Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 1055 Scott Adams： Face Masks, Boycotts, Secret Trump Supporters, Why Everything Will Turn Out Fine

00:00:00.000 Bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum hey everybody

00:00:09.100 come on in it's time for a coffee with Scott Adams and you found it will it be yet again

00:00:18.920 the best part of the day for you well you're on a really good record the streak the streak

00:00:26.040 is unbroken every time you do the simultaneous sip it's just a great day why don't we try

00:00:33.920 it again just for scientific reasons and all you need is a cup or a mug or a glass of tank

00:00:39.400 or chalice or stein a canteen jug or flask a vessel of any kind fill it with your favorite

00:00:45.680 liquid I like coffee and join me now for the dopamine hit of the day the thing that makes

00:00:52.800 everything better including coronaviruses economies oh you name it it's all better take a sip with me go

00:01:01.180 I have a sort of a personal challenge with myself to see how many times I could read the the sip thing

00:01:16.320 where I say a cup or a mug or a glass before I can actually remember it I'm seeing if I can memorize

00:01:22.780 it without attempting to memorize it in other words I'll just read it every day and so far I've been

00:01:29.940 reading it for what two years and I could not come close to doing it without without reading it a cup

00:01:37.760 or a mug or a glass all right um here's what's happening today let me start by saying here's why

00:01:47.540 the world is not going to end may I explain to you why things seem dire but indeed are not very dire at

00:01:57.260 all in fact we probably have never been safer or more stable that seems exactly the opposite of what

00:02:04.580 you see right here's why it looks different to you and why you'll be fine number one keep in mind that

00:02:13.140 everything you see in the news is attenuated to get your your brain chemistry to catch it on fire

00:02:20.540 that's how they make money by getting you excited and clicking and talking about stuff so the first

00:02:27.300 thing you need to know is that the news reports an exaggerated version of reality because that's their

00:02:33.700 business model so the first thing you do is say all right it's not all of that it's it's something

00:02:39.480 less than whatever I'm reading on television that's your first context the second piece of context is

00:02:45.800 um some of you might know I I got married yesterday and I was talking with a few people uh afterwards

00:02:55.300 and I asked this question in a very it was a very small group wedding as you might imagine and I asked

00:03:02.560 some people all right if you were alive during the 60s in other words if you're a certain age or above

00:03:09.440 does today look especially scary compared to the 60s and the only ones of us who would remember the

00:03:16.620 60s said the same thing no it just looks like the 60s everything will be fine so the one thing you don't

00:03:24.280 know if you're youngish is that this just looks a lot like something that's happened before

00:03:29.720 that also didn't ruin the country in fact the the so-called hippies who were protesting against

00:03:37.340 the government are now literally part of the government they're they're in congress and

00:03:43.700 everything worked out fine so that's the second piece of context

00:03:48.180 the uh the next thing you need to not worry about is the protesters themselves

00:03:55.500 so you saw that the looting and the protests and the violence and it looked like it was all going

00:04:01.120 to be the joker movie all over again here's why it's not number one the news exaggerated all of the

00:04:10.320 problems that caused the riots would it be fair to say that the fake news caused the protests i would

00:04:18.820 say so i would say it's not it's not police violence that caused it because the data on police violence

00:04:26.080 just doesn't show the problem that they're protesting even if even if the data did show

00:04:33.880 that the black lives matter protests were based on data it would still be their smallest problem

00:04:40.580 do you get that if everything they believed about the police killing black people if it were all true

00:04:48.260 and statistically it's just not if it were true it would still be their smallest problem

00:04:55.760 and if you don't get that they're making the biggest protests and making the most noise about

00:05:04.080 their smallest problem then you don't really understand what's going on because they're not

00:05:09.320 really complaining about the problem there's got to be a bigger agenda or some people are just

00:05:15.120 worked up by the news some people believe that there is a real problem it's probably a variety

00:05:20.940 of reasons but here's the thing that's important and this this will scare you at the same time it

00:05:28.540 might relax you so you're going to have both feelings here it comes have you noticed that the news on both

00:05:35.880 the left and the right stopped covering the protests meaning that they don't really show video night

00:05:43.280 after night of protesters and they could because if you're on social media you know that the protests

00:05:49.880 are happening they're happening i think every night and they're happening in multiple places

00:05:55.640 do you see coverage of it anymore no you don't why ask yourself why there's a big domestic news story i mean

00:06:07.400 as big as big as it could be it's a big big big domestic story why why is it not being covered at

00:06:14.660 least visually and video wise from either the left or the right why is that let me tell you the answer

00:06:23.940 the answer is that the news industry collectively for whatever reason i don't know if the government

00:06:30.340 talked to them that's possible the government might have said you know if you if you just cover it

00:06:36.740 differently you could tamp down the temperature and that would be helpful that's possible but i don't

00:06:42.080 think so because i can't see cnn and msnbc doing anything that the administration wants even if they

00:06:49.540 had a good reason i think they would just say now we're the news we'll do what we want to do freedom

00:06:53.720 of speech freedom of the press we don't take our instructions from the administration so it seems to

