Scott Adams' Blog

Trusting Your Government in a Time of War

Posted April 10th, 2017 @ 11:23am in #syriahoax #Syria #Trump #POTUS #ISIS

President Trump’s critics and supporters agree on one thing: Our new president has a history of “stretching” the truth whenever there is some advantage in doing so, and sometimes even when there is not. You might say he is famous for playing loose with the facts. We all expect a high degree of “hyperbole” from President Trump, to put it kindly. He gets away with it because barely-enough Americans believe his intentions are in line with America’s best interests.

The odd exception to our universal understanding of President Trump’s mode of operation is his claim that he is totally certain Assad was responsible for the chemical attack on his own people last week. The President’s critics and most of his supporters believe President Trump when he suggests that our military can track any plane in Syria and know what that plane did to whom.

Do you believe that?

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Could Cognitive Scientists Eliminate ISIS?

Posted March 9th, 2017 @ 7:25pm in #cognitive science #ISIS

In a word, yes, assuming they had lots of help from the CIA to deliver their persuasion.

I would not have said this was possible five years ago. But in 2017, cognitive scientists know how to reprogram a human brain fairly effectively. They have weaponized what hypnotists have been doing for decades.

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Trump’s Foreign Policy Speech

Posted August 16th, 2016 @ 10:52am in #Trump #Clinton #ISIS

Let’s talk about Trump’s foreign policy speech from a persuasion standpoint.

Trump read from the teleprompter and acted more “presidential,” whatever that means. And he softened his position on Muslim immigration to “extreme vetting.” That was a good strategy for rebranding himself as less scary, but I doubt many people will watch that speech, so it won’t have much impact.

Anyway, let’s talk about what else Trump got right – or wrong – persuasion-wise.

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Newt’s Plan to Defeat ISIS

Posted July 20th, 2016 @ 6:37pm in #ISIS #newt gingrich #Trump #clinton2016

Newt Gingrich has a plan to defeat ISIS by destroying the technology in ISIS-held territory. I described a similar approach in this post.

The interesting part of this approach is that it frames the enemy as something from the past. This is more about persuasion than death. All we’d be doing is destroying the technology (and anyone standing near it) that did not originate within Islam. That seems fair to me.

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Reframing Our Problems

Posted May 16th, 2016 @ 8:56am in #Trump #ISIS #Economy

ISIS Reframing

The United States treats ISIS like a military problem, which it is. But I’ve written in this blog that it might be more useful to think of ISIS, and terrorism in general, as a persuasion problem with a military component. Framed this way, the military is just one element of persuading the other side to stop trying to kill us.

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Cyberbombs and ISIS

Posted April 25th, 2016 @ 9:36am in #trump #ISIS

According to the news, the United States is stepping up its use of cyber attacks and psychology against ISIS. For example, our cyber forces are creating fake messages to send ISIS fighters to the wrong places.

Update: Here’s more about current efforts.

But the funniest part is that the U.S. military is openly bragging about their cyber tricks. That’s because the bragging makes the tricks stronger. We want ISIS to distrust 100% of their communications. That way we can use a few fake messages to destroy the credibility of all.

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Bono Says Send in the Clowns

Posted April 13th, 2016 @ 10:28am in #bono #ISIS #Trump #persuasion

Bono suggests using comedy to fight ISIS. The idea is completely stupid except for the fact that it is totally genius. I agree with Bono that psychology (persuasion) is the key to beating ISIS. I wrote about it here.

You shouldn’t be surprised when Bono is right. He has a genius-level IQ. Or to put it another way, if you think Bono makes no sense – about anything – the odds are good that the problem is on your side.

Bono is the real deal – a Master Persuader all the way down to his DNA.

Bono’s suggestion to send in Chris Rock, Amy Schumer, and Sasha Baren Cohen to defeat ISIS is pure Trumpian hyperbole by design. Bono made it visual so you would remember it, and so you would quote it. He isn’t seriously suggesting we send stand-up comedians to war zones. The fact that you think he MIGHT be serious is the genius of it. That’s what makes you talk about it.

Listen to Bono’s quote about maleness, and about the power of mocking. He’s spot on.

How powerful is mocking as a tool of persuasion? It’s hard to say, but if you look at the growth of business books in the 1990s you might find that the growth stopped at about the same time Dilbert came on the scene and mercilessly mocked the industry. Maybe the business book industry had just run its course. Maybe it was a coincidence. But I can tell you I have gotten hundreds of email messages from managers and authors who say they cancelled plans because they imagined how those plans would sound when mocked in a Dilbert comic.

Mocking is powerful force. And it has special power among the young.

Could we mock ISIS out of existence, thus killing it as an idea?

I say yes. I’m with Bono. Take him seriously.

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The Thought Police Did Not Like it When I Said Something Like This

Posted January 7th, 2016 @ 5:44pm in #Trump #ISIS #RobotTargetPractice

Today I step aside to let a better communicator do her thing. See this provocative opinion by Janet L. Factor.

It is too early to call The Turn on our collective thinking about the motivation of radical Islamic terrorists, but it might happen soon. Keep in mind that Trump’s suggestion is to halt muslim immigration until we figure out what is causing it.

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How to Beat ISIS with a Hoax

Posted November 23rd, 2015 @ 8:25am in #isis #psyops #cia #hypnosis #influence

How do you kill the ideas that motivate ISIS?

You can’t do it with reason. You can’t do it with force alone. But you might be able to do it with a hoax. I’ll explain.

In a prior post I explained why ridiculous rumors travel faster than truth, and the more ridiculous, the better. The simple explanation is that truth is usually boring. If you want people to be interested, you need a big lie. You need something so wrong that people think it must be right. The wrongness – the thing that makes the rumor clearly untrue – is the same thing that drives its telling and retelling. We are drawn to the wrongness of it.

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DAESH Linguistic Kill Shot

Posted November 20th, 2015 @ 9:34am in #isis #daesh

In a culture that allows powerful men to have multiple wives, the leaders have to reduce the number of male competitors so the math works. The best way to do that is to convince young men to go kill themselves in the name of some greater good. As an added incentive to die, the young men are promised a worthy cause, respect, sex slaves, and 72 virgins in heaven.

The reality is that most of the DAESH fighters are working hard to spread the genetic material of the more successful men leading them. They just don’t know it.

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