Episode 1556 Scott Adams: Today I Will Identify Which Ones of You Are NPCs Based on Your Reactions
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a
Find my "extra" content on Locals: https://ScottAdams.Locals.com
Content:
Programming the public
Deeply unethical Big Bird kid persuasion
Kyle Rittenhouse is on trial for being a man
Whiteboard: Complicated Issues + Lots of Money
Elon Musk's provocative tax question
Pete Buttigieg, perfect for his technocrat position?
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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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The thing that's going to make everything better, especially your antibodies.
It's called the Simultaneous Sip, and it's going to happen now all around the world.
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Oh, yes.
So, how many of you have read a book called God's Debris, written by me back in 2001?
When was it? Yeah. Wow, a lot of you.
Wow. On the Locals platform, where there are subscribers, it's just lighting up with yeses.
I didn't expect that. Now I understand.
So there was a mystery that I couldn't figure out, which is why anybody would follow me, or why anybody would subscribe.
And I think I just found the answer.
A huge number of the subscribers, percentage-wise anyway, have read my book, God's Debris.
It would be hard to read that book and not want to hear more About that kind of thing.
So that actually explains why people are subscribing.
I was actually kind of surprised when I went to locals and said, well, you can get some extra stuff, content and whatnot, if you subscribe.
And I wasn't sure anybody would.
But that actually answers a big mystery for me.
Now, here's what I want to tell you about that.
That book was written to change the world.
Slowly. It was written by a hypnotist, me, and it was written with hypnosis technique.
Now, that was the first book I wrote where I explicitly laid on the hypnosis technique for the reader.
And the reason was to produce an experience in the reader that you couldn't get just from reading an ordinary book.
So the hypnosis technique plus the story of the book added together gave some people...
Profound experiences.
I'm watching some of the comments go by on locals.
People talk about it changed my world.
A lot of people's entire worldview was just completely scrambled, often when they were young, and it never went back to normal.
But here's the thing you don't know.
That book is why I can do this.
Because there were enough people who read that book who said, you know, I'm going to promote your voice because I liked what you said in that book.
So it's not an accident that I became a prominent voice about other stuff.
Because the people who read that book sort of pushed me to the front of the line.
That's what happened. But the book itself is changing the world in ways that I can't tell you right now.
But... You'll see.
You'll see. It was meant to have a 20- or 30-year impact.
And so far, so good.
I didn't realize how many states don't have mask mandates for kids.
Or at least mask mandates in general.
So the ones that do are, let's see, California, where I am.
Illinois, New York, and Washington.
Still mandatory. Those are the only ones.
Is that true? I feel like this fact is not right.
Are there only four states with mandatory masks?
And I happen to be one of the lucky ones.
Somebody says Indiana does.
Oregon has them. Yeah.
Maybe this was about schools.
Was it only about schools?
Um... Lots of local mandates in Maryland.
Maybe this was just about a school, so I guess I don't know the facts on this.
I saw this in the news, but it didn't look right to me, so I think I misinterpreted it.
Anyway, there's a new university, have you heard of this?
So a new university opened up, or it's opening, I guess it's being founded now, the University of Austin.
Barry Weiss talked about it on Substack.
And it's committed to, quote, freedom of inquiry, freedom of conscience, and civil discourse.
So in other words, free of wokeness.
Sort of a non-woke or non-overly woke university.
And how many professors do you think immediately tried to get a job there?
How many professors immediately wanted to leave the university where they currently work and get the hell out of there and go to this place where they can actually say actual real things?
Hundreds. Apparently a lot of people are applying for this job.
So once again, it looks like the free market has solved the problem that politics can't.
How often does that happen?
A lot, right? There's going to be some more of that in this very live stream.
I'll tell you some more of it. But every time we think the government or society needs to do something differently, you just wait a while, and commerce and the free market just solves the problem that you were talking about and doing nothing about.
So maybe we just wait.
Maybe colleges are so...
It's so poorly thought of right now that there's a giant opening for competition.
I think that's what's going to happen. Here's an example of it.
Well, I saw a tweet about some scientific people trying to figure out if our universe were a simulation, if this were a simulation, how much data would it take to create the simulation?
And, of course, the number is trillions times trillions times trillions.
