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Dec. 31, 2018 - Real Coffe - Scott Adams
47:10
Episode 356 Scott Adams: China Trade, Louis C.K., Walls and Climate Debate
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You know, I think I look wiser when I wear a sweater.
I think I've reached that age where if you don't wear a sweater, you don't look serious.
So this is my serious sweater.
We'll be talking about serious stuff, but not until we enjoy the simultaneous sip.
Yes, you're here because you like having coffee with Scott Adams.
That's me. And so I invite you now to fill your mug, your cup, your glass, your stein, your tankard, your chalice, if you will.
Fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee.
And join me for the simultaneous sip.
Oh, that's good stuff.
Yes, this is my Mr.
Rogers sweater. This would not be the first time I have been compared to Mr.
Rogers. Let us talk about some funny things in the news.
So you may have noticed that the news is getting a little bit slow because everybody's on vacation.
But every now and then it gives us a little gem.
And today was a gem.
So you might know that famous comedian Louis C.K. got in trouble not too long ago for some Me Too stuff.
So apparently he was...
Asking first, which he says is important, but apparently is not as important as he wanted it to be.
He would ask first before exposing himself to various people he worked with.
So he got MeToo'd for that.
And then it turns out that there was a tape of him a few years ago, joking around.
And it's sort of important that you know that one of the people he was with was Chris Rock.
Who is obviously a friend.
And that in that context, in joking around, he used the N-word.
So now he's got a Me Too and he's on tape using the N-word.
Now the N-word one, of course, was a private conversation with people who didn't care.
But once you're on tape, you're on tape and you're in trouble.
And then today in the news, it turns he...
It turns out that Louis C.K. has hit the trifecta.
He's also on tape, Louis C.K. is, for mocking the survivors of Parkland. for mocking the survivors of Parkland.
So now he's got the trifecta.
In one year, Louis C.K. has been metooed and got caught on tape.
On tape!
Using the N-word.
And then caught on tape mocking the survivors of Parkland.
And I swear...
After I saw that he hit the third item on the trifecta, I just decided to buy something he's made.
Like, I don't know why yet.
If he's got a book, I'll buy his book.
Or I'll watch him on a special or something.
So here's the thing.
If you do one terrible thing, well, you're that person who did that terrible thing.
If you do two terrible things, wow, you're twice as bad.
You're the person who didn't do just one terrible thing.
You did two terrible things.
But by the time you hit that third terrible thing, I start rooting for you again.
He's gone so far, so far into the bad behavior that I started liking him again.
Anyway, I don't know if you'll ever see anybody else who gets caught with these three horrible behaviors all in the same year.
The thing that makes comedians funny is their flaws.
You would agree with that, right?
Your funniest comedians are the ones who are most broken.
So the more broken they are, the more we enjoy it because they make fun of their own flaws and we're laughing with them, etc.
Louis C.K. is one broken guy.
Yeah, not just because of these stories, but I'm sure he's got some other problems.
But I don't know.
He's so broken, I'm starting to like him again.
Anyway, so that's enough about that.
As you know, I tweeted around some of the best arguments, pro and con, for climate change.
And I'm getting lots of interesting...
I'll tell you some of the least rational feedback.
The least rational feedback, and I'm watching people debate the topic in my Twitter stream, is the people who say, well, let me show you my link to a top expert explaining climate science to you,
you idiot. You know, if you would just look at this one clip Of a top expert who really knows what they're doing with real science and real data, if you watch this, you will be convinced that climate science is exactly what the scientists tell you it is.
What's wrong with that?
Does that sound reasonable?
On the surface, it does, right?
On the surface, you would say to yourself, well, if you're trying to understand a topic, you would want to watch a well-made video of somebody explaining it really clearly, who is an expert.
That's exactly what you'd want, right?
But it's a trick.
And it's a trick that almost all of the country has fallen for.
And the trick goes like this.
Watching one side of an argument doesn't tell you anything.
Nothing. It is exactly as good as nothing.
