Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 1637 Scott Adams： Watch Me Fix Most of the World's Problems While Being Insulted. Bring a Beverage

00:00:00.000 Ladies and gentlemen, good morning and welcome to probably the best experience you'll ever have

00:00:06.680 in your life. If you wait until I get through the newsy stuff, I'm going to tell you stuff that will

00:00:12.660 change the world, change your life for sure, make you happier and less anxious.

00:00:19.500 How would you like to be less anxious? Or do you have any kids who are less,

00:00:24.520 who are anxious, who would like to be less? Well, I'm going to fix all that after we sort out the

00:00:29.420 world affairs, all right? Should we, I don't know, I just feel a responsibility. We should take care

00:00:35.380 of all the big problems in the world first, and then we'll work on you, okay? But first, let's take

00:00:42.280 it up a notch. Let's take it up. Let's go up a level. We're going to level up, and all you need

00:00:47.520 is a cup or mug or a glass, a tank or chelsea, a canteen, a jug or a glass, a vessel of any kind,

00:00:52.380 fill it with your favorite beverage. I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled

00:01:00.220 pleasure, the dopamine hit of the day, the thing that makes everything better. You can feel your

00:01:05.060 pulse quickening. Your breathing is getting faster. It's coming. It's the simultaneous sip. Go!

00:01:11.340 Oh! Oh! I can barely explain the euphoria I'm feeling right now.

00:01:25.040 Speaking of euphoria, I'm going to make an entertainment recommendation, a non-recommendation.

00:01:32.000 I don't know if I've ever done one of these before. There is a series called Euphoria.

00:01:40.400 Uh, I don't even know what to say about it. I watched two episodes, and first of all, it's

00:01:48.320 kind of a masterpiece, I've got to say, because it looks like what they did was they took some

00:01:54.920 high school. The plot is about high school kids. And what they did was say, what would happen if we

00:02:02.400 showed you what it really looks like? And then they show you what it really looks like. And you're

00:02:08.860 just horrified the whole time. You spend the whole time just thinking, really? What? Is this what

00:02:15.640 happens when they walk out the door? Now, I'm not your children, right? So it's a certain subculture.

00:02:21.180 But, uh, it is just jaw-dropping. Anyway, um, it's scary, and if you don't want to be exposed to that

00:02:29.080 kind of stuff, that's why I say it's a recommendation, non-recommendation. You might, you might just

00:02:35.940 not want to have it in your head. You know? You just might want to avoid that kind of entertainment.

00:02:42.060 But it's a masterpiece. It's really well done. Well, who loves Canadian truckers? Who does? Who loves

00:02:50.580 Canadian truckers? You do. I do. Yes, we all do, except for Trudeau. Well, uh, I don't know how any,

00:03:01.980 uh, single industry has ever become more popular more quickly, but there's nothing I love more than

00:03:08.760 a Canadian trucker. Right? It's funny, just because they're doing this protest, which apparently is

00:03:18.300 getting fairly massive. Uh, in Canada, over the mandates up there, uh, Elon Musk has tweeted his

00:03:26.020 support. How much difference does an Elon Musk tweet of support mean in today's world? Probably a lot.

00:03:36.360 Probably a lot. Um, and I don't know how many other people you could put in his category.

00:03:41.600 I can't think of another one, frankly. Think of anybody else who would have enough credibility,

00:03:49.940 frankly, credibility is the thing, to, to be able to, you know, tweet support and then people

00:03:56.140 would think that's a good thing. There aren't many people. Um, there's a great video of a Canadian 0.92

00:04:04.720 small business owner who was putting up a sticker on his business. He tore down the, uh, the mask

00:04:11.420 signs, I guess, or the mandate signs. I'm not sure what they said. And, and he put up his own sticker

00:04:17.360 of a, uh, Canadian truck. And as soon as I saw that, I thought, I thought, well, I want one of those.

00:04:24.440 I want, I want a Canadian trucker sticker. Don't you? I mean, I, I don't think I've ever seen a bumper

00:04:33.440 sticker that I craved before, but if you could give me a bumper sticker of a, just a Canadian

00:04:39.180 trucker, I'd put that in my car tomorrow. I like it. So I love what those guys are doing. And I love

00:04:46.040 the idea of putting up a sticker on your business. The point of which is that, uh, uh, he's defying

00:04:52.420 mandates basically. Now locally, uh, most of you are probably in non-bandate states. Would that,

00:05:01.000 would that be true? How many people watching are, are already passed the mandates? A lot

00:05:06.520 of you, right? So good for you. Wish us luck. Those of us who are still behind, uh, the concentration

00:05:16.840 camp doors here in California. Yeah. So I, I crave your lifestyle, but I got to tell you, I'm starting

00:05:24.940 to, uh, to feel it locally. Let me just say this out loud. You know, I didn't want to say this out

00:05:34.920 loud right away, but locally the mandates have dropped for small businesses, meaning that if you

00:05:44.220 went into, I don't know, maybe if you went into the cheesecake factory or something, that's a chain

00:05:48.920 that they might tell you to put on a mask. I don't know. Target store, they might. But if you go into

00:05:54.820 any local business, it's done. The local businesses are all done. Am I right? Now, all I mean is that

00:06:05.180 I'm not saying there are no masks. I'm saying that they're not going to ask you to put one on.

00:06:09.800 There's no local business that will do that anymore here. I don't know about your town because

00:06:15.060 number one, there's nobody afraid of consequences. What exactly would be the consequences for your,

00:06:21.960 your local whatever, if they don't require masks on February 1st? Nothing, right? There's no

00:06:30.020 consequences. So they just have to decide they don't want it anymore. And a lot of them have.

00:06:35.500 So on February 1st, I'm going to do my damnedest to not go anywhere where they still require that.

00:06:42.640 Now, I don't know how long I can hold out, right? If the mandates hold out, I might,

00:06:47.620 I just might need to go to Target. I just might need to. But I'm going to do what I can to just for

00:06:55.240 as long as I can, you know, not fly. I'm just going to avoid flying until the masks are gone.

