Episode 1719 Scott Adams: Practical Solutions, Climate Change, Fake News, Poverty, Systemic Racism
Episode Stats
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154.07997
Summary
A solution to nuclear power plants, climate change, and nuclear meltdowns, and the future of the nuclear industry. Today's episode is a mashup of a few of my favorite solutions to some of the world's most thorny problems.
Transcript
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Good morning, everybody, and welcome to not only the highlight of civilization and the
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best day of your life, but today I'm going to solve some of civilization's most thorny
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Now, I'm not saying that I'm making up all these solutions myself.
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In one case, I'm just going to tell you about a solution maybe you didn't know about, but
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in a few other cases, I'm actually going to solve the biggest problems in the world.
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Well, doubters, stay around, but wouldn't you like to take it up a notch for this special
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It's April 20th, and on April 20th, do we do the simultaneous sip?
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Well, optionally, you could, but for this day only, in celebration of the specialness
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of it, we will be doing the simultaneous whatever, today only.
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And all you need is a cup or mug or a glass, or whatever, a tank or Chelsea Stein, a canteen
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junk or plastic, a vessel of any kind, fill it with your favorite liquid, or whatever.
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It's called the simultaneous whatever, and it happens now.
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Are you ready for me to solve or tell you the solution?
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The company Rolls-Royce does more than make cars.
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They have a nuclear division, and their nuclear division says that by 2024, they expect that,
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at least in the UK, they'll have a regulatory approval for factory-built mini-nuclear power
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And what this means is they will have solved the economics of safe nuclear power by 2024.
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Now, of course, it would take a while for the United States to do something like it.
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But what they will have done is proven the model.
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Once they prove the model, then other companies presumably will follow the model.
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The problem with building a nuclear power plant is that they're all one-off.
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Every design uses stuff that exists, but the total design is sort of new every time
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because there's always an element added and that sort of thing.
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But suppose every nuclear power plant were exactly the same, and they were small enough
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so that the components of them could be built in the factory, and every one would be the
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So once you've approved this kit, if you will, these parts that one factory makes so they
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can be put together in the field, assembled and then transported because they'd be small
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enough, you can get your economics of mass production down, you can get your approval
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cycle, which is sometimes the biggest problem, way down, you can move them to places that are
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underserved because they're small, you could probably put them in areas that would be, let's
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say, less of an exclusionary zone just because people are still afraid of anything nuclear.
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But if it's a small one, I don't know, I'm just guessing, this is just speculation, but
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If you said to somebody, here's this giant domed building that looks dangerous just from
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a distance with a big stack and there's some kind of steam coming out, you see one of those
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things and you think, if that baby blows, that's going to take out the whole state.
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It's not true, but when you look at it, it looks like it is a bomb, right?
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That big dome, doesn't it look like it sort of looks like a bomb?
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I mean, it doesn't look like a building, does it?
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But when you make the small ones, you can actually make them architecturally cute.
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And imagine, if you will, the psychology of the people who have to, let's say, live with
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these dotted around the landscape, if they see these cute little ones and you say to
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them, hey, this is the new technology, it's a technology that has never melted down, which
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The current version of nuclear has never melted down.
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It's only the earlier versions that have ever had an incident.
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So, if you told the story as if it's new, hey, people, do you remember that old, dangerous
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There were these big power plants, they even looked like bombs.
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Most of them, or a lot of them, not most of them, a lot of them were the old technology
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Well, did you know that the new technology that they're putting in these little cute ones
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Well, I mean, I guess theoretically they could, but never happened.
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Hasn't happened yet, hasn't happened in any country, hasn't happened for Michael Schellenberger,
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They've been around a long time, just not in these tiny forms.
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So, if you could solve the economics, which it looks like if they get approval, it's kind
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of solved, at least on the concept level, meaning that that model could be cloned.
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And then if you get the regulatory thing, which is part of the economics, and then if you get
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the psychology right by making them smaller and say, oh, this is the new stuff, you're
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But the new stuff, and the little cute buildings, oh, you definitely want those.
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Oh, it's not even an issue of Democrat versus Republican, because it actually wouldn't be.
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So, if they can really pull this off by 2024, and maybe they're off by a year or two, it's
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plenty in time to get us out of a catastrophic situation.
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And that's not even counting the fact that these could be hooked up to scrubbers.
