Hello everyone and welcome once again to reverb. My name is Alex Helberg. And I'm joined on the mic by my co producer and co host Calvin Pollak.
Hey Alex, how's it going?
Good Calvin and making a triumphant return to the mic after a little bit of time away. We have our CO producer co host and great friends Sophie wad Zack, Sophie, how are you?
I'm I'm very well. Thank you, Alex. It's great to be here.
It's so good to have you back. We always we always love having Sophie back on the show. Today, we are diving into another installment in our ongoing rejoinder series. So for those of you unfamiliar with our rejoinder series, this is where we typically take hot takes hot texts, other kinds of arguments that deal with politics, culture, language, academia, or anything in between that falls kind of within the realm of our wheelhouse, and what we typically talk about on the show, specifically things with problematic foundations loose or faulty premises records, which needs to be corrected, let's say, and we take a rhetorical critics perspective of taking them down point by point, what is wrong with each of these arguments. And today, we have a bit of a monolith in our rejoinder series, the beginning of maybe one of the largest texts that we have ever taken on. And that is a recent book by a man called Scott Adams, Sophie and Calvin, I'll just start it out throwing this over to you. Do you know who Scott Adams is and what do you know about this person?
Is the Dilbert guy, right? That's yeah,
that's, that's that is the that is the Occam's Razor answer, the simplest and also the correct answer. He is the Dilbert guy. That is how most people know him. Yeah. Calvin, do you know anything else about Scott Adams?
I mean, I know him as the Dilbert guy. And when I was a kid, I remember really liking Dilbert. It was kind of an largely a political kind of quirky office comic strip, like tech office, comic strip and humor. Yeah, kind of observational humor, a little bit office Spacey. And so as a kid, with a dad who worked in that kind of office, like it was always very funny to me and my dad, but then I am aware that in recent years, he's gone politically off the right wing deep end a little bit. And by that, I mean, taking very strange public stances on things and just kind of becoming a sort of a provocateur media figure. So that's my, that's my perception of Scott Adams now, and I believe Dilbert was actually pulled from from newspapers because it started getting really weird.
It was indeed I can give some context to that last line on him. This is from Scott Adams Wikipedia page on the week of September 19 2022, Dilbert was pulled from an estimated 77 newspapers after recent plotlines in the strip poked fun at quote woke culture and corporate ESG strategies that is organizations that are organized by with respect to the environment, society and governance. Part of the plotline. It says here involved in African American character who quote identifies as white and the company management asking him if he could also identify as gay said Adams of his strip being pulled quote, It was part of a larger overhaul I believe, of comics, but why they decided what was in and what was out. That's not known to anybody except them, I guess, and quote. So that adds a little bit of color and flavor to Scott Adams character here. So if you look deep and thought about this, what do you think and right now?
I don't know. It's, it sounds like I really don't I mean, apart from Dilbert, I don't know anything about this doodle, though. I just found on his little bit competing page. He's like, praising Trump's style, I guess during the campaign and like, I don't know.
Well, Sophia, you've actually pointed out the the main thing that we are indeed going to be talking about because Scott Adams wrote an entire book about Donald Trump and particularly his interest in persuasion, and Donald Trump. This book is called when Bigley persuasion in a world where facts Don't matter published back in 2017. So one of the things that I think immediately caught the attention of myself and other people in the field of rhetoric, where we typically study arguments, persuasion, and those kinds of, you know, strategies as well as the larger philosophy that that is tied to immediately this jumped out because, you know, anytime somebody from outside of the discipline tries to talk about persuasion, normally our hackles are raised just a little bit too, because, you know, there's a lot that can possibly go wrong and talking about the persuasive arts, let's say. So, this book in particular, came out to much acclaim as well as much criticism back in 2017. But I do want to ask, before we actually dive into what this book is and what it represents, as a public treatise on persuasion. I want to ask the two of you a question. It is intentionally ambiguous and a little bit broad. But I want to hear your thoughts on this. Can rhetoric help us predict the future? Calvin, I'll go ahead and throw this one over to you first,
can rhetoric help us predict the future? I think it can, to the extent that we study rhetoric as a kind of data set, or as a really as a material artifact of history. And that history does tend to repeat itself. If we study rhetoric and collect examples of past rhetoric, we can certainly anticipate future arguments, I think, but not sure that we want to say 100%, we can predict with certainty, because they're philosophical problems with that, that David Hume pointed out in the 17th century, 16th or 18th century, right. So it's, you know, the real issue is, will the future, in fact, resemble the past? It tends to, but not always.
I think everything that Calvin said, I agree with, right, like things do tend to repeat themselves. And there are patterns of behavior. And you can predict arguments, I also think you can maybe make some predictions or projections about how public opinion will be shaped Right? Like it the same way you can anticipate arguments, you might anticipate how, how they'll how things will pan out? I think, yeah, it's a tool, it can be used as a tool. I wouldn't say it's like a magic tool, but it could help inform a prediction. I think,
certainly, certainly, those seem like reasonable enough answers to that question that are, you know, picking apart the the vicissitudes and nuances of what it takes to actually, you know, try and know, what is coming down the pipe, right. One of the reason that I bring this up is because Scott Adams for all of his things that he's done throughout his entire history, he has been a little bit obsessed with this notion of prediction, and specifically self styling himself as a master predictor, somebody who's really good at feeling the temperature of the of the water, right, like being able to take the sort of pulse of what's going on in a society reading people and being able to predict what they're going to do individually and in mass. And particularly, this kind of came to the forefront when he predicted that Donald Trump was going to win the presidency in 2016. He treated that as kind of his the ultimate feather in his cap, the thing that nobody else thought was going to happen, that he alone only could have foreseen for one very specific reason. Trump is a master persuader. That is Adams, primary contention here. And that is, of course, the subject of this book. What can Donald Trump's rhetoric? What can his persuasion tactics teach us about the nature of reality and how to see into the future? So I don't know. Do you think, what do you what do you think about that undertaking?
Well, I mean, I think that the It's a strange example, to build your case that you're a master predictor on because especially if it's based on this idea that Trump is a master persuader, because there's no necessary connection between how good of a persuader he was, and the outcome of the election outcome of an incredibly over determined election by like a million different factors, one of which is just the weirdness of our political system in pure numbers. Hillary persuaded way more people than Trump did. It's just that we have an electoral college system that prevented her from being given the office, you know, right. Sophie,
what do you what do you what are your thoughts?
