Well jump right in. A speech before we start asking questions. Just in time for thanksgiving, a book to help you deal with people with whom you disagree. [laughter] all right so apple, intro, questions. They dont have to be related to just the book. Here we go. My name is melissa kane, welcome to the hosting of scott adams. In his new book, scott dives into the epidemic of mental shortcuts that he believes is prone to believing and bad ideas. Its responsible for peoples stereotyping Trump Supporters as racist, believing crime control is equal to full confiscation in front important, avoiding self reflection when personal relationships and. We are excited to have him here with us to discuss his new book. He toldev me nothing is off lims so they got. Please welcome scott adams. [applause] so what do you think . Thats a word iin invented because i noticed when i was on twitter mostly, various neutrals and real people, every once in a while you make good, to that i think well, i dont quite agree with that but it isgr well put. Lawyer or economist, scientist. Then its back shake crazy. There will be musician, journalist and things i thought, its a coincidence or is there something about your experience in different fields that teaches you how to think . I get a degree in economics and think bitterly teach you how to think. Its not so much running specifics of economics but they teach you how tohe compare thins and costs and value of running. They teach you how to think productively about your world. Scientists have their own way of looking at things, historians, psychologists and for some weird reason, ive had experience in all the most field. Im a trained hypnotist. I worked in Corporate America for 16 years. By chance, ive experienced a lot of delays. You pick up how to think in those delays. Fill in your gaps if you have any. L if youre making a case for them, is it just as a non humanities . Its not even learning the depths of those fields. I can teach you how and economist thinks. Ill give you an example. If youve never heard of a t concept of soap costs, maybe less than a half. [laughter] so some prefer strict as the idea if youve already spent your money on something, you shouldnt look to that to make your next decision. You should take that money is gone. I cant get it back. Theres nothing i can do in then future that will change the fact that on. So if you make your decision based on the moneyey youve already spent, which people do, they say a party put x dollars into this, i dont want to waste it so i better double down and keep investing. That feels like common sense but the first thing you hear that you cant change the past you say oh yeah, its gone. Ill just make my decision as if our starting today and ive never even heard about other stuff. You dont need to be an economist, you just have to hear these things once to inspire your thinking. You write that you want to stay away from throwing people names. Calling people stupid will not make them smart. [laughter] he said lose or think because you want to address the behavior and not demonized the person. One of the things i learned mockery is incredibly powerful. People would say to me, i cant tell you how many people have said this. It would write to me and say we were going to do this certain policy at work but we saw comic of yours mocking it so we decided not to. [laughter] nobody wants to do something thats been premocked. I mock you in advance, you dont even have to wait. So even you like musk was writing to his employees telling them how they want to behave, one of his tips was to not do anything policy wise that would make it into, to comic. The power of that is that he didnt have to explain what that meant because everybody was familiar with that word and the comic. Its like thats the situation there. I use the same technique by coming up the word lose or think where people can say lose or think. Explains it better than i can so i give permission in the book to tweet out a page two people who have a gap in their thinking. Having a word like loser think makes it easier to mark people. Nobody wants to hear hey, thats loser think. I saw lots of people who read the book, accusing other people of loser think. I thought its already working. [laughter] i said it. Its used in its most productive way, to mock people into more productive thinking. Or do you think people will buy it for do you think is just haughty sales and buy it for them . [laughter] when you name a book loser think, you can guarantee somebodys going to give it to their relatives. It feels like gift but you are not really sure. [laughter] hey uncle bob, i got you this book. Loser think. You learn about other people. [laughter] one of the chapters you talkedne about mind reading. Pun intended, he read my mind with it because its one of the most correct people who are trying to assert that they know within their soul, their mind in somebody elses heart. I tried to name them. Applying it in this way gives it a little extra power. If you look at the news, you will see the jabbering one side of the other. Quite often there jabbering is about an assumption about when a stranger is thinking. What were their real motives . Was the real reason you are doing this . Sometimes youre right, sometimes its obvious and political stuff but there are so many times you couldnt possibly know what the stranger is thinking. As evidence that youre not good at mind reading, i give you every relationship youve ever been in. Theres probably somebody sitting next to you who in the last 24 hours has assumed you are mad when you t want, hungry when you want, happy when you werent. So mind reading is something i call out. It allows people to say oh yeah, thats a bad thing. Weirdly enough, it was so pervasive, i dont know if ive ever heard a Single Person to call it out. You imagine you could read somebodys mind but the moment it calls out, it becomes part of the conversation. Wait until you see what happens in the coming weeks. You will see mind reading all over the place and say, i guess i saw it before but it crystallized because somebody talked about it and now its a thing. There are a lot of Great Concepts in the book but theres something here in the book, you talk about the difference between incidences and anything you should takee seriously. Hes talking about all of these things happening, it appears to be magical. Be a few days ago, i arranged my collection of flashlights. I was like you have a collection of flashlights . This book should be called i have a collection of flashlights. How many do you have . Is there a community . I need to know. I really like flashlights. I confess that. I built a shrine to my flashlights. On thely i put them up board and make sure they have fresh batteries and everything. Ive never done that before. I had my collection author and they are all fresh batteries and i was so happy with it. The First Time Ever in my house, somebody