Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 1753 Scott Adams： Take My News Hoax Quiz See If You're Smart Enough To Talk Abt World Events

00:00:00.000 Good morning, everybody. Wow! I don't know, have you been getting extra sleep or working out?

00:00:09.140 Why do you all look so good today? Incredible. I don't know. You get better looking, dare I say,

00:00:15.780 sexier, every single time I see you. And that's no lie. If you'd like to get even sexier,

00:00:23.240 the only thing you need is a cup or mug or a glass of tank or chals or stein, a canteen jug or flask,

00:00:28.380 a vessel of any kind. Fill it with your favorite liquid I like, coffee. And join me now for the

00:00:39.360 unparalleled pleasure. It's the dopamine hit of the day. It sounds like I'm talking dirty,

00:00:46.120 but I'm talking about coffee. Join me now for the... Simultaneous sip. Go.

00:00:52.920 Oh, oh, shudder. I feel a quiver coming. Does anybody else feel it? It's coming on. It's

00:01:07.200 going to be like a shiver. There it was. All right, well, I once again tried to watch this TV show

00:01:14.060 called Star Trek Discovery, a new series. And I told you before, this is an update on what I've told

00:01:22.840 you already, that a lot of the sci-fi has gone extra woke, which is fine, because Star Trek was

00:01:32.360 always the most woke of the early sci-fis. It's one of the things that made it, you know, so big

00:01:39.080 and so popular everywhere. Basically, every person likes Star Trek, you know, every demographic,

00:01:45.020 not every person. But within every demographic, you've got Star Trek fans. So they did a good

00:01:51.100 job with the whole inclusiveness before that was a big deal. But like any good idea, sometimes you can

00:02:01.180 take it too far. You can take it too far. Yeah, like the State Farm commercials. So I watched the third

00:02:08.860 episode, and I swear to God, I'm simply going to describe this. I'm going to describe this.

00:02:16.860 Oops. Not now, Alex, not now. I'm going to describe it the way I saw it. But I'm going to describe the

00:02:30.000 characters in terms of their demographic groups. So I'm just going to tell you the story the way it

00:02:36.420 unfolded. But instead of naming the characters by their names, I'll refer to them by the demographic

00:02:43.120 group they're in. So the number one and number two stars of the show are adult white men. Adult white 0.80

00:02:55.300 men, which is weird because it's such a woke kind of thing. But the episode involved the adult white

00:03:03.560 men being trapped in a storm on a planet until they were rescued by some entities.

00:03:13.120 But the two white men who are the stars of the show didn't have anything to do with the show

00:03:17.800 except they were trapped on the planet. Meanwhile, meanwhile, the women who were in charge of the 1.00

00:03:24.680 enterprise of various species, some were, well, I don't know, actually. I'm not sure if any were

00:03:33.060 meant to be earthlings. But there were various creatures that were female in look. And they saved the

00:03:42.360 day. They saved the day. And it turns out that when they figured out, once the women had saved the

00:03:48.340 day, while the two men were huddled together on the ground on the planet, literally huddled together

00:03:56.060 on the ground on the planet, not part of the plot at all. And they discovered that there was

00:04:02.720 a tragic, dare I say, mistake. There was somebody on the crew who made a terrible mistake. And they'd

00:04:14.720 identify it, they narrowed it down to the one black guy. So the one black guy made a mistake that almost 0.91

00:04:23.880 cost the entire crew their lives. But he was spared by the two women who were in charge, because it was an 1.00

00:04:37.720 honest mistake, I guess. So it must be torturous to try to write plots in 2022, or whenever they wrote it,

00:04:50.040 because you really have to juggle all of these things, so you're not accidentally insulting some

00:04:58.040 group. And how do you really do that? Part of this, I'm responding to it as a writer, as a creator.

00:05:06.960 It is so hard to write any kind of a story that people want to hear. There's a reason that people

00:05:15.500 who can do it well are highly compensated. It's rare. It's hard to do. But if you add on top of

00:05:21.760 the burden of writing a good story, that you've got to handle all of the characters with their,

00:05:26.700 you know, demographic sensitivities, and the audiences, and, you know, please everybody,

00:05:31.740 it almost eliminates all of the space you can move. So it just makes your art get smaller and smaller.

00:05:39.720 And let me say again, and I'll say this a hundred times. I like all the woke stuff, right? It's entirely

00:05:51.320 the right impulse. Let everybody live their best life. You know, it's not my business, what anybody

00:05:58.360 does. And certainly, you know, I don't see any kind of pattern that would tell me that any individual

00:06:03.860 must conform to any specific stereotype. So my personal feeling is that woke is great. And if

00:06:10.900 somebody wants to be referred to in some specific way, I just think that's good manners. I would want

00:06:17.840 people to refer to me in whatever way I felt most comfortable. And they already do. I mean, except

00:06:23.840 online, where everybody's awful. But in person, people generally refer to me in whatever I would be

00:06:30.260 most comfortable with. So I'd gladly return the favor. The only thing I ever ask in return

00:06:37.140 is if I get it wrong, just don't be an asshole about it. That's all. Like, I want to be polite. 1.00

00:06:44.900 I'll try my best. But if I get it wrong, like, you know, if I dead name somebody accidentally or

00:06:50.020 something, just don't be an asshole about it. That's all I'm asking. I'm asking what you're asking of me. 0.99

00:06:56.020 I'll give back what you what you're asking of me. That seems fair. Well, here's an update on my Keith

00:07:04.260 tactic. Some of you know, I've been using this tactic on my trolls online, where when they attack

00:07:11.300 me personally, as opposed to anything about what I said, my argument, I respond with, okay, Keith.

