Episode 1232 Scott Adams: Nashville, Narcissism, Congress Sucks, And Coffee. Join Me.
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a
Find my "extra" content on Locals: https://ScottAdams.Locals.com
Content:
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- Nashville explosion
- Dilbert's lack of diversity
- The number of genders controversy
- NDAA bill would make 5G impossible?
- Narcissism and the psychology industry
- Adams Mental Disorder
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For a coffee with Scott Adams, the best part of the day.
Every single time!
And when you Participated in the simultaneous sip.
I think you can feel a connection to the rest of the world.
Something you were missing before.
But something that feels really good.
And 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 or a vessel of any guy.
And fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dopamine of the day.
The thing that makes everything better.
Including the holidays. It's called the Simultaneous Sip.
It happens now. Go! Ah, success once again.
Isn't it good to start off with a little victory?
The victory of the Simultaneous Sip.
Sure, it's not the biggest accomplishment of the day, but it's not the smallest one.
Well, let's talk about all the things.
There was a big explosion in Nashville.
Allegedly, some camper...
Pulled up to an AT&T building and some other buildings and may or may not have warned people and then it blew up.
Do you know what we know about that story?
Something blew up.
Do you know what else we know about that story?
Nothing. Pretty much nothing.
Something blew up.
We're in the fog of war.
It doesn't appear to be a traditional terrorist.
Because it seems designed to not kill people, but rather either send a message or damage a building.
Some people are theorizing it's because of the AT&T assets in there, and maybe it's because there's some NSA surveillance or something about the Georgia elections.
I don't think any of that's true.
My guess is Should we ever figure out what happened and why, it's going to be something you never heard of.
That's what I think.
Because if it were something you'd heard of, it would look more familiar or somebody would be taking credit for it.
If it were ISIS, ISIS would be taking credit.
If it were intended to kill people, they would have done it somewhere else.
So whatever this is, it's probably going to be something new.
It's either an individual crazy person or it's somebody trying to get revenge on one person or Maybe it's covering up some other crime.
But whatever it is, it's going to be something we haven't seen.
So we'll just wait and see if we ever figure that out.
There's a little fake news on Fox News site today.
And let me tell you what their headline sentence says.
And I'll tell you why it's fake news.
It says that it's an article on vitamin D. And in the subtitle to the headline, it says, additional studies also revealed...
Actually, I think this might have been in the body of it.
It said, additional studies also revealed that 9 out of 10 COVID-19 deaths could have been prevented if people had adequate vitamin D levels.
So this is from a Fox 26 report.
Listen to this sentence carefully, all right?
Because the exact words...
Matter a lot in this sentence.
So additional studies, which, by the way, are not linked to.
So it's an article which makes a claim that's based on studies, doesn't link to them.
Okay, that's your first red flag, right?
And it says, it revealed that 9 out of 10 COVID deaths could have been prevented, could have been, so it's softened by could have been, if people had adequate vitamin D levels.
How do you read that? The way I think you read it is that if you took vitamin D supplements and got your vitamin D levels up enough, that you would have no risk of COVID-19 death, anyway.
You'd have risk of the virus, not death.
Isn't that what it seems to be saying?
But let me tell you a different interpretation, and then I'll read the sentence again and see if you can see it.
The other interpretation is that people who happen to have low vitamin D Because they're sick or old, which is why you have low vitamin D. So one of the main reasons you would have low vitamin D is that you're ill from some other thing.
Now if you're ill from some other thing to the degree that your vitamin D levels are low, or maybe that's just a coincidence that comes with those other things, all vitamin D would be is an indicator.
It wouldn't be a cause of anything, or the lack of it wouldn't be a cause of anything.
It would just be an indicator that somebody has low health.
So, if people had adequate vitamin D levels, they could avoid hospitalization is almost certainly a true statement, but misleading.
If they had vitamin D levels that were good, They wouldn't have comorbidities or at least as many comorbidities or the type that would lower your vitamin D. So all it's telling you is they have Health problem?
Probably. Now there was one study in Spain with 76 patients and I think that was a little complicated by the fact that they were also taking hydroxychloroquine according to the study.
So one study, 76 patients, doesn't tell you enough.
I still think that vitamin D is likely to be important.
In other words, I think the fake story is likely to be true By coincidence.
Or unrelated to why they think it's true.
It might be true anyway. But the claim that they're making is just complete BS. There's a correlation that they found.
They have not found a causation.
But that said, I feel like there's a good enough chance there's a causation too.
That I take vitamin D. I would recommend it.
I think you should, just for a good...
You know, it's good for you anyway, so there's no downside if you don't take too much.
Somebody asked me why the Dilbert comic doesn't have any non-white people.
Is that a good question in 2020?
Seems like a good question, right?
