Episode 1330 Scott Adams: The Gaetz Extortion Story, Feds Try Shutting Down Crypto, Amish Stuff, Bitegate
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Content:
Vaccine passport disagreements
Biden's 2T infrastructure plan
Feds vs blockchain LBRY
Matt Gaetz extortion story
Our major problems all come from China
Amish herd immunity
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You know, I've been simultaneously doing this on YouTube...
As the YouTube viewers looking at me right now, no.
So if you're looking for me, go to YouTube and just Google Real Coffee with Scott Adams.
I think there might be like a fake one, but look for Real Coffee with Scott Adams.
And you'll get me there.
Now, I'm also planning to add at least one more platform.
Now, I don't know if the new Twitter whatever live thing will be something I can use.
I haven't looked into it yet.
But I might go to Rumble.com.
So I might be simultaneously on that, but I haven't looked into it yet.
All right. So, you want to talk about all the things, or do you want to do the simultaneous sip?
Yeah, I know what you want.
But all you need is a cup or mug or a glass, a tank or chalice or stye, and a canteen jug or flask, a vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite liquid, and I like coffee.
And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine hit of the day, the thing that makes everything better.
It's called the simultaneous sip, and it happens now.
Go! Well, I was trying to figure out why people who normally would be of the same opinion as I disagree with me so much on this one question of vaccine passports.
And I finally figured out what it is.
It took me a while, because I couldn't figure out why my view, which I thought just seemed completely reasonable, was just a mile away from most of you, actually.
Probably the majority of you.
And here's the answer that I have preliminarily.
When you hear the government is going to implement a system, what happens in your brain?
Every alarm goes off, right?
It doesn't matter what the system is.
If the government is going to impose a new system, you don't like it.
And the other assumption, and this is the part I finally realized, the difference is...
That when I see that the government is considering implementing a system, I make the following assumptions, which are different than yours.
So this is why we ended up on different places.
My assumption, well let's do your assumption first.
Your assumption, you being most of you, not every one of you, Your assumption is that if the government puts in any new system, it's just a slippery slope or doesn't even take much slipping to be a monstrous mistake.
And it doesn't even matter what the system is.
If the government's going to do it, and it's going to have some effect on you, it's just going to be a giant screw-up.
Now, if that's your philosophy, that it doesn't even matter what the system is, they're going to do it wrong, and they're going to do it in the worst possible way, so it doesn't just help solve a pandemic, it actually removes your rights forever, like the worst possible thing you could do.
Is it reasonable to assume that the government would just do the worst possible implementation?
I would say no. In my opinion, that's not reasonable.
It's not reasonable. Here's what I think.
I think that, more likely, it starts exactly like yours.
Day one, the government implements a new program.
It doesn't matter if it's this vaccination passport or anything else.
On day one, how does it look?
Pretty bad, right? Pretty bad.
Like Obamacare, day one.
You know, the websites don't work and stuff.
So I would agree with you so far.
So so far we're on the same page.
Everything the government does is a gigantic mistake.
On day one.
So we're on the same page there.
But where we differ is that I think things improve over time.
And you think that they're a slippery slope to something worse.
Doesn't mean you're wrong.
Doesn't mean you're wrong.
So, so far we're not disagreeing, right?
So far. And then to find out which of those views is more likely reasonable, I think you'd have to look at historical examples.
Now the problem is, historical examples are never exacts, right?
They're analogies, they feel the same, but it's not the same situations.
I've argued that the government routinely puts in short-term measures and then removes them when they're not necessary.
Other people say, you idiot.
Once they put in anything short-term and money starts being involved, it just ends up being forever.
Taxes being an example that's given.
Somebody gave an example that the government raised taxes 4% to pay for World War II, and then we've just been taxed forever.
But nothing's really like taxes, because I think every country that doesn't have massive oil revenue has taxes.
So I'm not sure you can say that, hey, we have taxes, therefore the government always does X or Y. We're just sort of like every other country.
We have taxes to run the country.
So that's not a good example.
But what about other things?
Let's take the Patriot Act.
Okay, there's a good one.
The Patriot Act. Has the Patriot Act hurt any of you personally?
How many of you have been somehow inconvenienced by the Patriot Act?
Is there anybody here whose life was affected by...
By the Patriot Act.
What would be some examples?
I see yeses. What are the examples?
I haven't talked about crypto yet.
That's coming up. The spending.
