Transcripts For CSPAN2 Scott Adams Loserthink - How Untrained Brains Are Ruining America 20240713

Then will jump right in. Scott here no interest in giving a speech before mr. Asking questions. What you start asking questions. There we go. Just in time for thanksgiving. A book to help you deal with people with whom you disagree. Everyone, get out and get your copy. Gavel, intro, questions. Please send yours up. They dont have to be related to just the book. Here weit go. My name is melissa caen. Welcome to the Commonwealth Club hosting of the scott adams. In his new book loserthink scott dison did epidemic of mental shortcuts that he believes is making as prone to believing in bad ideas. Racist,g that gun control is equal to full compensation and most importantly avoiding self reflection join personal relationships and period were very excited to have him here with us tonight to discuss his new book. Loser thing. And whatever else you guys would like to ask him. He has told me that that thing is loft offlimits for so they go. Please welcome scott adams. [applause] loser say is the word i invented. I noticed join i was im twitter mostly the debating with various trolls and real people is it too, and every once in a while somebody would make a really good comment. And i say, i dont quite agree with that but that is really well put. So i would check in the profile, so the lawyer or economist, scientist. Then i would see, those just been shipped. Im not supposed to see that probably but i look at it and i would say, losing that. And i would click im the profile. And it would be a musician. Or a journalist, and im thinking to myself, is that a coincidence or is there something about from your experience in different fields, and teaches you how to say. In reflecting im my own experience. I have a degree in economics and an mba. And literally they teach you how to say. It is also much, the learning specifics and economics, they teach you how to compare things, teach you how to so cost, the teacher about the value of her name. And usually these are the some of the techniques that the teacher how to say productively about your world. So it scientist have their own way of looking at things and some historians and psychologist. And for some weird reason, ive had an experience in all of the skills. Im a trained hypnotist. Please dont pray [laughter] and ive worked in Corporate America for 16 years and held a variety of jobs from strategies and jobs in technology and just by chance, ive experienced a lot of domains. And then you pick up, how did they say in those domains. A lot of people just havent been exposed to them. So i thought it would write the book and fill in those gaps if you have any. For journalist, and if you are, and for people who are more disciplinary. Is it just the non humanities. [laughter] its not even learning the depth of those fields. So i can teach you how and economist thanks, will a good example. This how easy it is. If you never entered the concept of soak cost. Raise your hand. Maybe less than half. [laughter] so cost refers to the idea that if you already its been your her name im something, see youve invested it, thank you shouldnt look to that to make your next decision. Another words you should see that her name is gone. I cant get a bat, there is nothing i can do in the future that will change the fact that it is gone. It is sunk. If you make a decision based im the her name of our respect, which we will do, and they see, ive already put x dollars into this, i dont want to waste it. So i better double down the keep investing. Now that feels like common sense. The first time you hear that you cant change the path, see oh yeah, that sucks. Its fun. I was just a white decision as if i were starting today and ive never even heard of the other stuff. So thats how easy you can learn it. I dont need to be an economist you just have to see some of these things once and it becomes part of your thinking. How a loser thing because you really want to stay away from calling people domains. Actually run long, calling people stupid will not make them smart. [laughter] pending intro. But you said loser say, because you want to address the behavior and not demonize the person. See talk about these labels. And help that is one method of loser say. News one of the things that i learned is that mockery is incredibly powerful. Anyway see to me, i cant tell you how many people have said this. Lots of people. They would write me an email see we were going to do this certain policy at work, but we saw of years mocking it. So we decided not to. [laughter] because nobody wants to do the things already been pre mocked. The second rain have to wait. I mock you in advance. You dont even have to wait. No waiting. [laughter] in fact, even elon musk, when he is writing about what to his employees and how he wanted them to behave or the culture should be like, what are the steps was to not do anything. Policy wise that would make it into a comic. [laughter] now the power of that is that he didnt have to explain with event. Is Everybody Knows dilbert and the comic. You know them we do see them. Thats a dilbert situation there. I use that same technique by coming up with a word loser say, people can use and see hey thats a loser thing. Heres a photo that it took in the patient book that explains it better than i can. So i get permission to the book to tweet out a page. Two people who have a gap in their thinking. And he can be filled in. Noah of course having the word like loser say makes it easier to muck people. Nobody wants to hear, hey thats loser say. I was checking my twitter feed before he came in here. A lot of people are the book. Accusing other people look loser say. [laughter] i say it is already working. [laughter] sewing using mockery and to a much better way. Intent more productive thinking. To think people really need this book are going to buy it or do you think just like a holiday sale. Or for people buy it for them or their friends. [laughter] we do name a book loser think, you pretty much guaranteeing that theyre going to give it to somebody for the holidays. The real good news is it feels like a gift. But you are not really sure. [laughter] hey uncle bob, i get to this book. Loser think. You learn about other people. [laughter] so one of the chapters you write talks about a mindreading. Pun intended, you are in my mind with it. Because it is one of the most frustrating things that i see im the internet. People who are sort of trying to assert that they know whats in their soul or your mind are in somebody elses heart. Is another example like i try to name that. There mindreading the courses already were but applying it in a way gives them a little extra power. If you look that is, you see the funds jabbering one side of the other. Quite often, your jabbering is it about an assumption about what a stranger is thinking. What were their