Episode 1857 Scott Adams: Let's Talk About The Headlines While I Teach you Hypnosis Tips & Tricks
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 23 minutes
Summary
In this episode of the highlight of civilization, we take a look behind the curtain, under the hood, and beneath the rock to find secrets and truths that have never been experienced before, or we'll just spend an hour or so sipping coffee and having a good time.
Transcript
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Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the highlight of civilization.
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It's called Coffee with Scott Adams, and I don't think there's been a finer moment in
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the history of time, space-time, or whatever the hell this is.
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And you, my lucky viewers, are in for the best time of your entire day so far.
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And all you need to take it up to amazing levels of happiness is a cup or mug or a glass,
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a tank or gel, a stein, a canteen jug or a flask, a vessel of any kind.
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And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine here of the day, the thing that
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Well, today, we're going to peel back the scenery and take a look at the machinery.
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We're going to look behind the curtain, under the hood, beneath the rock, and then we're
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going to drill into the core of the planet to find secrets and truths that have never
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Or we'll just spend an hour or so sipping coffee and having a good time.
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Well, in the news, here are the things we know for sure.
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We also know there's no evidence whatsoever that long COVID exists.
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We know, for example, that emergency rooms are packed with people complaining of long COVID
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I also know, because I saw a bunch of emergency room doctors this morning say, there's absolutely
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I've seen exactly zero long COVID patients, say the other emergency room doctors.
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So it is totally true that long COVID is a gigantic problem that exists for millions of people
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and is one of the biggest variables in the entire pandemic.
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And also, there's no evidence of it whatsoever.
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There is just as much evidence of both the situations.
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Also in the news, we have new studies that have proven, and new data proven, that vaccinations
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are injuring people more than the COVID itself.
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So we simultaneously have really good, solid information that the vaccinations have saved
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And at the same time, really solid information that it killed people.
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Meaning that they both have something like data.
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Now the experts are solidly on one side on most of these questions.
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We also know this week that ivermectin definitely works, because there's a new study showing it.
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And also that ivermectin definitely doesn't work, because there are better studies that show
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And an observational study doesn't mean anything.
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Vaccinations are good for you and not good for you.
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And the ivermectin totally works and totally doesn't work.
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Now, how much of this do you think is because the people who disagree with you didn't do their homework?
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Do you think the people who are on the other side from you, wherever you are on these topics,
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do you think that it's because they don't have good information?
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Here's another thing that is true and not true at the same time.
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Trump's recent speech was super divisive, or the opposite of that, just a lot of fun.
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It was super divisive, divisive, Nazi-sounding, scary shit, and also just a bunch of laughs.
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We also know that Biden has been simultaneously hugely successful.
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You know, he's got the unemployment rate is not bad, and things are moving in the right direction.
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At the same time, everything he's done is a disaster.
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So, Biden is simultaneously one of the most successful presidents in our history,
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and also the worst president in our history, same time.
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Today, for the first time, it's sort of not a good sign.
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Years ago, when I built my house, the one I live in, I put it in an elevator.
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Because I said to myself, if I stay here long enough, eventually there's going to be a day when I don't want to walk upstairs.
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I didn't think that day would be today, but it is.
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This morning, I actually couldn't handle the stairs.
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Physically, I can walk for miles, ride my bike for miles, go to the gym on a regular basis.
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But I can't walk up and down my stairs anymore.
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Do you know why I can't walk up and down my stairs anymore?
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If I were going to fall for the long COVID story, that's exactly what it feels like.
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All of my muscles hurt like crazy all of the time.
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So that I took a little time off from my workouts to just see if maybe I just overdid it.
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Now, by mid-morning, by mid-morning, I will have loosened up a little bit.
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Later in the afternoon, I will again be so tired that I will just sit on the couch and stare into space.
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Now, you're going to say to yourself, it's old age.
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Except that it happened at the same time I got COVID.
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Did old age just sneak up on me the same week I got COVID?
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And were my exact COVID symptoms, is it just a coincidence that the exact symptoms I had during COVID,
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which is trouble walking up the stairs, are the same symptoms I have now?
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Well, I only got the original series for the Alpha.
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A year went by when I didn't really have this problem.
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As soon as I got COVID, I haven't been able to walk upstairs for two months now.
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Now, and then I also had the brain fog for a while, but that's, I have less of the brain fog right now.
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When I'm completely wiped out and I can't even move, I can just barely stand up and get to my car.
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I mean just in, I mean at three o'clock in the afternoon, the act of standing up, walking to my garage,
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and putting the key in the, it's actually pretty hard.
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Then I go to Starbucks, and I order a venti-sized iced espresso almond milk something.
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I sit there and I drink that espresso, almond milk, iced tea, whatever iced thing it is.
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If I drink warm coffee at home, it just puts me to sleep.
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Because I don't have sugar in my coffee when I'm home.
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But when I have it at Starbucks, I assume it's got sugar in there of some kind.
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No, you know, the other thing I've been doing is going out in the morning and standing in the sun for a few minutes every day.
