Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 1663 Scott Adams： Putin's Brain, Russian Public Opinion, Long Haul TDS and More Fun

00:00:00.000 Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the best thing that ever happened to anybody who's

00:00:12.820 ever been born anywhere. It's called Coffee with Scott Adams. Every now and then I like

00:00:19.300 to remind my audience, just in case you're wondering, that I have more than one t-shirt

00:00:25.740 that looks just like this one. Some of you may be concerned that I only own one t-shirt,

00:00:33.060 but no, I own about a dozen of these, and I call it my uniform. See, if you can get people to think

00:00:42.800 that you're dressing one way because you have a look, I'm talking about the Steve Jobs look,

00:00:49.100 I'm talking about the Mark Zuckerberg look, you know, he wears a hoodie or the black shirt.

00:00:54.180 Yeah, the trick, if you can convince people that you have a look, all of your problems are solved,

00:01:02.040 if you know what I mean. Now, don't go full Elton John. You don't want to convince people that your

00:01:09.160 look is an Elton John, you know, over the top, needs props and all that stuff. That's way too much work.

00:01:15.760 If you're going to do a uniform and a look and a brand, go for basic. Save you a lot of time.

00:01:24.800 Hey, who came here for the simultaneous sip besides everybody? And all you need is a cup or a mug or a

00:01:30.620 glass of tank or Chelsea's dine, a canteen jug or a flask, a vessel of any kind. Fill it with your

00:01:35.900 favorite liquid. How much do I like coffee? A lot. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure,

00:01:44.340 the dopamine hit of the day, the thing that makes all of you better looking, a little bit sexier,

00:01:49.820 definitely smarter. It's called the simultaneous sip and it happens right now. Go.

00:01:54.820 Yes. I would like to pay respect to my, what would it be, my ethnic origins by doing the whitest 0.98

00:02:14.980 thing anybody's ever done after the simultaneous sip. Now, feel free to enjoy your own cultural

00:02:22.780 heritage and celebrate the way that makes the most sense or whoever you are, be you born in America

00:02:33.500 or born somewhere else. Use your cultural heritage and join me now doing your own after the sip

00:02:40.880 celebration. I will be doing the whitest white person guy celebration ever. And it goes like this. 0.75

00:02:47.340 Okay. Now, I hope that wherever you are, you did something that was as perfectly suited to your

00:02:56.340 cultural background as I did. Somebody dabbed. That's exactly right. Well, Rasmussen has a poll

00:03:06.280 asking, should the Democratic Party be more like Biden or more like Harris? Now, what do you think?

00:03:13.580 Democrats said the Democratic Party should be more like Biden, 36 percent, but only 11 percent thought

00:03:21.720 Harris. And so, how's the progressive wing of the Democratic Party looking? Not so good. Not so good.

00:03:32.000 You want to hear some more bad news for the progressive part? I was asked a question on the

00:03:39.180 Locals platform just before I went live on YouTube. They get a little extra over on Locals. It's a

00:03:45.820 subscription service. And I was asked, what has the worst recent murder rate? We're going to compare

00:03:55.380 two regions. I'm going to ask you this question, and it's a serious question. It's not a rhetorical

00:04:01.860 question. I actually don't know the answer to it. And the question is, has the death rate and the

00:04:09.080 murder rate, let's say, has it been worse in the last few months in Chicago or in the occupied

00:04:16.560 separatist regions of Ukraine? Which has been the more deadly place? Now, it kind of doesn't matter

00:04:26.180 what the answer is. It kind of doesn't matter what the answer is. It's the fact that we can even ask

00:04:32.300 that question. And it's not a joke. I actually don't know the answer to that question. I don't know.

00:04:39.620 Maybe there'll be a crossover point. But if I had to bet, I think I'd put my money on Chicago.

00:04:46.980 Because, you know, I assume there's shelling and there's chicanery and there's, you know, false flags 0.99

00:04:53.100 and all kinds of stuff happening in the separatist regions. But they didn't kill as many people as a

00:05:01.160 weekend in Chicago does. Am I right? I don't know if I'm right. But you seem to think I am. And

00:05:07.740 that's good enough. You know, we live in a subjective reality. And while I strive to be correct and right

00:05:16.220 about everything, I will settle for you agreeing with me. Because it feels the same. On my end,

00:05:22.480 anyway. So thank you for that. Speaking of wokeness, it's a story that the media is talking

00:05:30.480 about this story, which is that Newsweek and LA Times are both recently warning Democrats that

00:05:38.800 they'd better get over the wokeness. Because they're looking at this one anecdote here, I guess,

00:05:44.480 the situation where in San Francisco, the Democrats voted out some school board members for being too

00:05:52.080 woke and not being useful enough. And the striking part about it is that they were overwhelmingly voted

00:06:00.960 out. The wokesters were just driven out by even Democrats because it's a Democrat city. So that seems 0.99

00:06:09.120 like a pretty big story. But are things getting better or worse for the wokest of the woke? Well,

00:06:16.240 shall I continue? It's turning out to be a really bad year to be woke. Am I right? Part of it is

00:06:27.280 because Trump is less in the news. Because there's not a natural enemy, you know, that's just really

00:06:34.640 salient at the moment. So if you just let the wokeness exist on its own, it just looks like, you know,

00:06:43.760 toxic bile. It's just, you know, it's like an acid eating itself. But if Trump were in the news every

00:06:52.800 day, then the wokeness would have something to play off of, you know, some kind of a productive

00:06:58.320 contrast. But when you take the contrast away, it just has to be looked at on its own. Nobody likes it.

00:07:05.200 Well, that's an exaggeration. It's not so popular. And that brings us to Greta Thunberg.