The spending, okay. But again, the spending is sort of hard to compare that to anything.
Yeah, I'm just looking at your comments now.
Alright, so a lot of you are OTSA, etc.
But here's the thing.
There are lots of things the government does that need to be done.
So if they do something that needs to be done and it continues to need to be done, is that the government failing?
Or are they just taking care of things when they need to and then they just keep doing it?
Is that a problem? What about when there's a FEMA emergency and there are emergency restrictions put in place?
Has the government ever declared an emergency and then just kept the restrictions in place after the emergency was over?
Has that ever happened?
Unless it made sense for some reason.
I can't think of it.
Been to an airport in the last 30 years?
Well, of course, airports have security because they think they need it, right?
Wouldn't you want good security in an airport?
Do you not want that? I kind of like the good security in the airport.
FISA court, good example.
But the FISA court is probably being examined now, right?
I forget the details.
All right, so the examples you give me are things which I'm not so sure that the public is against.
Which of the things you mentioned would the public, by a majority, be against?
I don't know the answer to that, but that sounded like a point.
It was an actual question.
TSA has caught zero terrorists.
So there's somebody here who thinks that the airport should not have the high level of security that they do?
Wouldn't that just make it obvious that planes would start blowing up?
The Pfizer thing is a good example of something that became a problem, and is it not being reviewed right now?
So my point is this, that when things become a problem, we then get serious about it and try to solve it.
Private security might be better, somebody says.
Well, I don't know about that.
Alright, so I'm very interested in your examples.
So here's the thing. I think that the vaccine The vaccination passports, people are saying, next thing you know, they'll be putting other healthcare information on there.
To which I say, really?
You think other healthcare information is going to end up on that database?
I could see other vaccinations.
I could see that.
But what other healthcare information would need to be on there?
What business isn't going to let you in because of your health situation?
To me, it seems like the market will take care of this.
Let's say we have vaccination passports and airlines require it.
How is that different from now?
I mean, I've flown a few times during the pandemic, and each time they required me to get a COVID test that's negative, and I just got the test, and then I flew.
It was inconvenient, and I didn't like it, but I prefer doing that, knowing that other people also took the test.
If you gave me a choice of flying without it or flying with the test, I would have taken the test.
So I'm never against the government having useful information.
So here's the bottom line.
Those of you who are saying, my God, the government messes up everything, it's going to be a slippery slope...
As Abe says, slippery slopes are slippery.
Well, I'm not sure that's the reason.
But I acknowledge your suspicion that the government ruins everything.
I would just say that if you looked at everything the government's done, you'd probably find more successes than failures.
And I don't think we have the government that would allow us to move to a full social credit system.
So let me make you this offer, for those of you who are worried.
If our government either slips into it or decides to have a social credit system like the Chinese social credit system, do we all agree that we will overthrow the government?
Democrats, Republicans, we'll just all throw in together on this one.
And just overthrow the government.
I mean, actually overthrow the government.
Not just, you know, make small changes.
So here's a guy who says, I'm out.
Scott has gone full-blown bootlicker.
I just told you that I'm going to be on your side to overthrow the whole fucking government.
So if you think you're less extreme than me, maybe listen for the rest of the story.
So here's what I think.
I think sometimes the government needs to do some things, especially in an emergency.
I think that if they go too far, we overthrow the fucking government.
We don't really live in the country where the government is going to ride roughshod.
Roughshod? What's that word? I don't think we live in a country that the government can abuse us the way China can abuse its citizens.
I think we have too many guns.
We have too many We have too many freedom-loving people, and we're just not that personality.
You know, countries have a personality.
You know that, right? So it's a lot of different individuals, but America has a personality.
And there is a limit, right?
And nobody here, nobody, is going to be okay with a social credit system, right?
So, if you're worried that I've gone full bootlicker, let me tell you, I would take up arms and I would be part of an armed insurrection against the government if they do a social credit system.
So, is that badass?
Is that bad enough for you?
Are the rest of you not with me?
You wouldn't take up arms if they did that?
Because, so he says, BS. No, I would take up arms.
I'm not kidding. There is a limit that every citizen has.
I'm just telling you what mine is.
That's my limit. How many things in this country are opposed by a majority of the public?
Can you think of, somebody says, you are no badass.
What do you know about me?
My personality has this strange characteristic, which is I'm totally flexible until I'm not.
And sometimes that fools people because people see me being very flexible.
I will consider your argument.
