Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 1024 Scott Adams： Let's Get Me Cancelled Today

00:00:00.000 hey everybody come on in it's time for quantity with scott adams we're going to get me canceled

00:00:17.440 today and if i don't get canceled today i don't know what because it's a very canceling day

00:00:25.100 you'll find out why all right what do we need to start the day to make it amazing well the

00:00:34.440 simultaneous sip would be my suggestion and all you need is a cupper mugger glass of tanker chalice

00:00:39.660 or stein a canteen jugger flask a vessel of any kind fill it with your favorite liquid

00:00:46.580 i like coffee and join me now for the unparalleled pleasure the dopamine hit of the day the thing

00:00:54.680 that makes everything better including practically cured coronavirus it's ending the protests it's

00:01:02.500 making racial division smaller the economy is zooming it's the simultaneous sip go

00:01:10.400 have you noticed that most of our problems are solved

00:01:19.620 sure coronavirus under control and when i say under control i just mean that our hospital

00:01:29.260 systems etc look like they're going to be able to handle it and it looks like all of our industries

00:01:34.540 have figured out a way to adapt looks like things are coming back economy's coming back

00:01:41.320 and uh the protests have wound down haven't they were there any protests last night can anybody tell me

00:01:50.540 because i started i stopped watching news a little bit because it was just non-stop bad news without any

00:01:59.960 nothing new to know it was just the same news it was just all more bad stuff and

00:02:07.220 what uh what what's what's happening so what's going on with the protests

00:02:15.500 one theory is that the uh the leaders are being rounded up and shut down so it could be that law

00:02:25.060 enforcement has you know found ways to push the right buttons to maybe tamp down on some of it that

00:02:32.760 could be it could be maybe but let's talk about the seattle autonomous zone um first of all i love the

00:02:41.560 idea i've formed an autonomous zone around my house and i think all you need to do is just call

00:02:49.160 yourself an autonomous zone and suddenly you don't have any laws so i have uh i've appointed myself

00:02:55.760 warlord of my own autonomous zone i don't know what to call my autonomous zone i was thinking

00:03:02.560 of scotland is that taken okay i'll have to do some thinking about that needs a little bit better

00:03:10.500 branding all right so um i i'm gonna make fun of the seattle autonomous zone because it's a seattle

00:03:21.400 autonomous zone i cannot make fun of it can we can we agree you can't give you can't give a

00:03:29.000 professional humorist a seattle autonomous zone and then expect me to ignore it that's not going to

00:03:36.720 happen but let me say this at the same time this might be the way to move forward in other words

00:03:44.820 not necessarily this autonomous zone but the idea of testing some stuff you have all these people who

00:03:51.680 are willing to live with each other so they don't have to live with us is that really a problem

00:03:58.660 that people want to live their own way it's a big country couldn't we let them test it

00:04:05.900 because i don't think they have bad intentions in fact the whole point of the autonomous zone is good

00:04:12.500 intentions what would stop us from allowing people with good intentions to form their own little

00:04:19.740 experiments and then just run it see how see how it works so i don't think this one is uh it wasn't a

00:04:26.680 well-planned experiment because it happened somewhat spontaneously completely spontaneously so it wouldn't

00:04:34.320 be a good test but in general uh and i don't think you should be taking over an existing city for your

00:04:40.400 experiment but i would like to see what comes out of this so i'd like to get some reporting about what's

00:04:46.680 happening inside the autonomous zone now uh you probably a lot of you saw a funny tweet where

00:04:53.800 there was somebody in the autonomous zone some antifa black lives matter person i guess probably more

00:05:00.520 antifa i'm not sure but uh they were complaining that uh all of their food was eaten by the homeless

00:05:07.180 now there's nothing funny about starvation unless

00:05:14.300 unless you started a seattle autonomous zone and you are surprised to find out

00:05:22.200 that there are people who are poorer than you and they ate all your food

00:05:26.080 all right now i don't think anybody's going to starve to death because there's enough food and

00:05:34.660 there's enough people who would like to give it to them but uh i think there are a whole bunch of

00:05:39.780 people who are going to have a little extra wokeness in another week or two when they realize that

00:05:46.820 uh all of the places that they get food sort of depend on a lot of things they don't want to exist

00:05:54.600 so they've got some surprises coming uh here's a little interesting factoid

00:06:00.720 it turns out that biden is doing way worse than clinton did according to polls with the hispanic vote

00:06:09.280 like way worse so hillary clinton had 61 percent of the hispanic vote uh whereas biden is down to

00:06:21.680 58 to 33 so it was 61 to 23 but trump is 10 points higher with hispanics why is that

00:06:34.460 well i would say it probably is a combination of factors one of those factors is probably that

00:06:41.140 the the things that trump was promising to do it's clear he didn't do which is deport 14 million people

00:06:51.000 so if you lived in the united states and you were afraid that candidate trump when he was running the

00:06:56.100 first time was going to deport you of course you're going to vote the other way or going to deport

00:07:01.160 anybody that you have a special affinity for you're going to vote against him but once you saw that that

00:07:07.960 didn't happen and it doesn't look like it's going to happen at least in terms of 14 million people

00:07:13.640 being deported maybe that's often people and they said oh i get it it's really just about

