Hello everyone and welcome once again to reverb. My name is Alex Helberg. And I'm joined on the mic today by my co producer and co host Calvin Pollak.
Hey, Alex.
Hey there, Calvin, and also our CO producer and CO hosts Sophie wad, Zach. Hey, Sophie.
Hi. Happy to be here.
Excellent. I'm so happy to have you guys back for what I think is going to be a long awaited sequel to an episode that we did a few months back. Some people might disagree. Calvin's making a face at me right now about this being long awaited.
I was gonna say it's a long awaited squeakuel. Like the Alvin and the Chipmunks The second film in that series. Well, I think you'll see here that this is a this is going to be a very silly one. And we're happy to have you.
Absolutely, yes. So the people have spoken. We've gotten a couple of notes from folks, both within and without the field that they want us to do another reading of Scott Adams book Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don't Matter. So I got like, we got good feedback people
We did at least one person on Twitter. Good friend, Abby Bakke.
Yeah, listen to TC talk.
Check out TC talk, but we were requested by Abby to do this SQL or squeak? Well, and then here we are. And here we are.
We're kind of like the three chipmunks if you think about it.
Wait, wait, wait, hold on. Which Which one would each of us be? Am I do I get to be Alvin here.
They're Alvin, Simon, and Theodore. I can tell you all about them.
More More chipmunks, puns and jokes to come in this episode. To be sure.
I just wanted to say that Scott Adams is probably the most divorced rhetorical theorist of all time, which is saying something. Given some of the elder statesman of the field.
Wow, we Yeah, you have got to be you've got to be without going into any of the other beef on the rhetoric side. We should probably talk a little bit about what's happened to Scott Adams. In the intervening time since we recorded our last episode. I believe that was around the end of last year. Yeah, some things have gone off the deep end a little bit for Scott's since then, you guys, are you familiar with any of the goings on with with Scott Adams?
Since I
This is new for me. I'm excited.
All right. So this is from his Wikipedia page under what you always know is going to be good when you have a Wikipedia section that says "views on race." Here we go. So on February 22 2023, Adams responded to a poll by Rasmussen Reports, a pollster often cited by conservative media that asked respondents if they agreed with the statement, quote, it's okay to be white. The anti Defamation League said the seemingly innocuous phrase began being used online in 2017 as part of an alt right trolling campaign and is associated with the white supremacist movement. The poll showed 53% of black respondents agreed with the phrase 26% disagreed. And 21% We're not sure on a YouTube livestream of his real coffee with Scott Adams program, Adams who said he was upset that nearly half did not agree characterize black people as a quote, hate group and said, quote, The best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from black people just get the EFF away.
But like to focus a lot of my life resources in helping black Americans so much so that I started identifying as black to just be on the team I was open. But it turns out that nearly half of that team doesn't think I'm okay to be white, which is of course, why I identified his black cars. So I could be on the winning team for a while. But I have to say, this is the first political poll that ever changed my activities. But as of today, I'm going to re identify as white because I don't want to be a member of a group. I'd accidentally joined a hate group. So if you know Nearly half of all blacks are not okay with white people according to this poll. Not according to me. According to this poll, that's a hate group as a hate group, and I don't want to have anything to do with them.
Oh,
So yeah, not not going things are not going great for for Scott's I mean, yeah, I don't really know what else there is to say...
People didn't like hearing that? Is that you're saying?
there wasn't a
There was not it was not warmly received in even the most slimy communities on Twitter. I think there were a lot of people. In fact, I think even who's that cartoonist who used to do all the buff Trump political cartoons recently,
Ben Garrison
Ben Garrison actually did a cartoon that was strongly condemning Scott Adams for his off the cuff remarks, let's say,
Well, I mean, I would I would also just say that, you know, Scott, if you're gonna do a show about coffee, stick to coffee, I mean, there's plenty to talk about there. You don't have to bring in race.
Like, you know, to cop Denis Leary, you know, why can't we just have coffee? Coffee flavored livestreams? Why can we have coffee flavored coffee livestreams? why can't we do that anymore?
Is it impossible to get a cup of coffee flavored coffee anymore in this country? You can get every other flavor except coffee flavored coffee. You've got mocha Chino, they got Chaka Chino, Frappuccino, cappuccino Frappuccino, Al Pacino, what the [bleep]!?
I do. I was gonna say one wonders how that like really comes up as relevant in As Calvin points out what sounds like a pretty casual show, but then did last time we recorded. He did if I remember kind of jumped from one thing to the other without not a lot of like grace in his transition. So maybe I'm not sure that he would like find a way to make it about that.
But
By the way, I don't know if we've mentioned so far. Scott Adams is the cartoonist who does the famous Dilbert comic strip, obviously, I mentioned in the previous episode, but most famous for Dilbert, and is now kind of an amateur scholar of rhetoric.
So he claims Yes.
That's where we come in to tell him what we think about all that.
Yes, yeah. So to and thank you, Calvin, for getting us on track here. For those of you who did not listen to our previous episode, first, I highly recommend going and checking that one out that is going to help a lot with understanding what exactly we're talking about in this episode. So as I said before, we are looking through Scott Adams book when Bigley persuasion in a world where facts don't matter, which is taking on the rhetoric of Donald Trump, why Donald Trump is in Scott Adams words, a master persuader. And it's very important to Scott, that we understand exactly what Donald Trump has done for political discourse in this country, which he seems to be kind of laudatory of, he thinks that Trump is good at what he does, and has spoken in laudatory terms about at least his persuasion skills. Now, in our first chapter, we talked about Scott's sort of framing of himself as a self styled hypnotist as well as a master predictor. That is kind of the and that's going to be a theme that keeps coming up here, Scott Adams fancies himself very, very good at predicting things being able to see how the future will come about. Through his understanding of persuasion, it was his sort of primary claim that Trump was going to win the 2016 general election for president because of his persuasion stack, as he calls it, because of his just unbelievable skill with being a master persuader. And what he calls punching a hole in the fabric of reality. So in our last episode, we had everything from, you know, his consistent, just absolutely interminable bragging about his prediction skills, to his taxonomy of Persuaders into three different classes, commercial grade, which he considers himself cognitive scientists, which I guess would be people like us who have PhDs or advanced degrees in this field of study. And then master persuaders.
But not, we should say, we should clarify not in the field of cognitive science, not in the actual field of cognitive science, right? That's right.