ran into a powerful and plunged my neighborhood into darkness. The same time that i had a shrine of flashlights. I said to myself, no problem. I went to my flashlights and i was good. [laughter] how many do you have . I recycle so i have a good solid 25, the court collection. Are they hard to find once is there a community where there theres thats a good idea. I just like the way they look. I just like flashlights. Terrific. C. You are not a fan of the press. I was reading going, wow. I think its fair. But i think its unfair. Attacking the structure of the press is something a lot of journalists wouldnt even disagree with you about. Talk about that and how that is in the way people think. Like to put in the context of a small technological change that nobody noticed happened which is the ability to measure precision while people are clicking on it. Once that was theyb case, once everybody could measure, these people click on this and that. It would become obvious as it did, the things they want to click on, the things that would make your hair catch on fire. I want to hear about impeachment and a plot. So we are all elevated in our opinions because the use model is enforcing us to more provocative stuff. Before the were just say heres lose. Now its replaced entertainment to a large extent. How many of you watched the news like entertainment . So many wires in here. Everybodys hand should be up. We cant make any sense of it and its largely because people have become totally bifurcated in their news consumption. So, conservatives are little more likely statistically to at least samle cnn once in a while because its more pervasive, but people on the left typically are not even aware of the arrangement on the right or they might know one of them but not the good one, for example. Not mine. So, thats part of the problem. You get some tips how to get out of your bubble. How to recognize if youre in one and then how to communicate. I rem pharmaceuticals of. Not in the way you think if if you watch the news, also i do quite a bit, there are pharmaceutical commercials that come on. I you make the mistake of actually listening to one youll hear more problems than you knew that a human could have healthwise. Well, you can take this pill solve allor problem but youll have diarrhea and your heart will explode and your lungs will be decongested and forget but six, all good drugs take that off the table. The first thing they do. When theres pharmaceutical commercial an i say to myself, first of all, ah, ah, get is a off of there i dont went to hear about all the problems because ill get them all if i keep hearing about them. Ill be like i think i do have a rash. So run to change or whatever to change the channel as quickly as possible to the opposite. So if im on cnn i go to fox news and vice versa because they both have pharmaceutical commercials and in that way i miss lot of the ugly commercials bus exposing myself to content on both sides. So i rem recommend that. I if youre not sam belling both side you dont know whats going on but might think you do and thats the most dangerous situation. You tell a story but your dog, snickers, that i think really its a great an neck it. You ride i mcmy dog believes im an idiot because i dont take her outside to play when she is clearly communicating to me it is time do. So knickers know she is sending mel the lets good outside signal so knows im physically able to go outside so if i dont stop what im doing and take her out does she think im stupid . You say, sometimes youre snickers snickers and sometimes youre you in a scenario that requires empathy and imagination to really think but where the other person is coming from. An example where being an artist or a creative person gives you maybe a little better vision on the world than perhaps the engineer or the scientist. So before when i was saying different professions have different styles of thinking, it wasnt to insult one because theres genius that goes across every kind of domain. In this example, an artist, or somebody who creates for a living might have a little more propensity to imagine other facts and the story i uses my car is perpetually dirty. If you say my dirty car youd say to yourself, its kind of an expensive car, probably could afford to get it washed, hes a cartoonist with a flexible schedule and he can afford it and he has the time and itser in washed, he probably is saving water or he cares about something or he is blind. Whats the reason . The real reason is the one you would never imagine and in factor ail trying to think of it right now. What the real reason. Im going to tell you. The real reason is, i have an irrational fear of public instructions. I dont know if you have. The it dont want to be in public where anybody can see me and i have to figure out the instructions while people are watching. The problem is im too literal. Because it will be very clear but for example, if i use the example of, i come to the store and a sign that says wait here and then the cashier will say, next, come on up here for a moment ill be stunned. It says wait here. But youre saying go up. I dont know if you have that authority. Did you make the sign . Does your sign is this your sign or you boss sign . If its your boss sign im waiting here. So i dont want to get in a car wash, good at half warp in and turn sideways and they have to dismantle the car wash to get me out and thats why my car is dirty. Did you guess that . Anybody have that one . No. So the point is that we have to you cantly and operate in the World Without continuously making assumeses including assumptions about what people are think no matter how poorly we do it. But just be aware that just because you cant think of the other reason these things could happen, special if live youre watching the news. Doesnt mean the one reason given is the rope. In fact i talk about the 48 hour rule. Where you should just wait 48 hours when you see something in the news that makes your blood boil and you think, how could that happen . Then two days later the news says, well, that didnt actually happen. We got that wrong. So, just wait a couple days until the fog of war dissipates before you get too worked up about anything. Excellent. We have a number of questions from the audience so well kind of go back and forth between the book and questions. This is a great question. Why does dogberts tail always wag help he does evil . So, the dogbert characters mostly versions of me. So you know how how have a lot of different personalities inside you . Dogbert is apast of my personality that says and does the things cooperate do because i would be beaten up or jailed. But theyre thoughts. I think of those things, just dont do them because its not polite or illegal so dogbert can do them and i like to show his delight by his tail because dogbert doesnt have eye balds or a mouth, so its not much i got years of the tail to work with. Thats out