An enormous amount of data if this were a simulation.
In fact, so much data that it's hard to imagine that any advanced civilization could even create such a thing.
But, of course, that analysis makes the critical problem and mistake that you don't need to program all of it.
You only have to make the characters think they're seeing all of it.
That's it. That's easy.
Programming an entire universe just in case somebody saw it would be stupid.
The easier way to do it is to program the humans to think they're seeing something in detail, but they're not.
Let me give you an example.
If somebody hits a tennis ball fast and it goes near the line, you say to yourself, okay, that was in or that was out.
And you're pretty sure because you saw it.
Saw it with your own eyes.
Except often when the replay goes, the replay shows the ball hitting a completely different place than you clearly saw with your own eyes.
How could that be?
How could you clearly see something that on the replay simply didn't happen?
And the reason is that's how everything works.
Everything you see isn't really happening.
It's just a quick summary that your brain ginned up to make you think you're seeing something that makes sense.
You're seeing just a little cartoon of what's happening.
It's not accurate.
It's just what your brain gave you.
So your brain said, oh, there's that tennis ball.
And it's, you know, it's in or it's out.
And then you see that you were completely wrong, but it doesn't change your memory.
Your memory is still there, right?
So everything that you see is an approximate picture for something that you didn't see clearly, or you couldn't see the details, you couldn't see behind it, you couldn't see, you know, you couldn't see its atomic structure, You can only see the present.
You can't see the past. You can't see the future.
I mean, the amount that we can see is so tiny compared to what's here, that's how you can program all that information.
You just make the only characters who matter think they're seeing it all.
They're not. They're just programmed to think they are.
So that's the first thing.
All right, I'm going to go back and forth to this simulation idea as I talk through the other stuff.
I have a theory, and this is how we're going to find out how many of you are NPCs.
Do you know what an NPC is?
It's a gaming term for people who do online games, and it refers to a non-player character.
So if you're playing a game, you might inhabit a character in the game, and so you're a live character, meaning your avatar or the little simulated creature is using your intelligence to guide it.
But in the game, there would be other just scenery like people that might interact, maybe enemies that you shoot, etc.
Those characters don't need a full set of feelings and experiences.
They only need to act in a few different ways, and you'll think, oh, they must be people, because you're not interacting with them.
So they would look like they're full people, but they don't have to be.
They could be limited program scenery kind of people.
Now, how would you know if somebody that you know is an NPC, if we're a simulation, versus a player character?
Well, I'm going to add a new little mind bender here.
What if... Sometimes you're an NPC and sometimes you're live.
Just the way you dream.
Think of it. If you think you're not a simulation, you're a real character, you think you dream at night and then you live your real life during the day, but did you notice that your dream was pretty specific with the memories and stuff?
But we count that it was not real.
What if your avatar...
Lives when you're asleep in the other world.
And it just keeps interacting in the game.
But it turns into an NPC because it can't do much.
How much of your day do you spend being creative and coming up with new ideas and you're clearly a real player in a real some kind of reality?
But other times, you're tired and you can only say a few things.
Have you ever had that experience?
If you're just worn out...
And somebody says, how do you feel?
You just go, fine.
What do you want to do?
I don't know. What do you want to do?
See where I'm going? Sometimes you might be real, and sometimes you might be the NPC. Because whoever is running you is asleep in the other world.
So you just run around like a semi-programmed automaton who can only do limited things.
Now, do you know anybody in your real life Who can only respond with about five different responses.
I know somebody in real life who can only say one of five things all day long, every day, no matter what else is happening.
Only five things, no matter what you say, they can only respond with one of those five things.
Yeah, you all know somebody like that, don't you?
And what happens if you try to bring up a new topic to somebody who only has five things that they can say?
I'll tell you what happens when I do it.
They will stare at you, and when you're done talking, what will they do?
Will they engage with you in this new topic?
Never. They will just look at you, pause, and then say one of the five things that they say every time.
Now, do you know people who will always say, if you talk about the simulation, they'll say, oh, that's like the Matrix?
That's probably an NPC. If you're talking about food sources, somebody always says, oh, that's like Soylent Green.
NPC. They're just programmed to say the same thing in every topic.
