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Carly Fiorina and the Wizard Filter

The media is reporting that Carly Fiorina won the debate last night. I agree with that assessment, assuming we are viewing a two-dimensional chess board.

But according to the Master Wizard Hypothesis, all that really matters to voters in the end is images, words, and emotion. Reason doesn’t enter into it. Let’s see how Fiorina did on the emotional dimension. And remember, this is just for fun, to test the wizard filter and see how well it makes predictions.

What images pop into your mind when you think of Fiorina’s debate performance? Ignore the substance and even the technique for a minute. Just relax and see what images pop into your head.

I’ll tell you what images I got.

1. “That face” - which in my opinion is attractive but makes me tense.

2. A dying fetus with a heartbeat. On a table. Doctors are talking about harvesting its organs.

So on the wizard scale, Fiorina self-immolated. Worst wizard move of all time. Literally. You would be hard-pressed to come up with a worse set of visuals to wear as a pant suit.

On the strategy dimension, one assumes that the best result for Trump would be… wait for it … you are already ahead of me, I hope…

… a Carly Fiorina debate victory. 

Because that success becomes a mere annoyance to Trump but a total anchor on Carson. A Fiorina rise (within reason) is Trump’s best case scenario. Trump is already running out the game clock for the nomination. He just needs the last two defenders to tackle each other. So far, so good.

That’s what the Wizard filter says. Time will tell.

Update: A lot of my blog traffic seems to be originating from one area lately. I wonder if it was something I said.

Wizard Attacks Wizard - The Trump Persuasion Series

If I told you that throughout American history some candidates for president “looked up” and another group “looked down,” would you be able to make a list of people in each group without a definition of those terms? 

Obviously President Kennedy looked up, literally to the moon, and all it represented. Reagan looked up to a shining city on a hill. Bush Senior looked up to a million points of light. 

Other candidates were arguably “looking up” in the sense that their messages were about something good ahead. Clinton wanted to build a “bridge to the future.” Obama was all about hope and change. And now Trump is about making America “great again.” All of that feels more up than down.

Now make a list of candidates that looked “down.” And by that I mean they were more about the details, and looking down to the actual work that needed to be done on the ground. Carter comes to mind, as does Bernie Sanders. If Gore had been elected president, I think he would have been looking down at the wiring, not up at the sky.

This up or down sense we share about the candidates is important because the up candidates generally win. And when a Carter or Nixon slips through the cracks, we wish we had picked more of an upper.

My point is that the “up” candidate has a huge advantage. And in the past our “outsider” candidates were more about complaining down than looking up.

John Anderson = down (budget talk)

Ross Perot = down (budget talk)

Jesse Jackson = down (race relations)

Trump is the first up-looking outsider I can think of.

That’s why an article about President Obama criticizing Trump’s slogan caught my eye. This was direct wizard-on-wizard fighting that one rarely sees, and I’m not sure everyone caught it.

Keep in mind that Obama has said he is staying out of the conversation during primary season, as sitting presidents do. But he still wants Trump to lose. You know that.

And today he signaled (according to the Master Wizard Filter) that Joe Biden is waiting on the sidelines and Obama plans to back him. But he did all of that in the context of talking about his administration’s success with the economy and healthcare, a halo that extends to Biden.

But what caught my eye was Obama picking up on Trump’s use of “again” in his “Make America Great, Again” slogan. Obama cleverly turned “again” into a a statement of "gloom and doom,” pointing out that America is great already. That was a strong wizard move, to use Trump’s own words against him to turn optimism into pessimism.

Notice that the wizards change who you ARE, as opposed to criticizing what you DO. Obama turned Trump from an optimist into a pessimist with a sentence or two. Brilliant.

But by debate time last night, Trump had already adjusted, and emphasized that he would make America greater. I think what we saw, according to the Master Wizard filter, was a tap on the shoulder from Obama to tell Trump the big wizard is only sitting on the sidelines as long as he needs to.

Update: This is a bigger deal than you think. All the Republican candidates, and much of the press, have been chipping away at Trump and trying to get him to backpedal, change, adjust, or apologize for anything. Trump never blinked. But with a few well-engineered sentences, uttered once, President Obama – one of the all-time great wizards of persuasion – made Trump reword his campaign slogan.

Yeah, that happened. Did you even notice?

People keep asking what kind of kill shot would take out Trump. My guess is that only Obama has the linguistic firepower to do it, and he is handcuffed at the moment because of primary season. Things will get interesting when Obama starts influencing from the sidelines. Then it’s a fair fight.