00:07:01.320 Because by February 1st, I'm pretty sure I can say, all right, I can hold out for however long that's

00:07:06.880 going to take. If it takes a week, or if it takes three months, I can hold out. I don't have to fly

00:07:12.340 for three months. But I'm not going to support any industry that's still sporting the masks,

00:07:17.860 for sure. But I'll do my best. I can't promise you I'll be consistent on that. But I'll do my best

00:07:22.960 on that. I hope others do just to put a little pressure on it. And I was trying to think of what

00:07:28.020 kind of symbol could small businesses or even big ones put on their building to say that they're done

00:07:36.020 with mandates. What would be the most appropriate symbol besides the Canadian truckers, which I like

00:07:44.940 a lot? The American flag. I would think that if you wanted to show that you were done with the

00:07:52.640 mandates on February 1st, just put on a flag. You don't have to say anything else, I don't think.

00:07:59.900 I think anybody who is aware of the February 1st date who saw an American flag on a business,

00:08:06.080 or even a residence, even a residence. Actually, if you have an American flag,

00:08:11.980 and you have a flagpole, you know, maybe you put it out on the patriotic holidays.

00:08:18.000 Maybe think about it. Just think about putting it out. Because if you think about it, there is no,

00:08:24.200 there's no more universal signal for revolution than the American flag. If you want a real insurrection,

00:08:36.800 the American flag is a good symbol for it. All right. There's a report. Jack Posobiec is saying

00:08:44.560 that the White House had no idea about Breyer retiring from the Supreme Court, and now they're

00:08:50.980 scrambling. They asked Kamala, and she said no, per a White House staffer. Do you believe? Well,

00:08:57.780 first of all, some context. Jack Posobiec has good sources, right? So he has good sources. That's the

00:09:05.920 first part of the contact. But do you believe this? That doesn't mean every, that doesn't mean every

00:09:11.100 source is correct, right? But do you believe that Kamala was asked if she wanted it and said no?

00:09:20.980 I believe it. I believe it. I believe it. And here's why I believe it. Because asking doesn't

00:09:27.920 mean they wanted her to have it. Asking sounds like, within a political context, they just wanted

00:09:35.540 to check. Because what if she said yes? It would be kind of a disaster if she had secretly craved

00:09:42.660 that position and nobody asked. So I think you just have to ask. But I think they also knew that

00:09:50.660 they probably knew what she would say by then, right? So don't you think the asking was more of

00:09:55.960 a political formality just to make sure she didn't have an issue? So if you ask me, that sounds like a,

00:10:03.200 that sounds like a completely accurate, what would you call it, a scoop? Yeah, I think Jack got this

00:10:13.260 one right, as he often does. So that doesn't mean anything about Kamala. It just means they probably

00:10:21.580 asked her. Now what are you thinking about this Supreme Court having to be a black woman? 0.97

00:10:30.160 Um, I think the Rasmussen poll said, uh, 61, 61% of the public thinks you shouldn't prick, prick, that you

00:10:40.680 shouldn't pick a Supreme Court nominee based on race or gender. 61% is a pretty big majority in American

00:10:48.160 politics. It's hard to get 61% for anything. But, um, I'll tell you, I'm, I'm a little bit of two minds

00:10:58.200 on this. I'm a little bit of two minds. I've, I've told you before that when it comes to, uh, the

00:11:05.940 Republic and protecting the Republic and the system versus getting my way on a specific policy,

00:11:14.080 I'll usually pick the system over the specific policy. There might be some exceptions, but generally

00:11:20.620 speaking, I would do that. Now, what does it do to the system when the Supreme Court, who would

00:11:27.180 be the very entity that says a business can't do this, the same entity that has ruled that a

00:11:35.300 private business can't do this, you can't hire people based on race or gender, uh, is, is going

00:11:41.460 to be the subject of this very treatment. I mean, that's the president doing it, not the Supreme

00:11:45.920 Court, but they would be subject to the same treatment. Does that look like a gigantic mistake?

00:11:51.120 Let me, let me give you the best argument to support Biden's position, because I think if

00:11:59.380 you can't do that, you're not really an honest broker, if you know what I mean. If you can't

00:12:05.340 tell the other side's argument in a coherent way and then still say your side is the better

00:12:10.640 one, you just feel like a propagandist basically. So I'm going to give Biden his due and here's

00:12:17.380 the argument. We need to protect the system first. The, the entire system is having a

00:12:26.120 credibility crisis. I think you'd agree. Congress, the government, experts, fake news, there's

00:12:32.340 a credibility crisis of unprecedented proportion. Supreme Court is sort of our last defense against

00:12:40.820 all of that. You know, as long as we keep the Supreme Court relatively coherent and credible,

00:12:48.120 the other stuff has time to work itself out in a variety of ways, but you can't lose the

00:12:53.220 Supreme Court. I feel like that would, that would just take the whole system out. So if you imagine

00:12:58.780 that the Supreme Court is the, the ultimate thing that keeps the country together, I would

00:13:04.140 say that having a Supreme Court that better represents the public, remember this is a perceptual

00:13:11.760 thing. It's not a data thing. It's just a perceptual thing. Would the credibility of the court be

00:13:18.360 better if you had at least one black conservative man, which we have, and one black conservative 0.96

00:13:27.060 woman in the mix? Now, you might say to yourself, no, it makes it worse because it looks like a, 1.00

00:13:34.940 you know, it looks like a diversity higher. But nobody's really saying any of these people are

00:13:42.240 unqualified, are they? Is there anybody in the Supreme Court that we think is unqualified?

00:13:48.500 They're just people that we hate their decisions in some cases, right? I don't think any of them are

00:13:53.540 unqualified. Yeah, I see the names. There's some names going by, blah, blah, blah. But, you know,

00:13:59.340 is it a coincidence that the unqualified ones are always on the other team? Seriously? Just a

00:14:06.560 coincidence that all the unqualified people disagree with your opinion? I mean, maybe. I mean, you could

00:14:13.020 be right, and it's exactly that. But I wouldn't, I wouldn't automatically assume that that's what's

00:14:19.040 going on. It sounds a little bit more like a little bit team play situation going on. So if I

00:14:25.020 were to support Biden's argument, I'd say you do want the Supreme Court to look at least a little

00:14:31.340 bit like the country. Because then whatever it comes up with is going to have that little,

00:14:36.280 that little 5% extra, well, you know, we got a lot of opinions from different kinds of people.

