Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 2994 CWSA 10⧸20⧸25

00:00:00.000 Looks like we've got a little problem here.

00:00:08.000 Good morning everybody. Let me solve

00:00:12.000 my technical problem. For some reason my

00:00:16.000 iPad died. Why? Why?

00:00:22.000 Stocks are looking good.

00:00:24.000 Bitcoin's up.

00:00:28.000 And it's a slow news day.

00:00:42.000 Good morning

00:00:44.000 everybody and welcome to the highlight of human civilization. It's called

00:00:48.000 Coffee with Scott Adams and you've never had a better time.

00:00:52.000 But if you'd like to take a chance of elevating your experience

00:00:56.000 up to levels that nobody can even understand

00:00:58.000 with their tiny, shiny 0.78

00:01:00.000 human brains. All you need for 0.71

00:01:02.000 that is a

00:01:04.000 cup or mug or a glass of tank or shells

00:01:06.000 and a canteen jug or a flask

00:01:08.000 a vessel of any kind. Fill it with your favorite

00:01:10.000 liquid. I like coffee.

00:01:12.000 And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure

00:01:14.000 of the dopamine hit of the thing

00:01:16.000 day. The thing that makes everything

00:01:18.000 better. It's called the simultaneous sip

00:01:20.000 that happens right now. Go.

00:01:30.000 Well, like I said

00:01:32.000 when you were first joining,

00:01:34.000 there's no news today.

00:01:36.000 Do you ever wake up and there's no news?

00:01:38.000 There's just no news.

00:01:40.000 I'll talk about the news.

00:01:42.000 And I'll, you know,

00:01:44.000 some of it's about science and stuff, but

00:01:46.000 boy, they close the government

00:01:48.000 and all the fun stops.

00:01:52.000 So, first I'll tell you about

00:01:54.000 my comic that you can only see if

00:01:56.000 you're a subscriber on X

00:01:58.000 or on Locals.

00:02:00.000 I'll just tell you that the boss

00:02:02.000 is looking to hire an employee who's got a

00:02:04.000 neurochip in his head.

00:02:06.000 So, he'll be an advanced employee.

00:02:09.000 But not only does he have a neurochip

00:02:11.000 in his head, he's got an entire

00:02:13.000 micro data center in his head.

00:02:15.000 So, pretty soon you're going to be

00:02:17.000 hiring employees who have micro data

00:02:20.000 centers in their head.

00:02:22.000 That's my prediction.

00:02:25.000 All right.

00:02:26.000 I saw a couple of posts by Dr.

00:02:28.000 Nicholas Fabiano who found a few

00:02:31.000 studies that were interesting on X.

00:02:33.000 One of them is that, apparently,

00:02:35.000 there's a high correlation between

00:02:37.000 people who are nearsighted, like me,

00:02:40.000 people who have glasses that are

00:02:42.000 nearsighted, and higher IQ.

00:02:46.000 Do you know how they could have known

00:02:48.000 that without doing a study?

00:02:50.000 They could have asked me.

00:02:52.000 I'll tell you when I discovered this.

00:02:54.000 Many years ago, when Dilbert first

00:02:56.000 became a phenomenon, I was invited to

00:02:59.000 speak at MIT.

00:03:02.000 And I go into this auditorium.

00:03:05.000 And this was before LASIK.

00:03:07.000 I don't know if it was before LASIK was

00:03:09.000 invented, but it was before it was

00:03:11.000 popular.

00:03:12.000 And I stood up there in front of that

00:03:14.000 crowd with my glasses on.

00:03:16.000 And I looked into the crowd.

00:03:18.000 And I'm not positive, but I think

00:03:20.000 every single person in the room was

00:03:22.000 wearing glasses.

00:03:23.000 And they're probably all nearsighted.

00:03:26.000 And I said to myself, I've never seen

00:03:28.000 this before.

00:03:29.000 I've never seen an entire auditorium

00:03:31.000 of people wearing glasses at the same

00:03:33.000 time.

00:03:34.000 MIT, our smartest college.

00:03:37.000 Dilbert actually graduated from MIT.

00:03:40.000 That's part of his backstory.

00:03:42.000 Dr. Fabiano also found a study.

00:03:47.000 He said that depression can be contagious

00:03:51.000 via the mirror neuron system.

00:03:54.000 So in other words, if you spend time

00:03:56.000 around a depressed person, it can make

00:03:59.000 you depressed. 0.78

00:04:00.000 How many people didn't already know that?

00:04:03.000 Happy wife, happy life.

00:04:05.000 Is there anybody who didn't know that

00:04:08.000 hanging around depressed people will

00:04:10.000 make you feel bad if you do it enough?

00:04:14.000 Okay.

00:04:15.000 I think they could have saved some money

00:04:16.000 on that one.

00:04:18.000 Here's some good news.

00:04:20.000 How many of you remember, if you've been

00:04:22.000 with me since the beginning politically,

00:04:25.000 back in 2016 or so, I was just talking

00:04:28.000 all the time about generation four

00:04:31.000 nuclear power and how it was coming.

00:04:34.000 It's here, finally, eight, ten years later.

00:04:39.000 There's a first, I think it's the first,

00:04:42.000 Gen four reactor.

00:04:43.000 It'll be a small one that's going to open up.

00:04:46.000 And it's just what you think of it is.

00:04:49.000 It's molten salt, used as both a coolant

00:04:52.000 and a fuel.

00:04:53.000 It's just going to be a little one megawatt reactor

00:04:56.000 and it'll be a test to see if they can build

00:05:00.000 the hundred megawatts, which they probably will.

00:05:03.000 So it looks like this technology is now well understood.

00:05:09.000 And the plan is that if they can build this in a factory,

00:05:13.000 so they're trying to make a small, easy to build,

00:05:17.000 won't melt down.

00:05:19.000 Won't melt down is the important part.

00:05:21.000 Won't melt down.

00:05:22.000 It can't.

00:05:23.000 It's actually designed so it could melt down if you wanted it to.

00:05:27.000 So it won't melt down and will be built in mass production

00:05:32.000 and factories.

00:05:33.000 So they would build the components and then ship them out to the site,

00:05:37.000 which would be way less expensive.

00:05:40.000 So we might be, you know, it'll take a few years for this to get built

00:05:45.000 and then it'll take a few years for the big ones to be built.

00:05:48.000 But I feel like we're at Gen 4.

00:05:51.000 I think we got there, people, if you were waiting for it.

00:05:55.000 Well, I guess last night while I was sleeping, the internet broke,

00:05:59.000 except for X.

00:06:01.000 So I guess the problem was with Amazon's AWS cloud service

00:06:06.000 that affects a lot of the big services.

00:06:09.000 So there are a whole bunch of apps that use Amazon's back,

00:06:14.000 what would you call it, backroom processing.

00:06:18.000 And it all broke.

00:06:20.000 So they had one failure point at Amazon and it broke the entire internet,

00:06:25.000 except for X, because I guess Musk has his own secured internet.

00:06:32.000 So everything went down except X, which is scary,

00:06:38.000 but at the same time, isn't it nice to know that X didn't go down?

00:06:43.000 Because you can do almost everything there.

00:06:45.000 You can message, pretty soon you'll be able to send money.

00:06:47.000 You can't send money yet on X, but you will.

00:06:50.000 I mean, he's already applied for it.

00:06:53.000 That's going to happen.

00:06:54.000 So, yet again, another service that Elon Musk provides to the world.

00:07:03.000 The list of things that one man is doing for the world to make it safer is just out of control now.

00:07:13.000 It's crazy.

00:07:14.000 It's crazy how much he's done for the world and how much he probably will do because he's still young.

00:07:20.000 Anyway, here's a study that was designed to do nothing but make you mad.

00:07:28.000 You ready for this?

00:07:30.000 On one level, it's a study about a thing, but the thing won't even matter to you.

00:07:37.000 As soon as you hear it, you're just going to get mad.

00:07:39.000 You ready?

