Episode 1580 Scott Adams： The News Is Full of Wonderful Craziness Today. Come Enjoy it
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Summary
Alec Baldwin's "I didn't even pull the trigger" on the set of "Saturday Night Live" and why it's a good thing it wasn't him. Plus, fake news about the order of the timeline of Trump's first test, and whether or not it was positive or negative.
Transcript
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Good morning, everybody, and welcome to just about the best time you've ever had in your life,
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and it's just going to get better. I hate to say this is the highlight of your whole life,
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but it's the highlight so far. It could get better. I think it might. Audio is good. Video
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is good. My goodness, what a wonderful start to the day. Is anybody exercising? Because
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exercising to the news is the best thing ever. In fact, I like to exercise in the afternoon when
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I'm watching a show called The Five on Fox. I call it exer-fiving. That's right. I don't know if
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there's a clever way to exercise to this, but if you can come up with a clever name like exer-fiving,
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let me know. All right. If you'd like to take it up a level, and I know you do, you're that kind
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of people. Would you settle? Would you settle for a mildly interesting live stream? No. No,
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you're not that kind of people. You are smarter and sexier than the average person, and you want
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to have it all. And if you want to have it all, all you need is a cup or mug or a glass, a tanker,
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chalice or stein, a canteen jug or flask, a vessel of any kind. Fill it with your favorite liquid. I like
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coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled, unparalleled, unparalleled pleasure. It's called
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the simultaneous sip. It's famous around the world. It's going to happen to you right now
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Ah, that was good because it was totally the first simultaneous sip I've taken today.
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All right. Fake news. Let's do the fake news first. Fake news alert. There's some fake news about
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the order of the timeline of Trump getting COVID. And the fake news is saying that he tested positive
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positive and then went and interacted with a bunch of people. I'm summarizing a detailed,
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boring story. Do you think that's true? Did he test positive and then go interact with a bunch of
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people? Sort of true. Here's the part that they left out. The first test that was positive was a low
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grade test. So they used a higher quality test and he tested negative. And then he interacted with
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people. So is it true that he tested positive and then soon after went and interacted with people?
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It's true. It's also true that he immediately tested negative right after he tested positive.
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So it's just fake news. Well, it's fake news in the sense that they left out a really important point
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that he had tested negative. Now, I'm not going to defend anything he did or didn't do. I'll just make
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that very specific point that the news is fake about this story. Well, Alec Baldwin interestingly claims
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that he did not pull the trigger on the set of Rust in the round that killed his cinematographer
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and wounded the director. Apparently, the trigger pulled itself or the gun just fired itself.
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Now, huh. I'm no public relations expert. But here's how I would have played that.
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The moment Alec Baldwin said, you know, I didn't even pull the trigger. I feel like I would have told
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the public that little tidbit right away. Right away. Doesn't that feel important? I didn't pull the
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trigger. Now, who knows if that's true or false. But it's pretty important to note it. Why are we just
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finding that out now? Really? You don't think there was one other person who already knew that he said he
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didn't pull the trigger. There was nobody on the set who was a witness to him saying, my God, I didn't
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even pull the trigger. Something a little bit wrong with this story, isn't there? Who waits? How long have
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we waited since the event itself? How many weeks has it been? Has it been a month? A month? So there's
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something wrong with that story. And I believe it might be yet another sign of a poltergeist
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invasion. So, so far, according to CNN, the following things have happened recently. An SUV drove itself
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into a crowd of people. A rock hurled itself and hurt somebody. And now, quite alarmingly, a trigger of a
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gun has pulled itself. So, that's not the worst of it. It's possible that a portal to hell has been
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opened and poltergeists are running the show right now. But it's even worse than that. We're actually
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having crimes now featuring criminals. And I know this is weird, but featuring criminals who don't have
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an ethnicity. Now, that's new. In the past, people always had an ethnicity. So, I assume this is more
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of the portal from hell situation where maybe some demons are coming through who have no ethnicity
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because the reporting is now making sure it doesn't tell us. So, just keep an eye out for the
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poltergeist. Had an interesting back and forth with a professional statistician, I believe,
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Joe Shipman. And we were talking about making decisions in the face of incomplete data. And I
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was calling that guessing. That if you're making a decision with incomplete data, that you're
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guessing. And he pushed back on that and said, no, you know, in the real world, I'm paraphrasing a
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little bit, but in the real world, you never have, you know, perfect data, but you can still make pretty
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good decisions if you do the right kind of analysis. And I'll give you his argument and then
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I'm going to counter it. He said, some of us need to make the best of the information we have
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using as scientific a process as we can. Because decisions can't be avoided. I agree, you have to
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make a decision sometimes. Part of the process is identifying one's assumptions and biases to the
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extent possible. It's not a perfect process, but it merits recognition. Okay, so far. And he said,
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it's imprecise to call it guessing, because that's what I did. I called it guessing. Specifically,
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the topic was guessing if you made the right decision about the vaccination. But he's talking
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more generically here. Because there is a whole science of decision making under uncertainty.
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Correct. There is a process for decision making under uncertainty. Where you take into account
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multiple possible outcomes. Correct. Monte Carlo simulation, etc. One of the good ways to do that
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is you run all the possibilities and you see if there's any possibility that's bad. Because it could
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be that every combination of variables, you end up either, you know, positive or very positive or
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negative or very negative. So it'd be good to know if no matter what you do, you end up positive or
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negative. So yeah, that's definitely a process. I've used that process professionally. And he says,
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guessing has the connotation of identifying the most likely outcome and acting as if it is the only one.
