Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 1768 Scott Adams： The Slippery Slope Met The Brick Wall Last Night. Let's Sip And Discuss

00:00:00.000 Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the highlight of civilization, if not the highlight

00:00:13.200 of your entire day. And that's what matters most. Because, you know, for most of civilization,

00:00:21.280 I hate to break it to you, you weren't even here. You were a little bit irrelevant to

00:00:27.120 most of civilization. But now that you're here, wouldn't it be great to take it up a notch,

00:00:33.820 to go to the height, the height of happiness on my birthday? Today's my birthday. Happy

00:00:43.620 birthday to me. And if you'd like to celebrate my birthday with me, turn 65 today, all you

00:00:54.020 need is a special birthday cup or mug or a glass or tag or jealous or sign a canteen jug or

00:00:59.360 flask or vessel of any kind. Fill it with your favorite liquid. I like coffee. And join me

00:01:08.780 now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine hit of the day, the thing that makes everything

00:01:14.640 better. The special birthday sip happens now. Go. Now, in the comments, someone nicely said,

00:01:28.220 I deserve a nice day. Well, that's not true at all. I don't deserve anything. Nobody deserves

00:01:37.900 anything. We kind of get what we get. But how would you like me to give you an idea that

00:01:45.280 would make all of us, 80% of us, much happier? It goes like this. And it's all I want for my

00:01:54.660 birthday. Have you ever tried to send a text message and you're kind of worked up, you're

00:02:04.800 angry about something? And you're going to use that F word. And you've got your text message

00:02:09.980 and your body is shaking and your thumbs are quivering. And you're like, that effing thing.

00:02:16.700 And you get to the end of your sentence and you get ready to send and spell correct has

00:02:21.300 changed it to ducking. D-U-C-K. Now, I don't know about you, but on a statistical basis, the 0.90

00:02:31.580 number of times I've wanted to type ducking, but, you know, didn't. Very small. Very small

00:02:41.960 times I've ever wanted to use, such as I was ducking the debris. I mean, it doesn't really

00:02:50.000 come up that often. And I can see why the impulse for the spell correctors would be to give us

00:02:55.920 the clean word just in case. But I would like to suggest the following. Number one, they

00:03:05.120 have picked the very worst time, the worst time to duck with me. Because when I'm already

00:03:13.000 mad and I'm sending a text message with that F word in it, do you know what is the only thing 0.78

00:03:18.380 that could make me more angry at that moment? It's having to pause and scroll back. Scroll. Scroll.

00:03:29.180 Scroll. Scroll. Not D. Not D. Delete. F. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes, I mean it. Now, compare that.

00:03:43.020 Compare that to the alternative. Here, I was already mad and it made me more angry. And

00:03:51.240 I still sent the bad word. Did they gain anything at all? No. No goodwill. Nothing was helped.

00:03:59.340 But imagine if they went the other way. Flip it around. 180. Suppose if every time you tried

00:04:06.660 to write ducking, as in you were ducking the pitch or ducking the golf ball, what if it autocorrected

00:04:16.360 to effing? Am I right? Because then when you got one of those messages that somebody accidentally

00:04:23.880 sent, it would be hilarious. It would say, when the gunfire rang out, I hope you were fucking. 1.00

00:04:34.320 And you would read that message and you'd say, what? Why would you? Well, it's a nice thought. 1.00

00:04:41.980 But, oh, oh, it got autocorrected. It got autocorrected. It should have been ducking. And then what

00:04:50.800 would you do? You'd laugh. You'd laugh. You'd laugh and you'd laugh. Could you ever have a better

00:04:58.400 day than that? No. That would be a total gift. So let me summarize. Current method takes an angry

00:05:09.220 person, makes them angrier. Makes you hate their product. Bad. And you still send the bad word

00:05:20.360 anyway. My way, everybody gets a good laugh. Oops. Oops. I meant you should have been ducking.

00:05:30.180 Sorry, Mom. Come on. You tell me that wouldn't be funnier? There are very few situations where it's

00:05:37.360 all upside and no downside. I think this is one of them. And that's all I want for my birthday.

00:05:43.560 By the way, it's Johnny Depp's birthday tomorrow. I don't know why that's important. I believe

00:05:50.500 Kanye, who I call Ye, has his birthday today too. All of that means absolutely nothing because

00:05:59.760 Michael Schellenberger did not succeed into getting into the final two in the governor's race in

00:06:06.980 California. But I got to say, I'm really proud of the campaign he ran. And I feel as if something

00:06:16.940 good should come out of this. Meaning that at least people saw what it looks like to run a rational

00:06:24.260 campaign in which you're focusing on, you know, proven solutions. You're not trying to be political.

00:06:30.920 Now, why did it not work? Almost certainly because he wasn't part of the established, you know, Democrat

00:06:39.060 machine. So there was no amount of good ideas, no amount of effort, no amount of qualifications

00:06:47.420 that really could make a difference in our state. We're just so constipated with Democrat politics.