00:07:00.080 me that both the left and right for different reasons perhaps have decided to make the protests go

00:07:06.560 away and they can do it do you know how they do it by not covering it if the news doesn't cover the

00:07:15.820 protests or just sort of references them without without wall-to-wall video coverage of bad behavior

00:07:23.040 and good behavior if they don't cover it it's going to kind of go away because the point of the protests

00:07:31.680 protests are attention and if the news media decides collectively to remove attention it's going to

00:07:38.160 drain the energy out of it so uh you've got a few things going one is that there was a lot of energy

00:07:45.260 built up because of the shutdown and there were not many alternative uses for your time so i would have

00:07:53.200 to assume that some percentage of the protesters and probably a pretty big percentage maybe a third

00:08:00.560 wouldn't have been able to do what they did if they had to get up and go to a job in the morning or

00:08:06.380 you know they were otherwise in school or occupied in some other way so it's probably at least one third

00:08:12.920 bigger than it would be just because people are not busy it's probably another third bigger than it

00:08:18.980 needs to be just because there was a lot of energy built up and finally the weather was good and it

00:08:24.880 was something to do and there's probably about a third of the energy the other the last third is

00:08:31.340 because the fake news created something out of nothing and got people all worked up and now it seems

00:08:38.260 that the fake news has decided that it really messed up my suspicion is that cnn and msnbc you know that

00:08:46.480 the left-leaning news realizes that the longer the protests go on the better it is for trump

00:08:52.920 now you could you could debate that i think it would be fair to debate it because even trump supporters

00:08:59.880 say things such as hey he's not doing enough why doesn't he do more but that's really easy to frame

00:09:07.560 that away and there's plenty of time before the election the president could simply say and it would

00:09:13.000 be straight up correct you just couldn't argue with the facts i have offered all of the resources and

00:09:21.500 military whatever you need you just had to say yes it's the mayor's decision they just had to say yes

00:09:30.380 and we can stop the violence tomorrow from the federal with the federal resources so i think that it would

00:09:37.160 be really easy for the president to say you see all these protests that are scaring you to death and

00:09:42.340 ruining the economy that's what you get if biden is elected and i would have stopped it if these

00:09:50.780 democrat mayors had not allowed me had allowed me to do it so then here's the last part that i think

00:09:59.120 is the most important part there's always this feeling of a slippery slope if things are going in

00:10:04.560 one direction they'll just keep going until you know there's destruction but have you noticed that

00:10:10.480 the protests have just stopped cold at the suburbs oh they tried they tried right there was a there

00:10:18.660 was a little bit of attempt to move the protests into the suburbs how'd that work out well the first

00:10:25.660 thing the first problem is it's not interesting it is not interesting to have a protest in the suburbs

00:10:33.000 it's just not interesting it's not interesting visually it's not interesting for the protesters

00:10:38.600 but here's the worst problem if they start protesting uh individuals homes like the mccloskeys the

00:10:47.420 couple they had the guns and there was a warrant for their i guess there was a warrant out for them i

00:10:52.280 guess so uh that's a separate story that i i think they're being treated probably unfairly but we'll see

00:11:00.560 um i don't think that this can spread to residential areas outside of the city because number one they're

00:11:11.320 armed to the teeth number two it looks really different doesn't it just think how you'd imagine it if you

00:11:19.840 see protesters knocking a uh a storefront window down here's the calculation you do in your head well they've got

00:11:29.580 insurance right well they got insurance it's a business you don't feel the same about a business

00:11:35.980 even though every business has real people behind it who are really losing a lot but it still seems like

00:11:42.580 a a property crime like you you think of it more that way than you do about the the people who are

00:11:48.600 involved you think to yourself well they could probably get other jobs etc um but if you saw like we did

00:11:56.260 a crowd around the mccloskeys house which wasn't the best example because they had sort of a mansion

00:12:02.960 so that they don't quite get the sympathy that you would get if you were just a normal suburban home

00:12:08.740 but if you saw protests assaulting a normal suburban home let's say just because they had a trump sign

00:12:16.500 in the lawn just to pick an example if you saw that that would be the end of the protests

00:12:22.660 so there is a natural limit to how far they can go and they've already reached it uh in terms of you

00:12:30.500 know not moving into the suburbs they really can't the suburbs are too well armed too willing to use them

00:12:37.940 and there would be too much sympathy for the for the civilians in this case

00:12:43.460 um so don't worry so much i don't think that there's anything that could make our current protest

00:12:50.180 situations uh any worse than the 60s and the country literally just shrugged it off if you didn't

00:12:58.500 live through the 60s you don't know how pervasive it was it was just protest protest protest the

00:13:04.500 government is evil must be replaced and the country shrugged it off this is like that the protests anyway

00:13:15.380 the country will actually just shrug it off and i would say also that if we had not had that weird

00:13:20.660 coincidence that you had to wear a mask because of coronavirus at the same time the protesters

00:13:28.180 wanted to wear some masks if you know what i mean so except for that little weird coincidence