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You know, once you get the cost of nuclear down, let's say you take it down by a factor
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Could you get down to the point where you would have your dedicated scrubber that would suck
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the CO2 out of the air, have it just connected to one tiny nuclear plant, and then suddenly
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the economics of scrubbing the air turn positive?
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So, if you solve the cost of producing the clean energy, tiny nuclear plant, you can suck
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So, you could have tons of suckers, like you could build a whole desert full of suckers
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with one nuclear power plant and just suck the entire CO2 out of the country.
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If you sucked all the CO2 out of your zip code, would it attract CO2 from other zip codes?
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Or would you have to put all of your suckers in geographically dispersed places?
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I mean, because the CO2 isn't going to know to stop at the border of the zip code.
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So, the first claim I believe I've delivered on, and by the way, the design for these little
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Military nuclear engines have existed for a long time.
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That climate change looks a little bit solved, doesn't it?
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Not as in solved in the past, but we now have a very clear, practical way to get everything
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Now, there's a lot more work, but there's nothing in the way.
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If they can make these economical, how many can they sell?
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Rolls-Royce is going to be like one of the biggest companies in the world if this works.
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Because there's nothing really that would stop it from working.
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Normally, you can look at the situation and say, all right, I can see how they can do a lot
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of this, but how are they going to get past this big obstacle?
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This is just a big truck driving right down a highway toward a solution.
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That's what it looks like, unless there's something I'm missing here.
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And what they were talking about is maybe the problem is that people are sharing their
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subscription, and so they would have more growth except for all the sharing.
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And maybe it's because the pandemic is winding down, and people don't need to be just indoors
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I think it's because a whole bunch of people signed up to Netflix during the pandemic, consumed
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everything on Netflix that they wanted to watch, and then nobody could create enough good content
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So I don't think after you eat a whole bunch of it, there's not really something to keep
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But it has more to do with the fact that the whole genre of movies and scripted TV just
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If it's a drama, or like an action film, if it's an action film, there's going to be a
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car chase, there's going to be somebody strapped to a chair and tortured, there's going to be
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three acts, and it's going to take two and a half hours, and you don't have that kind
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So I think the problem with Netflix is what I've been saying for now for a while, that
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I just can't imagine movies being a legitimate form of entertainment ten years from now.
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I think movies as an art form are just going to slide into oblivion.
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Now, one of the biggest problems is the wokeness.
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For a couple of years, I worked pretty hard on trying to write a script for a really good
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And I got the whole thing, you know, storyboarded out, and I just needed to put it on paper.
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And when I looked at it, I threw away all my two years of work, and I never want to see
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it again, because I realized that I'd written a woke movie.
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Now, this was still several years ago, so it was before the wokeness reached the level it
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So I could already see it coming pretty clearly, maybe, what, five years ago, whatever it was.
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So Dilbert would have a number of big problems in the world that his company would be involved
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But there would be some kind of master hacker, or there would be like some kind of technological
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presence or entity that would be guiding things through the movie so that Dilbert would
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And it would be a mystery throughout the movie who this unknown technical genius was.
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Now, you would have a hint, though, early in the movie there would be some foreshadowing,
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because you would know that Dilbert's father had gone to the all-you-could-eat buffet and
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So that Dilbert grew up without knowing his father, except for maybe the first few years
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So you would be led to believe that his father was probably some kind of a super genius.
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You'd meet his mother, too, who raised Dilbert.
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And you would presume that whatever Dilbert got that makes him such a good engineer, that
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And that you're going to find that his father's been guiding him the whole time as sort of
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the secret entity who's like a super engineer, and that Dilbert's like the son of the super
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And that his mom had to pretend not to be technically proficient all her life because of gender
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And that, in the end, you would see her back cave, and that she was the one running the
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You see why I had to throw the whole fucking thing away?
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All I did was take society's expectations and put them in a forum and then give it back
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I basically took what people wanted to see, put a bow on it, and handed it back to them.
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It was so creatively empty that I hated myself for it.
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If we had not already entered the wokeness era, I think it would have been a great movie.
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And it would, you know, break gender stereotypes and stuff.
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And I don't think you could get any other kind of a movie funded.
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I think your movie would have to have some woke element to it or climate change element
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Although I think it would have made a lot of money.
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So I'm not going to make a big deal about this because you hate it.
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But CNN is now saying there's a study that I don't believe that says that regular masks protect the wearer.
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I thought we went through the whole pandemic thinking that the masks were for the benefit of the other people.
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It was going to stop the infected from pluming.
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But now we're saying that, of course, the N95s, we always imagined, might be useful.
