Episode 1489 Scott Adams: Lots of Coffee-Sipping-Worthy Headlines Today
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a
Find my "extra" content on Locals: https://ScottAdams.Locals.com
Content:
Taliban victory celebration that ended badly
"Sense of Urgency" cultural norm
Behavioral science questions
Should President Trump get a COVID booster shot?
Matt Gaetz story update
George Soros on Taliban and China
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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.
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It's time for Coffee with Scott Adams, and I don't have to tell you, it's the best thing in the history of the universe.
Not every time, but today for sure.
Absolutely. And if you'd like to take it up to heretofore unknown levels of pleasure...
And I know you do. All you need is a cup or a mug or a glass, a tank or chelsea, a canteen jug or a flask, a vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite liquid.
Yeah, I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure.
It's the dopamine here of the day.
It's the thing that makes everything better.
As long as you do it with me.
It's called the simultaneous sip.
It happens now. Oh. Delicious.
Now, some of you are wondering, Scott, why is it that you are streaming on YouTube and also the Locals platform, but you are not streaming on the Rumble platform?
Why is that, Scott?
Why is that? Well, let me describe the Rumble onboarding process.
It goes like this.
If you'd like to be a creator, click this button and somebody will help you become a creator account.
And then you click that button and the next part is easy.
You just wait. But there's no part after that.
Apparently you asked to be a creator on Rumble, and then there's a thing called nothing that happens after that.
So then nothing happens.
I've tried that a couple of times.
I've also been contacted by Rumble employees, and they've offered help.
So I've emailed back and said, that's great.
Just make me a creator account, and I'll be live-streaming like crazy.
And then the process that happens after that is nothing.
So I've tried three or four times to livestream on Rumble, and each time I can't.
I don't know. Apparently I'm the only person who's not allowed to livestream on Rumble.
But should I ever be allowed, I might try to do that.
We'll try to get that solved.
Here's a tragic story of a diner, small business, a diner in central Florida, who announced that it would not be serving anyone who supports President Biden.
And I guess this is over the botched and disgraceful Afghan pullout.
And, well, you can imagine what would happen.
If you say that you will not serve more than half of the public in your town, and you depend on the public for your income, it's pretty obvious that if you're a small business and barely struggling to get by as it is, it's pretty obvious that if you tell half of your potential customers that they can't eat there, you're pretty much going to be forced to shutter your business.
And that's what happened. She was forced to shutter her business because she said that she wouldn't even sell to half of the people in the community.
Wait, I'm getting an update.
I'm getting an update.
She was forced to shutter her business, but it was because there were so many customers, they ate all the food, and she didn't have any food left to serve.
Okay, so that's exactly the opposite of what I thought it would be.
It turns out that when you tell half of your customers to fuck off, you really, it's good marketing.
Earlier? Yeah, if I'd known that, I think I would have tried it.
Moving on to the next story, a tragic story.
Not all my stories are happy.
This one is tragic.
There was a woman, a high school biology teacher, age 34, who was accused of having sex with a 14-year-old student.
This is terrible.
Apparently this biology teacher had sex with this 14-year-old boy during at least three one-on-one independent study sessions.
Now, I think we have to dig a little deeper into the story.
Of course, it's tragic, and I feel sorry for this poor 14-year-old boy who was a victim of this horrible crime, sex with a hot teacher.
I hope he'll recover.
I hope this isn't a permanent problem for the rest of his life.
But the victim, they talked to the victim, the 14-year-old boy who had sex with his teacher three times, and he was quoted as saying it was, quote, the best three days of his life so far.
He doesn't think he'll need therapy, but he said he'd agreed to get therapy under the following condition, quote, if the therapist is super hot.
So I guess that's sort of a yes.
So the child will be treated, probably with therapy.
But I have this question to ask.
This was a biology teacher.
Now, I'm just going to put this out there because I don't know if the news is good at context.
Because you have to consider everything, right?
