Episode 1393 Scott Adams: The Public Revolt Against Mask Mandates Starts Now, Biden's China Policy, Mike Flynn Controversy
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Content:
Valid medical usage of psychedelics
OSHA mask mandate conflicts with CDC
Race relations under Biden
Michael Flynn raises some eyebrows
Biden's racist reparations plan
Biden's conflict of interest problem, China
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Hey everybody. Yes, it's time again for the best time of the whole day.
We call it Coffee with Scott Adams, and I think you'd like to enjoy it to the max.
Some of you are thinking, oh no, I don't need it.
I'll be fine without the simultaneous sip.
Will you? Will you really?
Well, I wouldn't want to try it if I were you, but hey, it's your life.
It's a free country. But for the rest of you who would like to maximize your experience, connecting with people all over the world simultaneously, all you need is a copper mug, a glass of tanker, a canteen jug or flask, a vessel of any kind, and happy birthday.
Also, It's time for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine of the day, the thing that makes everything better.
That's right. It's a simultaneous sip, and it's coming at you right now.
Go! And if this is the first time you've caught one of these live, congratulations.
You are on it.
And I think that should be commended.
Well, there's some new research into LSD. and the research says there's a hypothesis that suggests that psychedelics will unwind the influence one's prior beliefs have on the brain allowing thoughts to flow more freely unimpeded by past assumptions there were two ways to discover this to be true one way was to do science and research it the other way Is to do a psychedelic.
Because you know who could have told you the answer of this research question?
Everybody who took a psychedelic.
Everybody who took a psychedelic will tell you that their previous assumptions and the frame that they had for reality just gets blown up.
And that's the weird thing.
The big thing that you take away Is that you can view the world completely differently, and here's the important part.
You can view the world completely differently, and it still works.
That's the thing that you'll never forget.
Because if you see the world looking differently, and it all doesn't work, more like a dream.
You know, if you have a dream, things don't sort of make sense that it doesn't work.
So that would be, a dream would be a view of the world that's just random and, you know, it's not built to work.
But you could be tripping your balls off and still order an Uber and go to the beach.
Right? It still works.
Reality still works, even when it's completely different.
And once you realize the subjective nature of reality, then a lot of those things you thought were problems that were going to end you, such as even depression, even neuroticism, or anxiety, I think, more so, There's lots of evidence to show that psychedelics can just wipe out a whole number of mental problems that are more acquired problems as opposed to organic, I think.
I think that would be the difference, but I'm not positive about that.
So, when I talk about the golden age coming, this is one of the biggest parts.
The fact that psychedelics, mushrooms in particular, I think, are moving solidly into the mainstream, no doubt about it.
And that happens, of course, because there's a certain age of people, and when they get in power, suddenly they're people who have done psychedelics, and suddenly it doesn't seem too bad to them now that they're in power.
So I think maybe in the next one to three years, something gigantic is going to happen.
With psychedelics.
And it won't just change how you feel about stuff.
It will change the world.
Because how you feel about stuff depends how you act, and how you act changes the world.
So there's something really, really big coming in this domain, and I don't know exactly how it's going to turn out, but I think mostly positive.
And maybe not even mostly, It could be something like one of the greatest things that's happened to civilization.
It could be that big.
And that's not an exaggeration, by the way.
Anybody who's experienced psychedelics, I think 80% of you would agree with that statement, that it's going to transform civilization.
It won't just be a thing that's happening.
Cernovich says, I'm seeing the comments, Mike Cernovich says that calling it plant medicine...
Maybe. Yeah, it might go down better with the public.
There's a story about Naomi Osaka, one of the best female tennis players in the world, who just pulled out of the French Open.
She was getting a lot of heat because she was refusing to do media interviews, which, of course, is an essential part of the job of being a top athlete.
You don't really get to not do the interview because that's part of the show, right?
And people are paying you a lot of money to put on a show.
You can't just skip an important part of it.
But she decided to pull out of the French Open entirely and she said she didn't want to do these interviews to protect her mental health.
