Scott Adams' Blog

The Alpha in the Room

Posted October 22nd, 2015 @ 7:52am in #trump

We humans like to sort ourselves into categories that are based on how our bodies are different. For example, we see the world as men versus women, and one ethnic group versus another, or old versus young. And we organize our political views around those filters. That made sense throughout history when our bodies defined us and the law was built around those differences. But in 2015, I propose that the most useful categories for grouping people is the distinction between alpha and beta personalities.

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Robots Read News - about Trump and Jeb

Posted October 21st, 2015 @ 10:48am in #trump

If your firewall is being an obstructionist, see the comic on Twitter at @ScottAdamsSays.

Master Wizard Filter Scorecard

Posted October 20th, 2015 @ 4:05pm in #Trump

Pundits declared that Carly Fiornia won the most recent Republican debate. Her poll numbers surged, as you might expect.

Meanwhile, I was applying the Master Wizard Filter to the debate and predicting that Fiorina had self-destructed that night by pairing her brand with the image of a dead baby. INTENTIONALLY! In a blog post, I called that mistake self-immolation.

A new CNN poll says Fiorina’s poll numbers fell off a shelf. We don’t know all the reasons why, but the data conforms to prediction.

In other news, Trump released a funny edit of Bill Clinton’s interview with Colbert that makes Clinton seem to endorse Trump. If you recall, I made a similar observation here. 

Trump’s Third Act (Part of the Trump Persuasion Series)

Posted October 20th, 2015 @ 8:10am in #Trump

This week the media is starting to realize that maybe Donald Trump has a chance of winning the presidency. Howard Kurtz is calling the turn. You will see a lot more stories and opinions along those lines, assuming Trump’s numbers stay strong.

But here’s the fun part: How do you write a story about Trump beating expectations without mentioning that one observer loudly predicted it in August and provided lots of details for how Trump is doing it?

Do you think no one noticed this blog? :-)

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The Right Amount of Government Transparency

Posted October 19th, 2015 @ 8:26am in #Trump

Rand Paul recently live-streamed a day of his campaign. According to the media, it didn’t go well. (Paul’s dry humor did not survive the leap from video to text.) Still, we might be seeing the future with this live streaming stuff. 

If you haven’t tried the Periscope app, or one of the other life-streaming products such as Meerkat, you probably don’t know how big a deal this is. Yesterday, from the comfort of my home, I looked through the live-streaming phones of strangers around the planet. They took me on an African lion hunt (using cameras not guns), a hike in Thailand, a beach in Hawaii, and a Taylor Swift concert. All in five minutes. Live streaming of this type is compelling in a way you can’t understand unless you experience it. 

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Trump’s Persuasiveness - per the Washington Post

Posted October 18th, 2015 @ 8:49am in #Trump

This article in the Washington Post describes Trump’s persuasion skills as a function of his energy and big ideas. Or, as the article says, people respond to narcissists.

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Tony Robbins Explains How to Beat Trump

Posted October 16th, 2015 @ 9:14am in #Trump

If you have been following my Master Wizard Hypothesis series, you know I called Tony Robbins the best hypnotist in the world. His job is motivating people to improve their lives, and apparently he is amazing at it. His persuasion skills trace back to famous hypnotist Milton Erickson, same as mine. Robbins has added lots of layers to that learning, but his understanding of how people are influenced is similar to my world view, and probably quite different from yours.

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Master Wizard Filter on the Democratic Debate

Posted October 14th, 2015 @ 8:08am in #Trump

The Washington Post’s Stephen Stromberg says Hillary Clinton won the first Democratic debate with her line about being a progressive who likes to get things done. Personally, that line didn’t register with me at all. It has no visual or emotional content. The Master Wizard filter says that line was irrelevant.

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Humor, Brevity, Virality

Posted October 12th, 2015 @ 11:34am in #Trump

This morning I engineered a five-word tweet to go viral on Twitter. I’ll explain the technique.

In this context, viral means I expect a lot of people to retweet it, relative to the size of my Twitter followers. Here is the tweet as it is just starting to pick up retweets:

(If your firewall is blocking the image, it says, “Bad analogies are like corn.”)

I engineered the tweet to have these qualities:

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Who Will Bill Clinton Vote for?

Posted October 12th, 2015 @ 9:56am in #Trump

I was just reading the transcript of Bill Clinton’s interview with Colbert. Based on that text alone, I wonder who Bill Clinton wants to win the presidency. Clinton talked about Trump’s “macho” appeal with the public.

But Clinton didn’t say macho was a bad thing.

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