Scott Adams's Blog, page 274

My Offer to Stop Donald Trump

As regular readers know, I have been writing about the persuasive skills of Donald Trump. You might also know I’m a certified hypnotist and I’ve been studying the field of persuasion for decades. And you might also know I predicted back in August that Trump would use those persuasion skills (which are unprecedented) to dominate the field.

Other than me, who else predicted in August that Trump would be leading the Republican polls in December? Keep in mind that I showed my work all the way. I updated my prediction in October to a Trump landslide in the general election. My predictions are based on his skills, not his policies.

Now let’s say you think I was right – or partly right – about Trump’s skills. You observe him using his persuasive skills and you believe he has more power than the media understands. Let’s say you believe that maybe those skills are the biggest part of his success. Or maybe you think the immigration issue is the main reason Trump is popular with some, but you still think Trump’s persuasive skills are part of the story. Either way works for today’s purpose.

Now let’s say you’re scared to death of a Trump presidency. In your mind, it could be the biggest disaster in the history of civilization. You imagine nukes flying, discrimination everywhere, and the general unraveling of polite society.

So I thought I would offer you some Trump insurance today. For $1 billion dollars, I will use my own persuasive skills to prevent Trump from becoming president. 

For fun, let’s say this is all done through a crowdfunding site (if they can handle that dollar amount) so my failure would mean I don’t get paid. I only get paid if Trump does NOT make it all the way to president.

Confusing, isn’t it? That’s the fun. Let me spell it out in simpler terms.

The proposition is that the public can pledge any amount of money to a crowdfunding site to activate my persuasion skills to stop Donald Trump. Each person might only pledge $10, so no big risk involved. If Trump loses in the general election, I get the full $1 billion for my efforts, EVEN IF YOU THINK MY EFFORTS MADE NO DIFFERENCE. That last part is important because the public would not see my fingerprints on anything. The press would report that people simply tired of Trump’s act, or maybe some future gaffe would be credited with his downfall. But that would not necessarily be the real story. Then, as now, the public and the media see Trump as a 2D player. I see him as a 3D player who manages your emotions, not your sense of reason. If I do the same, my technique will be as invisible as Trump’s.

If I fail, and Trump wins, the payout would not be triggered, and I get nothing. And if the crowdfunding pledges never reach the full $1 billion, I would do nothing at all but continue to report on Trump as I have been doing, as objectively as I can. 

Think about it. For ten dollars you could buy some Trump insurance. There are no guarantees in life, but if you truly fear him, and hate him, ten bucks isn’t much of a risk. And who knows? Maybe I can stop him. You don’t really know. Frankly, neither do I. There are no guarantees in life. I’d put the odds of my success at around 60%. 

Now ask yourself how anyone else could stop him. Are you confident Hillary Clinton has what it takes? Remember, Trump hasn’t even focused on her yet.

This is a thought experiment, so I don’t expect any of this to materialize. And I wouldn’t want to wrestle with the moral implications of actually going through with it. Also, as I often say, I’m not smart enough to know who would do the best job as president. They all look qualified to me. 

That said, I think my deal structure is solid. If you are afraid of a Trump presidency, do you see any problem with my offer?

Risk Management - (Trump Persuasion Series)

I’ve been out of the loop for a few days, working on a start-up. (More on that in the coming weeks.) So I haven’t been following the news. Let’s check in on Donald Trump and see if he’s done anything newsworthy lately. Checking…

Uh-oh.

Okay, you might want to know how I would apply the Master Persuader filter to Trump’s latest call to end U.S. immigration for all Muslims, at least until – in Trump’s words – lawmakers can figure out why some percentage of Muslims hate us so much. Is this a master stroke of persuasion or just batshit racist crazy? I’ll help you sort that out.

For context, you already know Trump’s game plan goes like this:

1. Say something that draws all media attention his way, denying his opponents any chance of getting a toehold. Opponents are forced to respond to Trump as if he is already the leader and his opinions are the only ones that matter.