00:14:42.260 Now, if that requires, if the net of that is that you end up with a worse justice, well, then that's

00:14:51.340 a step backwards. Would we agree with that? If having this, I hope it's temporary, silly diversity 1.00

00:15:00.520 higher thing on there, if having this temporary little thing caused us to get a worse justice,

00:15:07.240 well, that wouldn't be good. But there's no evidence that that's the case. Is anybody saying

00:15:12.160 that the, I don't know, dozen or so black women who are being mentioned, is anybody saying they're

00:15:18.780 unqualified? I don't think that's in the argument, is it? So, on one hand, I reject anything that seems

00:15:27.200 like discrimination, and this certainly smacks of racial discrimination. On the other hand,

00:15:34.700 it does favor the system over the policies. And I generally don't take a stand when that's the

00:15:42.240 case. So, in other words, I'm not even going to say which is a better way to go. I'm just going to

00:15:48.440 be silent whenever the system is supported over the decision. I'm not sure if that's fair or not.

00:15:55.220 Let's talk about Russia and Ukraine. So, are you a little bit puzzled as I am about the way the

00:16:06.700 United States is handling all of this? As in, there's something we don't know? Does it feel like

00:16:12.440 that to you? And I'll give you some more context about this. You know, the few times that I've been

00:16:19.300 allowed behind the curtain to see how things really run, as opposed to the public impression

00:16:25.160 of how anything works, you always get such a different view. You know, from behind the curtain,

00:16:32.000 nothing's the same. And basically, nothing is the same behind the curtain. So, why would this be

00:16:37.860 different? It's sort of like that the Gelman amnesia thing. If every time I peek behind the curtain,

00:16:44.820 I see that everything we know or thought we knew is wrong, like every time, why would this be

00:16:51.340 different? Do you really think we have enough information about this whole Russia-Ukraine

00:16:56.600 thing that you and I can say, hmm, let me assemble the variables as they've been reported and judge

00:17:03.740 the actions of our government based on these totally accurate variables that leave nothing out?

00:17:10.180 probably nothing like that can happen. Probably there's something gigantic or several gigantic

00:17:17.640 things or forceful people or some money interest or something that's going on that's big enough

00:17:25.940 that's distorting this thing. But let me tell you what it looks like. This is not a claim that this

00:17:31.860 is what's happening. I'm going to say that missing that variable or variables, this is what it looks

00:17:39.780 like, which is different than what it is. What it looks like is that we're intentionally suckering

00:17:47.240 Putin into a limited attack. Because you know how Biden sort of let it out? You know, we don't know

00:17:56.940 what we'd do if it was some kind of limited incursion. That kind of opened the door for a limited

00:18:03.960 incursion, didn't it? Sort of. At least put that thought in your mind. It seems they would treat

00:18:12.820 a limited incursion slightly differently than a massive incursion. So is it possible, and again,

00:18:20.500 I'm just considering all the possibilities, that there's anybody in this world who has influence

00:18:27.420 over our government, whether it's Biden's staff or somebody influencing them, who thinks that a

00:18:32.500 limited incursion by Russia would have some benefit to them or to the United States? For example,

00:18:41.420 if Russia did a limited incursion, it might not change the security situation of the world much,

00:18:49.720 much. But at the same time, it would allow us to close down their energy markets, totally cripple

00:18:58.000 their country, and probably some American energy companies would benefit. But can somebody do a

00:19:04.040 fact check on that? Are there any large entities, doesn't have to be American, actually, American or

00:19:11.080 European, let's say, large entities, energy companies, that would definitely benefit by Russia being shut

00:19:17.760 down as an energy exporter? Can you give me a fact check? Some of you know the answer to this, right?

00:19:28.660 China? Somebody says China? I don't know about that. So what I'm wondering is, do we know for sure

00:19:39.840 that Russia is not going to fall for this trap? I'm calling it a trap, like, hypothetically. I don't

00:19:45.700 know that it's a trap. And then here's the final clue, and this is from CNN. Now, hold what I've

00:19:53.980 said so far, and now I'm going to add a clue. This is CNN's reporting. And it says a call between

00:20:02.080 Zelensky, head of Ukraine, and Biden on Thursday should have been used to get on the same page.

00:20:08.760 But the Ukrainians made it known ahead of time they would ask the U.S. president to tone down his

00:20:15.100 rhetoric. Interesting. And after the leader spoke, a senior Ukrainian official told CNN's Matthew Chance

00:20:23.800 in Kiev that the call, quote, did not go well, and that Zelensky had asked his U.S. counterpart to,

00:20:31.540 quote, calm down the messaging while arguing the Russian threat was still ambiguous. Still

00:20:39.500 ambiguous. In other words, it seems as if the United States is selling a higher certainty of

00:20:48.500 invasion than the Ukrainians believe is realistic. What does that tell you? Does that tell you that 0.98

00:20:58.080 somebody who is maybe more of a friend to the United States or to their pocketbooks

00:21:03.080 is influencing the United States to be not on the same page as Ukraine? And can you give me a good

00:21:11.220 idea why we would not be taking Ukraine's, let's say, opinion of risk as fairly definitive?

00:21:21.940 Why would our assessment of risk trump Ukraine's assessment of their own risk? I feel like they're 1.00

00:21:30.240 pretty tapped into whatever the risk is here, more so than we would be. Or do we know more than

00:21:36.880 they know? It's possible we know more than Ukraine knows, and we can't tell them because of sources and

00:21:41.280 methods and corrupt, corrupt governments and whatnot. So it's really Burisma. Burisma comes up in every

00:21:51.600 conversation. Yeah. So, and what does it mean that Ukraine and the United States are not on the same

00:21:58.300 page? Would that suggest that Ukraine does not have any blackmail on Hunter Biden? Or will you see

00:22:06.740 Biden immediately conform to Ukraine's preferred communication on this, which would suggest that

00:22:16.060 Ukraine does have a pretty big influence on them? So there are a number of scenarios here that are

00:22:23.520 alarming. When I tweeted about whether or not we were trying to sucker Russia into something minor

00:22:30.660 so we could grab their energy markets, Ian Bremmer, who I look to as the sane voice of issues like

00:22:39.760 this, assures me that we definitely don't want Russia to attack. We definitely don't. Now, we definitely

00:22:49.980 don't want a major war. I would agree with that. And I would agree that if we means most people, I would

00:22:58.380 agree with that too. And if we means most of the government, I would definitely agree with that

00:23:03.800 too. But I'm not sure we extends to everybody who has billions of dollars to spend on this project.

