Episode 1718 Scott Adams： Musk, Murder, DarkMAGA, Masks And More. A Meaningful Morning
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
147.25943
Summary
Alex Jones's company files for bankruptcy, and CNN calls him a "conspiracy theorist" Alex Jones is a conspiracy theorist, but what does that mean, exactly? And what does it have to do with fake news, conspiracy theories, and Alex Jones?
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Oh, good morning, everybody, and welcome to, that's right, the best day of your life.
00:00:12.760
A highlight of civilization and possibly the best thing that's ever happened in any part
00:00:19.300
As far as we know, that's my claim, and look for a fact check on that.
00:00:24.480
I'll bet you, you will not see any fact checkers who consider that false.
00:00:30.000
So go to Google, and, you know, Google fact check, and see if it's wrong, or have they
00:00:39.340
Yes, I believe it is the best day of your life, and all you need is a cup or mug or a glass,
00:00:43.060
a tank or chalice or a stein, a canteen jug or a flask, a vessel of any kind, fill it with
00:00:48.060
your favorite liquid, I like coffee, and join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, it's
00:00:57.120
the dopamine hit of the day, it's the thing that makes that tingle on the back of your
00:01:29.500
Have you ever had a sneezing attack when you were in a forest?
00:01:32.460
You know, normally if you have to sneeze, you're usually around people, and then it's
00:01:38.020
this big awkward thing, especially during COVID, and you're doing the whole, and then you spray
00:01:47.580
yourself, and the entire experience is very unsatisfying.
00:01:52.460
But if you've ever been like completely away from everybody, you're just literally in a
00:01:57.440
forest, and a sneezing attack comes on, and you just let it fly.
00:02:14.180
There are very few times when you don't have to, let's say, respond to other people's social
00:02:22.040
pressures. But a good sneeze in the woods, well, that'll set you free. You'll feel good all day.
00:02:30.840
So if you haven't tried that, go try that now. Here's a question that I've been wondering.
00:02:36.560
What is the exact ratio of fake news to real news, fake news over real news? Do the math.
00:02:44.460
What would be the proper ratio before you could be called a conspiracy theorist?
00:02:49.860
Would it be 10%? Suppose 10% of the things you said turned out to be unfounded conspiracy theories.
00:03:00.280
Would that be enough to call you a conspiracy theorist? About 50%. About 50%. Would you then be a
00:03:11.980
conspiracy theorist? Suppose more than half of the things you reported or talked about, more than half,
00:03:19.860
what if more than half of them were at least, well, let's say incorrect because of the context
00:03:25.900
they're given. Would that feel like you should be called a conspiracy theorist? Well, I don't know.
00:03:34.280
But the news today is that several of Alex Jones's company, I guess three of Alex Jones' companies,
00:03:44.040
have filed for bankruptcy. Now, this is actually a legal financial technique. It doesn't mean he's losing
00:03:51.500
money. Some people will read it that way. But he's been called a conspiracy theorist by Bloomberg and CNN.
00:04:02.300
And I'm thinking to myself, especially CNN, what is the ratio? Are they claiming that he's got a higher ratio of
00:04:12.140
incorrect news to correct news? Maybe he does. I'm not even judging. I've never done the analysis.
00:04:21.840
So I don't know. But it begs the question, doesn't it? What if both of them are squarely in the category of,
00:04:31.080
well, you know, that's a little conspiracy-ish, isn't it? You know, am I right or wrong that CNN pushed
00:04:39.960
the Russia collusion hoax forever? I'm pretty sure they did. I think there were quite a few hoaxes that
00:04:49.840
they pushed as real. How many of the hoaxes that CNN promoted did Alex Jones believe?
00:05:00.380
Yeah, what just happened to you right there? How many of the hoaxes that CNN promoted, and there
00:05:07.040
were a lot of them, big ones, the drinking bleach hoax, the fine people hoax, the, you know, the
00:05:12.880
Russians bounty on American soldiers hoax? I mean, it just goes on and on. But how many of those did
00:05:20.560
Alex Jones say, well, yeah, I believe that story? How about none? How about none? Do you get any credit
00:05:28.480
at all for being able to spot the other side's conspiracy theories? Right? Yeah, CNN acts like
00:05:36.340
they're the only ones who can spot a conspiracy theory. I'm pretty sure Alex Jones spotted a few
00:05:41.340
on them. Pretty sure. And we're going to talk about somebody else who spotted some sketchy
00:05:48.400
behavior on CNN in another segment. So, anyway, so Alex Jones is responding, I think, because
00:05:58.840
he lost some lawsuits, or one lawsuit, about the Sandy Hook story. So, I don't need to get into that,
00:06:08.980
but he made some claims that did not hold up, and some people proved that they were injured in court.
00:06:15.160
They proved it anyway, at least to a jury satisfaction. So, he owes lots of money to people who claim to be
00:06:20.800
victims of his so-called conspiracy theories, at least one specific one. And so, when you file for
00:06:31.080
bankruptcy, you're really just trying to give yourself protection against a big lawsuit or a big
00:06:37.340
specific problem. It doesn't mean that he's cash negative or that he's losing money. It just means
00:06:43.920
he couldn't pay all of that money all at once, or he chooses to find some way to, you know, weasel out of
00:06:50.520
it. So, it's more of a financial technique. The only thing we can know for sure is that he's not
00:06:58.560
making so many millions of dollars that it's worth it to him to just pay a few million to make it go
00:07:04.680
away. So, we don't know exactly what his financial situation is, but don't assume that it's bad just
00:07:12.280
because he uses this financial technique. That doesn't mean he's in trouble financially.
