Episode 1639 Scott Adams： All the News is Fake Today Except the Weather
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
151.05154
Summary
CNN reports that falling iguanas can survive sub-zero temperatures in the Northeast, and it's not because of climate change. It's because they can't stand the cold. And it's a good thing they don't have to deal with it.
Transcript
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Good morning everybody and welcome to the best damn thing that ever happened to you
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at least today so far and I think that for some of you you probably came in here with low
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expectations. Oh I think I'll check out this live stream something about was sipping and then
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and then you find out it's the best thing that ever happened in the world and then you've got
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to tell your friends but it's probably after you hit the subscribe button. However if you'd like
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to take it up a level I have a way. It's a system. All you need is a cup or mug or a glass, a tag or
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chalice or stein, a canteen jug or a flask, a vessel. What kind? Any kind. Fill it with your favorite
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liquid I like? Coffee. And join me now. It's the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine of the day.
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It's the thing that makes everything better. It's called the simultaneous sip and aren't you lucky
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I hope you didn't go over a 10% slip to SIRP ratio. It's very important. If your slurp is
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under 10% of the total sip, you're in just the right range. Don't overdo it. Don't underdo
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it. You ever have like a weird hair that's just like in your eye for no reason? The hell's
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going on here? All right. Well, in an uncharacteristic morning, CNN has a lot of fascinating news today.
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I don't know if it's because most of it isn't about Trump, but they actually have some pretty
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interesting stories. Here's my favorite. In the context of climate change, we're having
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a record snowfalls and low temperatures. And of course, the Northeast is blanketed by snow.
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So, you know, they're getting one or two feet of snow up in the Northeast. Electricity is
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impacted. But Northeastern people are, what's the word? What's the word for the people who
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live in the snow country all the time? Hearty. Oh, you got it. Yeah. Somebody got it before
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I even said it. They're hearty. Yeah. It's funny. You could imagine a lot of people who would be in
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real trouble if they lost electricity in sub-zero temperatures. But the people in the Northeast are
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like, that's why I have a fireplace. That's why we got a fireplace, of course. And that's why we have
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a neighbor. So somehow they'll figure it out. Somehow they'll figure it out. It is dangerous. I don't want
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to minimize it. And it is very likely that some people will freeze to death. But it's sort of like
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endemic. You know, cold weather isn't a pandemic in the Northeast. It's endemic. You're used to it.
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So it's funny what kind of risks you can get used to. When I lived in the Northeast,
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yeah, we had power outages in the winter. That happened. And I don't remember ever being super
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panicked about it. It was just a pain in the ass. I mean, that's about it. All right. But the best
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part of it is that there's going to be a thing happening in Florida, in all likelihood, because
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the temperatures are approaching freezing, even in Florida. And they're going to have
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a phenomena that CNN reports is called a chance of falling iguanas. Apparently, iguanas can't
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take the cold. And they live in trees. Or they're often in trees. I don't know where they live. But
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they're often in trees. And when it reaches a certain temperature, the iguana will freeze and
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fall out of the tree. So if you're in Florida at a certain temperature, you don't want to
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walk under a tree because an iguana might fall on you. Now, that's what I call news. This
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is news you can use. A lot of the news is just pure fake news. It doesn't help you at
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all. But this would help you avoid being hit in the face with an iguana. And I know you'd
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like to avoid that, wouldn't you? All right. But apparently, this is a temporary effect in
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that even the falling iguanas rejuvenate themselves when it turns warm. That's much the same way I am.
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When the temperature reaches a certain amount, I just go stiff and I fall on the ground. And I just
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stay there until it warms up. And then I'm revived. Very much iguana-like.
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Well, as I tweeted this morning, I punished myself last night by forcing myself to watch
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MSNBC for nearly, I don't know, I think I hung it out. I probably lasted 15 or 20 minutes.
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I don't like to use the word heroic, but I think it applies in this case. It was heroic.
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Now, I am completely aware that if you spend your time in one bubble, it doesn't matter which one
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you're in, if you move to another bubble and spend some time there, you will be horrified.
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And I'm sure it works both ways. I watch mostly Fox News. Now, the reason I watch it has a lot to
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do with the fact that they just have better producers. It's just a really well-produced
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show. So I just, I don't know, I just enjoy the texture of it more than other places. But I try
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to get my news from as many sources as possible so I don't get lost in a bubble. But man, it is
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horrifying when you go into a bubble you're not familiar with. And let me tell you what they were
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doing in the MSNBC fake news bubble. So they were doing a lot of horrified reporting on January 6th
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because the ghost of Trump is the ghost of Trump past, but also the ghost of Trump future, maybe.
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So they're worried about him in the past. They're worried about him in the future.
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And they have a full TDS that has now subsided. And here's the thing that they leave out from
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their coverage of January 6th. They leave out that the protesters thought they were stopping
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a coup. They didn't think they were causing a coup. They thought they were stopping one.
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Now, is that true? You know, was there a coup? And did they try to stop it? Does it matter?
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It kind of doesn't matter because we're talking about the intentions. The intention was that they
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believed the election had been overthrown or fraudulent, and they needed a delay to get enough
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of an audit going, they thought, that maybe they could discover it. Because remember, the thinking
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was that the fraud was really obvious, right? It's hard to put yourself in the mind of the time
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because you've learned a lot since then. But in the thoughts of the time, they thought
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they saw it in real time, the fraud. They thought they saw on television the vote count
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go from a high number to a low number like right in front of them. Now, it turns out that
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there was a legitimate sounding explanation for why that happened. But remember, we didn't
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know that yet. Or at least the crowd didn't know it. I don't know when it was first reported
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or debunked. But people thought they saw with their own eyes the country being stolen. And
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so they thought they were fixing it. Now, I get that they might have been wrong. Don't
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know for sure because the election was never audited in any deep way. We only know that the
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courts never saw some evidence. So there's no evidence that the courts ever saw of any fraud.
