Scott Adams's Blog, page 282

The Periscope App

If you haven’t used Twitter’s Periscope app, you might want to check it out. It projects you into people’s personal lives – their homes, their work, or their public events – in a way that is intimate and sort of amazing. It is all live and instant and free.

Last night I was watching the lunar eclipse through a number of personal phones on the East coast while excited moon watchers did play-by-play. The video itself was poor, but simply being part of the action was exciting. Likewise, I just watched Trump’s tax speech live because someone on his team fired up Periscope from the audience. 

I started doing some live Periscope broadcasts and plan to do more. Sometimes I will be at my desk, drawing and asking for ideas. Or I might be in my man cave answering your questions.

The app is free. Just download it and follow me on Twitter and Periscope at @ScottAdamSays. You will get an alert when I go live, according to no particular schedule.

I don’t have a financial interest in Periscope. I just think you will like it. If it seems like 99% of the content is bad, remember that is also true of television and music as well. It takes a while to find what you like.

Violating the Wizard Prime Directive

New readers of this blog are encouraged to catch up on my past posts. Otherwise this one will make no sense. Search for my #Trump posts to view this one in context. 

The summary version is that I am interpreting recent world events (mostly the U.S. presidential election) through what I call the Master Wizard Filter. 

The filter is not meant to be a true view of reality, if such a thing even exists. The idea is to see if my predictions under the filter fit observed outcomes. And also, just for fun, I will be “fitting” observable data to the filter and showing you how an alternate view of reality can be surprisingly persuasive.

This is just for fun. Truth is at a different URL.

— start —

Today I will show you how to engineer a Linguistic Kill Shot. The idea is to put together a set of words that are so persuasive they bypass one’s critical senses and end a debate. Our best recent example involves Trump calling Jeb Bush “low-energy.” 

I have been observing in the media that Trump and Rubio have been slinging linguistic arrows at each other for the past week or so. But something is different now, and I wonder if my regular readers have caught it.

Rubio went wizard. 

I assume he is now being advised by a wizard, given the quick improvement. Rubio’s linguistic salvos went from lame to weapons-grade in a week. Now Rubio is trying to paint Trump as “having a bad week” and failing in the polls ever since Fiorina “embarrassed” him at the debate. Those are Trump words. Wizard words. Nicely done, whoever is advising Rubio.

So how should Trump respond, according to the Master Wizard Filter? I will show you one approach for the purposes of showing you how to create a linguistic kill shot.

Keep in mind that older people vote in greater numbers than the young. So the best kill shots speak to the sensibilities of people that have a lot of life experience. Ideally, you also want to touch an emotional hot-button that galvanizes your base. And you want to agree with what people already think (pacing) then exaggerate it in the wrong direction (leading) using the force of its own energy, like Judo.

With that in mind, here’s a Linguistic Kill Shot, in paragraph form, that would take out Rubio. Imagine Trump saying…

“Rubio might be a good president someday, with more experience. Otherwise you get the same problem you have with Obama. Look at that Iran deal. That’s what you get when you’re not experienced. I won’t make dumb mistakes like that. I’ve actually made deals.”

Here’s the link I just created in your mind by association, bypassing logic.

Rubio = inexperienced = Obama = Iran deal = Nuclear annihilation = you die

If you are worried that this linguistic kill shot will change the course of history, that is not likely. Every message depends on the credibility of its source. Now that this is public, and originating here, it takes that approach off the table. The only point is to show you how it is done, in case you someday want to change your own history.

Opinion Vs. Stupidity

I try to respect opposing opinions. That is important to me on a lot of levels. But sometimes people try to disguise stupidity as an opinion. That can be awkward. I respect opinions, but how can I show respect for stupidity without being a liar?

Let me give you a concrete example.

During an American election cycle you will see a lot of “opinions” that looks like this:

“The Constitution clearly gives us the right to do X. Therefore, that’s the way it should be.”

That sounds like an opinion, right? 

But it really isn’t. 

Here’s why.

The Founders wisely made it hard to change the Constitution, but they did give us the tools to do it. And we have changed it in the past, e.g. slavery.

So it is stupid to hold the opinion that we should do what the Constitution says, no matter what, when the authors of the document had no such intention. And common sense tells us that society ALWAYS changes over time. The Founders knew situations change (they were revolutionaries after all) and sometimes people get better ideas. Why would Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson want to prevent any new and better ideas from becoming part of the Constitution? They weren’t gods. They were smart people trying to invent a good system that could become greater over time.