I wonder if because I haven't read the book. I mean, it's sort of two questions, right? Like, is he good at predicting the future? And was Trump's success because of how persuasive he was like, I feel like I can't parse how to respond because I feel like I'm like, I'm focusing on both of those different questions. You know what I mean? Like, it's the case that he could be good at predicting Some things and and that's not the main thing. Like, is He? Is he truly saying like, because of how persuasive he was? I knew he would win. Like it's that the thesis of the book.
Yes, that is that is more or less the essential premise of this book. You've already nailed it pretty much right out right on the head.
Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't agree with that.
Yeah, like he, of course, he's a good persuader. But, you know, anyone else could have predicted that for a million other reasons that that Hillary was a bad candidate in certain states that she needed to win, to win in our weird political system or any other.
Like people were saying that in real time throughout the campaign like this was being remarked on as it was unfolding. So
I also just think it's hilarious to say like, I'm a good predictor. I'm an Oracle, basically, because I'm also a comic writer, but I'm an Oracle.
Is there anything you can't do? Yeah.
I think you're exactly right. Like both of you talked earlier on about, you know, how like the Dilbert comic strips were like everybody's parents favorite thing. You know, my mom would ask for like the Dilbert calendar for Christmas every year because it was so good at you know, this acerbic wit that picks up on the sort of like banal truths of the workaday world. And I think that, you know, if you are inculcated in an environment like that for long enough, you start to think that like, every day is predictable every day, you know, you take your lunch break at this time, and your boss is gonna say this thing, you can just predict how these sort of like corporate bureaucratic structures are going to work, because it's an incredibly closed social system.
Well, and that calendar, that calendar certainly predicted the number of days in the year and so yeah, read it to sky,
it's a great point, the calendar, the calendar is usually pretty good at predicting what day is going to come after the other end. The Dilbert calendar certainly is no exception. So I think we should dive into this book, though. I'm gonna read today as much as we can get through of the preamble and the introduction to read this book, because there's a lot going on here that has to deal with this question of what does it mean to use a knowledge of persuasion or an ostensible knowledge of persuasion to predict the future? So this is the preamble, very short, little snippet here called the day my reality split into here we go. In February of 2016, I began to experience two separate realities at the same time. In one reality candidate for President Donald Trump had just ended his chances of becoming president of the United States by refusing to disavow the kk k and David Duke. On a CNN interview with Jake Tapper. Trump said he didn't hear the question. This was a big problem for candidate Trump. It was also a big problem for me. I was one of the earliest public figures to have predicted Trump's win. So first, humble brag right there about his prediction skills. Let's keep a tally up here on the side, we'll do a little ding sound every time he talks about his predictions. And I was in the middle of an unplanned career pivot from quote, guy who created the Dilbert comic and quote to something like a political pundit. Yeah, the Dilbert guy. Exactly. Right. That was his public brand. He gets it. My blog traffic went through the roof whenever I wrote about Trump's skill as a persuader. I don't know much about politics, but I know skillful persuasion when I see it. As it turned out, there was a big demand for what I called my quote, persuasion filter on the race. Producers for news outlets, both large and small, were scrambling to get me on their shows. I wrote and spoke so much about Trump's persuasion skills that people labeled me a Trump supporter, although not in the sense of supporting his policies. By then my writing about Trump had already cost me half of my friends. My lucrative speaking career had dropped to zero, and I didn't expect any new Dilbert licensing deals. I had become toxic for any kind of mixed crowd. But I was okay with my situation because I expected to be right in my prediction that Trump would win it all. Winning fixes most problems. Although the polls disagreed with me. I thought my prediction of a Trump win was looking good until the Jake Tapper interview with CNN. In this version of reality, I had foolishly alienated my friends annihilated my professional reputation and cut my income in half. And all I would get in return was a Wikipedia entry under my name, saying I had supported an alleged racist for President. The situation was less than ideal. I publicly disavowed Trump because of his CNN interview, just to get out of the blast zone. But by then it was too late to salvage everything I had already lost. Like an idiot. I had managed to turn a respected career as one of the top cartoonists in the country into a grimy embarrassment that wouldn't wash off. That was one version of reality. I experienced a second version of reality at the same time, this version involve Trump brushing off the CNN slash que que que controversy and going on to win the presidency. In that version of reality, I would be redeemed in the end, at least in terms of being a credible political observer. Winning always feels good. For the next several months, I lived in both realities, but I trusted only one of them. I double down on my prediction of a Trump win. If that sounds crazy to you, well, that's nothing. We're just getting started. There's plenty more crazy in this book, trust the plan. Trust the plan, trust, trust, the preferred reality
wait. So I love this because this is this is a very common trope of right wing political commentary, where you kind of play footsie with the idea of supporting a politician or a particular policy or ideology, but mask that by presenting it as if you're just calling balls and strikes or you're, you're predicting the way things will happen. And I mean, he's very clearly saying like, things could have gone really bad for me, but they went really good for me because Trump won. But he also won't admit to like actually supporting Trump's like views and policies.
I don't really understand what's at stake for him. If he sees like a double down on my prediction, like who were there people like repeatedly, turning to him to act like what's going to happen? Asking him like, I guess I just don't understand what it means to double down on a prediction. If you're not like, who's asking him, you know what I mean? I don't
Yeah, he did put a lot of stakes on. Like, as if he's like, like, he's it
all predicts Trump, but like, what did he risk? Exactly? Right.
I'm so glad you pointed that out, Sophie, because I think the stakes of this entire book only makes sense if you are Scott Adams and Scott Adams alone, because the whole conflict that's being laid out here is like, oh, no, what will happen to Scott Adams reputation? is predictive capabilities.
I think I can't remember. Did you? Did he say like, I thought my prediction was doing good. Like, rather than like, Yeah, from chances, were still good. Like, I thought my predictions chances were good. Like, it's now it's like, he's the layers that you don't like, or like.
Yeah, he's prediction, because become like a character in the world of the Kinect. Right,
right. Influence event well, and the prediction, importantly, here is a proxy for his overall skill to you know, read the room of society, right to be able to succinctly talk about and call out the persuasion strategies that are going to make the difference between what happens now and what happens in the future. And keep in mind this notion of multiple realities that he's going to talk about here, because this is eventually going to become very important, Scott Adams sort of articulating this notion of living in multiple realities and being able to prefer or sort of, you know, put stock into one of them, trusted one of them, right. And that was the one in which his his prediction would pan out. And that is incredibly important for understanding the overall vanity project that is at the center of this book. So here we we dive into the introduction parentheses where I prime you for the rest. So this is he's alluding to some of the persuasion tactics that he's going to be getting into he's, he's priming us here. We're being primed. This chapter begins. I am a trained hypnotist. That's paragraph number one.