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Well, no. I mean, I don't accept that definition of guessing, but that's not important. And he says,
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I won't allow any characterization of what I've said as, quote, guessing. The difference, he says,
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and then he makes a good case for his own track record of using his own technique. He said, with
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COVID, Russiagate, and many other recent controversies, not only have I been shown to be
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right, I have been right for the right reasons. Which is actually a good comment. If you write for the
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right reasons as opposed to coincidentally right, that does mean something. And if your arguments hold up,
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you get credit. I agree with that. But here's my counter to it, okay?
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Let's take Russiagate. How hard was it to know that that was bullshit? I think a lot of people just
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said, oh, Democrats in the news, they're all liars all the time, so it's not real. And then it turned out
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you were right. How many people did that? They just said, well, it's coming from people who lie all the
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time about everything. So I'll say this is a lie, too. And then it turned out you were right. Was it because
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you did a Monte Carlo simulation with all of the variables? Nope. Nope. Sometimes you just need one
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variable. But I give you this caution. There is nothing more dangerous than being right about
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something big. If you want to completely destroy a human brain, one way to do it is to be coincidentally
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right about something big. Because you know what happens, right? You get cocky. And then you're
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pretty sure you can peer into the, you know, complex soup of variables and get the right answer next
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time. Because you did it the last time. You can do it again. You were right on that Russiagate thing,
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so you're going to be right on this vaccination thing, right? You got a track record now. Now,
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if it were just one thing, that would be less convincing. And as Joe Shipman points out,
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he's been right on a number of things. And by the way, this is exactly the process I recommend.
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You should look at the things that you predicted, write them down or say them in public so you can
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be held to it, and then see how well he did. Now, Joe says that he's been tracking his own predictions,
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and they've been more right than wrong. That's my interpretation. And so he thinks that his
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process is good. What do you think? Well, he might just be a smart person who knows, you know, BS when
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he sees it. Could be that. And it's also pretty easy to just guess that people are lying about stuff
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because it seems like lately they almost always are. It's just a pretty easy guess. Now,
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take my situation with predicting that Trump would win in 2016. By my own description,
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should I now be ruined because I got one right? Well, it depends if it was a guess. In my case,
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well, I thought I could see something that other people couldn't see, which is he had the most
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incredible persuasion talent stack I'd ever seen. And I just happened to have a skill set that allowed
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me to see that before other people could see it. Now, I would say that at this point, even the
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Democrats say he's the most persuasive person in politics. They just don't like which way he's
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persuading. And I think the Republicans would agree he's the most persuasive person that's
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happened lately. So that was a case where I could simply see a variable that was invisible to other
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people. And it was the biggest variable, in my opinion. It was the biggest one. So that was really
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a very, very special case. And I tell myself that so I don't get cocky. I tell myself that I only got
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that right because of the weird, weird coincidence that my talent stack was exactly the right stack
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to see a thing that was invisible to other people. How often does that happen? Right? I can't think
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of another time. Really? Well, actually, I can think of one other time. If it turns out I'm right
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about there's no sonic weapon that's causing this Havana thing, there might be something causing it,
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but I don't think it's a sonic weapon. I would say that, too, is exactly in my skill stack.
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So I can simply see things that people can't see because of a specific kind of training.
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Now, I would say if I get those right, those probably don't break my brain. Because, as Joe said,
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I would have gotten them right for the right reasons. But I will say this. If you're saying to
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yourself, I'm looking into a complicated situation where I don't have a special insight,
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which is most things, right? Most things you don't have a special insight. If you're looking
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at all these variables swimming around and then you say to yourself, all right, I believe this one,
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not this one, I feel less closer to guessing. To me, I'm going to stick with my characterization of
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that as guessing. Because I think that unless you have a special insight, like I just described,
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you don't know which variables you've made correct assumptions about. So your assumptions will
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determine your outcome. It's not really the analysis itself. All right, so it's easy to imagine
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that the analysis gave you the answer when really it was just your assumptions, and that was guessing.
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So you have guesses in your analysis, and I don't know how anything but a guess could come out the
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other end. But I will take where I usually go hard at my critics, or even just people who disagree
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with me, I'm going to say that Joe Shipman has some really good points here about how there are times
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that you can do better than, I think, chance if you've got some special skills on analysis, which he does.
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So I would guess he probably does do better than chance. But if you get one right, by pure luck,
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you're broken from that point on. You'll always think that you can do that, and you just can't. It
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was luck. And especially bad with elections. Because if you get an election and there are two people in
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the running, about half of the country is going to think they guessed right. And then they'll think
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they can do it again. If all they're doing is looking at all the variables, again, which is
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different from my specific case where I had an extra vision on something, which is rare.
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All right, I'm going to call out Tulsi Gabbard for having a good strategy for becoming president
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without looking like she's trying. And it goes like this. Correct me if I'm wrong, so check my
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assumptions as I go. Would you agree that Tulsi Gabbard stands out as someone who is willing to say that
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the people on the other side of the political aisle do not necessarily suck? Is anybody else saying
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that? Give me giving the name of one other person who is willing to say, you know, not in direct
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words, but in lots of different ways, that the people on the other side might not be pieces of shit.