The authors of the Constitution clearly, explicitly, and unambiguously planned for the document to change. That’s why the rules of change are designed into it. If historians have some other explanation for why the rules of change are included in the document, I am all ears.

We have a similar situation with laws passed by Congress. Look at the debate about illegal immigrants. You hear a lot of people arguing that the law-breakers must be deported because they broke a law, and we are a land of laws.

On a conceptual level, a nation must have laws in order to function. But again, the Constitution explains in great detail how to change laws. They change all the time. Change is the normal condition.

If you think illegal aliens need to leave because it is the law, that’s not an opinion. That’s stupidity, because we can change the laws any way we want. All that matters is what we want, and what makes sense, not what has already been written down somewhere. Let’s make wise decisions first, then force the laws to agree with us. 

Americans aren’t rule-followers. It isn’t in our DNA. We are revolutionaries. We are entrepreneurs. Often we are total assholes. But I sure hope we never become a nation of obedient rule-followers.

The only laws I plan to respect, now or ever, are the ones that make sense to me and are a net positive for humans. That feels American to me. You won’t see me obeying any laws because someone I have never met decided it would be a good idea. 

I literally feel offended when anyone suggests that my life should be guided by the wisdom and fairness of dead slave owners.

The nature of capitalism is that innovation often requires breaking some sort of law or social convention. A few years ago I blogged that a company like Uber was not possible because taxis had legal monopolies. Then Uber decided to ignore all of those laws, or change them. And in so doing they are on track to be the largest company in the world. I identify with Uber, not dead patriots that pooped in holes and raped slaves hundreds of years ago. I’m sure the Founders were awesome when viewed in the context of their day, but maybe we need to update our heroes every few centuries to avoid this kind of awkwardness.

How about the future of self-driving cars? They are against the law now. That isn’t stopping any company from building them in anticipation of changing the law.

As a citizen of the United States, if your only reason for supporting a law is the Constitution, or because Congress said so, you are officially stupid. But if you obey laws that make sense, and violate the ones that don’t, you are as American as the Founders of the country and our illegal immigrants.

Here’s a little thought experiment for you. I will describe two groups of people and you can decide which ones to deport:

1. Hard-working people who took huge risks to live in America so their children could have better lives.

2. People who believe all rules should be obeyed, even if the rules are senseless and inhumane.

I’d like to deport that second group, just to improve the average. And we can deport the illegals who commit additional crimes too. I’m with you on that, assuming those additional crimes are violating sensible laws.

In the interest of clarity, if you think illegal immigrants need to leave your country because they are sucking up your resources, that is an entirely legitimate (albeit selfish) opinion and I respect it. If you live in a capitalist society, you are allowed to be selfish. The system depends on that very thing.

I respect greed, if you are honest about it. But please don’t tell me you blindly follow all laws – even the bad ones – and still want to identify as an American. That just doesn’t fit.

The Persuasion Reading List

Background: Readers of this blog have been asking for a reading list to learn more about hypnosis, persuasion, and influence in general. This is the start of the list. I will update it over time.

If you wonder why people are asking a cartoonist about persuasion, it is because I am a trained hypnotist, and mention it often in the context of blogging. I have also studied the various tools of persuasion for years because it is directly applicable to my job as a writer.

The bad news is that you can’t learn hypnosis from a book. It would be like learning to play a sport by reading about it. There is no substitute for physical practice with real humans. If you want to learn formal hypnosis, where you put willing subjects into a so-called trance state, you need to sign up for a class. 

You can think of hypnosis as rapid A-B testing. The hypnotist suggests a thought and observes micro-movement in the subject’s muscle tension, breathing, and other body parts to determine whether the suggestion is having the intended effect. If you are not near the subject, to observe reactions, you can’t make the adjustments needed to get the best result.

The good news is that you don’t need to learn how to induce trances. That skill won’t help your life in any way. Formal hypnosis, with a trance, is for the benefit of the subject, not the hypnotist. My reading list is designed to help you be more influential, and therefore more successful, no matter how you define success.

When I talk about hypnosis I am speaking broadly and conflating all forms of influence in daily life. The only thing I am EXCLUDING is the trance phenomenon and the things that stage hypnotists do. Those things have no use to you. 

I have grouped the reading list by virtual chapters as if this is one meta book. I think the order is important, but for those of you who have sampled similar material elsewhere, use your judgment about what to skip.

Several books on this list are ones that I have not read. I include them for completeness. In most cases I picked up the same knowledge from other sources. For this purpose it was easier to point you to a single book that Amazon reviewers like. For example, the book on my list about reading body language is probably one of many that has similar information, but readers seemed to like this one.