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I predicted that Trump would soften his immigration plan over time. At the second debate, he talked about letting the non-criminal resident illegals back into the country according to some vague process. That is the start of the softening. Soon the “good ones” won’t have to physically leave, but might have to register and prove their value to the country in some fashion. That will be the next level of softening. Trump just can’t call it amnesty.

And I heard every candidate agree with the wall idea, including one call to use drones as part of the solution.

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Funniest comment I saw from a civilian after the debates was that half of the male candidates on stage appeared to have low testosterone. That was my exact observation while watching. Without judging, my objective observation is that several candidates have an effeminate speaking style. I doubt that is a winning formula for a Republican.

Why Trump Insults People - Part of my Trump Persuasion Series

Today I will explain why Trump insults people. As usual, I will use the Master Wizard filter. That doesn’t mean this explanation is right. But compare it to the alternatives and see if the hypothesis fits the facts better. I remind you this is for fun, not insight.

If you don’t apply the Master Wizard hypothesis, you are probably confused why a grown man keeps insulting people in public. That seems like exactly the opposite of what Trump should be doing to appear presidential. What’s going on here? I mean, Trump seems reasonably smart, but according to 99.99% of the public, he is doing the same dumb thing over and over: insulting people.

Why?

Most of you probably assume he’s a big, dumb, racist, loose cannon, spouting off at his enemies, both real and imagined. Crazy!

Over at Reason.com, Nick Gillespie, writes that Trump’s insults are an example of “negging.” That’s what pick-up artists do. The idea is to tear down people’s egos and make them want to try hard to win your respect.

Frankly, I don’t understand the negging explanation. To me, it doesn’t make sense in the political context. But if I am being objective, I am also not the editor in chief of Reason.com, so the problem might be on my end.

Over at the Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin describes Trump’s actions in the context of bullying. But that doesn’t sound right to me because even his critics acknowledge that he is a counter-puncher. By my way of thinking, the person getting attacked first is not the bully.

The Master Wizard Hypothesis says Trump’s insults are not random, not negging, and not bullying. It is about math. I shall explain. But first, a story.

Back in my corporate days, I had a coworker who was famous for complaining loudly about the intelligence and competence of anyone who got in the way of her plans. She would talk about the low-performers to everyone who would listen, including that person’s boss, and the boss’s boss too.

On the other hand, if you did good work, she would often go to your boss and recommend that you get a raise or a promotion. And her opinion mattered because she was famous for hating dumb people. If she endorsed you as a capable employee, people took that seriously. She had credibility. (She also became the inspiration for my Alice character.)

Now let’s do the math.

If your baseline happiness is a 7 out of 10, and you get praised by someone important in your world, your happiness might go up to a 9, at least temporarily. That’s a two-point improvement.

But if someone insults your competence in front of your boss, that might take you down to a 5, which is a two-point decline. So the difference between a compliment and an insult (in front of your boss) is a full 4-point gap.

If Trump did not insult people, but sometimes praised them, he would be working with only a 2-point potential swing in how happy people can be when they please him. But if insults are a potential outcome – and Trump makes sure you know they are – you have a 4-point gap between pissing him off and pleasing him.

Trump is quick to point out that he only insults people who start it. (Although one assumes there are exceptions.) The result of Trump’s quick counter-attacks is to establish the 4-point gap between pleasing him and annoying him. No one wants a 4-point gap enemy.

Trump also has one weapon that no one else has: He is Trump. He has cultivated a persona for decades that allows him to be over-the-top without risk. So what works for Trump is not something you can use at home unless you have first established yourself as a tough-talking New Yorker. In that context, Trump’s insults sound almost normal.

If you are keeping score, this is one more situation in which the Master Wizard Hypothesis explains the data better than the alternatives. The Master Wizard hypothesis says Trump is a master of persuasion and sets up the 4-point gap intentionally. But are people really that calculated and that consistent with insults over a lifetime?

All I can tell you is that I am. Intentionally.

Ever wonder why I go hard at my haters online instead of ignoring them like a sane adult? Same reason. I want a 4-point gap to work with. The trade-off is that I look like a petulant child while responding to haters. I accept that trade-off in return for maintaining my 4-point gap.

Does it work? Actually, you are good judges on that question.

