Episode 1016 Scott Adams： News Blackout on the Protests, Let's See How the Country is Doing Today
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 12 minutes
Words per Minute
150.90096
Summary
A conspiracy theory about the lack of news coverage of the riots in the streets of New York and other major cities, and why it might have something to do with something bigger than the news. It's a conspiracy theory, and it's a good one.
Transcript
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Bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum
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Hey everybody! Come on in. It's time for the best part of the day. Yeah, you made it.
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You survived another evening. Despite all the coronavirus, did it kill you? No. How about those
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riots? Did any of you die in the riots? Not you. No. You're the smart, plucky, resourceful people
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who stayed away from it. And because of all that good work on your part, you've made it to this
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point. This point in the universe. We're at this moment in time when we're all going to enjoy
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a little thing called the simultaneous sip, yes. That's right. And all you need is a
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cup or a mug or a glass, a tank or a chalice or a canteen jug or a flask, a vessel of any
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kind. A handgun would be good. But fill it with your favorite liquid. I like coffee.
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And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine hit of the day, the thing that
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makes everything better, the thing that cured the coronavirus and stopped the riots and the
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looting. It's called the simultaneous sip. And it happens now. Go.
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Ah. I feel the racial tension subsiding. That's how good the coffee is.
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Somebody says, I'm jealous of the beautiful Christina. Well, let me talk about that for
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a moment. A lot of people say to me, Scott, you're with the most beautiful woman in the
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world. Is she really that wonderful in person? The answer is no. No. She's not that wonderful
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in person. She's much more wonderful than that. Way more wonderful. So you should be twice as
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jealous as you actually are. So start there. All right. There's something happening. I don't
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know what it is yet. But it's very interesting. Did you wake up this morning and check the news
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news and say, what's happening? There's something happening. So there might be something happening
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that we don't know about. In other words, I feel like there's something brewing, maybe
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internationally. I don't know what it is. It's just a, you ever get, ever just get this, this
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hunch intuition thing that just can't turn off. It's like, there's something happening
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internationally. But that's not what I'm talking about. I think that might also be brewing.
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But I checked the news today to see about all the, you know, altercations and violence
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and see if anybody got hurt last night in the riots and protests and looting and what I expected
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was going to be a rough night. But there wasn't much reporting on it. Why? Why?
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Does anybody know? So I have some guesses. So here are some guesses. One possibility is
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that nothing made news last night. It could be that there just weren't enough newsworthy
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visual events, so there wasn't much to write about. But that doesn't seem right. Even last
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night we were seeing live coverage that the crowds were immense. Immense crowds closing down
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cities. Where are the stories? Where's the news? There's no news. It's like it's a blackout.
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No pun intended, because there was that blackout social movement, social media movement yesterday.
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But it seems that the news has a blackout on the events of the protest. Am I wrong about that?
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Because it's my impression that they have somewhat agreed. There seems to be some kind of agreement not to show
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the news. Now, is that intentional? Is it intentional that neither Fox News nor CNN seem to have covered the
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biggest news last night? What are the odds that neither of them would cover the biggest news? And when I say
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it didn't cover it, I mean, not with the details and the pictures and the violence and here's a bloody person
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and here's a cop and here's a video that'll make you mad. It feels like, and this is my, I guess this would
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be like a conspiracy theory speculation. So the next thing I say, don't put too much credibility in it.
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I'm just speculating. It looks like the government and the news business have colluded.
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That's what it looks like. It looks to me like probably somebody in the government, this is just
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speculation, had the thought that the news business is making things worse because it's whipping up,
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it's whipping up feelings beyond where they might have naturally been. That's obviously true, because that's what
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visuals do. Visuals encourage you to do more of it. If you see a car on fire, if the news shows one picture of a
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car that was set on fire by a protester, is that going to make fewer cars set on fire in the future or more cars set on
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fire? Of course more. So every time they show any kind of particular violence, and you know, if a lot of
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people see it, it's going to make somebody have a new idea. So I don't think there's any question that
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the coverage of the news made the news worse in terms of the protesting. I don't think that's
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questionable, is it? But at the same time, we accept that as the price of a free world and free speech
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and having a news business at all. You know that sometimes it makes things worse, but we accept
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that. But after, say, seven days of whatever, of coverage of the same news, that it's still
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protests, still some bad people get in the mix, still some scuffles, at some point, it's not really
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the same kind of news news. It's still news, but now maybe covering it just makes things worse,
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and it doesn't have the offsetting benefit that you have the first few days. The first few days,
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people need to know. So the benefit of telling us might be greater than the benefit of whipping up
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any extra energy. But at this point, so correct me if I'm wrong, it looks like collusion.
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It looks like the government and the news organizations on both sides of the political divide
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seem to have agreed to cover it less, or at least less visually. Maybe fewer pictures, but still talk
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about it, maybe? I don't know. Am I imagining this? Because it looks like a complete blackout of the news.
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And I don't know what to think about that exactly. Because on one hand, if that's what's happening,
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and it certainly looks like it's happening, that would be a responsible thing to do. But it would
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also be a scary thing that your government is somehow involved in suppressing the news,
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even if it's for everybody's best interest. That's a dangerous place to go. Anyway,
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here are a few tidbits in no particular order. Finally, you know, this is what I've been waiting
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for. Pope Francis condemned the death of George Floyd. And I've been thinking to myself, I don't
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know what to think about this situation. I need to hear from the Pope. Because sometimes, you know,
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you just can't tell what's good and what's evil until the Pope is weighed in. But now the Pope says he
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condemns it. So now I guess all doubt is removed. So I guess, I guess everybody else is free to
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condemn it too. So thank you, Pope Francis, for clarifying that if you put your knee on the neck
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of a man and grind him into the dirt until he's dead, that that's condemnable. Turns out that's
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condemnable. So we got some clarity there. That's good. Steve King lost his primary in Iowa. I think he'd
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been reelected like 10 times. But he lost. Of course, some idiot on social media comes after me and says
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that the person I've been praising lost. What do I say about that? To which I say,
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what are you hallucinating? When did I praise Steve King? I don't even know. I didn't even know if he was
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a senator or a house guy at one point. I can't think of one thing he's ever done except for being
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taken out of context and being accused of a racist. I don't know what he's voted for. I don't know
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anything about anything. The only thing I've ever said about him is that he seemed unusually dumb.
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He seemed like the dumbest guy in Congress because he let himself be accused of racism. And again,
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I don't know what's in his head. So I'm not going to say he is or is not anything, because that would
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be reading inside his head. We can only see what he's done or what he said. And he basically, he got
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run out of office by a New York Times misquote. He actually lost his job because the New York Times
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misquoted him. That actually happened. Now, did he deserve to lose his job? I have no idea
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in terms of, in terms of, did he do a good job? In terms of, is he a secret racist inside his head?
