Episode 1800 Scott Adams: Biden Goes Begging For Oil, And Other Embarrassing International Updates
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 3 minutes
Words per Minute
143.79762
Summary
In this episode of the highlight of civilization, Scott Adams talks about a woman who argues that her unborn child is still alive, and why that's not a good enough reason to keep them in a coma. Plus, a list of the top 12 biggest hoaxes of all time.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the Highlight of Civilization.
00:00:10.040
I don't think it could be any better than this.
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I think all of our problems have bottomed out, and we're all good.
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And if you want to take it up another notch, all you need is a cup or a mug or a glass,
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a tank or a gel, a glass, a vessel of any kind.
00:00:38.860
I'm reading a meme on locals that I'm not going to read, but it's pretty funny.
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All right, enjoy me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dopamine to the day,
00:00:55.840
And now, why in the world the Locos platform allows you to put memes and images in the comments?
00:01:09.720
All right, did you see the story about the woman who, I guess, she got ticketed for driving in the high-capacity lane,
00:01:19.980
you know, the carpool lane, but she argued that she had a baby in her.
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I think it was eight months, eight months along.
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And she argued that if that baby is alive, then there are two people in the car.
00:01:38.720
I think arguing whether that's right or wrong is sort of irrelevant.
00:01:48.000
She'll win or she'll lose, and that's what it is.
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I don't think you could really argue that that's right or wrong.
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Now, it would be easy to say, well, but since you're inseparable, you're all going to the same place,
00:02:03.480
it's like it's one person, but legally it's like it's two.
00:02:07.600
All right, but suppose they were to say the baby doesn't count.
00:02:34.280
Now, why do you say yes if there's no brain, no useful brain activity?
00:02:38.920
So that there's no brain activity that sort of relates to the external world?
00:02:46.380
So you would be consistent if you said that a fetus was alive
00:02:56.420
But wouldn't it be inconsistent to think that the baby is not alive, but the person who...
00:03:16.060
Well, I would argue that that's a person who's potentially alive,
00:03:19.780
just as I would argue that a fetus is potentially alive.
00:03:28.140
Why can't you kill somebody if they're under anesthetic?
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It's just that you get into some weird situations.
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But, you know, but if there's no brain consciousness,
00:03:48.360
in both cases you would need external help to have a successful life.
00:03:57.120
I'm just saying you get into some weird territory if you go down that track.
00:04:02.140
Well, I was just telling the locals people that there's somebody on Twitter
00:04:06.520
who has the word skeptic as a prominent part of their biography.
00:04:18.160
And the skeptic, when he saw my list of the top 12 hoaxes in the headlines,
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he said he believes that every one of those is true.
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So, he's a skeptic who believes that every one of the 12 hoaxes are real.
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So, it's up to 12 now since I added the Border Patrol agents.
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But if you haven't, here's the rundown of the top 12 hoaxes.
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And I put it in the form of a quiz to see, you know, how good you consume the news.
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Russia's playing, Russia paying bounties on the U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.
00:05:03.200
Trump suggested drinking or injecting bleach to fight COVID.
00:05:08.380
Trump cleared protesters with tear gas for a Bible photo op.
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Elections were fair because no court found major fraud.
00:05:17.760
January 6th was an insurrection to overthrow the government.
00:05:20.420
Trump tried to grab the steering wheel of the beast.
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And Border Patrol agents whipped illegal border crossers.
00:05:27.180
Now, wouldn't you say that there are lots more I could have added?
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It's just that these are so, you know, provably false.
00:05:48.240
So, Ukraine has an interesting situation going on.
00:05:53.560
Apparently, there's some kind of satellite system that can measure the visible fires on the earth.
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And so, one way you can tell how things are going in Ukraine versus Russia is you can look overnight and see who's burning the most.
00:06:07.880
So, if most of the fires are on the Ukraine side, they're doing poorly.
00:06:12.380
If there are more fires on the Russian side, then the Ukrainians are mounting a good counterattack.
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And the suggestion is that a whole bunch of missile systems and artillery that's better, longer range, more accurate, has been delivered to Ukraine by now.
00:06:29.500
Now, they don't have the numbers, but they have the accuracy and the modern convenience of, you know, it's just easier to use them, I guess.
