Scott Adams' Blog

Digital Distraction Syndrome

Posted August 25th, 2015 @ 12:32pm

When I was a kid I couldn’t concentrate on homework while music was playing. The music was a distraction.

Today I often need to put on headphones and play loud music in order to concentrate on work.

What changed? Was it me?

Here’s another data point, still in anecdotal territory, obviously. My stepson fought like a wounded badger for the right to play music while doing homework. He insisted it helped him concentrate, as it does for me as an adult. But his mom and I argued that music was a distraction to learning.

We might have been wrong.

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Trump VS Bush: Persuasion Wars

Posted August 24th, 2015 @ 9:31am in #trump

Introduction:

Someone accused me of having a man-crush on Trump because I keep writing about him. I plead guilty. I have no idea whether he would be a good President or not, and I don’t believe you know either. My man-crush is based on Trump’s persuasion skills. I have never seen better.

I hope that sharing some of Trump’s methods will make you more effective in your own life. And it is fun stuff. 

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The Day You Became a Better Writer (2nd Look)

Posted August 22nd, 2015 @ 7:56am in #writing

One of my blog posts from 2007 has been making the rounds on social media this week. (Thank you, Naval Ravikant.) I take that as a signal that I should re-post it here in case you missed it the first time.

And now a second look…

The Day You Became A Better Writer

I went from being a bad writer to a good writer after taking a one-day course in “business writing.” I couldn’t believe how simple it was. I’ll tell you the main tricks here so you don’t have to waste a day in class.

Business writing is about clarity and persuasion. The main technique is keeping things simple. Simple writing is persuasive. A good argument in five sentences will sway more people than a brilliant argument in a hundred sentences. Don’t fight it.

Simple means getting rid of extra words. Don’t write, “He was very happy” when you can write “He was happy.” You think the word “very” adds something. It doesn’t. Prune your sentences.

Humor writing is a lot like business writing. It needs to be simple. The main difference is in the choice of words. For humor, don’t say “drink” when you can say “swill.”

Your first sentence needs to grab the reader. Go back and read my first sentence to this post. I rewrote it a dozen times. It makes you curious. That’s the key.

Write short sentences. Avoid putting multiple thoughts in one sentence. Readers aren’t as smart as you’d think.

Learn how brains organize ideas. Readers comprehend “the boy hit the ball” quicker than “the ball was hit by the boy.” Both sentences mean the same, but it’s easier to imagine the object (the boy) before the action (the hitting). All brains work that way. (Notice I didn’t say, “That is the way all brains work”?)

That’s it. You just learned 80% of the rules of good writing. You’re welcome.

Scott

If you want to see persuasive writing that uses this simple style, read God’s Debris or How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big. Those books do not include what I call the “humor layer,” so you can see the cake without the frosting in those examples.

12-Mile High Space Tower

Posted August 21st, 2015 @ 8:22am

You probably saw the news on Top Tech Blog about the proposed space tower to launch spaceships from its roof.

You will not be surprised to hear that skeptics believe it can never be stable against the elements. And its own weight would crush it.

So…what kind of tall shape would be more stable than a skinny tower? How about a mostly-empty pyramid (more like a skeleton of a pyramid) with a solid tube core for wind energy production (from the updraft)?

See my old blog post on pyramid-shaped space towers here. I didn’t think about launching anything from the top. I’ll add that :-)

Scott

Anchors Away

Posted August 20th, 2015 @ 9:26am in #Trump

I hear you in the comments that you are tired of my Trump posts. 

But if he keeps delivering a master class in influence, you will hear a lot more about his methods. I’m not terribly interested in politics, but this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see influence as an art form from a master operator who doesn’t feel the need to cover his tracks.

For example, when CNN anchor Chris Cuomo asked Trump to react to the Pope’s criticism of capitalism, Trump correctly saw it as a trap. If he engaged with the question he would be quoted on this topic and smeared with the association of Trump-capitalism-corruption. Tomorrow the headlines would be some form of “Trump blah, blah, corruption.”

Trump couldn’t bluntly refuse to engage in the question because that would look weak. So how does Trump wiggle out of such a well-crafted media trap?

