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Jan. 10, 2020 - Real Coffe - Scott Adams
59:05
Episode 783 Scott Adams: #Loserthink Opinions on Iran, Google Shenanigans, Free Money, Bad Liars
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Oh, yeah. Yep, yep.
That's hitting all the right spots.
Starting our day right.
Well, there's an unusual amount of loser think in the news.
Loser think? What's that you say?
Well, look over my shoulder, right there.
That's a cup of coffee, and that's my book, Loser Think, in which I teach people how to think more productively by introducing them to the various disciplines of thought.
I'm going to give you some examples.
Are you ready? Here's one.
Have we not been listening to the anti-Trump pundits tell us for the last several days that that President Trump is impulsive?
He's reckless.
He's reckless and he's impulsive.
He's so reckless and impulsive, we don't know what's going to happen.
And then, and specifically, he's reckless and impulsive when it came to ordering the taking out of General Soleimani.
But CNN is reporting today That Mike Pompeo has wanted that Solomon A guy off the field, shall we say, for about 10 years, and it's been one of his main priorities.
So, Mike Pompeo, who nobody thinks is dumb, right?
Can we agree with that? Whether you agree with him, disagree with him, no matter what side you're on, nobody thinks Mike Pompeo is dumb, right?
I think that's true.
I've never heard anybody even suggest that.
So, he's a smart guy.
And for 10 years, he's been thinking about this exact situation.
He's the president's primary adviser on this topic, and the president decided to go with what CNN is reporting would have been Mike Pompeo's strong preference.
Is that the same as impulsive?
Somebody's saying here he was number one at West Point.
Okay, point made.
I said everybody agrees that he's smart.
I didn't actually know he was that smart.
You got to be pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty smart to be number one at West Point.
Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty smart.
So, what does CNN do with its previous reporting?
Which mostly came from pundits, let's be clear about that, not the hard news people, but the pundits saying the president is impulsive, impulsive, impulsive, and then we find out that he took the advice of a guy who was number one at West Point, is exactly the job, his current job, Mike Pompeo's, is exactly the one you're supposed to be listening to for this kind of question.
And ten years of knowing about, researching, caring about this one guy, he gives advice to his commander, who accepts his advice.
And that's reported as, there's something wrong with the president's brain.
Right? How could that be more opposite?
That's as opposite as you can get to, there's something wrong with the president's brain, he's too impulsive and reckless.
Alright, so they're reporting opposites now, as if they could both exist.
So apparently the U.S., Canadian, and British officials, all the officials, who you may call officials, they've all agreed that it was probably a Russian-made missile coming out of Iran, meaning the Iranians were operating it and it shot down that Ukraine airline.
Russia's response to this is that, quote, there's no basis for the claims.
What have I told you about liars?
Here's what liars do.
First, let me give you an example of what non-liars do.
Hey Scott, did you shoot down that airplane?
No, what the fuck are you talking about?
I'm sorry. I'm trying not to swear as much this year.
What the hell are you talking about?
No, of course I didn't shoot down any airlines.
What are you talking about?
That doesn't make any sense.
That's what an honest person says.
Here's what a liar says.
Scott, did you shoot down that airliner?
Show me the evidence.
What's your basis? You have presented no evidence that would suggest I shot down your airliner.
So Russia...
I don't know if they're idiots.
I mean, honestly, I can't tell.
Are they idiots in Russia?
I don't think so, right?
Russia has smart people too.
But why do they act like idiots?
Is it because they don't know that from a...
I think it's a social difference, by the way.
My expectation is...
And this is just speculation. I don't know this.
It could be that in Russia, lying is so prevalent that you don't care if people know you're lying.
That's just speculation.
Is that true? Because when the Russian representative says there's no basis for the claim, 100% of the people in the West go, oh, so you just signaled to me you're lying.
You just told me you're lying.
It couldn't be more clear because honest people don't talk that way.
But maybe they do talk that way in Russia.
I doubt it. It's more likely that there's so much lying in Russia that people just go, eh, it's another liar.
It just doesn't make any difference.
I feel as though Russia is lying to us in a way that maybe they lie to their own people, but maybe it works with their own people because their own people weren't going to believe it under any circumstance.
It's like, eh, it's just another lie.
Whereas maybe they think we will.
I mean, do they think anybody in the West is looking at this and say, oh, all the evidence seems to indicate it's a Russian missile operated by the Iranians, but Russia says there's no basis for it, so I guess we can release on that.
What do they think we're going to do with that?
Anyway, that's enough of that.
I'm having this problem of trying not to laugh at disasters.
Yes.
And I don't know if you're having this problem, too.
