Real Coffee with Scott Adams - June 16, 2020


Episode 1029 Scott Adams: Let's Get Me Cancelled Today


Episode Stats

Length

53 minutes

Words per Minute

143.88245

Word Count

7,638

Sentence Count

490

Misogynist Sentences

4

Hate Speech Sentences

27


Summary

In this episode, I talk about how our brainwashing of our children has shaped the way we think about the country, and what it means for the future of the country. I also talk about the lack of fathers in our culture, and why it's a good thing.


Transcript

00:00:00.840 Bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum
00:00:09.240 Hey everybody, come on in.
00:00:12.120 Yes, I am a little bit late today, there was just so much news I had to catch up on, I don't
00:00:18.800 think I caught up on all of it, but get in here and we'll see if we can get me cancelled
00:00:23.960 this week.
00:00:24.960 Might as well get it over with.
00:00:26.960 I figure I'm definitely on that slippery slide toward cancellation one way or another.
00:00:33.420 Not that I deserve it, but I don't know that anybody who gets cancelled necessarily deserves
00:00:38.640 it.
00:00:39.640 Maybe some do.
00:00:40.640 Alright, but before we get on to that, what do you need?
00:00:46.360 That's right, yes.
00:00:48.140 You need a cup or a mug or a glass, a tank or chalice or sign, a canteen jug or flask, a vessel
00:00:54.240 of any kind.
00:00:56.160 Pell it with your favorite liquid, I know I have some here somewhere, I like coffee,
00:01:03.620 and join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine of the day, the thing that makes
00:01:08.040 everything better, pandemics, economics, racism, you name it, it's all better with a simultaneous
00:01:14.560 step, go.
00:01:22.020 Well, there are really some interesting things happening with the psychology of the country.
00:01:32.700 Some really big things.
00:01:34.020 I don't know where to shake out yet, but let me give you some big thoughts.
00:01:39.480 One of the things I think I had a blind spot for was our brainwashing process for children.
00:01:50.480 I had kind of made a bad assumption, because I have a blind spot for it, which is that children
00:01:58.940 today would be raised largely the same as when I was a kid, just in this one element, you know,
00:02:07.100 not in general, but in this one specific area, which is how brainwashed you are as a child to
00:02:15.700 become a patriot, to become an American, and to see that as your primary identity.
00:02:21.580 Now, I don't know that that's happening the same way it did when I was a kid, and I had
00:02:27.900 argued in public before that you don't have to worry about the Republic being ripped apart,
00:02:34.460 because our brainwashing, and I mean it in a positive way in this sense, the brainwashing
00:02:41.040 that we do to our children is so strong that they're always going to have a preference for
00:02:45.580 the country over other preferences.
00:02:48.640 So, in other words, in the end, we'll come together, but it's a sibling squabble.
00:02:54.740 But what I don't know is if the current brainwashing is as good as when I was a kid, because they
00:03:01.120 would make us stand up and do the Pledge of Allegiance, and we'd have to answer questions
00:03:05.660 and write essays, and it just felt like we were being indoctrinated into this American melting
00:03:12.420 pot world very effectively.
00:03:15.720 Now, it is brainwashing, and you could argue that it's immoral.
00:03:20.340 It's also probably the only way to keep a country together.
00:03:24.360 You have to kind of brainwash them to be on the same page, have the same general feelings
00:03:29.920 about stuff.
00:03:30.680 Otherwise, they just fall apart, and there's just too much division, which is what we're
00:03:37.120 noticing today.
00:03:38.100 And so, I wonder if the people who came up through the system who are protesting may have
00:03:44.600 been brainwashed differently.
00:03:47.060 I think that's a factor, and it's a big question mark.
00:03:50.600 I teased on Twitter that there's a giant red pill coming, maybe the biggest of all time,
00:03:56.320 and we're almost ready for it.
00:04:00.940 We're almost there.
00:04:03.220 So, wait for that.
00:04:06.720 A few other things in no particular order.
00:04:09.820 If you're not following Alexander Cortez, AJ, AJ Cortez on Twitter, if you're not following
00:04:18.220 him, you're missing a really good follow.
00:04:22.340 Here's one of his tweets today, and what I like about him is AJ is one of these people.
00:04:28.900 You don't see many of them, but he's just operating at a higher level of understanding
00:04:33.980 about how everything works, basically the whole reality and the universe and people.
00:04:41.260 So, his tweets are extra good.
00:04:44.020 Here's one today.
00:04:45.500 He says, lack of fathers is definitely a problem, but on a broader level, it's the lack of adults
00:04:52.100 that is the meta issue.
00:04:54.180 There are many older people, the boomers, but there are very few wise ones.
00:04:59.340 Loss of elder wisdom is real.
00:05:04.020 Now, that sounds really true, doesn't it?
00:05:07.780 But I think there might be another level to this, and it goes like this.
00:05:11.860 A hundred years ago, if you had an adult or a parent, and they were going to give you any
00:05:18.840 life advice, what would it look like?
00:05:23.220 All right?
00:05:23.840 So, a hundred years ago, here's some adult, could be a parent, could be an uncle, just
00:05:28.680 anybody who's been through stuff before.
00:05:31.220 Here's the kind of advice they might have given you a hundred years ago.
00:05:34.300 So, work hard, stay in jail, basic stuff.
00:05:40.800 Work hard, do what your boss tells you, you know, get a haircut, take a bath, pretty easy
00:05:48.040 stuff, huh?
00:05:49.200 That was a hundred years ago.
00:05:50.860 So, it wasn't hard to be a wise village elder a hundred years ago.
00:05:56.340 So, I just showed you, work hard, take a bath, eat your vegetables, you're pretty much done.
00:06:05.240 Now, fast forward to 2020.
00:06:08.540 Imagine giving wise advice in 2020.
00:06:14.200 What's it even look like?
00:06:16.440 The world is so complicated that people don't know what to do.
00:06:20.640 It's actually too hard to give advice for most people.
00:06:25.520 The average adult is way over their head.
00:06:29.480 They barely know what they're supposed to do themselves, much less give useful advice
00:06:34.480 to other people.
