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Nov. 17, 2019 - Real Coffe - Scott Adams
34:07
Episode 728 Scott Adams: Orange Man Bad #Shampeachment, Buttigieg Surging in Iowa, Fun Stuff
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Hey everybody, do you see what time it is?
Are you kidding me?
It's time.
It's time everybody.
Come on in here. It's time for the simultaneous sip.
Best part of your day.
And it just keeps getting better.
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Very little preparation needed.
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Grab your cup, your mug, your glass, your snifter, stein, chalice, tankard, thermos, flask, canteen, grill, goblet, vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee. And join me now for the simultaneous step, the dopamine hit of the day, the thing that makes everything better.
Go. Coffee coursing through my body, making my life better.
It's like magic.
So, in the big news of the day, there's a man from the United Kingdom, age 32, and the headline says that he nearly died, poor man, he nearly died, after a parasite crawled up his penis and laid eggs as he swam in a lake in a trip to Africa.
So here's why, when I go to Africa, I do not swim in the lake.
Because apparently they have some kind of gnarly parasite that will crawl up your penis and lay eggs.
And if you didn't have anything else to worry about, you got that now.
You're welcome. There's a trending hashtag on Twitter today.
Hashtag, why men need a break.
And I saw that it was trending and I thought, why men need a break?
And I thought, huh.
Could there be a positive thing about men that would be a trending hashtag on social media?
Is that even possible?
It's 2019. Could there be such a thing as a positive hashtag about men that would be trending?
And I thought to myself, my God.
I didn't know that was even a thing anymore.
So I clicked on it.
Eager to find out All the reasons that men need a break has somebody finally realized that men work hard and sometimes they need a break.
Well, it didn't work out that way.
Turns out that the hashtag is mostly a way to mock men for being worthless and stupid.
So, at least I wasn't surprised.
So, that's the life of a man in 2019.
Being told you're worthless and stupid in a variety of different ways.
We have our own hashtag now, why men need a break.
So, if you'd like to get in on the telling men why they're worthless and stupid, just use the hashtag and you can be part of the whole party.
Because that's what brings us together.
One of the things that brings us together as a culture It's our complete agreement that all men are trash, they're stupid and worthless.
If you don't believe it, turn on your television or watch a movie or a commercial.
They all have a pretty, pretty similar theme, if you know what I mean.
So there's this new thing, I don't know how new it is, but I see it more and more.
When People want to be mad at me on social media, usually because they see me saying something positive about President Trump.
They like to come into my comments on Twitter and say bad things about me.
But they used to say bad things about me that were based on a rumor that wasn't true or they say bad things about me because my opinion or or they didn't like who I was supporting but now they've just given up on reasons and now people come into my comments and they say with sadness I think they're they're following Nancy Pelosi's lead because she's very sad about the impeachment She feels bad for the president.
I think she prays for him.
And people are starting to do this with me, too.
Instead of saying, Scott, I think you got a fact wrong, or maybe you should think of something differently, they come into Twitter and they tell me how disappointed they are for me.
No reasons given.
They're just disappointed.
And they feel bad for me because I used to be somebody who was worthwhile.
There was a time, I'm told by my critics, there was a time when I was not awful once.
But that time, that time has passed.
I'm now a person to be pitied without specific reasons.
And so to all of you who are my critics, who are pitying me and are very disappointed in me, I thank you for your concern.
So, I'm loving watching the two movies on one screen with CNN, mostly I'm watching, and Fox News.
Now they're covering the sham impeachment.
Over on CNN, it's all over.
The president has been shown to be impeachable.
Why is the president impeachable, you say?
Well, just listen to CNN or read their website.
Plenty, plenty of reasons.
For example, and if this isn't impeachable, I don't know what is.
He had a phone call that some people thought was inappropriate.
That's right. I don't know if you've got a whiff of this yet, but back in 2016, and you probably didn't notice, But there was this president elected, his name is Trump, and apparently this is the first inappropriate thing he's done, so people are calling it out.