it. Hes enjoying it. So, this question is when do you find yourself using loser think . What trap do you fall in to be conscious of. The one i fall into all the time is using analogies for more than they should be used for. Its just so easy because its just a natural way to talk to make analogies. Analogies are great for explaining a new concept for the first time. So if youre trying to tell somebody what a zebra is, never seen a zebra but know what a horse is, its like a horse but has stripes. A good shortcut. What you dont whatnot to do is use the analogy to predict. In fact if you turn on the news youll see people doing exactly that, makes no sense. So if you see, for example, your cat has a little marking under his nose that looks like a hitler moustache, that doesnt mean your indicate will invade poland. If you see the president criticizing the press, well, yeah, dictators did that but that doesnt mean that hes going to invade poland either. It could mean that the press has crossed a line and its productive or politically product tonight criticize them but dont take the analogy as predictive. Analogies are really bad ways to predict. Also, so is the slippery slope. Talk about a number of things that people do to future trip as some people would say about sort of how the sky will fall and how bad things are going to be based on history repeating itself. History repeats is one of the biggest loser think examples. You have heard its million times. See it in the news or your own life, history repeats. History doesnt repeat. It cant. Becauseover in a different situation with a different variables and often youre familiar with the other history, the real one, so that tells you not to do it this time it but the reason it feels like history repeats is that were just reminded of other things. Thats the analogy problem. But we dont notice all the times history doesnt repeat. If you could see a chart, heres your chart, your pie chart, all the times history didnt repeat because it couldnt, and this little sliver, looks like something that happened before. But its not predictive. You dont know which sliver is the one that will repeat coincidentally and which will be the one you never notice didnt repeat. In win bigly you talk about your political views, and about how sort of some ways theyre very liberal. Although now you do a lot of i dont want to say defense but a lot of sort of at least on the twitter engaging people about allegations about the president. Can you talk about how that came to be and sort of how you ended up in this position of someone who may be really liberal on certain issues you find yourself sort of needing to defend a republican president. For a the long e time i called myself left of bernie and part of that was a little joke on myself because there was nothing left of bernie, so awould of not characterizing myself. Then the democratted found people who are left of bernie so, like, oh, come on, if i had this space all to myself. You rupeed everything for me. So, what it meant wasnt, ate least on social issues, i am left of bernie. Ill guff you some examples. Bernie would like to i believe legalize marijuana. I would go further and i would legalize more drugs. Certainly mushrooms and do a test on opioids. Even if its just locally. The drugs on commercials during the news. Another example just to make the point, on abortion, liberals and bernie would say, yes, under the right conditions, yes, on abortion, i go left of that and say, i have a penis, im out. Whatever women want to do, will be very supportive. So whatever is the consensus, im going to be quiet and supportive because i dont have that kind of skin in the game and i dont add anything. Dont have like the extra male smarts to add on top of your decision. Its exactly the same whether i have an opinion or not. So i think the most credible laws and i like when you have laws that people will kill over, literally, abortion people kill over their preferences for that. When its that potentially destructive, you need a result no matter which way it goes, that is credible. That the people say, oh, i didnt get my way, and its really important to me but the way way arrived at it, that looked credible to me, and to me the more men who are involved in it, the less credible it is and women will have the same opinions. Ive never looked spite but i dont thi men and women have that muff disopinion on abortion. Are men and women about the same roughly any dont add anything so i take myself out of that. Those are just two apples. Donald trump comes along. 2015, and i was just writing blog posts but whatever caught my station and have a background as a chained hypnotist. And when saw trump, i said, hey, i recognize that technique. Thats been grade a incredible persuasion. So i wrote a blog post in saying he was a clown genius instead of a clown people were calling, just a clown. Hes a clown but why is it working . Theres technique here and you dont see it if you havent had experience in that domain. The loser think example. I can see it clearly and i can see the other people who also had the same background could also see it just as clearly. Mike is a classic example. Some of the same training with hypnosis and stuff and he saw it early, the same time i did. And what we saw was a guy bringing a flamethrower to a stick fight. And i didnt think it was a hard prediction because flamethrower beats stick almost every time. So, by the time so i was writing but his per persuasion skill but you get pulled it and more demand the first article was massively viral and people wanted to interview me about it and suddenly i got dragged in. Now, i will claim if did get to meet the pratt president a year ago, invited me to the oval office, a freaky experience, sitting in the oval office with the president of the out on the other side of the resolute desk, just chatting. Theres no experience ill if have that will come close to how weird and cool that was. So heres did you feel the soap . I did not steel steal she soap. I would. A lot of cameras in there. But so i will could to the fact cop to the fact you cant hang out with him and still be as critical as maybe you could have been. I like him permanently. Personally. Personally. If you hang out for him for ten minutes no mart what you start with, ten minutes later you say hes a nice guy. Really generous, imagine this. The guy who has more responsibility than maybe anybody in the world, and for half an hour, he made me feel look i was the only thing that mattered, i the only person in the room, and he could do that to you, too. Heres the thing. He does have that charisma, that ability to make people like him and hate him, too. For different reasons. So im not biased in terms of him personally. Personally i like him. What i thought the country would get out of him and the ron i didnt feel any conflict about promoting his abilities, which helped promote him, is i saw he was bringing