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April 14, 2019 - Real Coffe - Scott Adams
37:51
Episode 491 Scott Adams: Answering Your Questions Because no News Lately, Just Reruns
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Yes, my introduction song is a little bit different every time.
That's what keeps you coming.
You never know what you're gonna get here.
Hello, Jimmy, Andrew, and Nacho Jake and Sharona.
It's very good to see you this morning.
And I think it's time For a little thing we call the Simultaneous Sip.
It doesn't matter if you've got a glass or a cup or a mug.
It could be that you've got a flask, possibly a thermos, a tanker, a stein.
Whatever it is, raise your chalice, fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee, and join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the simultaneous sip.
That's extra good today.
Yeah, extra good. So I thought I'd take some questions today because, in a minute anyway, because there's no news.
Have you noticed that? I went to the news sites, CNN, Fox News, to look for some news, find out what's going on today.
There's no news.
There's no news.
How much better a president could you be Than to make the news go away.
Let me say that again, because I liked it so much when it came out of my mouth.
Given that we all understand that if it bleeds, it leads, or basically that bad news is what news is.
News is bad news.
We don't really have news about, oh, a school did pretty well, and their students got better grades, and tax...
Tax receipts are up.
We get a little bit of news out of that.
We'll publish the unemployment rates and the stock market is up.
But if it's the weekend, the economy is not doing anything on the weekend, there's no news.
How good a president do you have to be to make the news go away?
Think about that.
This is something no president's ever done before.
I don't think. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Name another president who was so good, he made the news go away.
There's no news.
It's amazing. So let me give you just a sample.
When I said there's no news, there are still things on the page.
So if I go to CNN's top page, let me do that because it was funny.
Let's see what CNN thinks.
It's so important that it should be in the top left of their page.
There's a Korean boy band called BTS. So the top headline is that they performed on Saturday Night Live and everybody went crazy.
But okay, that's an outlier, right?
It's the top item on CNN. But what's the second and third item?
Because you're sure that these are more about news, right?
It can't be about a boy band.
Here's the second one.
See BTS Mania take over Saturday Night Live.
What? It's two headlines in a row at the same point.
All right, but let's go down to the third one here.
We haven't seen boy band fandoms like this since the Beatles.
Okay, so it's the top three headlines on CNN are about a South Korean boy band.
But now we're going to get to the good stuff, right?
Here's number four. Inside the K-pop's multi-billion...
Okay. So the top four headlines on CNN are about this boy band, but we're going to get to the good stuff here.
Number five is the K-pop band has had two Billboard Music Awards...
Okay. The top five headlines on CNN are about this boy band, but...
Special case. When you get to the sixth one, it's going to be all about the K-pop lover's guide.
Okay. The top six headlines on CNN. I'm not making this up.
I swear I'm not making this up.
I'm reading the actual headlines.
The top six headlines are about a boy band from South Korea.
There has never been a better president of the United States.
That's all you have to look at.
When historians write the story of President Trump's first term, I hope that they just take a screen grab of this page and just say, this is all you frickin' need to know.
President Trump made the news go away.
He made the news go away.
Nobody's ever done that.
Are you kidding me?
He made the news go away.
Wow. All right, and then way down the page, over on the right, there's a little area about, a little bit about something else.
Kamala Harris released 15 years of her tax returns.
Do you remember all the people who were saying, we've got to see Kamala Harris' tax returns?
Nobody? Did anybody ask Kamala Harris for her tax returns?
Does anybody care that Kamala Harris showed us her tax returns?
No. She continues to be the most boring candidate who's ever run for president.
I don't think we've ever seen a more boring person.
And by the way, I'm not saying that just as a partisan.
She's really boring.
She doesn't know how to be interesting.
And I don't think, I don't believe that CNN can let her be president I think that they're still hedging their bets, right?
So they've still got the Pete Buttigieg situation going.
And by the way, if you don't know how to pronounce Pete Buttigieg, you can ask your assistant.
Alexa, how do you pronounce Pete Buttigieg?
Alexa, how do you pronounce Pete Buttigieg?
