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Aug. 17, 2018 - Real Coffe - Scott Adams
24:12
Episode 185 Scott Adams: Cancelled Military Parades, Joke Experts and Opioid Lawsuits
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Yes, I'm wearing an adult shirt.
You won't see this often.
Coming to you a little bit early today.
I've got some stuff to do pretty soon, so this will be a short 15-minute periscope.
But if you've got a beverage, I will join you for some water for the simultaneous sip.
I've already had my coffee.
You people sleeping in.
You should wake up. That's good.
So let's get to the news.
So I tweeted yesterday that the anti-Trump media has spent a week criticizing the president for hiring an African-American woman and trusting her too much.
Now they use different words for it.
They say, wait, is he good at hiring people or is he bad at hiring people?
What's up with that?
But it kind of comes down to he hired an African-American woman and he trusted her more than he should have.
That's really the story.
Now, you could put different words on it, but I don't know that the public is reading this as the worst thing that this president ever did.
In other news, I try to talk about the news and then sometimes I become the news.
So I tweeted an article in Fox News online that's about me.
And it's about me talking about Brennan and about President Trump saying that, hey, Russia, if you have those missing email, Hillary's email, let us have them.
Now, I said Brennan doesn't recognize a joke when he sees it.
And what did people come in and criticize me for?
They criticize me for not being an expert on the topic.
Now, I've written approximately, I don't know, between 10 and 11,000 jokes over the last three decades.
If you know somebody who's better at recognizing a joke, and they're not actually in the business, as I am, I'm open to a second opinion.
But if there's one thing I'm actually good at, it's recognizing a joke.
So that part was funny.
I also see that President Trump has canceled the expensive military parade.
What did I say was a bad idea?
When I first heard this idea, I said to myself, an expensive military parade is probably a bad idea.
Now they're calling it postponed because the price was too high and if they can get the price down, that'd be great.
But I don't know how much you can get the price down, because the fix is in and all this stuff, too many fingers in the pies.
I don't think we're going to see the military parade, and I would be happy about that, because it does seem like it would be just a critic's paradise.
If you spent $100 on it, if the entire parade cost $100, Some critic would say, well, there's $100 that could have gone to veteran medical care.
And you know what?
That critic would be right, because the parade probably wouldn't help as much as giving a veteran $100.
What else we got going on?
I've noticed that the quality of the criticism on CNN against this president went way down today.
You know, I always talk about the top left of CNN's website.
That's where the important news is.
Today, there are no Trump stories in the top left of CNN. That's cool.
Let's see how long it takes us to find a Trump story.
Well, we've got the retired Admiral who is saying, Take away my security clearance next.
I guess he was the Admiral in charge of the Bin Laden project there to get him.
And to which I say, I don't know, that guy's just another partisan, right?
He's just one more partisan.
Do we care? I assume that everybody in the military Has an opinion about this president.
Some like him, some don't.
So here's one who doesn't like him.
I'm not sure that that's news.
I mean, because it was said by somebody important, so it becomes news.
But it really is just another person's opinion.
This one doesn't add anything to the conversation.
There's a headline that says, Colbert is taking a shot at Omarosa's tapes.
And I'm thinking that he may not be being kind to Omarosa.
Omarosa's in a tough spot.
She's managed to make 100% of the world dislike her.
But I think she can monetize that, so it's not all bad.
The Vatican has broken its, quote, silence on the abuse report.
You might be happy to hear this.
But the Pope has come down solidly on the side of the victims.
I think some people suspected that the Pope might side with the abusers.
Was there really any question what the Pope's opinion on this was going to be?
I'm pretty sure he's against child abuse.
So let's ask the Pope if he's in favor of or against war.
I think I already know.
I already know his answer.
And if he takes a day to get back to me, I'm not going to call that the Pope's Curious silence about war.
Because I kind of already know where he is on this.
All right. Trump asks regulators to consider getting rid of quarterly reports.
I don't know about that one.
Who knows if that's good or bad.
Then there's Trump says he canceled the military parade over ridiculously high costs.
Now remember, this is CNN. And the worst thing they could come up with today is that the president canceled the military parade because it was too expensive, which is exactly what his critics would want him to do.
So it's hard to criticize it.
He asked the question, he got a price, he canceled it.
That's business. Q predicted a parade.
That would be funny.
And there's some reporter who's detailing the marital strife in the Kellyanne Conway House.
Here's my thoughts about detailing the political strife in somebody's personal life.
What? Are you freaking kidding me?
How dare you put this on...
I don't want to be one of those people, but how dare you?