I'd like to fully consider both sides.
You seem very flexible.
I'm very flexible, and I try to be, until I'm not.
And I just told you where not happens.
Social credit system.
That's when I'm not flexible anymore.
There's no argument there.
There's a point beyond which nobody is flexible.
That's my point. All right.
Let's talk about these Floyd trial.
I'm learning that there's such a thing as a...
There are two ways to choke a person, apparently.
There's the air choke, where you're cutting off their airflow...
And then there's the blood choke, which I only heard of today.
Apparently, if you're an MMA fighter, you know about this stuff.
In a blood choke, you're apparently putting pressure on, I don't know, the arteries or veins or whatever, I think arteries, and cutting off the blood flow.
So the air choke cuts off the air, the blood choke cuts off the blood.
And at least two MMA fighters have said that when they look at it, it looks like Chauvin, or Chauvin, whoever he is, was adjusting to make sure he had a blood choke instead of an air choke.
Now, what is the significance of this?
First of all, I wouldn't know the difference, and I don't know if it's true.
But, if it were true, I did a little bit of googling.
Did a little bit of Googling.
And it seems that some people say the blood choke, the one he's allegedly used, would cause you to pass out, but it wouldn't kill you.
But I suppose it depends how long you do it, right?
If you did it forever, then it would kill you, I guess.
Somebody says, I think doctors would be able to tell what kind of choke it was.
Well, only if there was tissue damage, right?
So what I don't know is if you did a blood choke, would that necessarily leave some bruising?
Or damage?
I don't know. If you did it for nine minutes, maybe.
I don't know. So my remaining questions are, would a blood choke be deadly?
Would it be deadly? I don't know.
If you held it long enough, maybe.
So we'll wait on that, see what's going on there.
So Biden has this infrastructure plan that's going to cost a few trillion dollars and gets into all kinds of stuff.
And here's my question on it.
And I want to see if you know the answer to this.
Does this pay for itself?
Because the infrastructure is not like other things.
If you fund a bunch of infrastructure, it ends up employing tons of people.
And the kinds of people it employs are exactly the ones we want to get employed, right?
The ones who maybe don't have an advanced college degree, but for all sorts of construction infrastructure jobs, they're exactly the right people.
You know, so I would love to know what the economists are saying about this.
Because wouldn't you like to know if it pays for itself?
Meaning if you get this much, this many people employed, they start buying things, the economy goes well, the places that they bought stuff pay taxes.
Does it pay for itself?
I just wonder that.
Now, it could be that we just have to do it, you know, so it doesn't matter if it pays for itself, you just have to do it, because the country is crumbling otherwise.
Have you driven on an American road recently?
I swear to God, I'm going to get like a Baja dune buggy or something just to drive around on California roads.
Because the whole time, it's just potholes and cracks and bumps and shit.
So we certainly need some infrastructure, especially for the low-income people, if Wi-Fi is part of this, or 5G, I hope.
I hope 5G is in here.
Can somebody tell me if 5G infrastructure, or at least Wi-Fi or something, it's in there, right?
So I don't have an opinion on the infrastructure plan.
I'd want to see some economists tell me if this actually ends up being positive, because it might.
It has that quality.
All right. There's a very disturbing story about YouTubeCompetitorLibrary.com.
I think they pronounce it that way, but it's spelled L-B-R-Y. And They use some kind of a blockchain, token-based system to be a fully censorship-resistant platform.
And the government has decided that because of their Bitcoin-like token, that they're an unregistered security, and they've been sued.
So the SEC has sued this company for being an unregistered security.
Now, Do you think this would happen if Google did not have a lot of money and was the competitor to this?
I mean, it might, I suppose.
The SEC might just look at it and say, hey, these tokens are a problem.
But don't you have to worry that Google has so much money that they could influence somebody to take a look at a competitor?
Like, you worry about that, don't you?
I feel they do have that clout.
Now, Should the SEC be closing down anything that's got a Bitcoin-like token?
Well, I, of course, am biased on this question.
Very biased. And I don't believe they should if the company has gone through the due diligence, lawyers, etc., to make sure that they're on the right side of the law.
Most of the companies that have any kind of a token did do that.
They went through a pretty expensive process.
It's going to cost you tens of thousands of dollars, To issue a token if you want to make sure you've checked all the right boxes.
I'm sure a library did that.
Chances are that they lawyered up the way they would, typically.
So this is really chilling.