I pronounce that Pete Buttigieg, but I'm always working on politics.
So my A-L-E-X-A, I won't say it because that will trigger all of yours at home, actually knows the proper pronunciation of Buttigieg.
Now, I don't have to tell you, and I'm not saying that this is funny.
No, I'm not going to say it.
I want to say something that people will take out of context, so I'm not going to say it.
Let me say instead, I would love to have a gay president, you know, eventually.
It doesn't have to be Pete, Mayor Pete.
It doesn't have to be anybody in particular.
It doesn't have to be any particular year, but we should have one.
Gay, lesbian, let's get some LGBT action going there in the presidency.
Now, I wouldn't want to elect somebody because of that.
I wouldn't want that to be the reason to be president.
But I think the president needs to get past it, or the country needs to get past it.
Let's just get past it.
Anyway, so there's no news, so I'm going to take some questions.
So I see some people have signed up to...
Talk to me and let's take some questions.
April. April, you were being added to ask me a question.
April, April, are you there?
Good morning. You don't sound like April.
I don't. Do you have a question?
Um... Yeah, I just want to know, I've been binge-watching your two seasons of Dilbert, the series, and there are a lot of correlations with what you're talking about today, and that came out over ten years ago.
Do you have any thoughts on those two seasons?
Well, so, what's your first name?
April. April.
So April's talking about the first two seasons of the Dilbert animated TV show.
And the tough thing about animation, I'll tell you the main thing you need to know about that.
It takes so long from the time you've written the script to the time it actually shows on TV that most of your season is already done because it's a many months process.
So the first season of Dilbert was largely done Before we, the creators, the people who made it, saw one.
So we had to do a season before seeing how they look.
Now, that's a slight exaggeration.
We could see some toward the end of the season.
But you couldn't adjust what you were doing because you didn't get to see it.
So you didn't know how it was landing, how it was working.
By the second season, We were far better.
So if you look at the second season stuff, it's just way better than the first, which is typical.
The Simpsons had just horrendous, in terms of quality, the first season.
But because it was new and shocking, it caught on and they got money and then they became really, really good.
But if you look at the first season, it's just embarrassingly bad.
They don't even show up for reruns.
So Dilbert went through a similar thing, where the second season was really good.
But... By the time the second season rolled around, the network we were on, UPN, had made a strategic change.
And they decided to become primarily a channel for black viewers.
So they tried to get a lot of black-specific content with black actors and stuff.
And we no longer made sense in the lineup.
So the things that cause things to succeed or fail...
Are so often not entirely under your control.
In this case, we did actually everything right.
And had we been on another network, well, I suppose you could blame us for being on that network in the first place.
So that's on me.
So I'll take that as my mistake.
I did actually turn down an offer at Fox.
So before, I think it was about the same time the family guy was being considered.
And... I turned it down, but they had only offered something like six episodes.
And I thought, no, I don't want six episodes.
Because, like I said, you wouldn't even know if they were good before they had aired.
And UPN offered something closer to a full half season, so we took the longer offer.
It was one of the worst mistakes ever made.
But it didn't allow me not to be working in TV stuff.
Because working on TV stuff is awful.
It's just terrible work. Very unfun.
But thanks for the question. Well, can I start a crowdfunding campaign and get some seasons up and running on Netflix or Amazon?
Well, I mean, I would be flattered, I guess.
I'd be flattered if you did that, but it probably wouldn't work.
And I kind of don't want to do that kind of work.
If there were a great demand, I'm not sure I would be happy about it.
I just wouldn't want to do that work again.
But thank you. Thanks for talking to me.
I appreciate it. Let's get somebody else on here.
Let's talk to...
I'm just looking at all the names on here.
and I'm going to take Lucas.
Lucas Lucas is almost connecting I'm glad you like the Dilbert TV season By the way, Dilbert...
Hello, Lucas.
I can hear you. Do you have a question for me?
Yeah, I do have a question.
I was wondering, there is, as forms for persuasion, there's a technology called ET3. It's kind of like Elon Musk's version.
Elon Musk has that underground tunnel system, and I think it's sort of based on that.