00:07:19.960 securing the border so it could be a little bit of that but i suspect it's also a lot of it is

00:07:27.500 um is that the hispanic population likes law and order big surprise right turns out everybody likes law

00:07:37.400 and order on average every every black community likes law and order on average every white community

00:07:44.780 likes law and order on average every hispanic community likes law and order on average so it

00:07:52.620 could be nothing more than the hispanic community seeing the protests and just saying uh you know and

00:08:00.280 i think this trend happened before the protests so if the protests had any impact it would be just a

00:08:06.080 little bit of a of an accelerant but just speculating all right um and i would also say that the energy

00:08:16.940 seems to be dissipating a little bit from the protests and remember i predicted that even if

00:08:23.760 nothing changed in terms of solutions and nothing has changed right there's been nothing that's like a

00:08:31.020 solution i don't think uh and i said that the protests would just dissipate because the energy

00:08:36.700 would just get used up and i think that's happened now in addition there are other factors one is that

00:08:43.720 maybe they think they made the point maybe there maybe some businesses have opened and some people

00:08:48.820 got to go back to work so it's probably a whole bunch of stuff uh they have alternatives etc

00:08:54.920 but i knew it would dissipate and sure enough it didn't um

00:09:00.460 do you ever worry that white people are infantilizing the black population in this country by not being

00:09:11.300 honest have you have you ever had that feeling like you're really doing a bad service

00:09:18.400 to the black americans in this country because you're not being you're just not being honest

00:09:24.340 and i don't mean being a racist that's not what i'm talking about i mean just being honest about the

00:09:29.980 topic of race and racism and how you feel about it and all that and and of course if you're a white

00:09:39.140 person in the united states you don't have freedom of speech in the way that let's say other people do

00:09:44.740 basically every other person if you're a white male you have the smallest amount of freedom of

00:09:50.700 speech in a practical sense in the legal sense of course you have a hundred percent freedom of speech

00:09:56.660 but in a practical sense there are things you can't say as a adult white male that almost anybody else

00:10:03.460 could say so we don't have the same level of freedom of speech now i'm not complaining i'm just

00:10:09.760 saying that's a fact so if if you want me to complain i'll do that separately i'm just

00:10:14.720 describing the situation um and i think that that's a great disservice to the black population

00:10:23.820 because how can you how can you move forward if you can't talk about something if you can't have

00:10:30.320 an actual conversation in which you could say oh here are my facts here are your facts let's see

00:10:36.140 whose facts are right if you can't do that how do you solve anything and um and certainly there's

00:10:44.120 nothing like honest conversation happening uh i was watching uh a little bit of oprah last night on

00:10:52.600 her own network and she was doing this uh looked like i guess you'd call it a virtual round table

00:10:59.920 on video with some various leaders i think they were all african-american leaders in the united states

00:11:06.620 and they were they were they're talking about um the situation and one of them said something that

00:11:14.460 uh is so anti-productive and it goes like this

00:11:20.300 and i don't know who he was i didn't catch his name but he was an african-american gentleman who was

00:11:28.220 saying that um if you're white you benefited from slavery meaning the the fruits of slavery

00:11:39.000 that you benefited uh by being you know having a history of free people even if you were not a slave

00:11:46.320 owner if your relatives were not slave owners um you still benefited from having freedom that whole

00:11:52.460 time but if you were a black person whose history was in the united states you started from a great

00:12:00.020 disadvantage so that white people have this natural sort of uh systemic advantage for systemic racism

00:12:08.420 purposes and that is sort of a permanent advantage but then he made this point that i don't think he

00:12:15.580 knows how this sounds because you know sometimes you say things and it sounds one way when it's in your

00:12:20.840 head but then when somebody receives it because their experience is different the way it's received is

00:12:27.360 like oh that's not the way i meant it the way you received it and that and that's what happened here

00:12:32.220 because he said that if you were a white person who was poor you still you still owed black people

00:12:40.840 because the the people in your line who came before who you maybe you've never even met people who

00:12:48.480 lived and died before you were born your grandparents grandparents etc that because those

00:12:54.000 people could have taken advantage of their freedom and made money but that other people's relatives came

00:13:02.160 through slavery and they didn't have the option of taking advantage of freedom because they didn't have

00:13:07.880 any that even the products of let's say unsuccessful grandparents if you're white you still owe something

00:13:17.720 to the black population today because your parents your great-great-grandparents could have taken

00:13:26.160 advantage of it and made money but they didn't so they so they when you were born you didn't have any

00:13:31.420 money so they didn't but they could have and so therefore that you a poor white american you owe some

00:13:41.180 money to rich and poor black americans alike because of how much your grandparents grandparents didn't hold

00:13:52.500 them back but rather could have taken advantage of their freedom but didn't what what's your uh what is

00:14:03.460 your let's say reaction to that emotionally what is your reaction to that if you are in the category of

00:14:10.040 a white adult who did not was not born with wealth which is probably most of you right probably most

00:14:18.160 people were not born with wealth i was born into a lower lower income family now what is your but

00:14:27.420 what's your emotional reaction to that when you hear uh when you hear somebody who's a leader

00:14:33.800 in the african-american community i think otherwise you wouldn't have been on oprah's show so he must

