Episode 423 Scott Adams: Scott Solves the Climate Debate and Saves the World (Really)

Date: 2019-02-19 | Duration: 18:50

Topics

Whiteboard 1: Climate Persuasion Whiteboard 2: What Would it Take to Change Your Mind? A way to bring both sides of the debate into agreement

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> [!note] Rough Transcript
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> This is an auto-generated transcript and may contain errors.

## Transcript

[0:05]

bum bum bum bum bum hey everybody come on in here this is a special periscope on one topic that topic is me saving the whole world in the context of climate change now you could you could look at this two ways I'm either saving us from doing something that is the wrong thing or I'm saving us from doing nothing and that's the wrong thing but whatever the right thing is I'm gonna save you from doing the wrong thing and here's the context we live in a world where smart people are telling us that we have a disaster looming in the terms of the climate and if we don't act really aggressively were in big trouble as a species at the same time a huge chunk of the world simply doesn't believe it so that's your problem youie that we need to figure out do we really have a problem with climate

[1:05]

really have a problem with climate change or are we just being persuaded that we do and I've had a realization that some of you saw in my earlier periscope but I'm gonna break it down to you in a way that I believe quite literally could solve this problem because it's not a science problem it's a persuasion problem and no matter what you think is the underlying truth you would have to agree that half of the country or something like that has been persuaded in the wrong direction whichever direction you think is the wrong direction there are a lot of people on it and I'm going to suggest a way to solve it and we're going to do that by teaching you a little bit about persuasion so you're going to learn something no matter what one rule of persuasion that's totally important is that you need to talk to people in the language that they're that they understand you can't talk to people in your own language

[2:06]

your own language you have to talk to them in the language that they speak and I've identified that that might be the lar just problem with the with the debate is that people are not talking to the people that they're trying to persuade in the language that persuades and they're going to give you the concrete example of that it looks like this there are three pillars of climate change persuasion that you see the most the hockey stick graph the prediction models and the 97% of climate scientists agree but here's the problem that is an argument that speaks in the language of some people but is anti persuasive to another group of people and it looks like this now these are just proxies for people who think the same way but if you're young let's say in your 20s or your teenager or you're a journalist and somebody shows you the hockey stick graph you say to yourself

[3:07]

graph you say to yourself that looks pretty persuasive why wouldn't why wouldn't you believe it it comes from credible scientists they show you their work they show you the data totally persuasive show any hockey stick graph to someone who is older or has business experience and what will be their first reaction prior to even hearing about the climate change argument it was widely famously known and universally known among the business people that when anybody shows you a powerpoint graph on any topic whatsoever and it's got a hockey stick shape you automatically assume they're lying or they're persuading you a bunch of so if you're older and you've seen a lot of certainty before that turned out to be wrong you've seen for example that scientists were all on the

[4:07]

example that scientists were all on the same side of climate and of nutrition for years and we're completely wrong about what is good nutrition you saw that they were unified thinking that stress caused ulcers and they were all wrong the experts said that the year 2000 bug would be cataclysmic they were all wrong we saw all the experts say that we would reach peak oil they were all wrong so pretty much people who are older and experienced have seen this pattern before and if you show them the hockey stick they're automatically primed to think your life because the hockey stick is the most famous symbol of lying in the corporate world would you know that if you were young if you were 18 that you've never had a job would you be aware that the hockey stick graph is

[5:09]

aware that the hockey stick graph is literally a symbol of life in the corporate world you probably didn't know that right a lot of you didn't know that and by the way look at the comments and you'll see that the people have business experience are all going to confirm that no matter what the topic is if somebody shows you a hockey stick graph that's your first reaction because it usually is let's go to the prediction models if you're young or you're a journalist and the best scientists in the world come to you and say we've done these complicated prediction models and they're looking at 80 to 100 years and we think these are very useful and they tell the story and a lot of them are lining up the same way they hindcast perfectly meaning that the models you know do fit with the past and for the last several years they claim you might argue this but they'll claim that the that the predictions have been accurate therefore this is good evidence if you're young or you're a journalist

