Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 1040 Scott Adams： What Everyone Gets Wrong About Everything and Who Wins the Presidency

00:00:00.000 hey everybody come on in come on in you found the right place the best place for the best part of

00:00:19.120 the day yeah yeah you know i don't know how the rest of your day is going to go but there's one

00:00:25.020 thing i can guarantee this part of your day perfect and isn't it good to start off the day

00:00:33.120 perfectly and all you need to keep it going is a cup or mug or a glass of tank or chalice with stein

00:00:43.240 a canteen jug or flask a vessel of any kind filling with your favorite liquid i like coffee

00:00:49.620 and join me now for the unparalleled pleasure the dopamine hit of the day the thing that makes

00:00:56.280 everything better you know all the things that are all better as soon as you take the

00:01:02.460 simultaneous sip and it happens now go

00:01:04.240 well how would you like to have your mind blown blown here it comes i asked this question on

00:01:22.620 twitter just moments ago still waiting for the answer and it looks like this here's the mind

00:01:28.860 blowing question think of any time in the past there was a presidential election in the united states

00:01:35.040 and the winner was not anytime the winner was not the candidate who looks like he could beat up the

00:01:46.460 other candidate in a fair fight physical fight

00:01:49.600 blows your mind right well let's take a look would you imagine in a fair fight

00:01:57.640 that trump could have beaten hillary clinton probably right would you have imagined that in

00:02:04.640 a fair fight reagan could have beat carter yeah probably probably do you think kennedy could have

00:02:12.940 beaten nixon in a fair fight kind of looks like it how about uh bill clinton could he have beat

00:02:20.740 a bush senior in a fair fight probably

00:02:25.520 all right you want to you want to you want the best one how about george bush the the younger

00:02:34.440 and al gore who would win in a fair fight al gore or uh george bush the younger it would be a tie

00:02:47.740 it would have to be decided by the supreme court

00:02:51.380 think about it oh do you think do you think romney could beat obama in a fair fight

00:02:59.920 i don't know but i think obama was also a special case i think the country was ready for obama

00:03:10.680 so even if you find the exception the even the exception might tell you something um i don't

00:03:16.920 think there's anything funnier than watching bill maher hate the side he's on

00:03:22.080 because uh if you've been watching bill maher so he's he's no fan of trump and he's no fan of

00:03:31.120 you know right wing or conservative uh ideology but he also freaking hates the assholes on his own

00:03:40.260 side he doesn't say it quite as clearly as that but in context it looks like he just hates being

00:03:47.120 on the side that's canceling people for just about everything he was complaining about it last night on

00:03:52.200 his show and he was talking about the mayor of i don't know midiapolis or something i forget who he's

00:03:58.980 talking about he goes uh and white people need to stop trying to cancel other white people whose heart

00:04:05.100 was in the right place but didn't get it exactly right on the first try so he's talking about the

00:04:10.160 ridiculousness of his own side which uh i could not enjoy more there's something missing in my room

00:04:17.680 here that's weird um i might have to take a break here yes i will hold on don't go anywhere

00:04:29.020 don't go anywhere

00:04:31.960 don't go anywhere

00:04:36.020 don't go anywhere

00:04:41.080 coming back

00:04:43.920 i'm almost back

00:04:50.920 seriously i'm coming back

00:04:54.680 Seriously, I'm coming back.

00:04:59.200 All right.

00:05:01.280 So that's funny.

00:05:02.600 Anyway, isn't it weird how the two movies that I call them,

00:05:09.440 the left and the right,

00:05:11.400 I'm going to characterize them this way just because I think it's funny.

00:05:15.600 The people on the left think that the people on the right are a bunch of racists.

00:05:21.660 And that basically explains everything, right?

00:05:24.920 They're maybe unscientific, but mostly the left thinks the right is a bunch of racists

00:05:32.880 and that that just sort of explains everything.

00:05:35.880 But here's the funny thing.

00:05:37.900 The people on the right, they are not aware that they are racist

00:05:41.400 because they probably aren't.

00:05:46.520 They probably aren't, meaning that at least in terms of their conscious thoughts

00:05:51.400 and their conscious actions, they have no idea what the left is talking about.

00:05:56.360 Now, of course, every group has some racists in it, you know, overt racists.

00:06:01.880 And I'm sure the right and left both have their share.

00:06:04.080 But isn't it weird that the movie that they see, you don't know you're in.

00:06:10.320 You're like, huh, apparently I'm surrounded by racists, but why don't I ever see it?

00:06:16.800 Why don't we know it?

00:06:19.800 But here's the funny part.

00:06:21.760 What the right sees is that the left is hypnotized by the fake news.

00:06:27.380 Is that not your dominant belief about the left?

00:06:31.300 Now, you're also thinking lots of other things.

00:06:33.540 You're thinking, oh, there's foreign influence,

00:06:36.240 and you might be thinking George Soros is giving people money,

00:06:39.720 and China is interfering, and Russia is colluding.

00:06:42.840 You know, you're thinking there's lots of stuff going on.

00:06:45.580 And you're thinking that maybe the left was, you know,

00:06:49.980 brainwashed in a certain way in college, if they went to college.

00:06:53.080 But doesn't it seem as though the breakdown is now the left thinks the right are racists,

00:07:00.420 and the right thinks that the left only believes that

00:07:03.640 because they've been hypnotized, brainwashed, essentially,

00:07:08.760 by fake news and by, you know, the educational system.

00:07:14.300 Is that a fair breakdown?

00:07:17.280 And it's the weirdest thing because you can't even have a conversation with somebody

00:07:21.960 who is hallucinating.

00:07:24.760 So here, by analogy, it would be this.

00:07:27.440 It would be people are hallucinating that you're, I don't know,

00:07:33.660 that you're really a werewolf or something.

00:07:36.920 And you're saying, I don't know how to defend myself

00:07:39.900 from the accusation of being a werewolf

00:07:42.740 because I'm not a werewolf.

00:07:45.380 If I were a werewolf, I'd have something I could work with.

00:07:49.780 I'd say, you know, we werewolves are not all that bad.

00:07:53.100 You have to see our good side.

00:07:54.500 Yeah, we got some rough edges.

00:07:56.400 But werewolves, you know, we have our pluses too.

00:07:59.280 For example, we fight vampires.

00:08:01.240 I understand.

00:08:03.100 So I don't know if we've ever had a situation

00:08:08.680 where the two different movies are a hallucination

00:08:12.780 of what the other movie is.

00:08:14.740 That's new.

00:08:16.360 Let me give you some positive,

00:08:19.560 some positive, encouraging thoughts about the future.

00:08:23.920 So here's something you're thinking to yourself.

00:08:26.080 Oh, no, there's a slippery slope.

00:08:28.440 These protesters are just going to, you know,

00:08:30.540 destroy more businesses and destroy more public stuff

00:08:34.500 until it's all gone.

00:08:36.720 What would be a counterforce that could make that happen?

00:08:42.380 And it's funny.

00:08:43.920 It's always the same counterforce.

00:08:46.960 There is so much in society that gets,

00:08:50.160 we think it's up to us.

00:08:51.500 Like you and I think, okay, you know,

00:08:53.780 we've got this disagreement.

00:08:55.420 So you and I are going to work that out.

00:08:58.120 And then you and I fight

00:08:59.620 and the people on your side fight.

00:09:01.620 And then I fight.

00:09:02.440 And then my people fight with your side.

00:09:04.020 And you think that's what the fight is.

00:09:06.960 Only to find out that it's always settled the same way.

00:09:11.620 There's an insurance company somewhere who said,

00:09:14.400 you know, I'm not going to cover that.

00:09:16.680 And then it's over.

00:09:18.960 Insurance companies basically run the world.

00:09:22.860 You don't think insurance companies run the world?

00:09:25.560 Try to do something that can't get insured.

00:09:28.560 See how that goes.

00:09:30.000 Try to drive your car without insurance.

00:09:31.780 Try to get a mortgage and tell your bank,

00:09:35.040 you know, I don't think I want insurance on my house.

00:09:38.080 Yeah, I won't be able to pay you back

00:09:39.720 if it burns down or something.

00:09:40.900 But, you know, I think I don't want insurance.

00:09:43.760 No, you don't have a choice.

00:09:45.520 You've got to get insurance.

00:09:47.320 And now we're watching this Seattle,

00:09:49.940 you know, the occupied zone or the autonomous zone,

00:09:53.100 whatever they like to call it.

00:09:54.120 And because there was a ruling

00:09:57.580 that apparently the business owners

00:10:00.680 who have been displaced by the protesters,

00:10:03.500 they could actually sue the city.

00:10:06.540 Now, if you could get sued,

00:10:09.380 what's your only protection?

00:10:13.100 Insurance.

00:10:14.800 Insurance.

00:10:15.960 If there's a risk of being sued,

00:10:18.340 and it's sort of built into your business process,

00:10:20.360 the only way you can protect yourself is insurance.

00:10:24.200 Who's going to insure a mayor

00:10:27.080 who won't protect their own city?

00:10:29.680 How do you get insurance

00:10:31.100 if you're not even going to try to protect your own assets?

00:10:35.840 Would somebody protect,

00:10:37.160 would anybody give you insurance for,

00:10:38.980 let's say, a homeowner's insurance

00:10:41.680 if you insisted on having no doors and windows on your house?

00:10:44.800 You say, look, I just want a windowless, doorless house.