00:07:16.700
Well, how about this? A Florida judge just put the kibosh on mask mandates. And at least the TSA,
00:07:32.960
for example, is dropping them. And now Uber and a number of other places are dropping them, but
00:07:38.260
they're not being dropped everywhere. So, there are some cities that are keeping them on local mass
00:07:43.260
transit, for example. And not all of the airlines have weighed in yet, but most of the airlines are
00:07:48.120
going along with dropping the requirement. Can we take a moment? I mean, it's not over-over,
00:07:59.940
but it's going to be. Because, you know, the slippery slope works in both directions, right? Now,
00:08:06.280
we're heading back to something closer to normal. Now, I never believed that we would have to wear
00:08:13.280
masks forever. Did any of you? How many of you believed? Yeah. Somebody I'm seeing in the comments,
00:08:23.080
I don't know if this is true, but somebody say it was a Trump-appointed judge. Was it a Trump-appointed
00:08:29.180
judge that made that decision? Is that confirmed, or is that just a Twitter thing? And a lot of
00:08:36.080
people say yes. So, let's treat it like it's yes. Isn't that kind of perfect? Remember I told you
00:08:44.420
that one of the prediction methods I use is if things work out too perfectly like a movie would
00:08:51.320
work out? It might tell you you live in a simulation, but for some reason it predicts. We so often end up in
00:08:58.040
a situation where that could only happen in a movie. There's another one. I'll tell you later about
00:09:05.320
when I got wrong. So, I don't have much to say about this except that, thank God. Oh, my God.
00:09:19.000
And, by the way, congratulations to all of you. Congratulations. You know, I know some of you
00:09:26.060
fought the mandates, and thank you. So, for everybody who pushed back against the mandates when it was
00:09:32.500
really clear, you know, once it began clear that they were over-applied, thank you. Thanks for all
00:09:41.080
the citizen pushback. Thanks for being on the right side, in my opinion. And thanks for being active,
00:09:49.940
you know, at least making your thoughts known. You know, I've always told you that I can't speak
00:09:56.640
for other countries, but in the United States, the public does run the government. We just sort of act
00:10:04.060
like we don't know it. The only thing the public has to do is agree. If the public agrees, they can get
00:10:11.060
what they want. Our system pretty much guarantees it. Maybe not on day one, right? But if the public
00:10:18.100
is all on one side solidly, they're going to get what they want. So, basically, this is a victory of
00:10:23.160
the public. Because who knows what the government would have done on its own, right? Who knows?
00:10:29.460
But we do know that the public pushed it until it broke. I mean, I think that's just what happened.
00:10:36.000
I think that anybody who makes a decision to unmask is doing it in the context of knowing
00:10:43.620
that the public has had enough, right? It's going to get violent if it goes too much longer.
00:10:51.080
So, it took way too long, but here we are. So, let's at least celebrate the good news that is by far
00:10:59.340
not complete. And by the way, are you having the same impression that I am? The fact that the
00:11:06.740
employees, generally, you know, the lower paid people on the scale of these big companies and
00:11:13.720
restaurants and stuff, the fact that they still have to wear masks when the people they're serving
00:11:18.240
do not, is just grotesque. I don't know why Black Lives Matter or anybody who cares about,
00:11:25.960
you know, the lower end of the income spectrum. I don't know why they're not making a bigger deal
00:11:31.580
about that. I mean, it's viscerally disgusting. I mean, to me, it feels like walking onto a
00:11:37.520
plantation in the days of slavery, like what it would feel to have such obvious signs of unequal
00:11:46.060
treatment of human beings, right? Obviously, it's not like slavery. So, before somebody goes wild and
00:11:52.300
says, oh, you compared mask wearing to slavery. No, no, no, no, no. It's just an analogy.
00:11:59.340
Yeah. Settle down. Settle down. It's not the Holocaust. It's just masks. But in terms of the
00:12:06.760
both of them giving you a visceral feel, I don't know. I can't get past it. And tell me if this makes
00:12:15.640
it worse, if you say somebody who's black and underpaid and wearing a mask, when you're not,
00:12:24.920
doesn't it make you feel a little extra creepy? You know, maybe you shouldn't, because again,
00:12:30.840
that would be a bigoted, right? It would be bigoted to have any opinion about the color of
00:12:35.780
the person wearing it. But, you know, we're still primed that way. You know, we're primed by
00:12:40.780
the news, our own history of slavery, et cetera. So, you do see it that way. At least I do. Like,
00:12:47.200
it gives it that little extra, ugh. Like, what the hell are we doing? Like, how do we allow it?
00:12:53.640
Yeah, how do the rich people allow it, honestly? Like, everybody should be complaining about that.
00:13:00.860
The lack, I guess it more than other things, shows a lack of consideration for other people.
00:13:10.780
In such a, like, fundamental way that it's just disgusting. It's one thing if you say,
00:13:18.180
you know, I don't want to raise my taxes to give it to other people. Because that, you can explain
00:13:23.720
that in terms of the system works better if everybody has to, you know, look out for themselves,
00:13:28.920
if they can, if they have the ability. But this isn't one of those times. It's not like there's any
00:13:35.300
larger system that's being supported by it. Nothing's being supported by it. It's literally
00:13:41.120
just discriminating against people who don't have power. That's it. It's just power. It's an
00:13:47.160
absolute, brutal, disgusting, disgusting use of power. Anyway.