Hey, Scott, what is your Dilbert comic...
In 2020, when the world is completely diverse, why don't you have more non-white people in your comic?
Well, now there's one. Ashok, the intern, is Indian American.
But the criticism is still valid.
And let me explain why.
There's an obvious functional reason that there can't be.
And it goes like this.
In the United States in 2020, and this has been true my whole career, but it's true today.
In 2020, you can't have an entertainment vehicle in which a white creator makes fun of people who are not white.
That's not a thing.
Do you think I can make a comic where I made fun of people who were anything except people like me?
No. Nobody can make that comic.
There's no such thing as a white person who's mocking black people or Hispanic people or anybody else in an entertainment forum and getting away with it.
You can't do that.
So if somebody's asked me, why don't I have diversity in the comic, I would love to.
I'd love to. I would love that the Dilbert comic would more closely look like the actual public.
I'm completely on board with the fact that there should not be A comic strip with a cast of characters that are almost entirely white.
Do you think I like that?
Why would I? Why would I like that?
I'm intentionally trying to make the comic look like real life, and that doesn't look anything like real life.
Not even close.
So of course I would like them to be diverse.
But I don't have that option.
I don't have that option.
The Dilbert comic would disappear one day after I put some Other characters in there.
Now, I know what people who are not cartoonists are saying, Scott, I think you're being a little maybe too sensitive or too cautious.
Other movies do it.
TV shows do it.
Other people do it.
No, they don't. No, they don't.
They don't do it.
You might think they do, but you won't find it.
Give me an example. You can't find it.
There's no movie written by white people with, let's say, a white director and a white writer mocking people of other ethnicities.
Unless they also had a writer who might represent those other groups, they're probably not doing it.
Somebody's saying South Park.
So I would say South Park would be the exception that proves the rule.
So here's what you can do if you're the exception that proves the rule.
If you create a property that by its design is the thing that makes fun of everything you're not supposed to make fun of, well then you can do it.
So South Park is by its design the thing that makes fun of everything.
And it especially makes fun of all the things you're not supposed to make fun of.
If I made that property, which is not what Dilbert is, Dilbert's about the workplace, blah, blah, blah.
But if I made that property, I could do that too.
I would say Family Guy was a little bit like that, although I think you couldn't write most of the Family Guy stuff in 2020.
I don't know for sure, but I'll bet one of the reasons that Family Guy isn't as big a deal is because you just can't do the same jokes that you used to be able to do.
But again, If your property is about that, then you can do it, sure.
But you have to be about that to get away with it.
Jerry Seinfeld?
I don't think that's an example of what you're trying to say.
All right. So, yeah, even in The Simpsons, they had to get rid of their Apu, the 7-Eleven guy.
So, that's enough about that.
Have you noticed that I have not waded in on the big controversy of how many genders there are?
Have you noticed it's sort of conspicuous?
You know, I talk about pretty much most of the headlines, but I stay away from that topic completely.
Now, there are two reasons for that.
One, I'm very pro-LGBTQ and all people being whatever they want to be, right?
So I'm completely on board with human beings being human beings.
I don't know how you could be against that, right?
And I don't require that they all be like me.
I require that they not hurt me, right?
I would really like them to be on my team, but I don't require them to be like me.
That's crazy. So here's my only thing I'll say about the whole how many genders are there.
If you and I agree that there is such a thing as a person, doesn't matter who we're talking about, let's say there is a person who was born with male genital parts, but considers themselves, since they were a kid and all through adulthood, considers themselves female mentally and, let's say, emotionally.
If we both agree that that person exists, and clearly they do, you know, likewise there are people born with female parts that in their mind they have felt male all their life.
If we believe that they exist, and that I just describe them accurately, we're done.
We're done. Somebody's saying it's a mental disorder.
Is it? Isn't it only a mental disorder if it's a problem?
If it's not a problem, I don't know how it's a mental disorder.
Then it's just a difference. A difference without a problem is just a difference.
So where is the source of this mental problem?
If you say it's a mental problem because those people don't fit well into the mechanisms of society, I would say, well, maybe that's a problem with the mechanisms of society.
Maybe it's a problem that we don't have private bathrooms in public places.
Maybe it's not a problem with the person being different, because we're all different in different ways.
So that's pretty much my entire opinion on the topic.
If you're arguing about the words, about whether somebody is a male or they really are a woman, that's not a real argument.
If we can describe exactly what they are, what difference does the label mean?
That's just not a real argument.
Now, there are real arguments about what you do in a practical sense.
There are lots of practical decisions that you have to make.
Yeah, about kids and schools and bathrooms and stuff.
So a lot of it is just a practical decision based on what resources you have and how far you can go to accommodate individuals.
Those are all good arguments.
But to simply label it a mental illness when it's a difference...