00:23:10.820 And I'm not sure we extends to every influencer within the Biden administration. It wouldn't take

00:23:17.300 many people to be on the side of war to make it happen. Unfortunately, like they would just have to be

00:23:24.820 the right people. You would only have to get a few opinions changed before Biden would probably go

00:23:30.540 long. So I remember those 17 intelligence agencies that said blah, blah, blah. And it turned out it was

00:23:37.600 really one, but it wasn't even the whole agency. It was just a few people. And then it turned out that

00:23:42.380 the few people were handpicked by one person. So the 17 intelligence agencies were really one person.

00:23:48.200 One person could do a lot of damage. Do you know how many things have been done by one person

00:23:54.980 recently? I mean, look what Greta Thunberg has done. She's one person. Look what Michael Mina did

00:24:02.460 with rapid testing. There was probably one person who prevented it. Look what Fauci does, one person.

00:24:11.920 You know, DeSantis, one person. Joe Rogan, one person. There's a lot of one person stuff going on

00:24:21.480 here. Malone, one person. No matter what you think of him, big influence. Soros, one person. So, you know,

00:24:31.360 although one person can't control everything that there is to control, one person can definitely

00:24:36.780 control one topic. And it doesn't have to be the richest. You just need, yeah, George Floyd,

00:24:42.560 one person. Yeah, good example. All right. So I'd say that there's a missing variable in this Russia 0.77

00:24:50.760 stuff, but I'm not going to rule out yet, despite the smarter and more well-informed Ian Bremmer saying

00:24:57.640 that nobody wants it. I'm not sure that nobody wants it. I'm not sure. I think there might be a play

00:25:04.800 here where we're just trying to bluff them into doing something that's bad enough that we can crush

00:25:11.220 them financially and take their markets. I feel like that's the play. I don't know. Nobody thinks

00:25:19.100 Russia is going to go nuclear over Ukraine. I don't think. I don't think anybody thinks that.

00:25:25.140 All right. There's new numbers that suggest a growing crisis of men. So men now comprise only

00:25:34.460 40.5% of college students. What? There are 50% more women in college than men? 1.00

00:25:49.160 50% more. That's not close. And apparently one of the problems of this is that women are less likely 1.00

00:25:57.380 to go to college if there aren't enough men there. I hate to say it. I didn't make that up,

00:26:03.880 by the way. Innocent, innocent, innocent. As soon as you think I made that up, I'm in trouble. I'll

00:26:12.280 get canceled. Nope, nope, nope. I'm not saying that some women go to college to get married. I'm saying 0.99

00:26:18.320 I just read an article and that was one of the claims, that women say they don't want to go to 0.96

00:26:22.620 college if finding a boyfriend is going to be like a struggle. I would like to admit that I chose my

00:26:31.740 undergraduate college based on the male-female ratio. I thought I needed an edge, so I chose a 1.00

00:26:39.560 nursing school. It wasn't just a nursing school. It had a lot of majors, but it was famous as a

00:26:45.500 nursing school, so I had a high percentage of nursing students. And I thought, what could be

00:26:51.520 better than having a college that has not only extra women, but their nursing students? I mean, 1.00

00:26:58.940 I figured I needed every advantage I could get. I need the ones with lots of empathy. The ones who

00:27:03.760 say, oh, you're not that sexy, but you do look a little sick. Can we spend some time together? 0.62

00:27:08.620 So that was my strategy, and I think it worked brilliantly. So anyway, men are failing everywhere.

00:27:17.220 And of course, the big question is, is the problem with men, or is the problem that college and schools

00:27:23.660 have been designed for women? What do you say? Have schools been designed for both men and women?

00:27:30.300 Let's stipulate that men have still a sports advantage, meaning that sports seem to be still 0.68

00:27:38.660 more dominated toward men in lots of places. So besides sports, which we stipulate to be the

00:27:46.180 case, besides sports, is college and high school designed for men or for women? Or let's say 0.99

00:27:53.360 optimized. Is it optimized for men or for women? Well, I think that because we're a woke society,

00:28:00.300 you optimized for the comfort of the greatest number of people, wouldn't you say? You optimize for

00:28:09.740 comfort because you don't want women to be in a situation with a bad situation, basically, an

00:28:18.300 uncomfortable situation. And if you optimize for comfort, is there anything that might be

00:28:24.560 de-emphasized? Yeah. For example, maybe attracting men. Because maybe the curriculum and the way it's

00:28:35.060 being taught and the, let's say, the extra stuff that comes with it, maybe it's not ideally suited for

00:28:42.140 men. So maybe men are just opting out because it doesn't make sense, but also because it doesn't

00:28:47.200 teach, in many cases, the kinds of skills that a lot of men are looking for. Right? Maybe they're

00:28:53.180 not looking for a Russian literature degree. Maybe they just want to, you know, be a plumber or 1.00

00:28:58.860 something. But so what can we do to fix it? I told you I was going to fix everything, and I thought I

00:29:07.120 would do that right now. I've said this before, but I think I've got a little more meat on the bones.

00:29:13.120 And I just tweeted, I said, suppose you were designing an open source, not-for-profit,

00:29:20.260 virtual college in which people could independently assemble useful life strategy skills,

00:29:26.860 life strategy skills, just things that would help anybody. You know, things like how to communicate

00:29:32.840 better, how to persuade, how to work on your fitness, you know, just basic life strategies,

00:29:40.440 how to build a skill stack, how to use systems versus goals, you know, that sort of thing.

00:29:46.220 And I said, what books would be on that list if you were going to have a credentialed type of thing?

