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Jan. 13, 2020 - Real Coffe - Scott Adams
37:43
Episode 786 Scott Adams Reprogramming Iran From the Simulation Control Room

Scott Adams talks about the news of the day through a persuasion filter.  --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/scott-adams00/support

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We're going to navigate through.
Okay. Looks like the simulation is back on track.
Hi, good morning. This is Coffee with Scott Adams.
I'm coming to you today from the simulation control room.
This is where the simulation that you believe is your reality is formed.
And I'll be tweaking it a little bit this morning.
You can see that there's a lot going on up here.
It's a pretty busy space.
A lot of people trying to tweak your reality, but I'm the ultimate author.
And so, you're in good hands today, and we're going to be tweaking the simulation for your benefit today.
It's going to be really good.
Watch this. But first, what do you need?
You know what you need.
Come on. You know what you need.
Yeah. You need a cup or a mug or a glass, a tank or a chalice or a stein, a canteen jug or a flask, a vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine hit of the day, the thing that makes everything better.
It's called the simultaneous sip.
Go. Oh, yeah.
Now, many of you noticed that the news started to get a little boring, and since I've been running this simulation like a reality show.
I needed to inject some interest.
So did you notice how the Pfizer process was getting really boring?
It was boring.
So I made a few changes.
Here and here.
All right. Little tweaks there.
Okay. And now we've got an interesting FISA court again.
As Mike Cernovich reported on Twitter, in February of 2018, an Obama-era lawyer named David Criss wrote that Devin Nunes, quote, falsely accused the FBI of deceiving the FISA court.
So, somebody incorrectly said that Devin Nunes falsely accused the FBI of deceiving the FISA court only to learn later that the FBI deceived the FISA court and that everything Devin Nunes said was correct.
So, what would be the most fun thing I could do to make the FISA thing interesting?
You know? Put David Criss in charge of overseeing it, and that's what's going to happen.
That's right. The guy who doesn't have a shred of credibility is going to be the next FISA court overseer.
You didn't see that coming, did you?
I know, you thought it'd be some credible, boring person who would just oversee stuff.
No, that is not how I run this simulation.
Would I bore you?
No! No!
We're going to get the most divisive person we can put in there, somebody who has no credibility whatsoever and a complete public record to prove it.
That's what I call a good simulation.
All right. Here's my favorite story of the day.
Are you ready? President Trump is getting a lot of heat because The intelligence people aren't exactly backing up his claim about the imminent threat from Soleimani and his people.
And I wondered to myself, Scott, what was the exact quote That Trump made.
What were his exact words that are making people fact check him incorrectly?
So I went back to it and looked it up.
Here are his exact words that they're fact checking, right?
So this is being fact checked.
So when I read this sentence, say to yourself, oh, I guess they're trying to find out if that's a fact.
President Trump said, quote, I can reveal that I believe it would have been four embassies.
And Trump said in an interview with Fox News.
The point of that was that Trump indicated that there was imminent danger to four embassies, and they're fact-checking that.
And the other folks, Pompeo and The other person whose name, I can't remember right now, are saying, well, you know, they're sort of shading that a little bit, softening it a little bit, and the critics are saying, wait, wait.
And so read this sentence again.
Tell me where in this sentence Trump makes the claim that the intelligence proves, or even strongly indicated, That the four embassies were going to be attacked.
Find me in this sentence where Trump said, the intelligence says, four embassies are going to be attacked.
Watch this. I'll read it again.
I can reveal that I believe it would have been four embassies.
Find in that sentence where he said, the intelligence says it's going to be four embassies.
It's not there.
They're fact-checking a belief.
A belief about something that could happen in the future.
In other words, they are literally fact-checking his speculation about what he believed.
I'm pretty sure he believed that, or at least he believed that there was trouble coming.
But you've got the entire media who has nothing to do today except to fact-check somebody who had a belief in what was likely to happen.
That's it. He had a belief.
Now, was his belief unreasonable?
