Episode 502 Scott Adams: A Linguistic Kill Shot for Religious Extremism. Persuasion Lesson
Date: 2019-04-21 | Duration: 11:50
Topics
Whiteboard: A persuasion lesson, explaining the concepts in play Example: A linguistic kill shot for religious extremism
Please donate to support my YouTube channel:
https://interface.my/ScottAdamsSays
I also fund my Periscopes and podcasts via audience micro-donations on Patreon. I prefer this method over accepting advertisements or working for a "boss" somewhere because it keeps my voice independent. No one owns me, and that is rare. I'm trying in my own way to make the world a better place, and your contributions help me stay inspired to do that.
See all of my Periscope videos here…
https://www.pscp.tv/ScottAdamsSays/1nAKERDOwylGL
Find my WhenHub Interface app here…
https://interface.whenhub.com
> [!note] Rough Transcript
>
> This is an auto-generated transcript and may contain errors.
## Transcript
[0:04]
[Music] hey
everybody I thought I would uh hop on here for a little quick lesson on persuasion and I'm going to put it in the context of coming up with a linguistic killshot for religious extremism something that could potentially stop religious extremism no matter which religion so I'm going to teach you something something that would work whether it's uh radical Christian uh terrorism or radical Islamic or radical any other religion so it would be a universal killshot for any religion that believes in some kind of a single God and I'm going to jump right into it here's the linguistic killshot to refer to people who are terrorists as half believers half Believers the idea is to create a frame that says that if you believe that
[1:07]
frame that says that if you believe that God wants you to do violent things you're religious but you're only halfway to where you want to be you're halfway to understanding God I'm going to put a little meat on this okay here's what makes this powerful so here are some of the elements and this will be your little lesson on persuasion first of all half believer is easy to translate into every language it would be difficult for me to come up with a an English language killshot that would work in another language but half is a universal concept and believer is a universal concept so it can be easily translated into every language and would have exactly the same meaning the other thing that's good about it is that it's Unique it has never been it has never been used in this context quite like this so if you used any word that already had some baggage with it people would Retreat to whatever they thought
[2:08]
would Retreat to whatever they thought about that word before this is a Donald Trump trick you pick a a fresh uh insult or or label that hasn't been used in this context before so you want it easy to translate you also want it to be debatable that's actually part of its strength not the problem if people look at this and say I'm not a half believer then you've already done much of the work of persuasion if somebody stops and argues the point you're already winning so you want them to say half ah I'm not a half believer I'm a I'm 100% believer what is it you what what what's the half that's missing that's the provocative conversational thing that you build into it to make people unable to go past it they're going to have to stop and at least in their mind they're going to argue whether half is a good estimate of course they'll think it's not but they'll imagine them AR themselves arguing it with you until it
[3:09]
themselves arguing it with you until it becomes something they think about more the goal of persuasion in this context is not to give them the logical argument but to make them think about this more than they think about other things you're just trying to drive their attention to it that's
it the other benefit is that it's self- complimented so if you let's say you were a member of the church or a member of any other religion and you're a leader you would like to compliment Yourself by saying that you're a True Believer but the people who disagree with you and prefer violence are not up to your level but they're also not up to the level of all the other people who are also not killing anybody so it frames the it frames the terrorists as the people who need to learn it's a very powerful phras framing all right um it also suggests that perhaps inexperience is part of the problem and here there's a clever uh
[4:09]
problem and here there's a clever uh side benefit to doing that if you if you suggest that in experience is why you're only halfway to being a proper believer then you're also saying it might be something that is a little more common with youth and that as you get older and wiser you're less likely to be a half believer and more likely to be something like a True Believer because you've learned over time now that's powerful because everybody at every age understands they know more now than they used to know at every age you understand that the people who have lived longer have picked up a few things all right now this can be confirmed confirmed would be the wrong word but part of the story would be have you ever noticed that there are rarely old
old terrorists have you ever noticed that there are rarely old terrorists now the
[5:10]