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And I'm personally not aware of any. So if I can, you know, maybe not get demonetized on
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YouTube, let me say, I'm not personally aware of any credible evidence that anybody has brought
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up to my attention that would suggest the election was fraudulent. I am very aware that there are
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a lot of suspicions and things that haven't been fully researched. That's true. And I'm also
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to remind you, my global opinion is that anything that can be rigged will be rigged. You just don't
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know when it happens. So I have no reason to believe it's happened already. But I have 100%
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certainty it will happen if we don't plug the holes. Because it always does. It's just it's the most
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predictable thing in human events is that somebody will use a fraud if it's available. If it's not
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available, they won't use it. That's pretty predictable. So when I watch MSNPC, and I see
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them abusing their viewers, and I do think it's abuse. I don't even mean that as hyperbole
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or spin, this actually looks like abuse. Because if you leave out the most important part of the
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story, and report it without that most important part, it reverses its meaning. And actually it
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reverses it to the point of pushing people to potential violence, or even wanting to lock up
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Trump supporters, which you see a lot of talk about that, right? So this is actually abuse.
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And I don't think we should call it fake news. Because fake news would suggest some other
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intention, or I don't know, maybe they got it wrong. Maybe it's an accident. You know,
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maybe it's just political spin. But this feels exactly like abuse. And I thought, you know,
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everybody always talks about, you know, why don't we have a news entity that simply reports
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the real news? Or the press cannot commit fraud if you also have a recording device, somebody
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said. Well, that's not true. Because you can record somebody's quotes, and then leave out
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some context on the story, and it's still fake news. So you've got MSNBC abusing its people.
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And you wonder, why can't you have like a, why isn't there space in the market for a legitimate
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reporting organization? Like, why doesn't anybody walk into this gigantic space of just being
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objective and tell the whole context? Do you know why? Well, it doesn't pay. There's no business
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model that would support it. The day that that started, on day one, everybody who watched Fox News
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would look at it and say, well, that's not what Fox News says. So looks like it's just another fake
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news site. And all the people who watch CNN and MSNBC, they would come and they would see this
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hypothetically fair reporting. And they would say, well, that's not what we heard. So it looks like
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another fake site. You could you could never make money by reporting things honestly. We unfortunately,
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humanity is not designed to accept that business model compared to the business model that just
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gets you all excited and, you know, makes your brain on fire. They're not really competitive.
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But I came up with an idea that would be really low cost and would sort of get to the problem. And it
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goes like this. Create a website that is nothing but the part left out.
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Just the context they left out. Don't even report the story. So just just have a website
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that says January 6th, MSNBC. The part they left out, the protesters thought they were saving
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the republic, not overthrowing it. And that's it. Don't even tell the story. It's because if
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somebody doesn't know the story, they're not going to go to this website because it's not
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an original website where you learn the story. It's only where you go to find the part they
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left out. Now, you'd have to be fairly confident that it was true. But you could also report it
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as here's the part, you know, Fox News says they left out, which then allows you to report
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it without saying it's true or false. Tim Pool. Somebody said Tim Pool. I assume you mean
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that he's one of the people who fills in context. I think that's true. Paul Harvey, yeah, in the old
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days, I suppose. But don't you think that would be an easy website to spin up? Because it wouldn't
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be hard to know what people are leaving out. You know, maybe it's, you know, user managed. Maybe
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it's open access or something. But that's the part. You don't you don't need an entire news
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organization. You just need a context missing. Here it is. Here's the part they left out. Boom.
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And it works both ways, by the way. Don't think that this wouldn't work, you know, against Fox News.
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Because don't you think that Fox News is a little pro-Ivermectin? Right? At least the opinion people,
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not the news people. But the opinion people are sort of pro-Ivermectin. And wouldn't you like to see
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on this context any studies that say the opposite? I'm not saying which one's true
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for this conversation. I'm saying wouldn't you like to know if the opinion hosts on Fox
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left anything out? I'm not saying it changes the result. I'm just saying wouldn't you like
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to know if they left anything out? Because I would imagine it's just universally true that
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at least the opinion people are giving you their opinion, which would minimize some things that
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maybe you missed entirely. I don't know. I think it'd help. All right. Let's talk about...
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Oh, and I guess here's the question for me, for you. So I've given you this clean example of
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MSNBC leaving out contacts. CNN does the same. The contacts being that the protesters thought
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they were saving the republic, not overthrowing it. Is there any example where Fox News has
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done anything that bad? Because I feel like I have a cognitive blind spot there.
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They reported Arizona too early? Yeah, I mean, that's not the same kind of stuff we're talking
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about. I'm supposed to be filling that role for you? Well, I'll try. Birth certificate.
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WMDs and RAC. I think everybody got that wrong.
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So, you know, the WMDs and RAC would be an example of just a mistake, I would think.
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It doesn't sound to me like anybody left anything out. Yeah, the Arizona reporting was too soon. I
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know what you're saying. But doesn't that sound like just a mistake? That's not leaving out a
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narrative. Right? I'm talking about a narrative that just leaves out an entire, like, important part.
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Or, you know, the Arizona reporting was just maybe a mistake or a judgment call or something.
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All right, I didn't realize how obsessed you are about how many of you really cared about election night.
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I did see the numbers that a lot of people abandoned Fox News and went to the competitors
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No one reporting on the poll workers getting kicked out of counting.