If the government can start closing down blockchain-related businesses because of the token element of it, which is in a lot of them, that's a pretty big problem.
And in many ways, blockchain is sort of the alternative to our government.
I mean, people who don't follow blockchain, etc., just think it's like a crypto way to make some money.
They don't realize it could be transforming society because of the distributed power of it.
It's a longer story, but we've got to be really worried about this.
I don't know if that would have happened under Trump.
So that might be another Biden situation.
Alright, let's talk about the Matt Gaetz story.
The fun story of the day.
Fun for everybody except the Matt Gaetz family.
And you know the story.
The story is that New York Times is saying that Matt Gaetz is under investigation for...
No, actually, I'm going to change this story.
I'm going to say that the story is that Matt Gaetz is the subject of an extortion plot.
That should be the top story.
Because there's two parts of the story.
There's an allegation that he was paying some kind of sex trafficking thing with a 17-year-old, of which we have no evidence that she even exists.
So there's no evidence that anything like that happened that we've seen.
Zero evidence.
But Matt Gaetz did say that the allegations were somehow connected to a An extortion plot in which he actually named a lawyer a real person.
He gave his name on TV on the Tucker Carlson show and said, this lawyer has been trying to extort us.
My father wore a wire, and our plan to get him on tape extorting us was thwarted by this rather coincidental leak about the New York Times, or the New York Times leak about the investigation.
Is it a coincidence, because Matt Gaetz says this can't be a coincidence, that just when they were going to get the actual recorded goods on this alleged guy who was blackmailing him, or extorting, I don't know if it's the same thing, extorting, I guess, that just before they were going to get the evidence that would damn him forever, the New York Times broke the story, which made it impossible to get that evidence.
But... There would be other witnesses, apparently there would be multiple witnesses, according to Matt Gaetz, that would back up his story that there was this extortion plot.
Now, what do we have evidence of, and what do we not have evidence of?
We have evidence, I would say, really highly credible evidence, because Matt Gaetz named an actual person on TV. Is Matt Gaetz smart enough to know that you don't name somebody to be part of a major crime, give their actual name, especially if that person is a lawyer who's part of a major law firm?
Would you slander somebody on TV who was a lawyer who was part of a law firm if you couldn't back it up?
Do you think so? I don't see any chance he would have said what he said unless he believes it's true.
Whether he can demonstrate that to us is to be seen.
But I would say if you're trying to score this and then predict, we'll put some odds on stuff, right?
And what I'm trying to do is just Walk you through how you would look at this story and how you would guess what's true and what's not.
So, so far, I would say the odds of him having a legitimate complaint about this extortion thing, having other witnesses that will back it up, and I think law enforcement was involved.
So, I mean, he's going to have really good sources, not just his family.
There'll be somebody from law enforcement that's going to back up his story, I think.
I'm going to give that credibility of 90%.
90%.
So I would say that what he's saying is probably almost certainly true, if you were going to predict its likelihood.
Now let's say, what is the likelihood that before he was engaged, because Matt Gaetz is engaged right now, but before that it was fairly well known that he was, let's say, an active single guy.
And he was an active single guy who's good-looking, young, and on TV, and has power.
How do you think he did dating?
Pretty well, right?
Do you think he needed to pay for sex?
In fact, in the entire United States, if you were to rank people by how likely they had to pay for sex, he would be real near the bottom.
Of all the men in the world who needed to pay for sex, he would be at the bottom.
That's just true. So what are the odds that he paid for sex?
If he were rich, you might say, well, you know, sometimes he pays for it, it's just easier, or whatever.
But he's not even rich.
Right? Right?
He's not even rich.
So the odds that he would pay for something he could get in unlimited quantity for free seems low to me.
It seems low. So I'm going to put the odds of that, I don't know, 5%, something like that.
And only 5% in the anything's possible category, not that there's any evidence for it.
Number two, The woman involved has not been named, and Matt Gaetz says he doesn't even know who they're talking about.
Do you think he traveled with somebody, paid her money, and can't even think who they're talking about?
What, did he travel with so many 17-year-olds, he's like, I don't even know which one they're talking about.
No. It sounds pretty credible when he says, I don't even know the name.
I couldn't even tell you who they're talking about.
She hasn't been named.
Now, you're saying that she was 17.
I don't know if she's still 17.
Now, it was a while ago.
Do you think she's still 17?
Lyle says, wait until Scott gets me-tooed.
