Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 1333 Scott Adams： Bad Day for China, Gaetz Stuff, and More

00:00:00.000 Hey, everybody. Come on in. It's a holiday weekend, and I've got to check the answer

00:00:11.400 to a question I just asked. We'll get to that in a minute. Yeah, I was almost 30 seconds

00:00:24.440 late, and I know that's distressing for many of you, because when you're waiting for the

00:00:29.080 simultaneous sip, any delay is just unconscionable, isn't it? Seems this light is making me look

00:00:38.360 bad. Yeah, turns out it was just the light. Otherwise, I look great. Why do I look like

00:00:44.640 I'm lit up like a light bulb? All right, well, let's get to it. You know, if you'd like to enjoy

00:00:50.900 this better than, well, better than everybody else is enjoying anything right now, all you need is a

00:00:57.460 cup or a mug or a glass, a tank or chalice or stye, a canteen jug, a flask, a vessel of any kind,

00:01:03.140 filling with your favorite liquid. I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of

00:01:10.200 the dopamine hit of the day. The thing that makes everything better. Watch it. It's called

00:01:14.860 the simultaneous sip, and here it comes. So I told you that because Periscope was shutting down and

00:01:26.360 I was going to look at some other platforms, I checked out Rumble yesterday, and my understanding

00:01:33.000 is they do not have live streaming yet, but they plan to have it. Is that true? Because I looked at

00:01:40.240 their interface, both on mobile and browser, and did not see any feature which would allow me to

00:01:47.280 live cast. So it won't happen on Rumble right away. I also tried that HAPS TV, H-A-P-P-S dot TV,

00:01:59.420 and when I tried live streaming to Twitch and YouTube at the same time, just as a test,

00:02:05.980 it didn't have the performance I needed at high quality. So I think there might be a performance

00:02:12.580 issue if you go to high quality, and I don't want to step down the quality just to use that tool.

00:02:21.820 So the current situation is there is no sufficient alternative to YouTube at the moment.

00:02:31.000 The locals platform will have one at some point, and I'll let you know about that.

00:02:35.980 All right, here's what's going on. I was wondering how bad the COVID situation is

00:02:44.900 in terms of your real life. So forget about the statistics. How much of it is affecting,

00:02:52.660 like the actual infections are affecting your real life? And so I asked a highly unscientific poll

00:02:58.920 on Twitter, and 21% of you who answered my highly unscientific poll, 21% of you say you know

00:03:07.720 somebody that has COVID right now. It's like right now, you know somebody who has COVID. And I asked

00:03:15.420 that question because I don't know anybody who has it. And I haven't heard of anybody, even indirectly,

00:03:20.700 you know, a real person. I haven't even heard of anybody in about a week. And I wondered if that

00:03:26.800 meant anything. But so many people have responded and say they do know somebody, they have it themselves,

00:03:33.840 their spouse has it. So there's a ton of people, a ton of people who know somebody who has it. But

00:03:39.820 what's interesting is that 79% of the people who answered the poll said they don't even know

00:03:45.580 anybody who had it in the last week. Don't even know anybody. And the ones who said they do know

00:03:52.080 somebody in the last week, given the way people answer questions on Twitter, how many of them answered

00:03:58.180 the right question? You can tell by the answers, that something like a third of the people who read

00:04:04.380 the question, didn't understand the question and answered the wrong question. A lot of them answered

00:04:09.260 that they had once had it, or they knew somebody who had it long ago, or somebody died with it. And that

00:04:14.520 wasn't the question. So I'm thinking something, I'll bet the 21% is closer to 10%. So something like 10%

00:04:22.840 of the respondents, again, highly unscientific, even know somebody who hasn't. But it's still plenty.

00:04:29.820 So we still have a problem. There's an interesting thing developing that I feel sometimes when you

00:04:38.700 have an understanding of persuasion, you can kind of see around corners a little bit. You know what's

00:04:44.680 behind the corner before you look, just because you know how things work. And there's a thing

00:04:49.980 happening that some major corporations are bluntering into that they do not see coming. But I think I

00:04:57.580 see it clearly coming. And I'm going to describe it to you. And most of you have endured my lessons

00:05:04.420 on persuasion. And I want to see if you see it too. And it goes like this. So we've got our Fortune 500

00:05:12.280 companies, your Coca-Cola's and your Deltas, saying that Georgia is a bad state, and maybe they should 0.84

00:05:21.400 not do business with Georgia, or they have some issues with Georgia, because of Georgia's changes

00:05:29.820 to their voting rules, which put Georgia from the bottom, near the bottom of the list of election

00:05:38.700 security, according to third parties who look at this stuff. So Georgia went from the least, one of

00:05:44.820 the least secure voting systems, to finally up in, you know, the middle of the pack with these latest

00:05:52.360 changes. But of course, that looks like Jim Crow racism to people on the left. And I have to be honest,

00:06:01.220 it's both. It's both, isn't it? You know, the way we argue is that there's only one right side and the other

00:06:08.700 side is completely wrong. Right? There's only one side that's right. And the other side completely wrong. There's

00:06:15.960 nothing to their argument whatsoever. That's definitely not the case in this case. I think that it can be true at the

00:06:24.140 same time that these election changes are racist, meaning that they have an outcome which

00:06:31.080 disproportionately, you know, influences some group more than another. I think that's obvious, right?

00:06:39.100 And it's not because that doesn't necessarily mean that that's the intention, although you have to

00:06:44.000 worry about that. But the outcome of any big change almost always has some racial disproportionate

00:06:50.780 outcome. Anything you do with taxes is racially disproportionate. Everything, really. Anything

00:06:58.240 big that affects the country has uneven outcomes racially, no matter what your intention is. You

00:07:04.260 can have the best intention. It's just going to work out that way. And mostly that has to do with

00:07:08.780 differences in economic situations and education levels and stuff like that. But here's what's

00:07:15.860 developing. If we accept the proposition that a big corporation can make it their business, what a

00:07:26.220 government is doing? Oh, the government is doing this bad thing. Therefore, we as a responsible corporation

00:07:33.420 cannot be involved with whatever this bad thing is the government is doing. They've now created that as

00:07:40.980 their situation. So now a thing that didn't exist in our heads a year ago is very much in your head

00:07:50.580 right now, isn't it? A year ago, if you said to me, I think big corporations will start discontinuing

00:07:58.620 business in some states in the United States based on not liking their laws or that one of the states is a

00:08:07.600 little too racist according to them. If you told me that a year ago, I would say that's not going to

00:08:12.800 happen because corporations just want to make money. They just want to make money. That's both the bad

00:08:19.120 thing about them and the good thing about them. You wouldn't want to change that necessarily, right?

00:08:24.460 So and because part of making money is you have to satisfy the public. So they can't just make money

00:08:30.260 and screw the public. They have a, you know, people are watching. So here's what they accidentally walked

00:08:38.460 into. And I'm going to credit Marco Rubio for seeing this and taking advantage of it. So Marco Rubio

00:08:45.980 watches Delta dumping on Georgia and says, well, not just Delta, but Coca-Cola, I think, but talking about

00:08:56.120 how do you do business in China when China is putting the Uyghurs in prison camps and you don't 1.00

00:09:02.240 have any problem with that. I think Coca-Cola would be the bigger offender here. But think how clever

00:09:08.220 that was from Marco Rubio. This is the most clever thing I've seen him do as a politician.