We've talked about the tragedy to the 14-year-old boy, and I don't know if he'll ever be the same.
I hope he recovers from this.
But we should also say that when that 14-year-old boy took his biology exams, it turns out he knew more about biology than all of the other kids in the class.
Yeah, he did. Because he had three independent study sessions on biology that you just can't get everywhere, if you know what I mean.
You know what I mean? You know what I mean?
Yeah. So that's enough of that tragedy.
I have a prediction. Prediction.
Most of you are savvy and well-informed people.
And I know that you know that Elon Musk recently had been critical of Bitcoin because it requires gigantic amounts of energy.
To mine a new coin.
Now, if you don't know cryptocurrency, let me explain that in order to create a new bitcoin, it's created by massive computers crunching things algorithmically.
I'm not sure if that's the right word.
But by formula, and only once in a while can it discover, or mine, as they say, A new combination that will be a new Bitcoin.
So without getting too technical, to create a Bitcoin you need a computer.
When there were very few Bitcoins in production, you could use just your own little computer and it could maybe find a Bitcoin for you.
But as the number of Bitcoins continue to get mined, they're harder and harder to find.
Mathematically, they're harder to find.
So you need bigger and bigger computers to find the increasingly rare Bitcoins that are left.
And so it takes entire data centers now to just find some Bitcoins.
And it's a pretty big drag on climate change, say the experts.
I mean, it could be like half of 1% of all the energy used.
It's a pretty big number.
So here's my prediction.
Someday a billionaire will build a Gen 4 nuclear power plant just to mine Bitcoins.
Now, this said billionaire would have to find a country that was, you know, willing to allow a, you know, more experimental nuclear power plant.
But because you're using it a bit to mine Bitcoin, you can put it anywhere.
Right? Your nuclear power plant doesn't need to be near a population center.
In fact, that'd be the worst place to put it.
The best place to put it, if you're only going to use it for your own Bitcoin mining operation, the best place to put it would be as far from humans as possible.
So if something went wrong...
No problem. Now, the Generation 4 nuclear plants are built such that nothing big can go wrong.
If everything fails...
Here's the idiot's definition of Generation 3 versus Generation 4.
Generation 3, which would be the kind of power plant you would build today, kind of a traditional one, if you have a major problem...
It could lead to some kind of a meltdown situation that would be bad.
But Generation 4 would be designed such that the problem itself would cause the power plant to shut down.
So instead of a design where a problem causes a massive potential problem, Generation 4, the same problem, or let's say conceptually the same kind of problem, would cause it just to turn off.
So that's a pretty big difference, right?
Major, you know, Chernobyl meltdown versus, oh, it's off now.
That's it. So yeah, I suspect that Bitcoin could become a huge driver of Generation 4 nuclear power.
So Bitcoin could actually become the financial incentive to have a robust Generation 4 nuclear industry.
Maybe. Who knows?
I'll put that out there. There's nothing funny about death.
Let me start this story by saying, when people die, there's nothing funny about that.
And if you laugh at a story in which people die, well, you're a bad person, and you're going to have to deal with that for the rest of your life.
Live in shame. Live in shame if you laugh at this following story, which is tragic.
Turns out that the Taliban tried to celebrate a victory against some rebels in the Panjshir Valley.
Turns out it was a premature celebration.
It turns out that they did not have a victory yet.
It was premature. But they decided to celebrate anyway, as the Taliban do, by firing their weapons in the air.
So many Taliban fired their weapons in the air, falsely believing that they'd won a war against the rebels.
And when the Taliban fired all their weapons in the air, they didn't count on gravity.
Gravity kind of snuck them and bit them in the ass.
And a lot of those bullets fell down after they went up, resulting in the death of 17 people and injuring 41.
Now, if you're laughing about that, you're a bad, bad person.
Oh, bad people.
Bad people. I see you in the comments.
Don't be laughing at death.
Even if it's the Taliban.
Well, first of all, we don't know if it was the Taliban who were the 17 people killed.
