Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 2729 CWSA 01⧸23⧸25

00:00:00.000 do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do

00:00:04.440 that's a terrible tattoo

00:00:08.180 mama papa

00:00:11.780 did you just disappear

00:00:19.120 when i tapped my papers

00:00:24.460 did the picture just disappear

00:00:27.320 because it threw me out of the app

00:00:30.000 How could everything go wrong?

00:00:34.420 How's that even possible?

00:00:37.000 All I did was this.

00:00:40.080 I won't do it again.

00:00:43.220 And I turned off the app.

00:00:48.440 This is so beyond possible.

00:00:52.620 I mean, we're into some statistical impossible situation here.

00:00:56.180 It can't be that all the apps died at the same time.

00:00:59.200 They couldn't all be broken at once, could they?

00:01:03.380 I know there's a massive incompetence problem, but that's pretty impressive.

00:01:09.060 Anyway, if you'd like to take your experience today up to levels that nobody can even understand with their tiny, shiny human brain, none of it makes sense today, does it?

00:01:23.080 The preamble doesn't make any sense because the starting assumption is that things went right, so the preamble doesn't make sense.

00:01:35.260 Let's just do the, let's just do the simultaneous sin. 0.88

00:01:41.460 Let's just surrender.

00:01:43.540 Shall we surrender to the fact that everything's just going to go wrong today?

00:01:48.680 Just absolutely everything's going to go wrong.

00:01:52.520 Sip to that.

00:01:53.140 Sometimes it goes that way.

00:02:02.120 And then he is slap happy.

00:02:04.420 It's up 172% since I told you about it.

00:02:09.680 Anyway, all right, let's talk about some of the news.

00:02:14.920 You ready for this? 0.95

00:02:18.240 Yeah, let's try for the fourth time in a row to push one freaking button. 0.89

00:02:24.620 Okay, I'm going to use my finger, which I know is a human finger. 0.98

00:02:27.940 I'm positive I'm still alive, and I'm going to push the button, which I've pushed now five fucking times once at work. 0.92

00:02:37.340 All right, careful, careful. 0.76

00:02:40.460 Push the icon.

00:02:42.900 Yes.

00:02:44.880 Yes.

00:02:46.180 I pushed a button and it did what it was supposed to.

00:02:48.940 First time today.

00:02:52.720 All right.

00:02:54.900 Did you know there's a breakthrough in fusion?

00:02:57.940 Nobody cares.

00:03:01.780 General Atomics.

00:03:03.740 They figured out how to get 20% higher than the Greenwald limit.

00:03:08.400 The Greenwald limit, which you all know about, of course.

00:03:11.960 It's some kind of limit that the fusion people needed to get past, and they got past it.

00:03:18.400 It was considered difficult or impossible.

00:03:21.860 But they did, and they've also figured out how to stabilize the plasma.

00:03:24.920 Now, the thing with the fusion is it might be another 20 years of there's another breakthrough without actually anything breaking through.

00:03:36.580 But once it gets serious, it's all going to happen at once.

00:03:41.000 Now, isn't it weird that fusion is coming, which would lower the cost of energy to zero over time?

00:03:47.640 Now, at exactly the time we need cheap energy and relief from inflation.

00:03:54.980 Have you noticed that we have a number of timing things happening that are weird?

00:03:59.140 Meaning that, all right, we're heading toward doom with our debt and our expenses and nobody can live.

00:04:07.380 But at the same time, if fusion were a little bit faster, it would save us.

00:04:12.920 But it might just be late by 20 years.

00:04:16.520 I mean, if you look at the history of humankind, missing it by 20 years, that would be the slightest, slightest miss.

00:04:27.620 But we have other timing, too.

00:04:31.340 So, you know, the AI people at OpenAI think that we're on the verge of being able to solve all of our cancers and diseases.

00:04:39.880 Because AI will figure out some pattern recognition and figure out how to do it.

00:04:43.340 So, what about the people who have terminal cancer this year?

00:04:50.320 They might miss the cure for all cancers by a month.

00:04:57.440 Now, it's bad enough that you have to die from cancer at all. 0.94

00:05:03.160 But think how dumb you would feel if you died a month before all cancer is cured. 0.99

00:05:07.120 That's going to happen. 0.98

00:05:08.060 So, like, somebody's family member is going to die a month before all cancer is cured.

00:05:15.060 Now, I don't know if that's a year from now, but that's what the AI people say.

00:05:20.120 Could be a year from now.

00:05:22.080 Meanwhile, NASA is testing a nuclear propulsion to go to Mars in 45 days.

00:05:29.320 So, currently, it's six months.

00:05:32.860 I think that would lower from six months to 45 days.

00:05:36.720 That would be a pretty big deal.

00:05:39.100 And what else do you got?

00:05:42.940 Oh, I saw a quote from Naval Ravikant.

00:05:46.540 He was on Tim Ferriss' podcast. 0.99

00:05:49.240 And he said that people who don't homeschool, their lives suck. 0.98

00:05:54.140 And then he described why. 0.98

00:05:56.100 Totally right.

00:05:56.760 If anybody has had kids in the last, say, last 20 years, you know that the life of the parents is essentially destroyed by school.

00:06:07.960 Because the school, you know, it loads them up with homework, so you can't have any quality time at night.

00:06:13.320 But you've got to get up, and you've got this stress of getting them there, and the traffic, and, you know, everything's tense, tense, getting the kids to school.

00:06:21.100 If you drive them, especially, it's tense.

00:06:23.020 And it's just brutal.

00:06:26.920 But if you homeschool, you kind of make your own schedule, and everything's fine, and they perform better, and they don't get damaged by the school.

00:06:36.800 Yeah, if you're just a regular parent with children in school, you've got a tough life, and there's no reason for it.

00:06:46.420 There's no reason for it at all, because you can homeschool, and you can solve all those problems.

00:06:50.400 Well, Mr. Beast, Mr. Beast, the gigantic YouTube star, says he wants to get some billionaires together and buy TikTok.

00:07:00.740 He's already talked to his billionaires, and he's pretty serious about it.

00:07:04.620 He says, we mean business.

00:07:05.880 You know, having Mr. Beast and his advisors or his investors, having them own TikTok, that would be pretty good, as long as we can solve the, you know, the privacy and the influence part of it.

00:07:21.740 So, that's interesting.

00:07:25.960 President Trump has his Diet Coke button back in the Oval Office.

00:07:29.960 Have you seen it?

00:07:30.740 It's like this, you know, nice block of wood with one button on it to order a Diet Coke.

00:07:37.120 Except, I feel like he needs more buttons.

00:07:40.220 Don't you?

00:07:40.680 Like, I'd like to see a trap door button, where I can invite in the top DEI director for every government organization.

00:07:51.440 So, what's your job?

00:07:53.600 I'm the DEI director.

00:07:55.360 Duh.

00:07:56.760 Next.

00:07:58.380 What's your job?

00:07:59.660 Well, I'm the director of DEI.

00:08:01.300 Duh.

00:08:02.860 And a Diet Coke, please.

00:08:04.460 Beep.

00:08:04.760 And then you get it mixed up, and you want a Diet Coke.

00:08:09.080 And, you know, next thing you know, next thing you know, next thing you know, Ruby Hose goes for the trap door. 1.00

00:08:17.680 Oh, sorry.

00:08:19.160 I meant to get the Diet Coke button.

00:08:22.960 My bad.

00:08:24.880 All right.

00:08:25.480 Well, according to Christopher Ruffo, who you know, was working very hard on getting rid of DEI ridiculousness in the corporate world and elsewhere.

00:08:38.080 And he says that the tech executives are telling him that in the Silicon Valley companies, they respect Trump's ban on DEI.

00:08:49.480 They respect it.

00:08:50.700 And many feel relieved that they don't have to enforce it anymore.

00:08:58.780 They don't have to pretend.

00:09:00.760 So, Ruffo says resistance to DEI is basically dead.

00:09:08.400 Now, does that surprise you?

00:09:10.140 Are you surprised that DEI can die that easily?

00:09:12.680 Honestly, I'm not, because I was well aware that the main promoters of DEI tended to be rich white guys who were just protecting themselves.

00:09:25.740 So, as soon as somebody said, I will hurt you more if you do it than you don't do it, then all the people who were only doing it to avoid getting hurt would say, wait, well, hold on.

00:09:36.460 What did you say?

00:09:37.780 Oh, oh, it's going to hurt me more to keep doing it.

00:09:40.660 Oh, then I won't do it.