00:06:36.400 And this, in part, I think, explains one of the phenomenon I've talked about before, that
00:06:43.380 there are a number of people who are, let's say, internet personalities, let's say, Twitter
00:06:48.340 personalities, to keep it simple, who have become somewhat accidental stand-ins.
00:06:54.540 Things for parents.
00:06:57.060 And I'm one of them.
00:06:58.160 I never set out to do that.
00:07:00.100 But when I wrote my book, How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, I was consciously
00:07:05.260 trying to capture adult wisdom as best I could to try to make a little bit of advice, if you
00:07:13.600 will, or life explanation that would be useful for people of a certain age, really every age,
00:07:19.700 but the younger the better, the sooner you get it, the better.
00:07:23.460 And the idea was that we didn't have these adults giving people advice anymore, largely
00:07:31.000 because people were incapable.
00:07:33.640 So, for example, when I gave my advice in my book that you should build a talent stack and
00:07:39.040 layer together things you're good at, but you don't have to be the best in the world until your stack of
00:07:44.840 talents makes you unique and valuable.
00:07:48.140 How many of your parents ever gave you that advice?
00:07:52.060 Zero?
00:07:53.200 How about zero?
00:07:54.740 A hundred years ago, would you have given that advice?
00:07:58.660 It still would have been good advice a hundred years ago, but it wasn't really as necessary.
00:08:04.440 Because a hundred years ago, you were like, well, what are you going to do when you grow up?
00:08:07.660 Well, I guess I'll work on the farm, like my father and my father's father.
00:08:13.320 I guess I'll be a, I don't know, I'll be some other, what are old jobs?
00:08:21.840 I'm suddenly blanking on, I'll be a furrier.
00:08:25.160 I don't even know exactly what that is.
00:08:27.900 Do they take fur from animals or something, turn it into products?
00:08:31.600 I'll be a furrier.
00:08:32.520 So things were simpler back then, and now I think that if you're going to find any parental
00:08:38.500 guidance, you're going to have to find it from people who are not your parents, because
00:08:43.420 your parents are probably incapable of giving you advice that's good enough for the modern
00:08:50.220 age.
00:08:51.020 Things are complicated now, so look to other places.
00:08:55.440 Here's a little eye-opener for you.
00:08:57.760 We have three simultaneous crises in the United States.
00:09:01.020 I think you'd agree.
00:09:02.440 We've got the coronavirus.
00:09:04.440 We've got an economic crisis caused by it.
00:09:08.480 And we've got a great racial unrest that seems to have, you know, hit some kind of a spark
00:09:15.840 point because of the videos, et cetera.
00:09:18.760 Here's a, here's a little bit of a red pill.
00:09:21.240 This is not the big one that's coming.
00:09:23.640 And it goes like this.
00:09:25.380 All three of our crises were caused by China.
00:09:27.860 China, China, yeah.
00:09:32.040 China released the coronavirus and didn't warn us sufficiently, didn't close their borders.
00:09:39.280 The coronavirus killed our economy.
00:09:42.840 So they gave us the disease.
00:09:45.160 They killed our economy.
00:09:47.420 Those are our two biggest problems.
00:09:49.420 And then what about this, this racial unrest we're having?
00:09:52.620 And you're saying, Scott, Scott, Scott, China didn't cause that.
00:09:57.340 That was here.
00:09:59.060 That was always brewing.
00:10:01.840 Yes.
00:10:02.620 So let me accept that the baseline racial feelings were all always here.
00:10:11.280 But if you take away the lockdown, you take away the coronavirus, and you take away the
00:10:19.420 economic impact, and you take away the fact that people didn't have options for what to
00:10:25.580 do with their energy, it was the spark.
00:10:29.280 Now, of course, you needed the specific spark, which was the video of George Floyd being
00:10:34.460 tragically killed by a cop.
00:10:36.880 Without that, would it have happened?
00:10:38.800 And yeah, it would have happened when the Atlanta cop got shot.
00:10:43.280 If the Atlanta cop hadn't got shot in the back, would it happen?
00:10:47.420 Would you see the protest?
00:10:48.880 Yeah.
00:10:49.520 Because it wouldn't have been long before there's yet another video that shows yet another
00:10:54.100 shocking situation that you think needs action.
00:10:57.900 But I don't think that short of the situation that China had caused, that we would have seen
00:11:05.800 this much pain.
00:11:07.220 Now, if China had not screwed the U.S. by essentially stealing all our jobs and bribing our elites
00:11:18.200 to say it was a good idea, which is what's happened, if that hadn't happened, what would be the current
00:11:25.240 situation for black Americans better?
00:11:28.220 Because all of those jobs in the, let's say the jobs that people need to hold to get the next
00:11:36.180 generation a leg up, you know, those good solid middle class jobs, those all went away to China.
00:11:43.400 So China is actually the problem causing all of our problems.
00:11:50.180 And eventually that understanding will sink in.
00:11:55.760 Now you say to yourself, Scott, Scott, Scott, that's not all of our problems.
00:11:59.700 I mean, look at, for example, our budget deficit.
00:12:03.540 China didn't cause our budget deficit.
00:12:05.560 Yes, they did.
00:12:07.800 Yes, they did.
00:12:09.400 How big of a military would we need if China were not threatening?
00:12:14.380 Much less.
00:12:15.740 It would be a lot less expensive, wouldn't it?
00:12:18.400 How much, what would the situation be with our deficit if we hadn't shipped our jobs to China?
00:12:24.700 Much better.
00:12:25.560 So, yeah, fentanyl comes from China, our theft of IP, our economic downturn, the coronavirus.
00:12:36.960 And because of all those things, a problem that was going to be a problem on its own anyway,
00:12:43.040 was exacerbated to the point of what you're seeing.
00:12:47.620 Now, again, don't want to take away from the fact that people have real concerns and they must be addressed.
00:12:53.820 You know, China didn't cause people to have those concerns.
00:12:57.460 It just added the match, right?
00:13:01.220 It certainly added to the baseline of those concerns by making the economic system worse.
00:13:07.040 So one of the things that we're waking up to is that China is the problem.