I feel that doesn't add anything, and it's not helpful.
James Hamblin tweets that there's a dangerous trend of reporting when somebody gets the virus vaccination.
If they have any kind of reaction to it, like an allergic reaction, it becomes a national story.
Now, what happens when the rarest of possibilities, which is an adverse reaction to the vaccine, rare, rare, rare, what happens when the news Focus is on the rare.
Well, it makes you think the vaccine is pretty dangerous, because the only stories you see are about problems.
So I had predicted that this would happen.
It is guaranteed that there will be both reactions in some people, because there always are, to vaccines, but also there will be times when people have coincidental problems immediately after the vaccination.
Because there are people who get suddenly sick all the time for lots of different reasons.
Some of those people are going to get suddenly sick or even suddenly die right after they got a vaccination.
It's going to be national news.
You should ignore all of it.
I'm starting to soften up a little bit on an opinion I had recently about the Republicans and about Trump looking to...
To kill this defense spending bill, the $740 billion, whatever it is.
And Trump was tweeting today that he doesn't like it because it's a gift to China, Russia, and big tech.
He says it fails to terminate the Section 230 that's internationally dangerous.
And he said it won't allow us to bring our troops back home where they belong.
It renames and destroys forts and national monuments and makes 5G almost impossible.
And I said...
What? What? Are you telling me that somewhere buried in this defense bill, and we all know that there's a whole bunch of, you know, stuff, random stuff buried there, but are you telling me there's something in that bill?
And I don't know if it's true or if it's hyperbole or what, but seriously?
There's something in the bill that would make 5G almost impossible?
Fact check that for me, will you?
If there's something in the bill that would make 5G almost impossible, that's the end of the story.
You get that, right?
If that claim is true, and I don't know.
I mean, it's a political claim, so I'm not going to say it's true just because I saw it in a tweet.
But if it's true, if it's true, oh yeah, we have to kill that bill.
There's no doubt about it.
Because 5G... is so critical to the future of our economy, of our security, of everything.
If that's really there, there's no doubt about it that it has to be vetoed.
So if it's true that the Republicans were on to this and they said that they have other reasons they want to veto it, but if this is one of them, I'm on board with the veto.
Now I've said that it's Crazy stupid to veto cash to people who need it.
It puts a boot on the poorest people in the country.
You do it on Christmas.
It's just wrong.
It's wrong on so many levels to get to this point and then even have to try to beat this thing at the last minute.
But, under the condition that it's true, and I need a fact check on this, but if it's true that this is making 5G almost impossible, you do have to hurt the poor to kill it.
That's an adult decision, and it's awful.
It's complete incompetence, maybe evil, that we're even in a position where we have to make that kind of a decision.
But here we are, right?
Unfortunately, we can't go back in time.
Here we are. If we have to make the decision of putting our boot on the neck of poor people or disadvantaged people in this country, just about the worst thing you could think of doing, but the alternative...
Is this 5G thing?
The 5G thing is so big that it would also put a boot on the people in the bad situation.
It would just do it later. So I do think that at some point, some politician somewhere had to draw the line and say, all right, we just have to stop doing stuff like this, putting a bunch of bad stuff with the good stuff so it gets through.
And Maybe this is the place.
You know, so this is the part where I'm softening because I said it was literally the worst time to take a stand.
Maybe it's the only time you can do it.
Maybe it's the only time you get enough attention is when it's the worst time.
But maybe it just had to be done, eventually, whether it was on this or something else.
So I'd say I'm a little bit moved by the argument that the Republicans may have a better ethical and moral case than my first reading indicated.
And by the way, this is for those of you who say, Scott, you never change your mind based on So I thought the news would be kind of quiet, so I decided to cause some trouble myself.
Not proud of that, but something I do.
So I tweeted that I'm really tired of seeing this word narcissism used in politics, but I also think it's BS in scientific terms as well.
And with your indulgence, I would like to talk about the BS, which is narcissism and The psychology industry in general.
So I'd like to debunk them a little bit.
And here's how I started with this tweet, which I knew would draw fire.
And it was drawing fire that I kind of wanted.
I wanted to see what the argument was.
So I said, narcissism is a junk science idea that comes from people with low self-esteem who want to believe people with strong self-esteem are the defective ones.
Does that sound provocative enough yet?
He goes, that's why there seems to be a so-called epidemic of narcissism going on.
So it turns out there is actually an epidemic of narcissism.
That's a real thing. So the psychologists have believed that this is a real thing, this narcissism.
But now it's way worse.
So suddenly, in just the last, I don't know what years we're talking about, let's say 10 years, I think in the last 10 years, The amount of diagnosed or supposed narcissism in this country, and maybe the world, but this country, has gone from 1 to 15.
It's like 1% to 15% of the population.
