Scott Adams' Blog

Creating Economic Assets out of Nothing

Posted January 4th, 2017 @ 9:46am in #Trump Economics Ford Carrier Boeing WhenHub

One of the magical things about economics is that you can create an economic asset out of nothing but persuasion. For example, if you persuade people to be more optimistic about the economy, people invest more money, buy more products, create more jobs, and generally manifest the better economy from their own expectations. This magic of creating wealth from nothing but persuasion is one of the reasons President-elect Trump will be different from other presidents. He knows how to do this particular brand of economic magic. He has been doing it for years with his own company. The more common names for this phenomenon are branding and licensing. Companies license the Trump name for their buildings and other products because they recognize the name as a psychological asset that Trump created by persuasion.

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What if Climate Change Causes more CO2?

Posted January 2nd, 2017 @ 12:15pm in #climate science #climate denial #climate alarmist #whenhub

Let me start this post by restating that I agree with the scientific consensus on climate change. I’m not a scientist and I have no tools to evaluate the credibility of those who are. As far as I can tell, the arguments on both sides are totally credible. I can’t tell them apart. So I default to agreeing with the experts, not so much because I believe experts are likely to be right in this case, but because there are extreme social and economic penalties for being a climate “denier.” So I’m not one. I’m just a non-scientist who would like to understand this situation better.

And one of my ignorant questions is whether we have the causation right. On one hand, basic science tells us that more CO2 in the atmosphere should cause warming. And according to the consensus view of climate scientists, it is. The graphs of CO2 seem to match the graphs of warming. Therefore, logically, CO2 causes warming.

A separate debate is whether the CO2 warming is enough to be a problem or it simply exists. Forget that for now. I’m just talking about the direction of causation.

As a non-scientist, I assume human beings have some sort of temperature range that is optimal for energy and economics. I also assume that there are natural cycles of warming or cooling independent from CO2, at least historically. So we’re probably always warming or cooling. We’re never staying the same. And that means sometimes we are heading toward optimal human temperatures and sometimes away.

Now suppose the Earth’s temperature was already in the good range for humans, but it was getting even better according to a natural cycle. That better temperature would – I assume – increase human activity in ways that (wait for it) contribute to CO2. If the economy is good, we build more industry and create more CO2. If the causation works in that direction, the heat of the world and the CO2 levels would be correlated. But the cause in this scenario is the warmth, not the CO2.

None of this means we shouldn’t be worried about rising CO2. The science says more CO2 means more warming. That’s just physics. And at some point we have to assume the planet gets TOO warm, and economic activity will suffer.

And when the economy suffers, CO2 could drop, assuming the economy goes into decline. At the very least I think you have to agree that the causation is two-way.

When people tell me to “do my own research” on climate change and reach my own conclusions, I think those people have no understanding of how the human mind works. No matter how much research I do on my own, a real climate scientist will still know things that I don’t know I don’t know. If I do my own research on climate science, all I will know in the end is what I do know. And that’s not enough for any kind of credible evaluation. The stuff I don’t know could easily be more important than the things I do know. One would need to live in a particular industry, the way a climate scientist does, to have any confidence that all the important variables are being considered.

Consider how basic my question is today. As a non-scientist, I can’t even tell if scientists have the causation right. My layperson’s brain says correlation is not causation, and humans have a long history of confusing the two. And while climate scientists might have perfectly good explanations for why the causation is primarily one-directional, it isn’t obvious to me. (You can explain it to me in the comments.)

I realize that people want to know which “side” I’m on. But apparently I’m on my own side. My view is that climate scientists are more likely right than not, but the quality of their persuasion is worse than that of the skeptics on this topic. I don’t know the underlying facts. But persuasion-wise, the skeptics have a big advantage.

Remember how I taught you that Trump’s linguistic kill shots had a special quality that allowed them to strengthen over time thanks to confirmation bias? Every time Ted Cruz said something that didn’t pass the fact-checking you remembered his Lyin’ Ted nickname. And every time someone accused Clinton of crooked dealings you were reminded of her Crooked Hillary nickname. Climate change has the same dynamic. Every time it snows the non-scientists of the world look out the window and experience confirmation bias that global “warming” isn’t happening. Sure, it’s usually called climate “change” now, and most people know that. But to the under-informed that change in preferred wording just looks suspicious.

Climate scientists might be right that CO2 will cause catastrophic warming. And fear is a great persuader. But this particular fear is a bit abstract. It isn’t like a nuclear bomb that can kill us all instantly. Climate worries are in the unpredictable future and won’t affect everyone the same way. Persuasion-wise, the climate scientists only have facts and prediction models to make their case. And what are the weakest forms of persuasion known to humankind?