00:07:13.440 And I tweeted yesterday that Greta Thunberg caused this mess. And by this mess, I mean Ukraine. 0.99

00:07:21.920 Now, do you all see the connection? Because I'm not joking. Greta Thunberg,

00:07:28.880 she sort of caused the Ukraine war. Does everybody see it? I can explain it. Okay. 0.63

00:07:38.000 I got a few no's there. So let me explain it. So it goes like this. If we didn't have Greta, 0.94

00:07:45.040 climate change wouldn't be, you know, as potent a topic as it is. That's, no, that's a,

00:07:51.920 that's a presumption on my part, right? So that part's speculative. But I think most of you would

00:07:57.040 agree with that, that she's, she's turbocharged the topic. She's added a lot. Most people would

00:08:03.840 agree with that. Now, if climate change did not have such a, let's say, persuasive quality to it,

00:08:13.200 how would Trump's policy about energy look compared to Biden's? Biden didn't really have a choice, did he?

00:08:19.880 You know, if you're a Democrat, don't you have to go full Thunberg or, or at least move in that

00:08:27.000 direction? He, he, he didn't go full Thunberg by any means, but he had to be pushed in that direction,

00:08:32.200 right? So one of the things that Trump would have done that, uh, we know for sure that, uh, Biden did not

00:08:41.900 do is promote domestic energy production in the United States because Biden wants to be more green

00:08:49.580 and save the world and be more Greta Thunberg. And Trump was more, I think this climate thing,

00:08:57.100 change thing was a Chinese hoax to slow down our economy. Let's pump, uh, oil and gas as much as we 1.00

00:09:05.180 can, build some pipelines and be independent to build up our economy. And by the way, when you substitute,

00:09:11.260 uh, gas, natural gas for coal, it reduces your emissions. So Trump, who was criticized for saying

00:09:21.460 that climate change was a Chinese hoax, I think we're all sure, even the Democrats would say this

00:09:28.460 is true. He would have kept the domestic energy production high, which means that prices for energy

00:09:36.200 would have been lower, which means that your inflation would be lower under Trump in that

00:09:43.020 one way. It, Putin would have far less money to be adventurous and he would basically have less

00:09:52.180 power because if Europe needed to get a, a different source of gas for a while, it might cost more.

00:10:00.760 But if you took some of the inflation out of it, the more wouldn't be as much as it would be now.

00:10:07.460 So you've got, um, a situation in which energy is sort of the most important product because there's

00:10:15.460 not enough of it, which makes Putin the most important person because he's got an army and he's

00:10:23.080 got energy. He's got the two things that matter the most today. So quite reasonably, you could say

00:10:32.040 that the connection between Greta Thunberg and her influence, which was very effective,

00:10:38.760 definitely put pressure on, uh, Democrats. The Democrats definitely reduced energy production.

00:10:46.080 The reduction in energy production definitely increased the cost of energy,

00:10:50.420 which definitely increased the profits for Russia, which definitely increased their strategic

00:10:56.380 power, which definitely increased their confidence, which almost certainly was a major factor in

00:11:03.880 getting exactly where we are now. Who, who disagrees with that analysis? Now I'm not going to say

00:11:11.080 it's the only variable, right? You know, maybe Putin would have done what Putin was going to do,

00:11:15.380 but you can see the connection, can't you? It does seem like it's maybe 20% of the story and that's

00:11:25.180 pretty big. Yeah. I'd say it's 20% of the story. I mean, climate change itself, not just Greta.

00:11:32.920 Right. So, you know, nothing is, there's no analysis. That's the whole story, right? Everything's got

00:11:38.680 lots of facets. So, I don't think the, uh, the woke side of the world is looking so good.

00:11:46.860 Now here's another interesting angle on Ukraine.

00:11:51.100 Jonathan Turley, who's always a great read, uh, has an article today. He's talking about,

00:11:56.320 and I wasn't, I'm not sure how, uh, aware of this I was. How many of you were aware of this story?

00:12:03.800 That for over two years, uh, there's been an investigation, um, I guess it was a state

00:12:10.760 investigation into Hunter Biden and his, uh, tax and financial issues, uh, specifically related to

00:12:18.440 his foreign dealings. Now, were you aware that there's a two-year investigation ongoing about

00:12:24.860 Hunter Biden's, uh, activities and his foreign dealings, which presumably is either all Ukraine or

00:12:32.820 mostly Ukraine is what they're concerned about. And the part of that is they seem to be indicating

00:12:38.360 that Hunter Biden had a lot more cash or that, that seems to be where the evidence is pointing

00:12:43.940 that he seemed to have a lot more cash than his reported income would suggest.

00:12:52.240 Now, we don't, I'm going to use the same standard that I would use for Trump or anything else,

00:12:58.880 right? Try to be fair about it. Hunter Biden is not charged with anything. No court has found

00:13:07.000 Hunter Biden guilty of anything. I hate, I hate to say it, but unfortunately that's the standard.

00:13:12.920 You know, if you're going to, if you're going to be like a decent citizen, you have to accept

00:13:21.540 the standard. Like the standard is more important than the person, right? So as painful as it is

00:13:27.180 to say that he hasn't been convicted of anything, that does matter. You know, unfortunately,

00:13:33.020 unfortunately it matters. So, uh, and I wouldn't want to change that. But at the same time, they

00:13:39.800 have been investigating for two years and probably not for nothing. I mean, there must be at least

00:13:44.520 some smoke. It doesn't mean they'll ever find any fire. But here's the question which must be asked.

00:13:51.900 Do you think that Zelensky, the head of Ukraine, do you think he has, uh, information about the

00:14:02.120 Biden family that we haven't heard yet? What are the odds? I mean, just think what the odds would

00:14:09.440 be. So if we know the Hunter was mucking around in Ukrainian business, that much seems true. 1.00

00:14:16.360 But we, we have not seen anything directly illegal about that. Only that it seems deeply sketchy and

00:14:24.000 questionable and unethical, but not technically illegal as far as we know.

00:14:33.200 So do you think that maybe Ukraine has something on the Biden family at the same time that Biden is

00:14:41.300 trying to manage this situation that's the most important thing going on at the moment?