real motives. What is the real reason you are doing this. Now sometimes they are right, sometimes it is obvious stuff. Political stuff is usually pretty obvious many times you couldnt possibly know the stranger is thinking. Man is evidence that you are not good at mindreading, give you every relationship youve ever been in. Because there is probably 70 sitting right next to you in the last 24 hours, assumed you were mad we do werent or assumed they were hungry we were to assume that you are happy we do are. My husbands the front row be careful sir. [laughter] so mindreading is something that i call out and bite giving me the work of putting the goat was her think, it allows people to see oh yeah, that is a bad think. And weirdly enough, it was so pervasive, i dont know if i ever heard a Single Person ever call an elf. No, you imagining you could read some of his mind but in moments is called l, become sort of part of the conversation. And then you are going to start spotting it. Way to tell you what you see what happens in the coming weeks for you going to start seeing mindreading all over the place and you see, i guess its out before but it crystallized because somebody talked about it as a word. And i was a think. There are a lot of Great Concepts in the book. There is something here where i really feel like i read. In one part coming talk about the difference between coincidences and things that are actually you know, anything you should take seriously. His writing about this day, and is talking about all of these things are happening appears to be magical. I quote, a few days ago i arranged my collections of flashlights are in is like, you have a collection of flashlights. [laughter] this book should be called i have a collection of flashlights. How do you have, how many do you have, is our community. I need to know. I really like flashlights. I confess that readily. I built a shrine to my flashlights and women cave in my garage. Literally, i put them up the board and make sure they all had fresh batteries and everything. I never done that before. I always loved flashlights. Id always buy a new one. Site if my collection other than the raw fresh batteries, im so happy with it. In the First Time Ever ive been leaving in my house, somebody ran into a powerful suv, and plunged my neighborhood into darkness. In the same time that i built a shrine to flashlights. [laughter] is ours and myself, no problem, look my flashlights was good. So, do you have. Well i recycle and throws them have a good solid 25. The core collection. Are there antiques, they heard appointments. Is like a community where you like, oh thats that version. Thats amazing. Its been a thats a good idea. [laughter] now theyre mostly classic and and just like other look. I was like flashlights. Its hard to explain. Now we know. Thank you. So you are not a fan of the press. As a member of the press, i was really going, well, but i think is fair. Sue mckay didnt name you. At this time. [laughter] but i didnt feel like it was unfair. You are attacking the structure of the press. Even something that i think a lot of journalists wouldnt even disagree with you about. Sometimes a little bit about that how that that feeds into the way people think. Selected put it into a context of a small technological change. Nobody noticed what happened. Which is the ability to measure with precision what people are clicking im and even why in some cases. And once that was the case, once everybody could measure, these people click im this and these people click im that. It would become obvious as it did. The things they want to click im are the crazy stuff. The things that make your hair catch im fire, i want to hear about the budget. I would hear about an impeachment. I want to hear about a plot or the government. Some really good stuff. So we are all elevated in our opinions because the news model is forcing us towards more provocative stuff. So are before they wouldve just said, here is the news snore. Now it is replaced the entertainment to a large extent. Off of some of you would relate to this pre hemi of you watch the news like entertainment. Its also much for the news anymore but for the last. Seventy liars in here. Everybodys hand should be up. So that is the big problem. Once you can measure stuff, there is no way the Public Companies with their open stockholders could do anything but do things that can get the most attention. Until we bifurcated their news consumption. Conservatives are little more likely i think statistically to alisa sample scene and once in a while because its more pervasive. But people on the left typically are not even aware of the argument on the right or they might know one of them but not the good one. For example, not mine. [laughing] so thats part of the problem. You to get some tips for how to get out of your bubble. How to recognize if youre in one and then how to communicate, how to i recommend pharmaceuticals. [laughing] not in the way you think. Not in the way you think. If youou watch the news, as i do quite a bit, there are pharmaceutical commercials that come on. If you make the mistake of listening to one you are going to hear more problems than you knew that a human could have healthwise. [laughing] they will come on essay you can take this pill and it will solve one problem, but you will have diarrhea and you will have your heart will explode and your lungs will be congested. Forget aboutl sex against all good drugs take that off the table. Thats the first thing they do. L commercial first of all get it l off because i dont want to hear about the problems because i dont have those problems. Because then you think i do have a rash as a matter of fact. So to change the channel as quickly as possible to the opposite cnn or fox news and in that way a lot of the ugly commercials i expose myself to you have to do it the way i do if you not sampling both sides you really dont know whats going on but you mightng think u do and thats the most dangerous situation. You telll a story about your dog snickers that a think its a great anecdote. Youre right i think my dog snickers believes im an idiot because i dont take her outside to play which is clearly communicating to me it is time to do so. Snickers knows shes sending me the lets go outside signal so she knows i am physically able to go outside so if i dont stop when doing and take her out, does she think im stupid . You go on to say sometimes your snickers, sometimes you are you in the scenario in a way requires empathy and imagination to really think about where the other person is coming from. Heres an example where being an artist or a creative person gives you may be a little better vision on the world and perhaps the engineer or the scientist. Before when i sync different professions have different styles of thinking it wasnt to insult one because theres genius of the goes across every kind of