Yeah, no, it's very funny. And then master Persuaders who he claims have what is what he calls weapons grade persuasion skills. And these are kind of the practitioners. That's right.
Yeah, there's so you have like, popular wonks, that's Scott, academic wonks, that's us, and then the practitioners in the field who are really, you know, fighting the battles every day.
Yes, I believe the other luminaries that he cited in that category are Trump. Madonna. Peggy Noonan. I think that was a weird one. And then oh, Steve Jobs, which is going to come up again in this chapter jobs. Yes. Yep, exactly. So. So before we get into this next chapter, I want to ask you to a framing question that I think is going to be something that we come back to again and again throughout the course of this episode. So we are people that look at and practice communication quite a bit ourselves. So I want to ask the two of you: do communicators have an ethical responsibility to be factual?
I don't know if you can make a blanket statement, communicating what and to whom? Right. I feel like if you're somebody who's purporting to communicate factual information, then yes, if that's what you're saying that you're doing, or that's what people are reasonably expecting you to do, like, reporters and news anchors, perhaps or ideally politicians or public servants, like there are people who I think it's reasonable to expect that they would communicate factual information, but I don't know that everybody has to
Sure that that makes sense to me. So in other words, if you are if you occupy a role, where the public or the your audience's expectation is that you will be factual, then yes, you do have an ethical responsibility. Certainly. Calvin, what about you? What do you think?
Yeah, I mean, I agree with Sophie, that, you know, not if you're an author of fairytales, not if you're a comedian. But I do believe pretty strongly in ethical communication, I think a key part of ethical communication is not willfully manipulating information, presenting information that you know, not to be factual for personal gain or institutional gain. I think that's, that's how many of the worst problems in politics and society play out is through that kind of manipulation, especially at a large scale, and especially by powerful actors and institutions. So yeah, I'm pretty firmly in the pro camp factual, factual communication is important. Sure, well, to that end, let's go ahead and dive into chapter one. Why facts are overrated.
So if the if the title of the book persuasion in a world where...
Who is rating facts? That's my question. 5/10, this gets...
this, this chapter is going to get a pants on fire from our favorite fact checking institutions. So we'll go ahead and dive right in here to chapter one. Why facts are overrated. According to Scott Adams, with the large heading here that reads the most important perceptual shift in history. This is the big bold heading that begins the chapter the most important perceptual shift in history. Scott begins my spooky year, if you'll remember he referred to his his year of predicting Trump's rise to power was spooky. It was very, very vibey for him. So his spooky year was fun for me. But it was also a dangerous time for the world's collective mental health. Enlightenment can be risky business. When your old worldview falls apart, it can trigger all kinds of irrational behavior before your brain rewrites the movie in your head. To make it consistent with your new worldview. We all have movies in our heads that we believe are accurate views of reality. And those movies are very different. Normally, we don't notice the differences in our personal movies, or we don't care. But when politics are involved, the stakes are higher than we notice. Wanted to stop really quick here and ask what do you what do you guys think of the the movie based theory of cognition that Scott Adams is giving us to begin here?
I love it. I love movies. I'm 100% on board so far.
This is Plato's movie theater, is the projections that are placed onto the walls of our mind. He continues, emotions are already raw in election years, and millions of people are focused on the same topics at the same time. That's a barrel of gasoline and a lot of matches in one place. The last thing the country needed was millions of people simultaneously going nuts. I hoped I could reduce that risk by writing about Trump's persuasion talents and preparing the public for what I saw coming. That will all make more sense leader
just loving that, like the self importance of this like he is his account of Trump's persuasion was the thing like holding the country together in that terrible time. Where
would we have been without him?
For his reporting?
That is true. I didn't really track that but or clock that before but yeah, he seems to think that like his he has this sort of grand delusion that a lot of Op Ed writers have which is, you know, if I don't write this, then the world needs
to hear what to be told and what like what's he going to say? So we can all make sense of it like yeah, that's exact somebody's got to do it.
Yeah. inflated ego is something that that we've definitely clocked Scott for and that is definitely not going to Eb in this in this chapter. I also wanted to make sure the public did not miss the greatest show in the world. This was years before the greatest showmen came out as a movie so you know, we're making movie references here to movies that Scott predicted the greatest showmen in I wanted to make sure that the public did not miss the greatest show in the world by looking through the wrong filter. If you watch the entire election cycle and concluded that Trump was nothing but a lucky clown, you missed one of the most important perceptual shifts in the history of humankind. I'll fix that for you in this book. I knew from my own experience as a hypnotist that Trump's extraordinary skill at persuasion would trigger massive cognitive dissonance and plenty of confirmation bias. If you're not familiar with those terms, I include quick definitions below. I'll go into more detail later. If you seek enlightenment, these are two of the most important concepts you will ever learn. So beneath here, we have a couple of definitions that are given. They're actually little Breakout boxes. The first one is for cognitive dissonance. This is a mental condition in which people rationalize why their actions are inconsistent with their thoughts and beliefs. For example, if you think you are smart, but you notice yourself doing something that is clearly dumb, you might spontaneously hallucinate that there was actually a good reason for it. Or perhaps you believe that you are an honest person, but you observe yourself doing something dishonest, your brain will instantly generate a delusion to rationalize the discrepancy. This is a common phenomenon in all normal humans, but we generally believe it only applies to other people. That's largely
a pretty good definition of cognitive dissonance. But there's a couple of weird things about it, like the use of the word hallucination. I don't think a cognitive scientist would use that. But actual cognitive scientists know what not us Yes, to be clear, and also delusion, like spontaneous delusion? Yes. He seems to imagine that cognitive dissonance is this thing where like, your brain is generating movies in your head about Yes, she's already. She's already said I guess we
Yes happens
that like keeps it flowing normally like a blip. And like, it's very passive.
I'm really glad that you're picking up on this notion that these are things that just happen automatically that these are spontaneous happenings that we are not even conscious of. Because, yes, exactly. Without even realizing it. Yeah, Precisely, precisely. In addition, we have this definition of confirmation bias. This is the human tendency to see all evidence as supporting your beliefs, even if the evidence is nothing more than a coincidence. This is a common phenomenon that we believe happens only to other people.