Could have been anybody. Probably innocent people, the way things go.
But not funny.
However, it does open up a possibility...
Is it possible that Joe Biden was this close, for those of you listening, I'm putting my finger and my thumb in a very short distance from each other.
Is it possible that Joe Biden was this close from a major victory against the Taliban?
Maybe. And here's how that could have looked.
The Taliban, you think, won an unexpected 11-day victory and took over Afghanistan with almost no resistance.
That's what the news told you.
Or was it a trap?
Because if the Taliban took over really quickly...
And they still had a lot of ammo left over because they didn't need to use it because they took over so quickly.
What would the Taliban do with all of that ammo left over to celebrate their victory over Afghanistan, which they've tried 20 years to take back?
What would they do? Would they shoot their weapons in the air?
And would they have so much ammo, because they didn't have any resistance in the actual war, that those bullets would come down and wipe out the Taliban?
Okay, it's a long shot.
It's literally a long shot.
Up in the air, and that goes back down.
So, I think Biden was this close.
Again, if you're listening to this, Adams is putting his finger and his thumb within a close distance to each other.
Almost. Could have worked.
Now, you say to yourself, Scott, that was a bad plan.
Really? You're going to coax them into shooting in the air and hoping enough bullets fall down to wipe out the Taliban without hitting any innocent people?
Well, that's a terrible plan.
Is it? Is it a terrible plan?
Compared to what we actually did, yeah.
Now it doesn't look so bad, does it?
Yeah. If you compare it to the right alternative, which is what we did, cut and run, looks pretty smart.
So, could have worked.
Worth a shot. Worth a shot.
It was worth a shot.
Well, it turns out that artificial intelligence is super racist.
Do not laugh at this joke.
Because you would be labeling yourself as a racist, just like AI. You don't want to be that.
Don't be a racist and don't laugh at this joke.
There's nothing funny about it.
But Facebook recently apologized after an AI program, Facebook AI, mistakenly labeled a video featuring black men interacting with the police as, quote, about primates.
Don't laugh.
Don't laugh, you bastards.
Stop it. Stop it.
All right. Now, apparently an automatic prompt came up and it says, do you want to keep seeing videos about primates?
Despite the video clearly featuring no primates whatsoever.
But here's my question.
Hmm. Wait a minute.
Wait a minute. Are we analyzing this story correctly?
Because the story says there were, quote, black men in the videos, but there were also police officers.
Do you see where I'm going here?
Do we have confirmation that the AI was confused by the, quote, black men in the video, or was it confused by the police officers who wore uniforms that were the same color all over?
Eh? Yeah. Now you don't know what to think.
That's a Norm Macdonald line.
One of my favorite lines. Now you don't know what to think.
Because police officers were the ones the AI thought were the primates.
Because they were literally uniform in color.
Because they might have had full uniforms that were all this...
I mean, if you were to look at, let's say, a gorilla, what would be the distinguishing characteristics of a gorilla?
Same color all over.
Right? So the gorilla is the same color all over.
Just like a police uniform.
I don't know if the AI was looking at faces and making a racist kind of conclusion.
Probably. I mean, it's a reasonable assumption.
But why do we go to that automatically?
Why do you automatically think that the AI thought that the black men were the primates as opposed to the police officers?
Huh? Huh? Maybe the article itself is racist.
Because you can't tell which ones the AI was looking at.
Right? Can't tell.
So you would have to be a racist yourself.
Gotcha. Gotcha.
You'd have to be a racist yourself to assume that the AI was looking at the black men in the video.
Because I don't think that was an evidence.
All we know is that the AI thought there were some primates in the video.
So why are you so racist that you think it was the black people in the video?
Well, I think you should be ashamed of yourself.
By the way, I don't think that...
Nothing in the things look like other things and remind me of other things have any meaning.
Are you all adult enough to know that, right?
Like, even if...
You said to yourself, hey, I think some person's reminding me of a primate.
It doesn't mean anything.