It's like there's narcissism everywhere.
It's an outbreak of narcissism.
Now, that's your first red flag, right?
Isn't it a red flag?
Because it wasn't that much, maybe, that changed in society.
But suddenly there are way more narcissists?
Doesn't it feel like this is an observer problem?
That's what I think it is.
Here's what I mean by an observer problem.
An observer simply believes that something is happening and it isn't.
So there's no problem with the thing they're observing.
The thing they're observing is just fine.
It's a problem with the observer who believes there's some big problem.
Let me give you another example.
When people call other people racists, what's wrong with that?
Well, there's an embedded assumption when you call somebody a racist.
Most of the time, the embedded assumption is that the person who's doing the accusing isn't a racist.
Right? I mean, why would you be a racist And then accuse somebody of being a racist.
Like, that wouldn't make any sense.
Except some weird situation.
But people who believe that you're a racist are under the impression that they're not.
And here's the problem.
You can't not be.
That's not one of the options.
It's just not one of the options.
Because I've said this before.
Your brain is a pattern recognition machine.
You can't turn that off.
There's no button on your brain that says, turn off pattern recognition.
Can't be done. Nobody's wise enough, smart enough.
And if you could turn it off, well, you'd be dead pretty quickly.
Because pattern recognition is the basic...
Operating system of your brain.
It's just not very good.
It is your operating system.
It's just buggy. So the way that you get bias and racism and all the problems that come with that pattern recognition is because we're all bad at it.
It's not like you're bad at it and I'm good at it.
You're bad at it and I'm bad at it.
Because we're humans. If you're a human, you're bad at pattern recognition.
That's built in. Sometimes you're right, and that's what fools you into thinking you're right on the other times.
But you're all bad at pattern recognition.
I'm bad, you're bad. So if you're a racist and you're accusing somebody else of being a racist, you're just being bad at pattern recognition because you are one too, maybe in little different ways, maybe you don't say things out loud, maybe you think them, but you are.
So that's an observer problem.
The problem is not that there is a person who is a racist or not.
The problem is that the observer imagines a world where there exists racist and, here's the imaginary part, non-racist.
They're just people who are racist about different things in different ways.
That's about it. But, that said, while I believe that we're biologically inclined to racism, if you want to be a good person in the world, you will do what you can to use your higher sense of reason to tamp down whatever natural impulses you have from your bad pattern recognition.
So, we would all like to try to overcome our pattern recognition, but it's not really a thing.
You can't really overcome it.
Alright, let's talk about some of the definitions of narcissism.
So, Scott Barry Kaufman, who's a humanistic psychologist, came in to mock me on Twitter for my thought that narcissism is not real, and he said, narcissism and healthy self-esteem are very different from each other.
Alright, number one.
When somebody like me makes a tweet like this, where I say narcissism is a junk science idea that comes from people with low self-esteem who want to believe people with strong self-esteem are the defective ones, did you read that as being literally, exactly covering everything?
When you read a tweet about a big topic, do you think the tweet is intended to be complete?
That's not really how tweets work.
Tweets are oversimplifications.
It's an oversimplification with the purpose of being provocative.
And the fact that I oversimplified it intentionally is what causes the provocative part.
So, Scott Barry Kaufman's first comment is just sort of, I don't know, low reading comprehension.
If he thinks that the only thing I think is that having a A healthy self-esteem is the same as narcissism, because I don't think that.
I'll tell you what I do think as we go on here, but no, he's misinterpreting it because he thinks it's a literal, complete statement, which you don't do on Twitter.
And then he says, also, I love it when non-scientists dismiss an entire area of study as junk science.
Okay then, we'll stop doing the science and just defer to your wisdom because you know everything.
So this was what he tweeted back to me while defending that narcissism is a real thing.
And I thought to myself...
I feel as if one of the symptoms of narcissism is everything in this tweet.
Do you notice the first problem?
I'm the observer now, right?
As the observer, I'm going to look at this statement by Scott Barry Kaufman, a man I've never met, never been in the same room.
But as an observer, I observe the symptoms of narcissism clearly in this tweet.
So, is he a narcissist?
Because I've observed the symptoms?
Let's go on. So, he thinks, well...
So, let's give you the quiz.
Let's find out if you are a narcissist.
Take the quiz with me.
I'll tell you what the symptoms are.
Now, you keep track of how many of these symptoms you have.
And I'll do the same, alright?
This is from the Mayo Clinic.
It says a narcissistic personality disorder.
And some people on Twitter wanted me to know that there's a difference between calling somebody a narcissist on Twitter, which is sort of a general insult, versus the real clinical narcissistic personality disorder.
And so some people were willing to agree with me so far as, yeah, we overuse the word, but at the same time we overuse the word, it can be true, That there's a legitimate clinical diagnosis.