00:09:42.680 There was never any intellectual agreement. 1.00

00:09:46.740 It was purely just a bunch of rich white guys covering their ass, pretending like they cared. 1.00

00:09:52.380 They didn't care. 1.00

00:09:54.700 They were just waiting for some good reason not to do it.

00:09:58.120 Trump gave it to them.

00:10:00.400 Meanwhile, this is funny.

00:10:03.040 The Daily Mail is reporting.

00:10:04.340 And I don't know if you could trust this story.

00:10:09.820 If this story were about Trump, I would tell you there's no way this is true.

00:10:14.500 But since it's about Jim Acosta, I'm going to recreationally pretend it's true.

00:10:21.080 Now, I think I've explained before that a recreational belief is one that doesn't really have a lot of credibility, but it would be fun if it were true.

00:10:30.900 Certainly would be fun.

00:10:32.700 Yeah, this is one of those.

00:10:33.780 So, as you know, Jim Acosta, his time slot was going to get moved from 10 a.m. to midnight, which is widely interpreted as, you know, he's being minimized and CNN wants to, you know, maybe encourage him to leave on his own.

00:10:49.320 You know what I mean?

00:10:49.900 But the story from Daily Mail is that Jim Acosta is reportedly considering leaving the network, you know, because of the shift to the bad time slot.

00:11:03.100 But the move comes as CNN is slashing 200 jobs.

00:11:09.940 Now, let me give some advice to Jim Acosta.

00:11:12.900 Jim Acosta, if he's telling people that he's considering leaving the network, that would be sort of negotiating, wouldn't you say?

00:11:22.760 He's sort of negotiating with management.

00:11:24.720 Oh, if you move my time slot, I might quit.

00:11:29.820 Well, let me give you some negotiating advice, Jim Acosta.

00:11:34.080 And this is free.

00:11:35.340 This is free.

00:11:36.380 There's no charge for this.

00:11:37.900 If your company is trying desperately to cut costs and they've already decided that you need to move to midnight, that's not really the time to start threatening them that you might quit because that's exactly what they want.

00:11:59.520 Obviously, they want him to quit.

00:12:01.320 He must be one of the more highly paid people.

00:12:04.800 He's not helping the network at all.

00:12:06.780 And, you know, they showed it by moving him to midnight.

00:12:10.500 No, I wouldn't negotiate under those circumstances. 0.98

00:12:14.280 The good news is that sucking at your job finally matters again. 0.98

00:12:19.540 So there's that. 0.98

00:12:21.500 But don't worry about Jim Acosta.

00:12:23.700 He could always follow the path of Tucker Carlson, who left Fox News and actually just got bigger.

00:12:30.600 He got bigger.

00:12:31.140 Or he could follow the model of Don Lemon, who left his primetime show, and now he's doing nothing.

00:12:43.900 I don't know.

00:12:44.980 I don't think Don Lemon worked it out.

00:12:48.200 Well, the Oscar nominations are out.

00:12:50.220 And the only thing that Oscar nominations for the best movie, the only thing it tells me is movies don't seem like a thing anymore, do they?

00:13:01.920 It doesn't seem like just watching a movie doesn't feel like a thing I do anymore.

00:13:08.420 There isn't a single movie on the list I have even a little bit of interest in.

00:13:13.080 I try to watch, you know, you know my story.

00:13:17.640 I turn off any movie as soon as somebody's tied to a chair.

00:13:21.900 If your plot of your movie just absolutely requires somebody to be tied to a chair, you're just signaling you don't know how to write.

00:13:33.880 It can't be true that everybody always has to be tied to a chair, no matter what the movie's about.

00:13:39.780 It just can't be true that your plot requires it.

00:13:44.180 There's no way you can't tie them to a bed once.

00:13:47.300 You can't tie them to a, well, sometimes they'll tie them to a pole, I guess, if they want to get creative.

00:13:53.820 But no, as soon as somebody's tied to a chair, I'm out.

00:13:56.900 So I tried to watch a miniseries on Prime, Prime Video called The Agency, about the CIA.

00:14:05.660 Now, it's fiction.

00:14:07.220 And characters were good.

00:14:09.860 I kind of like the tone of it.

00:14:12.240 And the writing seemed good.

00:14:13.540 And I got through the first episode yesterday while I was working.

00:14:16.540 Second episode comes on, and man tied to a chair.

00:14:21.620 And that's the last I'll ever watch of it.

00:14:24.000 I'm serious about this.

00:14:25.640 If you tie somebody to a chair, I'm not going to watch.

00:14:29.000 That's the end of my viewing for that.

00:14:32.020 You have to, you've got to come up with something better than tying somebody to a chair.

00:14:36.560 All right?

00:14:36.880 It's 2025.

00:14:38.580 You can do better.

00:14:41.940 Meanwhile, Oprah discovered that free will is not a thing.

00:14:44.880 She didn't say it that way.

00:14:46.980 What she said was that when she got on Ozempic, she understood thin people.

00:14:55.420 Now, I'm not saying she's thin, and she's not saying she's thin.

00:14:59.360 But it gave her an insight.

00:15:01.120 Because once she got on Ozempic, apparently it changed her thoughts about food.

00:15:07.860 Because when your body is less craving, I guess your mind is relaxed as well.

00:15:14.100 So she realized that thin people don't obsess about food all the time, like she did. 0.99

00:15:22.360 You realize that's realizing that there's no free will, right?

00:15:25.380 So she realized that her brain was just different, and her chemistry was different.

00:15:30.400 And whatever her brain and chemistry were designed to do, well, what they were doing was obsessing

00:15:36.000 about food, and that made it difficult for her not to eat too much.

00:15:40.060 Now, and then when she took Ozempic, she stopped obsessing about it, and then suddenly it was easy

00:15:45.680 not to eat too much.

00:15:46.480 Well, this is what I've been telling people forever.

00:15:50.160 I discovered this with the kids having sleepovers in the house and having all their friends

00:15:56.680 over.

00:15:57.680 And if I got pizza, I'd put the pizza down, and the kids, no matter how many of them

00:16:03.040 there were, would appear to actually get a piece of pizza, because, you know, they were

00:16:08.080 always busy doing something.

00:16:09.700 But they would arrive at the food in the exact order of their current weight.

00:16:13.440 And the first time I saw it, I thought, hmm, that looks like a coincidence, that the skinniest

00:16:21.280 people don't even walk toward the pizza.

00:16:24.400 They just keep doing what they're doing, like they're not even hungry.

00:16:28.300 And then the people who are a little heavier, right at the pizza.

00:16:33.160 Now, there's no way that the way they're thinking about food is the same, because it can't be a

00:16:39.220 coincidence that the person who's got a few extra pounds is always the first one to the

00:16:43.220 pizza.

00:16:44.380 But you can see it really, obviously, with kids.

00:16:48.200 So I can tell with certainty that some brains are different, and it's not about anybody

00:16:52.260 choosing to be overweight.

00:16:54.220 That's not what happens.

00:16:57.480 So there is no free will.

00:16:59.520 If you're an NPC and you'd like to argue this, let me tell you how.

00:17:03.320 The way you could argue in favor of free will existing is you just replace words with your

00:17:10.260 own personal definition.

00:17:11.460 So if you want to argue, here's what you'd say to maintain your illusion of free will.

00:17:17.400 You'd say something like, but I choose what I do.

00:17:21.700 That's free will.

00:17:22.600 Well, no, that's just putting a different word for another word.

00:17:28.020 That's not anything.

00:17:30.240 Or somebody said to me in the comments, we have discipline when it is hard.

00:17:35.800 No, again, that's just a word.

00:17:38.420 You have discipline?

00:17:39.680 You mean you just replaced free will with discipline?

00:17:43.500 No, that's not anything.

00:17:45.100 That's just changing a word.

00:17:46.800 Or somebody else said that Scott can believe what he wishes because he has free will.

00:17:56.120 So I can do what I wish, which means I have free will, because you just changed the definition

00:18:02.820 of free will to believing what I wish.

00:18:06.680 Yeah.

00:18:07.540 We're not going to get into this.

00:18:10.180 Well, today, apparently, Trump will be addressing the World Economic Forum by Zoom or something.

00:18:15.400 And the thing about the Trump era, the golden age, is that I would literally buy a ticket

00:18:25.020 for that.

00:18:26.480 If you told me, Scott, you have to pay $10 to watch a 10-minute video of Trump addressing

00:18:33.280 the World Economic Forum, we don't even know what he's going to say.

00:18:37.680 We have no idea what he's going to say.

00:18:39.880 Would you pay $10 to watch 10 minutes of Trump talking to the World Economic Forum?

00:18:45.400 Well, yes.