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There's nobody else, right? Manchin. Okay, Manchin. But I think Manchin is really talking about himself
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when he does that. I think Manchin is, you know, maybe a little bit talking about himself because
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he agrees with them. It's different if you agree with them. But saying that somebody is not a piece
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of shit if you completely disagree with them is actually kind of rare. Now, so far in our highly,
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highly divided world, is Tulsi Gabbard getting any traction? Not much. Not much. Because we're not ready
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for it, are we? We're not really, we're kind of committed to the divisiveness at the point, at this
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point, because it gives us a dopamine hit. But just like Bernie Sanders turned down to be somewhat
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brilliant by being consistent for decades, until his time came. So the world changed until it matched
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Bernie, or very close. And although he didn't win the presidency, he made a big impact.
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So sometimes just hanging around with a strategy that nobody else has, at least at a high level,
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suddenly, you know, the situation in the world could change to people saying, you know,
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I'm just so done with the divisiveness. Is there anybody who won't give me that?
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And she'll be the only one. There won't be any other choice. There's no other choice.
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Let me tell you how a smart Democrat could become president easily. Easily. Now,
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I've told you that I think Republicans will sweep things if they stay the same. But they won't.
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And the Mississippi abortion case that the Supreme Court is looking at, that would, in my opinion,
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would change the entire calculation. So if abortion gets banned or cut back in any major way by the
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Supreme Court, Democrats are going to come out like crazy. Let me ask you in the comments, and no cheating,
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don't do any cheating. Don't look this up. This has to be off the top of your head. No Googling, okay?
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First, just first thought. What percentage of Americans want the abortion question to be
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just a personal decision between them and their doctor? What percentage of Americans
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want it to be a legal abortion between them and their doctor? I'm going to read off your numbers. 45,
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65, 65, 80, 80, 90, 75, 51, 25, 53. Over here, you've got 70s, 40s, 25s, 20, 75s. Look how different your
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numbers are. There are people saying 25% and people saying 90%. You're not in the same world.
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It's like you don't live in the same planet. I could see if, you know, if the number was 70,
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but you guessed 80 or 60, you know, you're in the ballpark. But the real number is 75.
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75. I didn't even know that until this morning. I thought it was closer to like 60%, if I would have
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guessed. But 75% of people in a recent poll said that they want to keep it between their doctor and
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the woman. Can you trust the polling? Well, at 75%, you can, yes. Because that means that no matter
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what is well over 50%. Yeah. At 75%, I would say, yeah, a clear majority wants this. Now, we don't
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live in a country where the majority necessarily gets what they want on every single question.
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Our system doesn't always give them what they want. But I would think that if the Supreme Court
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goes the other way, the Republicans will have found a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
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As it stands now, I think a generic Republican could destroy any generic Democrat. Would you agree?
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How many would agree with that basic statement? I mean, I say it as an absolute, but you know,
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I don't mean it that way. At the moment, there's a gigantic advantage to be a Republican in any
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upcoming election, I would say. Right? But the Republicans, at least in Mississippi,
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found a way to maybe reverse all of that. Because the abortion thing will get people on the streets.
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If it goes, yeah, if it goes the way it looks like it's going to go. So I think the Republicans may
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have given up almost their entire advantage through the, if the Supreme Court guts Roe versus Wade. I don't
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know that they will, a good chance of it. But here's, anyway, getting back to the Tulsi Gabbard strategy,
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let me tell you how a Democrat could become president easily. I'll just give you the strategy.
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All right? I'll tell you the strategy, and they'll say, just easily, they could become president. It goes like this.
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All you have to do is say you really like the people who disagree with you, the Republicans,
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the conservatives, and spend some time with them, you know, so that it's real. You're actually,
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you know, laughing with them. You're spending some time. You're inviting them into the White House.
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If you're, if you're there, even on your campaign, you're meeting with bunches of people on the other
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side. Who's done that? Nobody. Like, nobody's done that. And it would be easy. How hard would it be to
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say that you like citizens of the United States if you're running for president? The easiest thing in
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the world? I've not, I've never seen it done. It would be the easiest thing. So first, say that you
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respect them, and you genuinely like the other side. Big deal. Easiest thing in the world. Nobody's
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ever done it. Number two, on every topic, fully explain the other side's view. Who does that?
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Absolutely nobody. Absolutely nobody. Nobody's ever done that. And it's easy. And it's useful. And
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nobody would be opposed to it. Nobody would be opposed to that. Now, actually, that's, that's
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an exaggeration, too, because trolls are opposed to everything. But if you just said, I really like,
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let me just say, imagine you're a Democrat, you're running for president, and I'll just model what I
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would say. You know, on this abortion question, it's really divisive. But I got to say, the Republican
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view, now I'm just modeling a Democrat, this is not my personal view. There are no personal views
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in what I'm going to say. I'm just telling you how you would win. And say, you know, the, I really,
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really respect the Republican view about banning abortion. Because their instinct is exactly right.
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Their instinct is to protect life in the extreme. To really, to really make that a top priority.
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And, you know, I have to admit, from a moral perspective, that is a very, very strong and
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respectable opinion. However, we also live in a world where we have to make tough, tough choices.
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And sometimes the question is not what the choice is, but who makes it? Who makes the choice?