00:09:16.380 And if you don't see it, it looks like it's just one of these hypocrisy plays, right? You know,

00:09:23.100 hey, you did something bad. And then the other team says, well, you did something bad too. Or,

00:09:30.020 you know, so your first impression is, it's just a normal hypocrisy claim, which have no effect on

00:09:37.200 anything. But there's something way bigger happening, like really big. And it goes like this.

00:09:46.160 These corporations are making it acceptable to not do business where the government is over the line.

00:09:57.760 They're going to have to pull out of China. And it's their own damn fault. Because if these companies 0.98

00:10:06.140 continue to press the point that it would be immoral and therefore bad for their company, bad for the

00:10:12.540 world, to do business with a corrupt government, they're saying that's Georgia. Not corrupt, but

00:10:19.320 racist, I guess. They're going to have to decouple. They're going to have to. And they did this to 0.70

00:10:27.260 themselves. If they had just stayed non-political, if the Fortune 500 had said, look, we're not in the

00:10:36.560 business of politics. You handle the politics. We're just in the free market. We're taking money

00:10:43.380 from anybody who wants to give us money. We're not looking at their, you know, we're not looking at

00:10:47.940 anybody's high school report card to find out if they can buy a Diet Coke. We don't care if you went to

00:10:54.580 jail once. You can still buy a Diet Coke, right? That's not our business. We're just about selling

00:11:00.500 stuff. If they'd stayed there, they'd be fine. But they didn't stay there. They created a situation

00:11:11.000 where they've created, they've put upon themselves the expectation that they can't do business with

00:11:17.500 any entity that's a government entity that's too evil. They have to decouple now. But it's better

00:11:27.240 than that. It's better. I'm only halfway done. So not only do they screw themselves because they're

00:11:35.200 going to have to lose their China business, I think the pressure is going to be too great. It's going

00:11:40.280 to build. But here's the other part. You know, we keep talking about reparations. What's the big

00:11:47.500 problem? And you didn't connect these two topics, but watch me connect them. What's the biggest problem

00:11:54.120 with reparations? Let's say somebody suggested, hey, let's do slavery reparations. And they make a

00:12:01.420 good moral argument for it. Number one, is there a good moral argument for slavery reparations?

00:12:10.900 Now, your mileage might vary, but I'm going to say yes. That if you look at our precedents,

00:12:17.520 we do have a pretty long precedence of saying, okay, the government did this to this group.

00:12:22.660 Let's say the Japanese Americans who were put in internment camps, right? So we do have precedent. 0.92

00:12:31.880 So it fits the precedent. And it fits a moral, I would say it fits a moral view of the world.

00:12:40.640 But what's the big problem? The big problem is who are you going to, where is the money going to come

00:12:45.720 from? Are you going to tax me? Because, you know, my family, if you trace them back to New England,

00:12:53.240 you'd find they were anti-slavery. So why am I paying more when my family didn't own any slaves

00:13:00.520 and we tried to end it? Here I'm taking credit for, you know, John Adams president and everything,

00:13:07.580 kind of my extended family. So that's the problem, right? So the big problem is who pays. You can't

00:13:14.640 take somebody who's just an individual who was completely innocent of anything that had to do

00:13:19.860 with slavery, and their entire family was and they didn't get anything, etc. Now you could argue all

00:13:25.960 white people benefited by slavery. And I get that argument. That's an argument. It's in the mix. 0.89

00:13:32.320 It's true, right? It passes the sniff test. But it's not really convincing, right? You still can't get

00:13:38.460 people like me to say that it's my responsibility to pay for somebody else's problem, because it just

00:13:45.380 doesn't feel like it. But the corporations just opened up the possibility that corporations would be

00:13:54.220 the source of that reparations. Because these corporations do care about racial equality. 0.54

00:14:01.960 Before, I thought it wasn't any of their business. They were just selling things. And it was the

00:14:06.880 government's business to make things fair and keep things equal. And the corporations would simply 0.87

00:14:12.080 follow the rules. That's all they had to do. But now the corporations have gone beyond following

00:14:17.700 the rules or the laws as they're set out. And they're trying to change the laws. They're trying to

00:14:24.520 proactively change something in Georgia, for example. Once a corporation becomes active, then they become

00:14:32.400 part of the solution potentially, because they're active in it. So you think, hey, I hadn't thought about

00:14:38.860 this before, but do you know who can't complain about paying taxes for reparations? Corporations.

00:14:49.240 The only entity in the United States who has enough money and can't complain if they get taxed

00:14:58.000 specifically just them, not individuals, just a corporate tax. Now, I'm not saying this is a good

00:15:03.640 idea or a bad idea, right? That's a separate argument. We'll talk about whether it's good or bad.

00:15:08.320 I'm not talking about that. I'm just talking about who has the money and would they be in a position

00:15:15.880 where they've created a trap for themselves. If corporations really, really care about racial

00:15:22.460 equality and somebody says, how are we going to pay for reparations? Will those corporations say,

00:15:30.800 we don't think there should be any? Good luck. The corporations are going to have to agree

00:15:38.300 that reparations are morally worth doing. Because that's the position they've taken sort of,

00:15:46.920 you know, in a general sense. I don't think they can avoid it. Do you think Coca-Cola could come out

00:15:52.200 and say, yeah, you know, we went hard against Georgia for, you know, what we think are these Jim

00:15:58.140 Crow rules? But this reparations, no, we're not going to pay it. We don't think we should pay that.

00:16:04.760 Do you think they could do that? They can't. So here's the situation. I think corporations have

00:16:11.040 signed themselves up to pay reparations because you could never get individuals to do it.

00:16:17.640 You'll never get, you know, the average white person to pay reparations for something they feel

00:16:23.560 as if they had nothing to do with it. But you could get corporations to do it.

00:16:29.240 And I'll bet that's where it's going.

00:16:33.260 Viva Frey had a fun tweet today. So, you know, Aaron Rupar from Vox, he was pointing out that

00:16:42.180 Fox News has ignored the Matt Gaetz story for 48 hours.

00:16:46.740 At the same time, CNN has ignored the latest Governor Cuomo findings for one full week.

00:16:56.220 Remember when I told you, don't start thinking that CNN is the only one who does fake news.

00:17:03.540 A better filter on the world is that whichever news organization doesn't have their person in

00:17:10.980 the presidency, they tend to get a little bit off the leash, right? So CNN didn't have a president

00:17:17.900 when Trump was president. They were, you know, extra bad. They didn't cure themselves when Biden

00:17:24.580 became president, but they were extra bad under Trump. Everybody would agree with that, I think.

00:17:29.000 But now Fox, I think Fox is a little extra bad because they don't have their person in the

00:17:34.880 presidency. Just as you'd expect, it went exactly the way you'd expect.