00:07:18.980 Now, my internal thought about why I'm saying this is that I'm just mocking Keith Olbermann,

00:07:27.460 who, who for years has been coming after me personally, basically, just personal attacks on

00:07:33.720 me, and doesn't really have much to do with anything I'm saying. It doesn't seem like it seems like it's

00:07:38.500 more personal. So here's why this works. People don't know what to do with it. Nobody has a mental

00:07:46.620 model for what happens when they attack you personally, and you call them by their wrong name.

00:07:53.260 They don't know what to do with it. It completely, so far, I think it has diffused 100% of what was

00:08:01.600 about to become a troll fight. You know, because I, I like getting sucked into troll fights, because it's

00:08:07.320 just good sparring. Yeah, I just like it. So I do it more than I should, because I sort of enjoy it.

00:08:13.000 It's part of the public spectacle of Twitter, so, you know, I'm all in on public spectacle.

00:08:19.140 So it's good eating. So just think about this from the persuasion perspective. There's,

00:08:25.400 there's actually a basis for why this should work exactly the way it's working. It should work because

00:08:31.720 it takes people out of their frame. When somebody insults you publicly on Twitter, they've entered a

00:08:38.460 frame in which they think you should feel insulted and either ignore them or block them or fight back

00:08:44.900 with some, you know, equally toxic words. So, so they get into this frame, and then you say,

00:08:52.360 okay, Keith, and it's not even their name, and they don't know what the reference is or why

00:08:56.800 or where you're coming from, and they can't stay in their frame, because there's nothing in there

00:09:02.800 that tells you what to do with, uh, thanks, Keith. Now, I suppose at some point, it would be like

00:09:08.300 Karen if it became big. I don't think it will. But if it did, then people would recognize, oh,

00:09:14.260 that's Karen. But it would still work until they had some way to bring it back into their frame,

00:09:19.740 because it just doesn't fit there. So try it. Try it at home. Just say, okay, Keith. Or you could

00:09:26.240 throw in any other name of somebody that you think is funny. But there's something about the word

00:09:30.280 Keith, especially because it's so white. It's so white guy. It's like one of the whitest names

00:09:38.020 you could ever have, Keith. I suppose Scott is the whitest name you could have. Let me confess

00:09:46.000 that. I don't think you could be Scott for a whiter name. Am I right? Has anybody ever met

00:09:55.480 anybody black named Scott? Is there a famous one? Is there like a famous black man whose first name

00:10:03.600 is Scott that I'm not thinking of? Scotty Pippen. Thank you. Scotty Pippen. Scotty Pippen.

00:10:12.680 One of the all-time great basketball players. All right. Will Smith. This is the weirdest story.

00:10:21.080 You thought the Will Smith slapping Chris Rock story lasted too long, but finally it was

00:10:27.860 Scott Joplin? Scott Joplin. Is that a musician? Okay. So there are lots of black people named

00:10:41.400 Scott. Apparently it's a very black name. And since I identify as a black woman, I believe

00:10:50.260 that's at least one more example. All right. So you're right. So this Will Smith story just

00:10:58.280 released was an interview that Will Smith did before he slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars.

00:11:04.400 And it was with David Letterman on his interview show there. And Will Smith was talking about

00:11:10.760 an experience with Ayahuasca, a psychedelic, in which he hallucinated that he lost all of his money in his

00:11:20.540 career. His career and his money just went away. And it was a nightmare and he panicked. But that the

00:11:27.840 learning he got from it was that there was anything he could withstand because he learned to be calm

00:11:34.300 while his career. And even somebody he loved was in danger. His daughter, Willow, was screaming. And he

00:11:40.760 managed in his Ayahuasca hallucination to find calm despite the worst possible things he's imagining

00:11:49.460 happening around him. And then he thought that his permanent learning from that is that he could

00:11:54.920 handle anything. You know, nothing would destroy him. Now, he had this vision of losing all of that

00:12:02.320 right before he slapped Chris Rock on stage and lost all of that. Now, he's still going to be rich,

00:12:12.220 one assumes. But, you know, for a while his career has taken a pounding like few people have ever taken a

00:12:18.840 pounding. And here is my first question. Number one, did he, in fact, survive this so far in exactly the

00:12:32.620 way he said he could? In other words, did the Ayahuasca actually do what he imagined it had done at that

00:12:40.160 point? Did he carry that ability through and weather this latest thing? Because even though he's the one to

00:12:47.580 blame, I think we all agree, right, he's the one to blame. And he would know that, one assumes.

00:12:56.580 Do you think that he is okay with it? Do you think he just took it like a, you know, Zen Buddhist monk

00:13:03.540 and just said, well, you know, clearly it was my mistake. I'm now dealing with it. And I accept this.

00:13:11.320 I'm dealing with it. I don't know. I'm going to surprise you. I'm going to surprise you.

00:13:21.580 I'll bet he's handling this better than 99% of you could have. It's just a feeling. There's no way to

00:13:29.420 know, right? But that Ayahuasca experience, I think that's real. I think that's real. I believe that he

00:13:37.640 actually did learn that he could handle anything. That didn't make his mistake any less of a mistake.

00:13:44.620 But he certainly found himself in a situation where he had to handle something pretty, pretty bad.

00:13:49.920 I mean, really bad. And I think he handled it probably better than you could have.

