. The degree of the problem varies. I am experienced with these problems and have developed expertise at dealing with them. I can help you figure out what you don’t like about something you’re not doing and figure out how to make it work for you. But in order to succeed, clients must also put effort into taking actions and being honest.

Projects can fail if you refuse to think about it and ignore my advice. If you need it, I can be firm, controlling, and tell you what to do. But I won’t use psychological manipulation to get you to do stuff. I’m not here to “make” you do things. If you want to be manipulated with conventional memes, look elsewhere.

My philosophy knowledge lets me understand some things about you that you don’t know. Some of the insights will be negative. If you’re hostile to finding out about problems, and want to shoot the messenger, that will get in the way of learning and problem solving.

Example Projects

Hire me for one of these projects! elliot@elliottemple.com

How Do I Know I’m Right?

How do I know capitalism is right and socialism is wrong? How do I know that induction is a mistake, contrary to Bayesian philosophy? How do I know that punishing children isn’t educational?

I’ve done all the usual things. I’ve read about rival ideas. I’ve critically considered my ideas. I’ve researched biases. I’ve asked people to explain why I’m mistaken. I’ve sought out discussions with smart people, critics, experts, etc. That’s not enough. Many people have done that.

What I’ve done differently is put my ideas in public and then address every single criticism from every critic who is willing to discuss. I’ve answered all comers for over 15 years. If any of my ideas are mistaken, either no one knows it, neither of us has managed to find the other, or they aren’t willing to share their knowledge.

My philosophical positions have survived criticism from everyone willing to offer criticism. That’s pretty good! None of the alternative ideas can say that.

Few of the alternatives even pretend to have a public forum for open, critical discussion. When they have a forum at all, the moderators typically block posters who dissent too much.

I know this because I’ve gone and tried every public English language online discussion forum I could find which claimed to offer serious, intellectual discussion. And they all fail to live up to basic standards like allowing pro-Critical-Rationalism or pro-Objectivism ideas to be discussed to a conclusion.

Discussion forums I’ve evaluated include: Less Wrong, Quora, Hacker News, The Harry Binswanger Letter, Gerontology Research Group Forum, Ann Coulter Official Chat, The Well, Physics Forums, Open Oxford, various reddits, various Facebook groups, various email groups, various stack exchanges, various philosophy forums, Objectivist Answers, The Forum for Ayn Rand Fans, Sense of Life Objectivists, Objectivist Living, Rebirth of Reason, and Objectivism Online. I’ve also evaluated blogs and individuals for potential discussion, such as: Mark Cuban, physicist blogger Scott Aaronson, blog Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature, Popperian author Ray Scott Percival, Popperian author Joanna Swann, tech writer Ben Thompson, Objectivist author George H. Smith, author Robert Zubrin, Center for Industrial Progress founder Alex Epstein, and Objectivist author Leonard Peikoff.

When I talk with people who disagree with me, I routinely ask them certain questions: Are they willing to discuss the issue to a conclusion? Do they consider themselves a serious thinker who has studied the matter and knows what he’s talking about? Do they know any serious intellectual who agrees with them and will discuss it to a conclusion? Do they know of any high quality discussion forum with smart people who would be willing to discuss it? Do they know of any forum where I can go ask challenging questions about their position and get answers? The answers to my questions are predictable: “no” or silence.

This is the clearest difference between me and my rivals. My ideas are open to public criticism supported by a discussion forum which allows free speech. I pursue discussions to a conclusion to actually resolve issues. And I think even a single flaw must be addressed or it refutes an idea. I don’t ignore some problems with my ideas and claim problems are “outweighed” by some merit.

Impressed? Skeptical? Tell me: elliot@elliottemple.com

A Couple Things I Wrote

Hire me: elliot@elliottemple.com