Wait, what? I'm getting a message that this is not the first inappropriate thing that President Trump has done.
Hold on, I'm hearing from the control room.
Okay, 27,000th time he's been inappropriate.
But this time, well, he's gone too far.
The other 27,000 times he did something that other people thought was inappropriate was just short of impeachable.
But the 27,001...
I think that's the final straw.
We've had too much of this inappropriate...
Non-standard behavior, which we don't want to normalize.
We don't want to normalize this non-standard behavior, because look what it's done to the economy.
Okay, the economy's fine, but I think it's pretty clear that with all this Inappropriate, inappropriate behavior.
Thousands and thousands of inappropriate behaviors.
I mean, that's the reason that ISIS is winning.
Okay, ISIS isn't winning.
The caliphate has been completely destroyed.
But it's certainly the reason that North Korea is firing up their nuclear weapons.
Okay, they're not firing up their nuclear weapons and aiming them at us.
They're actually sort of talking to us.
But one thing I can tell you, Is it because of all of the president's inappropriate behavior, there's no way he's going to be pushing back on China.
Okay, he's pushing back on China.
All right, I'm trying to figure out what all the inappropriate behavior has done to me personally.
Anything? Do any of you have anything for me?
Has the president's inappropriate behavior, of which there are 27,000 examples...
Have any of you felt any pain because of it?
Has anybody lost a job?
Has anybody lost a spouse?
Did anybody's children, were they late for school?
Is anybody littering more?
What exactly is the inappropriate behavior doing?
Fill in the blanks.
I don't know. But I know it's very irregular.
It's irregular and inappropriate.
And if you can't be impeached for being irregular and inappropriate, I don't know what you can be impeached for.
Oh, that's right. Bribery.
Reverse bribery.
You know, reverse bribery, where you try to get somebody else to do something in return for a large amount of foreign aid.
Now, it seems to me That the Democrats have as a party, they're starting to define themselves the following way.
We should give a lot away in foreign aid, but apparently we're not supposed to ask for anything in return if it would also be good for the sitting president.
But I can't imagine anything we would ask for from any foreign country in return for foreign aid that wouldn't also coincidentally be a plus for the sitting president, whoever that might be.
So I think the Democrats want to simply give away money with no conditions because any kind of condition would be good for the sitting president.
That's why we'd ask for it.
Politically, it would be good because it would be good for the country.
The Democrats want to open our borders, invite everybody in, pay everybody with the money that the citizens are earning to make sure they're covered for health care and everything else.
But also, if there's any money left over after that, we should package it up and give to foreign countries that they can spend any way they want, or just the government could just keep it.
Because apparently corruption is not a big deal, not something you really need to look into.
So the Democrats are actually running on a platform of giving your money to other countries.
I'm not even making that up.
The Democrats are actually running on a platform of taking your money and giving it to other countries without conditions.
Without conditions.
Really? I mean, that's actually what's happening.
And that's how bad they want to get rid of the president.
So I'm referring to this impeachment as the Orange Man Bad impeachment because they don't really have anything more damning than Orange Man Bad.
I've got lots of examples.
Every example is a little bit Trivial.
It's just non-standard.
He had an irregular group of people, including Rudy, doing some things.
Not illegal, as far as we know.
Just irregular.
So, stop all that irregular stuff.
And this is how Bloomberg puts it.
A handful of loyalists led by Rudy Giuliani wrested control of U.S. policy from seasoned diplomats.
Well, did they?
Did they wrest control of U.S. policy from seasoned diplomats?
Or did they do what the president who sets the foreign policy...
Did Rudy do what the President asked him to do?
Because the seasoned diplomats weren't worth a shit.
Are you watching all of the praise that Yovanovitch, Am I saying it right?
Ambassador Yovanovitch is getting?
Have you noticed that all of the Democrats are praising her long service?
And... And great character and stuff.
And I'm thinking, I don't have any reason to doubt it.
She might be the best employee we've ever had.
Or not. Or not.
How many of those Democrats actually know what her record is on the job?
Any? I don't know.
