Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 1900 Scott Adams： Obama Craps All Over Democrats, ESG Is Dying, Ukraine Peace Plan, And More

00:00:00.000 Good morning, everybody. It's good to see your smiling faces. You know, you look a little bit

00:00:08.200 better than last time I saw you. Did you get some sleep? Wow, looks like you've been to the gym.

00:00:14.440 Good job hydrating, too. If you'd like to take it up another level, get your hydration going.

00:00:20.940 All you need is a cup or mug or a glass of tank or chalice or stein, a canteen drink or flask,

00:00:25.260 a vessel of any kind. Fill it with your favorite liquid. I like coffee.

00:00:28.440 And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine here of the day, the thing that

00:00:36.140 makes everything better. It's called the Simultaneous Sip. Go.

00:00:43.680 Ah, Uzbekistan in the house. Silk Road. Good to see you. 1.00

00:00:52.680 Alright. Now, would you like to hear all of the interesting things in the news?

00:00:58.440 That's why you come here, right? Don't you? I have a question for you, anecdotally.

00:01:06.140 As you know, I've recently changed my Twitter profile to put BLM in my pronouns, and I appear

00:01:16.140 there in a BLM shirt. Have you noticed that since I went full BLM, has the algorithm surfaced

00:01:25.140 surfaced my tweets more often? Go. Have you seen my tweets more often in the past week?

00:01:32.840 I don't really believe that we can see that small of a difference. But a lot of people

00:01:46.540 say yes. Alright, so they're probably, it looks like 60% yes, 40% no. If you answer, I don't

00:01:55.720 know if this is true, because I'm just looking at the answers streaming by. But if you thought

00:02:00.380 that was true, by let's say, a 60-40 split, then I would conclude it's not true. Do you

00:02:09.520 understand that? If all of you collectively gave your opinions, and about 60% of you thought

00:02:17.220 that I was more visible, and 40% thought I was not, I would not conclude that I was more visible?

00:02:24.900 Because that's just about how much bias is built into the question. Since we're all biased as hell

00:02:31.800 about the algorithm. You know, if 90% of you had said yes, I would have been tempted to say,

00:02:39.140 you know, it's just anecdotal. But 90%, you know, you can't ignore that. Here's something I never hear.

00:02:49.240 You always hear people say, I know science and you don't. And one thing I know is that anecdotal

00:02:56.060 information is not science. Right? You've heard me say that a million times. Except that at some point,

00:03:06.140 there is enough anecdotal evidence that you don't need any science. Am I right?

00:03:13.800 And I like to use this example. If every time you walk outside, a baseball hit you in the head,

00:03:22.300 and you looked around and you didn't even see a baseball game or a baseball field. But every day,

00:03:28.460 for 100 days in a row, you walk outside, you look around, you're expecting it, and then you go,

00:03:33.980 okay, boom, and it hits you in the head again. A hundred times in a row. And there's no science

00:03:39.560 whatsoever to explain it. Would you change your behavior after getting hit in the head a hundred

00:03:46.520 times in a row? I think you would. And I would suggest it might be the right decision without any

00:03:52.540 science at all. So there is some point at which anecdotal evidence is better than science.

00:03:59.420 So there, I said it. Anecdotal evidence is better than science at some point. It's just not the

00:04:08.580 onesies and twosies, which are useless. All right. So here's a typical type of story for 2022.

00:04:19.400 So there's these new leaked emails. And I think we knew something about this story, but maybe less

00:04:25.780 detail. That Hunter Biden's real estate company, so this is Hunter Biden, received 40 million

00:04:32.520 investment from a Russian oligarch, Yelena Baturina, whose name I just like to say three times, 1.00

00:04:41.560 if I may, because it's such a fun name to say. I'm just going to gratuitously say it two more times.

00:04:47.680 Yelena Baturina. One more. This is just for me. This is just for me. Please bear with me.

00:04:56.680 Yelena Baturina. I just had to get that out of my system. All right. She's a billionaire widow of a 0.99

00:05:03.820 corrupt Moscow mayor. So what could go wrong there? And not only did she invest 40 million into the

00:05:11.040 Biden real estate company, but gave 3.5 million to Hunter Biden for consulting.

00:05:19.300 Now, does anybody really think that that was a consulting fee? 3.5 million? No, obviously,

00:05:27.120 that was a gigolo fee. She was paying him for sex. 3.5 million might seem like a lot, but I checked

00:05:35.280 her picture. And I'd say that was market rate. It looked like a market rate to me. All right. And

00:05:44.380 let me tell you what the FBI is doing about this, given that there's voluminous evidence of possible

00:05:52.980 Hunter Biden impropriety. I've got that information. What the FBI is doing...

00:05:58.280 Huh. Can't find it. Let's see. What is the FBI doing? Might be in here. No? Anything? Anything? Is this on?

00:06:10.980 No? Oh, the FBI is doing nothing. Nothing. As usual.

00:06:14.800 No. This is why I feel like there's some kind of pendulum turning. This next bit, I don't even

00:06:27.680 understand. So this was tweeted by a Democrat activist, Scott Dworkin. If you look at his profile,

00:06:36.520 he's big in Democrat stuff. So he's like a real Democrat, super Democrat activist guy. So a Democrat

00:06:43.980 activist was tweeting around a hidden camera recording of a Republican representative, Dave

00:06:52.200 Schweikart, who was in an elevator talking to somebody, and it got recorded. And he was caught

00:06:57.160 on this undercover video. And he talked about if the GOP wins in the election, they take control.

00:07:06.060 He was talking about how the GOP would want to break up the FBI and impeach members of the

00:07:12.820 Biden administration. And a Democrat operative thought, I gotcha. I gotcha now. Boy, they're

00:07:23.860 never going to vote for you now that you're willing to break up the FBI and put in jail some

00:07:30.660 members of the administration. Not in jail. I'm talking about impeachment.