That seems to never get any traction in the press.
I was wondering, is that like...
I've never heard of it.
Yeah, it's pretty interesting.
It's kind of like they take internet IP protocol and apply it to underground tunnels for transportation.
Wait, are you talking about persuasion or are you talking about technology?
What are you talking about? Well, I think it's pretty good technology.
I was just wondering how would people apply good ideas for technology for persuasion to get people interested in it.
Well, that question is a little bit too generic to get my teeth into because whether it was technology or anything else, the tools of persuasion would be largely identical.
You know, you're going to do visual things.
You're going to repeat. You're going to keep it simple.
You know, you're going to do things that have an emotional content.
So I don't have much to say on that.
So did you have another question?
Yeah, I do have another question.
I was thinking for your nuclear ideas.
Would you be able to get video game developers to add that into their video games so it kind of gets persuasion for children?
Interesting idea. Yeah, if you add things to video games...
You definitely would get the next generation, and that probably would be persuasive, just because of repetition, because it's visual, because you would be interacting with it.
Yeah, that would totally work.
It would be hard to organize these video game companies to do that, but hypothetically, if you could, yeah, that would be very, very powerful.
Similar to the fact that we make kids do the Pledge of Allegiance.
The Pledge of Allegiance is a brainwashing technique, but we do it for a reason which I would not criticize.
Alright, thank you for the question, Lucas.
Let's take another question.
Slow News Day. Let's go to...
I wanted to mix it up by gender, but it looks like...
Well, we've got Angela.
Let's see what Angela has to say.
Angela, are you there?
Hi. Do you have a question for me?
Yeah, I had a question.
I am a retired dance teacher and I did a lot of high school drill team.
I taught for 30 years.
I have a lot of thought about cognitive dissonance in talking with parents.
I would love to hear your thoughts about how you take those ideas and maybe help educators understand how to communicate better with parents.
Was there some specific thing?
Because again, that's a little too general, how to communicate with parents.
Okay, well, so here's my thing.
It's a communication thing in general.
We have a lot of trouble when we have objectives and the parents have different objectives.
I feel this is, you know, the same thing, you know, two movies on one screen.
I want you to give some thoughts about how we learn to communicate with people just a little bit better.
I know that's a big drawn-out topic, but have you ever thought about taking ideas that direction?
Yeah, let me give you the general answer, which I think is actually pretty specific in this case.
You can learn these skills of communication simply by consuming the books and the YouTube videos that talk about it.
And the more of those you do, the more you'll see, okay, these things overlap, these are the things that everybody recommends, etc., So I would read my book, Win Bigly.
That would probably be the most accessible way.
But you should also do a Google search on persuasion reading lists.
So you'll find my own list of books that are all in that genre.
Yes, you are at the top of my list on that for sure.
Also, How to Fail.
What's the correct title for How to Fail and Win?
How to Fail in Almost Everything and Still Win Big.
Yeah, so thank you. So your answer is really just, all that information exists, and it's in a very entertaining form.
These are books that you would enjoy reading.
They're written to be friendly.
So the persuasion reading list is all the stuff that, if you like this topic, you're going to like all of those books.
They're going to be really good. So thank you for the question.
Thank you. All right, bye.
Let's see who else we got here.
Let's go for...
I'm going to take a chance.
I'm going to let somebody come in who's got a cat as an icon picture.
That's always, always risky.
Caller, can you hear me?
I'm good. I do.
Join me for a simultaneous sip, if you would.
I can't see you, but I'm joining you right now.
Very good. Very good.
Thanks. Do you have a question?
Yes. How do you...
My brother is really brainwashed.
He believes all conservatives are racist.
He's deleted me off Facebook.
I currently live in Spain.
I'm a Canadian. And I don't know what to do.
How old is your brother?
He's 28, 29.
Find his most strongly held view and demolish it.
So find out what is the thing that he most holds onto as the reason that he thinks conservatives are bad.
There's a good chance it's the Charlottesville hoax.
You know about that, right?
Yes, of course. I've been listening for a while.
Right. So he probably believes that.
He might believe that the president did...