00:07:40.000 The study, there's no purpose other than to make you mad.

00:07:45.000 University of Florida says they've got a study now.

00:07:49.000 They said that people who got the COVID vaccine lived much longer if they also had cancer.

00:07:55.000 In other words, the study says that the COVID vaccine was one of the greatest cancer treatments of all time.

00:08:05.000 How do you feel now?

00:08:08.000 Do you believe it?

00:08:10.000 Do you believe that this would be reproducible?

00:08:14.000 That they could do another study and find out that the people who got the shot?

00:08:19.000 Because this is opposite of everything you've heard, right?

00:08:22.000 This is direct opposite of everything you've ever heard.

00:08:25.000 Because the only thing you ever heard is that maybe people were more vulnerable.

00:08:31.000 And maybe they were.

00:08:33.000 So do you think I know the answer?

00:08:35.000 Of course not.

00:08:36.000 I don't know the answer.

00:08:38.000 I don't know if these shots made you more vulnerable or saved your life.

00:08:41.000 No idea.

00:08:42.000 But I'll tell you what I know for sure.

00:08:45.000 Science doesn't know.

00:08:47.000 That's what I know for sure.

00:08:50.000 That the scientists don't know.

00:08:52.000 So do I believe this?

00:08:53.000 No.

00:08:54.000 Do I rule it out as completely impossible?

00:08:57.000 No.

00:08:58.000 But I don't think I'm going to believe this one.

00:09:02.000 I'm going to put a pin in that one.

00:09:05.000 I'd love to know who funded it.

00:09:08.000 Don't you know?

00:09:10.000 All right.

00:09:11.000 I'm going to give you some reframes this morning.

00:09:17.000 But I thought I'd start with Trump's.

00:09:19.000 Because Trump had a reframe that was very impressive.

00:09:23.000 Very impressive.

00:09:24.000 So the no kings thing happened.

00:09:27.000 And Trump was responding to it.

00:09:30.000 And he said this, quote,

00:09:32.000 I'm not a king.

00:09:33.000 I work my ass off to make our country great.

00:09:36.000 That's all it is.

00:09:37.000 I'm not a king at all.

00:09:39.000 Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is a reframe.

00:09:43.000 Because the normal way that you would respond to an accusation that you were trying to become a dictator would be what?

00:09:51.000 You would say, I'm not trying to become a dictator.

00:09:54.000 Would that move anybody?

00:09:56.000 No.

00:09:57.000 You might say, I love the Constitution.

00:10:00.000 And then people would say, yeah, everybody says that.

00:10:03.000 Wouldn't mean anything.

00:10:05.000 I love our democratic republic.

00:10:08.000 That's what I'm committed to.

00:10:10.000 Conceptual.

00:10:11.000 Conceptual.

00:10:14.000 But when he says, I'm not a king.

00:10:16.000 I work my ass off.

00:10:18.000 He's reframed it into a category where it's hard to judge him, isn't it?

00:10:23.000 Because even his biggest critics will admit he's working his ass off.

00:10:28.000 Right?

00:10:29.000 So he retreats to something that even his biggest critics will grudgingly say, alright, well, he does work his ass off.

00:10:37.000 That's true.

00:10:38.000 So he's already won half the battle.

00:10:41.000 Because he moved them to a place where they agree with him.

00:10:44.000 He works his ass off.

00:10:46.000 And compared to Biden, it's really striking.

00:10:48.000 Right?

00:10:49.000 So when he says, I work my ass off, it's not exactly, specifically, a defense against trying to become a king.

00:10:58.000 But it is hard for you to hold in your head both of those thoughts at the same time.

00:11:03.000 That's what makes it so good.

00:11:05.000 You don't think of the king as working his ass off.

00:11:09.000 You think of the king wearing the hat and telling other people to do stuff.

00:11:13.000 But we observe that Trump is in the trench all the time.

00:11:18.000 Day and night.

00:11:20.000 Sleeps less than anybody you ever know.

00:11:22.000 Works harder.

00:11:23.000 Takes fewer vacations.

00:11:24.000 Golfs a lot.

00:11:25.000 But the golfers often work too.

00:11:27.000 And so he creates this frame where you can't really hold in your head,

00:11:32.000 the hard worker part, which we observe and all know to be true, with the king part.

00:11:38.000 That is brilliant.

00:11:40.000 I don't know if I can quite express how smart that is.

00:11:45.000 It's, again, it's the sort of thing that only a Trump can do.

00:11:49.000 This specific Trump.

00:11:51.000 Other people can't do this.

00:11:53.000 They would just have some, you know, weak, I love my democracy.

00:11:57.000 No, no, they're the ones who have the, they're the ones who want to be the king.

00:12:03.000 But this is perfect.

00:12:05.000 I work my ass off.

00:12:06.000 It's hard to argue I work my ass off.

00:12:09.000 All right, so I told you I was going to give you some more reframes.

00:12:14.000 And so I will.

00:12:19.000 From my book, Reframe Your Brain.

00:12:23.000 My highest rated book.

00:12:25.000 Five stars.

00:12:27.000 So it's full of reframes.

00:12:29.000 If you didn't know that, let me give you one.

00:12:31.000 How about the, here's one.

00:12:40.000 Suppose you want to do something big.

00:12:42.000 Doesn't matter what it is.

00:12:44.000 You want to shop for a house or save up for a house.

00:12:47.000 You want to maybe decide to go back to school.

00:12:51.000 You want to change your job.

00:12:52.000 You want to do something.

00:12:53.000 Something big.

00:12:55.000 So here's a reframe for that.

00:12:57.000 Quite often we don't do it because the effort is so big and daunting that you can't even start.

00:13:02.000 Do you ever have that situation?

00:13:04.000 There's a thing you want to do, but it's just so big.

00:13:08.000 You don't know where to start.

00:13:10.000 Like maybe you want to relocate to another state.

00:13:13.000 That's like a really big job, right?

00:13:16.000 So you don't want to start because it's just so big.

00:13:20.000 Here's the reframe.

00:13:22.000 What's the smallest thing I can do that moves me in the right direction?

00:13:25.000 Think of the smallest thing, not the biggest thing.

00:13:29.000 Just reverse it.

00:13:30.000 What's the smallest thing?

00:13:32.000 Usually the smallest thing is to look for some information.

00:13:37.000 So I'll just use my example of you wanting to move to another state.

00:13:42.000 First thing you do is you look up their tax code and maybe that's it.

00:13:47.000 Maybe that's all you do that day.

00:13:49.000 You just look at their tax and go, okay, they have lower state taxes.

00:13:53.000 So, so far I'm good.

00:13:55.000 Maybe the next day you ask again, what is the smallest thing I can do?

00:14:00.000 Well, I could maybe do a little research to find out what town would be the best town to live in.

00:14:06.000 That's near wherever I think I want to work, for example, or my family or whatever.

00:14:10.000 So the way you approach it is what's the smallest thing you can do?

00:14:15.000 Because what you'll find is that there's sort of a compound interest to it.

00:14:19.000 When I wanted to become a cartoonist, I had to assemble all of these tiny little facts.

00:14:27.000 Like this is the kind of paper you want to use.

00:14:30.000 This is the book that tells you where to send your samples.

00:14:33.000 This is the kind of pen you want to use because other pens have problems for various reasons.

00:14:38.000 This is, you know, it's got to be three panels.

00:14:41.000 You want all capital letters.

00:14:43.000 So you assemble all these tiny, tiny little things that individually get you closer to this big thing.

00:14:50.000 And you realize that life is actually kind of long sometimes.

00:14:54.000 Sometimes time flies.

00:14:56.000 But other times life is long.

00:14:59.000 So how many of you remember when I decided I was going to teach myself to play drums?

00:15:06.000 Was that like seven years ago?

00:15:12.000 Probably seven years ago.

00:15:14.000 And some of you watched me.

00:15:16.000 You watched, you know, eventually I got a, you know, I watched some YouTubes, but I eventually got an instructor.