2. Force the public to focus on issues where Trump polls well.

3. Ask for far more than you expect to get. (Negotiate from the start.)

4. Force people to see the world in terms of strength and weakness because people are drawn to strength in times of uncertainty.

Given that this latest news fits Trump’s strategy and pattern, I conclude that it was an intentional move under the Master Persuader filter.

But will it work?

It appears that Trump is playing the odds, and smartly, whether you like it or not. ISIS, or its supporters, will certainly strike again. And each time that happens you will try to imagine what can be done about it. And you will only know of one option – the Trump option of shutting down all Muslim immigration for now.

You can hate that option or you can love it. But you probably don’t know of any other plan. Your option for doing something (as opposed to nothing) comes down to Trump’s plan. It is the only plan you know, flawed as it is. And when a monster attacks, you escape through the door that exists, not the one you wish existed. Advantage, Trump.

As President Obama would remind us, a change to gun laws would also address domestic terror risks. But I don’t think the public sees gun control as a terror solution. That topic is more associated in our minds with ordinary domestic bloodshed. And according to the Master Persuader filter, reason is not in play anyway.

So Trump owns the topic of terror because he has the only plan, as far as you know. The only other plan you can imagine is the one where the terrorist attacks escalate forever. You can tolerate that situation for now because religious freedom is a basic American right. But Trump is calculating (correctly) that the public will move away from “do nothing” and toward “do something” every time there is another attack. And when the time comes to “do something” you will only know about the Trump plan. 

Trump had to know that calling for an end to Muslim immigration (for now) would spark the Hitler comparisons. Anyone would have known that. Under the Master Persuader filter, this was an intentional tradeoff. Trump literally equated the Trump brand with the Holocaust in an effort to keep citizens safe. That’s some hardcore leadership. 

Or is something else going on here? Maybe something…evil?

The more popular explanation of Trump’s motivation is that he’s an unhinged lunatic who is manipulating our worst instincts to become the next Hitler. I don’t know Trump’s inner thoughts, so I can’t rule that out.

But we can compare the lunatic-Hitler hypothesis to the Master Persuader filter and see which one does the best job at predicting. And keep in mind that you are only reading this blog because the Master Persuader filter is the only predictor that saw Trump atop the polls at this stage of the race.

The Master Persuader filter predicts that Trump’s call to end Muslim immigration will help him in the polls, not hurt him. The degree of benefit depends on how many terror attacks hit U.S. and ally soil in the coming months.

Allow me to pause here for my usual disclaimer. As I often remind readers, I am not endorsing Trump or anyone else. I am not smart enough to know who would be the best president. They all look qualified to me. 

My political preferences don’t align with Trump on several issues. My interest in Trump is his talent for persuasion, which is astonishing. But critics are correct in saying that my blogging might be providing safety for a Hitler-in-waiting. I take that critique seriously, and so I will help you sort out your feelings on this issue.

Trump’s plan to discriminate against immigrants based on religion offends me to the core. I hope it offends you too, on some level. Religious freedom is about as basic an American right as you can get. Unfortunately, we live in a world where we sometimes have to make hard choices based on our assessment of the odds. So let’s look at the odds. 

Suppose you knew that 90% of Elbonians were in favor of killing U.S. citizens and they had plans to do so upon entering the country. Would you accept the bad ones to avoid discriminating against the good ones?

If you said you would let all Elbonians into the country and accept the certainty of more terror attacks, congratulations, you are not a racist. But if that risk seems too high, your only option is to go full-Hitler and ban people based on their Elbonian ethnicity. You can try screening each person, but if 90% of Elbonians are up to no good, some will slip through. I pause here to state unequivocally that no group has that many bad actors in it.

But what if only 1% of Elbonians are terrorists? If you let in a million Elbonians, that gives you 10,000 terrorists. Are you good with that risk in return for maintaining the ideal of equal treatment for all?

The odds of a Muslim immigrant being a terrorist or a terrorist sympathizer is probably far lower than 1%, assuming we’re good at screening. I don’t know the exact odds, and neither do you, because it depends on how hard ISIS is trying to infiltrate in that particular way. If they are trying hard, one assumes the number is higher than if they are not trying. But the bottom line is that we don’t know.

