Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 1274 Scott Adams： Gamified Democracy, Teachers Unions Unify the Country in a Bad Way, MyPillow Persuasion

00:00:00.000 Hey, everybody. Come on in. Come on in. It's time for Coffee with Scott Adams. Best part

00:00:10.540 of the day. Every time. I'm wearing my comfort blanket today because there's no news anymore,

00:00:22.800 have you noticed? There's a big news desert, but I'm going to make news. I'm going to turn

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00:00:57.340 makes everything better. It will fortify your experience. It's called coffee or a beverage.

00:01:05.000 And it happens now with a simultaneous sip. Go.

00:01:12.020 Yeah. Yeah. I feel that goodness going to every part of my body. And so do you. Well,

00:01:20.380 it was less than a month ago that a number of citizens in this country marched into the capital

00:01:28.460 and tried to fortify the republic. But that didn't go well. And so the people trying to fortify the

00:01:36.600 republic and make sure that we had transparent and fair elections will be rounded up and punished

00:01:43.040 because that's the way we work in this country. Yes, they were trespassing. Yes, they broke some

00:01:48.260 laws. Yeah, the legal system probably does need to do what the legal system does. But why are we

00:01:56.160 calling it a coup instead of a bunch of citizens who tried to fortify, to use the words of the,

00:02:05.000 the words of our leaders? Why don't we spin that as a bunch of citizens who tried to fortify the

00:02:14.860 republic? Because that's exactly what they were trying to do. They weren't trying to destroy America.

00:02:22.200 Were they? Does anybody think that? Does anybody think that the people who marched on Washington

00:02:28.080 said, we're going to destroy this country? Exactly the opposite. It was a whole bunch of people who

00:02:35.160 wanted their country to be strong and fair and transparent. And they marched on Washington.

00:02:42.120 Many of them did bad things. They have to be, they have to deal with that. That's their own problem.

00:02:48.040 But by any objective measure, the people who went to Washington and protested were trying to fortify

00:02:57.700 the existing republic. They were trying to make it work better. Specifically, that's what they were

00:03:03.860 asking for. A better, fairer, more transparent election. And our leaders, who are disreputable,

00:03:11.700 decided that the best way to capture that whole situation was that it was an insurrection.

00:03:21.440 Well, I guess the people who win get to tell you what the history was. So will the history

00:03:27.520 books report that people marched on their capital to fortify the republic? Or will they report

00:03:34.420 that there was a coup attempt? Well, it all looks the same, at least on the surface.

00:03:42.480 The biggest issue in the country, I would say, is schools reopening. Wouldn't you? Because if the

00:03:49.920 schools reopen, then a lot of parents who couldn't maybe work because they got to watch the kids,

00:03:56.640 get to go back to work, get to go back to work, the economy starts working. But of course, there's a big

00:04:01.060 impact, we think, on infections probably will go up if schools reopen. Anything that creates more

00:04:08.840 contact probably increases infections. So it's the biggest, biggest decision in the country. And who gets

00:04:15.600 to make this decision? Well, turns out that the teachers unions have the most power because they can

00:04:24.720 simply say, hey, our teachers are not going to go back to school. And then what do you do? Right? So

00:04:31.580 it's really not up to the country as a whole. It's not up to the government. It's actually up to the

00:04:37.880 teachers unions. So the teachers unions are in charge, for all practical purposes, on the most important

00:04:46.520 question in the country for the governance and health of the future of the United States.

00:04:51.560 the teachers unions get to make this decision, apparently. Now, can you imagine a worse system

00:05:00.060 than to pick some people who, by the nature of a union, their job is to protect their members,

00:05:08.540 even if it costs other people a little bit of whatever. Their intention, their point, the entire

00:05:16.440 purpose is to do what's good for the union. Do they do that? Well, they might, right? If I'm going to be

00:05:25.100 fair, the teachers unions probably do a great job of doing what a union is supposed to do, get good

00:05:32.740 benefits and good treatment for your teachers. Unfortunately, that pits them on the opposite side

00:05:40.120 from the rest of the public. Because the public, be they Republican or be they Democrat, seem to want

00:05:46.960 schools to reopen. But the teachers unions are the obstacle. Now, can we use this issue to unify

00:05:58.160 Democrats? Democrats? Hello? Democrats? Republicans? Is there somebody out there who, for political

00:06:08.460 reasons, thinks schools shouldn't open up pretty quickly? Safely, of course, but quickly? I think we've

00:06:16.520 got, finally, an issue we can unify on. The teachers unions are the biggest source of systemic racism

00:06:23.800 because they're the ones who keep competition away from the school system. Now, without competition,

00:06:30.020 people in bad schools, typically people of color, are going to be in a bad situation and they're going

00:06:36.160 to stay that way because they don't have a school system that can move people out of a bad situation.

