Please send yours up. They dont have to be related just the book. All right, here we go. My name is melissa king, welcome to Common Wealth club bsting of scott adams n new book, scott dives into the epidemic of mental shortcuts that he believes is making us prone to believing in bad ideas, according to scott, responsible for people stereotyping all of Trump Supporters as racists believing that gun control is equal to full confiscation and most importantly avoiding selfreflection when personal relationships end. We are excited to have him here today to discuss new book loser think and whatever else you guys would like to ask him, he has told me nothing is off limits today. Please welcome scott. [applause] loser think is a word i invented because i noticed when i was on twitter mostly the debating with various trolls and real people too and every once in a while somebody would make a good comment, i dont quite agree with that, thats really well put. , lawyer, economists, scientists and then id see a comment thats just crazy and i look at it and think, who said this. Is that a coincidence or something in different fields that teaches you how to think. They literally teach you how to think, not so much learning the specifics of economics, teach you how to compare things, teach you about the value of money and these are just some of the techniques but they teach you how to think productively of the world, not just economists, psychologist, for some weird reason ive had experience in all field, im a trained hypnotist. Please dont. [laughter] i worked in Corporate America for 16 years, strategy tod marketing to technology, so just by chance ive experienced a lot of domains and you pick up how do they think in those domains, i thought, a lot of people havent been really exposeed. Are you making the case here for generalists and if you are, for people who are sort of multidisciplinary and if you are, isor it just the nonhumanities. Its not even t learning the depth of those field, i can ofteach howie an economist thinks, i will give you an example, this is how easy it is, if you never heard of the concept sunk cost, maybe less than half. Every giants fan. Sunk cost, if youve spent the money on something, invest invested, you shouldnt look to that to make your next decision, that money is gone, i cant get it back, theres nothing i can do inan the future, its sunk. If you make your decision based ed the money youve already spent which people do which they say i put x dollars into this and i dont want to waste it, i better double down and keep investing, now that feels like common sense, but the first time you hear that you cant change the past, you say, oh, yeah, thats sunk, its gone. I will just make my decision as if i was starting today, never heard of the other stuff, so thats how easy you can learn it, you dont need to be an economists, you have to hear this once and becomes part of thinking. You call it loser think because you really write that you want to stay away from calling people names and you wrote a line that i underlined, calling people stupid will not make them smart. [laughter] easy and true. Thats one message of loser think. Mockery is incredible by powerful. People will say to me, lots of people over the years, we are going to do this, you know, certain policy at work but we saw a comic of yours mocking it so we decided not. Youve been premocked. Now the power of that he didnt nhave to explain what that meat because everybody who is familiar with the words billboards and the comic, you know one when you see one. Thats a situation there. I use the same technique by coming up with the word loser think that people can use, hey, thats loser think and specifically here is a photo i took with my phone of the page of the book that explains it better than i can, i get xppermission in the book to twet down the page who people who have gap in their thinking. Its already working. [laughter] loserthink. Mock people into more productive thinking. But do you think that people who really need this book are going to buy it or do you just counting on holiday sales for people to buy to them . [laughter] well, when you name a book loser think youre pretty much guarantying somebody will give it to the relatives for the holidays. [laughter] feels like a gift but not really sure, hey, uncle bob, i got you this book, loser think, you learn about other people. [laughter] you read my mind with it, its one of the most frustrating things that i see out on the internet are people who are sort of trying to assert that they know whats in your soul, whats in your mind, whats in somebody elses heart. Youll see the pundits jabbing one side or the other and quite often their jabbering is about assumption of what a stranger is thinking, what were their real motives, whats the real reason youve doing this, now times youre right, you know, sometimes its obvious stuff, political stuff its obvious but you couldnt know what the stranger is thinking and as evidence that youre not good at mind reading, i give you every relationship that youve been in, theres probably somebody sitting right next to you who in the last 24 hours assumed you were mad when you werent, assumed you werent hungry when you werent, assumed my husband is in the front row, be careful, sir. [laughter] so mind reading is something that i call out and by giving it a word, putting the word losing think and allows people to say, oh, yeah, thats a bad thing. Weirdly enough it was so pervasive, i dont think i ever heard a person i call it out. No, youre imagining you could read but the moment its called out it becomes part of the conversation and start spotting it. Wait till you see what happens in the coming weeks, youll start seeing mind reading all over the place and i will say i guess i saw it before, but crystallized somebody because talked about it as a word and now its a thing. Well, there are a lot of Great Concepts in the book but theres something here that you lead, in one party you talk about different anything you should take seriously. Magical and i, quote, a few days ago i arranged my collection of flashlights, and i was like collection of flashlights, this book should be i have a collection of flashlights. Who doesnt have a collection of flashlights . How many do you have . Is there a community, i need to know. I really like flashlights. [laughter] i i confess that readily. I built a shrine in my man cave. I made sure they had