
Scott Adams: I Wake You Up for the Presidential Debate - mbgaxyz
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/152024526021/i-wake-you-up-for-the-presidential-debate
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cbanek
There are a lot of pink elephants, and more realistically, ridiculous rhetoric
floating around. The trouble is, the candidates themselves are foaming at the
mouth with this rhetoric. It's not just the campaign, just the party, but also
the people you are voting for.

This makes it hard to see what the people really honestly believe, and what
they are saying to rally their base, get out the vote, etc. It's a lot easier
to motivate people to vote if you tell them they are going to die, or be
slaves, whatever. The same logic goes for getting people to watch "action"
news.

As for change, everyone wants change. No one thinks the system works for them
if you ask them what they would change. Change is a powerful motivator, and
works out for the challenger after two terms of the other party's president.
You can blame anything on the current president, without having to do better,
or even promise better. Just blame them, and sometimes make up an untenable
plan to "fix" it (which experts will agree won't work for any number of real
world reasons, which likely contributed to the outcome you're complaining
about).

While everyone can get behind change, and it's a great rallying cry, the type
of change is what really counts. You can't just say "change is good." This is
the classic childhood fallacy of wanting what you don't/can't have. Sometimes
change is not good, or not good in the short term.

I'm all for change. I'm just not sure what kind of change Trump would provide.
Based on what he's saying, if I believe it, it's frightening. But it's
probably mostly just made up nonsense.

Hillary will also change things. But again, who knows what? The rhetoric is
equally as vague, but at least less frightening. But of course, what people do
in office is completely different than the campaign.

As a side point, where does privilege come into this? It seems like some
elephants actually exist, but certain people can't see them. Isn't that
equally hallucinatory? Or is it just blindness? If you're any group that Trump
is directly ranting about, I don't think you'd view it as a pink elephant.
More like a person yelling and saying crazy things about you personally,
without knowing you. But if it is something you can't understand, does it
really not exist?

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mbgaxyz
TLDR Summary:

"If you are wondering why a socially liberal and well-educated cartoonist such
as myself is not afraid of Trump, it’s because I don’t see the pink elephant.
To me, all anti-Trumpers are experiencing a shared illusion.

Before you scoff at mass, shared illusions as being unlikely, keep in mind
that everyone with a different religion than yours is experiencing exactly
that. Mass shared illusions are our most common experience.

If you see something unlikely – such as a new Hitler rising in the midst of
America – and I see nothing remotely like that – I’m almost certainly right
and you’re almost certainly having the illusion. I say that because the person
who sees the unlikely addition to reality is the one experiencing the illusion
nearly every time. Trump as Hitler-in-America is an addition to reality that
only some can see. It is a pink elephant. It is a classic hallucination."

~~~
bbctol
This is a theme I've often noticed with "socially liberal" etc. people having
different political beliefs--their perception of the "other side" is based in
the far-left society they inhabit, and their positions are based more on
criticizing that society than supporting their own vision. It's precisely
because Scott Adams is from liberal, high-education circles that he sees
opposition to Trump as being based around irrational fear of Trump as Hitler,
when people with those beliefs are tremendously dwarfed by people who simply
don't like him. (I don't think Trump as a lunatic and a fascist; I think he's
unqualified and a jerk.)

It's a weird rollover effect, in which a society can get pushed so far into an
echo chamber, it becomes easy to criticize every aspect of that society, and
people ride the zeal of the convert all the way around to the other end of the
political spectrum. A lot of the younger generation of the so-called "alt-
right" grew up in very liberal, progressive societies, and once they realized
most of that society was based on social pressure and oversimplification, see
no reason to tilt full-on into racism and autocracy. All societies are built
on social pressure; every creed we teach our kids is inherently oversimplified
and flawed. But you don't get points just for pointing out those flaws. Adams
has been on this kick for a while now that sounds like the beginning of every
Moldbug piece: point out some incorrect belief among members of a culture you
were raised in, and so think represents everyone (high-educated social
liberals) and say "See? This is bullshit! It's all bullshit! The whole thing
is a mass hallucination!"

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georgeecollins
Scott Adams says he thinks Trump is the last chance for change from a self
serving political system. If you are an American and you are reading Hacker
News I think you should ask yourself how much you really want change. If you
are here, the system is probably working for you. And change can be good or
bad.

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croon
I don't think Scott Adams has grasped Object Permanence [1].

My version of his metaphor is:

If everyone in the room can see a man yelling racist, sexist, opportunistic,
populist nonsense and you can't see it, maybe you're just wilfully ignorant.

If you can't judge a person for what they say and do, then what else is there?

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_permanence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_permanence)