If you hear the other side of the argument and they can't respond, To all the points in the first argument, well, then you have something.
So you've seen the point, you've seen the counterpoint, and you've judged that the critic is not as strong as the original argument.
Well, then you've got an opinion that's based on something rational.
But if you say to yourself, I don't want to listen to these skeptics because everything I need is coming from the scientists, you're not part of the rational discussion.
You can't be right and you can't be wrong.
You have not participated.
You didn't win the game and you didn't lose the game.
You never played.
Now, I understand the argument that says you don't necessarily want to listen to people who are, you know, you don't want to treat seriously somebody who thinks that chemtrails are real.
You don't want to treat seriously somebody who thinks that Q is a deep state insider with special knowledge.
There are some things you don't want to even bother treating as if they might be true.
So I get that.
But climate science is sort of a special case, because if the people who are the most concerned about it are right, the only way that they can save themselves and the entire planet is by convincing the people who don't believe it.
And that's different than any other kind of argument.
Every other argument is important.
You know, it's important, depending on the argument.
You know, there are lots of important arguments.
But according to the climate, let's call them the alarmists.
My cats make a lot of noise here.
But according to the people who are most worried about the climate, it's an extinction event.
You know, it's maybe not extinction, but it could be calamitous.
Now, in that case, if you have a calamitous situation, you really, really need to convince the other side.
So if the only thing you're doing is showing your side and saying, I'm done.
I'm done. You have destroyed the earth.
Hold on. Let me say that again.
If you believe that climate science...
The majority climate science opinion is correct, that the Earth is warming, that humans are causing it, and that the rate of increase is unprecedented because of humans, and that we're on a pace to destroy the planet.
If you believe those things, and you only show your argument without addressing the critics, you're part of the problem.
You are part of destroying the Earth.
Because you have not even entered the game.
If all you've watched is one side of the argument and you say, I'm not even going to talk to the other people, it doesn't matter, you've missed the most important thing you need to do to save the world, which is convince the other side.
How would you ever convince the other side by not engaging with their criticisms?
How are you helping?
If you think climate science is real, you have to address the critic's specific points.
You need to get it on the internet so that everybody who is a critic, whenever they say blah blah blah criticism, somebody else will say, here's the specific argument against your criticism.
Here's the link that shows the critic is wrong and why.
Now you might also need to include why the critic says your link is not as good as it should be, so it might be a little back and forth there.
But if you have not addressed the critics, you're not in the game.
And if you're not in the game, you do not care about climate science.
So stop pretending you care while doing exactly what you wouldn't do if you cared.
If you're acting in every way, Like climate science isn't important, don't expect us to take it as important.
If you yourself won't treat it as an important topic and you believe it, don't expect the people who are still questioning the science or questioning the models or whatever they're questioning, don't expect them to believe it because they have not been presented with a capable argument.
And if you're not willing to present a capable argument, Do you believe it?
I make the same argument about religion.
I said in one of my books long ago that saying you believe in God and saying you believe in heaven should cause you to act a certain way here on earth.
And if you're not acting that certain way, do you really believe in God?
If you believe in God and an eternity in heaven or hell, if you really, really, like literally believe those things are true, shouldn't you be acting like it?
Because if you say you believe them, but you act exactly the opposite, which is you're selfish and you're not helping the poor and you're not giving of your time, you're not giving away all your extra money, you're not inviting people to live with you, if you're not doing those things, You don't believe in the afterlife because the afterlife is forever.
It's forever.
You would take an 80-year sacrifice to improve forever, you know, forever with God versus forever in hell?
That's an easy choice.
If you believe those things are real, you would act like it.
So the people who So I think there's a similarity here between climate believers and what I would call the fake religious believers.
A fake religious believer is someone who goes through the motions, they call themselves a believer, they read the book, they go to church, whatever.
But if you look at their life, they don't live a life They don't live a life that would suggest they believe.
Same with climate science.