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As soon as I'm done with this, I'll actually go stand in my driveway for 10 minutes and just feel the sun.
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Now, you're also going to say it's because of marijuana, right?
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But my marijuana smoking is identical to how it's been since I was 18 years old.
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And it's not like the weed got better this summer.
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I mean, it's gradually improved, but that's not it.
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I know exactly what it feels like to be stoned.
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And then I wake up from the nap, and my muscles are still sore.
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If you were to say, Scott, you've never learned anything about psychology or confirmation bias,
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And I'd say, well, I've never heard of those things you just mentioned.
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But then suppose you said, Scott, you've been studying this stuff for a long time.
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And then I say, oh, shit, I do know what those things mean.
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Not only do I don't know, I don't even have a good guess.
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I'm not even sure which would be slightly more likely.
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But if you think that you are sure in my exact situation, if you could be in my exact situation
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and you would say to yourself, I'm sure, I'm sure this is long COVID, then you haven't learned
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And you will learn this lesson by the end of this live stream.
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Watch me tie it all together in one beautiful souffle.
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Yeah, you don't see it yet, but it's coming together.
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All right, I saw a tweet from P.D. Mangan today, who's a good follow.
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P.D. Mangan, M-A-N-G-A-N, shows that 25% of women in the United States are on an antidepressant.
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25% of adult women are on an antidepressant in the United States.
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So, I saw separately another tweet that said the United States' rate of antidepressants
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is through the roof compared to other countries.
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Do you know what is different about the United States compared to all those other countries
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where they have fewer prescriptions for antidepressants?
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Well, I don't know this is true, so I'll ask you for a fact check.
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Is it true that the United States is the only place that those companies can advertise directly to consumers?
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Because you see advertisements directly to consumers.
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Don't you think that makes the consumers ask for it?
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The whole point of it is to make consumers ask for it.
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So, do you think that the United States has a much bigger problem with depression,
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or do we have a big problem with media manipulation and brainwashing by advertisement?
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If the thing that science is telling you doesn't map with what you're observing,
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that doesn't mean it's not true, because your observations might be biased.
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But if it doesn't match, you should at least raise a flag and say,
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Why is my observation so wildly different than what I'm seeing?
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What is your opinion of the 25% of adult women on antidepressants?
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I think that society is organized in a way that prevents us from achieving happiness.
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Now, when I say society, I mean everything from the way we use technology,
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to the way we get married, to the way we have relationships,
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to the way we raise kids, to the way our school system works.
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Just all of it is designed, not designed, it sort of evolved that way.
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But we have created a civilization that couldn't possibly satisfy its people.
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If you took those same people and, you know, just airlifted them and dropped them into another environment,
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let's say you just put them in another country where people are happier.
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Do you think those people would be happier if you dropped them in a happier place with a different civilization?
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But to me, the 25% seems super low because what's not included is the number of people self-medicating.
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Don't you think there are just a shit done of people who are taking an illegal Xanax or an illegal Adderall or an illegal something?
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And in other words, it's an antidepressant of sorts.
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So imagine what the rate of antidepressants is now after the pandemic.
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My guess is that 80% of adults, male and female, are actively medicating.
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And the other 20% wish they had, but that's another story.
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What do you think, what would be your guess as to the popularity of abortion, having it legalized anyway,
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what will happen if you make it, well, what do you think was the predictable outcome of the Supreme Court?
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All right, the Supreme Court said it's up to the states to decide.
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But what do you think the public, on average, did?
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Did the public move more pro-abortion or more anti-abortion?
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All right, let's apply what we've learned from, let's apply everything we've learned from persuasion, okay?
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What happened when the Supreme Court ruled on Roe?
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What did it do to the supply of abortions, of legal abortions?
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What happened to the supply of legal abortions?
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You could still get them, but you'd have to work harder and go somewhere else in some cases.
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So if the supply goes down, what does that do to the price?
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When the supply is down, but the demand stays high, then the price goes up.
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So it's not surprising to me that when you make something harder to get, like a luxury good, that people have a higher opinion of it.
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It could be that just restricting the supply makes people want it more.
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Because everything we know about restricted supply changes the psychology of how valuable it is to say, oh, these are hard to get.
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Just the fact that they're hard to get makes it seem more valuable.
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Like you'd be a little more desperate to get it if it were hard to get.
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And also, I think the Supreme Court decision made people think about themselves or their loved ones in that situation.
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If it's not in the headlines, you don't have to think about yourself, oh, what if this happens to me?
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But as soon as you think, what if it happens to me or my loved ones, suddenly you say to yourself, I think I want options.
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If you're forced to think about it in terms of your personal experience, you're going to lean toward at least having options.
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So it doesn't surprise me at all that there's a survey that says that legal abortion went up in popularity.
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So I don't know if I wouldn't necessarily say that one survey is conclusive, but it wouldn't be surprising.
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That's actually the way, if you understood persuasion, you would kind of expect it to get more popular because it's restricted.