It's a real thing. To which I say, nope.
It's not a real thing in the clinic either.
Now, I might be right.
I might be wrong.
But my claim is it doesn't exist in the clinic.
It doesn't exist in science.
It doesn't exist anywhere.
It's just a completely made-up thing that has no use, no function, no nothing.
It's just an empty idea.
Alright, so let's see what the Mayo Clinic says about it.
It says, narcissistic personality disorder is a mental condition.
What is not a mental condition?
So everything your brain does is sort of a mental condition.
In which people have an inflated sense of their own importance.
Do you see the problem already?
People have an inflated sense of their own importance according to the observer.
Do you see it yet?
It's an observer problem.
If you tell me I have an inflated sense of my own importance, why the fuck are you the one who's right?
Why can't I be right?
Why isn't my inflated sense of my own importance perfectly accurate?
Who are you to tell me that my importance is less than my own belief of my importance?
I might be right.
I might be wrong.
But why are you more right than I am about my importance?
Do you see it yet?
Now, we'll keep going, and you're going to see this observer problem over and over again, right?
It says, this is also from the Mayo Clinic, says that you have a deep need for excessive attention and admiration.
Who says it's excessive?
You're observing me right now, live streaming to the world, in front of two major platforms, because why am I live streaming and you're watching?
Well, I'm live streaming and you're watching because I believe that what I'm producing is worthy of being watched.
But if I believe that the thing I'm doing is worthy of, to use the Mayo Clinic's words, it's worthy of attention and, well, I wouldn't say admiration.
That's kind of mind reading, isn't it?
If somebody said that because I'm doing this, I clearly am chasing attention all the time.
I do it in public. Most of what I do is to get attention.
And I don't do it in any opaque way.
I do it transparently. I'm transparently trying to get lots of attention because I like it, because it has a value.
It's a value, I think, to you.
It would definitely be a value to me.
So who gets to tell me that was excessive?
Is my need for attention excessive?
Well, the observer says so.
Maybe. But why is the observer right?
Why can't the observer be somewhat of a mind reader in this case?
Because what makes it excessive?
If it works and it has a function and it's part of a strategy and a plan, it's part of my business model, Who says it's excessive?
That's an opinion. Let's go on.
Another sign of narcissists is that they have troubled relationships.
What? Troubled relationships?
Can you name anybody who doesn't have troubled relationships?
Do you notice what's going on now?
Now they're just throwing some BS on the pile.
Because there's nobody who doesn't have troubled relationships.
In fact, every mental condition in the world causes troubled relationships.
All right, let's go on.
How about a lack of empathy for others?
Let me measure all of your empathy now.
Okay? Let's see...
I'm seeing Brian with a Y. I'm looking into your mind now.
Yeah, not much empathy in there, Brian.
I'm sorry about you.
Let me do another one. Havoc, user Havoc.
I'm reading your empathy.
Oh, you're good. Actually, you have lots of empathy.
Now, I'll do somebody else.
Okay. Joe, I'm reading your mind now.
No, I'm sorry.
You don't have not enough empathy in there.
You see the problem again?
It's an observer problem.
How the hell do I know how much empathy you have?
Moreover, how many different conditions create a lack of empathy according to other people?
All of them. If you're an alcoholic, do you exhibit a lack of empathy for other people?
Yes. If you're on the spectrum, do you exhibit a lack of empathy for other people?
Yes. If you're a CEO, do you exhibit a lack of empathy for your employees?
I hope so, because if you don't, you'd be a bad CEO. You have to do things that are bad to them to run the business, hoping there's a greater good that helps everybody in the long run, as capitalism does.
All right, so imagining that you can see someone else's amount of empathy is mind-reading, and it's frankly crazy.
And I don't know how you could be a professional and think you could determine someone else's degree of empathy, or if it's the right amount.
That's purely an observer problem.
They've compared your empathy to their own, right?
That's exactly what happened.
They imagined how much empathy they had, And they said, well, that's the normal amount.
Then they read your mind, because they can't possibly know how much empathy you have, and they determined, yeah, compared to mine, you don't have enough, so therefore you have a mental disorder.
It's crazy. It's absolutely crazy that we put up with this kind of bogus science.
All right, how about this? That behind their, these are definition of a narcissist again if you're just joining me, behind their mask of extreme confidence lies a fragile self-esteem that's vulnerable to the slightest criticism.
So, do you know anybody who is vulnerable to the slightest criticism?
You know, there's a category of people I don't know if you've met any of these.
I don't know if this is actually a psychological designation or what, but there's an entire category of people, and there are a lot of them, who are, almost to a person in that group, quite vulnerable to the slightest criticism.
They're called women.
Have you heard of them? They're everywhere.
If you go outside, pretty much half of everybody in the world is a woman.
