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Jan. 26, 2020 - Real Coffe - Scott Adams
55:40
Episode 799 Scott Adams: Coronavirus Liars, Biden's New Ad Persuasion, Impeachment Scorecard, More

My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Content: Coronavirus screening is ineffective, and NO travel ban? President Trump's Impeachment defense strategy CNN's defense strategy for Democrats LInquistic fingerprints...like "dark" and "risky" Climate change and Al Gore's long ago climate fears Slate Magazine's hit piece on Joe Rogan --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/scott-adams00/support

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Hey, everybody!
Come on in here. It's time for Coffee with Scott Adams.
And as luck would have it, you're in the right place for that.
As soon as we get a thousand people, which will be any moment now, we got it.
We will do something called the Simultaneous Sip.
And then, I'm going to blow your mind...
So if you were ever thinking of bailing out before the end of a periscope, probably don't want to do it this time.
But before we get to that, let me tell you what you need to enjoy the simultaneous sip.
It's not much. All you need is 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 at the end of the day, the thing that makes everything better, the simultaneous sip.
Go. Better every time.
Now, I'm going to tell you some things today that might blow your mind a little bit.
We'll start slow.
Slowly. We'll start slowly.
Slowly. Now, here's a little rule that I have for predicting things.
And I've used it once before.
I can't tell that I'm right.
But here's the situation.
Whenever you have these three things, you should look in a certain place for the truth.
And here are the three conditions.
If there's something that is very high stakes, meaning there's a lot of money involved, that's the condition one.
There's a lot of money involved.
Condition number two is There's something the government is doing that doesn't pass the SNF test.
So there's a lot of money involved, and the government policy so far doesn't quite make sense.
That's the second condition.
And then the third one is, the government offers you no explanation for why their policies don't make sense.
If those three things happen, follow the money.
That's right. So the three conditions again, and I'll give you the exact example after this, are that there's very high stakes, a lot of money involved, there's something the government's doing that doesn't make sense to the citizens, doesn't pass the sniff test, and the third part, they don't explain why they're doing it that way.
Under those conditions, get very suspicious.
Follow the money. Let me give you one example.
When Obama was president, he ran for president saying he was going to be sort of ignoring marijuana dispensaries in California.
And at the time, I said, huh, sounds like a fairly solid president.
I was very pro-Obama in the early days, and I also liked his take on marijuana, that he was going to leave it alone in terms of the federal government.
But for some reason, During his term, and without explanation, which is the key part of the story, without explanation, he reversed and decided that he would actually prosecute dispensaries in California.
Indeed, there was one gentleman who had a dispensary who was looking at 10 years in prison.
Now, you say to yourself, if you're going to reverse a major policy opinion...
And you're going to reverse it in a way that would make somebody go to jail because they depended on your last opinion?
Wouldn't you say that doesn't pass the sniff test?
Unless it's explained, right?
If Obama said, yeah, I used to think this, but now I've changed my mind to this, and here's my reason, I would say, well, I might like the reason, I might not like the reason, but at least he gave a reason.
What was Obama's stated public reason For changing his opinion from leaving dispensaries alone in California to putting people in jail for it.
None. Not then.
Not ever. Not ever.
There was no point at which President Obama ever explained why he changed his mind and potentially could put a Californian in jail for 10 years.
That's when he lost me.
Because under those conditions, the only reasonable assumption you can make is that he was bribed.
Now, when I say bribed, I don't mean in a way that was necessarily technically illegal, as in, here's some cash, put it in your bank account.
But in the political process, A bribe can take many forms.
It could be in terms of supporting a campaign.
It could be in terms of some future deal that's unspecified.
It could be anything that's beneficial.
So in my opinion, the Obama dispensary flip-flop met all the conditions of follow the money.
There had to be somebody with a lot of money who was influencing that, because otherwise Obama would just tell you the reason.
Oh, I used to think this.
I have new information, or I thought about it, and now I think this.
Absent that explanation, there's something corrupt going on, or at least some money influence you wish was not happening.
Now, let's talk about the coronavirus.
Do we have a similar situation?
I think we do.
If you're watching the news, you know that this coronavirus is becoming a real big deal in China and starting to spread.
Three people in America have it so far.
There are 56 dead, mostly in China, I believe, and close to 2,000 cases as of today and growing quickly.
Do you think that that's all there is?
Because China's closing entire cities.
You can't come or go from entire cities.
Do you think that maybe it's bigger than that?
Well, smart people are saying, yeah, it's probably a lot bigger than that.
Because what they're telling us is scary enough.