00:10:49.140 Yeah, any burglar could come and go,

00:10:51.160 and I don't have any security,

00:10:52.660 but I still want insurance.

00:10:54.240 How about some insurance?

00:10:55.900 And the insurance company will say,

00:10:58.080 sorry, we only give insurance

00:11:01.240 to people who have doors and windows.

00:11:03.500 That's up to us.

00:11:05.000 There's no constitutional right to your insurance.

00:11:08.280 It's just risk management.

00:11:09.840 So the hilarious part about the occupation of Seattle

00:11:15.160 is that it will be sorted out by insurance companies.

00:11:19.300 Because in the end,

00:11:20.820 we all have to do what the insurance companies tell us to do.

00:11:24.760 Now, that's one of the biggest red pills in the world,

00:11:28.000 when you realize that all of your battles are irrelevant,

00:11:31.440 because it's just going to be decided by the insurance company.

00:11:35.480 Doesn't matter what you and I think.

00:11:36.980 And, of course, the insurance company

00:11:41.620 paired with the legal system

00:11:43.820 that makes it expensive to do the wrong thing.

00:11:49.900 All right.

00:11:52.320 Mary Trump has a book coming out.

00:11:54.220 Is that the president's niece, I guess?

00:11:56.680 So his brother's daughter.

00:11:58.940 And I saw a big article on it in the Washington Post.

00:12:01.620 It was all the headlines and social media.

00:12:03.580 And I was like, oh, man, it looks like Mary Trump's damning book

00:12:07.660 about the president has just come out.

00:12:10.140 And then I read the headlines, and the book isn't even out.

00:12:13.760 The Washington Post is masturbating so furiously

00:12:16.860 over the possibility of this book being damning

00:12:20.120 that they've already started writing feature articles,

00:12:23.500 guessing what's in it.

00:12:25.700 Did I make that up?

00:12:26.920 Nope.

00:12:27.400 They just wrote a feature article in the Washington Post

00:12:31.100 in which they're guessing what kinds of things she might say.

00:12:36.180 Have we reached a whole new level of ridiculousness?

00:12:41.200 And so here's the setup.

00:12:43.680 So Mary Trump, apparently,

00:12:45.720 there was some dispute about her inheritance at some point.

00:12:50.120 So she's mad at the family.

00:12:51.960 So that part seems to be established.

00:12:53.920 She's got some reason to be angry at the family in general.

00:12:59.120 And maybe President Trump in particular.

00:13:04.140 Well, she wrote a book about him.

00:13:05.420 So yes, it's obvious.

00:13:06.680 But here's the fun part.

00:13:08.240 She's a clinical psychologist.

00:13:09.900 So the thing that has the Washington Post salivating,

00:13:15.180 and others, I'm sure,

00:13:16.400 is that how good would it be,

00:13:19.080 finally, it's their holy grail.

00:13:22.900 What could they want more

00:13:24.700 than a trained clinical psychologist

00:13:27.880 who has spent a lot of time personally with the president?

00:13:33.940 Right?

00:13:34.780 Because the thing they always lack

00:13:36.340 is when somebody goes on TV and they say,

00:13:39.420 I've never met the president,

00:13:41.320 but he's clearly a schizophrenic, paranoid narcissist.

00:13:46.480 And then somebody will say,

00:13:47.800 remind me about your professional ethics

00:13:52.760 in the psychiatry business.

00:13:55.600 Are you supposed to diagnose people

00:13:57.700 you've never fucking met?

00:14:00.380 And then they'll say,

00:14:01.200 well, not normally,

00:14:02.320 but the risks are so high

00:14:03.780 that I thought I'd do it this time.

00:14:05.940 And then you say,

00:14:06.940 ah, we don't want to listen to you anymore.

00:14:09.420 If you can't even follow

00:14:10.580 your own journalistic integrity

00:14:12.100 or your own professional integrity,

00:14:15.920 you know,

00:14:16.480 so those stories kind of come and go.

00:14:18.460 But what if somebody knew him personally

00:14:21.340 and for years had been in the same room,

00:14:24.040 saw all of the family dynamics,

00:14:26.180 and was a trained clinical psychologist?

00:14:29.460 May I do my impression of Dale

00:14:32.540 finding out that there's a trained clinical psychologist

00:14:36.440 who hates the president

00:14:38.160 and spent a lot of time with him

00:14:39.800 so when she speaks,

00:14:41.180 she can speak intelligently.

00:14:44.100 Dale, did you hear that news?

00:14:45.820 And scene.

00:14:57.720 That was Dale enjoying the news

00:14:59.940 that Mary Williams,

00:15:01.560 or Mary Trump,

00:15:03.440 has a book coming out.

00:15:05.100 Mary Williams is somebody a new years ago. And in my 20s, actually. So Mark Cuban made the

00:15:17.340 smartest political play maybe I've ever seen in my whole life. And if you missed it, it's really,

00:15:26.080 it's one for the ages. Now, if you asked him, I don't think he would admit that this was a strategy.

00:15:33.360 And I'm not sure you could call it a strategy. So let me describe the situation. And then you tell

00:15:40.140 me what you would call this. What I call it is somebody who's good at chess, figuratively speaking,

00:15:48.100 good at strategy, good at business, good at sort of seeing the whole picture. So that's Mark Cuban.

00:15:54.680 And he came out with this tweet, I think it was yesterday, because he's a Biden supporter. And

00:16:02.140 of course, the obvious question is, Mark Cuban, you seem pretty smart. Why don't you see what we're

00:16:10.400 seeing with Joe Biden, that his mental condition is not, say, 100%. And of course, Mark has defended

00:16:19.480 him as being perfectly capable of doing the job. And that maybe Trump has some issues there. But he

00:16:30.500 kind of did the final clever play that I talked about finding free money on the ground. And he found

00:16:38.520 this free money that I don't think anybody else would have seen. It was like invisible free money

00:16:43.400 that only he could see. But then once he sees it, and he tells you about it, you go, Oh, my God,

00:16:48.960 now I can see it. And it goes like this. He tweets that he would be perfectly okay, if randomly selected

00:16:56.700 so that they're not in anybody's pocket, randomly selected experts could do a psychological evaluation

00:17:02.740 on both Biden and Trump. Think about that. Now, if you weren't thinking strategically, or any other

00:17:11.260 way, you'd say, Oh, that's just a tweet. It's just a tweet supporting his person. Yeah, you know,

00:17:17.540 Biden will take a test if Trump takes the test. If you see it on the surfaces, there's not much there,

00:17:22.640 right? But think it through. Think it through. Now, in all likelihood, that will never happen,

00:17:30.540 right? But by raising the question of Biden and a psychological test,

00:17:36.260 you kind of think it might be more likely to happen, don't you? And wouldn't you actually like

00:17:43.500 to see a psychological evaluation by independent people of both Biden and Trump? Wouldn't you?

00:17:51.420 I would. I'd like to see that. And, and let me tell you, I don't care where the where it comes out.

00:17:58.960 If it came out, that Biden was perfectly, perfectly capable, and Trump was not, according to actually

00:18:07.240 experts that I found credible, I would take that to mean something. I would take that to mean something

00:18:13.380 like that would influence my opinion. And it should influence yours. If you say it wouldn't,

00:18:21.540 you know, maybe because you don't trust the experts, but let's say hypothetically, you did.

00:18:25.800 Wouldn't that change your mind? Now, I don't think it would come out that way. I think Trump would do

00:18:33.620 pretty well. I think Biden would have some problems. But what if I'm wrong? Right? We're none of us are

00:18:41.140 so smart that you could be sure about any of this stuff, because we can be easily fooled by confirmation

00:18:47.740 bias and, you know, just rooting for your team, etc. So by Mark Cuban, just putting it out there,

00:18:53.300 how about testing both of them? Because I don't know anybody said that before. And it's very

00:18:57.940 provocative. And because it's him, people pay attention, because it's Mark Cuban. So, so now

00:19:04.520 that's out there. Now, here's the brilliant part. Suppose it happened. Suppose it happened. Now,

00:19:12.840 you would expect that Biden might have some issues. And it might be a factor in him being changed out

00:19:21.660 before the election. Wouldn't you say that's reasonable? A lot of people are talking about

00:19:26.900 the possibility that Biden will be switched out close to election day. So that's not really a big

00:19:34.240 surprising thing. It's possible. But here's the other part that's really fun. Mark Cuban, just by

00:19:40.920 being in the public and talking about these things, his profile and his name are being associated with

00:19:47.580 the run for the presidency. At the same time, he's spending nothing campaigning. Nothing. Mark Cuban is

00:19:55.240 not running for president, officially. And he spent nothing campaigning for president. And running for

00:20:01.700 president is really expensive. Hundreds of millions of dollars, if you happen to be a billionaire.

00:20:06.860 He spent nothing. And I would say that with that one move, just by saying, hey, let's test them both.

00:20:14.260 He put himself in the top five of potential replacements for Biden. Because remember,

00:20:22.520 he's pro-Biden. So he doesn't have a negative connotation on the left. And if you were to pick

00:20:29.360 one person in the world who could actually reliably, I think, beat Trump, probably be him.

00:20:38.320 Because he could pick up Republican votes. He could pick up independents. And the people on the left

00:20:45.420 would just say, we don't care. It's just not Trump. Right? So Democrats would just be automatic.