00:14:40.060 have been a leader and he said that you as a poor white person owe rich black people some money because

00:14:48.320 your great-great-grandparents didn't work hard enough and take advantage of things is not it's not

00:14:53.640 their fault it's not black people's fault that your great-grandparents didn't succeed they had every

00:15:00.380 opportunity they were free and so they owe some money the poor black people the poor white people

00:15:06.220 by this reasoning would owe some money to successful and rich black people because they didn't have that

00:15:14.840 opportunity what do you say to that how about fuck you how about just fuck you completely how about

00:15:24.180 fuck you from head to toe how about fuck you on every core muscle of your fucking body how about fuck your

00:15:32.060 whole every particle of your being how about fuck you before you were born and after you're dead how

00:15:39.180 about fuck you completely that's what i feel that's my reaction now does it help does it help that a black

00:15:49.440 leader infuriated me by making me seem as though it's my fault that my grandparents didn't work hard

00:15:58.940 enough first of all it's racist obviously but let's talk about um let's about let's talk about reparations

00:16:11.040 i told you i was going to get canceled today so might as well go for it you ready

00:16:18.080 let's talk about reparations uh i think you would agree with the following statement there's nobody

00:16:26.160 alive who could be objective right like if you said all right we've all agreed that we should calculate

00:16:33.860 some reparations for slavery how do you calculate it well if you if you hire a bunch of white people

00:16:41.420 to calculate it you're going to say well they're not going to do it right they're biased if you hired a

00:16:47.320 bunch of black people to calculate it the white people would say well they're they're biased they're

00:16:51.820 not going to do it right if you hired somebody who wasn't involved you still wouldn't trust them

00:16:55.980 right so you really can't find any human beings on earth who could do the calculation because there's a

00:17:03.460 ton of subjectivity right so you couldn't really hire anybody to do it in a way that everybody would

00:17:08.860 say oh yeah that's pretty good that's credible so as a as a thought experiment

00:17:13.800 imagine that uh an advanced alien species was discovered and one of their characteristics is

00:17:23.480 they don't have any bias it's just a weird alien from another planet and you know we meet them we

00:17:30.400 interact enough and we realize they just don't have any bias so we say can you do us a solid favor

00:17:36.140 we'd like to calculate reparations but just look at us we're all biased we can't do it can can you

00:17:43.380 with your complete lack of bias as a space alien calculate the reparations for us and just tell us

00:17:50.080 what it is because we can't do this with all of our bias and so the aliens do this they say okay just

00:17:56.260 give me the raw data and we'll calculate this for it so so you say all right what do you need

00:18:02.360 and the uh the uh the space alien says all right here's what i'm gonna need i'm gonna need the

00:18:07.020 uh the average income of black americans and you say all right all right okay and then you say uh it

00:18:16.320 will also get you the average income of white americans so you have a comparison and that would tell

00:18:22.660 you where the gap is right and the space alien would say why would i need that and then you say well

00:18:29.640 that's why you're comparing you're comparing how black americans have done since slavery and you

00:18:35.420 want to compare that to the average you know maybe let's say economic output of white americans and

00:18:41.320 who were you know the the oppressors or the descendants of the oppressors and the space alien would say

00:18:48.460 that doesn't make sense that's not even the right comparison and you'd say uh but that's the whole

00:18:56.560 point that's what we're looking at that's the whole point and the alien would say yeah that's the whole

00:19:03.480 point the point is that you have what uneven outputs i get that but that's not what you asked me

00:19:09.720 you asked me to calculate the reparations part the reparations is a different comparison

00:19:17.780 if i'm going to calculate the uh let's say the the the theft from the black community if you were to

00:19:29.760 measure the theft let's say just theft that slavery was in other words you you stole the productive part

00:19:37.220 of their lives etc and you used it for yourself so here's the here's the number i need i need

00:19:44.060 how is the average uh economic situation for the average black person in this country and then to

00:19:51.580 compare it i want to compare it to the average life of a black african and you say what and the space

00:20:02.540 alien says yeah that's the comparison so you want to compare what would happen to the average uh black

00:20:08.360 black person if they had stayed unmolested in africa and there had never been a slave trade because

00:20:15.880 that's that's what you're comparing to because if if the people who were brought to america as slaves

00:20:23.760 and then their descendants are doing much worse than if they'd never been brought with slavery

00:20:30.980 then that's the amount of reparations that's how much they lost is all the money they would have

00:20:36.560 made if they stayed in africa you know what the problem is right they would owe they would owe money

00:20:44.220 to white people so the the space alien if he could do the calculation without bias would say the proper

00:20:52.620 comparison is what would have happened if this crime of slavery had never occurred so if it never

00:21:00.000 occurred people would have stayed in africa they would have had happy lives in africa and they

00:21:06.380 would have had a certain lifestyle compare that to what what it is now and that's your difference

00:21:12.500 am i wrong now i'm just saying that if you were good at comparing things that's the comparison you'd make

00:21:23.240 now obviously you're not going to make any policy based on that comparison because nobody's going to accept

00:21:29.800 that comparison right yeah i'm canceling so um so and this is exactly the sort of conversation you can't have

00:21:41.180 without getting canceled somebody in the comments would say yep you're canceled exactly

