then there was a place for them you wrote. that they can beat european citizens and here at the same time. so they were lowered by the idea that they could go joy this utopian society where they would have a brawl and be empowered and respected. >> all of these authors have appeared on book to be printed on the programs in their entirety book to be done or good the authors name in the search bar at the top of the page. and now join me in welcoming john adams. [applause]. >> is there a gavel. not official mostly of the gavel. [laughter] so the weight is join work is going to die right in with questions. intro will be the same rules are the same and then will jump right in.

scott here no interest in giving a speech before we start so just start asking questions. already. just in time for thanksgiving. a book to help you deal with people with whom you disagree. [laughter] so everyone [laughter] gavel intro, questions. please send viewers up. they don't have to be related to just the book. right here we go. >> my name is melissa welcome to the club posting of scott adams. it is a book, lose or think. scott dives into the epidemic of mental shortcuts. he believes this is making as thrown to believing bad ideas. we discussed, loser think is was possible for people stereotyping trump supporters as racist.

believing that bench control is equal to full compensation in this most important link avoiding self reflection on personal relationships and period we're very excited to have them with us to discuss his new book loser think. and whatever else you would like to ask him. he has told me nothing is off-limits today. these gentlemen, please welcome scott adams. [applause]. scott: loser think is the word i invented because i noticed join i was on twitter mostly debating with various real people to and every once in a while we would make a really good comment. and i would think, i don't quite agree with that but that has really been well plugged. icheic in the profile, there would be lawyer or economist scientists in the neighborhood see a climate that is just sheer crazy i'm not supposed to see

that but i would look at it and everything will visit this. i click on the profile and it would be a musician or journalist and i would think to myself is this a coincidence or is there something that you experience in different fields that teaches you how to think. and reflected on my own express. if an injury agree in economics and an mba. literally teaching, so so much the willingness of the specifics that we've god economics but they teach you how to compare things, teach you how to sync costs and the value of her name and time. and these are just some of the techniques that they teach you how to think productively about your world. instead of just a an economist. scientist or psychologist historians they have different of thinking. i am also train hypnotists. [laughter] i worked in corporate america for 16 years.

i hold a variety of jobs from the strategy of marketing to technology. just by chance, i've experienced a lot of domains. and you pick up how do they think in those domains. a lot of people just haven't been exposed to them. so that i would write a book and show them the gaps if you have any. the three remaking the case here for journalist brain if you are, and multidisciplinary and if you are, is it just the non- humidity. scott: is studying and learning the depths of those fields. so i can teach you how and economist thanks, and i'll give you an example. so this is how easy it is pretty if you've never been in [applause], of silk costs. raise your hand. maybe less than half. so sunk costs refers to the idea that if you've already it's been your her name on something, let's see an investment. that you shouldn't look to that

to make your next decision. in other words you should see the her name is gone. i can't get it back, there's nothing i can do in the future that will change the fact that it is gone. and sunk. so if you make a decision based on the her name you've already it's been, which people do, i've already put x dollars into this, i don't want to waste it. so that a down and keep investing. so that feels like common sense. but the first time you hear that you can't change the past, you see oh yeah, that's sunk. that is gone. i would just make my decision as if i we're date starting today. and i'm never heard of that stuff. so that's easy it is. you don't have to be an economist you just have to hear some of these things once and it becomes part of your thinking. host: you call it loserthink because you really want to stay away from politics domains. i think you actually wrote a live that calling people stupid will not make them smart. [laughter] 50 untrue. you think was a think because

you want to address these behaviors not demonize the person. so if you talk about lease of labels and how that is one method of use losing. scott: mockery is incredibly powerful. and people would see to me, i can't tell you how many people have said this over the years. it would write me an e-mail as a clue going to do this certain policy at work, but we saw a coming up years mocking it. so we decided not to. [laughter] because nobody was to do the things already been pre- blocked. it is like you know you have to wait. i mock you in advance for you don't even have to wait. in fact, even elon musk who would he was writing the memo to his employees telling him how he wanted them to behave, what the culture should be like. one of his tips was to not do anything, policy wise that would make it into a gilbert, comic.

in the power of that, is that he didn't have to be slain meant. because everybody was familiar with the gilbert and the comment, they can kind of, you know them join they see them. yet it's a gilbert situation there. so use that same technique by coming up with the word loserthink. the people can use and see that they all hate that is listening. specifically here is the photo i took with my phone of the page in the book that explained the better than i can. so i get permission in the book to tweet on a page to people who have a gap in their thinking. and maybe they can be filled in. now of course having the word like loserthink, makes it easier to mock people. nobody wants to hear, that is loserthink. as i was just checking my twitter feed, before i came in here. i saw lots of people over the book accusing other people of loserthink. [laughter] and thought, it is already working. they are already working. host: hashtag was a think.

