On Hallucinating
Scott Adams' Blog
(Oh I remember the Obama will destroy America hallucination...and the birther hallucination...we human beings are a powerful species...co-creators...)
Adams is smart enough to know the difference between hallucinations and delusions. Delusions are false beliefs. Hallucinations are psychoses, I.e. actually hearing, seeing things that are not there. Hallucinations/ psychoses are accute states of illness and/ or brought on by drugs or health issues. Delusions are things just about everyone experiences at some point or another when they fill in the missing blanks, or uncomfortable parts, in a narrative, and they have it wrong. A delusion could be as simple as, "my job is secure", when in fact, the company they work for is flailing - but they tell themselves "they're ok", so they can keep going to work and doing they're job and block out the uncertainty. Or, "my marriage is healthy", when there are plenty of things that are not healthy about it but it's not as bad as some others' the person knows. Those are delusions. People have them all the time.
"There was a pink elephant in my backyard singing Johnny Cash songs", is 99.9999% likely a hallucination. The odds are very much against that being real. But it would still be a more enjoyable, and less disconcerting, experience than Trump's performance as president.
Where Adams is deluding people - is that he is using his techniques as a vehicle for supporting Trump. He can throw in comparisons about the way the right thought Obama was the worst thing that happened to America, he was a secret Kenyan Muslim, etc. to try to make people believe the "mass hysteria" is equivalent. Yet...how convenient...it was Trump who promoted Birtherism! And it should be noted that the majority of posters to Adam's blog are Trump supporters. And America is not stronger than ever as Adams claims - but that's the "confirmation bias" they want to hear. And Trump is under very real investigation for the very real possibility of Russian collusion (Don Jr. doesn't, apparently, have the "Master Persuader" skills his dad has)...yes it sounds crazy, it is real and it is crazy...and there's evidence, and it's building. In fact, if a reality TV star and shady real estate tycoon with a shady background in business and Russian mobster friends can become POTUS...it is actually not crazy to question whether any ethics violations took place to get him there.
It sounds crazy that a POTUS would be a white supremacist/ KKK apologist - so I guess it's just by accident that he has the support of David Duke. And he ran on a platform of banning Muslims and walling off Mexicans. He's racist, even if he has a few black acquantances - the ones he may not equate with being like "those other people", or that he uses to look like he's not a racist, or that he knows but feels superior to. No, I can't read his mind but his behaviour speaks volumes. Adams can explain it away but he's preaching to a hypnotized choir of Trumpets. I guess it must make him feel pretty powerful.