There we go. Cool.
You got it. Did you guys know that about Scott Adams
buried the lead there? I feel like you should open with that.
Yeah. Well, he is an Oracle. I think he thinks of this in supernatural terms, actually. Yeah,
yeah. No, you're absolutely right. Actually, Calvin, the very next line here, and I'm going to tell you about the spookiest year of my life. Okay, so Scott Adams trained hypnotist. I'm going to tell you about the spookiest year of my life. It happened between June 2015 and November 2016. Okay, that's a little more than a year. So he clearly needs his Dilbert calendar here to tell him how many days to call back. Sorry, I
couldn't resist mix calendar. Yeah,
yeah. Everything you are about to read in this book is true. As far as I know. I don't expect you to believe all of it. Who could in parentheses, but I promise it is true. To the best of my knowledge. Okay, all right.
He's a master Crusader.
Yeah, no, exactly, exactly. He's as good a persuader, as the Jeepers Creepers semi star from mr. show. I know I bring that up all the time. Always be good, except when you're
happy except when you're sad. Don't quote me on this. Don't hold me to that. In that regard. I don't know for a fact that we live a good life. I guess it's helped me. Are you the Messiah? Yes. Perhaps
You know, I am the Prophet, maybe we'll see.
Spin somebody around times before you get them going like right at the very beginning. That's true. It's a little bit true except for Not really. But take my word for it except remember, not like,
dizzy for sure. Yeah. Like, I
don't know what Yes, I could he could tell me anything.
Yes, we have all put our foreheads on the proverbial baseball bats and have spun around several times before we're about to run a sprint here. So let's see how long we can make it before we fall down again. So I've waited decades to deliver the message in this book, I waited because the world wasn't ready. But also because the messenger yours truly didn't have the skill to deliver it. Right. The story was too hard to tell. But it was important. And it needed to be told everything else from here until I say so has a paragraph break in between it. And so I waited. And I learned and I practiced. And I waited some more than it happened.
Just like just like some kids,
literally. No, I mean, I literally a lot of the critiques that are out there are Yeah, no offense to the kids out there. We love our kids, but are but but literally they are indeed Yeah. If you want to got kids, they will tell you more about Scott Adams is thankfully no issue. Indeed, indeed. So here we go into the meat of the argument. On June 16 2015, Donald J. Trump rode a golden elevator in Trump Tower to the lobby, where he announced his candidacy for President of the United States. Like most observers at the time, I didn't fully understand what I was seeing. It wasn't until the first Republican primary debate that I realized what was happening right before our eyes. Trump was no ordinary politician. He was no ordinary business person either. In fact, he wasn't ordinary in any sense of the word. Trump is what I call a master persuader very important concept here. That means he has weapons grade persuasion skills based on my background in that field. I recognized his talents early. And after watching him in action during the election, I have to say that Trump is the most persuasive human I have ever observed.
All right, so he's got weapons grade.
Yeah, that is, by the way, weapons grade persuasion skills is a concept that will be referred to multiple times in this book.
Yeah, that's a it's also interesting that he says like, being a master persuader myself. I was able to recognize it in like books. I don't know. Keep that. Keep
that in mind. Sophie,
I will we'll keep we'll keep it in.
Yeah. Well, no, no, keep in mind the way that Scott Adams talks about his own persuasive skills because that it's going to there's going to be some twists and turns in this chapter. President Trump carried those persuasion skills into the White House where his supporters say he has gotten a lot done and his critics say he hasn't supporters pointed to a decrease in illegal immigration. A strong stock market at this writing high consumer confidence progress fighting ISIS, a solid Supreme Court nominee and a stronger than and then expected foreign policy game. Critics saw chaos in the administration, slow progress on health care reform, and maybe some kind of nefarious connections with Russia. President Trump's critics and Vine asked me how I could call the President a master persuader, when his public approval levels were in the cellar. The quick answer is that low approval didn't stop him from winning the presidency. And according to his supporters, it didn't stop him from getting things done on the job. His persuasion skills, combined with the power of the presidency, were all he needed. Keep in mind that disapproving of Trump's style and personality is a social requirement for people who longed for a more civil world. Effectiveness is a separate issue from persuasive skill. What a pause there and ask what you make of that?
Well, I mean, obviously, yeah, persuasiveness is separate from progress, just like how persuasive he is a separate question to whether or not you could predict that he would win or or why he was able to win the presidency, but like, so he said, low approval doesn't matter, because he's still able to get things done and because of how persuasive he is,
ostensibly, yeah. And
is he persuading?
That's the big question. He says, effectiveness is a separate issue from persuasive skill.
So but, but is he saying that he's effective or that he's
because didn't he also say, didn't he also say like, whether or not these approved of doesn't, he's still getting things done? But then he's like, Well, effectiveness is different from persuasiveness. So he's, it kind of seems like he's like more effective than he is. So it seems like it's like playing right defense on both sides. Like I don't, it's not saying much.
I was hoping that one of that one of you could make sense of that, quote more than I could because I have no freaking idea what he's talking about. I
mean, you know, it like, it does make me think of debates in rhetoric and public policy about this very issue. There's a classic book called The Rhetorical Presidency by Jeffrey tooless, that talks about like President's policy agendas are not entirely dictated by their skills as managers, it's also dictated by their ability to persuade the public to get on board with certain policies, and build pressure. And then there's been responses to that from people like Vanessa Beasley, who wrote about the unitary executive, basically, that like over time, more and more executive power has accrued to the president to where public persuasion just doesn't matter as much they they get into office, and then they can kind of do what they want to do because they have so much power,
or they're not the ones who are the person, like once they voted in the public, like, you see it played all the time, like, oh, there's a senator split 5050, or there's actually like 55 in favor, but since you didn't get to 60, didn't have like that. Those are the things that are like determining what he's able to do and not and not like whether or not the public like, well, unfortunately, it doesn't actually really matter
if the public so that could kind of be what's what Scott Adams is trying to say here is that he did a good job of persuading enough people, like the right get elected. And so even though his administration is a dumpster fire, that does not impugn his status as a master persuader.
