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July 31, 2018 - Real Coffe - Scott Adams
41:17
Episode 162 Scott Adams: North Korea, Iran, Twitter, Healthcare, 3D Guns
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Hey everybody!
I hope you're singing along, and I hope you have your coffee.
Because today is the day where you're finally on time, you've got your beverage, and you're going to enjoy the simultaneous sip.
With so many like-minded people who are about to do it right now.
Oh, that's good.
I love it when you call me Captain.
Hey Morgan.
Hey Ray. A base diva and glitter.
So let's talk about a few things in the news.
North Korea behaving badly.
Or are they?
So there's a report now in the Washington Post.
Well, that's credible.
It's in the Washington Post.
And they're referring to some intelligence sources.
Well, that's credible.
Intelligence sources.
Intelligence sources always get this sort of thing right.
And then if those intelligence sources talk to the Washington Post, well, that's twice as true.
Or is it?
Well, here we have a problem because the intelligence agencies are no longer credible.
I guess I'm not sure they were ever credible, but at the moment they're at probably an all-time low of credibility.
Now, does that mean that North Korea is not continuing to work on long-range missiles?
No, I would imagine they are.
Do you know why I imagine they are working on long-range missiles?
Because they haven't negotiated not to.
What kind of negotiator would go into negotiations and give away the stuff they're negotiating?
That's not a thing. So yes, of course, they're continuing business as usual because they don't have a deal yet.
Now, I saw reports that I'm having a little trouble believing or possibly there's something we don't know about it that would make it all make sense.
And that is that North Korea is saying that they're not going to go the next step of actually doing more physical things to stop their nuclear and missile programs unless the United States makes a bold step.
Now the bold step means some kind of a concession, but what they talked about in the reporting is a bold step that would primarily be declaring peace.
And declaring an end to the war that's still officially a war and implementing security guarantees so that North Korea has a guarantee by the big powers that nobody will attack.
And I'm thinking to myself, that's pretty doable.
There's a little bit of a chicken and egg problem.
You know, do they have to do their thing first or do we just say our thing first?
But here's the thing. Wouldn't it be easy to structure a deal that says, you know, we'll declare peace, and we'll say the war is over, and we'll give you security guarantees, but the security guarantees are contingent on you actually getting rid of the missiles and actually getting rid of the nukes.
And that if you don't do that, the security guarantees are not valid.
So it seems to me there's a path.
Now, that's the idiot's version of what's going on, because one imagines that what the people doing the work know is very different from what we know.
Could be a completely different situation in reality.
But in terms of the reporting, what we're seeing is that work continues, which it should, because they're negotiating, they're not giving stuff away.
And until they get their deal, I would imagine they'd keep the pressure on by continuing to develop.
But the thing that they want, according to the reporting, don't know if this is true, but the reporting is that the thing they want sounds pretty doable.
So that's all good news.
There's nothing that looks like a permanent stop.
Let's talk about Iran.
So after President Trump's all-caps warning to Iran...
There's a little bit of a sort of a public dialogue going on, not a private one.
But President Trump has said that he would meet with Iran's Rouhani without conditions.
Are people happy with that?
Well, of course.
People are saying, no, you never meet with people without conditions.
And I think Rouhani is saying, I have my own conditions.
You must get back in the agreement that you got out of.
So that's not going to happen.
I mean, at least that condition won't happen.
But it's interesting.
It's interesting that the president has said he'd talk to him.
Now, the word that I saw from one of the Iranian officials...
Or maybe it was somebody reporting about it, I forget.
But they used the word humiliation.
And the thinking is that since the United States pulled out of the deal, thus putting Iran in a weakened situation, that if Iran agreed to just, hey, talk to him, that would be like talking to your bully.
It would be sort of like a humiliation for Iran.
And I thought to myself, okay, I can see that.
I mean, that's a factor.
But you know what kind of factor that is?
Psychology! You know, I've told you that the definition of the Golden Age Is that when we realize our biggest problems are psychological.
And Iran is probably the best example of that.
If the only thing that's keeping us from...
If the only thing that's...
I'm laughing at hot pockets.
I know exactly what you're saying there.
If the only thing that's keeping us...
From having a talk with her aunt is that they're feeling humiliated.
That's a psychological situation.
And I would imagine that that is solvable.