a tool kit that tools that we have never seen before. And sometimes your civilization will get a little also fied. Youll get stuck and its something that an ordinary politician cant unstick. Examples would be, trade with china. Remember when he first started talking and everybody said, trade war is bad. And how about that, record stock market. Trade war is not so bad. Not so bad. And in fact if we never make an agreement, which i predict, i dont predict well he ever have an agreement except maybe on small stuff i think well be fine. Just gradually decouple from china. So i think the brought to the mix a set of tools i thought could break things that needed to be the box just needed 0 to be shaken and i knew it would be missy, i knew that the would be breakage. But everybody who voted for him knew that, and they knew what they were getting. Got the breakage, the benefits are, i would say, enormous at this point. If you like lack of order, youve like beating beating thel feat, like a good economy. If you dont like thats things maybe you have a different opinion. Then on the personal stuff he is driving people crazy , which is at a cost. The way people feel about each other and the just political heat, definitely is an expense, but i thought that was a worthy expense to get some stuff done. The next president can bring the temperature town and well bank the other benefits. Who do you feel is the next president. Well, i think mr. Super predict ir. I think trump will win easily for reelection. Not much in doubt at this point. But the one after. The one after. Thats where its going to get interesting. Sooner or later, aoc and matt gates will be running for president against each other. Probably not 2024. But i would host are they old enough . She is not. He might be. Barely. Okay. But sooner or later theyll un. Kanye said he is running. Before you laugh, well before he said that i identified him as another master persuader. Long before he was talk us about anything politically i had written blog post saying, my god, theres something he is doing that is not like normal people. Not like i write about music. Its not my domain at all. But i was just seeing something that was another level. Theres an extra persuasive level there and you see it. You see the impact he has on everything. Anytime you inject kanye into any topic its all changed. Its just such a force. So, now hes doing sort of theres religious revival stuff, and i think maybe he is setting his sights higher than president. Literally. I think he wants to be a spiritual leader in the united states. And maybe saying hes going to run for president is sort of good for a fact but i think hes actually bigger sights than the president. Bigger than the president. We dont have do we a spiritual leader who is not who is knopp denominational. We dont have that do we . Got quiet, didnt it. Well, maybe you have not your megachurchs and everything religion has a leader and some of them you could name, but we dont have somebody who is nondough nominational and nondenominational and would be regarded as open mined to all the other religions and he has a place that could be bigger than anything we have seen politically. So you dont think hell run for president. Its beneath him. He might. But i think he might have a bigger role. You dont think the democrats now, including bloomberg have a shot . Well, you know, years ago i actually wrote that bloomberg would be an excellent choice for president , mid middle road, pragmatic, able to differ with heir matter, smart, but he is also 77 and if you havent seen his speech, or even worse, his mobile phone little video he did, where you got to the these guys over 0, turn the phone sideways, please. Turn the phone sideways. I of you cant do that you cant be president. Turn it sideways. So, just if you havent seen Mike Bloomberg yet, give his speech announcing or his little video with the phone, you have to see it because he is not the mining bloomberg he used to be im afraid. I hate to say that. But its a little bit of the joe biden problem, which is great patriots, great contribution to the country, total respect for both of those people, but there is an age where we all need to know its time for somebody in the family to guide you off, and im there. And unfortunately bloomberg is there. I dont know if he is trying to be president or has a better play, because running for president allows hmm to go in strong and trash trump so effectively, plus his money, plus the fact hell get tv time. He may be doing it just for the democrat who emerges and maybe just a way to weaken trump so that they have a chance. Might be a way to take biden out because bloomberg goes in and the people who said, well, i might donate to biden, hell say hold off a little bit because theres guy who is the same age, similar politics but can fund himself so might be doing it just to get biden out because biden cant possibly win against trump. Just a terrible matchup. That helps with Elizabeth Warren, for example. Is that the longterm. Im pretty sure that bloomberg doesnt want Elizabeth Warren to be president. Getting rid of biden, i think only helps maybe people that bloomberg may not be to imagine its a fourdimensional chess thing, you have to work hard to make it make sense. Probably just running for president but so smart, and strategic, that its hard to understand why he would do something he couldnt possibly win unless he surprises us all. But at this point looks like he couldnt possibly well. Well, its so interesting ill bring it right back to the book. In your book, you write pout this is in the book youre writing about advisers and to some degree some parts of the book are how to be more skeptical, how to filter what youre hearing from the horrible people in the media. And so you write about the Financial Advisers and how to be skeptical of them and then you write theres a little sort of twitter ready parts for you to put Twitter Party saves be skeptical of any experts who have a financial incentive to mislead you and almost no risk at their end, and i wrote, political consultant. I won if a couple of duded with a power point didnt get in his ear and say heres the plan. Just give us a whole bunch of money happens all the tile inch california especially we see this all the team. Wealthy peel just burning their money. You go, why . Consultants and so that may be part of it as well. Maybe somebody got in his eve anded had the right chart to show im. Thats one of the best high pot these high moth tease, so i heather heard that before. How hard for a persuasive consult tenant who know they get a big paycheck to convince a 77yearold, yeah, this is your time. , it bordered on elder abuse. [laughter] but if they only get a billionaire, hes still okay. Some audience questions, please share insights 0 thinkers sufficient as explored peterson, john happy to haith and the integral theory. Thats a big question. Jordan peterson