Have you ever met a woman who was not vulnerable to the slightest criticism?
No, you haven't.
No, you haven't.
You've never met a woman who was invulnerable to criticism, even slight ones.
Now, is that because women are weak and can't take criticism?
Well, there's another group of people, and there's a lot of them, Who are very, they're kind of sensitive to criticism.
They're not women. It's another group.
And they don't like it when they get criticized and it bugs them.
Do you know what they're called?
Men. Men.
Have you ever met a man that liked criticism?
I get a lot of it.
I don't like it, but I find you get used to it and then you can just deal with it easily.
So I would say that dealing with criticism has more to do with practice.
I've simply had more practice dealing with criticism than other people, so it probably bothers me less.
Is it because I'm awesome?
Is it because I'm the only person here who doesn't have a mental problem?
And the rest of you, you're all bothered by criticism more than I am.
So, sorry, I'm the only one here who's not a narcissist.
All the rest of you clearly meet the definition of being bothered by slight criticism.
Wait, who gets to decide what is a slight criticism?
Oh, you see it again?
Bothered by slight criticisms?
Who gets to decide how big the criticism is?
The observer. That's right.
The observer gets to decide that, oh, that was a slight criticism.
Would the observer think the same thing if they had been on the other end of that slight criticism?
There's nobody who doesn't get bothered by criticism.
It's built into us.
Now, I know you're going to say it's a matter of degree, and then I'm going to say, well, that's a matter of opinion.
The degree is kind of an opinion.
How about this?
Let's see. A narcissist, you have problems with your relationships, problems at work, school, and in your financial affairs.
Does that describe anybody else?
You just describe almost everybody I know.
There are very few people who don't have Problems in their life, problems in their relationships, problems at work, problems at school, problems in their financial...
It's pretty much everybody.
And it's for all different reasons.
Right? Every kind of mental problem can cause all these same problems.
So, let's see what else.
And this is also from Mayo Clinic.
It says, people with narcissistic personality disorder may be generally unhappy and disappointed...
When they're not given the special favors or admiration they believe they deserve.
They believe they deserve?
How do you know what they believe they deserve?
Are you a mind reader?
If you asked somebody that you thought was a narcissist who had entered a contest and lost To somebody who is just better at the contest, let's say they hit the target more.
Do you think the narcissist would say, no, I'm the best one here, I just lose all the contests?
I mean, I don't know what that would be, but...
Anyway, so it's all the observer effect.
And they may find their relationships unfulfilling.
That's like everybody.
Alright, so here's another list from somebody else.
Now the other problem with this narcissistic stuff is that you can find different lists all over the place.
And if you can't even define it with one definition, you know it's made up, right?
You know it's not a real thing.
If everybody's got a little bit different definition of it, that's a big red flag.
So here's some more. They exaggerate their achievements and talents.
You're a narcissist, or this is one sign of it, if you exaggerate your achievements and talents.
Do you know who else exaggerates their achievements and talents?
Everybody with a job.
Also, everybody dating, if they're doing it right.
Exaggerating your accomplishments is what your co-workers do to get a raise.
I exaggerate my accomplishments when I'm in the context of the corporation and people don't know what my accomplishments are.
Now, in my current role, I don't feel necessarily that I need to exaggerate my accomplishments because I do things publicly.
So if I accomplish anything, people are going to notice because it's public.
But Is that a flaw?
Whose idea is it that it's a flaw to exaggerate your achievements and talents?
Because it feels like, to me, like that would more often be good than bad.
In other words, you would get a good outcome from exaggerating your achievements and talents.
When I decided to become a cartoonist with zero experience in cartooning, was I, even in my own mind, exaggerating my talents?
Of course I was. To good effect.
I exaggerated in my own mind.
I had overconfidence for something I had no experience in and had no reason to believe that I should succeed in it.
But it was a really useful fiction.
So it's a useful fiction to tell yourself you can do things that you don't know if you can do.
But it's useful fiction.
So I would say that's a healthy person.
Here's some more. They're master manipulators.
Says who? Says who?
Have you ever been in a bad relationship where you were not called a manipulator?
Is that even possible?
Has anybody ever been in any kind of a bad relationship, say the end of a marriage or whatever, where you were not accused of, you were accusing each other probably of manipulating each other.
So manipulating people is so universal.
It's what addicts do, it's what your boss does, your co-workers, your lovers.
It's kind of universal.
People manipulating each other.
So if it's generic and universal, what's it doing in this definition?
How about they don't recognize or accept your feelings?
How in the world do you know somebody doesn't recognize or accept your feelings?
I don't feel like that's even a thing, really.
It's mind reading.
It's the observer problem.
If the observer can't determine...
That you've accepted their feelings.
They say you haven't accepted their feelings, but they can't read your mind.