But when people lose their lives, no matter who they are, if they're innocent civilians especially, as human beings we should be focusing on the tragedy, the survivors, the families, etc. And I'm fully on board with being good people and focusing where it's most productive.
But there are some things about disasters that I can't help it.
I can't help it.
They're funny. And Rich Lowry did a tweet that is one of those.
So Rich Lowry, GOP, you know, famous person.
Says in his tweet, is the new standard really that a president of the United States can't defend against attacks on US personnel by a terror regime because the regime might accidentally shoot down an airliner taking off from one of their own airports?
In other words, their threat is if you attack us again, we'll shoot down another one of our own airlines or an airline filled with our own citizens.
What kind of thinking is this, that it's somehow the U.S.'s joint responsibility that the Iranians shot down a plane taking off from their own capital airport?
Do we really take the blame for that because we shook the box?
Yeah, when you shake the box, you're going to get unintended consequences.
We all understand that, right?
We're adults. You take a big box and you shake it, you're going to get unintended consequences.
You know what else you're going to get?
Only unintended consequences, because that's what shaking the box does.
That's the whole point. The whole point is you don't know what you're going to end up with after you shake the box.
You just know that where you are is the wrong place, and you can't get where you need to be from where you are, so you shake the box.
I don't think that we can be responsible for other people making mistakes.
That feels like kind of a stretch.
Speaking of unintended consequences, here's something you haven't thought about much.
When we talk about the United States' decisions about what to do in other countries, especially if there's military action, we always talk about unintended consequences.
And we say, well, we intended to get rid of those weapons of mass destruction, but, oops, there weren't any, and we ended up wrecking the entire Middle East and giving power to Arab.
That's a pretty big unintended consequence, right?
Let me tell you who else has to worry about unintended consequences.
I tweeted yesterday that the worst thing that the US military could do to Iran, the country of Iran, is to leave.
Think about the implications of the United States military just saying, you know, we're just kind of done.
We're done in Syria. We're done in Iraq.
How about we just leave? Now, keep in mind, we have a ton of bases in the area.
You know, the friendly countries to us, Saudi Arabia, et cetera, we have bases.
So we've got bases that surround Iraq.
We've got bases that surround Iran.
We're all over the place over there.
But we could certainly get out of Iran, and we could certainly, I'm sorry, we could certainly get out of Iraq, and we could certainly get out of Syria.
What would be the unintended consequences of Iran getting exactly what they're asking for?
Because that's what they're asking for.
They're asking for us to leave.
What would happen? Think about it.
What would be the unintended consequence of the United States military not being the big dog in the area?
Well, if you take the big dog away, You get a new big dog, right?
Because there's always the next biggest dog who becomes the new big dog.
Who would be the big dog in that area of town if we leave?
Russia, right?
Does Iran want to have Russia as their frenemy jockeying for, let's say, influence in the area?
Because remember, Russia isn't leaving.
Does Iran really want The United States no longer to be, I'll say, in between.
You know, I'm speaking very loosely and figuratively.
But doesn't the U.S. military sort of stand in between the two, let's say, allies of Russia and Iran?
Now, Russia and Iran are somewhat working together, somewhat allied, but not really.
Do you think that Iran in the long term wants to be Russia's good friend?
Doubt it. Do you think Russia in the long term thinks that they want to really help Iran get its national goals met?
I don't think so, because Iran's national objectives seem to be the death of everybody in Russia, or let's say the conversion to Islam.
So, Russia and Iran, it seems to me, and again, we're just speculating because the whole point of unintended consequences is you don't know what's going to happen.
It's not unintended if you know what's going to happen.
It seems to me that if the United States military got out of there, it would put the Russian military and the Iranian military suddenly from being on the same side-ish on some things to a lot more confrontational.
You know who else would be a lot more confrontational?
Israel. Israel would no longer have the luxury of having the United States do any of the things that maybe they wish they would have to do themselves or they would have to do themselves if we weren't there.
What about Saudi Arabia?
Saudi Arabia wouldn't act the same because they might say, oh, God, the U.S. military is gone.
We might have to get more aggressive.
So, whatever would happen after we leave, if Iran assumes that the way the world looks is better for them, I would say, as the Russians say, there's no basis for that.
There's no reason to believe that Iran would do better if we left.
It's what they want.
But I don't know that they would do better.
So remember, unintended consequences work both ways.
And I can't think of anything that would be more sweet revenge for people who think that we need revenge on Iran for whatever, going back to 1979, than putting them in a direct conflict with Russia.
Because if we leave, I think, sooner or later, Iran and Russia are going to be in direct conflict.