Now, when I talk about Pete Buttigieg in a while, you're going to find out if you're an NPC. Here's how you'll find out.
I'm going to tell you some things that I think are good about Pete Buttigieg in his current job and some things that I think are not so good.
If you can handle that, you're probably a real player.
If you can handle he's got some positives, he's got some negatives, you're a real player.
But if you pick one of the negatives and say, we're done here, you might be an NPC. Because the NPC would be programmed to pick the first thing it heard on its team and just go with it.
Because it's simpler. So if your news programmed you to say, Pete Buttigieg took too much time off, then you're going to say that, and you're going to be done.
Because that's all you got.
You're an NPC. So you'll find out if you're an NPC in a bit.
Hold that thought. CNN has...
Oh, let's talk about Big Bird and...
Do you think that the government should be directly...
Persuading your children to take drugs, such as a vaccination.
Apparently Big Bird and Sesame Street is part of the pro-vaccination persuasion for children.
Now, that wouldn't be fine, maybe, if all parents agreed about vaccinations.
But they don't.
And so now you've got the government directly persuading your kids, presumably to persuade you, the way they did with climate change.
And is this ethical?
I would say deeply unethical.
Will it work?
It might. Well, probably.
It probably will work.
Because it will make the kids more likely to want to get vaccinated, maybe less afraid, etc.
But it's deeply unethical.
Wouldn't you agree? Because it's essentially taking the parents' job.
Now, the assumption here is that the parents aren't doing a good job, or not doing a good enough job, if they haven't told their kids the right stuff about vaccinations.
But that's a pretty big and inappropriate assumption by a government, I think.
So I'm going to be on the side that says the Sesame Seed stuff...
Sesame Seed? Sesame Street...
And Big Bird persuasion is unethical.
Anybody agree? Agree or disagree?
I say purely unethical.
All right, I think we agree.
Here's some fake news from CNN. CNN's fake news is sometimes right on the nose, meaning it's just a lie, but more often it's more clever than that.
So here's some fake news today.
An article saying that why Joe Biden can't do much to ease gas prices...
Do you believe that? That's the title of the piece.
Do you believe that Joe Biden can't do much to use gas prices?
Now, I guess he can tap into the reserve, but that's not any kind of long-term anything.
Isn't this an obvious lie?
It feels like an obvious lie that the president can't do anything to ease gas prices.
Don't you think that all he'd have to do is ease up on pipelines and drilling and suddenly the market would adjust?
Because the market is forward-looking, right?
So if the market saw that the United States just took the cap off of its production, you wouldn't have to wait for OPEC. You wouldn't have to wait for Russia.
You would just make as much as you needed domestically and prices would come down.
Am I wrong about that? Now, I don't think that anything would happen on day one that would actually change the supply and demand.
But certainly, since markets are forward-looking, they would probably lower the prices in anticipation of more demand or more supply, right?
So I think that's just fake news.
And they can do this because people are not sophisticated.
And they think, well, there's nothing he can do about it.
I guess that's all I know.
Nothing he can do about it.
But basically, they're trying to cover Biden's biggest flaw, in my opinion, that he destroyed the energy industry in this country or degraded it when he took office.
So it looks like they're just trying to cover for him.
How many of you think that COVID was just a flu still?
In the comments, how many of you still believe that COVID was just sort of a bad flu and we could have just ignored it?
I'm seeing some yeses and nos, a mix.
Yeses, nos, poisoning, no, no, no, yes, yes, yes.
Well, I'm not going to answer that question for you, but I'll tell you what some of the official numbers are.
So a new estimate, and of course you can't trust any estimates or anything else.
Don't trust any estimates or predictions or data.
But here are some. According to the OECD countries, the European blah, blah, blah countries, I forget what's in that group, but the calculation is that COVID contributed to a 16-1-6 increase in the expected number of deaths in 2020 and 2021.
Do you believe that?
Do you believe that there were 16% more deaths than there normally would be, and it was because of COVID? Now remember, you have to factor in the number of people who died because of the lockdown, right?
That's not zero. I don't know what that number is.
So I see lots of skeptics.
I will show some love for the skeptics.
If your take on this is that the people telling us about this, sort of generally speaking, are the same people who have lied about everything, then should you be confident that these numbers are true?