They don't know what you're accepting or not accepting.
Who doesn't accept feelings?
If you observe somebody has feelings, you're done.
I observe you have a feeling.
I might not think you should have that feeling, but I don't feel like there's anything here.
It's like an empty statement.
Everybody... They are arrogant.
If arrogant is one of the things that says you're a narcissist, that would be everyone on Twitter.
Because I don't see anybody on Twitter who doesn't act arrogant.
Are they all narcissists?
Again, it's one of these universal things.
If you put me in a certain topic, I might act arrogant because I think I know something about that topic.
If you just move me to another topic where I don't know anything...
And I don't have any, you know, instinct about it.
I don't think, you know, I don't look arrogant in that case.
So really it's just about what context you're in and the observer problem.
How about this? They require constant admiration and adoration and need to be the center of attention.
Well, that describes me.
Doesn't it describe you?
How many of you would say, I like admiration.
Is there somebody here who doesn't want to be admired?
Is there anybody here who doesn't like to be adored?
I mean, if you had a preference, if you could choose to be ignored and reviled, or admired and adored, shouldn't you pick the admired and adored one?
How is that the mental illness?
I would think that wanting to be admired and adored Is a sign of excellent mental health.
But it's literally on the list of mental illness.
The thing that I would strive for.
Does it hurt you that I... I'll use the word require, but that's mind reading.
I don't require it.
I prefer it.
Can a psychologist tell me if I require...
Do I have constant admiration and adoration, or do I just prefer it so I work toward an end in which I've done something good enough for the world, in which the natural outcome of that would be I would guess some people would like me for it or something?
What's wrong with that?
Shouldn't I want to be that person who's working hard to make something so good in the world that I'll be admired?
You want to turn that off?
I think you want to turn that up.
You don't want to turn that down.
Let's have more of that.
You know, if everybody in the world were working hard to be admired, I think we'd have a better world.
It's not worse. Alright, how about this?
They take advantage of others.
Who doesn't do that?
They take advantage of others.
It's a matter of degree, right?
Everybody lives in a world in which somebody else's actions affect you, and so you want to influence their actions so their actions affect you in the best possible way.
Isn't that everybody? That's literally everybody.
That's everybody all the time.
But if you word it as taking advantage, suddenly it sounds like a mental illness.
How about I reword taking advantage of others into you're a social person?
It's the same thing.
If you live in a social situation and you're a social person, you are taking advantage of others, and they are sometimes taking advantage of you, and when you sum it all up together, it works really well.
It's an opinion from the observer that somebody is taking advantage of someone.
Now, obviously, if it's abusive, that's something else.
They believe they are superior.
Do they? Do you think that you could find anybody who has been diagnosed by an actual psychologist, let's say a psychiatrist, let's say the highest level of training, and they diagnose somebody as a narcissist?
And then do you think that if I went and talked to that narcissist privately and I said, hey narcissist, do you believe you are superior to other people?
Do you think that narcissist would say, yeah, you know, I do.
I do think I'm superior to other people.
Now, suppose they did say that.
Here's my follow-up question.
Well, do you believe that you could play basketball better than an NBA player?
What would they say? Would the narcissist say, yeah, as a matter of fact, I've never played basketball, but I could play better than Michael Jordan.
Would they? No, they wouldn't.
They'd say, I wouldn't be good at basketball for a variety of reasons.
I might be good at some other things.
But if you said to them, and let's hear your singing.
Are you the best singer in the world?
You're superior to everybody and you're singing?
Would the narcissist say, yeah, I've never sang, but I'm pretty sure I would be.
No, they wouldn't.
They wouldn't.
There's literally no one on the whole planet who meets this definition and they believe they are superior.
They're only people who believe they're good at some things.
That's it. There's nobody who believes they're better at everybody and everything.
And if they were, narcissism wouldn't be the problem.
They would just be flat out, you know, super crazy.
And then it gets into weird stuff about where they come up with the reason that you're this narcissist.
This is where it gets really bad shit crazy, all right?
Here are the official reasons...
That you might be a narcissist, okay?
So it's not fully understood how a person becomes a narcissist.
Duh. If it's not fully understood, that's another red flag, all right?
But the claim is that they have these common background influences, so that maybe that's not a coincidence.
And they say that that common influence is usually a parent who gives them excessive pampering or excessive criticism in childhood years.
Or they might come from a broken home, etc.
To me, that all looks like false correlation because I imagine there are lots of things that are correlated.
That's all I see there.
They substituted lack of love and support from a parent By overemphasizing their own worth, none of that sounds real.
It doesn't even sound a little bit real.
It sounds like stoned people talking.
There is so little science in this that it's laughable.
Now let me summarize it this way.
My claim is that narcissism as a diagnosis is a made-up, useless grab bag of a word with no functional purpose.