There's probably more to it.
But here's the thing.
The government of the United States responding to this is, I guess they started to screen passengers at three of the big airports in the United States that have some connection to Wuhan.
But we also know, as of today, That you can't necessarily identify the symptoms.
So we don't have any confidence.
In fact, we have the opposite.
We suspect it's not true.
That you could actually successfully screen people and know that you got it.
So the U.S. policy is to screen certain people in certain cases and then let them into the country.
Does that make sense to you?
Does that pass your sniff test?
When you see that the government of the United States, looking at this deadly outbreak in China that's already made its way into the country in a small way, but could devastate this country, does it make sense to you that the government's response is, well, we'll screen them when we also know the screening is not necessarily effective?
Does that make sense? No, it does not make sense.
But you can always look to the government's explanation.
Right? If the government is doing something that doesn't make sense to you, well, it could be because they have more information.
They might have a strategy that wasn't obvious to you.
So let's go to the government's explanation for why they have not already completely closed the airports for travel from China.
Now, when I say completely, I do think you'd have to treat differently American citizens than Who are trying to get back in the country.
And maybe you could quarantine them for a week to make sure that you're safe.
But let's say of the ordinary traveler.
Not the Americans trying desperately to get back to their home.
Just the ordinary traveler.
What is the government's explanation for why the airports are not already closed from China?
Completely? Have you heard it?
I haven't heard it.
If you have not heard it, You can only conclude one thing.
There's high stakes.
Closing travel from China would be really expensive for somebody.
It fails the sniff test because you and I are looking at it and saying, what?
If you can't reliably screen it by looking at the individuals, don't you have to close the airport from China?
Just stop it?
Right? But maybe there's a reason.
But there isn't.
Our government has not explained it.
Now, if they explained it to me and I heard the reason and I said, well, you know, okay, all things considered, that makes sense, I could maybe believe it.
When your government does not explain to you why their decision that doesn't pass the sniff test is not already being implemented, there's somebody with money who's perverting the system.
Who isn't? Who has the most to lose if China's flights get cancelled?
Travel industry? I mean, the travel industry is the obvious one.
There may be more.
Maybe you can think of someone else.
But here's a case where I think you have to lose all faith in your government.
I know you're all Trump supporters and you like to support him in whatever he does, but This is a really clean case where your government is failing you at the highest level.
This is a complete failure of government.
A complete failure. And it can only be, because we have no explanation that's official, it can only be that money is influencing it.
If you have another explanation, maybe you should explain it to our government so they can explain it to us.
Short of an explanation Your government has failed you.
And they're failing you in the worst possible way.
I mean, they are failing us hard.
So whatever you want to say positive about the Trump administration, and there's plenty of it.
I'm a big proponent of what he's done for the economy, etc.
But we have a leader who can just say, stop the flights until we figure this out.
And he hasn't.
What's up with that?
All right? Give us the explanation.
I'll listen. I'm totally open to a good explanation.
But short of that, you've failed.
You've failed in a deadly way.
This is complete government failure.
And by the way, it's not just Trump, right?
I don't hear any Democrats crying to close the airport.
Why not? Democrats, you got any leaders?
Is there anybody running for president?
How many Democrats do we have running for president?
Are any one of those assholes demanding that the airports be closed?
None. Unless you've heard it.
I haven't heard anybody say that.
But if they're not, then you can't say that this is limited somehow to Trump if nobody's saying it.
So, big question for you.
Why is your government failing you this hard and so obviously?
It's got to be money. All right.
Let's talk about the impeachment.
See how we're doing so far.
I thought everybody seems to agree that the president's lawyers were smart to keep their first statements brief because the senators were all angry at Schiff and his group for making him sit through such a torturous few days.
Quite wisely, the president's lawyers said, well, nobody's watching TV on Saturday anyway, as the president pointed out.
We'll just do a couple of tight hours, let everybody go home, at least they'll have a good feeling about us, and we won't overload them.
We'll just make sure that we've responded to the main claims so that we've got something out there to compete with that claim over the weekend.
So I think that was a good, solid approach.
What did... CNN have to say about the president's legal team's approach.
You know, I watched it, you watched it, you probably thought, well, those guys are pretty good.
Pretty, pretty good.
Yeah, they're solid lawyers.
They're definitely getting it done.
So what did Jeffrey Toobin on CNN say?
He complained about their ethnicities and their genders.
Because the president's legal team is all white males.
And I'm thinking, yeah, okay, I can see the point.
I accept the general statement that whenever an administration can show diversity, it's a plus, because the country likes it.
