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July 3, 2018 - Real Coffe - Scott Adams
29:49
Episode 127 - Oprah, Optimism, North Korea and Supreme Court Picks, Debating Dale
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Hey everybody, come on in.
It's time for your favorite part of the day.
So far anyway, it's called Coffee with Scott Adams.
It's an amazing thing.
It's the best sip of the day.
That's exactly right.
And you're going to be part of it now.
Yes, you are. Remember all those times you wish you had your coffee with you when I came on?
But for some of you, this time you do.
It might be the first time you've had coffee for the simultaneous sip.
It's going to be a good one.
And here it comes.
Mmm. Oh, that's good simultaneous sipping.
Piping hot. Alright, we have several topics.
Let's jump right in.
So apparently Oprah has confirmed that she's not going to run for president.
She said that before.
But it was interesting the way she put it.
She actually referred to her own side as As moving into a bad area and referred to her own side as hysteria.
Did I just say Oprah referred to her own side as experiencing hysteria?
Did I say Oprah referred to her own side as experiencing hysteria?
Now what's interesting about that is who is more credible than Oprah?
Nobody. Nobody.
And certainly on the left, especially.
But she might be one of the most credible people in the world.
What is one of the things that makes her credible?
Well, I'll tell you.
She's smart enough not to run for president.
Because in her specific case, it would just be a huge mistake.
I've said before that even if she thought personally she was willing to take all that risk, and she says she's not, she would be taking that risk on behalf of her entire organization that depends on her for their paycheck.
And it seemed to me that she would not throw so many people under the bus and get them associated with a political campaign Just by being associated with Oprah, it didn't seem like that was a risk she would take with people she cared about and worked with and loved.
And so it's no surprise, because Oprah is very smart.
So it's not a surprise when a smart person does a smart thing.
So that prediction looks right.
There's a new poll out showing that the optimism for the future of this country is up from 47% in 2012 to 55%.
Yes, despite all of this political blah, blah, blah, all the infighting, all the acrimony, all of the bad feelings...
That is a really big change.
Can somebody do the math? What's the difference between 47 and 55?
What percentage increase is that?
I'll see that.
I know it's 7.
What percentage is it?
So, anyway, so optimism is way up.
The golden age is going to be upon us, whether we like it or not.
I just retweeted an article in Quillette, is that how you say it?
Quillette? Talking about how, well, it's an interesting article.
I'm just going to say that if you want to have a really good read, just see what I just tweeted from Quillette.
Okay, let's talk about North Korea.
So, most of you saw that NBC, I think, was reporting, and then maybe Wall Street Journal, but that could have been based on NBC, I'm not sure which, reported that there are multiple intelligence sources who are traitors.
Because if this really came from intelligence sources, they're kind of operating in a traitorous way.
Suggesting that North Korea is continuing to press forward building their missile sites or their nuclear capabilities or something like that.
And therefore, it is evidence that the president got played.
He got played. Once again, didn't he see this coming?
It's the same every time.
And I was taken by how many ways there are to interpret the facts that we have before us.
One way to interpret it, as the anti-Trumpers are doing, is that the president is so dumb he didn't know that they're just playing him for time and they had no intention of being legitimate players.
The other way to look at this situation is that our intelligence sources and NBC have no credibility.
Now, when I say no credibility, my critics on Twitter hear, he's saying it's not true.
No. That is not the same as no credibility.
No credibility is the same as no information.
No information doesn't tell you something is true or false.
It just says, I have no information.
So if, for example, somebody said to me, I think Bigfoot is in your garage.
And I say to them, based on what?
And they look at me and they go, I don't have any information.
But I'm telling you, Bigfoot is in the garage.
Now in that case, do I go look in the garage to make sure Bigfoot is there?
Or do I say, are you saying there's no credible information that there's any Bigfoot in my garage?
And once there's no credible information, I don't really have to go look.
Because there's no information for it or against it.
It's just a no information situation.
So when you hear that anonymous intelligence sources have provided us, even with photographs, this is important, even with photographs that North Korea is proceeding with their development, you should say to yourself, that could be true.
And it could be false, but we have no information.
We have no information telling us it's true, and we have no information telling us it's false.
Now, that's what it means to have only information which is not credible.
Now, I said on Twitter, which caused people to chirp quite a bit, that in 2018, and let me say this for all of you as well, Photos cannot be trusted.
In 2018, I'm not sure when that was first true.