00:15:24.000 We come once a week and I started assembling very, very slowly the skills to play the drum.

00:15:32.000 Now, I didn't want to play in a band.

00:15:34.000 I just wanted to be able to knock around in my garage and maybe play to my stereo or something.

00:15:39.000 So those of you who are with me and on the Locals app, you know that I've accomplished that.

00:15:45.000 It took seven years.

00:15:47.000 But after seven years, I finally did a drum solo, you know, playing over with some other music in the background for my audience.

00:15:57.000 Now, was it good?

00:15:59.000 No.

00:16:00.000 But I didn't care.

00:16:03.000 I wasn't trying to be great.

00:16:05.000 I was just trying to do it.

00:16:07.000 Now, the doing it was extraordinarily fun.

00:16:10.000 Extraordinarily fun.

00:16:12.000 Because I could feel the entire seven-year arc.

00:16:15.000 And it actually started with my stepson.

00:16:18.000 I tried to get him into the drums when he was maybe 14 or something because I thought it'd be good for him.

00:16:24.000 But he wasn't as interested as I was.

00:16:27.000 So to me, it's sort of a legacy that connects us across life and death.

00:16:36.000 So that's my point.

00:16:37.000 So the point is that you can, in many times, do the smallest little thing.

00:16:41.000 I can't tell you how many times I would walk by the drums and say, I'm going to try this one thing.

00:16:47.000 And I'd put 60 seconds of practice into it.

00:16:51.000 And then the next day, maybe two minutes.

00:16:54.000 All right.

00:16:55.000 That's your reframe for the day.

00:16:58.000 All right.

00:16:59.000 So the No Kings event happened.

00:17:01.000 And I'm happy to report there are no extra kings.

00:17:05.000 There are no reports of any extra kings.

00:17:08.000 So I think the No Kings march did suppress any extra kings popping up.

00:17:16.000 So, so far, so good.

00:17:18.000 But the Democrats are apparently afraid of the blowback.

00:17:23.000 Now that the No Kings thing is over, they don't have a reason to keep the government closed.

00:17:28.000 So, Scott, what do you think about becoming a stepfather?

00:17:36.000 Many right-wing men don't like it.

00:17:39.000 I'm going to answer that question, even though it's distracting from my topic,

00:17:45.000 because we don't have much news today.

00:17:47.000 So I'm going to just jump around.

00:17:49.000 What do I think about stepkids?

00:17:52.000 Here's the one and only way to think about stepkids.

00:17:56.000 You have a separate relationship with them.

00:17:59.000 That's it.

00:18:01.000 You have a relationship with the parents, but your relationship with the kids, that's just separate.

00:18:09.000 So you could like them.

00:18:10.000 You could stay in their life if they want to stay in yours.

00:18:13.000 You know, if you get divorced, if they want to stay in yours. 0.58

00:18:17.000 Now mine do.

00:18:18.000 Mine do want to stay in my life, and I want to stay in their life.

00:18:21.000 So we have a separate, very good relationship.

00:18:25.000 But they don't, you know, they don't live with me, but they're also, you know, a certain age.

00:18:30.000 And the second thing is that I always saw it as a package deal.

00:18:36.000 So even though the relationships are separate, it's still a package deal.

00:18:41.000 So when you agree to be part of the parent's life, you're agreeing to be part of the children's life too, as much as they want.

00:18:51.000 It's up to them.

00:18:52.000 Right?

00:18:53.000 It's always up to them.

00:18:54.000 But as much as they want, I'm all in.

00:18:57.000 Because both, because they're just excellent people.

00:19:02.000 And I like having excellent people in my life.

00:19:05.000 So the answer is, it's really individual.

00:19:09.000 If I were scraping by and didn't have enough money for myself, I would probably be regretting, you know, any kind of contact with any exes of any kind.

00:19:20.000 But since I'm in a favorable situation financially, I can make their life a little easier and mine at the same time.

00:19:29.000 So everybody wins.

00:19:32.000 Anyway, so what are the Democrats going to do now that their no kings thing happened?

00:19:37.000 It didn't make any difference to anybody.

00:19:39.000 It just showed that they don't have anything.

00:19:41.000 I think they proved that they don't have much black support because the protesters were almost no diversity at all.

00:19:50.000 And they were mostly older people and very few young men, the groups that they want to get.

00:19:57.000 So if the Democrats wanted to win back the black vote and win back the Hispanic vote and win back the young male vote, they did everything the opposite of that.

00:20:09.000 By showing all the people who are not that being their base visually.

00:20:15.000 So visually, I think it was a disaster for the Democrats because visually it was just grandparents.

00:20:22.000 It was just old white grandparents, which could not be further from what they're trying to make their brand, which is the, you know, all diverse everything.

00:20:33.000 So I would say visually it was a complete disaster, but not in a way that they will recognize that they'll just be this continued drift toward fewer Democrats and nobody will be able to quite put their finger on what was the one thing that made that happen.

00:20:51.000 Well, it wasn't one thing.

00:20:54.000 It was everything.

00:20:55.000 This is just part of the everything that continues to push that ball down the road.

00:21:01.000 It's like, no white guys. 0.77

00:21:03.000 Nope. 0.98

00:21:04.000 We don't like men.

00:21:05.000 Nope.

00:21:06.000 Nope.

00:21:07.000 Just a little bit.

00:21:08.000 Anyway, Mom Dami versus Cuomo and what's the other guy?

00:21:14.000 Sliwa.

00:21:15.000 There's a new poll, Gotham polling.

00:21:20.000 I don't know how reliable Gotham polling is, but they do say that if Sliwa dropped out, that it would be close between Cuomo and Mom Dami and it would put Cuomo within striking distance.

00:21:33.000 And some New Yorkers, even Republicans, would say, give us a Democrat, at least he's a normal Democrat, Cuomo being a normal Democrat.

00:21:44.000 But Sliwa is not looking to drop out.

00:21:47.000 So if he doesn't, then it looks like Mom Dami would win quite easily. 0.98

00:21:54.000 So there's that.

00:21:56.000 What do you think of the theory that letting Mom Dami win and essentially sacrificing our crown jewel city for however many years might be useful for Republicans and may be useful for the city because it would prove that he's not the right solution and maybe we get another 20 year reprieve from that kind of thinking?

00:22:20.000 What do you think?

00:22:21.000 What do you think?

00:22:22.000 Do you think we'd be better off, New York specifically? 1.00

00:22:25.000 Do you think they'd be better off just eating this shit sandwich and then learning from it? 1.00

00:22:32.000 I don't know. 1.00

00:22:34.000 You know, I was surprised to learn that New York real estate is coming back.

00:22:39.000 That's the last thing I would have expected.

00:22:41.000 If there's one thing I can tell you about economics, nobody can predict it.

00:22:47.000 So the entire, I would say, the argument against Mom Dami is that we can all predict economics.

00:22:58.000 Here, I'm going to make you a little bit uncertain.

00:23:02.000 Are you ready?

00:23:03.000 When you came in here, you were completely certain that Mom Dami's approach was a bad one, communist, socialist, and that the normies had the right one.

00:23:15.000 You know, capitalism, free markets.

00:23:18.000 You were completely right about that, right?

00:23:20.000 Well, here's the thing.

00:23:23.000 How many of you predicted that in the middle of the race to elect a socialist slash maybe communist, in the middle of the race,

00:23:32.000 that New York City real estate prices would go up and people would be coming back in and buying office space and it's recovering?

00:23:41.000 How many of you would have predicted that?

00:23:46.000 To me, it was the most easy thing to predict wouldn't happen, right?

00:23:51.000 Because the situation, in theory, is getting worse and worse for a traditional business that doesn't want to overpay taxes and doesn't want to be in a crime area.

00:24:03.000 So, in theory, it would be the easiest prediction in the world that the real estate situation in New York would continue getting worse, at least during the election, when there's a chance of the communists getting in power.

00:24:16.000 But it's the opposite.

00:24:18.000 So, this is where I'm making you feel uncertain.