It's a good message. But...
Is that the key thing when you're talking about impeaching a president?
I mean, on the list of things that matter to the country, that would be pretty close to the bottom on this particular thing.
Although I agree that the general topic of getting diversity in your government is a good one.
But on every topic, every time, all the time?
And then Eli Honig, writing on CNN, He said that the defense from the president's lawyers was weak, and he didn't say this directly, but I'll say it, is weak because we can read the president's mind, but we can also read Zelensky's mind, and we know that they're both lying.
So that was the criticism of the president's lawyer's defense, is that basically we can read Trump's mind, and you know what he's thinking.
And sure, Zelensky said he wasn't pressured, but you know what he was thinking.
Now, I completely agree that if you're just a human being and you're looking at human things, we do say this person's probably lying, etc.
So that's a form of mind reading.
But In terms of an impeachment, which is a semi-quasi-legal proceeding, you really can't convict people for what you imagine they're thinking.
Now, it turns out that the president's lawyers said that directly several times.
They actually used the words mind-reading.
And they said that Schiff's team is trying to read Trump's mind and read Zelensky's mind and that there's no basis for that.
Now, is that a good defense to say that they're mind-reading?
It's a pretty good defense.
If it were a legal trial, it would be a better defense because that would be more aligned with the rules.
But because it's an impeachment and you can make up the rules and it's a political process, I don't know it makes that much difference.
I would expect that the real argument, the one that makes a difference, will start when Dershowitz gets involved.
I think Dershowitz is going to go in and say, It doesn't matter who's reading whose mind.
He's not going to say that directly.
But the inference will be, it doesn't matter who's reading whose mind, and also it doesn't matter if the president did everything that he's accused of doing.
None of it matters.
Because it doesn't rise to impeachable as the Constitution requires.
So I think Dershowitz is just going to put the hammer down and end this whole thing.
I doubt we'll see any kind of witnesses called.
Now here's the interesting thing.
Well, let me talk about one more thing before I change topics.
I watched Democrat Senator Stabenow.
I hope I'm pronouncing right.
Stabenow? Or Stabenow?
And she was doing an interview in between one of the sessions or after.
And she said that she said that the claim that Oh my God.
She claimed that the president broke the law by withholding aid to Ukraine.
So after listening to all this evidence for impeachment, a senator who sat through two days of the prosecution saying what the president did wrong goes in front of a camera and says that the president broke the law by withholding aid to Ukraine.
Now here's what I tweeted back to her, or actually tweeted about it.
I said, can she ask her fellow idiots...
Why no crimes were alleged in the impeachment articles?
How in the world did she sit through two days of testimony from her own team and not notice that no crimes were even alleged?
There's no crimes alleged!
Is she the only one that saw a crime alleged?
She sat through two days of it.
What did she do? Just play with her spinner?
Is that it? Was she paying attention to any of it?
Did she watch any of the impeachment?
Because no crimes are alleged.
But she saw some.
She saw her own crimes.
So she's in her own little personal movie there.
Now, here's the weird part.
Remember I promised you something weird was going to come?
This is the part.
Now, this won't mean as much...
To people who have not been following me for a while, and especially if you read Wynne Bigley, my book about persuasion and the 2016 race, this will make more sense, but I'll try to catch you up if you haven't read that book.
One of the things I do to track my own influence, if anybody's new here, I'm a trained hypnotist, and I've been studying persuasion for decades, but one of the tricks I use to track whether or not I've influenced Either a person or an event, is I'll sometimes use unique vocabulary.
Vocabulary that you wouldn't normally see in that context.
Because if I use it, and then I see somebody later using the same vocabulary, you can't be sure, but it would suggest that maybe you had some influence.
You can't guarantee it, but it would be a strong hint of that.
And indeed, Indeed, I think that this linguistic fingerprint is so strong that sometimes I think you can identify who is influencing events by what words are being used.
Because people have sort of a linguistic fingerprint, right?
And I quite famously called out that when Hillary Clinton in the summer of 2016 suddenly started using the word dark and all of the pundits on the Democrat side simultaneously and at the same time, that's what simultaneous means, they started using the word dark right after the Republican convention.
And as soon as I heard the word, I thought, oh wow, this is not an ordinary political word.
This comes from somebody who really knows the science of persuasion.
Because dark is perfectly designed.
It's a single word.
It's easy to repeat.
Everybody knows what the word dark means.
But it's suggestive of a whole range of vague fears.