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I don't know. I don't have any opinion on that because I don't have any information about him.
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To me, he's just an empty box. But I am sure he lost his job because of a quote taken out of context.
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I'm sure of that. So anyway, do you want to talk about some tough things? Well, let me give you some
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happy things first. I heard from somebody today, who shall remain nameless, that said person was
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feeling hopeless today. Feeling hopeless because the riots, the looting, the protests just keep going
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on and on. And we've got every other kind of problem with coronavirus, etc. I think it's the
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opposite. I think today, we're over the protests. I'm not saying the protests will be done. But it
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looks like most of the energy of the protests has dissipated in terms of being too dangerous.
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So the dangerous level of energy may have dissipated. You'll still see lots of energy, but I think we're
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below the dangerous level. The coronavirus, did it just go away? I don't know. Let me give you the
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most optimistic thing you're going to hear today. Are you ready? Here's the most optimistic thought you
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will hear today. Probably nobody else is going to say this all day long. We beat the coronavirus
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and the protests are largely over. Today is the beginning. Today's the beginning.
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You're not going to feel it yet because you're still like, you know, you're still got the PTSD from
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the last three months of hell. We just went through three months of hell. I think today it's over.
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I think it's over. Now that doesn't mean there won't be some more flare-ups. It doesn't mean there
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won't be people dying of COVID. There will be tragedies. You know, it's not, we didn't reach
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heaven or something. But the two biggest problems that we've seen in a long time, I think they're
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over today. Today. Now I think that the news coverage made a difference. I think that moving
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in the National Guard made a difference. Let me be the only person in the fucking country who gives
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the president some credit for this. I think he scared, scared the looters. Am I wrong? Do you think
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the looters didn't believe that the president was going to send in the army to shoot them in the
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fucking head? Of course they believed it. Did that make a difference? I think it might have.
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Because the whole point was to get, was to get the police to hurt somebody. If you send in the
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National Guard, the military, let's just call it the military. If you send in the military, you've
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sent in the most respected entity in the United States. There's nobody in the United States as a
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group with more credibility and more respect than the U.S. military. Am I right? So the president's
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instinct to send in the military, I don't think he's going to get any credit for that. In fact,
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he'll probably be criticized for it. But there's a reason the energy came out of the protest last
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night. And I'm talking about the looter energy, the Antifa energy. I'm not talking about the,
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the protest energy. It looks to me like the president successfully scared the looters into
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thinking that the U.S. military was going to be sniping their heads off if they looted. Now,
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I don't think that they had those orders. My guess is they had no orders of anything like that.
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But do you think the looters believe that? All the looters know is that the people who kill for a
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living just, just got on the, on the job. Do you know what's the difference between the police
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and the military? Well, lots of differences. But one is the police are really, really about safety.
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The police are trying to keep the bad guys safe. Let me say it again. The police are a safety force.
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They're all about health, safety, keeping you alive. And they're also trying to keep the criminals alive.
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They're trying to keep everybody alive. That's the job. If they have to shoot somebody, it's to keep
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somebody else alive. So, but that's not the military's job. The military is to kill. So the
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president sent in the killing force that also, by good luck, the best fortune we could possibly have
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as a country is that we have more respect for our military than any other institution, period.
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I don't think there's anything close. Justice system? No. Police? Sorry. Government? Not even
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close. Organization? Democrats? Nope. GOP? Sorry. Congress? Ha ha ha. News industry? Fuck you.
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We have one credible institution in the whole fucking country, and it's the military. Am I wrong about
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that? We have one credible institution? That's it. That's all we have left. One credible institution.
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And I don't know, you know, I think that if the energy did go down last night in the protest,
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it probably has something to do with several different forces. One is the protesters themselves,
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the well-meaning, good-intentioned protesters, who probably created enough numbers that they,
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I think they would have taken direct physical action against any looters or bad actors. And you saw
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lots of individual anecdotes of that happening. It looked like that energy was also higher. In other
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words, the protective energy of the well-meaning protesters was probably sky high. And I think that
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there were able-bodied people among the good people. Let's call them the fine people. Literally,
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there were fine people who were protesting. And I think that was part of it, that they would have
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taken direct action to take a brick out of somebody's hand. The other part is that the credibility of the
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military is so different. If you had heard a story that a policeman killed a protester or a looter,
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what's your first thought? Ah, I don't know if it's a good, I don't know if he did it right.
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I don't know if that was justified. I don't know if that was the right amount of force.
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I don't know if that guy was trained right. Right? Because that's where we're at. So your first
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thought is about the capability of the policeman, because that's the topic. It's only because it's
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the topic that that's your first thought. So that would have been a terrible thing. But just imagine
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that there'd been one tragic incident and it involved a military person. And a military person
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acted as a military person does. There was some threat. They responded and somebody died.
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How would you feel about that? I don't know that that would have sparked a riot.
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I don't know that it would have. Because it would just look different. It would feel different.
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Because the entities involved are not the ones that people are hating at the moment.
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They're not hating the military. If you're a minority, I feel like the military is a job opportunity.
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It's a career stepping stone. I don't know that there's any bad feeling about the military
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in the minority community, but I don't know either. I try to be careful
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in pointing out that none of us know how anybody else feels or thinks. And the moment we think we
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do, that's where you get in all the trouble. I did a little very informal, meaning non-scientific poll
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on Twitter, in which I asked people if their empathy for the Black Lives movement, and keep in mind that
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the key word here is movement. We're not talking about black people, and we're not talking about
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Black Lives Matter members. So it's about the idea of it, the movement. And I said, did people feel
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that their empathy for the Black Lives movement was higher or lower because of the protests? And over
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70% of the respondents said it was lower. In other words, over 70% said the protests moved
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things backwards, that they were counterproductive, that people have a worse feeling about the
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movement. Now, you say to yourself, Scott, Scott, Scott, you told us it was an unscientific poll,
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but seriously, your followers are all, you know, certain kind of people, if you know what I mean,
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certain kind of people, meaning mostly Trump supporters. Probably 75% of my Twitter followers
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are Trump supporters, I would guess. And so you would not be surprised if they would have some
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negative feelings about the, you know, the protests and the lawlessness, etc. And that that would be
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conflated with the, you know, the good intentions of the fine people. So here's the thing, though.
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What's the point of persuasion? The point of persuasion is not to talk to yourself.
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I think it's true that the Black Lives Matter people persuaded Black Lives Matter people,
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in other words, the people marching with them, etc. I think they persuaded each other, right?
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Probably persuaded each other of something, I don't know. But did they need to persuade each other?
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I don't think so. You know, in politics, it actually makes sense to talk to your own team,
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because it's so hard to get somebody on the other side of politics to agree with you. It's just so
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hard that your best play is to talk to your own side only, just persuade your own side, and see if you
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can get more of your people to show up at the polls than the other side can make show up. But nobody in
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politics is really persuading the other team. They're not even trying. That's partly why you see
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the division. Nobody's even trying, because it doesn't work. But that's politics. If you're, you know,
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that's in terms of the political parties who are actually running for office. But the larger politics,
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which is the issues, if you want to move an issue, you have to persuade the other side.
