Episode 1534 Scott Adams: Lots of Cognitive Blind Spots in the News Today. Goes Well With Beverage
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Content:
TikTok tic teens Tourette's
Ted Cruz awesome qualities
Truck portable, nuclear reactors
Katie Couric covered for RBG?
Dems Infrastructure package flaw
Thomas Jefferson NYC statue removal
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Ah.
Well, I'm seeing some indications in the comments that there might be a story I missed.
Something about ballot auditing?
Is there a headline that just popped up about ballot auditing or something?
Oh, wait, what is that feeling?
Oh, oh my god.
Yeah, antibodies surging.
Woo! Surging antibodies.
All right. We will not be talking about the quality of the audio, no matter how long you do.
Let's start with the fake news.
I always like to tell you the fake news.
Remember that bow and arrow attack in Norway in which five people were allegedly slain by a bow and arrow attacker?
And what did I say?
What did I say about that story when I first heard it?
Hmm, that's some really fine arrow shooting right there.
I feel like it's hard to kill somebody with an arrow.
Am I wrong? Because I feel like you could put an arrow right through somebody, and with our modern medical stuff, most of them would probably live.
But when I heard that he had cleanly slain five people with arrows...
Did that sound like it was real from the start?
From the very start, did you say to yourself, there's something wrong with this story.
Do you know what was wrong with this story?
He used a knife, not bow and arrow.
Small difference. Small difference.
So apparently he just knifed people to death, which, you know, once you start, I guess it's easier to finish the job.
But it never made sense that arrows could kill five people before people could, you know, figure out what was going on.
That never really made sense to me.
So it turns out the news has said, no, he did have a bow and arrow, and he did fire a few, but those were not the things that killed people.
He took out his knife because, surprise, it's really hard to kill people with a bow and arrow.
It turns out that the attacker found out exactly the first thing I thought, which is, gosh, it seems like it'd be really hard to kill multiple people with a bow and arrow.
Sure enough, sure enough, it was hard, so he didn't do it.
Weirdest story of the day, but also predictable if you're a hypnotist.
Apparently, a number of teens, and I think more girls than boys, are getting tick-like behavior, meaning that they'll shout out a word or they'll have something like a tick, you know, T-I-C. And where are they getting these ticks from?
Let me ask you, since you know we're living in a simulation with lots of code reuse, the answer to the question is going to be something in code reuse.
Where do teens get ticks?
Where do they get ticks?
TikTok. I'm not making that up.
That's the actual story today.
That professionals are saying that people are being influenced by people who have Tourette's syndrome on TikTok, and they watch the various clips of people who have actual Tourette's and have tics.
And, by the way, does everybody know what a tic is?
Everybody knows what a tic is, right?
It's one of those words that if you haven't dealt with it, it's like you have an emotion, let's say a motion you can't stop, like a...
You know, your body is moving involuntarily.
Or it could be something you shout out.
I think they all count as ticks.
So you've got these teens who are watching these TikToks and getting ticks.
So they got a TikTok tick.
I mean, what are the odds, really?
Seriously, what are the odds that TikTok would give people tics?
None of this can be real, right?
Is there any chance this thing we call reality is not scripted?
I mean, maybe.
Can't rule it out, but it sure looks like it's written, doesn't it?
I mean, it looks exactly like it's scripted.
It's the weirdest thing.
Now, I'm sure that's just a psychological phenomenon that it looks like it's scripted, but it sure looks like it.
Now, what do you think?
Do you believe that kids can actually give themselves a medical condition to rats?
Do you think you can give somebody a medical condition just by watching it?
Yup. If you didn't think this was possible, then there's a level of understanding about people that you need to get to.
Yeah, this is really easy.
In fact, you could do videos on any medical condition, and it would induce it in some percentage of the people watching it.
Now, it might not induce the real one.
You know, they don't have actual Tourette's.
But you could induce people to believe they had it pretty easily.
The reason that you don't believe this is possible is that you think, well, it wouldn't happen to me.
I mean, it's not going to happen to me.
You might be right. Because you're talking about millions of people looking at something.
If hundreds out of the millions have an effect, you know, most people don't have the effect.
So probably it wouldn't affect you.
Odds are that any one of you would have no effect by watching this material.
But there are a lot of people who would.
I got a... A comment on my tweet about this from a doctor.
Thomas Talbot, MD, he said, yup, I'd get, quote, multiple personality girl whose parents are requesting an MRI in the ER every time cable shows the film Sybil.
So there's an old movie about a woman who allegedly had multiple personalities.
