(cache) Scott Adams' Blog

How to Know You Won a Political Debate on the Internet

Posted May 15th, 2017 @ 10:18am in #Internet debating

Do you remember the time you changed a stranger’s political opinion on the Internet by using your logic and your accurate data?

Probably not. Because that rarely happens. If you were paying attention during the past year, you learned facts don’t matter to our decisions. We think they do, but they don’t. At least not for topics in which we are emotionally invested, such as politics. (Obviously facts do matter to the outcomes. But not to decisions.)

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Whencast of the Comey Timeline

Posted May 10th, 2017 @ 1:45pm

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The Comey Firing

Posted May 10th, 2017 @ 9:41am in #Comey #Trump

What do Bernie Sanders’ hair and CNN have in common today? They are both saying, “Comey” every time you look at them.

The news coverage of Comey’s firing has become excellent entertainment. This is the biggest cognitive dissonance cluster bomb we’ve seen since election night. This one has everything.

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Where’s My Immigration Prediction Model?

Posted May 8th, 2017 @ 12:11pm in #immigration #muslim

If scientists can make climate prediction models that are reliable (or so they tell us), why can’t they do the same with Muslim immigration predictions?

Predicting the average temperature on Earth ten years from now is hard. There are too many variables. But predicting the outcome of immigration policies probably involves far fewer variables. All we need to do is look at other countries that experienced lots of Muslim immigration and subtract out the countries that reversed the trend with military force, because I assume we wouldn’t see any of that in the United States, especially if the immigrants are legal.

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The Healthcare Confusopoly

Posted May 4th, 2017 @ 12:39pm in #Trump #Obamacare #healthcare

Years ago I coined the term Confusopoly to describe any industry that benefits by keeping consumers confused. For example, mobile phone carriers know their offerings are too confusing for consumers to compare one company to another on cost. That is clearly intentional. If consumers could compare offerings it would drive profit margins to zero fairly quickly. By keeping their service and pricing confusing, they keep margins high.

Insurance companies are also confusopolies. So are law firms. And the entire financial services industry is little more than a confusopoly. All of those services can be simpler, but to simplify would invite real competition. No seller wants that.

Now look at the healthcare bill in the news today. Do citizens understand all the implications? No, clearly.

Do members of Congress understand all of the implications of the new bill? Not a chance in hell.

Who is behind this confusion?

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The Resistance changes its attack from “Russian Puppet” to “Trump is Crazy” - Which Works Best?

Posted May 4th, 2017 @ 12:17pm in #Trump

I’m watching this week as the so-called “Resistance” movement changes their attack on Trump from “Russian Puppet” to “Trump is crazy.” This has the look of a coordinated change. Watch how often you will see “Trump is crazy” articles and commentary in the coming weeks as the Opposition Media tests this new line of attack.

Trump eviscerated the “Russian Puppet” line of attack by lobbing 59 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian air base under the nose of Vladimir Putin. That made Trump look very un-puppetish. And it dismantled the Resistance’s primary line of attack. They needed a new approach.

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Pre-Bribing a President

Posted May 3rd, 2017 @ 10:20am in #Trump

It is illegal to bribe a president. But it is totally legal to pre-bribe one.

Here’s how a pre-bribe works.

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Using Persuasion to Create Assets Out of Nothing

Posted May 2nd, 2017 @ 9:18am in #Trump #negotiating

Yesterday President Trump unexpectedly said he would be “honored” to meet North Korea’s Kim Jung-un.

And that’s how a Master Persuader creates an asset out of nothing.

I’ll explain.

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The North Korean Weapons Test Pattern

Posted May 1st, 2017 @ 12:26pm in #North Korea #Missiles #Trump

We’re seeing speculation in the press that the United States might be behind North Korea’s recent failed missile tests. By way of context, North Korea has had some bad patches before, but they experienced a new streak of “bad luck” at about the same time President Trump got into office.

Probably a coincidence.

Find the pattern on this Whencast from WhenHub (my startup). You can share this on social media.

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Solving The News Bubble Problem

Posted April 30th, 2017 @ 10:51am in #fake news

The technology for delivering news to consumers is too good now. Facebook, for example, can serve up only the types of content they already know will interest you. The problem with that model is that each political group ends up in an information bubble where they only see the stuff with which they already agree. That doesn’t make for a healthy republic.

So how do you solve that?

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