00:06:54.040 But I would argue that Andrew Yang did not have as practical solutions as Michael Schellenberger

00:07:03.700 promotes. Yang had ideas that were a little bit more futuristic, so they might work. And

00:07:11.400 I definitely think a lot of his ideas were worth testing. But that was a more speculative kind

00:07:18.260 of futuristic. Whereas I think Schellenberger really says far more practically, we already

00:07:25.420 know what works. We don't really need to experiment. The experiment's done. Just implement. So the

00:07:32.800 most rational message anybody ever brought to the electorate, and the electorate largely, I

00:07:37.680 think, maybe we're not aware of him because it's just so hard to break through. So I think

00:07:44.060 that probably is the whole story there. Let's talk about the slippery slope. You know, one

00:07:53.960 of the things I've always disliked about that slippery slope theme, which I've grudgingly

00:07:58.560 decided, you know, does exist. There is a slippery slope. I have said in the past that it's just

00:08:06.600 bad thinking. But I'm coming around that there are some situations in which the best way to

00:08:12.020 describe them is a slippery slope. However, I insist, I insist on adding this visual update to the

00:08:21.600 slippery slope. Here's what I'd like to add. At the bottom of every slippery slope, there's a brick

00:08:30.880 wall. If you give me that, we're on the same page. I'll give you the slippery part. But I've always

00:08:39.660 said, yes, you don't have to worry about it. Because at the end of the slip ring, there's

00:08:45.160 always a brick wall. Now, you might say to yourself, that's not true. Here are all these

00:08:50.400 examples where it just keeps going. To which I say, it just hasn't hit the wall yet. Right?

00:08:57.080 That in retrospect, you'll look back and a lot of people will say that was progress.

00:09:01.080 You hit the wall when everybody agrees you've gone too far. And that happened in San Francisco

00:09:08.580 last night, where the San Francisco DA, who was the super progressive one who basically thought

00:09:18.060 criminals should be set free, was recalled. So even liberal San Francisco said, you know,

00:09:25.860 I feel like we're done with this. I think we would like law and order in San Francisco.

00:09:33.100 So did the lawlessness and the Democrat, you know, craziness, was it a slippery slope? Yes.

00:09:43.520 Yes, it was. I mean, we slippery sloped all the way to destroying San Francisco. If that's not a

00:09:50.520 slippery slope, what is. But it turns out there might be a brick wall at the bottom of the slippery

00:09:56.800 slope. And I think the voters, depending on how you want to use this imagery, hit the wall last

00:10:06.220 night. And they just said, up, up, up, this is too far. Now, you don't want to say there's a trend

00:10:16.820 building on, you know, one day of voting or anything like that. But there did seem to be some

00:10:21.880 trends that maybe are surfacing, maybe. One would be the school choice people had a good night,

00:10:30.940 I guess, in Iowa. There was a lot of, you know, victory for the school choice people.

00:10:37.180 That feels like a wall, doesn't it? It feels like the, you know, the schools were a slippery slope

00:10:43.260 open to horribleness. And they were certainly in horribleness. And maybe, maybe school choice is

00:10:51.380 the brick wall. It's like, okay, okay, that's far enough. So it's always hard to know when you're

00:11:00.560 sliding like crazy and when you're actually, you know, one second away from hitting a brick wall.

00:11:07.480 But it's useful to know that usually a brick wall comes up. Not every time.

00:11:18.380 Here's a sort of a messaging persuasion thing I've been noodling with. What would happen if

00:11:24.380 Republicans started using their own solutions but using the Democrats' arguments? And I think

00:11:34.460 you'll see there are a few examples of this. And I can't tell if there's a way to do this more

00:11:39.180 generally or just a few interesting examples. Let me give you this one example. So I tweeted

00:11:45.360 today, if you lived in a country bristling with white supremacists, what kind of tool or device

00:11:52.040 would help you protect your family? And the choices were a stick, a gun, or the third choice was, 0.53

00:11:59.120 I don't like my family. And of course, the message here in the humorous form is that if you actually

00:12:07.820 believed that white supremacists were a rising force, I feel as if you'd want to have some guns if you 0.81

00:12:15.900 were a person of color. And so what would happen, and I'm just sort of noodling through it. I'm not

00:12:23.400 saying this is a good idea. I'm just sort of like noodling. What would happen if the Republicans

00:12:31.500 just started embracing the Democrats' most crazy statements and acted as though they believed them?

00:12:41.380 It could make things worse. Let me give you the most extreme example. Suppose Republicans did a

00:12:47.220 pro-gun ad in which they used the Charlottesville fine people hoax, but they treated it like it

00:12:55.140 really happened. The really happened part is not that there were neo-Nazis. That did happen,

00:13:01.360 obviously. But the part of the hoax is that Trump praised the neo-Nazis. What if they just,

00:13:09.440 they didn't have to say anything about Trump, so they wouldn't have to lie. They could just show

00:13:13.720 the imagery of Charlottesville and say, you know, maybe if you're worried about this,

00:13:21.440 maybe you should own a gun. Second Amendment. Now, is it a terrible idea?