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And freedom is a pretty big deal in this country. And sometimes you're going to be comparing freedom
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to life itself. These are the biggest questions that anybody could ever make.
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And so, as president, your president, I'll give you this promise, that I will be as uninvolved
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in your personal decisions as I possibly can be. Because I think that our system does favor
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personal freedom, even over life. We do it when we go to war. We value freedom over life itself.
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It's a consistent thing we've done in this country. And let me tell you, I fully appreciate
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the Republican view. And I think it's important. There should be somebody fighting for life in this
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country all the time. Somebody should be fighting for life. But it would be a very useful, useful
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conversation to be adults and know that sometimes freedom itself is the alternative. Sometimes life
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is the most important variable, sometimes freedom. And as your president, I'm not going to make that
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decision for you. I'm going to support the majority of the country. And I'm going to support the Supreme
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Court when they make that decision. But you need to decide about freedom versus possibly life itself.
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And I will respect both sides of this, but I'm not going to get into it, because I think this is best
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So, now, you know, I picked the most controversial topic, because, you know, it's the hardest one,
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right? So if I could make that work, then you could see how this would work for everything.
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You could take every topic and do the same thing. You could say, here's your argument.
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Here's the other side. They're both pretty good arguments. They're both pretty good arguments from
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people who really care about the country. But somebody has to make a decision. Somebody has to
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make a decision between two absolutely honest, good arguments. And I'm going to do that for you.
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I know that half of you are going to hate me, but I think you appreciate the process. Sometimes we
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have to hold the process up, the system, the republic, the constitution. Sometimes that has to
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just be the winner. And we don't always get our way. But we've bought into a system in which we agree
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that sometimes we don't get our way. We do trust the system. So I'm going to make sure that the system
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works for you. I can't guarantee you're going to get what you want, every one of you. And don't ask me for
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that. That's not practical. Take that answer and compare it to everything that any politician has
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ever said. It's easy to be president. It's easy. The steps for just walking into the office are just
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trivial. I just did it. I just modeled it. Now, if I wanted to be president and didn't have a background
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that would be making it impossible for me to ever run for public office, I could easily be president.
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I just modeled it. I could walk into the job. And anybody could. Anybody would just have to use
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the technique. It's not about me. It's about whether you understand how to persuade.
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Now, I would say that that's Trump's biggest weakness. In some ways, he was the perfect candidate
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for a highly divisive world because, you know, he was sort of a champion for a team and he was good
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at it. But I think if he came back for a second term and said, you know, I'm just going to show more
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respect to the other side. I'm not going to change any of my opinions. But I'd like you to know that I
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respect your opinions and just and just do that. Is there anything that would keep him out of the
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office? Nope. Imagine if Trump had said about kids in cages. My God, kids in cages is terrible.
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It was terrible when Obama did it. It's terrible when we did it. Can somebody help me fix this?
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I call on the people of the United States to help. If somebody's got an idea how to make this go away
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while still keeping our national priorities. Because we have to keep a national priority,
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which is a good border. And then I would say, you're arguing about the wrong thing with the border.
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You're arguing whether it should be open or closed. That's the wrong question.
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You should be talking about having a system that you could open it and close it on demand
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based on some logical or reasonable criterion. And that's what I'll give you.
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We'll have a strong border, but how much is open or closed is a completely separate decision.
00:28:45.880
And I'll tell you how we make it. I'll show you the whole process. We'll weigh the risks of,
00:28:51.740
you know, crime or maybe COVID at the moment against the economic benefits. I'll tell you
00:28:56.940
what the economists say. I'll lay it out for you. I'll even tell you if it's good for your income
00:29:01.880
zone. It might be good for rich people to let in more immigrants because they get cheap labor.
00:29:08.180
I'll just say that. If you're rich, this is pretty good to let in lots of immigrants.
00:29:13.200
If you're in the lower income level, it might be bad for you because now you're competing against
00:29:18.580
more people. So I'm just going to tell you exactly what's good for you and what's bad.
00:29:23.780
And then I'm going to tell you what the decision is. And some of you won't like it.
00:29:30.040
All right. It would be easy to be president. And I think Tulsi Gabbard is the closest
00:29:35.860
to what I just described. Maybe, you know, naturally by temperament, I would just be guessing on that.
00:29:42.720
Um, but strategy wise, she, she's a real dark horse because, uh, she could just sort of wait
00:29:51.400
because she's young, just sort of wait. And maybe in, you know, 15 years, it's exactly what we need.
00:30:00.040
We, we just might be so sick of the, you know, the two teams that we just say, just,
00:30:05.000
let's just try something else. Can we all just, just try something else? And she would be the only
00:30:10.420
alternative. There you go. All right. Germany's putting restrictions on the unvaccinated. So if
00:30:16.780
you're unvaccinated, you, I don't know, can't go places. And again, I would like to point out
00:30:25.180
that, well, you know, let me, let me back up a little bit. Yeah. You've, you've heard a lot of
00:30:31.660
Republicans especially talk about American exceptionalism. How many of you buy into that
00:30:38.160
American exceptionalism? Like there's, there's something magical or special about America?
00:30:44.340
Most of you, right? Most of the people watching this do because a lot of you learn leaning right.
00:30:50.580
Yeah. A lot of you. What does it mean to you? Can you define it? Exceptional in what specific way?