scott: i'm using it in the most productive way. to mark people into more productive thinking. host: to think of people who really need this book are going to buy it or do you just kind of like a holiday sale or that people will buy it for them. [laughter]. scott: we do leave a book, listening, you pretty much guaranteeing 70 is going to give to their relatives for the holidays. [laughter] the beauty as it feels like a gift. you are not really sure. it's like a uncle bob, i got through this book. this is think. you'll learn about other people. [laughter]. host: someone of the chapters that you write is mind reading. pun intended, you read my mind with it. because it's one of the most frustrating things that i see on the internet. there are people who are sort of trying to assert that they know what's in your soul, what's in your mind, but what's in

somebody else's heart. scott: is another example where i try to name it. migrating of of courses already we're but applying it in this way gives it a little extra power. if you look that is, you see the pilots jabbering omma one side or the other, and quite often, they are jabbering is about an assumption about what a stranger is thinking. what we're their real motives. what is the real reason you are doing this. it will sometimes, you are right, sometimes it is obvious stuff. political stuff is usually pretty obvious that there's any time we do couldn't know with the strangers thinking. in his evidence, you not good at migrating, i give you every relationship you've ever been in. [laughter] there's probably 70 sitting right next to you join the last 24 hours, assumed you we're mad when he warned. assume that you work on right we do work, some do it work happy we do are. host: i'm in the front row be careful sir. scott: someone reading, is something

that i call out and by giving it a word and putting it in the book of loserthink, it allows people to see, oh yeah, that is a bad think. and weirdly enough, it was so pervasive, i don't know if i've ever heard a single person ever call it out. like no, you are imagining you could read from somebody's going. but the moment is called out, it becomes sort of, part of the conversation and then you can start spotting it. wait until you see what happens in the coming weeks. you can start seeing migrating all over the place. and you see, i saw it before but not a crystallize because somebody talked about it and it is a word and now it is the think. host: are a lot of great concepts in the book there is something here i really felt like any three. so in one part you talk about the difference between coincidences and things that are actually, anything you should take seriously. his writing about a safe base talking about all these things are happening and appear to be

magical. ", a few days ago i arranged my collection of flashlights. and i was like, you have a collection of flashlights this book should be called, i have a collection of flashlights. i have so many questions. how many flashlights you have, is there a community. i need to know. scott: i really like flashlights. i confess that. readily. i built a shrine to my flashlights if my man cave in my garage. literally, i put them up on the board and to make sure they all have fresh batteries and everything. i've never done that before) and waist by a flashlight whenever i see no one. oh that's a new one, and i had my collection up there and they're all fresh batteries, so happy with it in the first time ever. been leaving in my house, somebody ran into a powerful

with an suv and plunge might neighborhood into darkness. the same time that i built a shrine to flashlights. [laughter] as i said to myself no problem with a flashlight, i was good. host: how many do you have. scott: i recycle so i have a good solid 25 that are the core collection. host: are there antiques, hard to find ones that are like a that or that is that version. scott: that's a good idea. no mostly plastic and i just like other look. i like flashlights. there's no expending it. host: terrific now we know. thank you. so you are not a fan of fresh. as a member of the press i was really staying i think it is fair. scott: i didn't name you. host: i think it was unfair and

attacking sort of the structure of the press, something that i think a lot of journalists wouldn't even disagree with you about freitag little bit about that and how that feeds into the way people think. scott: like to put it in context of a small technological change the nobody noticed what happened. which is the ability to measure with precision, the people are clicking on anything white in some cases. and once that was the case, once everybody could measure these people click on this and that. it would've been come obvious as it did for the things they want to click on the crazy stuff. the things that make your hair catch on fire. i want to hear about the budget. i want to hear about impeachment. i want to hear about the plot, what's going on with the government. i want to hear some really good stuff. so we are all elevated in our opinions because the news model is forcing us towards more

provocative stuff read somewhere before they just would've said here's the news. snore. now, it is replace the entertainment to the large extent. some of you would relate to this. how many of you watch the news like entertainment. like his her name not even for the news anymore, it is really for the last. and you watch it. host: somebody liars in here. everybody's hand should be up on this one. [laughter]. scott: so that is the big problem. that once you can measure stuff, there is no way the public companies are beholden to stockholders to do anything that get the most attention and there is no way you can ignore that so we had to get to this.the small technological change happened. and that caused us to complete almost civilizations at this.and we are in bubbles and we don't really see what is happening in the other bubble because it

looks crazy or insane or stupid or maybe there and lying and we can't quite tell it doesn't make sense in that bubble. and we can't make any sense of it. it is largely because people have become totally in the news consumption. conservatives are a little bit more like statistically clean and once in a while it is more pervasive. but people on the left, typically are not even aware of the argument on the right. . . . if you watch the news as i do, from a suitable commercials that come on.