00:13:53.920
So, do you all know who Malcolm Nance is? He had been until recently one of the voices or
00:14:05.660
contributors on MSNBC. If you don't know who Malcolm Nance is, this story won't be nearly
00:14:13.120
as funny. But apparently he quit MSNBC and he joined the Ukrainian International Legion to
00:14:20.740
go fight for Ukraine. Now, he was in, apparently he's a Navy veteran. I guess he was a linguist
00:14:28.940
or something. I don't know if Malcolm Nance ever saw any actions. Can anybody confirm that?
00:14:37.020
Because he doesn't exactly look like, at least if he was in the Navy, I don't know if he saw
00:14:43.560
any ground action. But there he is pictured in his camouflage and he's got his little name
00:14:49.680
there and he's holding his weapon. And he said he just couldn't stand, you know, reporting
00:14:56.440
on it and not doing something. So he decided to go over there and do something. And aren't
00:15:03.560
you saying to yourself, somebody says he's 61 years old. That feels about right. What do
00:15:10.680
you suppose it is he's doing over there exactly? I don't even know what to think of this. Now,
00:15:19.060
the most logical thing to think of it is not that he's helping Ukraine, but he's maybe getting
00:15:25.500
ready to write a book. You know, he's trying to cash out on it. He's a fluffer, somebody says.
00:15:31.360
Intel gathering? I don't know. CIA stuff, somebody says. I don't know. I feel like there would
00:15:40.540
be a better way to do almost everything. Translation? As a translator? What languages does he speak?
00:15:49.680
Does anybody know what languages Malcolm Nance speaks? He probably speaks a few languages,
00:15:58.440
I'm guessing. Anyway, I don't even know what to say about that story. All I can say is if you know
00:16:06.200
him, and if you know the things he said on MSNBC, he is one of the consistently crazy sounding people.
00:16:15.600
Like on a scale of one to Keith Olbermann, you know, where Olbermann would be like the top
00:16:21.800
of the crazy scale, he'd be sort of a full Olbermann. You know, some people would be like
00:16:28.780
a half Olbermann, but he'd be like a full Olbermann. We'll talk about him a little bit too.
00:16:37.120
All right. Let's see. What else has happened? Remember I told you that if you wanted to predict
00:16:45.220
who's going to win in Ukraine, that the only number that matters at this point would be the
00:16:51.080
number of Switchblade and other drones they have. And I said, if they have enough drones,
00:16:58.200
and presumably they could train people fairly quickly to use them. I don't know how long it
00:17:05.220
takes to, if your life depends on it, how long does it take to learn how to use a drone?
00:17:10.000
A day? I don't know. So 300 Switchblade drones are being sent to Ukraine. So how many Switchblade
00:17:21.400
drones, these would be things which can hover over a target for several minutes, I guess,
00:17:27.460
or half an hour or 10 minutes, whatever it is, and get a really good idea of what's down there
00:17:32.020
before they dive down and destroy it. But they're suicide drones. So you get to use them once,
00:17:39.220
but they're pretty good. But it's sort of one and done. So now they have the ability to make 300
00:17:46.880
Russian assets explode, including maybe some assassinations of generals or whatever.
00:17:55.060
Would 300 successful attacks change the course of the war? I don't think so, right?
00:18:04.060
It wouldn't even be like a dot. Because when the Russians do these bombing runs, aren't they doing
00:18:11.120
thousands and thousands? By the time Russia's done, how many bombing runs will they have made?
00:18:18.060
Like 30,000 or something? It's a gigantic number, isn't it? Because they're just continually going.
00:18:24.160
Right? So it seems to me that if the numbers we're looking at is hundreds, you know, the low hundreds of drones,
00:18:35.120
then Russia gets what it wants. Am I right? Somebody says they've done 1,500 missile strikes that Russia has.
00:18:45.400
And the missiles are just being a small, small percentage of the blow-up stuff they're sending over there.
00:18:53.400
The exploding stuff. All right. So this doesn't look good. If I had to guess, without having any military
00:19:02.100
experience whatsoever, which I think I demonstrate every single day, I don't think that Ukraine could win
00:19:09.580
without 5,000 drones. Suppose they had 5,000 switchblade drones. Could they win? I mean, if 5,000 of Russia's
00:19:24.200
more important assets blew up, I don't know. That feels like that would start to make an impact if they were the
00:19:32.980
right assets at the right time. Suppose they used all of them to take out their supply lines.
00:19:38.360
Would they just rebuild them as fast as they were being destroyed is what wouldn't make any difference?
00:19:43.880
Maybe. But I feel like you could stop an army with 5,000 successful drone strikes. No.
00:19:52.840
If you took out the right stuff. Because remember, it doesn't matter how much stuff Russia has.
00:19:57.380
It only matters how many of it you have to take out to cripple the whole deal. And that would be a much
00:20:02.640
smaller number if you chose correctly. So somebody is pointing out that my military expertise seems to be
00:20:15.400
limited to how I feel. And you are correct. But you agree with the basic idea, right? The basic idea is
00:20:22.940
that some number of drones is definitely not enough. But some number of drones is definitely enough.
