Scott Adams: In his own words
If you are following breaking news, Hillary Clinton abruptly left the 9-11 memorial today because she was reportedly “overheated.” Her campaign says she is fine now. You probably wonder if the “overheated” explanation is true – and a non-issue as reported – or an indication of a larger medical condition….
Read MoreIn a blog post I wrote on December 27th, 2015, I said this… Bonus Thought 1: One of the skills a hypnotist has to master is reading people’s inner thoughts based on their body language. That’s a common skill for people in the business world too, but hypnotists go deeper than looking at crossed…
Read MoreOne of the the most important things I learned while getting my degree in economics is that economies are driven by psychology. If people expect tomorrow to be better than today, they make investments. If they think things are in decline, they wait it out, and that lack of investment…
Read MoreIt’s hard to count people who are intentionally hiding. But just for fun, let’s see if we can deduce how many so-called Shy Trump Supporters are out there. For starters, we can say with certainty that they exist. I have a better ear for that than most of you because of my…
Read MoreRead this short article then read this new book by Robert Cialdini (the Godzilla of persuasion). Seriously. Change your plans. Read this book. Thank me later.
Read MoreMany Americans – mostly supporters of Trump – want to deport the 11 million illegal immigrants living in the United States. They usually cite one or more of the following reasons. Illegal immigrants… 1. Broke the law. 2. Are using up our resources. 3. Are taking jobs. 4. Are lowering our…
Read MoreAs regular readers of this blog know, both Trump and Clinton have chosen fear as their persuasion tool. Trump wants you to fear terrorists and criminals because he thinks he can make a persuasive case that he’s the solution to those fears. Clinton asks us to fear Trump himself, offering…
Read MoreHere in the USA, we’ve narrowed our search for a new leader to two lying, 70-year old racists. (You should see how bad the other 320 million of us are.) I’m exaggerating, obviously. There are big differences in the candidates. For example, Clinton has allegedly killed lots of people in…
Read MoreCorrect me if I’m wrong, but six months ago Donald Trump was nothing but a talking suit full of money and insults. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, was an experienced politician full of policy substance. Then they switched places. The media tells us that today we will hear Clinton…
Read MoreHeads are exploding at CNN as pundits try to define Trump’s repeated offers to help African-Americans as typical Hitler behavior. As my regular readers know, what we have here is a perfect trap for cognitive dissonance. The anti-Trumpers have created an identify for themselves – and in the media – as…
Read MoreTo many people – if not most – Donald Trump looks like the type of candidate who would become a “strongman” president, ignoring the advice of experts and the opinion of the people. That’s the persuasion framework that Clinton has created in your mind, probably with the help of the…
Read MoreBy now, most of you know that Trump expressed “regret” at saying things in the past that might have hurt people. Most viewers interpreted this as an apology, of sorts. Trump? Apologize? I have some thoughts on this, in no particular order. 3rd Act This is the so-called 3rd act that I have…
Read MoreAs the media has reported, the media caused Trump to have a few terrible weeks following the Democratic National Convention. To be fair, Trump made it easy. They turned his casual comment about Islam’s gender issues (based on Mrs. Khan’s silence) into an imaginary insult to a fallen soldier. And…
Read MoreLet’s talk about Trump’s foreign policy speech from a persuasion standpoint. Trump read from the teleprompter and acted more “presidential,” whatever that means. And he softened his position on Muslim immigration to “extreme vetting.” That was a good strategy for rebranding himself as less scary, but I doubt many people will watch that…
Read MoreIn my book – that you might enjoy because it is full of words – I talk about developing your own personal bullsh*t detector. I won’t rewrite that chapter here, but I’ll tell you how my own B.S. detector sees the accuracy of the presidential polls. One of the things I look…
Read More