if you make the mistake of listening to them, you will hear more problems than the human could have healthwise. i'll say well, you can take this bill and it will solve one problem but you will have diarrhea and your heart will explode in your lungs the congested. thus the first thing they note. when is a pharmaceutical commercial on, i say first of all, get this off of there. i don't want to hear about all of these problems. if i hear about them, i look at them. i will get all those problems if i keep hearing them. i do have a rash, as a matter of fact. so to change the channel as quickly as possible to the opposite, if i'm on cnn, fox news and vice a versa, in that

way, i miss a lot of the ugly commercials by exposing myself to content on both sides. so i recommend that. on both sides, you really don't know what's going on but you might thank you do and that's the most dangerous situation. >> you tell a story about your dog, it's a great anecdote. you write i think my dog, sneakers believes i'm an idiot. i don't take her outside to play when she's clearly communicating to me that it's time to do so. so she's sending me -- she knows i'm able to go outside but i don't stop what i'm doing and take her out. you go on to say sometimes your sneakers, you are you in this scenario in the way that requires empathy and imagination to really think about where the other person is coming from.

>> is an example for being an artist or creative person gives you a better vision on the world than perhaps the engineer or scientist. so different professions have different styles of thinking, it wasn't to have one, there's genius for all. but this example, artist might have a little more propensity to imagine other explanations for the facts. the story i used, my car is professionally dirty. if you talk like dirty car you would say, that's an expensive car, he could probably afford to get washed. he certainly could get washed so he could afford it, he has a time. if it's not washed, he's probably saving water? he cares about something or what's the reason? the real reason is the one you

would never imagine. the fact you are all trying to think of. the real reason is, irrational fear of public instructions. i don't want to be in public where anybody can see me and i have to figure out instructions while people are watching. the problem is, i am too literal. it will be very clear but the example, i go to the store and the cashier will say next, come on up here. it's like let's just wait here. are you saying go up, i don't know if you have the authority. did you make the sign? if it's your boss is signed, i'll wait here. [laughter] i don't want to get this carwash, you are half way in, turn sideways, dismantle the

carwash and the headlines are idiot headline. did you guess that? anybody have that when? no. the point is, when you have to make assumptions to live, you can't live and operate in a world without continuously making assumptions including assumptions people sitting no matter how poorly we do it. you have to do it to survive but be aware that just because you can't think of the other reason these things could happen, especially if you watch the news, that doesn't mean the one reason you've been given is the reason. talk about the 48 hour rule where you should just wait 48 hours when you see somebody in the news that makes your blood boil and you think how could i happen? then two days later, they said it didn't actually happen. we got that wrong. so just wait a couple of days before it dissipates before you

get too worked up. >> excellent. we have a number of questions from the audience. why do dogs details way when he sees people? >> the characters are mostly versions of me. you have lots of different personalities all inside of you, dog as part of my personality that does things i couldn't do because i would be beaten up or jailed. but the thoughts, i just don't do them. i would like to show his delight by his tail because my balls are enough so i got ears and a tail to work with.

>> so this question is when you find this, your to be conscious of this. >> when i fall into all the time is using analogies for more than they should be used for and it's so easy because it's a natural way to talk. analogies are great for explaining a new concept for the first time. if you try to tell something they've never seen a zero but they know what a horse is, you say it's like a horse with stripes. what you don't want to do is use the analogy to predict. if you turn on the news, he will see people doing exactly that. it makes no sense. if you see for example your cat has a marking under his nose, it looks like a mustache, that doesn't mean your cat will invade poland. likewise if you see the president to sizing the press,

while dictators did that but that doesn't mean he's going to invade poland either. it could mean the press has crossed the line and criticize him but don't take the analogy as predictive. analogies are really bad ways to predict. >> also, it's a slippery slope. you talk about a number of things for the future, about how the sky will fall and how bad things are going to be. >> here's the reason it's one of the biggest examples. you've heard a million times. history repeats. history does not repeat. it can't because you're in a different situation with different variables and often you are familiar with the history so that tells you not to do it this time but the reason