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Now, I understand that 22 munition depots have been targeted and successfully destroyed.
00:07:05.440
Wouldn't each unit roughly have its own munitions depot-ish?
00:07:15.880
So, how many units are there in each, you know, that are far enough away from each other that they would need their own depots?
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So, somebody says, a depot might serve thousands of troops, but how many units of thousands of troops are there?
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And how quickly can you replace a weapons depot?
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It feels like that would be easy to replace, right?
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So, I don't know if 22 weapons depots means they're running out of ammunition, or does it mean it's a drop in the bucket?
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Does it just break your head that the news doesn't tell you the most important part of that story?
00:08:01.680
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the most important part is how many do you think they have?
00:08:07.840
So, in other words, is there anybody here who's a military expert or wouldn't know enough about this?
00:08:14.040
If you had to guess, just a guess, I won't hold you to it, somebody with actual military experience would really be able to answer this question.
00:08:21.880
And if you have that expertise, put it in the comment, you know, I'm a X, and I'm guessing there are about this many.
00:08:31.860
Because if it's only a few dozen, then they got most of them, right?
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And, by the way, the context for my guess is that I have a weird track record of guessing accurately things that I don't know anything about.
00:08:58.740
It is sort of a theme in my life, and it's always been a theme.
00:09:01.580
People have commented on it throughout my whole life.
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It usually involves numbers, where I'll just look at some situation and I'll say,
00:09:09.600
you know, I think you're going to have to have at least, you know, 20 to 30 of whatever.
00:09:15.900
So, I'm going to guess how many munitions depots you would need close to the front for the Russians.
00:09:55.280
You know, I wonder if the wisdom of crowds is useful on something like this.
00:10:11.260
And I feel like the 22 that got destroyed were probably replaced the next day, were they not?
00:10:17.140
So, regardless of how many munitions depots get destroyed, don't they just spin up another one the next day?
00:10:24.620
Because I don't know that Russia has any manufacturing problems.
00:10:30.080
I think they're making munitions as fast as they're using them, right?
00:10:37.180
So, shouldn't Ukraine be blowing up the place that's making the munitions as opposed to the place that's storing them?
00:10:50.440
How many factories in Russia do you think make the munitions that matter?
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You know, the ones that really matter to the Ukraine conflict.
00:11:18.420
Now, somebody else is saying they don't have the weapons to do that.
00:11:24.940
You don't think Ukraine has the capacity to infiltrate Russia?
00:11:31.080
I would imagine that the Ukrainians have infiltrated the living crap out of Russia.
00:11:35.600
You don't think there are Ukrainian operatives running around in Moscow right now?
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I assume that there are Russians in Ukraine, too.
00:11:48.020
So you don't think you could get a decent terrorist attack to target a munitions depot?
00:11:58.860
It could be they're too well defended and it's underground.
00:12:13.660
But the implication is that the number of fires has gone way up on the Russian side of the conflict,
00:12:20.440
meaning that the Russians are taking lots of hits.
00:12:28.540
And again, remember, everything that comes out of a war situation is fog of war, highly unreliable.
00:12:35.600
But apparently the Russians stopped using artillery one day recently at 3 o'clock in the afternoon.
00:12:42.760
What would be the reason that for the first time they would stop their attack in the middle of the afternoon?
00:12:49.320
And one of the suggestions is they ran out of ammo.
00:12:57.940
So it's possible that the Ukrainians have a workable solution where they'll just take out the munitions on the other side and have better weapons.
00:13:06.460
So we might be 30 days away from Ukraine having an artillery advantage.
00:13:22.720
Because Russia will always have the numbers, right?
00:13:24.660
But the number of artillery doesn't make any difference if the number of munitions depots
00:13:31.160
is smaller than the number of missiles that Ukraine has to destroy them.
00:13:37.320
So it's going to come down to supply chain, isn't it?
00:13:40.840
And I'm not entirely sure that Russia has the advantage there.
00:13:44.320
Once it's attacked, they have the advantage until it's attacked.
00:13:51.240
There was a great threat on that by Phillips P. O'Brien, who you should follow.