00:07:34.100 Now, am I wrong that the Democrat misjudged the reaction to that? Because I looked at it and I

00:07:43.320 said, oh, yeah, that's exactly why Republicans are going to vote for Republicans, because they

00:07:48.540 want exactly that. Am I missing something? Does this story sound like bad news to Democrats?

00:07:55.380 If you're a Democrat, do you say, oh, no, they're going to break up the FBI? What Democrat thinks

00:08:01.620 that? Are they afraid that the FBI will be modernized or what? And how about impeaching members of the

00:08:12.220 Biden administration? Well, don't you think that even Democrats think there's going to have to be

00:08:17.080 something there or there will be no impeachment? Remember, the Democrats think that the Trump

00:08:23.920 impeachment was valid. So they actually think impeachment is like a real thing where real

00:08:29.240 evidence comes out and a real decision is made. So if they think that impeachment is a real thing,

00:08:36.220 they shouldn't be too worried about somebody trying it unless somebody is guilty of something.

00:08:41.160 Otherwise, it'd just be an embarrassing situation like January 6. Well, the George Floyd family is

00:08:50.200 considering a lawsuit against Yeh, because Yeh said in public that he believes that George Floyd more

00:09:00.580 likely died of a fentanyl overdose than from the actions of the police. Now, I read this story and I just

00:09:09.500 started salivating. Do you know why? Please, please do the lawsuit. Please do. Because I don't think

00:09:20.800 they thought this through. Think it through. If they do the lawsuit, Kanye gets to re-litigate the

00:09:29.620 question of the fentanyl and George Floyd system. And I don't know how this works, but if enough time

00:09:37.860 has gone by and it's, you know, Kanye or Yeh, who is part of it, they're going to have to do discovery,

00:09:46.340 they're going to litigate just that part of it again. So just the one question, was it the fentanyl

00:09:53.420 or the knee? Imagine that being a new case. And what if, what if the reason the George Floyd trial

00:10:02.860 went the way it did, just if, was because the citizens and, you know, the jury and the judge,

00:10:10.720 and basically everybody involved, knew if they didn't get a conviction, the whole city would go up in flames.

00:10:16.060 Right? So I do not think that Derek Chauvin got a fair trial or anything like it. It has nothing

00:10:24.740 to do with being white, right? If you reverse the races, I would say the same thing. It doesn't 0.91

00:10:31.640 matter who was the person or what was the situation. If one verdict would have a riot and the other

00:10:40.760 verdict would not, if one verdict could get you killed, literally killed as a juror, and the other

00:10:47.760 verdict would get you praised, what are you going to do? Right? But what if Kanye ends up in this trial?

00:10:55.620 He wouldn't ask for it, but what if he ends up in one and he gets to try it in an unbiased place

00:11:02.780 after time has gone by and the George Floyd, you know, anger has subsided a little bit?

00:11:09.920 What if he wins? What if he wins? See, the George Floyd family is probably under the assumption

00:11:18.020 that they would certainly win, or at least they would certainly win on the facts, the facts being

00:11:23.260 it's been proven, blah, blah. But correct me if I'm wrong, didn't the, didn't the original

00:11:28.320 autopsy? Weren't there some notes where the original autopsy doctor said, under normal circumstances,

00:11:37.240 if they came to your house and found you dead with that much fentanyl in you, they would say

00:11:42.260 that was a fentanyl overdose. But because of the other, you know, the other situation around

00:11:48.820 it, they decided it wasn't. I mean, all Kanye has to do is show that note and then just keep

00:11:57.720 showing it. And here it is again. And here it is again. Because if the coroner, or whoever

00:12:04.220 did the autopsy, I guess it's a coroner, if the coroner also had some doubt at one time,

00:12:11.820 isn't that sort of enough to show that a citizen could have doubt as well? I mean, I think, I think

00:12:20.860 Ye gets away with it just by showing there's some question about whether the experts got it

00:12:25.820 right, right? You would have to know the experts got it right in order to know that, yeah, you got

00:12:32.820 it wrong. I don't know, that would be an interesting trial. That could change everything.

00:12:40.280 It could change everything, except it would take, you know, a year and be a huge waste of time.

00:12:45.160 All right. I think it was Wall Street Journal noted that black Americans are, they're less like other 1.00

00:12:58.040 voters in the sense that most voters are looking at economic stuff as the top issue. Black voters

00:13:06.300 also say economic stuff is the top issue. But according to the racist and bigoted Wall Street

00:13:14.360 Journal, I'll explain that later, they say that black voters are not just obsessed on the economics

00:13:22.580 like other voters, but also have equal weight to things like health care, education, and public safety.

00:13:29.960 All right. Here's what's wrong with that. Do you see the racist part of that? Did anybody see that this

00:13:37.200 story is totally racist? Let me say it again and see if you see it. All right. So the Wall Street Journal

00:13:44.540 says that most voters, I'm paraphrasing here, says that most voters are, think the economy is the number

00:13:51.580 one thing, but black voters sort of spread their interest, you know, they also think the economy is

00:13:58.040 a big thing, but they also think that health care, education, and public safety, which are characterized as

00:14:04.220 social things in the article, those are social things and not economics. Do you see the problem?