00:13:58.620 Just a guess. I think it's probably real. But what is the coincidence that he would have this just

00:14:05.160 before it mattered? And again, this makes you wonder about the nature of reality, doesn't it?

00:14:11.660 Did he predict it? Or did he cause it? Did he predict it? Did he cause it? Or is it just a coincidence?

00:14:27.980 Because, you know, coincidences happen. That's why we talk about them. They happen all the time.

00:14:32.500 Rare things happen all the time. It's just you can't predict which rare thing is going to happen

00:14:38.120 when. But rare things happen all the time. So if this is just another rare thing, you'd say,

00:14:44.520 well, I wouldn't have predicted this specific one. But rare things happen all the time. This is just

00:14:50.840 another one. And we notice them because they're special. I don't know. It certainly makes you at least

00:14:58.380 say, what the hell's going on here, doesn't it? Well, Ricky Gervais has a Netflix special in which

00:15:05.180 in his Ricky Gervais way, he's going after whatever would cause the most provocation. So apparently

00:15:13.240 his jokes target. I'm going to say target, but then I'm going to argue that's the wrong word.

00:15:19.040 Let's say involve. Yeah, I'm not going to say target. I'm going to say his jokes involve

00:15:23.660 the trans community. Now, Ricky is fairly brutal in his comedy. And the trans community is, 1.00

00:15:32.400 you know, some of it anyway, is up in arms. And one assumes that some of the trans community

00:15:36.900 thinks it's funny. Is that fair? Do you think that the trans community acts as one? And they 1.00

00:15:44.620 all have the same opinion at the same time? No, of course not. One assumes that some percentage

00:15:50.120 of the trans community will watch Ricky Gervais special and say, that's hilarious. I would have

00:15:55.040 made that same joke. That's pretty funny. Same thing we say privately. I assume. But then I think,

00:16:01.300 you know, some percentage, and I don't even know if it's 80, 20 in which direction. I have no,

00:16:05.900 I have no sense for which way that goes. But one could see why others would be offended.

00:16:13.240 Now, here's the thing I'm going to say that Ricky Gervais doesn't ask for and doesn't need and probably

00:16:21.080 doesn't want. Me defending him. Because part of the beauty of what he does, like the thing that makes

00:16:27.720 it art, is that he doesn't apologize for it. And so I don't want to ruin his art by apologizing for

00:16:35.340 him. But there is some context here. And it's not an apology. There is some context here that's very

00:16:40.780 important. And it's the personal perspective context of who has the power. I'm going to prime

00:16:49.080 you for this with the following example. Let's say there are two people you're considering. One is a

00:16:54.700 boss and one is a really high-end engineer who works for the boss. Who has the power? In the comments,

00:17:03.700 that's all you know. Really high-end engineer and a boss. Who has the power? The boss or the engineer?

00:17:13.900 Sort of depends on the point of view, doesn't it? Well, if you're saying engineer, you sort of guessed

00:17:23.180 where I was leading you. Depends. There we go. That is the correct answer. The correct answer is it

00:17:29.700 depends. If the engineer wants to take the power, that engineer has the power. If the engineer chooses

00:17:38.660 not to take the power, then the boss has the power. Now, in some specific instances, the boss would have

00:17:45.640 all the power. In other specific instances, I would argue that the engineer would effectively have all the

00:17:51.760 power. And so we often... So here's the priming for my next point. Who has the power is always an

00:18:00.640 opinion. Well, that's too strong. Who has the power is often an opinion. And it could go either way.

00:18:08.220 Will you go with me that far so far? That who has the power in any given situation is somewhat

00:18:15.600 ambiguous. Often. And it depends on the specifics, right? So given that, wouldn't we all agree,

00:18:27.760 and of course that's not true, but wouldn't many of you agree that it's unseemly to punch down,

00:18:35.980 meaning make jokes at people who are below you in the power scale, but that it's routine and actually

00:18:41.760 maybe even good to punch up, to make fun of the people in power. Would we, largely would you agree

00:18:50.140 that that's a good standard? It keeps comedy in its proper place to maybe take the powerful down a

00:18:57.300 notch without hurting the disadvantage, right? So if you saw somebody punching down, your natural

00:19:05.340 instinct would be, oh, stop that punching down. If you saw somebody punching up, you'd say, yay.

00:19:11.760 Cheer for them. So here's the controversial question. Is Ricky Gervais punching up or punching down

00:19:21.700 when he talks about trans? Here's what makes it art. You can't fucking tell. That's why he's Ricky

00:19:33.720 Gervais. And you're not. He can do that. That's art. That's art. You can't tell if he's punching up or

00:19:44.060 punching down. Because much of what the trans community has managed to pull off is increasing 1.00

00:19:52.880 their power around certain issues that they have the most at stake. So when Ricky Gervais is, let's say,

00:20:02.640 involving the trans community, I'm not going to say targeting. I'm going to say involving them.

00:20:08.320 Is he punching up from the perspective of a, let's say, a generic white male in 2022?

00:20:15.820 Do you think that a generic white man in 2022 feels that his power is above that of the trans community

00:20:24.700 in society right now? No. No, I'm not saying what's true. I'm saying what does a generic white man feel

00:20:33.200 is true. And I'm not even saying what Ricky Gervais feels is true. Because remember, he's producing art.