00:13:13.380 We have a bunch of problems we think are individual problems, but maybe it's just one.
00:13:19.420 Maybe it's just one problem.
00:13:21.180 So just put that out there for you to think about.
00:13:25.860 All right.
00:13:26.220 And let me ask you this.
00:13:29.640 Is this the first time we've seen national protests?
00:13:33.240 Because we've had national protests lots of times in the past.
00:13:37.260 But is this the first time we've seen national protests because people believed authority figures?
00:13:43.420 Because it seems in the past that people were not trusting authority and that that was sort of the reason, the spark and stuff.
00:13:52.520 Not the spark, but a big reason behind protests.
00:13:54.960 I think what's weird about this is that the authority figures now have convinced the protesters of a reality that might not be quite the thing they think it is.
00:14:05.840 We'll talk about that in a minute.
00:14:07.780 So I have a feeling like if I were to call these protests anything, I would call them CNN protests because they are sparked by the news.
00:14:17.480 It's not just CNN, of course, but I use them as a proxy.
00:14:23.060 Here's a completely unrelated bit from Mike Cernovich's Twitter feed.
00:14:27.560 In the news, 54 scientists have resigned or been fired as a result of an ongoing investigation by the NIH into the failure of NIH grantees to disclose financial ties to foreign governments.
00:14:45.660 Gosh, 54 scientists were being paid by foreign governments to do research in the United States, and they didn't disclose that.
00:14:57.560 I wonder what countries were involved.
00:14:59.880 Let's see.
00:15:00.400 Reading further down in the tweet, Mike Cernovich notes from the article that 93% of those cases, the hidden funding came from a Chinese institution.
00:15:14.120 It's just China.
00:15:17.000 It's just China.
00:15:19.080 We have one problem that's showing up in every possible problem we have, and we think, oh, here's a problem.
00:15:25.900 Here's an unrelated problem.
00:15:27.260 Here's an unrelated problem.
00:15:28.760 They're not unrelated.
00:15:31.200 It's all China.
00:15:33.440 It's all fucking China.
00:15:36.660 All right.
00:15:41.660 So I tweeted again that I have not yet seen.
00:15:46.600 I've got a one-week challenge for somebody to describe an example of systemic racism.
00:15:51.920 Now, I know, I know, the people who were commenting to me said, here's an example.
00:15:59.420 Asian Americans are discriminated to get into college in favor of black Americans.
00:16:05.380 So that's systemic racism.
00:16:09.200 Well, that's not the kind I was looking for.
00:16:11.980 I will grant that that happens, and that's a fact.
00:16:14.620 But we're looking for the specific kind, the flavor of systemic racism against black Americans in particular.
00:16:24.280 We all accept that there's plenty of regular racism, meaning there's an individual who holds a set of beliefs.
00:16:31.620 So nobody is questioning that racism is rampant, and I've gone further than that.
00:16:36.980 I've gone further than rampant.
00:16:38.500 But I would say that 100% of people are racist in different ways, in different situations.
00:16:44.280 But because our brains are pattern recognition machines, it's not something you can really turn off.
00:16:50.120 It's not an option.
00:16:51.840 You can overcome it with your higher reasoning and your sense of moral rightness and your love of the Constitution, your preference for the Bible, whatever.
00:17:02.260 I mean, you can overcome it, but you can't not have it because that's just how your brain is organized.
00:17:07.680 It looks for patterns, but it finds false patterns just as easily as real ones.
00:17:12.840 So it's racist by design.
00:17:15.180 So I guess your brain is a racist system.
00:17:18.220 I wouldn't argue with that.
00:17:19.940 But what we're talking about is systems in the country.
00:17:22.900 Let's say the United States and current ones.
00:17:26.300 Now, I'll give you the two examples that I think are worth mentioning.
00:17:32.240 One comes from Tim Poole, and he called me a liar this morning for refusing his example because he can't see any reason that I would refuse his example as being an example of systemic racism unless I was lying.
00:17:51.340 So I blocked him.
00:17:53.840 That's automatic.
00:17:55.620 It has nothing to do with whether I like Tim Poole or not because I like him fine.
00:18:00.560 And I think he's a valuable contribution to the world.
00:18:06.160 But it's my rule that if anybody assigns me a motive in public, then I block them.
00:18:11.540 So I don't really have a forgiveness for that.
00:18:16.640 So suggesting that my motivation on this was lying, even if he's right, he's not.
00:18:25.220 He's not.
00:18:25.740 I wasn't lying.
00:18:26.460 But just putting that in public is a permanent block.
00:18:33.160 So Tim Poole has gone from my life forever.
00:18:37.420 And again, not with any – I don't have a bad feeling about him or anything.
00:18:41.340 So there's no criticism.
00:18:43.000 It's just a rule, and I choose to maintain that rule because it makes my life better.
00:18:49.980 So nothing personal there.
00:18:51.360 But his example was that, let's say, let's say a black person who is low income gets a ticket for exceeding the speed limit.
00:19:02.560 Can't pay the ticket.
00:19:03.920 Next time he gets picked up, there's multiple tickets.
00:19:07.700 Eventually, the fact that he can't solve any of his small problems just by paying the fine.
00:19:14.180 Maybe he loses his license.
00:19:16.220 Then he gets picked up for not driving without a license.
00:19:18.780 The next thing you know, he can't get a job because he can't drive to it.
00:19:22.520 What are your options?
00:19:24.260 And suddenly, it just spirals out of control.
00:19:27.880 I reject that as an example because it would apply equally to anybody poor.
00:19:33.100 So it's not systemic racism if everybody poor would be in the same situation.
00:19:39.920 Now, that would not be the case if the racist police were targeting black people.
00:19:45.900 I don't know that that's currently the situation.
00:19:49.680 I believe it has been in the past.
00:19:51.820 But since I was asking for current examples, apparently that's not one of them because that would be more of an example of a police officer being racist, not it being part of the system.
00:20:05.520 So you could end up with racist results because the people who are in a system happen to be racist.