00:06:42.400 So, finally, now that Trump is sort of less important to the news cycle, can we finally agree on

00:06:52.060 something? That the teachers unions are the source of all of our problems? Let me give you the good

00:06:57.580 news. In the past just few months, support for school alternatives has gone way up. I think it's

00:07:07.400 like a 10-point increase in the polls. So, we went from a place pre-pandemic where people were kind of

00:07:15.880 sort of okay with the current school system, even though it wasn't perfect. It wasn't a high issue

00:07:22.520 in people's minds, I don't think. It didn't seem like it anyway. But now, because of the teachers

00:07:28.760 unions and the coronavirus and school closing, now it's a big issue. And you're seeing quite a bit of

00:07:35.440 good persuasion toward states that are starting to move legislatively toward funding kids instead of

00:07:44.200 schools. Now, I understand the way that works, and I'll take a fact check on this if I have this

00:07:49.980 wrong, is that the idea is currently the state will give money for schooling to a school. And they'll

00:07:57.140 say, well, you've got X many kids there, so we'll give you this much funding. Then if the kid wanted

00:08:03.040 to go somewhere else, well, he'd have to pay for it himself, or the family would, because the funding

00:08:07.580 stayed with the school. But there are now 17 states that have either already passed or are working on

00:08:15.140 legislation that would say that wherever the kid goes, that's where the funding goes. So if the kid

00:08:20.960 can find another accredited school, could it be private or religious, whatever it is, that the funding

00:08:26.540 would be transferred over to that school, and then you have a competitive situation. What would be the

00:08:32.460 downside of doing that? I can't think of one. It feels like there's no downside. It feels like it's

00:08:38.560 an obvious good idea. Because competition makes everything better. When you don't have it, you have

00:08:45.520 all bad things every time. It's not like sometimes it works. Can you think of the one time that having no

00:08:52.780 competition worked? I can't. You can't think of one example of that, where a lack of competition works in

00:09:01.300 the long run. It's not even a thing. And yet that's the system we have. But now many states are getting

00:09:08.300 on board. It's becoming a thing. Corey DeAngelis, especially, is doing a great job of making sure

00:09:15.600 people understand the issue, which I didn't quite understand. I'm just starting to get up to speed on

00:09:20.680 it. But here's the good news. If this coronavirus turns out to be the final straw that breaks the

00:09:27.860 teachers' unions' control of our schools, the teachers' unions and the teachers who are, you know,

00:09:33.940 brainwashing our kids to make them unproductive citizens, in my opinion, that's exactly what's

00:09:39.180 happening. Teachers are brainwashing kids to make them less productive citizens. I'll say it directly,

00:09:46.540 that's exactly what's happening. So they are the enemy, the teachers' unions. They're the enemy

00:09:52.820 of every person in this country who is not a teacher. They are the enemy. They're not on your

00:10:00.780 side. And they're not supposed to be. And that's okay. The whole point of a union is that they're

00:10:07.820 fighting for their own rights. They're not fighting for your rights. The union isn't fighting for your

00:10:13.520 children. They're not fighting for your family. They're fighting for themselves and should. Nothing

00:10:19.260 wrong with that. But as long as they're fighting for themselves, fuck them. Fuck them. Right? They

00:10:29.000 can fight for themselves. They have every right to do that. I respect it. But fuck them. You can fight

00:10:34.280 for your right too. Do you know what your right is? To lobby your government, get them to change the

00:10:39.740 funding so that the teachers' unions cannot control your kid. Fuck them. They're the enemy.

00:10:46.840 They're the enemy of the country. They just do a good job for their members. And that's something

00:10:54.260 you can respect. But they are your enemy, unless you're a teacher. So don't get that wrong. They're

00:10:59.720 your enemy. They're destroying the fucking country right in front of you by destroying your fucking

00:11:06.420 children's lives right in front of you. And you're fucking letting them do it. They're the enemy.

00:11:13.220 They're the enemy. They're not on your side. They're the fucking enemy.

00:11:20.580 Guess I made my point there. So don't let them fortify your kids, is what I'm saying.

00:11:29.500 If what comes out of this is breaking the teachers' unions and some kind of school choice,

00:11:35.220 it will be one of the greatest things that ever happened in this country. It will be one of the

00:11:40.240 greatest things that ever happened in this country. Because China is going to destroy the United

00:11:47.420 States if our teachers' unions continue to be in charge of the next generation. China will kill us.

00:11:56.300 Literally kill us. They will control space. They'll have better education. Their economies will surge.

00:12:02.880 Ours will not. We're dead. Your teachers' unions will fucking kill you. Because they're making the

00:12:11.700 country uncompetitive with a country that will kill you. Because China will fucking kill you. Not maybe

00:12:18.140 with bombs. But they have no trouble pushing fentanyl and viruses and God knows what in our direction.

00:12:25.080 So they will fucking kill you. If the teachers' unions have their way. All right. What do you call a

00:12:33.840 system of government in which, according to Time Magazine, a well-funded cabal, cabal of people

00:12:41.840 working behind the scenes, were the ones who determined who became president? A well-funded cabal.