Facts and prediction models.

And how are climate scientists trying to solve this problem? Mostly by providing more facts and more prediction models. And by demonizing the critics. The net effect of all that is to systematically reduce their own credibility over time, even if they are right about everything.

I think you see the problem.

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California passed a new law that says you can’t use your mobile phone in your hand while driving. It was already illegal to text, but now it is also illegal to use other apps with your phone in hand. I recommend getting a dashboard mount, as shown, and using my startup’s free app, WhenHub, to reduce the need to text on the way to meeting people.

In the picture below you can see me about to leave the garage. Several friends already “joined the approach” as we say, so we can watch each other approach our meeting spot on a common map. All approaches time-out after the trip so you aren’t accidentally tracking anyone. No need to text on the way to the meeting because you already know where everyone is at.

By the way, I told you in other blogs that one of my motivation tricks involves working on projects that have huge potential. This one will literally save lives by reducing texting-and-driving. That’s the sort of thing that makes it a joy for me to wake up every day. Look for something like that in your life. It will have a huge impact on your thoughts and energy.

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Your Body is Your Brain Too

Posted January 2nd, 2017 @ 10:29am in #brains #texting

We humans like to organize our perceptions into categories. It makes it easier for us to communicate and to keep track of things. But sometimes the impulse to organize our thoughts into buckets is a problem. I’ll give you the best example of that today.

Most of us believe that our brains are special because they are the center of our consciousness. Some people also believe brains are where your free will and your soul lives. We also believe brains are somewhat of a closed system when it comes to our thoughts. It feels as if your brain produces some random thoughts, wrestles with those thoughts, and turns them into bodily actions. That makes the brain a special little organ that is doing its own thing in isolation and letting the rest of the body know about it later. In other words, we put our brains in the “brain” bucket. All by itself. Doing its thing.

That’s a huge mistake.

Today I’ll tell you how the brains-is-special framework for looking at life is one of our biggest sources of unhappiness. In my worldview, also known as the Moist Robot Hypothesis (from my book on that topic), humans are wet robots that respond to programming. If you aren’t intentionally programming yourself, the environment and other people are doing it for you. Luckily you have a user interface to your brain. And that interface is your body. Your body is collecting inputs from all over and feeding them to your brain to reprogram it.

What kind of results would you get from your laptop computer if the user interface responded only to random inputs from the environment, such as wind, temperature, and other unplanned events? Your computer would be useless. The inputs would be virtually random and the outputs would be garbage. That’s why we consider the user interface to be part of the computer.

Your brain is a computer too. But we mistakenly believe it is also its own user interface. In other words, we see the brain as some sort of closed system that is stimulating its own thoughts, wrestling with those thoughts, and producing an output that it sends to your body. This way of viewing yourself works fine in the sense that humans have done a good job of staying alive and reproducing. And that’s all evolution asks of us. If we reproduce, we have done all we needed. Evolution doesn’t feel the need to improve our awareness of reality beyond that point.

But allow me to suggest another framework for viewing your brain. My claim is that this new framework will give you the means to program your brain with intention instead of letting the environment do it randomly. All you need to do is reframe your body to be part of your brain. Let me give you some examples to see how powerful this reframing is.

In your old worldview, where the brain is its own user interface, you often found yourself feeling sad, grumpy, tired, angry, and other negative emotions. And you probably felt a bit helpless to stop it. Your brain was determining your mood – seemingly on its own – and the rest of your body simply responded to it like a puppet on a string. That’s the most common worldview, and I watch how debilitating it is to people. They go through life in continuous mental anguish, feeling helpless to do anything about it.

Contrast that worldview with what I call the Moist Robot Hypothesis that says your body is the user interface of your brain system. Give your body the right inputs and you can reprogram your brain.

For example, you know from experience that being hungry can make you cranky. But unless you are conscious of that body-mind connection – and often we are not – it is easy to assume the brain is operating on its own to make you cranky.

The Moist Robot Hypothesis says that all you needed was some food to reprogram your brain to more positive thoughts. In this case your digestive system was the user interface to your brain.

I am sure you have noticed that your mental state is deeply influenced by diet, exercise, sleep, sex, stress, and lots more. And I’m sure you make some effort to do those things the right way when you can. But if you think those actions are influencing only how you feel, and not your actual thoughts, you don’t understand the basic nature of human beings. And this is the key takeaway:

The source of your thoughts is your body, not your brain.

When I am not feeling good, I don’t ask my brain to fix things on its own. I manipulate my environment until my thoughts change. That’s because I see my body as the user interface to my brain. I don’t let my brain think whatever it randomly wants to think. I constrain it to productive thoughts by manipulating my environment.