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And in this case, the other side is anybody you think doesn't agree with you already.
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Is there anybody who needs to think, you know, that the police need some extra
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training or regulations or restrictions or whatever it is? Who's on the other side?
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According to this unscientific poll, 72% have a worse opinion of the people involved when the point
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of it was to give you a better opinion. The entire point of it, of Black Lives Matter,
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is to raise the opinion of other people about black lives. Or am I wrong about that? The whole
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black lives matter is about how you feel about it. They're not saying change the law. I haven't heard
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any suggestions. They're not saying change this or that. They're saying change your mind.
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Black Lives Matter is literally about changing your mind. It's about persuasion.
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And they persuaded opposite as hard as you could possibly persuade. It's the worst strategic blunder
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maybe you've ever seen of any movement of all time. Now, I'm going to treat the black community
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with respect. I always do. But the next thing I say is with respect. I'm going to frame it that way,
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because what's in the middle of this little frame of respect is going to be a really bad
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criticism. It's going to be really bad. But the reason I'm framing it with respect is that I
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wouldn't say this unless I respected the people I'm talking to. There's some things you just wouldn't
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say it unless you respected them. Okay? So let's get that right first. Your strategy sucks. It's terrible.
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Your strategy is terrible. Because it got you aggressively the opposite of what you wanted.
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Let me be as honest as I can. Do you think black people are more likely to get jobs after this
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than they were before? Because before this, black unemployment was at a record low. Do you think
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that's going to repeat? I don't think so. Not because of anything I'm going to do. But you've
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made things much, much worse. And I think a lot of people are going to say, I just don't need the
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trouble. I'll just pretend the other person has a better resume. Nobody will know. I think racial
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discrimination got a lot worse. Probably a 10-year setback. And it's not because people don't
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care. People started agreeing. On day one, people were all on the same side. That's my cat going
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crazy over there. People were all on the same side. And the protests, which caused the looting
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and the other things that came with it, have made things so much worse. And the truth has to be told
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with respect. With respect, all your leaders are incompetent. The leaders of Black Lives Matter,
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they're all incompetent. Because they got you exactly the opposite of what you wanted. And we have now
00:25:03.240
heard one constructive suggestion. We're all ready. The whole country is ready for a constructive
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suggestion. Even a constructive suggestion along the lines of, we don't know what to do,
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but if we could pull together the right people, we could figure it out. Anything. The lack of a
00:25:22.760
constructive suggestion has discredited the movement in a way I don't think you could possibly
00:25:29.380
appreciate. Because the point of persuasion was to persuade people like the people listening
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right now. It wasn't to persuade yourself. If you persuaded yourself, that's terrific, but it bought
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you nothing except more division. If you were trying to persuade the other side, you failed as hard
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as anybody could ever fail. It's the worst failure I've ever seen of any political strategy of all time.
00:25:54.820
And I'm talking about all political strategies of all time. The Democrats are running a brain-dead
00:26:01.060
sack of dust for president. And even that's not as bad a strategy as this was. The worst strategy ever.
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Now, the first few nights of protest, even with any bad that came with it, that was totally acceptable,
00:26:21.620
honestly. You know, you could understand some emotionally outburst because the situation that
00:26:31.100
triggered it was so awful. You can imagine it, and you can also sort of get past it pretty easily.
00:26:36.600
Because you could say, man, that was pretty bad. I can see why people reacted. But after a week,
00:26:42.680
where you know there's going to be trouble, and you do it anyway, well, that's just discrediting your
00:26:48.300
entire point. So, you know, I'd hate to put it in the darkest terms, but, well, I'm not even going to
00:26:58.140
do that. So, here's what I don't think we should do anymore. We should not infantilize. We, meaning
00:27:04.900
people who are not black, should not treat them like infants. And that's the most racist thing you
00:27:10.760
could do, is to not speak honestly, if you're trying to be helpful, and you're trying to be
00:27:18.240
you're trying to show respect, which you always should. If you're trying to be honest, and you're
00:27:24.640
trying to show respect, and you're trying to be helpful, you have to say that the strategy of
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Black Lives Matter is a complete, absolute failure of the highest level, because it makes the people
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they want to persuade think less of them, not more. And in fact, I said the other day, the Black Lives
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Matter logo, you know, the brand, the, what would you call it, the slogan, the slogan itself, the words
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Black Lives Matter, are divisive. And although they've been very successful as an attention-getting
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brand, they're divisive by their nature. And so, of course, they made things worse. Shouldn't be a
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surprise, actually. And it's a tragedy. And watching this tragedy unfold, I got to say, is sort of
00:28:11.980
heartbreaking, because things, we're right on the edge of making things better. And I think it was the
00:28:20.180
political leaders who decided that, wait a minute, instead of coming together over this massive
00:28:27.500
agreement over how people felt about the George Floyd video, instead of bringing this together,
00:28:34.440
which so easily could have happened, it was the leaders who pulled us apart. Imagine if the leaders
00:28:42.700
of Black Lives Matter had said on day one, we just noticed that everybody feels the same about this.
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Let's work with this. Let's use this. We just made the biggest gains we've ever made through no
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effort of our own. It was this tragic incident that brought everybody to the same page. Let's work
00:29:03.240
with it. And what'd they do instead? I think they said, if we try to work with this and try to be
00:29:09.520
productive, it will be bad for us. Us being the leaders. I believe the leaders of Black Lives Matter
00:29:16.700
have thrown the black community under the bus. Because the black community had the biggest opening
00:29:23.140
of maybe all time to just really make a gain. Just work with us. Just take yes for an answer.
00:29:32.860
Yes, we'd like to fix whatever's wrong with the police. Yes. Yes. Do you know what Black Lives Matter
00:29:41.040
could do to fix the police problem? Here's a persuasion, here's persuasion advice that I know
00:29:49.360
they won't take. And it's because the leadership is completely incompetent. And they're completely
00:29:55.380
incompetent on the persuasion level specifically. Because they're not thinking of what it takes to
00:30:01.480
persuade other people. They're thinking, as most people do, by the way, this is the most common
00:30:06.820
persuasion problem. It's the biggest problem in persuasion. And that's where it is. Let me tell
00:30:23.000
you how you could get white people to fix the police problem for you. You ready for this?