there are rarely old terrorists now the real reasons might be they get caught it might have to do with you know violence or something that young people do could be lots of reasons for that it doesn't matter how true it is or if you know the real reason for it as soon as you put it out there it's hard to forget so if you said Ben there's a better part you never see an old terrorist unless they're getting rich you do see old terrorist leaders You could argue that the Ayatollah is a is a leader of terrorists and he's kind of getting rich so you could say that being a half believer is something that's common to people who have not matured and it's common to people who pretend to be the leaders of the half believers because they're they're becoming rich but that it's rare to have a half believer who's let's say over 40 it becomes more rare now this doesn't
[6:12]
it becomes more rare now this doesn't have to be true we're not talking about what's true we're not talking about what's accurate we're talking about things that once you hear them it's hard to get it out of your head and they can be influential over time it is shameful to be religious and commit your life to God and only be halfway there it is shameful to be a half believer so that part is good shame is a very powerful force you don't want people thinking wow the very best thing I can do for my honor for my family is to kill some people you want to create the frame that being is shameful Not the Killing part if you say that killing people is shameful obviously that doesn't work because we've been saying this forever and it doesn't make any difference but if you say that not believing in God fully not going all the way to understand that God doesn't want you to kill is a higher level of awareness and if you're not willing to go all the way if you're only a half
[7:13]
go all the way if you're only a half believer you should be ashamed of that God expects much more of you and expects you to become a full believer whatever ReliOn you're in uh it also helps you think past the sale which is a common persuasion technique so if you're as I mentioned if you're arguing whether that really is a thing is it true that that describes a half believer well if you're if you're talking about it you're already thinking past the sale that there is something like a scale of belief so if you can get people to accept uncritically that there is such a thing as somebody who' be a half believer and the only thing they're arguing about is if it's them even if this argument is only happening in their mind that's good persuasion You' you've got them past the point of believing that this is an existing uh concept that there are people who are on the scale in different places that's an important place to move them
[8:14]
place to move them to another part of the argument to again just get people to to uh grapple with the thought it's not trying to convince them outright you're trying to make them grapple with the thought and you say what was there a time in human history when perhaps God did approve of violence and wouldn't that time have been before the internet why does that make sense and again I'm not saying this is true or logical or factual none of those things matter this is just for persuasion so you bring up the topic now that the internet exists and we can communicate our ideas instantly and everywhere is VI Ence something that God would approve of now that the internet exists because if you trust your God and you think your God has the right answer and your version of that is the right answer wouldn't you trust that the
[9:15]
right answer wouldn't you trust that the message alone plus the internet would be all the communication you need if you're a real believer you just need the internet if you're a half believer then first of all you may not compatible with God and second of all the internet wouldn't work for you you're just a half believer only a True Believer could weaponize the internet in terms of having your religion um be accepted so the idea would be that confidence in your God plus the internet is stronger than violence it's stronger than bombs and so you want people to argue this point you want them to say no no no sometimes bombs are better but you want them to at least engage in this which is are bombs really what the strongest most confident person uses or is the strongest most confident person the one who's a True Believer not
[10:16]
person the one who's a True Believer not a half believer but a True Believer who has confidence and really has God on their side plus the internet how is that not enough how is that not enough seems like it'd enough unless you're a half believer all right so that's the basic idea is to create a frame in which the uh the heads of all the major religions could start considering the people who believe in a god of peace they would be Believers but anybody who's not there yet and still thinks that the the god of old in the age of the internet still wants to kill people and that that's what God wants you to do that they're only halfway there they're probably young and they probably have something to learn that is my
my suggestion for doing away with radical uh religious terrorism thoughts I will look at your
[11:16]
terrorism thoughts I will look at your comments
now all right um as I'm looking at your uh comments I'm going to uh sign off here and wish you all a a happy holiday and we're thinking about the people in Sri Lanka and hoping that nothing like that ever happens again but that's a lot to hope for all right um see kind of quiet about this idea and so I will end it here and thanks for joining me