00:20:28.240
And it's definitely not 300 drones is enough. I don't think you have to be a military expert to
00:20:35.880
know that, right? That's definitely not enough. But is 5,000? Now, I don't know the answer to that
00:20:43.720
question. But I don't know. I don't think anybody does, right? So he says, so you have no idea what
00:20:51.940
you're talking about? Yeah, I do. I know it's really hard to stop a switchblade drone. And I know
00:20:57.820
that 300 is not enough. And I know that logically, some number would get you anything you want.
00:21:05.800
So, I mean, that seems fairly straightforward. Now, of course, if Russia wanted to win badly
00:21:13.000
enough, it probably wouldn't matter how many drones there were. They would just level Ukraine.
00:21:19.380
All right, let's talk about this weird five-year lag between Trump sounding crazy and Trump a proven
00:21:26.940
right. So I saw a tweet from Jim Jordan, Representative Jordan. And he said, the CIA knew as early as
00:21:35.120
2017, five years ago, that the Trump-Russia collusion data was not technically plausible and was user
00:21:43.120
created, both of those in quotes. So those are based on the actual investigation. That's not just
00:21:48.320
Jordan's opinion. That's what the investigation has turned up so far. And I thought to myself,
00:21:56.360
is that? I wonder if that rule of thumb will hold, that about five years from the time that Trump says
00:22:04.500
something's bullshit, you find out that it was. Because here's some of the other things. When was it
00:22:10.900
that Trump first said Germany would be hostage to Russia's energy policy? Around five years ago?
00:22:19.280
Now, it's not when he first thought of it, but it's when he first said it in public and got mocked,
00:22:24.280
let's say. About five years ago. How about the idea of making the United States energy independent?
00:22:31.120
Right? He was saying that around five, six years ago. About China being our biggest problem
00:22:40.400
and needing to, you know, get business out of there and be tough with them on business and stuff.
00:22:48.060
About five years ago. How about all the noise he made about the border being important? About five years
00:22:55.780
ago? Everything about crime? About five years ago? You know, when he first started talking about
00:23:03.020
everything? Basically, all you have to do is take Trump minus five years and you can find out
00:23:10.600
everything that's important and big. So here's something I have some questions about. There's
00:23:17.880
apparently a hashtag slash movement called dark MAGA. Hashtag dark MAGA. It involves themes in which
00:23:27.140
Trump related images are being treated as, you know, just red and black, scary looking images. And
00:23:36.840
I've heard it described, and I have a real question here. So here's where my skepticism is turned up.
00:23:44.140
I've heard it described as a movement that's waiting for Trump to return to seek vengeance on all those
00:23:51.220
who hurt him or Republicans, I guess. Now, certainly there are plenty of Republicans who have that
00:23:59.260
mindset. Can't wait for Trump to get reelected and clean out the swamp. But, you know, the swamp didn't
00:24:07.320
get that cleaned out last time, did it? I don't remember a lot of swamp draining going on. Not a lot
00:24:14.400
of that happened. In fact, the swamp drained Trump is, looks like what happened. But this is how it was
00:24:24.580
described by one tweet. Or is this CNN? I think CNN said this. Behind the movement, this dark MAGA
00:24:33.660
movement, they're calling it, there's no single identifiable group or a clear ideology. G-Net,
00:24:40.740
whoever that is said, many of the messages posted by dark MAGA supporters incite violence and contain
00:24:46.500
misogynistic and or racist comments. Dark MAGA. Now, you might remember that in 2016,
00:24:54.840
I called out the word dark as something that was probably expert made. And I had guessed that maybe,
00:25:01.200
you know, Robert Cialdini, who has advised Democrats for president in the past, such as
00:25:09.200
Obama. They probably, somebody like him, came up with that, because it's so sticky, you can make
00:25:15.440
everything fit into it. It's like, oh, Trump said this. Well, that's kind of dark. Oh, a Republican
00:25:21.480
said that. Oh, that's a dark image. And that if you just get this idea of dark in people's minds,
00:25:27.480
dark just brings with it all the scary stuff. Right? So, um, it seems to me it would be a branding
00:25:38.060
mistake for pro-Trump people to use dark in their, uh, branding. Now, I think it did work in the case
00:25:49.120
of deplorables. And if you're black in America, it probably does work to use the N-word as sort of,
00:25:58.160
you know, owning, owning the word that was so painful in the past. So you can take something
00:26:02.740
that was used, that used against you and flip it around and use it as a badge of, you know,
00:26:08.420
strength or something, I guess. So sometimes you can do that, but I don't think this is a good
00:26:13.200
application of that. In my opinion, uh, the MAGA people, if they wanted to win, should stay as far
00:26:20.780
away from the word dark as they possibly can. Because what is the biggest issue that, uh, anybody
00:26:27.940
who might be a little bit, you know, independent on this, what is the biggest issue they have with
00:26:32.300
Trump? That he's scary and dark and, you know, he just scares the crap out of people. The way that
00:26:41.320
Trump won the first time was by being super provocative and aggressive. Is that the same
00:26:46.980
way he would win the second time when the polls have him beating everybody already? We're doing
00:26:51.860
nothing. He doesn't happen to do anything and apparently he's ahead in the polls. Should he use
00:26:56.740
the same strategy of ultimate provocation? Well, it depends if he, if he can adjust strategy to fit a
00:27:05.120
situation. Have you seen evidence that he can, he can radically change his approach
00:27:10.680
to fit a new situation? Uh, yes and no. It's not really clear. Trump is famously flexible. I mean,
00:27:24.920
he used to be a Democrat and then he became a Republican, right? That's pretty flexible. But