for a long time i would ban people from mentioning him on my pair scope and people thought i disliked jordan peterson. No, it was because he was so popular i was sick of hearing about him. But then i listened to him. I was like, all right, ive heard his name a bill times. Im a billion times times ann listened to a youtube video, doesnt matter which one and i thought, wow, this is like powerful and different and important. Usually dont go to youtube to find something important, but i thought, this is way beyond just helpful. This is important. And so i got hooked as many people do, so i started watching his content and it was just so useful and i dont how to explain it. And people were changing. You may know the story. He has checked himself in for rehab. So he apparently had some issues, got on some whatever, doesnt matter but checked himself into rehab and i think hes still there, working through it. And i realized that on one side you say to yourself, youve hate to see your heroes go to rehab. But i have a different opinion about that because hes a role model. And him going to rehab is one of the most important things that has if happened in this country. And wait until he comes back. Its going to be awesome. The other people i dont know about. Never heard of those of other guys. His religious videos, videos another religion are really interesting if you think about consider who is the spiritual leader that can traverse various very sort of campbell kind of way of pulling from all different strands and bringing it together. Just to put a pin in that point, the fact that he has it so together in terms how to live your life but still had to good to rehab, thats an Important Message that the addiction thing is not about being smarter or cleverer or trying harder. Addiction is it own thing and can get anybody and its very important. I want to ask, you once had a fear of public speaking, how did you get over it . Well, i wouldnt say i ever had a fear. Im a natural ham, but i took the Dale Carnegie course, and if you havent heard of that, its one of to best things of ever done, its lifealtering. It teaches you to do what im doing now which is talk to a group of people as easily as if you were just talking to somebody you know, and it teaches you to do that and what i watched was in the class i watched person after person who mostly had been sent there by as usually, because they couldnt stand in front of people and talk. They would get too nervous and i remember watching a woman who was in the class, and you have to volunteer to talk so you have to you had to decide when you were ready to come up and everybody would talk to the class and she stood up there and i have to do the impression. And she stood up there and she couldnt make words and she started sweating, in an air conditioned room. Watched beads of sweat while she is trying to talk, running off her nose, down her chin, and actually fell on the carpet. In front of a room like this. And she was afraid of public speaking, and that was her experience. The thing you need to know about the class is that there bass was only run rule, everybody gets committed and you never criticize anything preliminary mated and you never criticize. So she guess back to her chair, completely defeated. Were never audience and we are dying for her. And the instructor gets up says, wow, that was brave it and was true. That was true. And next time she came up, a little bit better. By the end of the class she was a professional speaker. Because she lived through the worst and got a compliment. And got a lot of compliments because we all complimented her. So watching that, so watching that transformation, from nothing but positive words is just lifechanging. You realize, you realize the power of a compliment to the point where my career live in philosophy if you withhold a compliment, and you think i dont need to say that, its almost immoral if you have commit. Just let a compliment. Just let it out. What a great point. Thank you. [laughter] i feel better now. Im letting it out. So, actually you do write about this in your book. One person in the oddopen wrote goto questions you can use to challenge and broaden your colleagues thinking. Goto questions. Well, i use a technique called the magic question. When people are disagreeing with you, i have the experience, they think theyre disagreeing with my opinion but really they formed a misleading opinion of my opinion and theyre really arguing the misletting thing, not my actual opinion, and if i try to correct it and say, thats not my opinion, this is actually this, do they then argue your actual opinion . Never, never. They just turn that into a new wrong opinion so they can argue that one. So, trying to get people to actually argue with my actual opinion has never worked in my entire life. But this technique ive tested and it does work. Its the magic question. It goes like this. You say to the person who is arguing with you tell me something that you think is true, that you think i dont think is true. Just one thing you think is true that matters to this topic that you think i dont think is true. And theyll off something and y say i agree with you. And you try another one and by the third one they disappear because the realize they dont know what youre arguing about because youre agreeing on the central point. Im ton twitter on twittem biased but why argue that folks . Thats the question. Why . Just seems to futile sometimes. Youre spending your energy to trying and change peoples mines and it just seems like assuming its a person and not like a bot, assuming its a human, then there you spending time trying to change the opinions of red hot 52 or some. Sorry. I can only speak for myself. This get benefits that the ordinary person doesnt get. For one, people follow my twitter and they follow the comments as well, and because im other a cartoonist, i have witness er comments than wittier comments than other people because thats my job. So sometimes i like being witty because its part of the show. Ifing can argue in a witty way its entertainment. But im also drawn to it. I love it but its always educational. Youre learn what peoples arguments which which strengthens your argument so its all good but i have a very high tolerance for trolls and insults and a lot of personal insults you get insults a lot of twitter but i have high tolerance so i genetic the benefit because the bad parts, the trolley stuff doesnt bother me. Thats a super power. Thats amazing. So what is your advice to someone who is a consecutive but who works in a a comfort but it conservative but is is possible to be conservative without rupeing a persons career. No. But ill give you some suggestions. To make it go down better. Certainly you probably want to coop the most provocative stuff to yourself but if youre surrounded be people who disagree with you, drive pacing. Pacing is a hypnosis trick, a sales person trick. It