You have seen me eviscerate idiots in the comments on this blog. And you have seen me compliment people who make smart or funny observations. Do my compliments feel more powerful because you know the opposite could have happened?

To be clear, I distinguish between the insults that are usually counter-punches and the Linguistic Kill Shots that are engineered for strategic purposes. The latter have different purposes, according to the Master Wizard Hypothesis.

Scott

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Bonus thought: After reading some of Bernie Sanders’ policy ideas that sound good on paper but don’t pencil out for the budget, I think the best kill shot for him would be “confused.” To be fair, every politician will be recommending impractical policy ideas, including Trump. But see how the word “confused” seems to fit Sanders more than it does any of the other candidates? That’s what makes it sticky. And you have never seen that word used in a political context, so it has no baggage of its own.

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In Top Tech Blog, now you can “feel” a prosthetic limb. If that works, I might want to replace the ones I have and go full bionic.

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Have I mentioned my book? It is full of words and sentences and whatnot. If you read it, I will love you. If you do not read it, you are a terrible person. (See what I did there?)

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Update: This is my Google Analytics map showing people reading this blog an hour or so after posting today. Normally there would be traffic from all over the globe no matter the time of day. My blog traffic is up about five-fold since I started discussing the Master Wizard Hypothesis, but obviously this is not resonating overseas. I apologize to my non-U.S. readers for this Trump diversion and I hope you circle back when this silliness subsides. Not sure when he will stop entertaining us over here.

2-D Chess Players Take on a 3-D Chess Master (Part of my Trump Persuasion Series)

Republicans have narrowed down their strategy options for destroying Trump. They started by creating a list of all the possible strategies that anyone could imagine. Then they eliminated all of options that were certain to work. In the next phase they eliminated all of the options that might work. What was left is four options that absolutely will not work. And that’s what they are going with. The people who compiled this list of strategies are the folks who want to run the country.

If you have been reading my series on Trump and his linguistic kill shots, you will see no persuasion skill whatsoever in the Republican plans for “reframing” Trump. 

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On a related point, you probably saw some news yesterday about Mark Cuban saying he could beat any of the presidential candidates if he were to run for president. That’s how you test the public’s reaction to a Trump/Cuban ticket. Cuban can’t say he would make a great vice president. It is smarter to say he would make a great president. Let the voters decide that Cuban needs 4-8 years of seasoning before he is ready. That way the public can own the “decision” he is putting in their heads.

If the media and the polls react favorably to Cuban’s statements about running for president, it opens the door for him to be on Trump’s ticket later. So this is just a test balloon. And that is the normal way these things are done. The VP (or potential VP in this case) is the trial-balloon person. That is a basic game plan in politics. I’m not sure the public knows that.

And one assumes Cuban and Trump and talking, via Cuban’s confidential app, Dust.

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Bill Maher is cranking up the outragism on the left to try and derail Trump. Maher’s association with the Huffington Post eliminates any shred of credibility he once had, but he still gets a lot of attention. Apparently the racism argument against Trump is largely based on one poorly-formed sentence he uttered that one time. Some observers interpreted the sentence to mean Trump was saying Mexicans are (mostly?) rapists. People who are not in cognitive dissonance figured it was just his usual exaggerated style of speaking.

Personally, I would start worrying about Trump’s racism if his tens-of-millions of opponents can find somewhere in his vast history of public comments at least one more vague sentence that sort of somewhat bothers someone when seen out of context. It must be there. Keep looking, Bill! You got the Huffington Post on your side! Together you will rule the irrelevant issues!

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The Daily Beast Reports on My Trump Posts

The Daily Beast called me this morning to talk about my Trump Master Wizard Hypothesis. This article is the result.

Was it a good idea for me to mention Jesus? Give me some PR advice.

The Problem with Social Product Reviews

When you are an author, and you dare to write on topics outside your main field, folks who disagree with you swarm to Amazon.com to give your latest book a bad review that sounds real.

As a hypnotist, I look for three tells (that could be false-positives):

1. Review starts with “I am usually a big fan of this person but…”

2. Criticism is in the form of “War and Peace doesn’t have anything about Russia in it.” (Meaning the reader did not read the book but might have skimmed a page or two.)

3. A 2 or 3-star review, to make the ploy seem less obvious than a 1-star review.

I do not allege that these two newest reviews are fake. But these are the types you would look for right about now, with all three tells, as I start angering people with my Trump writing. But as I say, these could be false-positives. They just happen to fit the form perfectly.