00:21:47.260 well don't you don't you think that's cancellation city i'm just getting started

00:21:52.800 you want to cancel me wait till the next part i haven't even gotten to the good part

00:21:59.400 um here's a question for you

00:22:03.500 how long should i wait let's going to do something first before i get canceled i'm going to do some

00:22:12.400 other stuff first um have you seen you've seen the news or a bunch of uh alleged racist statues are

00:22:19.300 being toppled i guess the statue of christopher columbus was toppled and some other statues are

00:22:25.360 toppled because they have their statues basically to racists columbus was a gigantic racist it

00:22:32.820 before i get canceled i just want for for full context let me say um i'm fully i'm fully in favor of

00:22:42.740 getting rid of those statues why in the world why in the world would you have racist statues

00:22:48.880 it just doesn't make sense like i i get i get that it's historical but so was hitler you know

00:22:58.100 hitler was historical does germany have a lot of hitler statues um so i'm completely with the black

00:23:06.220 community completely with the protesters who want to get rid of the statues now i would do it

00:23:11.000 differently i'd probably move them to museums or something so i would handle it differently i don't

00:23:17.080 think i'd destroy them physically or maybe i'd put a plaque on it and say this guy was a racist but we

00:23:23.600 didn't want to take down the statue because it's history yeah i think the protesters have a point

00:23:28.360 i wouldn't handle it the way they're handling it um here's a question for you there is a new kind

00:23:36.720 of discrimination that just started i don't know if you've experienced it yet so i am aware of one

00:23:44.020 one person who is a trump supporter who declined to hire a black person recently not because they

00:23:54.060 were prejudiced so it was a trump supporter who was not a racist who declined to hire a black person

00:24:02.920 for a job recently just something i heard about personally and the reason was this wasn't racism

00:24:10.840 it was the fear that the black person would be uncomfortable with them in other words it was a

00:24:19.120 fear that a the average black person in the united states would so dislike a trump supporter that if you

00:24:27.480 hired a black person and you were known to be a trump supporter it would it would be a problem for you

00:24:34.580 so it's like a whole brand new kind of racism that got created because the old kind was i don't want

00:24:41.720 to hire somebody because i don't think they can do the job what that wasn't even a little bit part of

00:24:47.540 this decision there was no part of this that said can't do the job which just wasn't part of the

00:24:52.960 thinking it was purely that that the uh that the attitudes of the public have been so whipped up

00:25:01.440 at the moment that it was somebody who didn't want to take the chance of spending time with somebody

00:25:08.020 who might hate them might actually just hate them and think they were a racist imagine that it's like

00:25:15.340 a whole new brand of things so and that's a real story of a black person who didn't get a job

00:25:21.460 not and through no fault of their own through no fault of their own didn't get a job

00:25:28.500 it's like uh i didn't see that coming it's a whole new form of racism so that's not good all right um

00:25:38.320 i cannot wait for that autonomous zone to figure out that they need systems to eat

00:25:48.100 and i know it's and i'm not saying that as a joke it does seem to me that this autonomous zone we

00:25:55.420 should let it run a little bit and i mean that seriously we should let it run until everybody

00:26:01.900 involved with it has a very solid idea of what worked and what didn't work right because i i've got

00:26:09.620 a feeling there's a whole bunch of people somebody said this online and this little little bell went off

00:26:15.340 imagine a whole a whole uh imagine a whole category of people who grew up with video games

00:26:22.560 like fortnite what do all video games have in common not all of them let me let me soften that

00:26:30.820 greatly what do a lot of popular video games have in common they have in common the idea of

00:26:38.300 fighting people until you control territory right a lot of video games are about you know clearing a

00:26:46.320 space you know controlling territory so you have all these people who grew up in the video game age

00:26:52.720 who just created an auto this autonomous zone essentially like a video game they they just

00:26:59.720 they lived their real life like a video game they you know they they picked up things that they could

00:27:06.220 use on the street like rocks and they got energy from people who would bring them water and food

00:27:11.900 and and so they played it like a quest in which they were trying to do something and somebody said

00:27:18.540 hey let's let's own this little zone and then it became a proper video game but what is the thing that

00:27:24.300 all video games have in common they're not they're not true to life meaning that in a video game

00:27:33.000 nobody has to go to the bathroom right in a video game nobody has a bathroom yeah and you don't need

00:27:39.700 to eat or sleep so the basics of life they're now coming they're now confronted with maybe for the first

00:27:48.040 time in at least in this form they're being confronted with the fact that these oppressive

00:27:53.960 systems the one that's the ones they want to tear down they don't tear down so easily because if you

00:28:00.980 tear them down you end up with whatever's going to happen in the auto zone in the autonomous zone

00:28:05.200 i want to call it an auto zone because that's a car dealership around here all right um

00:28:10.400 all right let's go to full cancellation you ready so i tweeted this yesterday and uh i was being

00:28:21.500 provocative but for good purpose because i'd really like to understand this and i tweeted this what is

00:28:28.440 the right amount of time to wait for an example the key word here is an example of systemic racism

00:28:35.720 before discarding it as an illusion it's pretty provocative isn't it because just even bringing

00:28:42.020 up the the even the notion that it's even possible that systemic racism is based on an illusion

