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Comment by putlake | Hacker News Reader

Scott Adams is very entertaining. He predicted Trump's staying power way back in the summer when everyone (including me) thought his candidacy was just a joke. In fact, he has predicted a landslide for Trump in the general election. He says it's based on his training as a hypnotist, which gives him an insight into the art of persuasion.

Over the years I've learned many things from following Adams' blog. He recommended Cialdini's books on persuasion, which are a must read for all sales people and all entrepreneurs (because we are salespeople, like it or not). His financial advice [1] is rock solid, and his latest book on goal-oriented vs. systems-oriented thinking was also an eye-opener.

TLDR: I like the dude.

[1] https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/scott-adams-financial-advice/

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Yeah I think people misread Scott. He's always had crazy ideas, but they've been well-articulated and always delivered with a healthy dose of humility.

He doesn't take himself too seriously. Whereas many see him as a troll, I think he's a true contrarian in a sea of fashionable contrarians.

For a guy who doesn't take himself too seriously, he sure creates a lot of sockpuppets to argue with his detractors and sing his own praises.

I feel like anyone who makes knowledge of their MESNA membership public takes themselves fairly seriously...

Wait, Scott Adams is part of a organosulfur compound?

[citation needed]

http://comicsalliance.com/scott-adams-plannedchaos-sockpuppe...

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/102881515756/planned-chaos

I was around for the fateful Metafilter thread where Scott Adams sockpupetted vigorously until he was found out: http://mefiwiki.com/wiki/Scott_Adams,_plannedchaos

It's a pretty........... interesting read. http://www.metafilter.com/102472/How-to-Get-a-Real-Education...

Damn, this is some extra crazy. https://www.reddit.com/user/plannedchaos

Good thing PG only updates his footnotes when people "misunderstand" him.

Wow - there's few better examples of the fine line between crazy and genius.

I can't tell if he's using the plannedchaos accounts on various sites to seriously defend himself by proxy, or is it that he thinks the Internet is a load of pixels on a screen that unlike some of us he just doesn't take it very seriously?

Edit: somebody commented below that Scott is now a professional troll, and I'm inclined to think that they're probably right!

I wrote that comment. Adams is out of touch.

He did that once a few years ago. He learned his lesson.

"True contrarian" is just a politer name for troll, though. If you say unpopular things solely because they're unpopular, we have a word for that.

I don't think he does them just to be unpopular. He's just conducting thought experiments. He does like to tease his audience but so does Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution.

If he's not trying to piss people off, he sure does gloat a lot about how much he loves pissing people off.

Here's one of his articles on TRumP: http://blog.dilbert.com/post/135324448866/the-lucky-hitler-h...

His blog is a lot of fun when you realize he's doing it for fun.

It's weird. He talks a load of nonsense, and makes basic logical errors all the time, going as far as to recommend nonsense pseudoscience. At times I wonder if maybe he isn't actually that smart, and just got lucky somehow.

But he makes accurate predictions. Consistently. You can't ignore that.

What accurate predictions has he made? Just the one about Trump's popularity?

Adams claims Trump is popular because Trump is persuasive. Trump is certainly a good orator, but that's not the only reason.

Do you remember when Trump spearheaded the birthers during the 2008 election? He knew he could channel working class frustration by appealing to xenophobia and racism.

He wrote a book of predictions that I read years ago. The big concrete prediction I remember from it was that health food would go mainstream, and it has. More recently/concretely I was going by http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/01/02/2015-predictions-calibr... .

Back in the late 90s he predicted there would be a massive terror attack and that it would make airline travel suck even more.

About that amazing Trump prediction: I have my doubts that Scott truly believed it himself. Quoting his thoughts, in 2011[1]:

> Most of those authors don't believe their predictions are likely to pan out. They're making calculated bets that in the unlikely event they guessed right, they will become famous. That's worth a fortune in future speaking gigs and book deals

1. https://web.archive.org/web/20110421130209/http://www.dilber...?

Another nice quote from that post:

"With the blog in particular, the explicit model is that I write down whatever dumbass theory pops into my head and try to sell it as God’s final word. Then my readers shred it in the comment section, or sometimes say it’s an old idea that’s already been done. Taken out of context, many of my blog posts and even my Wall Street Journal articles would look like the crazy rantings of a guy who thinks he has all the answers to fix the entire world. At best, that’s only half true."

Is the "How to fail at almost everything" book the one about goals and systems thinking? I haven't read it, so it's hard to say just based on the title.

Yes, it's systems oriented.

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