No. Actually, there's nobody who thinks it's unreasonable to assume that having surrounded one embassy, that he wouldn't do some more of it.
Wouldn't the most obvious thing to do, if you were just surrounded an embassy and you got a lot of press for it and you were putting heat on the Americans, wouldn't you surround some more embassies?
It feels like that's exactly what they would have done.
So if Trump says, I can reveal that I believe it, he's not saying, I can reveal the evidence.
He didn't say that. He said, I can reveal what I believe.
Did he believe that four embassies might have been three, might have been five?
But is it a reasonable claim that Trump believed embassies were the likely targets?
I would say that's pretty credible.
Now, I don't know what he thinks, but is it reasonable that he would believe embassies would likely be at the top of the target list, given that they just surrounded an embassy?
Probably. Probably.
All right. This is interesting.
I think it was CNN who was reporting that Iran has, the media has turned on the government.
Which doesn't happen in Iran.
Think about this.
The headlines for the major Iranian newspapers were pretty anti-government, talking about the shooting down into the plane and changing the story and killing all the Iranian citizens who just thought they were on a plane going somewhere.
What does it mean that the Iranian press just declared some independence?
Probably means a lot.
Now, it could be that the Iranian leadership is saying, you know, we just got to take it on the chin because we messed up.
We've admitted we made a mistake.
We've admitted what really happened.
Maybe we just have to let the public and the press vent, and maybe that's the best thing.
Now, if that's what they're thinking, it would be pretty smart, I think.
It would be smart for Iran, I think, to let the public and the press vent a little bit before things get back to normal.
Because if they can't vent with their free speech, what there is of it, then maybe they would have to do something more radical.
Maybe that's a good idea to stop that.
So Trump tweeted that he was urging Iran to turn their internet back on.
And I thought that might be really productive in terms of a way to go.
And Newt Gingrich said something interesting.
He said that the US position should be, quote, aggressively pro-Iranian.
Now, what's interesting is his choice of words.
Aggressively pro-Iranian is what the US position should be.
Totally agree with that.
You know, anytime Newt talks, you should listen, because he's usually the smartest guy in the game.
And Newt says we should be aggressively pro-Iranian.
Now, you could argue what aggressive means in this context, but what I love is pro-Iranian.
We are pro-Iranian because we like the people of Iran.
We wish them well. We'd like to be able to do more with them.
It's just the government. So Newt has correctly identified that we have a common enemy.
We, the people of Iran, And the United States.
We have a common enemy, which is their current government, and being aggressively pro-Iranian as a way to frame our position is really strong.
Newt's good at this stuff, so you should listen to him.
That's way better than being somehow anti-Iran or acting like we want to destroy the country.
Those are the worst frames.
Here's an idea. So this is more of a thought experiment.
I believe this idea has no chance of being implemented, but the president's tweet and also Newt's framing give me this idea.
Just imagine this.
Imagine, if you will, That we said, we'd like to negotiate with you, Iran, but there's only one thing we want.
I'm not saying this will happen, and I'm not claiming this is the idea we should pursue.
Just a thought experiment.
It goes like this. We say to them, we only want one thing.
We want you to turn your internet back on.
That's it. That's the only thing we want.
And we'll release the sanctions.
Now you say to yourself, wait, wait, wait, then they're going to get a nuclear weapon.
You know, that's all the problems that we're trying to avoid.
We have to keep the pressure on.
But here's what's different.
I believe the Iranian public, or at least enough of them, might be on our side.
Meaning, our side meaning peace, meaning they don't want to start a war, meaning they don't want their government to be wasting their money on stuff like that.
So it seems to me, and again, it's just a thought experiment.
In the real world, probably you wouldn't take any risk like this.
But think about how strong that would be as a framing.
Hey Iran, there's only one thing we want.
We want you to put your own public On the internet.
Let them talk. That's it.
That's all we're going to ask. Because one of the things that that would do is it would show that there's no difference between what we want, the United States, and what the public of Iran wants.
We say there's no difference.