What the hell does that mean?
I mean, it's probably important.
I'm not going to minimize it, because when somebody says they need to do something for their mental health, I feel as if we should, you know, our first impression should be to believe them, right?
Because the last thing you want to do is to minimize somebody's mental health issues.
So I believe there's a real issue, but...
It's confusing because this is somebody who can handle playing at the highest level of a sport in front of a stadium full of people, televised to the world, and somehow she pulls that off.
So I'm not sure how talking to the media would give you a mental health problem.
So there's something missing in the story.
What is the connection between the media and mental health?
But it's interesting. Maybe we'll find out more about that.
I don't want to dump on her.
It would be easy to do that. But I feel like we don't know enough about this.
And when somebody makes a claim that's a health-related claim, I think you give them the benefit of the doubt first.
Well, something interesting happening in Israel.
Apparently Israel had been considering some kind of a green pass system so that if you were vaccinated you could do things but if you weren't vaccinated you couldn't.
But apparently Israel has done so well at vaccinating so many of their citizens that they're going to drop plans for it.
So remember I told you not to worry about vaccination passports because if they happened they would be temporary.
And this is a perfect example.
Not only in Israel does it look like they'll be less than temporary, they will be strongly considered and not even used because vaccinations made them unnecessary.
So that's the same direction we're going.
You know, there will be lots of edge questions about cruise ships.
You know, there'll be special cases where People are genuinely in close contact and maybe it's not quite ready yet.
You know, you could argue that.
But for all the easy stuff, such as the workplace, you're not going to need any kind of a pass.
Speaking of mask mandates at work, it looks like the...
The Occupational Safety and Health Organization, so this is a U.S. group called OSHA, they may still issue a workplace mask mandate consistent with Biden's orders, executive orders, but that would be at odds with the CDC's guidelines.
The vaccinated people don't need to wear masks indoors.
So, you're an American citizen, and you know that the CDC says you don't need the masks indoors if you're vaccinated.
But OSHA, who is also looking out for your safety in the workplace, might say that you do.
So I think this is undetermined yet, but they might say that you do.
Here's my take on this, and I've told you before.
The public is in charge.
If you think the government's in charge with this mask mandate stuff, there's something about the world that you don't understand.
The government's not in charge.
The people will decide when they're done with masks and where.
And they'll decide by just doing it.
Because if enough people do it, It's unarrestable, right?
There's no recourse.
It's just how many people do it.
If one person violates a rule, well, they're in trouble.
Two people, probably in trouble.
Three people, they're in trouble.
Four people, they're probably in trouble.
A thousand people, nobody's in trouble.
If a thousand people decide, well, today's the day, no mask.
And I think that in the workplace, specifically the workplace, I can't imagine any workplace that I've been in where we wouldn't walk into the workplace and say, hey, everybody, let's have a meeting.
The OSHA says this, CDC says this, what do you say?
And the meeting would say, if you're vaccinated, take your mask off.
And that would be it.
And that office, at least that floor of that office, would be mask-free.
And then other people would hear about that floor and they'd say, did you get away with it?
So far, no penalty?
And then they would do it too.
So the next 30 days, the public will completely take control of this issue.
Again, not counting stuff like cruise ships.
There will be special cases, and I don't think the public is quite qualified for those.
But when you talk about something like the workplace, and the CDC has already weighed in about the risks, I do think the public is qualified to make a decision about their risk-reward, and the public will make that decision.
So don't ever believe that the government's in charge.
You know, they're in charge in an emergency.
They're in charge in some specific situations.
But they're not in charge.
The public is always in charge.
They just have to choose to use their authority or not.
That's the only decision. It may be that if OSHA gets away with this, you'll see more remote work and maybe that's good.
You know, there's an argument to be made that the best thing that could happen is for OSHA to require masks at work in the workplace and that will cause people to say, okay, I'm not going to work.
I'll just work from home.
And if it's a little bit more pressure on making that happen, maybe that would be good.