I propose that instead of calling fellow citizens racists or idiots we do a deeper dive into the risks and put a price tag on our preference for religious intolerance. If the risk of future terror attacks is tiny, most of us would prefer maintaining our respect for religious differences.

But if the risk is more than tiny, can you put a price on your love of religious tolerance? In other words, how many dead Americans are you willing to accept? I’ll go first.

Personally, I would accept up to 1,000 dead Americans, over a ten-year period, to allow Muslim non-citizens to enter this country. My calculation assumes we are better off accepting some degree of tragedy in the name of freedom. That is often the case with freedom.

If you believe there is no risk from allowing Muslim immigration to continue as is, please explain that thinking in the comments. I have not seen that argument yet.

And if you believe there is some risk of a Muslim terrorist slipping through our current system of screening, what level of American deaths do you consider an acceptable tradeoff?

And keep in mind that you are not offering to die for freedom, since your personal odds of dying in a terror attack are negligible. What you are offering is a higher risk that other people will die so you can live in a country with uncontested religious freedom.

In summary, I will agree with critics who say Trump’s call to ban Muslim immigration – even temporarily – is Hitler-scary. I hope all good Americans are offended by the suggestion on some visceral level even if you think it has to be done.

But if you plan to participate in this conversation, and you aren’t willing to put a price tag (in terms of American deaths) on your preference for maintaining religious open-mindedness, I will find it hard to take you seriously.

We all want the plan that maintains religious tolerance and keeps our risk of violence at zero. No candidate has proposed such a plan.

What price – in American lives – do you put on your preference for religious tolerance?

Update: If I had to put a label on Trump’s method of persuasion for this topic it would be a variant of the High Ground Maneuver. (I have called it the Big Picture Maneuver in the past. Same thing.)

The way this works with the question of Muslim immigration is that Trump was presented with impossible choices and he actually picked one. And in so doing, what he did to the media, his opponents, and the public at large was to make you defend the imaginary option in which none of the peace-loving Muslims are barred from legally entering the country and all terrorists are kept out. That uncomfortable realization will sink in with voters over time. In simple terms, Trump infantilized the entire country and installed himself as dad.

You know Dad; he’s the asshole who makes the hard choices. He makes you go to school when you don’t feel like it. He makes you come home before midnight when you know there is nothing magic about midnight. He prohibits you from watching X-rated movies when you are nine years old even though you are sure it would be fine.

Here I am not talking about logic and reason. I’m talking about the tendency of human brains to form automatic associations. Those automatic connections that are disconnected from reason are how hypnotists can hypnotize and influencers can influence. Reason aside, when you observe an older male authority figure making a hard choice on your behalf, it just feels dadlike. You can’t help make the connection.

The Dad idea won’t fully emerge until the general election…when Dad runs against mom. Speaking of Mom, you love what she stands for, but she can be such a bitch sometimes. Still, if you need a sandwich, or a hug, or some understanding, you probably pick mom.

But if you hear a loud noise downstairs, and you live in a dangerous neighborhood, you’re probably hoping Dad gets to the baseball bat before Mom, even if they are equally capable. You’re a sexist that way, in your irrational brain.

According to the Master Persuader filter, the selection of the next U.S. president is dependent on whether the public is feeling hungry or scared in the coming months. I’m betting on scared. 

Update: How long did it take for someone to take me out of context? This long. Notice no link for context. 

But soon…

@anfhomhair: Thank you. I respect that. 

How to Stop that Hitler-like Deportation You Fear

In a prior post I suggested that if mass deportation of millions of people started to happen on American soil, I could employ some industrial-level persuasion to help stop it. (For new readers, I’m a trained hypnotist.)

Here I’ll assume something terrible is happening along the lines of Hitler – families ripped apart, people beaten for no reason, that sort of thing. I’m not talking about normal, sane immigration policies (whether that exists, or you even want it to). Today I’m only talking about the pure Hitler stuff. The worst case scenario. The thing you fear the most. That’s the one I could stop. With your help, of course.

