Scott Adams' Blog

Trump Dominates the Empire State

Posted April 20th, 2016 @ 10:05am in #Trump

By now you know Trump won big in the New York primary. Bigger than most people expected. 

According to a Fox poll, Trump leads nationally with Republican “men, women, every age group, every income group, and among those with a college degree and those without.” 

So, if somehow the GOP nominates a candidate other than Trump, the only Republicans who will be angry about it are …“men, women, every age group, every income group, and among those with a college degree and those without.” 

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The Value of Not Voting

Posted April 19th, 2016 @ 8:21am in #Trump

Anderson Cooper of CNN says he probably won’t vote in the coming election. He says voting would bias him when he covers political news. I agree.

I call it the joiner problem. The minute you take a side, you start acquiring confirmation bias to bolster your sense of rightness. Objectivity is nearly impossible once you commit to a team. 

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The Trump Chess Board

Posted April 18th, 2016 @ 8:31am in #Trump

With the New York State primary tomorrow, let’s see how the chess board is set up for Trump. 

The Lead

Trump has the lead in delegates for the Republican race and that lead will grow with the upcoming primaries.

Momentum

After Trump wins the New York primary he will be the one with momentum for a few weeks.

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Ayatollah So

Posted April 14th, 2016 @ 8:21am in #Trump

In Iran you can vote for anyone for President so long as that person has been approved by the Ayatollah Khameini. We Americans call that system a dictatorship.

Voters in America recently discovered that they live under an Iranian type of system and didn’t know it. In the primaries, voters participate in some sort of ritualistic placebo voting while party leaders select the candidates. In the general election, the richest and smartest of the elite use money and psychology to brainwash the masses into imagining they have independent opinions and that their votes matter. We call that a republic.

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Bono Says Send in the Clowns

Posted April 13th, 2016 @ 10:28am in #bono #ISIS #Trump #persuasion

Bono suggests using comedy to fight ISIS. The idea is completely stupid except for the fact that it is totally genius. I agree with Bono that psychology (persuasion) is the key to beating ISIS. I wrote about it here.

You shouldn’t be surprised when Bono is right. He has a genius-level IQ. Or to put it another way, if you think Bono makes no sense – about anything – the odds are good that the problem is on your side.

Bono is the real deal – a Master Persuader all the way down to his DNA. 

Bono’s suggestion to send in Chris Rock, Amy Schumer, and Sasha Baren Cohen to defeat ISIS is pure Trumpian hyperbole by design. Bono made it visual so you would remember it, and so you would quote it. He isn’t seriously suggesting we send stand-up comedians to war zones. The fact that you think he MIGHT be serious is the genius of it. That’s what makes you talk about it.

Listen to Bono’s quote about maleness, and about the power of mocking. He’s spot on.

How powerful is mocking as a tool of persuasion? It’s hard to say, but if you look at the growth of business books in the 1990s you might find that the growth stopped at about the same time Dilbert came on the scene and mercilessly mocked the industry. Maybe the business book industry had just run its course. Maybe it was a coincidence. But I can tell you I have gotten hundreds of email messages from managers and authors who say they cancelled plans because they imagined how those plans would sound when mocked in a Dilbert comic.

Mocking is powerful force. And it has special power among the young. 

Could we mock ISIS out of existence, thus killing it as an idea?

I say yes. I’m with Bono. Take him seriously.

Watching Me Work

Posted April 13th, 2016 @ 9:37am

If you want to see my work process this morning, I’ll be recording it on Snapchat: ScottAdams925

My Trump AMA on Reddit

Posted April 12th, 2016 @ 1:31pm in #Trump

I just finished a Trump AMA on Reddit here.

Resetting the Movie in Your Head

Posted April 12th, 2016 @ 10:11am

My coffee machine broke this morning, for no apparent reason. That’s a crisis situation. So I went to my emergency backup caffeine source of coconut water with espresso. I had to use tools to open the can because the tab ripped off without doing its job. That happened three cans in a row. I finally got into one with a hammer and screwdriver.

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Food Psychology Experiment

Posted April 12th, 2016 @ 8:34am in #Food psychology #foodie #foodporn #healthy food

Now for something different.

If you are familiar with my book on systems versus goals, you know I talk about creating your own diet system to replace willpower with knowledge. For example, you’ll need less willpower if you learn how to make healthy food taste great. To that end, I created a three-minute food psychology video to share some tricks I discovered. 

I’m not suggesting you will enjoy the specific foods in the video. This is more about finding ways to make boring (but healthy) food taste great with the least amount of effort. 

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Creating a Low-Cost Life

Posted April 11th, 2016 @ 7:18am

Candidates for President of the United States talk about taxes and budgets and social services. But no one ever talks about lowering the cost of living. And that could be a big omission because American society has no way to take care of all the under-employed, unemployed, and retired people of tomorrow. There are simply too many of them and we can’t tax our way to a solution. The math just doesn’t work.

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