00:14:46.360 Now, let me do something that I hate to do because of its ordinariness. But damn it, 0.98

00:14:55.180 sometimes you have to do the ordinary. And this is so uncreative that it actually hurts me to do it, 0.98

00:15:01.460 but sometimes you got to do it. Imagine if this were Don Jr. I hate it. I hate it. I hate doing this.

00:15:11.280 I hate doing this. Because it's so uncreative. Like, how many times have we done that? I mean,

00:15:18.400 Don Jr. does it all the time, right? In his tweets, he goes, imagine if this were me.

00:15:22.900 And it's, unfortunately, it is exactly the right thing. It's the right thought. Can you even imagine,

00:15:32.120 just hold this thought for a moment, imagine a world in which Trump were president, and we had

00:15:37.980 this problem with Ukraine and Russia, which maybe we wouldn't even have, but let's say we do. And 0.62

00:15:43.340 imagine that this story had been Don Jr. doing business in Ukraine, and that there were questions

00:15:48.940 about it, and, and a current, ongoing investigation about it. Can you even imagine? I mean, seriously,

00:16:00.760 my head is going to explode imagining the difference between how the media would be talking about that,

00:16:07.120 and how they're just not talking about Hunter Biden at all. This doesn't even exist.

00:16:14.500 I feel, somebody said impeachment here on YouTube in the comments. Maybe, maybe. Would you trust,

00:16:22.820 and let's be honest, would you trust Trump's judgment if Don Jr. might have some hidden secrets,

00:16:29.760 you know, that would come out if you acted a different way? No, even I wouldn't, right? Like,

00:16:36.180 I've been pretty supportive of Trump on a number of issues. Not in everything, but a lot of stuff.

00:16:42.500 But I wouldn't be comfortable with that. And by the way, I think Don Jr. is awesome. I like him.

00:16:49.080 I like Trump. But if you just put those two people I like in that situation, I wouldn't like that.

00:16:56.300 Oh, no. No, that, I would back out immediately. I'd be like, okay, I'm out. These two people can't

00:17:01.920 be involved in the same situation. This is too much of a conflict of interest. We're not even

00:17:07.680 talking about conflict of interest, are we? Have you even heard the phrase, conflict of interest?

00:17:16.300 Can you imagine that you would never hear that phrase if this were Don Jr. and Trump, right?

00:17:23.060 I mean, it's just mind-boggling, the difference. All right.

00:17:30.980 Let's talk about some other stuff.

00:17:34.700 In theory, we should be seeing some massive cognitive dissonance by the people who were 0.98

00:17:41.260 most supportive of Biden and least supportive of Trump over the past five years.

00:17:47.220 Now, because we're living in different realities, if there are any Democrats watching this right

00:17:54.380 now, you may be saying to yourself, I don't know what you're talking about.

00:17:59.440 Scott, I don't know what you're talking about. And you don't. And I can't fix that. I'm sorry.

00:18:04.860 So to those of you who don't fall into that category, I guess I'm just talking to you today.

00:18:09.400 It's kind of obvious at this point, like super obvious, that on a whole range of issues, not all

00:18:17.200 of them, not all of them, but on a whole range of issues, Trump was clearly the superior president

00:18:22.960 at this point. It's just obvious. You know, there was certainly a point where you could have said,

00:18:28.280 well, let's see what Biden could do, right? I think it was entirely possible that Biden could have

00:18:34.460 come up with some, you know, southern border solution that was, you know, kind and generous

00:18:40.360 and yet good enough for the United States. Maybe. I don't know. Give him a chance. Didn't happen.

00:18:47.140 You know, maybe, maybe Biden could come up with some productive way to deal with Russia and China.

00:18:53.060 I don't know. Didn't happen. So, you know, maybe Biden could do something better for the energy.

00:18:58.980 Maybe, no, it didn't happen. So, at this point, wouldn't you expect, and just talking to my own

00:19:06.240 audience here, I know you lean a particular way, but don't you think there should be some prominent

00:19:13.040 Democrats just sort of going crazy now because they can see what they did? You know, they caused this

00:19:20.680 problem by insisting on a brain-dead president. Well, here's an example, maybe. 0.95

00:19:28.160 Stephen King had this tweet. I swear to God, this happened today. No, yesterday, I guess.

00:19:36.240 So, it's fresh. He tweets, so Stephen King, the novelist, he writes,

00:19:42.020 Mr. Putin has made a serious miscalculation. He forgot he's no longer dealing with Trump.

00:19:47.620 What? Is he watching the same reality that I'm watching? Because I don't think that Russia 1.00

00:19:59.480 did much when Trump was in charge. So, to me, it looks like cognitive dissonance. Somebody

00:20:07.800 else called it out on, Dale called it out on Twitter. But Rahim Kassam had a reply to it. He goes,

00:20:19.520 congrats, you're the dumbest MF-er in America. It's funny. It's only funny because that was my exact 1.00

00:20:25.340 thought. When I read it, it was like, wow, you might be the dumbest MF-er in America. Then I read 1.00

00:20:31.440 Rahim's comment, congrats, you're the dumbest MF-er. Okay. Now, this does suggest that there 1.00

00:20:42.820 might be a medical problem that is under-recognized. And I would call it long-haul TDS. Long-haul TDS.

00:20:51.920 Yeah, long-haul TDS. The original TDS would give you some insanity and anxiety, fear. So, you don't

00:21:05.960 want to catch a bad case of TDS, which, by the way, can be transmitted by personal contact. If you

00:21:16.120 stand, and six feet isn't enough for TDS. For COVID, six feet's pretty good for social distancing.