00:30:58.800
Yeah. If you're just saying we're better, blah, blah, blah, that's, that's bullshit.
00:31:01.440
But freedom of speech? Well, other places have some freedom of speech. Absolutely. What makes us
00:31:08.060
better? Guns? No, I don't know. Rule of law? But those, those are systems. Does that make us
00:31:18.540
exceptional? Or the, just the system is exceptional? I don't know. I never bought into the American
00:31:25.100
exceptionalism. That seemed a little bit, I don't know, it seemed a little, going a little bit too far.
00:31:31.960
Definitely we were successful. You know, if you said America is, you know, one of the most or the
00:31:37.960
most successful country of all time, I don't know, could you back that up? Maybe. I'd be okay with that.
00:31:45.560
But there's something about the exceptionalism part that bothers me. Until I saw this story about
00:31:50.720
Germany putting restrictions on the unvaccinated. That shit isn't going to happen here.
00:31:58.460
Let me tell you, I'd never felt like we were exceptional until I saw this. Germany? Seriously,
00:32:08.940
Germany? Now, maybe we are exceptional because of our gun ownership. It does, it does change things.
00:32:15.560
Absolutely changes things. Because one of the things it does is it tells the public that they
00:32:20.020
know they're in charge. If the public didn't know they were in charge of the country,
00:32:24.780
they would act like they weren't. And then the government would be in charge. But because of
00:32:30.320
gun ownership, there's a very large population, or percentage of the population, that knows for
00:32:37.560
sure that the citizens run the country. Do they know that in Germany? Do the German citizens think
00:32:45.280
they run the country? Because we do. I sure do. I think we run the country. And I think our politicians
00:32:53.440
will do whatever the fuck we tell them to. Right? Now, the problem is, the people themselves
00:33:02.240
haven't decided. Right? When they decide by large enough numbers that they tell the government what
00:33:06.720
to do. And pretty much the government does it. The Supreme Court thing with abortion is sort of a
00:33:12.880
weird exception. Because it could be one of those things that goes way against the will of the
00:33:18.100
majority. It's possible. But we do allow that there could be special cases like that. That's why we
00:33:24.180
have a republic, right? For exactly that reason. I've never felt more exceptional than watching
00:33:34.160
Germany lock down the unvaccinated and watching Australia do the same thing. That's just not going
00:33:41.140
to happen here. It just isn't. And by the way, if you're leaning left, and you're wondering why it's
00:33:48.300
not going to happen here, it's because of the right. And you should actually be quite happy about
00:33:54.940
that. You might be against gun ownership for lots of reasons, and they might even sound pretty good.
00:34:00.620
But you have to appreciate there are some advantages. And, you know, the people who used
00:34:06.920
to say, I know the people on the left argue this. They say, what are your little handguns and even
00:34:13.080
your ARs? What are they going to do against the entire military of the United States? To which I say,
00:34:19.360
we're not going to be fighting any militaries. The military is going to join the people. Since when is
00:34:26.060
the military going to fight the citizens of the United States? No. No, they're on our side.
00:34:31.340
Again, it would depend on the topic, right? If it's a topic where, you know, 80% of the country is on
00:34:37.320
the same side, the military will be on that side too. Because it's a military of the people. So no,
00:34:45.020
we're not going to be fighting the military. The military will be extra guns on our side.
00:34:51.300
You don't think so? Depends on the topic, right? You could imagine a topic where it would be the
00:34:56.420
reverse. But in this lockdown stuff, no, no, the American military isn't going to make you stay
00:35:03.280
in your house. Let me say this as clearly as I possibly can. The American military, any form of
00:35:10.680
will never make you stay in your house if you're unvaccinated. That's not going to happen. And if
00:35:16.940
they try, you better be pretty happy that there are a lot of armed Americans. All right.
00:35:23.960
Here's something to scare the hell out of you. How many of you own Bitcoin?
00:35:31.640
Show me in the comments. Bitcoin owners weigh in. Probably quite a few of you. Yeah, seeing lots
00:35:40.440
of yeses, some nopes. But mostly the yeses, the ones who answer this question. Lots of Bitcoin. All
00:35:46.480
right. Now I will scare you to death. As you know, anything can be hacked. But the blockchain and
00:35:54.780
Bitcoin, it would be difficult. Very difficult to hack it. Would you agree? Very, very difficult to
00:36:01.000
hack it. Unless you had a quantum computer. Now the quantum computers have not yet reached the point
00:36:10.080
where they can hack your Bitcoin and simply take it from you, which by the way, is perfectly legal.
00:36:17.040
That's right. If somebody can hack your Bitcoin and take it from you, they can do it. There's no law
00:36:28.420
against it. I don't know why, but there isn't. And China is warning a professor, Jintao Ding, of
00:36:42.260
Tsinghua, that might be close to how you pronounce it, universally explained. And he said it isn't
00:36:51.960
against the law. But of course, he's Chinese, so maybe he's talking about it's not against the law
00:36:55.500
in China. Is it against the law in America? Maybe it's against the law somewhere. All right. I would
00:37:02.180
imagine it's against the law somewhere. But it doesn't matter if it's not against the law in China.
00:37:07.700
Well, there goes your money. Actually, it doesn't matter if it's against the law. It's going to
00:37:12.620
happen anyway. So here are two things you need to know about that. One, maybe. I'd want to get a
00:37:21.560
second opinion, though. Why would I want a second opinion on this? Anybody? Anybody? Why would I want
00:37:28.660
a second opinion on this? Because it's coming from China. Duh. And China doesn't love Bitcoin, do they?