Whenever that shows on cable, People come in and say, hey, my teenage daughter has got multiple personalities.
Check this out. And apparently this happens so often that it's just well known by medical professionals.
Now, how many of you are surprised by that?
Because I wasn't.
Was not surprised at all.
Yeah, you shouldn't be surprised.
So I think many of you are well trained on that by now.
Now let me ask you this.
If you know that TikTok can induce a medical condition in some number of people, and you know that China owns and controls TikTok, you know, the Chinese government has enough control that they can make them do whatever they want.
It's a Chinese company.
And doesn't this suggest that China can control our politics?
How could you listen to this story and know that TikTok, by its algorithm, can induce Tourette's symptoms, not actual Tourette's.
But it can induce Tourette's symptoms in enough people that it's a news story.
You don't think they can influence our politics from China through TikTok?
They can. Maybe not this generation, I mean the voting generation, but they're definitely getting the next one.
The next generation is going to be the TikTok voters, and whatever influence they've had on TikTok is going to go with them into the voting booth.
So yeah, the Chinese government can program you.
They now have the technology.
Not every one of you, but enough to change an election.
Ted Cruz continues to be magnificent.
Now, I'm not the biggest Ted Cruz fan in the world, and I did not support him for president in the last election, but he has many awesome qualities, which I like to call out.
And he's also really good at figuring out what he needs to correct and then correcting it.
How many times have I told you what problems Kamala Harris has?
You know, the giggling too much and acting like she's having an orgasm when she talks.
Have you ever seen that, Kamala Harris?
She acts like she's having an orgasm when she starts to answer a question.
She levels off after she starts talking.
But the first sentence or two from Kamala Harris on any question will look like the beginning of an orgasm.
You watch it. You watch it.
Yeah, I will do a demonstration...
Thank you for begging for it.
Yes, I am going to do my impression of Kamala Harris answering any question whatsoever.
How happy are you now?
Yeah, here it comes.
I now give you my impression of Kamala Harris answering a question.
What's the weather look like today, Kabbalah?
Sunny with a chance of clouds.
questions.
Tell me I'm wrong. You watch her the next time she gives an interview, but watch the first answer.
It's the way she starts the answer, it's not the way she ends it.
She ends it normal, but she starts it like...
It's going to be cloudy today.
All right, so Ted Cruz, I believe I was talking about Ted Cruz, not Kamala Harris and her involuntary orgasms while answering questions, but rather Ted Cruz being awesome.
So he's introduced the Stop the Surge Act.
They would open up 13 new immigration processing centers in different communities across the country.
That's very enlightened of him.
You really wouldn't expect that of Ted Cruz, would you?
You know, you think of Ted Cruz as sort of an anti-immigration, I mean illegal immigration, not anti-immigration.
Nobody's anti-immigration.
People can be anti-illegal immigration for sure.
But that's very enlightened, and you don't really expect that from a Republican, do you?
Did I leave anything out?
Is there any context missing from the story?
Oh, yes! There's a little context missing from the story.
These 13 new immigration processing centers will not be in places near the border who are getting completely screwed by their government.
No, no. These new centers will be in places like Martha's Vineyard.
Martha's Vineyard. An excellent place to process hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants.
Also, Governor's Island in New York.
Palo Alto, New York.
And I think Bernie Sanders Town in Vermont.
So he picked 13 places where the elites don't ever have to worry about too much immigration.
And he wants to open up immigration centers in their towns.
Now, what are the odds that this act will be passed?
Well, zero, right?
I mean, there's no way it's going to be passed.
But that was not really the point of it, it wasn't.
The point of it was to make a point.
How well did Ted Cruz make this point?
National news. At least Fox News is covering it.
I don't think it's on CNN. So it's national news, and it absolutely makes the case.
I'll tell you, I still don't know...
I don't know if Ted Cruz would be a good or bad president someday.
I expect you might see a president, Ted Cruz.
I feel like that's in the future.
I don't know when. But I feel like he's sort of an obvious one.
He might get a turn.
You know, there are half a dozen people you think, well, they probably all get a turn.
I think he's in the half dozen who might get a turn someday.
Um... This is just awesome.
I love watching Ted Cruz interrogate witnesses in Congress.
No matter what you think of him as a politician, watching him do his lawyer kind of talent stack is just really fun because he's so good at it.
And this is just great.
This is just great persuasion, great communication, great politicking, great republicaning.
Everything about this is good.
There's nothing bad about this.
This is a 100% win for Ted Cruz, and obviously he doesn't expect it to be passed.
But here's the interesting thing.
The midterms are coming up.
The midterms are coming up.