I don't want to see masks in the workplace if you're vaccinated.
But, you know, anything could happen.
I've got a warning for you.
And maybe you're already aware of this.
This is a big, big warning.
And I don't know if there'll be anything more important than this that'll happen in the next several months.
You know, short of a war breaking out.
And it goes like this.
The end of the pandemic...
It's going to cause a mental health crisis bigger than the pandemic itself.
Now, how many of you know why that is?
In the comments, let's see if you can tell me why.
So this is the statement.
We do know that the pandemic almost certainly has caused more mental health problems.
Definitely, wouldn't you say? Absolutely. My prediction is that the end of it, you know, the period where you're transitioning from pandemic to non-pandemic, will be way worse for mental health.
Like way worse. Like by a factor of three.
Something like that.
Won't even be close. And let me tell you why.
You're not used to seeing people.
You're also not used to your old routine.
You don't know who you are anymore.
We have to figure out who we are.
I was reading an article that a lot of relationships maybe stayed together during the pandemic, but will probably be ripped apart as soon as your requirements for what you need to do and not do change.
So I would expect massive divorce, massive mental illness, and probably violence that comes with it.
And I've noted, by the way, that mental health is usually the worst In June.
Now, in a normal year, mental health is definitely the worst in June, in my observed opinion.
I don't know if there's any science to it.
But observationally, when kids get out of school in June, at least in the United States, all of your routines change, and you just flip out.
Like the family can't figure out who's doing what when, and the stress goes through the roof, and easy things become hard things.
And so anytime you have a massive civilization change of schedule, people flip out.
So the end of the pandemic is going to be one of the biggest mental shifts we've ever had to have.
And I've got to tell you, I'm already feeling it.
Yesterday, for example, I was insanely bored.
Like, really, really bored.
And I thought to myself, well, I'm bored, but realistically, where I live, I can kind of do most things, right?
I can now go to a restaurant.
Don't even need my mask.
I can ride a bike.
I can even join my gym again.
I need a mask in the gym.
But I can join the gym again.
I can go to the gym.
So I can do almost anything.
I can travel. And...
I didn't like it.
I didn't like it at all.
So, in other words, freedom caused a mental illness.
And I think that that's actually normal.
As soon as you get more freedom, and you can't just follow your routine, you're going to flip out.
Now, not all of you. Some of you will just be much happier, and that's the end of the story.
Everybody's different, right? But it's a warning.
If everything I know about the human mind and the way we think is true, and I'm pretty confident it is, there's going to be a massive mental health problem over the summer, probably lasting into the fall.
But be ready for that, and when it happens to you, you'll expect it.
Maybe you can handle it better. Rasmussen has an interesting poll today about race relations, asking the question, are race relations better in the United States than Since the election of Joe Biden.
And what do you think people said?
Are race relations better or worse under Biden?
What do you think? Well, the answer is 28% said it's better.
But more people, 39%, said it's worse.
As you might imagine, more conservatives said it's worse than liberals.
So people basically support their team and So conservatives said only 12% said it's better, but liberals said 54% said it's better.
Then the follow-up question, has life for black Americans gotten better or worse since Biden was elected?
22% said it's gotten better.
29% said it got worse.
So how do you explain that Biden gets into office, presumably, according to a lot of people on the left, Replacing the worst person who ever lived, Donald Trump.
Racist, they say.
So if you get rid of Trump, and you bring in Biden, Obama's ex-vice president, he's got a bunch of plans now for a whole bunch of racist policies I'll talk about in a minute, but they're racist in a way that would help black Americans, and yet they feel it's getting worse.
What's going on?
It's the news. The news makes us think things are getting worse no matter what is actually happening.
Because the news needs you to think that race relations are getting worse.
It's just the news.
Do you think race relations are getting worse?
Well, yes, because of the news.
So the news has this ability to make things worse and then assign the blame to other people, which is the world we live in.