No. No.
You should not have any confidence that these numbers are true.
I'm just telling you what the official numbers are, right?
But if you said, oh, therefore it's true, I don't think so.
It's just the official numbers.
I wouldn't say that they're true.
I'd just say they're the numbers, right?
Apparently, the same group or same article is telling us that the alleged number of people who died worldwide is past 5 million, right?
Do you think that 5 million people died from COVID? How many of you think 5 million died from COVID? Nope, you don't believe that either, right?
Okay. Again, I will give full respect to the critics.
You know, I don't know if you've noticed that I try to have some nuance here on what is credible versus what is true.
So those who are doubting these numbers, you are both credible and I respect it.
I don't think you're right, but I'm sort of guessing.
So are you. That's why I don't have more respect for my own opinion than I do for yours, because I feel like we don't really know.
I feel like we could be lied to at this level.
I also have the concern that you do, which is if somebody dies with five comorbidities and a COVID diagnosis, wasn't the COVID simply the last thing that happened?
Is that really the cause?
Right? Is that how we use that word?
The cause is always the last thing that happened?
Because it was the smallest thing that happened.
If the last thing that happened is also the smallest thing, why do you call that the cause?
What about the fact that you're 100 years old and you have terminal cancer and type 2 diabetes and you haven't walked in three years?
Those seem like pretty big reasons for dying.
The COVID was the smallest part.
It was just the last thing that happened.
So, I don't know, would you call that a cause?
So something happened, and then you'd have to put...
So suppose there was a 16% increase in the expected number of deaths, but if it was highly concentrated in people who were going to die anyway pretty soon, did it make any difference?
You could look at these same numbers and say, yeah, basically nothing happened.
Just people who were 100 died at 100 instead of 101.
I'm exaggerating a little bit to make the point.
Yeah, you could certainly make the argument that in terms of the number of deaths, if you counted it in a different way, it looks more flu-like.
But how many of you believe the regular flu kills 50,000 people a year?
Go. So you're all skeptics about the...
Most of you were skeptics about the COVID numbers, but how many of you think the real flu, the just ordinary flu, how many think it kills 50,000 a year?
And yet I've never met anybody who died of it.
Some of you do. I would argue that if you believe the COVID numbers you probably should also believe the regular flu numbers.
But if you don't believe the regular flu numbers, and I don't, why would I believe the COVID numbers?
Because to me, the regular flu numbers seem, based on my life of doing data analysis and trying to research stuff, just a life experience kind of instinct or hunch, backed by a little bit of knowledge, but mostly hunch.
I don't think the regular flu deaths are real.
Nothing like 50,000 a year.
I think that that number is so that we will be scared into getting the shot.
That's what I think. However, if you talk to people who survived COVID, they will tell you, the Tim Pools and the Joe Rogans, it's no walk in the park when you get this, even if you're healthy.
So even if you're young and healthy, you're going to get hit by something that you don't think is a regular flu.
It's going to feel a little different.
So... All right.
So much today.
Rasmussen has a poll that says...
Biden is down to a new approval low.
So Biden's approval, he only has approval by 27% of independents now.
Essentially, our elections are determined by turnout and which way the independents go.
And the independents have completely left Biden.
Do you think the independents have also left lower-level Democrats?
Probably. I don't know if it's the same number, but it feels like it.
As somebody noted, 27% is about that 25% of the public who gets everything wrong.
No matter what the question is, you can depend on 25% of the public getting all the wrong answers, no matter what.
And here we've got 27% of independents are still with Biden.
So... Sort of supports that theory.
Rasmussen also says that a Biden endorsement, let's say somebody else is running as a Democrat, and Biden comes in to endorse them, 51% of people polled say that that would make them less likely to vote for that candidate.
Now, that might be mostly a partisan answer.
But if you look at the Trump endorsement, in the same poll, they asked if Trump endorsed somebody, would that make you more or less likely to vote for him?
And it was sort of a tie, you know, 38%, 39%.
But I suspect that it's a tough effect to measure in a poll because turnout is more important, right?
So if Trump gets you to go to the poll...
That counts more than just changing your mind, right?
So it looks like a Trump endorsement might be a positive, where a Biden endorsement might be a negative.
So we'll see if that plays out.