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All right. Well, so I'll accept that they got it wrong, but I don't know if there's an equivalent
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example of a narrative that was left something out. But if you think one, send it to me.
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I do think there's a difference. Here's the difference that I think I detect. Now, this is purely
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subjective, right? When Fox News seems to leave, let's say, the opinion people sort of leave what I
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think is established fact, it's usually obviously hyperbole. In other words, as a viewer, you can
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identify the hyperbole. Let me give you some examples. Let's see. Let's say immigration.
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Yeah, right. If a Fox opinion person talks about lots of criminals coming across the border for
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immigration, do you say to yourself, oh, that literally means it's crowds of criminals? Or do
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you say to yourself reasonably, oh, they're saying, they're not saying they're all criminals. They're
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saying that there are too many criminals, right? I mean, doesn't your brain just automatically
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adjust the hyperbole because you understand the source? Mine does. So to me, it doesn't seem
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like they're leaving anything out. It seems like they just ramped up their point a little
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bit. That's what the opinion people do. Then there's stuff like the war on Christmas, right?
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There's nothing left out, is there? The story is complete. It's just they have a strong opinion
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about it. How about critical race theory? Do you think that Fox News leaves out an important
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part of the narrative? Or do they maybe exaggerate? Well, I don't even know if it's an exaggeration,
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actually, but they certainly make their point. It seems to me that there's this difference where
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MSNBC is literally intentionally creating fake news, whereas Fox looks to be literally intentionally
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exaggerating their point. And those don't look the same to me. Because you can pick up an
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exaggeration easily. I mean, it doesn't take too much discernment to know when an opinion person
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is exaggerating. But it's hard to know something's left out of a news story if you don't know. If
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it's just left out, you wouldn't know it's left out. That seems really different to me.
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All right. Trump had his... He had a rally, and of course, he always makes news. And here's
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something he said. He said, if I run and if I win, we will treat those people from January 6th
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fairly. We will treat them fairly, Trump said. And if it requires pardons, we will give them
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pardons, because they're being treated so unfairly. I have to admit that hearing that and that alone
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almost made me throw down for him again. Because, you know, I don't want to be a one-issue voter.
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But if you had to be a one-issue voter on this issue, that's sort of defensible, isn't it?
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You know, putting political prisoners and political prisoners, if that's what's happening, and it looks
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like it to me. I mean, I don't know if I have all the context. Now, I'm not saying that they didn't
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break laws. That's not what I'm saying. People who broke laws have to answer for that. No, there's
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no exception there. But I'm not sure that the way they're being treated is exactly non-political.
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It looks political to me. And most of you, I think, would agree. So when you see a president
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make a promise like that, I almost say to myself, I almost don't care about the other
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issues. Because if you don't fix this, what else matters? Nothing. If you don't fix this,
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nothing else matters. If they can put people in jail just for, essentially, for political
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wrong speak, you know, in the context of you're seeing, you know, you're seeing freedom of
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speech being curtailed, etc. This is almost good enough for one issue. But I'm going to
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tell you something, and you're not going to like it. If Trump messages the same about immigration,
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and he runs again, I can't support him. I can't support him. And here's my thinking. The first
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time he came out, it was actually politically kind of genius to exaggerate the, let's say,
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the danger from immigration. It probably made sense for him to go to go to the top of the
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conversation by saying something that his base wanted to hear. And that was provocative. The
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news couldn't stay away from it. And it sounded vaguely racist, but you could also understand
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it as hyperbole, in which case it wasn't. Given that everything he says is hyperbole,
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why would this be different? Literally, everything he says is hyperbole. So, you know, a discerning
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viewer would say, oh, that's hyperbole. He doesn't mean everybody coming across the border is a racist
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or a criminal. He doesn't mean that there's even more criminals among this class of people,
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except people who would go across the border illegally. You know, maybe, maybe have a little
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more criminals in that mix. But, but here's my thing. After seeing how that worked out for him,
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meaning it didn't work out, and it also painted his supporters as racists, didn't it? It made you a
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racist even if you're not. Because you said, well, I like, you know, Trump on taxes and Supreme Court
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nominations. So I'm going to overlook his hyperbole about the people coming across the border. Not the
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issue. The issue still matters to you. But about the individuals, the characterization of them,
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maybe you'd overlook that even if you're uncomfortable with it, because it's hyperbole.
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But if he runs again, and he does the same message, I can't, I can't support that. Because
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at this point, we know how it's received. Right? We don't have any mystery about it. We know how
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it's received. And if again, he emphasizes the criminals coming across the border, I don't think
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that matches fact. Because my observation, and I'd be willing to change my mind on this if there
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were data. But my observation is that the people coming across the border are more law-abiding.
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More law-abiding. Now that's just subjective. And this is based on living in Northern California,
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not Southern, because the Southerner is closer to the, you know, the trouble. But in Northern
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California, by the time people are filtered up to where I live, you get the people who just really
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want work. And they do not want trouble. They do not, they're not going to steal a knick-knack
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from your dresser while they're cleaning your house, if that's what they're doing. Right?
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It's, they're unusually law-abiding. And I can tell you that from my experience as a restaurant
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owner, they're unusually law-abiding. The ones who really came here to stay and, you know, want to
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make it work. Now, total lies. Now, remember, you can't call me a liar, because I just told you this was
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a subjective impression. You could say I'm wrong, and I won't even debate you. You could say that it
00:24:18.480
might have to do with my little bubble. I wouldn't debate that, because I'm speaking from my bubble.