Am I right? Now, I don't know anything about the area, so let me be as...
As, let's see, transparent as possible by saying that I don't know what's going on in the Middle East.
I don't know. I don't know enough about all the players to make, you know, smart geopolitical statements, clearly.
But it does seem to me that we are the thing that keeps Russia and Iran from being at each other because they have us as this common enemy.
So that's my only point.
Here's a question for you.
Is Iran a dangerous military power who, if unleashed, would cause great havoc to us and our allies?
Or a completely incompetent paper tiger who has overextended itself and is on the brink of going out of business, so to speak, as a country, and all their equipment is rusted and it would only take us 10 minutes to take out the whole country?
Which of those is closer to the truth?
By the way, I will talk about Matt Gaetz, so I see some people prompting me, but it's in my notes, so I'll get to that.
So, I'm continually amazed at how often the common assumption about things is 100% wrong.
Because Iran is either a really formidable military foe, or the opposite, and we're hearing, I'm seeing evidence of both.
Keep in mind that when we talked about invading Iraq, it was understood that that was always a ground war.
In other words, you couldn't really invade Iraq and do anything useful unless you put boots on the ground, which is what happened with the Iraq wars.
But if Iran ever got into a shooting war with the United States, would we ever have to put boots on the ground?
Because the smart people say no.
The smart people say that we would take out the refineries, take out their missile sites.
Was there one other thing?
If you take out the refineries, that's the entire economy.
That's one afternoon.
You take out their missile sites, it might take you a few days, you know, because they've got probably jamming and, you know, anti-aircraft and stuff like that.
A few days. So if you take out their anti-aircraft, we would control the sky over Iran.
And they would have no economy.
You wouldn't really need to do anything else except wait, right?
You could take out their entire navy in one more afternoon.
And their air force would be destroyed on the ground, I would imagine.
So it seems to me that when we talk about war with Iran, we're not really, even in our wildest imaginings, imagining that anything could create a situation where we'd want to put people there.
It just doesn't make any sense.
If we wanted to destroy them, given that their own population is ready to do the hard work for us, I mean, the protesters seem to be poised to give us a new government in Iran if the conditions allowed them to do so.
So it could be that if the US military just kept the Iranian military busy for a while, that the locals would do the rest.
Now, that of course is wildly optimistic, and the laws of unintended consequences are very big in this case, and there's not even the slightest situation in which I would ever suggest we should go to war with Iran.
So just to be clear, there's no smart argument to go to war with Iran, given our current situation.
I don't think anybody can make that argument.
And I don't see it changing.
Which leads me to...
Matt Gaetz. Congressman Matt Gaetz, one of just a few Republicans who voted in a way that we presume President Trump would not like.
Voted in favor of the House motion.
What is it? Resolution?
Motion? Legislation?
I never know what to call stuff.
Doesn't matter for this purpose.
So he basically agreed with Congress confirming its role as the approver of wars, meaning that we won't go to war with Iran.
Like a proper war, as opposed to a defensive military action, but that we don't want to go to a proper war with Iran or anybody else, I suppose, unless the Congress has approved.
Now, the point of that was to constrain President Trump so that he doesn't go to war with Iran against the wishes of Congress.
Now, have I told you before the following things?
Number one, Matt Gaetz is a strong contender, and I'll go so far as to say probable presidential contender at some point in the future.
Probable. Probable winner as well.
Because just based on his skill set, he has all the skills.
He has all the skills.
I don't think he's missing a single skill.
To be a GOP candidate, and I think he would clean the table on any Democrat that ran against him.
With the exception, there's only one exception.
There's only one Democrat I can imagine in the future.
Remember, we're projecting five, ten years in the future or whatever.
And that's AOC. Apparently AOC is just killing it on fundraising and doesn't want to share it with the DNC, which is the normal process.
She doesn't have to, so she's not.
And she's using her fundraising to fund her more radical democratic folks.
So remember I told you in the very beginning...
The AOC was not a flash in the pan.
Others told you this as well, but we were doing the same thing we did with Trump in the early days, which is that, uh-oh, you might not see this coming, but she has the full skill set.
She's not just going to be today's news.
She might be the future of the party.
Remember, some of us said that very early on when all of you said, no, no, no, Scott.
She's just a crazy radical.
She'll have her day. She'll get her 15 minutes.
It'll be over any minute now.
And I was saying, no, look at the skill set.
The skill set suggests she might be your future president or at least running for it.
Matt Gaetz might be the only thing that could keep her out at the White House.
And people like it.
In other words, the only way you're going to keep AOC out of the White House is to have a really good GOP candidate.
Because when she runs, she's going to be really good.