00:37:40.800
Can you fact check me on that? China's anti-Bitcoin, am I right? Yeah, they hate it.
00:37:46.200
So here's a person from a university who is not afraid to say in public that Bitcoin might be a big,
00:37:52.780
big mistake to own it, which happens to coincide with exactly the opinion of the government of China
00:38:01.900
because they don't like Bitcoin. So, Scott, stop being silly. The blockchain would be forked.
00:38:13.240
The code would be upgraded and we move forward on the new chain. Are you saying that a forked and new
00:38:20.320
chain would then be invulnerable from a quantum computer attack? Is that what you're saying?
00:38:27.300
Clarify, please. Now, I do understand the basic concept that the good guys can stay ahead of the
00:38:35.520
bad guys. Apparently, there's already algorithms that can defend against a quantum attack or there's
00:38:43.760
already newer encryptions that can do that. So I'm not sure I believe this Chinese professor who's with
00:38:53.200
me. How much credibility would you give a Chinese professor who says this in public and coincidentally
00:39:00.000
it's good for the Chinese government? Low. But if I hear it from an American source who's also an
00:39:06.860
expert, I'd be pretty, pretty worried. Hearing it from a Chinese expert, 50% worried.
00:39:13.760
Hearing it from an American expert, let me tell you, if Naval tells me this is real,
00:39:21.780
I'm getting rid of all my Bitcoin the same day. I hate to put the pressure on you, Naval, but
00:39:28.240
I can't imagine there's anything he would hate to hear more than that because it would sound like
00:39:36.280
giving investment advice. So I apologize, Naval, to use your name in vain there. But honestly,
00:39:43.260
if Naval told me that quantum computers are going to hack my Bitcoin, I would cash that shit out so
00:39:49.620
fast. Anyway, somebody mentioned that Pete Buttigieg looks like the Grinch when he smiles. You know,
00:39:57.460
the Grinch has that smile. I can't do an impression of it. But, and then somebody else mentioned that
00:40:05.280
Kamala Harris reminds him of a hyena, which I get. And I'm just going to add, I've said this before,
00:40:12.020
but it's funny every time. Once you see somebody's animal, you know, like Mitch McConnell looks like a
00:40:18.240
turtle. The first time you see it, that's it. That's all you'll ever see. Once you see their animal, you're
00:40:26.760
going to see their animal every time. All right, my critics have been so beaten down by me lately that
00:40:33.740
they're starting to criticize me for imaginary future offenses. Seriously. The most frequent criticism I'm
00:40:42.760
getting lately is that in the future, I'm going to do something bad. And that in the future, I'm going
00:40:49.780
to lie about something. In the future, I'm going to have to do something to cover up something. To which
00:40:58.040
I say, have we totally run out of problems in the present? You've completely given up on things I'm
00:41:05.380
actually doing and have done? And really, all you have left is things that you literally
00:41:12.580
imagine I'll do in the future? That's not even a thought crime. That's a future thought crime.
00:41:20.740
Talk about giving up. Let me ask you something for those of you who follow me on Twitter, which is a
00:41:26.000
lot of you watching this. How many times have you seen me in a back and forth with one of my
00:41:32.400
critics, and then the last thing they say is word salad? How many of you seen me do that
00:41:40.140
repeatedly? I was doing it again this morning, producing some word salad. Now, you see in the
00:41:44.840
comments, if those of you who haven't seen it, I can tell you on the locals platform, it's just a
00:41:51.240
string of yeses. People have seen it. On probably YouTube, there are fewer people who follow me on
00:41:56.120
Twitter. Yeah. So people see it every day. And the reason I pointed out is that that's a tell for
00:42:02.300
cognitive dissonance. So when I trigger people into cognitive dissonance, which is essentially just
00:42:08.180
showing them that what they believed to be true was completely wrong, the word salad response is
00:42:15.200
just the tell. That's how you know that they're in it. And the reason I bring it up is that the more
00:42:20.920
often you see it, the easier it is to spot. It's a pattern recognition thing. You just have to train
00:42:27.700
yourself. And once you see your critic devolve into word salad, and usually the word salad is even not
00:42:33.700
exactly the same topic. It's like a related cousin point that they're trying to sell as their original
00:42:40.480
point sort of thing. Yeah. Get good at recognizing word salad because it's a good tell for cognitive
00:42:48.860
dissonance. And at that point, you know, there's no point in arguing. All right. I saw a new standard
00:42:56.100
for mental health today. Do you ever wonder if you have good mental health? Because what if you were crazy
00:43:02.700
and you were the only one who didn't know it, right? Because that's the problem with being crazy?
00:43:07.580
Other people can see it, but maybe you don't know it. Well, here's a new standard from Twitter user
00:43:13.900
OhTheFreemanity. He tweeted this. He said, Rachel Maddow just did a master class on the ethos of the
00:43:21.520
Republican Party in advance of tomorrow's SCOTUS oral arguments on abortion law in Mississippi.