I will ask those of you who read my book to confirm in the comments that these reviewers appear to have not read it. (The real readers understood the book to be about systems versus goals, not advice. The book clearly says it is not advice.)

Am I wrong?

The Trump Versus Sanders Match-up: Part of the Trump Persuasion Series

Smart people tell me that Bernie Sanders is the Democratic Party’s best hope for beating Donald Trump. Some say Sanders has sensible ideas based on models that have worked elsewhere. He reminds us of the angry yet lovable uncle we now realize has been right all along. We wish we had paid attention to Bernie instead of allowing ourselves to be distracted by Kardashians and Trumps. 

Supporters of Bernie Sanders say his insider experience matched with his outsider mentality, his ability to speak truth, his compassion for people, and his fighting spirit are exactly what this country needs. I have no reason to disagree with any of that. I can see the appeal. But I haven’t looked into any of Sanders’ actual ideas. And I wouldn’t be psychic enough to know how good those ideas are anyway.

But I don’t think it matters.

I have been blogging about Trump’s linguistic mastery, but he is also a wizard at visual imagery and branding. And he knows a thing or two about strategy. If history is our guide, Trump only achieved a full boner for the presidency when three conditions were met:

1. Trump got a strong start in the polls because of name recognition. (Check)

2. Trump’s brand value and International influence would increase even if he did not go all the way. (Check)

3. Trump had some sort of natural match-up advantage over each individual in the field. In other words, the chess board was set for a win. (Check)

By traditional political reckoning, one could argue that Bernie Sanders is an exceptionally strong “outsider” candidate in an election where the common wisdom says the public wants an outsider. You would expect a close race if Sanders and Trump squared off at the end.

But on the third dimension of chess that Trump plays, Sanders is extraordinarily disadvantaged compared to Trump. The third dimension is the irrational connections you make in your mind, often engineered by Master Wizards, but in this case one that occurred naturally and Trump recognized the opening.

I’ll show you what I mean. And you should stop reading here if you do not want to be permanently influenced. This is a real warning. You can’t unsee what follows.

—- influence starts here —-

When you think of Sanders, or Trump, you have one image in your mind for each that is some average of the photos and videos you have seen. But you also reflexively associate each candidate with a variety of other images based on associations you have picked up over time.

For example, when you think of Trump, you also automatically associate him with a variety of images he has carefully cultivated in your mind for decades. Here are a few images you reflexively associate him with.

Trump Image Association one (his name is right on it)

Trump Image Association two (check out his suit colors)

Trump Image Association three (and the obvious)

Yes, Trump literally dresses in American Flag colors, and has for decades. Love him or hate him, his entire visual vibe is oriented toward power, success, and country.

Then we have Bernie Sanders. This is where we have the match-up problem. When you think of Bernie Sanders, what visual associations automatically jump into your head? Don’t click the next link until you have that secondary image in your head. Remember, this is not what Sanders looks like, rather just the reflex association that springs to mind, the way money springs to mind with Trump.

When I think of Bernie Sanders, here’s the image I see.

I’m not kidding. And I apologize for even mentioning it, but it is central to explaining this prediction:

Prediction: If Sanders is the Democratic nominee, Trump will win with 65% of the popular vote. And pundits will wonder why the voters ignored sensible leadership in favor of the spectacle that is Trump.

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For more on the Moist Robot view of the world, you can read my book about success.

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In Top Tech Blog, check out the latest in tech advances. It’s a good way to know what is coming.

This Graph Does Not Apply to the Reader

This graph only applies to other people. I barely know you, and yet I know you are a special snowflake. Not like these people.

If your firewall is dumb, see the image at @ScottAdamsSays on Twitter.

Update: Okay, some explanations.

The graph is a comic, obviously, so it doesn’t apply to any individual. My best guess is that it describes 75% of adults. The other 25% are having amazing sex with other humans, as often as they want, or so they tell us. And all that great sex never leads to stress, bad relations, unwanted children, disease, heartbreak, divorce, and anything bad. Good for them. 

For most people, the sexual value of other humans (male and female) dropped as soon as smartphones were invented. For the sake of clarity, a woman’s sexual value has not declined one bit. And a woman’s economic and social value are at an all-time high. But if you add a smartphone to a woman, and create a cyborg that has a mind that is half-focused on its current situation and half-focused on the world outside, via phone, you have a cyborg – part human, part machine. Cyborgs are no more sexually attractive than your toaster.