And the prediction is, I think the Republicans only need to flip five seats, right, to get control of Congress.
And typically it flips 25 in an off year when you've got a president from the other party is in power, blah, blah.
So typically we'd expect 25.
And a number of people have already announced, a number of Democrats have already announced retirements.
So we already have enough people retiring that if things just sort of went normally, Republicans would take control.
Do you think Ted Cruz will circle back on this?
Maybe take another run at it.
Because I kind of like to see this law get passed, like in a real sense.
I realize he's doing it just for persuasion and communication, but let's really do it.
Because this really would change things.
He's not wrong.
He's not wrong that the problem here is that the people who don't have to suffer the problem are the ones making the decisions.
So he's saying maybe get you a little closer to the problem and you would make different decisions.
He's not wrong. If you get the decision makers closer to the problem, they will make different decisions.
We know that just watching them try to wear masks, right?
As long as the decision makers don't have to wear masks themselves, they're fine making you do it.
But what happens when they have to wear masks?
Don't always put them on, do they?
So he's right in every way on this.
More police are dying from coronavirus than from bullets.
Like a lot. Since the start of the pandemic, 476 police officers have died of COVID. That's a lot, isn't it? Because it's not like the police have a ton of comorbidities compared to the regular public, do they?
I feel like police would be younger and on average more fit.
You know, not all of them.
Somebody says they're overweight.
But I don't think compared to the public.
I don't know. But only 94, which of course is still a tragically high number, died from gunfire in the same period.
So 476 died of COVID, 94 from gunfire.
Now, is it fair to give us that context?
Do you feel that you learned something by that context?
Well, I did. It's the first time I've sort of had a sense of how many police officers are getting shot and killed and how many people are dying from COVID. So I feel like it filled in some gaps.
I'm not sure I needed it necessarily.
It didn't change any opinions.
But here's my real question.
Why are they only treating the police this way?
Why not do the same kind of context for, let's say, the black American public?
I'm kind of interested to see the same kind of treatment for black Americans.
Are more black Americans dying from COVID or from violence?
Do you know? How many of you could answer that question right now?
Now, if you look in Chicago, it's probably more violence than COVID. But let's say you took the whole country.
How many of you know the answer to that?
Are there more black citizens dying from COVID or from, let's say, gun violence?
Yeah, that's right, we...
I remind you that I identify as black.
So we're talking about the group I identify with.
I'm seeing the comments.
Nobody knows the answer to that question.
Why not? Why only the police we put in this context, but we don't put black America, which we know is getting hit harder by the virus.
Now, I'm not saying it would change any decisions or anything, but I feel like John Cook says you're not black, People on Locals, the people who are watching right now on YouTube, they're saying I'm not black.
Where have you been? Do you get to decide what I identify as?
When did that happen?
My understanding is I'm the one who gets to tell you what I am, and you don't get to say anything about that.
Those are the rules. I didn't make them up.
I'm only using the rules.
I'm using the rules as they exist.
And you know what? I'm serious.
I'm serious. I identify as black because I've been discriminated against for my race continuously for decades.
And so I just feel some connection to people who have their life defined by discrimination.
That's completely fair.
Now, is it true that I'm discriminated exactly the same way and have the same life experience?
Of course not. But it's not up to you to decide how I identify, is it?
It's not up to you. That's the only rule.
It's not up to you.
So I appreciate that you have a different opinion about what I am or what I should identify as, but it's just not up to you.
That's it. All right.
A tragic story happened, but it only affects me.
Tragedy. On Celebrity Wheel of Fortune, actress Melissa Joan Hart, who is famous for the Sabrina the Teenage Witch series that ran years ago, so she competed on the Celebrity version of Wheel of Fortune and became the first contestant to win a million-dollar prize.
I think first celebrity, but also first contestant, to win a million-dollar prize in Celebrity Wheel of Fortune.
Why is this a tragedy to me?
Anybody? Anybody?
Why is this a personal tragedy to me?
Why does this story affect me?
Does anybody know? All right, I'll tell you the story.
I, too, have appeared on Celebrity Wheel of Fortune.
But it was a local affiliate version.
So in the Bay Area, and it was not broadcast outside the Bay Area, years ago...
I don't know, 20 years ago, 50 years ago, I appeared as a contestant on Celebrity Wheel of Fortune.
And my partner, because we were playing partners, I guess they played partners so they could get more celebrities on there.
So my partner was Melissa Joan Hart.
So I was partnered with Melissa Joan Hart on Celebrity Wheel of Fortune.
We lost like dogs.
That's right. We lost badly.