00:20:51.700 Because they'd say, you're not Trump. Can you confirm your name is not Donald Trump? All right,

00:20:56.700 we're on your team. So it doesn't matter what the Democrats think of him. They're still going to vote

00:21:02.680 for him. Because I don't think he has anything negative that would, you know, get him canceled

00:21:07.200 by the left. You know, of course, when he was a young man, he had some fun. All that stuff comes

00:21:13.140 up. Nobody cares. Nobody cares what she did 20 years ago, frankly. Same with Trump. Now, so here's the

00:21:22.220 thing. So the correct question is, would Kamala not be the more likely choice if Biden faltered or were

00:21:30.180 replaced before Election Day? And I would say she would be, yes. Kamala would be the first choice.

00:21:37.260 But I think Cuban's in the top five, isn't he? Just think about it. Somebody says Cuban can't run.

00:21:44.980 And I don't know if that's true. Is that a question about being on the ballot?

00:21:51.620 Is it a question about being on the ballot? So if that's the case, well, that would be interesting.

00:21:57.220 But what happens if the Democrats' candidate drops out before Election Day? Does that mean there's

00:22:03.400 nobody who could run? Because I don't know that Kamala Harris, no, I guess, how would that work?

00:22:11.100 Let's say somebody answered this question for me. Now, if Kamala Harris became the replacement for

00:22:19.460 Biden before Election Day, since she had previously announced and she was going to run for president,

00:22:25.880 maybe the paperwork's all done so that she didn't have any paperwork problem. Is that true?

00:22:31.240 I don't know if that's true. But what about, let's say they picked a mayor. So let's say Biden picks a

00:22:37.540 mayor for his vice president. Biden is replaced. Could the mayor, who had not already long ago filled out

00:22:45.140 the paperwork to run for the top spot? Is it too late? Is it too late? I don't know. So that's the

00:22:53.620 question. Somebody who knows what they're talking about, which would not be me, find out if somebody

00:22:59.360 could run for president at the last minute, as long as the Democrats wanted that to be their candidate.

00:23:05.540 So let me know how that works. Yeah, and I know that the delegates, the delegates might want Bernie, etc.

00:23:15.220 And so I'm not saying that I'm not saying we'd know for sure who the person would. I'm saying that Cuban put

00:23:22.440 himself in the top five for the conversation, at least the possibility. He's in the top five to be a replacement

00:23:30.960 for Biden. And he hasn't spent a penny. That's all I'm saying. So on a risk management level.

00:23:39.960 This is so smart. It's just one of the best plays I've ever seen. Now, it probably won't pay off.

00:23:47.200 Because the you know, you just would be one of five people considered Biden still has to actually drop

00:23:53.000 out, blah, blah, blah. So there's a lot that could go wrong. But to put yourself in the top five for a

00:24:00.580 contention without spending a penny this close to election day? I don't know. Would anybody else

00:24:06.740 have seen that play? That's all I'm saying. I did a little Twitter poll in which I asked people if a

00:24:14.460 computer polled you. In other words, there's no human voice. It's a computer that calls you on your phone

00:24:20.220 and says, who do you want to vote for in the upcoming election? Would you admit that you were going

00:24:30.080 to vote for Trump if you were a Trump supporter? So that was the question I posed on Twitter. Now,

00:24:34.420 it's a Twitter poll. So of course, it's not, you know, dependable like a regular poll. But I wanted

00:24:41.800 to see if anybody would say it. Because it could have been, you know, that Trump supporters might say,

00:24:47.880 screw you, Scott, we're not afraid of saying who we support. So I didn't know how it would come out.

00:24:53.840 So it came out that, so 45% of the people said they wouldn't answer. So, you know, nearly half of the

00:25:02.080 people in my unscientific Twitter poll said that if they were contacted by an actual scientific poll,

00:25:10.000 that they wouldn't answer. Now, 45% of the people wouldn't answer. You know, you've got trouble

00:25:16.120 collecting a good enough sample, but you could still do it. Still do it. But suppose, so those who

00:25:25.520 answered, they add up to 55%. Duh. So of the 55% who would give an answer. Now, these are the

00:25:37.720 percentages. I'm sorry, I'm confusing you with the percentages. So let me just give them to you

00:25:42.860 straight. 45% said they wouldn't answer at all. 37% said yes, they'd say they were going to vote

00:25:48.820 for Trump. And remember, these are only people answering this poll who already said they would

00:25:53.460 vote for Trump. So 37% said they would admit it. Only 37% would admit it to a computer. They're not

00:26:03.800 even talking to a real person. They're talking to a computer. And only 37% of the people who follow me

00:26:10.120 on Twitter, who are also Trump supporters, who also answered this poll, said that they would admit

00:26:15.920 it. And 18% in my little unscientific poll said that they would lie and say Biden. Now remember,

00:26:24.380 the 18% is only 18% of the total people. But only 37% said they would say Trump. And 18% would also

00:26:34.220 answer said they would say Biden. So you should really look at 18 being half of 37.

00:26:39.680 roughly. So roughly, let me do my math better here. Roughly one third of the people who would answer

00:26:51.060 would lie. One third. Can you believe that? One third of the people in my unscientific, so you

00:27:02.700 shouldn't take this too seriously, poll said they would lie and actually say Biden. Now, be careful

00:27:08.280 because I have primed my Twitter. My Twitter following is not like any other, you know, generic group of

00:27:16.340 people. They're pretty self-selected. And they've been primed for this prank. So it would be a higher

00:27:23.660 number in my, presumably in my group. But let me ask you this. As unscientific as this was, deeply,

00:27:31.840 deeply biased and unscientific. Does it not still, does it not still show you that there's a fairly

00:27:40.980 massive problem with people being honest on these polls? I feel as if it's indicating there's a

00:27:47.520 problem, like a bigger problem than ever before. And let me put it in, in starker terms. I don't think

00:27:55.480 in 2020 it would be smart to answer a poll honestly if you were a Trump supporter. Because there might

00:28:03.200 be a day, keep this in mind, if the Democrats win, they've said, they've said directly that they're

00:28:09.400 coming after Trump supporters. Have you not heard that? Have you not heard people on the left, the team

00:28:17.080 that could win, that they would actually come after supporters? And there would be, in theory, some

00:28:24.340 database, even though a computer made the call, somewhere there's a database of this phone number

00:28:30.200 had these responses. So you could kind of piece it together. Would you want to be on a list when you

00:28:38.340 knew people were going to be using the list to hunt you down and make you pay? Now, probably that

00:28:45.620 won't happen. But it feels kind of scary. And people respond to the risk as much as they respond

00:28:52.880 to reality. So I was thinking that the worst was behind us in terms of the economy and coronavirus

00:29:01.040 and maybe even the protests were losing a little steam. And I was thinking, you know, finally,

00:29:07.000 are we getting past it? 2020 has been pretty rough, but I feel like we're behind it. And then I saw

00:29:12.820 a headline that says, Tennessee police warn of flushing drugs that could create hyper-aggressive

00:29:20.280 alligators. So apparently if you flush your meth down the toilet, it can get into the water supply

00:29:29.620 and then your alligators will be on meth and we'll be living in a world with hyper-aggressive

00:29:36.280 meth-soaked alligators. Now, you might say to yourself, I don't want to live in any kind

00:29:44.020 of a world with hyper-aggressive meth-soaked alligators. That doesn't sound good. But you

00:29:52.820 know, I don't like to admit this. I don't like to say this in public, but I'm going to do it

00:29:59.380 anyway. If we don't get any hyper-aggressive alligators, I'm going to be a little disappointed.

00:30:09.740 I'm not proud of that. I'm not proud of that. But if we got no hyper-aggressive alligators,

00:30:18.140 none, not a single hyper-aggressive alligator, I don't know if I'd be okay with that. We live in a

00:30:25.280 world where, damn it, I need some hyper-aggressive meth-ed-up alligators because, I don't know about

00:30:34.220 you, but it's getting harder and harder to watch the regular news, the political news. If I watch

00:30:39.660 one more black man being killed by police on video, I think I'm going to shoot myself.

00:30:46.500 But I could definitely watch some news about some hyper-aggressive meth alligators.

00:30:51.500 I could watch that all day long. There's a new story out of town in Florida. Hyper-aggressive

00:31:00.140 alligators have attacked Main Street for fatalities. Now, I'd say to myself, nobody's happy about

00:31:06.900 fatalities. You can't be happy about that. I feel sorry for the families. But I could watch

00:31:13.180 a few more of these stories about hyper-aggressive alligators. I'm not a good person, apparently.

00:31:19.660 Apparently, there's something deeply wrong with me, but I could just watch more hyper-aggressive

00:31:25.240 alligators. That's all. That's all I'm saying. You know, I've told you about my game that I play

00:31:32.340 when I see a name trending on Twitter. If you see a celebrity's name, you play the game COVID

00:31:39.180 canceled or dead. So you say to yourself, uh-oh, why is this person's name trending? And before

00:31:46.000 you know the answer, before you click on it, you say, all right, do they have COVID? Are

00:31:52.000 they canceled? Or are they dead? And so this morning I saw Jack Posobiec trending on Twitter

00:31:58.300 and I was like, oh no, poor Jack. What is it? And you know, is he, is it COVID? Is he canceled?