It probably didn't become true in 2018 for the first time.
But I would say in 2018, a photograph of an event or even a video of the event can no longer be trusted.
Doesn't mean it's false.
Doesn't mean it's true.
I'm just saying that video and photos are no longer credible information.
Because we've all seen too many examples in which they've been faked, they've been taken from the wrong angle, they've been edited, they've been altered, it's from a different year, etc.
So we see Pompeo going over to North Korea to see what's what.
Let me ask you this. If the U.S. government knew that North Korea was just flat out cheating, would Pompeo make a personal visit?
Maybe. But less likely.
Let me talk about a theory that Gordon Chang, one of the very few credible voices about anything happening in China or North Korea, and he speculated that there's one explanation that can't be ruled out.
He's not saying it's true, again, not saying this is true or false, but you can't rule it out.
And it's this, that Kim is not in charge, or at least not completely in charge.
Now, the evidence for that would be as follows.
There have been apparently quite a few executions of people in the military, which suggests that the military and the leadership are not always on the same page, because you don't really execute people who are on the same page, right?
So there's some kind of division there.
Remember when Kim's brother-in-law was murdered?
What's a better explanation for that than Kim killed his own brother-in-law?
Which is entirely possible, by the way.
So I'm not ruling out or in that Kim killed his own brother-in-law.
But an alternate explanation is that his generals killed him because he knew too much and he was leaving with the wrong story.
Possible? Again, can't rule it in, can't rule it out, but it's consistent with the thought that That the military is in charge.
Now, why would the military have a different interest than Kim?
Let's game this forward.
Let's say that Kim Jong-un was a credible, real player.
Let's say that he was honest in his desire to reunify North and South Korea.
And let's say he legitimately wanted to Let's say rehabilitate his own reputation and come out of this reunification, however long it takes, could be years, and come out of it with a respected position in which he's not in danger and he's maintained some kind of credibility and power.
Power in this case might not be governmental power but just position power sort of thing.
Now it's possible that Kim could be completely legitimate and you know what the problem is?
Problem is that if you open up North Korea and communication starts coming in and out more freely that the work of his generals is going to become known.
If his generals...
Are outed by just better communication, the people complaining about what the generals did, the world finding out about it.
Would any kind of amnesty or deal that Kim makes for himself and his family, would it apply to all of these generals who have done things that they're going to have to pay a price for?
That would be hard.
So you can imagine a situation in which Kim is negotiating a good situation for himself and his family that would not extend to the generals.
And if that's the case, what would the generals do?
Would they say, well, that's great for you, leader, but we'll all be killed if you make the deal that you're trying to make?
I don't think they would go along with it.
I believe that the generals would almost have to find a way to kill the deal.
What would be the best way to kill the deal?
Do something you could see from outer space that looked like you were continuing to make your rockets or whatever.
So it's entirely possible that there are two factions or more within North Korea that are not on the same page.
That's entirely possible.
How would we know that?
Well, that would be tough to know at this point.
So if you were to look at the possibilities for why we see what we see, I see at least four Four hypotheses, or four theories in a non-scientific sense.
One is that North Korea is just being North Korea again.
Make some promises, buy some time, just keep doing whatever you're doing.
So that's possible.
Number two, it could be that...
That the pictures are just lies coming from our own security intelligence folks because they want to kill the deal either so they can sell more arms, start a war, depose President Trump or whatever.
Now, given that the ex-head of the CIA, Brennan, clearly is anti-Trump, we assume there are other people in the organization who might be anti-Trump.
We know NBC is anti-Trump, so the pictures could just be fake.
Could just be fake.
So that's option number two.
Option number three is that North Korea is not one voice and that the generals may be rebelling because they don't have a way out, whereas Kim might.
Kim might have a way out, in which he comes out okay with a reunified North Korea.
The generals may not have the same out.
And then there is a fourth possibility, which is the most ordinary.
So what would be the most ordinary explanation for why North Korea keeps building?
Can anybody give me, before I tell you, let's see if you can come up with it, what would be the most ordinary?
Yeah, a negotiation tactic.
What is North Korea doing right now?
They're negotiating.
What do you do when you negotiate?
You negotiate, right?
What have North Korea and South Korea so far given each other in terms of what they've each given?
Nothing. If you listen to the anti-Trumpers, they'll say, my God, we've given them everything.
We gave them a meeting.