00:30:28.900
I'm going to, I'm going to again, treat the black community with the respect that I don't think
00:30:36.060
anybody gives them. I'm going to give you the truth. I will respect you enough to give you the
00:30:43.180
truth that I don't think other people are telling you. Here's what you could do to fix the police
00:30:47.580
problem if you care. Because I don't think, I'm not seeing that anybody cares, honestly. I'm seeing that
00:30:53.080
they care about the issue. I'm not seeing any evidence, seriously. I'm not being provocative
00:30:59.160
here. I don't see any evidence that any black person cares about fixing it. Because what that
00:31:04.380
would look like is, here are some suggestions. Can we get together? Can we have a meeting? Can we meet
00:31:10.160
you, Mr. President at the White House? Anything. We're forming a committee. Can we get some white
00:31:15.700
people to help us out, you know, to make sure we have the diversity of opinion? Anything like that.
00:31:21.320
But there's nothing we see that looks like any interest in fixing the problem. Now again,
00:31:28.920
I can't read your minds, and I want to not do that. I want to have the humility that I don't
00:31:35.100
know what you're thinking. I can only tell what you're doing. I can't tell what you're thinking.
00:31:39.640
I can't get in your heads. And as soon as you think you can, that's where you go wrong.
00:31:44.540
So let me tell you, I've been holding on on this. It's the secret weapon. It's the strategy that
00:31:50.840
will work 100%. And let me tell you this. This strategy could get you all the way back
00:31:58.140
to the agreement we first felt when all of us saw the George Floyd video. That's how strong it is.
00:32:07.600
The thing I'm going to tell you next is so strong persuasion-wise, it would take you from a huge
00:32:14.020
loss. I mean, I think the black community lost 10 years of gains in the last week. I really do.
00:32:20.060
It's tragic. But this one trick I'm going to give you would bring you all the way back to the day we
00:32:26.120
saw the video and we're all on the same side. And here would be the persuasion trick. Black Lives Matter
00:32:32.240
should release the statistics on white people who have been killed by police. And they should say,
00:32:39.680
hey, white people, look at how many people have been killed by the police who are white. Turns out
00:32:47.520
there are more of them than there are black people killed by the police. Turns out if you were to look
00:32:52.480
at the statistics, you would be surprised that there's actually not a black problem per se. But
00:32:59.000
there's definitely, in terms of the statistics, you wouldn't find it. But in terms of the lived truth,
00:33:06.680
it's got to be true that black people get pulled over and hassled more. That's probably, that's
00:33:12.860
probably true, right? I don't know what the statistics are, but it feels like that's true. So if the black
00:33:21.040
community wants to persuade the white community to do something practical about the police, they just have
00:33:26.960
to say, we just noticed it affects everybody. That's it. It's the same strategy that cured AIDS. So the gay
00:33:36.620
community used a brilliant strategy. I've said, use this example before, because it's the best
00:33:41.960
example you'll ever see. AIDS was thought to be a gay problem. The trouble is, if only gays care about
00:33:49.220
it, there are not enough people to fund it, to change laws, whatever you need to do. I don't know if
00:33:55.120
there's any laws that need to be changed, but to fund it and research and all that. So the gay activists,
00:34:01.000
and by the way, there's a little bit of speculation on my part, it's just observing what happened.
00:34:06.640
At some point it became, hey, this is everybody's problem. You could get it all these different ways,
00:34:11.140
heterosexuals can get it, etc. Once it became everybody's problem, then enough resources got
00:34:17.400
directed toward it, and we got in much better shape in terms of therapies. So the best thing you can do
00:34:24.480
is to tell the people you don't think are helping you that it's their problem too. Now, how did Black
00:34:32.380
Lives try to tell the white public that it was their problem too? By destroying all the property.
00:34:39.780
That was their persuasion. I think we can convince you that this is something you need to pay attention
00:34:44.880
to by destroying the retail stores and shutting down your economy. How well did that persuade
00:34:53.580
the people that they wanted to persuade? Not at all. It worked in the opposite direction hard.
00:35:01.120
Hard. If they wanted to persuade white people to say, holy hell, this needs to be fixed.
00:35:07.300
What are we doing about police? Are they being trained right? Are we measuring the statistics right?
00:35:13.560
Let's make sure we've got good statistics. Let's make sure that whatever this problem is,
00:35:17.520
we've really researched it as thoroughly as we can. If you want to get white people involved in fixing
00:35:23.140
the problem, acknowledge that it's our problem. Just acknowledge it. Simply acknowledge it.
00:35:31.280
Here are the statistics. It's a big problem. Can you work with us? Because we feel it more in the
00:35:37.560
black community. I think that's true. Don't you think that the black community feels that more
00:35:43.860
than the white community? I mean, it's obvious. There's protests about it all the time. How many white
00:35:50.000
people were protesting police brutality? None. Right? I mean, about police brutality about white
00:35:57.440
people. So it's a very simple strategy. All Black Lives Matter has to do is acknowledge that they're
00:36:05.740
not the only ones with problems. That's it. That's it. The day that the leader of Black Lives Matter
00:36:12.240
goes on TV, and this will never happen, by the way, goes on TV and says, look, this isn't just a black
00:36:17.520
problem. Look at how many white people got killed by police. Can you work with us? Do you know how
00:36:22.860
many people would say yes so hard that it would be deafening? Look how many white people got killed
00:36:30.800
by police. Can you work with us? Yes. Yes. How about yes as hard as you can yell yes? Take yes for an
00:36:41.040
answer. That's what a strategy would look like. All right. Somebody on Twitter. So I tweeted yesterday
00:36:52.400
that the protests, with all the badness that came along with the protests from the people who are not
00:37:00.220
the fine people, that it set things back and probably will end up in more deaths of black people
00:37:08.460
than if there had been no protests because of extra poverty. And so somebody looked at that
00:37:15.760
statement, that poverty would kill more black people than the police will, and decided that that was a
00:37:22.940
case of my white privilege. So somebody tweeted at me that it was a sign of white privilege that I
00:37:32.080
believe that more black people will be killed by poverty than the police. Now, the first thing I thought was,
00:37:37.700
what? I don't even know how that makes sense. I can't connect those dots. But I tweeted back that
00:37:45.360
I lost three separate jobs for being white and male. True story, dumb fuck. I just add that curse word
00:37:53.720
at the end because it gets their attention. But a lot of people don't believe that's true. Some of you
00:38:00.680
have heard the story. You've heard of two of them, but there's one of them I've never mentioned
00:38:04.520
in this context. So here are the three times I lost jobs for being white and male. First time was
00:38:13.080
my job at a bank. My boss called me in. She was a woman. And she said, we can't promote you because
00:38:20.100
you're white and you're male directly. She said that the company got in trouble for not having enough
00:38:26.520
diversity. And so they couldn't hire, they couldn't promote you if you're white or you're male. And she
00:38:34.500
was calling me in to tell me directly. And again, directly. This is not something that I read between
00:38:41.720
the lines. It's not something that I thought about afterwards and thought, maybe they were trying to
00:38:47.480
discriminate against me. Nothing like that. In direct words, she said, I'm afraid you won't get promoted
00:38:54.300
here because you're white and you're male and the orders have come down. We've got to slow down on
00:38:59.480
that. So I quit. So that was the first job career, you could say, because I thought my career was
00:39:05.420
going to be in banking. So this was early 80s, I think. And so I went to Pacific Bell. It was the
00:39:15.240
local phone company at the time. And I got on the management fast track. So they had a little
00:39:21.480
program where they identified people who were, you know, maybe going to be senior management
00:39:25.600
someday. I was finishing my MBA. You know, I look like corporate guy on the way. And
00:39:32.300
when it was about time, you know, I'd been seasoned enough and it was about ready for that big promotion
00:39:38.580
because at the phone company, you didn't make a ton of money back in those days. The jobs were really
00:39:43.940
good at the management levels. They paid a lot with bonuses and stuff. And I was ready for that big
00:39:51.020
one to, it was called a director level. And I was thinking, ah, next year or so, I'm going to get
00:39:58.260
the big bump. My boss called me in his office and he said that he couldn't promote me. He just wanted
00:40:05.220
to warn me. He couldn't promote me because I'm white and I'm male. He said it directly. Those very
00:40:12.040
words, you're white, you're male, can't promote you. And he said that management had just sent the word
00:40:17.180
down that they couldn't promote any white males because they too had gotten in trouble, didn't
00:40:21.920
have any diversity in senior management. So that's two entire careers that went down the toilet because
00:40:29.480
I'm white and male. And black people tell me I don't understand the effects of discrimination.
