Nov. 4, 2018 - Real Coffe - Scott Adams
23:00
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| Hey, everybody. | |
| Get in here. | |
| Hey, Gigi. | |
| Hey, Andrew. | |
| You're up early this morning. | |
| Come on in here. Because you know what time it is. | |
| It's time for coffee with Scott Adams. | |
| It's sort of a slow news day, so we'll be going to the whiteboard to sum it all up. | |
| And now, with 1,000 viewers, that's your signal to grab your mug, your cup, your stein, your beverage, your flask. | |
| Bring it to your mouth and enjoy that sweet, sweet beverage. | |
| I like coffee. And now, join me for this simultaneous sip. | |
| Somebody just said they got their first sale ever based on my tip. | |
| Well, congratulations! I don't know what it was you sold, but I'm going to say it was good. | |
| So, I've been thinking a lot about the way things are getting framed in this midterm, and I want to share with you on my whiteboard A few of my observations. | |
| It's a slow news day, so we're going to do something exciting on our own. | |
| The first observation I had is that if you were to look at the people on the left and the people on the right, if you go further left or further right, you end up with Nazis. | |
| In other words, if you go to the people on the right of the political divide and you keep going, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, you end up with literal neo-Nazis. | |
| On the left, and again, this is the impression of people looking at it, if you go left or left or left or you end up with George Soros, Who many conservatives call a Nazi, but I'm pretty sure that's based on fake news. | |
| So I'm not saying that. | |
| I'm just saying that that's the way people are seeing it. | |
| Now, what's interesting about this is that everything above the line is unprofitable for the news industry. | |
| So there's no such thing as news about an ordinary person doing an ordinary thing. | |
| So all of the normal people are not really part of the news. | |
| All of the news is down in Nazi land, where both sides are accusing each other of being crazy. | |
| So that's one framing that I thought was interesting, that the news drives us both below the line where everybody's a Nazi in this. | |
| Here are some other framings I've seen for the left or the right. | |
| Take immigration, for example. | |
| Health care is another one. You'll see this a lot. | |
| The typical framing on the left is kindness. | |
| We have to be nice to people, nice to immigrants, and we have to be kind to people who need health care and help. | |
| And then the Republicans are more about the incentives. | |
| If you give people something for nothing, that might be good today, but tomorrow everything will break down because you're giving stuff away for free. | |
| Nobody will work. | |
| Nobody will do the things they need to do. | |
| There's also the goal versus systems framing. | |
| The left has, I would call, goals. | |
| Make it a fair world. | |
| Get to income equality. | |
| Get healthcare. Get education. | |
| They're goals. They're very specific things you want. | |
| People on the right are far more likely to look at the system. | |
| And they will say something like, well, if you've got a good court system, and you've got capitalism, and you've got a constitution, that's as far as we can go. | |
| And then all the good stuff flows from that. | |
| So the right is mostly about following a system that makes sense. | |
| And the left is more about the end state. | |
| You know, we want to have this good end state. | |
| The left is more about fairness. | |
| Hey, let's get our income equality. | |
| Let's let everybody into the country who has a good reason. | |
| And the right is more about abundance. | |
| If you make enough stuff, there'll be enough for everybody. | |
| The left would call that trickle-down, but the idea is that capitalism creates more stuff, so there's more stuff for everybody. | |
| Then, of course, there's the more surface level, where there's more of a lean towards socialism on the left in various amounts, right? | |
| Some would just like a little bit of socialism like Europe. | |
| Some want a lot of socialism. | |
| But there's more socialism on the left. | |
| There's more emphasis on capitalism on the right. | |
| But I have another frame that I want to run by you. | |
| And the frame is, who gets to make your decisions? | |
| I feel like that's important. | |
| Who gets to make your decisions? | |
| Specifically, let's take a look at immigration. | |
| If we allow the immigrants who are in the big caravans To come into the country, we would first of all give them incentive to bring more caravans. | |
| So the first thing we should all agree on is that when we're talking about the caravan that's coming, nobody cares about the caravan that's coming. | |
| Nobody on the left cares. | |
| Nobody on the right cares about the caravan. | |
| Nobody cares. Everybody cares about what would happen if you treated them kindly versus treated them More harshly. | |
| Everybody cares about what happens after the caravan, but everybody's an idiot and we all talk like we care about this caravan. | |
| Nobody on the right cares about a few hundred people. | |
| Nobody. Nobody on the left cares about a few hundred people. | |
| We only care about what precedent it causes, you know, what do the incentives do, what happens after that. | |
| Somebody's saying they care. | |
| Yes, you care about a few hundred people, but you care this much. | |
| There are 300 million people in the country. | |
| Letting in a few hundred, you don't care about. | |
| You really don't. You're not even going to notice. | |
| You'll never meet one. But if it caused more people to join caravans, you would certainly care about what that caused. | |
| But here's the point. | |
| If the caravan is successful... | |
| It will effectively rewrite our immigration laws. | |
| Because we don't have a law right now that says you can come in if you come in in a big caravan. | |
| There's no law like that. | |
| So if they get away with it, and they're successful, whether they're bending some rules or whatever they're doing, They will have effectively rewritten our laws just by the de facto truth on the ground. | |