Now, I think I did okay.
But Melissa was not, let's say, a strong player, if I can be kind.
She was not what you'd call a strong player.
And we lost like dogs.
But then she went on to win the most money anybody's ever won on this same thing.
To which I must ask myself...
Was the problem her?
Did we lose because of her?
And now she's gone on to win the largest prize ever in the same contest.
Maybe it was me.
Now, in my defense, she was very young when she was partnered with me.
And if you put, you know, basically it's a trivia contest.
In a sense it was like a trivia contest.
Because you had to answer to the clues as well as what letters were up there.
So I don't think it's unfair to say that a young person is going to do worse in a trivia contest.
Do we all agree on that?
A young person generally will do worse on a trivia contest just because they haven't been around as long.
So when I was paired with her, I was paired with a young person.
And who won the trivia contest slash Wheel of Fortune contest?
The oldest competitors.
No surprise, right?
The people who'd been around the longest.
One of them was an NBA player who retired, so he'd been around a while.
And I think his team won.
So the team that had just been around the longest won.
But anyway, it made me feel bad.
Not really. It was just a fun connection.
Well, the Adam's Law of slow-moving disasters, you've heard of this before, it says that whenever there's some planetary disaster coming toward us, but we have plenty of time to prepare for it, We do okay.
And we invent our way out of it.
Did we have population out of control?
No. We figured out how to do population control.
Did we run out of food?
No. We invented tractors and fertilizers and better ways to farm.
Did we run out of fuel?
No. Because we had time, and so we just learned how to frack and make solar panels and stuff like that.
So whenever we've got time, we do fix it.
We're very good at that.
And of course, I've always predicted that climate change would be a perfect example of this.
That somebody would invent something, maybe more than one person, would invent things that would get us out of any climate change catastrophes, And there would be plenty of time.
Well, today we learn that SpaceX engineers, so SpaceX, Tesla's company, I'm sorry, Elon Musk's company, some of them, I guess they were working on designing small nuclear reactors for Mars.
You know, because you would need power on Mars if you want to settle it.
And they learned how to make cheap, portable nuclear ones, or enough that they thought they could make a startup and finish the job.
And they have designed these portable nuclear reactors.
Now, so far it's only designed, I think, on paper, but they're pretty confident they can make them, with fuel that doesn't melt down.
And it will power 1,000 homes, the electricity for 1,000 homes, and it looks like it's portable enough you can put it on a truck.
I mean, that's how I interpret it.
I think that's what they mean by portable.
It would be a big truck, of course.
So what do you think of that?
If this is true and it works, and there's a startup that can really make small, completely safe, portable nuclear reactors, I guess they have to be refueled every four to eight years or something.
Everything's different. It's all different.
It changes everything.
Nothing would be the same if this works.
I'm not sure if you all understand how big a deal this is.
Not only is it like one of the biggest deals in the history of humanity, but apparently it's easy to build.
Now, when I say easy, I mean the people who are doing it seem to think they can make it.
They're not saying we have to solve some problem.
They're saying, yeah, we've got some patents.
Give us a couple of years.
We'll slap these together and start selling them.
Everything's different because of this.
Now, it might not be this startup that makes it work.
Do you think it's the only startup working on small nuclear reactors?
Nope. There's a bunch of them.
And maybe, yeah, in the comments I'm saying maybe fusion someday, but that would be a little bit further behind.
So that's your good news. That's coming up.
I keep being asked on Twitter, what side I'm on?
Talking specifically about vaccinations and pandemic.
People asking what side I'm on.
What side I'm on?
What? As far as I can tell...
It looks like the virus against human beings.
Am I wrong? That the war that's going on is virus versus human beings?
What do you think? I'm on the side of the fucking virus?
No, I'm on the side of human beings.
Humans. I know this confuses you, but I can't be on the side of people against a virus?
Don't be confused about this.
I'm on your side. Unless there's a virus watching right now.
Get off of your virus.
All right, just people. Only people are invited to watch this.
No viruses. Now, I know what you mean.
You're saying, oh, is he pro this or anti that because you're pro this or anti that.
I'm not pro or anti anything.
I'm just following the data wherever it goes.
And it's changing.
If you're not changing your opinion as the data is changing, you have some explaining to do.
If the data is changing and your opinion is staying the same...
You need to explain that.
It's not up to me to explain it.
You need to explain why your opinion isn't changing as the data changes.
Now, a lot of people are saying that the government was lying to them and baiting and switching about these vaccinations that are not real vaccinations.
Let's call them COVID shots because they're barely vaccinations at all according to your strict definition of the word.