00:40:36.400
Now, of course, I don't understand them in exactly the way any black man or any minority or even any
00:40:43.060
woman would experience them. Of course not. But the only point I'm making is that you also don't know my
00:40:49.660
life. You don't know my life. You don't know my life, just like I don't know yours. The third time it
00:40:57.820
happened was after Dilbert was successful. Now, I'd quit. You know, I'd given up on my corporate careers
00:41:03.560
because of those experiences. And I started working on my side, you know, my side hustle, if you will. And my side
00:41:09.680
hustle was trying to get some comics published. And that went pretty well. Now, Dilbert took off.
00:41:16.160
And of course, I had to find a place I was working for myself. So I needed a job or I didn't have a
00:41:22.280
boss who would tell me that I couldn't be promoted because of my race or my gender. So I thought I
00:41:28.360
got to work for myself, I guess. So I became an entrepreneur, if you will. And cartooning was one
00:41:33.760
of the things I tried. So that worked out. And then the Dilbert TV show was created. You know,
00:41:40.400
fast forward in time. I created the Dilbert TV series on UPN. UPN is a network that doesn't exist.
00:41:48.000
I think the WB bought them or something. But at the time, they were the small network. And I
00:41:54.340
intentionally took a deal with a small network because I thought I could be a big fish in a
00:41:58.640
small network. And if you're the one they give attention to, you have a much better chance of
00:42:04.580
success. So I thought, ah, Dilbert would be kind of a big deal on UPN. Could be like the Simpsons made
00:42:10.340
Fox a big network. You know, that was their, the Simpsons was a big deal for Fox's history.
00:42:16.820
And I thought, well, I could do that for UPN. So we go over there and we have a successful first
00:42:22.160
season and we get renewed. Yay. Got renewed. In the second season, UPN decided to make a strategic
00:42:30.920
change. And they decided that they would become a network focused on African-American content.
00:42:37.200
So UPN decided to become the African-American content channel. And that was the end of my show.
00:42:45.980
Now, the reasons given were other reasons, right? They moved it to a bad time slot.
00:42:51.540
The, you know, the ratings went down because it was in a bad time slot. And then they say, well,
00:42:57.900
the ratings went down, so you're canceled. But of course, the ratings went down because they moved
00:43:02.940
the time slot. That's the only reason it went down. So I lost my TV career because the product I make
00:43:11.880
was not, you know, oriented for the African-American community. So those are three enormous,
00:43:19.360
inflection points in my life based on racism. Am I interpreting that incorrectly? Would you
00:43:30.680
not say that racism is exactly what I experienced and that on three separate occasions it knocked
00:43:36.500
me off a pedestal? Now, here's what, here's the most provocative thing I might ever say.
00:43:44.640
Okay. And so I'll try to say it as carefully as possible. Again, with great respect. I always
00:43:52.780
respect people. Just automatically. It doesn't matter who you are. I always respect people. What
00:43:58.640
I don't respect is strategies. People have bad strategies. I don't respect the strategy. I always
00:44:08.380
respect the person though. Now I think bad strategies come from bad, I don't know, maybe you've never
00:44:16.700
seen a good strategy, so you just don't know what it looks like. It's not something that necessarily
00:44:21.420
common sense will get you to. I don't know if you can come up with a good strategy just by thinking
00:44:27.980
it through. Sometimes you have to see examples. That's the best thing. Oh, I'll do it like they did
00:44:34.100
it. That's the whole point of case studies in business school. You want to see examples of a
00:44:38.740
lot of stuff, then you know what to pick from. I'm going to make a provocative claim that no matter
00:44:45.060
your color, no matter your gender, and no matter a lot of different things, anybody who used the
00:44:51.140
strategies that I've used has succeeded. That's it. It's very provocative. Anybody who's used the
00:45:01.420
strategies for life that I've used has succeeded eventually? I told you my story that racial and
00:45:10.780
sexual discrimination was a huge problem in my life, a gigantic problem. In fact, arguably the
00:45:18.780
biggest problem, my biggest career impediment was race and gender discrimination. I just told you the
00:45:27.340
story. I didn't make that up. But here's the second part. And of course, I wrote the book
00:45:36.380
behind me. I had to fail almost everything and still win big. And I talk about developing systems,
00:45:41.740
and I talk about building your skill stack, which is what I did. And I would argue that anybody who did
00:45:47.020
what I did has a good life. Meaning that, you know, of course you could have health tragedies,
00:45:53.580
so there could be, you know, exceptions. But generally speaking, here's what I did to succeed.
00:46:01.180
All right, I'm going to tell you what formula I used. I want you to tell me if this would not work
00:46:06.940
for black people. Okay, so here's the formula. I was in a small town with not my parents didn't go to
00:46:17.820
college, didn't even know much about what that was all about. We didn't have money.
00:46:25.420
I won't go into the details, but we were, I'd say lower, lower middle income. You know, we had enough
00:46:33.980
to eat all the time, etc. So we never were hungry. But we're, you know, we had used, used cars,
00:46:40.700
let's put it that way. You know, a lot of used stuff in my life.
00:46:48.940
And here was the strategy I used. My mother said, just do really good in school, and basically
00:46:57.100
everything will work out. That's it. You know, basically stay in a jail. Don't do anything that
00:47:03.740
would, you know, derail you permanently. Don't get anybody pregnant. You know, don't be a drug addict
00:47:10.060
when you're a teenager. Don't get in jail. And just really pay attention to your schoolwork.