I don't know exactly what it would take to solve it, but probably.
Explain Hot Pockets.
I will. Hot Pockets are a small food that you put in a toaster and it makes a meal.
But what's funny about it is it's part of a famous comedy act by comedian Jim Gaffigan.
I think he's on my mind.
I got to hang out with Jim Gaffigan for...
I think we chatted for a couple hours or something.
I watched his show in Las Vegas recently and got to talk to him afterwards.
And so I think that might have been on my mind.
I'd met him because we worked together years ago on a project.
Let's talk about healthcare.
So I saw a quote from Jamie Dimon, who's one of the three big people in this private healthcare initiative with Bezos and Buffett and Jamie Dimon, and I guess the idea is that those three companies are going to try to create their own private healthcare low-cost I like the fact that technology is their focus.
Because it seems like those three companies Should be able to come up with something.
They've got the money. At least Amazon has the technology chops.
So it'll be fascinating to see what they come up with.
Somebody mentioned the $32 trillion cost for Medicaid for all or Medicare for all.
And... You probably heard me call out that that number was BS, because first of all, it's a 10-year number.
So if you multiply anything by enough years, it becomes too big a number.
So these things should always be expressed in a one-year number.
In my opinion. It should be a one-year number, unless it's going to be changing a lot, like going up fast or going down slow, and then it makes sense to do it in 10 years.
But we can't really understand 10-year estimates.
You know, give me a one-year number, and then put it in context with the budget, and I've got a little more chance of understanding it.
But I have seen at least one article which agreed with what I said yesterday on Periscope that, hey, that number did not include the savings of the people who would be buying their own healthcare.
It didn't include maybe the savings of efficiencies or whatever.
Maybe that wasn't there. But the larger point here is that there are gigantic differences in how people estimate this stuff.
Because I believe buried in that article about the $32 trillion extra it would cost, here's what you probably didn't see.
In that same article, I believe, it said that compared to doing what we're already doing, which is nothing, it would be $2 trillion cheaper.
Now, you probably thought you just heard me wrong.
So the same article that said it would cost $32 trillion to have health care for all, if you keep reading down to the detail, it says that compared to doing nothing, it would be $2 trillion cheaper.
Now, you said to yourself, wait a minute, that is literally the opposite.
Look at the problem here.
Look at the problem.
The same article said it would be $32 trillion, and you say, well, that's impossible.
The same article said, but it would be $2 trillion cheaper than what we're doing now.
And then you say to yourself, oh, well, okay, that actually looks like a good deal.
But you'd be wrong.
You'd be wrong twice.
Both of the things I told you are completely misleading.
Why? Because if it looks like you're going to spend $32 trillion over 10 years, and somebody's saying, well, if you don't do anything, it would be $34 trillion.
So you're really saving $2 trillion.
No, you're not, because we don't have $32 trillion to spend over 10 years.
So nobody's going to spend either of those amounts, right?
So the entire analysis is two numbers that are opposites.
Hey, $32 trillion, we can't possibly afford it.
We saved $2 trillion.
So you say, well, you can see anything you want in this article.
Well, you can. That's the problem.
But we don't have $32 or $34 trillion.
So we're only talking about alternatives that can't happen.
So comparing one thing that can't happen and say it's less expensive than the other thing that can't happen doesn't mean you saved money.
So you've got to be careful about saying to save money, but you've also got to be careful saying that it'll cost $32 trillion because that's probably misleading too.
So my larger point is that like climate science, any imagination you have that we know what the hell will happen and what it will cost is absolute fantasy.
Somebody say, this is so stupid it hurts.
I don't know if you're talking about me or someone else.
But if that was about me, you're going to get blocked.
All right, so the first thing you need to know about health care is that any estimates of costs are probably imaginary.
Now, that doesn't mean that we can't tell that some things will be more expensive than others.
We probably can. But the big changes, let's say if you're looking at 10 years, Let's say I'm making a 10-year estimate of health care costs.
Does that include whatever Buffett, Jamie Dimon, and Bezos come up with and ideally share with the rest of the world?
It does not. Because we don't know what they'll come up with.
Does it include the device that I tweeted about yesterday that takes blood tests down to literally a device that goes on your phone?
It doesn't include that.
None of that's included. There are no inclusions of any kind of change in health care costs.