00:29:53.640 And so a number of people suggest books. I hope some of my books make that list. I think I saw that

00:29:59.640 they were on there. But then I asked myself, do you know what a DAO is? D-A-O. We've talked about

00:30:07.520 this before. A DAO is a decentralized, autonomous organization in which you use the blockchain,

00:30:15.440 part of the crypto universe. You use the blockchain to build, to create trust and build a organization

00:30:24.000 for a single purpose. Could you, and I'm not sure if this is a good idea or not, so somebody who knows

00:30:32.360 more about the, these D-A-O's, DAOs, can maybe inform me. Could you build a DAO to build a life

00:30:42.060 strategies credentialed course in which people who are simply interested enough and qualified enough

00:30:50.980 say, yeah, I'll be on that project. We'll just put together a, we'll just put together a list

00:30:56.480 test and we'll maintain it somehow. And it'll say, if you read these books, blah, blah, blah. Now,

00:31:03.040 I think it also needs some testing. Could you create a way to do a quick enough test that you

00:31:10.960 would say you would know that somebody read my book, right? I'm not, I'm not talking about like

00:31:16.180 testing. You read everything in the book and you understood it, but did you read the book,

00:31:20.140 enough of a test that, that you could be sure somebody did and a way not to cheat? Now, could

00:31:27.280 the blockchain allow you to know your, you didn't cheat on the test, you did read the book and you

00:31:35.720 did get a credentialed degree? And then could you form a different DAO for different, let's say,

00:31:45.140 flavors of life strategy degrees. And all of them could be credentialed, but maybe they'd be

00:31:50.780 different. So one might say, emphasize, I don't know, more physical skills. One might emphasize

00:31:57.840 more, you know, mental office-y type of skills, something like that. But you can, you can imagine

00:32:04.420 some different flavors that would all be credentialed. So here's my point. It seems obvious at this point

00:32:10.480 that the, the embedded educational system doesn't want to change as fast as we need it to. Would

00:32:19.360 everybody agree with that? If you wait for the, the colleges and the, and the teachers unions to

00:32:25.920 change themselves, you'd just be waiting forever. So you're going to need some kind of outside

00:32:31.120 disrupting force. Could you create a situation where somebody comes in for a job and you say,

00:32:40.480 let's see your resume? Whoa, it looks like you were smart enough not to rack up $200,000 in college

00:32:48.160 debt for a Russian literature degree. I like that. Let's see what you did do. Oh, okay. You got one

00:32:56.660 of these life strategies credentials. Can I see your certificate? Okay. Yeah, I could check that on the

00:33:02.400 blockchain. Yep. There it is. Our HR can check that. And sure enough, you do have a degree in life

00:33:09.320 strategies. Well, I mean, is that good for us? You know, we train you in the actual job. So we're

00:33:15.580 going to train you how to do the specific job, but let's see if you're trainable. Let's see, you've

00:33:21.500 learned communication. You've learned public speaking. You've learned persuasion. You've learned

00:33:28.120 how to build a skill stack, systems over goals. You've learned, and then I just go on. Who do you want to hire?

00:33:40.040 Yeah, who do you want to hire? This is a trainable, curious person.

00:33:46.320 Somebody who has the skills to learn a skill, right? Do you have the skill to learn a skill? That's

00:33:54.020 all I care about. I'll train you the specifics. You know, keep in mind that unless you're something

00:33:59.080 like, let's say, a lawyer, doctor, engineer, a few other fields, a lot of your stuff becomes

00:34:06.820 obsolete in a year anyway. You know, even having experience isn't what it used to be, because,

00:34:12.800 you know, who's experienced in the newest field? All right, so that's my first idea, is to fix all

00:34:21.440 of education by some kind of open source. I'm not sure if crypto needs to be part of it, but maybe

00:34:28.280 somebody smarter can say, yeah, that would be a good component. Number two, here is my single

00:34:36.680 biggest happiness tip, which will be followed by a few more. The best way to be happy is to match

00:34:46.000 your energy to your schedule. And here's what I mean by that. And by the way, this, some of this

00:34:52.820 comes from my book, had it filled almost everything and still went big. Suppose I said, how would you

00:34:59.200 like some delicious food? And I'd say, I love delicious food. Yay. And then you say,

00:35:06.520 all right, we're going to do it right now. And I say, oh, I actually just ate. So how much value

00:35:13.660 would delicious food be to me if I just ate and I'm full? Well, none. So my energy, I'm using that

00:35:20.800 generically, in this case, my hunger was not matched to this excellent thing that I like, eating good food.

00:35:28.900 Likewise, exercising when you're in the right mood for it is actually kind of fun. Exercising when you

00:35:35.680 really don't want to is just pain. It's just torture. So my one whole life arc happiness tip

00:35:44.360 that's the best tip you'll ever hear is work toward a situation and it won't, it won't happen

00:35:50.120 instantly, but work toward a situation where you can control your schedule as much as possible.

00:35:55.860 Because then you can say to yourself, I'm hungry. Eat food. Two o'clock in the afternoon.

00:36:04.740 Nobody's going to stop you. Right? I'm anxious. I'm going to go exercise right now. I'm going to stand

00:36:13.260 up and walk out the door right now. The moment you can match your exact energy and need to the thing

00:36:20.860 that satisfies it, your happiness level is going to go through the roof. I reminded myself of that

00:36:26.780 yesterday by taking, and this is uncharacteristic for me, I don't usually take a block out of my day

00:36:34.340 and just say, this is just for me. Like I'm always doing something for somebody or something I committed

00:36:40.380 to or something. So typically I'm going from one thing I have to do to one thing I have to do.

00:36:44.880 And even with my schedule, and I have a lot of flexibility, but even with my schedule, there's a limit

00:36:52.120 to the flexibility. But in that two hours or so, in which I just said, I'm just going to do whatever my

00:36:58.060 energy wants me to do, and then I did that. I can't tell you how good that felt. Just matching my exact

00:37:04.900 schedule to my exact energy, just through the roof. Now, just make sure you do that. Don't save all of

00:37:12.520 your leisure for a vacation. Don't save it all for a vacation. Sometimes you just got to carve out a

00:37:20.280 time to do the thing that you want to do during that exact time. See how it feels. All right, next

00:37:26.420 thing. It has been said of me many times, and I believe it's true, that I'm unusually good at

00:37:32.960 handling pressure. Has anybody noticed that about me? I'm not sure if you can tell from a distance.