00:47:18.380
Now, what did that get me? Well, so I graduated and had to get a scholarship to the college that I
00:47:25.020
wanted. So I got a scholarship. How hard would it be to get a financial scholarship if you were a black
00:47:33.100
student who did good work and stayed out of trouble? Not hard, right? If you just do well in school and
00:47:41.180
stay out of trouble, you could get a college scholarship if you're black, I think. Correct me
00:47:46.140
if I'm wrong, but I think you could go to college. If you go to college, and again, you stay out of
00:47:51.660
trouble, you don't get somebody pregnant when you're too young to support them. Just basic stuff.
00:47:57.900
If you do those things, and you're a black man, let's say a black man, just to have a specific
00:48:03.860
example. You're a black man with a college education in the United States. How do you do in life?
00:48:11.320
Good. Every time. Because do you know how many corporations want to hire a qualified minority?
00:48:18.960
All of them. All of them. All of them. All of them. Yeah. Every one of them. Do you know how many
00:48:26.820
corporations are looking to hire more white people? Not a fucking one of them. None. None. Do you know
00:48:35.660
do you know your white hiring people, just to pick an example? Let's say the hiring manager at the big
00:48:43.000
corporation sees you walk in, and you're a black man, and he's looking at your resume, and you're a
00:48:49.940
black man with the right qualifications for the job. What is the hiring manager, the white hiring
00:48:57.880
manager, what do they feel like when a black man walks in, and he's got exactly the qualifications
00:49:03.340
you're looking for? They fucking salivate. They salivate. Because it fixes their problem. Do you know
00:49:11.900
what that white hiring manager's biggest problem is? Can't hire enough qualified minorities?
00:49:17.560
He wants to. It's in his job description. The freaking hiring manager won't even get a good
00:49:23.180
bonus if he can't figure out how to get some diversity, because it's so important in big
00:49:28.000
corporations. So you tell me that there's not a strategy for everybody to succeed in this
00:49:37.080
country if they're smart enough to go to college. Now, not everybody's smart enough to go to college,
00:49:44.740
right? It doesn't matter your gender or race, right? It's just lots of different people. But if you just
00:49:50.340
change that to, instead of go to college, learn to trade. Learn to trade. That's it. Somebody stayed out of
00:49:59.600
trouble, didn't get anybody pregnant, didn't become a drug addict, didn't join a gang, learned a trade,
00:50:05.820
became a plumber. How's that black plumber going to do? Great. Because plumber is a good job. Great.
00:50:14.000
So let me give some tough love on the question of structural racism. This is going to get me
00:50:28.160
canceled so hard. I don't know. I think I like danger or something, because I'm only doing this to be
00:50:39.480
productive. That's the first thing you need to know. I wouldn't do this if I didn't think it would
00:50:44.240
help somebody. All right? Everything I say is with respect and with the intention of making the world
00:50:51.360
a better place. So with that said, loving all the people, but being rough on the strategy, I'm going
00:51:00.680
to give you some tough love, strategy-wise. The strategy of saying that the problem with the world
00:51:06.880
is structural racism and that you need to dismantle the mechanisms of white supremacy is, and I don't
00:51:17.420
want to pull any punches, the dumbest fucking strategy of all time. It's going to make these riots look
00:51:23.980
like they're brilliant. It would make them look brilliant. The dumbest fucking strategy for making
00:51:30.820
things better for black people is to complain that the problem is structural racism and that you have
00:51:37.500
to dismantle the white supremacy. Because, again, who are you persuading? Are you persuading your own
00:51:45.420
side to feel bitter? Because persuading your own side to be bitter and hate white people doesn't get
00:51:52.320
you a job. It really doesn't. Strategy-wise, it doesn't get you a job. It might lose you a job.
00:51:58.020
Well, it's never going to get you a job. So, and here's why, a little bit of detail on that.
00:52:06.500
When you said, let me prove this by asking a question in the comments. I want you in the comments
00:52:13.360
to back me up on this or to refute me. So if this is not true, tell me. Most of you, I'm guessing,
00:52:22.180
are white. I think 90% of my typical viewers are white. I wish I had more African-American viewers
00:52:29.960
would make it more fun. But I think that's the ratio. So just working with that ratio,
00:52:35.340
look at the comments, and I'll ask you this question. Do you know what the fuck ratio?
00:52:40.500
Let me say it again. For the white people watching this, do you have any idea what the fuck institutional
00:52:52.200
racism is? Do you have any fucking idea what that is? Because you're supposed to fix it.
00:52:58.820
You've been asked to fix it. Wouldn't it be nice if the thing that you've been asked to fix,
00:53:05.720
the only really ask, there's only one ask coming out of the Black Lives Movement, which is to fix
00:53:12.200
this institutional racism. What the fuck is that? Do you think I don't want to fix it? I would totally
00:53:21.040
fix it. Do you know what? Here's a little tip about white people. We love to fix shit. It's like baked
00:53:28.780
into the most basic thing about white people. If you want to understand white people, here's a tip
00:53:34.840
number one for white people. We fucking love to fix stuff. Help us. Just tell us what to fix.
00:53:43.340
Don't tell us we got some structural racism. No fucking use whatsoever. If you're trying to make it
00:53:51.660
worse for black people, that would be the way to do it. Every time I hear structural racism with no
00:53:58.260
definition, no detail, no specific thing to do, every time I get pissed off. Is that what you were? Is
00:54:06.240
that what you're shooting for? Was the point of your persuasion and the way you want to make things
00:54:11.080
better for the black community is, was it your strategy to simply piss me off and give me nothing
00:54:17.920
I can help with? Because that's all you're doing. That's all you're doing. You're just fucking pissing
00:54:24.140
off white people because we don't know what that is. Love to know, love to help. If you don't understand
00:54:32.580
that white people like to help, you don't know anything about white people, right? You're just,
00:54:38.900
it's like you're blind and stupid. If you don't understand how much white people, just automatically,
00:54:45.100
it's, we're just like the most helpful people in the whole fucking world.
00:54:50.940
Here's another strategy. Let me give you an example of this. This is a very concrete and fresh
00:54:55.780
example. I saw Jack Murphy, who you should follow on Twitter. He had great video. I've told you this
00:55:04.220
before. Last night too, he was in the middle of the protest live streaming. It was the best. It was
00:55:09.280
the best video you could have seen last night from any source, professional news crew or other.
00:55:15.260
was Jack Murphy. It was just him with his camera because he went into the middle of the action.
00:55:20.540
And unlike almost everybody else who owns a phone, he knows how to hold the phone steady.
00:55:25.740
Have you noticed that? You watch anybody else's live stream and they'll be walking through the
00:55:30.420
crowd like this. All right, I'm in the crowd. Do you see what I'm seeing? And you're like, no,
00:55:36.360
I don't fucking see anything because you're moving the camera too much. Can you hold that still?