If you're telling me it's important and it's the biggest thing in the world, but you won't do the most basic thing you would do if you believed it to be true, which is convince the people who don't believe, and to do that you have to address their specific criticisms.
Without that, don't tell me you care.
Don't tell me you care about the planet, because you're acting like you don't.
Alright. So the worst argument is, go look at this one video that shows one side of the argument.
If you're saying that, you're not even in the game.
You're not even playing.
So get in the game, will you?
You might need to save the world here.
By the way, let me tell you my...
My current thinking on climate change.
So I've been digging in a little bit deeper into the criticisms and trying to understand as much as a non-scientist can.
And I would say that I'm totally on the fence.
Meaning that I wouldn't be surprised If, you know, someday we know the truth certain about climate, I wouldn't be surprised if it went either way.
I wouldn't be surprised if it's completely true and we're in a lot of trouble.
It wouldn't surprise me a bit.
But it also wouldn't surprise me if the data is fudged and a little warming is good for the world.
That wouldn't surprise me either.
I can't tell.
So if you look at me as you're, in some ways, for this argument, I'm kind of a standard because I haven't taken a side.
Now, I have taken a side that long-term models are always useless, but that's not so much about climate science.
That's a statement about complicated long-term prediction models.
They're always bad.
But still, there might be a problem.
Independent of whether the models are good or bad, we might have a real problem.
How would I know unless you show me both sides and nobody's willing to do it?
So don't act like you care about the...
That's my new mantra for you.
Next time you get in an argument with somebody who really cares about climate change, Ask them why they won't engage in the only thing you would do if you really believed it, which is convince the other people, which is to address their argument.
If you don't address it, you're not in the game.
You don't really care. All right.
Too much about that.
The president has tweeted today.
Let me read the president's tweet so you can see it in all its magic and glory.
All right. Um...
So he tweeted about the border wall, as he does on a regular basis, and here's what he said.
President Chemp, this morning, I believe, so there was a report that said that the President The White House had long ago abandoned the idea of an all concrete wall.
So that was the reporting.
So he's responding to the report that allegedly the White House had long ago abandoned the idea of a solid concrete wall.
So the president says, an all concrete wall was, in all capitals, never abandoned, as has been reported by the media.
Some areas will be all concrete, but the experts at Border Patrol prefer a wall that is see-through, thereby making it possible to see what is happening on both sides.
Makes sense to me.
So here you see the President saying that the experts should decide What the wall is made of and how you do border security.
And he's saying, makes sense to me.
In other words, the president is saying, let the experts decide what is concrete, what is not concrete, how to design it, how to not.
Now, I had said, I've been telling you for days now, that the first politician who says politicians should not decide, let the engineers decide.
Is the winner? Is President Trump the winner?
Almost, but not.
He just missed.
It's a swing and a miss.
And here's why.
The experts, in this case, are the experts who work the border, the Border Patrol people themselves.
The people who work Border Patrol are not engineers.
They're the people who present the specs.
So they're part of putting together the specifications that you hand to the engineer.
So the specifications in this case, as described by the president, is obviously preventing people from coming in.
That's the first specification.
So it should do the best job it can at discouraging people from trying to get over it.
But also it should be see-through.
And then obviously there's a requirement for you want the best price and something that's practical and survives the weather and all that stuff.
So the experts are not the engineers.
The experts are the ones who tell you what specifications they want should be see-through, should stop people, should be a certain cost.
Those are the specifications.
He needs to take it one level further Or somebody does.
The first politician who says this wins.
Now, there's no point in winning yet because you can't win yet.
Until Nancy Pelosi is sworn in, until Nancy Pelosi can negotiate from a position of power, she's not going to negotiate.
So there's nothing to win.
Until the government changes, and then they can negotiate.
But, once that happens, the first politician who says, politicians should not be deciding, let the engineers decide, they win.
Now, many of you are asking, hey, isn't he really talking about the engineers?
Because he's talking about experts?
Experts could include engineers, but it's still not specific enough.
Because, and here's the problem, everyone thinks they're an expert.