00:13:29.840 So one of the things that was at the San Francisco Chronicle headline, I saw a Joel Pollack tweet on

00:13:37.980 this, that San Francisco is interpreting this recall of their progressive DA. They're looking

00:13:48.460 at that as, oh, it has nothing to do with what the right wing wants. It's just people want a city

00:13:54.520 that works. And I thought to myself, a city that works? You mean do all the things that the Republicans

00:14:03.100 say you should do? That's how you get it to work. Literally being, you know, more aggressive about

00:14:11.360 crime or, you know, punishing crime. So I just wonder how many of these arguments could be

00:14:19.860 turned around. You know, the one, my favorite one is if you embrace the systemic racism, let's say

00:14:26.820 you're a Republican. You embrace systemic racism as a primary thing, like a primary, like force and

00:14:34.960 a reason that you're, you're running. And then you say, and we have to work at the source, which is the,

00:14:40.360 the teachers unions. So you totally accept their argument, the systemic racism, but you use that

00:14:49.320 argument to dismantle the thing that actually is the biggest problem. Like, would people, would people

00:14:57.640 start to notice that you kept using Democrat arguments, but Republican solutions? Because I think

00:15:05.220 you could do it all day long. I'm not sure. But I feel like a lot of the things you could cast that

00:15:11.360 way, and you would be impossible to ignore. If you ran as a candidate who literally said, I'm going to

00:15:18.880 give you a Democrat view of the world, and then I'm going to show you how to dissolve it with

00:15:24.420 Republican policies. Now, it's not going to work for abortion, right? There are going to be a few

00:15:29.240 things that it just doesn't work for. So how about you say, you know, there's a group that wants to

00:15:38.740 promote more LGBTQ awareness or openness or whatever, however they would say it, in the schools, and a lot of

00:15:47.320 conservatives would say, no, that's too young. You know, we want our kids to do it. So how about instead,

00:15:53.860 you say, we need, we need to, you need to be able to send your kids to a school where they can learn

00:16:01.120 to appreciate all people. That would be the Democrat version. And then say, the solution to that is school

00:16:07.980 choice. So that you Democrats have a choice to send your children to exactly the kind of school you want

00:16:15.100 to send them to. Why should you send your kids to a school which Republicans have designed? Does that

00:16:23.080 make sense to you? No. So you take the Democrats' own argument that you want to, you want to teach

00:16:30.120 your kids to be, you know, educated about openness and the differences among people in a productive way.

00:16:38.220 How about we help you? How about we help you get that choice? And then we get out of your

00:16:44.460 business. And the Republicans would say, there's nothing I want more than to get out of your

00:16:49.700 business. I just would like the same. You know, in return, I would like you to get out of my business.

00:16:58.060 Think, think how often you could, you could use their arguments and then a Republican solution.

00:17:02.400 All right. So maybe the country is closer to sticking together than we think. Over in the United

00:17:14.960 Kingdom, they're going to test the four-day work week pretty seriously. So there are 3,300 workers

00:17:20.960 and 70 businesses across a whole range of industries that are going to participate.

00:17:26.000 And apparently this has been done before. In Iceland, they did a study between 2015 and 2019.

00:17:35.320 And they found that the employees who volunteered, I guess, to work the shorter work weeks had the

00:17:43.120 same productivity. Now, what do you think about that? Do you think, do you think that in general,

00:17:53.920 a four-day work week would work as well as a five-day work week? Because I don't think it's four times

00:18:01.440 10. I think it's still, I think it's 32 hours instead of 40, I believe is the idea.

00:18:12.360 Well, one way to look at it is that you can reduce most business expenses by 25%. It doesn't make a

00:18:19.740 difference. There are a lot of things that you overspend for that if you just stop doing it,

00:18:25.500 you find it didn't work out as poorly as you imagined. So it wouldn't be shocking at all

00:18:31.900 if people could figure out how to do fewer meetings and more work. That wouldn't surprise me.

00:18:38.620 I don't know. I will watch this with interest. But I've got a feeling that there are other

00:18:50.860 reasons that people go to work. And so one of the things they say is that people are more productive

00:18:56.620 if, you know, if you can teach people to stop bothering each other at work and dropping in and

00:19:02.700 having meetings that are too long and stuff like that, you'd be more productive. But I feel as if

00:19:09.100 for everyone who wants someone to stop dropping into their cubicle, there's someone who really needs

00:19:15.500 to do the dropping in. Because the people who are always doing the dropping in are like lonely people

00:19:21.180 who need to talk to somebody because they don't have anybody at home. Yeah, there's a huge social

00:19:27.740 part to work. That if you decrease that, I don't know that people are happier at their house.

00:19:36.300 Wasn't one of the big problems with the pandemic that it caused people to be home more? And people

00:19:41.660 are like, you know, two days at home with my family, that's just about right. Five days at home with my

00:19:50.140 family, that's a lot of family. So I've got a feeling that there's some unintended consequences

00:19:57.260 of the short work weeks. But I am glad that they're testing it. Why? Because we should test

00:20:03.580 everything that can be tested. Just a general statement. If there are people who want to do this,

00:20:10.380 it's funded. We're all curious about the outcomes. It matters. It's important. Yeah, let's test it.

00:20:19.340 So thumbs up to the UK for being leaders and at least testing this stuff.

00:20:28.700 So here's another story that fits into the theme. So George Takai, do you follow him on Twitter?

00:20:36.540 So he played Sulu in the original Star Trek. And he's pretty active in left-leaning politics on Twitter,

00:20:45.900 especially anything with LGBTQ stuff. And so he tweeted this yesterday, I think. He says,

00:20:56.220 crazy thought, but those 20 million AR-15s now in this country could sure arm a lot of Ukrainians.