00:13:34.180 which won't last forever i mean masks won't last forever uh so the protests will die out they have a

00:13:40.020 natural life and i think that it's already on the on the downside um big news president trump wore a

00:13:48.740 mask to visit walter reid and the press pool got some good video of it now if you haven't seen the

00:13:54.500 video or the photographs it's really kind of it's the most awesomely scary looking thing you've ever seen

00:14:00.820 in your life it makes you glad they're on our side because the president is at walter reid

00:14:06.260 it's a it's a military hospital and he's got the it looks like the top generals and admirals behind

00:14:12.740 him and they've all got these dark united states masks that frankly look pretty cool uh the and when

00:14:20.420 you see them walking it looks like a movie it just looks like a movie set i mean it looks like the

00:14:25.540 coolest movie that you haven't yet seen now one of the things that the president said that everybody

00:14:31.460 laughed at was he had when he was talking about masks some time ago he said that when he tried one

00:14:37.060 on that people told him he looked good in his mask now when you heard that you laughed right it's like

00:14:42.660 okay that's just that's such a typical trumpism that people tell me i look better in my mask it's just so

00:14:50.580 perfectly what he would say but then i saw him in his mask he actually looks good that that's actually

00:14:58.980 literally true that the bat that the mask as a as a fashion look it actually made him look powerful

00:15:09.220 uh made him look younger right because if you hide this part of your face you look younger if you have

00:15:16.900 hair he has hair so so he looked younger he looked more powerful he looked you looked uh i guess powerful

00:15:24.420 i would just use that word twice because that's what it looked like it was super powerful look

00:15:29.460 especially with the generals behind him so uh there'll be a lot of jabbering about that now at the same

00:15:36.260 time uh do you know tom fitton from uh judicial watch you see him a lot on fox news etc and he had this

00:15:45.380 tweet which i take objection to he said again there's no science to support wearing a mask outside of a

00:15:53.220 health care setting right now i'm going to talk about the exact wording of this so let me read it

00:15:59.940 again so this is tom fitton you know him from tv you know that he's an attorney so that's the first

00:16:06.980 thing to keep in mind that attorneys are very careful with language somewhat automatically right so here he

00:16:14.660 is being careful with his language because he can and you know he has those skills and he says again

00:16:20.740 there's no science to support wearing a mask outside of a health care setting is that true

00:16:29.060 let me see in the comments how many of you think that's true that there's no science to support

00:16:35.860 wearing a mask outside of a health care setting how many say that is true

00:16:41.620 because it's a very lawyerly thing to say because i don't believe there's science that has directly

00:16:52.100 tested the coronavirus in the united states with a variety of masks so i'm sitting i'm seeing a number

00:16:59.780 of people saying it's true so i think it's uh i believe that it's technically true i won't even say

00:17:06.900 technically true it's true that science has not done a gold standard set of tests clinical trials

00:17:15.940 with controls and um and peer review and then have people repeat the study to to get to the point of

00:17:24.260 knowledge so tom fitton is completely correct if this is what he means that it has not been demonstrated

00:17:33.060 to the highest level of scientific scrutiny everybody agrees with that right now but the way he says it

00:17:43.300 there's no science to support wearing the mask outside of health care to which i say what does it mean

00:17:51.380 that there's no science to support it i will give you the following um analogy now i told you that

00:18:00.740 that analogies do not persuade but they can they can they can introduce an idea very effectively

00:18:09.940 so the next thing i say will not be persuasion i'm just describing an idea using an analogy

00:18:16.740 so yesterday uh somebody said to me a a let's say a mask skeptic said to me yesterday you know scientists

00:18:25.700 say they're wearing uh especially these cloth masks the ones that are not the hospital grade

00:18:32.020 he said that uh using those cloth masks to stop a virus which is so small would be like using a chain

00:18:40.980 link fence to stop a flea and i thought that's a really good analogy right because you can see the

00:18:49.220 chain link fence if you're looking at it it's mostly open holes like that the amount of space that's

00:18:55.220 covered by you know one of the wires in the chain link fence is very small compared to the total mask

00:19:01.460 so that flea goes right through it so that's a pretty good point right if the virus is that small and science

00:19:09.460 confirms we do know that how small the virus is we do know how many openings there are in a cloth mask

00:19:17.460 and you do know that the virus is much smaller than those big old openings in that mask

00:19:24.900 so that's all you need to know right so here's how i answered it i said but you know the virus doesn't

00:19:32.980 travel on its own the the virus travels on your uh the water droplets that come out of your mouth

00:19:41.780 you all know that's true right it's not like you're shooting viruses out of your mouth you're

00:19:49.300 shooting uh moisture out of your mouth and in riding on that moisture can be viruses so here's what i said

00:19:57.460 to the flea and the chain link no it's more like this there is a flea and there is a chain link fence

00:20:06.420 that part of your analogy is correct but the flea is on a dog and the dog can't get through the fence

00:20:15.540 and the flea isn't going to leave the dog in my analogy right the dog can bump against that fence

00:20:21.060 as many times as it wants in this case the dog is the water droplet if the water droplet can't get