00:24:21.000 And one of the reasons that I have no respect for my own college degree, which is in economics, it doesn't predict.

00:24:31.000 Yeah.

00:24:32.000 I've told you in different contexts that the best you can do in understanding reality, because we're not good at understanding reality, is whether it predicts.

00:24:43.000 Well, the reality I was living in didn't predict.

00:24:46.000 Did yours?

00:24:47.000 Didn't predict that New York City real estate would already be recovering?

00:24:51.000 Which reality predicted that?

00:24:54.000 Not mine.

00:24:55.000 Not mine at all.

00:24:57.000 You know whose might have?

00:24:59.000 Mamdani's.

00:25:00.000 It's entirely possible that Mamdani was expecting and predicting real estate to come back.

00:25:08.000 And the argument would be there's only one New York City.

00:25:11.000 That's the whole argument.

00:25:13.000 There's only one New York City.

00:25:15.000 So, if you want to play with the big boys, you're going to have to go back.

00:25:20.000 And he even thought Mamdani even wanted to raise taxes on corporations to match New Jersey, which is also clever, because he's matching.

00:25:31.000 That's a very clever way to do it.

00:25:33.000 But obviously, he thought it wouldn't destroy the economy, or even he wouldn't be predicting it, right?

00:25:40.000 So, now, let's see if I succeeded.

00:25:44.000 So, you walked in here completely sure that he was the one who's always wrong, and you're the one who's right, because you like the capitalism and the free market.

00:25:53.000 Except his point of view is the only one that predicted correctly.

00:25:57.000 Right?

00:25:58.000 I'm just messing with you, because obviously, I don't think his plans are the ones that are the good ones.

00:26:07.000 But have a little bit of humility.

00:26:10.000 Just back up to a little bit of humility.

00:26:13.000 Looks to me like he predicted correctly, and you didn't.

00:26:17.000 Looks to me like he predicted correctly, and I didn't.

00:26:21.000 And in theory, I have more credentials than he has for this kind of prediction.

00:26:26.000 I don't know.

00:26:27.000 It's just something to think about, because it's a slow news day.

00:26:32.000 Apparently, Denmark just decided that people in Denmark can copyright their own face.

00:26:40.000 So, if AI tries to use your face, there'll be a copyright violation.

00:26:46.000 I don't know if that'll last.

00:26:48.000 That doesn't seem like something that could last.

00:26:51.000 Anyway.

00:26:52.000 All right, here's another surprise.

00:26:53.000 Did you know that San Francisco, I think this was in Wall Street Journal, that even San Francisco is rebounding?

00:27:00.000 Did you know that?

00:27:02.000 So, they've got a good mayor.

00:27:03.000 I forget the mayor's name, but I heard people say they were happy about our current mayor.

00:27:08.000 Burglaries are allegedly down 28% this year in San Francisco.

00:27:14.000 Do you believe that?

00:27:15.000 Do you believe that?

00:27:16.000 Or is that just another one of those, they change the way they report it?

00:27:21.000 Or people just stop reporting it?

00:27:24.000 I feel like it's both.

00:27:26.000 But it might be true that it's not getting worse.

00:27:29.000 That might be true.

00:27:31.000 And let's see.

00:27:32.000 Crime rates have dropped in general.

00:27:35.000 And allegedly the number of homeless encampments in San Francisco has fallen.

00:27:41.000 But I don't have a percentage on that.

00:27:43.000 And then here's another one.

00:27:45.000 Rents are up in San Francisco.

00:27:49.000 12% over last year.

00:27:51.000 All right, let's do this again.

00:27:53.000 How many of you predicted that San Francisco, of all places, would be able to raise rates

00:28:02.000 in the middle of what looked like the city falling apart?

00:28:05.000 How many of you would have said, oh yeah, those rentals will be up 12%?

00:28:11.000 Not me.

00:28:12.000 I would have guessed that rents would have collapsed by now.

00:28:16.000 So that's two cities in which my ability to predict with all of my economics training, zero.

00:28:25.000 Zero ability to predict.

00:28:27.000 If you think you can do better, knock yourself out.

00:28:34.000 Well, in other fun stories, let me say this about Candace Owens.

00:28:40.000 I love Candace Owens.

00:28:42.000 I like her personally.

00:28:43.000 I only met her once very briefly, but she was very warm.

00:28:47.000 And I love this show that she puts on.

00:28:50.000 Not just the actual podcast, but the whole show.

00:28:56.000 I like the way she's, you know, inserted herself into the public mind.

00:29:03.000 I just sort of like everything about what she does.

00:29:06.000 Now that's different from agreeing with all of her takes.

00:29:10.000 Everybody gets that, right?

00:29:12.000 Do we ever get to the point where I don't have to say that?

00:29:16.000 Can we ever, as a civilization, get to the point where I can say, I like that public figure without having to say,

00:29:25.000 but I don't agree with 100% of what they say.

00:29:29.000 We're not there yet, right?

00:29:31.000 I still have to do that.

00:29:32.000 I don't agree with 100% of everything she's ever said.

00:29:36.000 All right.

00:29:37.000 Well, she's making some noise today. 1.00

00:29:41.000 She says, Charlie Kirk was betrayed.

00:29:43.000 And don't worry about the gag order in the Charlie Kirk case.

00:29:47.000 Is that a gag order directed at her? 1.00

00:29:51.000 I think so.

00:29:53.000 She says, I plan to violate it on the world's behalf.

00:29:57.000 So she's to violate the course gag order on the world's behalf. 0.97

00:30:01.000 She says, the things I've discovered this past week are enough to burn the house down.

00:30:06.000 And yes, Charlie was betrayed by everyone.

00:30:09.000 All right.

00:30:10.000 Now, do you see what I mean?

00:30:13.000 How do you not love that?

00:30:15.000 She is so good.

00:30:19.000 Just so good at getting attention, which is her job, right? 0.91

00:30:24.000 That's what I do.

00:30:26.000 She and I are in the same job in a way, which is to get attention.

00:30:30.000 But you're only going to get attention if you're creating value, right?

00:30:34.000 You could get attention for one day, but you can't be Candace unless you can get attention

00:30:41.000 just regularly, anytime you want.

00:30:43.000 And wow, can she get attention. 1.00

00:30:45.000 So good at this.

00:30:47.000 So if you simply, and you know I like to do this, I like to separate the person's character

00:30:54.000 from their skill level.

00:30:57.000 I like, in this case, I like her character and her skill level.

00:31:01.000 But the skill level is just crazy.

00:31:05.000 Candace's skill level, her talent stack is crazy. 0.99

00:31:09.000 Anyway, so this is fun.

00:31:11.000 We'll keep an eye on that.

00:31:14.000 According to Jensen Wang, CEO of NVIDIA, here's more good news.

00:31:21.000 It only took one year, and apparently the US is already manufacturing the most advanced chip

00:31:28.000 for AI.

00:31:29.000 NVIDIA is working with, what is the name of that?

00:31:34.000 TSMP or something.

00:31:37.000 The Taiwan company apparently moved some of its technology to the US and working with NVIDIA.

00:31:45.000 So now the US can make, not at the same quantity, TSM.

00:31:52.000 Thank you.

00:31:53.000 TSM is the name of the chip company from Taiwan.

00:31:58.000 Anyway, so they're working together, and now they can make the most advanced chip in the US.

00:32:02.000 I assume that volume is probably still a big issue, but I feel it's TSMC.

00:32:14.000 TMS, TSMC.

00:32:15.000 Okay.

00:32:16.000 But that's a pretty big deal to me, because it means that even if Taiwan sunk into the ocean,

00:32:25.000 we could get going.

00:32:28.000 We would have enough on our shores that we could reconstitute slowly.

00:32:34.000 That's a big deal.

00:32:36.000 But it probably also makes it far more likely that Taiwan will be destroyed by China,

00:32:41.000 because China will know that it's not an existential risk to the United States anymore.

00:32:46.000 Hmm.