I’m sure none of the smartphone behavior that can be so off-putting is a sexual obstacvle for men under 30. For that group of men, their bodies are always in reflex mode, and anything that siphons off the sexual energy is welcome. But if we are being honest, 90% of those young men are thinking of their favorite porn during sex with cyborgs. 

Looking at it another way, in 2015 porn is about humans having sex with other humans. No smartphones appear in porn. But in real life, your only option is sex with a cyborg (an organic entity psychologically connected to a smartphone). So these days, enjoying porn is the more “human” experience, in a nostalgic pre-smartphone way. As soon as you walk outside, all you see is cyborgs.

On a related topic, some of you interpreted the chart to say masturbation is now better than sex, at least for some people. That is not my view, and I could have done a better job clarifying on the chart.

What the chart should have said more clearly is that the combination of porn plus hypnosis is nothing like masturbation and nothing like sex with a human. It is its own category with its own chemical signature. It is not simply improved masturbation any more than an airplane is an improved horse. It is far better than masturbation and far better than sex with a cyborg. Someday soon it will be better than sex with a human who has no phone. That is already the case for many folks, I would think.

My view is that regular porn will never improve to the point where is better than sex with women. But hypnosis plus some elements that come from the porn industry will be a godsend for folks who do not have access to the high quality of sex with other humans that my readers seem to be enjoying. So what might look like bad news to all of you sexy folks is probably terrific news for folks who are not sexually attractive or do not have access to good sex. 

Update 2: In a prior post I said I was tracking a Master Wizard (hypnotist) in Southern California. Now I believe I was seeing copycats and not a series of tells from a Master Wizard because the technique from that region is one layer away from the industry best. Now I believe the real Queen Bee is somewhere near Vancouver and has already created a small army. I’m guessing Canada has some legal advantages for this sort of thing. 

Odds of a Kanye West Presidency: 90%

This morning I was catching up on some drawing while watching a rebroadcast of the VMAs (Video Music Awards). I was vaguely aware that Kanye West had given some sort of overlong, rambling speech and this was a chance to score it for you on the Master Wizard linguistic scale.

I have very bad news for all of you Kanye haters. 

He’s the real deal. 

If you are following my Trump Persuasion Series in this blog, you know I like to make predictions through what I call the Master Wizard Filter. This hypothesis says that at any point in time there are a small number of linguistic geniuses that shape human history, and they are generally hiding in plain sight. 

The linguistic wizards – should such hypothetical creatures exist – use the science of persuasion to shape opinions of those around them and sometimes the public at large. (In the old days it was less about science, obviously, and probably more about trying different things, observing what worked, and maybe sharing methods.)

My opinion as a trained hypnotist is that if such linguistic wizards exist, Kanye West is already near the top of that list. I watched his “overlong, rambling” speech for persuasion technique and find it to be a masterpiece. Literally. It might be his finest work, and I’m saying that as a fan of his music. The “If I had a daughter” part was pure open-ended linguistic genius. And it set the chess board for his run to the White House. You probably doubt he has real intentions to run for president in 2020.

It is his intention. 

No doubt about it. 

There was too much engineering in that speech to suggest any other motive.

Did you hate Kanye for his awkward and inappropriate act of idiocy with Taylor Swift a few years ago? You probably did have a strong negative reaction. Did you hate him for being an egomaniac at the VMAs this year? If you watched it, you probably did.

You probably think Kanye has a disgustingly big ego, a blinding ambition, and often he is TOO honest. Just shut up already, Kanye!

I just described Donald Trump’s personality and lifetime game plan. Kanye West is on the same glide path. It looks like this:

Success…success…success…marry a publicity magnet…big ego…publicity stunts and loud mouth attract attention…a genius-level linguistic skill disguised in simple language of the people…and starting young for the presidency.

Will Kanye win the presidency in 2020? Doubtful, but he will get more famous. 

Will Kanye win the presidency in 2024? Doubtful, but he will get more famous. 

Will Kanye win the presidency in 2028? Doubtful, but he will get more famous. 

How about 2032? 

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you President West.

I could be wrong. Remember, this blog is for entertainment. Any enlightenment is accidental. I promised I would give you some predictions based on the Master Wizard Hypothesis, and this is one of them. (I will try to keep most predictions to shorter terms.)

And yes, I’m serious. Kanye West has the skills. You are already underestimating him. That’s why it will work. He will exceed expectations while competing against people who can only meet or disappoint. And he will make you believe he is the only honest, caring person in the race.