00:17:38.740 Somebody says, no, Gaetz was on Tucker, but was that more than 48 hours ago?

00:17:46.240 Do the timing. All right. So I don't, but to your point, I can't verify that either of these facts

00:17:53.400 are true, that either CNN ignored Cuomo or that Fox ignored Gaetz for that amount of time,

00:17:58.660 but we're having that conversation. And I think you can see that, you know, being news organizations

00:18:06.100 is a thing of the past. Let me skip to something else I was going to talk about in the same topic.

00:18:12.980 You often hear me quoting Rasmussen polls. If you follow my live stream, I'm often telling you the

00:18:20.080 Rasmussen results. And if I tweet about anything from Rasmussen, do you know what happens? You know,

00:18:27.600 if I talk to my audience, you go, okay, Rasmussen poll, good information there, Scott. But if I tweet it

00:18:33.960 and it goes to the general public, left and right, what happens when I tweet a Rasmussen poll?

00:18:39.760 The left, universally, will say, Rasmussen poll. Rasmussen poll. Rasmussen poll. Really?

00:19:02.720 Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. And it happens every time, right? Like every time you mention a Rasmussen poll,

00:19:13.780 some Democrat will say, ha, ha, ha, ha. But today there's a survey that came out showing the polling

00:19:22.140 accuracy on the presidential race in 2020. Rasmussen is in the top, right? Not at the top, but it's in the

00:19:30.320 top cluster. So Rasmussen, one of the best pollsters in 2020 for the presidential election. Now ask

00:19:36.900 yourself, what type of polling entities were at the bottom in terms of accuracy? Who, what, what news

00:19:48.480 entities, just guess, just top of your head. What do you think would be near the bottom? Well, I'll give

00:19:55.900 you a few examples. Quinnipiac. Quinnipiac's right at the bottom. I feel as though I've seen a lot of

00:20:04.260 reporting on Quinnipiac, mostly from CNN. Right? But also second from the bottom is the CNN slash SSRS poll.

00:20:17.440 So CNN second from the bottom. So the people who are ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha about the Rasmussen poll,

00:20:26.800 their poll, their preferred CNN poll, right at the bottom. Also at the bottom, ABC News slash Washington

00:20:34.600 Post. I like that they combine together to do a poll that nobody trusts. And then also in the bottom is a

00:20:43.080 Siena College, New York Times combo. So at least according to this one study,

00:20:53.200 Rasmussen's doing great and the fake news create their own polls to create their own fake news.

00:21:02.720 So the news business is no longer happy just looking at what, what is happening in the world

00:21:08.220 and then, you know, doing the fake version of what's happening in the world. Your news industries

00:21:14.880 literally, literally have created entirely new entities to generate fake news in the form of polls that are

00:21:25.220 inaccurate. This is real. Nothing I just said right there is, is an exaggeration.

00:21:31.740 New York Times, ABC, Washington Post, and CNN have all put money and resources into creating

00:21:41.660 separate entities or funding them, right? Separate entities whose apparent function is to create fake

00:21:48.780 news in the form of bad polls. That's real. That's freaking real. And we're watching it right in front of us.

00:21:56.280 All right. I continue to be fascinated by the Matt Gaetz story. Fascinated, almost as fascinated by what

00:22:09.200 isn't happening than what is happening. Yeah, there's a weirdness to it that just permeates the

00:22:15.440 whole story. I'll just give you a few things. Number one, I've never seen more smoke for less fire in any

00:22:25.180 story since Russia collusion. Have you ever seen more smoke that turned into not quite a fire?

00:22:33.980 Let me give you an example. Here are the things that Matt Gaetz is accused of.

00:22:39.500 Knowing a guy who did bad things.

00:22:43.760 So this other guy, Greenberg, there's apparently more credible evidence against this guy.

00:22:49.860 But Gaetz is really accused of, so far, I'll get to other things, right? But so far,

00:22:54.820 one of the biggest criticisms against him is he knows a guy who did bad things. Now, if we punished

00:23:03.480 all the people in government who had spent time with somebody who did bad things, like really bad

00:23:09.340 things, really bad things, I'm talking about really, really bad things, who would be left, right?

00:23:15.760 Is that, it's not a crime.

00:23:19.260 We don't, you know, I don't recommend that anybody hangs out with bad people, but you really

00:23:24.720 couldn't use that as any kind of a standard, and it's not a crime, but it's smoke, right?

00:23:29.560 So let's talk about the smoke.

00:23:31.320 There's also evidence, we don't know how credible, that there's a video

00:23:36.360 camera showing Matt Gaetz and this other guy, Greenberg, who had, he worked for the tax collector

00:23:45.020 entity or something. But anyway, there was a, apparently they were in an office, Greenberg's

00:23:49.940 office, and there was a pile of, it looked like, I think it was fake IDs that were in

00:23:54.760 just a box or something. And allegedly, Greenberg and Gaetz were looking through the fake IDs.

00:24:01.100 Now, let me ask you this. If you were alone with your friend in front of a big box of fake

00:24:10.140 IDs, wouldn't you look through them? Is there anybody here, if nobody else is around, right, 0.95

00:24:18.440 and there's a big box of fake IDs? Are you telling me you wouldn't take a handful and, like, see

00:24:23.540 if you could tell if they're fake and see what kind of people are doing it and stuff? Just look at

00:24:27.700 I couldn't keep my hands off them. Is that a crime? Is it a crime to, like, rifle through

00:24:34.900 some fake IDs? Because there's no indication that they then operationalized it and stole

00:24:40.360 them and used them. There's some indication that the Greenberg guy did, but there's no

00:24:46.080 accusation against Gaetz that I'm aware of, right? We're just talking about what the public

00:24:49.880 knows. What the public doesn't know is a whole other story. Now, I, for anybody who's new

00:24:56.860 to my live streams, it is not my job to defend anybody, and I'm not going to defend Matt Gaetz,

00:25:04.380 right? He needs to do that himself. That's not my problem. I didn't create any problems.

00:25:09.160 I didn't make his problem. I'm not going to solve his problem, right? But I do like to talk

00:25:14.120 about all the sides of a story, so let's keep doing that. The other thing that we know is

00:25:19.320 that there's some suggestion that, and I don't know how strong the evidence is, so we only

00:25:25.040 know that there's an allegation that he may have had sex with his 17-year-old. Here's

00:25:30.820 what we don't know. Did he know she was 17? That's not in evidence, right? Don't you think

00:25:39.740 that's sort of important? Like, really close to the most important thing in the story is

00:25:46.540 did Matt Gaetz know she was 17? Now, part of the story is that he met her through this website.

00:25:52.700 If she was on the website, she almost certainly, you could fact check this, but she almost certainly

00:25:57.380 had to lie about her age to be on the website. They're not going to let an underage person be 1.00

00:26:02.200 on that website. So, right. So the point is, what is the legal jeopardy for someone who didn't know

00:26:13.200 unless they turned out to be 17? So I just asked, I asked that question on Twitter just before I went

00:26:20.440 live. That's why I was a little bit late. And I want to see if there's a lawyer who answers the

00:26:24.900 question yet, so I'm just going to look at the responses. They just came in. All right. So I asked,

00:26:32.900 can someone tell me the legal risk? And I disguised my question because I thought it'd be funny.