00:43:27.140
She just broke down their entire raison d'etre. That's my French pronunciation there. In like 10
00:43:34.440
minutes. And then he gives us his standard. He says, I appreciate that she helps remind me I'm not
00:43:40.400
crazy. So his standard is that he, if his opinion matches up with a woman who's a known liar,
00:43:51.720
um, that he must be sane. So if his opinions agree with a known liar, he's, he's still good. So you
00:44:03.340
might want to adopt that standard. If you know somebody who's a pretty well documented to be
00:44:08.060
full of shit, if your opinions agree with that person who's a known liar and full of shit, uh, then
00:44:14.240
you're good. Your mental health. Perfect. Well, Simone Sanders, senior advisor and chief spokesperson for
00:44:35.300
Well, why did that take her so long? Because, uh, if you, if you are the senior advisor to
00:44:41.640
Kamala Harris, you're not looking good. I don't think your resume is benefited by being the advisor
00:44:50.160
to the worst advised person on the planet earth. Name one person that you would say, say, now we're
00:44:57.800
not there, so we don't know exactly who's saying what to whom, but can you think of any candidate
00:45:05.440
who would have worse advice, as far as you can tell, than Kamala Harris? I literally would call
00:45:14.940
her out as the worst advised politician of all time. Dan Quayle, maybe. But, but in recent times.
00:45:26.280
All right. Well, I think that's telling us that something's going to happen there with Kamala
00:45:31.280
Harris. And it's probably not good for Kamala Harris. Well, this school shooter, uh, I won't say
00:45:38.840
his name or even the school, uh, but he's being charged with terrorism as well as, you know, the
00:45:44.840
normal murderous type charges. And I said to myself, terrorism, what would justify a terrorism
00:45:53.500
charge? Now, the claim is that he terrorized the students who were not shot, that everybody will
00:46:01.580
have PTSD and they will be damaged for life. And they, I think that's true. They will have PTSD. They
00:46:07.740
will be damaged for life, even if they were not shot just by being there. But, uh, I looked at the law
00:46:14.600
for what terrorism is in the state, their state. And here's the, uh, part of the law that they're trying
00:46:22.660
to apply. See if you think this fits this school shooter who apparently had no political motives
00:46:28.680
that we know of, because apparently he talked about his intentions. So as far as we know,
00:46:34.060
no political motives of the shooter, but see if you think this applies. Quote, an act that is
00:46:40.800
intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population or influence or affect the conduct of
00:46:47.760
government or a unit of government through intimidation or coercion. So part of this is
00:46:53.560
about intimidating the government. And there's no evidence of that that we're aware of. So that
00:46:58.040
probably doesn't apply. But the first part is an act that is intended to intimidate or coerce a
00:47:05.060
civilian population. Well, we don't see him trying to coerce anybody. So we'd have to back up all the
00:47:10.940
way to intimidate. So as an act that is intended to intimidate a civilian population, is there any
00:47:18.680
evidence that that was his intention? I'm not aware of any. So can we just say that he's being charged
00:47:28.480
with terrorism because he's a white and male? Is that fair? Do you think he'd be charged with
00:47:36.380
terrorism if he were black? No. No, he would not. No, he would not. But I think it's also fair to say
00:47:46.540
most of these mass shooters are white. Most of them. Not all. Not all. But haven't been a ton of
00:47:54.460
black mass shooters, have they, relatively speaking? Now, if it were by population, you know, it would be
00:48:00.180
13% of them. So you wouldn't expect a lot. Well, I think we should just call this racism because it
00:48:08.280
is, in my opinion. In my opinion, the only reason for this terrorism charge is that he's a white male.
00:48:16.760
Does anybody disagree with that, given that there's nothing about the terrorism law that seems to apply
00:48:22.380
to any information we've heard anyway? Calls for speculation. What about gang shootings?
00:48:35.020
Yeah, okay, that's a mass shooting. You're right. Yeah, yeah, if you count gang shootings, good point.
00:48:43.360
But those tend to be a little more spontaneous. No, actually, they're not. I guess a lot of them
00:48:47.340
are planned as well. They're just being race conscious, not racist. All right. Greg Kelly
00:49:00.600
on Twitter tweeted this. He complimented me first. And he said, is the normally brilliant Scott Adams
00:49:11.360
who's still enthralled with Secretary Pete, meaning Buttigieg, the lazy media whore fake veteran
00:49:18.340
who's shelling out, blah, blah, blah. And then he says some bad things about Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
00:49:24.980
Now, would you say that I'm enthralled with Pete Buttigieg? Does anybody think that's a good
00:49:32.240
characterization? Nope. No. I've simply said that his talent stack for evaluating infrastructure
00:49:41.940
decisions is exactly the right one. I don't say that he'll use those talents correctly.
00:49:48.700
I don't say that he won't politicize it. I don't say that he won't make any other mistake. How would I
00:49:54.340
know? But his talent stack is exactly on point for that very specific thing, because he was a consultant
00:50:01.580
for years, and that's what they did. Make that kind of priority decision-making stuff.
00:50:09.120
So here's my response. I'm not exactly enthralled. I think enthralled would be the wrong...
00:50:22.580
So not enthralled. But that's an example of binary thinking.
00:50:30.480
So the binaries, that I call them now, the binaries, can only see that there's a left opinion and a right
00:50:37.900
opinion. And any other opinion is invisible. It's actually invisible. You know, I said something
00:50:45.320
before that I know none of you exactly understood, unless you're actually a hypnotist yourself.