00:18:48.220 Yes, I would.

00:18:49.680 Would you pay $10 to watch one of the movies that recently was nominated for an Academy

00:18:55.400 Award?

00:18:57.540 No.

00:18:59.560 What?

00:19:00.960 I'll pay for the part before somebody's tied to a chair.

00:19:04.380 Oh, you know what would be fun?

00:19:05.260 If there's somebody who, by some weird chance, if you've watched all of the movies that are

00:19:15.080 nominated for an Academy Award, can you tell me what percentage of them have somebody tied

00:19:19.760 to a chair?

00:19:20.200 It could be.

00:19:24.600 It could be the answer is none.

00:19:26.900 I'll bet it's not.

00:19:28.180 But if the answer is none, maybe that's how you win an Academy Award.

00:19:31.960 It's like, okay, I'm writing it, and then he's tied to a chair.

00:19:36.380 Wait a minute.

00:19:36.780 What if he's not tied to a chair?

00:19:40.980 The next thing you know, you're nominated for the Academy Award.

00:19:44.380 Hey, he wasn't even tied to a chair.

00:19:48.040 Academy Award.

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00:20:51.440 Anyway, CNN is devolving into a podcast.

00:20:55.380 So, reportedly, their CEO, Mark Thompson, he plans to do mass layoffs, as you know.

00:21:06.220 But apparently, reportedly, I wasn't at the meeting.

00:21:10.260 So, again, I'll use the same standard.

00:21:13.020 If this story were about Trump, I would warn you, it's probably not true.

00:21:18.660 Because there's no source.

00:21:20.840 Right?

00:21:21.120 It's just somebody was at a meeting.

00:21:22.900 Were they?

00:21:23.840 Were they at that meeting?

00:21:25.600 We don't know.

00:21:26.680 So, recreationally, just for fun, I've got to treat it like it's true.

00:21:32.020 And the story is that there was a meeting in which the CEO of CNN told Jake Tapper and Anderson Cooper that they ought to avoid prejudging Trump and stop talking about the past and all the law affair stuff and, you know, calling him a felon and all that stuff.

00:21:49.520 And just talk about what the future looks like and what he's doing at the moment.

00:21:55.200 What do you think about that?

00:21:57.760 Well, it does look like there is some change.

00:22:01.380 It does look like the hosts of CNN are intentionally, and I give them credit for this, most of them seem to be finding some kind of middle ground. 0.99

00:22:12.060 However, they're still doing the thing where they invite idiots on the show. 1.00

00:22:18.940 If they're inviting idiots on the show, and they give them lots of time, it's the same CNN. 1.00

00:22:26.720 So, you know, at the same time I'm reading this about they're not going to be, you know, full of TDS, I see a clip of Scott Jennings have to shut down a salute truther. 0.99

00:22:37.860 So they have one of these guests on who starts with saying that, well, you know, Elon did that ambiguous raising his hand.

00:22:46.180 You see, oh, my God, that was close.

00:22:50.400 I don't know if you noticed, but inadvertently I allowed one of my hands to be higher than my waist.

00:22:58.180 And you can't do that when Trump's in office.

00:23:01.240 You know, as soon as it gets up here, they're like, is that a Hiller?

00:23:05.460 Oh, no, no, I was just reaching for something.

00:23:09.460 I was over, oh, no, I was just reaching for something.

00:23:15.960 I just wanted to turn on my lap.

00:23:17.940 The lap is all, no, no, oh, oh.

00:23:22.620 So you get a little jumpy.

00:23:24.620 But they had some guests I hadn't seen before, I don't know her name, who talked about Musk was overshadowing Trump.

00:23:34.700 And he was doing that arm salute.

00:23:37.980 Now, what do you think the CEO of CNN was thinking when the guests came on and started talking about the fake news of the arm salute

00:23:46.660 and the fake news that Musk is going to overshadow Trump and trying to drive a wedge?

00:23:52.440 That feels like exactly what the CEO said stop doing.

00:23:57.100 So if the hosts stop doing it, but then they introduce somebody who does it, and they do that every day, which is exactly what's happening,

00:24:08.060 nothing really helped.

00:24:09.440 Seems like it's all the same.

00:24:10.680 So, anyway, Scott Jennings calls it the salute truthers, which is pretty good. 0.99

00:24:21.700 Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel came to Elon Musk's defense about that fake salute thing,

00:24:27.840 and he said Elon Musk was being falsely smeared, and Elon is a great friend of Israel, and all true, all true.

00:24:36.200 And I'm trying to figure out, how can I get Netanyahu to do this for me?

00:24:42.860 Can Netanyahu do this for me?

00:24:45.260 It would be great.

00:24:46.100 I'd like him to say that the ADL is not right when they smeared me.

00:24:53.820 That'd be great.

00:24:54.760 So, Bibi, and that's the reason that I don't support Israel, because they don't support me. 0.97

00:25:01.160 But they do support Elon, so I can see why he would support them.

00:25:04.280 Otherwise, I'd just observe.

00:25:07.960 I'll just be an observer, but I can't be a supporter, because they don't support me.

00:25:12.380 Got to have reciprocity.

00:25:13.680 Got to have reciprocity.

00:25:15.880 Without reciprocity, nothing works.

00:25:18.580 Right?

00:25:19.100 So, a little reciprocity, and then we're in good shape.

00:25:25.560 The Sam Altman story is just getting more and more interesting.

00:25:28.740 So, I was unaware, until Mike Cernovich found Altman's old posts and started putting them on X.

00:25:36.780 I didn't realize that Sam was not just anti-Trump, but he was really involved in being anti-Trump in 2016 and 2020, apparently.

00:25:49.460 So, some of his posts, which I'd never seen then, because he was less prominent then, so there's no reason I would have noticed.

00:25:56.440 So, this is actually a Sam Altman post on it, back when it was Twitter, on December 21st, or, I'm sorry, December in 2021.

00:26:12.160 So, in 2021, so this is after Trump lost the re-election, Sam Altman said, very few people realize just how much Reid Hoffman did and spent to stop Trump from getting re-elected.

00:26:31.440 It seems likely to me that Trump would still be in office without his efforts.

00:26:35.700 Thank you, Reid.

00:26:36.700 And then, Paul Graham had said in 2016, so this was just a month or so before the 2016 election, in October, he said, few have done more than Sam Altman to defeat Trump.

00:26:50.800 So, according to the people who know the most, and are the insiders, Sam Altman was one of the primary people for defeating Trump in 2020, and one of the primary ones, with Reid Hoffman, tried to keep him out of office in 2016.

00:27:10.760 Did you know that?

00:27:14.260 That's kind of interesting.

00:27:16.760 And Altman himself said, on one of these, I think, responding to Paul Graham, he said, I've spent all of my free time and done less work than I should have on various projects and a lot of money.

00:27:32.260 The various projects in the context of stopping Trump.

00:27:36.160 How many various projects was he involved in?

00:27:40.400 And how many of them were totally legitimate?

00:27:44.300 I don't know.

00:27:45.080 But now, more recently, especially because he's sort of trying to work with Trump, which is necessary for all the tech leaders who are going to have to work with him.

00:27:59.340 Now he said, I don't have his exact words, but Altman basically said that now he's had a chance to see Trump more objectively, and he doesn't have his old views.

00:28:11.660 And he explained why he was so wrong before by calling himself an NPC.

00:28:19.820 So a non-player character, somebody who doesn't think before they act, just goes along with the crowd.

00:28:26.620 Do you think that explains it?

00:28:28.220 Do you think that one of the smartest, most capable people in the entire country was an NPC and spent all of his time and all of his money without realizing they had been hypnotized by the television?

00:28:44.240 Now, your first instinct is, there's no way, right?

00:28:49.580 Common sense.

00:28:50.960 Common sense says you can't be that smart and have acted that seemingly NPC-like for eight years, or whatever it was.

00:29:00.920 And then suddenly you wake up, and now you see the error of your ways.

00:29:07.720 That doesn't seem real, does it?

00:29:11.500 Right, so all of your common sense says that doesn't seem like a real change.

00:29:16.220 You must be pretending now, because it's less likely you were pretending then, because you put years of work, years of work, and massive amounts of money before.

00:29:28.920 So that looked real.

00:29:30.780 And then suddenly you do, you know, one post where you're like, oh, sorry, I was an NPC.

00:29:37.340 Didn't mean it.

00:29:38.740 And then we're supposed to believe it.

00:29:42.020 Here's the hard part.

00:29:44.280 That's normal.

