My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Content: Who IS the President of Mexico? 4 Democrat "canaries in the coal mine" Coronavirus versus an ordinary flu virus --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/scott-adams00/support
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| Hey everybody, come on in here. | |
| Let's have a little thing I call coffee with Scott Adams in the simultaneous sip. | |
| And all it takes is a thousand people to rush in here. | |
| And the next thing you know, well, this sipping is going to be happening. | |
| And all you need, all you need, it's all you need, Here's a cup or a mug or a glass, a tank or chalice or stein, a canteen jug or 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. | |
| The simultaneous sip. | |
| Go. Mmm. | |
| Spicy. Good stuff. | |
| Well, it seems to me that the news has sort of shrunk down to the boring category recently, but it still left us some good stuff. | |
| That's right. Fun stuff. | |
| I don't really care about news that isn't fun. | |
| People dying, that sort of thing. | |
| But we do have some fun stories. | |
| For example, three Democratic candidates were asked in recent interviews if they could name the president of Mexico. | |
| Two out of three said, nope. | |
| So Klobuchar and Steyer both said, nope, who is it? | |
| And then Pete Buttigieg had the answer, but as soon as he said the answer, he asked if he was right. | |
| Now, if you say the answer, and then you immediately ask if you're correct, I think that's zero for three. | |
| A good guess. | |
| I'm not sure how much credit we should give that. | |
| But here's what's funny about it. | |
| Did any of you know the president of Mexico? | |
| Anybody? How many of you could have mentioned, named the president of Mexico? | |
| I couldn't have gotten close. | |
| No idea. In fact, I felt like it was the first time I'd ever heard it. | |
| When they gave the answer to the Democrats. | |
| But of course I haven't. | |
| It's just forgettable. | |
| And I'm thinking to myself, all right, is this telling us anything about the candidates? | |
| Probably not, really. | |
| We love to do these little gotcha questions. | |
| Do you remember, was it Bush Senior, who was asked about the cost of a loaf of bread or something like that, and he didn't know? | |
| And people said, oh, you don't know what the price of some bread is. | |
| I forget who it was who was asked. | |
| And I thought to myself, do I really care if my president knows the cost of a price of bread? | |
| Or the price of bread? | |
| I don't care. | |
| I don't care at all. | |
| But I'll take it one level further. | |
| And remember, if I were saying this about Trump, You would all jump on me and you'd all say, you're saying this because you'll support Trump no matter what he does. | |
| But I'm only talking about the Democrats. | |
| Do I care that they can't name the president of Mexico? | |
| Nope. I don't even care a little bit. | |
| I don't care that one got it and two missed it. | |
| Absolutely means nothing. | |
| Do you know what I think about that? | |
| If we don't know the President of Mexico, I think that's his fault. | |
| Are you with me? | |
| Do you know why we know the name of President Trump? | |
| Because President Trump made us know his name. | |
| Do you know why I know Pete Buttigieg's name? | |
| Because Pete Buttigieg made me know his name. | |
| Do you know why I don't know the President of Mexico? | |
| Well, he's not doing much if I don't even know his name. | |
| I can name the Prime Minister of Canada. | |
| I think it's still Blackface Trudeau, right? | |
| But if the President of Mexico is not known to three of the top candidates for President of the United States, I'm not sure that's entirely their fault. | |
| Sounds a little like the President of Mexico needs to maybe step it up a little bit. | |
| Make yourself visible, will you? | |
| Trudeau can do it. Why can't you? | |
| Alright, so that's one of those campaign stories that we like to think means something. | |
| Doesn't mean anything. Absolutely nothing. | |
| Here's my question for you. | |
| Almost every day, I see some skeptical type person talking about the coronavirus, and they like to do this. | |
| Scott, Scott, Scott. | |
| A regular flu, an ordinary flu, has already killed more people this year. | |
| Scott, Scott, Scott, let's put this in context. | |
| An ordinary flu also spreads and also kills a lot of people. | |
| So don't get yourself all worked up about this coronavirus, because let's compare it to ordinary viruses, which are even worse, and we don't get too worked up about those. | |
| Right? Okay. | |
| Let me ask you this. | |