00:32:06.820 Is he dead? Well, he's still alive and he's not canceled. He's, well, no more canceled than any

00:32:13.040 conservative would be. And we don't know anything about COVID. But the story is that he attended

00:32:19.540 without a disguise and without any security. He attended the Antifa rally right in the middle

00:32:26.860 of that, that Emancipation Memorial, uh, last night. And, uh, as you might imagine, uh, he

00:32:35.840 was recognized. So he was recognized by some, uh, little Antifa guy who, uh, well, he was,

00:32:44.740 he was well disguised. So imagine a, um, let's say a fire hydrant with red goggles. So just

00:32:51.960 so you have the visual, the fire hydrant, it's got, it's got a little hat on with a hood

00:32:56.800 and red goggles. Uh, and it's yelling at Jack Posobiec who towers above it in height. But

00:33:04.280 the, the little fire hydrant was getting in Jack's face and it looked like, I don't know,

00:33:10.200 it looked like maybe somebody threw water at him and they were all crowding around and getting

00:33:13.540 in him. And there's lots of video of it. And it's really fun to watch because I don't think

00:33:20.280 you've ever seen anybody in so much, uh, physical danger who didn't seem to be bothered by it.

00:33:28.420 So you have to watch this thing. It's, it's kind of fun to watch because he's surrounded by really

00:33:33.620 angry and violent people who any moment are getting ready to, you know, attack him and they're,

00:33:39.240 and they're right in his face and they're, they're all over him and they're jostling him.

00:33:42.720 And, and he, and he's just, and he's just sort of looking at him like, right, right. Yeah. Who's

00:33:49.000 next? And, uh, he gets, he gets escorted out, made news. Um, I don't believe any other, uh,

00:33:58.300 national reporter who got anywhere near the, the center of the, uh, of the thing, but you know,

00:34:04.540 there were a lot of cameras watching the entire event. So you've got some views from different

00:34:08.460 places and it looks like, uh, it looks like Jack was willing to take one for the team. If you know

00:34:14.320 what I mean, it looks like he was willing to take the punch. Now, I don't think he was asking for a

00:34:20.260 punch because that looks different. You know, you've seen, you've seen the Antifa people who are just

00:34:24.980 asking to get punched. You know, they're getting in the cops' faces and stuff. It was nothing like

00:34:29.220 that. He was simply asserting his right to stand there in public. Think about it. Just think about

00:34:36.600 that. Jack Posobiec is trending today. Just think about this. This is like a pretty massive thought.

00:34:45.380 He's trending on Twitter and he's a national story because he had the temerity to simply

00:34:54.240 stand there in a public place and just, and just have a different opinion than the other people

00:35:01.480 were there. That's it. He wasn't assaulting anybody. He wasn't, he wasn't, wasn't doing anything

00:35:07.940 offensive whatsoever. He was simply asserting his right. Obviously I don't know what he was thinking

00:35:14.560 internally, but in terms of, you know, physically what was happening as an observer's perspective,

00:35:20.600 not his internal thoughts, which are only his own. He asserted his right for a lot of the people who

00:35:28.520 are watching this. He went right into the middle of it and asserted his right to be there in a public

00:35:35.780 place peacefully. Now, if he had been punched, would the conversation have changed? I think it might

00:35:45.120 have. I think it might have. So I really appreciated what Jack did because I think, you know, all of us

00:35:57.920 have to sort of make sure that we're pushing the envelope a little bit because otherwise the walls are

00:36:03.740 going to close in as the left likes to say, they would like to squeeze any Trump supporting or

00:36:11.000 conservative opinions into nothingness. And the only way that that doesn't happen is that there are some

00:36:16.500 people who are willing to risk taking a punch. If you don't go that far, the wall will just keep

00:36:24.660 closing in. So yesterday, Jack took a stand for freedom, I would say. Again, who knows what his

00:36:33.440 internal thought process was, but in terms of what it meant to me, what it meant to me is that he stood

00:36:41.060 there and said, all right, we've reached, we've reached the point where you either have to punch me

00:36:47.220 or shut the fuck up. Because that's where we are now, right? Throw the punch, because there are a lot

00:36:55.700 of people who are going to watch this punch if it happens. Now, to their credit, the protesters did not

00:37:03.880 throw, you know, any kind of a, let's say a hospitalization kind of a punch, but there was

00:37:10.720 enough of an assault. Collectively, there was enough of an assault that I guess the police have been

00:37:17.680 informed. And there may be some legal action, which would be completely appropriate. Now, let me ask you

00:37:23.260 this. If there's a civil lawsuit, which I imagine there could be, I don't know that there will be, but

00:37:30.740 there could be. And let's say that that fire plug with the red goggles is identified. Already on

00:37:39.220 Twitter, you can see his name and picture, but I would not say that's necessarily the right guy

00:37:43.780 yet. So I would caution you that although he has the assailant or alleged assailant has been

00:37:51.440 identified on Twitter, give that a couple of days. You know, you don't want to get a false

00:37:57.040 identification. So just give that a couple of days to make sure that we're talking about the right

00:38:01.980 person. But suppose he got sued and lost. Does that guy ever get insurance again? Who would ever

00:38:12.320 give insurance to the fire plug with the glasses? I don't know. I'm not sure if insurance matters in

00:38:18.540 his case. But so that's going on. All right. So I have been trying also to stretch my boundaries of

00:38:33.020 free speech. And I've said there's this weird thing going on, where some of us are actually

00:38:38.980 slightly getting more free speech at the moment, because of the weirdness of things. So while most

00:38:45.440 of you are getting less free speech, you know, if you stick your head up, you're going to get

00:38:50.180 canceled. And that's a real risk. And I don't recommend you do it if you are a civilian. Let

00:38:55.940 me say that again. If you're a civilian, meaning you're not in it professionally, and you're not

00:39:02.340 doing this in public, the way I am, I would consider myself a professional in this context. But if you're

00:39:08.280 not a professional, you might want to keep your head down. You might want to keep your head down,

00:39:13.160 because it's not safe for you. But there are some few of us who are professionals who are actually

00:39:19.480 weirdly getting a little extra space. And the reason we're getting a little extra space is that

00:39:24.520 people don't want to engage with us, because the experts are too dangerous. It would be too hard to

00:39:30.200 cancel me at this point, because I'm too vocal. And I don't think people want to hear what I have to

00:39:35.700 say. But let me give you some examples of where I'm stretching my rights of free speech.

00:39:39.880 So a couple of days ago, I did this tweet, which I already told you about, but I want to just give

00:39:45.980 you an update on it. I said that, quote, white privilege is a racist term, in my opinion. Anyone

00:39:52.340 who uses it is either racist, an idiot, or an asshole. But then I went on to say that rich privilege is a

00:39:59.340 thing. Obviously. Now that got close to 10,000 retweets. All right. So if you get that many retweets,

00:40:08.060 it means that a lot of people not only agree with it, in fact, there were almost 28,000 likes. Now for my

00:40:16.440 account, that's about 10 times more than a viral tweet. So based on the size of my Twitter account, if I get

00:40:25.820 1,000 retweets on a tweet, I consider that one one of the bigger ones. You know, that's 1,000 for me is

00:40:32.180 a lot. Rarely, although lately it's happened more, I'll break 2,000. But it's rare. This tweet had almost

00:40:40.500 10,000 retweets. So that means it is massively agreeable to people. They're, they're putting

00:40:47.520 themselves behind it. And I actually said that white privilege is a racist term. 10,000 people

00:40:53.180 retweeted that. So this clearly, people are not only agreeing with it, but they're willing to say

00:40:58.260 it in public. All right, the willing to say it in public is the interesting part. And I didn't get

00:41:07.320 canceled for that. Because, and simply because it's obvious that white privilege as a term is a

00:41:15.500 racist term. If you actually get into the conversation, it's going to go my way. Because

00:41:20.940 it's a racist term. It's not even a hard argument to make, right? Which has nothing to do with

00:41:27.220 whether, you know, African American people are discriminated against, and there's a legacy of

00:41:34.360 slavery and all that. It has nothing to do with those questions. Just by itself, white privilege is

00:41:40.060 obviously a racist term. It minimizes white people. So that didn't get me canceled. So I thought, well,

00:41:48.780 I'm going to have to push this a little bit further. So yesterday, I tweeted this.

00:41:54.600 I said, if I ever find a baby trapped at the bottom of a dry well, I'm not going to help until I know

00:42:00.960 whether or not the legacy of slavery had a role in it. If yes, I'll help.

00:42:06.340 If it's just an unlucky white baby, it's on its own. And then I said, am I doing this right?

00:42:14.280 Now, you can see what I've done is I've simply taken the point of view of Black Lives Matter.

00:42:21.720 And I've taken the point of view that if you had a legacy of slavery, that's a special condition,

00:42:28.320 which generates, in their view of the world, special privileges and or payments, reparations and or

00:42:37.540 accommodations, maybe, that are a compensation for that evil and that wrongness.

00:42:45.460 Now, nobody, of course, disagrees that slavery was the ultimate sin, you know, the ultimate evil,

00:42:52.460 you know, except maybe the Holocaust was worse, but it's still in that category of ultimate evil.

00:43:00.640 So everybody agrees on that. And here's the thing, it doesn't make a lick of sense.

00:43:07.540 Yes. So it's the most dominant, agreed upon thing, even by both sides, I would say both the right and left

00:43:17.140 are both under the opinion that slavery had a ripple effect. Of course it did. How could it not really

00:43:25.800 had a ripple effect through time, and that it affects people today. But here's the thing that

00:43:33.040 nobody wants to say out loud. Who fucking cares? Why does that matter? Now, when I say who cares,

00:43:42.600 let me be very clear. I do care about the people. Of course. Black Lives Matter. Of course. So I care

00:43:51.080 about all people. But that's my point. I'm left of this. Do you get that? I'm left of the left on this.