00:13:57.080
So Brett Kavanaugh and his family went to a restaurant, and protesters found out,
00:14:01.920
and they protested, and he had to leave the restaurant.
00:14:08.980
I would like to call out one good joke about that situation with the caveat,
00:14:15.300
with the caveat, that this joke may not be in the direction of your political preference.
00:14:22.880
So this would be a joke from somebody on the left who just told a good joke.
00:14:27.580
So if you don't mind, I'm going to repeat the joke with credit,
00:14:37.520
And this comes from Jennifer Wright, talking about the Brett Kavanaugh thing.
00:14:41.660
Brett Kavanaugh can still eat at restaurants in other states.
00:14:50.840
You can still eat at restaurants in other states.
00:14:59.820
So here's what I think about all the Brett Kavanaugh stuff.
00:15:03.000
So, of course, conservatives are outraged that somebody's bothering justices in public,
00:15:10.520
And the left is saying, but this is a special case,
00:15:14.840
because this is so bad that something must be done.
00:15:20.400
I think this is another case of making the public think past the sale.
00:15:28.780
because they're making you think past the sale.
00:15:32.560
Because the sale is, whether terminating babies or fetuses at certain times is murder or not.
00:15:47.500
If there's nothing going on, as in abortion is just terminating a medical potential thing that you don't think was a life,
00:15:57.720
well, then it's definitely, definitely inappropriate that anybody would protest these justices in public.
00:16:04.300
If you assume that abortion is sort of no big deal, it's not even a life, you're just making a medical decision.
00:16:14.380
What if you assume it's like an ongoing rolling holocaust of millions of babies being murdered?
00:16:20.820
If you believe millions of babies are going to be murdered and that Brett Kavanaugh is one of the people who's causing it to happen,
00:16:27.900
is it inappropriate to bother him at a restaurant?
00:16:37.680
If something is that important, that's not a big departure from civilized behavior, if something's that important.
00:16:47.040
But if it's not, if they're not alive, the fetuses, that would be one point of view, then it's literally inappropriate.
00:16:57.880
So be careful if you are even arguing the question of whether it's appropriate or not for those protesters to be there.
00:17:11.540
AOC is being useful, which sort of validates the fact that I've said that she actually is an asset to the country.
00:17:22.080
Now, I disagree with her in most things, but I still think she's an asset.
00:17:34.960
I like my arguments to be pushed, make sure they're good.
00:17:43.360
So she's trying to add to a bill that has to get passed for the military some kind of amendment that would require the Department of Defense to study the therapeutic potential of psilocybin and MDMA for military service members.
00:17:59.240
Now, if AOC gets this done, if AOC gets this done, she paid for herself, in my opinion.
00:18:06.740
I know you don't like a lot of things she's done.
00:18:11.980
But if she gets this done, and if it works, then she's paid for herself.
00:18:22.940
Is it even possible that we could appreciate some things she does while still criticizing other things she does?
00:18:34.200
But this is so unambiguously the right thing to do that I'm not going to ignore it.
00:18:44.940
We're all talking about Biden's begging for oil tour.
00:18:56.060
This is how the news on the right characterized it as, you know, apologizing or something.
00:19:03.160
So Biden's going to go to Saudi Arabia, who basically doesn't have any more oil capacity.
00:19:11.620
And he's going to totally reverse his last decision that was, you know, we should be tough on them because of the murder of Khashoggi.
00:19:18.060
And he's reversed that and now he's going to go beg them for oil, which they can't produce because they don't have any capacity.
00:19:26.100
Now, I don't know about you, but if I'm going to play the odds in this, I say there's about a 50% chance that Biden will be dismantled with a bone saw somewhere toward the end of the meeting.
00:19:40.300
Now, you say to yourself, I don't think they could, you know, use a bone saw and dismantle the president of the United States right in front of us, to which I say, have you seen his approval levels?
00:19:55.740
His approval levels are, you know, down in the 30s.
00:20:01.060
If he can't use a bone saw on a guy like that, I don't know.
00:20:11.300
I'll give it a 0% chance that he's going to fix the oil problem by this trip, but a 50% chance he's cut up with a bone saw.
