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Dec. 13, 2018 - Real Coffe - Scott Adams
25:54
Episode 335 Scott Adams: Paying for the Wall, The Cohen Nothing and White Supremacists
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Joanne, always the first.
I'd be disappointed if you're not the first person to sign on.
Russell, you're in here fast.
Virus Joe, JP, good to see you.
Jessie, Donna, Russ, come on in here.
I think you're in here quickly because...
Hey, Sweden. Hey, upstate New York.
Because I know, you know, it's time for a coffee with Scott Adams and the Simultaneous Sip.
Grab your cup, your mug, your vessel, your stein, your glass, your container, fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee. And join me for the Simultaneous Sip.
And now your day can start.
Because all the important things have been done.
And you did it well, I must say.
That was some of your best sipping.
I've seen you sip before.
You've been good before.
But this time, that was some simultaneous sip.
You nailed it! Nailed it!
Some of you have seen a story, a hilarious story, about a Russian advanced robot That was shown off at some show.
And this robot was so good, it looked like it could only have a human being inside, which it turns out it did.
Now, there's two parts to this story.
The first way you're probably seeing it tweeted around is as if the person in the robot suit was trying to fool the audience into thinking it was a real robot.
But it turns out that's fake news.
Because the robot suit was a well-known robot suit, and the actor was just doing a shtick.
And the news reported it as if the audience couldn't tell it was a person in a robot suit.
Now, it's possible that some of them couldn't tell, but the intention of it was not to present a real robot.
The intention, apparently, was not to present it as a real robot.
It was just for fun.
And I tweeted that before I got corrected as well.
So, be careful of your fake news.
That one was delicious because even when I first saw it, I have to say that my antennae were up a little bit in the sense that it didn't look like it could be real.
But I wanted it to be real because it would be hilarious.
So I think I was influenced by how much I wanted it to be real.
But don't tweet that one around.
That's fake news. Alright, our president has once again entertained us with the following tweet this morning.
So this is President Trump.
I often stated, quote, one way or the other Mexico is going to pay for the wall.
This has never changed.
Our new deal with Mexico and Canada.
The USMCA is so much better than the old, very costly and anti-USA NAFTA deal that just by the money we save, Mexico is paying for the wall.
Now, if you're one of the anti-Trumpers who doesn't get That he does this intentionally and that this is theater, it's for entertainment, it's to control the news cycle.
It's as much for fun, literally for fun, as it is to make a point.
It is a point that people will pick up and they'll turn it into an argument and it will confuse the argument and everything else.
But if you don't appreciate how hilarious this is, that he would even do this to just control the conversation.
And the funny thing about it is, people know he's doing it.
They know he's doing it just to control the conversation.
But they can't not talk about it.
If you're CNN, you kind of have to cover it.
Now we'll see if they can resist.
But the beauty of this is that it's going to cause the news to argue about whether it is fair to say that his excellent trade deal is also paying for the wall, or it's just an excellent trade deal.
Which is it? Did I just do a great trade deal that's better than NAFTA? Or did I do a great trade deal that's better than NAFTA and pay for the wall?
Now, of course, nobody's going to, you know, I don't even think your supporters think that that qualifies as paying for the wall.
But it is hilarious.
And it's not nothing.
A better trade deal is a better trade deal.
So this is why the President's supporters enjoy the show so much.
If you didn't get that he's yanking your chain, Imagine how you would process this.
What would you do? You'd say, my God, he's insane.
He must think his supporters are so stupid.
They enjoy this. No.
He knows how theater works.
All right. Have you seen the stories about North Korea?
Apparently, North Korea, they're tearing down border stuff, and they're literally building a railroad connection to connect North and South.
There are actually people whose jobs are unification.
So in South Korea, there's some kind of title like the Minister of Reunification, or Unification, not Reunification.
I think they call it Unification.
How big is that?
Now, I know what people are saying.
The anti-Trumpers are saying, oh, he got duped again.
But they say it like this.
Oh, he got duped again because we saw that satellite photo of that one place that we don't know exactly what's going on, but they moved some dirt, so they must be building some missiles.
He's been duped. And seen.
Now, my point of view is it's entirely possible that Kim Jong-un is building new missile facilities.
It's entirely possible because we're still right in the middle of negotiating.
What he isn't doing is testing any missiles or threatening us at the same time that he's connecting North and South Korea.
It seems to me that the odds of Kim Jong-un wanting to lob a nuke in our direction has now dropped to roughly zero.
So we went from seriously worrying that he might nuke California, I mean actually worrying about that, and to no risk at all.
It's one of the biggest stories in the world But because it's all going well, and it's the president, just not reported.
And the poor people in Guam thought they were going to get nuked at any minute.
So that's huge. Alright, so let me get to the fun part of my presentation today.
Now those of you who have been following me for a while, you know I talk about the two movies on one screen and how people are irrational all the time.
And there's no better situation to see that than in the one I'm going to talk about.