It's coming. I assume so.
I assume so. I assume people will come for me.
So... We have no evidence whatsoever of the allegations against Matt Gaetz.
We have a pretty good credible set of facts that he is being extorted.
Now, let's say this.
Let's just walk through what we know.
There are no charges filed, and apparently this investigation has been happening since October.
Do you think it would take that long to file charges?
I don't know, unless it was part of some larger thing, but we don't have any evidence of that.
So that's suspicious.
Here's the other thing.
When this sort of thing happens, how often is it limited to one accuser?
How often is a famous politician accused of some kind of anything in this sexual impropriety range, in this case only Because of the age and the allegation money was involved.
But how many times does that end with there was just one person accusing?
It's always the third one that gets you.
Like Cuomo, right?
It's never the first one.
Because the first one, everybody goes, maybe, maybe not.
A certain age, he's only had one accuser.
But by the time you get to the third one, you go, oh God, there's a pattern.
Right? It's always the third one.
It doesn't matter if it's Bill Clinton, it doesn't matter who it is.
But we've had no third one, no second one.
So the longer you go without other people coming forward and saying, oh, the same thing happened to me, the credibility keeps going down.
There are no witnesses that we know of.
So although it makes sense that maybe the 17-year-old, if she's still 17, might not be named, would there not be one witness somewhere?
No witness that we've heard of?
Not to say they don't exist, but I feel like we would have heard of one witness, or even that a witness exists.
So, the lack of evidence here is sort of shocking.
Alright, so what do we know about Matt Gaetz?
We know that he is probably one of the most anti-war Republicans.
Would you say that's fair?
He is one of the most anti-war Republicans.
Which would make some enemies, wouldn't it?
Now, would that make you an enemy of China?
Do you think China could be behind this in any way?
I don't think so, because I think China prefers people who don't like war in the United States.
How about Russia? Would Russia be trying to take him out?
I don't think so, because they would like also the United States to have somebody who doesn't like war.
So it wouldn't be China or Russia.
So if there were any foreign influence...
Any foreign interference.
You'd have to look for somebody who did not want the United States to be too anti-war.
Now that could be people within the United States who have an interest in the industrial war machine.
But you always have to worry about foreign influence.
So you'd have to be looking for some kind of a country that wanted the United States not to be anti-war.
How about Iran?
Do you think Iran would not want an anti-war president?
I think they'd want us to have an anti-war president.
Because Matt Gaetz is often mentioned in the short list of people who could be a presidential candidate.
So, probably not Iran, probably not China, probably not Russia.
And we don't have any evidence that there's any external anything here, right?
So there's no evidence of another country.
But let's see what else we know.
Here's a coincidence.
There's a major Epstein story that's breaking today about a new accuser and some terrible allegations.
Now, it's kind of interesting because the Epstein story has been around for a while.
You know? The Epstein story has been around for a while.
So... Every now and then it pops up, but it's kind of interesting that the Epstein story popped up the same day that these allegations about gates are in the news.
What's that do to your brain?
Well, you can look at social media and you can see exactly what it does to your brain.
It conflated them.
Suddenly, because these two stories that don't have anything to do with each other, Are just in your mind at the same time, what's that make you think a little bit of Matt Gaetz, right?
Suddenly you've got, ooh, Epstein, this is all true, right?
We know the Epstein stuff is true.
Nobody's doubting that it's true.
And we know it's awful, and we know it has underage, teenage girls in it, right?
Now suddenly it's in the news on the same day.
Could it be...
Well, somebody says it's related, but I don't think there's any suggestion that the stories are related.
But they're related in your brain, aren't they?
Now, if somebody had, say, decided that it was a good thing for this story to be in the news at the same time, because it would be bad for Matt Gaetz, you'd have to wonder, who could have that kind of influence over the news?
Well, Democrats...
Democrats could have that kind of influence over the news.
And Democrats could say, you know, let's put this story out at the same time, because this is going to be really good to have them out there at the same time.
Yeah, Democrats.
Now that's if it's domestic.
So... I would say that there will be layers to this story.
At the moment, the information we have would suggest to me that the story is not real and that there might be some forces behind this that we are yet to learn of.
So that's what it looks like.
Now, Let's test our prediction skills.
So I'm going to go on record as saying that my prediction is that the extortion against Matt Gaetz will be demonstrated and the allegations against them will not hold up in time.
That's my prediction.