00:12:48.460 What the hell is the name of that system? A cabal acrossy? Gamocracy? I think I would call it some

00:12:57.420 kind of a gamocracy. Because the way we determine our government, at least the federal government,

00:13:03.360 is by who can play the game better. The game would be who can do propaganda better. Who can control the

00:13:12.900 media narrative better? Who can control the rulemaking and the rule changes? And who can

00:13:21.820 control, let's say, the courts? Because the courts have a part of it. But there's nothing left of the

00:13:27.560 democracy or the republic. There's just nothing left of it. We simply drifted into a new system

00:13:33.780 in which both sides put their dirtiest players in charge of fighting each other, you know, behind the

00:13:40.640 scenes, under the hood, stuff you don't see. And those people who are battling each other that

00:13:45.440 you don't even know their names. It's lawyers, you know, Mark Elias, people like that. And you don't

00:13:51.500 even know their names. But they're the ones who are battling out with their rule changes and their

00:13:56.760 persuasion and controlling the media. They get to decide who's president. The voters are just sheep

00:14:04.620 who vote whichever way they've been influenced to vote. That's it. So we don't live in anything

00:14:10.540 that should be called a democracy or a republic. Right? And how is it taught in school?

00:14:21.640 I think that's a fair question. Would a kid in school be taught today that we have a republic

00:14:27.520 and that we have some kind of a democratic process within a republic? Is that what we teach the kids?

00:14:34.680 Because it's not happening. You don't live in anything like that. The actual observable country

00:14:40.960 you live in is determined by this game-playing, rule-changing, persuasion stuff behind the screen.

00:14:47.400 It has nothing to do with the voters. The voters are largely irrelevant unless they come with a surprise,

00:14:55.120 you know, like a Trump-like surprise. And you could argue that the reason Trump won is that they played

00:15:01.320 the game better. Right? In the 2016 election, they just played the game better. Trump was a little bit

00:15:08.260 better at getting attention. Allegedly, the data gathering and social media use by the Trump campaign

00:15:17.440 in 2016 was better than the competition. What did that have to do with your vote? Nothing.

00:15:25.120 You were completely irrelevant to any of this. You got persuaded. Rules changed. Data was used. That was

00:15:34.340 the story. All right. Without the Trump common enemy, things are looking interesting. Because as long as

00:15:46.380 Trump is silent, which is exactly his best strategy, so he's playing it exactly right. And he's showing a lot

00:15:53.380 of discipline, by the way. Don't you think ex-President Trump is pretty disciplined in staying out of the

00:16:00.800 news? How hard must that be? It's got to be really hard to stay out of the news. But he's doing it.

00:16:10.680 And I think that takes some discipline. So it must be hard. But because Trump is not there as our common

00:16:17.360 enemy, watching the Lincoln Project fall apart is sort of my new hobby. And so I guess there's another

00:16:26.680 member, a founding member of the Lincoln Project who has quit or couldn't make an agreement, and now

00:16:33.480 they hate each other, and she's leaving. I guess she asked for a raise, the Lincoln Project, people say,

00:16:38.260 was denied. She wanted a lot of money. So watching this group, who, by the way, should form a band.

00:16:49.320 I think the Lincoln Project should form a band. And if they did, it would be called Rick Wilson and

00:16:54.200 the Grifters. Because without Trump, the Lincoln Project is sort of just a bunch of grifters, isn't it?

00:17:03.320 What else are they doing? What's the point of the Lincoln Project after Trump is gone? So now they

00:17:12.020 have this organization that, you know, takes a life of its own, but they don't have anybody to fight

00:17:18.800 because Trump is gone. So they turned on each other because there are a bunch of people who

00:17:25.500 are looking for a fight. So they're just the fighting grifters. So Rick Wilson and the fighting

00:17:32.320 grifters would be the name of their rock band. And let me give you some advice. If you ever join an

00:17:40.140 organization in which you are sometimes considered a clone of Rick Wilson, think twice. Think twice

00:17:49.080 about what organization you want to be in. You don't ever want to be called a clone of Rick Wilson.

00:17:54.460 I'm just saying that that's not a good place to be. All right. Bill Maher made a little news.

00:18:06.000 So as you know, Bill Maher is not a friend of religion. He's a famous non-believer.

00:18:12.020 And he's got a take on QAnon that not everybody's going to like. He equated it to religion, basically.

00:18:24.620 And I'm not going to make the same point that he did. I'm just going to sort of riff off of his point.

00:18:30.940 And his point that people will believe anything, and that can be proven by the fact that they believe

00:18:36.240 in a variety of different religions. So even if one of the religion is right, luckily it's the one

00:18:42.460 you picked. So good work on that. A lot of different religions, but you picked the right one.

00:18:48.980 You could have gone wrong there, but you got the right one. So congratulations on that,

00:18:53.020 every one of you, for picking the right religion when so many got the wrong one.

00:18:57.040 And Bill Maher points out that that is the normal way of human beings. If you're asking yourself,

00:19:06.480 how could people believe in QAnon? You haven't been paying attention. People will believe anything.

00:19:17.240 That's it. People will believe anything. And we do it as almost a lifestyle.

00:19:25.920 We choose a body of things to believe because we think, oh, that's a lifestyle I can be compatible

00:19:33.020 with. I could say that I believe in this or that and wrap my life around that worldview.

00:19:39.900 So we are a people who like to believe. We like to believe. So we're wired that way. But Bill Maher

00:19:46.820 will get in a little bit of heat, as he often does, for equating QAnon with religion.

