Episode 1347 Scott Adams: Teachers Unions Cause Most of Societies Problems, Brainwashing Updates, Happy Republicans, More
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a
Find my "extra" content on Locals: https://ScottAdams.Locals.com
Content:
Gregg Jarrett and "substantial" cause of death
Bill Maher, best insider critic of the left
Ron DeSantis reputation rising
Greg Gutfeld's monologue on Ben & Jerry's
CNN propaganda attacks Tucker Carlson
Black Minds Matter, promoting school choice
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you would like to enjoy this same content plus bonus content from Scott Adams, including micro-lessons on lots of useful topics to build your talent stack, please see scottadams.locals.com for full access to that secret treasure.
---
Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/scott-adams00/support
It's time. It's time for Coffee with Scott Adams, the best time of the day every single time.
And I'll tell you, it was tough.
It was tough getting here.
I didn't have internet all yesterday.
I'll tell you about that.
But first, wouldn't you like to ramp up your day a little bit better?
Have a great time?
In the next 45 minutes or so?
Yeah, you would. And all you need is a cup or a mug or a glass, a tankard, a chalice, or a stein, a canteen, a jug, a flask, a vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dopamine hit of the day.
The thing makes everything better.
It's called the 17th sip.
It happens now. Go. Oh, that's so good.
Ugh. Have you ever noticed that sometimes your beverage tastes extra good and you don't know why?
Well, it's one of those days.
Yes, yesterday my neighborhood was internet-free, and I don't remember the last time I went a full day without internet.
Now, I still had my phone data plan, but for reasons that I don't understand, it stopped working at the same time.
Now, I don't know why the jackhammer that turned off the Wi-Fi in my neighborhood, meaning the cable got caught, I guess, but why that affected data flying through the air and the only day it didn't work was the same day that my regular internet went out?
It was just sort of weird.
Anyway, Christine and I looked at each other and said, what are we going to do without the internet?
And I had to go back to my Little House in the Prairie days thinking and say, what did people do?
What would you do without the internet if the only thing you had was a beautiful woman?
But what are you going to do?
Well, it turns out that Christine is a better problem solver than I am, so we figured out how to fill that time.
And I've got to say, it was pretty good.
It was pretty good. I didn't have access to Twitter so much, but we worked it out.
So if you're worried, what will happen to us if we don't have the internet for a few hours?
There are other options!
I was surprised too.
I didn't know it. So speaking on that same topic, and by the way, the most upsetting thing about not having internet, and I don't know if you've experienced this yet, maybe some of you have, My house is what I call a living house, meaning that from any room in my house, including the garage, I can talk to my house and make it answer and do things.
That's because I have a digital assistant, Amazon's product, throughout my house.
So in all the key rooms, anyway, there's a...
I'll accept, you know, one of the digital devices.
So all day long I'm walking through my house and I'll say, you know, hey, what's the weather?
What time is it? You know, answer this question.
I make it do math because I'll be thinking, I wonder if the math of that works.
And I just speak out loud.
And it does the math for me, and then I go on.
It's become this augmentation to my normal experience that I just expect the house to talk to me.
Because I don't really look at the device when I'm talking to it, because it's all over the house.
So I just talk, and it answers.
And when that goes off, your house is dead.
Now, if you've never experienced a living house, you wouldn't notice when it's dead.
But it's really weird.
To have a house that won't talk back to you for the first time in a few years.
All right. I was looking at Greg Jarrett's blog, I guess it would be called, website.
And he has decided that in the Chauvin trial that the prosecution has made its case and made it clearly and unambiguously.
And he says, basically, he says, quote, The Chauvin did not substantially cause Floyd's death.
I guess the phrase substantially caused is the wrong one.
Substantially caused.
Because that's sort of up for a lot of interpretation, isn't it?
I feel like there's something wrong with sending somebody to jail over a phrase as ambiguous as substantially caused.
Because there's still a lot of other things you'd have to know, right?
As in, would the person not have died, except for these other causes?
You know, was the substantial part the person, the part that killed him?
Did they know? Were they aware of it?
You know, there's a lot of questions there.
But according to Greg Jarrett, who is an attorney, so looking at it through his attorney eyes, he says the case is made, basically, and he even thinks the second-degree murder is a high possibility.
Now, early on when I was looking at this, I just said, alright, he's way overcharged.
Second degree murder, having some intention to do it, there's no way that got proven.
And indeed, I didn't see that, but I didn't watch all the trial.
How many of you who are, let's say, not attorneys, so you're looking at the trial stuff, maybe you're only seeing clips that came out, but how many of you who are not attorneys, Would agree with Greg Jarrett that the case is totally made, even up to the point of good chance of second-degree murder?
How many of you would agree with that based on what you've seen?
Because my real question is, can he...
If you're an attorney and you really know how things are supposed to work, does that blind you to how non-attorneys would think?
Or does he have so much experience that he can see both, which you would expect?
Yeah, a lot of you are disagreeing.
So I think it doesn't matter what a well-trained, highly, let's say, highly capable observer would think, because that's not who's on the jury.
So I'll tell you that my view on it did evolve.
So on day one, based on what the public knew, I said, I don't see any of the way he's going to get convicted.
Day one. The prosecution, I will say, did a good job.
I'm going to say that their experts were good for the prosecution.
And I thought the defense was very capable of doing But if I had to guess, he's going to get convicted of something.
I would think that the odds of him not getting convicted of anything are really, really small.
But the odds of, you know, I thought it would be manslaughter.
But I am a little bit influenced by Greg Jarrett's opinion just because he knows what he's talking about and I don't.
So keep an eye on that.
Here are some of the things that Greg says.
He says the officer's excessive use of force was deliberate.
Was it? Do you think that the officer's excessive use of force was deliberate?
Because wouldn't that assume that the officer knew what he was doing in terms of what his impact would be?
Because I feel like that's the opposite of proven.
It seems to me that it's obvious he didn't know.
Because why would you do it right in front of witnesses?
Now we haven't heard the defense's closing arguments.
But I know how this sounds, but I'm going to say it anyway.
You know that I'm trained in persuasion, right?
So this isn't stupid, what I'm going to say.
I feel like I could get them off.
I feel like there's enough there that with the world's greatest, I'm not saying I would be the world's greatest, but a really strong defense wrap-up summary, I feel like it could make the difference.
Because I think everybody agrees at this point that the facts aren't going to matter to the conclusion, right?
The jury is going to think, how do I protect myself?
Can I possibly let this guy off and go on and live with my life?
I'll be attacked and killed.
So that's part of it, and it has nothing to do with the facts of the case.
And I think that there's enough ambiguity here that you could pretty much make the case.
Here's how I would argue it.
I would say, you're wondering if the officer knew what he was doing, so this would be the The second degree charge, second degree murder.