00:20:39.360 He's not telling you his inner feelings. That's not what he does. So I think the genius of what

00:20:50.400 Gervais does is that you can't fully sort out if he's punching up or down. And to pull that off,

00:20:59.760 that's like Chappelle-level cleverness, in my opinion. Like, there are only a few people who are

00:21:06.160 operating at that level. And he's one of them. So I like the fact that Netflix is going to back

00:21:13.960 him on this. And I hope people can see this for what it is. And he's actually said, so this is an

00:21:19.520 actual Gervais quote. He said, I don't know if he said this on stage or in an interview. He said,

00:21:24.840 okay, full disclosure, in real life, of course, I support trans rights, Gervais says. I support all

00:21:31.460 human rights and trans rights or human rights. Live your best life. Use your preferred pronouns.

00:21:37.220 Right? Exactly my opinion. So is he punching up or is he punching down? Here's the other thing that

00:21:44.160 people don't understand. When I misuse a word because I'm using the way people commonly misuse a word,

00:21:52.760 I get to do that because I'm a professional writer. And professional writers as a class

00:22:01.220 get to decide what is common usage. I know you don't like it. I didn't sign up for it. But it's

00:22:08.860 just one of the duties that come along with being a professional writer that anybody's listening to.

00:22:15.660 We get to decide, not me personally, but like as a group, the people who write stuff,

00:22:22.380 the people who write stuff for a living, get to decide what moves from bad grammar into good grammar

00:22:28.500 because people use it a lot. It's just the way it works. And people like Ricky Gervais get to decide

00:22:36.880 when somebody is moving from a powerless situation into a powerful situation. Now, he didn't sign up for

00:22:44.300 that. Probably never thought about it. It's not in his job description, but it is his job.

00:22:51.800 Comedians do that. Part of what they do is decide who they can punch at and they tell you, okay,

00:22:57.340 they took power. Now they can take a punch. So it's sort of like getting promoted. If you're in the

00:23:04.260 trans community and you're wondering, you know, how are you being viewed by the world?

00:23:07.880 Ricky Gervais just gave you a promotion. And if you don't see that, that is sort of a little bit

00:23:15.080 of a tragedy because if it makes you feel bad or makes you feel diminished, it should feel the

00:23:21.320 opposite. Now, and I'm going to make a real important distinction. Ricky Gervais or Dave Chappelle,

00:23:30.980 including you in their humor, is not diminishing you. Not the way they do it. Right? If it's a bad

00:23:38.980 comedian, somebody who's not operating at their level of subtlety, then yeah, they're just being 1.00

00:23:44.840 assholes. Right? They're just picking on somebody because they can get a cheap laugh. Right? That's 1.00

00:23:50.240 not what's happening. This is a promotion. All right. There are two groups you can insult. People who are

00:23:57.120 more powerful than you and people who are not organized. So you can still make fun of dumb 0.99

00:24:03.420 people because dumb people don't have much power, but they also are really bad at organizing. 0.99

00:24:10.480 Guess why? It's because they're dumb people. It's the only group you can punch down at because 1.00

00:24:16.900 they can't organize. All right. The World Economic Forum is happening and the president of Alibaba

00:24:26.700 group, this Michael Evans, he was talking about the development of, you know, noodling about this

00:24:33.060 as a possibility of individual carbon footprint trackers. So you can monitor what an individual

00:24:40.940 buys, eats, and where and how they travel. Now, of course, I think he's describing it as something

00:24:49.040 you would use for yourself so that you could monitor your own carbon use. Motherfucker went 1.00

00:24:56.640 there on a private plane. Is there anything else to say about this? Well, that's the whole 0.99

00:25:03.560 conversation, right? He's talking about wouldn't it be great for everybody to be able to track

00:25:08.920 their own carbon footprint? Motherfucker went there on a private plane. There's nothing else 0.99

00:25:15.200 to say. Dismissed. Dismissed. All right. Are you watching this Pennsylvania race with

00:25:23.980 Dr. Oz and McCormick, I guess? They're down to within a thousand votes that are being disputed.

00:25:32.660 So they, you know, we don't have a final answer. And if that thousand gets a little bit fewer,

00:25:39.200 then apparently there's a forced runoff or something. So they're really fighting for every vote.

00:25:45.200 And McCormick's filed a lawsuit challenging ballots that don't have, that were returned

00:25:54.040 on time, but they don't have a date on them. So it shouldn't matter, it shouldn't matter that

00:25:59.660 they don't have a date on them because they were returned on time. And I guess they can

00:26:04.980 verify that. So they don't have to wonder if they were late because they have them and they

00:26:11.540 had them on time. So what do you think of that? Do you think that would be a reasonable

00:26:16.540 if the court were to agree, oh, since we can confirm the dates were sufficient, we don't

00:26:25.400 have to see the dates? What do you think? I'm actually really curious about your opinions on

00:26:31.160 this. Opens the door. Yeah, you're a little cautious on this one, aren't you? See, the

00:26:38.020 problem is it makes perfect sense. That's the problem. The problem is the argument is perfectly

00:26:44.060 good. And in any other context, you'd say, okay, that makes sense. That is fair. But it

00:26:52.880 opens the door. As soon as you say that any rule can be broken because you've got a good

00:26:59.320 reason why you shouldn't, you know, why you can make an exception, I wouldn't call that

00:27:04.620 a slippery slope. That's more direct. If you can break a rule, you can break a rule. It's

00:27:09.260 pretty much, I mean, that's the beginning of the end of the slope, right? So it's not too

00:27:14.480 slippery. It's just yes or no. So as soon as you break that rule, everything falls apart,

00:27:26.780 doesn't it? Now, I suppose if you took it through the court system, maybe if it went to the Supreme

00:27:32.820 Court, that could launder it into credibility. Well, you know, I would accept that, actually.