And that's really good persuasion because you don't want to say to somebody, you should fear X. Because sometimes people will say, I'm not really afraid of X. Now if you had said Y, I'd be really afraid of Y, but you said X. So some people are afraid of that, but I'm not. Instead, a better persuader would say, this situation is very dark.
And then suddenly, suddenly, everybody can put their own fear into it because it's not excluded.
Dark? Are you saying something racist is going to happen?
Dark? Are you saying that our economy will fail?
Dark? Are you saying that we'll have a nuclear war?
What? I'm afraid.
So as soon as I saw that word, dark, I said publicly that I believed there was a high-level persuader who got involved, and I thought I could actually identify that person.
Think of this claim. Just think of how extraordinary this claim is.
I said in public that I thought I could identify the person, and of all the billions of people in the world, that I could identify the one person who was behind that one word.
And I said, at first I called him Godzilla, because I didn't want to name him yet.
Eventually I put my prediction on it, that it was Robert Cialdini, Who is known as the top author on influence.
I found out later, after I'd made the prediction, I found out later that he admitted that he had helped consult the Obama campaign.
Now, if he helped Obama, is it likely that he might have been asked to help Hillary Clinton?
Well, we don't have that as a fact in evidence, but it seems likely, right?
And he was asked, because I mentioned it in an interview, and the reporter went and asked, and his response when asked if he was consulting for the Clinton campaign was, no comment.
Does anybody say no comment when you ask them if they're working for somebody, and they're not?
If they're not working for somebody, do they say no comment?
They could, I suppose it's possible, but not likely.
Somebody who knows Cialdini reported, but this is hearsay, so I didn't hear it directly, but reported that they had confirmed that he was consulting for Clinton.
And then the third piece of evidence...
Yes, this is a long wind-up, but the payoff is good.
The third piece of evidence is that I've personally communicated with Cialdini, and we've communicated by DMs on Twitter, mostly just about his new book.
I've recommended it. It was called Pre-Suasion.
Great book. You should all read it.
So if he wanted to correct me, it'd be easy.
He would just DM me the way he's DM'd me before and said, oh no, that wasn't me.
Thanks for thinking it was me, but that wasn't me.
He could have done that.
He hasn't. That book's been out for a while.
I'm sure he's seen it by now.
So we believe that Robert Cialdini, or it could be somebody that he mentored, We think he was probably behind that word dark, because it has such a strong tell for a trained persuader.
Here's where the fun part gets.
Joe Biden has a new commercial out that's saying why he's the best choice against Trump, and it shows some poll numbers where he beats Trump in various polls.
And then at the end of the thing, it shows Bernie Sanders from behind, and it's obvious it's Bernie Sanders.
And the tagline is that we can't take the risk That Trump gets re-elected.
But it's showing Bernie as the risk.
In other words, Bernie can't get elected against Trump, so he's the risk that is transferred.
It's basically the risk of Trump, but Bernie's the problem because he would create that risk that Trump would win again.
Now that word risk, does that sound like one that you hear all the time in politics?
That's a tell. You see the word risk, and you say to yourself, that's not normal.
Because if it were normal, you would say, oh yeah, all the campaigns say that about the other side.
But not really. It's sort of an unusual word, isn't it?
Now, where did it come from?
Well, you may remember I told the story in Winn-Bickley that Bill Clinton used the same attack as Why did Clinton use the word risky?
Why did he say that Kemp and Dole were risky?
It was because the economy was doing well and everybody agreed.
So everybody on both sides said, yeah, the Bill Clinton economy is looking pretty strong.
So, what Kemp and Dole were suggesting was supply-side economics.
That they would grossly, you know, cut taxes a lot, but we'd make more money in the long run.
Now, why is that good to say that's risky?
Well, it's because most voters skew older.
Older people are less likely to enjoy risk, right?
Because if you're old enough and you've got some money and you're voting, you don't want risk.
And when the economy is doing well, the last thing you want is more risk.
So it basically took the entire argument from Kemp and Dole on economics totally off the table.
It looked ridiculous when you looked at it from a risk management perspective.
It was a kill shot.
Risky was a complete kill shot.
Now, where did Bill Clinton get it?
Well, Bill Clinton actually was not the first one in his campaign to say risky.
It was actually Al Gore.
The first place it came out was when Al Gore did a debate against Jack Kemp.
And in that debate, Gore said it's a risky scheme, it's a risky scheme to try to fix everything just by lowering taxes.
Now, the way campaigns work is the vice president candidate will sometimes try out a line of attack, and then the president, if it works, only if it works, then the president will say, okay, that worked, now I'm going to say it.