00:19:52.800 I got a publication from my old undergraduate college. I went to a college called Hartwick

00:20:02.400 College in Oneonta, New York, in upstate New York. And they still, of course, they want their

00:20:09.580 alumni to give them money and stuff. So they keep the alumni connected. And I get this publication

00:20:15.360 once a month or so about how the college is doing. And I hadn't really looked at it in a while.

00:20:22.980 Oh, somebody else from Hartwick? Really? Wayne? Is that true?

00:20:27.460 Thank you. So I get the publication. And I'm looking at it. And oh, my God. I would never

00:20:37.600 give money to this college again. I did in the old days. But I look at the publication, and

00:20:46.160 it is basically anti-white male now. Now, they don't say we don't like adult white men. They

00:20:54.700 don't say that. But if you look at the publication, it's pretty clear that adult white men are not

00:21:01.460 welcome at this college anymore. Nor are attractive people. And by the way, nothing against unattractive

00:21:11.300 people. I'm a proud member of the unattractive people category. But I remember in the old days,

00:21:18.560 you'd see the pictures with lots of happy co-eds. And it would be all these good-looking people.

00:21:24.300 Like they'd be healthy and energetic and good-looking. And now, looks are not the main thing,

00:21:31.640 right? You don't want to be sending out that message that your physical beauty is important.

00:21:37.740 So now the publication is full of smiling pictures of students. But let's say not the ones who exercise

00:21:45.460 and eat right, for example. And I'm looking at this, and I'm thinking, they sort of have to sell

00:21:52.440 their college this way now, because it's the way people expect it, I guess. And it became just this

00:21:59.820 weird caricature of what the college is probably like. Now, unless something's changed, that college

00:22:06.920 is 80% white people. Now, it may have changed. But I don't think so, because it's an expensive

00:22:14.920 private college that mostly New York City are the people who go there. I don't think it changed to

00:22:24.920 80% women and minorities. But if you look at the folder, good luck finding a white man pictured

00:22:34.680 anywhere in the entire folder. Now, there's nothing wrong with, obviously, nothing wrong with them

00:22:42.160 showing the student population as it actually exists. It wouldn't make any sense to show a bunch

00:22:49.020 of good-looking white people in college if they're not representative of the college. That wouldn't

00:22:54.720 make any sense. So of course, they should show the variety of all the people there. But I don't think

00:23:00.920 that's what they did. I have a suspicion that they did not show a representative cross-section

00:23:08.880 of the college. I think they emphasized the 20% of the college that were the ones they thought

00:23:15.880 they could sell the best. So Lou Dobbs lost his job at Fox Business. Apparently, I guess

00:23:23.900 he was the highest-rated show on Fox Business. I didn't know that. What do you think of that?

00:23:32.160 It seems that CNN is taking a lot of scalps. And CNN had a really good year. Apparently,

00:23:38.220 2020 was one of CNN's best years. So they're going to miss Trump, I would think. I can't imagine

00:23:44.760 that CNN still has good ratings after Trump is gone. It must be dropping. But Fox News is trying

00:23:51.500 to figure out who they are. And it looks like they're getting rid of Lou Dobbs. And that was

00:23:56.080 over the election claims. Speaking of election claims, how many of you have seen the very banned,

00:24:05.660 I think it's banned, Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow, how many of you have seen his long-form

00:24:12.500 video where he talks about his allegations of election irregularities? Have you seen it? I almost

00:24:24.620 wasn't going to watch it because it was kind of long. And I thought that I would know what was in

00:24:30.260 it. But what Mike Lindell is most famous for is being the best marketer and salesperson maybe of

00:24:40.240 our generation, right? I don't know, one of the best, let's say. So I thought to myself, what would

00:24:47.900 happen if you took a topic that the public thinks is thoroughly debunked, at least much of the public,

00:24:55.600 half of it anyway, thinks is thoroughly debunked, but you have the most, one of the most persuasive

00:25:02.260 salespeople saying that it isn't, saying the opposite. What would win? So that's what I was

00:25:11.840 watching it for. I wanted to see if Mike Lindell could be so persuasive that he could sell you

00:25:18.560 something. In other words, the story of election irregularities. Could he sell that to you in a

00:25:24.760 persuasive way under the current conditions? And I turned it on, and the first thing I thought was,

00:25:33.980 he's got pretty high production values here. He's got a lot of money. And if I didn't want somebody to

00:25:42.400 be on the other side for me, one of the people I wouldn't want on the other side is Mike Lindell.

00:25:47.720 Because say what you will about him, I know he's got his supporters and his critics, say what you

00:25:54.780 will. The one thing that we could all agree on is the man knows how to put on a show. He knows how to

00:26:01.600 do an infomercial. He knows how to make content. He knows how to be persuasive. He knows how to sell.

00:26:07.320 So he clearly has lots of ability. And so I turned this thing on to see how well he sold it.

00:26:13.400 He starts out with showing long lists of claims, of specific claims of irregularities in the

00:26:21.400 election. I recognized some of the claims as being already debunked. I don't know if the others have

00:26:28.980 been thoroughly debunked or not. But I recognized some of them as being debunked. So right off the

00:26:36.300 bat, I was like, oh, this isn't so good. It is persuasive to see all these allegations.

00:26:43.400 It's a laundry list persuasion. I've told you that the laundry list can be persuasive.

