After Jimmy Fallon said in his monologue on The Tonight Show that I compared Trump to Jesus, I knew I needed to clarify a few things. So on Twitter I said…
That was only a joke. But just to be super-clear, I am not saying Trump healed any sick people either.
Although … to be fair, the taxes Trump has paid over his lifetime have probably funded more healing than Jesus could have handled one-on-one in his entire life. But it isn’t a competition. No one is keeping score.
0 CommentsThis is a good time to remind you that the Master Wizard Hypothesis I have been blogging about is for entertainment, not enlightenment. Truth is probably at a different URL. And I remind you that you should never take advice from cartoonists on issues such as nuclear proliferation. That is just one example.
The larger context of the Master Wizard Hypothesis is showing you some of the science-tested methods of persuasion on display from various leaders. The fun part (I hope) is seeing how well my predictions fit the data compared to whatever crystal ball you were using before. (None of this should be confused with science.)
That said…
0 CommentsThe common wisdom goes like this:
1. Fiorina ruined HP and Lucent totally by herself yet made a fortune in CEO pay. Therefore, Fiorina is bad at business. She only makes money for herself, not the stockholders. Also, she eats employees and poops them out.
2. On the other hand, Donald Trump is a successful entrepreneur across several lines of business. Therefore, he is the better business person.
But then you say…
3. “But what about Trump’s four bankruptcies? His partners lost money!”
Then someone with more than ten minutes of business experience says…
0 CommentsHave you ever randomly turned on your television and discovered that the topic was you? I have, several times. It’s a freaky experience. The whole world becomes tiny for an instant – so small that it all fits in your living room – then it slowly expands to where it was.
Anyway, some friends saw me taking a walk last night and alerted me that I was mentioned on The Tonight Show. It was easy to find the quote on Google. I’m glad I didn’t see it live because of the freakiness factor. Here it is:
“The creator of Dilbert predicted that Trump will win the presidency and also compared him to Jesus. And people hope he’s right because they would love a three-day break from Donald Trump.” – The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
In two-dimensional chess, both Trump and I have been dismissed in cartoon fashion in service of the joke. And that’s fair. We’re all professionals. I’m sure the joke succeeded with the audience. Viewed from the perspective of the two-dimensional world, some might say I am diminished in some small way because the Jesus reference is intentionally used out of context to make me look foolish. That would be bad.
But in the third dimension, where I live and work, associations matter more than reason. And Jimmy Fallon referred to me as “the creator” in the same sentence with Jesus and the next President of the United States.
Trade-off accepted.
How was your day?
—–
I love the brevity of the newest review for my book.
I’ve been blogging about my Master Wizard Hypothesis while focusing on Donald Trump and a number of other men. For the sake of balance, I will “out” for you two of the greatest living female Master Wizards of persuasion. Before I tell you their names, see if you can guess who they are based on my list of known tells for a Master Wizard.
1. Unusual success in a field, as if coming from out of nowhere.
2. A gifted communicator with a simple, visual, story-telling style.
3. A big influence on hundreds of millions of people.
4. A tie to a known wizard.
5. High intelligence.
6. Success in a variety of business ventures.
7. Unusually high productivity.
Okay. What famous women, still living, fit all of the tells for a Master Wizard of persuasion? If you are coming up blank, you might be a sexist.
Are you ready for the answers?
0 CommentsTrump issued a series of five tweets in quick succession as a response to the controversy over the Obama-birther guy at the Trump event.
Why five tweets?
I assume the two-dimensional chess pundits will tell you it is a sign of desperation from a campaign that was always destined to flame out. Sure looks like a guy grasping at straws, right?
Maybe it is.
The Master Wizard Hypothesis has another filter on this. According to this way of thinking, Trump just made you think about which of several reasons you will choose to agree with him.
He made you think past the sale.
And to get there he said at least one, maybe two, things you agree with. That’s pacing. It is a tell.
On the Master Wizard scale, this was an A+ performance in engineered persuasion. Will it be enough?
Depends what the Master Wizard in the White House does next.
— Reminder —
Do you want to read the scariest executive order that ever came from a Master Wizard?
If you have been reading my Master Wizard Hypothesis series, and you also like science fiction movies, see if you can find the moment that humanity decided to evolve into fuel for our future robot overlords.
It’s right in the title.
0 CommentsTo be fair, Trump’s opponents have also branded him… as a person who speaks his mind and doesn’t pretend to know more than he does.
Let’s call that roughly equal.
0 CommentsThis just in … Trump is calling Fiorina “very robotic.”
How clever is that?
Let me count the ways.
0 CommentsOver at Quartz, someone who doesn’t know things explains to us why both Fiorina and Trump are failures at business. The explanation goes like this:
Trump had four separate bankruptcies on four individual properties.
Fiorina’s was CEO of both HP and Lucent, and things went poorly at both places.
Sounds bad, right? I mean, Trump and Fiorina both sound like terrible decision-makers.
Assuming you are an Art Major.
People who have ten minutes of business experience probably see it differently.
0 Comments
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