Scott Adams: In his own words
In olden days, if a neighboring kingdom was prosperous and capable, it was a risk to your security. A rich neighbor can assemble powerful armies to capture your resources and enslave your people. In those primitive times, any powerful empire was a real enemy, and you had to treat them…
Read MoreI have some spare time this morning so I thought I would solve the North Korean nuclear threat problem. The current frame on how all sides are approaching the problem is a win-lose setup. Either North Korea wins – and develops nukes that can reach the mainland USA – or…
Read MoreHere’s a link to my Periscope video explaining how President Trump’s mean tweets about Morning Joe will destroy everything you love. Wake up, people! It’s common sense! Tweets kill! On a totally unrelated topic, I have confirmed that 30% of the public can’t identify a joke without the help of a service…
Read MoreAccording to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Syrian citizens were exposed to sarin, a chemical weapon, in April of 2017 in the Khan Shaykhun area of Syria. The OPCW didn’t visit the site of the attack, but they did interview people and examine materials that came from…
Read MoreOur system of government has been amazingly robust for hundreds of years, but it fails when you have these two conditions: 1. An issue is too complicated for the public to understand. 2. Big companies are willing to distort the system for profits. That situation describes the healthcare debate going…
Read MoreWho doesn’t like free electricity?
Read MoreIf your firewall is blocking the image, see it on Twitter here In Top Tech Blog:– Remotely control a real car with a phone app? Sounds like a plot point for a future Bond movie…Create an engine from evaporation? I am dubious but optimistic…And what would be scarier than a Russian…
Read MoreI see a consensus forming that Russia attempted to influence our election with fake news and other social media shenanigans. But why? If you start with the assumption that Russia is an enemy of the United States, you probably assume they do bad things to us simply to weaken our…
Read MoreEx-FBI Director Comey released a statement [archive] ahead of his appearance before Congress, and it has heads spinning. I’ll tell you how things look through what I call the Persuasion Filter. There are several related stories swirling around the news that involve Russia, Trump, Trump’s campaign staff, and Comey. All together, the…
Read MoreAxios is reporting [archive] that President Trump suggested putting solar panels on the new Wall with Mexico. The article wonders where the idea came from: Where this idea might come from: A proposal to cover the wall with solar panels was among those submitted when the U.S. requested designs earlier this year, according to…
Read MoreI have a hypothesis that nearly all solvable problems in the modern world are information problems in disguise. For example, unemployment is largely (but not entirely) a problem of people not knowing where to find jobs, as opposed to no jobs existing. I could give you lots of other examples…
Read MoreThere is more terrorism in the news, this time in London. So how do the British politicians respond? They do a recruitment ad for more terrorists. They start by giving the terrorists cool labels, such as “Islamic extremists.” Do you know what sounds like an awesome club for an angry young…
Read MoreWhat the heck is “climate denial”? Is that even a thing? I mentioned on Periscope the other day that I created a Sunday comic as a cognitive dissonance trap. I wanted to see if I could make an argument about the reliability of ECONOMIC models and dupe irrational people into…
Read MoreDid you notice the stock market rising sharply after President Trump announced he would pull out of the Paris Climate Accord and – according to CNN – destroy the entire planet? Markets are irrational, but still, it’s hard to reconcile a decision to destroy civilization with a rise in investor…
Read MoreComedian Kathy Griffin got into some hot water for a staged photo of herself holding a realistic-looking severed head that looks like President Trump. I won’t reproduce the photo here. It is disturbing. People asked me what it all means in terms of persuasion, if anything. I’ll tell you. Disclosure:…
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