The Systems President

Was President Trump’s first attempt at getting a healthcare bill a failure? Your answer to that question probably depends on whether you are a goals-thinker or a systems-thinker. If you see the world in terms of goals, you would say the healthcare bill did not get enough votes on the first try, and therefore…

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A Direct-Democracy Healthcare Bill

I don’t know much about Congress, and all its arcane rules, but I think the process for creating a healthcare bill goes something like this: With our current system (a Republic), that’s as good as we can do in 2017. The politicians need money to stay in office, and this…

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Trump and Healthcare

Today we are witnessing one of the most important events in political history. But you probably can’t see it because the news is talking about healthcare, and how Ryan and Trump totally failed to get enough votes. The real story is happening in parallel with the healthcare story, and that’s…

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How to Change My Biases on Climate Science

I worry that climate scientists think the skeptics are just dumb. I’m sure there are plenty of dumb people on every topic, but I’m here to suggest that the bigger problem might be a form of pattern recognition. I’ll take you through that thought. I’ll start by displaying my own…

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Some Fake News About Me from Bloomberg

Last autumn, before the election, a writer for Bloomberg asked to spend a day with me to interview me for a feature piece about my blogging on Trump, and my life in general. I could tell from the initial conversation that it was going to be a hostile article. The…

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My Take on Wiretapping, Trump, and Comey

FBI Director Comey says there is no evidence of President Trump’s claim that Obama wiretapped Trump Tower during the campaign.  So why did President Trump say it happened? I give you my opinion in this video. (My face is black & white intentionally. Sort of.) — You might enjoy reading…

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I Declare Mobile Phone Carriers to Be Enemies of the State

Here’s the basic problem. Kids as young as eleven have smartphones. That situation won’t change.  A kid with a smartphone has access to any illegal drug in the world, as well as all the peer pressure in the world. Pills are small, cheap, odorless, widely available, and nearly impossible for…

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How Leonardo DiCaprio Can Persuade Me on Climate Change

Note: If you came here from Twitter, I use “kittens” as my code for climate science to thwart Twitter’s shadowban on my tweets. — You probably know that actor Leonardo DiCaprio is a climate activist, and he is trying to persuade the world that climate change is both real and serious. Someone…

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Best of Robots Read News

I’m testing a WhenHub visualization that is optimized for comics. Here are some of my Robots Read News comics that I thought worked best. For optimal viewing, click the icon in the lower right of the Whencast to view as a full page. [Whencast is no longer online, so there’s nothing to…

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Could Cognitive Scientists Eliminate ISIS?

In a word, yes, assuming they had lots of help from the CIA to deliver their persuasion. I would not have said this was possible five years ago. But in 2017, cognitive scientists know how to reprogram a human brain fairly effectively. They have weaponized what hypnotists have been doing…

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How to Leak Like a Master Persuader

After the hilarious Rachel Maddow face-plant on live television, with her scoop on President Trump’s 2005 taxes – all two pages of it – the big question in the news today is about who leaked it. The worst punditry you will see on this question is coming from the people who say…

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A Quick Look at President Trump and the Big Picture

Let’s take a look at the things that are going well for President Trump, and the things that are not, and see if there is a pattern. Here I will include topics that are not necessarily the president’s accomplishments or faults. I’ll simply describe the current state of things. Things…

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