00:20:12.700 But that's not the system or systemic unless you have a different definition of it.
00:20:19.560 Now, part of the problem is that systemic and systematic and any words in that realm, institutional, etc.
00:20:27.520 Apparently, everybody has a different definition.
00:20:31.280 One of the definitions would allow this example to be the one example that I've seen so far.
00:20:38.840 So this is from, where did this come from?
00:20:46.420 Damn it.
00:20:47.420 Was it Barron's?
00:20:48.920 Alex Barron's?
00:20:49.720 Yeah, Alex Barron's argues that there's plenty of data, and he pointed to it.
00:20:55.840 So yes, there is plenty of data to show that prosecutors and the court system in general is harsher on minorities.
00:21:04.880 And he said that would be an example of systemic racism.
00:21:08.160 Now, let me accept the statement that the justice system is harsher on minorities.
00:21:16.960 So he pointed to some data.
00:21:19.860 I have no reason to doubt the data.
00:21:21.620 So let's take that as an assumption that's true.
00:21:24.420 Is that because the system is bad, or is it because there are people in the system who are racists?
00:21:32.460 And so here's the question you'd ask about that.
00:21:35.380 Do black judges give harsher penalties to black defendants?
00:21:42.300 I don't know.
00:21:43.400 Do you?
00:21:43.720 Because if you don't know that, do you really know what's going on?
00:21:50.140 Because I don't.
00:21:51.720 You know, it's easy to imagine that racism would be part of the justice system.
00:21:58.080 But, you know, if you look at the police, it would be easy to imagine that the police are also shooting more black people.
00:22:07.500 But when you look at the data, and you normalize it by, or at least you analyze it by number of stops, that actually disappears.
00:22:16.180 So what you think would be obviously true, people are racist, put them into any system, they'll still be racist, they'll still be doing racist opinions and racist things.
00:22:28.980 So it's more about the people.
00:22:30.280 So in my opinion, if you could fix the outcome by changing the people, it's not the system.
00:22:40.640 Unless you say the system is that you can't change the people, I suppose.
00:22:45.020 So if you have a system where minorities were treated more harshly, and you couldn't fix that by replacing the people, then I would say the system is broken.
00:22:59.860 Otherwise, I'd say it's a system that has too many racists in it.
00:23:03.340 Now, the tricky part with the justice system is that, number one, everybody's a racist.
00:23:11.420 I said that earlier.
00:23:12.580 So if you were trying to get rid of the racists in the justice system, you'd have to get rid of everybody.
00:23:19.040 There wouldn't be anybody left.
00:23:20.380 So you don't really have an option of doing that.
00:23:25.400 So is this a good example of systemic racism?
00:23:30.700 What is your vote?
00:23:31.960 Let's say you accept that there's different outcomes, and it's different outcomes on the same system.
00:23:40.820 I would argue that you'd have to have a different system to have systemic racism.
00:23:46.080 In other words, the system would have to call out your race to say, okay, black people, you are treated this way.
00:23:52.700 White people, you're treated this way.
00:23:54.540 Short of that, it's not systemic.
00:23:58.100 Otherwise, it's still a problem.
00:23:59.760 I'm not saying you don't need to address it.
00:24:02.980 So if you're hearing that, you're hearing the wrong thing.
00:24:05.840 Of course, you need to address different outcomes.
00:24:10.060 You need to understand what's behind that.
00:24:12.700 And if what's behind it is some kind of implicit or unconscious bias,
00:24:19.200 you want to know that so you can do something about it and fix it.
00:24:24.380 Now, I don't know enough about the justice system to have a really good opinion in this category.
00:24:34.680 Because here are the things I would ask.
00:24:36.320 Number one, do black judges have the same outcomes as white judges?
00:24:43.480 If it turns out that they're different, maybe one way to fix it would be that you get to request a judge who's your own ethnicity.
00:24:52.620 Or pick a judge who's whatever ethnicity you want.
00:24:56.280 Let me ask you this.
00:24:57.280 If you had a choice, let's say a tweak to the system, this is probably impractical, but imagine you could do it.
00:25:05.120 Imagine it's practical because there are enough judges that you'd have this option.
00:25:09.720 Could you ever say that you could, as a defendant, that you would have the choice of rejecting a judge just for ethnicity?
00:25:19.000 Would you allow that into the system?
00:25:23.620 Now, let's say that the purpose of it is to reduce racism.
00:25:27.480 So if you're a black defendant, you say to yourself, I think I'm going to get a better shake from a black judge.
00:25:33.900 Would you deny a black defendant the option of having a black judge?
00:25:40.580 I would not.
00:25:42.480 I would not.
00:25:43.580 I would not deny somebody that option.
00:25:49.820 Because I think that, you know, if these statistics are correct, that Alex Behrens points out, that the outcomes look, if you look at just the data, it looks like there's something going on.
00:26:02.760 All right.
00:26:04.400 So if it looks like there's something going on, that's a problem, even if there isn't.
00:26:08.580 Because there are riots right now in the streets based on probably a misreading of data.
00:26:16.100 So if people believe there's a problem, that is a problem in this realm.
00:26:22.440 The belief of a problem is the problem.
00:26:25.340 If there's really a problem, well, that's kind of like two problems.
00:26:29.780 There is a problem, and you believe it's a problem, which might allow you to get to a solution.
00:26:34.960 So maybe believing it's a problem is a step forward.
00:26:39.580 So, how about this?
00:26:42.980 If you would not accept that as a tweak to the system, the justice system, that the defendant can choose the ethnicity of their judge.
00:26:51.960 And by the way, maybe you wouldn't always choose your own ethnicity.
00:26:57.100 Maybe you wouldn't.
00:26:57.860 Maybe you would say, you know, for this particular crime, the thing I'm accused of, I kind of want an Asian American judge.
00:27:08.220 I mean, I don't know why.
00:27:09.500 I can't think of an example why you'd want that.
00:27:11.860 But you could imagine that there would be some specific situation where you could say, okay, I'm going to pick a judge who's got a little familiarity with this area.
