In this episode of Coffee with Scott Adams, I discuss the concept of free will, and how it relates to our understanding of the world and our ability to learn and remember information. I also talk about a recent conversation I had in the man cave, where I told a group of people that they can't learn to "authorize the environment" until they lose their "free will."
00:02:19.280But I can tell that if you were to just compare my ability to understand and navigate the world today to any time earlier in my life, it's definitely better.
00:02:31.620So, I can tell you at my current age, I don't feel like I'm losing.
00:03:54.220If you believe you have free will, you're living in an illusion.
00:03:58.380And if you're living in an illusion, you can't control your reality because you don't know what it is.
00:04:04.440You have to understand your reality before you can author it.
00:04:08.360And free will is one of our most persistent illusions.
00:04:12.020Now, you might say to me, but Scott, that's not making sense.
00:04:16.080Because if you're authoring your environment, that sounds a lot like having free will.
00:04:21.000So you're saying, I have to say, I have to understand I don't have free will to actually author the environment, which would be like having free will.
00:04:35.600When you learn you don't have free will, that becomes a permanent part of the structure of your brain.
00:04:43.360I think you all understand that everything you learn becomes a physical structure in your brain because if it weren't physical, you wouldn't have the memory.
00:04:52.940Everything you know, everything you learn, everything you learn, everything you remember is physical.
00:04:59.660If that part of your brain got damaged, that part would be gone.
00:05:02.940So if I teach you, hypothetically, that free will is not real, that too becomes a permanent structure in your brain.
00:05:14.220And it's that permanent structure, along with some others, that are necessary to author the simulation.
00:05:22.020So another way to say it is, you'll understand it once you get there, if you do.
00:05:29.860Once you understand that free will isn't real, then you enter a world in which it seems like you can control your simulation or your environment just by what you want and what you focus on.
00:06:37.240But if I were planning some major thing in the United States, cutting all of our 9-11 services would be a really good terrorist way to scare the hell out of us.
00:06:49.560Because if you could imagine cutting the 9-1-1 service before a terrorist attack, that would be pretty messed up, but would also speak to state actors.
00:07:01.480Because it's sort of too big of a play for an individual terrorist.
00:07:07.300So if something happened that looked like an Iranian terrorist attack in the United States, and if it happened after this alleged rumors of 9-11 going down, that would look like a pretty sophisticated attack.
00:07:22.220Which even if we couldn't identify who did it, we would probably suspect a state actor, because of the complexity.
00:09:17.400I thought that's sort of the job of a chief of staff, is to make sure that everything goes through that person and gets filtered before the president even sees it.
00:09:27.240Anyway, so maybe it's much worse under Biden.
00:09:32.460But then there's also indication from the same source that Hillary Clinton is still deeply involved advising.
00:09:40.540And that, yeah, maybe she and Obama still have a much bigger influence because they have connections to the people who work in the administration.
00:09:51.040So I would say that this scoop fits almost exactly what I thought was true, which makes me worry about it a little bit because it's a little bit too on the nose.
00:10:05.100You know, didn't you assume that there was probably one person and maybe the chief of staff who is running things?
00:10:10.580And then maybe Obama and Hillary were, you know, advising from the outside.
00:10:18.440So maybe it's exactly what it looks like.
00:10:21.560Tucker Carlson had an ex-CIA guy on, Pedro Israel Orta.
00:10:29.520He worked for the CIA during the Trump administration.
00:10:32.600And they said that the CIA didn't even want to recognize him as president.
00:10:36.380They didn't even want to put his picture up in their offices for a long time.
00:10:41.620It became controversial to even have his picture in your office.
00:10:46.260Now, do you think that the CIA is on the same side as the president?
00:10:57.940It looks like the CIA has its own agenda.
00:11:00.520All right, here's a story that I'm going to laugh at this every time I see it because you're going to see this story in a hundred more forums in a hundred more places.
00:11:11.820And every time I laugh at what's left out.
00:11:19.580That Trump is gaining with young people and especially young men.
00:11:24.160So Trump has almost closed the gap with young men.
00:11:31.100And basically it's a whole story about all the groups like people of color, et cetera, who are moving toward Trump.
00:11:40.480But then it says that Biden still has a strong hold among, you know, other groups such as white women and black voters and some of the group.
00:11:54.920Now, here's what's missing with the story.
00:11:57.860The headline is always that they're about dead even in the national polling.
00:12:02.420You know, they're within a few points no matter, depending on the poll.
00:12:05.360And yet every sub story is about a major group that's moving toward Trump.
00:12:13.320And there's never a story, I believe not one, in which anybody was moving toward Biden.