Yeah, but then he also says that like, the it doesn't, doesn't, I can't remember how you worded it, but like, just just because he has low approval doesn't mean he's not getting things done. So
that is exactly what he says. And, yeah, according to his supporters, his low approval rating didn't stop him from getting things done. I think we're going to learn a little bit more about what Adams means by that, because again, the effectiveness and persuasiveness kind of gets broken down a little bit here, below. Here's where we start talking about reality again. But here's the fun part. I also believe that Trump, the master persuader was going to do far more than win the presidency, I expected Trump to rip a hole in the fabric of reality, so we could look through it to a deeper truth about the human experience. And he did exactly that. But not everyone noticed. That's why I made it the theme of this book.
Okay, so I've watched enough doctor you to know that you can actually rip a hole in the fabric of reality, and expect that some people wouldn't notice that happened, right? That doesn't make sense. I mean, or it's like he's saying, like, it's so obvious, but some people are so dumb, or like, are so much more oblivious than me that I had to write a book about it. And hope you're definitely gonna read it like, No, I think you're saying very much.
I think you're spot on Sophie, he just has all of these tells where he has to insert just these little like vain, self congratulatory lines about how like nobody saw it coming, but I did.
Well, it's also true, like in terms of making predictions, like somebody's coming to rip a rip a hole in the fabric of reality is was predictable for him. He knew that that was gonna Yes, like,
what also? Yeah, no, I think you're right about what you said earlier. If you rip a hole in reality, and nobody notices, you know, not to go back to the old, the old Cohen about the tree falling in the forest with no one around, but like, doesn't matter then.
Reality nobody notice thing changed. And nobody said anything like, sounds like you maybe didn't do that. But
well, we're gonna hear a little bit more from Professor Adams here about the nature of reality. According to most people. The common worldview shared by most humans is that there is only one objective reality and we humans can understand that reality through a rigorous application of facts and reason. This view of the world imagines that some people have already achieved a fact based type of enlightenment that is compatible with science and logic, and they are trying to help the rest of us see the world in the quote right way. As far as I can tell, most people share in that interpretation of the world. The only wrinkle with that worldview is that we all think we are the enlightened ones. And we assume the people who disagree with us just need better facts and perhaps better brains in order to agree with us. That filter on life makes most of us happy, because we see ourselves as the smart ones. And it does a good job of predicting the future, but only because confirmation bias that our tendency to interpret data as supporting our views will make the future look any way We want it to look within reason. You dizzy? Yes. Did
isn't he not just saying exactly is he's not talking about himself like, yes. What?
This is projection par excellence right? Yeah, pretty amazing.
But I feel like he's also he's setting something up here where he's going to be able to say, Yes, I am describing myself but I'm also describing Trump. Yes. Why Trump won?
Right? Right. So what I saw with Trump's candidacy for president is that the quote within reason, part of our understanding about reality was about to change. Bigley. He really wrote vaguely in there, I knew that candidate Trump's persuasion skills were about to annihilate the public's ability to understand what they were seeing, because their observations wouldn't fit their mental model of living in a rational world. The public was about to transition from believing with total certainty, quotes, the clown can't win, to quote, Hello, President Trump. And in order to make that transition, they would have to rewrite every movie playing in our heads. That's just bad writing, I have. To put it in simple terms. The only way Trump could win is if everything his critics understood about the true nature of reality was wrong. Then Trump won. That's what I mean by ripping a hole in the fabric of the universe. He said reality before, not the universe. Think of it as the moment your entire worldview dissolves in front of your eyes, and you have to rebuild it from scratch. As a trained persuader, I found this situation thrilling beyond words, and I was about to get a lot of company once people realized what they were seeing, I will help you find the hole that Trump punched through the universe. So you can look through it with me to the other side, put a seatbelt on your brain, you're going to need it.
Put a seatbelt on your brain. Yes. Okay. Um, I mean, I think it's a little like, it's so it's so hyperbolic. Like the idea that like, who wins the American presidency is something like, that fundamentally shifts the universe like, it's like the whole the fabric of reality, in as much as we're talking about, like a very closed system that is like, so constrained, I would take this guy more seriously, if he wasn't trying to, like, let me know that this is the most amazing thing I've ever heard. Like, if you would just bring it down a few notches, I would like maybe listen to what he has to say. But it's a very, a little unusual to I wasn't expecting him to have this, like, you know, kind of like grand writing style, because Dilbert was pretty pared down, right? Like, that's not how I expect him to write. But it's like, he's like a kid telling a story. Like,
yeah, that's great. No, I agree. I think like, it's such a 2017 book, on some ways. 100 where it's like, yeah, that's important. And I'm actually glad that we've had the midterms that just happened in 2022. Yes. Because the 2020 election, was very weird to and was so over determined and contextualized by the pandemic, and by January 6, than like, all of this wild stuff that that was happening around it, that I feel like books like this, you know, this is not like that original of a claim. That's the hilarious thing about it. A lot of people were writing this same kind of commentary like this shock to the entire liberal establishment. It shocked all the prediction markets, it shocked all the polls, all the political commentary, and it's like a totally new reality. There's a pre Trump and a post Trump reality. And I think maybe we can see now that it wasn't a total disjunct like, maybe it on its own was kind of an aberration, not a total aberration. But the fact that it didn't usher in this, like, post Trump, Republican domination of politics, I think makes this kind of commentary look very dated, because, sure, it revealed certain things that commentators weren't seeing as clearly as they could have. But I don't know if he blew a hole open in reality, particularly because he only won by like one point.
Well, right. It wasn't like a landslide. And also I feel like it's I think a lot of people's feelings about it, because he is so disliked by so many people, like, is it accurate to say people thought it couldn't happen? Or is it that they thought it shouldn't? Because they feel they want it to happen? Yeah, like it was. It's I feel like the whether or not you thought it was likely, I think is like skewed a little bit by how much people did not want it to be likely. And so that's, I think, more or, more accurate. The description of the dynamic is like, if you detach yourself from like caring about what happens, maybe people would have less of a, it wouldn't be so shocking to think he could win because like,
but how do you detach yourself from that when it's politics? Right? It's it's such a privileged way to look at
all right? Well, and he, which he takes himself because he's like, I don't know much about politics, like he's like, he's just a regular guy. Like, he doesn't really know. He just knows. Because he's because he's so skilled. He can recognize somebody else's skill, even though he doesn't really get involved like, Yeah,
well, I hypnotize people. And I
don't know, I read comic strips
from our high.