means agreeing with people on all the things you can agree with and matching them in style. Youve might match their body language, might match the way the speak, anything youmatch, their breathing. As many things as you can match with somebody will make them fear mole bonded and connected. Wont think it in their head but theyll feel it. This is a person who is like me in all the these ways and if you need to disagree, theyre at least primed. You set the table. This is one who realizes they have agreed with you on ten things or compatible an ten things and you can introduce that 11th thing but dont walk in to the middle of it with your maga had on and say, yay, trump. Dont play it that way. This person arrests dill bert is the only mailing list i have been a subscribe are for the last teen years. Havent all the character learned from their mistakes over the years . If theyve did id need a new job. Be beauty dillbert comic stroupe world the characters exist so i dont have to think too hard. Not like writing a new movie because you already have the characters so i take the topic and throw it into the world and say its something a lazy guy would respond to wally. So its easier to write once you have your character set, any situation works. This person writes and dillbert character are you, you said youre all of them but one you feel especially close to, maybe than main character. Originally dillbert was based on me. So he had my lack of social graces, my nerdy interests, he was a single guy. I was a single guy at the time. So he was basically an extend version of me except he was smarter because he was an engineer. Im not an engineer. And his body shape is actually based on a coworker. So theres host do they know. Heres the fun part. He doesnt know. Ive never developed him. Ive never told him. Whats his name. Ill tell him. I didnt know him that well. Just somebody in the office and id see him walk by and look like a walking dillbert, i guess. A cartoon. So i always wondered, ever in line at safeway and somebody every tap him on the shoulder and say you remind me0 dicant place it. But he doesnt know. So this person wants to know why you dont like the godfather film . You dont like the godfather . Did you hear the murmur . Very upsetting. I feel like i might need security. Ill make a general statement i cant watch movies at all anymore. Ive completely given up on movies because my Attention Span has shrunk until its twitter sizes and watching two and a half hour movie on anything is just painful now. Its like going to the dentist. Its like, theyre moving so slowly. And so thats the first thing. But was it the producer of the godfather who was making fun of the avenger films scorsese. Making fun of the avenger type films and the super hero films and im thinking to myself, theres a reason they make a billion dollars. Because theyre really entertaining. And those movies that dont make a billion dollars, theres a reason they dont make a billion dollars. Theyre not that entertaining. If they were, theyd make a billion dollars. So, i have this weird background where im part artist, part economist, which is a weird combination and when somebody says is somebodys art good, i usually say, is anybody buying it . If theyre buying it, its good. If they buy it twice, its really good. And if that if dont buy it issue dont care how much art when it, nobody wants it. Dillbert was created because the audience say we kind of like your generic cartoon in the beginning it wasnt in the workplace so much. But we like its lot when hes in the workplace. So, unlike scorsese, i said what is it my buyers want. They want it to be in the workplace . Done. So i moved into it the workplace. Thats when dillbert took off. So, i am not on the side of the artist who have this thing call artistic integrity i heard of. I try to avoid it all all costs. Is that loser think. Is should be in the sequel. If youre an artist, you should be making things for at the audience, not for yourself. If the odden isnt willing to shell another hard cash you didnt make anything. Let the hate mail begin. Bring it on. Actually this is probably related to earlier question. Might be the same answer. What is the most dangerous idea you have and that you believe in. Not not liking godfather might be it. The most dangerous idealism guess dangerous to whom . To me or to other people . Other people i assume. So, im a believer in we live in a simulation. I heard a groan up there. Anybody who watches me knows hey talk about this too much. This requires a little explanation. Please. First let me say that there are brilliant people who have the same point. Elon musk is one. Physicists. In fact it was invenned by a physicist. Keanu reeves. All the smartest people, and the idea is this. That if it would be possible in our lifetime and certainly will for us to build at Software World where there are characters in the world some those characters live and as as if theyre real and have a program belief that theyre real characters. Now, if we tried to build it today it would be basic version but certainly in 30 years, well be able to make Little People who act like theyre alive and as far as they know they are. If theft nobody our lifetime or the one after, eventually it will happen. How many are be going to make . Just one . No. The minute we can make a total world that is like a Real Software simulation that thinks its real world well make a butch of them. How do you know it hasnt already happened sniff itself has if happened the are lots of them and the people in them think theyre real, so, the questions you ask yourself huh . Its dangerous because it would rip apart everything you believe, religions would fall apart, et cetera, and there would be chaos. But let me just put this out here, food for thought. What would the world look like if it were programmed . Well, for one thing, you wouldnt put things wouldnt program a world that hadnt been observed yet. So a Software Game where if youre a little character and the game is not walking through this adjacent property, it never gets formed. Doesnt exist until you need it to. Does our world look like that . They quantum level it does. At the smallest level thing dont exist think only problem exist until somebody seize is of measures. So we know that reality doesnt become solid until somebody needs it. Meaning they observe it or they measure it with an instrument. You also want to have a world where you cooperate get out of it and look for the outside. Can you get to the knowledge of the universe . Nope. You cant. So you can good down the line of all the things you would need to be true for us to be software, then theyre all there. And then the math that if you have everyone and if theyre really welldesigned the simulation will build its open simulations all the way dune. So,. Is. Is this a their are you you cant get out of . How do you disapprove the theory. The magical monkey theory. I dont have