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I'm telling you that if he makes this messaging again, I don't want to paint myself as a racist,
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and I couldn't support it. I couldn't support him as president. If he said this, however, I could
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support it totally. Here, here's what I would totally support. Let's stop talking about the
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nature of the people coming across, because that's just making everybody unhappy. Let's talk about the
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fact that you can't have a country unless you can control the border. Oh, I'm in on that. I'm all in on
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that. You have to have a, you have to have border control, or you're not a country. Who gets to
00:25:02.680
decide the economics of your country? The people who decide to come in, or the country? Well, the
00:25:08.700
country. So there's an argument for border control that is, yeah, he did say all that, but he also
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said the other stuff, right? He doesn't need to also say the other stuff if he runs again, because we
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already heard it. It's sort of baked in. So if he could change his messaging on that. Now, the
00:25:31.260
fentanyl problem is more of a China problem, and he was also soft on China, on fentanyl, which I have
00:25:37.100
a big problem with, by the way. If somebody ran against Trump and said they would be tougher on
00:25:42.300
fentanyl, I hate to say it, but that's another one issue kind of situation with me. So I don't, I don't
00:25:49.960
think anybody's going to run on that basis, so I don't think it's a risk. So let me say that I do
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not automatically think that I'm going to support Trump if he were to run. I'm not sure he will.
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But if he does, I can't say I would support him if he did the same messaging. I just don't think I
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would. All right? Because, and remember, the point is how it affects me. All right? I'm saying that if he
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says that messaging again, after seeing it totally doesn't work, just makes him look, you know, just
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invites charges of racism, I just don't want to be on that train again. Now, of course, it's always
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going to matter who he's running against, right? If he's running against the worst candidate in the
00:26:34.960
world, then yeah, I guess you have to go with what works. But I could not be comfortable with his
00:26:42.560
immigration communication, if it's the same. All right. And I realize a lot of you disagree with
00:26:48.980
me. And that's fine. Do you know what I like best about this audience? I'll bet I'm the only live
00:26:56.140
streamer who disagrees with his audience a lot, which says a lot about you in a good way. It's
00:27:04.100
actually probably the best compliment you could ever have, that you're willing to absorb content that
00:27:09.960
you know is going to be a little bit uncomfortable sometimes. I have to admit, I have tremendous
00:27:19.540
respect for the live stream audience, because I do think that you have self-selected as being
00:27:26.440
more, I'd say more intellectually flexible than almost any other group in the country. I'll bet.
00:27:34.160
You know, and a lot of it is, no, a lot of it is self-selection. So it's not because I've
00:27:38.060
changed you in that way. I think it's self-selection. People can handle it.
00:27:43.100
All right. Let's talk about Putin. Everything I thought I knew about the Russia-Ukraine situation
00:27:49.440
is wrong, or was wrong, and maybe it's still wrong. But here's what I thought. I believed,
00:27:56.340
based on reporting, that we could cause so much financial impact on Russia that they wouldn't make
00:28:03.700
a military move because they would be crushed financially. It turns out, based on at least
00:28:09.020
CNN's reporting as of today, and it looks like pretty good reporting. I think Fox might have
00:28:15.200
said something about this too. But CNN reports this, that Russia provides around 30% of the
00:28:21.300
European Union's natural gas, which was good. I feel like you can't understand the situation
00:28:27.580
unless you know that situation. That 30% of the natural gas for Europe is coming from Russia.
00:28:37.400
And it's a vital role in power generation, home heating, and it's the winter, so it's pretty
00:28:42.640
important. But here's the deal. And then there's the Nord Stream, too, of course, is part of the story.
00:28:51.960
Did you know that if Europe stopped allowing Russia to participate in the financial, let's
00:28:59.280
say, credit market, that all they have to do is sell their energy to China? How many of you knew
00:29:06.140
that? That if Russia just got closed down by Europe through some financial mechanisms, all they have
00:29:13.820
to do is turn the valve and send more of it to China and less of it to Europe, and that China wants to buy
00:29:20.820
as much as they can produce because they need energy. Some of you knew that. And by the way, congratulations
00:29:27.320
if you did, because you would be well more... Now, I did know. I did know it generally. Like, in a
00:29:37.200
conceptual way, obviously, I did know that they could go to other markets and China would be the
00:29:42.080
obvious one. I didn't know how easy it would be. Did anybody know how easy it would be? Because I
00:29:48.360
didn't realize that they could bypass the entire traditional global financial market and just sell
00:29:55.600
stuff to China and take money for it. That's all they need to do. So somebody says Russia hates
00:30:02.000
China. Well, the other thing I'm learning today is that China and Russia have forged ties that are
00:30:08.420
stronger maybe than I had realized. And they do seem to be working as a team, which is really scary.
00:30:16.740
Now, when I say team, I feel as though maybe Russia is a Chinese puppet already. Maybe in some ways,
00:30:27.160
anyway. Because if China were not giving Russia this support, then Russia couldn't do what it wants
00:30:35.560
to do, you know, threatening Ukraine. And something tells me that China would benefit so much by Russia
00:30:44.940
going into Ukraine that they're going to make it happen. Because if Russia goes into Ukraine,
00:30:51.900
what's going to happen? It will make NATO look like a paper tiger. It will look like America can't
00:30:58.840
protect you. And they will have made a gigantic step toward dismantling economic power by showing that
00:31:09.940
it didn't work. And by simply making themselves wealthier by having more energy and making Russia
00:31:17.000
even better off, perhaps. Having a stronger partner that won't threaten them and they'll just buy their
00:31:23.180
energy. So the Russia and China connection, which does look like Russia will be the dominant partner
00:31:35.560
and already is, it can't be underestimated. Because you have to say to yourself, not just what does
00:31:41.400
Putin want to do? Haven't we all been fooled by the question of Putin makes all the decisions,
00:31:47.280
it's up to Putin, whatever Putin does, Putin hasn't decided, Putin, Putin? I've got a feeling that
00:31:53.020
that's all wrong. I've got a feeling that President Xi gets to decide if Putin attacks Ukraine.