How dare you? But it seems to me that that's just craziness.
It's crazy that we should be listening to this and caring about it.
Now, I also saw something in the news that said that China is not only sending some people over to talk about trade, But they have toned down their rhetoric, and instead of saying that China 2025 will be the dominant power in the world and will supplant the United States, apparently they have decided nationally to project a little more humility.
And that's smart.
You know, every time China does something, have you ever noticed this?
As long as we've been talking about China, There are plenty of times that we say to ourselves, man, China's doing something that we don't like, or I wish China would do something differently.
But does anybody ever say China made a bad decision for China?
China is really well managed.
I mean, if you look at the size of their challenge, that big country, and what they were trying to take it from and to, and how well they've done so far, China is really well run.
I mean, I don't know how you could come to any other conclusion.
Now, that doesn't mean they're doing stuff we like.
You know, the legal system might be more brutal than we can handle, the slave labor and all that stuff.
So you can't love everything they do.
But if you're saying, are they effectively managing something that's really hard to manage?
Kind of are. That doesn't mean we should let them walk all over us, but they're taking a new, smarter tact, which is they're probably still trying to become the dominant power.
Who wouldn't? Why would they not try to do that?
It would be silly for them not to try to be more important in the world.
But now they're talking differently, and they're getting a little more flexible, and there's word that there might be a lot of internal There's dissent within China, in the leadership especially.
And they may be worried about these tariffs.
So we might be working towards something productive here.
What's the persuasion filter on China?
Will they supplant the U.S.? Well, there are too many unpredictable elements of something like that.
So if you say, you know, who's going to win in the long run, the U.S. or China?
The things you don't see coming are, let's say, the creation of the next Apple computer or the next Amazon.com or the next Facebook.
Those things are not really predictable.
You know, we could think that we're going to do more of that than they are.
So there's good reason to believe we'll stay ahead.
But they've got, you know, they've got size.
So they got that going for them All right Let me see if there's anything else I Police used a taser on an 87 year old woman cutting dandelions with a knife.
Well that was suboptimal.
Nobody's on the other side of that story.
And then there's a story about Democrats are weighing House leadership options, talking about Nancy Pelosi.
Now if CNN, one of its biggest headlines, and one of the ones that has a picture, is about Nancy Pelosi, that's not exactly anti-Trump, is it?
It feels like CNN's coverage, if I'm looking at it today, They may have taken China's example and brought some humility to the situation.
Did you see which Cuomo was it?
What's the first name of Governor Cuomo in New York?
I can't remember.
Andrew? Andrew Cuomo.
So he said... In a speech that America was never great, and it wouldn't be great until there was more equality, essentially.
And of course, everybody said, what?
What? How can you say America is not great?
And I applied my 48-hour rule.
Do you know the 48-hour rule?
Let me tell you. I invented this.
I'm hoping it catches on.
And the idea is that if you say something provocative, That gets the critics chattering.
You've got 48 hours to clarify.
And the rule is that you accept the clarification, not the original statement.
And now some people say, but wait a minute, the clarification is just because the critics pushed back.
He really meant the other thing.
No mind reading.
No mind reading.
Maybe somebody meant the other thing.
Maybe in their interior thoughts, they're thinking things you don't like.
But you can't have a society that's based on punishing other people for what you think.
That's no way to organize a society.
You can punish people for what they do.
And what he did was he clarified.
The clarification stands.
I give him a full pass.
Why? Because I want that full pass for myself someday.
And I want it for you someday.
We should try this.
See how far it gets us.
And by the way, there's some persuasive power to putting a label on something and giving it a name.
So if I had simply talked about this concept and had not given it a name, the 48-hour rule, It wouldn't be nearly as persuasive.
So if you talk about it, if you like it, if you want to mention it to someone else, call it the 48-hour rule.
Oh, let's talk about opioids.
So the president has apparently asked Jeff Sessions to consider suing the pharmaceutical companies over opioid abuse.
Hello? Did you see that coming?
I did not see that coming.
And I don't know if they've got a case, but holy hell!
Have you ever seen anything that was more on the side of the people and against the corporations?
So who are the Antifa?
Are the Antifa the anti-fascists?
And aren't the fascists the ones who always side with the big corporations?
And is the head of our government siding with the corporations or asking the government to sue their asses for addicting the citizens?
Well, we don't know where this is going yet, but it looks like that's about the least fascist thing any government ever did.
If you're looking to sue companies for irresponsibly addicting the masses, I'm going to say, I'm going to say that that's looking good.
Now that's just one of the things that you could imagine is going to happen between now and November.