00:27:39.280 If that's what happened, I would take the answer.

00:27:44.480 Anyway, what if this changes the outcome? What if the counting reverses the current vote?

00:27:57.300 Is anybody going to trust? And nobody's going to trust any election ever again, if they do. I don't

00:28:03.120 know. But this could be devastating. I mean, it's not that big a deal if they simply delay the

00:28:10.860 result, and it goes the way the vote has gone so far. If it doesn't change the direction,

00:28:16.880 we're going to forget about it pretty quickly. But if it changes the direction of this thing,

00:28:22.260 like reverses it? I don't know. People are going to be talking about that for a long time.

00:28:29.080 All right, here's a question that people are debating with me. Did Putin want all of Ukraine,

00:28:37.360 or is he getting the parts he wants, and therefore assuming that he consolidates control? Did he win?

00:28:46.580 So what do you think? Did Putin want all of Ukraine, or was it always a fake-out so that he could 0.50

00:28:53.740 pin down the Ukraine military around the capital, and then take his time consolidating forces where he

00:29:01.340 really wanted to control things where the separatists are? What do you think? I'll give you the correct

00:29:07.520 answer. The answer is, why would he have either opinion? Both. Sort of both. Here's how a good

00:29:18.520 decision-maker would approach this. Now, let's assume he's a good decision-maker.

00:29:23.360 Let's assume Putin's a good decision-maker. Let's assume that he's at least as good a decision-maker

00:29:35.900 as I am. Because here's how I would play it. I would say to myself, well, I want all of Ukraine.

00:29:45.700 I want it. And there's at least a non-zero chance I could get it for cheap, the whole country. Because

00:29:55.400 who knows? Maybe you start the war, and you're so devastatingly effective in the first few days.

00:30:01.860 Maybe Ukraine folds. Maybe they say, oh, we'll put your puppet in if you stop bombing us. Maybe.

00:30:10.000 Maybe. What were the odds? I don't know. Low. But still some chance. So here's how you would

00:30:16.740 approach it. If you said to yourself, what I really want is those separatist areas,

00:30:21.660 because it gives me a land bridge, and a blah, blah, blah, and economic whatever. If you said to

00:30:27.320 yourself, what you really want is just that part of Ukraine, but you would love to take the whole

00:30:33.040 country. I mean, that would be ideal. You would make a play for the whole country,

00:30:38.760 but you wouldn't care that much if it worked. Because if it didn't work, it would pin down the

00:30:45.780 Ukraine military and the rest of the country, and give you time to build up your forces where they

00:30:51.460 were. If it did work, if it did work, well, then you conquered the whole country, and it was cheap.

00:30:56.140 So anybody who's looking at this and says that Putin did not want all of Ukraine, or did want all of

00:31:05.520 Ukraine, they're completely wrong. I'm sure. I'm sure that what he wanted was separate from what he 1.00

00:31:15.240 knew the cost-benefit risk analysis was, and he wasn't dealing with what he wanted. He was dealing with

00:31:22.080 what's possible. Somebody says, sorry, Scott. Now, what's that mean? I beg to differ.

00:31:34.960 Does anybody have a counter-argument? General's dead on purpose? No, I'm not saying that Russia did a

00:31:44.860 good job at the invasion. I'm not saying that they didn't take larger losses than they expected.

00:31:52.080 I do think the Ukrainian military was more effective than most people except me predicted.

00:31:59.200 But I feel like a Putin would know that he has two ways to win, get the whole country or get part

00:32:07.040 of the country, but that he'd be happy with either one. Why isn't that obviously true?

00:32:14.900 Wouldn't you say there's no argument to be made here? That it's sort of obviously true?

00:32:19.600 That if he would be happy with just the separatist parts, because it's such a big win, he should 0.99

00:32:25.320 be happy with that. And he could spin it as a victory at home. I don't know. His losing

00:32:34.760 only has to do with what happens with his economy after that, I guess.

00:32:38.060 I asked this question for which I was pilloried online. I said, how can Russia hold territory

00:32:45.540 in the age of drones? Let's say Russia consolidates control over these separatist regions, they

00:32:53.780 call them. And what happens if Ukraine wants it back? And they're willing to fight to get

00:33:00.540 them back. Wouldn't the Ukrainians just put endless drones into there until the Russians 0.97

00:33:07.140 just can't hold it anymore? Maybe nobody can. Maybe they would return the favor if the Ukrainians 1.00

00:33:13.240 did it. But here's the feedback I got. Scott, Scott, Scott. If the Ukrainians could reconquer 1.00

00:33:23.380 these, you know, or get back these territories in the future, why didn't they do it in the

00:33:42.040 past before drones were available and good? So is there any reason that before drones were

00:33:48.320 available and worked well, is there any reason they didn't use them to get a victory before

00:33:54.100 they existed? Anybody? That's the quality of argument I'm getting online right now, is that why

00:34:01.520 didn't they do it in 2014? Well, the drones were a little bit different in 2014, as in a lot,

00:34:09.960 as in a lot. They're different than they were a year ago. In fact, they're way different than

00:34:15.800 they were a year ago. And certainly the availability, the militarization of them, how much payload they

00:34:21.460 could take, the distance they can travel, all of it. It's like completely different than it was,

00:34:28.260 you know, even a year ago. So everybody who says to me, drones can't work because they haven't worked

00:34:36.100 so far. And then a number of people said, Scott, you're ignoring all the reports of the Ukrainian

00:34:44.060 drones that have been shot down by the Russians. To which I say, you mean in the past? As in last

00:34:51.660 week? Because last week's the past. I'm not talking about what is going to happen in the past.