00:32:01.960
And here's the bad news. It's in Xi's best interest, I think, to attack. So my previous
00:32:10.400
prediction was that there would be no major military conflict. I did allow that there might be a minor
00:32:17.180
incursion. But I didn't think there would be a major overthrow of Ukraine, because I thought there
00:32:24.720
would be too much risk of closing down Russia's economy. Turns out that's not much of a risk,
00:32:33.200
or at least it's not a big enough risk that would stop them from doing what they want to do.
00:32:37.980
So here's the most dangerous situation in the world. Countries that want different things and
00:32:44.140
cannot judge the military strength of the other. In this context, I'm calling the financial sanctions
00:32:52.480
military power. I'm calling hacking military power. And I'm calling actual, you know, bullets and
00:33:00.140
kinetic stuff, military power. Can you tell me who would win if Russia attacked Ukraine? Now, by win,
00:33:09.480
I think we all accept that Russia's forces could control the Ukraine if they put it all out there.
00:33:15.820
So that's not the question. The question is, would Russia be better off or worse off if they do it?
00:33:22.500
You don't know. You really don't know. Do you know what happens when you don't know who would win a war?
00:33:30.120
You have a war. Yeah. If you don't know, that's a dangerous situation. What is not dangerous is
00:33:39.780
knowing who's going to win. If you know who's going to win, or equally good, equally good if you know
00:33:46.580
both will lose. So one of the reasons we haven't had a nuclear confrontation between nuclear countries
00:33:52.680
is because both know with certainty, it's a lose-lose situation, right? Nuclear war is pretty much a certainty.
00:34:01.480
Nobody wins. That's why it doesn't happen. And traditional war doesn't happen. Also, if you don't know,
00:34:10.620
you have a good chance of winning. But this Russia situation, when you throw the economic uncertainties,
00:34:16.800
would these sanctions make that much difference? You throw in the cyber uncertainties, exactly how
00:34:23.320
much power does Russia have cyber-wise? What could they destroy in the United States if they wanted to?
00:34:28.640
I don't know. What could we do to them? I don't know. What would the economics be? I don't know.
00:34:34.420
Would it be good for America or bad for America? I don't know. Good for Europe or bad for Europe?
00:34:38.840
Probably bad. But if it's good for China, it might still happen. So here's my adjustment to my, well,
00:34:48.760
really a complete reversal of my opinion. As long as the variables stay what they are,
00:34:55.840
and of course the variables always change, right? But if they stayed where they are, I would say
00:34:59.960
a major invasion of Ukraine would be almost guaranteed.
00:35:04.120
Because Russia, too, has to figure out the limit of their own power. That's one way to find out.
00:35:12.940
That's one way to find out. So at this point, Russia's advantage, I think, is to invade Ukraine.
00:35:19.760
Because here's what's going to happen. NATO won't respond directly. They will take losses,
00:35:24.820
but they would show that they had the power to do it, and then they would do it.
00:35:28.420
Then the entire world financial system would start moving toward China, which is what China wants.
00:35:35.580
The China-Russia connection would get stronger, which maybe Russia and China both want. I don't know.
00:35:42.060
So I've got a feeling, and yeah, don't forget that there may be a deal where Russia gets support for their thing,
00:35:53.320
and then China gets support for their thing, meaning Taiwan. So I don't know about Taiwan,
00:36:00.720
but I would say the odds of Ukraine being invaded, unless, you know, I suppose if Russia got some
00:36:07.060
major concessions, they would pause. But it looks like we're not going to give them any.
00:36:13.220
Do you think we're going to give Russia any concessions? I don't think so. Because we can't.
00:36:18.820
If we give them concessions, it's the same as losing. It just means they'll take something else,
00:36:23.520
and they'll just keep pushing until they can't push anymore. So why would he stop pushing if we let
00:36:30.160
him push? So I would say the current set of variables largely guarantees Russia will conquer Ukraine.
00:36:39.960
I don't know if they can hold it, because the locals will have lots of weapons. But I think they'll conquer it at this point.
00:36:49.800
Now, like I said, this is a conditional prediction, just like what I now consider my incorrect prediction from yesterday,
00:36:57.760
because I learned something fundamental that was new to me, new to me. If I learn something else tomorrow that's new,
00:37:05.620
well, I'll change it again. So it's not like a prediction prediction. It's more like a conditional one,
00:37:11.360
if the variables stay the same. Yeah, the Ukrainians will, well, actually, I did see an interview from a
00:37:19.380
Ukrainian guy who said, we're not going to fight against our brothers in Russia. Did anybody see that
00:37:25.320
interview? It was a Ukrainian citizen. It was an older guy. So it wasn't like a young guy saying harsh things.
00:37:32.260
It was an older guy who said, if Russia comes in militarily, we're not going to fight Russians.
00:37:38.460
Like Russians are our brothers. We're not going to fight them. So you might, you might have a
00:37:43.480
situation where some or a lot of the Ukrainians think it's a war between governments. You know what
00:37:50.500
I mean? If it looks like a war between governments, this, I don't even know. It's not like Ukraine's
00:37:57.020
government is so honest that they want to keep it, right? Isn't the reason Ukraine is not in NATO one
00:38:02.880
of the reasons? It's because they're so corrupt. Their own government, Ukraine, is so corrupt
00:38:08.560
that they can't even join NATO. If you live in Ukraine and you know your own government is so
00:38:15.420
corrupt you can't even participate in normal world alliances, how much do you care if Putin's in charge?