There was an article in which Gavin McGinnis, ex-leader of the Proud Boys, made a statement that ABC News reported and people said, my God, how can you let him even say that?
And what he said was that there were very few white supremacists, that it's sort of a rare thing.
And that was reported as if, well it was reported uncritically, meaning that his statement was allowed to stand without any fact checking.
And I tweeted that I'd like some fact checking on that too, because I don't know the answer to the question.
How many white supremacists are there?
Now, so whoever said Trump called Africa a shithole, LOL, would block you for being too stupid to be part of this conversation.
There, you're gone. Now whenever you talk about the topic of racism, what happens is the trolls come in, in large numbers, and they don't really hear what you're saying because they've already decided you're either a good guy or a bad guy.
And if they decide you're a bad guy, it doesn't matter what else you say.
So for the last day I've been blocking people for misinterpreting what I say and then calling me a racist because of their own misinterpretation of what I said.
So I'm going to say as clearly as possible with the whiteboard in a moment what my point is and then I'll have something to show people and tweet to.
So here's what I was talking about.
Let's see if I can get the light off of this.
This is a list of racists I hate.
I put that label up there so when people take this out of context it'll be harder for them.
It seems to me that there are many flavors of racists and you could probably make lots more flavors.
And there's gonna be a point to this, so wait for it.
If you've already jumped ahead and said, my God, Scott, why are you trying to shade who's a little bit of a racist?
Why are you trying to make this distinction, Scott?
Scott, wait, I need this.
Scott, why are you trying to defend white supremacists?
No, nothing like that is gonna happen here.
These are the racists I hate.
I'm not defending them.
I'm hating them.
So let's start with that.
I don't like the racists.
I don't defend them. But I'm going to make a point that I think is very optimistic if you'd like there to be less racism.
And the point goes like this.
In a general sense, and you could have lots of other categories here, but in a general sense, some racists are worse than others.
At the very top, I would say are the people who are the supremacists, the white supremacists, the people who say that all white people are better than all other people.
I would say that's the top of the worst, the worst of the worst.
Then you go down the line and there are people who just hate people who are different.
They don't really need a reason.
They're just haters. And bigots, you know, I suppose these overlap a little bit.
These are not clean distinctions.
Then you go down a little bit further and there are people who just prefer Hanging out with people who are like them.
And this could be people of any color, right?
Most groups like hanging around with people who are like them.
So it's sort of bigoted that you prefer your own people.
But it's not nearly as bad as this one.
But it's still on the list.
And then there's the soft bigotry.
There was a study recently.
I'm not sure if this study will hold up to replication.
But the study is that the study said that liberals Talk down to black people, meaning that they use a lower vocabulary when they talk to black people.
And that's sort of one of the things you put in this soft bigotry, the bigotry of low expectations sort of thing.
So this would be the lowest.
Somebody says, this is stupid.
Hey, idiot, you haven't heard the point yet.
How would you like me to get to the point?
And then, then you could say something like, this is stupid.
This is stupid. Alright, here's my point.
So if you've already judged it, you're a fucking idiot.
Okay? Because I just told you I haven't gotten to a point yet.
If I say my point, and then you disagree with it, please give me a reason.
I would like to hear it.
And it goes like this.
I have a hypothesis that when I was a kid, and let's say, you know, all before that through slavery, etc.
So from the time I was a child all the way back through slavery, I think this was fairly common.
Meaning that it was not unusual for white racists to think that all white people were superior.
To all other people.
It was like an ordinary thing that people thought.
I asked the question in my tweet today to do a fact check on how many of these still exist.
Because I said that I've never met one.
As an adult, I certainly met them as a child, but that's 50 years ago.
In my adult life, I'm not aware of anybody who holds this view.
Now, I said I'd like to fact check to find out how many there are, because wouldn't you like to know if it turns out there are lots of people who hold that view?
I'd like to know that, right?
Now somebody's saying it's anecdotal.
Don't be an idiot.
I said two things.
I said one, I haven't seen any.
That's anecdotal. And then I said, I would like to have some fact checking because my anecdotal doesn't mean anything.
Now, If what you're saying is, don't be anecdotal, you just agreed with me.
So those of you who are saying anecdotal information is not useful, just know that you're agreeing with what I'm saying.
So if you want to disagree, disagree with something else.
Because that's the part we agree with.
So my question is, how many people think that How many people are left in the country who are racists who also believe that white people are superior to all the other races?
My guess is that it's vanishingly small.
And here's the point that I'm making.
If this is the worst, and I think you could make the argument that this is the worst of the worst, this is sort of the maximum level of racist hatred, I think that the top level is lessened.
And if we're moving in this direction, where we move from the ultimate level of racism, in my lifetime, to one level down, you still have all this to fix.
And nobody, you know, I'm not saying this is okay.
Remember, these are racists I hate.
I'm saying that these are not in the same category as this, and that that would indicate That would indicate progress.