| If the coronavirus is just like those other viruses, why is nobody treating it that way? | |
| Why is China not treating it like an ordinary virus? | |
| Why is the United States not treating it like an ordinary virus? | |
| Now, I've said before that if we had an ordinary virus that we could isolate it to one country of origin, well, maybe we would treat it the same way. | |
| Because we'd say, well, if that ordinary virus gets out, it's going to kill thousands of Americans. | |
| It always does. So if we could isolate any other virus, we probably would have. | |
| But for whatever reason, we don't. | |
| So this one had a known source, so maybe it made more sense just to try and get control of this one. | |
| But I don't see ordinary things happening. | |
| Am I right? For all the people who keep comparing it to the ordinary flu, you're still going to have to explain why the people who know the most about it are not treating it like an ordinary flu. | |
| Is it just a mistake on their part? | |
| Are they simply responding to public pressure? | |
| It doesn't feel that way. | |
| It feels like the people who really know what they're doing I think this is worse, and I'm judging based not on reading their minds, but rather on the fact that they're acting in a way that's not typical of something that's a normal virus, normal flu. | |
| So I'd say we need to worry about that, and everything about this virus is an unknown at this point. | |
| I feel like everything we think we know about it doesn't count. | |
| All right, somebody's saying it's because of a lack of shot, so there's no vaccination for this coronavirus. | |
| I don't think that's the reason we're treating it differently, because those shots are not terribly, they're not as effective as we want them to be, and not everybody gets them. | |
| So it's not that big a difference. | |
| All right, let's talk about Here's the biggest story, in my opinion, which I've not seen anybody say the way I'm going to say it. | |
| So I think it's one of the biggest stories that's happening, but until somebody batches it up so you can see it as a trend, you don't notice it. | |
| So that's what I'm going to do for you. | |
| I would say that there are four Democrats who I would describe as anti-Trump who are sort of like the canary in the coal mine. | |
| Now, the canary in the coal mine, if you're not familiar with that, in the old days, coal miners would take a canary in a cage in the coal mine, and if the canary died, then the coal miners would get out of the The tunnel as quickly as possible because it meant that the air was going bad because the canary would die first before a human would even notice the difference. | |
| So it was an early warning sign. | |
| And the canaries in the coal mine, here are my picks. | |
| These are the left-leaning anti-Trump sort of people who would be the first ones to say, uh-oh, I think we're doing this wrong. | |
| One is Smirkanish. | |
| The other is Bill Maher, and then I would say Fareed Zakaria and Van Jones. | |
| So those are my four Democrat canaries in the coal mine. | |
| And here's what's special about their thinking and the statements that they're making recently. | |
| Do you remember when Trump was first running? | |
| Of course you do. Do you remember what people were saying about why he won? | |
| Or even why he got nominated. | |
| Do you remember the main reason that people gave? | |
| The primary reason that people gave for why he did so well is that Republicans are racist. | |
| You remember that, right? | |
| That was the whole explanation. | |
| Well, everything he's doing is random and crazy and stupid. | |
| He might be insane, but at the very least, he's just a reality TV star. | |
| So none of the stuff that Trump is doing could possibly explain why his results are so good. | |
| Because the stuff he's doing is random and stupid. | |
| So let's look for a reason. | |
| Ah, we found it. | |
| He's a racist. He's sending magic secret racist dog whistles that only other racists can hear. | |
| Coincidentally, they're all Democrats, but they don't seem to notice that. | |
| But they're sure that the Republicans, who are also totally racist, are hearing it. | |
| And that must be The secret explanation for why he's doing better than all the smart people who are Democrats could have possibly imagined. | |
| Yes, they took some responsibility, the Democrats did, for not seeing how racist the Republicans really were. | |
| It was much worse than they imagined. | |
| So they took some responsibility for not knowing completely how bad the Republicans were that they would vote in this guy. | |
| That was 2015 and 2016. | |
| It was a little bit 2017. | |
| Well, actually a lot 2017. | |
| It was very much 2018. | |
| It wasn't as much 2019. | |