She's getting a lot of respect from people who don't know one way or the other.
Now, I do think we should show respect to our public servants, unless there's some reason not to.
And I'm not aware of any reason not to.
But it's kind of weird how confident people are that she's the best employee we've had recently.
Or one of the great ones.
She's one of the greats.
Might be true. I have no reason to doubt it.
But if you've ever been around employees...
They're not all that great.
Not all of them.
All right. Here's the most interesting part about the Orange Band Bad Shampeachment.
You'll think it's not connected, but it is.
I'm going to connect it right now.
There's a new poll out of Iowa of likely caucus goers, so the people who might matter.
Now, it's only 500 people.
But still, that's enough, probably, statistically.
Pete Buttigieg is now leading the field at 25%.
And who did that come out of?
Well, it came out of Bernie.
And it also came out of Warren.
No, it came out of Biden, I think, mostly, right?
Biden and Bernie. Because Warren is still in second place.
So... Connect the dots now.
Joe Biden just fell off a cliff in the polls.
Why? What has happened recently that would make Joe Biden fall in the polls?
Is it just because Buttigieg is doing such a good job?
Maybe. Could be.
That could be part of it. Buttigieg is doing a good job.
But here's the other...
I don't see anybody...
Nobody's connected the dots yet.
There you go. I'm watching in the comments.
Yeah, you just connected the dots.
Let me put it this way.
Democratic voters...
And here's the key.
It's not just Republicans.
Democratic voters in Iowa just told the country that the Biden situation with Ukraine was important.
Which means that President Trump asking to look into it is what even the Democrats wanted.
Because even the fact that the polls have been so consistent, in fact, Biden was riding a new high.
And then this week he falls off a cliff.
What else happened?
Did Biden have a big gaffe?
No. Nothing unusual.
Did Biden come out with a new policy?
Nope. Did somebody who's a Democrat attack Biden in a really effective way?
Nope. Nope.
There is exactly one thing that happened.
Exactly one thing.
The sham impeachment. And the knowledge that now the rest of the public is filling in, that Biden had some questions that needed to be answered.
Now, I'll say again, I'm not aware of any evidence that Joe Biden committed any crimes with Ukraine or anywhere else.
I'm not aware of anything like that.
And I'm not going to do what Democrats do and use the word yet.
I freaking hate that.
Because the way they would say it, if this were them, they'd say, we've discovered no evidence of a crime by Joe Biden yet.
You throw that yet in there, and you need to be off the air.
If you're a professional, and you throw a yet at the end of that sentence, you...
You need to lose your job.
That's not a yet sentence.
That's just sliming somebody for no reason.
So I'm not going to say yet on Biden because I don't think anything will come of it.
But it's certainly something that the voters wanted to know.
As soon as those voters in Iowa found out that there was some kind of a Burisma thing, did they care?
It looks like it.
Now, I can't read their minds.
And certainly I would expect there will be other interpretations of why Biden is weak.
People were saying he might lose Iowa anyway.
So maybe there's no surprise here at all.
But Buttigieg, you know, topping out there might be a little surprising.
Might be a little surprising.
All right. Now, let's see if in this coming week any of the Republicans make the case that I just made, which is that Biden falling in the polls proves that even Democrats cared about the Burisma connection, which means that the president asking about it is doing the people's work.
Just like I've been saying from the start.
If you and I care, About the Burisma connection.
Even if all we care about is understanding it better.
I think that's fair.
We want to understand it better.
And, you know, make sure that we know the facts.
It's proven now. I would say that that's a done deal.
All right. I watch with amazement as CNN assigns opinions to their watchers.
Now, of course, Fox News does that.
They all do that. But sometimes it's a little more heavy-handed.
than other times and here's one of the assignments or the opinions they're trying to assign to their viewers and it's that there will be no blowback from the impeachment so there's one of the pundits wrote an article on CNN site today in which he's saying that there should be no blowback because they're doing such a good job on this impeachment that no matter which way it goes there will be no blowback Now,
do you think that's predictable?
First of all, if I had to bet, I'm going to bet there's blowback.