[6:12]

if you're young or you're a journalist that's pretty persuasive now go to somebody who's older or has business experience and you say I have a complicated multivariable model going out 80 years what's the first reaction doesn't even matter what topic you're talking about doesn't matter if it's climate change or financial prediction it doesn't matter what it is if somebody says they have a complex gated multivariable model that goes out for years now remember I'm talking about persuasion I'm not talking about the underlying truth it could be true that climate change has all the risk that the scientists are telling us that could be true but the way it's presented is as if it's a lie to these people to these people is completely persuasive let's do another one 97% agree if you're young or you're a journalist and you hear that 97% of the

[7:14]

journalist and you hear that 97% of the people working in this field agree on the same conclusion that's very persuasive very persuasive go into a meeting with a bunch of experienced business people and tell them that 97% of climate scientists agree what are those experienced businesspeople say really yeah you're you're that accurate 97% and what did the smart one say is there any difference between what the smartest scientist say and the not-so-smart scientist say can you really measure it can you can you convince me that somebody really talked to the right people right there's something about this claim that's just automatically fishy to an experienced business person so here's my point the three most accessible persuasion facts and accessible means that you don't have to be a scientist to understand the general idea so if somebody's arguing about you

[8:15]

idea so if somebody's arguing about you know radiation and forcings and the troposphere most people can't follow that so the scientific arguments are not persuasive because we we just don't know so instead these arguments are used in the scientists who bring them out are probably closer to this category themselves in other words these are arguments that the scientist presumably would find convincing and therefore they use it to try to convince others but here's the problem they're not speaking the same language as the people they're trying to persuade the people they're trying to persuade in many cases they don't have to be older or business experience in business but they think a similar way these people see these things as anti persuasive in other words they're literally the opposite of persuasive they will talk you out of believing it if you use these so how do we solve this the very first

[9:17]

so how do we solve this the very first thing we need to do is understand that we're talking different languages to different populations and if you're talking these three things and trying to convince people who have business experience you can't get there from here these things will never be persuasive to people with business experience and that's a lot of people so what do you do I've got a suggestion starts with this question it's the question we should all be asking on the question on the topic of climate what would it take to change your mind what would it take to change your mind now the reason that that's a good persuasion question is that people like to be consistent so people who have an opinion whether you know they're afraid of climate risk or they're not they're not likely to want to change their opinion even if you give them good evidence right even the facts the argument it doesn't change people's

[10:18]

argument it doesn't change people's opinion because they like to stay pus stay consistent with what they said before now that's not the only thing going on here but it's an important one so one of the ways around that is to ask somebody what would it take to change your mind now the clever part about this is that once you've answers that question and let's say you said okay if you could demonstrate this to me I will change my mind now they have two consistencies not just one the first consistency is I want to keep the same opinion I used to have but the second one that you've introduced is that they've committed in writing or verbally to change the mind if a certain specific test is met now they have two things that they have to be consistent with and sort of a tie this gives people the freedom to change their mind and still be consistent because they would be consistent with their statement that if you prove this X whatever X is I will change my mind so

[11:18]

whatever X is I will change my mind so they have something they can be consistent with alright I'll tell you mine so here's what it would take to convince me that climate change is you know a catastrophic problem that we have to do everything we can as soon as possible to deal with it my choice for the top skeptic is Tony Heller I want to be very clear that I don't know if anything he says is true I don't know I do know that I've been looking at a lot of skeptical arguments and I find him the most persuasive across the the biggest range of topics in climate change so I've asked him for his top five what are the top five arguments that that you you would die on you know what Hillary you die on you know what's your top five because you don't want to play whack-a-mole forever you don't want to debunk a few things and then have him