00:38:23.100
Probably not that much, right? The odds that it would affect you personally might be actually low.
00:38:35.080
Scott, why do you say a war would move work to China? Did I ever say anything like that?
00:38:42.260
That doesn't sound familiar. Yeah, that doesn't sound like something I said. I don't even know the
00:38:47.120
context of that. Let's see. Did you do this to teach us how to be open to new information? No, no.
00:38:59.100
No, I'm not that clever. Sometimes you see me in the context of the live stream. I'll make an
00:39:06.480
argument as strongly as I can and get you to agree with it and then I'll show you the counterpoint.
00:39:12.380
But that's usually during a live stream because that doesn't seem manipulative. That seems more like
00:39:18.560
the show. But I wouldn't do it in an extended way like that. I wouldn't. I'm legitimately just
00:39:28.260
changing my mind because I have new information. There's nothing going on beyond that. And by the
00:39:34.300
way, anytime you see me change my mind, remember that that gives me freedom or at least protection
00:39:43.280
from cognitive dissonance. Do you all understand how that works? That the more you see me change
00:39:49.920
my mind in public, like right in front of you, the less likely I'll be embarrassed to do it again.
00:39:55.560
Right? Because I'm defining myself as the person who can change his mind. That should protect me
00:40:05.400
against cognitive blindness in some cases, not all. There's nothing you can do to protect yourself
00:40:10.980
entirely. But in theory, I would be the most, maybe the most protected pundit who does things
00:40:18.280
publicly. I guess that makes you a pundit. Right? Think of somebody else that you've watched
00:40:24.700
who has changed their mind on as many topics as you've seen me change my mind. Can you think
00:40:31.000
of anybody? Name one person who does this, talk about the headlines, who has changed, somebody
00:40:38.320
says my ex. Stephen Crowder, somebody says. Tucker? Oh, actually, Tucker. I'm going to give
00:40:48.600
you that one. I have heard Tucker say he revised his opinion at least maybe three times I've heard
00:40:57.780
it, which would be a lot, wouldn't it? Yeah, I'm going to give you that one. I'm going to give
00:41:02.860
you Tucker. Joe Rogan changes his opinion. I may be less familiar with the examples of that,
00:41:10.940
but I would imagine that's true. Dave Rubin, famous example of somebody who can see the whole
00:41:17.640
field. By the way, Dave Rubin is one of the best examples of a talent stack. Do you all know Dave
00:41:24.980
Rubin? Just Google him if you don't. But I've never seen somebody do such a good job of assembling
00:41:33.200
exactly the right set of talents to end up exactly where he is, which is in a real good place.
00:41:41.300
China, Biden, Fauci own Scott. Who says that China, Biden, and Fauci own me?
00:41:52.960
Like, based on what? I just think that there's some, you know, I have this thought that there
00:41:59.380
are a lot of paid trolls, but the people paying the trolls don't know what they're getting.
00:42:04.340
They're not really getting the good ones. I've got a feeling that if you're a paid troll,
00:42:08.780
like that's your job, you might not have a lot of talent. Just saying. All right. Let's
00:42:17.480
see what else has happened with this. That's all. That's all about that.
00:42:22.480
All right. Did you know that China is already Russia's banker? I don't know exactly what that
00:42:32.100
means, but the essence of it is that getting Russia out of the banking system wouldn't have
00:42:38.820
as much impact as you thought. All right. Okay. That's enough of that. Let's talk about February
00:42:48.040
first. If you haven't noticed, I'm trying to talk less about COVID. Everybody happy about
00:42:57.220
that? I can't completely not talk about it, but I'll try to save it for the end and I'll
00:43:03.660
try to de-emphasize it. All right. So here's what I'm not going to talk about. I'm not going
00:43:08.700
to talk about what therapeutics or vaccines are good or bad. I'm out. So the conversation
00:43:14.920
of what works or what doesn't work, I'm out. I'm out. Because I don't think it matters
00:43:20.660
at this point, do you? Is it relevant? I mean, it just feels like the relevance has disappeared.
00:43:27.440
You've all decided what you're comfortable with. I've decided what I'm comfortable with,
00:43:31.580
although I could change my mind. Let's just call it good. Yeah. Greg Goffeld talks about February
00:43:39.540
1st. So he would be the best proponent of the idea because, and as he often says on the show,
00:43:47.960
if you don't tell the government what you want, how are they going to know? They can't guess
00:43:54.520
and they're not asking us. And so I think we've reached a situation where, so here's the current
00:44:00.380
situation. New COVID deaths in America are at an all-time high. Today. Today. COVID deaths are the
00:44:10.660
highest they've ever been. Today. Now, according to, you know, CDC, so you can argue about the numbers,
00:44:21.000
but there were 3,200 deaths on January 28th. So there's a little bit of a couple-day time lag,
00:44:27.960
and I think there's a weekend lag as well. So we won't know exactly what was happening the last
00:44:33.120
few days until maybe middle of the week or something. But there's no way that the government
00:44:39.400
can relax restrictions when your deaths are at an all-time high. Everybody agree with that?
00:44:45.480
That there's nobody in the government who has enough cover with the data. Like the data does
00:44:51.680
not support them dropping sanctions or dropping mandates. Would you all agree with that?