| And the question is, who gets to decide your laws? | |
| Do you get to decide them? | |
| Or do people who are not part of your country, people you've never met, strangers, do they get to decide? | |
| And to me, that seems like the strongest frame here. | |
| Because I don't think people... | |
| On the right are talking about kindness or not being kind. | |
| Nobody's really on the kindness bandwagon there. | |
| They're more about what works. | |
| And does it work to have a situation where other people decide how you spend your money? | |
| Well, we have that in taxation and the people on the right don't love it. | |
| But here's another thing that I would like to suggest about the left versus right. | |
| And I think I did a reasonable job of convincing you that this stuff is more with the right and this stuff is more, I'm sorry, more with the left and more with the right. | |
| But here's another way to look at this. | |
| Everything here seems age related. | |
| Have you noticed that? That the stuff on the left is the stuff you like when you're young. | |
| And you know what I say about young voters? | |
| They're the dumb ones. | |
| The young voters are the ones who are more idealistic. | |
| We were all young. We were probably all more idealistic when we were younger. | |
| I want to say this again. | |
| I'm not insulting the young, because I was once young, and I knew a lot less. | |
| When I was young, I didn't know nearly as much as I know now. | |
| If you look at this framing, kindness versus incentives, Kindness is sort of a child's frame. | |
| Incentives tell you what's going to happen in the long run, and you can get more kindness if you make sure you got your incentives right. | |
| But young people don't really think that way. | |
| They think in terms of what am I going to get right away. | |
| Goals versus system. | |
| Again, this is the difference between youth and experience. | |
| Experience will design a system that works, so it works for everybody as best you can in the long run. | |
| Somebody young will just say, I want candy now. | |
| Why can't I have candy right now? | |
| Fairness versus abundance. | |
| Everybody would like a fairer world, but people who are more experienced know that the only way you're going to get there is to make a lot of stuff. | |
| So you're going to have to have enough stuff to share or it's not going to happen. | |
| Socialism versus capitalism really just encapsulates this. | |
| And then who makes your decisions? | |
| Strangers or you? | |
| I think that's the only framing that gets us to the same place. | |
| Is there anybody on either the left or the right who would say, I prefer strangers to make my decisions? | |
| So do a fact check on me on that. | |
| Is there anybody on the left or the right that would prefer someone else, people they don't even know, literally strangers from another country, to make their decisions about how their money is spent? | |
| Is there anybody who prefers that? | |
| I don't think so. | |
| I think the people on the left and the right would agree that having complete strangers who don't even share your interests, they're from another country, make your decisions would be a bad idea. | |
| So I've never seen anybody frame it like this, and I just wanted to trot that out and see what it looks like. | |
| Some people do want others to decide. | |
| Yeah, socialism It does assume that the government is going to make decisions for everybody. | |
| But there's a big difference between having your government make your decision, and it's a government who if you've elected them properly, you have made the decision about who's in the government. | |
| So you have control over your government by voting, but you don't have any control over people who live in other countries making your decisions for you. | |
| So the point is, is the most powerful way to look at immigration, for example, Not whether it's kind or not kind, not the economics, not the crime, not the system, not the goal, but I think the strongest frame is who gets to make decisions about your money. | |
| Should it be you and the government you've elected, even if you didn't vote for them, at least you're part of the system that elected them, or people who don't even live in the country, complete strangers, who would like to have some of what you have. | |
| So that's the question for today. | |
| Now let's look at the election. | |
| It seems to me the news is getting crazy. | |
| The sides are being drawn. | |
| And I'm wondering if the weather will be the deciding factor. | |
| I haven't seen any kind of a weather forecast, but I'm not aware of any big storms coming. | |
| I don't think there are any hurricanes on the way. | |
| Doesn't look like there's a big rainstorm or a big snowstorm coming. | |
| November's actually probably a pretty good month for having elections for that reason. | |
| And East Coast is going to get rain. | |
| Okay. I'm not sure rain will be as big a difference, but it should make some. | |
| So, I would love to know if there is a turnout difference based on I don't know that there would be. | |
| It might be a difference between old people and young people. | |
| Will old people go out and vote if it's raining? | |
| Will young people go out and vote if it's raining? | |
| Let me put it this way. | |
| How many young people don't have an umbrella? | |
| I'm making myself laugh because I just realized that one of the differences between young people and old people might be whether or not they have an umbrella. | |
| So the weather might make a difference. | |
| People are fired up. | |
| Yeah, people are fired up. | |
| But the difference between the vote outcomes was going to be 1% and 2%. | |
| So a little bit of weather, a little bit of stories going into the midterms are going to make a big difference. | |
| We wear hoodies and jackets. | |
| Well, if it works for you. | |
| So, you're seeing a lot of American flags, I think, already, on Twitter at least. | |
| And the more American flags you see, the more likely people will vote Republican. | |
| So you could count the number of American flags, and that should tell you a 1% or 2% flip as well. | |