fresh batteries and everything and i never done that before, right, i always buy a flashlight whenever i see a new one. Oh, thats a new one, i had my collection all there, there were fresh batteries and i was so happy with it and the First Time Ever that ive been living in my house somebody, ran into a power pole and the same time a shrine to flashlights, i said to myself, no problem, went to any flashlights and i was good. How many do youou have . Well, you know, i recycle, throw some out, i have a good solid 25, the core the core collection. Are there ant antiques . Thats a good idea. They are mostly plastic and i like how they look, i like flashlights, theres no explaining it. Terrific, now we know, thank you. So you are not a fan of the press. As a member of the press i was readingoi going i didnt nameut you. Not this time. But but i didnt feel like it was unfair, i thought, it tacked into the structure of the press, something that a lot of journalists wouldnt even disagree with you. Talk about that and how that feeds into the way people think . So i like to put it in the context of a small technological change that nobody noticed when it happened which is the ability to to measure with precision what people are clicking on and even why in some cases and once that was the case, these people click on this, these people click on that, it would have become obvious that the things they want to click on are the thazy stuff, the things that catch your hair on fire, i dont want to hear about the budget, i want to hear about impeachment, i want to hear about a plot to overthrow the government, i want to hear about some really good stuff and so we are all elevated in our opinions because the news model is forcing us toward more provocative stuff so before, they would have said here is the news, thats my news, now its replaced entertainment to large extent, io bet some of you would relate to this, how many of you watch the news like entertainment, like its not for the news anymore, its for the laughs . So many liars in everybody, everybodys hand should be up, im kidding. Could do anything but the thicks that get most and once a small technological change happened, and we are in bubbles and we dont really see whats happening in the other bubble because it looks crazy, stupid, maybe they are lying, we cant tell. Become totally bifurcated in news consumption. Conservatives are more likely, statistically, 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. [laughter] so thats part of the problem. You do get some tips to how to get out of the bubble, how to recognize that youre in one, how to communicate, how to i recommend pharmaceuticals. [laughter] not in the way you think. Not in the way you think. You watch the news as i do quite a bit, pharmaceutical commercials that come on, now if you make the mistake of actually listening to one, you will hear moreof problems than you knew tt the human could have health wise. [laughter] well, you can take this bill, solve one problem, but you will have diarrhea, your heart will explode and your lungs will be congested and forget about sex because all good drugs take that off the table, thats the first thing they do. When theres a pharmaceutical commercial on i say to myself, first of all, get this off of there, because i dont want to hear about all of the problems because i dont have the problems because i hear about themly get them i will get them. [laughter] i will run to change or whatever, change the channel as quickly as possible to the opposite. If im on cnn, go to fox news, vice versa because they both have pharmaceutical commercials and in that way i miss a lot of the ugly commercial and im exposing myself to content on both sides, i recommend that. You dont have to do it the way i do it, but if youre not sampling both sides you really dont know whats going on but you think you do and thats a terrible situation. I dont take her outside to play when shes clearly communicating its time to do so, she knows i see it, she knows im physically able to go outside, so if i dont stop what im doing and take her out does she think im stupid, sometimes your snickers, sometimes youre you in the scenario in the way that requires empathy and requires imagination to really think about where the other person is coming from. Here ispe an example of where being creative person gives you better vision on the world. Might have propensity to imagine there are other explanations of the facts and a story i use in there that my car is perpetually dirty, if you saw my dirty, youd say to yourself, expensive car, he can probably afford to get it wash, hes a cartoonist, flexible schedule, he certainly could get it washed so if he could afford it he has the time and its never washed, he probably is saving water or hes he cares about something or hes blind, whats the reason. Now, the real reason is the one you would never imagine, in fact, youre all trying to think of it right now, well, whats the real reason, is he going to tell us . Yeah im going tell you, the reason is i have irrational fear of public instructions, i dont know if any of you have this, i dont want to be in public where anybody can see me and figure out instructions while people are watching. [laughter] the problem is im too literal. Itll be very clear but, for example, with, you know, sign that says wait here and the cashier will say, next. Youre saying go up, i dont know if you have that authority. Did you make the sign . Is this your sign or is this your boss sign . If its your boss sign im waiting years. I dont want to get in the car wash, get half way in, turn sideways, they have to dismantle the car wash and the headlines idiot cartoonist destroys car wash, thats why my car is dirty, anybody have that one, no . The point is that we have to make assumptions to live, right, you cant live and operate in the World Without continually making assumptions of what people are thinking no matter how poorly we do it, we have to do it to survive, just be aware that just because you cant think of the other reason that these things could happen, especially if youre watching the news, that doesnt mean that the one reason given is the reason, in fact, i talk about the 48 hour rule where you should just wait 48 hours when you see something in the news, you know, makes your blood boil, how could that happen, how could that happen and 2 days later the news says, well, that didnt actually happen, it seems we