Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 1562 Scott Adams： Let's Talk About All the Fake News and Celebrity Idiots

00:00:00.000 Good morning, everybody. What an amazing day. Amazing. For a Monday, even. Yeah, I don't want

00:00:09.400 to go all Garfield the cat on you, but some people think Mondays are terrible. No, no,

00:00:15.540 not here. Here, the Mondays are great every time. And if you'd like to take it up another notch,

00:00:23.380 yeah, you do. Yeah, you do. All you need is what? A cup or mug or a glass. I'll take your chalice

00:00:30.280 or sign a canteen jug or flask of a vessel of any kind. Fill it with your favorite liquid. I like

00:00:36.040 coffee. Join me now for the unparalleled pleasure. Dopamine hit of the day. The thing that makes

00:00:42.740 everything better. Yeah, it's called a simultaneous sip. And watch it make your antibodies come alive.

00:00:50.260 Go.

00:00:53.380 Mmm. Yeah. Did you feel that? I think you did. Well, we got all kinds of fun news today.

00:01:02.660 The good kind. Well, it depends on your point of view, whether it's good or just interesting.

00:01:09.500 This is not good, but it's interesting. According to the BBC, there were heavy rains and flooding

00:01:16.860 in southern Egypt. No problem. A little bit of flooding, a little heavy rains. But when you

00:01:22.800 get heavy rains in this part of southern Egypt, apparently, it drives all the scorpions out

00:01:28.620 of their hiding holes. And so 500 people were hospitalized with scorpion bites, and a few

00:01:36.400 people died. Now, when I heard that southern Egypt is having problems with scorpion swarms,

00:01:44.560 I said to myself, well, how do I guess some of those? Because I live in California, and if there's a

00:01:51.520 disaster that can happen, we want it. So we got our energy shortage. We got our water shortage. We've got

00:01:57.600 our massive forest fires. We've got the homeless, the people dying on the streets. We've got the COVID.

00:02:03.100 COVID. And a few other things. We've got your earthquakes. But what we don't have is scorpion

00:02:12.020 swarms. And I feel like we need to catch up a little bit. So playing catch up to southern

00:02:18.000 Egypt, we got to get us some hidden scorpions to come out during the rain. All we have are

00:02:23.760 mudslides, and I don't think that's good enough. Well, today, the Rittenhouse jury will be deciding

00:02:31.100 on the case. Apparently, the charges have been reduced, or at least a request has been made to

00:02:40.720 consider additional charges of a lesser kind. Now, here's a story that Jonathan Turley was

00:02:48.020 behind. I saw this on Fox News Channel. Apparently, did you know that the judge can't figure out what

00:02:56.500 the gun ownership law is in Wisconsin? That's right. The judge, who is trained for years to read

00:03:06.700 legal documents and to know what they mean, said directly that he can't understand what the law

00:03:13.240 even says on gun ownership, because it's written so poorly, you're not even entirely sure what's legal

00:03:20.360 and what's not. And apparently, Kyle Rittenhouse gave the prosecutor a little lesson on Wisconsin's

00:03:27.140 gun laws. I didn't see it, but there was an exchange in which Kyle knew that he could not

00:03:35.060 own a handgun, because he was too young. But you can own a hunting rifle at his age, and that's the

00:03:41.940 one he had in his possession, or you can at least, you know, have it under your possession. And Kyle

00:03:47.980 actually explained to the prosecutor, as if the prosecutor didn't already know it, and I think

00:03:52.760 maybe he didn't, that it would have been illegal to have a handgun, but perfectly legal for him to

00:03:57.680 have a long-barreled rifle. And apparently, the prosecutor was finding that out at the trial

00:04:05.620 from the defendant. Are you kidding me? Now, as Turley points out, and I think this is just a given,

00:04:14.340 if the judge, in his best effort, can't understand the gun law, can he send it to the jury?

00:04:24.580 No. No. Not in any world can the judge instruct the jury to consider that law, because the judge

00:04:33.280 doesn't understand the law. That's real. Have you ever heard of this? Now, I'm sure people who are,

00:04:42.580 you know, legal scholars and lawyers have heard of something like this, but I haven't. Have you ever

00:04:48.640 heard the judge not understanding the law, because the law is so poorly written, that, oh, he threw it

00:04:55.540 down already? Has that already happened? Oh, I'm seeing in the comments that he threw it down already.

00:05:04.320 Well, that's what I was going to predict, right? It was an easy prediction that he would throw that

00:05:11.820 out, or it will be thrown out. Okay. So I guess I'm not clear what has or has not happened. Will

00:05:19.360 be thrown out, I guess, is the answer. Hasn't been yet. Okay. So, the National Guard

00:05:32.320 put 500 troops into Kenosha, just in case there's some rioting after the verdict. Now, here's

00:05:42.820 a way to reframe this same statement, and see if this doesn't disgust you. Why is it that

00:05:51.320 we need 500 National Guard? Why do we need 500 National Guards? Well, in case of trouble. But

00:05:59.640 why is there a possibility of trouble? Is there a possibility of trouble because of what Kyle

00:06:05.580 did? Not really, because what he did was self-defense. Is there a possibility of trouble

00:06:13.200 because the fake news industry has convinced people that justice will not be served because

00:06:19.300 he's white? Yes, they have. Now, let me connect the dots here. There are 500 National Guard people

00:06:30.400 deployed because of the fake news. Is that statement incorrect or perfectly correct? We have 500 National

00:06:41.800 Guard deployed strictly because of the fake news. Not because of anything Kyle did, because at this point,

00:06:49.040 we know he didn't do anything. And presumably, the jury will either decide that or decide some lesser

00:06:56.560 charge that will make people mad anyway. Have we ever seen this before? Is this the first time we can

00:07:04.380 say with complete clarity that the National Guard were called out to protect against the fake news? 1.00