00:26:49.900 And it's hard to argue against the laundry list. So he started with the laundry list. That's good

00:26:54.360 persuasion. But in my specific case, I recognized some things on the list as already debunked.

00:27:00.160 So that worked against his credibility. But if you didn't know those things were debunked,

00:27:05.400 and you just saw the list, you'd say, that's a lot of stuff. It would be persuasive.

00:27:09.960 So then he had on some experts. Dr. Shiva was on there and another computer expert talking about

00:27:18.120 what they'd seen with the computers. Now, here's the thing. You and I don't really have the ability

00:27:26.460 to watch this computer expert guy saying what he was saying, making claims about the election

00:27:32.780 security. Specifically, he was talking about the software hardware component of it. And he had some

00:27:38.660 real specific claims. I can't tell if they're true or not true. But there were really specific claims

00:27:45.760 about a specific program found on a specific device. The program is known to grab your credentials.

00:27:54.220 So it was really specific stuff. Is it true? I don't know. How in the world would you know?

00:28:03.220 Now, the claims, if you just heard them, you know, without any context, if you heard them without

00:28:10.320 hearing anybody with a counterpoint or anybody trying to debunk it, if you're just listening

00:28:15.320 to the expert, he sounded 100% credible. That doesn't mean it's real. But boy, was it credible.

00:28:26.060 I mean, they were very specific claims. And the more specific the claims, the more credible it looks

00:28:35.340 because you can just say to the other side, well, what about this? It's a very specific claim.

00:28:41.340 Is this piece of malware on that piece of hardware, like they said, or not?

00:28:47.460 So here was my takeaway. I don't have any way to know what's true and what's not true in terms of

00:28:58.540 election claims. I've told you before that at a minimum, at a minimum, 95% of all the claims of

00:29:05.780 election fraud will in fact be garbage. In other words, they will not be credible claims. They will

00:29:13.820 be easily debunked. So if you're looking at any specific thing in that Mike Lindell thing,

00:29:19.540 at least 95% chance that every one of them is not true. But is it also true that there was nothing

00:29:27.440 on that entire presentation that would not be found to be true if you looked into it?

00:29:33.400 That I don't know. But I will tell you that it didn't look crazy.

00:29:37.620 Didn't look crazy. And he presented it well. So we'll see if he can make a dent. I would hate to

00:29:45.480 have Mike Lindell on the other side from me on anything, because he's pretty darn good at this

00:29:51.200 stuff. Now, I hope he didn't destroy his whole company with this. He might have. He might have

00:29:56.280 actually destroyed his whole MyPillow empire. But I like that people like him exist. You know?

00:30:04.180 If the people who are trying to debunk Mike Lindell have trouble doing it, that's okay,

00:30:12.700 isn't it? If it's hard to debunk him, that's okay, because that's the system we have. You want people

00:30:21.820 who are fighting it out in public for, you know, on opinion stuff, and then the public watches and

00:30:27.280 says, okay, you know, who won that battle? And watching Mike Lindell go to battle against the

00:30:33.300 entire mainstream narrative is a lot closer to a fair fight than you think. You know, I can't think

00:30:41.640 of too many other people who could have made this a fair fight. Trump is one of them, of course. But

00:30:48.120 Mike Lindell might be one of the people who could make this a fair fight. Now, his trouble, of course,

00:30:53.600 is that he'll just be closed out from the conversation. You know, he's getting canceled all over

00:30:59.120 social media. So just to be clear, so I don't get canceled. I have no, I have no, no reason to

00:31:07.340 believe any specific claims on the video are true. I wouldn't know. I'm just telling you that if you

00:31:14.840 watch it, you're going to feel they're true, even if they're not, because it's persuasive. All right.

00:31:22.120 Are we in this weird point in America, where everybody knows that there was not transparency

00:31:33.460 about the software and hardware that ran the entire voting system? Nobody thinks there was

00:31:40.720 transparency. But it's the one situation in which we've decided to accept that it's a system that

00:31:48.780 could be hacked, but wasn't. Isn't that weird? What is it? What is it about us? Besides cognitive

00:31:56.500 dissonance and confirmation bias, I guess that explains it all. How is it that an intelligent,

00:32:02.820 let's say an intelligent Democrat, they exist, stop, stop making jokes, they exist. Let's say an

00:32:10.640 intelligent Democrat. And you say, look, just privately, just the two of us, nobody else is going to see

00:32:17.300 this conversation. But just us, just the two of us. Nobody will know what we say. Do you really

00:32:24.500 believe that there is such a thing as a hardware and software system that can't be hacked? Now, I

00:32:31.680 think an intelligent Democrat would say, well, no, there's no system that can't be hacked. Because

00:32:39.220 all you would need is to bribe a human who has control of the system, right? So as long as you can

00:32:44.360 bribe human beings, and you know you can do that, you can bribe them, you can blackmail them, you can

00:32:49.340 coerce them, that will never change. Humans can always be bribed. So as long as that's true, you can

00:32:55.600 get into any system. Because it just requires somebody on the inside to let you in. And if you

00:33:01.980 have access to the internet, you don't even need that, right? You can just hack your way in. But would