It just means that you were reminded of something.
To give that any importance would be ridiculous.
Jonathan Turley tweets, and you should be following Jonathan Turley on Twitter, one of the best follows.
Jonathan Turley He says there's a program at Boulder University, I guess, that encourages faculty to, quote, shed the, quote, cultural norms of white supremacy.
So what are these cultural norms of white supremacy?
Well, among them, in your attempt to, quote, decolonize the classes, you should be rejecting neoliberal concepts.
So what are some neoliberal concepts we would like to reject?
Well, among them, perfectionism and a sense of urgency.
Now, when I was coming up in the business world, I was told literally and continuously that a sense of urgency was exactly what I wanted to develop if I didn't have it already.
That in fact, success, this was at the phone company, they would use this language all the time.
The phone company would use the sense of urgency to tell you you should be working hard and act like everything's important.
But it turns out that that sense of urgency, the very qualities in perfectionism, the very kinds of qualities which might lead one to success, you could argue about the perfectionism one, are maybe a little bit too white supremacist.
A little bit too white supremacist.
So... This program will try to get rid of that.
But here's a question for you.
It raises an interesting question.
Let's say that we accept this premise.
Let's say we accept the premise that we should not be living in a white supremacist cultural norm.
Anybody have a problem with that?
I think we can reject it.
White supremacy as a cultural norm.
I mean, if you could get rid of it, that would be fair.
You live in America, damn it.
Nobody should be having any supremacy.
That's the whole point of America.
So of course we'd like to get rid of any cultural norms of white supremacy, if they were real.
But here's the question.
If you could damn perfectionism and damn a sense of urgency as white supremacist, Couldn't you damn success itself?
Isn't success, the way we define it in economic terms in the West, isn't that white supremacists?
And shouldn't we, and shouldn't the Boulder program, try to get rid of success entirely?
Because success is what fucks up everything.
If nobody succeeded, you wouldn't have to worry about income distribution.
Nobody would have any. And if nobody succeeded really big...
Yeah.
I see your comic, Eric, calling that uniquely white.
It's pretty racist, isn't it?
Imagine you're a...
I'm just trying to get in the heads of other people, right?
It's impossible. But just imagine, put yourself in this place.
You're a successful black entrepreneur.
Put yourself in that hat.
You are a successful black entrepreneur.
You've made it. You killed it.
You got stuff done.
You made some money. You've really done well.
And then some asshole tells you that you should get rid of your sense of urgency and your perfectionism and your other traits.
And what do you say to yourself?
I mean, I don't know, because that's not me.
But I feel like if you put me in that situation, I'd be pretty angry about this.
Because I'd think to myself, wait a minute.
I wasn't trying to be white.
I was trying to succeed.
And if trying to succeed made me look like I was trying too hard to be white, who the hell is telling me that?
Imagine you're a black entrepreneur.
Wouldn't you be pretty offended by that?
It's like, oh, the only way you can succeed is by acting white?
How about no?
How about I was able to succeed by doing the things that everybody who succeeds does?
Same stuff. I mean, it doesn't matter what color you are.
You pretty much do the same basket of stuff to succeed.
So, anyway. Recently, several of Dan Ariely's...
I hope I'm pronouncing his last name right.
So he's an author and researcher and a guy.
And he's been writing books about behavioral science.
But it turns out that a lot of behavioral science studies don't hold up.
And one of them was a study that said that if you ask people to declare that they're going to be honest at the end of a form...
They're more likely to lie and then at the end say, yeah, sure, I'll be honest, than if you put their declaration at the front.
And the thinking was that if you make people say, yes, I'll be honest, before they answer the questions, they'll be biased toward being more honest because they committed to it.
But it turns out you can't reproduce that.
Can't be reproduced.
So that would be just another example of behavioral science that just...
It's bullshit. It just can't be reproduced.
Now, I also have my questions about why that wouldn't work.
Because everything I know about persuasion and brains and hypnosis suggests that it would work, that putting it first would make a difference.