The problem with saying, let the experts decide, is that we all think we're experts.
Don't you? Don't you think you could go down to that border and look at it and say, hmm, yep, I'll put a little wall here, this part over here, probably some drones, we can leave this part to last.
We all think we're experts.
So saying that you'll give it to the expert, it's a movement in the right direction, but it's not persuasive yet.
However, if you said politicians should not make these decisions, let's let the engineers do it, how many of you think you're engineers?
We all kind of think we're experts, but we don't all think we're engineers.
It's more persuasive.
And as soon as you say, let the people whose job it is do the job, you're in strong territory.
Now, what's the strongest argument that the anti-Trumpers make all the time about the president?
The strongest argument they make about him, about, let's say, climate change, is that he's not listening to the people who know climate change.
So the biggest problem that they have with the president and climate change is that he's not listening to the experts, the scientists.
It would be impossible for the anti-Trumpers to argue that we should not listen to the engineers because they've painted themselves in that corner where they are the party who listens to the experts.
That's their brand. So all Trump has to do, President Trump...
By the way, I always like saying President Trump.
I don't like saying Trump unless I've already said President Trump in a body of writing or something.
As respect to the office if not the person and Somebody's gonna say engineers and then it's over.
All right Gordon Chang was on I think he was with talking to Maria Bonnaroma and he said that reports are that China Their rate of growth may have slowed down to 2% or less, and possibly their economy is contracting.
Think about that.
China's economy is now below the politically stable level.
It's below politically stable.
That's my own take on it.
I'm the one who's saying politically stable.
But if they don't have a certain level of growth, which they're clearly below right now, their system doesn't stay together.
They need a certain level of growth just to keep society cohesive, and they're below it.
Now let me ask you this question.
If you're working for a big company, let's say you're working for a Fortune 500 company, And your employee comes in to you and the employee says, hey, CEO, you're the CEO. I just promoted you.
And your employee comes in and says, I've changed suppliers for some stuff that we normally need.
And we used to use this supplier, but I've changed a new supplier and I've got a better deal.
What happens to that employee?
Are they fired for changing suppliers?
Or are they promoted for making a change that's advantageous because they got a better deal?
Promoted. Now let me give you the same situation.
You're the CEO of a Fortune 500 company and your employee comes in and says, Hey boss, I hate to tell you this, but I just personally lost our biggest customer.
The one that makes everything work.
I lost our biggest customer.
What happens to that employee?
Fired. Right.
Now, when the United States, who is a gigantic customer of China, more customer than supplier, has a trade war with China, which way is it going to go?
There's only one way it can go.
As long as President Trump Holds tight.
And as long as you and I, who are the CEOs in this case, so in my analogy, which is of course a crude analogy, you and I are the CEOs and President Trump is our employee.
If he changes suppliers, meaning that the United States starts buying our stuff from, you know, let's say Vietnam, are you going to fire him?
Probably not. But if you're the citizens of China, and President Xi says, we just lost our biggest customer, the United States.
So from now on, our economy is going to be contracting, and there's no end in sight.
Even though he's the president for life, or whatever his new title is, does he get to keep his job?
If you lose your biggest customer, No matter how secure your job is, do you get to keep it?
You don't even get to keep that job in China.
So there is no way we lose this as long as we stay with it.
We are on an unlosable path while China is on an unwinnable path, should they not negotiate with us.
But As that situation would suggest, both sides are negotiating and probably heading toward something that will be better.
We'll see. Gordon Chang also notes that North Korea's Kim continues to work on their weapons, albeit not testing them publicly, but continuing to refine stuff and make their weapons better.
He describes that as somewhat humiliating for the president and sort of more of the usual.
And he might be right.
The way I look at it is that we've already gotten past the point where they might nuke us.
So the value of their nukes went from high to negative.
So remember, a year ago, North Korea's nuclear weapons were a plus for North Korea.
Their nuclear weapons were nothing but an asset, an advantage.
It gave them some power that they wouldn't have had without it.