00:33:06.480 there be any Democrat who would say, yes, it's a real thing, you can develop a system that can't be

00:33:14.460 hacked, even if you got some human being blackmailed and on your side? Even then you would catch it as

00:33:22.700 soon as it happened. Would a Democrat say that? Because I don't think you could find any, not one,

00:33:30.020 intelligent Democrat who in a private conversation would say to you, yeah, I think you can totally

00:33:36.580 protect a hardware and software system. Yeah, we can do that. That's the thing. That's the thing we

00:33:41.840 can do. And if you can't, if we know you can't, because every system in the world can be hacked,

00:33:50.880 why would this be different? Why do we feel that it wasn't? What would be the argument for

00:33:57.080 it could be done, but it wasn't? Why wouldn't it be? With all the people who have the maximum

00:34:05.640 capability, you know, state actors and, you know, rich people who would take a bribe to do this kind

00:34:11.560 of work, right? Rich hackers. Or a hacker who would take a bribe to do this kind of thing from rich people.

00:34:17.200 So why wouldn't it be hacked? What would be the argument that by now, because a lot of time has gone

00:34:25.980 by with these systems out there, people would have, you know, presumably at least tried to hack them.

00:34:31.680 Why, why would this be the one thing that wasn't hacked when it's the thing that people would most

00:34:37.640 want to hack? So it's the most valuable thing you could ever hack, except maybe a bank, I suppose.

00:34:45.940 And this is the one that didn't get hacked? The one that's most valuable to hack?

00:34:50.580 I guess it's possible. But it seems to me obvious, at this point, that the people in charge,

00:35:00.240 roughly speaking, the people in charge of our government, don't seem to be interested in

00:35:06.660 election transparency. It doesn't seem like anybody's interested. Because I think they like

00:35:12.880 the under the hood game, where the operatives and the persuaders and the dirty tricksters are the

00:35:19.360 ones who are making things happen. I feel as if both Republicans and Democrats, maybe like the

00:35:26.200 dirty trick, gamocracy and fixing it and turning it into an actual democratic republic, maybe it looks

00:35:35.440 worse. Maybe that looks worse than the current system to them. All right. Somebody says, Shiva has the

00:35:45.580 evidence. Well, I would caution you all with the following. If the smartest person in the world,

00:35:52.100 who is very qualified, says to you, I have the evidence and it's right here. What would you say

00:36:00.140 about that? Assuming that the claim is, I don't know if you would call it an extraordinary claim,

00:36:07.740 but it would be, let's say, a big claim. It would be a big claim that proof of election

00:36:15.780 fraud was, you know, attainable and somebody had it in their hands and could show it to you.

00:36:21.620 How would you know what you were seeing? I wouldn't. There's nothing that anybody could

00:36:27.240 show me about the election that would make me say, oh, there's proof. Nothing. Because what would

00:36:34.080 you show me? You would show me a printout of a log of the data and maybe how it changed. But I wouldn't

00:36:41.420 know why it changed or if this were, if you got this from the right place or if you edited it after

00:36:47.040 you downloaded it or who are you. There is no way that you could convince me that the election was

00:36:55.180 either fixed or not fixed. It just can't happen. There's no way you can convince me either one is

00:37:01.320 true. Because I wouldn't know what I was looking at. You can't prove something didn't happen by

00:37:07.340 simply not finding it, right? So I could never be convinced there was no fraud just because nobody

00:37:14.080 found it. That doesn't make sense. The only thing you know is nobody found it or nobody proved it.

00:37:20.340 Let's say nobody proved it in court. That doesn't mean it's not there. And if somebody found it or said

00:37:26.900 they found it and handed to you, private citizen, a whole bunch of really solid looking information

00:37:32.720 and it was in a big binder and it had sources and, you know, statistics and smart people had looked at

00:37:40.060 it and they said it looked pretty good, what would you know if you had that in your hand and you could

00:37:46.680 read it? Nothing. You would know nothing. There is no way to communicate this information

00:37:55.280 because we don't trust anyone and what they show us we wouldn't understand because we'd be seeing it

00:38:01.480 in a context. We might think we understood. That's the dangerous part. We might get it and say, well,

00:38:06.680 this is pretty obvious. It says this was done. Here's the witness. I guess it was done.

00:38:12.980 But how accurate are witnesses? Really, really inaccurate. There's nothing less accurate than an

00:38:19.620 eyewitness. They're terrible. And we have, you know, tons of history to know that an eyewitness is

00:38:25.520 really unreliable, really unreliable. I have some direct experience with that. When I was a bank

00:38:32.480 teller, I got robbed at gunpoint and the description that I gave of the robber wasn't even close. And I

00:38:40.340 know that because I saw on video later what the actual robber looked like because I could watch him

00:38:45.480 robbing me on video. And I didn't describe him even close. Not even, I think I had to age off by 30

00:38:54.080 years, the hair color, everything. Just all wrong. Very normal. Eyewitness reports of anything are just

00:39:02.260 almost, you know, close to useless because they're so unreliable. So there you are. There's nothing that

00:39:11.800 your government could do or will do that would make you feel comfortable with any of this because

00:39:17.360 you won't understand what you're seeing. President Biden has said that China, who you might think

00:39:27.380 is a big problem for the future of the country, is, what do you call it? He said it was our biggest

00:39:36.180 competitor. That's right. So the country that the United States has said is involved in genocide

00:39:45.260 against the Uyghurs, like right now, they're involved at the moment with genocide for an entire ethnic

00:39:53.760 group in their country. And Biden's characterizing of China is their biggest competitor.