00:28:50.860 is pretty racist sounding isn't it pretty provocative but i'm not saying it doesn't exist i'm saying the

00:28:59.900 opposite is this is a call for examples because uh we have this weird situation in which part of the

00:29:08.140 country seems to have this very solid idea of this thing called systemic racism and at least half of the

00:29:16.440 country i don't know the actual percentages but let's just say half and half for conversation and

00:29:21.500 another half of the country doesn't have any idea what that means i mean legitimately they're not being

00:29:27.260 difficult they're not being argumentative they literally actually genuinely don't know what it

00:29:33.280 means and so the biggest problem in the country if you're just looking at the news headlines and the

00:29:38.600 protests and stuff and the racial division etc etc one of the biggest issues in the country

00:29:43.700 and there's at least a solid half of us and i'm in this half who are looking at it and saying

00:29:49.360 i'd like to fix that whatever whatever it is that's making half of the country go nuts

00:29:55.600 i'd like to fix that if i could understand it you know because i'm just a fixer i like to fix anything

00:30:02.820 that's broken you know if i can fix something for you let me fix it but i don't know what it is

00:30:09.120 and so i asked this question to try to provoke people to do a better job of explaining it because

00:30:16.380 one possibility is that it's just not being communicated well right so it could be that it's

00:30:22.640 a really gigantic problem and it's a little bit invisible to some people in the public and i'm one

00:30:28.820 of them a little bit invisible to me so they if they communicated it better especially with examples

00:30:34.980 then i can get on board and i can say oh okay okay i didn't get that but now with these three or four

00:30:41.800 examples this will help me recognize it on my own so you've given me four good examples and now i'll

00:30:48.340 be able to see a new one just because i have that pattern in my head oh okay here's a new situation but

00:30:54.100 now i recognize it that's also systemic racism but at the moment i have no idea what it is so i gave it a

00:31:00.880 week randomly i just said i'll give it a week so it's been one day and i want to tell you how people

00:31:07.820 have done in explaining to me what systemic racism is shall we go to the whiteboard ironically let's go

00:31:15.800 to the ironic whiteboard and here's what i've learned so far about what these are the answers you get when

00:31:25.360 you ask what is systemic racism people like to give you an analogy and they say all right let me explain

00:31:32.080 what systemic racism in this country is and here's an analogy and then i say stop stop why are you giving

00:31:41.140 me an analogy it's a systemic racism it's everywhere give me an example just point to it say here's here's some

00:31:50.400 right here why are you giving me an analogy for something that's so widespread it's everywhere

00:31:57.620 can't you just look at it and say here it is here it is scott here's a perfect example it's happening

00:32:04.640 in your life right now you're just blind to it because you're white privilege i just want an example

00:32:09.480 if somebody gives you an analogy instead of an example does that make you think that they know what

00:32:16.380 it is because it makes me think they don't know what it is because otherwise they would say here

00:32:21.780 it is look right here not an analogy the other thing they'll do is they'll give you an historical

00:32:28.560 example well back in 200 years ago and i'll say okay but are we talking about that i get the point

00:32:37.940 that there's a ripple effect through history so we're on the same page with the the ripple effect

00:32:44.940 from slavery to the present but if you're talking about historical examples why why are you talking

00:32:53.320 about historical examples of it because the problem is now right it is if it's widespread and it's

00:33:01.120 everywhere why can't you give me an example that's happening right now so anybody gives you an analogy

00:33:08.000 or an historical example makes me think they don't know what it is or that it doesn't really

00:33:14.880 exist because those are not the ways you would answer a question about something that's pervasive and

00:33:20.920 everywhere and always present you also see people make assumptions that i can't test you see references to

00:33:33.160 original sin which is a reference to slavery as being the original sin and that this original sin has sort of

00:33:41.880 pervaded into the present to which i say okay i buy that concept i i buy the concept that um slavery was a

00:33:52.100 gigantic sin if you want to call it the original sin the big sin i'm okay with all that it's as big a sin as

00:33:58.960 you can get and i'll also agree that it has a ripple through history so now show me an example

00:34:06.740 but this isn't an example this is again another call to history the other answer that you get and

00:34:15.140 most commonly and i think about every one of you has seen this right the word salad there's some kind

00:34:22.300 of a long paragraph as an answer to show me some show me the example of the systemic racism you'll get

00:34:31.000 a paragraph with large words and jargon in it and you'll read it and you'll say i don't even know

00:34:37.360 what that means right now what have i taught you is going on when you see a word salad answer to

00:34:47.100 something it always means the same thing because you're seeing it from different people if one person

00:34:52.960 always gave you a word salad answer basically a bunch of big jargon words that don't mean anything

00:34:58.000 you'd say oh there's just something wrong with that person but if lots of people do what's it

00:35:03.860 mean and they're different everybody's word salad paragraph is different from the next

00:35:09.340 but it's a widespread thing that happens what's that mean it's cognitive dissonance that's what it is

00:35:17.600 cognitive dissonance is most easily identified by word salad when you when you trap somebody in their

00:35:26.620 argument to the point where it's just clear that they've lost the argument and there's just nothing

00:35:30.640 there they will still respond because people don't like to give up but their response won't make any