solution for proving it but like most of religious beliefs they also are tough to falsify. Its like does god exist or is he hiding . Well, if he is all powerful he could hide pretty easily and we dont find him. So much of thieves things can be proven or disproven. I of your live your life like its a simulation and you imagine you can hack it, then that would be one explanation for my life alves it as itself is right now because my life is crazy. Just told you. I just went and chatted with the president. Thats not normal. Ive government a best selling book, cartoon strip. Get to talk to you people. Dont have a normal life in any way but lived it like i can program so so i have taken the assumption from an early age that reality would be programmable, and at least for me, and treat it that way, and i programmed exactly the life i fan too sized as fantasized as a kit. Latll the life is a imagined when i was six years old. What was the name of the book, how to lose at everything and still plugging the book with the tips of success. How to fail at almost everything and still win big. A prior book. This feeds into this one person asked, speaking of poets, there is one poet who characterizes our techy culture as illiterate, taste lost, boarish, whiny and awash with money. The right place to ask s that question. Right here in san francisco. What do you make of that . What do you make of the tech culture . Youre like sign me up . I want to be the Cryogenic Chamber . The reason im the create youre of dillbert is i love the world, the technology world. I wish id gone to school some kind of technical degree because if i were not doing what im doing, thats probably what id be doing, building apps. I have a startup i do build apps but be doing more of it, and so i love it. But i do hear terrible things from people who are in it. I hear that even the people who are making good money in tech are just december separately unhappy desperately up happy and unphiladelphia. Unhappy and up up fulfilled. So as long as it his problems ill have material for dillbert, silver lining. This one person wants to know about persuasion and trumps mentors. Wants to know your comments on normal Vincent Peale and roy cohen. How many of you heard heard the name of norman Vincent Peale. When i was a kid he was wellknown as one of the most influential authors and writers about the power of positive thinking. The idea that you could program your simulation he didnt use those words about the idea you can program your reality, your life, by changing how you thought and i was very influenced by that, and so was donald trump. In fact, norman Vincent Peale was not only a best selling author and was the trump family pastor or minister i tragic which word but thats who we would see in church. Go to hutch on sunday and see the most influence shall person maybe he who ever lived in the united states, tony robbins would be the new one. And so thats the influence he was getting every sunday. And he asked him, and he went on how amazing norman vein tent peale was and pea lewas accused of being a hypnotist because he was so influential. So the president get to it from the best source ever. Love to see a study of all the people who tabledded that church and attend that church and compare them to the average. That would be interesting. I could almost guarantee you that their life results are completely different than the ordinary people. So thats one then the roy cohen thing, i dont know too much but him spent probable rid what you know, he went bunnology apologizing, attack all the time, win, win, win, and you see those qualities in trump. But you also see the persuasion part of him. So he has a lot going on there. You talk about in the book, in the context of various kinds of arguments and ways to think but things, about Climate Change and the folks here in northern california, were we with the wildfires, mudslides, a lot going on here and to talk about your perspective on how people should think about Climate Change in a way thats not loser think. Im not going to try to change your minds, so youre safe. Whatever you thought about Climate Change before youll leave thinking the same thing. But all i talk about is a productive way to analyze it. If that it casss you to change your own mine, thats your business. But heres some insights on that. I think its useful to break up the Climate Change conversation into its parts and give. The Different Levels of credibility. So the central part is what the scientists are doing which is the chemistry and the physics. Add some co2 to the air does it get warm center im pretty sure theyve get that right. Seems really right in their strike zone, and repeated in laboratory tests. Just in every way thats solid. The question is, how quick live and quickly the scientist, and part or their persuasion anywhere that good at persuasion. They make models. Are those of models accurate . Well, nobody knows, and theres lots of debate and different models and theres a big range and what happens to the models that didnt work . Do they keep them . Or do the throw them away . If you have hundreds of models and there you to theway the ones that didnt work this year, witness will look to you exactly like your models work, but its because youre throwing out the ones that arent working. So theres a little bit of an illusion there. Now, is it true that at the temperature is going up at a rate we should be alarmed at . Probably. Probably the models are at least that good, because we can measure the temperature and Getting Better at it, satellites are doing it. So, were probable live reasonably solid, although we dont know how quickly. Then theres the third part. Goes to hell. Because the third part is the economics because to figure out how big a deal it is, it all comes down to money. If you have to move your beach house that costs my, lose a job, costs money. Of your crops fail, its money. So when they move it to the economics part youre in my domain. Used to do financial projections for a living. I know that theyre all bogus, every one i ever produced was no better than guess. So once it gets to the economic part, what reliable should you put an that . Heres an eyeopener. He the u. N. Said that over 80 years, if thing goes the way its predicted, so thats sort of a bad case scenario, if thing got the tway its reticketed at the end of 80 years the u. N. This is an official prediction says the gdp could be as much as 10 lower. And im thinking to myself, wow, 10 , thats trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars, and 10 reduction in our Economy Today would be massively expensive and people would starve to death and it would be a really big deal, but i also have a degree in economics, and i know how to look at these things and what i saw, i said, hey, in 80 years, our gdp will be five to ten times bigger than now. If at the end of 80 years after its gone up five or ten times, if its 10 