it seems like history repeats is we are just reminded of other things but we don't notice all the times history doesn't repeat. you somehow see a chart, a pie chart, all the times history didn't repeat because it couldn't it looks like something that happened before. but is not predictive because you don't know which sliver will be the one that will repeat coincidentally which is the one feud never noticed didn't repeat. >> you talk about your political views and in some ways, they are very liberal. although now you do a lot of not defense but on twitter, engaging people about allegations about the president. talk about how that came to be and how you ended up in a

position where people were on certain issues that you found yourself needing to defend as a republican president. >> i called myself left of burning and part of it was a joke on myself because there was nothing left of bernie. so it's just a way of not characterizing myself but then the democrats found a bunch of people were left of bernie and they were like come on, i have this space, he ruined everything for you. so it's on social issues, i am left to bernie. bernie would like to legalize marijuana. i would go further and legalize more drugs. certainly mushrooms and do a test on opioids. >> drugs on commercials? [laughter] >> another example, a portion, liberals and bernie would say

yes, under the right conditions guess on abortion. i got left of that and say whatever you want to do, i will be very supportive. never is the consensus, i will be quiet and supportive because i don't have that kind of skin in the game and i don't have anything. i don't have the extra mail smarts to add on your decision or anything. it's exactly whether i have an opinion or not so i think the most credible laws, we have laws that people would kill over. literally, abortion. when it is that eventually destructive, you need results, no matter which way it goes, it's credible. that the people say i didn't get my way and it's really important for the way we arrive about it. to me, the more involved in it,

the less credible it is and largely the same opinions. that's about the same profit. just to accept it. donald trump covers a large. it was 2015, i was writing a post about what caught my attention and a background as a trained hypnotist. i said hey, i recognize that technique. that's great a credible persuasion. so instead of a clown, it's just gone. why is it working? there's a technique here. you don't see it if you don't have the experience. i can see it clearly and i can

see the other people who have the same background but also just yet just as clearly. the classic example, the same training and stuff. what we saw was a guy bringing a flame thrower to a stick strike. i don't think it was a hard prediction because they throw it almost every time. so i was writing about his persuasion skill, it wasn't about anything except persuasion. you get pulled into it and there was more demand. the first article was re- vital in people were up about it and suddenly i got dragon. i will claim i did get to meet the president a year ago, he invited me to the oval office and it's the freakiest experience.

sitting in the oval office with the president on the other side of the resolute desk, just chatting. the fact that you can't hang out and still be as critical as it could have been. i like him personally. if you hang out for ten minutes, no matter what you started with, ten minutes later you will say what is that guy? he's very generous. the guy who has more responsibilities than anybody in the world. after half an hour, he made me feel like i was the only thing that mattered. like i was the only person in the room. he could do that to you, too. here's the thing. he does have that charisma, the

ability to make people like him and hate him, to for different reasons. i'm not biased in terms of him personally. personally, i like him but what i thought the country would get in the reason i didn't feel any conflict without promoting his abilities which promote him, i thought he was being what they had never seen before. sometimes civilization will be divided. you get sort of stuck. something an ordinary politician can't on stick. examples would be trade with china. everybody was saying trade or is bad, how about that record stock market? trade war is not so bad. if we never make an agreement, which by the way i predict, maybe on some small stuff, i think we will be fine.

we would gradually just decouple from china which we should anyway. so he brought a set of tools that i thought could break free some things that i thought needed to be shaken and 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 was brought in for him knew that. they got the breakage, they got the benefits i would say are enormous. if you like lack of work, if you like to go but if you don't like those things, maybe you have a difference of opinion but he's driving people crazy which is definitely a cost. the way people feel about each other and the political heap definitely is an expense but i

thought that was a worthy expense to get stuff done. they bring the temperature down and think the benefits. >> is there a super predictor? >> i think trump trump will be. but the one after, that's where it will be interesting. sooner or later, aoc will run for president against each other. probably not 2024 but -- >> old enough? >> she's not. who might be? jerrod. sooner or later, they will see each other. before you laugh, walk before he said back, i identified him later. long before yours in anything

political, i had written an article, there's something he's doing does not like normal people. it's not my domain but i was seeing something that was another level. there's an extra persuasive level. you see the impact he has on everything. anything you inject kanye into any topic, it's all changed. he's such a force. now he's doing this religious revival stuff and i think maybe he's setting his height higher than the president, literally. i think he wants to be a spiritual leader in the u.s. maybe he will run for president, that's good for fact that i think he has bigger sites for being president. >> we don't have a spiritual leader whose nondenominational.