But I thought we didn't know what it was that people were not aware of it at all. Right? Yes. That a lot where you kind of shift to he's talking to like, yeah, we people to miss the greatest show on earth. So he was reading then. And if you thought it now then you're about to be like, I don't know. I feel like he that's the thing. He just kind of hops around with, like, who he's speaking to and about. Absolutely. Kind of a confusing way. But that's an aside.
Yeah, no, I'm glad that you brought that up, though, Sophie, because one of the confusions we ran across in our previous episode was not really knowing who this book is for other than Scott Adams himself. This really does seem to be kind of a pain, maybe his
most loyal fans and followers. I don't. I mean, I don't know how many of those people are out there. And I'm very, I'd be very curious to learn more about those people.
Any any Dilbert or Adams fans in the comments, please, please email Calvin Pollock at not escape. Alright, so let's get and I want us to keep these definitions in mind. Because one of the one thing that I think is kind of strange about this chapter, and I'll just flag it for you now is he kind of just straight up drops these terms here and doesn't really come back to them very much. But it also is definition of confirmation bias as the tendency to see all evidence supporting your beliefs, even if that evidence is nothing more than coincidence. And being a phenomenon that only happens to other people, or at least that we believe that it does, I think is kind of important for understanding Scott's own psyche as we continue here. So let's let's continue with our
I wanted to quickly flag Yes. As a way to recap some of what we talked about last time. Yes, he does mention there, this alternative theory of the 2016 election, which is that Trump was a lucky clown. And I think that at least I, in the last episode made a very strong case that that actually is a much more plausible theory of how that election played out. Right. And that, in fact, this book is an artifact of a time when we had a little less perspective and context about that election. Yes. And kind of the entire media. I mean, he thinks he's this iconoclast, but like a lot of mainstream media, overcorrected, and said, we're a Trumpist country now or like Trump won this super impressive election and like, it says so much about how powerful he is and his movement is
there There were books in our field written about how amazing of a rhetorician Donald Trump was. And
that's the other funny thing about the what we were talking about last time is how he was like, nobody was talking about the so I like, yes, they were yes, they everybody was talking really does make out like he's the one coming in with this true knowledge that we are not seeing in like, our minds. But it's pretty like standard stuff, a lot of it.
Absolutely. And, you know, maybe he'll bring that in at some point that you know, framing yourself as this bold truth teller, in your own words is one of the strategies for being a master persuader. But again, Scott Adams is only commercial grade. So I don't know how much we can really expect coming from him. Again, by his own admission, he is a commercial grade persuader. So let's continue. I saw in the election of 2016, a dangerous situation forming if the public misunderstood Trump's methods and intentions and that seemed likely things could turn ugly. Worse, yet, the public might not appreciate the extraordinary richness of their choice and the election. No matter what you thought of Trump or his policies, he certainly was different. And he certainly knew how to make things happen. I thought the public deserves to see the Trump candidacy as clearly as possible. Without the biased framing that his adversaries were applying. You might be wondering how confident I was in my prediction. There's that word again, let's add the thing in there in my prediction that Trump would win. Well, no one is a psychic. He is a hypnotist though I can't know with total certainty what the future holds. For example, I couldn't predict what types of scandals would pop up along the way. But I do know persuasion. I know its power in a way that few people do. And I recognize that with Trump's level of persuasion skill, he was bringing a flame thrower to a stick fight. And the poor little sticks didn't see it coming.
Did you really say that?
Yes, he did.
That's not good. I don't like the sticks not seeing it coming part because that kind of just destroys the metaphor, like a stick. If the sticks Hang on, if the six of the power of sight and kind of
agency knives don't it's not the knives that are being injured in a knife fight.
No, but if you saying that these sticks can see something coming and these sticks might actually be kind of powerful, and they might be able to destroy a flame.
Since they're like part of his whole thing. It's also very, it makes persuasion sound so aggressive. Yes, I guess. It's a war being waged.
Yeah. It's weapons grade persuasion skills. Yeah.
Yeah. argument as war. That's a classic conceptual metaphor. And he's he's sticking with it, baby. It's a classic for a reason.
Yep. Shout out George Lake off. Thank you for that one. And also, just to dish that point before we can move on from this but saying that the poor little sticks didn't see it coming, attributing agency and cognition to inanimate objects. Scott Adams outing himself as an object oriented ontology, just he reads, he's read vibrant matter. He's like, you know, he's all in. He's all.
Material. Oh, yeah. Let's go. You know? Well, a lot of AMB and rhetoric.
That's right. Yes, lots of ambient rhetoric here. So we're gonna get into some hairier territory here about Scott's predictions again, because of course, what would this book be if we didn't just keep beating the readers over the head with Scott's predictions over the course of my writing career, I've made lots of other public predictions. For example, in my 2004 book, The religion war, I predicted the rise of an Islamic caliphate in the Middle East, and their use of hobby sized drones for terror attacks. That happens to be a good description of ISIS in 2017. I had a similar confidence in that prediction as I did in Trump's win.
So he predicted ISIS also, as an aside, just say he did predict ISIS as well as
Trump, he's he's setting up his propensity here to predict world historical atrocities, which again, I just have to do a little. So again, first, a book written in 2004, called the religion war, I cannot possibly think of a more like stock standard new atheist kind of title for the early 2000s book than that,
yeah, he's a hack. He just rips off whatever the like, like the pat or like, default contrarian position is on what's going on. So it's not so much like a novel thesis. It's like, this is what a lot of people are saying, but I feel like you're not paying attention hard enough to what people are saying. So yeah, like religion. Religion is really bad. It's 2004. We have radical Islam. We have Radical Christianity. They're exactly the same religions bad. Yes. Let's go.
No, absolutely. I mean, again, it's like when you actually put that into context that this is A book written in 2004. Just you know, like post 911, like war in Afghanistan has been going for a couple of years now, war in Iraq is just getting stoked. Like, this is probably not like people stoking fears about a holy war is not exactly a novel observation here.