Let's see your predictions. Give me your predictions on both.
Will the extortion thing turn out to be true?
And or will the allegation about the 17-year-old turn out to be true?
Give me your predictions. You're all agreeing with me?
That's not supposed to happen.
I'm seeing no's, but I don't know what the no means.
I'm seeing people agreeing, but the no's, you need to be more specific.
The people say no.
I'm not sure what the no is for.
Somebody says, yeah, Nestor is sort of his adopted son, if you'll call him that.
Nestor seems part of the story because he's young, but I don't think he's part of the story.
Interesting, interesting.
When was the last time you saw so many people not believe an allegation?
I can't think of another time.
Generally, when there's an allegation, don't you...
Even if it's your guy, or you're not guy, don't you feel that whenever there's an allegation, you think to yourself, probably, probably true, right?
The Kavanaugh thing really changed everything, didn't it?
And, yeah, I think the Kavanaugh thing just opened our brains to the fact that these can be made up.
And I think most of you are being pretty non-critical about this.
Now, there is a big risk in this Gates story, whoever is trying to take him out, and the big risk is it's going to make him president.
If this thing falls apart the way it looks like it's going to fall apart, you're going to have to ask yourself why they want Matt Gates out of the picture.
Do you remember the story?
We saw some documents that showed that the Democrats, and I think Hillary was part of the story, were intentionally trying to get the news that to promote Trump or Ted Cruz as the nominee because they figure that they would be the easiest to beat.
So we already know that the Democrats have colluded with the news industry to try to manipulate who is the Republican candidate.
Kind of looks like that, doesn't it?
Doesn't it look like the Democrats At least, if it's domestic.
Doesn't it look like the Democrats are colluding with the media?
I mean, it looks exactly like it.
We can't say that's happening, but we know it did happen, and we know it could still happen, because nothing would stop anybody from talking to anybody, right?
There's nothing that would stop it from happening again, and why wouldn't they do it again?
What would be any reason not to do it again?
So, here's what you have to look for.
Whoever the Democrats slash news business is trying to take out is the one they fear the most.
Whoever is getting surprisingly a lot of attention may be who they fear the least.
So watch out for the media telling you that You know, the strong candidates for Republican presidency, that they're having some scandals.
Because I think everybody who's strong is going to have a scandal.
Let me make a prediction.
If you look at other strong Republican candidates, who's on the list?
Well, Ted Cruz, right?
He would be right at the top of the list of potential presidential candidates.
How's he doing lately?
You see, the media is totally ganging up on Ted Cruz, right?
You can watch it yourself.
So it's obvious that the media has Cruz in their sights.
DeSantis. Now, DeSantis is looking really strong.
And I have to say, if you had asked me just even a few months ago, could DeSantis be the candidate for president, I would have said...
No, I just don't think he has the vibe.
There's something that looks a little bit more state government about him.
Do you know what I mean? It feels like maybe governor was like his maximum.
You know, he hit his potential and he's a good governor.
Well, lately, I would say his handling of the coronavirus is sort of, he's like starting to elevate.
And I would say that my own opinion of him as a presidential candidate has changed.
Has changed from, eh, not too exciting, to, huh, this guy's making some gutsy calls.
And you want a president who can make a gutsy call, right?
You want a governor who maybe plays it safe.
But when you're talking about a president, you need somebody who can violate some expectations.
And he just did that with the vaccine passport, just a perfect example.
No matter what you think of the passport, which is a separate question...
The fact that he just said, you know, screw this, you're not doing it in my state, that's presidential.
That's presidential.
So I think he elevated on that.
So I would expect to see some rumors about him.
I would expect to see the media try to take out Tom Cotton.
I think Tom Cotton's looking strong.
I think the media's going to try to take him out.
So look for some kind of story about him coming up.
Alright, name a major problem in the U.S. that is not caused by China.
Alright? You've got the pandemic.
China. You've got the economic devastation of the pandemic.
China. You've got the story about the vaccination passports.
China. You've got the fentanyl coming across the border.
China. You've got the economic destruction of the US middle class for the last 30 years.
China. You've got racial unrest in America.
Now, you're saying to yourself, Scott, what do they have to do with that?
Do you think that the racial unrest in America is just happening on its own?
Do you think...
That we're talking about violence against Asian Americans because that just happens to be what's happening and it's important and it's a top topic?
That's why we're talking about it?
No. We're talking about it because somebody wants us to talk about it.