00:26:37.720 Everybody will know what I'm really asking. The way I asked it was this, can someone tell me the legal

00:26:42.620 risk to a member of Congress if, hypothetically, she had sex with a 17-year-old boy who had credibly

00:26:51.620 lied about his age? All right. I'm looking at your comment, Dwayne, and thank you for that. All right.

00:27:04.400 So, and then I asked, does not knowing that somebody is 17, does that make a difference to the law?

00:27:10.360 Now, we all know that ignorance is no defense, but that's a different context. Ignorance of whether

00:27:17.340 or not something is illegal is never a defense. But not even knowing that you're committing a crime,

00:27:26.360 you know that something would be illegal, but you don't even know you're doing it.

00:27:31.380 Is that a crime? If you don't even know you're doing it? And so I asked that question because

00:27:37.700 that's what he's accused of. He's accused of, based on what we know now, right? Our current

00:27:46.180 information is, if he had to guess, it's more likely he didn't know than he knew. More likely,

00:27:53.480 right? It's not an evidence that he knew. So, let's see what people say.

00:28:04.440 So, somebody here who looks like they know what they're saying says that a fake ID would be a

00:28:09.680 defense. Now, that doesn't mean he checked an ID, but what if he just asked and she said she's over

00:28:16.840 17, looked over 17, and he had no indication to believe that she wasn't?

00:28:23.480 All right. It doesn't look like enough people or lawyers to actually answer this question.

00:28:30.700 All right. So, if there's anybody on here who's a lawyer,

00:28:34.440 somebody says it's still statutory rape. But let's ask a real-world question.

00:28:41.720 If the subject involved turned down to be 13 or 14, then I'm with you. That's got to be just

00:28:50.660 probably rape, because you would just assume that anybody would have known. But at 17,

00:28:55.900 you know, are you really going to find a jury or a judge who says, oh, you totally should have known

00:29:00.700 that she was 17 and a half and not 18? Is that even a thing? Would anybody know?

00:29:08.500 I tried to search it on Google, of course, but all that comes up is Matt Gaetz stories,

00:29:12.940 and it would have taken hours to find a real one. The local age of consent matters. That's true.

00:29:21.520 Oh, hold on. Here we go. Rachel Daly says, I'm a lawyer. Strict liability. Statutory rape. So you're 1.00

00:29:29.160 saying that there's strict liability. Now, I wonder if that has, I'm guessing, that that has to do with

00:29:36.620 the fact that a minor is involved. So you don't cut any corners when a minor is involved. But

00:29:42.560 to Rachel, who answered that question, thank you. What is the real-world way that's handled, though?

00:29:51.340 I hear what you're saying, and I get that. I think society is better off if we treat it like it's

00:29:56.960 definitely a crime, even if you didn't know. Right? Because sometimes you have to treat something

00:30:03.440 like a crime, but then at the same time, you kind of let it go. There are those situations.

00:30:09.880 This might be one of them where you've got to say it's a crime, but when you're actually judging

00:30:14.620 the person who was involved, you say, eh, you know, we understand. All right. So those questions

00:30:24.760 are out there. But it's a weird situation because the things that Gaetz is accused of are all smoke.

00:30:33.440 So far, there's nothing he's accused of that's a specific thing that I would hold him responsible

00:30:41.160 for. Now, that's not to say they don't exist. Right? We'll probably find out a lot more. So

00:30:46.620 again, I'm not defending him. I'm just pointing out it's all smoke. There's actually no flame

00:30:52.540 here yet that the public has seen. We've only seen smoke. Keep that in mind.

00:30:58.040 Apparently, this guy was a Capitol Hill attacker for this latest car attack in which a Capitol

00:31:05.560 Hill policeman was killed. He was apparently a fan of Louis Farrakhan. So that, of course,

00:31:14.180 matters in our highly racialized world. So he has Noah Green. So he was a Farrakhan follower,

00:31:21.820 for whatever that's worth. Just put it in your database.

00:31:29.380 A lot of people have asked me since the pandemic started, Scott, why don't you tweet Alex Berenson

00:31:37.280 stories? And why don't you interview him? And what do you think of Alex Berenson? And you've

00:31:43.660 probably watched me be somewhat avoiding that question a little bit. But I have talked about

00:31:50.180 the coronavirus skeptics in a general way. So he would be one of the most prominent skeptics

00:31:57.160 of the, let's say, scientific consensus. Now, he's not a scientist. He's an author, writer,

00:32:04.800 journalist type. But he's quite famous now for doubting a whole bunch of different elements

00:32:11.420 and data involved in the pandemic. Now, as I've said before, skeptics are national treasures. You

00:32:18.520 want all the skeptics you can get, right? Skeptics are good. And skeptics are good even if they turn

00:32:26.480 out to be wrong. Because if you don't have that tension, where somebody's doubting things, and

00:32:32.240 somebody has to really, really, really prove it, you don't have as good a system. So you want the

00:32:37.960 doubters. The Alex Berenson's are positive forces in the world, even if it turned out they weren't

00:32:44.340 right. I just think that's a fair thing to say. It's a good system to have conflict. But it has been

00:32:52.400 my feeling since the beginning that maybe his take on things was not the most productive. And there's an

00:33:03.420 article now by Derek Thompson in The Atlantic in which he goes through in some detail showing what

00:33:09.380 Berenson's said versus what we think we know to be true or what the scientists say to be true.

00:33:16.100 I would advise you to read it. I would say there are probably more skeptics who would agree with

00:33:22.020 Berenson's take on things on this broadcast than just about anywhere else in the world,

00:33:28.140 based on your comments. I know a lot of you are very compatible with the skeptical way of thinking,

00:33:34.620 which, by the way, I applaud. So if you think I'm making fun of you, nope. Nope. Being skeptical

00:33:42.780 about all of this stuff was exactly the right place to be. You might be wrong. You might be wrong.

00:33:49.240 But it was a good place to be. I think you could be quite reasonably... A reasonable citizen could have

00:33:57.180 been skeptical all the way through. And still. Even still. Anyway, but look at that. So I'd like

00:34:02.980 you to see both... You know, watch Berenson's arguments. Watch what this one writer, Derek Thompson

00:34:11.420 in The Atlantic, says about his claims, and then judge for yourself. But my general caution is always

00:34:18.700 be careful of the people who are branded as skeptics, because then they tend to overrun the skepticism a

00:34:26.660 little bit. Like, a little too much. So that's just built into the model, unfortunately.

