(Disclaimer: these are just some extremely quick thoughts that occurred to me as I was very quickly reading through the article. I wrote them extremely quickly and actually didn’t intend to share them (so apologies if some of the notes don’t make sense to you). It’s just that I sometimes uninhibitedly freewrite on a split screen while reading. But since I mentioned reading this article in the Learning Updates Thread I felt I should post it. Let me know if quick n dirty/uninhibited freewritten reactions like this are unwelcome. I might do a closer reading at some point in the future (since I liked this article a lot).)
This is one of the things I found surprising about ET’s philosophy. I remember listening to a podcast on morality where he talked about how everyone has some good in them because they know how to eg walk up stairs. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that perspective on morality or whatever before. (It seemed a bit odd to have the implication that eg Hitler had some good in him cuz he knew how to walk up stairs.) It makes me wonder if like the problem with Hitler according to this perspective was that he didn’t have proper moral knowledge. He was confused and couldn’t successfully judge what was morally good in the same way he could judge whether something was a cat or reliably successfully achieve/evaluate like pouring milk. (He was overreaching?)
I guess almost nobody has all of their moral knowledge on that level though. Cf. Socratic intellectualism and inner conflicts.
I like the perspective though cause it feels like it sort of unifies all knowledge. I guess in the past I intuitively felt like skills like identifying cats or reliably remembering to put the bin out for the garbage truck are in a different category or are somehow a different thing from philosophical knowledge like being rational and moral. But I guess ideally being rational and moral can be learned as well and mastered as well to the point that it’s as straightforward/reliable/easy/judge-able as taking out the trash or pouring a glass of milk or walking up stairs or identifying a cat vs dog (or doing plumbing if you’re a plumber).
I feel like that’s a pretty unique perspective. I feel like most people take for granted that some things are easy and some stuff is confusing/hard and that that’s that. That was me too before reading ET. I like the idea of being able to master philosophical stuff like being rational and moral so it’s as straightforward and easy and easy-to-judge as the other stuff.
It also reminds me of the 10% rule: I guess the reason why people don’t master more advanced stuff and it stays confusing is cuz they stop learning/practicing it way too early. When they’re nowhere near done learning.
Oh, ET actually says this/makes this same point (I wrote these notes before finishing the article):
This is such a big problem that most people actually think it’s impossible to have philosophical knowledge of the same quality as simple examples I’ve given like using your microwave or identifying a dog. They think that’s fundamentally, inherently not how philosophy (and many other advanced or hard topics) works.
I like this idea a lot. Why?
How to profit from this article/idea?
Well, atm I’m learning grammar. So applying to grammar: I’ve got subject and verbs to that cat-like (or truck-like to use Peikoff example) (I think). But not eg participles or treeing relative clauses (and reliably identifying what they modify) or even objects in all cases (eg indirect objects or object complements or whether an infinitive is an object or a modifer in a given sentence—and treeing these things). Or fragments like “A debt she can never repay.” That confused me. (Likewise Peikoff’s mouse darting up the wall.) Or bare infinitives. Or treeing appositives. (I think getting AI to give me example sentences and then getting it to check whether my answers are right or wrong is helpful for this kind of stuff. For more advanced knowledge where there’s less consensus, it’d be less helpful or not helpful at all.)
What to call this unified knowledge idea?
It reminds me of Rand quote about standing naked in face of reality or something after rejecting/abandoning all your half-baked knowledge/ideas/notions or whatever:
the choice is still open to be a human being, but the price is to start from scratch, to stand naked in the face of reality […] Live and act within the limit of your knowledge
From ET’s article:
Problems like improper knowledge are why you aren’t a genius, a top philosopher, a great thinker, or an innovator in your field.
This makes me motivated to take this problem seriously. I also wonder what the other problems (plural) like this are? That are why I’m not a genius, a top philosopher, etc? I’d like to know about them too so I can be motivated to take them seriously too. (Maybe honesty, integrity, etc but presumably they are skills that can be similarly mastered?)
Knowing what you can do to make progress is a good thing which means you have a huge opportunity.
Thanks ET for telling me “what you can do to make progress” and thus providing me with “a huge opportunity”! 
I liked the explanation of how people begin lowering their standards of knowledge as children due to parents.