And I'm going to prove it by doing the same thing, okay?
And I'm going to invent a mental illness called Adam's disease.
Now, I want you to see if you have a bad case of Adam's disease.
I'm going to list the symptoms.
Now, you don't have to have all of the symptoms in order to say you have the disease.
If you had, say, 4 out of 5, or even 3 out of 5, you'd probably still be suffering from Adam's disease.
Mental disease. So see if you have these symptoms.
Are you obsessed with showing your knowledge to other people?
Are you obsessed with showing your knowledge to other people?
For example, at work, if you have some knowledge, and it's needed for your business, do you present your knowledge to other people?
I'll bet you do. If you get in an argument with your spouse or lover, and there's a fact that That is important to the conversation.
Do you bring it up? I'll bet you do.
I'll bet you're obsessed with facts.
Do you know why I say you're obsessed?
It's the observer problem.
You might say, I use facts because facts are kind of important for thinking.
And I do display my knowledge because everybody does.
Sure. But I think you're obsessed with it.
I think that you have an unhealthy obsession with showing your knowledge.
And how do I prove that?
Because compared to me, compared to me, because I define myself as normal, but you look a little obsessed without showing your knowledge thing.
Sure, we do the same thing.
I show my knowledge to people, you show your knowledge to people, and about the same amount.
But I feel like I just do it when it's necessary.
But you do it because you're obsessed.
You know why? Because I can read your mind.
Oh, I'm reading your mind.
Yeah, you're obsessed by it.
I just do it. But you're obsessed.
How about this? Symptom number two, you don't always sleep well.
Is there anybody here who has ever had trouble sleeping?
Yeah. That is one good sign of Adam's disease.
How about this? Do you often think that you are right and that others are wrong?
Has that ever happened to you?
Do you ever feel that you're right on a topic?
And somebody else is wrong?
If you do, that doesn't seem healthy to me.
That feels like a symptom of Adam's mental illness.
How about this?
Do you sometimes think you have skills that other people don't have?
Maybe because they've never tried to do those things.
Do you think that?
That's a little sketchy, isn't it?
That you think you have some skills.
That other people have less of those skills?
A little bit arrogant.
A little bit arrogant. Yeah, I don't think that's good mental health.
Do you ever pursue your self-interest even at the expense of others?
Do you? Do you pursue your self-interest at the expense of other people like you don't even care about them?
For example, have you ever accepted a promotion at work?
Because if you have, I feel like you put yourself above all the other co-workers.
Oh, you're so special that you would accept a promotion given to you by your boss.
Because why? Because you think you're special.
If you didn't think you're special, you'd say, hey boss, maybe other people are more qualified.
Maybe someone else should have it.
Because if you get that promotion, no one else can get it.
You are being purely selfish if you get that promotion.
Because there's only one.
If you get it, somebody else didn't get it.
Why do you think you deserve it?
You sufferer of Adam's mental illness.
How about this?
Do you accept my feelings?
Or do you not accept my feelings?
I don't think you accept my feelings, and I feel that that's a sign of mental illness on your part.
Why can't you accept my feelings?
I'll give you an example. I feel that you should sell all of your possessions and then take the money that you got from it and give it to me.
What? What?
I feel like you're attacking me now.
Hold on. All I said was, you should sell all your possessions, take the money that you get from them, and give it all to me.
And I don't feel like you're valuing my feelings here.
Because I really, really feel strongly about this, and you're acting like that doesn't even matter to you.
That's mental illness.
Isn't it? As the observer, don't I get to say that your reaction to things is inappropriate?
Because, after all, I'm the psychologist.
So I get to decide that your behavior is abnormal and mine is not.
So there's my example.
You could take any grab bag of symptoms, put a name on it, and say if you have four of these six symptoms, you've got a mental illness.
And most of the world will have four of those six symptoms as long as you're the one who gets to decide how weird it is.
That's it. Alright, so, are there people who literally fit the clinical definition of narcissism and they're so bad that they actually think they're better than other people and literally believe that other people don't matter?
I doubt it.
I doubt it. Somebody says, wow, over-explained.
You know, the difficulty with any kind of a public anything is that everybody has a different appetite for everything, really.
So it is not possible to make you all happy with a live stream.
But because I have a bad case of Adam's mental illness, I'm still okay with the fact that some of you like this and some of you do not.
I don't think that's normal.
Alright. Oh, well, some of you are enjoying this, so some of you say I'm beating a dead horse, and some are enjoying it.
Which is pretty much the same as everything.
Alright, that's all for now. Let's go forth and have a good day, and we'll talk about that later.
See you later. Alright, all of you on...
Somebody's telling me that Adam Schiff was arrested.
That can't be true. I'm going to say that that doesn't sound like a real story.