00:21:06.540 Now, is that not an example of a left-leaning person completely agreeing with Republicans,

00:21:14.620 but they just can't say it out loud? Because here's the other way to say what George Takai just said.

00:21:22.700 The only reason the United States doesn't have to worry about being overthrown is we have 20 million AR-15s. 0.97

00:21:31.180 Now, it's not like I was worried that Canada was going to overrun us anytime soon. But

00:21:37.100 I do feel safer with knowing that my fellow citizens, which always sounds sexist to me,

00:21:46.380 what's the non-sexist way to say my fellow citizens? Is there a non-sexist word for that yet?

00:21:53.500 My they citizens, my they citizens, my comrades. Sounds wrong.

00:22:01.160 Now, that didn't trip off the tongue just right. We citizens. Well, I'm glad we citizens have 20 million AR-15s.

00:22:13.800 Although I admit that whenever there's a mass shooting, I say to myself, what the hell? What the hell?

00:22:21.560 So this feels like another one of those situations where you could agree with George Takai and just sort of like

00:22:31.400 make a commercial end of his opinion and say, and that's why Russia isn't invading America. I mean, that's the ridiculous version. 0.85

00:22:40.680 So, Rasmussen, in their polling, reminds us that the top voter concerns in this order, number one, inflation.

00:22:53.720 Number two, election integrity. And number three, violent crime.

00:23:00.840 Do these things seem like the same priorities that you're seeing on television and from your politicians?

00:23:10.680 Have there been a lot of CNN specials about how to improve election integrity?

00:23:19.640 No. There have been lots of specials telling you that the elections were fine.

00:23:26.040 They're just fine. It's the number two issue in America.

00:23:31.540 Think of all the issues we have. We've got some pretty bad stuff floating around, right?

00:23:37.000 And still, number two is election integrity.

00:23:40.080 Because people know, people know intuitively that if you don't have that part right, all of the other stuff doesn't get fixed.

00:23:48.560 And you've taken away your ability to do anything, really.

00:23:52.700 So, I think Rasmussen does a great job, you know, for the country

00:24:00.020 by reminding us that our politicians and our news services are not giving us what we're asking for.

00:24:06.960 What we're really asking for is, can you at least make sure the elections work?

00:24:12.540 Please?

00:24:14.080 Can you please just give us one thing?

00:24:18.740 Just one?

00:24:19.860 Can you just get on the same side that the voting machines should count the actual votes?

00:24:25.480 Can we agree on that?

00:24:28.460 It feels like something we could get to, you know, we could rally around.

00:24:32.360 But not in our divisive country.

00:24:40.020 Here's a reframe that I've been working on.

00:24:45.880 Those of you who know my life story,

00:24:48.980 you might know that I grew up in a small town,

00:24:52.480 Wyndham, New York, in upstate New York.

00:24:55.480 There were, I don't know, 40 people in my graduating class,

00:24:59.640 maybe 2,000 people in the town.

00:25:02.900 And the first thing that I did after I graduated college,

00:25:10.360 and I went to college in a nearby town, Oneonta, New York,

00:25:14.860 the first thing I did was move to San Francisco.

00:25:20.760 Why did I do that?

00:25:22.320 Yeah, it was Hartwick College.

00:25:25.460 I got a degree in economics.

00:25:27.240 Why did I, why was the first thing I did to move to San Francisco?

00:25:34.320 It's because I was chasing luck. 0.58

00:25:36.440 Over on YouTube, somebody says, because you're gay? 0.98

00:25:46.560 No, follow along. 0.98

00:25:49.180 Try to get back on track here.

00:25:53.980 It was funny, though.

00:25:55.080 No, I went to San Francisco, because it's where the energy was, right?

00:26:01.740 It's where the energy was.

00:26:03.480 And I wanted to go somewhere where there were more opportunities,

00:26:06.080 more chances to get lucky, and just more stuff happening.

00:26:09.960 And I thought to myself, okay, I was lucky that I could do that.

00:26:14.580 Like, it was physically possible for me to do that.

00:26:19.100 Now, imagine you're looking at any impoverished inner city area.

00:26:24.520 Let's take Chicago.

00:26:26.820 You've got high crime, and, you know, economics are terrible in certain parts of the city.

00:26:31.960 How would you fix it?

00:26:35.460 Well, I'll tell you the worst way to fix it.

00:26:38.260 Keep everybody where they are, and try to make it better there.

00:26:43.620 That might be the worst way to do it.

00:26:46.880 Because the concentration of troublemaking people is probably too high.

00:26:53.720 And so that nothing you do there is going to make a difference.

00:26:56.100 It's like donating food to countries where they have warlords.

00:27:03.180 You can give them all the food you want,

00:27:04.960 but the warlords are going to steal it all when it hits the ground.

00:27:08.280 It doesn't help.

00:27:09.720 It doesn't help to help, because of the people.

00:27:13.240 There's just too much of a concentration of criminal element or whatever.

00:27:17.640 So, in my opinion, the number one thing that you need to do to help anybody

00:27:22.360 who's in that situation is to move them.

00:27:24.180 And I'm wondering, how much poverty and, I don't know, every problem in the world

00:27:31.460 could you solve if it were real easy for poor people to move?