Today, and let's call it 2019 because we're almost there.
In 2019, are North Korea's nuclear weapons an asset or a liability?
Well, they're sort of in transition, but I would say that they're already far more a liability than an advantage.
Because as North and South Korea get friendlier and they gradually open up their borders and as they become friends, as Kim and President Trump get friendlier, as they have more summits, etc., the value of North Korea's nuclear weapons goes from extremely valuable,
like the difference between surviving and not surviving, to already a mixed bag of To every day that goes by, they become worthless.
Because who are they going to nuke?
Why would they nuke the United States?
We're working with them.
And the only thing those nukes are doing is preventing them from having a robust trade.
That's it. That's all they do.
They just prevent us from having good trade with North Korea.
So those nukes are no longer a strategic advantage.
They're an enormous strategic disadvantage.
And it just takes a little while for that to sink in.
So North Korea, like China, has only one path.
All we have to do is continue to keep some trade restrictions on and wait.
Because time is on our side.
Their asset is becoming less and less valuable every day.
But our situation is unchanged.
Our economy is fine, you know, for the most part.
Our military is strong.
We don't have any pressing reason to hurry up.
So the longer North Korea waits for a deal, The less valuable will be their main bargaining chip.
Does it really matter if they've developed it a little more?
If they have a little bit more refined nuclear or whatever?
Probably not. Alright.
I'm seeing people argue about the wall.
And there's one opinion that you see a lot on CNN and from the anti-Trumpers that is so dumb that my head just goes every time I hear it.
Now, I'm going to make a distinction between things which are just a different opinion, things which people have different priorities, different philosophies.
So there are lots of people, there are lots of reasons that people can disagree with me.
Maybe they have different information.
Maybe they're better informed.
So there are tons of legitimate reasons to disagree with me.
And I don't call those people dumb just for disagreeing.
But there are some just really specific things that are nothing but dumb.
And here it is.
Walls don't work.
Walls don't work is not an opinion Walls don't work is not because somebody has better or different information than you do.
There's nothing like that happening here.
Walls don't work is just dumb.
And here's why.
Anything that causes friction for humans reduces how much you do it.
Adding taxes to cigarettes Causes some people to quit cigarettes.
Not all of them. Building a wall keeps some people out.
Not all of them.
It was our goal to keep out every single person under all conditions, period.
No. That was never the objective.
The objective is to reduce the attractiveness of people coming here illegally.
To make it harder.
To add friction. Does a wall add friction?
Yes. Yes.
Not everybody can climb over a wall.
Not everybody will take the extra time and the chance.
Not everybody will have the equipment.
It might take a while to get over a wall.
If a caravan came up to a wall and decided to breach the wall, well, they could do it, right?
Because it's a caravan.
They have lots of resources. So they could get the ropes, the ladders, but it would take a long time.
Best case scenario, it would still take a while for a whole caravan to get over a wall.
And what would we do in the meantime?
We'd have people there and we would just stop it.
So the wall is not supposed to stop every drug.
In fact, it won't stop any drugs because you could just, you know, hand them through the fence.
So those of you on the pro-wall side, if you're arguing that walls will stop drugs, Maybe you should stop arguing that because you're hurting your own credibility.
I don't see any scenario where a wall is going to make much difference to drugs because you can literally just throw them over the top.
You just have to have somebody on the other side.
And how hard is that? And drones will be flying over, etc.
But if you're talking about people, if you're talking about people, walls are pretty good.
Even if you had a tunnel.
Let's say the coyotes dig a tunnel under your wall.
Even the bad guys aren't going to let everybody in the tunnel.
If somebody tunnels under your wall, and that tunnel works well for, let's say, delivering drugs, are they also going to use it to deliver people?
Probably not because drugs are way more profitable and you don't want to have a lot of witnesses who know where your tunnel is.
So even though somebody can build a tunnel, the people who build the tunnels are going to want as few people as possible using them because it's the criminals who build the tunnels.
They want to control it.
