Saturday, August 19, 2017

Relaxing with Scott Adams

Here is Scott Adams' latest periscope. He starts out by warning us not to fall into linguistic traps. There is no way to reframe someone's irrational statements. Just say, "Uh huh" and change the subject!

Is the internet our government now? Social media informs the government how the majority of us are thinking. The government responds. Historically the president has been the focal point for our moral voice. Trump never offered moral leadership. He offered economic expertise, law and order, and military improvement. Now we expect him to be our Pope?

Social media became the moral voice after Charlottesville. Everyone already thought Nazis are bad. We didn't need Trump to provide moral leadership. We already expressed it on the internet. No one needed moral leadership to take them where they already were!

What people wanted was somebody to embody the emotions they were feeling: a crying point over the tragedy of Charlottesville.

On the questions of what to do about statues of Confederate leaders, Trump took one side. There were two sides on social media, but one side seems to be winning. Social media changed the morality of the public.

Scott surely has a unique perspective. Most of the people I read are much more pessimistic, asserting that we are near a second Civil War. He seems to stand alone with an optimistic outlook about the country being united.


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