00:35:36.620 sense even as sentences and but they'll think they did that's a big tell for cognitive dissonance

00:35:43.040 the other thing you get is a laundry list of what i'd call ordinary racism now when i say ordinary i

00:35:49.800 don't mean it's not bad i mean it's the common kind common common racism would be um you uh you try to

00:36:00.260 get an apartment and you're turned down for being black that's just racism right i don't think that's

00:36:05.720 systemic racism that's just racism you go in to get a job and your employer doesn't give you the job

00:36:12.420 because you're black that's not systemic racism is it that feels like just regular racism it didn't

00:36:19.660 need another word so this is another answer you get just some examples of ordinary racism

00:36:25.460 which is not even the same topic because we know what ordinary racism is the question is what's the

00:36:32.260 systemic thing and then there's another category which is bad statistics for example somebody will say

00:36:39.660 well look at the number of black people who are killed by police there it is just look at my

00:36:46.200 statistics and then i say uh that's actually just bad statistics we don't need to get into that you

00:36:53.380 already know that if you're looking at the number of people stopped by police more more white people

00:36:58.780 are killed now there certainly is a statistical difference in outcomes but there are also lots of

00:37:06.940 poor white people so if you're going to say there's systemic racism and it's proven by the outcomes

00:37:13.880 that that's a tough argument to make and what do i do about it change the outcomes

00:37:21.380 you know um i think everybody wants better outcomes if we knew how to do it all right so here's here's

00:37:29.180 where i am um there are six days left on my seven day challenge to explain what systemic racism is

00:37:37.860 or or the default after seven days will be i will assume that's not real and that it's it's a major

00:37:46.060 hallucination now would this be the one thing that people are hallucinating about no if you've been

00:37:52.740 following me for a while you know that i think just about everything in the public conversation is a

00:37:59.120 hallucination this isn't the one thing that would be the hallucination um interesting comment in the

00:38:07.760 comments somebody says that crime and poverty are caused by low iq um and i was doing some reading on

00:38:15.400 that and it turns out that the iq story is actually not nearly as clean as you think it would be

00:38:21.960 meaning we don't know what causes iq um and why anybody has it and we do know that it can be

00:38:29.980 changed a great deal so we know for example that iqs have risen over time and that doesn't make any

00:38:36.880 sense like why would our iqs be higher than they were 200 years ago it doesn't make sense because

00:38:42.560 that's not but they are um and we also know that you know if you take somebody from uh one group who

00:38:52.940 has traditionally low iq and they're adopted by somebody who has traditionally high iq if they're

00:38:58.900 adopted young enough those kids have high iqs so there's uh there's a big body of work that says

00:39:06.700 that iqs are are so influenced by uh and also by expectations have you ever heard of the uh what's

00:39:15.000 it called the uh pygmalion effect the pygmalion effect which is that uh i guess the experiment was

00:39:23.740 they took kids and they randomly said some of them were gifted so kids who were not necessarily gifted

00:39:30.600 were just told they were so their teachers said oh well we've identified you as a extra smart person

00:39:37.120 and then they'd they'd measure their test scores at the end of the year and all the people who were

00:39:42.400 told they were smart got better grades so it works really well with kids it's a hypnosis trick actually

00:39:49.920 that people become what they expect to become that you you manage your life to that thing you think

00:39:57.460 is true so if you were simply to tell people you you're going to do great um my mother for example

00:40:05.020 from my youngest age told me that i was unusually smart and that i would be unusually successful

00:40:11.860 from i don't know four years old probably and uh did that affect me probably probably because if

00:40:22.800 somebody tells you you're smart enough you'll start acting like a smart person does you'll say well

00:40:29.280 i guess i go to college i guess i do a job that being smart makes a difference so you can very much

00:40:36.720 be programmed by other people and your environment so the whole uh so the whole iq and poverty question

00:40:43.400 is really complicated but one of the things that we can't pick out of that apparently and i just

00:40:49.640 looked at some of the some of the studies yesterday one of the things you can't sort out

00:40:54.700 is a genetic component and isn't that interesting you would think that that would be the most obvious

00:41:01.420 thing that you could sort out but when you start really you know digging into the uh the details of

00:41:07.240 it it sort of disappears now it doesn't mean it doesn't exist it just means it's not identified

00:41:11.880 so that's different all right so let me summarize this again i'm not saying that systemic racism

00:41:20.780 doesn't exist so if you hear that that's the wrong message i'm saying as clearly as possible

00:41:27.820 i hope somebody can explain it to me in the next week because if i can't if nobody can explain it to me

00:41:36.360 without using one of these things which is not an explanation or even close i'm just looking for

00:41:41.480 examples if i can't get examples and i only get these things at the end of seven days i will conclude

00:41:47.420 that it's it's a hallucination meaning that it's a a common belief that just isn't true

00:41:55.220 um in a way that you can do something about it now i think that you it is certainly true that there

00:42:02.580 are differences in outcomes there are differences in how people are treated there are all kinds of

00:42:08.960 differences and you could easily make a case that that's what you're talking about but if that's what

00:42:13.860 it is let me know but i don't know which of these things can be fixed if you don't have an example

00:42:19.120 yeah all right here's my last cancelable point i think this should do me in pretty well