So the point of this is to say that however bad we used to be, we're almost certainly not that bad anymore, meaning that racism has probably declined steadily every year that I've been alive, and maybe every year since, you know, roughly slavery.
Yes, racism is a continuum, and my point is that the worst The worst category probably has already reduced to trivial.
Now, the dumb people who are hearing this are saying something like, Scott, are you saying that racism doesn't exist?
No. Opposite.
Scott, are you saying there's no such thing as a white supremacist because you personally never met one?
No, I'm not saying that.
I'm saying I'd like a fact check on it.
I would love to know how many there are, because if there are way too many, we need to work on that.
If they're already gone, let's celebrate that small victory and work on the stuff that needs to be fixed.
Alright, so the...
The larger point of all this is that when the anti-Republicans, etc., cry white supremacy, they probably should be saying racism is what they're complaining about.
Because I just think the supremacy thing is such probably, and again, I'm open to the fact check, So I'm not using my anecdote to draw a conclusion.
I'm asking the question.
It's a fair question, and I think we'd all like to know.
How many are there? David Duke, etc., are dinosaurs.
Own your racism, Scott.
So because I say I hate racists and I actively work against them on a regular basis, somebody says, my God, if you don't think that there are lots of white supremacists, you must be a racist.
Um... I'm just looking at your comments.
Where does Hawk Newsome fall on the list?
Well, I would have to be a mind reader to know that.
Well, you're much kinder to me on here than on Twitter.
I can never tell on Twitter whether the actual professional trolls are coming after me or whether it's just a coincidence.
But sometimes the...
How come I can't delete these guys?
I'm just looking at your comments here.
Wouldn't we have to read minds to know whether somebody was blah, blah, blah?
Well, we can ask them.
My general preference is that we don't assume we know other people's thoughts.
And that the only way you can tell somebody's feelings is to ask them, really, or to look at their actions.
Sometimes the actions can have the effect of being racist, but you kind of have to ask.
Was America founded in white supremacy?
He'd have to ask a historian of that.
Probably in a sense, yes.
But not, maybe not intentionally, but in effect.
Now, oh, God, I'm too slow getting rid of the...
Now, I have to wonder, what is in the head of the people who are coming after me for talking against racism and then calling me a racist?
I actually don't know what kind of squirrels are running around in their head.
And I'm curious about it.
Whether they're just trolls or do they really think that they're saying something?
I actually don't understand.
A historian says, no, we were not founded on white supremacy principles.
I think it was just sort of there.
Alright, well...
Do I watch Black-ish?
Somebody asked me. That's actually a great show.
If you haven't watched that, it's an ABC sitcom.
It's called Blackish. There's really good writing.
Some of the best writing you'll see on a comedy.
There's only one...
Alright, I don't have much else to say today.
Oh, I was going to talk about Cohen, right?
So I saw a headline on CNN that the president is, quote, seething about the Cohen situation.
He's seething. How does anybody know how seething he is?
It's pure mind reading.
I saw also on CNN this morning an opinion article in which somebody smart said, the worst thing about this Cohen situation, and the keywords are the worst things, this is the worst things about it.
So this is an anti-Trumper.
Who's looked at all the Cohen situation and he says this is the worst thing about it that the president hired Cohen who did all these bad things and I thought to myself okay if that's the worst thing there's no real there's no real risk here I've heard a number of other people I think Mike Cernovich was saying recently that Something to the effect that it's obvious that Trump is in a lot of trouble.
And I know it feels that way.
It feels like Trump's in a lot of trouble because there are so many legal things floating around.
But I've got a feeling he has enough lawyers and so far none of them have turned into anything.
It feels like just the fabric of being the president is that there are going to be lots of investigations and lots of lawyers and lots of accusations and stuff like that.
Geraldo also thinks there's a high degree of jeopardy.
Well, a high degree of jeopardy, is that the same as saying there's a high chance that something bad will happen?
There's a high amount of danger, but I think there's a low risk that it will take him down.
There's a high risk that it will be problematic and annoying and causing trouble, but I don't think it's going to take him down.
Somebody says, dude, flip your screen, it's sideways.
No, yours is.
My screen is correct orientation.
If it's looking wrong on your device, it is your device.
Yeah, the Southern District of New York, and I guess they've got a new attorney general in New York who is promising to investigate all things Trump.
Clean your room equals fix your rotation lock.
Yeah, kind of. You would like to ask me a question, go ahead.
Somebody says. Oh, California wants to tax text messages.
You know, I have mixed feelings about that.
Maybe if California starts taxing text messages, then people will send fewer of them.
But I think what will happen is people will just move to WhatsApp and other apps.
So it seems like a bad idea on the surface, but I don't know too much about it.
What's my favorite episode of the Twilight Zone?
the one where Burgess Meredith loses his glasses.
Solar panel regulations.
I don't know about that. There's some kind of California solar panel regulation thing going on.
Alright. I don't think I have much else to say.
I'm going to do some work.
New fentanyl article?
I'll look for that.
Alright, a lot of big issues today, so I'm going to end here.
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