Scott Adams' Blog

Could a Climate Science Expert Change Your Opinion?

Posted January 18th, 2017 @ 10:14am in #climate science #climate deniers

It seems to me that the big problem with the climate change debate is that no one would recognize a good argument if they saw one. We only think we have the ability to recognize a good argument. What actually happens is that cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias generally keep a wall between us and reality. We live in our own little movies in our heads while being sure everyone else is watching the same movie. They aren’t.

Here’s a thought experiment:

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The Plan for Immortality

Posted January 16th, 2017 @ 12:36pm in #Scott Adams #Artificial intelligence #Whenhub #biography #afterlife

As part of my long-term strategy to achieve immortality, I’m building a permanent digital record of my life online. Someday there will be enough video, audio, biographical, and linguistic information about me to recreate me in software form. Maybe that future software will take into account my DNA too. Eventually there will be enough of a record of my life for future software programmers to recreate my voice, my preferences, my priorities, my thought processes, and even the way I move.

You might think I am not serious. But I totally am. The odds that I will someday be resurrected in software are probably close to 100% because the technology will no doubt exist and I’ll have the most complete digital record available for the researchers to experiment with. Or one of the most.

I plan to keep updating this biography to fill in details as I go. This is just one of a thousand things you can do with WhenHub.

This looks best if you expand the window to fullscreen by clicking the icon in the lower right of the Whencast. (It won’t be awesome on your phone.)

Dilbert Book List

Posted January 13th, 2017 @ 1:08pm

Here’s a list of Dilbert books by publication date, in case you missed any. This is one of thousands of things you can do with Whenhub.

A Startup with the Risk Profile of an Incubator? (A WhenHub Post)

Posted January 13th, 2017 @ 10:12am in #WhenHub startups #investing #venture capital

Note: If you’re a business model nerd like me, this post is likely to interest you despite the fact that it also involves a transparent promotion for my startup. However, if the normal mechanisms of capitalism feel icky to you, I understand. Feel free to skip this one. But I promise it is interesting.

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The big problem with startups is that most of them fail. Still, lots of people are willing to take that risk because the upside potential is so high. Also, failing makes your odds of succeeding with the next startup much higher. It turns out that failure is an excellent teacher. But any way you look at it, startups are risky business.

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The Master Persuader Scrambles the Frame

Posted January 11th, 2017 @ 11:14am in #Trump #WhenHub

What was Trump’s biggest persuasion problem in the election? 

Answer: His opponents did a great job of framing him as some kind of Hitler. Do a Google search on Trump and Hitler and you get an avalanche of comparisons. 

It was sticky persuasion, and it still hangs over the country like a chorus of stale farts. I’ve said before that half the country believe they are living in 1930s Germany and the other half think we got a better economy and some free entertainment. Those are two completely different movies running on the same screen at the same time. So how does the Master Persuader deal with the second-largest case of national cognitive dissonance in our history? (Slavery was first.)

Ignoring the Hitler branding from the other side won’t work. It’s too sticky.

Denying the Hitler branding won’t work either. That would just make people debate the details and harden the association by reputation. In the 3rd dimension, where persuasion matters and facts do not, brains recognize “Bob is totally NOT like Hitler” as “Somehow Bob and Hitler are connected.” So denying doesn’t work. Not even a little.

What’s left? You can’t ignore it and you can’t deny it. There’s no solution, right?

Well, there’s no solution if you operate in the 2nd dimension. That dimension is out of ammo. But the 3rd dimension is not. A Master Persuader neither ignores nor denies. 

He plays offense and scrambles their frame. 

But he had to wait for the right time and the right opportunity. That opportunity came to him in the form of an intelligence meeting leak and some fake news. Here’s how the Master Persuader played it:

Trump Tweeted: 

Intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to “leak” into the public. One last shot at me.Are we living in Nazi Germany?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2017

How do I know this was calculated and not just a Godwin’s Law universal reference to Hitler? Because he played it exactly the way I would have done it. And I have a similar skill set in persuasion. This was the only play that can work. It won’t solve for the Hitler branding the other side put on him, but it’s a start.

Update: Now this…

President-elect Trump calls for an apology on the Russia report: “That’s something that Nazi Germany would’ve done and did to.” pic.twitter.com/qYi4m4G7st

— Fox News (@FoxNews) January 11, 2017

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You might enjoy using my start-up’s app, WhenHub, because it makes you happy to know exactly when your friends and family will arrive. I’m hearing great things about it from users. Feel free to get some free happiness for youself by downloading the free app.

Is Meryl Streep Persuasive?

Posted January 9th, 2017 @ 10:10am in #Trump #meryl streep #golden globes

Yes, she is.

Will Meryl Streep’s speech at the Golden Globes make President Trump less popular or more popular?

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) January 9, 2017

OCD and Creativity

Posted January 9th, 2017 @ 9:27am in #divorce #coparenting #family law

The other day I was wondering about the relationship between OCD and creativity. People with OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) have thoughts that they can’t get out of their heads. But creativity is the opposite of obsessing over a single idea, at least the way I experience it. 

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How To Know Your Product Will Succeed

Posted January 6th, 2017 @ 12:10pm in #success #persuasion #startups #product design

People often ask me if it is possible to use the tools of persuasion to predict which types of products or businesses will succeed. I’ll tell you a trick for doing just that. But keep in mind that this is NOT backed by any studies or science as far as I know. This is based on my experience alone, and it is subject to all the usual biases. I recommend looking for the pattern I’m about to describe in your own life to see how often it predicts winners. You might be surprised how well it works.

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WhenHub: Movies Coming in 2017

Posted January 5th, 2017 @ 12:43pm in #Whenhub

Here’s one of the billion of things you can do with WhenHub, the startup I co-founded. It’s available now. Free. Anyone can use it to make shareable visualizations for any kind of timeline, schedule, or series of events over time.

This visualization works well for movies. But for other types of data you might want to use one of these looks. (Or build your own with our API, coming soon.)

We also have the WhenHub app that is like the Uber app but without the Uber car. See your friends approach a meeting spot on a map. The app automatically times-out for privacy.

Is The Onion Advising Democrats Now?

Posted January 5th, 2017 @ 11:19am in #Trump #Clown #nancy pelosi

Worst. Persuasion. Ever. Someone needs to do an intervention. This is officially embarrassing.

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Coincidentally, a good way show an audience the changes in healthcare coverage and expenses over time is my startup, WhenHub.com. It’s the best way to create and share visualizations of events over time. If someone builds one, let me know and I’ll publish it on this blog.