00:27:29.840
that's also historical. You know, once you become president and you, you got there doing a certain
00:27:35.400
technique, it's kind of hard to stop doing the thing that worked. Even if you think it might be
00:27:40.860
time to, you know, destroy your old self to build a new self for the new challenge, you end up fighting
00:27:47.300
the last war the same way. Or you end up fighting the new war as if it were the last war. It's, it's one
00:27:53.880
of those human, human, uh, let's say impulses. I would call it a failing except that it's sort of
00:28:00.200
universal. We all do it. You're always fighting the last war. Let me, let me put it out there. If,
00:28:07.340
if Trump could act any way that works and he were not a slave to his past, if he could be anything
00:28:13.840
that would just be good, what would be by far the number one thing that would get him elected
00:28:19.100
for a second term? Number one would be play nice because his, his followers would know what he was
00:28:29.420
doing. They'd say, Oh, I get it. He's just playing nice to get elected, but he's still Trump. You
00:28:35.560
know, once he gets elected, he's going to still do all the things he wants to do, but he could
00:28:39.140
radically change the way he talks about things. Talking about the border, he could simply talk
00:28:44.580
about the pressure it's putting on the low income people at the border. The pressure it's putting on
00:28:50.320
black Americans. And just leave it at that. He, he doesn't even have to make a big deal about
00:28:55.980
building a wall. He doesn't have to, because his case is already won. When he started out with the
00:29:03.020
whole wall thing, in my opinion, it was brilliant persuasion because he was trying to make a big
00:29:09.180
impact and draw all the attention to him on that subject, but he succeeded. Now everybody understands
00:29:15.660
this whole border thing is a problem. Stop arguing. You know, this is a classic case where you don't want
00:29:22.540
to sell past the close. Trump has the close. He closed the sale without trying after office. By
00:29:31.600
leaving office and showing that the alternative to Trump's policies were a disaster, he closed the
00:29:36.780
sale. He can let the press do it for him. He should now stop selling. Stop talking about a wall
00:29:43.860
because that will only piss people off. Build a wall. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Build the wall
00:29:50.580
because he already won that argument. You don't need to argue the thing you already want.
00:29:55.800
Just, you know, quietly start it up again. If somebody asks you, and they would ask,
00:30:01.700
are you going to rebuild the wall? The proper answer is not build the wall, build the wall,
00:30:07.200
you know, jail Hillary Clinton. That's just old. The new answer should be, we should do a variety of
00:30:14.580
things that work. But yeah, I think the border wall is important to beef it up in areas where we have
00:30:21.620
a special problem. Over time, maybe we could get the whole thing walled, but we certainly want to do
00:30:27.060
whatever works as quickly as possible to get it under control. Am I right? Because who's going to argue
00:30:33.720
with that at this point? Because even the Democrats agree with a little bit of wall makes a difference.
00:30:38.640
Even they agree with that. So just agree with the Democrats. Say it's a huge problem. And everybody
00:30:45.540
knows what you're going to do about it. They all know that he's going to do the same thing he did
00:30:50.260
last time. There's no mystery. You don't have to rub it in. You don't even have to make a big deal
00:30:55.900
about how right you are. Because it's just in front of everybody. They can see it. He would make a big deal
00:31:01.720
about it. Now, Trump's big asset is that he could absorb all of the energy from the press. So if you
00:31:14.860
were doing that again, is that still the right thing now? Because I think he got too much energy,
00:31:21.280
really. Maybe he could tone down the energy and he would still have energy the other side by a mile.
00:31:28.220
Well, here's another thing Trump was right on. So the murder rate in America is way up,
00:31:37.860
but it's especially shocking in black populations. So the black American murder rate shot up 43%
00:31:45.680
in 2020. So the beginning of the pandemic and when there was a lot of Black Lives Matter stuff.
00:31:52.620
So after the Black Lives Matter movement, it's stated a very clear intention to improve the
00:32:01.220
impression of, you know, the value of black lives and also to improve their situation and to make it
00:32:08.820
especially, more than anything, especially safe in terms of the police and, you know, physical safety.
00:32:15.160
But the outcome was exactly the opposite and in a big way, that the murder rate just shot up and the
00:32:23.340
black, on black crime especially, is through the roof. It was Trump right that, you know, keeping the
00:32:33.180
police well-funded and doing what we used to do would be better than defunding the police? Probably so.
00:32:40.840
Probably was right. All right. Let's talk about Twitter. Rasmussen did a poll and 39% of American
00:32:50.520
adults believe it would be good for Twitter if Musk bought the company. So 39% are on Musk's side about
00:32:58.440
buying the company. 22% think it would be bad for Twitter. Now, I think a better question would be
00:33:05.380
bad for America or good for America. But bad or good for Twitter is an interesting way to put that.
00:33:13.220
All right. But 26% think it would not make much difference if the richest man in the world,
00:33:18.640
whose intention is to change the lever that moves all of free speech, which is really the operating
00:33:25.700
system for civilization. 26% think that that wouldn't make much difference. No, no. No, only the most
00:33:35.380
impactful entrepreneur of our lifetime who's got a stated goal of really, really changing things
00:33:44.740
and already has his teeth into it. 26% think that's not going to make much difference. I mean, how much
00:33:53.220
difference could it make if Elon Musk owns the company? What has he ever done that surprised you? Right?