>> you've got mega churches in every religion has a leader you can name but we don't have denominational a nondenominational leader. he dove have a place that could be bigger than anything we've seen politically. >> so you don't think he will run for president? >> he might i think he may have a bigger role. >> the democrats now including bloomberg have a job? >> years ago, i wrote bloomberg would be an excellent choice. so he was pragmatic, he seems to be able to break with his party,

he had all the qualities. but is also 77. if you haven't seen his speech or even worse, his mobile phone video he took, you've got to tell these guys over 70, please. turn it sideways. if you can't do that, you can't be president. turn it sideways. so if you haven't seen mike bloomberg yet, give his speech announcing or his video i mentioned where he's holding up the phone, you have to see it because he's nothing like the bloomberg he used to be. i'm afraid. but it's a little bit about joe biden problem which is great contribution to the country. total respect for both people but there is an age that we all need to know, time for somebody

in the family to guide you off. >> i'm there. unfortunately, bloomberg is there but i don't know if he's trying to be present or if he has a better place because it allows him to go in strong and trash trump so effectively, money plus the fact that he will get tv time. he may just be the democrat who emerges and a way to we can trump so they have a chance. it might be a way to take biden out because bloomberg was in and the people who said i might donate to biden, they will say get off a little bit. as a guy who's the same age similar politics but he confronted himself. just to get biden out, because biden can't possibly win against trump. >> so that helps with elizabeth warren, is that long-term?

>> i'm pretty sure bloomberg -- >> so getting front of biden i think only helps people bloomberg may not be -- >> fourth dimensional test thing, you have to work pretty hard to make it makes sense. probably he's just running for president but he's so smart and strategic that it's hard to understand why he would do something he couldn't possibly win unless he surprises us off. >> in your book, write about financial advisors. some parts about the book are skeptical, what you are hearing from the horrible people in the media. but you're right about revisor's, being skeptical of

them and you write, there are little perks. an incentive to mislead you and almost no risk at their end. i wrote political consultant. so i wonder if a couple of dudes with power points didn't get in here and say here is a plan, give us a whole bunch. this is what happens all the time. in california we especially see this all the time where you see people just burning them. you go, wife? consultants. so that may be part of it as well. >> that's one of the best hypothesis, i haven't read that before. when you think it through, how

hard would it be for really persuasive consultant who get a big paycheck to convince a 77-year-old yes, this is your time? it borders on elder abuse. [laughter] it still okay. >> so audience questions here. share insights and opinions have into the integral theory. >> that's a big question. jordan peterson, for a long time i would ban people from mentioning him and people thought oh, you must dislike jordan peterson. no, it's because he was so popular, i was sick of hearing about him. people kept saying what you think of him? i was like bam, i'm sick of him. but then i listened to him so i was like all right, i've heard his name a billion times, i'm sick of it.

it doesn't matter which youtube video, they are all amazing and i thought wow, this is powerful and important. usually you don't 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 doing so i started rushing the content and so useful and i don't know how to explain it. it was so different and fresh and useful and it was changing people. you may know the story, you check them in for rehab. we have some issues, got him some whatever, it doesn't matter but he checked himself into rehab. you think he still there working through it? i realized on one side you say to yourself, you can see the heroes go to rehab.

he is a role model. this is one of the most important things that ever happened in this country. it's going to be awesome. >> 's religious videos, a spiritual leader in various states, as campbell kind of way pulling from all different strands. >> the fact that he has it together, that's a important message. it's not about being smarter, clever, trying harder. the addiction is its own thing.

>> he wants had a fear of public speaking, how did you get over it? >> i wouldn't say i have a fear, i took the course and if you haven't heard of it, it's one of the best things i've ever done. it's life altering. it teaches you to do what i'm doing now which is talk to a group of people as easily as if you were talking to somebody you know. it teaches you to do that and i watched person after person who mostly had been sent there by a boss usually because i couldn't stand in front of the people and talk. they get too nervous. i remember watching a woman and he has to volunteer to talk. you had to decide when you are ready to go up and everybody would talk to the class and she stood up there, she couldn't

make words and she started sweating and i watched her sweat while she standing in front of the room trying to talk, running off her nose, down her chin. she was afraid of public speaking and that was her experience. i think you need to know about the classes that there's only one rule. that everybody gets confronted 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 in the audience, we are dying for her. the instructor gets up and he says wow, that was brave. and it was true. the next time, she came up a little bit better. i the end of the class, she was