00:07:11.140 We called out the fucking National Guard to protect against the fucking fake news. That's happening right 0.99

00:07:20.460 now. And do you know who's going to say that on the news? Nobody. Because it's the fucking news. And they can tell

00:07:27.860 you anything is news and you'll believe it. The news is the reason there are 500 people to protect us from each

00:07:34.740 other. The news did this to us. Nobody else. Kyle didn't do this. The people who attacked Kyle didn't do

00:07:41.480 this. Nobody did this except the fucking fake news. And we need 500 National Guard to keep us from tearing 0.99

00:07:50.140 each other apart because of the fucking fake news. Who else is going to tell you this today? 0.99

00:07:58.100 Probably nobody. I'm probably the only person who will tell you this. And when you hear it, you say

00:08:03.940 to yourself, oh shit, that's true, isn't it? It's not about anything that the actors did. It's just the 0.99

00:08:09.240 news. That's the only reason that we will be at each other. And if somebody dies today, or tonight,

00:08:17.260 it's because of the news. It's not because of Kyle.

00:08:19.340 All right. Remember I told you that I used to rewrite my lawyers the shorter documents? I didn't do this

00:08:31.160 with the longer, you know, big stakes kind of stuff. But on shorter documents, I would just rewrite the

00:08:38.160 legalese into English. And my lawyer would look at it and say, ah, okay, that basically says the same

00:08:44.040 thing. Um, and here's this law about guns in Wisconsin that's so complicated because of the

00:08:49.680 legalese, presumably, that, uh, you can't even understand it. Well, in other news, Epstein's, uh,

00:08:58.500 partner, uh, whose first name is either pronounced, uh, Ghislaine or G-H-I-S. I prefer to pronounce it

00:09:09.020 G-H-I-S. So Ghislaine Maxwell. Uh, she's going, she's going to trial and I wonder if this is going

00:09:17.060 to change everything. Don't you wonder that? Because whatever comes out of this trial is

00:09:23.800 going to be surprising, but maybe surprising in a non-surprising way. You know what I mean?

00:09:29.760 Um, this could change everything in the world. Couldn't it? Because depending on what name she

00:09:38.220 decides to drop, countries could fall. Is that too much? I think, well, not countries, but governments.

00:09:47.440 I think governments might fall because of this trial. I mean, I don't know for sure, but it looks

00:09:53.760 like governments might fall. Um, it could be that big. So we'll see. But anyway, I, um, if anybody had

00:10:02.540 a more perfect name for their crime, uh, I would call her, uh, Ghislaine Maxwell. She maximized the 0.88

00:10:09.540 Ghislaine for Epstein. And boy, did she do that. Well, I'm introducing a new segment today. I call

00:10:17.560 dumb celebrities, dumb celebrities. You ready? Dumb celebrity. Number one, Deborah Messing. 1.00

00:10:24.520 She tweeted two charts, one showing the unemployment, unemployment claims are way down

00:10:29.740 compared to the Trump administration and the stock market is up. And she says in her tweet,

00:10:36.740 and she tweets at the Senate GOP, house GOP and the GOP leaders, because she wants the GOP to know

00:10:42.620 this. And then she puts it in all caps. Now, if a celebrity uses all caps, well, you really

00:10:49.800 have to pay attention to that. So in all claps, she says, just to be clear, just to be clear,

00:10:57.760 people, just to be clear, all caps. This means, uh, POTUS is doing a fantastic job, all caps,

00:11:04.960 fantastic job, fantastic job, right? I mean, these two charts show that Biden's doing a fantastic job,

00:11:12.940 right? Right? It's obvious, isn't it? Right? Right? Hey, everybody, it's obvious. No. And then she

00:11:20.400 goes, I'll wait, I'll wait, because it's so obvious, according to her graphs, that Biden's doing a

00:11:27.760 fantastic job. Hashtag Biden, hashtag Biden delivers. So I responded to this and say, and said, uh,

00:11:37.220 no, it just means there was a pandemic. That's it. It just means there was a pandemic. And if, uh,

00:11:45.680 Trump had been president, you know, through the pandemic until now, the stock market would have

00:11:51.140 been up and, uh, the unemployment claims would be down compared to where they were.

00:11:57.760 So here's a celebrity who honestly can't tell the difference between coming out of a pandemic

00:12:03.560 and doing a good job. She couldn't tell the difference. And she thinks it's so obvious

00:12:09.360 that she can do it in caps and be sarcastic about it and sort of dunk on you, because you don't 0.57

00:12:16.020 understand how good a job Biden's doing, even though the numbers don't show anything like that.

00:12:22.700 All right. Dumb celebrities. Number two, Ben and Jerry's. Now they don't own Ben and Jerry's 1.00

00:12:29.400 anymore. They sold it, but they're still in the news and they're usually in the news because

00:12:34.760 they're telling us how to be better people. Am I right? That's sort of Ben and Jerry's thing.