His chess board doesn’t look bad at all. And if he wins, the media will report that 2032 was one of those years the public just needed an “outsider.”

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In Top Tech Blog, see the future of tomorrow today, unless you read it a day late, in which case some of the news will be yesterday’s vision of a future tomorrow that you are reading that day. Or you could just wait for the future and be surprised by the whole thing. That works too.

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Find the common thread on this best seller list. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

Mine is available here.

Who is Smarter - the Smart People or the Dumb People? - Part of My Trump Persuasion Series

Today I will create cognitive dissonance in about 25% of my readers, assuming past patterns hold. Please do not read further if you don’t like those odds. 

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While the title of today’s post sounds like nonsense, that question is one of the biggest debates in the country now because of Donald Trump. The wording is different everywhere, but the idea is the same: Smart people believe smart people are smart. Dumb people believe dumb people are the real smart ones. 

They can’t both be right. I’ll help you sort it out.

On one side we have the self-described smart people. These folks will tell you that a rational person can learn about political issues, with a little effort, and thus make a meaningful contribution to the democratic process. All one must do is be open to all points of view and do some independent research to fact-check the professional media. You don’t need to be an expert because most issues boil down to a few key factors, and you can understand those few things.

That sounds smart to you, right?

The dumb people – who have been labelled such by the smart people – are the ones who vote for whoever says what the dumb people want to hear, or whoever makes them feel good. This group is more about emotion than reason.

Dumb, dumb, dumb. I am ashamed to be in the same country with people who refuse to use their brains. DUUUUMB!

You agree, right?

Good, because that’s the set-up for the cognitive dissonance. You just hardened your sense of identity as a smart, rational person who believes an informed citizen can make a meaningful contribution to the system.

Now let’s talk about investing. Same conversation, but changing from politics to finance. Which of these two people seems smarter to you?

1. A stock investor who does his own research so he can find great values, 

or…

2. An investor who buys a stock index fund and settles for an average return.

I am sad to say some of you will pick the first one. But it is a myth that individuals can sort through the lies and misinformation that companies produce as source data and convert all of that into good decisions. Every study on the topic tells us that individual investors are deluded idiots. And people who invest in managed mutual funds are only slightly better. (Okay, maybe worse.)

In the investment world, the person who understands that the available information is not credible is the smart one. That person plays the odds correctly and invests in an indexed mutual fund with low fees. Every study says that is the smart play.

Most of my readers already know that what I just said about investing is true. And unlike most topics, this one really does not have well-informed critics. All informed people hold the same view: Individuals should not do their own research and buy stocks based on that research.

But you still think smart people can research political policy options and come to reasonable and useful conclusions… even though you observe that half of the population disagrees with the other half no matter how much research anyone does.

Cognitive dissonance should be hitting some of you hard right now. If you feel unusually angry and determined to reply, that’s a tell. Or a false-positive. One can never be 100% sure.

The popular media is staffed mostly by writers and art majors and other people who tend to believe in magic. It is no surprise that they don’t see how absurd it is to expect citizens to have useful opinions based on the misinformation that that same media provides around the clock.

Seasoned investors, on the other hand, have learned to be more humble. They know there is no amount of research that can convert unreliable data into reliable decisions. My guess is that this group of professionals support Donald Trump in large numbers because they are smart enough to know the limits of their own reason when applied to inaccurate baseline assumptions and sketchy data.

My point is that if you find yourself mocking Trump supporters (or Republicans in general) because they have some distance from the issues, you are probably the dumb one in that conversation no matter how your education and IQ compares with your intended targets.

And if you believe you can make intelligent decisions on politics based on inaccurate information and lies, why aren’t you already rich from doing the same thing with stocks?

I’m a big fan of voting (when other people do it, not me) because it gives people a sense of ownership in the process. So please vote. But don’t confuse that with being psychic. 

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Top Tech Blog: Graphene seems like it will change everything. How do I invest in that stuff? (Answer: Index fund)

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My book on systems versus goals will probably get more attention when people realize Trump is a systems thinker. He follows the odds without always having one specific goal in mind. Recently Trump made his brand so powerful that a lot of folks thought he should be their leader, just because, well, Trump. Under the “goal” view of the world, Trump failed three times to become president, so you assume he will fail again. But the “systems” view says Trump failed toward better odds each time, largely on purpose. And here we are.