00:20:20.580
And then Trump will get re-elected and he will be soft on Saudi Arabia because they took out Biden with a bone saw.
00:20:41.940
Trump has declared victory in the 2020 election because of the Wisconsin decision that the ballot boxes were illegal.
00:20:50.540
So I guess his argument is that any vote in a ballot box should be thrown out, which is not what the Supreme Court said.
00:20:57.340
So the Supreme Court decision has more to do with upcoming elections and less to do with the past.
00:21:02.220
But Trump is nonetheless taking this opportunity to declare he was the real winner.
00:21:11.620
But wouldn't it be interesting if before 2024 there were events that emerged that shows the election really was rigged and we could prove it?
00:21:27.580
And according to the Elon Musk theory of reality, reality does bend toward the most entertaining outcome.
00:21:45.880
So apparently, I'm having trouble believing this is true, but I suppose it is.
00:21:56.540
So 4chan has evidently cracked Hunter Biden's iPhone, and he got the backup password, and they're leaking everything.
00:22:10.740
Do you believe that Apple can't crack its own system, but that 4chan can and the justice system can't?
00:22:26.540
Because you're sort of primed to believe that 4chan has these abilities, because they have done lots of impressive things.
00:22:33.380
So there's no doubt about it, 4chan has done impressive things.
00:22:38.560
But do you really think 4chan themselves hacked this?
00:23:03.000
So somebody said in the comments here that 4chan is just the CIA.
00:23:14.720
So I'm going to say that I don't believe this story.
00:23:20.140
I'm not going to say it's false, because that would be going too far.
00:23:27.840
Now, I do believe that we may have access to the contents.
00:23:32.100
But I don't believe that there was a 4chan user who hacked it.
00:23:41.720
It feels a little, it's just a little too on the nose.
00:23:51.100
So 4chan is an online destination that's typically completely unfiltered, unedited, and horrible things happen there.
00:24:01.280
But it's often frequented by people with insanely good technical skills, hackers and ordinary people.
00:24:10.580
But the 4chan people are the sketchiest among our civilization, because they're the ones with no filters.
00:24:18.120
And civilization requires you to have a filter, but they don't.
00:24:20.620
So, do you really think that one of their people, and we always make fun of the fact that it's a weaponized autism or Asperger's?
00:24:33.720
A lot of Asperger's people, allegedly, on there.
00:24:45.960
So, the New York Times is reporting openly that Biden's age is becoming an issue.
00:24:51.360
It quotes Democrats who are concerned about it, like David Gergen and stuff.
00:24:57.100
And that does tell us that Biden is not running again, right?
00:25:03.320
I mean, I don't know about the technicality of the paperwork,
00:25:07.120
but the New York Times is pretty much telling you that they're going to make sure he doesn't run for president.
00:25:12.080
And I think they know that they're really screwed if he does, because he can't win.
00:25:23.700
Suppose Gavin Newsom was the presidential candidate.
00:25:59.560
haven't we all been saying that the Democrats have a bad bench?
00:26:16.380
If Gavin Newsom runs for president, all bets are off.
00:26:22.840
I think he would run neck and neck with DeSantis.
00:26:26.800
And then it's just who has more people, who gets out to vote.
00:26:33.960
It's not a prediction that Gavin Newsom would win.
00:26:36.660
It's a prediction that he has the skill to win.
00:26:43.660
It's not even his path to the presidency just cleared out.
00:26:47.960
So, now that you see the left media is clearing Biden out,
00:26:52.860
and I think they've already cleared Kamala out.
00:26:54.920
So, if you assume that Kamala Harris and Joe Biden are not really serious competition to be running for president,
00:27:21.360
I think Gavin Newsom would beat Trump somewhat easily.
00:27:30.300
I think he would beat him with the same margin that Biden did.
00:27:34.220
You can argue about the credibility of the vote.
00:27:38.660
But I think Newsom would beat Trump about the same way that Biden did.
00:27:49.440
Do you feel comfortable that the Republicans are going to waltz into the White House?
00:27:54.000
Because, you know, if Congress goes strongly to the Republicans, you know how that works, right?
00:28:00.840
If Congress goes Republican, the White House is going to go Democrat.