Speaking of messed up things, Twitter user Alan McLeod points out that the Washington Post Let's somebody who's on the board of directors of a military drone company, they make military drones, writes an opinion piece in the Washington Post saying that to avoid wider war, Iran must be deterred with limited U.S. military strikes.
Do you know how you do a limited U.S. military strike?
What would make it limited?
Hmm. What kind of military assets would you likely employ if you wanted your military action to be limited?
Could it be drones?
Maybe? Drones?
Yeah. So the Washington Post runs an opinion piece from a drone maker guy, a guy who's on the board of directors of a drone maker, saying we should do some more war That just happens to use some drones.
He might own some stock in that company.
What do you think? Do you think somebody on the board of directors owns some stock in the company?
Yeah. Yeah.
And did the Washington Post say, beware of this opinion, because it's coming from somebody who would make a lot of money if you bought into this opinion?
I don't believe they did.
I think that Alan...
Happened to look into the person who wrote the article and made that discovery, or somebody did.
So, how about that for your news business?
Michael Flynn raised some eyebrows.
Was it yesterday? He made the comments at some event in Dallas, which is reported to be a QAnon conspiracy event.
I don't know if it was.
But... Flynn was asked this question on stage.
Somebody said, I want to know why what happened in Myanmar can't happen here, meaning a military coup.
And so this is a member of the audience asked Michael Flynn when Flynn was on stage.
And here was Flynn's answer.
No reason, I mean.
It should happen here.
No reason. That's right.
What? What?
Wait, did Michael Flynn just say that there should be a military coup in the United States?
Now that's how the news is handling it.
Is that what he said?
Now this is all we know, and as far as I know this is not a Rupar video, meaning I don't think it's selectively edited.
It looks like he actually said that.
If I'm wrong about that, it was selectively edited.
Somebody let me know in the comments.
But I don't think it was.
So what do you make of that?
A military person from this country, retired, but a general who had lots of access at the highest levels of intel, at least at one point, and he says that there's no reason we shouldn't go the way of Myanmar, I can't pronounce. It should happen here.
What do you make of that? Alright, here's what I make of it.
First of all, I don't think too many people are taking this seriously.
And I'm not worried that this will form some kind of violent revolution.
But, if you were to take, let's say, all of the 370 million people in America, whatever the number is, if you round up all the Americans that there are, and then I ask you this question.
Out of all the Americans...
Is there one American who has a right to call for a violent revolution in the United States?
And of all of them, and of all the Americans, who's the one person you say to yourself, okay, if he said it, all right, I can get that.
Michael Flynn. Now, I'm not going to say...
That he said something that was good or smart or beneficial to the country.
So I'm not going to back him in his opinion.
I rebuke his opinion.
We do not need violence in this country.
We certainly don't need a violent revolution.
But this is just me, and I don't ask you to do the same thing, all right?
This is just me. You make your own decisions.
Michael Flynn gets a pass.
Do you know who else I would give a pass out of all the people in the country?
Do you know who else would get a pass for saying something as provocative as this?
Nobody. Nobody else.
Nope. Michael Flynn was a victim of our government.
He was a victim of our government.
Like a big victim.
A big conspicuous victim of the government.
He wasn't a victim of a crime.
He wasn't a victim of bad luck.
He wasn't a victim of natural disasters.
He was a victim targeted specifically by the government of the United States.
If Michael Flynn says they should all be shot I would disagree with that vigorously, and I would support his right to say it.
I support his right to say it.
He earned it. If there's one person in the country who can say that without me bothering to make a deal about it, it's him.
He's the only one. Maybe I can think of somebody else.
But if your government targets you for destruction, for political purposes, and you call for a violent overthrow of that government...
You're within your rights.
You're within the rights of free speech, and you're not crazy.
You're not crazy.
And you've got a perfectly good case.
My preference is we don't do that, right?
So I'm not promoting it.
I'm not apologizing for it.
I'm not supporting anything you said.
I disavow it completely, but I give him a pass at the same time.
He's the only one who can say that.