00:21:24.240 But for TDS, you've actually got to be outside of the listening distance. So, you want to be,

00:21:30.680 well, you want to keep your distance of, say, a quarter mile from other people to reduce the

00:21:38.180 transmission of TDS. Because if you get closer than a quarter mile, they can still shout. You can hear

00:21:44.220 them. That's a little too close. Because it gets transmitted by talking and ideas. So,

00:21:51.140 there was a bad case of TDS going through the country for a few years. But now that's mostly

00:21:55.800 subsided. We've, now it's more endemic situation. We've learned to live with it. Sort of a baseline

00:22:02.720 problem like the flu. And, but we still have to be concerned about long-haul. Are there any long-haul

00:22:10.320 symptoms? And I think this cognitive dissonance is sort of the myocarditis of TDS. That it does seem

00:22:19.280 that having once had TDS, you are more likely to have cognitive dissonance, even a year later.

00:22:28.660 Speaking of Trump, he is getting some attention by calling Putin, his moves, genius and very savvy

00:22:35.740 for the way that he, the way that he reframed the separatist regions and then moved in to protect

00:22:44.480 them. So, Trump said that that was really smart. And then Trump's critics said, you fool, you Putin

00:22:52.080 lover, you S-kissing Putin puppet you, why are you saying good things about Putin? You must be a monster 1.00

00:23:00.080 like him. So, is that exactly what was going on? I have two comments about this, maybe more. 0.99

00:23:12.920 Number one, there's one thing that Trump never gets credit for. His honesty about how he feels.

00:23:23.220 Now, I will grant you that when he's talking about the outside world and the facts in the world, he can

00:23:33.740 play fast and loose with the facts. He is a salesperson. He is unapologetic about that. He uses

00:23:41.360 hyperbole to persuade. He's unapologetic about that. So, he is what he is. And you either like that or

00:23:48.500 you don't. But I think we all understand it. But the thing that you miss about Trump is that when

00:23:54.960 he tells you what his opinion is, am I right? When he tells you what his opinion is, you always

00:24:01.080 believe that, don't you? You never believe that he's telling you something he doesn't personally

00:24:06.080 believe. I don't think I've ever once had that feeling. But when Biden speaks, Biden sounds like a

00:24:14.220 politician, doesn't he? You don't really think he believes what he even says is his opinion.

00:24:21.500 The things he says he really cares about, I don't know that he does, really. Who knows?

00:24:28.040 Might be convenient to say he cares about that stuff. Who knows? But here's, so when Trump calls

00:24:34.780 Putin a genius and savvy, it's basically very similar to what I was thinking. In my private

00:24:44.020 thoughts, I was thinking, damn, that's pretty smart the way he's doing this. Looks like it's, 0.97

00:24:49.760 you know, pretty successful. At least in terms of, you know, getting stronger control over those

00:24:55.280 separatist regions. It looked pretty smart. Now, it's, you know, it's evil and manipulative and,

00:25:00.440 you know, Hitler-like. I'm not downplaying any of that. But it's smart. So that's the first thing 1.00

00:25:09.040 that we miss about Trump, is that he looks at something that looks smart, and he says, hey,

00:25:13.720 that looks smart. He's not approving of it. He's just saying it looks smart. That's just his honest

00:25:20.340 opinion. I don't know. I miss it. I miss it. I miss that part of it. I honestly don't miss the

00:25:25.940 conflict. I feel like I'm a little better off without all of the TDS. The TDS was a,

00:25:34.260 for me, surviving the TDS was almost as hard as surviving the pandemic, to be honest. You know,

00:25:40.280 if you're right in the middle of it, I mean, there weren't enough vaccinations to get me through TDS.

00:25:47.080 But, you know, I got through the pandemic. It was a pain in the ass, but I got through it. 0.99

00:25:50.920 The TDS, I think, is going to last forever. The TDS will affect my career and my reputation, 0.98

00:25:57.000 my Wikipedia page, for the rest of time. All right. But let's talk about Trump strategically,

00:26:05.180 given that he might be a future president. Who knows? What he says about Putin really does matter,

00:26:12.140 and even as an ex-president, it would matter.

00:26:14.120 Is it smart or not smart to call Putin a genius and to say that his moves are savvy? Go.

00:26:27.780 Would you say that Trump is smart or not smart to call Putin a genius in public?

00:26:37.640 I think it's smart. Because if you want to talk to somebody productively later,

00:26:44.120 you call them smart, you call them smart.

00:26:50.180 I hate to be the one who always has to explain this to the general public. Apparently, people who

00:26:55.700 watch this live stream are all, you're all educated about how this works. But the general public doesn't

00:27:02.640 understand that there was only one person who handled this right, and it was Trump. He's the only one who

00:27:08.880 handled it right. Because ultimately, we got to talk to that guy, Putin. We got to talk to him.

00:27:15.840 Who is going to get a better reception? The one who Trump called smart? Or the one who's just,

00:27:23.800 you're evil, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I feel that we're all human, right? Like even Putin's

00:27:30.440 a human being. Do you think that Putin is unaffected by Trump calling him smart? Do you think he's

00:27:38.640 unaffected by that? I think he's affected by it. I think it actually works. And that if anybody were

00:27:48.240 to talk to Putin in the future about any of this, I would want it to be Trump. I would want it to be

00:27:57.560 Trump. Now, I saw some people commenting about how they were suspicious because Trump and Putin

00:28:04.260 had a private conversation once with an interpreter, I guess. But since it was not recorded what that

00:28:10.600 conversation was, people are afraid that, oh, that's where all the bad stuff happened. Maybe

00:28:15.820 that's where all the collusion happened. We don't know what happened. You know, there's no way to know

00:28:20.700 anything about that. But here's what I would guess. Just speculative. Trump understands that it's

00:28:29.340 always personal. That's it. Trump understands that it's always personal. And I'm not sure why other

00:28:37.560 people don't kind of understand that as well as he understands it. Everything's personal.

00:28:43.340 Here's another thing. In the book Persuasion by Cialdini, do you know what one of the ways

00:28:52.380 science has shown you can befriend somebody and get them to trust you as a friend? You tell them a

00:28:58.480 secret. That's a well-known persuasion trick. You tell them a secret. That's what Trump did.

00:29:09.540 Now, we don't know what they talked about privately. But because we don't know, what is that called?

00:29:17.600 A secret. Right. Just, it might have been nothing. Maybe they didn't talk about anything important

00:29:25.060 at all. But Trump created a situation where he and Putin are sharing a secret. You didn't see that

00:29:33.440 coming, did you? That's about the best technique for persuasion you're ever going to frickin' see in

00:29:41.720 your life. Say what you will about Trump. You know, he's not free from criticism, right? I'm not the one

00:29:50.060 who's going to tell you he's the God King and everything he does is right. But you've got to give

00:29:58.180 him credit for the things that are just so right that nobody's ever going to match it, in my opinion.

00:30:03.340 I don't think anybody will match him for personal persuasion. Now, keep in mind, I don't know how

00:30:10.580 many of you have ever been in the room with him, but he does have that thing. That thing, whatever that

00:30:16.720 thing is, that X factor, that charisma, whatever it is. I'm sure Putin has it too. But you put him in a

00:30:25.680 room and he's going to convince you of something. He is good. Now, by the way, I think Biden's

00:30:31.980 probably pretty good at that too, or he wouldn't be where he is. So I'm not saying he's bad at it.

00:30:36.720 But the style difference is striking. And I think Trump is the one who played it, who would have

00:30:42.260 played it completely correctly. You want Putin to think you can work with him, that he can trust you.

00:30:49.340 What is the biggest thing that... Well, let's talk about that. Let's talk about what Russian 1.00

00:30:55.980 people think about all of this. So the Russian people... Let's see. I'm going to skip ahead to

00:31:07.280 that part. CNN was talking about a poll. It's hard to get information about the Russian public,

00:31:13.600 but I guess CNN ran some kind of a proprietary poll or personal poll or something or a special

00:31:22.300 poll. They have some word. Forget what word that is. It doesn't matter. And here's what

00:31:26.400 they found. One out of every two Russians, actually 50% of them, said it would be right... 0.98

00:31:34.600 Right... More Russians think it would be wrong than right to use military force to reunite

00:31:44.660 Russia and Ukraine. So Russians don't want to use military right, military force to take over

00:31:55.080 Ukraine. But the Russian public does think NATO is an offensive force. What? So Russians believe

00:32:10.520 NATO is an offensive force with plans to destroy Russia. And the Russians... But they do think 0.99

00:32:21.480 that the Ukraine people and the Russian people are one people, which is what Putin says. So Putin

00:32:29.080 has managed to convince much of Russia that the Ukrainian people and the Russian people are all one

00:32:34.960 people. But the Ukrainians don't believe that. Not even close. So this is one of those cases where you

00:32:41.740 can see the power of propaganda. Because I need more of a fact check on this, but I believe that the

00:32:48.820 Russian public has access to the Russian public has access to the internet, right? Now, there's some

00:32:53.020 things that are, you know, regulated and some things that are censored. But generally speaking,

00:32:58.980 the average Russian can get the internet, right? And so if you imagine the average Ukrainian and the

00:33:07.400 average Russian both have access to the outside world, you can see the power of propaganda. Because the 0.62

00:33:15.500 only thing, you know, it would be one thing, like North Korea, to keep your people completely walled

00:33:22.300 off from other information. Then you can control their thoughts pretty well. But if people have

00:33:28.540 access to the alternative opinions, you can see how powerful the propaganda is. Because, you know,

00:33:34.860 they've been turned away from accuracy toward inaccuracy. So look at the difference between Ukrainian 0.99

00:33:40.780 and Russian public opinion about this one question. Are the Ukrainians and the Russians one people?

00:33:48.220 Only Putin was the one who was pushing the we're all one people thing. And he successfully did it

00:33:55.900 through propaganda. You can see how many or what percentage of the public can be moved

00:34:01.880 by something as pure as propaganda. It's about half. It's about half. You can tell any story if

00:34:11.240 you tell it often enough and you control enough of the media that, you know, you can get a monopoly on it.

00:34:17.160 Now, he doesn't even have a monopoly. That's my point. If he had a monopoly on information,

00:34:23.000 well, then you'd understand how that many people could be convinced.

00:34:25.960 But he did that. This is the scary part. He did that without a monopoly on information. He did that

00:34:34.200 just with persuasion. Just with persuasion. So I would say that the percentage of the public

00:34:41.160 that you can move with pure propaganda is around half. And, you know, the topic would vary. So I'm

00:34:49.240 sure there are some topics you can get 80 percent, sometimes 20. But I think you could count on getting

00:34:54.760 half of the public, which is enough to start a war. You know, if you've got half of the public

00:34:59.800 on your side, you can kind of go to war. That's about enough. You know, 55 percent would be better. 1.00

00:35:07.000 So that answered my question. I was just asking the other day on live stream here,

00:35:13.080 what's the average Russian know about the whole situation? The other thing is that there are a whole

00:35:18.440 lot of people in Russia who don't think there's going to be an invasion proper, you know,

00:35:24.360 where Ukraine itself has completely taken over. There are a lot of people in Russia who don't

00:35:29.560 think that's going to happen. And there are a lot of people in Ukraine, like a big, big chunk

00:35:35.880 of Ukraine doesn't think there's going to be an invasion. But if you ask the people in the United

00:35:40.600 States, wouldn't we say 90 percent of us who are paying attention? What do you think it would be?

00:35:48.040 What do you think it would be in the United States? Now, it's different if you ask people who are

00:35:52.520 paying attention to the news versus people who are not. So I guess it's nonsense to ask the general

00:35:57.720 public. They're not even paying attention. Yeah. So I think maybe 10 percent. Well,

00:36:04.840 let me ask the question here. How many people on this live stream

00:36:11.240 do not think Russia will try to take over all of Ukraine? So tell me if you don't believe he's going

00:36:19.400 to try to take all of Ukraine. I want to see how many. Okay. A lot of people. Now, how many of you 0.98

00:36:27.960 were influenced by me? Because I'm not too confident on my opinion on this. Was anybody influenced by me?