If you think that he knew what he was doing, how would you explain the fact that he did it slowly in front of witnesses who are filming it and in front of his peers?
How could that possibly be explained by him knowing he was using too much force?
Why would he do that?
What possible motivation is Would anybody have to ruin their own life, quite clearly, by committing a crime in front of the best witnesses in the world?
If you're the jury and you hear me say that, what's your answer?
He's a racist? That doesn't make sense.
Because even a racist wants to protect themselves.
Even a racist wants to protect their own family.
So everything that you saw Chauvin do Made no sense if you thought he knew what he was doing.
It didn't make any sense. If you put me in front of the jury, I'm going to demolish that.
And what we've seen from the defense attorney is that he's capable of doing that as well.
So, until you hear the closing argument, I don't know if you've heard anything.
Then Greg says, Greg Jarrett says, at the very least, the defendant committed a dangerous act In using the legal term, quote, evincing a depraved mind.
Okay. Evincing a depraved mind.
You're on the jury, and you're not a lawyer.
What the hell does that mean?
Do you think that the average jury of Americans could even wrestle with the concept, you know, competently, all 12 of them, Some of them, of course.
But any 12 Americans that you pick, you know, not based on their, let's say, academic credentials, but just a cross-section of Americans on a jury, how many of them could competently deal with what evincing a depraved mind even means?
Now, of course, it'll be defined for them, etc.
But do you think that'll help?
12 Americans.
You think all 12 of them are going to get...
What evincing a depraved mind actually even means?
No. We don't live in a country where 12 people could handle that.
12 people couldn't even handle directions on, you know, putting IKEA furniture together.
You can't get 12 people to do anything competently, like all of them.
So that's a problem.
And I would say that, put me in front of the jury, and I would say, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, The charge of third-degree murder depends...
Well, I guess this one also would cover manslaughter.
But it depends on you understanding the thoughts of Mr.
Chauvin. Do you think you can do that?
Do you think you can, without reasonable doubt, know what Officer Chauvin was thinking?
Now, most of those jurors will be thinking to themselves, yes, I can.
I just watched all the evidence.
I saw the video too many times.
I absolutely can figure out what he was thinking.
And then I say to the jury, ladies and gentlemen, the jury, have you ever been married?
Have you ever had a partner, a spouse, boyfriend or girlfriend?
Everybody, of course, will say yes.
At least in their mind, they'll say yes.
Have you ever had a situation in which you were misunderstood by your partner and that they were sure they could read your mind?
But they were completely wrong.
Has that happened to any of you? And do you think that the certainty of your spouse about what you're thinking, was their certainty in any way related to the accuracy of what they thought about your thoughts?
Have you noticed that people don't know what you're thinking?
Have you noticed how often you've been wrong when you were positive?
You knew what somebody was thinking, let's say your spouse, only to find out that you were completely wrong.
Ladies and gentlemen, if this case depends on you knowing the thoughts of a stranger, no matter how much data was presented, you are not being reasonable.
A reasonable person knows they cannot know the inner thoughts of another person.
You can only watch what they did.
And even then, the video can be misleading.
So, at best, you have misleading video, you have conflicting testimony, And you would have to rely on what is effectively magic, the belief that you can read a stranger's mind.
You don't think that's reasonable doubt?
Honestly, I could win this case.
I feel I could.
I'm sure that lawyers are laughing at me right now, because lawyers are assholes, so they're going to laugh at anybody who thinks they can do their job better than them.
No, I'm just kidding.
Lawyers are wonderful people.
Actually, most lawyers are wonderful people.
But it was funnier when I said it that way.
Somebody says, we're all laughing at you.
Thank you. Have I mentioned that shamelessness is a superpower?
You know, one of the things that makes you watch anything is that there's some danger or there's some provocation.
There's something different. Something out of the usual.
And when you see me do something that makes you say, there you go.
I feel he's being arrogant.
Or I feel like he's way out over his skis.
Man, lawyers are going to rip this guy apart.
That's why you watch. Do you think it's an accident that I go to the edge?
No, the edge is the only thing that's worth doing.
If I didn't do that, you wouldn't watch.
So you're supposed to be a little bit uncomfortable.
Now, in my segment, The Left Eats Itself, CBS apparently is doing some major reorganization Because they're racist and misogynist.
So CBS apparently is full of racist and misogynist and they had to do something about it.
Okay. And it's probably true, by the way.
I'm certainly not doubting it.
But the people on the left are getting a good dose of their own medicine.
And I'm not saying that this isn't fully warranted.
I'm sure these complaints have some basis in fact.
But it's interesting to watch everything come home, isn't it?
Now, let's talk about the Trump curse.
You know the Trump curse, which is people who criticize ex-President Trump?
Bad things happen to them?
Or people he doesn't like?
Well, today we hear that Mike Pence got a pacemaker.
Which, you know, these days is a fairly safe procedure, right?
But if you had somebody running for president, let's say hypothetically, would you be comfortable if that person had a pacemaker?
Now, of course, the medical professionals will probably come out and say, this is so routine now.
Probably everybody knows somebody who's got a pacemaker, right?
And you can live forever and, you know, it works fine.
But how does it feel to the voters?
The voters are going to feel like it's just a little something to worry about, right?
So that's bad news for Mike Pence, who, like I've said, I've always been a fan of Mike Pence as a good person, who has some really, in my opinion, objectionable opinions about the LGBTQ community, but I think he's evolving.
And then...
I just noticed this. Robert De Niro apparently is just getting absolutely killed in his divorce.
His estranged wife is asking for all of his money.
He's complaining that he has to take any acting job at age 77 just to pay for her extravagant spending.
But here was the headline.
I think this was in Fox News on their website.
The headline for this story was, Aging Bull.
Aging Bull. Because, you know, part of the story is that at age 77 he has to keep taking jobs.
So whoever came up with that headline, Aging Bull, good job.
And what this makes me wonder is if I could hire Robert De Niro.
Because apparently the story is he has to take any job that's offered because he just needs money desperately, so he wouldn't want to be working necessarily on marginal jobs at age 77.
But I'm wondering if I could hire him.
Just to do something.
To make a commercial.
Maybe I'll hire him to make a Dilbert commercial or something.
Just for fun. All right.
As I've told you, Bill Maher has, I believe, elevated to a new level of relevance.
He was always relevant. He's always quoted almost every time he does a show.
He becomes the news the next day.
That's about as relevant as you can get.
But I feel like he's ascended to a new height.
And for reference, you know, I've been critical of his opinions in the past, especially on Trump stuff.
But... He has become the best insider critic of the left.
Insider, meaning he has more affinity for that side.
But man, he's being savage to his own team.
And right. Like, you could be savage if you're right.
