rhetoric
-
![]()
![]()
Best way to convince deniers: Butter them up
Well, it turns out Dave Roberts has been going about this talking to climate skeptics thing all wrong. If you want to get people to consider data that doesn't fit with their pet worldview, you should make them think really hard about how great they are. Then they'll be putty in your hands! And if you don't believe me, have I mentioned how fetching you look today?
-
Still giving lessons in how not to communicate
The White House is just lousy at messaging across the board, as I and others have noted many times. Obama also seems to have bad luck. He endorsed offshore drilling shortly before the biggest offshore oil disaster in history. He embraced new nuclear power plants in a speech last February, and now we are seeing […]
-
How to be as persuasive as Lincoln, Part 3
Metaphors are the Rolls Royce of figures. Or, to put it more aptly, metaphors are the Toyota Prius of figures because a metaphor is a hybrid, connecting two dissimilar things to achieve a unique turn of phrase. Metaphor, like verbal irony discussed in the previous post, is a trope, because it alters or enhances a […]
