Scott Adams' Blog

The North Korea Reframe

Posted April 12th, 2017 @ 11:59am in #North Korea #China #Trump #potus

Prior U.S. presidents framed the North Korean nuclear program as a problem between the United States and North Korea, with China as an unhelpful third party with its own interests. That framing was weak and useless. North Korea did whatever it wanted to do.

President Trump recently changed the frame. Now it’s not so much a problem between the United States and North Korea as it is a branding battle between China and the U.S., with North Korea being the less-important part of the equation. President Trump has said clearly and repeatedly that if China doesn’t fix the problem in its own backyard, the USA will step in to do what China couldn’t get done.

See the power in that framing? China doesn’t want a weak “brand.” 

Read More »

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?

Read More »

The Syrian Air Base Attack

Posted April 7th, 2017 @ 8:32am in #syria #Trump

As I blogged yesterday, the claim that Assad ordered a chemical attack on his own people in the past week doesn’t pass my sniff test. For Assad to order a gas attack now – while his side is finally winning – he would have to be willing to risk his life and his regime for no real military advantage. I’m not buying that.

But let’s say the world believes Assad or a rogue general under his command gassed his own people. What’s an American President to do? If Trump does nothing, he appears weak, and it invites mischief from other countries. But if he launches 59 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian military air base base within a few days, which he did, the U.S. gets several benefits at low cost:

Read More »

The Syrian Gas Attack Persuasion

Posted April 6th, 2017 @ 9:07am in #Trump #POTUS #Syria #war crimes #Assad

According to the mainstream media – that has been wrong about almost everything for a solid 18 months in a row – the Syrian government allegedly bombed its own people with a nerve agent. 

The reason the Assad government would bomb its own people with a nerve agent right now is obvious. Syrian President Assad – who has been fighting for his life for several years, and is only lately feeling safer – suddenly decided to commit suicide-by-Trump. Because the best way to make that happen is to commit a war crime against your own people in exactly the way that would force President Trump to respond or else suffer humiliation at the hands of the mainstream media.

Read More »

The Systems President

Posted March 29th, 2017 @ 8:39am in #healthcare #Trump

Was President Trump’s first attempt at getting a healthcare bill a failure?

Your answer to that question probably depends on whether you are a goals-thinker or a systems-thinker.

If you see the world in terms of goals, you would say the healthcare bill did not get enough votes on the first try, and therefore it is clearly a Trump/Ryan failure. 

But if you see the world in terms of systems, things look a lot better. I talk about the advantages of systems over goals in my book. The quick summary is that a system is something you do on a regular basis that improves your odds of success in a non-specific way. Systems-thinkers choose paths that allow them to come out ahead in the long run even if they appear to be “failing” along the way.

Read More »

How to Leak Like a Master Persuader

Posted March 16th, 2017 @ 9:12am in #leak #Trump

After the hilarious Rachel Maddow face-plant on live television, with her scoop on President Trump’s 2005 taxes – all two pages of it – the big question in the news today is about who leaked it.

The worst punditry you will see on this question is coming from the people who say Trump couldn’t have leaked it himself because he wouldn’t leak it to a guy who has been his critic for many years.

What????

Read More »

I Talk about President Trump’s Speech on YouTube

Posted March 1st, 2017 @ 2:33pm in #Trump #whenhub

I’m still in beta mode for my YouTube channel. But improving. Here’s this morning’s chat, mostly about President Trump’s speech.

—

Are you swarming to a meet-up? Try WhenHub and optionally stream your location (temporarily only) on the way to the meet. It changes the entire experience.

President Trump’s Speech Last Night

Posted March 1st, 2017 @ 9:51am in #Trump #WhenHub

I didn’t see President Trump’s entire speech last night. I’m catching up this morning. Looks to me as if it was a base-clearing home run. Even Democrats are having trouble criticizing it. Surveys are positive. Stock market is up. CNN’s most credible anti-Trumper, Van Jones, said Trump was presidential, in a good way. Don Lemon got triggered into cognitive dissonance, hypothesizing that Trump’s presidential words don’t match his off-stage personality. In other words, it was a speech.

Read More »

Persuasion Advice for African-Americans

Posted February 21st, 2017 @ 11:40am in #Trump #AfricanAmerican #reparations

President Obama’s presidency did a lot to diminish racial bias simply because he was a black president who – in the opinion of many, including me – did a good job. As a role model, he was exceptional. But all the factors that made him a great role model are the same factors that prevented him from doing much for the African-American community. It would have looked like favoritism if he had focused too much in that area. The resistance from the right would have been ferocious. And it would have ruined Obama’s brand. People loved Obama in part because he didn’t focus on his race. The country needed that.

Read More »

Trump and Sweden

Posted February 20th, 2017 @ 1:52pm in #Trump

You can see me discussing Trump’s puzzling comments about Sweden in this Youtube video.

I don’t have the technology all worked out yet (it’s a system, not a goal) but you’ll get my point.

This is the direction I’m heading for 2017. Short Youtube videos on recent events.

Twitter shadowbans me so I can’t depend on that platform for the long run. We’ll see how Google and Youtube treat me.

My general YouTube link will be here: bit.ly/2lYiCRo