| And it's starting to disappear in 2020. | |
| And do you know what replaced it? | |
| According to... | |
| And here, I don't want to put too much words into other people's mouths, but I'll make a claim that there's a pattern emerging. | |
| There seems to be a departure from the only reason he won is because Republicans are giant racists. | |
| And the new position seems to be... | |
| Wait for it. | |
| Are you ready? The new position seems to be that he's very skilled... | |
| Did you see that coming? | |
| I'm not sure I could have predicted that. | |
| But I was just watching last week's, not the one that just taped, but the week before, Bill Maher. | |
| And he was trying to convince the Democrats who were on the show, Gilliam and Ezra Klein, that they'd missed the story, basically. | |
| And the story is, oh my God, the stuff Trump does... | |
| It has a reason and it works. | |
| It's good technique. And I don't think they were forced into seeing that what Trump does works and it's good technique. | |
| I don't think they were forced into that position until they could really imagine which of these Democratic candidates would be on the stage next to Trump. | |
| You're sort of forced at this point to put a specific person there, and then you imagine Trump standing next to that specific person. | |
| A lot of the conversation, of course, is about Bloomberg. | |
| So he's the one you put in there in your imagination, sometimes Bernie, and you say to yourself, Houston, we've got a problem because Bloomberg is just going to disappear next to Trump. | |
| And you can see people, you can see the gears starting to work. | |
| And again, it's with the The smarter, more flexible-minded Democrats who are starting to realize, and I'll put this in my own words, they're starting to realize, what if the problem is us? | |
| You did not see that in 2016. | |
| You didn't see it in 2017. | |
| You didn't see much of it in 2018. | |
| I don't even think you saw it in 2019. | |
| But in 2020, Some of the, I would say, most mentally gifted members of the Democrat Party are starting to say out loud some version of, you know, let's not rule out the possibility that the problem is us. | |
| Maybe that's why we're not going to win. | |
| Maybe that's why we didn't win last time, because we weren't listening to the people and we weren't giving a kind of campaign that can work. | |
| Now it seems that the Democrats have come to understand that voters are not rational. | |
| And they're starting to say that out loud. | |
| Ezra Klein was saying that, etc. | |
| And then Fareed Zakaria, very much an anti-Trumper, was saying, also on Mars show, was saying that Bernie and the socialist parts of the candidates... | |
| We're looking to open the borders and also offer free healthcare. | |
| Now, normally that's something that you only hear from Republicans, right? | |
| I can't think of even one anti-Trumper I've ever heard say, you know, if they offer these two things, open borders and free healthcare to immigrants, Who's going to vote for that? | |
| That's actually what Fareed said. | |
| He said, who's going to vote for open borders and free health care for the people coming in who are not in this country? | |
| And he's right. Who in the world is going to vote for that? | |
| Now, of course, some people will vote for it because it's their team, but it's not a winning formula, which I think is his point. | |
| So if you look at the things that you've seen coming from Van Jones, Fareed Zakaria, Bill Maher, Smirkanish, they all seemed... | |
| I was just watching Smirkanish's show this morning. | |
| And by the way, Smirkanish on CNN is consistently the guy who's willing to look at both sides. | |
| So he's been doing that all along. | |
| But you can see now that there's a dawning realization. | |
| So on Smirkanish this morning, he had a... | |
| Debate expert on, and he asked the debate expert, who was a real expert. | |
| I think he was like one of the best debate coaches in the country or something. | |
| He won an award. So he really knew what he was talking about. | |
| So they asked him to watch for the first time as it turns out. | |
| He'd never seen a debate by Bloomberg. | |
| Neither have I. And he commented on it. | |
| And how do you think the debate expert thought the matchup would be between Bloomberg and Trump? | |
| And the answer is, Bloomberg disappears. | |
| He just disappears. | |
| And he's a little too factual, a little too dry, doesn't vary his voice. | |
| The debate coach had specific reasons. | |
| But basically, the old thinking that the way Trump got there was either because of racism, or the other big theory, I'll call it the Sam Harris theory, is the Chauncey Gardner theory, that it was literally just luck. | |