If the vice president tries a line of attack and it doesn't work, well, then the presidential candidate either ignores it, Or says, oh no, he wasn't quite on board.
This is what we really mean.
He might clarify or correct it.
But it was so effective when Gore used it.
In fact, it was all the headlines.
The next day after the debate, all the headlines were that word.
Risky scheme, risky scheme, risky scheme.
Gore calls it a risky scheme.
Then Clinton took it up and it was a total kill shot.
So the real question is, where did Al Gore get it?
If we're tracing back this word.
Now, Al Gore almost certainly got it from somebody advising, from a staff member.
Because usually the candidates themselves, and I think Trump is the exception to this, but typically the candidates themselves are not coming up with the ideas.
They're responding to and approving ideas from a variety of advisors.
So the real question is, can we trace back this word risk from Joe Biden and Back to the Clinton universe, which would suggest that people from the Clinton universe, maybe at least some of them or a lot of them, are involved with the Biden campaign, which is important, right?
If the Clinton machine is behind Biden, that's a pretty big deal.
So Biden used this word risk, which echoes back to Bill Clinton and probably some association between advisors.
Which echoes back to Al Gore, which probably came from some kind of an advisor on his staff.
But who advised the staff member?
Who was the person trained in persuasion who talked to one of Al Gore's staff members and suggested that risk, and that word risky, was the best line of attack?
I'm going to tell you.
It was me.
I actually was advising the Al Gore campaign.
Now, I was advising through advisors, and what that means, if you're not involved in this world, it means that Al Gore might not be aware of where the suggestion came from.
Meaning that they get lots of suggestions from lots of people.
It's unlikely that Al Gore necessarily knew that it came from me.
It's even less likely that President Clinton knew that Al Gore got it from somebody who got it from me.
And there you have it.
That's the first time I've ever told that story in public, by the way.
And I think we've just come to a time when it's fair to tell it.
Now, can I guarantee...
That I was the cause of either Al Gore using risky scheme as his theme.
Can I guarantee that?
Actually, no. I can't guarantee that because it's possible somebody else came up with it at exactly the same time.
Because the timing was also right.
I said it and then it came out of his mouth, basically.
So it's possible somebody else thought of it.
It just was at the same time.
And it's also possible that the Biden campaign came up with it completely on their own.
Maybe. Could be.
But look for these little linguistic tells and sometimes you can trace them back to their source.
I'm pretty sure Dark came from Godzilla or Robert Cialdini or somebody that he mentored.
And There's a good chance that the Biden campaign commercial is at least influenced through a chain of connections to something I did back in the 90s.
Now, why have I never told you this story before?
There's a good reason.
You wouldn't have believed it.
If I had told you this story in the late 90s, would you have believed it?
No, you wouldn't. You wouldn't have believed it.
Because you would have said, yeah, cartoonist, maybe not.
But now you've watched, now you have observed me introducing words and concepts which have entered the common consciousness.
So you've seen me do it a number of times, and therefore I can tell you the story for the first time, because now you believe that I can do that.
All right. Now, some of you are going to be mad at me and say, why could you do that?
Why could you help on that?
And the answer is very simple.
The Bill Clinton economy was really good.
I didn't want more risk.
Do you know what you shouldn't do when you're in the Trump economy?
The Trump economy is great.
Do you know what you shouldn't do?
Change the whole thing with a Bernie or Elizabeth Warren approach.
There's no rational risk management approach that makes sense if things are going well that you change it all.
It just doesn't make sense. So the same argument that worked for Al Gore, don't introduce risk when things are going well, is exactly the same argument that the president can use.
Now, Biden is cleverly using it against the president, and I think that's a good play.
We'll see if it works. All right.
Now, what you're going to say is, well, isn't Al Gore the devil?
And the answer is probably not.
Probably not. Let me really make you mad and give you a pro-Al Gore opinion.
First of all, I did get to meet Al Gore and hung out with him a little bit in his office in the White House.
I was in Washington and one thing led to another.
I was doing some other business and I got invited to the White House.
And I heard that the Vice President actually invited me to stop in.
Now, I find out later that he was actually a fan of Dilbert.
He actually had a Dilbert comic on his wall.
It happened to be about him.
That's why he had it, of course.
His staff got it. But he knew of me from the comic, etc.
And so that's my connection to him.
So I liked him personally. Now, somebody's saying he invented the Internet.
Here's a big mistake that Al Gore made.
When people mocked him for claiming he invented the Internet, he said, yeah, you're right, you know, and he backed down from that.