got that wrong. So just wait a couple of days until the fog of war dissipates before you get too worked up about anything. Why do dog birds tail wag . Its a version of me, personalities all inside you, dog bird is part of personality that says and does things i eouldnt do because i would be beaten up for jailed. Dog bird doesnt have eye or a mouth, i have ears and tail, thats about it. Hes enjoying it. Oh, okay, so this question is when do you find yourself using loser think . Are there traps that you fall into to be conscious of . Yeah, all of the time. Natural way to talk to make analogies, analogies are great for explaining a new concept for the first time, if youre trying to tell somebody who what a zebra is, what you dont want to do is use analogy to predict, all kinds of people doing exactly that, makes no sense. If you see, for example, that your cat has a little marking under his nose, looks like a mustache, that doesnt mean your cat is going to invade poland, it doesnt, it doesnt work that way. Like wise, if you see the president criticizing the press, well, yeah, dictators did that, but that doesnt mean that hes going to invade poland either, it could mean that the press has crossed the line and productive or politically productive to criticize them but dont take the analogy of predictive, analogies are really bad ways to predict. Well, also so is the slippery slope, you talk about a number of things that people do to future trip as some people would say about, you know, sort of how this the sky is going to fall and bad things about history repeating itself . History repeats is one of the biggest loser think examples that youre all familiar with. Youve heard a millionge times, you see it in the news, history repeats, history doesnt repeat, it cant because youre in a different situation, different variables and often youre familiar with the other history, the real one. First of all, we are reminded of other things. History doesnt repeat. Here is your chart, pi chart, all the times history didnt repeat, something that happened before, but its not predictive because you dont know which one will repeat and which one you will never notice it didnt repeat. Although now you do have a lot of, not defense but doing a lot on the twitter engaging people about allegations about the president. Can you talk about how that how that came to be and the position of somebody who is liberal on certain issues but sort of defending a republican president . So for the longest time i called myself left of bernie, part of it was a real joke on myself because there was nothing left of o bernie. A way of not characterizing myself. Democrats found people that wero left of bernie. I am left of bernie, i will give you examples, bernie would like to legalize marijuana, i would go further and legalize much drugs, do a test on opioids even if its locally. Drugs on commercials during the news. [laughter] another example just to make the point on abortion, liberals and bernie would say, yes, under the right conditions, yes, on abortion, i dont add anything. People will kill over their preferences for that. When its that potentially destructive you need a result no matter which way it goes thats credible, people say,i didnt get my way and its really important to me but the way we arrived, that looked credible to me, to me the more men involved the less credible and women will have largely the same opinions. I never looked into it, i dont think men and women have that much different opinion on abortion, does anybody know that . Are men and women about the same roughly . I dont add anything, i take myself out of that. Those are just two examples. Donald trump comes along. 2015 and i was writing blog evsts of whatever caught my attention and i have a background on hypnotist, i recognized the technique, grade a credible persuasion, i wrote i wrote clown genius, hes a clown but why is it working, theres a technique here and you dont see it if you havent had experience in the domain back to loser think example. Classic example and had some of the same training and these are at the same time as i did. What we saw was a guy bringing a flamethrower to a stick fight and, flamethrower beat stick almost every time. So by the time and so i was just writing about his persuasion skill, it wasnt about democrats or anything, persuasion, but you know, you get pulled into it and more t demand, massively viral d people wanted to interview me goabout it. I will get to meet the president years ago and invited me to the oval office, the freakiest experience, sitting in the oval office with the president of the United States on the other side of the resalute desk, just chatting. [laughter] theres no experience i will ever have that will come closeav to how weird and cool that was. A lot of cameras. [laughter] i will come to the fact that you cant hang out with him and still be, you know, as critical as maybe you could have been because i like him personally, personally if you hang out with him for 10 minutes no matter what you started with, 10 minutes later you will say hes a nice guy, generous. Imagine this the guy that has more responsibility than anybody in the world, for half an hour he made me feel like i was the only thing that matters, like i was the only person in the room and he could do that to you too. Here is the thing. He does have that charisma that people like him and hate him, im not biased of him personally, personally i like him. What i thought the country would get out of him and the reason that i didnt feel i didnt feel any conflict about promoting his abilities which helped promote him is that i thought he was bringing a tool kit that we havent seen before. You will get sort of stuck. Ordinary politician cant unstick, examples would be trade with china. Remember when he said trade war with china, people thought not so good. I think we will be fine. We will decouple from china. Set of tools that i thought could break free, some things that needed to be, the box needed to be shaken and then see what we can do after you shake the box. I knew that it would be messy, they got the breakage and the benefits are enormous if you like lack of war, you like beating the caliphate, if you like good economy, but if you dont like those things, maybe you have a different opinion, on the personal stuff hes driving people crazy which is definitely a cost the way people feel about each other and the political heat, defi