00:12:40.500 How to be better people on this world, better, better caretakers of the planet, just better

00:12:46.160 people. Um, Ben and Jerry's became millionaires by selling ice cream to fat people. Uh, and they're

00:12:55.860 here to tell us how to be better people. Well, one way to be a better person, I'm just going

00:13:01.420 to put that out here. Uh, if you're looking for ways to be a better person, don't sell ice cream

00:13:07.100 to fat people. No, don't do that because that's not good for them. It's the number one health 0.69

00:13:14.220 problem. Um, so it turns out that, uh, the left and even the, the, the deep left is starting

00:13:23.060 to have some doubts about the honesty of their own media. They're starting to catch on. That's

00:13:31.660 right. People on the left are starting to suspect just getting a little hint that maybe not all

00:13:38.820 of the news they're hearing on social media as well as the news. Maybe it's not all 100%

00:13:45.620 accurate. Case in point, a member of the young Turks in a, uh, uh, in a gaspura. Um, yeah, I think 0.97

00:13:59.240 it's, you know, yeah, Anna Kasparian. Um, she basically did a, did a piece in which she

00:14:08.500 said, uh, her understanding of the Rittenhouse trial had changed completely because apparently

00:14:14.260 the, the media had bamboozled her. So if even the young Turks is realizing that the news is 0.53

00:14:23.940 lying to them, I feel like that's some deeper penetration of the idea that the news is not

00:14:30.660 real. The right knows this clearly. The left still is figuring it out, but they're starting

00:14:37.160 to figure it out. Well, do you follow, how many of you read Axios? Uh, it's a news, a newer

00:14:44.120 news source, Axios. I'm going to give them a little shout out today. I do read them. Um,

00:14:50.200 it's one of the, one of the ones I try to hit every day, but, uh, and one of the reasons

00:14:56.580 I do it is I'm trying to figure out where CNN and Fox news are getting it wrong because Axios

00:15:02.220 tends to be a little bit more balanced. I don't know. Maybe sometimes they're not. So, but,

00:15:09.320 um, I will note that they apparently were not part of the fake reporting on the Steele dossier.

00:15:14.820 How about that? That's worth a shout out. Now I did a fact check on this. This is a claim

00:15:21.020 from Axios, right? So one of Axios is, uh, writers, Josh, uh, Krushauer. He's talking

00:15:28.520 about a reckoning is hitting news organizations for the years old coverage of the Steele dossier.

00:15:33.880 But, uh, I don't, I don't remember if Josh said it or somebody else said it in the article

00:15:37.940 that Axios itself had not, had not taken the bait on the Steele dossier. Is that true?

00:15:44.820 Can anybody confirm that, that they did not take the bait on that? They may have covered

00:15:49.720 it as a story that's being covered, but I don't know that they treated it as real at

00:15:53.620 any point. Anyway, um, they're, you know, they're talking about how the news organizations

00:16:00.820 need to, uh, deal with it. Apparently some of them are just going back and changing the

00:16:05.120 original reporting and adding some clarifiers. You know, instead of saying, well, we were wrong,

00:16:10.380 we lied to you. Not only did we lie to you, we got Pulitzer Prizes for lying to you in

00:16:15.400 one case. And, uh, so the, the fake news industry is just trying to hide their, um, their awfulness.

00:16:26.220 All right. Uh, Rasmussen had a poll in which they asked, uh, do you trust political news you're

00:16:31.080 beginning? What do you think people said? What percentage do you think of registered voters?

00:16:37.580 Uh, or I think they usually do likely voters. Um, what percentage do you think trust the political

00:16:45.700 news? 25%. Okay. Okay. You're way ahead of me. Yeah. It turns out it's 33% trust, trust,

00:16:59.080 trust the political news. But remember, I always tell you that something, something in the neighborhood

00:17:04.460 of 25% of the public gets every question wrong. And I don't know if it's the same one. I don't know

00:17:11.180 if it's the same 25% every time. Maybe it depends on the topic, but sure enough, 33% of the country

00:17:18.240 actually trusts the political news. Now this isn't even a left, right thing, is it? I don't think this

00:17:24.980 has to do with the left or the right. How could you possibly trust the political news? How could

00:17:30.580 you be alive for the last five years and say, yeah, I think the political news is usually

00:17:34.880 pretty accurate. How could you possibly think that? Um, all right. I guess Biden is preparing

00:17:45.740 to, uh, have a Zoom meeting with, uh, China's, uh, President Xi, Xi Jinping. Um, how do you

00:17:54.660 think that's going to go? I can't think of anything that would be more of a waste of time than Biden

00:18:01.700 and President Xi talking over Zoom and speaking a different language. How would that, how's that

00:18:09.700 ever going to work? Now I get that, you know, it's a pandemic and everything. So we do things

00:18:14.820 differently, but don't we all agree that an in-person meeting feels completely different

00:18:19.880 than a Zoom? That's still true, right? Or have we evolved to the point where an, uh, a Zoom meeting

00:18:26.320 is just as good? I don't think we have. I feel that there's something about us as human beings that

00:18:33.600 makes personal contact more substantial. So I think that maybe having Zoom meetings would be good

00:18:41.940 at lower levels of government, but I don't know. I don't even know if this is good. I mean, I suppose

00:18:49.060 we have to have continual contact and let them know what we're thinking, but there's no way that this

00:18:54.020 is going to make anything better because I don't think Zoom does that or whatever, whatever they're

00:18:59.560 using won't be Zoom. Uh, I guess the Trump Hotel, uh, Trump International in Washington DC, uh, is

00:19:08.200 getting sold. Um, I, I stayed at the Trump International in Washington DC when I visited President Trump

00:19:17.520 and it was one of the worst hotels I've ever stayed in. I got to tell you, my room was maybe the worst

00:19:24.480 room I've been in in years. Why? Um, first of all, my room didn't have a window, uh, at below, uh, below

00:19:35.820 person level. So there was like a raised couple of windows that you couldn't see through, but they're

00:19:42.680 up high. And we got a notice, we got a notice while I was staying there that we should keep those drapes

00:19:49.940 closed because the window washers were working. So the only light from the outside into this room

00:19:56.900 was these little high up windows that I had to keep the drapes closed. So I basically sat in a

00:20:04.520 darkened, uh, darkened unimpressive room until it was time for my meeting. Uh, yeah, it's the old

00:20:13.980 post office, uh, building, I guess. So, uh, the lobby and bar area are, are attractive. That's

00:20:20.840 true. Yes. The down, the downstairs is quite attractive. Also, when I was there, I didn't

00:20:25.560 see many other people. It did seem like it was a little bit empty when I was there. I didn't see

00:20:30.560 people in the hallways, et cetera. Um, so I would say that the Trumps are smart to get rid of that hotel. 0.60

00:20:38.800 Um, that would be not exactly the jewel in the crown of their holdings. So good for them getting

00:20:45.380 rid of that. Um, remember I told you that, uh, I, I know the news before you do. I'll just give you a

00:20:52.960 teaser. Tomorrow you're going to see a poll, uh, on politics. So I'll just tell you that the topic is

00:21:01.060 politics. And the, the result has been described as, and I quote, stunning, stunning. So you're going

00:21:13.780 to see a poll result tomorrow that, uh, has been described by somebody who's seen it as stunning.