All right? You know, fuck you.
You're deleted. I just can't stand the trolls who say that if I say AOC has skill, that it's really my way of signaling that I want to get with her.
That's just so creepy and stupid and small.
You get deleted for that.
You can talk about politicians without wanting to get with them.
Can we agree with that?
That bothered me more than it should have.
So, let's get back to Matt Gaetz.
One of the things I said, in addition to saying that Matt Gaetz has all the tools and not many people I would say that about.
There are not many people you would say have all the tools.
He has all the tools.
Persuasion, communication, his policies are really well calibrated for the future, not just today, but even the future.
And one of the tells I give you for somebody who's a great persuader, and how many times have I said this?
The great persuaders pick up free money that other people couldn't see.
It's so reliable.
You look for this, and you'll see it a lot.
There'll be this pile of money sitting on the table, and person after person walks past it without seeing it, and then the great persuader comes by and says, hey, hey, big pile of money, anybody?
Who owns this money?
Seriously? This is free money?
There's nobody who has this money.
Nobody has claim on this money?
I'll take it. So if you see somebody picking up free money when nobody else can see it, you're dealing with somebody who's got superpowers in terms of persuasion.
That's what Matt Gaetz did when he voted against the president.
Here's why. Apparently this, I don't know, resolution or whatever the hell it was, contained no criticism of President Trump.
That's very important, and Matt Gaetz points that out.
He said, I voted for something that had no criticism of President Trump.
It wasn't there. Not just interpreting it differently, it just wasn't there.
That's important. So did he really vote against the president?
Because the president wasn't really mentioned.
What he did vote was in favor of the constitutional requirement That the Congress be part of the decision to make war.
So in other words, he voted for his own team, Congress, and he voted consistent with the Constitution according to 100% of scholars.
Now, he said he talked to the president about it, so the president probably knew he was going to do it.
What do you think the president said?
I think he mentioned that the president wasn't overjoyed about it.
And we would expect that to be true, right?
You would expect that the president would prefer, all things being equal, the president would prefer that 100% of Republicans are on his side all the time.
But the president also knows what a table of free money looks like.
This is speculation, because remember, you can't read minds.
But imagine you're in the room with two of the most talented persuaders of our time, Trump, and the congressman who's pretty close to him, Matt Gaetz.
Imagine their private conversation.
I don't know if they had a private conversation, but this is just a mental thought, in which Matt Gaetz says, you know, I'm thinking of voting for this thing because it doesn't insult you and it supports the Constitution, supports Congress, of which I am a member, so it's completely consistent and it's free money.
Would Trump understand what he meant?
When he said, this is free money, he didn't say that.
These are my own imaginary speculative thought experiment words I'm putting in his mouth.
Would Trump understand what that meant?
Yeah, he would. Here's what it means.
What is the biggest criticism of Matt Gaetz?
Well, I read the Washington Post story about this very episode about him voting in favor of Nancy Pelosi's whatever it was.
And they start out by saying this long, insulting paragraph about how Matt Gaetz just always agrees with the president and he's sort of the president's, you know, they put bad words on it, but basically it's the idea that he would just support the president no matter what.
So, Matt Gaetz finds this pile of free money in which he can distance himself from the idea, first of all, that he's in favor of war, or any kind of rash decision to go to war without Congress's approval.
That's about the safest place you could ever have a political opinion.
He gets to distance himself from Trump on an issue that's war and peace.
A big issue. Now, in our minds, it's a big issue, right?
The question of how much control the commander-in-chief has about making war while we're in a time of, you know, potential danger and potential war, it's a really big decision.
It's a big issue.
And Matt Gaetz He gets to disagree with the public, I'm sorry, disagree with the president.
He gets to agree with the public, because the public is pretty much on his side on this, that Congress needs to be part of the decision.
And even Republicans like the Constitution, which he's being compatible with in a direct way.
So what does Matt Gaetz get?
He gets to be on TV. Remember, attention is 50% of persuasion.
So Matt Gaetz gets the attention by being one of the unusual votes for a Republican.
So he gets all the attention.
He's on all the big shows.
He's in all the headlines for free.
He paid nothing for that.
And it totally worked for his portfolio of his background, his history, what we think about him.
It perfectly worked because it created some distance between his independent opinions and President Trump.
Free money.
A gigantic pile of free money that only Matt Gaetz saw.
So he picked it up.
You'll never see A better resume point than can pick up free money.
I would argue, and it's too early to say this, way too early to see this, but I would argue that when President Trump decided to take out Salomon A, we might eventually learn that he was picking up free money.
And what I mean by that is that we imagined that the risks were extreme, But maybe they never were.