So I asked the question, how many people...
This is just a Twitter poll, so it's highly unscientific.
How many people think the government knew all along that these, quote, vaccinations were more like a therapeutic...
How many people think the government knew all along that they would not be full vaccinations like some vaccinations are?
68% of the people who followed me and saw that and decided to use it, the poll, said that the government was lying all along and knew that the vaccinations would not be like regular vaccinations.
26% think that the government was honest, but they just were wrong, and they're just sort of doing the best they can.
And 7% no opinion.
Here's my take on this.
If the government was lying all along, where are all the whistleblowers?
Because this alleged lying, as opposed to just being wrong, this alleged lying would involve a lot of people.
A lot of people would be involved with the trials, the testing, looking at the data.
You'd have the FDA, the CDC, the government, you know, scientists all over the place.
I would think thousands of people are looking at this stuff.
So, no whistleblower coming out and saying, you know, behind closed doors, we always knew, we always knew behind closed doors that this wasn't going to work.
But we decided to say it would, Because, you know, we just wanted you to take the vaccinations.
No whistleblowers.
All right, so my view is that the government was simply too optimistic.
They were wrong, and they're doing the best they can to adjust.
So we hoped it would be 100% effective.
It's not, but it does keep you from dying most of the time.
That's pretty good. That's pretty good.
Now, people are accusing me of some kind of moving the goalposts or being wrong, and a common comment I see about myself is that I'm embarrassed at how wrong I was in some prediction about vaccinations, and therefore I'm trying to backpedal and make myself look right in some way.
I would remind you, That I believe only one public pundit, as opposed to a scientist, I believe only one public pundit at the beginning of the pandemic said to you, even after warp speed had begun, I believe that only one person said to you, I don't think the vaccines will work, but we're going to surprise ourselves at how good the therapeutics are.
Who else said that?
I think I'm the only one.
I heard nobody else say that.
Now, why did I say that the vaccinations would not work?
I said it for the following reason.
That I was aware, because I followed the news, and the scientists told us, that they'd been working on a coronavirus vaccination for, I don't know, decades?
And they weren't even close.
You all knew that, right?
Did you all know from the very beginning that science had been trying to make a coronavirus vaccination for decades?
I think it's decades.
And we're not even close.
So why would you believe they could do it in one year?
Why would you believe that? That is not credible on its surface.
Unless they had said, unless they had said, we did invent this new thing just the other day.
And so now everything's different because of this new thing we invented just the other day.
I didn't hear that.
Did you? Did anybody say, here's the game changer.
We got this idea, and this idea might be the thing that changes everything?
No. No. Well, the mRNA stuff is new, but I didn't hear anybody say, we have therefore figured out how to solve coronavirus.
Nobody connected those two thoughts.
Yes, it's new, but I did not hear anybody who was an expert say, we have this new technology, and while we have not been able to solve a vaccination for decades, this new technology will be able to do it.
I didn't hear anybody say that.
Did you? I'm not saying nobody said it, but I didn't hear it.
Somebody says, I did.
All right. So my point is that, in theory, I should not have cognitive dissonance in this situation, and I might be alone.
I might be the only one, except for the scientists who knew.
Apparently, a lot of scientists knew that this vaccination would not be a complete solution.
But... So when it turns out that our optimism about the vaccinations didn't come in...
And rather, they're just pretty good.
They're pretty good in a therapeutic sense, or in a pre-therapeutic sense, I guess.
A prophylactic sense.
But I'm not surprised, because this is what I thought would happen.
This is exactly what I predicted.
So since I don't have any trigger for cognitive dissonance, you should assume that my view is the least biased in a very narrow sense, on this just narrow question.
Because I don't have a trigger.
Everybody who thought it was going to go one way and then was surprised, you've got a trigger.
So you might have cognitive dissonance because there's a reason to trigger it.
I don't have a trigger. Now, I would also say that a person who has a trigger probably thinks they don't have one either.
So you would be a better judge whether I have a trigger here or not.
The whole point of cognitive dissonance is the person who has it doesn't know it.
So if I really did...
Right. So Sandra says, you're deluded.
That's a fair assessment if you can find my trigger.
So I don't deny that I'm deluded because it would feel exactly the same to me as if I were not.
Right? I wouldn't know.
I'm not the worst. The only person who can't tell is the person who has the delusion.
Everybody else can see it, maybe.
So look for my trigger.
If you can find one, then maybe you have a point.
But if you can't find one, the smarter way to look at this would be that...
Holy shit.
So a $100 comment says, I say, quote, I'm on the side of science.