And he's just right.
And here are some of the things he's been saying about that.
So Bill Maher pointed to a Gallup survey...
They showed that a vast majority of Democrats incorrectly overestimate the probability of being hospitalized from COVID, with 41% of Democrats believing there's a 50% chance of hospitalization if you get COVID. Democrats believe there's a 50% chance you'll end up in the hospital if you get COVID. What news do you think they've been consuming?
Now, apparently, they're even, let's see, compared that to, while only 10% of Democrats correctly said that the probability is only 1 in 5, or 1 to 5%, I'm sorry, 1 to 5%, while 26% of Republicans said the same.
So basically, Maher is saying that the Democrats are completely factually uninformed and that the Party of Science, he basically mocks his own party for being the Party of Science and being completely oblivious to science.
Now, he has to know what the problem is, right?
He has to know that the problem is the news, right?
CNN, MSNBC, the news.
Of course he knows that. Of course he does.
And he goes on.
I mean, this was his closing monologue, and the parts I'm reading about are basically a masterpiece of political commentary, in my opinion.
He goes, I think a lot of people died because of Trump's incompetence.
You can agree or disagree with that opinion, but I would say that's a reasonable mainstream opinion, right?
And he goes, and I think a lot of people died because of talking...
Because talking about obesity became a third rail in America.
It is a key piece of the puzzle, by far the most pertinent factor, but you dare not speak its name.
Who else on the left could say that?
And again, I'm not even sure Bill Maher even qualifies as just being on the left, because he's one of the few people who can take a reasonable opinion, no matter where it lands.
That's pretty brave. It's pretty brave, right?
And this is why we like having a Bill Maher in the world, because he can just say stuff, or he's willing to, that you can't say.
And I think that's important for his audience to hear.
Then Bill Maher blasted the Atlantic magazine.
Do you remember when the Atlantic...
Well, I'm not sure I ever remember, was sort of respectable, and then it became just sort of a joke, joke of a magazine, which it is now.
So he made fun of The Atlantic for shaming the media's use of beach photos as a concern for spreading the virus.
And then Marr said, even though it's increasingly looking like the beach is the best place to avoid it, So again, Atlantic, associated with the left, completely unscientifically covering the beaches as being a problem.
And then Bill Maher went on to praise Ron DeSantis for following the science.
And he described Ron DeSantis, a Republican.
Bill Maher, on his show, highly, let's say, highly favored by people on the left, said out loud...
Without a qualifier.
This is important.
Can you imagine somebody's voice who's as prominent on the left giving an unqualified opinion that Ron DeSantis nailed this thing?
When was the last time you heard a Democrat not throw in, uh, and he's bad on these other things?
Right? That's just the common thing.
Well, I don't like Ron DeSantis for X, Y, and Z, but I've got to say he might have done okay with it.
That would be the normal way you'd hear this.
Credit to Bill Maher.
He didn't do that.
He just talked about the thing that was the topic and accurately described it, in my opinion.
He also gave DeSantis credit for, I think he used the phrase, voraciously consuming the scientific literature.
And then he mocked He mocked the Democrats for pretending that they're the party of science.
He basically just ripped off the whole illusion that the Democrats have some kind of monopoly on science because clearly it's not the case.
Now, he did say that COVID was the Democrats' equivalent of climate science denial.
Which, by the way, I'm closer to his opinion than you might know.
Closer to Bill Maher's opinion that something has to be done, but I'm a little less panicked than the average person.
Alright, somebody says, are you angling to be a guest on his show?
Well, I was a guest on his show, so I have been a guest on his show.
I'm not doing media at the moment, so I'm not angling to be on anything, because if I were asked, I wouldn't do it.
Only because I'm not doing any media at the moment.
Yes, and Bill Maher pointed out that protecting the nursing homes was probably because DeSantis understood the science better.
So, speaking of DeSantis, who is, I guess his reputation is rising among Republicans, etc.
And, oh, come on, come on, come on, come on.
PK? PK? I can't let that go.
I can't let that comment go.
Bill Maher is a narcissist.
You've got to do better than that, right?
You've got to do better than that.
You know, my view is that anybody who calls somebody a narcissist, all you're saying is that you have low self-esteem.
That's all I hear. Okay, PK, you have low self-esteem, and you don't want to hear anybody talking confidently about anything.
You're arrogant.
That's the lowest level of analysis, is this person's a narcissist.
All right. So, Ron DeSantis.
So CNN did a big opinion piece on Ron DeSantis.
And what do you think CNN said about all of the flaws of Ron DeSantis?
Because you know CNN used to be a news organization when I was a kid.
But at this point, I don't think anybody thinks of it as a news organization.
At least nobody is paying attention.
You know, they've... Morphed into a pure propaganda operation, as Project Veritas has now shown us with no doubt.
Well, thank you, OMG puppies.
You're too nice. But here's what's interesting about CNN's treatment of Ron DeSantis.
Are you ready for this? No criticisms.
This actually happened today.
There's an opinion piece.
It's not even news. It's an opinion piece.
It's on CNN. It's about a Republican.
No criticism.
It just said he's doing great.
His popularity is rising.
What? What?
What? So, what's this mean?
Now, I know what you're thinking.
You're saying, well, that means he really has a good chance of being president, etc.
Well, maybe.
Or, CNN is just telling the world who needs to be taken down.
It could be the CNN, because we know that they've done this with Trump and Ted Cruz.
There are documents that have been presented that show, without any doubt, the Democrats and CNN were working together to try to promote the wrong candidates for the Republicans.
So that Trump would get nominated and he couldn't possibly win the presidency.
Whoops. Whoops.
So it could be, and I'm not saying this is the case, but the thing you'd have to worry about is that CNN wants him to be the nominee.
Because they may think he's weak.
In some way, which I don't know.
Now, one way that you can make the argument is he's not exciting.
So, wouldn't you agree?
Ron DeSantis does not light up the room with his charisma.
And if he were running in a, you know, let's say, against Trump, he just wouldn't have a chance.
Because Trump's charisma just, you know, fills the room and makes everybody disappear.
But what if Trump doesn't run?
And he says he is, but I don't know, maybe, maybe not.
What if he doesn't run?
Suddenly, there's nobody interesting in the race, right?
And then that whole charisma thing just matters less.
There just wouldn't be anybody interesting.
There'd be some governors.
There's nobody interesting.
If you put Ron DeSantis into a group of competitors where nobody's interesting the way Trump is interesting, I don't know that he could lose.
I don't know that he could lose.
Because unless something new comes up with the way he handled COVID, He's the next president.
And, by the way, earned it.
Earned it. If that happens, I would say he earned it.
Let me ask you this, and this is pretty revealing.