We gave them respect. We stopped doing our military games on the border.
They've gotten everything. And then if you talk to the pro-Trump people, they'll say, look, Kim's agreed to give us some remains.
He's playing nice.
He's agreed to talk.
He's agreed to denuclearize.
Look at all the things we've gotten.
Let me summarize both of those sides.
Neither side gave anything.
Because you haven't given somebody something if you can take it away like that.
How hard would it be for President Trump to take away the respect that Kim Jong-un just got by having this meeting?
How hard would it be for him to take it away?
It would be easy. How hard would it be for President Trump to re-initiate the war games on the border?
Well, easy. In the summer we weren't having them anyway.
So literally nothing has happened.
We could just do them again in the fall like it was planned in the first place.
We've done nothing. What has North Korea done on their half to actually denuclearize?
Well, they blew up something that didn't matter apparently.
So they've done nothing.
So they've done nothing for us that really matters.
We've done nothing for them.
That either matters or we can't take back like that.
If somebody gives you something that they can take back anytime they want, have they given you something?
If I give you $100 and I say, hey, here's $100, but whatever you do, you can't spend it.
And whenever I ask for it back, you have to give it back.
Did I give you $100?
No. You're just holding it for me.
You're my free bank.
So at this point, both sides are just the free bank for the other one.
Nobody has given a single thing to the other side because both sides can take back anything that they've given in a heartbeat.
Nothing has been given.
And that's fine.
It's fine that nothing's been given, because that's where we are in the conversation.
It's just about where it should be.
So the most ordinary explanation for why North Korea continues to build their facilities is that we're still negotiating.
It would be perfectly reasonable for them to say, you haven't agreed to give us security guarantees.
We haven't agreed to stop building our facilities, but we've promised that if you do your part, we will do our part.
But if you're not doing your part, you have not given us security guarantees.
You haven't heard that, right? Have you heard anybody give them actual security guarantees?
You haven't. You've only heard that it's in the conversation.
So we're right where we should be with North Korea.
So I wouldn't make a big deal about that.
Let's talk about the Supreme Court picks.
The MIA remains released.
My understanding is that that was exaggerated and there may not be any remains that they found.
So I think that story you need a little more.
That's sort of a wait and see on the remains.
Supreme Court pick.
So one of the Supreme Court possibilities is Amy Coney Barrett.
And this part is just hilarious.
So the biggest issue for the Supreme Court, of course, that everybody's yammering about is abortion and the abortion question.
Which, of course, is more associated with women.
And the Republican Party, its brand is sort of moving away from women, according to the other side.
And the Democrats are really the party of women, in a sense.
They're very more women-focused than the Republican Party is.
And so they're already afraid.
Have you seen the preemptive stories?
So the anti-Trumpers are trying to get ahead of the story because they can see it coming like a locomotive.
It's like you're standing in this tunnel and you're thinking to yourself, oh cool, I'm in this tunnel, so I'm safe from the rain and the sun.
I'm very safe in this tunnel.
Then all of a sudden you see this light go boop coming toward you in the tunnel and you realize you're in a train tunnel and you see that and you're too far into the tunnel to get out and you're going to be killed by the train.
That's sort of what the Democrats are feeling right now because If he does the obvious, and they're expecting him to do the obvious, the obvious in this case is you go for the young, female, I hate to say it, I hate to say this next part, but it's part of the story, attractive, attractive person.
You complete, mother of seven, I didn't know that, but that's even better.
It completely defangs the other side.
And then they've also got the Catholic thing there, etc.
So, the truth is that attractive people are harder to reject in every context.
I'm not saying the world is fair.
I'm not saying that's the way it should be.
I'm saying people are biased in favor of attractive people.
Now, I also don't want to be unkind, But have you seen the pictures of the other people who are being considered?
You know, the short list people are saying, the four people.
On the short list, you've got one Amy Coney Barrett, who again, I'm not saying the world should be this way, I'm just saying it is this way, is very attractive.
Have you seen the other people on the list?
I don't mean to be unkind.
It's just part of the story.
Let's just say, among the other three candidates, there's no Neil Gorsuch in the group, if you know what I mean.
I think you know what I mean.
Neil Gorsuch, in addition to being apparently a very capable jurist, is a good-looking guy.
He's a good-looking guy.
You know he is.
He's a good-looking guy.
And I know you don't want this to be true, but it matters.
It does matter.