00:34:32.960 All right. Gordon Chang, who you know as being a vocal China critic, he reported... This is just

00:34:42.920 anecdotal report. He says, a friend tells me... On Twitter, he said this. A friend tells me that in

00:34:47.760 Florida, people have been returning to a chain store furniture and other goods after they opened

00:34:52.880 the boxes and saw the boxes and saw the products were made in China. And then he said, I salute

00:34:57.020 them. So I ask you this. And I asked this on Twitter as well. Have any of you returned an item

00:35:05.200 because it was made in China? Let's say in the last year, just in the last one year, has anybody

00:35:12.020 returned an item to a store after they learned it was made in China? Let's see in the comments.

00:35:16.900 And I did a little poll, and I don't believe... This is the sort of poll you shouldn't believe

00:35:24.480 at all. But my own poll on Twitter, 23% of the people said they have returned an item just because

00:35:31.920 they found out it was made in China. Now, my audience is not like the general public, so this

00:35:38.260 would be higher than the general public. But it's still a big number, right? 23% of the people who

00:35:43.940 answered have returned an item. You know, it doesn't have to be 100% before China is in big

00:35:50.880 trouble, right? What percent of Americans would have to stop buying Chinese products before China

00:35:57.620 has got a real problem? Well, it's not 80%. It's not 80%. It's probably 20%, right? So it doesn't take

00:36:07.980 that much to put China in a bad situation. But there's more. Oh, China's also being bad. Kyle Bass,

00:36:17.540 another China critic, says that China has installed more coal-burning power plants in 2020 than

00:36:25.800 continental Europe's entire installed capacity. Let me say that again. Just in 2020, China put into

00:36:36.600 production, brand new, more coal-burning power plants than the existing entirety of all of Europe's

00:36:45.020 installed existing capacity. Any questions? There's nothing else to say about that, right? Everything about

00:36:56.880 that is in that number. That's all you need to know. And Kyle Bass asks where Greta Thunberg is on

00:37:05.860 this, and that's a good question. But wait, it gets more fun. Today, it turns out, was a very bad day for

00:37:14.760 China. Very bad day. And it's because this was the day that somebody tweeted at me a website which

00:37:22.600 compiles products made in the United States so that you can avoid products made in China.

00:37:30.200 We may have a solution because you're not going to see it on Amazon, right? Amazon.com can't really

00:37:36.560 label its products made in China because if they did, they'd have a problem with their manufacturers

00:37:41.560 in China. They just couldn't do it. But a private entity can. I don't even know who's behind this.

00:37:46.920 But there exists now, and the website is called ChinaNever.com. So ChinaNever is one word, .com.

00:37:55.940 And then if you're looking for, let's say, some furniture, you can start there, and you can see

00:38:00.680 all the brands that are not made in China. And this is why it's a bad day for China, because I just learned

00:38:10.060 this thing exists. I might be pushing it a little bit. For those of you who are new, I did lose my

00:38:18.060 stepson to a fentanyl overdose in 2018. I blame China. And if I can destroy China's government,

00:38:26.480 not the people, people are fine. I'd like the Chinese people to thrive. But their government, 1.00

00:38:32.080 I don't like their government any more than they do. So expect China to have some trouble going

00:38:41.920 forward. That's what I say. Somebody says, most of the cheap furniture is now imported from Vietnam.

00:38:50.300 You know, I can't think of anything more than furniture that should be a U.S. industry. Try to think of

00:38:57.540 any industry that would be better for, let's say, the harder-to-employee segment of this country,

00:39:05.400 the ones who are all, they're fine for doing physical labor if you teach them how to do it.

00:39:10.500 Learning how to make furniture, how to reupholster, upholster, and stuff like that,

00:39:15.800 that feels like exactly the kind of industry we want to absorb the kind of workers who, you know,

00:39:22.240 are just perfectly situated for that. And what reason would we have not to be able to make it here?

00:39:30.400 I mean, we should be making furniture like crazy here.

00:39:35.520 Somebody says China is laundering their products through Vietnam, so it looks like made in Vietnam.

00:39:41.780 I'd need to know more about that, but I don't doubt there's some of that going on.

00:39:46.740 Somebody says it's too labor-intensive, and that's why you can't make furniture in this country.

00:39:51.580 Here's the thing. We can certainly compete if we use robots to make it, but if we wanted to employ

00:39:59.360 people, I believe that people could make furniture way faster than they're making it now.

00:40:09.620 All right, and then you also have to take away the shipping costs. It's pretty expensive to ship

00:40:14.440 furniture. Italy, too. Somebody says Italy, a lot of furniture, I guess.

00:40:21.580 All right. Yeah, North Carolina. I think North Carolina is the major furniture state in the United States.

00:40:37.760 $15 an hour? Yeah, depends on the minimum wage, whether that's economical or not.

00:40:44.020 All right, it's a weird weekend, and it's just getting weirder.

00:40:52.100 I would love to tell you how weird my life is right now, but you wouldn't even believe it.

00:40:56.440 You wouldn't even believe it. But we'll get into that later.

00:41:00.440 All right, I don't have much else to say today, because we've got sort of a slow news weekend.

00:41:05.400 Has everybody got some plans for the holidays?

00:41:08.300 Stay safe.

00:41:11.020 All right.

00:41:14.020 All right, we're just looking.

00:41:17.860 Well, yeah, just looking at your comments.

00:41:21.900 Somebody says, the odds of China going full capitalist.

00:41:24.900 You know what's interesting?

00:41:25.940 China, apparently China has the opinion that democracies can't last because we'll be fighting

00:41:33.180 with each other, whereas the dictatorships, or whatever they would call their own form of government,

00:41:39.200 will be the ones that prevail because you need a strong leader, as opposed to everybody fighting

00:41:46.040 about everything from racism to you-know-what.

00:41:49.220 And on the surface, on the surface, it does feel like he's got a point.

00:41:55.760 I've often said that the best form of government would be a benign dictatorship.

00:41:59.920 Somebody who has the power of a dictator, but they're empathetic and they're not using it to hurt anybody.

00:42:06.260 They're just making the best decisions they can.

00:42:08.940 Now, China doesn't fit into that because their dictatorship is building prison camps and social credit systems and everything wrong. 0.98

00:42:16.720 But it might make them powerful.

00:42:20.660 There's no question that they're growing quickly and their power is ascending.

00:42:25.660 But what would it take for our country to compete?

00:42:30.680 What would it take?

00:42:32.120 Well, I think it's happening.

00:42:33.960 It's not happening fast enough.

00:42:35.640 But part of what is happening is that citizens are taking control where the government can't.

00:42:42.620 You know, I gave you an example yesterday of a citizen, Michael Mina,

00:42:48.720 who had this idea about rapid testing being better than, you know, the expensive slow testing.

00:42:54.160 And he pushed it in the social media.

00:42:57.420 I helped boost it.

00:42:58.600 Next thing you know, he's talking to Congress.

00:43:00.560 He's writing articles.

00:43:02.020 And then the FDA is approving it.

00:43:04.260 Now, did that make a difference?

00:43:06.060 Would the FDA have acted exactly the same

00:43:08.980 if a Michael Mina did not exist and was not doing such an amazing job of pushing that one item?

00:43:16.440 I don't know.

00:43:17.480 But I got a feeling that he made a difference.