Trump responds that he would tell the Pope that ISIS is coming to get him, and that they have plans to take the Vatican, which I assume is true, or true enough.

Do you even remember the question anymore?

Now compare the wattage coming from these two thoughts:

1. A boring discussion about corruption in capitalism. (Cuomo’s question)

2. A mental picture of ISIS taking over the Vatican.

No comparison. Corruption and capitalism are mere concepts that have no visual appeal. The ideas are important yet inert. But an ISIS overthrow of the Vatican is so visual you wonder why it isn’t already a movie. And that visual is all anyone will remember of that interview in a week.

Do you still think Trump’s clown act is random?

[Here I remind you that I am not smart enough to know who would be the best choice for president. I am only interested in the persuasion technique Trump uses.]

Scott

In Top Tech Blog, the Adams Law of Slow-Moving Disasters is starting to play out as expected for climate change. The law observes that when humans have lots of advance warning of pending disasters they always invent themselves out of it. Now we might be close to harvesting Co2 and turning it into fiber. If it works, that seems important.

Political Reporters Cover a Business Candidate

Posted August 19th, 2015 @ 9:46am in #trump #immigration #mexico

The presidential campaign is being covered by political reporters, for the most part. That makes perfect sense because the subjects of the reporting are mostly politicians.

But Donald Trump is a business person. If you apply a political filter to a business person, you get nonsense. Likewise, if you have a goal-oriented view of the world, as politicians typically do, a business person with a “systems” approach would appear crazy.

That brings me to Trump’s newly-published immigration policy. For our purposes here, you don’t need to know the details. All you need to know is that it sounds totally impractical and draconian. 

If you apply a political filter to his proposal, it is pure nonsense mixed with evil and flavored with crazy. That’s how the media is reporting it all over the Internet. Just like Trump planned.

If Trump were a goal-oriented thinker, or even a real politician, the reporters would be interpreting this situation correctly. They would report that Trump’s plan is ridiculously impractical and even inhumane. And they would be right.

But reset your filter for a minute. Remember that Trump is a business person who promises to bring a deal-maker to the job of President. Now look at his crazy plan again but use your business filter this time.

Trump sees immigration as a negotiation. His opening offer is an anchor. This is how world-class negotiators work. The first offer has no purpose except to create contrast to whatever you eventually agree.

For example, Trump’s plan has two ridiculous ideas that will never happen. One involves a change of the constitution to remove the right of citizenship for people born in this country. The other involves rounding up 11 million aliens and shipping them home.

Not going to happen.

If Trump were a goal-oriented thinker, or a politician, he would be setting himself up for failure. His plan has zero chance of success as it stands.

But Trump is a systems thinker. He plays the long game. Every move is a negotiation.

Trump wants a wall on the border, and he wants Mexico to pay for it. That is such a big ask that few people think it possible. I can only imagine one way a wizard with Trump’s skills could convince TWO countries to do this thing that is amazingly hard to get done. 

You start with an opening offer that anchors people’s minds to the most outrageous parts of the plan and then you trade those things away until you get the only thing you wanted: the fence. Negotiators (Congress in this case) will feel that a negotiation happened and all parties met in the middle.

But only Trump decided where the middle is. The debate is already over and Trump won. We’re getting a wall. But my guess is that America will create some sort of a path to citizenship for current illegals after the wall gets built. That will make both sides feel like they won something.

Trump can’t say he will give illegal immigrants a free pass while at the same time trying to get a wall built. That would trigger a wave of immigrants trying to beat the wall construction. 

There was exactly one path available for Trump to get his wall. He had to set an anchor in the negotiations that inspires his core anti-immigration crowd to vote for him while setting the stage to negotiate away the crazy parts of the plan and keep the fence.

Another way to look at Trump’s immigration plan is that he’s working on America’s branding. That’s Trump’s area of expertise. If you want your brand to have value, the first thing you do is make sure no one can get if for free. You need a sense of exclusivity. Tightening immigration does that. 

Keep in mind that trump is open to legal immigration for people who bring technical skill to the country. He wants more of that and less of the criminal element. That’s hard to argue against in principle. And if he succeeds in branding America as the only place you want to work if you have tech skills, imagine what that does to the economy over time.