All right. So CNN has described the blocking by the Republicans of the so-called January 6th Commission to look into it.
So CNN is calling the blocking of that commission a gut punch to democracy.
So I did a little poll and I asked, what is a bigger gut punch to democracy?
The blocking of the January 6th Commission or CNN? Which is the bigger gut-punch to democracy?
The results the last I looked were 5% of respondents said that blocking the January 6th commission is a gut-punch to democracy, and 95% say CNN is a gut-punch to democracy.
And if you think I like saying gut-punch to democracy, well, you're right.
I do like saying it.
Looks like Joe Biden has introduced a number of overt racist policies to, quote, close the racial wealth gap.
You fucking racist.
You fucking piece of shit.
You've taken the best part about this country and you just pissed on it.
You fucking piece of shit, Joe Biden.
You racist piece of shit.
Alright, that's my opinion.
Now let's talk about it. As you know, I have been in favor of a creative approach to reparations.
So, out of all the people watching this, I might be in the very small percentage of people who say, you know, we should look at this reparations thing.
At least, you know, suss out all the possibilities.
See what we could do, what works, what's politically and socially acceptable that might make a difference, etc.
I've argued that you can't get there unless you help all poor people.
But helping all poor people with an express interest in making sure that we also close, you know, the wealth gap, I'm fine with that.
Let's close the wealth gap.
Does anybody have a problem with poor people doing better?
No. It's just how you do it, right?
It's the mechanism to make that happen that's the controversy.
And so, Joe Biden is going to use government funding to directly benefit black businesses, and there are a number of other things he's looking into, but they all have the same element.
Instead of saying, we're going to close the income gap, Which a lot of people would say is a good idea, as long as you're not just taking it from the rich and transferring it, then it's a different issue.
But if you could make poor people richer, I feel like everybody likes that, if you can figure out how to do it.
So Biden has figured out how to do reparations.
So instead of asking people to write a check, To individual black Americans who are descended from slavery, which would be almost impossible to figure out how to do it, how much, who pays, who doesn't pay, who gets it, who doesn't get it.
That would be impossible. But Biden actually found a workaround.
So let me start by saying, good job.
You know, the most annoying thing that I'll ever do is compliment people's effectiveness in Even if I hate what they're doing.
I did it consistently with Trump.
I would talk about his technique.
Separate from whether I liked it or not.
Or whether I liked the policy or not.
That's a separate question. I'm going to say that Joe Biden was in a tough spot.
Because people wanted reparations, but he really couldn't do that.
There wasn't any way he could just figure out a way for the government to cut checks and just give them to black Americans.
That wasn't going to happen. But he found a workaround.
He will increase our taxes and or increase our debt and funnel a lot of that money.
Most of it comes from rich people because that's who pays taxes, mostly.
And he'll give it to black businesses specifically and other things that are targeted for black Americans.
Now that, of course, is just pure racism.
And fuck you.
It's pure racism.
So I don't support racism in any direction because that's not the country I want to live in.
And indeed, I would move out of the country if this becomes more of a norm than it is.
It's already pretty bad. Now, I'm speaking as somebody who's lost a couple of jobs.
Some of you know my story.
I've written about it a lot. Because I'm white.
Specifically because I'm white and male.
In other words, my boss has told me directly, we can't promote you because you're white and male, and it doesn't look like that's going to change anytime soon.
Two different jobs. Which is why I'm a cartoonist.
I had to go work for myself because having a boss didn't work.
Maybe you've seen a cartoon about that.
Bosses that are not good for you.
So I hate Joe Biden.
He's a fucking racist and he's introducing racist policies and he should be completely disavowed.
But if I'm looking at the quality of his technique, it's pretty good.
It's pretty good.
If he pulls this off, I think he's got a good argument that he helped black Americans and they might reward him or the Democrats in elections.
So politically, it's probably pretty good.
He's just a fucking racist.
All right. Biden has a China problem.
I think Liz Beek was writing about this on Fox News' website.
And the problem goes like this.
