As anyone who reads this blog knows, I spent a lot of time during the election season commenting favorably on cartoonist Scott Adams’ analysis of Trump’s campaign. I even wrote a few articles over at acid logic on the subject, including this one where I compared Trump’s persuasion abilities to similar skills I had seen described in a book about the world of pickup artists called “The Game.”

As such I shouldn’t be too surprised when I read this profile on Adams and come across this passage.

[Adams] has an airy office upstairs, where the books on display include Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade and a signed copy of The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists, a book of strategies for seducing women. (Adams said he hadn’t read it.)

I would argue that “The Game” isn’t a strategy book, it about the people who use the strategies.

Another interesting tidbit about Adams in the profile.

Around the same time, Adams said, he was making up to $1 million annually from public speaking, charging up to $100,000 per speech, until in 2005 he suddenly lost the ability to talk with other people. The mysterious condition is known as voice dystonia. While Adams could still speak normally to himself and to his cat, and he could even sing and recite memorized poems, he could no longer have conversations. “I think that’s what led to the end of my marriage,” he told me. “Losing the ability to speak made me feel like a ghost. It was incredibly lonely.” The inexplicable condition, which doctors attributed to a possible mental condition, persisted for three years. Then Adams underwent an experimental surgery that involved cutting nerves that lead from the brain to the vocal cords and building a new path using nerves from elsewhere in the neck. A few months later, his voice returned.

Really, if you can still talk to your cat then nothing has been lost.