00:34:58.820 That's not my prediction. I'm not predicting the past. I'm predicting the drones will continue to

00:35:04.600 get better really quickly, and that Ukraine will have unlimited access to them because of NATO,

00:35:10.680 et cetera. And that if they decided to use them, that's a big if. That part, I don't know. But if

00:35:16.680 they decided to use them in a continuous stream of swarm attacks eventually, you don't think that

00:35:23.080 they could make it unoccupiable? Because I would assume they would always have spotters, right? The

00:35:30.320 occupied territories would be full of spies. Check that assumption. Could we assume that the

00:35:37.380 occupied territories, if Russia takes that Donbass area, et cetera, that they would have plenty of 0.97

00:35:44.100 Ukrainian spies that would say, OK, here's the barracks. This is where the Russian soldiers come 0.84

00:35:51.280 out of every day. And here's the thing that's going to blow up over there. So I think they'd have

00:35:57.980 spotting, exact spotting. And they would have unlimited drones to send over to blow up wherever there's a

00:36:04.980 human being outside. Yeah. Now, they might not be able to blow up a tank. And I'm not talking about

00:36:11.540 the big, like, Turkish drones. I'm talking about the, you know, the hobby-sized ones that can travel

00:36:16.780 two miles or whatever it is. I think they can do a couple of miles now. And that, I would expect that

00:36:22.000 with, correct me if I'm wrong, but does the distance a drone can travel change with Starlink?

00:36:30.260 If you add Starlink to hobby drones, at the moment, you can't do a handoff like forever. But if you had a

00:36:42.100 continuous Starlink connection, could you control your drone with very small lag to anywhere, as long as the

00:36:53.220 drone had power? Is that right? They don't use internet, but they could, right? No, I realize they

00:37:01.860 don't use internet. That's why they have a distance problem. But they could, right? The only thing that

00:37:07.300 they couldn't do is necessarily have the right time lag to be just a little bit more of a time lag.

00:37:15.380 But if they're targeting something stationary, or it can track something that's moving and fire on its

00:37:21.380 own, they wouldn't need that. They could be a second or two late, and it would still work, right?

00:37:28.100 You need large equipment to receive Starlink. Really? So you don't think you could put a Starlink

00:37:34.500 receiver on a drone? Yet? Okay, well, it's an open question. So anyway, my point is, I'm talking about

00:37:45.340 Ukraine in the next one to three years, what kind of drone power they could put together. Do you think 0.92

00:37:52.060 that Russia has the technology to stop a drone swarm? I don't think so. I don't think anybody has

00:37:59.260 that. There seems to me that some numbers of drones will beat some number of anti-drone defense.

00:38:06.460 But even if it's a cat and mouse game, you know, both are going to win for a long time. All right.

00:38:15.660 So that's an interesting question.

00:38:20.300 Corey DeAngelis reports that 23 states have now decided to cut ties with the National School Board

00:38:27.980 People are finally realizing that the biggest problem in the world is teachers unions and school

00:38:52.620 boards. Because their power distorts, you know, what society needs. All right. Provocatively,

00:39:02.460 I tweeted the other day that Trump would have solved the baby formula problem in 10 minutes.

00:39:07.500 Oh, boy, did that stir up a hornet's nest of turds. Wow.

00:39:14.540 By the way, I saw a great meme yesterday. It was Amber Heard. It was a picture of her. And the meme said,

00:39:24.140 I think it said that she was the only one in the relationship that gave a shit. 0.99

00:39:32.540 I'll just let that sink in. All right. 0.99

00:39:35.660 All right. So when I said that Trump would have solved the baby formula problem in 10 minutes,

00:39:43.020 what I meant was my understanding was that it was only red tape, you know, or agreements with other

00:39:51.260 countries, et cetera, that was preventing it. Now, is that true? Because I know we didn't have a domestic

00:39:58.780 supply. But was there more to it than just the availability of getting it from other countries?

00:40:09.180 All right. So I think there's, there was definitely a shortage in this country. But was there a shortage

00:40:14.700 in other countries? Did other countries have enough that if we had rapidly purchased it, it would have

00:40:22.140 made a difference? Does anybody know that? I'm seeing a lot of people say, no, it wouldn't have made a difference.

00:40:28.780 If there's no shortage in other countries and trucks exist, would our supply chain problem have

00:40:38.380 caused us not to be able to get it in an emergency situation? Because we would have airlifted it as we

00:40:43.660 did. I don't know. So my assumption was that anybody who said, all right, break all the rules and

00:40:53.020 feed our babies would have gotten something done faster. I don't think that's a bad assumption.

00:40:59.740 But then I learned that Democrats have been taught that Trump caused the problem.

00:41:06.460 Did you, have you heard that narrative? That the baby formula shortage was caused by Trump? It's

00:41:12.780 sort of popular on Twitter. Has anybody heard that?

00:41:16.140 That? And had something to do with NAFTA or something?

00:41:24.860 I don't know. Maybe. But I treat them as separate problems. Even if it's true, and I doubt it is,

00:41:33.660 even if it's true that something he did caused the problem, it was obviously something that, you know,

00:41:39.580 smart people thought was the right course. It just didn't work out. So that's different from

00:41:46.300 could he have fixed it? I think the fixing he's better at than the predicting weird things in the

00:41:52.300 future, which nobody's good at. There's a great article on China dominating rare earth materials,

00:41:59.020 which sounds like the most boring topic. But I've been waiting to see somebody just summarize it.