Name the biggest negative in terms of political, let's say, mistakes or reputation or brand.
Ron DeSantis.
Name his biggest flaw.
Go. Go. Like a real flaw.
You don't like his haircut or something.
Name Ron DeSantis' biggest flaw.
Somebody says boring, but remember, that only matters if there's somebody interesting in the race.
And Trump's the only interesting person we've seen in a long time.
Somebody says short, white, his voice.
Hmm. Yeah.
White Republican. Look at the comments.
There's nothing there.
Have you ever thought to yourself what would happen if somebody ran for president and had Trump's policy preferences without the provocation?
That might be Ron DeSantis.
I think he maps pretty close to a Trump kind of view of politics.
But without the provocation.
I don't know. Has anybody even called him a racist?
Like the most common thing that you would call a Republican?
Somebody says he's friends with Matt Gaetz.
I don't know. At this point, he's surprised me a little bit.
But if he runs against anybody interesting, he has a problem.
All right. But at the moment, I have a high opinion of him, so we'll see what happens.
Speaking of brave...
Brave pundits.
There are only a few people in the public eye who are even able to say what they think.
One of them was Bill Maher.
Another is Greg Gutfeld, who had a real great monologue about, I guess, Ben and Jerry's want to defund the police and stuff.
And Greg Gutfeld went after him, Ben and Jerry's, for basically creating one of the foods that makes you fat and makes you die of COVID. And again, there are only a few people in the world who would call out That obesity is being ignored, essentially, as big an issue as it is.
But Greg took that on, and you should read that.
He said, in part, it's not hard to see that a product that packs more fat than Chris Christie's swim trunks Isn't doing black Americans any favors?
All right. So if you haven't checked out Geffeld's new show in the evening spot, it's 8 o'clock on the West Coast and 11 p.m.
at the East Coast.
You should check that out. Speaking of checkout, I was at Safeway yesterday in the self-checkout.
Have you ever used the self-checkout?
Of course you have. Have you ever successfully used self-checkout without somebody having to come over and clear it for you?
I have not.
So I have this many-year track record, and I do it just for fun to see if I can do it.
Let's see if I can use the self-checkout without having to call the attendant over to clear something and fix something and change the number of bags.
Never works. So yesterday...
Again, it didn't work.
And the helper who helps out when we need it comes over.
And let me preface this by saying I don't do fat shaming.
Fat shaming is not allowed on this.
Everybody's different. Nobody wants to be overweight, right?
So nobody chooses it.
We're all different. There are reasons that people have more weight than other people.
But the woman who came over was very large.
Very large woman. And I have to tell you, That I gave her a lot of distance.
Because if the science is right, the people who are most likely to have a bad infection, which would make you a super spreader, are going to have certain characteristics, and she had them.
And so I gave her a lot of distance.
And I wondered if we'd known that earlier, if it made any difference.
I feel like it would. Do you know there's a gigantic problem in this country that nobody talks about because it's one of those it's hard to talk about, but we're seeing a few more articles about it.
It's loneliness.
Loneliness. It's a really unsexy topic.
And it's also one that you're not likely to find a leader who turns it into a movement or something.
Because if you were a leader who could turn something into a movement, you would be Not lonely.
So lonely people are sort of the least able to complain, right?
Or at least complain productively.
You just complain to your friends.
So here's a statistic.
In 2018, nearly half of Americans reported sometimes are always feeling alone.
Recent findings suggest that during the pandemic, Over one in three Americans face serious loneliness.
I think this was in CNN also.
Think of that. One in three are facing what they call serious loneliness.
Yeah. And if you think loneliness doesn't kill people, you're really wrong.
I think loneliness kills probably as many people as a lot of diseases.
Yeah, and the lockdowns, of course, making everything worse.
But there's something even worse coming.
Remote work.
If you're naturally, let's say, you're just not socially adept, you're just not good at it, at least you could go to work and you would be forced to interact with people who are forced to interact with you.
So if you were not the kind of person who could create a social life, at least you could have one inflicted on you.
What happens when all your co-workers say, hey, let's work remotely?
And then you have to work remotely too, because you've all agreed.
That's devastating.
There must be a lot of remote workers who are just desperate to get back to an office, just so they're humans, just have human contact.
I can tell you that when I first moved to California in my early 20s, and I had a job at a bank.
And I didn't know anybody.
Literally, I just didn't know anybody.
You know, I finally met one person to play tennis with, and that was about it.
And the loneliness was really tough.
Really tough. And on Friday evening, I would come home, and I wouldn't see...
Well, I would see, but I wouldn't talk to or have any interaction with, and certainly not physically touch...
Anybody for two days.
And by the time Monday morning came, I was like so desperate for human contact that going to work felt like going on vacation.
That's not even, I'm not exaggerating a bit.
I was desperate to go back to work because it was the only place I could talk to another human.
I didn't have any human contact.
And, you know, especially in those days, I was a little less socially adept.
I probably could solve it now.
But there's another thing that's making things pretty bad.
It's a thing called Tinder.
Have you heard of it? The problem with Tinder, as is well documented, is that women, of course, can have their pick of men.
So on Tinder, they just pick the top 10% of good-looking men and they just ignore everybody else.
So if you're male and you're not in that top 10% that always gets picked on Tinder, You don't even have the chance to sort of accidentally talk somebody into liking you.
You don't even get past the swipe.
And, you know, I have never been single in a Tinder world, or at least I've never used Tinder and been single at the same time.
But this is devastating.
This is really, really devastating.
And I think it's going to be worse for men.
What happens when there's a problem that is way worse for men?
Nobody cares. Am I right?
If you could imagine that women are better at just making friends and socializing and stuff, and I think that's a fair statement, that there'll be plenty of loneliness on the women's side too, but it's sort of a man problem, isn't it?
Like, it feels like it's 80% male problem.
And you know what we care about?
Male problems? Nothing.
Nothing. Society doesn't care about men's problems.
Never has. Never will.
Not this kind of problem.
They might care about gun violence and stuff like that, where it's big and flashy and somebody's dying.
But if somebody is just silently dying of loneliness, literally, society doesn't care.
So, I see this as one of the biggest, worst problems that's coming toward us.
It's already here for a lot of people.
And I've got to tell you, I've told you before that I didn't realize I'd never felt fear before until I felt it a year ago.
I didn't realize I'd gone through life without feeling fear.
I just didn't even know what it felt like.
So I didn't miss it. So I didn't know I didn't have it.
But there is one thing that scares the shit out of me.
It is loneliness. It's the only thing that really scares me.
I mean, I was scared about Cristina learning to fly airplanes.
That scared me. But loneliness scares me a lot.
A lot. All right.
In Cuba, Raul Castro is stepping down.
I think you'll still have effective power, but other people will be in name running Cuba.