00:28:19.620
But is there somebody who doesn't think that Gavin Newsom is, to Democrats, a capable and powerful leader?
00:28:32.580
So, and do you think DeSantis would be Gavin Newsom?
00:28:35.940
If Newsom ran against DeSantis, just take a moment to think about it.
00:28:46.340
They're both strong enough candidates that it wouldn't be about the candidate.
00:28:53.420
That if Gavin Newsom ran against DeSantis, it would not even be about the candidates.
00:28:58.540
Because they're close enough, and they're so popular within their parties, it's just party
00:29:07.960
And then it's just, you know, who designed the election system?
00:29:10.620
You know, and then it's, are ballot boxes legal this time or not?
00:29:28.280
There's a good chance you're going to see a President Gavin Newsom.
00:29:35.360
Apparently, we have information from the Department of Justice.
00:29:39.360
So, keep in mind, this is a credible source for this kind of information.
00:29:45.480
Maybe they're not credible for political stuff.
00:29:48.060
But for this kind of stuff, I'd call it our Department of Justice is credible.
00:29:51.780
And in writing, they've indicted five individuals for crimes related to transnational repression schemes
00:30:00.360
to silence critics of China residing in the United States.
00:30:06.240
So, the Chinese government has hired people who live in the United States.
00:30:13.000
I think some of them might have been born in China and came here,
00:30:16.820
but some look like they have, you know, real standard American names.
00:30:20.120
So, I think some of them are just people they bribed or whatever.
00:30:23.480
But they had five people who were trying to silence critics of China in the United States.
00:30:30.780
Now, reading between the lines, I think they mean Chinese-born critics of China.
00:30:43.160
I think they're only going, I don't think they're going after an American born in America
00:30:51.740
I think they're going after people born in China who left China and say bad things about China.
00:31:06.240
how far away is that from China trying to kill me, personally?
00:31:13.020
I mean, there aren't too many people who are more hawkish on China than I am in public.
00:31:22.540
I mean, I say we should attack inside the country of China
00:31:31.660
There's nobody who's more hawkish than I am on China.
00:31:46.080
but I doubt he would favor a military attack inside the country of China, and I do.
00:31:55.740
It would be intelligence operation kind of thing.
00:31:58.460
But I think we should find out where the fentanyl precursors are being created,
00:32:07.440
And when they rebuild it, we should blow it up again.
00:32:09.760
Now, it could be that we don't have that kind of assets in China.
00:32:16.780
You know, find somebody in China who's bribable
00:32:20.100
and give them some weapons and see what happens.
00:32:40.300
My take on China is we should stop all of their students
00:32:44.520
and all of their immigration from China to the United States.
00:32:48.340
Now, maybe, maybe some scientists or some technical people,
00:32:53.300
but I don't think we should let people from China into the United States.
00:32:58.440
I don't even think we should let their apps in the United States.
00:33:04.220
because there's somebody on the locals' platform
00:33:08.460
and doesn't know how hard my stance on China is.
00:33:13.520
We should get rid of their fucking manufacturing
00:33:16.260
to the, you know, as slowly as it makes sense, right,
00:33:22.980
We should get rid of all their fucking chips and technology,
00:33:28.040
We should find some way to get it someplace else.
00:33:37.220
Get rid of everything from the Chinese government
00:33:50.480
The only thing that I don't talk about a lot is Taiwan.
00:33:55.140
Do you know why I don't talk about Taiwan a lot?
00:34:10.440
And it might even be independent for 200 years.
00:36:58.140
Well, there are at least two reasons why I can't.
00:37:09.840
you know, there are living people who are involved.
00:37:36.300
to write a book that would be published after my death.
00:38:00.860
Thoughts on Wolfram's simulation view of physics.
00:38:30.700
Last weekend, we were going to try and think about people
00:38:34.980
A week ago or so, I told people to try and experiment
00:38:43.760
You would try to program the simulation to produce somebody
00:38:50.520
Now, how many people ran into somebody in the past week
00:39:18.440
If you were a sim, what would you be able to think about?
00:39:28.720
Because we would be programmed to be like people.
00:40:09.120
and can look at things from too many directions
00:40:11.140
to be prohibited from seeing the reality over time.