Scott Adams' Blog

The Cage Fight President

Posted November 5th, 2015 @ 9:08am in #Trump #ronda rousey #hillary clinton #ben carson

As regular readers know, I believe humans are moist robots with little awareness of why we do what we do. For example, someone (I’m not sure who) pointed out that the American public usually votes for the presidential team that would win a cage fight. Let’s see if you agree. I will consider only the presidents from my lifetime, which roughly corresponds to the age of television.

Keep in mind that Republicans have lost every time they had a disabled vet (McCain and Dole) or a woman (Ferraro) on the ticket. Jimmy Carter, at 5′9″ lost reelection to Reagan. Those are the obvious ones. Let’s look at some more matchup.

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Why Donald Trump will Ruin the World

Posted November 2nd, 2015 @ 9:13am in #Trump

I promised myself that I wasn’t going to write about Donald Trump today. Then I saw this video clip in which a bearded fellow claims to know Trump’s morning routine. According to the bearded guy, an assistant brings a stack of Trump-related newspaper clips to Trump every morning. Trump glances at them, but rarely reads them, somewhere at around 6 AM. The headline for the video clip touts that it “tells you everything you need to know about Donald Trump.”

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Trump’s Selfish Motives (Please explain them to me)

Posted October 31st, 2015 @ 9:09am in #Trump

One of the biggest complaints I hear about Donald Trump is that he wants to become president for personal reasons. Apparently it has something to do with a combination of his narcissism, his ego, and his desire to make money. 

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Economics and Expectations (with a Trump point)

Posted October 30th, 2015 @ 10:23am in #Trump

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.

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Trump’s Town Hall Performance - Give Him a Grade

Posted October 26th, 2015 @ 11:02pm in #Trump

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.

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How a Hypnotist Would Solve ISIS

Posted October 26th, 2015 @ 9:40am in #Trump #ISIS

You 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.]

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Talking Like a Fourth-Grader (Part of my Trump Persuasion Series)

Posted October 25th, 2015 @ 8:48am in #trump

You 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. 

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How Persuasion Hides

Posted October 24th, 2015 @ 7:00am in #trump

When 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.

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The Case for a Trump Landslide (Part 1)

Posted October 23rd, 2015 @ 9:37am in #Trump

The 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.

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Master Wizard Filter - Netanyahu?

Posted October 22nd, 2015 @ 12:16pm in #trump

Sometimes the world seems so small.

See this article from The Times of Israel. (I noticed it was sending traffic here.)