So all estimates about health care are bunk.
All right. Let's talk about 3D guns.
So the news is now that apparently it will be legal to download plans and print a 3D gun if you have a 3D printer.
And people say to themselves, my God, this is dangerous because people will have a bunch of illegal guns.
And I say to myself, will this really make any difference to anything?
Will it really?
Because here's my thinking.
How much overlap is there between the people who want to use a gun illegally And also have a 3D printer.
Is that a lot of people?
Do a lot of people have 3D printers and they want to kill somebody?
Probably some. But given that we live in a country where getting a gun is just about the easiest thing in the world, who's going to buy a 3D printer when they need a gun?
That feels like the wrong way to do it.
Secondly, if you want to stop people from making 3D printed guns, here's the way to do it.
Right now, there must be one, there's probably at least one plan online that tells you how to do a 3D gun.
One way to stop it is to put more of those plans online.
Have you ever tried to Google Directions on how to do something.
Or you look at YouTube and you're looking for directions.
What's the biggest problem?
The problem is there are too many directions.
And they're all different. And you're thinking, oh my god, I can't tell.
Is this the updated software or is this the one with the bug?
Does this work with my 3D printer or is that the other version?
If I get this plan, does it work with the operating system I have on my 3D printer or not?
Wait, why are there 15 versions of the plan of the gun?
If all you do is let the plans for 3D plans go exactly the same way as every other online instruction, from YouTube instructions to anything you Google about software, trying to fix a software bug, and you Google it and you find 1,500 frickin' descriptions of how to fix it, but they're all completely different, and at least one of them is always erase all of your software.
Have you had this problem? You have some kind of a bug with your device or computer, and you go online to look for the source, and one of the solutions every frickin' time is erase everything on your hard disk, delete, and start over.
That's the only thing you can do.
And it's one of the 300 instructions.
So, let me tell you.
If I'm mad enough to want to kill somebody, and I need a gun, The only thing that could make me more mad is to try to print a gun with a frickin' 3D printer and try to figure out which one of these stupid gun instructions is the one that actually works on my printer.
And then make sure I've got the right kind of plastic because, you know, there's probably something like, yeah, but you have to get a special pellet for your plastic because it's a harder plastic.
And then I saw... Did you see the picture of the...
Yeah, somebody's ahead of me here.
Did you see the picture of the actual printed gun?
Let me show you...
Like, I'm no design expert, but let me show you a picture of the gun.
It looked like this.
It looked like a Kleenex box with a handle.
Now, psychology is always a big element of, you know, anything, right?
Now, if you're a badass gangster, let's say you're MS-13, and you're thinking, I'm going to get me a gun.
And you're MS-13, and you're like, you're hanging out with your homies, and, you know, they've all got their cool guns, and they're hanging out like, yeah, look at me, I got my gun.
And you say, that's nothing.
And you pull out your 3D plastic gun, you're going to get laughed at of MS-13.
Just saying. If you go to prison for a crime with a plastic gun that looks like this, you're not going to get the respect of the other prisoners.
This is not the gun you want to commit a crime for and go to jail.
You'll have to lie about your crime.
People who use a plastic gun to create a crime, if they actually go to prison, they're going to have to say that they're actually child molesters just to stay safe because you don't want to be that guy.
Don't be the criminal with the plastic gun.
That's all I'm saying. Now, Will there be children who will try to download plastic guns?
Well, probably, but there are children who get their parents' guns, children who get guns illegally.
Unfortunately, there are just guns everywhere.
So, my thinking is these plastic guns, you know, if you assume any big change will cause somebody to die, then probably yes.
But, Probably the size of the problem is not nearly as big as people imagine.
Yeah, you still have to get ammo.
And I'm also thinking, it seems to me that there will be ways for, you know, I imagine there will be ways To control that.
Because even though it's software, there probably will be online markets that are the only places you get plans.
I don't know how the 3D app stores work, but if there's something like an app store for 3D printers, it wouldn't be that hard to restrict somehow those plans, or at least track who has them, or at least make sure you're an adult, or Or make sure that you'd go through the same gun check as anybody else.
There are probably ways to control it.
I wouldn't worry about it. I'm going to talk about my 48-hour rule again.