| That Trump brought no skill to bear. | |
| He just was in the right place at the right time, and he was a crazy old clown, and all the variables in the world lined up. | |
| How can it ever happen again? | |
| You know, it's pure luck that, you know, Clinton didn't, you know, she didn't campaign where she should have, blah, blah, blah. | |
| Does the luck hypothesis stand up anymore? | |
| Well, it never stood up for me, of course, and most of you, I would imagine. | |
| But now you can see, again, the smartest people who are anti-Trumpers seem to be firmly on the side that whatever Trump has been doing and continues to do is good technique. | |
| They have finally understood, what I wrote in Win Bigley, you know, a year and a half ago, that this is technique. | |
| It's not luck. | |
| It's technique. And they're also looking to borrow it. | |
| Because they recognize it's good technique. | |
| All right. And watching Bill Maher be frustrated at his own team for not being able to understand what's going on here is really good entertainment. | |
| I got to tell you, if you're not watching real-time with Bill Maher, you should really watch it between now and the election, at least, because he has finally figured out Just what kind of trouble they're in and why. | |
| I think Marr is actually pretty much on the right trail. | |
| Watching him try to convince his teammates who are still in their little TDS bubble is really good entertainment. | |
| It's fun to watch. I watched Bill Gillum, who lost in his campaign to be governor of Florida. | |
| That's why you've heard the name before. | |
| He was responding to Bill Maher, who was saying that Trump was, essentially he was saying that Trump was smart because at the State of the Union, Maher said it was obvious that Trump was crafting the entire State of the Union To improve the votes he was getting from the African American community. | |
| And here's the funny thing. | |
| Bill Maher did not mock that. | |
| He did not mock the fact that Trump's approach was just completely over the top and obviously a bid to get the African American vote. | |
| Why did he not mock it? | |
| Because it was a good try. | |
| It was a good technique. | |
| Now, in his mind, it was a little too obvious, I guess. | |
| But that's such a minor criticism. | |
| If you were African American and you were watching the speech, you saw a whole bunch of people who looked like you who were the stars of the show. | |
| And I would think that would have an effect on how you thought about the whole situation. | |
| So they're really watching Trump knocking out of the park. | |
| They're watching him... | |
| Make probably the most credible play for the black vote that any Republicans ever made. | |
| Because he's got some real accomplishments and he's asking for their vote. | |
| I mean, essentially, by putting so much focus on that one area. | |
| But here's the thing that Gillum said about that. | |
| So he dismissed Trump's attempt to put more of a focus on the black voters. | |
| And he said it was like saying that you have a black friend. | |
| And somebody's asking me, do I need to blow my nose? | |
| If you're new here, I've got a little medical problem with my sinuses that won't be helped by blowing my nose exactly. | |
| But I'm going to have some surgery and clear that up in the coming weeks. | |
| Anyway... What Gilliam said is it's like having a black friend and he was being dismissive of the president making an obvious attempt to appeal to black voters. | |
| And I thought to myself, that is just strategically the dumbest thing that the black community has ever done. | |
| Let me say it as clearly as possible. | |
| The black community, here's the dumbest thing That you have collectively ever done. | |
| It goes like this. | |
| It's this one black friend thing. | |
| I've said this before, but it just makes me so angry to see bad strategy. | |
| When I see people shooting themselves in the foot, I just want to grab the gun away. | |
| It's like, stop shooting yourself in the foot! | |
| Please! You've got enough problems. | |
| It goes like this. | |
| You should never penalize people for moving in the right direction. | |
| And I'll give you a story to make the point. | |
| Now, analogies, of course, are not persuasive, but they are good for explaining a point. | |
| So I'm going to use this analogy to explain a point. | |
| Years ago, many years ago, in a past relationship, when I was much younger, my romantic other would say to me, you know, it would be great, you know, she liked receiving flowers. | |
| And she mentioned that it would be even more meaningful If it were not a holiday. | |
| And I thought, well, that sounds pretty reasonable. | |