And I heard the saddest...
Listen to how sad this is.
Cuba, apparently, tried to make their own vaccine.
Now, I don't think they've completed it.
I think they're still working on it.
I don't know. Maybe they could do it.
But there's something terribly, terribly wrong if little Cuba has to go on their own.
And I get it. I get it. They brought it on themselves.
At least the leadership did, not the people.
That's just terrible.
How bad is it that there's this little island right off the United States, which is at least strategically important, and they had to make their own vaccine?
Really? Nobody can help out Cuba?
That doesn't feel right.
Because we're mad at their, if anything, we're mad at their leadership.
We're not mad at their people. This is just so wrong.
And I don't know if maybe the leadership is entirely at fault.
I don't know. But it seems to me that this change of leadership in Cuba would, and especially with the coronavirus stuff going on, it feels like this would be the time to just offer a deal.
Now I need a fact check on this.
Can somebody give me a fact check?
I have not heard in the news that Cuba has a closed internet.
Do they? If you're in Cuba and you can get to the internet at all, can you get to the whole internet?
Can somebody tell me?
Because we heard about Iran and China and stuff, but I haven't heard about Cuba and the internet.
All right, because what I'd like to know is, how in the world will we remain enemies, whatever we are, with Cuba if they have the internet?
Somebody says, I doubt it.
They have Tor.
Somebody says they're very capable internet.
Look it up. That's what you're for.
You're supposed to tell me in the comments.
All right. But it seems to me that this would be exactly the time to make an opening offer to Cuba.
Something along the lines of, hey, if we can play nice with each other, you can all get richer.
We'll even open up private investment in Cuba, where you will let people build hotels down there.
You can have everything you want, and we won't even be your enemy.
Just work with us, right?
Just work with us. Now, I feel like this is the time to do it, because if they do have access to the Internet, and certainly they would have a workaround if they don't, the public is going to see the United States offering Offering all these things, and how does the leadership deny it?
I don't know. I feel like this is the time.
So let's do it. CNN, of course, is also targeting anybody who has a strong voice on the right.
And Nicole Hemmer did an opinion piece on Tucker Carlson.
And watching what used to be a respected news organization turn into a propaganda outfit is really interesting.
I have the same interests I do, of persuasion.
And they're going after Tucker for using the word replacement or replacing.
Now, the history of that is that there's something called the Great Replacement, which I guess is some white supremacist or racist view that the brown people are coming in and replacing the people in this United States.
So that would be the racist version.
And they're And CNN and others are trying to tie Tucker to the white supremacist great replacement idea because he used the word replacing or replaced.
Now, my job is to help you sort news from propaganda.
Let's dig into this a little bit.
What is a fact and what is just propaganda?
Now, Tucker does use the word replacement.
But he uses it in the sort of English language sense, not in the great replacement sense.
But, but, here's where the critics come in and say, is that just the English language sense, or is this a wink and a whistle to the racists?
Well, here's the problem.
Tucker has a really unique place in the world in which he refuses to use other people's language.
So if other people want to say he's dog-whistling and he just wants to use a word, he's going to use the damn word.
And he's going to let the chips fall where they will.
Now, whether you think it's a good idea for him to do it or a bad idea, if it were me, I would avoid the word.
Because to me, it would just be a distraction.
And it wouldn't let me get my message across.
So I don't want to create distractions in my communication, so I wouldn't use it.
It would just be giving you a A new thing to be mad at me for.
But, as I've often said, I have a great appreciation for people that do different things than I do, because you need creative tension in this world.
And Tucker is probably the strongest voice right now, maybe in the United States, strongest voice, for declaring his personal freedom.
In a sense, declaring it for all of us simultaneously.
And his personal freedom lets him use the words he wants to use, because they're English words and he's talking.
And if he wants to die on the hill, he won't die on it, but if he wants to make that stand for the rest of us, which is, yes, I can use any words I want, and I'm not going to let you define them, I like that.
So even though I would have played it differently, I definitely appreciate it.
That there's somebody out there who has that strong a voice who's willing to say, yeah, you can kill me before you can make me talk with your words.
He's basically saying that.
I mean, because he isn't a dangerous...
Literally, it's a physically dangerous position.
I don't have to say more.
It is physically dangerous for him to take that position.
And he's taking the position that freedom is more valuable than life.
You need him. Like, he's a requirement for this country.
You could disagree with everything he says, but you need one of him.
You need more of him, right?
The people who say, all right, here's my limit.
My limit is you can't tell me what words to use.
I'll die on that hill.
Good for him. Good for him.
Now, but let's dig in a little bit and see what we think about his choice of words and how that feels.
Now, of course, CNN and the others will try to I'm going to paint this as the great replacement.
But let me ask you this. Imagine, if you will, a conversation with a black American.
I don't have to say more, whether it's Democrat or Republican, just, oh, let's make it a Democrat.
We'll make it interesting. So imagine, if you will, you're having a conversation with a black American, and you say, your current situation as a citizen of the United States is that the country has a certain amount of resources, That is available for the citizens.
So each person in the United States is getting some share, maybe not even, but some share of the United States' resources.
And you're getting some of that, right?
Right. Also, each individual citizen has some political power, based on their vote.
You have that, right?
Of course.
And you say, what would you think of letting people from outside the country into the country so they could take some of the resources that would have been yours and some of the political power that would have been yours?
What do you think of that?
Average black Democrat American, what would they say?
Well, I think if they were good Democrats, they'd say, I'm good with that.
This is a country of immigrants.
Of course we want to help them.
Our economic well-being in the future actually requires Immigration.
We don't even have an option.
If you stopped immigration, we would eventually age out and be unproductive, and it would be bad for everything.
So yes, I'm totally on board with immigration coming in, even though I completely understand.
It reduces a little bit of the resources in the short run.
In the long run, I think it might be good, but in the short run, it reduces my resources, and it reduces my political power if they vote, because there'll be more of them, you know, and I'm still just one person.
And then you say, you know, that's very open-minded of you, and I agree with you more than I disagree.
We do need immigration to be economically healthy.
By the way, you all know that, right?
Is there anybody here who doesn't know that, at least among economists, left or right, if we don't have a lot of young people coming in with immigration, we're kind of dead.
Does everybody know that?
Or do you think that just immigration is bad?
It's required. It's not even optional, really, the way we're set up.
It's closer to required.
And when I say required, I mean for the strongest economy.
All right, so now you continue your conversation with my hypothetical imaginary black Democrat American.
You say, all right, I'm on the same side with you.
We do need immigration, and even if it costs a little bit, even if it decreases a little bit of your vote, you get more than you lose.
And then I say, well, that wasn't exactly what I was talking about.
What I'm talking about is that you let everybody in.