So I'm not sure which one to doubt.
Should I doubt the studies that couldn't reproduce it?
Or should I doubt...
I don't know. I guess I doubt everything.
So behavioral science comes pretty close to guessing, it turns out.
So here's a mystery that I think I've got.
I'm going to try to explain this as best I can.
I like to think that one of my superpowers is explaining complicated things in simple ways.
So that's my challenge to myself.
Here's a complicated thing, and I'll see if I can explain it to you for the first time in a simple way.
I'm not sure I can. But I got some help from Andres Beckhaus on Twitter and some other tweets.
But here's the conundrum.
So Israel is reporting that most of their new infections are of vaccinated people.
So that makes some people say, wait a minute.
If most of the people getting a new infection are vaccinated, doesn't that tell you the vaccinations don't work?
And the answer is no, it's not telling you that at all.
Apparently Israel is very happy with how well the vaccinations work.
But it's also true, simultaneously, that infections among the vaccinated apparently are higher than the unvaccinated.
So does that tell you that the vaccinations are making it worse?
No. And here's why.
Children are still mostly not vaccinated and still mostly don't get it.
Right? So children are mostly not vaccinated and also mostly don't get it for whatever reason.
Whereas older people, or at least they're not getting hospitalized.
Whereas older people, whether they're vaccinated or not, If you're old enough and you get it, well, there's a good chance you get hospitalized anyway.
So you've got this situation where you're looking at very different groups with different risk profiles.
So any imbalance in the size of those groups just changes your whole average and makes your average ridiculous.
So if, on average, the people who are vaccinated are more likely to be infected...
Am I saying that wrong? Let's say it a different way.
If on average, most of the infections are with vaccinated people, that has everything to do with the size of the population of vaccinated people with the size of the population of the kids who are unvaccinated.
So as long as you know that the average doesn't mean anything, because you're averaging two things that are just like an apple and an orange, maybe that helps.
I think I did a terrible job.
Usually I'm better than this.
Is there anybody who knows what I should have said to know if I'm even close?
But the basic idea is that there's nothing wrong with the Israeli vaccinations, that they're actually super effective for keeping you out of the hospital and keeping you alive.
But it might not look that way, and it's just because of how numbers work.
Apparently, Trump said recently that he wouldn't get a booster.
Now, it was reported that when Trump said he was thinking about not getting a booster, that it probably wasn't...
He said, I'm not against it, but it probably isn't for me.
And I saw CNN say, oh, you know, that's not so good, because then all the Trump people will say, hey, if he's not getting a booster, then why should I get one?
But what did they leave out of the story?
I'll just leave the comments.
What did CNN leave out of the story?
That he already had COVID. He already had it.
Come on.
Come on, guys.
News industry. Seriously.
You're not going to put that in the story?
The most important fact?
That he had already had COVID and that gives him a kind of immunity which science says is way better than a booster.
Is Trump making the wrong decision?
I don't know. But if I had recovered, and maybe I had the wherewithal to test my antibodies anyway, I think I would think twice about a booster,
wouldn't you? So they're treating it as if Trump is being unscientific or giving bad advice when, as far as I can tell, he's completely compatible with the science and is giving good advice for himself.
He told you that he's not against it.
So he's not telling you what to do.
He's just saying for himself his special case.
I think he's probably right.
So that's some fake news there.
All right, so I'm going to play you a little video.
So last night...
This will just tell you how weird my life is.
So here's a little background.
Greg Goffeld got an interview with Trump.
So the interview has not aired yet.
I believe it'll air this coming week.
Probably Wednesday-ish, tentatively.
And maybe it'll spread over a few days.
We'll see. But...
So Greg Garfield was with Trump yesterday for the interview, and I think they had something to eat after with a bunch of other people.
And then I get this video.
Scott, there's a man here that wants to say hello to you.
Hey Scott, I want to tell you you're a man of great common sense and I really enjoy listening to you and you've been generally speaking a fan for a long time.