00:14:12.200 Is it just me? These are all economics. It's just a bunch of economics. Here's the other way to say

00:14:21.320 this story. Here's the non-racist way to say the story. Okay. You ready for this? This might blow

00:14:28.460 your mind a little bit. Here's the non-racist way to say the same story. Black voters seem to be more 0.99

00:14:34.800 tuned into the fact that their economic well-being is associated with health care, education, and public

00:14:41.280 safety. Because you can't run a business if you don't have a safety. You can't hire people. You

00:14:47.040 can't thrive. You can't improve your economic situation without education. And health care is

00:14:54.300 simply something that you buy when you have a good job, usually. It's something you buy with economics,

00:15:01.120 right? So you tell me I'm wrong. Tell me I'm wrong. Isn't this a fully racist story? Am I right? If you were a

00:15:11.620 little bit objective, you would say the black population has a better bead on this issue. They have a better 1.00

00:15:17.160 bead on the issue. They understand it better. Now, it might be also true that at a certain economic strata, that this all

00:15:26.840 looks like economics to you. But if you're up in your ivory tower, you say, oh, economics is the stock

00:15:33.040 market, and do I have a job? And down here is these social issues. It's not a fucking social issue if I

00:15:39.560 have to pay for it. Am I done? That's my whole argument. If I have to pay for it, like health care,

00:15:47.700 it's not a social argument. It's not a social argument. I'm paying for it. That's economics.

00:15:58.820 Anyway, but I'm right, right? This is a totally racist story. Am I right? See, this is why I have the

00:16:09.560 Black Lives Matter profile, because you need me to suss out these examples of systemic racism

00:16:17.240 that are everywhere. All right. This next section will be called the Why Are They Not Already in

00:16:27.680 Jail? Now, I'll bet you can't even guess what the topic is. But the category is, why aren't they

00:16:36.000 already in jail? Here's the story. Researchers, I can't even believe this is true. Like, I can't believe

00:16:45.780 this is true. Researchers at Boston University say they have developed a new COVID strain that has

00:16:52.720 80% kill rate. Not 80% more. Not 80% more. It kills 80% of the people who get it based on mice.

00:17:05.200 Now, they've only used it on mice, but they're, you know, they're assuming it would be the same with

00:17:10.520 people. So what they did was they took the original alpha variant that's deadly, and then they took some,

00:17:17.760 I don't know, spike protein or something, from the Omicron, and they took the worst parts of the two

00:17:24.780 viruses, and they put them together to make a super deadly virus. To which I say, and the researchers

00:17:33.560 are still alive, why haven't they been killed already? Why are they still alive? Shouldn't Homeland

00:17:41.960 Security shut down the whole place and literally imprison forever anybody involved in this research?

00:17:50.940 Do you know why I say imprison them or kill them? Because they know how to do this. I don't want them

00:17:56.460 telling anybody else how to do this. Don't you think somebody would pay them a lot of money to explain

00:18:02.740 how to do it so they can do it? Some terrorist or something? Yeah. Now, I'm not really, I'm not

00:18:09.960 literally advocating that the law be violated and their constitutional rights be taken away,

00:18:16.860 but it's funny to ask, why are they not already in jail? This was reported like it's a story of

00:18:24.640 interest. This is not a story of interest. This is some assholes who built a weapon of mass

00:18:30.740 destruction to depopulate the fucking planet Earth, and we're reporting it like it's a normal

00:18:36.620 story. Well, a little story. No, they should all be in jail. Am I wrong? Why are they not in jail?

00:18:46.100 They built a weapon of mass destruction that would destroy the Earth, if it works.

00:18:51.580 Yeah, just doing their job. Yeah. Now, in reality, of course, there's, I don't think there's any law

00:18:59.760 that they've broken, so of course they should not go to jail. But in terms of common sense,

00:19:05.460 they need to be removed from the public somehow. I don't know, there's probably no legal, ethical

00:19:13.280 way to do it. But I don't want these people walking around where anybody could, like, grab them and

00:19:19.220 say, show us your notes. How'd you do this? We want to make ourselves a super virus ourselves. 0.69

00:19:25.760 Anyway, that's a sign of the times. How many of you have caught the inflation reduction lie?

00:19:35.240 It goes like this. Joe Biden says, well, sure, inflation's bad, but the inflation reduction bill

00:19:43.000 will lower the cost of a number of things. We haven't seen it yet because it takes a little while

00:19:48.760 for the bill to work through the system. But once it's worked through the system, things such as,

00:19:55.360 let's say, anything that uses energy would be a lower price. So you'd be able to lower your

00:20:02.300 ongoing energy prices by buying products and utilities that use less energy. And also hearing

00:20:09.120 aids over the counter. That was another example. So hearing aids might be cheaper. Medicare might

00:20:16.700 reduce your costs if they negotiate better. And some products would be less. All right, so those are

00:20:23.520 three examples where they would have lowered the price, the end price, for the consumer. So that lowers

00:20:30.960 inflation, right? Let's take, for example, that those are true things.

00:20:37.780 Let's say it's true that these prices would go down. Let's say everything else stayed the same

00:20:43.280 and Medicare hearing aids and any products that use electricity, they all go down in price.

00:20:50.460 Would you call that a reduction in inflation? Go. If it's true, if it's true, just take that as an

00:20:58.380 assumption. Is that a reduction in inflation? No, it's an increase in inflation. It's literally an

00:21:06.680 increase. Let me say it again, and those of you who haven't studied economics, they're playing a game

00:21:13.540 with you because journalists don't understand economics. And that's it. Now, I don't know why

00:21:19.320 the real journalists who do understand economics haven't called them out on this, because I haven't

00:21:24.160 heard it yet. Have you? Let me explain how inflation works. Inflation doesn't mean one of your products

00:21:31.640 went down in cost or went up in cost. It's about, you know, the value of money in general.