00:44:57.960
If the numbers are the worst ever, there's no way your government can say, okay, numbers are
00:45:02.740
worst ever, take your masks off. Because that would be like saying they never worked in the
00:45:06.680
first place. And they can't say that. So the only thing that can happen on February 1st
00:45:17.120
is that the public just takes control of the decision. And it's interesting because if we take control
00:45:24.460
the decision when the deaths are at the highest they've ever been, then there's a good chance it
00:45:29.560
will hold when they go down. And it might hold again when they go back up to this level, if that
00:45:35.060
happens again, say in the summer or late summer or something. So I think the public has to take control now.
00:45:44.800
Or let me say it a different way. I think the public will take control. And in a sense, it's not
00:45:52.440
really a change because the public always had the control of this stuff. They always did. It's just
00:45:56.980
they didn't exercise it. And here's my opinion. If the public decides it's done with any part of the
00:46:05.840
mandates, we will be done with them. Because we have the power. If, you know, 20% of people
00:46:13.420
refuse to put on a mask in Walmart, what the hell is Walmart going to do? What the hell are they going
00:46:20.680
to do? They're not going to stop you from shopping. They don't have the resources to kick out 20% of the
00:46:27.960
customers and still have a business. So you don't need many people to refuse. You just need a date
00:46:35.540
and you need about 20% of the people to say, I'm going to die on this hill. Because there's
00:46:40.920
actually not that, there's no risk. You realize if you go into Walmart without your mask, there's
00:46:45.620
no risk. I mean, legally, there's no risk. The worst thing that would happen is they'd ask you to leave
00:46:51.240
or they'd ask you to put on your mask. That's it. That's it. There's no penalty. You're not going to
00:46:58.600
like be taxed any extra. So do you think you can't get 20% of people to invite that trouble just to
00:47:08.500
make a point? Sure. Come on over, manager. Let's talk. Yeah. Yeah. In America, 20% of the people
00:47:16.420
will rebel against anything. One of the things you can definitely depend on is Americans willing to
00:47:22.740
be rebellious. We're always willing to be rebellious. We love rebelling. We rebelled three
00:47:30.180
times before breakfast. We're a rebellious bunch of people. Why not 25%? Shh, shh, with your 25%.
00:47:38.520
All right. So there's definitely, there's no, there's no chance that your government will
00:47:45.480
reduce mandates on February 1st. Everybody on board with that? There's no chance
00:47:51.020
that masks will go away on February 1st because the numbers are through the roof
00:47:55.840
compared to relative. But let's see what the public can do. And you know, here's, here's my opinion on
00:48:04.400
this. I'm personally done with masks on February 1st, meaning I just won't go where, where they're
00:48:10.640
needed. I won't fly. I'm just not going to fly, which is the one place I wouldn't be able to get
00:48:15.880
away with it. Right? You really couldn't fly if there are mask requirements and you don't have a
00:48:21.820
mask. But short of that, I can avoid everything else. I'll use only local businesses because they're
00:48:27.860
already mask free, largely. I'll avoid all chains. If I have to buy anything, I'll buy it online
00:48:35.220
through Amazon. Because you know what Amazon never makes me do? Put on a mask. So if I want
00:48:43.420
something from Walmart, and they won't let me shop there in person, I'm not going to shop it from
00:48:49.280
Walmart fucking online. Let me be clear. If Walmart doesn't let me buy a laundry basket at Walmart,
00:48:57.380
I'm not going to go online to the fucking Walmart online site and buy their fucking basket. I'm going
00:49:04.860
to get it from Amazon. Right? So, you know, the public has a million different ways that they can
00:49:13.400
punish businesses that don't want to get on board. So here's how it works. Customers first, that's you.
00:49:21.000
Corporations second. Corporations second, they have to buckle. You have to break the corporations.
00:49:27.380
It won't take much. 10-20% of malcontents in the store. That's all it takes. You break the corporations,
00:49:36.800
then the corporations talk to the government, and then the government buckles. Right? You and I probably
00:49:43.260
can't get the government to do anything. But you can get a corporation to do a lot. You can get a
00:49:48.560
corporation to do a lot. Oh, damn it. I hate it when I'm wrong. Amazon owns Whole Foods.
00:49:57.380
Good point. Amazon owns Whole Foods. Now, I think you still might want to treat them as a separate
00:50:05.060
company. But, you know, I wouldn't go to Amazon Whole Foods to buy something I couldn't get at a
00:50:12.480
Safeway. But I would get a laundry basket from Amazon.com that I couldn't get at Target.
00:50:19.040
All right. So, yeah, there's definitely some messiness there in the corporate world. But I think that's the...
00:50:26.720
Would you agree with the general idea that it's the public first, corporation second, because they can
00:50:35.040
make that kind of a decision, and then government last? Right? Because the minute that Walmart says,
00:50:43.600
we're not going to go along with this anymore, I feel like the government's just got a cave. Do you think the
00:50:49.740
government could go against Walmart? I don't know. Might be hard. I'll bet there are some big corporations, some
00:50:57.640
chains that have people who donate to the political parties. So I've got a feeling that the... at least the CEOs and the
00:51:06.060
owners of big corporations, they can push the government.
00:51:12.500
Dude, you need to move to Arizona. We've been mask optional for almost a year now. Yes, I am envious of
00:51:18.480
the places in this country that are free. But I will tell you that as most of the country is freezing
00:51:26.580
to death and suffering from iguanas falling on their heads, today the high temperature where I live will
00:51:33.860
be 62 degrees, it will be completely sunny, and I will take a long walk in my t-shirt.
00:51:41.800
Now, if you can take a long walk in the sun in your t-shirt at the end of January where you live,
00:51:48.580
let me know where that is. I might work there. I might go there. Now, Arizona, of course, is unlivable
00:51:55.840
in the summer. So you've got to give me someplace I can go outdoors every month. Austin? Maybe.
00:52:04.600
I also need legal cannabis, so Texas is probably not my state. All right. 70 degrees in Phoenix. Nice.
00:52:15.020
I'm not a two-home guy. I'll tell you. Let me tell you the smartest thing I ever heard from
00:52:22.040
Craig of Craigslist. You've all heard of Craigslist, right? And there's an actual Craig.
00:52:29.040
So I've met Craig. It turns out he was a Dilbert fan. And so anyway, I had lunch with him once. And
00:52:36.760
Craig tells me the story about why he turned down a gazillion dollars to sell a Craigslist.
00:52:42.620
And instead, just worked for at least a long time. He worked customer support. He just took complaints.
00:52:48.160
That was his job at his own company that he started. He took complaints. And which was
00:52:53.420
hilarious and genius at the same time. But I asked him, like, why did you turn down the
00:52:59.560
gazillion dollars to buy the company? And he said that being that rich sounded like a lot
00:53:04.820
of work. Now, here's somebody who creates a Craigslist. And you say to yourself, OK, what
00:53:12.300
kind of a brain do you have to have to make something that worked that well? Well, one of
00:53:18.220
the parts of the brain you have to have is simplicity. So here's somebody who craved simplicity
00:53:23.620
so much that Craigslist was just dead simple, right? Wasn't the best thing about Craigslist
00:53:30.660
how simple it was? Nobody had to have a lesson on how to use it. And this was in the days before
00:53:36.300
people understood user interface well. So the simplicity that allowed him to build Craigslist
00:53:42.220
in the first place, you know, permeated his life. And he actually turned down, I don't
00:53:47.020
know, a billion dollars or whatever the number was, some big number, because he thought it
00:53:50.360
would just make things complicated. And he already had all the money he needed. And that's
00:53:57.540
my two house thing. Could I afford to have two houses? Yes. Yes, I could. Would it be
00:54:04.820
awesome to have two houses where you're always in perfect weather? I think it would. That'd
00:54:11.560
be pretty awesome. How much complication would that add to my life? A lot. It would basically
00:54:18.860
double my complication. There's no way I want to do that. Having one house is a giant pain in
00:54:25.520
the ass. I actually fantasize about renting. Honestly. I fantasize about renting a two-bedroom
00:54:33.040
apartment someday and not having to do... Like, every day, I have to do work to support my
00:54:38.520
house. Like, I work for my house. It's basically like a third job. I call a landlord. I pay people
00:54:51.700
to work. But I still have to make all the decisions. I have to move stuff out of the
00:54:55.860
rooms. I mean, it's just a lot. So yes, I mean, I'm not doing the physical work so much. But
00:55:03.500
it's every day. All right. That, ladies and gentlemen, is all we've got going on on a slow
00:55:09.020
news day. I wish I could thrill you more. But turns out that the news is not cooperating
00:55:16.860
today. Hey, hello from Nigeria. Get a house manager. I've had personal assistants. Do you
00:55:27.600
know why I don't have a personal assistant now? Because they make my life harder, not
00:55:33.220
easier. It turns out that as soon as you have a personal assistant, they have problems. I'm
00:55:39.740
like, okay. So now I've got a problem with my house. But then I've also got a problem with
00:55:44.740
my employee. And the employee who's supposed to solve the problem with the house can't do
00:55:49.560
it because they have their own problem. So now I went from one problem to two problems.
00:55:55.100
And I'm paying for it. I'm paying like a lot of money to double my problems.
00:56:03.000
I think hiring people to solve your problems works at a certain scale. So at the Elon Musk
00:56:10.240
scale, it probably works. I think he has multiple assistants, personal assistants. I'm sure he
00:56:16.340
has somebody taking care of his homes and stuff like that. Or wherever he lives. I don't know
00:56:20.700
what he's doing for home. But if you have like a whole staff, and you've got, you know, somebody
00:56:27.440
who's even managing the staff, and you've got enough people that one could fill in when one
00:56:31.860
is sick and all that, then it starts making sense. Like you're actually like a little corporation.
00:56:36.140
But if you're an individual, even that high income, you don't want one employee. It's just
00:56:44.160
a problem. If you had a bunch, it might be a good deal. Yeah, everything is about Elon Musk
00:56:50.760
or Joe Rogan. Have you noticed that? Every topic is going to be about one of them, directly
00:56:58.480
or indirectly. All right. And that is all I've got today. What about the truckers? The truckers
00:57:13.760
are very inspirational. And I think it had to come from somebody in that socio-demographic
00:57:25.640
group. Don't you think? Because I don't think the elites can mount a revolution. You know,
00:57:34.760
the suburban moms. But you know, if you get the truckers involved, that's some serious stuff.
00:57:40.120
And I think everybody, it's weird how, that's right, strong men. That's right. The sensation
00:57:49.120
of it, the sensation of it is that the, I hate to say it because it's sexist as hell, but I'm
00:57:57.720
going to speak of it as we are biological creatures. So now we're not talking about what's politically
00:58:02.360
or socially appropriate. So leaving that domain for a second, we'll just go biology.
00:58:10.120
So biologically, you want the strong men to be leading the revolution. It's just, it just
00:58:16.480
feels like it's not serious until that happens. So we'll see. Now, that doesn't mean strong
00:58:22.840
women aren't driving trucks. Of course they are. Doesn't mean that strong women can't run
00:58:27.840
a revolution. I'm sure they can. But biologically, we just feel like that's somehow more substantial.
00:58:33.520
All right. That was all I got for today. And I'll talk to you tomorrow.