00:42:26.520 um you're hearing a lot about white privilege and um one of the things that i uh i'm a big believer in

00:42:39.860 is that each group be they women be they black be they white be they asian be they whatever group

00:42:48.340 whatever group you're in i think every group does have the right or should have the right let's say

00:42:55.120 they don't have a constitutional right but it seems proper and good and good for the world

00:43:00.980 if this standard could apply to everybody and the standard is this if there are particular words or

00:43:08.200 phrases that you find offensive to your category of people you should be able to point that out

00:43:15.220 and discourage people from using those words obviously the n-word all right now there was a time

00:43:22.480 when i was young very young when i would say to myself okay i i get why we shouldn't use the word

00:43:28.720 it's insulting it's offensive but who can tell me what words to use i'm a free person in a free country

00:43:34.980 i should be able to use any word i want i don't want to use that word i find it offensive too but i

00:43:41.360 should have the right and you know that's sort of a young person's argument as you get a little more

00:43:47.020 worldly and you understand how things work a little bit better you become a little

00:43:52.140 let's say less rigid and you say to yourself oh i get it the whole point is to live happily among each

00:44:00.760 other that's that's the big picture right the big picture is not some technical right you have in

00:44:07.880 the constitution that doesn't mean anything to you the right to use one specific word big deal

00:44:13.840 yes i do not have actual freedom to use that one word does that affect my life no it does not not

00:44:23.760 even the slightest bit so if you want if the goal is to just live together and not be jerks if you've

00:44:31.320 got a word that offends you i don't want to use that word and i would certainly like to know i would

00:44:37.400 like you to tell me what that word is so black people very clear on this point very consistent

00:44:44.020 the n word it's off the table unless you're a member of the community and i'm cool with that

00:44:50.960 a hundred percent cool with that but i like that standard to apply to everybody now of course

00:44:56.480 if you're if you're jewish if you're hispanic you know everybody's got their their word or words

00:45:01.740 that they would say all right not these words all right you can use these words but please just just

00:45:09.380 understand how i feel when you use these other words so don't use it totally cool with that now i would

00:45:15.740 like to extend that thought the phrase white privilege i i think is racist and uh bullying

00:45:25.460 i do understand that other people don't think that i also don't care that other people have a

00:45:33.880 different opinion of what the word means or how it feels my point is that this is my category right

00:45:41.680 i'm a white person in america so this is just a phrase that i find deeply offensive and here's why

00:45:49.800 when you say white privilege you're telling me i didn't work for what i got

00:45:54.740 now is that what you mean is that do you intend to say that maybe a little bit maybe not i don't

00:46:02.520 care i don't care what you intended because that's not part of it right would if you were black would

00:46:10.320 you care that a white person had good intentions when they use the n word no you don't care about

00:46:17.320 their intentions you just don't want the word to be used you just don't want it in the atmosphere

00:46:24.400 totally cool makes perfect sense to me i'm with you a hundred percent and i ask you in return

00:46:31.760 black americans don't use the word white privilege unless you want me to like you less

00:46:39.760 because that's what it does it makes me feel bullied it makes me feel disrespected

00:46:46.620 and it makes any accomplishments that i might have seem diminished now i was born without the

00:46:54.940 benefits of wealth or connections and my parents didn't go to college both of them had failed a

00:47:00.600 grade in in high school my impression of my life is that i worked for what i got and i worked very hard

00:47:08.940 i worked pretty much i worked seven days a week and always have um most of my life i'd say i've worked

00:47:17.620 seven days a week and i did it because i wanted to you know build something make something accomplish

00:47:24.260 something when anybody tells me that white privilege um is any part of my experience i feel bullied

00:47:34.160 i feel diminished i feel insulted and i don't ever want to hear it again so it's the w word

00:47:44.020 so i will completely respect any other groups preferences for what words to use the pronoun stuff

00:47:53.480 is a little you know that the pronoun stuff i think is its own category uh and i don't even have

00:48:00.520 an opinion on that i just don't care one way or another well actually no let me let me throw that

00:48:05.440 in the mix let me be consistent the people who have a pronoun preference i'm happy to use it i've

00:48:13.680 never had a problem with that at all and now it is it is a problem if somebody accidentally uses the

00:48:19.380 wrong one and they get in trouble i don't like that i don't want anybody to get in trouble for

00:48:23.660 accidentally using the wrong pronoun but if somebody has a preference call me him or her

00:48:30.740 i don't care why would i care i'm happy to in a social world i'm happy to give people what they

00:48:36.780 want if it makes them happy i wouldn't even complain about that even the slightest this is where i disagree

00:48:42.160 with uh well i'm not sure i do disagree because if it became a legal requirement you could go to jail

00:48:51.040 for it or something or lose your job i don't agree with that on the pronoun stuff but i do i do agree

00:48:58.720 that to be a good person if somebody has a preference why not use it um

00:49:04.060 all right more whites are throwing around the term white privilege somebody says in the comments

00:49:12.740 yes uh well more in terms of you might be hearing it more on tv yeah just because there are more white

00:49:21.080 people so so i don't doubt that more white people are using white privilege somebody says you also have

00:49:30.240 educational privilege i do but i have to work pretty hard to get it

00:49:34.920 all right safe spaces so am i going to get canceled today what do you think