00:21:38.000 So what the government has proposed with their Inflation Reduction Act is that the government

00:21:43.500 will increase its debt, and then that money that they got by increasing the debt will be spent

00:21:50.140 to subsidize your purchases of, let's say, everything from Medicare-related things to hearing aids

00:22:00.160 and products. If the government borrows your money, because it's basically our money, if the

00:22:07.880 government borrows on our behalf to lower our prices, did they lower or increase our

00:22:13.620 inflation? Go. If they do exactly what they said, they borrow money, they subsidize products

00:22:23.100 that you buy, have they lowered or increased inflation? They've increased. Now, correct me

00:22:29.640 if I'm wrong, this is unambiguous once I've explained it to you, right? If I hadn't explained

00:22:36.580 it, well, let me ask this question first. Here's the first question. Until I explained

00:22:41.680 it to you that this is literally, mathematically, specifically, and in every way the opposite

00:22:48.380 of inflation reduction, before I had done that, did you know that? How many of you knew that?

00:22:55.360 Now, some of you are saying we knew it wouldn't be a good idea. That's different. That's not

00:23:00.120 what I'm saying. I'm saying that it's literally the opposite of what they're selling. So a lot

00:23:05.360 of you knew it. Have you seen anybody say that the way I said it? Has anybody said it

00:23:11.780 the way I said it on the news? Because did I not just explain it better than you've heard

00:23:19.660 it? I think so. I think I explained it better than you've heard it anywhere. So see if you

00:23:26.760 see my version of the explanation filter its way into the media. Because here's a classic

00:23:34.440 example where the general media is not economically trained. Do you think that the talking heads

00:23:41.820 on, I'll just pick CNN or MSNBC, do you think the talking heads on MSNBC understand what I

00:23:48.560 just said? That this specifically increases inflation to lower some of your costs in the

00:23:55.860 short term? Do they understand that? I don't think so. I think they say prices go up or prices

00:24:02.960 go down, and they think that's all inflation. And it's not. Those are two different things.

00:24:08.180 All right. So here's the Biden dementia update. He was out in public. And who was it? I think

00:24:24.680 it was Kat Timf who said yesterday at Godfeld, exclamation, that every time Biden talks, something

00:24:33.020 bad happens. Every time he talks, something bad happens. Now I'm sure somebody said that

00:24:41.440 about Trump at one point. But not like this. Like when Trump talks, it's provocative and

00:24:47.240 he causes trouble and everybody's head blows up. But every time that Biden talks, he looks

00:24:53.340 worse. Am I right? Here's the newest one. Somebody mentioned he was in the LA area and somebody

00:25:00.600 mentioned that gas is $7 a gallon. And Biden told the reporter that gas has always been

00:25:06.840 $7 a gallon in California. Now that's not what he meant, right? In context, he did not mean

00:25:16.600 that. Can we be non-political for a moment? In context, what he meant was California always

00:25:23.120 has higher gas prices. Would you agree? That that wasn't actually, that wasn't dementia.

00:25:30.600 He knew that California always has higher gas prices. But the way he said it was just

00:25:35.380 so incompetent, right? He had the right idea, but the way he said it was just so dementia.

00:25:41.460 Anyway. Anyway. And he said, what else did he say that's dementia-wise? He said, he said

00:25:54.380 nationwide gas prices came down about $1.35. Okay. I don't know if that's true. Maybe it

00:26:02.740 did. They're still down over $1. Wait. If they went down $1.35 and they're still down over

00:26:11.280 $1. Isn't that the long way to say they're going back up? He just said they're going back

00:26:17.380 up, but he made it sound like they're going down. That was pretty good. Okay. I'll give

00:26:21.360 him credit for that. And then he said, housing is the big, is the most important thing we

00:26:29.740 have to do in terms of that. In terms of what? Getting prices down? Do any of you think that

00:26:37.220 housing is the big thing we have to do? Like, where is housing on the list of top 10 priorities

00:26:43.720 of the country? It's zero, isn't it? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's, I mean, I

00:26:50.700 suppose that would just be considered economics as well, going back to my prior argument. All

00:26:57.520 right. Obama was on a podcast, and he calls the Democrats woke, buzzkill people. And here's

00:27:09.880 a problem. Problem is, if I don't blow my nose, I'm not going to be able to go on much further.

00:27:16.880 So, excuse me. Excuse me. You know, that's one of the advantages of having a low budget

00:27:36.740 show. Nothing embarrasses me. All right, we're back. All right, so Obama, by framing the Democrats'

00:27:52.540 problems as being too woke, did anybody see that? So Obama actually went right at the Democrat

00:27:59.880 primary messaging. And the primary messaging is, hey, all you bad Republicans. And Obama

00:28:08.660 proved once again why he was elected president twice. Every time I hear Obama talk, and I know

00:28:17.540 you don't like his policies or whatever, so we're not talking about that. Just talk about

00:28:22.120 his ability as a politician. Every time he talks, he sounds smart to me. Even when I don't

00:28:29.440 like, you know, the policy or whatever. But whenever he talks, he sounds smart. Right? And

00:28:36.360 he did a better job than all of the Democrats of putting wokeness in context. And basically

00:28:44.280 he said, you have to let people, you know, be people and don't worry so much about using the

00:28:50.120 right terms and stuff like that. So basically Obama triangulated and came up with a way that

00:28:58.180 Republicans and Democrats could live in the same planet. Obama did that. Right? Now, I would

00:29:06.980 say Trump did not, and Biden did not. Was it really that hard to find that middle space? It

00:29:16.120 seems like the middle is just begging to be occupied. And the middle is, yeah, we should

00:29:21.660 be nice to each other, you know, and maybe respect how they want to identify, but don't

00:29:26.760 get all bent out of shape if somebody gets it wrong. Wasn't that always the middle? I mean,

00:29:33.240 it's where I've been. I've described the middle exactly like that. In fact, Obama's position