00:27:38.820 And that is really the hardest thing in the world.

00:27:41.380 It's really pretty hard to just say,

00:27:44.660 okay, I'm going to move to San Francisco just because it's a better place to be.

00:27:49.420 Like, who can really do that?

00:27:50.720 I mean, I was very, very fortunate, and it was a point in time,

00:27:55.620 and let's be honest, I was a white male.

00:27:59.080 Things were easier if you were a white male in those days, right? 0.63

00:28:03.000 So, I had everything going for me, in a sense.

00:28:07.200 But imagine if you could pick out the B students and above in every poor place,

00:28:14.320 and you just say, all right, you've got a B average on your own by sixth grade.

00:28:21.140 I'll just pick a random grade.

00:28:24.180 So, you got all the way to sixth grade, and somehow,

00:28:27.220 somehow you pulled at least Bs.

00:28:30.240 We're going to give you the option to pull your whole family out of there.

00:28:34.160 And some kind of, you know, government greased,

00:28:37.180 you know, you don't want the government to get bigger.

00:28:38.760 But there's probably some way to create even a private app kind of situation

00:28:47.400 where you can get people out and get them to a job.

00:28:51.940 Now, I've talked about this before,

00:28:53.440 but the more apps become ubiquitous, the more practical this is.

00:28:59.640 Imagine if you had an app that was designed to help people escape where they live.

00:29:05.420 Let's say domestically.

00:29:08.380 Eventually, it could include other countries.

00:29:11.300 But just domestically.

00:29:12.880 And let's say you're a single mom,

00:29:16.520 and you know you just can't do enough for your kid.

00:29:20.600 You want to, you just can't do enough.

00:29:22.160 So, you go on the app, and you say, like, I need to escape.

00:29:25.500 I need to get out of here.

00:29:26.780 And then other people go on the app and say,

00:29:28.740 I'd like to help you escape.

00:29:30.460 Like, I'll be one of the people.

00:29:32.160 I can't afford to do it all myself.

00:29:33.940 But I could give, you know, 20 bucks or whatever to help you escape.

00:29:38.840 But in return, here's the deal.

00:29:41.720 You've got to show us your kid's report card,

00:29:44.720 and it's got to be at least bees for, let's say, you know, one year or something.

00:29:51.640 Whatever it is.

00:29:52.500 So the mother says, all right, I got one thing to do.

00:29:55.540 I'm going to make sure my kid gets bees. 0.99

00:29:57.620 Like, it might be a Herculean task.

00:30:01.000 You might have to, like, lock them in.

00:30:03.800 But maybe for one year you could do it, if you were really incentivized.

00:30:08.600 And then you meet that simple test.

00:30:11.160 Yeah, there would be fraud.

00:30:12.160 There's fraud in everything.

00:30:13.320 You know, you do your best to get past it.

00:30:15.880 But you get to that point, and then you get an option that people put together a moving package.

00:30:22.120 And they say, all right, here are several options.

00:30:24.480 You can move to this town.

00:30:25.840 We'll help you connect with the people who will make that easy and inexpensive to do.

00:30:31.400 And we've even got a job lined up for you that's in your field.

00:30:36.240 And we'll get you trained.

00:30:38.920 I feel as if individuals helping individuals and then following their story would be more entertaining than actual entertainment.

00:30:49.220 Let me say it again.

00:30:50.220 Suppose you could go onto an app and pay $20 to help somebody that somehow has been vetted to be not a fraud, that you're actually just part of their cheering community to help them out.

00:31:04.520 So you get to follow somebody's life.

00:31:06.080 You follow them on social media.

00:31:07.560 And maybe that's a requirement or a suggestion.

00:31:10.880 You say, look, we'd like to be able to follow your life.

00:31:13.940 So post as much as you can on social media, and we'll just follow you.

00:31:19.960 And if you're doing well, we'll give more money.

00:31:22.980 But if it looks like you're in with a bad crowd or something, if there's some way to find out, maybe we won't.

00:31:30.800 But if you do well, we'll back you, and we'll give you advice, right, lots of advice and connections.

00:31:36.940 And we'll help you get a job with somebody we know in that town and stuff like that.

00:31:40.860 But I feel as if all these kids are becoming, they're trying to become social media stars when they really just need to be good people.

00:31:52.240 Imagine, if you will, that a kid said, hey, I could use social media and TikTok to help my future life.

00:32:00.780 And all I have to do is offer myself up and say, hey, I need help.

00:32:07.160 I'm in a bad situation.

00:32:09.440 I live in a tough town.

00:32:11.260 I'd like to get out.

00:32:13.780 Can you be my virtual mentors?

00:32:17.700 And in return, I will keep you informed of my life so you can see that whatever you do is helping me or not.

00:32:23.980 And I'll give you some transparency about how I'm doing.

00:32:27.720 And you could just sponsor me.

00:32:31.020 And then the people sponsoring could argue among themselves whether they're doing a good job.

00:32:37.180 So the sponsors would police each other.

00:32:40.160 It'd all be transparent.

00:32:42.240 In every case, the parent would have to have access to everything, right?

00:32:47.400 The parent has to see all of it and approve it, right?

00:32:51.140 That's just got to, that has to be.