00:55:40.300
Well, love to see what you're seeing. So anyway, that's a pet peeve. But so Jack Murphy knows how
00:55:47.820
to hold the camera still. Yeah, it's like part of his skill stack. This is tiny little skill. It's
00:55:54.360
like, I bet I'll be better than everybody who does this if I just hold the camera still. Sure enough.
00:55:59.780
So beyond that, he has lots of other talents. But he was, somebody tweeted at him and he had
00:56:06.040
responded that I and Jack Posobiec had signal boosted him. In other words, we've promoted him
00:56:14.340
online just as I did just now. Now, why do I promote him online? Why do I do that? What's in it for me?
00:56:23.180
I've done Jack's podcast. But of course, that also was helping him to boost his signal. Why do I help
00:56:33.320
him? It's a strategy. It's a white person's strategy. And it works every time. And it goes
00:56:42.540
like this. I just do things for people. That's it. I do things for people. I do things for lots of
00:56:50.880
people. Ed Latimer would tell you the same story. Ed Latimer, African American. He's built
00:56:58.040
his following on Twitter up substantially. He's got, you know, lots of really fun and really
00:57:05.960
useful advice and, you know, framing of things, etc. And he's one of the most productive, useful,
00:57:14.220
strategically sound people you'll ever see in your life. I also boost his signal. Why do I do it?
00:57:20.880
Because that's who I am. Why? How did I get here? Like, how is it that you're listening
00:57:28.200
to me? And I've got a famous cartoon strip? How did I get here? Other people. Other people
00:57:35.780
boosted my signal. Why did they do it? I don't know. They just did it. And it's good. When
00:57:44.780
you boost other people's signal, that's a strategy. Does this come back to me? Maybe. Probably.
00:57:51.420
Karma. Some way. I don't know. Does it help me directly? Not at all. Does it help me indirectly?
00:57:59.720
Probably. It's a strategy. It's also the most common Silicon Valley strategy. When I was going
00:58:07.520
around talking to people with my startup and I'd be asking them for advice and or funding or whatever.
00:58:14.200
And the most unusual thing that would happen is they would offer me something for nothing.
00:58:20.500
And I would think, what? Everywhere you went in Silicon Valley, you'd have the meeting.
00:58:26.540
And then when I was done, they'd say, you know, anything you need, if I can help you,
00:58:31.600
I'll help you connect to people. You know, if I help you meet somebody, if you need some advice,
00:58:37.260
you want to talk through something, give me a call. But unlike sort of normal, you know,
00:58:43.640
social chit chat, they all meant it. They all actually meant it. It's one of the most basic
00:58:50.360
strategies of Silicon Valley that if you help other people, it gets back to you. You know,
00:58:56.540
it's this virtuous system of people helping each other where they can. You know, they're not like
00:59:03.820
taking the shirt off their back. They're giving advice and connecting people and sending an email
00:59:08.460
and stuff, you know, pretty easy stuff. But so is signal boosting. So this is just an example
00:59:15.500
of where if there's institutional racism, I would look for strategy to root it out. In other words,
00:59:26.400
I think if the black community focused on improving its strategy, that it actually wouldn't even matter
00:59:35.960
that structural racism existed. And let me say that a little bit more clearly with Samit.
00:59:45.400
If your strategy is good enough, you can slice through obstacles.
00:59:50.340
The so-called structural racism, I believe is a real thing. But it's sort of amorphous and hard
00:59:59.900
to figure out where the buttons are. You know, where's the user interface so I can get past this
01:00:04.860
structural racism? Like, what do I do? Get a strategy. If your strategy is good, you'll slice
01:00:13.380
right through it. It'll be like it wasn't even there. It will still be there. But one of the things that
01:00:18.840
that I think is a framing problem is that you have to remove the structural racism to succeed.
01:00:26.400
And you don't. And you can't. You don't need it to remove it to succeed. You need a good strategy.
01:00:35.880
And it doesn't need to be removed. You need a good strategy. And worse, if you try to remove it,
01:00:42.000
you can't. You can't. It's just sort of too big and amorphous. It's sort of like,
01:00:49.540
you know, I'd like to get the air out of this room. You know, I suppose you could do that if
01:00:53.980
you tried hard enough. But point is, strategy is where they should be focusing. No, I don't want
01:01:00.740
to use the word should. I'm trying to train myself never to use the word should, because it's sort of
01:01:06.200
a fighting word. You think it isn't, but it is. You tell somebody they should do something,
01:01:13.480
and that, you know, they'll just stiffen up. Don't tell me what I should do. So let me
01:01:20.220
take the should out of it and say this. To the black community, with ultimate respect and affection,
01:01:28.940
I say this. Your strategies suck. You've been duped by your leaders who are incompetent.
01:01:37.020
If you had better leaders, they would be focusing you on strategy. Let me put it in the starkest
01:01:42.780
possible terms. If you were to replace whoever the hell is your leader, I don't know, I don't even
01:01:48.040
know who it is, with Ed Latimer, African American man, who's good at strategy, you would fix all of
01:01:57.700
your problems. I'll say it again. If Ed Latimer were even advising Black Lives Matter, even as
01:02:05.200
an advisor, he doesn't have to be the new leader or anything, just advising, he would advise you on
01:02:10.700
strategy, and you would slice right through any racial discrimination. Still be a problem, still be,
01:02:19.540
you know, still be emotionally disturbing, still don't want it, still evil. It's still all those
01:02:25.400
things, but it would be like it wasn't there. You would just slice right through it.
01:02:31.880
Likewise, some of you may know, I was born not very tall, not good looking. Not tall, not good
01:02:39.540
looking. Got glasses, lost my hair early. Short, ugly, glasses, not good looking, balding. Did any of
01:02:49.440
those things slow me down? Well, some are going to say, no, because you're white. Ah, it's easy,
01:02:54.560
you're white. No, I just told you, I lost three jobs by being white. How much of a problem is it
01:03:02.020
statistically to be short and ugly? It's a pretty big problem. How do I solve the fact that there is
01:03:09.960
institutional discrimination against short, ugly people? I can't. I can't. It's too big and amorphous,
01:03:20.660
and there are no buttons. How do I change the fact that people discriminate against shorter people
01:03:25.940
and ugly people? I can't change that. But I can have a strategy that is so powerful,
01:03:35.020
powerful. I can slice through it like it didn't exist. And I did. I sliced through it like it didn't
01:03:45.000
exist. And anybody with a good strategy, ask Ed Latimer, who you should be following on Twitter
01:03:53.620
anyway, because he's great. Ask him. Ask him to back me up. Strategy overcomes just about everything.
01:04:03.600
Okay. So CNN continues to make things worse. I don't know how they sleep at night. Honestly,
01:04:14.160
it makes me wonder if they're self-aware of how much worse they're making things in this country.