00:43:59.580 Black Lives Matter says we need to do something about people who were the, let's say, victims of

00:44:06.200 slavery as it rippled through the generations. And I say, how about we extend that? How about we say

00:44:15.340 that you're not left enough? How about I say there's something very selfish about that, because you're

00:44:21.700 excluding, let's say, for example, a Filipino American who's not doing well. You're excluding,

00:44:28.760 for example, an Hispanic American who's just not doing well. It's not their fault. They were born

00:44:37.680 into a bad circumstance. You're excluding a Chinese American. Again, I'm just using these phrases as

00:44:45.500 they're all Americans. So in my example, they're all Americans one way or another. But why do they not

00:44:52.940 get help because they have a different reason that they're in bad shape? Does the baby have any

00:45:00.160 responsibility for what the parents did that got the baby in this poverty situation? No, no. So if

00:45:09.340 you're trying to carve out a special class of victim, there is no rational, logical, or moral support for

00:45:17.540 it. And we've all just swallowed this big fat fucking lie because we've been beaten into submission

00:45:25.560 because we know we'll be canceled if we push back. All right. Black Lives Matter is way too far right

00:45:33.320 for me. Way too far right. Because left of them is you help everybody who's in trouble. Left of Black

00:45:41.780 Lives Matter is where I am. Remember I told you I'm left to Bernie? Well, I'm probably not left to

00:45:47.860 Bernie on this one. If Bernie thinks that only poor black people need help because of their

00:45:53.360 circumstances, I will eat my chair. I will eat my chair if Bernie Sanders doesn't say some version of

00:46:03.860 what I'm saying, which is, no, Black Lives Matter. Your issues are 100% valid. There are lots of people

00:46:11.300 who need help who are black. And there are reasons we can identify which are certainly factors. Not

00:46:16.280 that they're not the only factors, but they're factors. But are you telling me the Hispanic kid

00:46:22.620 who didn't do anything wrong was just born into a bad situation? That's it. They were just born into a

00:46:29.220 bad situation. And you're not going to give them any help? How's that right? So how did I do on this

00:46:37.740 tweet? So this one got 388 retweets? 388. Compared to the other one, which I thought was about white

00:46:49.720 privilege being racist, which got 10,000 retweets. So they're both pushing the envelope of what I'm

00:46:58.660 allowed to say without getting canceled. Well, one of them only got 388 retweets, and the other one got

00:47:04.440 10,000. What it tells you is that the one who only got 388 retweets is too dangerous. It was actually

00:47:15.260 safer to say that white privilege is a racist term, apparently, than it was safe to say that all babies

00:47:24.000 who are in bad shape should be helped. Think about that. Think about the fact that people are afraid to

00:47:30.960 say you should help a baby, regardless of how it got in trouble. It's amazing. I mean, it's amazing.

00:47:40.520 So I think that tells you that's sort of the edge of where people are comfortable with their freedom

00:47:45.780 of speech. But not me. I'm going to push a little further, as I did yesterday. Want to hear what I did

00:47:54.300 yesterday? And I'm going to extend it a little bit today. I made the following tweet, which is eight

00:48:00.960 points that I claim everyone who follows these steps to success does well. Now, when you make a

00:48:07.880 public statement like everyone, for the benefit of people who are very particular and dependent,

00:48:14.040 it never means everyone. So if you ever hear me use the word, everyone does this, just in your head

00:48:22.140 translate it to, oh, he means most of the time, or, you know, it's generally that way. It never means

00:48:27.580 everyone. Okay. But I say it to be provocative. Everyone who follows these steps to success does

00:48:33.820 well. So listen to these steps. See if you agree. Number one, focus on useful education. I put in

00:48:39.920 useful, you know, find, find an educational path that by its nature is useful. So maybe not be an art

00:48:48.980 historian, for example. Maybe be a mechanic. So it doesn't have to be regular school, just useful

00:48:55.120 education. Number two, stay in a legal trouble. Number three, stay away from drugs. Number four,

00:49:01.080 don't become a parent too soon. Everybody knows what too soon is, right? Before you're economically

00:49:07.000 set. Number five, build a talent stack. So put together talents that make you useful. Number six,

00:49:13.440 be useful to others. And this has to do with reciprocity. If you are seen as being useful to

00:49:21.340 other people in a variety of ways, everybody wants to be with you. They want to marry you. They want to

00:49:27.120 be your friend. They want to hire you. They want to buy your goods. So being useful to others in an

00:49:33.320 overt way, amazingly powerful for success. Number seven, favor systems over goals. You all know what I'm

00:49:41.080 talking about, right? It's not good enough to have a goal. You need a, you need systems that can get

00:49:45.920 you ready for a variety of goals. I write about that in my book. Kind of failed almost everything and

00:49:50.320 still wouldn't make. Number eight, learn the basics of risk management. And here I mean, learn that

00:49:56.660 diversifying your stock portfolio makes more sense than buying one stock. Learn that you might have to try

00:50:02.780 10 startups before one of them works. Learn that if you're making an investment with other people's

00:50:09.700 money, it's better than using your own. Very basic things. Yet, people don't know them until they're

00:50:16.060 taught. So there are a lot of basic things about risk management that people don't know that it's

00:50:23.080 easy to imagine. Well, wouldn't they know that? Just common sense. And the answer is no. No.

00:50:28.960 Diversification as a concept isn't common sense until you hear it the first time. And then you say,

00:50:34.940 oh, okay, I get that. So it's not hard stuff. So here's my provocative thought of the day.

00:50:42.740 If you want to measure racism, I would say that the only way to measure it, or the best way,

00:50:50.460 you can't really ever be sure you're measuring it perfectly, would be to compare the people who

00:50:55.960 follow the eight steps in different groups. So rather than saying, you know, just all the people

00:51:03.400 look the same who are in this group compared to the people who some visual way, you know, their

00:51:09.600 melanin is the same over here. That kind of comparison just feels useless all the time to me.

00:51:16.820 It just feels like somebody is trying to cause trouble when they compare people on just, well,

00:51:22.680 these are black, and these are white. How'd they do? It feels like you're just asking for trouble.

00:51:28.620 How about if you compared the people who use the same strategy? Because I think everything on this

00:51:35.920 list is available to everybody. You know, everybody could have a useful education. Now,

00:51:41.260 I know it's going to be harder in, you know, if your school system is a mess, etc. But there are,

00:51:47.540 you know, I think that when, let's say, colleges look at that, they actually factor it. I think they

00:51:54.100 take into consideration that you were from a bad school, but let's say you're an African-American

00:51:58.320 student. So they're going to say, well, you know, I think we're going to give this person a chance.

00:52:02.940 So I think everybody could get an education. And if they can't, well, that's what you fix.

00:52:08.580 That's where you focus. So I'd like to see the incomes of the people who did all the right steps

00:52:15.160 compared to the other people in any other group, you know, white, Asian, whatever,

00:52:20.400 who also did all eight steps. If you compare the people who use the right strategies to each other,

00:52:27.680 then what's left might indeed be racism. And it could be a big deal. And I'd like to know what that

00:52:35.240 is. Because if if that still exists, for people who do everything right, wouldn't you like to know

00:52:42.540 that? I mean, seriously, wouldn't you like to know that that everybody who did the right steps

00:52:53.680 did well? Now, I see some provocative people here asking about IQ. And I know what you're going to

00:53:00.500 say, you're going to say, hey, isn't it just that IQ is predictive? And the answer is not really in the

00:53:07.020 way that you think. It's a popular thing on the right to say, well, isn't it just all IQ? And you know,

00:53:15.140 and the answer is not really, because IQ is highly influenceable. For example, did you know that IQs

00:53:24.760 have been have been going up for decades? Well, how is that possible? How could IQs go up for decades?

00:53:33.980 If IQ is just sort of baked into your DNA, it's not like we're evolving. Are we evolving that quickly?

00:53:40.700 I don't think so. So there is something about the environment that operates with whatever your

00:53:46.960 natural capability is, that is very important. So I don't think, let me extend this further.

00:53:55.820 I've said to you that you should think of your brain to include your body. Because when I,

00:54:01.280 let's say when I'm cycling through ideas for jokes, for example, I feel them in my body,

00:54:07.460 like I laugh or whatever. And that's part of my mental process. So I think of my brain and my body

00:54:12.080 as one unit. Likewise, I think you could extend that, that your brain and your body and your physical

00:54:18.440 surroundings are all part of your brain, or your IQ, if you will. For example, if you spend time in

00:54:25.940 dirty, dingy, poorly lighted areas, how good is your brain? You've probably experienced this,

00:54:34.200 right? You go to a well-lit, happy, bright place where there's no trouble and no physical risk,

00:54:41.860 nothing to worry about. How well does your brain operate? Pretty well. You don't have a problem in

00:54:48.100 the world. I got light. I feel good. I've had a good meal. My brain's good. Now take you, five minutes

00:54:57.300 later, my dog is asleep, barking if you hear some weird sounds over there. Now take you, same person,

00:55:02.740 and put you in a, just a really bad environment. It's depressing. It's scary. You've got anxiety.

00:55:09.400 You've got stress. How does your brain work? Is it good? Just as good as when you were in that

00:55:16.280 other situation? No. Because you should think of your brain and your body and your physical

00:55:21.640 surroundings as your thinking machine. Those are not the same machines. Somebody says nonsense about

00:55:30.440 light and neatness. Whoever says that that's nonsense, you've never had a creative job, I can tell.