Let us begin.

Chapter 1 - Things You Can Stop Believing

The first chapter is designed to make you skeptical about your ability to comprehend reality. If you are already a hardcore skeptic, you can skip this chapter.

An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural - by James Randi They Got It Wrong: History: All the Facts that Turned Out to be Myths Hardcover - by Emma Marriott [I have not read this book but anything in the genre of “wrong history” will work.]

Chapter 2 - Stretching your Imagination

These books are selected to open your mind for what follows. If you have experience with LSD or mushrooms, you might not need this chapter. (Yes, I am serious.)  

Jonathan Livingston Seagull - by Richard Bach
God’s Debris: A Thought Experiment - by Scott Adams
Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah - by Richard Bach

Chapter 3 - The Moist Robot Hypothesis

The Moist Robot Hypothesis first appears in my book that is listed below. The idea is that humans are biological machines, subject to cause and effect. According to this view, free will is an illusion and humans can be programmed once you understand our user interface.

With this chapter I ease you into the notion that humans are mindless robots by showing you how we are influenced by design, habit, emotion, food, and words. Until you accept the Moist Robot view of the world it will be hard to use your tools of persuasion effectively because you will doubt your own effectiveness and people will detect your doubt. Confidence is an important part of the process of influence. 

The Design of Everyday Things - by Don NormanWhat Every BODY is Saying - by Joe NavarroThe Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business - by Charles DuhiggInfluence - by Robert B. Cialdini PhDThinking, Fast and Slow - by Daniel KahnemanSalt Sugar Fat - by Michael PollanSteve Jobs - by Walter Isaacson [The whole book is good, but look for the part where I appear on Jobs’ radar screen. That’s the part where you understand that hypnotists can identify each other by their tells.]How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life - by Scott AdamsFree Will - by Sam Harris

Chapter 4 - Active Persuasion

This chapter gets into the details of how to influence people. My opinion is that you will be less effective with these tools if you do not have a full understanding of our moist robot nature introduced above. The only book on this list that I have read is the Gerry Spence book. And I have taken the Dale Carnegie course in person. But based on reviews, the other books on this list will give you some useful tips on persuasion that I have acquired from a variety of other sources over my life.

Trump: The Art of the Deal - Donald J. Trump Win Your Case: How to Present, Persuade, and Prevail–Every Place, Every Time  - by Gerry SpenceAwaken the Giant Within: How to Take Immediate Control of Your Mental, Emotional, Physical and Financial - by Tony Robbins How to Win Friends & Influence People - by Dale Carnegie (Better yet, take a Dale Carnegie class near you. It will change your life. Trust me.)How to Write a Good Advertisement - by Victor O. SchwabThe Secret to Selling Anything - by Harry BrowneThe One Sentence Persuasion Course - 27 Words to Make the World Do Your Bidding - by Blair Warren Reframing: Neuro-Linguistic Programming and the Transformation of Meaning - by Richard Bandler , John Grinder (This is included for completeness. Much of the NLP field has exaggerated claims, but there is some strong reality at the base of it.)How to Hypnotise Anyone - Confessions of a Rogue Hypnotist - by The Rogue Hypnotist (I have NOT read this book, but based on reviews it probably gives you a good taste of the topic. Do not expect to be a capable hypnotist after reading a book.)Hypnosis and Accelerated Learning - by Pierre Clement (This is the school of hypnosis I learned in hypnosis class. It comes from Ericksonian hypnosis. See next book on list.)Speak Ericksonian: Mastering the Hypnotic Methods of Milton Erickson - by Richard Nongard, James Hazlerig (Erickson was the father of modern hypnosis. Any book about his methods would be interesting.)

Connecting Some Dots Just for Fun…

Now let me connect some dots.

Milton Erickson influenced Pierre Clement, who taught my hypnosis instructor, who taught me.

And…

Milton Erickson influenced Bandler and Grinder, who developed NLP, which influenced Tony Robbins (a self-help hypnotist). Tony Robbins (probably) influenced Donald Trump, by association. They worked together on at least one project.

When I listen to Donald Trump, I detect all of his influences back to Erickson. If you make it through this reading list, you might hear it too. I don’t know if Donald Trump would make a good president, but he is the best persuader I have ever seen. On a scale from 1 to 10, if Steve Jobs was a 10, Trump is a 15. 

You know how the media has made fun of Trump’s 4th-grade-level speech patterns? 

The joke’s on them. 

He does it intentionally. 

Because it works.