00:49:46.520 we'll see so this is why i started the locals account you can see there's this all these topics

00:49:56.020 that there are things that you can say on twitter you can say on periscope uh and then there's another

00:50:02.220 level that you just can't say just just stuff you can't talk honestly about and again not with any

00:50:08.080 bad intentions not because you're a racist none of that just there are whole categories of things

00:50:12.980 you're just not allowed to talk about all right uh why is there no affirmation why is there no

00:50:21.480 affirmative action in sports you know i wonder about that if if you're asian american do you ever

00:50:28.160 look at the nba and say you know not enough asian americans playing in the nba i don't know why is

00:50:38.840 some why are some things fair and some things aren't um now i think the answer would be there's nothing

00:50:44.800 stopping them they have all the you know nobody nobody's discriminating against anybody uh asian

00:50:52.140 american in the nba everybody has the same tryout all right so i guess that would be fair

00:50:58.280 um uplifting positive vibes well i don't know if i gave you any probably didn't but maybe you need

00:51:09.760 some i think you need some uplifting positive vibes you want to hear some look what we just did

00:51:17.340 as as a world but as a as a united states for those of you who are americans watching this

00:51:23.940 look what we just did we just we just beat the coronavirus which doesn't mean it's over

00:51:30.900 you know lots more people will die but we did beat it in terms of it destroying civilization

00:51:37.620 it's not going to destroy civilization it's just not we will take losses we will mourn for our losses

00:51:44.860 but we beat the coronavirus we beat it it's one of the biggest challenges of

00:51:51.140 of modern civilization we just beat it we just beat the hell out of it how about the economy

00:51:58.940 are we coming back yeah yeah we're coming back and we're going to come back harder because we shook

00:52:07.020 the box and now we have all these new opportunities that come out because we're looking at things

00:52:11.400 differently and the things we can do that we couldn't do and regulations that'll be cut and

00:52:16.120 things will be things will just be more flexible in the future how about that how about this all the

00:52:22.840 protests and the conversations about race we kind of needed to do this didn't we don't you think

00:52:29.940 as bad as the economic devastation is as bad as the retail destruction all the innocent people who

00:52:37.540 lost things we i don't minimize that these are genuine tragedies but sometimes you just have to get

00:52:45.900 things out of your system don't you sometimes you just need to you know scream at the sky sometimes

00:52:52.460 you need to punch a wall sometimes you need to break something again not justifying any destruction

00:52:59.940 i'm just saying it's human nature that when your your anger your emotions reach some level it's

00:53:06.760 going to come out in some form or another either good or bad i feel as though it just needed to come

00:53:14.700 out i think it just needed to move out of the shadows and get into the light a little bit and that

00:53:22.220 if the only thing that comes out of this is that everybody involved in the conversation

00:53:28.460 gets smarter about it wouldn't that be good imagine if just the only thing that came out of this is

00:53:35.520 everybody got smarter in other words you learned what systemic racism is still waiting for that lesson

00:53:43.000 but let's say we get that that would be pretty good suppose we learn what the real statistics are for

00:53:50.260 police uh killings suppose we all learned the same statistics because right now we think you know we're

00:53:58.000 on different pages but suppose we came together and said oh well okay those are the statistics we

00:54:04.500 should look at that would be a big deal a really big deal if we could just agree on the statistics

00:54:10.660 and we're a lot closer to that than we ever have been simply because it's the conversation now you

00:54:16.940 know when it's not the main topic in the news you can you can hit it with your two minute appearance

00:54:22.220 of a pundit and then it goes away and you never have to talk about it again then another two minutes

00:54:26.800 later from another pundit you can kind of it you can just sort of ignore all the the racial problems

00:54:33.220 if you're just getting it in two minute hits every few days but when it becomes the major theme of

00:54:39.180 the country well you can't ignore it should we ignore it i don't think so obviously it's a big

00:54:47.420 problem in at least in the mind and experience of lots of americans so that should that should bother

00:54:53.880 you it should bother you that it bothers other people if if you don't get that you have not bought

00:55:01.540 into society we are social creatures it should bother you that other people are bothered even

00:55:10.000 if you think they shouldn't be bothered it should still bother you that they are bothered and you

00:55:14.640 should care about that you should do something about it if you can all right so that's the good news

00:55:20.600 good news is that we're uh the conversation about race i think is going to be elevated to a level we've

00:55:27.400 never seen before and it might it might include some honesty that we haven't dealt with before

00:55:32.620 um and uh let me let me give you the ultimate no i'm going to save it so tomorrow i'm going to tell

00:55:42.280 you how all racism uh and how the left and the right can come together that'll be a whiteboard lesson

00:55:48.940 for tomorrow all right and that's all we have for today um i hope somebody will explain to me

00:55:55.740 systemic racism because i actually do want to understand it i'm not it's not like a strategy

00:56:01.420 or something to it's not a rhetorical strategy i actually want to know genuinely completely i want

00:56:07.980 to know what it is i want to know examples i'd like to be able to spot it myself when i see it

00:56:12.780 can't do it yet um let's move there we'll take it from there and i'll see you tomorrow

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - June 11, 2020

Episode 1024 Scott Adams： Let's Get Me Cancelled Today

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