domain. But in this example an artist or something somebody who creates for a living might have a little more densityn to imagine there are for theplanations facts. Industry i use is my car is perpetually dirty. If you saw my dirty car you would say to yourself its kind of an expensive car. He could y probably afford to gt a wash. Hes got a flexible schedule. He could get it washed so if you can afford it he has the time and is never washed, he probably is saving water or he cares about something or hes blind. Whats the reason . The real reason is the one you would never imagine. In fact, you are all try to think of it, whats the real reason . Is he going to tell us . Im going to chile. The real reason is i have an irrational fear of public instructions. I dont know if any of you have this, but i dont want to be in public or anybodyat can cindy ad have to figure out the instructions while people are watching. The problem is i am too literal. Because it will be very clear but, for example, i use example of i go to the of the assigned this is wait here and and in te cashier will say next, for a moment i will be stunned because i be like, it says wait here but you were saying go up. I dont know if you have that authority. [laughing]g] did you make the sign . Is this your sign . Or is this your bosses sign . If it is your bosses sign that what here i dont let it get in this car wash, get halfway in, turn sideways, there did dismantle the carwash euphony and headlines are idiot cartoonist destroys carwash. Thats why my car is pretty. Did you guess that . Did anybody have that one . No. The point is you have to make assumptions to live. You cant live and operate in the world thatt continues in making assumptions including assumptions about what people are thinking matter how poorly we do it. You have to do it to survive but just be aware that just because you cant think of the other reason these things could happen especially if youre watching the news, that doesnt mean the one reason given is the reason. In fact, that talk about the 48 hour rule. You should just wait 48 hours when you see something in the newsn that makes your blood bol and you think how could that happen . How could that happen . Then two days later the news is that didnt actually happen. It seems we got that wrong. Just wait a couple days until the fog of war dissipates before you get too worked up about anything. Excellent. We have a number of questions from the audience so we wont go back and forth between the book and questions. Why does dogbert tail always wag when he does evil . The dilbert characters are mostly versions of me. You know how you have lots of different personalities sort of all inside you . Dogbert is a a part of my personality assessment does the things that i couldnt be because i would be beaten up or put in jail. But the thoughts, i think of those things, i just dont get it because its not polite or legal or whatever. Dogbert can do that and i like to show his delight by his tail because the artwork has never eyeballs or a mouth. So theres not much i have years and a tail to work with, thats about it. Hes enjoying it. So this question is, when do you find yourself in loserthink . Are their traps you have to be conscious of . All the tighter the when i into overtime is usingwhen i analogies for more than they should be used for. Its just so easy because its a natural way to talk to make analogies. Analogies are great for explaining a new concept for the first time. If youre trying to tell someong what receiver is and theyve never seen a a zebra but they kw what horse is, its like a horse but it has stripes. Its a good shortcut. What you dont want to do is use the analogy to predict. If you turn on the news youll see all kinds of people doing exactly that and it makes no sense. If you see your cat has a Little Market under his nose, and looks like a hitlerik mustache, that doesnt mean your cat is going to invade poland. It doesnt work that way. Likewise, if you see the president criticizing the press, yeah, dictator did that but that doesnt mean hes going to invade poland either. It could mean the press has crossed the line and he productive or politically productive to criticize him but dont take the analogy of predictive. Analogies are really bad ways to predict. And also so was the slippery slope. You talk about a number things people do to future trip as some people would say about sort of how this guy is going to fall and a bad things are going to be based on history repeating itself. Hi history repeats is one of the biggest loser things that youre all familiar with. Youve heard it a million times, you see it in your own life, historyt repeats. History doesnt repeat. It cant because youre in a different situation with different variables and often you are familiar with the real history but that does not to do it this time. It seems like history repeats come first of all we are just reminded of other things. Thats the analogy problem but we dont notice all the times history doesnt repeat. If you could send a see a chart, heres your chart, your pie chart. Heres all the times history didnt repeat because it couldnt have this little sliver, looks like something that happened before but its not predicted because you dont know which sliver is a one that will repeat coincidentally and what to be the one you never noticed didnt repeat. You talk about your political views and about how sort of common some ways they are very little. And although alone i do a lot of i will say defense but you do a lot of sort of at least on the twitter, engaging people about allegations about the president. Can you talk about how that came to be and sort of highly ended up in this position some of you may be liberal on certain issues but you u find yourself needingo defend a republican president . For the longest time i called myself left of bernie and part of it was a joke on myself because there was nothing left of bernie. Just a way of not characterizing myself. But then the democrats found a bunch of people who are left of bernie. Oh, come on. I had the space all to myself. You ruined everything for me. What it meant was the reason, social issues on left of bernie. Ill give some examples. Bernie would like to i believe legalize marijuana. I would go further and i would legalize more drugs, certainly mushrooms and do a test on opioids. Even if its just locally. So the drugs on commercials during the news. Another example just to make the point, on abortion, liberals and bernie a would say yes, undr the right conditions, yes on abortion. I go left of that and i say i have a penis, im out. Whatever women want to do, ill be very supportive. Whatever is of the consensus im going to be quiet and supported because i dont have that kind of skin in the game and i dont add anything. I dont have like the extra mail smarts to add on top of your decision. It will be exactlylyof the same