Meaning that it could be, and all the evidence is suggesting this, that Iran is not that upset about Salamne getting killed.
Now, don't judge by the size of the crowds, because there's a cultural element that gives them big crowds, they may have been coerced, who knows.
So you can't really judge by the crowds.
But you can certainly judge by how Iran is responding.
And they responded by saying, we'll fire some missiles into the desert and call it even.
That doesn't sound like they're too broken up.
I've got a feeling that that was free money.
It certainly looks like that.
All right. Let's see what else we got going on.
Let's talk about Preet Barrera.
So Preet wrote an op-ed about Representative Doug Collins, who is a Republican, and apparently Doug Collins asserted on an interview on national television, and this is Preet's opinion pieces on CNN.com.
And he said about the Democrats, he's talking about the Democrats, and he said that they are, quote, are in love with terrorists.
We see that they mourn Soleimani more than they mourn our gold star families.
Ouch. Preet Burr called him out for disgust, basically.
So, without getting into the actual text of what he said, so Preet Bharara, who you might know as a very vocal anti-Trumper, one of the most vocal, in fact, I think Trump fired him from his job when Trump became president.
He's an attorney, an advocate, I would say, for his points of views.
But in this case, I completely agree with Preet Bharara.
So he's calling out Doug Collins for mind reading.
In other words, Doug Collins is asserting as if he has some certainty that Democrats are in love with terrorists and that they mourn them more than gold star families.
Do you think that there's even one Democrat who holds the opinion that Doug Collins just attributed to Democrats in general?
I doubt it.
I doubt it.
Somebody says truth.
Truth? Seriously.
All right. Let me say as clearly as I possibly can.
If you think Democrats like terrorists more than gold star families, you're an idiot.
All right. And you should just sign off this Periscope and never watch it again.
Because that is the dumbest thing that anybody could ever think.
It's a case of mind reading.
It's an ultimate case of loser think.
As I talk about it in my book, Loser Think, an excellent book.
You should read it. Um...
We don't know what other people are thinking.
And we certainly don't believe that people like terrorists who are killing Americans more than we like our own military families who are the surviving family members whose children got killed in war.
Nobody thinks that, Doug Collins.
If you believe...
Well, first of all, I doubt Doug Collins actually believes this.
So the fact that he's saying it is just...
It's despicable. It really is.
It's just totally despicable.
Yeah, okay, you know, Ilhan Omar, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Ilhan Omar does not represent Democrats.
She represents Ilhan Omar.
So, yes, yes, yes, you can believe that there are maybe two people in Congress at most who are anti-American at their core.
That wouldn't be surprising.
There might be a few bad apples in any big batch.
So there might be a few anti-American types in Congress.
That's possible. I'm not a mind reader, so I can't read their minds, but certainly their actions would give you enough evidence to say, okay, based on their statements and their actions, they seem pretty anti-American.
What, two Democrats that we even know of?
So to paint Democrats...
As being in love with terrorists, meaning even if he's just talking about the professional set of Democrats, not just the public, it's despicable, Doug Collins.
And I'm glad that Preet called you out on that.
Moreover, since I continuously blame the Democrats for mind reading, I'm not going to ignore it when it happens the other way.
All right? You would not...
I don't think you would respect me if I did.
So, no mind reading, and that's just ridiculous.
Doug Collins, you ought to be ashamed of yourself for that.
Joel Pollack. I don't know if it's a scoop, but I didn't hear it anywhere else in Breitbart.
Did you know, and I haven't seen this anywhere else, but did you know that the so-called contractor who was killed in Iraq by Iranian proxies that started this whole sequence of events that led to Soleimani's missile death, did you know that the contractor who started this all is actually A Muslim American.
Did you know that?
He's a...
What's the exact...
Yeah, his name is...
Was, I'm sorry.
Or I guess still is.
Nawaz Walid Hamid.
He's a Muslim American immigrant from Sacramento.
So, he's one of mine.
Meaning a Californian.
Um... So how does that fit with the Democrats' view of the president?
He literally took out the head of Iran for killing an American Muslim American immigrant.
Now, when I say Muslim-American immigrant, I don't know if he had citizenship, but it doesn't matter for these purposes, because if he was over there helping our military in a military situation, I'm going to call him an American independent of whatever his official status was.
I'm a big believer, and I know most of you are going to hate this, that American is bigger than just the paperwork.
I think most of you would agree with that in concept, but it causes problems when you're trying to decide who's a legal citizen and who's not.
But I'm going to stick with it anyway.
Being an American is, to me, accepting a certain set of principles and ideals and, you know, picking a team, if you will.