Now, I'm not minimizing the problem.
Let me say this as clearly as possible.
We don't want any violence against Asian Americans or any Americans, right?
And especially when you put an ethnicity on it, it's worse than even regular violence.
So we all agree on that. We don't want any of it.
Zero is the right amount.
But there are a lot of problems in this country.
And the headlines are maybe 20 different things will be in the headlines at any given time.
But we have a hundred problems that are pretty big.
Who decides which ones are in the headlines?
There are smart people who I won't name who would tell you that China already controls our headlines through artificial intelligence.
Do they? Now, I don't think that China controls all of our headlines.
I think that every country, every foreign country, tries to control just specific headlines.
So would China use, let's say, TikTok To create enough energy on TikTok about Asian-American violence and discrimination that TikTok would bleed over to Snapchat because those two are highly correlated.
You know, the young people on TikTok are also on Snapchat.
So anything that becomes big on TikTok, owned by China, becomes presumably big on Snapchat.
And from there, presumably, it would infect the rest of social media.
So, do you think that the reason we're talking about this Asian-American violence, which again, important, I'm not minimizing it, do you think we're talking about it because we decided it's our headline this week?
Maybe. But I think the smarter position is that China made that our headline.
I think they have that ability, right?
And there are smart people who tell me that this is certain, that they do have that ability and they are using it.
That doesn't make it true.
I'm just saying that smart people have told me that.
How about our taxes being so high?
Do you think we'd have as big a military budget if not for China?
And China being adventurous.
If China were not militarily, let's say, flexing, would our military budget need to be as big as it is?
Let's say Russia was our only risk we were worrying about, and terrorism, I guess.
I would say that China costs us a lot of money in military preparation.
What about North Korea?
Of course, China could fix that, doesn't want to for some reason.
So, It's kind of amazing how many of our total problems in this country are directly or indirectly from China.
But we don't talk about it that way.
We just don't talk about it.
And we're even worried about Biden having a little too cozy with China.
So China is basically all of our problems.
Because we don't have any problems that wouldn't be better...
If we had freed up more money from our budget, if we weren't dying of fentanyl, if we weren't in a pandemic, almost all of our other problems would be less of a problem if we could concentrate on them instead of trying to continually fix problems from China.
So here's a question for you.
See if you can figure this out.
Does China have any control over the teachers' unions?
I mean, I don't know of any, but if they wanted to destroy America, They would probably make sure that the teachers' unions were good and strong, because that's the best way to do it.
That's the current situation.
So if anybody has any information that any teachers' unions are influenced by China, let me know that.
Because it seems like an obvious play.
If I were them, that's what I'd do.
Rasmussen reports that 62% of the, I think, likely voters is usually who they talk to.
But 62% of who they interviewed were in favor of more market competition to lower health care costs.
And, of course, it breaks down the way you'd imagine.
78% of the Republicans want more market competition and 45% of Democrats.
So here's the question I ask.
Remember I told you that no matter what the question, about 25% of the public will just do whatever is the stupidest thing?
We have a solid 25% stupidity problem in this country, although I'm not sure it's the same people on every poll, but it's just always about 25%.
In this case, 22% of Republicans are not in favor of more market competition.
What? How in the world are 22% of Republicans...
Opposed to market competition that would improve healthcare and lower costs.
Really? How in the world do you find those people?
Show me the Republican who's not in favor of greater market competition to lower their expenses.
I don't even feel that's like a political issue.
That's sort of just a stupid problem, isn't it?
But then you go to the Democrats, and apparently...
There are as many or slightly more Democrats who are in favor of more competition, too.
So if you've got the vast majority of the GOP and about half of the Democrats are in favor of greater market competition to lower health care costs, Trump really blew this, didn't he?
Because market competition was sort of Trump's approach.
He could have sold the hell out of this.
And I always thought he should have sort of packaged up all of the individual policies he was doing.
Things about, let's say, allowing doctors to do telemarketing across borders.
That creates market competition.
The stuff he did with prescriptions created market competition, etc.
And I think what Trump did was...
He really could have packaged this up and sold it to half of the Democrats and most of the GOP. And he didn't do it.
I think it cost him the election in some ways.
People think it was the pandemic.
Maybe it was. But health care was probably number two.
So when I tweeted about the Amish and their herd immunity, I created accidentally the two-movie...
The two-movie situation.
I didn't know I was going to do this.