00:32:47.000 I just realized this could be a double-edged sword.

00:32:51.000 If you're China, and you're not benefiting directly from the advanced chips on Taiwan,

00:32:58.000 but your biggest competitor is the United States, would you worry too much if, in the process

00:33:05.000 of conquering Taiwan, you destroyed the semiconductor business?

00:33:11.000 You might not care as much as you should, because then it would just put you at parity with your

00:33:15.000 biggest competitor, who has access to it now, but wouldn't if it got knocked down.

00:33:21.000 But now, but now we can make those chips in the US.

00:33:26.000 So now you're China, and you think, ha-ha, I can totally overthrow Taiwan now, because the 1.00

00:33:33.000 US won't have to fight.

00:33:35.000 If they don't want to, and they don't want to be in a war, a world war, they don't have

00:33:41.000 to.

00:33:42.000 But before, we kind of would have had to, because we couldn't let China take control of 0.99

00:33:49.000 the chips that would be better than the ones that we could make.

00:33:52.000 That would be too big a risk.

00:33:54.000 So it's entirely possible that growing our own homegrown best of chips will sacrifice Taiwan. 0.91

00:34:02.000 It's not impossible.

00:34:06.000 You know, it's not impossible.

00:34:09.000 All right.

00:34:11.000 Apparently, Trump is using the shutdown of the government to kill some projects.

00:34:17.000 I didn't know that was an option.

00:34:19.000 I guess the Democrats didn't know it either, but they're finding out.

00:34:23.000 Allegedly, there's some kind of $20 billion New York City tunnel project that Schumer had

00:34:30.000 spent, Representative Schumer, Senator Schumer, has spent years trying to get passed, and

00:34:36.000 finally did. 0.99

00:34:37.000 And now, because the government's closed, Trump's just going to cancel the whole fucking project. 0.97

00:34:42.000 I don't even know if Trump even looked into whether it was a good idea to do the project 0.98

00:34:51.000 or not.

00:34:52.000 I think it's just Schumer's project, and he worked 20 years to get it. 1.00

00:34:55.000 So he's just going to cancel it on his ass. 1.00

00:34:59.000 All right. 1.00

00:35:00.000 That might be a little bit authoritarian.

00:35:05.000 But I'd have to know if we really need this tunnel.

00:35:10.000 I imagine that we could live without the tunnel and the $20 billion.

00:35:15.000 Anyway, so there's a story today that somebody built a hunting stand in a tree, which is where

00:35:23.000 the hunters hide from the prey, and then they can take a shot from their hiding place in the tree.

00:35:29.000 They built one that had a complete view of Air Force One when it lands in Palm Beach.

00:35:38.000 So the hunting blind had an open, wide open shot at the President of the United States coming

00:35:46.000 down the gate from his own airplane in a place where he's known to land.

00:35:52.000 Now, the good news is that it was discovered, and it looks like it's been there for a while.

00:35:58.000 But we don't know why it was there.

00:36:02.000 We don't know if it was there for that purpose.

00:36:05.000 But it would be a strange place for a...

00:36:08.000 Wouldn't you think that Palm Beach would be a strange place to have a hunting blind in a tree?

00:36:14.000 I don't know how many other hunting blinds and trees there are in Palm Beach, but that certainly

00:36:22.000 looks exactly like what it looks like, doesn't it?

00:36:27.000 Bongino's all over that one.

00:36:29.000 Well, apparently, Boston is looking into having a city-run grocery store.

00:36:34.000 Mom Dami has talked about that.

00:36:38.000 They haven't done it yet, but did you know that Atlanta already has one?

00:36:41.000 They have a city-run grocery.

00:36:44.000 And I do not have an update on whether it's working in Atlanta.

00:36:51.000 I imagine they've got some challenges.

00:36:54.000 But it makes me wonder, is there a way to make a government grocery store work without

00:37:00.000 getting rid of the regular grocery stores so the rest of us can have more choice?

00:37:05.000 And I was thinking about that.

00:37:07.000 What would you do if you were the government and you wanted to, I don't want to say compete,

00:37:14.000 but you were going to have an alternative grocery store in the same place where there were regular

00:37:19.000 grocery stores?

00:37:20.000 So the first thing you have to do is make sure that people who had money still preferred the

00:37:26.000 regular grocery stores.

00:37:28.000 And you could do that easily by having more junk food and more selection, right?

00:37:32.000 Selection alone would get the people with money to go there.

00:37:36.000 So the first thing you do is have less selection if it's a government grocery store.

00:37:42.000 I think if you reduce the selection to just, you know, basics like vegetables and protein,

00:37:52.000 you could probably find ways to cut costs like crazy because you just keep it simple.

00:37:57.000 Like, okay, we have five proteins, just always the same.

00:38:02.000 But then could you also do something that was direct from farm if you got rid of some regulations

00:38:09.000 because you are the government.

00:38:11.000 So if you got rid of government regulations and said, all right, you can take your chances

00:38:16.000 with the food because it won't be regulated, but it's coming right from the farm and we'll

00:38:21.000 give you all the information you want about the farm, but it's up to the farm.

00:38:26.000 And we're going to, we're going to hold the farm possibly, possibly hold the farm blameless

00:38:35.000 even if somebody gets sick from the food.

00:38:38.000 So you'd have to handle sort of the insurance risk of providing food to people.

00:38:44.000 And the government could just say, yeah, you can't sue.

00:38:48.000 You can't.

00:38:49.000 You know, some people are going to die from the farm food.

00:38:52.000 You can't sue.

00:38:54.000 So if you did all of those things, you reduced the choice, you figured out how to get the

00:39:00.000 footprint really low, maybe even got some free rent.

00:39:07.000 Maybe you figured out how to use robots instead of employees.

00:39:12.000 Maybe you squeeze the big food producers, you know, for a little, little taste of something

00:39:18.000 to help pay for it.

00:39:21.000 Maybe you had your own, maybe you had your own vertical.

00:39:26.000 So you, you owned the farm, but you also owned the grocery store.

00:39:30.000 So my point is, if you, if you started from scratch and said, how would we build a alternative

00:39:37.000 place to get food, could you do it?

00:39:42.000 Is it even doable?

00:39:43.000 I've always thought that the ideal would be that there would be like a cafeteria that you

00:39:49.000 could go to that would be close enough everybody could get to it.

00:39:52.000 You know, maybe there'd be multiple.

00:39:55.000 But the cafeteria model would have less waste than individuals. 0.91

00:40:01.000 You know, if you shop for yourself and cook for yourself, it's just so wasteful the amount

00:40:07.000 of time you spend and that you have to drive somewhere and pick something up.

00:40:11.000 You got to store it.

00:40:12.000 Some of it goes bad.

00:40:14.000 You got to negotiate who gets what.

00:40:16.000 Compare that to just everybody walks over to the buffet and you just get what you want.

00:40:23.000 So I do not rule out that there could be a government grocery store.

00:40:29.000 I think if you rule it out because it's never worked, that's a good starting point.

00:40:35.000 But that's just the starting point for the analysis.

00:40:38.000 You have to go past it never worked.

00:40:41.000 You have to go to what has never been tried.

00:40:44.000 If you get to what's never been tried, well, now you've, now it's interesting.

00:40:49.000 Well, you are not surprised to know that the Gaza ceasefire is not holding as well as people would like,

00:40:58.000 but it's unclear whether the leadership of Hamas has anything to do with it or is it rogue elements within Hamas.

00:41:08.000 But there is some firing.

00:41:09.000 There are some deaths.

00:41:11.000 Israel is responding to the encroachments by cutting food, I guess, and aid.

00:41:20.000 We hope that's temporary.

00:41:23.000 So humanitarian aid is stopped or paused, I guess, mostly paused.

00:41:28.000 And I feel like that will get worked out.

00:41:32.000 So as I said yesterday, I'm not worried about the ceasefire as long as both sides have dramatically drawn down their military presence.

00:41:42.000 There's definitely going to be violations of the ceasefire.