00:32:53.060 You want to turn people into social workers? 0.99

00:32:59.480 No.

00:33:01.560 So if somebody says you want to turn people into social workers, as soon as you added a worker, you lost the idea entirely.

00:33:11.140 There's nothing about this that's work.

00:33:15.040 That's the idea.

00:33:16.000 See, the greatest untapped resource in the world is people's natural generosity.

00:33:33.320 And the reason that it's not activated is that we don't trust the people asking for it, right?

00:33:40.380 You just don't trust that if you use your generosity, it's necessarily going to be turned into something positive.

00:33:48.800 I think I've done this before on the live stream, but let me do it again.

00:33:53.620 Do you know how many times I've tried to help somebody who had, you know, a financial situation or some kind of a big problem?

00:34:01.140 A lot, because for three decades I've been in a situation where I had more than I needed.

00:34:10.060 So lots of times I've tried to help somebody who was in a bad situation.

00:34:14.720 Now let me ask you this.

00:34:16.360 How many times did it work?

00:34:19.400 As in, once you solve this temporary problem, somebody went on to a good, successful life.

00:34:28.600 Okay, here's the answer.

00:34:31.140 It's not zero.

00:34:33.300 It's not zero.

00:34:35.260 It might be 10%.

00:34:36.600 It might be 10%.

00:34:38.820 And probably 20%, you know, really did make a big difference.

00:34:43.420 80% is just people revert to whoever they were.

00:34:47.580 So the person who got into trouble is the person who's going to get into trouble again.

00:34:52.520 Unfortunately.

00:34:53.000 You know, helping people temporarily doesn't really, by definition, doesn't have a permanent effect.

00:35:01.620 But it's totally worth doing for the 10%. 1.00

00:35:07.300 If I look at the people who, you know, for whom I have made an actual difference, it really did make a difference.

00:35:18.040 And so, you know, I'll be able to enjoy my senior years knowing that at least 10% of the people I tried to help genuinely got helped.

00:35:29.400 Like really, really made a difference.

00:35:31.020 And that is very, very rewarding.

00:35:34.440 Now, how entertaining is it to know that you help somebody?

00:35:41.380 It's one of the greatest pleasures you can receive.

00:35:44.120 So my generosity is automatically rewarded when it works.

00:35:50.260 The problem is that generosity doesn't work.

00:35:54.720 We live in a world in which we're not tribal.

00:35:58.900 So I could send my generosity out into the world and it just gets absorbed and taken for granted, right?

00:36:06.020 It doesn't come back.

00:36:07.600 Anyway.

00:36:07.820 So right now, if we had an app that simply captured generosity and made sure that it wasn't, at least,

00:36:19.540 maybe the trick is to, you have to diversify your generosity so that you can see the 10% that worked.

00:36:25.940 So maybe you're always investing in more than one person, perhaps.

00:36:30.880 A fund of people.

00:36:32.260 You can even have somebody who organizes a fund to see who's worthy to get, you know, to be part of the app.

00:36:41.260 So anyway, you can imagine a situation in which you could untap generosity.

00:36:47.320 People would get something immediately in return for their generosity.

00:36:51.260 And you would create a virtuous cycle.

00:36:58.400 All right?

00:36:59.400 Well, that's the best idea you've heard all day.

00:37:02.260 But if I were a Republican, the way I would put it is, we're going to help Democrats move out of Democrat cities.

00:37:10.240 See?

00:37:11.180 See how many things you can take as a Democrat argument with a Republican solution.

00:37:17.960 Democrat cities have too many guns.

00:37:21.100 Too much gun violence.

00:37:23.540 We Republicans will help you move out of those places and live where there are just as many guns, but no gun violence.

00:37:32.260 It's called Wyoming.

00:37:35.180 Or something.

00:37:37.640 Now, have you seen all the advertisements for ADUs?

00:37:42.340 The, what's it called?

00:37:45.240 You can put an extra little house on your property.

00:37:50.940 ADU, what's that stand for?

00:37:53.080 Something unit, dwelling unit.

00:37:56.180 Affordable dwelling unit, ADU.

00:37:58.180 So, that industry has recently exploded.

00:38:01.740 And there are a whole bunch of companies that make, basically, a house in a box.

00:38:07.280 And one of them, I think, is called Boxable.

00:38:10.060 And I think Elon Musk actually has an investment in it.

00:38:13.020 And it comes in a truck and it unfolds into a proper little house.

00:38:16.400 That's got, you know, bathroom and bedroom and, you know, tiny kitchen kind of situation.

00:38:24.760 So, here's what I think is going to be the big thing.

00:38:30.460 Somebody's going to develop some land in a remote place that has good weather and lots of water.

00:38:36.820 And Wi-Fi.

00:38:40.460 And they're going to say, you can put any kind of ADU here and live there.

00:38:45.560 The ADU would just be where you live.

00:38:48.620 And you could have more than one.

00:38:52.460 So, you might have a family that needs, you know, two of them.

00:38:55.460 And you just stick them together.

00:38:57.200 And people like me could invest in them.

00:39:03.780 So, you'd say, Scott, you can invest in this little, you know, square piece of land in Wyoming.

00:39:09.780 And we'll tell you how to invest in any one of these ADUs.