00:20:27.460 through and the virus is on the water droplet it's at least going to slow it down right now there may

00:20:35.140 be other considerations as well but the basic idea is that the people who think that masks are not

00:20:43.060 supported by science well i would say that those facts alone support it by science now is that a

00:20:51.940 judgment call that did would you agree with me that this statement is true that if science tells us

00:20:59.780 the the masks have these big holes the virus is so small it'll go through but it has to ride on a

00:21:06.900 water droplet which is too big to get through the mask in a in an efficient way obviously some of it can

00:21:13.060 come out around the sides but it doesn't project as far now everything i just said is from science

00:21:19.140 right science has told us it travels on the water droplet all everything i just said would you say

00:21:26.740 that that therefore the science doesn't support using masks well it doesn't prove it it doesn't prove

00:21:36.660 it but does it support it so what i said to tom fitton's comment is that if if science doesn't

00:21:45.060 prove it either way science isn't helping right science doesn't tell you it doesn't work science

00:21:51.940 doesn't tell you it does work science does tell you there are really good reasons to suspect it might

00:22:00.020 now if science can't tell you yes or no but it does tell you quite clearly we don't know but given

00:22:07.940 these variables it certainly seems like it should make a difference and on top of that nearly universal

00:22:16.500 medical professional agreement that yes we don't have scientific proof but what we do know strongly

00:22:24.820 suggests it should make a difference especially there seems to be some evidence that countries that use

00:22:31.300 masks more are getting a better result so i think is really dangerous for a lawyer to speak in lawyerly

00:22:41.060 terms about medical things because it could easily lead you in the wrong direction to make a decision

00:22:46.740 about yourself even if the lawyer is completely correct so that's that's the danger of lawyers talking about

00:22:54.980 medical stuff because lawyers know how to say things that are completely correct but might not be the

00:23:01.700 thing you need to hear right so i'm very concerned about uh that kind of a message because i think people

00:23:10.020 read it as as masks don't work and this sentence does not say that let me read it again again there's no

00:23:18.420 science to support wearing a mask outside of the health care setting true in terms of confirmed you know

00:23:28.420 studies that can be repeated but very unuseful for risk management president uh it has apparently

00:23:37.300 said to i don't tell the mundo or somebody that he is preparing an executive order on daca that's daca is

00:23:44.420 the people who came here as children most of them are older now but they they've lived and grown

00:23:51.140 up as americans but just not technically legally so that's you know one of several immigration related

00:23:58.100 topics is how do you deal with that group the president is is hinting that he's going to have some kind

00:24:03.460 of a path to citizenship now here's the interesting thing about that probably most people agree that they

00:24:10.580 should have a path to citizenship probably i mean there's there are probably enough republicans who

00:24:18.100 say yeah you know if they grew up here you can't you can't penalize a child who was brought here as a

00:24:24.100 child i mean it just doesn't seem it violates our sense of right and wrong but at the same token you

00:24:30.580 don't want to create a precedent because if you reward people from coming for coming into the country

00:24:36.580 illegally as rega did when he had some kind of an amnesty you get more of it we know that there's

00:24:43.060 no doubt about it but of course if you didn't have a border fence you'd get more of it anyway i suppose

00:24:48.820 um here's what we don't know about that we don't know if the president is going to put some kind of

00:24:57.860 conditions on these that are not obvious so for example and this is not based on any inside

00:25:05.780 knowledge or anything i'm just going to toss this out to keep you open-minded until we know what that's

00:25:11.220 about suppose the president said yes i would like to make them all citizens with a special i'm not sure

00:25:19.060 if this is legal but with some kind of a special requirement that they not have voting rights for

00:25:26.100 five years or something yeah i don't know is that even legal could he do that might be unconstitutional

00:25:35.220 or let's say that he says the executive order is that daca can be a path to citizenship

00:25:42.900 only under the following conditions let me say this suppose he said daca is approved under the

00:25:51.620 following conditions that the border the border wall is funded he could do that right an executive

00:25:59.620 order correct me if i'm wrong can an executive order not have a condition built into it such that he would

00:26:06.820 say daca path to citizenship totally approved under this one condition and what is that one condition

00:26:16.820 i'm just speaking hypothetically suppose he said the condition is we have to have a functioning border

00:26:23.540 wall or it has to be funded to build the border wall how would you feel then because he wouldn't be

00:26:31.460 saying that they have a path he'd be saying they have a path if this other thing happens because you don't

00:26:37.700 want to have a condition where you you incentivize people to come in illegally if you don't have a way to

00:26:44.100 stop it from happening in the future such as a wall now i don't know that the president has some kind

00:26:50.020 of a plan like that where there's a condition in it or a poison pill it could be a trick it could be

00:26:56.660 something he's put a poison pill in it so the democrats will reject it and then he can say when you just

00:27:02.500 as he's running for president hey you know you rejected my daca plan so we don't know what he's up to

00:27:10.180 but i feel like there's going to be a surprise in that somewhere

00:27:16.900 there's a video that i think came from january in which biden when he was still running he's running