I think the Iranian public can take care of it if they have one thing, the ability to communicate.
That's it. It's the only thing we ask.
We're not even going to ask you to do anything with your nukes.
We're not going to ask you to change your proxy stuff.
Although maybe that's in the process of changing already because of Solomon A being gone.
But as a framing, it's very strong.
Just say, it's all we want.
We just want you to empower your own public.
Wherever that goes, it's up to you.
And there's a good chance it would go in a productive direction.
Now, it's not guaranteed, so that's why you're never going to see an idea like that.
But as a thought experiment, it's interesting.
All right. The other thing that Trump is doing by saying, let the Iranians have access to the Internet, is it's starting to get close to an idea that I've been promoting for a while.
And that's the idea.
That we should encourage Iran to take their jihad, let's say their religious impulses, their argument, their war, if you will, to spread the teachings and the ways of Islam, take it to the internet.
So instead of making it a kinetic war where people get killed, make it a war of ideas, And trust their God.
I think that's the strongest part of it.
If they trust their God, then they should also trust that the ideas they're promoting, their interpretation of what their God wants, are the correct ones, and that they would be the strongest over time.
And that's all they would need.
But if they don't trust their own God, they might have to use war and terrorism and these lesser tools The tools of primitive people because they don't trust their god enough to take it to the proper battleground of ideas.
Because what is religion? Religion is not keep your arm or lose your arm.
Religion is a war of belief and thoughts and ideas.
So if they can't win on the battlefield of thoughts and ideas and argument, they should question whether they've interpreted their deity correctly.
Because would their god let them lose if they were fighting the right war?
That would be a question for them.
Seems to me they would believe that if their god wanted them to win, their god would let them win.
That's how it works. So, the president has tiptoed right up to that line, but I think there's another place to go, which is, let's take the war to the internet, because asking people to stop their Their jihad or to stop their aggressive promotion of their version of Islam.
That's too much to ask.
You can't ask the Ayatollah, why don't you be a little less Islamic?
That's not a path.
That's not going to happen.
But you could ask them to fight the war a more effective way.
One that's more compatible with their own god.
That seems like that could be done.
So I put that out there.
Let's see if we can change the simulation a little bit.
Alright, by this week, tweaking, tweaking.
Yeah, by this week you'll see more of that.
Here's an idea for Iran.
Again, I don't think this idea will be implemented.
It's just food for thought.
Let's say you're an Iranian citizen.
You want to protest your government, but you don't want to take the risk.
It's not an accident that a lot of the protesters are young and students.
Because young students take bigger risks.
But there must be millions of just ordinary, middle-class, married people with families who would also like to protest, but it's just too dangerous.
How could you let the people who want to protest also protest, but make it safe?
I have a suggestion.
It's called the ambiguous protest.
Are you ready? We might give it a different name.
And it goes like this.
Instead of going outside with masks and clubs and whatever else they're doing and tearing down flags and essentially sort of rioting in the streets, instead of that, where it would be easy for any police officer to look at the people and say, okay, well, that person with the mask, who's tearing down a poster, Is a protester.
No doubt about it.
So we'll rough them up, we'll kill them, we'll do whatever we do to protesters.
But what if, instead of that, It were made a little bit more ambiguous, and it goes like this.
Let's say you have a call that at a certain time, everybody will go outside.
That's it. That's the whole protest.
Everybody, wherever they are, if they're indoors, just walk outside.
They don't have to march.
They don't have to chant.
They don't have to sing.
They don't have to throw things.
In fact, if you just walk outdoors on your own sidewalk, How do I know you're protesting at all?
Maybe you're just going to the store.
Somebody's calling it a flash mob.
That's probably a pretty good branding.
So what I'm talking about is a show of the pure volume of support for the protesters without the risk of being a protester.
Because if you simply walk outside in your regular street clothes, it could be because you wanted to see who else walked outside.
It could be because you were going to the store.
It could be because you were going for a walk.
But you're outdoors.
And here's the thing.