00:39:13.760 And we'll put it there.

00:39:14.780 You don't have to do any work.

00:39:16.480 You just have to put the money in.

00:39:18.260 You'll own the land.

00:39:19.280 You'll own the ADU.

00:39:20.400 And we'll rent it for you.

00:39:22.260 The rent will be low.

00:39:25.000 That's the whole idea.

00:39:25.980 But, since it costs so little for you to invest in that little piece of dirt, in that little ADU, you'll get your money back.

00:39:35.740 So, you might want to invest in several of them.

00:39:38.200 And I say, oh, actually I do.

00:39:40.940 I wouldn't mind owning several ADUs, like little mini investments.

00:39:45.760 And then you say to the people who are maybe living there, you know, if you will manage the one next door,

00:39:55.980 I'll give you a break in rent.

00:39:59.840 And then suddenly they've got work.

00:40:02.300 They've got a place to go.

00:40:03.660 They can, you know, work remotely.

00:40:06.100 Anyway, I think we need a place to take people who have promise and some drive,

00:40:11.780 pull them out of their situation, put them in a good situation,

00:40:14.880 stop talking about the guns that are in the bad situation,

00:40:17.600 and start talking about pulling the people out and getting them into a place where they can be educated and safe.

00:40:27.280 Most investors are not generous.

00:40:29.600 Well, that's true.

00:40:30.860 That's true.

00:40:31.700 If your mode is investor, you're not generous.

00:40:35.280 Right.

00:40:35.820 Because those are different.

00:40:36.720 You know, being an investor is being selfish.

00:40:41.060 That's what it's supposed to be.

00:40:42.500 It won't work if you don't try to be selfish.

00:40:48.080 So the Steve Bannon situation got interesting.

00:40:52.340 I guess there were 12 jurors wanting to convict Steve Bannon,

00:40:57.020 associate Timothy Shea,

00:41:00.860 and there was one holdout.

00:41:03.820 So there was one Trump-supporting holdout

00:41:06.260 who just hung the jury.

00:41:09.980 And it just turned completely political.

00:41:12.500 But, of course, this is in the backdrop of the larger story,

00:41:16.940 which is it does appear that conservatives are being treated differently by the government than the left.

00:41:25.240 Does that feel true?

00:41:28.400 I don't know if it's true.

00:41:30.860 I'm not totally sold that the prominent anecdotes we've seen really show us a trend.

00:41:38.900 But it sure looks like it, doesn't it?

00:41:42.340 Like, the anecdotal stuff is very persuasive.

00:41:48.900 I just don't know that we aren't being fooled by anecdotes.

00:41:54.140 Does anybody have that suspicion?

00:41:56.560 Because if you ask me if it's persuasive, totally.

00:42:02.040 But if you ask me if it's really true, I don't know.

00:42:06.600 How would I know?

00:42:08.080 How would you know?

00:42:09.540 I wouldn't know.

00:42:10.840 Has anybody done some kind of rigorous study that would, you know,

00:42:16.540 that would tell us whether this is really happening?

00:42:18.820 Now, the prominent cases, it just looks that way, but I don't know.

00:42:24.660 Yeah, I know the anecdotes.

00:42:26.240 I know the Peter Navarro.

00:42:27.500 I know the Stone.

00:42:29.740 It does look as though they are being mistreated.

00:42:33.300 In every way, it has that look.

00:42:36.940 But just because they're being mistreated,

00:42:40.080 I don't know if that's part of a bigger thing.

00:42:45.200 But it could be.

00:42:46.540 It could be.

00:42:47.580 I'm definitely worried about it.

00:42:57.860 All right.

00:43:01.500 Yeah, if you compare Peter Navarro's situation

00:43:04.120 to the way Hillary was treated, et cetera. 1.00

00:43:09.740 You know, this January 6th stuff,

00:43:13.240 is this going to backfire on the Democrats?

00:43:17.400 Did you see the David Axelrod tweet in which he was...

00:43:22.460 I felt he was warning his own team.

00:43:25.700 Because the New York Times treated the January 6th hearings

00:43:29.600 as a political strategy by the left.

00:43:35.480 And David Axelrod was saying,

00:43:37.040 I don't think you want to be happy if you're a Democrat

00:43:41.260 and you see the press say it's a political thing.

00:43:46.640 Because the New York Times basically treated it

00:43:48.900 like it was just a political act.

00:43:51.880 And Axelrod is saying,

00:43:53.480 I think you need to let the evidence go where the evidence goes.

00:43:57.440 Now, which is the correct thing to say in public, of course.

00:44:04.900 And I've got a feeling that this is going to backfire gigantically.

00:44:10.280 Because at some point,

00:44:13.520 the Republicans get to talk, right?

00:44:16.460 Now, I'm not talking about during the hearings themselves.

00:44:19.280 But a lot of Republicans are going to talk about it.

00:44:23.360 You know, are you telling me that the mainstream media

00:44:26.100 isn't going to have any Republicans on?

00:44:28.860 Don't they have to?

00:44:30.800 I mean, how often does CNN and MSNBC

00:44:33.500 have a prominent Republican on to interview?

00:44:38.520 Actually, I don't know the answer to the question.

00:44:40.260 Does that happen often?

00:44:41.920 Never?