Well, it is a novel observation, because it's a novel is a novel, it's
actually a novella. It's not long enough to be a novel, according to the Wikipedia page, I do have to give a little bit of context on this because this book sounds so fascinating. There's a lot of a lot of psychology going on in this book, as some might call cognitive science, a lot of cognitive science here. This is a sequel to his first novella, that squeak goal to his first novella called Gods debris. And he describes this book as well, those two books and not Dilbert as what will be his, quote, ultimate legacy. In this book, a character the main character, is called an avatar, who must stop the epic clash of civilizations between the Western world led by Christian extremists General Horatio cruise, and the Middle East, led by Muslim extremist Al Z. Does he
so in this book that he's writing about the art of rhetoric and such she cites, you know, cognitive science and various expertise? On what grounds? Is he authorized to give us this take on, you know, global dynamic of religion? Like, does he happen to have any other expertise that we don't yet know about? Like, do you know, do you know if you know,
from my reading, no, like, he literally only has his knowledge of persuasion. But again, listen, listen a little
bit and do virtual
business. Here's what I think is that some of this authorship, and as he just said, like that, this that will be his true legacy. I think he is, you know, Dilbert was such a success. Oh, wow. But oh, people think I'm just a dumb cop. Like he wants to prove how smart he is. And it's just churning out like, and again, because it's not anything original. He's kind of scooping up like, Oh, everybody seems to be talking about religion. Oh, everybody's talking about Trump, like, what can he make? I don't know. It just seems like very again, self serving, unsurprisingly. But it's more, it seems like for him to confirm to himself that he's smart enough to write a book about a big, punchy topic than it is really contributing anything new to the discourse.
Absolutely. Yeah. No, no,
I think we need to do a separate series on on not just the religion war, which is such a funny
sort of Scott Adams podcast,
but also, yeah, well, I mean, God's debris. I love that title. I hate when God just leaves trash around, and you have to clean up after God. That's right.
That's right. It's a real it's a real, it's a tough job.
Bring a broom, if you're gonna be hanging out near God. Just recommend
we got debris is that? Is that what he's saying? That it very well
might be one way to find out. That's right. That's right. I just have to just a couple more things about this book, because it's so absurd it bears mentioning here. So the Avatar The main character applies his unparalleled ability to identify developing patterns and accurately determine the most probable results of a situation to accurately predict the war plans of both Cruz and Al Z. So the book, the religion war, the main character is somebody who's really really good at prediction, and uses his prediction skills to develop what what he calls here, a simple yet catchy phrase that he disseminates magically, to everybody on our phones. The quote is, if God is so smart, why do you fart? And that is the phrase that apparently planted the seed of doubt that inevitably will end the religion war if God is so smart. Why do you fart?
And that's that is supposed to fix? Yes. How it's perceived by the public. This book because I've unfortunately, never heard of it. But um,
I think you're not alone in that. Sophie, I think many people have not heard of this book. I do want to say that there was one review that somebody who talked with Scott Adams who said, you know, the religion war, it describes a civilizational conflict and 2040 the hard nosed hero builds a wall around the jihadist and quote, essentially kills everybody there. Adams told me, quote, I have to be careful because I'm talking about something pretty close to genocide. So I'm not saying I prefer it. I'm saying I predicted.
Oh, okay. All right. So this
is this is his whole kayfabe tactic. Yeah. Which is, I'm just predicting it. Yep. I don't prefer it.
Exactly. Yep. I think you said it last time. Calvin. Yeah, it's he wants to present himself as just trying to call balls and strikes, rather than making evaluative judgments. So is the same
problem the mainstream media has he's really I'm not an iconoclast.
Right, right, which is ironic in all of this too, because he's saying that facts don't matter. But he's also kind of relying on this conceit that he can interpret the facts that are out there to accurately predict what is going to happen in the future. It's just it's a it's very confusing, so we should we should continue along here. He writes, I have lots of other predictions in my portfolio that were less accurate, somewhere whimsical or wishful thinking or run of the mill guessing based on limited data. My Trump predictions were the first ones that use the master persuader framing. That's because Master Persuaders are rare he continues talking about the fact that he, I guess made a small fortune investing in apple at the outset of the iPod craze that worked out well for him. Likewise, Master Persuaders Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger made a tidy profit for me. When I owned Berkshire Hathaway stock. He says here, you should never take financial advice from cartoonists. But let me tell you one thing that feels safe to share if the CEO of a publicly traded company is routinely described as having a quote, reality distortion field, as was the case with Steve Jobs, keep an eye on that company. That's a sign of a master persuader.
Oh, there's just so much happening. I feel like okay, so he's basically just like, he's like betting on ponies basically. Yeah, whoever, whoever is the most persuasive is gonna make me money in the order. And that's like evidence of the fact that he can particularly because of is very wealthy at this point. Like, is that true? Is he
according to our last episode, Scott, by his own words, has fu money. That is, yeah, that's his phrase for his own wealth. So he talks a little bit more about how the book is going to be organized. We'll start by talking about the limits of the human brain to perceive reality. And that will prime you for the persuasion lessons that follow that his brand. Yes, that's right. Once you have an understanding of the basics, I'll show you how I used my understanding of persuasion to predict events in the presidential election of 2016. So ready, let's go. He actually wrote that in the book. This next section, it's the second and final section of this chapter is called about facts.
Not to be confused with the movie about Schmidt.
Being in every movie reference that we're doing,
that's right. Yes. Yeah. Cuz we're gonna keep bringing it back to movies here. Yep.
Maybe we could do that for the the thumbnail mock up for this episode. We could do like about Schmidt. That poster but just about Scott. It's about Scott.
Going with Alvin the chipmunks themed thumbnail.
We could put some chipmunks in there. I think we could fit a collage. Yeah. We'll have we'll have some chipmunks with our faces superimposed over the top will will have this sorry, what I was thinking. Exactly. Absolutely.
We can pursue this later.
That's right. That's right about facts. On August 13 2015. I predicted in my blog that Donald Trump had a 98% chance of winning the presidency based on his persuasion skills.
Wait a second, yes. predicted that he had a 98% chance? Yes, winning.
Now we'll get into why that numbers specifically, if that's what you're wondering about.
I just don't know if that makes sense to me as a concept, but good. Okay.