00:27:22.580 for president and in january and he was talking to an audience and i couldn't believe my ears

00:27:30.660 because i thought what year did this happen and then you see the biden for president signs and i'm

00:27:35.540 thinking this happened this year biden said this this year and he didn't get canceled and what he

00:27:44.420 was saying to the what looked like mostly white audience he said our culture is not imported from

00:27:49.940 some african nation they went on to say that our culture is not supported doesn't come from some asian

00:27:56.980 nation it's a it's a european culture and i thought to myself if a republican said that that would be the

00:28:04.820 end of their career and i look at this and i think do we just ignore this because the whole point is

00:28:12.740 that culture is sort of a code word for racists right oh you say culture but you really mean brown

00:28:20.980 people don't you i mean really don't you that's what people say about the republicans and i would say

00:28:27.220 having met lots of republicans that that they have a variety of reasons just like any big group they

00:28:33.460 have a variety of reasons why they would want uh immigration halted but uh a lot more of it has

00:28:41.140 to do with culture than it has to do with ethnicity there's some small people a small percentage of

00:28:47.220 people who do care about ethnicity and immigration but most people as far as i can tell you know i'm not

00:28:55.700 i'm not a republican but i talked to a lot of them it does seem like they're mostly just interested in the

00:29:00.900 culture part so they they wouldn't care so much where you came from as long as when you got here

00:29:06.340 you played by the same rules and didn't want to turn it into sharia law or whatever whatever else

00:29:12.980 so the fact that biden doesn't get canceled for that is just mind-boggling like there's just no

00:29:18.020 way a republican could have said those same words uh fascinating uh boris johnson has announced

00:29:25.860 that they're looking for data scientists to run a uk government analysis unit what that's right so

00:29:35.700 johnson is setting up some kind of a they refer to it as like a skunk works so it looks like it's not

00:29:41.700 clear if it'll be part of the government or a quasi part of the government or an independent entity that

00:29:47.860 advises the government but it'll have some independence whatever independence you get as

00:29:54.420 a quote skunk works uh and apparently it's to put people who know how to look at data in one place

00:30:03.220 so that you can get government decisions that are backed by people who know how to look at data

00:30:09.780 now how important would that be in the united states well we just had this whole conversation about masks

00:30:15.460 wouldn't you like the data organization of the united states to say okay okay you're all arguing

00:30:21.460 about whether masks work here's the analysis this is the best we know and wouldn't you like to have

00:30:28.340 seen that all the way through the coronavirus situation you'd like to know that if somebody

00:30:34.100 asserted a fact or a statistic that there was some other skunk works who'd said oh hold on

00:30:40.740 just a minute i don't think you're quite looking at that right because you're forgetting this you

00:30:45.940 forgot that now at the moment it feels like there are some individuals doing that on twitter in the

00:30:52.340 united states you know uh nate silver for example you'll see him weighing in on on that sort of thing

00:31:00.900 but uh as some people noticed yeah and i see you some people noting in the comments that just days

00:31:11.780 ago i had suggested that the united states needs exactly this now i refer to it as maybe it needs to

00:31:18.260 be a cabinet position but that wasn't an important part it just needs to be an entity of people who know

00:31:24.980 how to analyze things because the public does not but the worst situation is that the public

00:31:31.060 doesn't know how to analyze things but they think they do that's the problem if the public knew they

00:31:38.820 didn't know how to analyze things correctly it wouldn't be that much of a problem they'd say well

00:31:43.940 i don't know i can't tell what's going on it's the fact they're so certain and certain in different

00:31:50.660 directions that causes all our problems all right so uh yes you're wondering if the uk watches my

00:31:57.540 uh periscopes because it would be a gigantic coincidence but could be a coincidence if i had

00:32:04.900 to guess you know pretty high chances just a coincidence um but what are the odds that i would

00:32:11.700 suggest this exact idea like a week before it appears in the paper that the uk is thinking of this idea

00:32:18.260 could it be could it be that someone has watched this periscope um i do have i do have reason to

00:32:28.260 believe that the government of the uk or at least some members of it do watch this periscope so i don't

00:32:35.380 know if that's where the idea came from but i do know there's a connection uh robert muller wrote an op-ed

00:32:41.700 no he didn't

00:32:46.500 that's what the news is trying to tell you there's a there's an op-ed with robert muller's name on it

00:32:52.340 so it's being reported that robert muller wrote an op-ed no he didn't i don't know who wrote it

00:33:00.340 i don't know who wrote it but we saw robert muller testifying he's not writing any he's not writing any

00:33:08.020 op-eds all right i mean i don't want to be unkind but we saw him operating he's not sitting down and

00:33:16.340 writing any op-eds that's just i just don't believe that's happening so somebody wrote an op-ed and

00:33:22.500 asked him to sign it um here's one of the just i don't really know what to say about this uh every

00:33:32.020 now and then you'll see a pundit uh with an opinion that's so mind-blowingly

00:33:39.380 i don't know i'll just tell you what it is and you can make up your own mind