Because Joe Biden just dropped in the polls in Iowa.
Now, again, there could be other reasons for that.
But that sure looks like blowback to me.
I think it blew Biden right out of the race, didn't it?
That's not as blowbacky as you can get.
And I wouldn't be surprised if some people in Congress have a little struggle because of this.
But CNN is trying pretty hard to tell Democrats that no, no blowback.
I don't know if this is the last time you'll ever see me, because I'm going to bring up a topic that could get me canceled.
Are you ready for that?
These are the fun ones.
The ones where you can detect palpable danger on my part.
So here comes the danger part.
I will try to protect myself with the following framing.
So when I get quoted out of context, this will be the part that has to be left out so that I sound evil.
As you know, if you've been watching my Periscopes, I am super pro-gay.
Super pro-LGBTQ. Very supportive transgender athletes, much to your disagreement.
So you know that.
And you know I've been saying, I'd love to see a gay president.
Assuming that the president is qualified and all that, right?
No, I don't know that I want to see it instead of President Trump.
Well, wouldn't it be great to have a gay president?
I think the country would feel, you know, a movement forward.
Now, again, we don't want to elect somebody just because of their gender, just because of their ethnicity, just because of their sexual orientation.
But it would just be really healthy.
Okay? So I see somebody signing off already.
You don't know where I'm going with this yet?
So... Ex-Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick is looking like he might be getting into the race.
Now, I didn't know anything about Deval Patrick.
Literally nothing. I'd never heard him talk.
I didn't know what he looked like.
And so yesterday I had in my headphones and I was just listening to the news and I heard an interview in which Deval Patrick came on and started talking.
And again, didn't know anything about him.
It's the first time I've ever heard him talk.
And I said to myself, oh my God, this is amazing.
We're going to have two gay candidates for president, of which nobody's talking about them being gay.
I mean, except for general description.
And I thought to myself, that's like the healthiest thing.
I'm so happy about that, literally.
I'm not joking. I was happy about that.
I was like, wow! The Democrats, you know, they talk about inclusion and diversity, but look at their field.
They've got a bunch of women, they've got at least one woman of color, they've got everything covered, and now they've got a gay black guy Who just entered the race.
And all anybody is saying is that he's a strong candidate.
And I thought to myself, this is a really healthy situation.
And then I thought to myself, what if he's not gay?
And I thought, I better look that up.
Because I don't want to be saying, hey, it's great that we got a second gay guy in the race.
If he doesn't identify that way.
So I googled him.
Turns out he's not gay.
And by not gay, I mean he's not telling anybody he's gay.
I think he's got a family and a daughter.
I think his daughter is LGBTQ, but there's no indication that he's gay.
So I hope nobody signed off after I said that because the punchline is the way he speaks is Signaled to me gay, but just because of a bias or a bad pattern recognition.
And so I'm not proud of it.
I'm not claiming I'm right because I heard his...
So I'm not making any claims about him or his personal life.
I'm just saying he doesn't have a chance of getting elected.
And here's why. Because Pete Buttigieg is in the race.
What's the best thing about Pete Buttigieg?
And I've said this before.
What's the best thing about Pete Buttigieg as a candidate?
He's authentic.
Pete Buttigieg is the real deal.
You know, if you're going to run for president and people think you're gay, whether you're gay or not, if they think you're gay, there's nothing better than to say, meet my husband.
Because that's as authentic as you can get.
So, Buttigieg is not emphasizing that being gay is some kind of an advantage, you know, wouldn't it be good for the country?
Buttigieg isn't saying any of that, which also proves he's smart, because saying that would be a turn-off to a lot of people.
We don't want to elect people because of their sexual orientation.
We just want to be able to get to a place where it doesn't matter.
So, So I think that the average voter is going to take a look at Duvall, and I think they're going to have the same apparently incorrect first impression that I did, which is that he's another gay candidate, and people will have their opinions about that.
I have to tell you, I spend most of my time interacting with Trump supporters.