00:41:46.000 You know, every single person who's been alive more than 10 minutes knows the ceasefire is going to get violated.

00:41:52.000 So you can't say we're going to change everything if the ceasefire gets violated.

00:41:57.000 Because we know it's going to get violated.

00:42:00.000 There wouldn't be any point even doing the deal if we thought a violation was going to overturn the whole thing.

00:42:06.000 So, of course, we're going to work through all the little violations.

00:42:10.000 But probably we will.

00:42:12.000 Probably we will.

00:42:13.000 It does make sense that there will be plenty of people there who don't want a ceasefire.

00:42:17.000 And we'll be acting upon it.

00:42:19.000 But as long as they get the big weapons out of there.

00:42:22.000 I guess Jared was talking about maybe a gun buyback program.

00:42:28.000 And what was your first impression when you heard that, that they would do a gun buyback program with Hamas?

00:42:35.000 Your first impression is, no, right?

00:42:39.000 That's not going to work.

00:42:41.000 They're not going to sell their guns.

00:42:44.000 My second impression was, we don't really know how the depth of their poverty right now.

00:42:51.000 So if you were a, if you owned a gun, you were Hamas, you owned a gun, 0.98

00:42:57.000 and the government offered you what was a really good price, a really good price,

00:43:03.000 and you had no source of other money, and you also thought that the war was over,

00:43:10.000 I think maybe half of them would sell their guns, because money is better than a bunch of bullets you're not going to use.

00:43:19.000 Right?

00:43:20.000 So I do like the buyback idea, but I think it's, you know, that's only a dent.

00:43:25.000 You can't get all the guns with that.

00:43:27.000 But if you got half of them, that'd be, that'd be pretty impressive.

00:43:31.000 All right.

00:43:33.000 So, yeah, Christian and Witkoff are the two guys trying to figure out how to govern Gaza after that,

00:43:39.000 which to me brings up this question.

00:43:46.000 Is there a way to create a non-corrupt government, even for just a city?

00:43:53.000 Let's call Gaza a city, even though it's bigger than a city. 0.78

00:43:58.000 Has anybody ever done it?

00:44:00.000 I don't think it's even doable.

00:44:03.000 I don't believe there's any form of government that you could just plop in the middle of a highly corrupt culture,

00:44:12.000 and then suddenly have it not be corrupt.

00:44:15.000 Now, when I say it's a highly corrupt culture, I'm not banging on one type of people.

00:44:22.000 It's everywhere.

00:44:24.000 You know, you could, you know, just take a pin and drop it on the globe,

00:44:29.000 and it would hit some, some corrupt place somewhere, right?

00:44:33.000 Basically, all cities are corrupt.

00:44:37.000 So the question is, if you build the cities the way they've always been built in the past, what are you going to get?

00:44:43.000 Well, corrupt Gaza, for sure. 0.97

00:44:46.000 But is there a way, similar to the conversation about the government grocery stores,

00:44:51.000 if you were to throw away all assumptions, and this is what Jared, I think, is especially good at,

00:44:58.000 throw away all assumptions?

00:45:02.000 Could you do it then?

00:45:04.000 And who would do it?

00:45:06.000 I've often thought that the number one thing you need to get right

00:45:10.000 is that the people who are making the money decisions don't live there.

00:45:15.000 Because if you live there, you've got all these corrupt influences.

00:45:20.000 You know, that gangster you grew up with, and the people you went to school with,

00:45:25.000 and, you know, your wife's family who wants that contract.

00:45:29.000 You can't let the people who live there control the money.

00:45:33.000 They will always be corrupt.

00:45:35.000 They will just give it to their family members, et cetera.

00:45:39.000 So you need some kind of independent, physically not there entity to not only decide where it goes,

00:45:47.000 where the money is spent, but then to watch it like a hawk and report on it so that everybody knows where it went.

00:45:55.000 If you can't get that part right, nothing else works.

00:45:59.000 So somehow, Jared has to solve the problem of what happens when money is introduced into the zone,

00:46:09.000 and then who gets to decide where it goes, who watches it, and who reports it to the people to make sure it went to the right place.

00:46:16.000 If you don't get that part right, nothing else matters.

00:46:20.000 And that's the hardest part to get right.

00:46:23.000 Nobody's done it.

00:46:24.000 As far as I know, nobody's ever done it.

00:46:26.000 I believe every city is corrupt.

00:46:29.000 But if Jared could pull that off with some clever set of systems,

00:46:35.000 it would be one of the greatest things that ever happened in the world.

00:46:39.000 Think about that.

00:46:41.000 The odds of pulling that off are pretty low.

00:46:44.000 It's, you know, it's a maximum challenge.

00:46:46.000 But what if he did it?

00:46:48.000 What if they pulled that off, Wyckoff and Jared Kushner?

00:46:53.000 What if they actually built a city that by its design, you know, the systems they put in place, avoided corruption?

00:47:02.000 Can you even imagine that?

00:47:05.000 That would be one of the greatest things that ever happened in the history of humankind.

00:47:11.000 So I don't know what you're working on today, but those two guys have a chance.

00:47:17.000 They have a chance to change everything.

00:47:20.000 Do they have a plan?

00:47:22.000 Probably not yet.

00:47:24.000 But do they have the skills that the two of them could conceivably come up with a way to build a non-corrupt zone?

00:47:34.000 And I think yes.

00:47:36.000 I think yes.

00:47:37.000 I think yes.

00:47:38.000 I believe that they have the skill to do that.

00:47:41.000 Doesn't mean it will get done.

00:47:43.000 Because, you know, there would be a lot of pushback in every possible way.

00:47:47.000 But yeah, they might be the only two dudes that could pull that off right now.

00:47:53.000 Trump has announced an end to the Colombian foreign aid. 0.93

00:47:57.000 I didn't even know we were giving Colombia foreign aid, but apparently now they're a bunch of illegal drug dealers too.

00:48:04.000 Trump's not happy with the president of Colombia, who is not happy with us.

00:48:11.000 So Trump's going to discontinue whatever our subsidies were for Colombia.

00:48:16.000 I feel like the subsidies were for the purpose of fighting drugs, weren't they?

00:48:21.000 So is he saying that we've been paying Colombia to fight drugs, but Colombia is actually the drug cartel?

00:48:29.000 And we've been paying the cartel?

00:48:31.000 Is that what happened?

00:48:34.000 I don't know if that's what happened.

00:48:37.000 I'm seeing some yeses.

00:48:39.000 So yes, if that's even close to what's happening, and I don't know that it is, but if the government is embedded with the cartel,

00:48:49.000 and we were paying the government to deal with the cartel, well, maybe it's time to stop doing that, huh?

00:48:59.000 You would not be surprised to hear, because it's a ground dog day all over again. 0.98

00:49:05.000 Ukrainian drone struck a major Russian gas plant.

00:49:09.000 How many times have I said that?

00:49:11.000 Like every day, right?

00:49:13.000 Every day, there's another Russian major energy structure that got attacked.

00:49:20.000 So that's happening.

00:49:22.000 In other positive news, Interesting Engineering has a story about a wind turbine.

00:49:32.000 So it's basically, you know, the fans of a windmill would be, you know, the turbine part.

00:49:40.000 But apparently, somebody has developed a new shape for the, I guess, the turbine.

00:49:49.000 Now I don't know what turbine means.

00:49:52.000 If you say turbine enough, you don't know what it means.

00:49:54.000 Turbine, turbine, turbine. 1.00

00:49:56.000 Now I don't even know what it means.

00:49:58.000 But it would be the little things that the air is bouncing off of.

00:50:02.000 And they figured out how to make one that boosts energy output by 83% with 35% less weight.

00:50:11.000 Fiber composite rotors make a small turbine stronger, more durable.

00:50:16.000 83%.

00:50:19.000 Do you believe that?

00:50:21.000 That they figured out how to make a windmill 83% more efficient all of a sudden?

00:50:26.000 With just a shape change?