He should not have backed down from that.
The reason he should not have backed down from that is that he invented the Internet.
Now, he didn't invent it technically, of course.
He was not the technologist.
He wasn't programming anything.
He didn't come up with the idea.
But he was the person who got it funded before anybody knew what the hell it was.
Al Gore made the internet by getting it funded.
Because having a good idea doesn't get you there.
You got to have that good idea and get it funded.
He saw it early.
He saw it decades before other people saw it.
He funded it.
He made that happen.
So when he backed down from that, I thought it was the biggest mistake anybody's ever made in politics because he should have just owned it and said, you know, I didn't mean that technically, but I did get the funding and look what's happened.
I saw it early.
Now climate change.
Climate change is kind of interesting, because as we talked about, even the Trump administration has now, maybe grudgingly, but it seems that they've accepted the connection between CO2 and warming.
It seems that smart people all over the administration are now on that side.
Now, whether that's the end of the world, I agree with President Trump that we're really good at solving this kind of thing.
We'll be fine. I'm glad that other people are panicking, because that's why things get solved.
But I'm personally not going to panic, because I know we got this.
But it looks like Al Gore's prediction from however long ago was directionally Correct, but full of hyperbole, meaning that his predictions were way off, that we would already be underwater, way off.
So prediction-wise, I don't think Al Gore has any credibility.
But directionally, both sides are on board now.
He actually got there first.
Now, It took me a long time to get to the point where I could say, yeah, probably at least the science part is right.
I still think the prediction part is crazy.
But the science part, looks like both Republicans and Democrats are starting to get on board on that.
So, I've always liked Al Gore for being ahead of his time.
You can dislike him for his various policies, and I'm fine with that.
But on two situations, he's a time traveler.
I mean, he got the internet before anybody knew it, and he was on this CO2 warming thing before any real politicians of that stature were on it and dedicated his life to it.
So I'm a big fan of Al Gore, and I think the complaints about him, he has a big house and he flies on a jet, those are dumb complaints.
I think Greta should just fly in a jet if she wants to.
I don't think it has anything to do with her message.
We do live in a world where we have dirty tools and clean tools, and maybe sometimes you have to use them both.
So I don't think that's a legitimate argument.
Anyway, let's talk about Joe Rogan.
As you know, he did sort of a quasi-endorsement for Bernie Sanders.
And Of course, he got a lot of heat for that because he was accused of being a bad person because his guests have said bad things.
Let me stop you here because I'm seeing all the nut jobs in the comments.
I just have to say this.
If you're still saying that CO2 doesn't contribute to warming of the planet, your group of people who are saying that is just shrinking to nothing.
We're kind of past that.
Completely fair to say that predictions aren't what they say they were.
We're not going to be necessarily underwater in 10 years.
Completely fair. But that one fact, the CO2 causes warming, you really...
That one's, you know, you could be right, but it would be like you could be right that ghosts are real.
I mean, it's sort of in that category.
You could be right that the moon is made of cheese.
I haven't been there.
I haven't taken a chunk.
Maybe the moon is made of cheese.
I'm not saying you're 100% wrong, but you should be embarrassed by that argument at this point.
The predictions you can still be uncertain about.
All right. So Joe Rogan got a lot of heat because he has guests that say controversial things, so he's being painted with his guests.
So Slate did this story in which they were basically trying to trash Joe Rogan.
And they have this theory that Joe Rogan is responsible for what his guests say and that Bernie Sanders is responsible for what Joe Rogan does.
So Bernie Sanders is responsible for Rogan's opinions which are somehow transferred from his guests into Rogan And then transferred again into Bernie.
So somehow Democrats have this weird idea of guilt transference, that if you associate with people in any professional way or even personal, that their bad thoughts and ideas transfer to you.
Because you've promoted them somehow, and then they transfer again, presumably, to Bernie.
But it wouldn't end there, because if Bernie's got this badness, all of his supporters have it too.
We've learned that, right? So apparently, if you're a guest on Joe Rogan, and you say bad things, those bad things transfer into Joe Rogan, and then, because he endorsed Bernie, and Bernie accepted it, those bad things transfer into Sanders, and And then, of course, the voters are really to blame.
So Bernie's voters are a bunch of racists and transphobes, according to Slate.
Now, watching Slate cancel its own people is very fun.
So that's a good time.
All right. So...
Scott needs to understand the number of hoaxers.
Don't know what that means.
The science of CO2 causing warming is not there.
I think at this point you'd have to be an idiot to think that.
I'm going to be...
There's just no way around it anymore.