So you probably wonder how. The claim is that one professionally trained “persuader” could stop the government’s Hitler-like roundup of illegal immigrants if things got ugly. What could one persuader say that kills a plan of that size and scope that is – by that imagined time – already in motion?

This challenge isn’t as hard as it looks. Words aren’t the full solution this time. It turns out that American citizens have a legal right to own a defensive weapon. A lot of people already own one. I know many of my readers do. If the government comes into your neighborhood acting all Hitler-like, make sure you keep your weapon handy. (But please keep it locked so kids and crazy people can’t get to it.)

In most situations I would recommend not shooting first. But in this case it seems warranted. If you see bad people from the government in your neighborhood, make some noise and wake up the rest of the neighbors. Tell them to grab their weapons and meet you outside where the trouble is going down. Then start shooting, from all angles, and don’t stop.

If you don’t have a defensive weapon yet, and you don’t want to do your own research, I’ll show you a link to the one I own. It fits my hand well and does the job. Here’s what my weapon looks like: Link to weapon.

The shooting alone isn’t enough. You also have to act polite while you do it. And I recommend telling the folks you are shooting that sometimes history is a bitch, and sometimes history makes you its bitch. 

If anyone wants to be on the Hitler side of history, let them have their wish. This persuader thinks that in the connected world of social media (that effectively runs our government now) evil can only happen when the citizens have no evidence of it.

That day is gone.

Actually I guess you didn’t need me for this. You would have done exactly what I described. The part that might not be obvious is that it is enough to stop it. All you need to do is provide the 24-hour news cycle with unlimited footage of every scuffle from multiple angles. They will run every video until the public can think of nothing but their future shame.

I could be wrong, but I think the Internet plus the news media’s business model gives the power to the people. The people just need to know how to use it. Now you do.

But as I have predicted, I don’t think things will get to that level no matter who gets elected.

Who Would You Like Me to Interview?

Who would you be most interested in hearing me interview on a podcast in 2016? 

1. Donald Trump

2. Jihadist

3. Feminist who hates me

4. An open border/amnesty proponent

5. NRA official

6. Christian fundamentalist

7. Famous business person (your choice)

I don’t have solid plans for a podcast, but will probably dabble in the coming months. If anyone has podcast software suggestions, this would be a good time to tell me. Thanks!

My Napoleon Complex

I was born ambitious. I have no memory of being any other way. Something inside me needs to make things better, and not only for myself – just better in general. 

As you probably know, things have worked out well for me, career-wise, give or take a few bumps along the way. My ambition served me well, although it sometimes felt like a high-function mental illness. Let’s call it a grey area.

Anyway, I grew to an adult height of 5′8″. And in my culture, ambitious guys my height are widely considered to have something called a Napoleon Complex. The thinking is that our exaggerated sense of ego and ambition are some sort of attempt to compensate for our miniature stature. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I didn’t realize I was short until I was about ten years old. But I do recall having a serious ambition to be rich and famous since I was five. What happened after the age of ten, when I learned I would not play in the NBA, I’m not so sure. Lots of variables in play.

But here’s my real point:

What is the name we give to tall ambitious people?

Answer: Leaders

I’m not complaining. Compared to the tall, my knees are fabulous, my grocery bills are low, and my life expectancy is awesome. When I fly coach, it’s roomy and cheap. And I rarely bump my head. When I need a service that only a tall guy can perform, I rent one on the Internet and order him to do that work while I go to the gym with my perfectly functioning knees.

Okay, maybe I do have a Napoleon Complex. Whatever. Call me what you will.

All I ask is that we create some additional labels to cover all the categories of height and ambition. For example, we need a name for the tall people with minimal ambition that short people with ambition hire to carry heavy things upstairs for them. And we need a name for the tall and ambitious people that take up too much space. Let’s just label everything. 

Is that not fair?

Note: Yes, I know Napoleon was actually tall(ish) for his day.