00:50:28.000 It's just a shape.

00:50:30.000 You know, something easy to reproduce.

00:50:32.000 A shape.

00:50:33.000 Well, if that's true, finally your dream can come true, which is you'll be able to watch television even when the wind is just barely blowing.

00:50:48.000 Of course I'm joking.

00:50:50.000 Trump always says that the windmills are no good.

00:50:53.000 Because when the wind stops blowing, you can't watch TV.

00:50:56.000 Which, of course, is not true.

00:51:00.000 But it's hilarious every time he says it.

00:51:02.000 And now I'm thinking, finally, we can watch TV when the wind is barely blowing.

00:51:11.000 You know, maybe it's so efficient, those little turbines, that you could have one in your house without making your neighbors crazy from the sound and the dead birds.

00:51:19.000 All right.

00:51:22.000 According to Elizabeth Gibney, who's writing for Nature, AI bots have now reviewed, oh, there's a conference coming, which is an all AI paper conference.

00:51:36.000 So the conference will have humans at it, but they're there to see what would happen if AI wrote the scientific papers, submitted the scientific papers, and then here's the fun part, did their own peer review.

00:51:51.000 So they're doing a conference of AI-generated scientific papers that will be matched with the peer reviewers so that the humans who attend can see if the peer reviewers can add value to the AI papers.

00:52:07.000 Does that make sense?

00:52:10.000 Did I explain that well enough?

00:52:12.000 So it's not that the papers are going to be trusted more.

00:52:19.000 It's more about seeing how the human-slash-AI scientific model works.

00:52:25.000 I love this.

00:52:26.000 I think this is exactly what they should be looking at to see what that looks like when you throw the AI in there.

00:52:35.000 All right.

00:52:36.000 Ladies and gentlemen, I told you I'd be finishing a little early.

00:52:42.000 There's not much news happening today, which I suppose is good.

00:52:45.000 But I did tell the people on Locals, my beloved subscribers, that I'd be taking some questions at the end about anything you want.

00:52:57.000 So I won't be able to see all of your questions because they zip by pretty quickly.

00:53:01.000 But if you do have any questions on any topic at all, I'd be happy to answer them.

00:53:11.000 All right.

00:53:12.000 I'm just looking to see.

00:53:13.000 There's a little lag here.

00:53:16.000 What if the peer reviewers have AI right that they're peer-reviewed?

00:53:19.000 They are.

00:53:20.000 That's what they're doing.

00:53:21.000 All right.

00:53:22.000 All right.

00:53:23.000 Question.

00:53:24.000 Trump's government added the White House.

00:53:28.000 Oh, man.

00:53:29.000 Trump's government added the White House and departments to Blue Sky Social Network, so I subscribed.

00:53:44.000 Wow, TDS is strong.

00:53:47.000 What are your thoughts including how those supporting should engage?

00:53:51.000 So how should Trump supporters engage with Blue Sky?

00:53:54.000 So Blue Sky is the competitor to acts that only Democrats went to, basically.

00:54:01.000 But the White House wanted a presence there, which is smart.

00:54:05.000 I just want to ignore it.

00:54:08.000 Just ignore it.

00:54:10.000 There's nothing there for you.

00:54:13.000 If it becomes more of a thing, then maybe someday you don't have to ignore it.

00:54:18.000 But at the moment, I just ignore it.

00:54:20.000 Oh, I helped you with your team?

00:54:25.000 Good.

00:54:26.000 Can you reframe marriage for more success?

00:54:30.000 No, the individual relationship ones, you'd have to know so much about the individual situation.

00:54:37.000 I can't just reframe marriage.

00:54:41.000 Because some people ought to be married and some people ought to probably cut it out. 1.00

00:54:50.000 If my rodents returned what I noticed.

00:54:57.000 I feel having two cats will probably eliminate my rodent stuff.

00:55:03.000 All right.

00:55:04.000 So Dog Not Barking says, I missed what you learned from your medical testing Friday.

00:55:08.000 I'll give you that fast.

00:55:10.000 So I've got terminal cancer, metastatic prostate cancer.

00:55:15.000 There's a drug that's newly approved just this spring called Plovictu.

00:55:20.000 But you don't get that unless you go through a scanning process in which they give you some

00:55:26.000 radioactive juice to see if it lights up the tumors.

00:55:29.000 Because if they can't light up the tumors with the practice juice, then the real thing

00:55:34.000 won't do it either.

00:55:35.000 So it's a way to find out if this limited and expensive process would be applicable to

00:55:41.000 me or not.

00:55:42.000 Now, the test was the most painful thing I've ever done in my life, by far.

00:55:49.000 Because I can't lay on my back with an extraordinary pain.

00:55:52.000 And you have to lay on your back for 20 minutes.

00:55:54.000 Extraordinary pain.

00:55:55.000 Just extraordinary.

00:55:57.000 But it's over.

00:55:58.000 And I got through it.

00:56:00.000 And it did light up at least my reading of the test.

00:56:05.000 The doctor hasn't read them yet, so maybe I'm misinterpreting.

00:56:10.000 But the reading of the test is that they lit up well.

00:56:13.000 That they had a high sensitivity, which is what we're looking for.

00:56:18.000 So, in theory, my doctor will look at that today.

00:56:21.000 He'll recommend it to a committee who decides whether or not that's good enough for me to

00:56:26.000 get that drug.

00:56:27.000 If the committee says yes in a week when they meet, then it will be scheduled.

00:56:33.000 But I don't know how long it takes to schedule it.

00:56:36.000 And there would be several applications.

00:56:38.000 So, it would be once a week for, I don't know, four or six weeks or something like that.

00:56:44.000 And then it doesn't work for everybody.

00:56:46.000 Right?

00:56:47.000 Even if you've tested, even if you've tested to see if it lights up your tumors, it's not

00:56:52.000 going to work for everybody.

00:56:53.000 And it's not going to work as well for everybody.

00:56:57.000 So, there's some chance that I will get substantial relief fairly quickly, you know, within a matter

00:57:04.000 of just a few weeks.

00:57:06.000 Because some people have.

00:57:08.000 But it's far more likely, maybe two out of three chance, that maybe I get a little bit

00:57:14.000 of delay in the whole dying thing, but doesn't change the arc of my life too much.

00:57:19.000 That would be the most likely.

00:57:21.000 However, we're at this weird point in history where there are all kinds of new things coming

00:57:28.000 online every day.

00:57:29.000 Literally every day.

00:57:30.000 There's a new prostate cancer thing that looks like it might work if they test it a little

00:57:35.000 bit further.

00:57:36.000 So, if I can extend my survival, and I don't know how much I need to, but we're at that

00:57:43.000 period where if you can get that little extra, you might be able to get to the new thing.

00:57:49.000 So, that's my game plan.

00:57:50.000 My game plan is to try to get to the new thing without knowing what the new thing is.

00:57:57.000 Or even that it will exist.

00:57:59.000 And then there's a non-zero chance, I'm not counting on this, but there's a non-zero

00:58:08.000 chance that the Pluvicta will just knock it out.

00:58:13.000 And that it will still be there, because it's not a cure, by the way.

00:58:18.000 It's not marketed as a cure.

00:58:20.000 But it could knock it back so much that if I don't do chemo and weaken my immune system,

00:58:27.000 I might be able to just sort of keep it at bay without too much future trouble.

00:58:32.000 Possible.

00:58:33.000 Not likely.

00:58:35.000 Most likely is I slow it down and it rages back in a few months.

00:58:40.000 Most likely.

00:58:42.000 But that might be enough.

00:58:44.000 All right.

00:58:45.000 I feel like I'm not adding value now, because I'm just talking about my own situation.

00:58:52.000 How did I prepare myself for the painful mental scan?

00:58:55.000 Excellent question.

00:58:56.000 How did I prepare myself?

00:58:58.000 Well, I knew it would be bad.

00:59:00.000 And I had the maximum pain relievers.