The 48-hour rule, I'm going to keep putting it out there and see if I can get it to catch on, is that if somebody says something in public or is discovered who has said something in the past on Twitter, let's say, and it becomes public at the moment, more public, They should have 48 hours to clarify.
And the reason for this is we don't want to live in a world where people are judged by what we imagine they are thinking.
Remember that you are not the sum of your thoughts.
That's not who you are. Who you are is what you do, at least to the rest of the world.
Because we don't care about your internal thoughts.
We care what you do.
If you're thinking a bad thing, but you're giving your money to the poor, what you're thinking might be bad, but what you're doing is good.
Who are you? You're the person who gave to the poor.
That's who you are.
So if somebody says, hey, that thing you said was provocative or insulting or what did you really mean?
And then the person who said it says, let me clarify.
It was not the bad thing.
I really meant this or that.
I think the only thing that should matter is what the person says they think.
That our guessing of what they really think is only bad.
Because it's not a world you want to live in.
Now, I'm not telling you that you're guessing incorrectly.
Sometimes you're guessing correctly.
Sometimes you are accurately guessing what another person's thinking.
But my rule that I'm suggesting is that you don't want to live in a world where we judge people and treat them based on what we imagine they're thinking.
Because... About half the time, maybe two-thirds of the time, we're going to be wrong.
So you don't want a standard for judging your fellow citizens if that standard is going to make you wrong two-thirds of the time, and then it just causes trouble.
So I say the only standard for what somebody's opinion is is what they tell you it is.
Period. The only standard for knowing what somebody thinks is what they tell you they're thinking.
But, I would say, if they can't clarify within 48 hours, well, then you've got a right to wonder what they're thinking and maybe, you know, put that judgment on them.
But take the Roseanne example.
Now, within 48 hours, she said, oh crap, I didn't even realize that Valerie Jarrett was African American.
Whether or not you think that's true, society works best if you allow her that clarification.
Personally, I think it's totally true.
Your mileage may vary, but even if it were not true, this is the important part, even if it is not true, you still have to give her the chance to be the only author of what she thinks.
Even if it's not true.
You have to treat them like what they said is their opinion is the thing that matters.
Not what they're thinking. You just can't have a world where we're judging people by what we imagine they're thinking.
That gets you nowhere.
Even if sometimes you're right.
You don't want that world.
All right, let's talk about something else.
NFL kneeling. The president has said that the NFL rule is maybe even worse than before.
So the old rule was they could kneel if they wanted to on the field.
The new rule is they can't kneel on the field, but they can stay in the locker room during the national anthem.
And I have to admit, I think the president has a point on that, in terms of which is worse.
Because if you come out in the field and you kneel, You are making a protest, which also looks disrespectful to the flag and the country, in the eyes of many people.
I'm pro-protest, so I'm in favor of the kneelers because I like a good protest, as long as nobody gets hurt.
And I think those protests were effective because we're talking about them.
If we weren't talking about them, I'd say they weren't effective, but they're effective.
The president said that staying in the locker room is actually worse.
And I thought about it and I thought, yeah, I can see that.
Because staying in the locker room is simply disrespectful, whereas kneeling is an explicit protest.
And the weird thing about America is you can love your country, but what it stands for, in part, is the ability to protest.
So it's actually weirdly respectful to protest right in front of the flag, because it's also respecting the flag in a weird way, right?
Because you can't, in another country, you couldn't disrespect the flag right in front of the flag.
You know, you would be executed or whatever.
So part of what makes...
America, America, is that you could kneel in front of the flag right on TV and protest it.
That's what makes it great.
So I kind of see the President's point.
First choice is just show respect to the flag.
Second choice is a respectful, and I think it is respectful, A protest in which you're kneeling, because the kneeling is respectful in a sense, right?
It's not aggressive. It's the opposite.
That kind of gives respect for who the country is.
It's a place where you can do that.
Third choice, and here's where I'm agreeing with the president, and the worst choice is staying in the locker room.
That's just disrespectful, but it's not a protest.
Protests at least give some respectable sides.
So I think the president's right about that.
I'm not sure that's the biggest issue in the world.
Somebody says, disagree.
I think there's room to disagree on this one.
That's a judgment call.
I wouldn't say you're wrong to disagree on that.
That's just my opinion.
Save it for when you're not at work.
Yeah, I agree, you know, and I agree with the people who say that work is work.