Insulting hand gestures about a guy with a bad arm, but you could show him the video that he does the same thing with Ted Cruz and other people.
So I would say, look, we don't want to be enemies forever, but can I make you a deal?
Just pick your one thing you most dislike about conservatives, not about the president, because you can find things that even conservatives would Racism.
That's just how he phrased it.
He phrased it like conservative values are inherently racist, so supporting conservatives, even though you're not a racist yourself, is inherent.
But that's why you have to pick.
So ask him to describe how different it would look If you were just talking to someone who was not politically correct and was interested in its country over other countries.
So here's the question you ask them.
Say, if you ran into somebody and you didn't know anything about them and one was a racist and one was just somebody who liked their country and was politically incorrect and didn't really mind how they talked about stuff, how could you tell them apart?
So I would use a question method Not a statement method.
If you offer him facts, he'll just reject them.
But if you get him to talk through his own feelings or his own thoughts with questions, you can lead him off a ledge.
So this is what I do.
Just keep asking questions sincerely.
Don't be a jerk about it.
Just say, well, how would you know the difference?
How could you tell the difference between somebody who just didn't care how they talked And somebody who, in their mind, was an actual racist.
What would be different?
They would look exactly the same to me.
So, those are the types of questions to ask, but that'll get you to start.
Well, I hope you have a good day.
Thanks, you too. Cheers.
Alright, we'll take another question.
Let's go with John Kirkpatrick.
John, John, John.
John, John, John. Are you there, John?
Can you hear me, John?
Hey, hi. Do you have a question for me?
I do. I'll preface by saying, you know how people often look like they're dogs?
Like uncanny?
Yes. I wonder would it be a strong persuasion tactic for Trump to start to qualify AOC with chihuahuas?
She looks unbelievably like chihuahuas, and she acts like a chihuahua.
She's yappy, a little bit, politely, so yappy.
Racist. Yeah, well, would it be bad?
Racist. Yeah, it would be bad.
It would be bad because chihuahua makes you think Mexican, which makes you think her ethnicity, which makes you think that the only reason you picked a chihuahua Yeah.
It's because of her ethnicity.
Now, if you pick some other random dog because that other random dog actually reminded you of her, that might be hilarious.
But because of the ethnic connection, no, that would be a bad, bad idea.
Okay. Just that she looks so much like a chihuahua.
And it's not a negative thing. I like chihuahuas.
They're fine. I like chihuahuas, too.
It's uncanny, uncanny how she looks like them.
Anyway, that's just a thought.
So, thank you very much.
Thank you. It's funny because I have this theory that the moment you see a person you know as the animal that they're closest to, the first time you have that thought, you can never see them the same way again.
There was somebody I knew who I knew for a long time and reminded me one day of a specific animal, and that's all I could see from that day on.
They were just always that animal.
All right, let's see if we can get to Mrs.
Swift on here. Mrs.
Swift, come in, come in.
Can you hear me? Hello?
Hello. Do you have a question for me?
Yes, I have a question.
My question is, what's the worst job you ever had, and what is the worst boss experience you ever had?
Worst job I ever had.
Well, I worked on a farm when I was a kid.
My uncle had a farm that was walking distance from where I lived.
So I used to literally shovel manure.
So I would go out with my manure boots on and just literally shovel crap.
And so that wasn't too much fun.
But pretty much every job My job on the farm was worse than every job anywhere else.
So 100% of all my bad jobs were on that same farm.
We did sapping where you had to carry these full buckets of sap through the snow that was sometimes up to your waist from tree to forest to climb up on a truck and put it in the back.
I had a job cleaning the bulk tank, B-U-L-K, bulk.
Where they stored the milk.
Every day they would empty the milk.
I think it was every day. And somebody had to go in and do chemicals and scrub it, so I'd be in that thing.
I also had a job where I had to stomp down the insulage.
So if you've ever seen a silo where they shoot in the grass that they've cut, it's wet, smelly grass, and it fills the silo.
Well, my job was...
What's that? I said I live next to a pasture, so I know the smell.