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Now, to test my theory, what about cigarette smoking?
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Cigarette smoking is actually way down compared to what it used to be.
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It's like 10 or 11 percent of the public smokes now.
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I think it used to be at least a third or a half or something like that.
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So here smoking was restricted, in a sense, but popularity went down.
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Because anybody underage could always give cigarettes any time they wanted.
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So it wasn't really restricted, not in any serious way.
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But, all right, have you ever heard of the Festinger Cognitive Dissonance Experiment?
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Here's what to take away from this experiment I'm going to describe.
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So you could do this experiment all day long, and you would get the same result.
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So that's unusual and wonderful that it's repeatable.
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You ask a bunch of volunteers to do a boring task.
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They're just, like, piling up blocks or something.
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And then at the end of it, you offer them either $20 or $1.
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And they wouldn't know that people were getting different offers.
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And you'd say, I want you to tell the people in the other room that this was actually a fun and exciting task.
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So the people who were paid $20 to lie lied, because they were asked to.
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And then later, when they were asked their opinion about the blocks, it was about the same as it was before.
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The people who were offered $1 also lied, because they were asked to.
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But when they checked with them later, the $1 people had, by a large percentage, like 30-some percent or so,
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had decided that it was actually not that boring.
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They had actually convinced themselves it was interesting.
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And there's a solid hypothesis behind it that can be reproduced at will.
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And the thing is that the $20 people thought that the reason that they were lying was they were being paid for it.
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The people who got $1, $1 wasn't enough to lie.
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So when they lied for $1, they had to explain it later to themselves.
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And the way they explained it was, well, it wasn't really lying.
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Because it actually was more fun than maybe I first thought.
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No, it was actually kind of, it was interesting, really.
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These people's brains were rewired for a dollar instantly.
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You know, we're talking about within hours or days.
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One dollar rewired a third of the people there instantly.
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All they did was get somebody to say something that was opposite of what they believed.
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And they would, and a third of them talked themselves into it within a day.
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Now, is that experiment, does it blow your mind that it's so powerful cognitive dissonance
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It doesn't blow mine, because this is something I've known for decades, right?
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These studies have been, you know, replicated for decades.
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Once you understand how powerful this is, then everything you see in politics and social media
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So part of the reason that I can withstand social media silliness, and it doesn't make me crazy,
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relative to other people, everybody gets a little crazy, is because I see it this way.
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I see it as people literally walking around in a fog and not knowing it.
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If I saw them as, like, legitimate players who were mad at me or had, like, a real opinion
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I see it as people just literally blind and just bumping into stuff.
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Just stand back a little bit and let it happen.
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I see social media as blind people bumping into stuff.
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I mean, I literally don't think their opinions are even real.
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As soon as you think, well, those poor, poor bastards.
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Aren't we happy that that doesn't happen to us?
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The nature of it is you can only see it in other people.
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That's why you have the illusion that it's only happening to other people.
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Most of the time when they see it in you, they're projecting.
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But you can't tell the difference between when they really see some inconsistency with what you're doing
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and when are they experiencing just more cognitive dissonance.
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And so they imagine you're the one who's with the problem.
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Now, I have told you there's one, you know, there are a few little signals.
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Now, if you've not been triggered, for example, when I heard about this study,
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I said to myself, oh, that's exactly what I expected.
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You know, I would have predicted this exact outcome based on what I know.
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So there's no trigger for cognitive dissonance in my case
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because what I expected is exactly what happened.
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But if what you expect, you learn to be completely wrong,
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Look for somebody who found out that what they believed was totally wrong.
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But we even disagree about what's right and what's wrong, so even that stuff.
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And here's how he describes Trump's, I'm sorry, not Trump's, Biden's speech.
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that Biden speech was the worst thing that ever happened.
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Well, interestingly, David Frum, writing in The Atlantic,
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which, if you don't know, The Atlantic is not a serious publication.
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It's owned by, I believe it's owned by Steve Jobs' widow, right?
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And it's just a Democrat publication, trying to pretend it's not.
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So, Frum's take on this is that Biden is so clever
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to try to provoke the Trumpists into acting crazy
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But here's the way Frum described this in a tweet.
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we're just trying to stop him from eating the pieces.
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And then he says that Biden's speech goaded Trump
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This is something I specifically learned in hypnosis class.
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and it's one of the most useful things I've ever learned.
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So, you'll have the same experience I did the first time I heard it.
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People tell you their sexual preferences in direct words.
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It's just that your sexual instinct is such a strong part of your being
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that your language just naturally wraps around those preferences,
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So, when David Frum, who is a big nemesis of President Trump,
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Biden's speech goaded Trump into swallowing at least a bishop,
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That's a man who has fantasies of blowing President Trump.
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Because that would require mind reading, right?
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And that whenever I noticed something like this,
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and I could follow up and find out if it were true,
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any time I could confirm whether or not it was true,
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I'm just telling you the pattern I've noticed through my life
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without feeling there's some kind of sexual connotation there.