Scott

Spot the Fake Review on Amazon

This new one fits all the tells for a fake review. (Allegedly!) 

See if you agree.

Those of you who were smart enough to read my book can confirm that this fellow didn’t get the central theme, which would be hard to miss. (He thinks systems and habits are sort of the same, I think, for example.)

If you look at the good reviews for the same book, people usually show an understanding of the content. The fake reviews look like someone guessing incorrectly based on skimming or looking at the summary description.

The fake reviews pop up whenever I hit a hot button on a political issue in my blog.

Clearly I am pointing out the fake reviews for self-serving reasons. But it also fits the persuasion theme I have been writing about. The fake reviews stand out to me because detecting lies is one of the skills you pick up almost accidentally while mastering hypnosis and persuasion and negotiating and the like. People lie according to certain patterns. Law enforcement folks have the same training. We look for the same tells. I blogged on fake review tells before.

Tim Ferriss and I Talk about Everything on his Podcast

My Twitter account is going nuts today because people are enjoying whatever I said to Tim Ferriss on his podcast. We covered a lot of ground. I don’t think I was filtering anything. You might like it. Very long though. Save for your commute.

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In Top Tech Blog, using 3D printers to help regrow damaged nerves. This is a huge deal, assuming it works.

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If you enjoy the Tim Ferriss podcast, you would probably like my book. 

The “Reason” for Trump’s Success

A month ago the media was saying Trump was ahead in polls because he is an outsider. All the evidence pointed that way. For example, more than half of Republicans say they support an outsider in Trump, Carson, and Fiorina. And Bernie Sanders seems sort of outsiderish too.

The big problem with that analysis is that if we try to imagine no Donald Trump in the race, it is also hard to imagine that one of the other outsiders would have taken out Jeb Bush so easily. (Low-energy indeed.) So I see Carson and Fiorina as along for the ride, basking in Trump’s “outsider” halo because no one is quite sure what ELSE could be behind Trump’s success in the polls. The media is telling us that we must like outsiders this year, so we start using that explanation ourselves. It becomes self-fulfilling in surveys because no one really has a better explanation of why they want Trump as president. 

But if we are being even a little bit aware of our own actions, no one hires the applicant with the least experience because of having less experience. That isn’t a thing. But the media tells us we are doing just that. As a member of the public, I acknowledge we are dumb sometimes. But we are not so dumb that we think hiring the inexperienced candidate sounds like a good idea unless there are extenuating circumstances. And those circumstances are Trump, specifically. 

Or maybe the media is right and we like Trump, Carson, and Fiorina because they are the least experienced. Does that even sound right?

Ask yourself how that explanation will sound when historians write about it. That would look something like this: “In 2015 voters decided that they wanted to trust the most important job in the world to someone with no relevant experience in government.”

I don’t even know how to write that idea without making it look foolish.

As the “outsider” explanation fades under the weight of its own absurdity, I am starting to see the pundit explanations for Trump’s rise morph into some notion of “authenticity” as explained in this article.

Authenticity goes further than simple honesty. Honesty means saying what you think is true. But authenticity means saying what you think is true and STAYING IN CHARACTER. Trump certainly does that. He is always full-Trump, and never anything else.

So… is that why people want him to lead the country? Is it because he is so authentic?

No. Trump’s authenticity helps his likability, I assume. But going back to the job applicant analogy, no one ever hired an employee because he seemed so darned authentic. That’s not a thing. The media is telling you it is a thing. While it is true that people LIKE Trump’s authentic-looking style, no one trusts the nuclear launch code to the guy that has authenticity and not much else. 

In August I predicted that Trump’s New York swagger would start to grow on people. Once you get past your first reaction (That arrogant braggart!) you settle in and enjoy the show. Trump is making the world get used to him, and it seems to be working. The stuff you hate about him is mostly a side show, and you come to realize it. The things you might like about Trump (business experience, negotiating skills) don’t change as time goes by. So according to the Master Wizard Hypothesis, simply hanging around should be good for Trump, as people get acclimated to his abrasive style, get past all the distraction, and remember he didn’t get where he is by luck (entirely), or by being an “outsider,” or by being authentic.

The Master Wizard Hypothesis I have been using to describe Trump says he is succeeding because his skills at persuasion are unmatched by anyone in the race. (He did write a best selling book on negotiating.) Under this hypothesis, his fourth-grade level of speaking is part of that persuasion. As a general rule, simpler speech is more persuasive. Trump stays simple. Intentionally.