00:37:38.480 But do I seem like I'm good at handling pressure? I would be interested in your subjective evaluation.

00:37:48.500 Now, you do see me blow up and stuff, and if anybody doesn't know it, if I allow myself to lose

00:37:56.100 control on the live stream, it's because it's part of the show. You all get that, right? You all get

00:38:03.160 that if I were not doing a live stream, I wouldn't be cursing at somebody and, you know, and shouting

00:38:10.020 and being a madman. It's just part of the entertainment. If you didn't like it, I wouldn't

00:38:14.160 do it. The moment the audience no longer wanted to see it, I'd be like, oh, okay. It would be easy

00:38:20.840 to control. All right, so here's my point. In my own opinion, I think that I'm unusually

00:38:27.900 not susceptible to pressure. Indeed, I actually have always performed better in competition

00:38:36.520 when things are tight. You know, and I'm not sure how much of that is organic. But I will

00:38:44.420 tell you this. I have spent most of my life working on that like it's a life skill of maximum

00:38:50.880 importance. Let's say if you were to compare my nervousness level to yours at age 11. At

00:39:00.680 age 11, pretty much a nervous mess. And it made me unhappy pretty much all the time. Nervous

00:39:10.000 mess. And so I realized at that point that if I didn't make it my full-time job to figure

00:39:16.160 out how not to be stressed as shit, I would just be stressed forever, and it wouldn't matter what 0.99

00:39:21.360 else was happening. Even if everything else went well, I was still going to feel like crap 0.99

00:39:27.460 if I didn't figure out how to get out of my own head. So I'm going to teach you how to get out of

00:39:35.040 your own head, and I'm going to tell you why everybody in this generation has an anxiety problem.

00:39:40.300 You've noticed, right? Everybody has an anxiety problem. Mostly younger people. And if you're

00:39:48.200 above a certain age, you probably don't. Have you noticed that? Above a certain age, you probably

00:39:54.040 don't have an anxiety problem. Below a certain age, oh, you have one. Oh, you got one. Yeah.

00:40:01.100 So let me tell you what's different about, you know, when I was young versus when somebody's young

00:40:07.820 right now. You know what's different? Everything that affects your anxiety. Everything. Everything

00:40:16.140 that affects your anxiety is worse, like way worse. Let me give you an example. Let's see.

00:40:26.940 Do you think that kids get outdoors as much as we used to? We meaning anybody in my age group. No. No.

00:40:35.320 There's no way in hell the kids get outdoors. Is getting outdoors correlated with your anxiety?

00:40:42.700 Yes. Yes. It's super correlated. Like really, really strongly. If you don't get outside, you're not

00:40:50.200 going to feel as well. Right? And there's a big difference. How about complexity? When you're around

00:40:57.140 a lot of complexity, does it make you anxious? It does. It does, because it's like too much work.

00:41:03.000 Right? Is life more complex? Yes. By what? Order of magnitude? It's not even close. So of course

00:41:13.960 they have more of a challenge. How about, is it easier now to compare yourself to others?

00:41:20.680 Oh my God, yes. You know, when I was a kid, the only person I could compare myself to was somebody

00:41:27.180 on the one channel of television that came in well, and the 25 people I knew personally.

00:41:34.220 That's it. Now you're comparing yourself to the whole world and filters, and yeah, of course,

00:41:38.960 all that. How about family cohesion? Less. Right? There's less. How about addiction? More. Right?

00:41:50.020 So even if you're not the one who's addicted, how many people have an addict in the family? Mother,

00:41:55.760 father, sibling? A lot. How many people had an addict in the family when I was a kid? There's still

00:42:02.840 too many, but I don't think it was close to what it is now. If you have one addict in the house,

00:42:08.360 how's everybody's anxiety doing? Am I right? Everybody who has somebody who's addicted to alcohol

00:42:14.840 or substance? If you have one of them in the house, how's the energy level in the house?

00:42:20.820 Everybody calm? No. No, one addict can ruin five people's lives minimum. I think that's actually

00:42:28.580 a reasonable ratio. It's probably higher. But here's my number. One addict ruins five lives minimum.

00:42:35.720 Somebody's saying 10, and I think you're closer to it. I think 10 is closer. One addict ruins five

00:42:41.980 lives minimum. Minimum. So that's different. How about more fake news scaring the shit out of you?

00:42:50.240 Yes, that's different. How about climate change scaring the shit out of you? Well, that is different, 0.99

00:42:55.920 but I will say, to balance it out, in my generation, we had the nuclear war risk all the time.

00:43:02.320 And that felt similar. Like, you know, life as we know it could end any moment. So maybe that part's

00:43:07.860 similar but different. How about are we eating the wrong foods and getting fatter? And yes. Are we

00:43:15.460 less confident about the future? Of course, because everything's changing faster. And right? When I

00:43:22.160 grew up, I could be confident about the future, because I knew if I went to college, got good grades,

00:43:28.660 I'd get a good job in any variety of places. So I didn't really have any lack of confidence,

00:43:34.780 because everybody had the same path. Study, go to school, get a good job. It was pretty much

00:43:41.800 straightforward. But now, who knows? Could be robots and AI in five years. How about being less

00:43:52.900 self-sufficient? I would argue that a 14-year-old in my generation could successfully run a small

00:44:01.140 business? Is there anybody my age or older who would disagree with me? In my generation, a 14-year-old

00:44:09.980 could successfully, and did, and in fact, I know people who did exactly that. I know somebody well

00:44:16.100 who ran an entire bowling alley at 14. It was something his father built and owned, but then his

00:44:25.600 father had, you know, his career went somewhere else. And so he just said, well, I can either sell this

00:44:30.140 thing or you can be in charge of it. He was 14 years old. He said, okay, I'll run it. And then he ran

00:44:35.960 his business at 14. Later started his own large business, sold it for millions. Do you think that

00:44:42.440 running a business at 14 helped him become an entrepreneur later? Yeah. That kind of builds your

00:44:49.740 confidence, doesn't it? Now, now here, just for a joke, imagine a 14-year-old today running a business.