00:12:41.120You know, at a certain point it's possible because if Trump is catching up, it makes sense as part of the catching up story.
00:12:50.140But they've been dead even for a long time, haven't they?
00:12:53.820If they're dead even for a long time and one of them keeps gaining in subcategories that are really big ones, how can they stay even at the top line?
00:14:23.780And Jim Brewer says that Dave Chappelle told him in private that an elite group of people came to him and sat him down to, quote, correct him.
00:14:36.140And that was a phrase used, to correct him.
00:14:40.440And then he suddenly went to, he vanished and went to Africa.
00:14:46.720And that when he came back, he was different.
00:14:48.700Do you think that an elite group of people sat him down to talk to him and correct him?
00:14:57.860And that that was so, such a dangerous situation that he had to leave the country?
00:15:16.800I won't, I won't say it's impossible, but until you hear from Chappelle, you should probably treat it like it's not true.
00:15:27.680If Chappelle says it, I'm definitely going to pay attention.
00:15:32.360Now, you should, now, obviously, if this is true, he wouldn't say it, right?
00:15:36.460Because the whole story is he would never tell you because it's too dangerous, whatever it is, whoever this group is and whatever it is they wanted.
00:15:43.320But does anybody even have a theory for why anybody would have wanted to stop Dave Chappelle?
00:15:50.400What the hell was Dave Chappelle saying that was so dangerous?
00:15:54.640Or what was he doing that was so dangerous?
00:16:28.400On the X platform, Christopher Friant tells us that it looks like MidJourney, the AI program that does movie-like clips, may have scraped images from major TV, film, and streaming studios.
00:16:45.560And then some examples were shown where it looks like AI is creating images that appear to be clearly cribbed from real movies and TV.
00:16:55.200You know, maybe changed a little bit, but clearly came from that inspiration.
00:16:59.680To which I say, what did we think was happening?
00:17:06.320If you're training a thing to know how to make a movie, you know, the way that people would expect a movie to look, what did you think they were training it on?
00:17:15.100Do you think they were training it to make movies by showing it real people?
00:17:19.100That wouldn't teach you how to make a movie.
00:17:45.120There are only so many angles that you can shoot a scene.
00:17:48.700And once you've seen them, that's all there is.
00:17:51.740So there isn't any other way you could have trained AI to make a movie other than making it look at movies.
00:17:59.180But the real question is, if it looks at a movie and then tweaks it enough, isn't that new art?
00:18:07.160So let's say it looks at a movie scene where it was blocked down a certain way.
00:18:11.640It's like, oh, there's a tracking scene and it shows the star walking through a crowd.
00:18:15.600And then the tracking shot goes from above.
00:18:19.200You know, you could imagine that it would use the same, let's say, schemes and techniques, but change the characters and change the movie and change the lighting and everything.
00:18:32.360So, but this is part of a larger topic, which I like to bring up, which is, if anything can stop AI, it'll be lawyers.
00:18:39.440Because lawyers are just going to be all over AI.
00:18:44.160In fact, the only way that AI could survive, in my opinion, is that it was created by a company that became so big so quickly, it would have infinite assets to fight the legal battles.
00:18:55.880If you were a startup in your garage, let's say Brian Ramelli comes up with his own AI model, it wouldn't be hard to stop Brian, just one person.
00:19:10.180All you need to do, too, is lawfare him out of business and, you know, he would give up.
00:19:15.120But you can't really lawfare out of business, a multi-billion dollar company.
00:19:18.860So, if AI had not become somewhat instantly a multi-billion dollar asset, it would have been killed in his crib by lawyers.
00:19:27.900But at this point, it's bigger than lawyers.
00:22:44.720And again, the funniest story, which I'm going to keep telling you about, even if you don't like it, is Bri.ai and his new Orifice AI device.
00:22:53.600Now, it's a sex toy, and the funny part is what the public is responding to.
00:23:00.200So, it's becoming sort of a public, at least on X, a public battle where people are so mad about trying to be living in a world where men would be using these devices.
00:26:14.780I'm just saying the whole thing is so funny because it's so offensive intentionally that people aren't catching on that it's intentionally offensive.
00:27:28.760If your argument is that the elections were not rigged, then trying to rig it with lawfare right in front of the entire world while you're arguing that the election wasn't rigged, but you're rigging it right now?
00:27:43.520I mean, legally, legally, because the lawfare stuff is not itself illegal.
00:27:48.440It should be because it's being used illegally, but probably won't be, you know, actually prosecuted in any way.
00:29:12.620And I would say that Stephen A. Smith has that leadership thing.