00:55:37.000 Anybody who has a creative job will tell you, I think 100% of us will agree, that your physical

00:55:43.460 surroundings and how you manage your physical surroundings just completely change your attitude.

00:55:49.620 Yesterday, I was having a bad day. I was just so depressed, and my energy was just in the basement.

00:55:57.720 I couldn't even work out. I just wasn't happy. I said to myself, how long have I been in this

00:56:05.620 dark house? Because I don't have good light in my house. I thought, what would happen if I just got

00:56:11.320 on my bike and took a ride? I walk outside into my garage, get on my bike, pull it out of the garage,

00:56:18.760 the light hits me, and my attitude changed like that. My entire mental structure just went boom

00:56:29.420 to complete happiness in five seconds of changing my environment. It was actually that quick,

00:56:36.220 and I realized it at the time. Here's what I'm saying. I don't think that IQ is as accurate as

00:56:46.180 you think, but here's my other provocative example. For those of you who are watching,

00:56:52.900 let's say there are two groups. This piece of paper represents any one group. Let's say they're

00:57:00.280 left-handed Elbonians. The bottom of the paper is the lowest IQ of any of them, and then here's the

00:57:08.760 highest IQ of any of them at the top of the paper. Then they're being compared to, let's say,

00:57:13.640 right-handed Elbonians. We'll imagine there are such people. The right-handed Elbonians have a few

00:57:20.180 more geniuses. Here's the piece of paper held up. You can see that one is a little bit higher than

00:57:25.540 the other, but not much. Two, three percent. Let's say two percent. So two percent more geniuses,

00:57:32.060 and maybe two percent fewer people who need, you know, let's say, long-term mental health care.

00:57:39.340 But if you look at these two pieces of paper, even though there's a real difference between the

00:57:44.060 left-handed Elbonians and the right-handed, almost all the people who have regular jobs are the same.

00:57:50.440 In other words, the only differences are at the top and the bottom. Now, the people at the bottom

00:57:57.740 are all the people who can't hold jobs in the first place. Do you compare those to the rest of

00:58:03.700 the people? You know, if some people are literally mentally handicapped, are you just throwing them

00:58:10.100 in the mix and saying, oh, you know, throw them in? That doesn't make sense. You can't count them.

00:58:14.680 That's a special category. And what about the geniuses at the top? I have bad news for you.

00:58:23.960 You're not one of them. And you know what? Neither am I. So what does it mean to you that there exists

00:58:35.300 in one group at the very top some really smart geniuses, and the other group doesn't have as

00:58:41.860 many of them in that category? What does that mean to you? Nothing. Nothing. You're not in that

00:58:48.640 category. It's such a small group of people. They're literally irrelevant to anything. You

00:58:53.440 could just throw that group out of any conversation because they're freaks. They're freaks. The people

00:59:01.420 who are in that top, like, crazy 1% who invent everything that matters, they're not you. What,

00:59:08.440 what? Are you going to take credit for that because you have some DNA in common? How does that help you

00:59:13.760 invent stuff? Nothing. It doesn't help you a bit. So the fact that there is some statistical difference

00:59:20.720 between two groups is so close to irrelevant that I don't think it belongs in the conversation.

00:59:27.440 It just doesn't. You know, the fact that you might luckily be in a group that has a few extra

00:59:34.280 geniuses, if it's, if you're not one of them, it doesn't matter. It doesn't help you a bit.

00:59:42.060 All right. Here's something that should get me canceled. Let's talk about black privilege.

00:59:50.320 Am I canceled yet? Can you hear me? Are you still there? Yes. I'm going to talk about black

00:59:59.220 privilege. The things that black people can enjoy. Now, obviously, there are huge disadvantages.

01:00:09.980 The Black Lives Matter people will give you a list. You've all heard the list. I do not question

01:00:15.700 anything on their list. So it's not about that. I'm just saying, shouldn't we have a complete picture?

01:00:21.600 Is there anything wrong with that? To have a complete picture? So we'll see how far I can move

01:00:27.240 the envelope here, because I'm not going to say anything offensive, nor anything that anybody

01:00:31.340 disagrees with, I think. And I think you'll agree that this belongs in, that there's a real useful

01:00:38.260 reason to include this. All right. Here's some black advantages. Do black people have advantages

01:00:44.660 in college admissions? I think the answer is yes, right? Now, unless that's changed. But my

01:00:52.960 understanding is that black people have an advantage in college admissions. What about

01:00:58.560 college scholarships? Would you have an advantage if you are poor and black versus poor and anything

01:01:05.740 else? And I think the answer is yes, right? Now, again, please fact check this. If any of this

01:01:11.500 is wrong, it's not, I'm not saying it with any bad intentions, you know, and wait for my point

01:01:17.260 before, before you comment. How about this? Do black people have an advantage in getting a job at a big

01:01:25.140 corporation? So a big corporation that would have diversity preferences? If you are a black candidate,

01:01:32.900 and you have the qualifications, and there are lots of other candidates, do you have an advantage that

01:01:42.240 works for you? And the answer is yes, and it's a big one. It's like really big. It's like guaranteed

01:01:47.560 you're going to get the job big. It's not statistically, well, you've got a 2% greater chance.

01:01:53.460 No, you've got the job. If you don't know that, I'm glad I could tell you. So if you're black and

01:02:00.760 you're watching this periscope, did you not know that? That if you work hard in your school,

01:02:10.500 that your odds of getting into college are basically 100%. You know, as long as you've got

01:02:15.560 good enough grades, 100%. And odds of getting a scholarship if you're poor and black, really,

01:02:22.780 really good. Odds of getting a job after college at a really good corporation, let's say an Apple,

01:02:29.200 a Google, a Google, Facebook, you know, a really good job. Do you have an advantage? Yeah, it's pretty

01:02:36.200 much locked in. If you have the right major, if you have the right major and you're black, yeah,

01:02:43.800 you can work at Google if you want to. If you want to. But if you have good grades and you're white,

01:02:50.940 can you necessarily work at Google? Well, obviously, a lot of people do. But not just because you want

01:02:57.520 to. I mean, you got to be, you know, in a very small select group to get a job at a company that's

01:03:04.280 doing that well. So that's an advantage. Here's one that you would not expect. But I assert this to

01:03:12.340 be true. Mentoring. If you ask. Now the if you ask part is the important part of this. Mentoring.

01:03:20.240 If you ask. And I'll tell you my personal story of discrimination and racism to make this point.

01:03:31.000 So because I'm a public figure, and I talk about success, etc. I'm often contacted by people who

01:03:39.440 would like advice or mentoring. When I say often, I mean literally every day. So every day, I'm contacted

01:03:46.680 by people who say, can we get together? Can I talk to you? Can we have a phone call? You know,

01:03:51.220 would you answer some questions, etc.? It's just an ongoing stream of those requests. Now, how many of

01:03:58.180 them come from generic white men? Most of them. Most of them, maybe 95% of the people who would reach out

01:04:11.180 who don't know me already, and just reach out and say, hey, can I get some help, some advice. 95%

01:04:17.080 of them white men. Now, why is that? Probably because I'm a white man. You know, everybody feels

01:04:24.020 more comfortable talking to somebody who's like them. Why would women not reach out for advice

01:04:30.580 from me? Well, maybe they think men don't have the right kind of advice. Maybe women just are more

01:04:36.760 comfortable talking to other women. They don't want to look like they're, you know, interested in

01:04:40.800 you. So they don't want to make that kind of a contact. Who knows? But here's the here's the net

01:04:46.680 result of it. All right. When a woman contacts me for mentoring, it just wants answered to a question

01:04:54.280 pointed in the right direction, that sort of thing. Or a black man or a woman contacts me for mentoring.

01:05:00.120 They go right to the top of the the top of the pile. Every time. Now, am I discriminating? Is that

01:05:08.460 racist of me? Yes, totally, completely racist. It is completely racist that I prioritize black people

01:05:17.380 who contact me higher than white people. Now, it has something to do with the fact that I can feel the

01:05:25.240 unfairness of it. And I'm responding to that, right? There's a deep unfairness that white people do have

01:05:32.740 a bit of a monopoly on sort of just knowing how things work, because there are more of them who

01:05:38.760 have succeeded just as a as a gross number. And if you're in the in the world where people are

01:05:43.980 succeeding, you're just seeing how things work. So white people are just more naturally on average,

01:05:50.040 exposed to good mentoring and advice just by living, because they're around other people who

01:05:55.740 have advice. And they say, Hey, Bob, give me some advice. And it's right there. If you're coming from

01:06:00.580 like, let's say, a situation where there was more poverty, or, or you're just locked into your own

01:06:06.680 social network, and it just isn't, you know, it isn't as, let's say, deep as you want it to be.

01:06:12.360 And you want to get some other mentoring from some generic white people, such as myself. If you contact me,

01:06:19.100 and you're, you're black, you go right to the top of the list. Now, I don't normally admit this.

01:06:26.260 But I'm in in the interest of deepening the conversation. I'll admit it to you now. I

01:06:33.440 absolutely discriminate in favor of black people always have always have this isn't something new.