A Robot That Eat Cows and Poops Delicious Hamburgers

According to this article, fast food businesses will soon replace workers with robots that eat cows and poop hamburgers. My advice is to keep your distance from that robot. Stay on the other side of the counter. I don’t know how good its eyesight will be.

[If your firewall is being diffiicult, see the image on Twitter here.]

If you think that comic is dumb, you’ll love my book.

What the Heck is Fascism?

Trump’s critics like to label him a fascist. I didn’t know what that word meant, so I made the mistake of looking it up.

It turns out that no one agrees what the word means. So if you use the word, you’re literally acting like an idiot, because the word has no definition except for the one in your mind. It is sort of like talking in tongues and wondering why no one else is nodding in agreement.

A writer for SLATE, Jamelle Bouie, recently referenced the Umberto Eco 14-element definition of fascism to analyze Trump (and decided it didn’t quite fit.) I will do the same, below.

Generally speaking, if your word has a fourteen-element definition with a “pick any” quality to it, you don’t have a word. You have a list. So I would say that “fascism” is – first and foremost – not an actual word with meaning (agreed meaning) in the English language. So if you use the word as a label, you are literally talking nonsense.

But just for fun, let’s see how well the Umberto Eco definition fits Trump. I’ll do the points one-at-a-time.

1.“The Cult of Tradition”, combining cultural syncretism with a rejection of modernism.”

Trump Tweets from his helicopter. He builds big, modern things. I have not seen him reject any modernism.

2. “The Cult of Action for Action’s Sake”, which dictates that action is of value in itself, and should be taken without intellectual reflection. This, says Eco, is connected with anti-intellectualism and irrationalism, and often manifests in attacks on modern culture and science.”

Trump is a business person. He values only action that has a point. Trump has attacked specific elements of science (climate change) but is generally pro-science. I would imagine that scientist themselves have disagreements with parts of science.

3. “Disagreement Is Treason” - fascism devalues intellectual discourse and critical reasoning as barriers to action.”

I haven’t seen Trump label critics treasonous. He has labelled individuals treasonous, but only because they did actual treason(ish) things – in his opinion – such as stealing secrets. 

4. “Fear of Difference”, which fascism seeks to exploit and exacerbate, often in the form of racism or an appeal against foreigners and immigrants.”

Trump says he loves Hispanics and loves African-Americans. His big issue is about border control, which is an issue shared by the entire country. Granted, he has a different approach to it. We can’t know what his secret thoughts are, but based on his words and actions, Trump would deport his own cousins if they were here illegally.

5. “Appeal to a Frustrated Middle Class”, fearing economic pressure from the demands and aspirations of lower social groups.”

Trump doesn’t blame the poor for the plight of the middle class. He wants to tax the super rich and help the middle class. He also wants to keep social programs strong for the poor. Every American politician tries to appeal to the frustrated middle class.

6. “Obsession with a Plot” and the hyping-up of an enemy threat; This often involves an appeal to xenophobia (such as the German elite’s ‘fear'of the 1930s Jewish populace’s businesses and well-doings, see also anti-Semitism) with an identification of their being an internal security threat: He also cites Pat Robertson’s book The New World Order as a prominent example of a plot obsession.”

The threat of terror is real. And 11 million illegals have a real economic impact. Neither issue seems hyped to observers.

6. “Pacifism is Trafficking with the Enemy” because “Life is Permanent Warfare” - there must always be an enemy to fight; Both fascist Germany under Hitler and Italy under Mussolini worked first to organize and clean up their respective countries and then build the war machines that they later intended to and did use, despite Germany being under restrictions of the Versailles treaty to NOT build a military force. This principle leads to a fundamental contradiction within fascism: the incompatibility of ultimate triumph with perpetual war.”

Trump is anti-war (unless necessary). He opposed the second Iraq war.

7. “Contempt for the Weak” - although a fascist society is elitist, everybody in the society is educated to become a hero; for example: the 1930s Germans, especially Hitler labeled Jews inferior humans thus weak as well as the physically disabled, the mentally retarded and mentally ill as weak—thus these “weak” or unwanteds were eliminated (executed) or “exterminated” (the Jews, or even Germans with disabilities).”