01:04:19.920
I really don't know, because they act like they believe they're making things better, but they're
01:04:24.740
they're so not. Here's an example. They ran an article on U.S. black and white inequality in six
01:04:36.820
stark charts. And they showed, you know, income inequality and health care. And they were quite
01:04:43.600
shocking, because the differences are, they should, you know, if you're a good person,
01:04:51.120
they should bother you to see the giganticness of the differences. But here's what was not on the
01:04:58.320
charts. A normal, or let's say a comparison by strategy. What I'd like to see, you know,
01:05:07.880
it would help me. Do you know what would help the black community more than anything?
01:05:11.220
Not this. This makes things much worse, because they framed it in terms of inequality. So if that's
01:05:21.300
how it's framed, that's sort of how you accept it. And then you go forward, ah, there's inequality.
01:05:26.360
Here's what would have been useful to do a comparison of black and white citizens who followed
01:05:33.220
the same strategies. Have you ever seen that? Compared to me, the people who early in life
01:05:41.460
said, here's my strategy. This is how I will succeed. Stay in a jail, study in school, don't
01:05:49.740
become a drug addict, don't get anybody pregnant before I'm ready. That's my strategy. So how
01:05:56.280
about showing me the chart? Everything with just those four things, everybody who had that
01:06:02.940
strategy, how'd they do? How do the incomes compare? Now, if you show me that chart, and
01:06:09.440
there's a big difference, I'm going to say, well, I think you found the discrimination,
01:06:15.780
because how do you explain that? Same strategy, different results. Discrimination would have
01:06:21.900
to be assumed to be the primary thing. But the thing is, it would look a lot different.
01:06:26.960
And it would also change the frame. It would change the frame to, whoa, are you telling me
01:06:32.040
that all the people with this strategy did well? Well, maybe that's something.
01:06:42.500
So Attorney General Barr has threatened to release the Antifa communications
01:06:48.060
that would show which elites, and I guess that means elite Democrats and politicians,
01:06:54.440
played a role in coordinating the riots. Now, of course, you could call them riots or protests
01:07:00.600
or looting or anarchism or whatever. The words matter, but I'm not sure they matter in this case,
01:07:07.320
because everybody knows what you're talking about.
01:07:08.700
Virginia. So how much do you want to see the Antifa communications? I think Antifa will be shown
01:07:22.060
to be not very popular. And now Black Lives Matter. Oh, my God. You know, I said Black Lives Matter,
01:07:29.900
their strategy is the worst I've ever seen to try to get what they want. But they've also allowed
01:07:35.120
themselves to be paired with a domestic terrorist organization. They've allowed themselves to be,
01:07:41.080
like, paired with them. It was easy to stop, because after the first few nights, they could
01:07:46.840
have just said, we don't want to march with Antifa. That's all they had to do, do a few nights of
01:07:52.640
protest and say, look, Antifa, we're not with you. Go do your own thing, because we don't support
01:07:59.360
what you support. Could have done that, but didn't. You know, they were being inclusive, I guess.
01:08:05.120
But it worked against their interests in an enormous way. So A.G. Barr is going to take
01:08:10.620
down Antifa, and every time the Antifa gets down, you're going to think of Black Lives Matter,
01:08:15.700
because now they're paired in your mind. So any bad thing that comes out of Antifa is going to,
01:08:20.600
like, slop over in your mind, even though it's not fair. Totally not fair. But that's not how minds
01:08:26.740
work. Minds don't work on fairness. They just pair things irrationally. So it could not be a worse
01:08:33.820
week for the black community, in my opinion, in terms of their strategy.
01:08:41.880
Virginia protesters lit a house on fire with a child inside. The police chief called it,
01:08:49.540
and I quote, unacceptable. Fair statement. You know, when somebody lights a house on fire that
01:08:58.240
has a child inside, the first word that comes to my mind is unacceptable. You really should think
01:09:06.200
this through. Before you set a house on fire that has a child inside, I would like to recommend that
01:09:14.280
you consider all your options. Maybe consider that there are some acceptable things to do,
01:09:19.900
but that this one, you know, I don't want to make you feel bad, but I feel as though you've picked a
01:09:26.800
suboptimal, dare I say, unacceptable, a little bit unacceptable to burn down a house with a child
01:09:36.320
inside. And I would, I would agree with this police chief. It's unacceptable. It really is.
01:09:43.280
All right. I've probably done enough to get canceled. What do you think?
01:09:54.620
So I'm going to leave you with the positive thought. I think the energy has come out of the
01:09:59.800
protests. I think everybody got the message. I think the coronavirus, for whatever reason,
01:10:07.060
is becoming less of a problem. I think the economy is going to come back. I think retail was going to
01:10:12.340
die on its own and probably wasn't. If you know about retail rental space, the landlord makes
01:10:20.020
money whether the, whether the retail shop makes money or not, because they still have to pay the
01:10:24.660
rent. So I don't know that the retail stores made any money. I don't. So I'm not sure that the economic
01:10:33.620
segment that just got wiped out, I just don't know if it's a big deal. Now it's a big deal to jobs,
01:10:40.360
but if the economy comes back in general, I think there'll be enough jobs. We'll get there. So
01:10:47.140
I would say that today is a day you should feel very optimistic. Summer's here, coronavirus on the
01:10:55.820
run. And I think that the protests made their point. Everybody heard it. It's time to get back
01:11:06.160
to business. And of course, as I make this offer all the time, if there's any way I can help, I am
01:11:14.100
always available to do it. Why? Why would I be available to help? Why would I help when there's
01:11:21.740
nothing in it for me? It's a strategy. It's a strategy. If you can help people, it's eventually
01:11:30.660
going to get back to you. So you can call me selfish if you want. But I'd like to help.
01:11:37.120
That's all for today. I will talk to you. I don't know if I'll be on tonight. If it looks like the
01:11:43.060
protests are going to turn into riots tonight, I might do another live stream tonight. But if it's
01:11:49.200
settled down, I think I need to take a little time off. Just from the evening broadcast, not the
01:11:55.720
morning. And if you would like to support me, which I would appreciate, there's a subscription
01:12:03.020
service to see this content, plus stuff you don't see anywhere else, especially my comic
01:12:09.300
Robots Read News, which will probably get me canceled eventually because I do lots of edgier
01:12:14.380
stuff. I get to swear in that comic. I like to use all the curse words I can because I've
01:12:20.380
got 30 years of not being able to say provocative things in newspapers. So it's a very freeing
01:12:26.200
experience. But I'm also putting some micro lessons on everything from writing to humor to
01:12:31.720
talent stacks, etc. So I'm trying to make the Locals subscription service really additive.
01:12:39.440
And I'll try to be pumping that up as we go. If you want to find that link, you can go to
01:12:44.880
locals.com or you can find the link in my Twitter profile. You'll see the link there. That's all