[12:19]

to debunk a few things and then have him just go to the sixth thing and the seventh thing you want to say look what are the top five that if they can be debunked you'll give up and say okay I was just kidding not really just kidding but you know what I mean secondly it has to be an iterative iterative debate meaning that it won't be enough to hear what Tiffany says and it won't be enough to hear what the climate scientists say in in return you need to iterate it enough times that you feel you've exhausted the argument for just five items and then here's the other key I won't be convinced unless the last part of the exchange is Heller and he still doesn't convince me so this is very much like a criminal trial where the defense gets to talk last because whoever he goes last is going to have an so there's an advantage for going first and there's an advantage for going last but if the argument iterates let's say

[13:21]

but if the argument iterates let's say there's a climate claim there's what Tony Heller says is wrong about it then the climate scientists say no Tony got that wrong here's why then he goes in so that's iterative but however long that is whether it's two iterations or three iterations I need to be convinced under the condition that the skeptics goes last and if you can if you can meet this test I'm all-in on climate change being a huge problem is there anybody else who would be with me on this is there anybody else I'm not sure you've done the work - now who is your your favorite skeptic but I think the top five that Tony comes up with will be a pretty solid group that I saw the group of of points that would be common to other scientists who are skeptics as well now looking at the comments and a lot of you say you're hidden you're in you're in now who knows if this will work I have asked Tony for his top five I

[14:23]

I have asked Tony for his top five I will publish them and I will open it up for scientists to comment or even non scientists to give us links that debunk what Tony said and we'll keep it up there we'll keep it alive for a while we'll iterate a few times just on the top five we're not going to introduce new topics and then Heller is going to go last when we think we've exhausted the topics and then I'm gonna let you know if it changed my mind all right so I'm just gonna summarize for those of you joining us late if you want to persuade you have to talk in the language of the person you're trying to persuade not the language you would like to talk in and if you're talking to business people or people who have been around for a while the least persuasive things you could say is look at my hockey stick graph because that's literally a symbol of lying in the corporate world literally a hockey stick

[15:25]

corporate world literally a hockey stick graph is a symbol of a lie in the in the corporate world probably not in the science world but in the corporate world it is prediction models are a symbol of a lie as are saying everybody agrees just gives you reasons to question that so that's that's my larger point is the reason that we can't agree is that the scientists and the journalists let's let's call them a team they're speaking their own language they're not speaking the language of the people they're trying to persuade so to get past that will do the Tony Heller test and by the way this is the first time he's hearing about it he knows that I asked him for his top five and that I want to publish that but it's the first time you started this argument so to get past it just five top claims from the top skeptic as in my opinion the top most persuasive skeptic which doesn't mean he's right about anything it only means

[16:27]

he's right about anything it only means that I've looked at all the skeptics and he seems to be the most convincing even if it's not right so we'll find out so that's my test if he if Tony can can prevail and his top five criticisms of the climate consensus then I'm going to be a skeptic and if he does not prevail I'm gonna come down hard on the opinion that there's something big to worry about I should tell you for those who don't know I am genuinely undecided and I think that's pretty rare and I'm genuinely undecided because both sides seem to be lying to me the critics that I've looked at a lot of them have such transparently bad arguments that they're not credible likewise since I'm older and I have business experience when I look at the top arguments for climate science they're packaged as a fraud which

[17:28]

they're packaged as a fraud which doesn't mean they're a fraud it probably is more of an indication that the people packaging it don't know how to package it to be persuasive to this population that's probably what's going on but I don't know that's what we'll find out all right that's my solution to fix the world and by the way if I come down on the position after all this if I come up with the opinion that climate change is a huge problem as the experts are warning us I'm gonna start persuading on the topic of generation 4 safe nuclear power probably the only way to get to a quick quick enough fix to make a difference for those of you don't know generation 4 are the types of designs that do not melt down so there the risk of a nuclear disaster are essentially zero

[18:29]

zero maybe nothing zero but they're designed so that everything can go wrong and is still won't melt down that's the new designs so we'll talk about that later but I don't need to unless I'm convinced climate science is the the problem that the experts say that's all for now I'll keep it short and tight and I'll talk to you later