whether have an opinion or not. The most credible laws and i like, when youaw have laws that people will kill over, literally, abortion, people will kill over their preferences for that. When it is that potentially destructive, you need a result the matter which way it goes, thats credible. That people say i didnt get my way and its really important to me but the way we arrived at it that looked credible to me. To me the more men were involved in it, less credible it is, and women will have marginally the same opinions. Ive never looked into it but it dont think men and women have much difference opinion on abortion. Does anybody know that . Are men and women about the same, roughly . So i dont at anything so take myself out of it. Those are just two examples. Donald trump comes along. It was 2015 and i was just writing blog posts about whatever quote my , a change. I have background as a trained hypnotist. When i saw trump, i said hey, i recognize that technique, thats great a incredible persuasion. I wrote a blog post. Hes a clown but why is it working . Theres technique and you dont see it if you havent had experienced in that domain. Back to the loserthink example. I can see it clearly and i could see the other people who also had the same background could also see it just as clearly. My concern of it is a classic example. We had some of the same thing with hypnosis and stuff and he sought early the same time i did. What we saw was the guy bringing a flamethrower to us to fight. I didnt think it a was a hard prediction because flamethrower beats stick almost every time. By the time, so i was just writing about his persuasion skill. It wasnt about democrats or anything except his persuasion. You get pulled into it and there is more demand. The first article was massively viral and people wanted to interview me about and said i got dragon. I will claim, i did get to meet the president a year ago. He invited me to the oval office. Just the freakiest experience. Sitting in the oval office with the president of the United States on the other side of the resolute desk, just chatting. Theres no experience ill ever have or will come close to a weird and cool that was. Steal the soap. I did not steal the soap. A lot of cameras in there. So you can hang out with him and then still be as critical as maybe you could have been. I like him m personally. I like him m personally. If you hang out with them for ten minutes no matter what you started with, ten minutes later you will say but hes a nice guy. Hes real generous. The guy who is more responsibility and maybe anybody in the world, and for half an hour he made me feel like i was the only thing that mattered, like i was the only person in the h room. He could do that to you, too. Heres thehe thing. He does have that charisma, that ability to make people like him, and he can, too, for different reasons. Im not biased in terms of impersonally. Personally i like it. What i thought the country would get out of him and the reason i didnt feel any conflict about promoting his abilities which i will promote income is i saw he was bringing the toolkit, tools weve never seen before. Sometimes your civilization will get a little ossified. You will get sort of stuck and its something an ordinary politician cant unstick. Examples would be trade with china. Remember when you first start tide pod andwh what he said trae war is bad. Trade war is bad. How about that record stock market . Trade war is not so bad, not so bad. In fact, if we never make an agreement which by the way i predict, i dont think well ever have an agreement except me got some small stuff, i think we will be fine. We were just gradually decouple from china as we should anyway. So i think he brought to the mix a set of tools that i thought could break free some things that just needed to be, the box needed to be shaken and then see what we can do after you shake the box. I knew it would be messy. I knew there would be breakage, but everybody who voted for him knew that and they knew what theyre getting. Bake at theak breakage. They got the benefits. The benefits are i would say enormous. If you like lack of war, you like beating the caliphate, if you like the good economy. If you dont like those things, maybe you have a different opinion, but and then on the personal stuff hes driving people crazyhe which is a cost. The way people feel about each other and just political heat definitely is an expense. But i thought that was it worth the expense to get some stuff done. The next president could bring the temperature down and we will bank those other benefits. Who do you think will be the next president . I think mr. Super predictor. I think trump will win easily for reelection. I dont think thats much in doubt at this point. But the one after, one after. Thats where its going to get interesting. Sooner or later aoc and that gates are going to be running for president against each other. Probably not 2024 but i would be amazed are the old enough . Shes not. He might be. Barely. But sooner or later the run against each other. Before you laugh, well before he said that, i identified him as another master persuader. Long before you start about anything medically i had a written a blog posting oh my theres something hes doing thats not like normal people. Stuff like to write about musich its not my domain at all but i was using something that was another level, and extra persuasive level and you see it. You see the impact he has on everything. Anytime you uncheck kanye into any topic its all changed. Hes just such a force. Now hes doing sort of religious revival stuff, and i think maybe he setting his sights and his sights higher than president , literally. I think he wantsts to be a spiritual leader in the United States. Maybe saying is going tobesp rur president , sort of good for the fact but i think he actually is bigger sites then president. Bigger than the president . We dont really have do we, as spiritual leader who is nondenominational . We dont have that, do we . Got quite, didnt it . Will, youve got your megachurches and every religion has a leader and someone you could name but we dont have somebody who is nondenominational and would be regarded by everybody as openminded to all the other religions. He does have a place that could be bigger than anything we have seen politically melissa caen you dont think he will run for president. You think thats beneath him . He might but i think he might have a bigger role. You dont think any of the democrats now including bloomberg haveng a shot . Well, you know, years ago i actually wrote to the bloomberg would be an excellent choice for president because i liked it. He was sort of middle road, pragmatic. He seemed to be able to break with his party if he felt it. He had all the qualities, but hes also 77. If you havent seen his speech or even worse, his mobile phone little video he did, you have to