Right now the FDA is recommending people not get their antibodies checked after the Pfizer whistleblower confirmed the vaccine wasn't 100% effective telling people not to get their antibodies checked isn't following the science.
Yeah, I'll give you that.
I will give you that I think the reason...
This is just my speculation.
I think the reason the government isn't using tests as a proxy or a replacement for or a substitute for vaccinations is that it's not practical for everybody to do it, I guess.
I'm just guessing there.
Don in the comments over here on YouTube...
is questioning why somebody spent $100 to, I guess, tip me or whatever it is to get me to read that comment.
Don, let me explain something to you.
Although $100 does not change my lifestyle, etc., I am completely influenced by it.
You just watched it.
You don't think he got $100 worth?
I just stopped the show in the middle to read the $100 comment.
That was worth $100 to whoever spent it.
Obviously, they had $100 they didn't need.
And it used to be liberals were anti-vax.
Yeah, and that all just changed for reasons that aren't clear.
Maybe it was Trump. All right.
Let's see. Katie Couric is working hard to destroy whatever's left of her reputation.
So she's got a new book out.
And one of the outrages in the book is that when she interviewed Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she took out a comment where...
Ginsburg had said that people who take the knee at sporting events like Kaepernick, etc., are, quote, showing contempt for a government that has made it possible for their parents and grandparents to live a decent life.
And Couric said that she took that out, she edited it out, because she thought that the justice, Ginsburg, who was 83 at the time, was, quote, elderly and probably didn't fully understand the question.
Um... Katie, can I speak to you for a moment?
Personally? Can we talk?
Katie, correct me if I'm wrong, but you are in the news business.
You know, ish.
Wouldn't that be the biggest story in the world?
If one of the Supreme Court justices was mentally incompetent to the point of not understanding a simple question?
Katie, if you believed that she was mentally incompetent at that level, couldn't understand the question, that was the story.
That's the story.
Not the part about Colin Kaepernick and kneeling.
I think you buried the lead.
The lead story is that Katie Couric believed one of the Supreme Court justices was mentally incompetent.
And somehow that isn't the story today.
Have you heard anybody even mention that?
I'm probably the first person who said, wait a minute, there's a story here about a national figure, Katie Couric, who believed enough that Ginsburg was mentally incompetent that she hid it from her public.
You've got two gigantic stories here.
One is that she buried the incompetence when she witnessed herself, in her opinion, of Bader's competence, and And the second part of the story is that she buried it.
She hid it from the public.
What? Now, she says this is common.
It's common for the news to edit out, I don't know, what?
Inconvenient things? Things that make the person look bad?
Wow. That's quite a story.
Well, have you heard that the infrastructure bill is still stalled?
Another prediction that I feel quite proud about is that I think I'm the only person who told you, again, the only person, as far as I know, the only person who told you the infrastructure bill just would never get signed.
And it looks like that's going to happen.
Because I think we're going to blaze into 2022 with no infrastructure bill.
At which point, the Republicans are back in charge, theoretically.
And at which point, it's dead.
So I don't know if anybody else said it will never get signed.
I think I'm the only one. Check me on that.
But a new CBS poll found that only 10% of respondents said they knew, quote, a lot about the specifics of what's in the $3.5 trillion spending package.
Pelosi... Well, what is it I always say about Republicans and Trump in particular that I say as a criticism about the Democrats?
It's always the same thing.
Democrats Consistently don't understand how human beings work.
They don't understand human nature.
Do you think that Trump ever would have tried to sell a super complicated $3.5 billion package of anything?
Of anything? Hell no!
Do you know why? Because Trump understands human nature.
And he knows you can't understand this.
Now, he might try to sell it, you know, if he was trying to, you know, just maybe get a defense package through and figures nobody's going to look at the details too much.
I'm sure he did that.
But if it came to something where the public was actually interested enough to know the details, he would have known you can't sell this.
The Democrats put together a package which cannot be sold to human beings.
Let me say it again. The Democrats, slowly and methodically, and with lots of time to do it, put together a thing they tried to sell, which by its nature cannot be sold to human beings.
Because we don't know what it is.
It's too complicated.
Can't say yes, can't say no.
Basically, you would just retreat to your side and say, well, my side seems to like this, or my side seems to hate it.
But it's so consistent that Democrats don't understand human nature.
It's almost a defining characteristic of the party.
Yeah, you could have done a better job of selling that by not making it that way.
Brian Stelter continues to be humorously...
Let's say humorously...
What would be the word?
Brian Stelter continues to be humorously...
I don't want to say incompetent, because he isn't incompetent.