00:29:46.620 That's completely normal. 1.00

00:29:49.240 If you think, there's no way that could be true, because you could be that smart and that dumb at the same time. 1.00

00:29:56.600 Yeah, you can. 0.99

00:29:57.840 Totally normal.

00:29:58.920 If you were to look at the IQs of all the people suffering from TDS, and you compared it to the IQs of the people not suffering from it, the sufferers are probably higher, because they're more likely to have gone to college where they got hypnotized.

00:30:16.480 So, IQ is actually not opposite of being fooled.

00:30:24.280 High IQ and high likelihood of being fooled kind of travel together.

00:30:29.260 And we have seen genuine cases where people who had that much TDS, or at least were in the TDS world, were, in fact, deprogrammed.

00:30:38.720 I know, because I deprogrammed some of them.

00:30:41.020 The, you know, or at least I was part of the process.

00:30:43.940 And the fine people hoax did, in fact, did, in fact, no doubt about it, reprogrammed people who were brilliant.

00:30:55.360 And they didn't know they were acting like NPCs.

00:30:58.480 So, the first filter I'm going to put on this is that this is entirely possible. 1.00

00:31:06.520 Now, I can almost hear Mike Cernovich yelling at me, you fucking idiot. 1.00

00:31:11.080 He's just pretending for money. 1.00

00:31:15.680 I agree with that.

00:31:17.140 I agree with that.

00:31:17.920 My current best take is that he might see that he wasn't entirely right before, but he's seemingly transactional.

00:31:29.980 He's got a fiduciary responsibility to the company.

00:31:32.580 If he didn't at least pretend to have become pro-Trump, if he hadn't at least pretended, well, he wouldn't be doing his job.

00:31:43.280 He has billions of dollars personally at stake in keeping OpenAI, you know, a functioning, successful company.

00:31:51.600 So, no, if somebody has billions of dollars at stake for having the right opinion, they're going to be on that opinion.

00:31:59.260 So, there's nothing about his current opinion that tells us anything about what he's thinking.

00:32:08.460 You can't tell what he's thinking.

00:32:10.060 But if you want to say to yourself, I think the old Sam was the real one, I think that's reasonable. 0.98

00:32:16.540 But don't rule out that no matter how brilliant you are and how committed you are, you could realize later that you were hypnotized.

00:32:25.160 Because a lot of people did.

00:32:26.480 And, you know, if we didn't have a whole bunch of people who said, honestly, you know, and they don't say this about themselves, but they could, they could say, but don't, I'm really, really smart.

00:32:38.720 And I was totally fooled by that.

00:32:41.560 But lots of people are essentially saying that.

00:32:44.020 So, if lots of people who are as smart as Sam Altman are saying, I got totally fooled, and we believe them, I believe Bill Ackman, for example.

00:32:54.800 I believe he was genuinely fooled, but he's also genuinely brilliant.

00:33:00.960 How do you explain that?

00:33:02.440 Because it's normal.

00:33:03.680 It's completely normal.

00:33:04.600 Being able to be free from persuasion is a specific skill.

00:33:11.940 It's not a general intelligence thing at all.

00:33:14.200 In fact, general intelligence works against you. 0.94

00:33:16.740 You're easier to fool. 1.00

00:33:18.800 Dumb people are harder to fool sometimes. 1.00

00:33:21.400 Because they'll say, hey, you smarty pants, looks like you're trying to pull something on me. 1.00

00:33:25.520 Well, why do you say that?

00:33:27.720 I don't know.

00:33:28.360 I just don't trust you.

00:33:30.080 But what do you see that's tipping you off?

00:33:32.920 Don't need to see anything.

00:33:34.140 I just don't trust you.

00:33:35.800 And you're going to be right.

00:33:38.300 So, the low IQ person who says, I just don't trust you, ends up being right. 0.99

00:33:44.520 And the smart person says, hmm, let's look at all the facts and the details by reading the New York Times, but I'll cross-check it with the CNN to make sure that one and the other, they both got it right.

00:33:55.280 Oh, it looks like they agree.

00:33:56.860 I guess that's true.

00:33:57.820 So, now I'll act like Trump is Hitler because the CNN and, you know, being smart isn't helping you.

00:34:06.580 It just is a different skill than understanding persuasion so you can see the mechanism.

00:34:12.460 You have to be able to see the machine.

00:34:14.800 If you can't see the mechanisms of the machine, the machine owns you.

00:34:19.240 But once you learn enough about how it's done, such as learning how a RUPAR is done, learning how incentives work, etc.

00:34:27.720 Once you realize how the machine works, then it just sort of materializes in front of you.

00:34:33.200 And when a new hoax comes out, you go, oh, that just came out of that hoax machine.

00:34:38.400 And then you're immune.

00:34:39.480 But you've got to see it all.

00:34:42.840 Common sense doesn't get you anywhere on that topic.

00:34:48.520 So, and I didn't know that Reid Hoffman and Sam were so close and worked together on this.

00:34:56.080 But I don't know what's going on with Reid Hoffman.

00:34:58.200 Someday we'll find out, I think.

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00:35:17.900 New York Times had an opinion piece today.

00:35:21.760 I think it was an opinion piece.

00:35:23.800 Hard to tell these days.

00:35:24.800 The title was, How Labeling Cartels Terrorists Could Hurt the U.S. Economy.

00:35:32.600 All right.

00:35:33.100 How many of you knew that the biggest shareholder in the New York Times is also the richest man in Mexico?

00:35:40.800 And what they're talking about here is that the cartels are embedded in all of the industries of Mexico.

00:35:46.980 It's not just the drug industry.

00:35:48.740 But they're embedded with the, you know, agriculture and everything else.

00:35:52.620 So, it could take down the whole economy in Mexico, not just the drug selling part of the economy.

00:36:01.760 Now, to be fair, being the largest shareholder is only 17%.

00:36:06.620 And he doesn't have a controlling interest that still belongs with the family.

00:36:12.300 So, the family is making all the decisions.

00:36:14.660 But I simply point out that wouldn't it have been nice to know that the biggest shareholder for the people who wrote this article is the richest guy in Mexico who, I'm guessing, has business interests that are sort of have some cartel embedded with them.

00:36:32.420 So, so, so, so, so, you never know.

00:36:36.420 You just have to be aware of the, aware of who's who.

00:36:43.480 Apparently, the ICE, ICE is going to call the non-residents aliens from now on.

00:36:51.480 Remember how that became like a dirty word?

00:36:54.380 Don't call them aliens.

00:36:55.960 They're just undocumented. 0.51

00:36:56.820 I've never been too worked up about what name we use for them.

00:37:02.240 And I don't, you know, I have to agree that alien sounds more like something you want to get rid of than undocumented does. 1.00

00:37:12.560 And the names matter.

00:37:14.400 So, I don't love that aliens has been reintroduced.

00:37:19.740 But I wouldn't mind if all the words are reintroduced, meaning that it just doesn't matter what you use.

00:37:25.940 That seems healthy.

00:37:27.600 You shouldn't get mad if somebody's calls, says aliens.

00:37:31.560 You shouldn't be happy if they call them non-documented.

00:37:34.500 If we're talking about the same thing, it's just words.

00:37:37.680 Well, my prediction on the JFK files, which, as you know, Mike Pompeo had talked Trump out of revealing all of them last time.

00:37:48.820 According to Mike Pompeo, there's nothing in there interesting anyway.

00:37:52.320 But there are some secrets.

00:37:53.920 So, nothing that we would learn that's, you know, big and shocking.

00:37:57.520 But still a few secrets, even 60 years old.

00:38:00.480 Because he points out that if somebody was in their 20s then, they could still be alive in their 80s.

00:38:06.420 But he was just using that as an example.

00:38:08.160 He didn't say that's the reason.

00:38:09.520 That's some of it is secret.

00:38:10.700 He thinks 99% of it's already available.

00:38:14.320 And that what little there is left in the JFK file isn't really going to change anybody's mind about anything.

00:38:22.760 Here's what I think.

00:38:23.820 Given that we widely assume the government itself was involved in killing JFK, the question I would ask is, do you think the government that killed JFK and then, you know, if it was, let's say, CIA-related or Dulles-related, do you think they would have left a memo on that?

00:38:48.880 Do you think there would have been a memo that you could find in the files as in, here's a memo, go kill JFK and make sure you keep this memo secret?

00:39:01.840 No, there's not going to be something in the file if our own government killed him.

00:39:09.240 If our own government killed JFK, which is exactly what it looks like happened, they're not going to keep the memo.

00:39:17.300 I mean, even in the wildest imagination that somebody ever wrote a memo and put that in writing, if they ever put it in writing, which is ridiculously unlikely, they certainly would have lost it by now, if you know what I mean.