a professional speaker. she lived through the worst and got a compliment. we all complement at her. so watching that transformation from nothing but positive words is life-changing. you realize the power of a compliment to the point where if you withhold a compliment are thinking, your thinking good about something, you don't need to say that. it's almost immoral. if you have a compliment. let it out. >> what a great point. [laughter] >> thank you. [laughter] >> you do write about this in your book so i will give you an opening to get to it. one person says what are some go

to questions you can used to challenge and broaden your colleagues thinking? >> i use a technique called the magic question. when people are disagreeing with you, they think they are disagreeing with my opinion but really, they performed a misleading opinion of my opinion they are really arguing the misleading thing, not just the pinion. i try to correct it and say that's not my opinion. do they actually give the opinion? never. they just turn it into a new wrong to argue that one. so trying to get people to actually argue with my actual opinion has never worked in my entire life but this technique i've tested and it does work. tell me something you think is

true that you think i don't think is true. one thing you think is true that matters to this topic, that you think i don't think is true. then we try another one. they usually disappear after the third one. they realize they didn't work there argument are because you agree on the central point. >> are not on twitter but why do you argue with folks? that's just a question. you get in there, you're spending your energy to try and change people's minds and it seems like then there you are spending your time trying to change the opinions of redhead 52 somewhere.

i read 5200. >> i can only speak for my self which is, i get benefits that the ordinary person doesn't get. for one, people follow my twitter and they follow the comments as well. i'm a cartoonist, i have wittier comments than them. that's my job. so sometimes i like being witty because it's part of the show. it's just entertaining. i also am drawn to it. i love it but it's also educational because you can say okay, what response do i get? you hear other people's arguments which strengthens your argument. to me, it's all good but i have a high tolerance for roles and insults and personal insults. get insulted a lot on twitter. i have a high highland for that. i get most of the benefits because the bad parts, it

doesn't bother me. >> i think superpower. what is your advice to someone who is a conservative but works in an industry like entertainment, movies or music? is it possible to be overly conservative without ruining a person's career? >> no. [laughter] but i'll give you some suggestions. to make it go down better. one, keep the most provocative stuff to yourself but if you're surrounded by people who disagree with you, try pacing. it's a salesman's trick, etc. agreeing with people on all things you can't agree with. even matching feminine style, match their body language, anything you can match.

there breathing, you name it. as many things you can match with somebody will make them feel more bonded and connected to your. maybe you think in the head, feel it. this is a person so then if you need to disagree, you set the table. somebody realizes they are at least compatible on something so now you can introduce that thing. but you don't want to walk into the middle. [laughter] don't play it that way. >> the only mailing list i have managed for the last ten years. having all the characters learned from their mistakes over the years? [laughter] >> if i did, i would need a new job. comic strip world, the characters exist i don't have to think too hard, it's not like

writing a new movie every day. you've already got the characters so i take the topic and throw it into the world and say that something a lazy guy would respond to. so it's easier to write once you have your characters set. >> which character are you? i think he said you are all of them but is there one you feel especially close to? >> originally gilbert was based on me. he had my lack of social graces, my nerdy interests, here's a single guy, i was a single guy at the time. he was basically an extended version but smarter because he was an engineer, i'm not an engineer. his body shape is based on a coworker. >> do they know? >> here's the fun part. he doesn't know. [laughter] i've never told him.

>> what's his name? let's tell him. >> i didn't know him that well. here's just somebody in the office, he walked by and looked like a walking billboard. i guess. i always wondered years later, is he ever in line at safeway or something? i would tap him on the shoulder and say you remind me, i can't place it. >> okay, so this person wants to know why you don't like the godfather film. you don't like the godfather? >> i feel like i need security. >> you may. >> i will make a general statement that i can't watch movies at all anymore. i've completely given up on movies because my attention span is twitter sized.

watching a movie on anything is painful now. it's like going to the dentist or, they are moving so slowly. so that's the first thing but the producer of the godfather recently, he was making fun of the offender films. he was making fun of the offender films and super hero films. i'm thinking to myself, doesn't reason they make $1 billion because there entertaining. there's movie that don't make a million dollars, there's a reason they don't make it. they are not that entertaining. if they were, they would make that money. artist. economist which is a weird combination. when somebody says somebody is good, i would say from are they buying it? if they are buying it, it's good. if they buy it twice, it's really good. if they don't buy it, nobody wants it.

gilbert was created because the audience said hey, we kind of like your generic cartoons at the beginning but we like it a lot when he's in the workplace. so on like that, i said what is it my buyers want? they want in the workplace? done. i moved into the workplace in fact when gilbert took off. i'm not on the side of the artist who have this thing called artistic integrity i've heard of. [laughter] i try to avoid at all cost because -- >> is out what they think? >> i should be in the sequel. if you are an artist, you should make things for the audience, not yourself. >> let the hate mail began. [laughter]

>> an earlier question, what is the most dangerous idea you have and that you believe in? >> a dangerous to who? to meet or other people? >> other people, i would assume. >> we live in a simulation. you've heard it too many times, anybody who watches this, i talk about this too much. this requires a little explanation. first, there are people who have the same opinion. elon musk is one, invented by a -- >> kiana reeves.