Humorously clownish or something?
I don't know. But...
Apparently, his show that's about the media is called...
What's the name of his show?
Reliable Sources. Which is funny.
Um... So apparently they don't cover stories that are...
He doesn't cover any stories that are embarrassing to the liberals.
And it's getting kind of noticeable.
He just sort of leaves it out.
Doesn't cover it. And if your whole job is covering what the media does right or wrong, and it's about reliable sources, and you just ignore stories that are sort of embarrassing to your network, not too cool.
Now, on the Fox network, Howard Kurtz has a show that you could say is a rough equivalent.
It's also about the media and the media's activities during the week.
And I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Howard Kurtz criticize everybody and cover every story?
I think he does, right?
Is there anybody who would push back on that?
That Howard Kurtz just covers the actual news, whereas Brian Stelter is only covering the stuff that isn't embarrassing?
I'm right about that, right?
I mean, I'm not sure I've watched every show, but it feels like that.
All right. Speaking about Trump was right, I guess the statue of Thomas Jefferson is being removed from city council chambers in New York.
Because Jefferson was a big old slave owner.
Here's something I didn't know that this story told me, that not only was he a slave owner, but he owned more slaves than any of the other presidents who we know to have owned slaves.
He owned over 600 of them, plus he fathered about six, and a whole bunch of them were related, which was kind of weird.
And to which I say...
To which I say, I don't have a problem with this.
I don't have a problem with us updating our heroes.
And I know this is going to make you have a heart attack, some of you.
But I'm not really afraid of change.
And I'm not afraid of changing who we decide as a hero.
I'm not afraid of changing that.
And I also think that maybe we should put a little more attention on what was done versus the personalities.
If you look at what Jefferson did in terms of his accomplishments, those accomplishments are amazing.
Here's a comment from Dracus.
Understanding human nature is empathy.
Republicans have empathy but lack sympathy.
Democrats have sympathy but lack empathy.
I'm not sure I can sign off on that, but I like where you're going on that.
I'm not sure I see what you're seeing, but I do like the quality of that thought.
So here's my thing.
If the point of heroes is to make you appreciate their character, that's the point of heroes, right?
The point of heroes is that we appreciate their character, not just their accomplishments.
And to me, it seems perfectly fair that the person who owned the most slaves, you don't necessarily want to show as your character hero.
Now, could we still treat Jefferson as a, let's say, a hero in terms of some of the things he got done?
Yes. Yes.
I mean, the best writer maybe ever...
I mean, the writing in the Declaration of Independence, it's hard to know who wrote exactly what in that.
But some of the best writing I've ever seen, and I'm a fan of good writing.
So he was amazing in a lot of ways.
But the other thing about Jefferson, did you know he died in debt?
Apparently Jefferson was always poor.
But somehow Jefferson found a way to live like a rich person while just being in debt.
He left a massive debt when he died.
I believe that's true. Fact check me on that.
So Jefferson obviously had some what we would consider massive character flaws judged by 2021 standards.
Now I hear people saying, Scott, Scott, Scott, stop judging people by 2021 standards because they were products of their time.
To which I say, well, that's a true statement, but why should I be limited by that?
Why should that affect me?
Because I live in 2021.
In 2021, I would rather have a role model whose character is suggestive of the character you would want in 2021.
Why would I want a role model who doesn't quite apply?
Because he's from the wrong period.
Now, I understand the point.
The point is well taken.
That it's hard to judge people in a different time period.
That's fair. But if you're deciding who's your role model...
It could be whoever you are.
You can change your mind whenever you want.
Why can't you change your mind?
There's no limit on that.
Now, I hear what you're saying about, and I know you're thinking this, that if you start tearing down the traditions, you end up tearing down the whole country.
I hear that. And that's a risk.
I feel like there's something to that.
But I don't think...
I just don't think we're a healthier country holding a slave...
a massive slave owner as our character...
Hero. Accomplishment hero, yes.
He can still be an accomplishment hero.
But character hero? I think we've outgrown that, haven't we?
Now, I realize it's painful to watch your heroes get uprooted.
But keep in mind, I'm also anti-putting up a statue of George Floyd.
All right? If you take down the statue of Jefferson and you put up a statue of Floyd, you did not improve the situation.
We have to be a little bit consistent here.
Well, we don't have to be, but wouldn't it be nice to be consistent?
If somebody has a sketchy character, it doesn't matter what else happened to them, you know, if you're choosing heroes.
A character hero has to have a good character.
Otherwise, why are you putting them on a statue?
Jefferson did many good things at his economic expense.