00:27:21.820 Somebody, I think, has no gripe with me because of my skin color.
00:27:26.060 Or, I don't know, if you had enough judges, and that's really the problem, right?
00:27:31.740 You don't have enough judges.
00:27:33.220 If you had enough, I think I might be okay with that.
00:27:38.160 I think I might be okay with that.
00:27:39.720 Although, I think, technically, it would be racist to allow a defendant to pick a judge based on ethnicity.
00:27:54.300 But if you could, I would at least consider that option.
00:27:58.460 I mean, if black people wanted that, let's take that as an assumption.
00:28:02.740 It would be useless to do it if black Americans said, no, that's not going to help for whatever reason.
00:28:09.760 But if black Americans really, really wanted that change, to say, look, I don't want a white judge.
00:28:16.780 I live in a racist country.
00:28:19.020 I just don't want a white judge.
00:28:21.720 I'd be okay with that.
00:28:23.680 Well, let me say, I'd definitely be okay with looking into that more.
00:28:28.480 Because these are the kind of things where somebody smarter might say, Scott, Scott, Scott, you're forgetting this other problem, and maybe I am.
00:28:36.560 What about, suppose you had this option, let's say an independent group that would look at every judge's decision, or jury decision, I suppose.
00:28:52.320 No, not jury decision.
00:28:53.700 So they would not look at guilty or innocent.
00:28:55.420 So let's just say they're looking at sentencing, because I think sentencing was the real issue that we're talking about here.
00:29:02.080 There may be also a difference in who gets a guilty verdict.
00:29:05.380 But let's just look at sentencing for a moment.
00:29:09.040 Suppose you had an independent body who reviewed all sentences,
00:29:14.620 but the identities and the ethnicity of the perpetrator have been removed so that the independent body only gets the raw facts.
00:29:24.140 Perpetrator did this crime.
00:29:28.040 Perpetrator's, let's say, the other considerations for reasons why it would either extend the, either lengthen the sentence or reduce it, are as follows.
00:29:41.600 Person's never had a, you know, maybe the person's never had a prior.
00:29:45.060 Maybe the person has, I don't know, they've really helped poor people all their life.
00:29:52.400 Something.
00:29:52.860 I don't know what, I don't know what you take into consideration, really.
00:29:55.680 The person showed remorse, as far as I can tell.
00:30:00.480 That one gets a little dicier.
00:30:01.860 But let's say that every single sentence is stripped of all of its identifying characteristics and sent to a group of independent people,
00:30:12.520 whose only job is to say, all right, this one looks like this one.
00:30:16.280 Yeah, I mean, I don't know anything about the ethnicities, and I can't tell because even the city that they came from is concealed, so I can't even guess.
00:30:25.800 All right, yeah, this one looks like too extreme.
00:30:28.420 So you mark that one, and it just gets marked down to the average.
00:30:33.820 Should a convicted person be able to request that their sentence be stripped of its identifiers and given to an independent body,
00:30:47.760 who don't know anything except just these details, and they say, yeah, it looks like this is the same as this one or not?
00:30:54.220 I'd say yes.
00:30:55.340 Yes, I'd say yes, that if you were a black defendant, and you get sentenced to something that even you suspect,
00:31:05.560 you're even just a little curious that it might be racially biased, I think you should get a second opinion.
00:31:15.300 I think that's fair, because that would be a better system.
00:31:18.720 So let me say this.
00:31:20.840 I think I will accept Alex's definition of systemic racism in this example if you allow the definition of systemic is similar to widespread and hard to get rid of.
00:31:38.160 So if something is widespread and hard to get rid of, and it's sort of, what would be the right word?
00:31:48.280 If it flows through an existing system, then maybe you could call that systemic racism.
00:31:56.860 And again, no matter what name you put on it, that doesn't make it, that doesn't tell you you should work on it or not work on it.
00:32:03.820 Because if it's not systemic, it could be just regular racism, and why wouldn't you want to have a better system?
00:32:11.340 So where is the conversation on tweaking the justice system to get rid of those real and or perceived biases?
00:32:21.560 Is anything suggested?
00:32:23.280 I'd be open to that.
00:32:24.220 So bring me a suggestion.
00:32:29.300 You will note that Alex Behrens did not get blocked by me, because he didn't call me a liar.
00:32:35.760 He just disagreed.
00:32:37.780 Disagreeing is great.
00:32:39.700 I like a good disagreement, especially this kind.
00:32:42.520 This was a really productive disagreement.
00:32:45.020 It came with facts, with a link, an argument, or even sent me a definition.
00:32:50.540 He gave me a definition, gave me data that looked pretty reliable, and an argument that made complete sense,
00:32:59.620 and did not insult me or put any opinions into my head to insult me.
00:33:06.240 Good job, Alex.
00:33:08.960 I'd like to see more of that.
00:33:13.800 Let's see what else we got going on here.
00:33:15.780 All right, so I tweeted this to see if I can get myself canceled today.
00:33:21.820 So this is something that would have gotten me canceled any other month.
00:33:27.520 So if you're paying attention, there's something happening with the Black Lives Matter movement
00:33:34.060 and all that comes with it.
00:33:36.960 There's something happening here that is slowly but definitely improving our ability to talk about it.
00:33:45.000 The fact that I could just even have this conversation about whether systemic racism even exists,
00:33:52.240 and I've been doing this for a week, and I haven't been canceled.
00:33:57.320 I haven't been canceled.
00:33:59.180 For a week, I've been saying, can anybody give me an example of systemic racism?
00:34:04.900 Basically something that would have gotten you canceled two months ago.
00:34:09.020 Right?
00:34:09.180 Two months ago, I would have been canceled.
00:34:13.300 But I didn't get canceled this week.
00:34:16.260 Why not?
00:34:17.540 Why did I not get canceled?
00:34:20.500 Here's something I tweeted today.