01:06:39.780 I just wouldn't have told you before. Same with women. If women contact me, I'm more likely to give

01:06:46.860 them advice. Same reason. Now, and by the way, I don't defend this. If you're saying to me, if you're

01:06:56.160 saying to me, but Scott, that's inconsistent. Because why wouldn't you just give advice to anybody who

01:07:02.760 asks for it? And the answer is, I can't defend it. I don't defend it. Somebody in the comments

01:07:10.300 saying, am I the only black person in here? You might be. You might be. No, actually, you would

01:07:18.560 be surprised that the number of black folks following me on Twitter is really going up

01:07:27.100 lately. And I hope for the right reasons. Here's another advantage. All right. So just to put a point

01:07:34.400 on that. If you're black, and you don't know this, white people are more likely to help you than they

01:07:39.940 are to help white people. Let me give you the red pill of red pills for for the one black. Okay, I'm

01:07:46.220 seeing some other some other some black emoji hands going up. So great to have you here. So let me let me

01:07:55.280 say this. If you didn't know it. This is a big red pill. You think that white people are are cruel or

01:08:04.540 uncaring or mean or whatever to black people. You're probably right. Here's the part you didn't

01:08:11.940 know. White people are terrible to white people. Did you know that? Did you know that white people are

01:08:18.240 absolutely terrible to other white people all the time? Of course, we need a reason. I mean, if you do

01:08:24.600 something that makes me want to treat you terrible, I'll do that. How about if there's a choice between

01:08:30.240 something good happens for you and something good happens for me? Well, I might choose me. Because

01:08:36.140 you're all allowed to do that. Oh, I'm looking at looking at all the all of my black followers who are

01:08:44.520 weighing in. That's really good to see that. It's good to see you. All right.

01:08:49.640 Um, so here's another advantage of being black free speech. You don't argue you there's no way

01:09:00.100 you're going to argue with me on this. Black people have free speech in this country. White people do

01:09:06.540 not. I don't want to hear any argument on that. If you don't know that's true. I mean, really know

01:09:14.120 that's true. You haven't been paying attention for a long time. Black people have freedom of speech.

01:09:21.580 And I'm happy for it. I would say women have freedom of speech in general. But white men?

01:09:28.940 Not so much. Not so much. We don't have freedom of speech. Not completely. And then of course,

01:09:37.380 there's, there's always that the weapon, which is if you're black or you're a woman, you always have

01:09:42.120 a weapon to use against white men, which is any accusation, because accusations are all taken

01:09:47.400 seriously. And, and the accusation alone, or the risk of it is a weapon. So even if you have no

01:09:56.440 intention of being that kind of person, and you say to yourself, yeah, I know, I could use that if I,

01:10:01.840 if I wanted to, but that's, that's not my deal. I'm about just earning my own stuff. I'm not about,

01:10:08.820 you know, trying to use some weird legal thing just because I could get away with it.

01:10:12.480 But the fact that it just exists as a weapon does modify other people's behavior, believe me. So it

01:10:21.180 does give you a little extra that you might not be aware of. Now, that said, and let me book bookend this

01:10:28.220 by saying, I'm not, I'm not saying that black people have a better deal than white people in

01:10:34.000 this country. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying, let's have the full conversation. Let's

01:10:39.960 talk about what's good being white. What's good being black? Is there anything that needs to be

01:10:44.860 done about it? Can we just be honest? Can, can, can the white public treat black people with respect

01:10:53.780 for the first time, maybe for the first time? Because in my view, treating anybody with respect,

01:11:00.960 it means you're going to be honest with them, even if it's a little bit hard to hear. If he can't do

01:11:05.780 that, let's not pretend we're, we're showing respect. Respect is you can say what you're thinking,

01:11:12.120 but you don't have bad intentions. Now, I think one of the reasons I can get away with more than you

01:11:17.520 can, and this is a pretty important lesson on communication. People will hear what they think

01:11:25.640 you intend to say. They'll never hear what you say. They can only hear what you intend to say

01:11:30.580 based on their understanding of your intentions and your motivations. I've tried to create a public

01:11:38.140 record that is unambiguous that I have good intentions. How much would I like black people

01:11:44.760 to be more successful in the United States? A lot. Because it's good for me too. How's that not

01:11:50.180 good for me? Right? Of course, I want everybody who's poor to do better. Because if everybody's poor

01:11:56.720 does better, well, then I sell things. There are more people with more money who buy things. How's

01:12:02.140 that not good for me? Of course, I have good intentions. It would be crazy not to, because

01:12:07.660 self-interest is the same direction. All right, different topic. Let's talk about TikTok, the

01:12:14.980 Chinese government spy app, I call it. Hotep Jesus was tweeting yesterday that he noticed that iOS 14,

01:12:27.080 I guess that's the new iOS, the beta detects TikTok was reading data from user clipboards.

01:12:33.500 And then he goes on and says, iOS 14 has a feature which notifies users of this kind of

01:12:40.200 behavior. So apparently the operating system is looking for spyware, if you will. And it found

01:12:47.500 something in TikTok. And TikTok says they will stop the practice. Well, TikTok, why did you start the

01:12:55.960 practice? What was it you were doing that made you need to know the data on a user's clipboard?

01:13:04.440 Can you give us any valid reason why that code existed in the first place? So TikTok has to go.

01:13:14.320 That can't be, in the future, that just can't be an app in the United States. It's too dangerous.

01:13:18.700 Um, here's something fun. So Akira the Don dropped his album, which is, if you're new to this,

01:13:28.280 this will sound like the worst idea in the world when you first hear it.

01:13:33.700 When you actually listen to it, it might feel like the best idea in the world. So keep in mind that how

01:13:40.120 it sounds, like just when it's described to you as a concept, doesn't sound good at all. But you should

01:13:47.180 see the comments and the reviews that this is getting. So Akira the Don produced some music in

01:13:53.340 which, um, he, he's combined, uh, the audio clips from some of my periscopes. Uh, I think mostly the one

01:14:02.160 about the user interface for reality. And he uses my voice and he, he does some minor modifications to

01:14:10.380 it just to clean up the audio. And he puts a musical track below it. And I got to tell you,

01:14:18.860 it's really, really good. All right. Yeah. And he did it with Jordan Peterson and he's done it with,

01:14:25.380 I think he did it with Naval, but he did it with some, some other people who have the same characteristic,

01:14:30.820 which is they talk about philosophical things in public now. So Akira has invented this concept

01:14:38.540 and it is really fresh. Like it feels like a new form of art completely. And it's better than the

01:14:46.700 old forms of art. I actually like it better than any, any popular music that's playing today. Um,

01:14:53.020 so now I may be biased because I'm part of it. Um, Oh, for full disclosure, I'm not part of it

01:15:00.500 financially. So some people ask me, Scott, are you making a profit from this? Because I'm,

01:15:06.680 I've been praising it so much. And the answer is no, I I'm not, I'm not going to ask for any,

01:15:13.420 obviously. Um, so if you wanted to find it, you would Google my name and the user interface for

01:15:21.120 reality and you'd look for it on Spotify and Apple music, but there's a fun thing on here and it's

01:15:27.320 by Akira the Don, a K I R a. So if you Google any of those, it'll pop up. You can also see it in my

01:15:34.040 Twitter feed. Uh, here's the fun part. There's a hook, uh, on there, something that is my voice

01:15:42.440 making a statement that repeats on part of it. And here's the fun part. It's one of those audio

01:15:50.280 illusions. Uh, it's when somebody says, it's just your ego. Now I thought that until I saw the

01:15:56.680 comments because the first thing obviously would be, Oh, it's just because I'm involved. That's why

01:16:02.100 I think it's good. That that's the obvious thing that I thought about myself as well. So I actually

01:16:07.260 asked Akira when I first heard it, I had to actually ask him, are other people having the

01:16:12.720 reaction? I am. And he confirmed it. And then I, and then I checked, um, the comments myself and

01:16:19.720 yeah, it's people are, people are loving it. That is objectively true. You can check yourself. Um,

01:16:26.080 so there's this one statement that sounded to me like if nobody works and it repeats, if nobody works,

01:16:35.120 if nobody works. And I, and I heard it the first time that when I listened to it, I thought,

01:16:40.240 you know, that's weird because I don't remember ever saying that sentence. It's, it's such a unique

01:16:46.340 sentence. And I thought, why, you know, why is it that I would not remember that? And it's clearly

01:16:52.020 me talking. And then I saw the, um, I saw a tweet in which the actual words were in text and it did not

01:17:01.800 say, if nobody works, what it did say is it feels like it works. Now, do those sound the same to you?

01:17:11.580 I will say both sentences. See how different they are. If nobody works compared to it feels like it

01:17:20.820 works. You would never mistake those two sentences. Am I right? You would never mistake them. But like the

01:17:29.480 Laurel and Yanni example, the audio thing, when I, when I didn't know what it was going to be and I

01:17:35.360 heard it, I heard it as clearly as you could hear a word. If nobody works, listen to it over and over

01:17:42.780 again. It was always the same. Once I read it, I went back and said, how could it sound like that

01:17:48.560 when it really says it feels like it works? So I listened to it again and it's very clearly,

01:17:54.720 it feels like it works clear as day. And then I said to myself, what, what's going on here?

01:18:03.960 And then I did this experiment. I played, uh, I repeated in my head the phrase, the wrong phrase,

01:18:11.360 if nobody works. And then I listened to it again. And it is just as clearly obvious that when I'm

01:18:19.820 repeating the priming statement in my head, it sounds exactly like it. And then I can change it

01:18:25.920 in real time. I just go, okay, change the recording in my head to it feels like it works.