00:50:51.540
That a hypnotist can do something that's invisible to you.
00:50:54.380
It's because your framework or your mental framework doesn't include it. So if you just do things that
00:51:04.120
are outside of people's mental framework, it's actually just invisible. They think it's something
00:51:08.800
else. So the binary is that I'm either all left or all right, and I vigorously try to make sure that
00:51:17.900
that's not the case. And you seem to really like him during the primaries. Yeah, I did. That is true.
00:51:27.220
But enthralled? Am I hypnotized? I can't see any negative things? I've certainly also criticized him.
00:51:37.320
I'm pretty much not enthralled by anybody. People have pluses and minuses.
00:51:41.560
Somebody says, I was raised by hypnotists. My skills are untamed. I've known people who
00:51:50.360
were raised by hypnotists, and they do pick up the skill.
00:52:00.380
Scott, you do understand if they crack Bitcoin, your real money in your bank is also in trouble.
00:52:05.560
Probably so. Pete must thank God for Kamala Harris's existence every day.
00:52:19.760
All right. We see your false paradigms and strongman arguments. We just let you slide to avoid the
00:52:26.320
banhammer. Really? I'll ban that guy. I'll hide you. You are hidden. Anybody who watches me who
00:52:40.140
doesn't know that I'm going to ban you for generic criticism? Generic criticism will get you banned
00:52:50.040
every time. Specific criticism? All good. All good. You have a real point? I'd like to hear it.
00:52:56.320
All right. Fiji has reopened its borders, really. I've been to Fiji. It's pretty awesome.
00:53:10.520
And the Fed, yeah. Tulsi is a gun grabber, somebody says. Is Tulsi anti-gun? I don't think she's a...
00:53:21.620
My guess, without looking into it, is that she's in favor of some restrictions, but
00:53:28.180
yeah, she's ex-military. I can't believe she's anti-gun.
00:53:36.960
Scott doesn't understand the bird, which is the bald eagle.
00:53:45.620
Tulsi fixed her Second Amendment AR-15 statement. I would imagine she did.
00:53:58.080
Oh, somebody's predicting that Kamala Harris will be bought off.
00:54:07.180
What is a German supposed to do now? The public is completely brainwashed.
00:54:11.900
Well, good luck, Germany. You know, a lot of people believe that we're in the beginning
00:54:21.160
of some kind of a permanent state, and I completely disagree. There may be some things that linger
00:54:27.760
and become permanent, but we're not going to be in COVID lockdown forever.
00:54:32.140
All right. Has anybody heard about the COVID pill? Did that get approved by the FDA? I haven't heard.
00:54:46.900
Oh, a question on the abortion question. Again, I'm not going to give you my opinion on it,
00:54:52.900
because I just don't think it's useful to hear my opinion on abortion.
00:54:58.300
My opinion is that women should take care of it collectively and individually.
00:55:01.840
But, so 15 weeks. How many people would not know they're pregnant by 15 weeks?
00:55:16.800
How common would it be to not know you're pregnant in 15 weeks?
00:55:23.300
Because I'm wondering how unreasonable it is to ask somebody to make a decision within 15 weeks.
00:55:33.180
Really, maybe within a month, because then that's the time you're sure.
00:55:45.760
You've seen a few people who didn't know until they went into labor.
00:55:49.860
But those people are missing periods at the very least, right?
00:55:54.260
You know, somebody's going to have to inform me better about female biology.
00:56:03.500
Because you're missing your period more than once in a row, right?
00:56:14.380
If you missed your period, would you test yourself for pregnancy?
00:56:18.620
And if you missed it twice in a row, would you test yourself for pregnancy?
00:56:25.800
So I'm wondering how unreasonable it is to have a 15-week ban.
00:56:35.540
And the other thing I question is, what is the age that a baby can survive now?
00:56:51.760
What's the youngest surviving baby that, let's say, that one was delivered?
00:57:00.120
Somebody says 22 weeks is the youngest surviving baby?
00:57:12.620
So if the abortion limit were set below the level that any baby has ever survived,
00:57:28.560
So again, I'm not going to give you my opinion.
00:57:34.240
Roe versus Wade went into effect when technology was different.
00:57:39.480
When Roe versus Wade became law, could you get a home pregnancy test kit?
00:57:52.060
So we didn't have the, we did not have the technology to know for sure.
00:57:56.700
But we also didn't have the technology that would keep a smaller baby alive for longer.
00:58:04.680
So, in general, should we review our decisions when fundamental things change,
00:58:12.820
such as our ability to know and our ability to keep a baby alive?
00:58:17.060
I mean, it could change in either direction, right?
00:58:18.860
But is it reasonable to review your decisions when the context changes?
00:58:25.860
I think it's reasonable to review the decision.
00:58:30.600
But totally reasonable to review it as the context has changed.
00:58:39.880
I'm quite interested to see what the Supreme Court comes up with.
00:58:55.820
That there was, that babies are aborted after they're born.
00:58:58.400
I'm still on the side that says that that was always fake news.
00:59:10.920
Trust me, I understand that a lot of you think it was true.
00:59:16.780
And I'm not saying it didn't happen in one case.
00:59:22.700
There's no law that says a baby born live can be aborted after it's been born.
00:59:32.620
So, I think that that was a little bit of truth fixed.
00:59:36.160
You know, that got conflated with a little bit of not truth.