tell these guys over 70, turn the phone sideways, please. Turn the phone sideways. If you cant do that you cant be president. Turn sideways. If you havent seen Mike Bloomberg yet, give his speech announcing or as little video i just mention with the phone, someone who is holding up before, you have to h see it because hes not the Mike Bloomberg used to be, im afraid. I hate to say that. Its a little bit of jill biden problem which is great patriot joe biden. Great contribution to the country, total respect for full of those people but there is an age we all need to know, its time for someone in the family to guide you off. Im there. Unfortunate, bloomberg is there but i dont know if hes trying to be present or hes got a better place. Because running for president allows him to go in strong and trash trump so effectively. His money plus the fact you will get tv time. He may be doing it just for the democrat to emerge and maybe just a way to weaken the trump so that they have a chance. It might be a way to take biden out because bloombergy goes in and the people who said well,i might donate to biden, well, hold off a little bit because theres a a guy who is the same age, similar politics like he can find himself. He might be doing it just to get biden out because biden cant possibly win against trial. Its just aos terrible matchup melissa. But that helps with elizabeth warren. Is that longterm . Im pretty sure bloomberg doesnt want as of the sworn to be president. Getting rid of biden only helps people that bloomberg may not be to i imagine a four dimensiol chess thing. You have to work hard to make it make sense. Probably hes just running for president , but hes so smart and strategic that its hard to understand why he would do something he couldnt we win, unless he surprises us all. At this point it looks like he couldnt possibly win. Im going to bring it right back to the book with this. So in your book you write about them in the book to writing about financial advisors. To some degree some parts of the book about how to be more skeptical, how to filter what youre hearing from the horrible people in the media. But youre right about the need for advisors and how to be skeptical of them and then you write, because theres a little twitter ready little parts for you. Be skeptical of any experts whether the financial incentive to mislead you and almost no risk at the end here and i wrote, politicalir consultants. And so i wonder if a couple of dudes with a powerpoint didnt get an interview and say heres the t plan, you just give us a bunch of money. This is what happens all the time. In california especially we see this all the time where you see wealthy people just burning their money. Why . Consultants. That may be part of it as well. Maybe someday got in his ear and had the right chart to show him. Thats one of the best hypotheses i have heard that before but when you think it through, how hard would it be a really persuasive consultants who know they get a big paycheck to convince the 77yearold this is your time, you know . It borders on elder abuse. [laughing] but if the only get a billion, he still okay. Some audience questions. Somebody wrote please share insights or pins just about thinkers such as Jordan Peterson, jonathan haidt. Thats a big question. Jordan peterson for a long time i would ban people from mentioning him on my periscope people thought you must dislike Jordan Peterson. No, its because he was so popular i was sick of hearing about him. People kept saying what you think of Jordan Peterson . Im sick of seeing it. But then i listened to him. All right, i present 1 billion times. Im im so sick of it. I listened to a youtube video. It doesnt matter which one because theyre all amazing. And i thought wow, this is like powerful come in different and important. Usually you dont go to youtube to find something important but i thought this is way beyond just helpful. This is important. So i got hooked as many people desire started watching his content. It was just so useful. I dont how to explain it. It wasl just so different and fresh and useful and it was changing people. You see people were changing. You may know the story. Hes checked himself in for rehab. Hery apparently had some issues, got on some whatever, doesnt matter but he checked himself into rehab. I think he is still working through it. I realized on one side you say to yourself, you hate to see your heroes go to rehab. But i have a different opinion about that because hes a role model, and him going to rehab is one of the most important things thats ever happened to this country. Wait until he comes back. Its going to be awesome. The other people i dont know about it and never heard of those other guys. I think his religious videos, videos about religion are really, like spiritual leader, this traverse space, very sort of campbell kind of way pulling from all different strands. Just to put a pin in that point, the fact that he hasnt so together in terms of now to live your life but he still had to go to rehab, like thats an important message, that the addiction thing is not about being smarter or clever or trying harder. The addiction is its own thing and they can get anybody. Its important. Someone asks you once had a fear of public speaking. How did you get over it . I wouldnt say i ever had a fear. Im a natural ham i took the Dale Carnegie course and if you havent heard of that its one of the best things ive ever done. Life altering because what it does is it teaches you to do what im doing now, which is talked a group of people as easily as if youre just talking to somebody you know. It teaches youou to do that. What i watched was in the class i watched person after person who mostly have been sent there by a boss usually because they couldnt stand up on the people and talk. They would get too nervous. Ind remember watching a woman wo was in the w class, and you have to volunteer to talk. You had to decide when you are ready to come up nobody would talk to the class. She stood up there and attribute impression. I think i can stand appear. She stood up there and she could make words. She started sweating in an airconditioned room. I watched beads of sweat washes in front of the room trying to talk, like running off her nose down her chin, actually fell on the carpet in front of the room like this. She was afraid of public speaking, and that was her experience. The things you need to know about the class is there was only one rule, that everybody its consummated and you never criticize anything. So nobody who speaks will ever hear a bad word about them. She goes back to her chair completely defeated. We the audience are dying, dying for her. The instructor gets up and he says wow, that was brilliant. It was true. That was true. Next time she came up, a little bit better. By the end of the class she was a professional speaker. Because she lived to the worse and