01:18:31.840 And the audio changes in real time, instantly to a completely different sentence while you're

01:18:39.600 listening to it. Freaky. Now I, I tweeted this, but I made a hypnotist mistake, which made it not

01:18:50.140 work for most of you. I think a few, a number of people said they also could, uh, could hear the

01:18:56.220 phenomenon, but here's what I did wrong. I primed you by giving you the correct one first. It feels

01:19:03.380 like it works. If you're primed by that, it's hard to get out of it because it's actually the correct

01:19:08.660 one. But if you're primed by the wrong one, as I was accidentally, then you can hear both.

01:19:15.600 So if I had set it up right and primed you right, you would hear both. So try that at home.

01:19:22.060 All right. Uh, and I tweeted it if you want to find it in my Twitter feed. Um, let me give you an

01:19:27.460 update on some of the Twitter, um, Twitter business. So you know that, uh, Carpe Dunctum was, uh,

01:19:36.720 temporarily locked out of his account for DMCA takedown notices. And I have a little more

01:19:42.680 information on that. So DMCA takedown, there's a website you can go to and you can claim that

01:19:48.440 somebody on some platform is using your copyrighted material without permission. Now here's the bad

01:19:55.340 part of the process. The process is automatic, meaning that Twitter doesn't have a choice. If,

01:20:02.600 if the DMCA process is followed, even if it's illegitimate, even if you just say, uh, my name

01:20:11.180 is, uh, Paul McCartney and I'd like them to take my song down. You can make up anything.

01:20:17.480 And the process just doesn't check it. It just says, well, okay, we got a complaint. So we've got

01:20:24.680 to take this down. Now, normally that would apply to only the material, not the person who put it there.

01:20:30.020 So that would not cause their account to be locked. But apparently Twitter has a three and

01:20:36.720 out rule, which Carpe was not aware of. And I've never seen either. I've not seen it in writing.

01:20:44.560 Were any of you aware that if you received three DMCA takedown notices that your account would be

01:20:53.060 locked? Did you know that? How would you know that? How in the world would you know that?

01:20:58.600 All right. Now, actually, some people say yes. I don't know if you're answering that question,

01:21:03.700 though. But here's my point. Um, if somebody, it makes perfect sense to me that Twitter would

01:21:12.380 block somebody who intentionally used copyrighted material three times in a row. I actually agree

01:21:19.200 with that. Don't you? Because if somebody took my, uh, let's say they took the Dilbert cartoon

01:21:25.860 and just started publishing it in Twitter every day. Well, I might complain once, or I might ask

01:21:33.180 them to stop doing that. You know, cause first, the first thing you do is just ask. So the first

01:21:37.800 thing I'd do is say, Hey, you know, I'd like people to go to Dilbert.com because it's advertising

01:21:42.300 supported. Would you mind not putting this on Twitter? Most of the time that works. If they

01:21:48.180 continue to just publish my cartoon in competition with me, by the third time they did it and had it

01:21:54.980 taken down, would I be mad that Twitter said, all right, you're just a bad user. You know, you're not

01:22:01.160 going to follow even by the laws of the United States. Maybe you don't belong on Twitter. Would I

01:22:06.840 be concerned about that? Not that much? Cause that's somebody who violated a rule that should

01:22:12.380 be a rule. They did it three times in a row. They're not going to stop. Okay. So, but what about

01:22:20.740 Carpe Donctum? He produces parodies. A parody is protected. A parody could be a matter of opinion,

01:22:31.220 meaning that if it goes to court, you don't really know which way it goes necessarily. So you've got

01:22:36.060 this big gray area where Twitter is being put in the position of being a stand-in or a proxy for the

01:22:44.620 court because only the court can decide, did Carpe Donctum do something wrong? Do you know? Do you?

01:22:54.780 Do you know if he did something wrong, if he took somebody else's video, made an obvious parody,

01:23:01.000 you know, by changing it in ways that are clearly parody, is that against the law? I don't know.

01:23:09.740 Do you know who else doesn't know? Twitter. It's not their job. They're not the court. In fact,

01:23:15.840 nobody knows until it runs to the court system. So there is something very broken about this process

01:23:21.700 that Carpe Donctum can be taken down just because somebody complained without any, let's say,

01:23:32.540 confirmation that anything was done wrong, right? Don't you have to establish that something was

01:23:39.600 done wrong before you're blocked from Twitter, especially if being on Twitter is your primary

01:23:44.880 occupation as it is for Carpe in a sense. So I would say that that process is completely broken

01:23:54.220 and that Twitter should get out of the business of being the court. They should just get out of the

01:24:00.500 business. If parody is even on the table, they got to let it go. I say. I say they have to let it go.

01:24:08.560 Now, if they need to block the content, that's another conversation because they might need to

01:24:14.640 block the content until it goes to the court system. But blocking the person, blocking the person

01:24:21.400 who may have, who has, let's say there's no, there's no verified evidence that the person did

01:24:29.020 anything wrong. Blocking the person, that's just wrong. Let me, let me state uncategorically,

01:24:35.220 that's a Twitter mistake that just needs to be fixed. Now, I think they are looking at it,

01:24:41.260 actually. So my, my information is that Twitter is aware of this as being a problem that Twitter

01:24:47.620 needs to fix. So we hope that they do, but it hasn't happened yet that I know of. Now let's talk

01:24:54.520 about Rahim Kassim, who also got blocked on Twitter. He had a video that showed the time of death of

01:25:03.140 somebody. So it was the moment of death captured on video. And of course, your first thought is,

01:25:10.780 wait a minute, don't we see that all the time on Twitter? Haven't you seen people at the moment of

01:25:17.340 death, like in the last month, a bunch of times? I mean, George Floyd, I mean, all of the George

01:25:23.060 Floyd videos are the moment of death. So why would Rahim Kassim be singled out for having a moment of

01:25:30.500 death video that he just tweeted? It wasn't his video. It was just, it was just a tweet. And the

01:25:37.200 answer is that the family had asked it to be removed. So apparently the rule is if the family

01:25:43.260 asks for something to be removed, then Twitter will act on it. In the George Floyd case, the family did

01:25:50.140 not ask, because I think they had a larger political benefit. So they wanted that up there.

01:25:56.780 Now, do I disagree that Twitter should take down a video with a showing somebody's death if the

01:26:04.600 family requests it? I do not disagree with that. I think that's perfectly, perfectly reasonable rule

01:26:11.560 that they should take that down. But again, why would you block the person? Why would you block the

01:26:19.760 user? Just block the content? The content is the problem. Do you think that Rahim Kassim

01:26:27.020 wants to hurt somebody's family? I mean, I don't know. I don't know. I haven't read his mind,

01:26:34.360 so I don't know what's in there. But I got to say that blocking people instead of content,

01:26:41.460 there's just no way that that needs to be a long-term solution.

01:26:44.860 But here's a little red pill for you. A lot of people are going to Parler or Parlay. I don't

01:26:51.320 know how you pronounce it. Parler. Sort of a alternate Twitter, if you will. But here's what

01:26:59.900 you're going to run into. The Parler rules, you know, their rules for users are going to be the

01:27:08.680 same. It's going to end up very similar. So the trouble is that, did I say Kassim instead of Kassam?

01:27:17.460 Did I pronounce his name wrong? Somebody's saying I pronounced his name wrong. Probably did.

01:27:25.260 Somebody says Parler is a trap. Well, the trouble is that if you go to Parler, you're going to be

01:27:32.200 all alone with conservatives. Well, what's the point? Did you want a conservative platform?

01:27:39.360 I don't know. You'd just be talking to yourself. So I don't think Parler will ever be a competitor

01:27:45.680 in the sense that both points of view are presented, because people on the left will just stay with

01:27:51.320 Twitter. Why wouldn't they? And you can't really get rid of your Twitter if it has any value to you

01:27:57.860 at all business-wise. You can't really get rid of it. You know, I would have no intention of ever

01:28:04.420 not being on Twitter. It's too important. But in the long run, Parler is going to have exactly the

01:28:10.740 same DMCA problems. They're going to have the same moment of death problems. It's going to end up being

01:28:16.300 exactly like Twitter in the long run. And I think people will figure that out. Maybe not exactly,

01:28:22.300 but there's going to be a lot of the same issues. All right. The thing people would not expect is

01:28:29.400 if there's any algorithmic stuff going on at Twitter, or there are any human moderators who

01:28:37.360 are being biased in their decisions, you would not have that on Parler. But you'd also be talking

01:28:43.040 to yourself, because you're mostly just talking to people who agree with you. So I don't know if

01:28:49.300 we gained anything. But, you know, I always appreciate rebels. So anybody who is rebelliously

01:28:55.060 looking at Parler, I'm emotionally on their side. But I don't know that they're going to get the

01:29:02.740 benefits they want. All right. Let's see what else we got going. I think that's it. We have talked

01:29:09.780 about everything. Did anybody do any research on whether the president who could beat up the other

01:29:16.000 candidate or the candidate or the candidate who could beat up the other candidate usually becomes

01:29:19.860 president? I would like to see that. Probably, it probably only matters from the television age

01:29:28.940 onward, you know, because if you don't have television, maybe you don't care so much about

01:29:33.200 the physicality of it. And certainly if you go back to, you know, anybody in a wheelchair,

01:29:39.440 it doesn't apply. Yeah, Baseman Biden is good, good persuasion.

01:29:50.240 All right. That's all for now. And I will talk to you all tomorrow.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - June 27, 2020

Episode 1040 Scott Adams： What Everyone Gets Wrong About Everything and Who Wins the Presidency

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