00:39:31.360 Lost it.

00:39:32.480 Lost in the fire.

00:39:34.320 Misplaced.

00:39:35.820 So, no, there isn't really any chance there's something in the JFK file.

00:39:40.560 Unless the JFK file says that the space aliens did it, what are you going to learn?

00:39:49.860 There couldn't possibly be any secrets in there, only secrets about who did it.

00:39:55.780 There can't possibly be.

00:39:58.360 Anyway, so I'm going to hold my breath for that stuff.

00:40:01.260 As you know, the Trump administration is doing a lot of firing.

00:40:08.380 And the funniest part is the DEI professionals are trying to avoid being fired because all the DEI people are going to get fired by changing the name of their job.

00:40:21.700 So, we're seeing some examples of the director of DEI quickly changing their names on the website to executive, you know, just generic executive.

00:40:33.340 But I watched one young black man who worked for the government, I forget which agency, he was sort of proudly crowing that he was moving from his job as a professional in charge of DEI to something that sounded exactly like DEI but used different words.

00:40:56.860 And he announced it in public at about the same time that the Trump administration was putting in a clarifying order that says, if all you do is change your name, we're going to fire you.

00:41:10.780 And so they asked people to turn people in who were just changing the names and still doing DEI.

00:41:16.500 And like 10 minutes later, he updated his post on X from, hey, everybody, I got this new job to, I've been laid off.

00:41:25.420 That's right.

00:41:26.860 He bragged about his new job, which was just different letters for his old job.

00:41:31.560 At the same time that the word went out, fire anybody who changes jobs and keeps doing DEI but changes the name of the job.

00:41:41.480 So, got him.

00:41:46.580 Anyway, so there's lots of happening.

00:41:49.460 I guess the ICE raids are happening now.

00:41:51.160 We're not seeing gigantic video and stuff.

00:41:57.720 So, one of the things the ICE people are apparently doing right, and obviously they would do this, is they're not announcing where they're going to attack so they don't have cameras.

00:42:08.960 So, we're not seeing a lot of video of their, you know, picking up the people that were on the list of the bad people.

00:42:15.360 Oh, all new hires in the government got their offers rescinded.

00:42:26.700 Interesting.

00:42:28.800 All right.

00:42:29.380 Apparently, Trump has already sent 1,500 military troops down to the border.

00:42:37.880 I don't know if all 1,500 are there yet.

00:42:39.940 It started with 500, but it's targeting 1,500.

00:42:44.140 And they're reinforcing the wall and building outposts to help them monitor any illegal entries.

00:42:49.640 I thought I saw in a separate report that they had orders to shoot, basically orders that they could use deadly force whenever it made sense.

00:43:06.240 Now, those are my words.

00:43:08.800 But is that confirmed?

00:43:10.680 That they have the permission to fire at the border?

00:43:15.860 You know, if they need to.

00:43:16.960 You know, we're talking defensively.

00:43:20.540 Yeah.

00:43:21.440 Well, that's very Trumpian.

00:43:23.680 And probably a good idea.

00:43:27.360 Meanwhile, according to Just the News, Trump is announcing emergency price relief for cost of living crisis.

00:43:36.420 Now, that doesn't mean, if this were a Democrat thing, it would mean that they put price gaps on things. 0.98

00:43:42.380 But that's not what Republicans do, because it's dumb and it doesn't work. 0.98

00:43:46.320 I haven't done that since Nixon. 0.99

00:43:48.380 Nixon.

00:43:49.280 And that didn't work out.

00:43:50.380 So they learned a lesson.

00:43:52.400 But here's what he is doing.

00:43:54.520 So you decide if these actions will cause prices to come down.

00:44:00.360 All right?

00:44:00.680 He's ordering all federal agencies to untangle the American economy from Biden constraints.

00:44:07.540 Now, what are those constraints?

00:44:09.260 Well, he's going to eliminate climate policies that generally are going to increase the cost of everything, that make food and fuel costs go up.

00:44:19.620 So, in the short run, if companies get rid of their climate expenses, I think they would just bank it and just keep it as profit.

00:44:32.020 I don't think they would immediately lower the prices, but they might.

00:44:37.560 So long-term, you should lower prices.

00:44:39.900 Short-term, the companies will just take an extra profit.

00:44:44.440 He wants to eliminate rent-seeking practices.

00:44:47.460 Now, that's not a phrase that most people know what it means, rent-seeking.

00:44:53.100 That's sort of a political insult that even I forget what it means.

00:44:57.820 I always see it and I go, can't you use, like, real, regular, ordinary words?

00:45:02.220 Like, there's something to rent-seeking that has, you know, its own meaning.

00:45:09.200 So that's useless communication.

00:45:11.840 So my advice to the people communicating on the Trump team, don't use rent-seeking.

00:45:19.280 99% of the public has no idea what you're talking about.

00:45:23.100 They think it means rent.

00:45:24.360 It has nothing to do with the rent.

00:45:25.740 And he wants to, let's see, get rid of administrative expenses and driving up health care costs.

00:45:39.960 Lower housing costs and increase the housing supply.

00:45:42.980 Create employment opportunities for American workers.

00:45:45.900 Well, that rent-seeking, that phrase rent-seeking is doing a lot of work.

00:45:50.480 I think it means just people getting a job and some grifty kind of thing that didn't need to happen in the first place.

00:45:59.840 So rent-seeking meaning trying to get paid as opposed to trying to make anything better.

00:46:05.280 Is that a good definition?

00:46:07.100 Rent-seeking would be just somebody says, well, if I become the head of DEI, I'll get a big paycheck.

00:46:14.360 As opposed to somebody saying, do we need a head of DEI?

00:46:18.300 Like, why are we even doing that?

00:46:21.520 I think it's close to that.

00:46:24.540 Anyway, so Trump is halting gain-of-function research, the kind that got us in trouble.

00:46:32.520 Gain-of-function on the viruses, he wants to halt that.

00:46:35.520 But I wonder about why do we call it gain-of-function?

00:46:40.160 Isn't it weaponization?

00:46:41.380 Or are we pretending that we're only seeking to understand how someone else could weaponize it so we can treat it?

00:46:52.600 Oh, here's the definition of rent-seeking.

00:46:56.100 Rent-seeking, when an entity seeks to gain added wealth without any reciprocal contribution of productivity.

00:47:02.140 Okay, so my definition was not exactly right.

00:47:10.440 Not really.

00:47:13.240 So I've got something on the screen that I can't make or go away, which means I can't see you.

00:47:20.160 I don't know if you can see me.

00:47:22.140 Really?

00:47:23.260 Come on.

00:47:24.080 There should be somewhere on this screen a little X or something to tell me how to turn this off.

00:47:33.280 Really?

00:47:34.780 Can you even see me?

00:47:36.180 I can't see your comments.

00:47:37.640 I've got a blank screen with one image that I clicked on and no indication of any kind of a way to turn it off so I can see you.

00:47:46.520 No, it wasn't that.

00:47:49.900 It wasn't that.

00:47:51.040 Clicking anywhere doesn't do it.

00:47:53.380 Oh, my God.

00:47:54.420 I'm going to have to get out of this to get back in just because I clicked on an image.

00:47:59.160 Holy hell.

00:48:01.100 Can't make it go.

00:48:01.980 Oh, okay.

00:48:03.480 It turns out that dragging it worked.

00:48:06.940 Another interface fail.

00:48:11.780 Well, I'm glad you could see me.

00:48:14.300 Anyway.

00:48:16.520 So, gain of function sounds like weaponization to me.

00:48:20.680 Marco Rubio is off to Panama.

00:48:24.080 Getting started fast, but not just Panama.

00:48:26.840 He's going to El Salvador, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, et cetera.

00:48:35.480 So, he's going to talk to Panama.

00:48:37.380 I'm sure that won't go well in the first conversation.

00:48:39.560 But there is a story about how the Panama Canal got started that I told in the man cave, but I'll tell now.

00:48:49.160 The story is, and this is wild, there's a YouTube video on it.

00:48:56.660 You could just go to YouTube and look for Panama Canal and French engineer.

00:49:02.140 So, before the United States got involved in the Panama Canal, I'll try to tell the story quickly.

00:49:09.540 The French were trying to build it in the same place, but the French found out that every time they dug something, it rained, and then the mud just fell back in the trench.

00:49:20.960 So, they just gave up.

00:49:22.460 So, the French left, but there was one engineer who was a French engineer who decided to stay to see if he could get something going.