less than it could have been, would you notice . You wouldnt. You wouldnt even know the difference. You would think things are great. Fewer people would be in poverty, the food would be cheaper, robots are scratching your back and a Wonderful World in 80 years. In the simulation. Keep in mind, thats the u. N. s dire bad case i dont know if its worst case bus most likely bad case prediction. You wont even notice it. Now, until i told you that, did you realize that thats a complete phony number . The gdp will be so big that little 10 will be trivial . Is it accurate, probable live not because if did financial projects for a living. We have no idea what the economics are. What company did you work for . Theyre all out of business. Thats probably a coincidence. [laughter] crocker bank. Got swallowed up by wells fargo and pacific bell that got eaten by verizon. So, what do you do . Given the great uncertainty. Heres the good news. There are 0 several startups building giant scrubbing machines that literally will pull the co2 out of the air and in several of those cases will turn into it products. One turns it into jet fuel because thats one of to the thats thats hard to make. Hard to make an electric jet so you still need jet fuel. One makes it into plastics. Which one of those of will be the win center i dont know. Marsh number of them but like the pc industry in the beginning, hard in the beginning to know which company would have would last, but you knew pcs and computers were going last. So, likewise with this co2 scrubbing stuff. Dont know if this startups will last but its a thing and its going to be an industry and its going to be a big deal and governments would presumably pay a lot for if they thought there was a danger. Then you also have nuclear energy. If youre not up on Nuclear Power, let me give you the 60 second thing that you need to know. Your grandfathers Nuclear Power was a little more dangerous than it needed to be and those versions of Nuclear Power are all of the meltdowns and problems you ever heard of. We would never build any of those model toy. Today you biffle what i called generation three, the number of generation three racketers, theres a lot of them. In the world, that ever had a Nuclear Incident is zero. None. Its literally the savest technology for Safest Technology for energy because every other form of energy is filling people. Falling off roofs installing solar power. More people have died from solar power. More people have tied from putting up a windmill that died in all of the generation three Nuclear Power plants in the world. Theres a generation four coming. Generation four is backed by people like bill gates who put a ton of money into it, a Company Called terra power and theres several of them. One of the things their technology can do, generation 4, it can eat existing Nuclear Waste as its fuel. It actually reduces Nuclear Waste in the world. Put it next to an old plant and if heat eat the Nuclear Waste until the old one closes and its built so if everything goes wrong, it gist just turns off. The current version you have to feed energy it to keep it from melting down. The new versions, as soon as the energy goes away, the reaction goes away. So, thats those are already designed and theyre already looking for a place to build it and they do it economically. They can make it safe. You ll want it in your Neighborhood Bank it with reduce the Nuclear Waste if you had some there so the opinion its if youre looking at an 80 year projection for Climate Change, im glad that some people are panicked because that gets them continue vent things but, man, we as a population, as a species, were really good at solving problems where we see them coming that far away so im not going to worry about it because i think we got this handled, but theres something to worry about, im just personally not going to worry about it. On that optimistic note, i want to thank very much scott adams, the dillbert crater and awe ortho the book loser think. Copies are available for purchase outside the room and scott will be taking photos here on stage in just a few minutes, please form an orderly line on the left side over there. On behalfmiss and scott adams and the commonwealth club, thank you. Thank you. [applause] booktv, television for serious readers. Heres are programs to watch out for this weekend. On booktv on cspan2. Former New York Times labor reporter Steven Greenhouse is our guest on after words. He talks to democratic congressman andy levin of michigan but the current challenges facing American Workers and sunday were live with sebastian gorka. The form deputy a i sit stand President Trump will talk but his books 0 unu. S. , domestic and foreign policy. Fine a complete 48 hour schedule by visiting booktv. Org. Democratic senator jeff merkley or oregon provided this first hand account of immigrant detention centers. He offers his thoughts on the divide between Political Parties on the immigration debate. In general, republicans trusted more on National Security issues than democrats. They voted for more defense spending and, therefore, they feel if they have a fear factor it will help them in elects. Democrats have in general been in the fight more for health care, housing, education, living wage jobs and feet like theyre more dependent on a hope factor to do well in the elections. So, how do you get a fear factor . Well, the administration looked at the issues from two years easterly er, ebo of ebola, isis scared people but that no longer was such a factor because they were mostly out of the territory. And the idea of crime in our cities didnt really scare people because crime rates have come way down. Government taking a immigration became the fear factor. This was the conscious strategy of the administration was to drive that and, therefore, it has really disrupted the collaboration to find solutions weapon had democrats and republicans in senate in 2013 that did a comprehensive immigration bill. We had a dreamers bill that bipartisan in the senate. The first will about end to husband and republicans killed it. This was in 2013. The dreamer bill, the president President Trump pulled in democrats and republicans and had all the press in his office on a tuesday for cameras rolling for over an hour and a big bipartisan, bicameral festivity and the president said ill take the heat. Well solve the dreamer problem. Bring may bipartisan bill two days later, conservative senators, moved rat senators, liberal senators said heres our Bipartisan Senate bill and the. Through a can trump because he had taken hate for two days from the conservative side, city miller in his office and he folded. So, were deeply divided. Could watch the program, visit our website, booktv. Org. And type jeff merkley or the tight ol the book, america is better than this, into the search box at the top of the page. The founder of the rise amanda when and the reason were here tonight