00:21:22.560 And I have enough information about it that it's going to be stunning. So basically, uh, wait for that.

00:21:29.760 All right. Have I told you before that one way to, uh, persuade, especially persuading people who

00:21:38.280 are hard to persuade, uh, is, no, it's a professional poll. It's not, it's not one of my

00:21:44.260 Twitter polls. It's a professional poll. Um, have I told you that one way to, uh, persuade is to

00:21:51.620 enter somebody's frame if their frame is absurd? So if somebody is making a worldview claim that's

00:21:59.180 absurd, arguing against it, Hey, that's not real, or you're looking at it wrong, hardly ever works.

00:22:05.840 But sometimes you can enter their frame and show them how absurd it is from the inside.

00:22:12.020 And you have to hear examples of this. So here's the example, uh, Bernie Sanders, as you know,

00:22:18.380 was having this little exchange with Elon Musk about taxes and what your fair share is.

00:22:23.480 And what Bernie would like you to know is that, uh, rich people should pay their quote,

00:22:29.760 fair share. Now that's the absurd frame that Bernie has because there's no such thing as fair.

00:22:37.220 It literally is just an opinion. It doesn't mean anything. There's no standard for fair.

00:22:42.120 Fair. So instead of arguing against fair, which would be impossible, you do the opposite. You

00:22:50.680 embrace it. And you say, you know, Bernie, I think we should have fair taxation. So let's figure out,

00:22:58.500 since fairness is a somewhat subjective, you would agree with that, wouldn't you, Bernie?

00:23:03.120 Hey, Bernie, would you agree that fairness is not an objective standard? Rather, it's subjective.

00:23:09.540 Would you agree with that? I think you'd get him to say yes. Yes. You know it when you see it.

00:23:15.660 Wouldn't you say? It's sort of like art. Fairness is something you know when you see it.

00:23:20.780 You don't need to be too technical about it. You just know it when you see it.

00:23:24.540 Are we agreed, Bernie? Bernie, can you agree with me that, um, ordinary people will, will recognize

00:23:32.360 fairness and they will certainly recognize unfairness when they see it. Can we agree on that?

00:23:38.220 Because we both think fairness is how the tax system should be done. Absolutely. It should

00:23:44.480 be fair. So how would we figure out what is fair? How would you go about that? Well, I

00:23:52.040 have a suggestion that I think Bernie would love. You do a poll. Now I did a little, uh, you

00:23:59.060 know, sample poll of this on Twitter. So this is the non-scientific version of a poll.

00:24:04.000 And I said to the public, what is the closest to the, quote, fair share of all taxes combined

00:24:11.000 that the top 1% should pay? Now, if people read it carefully, they'd see all taxes combined.

00:24:17.720 Uh, I'm going to read this $49.99 comment and then get back to it. He paid a lot of money

00:24:31.700 for this on, on, uh, YouTube.

00:24:34.720 Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, for a man who insists on attempting to persuade his audience that

00:24:39.920 all pertinent knowledge is unknowable, why do you nonetheless persist in its dissemination?

00:24:45.820 To what level of futility are we engaging with here?

00:24:48.620 Um, so I'm telling you that all information is hard to trust. So what's the point of talking

00:24:58.440 about it? Is that your point? I'm not sure I quite understand the point, but you paid almost $50

00:25:03.200 for it. So I thought I'd give it some attention. Now I'm going to say the thing, same thing that,

00:25:08.420 uh, Viva Fry says on his show all the time. I don't encourage you to, uh, do the super chats.

00:25:15.240 I don't encourage you to do that. I appreciate it. I mean, nobody says no to money, but, uh, I don't,

00:25:24.120 I don't encourage it because I'm not sure you get your money's worth out of that.

00:25:28.920 Anyway, so I did a little poll on Twitter and said to people, in your opinion, what would be the

00:25:33.600 fair share of all taxes? Now all taxes combined, it was my question, and that would include federal,

00:25:39.460 state, um, in, you know, in every, every form of taxation. Now, how much do the top 1% pay?

00:25:46.980 Let's say me, I'll use me for example. What do you think I pay in terms of taxes? If you looked at

00:25:53.020 all my taxes. So I've got California state taxes that are sky high. I've got federal, then I've got

00:25:59.600 property tax, I've got sales tax, auto tax, everything else. What do you think I pay?

00:26:05.260 Yeah, it's probably 60%. Probably 60% tax rate. Something like that. It might be a lot higher,

00:26:14.700 but I think it's around 60%. Now of, of the money I earn, it takes 60% away. Of the 40% that I,

00:26:22.880 that I earn, how much of that do I spend on my own consumption? What do you think? How much of

00:26:30.420 the money I earn is my own consumption? Very little, because I, I don't need that much and I

00:26:37.840 have a high income. So is that fair? Is it fair that the government takes 60% and then what's left,

00:26:46.180 uh, other people who are not working take 90%? And I'm left with about 10%. Is it fair that I get to

00:26:52.820 keep 10% of my money working every fucking day for 30 years? Do I get to keep 10%? Is that, is that, 0.98

00:27:01.200 does that seem okay to you? That I work every fucking day, every fucking day for 35 years. Do I get to 0.99

00:27:08.860 keep 10%? That would seem, is that, is that okay? 10%? All right. So here's how you deal with Bernie.