| You like getting flowers and you like it when it's not, you know, some required Valentine's Day or a holiday because then it just looks like you're, you don't really care. | |
| You're just doing what you're supposed to do because it's a holiday. | |
| So I thought, well, that's pretty clear. | |
| I know exactly what to do. | |
| So I would, I would randomly buy flowers and just give her some roses. | |
| And what do you think she would say? | |
| Instead of saying, oh my god, I love these. | |
| You're the greatest. Thank you for doing this exactly the way I wanted you to do it. | |
| It wasn't a holiday. | |
| You just showed that you cared. | |
| You got some flowers. Did I get that? | |
| No, I did not. | |
| She said, what are you guilty for? | |
| What have you done? | |
| That's right. She asked me what I was guilty for. | |
| Because it was sort of a joke. | |
| Now, she said it as sort of a joke, but it was also the first thing she said. | |
| Now, what do you think the effect on me was? | |
| Now, I got that it was a joke, so I'm like, I wish she hadn't told that joke, but yeah, it's just a joke. | |
| So, time goes by, and I give her flowers again, a different time. | |
| What's the first thing she said? | |
| Oh, what are you guilty of? | |
| What did you do? And I said, I'm really... | |
| And by the way, I wasn't guilty of anything. | |
| I was just giving her flowers. | |
| And I said, you know, it's just the worst. | |
| I'm really... I swear to God, I'm just giving you flowers. | |
| You like flowers. You told me you like flowers. | |
| You told me you like it when it's not a holiday. | |
| I just did it twice, and you just... | |
| You know, you just said, what are you guilty for? | |
| Like almost starting a fight. | |
| What's going on? And of course, she would say, it's a joke. | |
| The third time I gave her flowers, she looked at me and said, oh, what are you guilty for? | |
| That was the last time I ever gave her flowers. | |
| Now, if you asked her, she would say, I was joking. | |
| He knew I was joking. We always joke. | |
| What's different about this? | |
| We joke about everything. | |
| Why would this be different? | |
| And the reason is I didn't get a benefit. | |
| I was doing something that took some effort, and I was being punished for it. | |
| Now, let's say, suppose you were one of those people who did say, oh, I'm not a racist because, you know, I have a best friend who's black. | |
| How should you treat that if you are a black person who hears that? | |
| Should you say, oh, I get it. | |
| You have one black friend. | |
| Ugh. You have one black friend. | |
| Should you mock somebody for making a small step in the right direction? | |
| The answer is no. | |
| It's the dumbest thing anybody ever did. | |
| So if you're black and you're watching this, don't ever do that. | |
| Here's the correct response. | |
| If one of your white associates says, yeah, I'm not a racist. | |
| My best friend is black. | |
| Here's the correct response. | |
| That's great to hear. If you want the world to be a better place, the correct response is, you've got a black friend? | |
| That's great. I hope you have two black friends sometime soon. | |
| In fact, I'll be your friend. | |
| How about we be friends? | |
| Then you have two. I'll double the number of your black friends. | |
| Think about that answer compared to getting mocked. | |
| For doing the right thing, albeit in a small way. | |
| Having one black friend certainly doesn't absolve you of racism. | |
| It doesn't mean much. | |
| But if you don't reward people for moving one step in the right direction, don't expect a second step. | |
| Don't expect a second step. | |
| You're not going to get it. | |
| So stop penalizing people for doing the right thing. | |
| That doesn't work. All right, that's enough of that. | |
| So this is what President Trump said recently in a tweet. | |
| This was over a day ago, I guess. | |
| He said, Mini Mike Bloomberg is a loser who has money but can't debate. | |
| He has zero presence. | |
| You will see. | |
| The debate expert on Smirkanish actually agreed with that. | |
| And he said that Bloomberg doesn't have much presence. | |
| Then he said he reminds me of a tiny version of Jeb Low Energy Bush. | |
| I don't know what could be funnier than calling him a tiny version of Jeb Bush. | |
| That is frankly hilarious. | |
| And by the way, on Smirkanish also, they talked about how making fun of Bloomberg's height might not be a bad idea because biologically we're sort of primed for size being important. | |
| It shouldn't be important. | |
| There's no reason the president needs to be a certain size. | |
| We shouldn't care about that at all. | |
