Guest Post by Scott Adams
Ignoring the politics of it for the moment, check out this video of Sam Harris debating Ben Affleck on Bill Maher’s Real Time show. I’ll teach you how to spot cognitive dissonance in the clip.
Watch for the moment Ben has to hallucinate Sam’s opinion from the reasonable position that many Muslims worldwide have non-liberal views to an hallucination about “All Muslims are bad.” Sam and Bill both clarify their viewpoints, with data, but Ben is struck deaf to it. All he can hear is the absurd absolute “all.” He is literally hallucinating.
I mean that literally. If you asked him after the show what happened, his memory would be sketchy. Ben is both smart and well-informed, relative to the general population and Hollywood in particular. If you think he’s being dumb here, you’re wrong. It just looks that way. This is a literal hallucination.
Cool, right?
The tells for cognitive dissonance in this case:
1. Smart person (Affleck) unexpectedly encounters a far smarter person (Harris). Apparently Ben didn’t read Harris’ bio before engaging. Oops.
2. Harris uses data to make Ben’s argument fall apart. Ben is smart, and knowledgeable, and his ego does not recognize that he could be annihilated on television in this way. This is the trigger for cognitive dissonance. His ego spontaneously generates a literal hallucination to protect his self-image.
3. The hallucination involves turning Harris’ reasonable statement that is backed with data into an absurd absolute about “all Muslims.” Nothing can talk Affleck out of this misinterpretation. He is in full hallucination mode.
4. Look for the outsized emotional reaction. You see lots of people arguing the same side that Ben argues, but rarely do you see that level of anger except in street protests where the average energy is higher. The exaggerated emotional outburst in the wrong context is a clear tell.
When you see that reaction in your debate opponent, you won the debate – hard – but you didn’t change anyone’s mind. Cognitive dissonance swooped in to to derail any actual mind-changing.
This is one of the best examples you will ever find. Recognize the pattern. You usually notice the “absurd absolute” tell first. Then look backwards for the trigger. It means someone lost a debate on the chessboard of reason, so they overturned the board.
My opinion on their topic of debate (Islam) is not included in this post. If you think you saw it…
A tree is known by its fruit.
If you want to know the truth of Islam as it is practiced in the real world, look at the Islamic controlled, dominated and influenced parts of the world and compare them to the non Islamic parts.
Then look at the flow of “migrates” seeking a better life, it it to the Muslim world or is it out of the Muslim world?
Decide for yourself about what the overall practice of Islam actually supports from these pragmatic observations.
Affleck is just another smug Hollywood know it all cunt.
Move to Saudi Arabia and preach your shit cunt.
Wow. What a fucktard. Only thing I disagree with you on here about, Scott, is your assertion that ben affleck is smart. He went into this unprepared, since he is not used to being questioned, thanks to his exalted status as a cloud person. He also argued his incorrect opinion poorly. I agree I saw some CD there, but the problem you are dealing with is that this douche in uninformed and ill equipped to have an intelligent discussion about anything. I did enjoy his little angry face though. What a fag. His movies suck too.
Who gives a shit what Affleck thinks?
Anonymous, said perfectly.
That’s the most sense I heard Bill Maher make in a long time.He is a Jew who knows the score with Islam.Good for him.
Maher is an idiot who sprays bromides at every opportunity. Affleck may be brighter than the norm in Hollywood, which puts him at the top of the class at a particularly bad special needs school.
Ben Affleck is totally retarded. I think he was badly jonesing for a drink.
Scott Adams is slowly doing a David Mamet conversion to conservatism, but he doesn’t seem to know it. Don’t worry Scott, it’ll be ok.
You got me thinking along same lines.
It is amazing to watch the video and apply the rules of persuasion and bias that Scott Adams has been articulating these past weeks. At one point Ben slumps over cast his eyes down in defeat. It looks like he has had a sudden migraine. The dejection is hilarious to watch unfold.
Scott Adams is a MENSA genius; I doubt he is “converting” to anything. His worldview is based in reality, as he is a former IT operative; computers don’t have any ideology, the programs you write do what you tell them to (if your programming is good / accurate). Computers don’t care if you shave the whales and hug the trees or burn everything to radioactive cinders; they just run the numbers and symbols you give them.
Reality may or may not be conservative, as in the “r /K ” discussion; “r” as in rabbits is a perfectly viable reproductive strategy, as long as the resources hold out. So is “K” as in wolves, as long as the “r”s hold out. Nature spreads a billion seeds to get a few more trees; nature makes smaller litters of wolf kits in some years, when the “r”s are in decline. Either method has its virtues and vices.
Whether Scott is liberal or conservative is debatable; as he is into persuasion, some of what he writes may be an attempt to persuade some “r”s that they should re-examine their ways. Or it may be a form of protective coloration, to convince the “r”s around him not to picket or burn down his house.
What is the most telling to me is that the liberals (mostly “r”) CAN NOT ABIDE someone who is OBJECTIVE; you are either liberal or you are WRONG. If Adams said “Conservatives appear to be heartless, making victims of the weak (refugees) by imprisoning them while in transit to America while the rules changed mid-stream” a conservative might say, “Well, Adams, that’s your opinion and I can see why you might feel that way; the circumstances gave bad optics, and have since been rectified”. If Adams said, “Those refugees got caught in a bad situation, but they were never guaranteed an easy, painless transition in the first place; we have to control our borders to have a country” the liberals would scream RACIST XENOPHOBE HATER! at the tops of their lungs until their wind gave out.
“Are you with me or against me?” may come to be the deciding question of our generation.