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I think everybody says, oh, if you had a well-fitted N95, you know, that you could change out regularly, that'd probably help you.
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It's just these regular, like, weak surgical masks.
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And CNN is saying that there was some tiny little study that said there was a big difference.
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And the people who wore the surgical masks were way less likely to get infected.
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Would you believe that just comparing people who chose to wear masks to people who chose not to is going to get you some kind of a useful result?
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Because don't you think that the person who chooses to wear a mask is also choosing a whole range of behaviors that would be compatible with that mindset, such as, do they shake hands?
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Don't you think that the people who don't wear masks are more likely to actually, like, shake hands, get up close to you, talk to another person up close who doesn't have a mask on?
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I mean, basically, their entire lifestyle would be different.
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So to imagine that this has been proven in some little study looks to me like, well, I'm not sure if it's intentional disinformation, but it's bullshit.
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It's fake news in the sense that you shouldn't rely on this study to tell you anything useful.
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And the fact that they're selling this as a fact, yuck.
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To keep my promise, I will now handle systemic racism.
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Recently, someone asked, someone in my social circle, asked me for some business advice.
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Now, it turns out that because I was a banker for a long time, I made loans to small businesses, I've got an MBA, I've started some small businesses of my own.
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I'm sort of a good person to ask for general advice about what to do first if you're starting a business.
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And so I gave my advice, and, you know, I got a nice thank you for it.
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And I thought to myself, you know, it wasn't like a specific piece of advice.
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And I thought to myself, why did this one person get my advice?
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Because I'm pretty sure that my success was dependent on other people's advice.
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You know, I literally asked somebody who knew how to be a cartoonist, how do you get started being a cartoonist?
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So how did I get that advice that changed the entire course of my life?
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And I got the advice from somebody I don't know, a complete stranger.
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Well, I got the advice by just approaching the person by a letter and asking for advice.
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I didn't say, I'll make you feel good if you give me some advice.
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I literally just asked for something for nothing.
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Not only did I get the advice, but I got a follow-up advice I didn't even ask for.
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And it was the follow-up advice that I followed that got me to here, where I'm talking to you.
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And so whenever I get a chance and somebody asks me for advice, I give it.
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Have you ever heard of a comic called Pearls Before Swine?
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Now, if you've read the creator's story, you'll know that his origin story involves me.
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But he also met with me, and we're friends at this point.
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And he basically just reached out and said, can you spend some time with me?
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I've given a lot of people, especially artists, advice.
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Usually they say something like, oh, thank you, but, you know, I have a reason to go a different direction.
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But the people who followed my advice do pretty well.
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And I would say that the only reason I'm where I am is that I followed somebody else's advice.
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Or, to say it better, one part of the problem is already solved.
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Here's the problem that's already solved for systemic racism.
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If you're, I'll just pick an example, a young black man with an education, do you think you'll do okay?
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Yeah, because every corporation is trying to fix their, or improve their diversity.
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I mean, you could argue about the wokeness of it and whether, you know, I'm not going to argue whether they should do it.
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If you're a black, educated young man, you have a way better chance of getting a job than the identical white man in the same situation, with the same education.
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And likewise for getting a college scholarship or even being accepted in a good college.
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Two equally qualified young black man, young white man, same grades, same SAT scores.
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The young black man wins that contest every time.
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So, if that's so good for the people who are starting in the hole, aren't we done?
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My point of view is, if all these opportunities exist, and you just have to take advantage of them, exactly as I did.
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I went to work for a big corporation, because when I went there, I was still in demand.
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So, I went there, and they trained me, and I was better off for it.
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So, I keep telling myself, well, I started with basically nothing, and I went exactly where they can go.
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I worked in school exactly like anybody else can.
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And one of the reasons is, that some people get advice.
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Now, I sought out mentors, but I don't think that's normal.
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And I can tell you that people have sought me out a number of times.
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Do you know who I say yes to almost every time?
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What demographic groups do I say yes to almost every time?
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And would I more likely give them advice than somebody I knew to be white and male?
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I'd probably give anybody advice if they were local, and they had a good reason, and I could help them.
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Now, I realize I'm opening myself up here to be attacked by people who want advice.
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And I have to tell you, I just don't have the time to do most of it.
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But there is people who succeed, and if there's anybody on here who wants to confirm this,
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if you have succeeded, let's say financially, if you've succeeded, aren't you really happy to give advice?