00:44:45.320 Because there's not as much cross-pollination

00:44:47.960 as there should be.

00:44:49.460 But I do think Republicans are going to have to get a...

00:44:53.720 You know, there's going to have to be some kind of response.

00:44:56.240 And it's going to be newsworthy.

00:44:58.860 But I think that if the Republicans simply use it

00:45:02.080 as a place to grandstand

00:45:03.960 and call out the left for exactly what's happening here,

00:45:10.480 it could really, really work for the Republicans in a big way.

00:45:14.760 So Axelrod is completely right.

00:45:16.360 The fact that the left is not trying to hide the fact

00:45:20.640 that it's purely political,

00:45:22.920 that has to have some blowback, doesn't it?

00:45:28.740 If you're not even pretending,

00:45:31.100 it's anything but political.

00:45:32.980 It also makes all of the other cases,

00:45:35.280 you know, like the Peter Navarro,

00:45:36.960 and it makes all the other cases

00:45:39.340 look like they were political, too.

00:45:41.620 Because they largely are.

00:45:44.740 Yeah, they produced a Good Morning America producer

00:45:50.640 to do that.

00:45:57.300 Yeah, it's the House, not the Senate.

00:45:59.460 Right.

00:46:00.640 But still, I think the Senate's going to be

00:46:02.440 pretty vocal about what's going on.

00:46:04.580 So there are no Republican members

00:46:11.260 of the January 6th committee, you're saying?

00:46:14.640 But there will still be lots of Republican voices.

00:46:18.180 Won't there?

00:46:20.020 Won't Republicans be interviewed

00:46:22.420 by the January 6th people on TV?

00:46:26.200 Well, let me ask you this.

00:46:27.860 Who exactly is going to be talking?

00:46:29.680 Because it doesn't matter

00:46:32.420 who's asking the questions,

00:46:33.760 it also matters who's answering them.

00:46:37.260 Who will be the prominent people

00:46:39.420 interviewed during the hearings?

00:46:46.040 Actually, I have no idea.

00:46:48.380 Who exactly, are they just going to be

00:46:50.240 showing video and evidence?

00:46:51.600 Or are they going to be interviewing people?

00:46:54.660 What exactly is happening on Thursday?

00:46:57.120 Can somebody tell me?

00:47:01.340 Two rhinos on it?

00:47:02.600 Yeah, okay.

00:47:06.260 Okay, well, I guess I don't know.

00:47:10.520 I guess I don't know what we'll see.

00:47:12.860 But I'll probably watch it.

00:47:14.720 Who's going to be watching it?

00:47:21.420 They can get away with it.

00:47:22.820 That is why they're doing it.

00:47:23.840 You know, I think the fact

00:47:25.860 that there are no real Republicans

00:47:30.540 on that committee,

00:47:32.920 that should tell the Democrats something.

00:47:37.560 Schiff is leading the show?

00:47:39.320 You're not serious, are you?

00:47:41.060 Is Adam Schiff in charge of that?

00:47:44.780 Seriously?

00:47:45.300 Now, how is it that Adam Schiff

00:47:52.600 is not hated by his own team?

00:47:55.600 Is it only because I don't like what he says

00:47:58.740 that makes me think he's the worst figurehead

00:48:04.620 for your cause?

00:48:06.580 I mean, he's like the Jeffrey Dahmer of politicians.

00:48:09.760 Like, I look at him,

00:48:12.380 and I have just such a visceral reaction.

00:48:15.000 And I can't tell if that's just because

00:48:18.440 I don't like what he says.

00:48:21.520 If I liked what he said,

00:48:23.720 would he come across to me

00:48:25.460 as like a reasonable patriot or something?

00:48:29.680 I don't know.

00:48:30.580 He's just got the look of something's wrong.

00:48:33.340 He and Swalwell have that same thing.

00:48:38.020 There's something about their look

00:48:40.240 that I can't get past.

00:48:45.820 Yeah.

00:48:47.100 Crazy eyes, maybe.

00:48:50.420 Reptilian.

00:48:57.640 All right.

00:48:59.840 So, have I hit all the big points for today?

00:49:03.340 Yes, I have.

00:49:07.300 And,

00:49:08.240 can we agree

00:49:10.760 that this is the best birthday livestream

00:49:14.540 of all time?

00:49:17.100 Yeah, I think so.

00:49:18.500 And would you join me

00:49:19.560 in a special birthday closing sip?

00:49:25.440 Some of you would.

00:49:26.940 Yes.

00:49:29.160 And here we go.

00:49:30.240 This one's to all of you,

00:49:35.000 my beloved audience.

00:49:38.040 Thank you for showing up every day.

00:49:41.260 I'm sure sometimes you have other things to do.

00:49:43.940 And thank you for supporting me

00:49:46.120 and all of your good wishes.

00:49:48.360 And I've got to say that

00:49:49.400 the response is the reason I do it.

00:49:54.180 I mean, I could be doing a lot of different things.

00:49:56.220 So, I appreciate you very much.

00:49:59.080 Cheers.

00:50:06.680 YouTube,

00:50:07.740 have a great day.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - June 08, 2022

Episode 1768 Scott Adams： The Slippery Slope Met The Brick Wall Last Night. Let's Sip And Discuss

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript