Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 1710 Scott Adams： Start Your Week Off Right With The Simultaneous Sip & Weird Headline Views

00:00:00.000 Good morning, everybody, and I am delighted to see all of you, especially you, and you,

00:00:08.840 and you. You know who you are. And while you're here, how would you like to get your dopamine

00:00:17.120 just raging? That's why we're here. And a little bit of oxytocin, a little bit. But

00:00:25.640 we'll jack up your dopamine a good 20%, get you going for the day. And all you need is

00:00:31.940 a cup or a mug or a glass, a tank or a gel, a stein, a canteen, a glass, a vessel of any

00:00:36.780 kind, fill it with your favorite liquid. I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled

00:00:43.880 pleasure. It's the dopamine of the day. It's the thing that makes everything better. It's

00:00:48.080 called the simultaneous sip. It happens now. Go.

00:00:51.080 Oh. Here's your persuasion tip of the day, if you didn't already know this. When you

00:01:04.400 associate something that people like, a pleasure that's a known pleasure, with some other thought

00:01:11.580 or stimulation, you can take some of the goodness from the thing you like, and it gets transferred

00:01:18.620 over to the thing you associate with, as long as it's sort of a fresh thing that people haven't

00:01:24.400 thought too much about and have too much baggage with. And you can use that to extend people's

00:01:32.820 enjoyment from things they already enjoy to entirely new things. How cool is that? You

00:01:39.040 can actually make people enjoy things that they'd never considered enjoying before, just

00:01:43.840 by association. Happens with songs. You hear a song that reminds you of something. Still

00:01:50.240 to this day, when I hear, there's a song by Traffic. The, I can't remember which one it

00:01:58.120 is, but it was played before all college soccer games at my alma mater, Hartwick College, which

00:02:06.120 one of the years I was there was the number one soccer power in the country, which is weird

00:02:10.880 because it was a tiny little school, but it won the whole country one year that I was

00:02:16.540 there. And so the soccer was this big event, and they would play the same song before each

00:02:22.020 game, and you'd be so charged up in a variety of ways, if you know what I mean, because it

00:02:28.680 was college after all. And it would be so fun to be there that that song, even if I hear

00:02:33.480 it today, years later, you get just an immediate dopamine hit. So use that, use that technique to

00:02:41.740 extend the things you like. Rasmussen had a poll asking people, is it illegal, is illegal

00:02:48.940 immigration getting worse? So Rasmussen asked that poll, and 55% said, yes, illegal immigration is

00:02:57.940 getting worse. 27% said no. No. No. No. No. No, no, no, no, no. It's not getting worse. 27%.

00:03:09.320 27. That's about a quarter of the people who responded, about a quarter. A quarter is, well,

00:03:16.780 if you were to round it off, that's roughly 25%, which means absolutely nothing to the people

00:03:24.640 who have never seen this live stream before. But if you've been here before, you know how

00:03:30.260 funny this is right now. Because 25% is roughly the number of people who get every poll question

00:03:36.460 wrong. It doesn't matter how easy the question is. Question, is oxygen good for humans? 64% said

00:03:48.480 yes. 26% said no. No. No. People don't need oxygen. No. Oh, no. Well, meanwhile, in censorship

00:04:01.660 news, Juanita Broderick had her account locked on Twitter. For what they say is misinformation

00:04:10.800 about COVID. Here is what she tweeted, and you be the judge. Is this misinformation or fact?

00:04:20.980 She tweeted, when will this vaccine crap be over? Big Pharma has, Big Pharma has profited enough 0.99

00:04:28.320 for the next 100 years. Stop pushing vaccines that don't work and, oh, here comes the, here comes the bad

00:04:35.380 part. Alter DNA, she posted on Saturday. Alter DNA. Womp, womp, womp, womp, womp, womp. Cannot say

00:04:45.360 alter DNA. Womp, womp, womp, womp. Alert, alert, alert. Censorship. Code of silence.

00:04:53.760 Juanita has been neutralized. Has been neutralized. Now, to be clear, I don't think the vaccinations

00:05:01.280 alter your DNA. I don't think that's true. But separately, was it a good idea for her to be censored? 0.98

00:05:13.460 That's really the question. Yeah, you could argue whether she's right or wrong, I suppose, and I don't

00:05:19.320 think she's right. I don't think so. But how would I know, really? What exactly would be my qualifications

00:05:28.120 for answering that question? I don't know. Seems like the news seems pretty convinced it's not

00:05:33.380 altering your DNA, but how would I know, really? So I wonder if there isn't a better way to handle

00:05:43.720 something like this. For example, if the altering the DNA part was the offending part, could you alter

00:05:50.580 the Twitter interface to simply flag the part that mainstream experts disagree with? Would that

00:06:02.040 be offensive to you? Would you consider that a violation of free speech if Twitter simply had

00:06:08.360 a policy of, instead of banning people, now remember, you're going to compare it to banning