And I'll read the tweet, and then you tell me how you took it, because it's being interpreted two different ways.
All right, here's the tweet.
Given that the Amish, and it turns out it was just one group of Amish, it wasn't all Amish, but that one group of Amish are at 90% herd immunity, I guess we know that, as recently reported, and they weren't using masks for social distancing.
Does that confirm to you that masks and or social distancing work?
Now, when I wrote it, of course, this is not a randomized controlled test, so you can't take it too seriously.
But when I wrote it, I thought people would say, oh, well, the masking and social distancing must make a difference because the one group we know that decided not to do it got 90% infected.
So doesn't that prove to you that masks and social distancing, or maybe just one or the other, was working in the sense that it was preventing them from getting infections so quickly, and the moment they dropped them, the friction went away and they reached 90% herd immunity.
Now, that's how I thought you were going to interpret it.
But it turns out a lot of conservatives interpreted it the other way.
And the other way, somebody says it proves nothing.
It doesn't prove it, because it's not a randomized controlled trial that's been reproduced, right?
So that's what I would call proof.
So yes, you're right.
It doesn't prove anything.
But because you can't do a randomized controlled test in a pandemic, because it wouldn't be ethical, the only natural experiment we have is the people who have volunteered to To not wear the masks and social distancing.
And I don't know if there's any other group that did that, so it's all we have.
It just isn't 100% reliable, obviously.
But conservatives interpreted this a different way, that it was a huge success, and that masks and social distancing don't work.
But when they interpreted working, what does it mean to work?
They interpreted that differently, meaning that the masks and the social distancing We're actually preventing them from getting to this good point.
Herd immunity. So the conservatives looked at the same tweet and said, obviously those things didn't work.
Because as soon as they got rid of them, everything was good.
They went to herd immunity, and now, at least for them, it's not a problem.
But they did have extra deaths.
We don't know how many long-haulers they have and if it matters.
We believe that they have less obesity, so maybe it's not as much of a problem.
But it was interesting that the two movies were triggered by this one tweet.
But I think that even the conservatives who answered that and said it was a good thing that they got to herd immunity, I'm not saying it, but people did.
I don't know if it's good or bad, so I just don't have an opinion on it yet.
But anyway, I thought that was interesting.
So, masks causing other illnesses, I haven't heard much about that.
Herd mentality. Just looking at your comments for a while.
Alright, those of you on Periscope, this is our last day.
Tomorrow, I will be on YouTube.
Just Google Real Coffee with Scott Adams within YouTube, or probably you could Google it.
And follow me there.
It'll be live just like it is live on Periscope.
With comments and all that.
You'll like it. Alright.
I would also...
I would also like to thank all my Periscope users.
YouTube, if you don't mind, I'm just going to talk to the Periscope users for a moment.
You can listen in.
You may remember the first day I Periscoped.
It was during the 2016 cycle.
And I was standing in my kitchen, and I picked up my phone and thought, hey, I wonder how this thing called Periscope works, and pushed a few buttons and held up my phone, and the next thing I know, 12 people around the world were watching me.
And I thought, well, that's cool.
12 people watched me.
The next day, 20 and 100.
Now thousands. And the live stream, I think on a typical live stream, I'll get 50,000 to 100,000 viewers.
And I think it's become fairly influential.
I think you're aware that a number of people in the administration, last administration, would watch this live stream.
And I think that we added a lot.
And I think that I'd like to think that I was helpful during the pandemic.
At least I tried to be.
So, I can't tell you how much I appreciate you, because you wouldn't believe it.
It's a lot. And I hope that you do come over to YouTube, but you have my everlasting appreciation, YouTubers.
I'm sorry, Periscopers.
And thank you for that. And I bid you goodbye.
So... It's a new era.
Here we are. Periscope is over.
YouTube is rising. I'll probably do a rumble at some point.
I'll let you know about that. Somebody's saying that Matt Gaetz story was used to eviscerate the border story.
I don't know. Maybe.
Maybe. Will Dominion be naming me in a lawsuit?
I don't think they would have any reason to, because I've never blamed Dominion of anything.
I've made statements about where electronic voting has to end up, and eventually it has to end up captured by an intelligence agency of one country or another.
So it has to go there.
We just don't know if it has, and I have no specific information to allege that.
Is Black Lives Matter a Chinese entity?
Not a Chinese entity, but you have to think that China is boosting that story.
All right, I've got to go talk for the next four hours on a video.