So you know. And my job was to walk back and forth inside the silo wearing a little rain outfit.
This was when I was a kid. As the insulage came over the top, so that as I tamped it down, I would go up to the top of the silo, and then they would let me out the top, and I would climb down the ladder.
But the dangerous part about this and the fact that you would never allow a kid to do this job today is that once it started, there was no window.
So nobody was checking on me to see if I had fallen down because if I had just tripped or passed out, I would actually, by the time they checked again, I would be at the bottom of an entire silo full of wet grass and very dead.
And the whole time I'd be walking around in there.
I'm probably 12, I guess.
Walking around in there in my rain.
So the whole time I'm thinking, don't fall asleep.
Don't pass out. You're going to be dead.
So I did a lot of jobs on the farm that literally would have killed me.
So those are most of my bad jobs.
In terms of my worst... Worst boss?
Because I'm famous and because most of my bosses, they would hear about it if I said I had a special worst boss.
I can't really think of any one boss who stood out.
When I make the bad qualities of the pointy-haired boss in the Dilbert comic, he's usually a composite of every bad thing.
I've heard of or seen or experienced.
So he's not really based on the person.
He's based on all of them.
You know, their worst qualities.
But thank you for the question.
Thank you. And let's see who else we got here.
Take Michael Kenter.
Michael, tell me when you can hear me.
Michael, Michael. Hey, Michael.
Good. You have a question?
Hey, are you still watching Star Trek Discovery?
Yes. So you're talking about the CBS version of the new one, right?
All right, follow-up question.
Do you have the plan that lets you see the ads, or do you skip the ads on their website?
When I'm watching it, I'm not seeing any ads.
You have the premium plan.
So here's my experience. Every single ad is a pharmaceutical that is like super crazy thing that you can't ever buy.
It's got all these high risks.
I'm just wondering, like, why are they advertising this stuff?
Well, the pharmaceutical companies have tons of money and they want to influence you to ask your doctor to give it to you.
So the whole play is that you say to your doctor, hey, I saw this on that commercial.
Give me some of that. But it's funny, I think the pharmaceutical commercials are ruining television news.
And I don't think the television news can do anything about it because they pay the most for the ads.
So they're definitely going to take their money because they pay a lot for ads and it's the easiest to get advertising on your network apparently.
But I can't watch regular TV news as it's in real time without being close enough to the source that I can click it off every time a commercial comes on.
Because if you listen to pharmaceutical ads over and over again, it will damage you.
I'm not joking about this.
You will have actual mental and physical damage to your body if you even allow the pharmaceutical ads to play continuously in the background.
If you just turned on the news and just left it there on all day and you subliminally were picking up all of the commercials about all the bad things that are happening, they will mention...
400 bad things that could happen to you in every commercial.
It's like, well, it could do this.
Your head could fall off. Your feet could turn green.
Over time, this does absolutely, scientifically, I don't know if there's any study in this, but you wouldn't need a study.
It's just so obviously true from what we know about people.
It's damaging. I don't know how the news networks are not driving away their own customers over time, But maybe they don't know what's happening.
What do you think about the practical view that maybe they're giving them ads to pay them not to run bad news coverage?
About pharmaceuticals.
Well, I don't know that the pharmaceutical companies think that explicitly.
So I don't think the advertisement people...
We're going to put our ads here so they won't say bad things about us.
But it is an outcome.
So a definite outcome of all the pharmaceutical advertising is that you should not expect the TV news organizations to say anything too bad about those pharmaceutical companies, even if it's a different product than the one that's advertised in the show.
So yeah, I would say that's...
That's a real risk to the health of the public, is that you could not reasonably expect the news to treat the pharmaceutical companies in any objective fashion.
That would not be a reasonable expectation.
All right. Thank you for the question.
A lot of people have children in the background today, but I guess it's weekends, so that makes sense.
Let's talk to... Jacob, Jacob, Jacob, Jacob, come on in.
Jacob, can you hear me?
I know you're asking some guests, so I'll say I'm a welder and industrial mechanic by trade, actually, so there's a lot of engineers and mechanically inclined people on here, I noticed.