00:33:43.060 so this is a journalist writer uh charles below who i believe is a new york times guy now i've been

00:33:52.340 following him for a long time you know he's often appears on tv as a pundit etc and he has some of the

00:33:59.300 worst takes i've ever seen fairly consistently if you want like a bad take on something well he's your

00:34:07.540 guy uh but this one is just wow and he was tweeting today or maybe it was yesterday that uh cancel culture

00:34:16.740 doesn't exist that's right a major writer for the new york times is tweeting in all capitals the cancel

00:34:26.820 culture does not exist what he says is that no no no it's not cancel culture it's just um you know

00:34:35.780 well-off people who don't want to be criticized does that take sound like the world you live in

00:34:44.740 where cancel culture doesn't actually exist it's simply that if you do something bad in public

00:34:52.500 and people decide to punish you for it by not shopping or not voting for you or whatever

00:34:58.420 that there's nothing there's nothing to note there that's just the way the world works if you do bad

00:35:04.100 things and people know it consequences will happen so what do you think of his brilliant take the cancel

00:35:12.020 culture doesn't work because if people do real problems and they get called out for it well that's

00:35:17.700 the way it's supposed to work right well as i tweeted this morning pretty much i think every time that

00:35:28.820 somebody tried to cancel me and been quite a few times over the years that you know mobs online mobs have

00:35:35.780 come after me every time it was a misinterpretation of something i said not sometimes not once

00:35:44.340 every time a hundred percent of the time that people have come after me is for one of these

00:35:51.060 two things i misinterpreted something you said often because somebody else misinterpreted it and they

00:35:58.020 only read the misinterpretation so it's either a misinterpretation of something i said that i

00:36:03.140 wouldn't be canceled for if it was correctly understood or simpler for being associated with

00:36:10.500 saying good things about president trump that's it so those are the two things that people have

00:36:17.140 consistently tried to cancel me for including yesterday i'm not talking about some like historical

00:36:23.380 thing i'm talking about yesterday somebody tweeted that maybe nobody should read dilbert books no

00:36:31.060 actually i take that back i said it happened once yesterday i think it happened more like three or

00:36:36.580 four times yesterday just to me and i'm not talking about three or four movements but rather three or

00:36:42.820 four public individuals on twitter suggested in public that people boycott me now what did i do

00:36:54.020 to earn a boycott was it my bad behavior no no it wasn't my bad behavior it was misinterpreting what i'm

00:37:03.380 saying and just being associated with liking one of the political uh one of the political candidates

00:37:10.740 liking not everything that he does i'm very clear about that i don't like everything trump does and

00:37:17.940 everything he might ever do in the future i like certain things he does especially in the persuasion

00:37:22.980 realm so i'm getting i'm on the i'm not on the edge of cancellation every day and it has nothing to do

00:37:30.500 with me bad behavior nothing in fact i don't even have a motive for bad behavior like everything that

00:37:37.940 i've been trying to do publicly for the last several years is only has the purpose of being a public

00:37:43.940 good because that's sort of the only way i get a payoff my only way i get a payoff is if i can produce

00:37:50.340 a public good i don't really have a business model where making people angry or unhappy or worse off

00:37:56.340 somehow makes money or yeah how would that work i don't even know how you do that so and then as was

00:38:04.180 said in the comments the ceo of goya foods what exactly was his criminal act that caused the boycott

00:38:11.620 what exactly did he do wrong charles blow besides be polite and considerate to the president of the

00:38:19.220 united states while he had been invited to the white house if you can't be polite to the president

00:38:27.860 of the united states no matter the party when you're on the white house grounds and you've been invited

00:38:35.620 come on that charles blow would say that guy should get canceled and boycotted i'm assuming boycotting and

00:38:42.740 canceling are sort of in the same same family really will he be okay with that now the great

00:38:49.940 thing of course most of you know is that the goya products have sold out in a lot of grocery stores

00:38:55.860 have you seen the photos there you'll see just a big empty shelf where all the goya products are

00:39:02.020 now i too the next time i go to the store will look for them i don't i've literally didn't know they

00:39:07.140 existed but now it's one of the most famous brands in the country isn't that cool how do you like the

00:39:13.140 fact that goya was sort of a i don't know a specialty brand a week ago and now it's a now it's a national

00:39:22.740 brand international i'd say now what the conservatives have done for goya which is support basically just

00:39:32.580 support somebody who supported the president even though it's somebody who would have supported obama

00:39:38.660 and i think did in terms of being polite and you know just being a good citizen etc so we love the

00:39:45.460 ceo of goya foods but you can't always rescue people unless they happen to be a ceo of a company that

00:39:52.820 makes a product that you might want to buy so it's a very it was a special case where the public could weigh in

00:39:59.700 directly and fix it but if let's say if uh some individual loses their job well what can you do

00:40:07.940 about that and i'm wondering if so there there are two ways to fight cancel culture and i you know

00:40:14.820 nothing lasts forever so even the cancel culture will transform to some other some other thing

00:40:20.580 eventually but while we're dealing with it it seems there are two ways to go one one is to cancel back