00:49:31.840 So, one engineer, just one, decides to convince Panama, which at the time was not its own country.

00:49:44.880 It was an extension of Colombia.

00:49:47.540 So, Colombia kind of extended, you know, along the little peninsula there, or along whatever that is.

00:49:53.380 And so, he talks to the Panamanians, who are more like an area than a country. 1.00

00:50:01.640 He said, hey, the Colombians that own you are, like, ignoring you, and you're not getting your value for being part of the country.

00:50:09.300 You should be independent.

00:50:11.860 And the Panamanians are like, yeah, yeah, we should be independent.

00:50:15.960 How about that?

00:50:16.700 And then he says, if you make me your ambassador, now keep in mind, he's not Panamanian.

00:50:22.540 He's a French citizen.

00:50:24.460 And he convinced the Panamanians, if you make me your ambassador, I'll get you independence.

00:50:31.380 And they probably didn't think it was serious anyway.

00:50:33.860 So, like, sure.

00:50:35.840 Yeah, you're our ambassador.

00:50:37.560 Go get us some independence.

00:50:39.400 So, he goes to Colombia and says, hey, Panama wants independence.

00:50:43.760 How about that?

00:50:44.940 And Colombia said, get out of here. 1.00

00:50:47.840 Because, of course, that's ridiculous. 0.89

00:50:49.640 So, he goes back and then he goes to the United States.

00:50:53.400 And this is during Teddy Roosevelt's time.

00:50:56.360 Now, Teddy liked to take over some stuff.

00:50:59.180 So, he was kind of expanding the empire.

00:51:01.820 So, he was already mentally on the same page.

00:51:04.780 If we can grab something, we'll grab it, as he had already done.

00:51:09.480 And somehow, the French engineer convinces him that he's speaking for Panama and that they're going to go independent.

00:51:19.140 And it would be really helpful if the American Navy was parked outside, you know, nearby and acted like they were in favor of this independence.

00:51:27.340 Now, Teddy, thinking, hmm, maybe we can get some kind of very low-cost, conquer some territory here.

00:51:37.780 So, the American Navy sits out there waiting.

00:51:41.960 Colombia knows about it.

00:51:43.700 And then the ambassador of Panama declares independence.

00:51:48.940 And the Colombians are like, hey, you can't, oh, maybe you can. 1.00

00:51:56.540 Well, we don't care about you that much.

00:51:58.260 Okay, you're independent.

00:51:59.680 So, they gave their independence with no fighting because a French guy wanted to build a canal.

00:52:08.640 And he wanted America to be the, you know, the builder of it with his help.

00:52:12.740 So, then he says, all right, we got a deal.

00:52:17.100 So, then the ambassador, who is the French engineer, he comes up with a, I guess it would be a treaty or a deal with the United States that the United States could have control of the Panama Canal in return for building it.

00:52:33.360 You know, they'd have to build it, but they'd have control of it.

00:52:35.880 So, the Americans say, hey, that's great.

00:52:38.140 And they come and they sign the deal.

00:52:41.240 And then they pull up to, you know, take control of the canal.

00:52:45.500 And the Panamanians say, what are you doing here?

00:52:48.800 And the Americans say, well, you know, because of the deal.

00:52:52.120 We signed a deal.

00:52:53.360 So, Panama gave us this.

00:52:55.620 And the Panamanians said, what deal?

00:52:58.600 The only person who even knew about it was the ambassador, the ambassador who was not even Panamanian.

00:53:04.000 And so, so not only did the French engineer create a new country out of nothing, but then he made a, then he made a deal with the United States, the biggest thing that ever happened in Panama, on his own without telling Panama.

00:53:19.600 So, the United States comes, realizes they don't really have any standing, but they have this big military.

00:53:29.100 So, they just took the canal.

00:53:32.600 Because they knew that Panama couldn't stand up to the American military.

00:53:36.720 They knew that they had some cover story of this ridiculous deal with the Panamanian guy.

00:53:42.000 So, they just, it was just Teddy Roosevelt situation.

00:53:46.620 He's like, oh, I guess it's ours now.

00:53:48.840 And sure enough, it was.

00:53:50.720 So, and then the Panamanian engineer had some ideas how to build it that the French didn't like.

00:53:59.680 So, his ideas about how to build it were adopted by the Americans, because it looked like a good idea, and it worked.

00:54:07.240 And they built the Panama Canal.

00:54:09.720 Now, have you ever heard that story?

00:54:11.200 I think it's true.

00:54:13.220 I mean, it was an extensive documentary on YouTube.

00:54:16.660 But, I think it's true.

00:54:20.120 So, it's a wonderful story.

00:54:22.760 Again, if you don't think one person can change the world, well, there's a big example.

00:54:28.820 Now, the other context is that Teddy Roosevelt knew that for America to be the dominant maritime power,

00:54:38.220 that we needed to connect our two oceans.

00:54:40.120 Because if you can't get assets from one side of the country to the other without going around, you know, South America,

00:54:47.900 you're not really the naval power that you need to be.

00:54:51.440 So, the Panama Canal had a lot to do with projecting American power, and that's why Teddy Roosevelt was okay to play a little fast and loose with that.

00:55:02.980 Anyway, I'm going to make an observation I've made before, but I'm going to give you some more details.

00:55:07.980 Have you noticed that Democrats have what I call a rate problem?

00:55:13.660 A rate problem.

00:55:15.060 Let me explain.

00:55:17.300 The general statement is that if something is good at a small scale, Democrats will say it must be good at a big scale.

00:55:26.320 And that never makes sense.

00:55:27.740 I mean, it might make sense for making money or something, but that's about it.

00:55:32.640 So, they say, for example, if a low amount of immigration is good for the country, why wouldn't a high rate be good for the country? 1.00

00:55:42.260 And then the Republicans say, that's batshit crazy.

00:55:48.360 Those are completely different situations.

00:55:51.140 A low rate of immigration is sort of no problem, and maybe it's more plus than minus.

00:55:57.480 But a high rate, you're literally giving away your country and dying.

00:56:02.020 Those are not just doing more of a good thing.

00:56:05.660 So, it's a rate problem.

00:56:07.440 The Democrats, for whatever reason, refuse to acknowledge that doing a good thing too much has any kind of negative.

00:56:15.820 Here's another one.

00:56:17.240 You don't want your police to be over-policing, do you?

00:56:22.160 Yeah.

00:56:22.780 You don't want the police to harm somebody, you know, maybe be a little too tough on the citizens.

00:56:28.020 Nobody wants that.

00:56:29.260 So, it's good if the police are maybe a little softer and more gentle in some situations.

00:56:37.440 But if that's good, why not get rid of police entirely?

00:56:42.040 Wouldn't that be even better?

00:56:43.900 It's a rate problem.

00:56:46.820 You don't just take some little good thing and then take it to the extreme and say it must be good.

00:56:54.660 Nobody really cares if an adult wants to transition. 0.56

00:56:59.140 Well, if it's good for adults, why wouldn't it be good for toddlers, say the Democrats?

00:57:05.660 Again, good for an adult to have enough freedom to make that kind of a choice in today's world?

00:57:13.840 I like it.

00:57:15.620 I could argue maybe they shouldn't or maybe they won't be happy, but it's not up to me.

00:57:20.100 I'm happy that they have the choice as adult citizens in a free country.

00:57:25.460 Yes, absolutely.

00:57:26.560 You do what you need to do.

00:57:27.960 I'll do what I need to do.

00:57:29.480 It's the best we can do.

00:57:31.920 But the rate, can we keep it with just the adults?

00:57:35.740 We're pretty sure.

00:57:37.120 Does it have to extend to children and dogs?

00:57:39.580 How about, it's good to help the unfortunate.

00:57:47.580 Most people would agree.

00:57:49.200 It's nice.

00:57:49.920 If you're going to help somebody who needs a little hand up, yeah, that's good.

00:57:54.360 So why don't we give all of our money to everybody else?

00:57:58.760 Well, wait a minute.

00:57:59.540 That's a rate problem.

00:58:01.080 It's only good if you keep it within bounds.

00:58:03.760 If you open your doors and let everybody come in and take what they want, nothing works. 0.95

00:58:08.720 It's a rate problem about if diversity is good, and I would agree that having a company who's 1.00

00:58:20.920 worked for us kind of looks like the public, that seems like a plus.

00:58:25.020 Everybody would be a little happier.

00:58:26.340 They'd feel a little safer.

00:58:28.020 They'd have a little more visibility about what the customers in general are looking for

00:58:32.740 because you've got people who touch every community.