I've never heard one person say anything anti-gay in terms of not being electable or not being qualified or anything like that.
People make bad jokes, but they just come across as bad jokes.
I've never heard any Trump supporter have any negative thought about anybody running for president because of their sexual orientation, which is, I suppose, a good thing, because you kind of expect you might hear that, but you don't.
I haven't heard it one time.
So, somebody says, your generation is a lost cause.
I'm going to delete you for that.
That's a block. So, I'm pro Buttigieg as a candidate because he's moderate, he's one of the smartest people in the race, and like Trump, he just seems to be authentic.
And people can really put up with a lot.
You know, you can disagree with somebody's lifestyle, you can disagree with their choices, and you can still be okay with them.
If they come off as authentic.
And Buttigieg does.
And I think that by comparison, and this is just a comparison thing, it's going to make Deval Patrick look inauthentic even if he's authentic.
So he's going to suffer from, I think, people's opinions of who he is and should be that's independent from who he is.
So let me summarize by saying nothing I've said should be considered an insult or a negative about Deval Patrick.
I'm just telling you that my pattern recognition heard his voice jump to a conclusion and When I googled it, it appeared not to be true.
But there you go. Alright, so I hope I don't get cancelled for that, but we'll see.
So, here's one of the funniest cognitive dissonance things you'll ever see.
And it goes like this.
Do you know the story of Chauncey Gardner?
So it's a movie.
Being There, I think, is the movie.
And the idea is that this guy who's sort of an idiot just gets lucky and through a series of misunderstandings becomes present.
And so when somebody is compared to Chauncey Gardner, it's basically saying they have no talent But they became a leader just by luck, being in the right place at the right time.
And I've heard this now from two of the smartest people that I'm likely to talk to, who have told me directly, both of them Democrats, well, one of them told me directly and one of them I just heard on an interview, that their best explanation of what they're observing over the last three years is that Trump just got lucky.
Now one of them is Sam Harris.
So Sam Harris is literally famous for being smart and rational.
What is Sam Harris' brand?
Smart, rational, scientific, follows the facts.
But of course that doesn't make you immune from cognitive dissonance.
And it could be I who am experiencing the cognitive dissonance right now.
So probably one of us is, or maybe both.
It could be that both of us are in left field.
But I actually wonder I wonder a lot about Sam Harris' internal thinking process.
Because imagine being literally famous for being rational and smart.
And both of those things are true, by the way.
He's rational and super smart.
But he's watched Trump become president and then have one of the most successful presidencies for the people who voted for him of all time.
And yet, his current thinking, because he just said it in an interview I heard, I think it was with Brett Weinstein, he said that it was the Chauncey Gardner thing, that Trump just got lucky.
Now, how many things can Trump do in a row that are exactly what he said he would do before you discard the Chauncey Gardner hypothesis?
How much do you have to see before you say, okay, well, maybe there is some technique to this.
Maybe there's a style to this.
It's just a question.
Could we ever get there? Could Sam Harris ever get to the point where he says, okay, I don't like the policies, but I can see that skill is what got him there.
Okay. Now, again, I could be the one who's suffering cognitive dissonance.
If we're being completely rational, if I were the one experiencing it, and Sam's opinion of what happened is just right on, complete luck, the president just got lucky, I wouldn't know the difference, because my cognitive dissonance would make me see it as absurd, even though it makes perfect sense.
So, that's about all I got for today.
I hope that you have all checked out my book, LoserThink, a great gift.
You should be ordering it now for Christmas.
It's the greatest gift of all time.
Oddly enough, it's battling for number one in cognitive psychology.
So if you go on Amazon, it's listed in a number of different categories, but one of the categories is cognitive psychology.
It's the number one or number two book.
It keeps going back and forth with Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Small, which is funny.
All right. It's funny that I'm in the same list with a book that famous and that good.
That's what's funny.
All right. IQ isn't related to judgment, somebody says.
Yes, it is.
IQ is totally related to judgment.
You really believe IQ doesn't help you make better decisions?
Pretty sure it does.
But anyway, that's for another day.
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