00:42:04.620 So I could get a sense of, you know, is there any other source for rare earth materials and stuff like that?

00:42:11.980 So this appears to be a big, big deal because of all your technology requires these, you know,

00:42:18.700 11 or so heavy earth, you know, rare materials. But here are some things I didn't know.

00:42:26.060 One source for some of these is Greenland, which might suggest why Trump wanted to buy Greenland.

00:42:34.380 And there's something discovered near Japan and the ocean that looks like it's got tons of rare earth

00:42:42.060 in there. It's hard to get out of the ocean. But you should read the article. It's written by

00:42:50.780 insightful geopolitics. But just look at my Twitter feed and you can see it just it's the only time

00:42:58.220 I've seen somebody explain it in simple terms. Now, it turns out that we are we the United States

00:43:05.020 is doing a lot to try to get our own, you know, friendly sources of rare earth. So there's a lot going

00:43:11.500 on. But China has so far dominated the known sources. But here's the big wild card. We keep discovering

00:43:20.700 new sources. So it could be the kind of thing. Yeah, maybe it's maybe it's an asteroid. It could be

00:43:28.300 space. But we keep discovering new ones. So, you know, if we keep discovering new ones, could there be

00:43:35.340 I guess there's a recent one in far west Texas, a mountain called Round Top. Round Top is known

00:43:43.420 that it might make America greatly self-sufficient in rare earth materials.

00:43:51.020 It discovers five out of six of the light rare earth and ten out of eleven. So there's basically

00:43:56.780 one place in Texas, one mountain, that might have enough of these rare earth materials

00:44:03.020 that would make the United States self-sufficient.

00:44:05.740 Now, do you think there's not even one other mountain in the United States that has any rare

00:44:13.180 earth materials? There's this one mountain that's got five out of six of one type and ten out of eleven

00:44:19.500 of the other type and all five permanent magnet materials. That's just a one mountain in Texas.

00:44:26.860 You don't think we're going to find some more mountains?

00:44:28.940 Somebody says a pebble mine in Alaska. Right? Well, isn't the problem just finding it? I feel like the

00:44:40.140 problem is not getting it. The problem is just knowing where it is. I feel like this is one of

00:44:47.420 those gigantic problems that will be solved one day. Like maybe this is it. Maybe this far west tall

00:44:54.460 mountain. Maybe it solves everything. I don't know. Once they start digging, they're going to find

00:45:01.020 out how much is in there. They don't know how much is in there. What if it's ten times as much as they

00:45:05.180 think is in there? The problem is already solved. I mean, you know, given some time.

00:45:12.700 I think the Adams law of slow-moving disasters applies here better than in most places. And it works

00:45:20.300 pretty well everywhere. And that goes like this. That before we would run out or have some World

00:45:25.260 War III with China over rare earth materials or that we'd have a war and, you know, they'd make 0.99

00:45:31.020 them unavailable to us. Probably far before that's going to happen, we'll just discover a few more

00:45:36.700 mountains and we'll have all the rare earth materials we want. We'll just look harder for them.

00:45:42.300 Or we'll learn how to get them out of the ocean more reasonably.

00:45:45.500 Rasmus had a poll and they asked, is it possible to completely prevent mass shootings like the ones

00:45:52.700 in Buffalo? Completely. Is it possible to completely prevent mass shootings like the one in Buffalo?

00:45:58.940 24% of the people said yes. 24% think that you could completely prevent mass shootings.

00:46:07.180 24%. That's roughly, yeah. It's a neighborhood of a, it's about a quarter. A quarter, 25%. 25%. 25%.

00:46:20.460 All right. The next question was, would stricter gun control help prevent mass shootings like Buffalo?

00:46:27.500 40% said yes. But in this case, it was help prevent. You know, I think you could answer that one either way.

00:46:34.380 You know, stricter gun control, even if you didn't like it. It might, it might help. 0.99

00:46:42.860 It might, there might be one fewer. And that would help. I mean, it would help a lot if you were one of

00:46:48.940 the victims of that one fewer, the one that didn't happen. So yeah, I suppose this has more to do with

00:46:54.540 how you, you define the question or understand the question, I guess. All right. Here's the big

00:47:00.380 payoff for today. I developed a quiz, a 10 point quiz of news hoaxes. And I propose that you should

00:47:09.260 not talk to me about world events unless you can pass this test. Would you like to now participate

00:47:17.820 in the 10 questions that will determine if you are one who is duped by hoaxes? I will tell you in

00:47:25.900 advance that everything on this list is a hoax, a known hoax, a really well-known hoax. If your news

00:47:31.980 source believes that these are true, you need to change your news source. All right. Number one,

00:47:39.740 Russia collusion hoax. Number two, the steel dossier hooker story. Three, Russians paying bounties on US 0.59

00:47:47.820 soldiers in Afghanistan. Number four, Trump calling neo-Nazis fine people in Charlottesville. Number

00:47:54.220 five, Trump suggested drinking or ingesting bleach to COVID. Six, Trump overfed koi fish in Japan

00:48:02.300 with the prime minister, I guess. And seven, Trump cleared protesters with tear gas for a Bible photo

00:48:10.460 op. Number eight, Hunter's laptop was Russian disinformation. Number nine, elections were fair

00:48:16.220 because no court found major fraud. And number 10, January 6 was a quote, insurrection to overthrow the

00:48:22.780 government. Now, how many of you think one of these hoaxes is true?