You agree with what I'm doing, but keep up the good work.
I'm with Greg and some of his friends.
We did an interview and Thank you for everything, Scott.
Keep up the good work. Awesome.
Thank you. I told you my life is weird, right?
I swear to God, I wake up and I don't know what's going to happen any freaking day.
So yeah, that was Trump giving me a little personal video message.
How weird is that? So anyway, I guess one of the advantages of having the number one evening show, which Greg Gottfeld has, is that you get a lot of good interviews.
So I would encourage you all to watch that interview.
Just imagine. Just think about it.
So you know Greg Gottfeld and you know Trump.
Is there any chance that this isn't a good interview?
You know it's going to be fun, so I can't wait to see that.
All right. You know what I would love to see?
A risk management worksheet.
Maybe it could even be an Excel.
Something simple anybody could use.
It could be a website where there's just some programming to do it.
But I think...
There should always be some kind of government-blessed thing with the odds.
And that would change, of course, as we learn new things about what the odds are.
We change the odds. But you should be able to just fill in your own situation.
You know, stuff like, you know, can you socially distance?
What's your age, your comorbidities?
And then put in stuff like, what is the known risk of getting vaccinated?
And then make some guesses about the long-term unknown risk.
And, you know, you'd have to put in your own assumptions so people would get different results based on their own assumptions plus the official scientific assumptions.
And shouldn't we be doing that?
Why in the world do you and I have a dumbass conversation about whether or not it's a good idea for you to get vaccinated?
That's like the dumbest conversation that any two humans can have.
Because your situation and mine aren't even close.
And what are the odds that you're in the same situation I am, risk-wise and everything else?
Zero. So I should be making my decision, you should be making your decision, and that's it.
Right? Your decision and my decision don't need to be compatible.
They shouldn't be. There's no reason for them to be.
So why don't we just reduce it to math?
And just say, look...
Here's the worksheet. Okay, Grandma, you watched some pundit.
Now you don't want to get vaccinated.
So just do the worksheet.
And if the worksheet comes out and says, yeah, you know, in your situation, let's say you were already infected, like Trump.
If Trump did the worksheet, would it tell him to get a booster?
What do you think? If Trump did a worksheet...
To figure out the odds, his best odds, of what would be the biggest risk and reward.
In his specific case, because he already had the infection, and he can probably monitor his antibody level.
I'd be surprised if they're not doing that once a month, right?
If you're an ex-president, you've got all the money in the world, yeah, you're probably looking at your antibodies every month or so.
So in his special case...
Different than other people, right?
All right, I'd just like to put that out there because we're arguing about stuff that should just be math.
It should just be on a worksheet, you know, with your assumptions, of course.
Now, here's what I thought was a CNN typo or error, and I still believe it is.
So here's something that CNN says on its website that I tell you in advance, I think they're saying the opposite of what is true, right?
So I'll tell you what they're saying...
But I believe it's the opposite of truth.
I think it's just a typo.
Of the 10 states with the worst COVID-19 case rate, now this is not deaths, and this is not hospitalization, this is just the number of people infected, over the past week, 7 of them, so 7 out of 10, also had among the 10 best vaccination rates.
So this would suggest that the highest vaccinated states are also having the most infections.
Is that true? Or is that opposite of true?
Well, Andres Beckhouse looked at the data and he said it looks like it's the opposite of true.
That, in fact, the least vaccinated states are the ones with the most infections.
So I'm not sure what CNN was trying to say, but that's a pretty gigantic error if it's an error which it looks like.
So it could be I'm reading it wrong or maybe I'm interpreting it wrong or something.
But it's the opposite. It looks the opposite of what I believe to be true.
So let's say that it's been fact-checked by Andres.
But again, I think either one of us could be wrong about what they thought they meant.
I don't know. It could be just an interpretation problem.
But it looks wrong. I'm also in the middle of this Matt Gaetz story.
Is anybody following that?