People have been asking me for a year, what do you think is going to happen in the midterms?
And I always try to give the same answer, or at least this part of the same answer, which is between now and November, so much is going to happen.
So much. This suing the pharmaceutical companies is a real, in my mind, this is a real game changer.
Now, who knows how far it gets, but in terms of setting the villain, the white hat and the black hat, the villain and the bad guy, this is a real clean contrast.
It puts Trump right on the side of, I will put you on a business if you keep doing this.
I will put you out of business.
And I don't think he's bluffing.
So that will be interesting.
So those seem to be...
Yeah, looks like those are the big stories.
Alright. Why is it the company's fault?
Isn't it the prescriber's fault?
I'm no expert on this topic, but I believe the people who are the experts can point to some specific rules and or things which the pharmaceutical companies have done that make our current situation far more likely.
Yeah, they push it to the doctors for the doctors to push it.
Their science behind their own product may not be as good as we think.
So there probably are a number of avenues for going after the pharmaceutical companies.
Now the most productive one I would think is that modern science now agrees I'm no expert, but I think you can fact check this.
I believe modern science is now on the side of the opioids might be good in certain situations, but for long-term pain management they're actually worse.
I'm just reading your comments.
Is Trump using that as a hammer to get cooperation on healthcare?
I think between now and November, you might see more coming from the administration on healthcare.
Or let me put it in more stark terms.
If you don't see the administration doing something meaningful on healthcare between now and the midterms, I would certainly criticize that.
Because there are things they can do that don't require wholesale changes that can at least nip around the edges.
They could focus on, for example, they might focus on technologies.
I think this would be the best play.
To focus on businesses and technologies and different systems That could get us to lower healthcare.
All you have to do is focus on it.
You don't have to raise our taxes.
You don't have to ask us to do anything.
Just put a little focus on those startups, on the ones that are working, on the ones that have something in the pipeline, and say, hey, if we did more of this...
We could really lower our costs.
Legalizing cannabis?
Yeah, I think that...
I wouldn't be surprised if you saw weed get legalized before November.
Would you? Would you be surprised if the administration got the federal government out of the weed business entirely before November?
Let me say this also as starkly as I can.
If they don't, That would feel stupid.
I don't know if there's any argument on the other side.
It's one of those few issues that the country is pretty much solidly on one side.
Now, you can still let the states do what they're going to do, but the question of whether the federal government should have an overlay of laws in addition to what the states have agreed to, very few people want that.
So to sit on that one past the midterms would just be a terrible strategy.
So if we don't see something coming out from the administration before the midterms on weed, that would just be a serious missed opportunity.
I hope we also see something on prison reform.
I hope we see something on urban renewal.
Those would be very impactful places to make a difference between now and midterm, especially.
So if you can handle opioids and weed and prison reform, do something about job training, that would be a heck of a strong way to go into the midterms.
USA must build the wall to keep the heroin out.
I'm not on the side that says the drug dealers will be much changed by walls.
A little bit.
Every little bit helps.
So if you could take down the drug flow by 10% or something by building a wall, that would certainly be useful.
But the drug dealers are a different economic model than the immigrants.
The immigrants might be stopped by a wall.
A drug dealer with billions of dollars of backing is gonna tunnel under the wall.
So you're not really stopping drug dealers with a wall, but you might slow them down a little bit, the ones who are lazy.
Why don't you like immigrants?
I love immigrants. I'm pro-immigrant.
But like everything, I'm also pro-water.
But if I have too much, I can drown.
Is James Woods a master persuader?
Not in the classic sense.
he's persuasive in his own way which immigrants immigrants I'm pro-immigrants.
That doesn't mean we don't want to stop bad influences from coming into the country, but there is no situation where, you know, our country can't really survive without immigration.
I think our just regular reproductive levels will go too low and the economy will be growing too fast.
So some level of immigration is absolutely essential.
Somebody said, am I pro undocumented immigrants?
I am pro undocumented immigrants.
Meaning I'm pro the people.
I'm pro people. But should they have the same rights as US citizens?
Should they stay or not?
We still have to have laws.
So you can be pro undocumented immigrant and still think that under some situations they can't stay in the country.
So you could be pro law And you can be pro-people at the same time.
You just have to find some balance where the empathy and the law are at their maximum point.
All right. Nobody wants illegal anything.
Nobody's in favor of illegal...
Well, I'm not in favor of illegal immigration, but I like the people.
They tend to be in favor of the people.
All right, Manifurred Verdict this afternoon.
I don't know. It's a pretty complicated case.
So we'll see.
I talked about the Manafort thing.
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