00:06:13.240 people, and not necessarily for every person who says everything that's wrong, but just people

00:06:19.120 who are bannable in that bannable range, would you be okay with the bannable part simply

00:06:26.480 connecting to a source? Maybe not a fact checker. I don't know, because we don't trust the fact

00:06:32.660 checkers, right? But I feel like there's a better way to handle it. In other censorship

00:06:39.640 news, Jack Posobiec apparently got locked out of his Twitter account for a while, but he seems

00:06:46.240 to be back. And correct me if I'm wrong, is it because he called Disney groomers because

00:06:54.280 of their, what is it, the opposition to the new law about what to teach young kids about

00:07:01.080 sexuality, or sexual preference or something? I don't know. I just can't get interested in

00:07:06.620 the story. I hate it. I know you are, right? Well, let me ask you. Let me ask you this.

00:07:12.800 How many of you are, like, really interested in this Florida law story? Is it interesting

00:07:19.420 to you? I see mostly not. Okay, well, I see yeses. Maybe it depends if you have kids who

00:07:31.480 are in that relevant age group. All right, so it's a mixture. But probably more no's than 0.76

00:07:36.960 yeses, although I suppose I could have gotten this on any topic, right? It's only the fascinating

00:07:41.660 way I cover it that makes it so, so salient. Yeah, I feel there isn't just, there's just

00:07:51.520 not enough to say about it. Like, we know what some people want. We know what the criticism

00:07:57.160 is. They're going to fight it out. I don't know. It just doesn't seem like there's anything

00:08:02.280 there. Anything there that makes it worthy for yet another person to be talking about

00:08:07.680 it. Certainly it matters to the people involved. So I don't want to minimize, let me not minimize

00:08:13.060 the importance to the people involved. It's certainly important to the people who care

00:08:19.500 about such things, and maybe they should. But there isn't much depth to the story is what

00:08:25.020 I'm saying. Somebody says, one thing Scott will never do, and that is condemn a pedophile.

00:08:32.740 Would anybody like to see me do that? It's a challenge. I've been challenged. Will I condemn

00:08:40.200 a pedophile? Are you wondering if I'm going to bail out and not condemn a pedophile? Okay, 0.57

00:08:50.920 I condemn pedophiles. Totally. Are you okay with that? Now, here's the part where I get

00:09:02.780 banned from all social media, if not society itself. I also don't believe in free will.

00:09:11.300 Sorry. So, you have to condemn people who are, you know, doing things that are bad for society

00:09:18.340 and especially bad for kids. So there's no hesitation about what's right for society.

00:09:24.760 Right? For society? Yeah. You've got to condemn the hell out of anybody who's hurting anybody.

00:09:31.200 Most people agree with that. But on a philosophical level, I kind of see everybody as equal.

00:09:39.760 Sorry. Not legally, and not practically. In a practical sense, you just can't treat everybody

00:09:45.940 the same. You have to treat certain behaviors completely differently than other behaviors.

00:09:50.500 Of course. But when I walk into a room and see a bunch of miscreants and ne'er-do-wells

00:09:57.140 and non-standard people, basically a pirate ship of humanity, I don't walk into that room 1.00

00:10:03.580 and say, well, you suck. You suck. You're an asshole. You're bad. You're unworthy. 1.00

00:10:08.460 That one I like. That one I like. That one I like. I don't do that. I walk in and I like

00:10:14.160 the whole pirate ship. I like the whole pirate ship. I have to condemn some of them for behaviors.

00:10:22.480 But I don't devalue people because I don't see free will the same way other people do.

00:10:29.620 So, certainly you can change people's behavior, maybe by condemning certain parts.

00:10:34.480 Maybe it reduces who does what. But I don't believe in, oh, judge not. Thank you. Thank

00:10:41.680 you. If you'd like to put it into Christian terms and let me invite you to do that. I'm

00:10:47.440 not a believer. But I like the framework. It's a handy framework. So, yeah. Who am I

00:10:54.720 to judge? That would be the better way to say. I don't put myself in the role of a judge.

00:11:00.300 But certainly you have to condemn certain behaviors for practical reasons. All right.

00:11:10.140 Here's my new red line. I was insulted on Twitter today. And while I think you should use the

00:11:18.240 blocking judiciously, somebody went a little too far today. And I just want to run it by

00:11:25.260 you, you know, because you're my advisors. So, as my advisors, did I go too far? Or is

00:11:31.440 this reasonable? I blocked somebody today who accused me in public. And people are going

00:11:37.200 to see this, right? Because it's like a permanent record. He actually accused me in public of

00:11:41.900 believing the news. Well, I blocked that motherfucker. Don't do that if you want to ever, ever, ever 1.00

00:11:55.380 see me again. I will be so gone. All right. So, the big interesting news is that Elon Musk has

00:12:05.740 declined the offer to have a board seat on Twitter. Isn't that interesting? Didn't we think that his

00:12:14.860 play was to get on the board and that he'd have some influence? Well, it turns out we all learned

00:12:20.560 something today, or you're about to learn it. Being on the board limits your options. Did you know that?