For example, any time I feel tense, I go exercise as soon as I can. It’s good for my health in general, but I do it specifically to program my thoughts from negative to positive. I do the same with sleep, diet, sex, stress, and even my choices of entertainment. I don’t let negative inputs into my brain via my body (the user interface) and my brain responds by not producing negative thoughts.

I take this concept so far that I will leave a room when the topic goes negative and I don’t want my user interface to send those impulses to my brain. I never apologize for doing this. I just say I don’t want this conversation in my brain and leave.

The old me believed that my brain was special, and that it was going to think whatever it was going to think. Unfortunately, what it usually thought all through my twenties and thirties was severely traumatic memories that put me in a state of continuous suicidal urges. Today my thoughts are almost entirely positive and optimistic. The difference is that I learned to crowd out the negative thoughts by manipulating my environment. I tune my body with a healthy lifestyle so it feels good, and that encourages positive thoughts. And I flood my mind with fascinating mental puzzles and challenges – usually work-related – so there is no space for negative thoughts. The brain likes to focus on one thing at a time. So I make sure it is focusing where I want it. I never let my mind wander to bad territory. When I feel it happening I either change what I am doing or I flood my brain with stronger thoughts that have more emotional firepower.

My old traumatic memories are still in my brain, but I atrophied them to the point of being inert. They hold no power over me now.

I realize that the concept I’m explaining is both obvious and radical at the same time. On one hand, you know from experience that your thoughts are directly influenced by what your body is experiencing. But because you also believe your brain is the special vessel of your free will, consciousness, and soul, you might believe the brain can also make its own independent decisions. It can’t. It is a computer that responds to inputs. Give it the right inputs and you’ll get the right outputs. And your body is the user interface.

To convince yourself that my framework is valid, take an inventory of the people in your life who are unhappy. Ask some questions about what they are doing about their unhappiness. Rarely will the person say they are working on their body to fix their minds.

Now take an inventory of your more well-adjusted friends. Watch the degree to which they manipulate their bodies to manage their minds. Once you see the pattern, you will start to see it everywhere.

I just changed your life. You won’t know how much until later.

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The Master Persuader Filter and Bernie’s Ad

Posted January 1st, 2017 @ 8:21am in #Trump BernieSanders

Back in January of 2016 I said this about Bernie Sanders’ new campaign ad:

Posted January 21st, 2016 @ 12:01pm in #Trump #bernie2016
As I have taught you, persuasion can be ranked like this:
1. Identity (best)
2. Analogy (okay)
3. Reason (useless)
Bernie Sanders had been operating in the lower two categories along with Hillary Clinton. But his new ad, set to a Simon and Garfunkel tune, is pure identity (America!) and pure gold.

Today an article in The Hill discusses a Vanderbilt University study that says this ad ranked at the top of all campaign ads for making people “happy and hopeful” according to the New York Times.

There were a lot of campaign ads in that election. The Persuasion Filter spotted this one as special. Apparently it was.

When you learn to recognize the tools of persuasion it is like acquiring a superpower. I’ll be blogging and live-streaming on this topic in 2017. We’re going to have a lot of fun.

Welcome to a new year. This one won’t be like any before.

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A new law in California says you can’t hold your phone in your hand while driving, even if you are not texting. It doesn’t matter which app you are using.

I recommend getting a phone holder for your dashboard and installing the WhenHub app so you can see the people you are meeting on a map as you approach. (It’s like the Uber app but without the Uber car. Anyone can show their location temporarily on the way to a get-together.) That way you skip all of the texting back and forth that happens as you try to find each other in the last mile.

WhenHub app for Apple: http://apple.co/2eLL3Oh

WhenHub app for Android: http://bit.ly/2fIb6L7

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Best Arguments For and Against Climate Model Credibility

Posted December 29th, 2016 @ 8:03pm in #climate change

Below are competing links on the credibility of climate change models. One makes the case that the models do a good job. The other makes a case that the models are not credible. See which one you find more persuasive.

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The Illusion of Knowledge

Posted December 29th, 2016 @ 10:37am in #climate science

Yesterday I kicked the hornet’s nest by suggesting that no scientist really believes that complicated models with lots of variables can reliably predict the future. This is a subset of my larger point that no non-scientist can evaluate the claims of climate science because BOTH sides look 100% convincing to the under-informed.

So how did the public respond to my claim that BOTH sides of the debate look convincing? They berated me for not sufficiently researching materials from ONE side of the debate that happens to be their side. Many people suggested that I could simply do some homework, on my own, and get to the bottom of climate science.

That is a massive public illusion.