So you know that Matt Gaetz now has been semi-vindicated, meaning that there were two parts of the story.
One is that he was being charged with allegations about something with a 17-year-old girl.
We have no actual victim come forward, no details, no evidence.
I've seen no evidence that any of that's true.
It's just an allegation.
But the other part of it was that he claimed he was being blackmailed in some weird scheme for $25 million, or his dad was, and that he would end up with some kind of immunity for his alleged other problems that don't have any evidence that I've seen.
And so it's this big, weird story.
But you might know that I was also sort of part of it, accidentally.
Because as Matt Gaetz forwarded on Twitter some private messages between Jake Novak, who works at the moment at the Israeli consulate.
He's an American, but he works at the Israeli consulate.
And he asked some questions about it.
Now, the question you want to ask is, how does Matt Gaetz have a private message from Jake Novak to me?
How does he have that?
And the answer is, I don't know.
Which is funny in and of itself.
I actually don't know.
I can think of at least four ways he could have it, but I don't know.
I mean, I didn't give it to him directly.
I will tell you I showed it to one person who has experience in the law enforcement intel world.
Doesn't work there, but has experience with that world.
Just to get a second opinion.
Because when I saw it, all of my spider senses tingled.
There was just something wrong with it that felt like a national security problem or not.
And I just needed a second opinion.
So I did show it to one person.
But, on top of that...
And then I don't know what happened after that.
But on top of that, I assume that because we're talking about a foreign nation, I assume that my communication is all compromised.
And I assume that probably Jake Novak's communications are probably compromised.
And I would think that various intel agencies are probably watching everything I do.
Now, without getting into any details, I do know for sure that at least three to four intelligence agencies have been curious about me.
Let's just say they've been scott-curious, and part of the question was who I worked for.
So apparently I was a little too influential, and it caused people to wonder who I was really working for.
Surprise! I'm a patriot.
I don't work for anybody.
And I think it's weird that people even have to ask the question.
Is everybody so bought off that you can't have somebody who literally just wants what's best for the country?
Now, everybody, of course, wants what's best for themselves and their family, and that's just normal.
But can't you, beyond that, just want what's best for your country?
That's not an option.
Why not? So I guess I don't know enough about the details of what's happening in this story, but I will just tell you one thing, that if you look at those messages that are now in the public domain, you can see that I was deeply skeptical of the blackmail story, the alleged blackmail story.
It wasn't called that at the time.
And it appears that based on the indictment, my skepticism was on point.
So the only thing I want to add to the story is, from the first moment I heard it, it sounded like it was sketchy.
And it turns out there is something sketchy about it, or at least enough to get an indictment, but we don't know exactly the whole story, so we'll still wait for that.
George Soros is tweeting about the Taliban, and he makes a good point.
He says the Taliban's behavior raises serious concerns about their commitment to respecting human rights.
I'll just leave that there for a moment.
Just let that settle in a little bit.
Let that marinate.
Okay, you good? You good?
I'm going to read it again, because you're probably thinking, wait, did I hear that right?
Yes, according to George Soros, he's a little bit concerned because the Taliban's behavior raises serious concerns about their commitment to respecting human rights.
Yes, George, it turns out we found your limit.
We found out the point at which George Soros would say, wait a minute, I'm not so sure this is going in the right direction.
It turns out it's the Taliban.
Socialism? Cool.
Open borders? No problem.
Taliban? Taliban, you're on the watch list.
You might not be as cool as I thought at first.
So, George Soros, having little second thoughts about the awesomeness of the Taliban?
Good to know.
But, am I anti-George Soros?
No. Well, here's the problem.
George Soros is being very anti-China at the moment, and he's warning us that China has big trouble coming, and investors should beware.
What happens when George Soros, one of the most legendary best investors of all times, tells you to keep your investments away from China, or at least beware of investing in China?
What happens? Well, it ain't good for China.
Because if George Soros tells you not to invest in China, or at least that there's bigger danger than it looks like, he really doesn't like China.