00:43:20.360 Probably a big one.

00:43:22.020 It's hard to know.

00:43:23.300 But that's the model that I think allows the United States to win.

00:43:28.720 Let me give you another example.

00:43:31.080 When the pandemic happened, you know this example.

00:43:33.780 The pandemic happened, a number of people, including me,

00:43:39.060 were approached by some member of the government, you know, not the president,

00:43:44.220 but just somebody in the government was reaching out and saying,

00:43:47.500 literally, do you have any ideas?

00:43:51.020 Do you have any ideas of what we should do now?

00:43:54.280 Because there's a lot of stuff that needs to be done,

00:43:56.420 but we're looking for ideas.

00:43:58.260 Because, you know, it's not the government's job to think up the ideas.

00:44:01.740 It's more in the implementing.

00:44:04.540 And so I had an idea, and I submitted it through my government contact.

00:44:10.460 And I got to watch it in real time.

00:44:14.460 It actually got to the chief of staff of the president, I think, in hours,

00:44:22.440 just a few hours later, I think, or maybe less.

00:44:26.080 It might have been within an hour, if I remember.

00:44:28.860 I think it might have been within an hour.

00:44:30.320 I already had feedback that my one suggestion,

00:44:34.020 which was that doctors be allowed to practice telemedicine across state boundaries,

00:44:39.320 that they be allowed to do it.

00:44:40.780 Just do an executive order.

00:44:42.500 Just make it legal, because it's a pandemic.

00:44:44.780 You probably couldn't get away with it in ordinary times.

00:44:47.980 And the next thing you know,

00:44:49.940 the president of the United States is issuing an executive order,

00:44:54.000 and the entire online health care industry transformed.

00:44:59.700 Now anybody can be a doctor across state lines online.

00:45:04.360 And that was just like one example.

00:45:08.100 That was just like one example of citizens

00:45:11.480 who became like an active arm of the government, if you know what I mean.

00:45:16.040 So that was a case where I'm not an elected official,

00:45:19.560 but I could do a thing.

00:45:22.260 Michael Mina is not an elected official, but he could do a thing.

00:45:26.760 Gordon Chang, Kyle Bass, they are not elected officials.

00:45:31.940 But if you watch them pushing the ball on China,

00:45:35.500 they're really doing a good job.

00:45:38.080 They're really doing a good job.

00:45:39.620 And, of course, I help boost their signal whenever I can.

00:45:43.420 So who is pushing on China?

00:45:45.100 Is it the government?

00:45:46.380 Well, the government's doing its thing.

00:45:48.520 Marco Rubio, Tom Cotton, to name a few,

00:45:51.480 are quite outspoken against China.

00:45:53.960 But they can't do it without us.

00:45:57.180 You know, even in the government,

00:45:59.240 they need some strong voices,

00:46:00.840 your Gordon Changs and your Kyle Basses and such,

00:46:04.340 to lend some weight to any of that.

00:46:07.100 So I think we're at a point

00:46:09.160 where there are individuals in the public eye

00:46:12.240 who are almost like unelected, unpaid,

00:46:19.120 what would you call them?

00:46:20.840 Accessories?

00:46:21.900 Now that sounds like accessory to a crime.

00:46:25.940 Boosters?

00:46:28.200 Participants?

00:46:29.040 It's almost like you need another name for it.

00:46:31.520 Because the citizens are taking on government functions,

00:46:35.220 usually just persuasion.

00:46:37.900 But in the case of,

00:46:38.720 let's take the case of this China Never website.

00:46:42.740 I assume that's a non-government entity,

00:46:46.060 just citizens who said,

00:46:48.020 if this website exists,

00:46:50.320 it's good for the country.

00:46:52.560 So the number of times that you see this,

00:46:54.680 and it's only possible because of the internet, right?

00:46:56.700 If you take the internet away,

00:46:58.540 there's no Gordon Chang,

00:46:59.700 there's no Kyle Bass,

00:47:00.800 there's no me,

00:47:01.560 there's no Michael Amina, right?

00:47:02.620 So you need the internet and social platforms.

00:47:06.100 But in effect,

00:47:07.880 it weaponizes the public

00:47:09.620 so that the,

00:47:11.000 usually the stronger voices,

00:47:13.380 I like to think,

00:47:14.940 the stronger voices rise up,

00:47:16.980 the government can't ignore them,

00:47:18.720 they become part of the solution.

00:47:21.400 And I would argue that if China is looking at

00:47:23.880 our government in isolation,

00:47:26.300 it's a hot mess.

00:47:27.760 So if you just said,

00:47:29.800 how is the government of the United States?

00:47:31.160 You'd be looking at Congress, right?

00:47:32.620 And the president?

00:47:33.640 And you'd look at Congress and you'd say,

00:47:35.080 well, that's a mess.

00:47:36.360 There's no way 1.00

00:47:37.340 this piece of shit Congress 1.00

00:47:39.720 is going to compete with China. 1.00

00:47:41.740 Watch us make a decision.

00:47:43.200 Boop.

00:47:44.080 There.

00:47:44.860 Watch us make another one.

00:47:46.660 How about that?

00:47:48.280 Well, you know,

00:47:49.320 well, our Congress is still arguing

00:47:50.940 about who's the biggest racist.

00:47:52.080 What they don't see

00:47:54.120 is that our government

00:47:55.860 is not isolated to the people

00:47:58.740 in that building.

00:48:00.360 Our government is you.

00:48:03.100 That's different.

00:48:04.980 So China has a system

00:48:06.780 in which the government

00:48:07.700 is maybe the elites

00:48:09.040 and the people in the party.

00:48:11.320 But our government

00:48:12.460 is anybody who's got a better idea.

00:48:16.200 It's true.

00:48:17.680 What did Michael Amina have?

00:48:19.940 A better idea.

00:48:22.460 So simply having a better idea

00:48:24.780 made him our government

00:48:26.420 for all practical purposes.

00:48:28.940 He had as much influence

00:48:30.580 on this decision

00:48:31.580 that, you know,

00:48:32.300 thing he knew about the most.

00:48:34.340 He had as much influence

00:48:35.900 probably as anybody

00:48:36.820 in the government.

00:48:38.400 And it's only because

00:48:39.340 he had the ability.

00:48:40.860 So the weird thing

00:48:42.000 about our system

00:48:42.980 is that we do let people

00:48:44.760 who have unusual ability

00:48:46.460 do their thing.

00:48:49.120 Now, I would say

00:48:49.680 that Greta Thunberg,

00:48:50.760 like her or hate her,

00:48:53.740 she's a perfect example of this.

00:48:55.820 Greta is an unelected official, 0.68

00:48:58.860 not American, obviously,

00:49:00.640 but in her own country,

00:49:03.500 democracy,

00:49:04.960 a democratic system.

00:49:06.300 And she was allowed

00:49:07.640 to rise up

00:49:08.380 because she had

00:49:09.300 the capability

00:49:10.160 to do this thing.