So they're either going to charge you an enormous amount to use their tunnel or they're just going to use it for drugs and they don't want any other witnesses who have seen their tunnel.
So I think I would be less worried about tunnels than just the fact that, oh, anybody can build a tunnel.
It's hard to build a tunnel.
And if you do build one, you're going to protect it and you're going to make sure not many people use it.
Because otherwise you have witnesses.
Now, if you have a tunnel and you also have drones, You're probably going to catch people coming in and out of the tunnel openings too.
So you've got some control there.
So I think you need drones and walls.
But when people say walls don't work, the answer should not be yes they do.
That's bad persuasion.
So let me give you an example.
I'll bring in Dale.
Dale the anti-Trumper says, Scott, ho ho ho ho ho.
I use sarcasm instead of thinking, so let me explain to you about walls.
Walls? They don't work.
You just get a ladder.
All you need is a ladder.
Have you heard of tunnels, Scott?
Have you ever heard the word tunnel?
T-U-N-N-E-L? L-L? I don't know how many L's are in tunnel.
But have you heard of tunnels?
How about ladders? How about ropes?
How about climbing?
Scott, have you ever heard of climbing?
And scene.
If your response to Dale is walls work, you're not doing a good job.
Because Dale will just say, oh, will they work?
Here's a picture of somebody crawling over a wall.
Look here. Proof. Proof that walls don't work.
Here's a person climbing over a wall.
Here's a picture of a fence, Scott.
Here's a picture of a fence.
Here's a picture of a ladder.
One plus one equals two.
Ladder, wall, defeats it.
So do not say, walls work.
Say instead, that whenever you add friction, people change behavior.
Can you argue with that?
If you raise taxes, people change behavior.
If you threaten people with a penalty, people change behavior.
Not all of them.
We're not building a fence to stop every drug, because it doesn't really work for that.
And we're not building a fence to stop every person.
You're making it harder.
Friction always changes behavior.
Say that and you've won the debate.
I would like to invite people to use my app, the Interface by OneHub app.
If you are a climate scientist and you're willing to be on one of these periscopes, and you can defend specifically against the critics' attacks and specifically against the critics' attacks that the temperature data has been manipulated in the past.
So if you can address that specifically and some of the critics' complaints, I would like to talk to you.
And you can advertise your availability on the interface by WenHub app.
It's free. Just sign up.
You can even put a price on it for your time.
And I will call you and pay that price if you're a real expert.
And we'll learn something about it.
So I would also like an expert on the Middle East.
So if you really know what's happening over there, you can describe what's happening from Yemen to Saudi Arabia to Hezbollah.
If you're conversant with all those things, I would love to have you on the app as an expert.
And here's the thing, I'm trying to establish That my startup's app, Interface by WinHub, should be a source for experts whenever there's a news story that requires those sources.
So, for example, if there's a, let's say, a plane goes down and the news always wants aviation experts.
And they usually want aviation experts who are experts on that exact model of aircraft.
So wouldn't it be great if you see a news story, you happen to be one of those experts, you just sign up on the interface by WenHub app, and then anybody in the media knows that they can pay you for your time, or you can set it to zero.
So if you want to do it for free, that's fine.
And you can set any price and say, anybody in the world, NBC, ABC, CNN, if you want to talk to me, dial me up on the app.
If you want to put me on TV so I'm not on the app, we'll negotiate that.
You're an expert radiologist.
first All right. Trump, what about Trump lying about Oh yeah, let's talk about that.
So the story is that President Trump told some members of the military that he was getting them big raises, when in fact that is not true.
They're getting raises, but not 10% or whatever he said.
And I think there was one other thing related to that, but I think there were two statements that the fact checkers say are not true.
This is different from normal fact-checking problems because of what his job is, you know, the head of the military, and he was talking to the military.
So we put a different level of appropriateness on how the military is treated and probably should.
And so people are saying, is that acceptable?
Well, here's the thing.
How you feel about that Depends on mind reading.
Somebody says it was a blatant lie with capital letters, L-I-E, blatant lie.