If you're following the Kyle Rittenhouse case, apparently the trial is over, but the lawyers don't know it yet.
And by that I mean the prosecution has shown that they have zero evidence.
And I don't know that they have any more evidence coming.
Let me say that again. The prosecution didn't have any evidence.
They're prosecuting him for homicide without evidence, meaning that they did present stuff, but when you heard it, you said to yourself, well, what I'm hearing sounds exactly like self-defense.
What else you got? Well, we also have this.
Okay, that sounds exactly like self-defense.
Wait, I'm not done.
We also have this.
Uh-huh. But even with the facts you're presenting, your own facts, that sounds like self-defense.
So as far as I know, there's literally no evidence of a crime.
You don't think that the prosecutor knew that before taking it to trial?
Do you think the prosecutor was unaware that there was no evidence?
I'm ready to start cursing up a streak, but I'm gonna pull back.
Because I think the Rittenhouse thing will end in a way that I'm not too unhappy with, so I'm gonna let it play out.
But what looks like what happened is a...
I'm going to call him a criminal.
A criminal prosecutor lied.
This is what it looks like on the surface.
We can't know because we can't read his mind, right?
But on the surface, what it looks like is a criminal prosecutor did a criminal prosecution, and he was the criminal.
The only person who committed a crime, in my opinion, is the prosecutor because he had to know he didn't have evidence.
And so he's ruining this kid's life, possibly, with this trial that had no evidence.
So I would think that the prosecutor should go to jail for this.
Am I wrong? Let me ask you.
Has that ever happened?
Has a prosecutor ever gone to jail for pressing a trial where there was no evidence?
Is that a thing? I've never heard of it.
But this clearly looks like a crime to me.
Or they just say, oh, you're incompetent, and that's it?
So maybe a...
Oh, the Duke Lacrosse DA. But I don't know how much lying you have to do.
You could get disbarred, sure.
But I think you'd have to go to jail for this.
He hasn't broken a law.
Maybe. Maybe. But I would think that Kyle's going to get a big payday out of this.
Now, here's the other thing that Jack Posobiec noted today on Twitter, that at least four news entities are referring to the last witness that we heard of in that trial as the lone survivor.
They're calling one of the witnesses who was shot by Rittenhouse a lone survivor because the others died.
Does that feel fair?
He's the lone survivor?
Because that basically tells you that somebody was killing people and one got away.
That's not exactly a fair way to characterize this, is it?
Here's another thing you could say.
He was the only attacker who survived.
Is that fair? He's the only attacker who survived the attack.
Now, attack...
Could be for good reasons, could be for bad.
Sounds bad if you say attacker.
But they were the attackers.
They were the attackers.
So why not call them that?
But they... He's also a lone survivor...
But pretty biased.
On Twitter, the trial is referred to this way.
This is the headline on Twitter.
So Twitter puts the headlines on some of these stories.
Homicide trial of Kyle Rittenhouse continues in Kenosha.
Is that fair? Is it fair to say that the homicide trial continues?
Because when you hear it's a homicide trial, don't you sort of think he's guilty?
Don't you? Because how many homicide trials do not end in conviction or something?
Right? I mean, it's a homicide trial, technically.
I get that. But at this point, wouldn't you call it a false accusation trial?
Wouldn't you say it's a trial that has no evidence of homicide?
It's an evidence-free homicide trial.
If this were Trump...
Yeah, they'd call it a homicide trial, I guess.
But you can imagine if this were somebody they liked, the headline would be something like, no evidence of a crime in the Rittenhouse case.
I think that would be a lot more fair.
And this Rittenhouse situation, I think, is part of the larger demonization of men, wouldn't you say?
How much of the Rittenhouse case is about gun control, and how much about that is diminishing the role of men in society?
Because what Kyle Rittenhouse did was, he said, hey, I think there's a problem happening, and I'm a man, and I can go help.
So he's being criticized for having the attitude that he's a man, and he has some resources.
I guess he had some medical experience, and he had firearms so he could protect people.
He said, I'm going to go try to help.
And then when the trouble started, Kyle Rittenhouse did what a man does when somebody points a gun at you with bad intentions.
You kill them, or you shoot them.
That's what men do. And he's on trial for being a man.