got a compliment. Got a lot of confidence because we all complemented her. So watching that, so watching that transformation from nothing but positive words is just lifechanging. You realize the power of a complement to the point where my career philosophy is if you withhold the cupat with your thinking, youre thinking something goodt about something, i dont need to say that come its almost immoral if you have complement. Let item out. What a great point. Thank you. [laughing] i feel a lot better now. Selection you do write about this in your book so want to sort of give you an opening to get to. What are some go to questions you can use to challenge and broaden yourar colleagues thinking . Go to questions. All right. I use a technique called the magic question. When people are disagreeing with you, i have this experience, they think they are disagreeing with my opinion but really they informed a misleading opinion of my opinion and there really are doing the misleading thing, not my actual opinion. If i i try to correct it and sy thats not my opinion, it is actually this, do they then argue your actual opinion . Never. Never. No, they just turned it into a new wrong opinion so they can argue that one. Trying to get people to actually argue with my actual opinion has never worked in my entire life. But this technique i have tested and it does work, its the magic question. It goes like this. You say to the person whose argue with you, tell me something that you think is true that you think i dont think is true. Just one thing you think is true that matters to this topic that you think i dont think is true. They will offer something you say no, i agree with you. We both think thats true. I netherland. When you get to about the third one they usually disappear. Because they realized they didnt know what they were arguing about because you are agreeing on the central points. It seems, im not on twitter, but unbiased. But why do we argue with folks . Just like, i mean it just seems so if you tell sometimes. You their spending your energy to try and change peoples minds and it just seems like, assuming its a person and not bot, assuming its a human, then they are spending our time trying to change the opinions of like redhead 52 somewhere here sorry, redhead 52. I can only speak foror mysel, which is i give benefits that the ordinary person doesnt get it. For one, people follow my twitter and they follow the comments as well and because on the cartoonist i have with your comments that other people. Thats my job. Sometimes i like being witty because its part of the show. If i can argue in a weedy way its just entertainment. But it also am drawn to it. I love it but its also educational because you can say okay, what response did i get . You are learning what other peoples arguments are which strengthens your argument. To me its just all good but have very high tolerance for trolls and insults and a lot of personal insult. You get insulted a lot on twitter but ive high tolerance for that. It doesnt bother me so i can get most of the benefits because the bad parts, it just doesnt bother me. Thats the superpower. Thats amazing. So what is your advice to someone who is a conservative i do work in a liberal industry likeeo entertainment, music . Is it possible to be only can openly conservative without ruining a persons career . No. [laughing] but ill give you some suggestions to make you go down better. Certainly if i want to keep the most provocative step to yourself. But if youre surrounded by people you name it. As many things as you can match with somebody, will make them feel more bonded and connected to you. They willm b maybe think it in e head but they will feel it. This is a person who is likely in all these ways. So think if you need to disagree, they are at least primed. You set the table. This is someone who realizes that theyve agreed with you on ten things or lease their compatible on ten things so now you can introduce that 11 think but you dont want to walk right into it with your maga hat on and say trump. Dont play that way. Gilbert is only mailing list ive been a subscriber for for the last ten years. Havent all the characters learn from their mistakes over the years . If they did i would date a new job. The beauty of the dilbert comic strip world is that the characters exist so i dont have to think too hard, its not like writing a new movie every day because you already have the characters. I just take the topic and threw it into thehe world and Say Something a lazy guy would respond to, wally. Song its easier to write once u have your characters set in any situation works. And personal rights which it dilbert character are you . I think you said youre all of them but is a one you feel especially close to than the main character . Originally gilbert was based on me. And so he had my lack of social graces, my nerdy interests. He was a single guy. I was a single guy at the time. He was basically an extended version of me except he was smarter because he was an engineer. Im not an engineer. His body shape is based on a coworker. Do they know . Heres the fun part. He doesnt know. [laughing] ive never told him. Whats his name . Lets telll him. I didnt even know him that well. He was just somebody in office and i would see them walk by and he just looked like a walking gilbert i i guess, a cartoon. I always wondered years later, is the oven line it safer something has in whatever tapped him on the shoulder and say you remind me of b i cant place it. It. But he doesnt know. This person wants to know why you dont like the godfather film. You dont like the godfather . Did you hear the murmur . Very upsetting. I feel like i need security. You may. I will make a general statement that i cant watch movies at all anymore. I have completely given on movies because my Attention Span has shrunk and shrunk until it is twitter sized. Watching two and half hour movie on anything is just painful now psycho to the dentist, its like they are moving so slowly. Thats the first thing. Was it the producer, the godfather recent was making fun of the adventure films because scorsese, making fun of the adventure type films and superhero films. Im thinking to myself, theres a reason they make a billion dollars because they are really entertaining. Those movies that though make 1 billion, theres a reason they dont make 1 billion. They are not that entertaining. If they werent they were they would make a billion dollars. I have this weird background where im part artist, part economist, which a weird combination. When somebody says is somebodys art could i usually say is anybody buying it . If they are buying it its good. If they buy it twice, its really good. If they dont buy it i dont care how much art went into. Nobody wants it. Gilbert was created because the audience said hey, we kind of like your generic cartoon in the beginning was in the workplace so