So a week earlier, the most respected political forecaster in the United States. This is Get ready for an incredibly 2017 line here. The most respected political forecaster in the United States, Nate Silver had put Trump's odds of winning the Republican nomination at 2% in his 530 eight.com blog. In those early days of the election, the overwhelming majority of pundits in the business regarded Trump as a novelty and a sideshow. So heartbreak here. Persuasion is all about the tools and techniques of changing people's minds with fat with or without facts and reason about persuasion is yes, now we finally have a definition, persuasion is all about the tools and techniques of changing people's minds with or without facts and reason. When I started writing favorable blog posts about Trump's persuasion talents, it felt like going to war alone. In California where I lived, it seemed as if most Trump supporters were in hiding because of the social and career risks of publicly supporting him. I wasn't counting on anyone's having my back in this fight. Luckily, I was wrong. Trump's Twitter followers adopted me immediately and had my back every step of the way. When the critics came after me on Twitter and elsewhere, Trump supporters flooded into back me. I didn't ask them to do it. They just did. One of my motivations for writing this book is that so many people who supported me on Twitter specifically asked me to write it. This book is a favor returned. And underneath there, there's a little box that says persuasion. Tip number two, humans are hardwired to reciprocate favors if you want someone's cooperation in the future. Do something for that person today.
persuasion. Yes, that's
persuasion to remember to be a nice
person. Yeah.
It doesn't cost a thing. Okay, here's what I wonder, is he? So he's saying here that he was predicting Trump's win on Twitter, and all of Trump's supporters supported him, but like, were they supporting him? Or does this? Like this seems like a wonderful time for him to mention the concept of confirmation bias? Yes,
there we go. Is he going to do that? I feel like maybe not. But nope.
Nope, he certainly is not. Although that you're right, Sophie, this would be the ideal time to bring it up. Because I think that when somebody makes a baseless prediction of something that you want to happen, that is definitionally a case of confirmation bias when you come rushing to their support.
I also think this is a great example of that issue of like, prediction versus reference. Yeah. Where you have all these people in your corner, you're congratulating them on being such good people backing you, stopping you from being ratioed or whatever, like, whatever they were doing for him. Maybe those are your people, maybe you are one of them, or at the very least, they love you so much that you, you know, you are a de facto member of that discourse community. And it makes me it makes me think about people like Glenn Greenwald and other other people who have kind of like slid into the Trump fold where it's like, but they still kind of pretend that they're not really that they're just calling balls and strikes. And it's so dishonest. Just say that you're you know, those are your people.
Yeah, just say it, because the other thing is like, Oh, I just think he has kind of an interesting relationship with that group of kind of opting in and out of it. Because, you know, if what's happened with these people is that they've been like blindsided with Trump's like persuasion flame thrower, then are these the most like, impressive people? Are these people just seem like the rubes that are like, easily or are I mean, I guess everybody's powerless to resistance. Although I don't know that. If Trump is the master persuader that he is supposed to be, shouldn't we all have, like, we were a nation divided. But like, anyway,
it just is a pretty narrow win. Right? Yes.
And, and a lot of us, you know, obviously, other factors. We mustn't forget that there were other factors. That's right, repeated to the race. But it just seems like sometimes these people were like, commendable and wonderful. And sometimes, if you're following his logic, these are like a pack of dummies that are just sheep for whatever it is Trump is spinning up for. Right?
Yeah. And I don't think that Scott is I mean, he literally writes in the next sentence, you might think you can resist persuasion techniques just by recognizing them in action, but knowing the technique won't protect you as much as you might think. And again, there's like very little self reflexivity here to say, like, what if I'm writing this book, just using the using the Sort of like, prediction of Trump's win the fact that he did win, and now anything that I say in this book, therefore, is like, confirmation bias truth, because I predicted it, because Trump won. And because I'm writing it, therefore, that's like his, like quasi logical syllogism that anything that he says further is going to be correct that anything here is going to be the reason why he predicted Trump's win and why he was right.
Although I do feel like I get a little bit of the sense that, you know, since he did already do the job of setting himself in the class apart, he's kind of on another level from the rest of us when it comes to seeing these things, being able to do them himself. Like he's kind of operating on another plane. So a lot of the time when he says, oh, people can't resist Oh, you you have confirmation, but like, he means like, you you the rest of you know, the rest of you. Maybe not. Yeah, into it a little bit more.
Yeah, we're noticing him I think inaction getting hoisted by his own petard. Like he is quite literally falling into the same trap that he is even saying, you know, we believe that this happens to everyone else except ourselves. And it seems like he himself is falling right into the
rest of development, where Tobias is talking about merit. And he's like, Oh, I never works.
But it might, but it might work for us.
Doesn't work for those people.
No, it never does. I mean, these people somehow delude themselves into thinking it might but
but it might work for us. Well, I want to get into this next section because here's where he Scott actually gives us his first rhetorical analysis of a strategy that Trump used were now like, several dozen pages into this book, and he finally gives us an actual palpable thing to latch on to here. So why did I say Trump had exactly a 98% chance of winning when I couldn't possibly know The odds, that's a persuasion technique, you saw Trump use the intentional wrongness persuasion play over and over again, and almost always to good effect. So the intentional wrongness persuasion play is what he's naming this here. The method goes like this one, make a claim that is directionally accurate, but has a big exaggeration or factual error in it, to wait for people to notice the exaggeration or error and spend endless hours talking about how wrong it is. Step three, when you dedicate focus and energy to an idea, you remember it. And though things that have the most mental impact on you will irrationally seem as though they are high in priority? Even if they are not. That's persuasion.
way. So that was another case where he changed who you was referring to. Right? Because at the beginning, he's talking about, like, if you want to use this strategy, here's what you do. Yes. But then by the end, he's talking about you as an audience member. Yes. Yeah. Yep.
Yeah. And he does have that kind of like, parlor magician, err of talking, like, Hey, look over here. I'm gonna say like, it's like, you're so shifty, but also, okay, so. So that earlier cut to several moments earlier, when I was like, Wait a second, that doesn't make sense. How could you predict 98% chance? Wouldn't you just predict he would win or not win? Like that might be a binary predictor? Not not, I predict he has an idea of percent chance. So that moment where I was like, Hey, wait a second. That doesn't make sense. That's supposed to be the thing that I'll be because I will continue to remember that I was writing he was wrong.
Sophia. You just got persuaded.
He's right. But like, I think he's missing the step of where I come around, thinking he's, like, certainly, I will remember the 98% more likely than if he hadn't included it.
Well, and here's the here's the thing, where his theory of persuasion does really get a little bit blinkered. I mean, if it hasn't already, it's literally it's literally contradictory here. Because he says persuasion is all about the tools and techniques of changing people's minds, when really what it seems like he's saying here is that persuasion is actually all about having people dedicate focus and energy to an idea so that it has a mental impact on them. Not that it necessarily brings them around to another side, it just causes people to focus on you. It's just a way like for him. Now he's defining persuasion as just a means of gaining publicity and attention.