Don't be confused.
He's not on trial for a crime.
He's on trial for being a man in 2021.
Yeah. How many of you just felt that?
Probably the men more than the women, right?
But if you're a man, and I just told you that Kyle Rittenhouse is on trial, he's on fucking trial for being a man.
That's really happening.
He's on trial for being a man.
And let me tell you, a lot of men are watching this.
Men, can you back me up on this?
Men, you're watching this, aren't you?
And I'd like to give some advice to the women who are watching this, not just this live stream, but the women who are watching the Kyle Rittenhouse situation.
Here's my advice to the women watching that.
I don't fucking care what your opinion is on it, because this is about men.
Just stay out of it.
It's a free country, and of course you can have your opinion.
But my opinion is you should stay the fuck out of it if you're a woman.
In return, I will stay the fuck out of the abortion question because that's not my beat.
I want the women to work that out and let me know how you did.
Women, work out the abortion.
That's your deal, and I'll back you on it.
On the Rittenhouse trial, women, stay the fuck out of it.
Just stay the fuck out of this.
Yeah, you can have an opinion, but keep it to yourself.
That's what I would ask you.
Just keep it to yourself. The men have to work this out.
I don't know the composition of the jury, but I'm pretty sure they're going to get them off.
And at this point, the men of the world who are watching this are going to embrace Kyle...
Like you've never seen before.
Assuming he gets off.
Am I right? I'm pretty sure that the men in America are going to make sure that Kyle Rittenhouse's life goes better than it would have otherwise.
I think he's going to get job offers.
I think he's going to get opportunities.
And he showed the world what a man is or can be.
Now, you don't have to say that you buy into that definition of what a man is or should be.
I don't really care. I don't care if you do or not.
It's just of no interest to me.
All I'm saying is that women, just stay out of this one.
And I'll stay out of abortion.
Fair? All right.
A lot of you think that doing your own research is a good idea.
Let me talk you out of that.
Number one, doing your own research can be a great idea if all you're doing is learning.
Let's say you wanted to learn how to do a thing.
Do your own research.
Take a class, too.
But doing your own research is probably a good idea.
So if you're just learning something and there's nobody on the other side, it's not a topic where there are two teams, you're just learning something.
Absolutely do your own research.
In fact, you should do as much as possible.
But in this specific situation in which you've got a very complicated, big topic and people are on different sides, what happens...
If you have a complicated topic, and then you add a bunch of money to it, what will happen every time?
All right, Christine, I've got to stop and make this comment.
Christine on YouTube says, both issues are important to men and women.
Sorry, you're wrong.
Did I say they weren't important?
Christine, did you hear me say anything about the lack of importance to one of the genders?
No. Now, you're arguing with your own imagination.
If you'd like to argue with my point, I welcome you.
But don't argue with your own imagination.
I acknowledge that these are important to both men and women.
I'm just saying stay out of it if you want a better outcome.
And I'll stay out of yours.
All right. If you have a complicated topic and you add money to it, what will be the outcome assuming it stays complicated every time?
The outcome will be you're going to get mostly fraud.
What would be an example of this?
Let's take the finance industry.
Is the finance industry a big, complicated thing?
Yes. And there's tons of money poured into it?
Yes. Is it mostly fraud?
Is the nation's finance system mostly fraud?
Yes. I'm seeing yeses and nos.
See, people say partially.
Have I gone too far?
Have I gone too far to say it's mostly fraud?
It's mostly fraud.
It's mostly fraud.
How many financial consultants are giving you unbiased advice that's good for you versus...
How many are giving you unbiased advice?
None. Because the business model of financial advisors is to make more money from financial advisors.
So the financial advice business is completely corrupt.
It's all fraud. If a financial advisor were honest, they couldn't charge you.
Because there wouldn't be enough content.
I tried to write a book on finance once, and when I realized the whole book could fit on one page, I couldn't write the book.
Everything else is just fraud.
The part that you need to know is like one page.
That's it. Buy index funds.
Hold them. Done.
So, then look at anything from climate change to whatever.
Do you think that climate change...
What percent of climate change, a big complicated topic with tons of money going into it, what percentage of that outcome do you think was fraud?
Well, some would say the entire solar power industry is fraud.