I agree that the owners should be able to manage this any way they want.
Yeah, I agree with that.
All right, what else you got going on?
I think we've covered all the big stuff that's fun.
Thoughts on Venezuela?
I don't think there's much to think about on Venezuela.
It's just a sad situation.
The weird thing about Venezuela is it becomes a sort of a cautionary tale because it shows what's the worst that can happen with a dictator and socialism and all that.
Manafort, not too interested in Manafort.
What did QAnon say about Avenatti up on that?
I'll give you some updates on Bill Pulte and the Blight Authority soon-ish.
There are some interesting developments that you're going to like.
Will Trump ever hit 50% approval?
Maybe. But, you know, when it comes to Trump, approval numbers don't mean the same thing.
So when you ask, you know, do you approve of the president, you sort of have to ask about the details.
You sort of have to ask, do you approve of his work on the economy?
Do you approve of North Korea?
I think you can almost get to a reasonably believable number if you do the details.
But if you say, do you approve of the president, it ends up being about his personality.
And then that's not really any kind of a number that you can compare to past numbers.
Because in the past, I don't think President Bush, senior or junior, were being judged on their personalities.
They were being judged on their jobs.
So you can't compare that to a President Trump who was entirely being judged on his personality.
not entirely, but half of the country.
Avenatti ties to SA.
I don't know what SA is, but that happens to be my initials, and I have no tie to him. - How to stop Ocasio-Cortez.
There are two things that make me laugh every time.
So when people talk about Alexandria Octavio-Cortez, they always say two things.
They say, she's not...
Oh, Saudi Arabia.
Okay. They say, she's not...
As good as you think, Scott, she doesn't have those master persuader potential skills.
And I say potential. I don't think she's there.
But she has the raw materials.
But then I always point out, why are we talking about her?
Why is everybody talking about her?
The reason everyone is talking about her, that's what I'm pointing out.
I'm pointing out that you can't stop talking about her.
That's what she has.
So every time you ask me, is she the real thing?
You've answered your own question.
You're not asking that question about anybody else.
Who here is saying, is Eric Swalwell the real thing?
Is he the future? Nobody's asking that question.
But about her, you're asking the question.
So yes, that is your proof.
If you've asked the question and you're not alone, lots of people are asking it, that's sort of all you need to know.
And then other people are saying, so those of you who think she's an idiot, keep in mind that that is the popular opinion of this president that we have now.
Half of the country thinks he's actually stupid.
Like, actually, if he measured his IQ, he would just be an actual idiot.
Half of the country thinks that.
Now, you know that's not true, right?
At least the people on this Periscope are pretty sure that's not true.
But when you watch the people on your team saying that Cortez is actually literally stupid, just check your bias there.
Check your bias.
Because half the team always thinks the other team is stupid, and they're pretty much always wrong.
Because the fact that she's already reached this level suggests that she's got a lot of game.
Hey, Donna Purple.
Somebody says, but she really is an idiot.
You can't tell. I like the people who are insisting that it's obvious that she is.
You're seeing some of the comments here.
There's no such thing as what you're suggesting you're seeing.
I'm telling you, you can't tell.
What you saw was that she stumbled, in your opinion, On some complicated answers about how to pay for stuff.
I watched those answers, and while they were halting, meaning that it took her a while to put her thoughts together, that's not going to last.
The length of time it took her to explain her answer, I'm sure she looked at it after the fact and said, whoa, that was a long answer.
I needed to shorten that up, make it a little crisper, maybe make it a little more visual.
That stuff is going to come.
Now, if it never comes, well, then I'm wrong.
But if she always gives that bad an answer to how are you going to pay for these things, then I will say, well, you have proven your point.
She's not smart. But if the next few times you hear her talk, it gets a little better.
That's what you're looking for.
And I would be amazed if it doesn't get better because it wouldn't be hard for it to get shorter, crisper, more influential.
They probably test this stuff too.
No one would care if she were ugly.
I think it's the younger...
I would disagree with that.
I think it's the young and female part that's the exciting part.
And the fact that she goes full socialist or somewhat.
I think those are the exciting parts.
I don't think it's... I would not say it's the attractiveness thing that's driving her at this point.
So people keep asking me who I think would be the strongest Democratic challenger.
And I'm going to say this with no regard to policies.