00:45:00.100 I'm sure there's still some, but it's almost like a joke, right? It's a complete difference in

00:45:08.440 how self-sufficient you are. A 14-year-old back then would not know how to do things, but would know how

00:45:14.380 to figure it out. We'd just ask somebody to figure it out. But we'd have the confidence that we can

00:45:19.400 figure it out. So all of those things are wrong. And here's my tip for fixing it all. Do you remember

00:45:28.580 you were, have you ever been taught that happiness comes from within? Have you ever heard that saying?

00:45:33.700 Happiness comes from within. Were you taught that when you were young? Yeah. If you just seek

00:45:42.600 within, you know, find out who you really are, you know, follow your dreams, follow your passion.

00:45:49.160 So, you know, for sort of an internal process that you could find happiness. That might be the worst

00:45:56.400 advice ever given. It's the worst advice. There's no happiness within. It's not in there. Don't look for

00:46:04.860 it. It's not in there. Your brain is just a recipient of inputs. You just change the inputs.

00:46:11.460 Happiness. Happiness is without. Happiness will come to you by doing the right things externally

00:46:19.400 with your body. Take your body outdoors. Don't look within your skull. Go outside in the sun. Walk

00:46:30.500 around. Happiness is not in your head. It's in your fucking stomach. Don't eat shit and then tell me

00:46:39.320 you're unhappy. Maybe it's because you ate shit all day. Maybe that made you unhappy. I don't know. 1.00

00:46:47.000 I just did a little experiment in the last month where I tried to really clean up my eating.

00:46:53.460 My allergies went away. I mean, seriously. I mean, I have pretty much permanent allergies all the time.

00:47:01.080 All I did was say, oh, for a month I'm just going to really just eat really clean. I mean, as much as you

00:47:07.240 can in the modern world. My allergies went away. And yes, I do have allergies in the winter and all year

00:47:13.660 round, normally. So, did I find happiness within? No. It was on my plate. Happiness is on your plate.

00:47:23.060 It's out there. Did I find happiness within? Or did you have some good sex? Did you meditate? Did you

00:47:33.360 do some yoga? Did you get some exercise? Did you put your phone down at 9 p.m. instead of playing

00:47:39.380 with it at 2 p.m. and do all the wrong things to sleep? Have you spent 10 minutes googling what it

00:47:46.040 takes to have good sleep habits? Number one, go to bed about the same time every night and wake up about

00:47:51.860 the same time. Actually, the waking up is more important. Right? Here's my, when I was 11 and I

00:48:00.420 realized that my anxiety level somewhat biologically was through the roof, I said to myself, my number

00:48:07.260 one job is that. Every day I'm going to work on figuring out how the fuck to stop worrying about 0.88

00:48:14.740 everything. And I did. I exercised in every way you can, sports. I learned meditation when I was in 0.97

00:48:25.560 high school. I became a hypnotist, in part to use self-hypnosis, which is very effective, in the same

00:48:32.960 way meditation is. And I've spent all of my adult life studying every skill that could give me any angle

00:48:41.140 on how to make my anxiety less, which is related to your entire health, right? The whole thing is

00:48:47.840 wrapped up in your whole health. And so, do not short change yourself. If you want to know what your

00:48:55.720 priorities ought to be, and I say ought in terms of best, best outcome for all people. Usually, best

00:49:04.580 outcome, you know, is usually for one person at other people's expense. But here's the best outcome for

00:49:10.360 all people. Take care of your anxiety first, which means taking care of your health, right? I could

00:49:17.600 have said, take care of your health first, but your health isn't like the concept that's bothering you.

00:49:23.180 It's your anxiety that's bothering you. Make it your full-time job to figure out anything you can do to

00:49:31.360 make that go down, and do it without drugs if you can. The exception is weed. Weed works for some people,

00:49:37.940 and it's just a positive. In my life, it's just a positive. That doesn't mean it would be for you.

00:49:43.540 I think maybe one in five people could say that for sure, at most. So, you have to find your way.

00:49:49.780 Like, there's no one thing that I'm going to tell you that's going to work for you. You've got to find

00:49:53.400 the system that gets you outside. You've got to find the system that lets you eat right. By the way,

00:49:58.540 that's my book teaches you how to do that. How to fail almost everything and still win big.

00:50:04.260 But do not allow yourself to think it's something happening inside your head. It is not.

00:50:13.460 All right. So, that is your lesson on happiness. Make it your full-time job.

00:50:18.580 Now, how do you know when somebody's having cognitive dissonance, and how do you know it

00:50:26.040 isn't you? I've told you before, so I'm going to add something to the things I've said before.

00:50:30.700 I've told you before, the first way is to look for the trigger. All right. Because somebody needs

00:50:36.540 to do something that's, or be in a situation in which their self-image is challenged, or they've

00:50:42.240 been proven wrong in public. Those are the triggers. Now, suppose you're not sure who had the trigger.

00:50:50.320 Maybe you think, oh, I think you had the trigger. And then the person you're pointing at says,

00:50:54.580 I'm not so sure. I think you're the one with the trigger. How could you further figure it out if

00:51:00.120 the trigger doesn't answer the question? Well, I would say that one of the ways, and not 100%,

00:51:07.740 is how people are prepared for the trigger. How prepared were you to be wrong? Because that'll

00:51:16.820 really tell you something. And let me give you my example. One of the reframes that I do, that I think

00:51:24.840 keeps my mind healthier, is that I find that being wrong, even in public, is thrilling. How many of you

00:51:35.740 could say, and honestly, that being wrong, and other people seeing it, would actually give you kind of a

00:51:44.140 charge? Not many, right? So it's a learned ability. I don't think you're born of that. I think that

00:51:54.680 everybody has a natural sense of shame and embarrassment. And I had plenty of it. I mean,

00:52:00.320 I had lots of it. But I do think you can practice it away, that there's a skill set about that. Now,

00:52:07.900 in my case, I've also monetized being wrong. Since what I talk about, what I talk about here is

00:52:17.060 cognitive illusions. If there were a really good cognitive illusion, and I got one seriously wrong,

00:52:24.860 my business model would make me more money. Because if I do a title of these live streams

00:52:30.920 that says, oh, I got everything wrong, or here's how I have to apologize for this,

00:52:36.240 my traffic goes up 30%. You've seen it. But if I tell you that I'm right about everything,

00:52:43.620 and you got it wrong, what happens to my money? It goes down 30%. You know, my live stream traffic's

00:52:51.900 probably down 25% or so from its peak, for no other reason than because I'm not telling you I'm wrong.