We have all these things we need to negotiate with China...
But here's my question.
Do you personally know how much China knows about Hunter Biden?
Do you? I mean, you know what the news has reported that Hunter Biden did or allegedly did or did not, right?
Michael says if they can do it to Michael Flynn, they can do it to anybody and get away with it.
Yeah, that's true. That's true.
But Biden has a problem.
Which is, you've probably heard this standard before, that if somebody has a conflict of interest, they should call it out.
And... Yeah, that's a good point.
Joe Biden was responsible for the destruction of General Flynn by calling out the Logan Act.
And Biden's the government.
If you were Michael Flynn, and the very guy who was like at the center of your targeting was running the government, would you be in favor of a violent overthrow of the government?
Maybe. Maybe you would be.
Yeah. All right. So anyway, Biden has a China problem, which is, you've heard the saying that you should avoid even the appearance of conflict of interest.
Correct? Do I have something on my shirt?
You should not only avoid actual conflict of interest, but you want to avoid the appearance of it.
Because the effectiveness of our government is partly, if not largely, based on their credibility.
If the government is doing good things, or at least trying to do good things, you'll say, all right, you know, you can still be in charge.
But what if you don't know if Joe Biden's decisions are based on maybe concern about what China knows about his son?
Do you know? You don't know what Joe Biden knows about Hunter.
You don't know how Hunter Biden knows about himself.
You don't know. So, how can Joe Biden be our credible leader against the number one important topic to this country, which is the future of the United States vis-a-vis China?
It's one of our biggest questions, if not the biggest question, it's probably the biggest question.
And our leader is the only person I know of, there must be more, but the only one I know of, who I can't trust.
Right? Now, I'm not saying I can't trust him because he's a Democrat, and I'm not saying I can't trust him because he's Joe Biden.
I actually do think a Democrat and a Joe Biden without any conflict would be perfectly capable of dealing with China.
But somebody whose son might be at risk, I don't think so.
I don't think we can trust Biden on any China question.
So what do you do about that?
Well, I almost think that Biden should recuse himself.
Except if he did, it would sort of indicate that Biden's guilty.
So he can't even recuse himself.
Now, how would a president recuse himself?
Because there's nobody to take the president's job, right?
Like, who steps in? The only way I could imagine would be to set up some kind of a commission of people who are not Joe Biden, and they could be just Democrats because they would report to him, and have that commission come up with recommendations, and the commission would not have a bias, and then you would see if...
Biden uses what they come up with, but you'd be concerned that they would be co-opted to do whatever Biden wanted, so maybe that wouldn't work either.
Ken Davis says, this marks five episodes where you haven't made me mad.
Try harder. Well, Ken, I think transgender athletes should have every right to compete anywhere they want.
Actually, I don't believe that.
What I do believe is that all athletes should be competing against people who are of similar capabilities.
I don't think that their gender should matter.
So I don't think that we should be having men's teams and women's teams only.
I think we should also have co-ed teams.
And then people can just play with the, you know, whatever level that they're capable to play with.
So I don't believe that we should keep the teams the way they are, with just women and just men, and then throw some transgender athletes into the mix and hope it works out.
Because it won't. Obviously it won't.
So my point on the transgender thing, which I don't know if I ever said it clearly, is people are not broken.
The system... Of how we organize and do sports is completely broken.
And if you think that the problem is with the people, I don't think that's a good way to organize society.
I think we should always say, okay, people, you're all really different, but none of you are broken.
For our purposes, you're all just different.
We're not going to judge you.
You're just different.
And if you have a system that can't handle the differences among people without breaking, well, your system's broken.
It's not a problem with the people.
People are fine. We're all different.
Get over it. Make a system that works when you know people are all different.
If you can't make that system, don't complain about the people.
And it would be easy to make that system.
I've been in such a system.
I've been on co-ed teams in which the gender didn't matter at all.
It only mattered if you could play at the level of the other players.
That's all. It didn't matter anything else.