So forget policies, because nobody really cares about that when they vote.
How do you beat Kamala Harris?
For somebody who's got sort of all the big stuff taken care of.
She's got the resume. She's a woman.
I think she's African-American.
I'm the worst one to know who is what.
But she's got something going on that isn't a white male.
How do you beat that?
I don't think the Democrats can run a white male.
I just don't think they would get enough support on their own side.
She's insane.
Well, we'll see. I don't think Kamala Harris could win against Trump, but she might be the strongest candidate.
We'll see. She has skeletons.
They all do. Everybody's got some skeletons.
I think the days of having a president with no skeletons.
Don't you think that's just over?
Because even if a candidate does not have actual skeletons, by the time the adversaries are done with them, the persuasion game is so strong now that everyone will look like a murdering pedophile.
I think that's just what the future looks like.
Every candidate will look like they were a serial killer before they got elected.
Has the news been more boring lately?
Yes. Do you know why?
Does anybody know why the news is boring lately?
There's a reason, actually. It's called August.
August, for those of you who don't know, is the slow news month.
It's the month where both the...
I think Congress is out, and at the same time, a lot of the news business, they take their vacations as well.
And people are concentrated on getting back to school and finishing up their summer and stuff.
So you should see less news in August than any other news.
When September hits...
Look out! You're going to see some news.
Yeah, so the president said some things about the Koch brothers not being helpful to him.
And, you know, that's fun to watch.
I'm not sure it has any great meaning.
It probably helps...
I don't know, it probably helps the president if he puts some pressure on the Koch brothers because the Koch brothers are sort of, at least in terms of a brand, they're sort of like Soros' to the left.
It's like Koch brothers on the right, Soros on the left.
You know, there's always a billionaire pulling the strings.
So for Trump to put some distance between him and the Koch brothers' brand, Probably is the smartest thing he could do because Trump already has locked in 88% of Republicans, so he doesn't need to persuade Republicans anymore.
If he's changing his persuasion game to the other side, what could be better than saying the Koch brothers are not my person?
Imagine, if you will, Kamala Harris or anybody else running as a Democrat.
Just hold this in your mind.
Imagine one of those Democrats running against the President came out and said, I want to be very clear.
George Soros is not my guy and I reject him and I don't think what he's doing is helpful.
Imagine that. Because on the left, nobody really cares about Soros, I don't think.
I think Soros is like a non-brand, irrelevant to the left.
He gives money to different groups, but if you're not getting money from him, I don't think he's relevant.
I think Soros is relevant on the right as sort of the boogeyman that we think is driving everything.
And on the left, they think the Koch brothers are driving everything.
So one of the strongest things you can do once you've locked in your own base is Is to reject the boogeyman on your side.
So very smart for President Trump to reject the Koch brothers because it might have some influence on the left and that's who he needs to influence next.
I did not read that book that you just mentioned.
I am currently reading Greg Gutfeld's book, The Gutfeld Monologues, and enjoying it greatly.
He has a description of Hillary Clinton that's made me laugh for three days.
But you're going to have to read the book to see that.
I'll tell you more about that when I'm done with the book.
Why is QAnon so popular even though it is totally bull, somebody says. - Yes.
Well, is it totally bull?
So I would say that My take on Q is that it's not real, but it will be very interesting.
Someday we'll know who's behind it.
And that will be a fascinating story.
I think it's really interesting that we don't know.
How could we go this far without knowing who Q is?
That part is actually very interesting.
So the question about who it really is...
It's really interesting. But the issue of whether or not these are real predictions, have you ever seen anybody line up the Q predictions with reality?
Because I only see when it happens to look right.
And often when people say, look, Q got it right, and it'll be some text, and then it'll be the story of something that happened, and I'll look at the text, and I'll look at the story, and I'll think, I don't know, I don't see it.
It looks like some generic thing, and then there's a story.
I don't really see the connection.
But once people imagine that there is a connection, they see it.
Now, somebody says, are you seriously talking about the Q nonsense?
Well, I'm telling you that there's nothing to it.
So I think that agrees with you.
But it's very entertaining, and so I like that part.
What's your take on Ray Dalio?
I have his book. I haven't read it, though.
So I don't really have an opinion.
All right. I think we've said enough.
And I'm going to go do some work.
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