Right about Sophie, let's go and talk about Scott's politics for a bit. I'm not going to read directly because he goes to great lengths to talk about why he labels himself, quote, an ultra liberal. And by that, I mean, liberals seem too conservative to me, because he's again, doing this. He's doing this kind of hedging and his argument to explain, you know, hey, I'm not a conservative. That's not the reason that I'm saying Donald Trump is so great here. And so, you know, he talks about let's see, generally speaking, conservatives, one of it's very pedantic stuff, where he's like, you know, actually, if you if actually, I'm pro abortion and pro like women's bodily autonomy, to which I just have to say that Scott Adams, let's see, this is reading from his Wikipedia page. Adams has compared women asking for equal pay to children demanding candy back in 2011. So really, that's, that's, uh, you know, just just a little frame checking there for the Dilbert guy. He talks about other things, you know, he's opposed to the legalization of marijuana, he's actually in support of it. You know, he doesn't have any opinions on economics and foreign affairs, they let's see, neither does anyone else. My opinion on my own limitations doesn't match that of any politician. They pretend they have enough information to make informed decisions.
So he's not getting into it. If you can't make a prediction. That's not like you nobody can exact Exactly, exactly nobody can predict don't even ask me and if we will say they can. They're wrong.
Exactly. That's exactly right. But just to check this whole frame of himself as an ultra liberal of the things that he said that have been controversial, he caused controversy by pointing out satanic coincidences in the Joe Biden presidential campaign and even went on to predict that and this is quoting from his Twitter July 1 2020. Quote, if Biden is elected, there's a good chance you will be dead within the year
coincidences Can you circle back?
Sure. Yeah. Let's go ahead and I didn't actually didn't on
this for Halloweens. Yeah, this is maybe we can do a Washington key follow up.
We can Yeah. Going into all the conspiracy theories that Scott Adams has pedaled here. Let's see. Do the darkness. Okay. Hang on one second. Let's Yeah, this is sorry. There's a Washington Times article that we can share here. I mean, it was just all this stuff that he says in these like morning vlog posts that he does over coffee. I'm gonna look into that he's speaking he's speaking and saying, you know, will bring light to the darkness. Cities are actually on fire. California is on fire said Mr. Adams. Quote. So if you were Satan, wouldn't you expect that Satan would speak in terms which are true but misleading? Ask Mr. Adams, quote, meaning he will bring you the light, but there's a catch. It's fire and it's burning your stuff. That's exactly what Satan would say if Satan existed. Now, I'm not saying that Joe Biden is possessed by Satan. I'm just saying exactly like this. I'm not saying that he exists. But if you did, it would look exactly like Joe Biden and close
coincidences that if that ever was real, he would probably say exactly what Joe Biden just sitting in this. Yes. Okay. Yeah.
Gosh, I see, or perhaps was probably one of the most monstrous I don't know if I would even call this a political position. But in response to a lot of the mass shootings that were happening, especially kind of culminating over the summer, on Twitter, Adams argued that society leaves parents with only two options when their teenage sons become a danger to themselves or others, watch people die or kill your own son. That is literally a thing that Scott Adams said this. Okay. Yeah. So anyway, it's a it's a lot. He is. He is a very, I would say, verging on a monstrous person.
And also just also just like, such a random grab bag of wild. Yeah, take so I'm
kind of picking and choosing what he's gonna weigh in on and able to, like, predict and share wisdom about. Wow,
that's right. Okay. Let's go back to the book here, though. Policies aside, I was clearly a Trump supporter in scare quotes, in the sense that I spoke glowingly of his persuasion skills, his humor and his business talent. I was among the first observers, some say the first to identify his political maneuvering as such. Let's add another ding there.
That's also a very Trumpy way to say that. Well, some would say the first
and you know you You know, Calvin, I think you're picking up on a little something that's gonna keep happening over the course of this book. Let's listen closely for it if we can some say the first to identify as political maneuvering as solid strategies borrowed from the business world. I was making that point while most pundits were labeling him an unhinged clown. I know a lot about business because I've observed it and lived it in a lot of ways. I write about business in the Dilbert comic, and I've published several business humor books. Are they are they Dilbert books, though? That's what I want. Dilbert compendiums that I read when I was in sixth grade. Yeah, dreaming? Yes, exactly. They were aspirational at that point, not so much anymore. I write about business in the Dilbert comic. I've published several business humor books. I also spent 16 years in corporate America First at a large bank. He was a teller and lender at a phone company. I held about a dozen different jobs at those companies and got to see business from the perspective of technologists, marketers, strategists, leaders, followers, and more. I also have a BA in economics and an MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. And I've managed several different types of businesses of my own. The Dilbert business is a substantial enterprise. And I manage that. I also co founded a startup called when hub and I helped manage that. Sorry, I just had to look into what when hub was. So just as an FYI, it's kind of it's kind of like a mixture between like cameo but on the blockchain sorry, I should read from the medium page of this very defunct looking when business. It has 11 followers on medium when hub is a mobile app that makes it easy for anyone to video call an expert on any topic with a friction free smart contract transaction. So nothing scammy at all sounding. Okay, that's another reason
saying like he's bopped around the business world for what two decades never really landing on anything or doing anything. I mean, I guess Gilbert successful but so Dilbert Sure well, like, well,
but I was I was gonna say to I think he mentions Dilbert as a substantial business enterprise. Does he mean the business within Dilbert?
He He maintains that fictional universe and so that that is
that's is a big enterprise within the comics.
Absolutely, yeah. He's got that's, that's another business. Yes, yeah. Dogbert is another co manager. Yeah. He has to manage a business within a business. And then now he says, I make no claim of being a great business person. But I can usually tell the difference between good business practices and bad political pundits and writers covering Trump during the campaign generally did not have business experience. And I think that put them at a huge disadvantage in understanding the power of his methods. It wasn't all about persuasion. He also used high end business strategy all the way and you wouldn't recognize it as such. If you had never spent time in that world. Okay. Ethos paragraph.
Yeah, that like business week should or like, you know, like, like business periodicals. They should have done more punditry, exactly. And put more like business reporters. That's right on it. And then maybe we would have predicted this. I also don't know why he's now saying it's not all about persuasion. Like
the second time he's done that, just like when he was like, Well, when you win the presidency, just because I wasn't like him, doesn't mean you didn't get things done. Like that wasn't about persuasion either. So like, maybe that's the great like, trick is that, like, it's actually this is, because it seems that every point he like comes up to a point where he's kind of talked himself into a corner where like, he's not, you know what I mean? It's like, well, it's not really about that, like, yeah,
my expertise on this has run out. So therefore.