Attention Economy.
Exactly. Which is like, I don't think that's wrong. I think it's banal. And all and
all press is good press is best. Yes, exactly. Talking about it. That certainly I could see an argument that that like, opens a door for persuasion or sets the scene for, like, once you've muddied the waters, it's much yes, whatever. But it certainly can't stop. Yeah, I still think he was wrong when he said that.
Yeah. And presumably, he's going to come on, hopefully, at some point in the book, he's going to try making some claims about actual, the the sort of traditional definition of persuasion in terms of changing someone else's mind. But for right now, he's only focusing on muddying the waters as you so aptly put it, Sophie, he says, I picked 98% Is my trump prediction because Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com was saying 2%. I did that for branding and persuasion purposes, it is easier to remember my prediction, both because of the way it fits with Silver's prediction, and for its audacity, which people perceived as wrongness, the prediction was designed to attract attention. And it did. It was also designed to pair my name with Nate Silver's name and to raise my profile by association that works to social media folks mentioned me in the same sentence with silver countless times during the election, exactly as I had hoped. And every mention raised my importance as a political observer, because I was being compared with someone already important in that field.
Okay, so here's my question, or the inconsistency I'm seeing, which maybe is designed to persuade me, actually, and I don't realize it, but it certainly sounds like what he's saying is that this prediction is something he made up
Yes. But he did hope well, if he's
also trying to take credit for being like a, he can see past the utility like he can see through the, all the confusion into like, what's truly going to happen. Like it seems like he's trying to, as you know, hypnotist, or whatever, say, like, I predicted this, and nobody else did. And I predicted it. But he's also saying like, well, I took what Nate Silver said, and it flipped it. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, people were talking about me like so so charitably, maybe when he's saying the prediction was designed to, if I'm being charitable, maybe what he means here is the way I framed the prediction was designed to like if we could insert that up, that's what he's saying. But he certainly has a lot of interest seems like yeah, he's basically saying I took what Nate Silver did and flipped it.
Yeah. But he's, but he's using what he calls the tensional wrongness play. In other words, like he knows that he's wrong, but he's doing so intentionally in order to get attention attention. Exactly. And he writes further Trump use the intentional wrongness persuasion play often. And it seemed to work every time at least in terms of attracting attention where he wanted it, it works even when you know he's doing it. If you're talking about whatever topic he wants you to focus on, he has your mind right where he wants it, even if you are criticizing him for his errors while you're there. And then he goes on to talk about the border wall with Mexico, which is already the example that he brought in in the last chapter. It's kind of a little bit redundant. But you know, talking about the fact that like he made this, you know, bold claim about like, we are going to build a whole long wall along the border of Mexico and make them pay for it. He did make some casual admissions that the border would be secured in different ways in different places. But most of the time, he ignored those details and wisely so by continuing to call it a wall without details, he caused the public and the media to view that as an error. So they argued about it. They fact checked it, they put together cost estimates, they criticized Trump for not understanding that it couldn't be a wall the entire way. How stupid can he be. And when they were done criticizing Trump for the error or saying that he would build one big solid wall, the critics had convinced themselves that border security was a higher priority than they had thought coming into the conversation. The ideas that you think about the most are the ones that automatically and irrationally rise in your mental list of priorities. And Trump made us think about the wall a lot. He did that because he knew voters would see him as the strongest voice on the topic. It also sucked up media energy that might have focused on political topics he didn't understand at the same depth as his competitors. Master Persuaders, move your energy to the topics that help them independent of facts and reason.
I mean, I think he was doing that, to some extent, like and to the extent that he was, like Sophie was saying earlier, this has really been all analysis of what Trump does to focus public attention on certain things. But I do have to take a massive issue with the intentional part of the attentional wrongness strategy. Yeah, I think in the vast majority of cases, it's not intentional on Trump's part, I think he, he thinks he's right. And I think Trump really did believe that they could build one wall, one solid wall, the greatest wall you've ever seen. Yes. And, and probably when you found out when he found out that you couldn't he was really upset?
Yes. Well, and this is this is always an issue with like post hoc rhetorical analysis is the overdetermination of intentionality, right? One of the first things that you learn in a rhetorical criticism class is like, it is notoriously difficult to be able to predict intention, especially when you are analyzing something for which a conclusion has already been arrived at right? You can say that something was a success. It's harder to say whether or not somebody intentionally use certain strategies to make that happen. Again, it's part of the sort of fallacy of a completely speaker centered focus for a rhetorical situation with no focus on audience. They are just automatons who are instinctively you're rationally spontaneously coming up to these conclusions, because of the brilliant tactics of an intentional rhetorician who's making it happen.
But I think, what's for me what's interesting with what he just did this example, it started out by him explaining how his intentional wrongness was the drive for him predicting Trump who he predicted would win because of his artful use of intentional wrongness, which made it likely that he would win. Like he was wrong about Trump being right. That would be Trump, who would definitely get to be because of how good he was. Like, he did the thing again, of like switching like who were talking about, like, I don't know, I think
it'd be fair, I think the intentional wrongness part was the 98%. Like that, that that specific figure, I think he wouldn't say that he was intentionally being wrong about Trump winning, I think he did really believe that Trump was gonna win.
Absolutely. No, I
take that discussion as being slightly more about the way he phrased the percentage because I don't know that like all of the talk in the media was about is it 98 or 90, like him predicting it was the wrongness that was being discussed and sucking up the talking. So yes, regardless of how he's presenting it.
Absolutely. Just to move on here. I think that we should keep talking a little bit more about some of the other examples here. But really, we've touched on kind of the only persuasive tactic that he's going to bring up here is the intentional wrongness play. In terms of intention, he writes, I don't believe Trump purposely injects errors into his work except in the form of oversimplification and hyperbole. As in the wall example, that stuff is intentional, for sure. But for the smaller errors, it is more that he doesn't bother to correct himself. I use a similar technique with I blog when someone points out a typo. Sometimes I leave the typo because it makes you pause and reread the sentence a few times to figure out what the typo was supposed to mean. The mistake attracts your energy to my writing. And that's what a writer wants. I want your focus. So if you find a typo in my blog that was on purpose, it's not because of a bad writer. It's not because I'm not a careful editor. It's because I did that on purpose. And now you're talking about it.