00:12:27.680 It limits your options if you're Elon Musk. It probably doesn't limit your options if you're just

00:12:34.760 a board member. Like, if you were important enough to be on the board, but maybe other people haven't

00:12:40.660 heard your name before, well, in that case, being on the board probably does give you more influence

00:12:45.760 over Twitter. But if you're Elon Musk, all it does is limit you. Because everybody's going to listen to

00:12:51.560 what you say, right? That's the key. Everyone's going to listen to what you say. So, once you have

00:12:57.580 that, being on the board just gives you limitations. It's a limit to what you can say about the company,

00:13:04.160 I'm pretty sure. I think there's some limits about how you can trash the company if you're on the board.

00:13:09.900 And I think there's a limit to how much stock you can own. Somebody said 15%. So, why would he put up

00:13:16.740 with limits when there's no upside? And I think to myself, I don't know if there's another person

00:13:23.680 in the world who would have played it this way. And it's right. I don't know anybody else who would

00:13:31.240 have played it exactly like this to earn a board seat and then turn it down because it was limiting.

00:13:39.100 Nobody else would do that. Even if they were in this position, I feel like they wouldn't have done

00:13:44.000 that. He consistently finds the thing that you're not supposed to do and then makes it work.

00:13:52.580 And that's why it's so fun to watch. Now, he continues to make marketing departments

00:13:58.000 completely irrelevant wherever he has ownership of a company because he just is so newsworthy

00:14:04.480 that really, has anybody not heard of Twitter? Have you not heard that there might be some changes

00:14:10.480 coming? I think you probably have heard it. But the marketing department didn't get it done.

00:14:17.160 Must it? All right.

00:14:20.840 So, I saw a tweet by a user named Tank. That's what he calls himself on Twitter. He tweets, he goes,

00:14:33.120 let me break this down for you. Elon becomes largest shareholder for free speech. Elon was told to play

00:14:40.080 nice and not speak freely. In other words, the entire reason he was doing it was to have, you know,

00:14:46.260 try to get free speech for himself and others. And joining the board would actually limit his free

00:14:52.400 speech, you know, in a commercial way, not in a government way. So, in a separate but related story,

00:15:01.760 there's a Twitter engineering manager. Now, what I don't know is how important a Twitter

00:15:08.640 engineering manager is. Are there lots of them? Because there are lots of subgroups,

00:15:14.500 so they all need a little manager. Or is this somebody who manages all the engineers? I don't know.

00:15:19.880 It'd be a pretty big difference. But somebody who is a Twitter engineering manager had been tweeting

00:15:28.280 some negative stuff about Elon being on the board and really hated it and, you know,

00:15:33.660 was digging up some old Elon Musk tweets to embarrass him. And I think this is telling you

00:15:39.300 everything, isn't it? It feels like that's everything.

00:15:43.500 I feel like knowing that there's an engineering manager in Twitter that really, really doesn't

00:15:52.380 like whatever it is that Elon Musk thinks he's going to do, I feel like now you know everything,

00:15:59.820 don't you? Now, it's only one person. So, you know, maybe I'm overgeneralizing here. But that's one

00:16:07.200 person who operated with impunity in the sense that that one person was, you know, not shy about putting

00:16:13.480 out the message he put out. I shouldn't say he, because I don't know the pronoun. But let's say

00:16:21.020 they put out. All right. Here's another funny tweet by First Words on Twitter at Unscripted Mike

00:16:31.380 says this. He said, Elon Musk recently built the largest factory in the world, in Texas, of course,

00:16:38.260 just launched the first all-private rocket to the International Space Station,

00:16:42.380 and will soon restore free speech to Twitter, the 21st century town square. Meanwhile, Biden

00:16:49.240 was speaking incoherently somewhere the whole time. And the funny thing about this tweet is

00:16:57.100 what makes it work is the last three unnecessary words. So here's a little tip for you. Generally

00:17:07.520 speaking, you want to remove unnecessary words from your communication, because they're unnecessary,

00:17:13.780 and they just get in the way. But an exception is humor, where sometimes the unnecessary words are,

00:17:21.560 I don't know exactly why they work. It's just something you have to A-B test in your head.

00:17:25.820 If I add these unnecessary words, is it better or worse? And I don't know why this is better.