00:52:59.520 So if you're going to follow the money, I guarantee you that admitting I'm wrong is more profitable for me.

00:53:07.080 Do you accept that? You can see it yourself, right? I mean, you can just check my numbers. They're public.

00:53:13.540 They're listed right there. Just look, and you see that when I'm eating crow, people love to watch it.

00:53:20.860 So people like to watch other people squirm. But for me, it would be actually sort of an exciting

00:53:30.940 learning experience. Now, keep in mind that one of my frames of life is that I'm living in a simulation,

00:53:39.180 and that reality is slowly, you know, revealing itself to me. So anytime reality feels like it comes

00:53:47.060 from behind a curtain, and then reveals itself to me, and I find out how blind I was to something,

00:53:52.900 I kind of like it. I kind of like it. So while nobody likes to be proven wrong,

00:54:01.380 I do have a business model that supports it. And I can think of lots of examples where I thought,

00:54:08.680 whoa, I was so wrong about that, and said it in public, and I was fine. I also know that I survive

00:54:15.800 it just fine. Being wrong. How many times have you seen me be wrong? And here I am. I'm still here.

00:54:25.080 There's no difference. I have trained myself by being wrong enough in public, embarrassing myself

00:54:32.540 enough in public, and finding out that I wake up the next day and breakfast tastes exactly the same.

00:54:37.560 I'm like, well, let me test this theory. I was, a lot of people think I'm wrong, and they hate me right now.

00:54:49.240 Okay, let me taste my coffee.

00:54:55.060 Same. It's the same.

00:54:57.280 You think something's going to be different because you're embarrassed, or because somebody has a lower

00:55:04.940 opinion of you, but it's really not. It's really not. Things are just the same. And once you realize

00:55:11.660 that, that other people's opinions, here's another reframe for you. I'm starting to work on a book on this

00:55:19.200 topic, which is why I'm thinking about it a lot. One of the reframes for you to avoid criticism,

00:55:24.660 or the impact of criticism, is to remember that somebody else's opinion of you is a chemical

00:55:34.100 reaction happening in the brain and the skull, I like to say, inside the skull of a stranger

00:55:39.220 who's not even in the room. It's a microscopic chemical attraction, or a chemical reaction,

00:55:48.620 and electrical, I guess, happening in the skull of somebody who's nowhere around.

00:55:53.460 Like, I don't know where that is. And even if I were there, the chemical little reaction would be

00:56:01.320 so small, I couldn't even detect it. And that's the thing you're worrying about. Tomorrow, your coffee

00:56:08.440 will taste the same. When you're on your deathbed, here's another reframe. Here's another reframe.

00:56:13.680 Every time something like that bothers you, and you know it's small ball, you're saying to yourself,

00:56:19.720 I know that's small. Man, that bothers me. Oh, God. It's small. I get it. But man, that's bothering

00:56:25.360 me. Just think about your last breath. You're on your deathbed. Are you going to be thinking about

00:56:32.520 that? Is that going to be in the top million of things you're going to think about on your last day

00:56:38.300 at Earth? Nope. Nope. So don't worry about it now. Let it go. All right. So those are your

00:56:47.700 reframes for the day. I believe that we've solved or put into motion a solution to education,

00:56:56.320 the high cost of college. I believe that we'll also get rid of systemic racism, as it is mostly

00:57:03.420 present in the public schooling system and the teachers' unions supporting it. Once we have

00:57:09.400 everybody trained and no longer trained to be racist, we will have the strongest, most powerful

00:57:15.220 country that ever existed. I'll tell you what China doesn't see coming. They don't see talent stacks and 0.97

00:57:23.180 systems over goals, something that has swept America and made people who used to be pretty good

00:57:29.740 at doing things into people who are great at doing things. Do you think that this reframing stuff

00:57:36.180 and the systems over goals doesn't work? I'm going to prove it to you right now.

00:57:43.280 In the comments, both locals on YouTube, tell me how many of you have recently quit drinking. Go.

00:57:53.780 I'm not going to say anything. If you're listening to this, I'm not going to say what's happening

00:58:02.040 right now. Look at the comments. Now, YouTube, you're a little bit slower, but let me just say

00:58:11.540 that the local people are incredible. Oh, my God. I've never seen so many people say they quit

00:58:21.240 alcohol. Here comes YouTube. Coming online. YouTube.

00:58:30.800 Now, let me ask you this. Do you think that the representative sample of other live streams

00:58:38.160 would have this many people who quit alcohol recently?

00:58:43.780 Ask yourself. Do you think any other live streams would have this many people immediately saying,

00:58:51.240 I quit alcohol? Yeah, this reframing stuff is powerful. When I told you that alcohol is

00:58:57.720 poison, and I repeat it all the time, that's the reframe. If you think alcohol is a beverage,

00:59:04.300 you're fucked. Let me be clear about that. If your idea of alcohol is that it's a beverage, 1.00

00:59:11.380 you're fucked. You're just fucked. 1.00

00:59:14.220 It's poison. It's poison. Now, it is poison that feels really good, and I've greatly enjoyed the 1.00

00:59:22.080 times that I've used it. Greatly enjoyed it. Had terrific times. But it's poison. Let's not kid

00:59:28.440 ourselves. So if you want to drink less, just think you're taking poison. It's just you've decided you

00:59:37.060 won't take that much of it. So you think you'll survive. But that little bit of a reframe, it'll

00:59:42.000 work on you over time. And over time, you'll find that it's easier to quit if you want to.

00:59:47.600 I'm not saying you should. I'm not saying you shouldn't. You're free people. But

00:59:52.140 this is powerful stuff. And I will talk to you tomorrow.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - January 28, 2022

Episode 1637 Scott Adams： Watch Me Fix Most of the World's Problems While Being Insulted. Bring a Beverage

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