00:40:01.480 competitor? What, are we trying to kill the Uyghurs too? What are we competing for? I don't believe we

00:40:11.900 were trying to kill an ethnic group. So we're not in that competition. I think they're alone in that

00:40:18.080 competition. And when it comes to the economy, competitor is sort of underselling what's going on.

00:40:27.640 If they're stealing your stuff, it's more like you're the victim. So it's more like an abuser

00:40:33.900 victim situation where we're the victim in the United States and China's the abuser. That's not so

00:40:40.880 much your best competitor. If you were bullied in school and a bully beat you up every day and took

00:40:47.940 your lunch money, do you go home to your mom and say, I tell you, I've got a pretty big competitor

00:40:54.440 at school. And your mom says, what are you competing at? Well, I'm competing to try to keep my lunch money.

00:41:02.620 Not doing well so far. I'm competing to try to not get beat up every day at lunch. But I'm not doing that

00:41:10.080 too well either. But it's my biggest competition. You wouldn't call them competition. You would have other

00:41:18.440 words for it. Now, if Biden is doing what Trump was doing, which is praising a dictator to try to

00:41:26.380 create a situation where you can negotiate productively and negotiate hard, well, that would

00:41:32.580 be okay. So if the next thing you heard is that Biden was speaking nice about China, but the policies

00:41:40.920 were really hard-ass, for example, Biden just sent a heavy-armed cruiser, I think, through the

00:41:47.980 straits between Taiwan and mainland China, which is a provocative military thing to do. So that's good.

00:41:56.800 So score one point for Joe Biden. And whether you hate it or not, I am going to credit Joe Biden for

00:42:05.200 anything that looks like it was well done. I think sending the heavy cruiser into those

00:42:11.000 semi-disputed waters was well done. Show of force. So I'll give him the compliment. That was probably

00:42:18.320 just right. And if you see him being friendly the way he talks about China, but he keeps doing that

00:42:26.660 kind of stuff, it's like, well, China is just our competitor. Hey, we're going to send a heavy

00:42:32.160 cruiser through your disputed waters. That's okay. Talking nice and dealing very hard, totally okay.

00:42:42.200 That would be a Trump style of business, actually. So that part I'm not going to complain about.

00:42:53.120 So will the U.S. defend Taiwan when the Chinese attack them? I don't think the Chinese will attack.

00:42:58.900 I think that they have a very long view of things. And in the long run, they think that Taiwan, one way or

00:43:05.780 another, will get back under the full mainland Chinese control. So I think it's like Hong Kong.

00:43:13.960 They're just going to wait as long as it takes. Yeah, I do think they'll take over one day, but it'll

00:43:19.780 probably be through bribes or something. Do other Muslims care about the Uyghurs, you ask? Well, I guess

00:43:32.720 you'd have to ask them. Has Biden been on Marine One? I don't know what you mean by that. Did you see

00:43:42.800 the Uyghur lady interview? I saw the highlights from it. It was pretty rugged. Now, should you believe

00:43:50.760 everything that you hear from a Uyghur refugee who says what's happening there? I would say that would

00:43:58.680 be unreliable source, a direct eyewitness. Because think about it. If you were a member of the Uyghur

00:44:08.860 population, and you knew that you were being put in concentration camps by the Chinese government,

00:44:15.300 and you got free, wouldn't you exaggerate a little bit how bad it was? I mean, it's really bad

00:44:24.580 just by itself. But wouldn't you add a little bit, add a little bit of a kicker, make the torture sound

00:44:32.300 a little worse, the rape a little more common than it really is? You would. You would if you were

00:44:38.840 smart. And I have no reason to think that that lady was dumb. So I would expect any normal person

00:44:45.600 in that situation to exaggerate what was going on. But even if you exaggerated it, whatever it is,

00:44:54.700 is still a genocide, right? So it's not like there are good genocides and bad ones.

00:44:59.520 I guess you could make the argument. But it doesn't make the genocide not happen,

00:45:05.500 even if anybody was exaggerating about the specifics. The genocide is happening. It's a real thing.

00:45:13.420 And somebody's saying it's much worse than we imagine. It could be. Yeah, I think the odds of

00:45:18.100 it being worse than we imagine are pretty high. Pretty high, like 90% high.

00:45:23.140 You're asking me a provocative question, and you know the answer, and I'm not going to give it to

00:45:34.560 you. Do you believe China and the media? Why would I? Why would I believe China or the media?

00:45:41.980 Of course not. Exaggerating like AOC in the Capitol riot. Yeah, you know, AOC is just Trump-lite.

00:45:49.260 So she had some hyperbole there about her Capitol experience. To me, it's the smallest story in the

00:45:57.640 country, but we ran out of Trump things to talk about. I don't think AOC, you know, sure,

00:46:06.740 she exaggerated maybe how close she was to the action, but it's only for AOC to say how scared she was.