| But on some subconscious level, we do. | |
| So even that technique has been now recognized as just a solid technique. | |
| Blah, blah, blah. Okay. | |
| What else we got here? | |
| Have you noticed that One of the unintended effects of Bloomberg entering the race is that he makes Steyer look poor. | |
| You've got Steyer, whose primary claim to fame is that he can go toe-to-toe with President Trump on the economy, because Steyer would say, well, he understands the economy, he became rich, he can really speak to that against Trump. | |
| Then Bloomberg enters the race and makes Steyer look like a loser. | |
| What's Steyer got? $3 billion or something? | |
| I don't know what the number is. $1 billion, $3 billion? | |
| Bloomberg's got like $70 billion. | |
| So Steyer's only advantage that he was a successful business person, he doesn't look so successful when you put him next to Bloomberg. | |
| He just looks like some hedge fund guy who was in the right place at the right time. | |
| Let's see. Oh, and then also, there was a legal expert on, this was also Smirkanish, but the legal expert was agreeing that Roger Stone's sentence was too long. | |
| I'm watching the news today, and all I'm seeing is people agreeing with everything that Trump has said or Republicans have said or Trump supporters have been saying, and it's really weird to watch people agreeing on this. | |
| It probably didn't hurt that Avenatti got convicted. | |
| It looks like he's going to go to jail for a very long time. | |
| I think that all the people who are praising Avenatti and using him on their shows, well, maybe they've, I think they've got a little bit of humility. | |
| They may never admit it. | |
| But I'm noticing a very distinct turn because it would be hard to notice all of these pieces of information, you know, to see that Russia collusion was fake, to watch the president go full on trying to get the black vote in the context that most people think he's still a racist. | |
| And they're trying to figure out, wait a minute, wait a minute, it doesn't make sense. | |
| If he's a racist, he should not be trying to get the black vote and he should be trying to tighten up the border. | |
| But he's only tightening up the border while he's trying hard to get the black vote and has actually accomplished real things that matter to that community. | |
| How does that make sense? | |
| And they're just starting to figure out that maybe the border stuff is actually about America first. | |
| And guess who's in America? | |
| African Americans. | |
| Republicans prioritize black voters Higher than Democrats do. | |
| There's no way around that anymore. | |
| No reasonable person could say anymore, based on this year, no reasonable person could make the claim, I don't think, that Democrats prioritize black voters in this country, black citizens, higher than Republicans. | |
| I don't even think it's close anymore. | |
| Because in the Democratic Party, they probably put, you know, well, I don't know. | |
| They've got a lot of identities over there, so I'm not sure who's first, but it's definitely not the black community. | |
| I would say it would be more likely the immigrant community. | |
| So I would say the Democrats are clearly putting a higher priority on non-citizens. | |
| And if you're an African American, you're a citizen, right? | |
| What do Republicans who are America first, where do they rank citizens? | |
| Top. Number one, right? | |
| So if you're black and you're American, you're a citizen, Republicans rank you at the top with themselves, right? | |
| They put you in the same category as themselves and say, wait, you're American, I'm American, we follow the Constitution, we're the top. | |
| Top priority. Come on over here. | |
| You and I, top priority. | |
| How in the world do you vote for the other side when one side is giving you a record of accomplishment and says explicitly, I mean, it's built into the whole belief system, the Constitution, it's built into the Bible, that we're all equal under the law and under God, according to people who believe that stuff. | |
| Now, I'm pro-religion. | |
| I'm just not a believer in myself. | |
| I can't fathom how you could be a black voter and still support Democrats in 2020. | |
| I think it made sense in the past, but if you look at the current situation, it's not even close. | |
| Who prioritizes you higher? | |
| Not even close. All right. | |
| I'm going to take some calls. | |
| I'd like to hear from anybody. | |
| I've done this before and it's fun because it's educational. | |
| I want to talk to people who I've changed their mind about anything. | |
| It doesn't have to be politics. | |
| It doesn't have to be about Trump. | |
| It doesn't have to be about anything really. | |