It's a smart technique. I like that.
Again, we talked about cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias seems like there's a lot of rationalization going. Yes. Oh, man. So yeah, it's it's again, like he talks about some other more banal examples. Like when you first saw the title of this book, did you think to yourself that Trump doesn't say big Lee, he says, big league, like big league, too. If you notice my title error, it probably helped you remember the book. And now whenever you hear the words, Bigley or big league in some other context, it will make you think of this book. So again, he's kind of lauding himself for how how sticky his ideas are given his persuasive talents, despite being a commercial grade persuader, which is just
a beautiful, like blanket, sort of, you know, catch all for any previous error he's ever made.
Yep, exactly. So the only other thing that I want to touch on in this chapter, and there's this final subsection called facts are weaker than fiction. If you have ever tried to talk someone out of their political beliefs by providing facts, you know, it doesn't work. That's because people think they have their own facts, better facts. And if they know they don't have better facts, they change the subject. People are not easily switched from one political opinion to the other. And facts are weak persuasion. So Trump ignores facts whenever they are inconvenient. I know you don't want to think this works in terms of persuasion, but it does. And I know you want to believe that having a president who ignores facts makes the world a worse place in a number of vague ways that you can't quite articulate. But Trump tends to be directionally accurate on the important stuff, and the little stuff never seems to matter. I want to be clear that I'm not expressing a preference for ignoring facts. Again, going back to that prefer versus predict. I'm simply saying that a master persuader can do it and still come out ahead, no matter how many times the media points out errors, and specifically here the other tactic that he literally goes into here the other sort of master persuader tactic is not apologizing. Simple as that. The the persuasion tactic here is that Trump never apologizes. As he says the average consumer of political news can hold only a handful of issues in his head, any of the lesser topics gets flushed out of memory, so Trump can invent any reality he wants for the less important topics, all you will remember is that he provides his reasons he didn't apologize, and his opponents called him a liar. Like they always do. If Trump had apologized for any of his factual errors. I would remember whatever alleged wrongness triggered the apology that would stick in my mind, I assume that's at least partly why he doesn't do apologies. Apologizing would be a sign of weakness and invite continual demands for more apologies. In Trump's specific case, apologies wouldn't have helped his campaign because there would have been too many demands for them. But in the case of normal people who are not master Persuaders, and only occasionally make public mistakes, apologies are still usually the right way to go.
So he's just saying, persuader. That's why he doesn't apologize. And yes, like,
he's also he's also just making it very clear. You all should apologize, especially if you do something to me. pologize. But but for but for him? Yeah, that doesn't apply. And I mean, again, this is very banal, like, of course, I think that's true. Like I can see how that benefits the public image of a figure I mean, it institutions do the same thing. Absalon just like, Wait till something dies down. Don't bother apologizing for it. But I don't know if it's a persuasion tactic. I think it's just Trump. Like a lot of he doesn't believe he needs to apologize,
you know, like, like him. Like, it's like, don't apologize, don't like all these things are like they that's how you stay out of like the hot seat. But it's not serving to change minds. Like it's not that some of these strategies aren't useful and used. But yeah, I think it's a stretch to call them persuasion.
Exactly. Well, and it's also a stretch because that implies strategy or intention on the part of Trump and I really think he just like doesn't ever think needs to apologize.
Yeah, it's it's still kind of murky here. He does get into a little bit more alo about whether or not we the hoi polloi are released supposed to be practicing this but Okay, so as people who do and study Technical Communication, I had to run this one by YouTube because to me, this just does not pass the smell test. This next paragraph says, If I haven't yet persuaded you that mistakes can be useful in persuasion. Consider a small 2012 study by researcher Daniel Oppenheimer that found students had better recall, when a font was harder to read. Oppenheimer explains the unexpected result by noting that people slow down and concentrate harder to compensate for the harder to read font. That extra concentration is what makes lasting memories form.
I had a professor in college who took the same philosophy, but I think he's really I will say, punching a hole in the fabric of my reality regarding my understanding of professional communication, which is yes, like, things should be easy to read, things should be accessible. You know what I mean? These various things? Yeah, yes. He's really, he's making peace, you know?
Wow. Think about? Well, yeah, I mean, I think it's, he's probably miss reading the results of that study, I think it's probably less than it's hard to read and more that it stands out that there's effective contrast and likes hierarchy, of course, like things that are things that are highlighted or contrasted from the rest of the textual surround like, of course, people are going to remember and focus on, but you don't have to do that with like papyrus font or like, like, there's ways to
do that, that are
not mixed, or bad. Yes,
exactly. more elegant ways to do it.
Yeah, absolutely. No. And that was, I mean, again, I think it really does matter. Like you can pretend there's no ethics to this, that you're just calling balls and strikes. But one of the reasons I wanted to frame that early question about, is it ethical to be factual or to be straightforward and not manipulative or misleading in your communication? And that's because I think, you know, Sophie, when you talked about good technical communication practices, you were talking about things like accessibility, right, like making sure that a wide array of audiences have the ability to process the information, if they didn't, the ways that they need to, you're being considerate of your audience, you are not just trying to like play a trick on them and manipulate them into something, which is why I think we can't we can't talk about persuasion or rhetoric separate from ethics in this case, right. Whether I mean, obviously, in this case, because it's political, but even when we're talking about something like, you know, the the, the communication design, I think that there are ethical considerations built into every choice that you make. Yeah,
right. i By that, I think that that is true. I think that yeah, many of the tactics that he's talking about seem to be about pulling one over, using your sort of cognition, you know, against you. And like, yeah, again, it's a very aggressive take on persuasion, whether or not all the things to struggle with are actually, I would say, not exactly persuasion. But yeah, it's like very mean spirited.
Well, when your model when your model for human interaction is how Dogbert treated Dilbert in the office. It's true. You know, this is no surprise,
no surprises. No, absolutely not. So, finishing out the chapter here last last couple paragraphs, I will pause here to tell you that while there is lots of science behind the best ways to influence people choosing among the many ways to persuade via, quote, surprising the brain, the tactics that he talked about above can be more art than science, no two situations are alike. So knowing what methods of persuasion worked in a different context might not help you in your current situation. Then under here, big bold text that says Warning, intentionally ignoring facts and logic in public is a dangerous strategy. Unless you are a master persuader. With thick skin and an appetite for risk. Most of us don't have the persuasion skills, risk profile and moral flexibility to pull it off.