So I have never been a stickler for, if your paperwork's wrong, you're not an American.
Because there are two senses of American.
There's the paperwork American, and then there's American in spirit, American in attitude, American in preference, American in terms of team.
There's lots of ways to be an American.
And I'm going to say that this contractor who started it all, we'll say his name again because I like to Call them out as important.
Nawrez Walid Hamid, Muslim-American immigrant from Sacramento.
So, my condolences to the family and much respect to Walid, who was, at least in activity, a great American.
All right.
Let's talk about something else.
Have you noticed already that some of the social media entities may be getting ready for the election?
So I was alerted to this by one of my followers who may be watching this right now.
I'm not going to call you out because I don't know if you want anonymity or not.
But I was DM'd and somebody said, Somebody who should remain anonymous for now.
That he was Googling Mike Cernovich's name, because it's easier to go directly to his Twitter feed if you just type in his ad Cernovich.
And he said that the Google result, one of the top results, was from the Southern Poverty Law Center.
And I thought to myself, and I think that's kind of new, at least in terms of he hadn't noticed it before.
So the suggestion was that Google is ramping up for the election by maybe, let's say, the allegation or suspicion, because that's as far as we can go, it's an allegation and a suspicion, is that there might be some prepping.
for the election by changing the search results.
Now, I'm on DuckDuckGo for my primary search engine, so I searched Mike Cernovich, and all it came up with is positive things.
It's like his You know, came up with his Twitter, came up with, you know, things he tweeted, his Instagram, basically just positive, objective links to things Mike Cernovich.
And then I think, huh.
Then I go to Google, put in exactly the same search term, and number two on the list, I think maybe under the Wikipedia link or something, which is sort of an automatic first, number two is the Southern Poverty Law Center hit piece And I thought to myself, wait a minute, isn't the Southern Poverty Law Center supposed to be identifying hate crimes?
What do you call it? What are they looking for?
Basically racists and haters of all kinds.
And I thought to myself, what do they know that I don't know?
So I thought, well, I better read this.
And the first thing I noticed is that I thought the Southern Poverty Law Center was supposed to be Some kind of objective arbiter of who's crossed the line into hate so that the other platforms can know who the haters are and maybe block them.
And the first thing you notice is that it's written like a BuzzFeed hit piece.
I'm reading the thing and I'm thinking, why would you write it like a BuzzFeed article where you just throw in insults to a person instead of just saying the facts?
Why can't they just list the facts without listing their opinion of the guy?
Like, we don't care about their opinion.
We'll form our own opinions, right?
So the first thing is that the Southern Poverty Law Center sort of signals their complete lack of credibility by writing an article that, to me, just looked like it could have come out of Slate or Buzzfeed or something.
It was actually funny that it was so ridiculously personal.
But then I thought, okay, what are these accusations?
So they make accusations that he said anti-woman stuff, and he said, I don't know, racially charged things.
And then I thought, okay, let's read their argument.
What did he say?
And is it backed up by their claims?
And I would read the claim, and then I would read their argument to support the claim, and it debunked the claims.
And I thought, what am I saying here?
Because rather than repeat the claims, because I don't want to give them any extra energy, I will use an analogy to say what I was reading.
So I'd be reading something that would say something like, And I'm just making this one up, right?
So I'm going to speak just as an analogy so I don't talk about their actual stupid article.
It would say stuff like, and Mike Cernovich is five feet tall, and he's also seven feet tall.
I'm like, wait, what?
Can't both be true.
So my point is, That their article would make claims about him, and then when they supported their claims, all of their evidence was the opposite.
It was counterfactuals.
It was things that he's done completely on the opposite side of their own argument.
And when I was done, at the very end, it starts talking about how, you know, even in their own opinion, he's done some positive things.
And I'm thinking, well, you could have put that first.
Because the things that are positive are also the most current.
If you're going to write an article about somebody who's in the news, would you not start by saying who they are now?
And then maybe if you wanted to give some context, you might tell us who they used to be, right?
But if you start an article with who they used to be, And then way, way down the article, you mentioned who they are now, which is a more positive picture.
You're just assholes.
All right, sorry. Apparently I'm not going to make it through 2020 without swearing some more.
It was just sort of a dick move, is what I'm saying.
Because the order that you present things is how people receive them.
And I don't think there's anything less fair than to start with who somebody used to be And then end with a weak statement of who they are now, which is pretty good.
That's messed up.
So the southern part of the Poverty Law Center has some explaining to do there.
Did you see the story about a North Carolina church?
So there was a guy in meth Who they found out later had, I guess, done some violence, domestic violence.