00:40:28.180 as hard as you can until you have a mutually assured destruction but that's not ideal right if you

00:40:36.180 could have some other better way than mutually assured destruction that would be preferred maybe

00:40:43.220 maybe the other way is that anybody who gets canceled gets rich suppose you did that suppose getting

00:40:50.820 canceled made you rich um or at least better off so let's say if it's an individual who loses their job

00:41:00.020 the conservatives immediately contact that person if they're in the area and say hey put in your

00:41:05.540 resume i'd like i'd like to take a look so suppose you could get a promotion or at least you know a good

00:41:13.700 other job if you got canceled if you make products maybe you could sell more of them or you could become

00:41:19.140 more famous um so i would look for look for increasing ways that people who are unfairly canceled

00:41:28.740 could come out ahead and then canceling canceling doesn't work after that you know the goya situation

00:41:35.380 has got to put in the minds of the cancelers wait a minute i wasn't planning on making goya rich

00:41:41.700 that wasn't the plan i saw that robert reich was reich was in favor of the boycott of goya

00:41:50.420 and i thought what the hell happened to that guy how could you be an economist

00:41:57.140 like a public economist meaning that you have a public let's say interest and and influence upon

00:42:05.300 how can you be you know an economist and ever be in favor of a boycott of an american

00:42:11.460 company because of the political just normal political leaning of the ceo

00:42:19.300 how in the world can you justify that as an economist it just feels crazy but maybe there's

00:42:26.020 some argument there um so let's see i did a little uh online poll and i asked uh for trump supporters

00:42:38.900 only i said have they ever lied about their support of the president either a direct lie or a lie by

00:42:46.340 omission and last i checked there were hundreds and hundreds of responses and approximately last i checked

00:42:54.020 in fact sixty percent of the people answering said that they had lied about their support of the

00:42:59.060 president now that could be a lie by omission you know they just stay silent during the conversation

00:43:05.940 or whatever but let me ask you this do you think you've ever seen a number like that before

00:43:13.140 sixty percent of the supporters of a sitting president are unwilling to say it even to co-workers

00:43:19.540 have you ever seen anything like that before uh what are the odds that the polls are correct

00:43:28.100 i feel very low you know and the setup here seems unmistakable

00:43:34.500 um if it turns out that this is another 2016 and that there were really a lot of hidden trump supporters

00:43:43.220 which i believe is a certainty we don't know how big it is but it's a certainty that it exists

00:43:49.860 i would say just to put some numbers on it um you know if the polls are let's say i don't know 12

00:43:58.100 points apart now or 10 points apart biden is leading trump on a national basis i would say that you could

00:44:06.740 guarantee that at least two percent or or you know two basis points of the 10 points you could guarantee

00:44:15.300 that at least two of the 10 are because people are lying but it could be a lot more it could be

00:44:24.180 a lot more now keep in mind that if there's a 10 point just just think about this there's a 10 point

00:44:30.660 difference between biden and trump how much does trump have to make up to be tied is it 10 points

00:44:41.460 no it's not trump only has to make up half the difference because if half of the people go from

00:44:50.100 biden to trump he's tied if he gets half of them right did i do that right i'm not saying that wrong am i

00:44:58.100 so it looks like there's this big difference difference but i would say he only needs to close

00:45:04.180 the gap of maybe five and two or three is just already in his pocket he's probably two points away from

00:45:13.140 a lead or something like that so my guess is he's a little bit behind nationally uh it only matters

00:45:22.100 what the battleground states are i don't know if he's a little bit behind battles battleground states

00:45:27.060 a little harder to tell but i feel like it's really close is my guess and there's a lot of time to go

00:45:35.940 all right um amazon had this weird situation yesterday i think it was where they put out a

00:45:44.500 company-wide memo and then they retracted it saying it was put out in error now ask me who would put out

00:45:54.100 this particular message in error like it's a weird error and and the the message that was in error

00:46:02.340 was that uh employees of amazon needed to take the tick tock app off their phones uh but they could

00:46:10.740 still use it on other devices and then they withdrew that now the the reason for that was that tick tock

00:46:18.740 is chinese company the chinese government has a back door to it of course which means that they

00:46:24.100 could use it to massively spy and or collect data about americans and we assume that they are

00:46:31.220 um why did amazon have that company memo and then pull it back without much explanation

00:46:40.420 here's what i think i don't know this for sure just to guess i think it's a certainty that our

00:46:50.020 government will ban tick tock in this country wouldn't you say because india has already done it

00:46:56.660 and nobody is arguing that india got it wrong right i don't believe there's anybody except baby

00:47:02.580 china who is saying india india how could you be so racist to block a chinese app that was doing

00:47:11.060 nothing to nobody nobody's saying that right unless i'm missing it but i believe everybody just said

00:47:19.140 well it's about time yeah that was exactly the right thing to do so if you're amazon do you think

00:47:24.580 you already have some insight where the u.s government is going to go and i think the answer

00:47:30.340 is yeah you probably have some insight on that there's probably somebody involved with amazon who

