Scott Adams' Blog

Trump and Abortion

Posted March 31st, 2016 @ 10:10am in #Trump

I’ll start by reminding readers that my policy preferences don’t align with Donald Trump’s policies, or with anyone else’s except in some minor cases that are mostly coincidence. In the case of abortion rights, I defer to the better-informed views of women. I like having the right to vote on every issue, but as a practical matter, men add nothing to the abortion discussion unless those men are doctors, scientists or philosophers. Women have this issue covered. So I support whatever the female majority wants to do with abortion.

I tell you my non-opinion on abortion because the messenger is always part of the message. You wouldn’t be able to appreciate the rest of this post without knowing my starting position.

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Using Persuasion to Solve Everything

Posted March 29th, 2016 @ 10:00am in #Trump

Persuasion is a learned skill. It involves a well-understood set of science-tested tools. For whatever reason, Donald Trump is bristling with talent for persuasion and Hillary Clinton has none (that I can detect) except for basic political skills and her gender identity. Persuasion is not the only talent you want in a president, so I won’t try to oversell it. But let’s see what kinds of issues are susceptible to a president’s powers of persuasion.

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The Elbonian Zombie Virus

Posted March 27th, 2016 @ 8:13pm in #Trump

This is a thought experiment.

Imagine that the tiny nation of Elbonia suffers a Zombie Virus outbreak. Luckily, the virus does not spread easily, but prolonged personal contact with an infected zombie increases the odds of transmission. Once infected, the Elbonian becomes a zombie killer. As it turns out, most people are immune to the virus. Over 99% of the public have no risk of catching it. But 1% is far too many zombie killers.

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The Sarcasm Tell (With an Absurd Absolute)

Posted March 25th, 2016 @ 7:34am in #Trump

This post won’t mean much to you unless you have been following my Master Persuader series. Today I will teach you to spot The Sarcasm Tell. When you see the tell it means you won the argument. But it won’t feel that way to you because cognitive dissonance will cause your opponent to reinterpret the world in some bizarre new way in order to avoid the appearance of being dumb. The form of the tell is this:

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Who’s Afraid of Donald Trump?

Posted March 24th, 2016 @ 9:54am in #trump

For new readers:

I have already disavowed Donald Trump for being scary. And by that I mean he scares my fellow citizens, which I find unacceptable.

My policy views don’t line up with any of the candidates’ positions, including Trump’s. I don’t vote and I am not a member of a political party. I try to avoid identifying with any political label because doing so would make me biased and less credible.

My interest in Trump is his persuasion skills. I have never seen better.

— start —

A Donald Trump presidency might offer a once-in-a-lifetime chance to fire the government of the United States.

Whatever that means.

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Sleeper Persuasion with a Trigger

Posted March 23rd, 2016 @ 9:02am in #Trump

The other day I explained to you that Trump was using “stamina” as a linguistic kill shot against Hillary Clinton. The genius of it – persuasion-wise – is that every normal candidate has some low-energy days. Everyone gets hoarse from too much speech-making. Everyone takes bathroom breaks, and other kinds of breaks. Trump knew that voters would see “evidence” of Clinton’s lack of stamina even when there was no evidence. That’s how confirmation bias works.

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The Belgium Analogy

Posted March 22nd, 2016 @ 10:12am in #Trump

Regular readers know I have been waging a battle in this blog against analogies. The problem with analogies is that people use them in place of reason. For example, the biggest analogy going around lately is that Trump is the next Hitler.

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Social Media is the New Government

Posted March 21st, 2016 @ 8:15am in #Trump

The founders of the United States designed a system in which voters elected smart people and those smart people ran the country. They called it a republic.

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Bumper Sticker Thinking

Posted March 19th, 2016 @ 9:10am in #Trump

Perhaps you are familiar with this famous quote:

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana

The idea here is that patterns in history repeat. That might be true. Or it might be false. I have no idea. But I’ll tell you one thing I know with 100% certainty:

People see patterns where there are none.

Oh, and people also fail to see patterns when they exist.

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How to Know Trump is in Your Head

Posted March 17th, 2016 @ 8:14pm in #Trump

Is it my imagination… or is Hillary Clinton yelling her speeches lately?

And didn’t Donald Trump start questioning her “stamina” a few months ago?

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