00:17:29.660 But let me read the sentence again and see how important the whole time is, even though it's

00:17:35.860 unnecessary. Watch. Meanwhile, Biden was speaking incoherently somewhere the whole time. The whole

00:17:42.220 time. I don't know. That's what makes the tweet. Right. By the way, how often have you seen my blog

00:17:51.760 post on how to be the day you became a better writer? How many of you have seen that? Because it's

00:17:57.080 going around again. It's been going around. I think it gets passed around at least every month

00:18:04.420 or so for years. If you haven't seen it, the reason it gets passed around every month or so for years

00:18:12.460 is that when people read it, and it takes approximately less than two minutes, very short,

00:18:19.940 and it's basically the shortest writing lesson in the world with the most impact. So it was created to

00:18:26.000 be exactly that. The shortest writing with the most impact. So just Google if you want to see that

00:18:31.400 the day you became a better writer. The day you became a better writer. And with my name,

00:18:38.620 it'll pop right up. It's all over the place. Now, this is why I like this live stream.

00:18:44.840 Because some of you know what just happened, right? Some of you know what just happened.

00:18:49.700 And some of you don't, but you're going to find out. What just happened was the people who are

00:18:55.240 familiar with that little piece I just recommended are actually aware that it actually fundamentally

00:19:01.300 gave them a superpower. Like turned them from mediocre writers or good-ish writers into good writers

00:19:09.100 in two minutes. In two minutes. It really does that. That's why I put these little two to four

00:19:16.160 minute lessons on locals subscription platform. Because you can actually fundamentally change

00:19:22.100 somebody's effectiveness forever, forever, in two to four minutes. You just have to say the right

00:19:27.840 stuff. So the people who know that know that I just changed a whole bunch of lives just by

00:19:36.120 mentioning it. You know, maybe three of you will Google it. But the three of you who Google it and

00:19:42.260 read it are actually going to have different outcomes. It's that powerful. All right.

00:19:50.940 There's some more information about the importance of ventilation. And I would still love to know this

00:19:58.280 question. If we know that almost nobody gets COVID outdoors, and we know that for sure, right?

00:20:04.640 Has anybody ever gotten COVID in a well-ventilated place? And how well-ventilated does it need to be?

00:20:14.300 Because, you know, I talked during the pandemic, what if you just turn on your fans? What if you just

00:20:20.860 have fans on? Is that good enough? And we still don't know the answer to that. We might have had a

00:20:26.640 complete solution to the pandemic and overlooked it because it was too ordinary, which is make sure

00:20:33.080 there's a fan in every room. Now, the experts say you've got to have a window open. But I think

00:20:39.560 that's where they go wrong. Because if the window is open, it's going to be too cold, too hot. Then

00:20:45.260 there's a reason that people close windows, right? Bugs. So I really, really, really wonder if just

00:20:52.100 moving the air is enough to distribute the plumes. And we might have had a solution the whole time.

00:20:59.500 We might have. All right. Here's my solution to the whole LGBTQ. And I think they've added some 1.00

00:21:09.080 numbers or letters, maybe some numbers, too. And some letters recently. And this is a persuasion

00:21:15.880 recommendation. Now, I know many of you are on the, let's say, the social warrior side of

00:21:24.840 stop making a big fuss and giving all these rights to those LGBTQ activists and stuff like

00:21:33.360 that. This isn't going to be that. This is actually going to be legitimate advice for how the people

00:21:40.840 who would define themselves in that community could get maybe better results. Okay. And this is in the

00:21:48.820 form of a persuasion lesson. I'll just apply it to something that's in the news. Every time the LGBTQ 1.00

00:21:55.160 adds a new designation or a new flavor, I think they get further from their objective. And what I would

00:22:03.980 do is advise them to take a tip from what the gay activists did in the earlier days of gay rights.

00:22:14.080 Do you remember when gay was called homosexual? 0.96

00:22:19.700 And homosexual sounds almost like a disease if you're not well educated, right? It just sounds 0.98

00:22:24.940 like, wait, that word is way too big. There's a famous story, and maybe somebody can tell me if this

00:22:30.920 is real or it's just one of those stories you heard, that in the early days of the United States,

00:22:36.260 I don't know exactly what year, somebody was running for election and won the election in part by

00:22:42.200 labeling his opponent a, I think it was a flagrant heterosexual. And people were so undereducated

00:22:50.680 that when they heard that, they're like, whoa, a flagrant heterosexual? We can't have one of those

00:22:56.980 in office, you know, back in cowboy days or whatever the hell it was. I mean, it feels like it was a

00:23:02.700 Lincoln kind of an era thing. But can somebody tell me, did that really happen?

