Back to episode — Episode 1063 Scott Adams - Cognitive Dissonance in Trump Haters, Mask Science, Protests
Context —
Imagine buying a psychology book from a guy who got a BA in economics in 1979 as expert. Well if I ever called myself an expert I don't believe I have. And have I ever recommended any form of persuasion that is not fairly routinely known by science to be persuasive? I don't believe I have. So reporting on something and being an expert are different. The people who call me an expert on persuasion,…
← Previous segment →Could you interview Rachel Maddow to identify the exact moment insanity begins? When you watch Rachel Maddow does she look — what's the right word? Insane? I don't know if you have this impression. Now I'm not making a medical diagnosis of Rachel Maddow or anybody else. This is just an impression because I'm sure that the people on the left have some kind of an analogous impression of people on the right and it probably looks like when they look at them they look like they're lying or stupid or something because they can't understand why their opinions would be different.
But when I look at Rachel Maddow she looks to be — again I'm not stating this as to me some kind of fact because I don't know what's in her head — but she looks to be hypnotized, meaning she looks to be like someone who's dealing with a hallucination or a series of them as opposed to somebody who's grounded in the real world. It's just an impression. Does that mean I'm right? No, you should not take that as any kind of credible anything. I'm just telling you my impression.
But I'm wondering, do you have the same impression when you see her? When you see her talking do you say to yourself, well there's a different opinion, it's different from my own, maybe different priorities, she has a different set of facts she's looking at? Does it look like just someone with a different opinion? Because it really doesn't. It doesn't, does it? It looks like there's a phenomenon happening and it's not one that's good. Like there's something going on emotionally or psychologically that's not quite right.
And let me say again, if you were to take an IQ test and you were competing against Rachel Maddow, good luck because she's going to clean your clock on an IQ test. If you're trying to test your knowledge of the world, historical or otherwise, against Rachel Maddow, good luck. She's going to kick your ass because she knows a lot and her IQ is really high. So really smart, really talented, really knowledgeable. And still, and still I can't get past the fact that my subjective impression is that there's something else going on there. Just an impression.
And I don't think she's alone in that by the way. And I think I could probably pick out some people on the right who strike me the same way but nobody jumps to mind.
And Blump's response. Somebody says does Alex Jones look crazy? That's a complicated question because Alex Jones presents himself as a sort of a character and the character he plays is a sort of a complete character. No, I don't know how close his character is to what he would be if you talk to him in person. Maybe it's exactly the same. I don't know. Maybe just attenuate it a little bit for TV. But Alex Jones is trying to be Alex Jones so that feels like a different situation from somebody who's trying to be a more objective TV personality. I don't know that you could say Alex Jones is anything except exactly himself, which is all he pretends to be.
Somebody says is she smart? Yeah, Rachel Maddow is super smart. Don't take that away from her.