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The Climate Science Challenge

Posted December 28th, 2016 @ 9:35am in #climate science #whenhub

I keep hearing people say that 97% of climate scientists are on the same side of the issue. Critics point out that the number is inflated, but we don’t know by how much. Persuasion-wise, the “first offer” of 97% is so close to 100% that our minds assume the real number is very high even if not exactly 97%.

That’s good persuasion. Trump uses this method all the time. The 97% anchor is so strong that it is hard to hear anything else after that. Even the people who think the number is bogus probably think the real figure is north of 90%.

But is it? I have no idea.

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The Kristina Talent Stack

Posted December 27th, 2016 @ 11:36am in #kristinabasham #WhenHub #Dilbert #Trump #TalentStack

Over the past eighteen months or so my girlfriend Kristina Basham grew her Instagram following from zero to 2.5 million followers. She adds about 10,000 new followers per day.

That’s ten thousand new followers per day.

You might think this kind of accomplishment is easy for her because of her extraordinary attractiveness. Sure, that helps. But there are lots of attractive women on Instagram – most of them showing more skin than Kristina – and almost none of them are adding followers at Kristina’s rate. There’s a reason for that. I call it the Talent Stack.

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The Trump Economic Bump

Posted December 22nd, 2016 @ 1:03pm in #Trump #Clinton

True story: Yesterday I was talking to a friend who invested in Gilead stock right before Hillary Clinton started giving speeches about forcing companies in that space to lower their prices. The stock dropped and my friend lost money. He blames Clinton.

Over the summer this same fellow sold off his entire stock portfolio to avoid the risk of a Trump win followed by what he assumed would be a catastrophic market downturn. If Clinton won, he figured he could buy back in at about the same prices. But Trump won, stocks zoomed higher, and my friend lost out on the rally. Hillary Clinton cost him money for the second time this year.

But don’t feel bad for my friend. He reports that since the election his phone has been ringing off the hook with new job offers. He’s a residential contractor. Apparently the country got optimistic right after the election. Normally this would be his slow period. He’s swamped with work.

I love a happy ending.

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Can the Government Deduce Your Religion Without Asking?

Posted December 22nd, 2016 @ 10:47am in #Trump #Divorce #joint custody #whenhub

I’m hearing a lot of chatter about President Trump potentially creating a “Muslim registry,” which, as it turns out, already exists. The current system only registers non-residents from certain countries. But how hard would it be for the government to figure out all of our religious beliefs – citizens and non-citizens alike — without asking?

My guess is that the government already uses Big Data to determine our religious beliefs and more. Consider all the information they have.

1. Your cell phone leaves a trail in the cloud of where you have been. If you have been to a Mosque, the government can know that.

2. Your banking and credit card records would tell the government if you buy any products associated with Islamic culture or beliefs. That could include food, clothing, and more.

3. The government can search all of your social media, text messages, and other digital communication for keywords and other clues about your beliefs.

4. The government knows who you associate with on social media and what websites you visit.

5. Census information.

6. Non-governmental forms you might have filled out with your religious preferences or ethnic background.

7. Health records might have clues too. For example, a hospital record might specify a halal diet.

I know the government doesn’t have explicit legal authority to snoop into all of the information sources I listed, but I’d be surprised if they aren’t doing it anyway in the name of national security. We wouldn’t know if they had backdoors into the major corporate networks. I assume they do.

So don’t worry too much about a Muslim “registry.” We’ve probably had one for years. And the rest of us are probably on lists of some sort too. So far, all it has done is reduce terror attacks (I presume).

I agree that society needs to keep an eye on this sort of “registry” to prevent abuse. It is frightening to even read the language about it. But once you see it in context, it probably isn’t much change from the current situation.

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On another topic…

Are You Divorced with Joint Custody?

If you are a divorced parent with joint custody you know how frustrating it is to manage the hand-offs of the kids once or twice a week. One parent is always waiting for the other, and getting angrier each minute because of lateness that seems intentional (because exes are like that). You don’t want to text your ex, especially when the ex is driving with your kids in the car. So how do you solve this annoying child exchange tension that you have EVERY week?

Try my startup’s new app, WhenHub. It allows any group of two or more people to TEMPORARILY geostream their locations on a map as they head to a meeting spot. (Like the Uber app without the Uber car.) That way you know your ex is on the way without talking to them. And if your ex is not cooperative, you can put the app on your kids’ phones because they will be in the same vehicle.

No more frustrating texts back and forth asking “Where are you???” The geostreaming in the app is always temporary and times-out whenever you specify, so your ex can’t track you.

If you try it once, you’ll never go back to the old way.

WhenHub app for Apple: http://apple.co/2eLL3Oh

WhenHub app for Android: http://bit.ly/2fIb6L7

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