And I'm seeing in the comments the issue of transgender on minors.
I don't approve of transgender surgery on minors.
Let me say that clearly.
I don't approve of that.
Unfortunately, it's also not my decision.
Because I do approve...
Of the parents being able to control the fate of their family.
That's not always going to be good.
Sometimes they're going to make bad decisions, sometimes tragic decisions.
But I don't think I should be making that decision for some other family.
I just think it's a mistake, and unambiguously a mistake.
If those kids want to make those decisions later in life, that's different.
Alright. Alright.
Forget that one. You know, I can't get over this fact that the survey showed that people who are very liberal, especially the white women, have way more mental illness than other people.
And here's a question I don't really know has been answered.
Scott's silly argument.
Well, I will hide you so you disappeared.
You can tell me what's wrong with my arguments.
That's always acceptable.
But if you write in all caps, SCOTT'S SILLY ARGUMENT, then I gotta deal with you.
I gotta take care of that.
All right. So what do you think?
Do you think having a mental disorder makes you more likely to say you're very liberal?
Or does being very liberal cause a mental illness?
Which one causes the other?
Or is there any causation?
Maybe it's just a correlation that has nothing to do with any causation.
What do you think? Because I feel like it might be both.
It might be that having a mental illness causes you to be very liberal, because there's a lot you have to accept that doesn't quite fit the rational model.
But it could also be that buying into a certain set of fears and a certain frame of how the world works and whether you're a victim or not could cause you mental illness.
Yeah, I think it's bi-directional.
Like a lot of things are.
In fact, if you had a new situation and you said, oh, there's some cause and there's some effect and you don't know anything about anything, your best guess is that it's bi-directional.
Because a lot of things are.
Alright, so here are some taboo topics.
We can't talk too much about whether your phone causes mental illness because nobody wants to get rid of their phone.
And the companies that make them make a lot of money.
We just don't want to talk about that too much, even though we know it's a giant problem.
We don't want to talk about whether fake news causes mental illness.
Because of course it does.
Of course it does. And I would think that watching CNN would cause mental illness.
Not a joke. Not a joke.
It seems to me obvious that if you watched CNN and MSNBC, you would get mental illness.
And I'm not joking about that.
That's just dead serious.
And it's not partisan.
It's just observational.
I look at the things they say.
Imagine, for example, you thought you really lived in a country in which the president had really He said that neo-Nazis were very fine people.
Now, most of you watching this know that that didn't happen.
It was a fake edit and that he said exactly the opposite strongly.
But maybe three-quarters of the country believed that actually happened.
Imagine if you thought that happened.
I mean, seriously. Imagine if you believed that actually happened.
That you were living in a country where the president Praised white supremacist right on TV. How would that make you feel?
Well, I feel like I'd have some mental illness.
I'd have a little bit of anxiety.
I'd get a little bit depressed.
I'd feel like we're doomed.
So yes, CNN causes mental illness.
There's no doubt in my mind.
I mean, obviously you have to wait for a scientific, well-controlled study to know for sure.
But do you? Do you really need to wait for the study?
Sometimes things are a little too obvious.
You don't have to wait for the study.
But I could be wrong.
I always try to keep that recording going.
By the way, this is a trick that I teach you in my book, Loser Think.
That it's good to, when you have a strong opinion about something, especially if you're really certain, sometimes when you state your opinion with certainty, just cap it off with But I could be wrong.
It's just a good hygiene for your brain.
You should always remind yourself, especially when you're certain, but I could be wrong.
It gives you a little mental out.
I don't know this for sure, but I think it gives you a little protection against cognitive dissonance.
Compare these two things.
I'm definitely right versus I'm very confident about this, but I could be wrong.
And then what happens if you find out you are wrong?
Well, the person who says, I'm definitely right, will be triggered into cognitive dissonance because they don't want to be wrong.
That's what causes cognitive dissonance.
So saying you're positive and sticking with it is a trap because if it turns out you're wrong or there's counter evidence, you won't even be able to see it.