00:27:18.640 You say, Bernie, let's settle this. Let's ask the country to tell us what the top 1% would pay. I asked

00:27:24.960 the same question by, on Twitter. And 1% of the people, oh no, I'm sorry. 29% answered that the top 1%

00:27:34.140 should pay 1%. If you're the top 1%, you should pay 1% of, of the tax bill. The real number is 40%

00:27:44.800 of just the federal tax. So, so that, that's the current tax is 40%. The top 1% are paying 40% of all

00:27:52.860 the tax bill for the whole country. But if you ask people what is fair, only 18% said that 40% would

00:28:00.080 be fair. And keep in mind, I said combined taxes. So the people who say 40% is fair are really

00:28:06.320 saying 40% is fair, but the rich are actually playing closer to 60. So even that is 50% lower

00:28:14.020 than the current tax rates for some of us. 19% said it should be 30%. 34% said it should be 20%.

00:28:23.120 And 29% said it should be 1%. So in other words, um, over 60% thought it should be way, way less

00:28:33.860 than it currently is to be fair. So let's ask Bernie to figure out what is fair by asking the public

00:28:42.260 a nice random sample, not a, not a rigged poll like mine is, but a random sample. And then we'll say,

00:28:49.860 okay, if that's fair, let's go with that. Because you know, what's going to happen is that if you ask

00:28:56.900 the public what's fair, they will come up with a number that's not even close to what the rich people

00:29:02.420 actually pay. It won't even be close. Now I've done this, this kind of, uh, you know, unscientific poll

00:29:09.300 before. So I know that people don't have any idea how much taxes rich people pay. You have no idea.

00:29:17.100 And by the way, you know, almost all rich people are supporting lots of other people,

00:29:25.140 me included. Do you know how many rich people, how many, uh, people are supported by every rich

00:29:30.840 person, every one rich person? It's a lot. It's a lot. Anyway, uh, Dave Portnoy, you know, his,

00:29:40.760 uh, his situation over at Barstool, um, the media entity, Barstool. And, uh, he was the subject of a

00:29:49.500 hit piece recently by Business Insider about his sex life. But because, uh, I guess they picked the

00:29:57.700 wrong guy. If you're the media and you're going to go after somebody, don't go after somebody who is

00:30:05.600 this good in public and has this big a media platform. I mean, you know, it's sort of like,

00:30:13.940 uh, by analogy, it's sort of like, uh, taking a run at the king. If, if you can't put him down

00:30:20.560 and they didn't, you know, they tried to put Portnoy down. If you don't put him down,

00:30:26.380 he's going to get stronger. And I think that's what's happening. So now a second entity looks like

00:30:32.600 they, uh, allegedly may be taking a run at a second hit piece that looks like it was assigned

00:30:38.060 about the same time. So at about the same time as the Business Insider hit piece on his love life,

00:30:44.660 there was a separate one, uh, on his quote alleged toxic workplace. What are the odds that this one

00:30:53.600 media figure, Dave Portnoy, would be the subject of two hit pieces on the two most critical parts of

00:31:00.900 his life, you know, his personal life, and then his business separately. And they would be assigned

00:31:05.460 at the same time. None of this shit is an accident, right? This is the Democrats picking off, um, 0.99

00:31:15.000 important voices on who may be Trump supporters, or at least even leading that direction.

00:31:19.900 Now, I told you that they've already made a run at me and there will be more before the election of

00:31:26.960 2024. Watch how many hit pieces either happen without my involvement about me, um, and how many

00:31:34.300 they try. I'll tell you when they try because I'll be turning them down because they like, they like to

00:31:39.500 get you on the record so that they can misquote you. That's why they do it, by the way. The reason

00:31:45.960 they would want to spend time with the subject of the hippies is to get the subject to say things

00:31:51.240 that they can misquote. And if you think that I'm kidding about that, not at all. Not at all. That

00:31:58.680 is the game. The game is the misquote. That's everything they're looking for is a misquote. Now

00:32:03.560 when I say misquote, I mean that includes out of context. It doesn't mean actually changing the

00:32:08.460 words they said. They don't always do that. But they can change the context to make it into something

00:32:13.760 it isn't. Project Veritas, uh, you know that the government has targeted them because we don't

00:32:21.020 have a, uh, government that is legitimate anymore. At least the FBI is not legitimate, in my opinion.

00:32:27.620 And our intel agencies are not legitimate. So we have a pretty illegitimate government at this point.

00:32:33.860 But, uh, even the, as, uh, as, uh, Hermit Dillon, uh, attorney, uh, points out, she's the attorney

00:32:41.920 for, uh, Project Veritas, I believe, uh, points out that even the ACLU, who you expect to be,

00:32:48.780 you know, far, far, far left, even they say, okay, this is too far. That the raid on, uh, Project

00:32:55.840 Veritas, uh, that even the ACLU is condemning the FBI raid on them. That, do you know how far,

00:33:03.800 do you know how far you have to go before the ACLU will back somebody on the right? 0.98

00:33:11.840 You have to really be bad before the ACLU will say, damn it, we're going to have to take the side 0.95

00:33:19.000 of the right this time. It's going to be too obvious if we don't. That's bad. Um, did you notice 0.96

00:33:27.600 that CNN has gone, uh, guns hot on, uh, Kamala Harris? So if you look at the top left of CNN's,

00:33:37.380 uh, website, that's where they put the news they want you to notice the most. All websites put the

00:33:42.680 important stuff in the top left if they know what they're doing. The, the entire top left is about

00:33:48.120 how Kamala Harris is incompetent on CNN. Not one story, multiple stories on CNN about the vice 1.00