In the real world, people are biased by looks, period.
Male, female, both cases, people are biased by looks.
Gorsuch is a good-looking guy.
Amy Coney Barrett is a good-looking woman, and even the Congress will be influenced by that.
It does matter. You don't want it to matter.
I don't want it to matter because I'm not a good-looking guy.
I would love it if suddenly, hey, you know what?
Everybody's loving the bald guys with glasses.
You're rocking it, Scott.
I would love that world, but I don't live in that world.
I live in the real world.
Where people who are tall and young and good-looking matter.
So it's too early to say that Trump will pick Amy Coney Barrett.
But the left can see that train coming.
Brrr, brrr, get out of the way!
No, he's doing the only thing.
He's doing the only thing we hate.
No! Don't pick the woman.
It's too easy.
Oh! Alright, so I don't know enough about each of these candidates to make a prediction that he'll pick her because I'm under-informed about all the variables involved here.
But, from the point of view of what would be the greatest persuasion play, there's no competition.
The best persuasion play, when the biggest question is abortion, is the woman who's good-looking, young, Catholic, has seven kids, and the young part means that she would be on the core for a longer period.
I don't know how you don't pick that one.
If you assume that all the people are roughly even in capabilities, I think you pick that one.
She adopted two kids from Haiti?
Oh, it just gets better.
Are you serious? She adopted two kids from Haiti?
I didn't know about that. If that's true, good luck for those other guys who are in the final four.
All right. I'd like to do an act in one play featuring a character you may have heard of.
His name is Dale.
And this will be a debate between Dale and me on the question of children in cages.
And it goes like this.
And this may be a play that you've actually seen on television before.
It's a little bit derivative in the sense that, you know, you may have seen it on all the news programs.
But it goes a little like this.
You monsters!
You need to get the children out of the cages and reunite them with their families.
Well, that's right, Dale. I completely agree with that, 100%.
I do not like children in cages, and we should do what we can to reunify them and get them all together.
Did you hear me? I said you have to get the children out of the cages and reunify the families!
You monster! What's happening here, Dale?
I just agreed with you, and not only that, but...
Republicans agree with you and the president has actually signed an executive order giving you exactly what you're asking.
Is that not good enough?
We're going to the streets.
We're going to the streets.
We are going to fight this to the end.
We will do what we have to do against you monsters.
What's happening here, Dale?
I keep agreeing with you and you keep acting like you're protesting me.
Are you now protesting your agreement with me?
It's not happening fast enough.
Are there still children in cages?
Are there not? Can you deny that there are children in cages?
I'm not denying that.
It was true under Obama and then the problem got worse because more people came.
And it takes a while for the facilities to be built.
But Dale, you understand that the alternative might be to turn them back to a situation because we don't have enough facilities in the short term.
We're trying to get them as quickly as possible.
But you understand that just releasing them might result in the death and rape of the children you're trying to protect.
But they're in cages!
They're in cages. You want to get them out of cages?
We're protesting. Again, Dale, we completely agree.
No kids in cages.
No separating families.
We're working as hard as we can to make that happen.
Will you take yes for an answer?
It's on. Protest.
Everybody, get your clubs.
And if you see any of those proud boys, maybe stay away from those guys.
But everybody else, you can club.
Club them hard. Because children in cages.
And see them.
You know, when I get my acting buzz on...
Now, I'm not wrong, am I? Am I wrong that the right is protesting something that they got on the first try?
Somebody's name here is Dale.
Hello, Dale. Is it always the same tissue?
This actually isn't a tissue for those of you who are new to this.
This is actually a glove or a half a glove.
It's a half a glove.
This is my well-used half a glove that is actually a full glove that I cut the fingers off of that I use for drawing.
Because when I'm using the stylus on my computer screen, my hand is on the computer screen, and to keep the oils of your hand off it, and at a certain temperature, your hand doesn't move smoothly across the screen, so it's just a workaround.
Is it always the same glove?
Every once in a while this one gets overused and I just make a new one.
I've got a bag of gloves that I cut the fingers off every now and then.
Yes, my drawing glove.
It's funnier if Dale is Kleenex, I know.
I have used the Kleenex before when the glove was not handy, so that's true.
It works better when I sit screen right.
Yeah, you're right. I should get a bag of Dales.
I do have a bag of Dales.
They're in the closet right back there.
It's a whole bag of Dales.
Alright, how are the gloves and cages?
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