00:36:36.600 Because early on, I said, I don't think he's going to do it. And I'm sticking with my prediction

00:36:41.800 just because the reasons for the predictions haven't changed. Although I have to admit,

00:36:48.360 it looks a lot like he's going to attack. I wouldn't bet on me. Let's put it this way.

00:36:55.000 If I were you, I wouldn't bet on me to be right. But just to be consistent, because my reasons for

00:37:01.240 the prediction never changed, I'm going to stick with it. Now, I'm not going to let my confidence be

00:37:07.400 influenced by the fact that it looks in every possible way. It looks like exactly like an

00:37:13.080 invasion. Because bluffing would look exactly the same if you wanted to do a really good job of it.

00:37:22.120 Bluffing would look the same. What would also look the same is not having decided yet.

00:37:27.800 That would look exactly the same. If you were, if the only thing you were doing is, you know,

00:37:33.080 pushing for negotiations to get some concessions, and just making us think he's going to attack at

00:37:39.080 any moment. Or even to find out what a response is. Because maybe he just is testing public opinion.

00:37:45.880 Maybe he's just testing the resolve of NATO. But apparently, there's a big opinion. And this is a

00:37:55.080 weird one. A lot of people in Russia think that the United States is trying to trick Russia into

00:38:01.480 attacking Ukraine. Is there anybody in the United States you've heard besides me say that? 0.95

00:38:09.400 That I'm not going to say that we're actually literally trying to trick them into attacking

00:38:14.360 Ukraine. But I've actually tweeted that it looks like it. In other words, what we're observing looks

00:38:21.960 exactly like trying to trick them into attacking Ukraine. Now, I don't know why we would do that.

00:38:27.400 Except that maybe it would be bad for Russia. But is it weird that the Russian public actually thinks

00:38:35.000 that? A lot of them. They think we're trying to trick them into attacking Ukraine.

00:38:43.080 How in the world is the Russian public having that opinion? And I'm the only one.

00:38:49.160 Do a fact check. Have you heard anybody else in America say that it looks like we're trying to

00:38:56.280 trick them into attacking? Because I didn't even believe my own opinion. I'm just saying that if you

00:39:01.240 look at the facts, it just looks like it. I mean, it doesn't seem likely, but it looks like it.

00:39:06.920 Oh, Cernovich and Posobiec, you've heard that? That would make sense.

00:39:16.920 Well, I'm not talking about a wag the dog situation. The wag the dog, I think that's a more specific

00:39:23.320 situation, isn't it? All right. Some more interesting factoids here. Let's get back to this. I saw a good

00:39:34.920 tweet by Eddie Kwan. He says, if you think trusting the science is smart, wait until you learn who's

00:39:40.680 taking the scientists out for lunch. That one just stops you in your tracks, doesn't it?

00:39:47.480 If you think trusting the science is smart, wait until you learn who's taking the scientists out

00:39:51.640 for lunch. I don't think I've ever seen anything summarized that well. Actually, I'll give you one

00:40:01.960 one thing. Once a friend of mine described the comic strip Marmaduke, which at that point had

00:40:09.240 been like 50 years of Marmaduke comics. He summarized the entire life of the comic as a big dog is on

00:40:16.920 something you want. Now, that was a terribly unfair summary, but it's the only one I've seen that was

00:40:22.760 more succinct than if you think trusting the science is smart, wait until you learn who's taking the

00:40:27.400 scientists out for lunch. You could just be done. You should have a college course

00:40:35.560 for credit, like full credit. It's a Harvard class. And you go into the class and the first day you sit

00:40:42.360 down and they just show you this tweet. They go, class, if you think trusting the science is smart,

00:40:48.280 wait until you learn who's taking the scientists out for lunch. Class dismissed. Anybody who can remember

00:40:54.920 that tomorrow gets an A in the class and there's no coursework because that's all you need to know.

00:41:01.240 It's all there. The entire classwork of how to understand the media, how to work with it,

00:41:11.240 how to understand science, how to work with it, human motivation, it's all there in one tweet.

00:41:17.240 Meanwhile, speaking of the Canadian gulag,

00:41:25.320 sure enough, Canada is going hard after the people involved in the protest. Their accounts are being

00:41:31.720 frozen. Some of them can't get bail. Their names are being posted. The names of people who donated

00:41:38.840 to the truckers are being posted on trees in some neighborhoods so that you can know who to be mad at

00:41:45.400 in Canada. This is the most chilling thing that I've seen in a long time. And I've seen some

00:41:54.200 chilling things. So I don't even know what to say about this. I mean, it's so bad that like words,

00:42:02.280 words start to escape. But then you find out that two thirds of the Canadian public is totally on board

00:42:10.280 with this sort of stuff. Did you know that? Something like 65% of the Canadian public says,

00:42:17.480 you know, they don't like the convoy and they're pretty happy that the government was tough on them.

00:42:22.760 It's something like that, right? Two thirds. So if Canada is getting what it wants by a two thirds

00:42:29.000 majority, I'm not sure how concerned I should be.

00:42:31.400 Here's another scary thing. Homeland Security is looking into battling online misinformation

00:42:42.840 and has considered that misinformation could rise to the level of terrorism.

00:42:47.320 I mean, in effect. Now, do you believe that? Do you believe that misinformation,

00:42:52.680 be it intentional or not? I guess the intentional kind would be the worst kind that homeland security

00:42:59.640 would care about, but that the misinformation could be like as bad as terrorism?

00:43:05.800 I would say yes. I would say yes. You can see the effect in Russia versus Ukraine,

00:43:13.400 that public opinion and misinformation could actually cause a land war in Europe.

00:43:18.920 It could be a misinformation war. So on one hand, I can totally see how homeland security thinks

00:43:28.440 information and the control of it is necessary to avoid terrorism. On the other hand, there goes your free speech.

00:43:40.040 Am I right? How in the world can you regulate speech

00:43:46.440 free speech as a tool of terror and expect anybody's going to give you a fair opinion that doesn't have,

00:43:54.360 you know, somebody's self-interest in the government involved?

00:43:58.680 They can't coexist. You just can't have, I don't think, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think you can

00:44:05.560 have government control over information without giving away free speech. They're just too connected.

00:44:12.760 All right. I thought Biden was kind of clever in saying that this was a start of an invasion instead

00:44:23.960 of an invasion. You remember all yesterday, there was the argument, is it an invasion or is it not an

00:44:29.800 invasion? And then Biden comes out and he goes, it's the start of an invasion. And I thought,

00:44:34.600 oh, that's good. That's actually pretty good. Because that does, that does actually, I don't know,

00:44:44.120 it feels like he high grounded it. Like once he says that, you go, ah, oh yeah, that's true. Right?

00:44:52.600 Now, because if you thought it was an invasion, he said it's the start of an invasion. And if you

00:44:59.640 thought it wasn't quite an invasion, you could say, well, yeah, it's just the start. I thought it was

00:45:05.000 one of the most clever political twists, you know, linguistic tricks I've seen in a long time. No, I don't

00:45:12.520 think he wrote it. I mean, I think somebody came up with it. But if, you know, if Trump had said this,

00:45:17.160 I'd think it was clever. So I'll give Biden this. So we've got all these sanctions that are going on

00:45:27.800 so far. Can anybody tell me that they know if these sanctions are powerful or not? Is it my

00:45:34.920 imagination, or every time we hear about sanctions, isn't there always more to the story? Like, oh,

00:45:41.960 our sanction is we're going to behead every baby that's born in Russia. And then you read, 0.99

00:45:49.240 but the context is that no babies are actually born in Russia because it's called the Federation

00:45:54.840 of Russian. You know, there's always some technicality where you think, oh, we got them now.

00:46:01.640 Look at those sanctions. We've got those sanctions now. And then you turn out that the Nord Stream pipeline

00:46:09.240 is just a delay of certification. What? He's not going to be afraid of a delay of certification

00:46:17.720 because you know what will stop the delay of the certification? Running out of fuel in the winter.

00:46:24.920 Yeah. That will pretty much speed up your certification. You're going to get real flexible

00:46:30.600 with Russia as soon as it gets real cold and you're running out of energy. So that's like a nothing. 0.96

00:46:37.400 Every time you hear that there's a something, somebody in five minutes later is going to say,

00:46:43.240 yeah, but you know, it'd be pretty easy to get around that one. So I can't even tell as an

00:46:48.840 observer if any of this makes any difference. So two banks were targeted. So sanctions on Russian

00:46:58.520 sovereign debt. I don't even know what that means. Honestly, I don't even know what that means.

00:47:04.280 I mean, obviously they'll have trouble refinancing and getting extra debt, but I don't know the larger

00:47:11.160 ramifications. Does that mean they just get help somewhere else and it doesn't matter?

00:47:16.920 You know, was China going to buy up all their debt anyway? Does it matter? I don't know. Do you?

00:47:22.360 A ban on purchases of Russian bonds. I don't know. Was that a big deal? Nobody else is going to buy them?

00:47:32.200 How do I judge that? How do they judge it? Sanctions on Russian elites and their families. Oh,

00:47:38.360 now we got them. We got some sanctions on Russian elites. Of what kind? Like what, what is it that they

00:47:45.800 can't do? If you've got $10 billion, tell me what you can't do. Am I right? I mean, travel? Is there

00:47:56.280 travel restrictions? Are they not going to let these oligarchs be involved in businesses that we do 1.00

00:48:02.760 business with? Is it even practical to stop? Would we be shooting ourselves in the foot harder than we're

00:48:08.760 shooting them if we did? Why is it that we have no idea if these sanctions even matter?

00:48:16.520 We have no idea. And the news doesn't know, because I don't think there's anybody smart

00:48:20.680 enough to analyze it and give you the story.

00:48:30.520 There's no region in Ukraine and no age group where a majority of respondents say the Russians

00:48:36.280 in Ukraine are one people. That's also from the CNN stuff. All right, here's another interesting

00:48:41.560 twist on CNN. Chris Silliza, who's one of their main opinion people, he does a whole piece about

00:48:47.480 how Mitt Romney was right when Romney said, as he was running against Obama, he said that Russia was

00:48:54.520 our biggest foe. And of course, Obama just slaughtered him in the debate by saying that China was obviously

00:49:02.520 the biggest foe and Russia's our, you know, that Romney stuck in the past. Well, now Silliza is 0.74

00:49:09.080 basically saying that Romney was right, that Russia is the bigger problem. And

00:49:18.120 when do you see CNN agreeing with a Republican? Doesn't that raise a little flag for you?

00:49:24.360 Is it a coincidence that CNN is telling us that we should focus on Russia as the problem and not

00:49:32.680 China? That doesn't feel like an independent opinion to me. Now, I can't read anybody's mind,

00:49:41.960 and I'm not going to allege anything. I'm just saying that when I read it, it doesn't look like

00:49:46.440 somebody independently said, oh, let me think about this. With no influence from my corporate masters,

00:49:52.040 let me just say that maybe Russia is the problem and not China. When CNN has, I believe,

00:50:01.000 more to lose by making China unhappy than Russia. Because CNN has been anti-Russia. Russia is connected

00:50:08.680 to Trump, even though it's not forever. So this feels just more like CNN's wave of propaganda against

00:50:17.800 Russia because you tie them to the Republicans or to Trump.

00:50:24.360 So how many of you believe that this new study in Nature, so it's been out a few weeks, I guess,

00:50:31.720 and I think I talked about it, that the risk of myocarditis is five times greater if you had COVID

00:50:38.600 than if you didn't. And that it's, well, it's five times higher than even a risk of myocarditis from

00:50:48.280 the vaccinations. Do you believe that data? We don't believe any data these days. But it looks like it

00:50:57.800 was a credible publication for a study. But of course, you should be skeptical about everything.