That's more of an opinion than a fact.
But the fraud would be that it can't really get us to where we need to and the cells themselves are a big pollution problem, etc.
It looks like the entire thing is just filled with fraud.
I don't know what percentage. Now, look at the supply chain issue.
Big, complicated thing.
If we throw a bunch of money at that, or let's say infrastructure.
If we have a big, complicated thing like infrastructure and throw a bunch of money at it, or even the bill.
Let's say the infrastructure bill.
Do you think that's mostly fraud?
There's plenty of it in there, I'm sure.
So I'll just make this point.
Now, let's say you do your own research.
You dig into this.
What are you going to find? Do you think you're going to be able to sort out what the fraud is and what isn't?
Maybe a little bit. But these big, complicated things are big and complicated for a reason.
Part of the reason is it hides fraud.
So when you go to do your research, you're going to be running into mostly bullshit.
Because the fraudsters need you to hit a solid wall of bullshit because they're hiding behind it.
Food industry, another perfect example, right?
So, when you go to do your own research, you're going to hit that wall of bullshit that needs to exist so that the fraud can hide safely behind it.
And you won't know if you hit a wall of bullshit or if you found the truth, finally.
You won't know. Because it's good bullshit.
Let me give you an example of how hard it would be to do the analysis.
Let's say climate change. Here's new news today.
See if you knew this.
The new updates to global CO2 emissions in the GCP, they're revised now, and the new data shows that global CO2 emissions have been flat, if not slightly declining, over the past 10 years.
What? What?
What? Are you serious?
The Global Carbon Project projects that fossil emissions in 2021 will reach blah, blah, blah.
That wasn't important to the point.
But the point is that CO2 has actually been falling over the past 10 years, and a lot of it has to do with land use.
I guess we did good things there.
Some have had to do with gas replacing worse sources.
But did you know that?
Did you know that CO2 emissions have been flat or declining?
So here's the problem. Do your own research and you can find any outcome you want.
Things are getting better or they're not.
I don't think you could understand climate change without at least being familiar with the work of Michael Schellenberger.
So if you want to see the...
The climate change analysis that considers both the risks and the rewards, the pros and the cons, without taking a political side, that's Michael Schellenberger's work.
So follow him on Twitter and read his books.
And I would go so far as to say, if you're not familiar with his work, You probably don't have a good opinion on climate change.
You probably don't anyway, because it's hard to have a good opinion on that.
But if you don't follow him, you're kind of lost, honestly.
Did you know that by 2022, this is from Schellenberger too, the US had reduced its emissions 22% below the 2005 levels, and mostly because we were using gas to replace coal, and And I think Biden reversed that, right?
Am I right? Not sure.
All right. So beware what you think about climate change.
You could research it all day and still not have a good opinion.
So he allowed Moscow to sell 10% of his Tesla shares.
Apparently the context is that since he doesn't take a salary, he would normally pay no taxes while being the richest person in the world.
And people say, well, that's not fair.
That's not fair. I pay taxes, and you don't pay taxes, and you're the richest person in the world.
So Elon Musk said, okay, I'll pay some taxes.
I'll do a poll.
And if the public wants me to sell 10% of Tesla just to pay taxes, because if he sells some stock, he would have to pay, I don't know, up to half of it in capital gains.
So that would be billions of dollars he would pay in taxes.
And I think he would do that largely for public concern.
Because he's not a taxpayer.
Maybe he'd like to be. Now, first of all, he is a taxpayer, right?
Because the business pays various taxes.
But here is what I would like to ask you.
My smart audience, which I know is far more educated than the average, is the country better off if Musk pays taxes or does what he continues to do, which is take no salary and pour enormous amounts or percentage of his wealth into new projects?
Which one of those is better?
Are we better off as a country, including the poor?
Are the poor better off if Musk pays more taxes?
The answer is really, really easy on this one.
You don't need a degree of economics to get this one.
But if you don't have a degree of economics, it might not be obvious.
So I'll say it, and then once you hear it, you're going to say, oh, where do you want money to be?
If you want the economy to do well, where do you want the money to be?
You want the money to be allocated wherever it will have the most chance of turning into more money.