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Black people, and anybody, any person of color, anybody who's, you know, starting in a hole, for whatever reason,
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there are plenty of people who will give you advice, and it will change your life if you follow it.
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But you've just got to reach out, you've just got to ask, and then follow the advice.
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Now, I do get that that's harder culturally across some boundaries.
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You know, it's easier for a woman to ask a woman.
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But let me tell you, you're really missing out, because men will give you all the advice you want.
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They'll give you more advice than you ever wanted.
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And, you know, so I think the mentoring and advice connection is the only thing that needs to be fixed.
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Because if you can catch young black families, and I'm going to say the parents and especially the mother,
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if you can catch them early, with the right kind of advice, just connect them to some kind of mentoring situation,
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then they can get to the second part, which is the corporations really want to hire them.
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So the second part of the plan for giving everybody equal opportunity is done.
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It's connected you to people who can just, like, nudge you in the right direction.
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If you take away the advice that I got at key points along the way, I'm not here.
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Now, what I had going for me is I was going to go get that advice.
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If I had to steal it, I probably would have gone and gotten it.
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I sort of had a mindset that there wasn't any obstacle that was going to stop me.
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But that's also not normal, and I don't think you can teach it.
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I think it's like a genetic flaw that has some weird advantages to it.
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My genetic flaw is that I can't be satisfied with what I have.
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So it's like a, it's like this, you know, it's almost like an illness.
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And a lot of successful people will tell you the same thing.
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But whatever it was that got you there doesn't turn off.
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So what about everybody who doesn't have that flaw that they just have to keep going?
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I think you have to find a way that the mentors find them to make it easy to get that advice.
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I don't think you can count on a young black kid to go find some successful white adult or any successful adult of any kind and go ask for advice.
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So let's see, systemic racism fixed, climate change fixed.
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I'm going to tell you a little very interesting story that's happening right now.
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And then I'll tell you how to solve all of fake news and disinformation.
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So watching Jack Dorsey, I'm going to say off the leash, meaning he's going full free speech about free speech.
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So Jack Dorsey, you know, founder and ex-CEO of Twitter, until now I think he's said things that a CEO can say for the most part.
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You know, things that are sort of, you know, as non-controversial as a CEO should be.
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And I've told you his other opinions, and he's very free speech.
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And that's going to be important to something I'm getting to in a bit.
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But he had this little exchange with Mark Benioff, founder of Salesforce.
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So I spent some time with Mark Benioff before giving a talk at Salesforce.
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And I came away thinking that he's the real deal, meaning that he's somehow plugged into some extra dimension in a way that's hard to explain.
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That he's just not operating like normal people.
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What you feel is that he's operating at a higher level of awareness in which he has found that capitalism and being good for people seems to be compatible.
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How can you be a soulless capitalist at the same time you're trying to take care of people?
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And somehow, somehow, he's kind of making it work, at least within his world.
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Because Salesforce has this, I may be mischaracterizing this, but it's like a 1%, 1%, 1% rule about everybody should do something for charity.
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And I watched him be serious about it in person.
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Like I watched him chastise, that's too strong a word, but let's say continuously correct one of his lieutenants
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for not featuring the people part of it before the business part of it.
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So I know that he's serious about it, or I feel that he's serious about it.
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So I don't think he's cynical at all, betting off.
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I think he really wants to help the world and get rich, and it's working.
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So he tweeted a picture, so Mark Benioff tweets a picture of himself on the cover of CEO magazine, right?
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Which is interesting that you tweet a cover of himself on CEO magazine.
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Capitalism, as we have known it, is dead, and the obsession that we have with maximizing profits for shareholders alone
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has led to incredible inequality and a planetary emergency.
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When we serve all stakeholders, business is the greatest platform for change.
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So there's Benioff making a call to helping people, but also having a business be robust and part of the solution.
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that Benioff had recently, in 2018 I guess, purchased Time magazine.
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So did you know that Benioff owned Time magazine?
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Now, what I love about this is you have to know about the context
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and sort of read between the lines to know what this is about.
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You know, I can't read his mind, so this is always dangerous.
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But the way I interpret it is that Jack's new, not new,
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but let's say his outspokenness about freedom of speech
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That here's Benioff saying the good things he's doing
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And when the rich people own the communication channels,
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Nope, but Jack, I can get you a subscription to Time.
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And then he shows a cover of Elon Musk on the cover of Time
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So you have to know all these stories and how everything connects
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So, you know, you'd think that it would be done.
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would be like people congratulating themselves.