00:34:23.080 If this doesn't get me canceled, you can guarantee that there's something happening that might be good.
00:34:29.660 But good in the sense that either our willingness or our ability to talk about things we haven't talked about before,
00:34:37.880 or at least being honest about them, may have lurched forward, oddly enough.
00:34:44.520 All right, so here's my tweet.
00:34:46.220 And tell me if you think this wouldn't get me canceled under normal times, which these are not.
00:34:54.080 So I said that I've learned three things from Black Lives Matter so far.
00:35:01.880 One is that systemic racism doesn't exist except against whites and Asian Americans.
00:35:08.640 Again, I'm saying this to be provocative because I want somebody to give me examples.
00:35:13.380 The more people give me examples, and by the way, I wrote this just before Alex's example,
00:35:18.680 which I'm accepting if you accept his definition of what systemic means.
00:35:24.560 I said resisting arrest is the only thing that gets you killed, not race.
00:35:30.260 Shouldn't that get me canceled?
00:35:32.500 I just said that resisting arrest is the only thing that gets you killed by cops, not race.
00:35:37.680 How about this?
00:35:38.920 I said number three, reparations would be negative if you calculated them correctly.
00:35:45.220 So those are three statements.
00:35:47.540 Individually, all of them would get me canceled in a normal month.
00:35:51.200 Don't you agree?
00:35:52.060 Maybe every one of these would get me canceled?
00:35:55.280 I just put three of them in one tweet, and I just look at the comments, and it's just like,
00:36:01.220 you know, people who agree with me and crickets.
00:36:04.640 What's happening?
00:36:07.380 What's going on here?
00:36:10.320 Is something happening?
00:36:11.460 Because there's no way I could have tweeted this three months ago.
00:36:17.560 No way I would already be completely canceled.
00:36:22.620 And I'm trying to figure out why.
00:36:25.480 And I have some speculation, but I'll just run it past you.
00:36:28.960 It goes like this.
00:36:30.140 Number one, I'm sort of a unique voice in that I have enough of a track record that anybody who looks into it, you know, anybody who looks at my writing or my tweets or my periscopes, they would come to the conclusion that I'm actually trying to help.
00:36:47.140 Literally, actively, aggressively, energetically, trying to help.
00:36:55.480 And I don't think there's any doubt about that, because what would be in it for me not to try to help?
00:37:02.060 Do I have some advantage of just like being a public asshole?
00:37:05.780 Like, is that good for me?
00:37:08.360 You know, because otherwise that's all it is, right?
00:37:10.580 You know, that if the only reason I were doing any of this is to troll or to build my audience or something, I would just be a gigantic public asshole.
00:37:18.560 But I don't think that people necessarily get that feeling about me if they're looking at my history.
00:37:26.280 And of course, with these situations, people do.
00:37:28.620 That's the first thing they do.
00:37:29.860 It's like, oh, you said this?
00:37:31.400 Let's see what else you've said.
00:37:34.100 And then they look into it.
00:37:35.840 So I think if you have unambiguously positive intentions, you can get a little bit more freedom.
00:37:43.780 The second thing is, that might make me at least a little bit unique, I hope not, but at least it helps, is that I'm always respectful about, you know, at least individual citizens who have earned respect.
00:38:00.960 Now, there are individuals who do terrible things, and I may be disrespectful to individuals, but in terms of any group of people, I would never be disrespectful to any ethnic group.
00:38:16.140 It's just, there's nothing in me that would ever want to do that.
00:38:19.800 If I did it, it would be a complete accident, you know, and anybody can make a mistake.
00:38:24.720 But if you are respectful, and unambiguously trying to be helpful, it does give you a little bit of body armor that you wouldn't get.
00:38:36.940 But even those things would not be enough, I think you would agree.
00:38:40.440 Three months ago, that wouldn't have protected me.
00:38:44.960 Here's what I think it is.
00:38:47.900 That the people who would normally cancel me suspect that I'm right about all three things.
00:38:55.720 Now, I'm just speculating, and of course, you know, nobody thinks in exactly the same fashion, so a million people have a million different opinions.
00:39:05.420 I don't want to lump anybody to have one opinion.
00:39:08.480 But I have a suspicion that I have survived this so far.
00:39:14.140 I mean, I could be canceled by the end of today.
00:39:16.380 But if I don't get canceled by the end of today, maybe tomorrow at the latest, because that's how long it takes to write articles.
00:39:22.900 If I don't get canceled right away, it might be because people who look at these three things don't want any attention on them.
00:39:31.280 Because if you put attention on them, it just might not go the way you want it.
00:39:36.040 Now, somebody says they disrespect all groups.
00:39:45.640 I respect that.
00:39:47.600 I think disrespecting all groups is actually a perfectly functional and useful way to approach life.
00:39:55.220 In fact, respecting all groups equally and disrespecting all groups equally, very similar, very similar.
00:40:06.280 You know, the difference almost disappears.
00:40:08.200 So, let me explain my other statements.
00:40:15.040 So, I said resisting arrest is the only thing that gets you killed.
00:40:18.240 I could change my mind with just data.
00:40:22.040 You know, I asked for the data, and I said, how many people got killed, no matter their ethnicity, regardless of ethnicity,
00:40:30.100 how many people were killed by police who were not resisting arrest?
00:40:38.440 It's probably zero.
00:40:41.280 It's probably zero if you take out things that everybody would agree is just an accident.
00:40:47.600 Because, you know, there are guns involved, so there are going to be accidents and mistaken identities,
00:40:52.260 and somebody thought somebody had a gun in their hand, but it wasn't a gun.
00:40:54.960 So, if you take out the things where people just made a mistake, it's pretty much resisting arrest is it.
00:41:02.520 And we're suckers if we imagine it's something else.
00:41:05.780 Now, that doesn't say that police aren't treating black Americans differently.
00:41:11.560 I accept that that's almost certainly the case.