00:29:17.220I'm not, and it feels like he's suffering from the Spider-Man curse.
00:29:22.980You know, the Spider-Man curse, with great power comes great responsibility.
00:29:27.180I can't read minds, but when I see somebody as capable as Stephen A. Smith, and when I hear him talking the way he's talking about the big issues, it feels like he just realized that he's the one who knows how to do it.
00:29:42.640He actually knows how to show leadership.
00:30:13.220If he ever ran for office, I would definitely like his chances.
00:30:18.320I would like his chances if he ran for office.
00:30:20.960That doesn't mean I'm going to agree with him on policy, but, wow, he's capable.
00:30:25.360Anyway, I like to see capable people do well.
00:30:29.400Tim Poole tells us that his Timcast IRL show, three of his older shows from three years ago, just got strikes against them.
00:30:39.260There were shows with Michael Malice, Joe Rogan, and Real Alex Jones.
00:30:43.220Now, do you think that that's about something Timcast did, or they're just trying to suppress those three other people?
00:30:52.000Now, we know that they've, you know, there's been some move to suppress, you know, pro-Trump voices.
00:30:57.440But I'm wondering, is this move mostly against Timcast?
00:31:02.220Because I'm trying to think, is Timcast the last serious independent voice that hasn't been taken down by the bad guys?
00:31:14.200It seems to me like it would be obvious that Tim would get targeted by the bad guys to be taken down for some, you know, lawfare or social media reason or some hoax or get canceled or something.
00:31:32.900I would imagine that there's, like, a whole team of people working on just putting Tim Poole on a business.
00:36:15.860So did you know that one of the most influential people in American politics is an 88-year-old Swiss guy?
00:36:27.040Well, that's something I learned today.
00:36:28.920You know, we all hear about George Soros putting so much money into things and influence them.
00:36:33.720Well, apparently there's like a George Soros Jr., whose name I never heard, Hans-Jorgo Wiss, 88.
00:36:43.240And he's this billionaire who's been putting in hundreds of millions of dollars into American stuff, similar to the Soros kind of activities.
00:36:52.120And to the point where he's one of the most important people in the country, he's not even in the country.
00:37:00.740So the GOP is trying to crack down on this loophole that lets foreign donors put all this, what they call the dark money, into U.S. elections.
00:37:10.560Anybody who thought our elections are determined by the will of the people, do you feel silly that you ever believe that?
00:39:57.920Now, if you've been following Mike Benz, you would know that at least the Atlantic Council and the Carnegie Endowment are just straight-up CIA entities, basically.
00:42:40.200It is already programmed into Google, Gemini, and OpenAI, ChatGPT.
00:42:43.920So that would be talking about the idea that truth is subjective and it can get in the way of getting things done.
00:42:53.160Vivek, along the same lines, said that he quoted the CEO of NPR saying, quote, our reverence for the truth might be a distraction getting in the way of finding common ground and getting things done.
00:43:08.820And Vivek says, this gets to the heart of the cultural divide in the modern West, whether you believe truth is a priority or a hindrance.
00:43:19.600Do you agree with all three of these people?
00:58:26.340It has everything to do with the outside sources.
00:58:28.740I think the odds of Biden simply surviving and the election is rigged and he wins in a rigged election is about one out of three.
00:58:39.440I think the odds of Trump surviving any assassination attempts and also getting a big enough victory that they can't cheat their way to throw it, one in three.
00:58:52.060No matter what the polling says, one in three at best.
00:58:54.600And the odds of RFK Jr. making it all the way to presidency is about one in three also, because I think the odds of Biden collapsing are pretty good.
00:59:05.760And I think the odds of the CIA taking Trump out of it with lawfare or something worse is pretty good.
01:00:35.920It's not like there are three sanctions that can make a difference.
01:00:39.200And then there are a million sanctions that you could do, but they're not really going to make a difference.
01:00:43.680I feel like it's more of that, don't you?
01:00:47.080Like there's a strong 80-20 situation that might be like a 99-1, where there might be a few sanctions that if you could get them to stick, would really move the needle.
01:00:58.360And then there's probably a whole bunch of other ones where some rich guy goes, wait, you mean I can't dock my yacht in Washington, D.C.?
01:01:09.880Well, I'll just dock it somewhere else.
01:01:43.380If 53 sanctions is not enough, I could put on 50 more that will be unspecified and vague, and you couldn't even tell if they make a difference.
01:01:53.880But if 100 sanctions isn't enough, I could put 200 sanctions on.
01:03:38.100There's a story that a prosecutor in California, the California DA, dropped this so-called bombshell election data case because it might help Trump.