00:29:38.180 is exactly mine. Let me state it again. I'm happy to call anybody by whatever terms they

00:29:46.400 think are respectful. In return, I ask for what Obama asks. Don't be a buzzkill if I use

00:29:54.040 the wrong word. It's not personal. Just get over it. That's all. So I'm 100% on the Obama

00:30:01.960 opinion there. But here's the political ramification. Because Obama has put this frame on it, and

00:30:10.300 he's framed the Republicans as worried, as too concerned about the wrong things. And he

00:30:16.760 says that pretty directly. I'm paraphrasing. But he does say pretty directly that they're

00:30:22.200 focusing on the wrong things instead of the things that affect people. And because he framed

00:30:29.720 it so prominently, should the red tide happen and Republicans sweep Congress, that's going

00:30:39.180 to make Obama's frame the dominant frame. So think ahead. Think ahead to Republicans win

00:30:48.120 Congress. What will everybody say after the fact? They're going to look at Obama's framing,

00:30:55.160 they're going to say, damn it, we should have listened to him. He got this right. We were focusing

00:31:00.300 too much on the wokeness, and we didn't get the basics right, and the Republicans did, so they won.

00:31:06.960 Now, whether or not Obama is correct that, you know, this wokeness thing is a problem or not, 0.98

00:31:12.780 independent of that, I think he is correct. But independent of whether he's right or not,

00:31:17.300 is it true that he's created the dominant frame?

00:31:20.200 What do you say? You might say too early to tell. But if the Republicans win, this is going

00:31:27.680 to come back, isn't it? You're going to see it again.

00:31:35.220 Respectfully, you fall for every leftist manipulation. You think I'm falling for a

00:31:39.920 manipulation? You haven't even heard my point yet. Let me finish my point.

00:31:42.480 Well, the point is that Obama has created a frame that the Democrats are likely to fall

00:31:50.900 into naturally. And this should be the next big blow against the wokeness monsters. And 0.99

00:32:00.700 I think Obama will be the assassin. I think Obama has created a situation where when the Democrats

00:32:08.560 fall into the trap he's created of losing, he say, well, I told you why you were going

00:32:14.020 to lose. You can see it everywhere. And you walked right into it, even though I gave you

00:32:18.900 plenty of warning. And I think it's going to make the whole ESG, DEI, CRT, wokeness world

00:32:28.180 a little bit less important. That's what I think.

00:32:32.640 Speaking of ESG, I've got more ESG-related comics running this week. And I haven't heard

00:32:41.260 if I've been canceled yet today. But they're getting a little bit more pointed. And I know

00:32:46.880 you would like to know what that comic said today. So let me give you an update.

00:32:51.480 Wait. Stop it. I will get that in a moment. And all right. So Dilbert's boss is talking

00:33:03.620 to Tina. And the boss says, Tina, there's an opening for director of AI. And you are one

00:33:10.720 of the people I'm considering. And Tina is a technical writer. So she's not a technical,

00:33:16.540 doesn't have a technical job except for the writing part. And she says, I have no qualifications

00:33:21.760 for that job. And the boss says, that's OK. The AI will tell you what to do. And then

00:33:27.160 the third panel, Tina says, are you only offering me the job to meet your ESG and DEI goals?

00:33:33.320 And the boss says, I'm not allowed to say. And that one's been pretty popular. So at the

00:33:42.300 same time that Dilbert is attacking ESG, Obama is attacking wokeness. And Texas and BlackRock

00:33:53.820 are going at each other. Because apparently Texas is trying to get rid of all this wokeness 1.00

00:33:59.120 stuff. And now BlackRock, and of course BlackRock is the primary purveyor of the wokeness in investment.

00:34:06.560 So they're the ones pushing it on corporations to be extra environmentally, socially, and

00:34:13.000 governance-wise, you know, equitable and fair and good. And I woke. And, oh, well.

00:34:26.140 This is interesting. I thought I copied and pasted something. And then there's a cool technology

00:34:30.280 that copied and pasted a thing that says don't copy and paste. I've never seen that before.

00:34:35.520 I didn't even notice it until now. Anyway, so, yeah, so you've got Texas going after BlackRock

00:34:46.800 for being anti-energy. That's their complaint. So BlackRock thinks that, you know, your ESG

00:34:54.140 score will be lower, the E being environmental, if you're involved in the petroleum gas kind of

00:35:01.520 business. And since that's a big part of the Texas economy, they're not too happy about BlackRock,

00:35:08.200 and now BlackRock's pushing back. All right. So, as of today, the forces moving against wokeness

00:35:16.360 are as follows. The midterm election, which probably is going to go one direction. Obama, which has said

00:35:24.380 now clearly that the wokeness is a problem. Yay, he's got his own problems with the Jewish community, 1.00

00:35:32.840 which may overshadow anything else. But, you know, he's sort of the anti-wokeness person.

00:35:39.020 You've got Dilbert, always a bellwether of, you know, cultural change, that's shitting on ESG. And now

00:35:49.240 you've got the state of Texas crapping on it. So do you feel the pendulum has reached its height?

00:35:59.660 It's getting ready to turn. Do you feel it yet? Well, it's coming. So China decided to delay

00:36:10.640 indefinitely the release of its GDP and other economic statistics. So let me do some mind

00:36:20.640 reading. Why would a country delay indefinitely their economic data? Is it because it's so good

00:36:30.520 they don't, they're humble, and they don't want to embarrass themselves with these great,

00:36:35.020 great numbers? Is it because they're right in the range that people sort of expected, which

00:36:40.160 is not so good, but that's not, not, not unexpected coming out of a pandemic? Or is it possibly

00:36:46.940 that their numbers are terrible? So big problems in China, you know, they've got a, their workforce 1.00

00:36:55.600 is shrinking and the people are bringing their manufacturing back and they got a lot of debt

00:37:04.160 and they're still doing the COVID lockdowns and they've got a dictator who's installed himself

00:37:09.180 for a life. So China is on the decline.