I'm pro-skepticism.
And there's a whole lot about...
Climate science and funding and what they really want and the projections and the economics.
There's plenty of stuff to be skeptical about, and I'm skeptical about a lot of it.
But that one question, does CO2, all else being equal, adding CO2 to the atmosphere, I think you have to trust that the scientists got that one right.
I mean, that's sort of like knowing that gravity works all over the Earth.
You know, it's sort of like that.
Yeah, but the sun.
I'm just going to look at your comments for a little bit because I was talking and not looking at them so much.
Invoke Tony Heller on.
So Tony, I was going to have him on some time ago.
We talked about it. Tony Heller is, I think, the most effective persuader on the CO2 is all a big hoax.
And I've looked at a lot of his material.
And I would say that he raises lots of questions that are worth answering about the accuracy of terrestrial thermometers and such, and I think all that's worth looking at.
But on the basic question of whether CO2 causes warming, you just have to release on that one.
It was fine to be skeptical in the beginning, but we're way past that.
Yeah, so there's some evidence that Elizabeth Warren's campaign is crashing.
And I'm still surprised at Biden's popularity, because I still have never met a Biden supporter.
Have you? Now, I realize I'm in California, and I spend time in my little corner of the Internet, so maybe it's just I'm walled off in my own little bubble, and there's tons and tons of Biden supporters everywhere, but why don't I ever meet one?
I've met lots of Bernie supporters.
If you looked at the Bernie supporters, And the Biden support, they're about the same, right?
You know, relatively in that same range.
Why is it that I've met lots of Bernie supporters, but I've never met a Biden supporter?
Not once? So, I have to ask myself whether those poll numbers are even real at this point.
But there are different polling organizations, so it seems unlikely they would all be bought off.
but it's one of those questions why I don't ever meet one I'm a scientist and act like you know that the scientist got the CO2 wrong it's all water vapor and it's not that big of an effect and all that I know you want to do that.
Yeah. Yeah, all of you arguing this stuff, CO2 went from 0.03 to 0.04, that it's It just makes my head hurt because the arguments are so bad.
If your argument is that CO2 only went up a little bit, therefore can't be to blame, a little bit of poison will kill you.
The scientists understand that it only went up by whatever fraction compared to what it used to be.
They've looked at that.
You're not the one who discovered that.
They've looked at that.
So a little bit of poison can kill you.
Alright. Here's the other worst comment.
I was waiting for this. The planet thrived when CO2 was way higher.
If you are of the opinion that CO2 can't be the problem because in our past we know that CO2 was much higher and it wasn't warmer, you have been bamboozled, my friend.
You have been really bamboozled.
Do you know what's wrong with that?
What you don't know, so if you look at the skeptical stuff, the skeptics will say, CO2 used to be way higher, and yet the Earth wasn't warmer, therefore CO2 is not a problem.
Do any of you know what's wrong with that?
Will you be hearing it for the first time from me?
Because it means you haven't really looked into it.
If this is the first time you hear what I'm going to say now, You should abandon everything you thought about CO2 and warming, because you don't know a freaking thing.
Here it is. CO2 used to be a lot higher, even though the Earth was cooler, because other things were very different then.
I'm not sure if it was the sun or the atmosphere or whatever it is.
But you don't have to go very far to find out that the scientist's response to that is, yes, CO2 didn't make as much a difference because all of the other variables or some of the other important variables were different.
So if you thought that that was the kill shot to CO2, well, it used to be higher.
You just are so uninformed, it's painful.
Because it doesn't take long to Google that and find out, yeah, it was much higher.
All the scientists know that.
They all acknowledge it.
And they know why the CO2 did not cause warming then.
It's very easy to understand.
I think it was the sun cycles or something was different.
It was something different then. Whatever it was.
But really, if you want to sound smart talking about CO2, never say these things.
The scientists forgot to study the sun...
That just marks you as terribly uninformed.
Because, yes, they studied the sun.
Two, there used to be more CO2 in the past.
That just marks you as uninformed.
Because there are other variables that are different.
We understand that. And then there are other complaints like, well, there was this period where the CO2 was rising in the early industrial part and for 17 years or something, the temperature didn't go up.
So you're like, oh, there was this period where CO2 went up in our modern times and the temperature didn't go up with it.
I know. And the answer, of course, is that it's not lockstep.
Sometimes there can be a lag of 17 years.
The scientists say that. That's what happens.
None of these are criticisms against the actual science.
If you're reading the skeptical science, and then you don't immediately Google what the scientists say as a response to the skepticism, you haven't done anything.