00:49:11.700 So I think that's

00:49:12.880 what China gets wrong. 0.87

00:49:13.980 China might be right 1.00

00:49:16.060 that our elected officials 1.00

00:49:17.380 are kind of pathetic 1.00

00:49:18.800 sometimes, 0.99

00:49:19.980 you know, collectively,

00:49:20.880 not as individuals,

00:49:22.140 but, you know,

00:49:22.960 when you put them together, 1.00

00:49:23.920 they become pathetic. 1.00

00:49:25.300 But they underestimate 1.00

00:49:26.900 Elon Musk.

00:49:30.520 Am I right?

00:49:31.340 If you're looking at

00:49:33.360 the government

00:49:33.880 of the United States

00:49:34.920 and you don't include

00:49:36.740 Elon Musk,

00:49:38.540 you're missing the story.

00:49:41.380 Because Elon Musk,

00:49:42.800 here I'm sort of

00:49:43.840 going too far

00:49:44.820 and reading his mind, right?

00:49:46.500 So I shouldn't do that.

00:49:47.840 But just for the point,

00:49:48.980 for the purpose

00:49:49.600 of rounding out my point,

00:49:52.500 if NASA,

00:49:53.920 if a government-funded NASA

00:49:55.680 couldn't get us to Mars

00:49:56.980 and couldn't get us

00:49:58.340 to the point

00:49:58.740 where we can dominate space,

00:50:00.240 we're in big trouble

00:50:01.900 if China does.

00:50:04.220 So you've got

00:50:05.040 an Elon Musk

00:50:05.940 who just,

00:50:07.340 you know,

00:50:07.700 I'm oversimplifying

00:50:08.780 a complicated thing,

00:50:10.320 but you have

00:50:10.920 an Elon Musk

00:50:11.600 who just says,

00:50:12.560 I can get you to space.

00:50:15.220 Why don't I do it?

00:50:16.980 The government

00:50:17.740 can't get you there

00:50:18.640 or can't get you there right

00:50:19.780 or can't get you there

00:50:20.760 economically or something.

00:50:22.540 So I guess

00:50:24.020 I'm the government now.

00:50:25.920 So if you would say

00:50:27.160 that Elon Musk

00:50:28.000 is not part

00:50:29.800 of the governing structure

00:50:31.060 of the United States,

00:50:31.860 you're wrong. 0.83

00:50:32.800 He is.

00:50:33.800 He's just not elected.

00:50:35.600 And he's leading

00:50:37.160 based on competence.

00:50:39.340 We do have a country

00:50:40.700 where if you exhibit

00:50:43.200 extreme competence,

00:50:45.460 the country will get

00:50:47.080 out of your way.

00:50:49.060 They'll just get

00:50:49.840 out of your way.

00:50:50.880 Because we do like competence.

00:50:53.180 Like as a country,

00:50:53.980 we almost worship

00:50:57.020 capability,

00:50:59.300 like individuals

00:51:00.140 who can do stuff.

00:51:01.620 Now this is my big

00:51:02.640 complaint with many of you.

00:51:06.040 My big complaint

00:51:07.300 with many of you

00:51:08.140 is that you don't

00:51:09.240 appreciate Bill Gates

00:51:11.400 as much as I do.

00:51:13.960 Now is Bill Gates

00:51:14.680 right about everything?

00:51:15.960 No.

00:51:16.920 Is anybody?

00:51:18.060 No.

00:51:18.520 But if you had

00:51:20.860 to have a contest

00:51:22.060 of pick anybody

00:51:22.960 else in the world,

00:51:23.980 politicians,

00:51:24.780 scientists,

00:51:25.360 anybody you want,

00:51:26.440 and just put them

00:51:27.180 in the same room

00:51:27.780 with Bill Gates

00:51:28.400 and figure out

00:51:28.960 which one of them

00:51:29.520 is right more often,

00:51:31.280 I'm going to vote

00:51:32.200 for Bill Gates

00:51:33.140 every time.

00:51:34.980 He's right

00:51:35.980 about a lot.

00:51:37.760 And he has

00:51:38.460 tremendous capability.

00:51:40.420 So he takes

00:51:40.940 his Gates Foundation,

00:51:42.440 and he's aiming

00:51:43.120 at the world

00:51:43.780 more than the country,

00:51:45.360 but doing plenty

00:51:46.080 for the country.

00:51:47.280 So if the people

00:51:49.100 who say Bill Gates

00:51:49.960 is an awful person,

00:51:52.240 you really have

00:51:53.580 to check that assumption.

00:51:57.360 I, you know,

00:51:58.580 I know that I can

00:51:59.340 be wrong about stuff.

00:52:00.660 You've seen it, right?

00:52:01.920 You've all seen me

00:52:02.700 be wrong about stuff.

00:52:04.500 So I'm not right

00:52:05.920 about everything,

00:52:06.980 but if I'm,

00:52:08.140 I am so positive

00:52:10.220 and so confident

00:52:12.000 of the following opinion

00:52:13.240 that I would be amazed

00:52:15.160 if I'm wrong about this.

00:52:16.360 And it goes like this.

00:52:18.320 Bill Gates has

00:52:19.220 the right intentions,

00:52:20.980 the right skill set,

00:52:22.860 and he's working for you.

00:52:25.480 He's working for you.

00:52:27.280 He doesn't need

00:52:28.440 much for himself.

00:52:30.040 He's kind of

00:52:30.620 working for you

00:52:31.220 with the greatest

00:52:31.980 capability and brain

00:52:33.340 and good intentions

00:52:35.020 maybe we've ever seen

00:52:36.320 in our lifetime.

00:52:38.100 That's my opinion, right?

00:52:39.160 So, all the rumors

00:52:41.340 about putting chips

00:52:42.740 in your vaccinations

00:52:45.740 and wanting to blot out

00:52:48.720 the sun and all that,

00:52:49.760 those are all

00:52:50.200 anti-context.

00:52:51.540 Pretty much everything

00:52:52.600 you think badly

00:52:53.520 about Bill Gates

00:52:54.420 is just anti-context.

00:52:55.940 If you knew the whole story,

00:52:57.400 you wouldn't be bothered

00:52:58.080 by it at all.

00:52:59.400 That's my opinion.

00:53:00.740 Anyway, so,

00:53:01.880 as long as we've got

00:53:02.980 your Musse,

00:53:05.900 your Gates,

00:53:06.460 your Kyle Bass's,

00:53:08.780 your Gordon Chang's,

00:53:09.960 your Michael Minas,

00:53:11.140 and I like to do

00:53:12.800 what I can

00:53:13.340 in that same realm,

00:53:14.420 as long as you've got

00:53:15.220 these people

00:53:16.100 as part of your

00:53:17.100 not-quite-government,

00:53:19.060 but sort of,

00:53:21.020 China,

00:53:22.260 you better be worried.

00:53:25.680 You better be worried

00:53:26.900 because that's

00:53:28.080 a pretty good package.

00:53:30.240 All right.

00:53:33.360 Why is Bill Gates

00:53:34.460 buying up land?

00:53:35.300 I can think of

00:53:36.740 lots of reasons.