00:23:07.760 Yeah. So I don't know if that really happened, but it tells the story really well. So here's the

00:23:15.140 thing. When the gay rights people changed, you know, from homosexual and queer, although queer, 0.88

00:23:22.800 they sort of did the N-word thing and owned it, which was also a good technique. But gay, 1.00

00:23:28.780 who doesn't want to be gay? I mean, in the sense that it sounds happy, right? So just labeling it with a 0.93

00:23:37.100 word that people universally embrace before they think about it was kind of sort of awesome in

00:23:43.840 terms of persuasion. It's just one of the greatest persuasion plays of all times, in my opinion,

00:23:51.240 just one of the best. Although Black Lives Matter was very good. Again, we're separating whether you

00:23:56.680 like the politics of it from just the persuasion element of it, if we could, right? So what could

00:24:03.040 the LGBTQ and extra letters do to be more like friendlier sounding so they immediately get a positive

00:24:15.180 vibe before people think about the politics? And here's what I would suggest. Non-binary. Now,

00:24:27.400 correct me if I'm wrong, but non-binary, the way it's currently used, is more limited than including

00:24:33.740 all of LGBTQ, right? And it doesn't matter for my purposes. I'm saying to rebrand non-binary as the 1.00

00:24:42.880 only thing that captures everything that's not binary. Here's why. People like being non-binary. 0.87

00:24:51.560 If you say, you fit into one or two categories, I say, yeah, damn it. Well, I don't know if that 0.94

00:24:58.640 sounds so good for me. It feels like I'm a little bit limited in my thinking, doesn't it? Even if

00:25:04.220 you're completely hetero or you're completely, you know, if you're completely hetero, you're still

00:25:09.220 going to say, yeah, I'm completely hetero. But I don't know, I'd like to think that at least,

00:25:15.160 at least I had some flexibility, you know. And I also wonder if there aren't lots of people who

00:25:22.560 would brand themselves hetero, who in their private thoughts are thinking, well, I'm hetero-ish.

00:25:31.400 You know what I mean? Maybe the porn they look at isn't exactly matching their hetero, 0.88

00:25:38.180 you know what I mean? You know what I mean? There must be plenty of people who say, yeah, 0.98

00:25:42.240 for public consumption, I'm hetero. But, you know, privately, I'm a little bit non-binary.

00:25:48.940 Just a little bit. I see a lot of pushback, which is why I'm doing this. I mean, if it were

00:25:55.840 not provocative, would I do it? Really? If I were not provocative? That's what makes this

00:26:01.760 question fun. So with all respect to the LGBTQ community, which some of my favorite people

00:26:09.820 are members of, I think if you just said non-binary, maybe you'd get further. Or even

00:26:17.740 something better, if there's a word like gay that just puts a positive spin on it from the

00:26:22.780 start, and then you think about the politics. That's all. Just come up with a better label

00:26:27.540 than a bunch of alphabet letters. All right. Have you noticed that in our minds, at least,

00:26:35.980 there are certain patterns that keep repeating? And one of the reasons that movies and books and TV

00:26:42.740 shows work is that people like certain patterns of things. Like they like stories of good versus

00:26:50.300 evil. They like stories of redemption, right? There's a limited set of what we imagine are the stories

00:26:58.220 that we want to see. And I'm fascinated when I see parallels. For example, as I tweeted today,

00:27:06.220 if you're familiar with the Star Trek universe, this will work better if you have some familiarity

00:27:14.340 with that universe. But if NATO is the federation, and again, right, everybody gets to say their side

00:27:20.920 is the good guys. I get it. I get it. Right? If you're in Russia, NATO doesn't look like the

00:27:26.880 federation. But from our point of view, right, this is just subjective point of view. If NATO is

00:27:32.320 the federation, would Russia be the Klingons? And would China be the Romulans? Or would they be the 0.92

00:27:38.560 Ferengi? Ferengi? Or the Borg? They're a little bit the Borg, because they're trying to assimilate 0.97

00:27:44.920 the Uyghurs. But they're a little bit the Ferengi, because they're, you know, commerce, 0.64

00:27:50.480 sort of commerce first. And the Russians seem like the Klingons, because it feels like the 1.00

00:27:57.220 honor of their empire is what matters more than life itself. Yeah, the Ferengi are capitalists, 1.00

00:28:04.980 but they're merchants, right? So this all brings me to the most important question,

00:28:12.520 which is, when we look at this whole Russia-Ukraine war, what would Shatner do? And until we've

00:28:20.200 heard that, I don't think we understand the whole situation. But what would Captain Kirk

00:28:24.980 do? I was going to ask him, but I couldn't. His DMs are closed. All right. Here's my most

00:28:36.680 provocative take today. You're going to hate this one. In my opinion, it looks like Russia already 0.98

00:28:44.040 lost the war. But the news is not saying that. Like, I'm observing it, and what seems to me,

00:28:53.460 and I'll get to my cognitive bias and my confirmation bias. That's the point. We're going to that.