| But I want to hear from people whose minds were changed Buy one of my books or periscopes or a tweet or something. | |
| So that's primarily what I'm looking for. | |
| So you should be able to join by clicking on that little icon at the bottom that looks like happy faces. | |
| And since I didn't tell people why I wanted to talk, some of you who already signed up, I see already disappearing. | |
| But I'm going to look for somebody who's Let's see if Mike is following directions. | |
| Mike, can you hear me? | |
| Mike, did I influence you in any way? | |
| Definitely in 2016. | |
| Originally I was a big fan of your comic strip and the whole story about you, you know, changing careers. | |
| So I was always a fan of yours. | |
| I used to be, I had a Bernie sign on my front lawn. | |
| I don't know. I was really into the whole being a Democrat and then in 2016 you influenced me to kind of become an independent and the confirmation bias, you know? | |
| Well, good. So you made the change. | |
| Can you remember, was there any moment when you said to yourself, oh, I think I'm going to change my mind? | |
| Was there any topic? Do you remember anything specific, or was it sort of the weight of things? | |
| Well, it was, you know, getting on Twitter, and at first I was the typical troll, you know, that had an anonymous account, you know? | |
| And you convinced me to maybe not be anonymous. | |
| And then it was kind of seeing some of the news reports about Bernie. | |
| It started with Bernie. Like, they say, oh, they're throwing, you know, chairs at the convention, and And then I see the video, and there wasn't no chair, and then you start talking about cognitive dissonance, and it kind of kicked in with me when, like, my dad, who's a lifelong Democrat, would call me and go, you gotta listen to this guy. | |
| His name is Keith Olbermann. | |
| He's speaking, and I'd be like, really? | |
| And so all the people around me that I kind of listened to before were Very much staunch Democrats. | |
| And then for me, it was like, wait a minute, I'm seeing these news reports that aren't quite right. | |
| This guy's talking about confirmation bias. | |
| He's talking about cognitive dissonance. | |
| And then I realized I had all that. | |
| And then I kind of That's what it did for me. | |
| I kind of realized that maybe this truck guy is not as crazy as I thought he was. | |
| That's great. So thank you for that. | |
| I'm going to see if I can get some more stories here, but thank you so much for weighing in. | |
| Let's see who else we got here. | |
| Oh, we got lots of people weighing in. | |
| Let's go with Patricia. | |
| Patricia, can you hear me? | |
| Patricia? Patricia? | |
| Can you hear me, Patricia? | |
| Yes. Oh, hi. | |
| Did I influence you in any way, Patricia? | |
| Yes. Speak up a little bit. | |
| You're a little bit low. Can you tell me how? | |
| Yes. Yes, you influenced me, although I was Oh, we've got a little audio problem. | |
| Unfortunately, I'm going to have to try somebody else because we don't have a good connection there, but I wanted to hear the rest of that. | |
| Let's go to Lorenza. | |
| Lorenza? Let's see if our technology works here. | |
| Oh, Lorenza's gone. | |
| I'm not sure if people get shy just when I select them or what's going on here, but... | |
| I think Michael's suite is coming at you. | |
| Michael, can you hear me? | |
| Unfortunately, I can't hear you. | |
| You're just a little buzz in the background, so I'm going to have to try somebody who's got a better connection. | |
| I can hear you, but I wouldn't be able to tell the actual words. | |
| Let's try Jeremy. | |
| Jeremy, can you hear me? | |
| Hey Jeremy, have I influenced you in any way to change your mind about anything? | |
| Oh, everything. Thanks so much. | |
| I've been following you for like three years I think or so when the election was going on and And yeah, it was a video on YouTube, how Trump is a master persuader. | |
| And I watched that. | |
| And it totally changed everything. | |
| Because at the time, it was like Trump was crazy to me. | |
| I was like a Democrat. I was like a Bernie guy. | |
| I was a big Bernie guy. And then during the election, it was all changing. | |
| I was seeing all the fake news and And now my girlfriend is a Bernie person. | |
| And it's going to be a wild year. | |
| I swear, it's going to be very interesting. | |
| But, you know, she's on her team. | |
| And I don't know how to persuade her like you did me. | |
| Well, you're going to have to have some dates where all you do is listen to my videos. | |
| All right, well, thanks for the call. | |
| I'm going to talk to some more people. | |
| I don't know if the audio is good on your side. | |