00:46:13.180 So if she was really scared, and if she described it accurately, that's her feeling to have. It's not

00:46:22.460 us to say, you should not have been scared. I mean, maybe you could say you wouldn't have been

00:46:30.140 scared, but you can't tell her how scared she can be. That's not your job.

00:46:34.420 Somebody says AOC is a nut job. I don't think so. I'll tell you, if you're looking at AOC and saying

00:46:47.400 that she doesn't have capability, you are so wrong. She has a lot of capability. You could not like her

00:46:56.700 policies, but a lot of capability, and she's definitely not crazy. Scott, you have lost it

00:47:08.640 completely. Scott, you lost it completely, says Aaron before being blocked. Hide user on this channel.

00:47:20.420 Goodbye. So just a reminder, any kind of disagreement is welcome, but statements about me,

00:47:37.160 you get blocked. So you could say your fact is wrong, or your thinking about it is wrong,

00:47:45.680 but if you just say, Scott, you've lost it. Scott, you're wrong, then you just get blocked.

00:47:55.400 Read the Time Magazine article, yeah, about how the election was rigged by the cabal of well-funded

00:48:01.480 people. I don't read that story the same way a lot of you read it. So the Time Magazine article that

00:48:09.020 admitted there was this cabal of well-funded people who allegedly caused the election

00:48:15.640 now come by their behind-the-scenes machinations with the rule changes, etc., and the persuasion

00:48:22.700 and the media manipulation and all that. But none of it was illegal, right? There's nothing

00:48:29.920 claimed in that Time article that anybody did anything illegal. They just used the rules as they exist,

00:48:36.740 same way Trump used them to surprisingly win in 2016. So you can say, I hate living in a country

00:48:44.580 where that's the way elections are decided. But those are the rules. People played within the

00:48:51.720 rules and got a good result for their team. I don't know, I can't be mad at that.

00:49:03.140 Scott has early onset dementia. You know, one of the interesting things about aging is what your brain does.

00:49:14.580 You know, watching your own brain develop. And there's no doubt if you were to measure the,

00:49:21.580 let's say, the quickness of my mind or the ability to learn a new thing, it wouldn't be close to what

00:49:27.840 it was in my 20s, right? In my 20s, I was just a machine. I could absorb, you know, entire fields of

00:49:35.020 content, you know, like a vacuum cleaner. But at my current age, I assume my brain is not as nimble as it used

00:49:44.160 to be. But that's largely compensated for it by my skill stack improving every year. So every time I have a new

00:49:51.440 skill or a new filter or a new way of looking at something, that more than compensates, it feels like. It feels like it

00:49:59.880 does. But that could be an illusion. But it feels like it more than compensates for what I'm losing in

00:50:04.920 nimbleness and, you know, just mental, let's say, firepower.

00:50:13.660 Short-term working memory does decline, somebody says.

00:50:16.600 Yeah. So my mind is not as nimble, but it has a much better skill stack. And I feel as though it's

00:50:26.880 working the best it's ever worked, if you include all the ins and outs. So do I have dementia? I don't

00:50:33.840 know. And user says, your wife is beautiful. True. Fact check. True. My wife is beautiful.

00:50:46.600 Have you all made your Valentine's Day plans? Make your plans now. Make it good. Might not

00:50:55.840 have a restaurant to go to. All right. That's all for now. I will talk to you. Oh, Bitcoin's

00:51:01.840 on fire? That's good. And I'll talk to you tomorrow. Studying to be a CPA at age 57. Good

00:51:14.020 for you. You're saying AOC's entire account of what happened was a lie. You know, what's the

00:51:28.340 difference between a lie and hyperbole? You could say they're the same thing. But I spent four years

00:51:36.240 saying that Trump's hyperbole should be obvious to anybody who's watching it. And therefore, it's not

00:51:42.340 it's not like a lie, because you know hyperbole when you see it. I feel as if I should make the

00:51:48.480 same argument with AOC. When she tells a personal story like that, should your brain say, oh, she's

00:51:56.300 trying to tell you exactly the way it happened? Or should your brain say, oh, I get it. It's

00:52:00.820 hyperbole. This is what she does. She's good at it. And it's, you know, the general truth

00:52:07.040 of it is true. So with the capital thing, she may have been, let's say, inaccurate on

00:52:16.240 the facts, or left out some facts that you think are important. But was it directionally

00:52:23.160 wrong? I think directionally, it was true. Directionally, she was one of a number of people

00:52:32.100 were scared during the whatever that was, the fortification of the republic. It was

00:52:40.320 her story to tell. I think if you put a filter on it and say she's a politician, so dial it

00:52:45.600 down a little bit to understand what really happened, you're fine. We can all live with

00:52:51.580 a little AOC hyperbole. We all lived with a little Trump hyperbole. It didn't hurt us.

00:52:56.580 Or maybe it did. I don't know. Maybe it hurt him for reelection. All right, that's all I

00:53:05.820 got. And I'll talk to you later.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - February 06, 2021

Episode 1274 Scott Adams： Gamified Democracy, Teachers Unions Unify the Country in a Bad Way, MyPillow Persuasion

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