00:34:00.580
26%. 26%. 26%. If we were to round that, it's about 25%. 25%. I think Elon Musk wouldn't make much
00:34:16.480
difference if he bought Twitter. For those of you who are just joining us, I always point out that 25%
00:34:23.620
of people polled get every answer wrong. I don't know if it's the same 25%. I worry that it is.
00:34:34.020
I'm concerned that it's always the same 25%. But I'd like to think it's a different 25% for each
00:34:39.780
question. Well, so there's, as I tweeted cryptically, there's sort of an I am Spartacus thing happening
00:34:49.700
right now. And if you know the reference from movie Spartacus, Spartacus was hiding among the slaves and
00:34:58.260
when the Romans were asking for the Spartacus to stand up because they didn't have facial
00:35:04.660
recognition back then, so they couldn't tell who was Spartacus in this crowd of slaves. Somebody who
00:35:10.020
was not Spartacus stood up to accept whatever punishment Spartacus would have. And they're like,
00:35:16.420
okay, you know, I guess if you say you're Spartacus, come here, we'll kill you. And then somebody else
00:35:20.740
stood up. And then slowly, everybody stands up and they're all Spartacus. So, you know, it's kind of
00:35:28.580
like famous movie scene. And I'm watching what I would call a subtle Spartacus movement in which people
00:35:36.420
who have tremendous influence in society, but they're not elected. It's just people whose opinions are going
00:35:45.380
to move your opinion more than other people. They're starting to emerge. I told you that Naval has
00:35:55.220
just sort of very subtly weighed in and said, of course, we're going to fight over Twitter. Of
00:36:01.700
course, we're going to fight. He didn't say what side he's on, because he doesn't. He famously is
00:36:08.020
non-aligned left or right. But do you think he's against free speech? Do you? Do you think he's
00:36:17.140
against free speech? I don't think so. I don't think so. But the most surprising one?
00:36:24.980
Jack Dorsey. It wasn't surprising that the news says that Joe Rogan isn't strongly backing
00:36:31.220
Musk for buying Twitter. You weren't surprised at that. But interesting that it's a major story,
00:36:38.340
right? Because Joe Rogan's influence and credibility is now so big that the fact that he endorses somebody
00:36:46.740
for a specific action is national news. I mean, who else does that? How about Bill Maher? Bill Maher
00:36:55.700
is also pro-Musk in terms of buying Twitter. Interesting, isn't it? I guess he's Spartacus too.
00:37:05.220
So, but the most interesting Spartacus is Jack Dorsey, who on Twitter, of all places, has now insulted
00:37:16.260
Twitter's board of directors for their competency. So there was a post by somebody else.
00:37:25.700
In which the user quipped that the company's early beginning was mired in plots and coup among
00:37:32.020
its founding executives. And I guess Jack Dorsey liked that. But then he gets in a little back and
00:37:38.980
forth with Brian Stelter of CNN. And he also talked about how CNN had faked a news report in Ferguson,
00:37:53.140
and Jack Dorsey was there and watched it live. So he actually was there in person in Ferguson during
00:37:59.060
the riot situation there, and watched CNN trying to incite some trouble to get it on camera.
00:38:06.340
And I would imagine that's the sort of thing that changes you. So here's what's news about it. First of
00:38:12.580
all, to have Jack Dorsey publicly criticize the board of directors of Twitter as the problem with
00:38:22.260
Twitter. And somebody asked him, are you allowed to do that? And he said succinctly, no.
00:38:28.100
Are you allowed to criticize the board of Twitter? No. And then he did it. It's I am Spartacus. It's
00:38:40.100
basically a whole bunch of people who are just done. They're just fucking done. They're done with
00:38:46.180
being gaslit by everyone. Right? It's not just Fox News. It's not just CNN. It's just fucking
00:38:53.300
everyone. Just everyone's gaslighting everyone. And there appear to be some very influential people
00:38:59.220
who are just done. They're just done with that. So yeah, I can't say this? Okay, I'm gonna do it.
00:39:04.980
I can't endorse this guy? I'm gonna do it anyway. Bill Maher, I can't endorse somebody who's, you know,
00:39:10.580
not all on the left. Well, I'm gonna do it anyway. So there are some Spartacai. That's the plural of
00:39:17.300
Spartacus, if you didn't know. So the Spartacai are starting to line up. I will add my own, you know,
00:39:24.980
tiny Spartacus influence to say I'm 100% behind Musk buying Twitter. 100%. I don't have even the
00:39:32.980
slightest reservation about that one. And I would argue that there's nobody really, really smart who
00:39:42.340
disagrees with Musk buying Twitter. Or at least I haven't seen one. So I've seen people, you know,
00:39:50.500
I've seen Max Boot say it's a bad idea. You might see some people who are purely political say it's a bad
00:39:57.380
idea. But you can't count that. They're just being purely political. But tell me, just show me somebody
00:40:04.580
who's sort of not famously political, an independent thinker with an IQ over 140.