| I can barely hear in my headset, but I don't know if that's just something that's happening to me. | |
| Let's look at Chase. | |
| Chase. Chase, can you hear me? | |
| Hi. Did I influence you in any way, Chase? | |
| You sure did. Late 2015 to early 2016. | |
| And did it change your vote? | |
| It did not. | |
| I usually vote Republican, although I haven't voted in the past couple of elections, but it has changed my mind about how to think about things. | |
| All right. So I just lost sound on you, but I think some people can hear But thank you for that. | |
| And I don't mean to be rude if I cut anybody off just because I'm having audio problems in some cases. | |
| Let's see what Lynn has to say. | |
| Lynn? Lynn, can you hear me? | |
| Lynn, I can hear you. | |
| Did I persuade you or change your mind about anything? | |
| Actually, in multiple ways. | |
| Number one, coffee is enough in the morning now. | |
| Absolutely. First tip of the day. | |
| Secondly, I didn't vote in the last election. | |
| I will be voting this time and I will be voting for Trump. | |
| Last time I couldn't decide between the worst of two evils. | |
| But you've opened my eyes to the cognitive dissidents and many other things. | |
| I can't wait for your morning coffee. | |
| I grew up in Washington and I just recently moved to Arizona and I have to tell you what a change that was. | |
| Wow. All right. | |
| Thank you. Thank you for the input. | |
| I'm having much audio problems. | |
| I'm going to move on to another caller. | |
| I'm seeing in the comments that I think you guys can hear the audio better than I can. | |
| Let's see. Mr. | |
| Mendoza. Mr. | |
| Mendoza. Hi. | |
| Yes. But to me, everyday driving, you've influenced me in a way that's different. | |
| And that's where people get anxious when they drive. | |
| You've taught that people act selfishly, and that's one way that I've learned to not get affected by the way other people drive. | |
| And then I've noticed when people get into an accident, about 85% of the people think they're good drivers, and that's when cognitive dissonance kicks in. | |
| You hear people say, that's not my fault, even though they caused the accident. | |
| It's pretty rare to hear anybody say that they're a below-average driver. | |
| You never hear that, do you? | |
| No, you don't. And then with confirmation bias, I drive a Prius. | |
| So a lot of people with pickup trucks try to always zoom by me. | |
| So I know that's when confirmation bias kicks in. | |
| There's no way a Prius can drive faster than a pickup truck. | |
| So I'm always getting cut off left and right. | |
| Oh, yeah, that does sound like a problem. | |
| All right, thank you. Thanks for the input. | |
| Sure. Let's take another here. | |
| This is more fun than I thought it would be. | |
| All right. Let's see if Maximilian can hear me. | |
| Maximilian? Max? | |
| Max is gone. That didn't work. | |
| I'll stay with me. | |
| We're going to Jake. | |
| Jake? Jake? Jake, can you hear me? | |
| I can hear you. | |
| Did I influence you or change your mind at all? | |
| Yeah, so yesterday, I've been in a little bit of a predicament where I'm generally a pretty optimistic person, but my roommate has been spiraling down this sort of self-deprecating and negative rabbit hole. | |
| And I've been trying to think like, you know what, I don't want this to influence me, you know, so I'm gonna distance myself. | |
| But I heard your Periscope, where you said you're either programmed or you program. | |
| So I thought, you know, if I don't want this to influence me, I have to make it my responsibility to influence my roommate. | |
| So that kind of like changed my whole perspective where I used to kind of like guard my psychology to make sure that negative people didn't influence me or affect my outlook. | |
| Well, that's a huge change. | |
| Watch how much more effective that gets over time. | |
| Totally. So you're going to see that that just gets stronger and stronger as a concept. | |
| I'm glad that you responded to that. | |
| Thanks for the call. No problem. | |
| All right. Let's see. | |
| Who else we got? We got lots of people coming out here. | |
| Alright, let's try Lorenza. | |
| Lorenza's technology seems inadequate. | |
| So Lorenzo, two failures on that one. | |
| All right, let's try... | |
| Alex. | |
| Alex, can you hear me? | |
| Alex? Alex? | |
| All right, well, I guess the technology is not going to... | |
| Give us what we want. Alex, can I hear you? | |
| Alex? All right, well, it's no fun for you to sit here and wonder why you can't hear anything. | |
| So I think I'll end it here. | |
| Oh, you're here. | |
| Still here? Apparently not. | |
| All right, sorry about that. |