How do you know that?
How do you know what the president was thinking when he said it?
Because that's what matters, right?
If he was just mistaken, If he had heard this number 10%, but it was a multi-year number, it wasn't a one-year number, and he just conflated them, maybe he hadn't even thought about talking about that topic until he was live on stage, and he just thought, I think that sounds right, and he just threw it out.
Would you feel the same as if he said to himself, they'll never know the difference, I'll just tell them they get a big raise?
Well, that would be stupid and evil and bad.
But you would have to assume that you know what he's thinking in order to have an opinion on this.
If you're thinking he got his facts wrong, I would say, no, that's too bad.
You know, it would have been better if he hadn't got his facts wrong.
And it probably is worse because he was talking to the military.
So I wouldn't give him a pass.
You know, I wouldn't give him a free pass for getting some facts wrong.
In front of the military on an issue that the military cares about.
So I'm not going to say that's good.
I'm not going to defend that.
But you have to decide.
Did he say to himself, I think I'll lie about this and see what happens?
Or did he say to himself, I think I got this right or it's close enough.
I'll just go with this. It's close enough.
They feel very different.
And by the way, have you seen anybody in the media say it the way I just said it?
Have you seen anybody treat it as though the important part is what his internal thought process was?
That's the distinction that makes you decide if you hate it or like it or how you feel about it.
Alright. Somebody said that on Fox News.
At least he admitted it and corrected himself, right?
Actually, I don't know. Has he corrected himself?
That's the sort of story that I frankly don't care about too much because I agree with the people who say that was a mistake and that we wish it hadn't happened.
But is it important?
One of the biggest differences between, I would say, Democrats and Republicans is the difference in what's important.
People on the left would say that how you talk about people, you know, the words you use, whether or not you've offended them, is important.
People on the right would say, yeah, I get that offending people is not ideal, but it's also not terribly important.
Now, things are never black and white, so it depends on the situation.
There are plenty of times when using an offensive word is important.
It does matter who you're insulting and why, but generally there's a difference in importance.
I'm trying to think If there's some general overarching difference between people on the left and the right, and of course there are millions of differences, but when I'm looking for the one that sort of describes it best, it comes down to this.
And see if this rings true to you.
The left cares about fairness.
So fairness.
Fairness in race, gender, outcomes, just fairness.
The right puts a higher priority on a process and more process and a system.
And the process of the system is based around always incentive.
So the ultimate boiling down of left versus right Is that the right cares about creating systems that recognize human flaws.
In other words, they build incentives into their system for people to do the right thing.
On the left, people want fairness, but the problem is, fairness is a completely subjective standard.
So the left has as a guiding principle fairness that cannot work.
In other words, their philosophy is sort of dead on arrival, because if you follow fairness to its logical extreme, which is where it has to head, because if fairness is your goal, you don't stop until you have it, and you can never have it, because we'll all disagree what is fair.
Is it fair that I'm rich, but I'm also short?
Well, that's not fair.
If you and I are deciding who has the better outcome, do we measure how much money I have or how happy you are?
What if you're happier than me, but I have more money than you?
Do I owe you money or should you work harder and give up some of your happiness to help me get happy?
Fairness is a completely unusable standard.
But on the right, they're sort of incentive-based systems.
We've got a constitution, that's a system.
We've got a democracy or a republic, that's a system.
So if you've got a system and you've built the right incentives into it, you've got something that's going to work out, and you can't really get fairness per se.
Fairness is sort of out of reach.
The best you can do is incent people for the right kind of behavior that lifts the average person.
So it feels like that's the main difference between the left and the right.
Fairness is the standard, completely unworkable on the left.
Even though we all recognize that it feels like a good thing to have, as a system, it completely fails because we all disagree about what it means.
But a good system works.
I would say the Constitution, even if you don't like some parts of it.
You'd have to admit it's a good system.
It's lasted for hundreds of years, and it's made the United States the strongest, among other things, the strongest nation in the world.
So that's a good system.
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