00:37:15.960 And Rasmussen had some information about California and abortion. So California's got this Proposition

00:37:23.960 1 on the ballot that would, I guess it would codify and make abortion legal under most circumstances.

00:37:33.580 And 59% of California support it. But in August, 66% supported it. So there was this really solid

00:37:45.580 two-thirds supported, you know, abortion as Proposition 1 would protect. Two-thirds, but it's already down

00:37:55.580 to 59%. And it's not very, just a few months. I wonder if that's an actual change or maybe a polling

00:38:05.580 thing. I don't know. But that, that's like a big change for a few months. I'm kind of surprised.

00:38:12.700 All right. But anyway, it looks like California is going to stay a place you can go and get your

00:38:17.840 abortion. So apparently it'll be legal to come to California as a tourist, get your abortion and 0.60

00:38:23.460 leave. Let's, let's talk about Ukraine. I keep looking for evidence that you, that Ukraine or Russia

00:38:33.860 are winning territory on the ground. Have you noticed that all stopped? The, the only reference that I could

00:38:42.560 find to Ukraine to Ukraine gaining ground is CNN made one, well, one sentence reference to the Russians

00:38:51.920 losing ground with no detail. It's not like they lost ground around this town or they're encircled or

00:38:59.360 anything like that. It's just no detail. The only detail about the military is the Iranian drone rockets

00:39:07.520 that the Russians are using, bombing the centers and the guided munitions that are taking out the 0.88

00:39:13.180 infrastructure for, I guess, Russia has already taken out 30% of the power plants in Ukraine. 30%. Now, there is

00:39:24.360 some thinking that the Russians might be low on munitions because they're using low-end stuff already. So they're using

00:39:32.680 the Iranian crappy little bombs that are good for terror, but they're not really, you know, they're not as 1.00

00:39:39.800 decisive as the big stuff. Why do I think the drones are Iranians? Because they've been captured on the 0.79

00:39:47.500 ground and they've been identified as Iranian. So our military says that's a fact. It's not, they're not 1.00

00:39:53.940 wondering. They say, oh, it's, it's overwhelming evidence they're Iranian. Now, the Iranians say no. The Iranians say it's not 0.99

00:40:00.340 theirs, but, you know, we don't trust them. So here's the thing. Have they reached the stalemate? I would say

00:40:10.040 that they are not desperate yet. So there's no, there isn't going to be a peace deal this week, because this

00:40:17.200 week they still think they can get a little advantage. So what happens in the winter? Well, if it's true that

00:40:25.740 Russia is running out of munitions, we should really, really see that in the winter, right?

00:40:31.860 Unless they have some other source that we don't know about. So in the winter, we should see the

00:40:37.720 Ukrainians starving. Well, maybe more freezing than starving. Although I think they'll mostly survive, 1.00

00:40:45.380 because I think they'll go where there is heat and they'll, they'll burn trees and they'll do what they

00:40:50.020 have to do. Allergies are just terrible today. Sorry. Now, that assumes that Russians don't 1.00

00:41:01.160 continue bombing successfully power plants. Because if Russia got, took out 70%, wouldn't 0.80

00:41:09.660 you imagine that the Ukrainians would be in a lot of trouble? 30% they could probably struggle

00:41:16.380 go by. In all likelihood, the most desperate time will be somewhere around January, February.

00:41:26.000 No, probably January, because February would still seem like you're getting close to the,

00:41:30.300 the turn of the weather. I'd say January. Somewhere around January, when the Russians are running out of

00:41:37.300 ammo and their people are freezing and their, their army is, uh, deserting, and the Ukrainians are 0.93

00:41:46.060 suffering, maybe people will start talking about peace. Now, here's what you can do as citizens.

00:41:53.920 Do you believe that your government is capable of making, helping peace happen in Ukraine? I say no.

00:42:04.020 I believe our government is trying to end Putin. What do you think? I believe that the Biden

00:42:09.520 administration is trying to get rid of Putin and permanently degrade Russia. That's what it looks

00:42:15.420 like. So as far as I can tell, there is no, um, there's no interest in the United States forming

00:42:24.060 a deal. So if we want that to happen, we, the citizens, we're going to have to do it. Now,

00:42:31.900 I'm going to make a statement about America, and you historians tell me if I'm right or wrong.

00:42:38.000 All right. Historians, ready. Our government is good at starting wars. Go. True or false?

00:42:46.640 Our government is good at getting us into war. Right. True. Everybody agrees. Question two,

00:42:55.040 or statement two. Our government is bad at getting us out of wars. They're bad at ending war. True?

00:43:02.720 True. Yes, even more true. But what about the public? The public doesn't really get you into

00:43:09.280 war. They're usually the ones who are dragged along. But it's the public who gets you out of war.

00:43:17.040 It's the public who gets you out of war. It's ended the Vietnam War, probably Iraq, probably Afghanistan,

00:43:22.640 and now this. If the public of the United States doesn't take charge of this situation, then you'll

00:43:32.400 get the government's, you know, unfettered strategy, which will get you pretty close to nuclear war.

00:43:40.560 Because if they're looking to end Putin, which is what it looks like, then you don't know what's

00:43:46.400 going to happen. I don't think you're in danger. I don't think there will be a nuclear launch.