But he was trying to force himself into a church.
He was acting sketchy so the church members had their own security.
And he tried to force his way in.
And the church members beat the snot out of him.
If you saw the picture of his, I guess, his mugshot, he's got like bandages all over and he's all swollen and black eyes.
I mean, he's just completely messed up.
And so, the weird thing that's happened is that I'd be afraid to go to church these days because I think church has become the most violent place in America.
It just feels like a dangerous place to be.
Like, I definitely wouldn't go to church unless I was packing, that's for sure.
Don't go to church without packing.
Pack your heat. Here's an interesting question.
I've been sort of half following the Australia fire situation.
Apparently half of Australia is on fire.
And I'm seeing this weird situation.
I guess the reason I wasn't talking about it is there was something I didn't understand.
Somebody says, that's stupid, Scott.
You are deleted for not giving a reason.
Remember the rules. The rules are if you say you're dumb or you're stupid, but you don't give a reason, you're deleted.
You can give a reason.
How many of you seen that I'm completely open to opposing reasons, but you're a stupid scum?
That's a block. So let's talk about these Australian fires.
So the public is angry.
Some part of the public is angry because they blame the government for not doing enough about climate change because they believe that climate change is a major or even the major contributor to how bad the fires are.
Now, of course, this is complicated by the fact that apparently 200 of the fires or something like that We're set by arsonists.
187 arson arrests.
So there are 187 arrests, but there are even more arsons, right?
200 plus arsons. What the hell is happening?
In Australia that their own citizens are burning up the country.
So that's a separate question.
But I think the critics are accurately saying that's not the only problem, because even with this many arsons, it wouldn't be this bad, they say, except for all the dry brush which they attribute in part to climate change and their government not doing enough about it.
Here's my question.
What the hell are they talking about?
If you could imagine that Australia tomorrow stopped using every form of carbon, how much difference would that make to Australia's wildfire situation?
I think the answer, according to scientists, would be none.
Can somebody fact check me on that?
Because my understanding is that Australia is not one of the big contributors to climate change.
China is. The US is.
Just because of size alone, not because of percentage of pollutants per person or anything.
India is. But is Australia?
Is Australia one of the big contributors to climate change?
And if they did absolutely everything that you could do, would it have made any difference?
Because it feels like the entire conversation is stupid people yapping at each other.
Is there any smart person in Australia?
I know one, Seb.
So Sebastian, if you watch this, I know at least one company, one startup full of smart people in Australia.
I don't know a lot of Australians, but if I were to judge only from the news coverage, I would have to conclude that they're all stupid.
They're not all stupid, obviously.
But the news is making it look that way.
Is there nobody on the news in Australia who can sort out the fact that even if Australia did everything you could possibly do, it wouldn't have made any difference to the forest fires?
Which is not a reason to ignore climate change.
I'm not arguing that they should.
That's a separate question.
I'm just saying it wouldn't make any difference.
So they're all arguing the wrong stuff.
Fact check me, please.
Can somebody fact check that?
Because I think I'm losing my mind.
If it's so obvious to me and I'm an idiot, I hope I'm wrong.
I mean, honestly, I hope I'm wrong.
Because I'd hate to think there's a whole, you know, continent or a whole bunch of people who couldn't figure that out on their own.
Let me tell you who the dumbest people are in the Iran debate.
Are you ready? This is how you can tell who the dumbest people are.
They're still arguing over whether or not Solomon's next attacks were imminent, because the government said they were.
Hey, those attacks are imminent, so we had to take them out.
Now, the dumbest people are the ones arguing that point about whether it was imminent.
Why? Because it's irrelevant.
It's where they want to spend all their time arguing and it's completely irrelevant.
It's just as irrelevant as what Australian government does about climate change because they're too small to make any difference whatsoever.
It is irrelevant whether it was imminent because he had created a track record which gives you a rock-solid guarantee that there would be more of it or you have the reason to believe there would be more of it.
Do you really need intel to tell you there'd be more of it?
Watch this. I'm going to do some brain reading.
I will peer into the future.
Terrorists who have been being terrorists for 20 years straight and have been especially active in recent weeks, will they or will they not?
Do more attacks.
Let me peer into the future.
I see yes. Amazing, right?
Top that.
That's some next-level futuristic predictions right there.
If he's been doing it for 20 years every single day, maybe he'll do it again.
There's some chance he might do it again.
Or... I suppose that's the day he was going to retire.
What if we bombed him?
What if we killed him on the same day he was going to announce his retirement?
Well, maybe.
It's possible.
Anything's possible. I mean, what are the odds that a Ukraine airline got shot down?