>> the idea is this, if it were possible in our lifetime and it certainly will, to build a software world where there are characters in the world and characters live where the actors are real, they have a program believe that they are real characters. if we try to go today, it would be up basic version but certainly in 30 years, we would make real people act like real life. if that will be possible in our lifetime or even if you think it's the one after, eventually it will happen. how many are you going to make? just one? no. the minute we make total world that's like a real software simulation but thinks it's a real world, we will make a bunch of them. how do you know it hasn't already happened? if it has ever happened, there are lots of them. the people in them think they are real. so the questions you would ask yourself, it's dangerous because

it would rip apart everything you believe. religions would fall apart, etc. it would be chaos. food for thought, what with the world look like if it were programmed? for one thing, you wouldn't put things, he wouldn't program the world that hadn't been served yet. so in other words, a software game where if you are real character in the game is not walking through this adjacent property, and never gets formed. it doesn't exist until he goes. does our world look like that? so if you go down to the smallest level, things don't exist, they only probably exist until somebody sees it or measures or two. so we actually know reality does it come into being and become solid until somebody needs it. they observe it or measure it with an instrument. you also want to have a world

where you couldn't get out of it and look for the outside. can you get to the edge of the universe? no. you can't. so you can go down the line of all the things you would need to be true for us to be a software and we are there. then the math, if you could have everyone, there will be lots of them in fair really well designed, the simulation will build its own stimulations all the way down so -- >> is this a fear you can't get out of? how you disprove this theory? it's a monkeys theory. >> i don't have a solution but like most of religious beliefs, they are also tough to falsify. does he exist or is he hiding? if he's all-powerful, he could hide pretty easily.

if you live your life like it's a simulation, you imagine you can pack it then that would be one explanation for my life as it is not because my life is crazy. i just told you, i went and chatted with the president, that's not normal. i have a cartoon strip, i get to talk to you people. i've lived it like i can program it. taking the assumption from an early age, the reality would be programmable. at least for me and treated it that way. i programmed exactly literally exactly the life i imagined when i was six years old. >> lose everything and still -- tips of success.

>> almost everything and still wouldn't make that book. >> one person in the audience asked, speaking of poets, there's one who characterized our techie culture, alert, boorish and a wash with money. what you think of that? is this something you are like sign me up? i want to be in that chamber? >> the reason i'm a creator of gilbert, the technology world, i wish i was going to school for technical degree because if i were not doing what i'm doing, that's probably what i would be doing. i have a startup, i do go back. so i love it.

but i do hear terrible things from people who are in it. i hear even the people making good morning are desperately unhappy and unfulfilled right of reasons. it doesn't sound good. but as long as the problems are material for gilbert, there's a silver lining. >> one person wants to know about persuasion. wants to know your comments on the appeal. >> so many of you have heard the name -- when i was a kid, i already well known as authors and writers about the power of positive thinking.

in other words, the idea you could program your simulation but the idea you can sort of program your reality and life by changing how you thought. i was very influenced by that. so was donald trump. in fact, it's not only a massive one out there, he was actually the trump family administered, that's who you would see in church. you see the most influential person maybe whoever lived in the u.s. maybe tony robbins would be the new one. so that's the influence. when i talked to them, on about how amazing this appeal was. he is accused of being a hypnotist because he was so influential. we know the president got it

from the best source ever. compare them to the average, that would be interesting. i could almost guarantee that their life results are completely different than ordinary people. then i don't know too much about roy except probably what you know, wasn't big on apologizing. he was attacked all the time. you see those qualities in trouble but also the persuasion part of him. >> you talk a lot in the book in the context of various kinds of arguments, climate change. with wildfires, mudslides, there's a lot going on here. talk about your perspective on how people should think about

climate change. >> are not going to change any of your mind so you are safe. whatever you thought about climate change before, do the same thing. a productive way to analyze it. if that causes you to change your own mind, then that's your business but here's some insights. i think it's useful to break up the climate change conversation into its parts and give them different levels of credibility. so the central part is what the scientists are doing which is the chemistry and if you add co2 to the air, i'm pretty sure they got that right. that seems in the strike zone and repeated in laboratory tests in every way, that's solid. the question is, how quickly and how much does it matter?