00:43:51.200 I think, you know, the odds are really, really small. But it's a risk. And since it's such a big

00:43:57.280 risk, even a small chance of that you have to treat seriously. So here's what I think is going to

00:44:05.120 happen. I think that both sides have cleverly said that there's no negotiating. So I think Putin says he

00:44:12.960 wants to control all of Ukraine now, whereas Zelensky says that they want to get Crimea back, which they

00:44:19.920 lost in 2014 is solidly in Russian hands, which seems unlikely. But here's the good news. You ready 1.00

00:44:28.400 for the good news? Zelensky is really, really talented at persuasion. Would you all agree?

00:44:36.720 That no matter what else you think of him? He's really, really good at persuasion. Everything

00:44:44.960 that he's done suggests he is. He got the United States to back him. He got incredible, you know,

00:44:50.320 weapons. You know, he's being treated like a hero. Now, I don't think that the hero label fits him.

00:45:00.880 Like, I have my, I'm not, I'm not 100% on the Zelensky bandwagon, right? We're sort of

00:45:09.680 tentatively on his side. But I think I'd watch him really carefully, right? I'd watch my wallet

00:45:15.920 when Zelensky's around. So I don't trust him. But he's very talented. And here's what he's done that

00:45:22.800 you don't realize. You know how I always, I used to talk about Trump as creating assets out of

00:45:28.200 nothing? He would simply persuade something into existence, and then he would use it to trade it

00:45:35.140 away. You create something out of nothing, and then he'd sell it to you, or trade it in a deal.

00:45:41.400 What Zelensky's done with Crimea is he's taken something that most observers say is completely

00:45:47.800 non-negotiable. Russia just has it, and they would launch a nuclear weapon to keep it. 0.92

00:45:54.560 But Zelensky said it's non-negotiable, that he's getting it back. That is smart. That's why

00:46:02.940 Zelensky is Zelensky. Because if it were you, you might be saying the wrong thing, which is,

00:46:09.060 well, they've already got Crimea, but we really care about this new stuff they took. You know,

00:46:13.900 let's just stop the new stuff. Crimea's too much of an ask, because Russia needs that for strategic

00:46:19.580 reasons. They're going to fight for it harder than they would for the other stuff. And, but

00:46:26.040 Zelensky, by framing Crimea from the start as non-negotiable, has created an asset he can

00:46:33.640 trade. Right? Because it looks like there's no way you could get a deal. Zelensky wants you

00:46:40.600 to believe that. Zelensky wants everyone to believe, especially Russia, that no deal can be

00:46:47.200 made. Because then, if it came down to, look, look, we will start the fighting. The only thing we ask

00:46:54.500 is don't join NATO, and don't take Crimea back. That's all we ask. We'll give you back these other

00:47:02.280 disputed territories. And then Zelensky has something to trade. Something that doesn't

00:47:09.100 exist, his control of Crimea, he would trade it away. It's very smart. Now, is Putin also smart?

00:47:19.620 Yes. Putin is saying, the only thing I want is control of all of Ukraine, basically. He says

00:47:25.520 Ukraine can't be an independent country. Do you think he means it? No. No. No, he's doing what

00:47:33.500 Zelensky's doing. He's creating an asset out of nothing. Now, of course, you do believe, you do

00:47:40.820 believe that Putin does want all of Ukraine, because he does. You know, if it were free, of course. But

00:47:47.480 he knows he can't have it now. So since he knows he can't have all of Ukraine, he's saying, I'll trade 0.99

00:47:53.500 you all of Ukraine, effectively. He's setting it up for that. So you can see the end game already. 1.00

00:47:59.840 The end game is that Putin will release on all of Ukraine, which he doesn't have. Zelensky will 0.89

00:48:08.060 release on Crimea, which he doesn't have. So they'll both trade something that doesn't exist,

00:48:14.440 and that will be the primary part of the deal, the thing they don't have and can't get. And then

00:48:20.280 they'll make some accommodation about the future of NATO and do something with those little areas

00:48:25.720 that might be temporary, it might be permanent, I don't know. But it's doable. So if you believe

00:48:32.400 that there's no doable peace plan, you're completely wrong. All of the elements are in place. The

00:48:39.500 only thing that we're missing, what's the one element we're missing? Insufficient quantity.

00:48:46.720 What are we missing? Insufficient quantity. And we're almost there. Sanity. Yeah. Desire, drones, no, no,

00:48:59.840 no, but it's obvious. This is not a hard question, but you're not getting, there you go, pain, pain,

00:49:05.940 right. We're not at the pain threshold that would require a peace plan. So Ukraine probably still 0.94

00:49:12.620 thinks they have a chance of military getting, militarily getting some land back, maybe. Russia

00:49:18.720 might think, well, if we can drag this out through the winter, we'll ruin their resolve, maybe. But

00:49:26.260 that means that neither side has reached the pain point yet. So there's no deal to be made. That's

00:49:32.080 the most important thing. Somewhere around January, I predict, their mutual pain will reach a level

00:49:38.940 where a peace deal makes sense. And also, you know, Russia might be running out of munitions. And

00:49:45.560 both sides will be in a lot of trouble by January. And that's when you do the deal. Because you can't do

00:49:52.940 it till then. They all know that things will be worse in January, so they're going to wait for that.