01:03:53.880So apparently there was some case about somebody involved with the electronic part of the elections had sent some data over to China, some American election data, sent it to servers in China.
01:04:08.880Now, I don't know all the details of that story, but the reporting is that the only reason they didn't prosecute is because it would have made a story for Trump to talk about politically.
01:04:21.580I'm willing to believe that CBS News is reporting that some members of Congress who led the investigation, the January 6th committee people, that they've already told their family, they've talked to their families about their safety and the risk of their arrest if Trump wins a second term.
01:04:42.200Do you think the January 6th committee is at risk of imprisonment if Trump wins a second term?
01:04:49.540Do you think they're at risk of imprisonment for investigating him the way they did?
01:05:05.900Well, it turns out it came to the right place.
01:05:09.880Here's some evidence that the January 6th people belong in jail.
01:05:15.140There's a National Guard captain who's testifying to Congress and he says, quote,
01:05:21.740I can say unequivocally that the inspector general's review, and that's the review of January 6th and all that stuff, is riddled with inaccuracies, misstatements, and perhaps false flags and narratives regarding how critical Pentagon senior officials responded when our republic was under great stress.
01:05:42.040So his claim is that the president of the United States had pre-authorized the deployment of 10,000 National Guard troops just in case things got in hand.
01:05:54.360Now, do you remember any part of the January 6th proceedings in which the public was informed that the person they said was trying to conquer the country had been certainly verifiably documented, no question about it, had tried to get 10,000 National Guard people there to prevent any kind of violence?
01:06:20.040Now, that's true beyond any doubt, I think.
01:06:26.460And that would make the entire January 6th narrative that Trump was trying to conquer the country look ridiculous because he'd authorized 10,000 people to prevent something from happening at the Capitol.
01:06:40.780Do you know why those 10,000 were not sent in the end?
01:06:45.160Well, according to the whistleblower, it's because the Pentagon delayed dispatching them over the concerns for the optics.
01:07:20.460The U.S. military, intentionally and fully understanding the danger, decided at the management level to leave the members of Congress unprotected.
01:07:32.680Now, smart people say the only reason you would do that is to make a case against Trump.
01:07:45.320Now, I'm not sure that's the only reason because, you know, regular incompetence and miscommunication and stupidity and, you know, it's a complicated world.
01:07:53.740But it certainly tracks, like it fits the facts.
01:07:59.500I don't know if it's true, but it fits the facts that the military was part of a larger operation to make sure that Trump was squashed forever and couldn't come back.
01:08:11.580But whether or not the military was thinking of a way to protect the Republic or to just get Trump, that is irrelevant to the fact that we have conclusive, multiple witnesses and documentation that President Trump was trying to protect the Capitol and he was prevented from doing that by his own military.
01:08:43.960What's it called when the military refuses an order from the commander-in-chief because doing the order would be good for the country and the commander-in-chief?
01:08:58.340So, to me, it looks like the January 6th committee was covering up their own coup and that they're guilty of insurrection and that it would be easy to prove because all you have to do is prove that the people who knew they could be protected chose the other path and then they sold that other path as Trump's fault when it was 100% their own doing.
01:09:21.320If there's no crime in that, then you might as well just open the jails.
01:09:28.140It's the most criminal act that I've seen since that video of the dead guy at the bank.
01:10:16.880Anyway, not as terrible as the January 6th stuff.
01:10:20.820So, yes, I believe that if Trump gets in office, there's probably a whole bunch of people who need to go to jail over Ukraine and the pandemic on January 6th.
01:10:31.880Not to mention whatever we might find out about elections themselves.
01:10:43.540You know, you could imagine a time when I would have said, you know, I don't think that the president should throw in jail the other team because it's bad luck.
01:10:56.160If the reason you're throwing them in jail is that they tried to throw you in jail on made-up charges, then yes, if you win, you can put them all in jail.
01:11:09.360In fact, we should encourage that, not discourage it.
01:11:12.320If the thing you're putting your opponent in jail for is that they tried to put you in jail for nothing and got caught, absolutely, they all belong in jail.
01:11:38.040If all of, like, business shut down for months because there was wild, let's say, protests in the street and violence, and let's say even hundreds of people got killed, I'm down for that.
01:11:52.840Yeah, I don't want anybody to get killed, and I'm against violence of all kinds.
01:11:58.960But if you ask me, would that be the right play to put them all in jail, even at the risk of massive disruption to the economy, massive disruption to life as we know it?
01:12:12.160Yes, that's totally worth it because the alternative is much worse, much worse.