00:34:00.080 president's incompetence, especially your staff. It more, more focus on the staff, but of course

00:34:05.840 that accrues to her as well. The cat is on the roof. It turns out that somebody is trying to get

00:34:14.000 rid of Kamala Harris and trying pretty hard because she's been a disaster. There isn't any way she 1.00

00:34:18.660 could win a general election against really anybody at this point. And, uh, CNN is, uh, to their credit,

00:34:27.520 I think, they're going after her hard. Now here's what I think. I think CNN has orders from the

00:34:34.720 Democratic Party. What do you think? I don't believe that CNN independently said, let's take it,

00:34:40.980 let's take down, uh, Harris. There's no way that that's not a coordinated move with somebody

00:34:47.740 in the Democratic Party. So they're looking for the replacement. It's very clear. And they've got

00:34:54.580 a problem because Biden probably can't last for another term, even if, you know, it's unlikely he

00:35:00.220 could win. But she's certainly not going to be the one. And now they have to figure out who is the one

00:35:05.620 and to figure out how to do that. There's some, there's some conversation that she would be put

00:35:10.680 on the Supreme Court just to open her job for somebody else. I don't believe that one. I don't

00:35:17.420 see her on the Supreme Court. I don't think she's got the weight for that, that kind of thing. 0.97

00:35:24.500 All right. There's a, uh, so a tweet by Dr. Joseph Mercola. He would be in the category of those

00:35:31.040 doctors that I call the rogue doctors, the doctors who were taking the contrarian view on,

00:35:36.600 uh, pandemic related stuff. So you may have seen him on Twitter, Dr. Joseph Mercola. And he talks,

00:35:44.040 he tweets about a story about a, uh, school in, uh, where is it? Somewhere in America. There's a school

00:35:51.020 that had to close because, uh, they didn't have enough teachers, including substitute teachers. They

00:35:56.860 didn't have enough to keep the school open because of all the teachers who complained and took sick

00:36:01.780 days after getting the booster shot. And so Dr. Mercola says, uh, you think they closed schools due

00:36:11.060 to soreness at the injection site? Do you think, do you think that's why everybody's calling in sick?

00:36:16.420 Because there's a little bit of soreness in the arm? Um, it's interesting. I'm reading your comment,

00:36:26.980 but I'm not going to talk about that now. Um, so what do you think? Is there any other explanation

00:36:33.740 for why this school would have to close because so many teachers were complaining of side effects

00:36:39.380 from the vaccination? Is there any other explanation for why a school would have to close

00:36:44.460 because so many teachers had to call in sick after getting vaccinated? Any other reason?

00:36:50.620 Or is the reason that the vaccinations are, are shit and you shouldn't get them? Is that the only 0.99

00:36:55.220 reason? Well, I could come up with three. Number one is statistical clustering, meaning that on any

00:37:04.360 given day, somewhere in the United States, a lot of teachers are sick at the same time in one place.

00:37:10.320 Guaranteed. Statistics are not smooth over all of the places in the world. Statistics are randomly,

00:37:20.260 you know, usually, or could be randomly distributed. But even with random distribution,

00:37:26.760 you're guaranteed if you have enough, let's say schools in this case, if you have lots and lots of

00:37:31.780 schools, every day, one of those schools will have too many teachers called in sick. Every day.

00:37:38.580 So one explanation is that nothing happened. A lot of people call in sick every day. Some of them

00:37:47.740 maybe had some side effects from the vaccine. Not impossible. But others may have just said,

00:37:54.340 oh, I was not feeling good today. Here's another possible explanation. Teachers are lying to get days

00:38:01.800 off. Do you think the teachers didn't know that they could claim they had side effects from the

00:38:07.920 booster and get a day off? Of course they do. They knew that all they had to do is say, you know,

00:38:14.500 I'm feeling a little tired and shaky today. Day off. And we live in a world in which employees give

00:38:21.620 themselves vacation days by claiming fake illness. It's just routine. The entire country is filled

00:38:29.920 with people taking time off and claiming they're sick. Maybe it's just that because it's easy to

00:38:36.220 claim this and nobody's going to question it. The other third possibility, which would explain what

00:38:43.100 we see is local mass hysteria. When I say local, I mean, since only the town itself was aware of this

00:38:51.600 situation, it could be that one teacher had a real problem and then the others thought,

00:38:56.720 hmm, I'm feeling a little shaky and tired too. Maybe I'd better take a day off. Or it could be some

00:39:02.740 combination of the three things I mentioned. Or it could be exactly what Dr. Joseph Mercola suggests.

00:39:08.760 He could be exactly right. That the vaccinations have more side effects than are being reported.

00:39:17.080 I'm just saying that when somebody asks you what else could it be, make sure you know

00:39:25.020 the other possibilities because there are other things that could be. And I don't know if they're

00:39:31.060 even less likely. They're certainly all possible. So that's your lesson right there.

00:39:38.760 I continue to come up with ways to identify NPCs. Now, NPCs would be non-player characters.

00:39:53.580 And it assumes that we live in a simulation that's built like a game. And this is not a base

00:40:01.040 reality. Now, if that's true, and I think it's a trillion to one odds that it is true. But if it's

00:40:07.920 true, how do you find the characters that are not actually player characters, but they're just sort

00:40:13.540 of background scenery? I have four potential tells. I'm not convinced any of these are good,

00:40:21.980 and I'm not convinced that NPCs exist. But just for fun. This is just for fun, right? Don't take any

00:40:28.860 of it too seriously. Number one, an NPC is somebody who wouldn't change their opinion even as the data

00:40:34.860 changes. Because you imagine the NPCs have less programming, right? They just don't have as many

00:40:41.640 options. They just don't have the range of action that a real person would have. So an NPC would not

00:40:47.960 change its opinion even if the data changes, right? Because they wouldn't have that flexibility.