00:49:58.120 And see if the other side gets it worse than they do. All right. And I've been promoting David

00:50:10.060 Sachs' tweeted plan. He also wrote an article in Newsweek in which his deal, which I'll say

00:50:17.700 again, would be that Russia would give back the new territory that they just captured since

00:50:24.640 February. They would keep Crimea, because they have a Navy base, and it's just too important

00:50:30.100 for them. And Ukraine would not join NATO. Does that sound like a deal that could be made in

00:50:38.840 January? I'd say yes. I think yes. Now, I'm not predicting it will be. I'm saying that that's

00:50:46.320 the only time it could be, and that it's a doable deal. Now, it's not the deal I would have

00:50:53.060 done. I would have expanded the deal to include, you know, space and other things. So it looks

00:50:58.400 like a, I would make it look like it's not a peace deal for Ukraine and Russia. Because

00:51:04.620 as soon as you do that, it looks like you've got a winner and a loser. But you could erase

00:51:08.800 that by expanding the deal to other domains, and then say, okay, we found a way for everybody

00:51:14.720 to win. Because we got all these other things that are in there, and those are good. So if

00:51:20.460 you want something that would last, do something that makes everybody look like they want. That's

00:51:24.460 doable. And oh, the other thing that Zelensky did that's brilliant, persuasion-wise. So you

00:51:34.720 know, the Chechens looked like they wanted to send 70,000 highly trained, vicious Chechen 1.00

00:51:44.800 soldiers to help Putin. Because the head of the Chechen Republic is a pro-Putin guy, so

00:51:51.720 he was really trying to show his pro-Putin stuff. But as you know, the Chechen Republic was

00:51:59.280 brutally crushed by Putin some years ago. So you don't think the Chechens are necessarily

00:52:06.120 pro-Putin except for their leader. So here's what Zelensky did. The Ukrainian parliament has

00:52:14.180 recognized the Chechen Republic of Itchkiria as an independent state that is, quote, temporarily

00:52:21.660 occupied by Russia. And they condemned the Russian genocide against the Chechen people.

00:52:33.380 Persuasion. Sitting ovation. All right. Oh, so good. So good. That's like an A-plus right

00:52:43.020 there. Like, I don't think it'll change anything. But just in terms of the mental game, A-plus.

00:52:50.500 All right. So Zelensky is going for the kill shot. Zelensky's not trying to survive anymore.

00:52:58.400 He's trying to take Putin out. And if he can cause a revolution in Russia, I don't think this

00:53:04.720 will do it. But he's pushing all the sensitive stuff. Now let me ask you this. How much, how

00:53:14.560 many bombs can Kiev accept before they bomb Moscow? Do you think that's coming? Because I can't

00:53:24.300 decide if that's a propaganda mistake. Probably would be a mistake when it would feel like too

00:53:31.600 much of an escalation. But Zelensky seems willing to escalate. So I don't know. I think it would

00:53:38.520 just make the public angry and make them dig in. I think the Russian bombing of Kiev is a mistake.

00:53:46.120 To me, that looks like a military mistake. What do you think? Because I don't see that it's going to

00:53:51.920 change the resolve. You know, the number of people who died in Kiev from the rocket attacks,

00:53:59.100 give me a fact check of this, but from the Iranian drones yesterday, five? Five civilians died?

00:54:08.200 And in the whole city of Kiev, five people died? If only five people die in the city in a day,

00:54:16.600 that's not really, I don't know. I don't see that changing the course of the war. Seven people,

00:54:23.000 somebody said. Yeah. I mean, every death is a tragedy. We know that. But in terms of predicting

00:54:28.660 where it goes, that's a small number. Supposedly 6,000 total civilian deaths since the start.

00:54:39.220 That doesn't sound like many. You know, the Iranian drone attacks are about as close to an EMP as you

00:54:45.880 can get, because there's almost virtually no human death, but it's, you know, getting rid of

00:54:54.380 infrastructure and stuff. Anyway, so I think the public is going to have to take control of the

00:55:05.060 peace negotiations because our government doesn't seem willing or capable of doing it. I think

00:55:11.460 promoting the David Sachs plan, if only because it tells Putin that there are peace paths. So the

00:55:20.440 odds of using a nuclear weapon, if you think there's a chance of a peace deal, there's no way Putin's

00:55:26.640 going to use a nuke. You agree with that, right? If he thinks there's a legitimate pretty good chance

00:55:32.040 for a peace deal, you would never actually use a nuke. And I think if the public, with, you know,

00:55:39.860 Elon Musk and David Sachs, people who are prominent, if they're willing to talk about the details of a

00:55:46.540 deal, it tells Putin to hold off on the nukes. So you are actually part of the war process now,

00:55:53.920 whether you like it or not. So the American public opinion, which we're starting to form here,

00:56:00.640 is one of the things that will keep you safe. So if it's your opinion that Putin doesn't need to

00:56:06.380 be removed, and there is a peace plan, he is far less likely to use a nuke, because he would go for 0.77

00:56:15.600 the safer possibilities first. Yeah, no, and I don't think anybody uses a nuke in their own country.

00:56:24.280 I just don't. And remember, Russia's whole argument is that Ukraine needs to be part of

00:56:32.420 Russia, right? So if he nukes even the battlefield in Russia, I just don't see it. I just don't see it.

00:56:43.160 Because remember, you know, when we look at Ukraine, we're just seeing real estate. But the entire idea

00:56:48.980 here is that Ukraine and Russia have some kind of a, you know, a soul connection, you know,

00:56:54.800 there's some kind of deeper connection. I don't know what the analogy would be in the United States,

00:56:59.240 but it would be like, you know, let's say there were some civil war, and we talked about, you know,

00:57:05.600 nuking Washington, D.C. I feel like we wouldn't do it, even if militarily we thought it made sense.

00:57:14.280 Because you can't really nuke your own country. It's just hard.

00:57:26.040 If he nukes Ukraine, he loses his claim as a sovereign of Ukraine. Exactly.

00:57:34.480 Yeah, I think the tactical nukes would be the same problem. You know, just the PR of it is bad.

00:57:40.460 All right, that's all for today. YouTube, I'll talk to you tomorrow.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - October 18, 2022

Episode 1900 Scott Adams： Obama Craps All Over Democrats, ESG Is Dying, Ukraine Peace Plan, And More

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