| Umbrella is an old people thing, somebody says. | |
| I think you're right. | |
| That's why the umbrella factor might be decisive, because there is a difference between how people treat the weather. | |
| Have I ever talked to RFK about spasmodic dysphonia? | |
| No, not directly. But I have... | |
| I'm sure he knows the options, so there's nothing to talk about. | |
| Yes, somebody's saying this caravan is not the problem, it's what happens after it. | |
| That is correct. That's what I said. | |
| Should you make it a cover photo? | |
| Well, do whatever you feel like doing, but the more people see flags, the better. | |
| I don't think I would want to associate the flag with you. | |
| In other words, make sure the flag is not representing you. | |
| make sure the flag is representing the country alright I'm just looking at your comments Does anybody have any questions? | |
| Because Today is sort of a low news day, and we might have another low news day. | |
| When I say low news, there's plenty of it, but it's all the boring kind. | |
| It's all the stuff that says, this candidate and this candidate on this unreliable poll are still within the margin of error. | |
| I don't care. Um... | |
| Somebody's watching a Warriors game. | |
| I don't go to big stadiums, but thanks. | |
| Why do I say hundreds, not thousands? | |
| Don't know what you're talking about. Oh, hundreds, because the number of people who would actually get into the country from the ever-shrinking caravan might decrease from thousands to hundreds by the time all the filters have been exhausted. | |
| Have I decided on a book title? | |
| I have. It's going to be LoserThink. | |
| Trump, what about shooting the rock throwers? | |
| Yeah, so Trump said... | |
| That if the caravan people throw rocks at our military, they are authorized to use force and treat the rocks like a gun. | |
| Because if you get hit in the face with a rock, it's not that different than being shot. | |
| It's different than being shot in the face, but getting hit in the face with a rock is probably not that different than getting shot in the arm. | |
| So here's my take on that. | |
| The whole point of having an overwhelming force is to convince the other side that you're going to use that force. | |
| So it does make sense for the president to say publicly that they will use force if force is used against them. | |
| That is the correct way to frame it because it reduces the chance of force. | |
| It tells people that they're not there to play. | |
| Now, what are the directions that the actual military people are getting? | |
| Probably different from whatever the president is saying in public. | |
| I assume that the rules of engagement for the military are super, super restricted. | |
| Meaning that if somebody didn't pull out a gun, they probably wouldn't fire. | |
| I think they would return to gunfire, but I don't think anything short of that, they're probably not going to treat it like a military action. | |
| Now, I don't know that. | |
| But it would be the smart way to play it. | |
| The smart way to play it would be for the president to be as hardline as possible so that people understand that the military is not there to play games, but that the military has their own instructions privately to stand down except when they absolutely but that the military has their own instructions privately to stand down | |
| Yeah, he did say to treat it as if they had been shot, not necessarily to shoot back That's true. So that's a good clarification. | |
| He did not say to shoo back. | |
| He said to treat it as if deadly force had been coming in their direction. | |
| I think that's a good correction. | |
| I'm glad you helped me clarify that. | |
| So that also goes to my point that the military is going to have pretty restrictive instructions. | |
| Who gets fired by Trump after the midterms? | |
| I think there may be a few. | |
| I saw a story on CNN, I think, that whichever cabinet secretary, agriculture, I forget, he used the racially charged phrase cotton-picking, and when he was talking about the race in Florida, Which has an African-American man running for governor, Gillum. | |
| And apparently this older cabinet member said something like, you know, it's so cotton-picking important. | |
| Now, of course, a lot of folks say, you can't say cotton-picking when you're talking about anything that's racially charged. | |
| And that's one of those situations that is very much like monkeying around and what was the other one? | |
| Articulate. There are a whole bunch of phrases that I'm pretty sure... | |
| A large segment of the world doesn't register as having racial charge. | |
| When I was a kid, the phrase cotton-picking was just the most common phrase, and I don't remember ever thinking it had anything to do with race. | |
| So if you grew up in a certain time, it was just a common saying that I don't think anybody associated with race, at least in the white community, I would not be surprised if that's where it came from. | |
| But I think you've got to use the 48-hour rule. | |
| And if somebody says, hey, that phrase was racially offensive, then the person who said it should have 48 hours to say, it is? | |
| I've been hearing that all my life. | |
| I didn't even know it was racially offensive. | |
| I take it back. So I personally... | |
| Would not use that phrase, cotton-picking. | |
| But only because I've recently been informed that it has a racial sort of secondary meaning. | |
| Or primary. | |
| I don't know. Maybe it's secondary or primary. | |
| But I didn't know that. | |
| In fact, I learned that... | |
| I think I learned that this year. | |
| Because I grew up in the North, and when I thought of picking cotton, I don't think I automatically associated that with any race. | |
| I just thought it was something that had to be picked. | |
| Foghorn Leghorn said cotton-picking all the time. | |
| Yeah, which doesn't mean it wasn't racial. | |
| Those were the days... | |
| Yeah. Those were the days when everything was more racial. | |
| Alright. I'm going to sign off because I don't have much to say. |
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