00:41:14.800 But in terms of actually getting killed, which is really the thing that's sparking the riots,
00:41:19.400 in terms of getting killed, I don't know that there are any situations except accidents
00:41:26.060 and people who resisted arrest, which, again, doesn't mean they should have been killed.
00:41:32.140 But it does tell you that there's a rock-solid way to not get killed.
00:41:37.180 And if you're not willing to accept that you have an ability to not get killed and it's all on you,
00:41:42.700 let's not say all, because, you know, it's a sloppy world,
00:41:48.620 but it's almost all on you if it's also true.
00:41:52.820 And, again, I could change my mind with one fact check if this fact is wrong,
00:41:58.400 that police don't kill people who don't resist arrest.
00:42:02.460 And then I said reparations would be negative if you calculated them correctly.
00:42:06.920 So here's the way you would calculate them.
00:42:08.980 You'd have to compare to some base case.
00:42:11.620 You can't just say something is good or bad.
00:42:15.000 You have to say, well, compared to what?
00:42:17.500 The way it's typically done is compared to white incomes.
00:42:22.320 And people say, well, there's the disparity.
00:42:24.960 That would be the basis upon which you would begin your calculations for reparations.
00:42:30.260 And, of course, that would just be bad analysis.
00:42:33.280 So forgetting about anybody's preferences or, you know, biases, et cetera.
00:42:38.260 Just in terms of what an analysis looks like, just for anything,
00:42:43.440 is you would compare it to the thing that would have happened if you hadn't done the thing.
00:42:48.360 In all cases.
00:42:49.520 It doesn't matter if you talk about race or you talk about buying a new computer for your company.
00:42:54.860 What you compare it to is don't buy a new computer for your company.
00:43:00.820 Right?
00:43:01.820 You don't compare it to what another company did with their computer.
00:43:06.840 That wouldn't make sense.
00:43:08.640 You compare you buying a computer for your company and you not buying a computer for your company.
00:43:14.180 That's what you compare.
00:43:17.180 If you were to compare the, let's say the, from the point of slavery to today,
00:43:24.320 if you were to make a comparison of what the reparation should be,
00:43:28.200 the proper analysis is to compare the black lives in America who, you know, came from a slavery legacy.
00:43:37.980 How are they doing economically compared to how they would be doing if they had been,
00:43:43.720 if they had never been slaves?
00:43:45.980 You know, if their, if their family line had stayed in Africa and lived a happy life in Africa,
00:43:51.420 how would that go?
00:43:52.940 Now, economically,
00:43:54.700 the people who came to America, even under the worst possible conditions,
00:44:00.560 if they survived, they're making a lot more money than their relatives that they've left behind.
00:44:09.160 The difference is probably something like, and I'm going to make these numbers up,
00:44:14.900 but it's somewhere in this range.
00:44:16.740 I think the annual income in Africa is probably below $2,000 a year.
00:44:22.500 The annual average income of African Americans today in America,
00:44:28.620 I don't know, the average income is around $63,000.
00:44:33.060 So that's everybody.
00:44:34.720 If you assume that the average income for African Americans is a fraction of what it is on average,
00:44:41.320 and that's, I think that's true for sure,
00:44:43.460 let's say it's $25,000.
00:44:45.300 I don't know if that's close, but just, just to get in the range.
00:44:49.160 So you're comparing a population who is earning $25,000 on average
00:44:54.840 to a population that was earning $2,000 on average.
00:44:58.620 So somebody says, what about the opportunity costs?
00:45:02.120 Yeah, the opportunity costs also work in the same direction.
00:45:05.540 So if you had stayed, if slavery had never existed,
00:45:10.580 you'd look at the total situation from that day to today
00:45:14.480 for people who had stayed in Africa and never been molested,
00:45:18.120 never been tortured, never been enslaved.
00:45:20.160 And then you compare it to the other situation.
00:45:23.840 Now, money is not the only question, right?
00:45:27.540 Money is not the only question.
00:45:29.620 Because there's also reparations for just doing horrible things to people.
00:45:34.800 But the history of reparations for doing horrible things to people,
00:45:40.300 correct me if I'm wrong, so I need a fact check on this as well,
00:45:43.200 that history is for people who are alive.
00:45:47.320 Am I right?
00:45:48.520 If you look at the Japanese internment, reparations were paid.
00:45:54.200 But unless I'm wrong, and I was kind of close to that,
00:45:57.460 because at the time of the reparations for Japanese internment,
00:46:00.800 I was living with a Japanese-American woman
00:46:03.480 whose brother had been in an internment camp.
00:46:06.620 So that's how close I was to that.
00:46:09.900 You know, I was living with a woman
00:46:11.540 whose older brother was born in a prison camp
00:46:16.980 in the fucking United States.
00:46:20.020 In the United States,
00:46:21.960 an American was born into a fucking prison camp
00:46:26.200 in World War II.
00:46:28.660 You know, because the Japanese-Americans
00:46:31.500 were rounded up and interned.
00:46:34.380 Now, that's about as awful as things can get.
00:46:39.680 No, slavery's worse.
00:46:41.540 But in terms of more modern things,
00:46:43.760 that's way up there for badness.
00:46:46.540 Now, the reparations that were paid
00:46:49.440 were paid exclusively to living survivors
00:46:53.040 of the internment camps.
00:46:54.740 So the woman I was living with did not get a check,
00:46:58.100 even though her parents and her brother
00:47:01.120 were living in an internment camp.
00:47:03.420 And even though they'd lost all their property,
00:47:06.900 basically, they were taken off of the property
00:47:09.980 that they owned,
00:47:10.980 and white people just stole it.
00:47:13.380 They just stole their property and kept it.
00:47:16.000 It was never corrected.
00:47:17.820 Think about that.
00:47:19.140 You were rounded up,
00:47:20.080 and you were put in a prison camp
00:47:21.700 for doing nothing,
00:47:24.360 fucking nothing,
00:47:25.860 except going to work and doing your job.
00:47:28.720 Right?
00:47:29.080 Just your ethnicity.
00:47:30.200 Rounded up and put in a prison camp.