If all you're doing is reading what Tony Heller said and said, well, that looks pretty convincing, then you're gullible.
You should not be in the argument at all.
You should recuse yourself.
If you read what Tony Heller says, and then you take any one of his arguments and Google it, and then see what the official response is, well, at least then you've seen both sides.
Somebody says, your BS makes me sick.
Well, I will heal you.
By blocking you.
Somebody says incorrect.
Incorrect gets blocked.
Those are the rules, people.
You can give me reasons, but you can't just say incorrect.
We'll see if anybody else needs to get blocked.
I can't watch this alarmism.
Mine is the opposite of alarmism, people.
I just told you we're going to be fine...
Even if the CO2 is the problem.
So that's the opposite of alarmism.
Let's see who else needs to be blocked.
Ten years from now, you will regret these statements.
Block. Telling people to believe it because we said so is not science.
Well, that's not what I'm saying.
IPCC excluded the sun and only choose to find human change.
They excluded the sun.
Do you know why they exclude the sun?
Because scientists have...
You're blocked.
I'm going to block people who say it's the sun from now on.
You can say the sun to other people, but I don't want to see it anymore.
Because it's just too annoying that you're not even trying.
You should at least try. It's okay to be wrong, but at least try.
I'm just seeing some more comments.
Can the theory be tested?
Here is somebody saying CO2 is twice what it's ever been in 40,000 years.
Yeah. Don't know what that means.
They won't debate him?
No, there's a reason that they don't debate some of the skeptics.
Why are they using it as a power grab?
That's a different question.
You can call people gullible, but if they call you that, you block them.
That is correct. Because when I call them gullible, then I give my reason.
If they were to give me a reason and then call me gullible, I would not block them.
If they said, here's what you're missing, and I call you gullible, that's okay.
That would follow from the reasons.
Reasons are okay.
Hasn't the world been warming since the Ice Age ended?
Hasn't the world been warming since the Ice Age ended?
Look it up. Uh...
Just looking at some more of your comments.
CO2 is not a good greenhouse gas.
That's a gullible skeptic point.
CO2 is not a good greenhouse gas and water vapor, blah, blah, blah.
Do you think that the scientists are not aware of how the various gases in the atmosphere, like which ones are big ones and which ones are small ones?
Okay, that's not a good criticism.
Climate scientists...
They can rank which ones have the most effect.
So I'm not going to block you.
You just need to look into that a little bit more.
Now, I'm not going to invite Tony Heller because he is not credible.
Unfortunately, he is not credible.
I do like some of his criticisms about measuring the temperature.
But at this point, the temperature is measured in many ways, and it's obvious that the planet is getting warmer in the last decade or so.
So I don't think I want to muddy the waters with that.
All right, just looking at some of the comments.
Wow, boy, as soon as I bring up that comment, I've never seen any topic in which people know less but are more confident than climate science.
Both sides, by the way, this is not...
both sides are so unreasonably confident about that it is a problem or isn't that I'd say they're both equally irrational.
All right.
Let's just see if there's anybody else who needs to get blocked.
What?
We don't have enough characters to give you a well-explained reason.
Actually, well, that's a good point.
I'm not expecting you to give an entire argument.
Just give me the basis.
So if, for example, you said, I don't believe you because I read this article in Wired or whatever.
I don't need to see the whole thing.
I just need to know there's something there.
Why don't they debate the credible skeptics?
I used to ask that question, too.
So that's a reasonable question.
Why don't the scientists debate the credible skeptics?
And I can tell you there's actually a good reason for that.
It's not obvious until you start digging into it yourself.
And here's the reason. The reason is that if you debate them, it elevates the skeptic's opinion.
Because then you're saying, oh, this is a worthy opinion, worthy of being debated on the public stage.
That's just not the case.
The skeptics who are going to debate the scientists on scientific levels have not risen to the level of being credible enough that they should be on the same stage.
Now, and I'll say this a million times, if the debate were only about the accuracy of the models, the predictions, then I would say that would be a fair debate because nobody's really great at predicting the future in 80 years.
And even scientists should say, yeah, we're not the best at that.
So that would be fair debate.
I think the skeptics would have the advantage in that, actually.
But the basic science, the scientists, I have grudgingly come to accept that they would be worse off for even imagining that the counterargument was worthy of public exposure.
And what happens is we, the public, can't judge who's right.
So the skeptics would say, you forgot the sun.
And then the scientists would say, no we didn't.
And then half the people would say, you forgot the sun.
Alright. That's all for now.
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