00:40:54.440 But a real player character might. Might change their mind if the data changes, right? Number two,

00:41:01.980 they have absolute opinions as opposed to statistical opinions. And it doesn't matter if they're on the

00:41:07.260 left or the right. But if they say, for example, the election was stolen, 100%. Or if they say the

00:41:15.660 election wasn't stolen, 100%. That's an NPC. It doesn't matter which side you're on. Because we

00:41:23.340 don't know. I mean, the actual real person way to look at it is, I don't know. I mean, I suspect it

00:41:30.960 was stolen, or probably stolen, or probably not. Now, those are opinions that could be, you know,

00:41:38.620 right or wrong. But they're not NPC opinions. They're just somebody who doesn't know, which is exactly the

00:41:45.020 right place to be. Number three, they don't have any stories to tell. Have you noticed that some

00:41:52.600 people always have stories? You could give me almost any topic, and I'll tell you a story in my life

00:41:58.300 that has some relationship to it. Now, I'm a writer, so maybe it's easier for me. But there are people

00:42:05.320 who can't tell you a story about anything. And the suggestion here is that they've been programmed

00:42:11.440 without much history. So they don't have any stories. Because they're NPCs. And then the fourth

00:42:18.880 one, I'll just throw this out to be argumentative. They believe analogies are the same things as

00:42:25.660 arguments. Because if you're going to program your NPCs, you just say, okay, just follow patterns.

00:42:32.800 Just whatever the pattern is, just do that. If you see a pattern, just trust it. So the NPCs would

00:42:41.200 see analogies as meaning something. Whereas people who are real people would see analogies as just

00:42:49.000 analogies. It's a different situation that might tell you something about yours. But it's not an

00:42:54.180 argument. It's just a whole different situation. Oh, also, they're really bad at analogies, maybe.

00:43:00.960 NPCs in a video game also repeat useful things to help you complete your quest. So maybe they

00:43:11.740 repeat themselves. Maybe they only say a certain number of things. Now, the other, oh, I guess I

00:43:17.360 should have added a fifth. A fifth would be movie references as opposed to useful conversation.

00:43:24.800 So if somebody is saying to you, oh, that's like The Matrix or that's Soylent Green. There's a few

00:43:32.400 other movies that people always mention.

00:43:36.780 Oh, wow. Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto could be unmasked at a Florida trial. That's not,

00:43:44.660 that's got to be fake news. I'm saying something that looks like fake news. How in the world could the

00:43:50.240 creator of Bitcoin be unmasked? That would, that would, that's just not possible, right?

00:44:02.200 Am I right? Do I, do I understand Bitcoin well enough to say that you could never uncover

00:44:08.840 who it is in a court case unless you actually had that person in court? And even then, I'm not sure if

00:44:15.060 it would work. Right? Oh, okay. We do have a, Erica is saying that the Rittenhouse gun charges have

00:44:28.700 been dismissed. The gun charges have been dismissed. Thank you. What did I tell you the other day?

00:44:37.800 I told you that the, our court system in the United States is the jewel of the Republic.

00:44:46.360 This might be a good example. I'm hoping that this goes the way I would expect it to.

00:44:56.160 Wait a minute. Now I'm seeing somebody else saying the opposite. Now the court finds Kyle

00:45:00.380 Rittenhouse, oh, lawfully carried it. I'm sorry. Yes, lawfully, that's the same.

00:45:07.800 Um, they're going hard on the provocation angle. Yeah. All right.

00:45:17.220 So, um, good for the court system if it comes to the right conclusion. And it looks like it is.

00:45:24.160 I have some, uh, faith in this judge. Having watched the judge's operation, uh, I feel like

00:45:30.380 things are going to go the right direction here. Steve Bannon turned himself in this morning.

00:45:35.620 Um, jail the prosecutor. I feel like, I feel like that's warranted. It might be a bad precedent

00:45:47.500 to put a prosecutor in jail, but there has to be some limit to bad behavior. And I don't

00:45:54.520 know how you decide objectively what that limit is, but my subjective opinion is that he crossed

00:46:00.620 it. Um, the judge kind of looks like me. No, he doesn't. You're just saying all bald white 0.92

00:46:11.460 guys with glasses look alike. Well, we do. It's kind of true. Um, what does it mean if

00:46:20.500 it doesn't go in the right direction? Well, the jury can do anything. You know, the jury can

00:46:25.040 find whatever they want. So there's still some risk. Oh yeah. So I, I forgot about this

00:46:31.860 story. So it turns out that Pete Buttigieg is not in charge of the infrastructure spending.

00:46:38.240 Did you know that? Pete Buttigieg is not, they, apparently some new guy has been appointed to

00:46:44.000 be the infrastructure czar because Buttigieg couldn't handle that or it wasn't, didn't make

00:46:50.600 sense in his portfolio. Which is it? That's really not much of a, uh, uh, confidence in

00:46:59.000 Buttigieg, is it? I wonder, I wonder if somebody's trying to keep Buttigieg from becoming president

00:47:06.240 on the Democrat side. Doesn't this feel like if anybody wanted Buttigieg to be president,

00:47:12.160 they would give him the portfolio? Right? Am I wrong? If they wanted Buttigieg to have a high

00:47:19.440 enough profile from his, you know, boring job that he's in so that he could run for president,

00:47:24.460 they would give him the portfolio and make sure that you knew he was the one making the decisions.

00:47:30.160 I think the Democrats just kneecapped Buttigieg. Am I wrong? Am I reading too much into that?

00:47:38.260 It could be that Buttigieg just had too much, you know, on his plate for the normal job and he

00:47:43.000 couldn't handle it. But it looks like the Democrats just took out Kamala Harris and took out Buttigieg.