No sign of anything like that, except when talking about “weak” politicians. Trump is a big supporter of Wounded Warriors. He has contempt for critics, but those come in all types and sizes. His daughter is Jewish by conversion. And so on. You can suspect he has dark private thoughts, but based on how the talks and acts, he appears to love anyone who loves him back.

8. “Selective Populism” - the People have a common will, which is not delegated but directed by a dictator; This casts doubt upon a democratic institution, because the leader and government “no longer represent the Voice of the People”.

Too vague to be useful as part of a definition. Don’t all politicians pick their fights?

9. “Newspeak” - fascism employs and promotes an impoverished vocabulary in order to limit critical reasoning.”

Trump is the opposite. He uses plain language with no jargon. You might think you hear silent racist whistles in his speeches, but that has more to do with context and suspicion than his vocabulary. His words are grade-school simple and jargon-free.

10. “Non-truths & Lying/Spread of Propaganda" 

Is Trump the one politician stretching the truth?

Bottom line, fascism is the sort of insult you use when you have bad feeling about a person in power. It is an abandonment of reason.

Just for fun, the next time one of your friends labels Trump or anyone else a fascist, ask them to explain that opinion based on the 14-point elements laid out by Umberto Eco. You will sound like the smart one in the room. Your friend, not so much. 

You might wonder why Wikipedia has eleven points and I only have ten. This falls under the perceptual category of “Why I can’t find things in the refrigerator.” If you see what I got wrong, please mention it. I could spend the rest of today looking for the missing point and not find it. (That is literally true, not a joke.) I’m sure I forgot a “bad one” that doesn’t support my point.

Here I pause to tell new readers of this blog that I don’t endorse Trump or anyone else for president. I am not smart enough to know who would do the best job. All the candidates look qualified to me.

My Prediction about My Predictions (Trump Persuasion Series)

Over at FiveThirtyEightPolitics.com they are tracking pundit predictions for the presidential race, including mine. But they have my Trump prediction dated in November. The first time I predicted he would win it all was August. I revised the prediction to “landslide” in October.

In the unlikely event that my August prediction turns out to be right (that Trump wins it all), the world is not ready to believe I could see it so early. Assuming I did. 

My new prediction is that my prediction in August will be largely ignored because a prediction in November better fits the standard 2D model of reality. Anyone could make the Trump-wins prediction in November, after he had been dominating polls for months. August was the one with no 2D explanation. Cognitive dissonance should lead people to ignore my August prediction as if it did not happen.

If you think a Trump landslide will be good for my reputation, that is 2D thinking. The world will decide I made my prediction in November, because that fits what we understand about the world. And that will not be interesting in the least.

Trump’s Favorability - (part of my Trump Persuasion series)

Business Insider reports that Trump’s favorability rating among Republican voters was 23% before he announced his candidacy.

In July it had climbed to 59%.

Today it is 69%. That means it tripled this year.

As the article notes, this is surprising because Trump has been a known quantity for decades, and people generally don’t change their minds about known quantities to such a degree.

In other words, something Trump is doing or saying – and the public are not quite sure what – is changing people’s minds.

The article goes on to hypothesize that Trump’s stand on immigration is probably the biggest factor. That might be the case. But try this experiment at home:

1. Close your eyes.

2 Remember the time you made such a good argument about politics that you changed your Republican friend’s opinion.

Yeah, I don’t remember that either. Nor have I ever changed a Democrat’s opinion. People just don’t change opinions that much. It’s a rare thing.

But Trump did it. He did it big-time.

The experts have assured us of two things:

1. Trump can’t win because Latinos will not vote for him.

2. Nearly every American votes for their party’s candidate no matter what.

Those two things can’t both be true. Either almost everyone votes for their party’s candidate or not. Do we expect Latinos to break that pattern to vote against Trump? Perhaps so. The point is that this coming election is likely to break a pattern of the past. We just don’t know which one.