How big would this be if the Iranian protesters just said, all right, 8 p.m.
Tuesday night, walk outdoors if you support the protesters.
Just walk outdoors. You don't have to march.
You don't have to go anywhere. You can stand in front of your own house.
Just walk outdoors.
Some people will be just going outdoors to see how many other people went outside.
So you can go outdoors for two reasons.
One, to just see what's happening.
Two, to show that you're protesting.
It's going to kind of look the same.
And the idea would be to disguise the identities of the protesters from the people who just happened to be outside.
But imagine, if you will, If 30 million people walk outside at the same time, that's it.
The hard part is getting from the number of protesters you have to some number that's big enough to overthrow the country without going through the phase where the Iranian National Guard kills thousands of you on the process.
The only way you can skip that phase is by having tens of millions of people just walk outdoors at the same time.
Just say, hey, we're outdoors.
Look at how many there are.
We'll just take some pictures.
That's all. Just go outside, take some pictures.
That's the end of it.
All right. Don't think that'll happen, but it could.
Here's something that Iran's supreme leader said recently.
And what he said was, quote, that it's a turbulent situation with the US and Iran, and he called for increased cooperation in the region.
Isn't that an interesting response?
The Supreme Leader blames the US for the turbulence in the region, but then as a response to the turbulence in the region, it calls for increased cooperation in the region.
I'm not sure exactly who's cooperating, maybe just everyone.
But what does that mean, to have increased cooperation in the region?
Well, here's the dog that didn't bite.
If Iran is blaming the US for the turbulent situation, shouldn't the next thing they say be, then the US should change what they're doing?
Because if the US is to blame, Wouldn't you expect that the Iranian leadership would say, well, the U.S. is to blame, therefore the U.S. should do something different.
But instead, Iran says the U.S. is to blame for the turbulence, but who should do something different is the other people in the region.
Isn't that a soft response?
It's very anti-aggressive.
It's flagrantly anti-aggressive, but it does suggest that the solution is a larger peace deal.
And I feel like that's where this is heading.
Well, let's make sure it's heading that way.
Simulation controls on Ctrl F1. Push a couple buttons.
Alright. There we go.
There we go. Simulation is set.
We should be seeing a wider peace deal in the region.
Maybe not in the next weeks, but maybe in the coming months.
Because nothing else would make sense.
All the other plans are bad.
But the plan of having a large regional peace deal where Iran could consolidate some of its gains, such as its influence over Iraq, which would be a gigantic gain for Iran.
You know, it wasn't that many years ago that they were at war with Iraq.
And now Iran owns, now they own Iraq.
You know, under Saddam, Iraq attacked Iran and caused Just, you know, horrendous losses as Iran tried to defend itself with just human waves of soldiers who were getting mowed down by superior forces.
And after all that, not too many years go by and Iran owns the country that attacked them.
They're not going to give it back.
And maybe they, maybe they, maybe they earned it, you know?
I'll tell you, if a country attacked the United States and we had a chance later To own that country?
We might do it.
I can't see Iran giving it up.
All right. So President Trump also tweeted, blah, blah, blah.
National security advisors suggested today that sanctions and protests have Iran, quote, choked off and will force them to negotiate.
And then the president talking about negotiating, he says, actually, I couldn't care less if they negotiate.
We'll be totally up to them, but no nuclear weapons and, quote, don't kill your protesters.
Now, we don't have a lot of control, any control, over whether they kill their protesters.
But somewhat embedded in this, we don't care if you negotiate or not, is a threat.
And the threat is, we don't care if you negotiate, but no nuclear weapons.
What does that mean?
Negotiating is optional, but what's not optional is that you're not going to have nuclear weapons.
That's a military threat, or an economic threat, but it's some kind of a threat that says that's not going to happen, and it doesn't matter if you negotiate or not.
But I like that. But then the part about don't kill your protesters, which is a good thing to say, I feel as if the don't kill your protesters, that should be aimed more at the Iranian public.
Basically, the problem would not be the problem with the United States.