00:47:31.980 And, you know, in the 1940s.
00:47:36.580 And then, while you're in camp,
00:47:38.820 all your shit is stolen.
00:47:40.700 The land that you owned,
00:47:42.720 I don't know how they do it,
00:47:44.460 I guess they bribe somebody
00:47:45.520 in the county recorder office or something,
00:47:47.940 just to change the names on something.
00:47:49.960 And they just steal all your land.
00:47:51.540 And so,
00:47:53.380 does it make sense to pay reparations
00:47:56.240 to the people who were rounded up
00:47:58.240 because of their ethnicity
00:47:59.240 are still alive
00:48:01.080 and clearly were just raped
00:48:04.220 in, you know,
00:48:06.280 in every way that you can be,
00:48:07.940 you know,
00:48:09.260 intellectually,
00:48:10.380 spiritually,
00:48:12.140 economically,
00:48:14.180 morally,
00:48:14.740 ethically,
00:48:15.160 I mean,
00:48:15.780 just raped.
00:48:18.040 Does it make sense
00:48:18.980 to pay them reparations?
00:48:21.180 I'd say yes.
00:48:22.640 I'd say yes.
00:48:23.360 Because they were alive.
00:48:25.340 As soon as you,
00:48:26.520 as soon as you extend that standard
00:48:28.600 to people who have passed,
00:48:31.940 no matter how reasonable it might be,
00:48:35.100 you're opening,
00:48:36.080 you're opening up a pretty big can of worms
00:48:38.180 that you can't close back.
00:48:39.420 So,
00:48:40.460 I think as a standard,
00:48:41.940 reparation payments
00:48:42.800 for people who are alive,
00:48:45.600 I would always consider that.
00:48:48.040 But reparations for people
00:48:49.400 who descended from people
00:48:51.160 who were wronged
00:48:53.160 in some prior generation,
00:48:55.080 you have to think that through
00:48:56.700 a little more carefully.
00:48:58.100 But if you're going to calculate it,
00:48:59.680 I think you'd run into
00:49:00.540 all kinds of trouble.
00:49:01.520 And as I said in a tweet yesterday,
00:49:03.740 how much would I have to pay Oprah
00:49:05.320 if you calculated the reparations?
00:49:09.540 Given that I descended
00:49:11.140 from abolitionists,
00:49:14.020 how much do I owe Oprah?
00:49:19.140 I mean,
00:49:19.560 if you tried to calculate
00:49:21.240 any reparations,
00:49:23.600 it would just descend
00:49:24.580 into silliness
00:49:25.480 or some kind of new racist system
00:49:28.620 or something.
00:49:30.060 So it's a tough one.
00:49:31.960 But if you calculated it properly,
00:49:34.460 just the economics,
00:49:36.120 it would be negative.
00:49:36.900 If you calculated
00:49:37.920 the pain and suffering,
00:49:41.300 those people are dead.
00:49:44.160 As tragic as it all was,
00:49:46.520 you can't fix things
00:49:48.500 for dead people.
00:49:50.140 And if you try to find
00:49:52.100 the ripple effect,
00:49:53.040 it's going to be tough
00:49:53.980 to calculate.
00:49:55.540 Although it's there.
00:49:56.680 It's just tough to calculate.
00:49:59.540 All right.
00:49:59.880 What about people
00:50:04.340 who are mixed race?
00:50:06.200 What about people
00:50:07.620 who came from other countries?
00:50:11.000 Blah, blah, blah.
00:50:12.320 Yeah, I don't see
00:50:13.140 that reparations
00:50:13.900 in terms of cash payments
00:50:15.460 can ever happen.
00:50:17.240 Now, there's one version
00:50:18.320 of reparations,
00:50:20.160 which is being floated
00:50:21.980 by Black Lives Matter,
00:50:23.220 or at least some person
00:50:24.500 associated with them.
00:50:25.520 I don't know if they have
00:50:26.300 a common view or not.
00:50:27.600 But one person
00:50:28.940 was suggesting
00:50:30.640 that Black people
00:50:31.640 should receive
00:50:33.140 a basic minimum income
00:50:35.280 for life.
00:50:38.800 The odds of that happening
00:50:40.340 are exactly zero.
00:50:42.440 But I wouldn't be surprised
00:50:44.240 if poor people
00:50:45.300 someday are getting
00:50:47.100 a basic minimum income.
00:50:49.480 I think Andrew Yang
00:50:50.840 was ahead of his time.
00:50:52.060 I think he will be,
00:50:54.180 and you could argue
00:50:55.100 he's already been
00:50:55.940 proven right
00:50:56.700 because of the payments
00:50:58.520 during the coronavirus.
00:51:00.040 So I think that,
00:51:01.100 you know,
00:51:01.360 some kind of a guaranteed
00:51:02.240 minimum payment,
00:51:03.520 whether you like it or not,
00:51:05.460 I'm not arguing
00:51:06.320 you should like it,
00:51:07.820 and I'm not arguing
00:51:08.580 you shouldn't.
00:51:10.080 I'm just telling you
00:51:10.820 it's going to happen.
00:51:12.240 It's a prediction.
00:51:13.660 I think it's
00:51:14.620 somewhat inevitable,
00:51:16.340 and as soon as you
00:51:17.460 introduce more robots,
00:51:19.360 it's just guaranteed.
00:51:20.600 So Andrew Yang
00:51:21.360 was exactly right.
00:51:22.400 The more robots you have,
00:51:23.820 the more you're going to need
00:51:24.680 this guaranteed income,
00:51:28.360 and I would love to see it
00:51:29.720 in the future.
00:51:32.440 Probably.
00:51:34.980 All right.
00:51:38.540 Do you have a Q&A at the end?
00:51:40.640 Well, I didn't plug in
00:51:42.060 my headpiece
00:51:44.760 that allows me
00:51:45.360 to take questions on this.
00:51:47.560 So, no.
00:51:48.200 Hasn't the New York chapter
00:51:51.220 of Black Lives Matter
00:51:52.220 asked for $14 trillion?
00:51:54.580 I don't know.
00:51:55.660 Maybe.
00:52:00.120 UBI discourages creativity.
00:52:03.320 Maybe.
00:52:04.040 But most people
00:52:04.840 are not creative anyway.
00:52:11.840 All right.
00:52:13.220 That's all I got for today.
00:52:15.620 Check in with me
00:52:16.460 to see if I'm canceled.
00:52:17.360 If I do get canceled,
00:52:18.640 you'll be able to find me
00:52:19.580 on the locals platform,
00:52:22.380 L-O-C-A-L-S.
00:52:24.740 It's a subscription-based platform,
00:52:27.060 so people who get canceled
00:52:28.300 who still have an audience
00:52:29.940 can go pay some small amount
00:52:32.540 per month,
00:52:33.040 and then they still
00:52:33.760 have their content.
00:52:35.620 Somebody says,
00:52:36.420 is that the red pill?
00:52:38.580 Not yet.
00:52:41.460 It's coming.
00:52:42.220 Think about how the way we think
00:52:47.780 has changed in the last few years.
00:52:49.840 Just the way we think
00:52:50.660 about everything.
00:52:51.640 It's phenomenal.
00:52:53.180 I told you it was going to happen.
00:52:54.620 Here it is.
00:52:55.760 And I will talk to you
00:52:56.880 tomorrow.
00:52:57.940 footballland,
00:52:59.340 footballland,
00:53:00.200 o-ro글 Damat
00:53:03.040 V-