much. But we like it a lot when hes in the workplace. So unlike scorsese, i said what is it my buyers want . They wanted to be in the workplace. Done. I moved it into the workplace and thats when dilbert took off. I am not on the side of the artist, theres this thing called artistic integrity ive heard of. [laughing] i try to avoid it at all costs because is that loserthink . It should be actually, in the sequel. If youre an artist she should be making things for the audience, not for yourself. If the audience isnt wanted to shell out some hard cash for it, you didnt make anything. Let the hate mail begin. Bring it on. [laughing] this is related to the earlier question. This might be the same answer. What is the most dangerous idea that you have, and that you believe in . Most dangerous idea . I guess it would be dangerous to whom . To me or to other people . Other people i i would assu. Im a believer in, we live in a simulation. You were to commit times from the probably. Anybody watches be a periscope knows i about this too much. This requires ais little explanation. Please. First let me say that are brilliant people who have the same opinion. Elon musk is one physicist in fact, was invented by physicist. Nick bostrom i think. Keanu reeves. All the smartest people. The idea is this. That it wouldth be possible in r lifetime, and its of the will, for us to build a Little Software world where our characters in the world and those characters live as if they are real and so they have a program believe they are real characters. If we tried to build it today it would be a basic version but certainly in 30 years we will be able to make Little People who act like their life and the stars they know they are. If thats going to be possible or even if you think its the one after come eventually its going to happen, how many are we going to make . Just one . No. The minute we can make a total world thats like a Real Software simulation that thinks its a real world, we will make a bunch of them. How do you know it hasnt already happened . If it has ever happened, there are lots of them, the people in them think they are real. So the questions you ask yourself its dangerous because it would rip apart everything you believe, religions would fall apart, et cetera, and there would be chaos. Let me just put this out for food for thought. What with the world look like if we were programmed . For one thing, you wouldnt put things, you wouldnt program a been observed not yet. On the quantum level it does. If you go to the smallest level things dont exist. They only probably exist until somebody sees or measures it. We know reality doesnt come into being and become solid until somebody needs it meaning they observe it or measure it with an instrument. We have a world where you cant get out and look for the outside. Can you get to the edge of the universe . You cant. You can go down the line of things you need to be true for us to be software and they are all there. And then the math, everyone, there will be lots of them and if they are welldesigned the simulation will build its own simulations. It is not falsifiable. It is a theory you cant get out of. How do you disprove the theory . A magical monk and monkeys. . I dont have a solution for proving but like most religious beliefs they are tough to falsify. Does god exist or is he hiding . Of he is allpowerful he can hide easily. Thats why we dont find him so none of these can be proven or disproven but if you live your life like it is a simulation you can hack it, that would be one extra nation for my life as it is right now because my life is crazy. I just went and chatted with the president. That is not normal. Ive got a bestselling book, a cartoon strip, i get to talk to you people. I dont have a normal life in any way but i lived it like i can program it so i have taken the assumption from an early age that reality would be programmable at least for me and treated it that way and programmed exactly the life i fantasized as a kid, literally exactly the life i imagined at 6 years old. Host what was the name of the book, how to lose at everything and still all the tips of success. How to lose everything and still win big. Host one person in the audience asked, speaking of poets which you recognize at the beginning to one poet who characterized our debtless techy culture, awash with money. In san francisco, what do you make of the tech culture. In a Cryogenic Chamber . Im the creator of dilbert as i love that world, i wish i had gone to school for some technical degree because if i were not doing what i am doing, i build that. I love it but i do hear terrible things for people who are in it. Even the people making good money in tech are desperately unhappy and unfulfilled. As long as it has problems there will be material for dilbert. A silver lining. Host one person in the audience wants to know about persuasion and trumps mentors, your comments on roy cohn. Host how many you have heard the name Norman Vincent peel . When i was a kid, he was already well known as one of the most influential authors and writers about the power of positive thinking, the idea that you could program your simulation. He didnt use those words but the idea that you could program your reality your life by changing how you thought. I was influenced by that, so was donald trump. It is not only a bestselling author but he was the trump family pastor, not sure which it is, that is what who you would see in church, he would go to church on sunday and see the most influential person may be whoever lived in the United States, tony robbins would be the new one. That is the influence he was getting every sunday. I asked him about that when i talked with him and he talked about how amazing Norman Vincent peel was. He was accused of being a hypnotist. He was so influential, the president picked it up, got it honestly from the best source ever. I would love to see a study, compared to the average. That would be interesting. The life results than ordinary people. I dont know much about roy cohn, wasnt big on apologizing. And he has a lot going on there. Various ways to think about things about Climate Change, the focus, you are in northern california, with wildfires, mudslides, a lot going on. What should people think about Climate Change in a way that is not loser think . Guest im not going to try to change any of your mind so you are safe. Whatever you thought about Climate Change before you are going to be thinking the same thing but i talk about a productive way to analyze it. Of that causes you to change your own mind that is your business. Here are some insights on that. It is useful to break up the Climate Change conversation into its parts and give them Different Levels of credibility. The central part is what the scientists are doing, the chemistry and physics, if you add co2 to the air does it get warmer . Pretty sure they got that