That guy hates China.
And he doesn't seem to be a fan of President Xi.
So, hate to tell you this, but enemy of my enemy, you know where I'm going.
Hate to say it. Enemy of my enemy.
So I'm going to be pro-George Soros when he's anti-China.
Anything else, he's going to have to defend a little bit better, like his open borders, etc.
But it's kind of interesting to see that Soros is going after China.
Keep an eye on that.
All right. That.
Yes, that.
Is the incredible content that I had for you.
Now I know, I know, you're begging for more because it was so damn good.
So damn good.
Oh, Stephan says that Soros is probably shorting China.
That's a good point. He probably is.
Now that's legal, right?
You can shorten something and then talk it down.
As long as you're not lying, I think.
I believe you can do that.
I think that's legal. As long as everything's transparent, it's legal.
All right. I'm just looking at some of your comments as they go by.
Where has Boo been?
Well, I got a little bad news about Boo.
Boo has little health problems, but I don't know what it is yet.
She's a little unstable on her feet, and I think she has a concussion, actually.
So I didn't see anything happen, but she's not walking right at the moment.
So I'm going to get her checked out.
She looks healthy.
She's got one eye dilated and one knot, and it's not good.
So... Your cat is all sketchy, too?
Could be worms, somebody says.
Well, yeah, but one eye is dilated more than the other.
That's usually a concussion, isn't it?
Or a stroke, I suppose so.
Yeah, it could be any one of those, but I'll get that checked out.
I don't think there's anything I can do about it.
Could be an ear infection, but an ear infection would resolve itself faster, I believe.
Sounds like a stroke, maybe.
Yeah, so I've been giving her ivermectin.
No, just kidding.
No ivermectin. I'll give her ivermectin for worms, maybe.
Oh, so Christina's, today's her first day of actual aerobatic flying competition.
So she's in Redlands, California, where they're having an aerial show.
And it's her first competition.
So she's competing in the, you know, the entry-level area.
And that'll happen sometime today.
I don't know the exact schedule of the flights.
Do you worry about her risk?
Yes. But, you know, analyzing risk is sort of a weird thing.
So here's the pro and the con.
If you hear that your spouse wants to fly airplanes upside down and do tricks in the air, what's the first thing you think?
Well, that's pretty dangerous, right?
I mean, it's scary.
But there are two things you need to know.
One is that the height that you are in the air is the biggest factor for whether you're safe.
So when they do the air shows, they do them high enough up that if you were to, let's say, lose your balance or lose your control of the airplane, and you're 3,000 feet in the air, and you're a trained aerobatics pilot...
It's actually not that dangerous.
Because if you're a trained aerobatics pilot, for fun, you put your plane into a spin.
So the most dangerous thing a plane can do is to get into a spin heading down.
But aerobatic pilots do that just for practice.
They'll just kill their engine, put it into a spin, thousands of feet in the air, and see if they can recover before they hit the ground.
Now, generally, they're trained well enough that they can recover almost immediately.
So they don't get close to the ground.
They can recover the moment they lose their control.
So here's the weird part about it.
If you're a trained aerobatics pilot, but you happen to be flying some other kind of plane one day, and you get into a spin, an aerobatics pilot can get out of it.
A regular pilot has never been in one.
It'll be the first time. And their reflexes won't necessarily lead them in the right direction.
There's something sort of non-obvious about getting out of a spin.
I don't know the details. So here's the risk-reward.
To be an aerobatics pilot adds some risk while you're doing the aerobatics.
But to be a trained aerobatics pilot makes your other flying way safer.
So what's the net of that?
I don't know. I don't know.
I can't remember the last time an aerobatics pilot died.
Can you think of a time?
When was the last time you heard an aerobatics pilot died?
I don't think it happens very often.
Because as long as they stay high enough in the air, they can pretty much recover anything.
And they can land anywhere.
Because they're that good. If they find a road, flat field, they can pretty much land anywhere.
