Episode 1025 Scott Adams: Why the Protests are a Huge Success, How to Solve Racism
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 3 minutes
Words per Minute
153.66226
Summary
In this episode of the podcast, I sit down with a friend to talk about racism and white privilege. We talk about the term "white privilege" and why it's an insult to white people, and how it should be banned.
Transcript
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Have you been feeling a little bit tense lately?
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Are you feeling that your world is spitting apart?
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Well, boy, did you come to the right place at the right time.
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Well, because I'm going to tell you how everything is way better than you think it is.
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I'm going to tell you how everything is going to work out fine.
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And I'm going to tell you how the country is going to come out stronger fairly quickly.
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And one way to do it is with a simultaneous sip.
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And all you need is a cup or mug or a glass of tank or chalice or stein, a canteen jug or flask, a vessel of any kind.
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And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine hit of the day, the thing that makes everything better.
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From the pandemic to the economy, to racism, you name it.
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So, let's start out with a few little items here.
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And if you wondered why I say, you know where to find me, instead of providing a link, does anybody know why I do that?
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So, on Twitter, when I tell people that I'm going to be on Periscope, I don't tell them where to find me.
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And if you look at the comments, people are saying, where do I find you?
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Now, this, of course, is a persuasion slash marketing technique.
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Because I'm trying to make people think that there's some exclusivity about it.
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Because if you don't know where to find me, you can't find me.
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All they'd have to do is Google it or ask somebody on Twitter.
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So, I intentionally don't tell people how to find me.
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Now, if you can make somebody work at it a little bit, and then they find you,
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the odds of feeling like they want to continue watching you are much higher.
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Now, that wouldn't work if you weren't already popular in some way.
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So, you don't want to make it hard to find you if you're not desirable to find, right?
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So, you have to have something about you that makes people curious.
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And then, in some cases, you could use that trick of acting like you're a little bit hard to find.
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I would like to continue pointing out, for anybody who hasn't heard it yet,
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that the phrase white privilege is, in my opinion, an insult to white people and should be banned.
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While I am completely on board with not using offensive terms that any group finds offensive,
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and they let you know, hey, don't use that term, totally on board with that.
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If somebody is offended by a certain phrase or words, why in the world would I want to use them?
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There's nothing in it for me to insult people for no reason.
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So, in my opinion, the phrase white privilege implies that somebody who succeeds and they're white
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maybe didn't deserve it, which is just offensive.
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Of course, you have freedom of speech, so you can do anything you want.
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But in terms of information, I think it'd be helpful for people to know that when I hear the term white privilege,
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and I would imagine this is common, but you can speak for yourselves.
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Now, that's not to say there isn't something to it.
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Things can be true and offensive at the same time.
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Would you agree that we're not talking whether it's true?
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All right, there are five days left in my one-week challenge for somebody to explain to me in a coherent way
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what systemic racism is with a current example.
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I've had, as we went through this yesterday, people will give you analogies,
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they'll give you historical examples that don't apply, like redlining, things that are currently illegal.
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They'll tell you that there are statistical differences, let's say, in education and incarceration.
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And those things are all true, but they don't seem to get towards systemic, as I understand the word.
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At the end of the week, well, let's say, here's what we've learned already.
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So, I cannot yet conclude that it doesn't exist.
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In fact, I would assume, just based on living, I would assume that there are examples of it.
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And when presented to me, even I would say, being skeptical as I am,
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that even I would say, oh yeah, that's a pretty good example.
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I expect it, because there's still five days left, so I would expect this would not be hard.
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So, it is way too soon to say anything like that systemic racism doesn't exist.
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Way too early to say that, because there's five days left of the test.
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What we can say with complete certainty, though, is that people don't agree what it is,
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Would you say that we can say with some certainty
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separate from the question of whether it exists at all,
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But we can conclude that people don't agree what it is.
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If you ask for examples, it'll be all over the board.
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Most of them will not be something that somebody else would say,
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That's just an example of somebody being a racist.
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There's no debate on whether or not racism exists.
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Have you seen the, there's a new viral video going around
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about coronavirus and hydroxychloroquine and vitamin C and ventilators.
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Now, I say charismatic because that's a big part of what makes this video so viral.
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The person who's doing the talking and being interviewed,
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Oh, yeah, but I think there was a follow-up that confirmed she's a nurse.
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her claim is that ventilator misuse is killing people.
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She says hydroxychloroquine, I think with zinc,
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she's seen lots and lots of people come through
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because she works in that area with the coronavirus.
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the hydroxychloroquine works basically every time
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because the nurse in the video who's being interviewed
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as in you wonder why she's not working in the movie business.
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So there's something a little too perfect about her
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it's getting more attention than it would just for the details.
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I just don't see the statistical scientific weight behind it.
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It could be that everything she says is completely accurate.
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So my reading of her as a human being is that she's sincere.
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And my reading of her as a human is that she's telling the truth as she understands it.
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But she's also not telling you scientific studies.
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I just don't trust any of the scientific conclusions,
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that just felt like maybe she had gone a little bit further
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what would Trump do or should he do in this current situation?
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given all the protests and the temperature of the country, etc.?
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Would you do a big speech on bringing the world together?
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if they think the president should do anything,
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they think he should do some kind of big unifying speech.
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Now, should the president make a unifying speech?
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you're not going to look like much of a president.
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that won't just give his critics new ammunition.
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So here's something the president said recently
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do that is so evil we're gonna be talking a lot
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I'll be talking to you about later so so wait for
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that all right I think I hit all my oh let's talk
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getting rid of all the racist statues I've told
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you that before I'd get rid of Columbus I'd get
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the Confederate generals now I know you disagree
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and I respect that so I want you to know that if
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you would like to keep all those statues and the
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reason that you'd like to keep them is that you
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understand that they offend some people but you
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think they have historical value and that and that
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respectable opinion but it is nonetheless a fact
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that something like half of the country is offended
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by them and for me they're just decorations and if
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your decorations are offending you know a quarter of
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your guests or half of your guests you don't need a
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better reason I'm not gonna I'm not gonna reason
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through the logic of it and the Constitution and my
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rights and the laws I'm not going to talk about the
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details of it if half the country is offended by it and
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it's basically a decoration because the history is in the
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history books you know I don't know anybody who learned
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history from a statue in my whole life I've never heard
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anybody's well I didn't go to school but I did a tour of
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statues so I got the same education I wouldn't worry about
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losing history because you lost a decoration it doesn't work
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that way yeah Columbus was a huge racist he was one of the
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biggest ones and if you don't know that just just google it
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maybe a lot of people don't understand that basically Columbus
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was he was basically Hitler you know he wasn't far off from
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Hitler literally you know if you if you google it you'll find
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out yourself so I think that I think it's healthy for a country
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to reboot and refresh and I don't think there's anything wrong
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with looking at our historical founders in their full context and if
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we don't want to promote people who were half awesome and half
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horrible we don't have to why bother so uh so I say you know if
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somebody wants to protect the statues and you know handle them differently I
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completely respect that I just think my this is this has this isn't even a
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policy decision let me put it in let me put it in personal terms as a policy
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decision I don't know I'm not really that interested as a personal decision of a
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citizen who lives in the country I personally choose not to offend other
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citizens of my country deeply offend them over something that's not important to
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me so it's that that's like a personal decision in terms of policy well that gets
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into free speech and bigger things and frankly I'm not that interested but if you
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want to know what I think about it personally I wouldn't use I wouldn't
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offend anybody for no reason so that's me that's all for me and I will talk to