It would be a problem with Iran and its government if they kill their protesters again.
I think that might be a step too far, especially after the plane situation.
I've said before that the plane situation could be Iran's fake because.
Sometimes you need a reason that's not really your real reason because you were already inclined to do whatever it is, but you need something that's your trigger, something you could point to.
Say, yeah, it's because of that.
We're all rallying around that.
And that might be the Ukraine airline that got shot down and the lying about it, which seems to be even a bigger problem domestically than the mistake itself, tragic as it was.
So anyway, we're watching that with great interest.
Whatever happened to impulsive and reckless We'll see if that keeps coming back, but it seems to me that the complaints against Trump, mostly from the Democrats, were that he was impulsive and reckless.
Now, impulsive has been debunked by the fact that we now know that they've been planning it for 18 months.
If you've been planning something for 18 months, in other words, the question, I would say not planning, but rather, they've been mulling the question of whether to take out Solomon A for 18 months, can you really argue that it was impulsive?
I mean, it's the opposite of impulsive.
So that just was stupid.
Then how about reckless?
Well, reckless is one of those things that you get to analyze after the fact.
Has Iran ever been quieter than they are this week?
It seems that reckless has turned into that thing that worked.
Too early to say, things could change.
But can you call him reckless when he does something that completely works?
It absolutely ran down in terms of their malign activities, as far as we know.
Now, we could learn that their proxies are all reactivated in 10 minutes, and that could all change.
But at the moment, Is it reckless if it worked?
Because it looks like it worked.
It looks like the equation has completely changed in Iran.
And I'm also seeing more whispers, not in any credible way yet, but whispers that the Iranian public wasn't so unhappy about losing that guy, and maybe the government itself wasn't so unhappy about losing that guy.
Because it's like every other government organization, or any big organization, there were people in the government who didn't like that guy, and they wished he did not exist anymore.
And now he doesn't. By the way, how many of you went and looked at the photos of Soleimani's dead, charred body?
I saw something on the internet about that existed, that there existed actually photographs of the scene where you could actually see him there with his burned-down body.
So I think most of the main professional press sites don't carry it, but it didn't take me long to find it.
I went over, I think I saw it on InfoWars.
I had the worst time understanding myself, looking at that, that I've ever had.
And here's the thing.
I kind of enjoyed it.
And that's so hard to admit, because he was so bad, you know, it was sort of like if I'd seen Bin Laden with a hole in his head or something.
I think I would have enjoyed it.
And it says something terrible about me, I know, because I don't like that kind of stuff.
Had that been some random, you know, just citizen who was minding their own business and met a horrible fate, I wouldn't be happy about it.
It wouldn't be entertaining.
I certainly wouldn't go out of my way to look at it.
But I actually went out of my way to look at that charred body.
And I'm not proud of this.
I enjoyed it. I enjoyed knowing that his end was so terrible, and I even found myself hoping that he stayed alive long enough to know what happened, which is a terrible thought.
I mean, it really, it tells me too much about myself.
I wish I didn't know.
But I assure you that I don't have these impulses for normal people.
It's reserved for your worst terrorists.
But there it is. So watch this week and see if impulsive and reckless disappear.
I think the attack is going to turn totally on this for embassy thing.
How did you know?
Why did you have this belief?
That four embassies would be attacked, and they will be fact-checking an opinion.
That's it. That's going to be the main news this week.
They'll be fact-checking Trump's opinion.
That's not a thing.
He said he can reveal that he believes that four embassies will be attacked.
Let's fact-check his belief.
Makes no sense.
But the important thing that you wanted to talk about is Harry and Meghan.
So, the two royals who have been kicked off the island, no, they chose to leave.
Just kidding. They're choosing to leave.
And the news, I'm not sure this is really reliable news, but the news that we're getting today is that the pair have said that they want to live in LA, but not until Trump leaves office.
To which I say, hey, congratulations, royal family, you just found two countries you're not welcome in.