If they want to come in, they can come in.
And then the black Democrat says, well, how many people would that be compared to our normal amount, which is kind of healthy?
Well, it would be unlimited.
It would be waves and waves of people.
And it would be up to them how much of your resources they get.
And then you say, wait a minute, say that again?
Yeah, that's right. It wouldn't be up to you how much of America's resources, which are part yours, it wouldn't be up to you how much of that got transferred to them.
It would be up to them, because they're the ones deciding to come.
And if lots of them decide to come, then a lot of your resources go that way.
But it's their decision.
Now what do you think?
Do you think that there's even one black Democrat that you could get to say, yeah, I still like it, even though I'll be worse off?
I mean, you could probably get somebody to say anything.
You know, there's always 25% of the public that will say anything.
But seriously, are there any black Americans who disagree with Tucker?
No. I don't think there are.
You would just have to present the argument without all the trigger words.
If you take the triggers out and you acknowledge that immigration, of course, is good for the country.
I don't think anybody who's smart even argues that.
I might be wrong, but is there anybody smart on either the left or the right who thinks immigration could just stop?
There's nobody smart who believes that, right?
Everybody believes there has to be some level.
It's just a difference in what it is, whether it's unlimited or limited.
So when Tucker uses the word replacement, he is using it in the English language sense.
If you hear a dog whistle, good for you.
It's English. He can use English.
He's allowed. Replacement's a word.
And it is quite literally an accurate description, meaning that your amount of political power would be some of it, not you, but some of that would be replaced with a little more power for other people.
Some of the resources that would be partly yours as an American, some of that would be replaced with other people getting it.
Not even saying that's bad.
Again, if immigration is the right level for good economics and good health of the country, then that's exactly the replacement you'd want.
Right? No matter who you are, you want the country to be prosperous, etc.
Alright, so a lot of this is a fake argument, and you can see that news has turned into propaganda.
It's the only way you can put us against each other.
If immigration were ever described without the trigger words, I don't even think we'd have any disagreement.
In many ways, immigration is largely just a fake issue.
It's a fake issue.
Because if I put a bunch of Democrats in a room who, let's say, they disagreed with me on immigration, I'll bet you we would leave the room agreeing.
I'll bet you. No matter how we enter the room, we leave the room agreeing, if you let the rest of the world be ignored and it was just people in a room talking.
Because I would say the same thing I did.
Everybody agrees some immigration is good.
Raise your hands. Everybody.
Everybody agrees that unlimited immigration would be bad, right?
And if anybody says, no, I think unlimited immigration is good, then you just say, you're not for us.
You need to...
You need to go somewhere where you're not trying to be a country, right?
You know, someplace where they don't mind that your country falls apart.
And then I would say, how about this?
We'll get our best economist to agree how much immigration and what kind and from where for the best economic result.
Would you be okay with that?
It's just the economists decide.
If they say more immigration is good for the people who are already here, we do it.
If the economists say more immigration is bad for the people who are already here, we do less of it.
Do you disagree or agree?
I think you can get most Democrats to walk out of the room in complete agreement.
You know, if you could strip the politics out, which is hard.
So Biden continues to become Trump, but it didn't work out this time.
I told you in advance that Biden would be forced to adopt a lot of Trump's policies that he had complained about.
But one of the ones he tried to adopt was keeping the same level as Trump had.
For refugees.
So as opposed to regular immigrants, refugees.
And apparently that limit's pretty low, 15,000 or something.
Biden wanted it to be 60-some thousand.
But he started by saying he had to keep it the same.
And of course, AOC, everybody attacked him on the left.
And now he's rethinking it.
So he has to rethink it now.
But isn't it interesting that when Joe Biden, the leader of the left...
Had to make the actual decision, you know, he wasn't just talk anymore, now he's in charge, he has to actually do it, that he agreed with Trump.
When he had to actually make the decision, he violated his own promise and just did what Trump did.
Because once you looked at the facts, I guess that's where they both ended up.
But apparently now he got so much pushback, he's going to have to do something he obviously didn't want to do.
Jen Psaki quite cleverly blamed this on Trump.
Before I tell you how, if you haven't heard this part, take a guess.
I want to see if you can guess.
How did Biden's spokesperson, Jen Psaki, how did she find a way to blame Trump for the fact that Biden wasn't going to increase the number of refugees over Trump's level?
See if you could guess.
This will see if you could be the spokesperson.
Somebody says racism.
No, not in this case.
It's hard, isn't it?
Yeah. COVID, no.
No, those are good guesses, but no.
All right, here's the answer. Jen Psaki says that the Trump administration dismantled the refugee system.
In other words, there are people in the government who are in charge of bringing in the refugees.
And apparently Trump had dismantled it, so Biden didn't have a choice.
He only could bring in some refugees because they didn't have enough infrastructure to bring in more.
Does that sound true?
It might be. But I don't think so.
I mean, if I had to put a bet on it, I would bet there's no truth to that whatsoever.
Or, if there's a little bit of truth to it, it's not really the obstacle that they're presenting to it.
Yeah, she actually used, somebody's saying, she used the word trashed.
He trashed the system.
I wonder if you looked into it, you would find that he had trashed the system.
All right, here's an interesting thing happened.
I've told you before that the phrase Black Lives Matter is brilliant persuasion.
And you know why.
Because if anybody tries to push back on it, It sounds like you're saying black lives don't matter.
And there's no way you're going to get away with that, right?
So it was sort of this bulletproof thing.
And we saw all the people who would fall into the trap.
They'd say, do you think black lives matter?
Yes. Yes, I do. And not only do I think black lives matter, but I also think all canceled.
You're canceled. And you're thinking, wait a minute.
Why am I canceled? I just agreed with you.
Black lives matter, but I'm even more liberal than that because I'm saying other people matter.
Like, how about other people? Ho ho ho, nice try, racist, saying other people matter and other brown people matter.
You just said black people don't matter.
No, that's the opposite of what I just said.
I said they totally matter, and other people are important too.
Mm-mm-mm.
That's a white supremacist if I ever saw one.
Right? So in terms of persuasion, it was brilliant.
Because it just shut down the other side.
But do you think there's a high ground that can get above Black Lives Matter?
Do you think that anybody with any amount of persuasion ability could high ground that?
Meaning say something...
That everybody would recognize is either more important or more true than this thing, which is also deeply important and deeply true.
Black Lives Matter.
Is there anything above that?
Well, honestly, I thought no.
But it turns out that there's a young woman named Denisha Meriwether, who's the founder of, I think the group is Black Minds Matter.
Black minds matter.
And I guess the emphasis is going to be on school choice.
It's pretty good, isn't it?
Black minds matter.
I give you two choices.
Black lives matter or black minds matter.
It's good.