right. That seems right in their strike zone, repeated in Laboratory Tests in every way that is solid. The question is how quickly and how much does it matter . Scientists as part of their persuasion as scientists are not good at persuasion. This is a problem. Our those models accurate. Lots of debate and different models and a big range, what happens to models that didnt work . Do they keep them or throw them away . If you have hundreds of models and throw away all the ones that didnt work this year, it will work to you exactly like your models work, theres a bit of an illusion. Is it true temperatures going up at a rate that we should be alarmed at . Probably. Probably the models are at least that good because we can measure the temperature. We are Getting Better at it, satellites are doing it. We are probably reasonably solid on what we dont know, how quickly. Then theres a third part. Heres where it all goes to hell. The third part is the economics, to figure out how big a deal it is all comes down to money. If crops fail it is money. If you move to the economics part you in my domain, i used to do financial projections and i know they are bogus. Everyone i reproduced was better than a guess. There is an eyeopener, the un said that over 80 years, things that is predicted, if things go the way it is predicted at the end of 80 years the un, this is an official prediction says the gdp could be as much as 10 and i am thinking to myself 10 is trillions and trillions and 10 reduction in our Economy Today would be massively expensive and people would starve to death and it would be a really big deal. I have a degree in economics and i agree to look at these things. I said in 80 years our gdp will be 510 times bigger than it is now. If it is 10 less than it could have been would you noticed . You wouldnt even know the difference. You would think things are great, fewer people would be in poverty, cheaper the robots are scratching your back and a Wonderful World in 80 years. Host in the simulation. Guest keep in mind that is the uns dire bad case dont know what is worst case but there most likely bad case prediction is that you are not even going to notice it. Did you realize there is a complete phony number, the 10 would be trivial. Is it accurate . Probably not. Have no idea what the economics are. Host what company did you work for . Guest they are all out of business. Crocker got swallowed up by wells fargo and pacific bell got in by verizon. What do we know about this given the great uncertainty . There are several startups building giant scrubbing machines that literally will pull the co2 out of the air and in several cases will turn it into products, one turned into jet fuel because that is hard to make. One makes it into plastic, or some other things. Which of those will be the winner . I dont know. Maybe none of them. It was hard in the beginning to know which company, but pcs and computers were going to last. Likewise with this co2 scrubbing stuff, i dont know specific startups will last but it is a thing and only an industry and a big deal and government would pay a lot for it if they thought there was a danger and you have nuclear energy. If you are not up on Nuclear Power live you let me give you the 60the second thing you need to know. It was more dangerous than it needed to be. All the meltdowns and problems you ever heard of from fukushima to chernobyl, we could never build those astounding models today. Today you would build generation 3. The number of generation 3 reactors, there are lots of them that a Nuclear Incident is 0, none. It is literally the Safest Technology for energy ever created because any other clone of energy is killing people. People are falling off roofs, installing solar power, more people have died from solar power, more people have died putting up a window than died from all the generations 3 Nuclear Power plants in the world and heres the better part, theres generation 4 coming, generation them for is backed by bill gates who put it in of money into it, a Company Called terra power, one of the things their technology can do, generation 4, you can eat existing Nuclear Waste as its fuel. It reduces Nuclear Waste in the world, put it next to an old plant until the old mill closes and it is built so if everything goes wrong it turns off. The current versions, keep it from melting down. If you lose energy at a catastrophe. The new versions, the reaction goes away. Those are already designed and working for a place to build and they can do it economically, to reduce the Nuclear Waste. The point, the economic petition for Climate Change, im glad some people are panicked because it gets them to invent and do what they need to do but we as a population, as a species, we are good at solving problems when we see them coming from that far away. Im not going to worry about it because i think we have got this handled but something to worry about but personally not going to worry about it. Host on that optimistic note, i want to thank scott adams, author of the new copy loserthink how untrained brains are ruining america. Copies of loserthink how untrained brains are ruining america are available prefer purchase outside his room and we will be taking photos on stage, form an orderly line on the left side. On the health of myself and scott adams in the Commonwealth Club, thank you. [applause] you are watching a special edition of booktv area during the week has members of congress are in the district due to the coronavirus pandemic. Tonight america at war, first historian megan nelson looks how the civil war impacted the American West as the union and confederate armies fought for control of the territory. Then Arthur Robert plumb looks at how. I, Harriet Beecher stowe and others had an impact on the civil war. Later, colonial historian marymac norton looks at the year 1774, the lead up to and the beginning of the revolutionary war. Enjoy booktv now and over the weekend on cspan2. This weekend on booktv, saturday at 6 00 pm eastern, richard cordray, former head of the Consumer Protection bureau. It is about consumers, Consumer Finance and how its changed. And it is about the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the importance of the work that it engages in to protect people across america. Reporter sunday at 12 30 eastern, hr mcmaster, former Trump Administration National Security adviser. The United States must do everything we can to protect ourselves against the efforts of the Chinese Communist party to subvert our freemarket Economic System and our democratic form of governance. Host at 6 20 p. M. Arthur debate author ruth gilmore. Most people leave prison do a little bit of analysis to see that we could be closing prisons already, and jails already if we cut by two weeks, three weeks, four weeks much less years the kinds of sentences people are serving. Watch booktv this weekend on cspan2. Next on booktvs