00:59:04.000 But I had not practiced being in that position for that long,

00:59:07.000 because obviously it's the most painful thing you could ever do in your life.

00:59:11.000 So I didn't know how bad it would be.

00:59:14.000 That's number one.

00:59:15.000 If you don't know how bad it will be, that helps.

00:59:18.000 That helps get you in the room.

00:59:21.000 Once you're in the room, this is where the reframe wanting versus deciding comes in.

00:59:28.000 Do you see how powerful this is?

00:59:31.000 If I had simply wanted it, I could not have held out.

00:59:35.000 No way.

00:59:37.000 But I had decided.

00:59:39.000 I decided.

00:59:40.000 Meaning that you could put a hot poker through my forehead, and I was going to hold on.

00:59:45.000 There's a thing you hold on to to keep yourself from wiggling.

00:59:49.000 And I told myself, you could do anything to me.

00:59:52.000 There's no level of pain that's going to make me move.

00:59:55.000 This is my one shot.

00:59:56.000 Because I don't have a plan B.

00:59:58.000 There's no plan B.

01:00:00.000 This is the only plan I had to survive.

01:00:05.000 So that's a decision.

01:00:07.000 That's not a preference.

01:00:09.000 Right?

01:00:10.000 So once you move it from preference to decision, it doesn't make it easier, but it largely guarantees it'll get done.

01:00:19.000 So you're not always trying to make it easier.

01:00:22.000 You're trying to make sure it gets done.

01:00:24.000 Because once it's done, it's done.

01:00:26.000 That's a full solution.

01:00:28.000 Done is done.

01:00:32.000 And then I also do a thing where I try not to imagine it too much.

01:00:37.000 When I have a dental appointment, I do that as well.

01:00:40.000 If I know it's going to be painful, I tell myself simply, get out.

01:00:45.000 That's another reframe.

01:00:46.000 If it's in my head, I just go, get out, get out, get out.

01:00:50.000 Think of something else.

01:00:51.000 Get out.

01:00:52.000 Get out.

01:00:53.000 And the less you think about it before you go, the happier you're going to be.

01:00:57.000 Because the thinking about it doesn't help.

01:01:00.000 So you just say, get out, get out.

01:01:02.000 Every time you need to.

01:01:03.000 So there's two reframes.

01:01:06.000 The wanting versus deciding.

01:01:09.000 And then the get out.

01:01:11.000 So you're not obsessing about it before it happens.

01:01:14.000 I think that was a good answer to your question.

01:01:24.000 That moved you, Tom?

01:01:26.000 It should have.

01:01:31.000 How does gravity manifest at the quantum level?

01:01:35.000 Well, I don't know if I'm ready for that one yet.

01:01:40.000 When you imagine how you're perceived.

01:01:42.000 Now, that's interesting.

01:01:44.000 So when you think about how other people think of you, I have a reframe for that.

01:01:52.000 We'll probably get to it later, but I'll share it with you now.

01:01:55.000 What's the best reframe for worrying about what people think about you?

01:02:01.000 You've heard me say this one.

01:02:06.000 Provenge?

01:02:07.000 Yeah, I'll look into Provenge.

01:02:09.000 I know about that one.

01:02:12.000 Wait, what was I talking about?

01:02:14.000 I just forgot what I was talking about, because I got on the Provenge track.

01:02:26.000 Oh, how to reframe if you think people are thinking bad things about you.

01:02:31.000 The basket case theory is one.

01:02:34.000 That's not the one I was going for, but that is also correct.

01:02:37.000 If you remember that everyone's a basket case, then you're not going to feel bad about you being one.

01:02:43.000 That's a very powerful reframe.

01:02:45.000 It's one of my favorites.

01:02:47.000 Once you realize that once you get to know somebody, they've got all kinds of problems that you didn't know about until you knew them really well.

01:02:55.000 And once you realize there's no such thing as the people who seem to have no problems, they don't exist.

01:03:02.000 There's nobody like that.

01:03:04.000 Once you realize that you're just like everybody else, but your problems might be different.

01:03:09.000 But you all have your things, right?

01:03:13.000 So that's the first one.

01:03:14.000 But here's one that's even better.

01:03:16.000 Nobody cares about you.

01:03:19.000 They're not even thinking about you.

01:03:22.000 You imagine that people are having all these negative thoughts about you.

01:03:26.000 If they do, it lasts all of one second in their head.

01:03:30.000 It doesn't matter.

01:03:31.000 People don't care about you.

01:03:33.000 You know, your family does, but that's not what you're talking about, right?

01:03:38.000 You're not talking about your loved ones.

01:03:40.000 You talk about sort of coworkers and people you run into in the street and stuff like that.

01:03:46.000 So here's where I learned that.

01:03:48.000 I've told you this story, but this will make it concrete again.

01:03:53.000 Many years ago, I did laser surgery on my face to correct a bunch of spider veins that were sort of in the mask of my face.

01:04:03.000 Now, I was told by the laser professional that my face would look all purple and it would look like I had gone through a windshield and it would last for about three weeks.

01:04:15.000 And I probably didn't want to go out in public looking that way.

01:04:18.000 So sure enough, I get the treatment.

01:04:21.000 My face is all purple and it looked like I had just gone through a windshield.

01:04:26.000 So obviously, I don't want to leave the house.

01:04:30.000 So day goes by and I'm bored and I'm thinking three weeks.

01:04:37.000 Wow.

01:04:38.000 That's a long time not to leave the house. 0.96

01:04:40.000 And the second day comes and I'm bored and I just want to go shopping just to get out of the freaking house. 0.91

01:04:47.000 And I say to myself, what would happen if I just didn't care what anybody thought? 0.75

01:04:54.000 What would happen if I just do go to the mall with my face that looks like I just went through a windshield?

01:05:00.000 What would happen?

01:05:02.000 So I went to the mall. 0.99

01:05:04.000 Nobody gave one shit what I look like. 0.99

01:05:08.000 Nobody stared. 0.99

01:05:10.000 Nobody asked me about it.

01:05:13.000 Nobody showed the least bit of interest in whatever it was I was going through.

01:05:19.000 Not any.

01:05:20.000 Not a glance.

01:05:22.000 Not a stare.

01:05:23.000 Not a child.

01:05:25.000 You know, there was no child going, oh, what's wrong?

01:05:27.000 Nothing.

01:05:28.000 And once you get a big dose of nobody cares, oh, my God, the freedom.

01:05:34.000 The freedom that that gave me.

01:05:37.000 It was actually one of my more memorable days of my life because that's when I realized for sure that I didn't have to worry about what other people were thinking about me because they weren't thinking about me.

01:05:51.000 They just weren't.

01:05:52.000 They just were not thinking about me.

01:05:54.000 They think about themselves.

01:05:57.000 So if you want to be liked, help people think about themselves.

01:06:02.000 That's what the Dale Carnegie course does.

01:06:04.000 If you want to be liked, your job was not to make them think better about what your face looked like.

01:06:11.000 That wasn't the job.

01:06:12.000 But the job was to make them think about themselves.

01:06:15.000 If you want them to like you.

01:06:17.000 So there's another reframe for you.

01:06:20.000 All right, ladies and gentlemen.

01:06:26.000 I would say we've done what we need to do here.

01:06:29.000 I hope I've changed your lives a little bit.

01:06:32.000 Just a little bit.

01:06:33.000 And we'll come back and do this tomorrow.

01:06:35.000 There will be real news sometime this week.

01:06:38.000 We'll get back to what we usually do.

01:06:40.000 But in the meantime, I'm hoping all these reframes are making you more powerful and happier.

01:06:46.000 All right.

01:06:47.000 Everybody good?

01:06:49.000 All right, everybody.

01:06:51.000 I won't be talking to the locals people privately because basically what I just did is what I would have been doing.

01:06:59.000 But I will see you tomorrow, everybody.

01:07:02.000 Maybe tonight I will do another drawing class for the locals people, but I don't know yet.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - October 20, 2025

Episode 2994 CWSA 10⧸20⧸25

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript