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May 14, 2019 - Real Coffe - Scott Adams
01:02:01
Episode 529 Scott Adams: Declining Sex, Trade War, Cognitive Blindness, Sleepy Joe, HOAXES
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Time Text
Hey everybody, come on in here.
Plain old Mike, Joanne.
That's actually his name, plain old Mike.
It's not an insult. Hey everybody, Robert Andrews, come on in here.
Good to see all of you.
And I'm pretty sure that many of you are prepared for the simultaneous sip because it's coming at you.
It's coming at you hard.
If you've got a cup or a mug or a glass, if you've got a steiner, a chalice, or a thermos, some kind of a flask, a container of any kind, fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee. And join me now for the simultaneous sip.
Good stuff. Well, the big news, the big news of the day, I'm sure you've all seen it by now, the wiener is out.
That's right. Anthony Weiner is free.
Free the Weiner, I say.
That's the entire story.
Of course, Fox News carries it on their website as like the top story.
There's nothing funnier than switching back and forth between Fox and CNN and watching what things each of them prioritize.
And watching Fox News prioritize Anthony Weiner is just always good for a laugh, because you know it's just candy for their side.
There's no story there. I mean, could we care any less about Anthony Weiner getting out of jail?
Is there anything that affects us less than that?
Nothing. It's the least important story in the world.
But it's funny. All right, let's talk about other things.
So I spent much of yesterday's playing a whack-a-mole with the so-called fine people hoax, the hoax that the president called, you know, Nazis in Charlottesville fine people, when in fact the actual transcript shows he said exactly the opposite of that.
Now, when I show people that they have been hoaxed, what is the most common thing that people say?
They say, Scott, stop gaslighting me.
I heard it with my own ears.
I saw him say it live with my own eyes.
You can't fool me, because I saw it, I heard it.
Here's the thing.
We no longer live in an age where Where seeing it and hearing it mean anything.
Do you know what I saw and what I heard?
I saw that Covington kid being a real jerk and maybe a racist to that poor Native American guy.
That's what I saw.
Saw it with my own eyes.
Heard it with my own ears.
Oh, it didn't happen.
There was no reality that corresponds to what I saw with my own eyes.
There was no reality that corresponded with what I thought I heard with my own ears.
We just don't live in that world anymore.
And the primary source of the fine people hoax is that the first part of what the President said is always shown, in which he says something that does sound ambiguous.
But knowing that it could sound ambiguous, the president, without any prompting, and during that same set of statements, said, unambiguously, that I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and white nationalists.
They should be condemned totally.
So when that part is cut out, people imagine, and they have a false memory, of seeing something that didn't happen, same as the Covington kids.
Now, When I tell you that there are people who see things that didn't happen and hear things that didn't happen, do you say to yourself, well, that's something that happens to other people.
Thank God I'm smart because I see things that really happened.
I hear things that really happened.
Is that what you think?
Do you think this is sort of a weird thing that happens to other people?
Because that's the problem. If you think it's only happening to other people, you have another level of awareness, which you probably will soon discover, which is that it happens to everyone, right?
Now, sometimes it happens to you.
Sometimes, undoubtedly, it happens to me.
In fact, the Covington Kids case is a case where it did happen to me.
And temporarily, I lived in a reality that didn't exist.
I thought something happened.
I thought I saw it. It just didn't happen.
But here are a couple that I submit to you.
If you think that AOC really believes that the world will end in 12 years because of climate change, well, you could think that because of the larger context or the sum of all the things she said, perhaps.
But if you think you heard it with your own ears and you saw it with your own eyes, think again.
Because I saw it and I heard it at the same time you did, and it didn't look like that to me.
To me, it looked like she was using hyperbole to say we better get on this aggressively and soon in the next 10 years, etc., or else we're in big trouble, which is consistent with what scientists say.
Likewise, with that alleged law that would allow a doctor to execute a baby after birth, The baby being one that would otherwise survive.
If you believe you heard the governor of Virginia say that with your own ears, and you saw it with your own eyes, I just want to tell you I saw it and I heard it too.
Except that's not what I saw and what I heard.
What I saw and heard is somebody talking in the context, obviously, of hospice, meaning a baby that wasn't going to survive under any conditions.
How long do you let it survive when you know it won't survive?
That was the context I saw.
Now, many people say, but that's not what he said.
That's not what I heard.
And you're right. That's not exactly what he said.
But the context was still obvious.
And by now, other people would have confirmed if anybody actually believed that it would be okay to execute a baby.
So here's all I would ask of you.
I know that some of you just got triggered because you said, oh, those other examples you gave me, I know those other people are mistaken that they heard or saw something.
But this one, this one's true.
Why is it true? Because I heard it and I saw it.
It doesn't mean anything anymore.
Stuff you hear With your own ears, even when you hear it correctly, the actual words, even if you hear every word correctly and you see it with your own eyes, it doesn't mean anything anymore.
We don't live in a world...
We don't live in a world...
Somebody made me laugh, sorry.
I was just reading a comment.
Somebody made me laugh. We don't live in a world where you can believe your eyes or believe your ears.
You have to know the whole context or you don't have a chance of understanding what's going on.
So somebody made me laugh by saying that I was gaslighting, and they were kidding when they said it.
Now, I like to teach you when to recognize cognitive dissonance.
The cleanest, best example of a tell for cognitive dissonance, this is triggered by somebody being exposed to a fact or a truth, That is so opposite of everything they believe to be true that they can't incorporate the new information.
They have to hallucinate to create a new reality in which they can still be right all along, even when the facts have clearly proven that they were wrong all along.
And what people will do, instead of saying, I will check your fact, oh, I guess your fact is right, Now that I have this new fact, I will, you know, change my opinion.
That never happens. Instead, they imagine a new reality.
And the most common one I'm seeing now is this gaslighting thing.
So it's actually a word that's been invented.
And I don't...
I'm not kidding about this.
This will sound like an exaggeration.
But it seems like a word...
Which, of course, did exist to have a real meaning that came from a movie, etc.
But it's been repurposed, that word, gaslighting, to be a word that's an escape valve for people who have their worldview just annihilated.
Now, you don't often see people have their worldview annihilated.
Do you know why that is?
Why is it that people rarely have their worldview annihilated?
It's because there are very few people who know how to do it.
Most people are just arguing in the usual political way, I say this, you say this, and nothing happens.
It's just two people who are throwing facts at each other and fake news at each other and then they go away.
Mostly, people are never presented with an argument or a set of facts that actually just dismantles everything they believed.
It's very rare. But, I do it fairly regularly.
I dismantle people's entire worldview right in front of them in real time all the time.
It's because I'm a trained hypnotist.
Not everybody can do it.
In fact, it's pretty rare.
But you've watched me do it, and you're watching me do it publicly with this fine people hoax.
Now, when people have their worldview annihilated, and you actually show them the transcript, then the transcript is unambiguous.
If you look at it, there's nothing else to say.
You can tell your entire worldview was just wrong.
So what do people say?
They say I'm gaslighting.
They actually hallucinate a word, a world, in which I'm making up an alternate reality, For the intention of convincing them that they have a mental problem.
So they've convinced themselves that they can stop looking at the facts even when the facts are unambiguous.
Here's the transcript. You can listen to the actual video and see that it's accurate.
That's as objective as you can get.
You can't get more objective than here's the transcript, here's the video.
Listen to it yourself.
So people will retreat from the fact case when they see that there's no way to get out of it there.
The facts are so unambiguous.
And they'll start saying, well, you're just trying to gaslight us, which is just a change of subject in an entirely new imagined world in which I'm using my powers to make people think they're crazy.
Now, why would I be doing that?
I don't know. I guess they imagine I'd have some motive for making people artificially feel they're insane.
I don't know what that motive would be.
I would have to be a pretty evil person to have that kind of motive.
So, when you see people say gaslighting, it means that they have completely caved on the facts of this situation.
The other thing you see is the word salad.
And then you see the people...
The other thing you'll see on the fine people hoax is that people will retreat to the following argument.
They'll say, Scott, yes, I see what you're saying.
Technically, technically the president didn't call the actual marching neo-Nazis fine people.
But still, anybody who shows up for a white supremacist rally...
is clearly a white supremacist.
Scott, Scott, Scott.
Can't you see that anybody who shows up would have to be a white supremacist?
Otherwise, why would you go to a white supremacist rally unless you were a white supremacist?
Well, what's interesting about this retreat to that position is that it makes the opposite assumption about Republicans Then Democrats make every other minute of their life.
What is the primary thing that the people on the left think about the people on the right?
What is the one thing they are positive is true about the people on the right?
Go. What is the one thing everyone on the left thinks is generally true about pretty much everybody on the right?
Dumb. You get partial credit for saying dumb and racist.
So yes, they think they're racist.
But they also think they're dumb, right?
And uneducated, etc.
But in this one situation, the left has built this artificial world in their mind, in which for just this one topic, this one event, the Unite the Right event that was in Charlottesville, it's the only topic...
For which 100% of the people on the right who saw what was going on interpreted it correctly.
Here are the names of the people that were on the flyer for the Unite the Right.
I'm going to read off the names of the people who were listed as speakers.
Because this was the only clue that you would have that this was a racist event.
Now some of the names on this list...
You and I will recognize as people who have racist histories.
But ask yourself this.
Of the general public, if you were to pick just 100 people randomly from the United States, adults, how many of the people, and of 100, would recognize even one name on this list and know something about that person?
Here are the names. Mike Enoch.
He's listed first as the speaker.
How many of you knew who Mike Enoch is?
I don't. I've never heard of him.
Second speaker was Augustus Invictus.
Have you ever heard of him?
Do you know about his terrible past?
I don't even know him.
I don't know if he has a terrible past.
Does he? I have no idea.
How many people out of 100 would recognize those names?
They were the top two names on one of the versions of the flyers.
I think there were different flyers, but people saw different stuff.
Then you get down to the ones that become more likely to be recognized, Richard Spencer and Jason Kessler.
How many people in the United States would recognize those two names?
Well, if you're a political junkie, like I am, And like many of you are, because you wouldn't be watching this Periscope unless you cared about politics.
I would say probably 75% of us, the people watching this Periscope.
Well, let me ask you. Of the people watching this Periscope, who are by far the most informed political people, just by the fact that you're watching this Periscope.
How many of you would recognize even those names?
How many have even heard those names before?
Well, for this group, I'd say at least 75%.
For the public in general, 5%?
I'm guessing that the number of people who would even have heard of these names and recognize them to be attached to something they didn't like would be something like 5%.
And yet the general assumption The general assumption on the left is that 100%, because this is important, it's important that it's 100%, because their whole worldview falls apart if it's only 98%.
Is there anything you could say about a large gathering of Americans that would be true of 100% of all the people who showed up for anything?
Can you ever get 100% of Americans to show up in a large group and they're all the same person with the same point of view?
That's never happened in history.
But this is the one time.
So that's how the folks who believe the fine people hoax, they're trying to retreat to, okay, the top line of the hoax is a hoax.
He didn't call the neo-Nazis fine people.
He said the opposite in clear words.
But, why did people show up?
And the answer is, I talked to, personally, two people with Jewish backgrounds who showed up to a neo-Nazi rally.
Let me say that again.
I personally, me, Scott Adams, I have personally talked to two people who showed up for this rally who are Jewish.
I think one is practicing, one is Jewish by background.
And both of them told me the same thing.
I didn't know what the hell was going to go on there.
They were kind of surprised that they showed up at a neo-Nazi rally.
Now, have you heard that in the news when you watched the press reports?
Do you remember all of the press reports in which they interviewed people who showed up to the event?
You've never seen one.
You tell me, in all the news about the Charlottesville event, tell me how many people they interviewed who showed up for, you know, let's say on the opposing the statue or the supporting the statue side.
How many people did they talk to?
I'm not a reporter.
I've talked to two people personally, and I have the name of another guy, a black guy, who showed up.
I haven't talked to him yet, but I can contact him if I want to.
So I've done no research.
I just put it out there if somebody wanted to contact me.
And sure enough, I got contacted by people who attended the event.
Now, if you're on the left, you have a little trouble believing that a Jewish guy showed up at a neo-Nazi rally.
But if you've lived in the real world, you know that if a bunch of people show up anywhere, it's going to be a diverse crowd.
They came for their own reasons.
Half of them don't know why they're there.
Some of them are there for exactly the right reasons.
Many are there for, yeah, some are just locals who wandered by.
They had an opinion. They didn't realize what kind of an event it would be.
They thought it would be about statues.
They heard it from a friend. There is no world in which 100% of the people believe anything.
And the president's assumption that there were some people who were there for, you know, pure reasons is quite confirmed at this point.
All right. People ask me, why did I spend so much time on this?
Because I spent much of yesterday slapping down the trolls who still believe to find people hoax.
Why do I spend so much time on it?
It's because it's not like other things.
It's not like other things.
The fine people hoax is like the load-bearing wall for the mental prison, the TDS prison that people are in.
A lot of the other things that people believe that aren't true about President Trump kind of depend on this fine people hoax being true.
Because if they can hold on to that one thing as being definitely true, then all the other things they wonder about, like, well, when he said shithole countries, was that racist or was he really just talking about the economic situation in those countries?
When it said MS-13 are animals, was that really just talking about the criminals?
So the fine people hoax is the load-bearing wall that supports many of the other hoaxes.
That's why I go so hard at it.
And I am literally trying to correct history.
It's one of the most important points of history and will be reported forever about this president and about the people who supported him.
So part of this is about me and part of it is about you.
Because you are being stained by the same fake news as I am.
Many of you are. All right.
I have this fascination With understanding the troll activity that comes at me when I talk about this sort of stuff.
So many of you have noticed, if you watch my commenting elsewhere on Twitter, you can see that if I'm saying non-controversial stuff, all the people who interact with me seem to be actual human beings.
They can disagree, they can agree, but they seem to be human beings.
When I say something like this that just dismantles a cherished hoax on the left...
There is what seems to be an organized, and I'll get to why I think it's organized, influx of trolls.
And the trolls are easy to identify because they have a common approach and they have a common profile.
The first thing that you'll note is that their profile is usually a cat or some kind of a cartoon image.
As soon as you see the cat or the cartoon image, that's the first tell for a troll.
Now, there are real people who just use the cat or use a cartoon, so it's not a guarantee that you're a troll if you have a cat or a cartoon in your profile, but it's a flag.
So when I see that, I'm like, okay, who's this?
The next thing you do is you check the profile, and the number of followers that they have is somewhere between zero and four hundred.
And usually closer to the 200 range.
Because I'm imagining that the organized trolls follow each other so that they could all get to a couple hundred followers to make it look more real.
And then the most telling tell is that they come after the person always and never the argument.
So the people coming after me, in my case, they always have the same talking point.
They all say, oh, the Garfield guy.
Oh, it's the Garfield guy.
Or sometimes they'll throw in Marmaduke or Family Circus.
So instead of addressing anything I've said, and think how easy it would be to address it.
I'm making a factual claim.
I'm showing the transcript.
It's just a fact argument.
You said a fact.
Here's the transcript that proves the facts wrong.
They don't address the fact.
They come after me with what I think they imagine would be the most damaging thing they could do to me psychologically.
In other words, it's a psychological attack.
It appears to be organized, and it appears that they're looking at some kind of central source for what kind of an attack to use.
Now that's the part that I can't say is...
I can't say that's organized for sure, because I suppose it's possible that everybody has the same dumb idea at the same time.
And that's possible, right?
But I don't see that identical troll behavior on other topics.
You only see this very specific troll behavior on the topics that are, wait for it, the load-bearing walls.
When I go after something that's not important, the trolls don't come out at all.
I will see exactly zero trolls of the kind I just described.
I'll see zero of them.
And as soon as I go after a load-bearing wall and I make a direct hit, boom, there's a flood of trolls.
So I'm pretty sure they're organized, and I'm pretty sure that they're so evil That they intentionally have orders to come after the personality and not the facts.
So it's fascinating to watch them.
Now, the thing that they don't count on is that I'm not like ordinary people.
So if they think that shaming me off the platform is going to work, Well, they don't know much about me because I use their activity to magnify my message.
So yesterday I posted my own blog post about the Find People hoax, I don't know, like dozens and dozens and dozens of times.
To trolls who came after me, because somebody's reading the trolls, and every time I put it there, it boosts my message, and it puts my message, which has a factual, you know, it's backed up by sources and facts, against the trolls' message, which is, you must be the Garfield guy.
I didn't know you were still working.
Are you still alive?
So it's a really good contrast because theirs just looks silly and small and it boosts my message.
So more trolls is better.
Bring them on! I'm watching the story, switching topics here, about the so-called heartbeat bills.
The bills that some states are, I guess several states are introducing bills, that would define an unborn as being alive, let's say, a fetus with a heartbeat, they would say, is alive and therefore you can't have an abortion.
So that's the intention of bills, but of course those will go through the Supreme Court.
I assume they'll all be challenged, etc.
So here's my question.
Am I alone in thinking that the reporting on this situation is completely inadequate?
Why is nobody putting this in context for me?
And here's the obvious question.
What law is being, let's see, changed or modified by these new laws?
In other words, is there enough room In the existing law and precedent for these states to make these changes?
I don't really understand, and I don't see it in the news reports, I don't quite understand how these state laws about the heartbeat bill can fit in or be compatible with or what it changes about Roe v.
Wade. There's no context.
So, am I missing it?
Have any of you seen a good explanation of how these heartbeat bills are or not directly or indirectly opposed to Roe vs.
Wade? Like, has anybody tried to explain to you how they fit together?
Like, I've not seen that.
So, I keep wanting to have an opinion.
But I can't form an opinion because it's just so obviously I'm under-informed, and I don't know why.
I don't know why the law is like that.
Anyway, there's a story about some publication showed a poll that said that men are, well, people are having far less sex, so there's way less sex happening.
And mostly it's among men.
So there's just a really big drop in men having regular sex.
And of course AOC weighed in and she said...
She said, if you think your celibacy, in quotes, is due to, quote, female empowerment, because that was one of the, part of the speculation was that female empowerment changes the dynamic and, you know, it's everything from the women are too tired because they're working and etc.
So part of the speculation was that something about women having a better life leads to men having less sex.
Again, that's not my opinion.
That's just what was reported.
AOC was criticizing that, which I think is a fair criticism.
And then she goes on to say, maybe it's because far too many people relied on the disempowerment plus silence of women to not be celibate in the first place.
In other words, she thinks that the great drop in men having sex is because they can't harass women sexually anymore.
So AOC's opinion is that when you can't be full of Harvey Weinstein, it takes 20% off of the sex lives of men in general.
Well, you know, the provocative thing about this is she's probably not 100% wrong.
So in terms of...
In terms of AOC's persuasion level, and in terms of being, let's say, directionally correct.
Because I'm sure that, you know, it's not...
Her point is not wrong.
It's just that it may not describe the whole picture.
It's just a small picture of a much larger thing.
But what amused me the most is that the most obvious explanations for this effect are just not mentioned.
And I feel bad being the person who has to do it.
Isn't there sort of a few more obvious potential explanations for the dramatic drop in sex lives of men?
Isn't it kind of obvious there are a few that we should be talking about, or at least speculation, to say why that might be happening?
I'm going to give you a few.
Now, I'm not going to tell you that these are the answer or that there's one answer.
I'm pretty sure it's a number of things, right?
So there are probably a lot of variables.
But the big ones that are not being mentioned is, number one, the quality of porn is going up and up and up and up and up.
And what I mean by that is that the ability to find exactly the kind of porn you want in unlimited amount went from almost zero.
Let's say when I was a kid.
When I was a kid, even if you wanted to watch porn, you could find, like, generic, you know, nudity and people having sex.
But the difference between generic porn and the exact thing that you want to see The person you want to see, doing the thing you want to see, dress the way you want them to dress, saying the things you want them to say, is about a million percent difference.
The difference between the very best thing you could ever watch on porn for you, the thing that gets you personally, is so different from watching generic naked people.
So the quality of porn Has gone through the roof and appears to be continuing to improve because it's technology related.
Of course it would. At the same time that porn is increasing like this, the value of each other as human sex people is sort of declining.
The value of men for sex is going down.
And the value of women for sex is going down.
We are becoming less attractive to each other every year.
Now, if that's not immediately obvious, let me give you some obvious reasons why.
I don't think I'm being unkind or cruel to point out that men are becoming feminized.
Not all men Not all men, right?
There's nothing I'm going to say that applies to all of you or every person or every man or every woman.
But in general, men are becoming feminized because the culture is moving more female.
And again, I'm not saying that's good or bad.
I'm not going to put an opinion on that.
Might be good. Might be good for some, bad for others.
I don't know. I don't even have an opinion.
I'm just saying that men are becoming feminized.
As men become feminized, do women want to have sex with them?
No! No, of course not.
We're not built like that.
If women became more masculine, Would men want to have sex with them so much?
No. And that's not saying anything about the people who are more masculine.
I'm not insulting the men who are more feminine.
There's no insult intended in this conversation.
I'm solidly in the camp who says that people come in all kinds and that it just doesn't make sense to judge them.
We're all different.
I'm just pointing out the facts, the landscape.
It used to be that people were more toward the middle.
Women were solidly more female, or even if they weren't naturally, they would try to be that way to present themselves.
Men would try to be more masculine, even if it wasn't how they felt.
So the things that would cause people to be inspired to have sex are far less than they were.
At the same time that the competition, which is porn and sex toys and stuff, are improving every day.
So it would be amazing if the amount of sex was the same.
But here's the best part.
And there was some article or study about this.
So the next thing I say is not original.
So this is not my idea.
It's just something I saw. I can't remember where I saw it.
It's the idea that in an age...
Of Tinder, where the 20-somethings, 30-somethings primarily, can quickly look for sex partners based on primarily their picture.
Who gets to decide who's having all the sex?
Well, women, of course.
Women largely get to decide who has sex, because men are more likely to be ready for a wider variety of sex partners, and women are a lot more selective.
So because women are selective and men are a little less selective, it ends up being the women making the choice, you know, yes or no to having sex with this person.
Well, what happens when you have a Tinder or just online dating in general?
If you're a woman and you're looking through the pictures, do you pick the unattractive men?
Why would you? If you're a woman and you've got all these men you're flipping through, why would you ever pick an unattractive one?
Even if you are unattractive, you'd pick one that's the best one you thought you could get, who would be pretty good looking, you know, or at least average.
And the men who are the attractive ones on Tinder, how many sex partners would they get?
A lot! They would get as much as they want.
And it would absorb all the women who normally would have been distributed across the population.
So it leaves all of the men who don't look good in a picture without sex.
Because the primary way that people meet people who have sex is online.
And if your photo doesn't work online, why would any woman ever contact you?
Because they don't have to.
They can go up the... They can go up the alpha schedule until they find something they like.
Anyway, so it should be fairly obvious that there are a variety of reasons why this is happening.
None of them are good. Bill Barr appointed an attorney to investigate the origins of the Russia investigation.
That's one of those stories that you just chuckle to yourself quietly.
If you'd like to join me for a reserved, quiet chuckle, I'm going to read that same thing again.
And after I make the statement, join me please for a reserved, quiet chuckle.
Here it comes. Attorney General Barr is appointing an attorney to investigate the origins of the Russia investigation.
Wasn't that fun? Because there's not much else to say about it, right?
It's too early to know what will happen.
But when you hear it, all you can think of is how the people on the left, and especially the people involved who are going to be investigated, how do they feel about it?
And thinking about how they feel about it, I don't want to find joy in their discomfort, unless they'd spent the last two years making me feel uncomfortable and threatening to cart me off to jail with President Trump.
So, because I've been on the receiving end of this for two years, I think it's worth a reserved chuckle.
I don't have much else to give you, but that's what I got for now.
Alright, let's talk about some other things.
There's a report of drone attacks against Saudi pumping stations.
This is on top of the reports of the sabotage on two Saudi tankers.
So now there have been at least three attacks on Saudi oil operations.
What is missing in all the stories?
Two attacks on the Saudi tankers and one drone attack on their pumping stations.
What's missing in the story?
Is it just me?
Is there something missing in the story?
How about what's missing is, who attacked them?
That's sort of important, isn't it?
I don't even see speculation.
Where's the speculation?
Are we assuming that Iran is behind it?
I mean, that's where my mind goes to.
But why isn't the news at least saying some people think it's Iran?
Or why isn't the news saying we're looking into it, but for some reason it's hard to tell who it is?
Isn't that conspicuously missing in this story?
There's no conversation about who it was, as if that doesn't matter.
At the same time, we're moving, you know, our fleet into the Gulf.
You know, why are we not talking about who did it?
Or even speculation.
Is there anything else we don't speculate on?
Have you ever seen a story like this with no speculation?
Is there something wrong here?
So, let me go on record as saying, I don't want to see any military action until I have a lot better idea of what the hell's going on over there.
Alright? I hope you're with me on this.
No military action until we know what the hell's going on.
The stock market took a crap yesterday because of the ongoing trade war problems with China.
Now, I'll say this as clearly as I can.
You should never take investment advice from cartoonists, and I'm dead serious on that.
If you had taken my investment advice over your entire life, well, some of them would have worked out, but some would not.
So don't do that.
That said, what is shaping up is a situation that I've only seen once before.
Investment-wise. There was one time in my adult life when I should have bet 100% of my net worth on one bet.
I didn't do it, but if I had, I think I would have maybe tripled my now wealth.
And I looked at it at the time as a sure thing, which is the rarest thing.
Generally, when you see something that's a sure thing, you say to yourself, I must be missing something.
Nothing's a sure thing. And you'd be right most of the time.
It's not a sure thing. But here was that time.
And it was in 2009 when the entire economy looked like it was going to fall apart and the stock market tanked.
And I said to myself, I should sell all of my stocks All of my assets and put it all into Wells Fargo Bank.
And here was my reasoning.
If we ever recovered, Wells Fargo would, you know, would jump up in value.
If we never recovered, Even the banks would be worthless.
So if everything is going to be worthless, including the banks, it wouldn't matter where your money was, because everybody would be wiped out.
We'd all be dying and eating each other and becoming cannibals.
But if the economy went up at all, the banks, and especially the strongest bank, Wells Fargo, would certainly have a great run.
So I thought to myself at the time, what if I just sell everything I have and put it in Wells Fargo?
It would have to be the smartest, least risky investment of all time.
And sure enough, it would have tripled my money if I had done that.
But I did. Once again, with this China trade talk, it's a very similar situation, but I do not suggest you sell all your stocks or put all your money in this investment.
I'm only mentioning it To help you understand that having certain backgrounds, certain educational or experienced backgrounds, might allow you to see the future better.
So just as I could see the future back with that Wells Fargo investment I didn't make, I can see the future now, and I'm going to put it out there so that you can track it, so you can see if I'm right or wrong.
And here's the prediction.
There is no scenario in which the United States and China don't reach some kind of working stable agreement.
Now that stable agreement could be no agreement.
The market just adjusts to it.
Some companies go out of business.
Some relocate.
The rest of the economy is doing fine.
Maybe we barely notice.
So there are two possibilities.
One is that we just don't reach an agreement.
And we just tariff each other and companies adjust over time.
The other possibility is that we do reach an agreement.
Maybe it's not perfect.
Maybe it takes longer than we think, but it's going to get there.
So my point is that people who are buying stock on the dip, buying stock on the fear of China, probably making a good investment.
Don't take my advice.
Don't buy stocks based on what I tell you.
But if I had to guess, I would say that the trade talks are depressing the market unnecessarily, which should be creating...
An almost unprecedented safe buying opportunity.
Safe meaning that the odds of this potential problem turning into a real problem are about as close to zero as anything can be in our world that is unpredictable.
Now, the reason that you should not buy stocks based on this is that there are other variables.
So you could very easily sell your house and put all your money in this because, hey, this cartoonist guy has been right about a lot of stuff, and he's saying that the China deal should not be worried about, and so it'll go up.
The reason not to do that is because there could be other things unrelated to any of this that could go bad at the same time.
So the market is not driven by one variable.
It just seems to me that people who buy stock during the dip are going to be happy they did.
But that's not advice.
All right. I hear that Trump is leading in four of the six battleground states versus Biden.
So a recent poll put Trump ahead in four out of six, and the two that he's not ahead, he's statistically similar.
So too close to call.
Now, remember I asked, I think yesterday, I asked if Biden was still campaigning?
It's kind of quiet on the Biden front, isn't it?
You notice how quiet it is?
Do you think that's a coincidence?
Do you think Sleepy Joe is not campaigning?
Where is he? How come he's not?
Why is he not on CNN? Why is he not on MSNBC? Where's Joe Biden?
The fact that Trump gave him this nickname, Sleepy Joe, it looks like it's perfect.
Because he doesn't seem to be putting the energy into it.
Now, let me ask you this.
Why would that be? Is it because the media simply isn't focusing on him?
I mean, it might be. That could be the entire story.
It could be the media is just ignoring him.
And it could be that he's just, I don't know, maybe he's doing some private fundraisers and he's just not making any news.
Maybe. That could be.
But here's what I think is happening.
I'm just going to speculate.
I think that privately, the kingmakers on the left, you know, the people in the media, the people who are, you know, important in Democrat politics, I think that when they're in a private room, in a private conversation with each other, They say something like this.
I'm starting to think that Joe Biden has no chance of winning because he's weak on the most important things.
What do people say about Trump?
He wants to build a wall, therefore he's a big old racist.
What does Joe Biden have in his background?
Strong calls for building a strong border.
So the main thing that they have on Trump, they also have on video of Joe Biden saying the same damn thing.
Now, it was long ago, but that doesn't change the fact that it's either racist or it isn't.
It doesn't matter that Joe, in this particular case, it's one of those rare cases where it doesn't matter that he's changed his opinion.
Because if he ever thought it, that's good enough for political purposes.
The other thing that they don't like about Trump is his character.
But Biden's got this touchy thing to the point where he's had to address it and he's awkward in public.
Imagine if Joe Biden had a female running mate, Kamala Harris or anybody else.
Can you imagine?
All I would do is when they appeared together is I'd be looking to see if he touched her.
I wouldn't be looking at anything else.
That's all I'd be looking at. It's like, oh, that's an awkward hug.
Can you imagine Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on stage?
Just get this image in your head.
It's their first appearance.
Let's say he's chosen her for his vice presidential running mate.
It's their first appearance.
He comes up on the left.
She comes up on the right.
They're walking toward each other.
And they're going to hug or shake hands or they're going to do something and they're walking toward each other.
What would you be doing as a viewer?
You'd be on the edge of your chair.
It's like, oh, this is going to be good.
I don't think she has exactly the warm personality that he's hoping for.
Is he going to go for the handshake?
Handshake and the air kiss?
Is he going to go for the hug?
If he hugs, how long is he going to hold her?
It's just impossible for me to imagine that even the people on the left, in private moments, it's impossible for me to win against this particular president.
He could win against a lot of people, but he matches up so poorly.
He's an old white guy.
He's got all the same problems as Trump, and the only thing that he might have some advantage in is the Green New Deal stuff, and he's decided to take the middle of the road.
Even AOC doesn't like him.
I mean, if you can't even get AOC on your side, and you're a Democrat, do you have any chance?
So, I have the feeling that there are very few Democrats Who want to give Biden a lot of attention because they don't feel he can make it to the finish line.
And it seems to me that the press, the anti-Trump press, has figured that out.
And that the more time they give to Biden, the less chance there is for somebody who might have a chance to rise up and take on Trump.
So, let me generalize this.
I believe that there will be a sense of despair That will be the last year of the election cycle.
So the year 2020, starting at around January 2020, is going to be this national depression like none we've ever seen, in which the folks on the left realize a year in advance that it's not going to work out.
Because I think that's going to happen.
I think the polls... Are going to start to show that nobody can touch Trump.
It wouldn't matter who it was, and Biden wouldn't have any chance.
Somebody says Mark Cuban might swoop in.
Maybe. Maybe Mark Cuban will swoop in.
Have you noticed that Mark Cuban has been very quiet lately?
Has anybody noticed that? Who has been quieter than Mark Cuban?
Well, lots of people are quiet, but you expect other people to be quiet.
Do you know who you don't expect to be quiet?
Mark Cuban. So, I would say keep an eye on him.
Might be some surprises coming.
I don't think Mark Cuban thinks he could win against Trump in 2020.
But the election after that, I think he might take seriously.
All right. I've noticed...
I've used this phrase cognitive blindness before.
Now, the way I use it is sort of something I made up.
Maybe somebody else has used the term, but the way I'm using it is that there are some ideas that are so counter to what we imagine about the world That we actually can't see them.
Like you could actually hand it to somebody and they would be just actually blind to it.
They couldn't see something that you handed them if it was so contrary to their worldview.
And I'm noticing that with the issue of nuclear energy and the Green New Deal.
It is completely objectively, unambiguously true The nuclear has to be a gigantic part, and maybe the most important part, but at least a gigantic part of any kind of a climate change response.
And the fun part is that nuclear energy should be just as important and pushed just as much Even if climate change isn't a problem, it turns out to be one of these rare situations where the solution is exactly the same, no matter what your assumptions are.
I mean, how often does that happen, right?
When do you have one solution that fits a variety of assumptions?
That's pretty rare.
And so, I noticed that people on the left are having cognitive blindness To even the topic.
And the way that you can see that is that somebody will say, Green New Deal, we need Green New Deal, we need to do something about the climate.
Somebody else will say, yes, and nuclear is the answer, because it's safe now.
We figured out how to do it safely, and it's the only thing that can scale up and give us all the solutions.
Now, what does the person who said Green New Deal say next?
Nothing. They won't say the word nuclear.