It's good. And it's also coming from a young black woman So it's going to carry different credibility than if it came from me, for example.
And she's going after teachers' unions.
Here's how I plan to help.
My first question is this.
Was this luck?
Because, you know, as a trained persuader, when I see this, I just stop.
And I go... Okay, this is a pretty young person behind this.
Is there somebody behind the young person?
Because remember when AOC was making a big splash early on, people were saying, oh, you know, she's got this mentor who's really the power behind her.
Which I always thought was unfair, by the way.
I mean, I'm sure he had some influence, but I think that was unfair.
But when I see somebody do this, this being finding something that's this powerful as a persuasion starting point, I wonder, did this come from somebody this young?
Because you'd have to be pretty, pretty experienced to intentionally come up with something that almost looked impossible to me.
Find a higher high ground than Black Lives Matter, that even black people would say, yeah, that's better.
This is pretty good.
So when you see this, you've got to ask, is it an accident?
If it's not an accident, there's a new force to be reckoned with that we don't quite understand.
We might see more of it.
Here's what I'd like to add, and I tweeted this today, I think, that teachers' unions are the main source of gun violence.
What do you think when you hear that?
Teachers' unions are the main source of gun violence.
It's true. It's not even a little bit untrue.
Because if our school system were better, everybody would have more options, crime would be less, there would be fewer reasons and atmospheres and situations and neighborhoods in which gun violence is routine.
And I don't think it's a stretch to say that without teachers' unions, you would already have school choice.
It would be a huge advantage to all low-income people who could have some chance of getting there if we changed the funding to follow the student instead of the school, which is the big trend now.
Here's another one. Teachers' unions are the main source of white supremacy.
I used to say that teachers' unions were the main source of Systemic racism.
And while people would say to themselves, yeah, I get that intellectually, what you're saying, is that you can't even things up until you get the schools right, right?
If everybody doesn't have equal schools, you're pretty much doomed to have an average that's as good in the long run.
You can't get there. So the school systems are the main source of systemic racism, which is not hyperbole, by the way.
It's not just persuasion for persuasion's sake.
Literally, truly, factually, unambiguously, teaches unions are the main course of systemic racism.
But, persuasion-wise, it's more powerful if you say white supremacy.
Because I didn't weaponize that word, or those words.
That got weaponized by the people I'm talking to.
So once they've weaponized it, it's a weapon.
You've seen Trump take fake news out of the hands of his opponents.
Turn the gun around and use it against them.
It works. Once a term has been weaponized, it's your weapon too, right?
Once it's weaponized.
So imagine, if you will, a white Republican leader.
I'll just throw out some names just because they're prominent.
Imagine a Tom Cotton, a Ron DeSantis.
I'm talking about people who are considered reasonable, right?
Imagine a Ted Cruz, maybe less reasonable according to the left, but still a serious person.
Imagine them saying teachers' unions are the main source of white supremacy, and here's the argument.
Because if you don't fix them, whoever's in charge will stay there.
Right? If you don't fix the schools, whoever you think is in charge of the country stays there.
Because the rich people and the white people will have school choice, because they have money.
So they can have more choice.
They can move to a better neighborhood, better schools.
So if you want to maintain white supremacy, the number one thing, nothing's even close.
If you said, what's the number one thing?
It's teachers unions, because they're ruining the whole school system, which causes everything to be impossible after that.
Denisha Merriweather, if you can find her on Twitter, give her a follow.
Denisha, spelled D-E-N-I-S-H-A, Merriweather, M-E-R-R-I-D, I'm sorry, M-E-R-R-I, and then the word weather is the rest of it.
So give her a follow.
She's on the right track.
I got a question for you.
Oh, here's another one.
Critical race theory causes gun violence.
Do you believe that? Teaching critical race theory causes gun violence.
It almost has to, doesn't it?
Because the whole point of critical race theory is to demonize part of the public and cause us to hate each other for reasons that we didn't need to.
And if you create animosity, You carve out enemies where enemies didn't have to be.
How does that not affect violence?
I feel like it's just A leads to B. It's got to happen.
So if you argue that there are benefits of critical race theory, and obviously the people promoting it believe there are, you should not ignore the fact that it almost certainly is going to increase gun violence in the long run.
I don't know how it wouldn't Here's a provocative question.
Are black Republicans happier than black Democrats?
Go. What do you think?
Of course, I've never seen any data that was suggested either way, but doesn't it feel obvious?
I saw one person say no so far, and all the rest are yes.
All the rest are yes.
Now, of course, you're probably more Republicans than anything else on this broadcast here.
But it looks obvious to me.
I don't know if it's true, because you could easily be, you know, fooled by stuff like that.
Here's why I think it's obviously true.
If you are sold a story where you are a victim, and that's why you are where you are, you're going to feel like a victim.
If you're sold a story, let's say a more Republican-leaning story, where your success is entirely up to you, how do you feel?
Even if you're not succeeding yet, but you feel your success is entirely up to you, don't you feel better?
I would feel like you would have mental health problems If you had been convinced that you were a victim and there's not much you can do about it except complain.
I've got a feeling that if anybody ever did this survey...
Now, of course, you wouldn't know what is cause and what is effect, right?
Cause and effect could be a little messy here.
But I'll bet you would find that it would be a fact.
And I'll bet it wouldn't even be close.
I'll bet the difference would be pretty significant.
Now, I'd love to know I'm wrong, because if I'm wrong about this, it would reveal how easily I could be fooled by misleading, observational, anecdotal stuff, which is always a good thing to learn.
You can't learn that enough, really.
All right. And I wonder if...
Let's say that fact came out.
Let's say some polling company found a way to poll this.
It might be hard, but I suppose you could do it.
And just find out that having a, let's say, a Republican strategy and philosophy makes you happier.
Now, what would restrict black Americans from, let's say, being Republicans?
Would it be because Republicans are really religious on the whole, but black Americans are not?
No. That's a match.
On religious stuff, black Americans and right-leaning Republicans, pretty much a match.
Both love their God, both want to go to church, both consider it a, you know, on average, of course, everybody's different, but on average.
So if you've got the religion thing right, all you're talking about is sort of a strategy.
And I don't think that the Republicans have ever done a good job What happened when you heard me say that?
Selling the Republican platform as a personal success strategy.
Because it is. It happens to be, you know, politics is how we talk about it and frame it.
But it's about you personally.
It's about you personally taking control of your life, getting your education, staying out of jail, you know, praying to your God.
It's optional, but it's part of it, right?
And it seems to me that the Republicans are just selling their brand all wrong because they talk about the policies.
And that's sort of the national stuff, and of course they have to.
But the real, the powerful part of being a Republican isn't the policies.
The powerful part is the life strategy stuff.