00:40:14.340
It's pretty high bar. Show me somebody who's who's a history of independent thinking, an American,
00:40:20.660
with an IQ over 140, who has any problem with Musk buying Twitter. I'll bet there are not many of
00:40:28.580
those. I'll bet they're not mine. Let's take, let's see, Warren Buffett. I haven't heard from him. I
00:40:38.740
don't think he's made any comment, right? I'm not sure he will. But do you think Warren Buffett, who is
00:40:43.700
very clearly in the Democrat realm, do you think that Warren Buffett, if asked, would say it's a bad
00:40:51.620
idea for Musk to take over Twitter? I don't know. He might make some general statements about, you
00:40:58.740
know, billionaire control of the media or something. But I've got a feeling he would not be against that.
00:41:05.380
I don't think anybody above a certain IQ with a history of independence, I'm not talking about
00:41:10.660
somebody who's actually a politician, but people with a history of some independent thought. I don't
00:41:15.140
think any of them are going to be on the other side. Could be wrong. We'll see.
00:41:26.340
So the other thing that Jack said, Jack Dorsey, you tweeted at Stelter because Stelter was
00:41:33.940
criticizing Tucker Carlson. So Brian Stelter of CNN goes after Tucker Carlson in a quote and said,
00:41:42.580
Tucker Carlson is always selling the same thing. He's selling doubt. And I think he was pointing
00:41:47.620
to somebody else's article on that. So he's selling doubt. And then Jack Dorsey responded to that tweet
00:41:55.380
by saying, and you all are selling hope. Now, how many of you, how many of you believed
00:42:04.820
that Jack Dorsey was just, you know, he's just a Democrat and probably pretty AOC-ish. And that's
00:42:11.940
it. So that's how you understand him. He's just, he's just a Democrat. How many of you thought he was
00:42:16.900
just way over there on the left? I don't think that's ever been true. Let me give you a little
00:42:25.460
test. Who is the person who has most publicly been saying, and for years now, has been saying
00:42:33.460
that Twitter should change its algorithm so that the users have an option of what to do with it? So
00:42:39.060
it's not up to the company what you see. Who is the most famous person who has been criticizing
00:42:44.020
Twitter's algorithm for the last several years? Jack Dorsey. Jack Dorsey is the most vocal,
00:42:52.740
you know, at least, you know, noticeable person who has been criticizing Twitter's algorithm
00:42:59.220
and the way they do it. And how long was he still at Twitter when that change was never made?
00:43:06.020
Have you been watching that? Because the first time he said that, I thought, oh, obviously they're
00:43:09.780
working on that now. Because the CEO doesn't say we need to do this, unless they're working on it,
00:43:16.180
because it's just software. I mean, certainly within the doable category of things, right?
00:43:22.740
But then Jack Dorsey leaves and criticizes the board. It sounds like we're finding out maybe one
00:43:29.300
of the reasons, certainly not the only one, but we might be finding out one of the reasons he left.
00:43:34.260
It might be that he had a problem with Twitter's free speech management and that he had suggested
00:43:40.340
an obvious way to address it. Very obvious. The obvious way to address it is to let people choose
00:43:47.380
their algorithm and just make it obvious what they get if they choose it. And he got ignored.
00:43:54.100
Well, I don't know if ignored is the right word, but he was not successful in getting that at the
00:43:58.500
company he ran. And then he left. So I feel like the board may have, this is just speculation based
00:44:08.660
on your reading from the outside, which is pretty dangerous. But the speculation is that maybe the
00:44:14.180
board prevented him from fixing the company in a way that any reasonable person would think was a good
00:44:20.260
idea, give people control over the algorithm. How in the world do you argue against that idea? I've never
00:44:27.060
even heard anybody argue against it, have you? Have you heard a counterpoint to that suggestion? Oh no,
00:44:33.780
don't give users full access to the algorithm that would give them exactly what they asked for.
00:44:38.820
Who exactly is on the other side? And he still couldn't get that done. That tells you everything,
00:44:44.180
doesn't it? And I think that's why he's going full Spartacus. I think he called his time exactly right.
00:44:52.820
Because with Musk's move on Twitter, this is exactly the right time for an independent thinker,
00:45:03.380
who I will surprise you by telling you he is. Surprise, he's an independent thinker.
00:45:09.220
And he called his timing perfectly. This is exactly the right time to do it.
00:45:15.140
So watch that space. That's going to get better. Better and better.
00:45:24.820
I love, as much as I don't like the black MAGA meme, I suppose the people who are doing it
00:45:32.660
probably just like the look of it. It's kind of, you know, it's kind of awesome looking. But I would
00:45:38.340
back away from anything that could be used that easily against you. However, I'm seeing the phrase
00:45:45.300
COVIDians used a lot by the people who are mocking the people who are too afraid to drop the mandates
00:45:52.900
mostly and the masks. But Colin, you remember the Branch Davidians in Waco? They were a splinter
00:46:02.820
Christian group. I don't know what to call them. But it was a religious group, sort of a cult.
00:46:12.020
But calling the people who were afraid to take off their masks, the mask COVIDians,
00:46:19.140
is just so clever. It's not really persuasive. I don't think. I mean, not in a way that matters,
00:46:25.540
because people are just going to do what they want to do now. So, you know, I'm not even sure
00:46:30.260
persuasion matters. Okay. So I'll just say that I love that branding, the mask COVIDians. All
00:46:46.260
right. And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes my prepared remarks. Again, one of the all time,
00:46:54.340
most insightful and greatest things you've ever seen in your life. And it makes you feel good
00:47:00.180
too. Where else could you go to become smarter and better looking at the same time? Almost nowhere.