See, this is also bad Technical Communication, because you should put the warnings at the beginning. That's your guide, not he buried the lead through.
Just I don't appreciate this, like a caste system he's making of like, because it seems like he would, it would seem like he's trying to teach you how to do it. But really, it's more like a magician revealing his tricks than it is like learn how to do this. Right? And it all kind of makes the reader feel like a big dummy for like, Oh, I didn't know again, which makes you wonder like, Who is it for? Because I don't know who comes out of this book feeling good or more informed, or better capable or better about themselves except for the author.
Right? Yeah, it's it kind of ends with this Pyrrhic sort of like, look at how smart I am and how stupid you are. And like, am I trying to teach you something here now? Maybe not because even if you know about all this stuff, you're still going to be successful. trouble to it. And then at the very end here, just a little bit of humility from Scott, we don't know for sure that Trump came out ahead by oversimplifying his wall idea to the point where it sounded crazy to critics and even some supporters. But in my judgment, he probably did come out ahead. By Inauguration Day, we were talking about the cost and details of the wall, the country had already accepted that the wall would probably get built, at least in part, and in the long run, presidents are judged by their success, love it or hate it, historians will someday probably judge Trump's wall to be a presidential success story. Success cures most types of quote unquote, mistakes. And that's the end of the chapter.
Yeah, I really think he wrote this too early. On president yes, he
did. Because nobody is calling on him to like predict the long term legacy of Trump like he is safer in pointing to his success and having predicted the when and how that happened. And not making these like, in the future like, No, they won't. Or I don't know, I guess maybe he's taking a risk that I can't fathom taking because I'm not a master communicator. But it just doesn't seem very wise for him to pin this all down.
I also just think like, you know, we're rhetoric podcast, I have to flag that he did plagiarize Aristotle there and not refer to him by name. I mean, come on,
knowing what methods are all available means of persuasion working for a given situation. Come on, Scott, Come on Scott 101. For that, if
you think he's going to apologize, he's not going to because
I know he did that to draw my attention. Now. I
know, I will remember him Galvin, you've been persuaded know, when you fuck
up draws attention.
And that's good.
That's good that Aristotle will probably think of Scott Adams too, because it's true.
Yeah. And to any of you who might be listening, who are Scott Adams fans who might be saying, Well, Scott stupid book worked, because you're doing a whole podcast episode about him. I would only say that, well, it brought you to our podcast, we are actually making ourselves more famous by association by using Scott Adams name in the same sentence. So you know, you know, drop that DJ Khaled meme. You played yourself,
graduations? You played yourself?
Well, you really tried it all together there.
Nice job. Yeah, that was good. I mean, I think, yeah, I think totally like, you know, I get why Scott would take the opposite position of Nate Silver, I'm often doing that too. So I can't really rag him for that. But, but ya know, things you said. But yeah, but no, I mean, I think we're doing the right thing as well, by taking the opposite position of Scott Adams. If Scott Adams is always wrong, then the opposite would have to be right. There's a whole Seinfeld episode that I recommend people check
out we're gonna get the top every decision I've ever made in my entire life has been wrong. My life is the complete opposite of everything I wanted to be sure. You know, that woman just looked at you. So what what am I supposed to go talk to her Fairlane bald men with no jobs and no money who live with their parents? Strange women?
Well, here's your chance to try the opposite instead of tuna salad and being intimidated by women, chicken salad, and going right up to?
Yeah, I should do the opposite. If every
instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.
Yes, I will do the opposite.
Absolutely. Love it. Oh my god. So that's the end of why facts are overrated. Or you guys? Are you guys convinced now that that we live in a postmodern hellscape where facts and reason don't have any ethical Upshot?
You know, I never would have even thought of it unless Scott Adams had brought it up. Talked about wouldn't
have made that point. No, it's
like a really interesting and unique point of view that he's got here. But um, I can't I can't count it all out on will say to, you know, be I can't I'm going to be fair.
I do think that this I think the you know, facts don't matter position runs up against its own self contradictory problem of if facts don't matter. Why why are we listening to you? Why, why wouldn't Why is nothing that you're saying factual? I mean, I guess we're just giving you attention and not really considering the points you're making, but it just seems to not make a lot of sense to me. Yeah, that's and
that's the thing because I feel like it's one thing to argue that like persuasion is about more than just the facts. Yes. Like, and that's, you know, sure. But like, again, he some it's it he frustrates me because as a writer, he'll take something that at first you're like, Okay, maybe this is I'm not going to agree with maybe he's got something here and then it just comes out as such illogical nonsense that it's like it's you can't even I don't know it's that you need been like, it's like a waste of time to try to really like break it all down and like diagram it because it's doesn't doesn't you can't like, it's just silly.
Yeah, it is a waste of time. Anyways, thanks for listening anyway, thank
you for dedicating an hour and 15 minutes of your time to listening to us talk.
You know what I need to
see that? No, but see that's we're just doing what Scott taught us to do, which is point out your own lack of logic. So obviously, that people can't help but pay attention. And ultimately actually think that you're right. Which we are, which we are, of course,
that's right. Yeah. Success in the form of greater listeners, and lots of laudatory comments on our Twitter page cures any type of mistake that we might be guilty of. So 91% 98% 98% Well, thank you once again for joining us for the second installment of lose Bigley, the Scott Adams story. I'm sure that we'll be back in a couple of months with another episode after some other horrifying atrocity, discursive atrocity that Scott Adams has committed. But until then, stay factual out there. We are reverb we are Alex, Calvin and Sophie, Alvin, Simon and Theodore. We will we will be sure to be back at you again with another episode soon. Thanks for joining us, everybody. Bye bye, bye.
Our show today was produced by Alex Helberg. Calvin Pollock and Sophie wanza. With editing by Alex reverbs. CO producers at large are Olivia Burnett, and Ben willing, you can subscribe to reverb and leave us a review on Apple podcasts Stitcher, Android or wherever you listen to podcasts, check out our website at WWW dot reverb cast.com. You can also like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter where our handle is at reverb cast. That's r e v e r b underscore C A S T. If you've enjoyed our show and want to help amplify more of our public scholarship work, please consider leaving us a five star review on your podcast platform of choice and tell a friend about us. We sincerely appreciate the support of our listeners. Thanks so much for tuning in.