Bonus Thought 1: When Trump stuck an anchor in the immigration problem by calling the Mexican immigrants rapists, he also established himself as the only Republican who is talking about violence to women. Name the other Republican candidate who is out front on a gender issue. You can’t. 

Bonus Thought 2: On the question of abortion, if Trump says he doesn’t understand why men even get a vote on the question of abortion he would take that issue off the table while keeping his personal views intact.

Bonus Thought 3: Much has been reported about Trump’s bankruptcies. If you view Trump as a goal-oriented thinker, those are examples of failures. If you view him as a systems-oriented thinker, he built a diversified portfolio of holdings and kept the bad ones from infecting the others by creating separate entities that could fail by themselves.

Bonus Thought 4: In all likelihood, Donald Trump will pick our next president. If he runs as a Republican, he will be picking himself, and winning, assuming he keeps going this way. If he runs as an independent he will be picking Clinton as president. There’s your republic: One guy gets to vote for President this year.

Here I’ll remind new readers that I have no idea if Trump would be a good president. In my view, all the candidates are within the realm of competence. How they might perform as president depends on what future they are paired with. For example, the best president for winning a war might be the worst one for fixing a recession. You can’t know who will be good on the job if you don’t know what the job will entail.

Scott

In Top Tech Blog, do you remember my dumb idea I posted here about generating power by building pyramids with internal chimneys? Canada might start building some towers that do just that, plus they launch space planes from the top.

Wizard Wars

Posted August 17th, 2015 @ 10:20am in #donald trump #persuasion #Trump

Foreward: Everything that follows is true, to the best of my knowledge, but you can fact-check me on the Internet. Let me know if I got anything wrong.

As I often warn you, don’t get your opinions about anything important from cartoonists. This blog is for entertainment, not enlightenment. You’re on your own for the enlightenment.

I recommend that you postpone reading this post until you have at least 30 minutes of free time and your favorite beverage or state-legal prescription meds in hand. You are about to have an experience that might change the way you see the world.

The ideas that follow are not appropriate for children, people who might be offended by talk of witches, and anyone that disliked my book God’s Debris. 

Based on the public’s reaction to God’s Debris, my prediction is that 20% of you will have a truly interesting moment reading this post, and you will never see the world the same way. About 60% of you will be glad you read it for the entertainment value. The remaining 20% of you will be angry, and you won’t be able to articulate why. If you don’t like those odds, this is a good time to discontinue reading.

To avoid spoilers, don’t do any Google searches until you finish reading.

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Can We Call a Trump Puppet a Trumpet?

Posted August 14th, 2015 @ 10:50am in #trump #persuasion

[If your firewall blocked the image, see it on Twitter at @ScottAdamsSays.]

When Donald Trump uses his persuasion skills to turn someone into a puppet, can we call that person a Trumpet? I vote yes!

Because I want America to be great again.

Anyway, yesterday I blogged about Trump’s masterful use of persuasion and I thought some of you would enjoy seeing a perfect example of a common technique. It is the sort of thing you can do at home.

Warning: Stop reading now if you do not want to take the risk of being influenced to buy a particular item. Seriously. What follows is an experiment in manipulating your opinion. If that sort of experience does not appeal to you, please stop reading. 

And this warning is serious. It is not part of the experiment. 

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Clown Genius

Posted August 13th, 2015 @ 9:09am in #Trump #fox news #hypnosis #persuasion #negotiating

Like many of you, I have been entertained by the unstoppable clown car that is Donald Trump. On the surface, and several layers deep as well, Trump appears to be a narcissistic blow-hard with inadequate credentials to lead a country.

The only problem with my analysis is that there is an eerie consistency to his success so far. Is there a method to it? Is there some sort of system at work under the hood?

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Trump’s Plan to “Put a ring around” ISIS

Posted August 10th, 2015 @ 6:30pm in #Trump

Presidential candidate Donald Trump said today that he would “put a ring around ISIS” and take the oil, thus recouping some war costs and starving them of their resources at the same time.

I have no idea if that is a good plan or a bad plan. But in my 2004 book, The Religion War, I predicted that the the major powers would build a wall around the caliphate and starve it. And in July I updated that idea with the Filter Fence concept you can read here.

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