00:47:07.460
Almost nowhere. You don't think I could make you better looking? Do you think I could use persuasion
00:47:13.700
to make you better looking? Does anybody believe I could do that? I could do that. It's easy. Because
00:47:22.660
people who are confident look better. It's that easy. So hypnosis can make you more confident. Do you know
00:47:29.780
one way you can do it? To tell you you look great and you look sexy and you've never looked better. In fact,
00:47:36.740
I can tell that you've improved your workout since the pandemic. I see you've taken it up a notch.
00:47:43.060
You're looking not only sexier, but more confident. I've noticed that your posture is better.
00:47:50.420
Now, spend a little time today to improve your posture while you're walking.
00:47:57.220
Just when you're walking somewhere, just improve your posture. And watch how you're better looking.
00:48:05.540
And it's only because I suggested it that made you think of it. And then you thought of it and it was
00:48:09.700
easy to do and you just stood up a little straighter. And as soon as you stood up a little straighter,
00:48:14.340
felt a little more confident. And people looking at you thought to themselves, well, you're a little more attractive.
00:48:21.380
So I just persuaded you to look more attractive. Literally. That just happened. Now, not every one of you
00:48:32.420
in some big way. But again, it's the law of big numbers. If there are a number of people who watch this,
00:48:38.260
some substantial number of you will think, yeah, I will put my shoulders back. And I will, I will
00:48:45.140
straighten my spine and tuck in my butt. And you will actually be more attractive.
00:48:52.500
So sometimes these things are not that hard to accomplish. So that was your, I guess that's your
00:48:59.060
treat for following to the end. Have you noticed that I sometimes put the most useful
00:49:03.300
bits at the end? Oh, it's part of my technique to make you addicted. And it's working. That's right.
00:49:15.620
Now, if you don't believe that me simply telling you through the screen that you're
00:49:20.420
sexier and better looking will work, then you haven't learned yet enough about persuasion. Because
00:49:26.900
it doesn't matter if you, if you regard the persuasion as true. It matters if you hear it a lot.
00:49:33.940
That's it. And you're hearing it because this format is what I call a mass personal experience.
00:49:41.380
So it's a mass broadcast to lots of people, but it's weirdly personal, isn't it? And because it feels
00:49:47.620
personal, because it's me talking to you, and I'm telling you that all you have to do is
00:49:53.620
straighten up your back and act a little more confident, and other people will see you that way.
00:50:00.900
It's going to have more impact than if it was something you read in a magazine or something.
00:50:05.620
Because of the nature of this, it makes it, it will make your brain act as though it worked. Oh,
00:50:13.140
here's the freakiest thing. You ready for this? This is something that I may have discovered
00:50:19.060
something, but I want you to test it. Because I only have one anecdotal experience. Please test this.
00:50:25.860
It goes like this. You have to sneeze. Back to the sneezing thing. But you can't. Let's say you're
00:50:32.660
someplace you don't want to sneeze. Last night, the cat was on my chest. I was really happy. He was
00:50:38.260
kneading into the blanket and stuff. And I didn't want to sneeze and scare her off. And so I was trying to
00:50:44.420
work her into the idea that a sneeze was coming by starting small, if I could hold off the actual
00:50:53.140
sneeze. So I started this way. I went, achoo. And she didn't move. And then I went, achoo.
00:51:01.300
She still didn't move. Then I went, achoo. And she still didn't move. And I thought, okay, now she's primed.
00:51:09.140
Because when the real one comes, it's going to be a little louder than that last one. But maybe she's now
00:51:13.620
used to it as something that doesn't hurt. And the next one will be like, achoo. But you know what
00:51:18.460
happened? My fake sneeze made my urge to actually sneeze stop instantly. And I said to myself,
00:51:31.220
oh my god, I'll bet that could actually work. Here's the hypothesis. The hypothesis is that the
00:51:36.980
sneeze is forming in your brain, not your body. And that if your brain was satisfied that you had
00:51:43.880
sneezed, it would turn off the impulse. And I believe that my fake artificial sneeze turned off
00:51:51.220
the switch to make me actually sneeze. So here's what I want you to test. The next time you have a
00:51:58.060
sneeze coming, and you're sure it's one that's going to happen, do a loud fake sneeze, assuming you're
00:52:04.240
somewhere where you can do that. Just go, achoo, and try to sell it. But it's definitely not a real
00:52:10.220
sneeze. Watch what happens to the real one. If it turns off, it's going to blow your frickin' mind
00:52:20.200
like it did mine last night. Now, I don't know if this could work for me again. And I don't know if
00:52:26.360
it was just a coincidence. But I've never stopped to sneeze before, have you? Have you ever stopped to
00:52:32.720
sneeze? I mean, the closest I've ever come is like the kind. But I stopped at cold. Like, it was a
00:52:41.100
definite sneeze, and it just, boop, gone. Somebody here says it works. All right, so you need to test
00:52:49.960
that for me, and forget, I'll forget that I asked you to do it. So test it for me. The first time you
00:52:56.480
get a hit on it, if it works, you have to message me, or put it in the comments, or tweet it at me,
00:53:01.920
or something. Because if this works, it's going to change everything you think about everything.
00:53:07.500
And it might work. So that's your test for the day. And YouTube, I will see you tomorrow.