it's part of there's persuasion and scientists are not good at persuasion. they make these models. are the models accurate? nobody knows. there's lots of debate in two different models and what happens to the models didn't work? do they keep them? do they throw them away? if you have hundreds of models and throw away all the ones that didn't work this year, it will work to you exactly like your models work because you are throwing out the ones that aren't working. there's a little bit of an illusion there. is it true the temperature is going up at a rate we should be alarmed of? probably. probably the models are at least backward because we can measure the temperature or we are getting better at it so we are probably reasonably solid although we don't know how quickly. here's where it all goes down.

the third part is the economics. to figure out how big a deal it is, it comes down to money. if you lose a job, a cost money. when we move it to the economics part, i used to do financial projections for a living. i know they are all bogus. so the economic part, the liability you should put on that, here's a real eye-opener. he said over 80 years, if things go the way it's predicted, so that's a bad case scenario, it seems in the years, the un, this is an official prediction says the gdp could be as much as 10% lower. i'm thinking to myself wow, 10%, trillions and trillions of dollars. a 10% reduction in the economy

today would be massively expensive and people would starve to death and it would be a big deal but i also have a degree in economics and i need to look at these things. i said hey, our gdp will be five to ten times bigger than it is now. if at the end of the years, five or ten times, if it's 10% less than it could have been, will you notice? you wouldn't. you would things think things are great. robots are scratching your back. i would be the world in 80 years. >> in a simulation. >> keep in mind, that's the un's dire bad case, most likely bad place prediction, they wouldn't

notice it. until i told you that, did you realize that's a complete phony number? the gdp would be so big, 10% would be trivial? was inaccurate, probably not. we have no idea what the economics are. >> what company did you work for? >> i don't know. [laughter] got swallowed up by wells fargo and pacific bell got eaten by verizon. so what do you do about all this given the great uncertainty? here's the good news. there are already several startups building giant scrubbing machines that will literally pull the co2 out of the air and in those cases, it will turn into products. jet fuel, that's one thing hard to make. it's hard to make electric jets.

some other things also. which one of those would be the winner? i don't know, maybe none of them but it's like the pc industry in the beginning where it was hard in the beginning to know which company would last but you knew preseason and computers would last so likewise, this co2 scrubbing, i don't know if any of these specific startups will last but it's a thing and it will be an industry and it will be a big deal. governments would presumably pay it off. but you also have nuclear energy. if you are not up on nuclear power, let me give you a 62nd thing you need to know. your grandfather's nuclear power was a little more dangerous than it needs to be into those versions of nuclear power are all the problems you've ever heard of. those are early versions of nuclear. we would never build any of

those models today. today, you would get what's called generation three. the number of generation three reactors that have better had a nuclear incident is zero. none. it's the safest technology for energy ever created. every other form of energy is killing people. people are literally falling, solar power. more people have died from solar power. more people have died from putting up a window then all generation three nuclear power plants in the world. here's the better part. there's a generation forthcoming. generation four is backed by people in bill gates, he's put a ton of money and it. there are several of these. one of the things their technology can do, generation four, it can eat existing nuclear waste as fuel.

it reduces nuclear waste in the world. you put it next to an old plant. if everything goes wrong, it turns off. the current versions, you have to get energy in it to keep it from melting down. if you lose energy, it's a catastrophe. the new versions, as soon as the energy is away, the reaction goes away. those are already designed and looking for a place to build a, they can both economically and make it safe. it will reduce nuclear waste. so the point is, if you are working on an aviator reduction for climate change, i'm glad that some people are panicked because that gets them to invent things. we, as a population as a

species, we are really good at solving problems were and we see them coming that far away. so i'm not going to worry about it because i feel like we have a handbook but there are some things to worry about, i'm just personally not going to worry about it. >> i want to thank scott adams. thank you for joining us. his book is available for purchase outside of this room. scott will take photos on stage in a few moments. form a line on the left side over there. thank you everyone for joining us. [applause] >> tonight on book tv and primetime from the story recounts the life of james williams, grand central terminal spread caps in the early 1900s. the creation of the estate in

palm beach, florida, historian compares the debates of the 1960s to those that are happening today. he offers insights into becoming an entrepreneur and his founding of ameritrade and fusion gps cofounder discusses his investigation into trump in the creation of the steel dossier. check your program guide for more information. >> book tv recently visit capitol hill and asked republican senator john of arkansas about his reading list. >> i've got several books i'm working on right now. one of them is called 1944. myself and some other senators will represent the u.s., 75th anniversary.