00:58:36.460 Yeah, you can see how that would be a plus. 0.98

00:58:39.220 But if a little bit of diversity is good, why not just get rid of white men entirely? 0.98

00:58:46.460 Which is what it turned into. 0.99

00:58:48.380 It turned into, let's just get rid of white men because if you do it a little bit, it's 1.00

00:58:52.120 good. 0.99

00:58:53.000 Wouldn't it be good if you got rid of all of them?

00:58:56.460 It's a rate problem.

00:58:58.660 A little bit's fine.

00:58:59.800 A lot of it is the end of the country.

00:59:02.860 How about if criticizing a politician such as Trump, one that you might not agree with,

00:59:12.360 if criticizing him pretty severely is good because we have a competitive system, so both

00:59:21.700 sides will get criticized, and we like it because that's how we settle things.

00:59:27.400 We argue a little bit.

00:59:28.860 So if a little bit of criticism of Trump is good, why not organize a coup against him?

00:59:34.560 Again, it's a rate problem.

00:59:38.180 It's a rate problem.

00:59:40.040 A little bit of criticism of Trump is good.

00:59:42.660 I would even argue that he's such a change agent that I would even agree with you that

00:59:48.500 a lot of criticism is good.

00:59:51.500 But can we keep it there?

00:59:53.940 Does it have to be if criticism is good, a coup is good?

00:59:58.580 It's a rate problem.

01:00:03.580 Yeah.

01:00:04.080 So here's another one.

01:00:07.400 If a store allows a little bit of shoplifting and the alternative is somebody in desperate

01:00:15.020 need can't get the food or the diaper or something, we kind of think, oh, we don't like, we definitely

01:00:22.020 don't like shoplifting.

01:00:23.700 Nobody likes it.

01:00:24.660 But a little bit of it, you could argue the person who stole it, you know, got to stay

01:00:32.100 alive, got to put a diaper on a baby.

01:00:36.400 But if it's good, if a little bit of it happens, why don't we just open the doors and make it

01:00:41.780 legal to steal everything?

01:00:43.240 It's a rate problem.

01:00:44.740 Again, it's a rate problem.

01:00:47.920 It's the thing that they get wrong every time.

01:00:51.100 Anyway.

01:00:51.500 So John Bolton, as you know, lost his Secret Service protection under Trump, but he was

01:00:59.240 awakened at 12 a.m. to be told about it.

01:01:03.920 That part just seems like they were messing with him.

01:01:07.260 Like, I suppose they needed to tell him as soon as they knew.

01:01:11.800 So, I mean, there's justification for it to give him the most amount of time to adjust

01:01:16.400 to it.

01:01:16.720 But it just feels like they're messing with him.

01:01:22.060 But during the press conference, Trump said some bad things about him.

01:01:27.520 He said he tried to blow up the Middle East.

01:01:30.560 And then here's what Trump said. 1.00

01:01:32.340 I thought he was a very dumb person. 0.99

01:01:35.040 But I used him well, because every time people saw me coming into a meeting with Bolton standing 0.99

01:01:40.060 behind me, they thought that he'd attack them because he was a warmonger.

01:01:44.680 Now, how many of you remember that when Bolton was first added to Trump's team in the first term?

01:01:52.820 Do you remember what I said?

01:01:55.080 Because, of course, I didn't want a warmonger on his team.

01:01:58.680 But if you remember what I said, oh, this is perfect.

01:02:01.180 Because when Trump walks into a room with a warmonger, and then he's not as bad as the

01:02:06.980 warmonger, he's going to look like the good cop.

01:02:10.160 So for negotiating purposes, it's kind of perfect to have one warmonger in the room, just so 0.98

01:02:16.700 you're not that warmonger yourself.

01:02:18.700 So that's exactly what Trump said.

01:02:21.180 And I think everybody who understands negotiations, I think everybody understood it.

01:02:28.900 But now he says it directly.

01:02:30.980 And I do believe that this is not just an excuse.

01:02:35.480 If this were a normal politician, if Trump were normal, I would have said, oh, you made

01:02:40.900 a big mistake with him, and now you're trying to explain your big mistake.

01:02:45.340 I don't think so.

01:02:46.340 I think he knew that Bolton was a negotiating asset, and he was going to use him like that

01:02:53.000 right from the start.

01:02:54.960 And only Trump would do that.

01:02:57.020 There's nobody else who would even have that idea.

01:03:01.060 But here's my take. 0.99

01:03:03.380 I love the fact that Trump is rebranding Bolton as the dumbest guy in America, at least on foreign 0.99

01:03:12.820 policy, because if you're a ram, just think about this, if you're a ram, and you were 0.99

01:03:19.500 mad at him because you thought he was going to push America to bomb your country, and now 0.99

01:03:24.600 he's been branded by the actual commander-in-chief as the dumbest guy in the country, would your 1.00

01:03:31.980 adversary want to kill the dumbest guy on your side? 1.00

01:03:36.100 No. 1.00

01:03:37.180 No.

01:03:37.800 That would be the last thing. 1.00

01:03:39.420 You want to kill the smart ones. 0.99

01:03:40.580 I mean, if you're going to kill anybody, if you're going to kill anybody at all, you pick 0.99

01:03:46.140 out their smartest guy.

01:03:47.420 Remember when Trump put the hit on Solomon A?

01:03:51.580 It's because Solomon A was their best guy.

01:03:55.800 Killing their best guy makes complete sense, if you're an adversary. 1.00

01:03:59.920 Killing their dumbest guy doesn't buy you a thing. 1.00

01:04:02.980 You'd rather they keep their dumbest guy, no matter how dumb it is. 1.00

01:04:08.440 So it's kind of funny that Trump both removed his security, his secret service, at the same 1.00

01:04:14.580 time he made it completely unnecessary to kill him.

01:04:18.620 It's kind of perfect. 0.99

01:04:21.620 Only Trump.

01:04:22.460 All right, I'm going to take another victory lap on this next story, as one does.

01:04:29.460 So apparently Alex Soros gave an interview to the Financial Times.

01:04:35.960 Now, the first thing that should be noted is, wait a minute, Alex Soros gave an interview?

01:04:41.180 I've never seen him do that, because if he got interviewed, how would he explain what he's

01:04:48.460 doing?

01:04:49.940 Like, it's not really possible to explain what he's doing in any way that sounds non-evil.

01:04:55.020 So I always thought he just avoided interviews because he couldn't possibly explain what they

01:04:59.420 were doing.

01:05:00.780 But he does one.

01:05:01.920 And then I immediately looked up, who owns the Financial Times?

01:05:07.780 And it turns out, the Financial Times is owned by a Japanese holding company.

01:05:13.720 Japanese holding company.

01:05:16.400 So who would be the least confrontational media?

01:05:22.340 If you were going to pick, of all the world, who would be the least dangerous media?

01:05:33.800 I kind of think something owned by a Japanese holding company is not going to ask you the

01:05:38.480 hard questions.

01:05:40.560 I feel like you're going to get the easy questions.

01:05:43.880 Am I wrong?

01:05:45.140 I mean, maybe I'm making some kind of stereotype that's unfair.

01:05:49.040 But are the Japanese news people, are they world famous for being extra aggressive? 1.00

01:05:58.560 Because I know the British are aggressive. 1.00

01:06:01.840 French press, pretty aggressive.

01:06:03.980 American press, very aggressive. 0.60

01:06:07.200 And none of them seem to be able to talk to Soros, but the one owned by a Japanese holding 0.96

01:06:12.360 company.

01:06:14.880 Well, so I don't think they asked him any tough questions.

01:06:18.400 But still, it made news.

01:06:20.820 So the first question is, is Alex Soros intentionally avoiding any serious news interviews?

01:06:28.320 I think the answer is yes, obviously.

01:06:30.620 Remember when Elon Musk said he wanted to talk to him and Soros said yes?

01:06:35.700 But I'll bet they can't schedule it.

01:06:39.100 Elon can probably make it any time.

01:06:41.920 But I'll bet Alex just, ah, he's busy.

01:06:45.320 Maybe we could do that later.

01:06:46.560 It's never going to happen.

01:06:48.940 I don't think ever Elon Musk and Alex Soros will sit in the same room alone.

01:06:54.200 I don't think it'll ever happen, because he wouldn't put himself in that position.

01:06:58.120 But anyway, here's the interesting part.

01:06:59.820 This is being reported by the Washington Free Beacon.

01:07:02.820 So according to Alex, his father, George, is angry that the money is going to, well, that

01:07:13.900 his own organization has too many employees.