I don't know that. I don't know that.
All right, but I would like to point out that there are two presidents that did not own slaves back in those days.
Does anybody know the two presidents who did not own slaves back in the days when a lot of them did?
Who were they? John Adams, correct.
Who's the other one? His son, John Quincy Adams.
Only the Adams family was on the correct side of history.
In fact, John Adams famously, as a lawyer, defended a slave from some famous case.
So not only was John Adams anti-slavery, he was actively giving a fair defense to at least one notable case that I know of.
Now... You're probably wondering if I'm related to the Adams presidents.
We did look into that.
The family looked into that at one point because we didn't know.
We thought, well, maybe. We're not descended from...
So that part we're pretty confident about.
We did not descend directly from that line.
But we do connect back in England.
So if you go back far enough, my line goes back to England as well as other European places as well.
But we're probably connected somewhere.
Probably connected somewhere.
All right. The rest were Virginians, somebody says.
Oh, that's a good point. The rest were Virginians, so they were more likely to be slave owners.
Fair comment? Fair comment.
All right, that is my program for today.
Well, we're still talking about Colin Powell?
Yeah. I saw Tucker Carlson gave a very...
Very fair and, I thought, respectful account of Colin Powell's accomplishments.
Scott, do you think the old statues in the South should come down?
Well, number one, it's not my call.
So the local people should decide what statues they have.
So it's not up to me. That's number one.
Number two, if I were a local person, I would be open to the argument that they're offensive to enough people that they really should be seen as a decoration and not a historical thing.
If you want to preserve the history, put it in the historical context...
Don't put it in the park and say, hey, everybody, this is awesome.
We'll put it in the park.
So I do agree with the people who say putting up offensive statues to people who are pro-slavery is not cool, and it makes us feel uncomfortable, and let's get rid of these.
I'm okay with that. I'm not afraid to change.
Unless the change is to replace it with a statue of George Floyd, in which case the whole thing is just ridiculous.
You either care about the whole character of the person you're putting in the statue, or you don't.
If you care, you don't do either one.
And if you don't, well, then you can do both.
You are not local to New York.
That's right. So it is not up to me.
And my opinion should carry no weight in the case of the New York.
So I don't think I'm disagreeing with you.
I think I'm agreeing with you that I can have internal thoughts and I can share them with you, but not my decision.
You're right. Same thing I say about abortion, by the way.
The same thing I say about abortion.
I can have an internal opinion, but I'm going to keep it there.
Because I'd rather that women collectively have more of the influence on that decision.
That's the world I want to live in.
I want to live in a world where women, far more than the men, are making the decisions on what's legal, what's appropriate with abortion.
Now, remember, we're not going to get the right answer.
Because half of the world is going to be mad no matter which way those laws go.
But at least they'll be a little bit more credible when women are behind the law.
So that's my simp.
Miles, let me talk to you here for a moment.
So over on the Locals platform, somebody's calling me a simp.
I assume for just supporting women on that question instead of having my own opinion.
That is my opinion.
I'm not giving women what they want just because they want it.
That's my opinion. My opinion is I don't want to be part of the decision.
I'm making my own opinion.
I don't care what your opinion is.
And I don't care if it makes women happier or less happy.
You get that, right?
The point is not to make women happy.
I assume that the point of a simp is somebody who's making a woman happy at their own expense.
That's sort of the definition.
I have no interest in this topic to just make women happy.
I'm just saying that the way you make decisions is you put the people who have the most skin in the game, give them a little more control over the decision, it's just a better system.
It's about the system, it's not about any of that stuff.
Put up a statue of Colin Powell.
He's got some things to explain about weapons of mass destruction, and I don't think we can overlook that.
Yeah, all women don't agree, exactly.
But I shouldn't be biasing their decision.
The decision to procreate was made together, I agree.
Yeah, I mean, it's not a clean argument.
This is not the kind of debate where all of the good points are on one side.
If all of the good points were on one side, I'd give you an opinion.
And I'd feel like, oh, this is easy.
All of the good points are on the same side.
But it's so subjective that that doesn't make sense.
And by the way, I appreciate and respect all of your opinions on that topic.
And that is all. We have a call from Charlie here.
He wants more naked statues.
I think I'm down for that.
I think our statues should be more naked...
No reason, but I like naked statues just as much as the next person.
He at least apologized for that mistake.
Who is S-Lax that everybody is thanking?
So there's some user over there that's being...
Is it a user? Whoever S-Lax is, is being very popular.
All right, I've got to run.
And I think you'll agree that this live stream highlighted your day.