00:47:49.140 Who are they, who are they making space for? They're making space for somebody, aren't they?

00:47:55.340 Because Biden's, I don't, there's no chance Biden's going to run again. So if they take out Biden,

00:48:00.320 Harris and Buttigieg, who's left? Now it's not going to be Tulsi, because she's a little bit too, 1.00

00:48:08.080 too middle for the, the left, I think. Not Hillary, not, it's not going to be Michelle Obama. 0.99

00:48:14.580 Not Cory Booker, not John Kerry. AOC now, too soon, Maxine Waters now. Isn't this interesting?

00:48:26.720 There has to be some, oh, Newsom. I would love to see Newsom's poll numbers. He might, you know,

00:48:37.560 Newsom is somebody to worry about if you're a Republican to worry about, because he has some

00:48:42.620 serious game. He's really, really good at the politics stuff, in my opinion. Now, I'm not happy

00:48:49.140 with, you know, what he's done to California, but he's definitely good at it. That's for sure.

00:48:59.180 He will turn off independence, maybe. McAuliffe, I doubt it. Yeah, isn't this interesting that we can't

00:49:07.320 think of one person on the Democrat side who would make a suitable president. Now, do the same

00:49:14.000 experiment, except with the Republicans, and say to yourself, okay, if it's not Trump, do they have

00:49:23.220 any strong candidates? Yeah, all kinds of them. So, I mean, you start with DeSantis, he'd be the obvious

00:49:30.440 one. Tom Cotton, strong. Rand Paul, strong. Yeah, I mean, and I would bet you could come

00:49:42.520 up Tim Scott, strong. Yeah, it would be pretty easy to come up with a number of Republicans

00:49:51.280 that you think could be in the fight. Well, I can't think of a Democrat that would even be

00:49:56.420 able to land a punch. Gretchen Whitmer? I don't know. Pompeo? Yeah, even Pompeo would be at least

00:50:10.160 a serious candidate for president. He wouldn't be my first choice. All right. I think we've

00:50:17.940 reached the point where I've done such a good job. Ooh, Joe Manchin. That's interesting. But

00:50:25.880 I don't think the Democrats would support Manchin. So I don't think he can get there.

00:50:32.360 So am I wrong that there is a gigantic lane for somebody to create the middle party? So

00:50:39.540 the problem with Andrew Yang, and the problem with anybody who does a third party, is it looks

00:50:44.560 like a third party. Am I right? Third parties look like where people who are just sick of

00:50:51.260 their party and have given up on being productive, you know, go for their protest vote. And as long

00:50:57.720 as you frame it that way, it's going to stay that way. And I think Yang has somewhat accidentally

00:51:03.260 framed his, you know, third party appeal very narrowly. I'm not even entirely sure what you'd

00:51:11.340 call his proposition. But imagine you said, I'm going to form the middle party. And I'm going to go

00:51:17.160 after the moderate Democrats and the moderate Republicans. And I'm going to acknowledge that

00:51:23.260 they don't agree, even though they're both closer to the middle. I'm going to acknowledge that they

00:51:27.900 don't agree. But I'm going to have them fight it down in public. We'll have a series of debates

00:51:33.240 with the moderates versus the moderates. And we'll publicize it. And I'll help you, you know, sort out

00:51:41.360 what's true. And then we'll try to come up with compromises. And we'll just ignore the far left

00:51:47.820 and the far right as both equally not useful. Now imagine if instead of demonizing the right,

00:51:56.700 the far right, or demonizing the left, the far left, suppose you said everybody in the middle is

00:52:03.320 cool. And that you're the middle party and you invite them all in. Democrats cool, as long as you're

00:52:09.480 toward the middle. Republicans cool, independents, you're all in. You're all cool. The people on the

00:52:15.040 far left and the far right, I will simply dismiss this way. They're not useful. They're not useful to

00:52:22.000 you. They're not useful to the country. They're not even useful to themselves. As soon as you get into

00:52:28.100 the details, you're lost. You know, what they believe and the wokeness and all that. As soon as you start

00:52:33.940 arguing that, you're on their own home territory. Instead, just say the middle party is exclusively

00:52:40.920 going to engage with people who are trying to be useful. And those who are clearly not trying to be

00:52:46.400 useful, we'll just ignore. No, no prejudice. They're all Americans and they need to be taken care of.

00:52:54.060 They have a vote, just like everybody else. So they get full respect, but you don't need to satisfy

00:53:00.440 them because they're not part of the useful middle. Well, actually, how about this? Change the name of the

00:53:08.240 party to the useful middle, not just even middle. The useful middle, two words. How would you not want

00:53:16.160 to be in that category? Would you not want to be in the useful middle? I mean, that's where I'd want to

00:53:27.780 be. I'd want to be in the useful middle because it frames the everything else as being not useful.

00:53:34.400 Even if you believe there are things, it's just not useful. Now, high energy party, too generic.

00:53:43.940 Define far right. Far right, I would say the racists. So I would say that the far right,

00:53:51.060 the farthest right, and the farthest left are both just racists. What do you think of that framing?

00:53:59.720 That the farthest right, you know, the extreme, and the farthest left are just racists. And why

00:54:06.000 would you engage racists on either party? As soon as you get into the, like, the policy differences,

00:54:13.540 how useful is that? Not very. Somebody says wrong.

00:54:24.540 Tyrannical. The useful party, I think you need the useful middle. Somehow that middle

00:54:31.560 adds something, I think. The shrink government party, yeah, good luck with that.

00:54:38.540 All right. I think I've done enough. So YouTube, I'm going to say goodbye right now, and I'll

00:54:48.780 talk to you tomorrow. I hope you enjoyed the show.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - November 15, 2021

Episode 1562 Scott Adams： Let's Talk About All the Fake News and Celebrity Idiots

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