00:47:36.900 is also involved with the government decision about tick tock almost certainly it's a small world in the

00:47:44.180 you know at that level of knowledge because you'd have to be technically and security wise i mean

00:47:50.980 you'd have to have a lot of knowledge to be to really weigh in on on tick tock at a technical

00:47:56.740 level amazon might just know more than we do they just might maybe they were just trying to get ahead

00:48:03.380 of it all right um and that is about what i have for you i will i'll give you a little update so i did get

00:48:13.620 married yesterday uh to the lovely and beautiful christina now christina adams and i gotta tell you

00:48:23.780 getting married in the age of coronavirus is really complicated it's really complicated even even little

00:48:31.700 stuff like getting a marriage license not so easy when the places are closed so there are a lot of steps

00:48:39.860 uh that uh i'll tell you your government does not make it easy to do anything anyway um just looking

00:48:50.900 at your uh your comments uh so navarro is on maria bartiroma discussing it somebody says

00:49:03.300 india and china just had a border battle yeah i don't think that's going to get out of control

00:49:07.620 i think the border battles between india and china are two countries that know they can't have

00:49:13.140 a war they just can't you know india and china just can't have a war and they know it so i wouldn't

00:49:20.180 be surprised if you have infinite you know skirmishes but full-out war i don't think i don't see it

00:49:28.020 couldn't vpns get around the block it's a good question if you had a vpn on your phone could you use

00:49:34.100 the tick tock app uh anyway maybe i don't know thank you to all of you who are giving congratulations

00:49:46.500 uh yeah tucker carlson's head writer was fired for for some comments he made uh you know and i i made

00:49:54.900 this i think i'm gonna have to go ahead and write up the digital bill of rights but one of one of the

00:50:00.980 items on the so-called digital bill of rights that i've proposed should exist but doesn't exist

00:50:08.020 would be that you could not lose your job or get cancelled for something you did in an anonymous

00:50:15.620 account that later got uncovered because the things that people say uh anonymously are closer to the

00:50:24.420 the things they might say behind closed doors which are almost you know almost universally

00:50:31.380 inappropriate in public so if you're the one who took the context into the wrong context

00:50:38.180 i think the person who uncovers that has to take the responsibility and i'm not saying that therefore

00:50:44.980 i'm not making any comment about tucker's writer so this isn't about any individual i'm saying that as a

00:50:51.140 general statement you should be allowed to say awful things in private you should be allowed to say

00:50:59.860 awful things under an anonymous account as long as you mean them you know it could be a joke that would

00:51:06.500 be fine too as long as you're someplace where anonymous accounts are okay you know it's an acceptable

00:51:12.740 standard i think the people should have the right to act uh grotesquely in private

00:51:19.220 argument while not being grotesque in any kind of professional or public way and that it should be

00:51:26.660 fine the the myth that i i do not accept do not accept is that there are some people who don't say bad

00:51:37.540 things in private i just don't accept that i believe that everybody's got some bad thoughts that if you dug

00:51:46.740 down a little bit you'd find something you didn't like one of the reasons that i object strenuously

00:51:55.060 to canceling people just by association hey you took a picture with this person so you're cancelled

00:52:01.780 or you're in the same group with this person so you're cancelled or you talk to them or you supported

00:52:07.620 them on this one issue so you're cancelled there's nothing more important than allowing people to have

00:52:14.980 whatever associations they want because the assumption about the association is somehow

00:52:20.900 somehow you pick up all the bad qualities of the person you're with it doesn't work that way

00:52:27.540 if i spend time with a bad person am i likely to become more bad or is the other person likely to become

00:52:35.460 more good right i'd like to think that that i have a good influence on people as opposed to them turning

00:52:44.500 me to the dark side which hasn't happened yet so yeah yeah like pierre delecto um

00:52:54.580 i think that as long as anonymous accounts are a thing in other words uh let me say it this way as long as

00:53:01.860 there can be anonymous accounts as long as it's a thing and society agrees it can be a thing you

00:53:08.420 should never be able to be cancelled if you get uncovered in your personal your private account it

00:53:14.740 just shouldn't be a thing all right do i support fakery uh i don't think it's fakery to have a uh anonymous

00:53:23.140 account because you're being clear about what you're doing in a sense um

00:53:34.020 so everyone will have an anonymous account yeah i mean that doesn't change the fact that platforms

00:53:39.700 still have standards so if you're an anonymous account and you say something terrible twitter can

00:53:44.900 still kick you off i don't have a big problem with that if it's if it's so bad you know there's some some

00:53:51.060 limit all right um will we see more of beautiful christina someone asks um you just might well if

00:54:04.580 you if you mean more of her she might be making some more piano videos for example uh she's got her

00:54:11.380 chopin pretty much nailed now which is pretty hard if you if anybody's a musician you know how hard that

00:54:18.660 is all right that's enough for now and i will talk to you tomorrow

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - July 12, 2020

Episode 1055 Scott Adams： Face Masks, Boycotts, Secret Trump Supporters, Why Everything Will Turn Out Fine

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