00:53:38.280 One of the reasons

00:53:39.100 that a Bill Gates

00:53:40.060 would be buying up land

00:53:41.120 is that he's

00:53:41.620 buying up everything.

00:53:43.120 When you have a,

00:53:44.040 when you reach

00:53:44.600 a certain amount

00:53:45.160 of wealth,

00:53:46.020 you just have to 1.00

00:53:47.160 start shooting it 0.96

00:53:47.940 in every direction

00:53:48.700 to get diversification

00:53:50.620 and stuff.

00:53:51.600 So it could be

00:53:52.280 that if you have

00:53:53.120 so much money,

00:53:53.820 you just run out

00:53:54.460 of things to buy.

00:53:56.220 You know,

00:53:56.460 and so you think,

00:53:57.100 well,

00:53:57.720 land always works.

00:53:58.940 I'll buy a bunch

00:53:59.520 of farmland.

00:54:00.260 How could that go wrong?

00:54:01.780 Now, it could also be

00:54:02.700 that he's buying it

00:54:03.520 to protect it.

00:54:04.300 It could be

00:54:05.180 that he's buying it

00:54:05.960 to make it available

00:54:07.060 to low-income people

00:54:08.620 someday when he dies.

00:54:09.920 Who knows?

00:54:10.820 We don't know

00:54:11.440 why he's doing it,

00:54:12.340 but I would definitely

00:54:13.400 not,

00:54:14.440 I would definitely

00:54:15.920 not worry about it.

00:54:18.040 So one thing

00:54:18.860 I wouldn't do

00:54:19.360 is worry about it.

00:54:20.420 It's the last thing

00:54:21.240 I'd worry about.

00:54:22.580 In fact,

00:54:23.620 the more farmland

00:54:24.760 that Bill Gates owns,

00:54:26.320 the safer you are

00:54:27.460 because China

00:54:29.080 doesn't own it

00:54:29.820 and somebody bad

00:54:31.120 doesn't own it.

00:54:32.340 So if you could give

00:54:33.760 all of the farmland

00:54:34.820 to Bill Gates,

00:54:35.520 you'd be safer.

00:54:37.160 I'm not suggesting that.

00:54:38.340 I'm just saying

00:54:38.800 to make the point.

00:54:41.580 That's how much

00:54:42.320 I trust Bill Gates.

00:54:43.880 Now,

00:54:44.280 I could be wrong,

00:54:46.380 but,

00:54:46.620 and by the way,

00:54:47.140 he would be on my,

00:54:48.060 very near the top

00:54:49.060 of my list

00:54:49.580 of somebody

00:54:50.000 I would interview

00:54:50.900 to help him

00:54:52.840 get his version out.

00:54:54.160 One of the things

00:54:54.740 I also appreciate

00:54:55.740 about Bill Gates

00:54:56.540 is that he never

00:54:57.140 defends himself.

00:54:59.140 Think about that.

00:55:00.080 The same thing

00:55:00.540 I liked about

00:55:01.200 Richard Gere

00:55:02.140 when that,

00:55:03.360 was it a gerbil

00:55:04.580 rumor came out?

00:55:05.760 He never,

00:55:06.100 he never defended it.

00:55:07.720 And I'm going

00:55:08.620 to take that model.

00:55:10.480 So should,

00:55:11.380 in the future,

00:55:12.140 should you see me

00:55:13.080 get accused

00:55:14.780 of some heinous thing?

00:55:16.280 I'm telling you now,

00:55:17.500 I probably won't defend it

00:55:18.700 if it's funny.

00:55:19.920 So if I get accused

00:55:21.160 of something that's funny,

00:55:22.660 like a gerbil

00:55:23.540 or something,

00:55:24.280 I'm not going to defend it

00:55:25.580 because it's just

00:55:26.200 funnier to keep it

00:55:26.900 out there.

00:55:28.340 In fact,

00:55:28.880 there's something

00:55:29.260 like that happening

00:55:29.880 right now.

00:55:31.000 Some of you

00:55:31.640 already know it.

00:55:32.860 And you've watched

00:55:34.400 me not defend it.

00:55:35.780 And it's only

00:55:36.260 because it's funny.

00:55:38.720 All right.

00:55:41.280 Somebody says,

00:55:42.320 all right,

00:55:42.620 this is a good point.

00:55:46.760 So Tyrone says,

00:55:48.680 and this is

00:55:49.040 a reasonable thing

00:55:49.980 to ask.

00:55:50.260 He says,

00:55:51.100 yeah,

00:55:51.360 anybody else think

00:55:52.200 it's a good idea

00:55:53.120 to have one guy

00:55:54.940 who owns

00:55:55.460 all the farmland.

00:55:56.660 If he fails,

00:55:57.720 we all starve.

00:55:58.600 Great idea,

00:55:59.260 Scott.

00:56:00.440 That's not how

00:56:01.120 the world works.

00:56:03.120 If one guy

00:56:04.060 owned all the farmland

00:56:05.180 and he wasn't

00:56:05.800 using it productively,

00:56:06.880 we'd just take it

00:56:07.480 away from him.

00:56:08.720 Don't worry about it.

00:56:10.140 If the government

00:56:11.420 looked around

00:56:11.960 and said,

00:56:12.340 hey,

00:56:12.520 wait a minute,

00:56:13.760 one guy bought

00:56:14.760 all the farmland

00:56:15.500 and he stopped

00:56:16.080 growing food,

00:56:17.800 it would take

00:56:19.780 ten minutes

00:56:20.320 and they'd say,

00:56:20.900 well,

00:56:21.340 you'd better

00:56:21.720 grow some food

00:56:22.880 or we're going

00:56:25.280 to take it

00:56:25.660 away from you.

00:56:26.740 You don't really

00:56:27.380 have to worry

00:56:27.780 about that.

00:56:28.760 That's the sort

00:56:29.420 of thing that,

00:56:31.100 first of all,

00:56:31.640 it wouldn't happen

00:56:32.360 that he would

00:56:34.000 buy all the farmland

00:56:34.880 and stop producing

00:56:35.880 food.

00:56:36.540 That's not going

00:56:37.080 to happen.

00:56:37.980 But even if it did,

00:56:39.000 we would just fix

00:56:39.820 it in five minutes.

00:56:40.680 We'd just say,

00:56:41.240 well,

00:56:41.380 we can't have that.

00:56:42.700 We'd just fix it.

00:56:45.680 Bill Gates

00:56:46.280 doesn't have more

00:56:46.980 power than the

00:56:47.640 government yet.

00:56:49.120 what if he makes

00:56:55.800 GMO food?

00:56:56.940 You know,

00:56:57.240 I'm not really

00:56:57.740 in that debate.

00:57:00.480 I haven't followed

00:57:01.380 it too much.

00:57:03.420 All right,

00:57:03.880 that's all I got

00:57:04.260 for now.

00:57:05.040 And I will talk

00:57:05.780 to you tomorrow.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - April 03, 2021

Episode 1333 Scott Adams： Bad Day for China, Gaetz Stuff, and More

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