When I was studying economics in college, the most surprising thing I learned is that economics is what happens when you combine psychology with resources. I had assumed economics was more of a math/formula sort of discipline. There is plenty of that too, but the core of economics is human psychology.
Let’s talk about that.
0 CommentsI hate cows.
My uncle owned a dairy farm. My siblings and I often worked on that farm. My chores included shoveling cow manure, cleaning the milk storage tanks, and herding the cows. One time I befriended a calf and gave it a cute name. A few weeks later my grandmother served it to me for dinner. It wasn’t the best way to hear the news.
I will always remember the day my brother and I were invited to watch the hog slaughter. My uncle slit each hog’s necks in front of us and we watched the hogs scream and bleed out.
I’m a vegetarian now (mostly) but not because of that childhood farming horror. I don’t digest meat well. I tell you this background so you understand my bias.
0 CommentsIf your corporate firewall is being a total Virgo and blocking the image, try my Twitter feed here.
I just watched a video of Matt Lauer interviewing Donald Trump in front of a live audience in New Hampshire. The audience had some questions too. If you have been enjoying my Master Persuader series about Trump, you … have … to … see … this.
I remind you that I don’t know who would do the best job as president. I am not that smart. I am only interested in Trump’s persuasion techniques. I hope you can learn something from this.
Let me call out some of points of interest for readers of this blog.
0 CommentsYou can’t bomb an idea to death. So how do you ever defeat the idea that is ISIS?
To kill an idea, you need a hypnotist, or someone skilled in the art of persuasion. I’ll describe one way to do it. I do not expect any of the candidates to favor this approach. So what follows is not a policy suggestion so much as an example of how a trained hypnotist would kill an idea.
[As always, don’t take cartoonists too seriously. In this blog we kick around new ideas for entertainment. New readers of this blog need to know I am a trained hypnotist.]
0 CommentsYou probably saw one of several articles describing a study that says Donald Trump speaks at a fourth-grade level. Your first reaction might have been to chuckle at his lack of verbal intelligence.
I was laughing too. But if you have been reading this blog lately, you know I was laughing for a different reason. You and I have a front row seat to a movie that Aaron Sorkin hasn’t even written yet. I’ll outline it for you.
0 CommentsWhen you study hypnosis, and the art of persuasion in general, you learn that a person practicing at the highest level can appear a fool, babbling lots of feel-good words and ignoring science, data, and what you are sure is common sense.
You probably recognize that I am stealing that concept from Arthur C. Clarke’s idea that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Same idea.
0 CommentsThe latest poll out of Iowa shows Carson ahead of Trump. And you know what that means?
It means Iowa is about to become irrelevant. Here I am assuming evangelicals will band together to give Carson the win in Iowa before Trump goes on to run the table everywhere else.
Keep in mind that if Carson wins the Republican nomination, and Clinton picks a young and appealing VP running mate, Republicans who back Carson are potentially looking at 16 more years of Democratic presidents and full liberal control of the Supreme Court. Iowa might want to make a pro-life point by supporting Carson, but I doubt Republicans in general want to bet on the horse that is the “nicest” but runs the slowest in a race against Clinton.
0 CommentsSometimes the world seems so small.
See this article from The Times of Israel. (I noticed it was sending traffic here.)
We humans like to sort ourselves into categories that are based on how our bodies are different. For example, we see the world as men versus women, and one ethnic group versus another, or old versus young. And we organize our political views around those filters. That made sense throughout history when our bodies defined us and the law was built around those differences. But in 2015, I propose that the most useful categories for grouping people is the distinction between alpha and beta personalities.
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