So the election might boil down to one question: Can Donald Trump convince enough Latinos to vote for him? History suggests he might have that sort of persuasive skill. Still, this is is a big ask. Bigger than any I have seen in this realm.

I’m going to triple-down on my prediction that Trump plans an “immigration surprise” after winning the Republican nomination. The surprise is that he’ll add details to his plan that make it seem kinder and more doable while still solving the problem.

If it turns out I’m wrong about everything, and Trump really is planning to round up 11 million people who consider themselves Americans, I’ll help stop that from happening. If you don’t think I can do that, you haven’t been listening. 

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If you think this blog is ridiculous, you should see my book.

That Time the United States Government Was Replaced and No One Noticed

Do you remember the time when the government of the United States was replaced with a different system and no one even noticed?

Probably not. I didn’t notice until yesterday.

Anyway, the old Constitution is gone, and in its place we have social media. The so-called “government” still has budgets and politicians and processes. But at this point in history they just do what social media tells them. They have to. Doing otherwise means failure and job loss.

When the Constitution was designed, communication among citizens was limited. We needed to elect smart leaders who would ride their horses to Washington DC and vote for our interests. The system was brilliant, and served the country well.

But now we have the Internet. Today, social media decides what is “right” and politicians follow their lead. That seems to be working. Don’t believe me?

Quick, name a demographic group that is defined by age, gender, or ethnicity, and tell me what laws their majority favors that the public at large has denied. It’s hard to think of any specific examples, right?

In the old days, evil people did evil things whenever they thought they wouldn’t get caught. Today, social media takes away the opportunity for most types of anonymous evil. If you’re evil these days, you’d better own it, because social media is coming for you.

The old system was one vote per person. That sounded fair, but it doesn’t account for the fact that most people don’t care about most things. Why should my uninformed and uninterested vote on a topic count as much as your highly-interested and well-informed vote? 

In a marriage, most people discover that the “winner” of the argument is generally the one who cares the most. Emotion is a legitimate part of decision-making, even at the national level. Social media has fixed the one-vote problem by allowing emotion to be a multiplier.

My hypothesis is that you get a better social result when the people who care the most – and show their work in public – get their way. The majority is still watching with its veto power, in case things get out of control. But generally speaking, if 80% of Elbonians want something, and they are willing to show their thinking in public, the majority tends to be accommodating. 

It would be easy to say the process I am describing shouldn’t work. On the surface it seems to give too much power to emotion and not enough to reason. But keep in mind that our old system of one vote per person gave the majority total control to oppress the minority – which it did in notable ways – but over time the trend has moved in a kinder and more inclusive direction.

One of the reasons the so-called “outsider’ politicians are doing well this year is that voters know it doesn’t matter that much who has the job. Social media will tell the President what to do and he or she will do it. (The exception is security issues where most citizens prefer a quick response and a decisive leader.)

Trump is an exception among the candidates because he is offering to be more of a deal-maker than a role model. The “social media candidates” are worried about offending powerful groups. Trump offers to be a deal-maker on behalf of the public, and in that specific realm (complicated deals) the public is both uninformed and uninterested in the details. So what Trump is offering is more of a Republic model like years past, where the President ignores the emotions of special interest groups and does what looks best for the country as a whole.

The other candidates for president can be counted on to run more of a social media presidency. And that model has been working well, in my opinion.

So which would be better – a deal-making president who doesn’t want to be a role model for your kid, or a social media president who will more carefully manage to the emotional state of the country? I see both of those models as being powerful in their own ways.

As I often say – and I mean it – I am not smart enough to know who would do the best job as president. But I deeply appreciate the quality of the choices this time. A deal-making president would probably achieve a different outcome than a social media president, but none of us are smart enough to predict which approach is better in the long run. 

But one thing is clear: If you like the old Republic system, where politicians did their thing on our behalf and told us about it later, Trump seems to be offering that. But if you prefer the power of social media as your government, a Hillary Clinton presidency probably gets it for you. In my opinion, either approach could work.

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If you think this blog is dumb, you should see my book.