Like, the other thing, the other thing I don't get here is like, I'm most sort of business profitability metrics and stuff like that, like, most of Trumps enterprises are not very successful. That's what I was gonna say, as well.
Like, maybe if people were in the business world, they would know that he's not exactly praised for being like a good business, man and is not known for his successes. Exactly. So like,
I was the part that I just could not wrap my head around. It's like I thought, like, isn't it pretty well known that Trump is actually like, kind of a shit businessman?
Yeah, I mean, I guess he's good at like, exploiting people and finding loopholes. So like, yeah, in that regard, and maybe that's what he means. Like, he knows how to game the political system like play it like a businessman and Nick, right? Treat it like a treat it like a business instead, because that's what he saw on the campaign trail, right? Like, I'm, I'm not a politician. I'm a businessman. Like, it seems like ideals. He's just like, drank the Kool Aid of Trump and he's like, Trump's great, because he's a businessman. He's not like he's not like other politics like you say Just everything Trump says about himself like he's not. There's yet to be like a revolutionary objective. No doesn't.
Well, and it's also not. It's not strictly speaking something that distinguishes Trump like, that's literally like I still remember back when we did our reverb EP on dialogic reality, where we had to listen to that whole god awful, Clint Eastwood speech at one of the 2012 RNC where he gave the empty chair Obama speech but he literally was like recycling the oldest trope in the like conservative Republican playbook, which is we need somebody to run this run this country like a business we need a businessman.
I think it's maybe time what do you think for maybe a businessman, a stellar businessman, quote unquote, stellar businessman.
Like that's, they've always said that there's this is nothing new. But again, I want to continue on here with Scott's credentials to make sure that we get through this part because this is Sophia again, where I want to call attention back to you know, you were presuming early on that Scott considers himself a master persuader. Here we go. This is a good place to tell you where my credentials rank in the field of persuasion, I label my persuasion skills commercial grade, meaning that I successfully use persuasion in my work. A few levels above me and talent and credibility are cognitive scientists who study this sort of thing for a living. If a cognitive scientist tells you that I got something wrong in this book, trust the scientist, not me. In my view of the world, the few individuals I call master Persuaders are a level above cognitive scientists in persuasion power and possess what I call weapons grade persuasion skills. The qualities that distinguish weapons grade persuasion from academic or commercial types are the level of risk taking and risk on personality that goes with it. Trump, the candidate had an appetite for risk, a deep understanding of persuasion and a personality that the media couldn't ignore. He brought the full package. Here's the summary of persuader types, the most powerful or at the top. So this is a bullet point list here. First one is master Persuaders, and he gives examples for this one. Master Persuaders includes several presidents, Steve Jobs, Peggy Noonan, Tony Robbins, Madonna, et cetera,
et cetera.
You know, people like that,
like that. several presidents like
it's like a lamp, a walrus, burning toast. My forehead. Et cetera
You know, most eclectic list you could possibly... Madonna, you know? People like that! Yeah, she is.
She's great. She got me wrong.
Peggy Noonan was the one that was sort of like, "one of these things is not like the others"... is he just thirsty here? Like
what's going on with Peggy Noonan is like a columnist, right? Yeah, yeah, she what makes her a master persuader,
a weekly columnist for Wall Street Journal, Wall Street Journal.
Did her a solid that was like him promoting her in his book.
He was no Dilbert characters appearing on this. Because I feel like dog Bert is supposed to be.
Yep, yeah, exactly. Or at least cat Bert. I mean, come on. So
cat bird stands going off in the chat. That's right. That's
we love we love us. And literally, my cat is going under my microphone. Because you tweet to us about the tweet to us about how exactly hashtag cat Bert was right? Alright, so number two on the list is cognitive scientists. So that's not referring to the actual profession of a cognitive scientist. That's a level of persuader is a cognitive site.
Okay. Oh, like they're doing science on your mind. Like that kind of cognitive. Yes,
sir. Real terms guy. You can't just like for me as a magician. I don't mean people who study math.
Oh, my God. Yeah.
So and then of course, at the bottom of the list is commercial grade Persuaders people such as me.
Does he give examples from the for the other two? Because
no, no, he only he doesn't give examples of cognitive scientists. He only gives another example of the commercial grade persuader which is himself.
Such as me, such as me, I'm the only one.
Yeah, so he, me, et cetera. Man, he says further, I'll try to compensate for my lack of a PhD in cognitive science by linking to sources where it makes sense, but much of this book is based on decades of personal practice and observation of what works and what doesn't in the realm of persuasion, and this is in italics. I encourage readers to remain skeptical and check any of my claims on their own. A simple Google search will confirm or debunk question mark. Almost anything I say in this book about persuasion.
That's like he began. The other is this next chapter. That's how we started that the last time he was like, I'm not saying all this is true. It definitely is. But don't take my word for it. Like, that's he's doing it all over again. Like, I'm pretty persuasive.
Just this book is like, so inspiring. Like, yeah, anyone can write. Yes. Like, if this is a book, man,
I can literally build his Dilbert Empire first. He did. Yes. He's standing on the shoulders of his own Dilbert empire.
Yes, that's exactly right. I want to scroll through here just for the sake of time, there's a The next section is all about like, it's literally the heading is but Scott Trump is a horrible monster, isn't he? And there's a lot of sort of like meandering and tiptoeing around like, oh, but Trump is doing a lot of bad things. But actually, if you really think about it, they weren't that bad. The essential argument here is that Trump was actually going extreme on a lot of his rhetoric. But the talents, the persuasive talent here that was at play, was that he was going extreme so that he could actually get a middle position. He was just doing savvy negotiation, even the half measure was still better than the extreme, you know, border wall, you know, deportation of every immigrant kind of thing that he was calling for. So he's really doing a lot of, I guess, like apology for the the actual horrors of the Trump administration, like saying, Actually, his bark was worse than his bite. So I don't know, we can talk about that for
a little bit. But he was trying to persuade people to do something even more horrible, because he really didn't want it to be that horrible. Just a little bit bad. Was the thing you wanted to get done. Okay.
That's right. That's right.