00:28:58.220 So you don't need to shout that you disagree with me yet, because your disagreement is the point of

00:29:04.840 this, right? I'm watching the news, and you're watching the news, but why do I see that Russia 0.98

00:29:10.280 already lost? But the news isn't reporting it. So there are two possibilities here, which are kind

00:29:17.320 the cool. Number one, I'm suffering from confirmation bias, because I, somewhat uniquely among experts and

00:29:29.460 probably most of you, said that Russia would actually be running into a buzzsaw, and it wouldn't

00:29:36.080 be easy, and that the modern technology that the Ukrainian army was likely to have access to,

00:29:42.340 because they're NATO and American sponsorship. They were likely to surprise Russia with an unusually

00:29:50.400 aggressive and effective tech-led response. I said their tanks would be in trouble, that drones would

00:29:58.140 be part of it. And so far, 100% of that seems true, right? But would you say that my... So I had the

00:30:06.720 incorrect prediction, 100% incorrect, that Russia knew what I knew, which is, this doesn't look easy,

00:30:15.280 but I guess they thought it was. Maybe they had bad information. So they went ahead and invaded.

00:30:20.920 So that part, I'm 100% wrong, just so you can hear me say when I'm wrong. But it looks to me like the

00:30:28.480 second part of that, that Russia would be surprised, happened. And that it's already happened. Because 0.64

00:30:36.560 it doesn't look like they really have a good shot at taking over the country in terms of owning the

00:30:41.300 capital, Kyiv. And now we see them doing something that looks, again, again, just to me it looks this

00:30:48.280 way. Not to you. I'm not suggesting you see it this way. I'm saying that my confirmation bias,

00:30:54.960 which makes me want to be right. See, I want to be right that Ukraine was more able to defend

00:31:03.140 itself than others thought. So I'm interpreting the situation to make myself right. And even though

00:31:10.600 I'm aware of it, I can't unsee it. Isn't that weird? Like, I'm completely aware that I'm the only one

00:31:18.560 seeing this. But there's a reason I'm the only one seeing it. Either, and here's the fun part,

00:31:26.740 either you're all right, and I'm experiencing confirmation bias, completely possible. I have

00:31:32.660 no way to know that that's not true. And it's actually quite likely. I put it in the solidly,

00:31:39.240 very likely category.

00:31:40.480 The other possibility is that most of you get your opinions from the news. Most people do. They

00:31:49.440 get their opinions from the news. It's very rare to have somebody who has an opinion that

00:31:53.460 disagrees with either the left or the right-leaning news. It's very, very odd, unusual. So you get your

00:32:00.680 opinions largely from the news. And the news told you, with all its experts, that Ukraine was going to

00:32:09.200 be conquered by Russia. Well, okay, not in two days. Well, it might take them a little longer. 0.91

00:32:15.240 But suddenly, Russia has withdrawn from the entire north to try to salvage whatever it can.

00:32:22.020 It doesn't even look like it's going to take Odessa. I mean, maybe it will. But at the moment,

00:32:27.700 it looks like it got stopped from taking Odessa, too, in the port. So am I experiencing cognitive

00:32:35.940 dissonance? Or is the entire mainstream media, including the left and the right? Because remember,

00:32:43.380 both the left and the right thought it was going to be an easy victory for Russia. And they were so 0.95

00:32:49.000 wrong, it looks to me, they were so wrong that they can't tell you that they were wrong. And that

00:32:57.480 the cognitive dissonance and the confirmation bias is 100% on the mainstream media side, who is now

00:33:04.760 brainwashed the rest of you into believing that something like a Russian victory is unfolding.

00:33:11.980 When the news they actually report, I just watched General Petraeus, you know, explain the situation

00:33:18.880 and the withdrawal from Kiev. If you just look at what he's reporting, it really looks like Russia

00:33:25.780 already lost. But you tell me. Let's take a vote. Tell me, am I experiencing confirmation bias?

00:33:38.280 And Russia will just roll on to victory. Yes or no? There's only one correct answer. The correct answer, 0.95

00:33:47.660 I just saw only one person said it. The correct answer is unknown. All right, you just separated

00:33:54.480 yourselves into the higher level of awareness and lower level. Here's what I'm not going to tell you

00:34:01.460 that I'm right about this. I can't tell you that I'm right. I can only tell you what it feels like.

00:34:08.340 Because if you're experiencing cognitive dissonance or confirmation bias, you're the one who doesn't

00:34:15.060 know. You're the one who doesn't know. So if it's me, I don't know. And even if you tell me, even if

00:34:22.100 every one of you told me I'm experiencing it, I'd still say, I don't think so. I don't think so. I got

00:34:27.700 reasons. I got good reasons. One person said unknown when I asked the question, who has cognitive

00:34:36.320 dissonance? The person who said unknown has the best level of awareness probably in the conversation.

00:34:47.380 The moment you realize that cognitive dissonance and confirmation can just as easily affect you,

00:34:53.560 that's when you see the machinery. That's when you see reality just, it opens its cover.

00:35:05.060 But you have to accept that it's happening to you. If you believe it only happens to the dumb people 1.00

00:35:12.000 on the other side, you'll never see the machinery. And then you will be the scenery. So you can be the 0.99

00:35:21.500 scenery or you can see the machinery. And if you think that you know who has cognitive dissonance

00:35:27.080 in this situation, it's your scenery. If you can accept that you don't know, as I do, I really don't

00:35:36.900 know if I'm right. I only know what it looks like. And I accept that. And that allows me to see the

00:35:43.720 machinery. Don't be the scenery. All right. And we heard more about this Ukrainian volunteer drone 0.99

00:35:54.480 unit. Bunch of nerds. I say that with love because I love technical people.