It'll be like it'll be invisible to you.
It's like causing yourself mental illness.
You blind yourself by being certain.
But if you just have this little bit of technique, you say, I'm quite confident this is true, but I could be wrong.
That's your escape.
Because let's say you discover that you are wrong.
Now you've said, I'm very confident, but I could be wrong.
Are you triggered into cognitive dissonance?
Maybe. But I would think you're a little bit safer because you have two opinions.
One is I'm confident.
And two is that I could be wrong.
And then when it turns out you're wrong, you say, well, I told you I could be wrong.
So at least you have an out.
You have an out that protects your ego, which in theory should protect you from being triggered into cognitive dissonance.
But if you've never given yourself that out, I think you're more likely to get triggered into cognitive dissonance.
All right. Here's a story you'll never see.
See if you can Google, because I couldn't find it, see if you can find a credible study that tracks happiness over time in the United States by ethnicity.
So that if you could tell, for example, let's say Asian Americans, their happiness line went like this, versus, you know, white Americans versus black Americans, you could actually see over time, you know, how their arc of their happiness changed.
Why doesn't that exist? Seems like just the most important thing you'd ever want to do, doesn't it?
Why doesn't that exist?
You know why, right?
Now, science tells us that baseline happiness doesn't change much.
And it doesn't even change much based on your circumstances, at least until you get a certain amount of money.
Like $75,000 a year or something like that.
So certainly you can be in such a bad situation that you're unhappy no matter what.
But for people who are eating, you know, they can take care of their basics.
Happiness is pretty similar, I think.
So what would happen to the call for reparations if you found out that black Americans were, on average, just as happy as white Americans?
What problem are you solving?
Right? It becomes complicated.
Because if you're trying to solve the problem of giving everybody an equal life, or at least equal opportunity for a good life, what happens if they're all equally happy?
Already. If everybody's just as happy, you don't need to do anything.
Or at least you don't need to transfer resources.
But I think there's a reason that we'll never see that study, unless you can find it.
If you can find it, tweet it at me.
And then lastly, I would say that we should stop calling the question of nuclear energy a debate.
Because I don't believe there are any smart, well-informed people who are opposed to nuclear energy.
I don't believe there are any on the right, and I don't believe there are any on the left.
I don't believe anybody...
Who is well informed about nuclear energy opposes it in 2021.
Now of course you can find an exception.
Watch me use the technique again.
But of course I could be wrong.
There could be some people who are well informed and against it, but they'd be very few.
So you don't need to show me the one person who's against it, right?
Science, as a body, is pro-nuclear energy unambiguously.
If you're pro-science, but you're anti-nuclear energy, well, you have some explaining to do.
Because that doesn't make sense.
Take a side and stick with it.
I'm pro-science, and so I'm pro-nuclear energy.
Energy, and anybody who's well-informed knows the same, and maybe we should just treat it that way.
Because there are some things we treat as a difference in opinion, and it really isn't.
It's just a difference in knowledge.
And so, I would like to see polling separated by what demographic groups have more mental illness, and by, let's say, how well-informed people are on a topic.
Wouldn't you like to see a poll that only showed what the opinion of well-informed people think?
Right? How hard would it be?
Answer these six questions about nuclear power.
If you get all six right, you're a well-informed person.
And now let's see what your opinion is.
And now let's weight it so that the smart people get more weight on their opinion and then show me the result.
That's what I want to see.
Why do I want to see a poll that averages well-informed people's opinions With furniture, pets, and imaginary people, right?
I don't need an average of crap.
I'd love to see an average of well-informed people.
Wouldn't you? It'd be interesting to see an average of uninformed people, just to see how different they are.
But I don't want to add the well-informed people to the uninformed people and get an average.
What the hell is that?
It's nothing. Alright?
It's nothing. Now, there are lots of topics like should you stand for the flag, whatever, that everybody is just as well informed.
Right? There's no lack of information that matters.
But on nuclear energy, it's just how informed you are.