There are. Yeah, I was wondering recently about healthcare.
We keep hearing about universal healthcare or Medicare for all, but I looked into it just briefly, and really, you only need Medicare for 14%.
There's only about 14% of Americans who don't have health insurance, and it just seems like, why can't you mark it as we need Medicare for these 14%?
And that seems like something that even conservatives can get behind.
Yeah, you know, I I brought up this point on a periscope before, but it's worth mentioning.
I think when I said it, I thought the people without health insurance was closer to 18%, but I would be surprised if that hasn't dropped to the number you said, just because the economy is good.
So let's say 14% of people don't have health care.
I'm trying to reconcile these two things.
If you turn on Fox News, and you say, what would it cost to have universal health care?
You'll hear $32 trillion or a trillion dollars a year, but it's all trillions and trillions.
And I say to myself, suppose you said to me, Scott, you already have health care, but we're going to tax you.
You have to pay 14% more on your health care.
I probably wouldn't notice it.
Now, I'm rich, so it's a different situation than most of you, but your health care is probably going to go up in 14%.
Anyway, that's probably a normal year.
It goes up 14%.
It's hard for me to reconcile that only 14% need this extra coverage.
At the same time, it's a multi-trillion dollar situation because it feels like We could just find the pocket change somehow in the economy.
So I can't reconcile those two numbers, that only 14% need it, but yet it's so expensive it can't be afforded.
So it's a good question, and I believe that it's only my ignorance of the topic that makes this hard to understand.
Now, I've suggested, just to float the possibility, that what if we said, in addition to regular Medicare, you let some people buy in.
Just to get cheaper healthcare.
So it might be just a little bit under the market but cheaper.
Would that cause the regular healthcare industry to compete harder to bring down costs?
It probably would because then they would have a legitimate competitor who is always under their cost.
So what would it cost to offer that people could buy it but they would buy it for cheap And that would drive down the costs until you could absorb everybody's healthcare with the existing economy.
So the general idea of making healthcare more competitive by making the government just one of the competing players may be something to look at.
I don't know if that's a good idea or not, but I'll put it in the mix.
All right. Thank you for the question.
Take care. All right.
Let's take another one. I'm going to take Forrest.
Okay. Forrest, I like your first name, Forrest.
Forrest, are you there? I'm good.
Do you have a question for me?
It's about Donald Trump and the overall market economy.
As recently, you've obviously heard of the Fed and DJT really kind of bashing him, as well as Larry Kudlow coming out saying they should cut rates.
I was just curious, would you be in favor of political parties basically abolishing the ability to buy stock with the information that they have, that they're exposed to essentially?
Are you saying that people in the political process have too much insider information because they are the government and therefore they could trade on that information?
Yeah, I mean, essentially.
I don't think they have a lot of information, but just setting that as a standard for more controls within the system itself.
My guess is, I'm watching the comments go by, I'm not a lawyer, but I would be surprised if that's not already illegal.
So I'm going to have to plead ignorance on this.
It should be illegal if it's not, and I would imagine that Many forms of that would be illegal.
So for example, if the president knew he was going to do a certain policy and he told his advisors, could they tell their brother to buy some stock that would be influenced by that?
I'm seeing other people saying it's not addressed and it's not illegal.
So there's some disagreement in the comments.
It's a tough one because even if it were illegal, it would be pretty hard to stop Somebody says it was illegal.
Somebody say it's super gray.
So there's probably some...
Yeah, there's like...
There's a version of like, for example, I believe like Nancy Pelosi's husband like bought like 3,000 shares of Facebook one day before for one of those hearings.
something for one of those hearings, something like stricter regulations around just politicians in general kind of restricting the market activity.
It is that whenever you have a situation where it's possible to do something illegal and if you did, you would make a lot of money and there are a lot of people in that same situation, you know, there are millions of people who have that possibility that you always have fraud.
If there's a lot of money, it's easy to do.
Most people won't get caught.
You're always going to have fraud.
Thanks for taking my call.
Alright, looks like we're losing sound for some of you, but we're losing audience anyway, and I'm going to say goodbye for now.
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