Anything's possible. But I think we were pretty safe in our assumption that 20 years of unbroken record of being that guy wasn't likely he was going to be not that guy on Wednesday morning next week.
Yeah, top shelf mind reading.
I do the best mind reading.
All right. I would like to give a commercial for some of YouTube's competitors, because they continue to demonetize me on YouTube, where these Periscopes get uploaded after they're done.
Have you heard of BitChute?
B-I-T-C-H-U-T-E. BitChute is a competitor to YouTube, and I'll just mention them.
You can do your own research. The other one I mentioned was Rockfin, R-O-K-F-I-N. And there's something called, I don't know how you pronounce it, L-Y-B-R-Liber.tv.
So they have a.tv extension.
I think there's another one.
I'll find out. But Vimeo.
Yeah, Vimeo is another option where you can charge for your content, apparently.
So, L-Y-B-R is library.
Is that what it's called? Why not watch later on Periscope?
Somebody asked. You can.
You can watch it later on Periscope if you like.
So I just give options.
It's good. So I'm going to try to spread my reach this year.
So as long as YouTube is demonetizing me, I'm going to give a commercial every day for their competitors, if their competitors ever get big enough.
Well then, we'll have some options.
So it's Liberty, not Library.
Library TV, it's called.
LBRY TV. Sorry if I get all that wrong.
Yes, I did talk about Krugman.
I won't do that again.
Spotify.
What about Spotify?
apply.
Please check on floatplane.
What's a float plane?
Are you on BizShoot?
Not yet. I'll be looking into it.
Any other questions?
Vimeo doesn't monetize, somebody says, I think you can put up a paywall of your own.
I think you can charge for your content on Vimeo, but I'm not the expert on that.
Oh, and these also get turned into iTunes podcasts, and guess what?
This content, when it gets turned into a podcast, actually reaches the top 100 of iTunes podcasts.
Think about how many podcasts there are.
And this actually made it into the top 100.
The last thing I saw was 122 because it bounces around a little bit.
But it actually cracked the top 100 for a week.
There's somebody who wants to get blocked.
You got it! Can I upload my Periscope as a Spotify podcast?
Well, I didn't know that there was such a thing as a Spotify podcast, so I'd have to look into that.
It might be harder than you think because the way we upload it to iTunes is automated.
If they don't have an automated way to do it, it's a little harder.
All right. Where on iTunes?
Just Google my name.
Just Google Scott Adams or Coffee with Scott Adams on iTunes and you will find me just like that.
Kathy Griffin versus Sandman lawsuit.
Why is he suing Kathy Griffin?
Do you remember my reaction to the Covington kids?
Which seems smarter today.
When the Covington Kids, the hoax videos first came out, I was also taken in by the hoax, because I thought I would believe what I would say with my own eyes, but now we're all getting a little smarter.
I think we've all really grown up, even since the Covington Kids, that was just last year, right?
We've all kind of grown up, or last year?
A year before? But we've all kind of grown up, and we know that even if we're looking at it on video, it doesn't really mean anything, because the video could be misleading.
So as soon as I saw the corrected video that showed the whole context, I realized I had been had.
And I immediately clarified and apologized, with no ambiguity.
Clarify, apologize, I'm out.
Now, am I getting sued?
Is anybody suing me?
No, because I just made a mistake.
I was taken in by a hoax.
Being taken in by a hoax, it doesn't get you sued if you handle it right.
How often have I told you that it's better to judge people by how they handle their mistakes than by the mistakes?
So those of you who are saying, Scott, Scott, you made a mistake, you made a mistake, I did.
You're free to judge me by my mistakes, but I think that would be a bad system on your part.
A better system is to judge people by how they handle their mistakes, because everybody makes mistakes.
But not everybody handles them in a way that you can respect.
I handled my mistake.
I said, public, big mistake.
Clarify, apologize.
Unambiguous. There's no qualifiers on there except the obvious qualifier that everybody got taken in by the original hoax video.
Not everybody. There were some people who were smarter than me who said that's a hoax video from the jump.
Some people were on it.
They sniffed it out. So credit to them.
They saw what I didn't. So mine was just a mistake.
Does anybody like me less because I made that mistake or any other mistake?
Probably not. As long as you handle your mistake well, you come out ahead.
You don't even come out behind. You know, I told you the story about the app Go Trashy, who I had a bad experience with them, but their customer service was so good and they made it right so well.
That I actually did a commercial for them and said, you should use that app.
Because in that rare case where something went wrong, boy, did they fix it.
They fixed it perfectly.
So I'd have to say that how you handle the mistake is the standard for judging people.
And I leave you with that.
That's all I have for now.
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