00:36:02.560 They've modified these little hobby-sized drones. And apparently they got credit for stopping the

00:36:08.340 convoy. I feel like they might be getting a little more attention than maybe their actual

00:36:13.740 contribution is. But do you wonder if maybe there isn't still some kind of secret drones over there

00:36:21.820 that we don't exactly know about? Maybe something that America or NATO has that's a little bit

00:36:29.360 stealthier or a little bit faster or, I don't know, maybe a little more autonomous, a little more

00:36:36.000 something? I don't know. And do you think that when this is over, we'll learn that there was some

00:36:46.480 technology in play that made a big difference that we hadn't heard of during the conflict? Maybe.

00:36:54.060 I don't know. It could be just that the, let's say the weaponization of drones in general is the

00:37:01.080 whole story or most of it. What do you think of the idea of calling Putin a war criminal?

00:37:10.060 Let me explain how war crimes are tried. It's very complicated. So try to, try to follow along.

00:37:19.580 This is, this is how you handle the war crimes. So you've got the International Criminal Court

00:37:23.840 located in Hague and is created by the Rome Statute. But some people are members, some aren't.

00:37:29.160 We've got the United Nations. They could do something and then the members could all agree

00:37:33.860 and it would give it a patina of credibility. But of course, Russia wouldn't go along with

00:37:38.460 it. So it doesn't really matter. So you've got a whole bunch of legal remedies and legal

00:37:42.360 approaches that all have the same, they all have the same characteristic. We don't fully

00:37:48.120 understand them and they're not going to make any difference whatsoever.

00:37:50.300 Um, because Putin isn't going to go to trial, right? And we're not going to capture him if he

00:38:00.380 leaves the country, are we? Really? I mean, I don't think so. Would we? Is somebody going to take

00:38:08.300 him into custody? I don't think so. But here's what's interesting. Can Putin ever travel again?

00:38:16.300 Right. Except to the few places where they're friendly. I feel like that Russia no longer has 0.99

00:38:24.920 a leader in any realistic way. Meaning that if the whole world decides you just can't even

00:38:32.400 come here, you can't even touch our territory, do you really have a leader? Because you kind

00:38:39.280 of want a leader who can go to the G8, the G20, you know, whatever is appropriate. You feel

00:38:43.820 like, you feel like your leader needs to show up, right? 90% of success is attendance.

00:38:52.440 And he can't attend. Right? Attendance is very important. And now they have an alleged leader

00:39:00.300 who can't attend in a practical way. Because he won't be invited or it might be too risky

00:39:05.800 to leave the country. So in a real sense, they've already lost their leader. I mean, it's like

00:39:12.960 he's a military commander now, but the country doesn't have a political leader because the

00:39:18.420 other countries that would need to treat him like a political leader are just not going

00:39:22.400 to do it. Because they have this credible allegations of war crimes. Now, I want to jump in here and 0.72

00:39:31.660 say, because every time I say something like Russia is committing war crimes, somebody who's

00:39:37.740 pro-Ukraine jumps in and says, Scott, Scott, Scott, why do you believe in the news and

00:39:43.200 the propaganda? Don't you know that the Ukrainians were shelling the Russians and the Donbass and 0.56

00:39:50.260 discriminating against them? To which I say, I don't really know that. No. But I don't need

00:39:57.460 to know it. Because if you're telling me that Ukrainians have done any war crimes against Russians

00:40:03.480 during this conflict or even before, did some bad things, I'll believe it. You don't even have to

00:40:10.080 show me an example. It just sounds like something people do. So I'm already there. I don't even need

00:40:16.240 any evidence. Yeah. It's a war. There are war crimes. Uh-huh. Both sides? Yeah. Yeah. Both sides.

00:40:22.940 Most of the time or all the time? All the time. All the time. If it were only sometimes

00:40:28.600 that wars produced war crimes, then I'd be like, let's look into this. Let's look into

00:40:34.140 these details. Got to find out who's doing it, who isn't. Well, I don't believe that. Do

00:40:39.160 you? I just think war creates war crimes. Because the people that you send into war are the people

00:40:47.500 who are going to do some war crimes. And if they didn't start that way, war can turn them

00:40:52.000 into that kind of people. And I think that there are legitimate trade-offs between, you

00:40:58.880 know, saving yourself and saving your prisoners. And people are going to say, well, I'd rather

00:41:04.660 save myself, frankly. Thank you.

00:41:10.400 Biden droned an innocent family. Well, intention always matters. So, yeah, intention matters.