00:48:31.420 Ten for ten. All right. Well, that has as much to do with who my audience is as the hoaxes

00:48:43.340 themselves. But what do you think of this as a starting point? Here's a rule of persuasion that is

00:48:54.940 one of the best rules you'll ever learn. And I learned this when it was my job in corporate America

00:49:03.180 to write up business cases or write up what our strategy was or generally to put into words

00:49:09.180 words what it is we wanted or planned to do. And what I learned was that the person who puts it into

00:49:15.420 words is actually sort of in control. Because the way you word things decides whether it's going to

00:49:23.980 happen. If you word it right, it happens. If you word it wrong, it doesn't. And so the person putting

00:49:30.300 things into words can also insert a little bit that maybe the boss hadn't intended. Maybe subtract

00:49:35.900 something that the boss would have put there but you don't think belongs there. So the person who

00:49:40.780 controls the speech, the speechwriter, has a lot of control over the country, the business, whatever.

00:49:48.220 So if you're ever in a position to be the one who writes it down, take that job. Take that job

00:49:54.860 immediately. Because the one who writes it down is a charge. So what I did was I wrote down this quiz

00:50:03.340 and this gives me sort of a power position because since I created it, it makes something that somebody

00:50:11.500 has to respond to. And it makes them respond within my frame. So I'm creating a frame and then I'm

00:50:18.780 inviting victims in to respond to it. But I've rigged the game, right? So it's already rigged. So it gives

00:50:26.700 me power to be the first one to write it down. So that's your persuasion lesson. Be the one to write

00:50:32.860 it down. Be the one to write it down first. It gives you tremendous power.

00:50:37.340 And I noticed that when I would mention any of these hoaxes individually, people would just fight them

00:50:47.100 to death. But I'm using list persuasion here, where if somebody looks at this list and they say, yeah,

00:50:54.300 okay, I admit that half of these are definitely hoaxes. What are they going to think of the other half?

00:51:00.700 Because I put it in the context in which they could say, okay, even I know, at this point I know,

00:51:07.820 that the Hunter laptop was not Russian disinformation. Right? So I know that one's

00:51:12.860 true. So if that one's true, oh, wait, I know. Okay. I do know that Trump didn't overfeed the koi fish.

00:51:21.100 I saw the full video to know what that was about. Okay. So two of these, I know they were real hoaxes

00:51:26.740 and they were on TV. Oh, okay. Yeah. That third one. Yeah. They never proved that there was any

00:51:33.540 bounties paid on U.S. soldiers. Okay. I'll give you three. So don't you think that people who

00:51:38.660 were inclined to believe at least one thing on the list would look at the list and sort of talk

00:51:44.660 themselves into thinking that the list maker knew a few things. Because when you agree with somebody,

00:51:52.260 you think they're smart. So if I put something on the list that they're going to agree with,

00:51:57.460 they'll think, well, you're at least smart about that one. So I'm drawing them in.

00:52:01.620 So persuasion wise, this list persuasion, which I hate it when it's used against me,

00:52:07.220 but it's a powerful technique. If you're going to be the one who makes the list,

00:52:11.780 it's powerful. So imagine the same technique if you had made a list of mistakes that Biden made,

00:52:19.140 or mistakes that Trump made. A list of 10 of them is going to be more persuasive,

00:52:24.420 as long as somebody believes a few of them. If the whole list is bullshit, then it doesn't work at all. 0.98

00:52:30.580 But if a few of those on the list, you say to yourself, okay, those, I see your point on a few 0.98

00:52:36.420 of those, then you're more inclined to think that the larger list has some weight.

00:52:44.100 Oh, I forgot an E on Steele dossier. Thank you. I'll fix that.

00:52:51.300 All right. I would invite you, actually, I think I'll probably,

00:52:57.060 I might correct that typo and then repost it. But feel free to use that, to use my list of 10.

00:53:06.340 You don't need to give me credit or anything. But if it's useful, you have my full permission

00:53:13.460 as if you needed it. You didn't really need it.

00:53:15.380 Can we move Charlottesville higher on the list? No. Because I didn't want people to get there until

00:53:24.500 they had seen a few that they agreed with. So Erica asks, should we, could we put the Charlottesville

00:53:31.460 neo-Nazi one higher on the list? If it were a list of how bad they were, I'd put it toward the top. 0.91

00:53:39.380 But remember, the point of it is persuasion. So putting it forth is about exactly what you want to do.

00:53:50.420 All right. That's all I got for today. I think, I think you would agree, this was just about the

00:53:59.380 best thing you've ever seen in your life. Am I right? Yeah, of course I am. And once again,

00:54:04.660 your dopamine levels are higher than they would have been. I think your oxytocin is

00:54:10.740 starting to peak. And a little bit of caffeine too, for some of you. Yes, you're feeling good.

00:54:18.340 You're feeling better. Things are going great. And by the way, if you want to look forward to a

00:54:24.180 Dilbert series that's coming up, Dilbert's company is entering the big pharma space.

00:54:29.220 And they're producing a pill. And there will be some controversy about whether the data is accurate

00:54:34.980 or not. So if I'm still around a month from now, I'll be surprised. See you tomorrow.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - May 24, 2022

Episode 1753 Scott Adams： Take My News Hoax Quiz See If You're Smart Enough To Talk Abt World Events

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