My fiction book God’s Debris features a character who supposedly knows everything about reality and the universe. Since I do not know those things myself, and I had to write dialog for a character that does, I used a writer’s trick: I made the smart character use the simplest explanations because our brains imagine the simplest explanations to be the most credible. That is a standard method of persuasion.

That’s what Trump is doing. He uses simplicity as a tool of persuasion. The only other explanation is that he built a multi-billion-dollar diversified business empire while having the IQ of a ten-year old. Well, maybe.

The reason I am tracking the media’s evolution in how they explain Trump’s success is that this helps confirm the Master Wizard Hypothesis that Trump’s real secret is invisible from those who are not trained in the same style of persuasion as Trump. I remind you I am a trained hypnotist and a professional persuader of sorts. So to me, the hood is propped open and I see the engine running: Trump succeeds because he uses the most powerful tools of persuasion, intentionally. 

I like to make predictions so you can hold me to them. I will double-down on my prediction that Trump will win it all (by a large margin in the general election) and that the media’s explanation for how it all happened will morph from one absurdity to another, because most writers and pundits are not trained to see under the hood.

The explanation for Trump’s success has semi-evolved from “outsider” to “authentic” already. More explanations will follow, assuming Trump continues to poll well. Watch for any new explanations of Trump’s success to be as ridiculous as the ones you have already heard. That’s your tell.

Living Among Men

I can’t imagine being a woman living among men. It sounds horrible. For starters, there’s a stat that 20% of women in college will be sexually assaulted. Apparently it is dangerous for women to be around men … in general.

Contrast that with being a guy. When I encounter a dangerous situation, my first thought is to feel sorry for my future attacker. I’m smallish, so I calculate that once I get him down I’ll have to finish the job so he doesn’t get up again. I feel sorry for my would-be attacker even before I kill him in my imagination.

I didn’t say I manage risk well. I’m just saying I don’t feel as if I am in physical danger from other humans, at least in normal situations. That’s just one advantage of being a guy.

As a man, I have no memory of ever being afraid just because I was alone and in the wrong place. And I lived in a high-crime area in San Francisco for years. I figured my worst-case scenario was getting mugged and losing my decoy wallet and the $20 I kept in it. But I only got mugged on the street once. And my apartment only got ransacked and robbed once. My Plymouth Colt, parked on the street, was less lucky, losing its driver-side window and stereo three times. It was that sort of neighborhood. Still, I never felt I was in great danger. I can’t imagine how the women living in that neighborhood felt. That must have been scary.

I belong to a gym, and I noticed that men are able to look up, and look around, and generally enjoy the visual totality of the room they are in. But women have to look down, or at a fixed spot, to avoid eye contact with the men in the gym. I assume any show of friendliness results in unwanted conversations and a ruined workout. If I were a woman, I would never go to a gym if I could not make eye contact with the other people. What must that be like? I can’t even imagine.

If I were a woman, I would feel like a victim, or potential victim, 24-hours a day. I guess people can get used to anything, but I’m glad that isn’t on my list of things to worry about.

My question for the men: Do you ever feel in physical danger from other people?

My question for women: How often are you afraid of danger (from men) during a normal day?

Update: On a related topic, I favor legal gun ownership as a psychological defense against the health stress caused by the bullies, sexual offenders, and psychos living among us. I acknowledge the trade-offs and risks of legal gun ownership and regret every unnecessary gun casualty. But on the plus side, I never want to feel afraid of anyone whose address I can find. That country doesn’t work for me.

I wonder what the rate of bullying is in England compared to America. If we don’t know that difference, and why, then the math of gun control is not yet complete. Bullying ruins lives too. I’m not saying that should be the single biggest factor in gun control, but without that data, how can you form a complete opinion?

Scott Adams on Tim Ferriss’ Podcast

Tim Ferriss Interviews me for his popular podcast. We talk about lots of stuff. Tim is a friend, and brilliant, so this is more fun than most interviews.

I can’t listen to myself talk, so let me know if I embarrassed myself.

A Clarification

After Jimmy Fallon said in his monologue on The Tonight Show that I compared Trump to Jesus, I knew I needed to clarify a few things. So on Twitter I said…

That was only a joke. But just to be super-clear, I am not saying Trump healed any sick people either.

Although … to be fair, the taxes Trump has paid over his lifetime have probably funded more healing than Jesus could have handled one-on-one in his entire life. But it isn’t a competition. No one is keeping score.

Another difference is that Jesus shows forgiveness whereas Trump refuses to apologize in the first place. So I call that sort of a tie.

But on the intangibles, it’s all Jesus. He’s a clear winner.