Because let me tell you this, if they move to LA and it's true, and I would say I would doubt this is true, so the report that they don't want to move to LA until Trump leaves office, my guess is that's not true.
All right, I would have to hear I would have to hear it come out of their mouth in order to believe that was true.
Because I don't think they're that dumb, right?
They're both pretty smart people.
Smart enough not to say that.
If you're going to move to a country, you don't start by making a public pronouncement that half of the people in the country are unworthy, deplorables, which is sort of what it sounds like.
So, I feel sorry for them because that just made them unwelcome by half of the people in this country, but let's hope that that was just a bad rumor and when they're asked about it they say, we wouldn't say that, because I don't think they would.
You know, one of the things, if you've been raised as a royal, you certainly know what kind of things to say in public and what kind of things not to say in public.
I mean, you know that Harry knows that.
And this would be very much in the category of things you don't say.
It would not be wise to demean half of the country before you move into that country.
So I don't think it happened.
I'll go on record saying that that's fake news.
All right. Is it my imagination or there's not much else happening?
Somebody says she might say it, that Meghan Markle may say it, but would she say it without checking with Harry?
I saw a video this morning where people were trying to embarrass the couple by acting as though Harry is too, let's say the The charge is that Megan's in charge of the couple, if you know what I mean. That maybe her wants and needs are preeminent.
Here's my take on it.
My take on the Royals is, first of all, why do we care?
But if we are caring, here's my take.
That probably two people fell in love.
They tried to make it work in the main way, which is live in England and be part of the royal family.
It didn't work and probably didn't work more for Meghan Markle than for Harry, one would assume.
It's probably easier for him to stay in England than it would be for her.
I think, yeah, somebody's saying he's henpecked.
I'm going to go a different way.
I'm going to say that if you knew your wife couldn't live with something, you could, and maybe you could even make her do it.
When I say make her, I mean you could coerce her, you could negotiate, you could persuade, you could get her to do it.
But does Harry want to live with a permanently unhappy wife?
Who wants that?
I think Harry is dealing with the hand he was dealt, meaning he didn't plan to be in this situation, but here he is.
He's got a wife, and then he's got a lifestyle that doesn't work with the wife.
It's just no longer compatible.
What are his choices?
Choice number one, leave his wife.
Choice number two, make his wife permanently unhappy.
Choice number three, the one he took.
Choice number three is the marriage choice.
It's the choice that says, I have married this woman, and the two of us are gonna make a life, and it's gonna work for the two of us, and we don't care about the rest of the world.
I mean, not that they don't care, but they're not gonna run their life based on what the rest of the world tells them to do.
I have a grudging respect for that, which is, I think that they have a right to carve out the life that works for them, And if their primary goal is to stay together, because that's the part that matters to them the most, this is how to do it.
So, yes, people are using the Yoko Ono analogy.
I don't like that at all.
I don't like it at all.
Because every couple has a right to run their life the way that works for them.
And that's all they're doing. That should be the beginning and the end of the story.
The beginning of the story is, hey, does this life work for you?
Answer, no. Are you looking to change it?
Answer, yes.
What's wrong with that? Nothing.
There's nothing wrong with people having preferences and there's nothing wrong with them pursuing them.
So, I wanted to avoid ever talking about them because You know, it's not really news in my life, but I did want to support them in the sense that I support anybody who's trying to find happiness and making changes to make it happen.
I think you should take that lesson.
If something's bugging you, maybe change something.
All right. Who marries into a royal family if they can't stand to being in the royal family?
Easy answer. Someone who doesn't know how hard it will be.
You can do a lot of things because you're optimistic.
Well, I think it'll be bad, but I'll get used to it.
And then you don't. What's wrong with being wrong?
What's wrong with saying, I think I'll like this, but finding out you don't?
There's nothing wrong with that. There's no mistake there.
People do not have the ability to predict the future with that much accuracy.
All right. Diana would not approve.
Well, I don't know.
Who knows what other people would have done or not done.
Alright, that's all for now because it's slow news day.
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