They won't address what the other person said, and they will react as though no conversation had just happened.
You're going to see this a lot.
Now, somebody just mentioned, got ahead of me.
I've seen it twice now on The Five, TV show The Five on Fox News.
Now, they have Juan Williams, who represents the left on their panel of other people who are libertarian or right-leaning.
And we've seen Juan do it twice.
You'll say, you know, the administration has no plan at all for climate change.
Greg and Jesse, at least, I don't know, maybe Dana has said it too.
But it's pointed out loudly and repeatedly, nuclear, nuclear, the administration is pro-nuclear.
That is the plan. It's the only plan.
It's the only thing that can work. Words to that effect.
And what does Juan do?
He looks at them, he listens, and then he starts talking as though it hadn't happened, as if there had been no words in the air.
And it's really fun to watch, because you're seeing a genuine cognitive dissonance kind of reaction, where he can't incorporate the idea that the thing he thinks is going to destroy the world is already solved.
Now, I say already solved, meaning that there's an obvious path forward.
It has everything you need for a solution.
We could choose not to do it, but you don't have to ask whether we have a solution, because we have a solution.
We just have to decide to use it.
But watch how often you'll see that in other interviews.
I think watch for other panel discussions.
Let's say any CNN show.
If you see a CNN show in which there's a panel of left-leaning people and they have maybe one person, Steve Cortez or somebody, one person representing the pro-Trump side of the world, watch when that person mentions nuclear energy and watch the other people Not argue against it and not accept it, but act like it didn't happen.
That's what you want to watch for.
It's fascinating. Now, there's one thing that could break this cycle.
His name is President Trump.
If President Trump decided to completely kill this topic and own it and take it off the table, just vanquish the topic.
I mean... Own the topic in a way that nobody's ever owned a topic before.
Like, just come in and just dominate it.
All you'd have to do is one tweet.
Nuclear is the answer.
We're working on it. Here's a link to some of the things we're doing to support the nuclear industry.
Yeah, that's it. This is the way to solve climate, or even if it's not a problem, it's the same solution.
Some kind of a tweet from the president.
That's pro-nuclear and says even the Green New Deal people should love it.
Because you can't ignore the president.
If the president says nuclear energy is the way to deal with a climate problem or even not a climate problem, he'd have to word it so it's compatible with things he said before.
They can't ignore it at that point.
They can ignore it from me.
They can ignore it from, you know, Greg Goffeld.
They can ignore it from any pundit.
They can't ignore it if the president says it.
Now, I don't know why the president hasn't said it yet, because it's, you know, based on what his administration is doing, what the Department of Energy is doing under Perry, it's unambiguously clear that they're pro-nuclear.
But there must be some decision-making that's going on about not including that in their messaging.
So from a communication perspective, apparently the White House has decided it's not a message they want to sell, even though...
With one tweet, and I mean this literally, the president could with one tweet that was unambiguously pro-nuclear energy, if it showed some knowledge that the generation three and four are safe, which would be the important part, because the public doesn't know that yet.
They think nuclear energy is the old technology.
They don't know that there's never been a mistake with generation three.
Never. There's never been a meltdown.
And Generation 4 will be essentially un-meltdownable.
It won't even be an option with that design.
So if he could show some knowledge that that's the case, put it in a tweet, put it in an announcement, it would completely...
Upend the entire conversation.
And from that point on, the left would be nothing left by healthcare, basically.
They would have healthcare to talk about.
And that's it. And I think the president could take a big bite out of that before the election day, too.
So... Somebody says you need to change the word nuclear.
Yeah, maybe. But, you know, I'm never...
I'm never in favor of persuasion that is so on the nose.
You know, I don't like calling the missile a Patriot missile.
You know, I don't like giving things cute names because everybody knows what it is.
You know, everybody understands what you're talking about.
So I find it bad persuasion.
To try to trick people with a word when they know they're being tricked.
It just feels so ham-handed that I think maybe it works in the wrong way.
It decreases your credibility.
So I hear what you're saying.
I just think in this case it's just a little too manipulative.
You know, if you can't sell this by describing what it actually is, because what it actually is is frickin' amazing.
Right? The actual reality with the right facts should sell this thing like nothing's ever been sold.
It's an easy sale.
You should use any word you want.
And you should be able to sell it just the same.
Because it is that clean a message and it is that clear and obvious thing to do.
Alright. I think that's all I wanted to talk about.
Let me just look at my notes here for a moment.
Yes, I think I have talked about it all.
All right. Yeah, somebody says, is agreeing with me.
It doesn't look like they're...
Yeah, don't look like you're trying to fool people.
That's a bad look. You know, it's one thing to be persuasive, and people know you're being persuasive, but that whole word thing, it's like, oh, I'll use a different word for it.
It just... It's too amateurish.
All right. Somebody says, there must be a downside to Generation 4.
I mean, there's a downside to everything, but not a downside like there are for other technologies.
So it would be whatever it is, it would be on the small side.
Garfield energy. All right.
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