Scott Adams' BlogRobots Read News Endorses Candidate
What candidate would robots support? I think the answer is obvious.
0 Comments#Trump
One-on-One Match-ups - Trump Persuasion Series
Warning: This post will generate massive cognitive dissonance in some readers. If you think you can learn from that, please read on. If that prospect makes you uncomfortable, please don’t read it.
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If you compare Donald Trump to whoever you have in mind as your ideal president, Trump probably comes up short. There are plenty of qualities one might want in a president that Trump doesn’t have. So I understand why people think he can’t get elected.
But Trump will not be running against anyone’s imaginary standard for president. He will run against real people. That’s where things get interesting. In my opinion, Trump only got serious about the presidency when he realized that the one-on-one match-ups all went his way. So let’s see how those match-ups look.
0 CommentsHistory’s First Quadruple-Wizard
This post is just for fun, as part of my Master Wizard series. The first half is inspired by a tweet from one of my Twitter followers.
Master Wizard: A human that is extraordinarily skilled in the methods of persuasion.
I think historians would agree that Abraham Lincoln was one of the great Master Wizards of persuasion. Americans are well aware of Lincoln’s linguistic gifts. But you might not know that Lincoln and Mark Twain – another Master Wizard – were alive at the same time. History does not tell us if the two met. But if you have been reading my Master Wizard series, you know that skilled persuaders can recognize each other from their tells. At the very least, we can be sure Mark Twain studied Lincoln’s communication style, as writers do. Perhaps Twain even learned a few things.
0 CommentsViolating the Wizard Prime Directive
New readers of this blog are encouraged to catch up on my past posts. Otherwise this one will make no sense. Search for my #Trump posts to view this one in context.
The summary version is that I am interpreting recent world events (mostly the U.S. presidential election) through what I call the Master Wizard Filter.
The filter is not meant to be a true view of reality, if such a thing even exists. The idea is to see if my predictions under the filter fit observed outcomes. And also, just for fun, I will be “fitting” observable data to the filter and showing you how an alternate view of reality can be surprisingly persuasive.
This is just for fun. Truth is at a different URL.
0 CommentsThe Persuasion Reading List
Update: New Book added: Impossible to Ignore
Background: Readers of this blog have been asking for a reading list to learn more about hypnosis, persuasion, and influence in general. This is the start of the list. I will update it over time.
If you wonder why people are asking a cartoonist about persuasion, it is because I am a trained hypnotist, and mention it often in the context of blogging. I have also studied the various tools of persuasion for years because it is directly applicable to my job as a writer.
0 CommentsThe “Reason” for Trump’s Success
A month ago the media was saying Trump was ahead in polls because he is an outsider. All the evidence pointed that way. For example, more than half of Republicans say they support an outsider in Trump, Carson, and Fiorina. And Bernie Sanders seems sort of outsiderish too.
The big problem with that analysis is that if we try to imagine no Donald Trump in the race, it is also hard to imagine that one of the other outsiders would have taken out Jeb Bush so easily. (Low-energy indeed.) So I see Carson and Fiorina as along for the ride, basking in Trump’s “outsider” halo because no one is quite sure what ELSE could be behind Trump’s success in the polls. The media is telling us that we must like outsiders this year, so we start using that explanation ourselves. It becomes self-fulfilling in surveys because no one really has a better explanation of why they want Trump as president.
0 CommentsA Clarification
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 CommentsWho is the Better Business Person - Trump or Fiorina?
The 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 CommentsCalling Jimmy from the Third Dimension
Have 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?
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I love the brevity of the newest review for my book.
Checking My Gender Bias - Master Wizard Hypothesis
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?
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