And I've got to tell you, the minute, I don't know if this could ever happen.
I'm not sure I would predict it.
But there's nothing to stop it, except the fake news, actually.
The fake news is a pretty big force.
But if the fake news were taken out of the picture, and we were not being continually brainwashed to hate each other, if you were black, and you were American, and you're presented with these two things, we got two different philosophies, one of them consistently produces good results, and here's the poll showing that these people are happier.
It happens to be called Republicanism.
You might disagree with some of the policies, but you know how you could best change Republican policies?
Try being a Republican.
If black people in numbers decided to support Republicans, Republicans would quite quickly modify their most extreme things that are the most problematic.
It would happen automatically.
So if you want Republicans to act differently, become a Republican.
And if you want to be personally successful in your life, the Republicans have the formula.
Forget about the policies.
They just have the formula for personal success that's completely separate from, you know, what do you do with world events and what your tax rate is.
That's a whole different topic.
But just taking care of yourself, getting your education, Protecting yourself, knowing your constitutional rights, treating everybody the same based on what they do, not anything else.
That's really Republican.
Somebody says, but you're not a Republican.
I'm not. I do not identify as Republican, and probably never will.
But it is true that Republicans have a philosophy which is more effective.
There's just no doubt about it.
I don't think anybody could argue that in terms of results.
Oh, somebody says the pro-choice thing.
Let me put this out there as a question.
Do black Americans differ that much with Republicans on abortion?
I don't know the answer to that.
But I feel as though at least the religious people We've got a lot of questions on gun control.
I don't like talking about that because it's just a power question.
Gun control is not about what's right or what's wrong.
It's not about how many people died.
It's not about any of that.
It's just a power. So we're doing this pretend argument about gun control, but it's just all pretend.
It's just nothing but power.
There are some people who are better off with them.
There are some people, certainly, who would be better off with fewer of them in their community.
But they're different people.
So the people who are better off with them, and those exist, Let's say you're a rural person, it's your only defense.
Of course you're better off with them.
Or at least you're better off with a choice.
So every argument we make about, you know, this will change the number of people who die, which is important, I don't want to mock it, but these are all fake arguments.
There is no real argument about guns, except some people are better off with them, definitely.
Some people would be better off without them, even without them in the area, definitely.
And pretending that you can solve that by arguing, or your constitutional argument, or your debate, your reasons, your data, it's all irrelevant.
And if we can't wake up from this dream sequence, where we imagine this is some kind of an intellectual exercise, Where if you say the right thing, you'll convince the other side.
There's nothing like that happening.
There's just people who are better off with them who want to keep them.
People who are better off without them who would like to have less of them.
That's it. Yeah, it's naked power.
All right. That is my show for today.
I'm going to wait a moment and see if you have any comments, but I think we've done our job for the day.
Yeah, and everybody has their own view of the Constitution.
That's right. All right.
Do you think multiplayer virtual reality first-person...
Wait, that was an interesting question.
Hey, Scott. Juan asks, Hey, Scott, do you think multiplayer virtual reality first-person shooters would increase or decrease violence?
In other words, do I think violent video games increase violence?
The answer is yes. Yes.
I believe our culture in general, if you turn on the TV and watch an action movie, it's about people getting shot.
Right? Unless it's an old-time movie where they're using swords to kill each other.
But basically our entertainment is entirely around violence.
You don't think that makes us more violent?
Of course it does. And while we might not be able to find a link between Let's say getting primed for violence by video games and then committing it, we might not find that direct link.
But what are you going to do if your mind snaps and you decide to do something bad?
Like you've got this mental condition and you're going to do something really bad.
What do you choose to do?
Well, what you choose to do is whatever's on the top of your mind.
Like what you've experienced recently.
Zero people have done hand grenade attacks.
Now it's harder to get a hand grenade, right?
But people will do the kind of attack that's in the top of their mind.
And because the news is covering non-stop mass shootings, you'll have more mass shootings.
You'll have more mass shootings because of video games.
You'll have more mass shootings because of the way the news covers it.
You'll have more mass shootings because of the coronavirus lockdown.
You'll have more mass shootings because teachers' unions.
Basically, our entire society is guiding us toward more mass shootings.
So the way to fix them is that you'd have to fix everything.
But there's a trade-off here, and it's an ugly one.
And I almost hate to mention it.
The violence is all men, right?
I mean, for all practical purposes, it's a male violence problem.
What would happen to the United States if we did a serious effort to reduce male violence?
Feels like a big problem, right?
I mean, obviously it's a big problem.
Lots of people dying. But suppose you succeeded.
Suppose you succeeded in making American men less violent.
What would you have? You know where I'm heading here, right?
It's the thing nobody wants to say out loud.
America is great because the men are violent as hell.
I wish that were not true, right?
I'm not... If it sounds like I'm being a cheerleader for violence, I'm not.
Nobody is a cheerleader for violence.
That's not even a thing. But it is just a fact that violence is an asset.
And if you have it on your side, your side might do well.
All other things have to be considered.
If you're a criminal, violence might not work out for you.
But if you're a country, violence is a national asset.
And when other countries look at us, do they not say, they're crazy.
Do you know why Afghanistan can repel every major world power?
It takes a long time, but Afghanistan can do it apparently consistently.
Hey, Russia, good try.
You're out of here. Hey, United States, nice try.
You're out of here. What's one of the biggest assets that the Afghan men, the men, What is their biggest asset?
I would like permission for cursing.
There will be a curse word coming up.
It's the only one.
I saved it for the end. You ready?
One of the superpowers that the Afghan men have is that they're crazy motherfuckers.
I'm not wrong.
You can count on them not quitting, even when a reasonable person should absolutely quit.
They're not going to do it.
They are violent, like violence you've never even seen, and they're not going to stop, and you know it's true.
Why are we leaving Afghanistan?
Because their men are too violent for a superpower.
That's real, right?
That's real. And I have to think that other countries look at the United States a little bit the same way.
It's like, They seem a little trigger-happy over there.
Maybe when we're negotiating, we'll take that into account.
Maybe when we're deciding to militarily oppose them, we'll take into account that they will kill us for entertainment.
You know, you never want to get in a fight with somebody who enjoys fighting.
That's the best advice I could ever give you.
Never get in a fight with somebody who enjoys fighting.
That's not going to work out well.
And the United States uses violence for entertainment.
Do you want to get in a fight with somebody who uses violence for entertainment?
That's the worst person to get into a fight with.
So, nobody's in favor of violence.
That would be a dumb position.
Nobody is. But it's just a fact that violence is an asset.
It's just a fact. And if you can't acknowledge that, you'll be confused about the world.
Yeah, so we do need to do something about the gun violence, but I don't have any special ideas other than fixing the school systems, and that takes a while.