00:51:04.280 Now, what would happen if this data stands? Do you think that there'll be future data that will

00:51:11.960 overturn this idea? The idea being that long COVID is bad for your cardiovascular system

00:51:22.840 and that you'd be better off getting the vaccination according to this, not according to me,

00:51:27.960 because I'm not the authority here. But according to this data, do you think that that someday will

00:51:34.040 change? Do you think that someday the consensus of science will flip? Do you think in 20 years we'll

00:51:43.560 look back and say, oh, the vaccinations were the real health problem, not the actual COVID, long COVID?

00:51:51.080 I don't know. I think this is one of those anything could happen situations. I wouldn't be surprised

00:51:58.200 either way. Wouldn't be surprised either way. But suppose it's true that there's a 60% chance of

00:52:12.360 greater cardio problems. Doesn't that mean that we could have a lot of extra COVID deaths

00:52:21.080 as much as a year or more after the actual COVID? And therefore, they would not be attributed to COVID.

00:52:28.600 But there might be more of those deaths than we've even seen so far.

00:52:34.360 Am I doing the math right? Let's say a million people died.

00:52:43.320 Am I doing the math right? Help me out here with just top of the envelope. If a million Americans died of

00:52:49.160 COVID, but compare that to how many people got COVID, but then just recovered.

00:52:56.040 Now, if the group that got COVID and recovered would have a baseline rate of,

00:53:02.920 I don't know, 10% of them maybe dying of cardiovascular problems every year, what's the

00:53:11.640 number 5%? Maybe 5% of them were going to die anyway of cardiovascular. But now let's say that

00:53:21.240 the COVID, let's say this study was accurate. If the COVID gave them a 50 or 60% higher chance of dying,

00:53:30.920 because given that cardiovascular is, I believe, the number one cause of death in the United States,

00:53:36.840 fact check me, I believe it's number one. So the number one cause of death, if that got ramped up by another 50%,

00:53:45.640 and it doesn't kick in for a year or more, shouldn't we see over time, maybe it takes five years,

00:53:53.320 but shouldn't we see over time more people dying in the future from the pandemic

00:53:58.200 than from the past? Are my numbers way off?

00:54:08.440 What do you think? Now, that's a big assumption, right? The big assumption is that. Now, also,

00:54:14.200 you'd have to add to that any side effects from the vaccination itself. Because if you're looking at

00:54:21.560 pandemic deaths, you do have to count everybody who died because of the shutdowns, everybody who died

00:54:29.160 because of the COVID itself, everybody who died because the vaccination was, you know, unfortunately,

00:54:34.280 they were one of the ones who had a bad effect. You'd have to add all of that together. And so I have

00:54:40.920 a feeling that the COVID death is about double what is reported so far, and that we might lose another

00:54:47.960 million people sooner than they had to go. You know, you could argue that all the changes,

00:54:54.200 it was a little sooner, but that's true for all of us. All right.

00:55:02.360 Is there anything else happening?

00:55:06.760 Well, Jack Posobiec tweeted that 65% of Democrats, I feel like everything's 65% today. That's weird.

00:55:15.000 65% of Democrats approve of Trudeau's crackdown on freedom protesters and freezing of bank accounts.

00:55:24.840 So that's obviously Democrats meaning Americans. So I wasn't really completely aware of this until

00:55:33.240 at least halfway through the convoy situation. I didn't realize that so many Democrats were

00:55:41.240 completely in favor of the government's actions there. Now, I guess I would have thought that if

00:55:48.120 I had seen how many people wear masks in California after it's not required. It is really, really amazing

00:55:57.640 to see how many people are wearing masks without it being required. Now, I'm not going to name names,

00:56:04.040 but I actually witnessed yesterday, somebody put on a mask, somebody I know, put on a mask in a public

00:56:14.040 place. And I said, oh, masks are not required. And said individual who shall remain nameless said,

00:56:21.480 I know, I prefer it. Not for health reasons. Not for health reasons. Felt more comfortable.

00:56:30.120 That's a real thing. That is a real thing. Now, you know, people have different reasons. But

00:56:40.200 everything from people think the, and by the way, there's a name for, have you ever heard of the name

00:56:48.760 mask fishing? I heard this recently. Have you heard of mask fishing? So cat fishing is when you

00:56:58.920 pretend you're a different person than the picture. Mask fishing is when you're attractive,

00:57:09.880 but only in this little zone here. And the rest of it is just a hot mess. So apparently,

00:57:17.240 there are a number of people who are pretty happy wearing masks. It improves their overall attractiveness.

00:57:22.280 And that's not a joke. It's not a joke that it improved some people's overall attractiveness,

00:57:28.840 and they wanted to keep it. And other people, I think, were shy. And I have to admit that I felt

00:57:36.920 that too. When I walked into a store without a mask after having been so acclimated to wearing masks,

00:57:43.800 I actually felt a little naked and exposed. Has anybody had that yet? Now, it wasn't enough to

00:57:50.440 make me put a mask on, but I felt a little naked and a little bit exposed. I didn't have any feelings

00:57:57.160 about virus. It was just a social feeling. And I can absolutely, you know, and I'm not embarrassed by

00:58:07.080 pretty much anything. So it wasn't really embarrassment or anything like that.

00:58:15.320 Anyway, that is everything I think I wanted to say today. And you have been witness to the best

00:58:22.520 live stream that's ever happened in the history of the world with some of the most fun people,

00:58:27.800 obviously the sexiest, smartest, most flexible and open-minded human beings of all time.

00:58:36.840 Give yourself a pat on the back. Okay, that's enough. That's enough. Cut it out.

00:58:42.840 All right. And tomorrow, we'll do it again every single day.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - February 23, 2022

Episode 1663 Scott Adams： Putin's Brain, Russian Public Opinion, Long Haul TDS and More Fun

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