Yeah, I mean, that is kind of a, I guess, you know, like as leftists we tend to advocate for stuff like that, like, why not cancel all the debt? Or you know, how progressive politicians advocate for canceling all the debt so that when a centrist actually makes the call, they go halfway between that? And nothing, you know, but I don't think that really works when it's like, I'm advocating to ban all Muslims. So we'll just ban some of them, because that's what I really want.
Yeah, really? Yeah.
Don't Don't say, Oh, yeah. Well, well, that's not that monstrous, right. You just want to be savvy negotiator. Yeah, exactly.
Well, I guess he gets to do that. Because he's not again, he said, he's not weighing in on the politics of it. He's just saying, like, if he was trying to persuade people to do something really bad, then actually, he didn't get what it doesn't. It doesn't really work. Doesn't work. No,
I don't think so either. All right. So we're gonna finish out here this chapter with the last section, the subheading, here is why I could see and say what other pundits could not. So
see and say.
I look in my mirror and I see what I say. And then I use good old good old sorcery right there. All right. I had an advantage in explaining Trump to the public because I have an unusual talent stack will remember that we'll just put a little dog here on that word talent stack because that's going to come up in later chapters. For starters, I'm a trained hypnotist and a lifelong student of persuasion, trained to Persuaders recognize the techniques used by other Persuaders in a way that the untrained do not. So I had that going for me, as I mentioned. Yeah, I know I this is literally like, this is why the critiques have said, this is just a hodgepodge pastiche of blog posts that you might not have even edited together.
That's kind of what I was getting at when I said any of us can write a book like any anyone on this call anyone listening, go write a book, because this apparently counts as a book print. You're
in like your Twitter history and just right. Yeah.
In that regard, this book is very inspirational. As I mentioned, I was also among the first or the first to point out that Trump was using high end business strategy that looked crazy to political pundits who had no business experience. I have extensive business experience across a variety of fields here. This is only sounding more ridiculous because I skipped over that section to be fair, but like he's literally, you know, treading the exact same ground that he already went over. So most of what Trump was doing looked familiar to me, for example, where others saw Trump pushing outrageously impractical and even immoral policies. I saw him using standard negotiating tactics and hyperbole to make it easier to find the middle ground later. And he did. I had a lot of advantages in understanding Trump's communication style and his powers of persuasion. But when it came to communicating what I knew I had one enormous advantage that almost no one else covering the election had. I wasn't doing it for money. Oh, I'm okay. Now that now listen to this paragraph. This is one of my favorite paragraphs of the chapter. And it's just one of those things where I'm astounded that he that he put it in here. I'm already rich. No one owns me. The common business term for that. Yeah, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna say well put in the sound clip, maybe something but
I'm already rich. No one owns me. The common business term for that is having fu money. And I have it. He actually says fu with the letter. He doesn't say the pole expletive Gotcha. He's having fu money. And I have it. That gave me Yes. That's he's got he's got another word for that. Yeah, he's got D money. And I have it. That gave me the freedom to say whatever I thought was both useful and true. And thanks to my popular blog@dilbert.com I have a direct channel to the public.
I honestly, that's like the third thing I do when I wake up in the morning is I log on to don't let that come over. I have no one on.
I have my Chrome set up so that when I open a new tab it starts.
Yeah, yes. Yes, exactly. Let's put it that way to go for all your news. The front paper of record. That's right. Yeah.
Let's say today.
Oh my god. I also knew that there would be plenty of haters coming at me as soon as I started saying good things about Trump's talents, and codes that
drove blog traffic. I wonder I
truly, truly wonder if any of this is just about milking engagements for money. Hmm, interesting. Interesting. I also knew there would be plenty of haters coming after me and come after me. They did. Amateurs, professionals and paid trolls alike. Luckily for me, I had a three word philosophy beginning with an F and ending with money that covered that situation a few months over. And I made sure my readers knew that's how I was thinking, the freedom to say whatever I wanted to say and to do it publicly was half the fun. Oh, I also have one more thing going for me. I don't feel shame or embarrassment like normal people. I wasn't always this way. It's a learned skill. And I knew it would take all of my embarrassment avoidance talents to survive, what I expected would be a year of abuse at best. And at worst, if my critics were right, a lifetime of mockery for the things I was about to say in public. That kind of risk has never stopped me from doing anything. No, you don't say Scott?
So he's like, yeah, he's really kind of fashioning himself as sort of a Trump like figure really? Yes, you know, successful and He can say whatever he wants, like, and that's, I mean, I guess it kind of makes sense if he believes Trump to be so persuasive that he would communicate like Trump, because he also like, I guess, but yeah, you working for
me? Nope, nope. I confess to enjoying the adrenaline of it all. We're just about finished here. I invite you to come along for the ride in the form of this book, you're going to like it. I invite people of all political perspectives to enjoy this book without getting sidetracked by politics. I won't be discussing policies except in the context of persuasion. This book isn't designed to change. Politics. Yes, exactly. So it is kind of about politics, but only in the context of persuasion, which is the entire
subject. It's just the book. But otherwise, we're not going to talk except it's
not really the subject of the book. No, because he's said almost nothing about persuasion. He hasn't defined
the introduction. Yes, he has made time to save three times that he's a trained hypnotist. He has said what persuasion?
What persuade Yes, yeah, yes. Yep, exactly. This book isn't designed to change your mind about politics or about Trump. All I hope to do is teach you some things about persuasion by wrapping it in an entertaining first person story with your permission. Let's do just that. I see that as the end of the introduction.
So he's just using this as an anecdote to help us learn a thing or two. But the lessons are directly tied to what? So it's really more of a case study.
Yes, case study analysis. It's a dissertation.
It's a vehicle for his truth about reality and persuasion.
Yeah, I mean, can we can we zoom out and ask what what have we learned that he's saying Trump does well, because I have no clue
when he said that Trump was a weapons grade persuader or however he says it right. He said that I knew he classifies Trump thusly, because I think he said he because he knows a lot about persuasion. Persuasive because he really knows how to be persuasive. So like,
yeah, it's a bit of a tautology there. Yeah. circles around because they're round because they're circles. And the other thing that I'm confused about, okay, so yeah, you uses business strategies that seems to be part of it. So he persuades like a businessman. Businessmen are good at persuading, therefore he's good at persuading. Yeah, he now is he's saying that Trump didn't have maybe Trump had fu money. And that enabled him to say things that other people aren't saying,
are just like a risk taker. Like it's riotous.