01:07:16.880 Rent seekers, you might say. 0.87

01:07:18.300 And so apparently George Soros said, quote, I didn't want to create an employment agency.

01:07:25.100 Now, that's what his son says, the dad said, meaning that he didn't want the non-profit

01:07:30.020 open society to just be hiring people like crazy.

01:07:33.560 But apparently they did.

01:07:35.800 He said that George was very upset by the massive number of employees and, quote, amount of bureaucracy

01:07:42.300 at his liberal non-profit, the Open Society Foundations.

01:07:47.520 And furthermore, he says his only regret, this is what Alex, the younger one, says.

01:07:57.000 He says his only regret since taking over is that he didn't slash the non-profit's workforce

01:08:03.260 sooner.

01:08:03.740 Now, it gets more interesting.

01:08:08.540 Part of the interview, Alex Soros considers himself a Zionist, meaning that he is very pro-Israel

01:08:17.560 and Israel's existence as a Jewish state.

01:08:21.720 Now, at the same time, his society, the Open Society, has been funding millions of dollars

01:08:30.260 to self-declared anti-Zionist organizations.

01:08:36.620 How do you square that?

01:08:38.880 He's massively funding anti-Israel organizations who are, and it's not just an interpretation.

01:08:46.680 These are organizations who say it directly.

01:08:49.900 But that's the opposite of his view.

01:08:53.100 And this is not a random view, because he's Jewish.

01:08:56.080 So if you're actually Jewish, and you say in an interview, you know, I'm a Zionist or

01:09:02.760 word-said-a-fact, but you're funding the exact opposite, the exact opposite, how do you

01:09:09.920 explain it?

01:09:11.240 Do you remember who had the only explanation for this?

01:09:14.700 Me.

01:09:15.600 Here's my explanation.

01:09:17.600 I said George Sr. didn't know what was happening, that he didn't know what was happening.

01:09:22.740 He didn't know where his money was going.

01:09:26.080 Do I win?

01:09:28.300 Am I the winner?

01:09:30.020 I said that George Sr. didn't know where the money was going.

01:09:34.340 What we know is he has too many people and too much bureaucracy, which does what?

01:09:41.840 It obscures to the owner what's happening, because even the owner can't penetrate the

01:09:47.760 bureaucracy.

01:09:48.120 And even the younger, Soros, has apparently been funding things that are very much the

01:09:55.360 opposite of one of his core beliefs.

01:09:58.700 How do you think he funds things that are the opposite of his core beliefs?

01:10:03.060 I say, neither of them were active managers.

01:10:09.500 So my hypothesis was that neither of them knew what it was doing.

01:10:13.820 That somehow it had taken on its own bureaucratic life and that the bureaucracy was making the

01:10:20.820 decisions based on DEI and equity things, and that if you would put either of the Soros' in charge,

01:10:30.260 it wouldn't look different.

01:10:31.280 So he just bought 200 more radio stations.

01:10:37.820 Yeah.

01:10:39.720 So I'm going to double down on my hypothesis that the Soros' are not aware of what the organization

01:10:45.920 is doing.

01:10:48.120 And I think that's just true.

01:10:49.440 Because it never really made sense, anything we saw, unless it was accidental or somebody

01:10:56.520 else was in charge.

01:10:59.440 Scott, why repeat lies?

01:11:04.100 Well, why don't you tell me what the lie is?

01:11:09.140 Could you give me any hint?

01:11:11.040 What do you think was the lie?

01:11:12.320 I told you what other people said.

01:11:21.400 Is that what you're calling repeating the lies?

01:11:23.720 I call it the news and the context that's important.

01:11:29.700 So you tell me what lie did I just repeat.

01:11:35.260 Right. 1.00

01:11:36.180 Now that was a dumbass comment. 0.99

01:11:37.760 If you want to tell me what the content is, that you think I'm wrong about something, tell 0.99

01:11:44.640 me. 0.99

01:11:46.740 Oh, that Soros is so dumb not to not know his business? 1.00

01:11:51.040 He just proved it. 1.00

01:11:53.460 That's literally the story.

01:11:54.940 He just reported on his own that he didn't know what his business was doing.

01:11:59.700 Because of the bureaucracy.

01:12:04.360 Yeah.

01:12:04.940 Do better.

01:12:05.500 Do better in your comments.

01:12:07.760 Anyway, there's a study in something called The Conversation, Michael Pesek, who says that

01:12:18.400 learning your political opponents don't actually hate you can reduce toxic polarization and

01:12:25.180 anti-democratic attitudes.

01:12:32.400 Here's my problem.

01:12:35.100 Here's what I have no patience for.

01:12:37.760 I have no patience for a personal accusation in the context of factual statements.

01:12:44.000 I have every interest in being fact-checked.

01:12:50.400 That part I like.

01:12:51.140 So if I say something wrong, then it's wrong.

01:12:55.900 But to immediately assume that there's some kind of character flaw because you've got some 0.99

01:13:00.120 bullshit idea about reality that I don't, fix yourself. 0.99

01:13:06.140 Just fix yourself. 1.00

01:13:07.520 Think about how to not be that person anymore.

01:13:11.360 Anyway, back to this.

01:13:12.740 So you've heard the stories of people who met MAGA supporters and were surprised to find out that they're awesome.

01:13:21.420 And you've heard this anecdote a whole bunch of times, right?

01:13:25.060 So how many times have you heard, oh, I had MAGA neighbors, but then they kept shoveling my driveway for me for free.

01:13:36.360 And I realized I was wrong about them.

01:13:40.080 You've heard that a million times.

01:13:41.620 Have you ever heard it the other way?

01:13:44.280 Have you ever heard somebody who said, you know, I thought these Antifa people were all rotten.

01:13:50.860 But then I met some, and they were pretty nice.

01:13:54.720 I never hear that.

01:13:56.480 It doesn't work both ways.

01:13:58.660 There's one side that was demonized by mental illness, TDS, and propaganda.

01:14:04.260 And the other side just wants to be left alone.

01:14:08.900 They just want to be left alone.

01:14:12.140 If you put me in a room with a normal Democrat, do you think I have any problem with them?

01:14:19.800 Do you think that I have a negative opinion about just an ordinary Democrat?

01:14:24.840 Never.

01:14:26.000 It's never even occurred to me.

01:14:27.720 It doesn't even seem like a thing that you should think about.

01:14:30.280 Now, there are certainly, you know, the extremists who are causing the ordinary Democrats to, you know, not be exactly the way you'd want them to be.

01:14:39.120 But I don't even hate the extremists.

01:14:41.140 I just would, you know, want to stay away from them because they'd hate me.

01:14:44.080 The only thing that would keep me out of the room with the leftist, lefty, progressive of all time is what they think of me.

01:14:54.360 It wouldn't keep me out of the room because of what I think of them because what I think is people are all individuals.

01:15:01.240 No two are alike.

01:15:02.160 I'm not going to judge them because everybody's individual.

01:15:08.100 You know, if I said, hey, you're not like the other person, well, what kind of a standard is that?

01:15:13.960 Every person is different.

01:15:15.760 You can't be like other people.

01:15:18.280 So, no, I don't judge them.

01:15:19.580 So, let's see.

01:15:27.300 Thomas Massey says, seed oil lobbyist will be chief of staff at USDA.

01:15:34.120 Somebody says, the oil seed processor association.

01:15:37.880 Really?

01:15:39.620 So, that whole seed oil thing, I've never followed it closely.

01:15:45.340 So, as you know, some number of people say the seed oils are among the worst things we're putting in our bodies.

01:15:53.080 And other people say, no, it isn't.

01:15:57.360 I don't actually know which is true.

01:16:02.740 But I guess we'll find out.

01:16:04.720 Looks like it's going to come to a head.

01:16:11.620 You don't deserve me, right?

01:16:15.340 Anyway, I just don't know enough about a seed oil.

01:16:20.520 I know there's, I've heard the criticisms, but I don't know how to know what's true.

01:16:28.500 I'm from wokeness to faith in God, okay?

01:16:32.720 All right.

01:16:33.760 These are the end of my prepared remarks.

01:16:36.240 And I went too long because it took a while to get going.

01:16:40.160 So, I think this will be a reasonable time to end.

01:16:43.100 I'll talk to the locals, people, privately later.

01:16:50.420 Yeah, we've got 1,200 people to watch.

01:16:52.560 And we'll upload the show to the other platforms later.

01:16:55.240 It'll just take a while.

01:16:56.260 All right.

01:16:56.920 Thanks for joining me, everybody.

01:16:59.040 Bye for now.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - January 23, 2025

Episode 2729 CWSA 01⧸23⧸25

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