00:41:17.960 I'm tending to think that it might be a good move, branding Putin as a war criminal. He's

00:41:26.840 never going to be tried, unless there's some kind of revolution in Russia itself, I suppose.

00:41:33.480 That's possible. But I don't see that happening. I think Russia will just continue as a degraded 0.80

00:41:38.500 country. And that's it. It'll just be a degraded country forever, for at least for a long time.

00:41:46.280 All right. I don't have much else to talk about. Is there anything I missed?

00:41:53.480 Did you hear the story about the 75-year-old activist who was at, what, several years ago?

00:42:00.120 He was out there, and the police were clearing the streets, and they shoved him, and he fell down

00:42:04.940 and hit his head. And there was some case against the police officer. And the police officer has been

00:42:10.160 completely cleared. Apparently, if you stand in front of the police and try to stop their progress,

00:42:17.280 they can push you out of the way. Turns out the police can push people out of the way if they're

00:42:23.260 trying to stop the police from doing their job. Now, I remember seeing that when it originally happened,

00:42:28.180 and people called me a ghoul for thinking I didn't see a crime there. I don't know if anybody remembers

00:42:35.800 that. I had a pretty small audience at the time. But I remember looking at it and thinking,

00:42:40.780 well, what do you think happens when you stand in front of a police action? How do you imagine that

00:42:47.160 goes? Like, was there a positive way that was going to turn out? I don't know. Now, of course,

00:42:53.300 the fact that falling down and being pushed out of the way actually caused an injury. That's not

00:42:58.400 funny. But I don't think it was the point of why he was pushed. I don't think they were trying to

00:43:04.060 hurt him. I think they were trying to get him out of the way. And I don't think that it was obvious

00:43:08.400 that that was going to, you know, be as bad as it was. All right. The Hunter Biden case is heating up?

00:43:17.660 Or is it? Or is it? Yeah, he was a local provocateur. Provocateur? Provocateur.

00:43:29.860 Or is there a new troll who's not doing a good job over here on YouTube? I hate it when the new 0.80

00:43:44.060 guy, he's not really trained on where my hot buttons are yet. He's just like flailing. Can

00:43:50.740 somebody train the new guy? By now, everybody must know my hot buttons. I'm sure you can find them.

00:43:56.540 It can't be that hard. Am I still on Prisoner Island? I am not. I am not. And not that I won't go

00:44:09.540 back. Prisoner Island recalls us on a regular basis. You do get dropped on Prisoner Island every now and

00:44:18.900 then. So let me tell you what one of my big issues was that apparently isn't a big issue.

00:44:26.540 So I thought I had a hernia. It's a little iguanal hernia or something. And I thought that

00:44:37.340 that would require surgery and probably really soon and it would ruin my whole summer. And

00:44:43.260 I really, really needed a non-pandemic summer. I mean, most of you do, but I really, really

00:44:49.180 needed it. And I went to the doctor and the doctor said, and this will surprise you, it

00:44:56.380 turns out that Googling your symptoms is just as good as a doctor. Don't listen to anybody

00:45:02.460 who tells you it doesn't. So I basically went in and said, doctor, I think I have an inguinal

00:45:10.300 hernia. And the doctor says, let me see. And it took the doctor like three seconds to say,

00:45:16.520 oh yeah, that's one. And then I said, all right, what do I do? And the doctor said, well,

00:45:21.360 you know, there's one group. Listen to this. This will dovetail into the actual live stream

00:45:30.160 content that I do. It turns out that there was a study of one group of patients that always refused

00:45:37.240 hernia surgery. Just one group. What do you think that group was? Who was the group who refused hernia

00:45:45.120 surgery even when they had a hernia? Somebody says the Amish. That wasn't where I was going. 1.00

00:45:52.160 And the answer is surgeons. Are we done here? Yeah. The group least likely to get hernia surgery to fix

00:46:01.580 it as opposed to just living with it are surgeons. And that's what my doctor told me. And so the new

00:46:09.420 thinking is that you might be better off living with it unless it worsens, right? There's some

00:46:15.420 point at which surgery is necessary. But mine is really doesn't have any pain and you can't really

00:46:21.920 see it. So there's nothing visual. There's no pain. It just is something I know exists. I'll work

00:46:28.480 around it. And so I'll have a good summer. So I was sort of on Prisoner Island and thought I'd stay

00:46:35.300 there. But I just wasn't current with the best thinking on it. And so I scared myself for no

00:46:39.900 reason. I probably will end up, I imagine, someday getting it repaired. But it won't be this summer.

00:46:46.040 So I'm not going to worry about it.

00:46:50.100 Yes. Oh, you have one mesh? Got to do the other side. Yeah, maybe I'll have to. Who knows?

00:46:59.020 And that's all for now. I hope you had a great time. And I'll talk to you later.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - April 11, 2022

Episode 1710 Scott Adams： Start Your Week Off Right With The Simultaneous Sip & Weird Headline Views

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