So So I think I think, at least my position, and this is actually gleaned from like, listening to what you both have had to say in this that I didn't actually notice when I was reading through is that this whole chapter is kind of this like, very transparent, and like hack, sort of enactments of Trumpian rhetoric that he is trying to and he literally says, right from the very beginning the introduction, parenthesis where I prime you for the rest, I think that probably there's going to be some like very tacky sort of reveal later on somewhere in this book that was like, remember when I primed you with all these concepts and repetitions of things during the introduction, and I kept listing all of my credentials ad nauseam, and I kept repeating myself and like, you know, literally, it's just like the most base level middle school debate, persuasion tactics, right? That right, he is trotting out here to be like, I'm going to make an argument about why Donald Trump is a good persuader, using the same kinds of language and persuasive tactics that he does. But like anybody with like, half a brain, you know, like, and we, you know, we in here know, art stuff about person, we
have half a brain. Yeah, we
at least have half a brain between the three of us. But like, you know, we, we could just very easily see through this as being like, okay, yeah, this is nothing new. This is nothing interesting. This is just trying to do like this very low level manipulation from the perspective of, you know, like, something you'd expect from like, yeah, hypnotist, or a magician at a children's birthday party or something like that. It's not a thing. Anything revolutionary at all? I don't know. That's my it's,
it's not. And it's also I think it's just absurd to say that you can talk about how Donald Trump became president, without getting into all the politics like you Exactly. Like What a ridiculous thing to say. Like, like, let's take all the context out of a historical situation. And just break it down for what it was, without all the things that made it what it was like the actuals. It's like, Yeah, you don't I mean, I feel like that, that that is very convenient out that he's, like laid out from the beginning. Like it once this gets into politics. Listen, that's not we're not talking about that. Like, yeah, how you can't do it. Like, you just can't do it.
No, yeah, there seem to be a lot of really important elements of a rhetorical situation that he doesn't address, because I've used this as entirely speaker centered. Yes. Like a speaker has a talent stack. And if that talent stack is weapons grade, yeah, then doesn't matter what the situation is. Yeah. And it doesn't matter who the audience is, if the audience is there for like to hear the message that you're putting out at a given time? Yeah, it's a pretty strange model of persuasion. I mean, it is quite mystical and like, hypnosis.
Yeah. As if it is something you need to like divine because you can't like I feel like the idea of fortune telling is sort of tied to the idea that like there are, there aren't patterns. Like it's, it's it's randomness and divine intervention. And that's what's going on. And there aren't, there aren't patterns of behavior or things you can predict because of things that happened in the past, but like, to talk about persuasion is to talk about rhetoric, and you can't just absolve yourself of any context and hope to do it. Like, who is who is this book for? I just feel like, if you're, if you feel like you're kind of like, with it enough to like, throw down on a book about, okay, let's dive into how people persuade other people. How could anybody really buy this at all? You know what I mean? Like, I don't understand who,
yes. I mean, literally, I'm so glad that you guys are going to this because this goes back to that whole point that he made about, like most people believe in an objective reality where things are based on facts and reason. And it's like, I think so Scott Adams is kind of like tilting is tilting his hand here a little bit when he says, I am no smarter than that I can see through all that nonsense, but it seems like he still has this very sort of like, autonomous stick view of human beings. The audience, of course, does not matter here and in a lot of ways, like he never really brings that up and I'm curious to see if he does later on but I really do it not to not to put too fine a point on it. But like the Dilbert ethos of like, look at all these stupid drones going through this right is saying I'm the only one who program To say, Yeah, and like I am the one with the acerbic wit that's able to see all of the all of the puppet strings that are moving these characters about the stage like, yeah, I really think that this is kind of like a dehumanizing form of viewing the world. And that's my sense of what this is based on right now. Like, you know, he's he's seeming to like hint at some elements of like post modernity here, but I don't think he really has a concept of the social that is in any way responsible to like the dignity of human beings,
which is reflected in the fact that like, the way he's written this book is for himself and not for treating it like because the audience
cries absolutely to it's cool. Like,
he can write whatever he wants to because it's really, it's him just like having to like, yeah, like, get it down. Right like record for posterity his wisdom and not really because he like, because he even says, it's like, I'm not trying to change anybody's mind. I'm just trying to teach you guys if you like, it just seems like it's like more of a Yeah, like he's like some kind of divine being or Oracle that is like, being channeled by the muse of, of, you know of what this is all you know, this wisdom. The gents got its,
yeah. And it is music. Can't
wait to read it. I can't wait to read the whole thing.
Okay, you guys, you guys are exciting. Okay. All right, y'all, for sure. I
need to like take six months between each installment. I feel like
I'm gonna need like a six month shower after just reading that. So yeah, that's thank you for bearing with me on that. And thank you to our listeners, those of you who stayed all the way to the end you you are you are true blue. We really appreciate you coming on this journey with us.
I think you're you're probably a weapons grade persuader by now,
I'd say so, at the time, all this? Yep. Yeah. And if anything
on this podcast feels wrong to you, you know, you're probably right. We're probably wrong.
Yeah, we don't really know. We're just what is the commercial grade podcast? Yeah.
The cognitive scientists,
cognitive scientists podcast,
that doesn't mean that we study cognition.
But we do have PhDs in cognitive science. That's right,
which is, if you could have a PhD in cognitive science and published in cognitive science, commercial grade, that's a great book persuade or be master.
Again, this is all this is really, I feel like this is going to have to become a regular regular series on the show regular installment for us to figure it out. Yeah,
yep. Yep. What is a cognitive scientist? The question of our era. All right, title of the episode, what is the cognitive science? Man, well, thank you to my co hosts and CO producers. This was a lot of fun. I hope I didn't torture you too much. But I had a really, really wonderful time talking through this with you. And hopefully, again, you know, with with due time and some patience, we can we can come to another chapter of this. And, you know, we'll see how our listeners feel about it, too. If we get anybody saying don't do the Scott Adams thing anymore than we we don't have to, but I don't
know. About Catbert. Also,
yes. Yep. Calvin, you are gonna say more? More Scott Graham. Less Scott Adams. Exactly.
Exactly. Choose the right Scott.
Yes, that's right. Shout out to Scott Graham. Great previous episode that he did with us. All right. So from all of us here at reverb. Thank you very much for joining us today. We will talk to you again soon. Bye bye. Bye. Our show today was produced by Alex Helberg. Calvin pollack. And Sophie Wozzeck with editing work by Alex reverbs. CO producer at large is Ben Williams. 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.