Agreed? Now, of course, you've got to feed people and stuff, but once you've taken care of the basics, you need every dollar to go where it will be most productive.
Do you think that Elon Musk's dollar should go to the fucking government or to the guy who sent a car into space?
That's the question.
Let me say it again with the F word again, because you need that.
Do you think that dollar is better in the hands of the government or in the hands of a guy who put an automobile in space?
Just for fun. I mean, that being an example of the types of things he's accomplishing.
And there's no contest, right?
There's no contest. Musk is obviously making the point, and I think he's doing this cleverly because it makes us talk about it.
If you are bad at economics, you think that he should pay taxes.
If you're good at economics, you don't want him to pay a penny.
You do not want him to pay a penny in taxes.
You want him to do what he keeps doing, which is pouring money into good ideas that keep working and make the country a leader in areas where we need to be a leader, basically.
Let's just take one example.
AI will probably determine the safety of the country in the future.
And, you know, Musk heavily invests in AI, and I would bet he's probably one of the most productive people in that area.
You don't want him to stop.
You don't want him to have $1 less to do that.
Right? Not at all.
All right. But I love the fact that Musk is making us think about it with this provocative question, do you want me to pay taxes?
And it forces people like me to educate people who didn't know it that him paying taxes is the worst idea that the United States could ever have.
Seriously. Think of a worse idea than taking money away from Elon Musk and giving it to the government.
Can you think of anything that would be worse than that?
I can't think of anything.
It should go the other way.
The government should be paying Elon Musk to do more cool stuff.
All right. I also invest in Tesla.
Every once in a while I'll tell you what things I'm invested in because it does bias me.
But I invested in them recently because I like what's happening.
It's not the other way. All right.
Let's talk about Mayor Pete.
I provocatively said today that I believe he is exactly the right person I would want in the job of figuring out where the infrastructure money should go.
And I'm going to support that.
Now, here's where you find out if you're an NPC. I'm going to give you the pros and I'm going to give you the cons.
And I'm not going to hide either one.
If you picked one of the cons and said, oh, I'm done here, you're probably an NPC. If you weighed the two things, it doesn't matter which way you go, well, you're probably a real player.
So now you can find out if you're a real player.
Here's the argument for him being the right person.
He is an ex-McKinsey guy, ex-Harvard guy, and it's a really complicated, hard analysis.
McKinsey consultants are taught to go into an industry with which they are not deeply familiar, to learn from the experts, To put the experts' opinions and data through a logical sort of filter that McKinsey teaches them, and to come out with the most rational decisions that make the most sense, all things considered.
There is nobody I've ever seen in the government, there may be, but I just don't know of any, who would ever be more perfectly suited for this exact task.
In fact, if you didn't have Buttigieg at the head of it, it would be smart for them to hire McKinsey to help them make these decisions.
I don't know if the government does that.
Does the government ever hire McKinsey?
Probably, right? I assume.
But if he were not already the right one, he should hire somebody like him.
The first thing he would do in that job is hire a Pete Buttigieg to help him make the decisions.
Now, he probably is.
He probably is hiring a Pete Buttigieg to help him with the analysis.
And then he could also know if it were done right.
But, so talents...
Before we go on, we'll talk about his failure as a mayor, blah, blah, blah.
We'll get to that. So before I talk about the reasons he's not the right choice, and I'll talk about them, will you agree with my first point that his talent stack is exactly the one you'd want?
Yes or no? Just the talent experience part.
Mostly yeses, but some noes.
Why no? Why no? What would be the reasoning behind no?
I'm not disagreeing with you.
I'm asking your reasons. Lousy track record?
No, that's a track record in different things.
The only thing that matters is his track record at McKinsey, which we think is good, right?
McKinsey is mostly fraud.
All right, let me address that.
The McKinsey model, somebody said, is mostly fraud, and I agree.
But that's the model of consulting.
That doesn't refer to the actual consultant.
Somebody who works for them is probably not doing anything fraudulent.
They're probably just trying to do their job.
But the model is mostly fraudulent because they're trying to sell things that maybe you don't need and that sort of thing.
So yes, I think the consulting model is mostly fraudulent, but the consultant is not necessarily fraudulent.
Just the business model is fraudulent.
All right. Now I will talk about the reasons that he is not the right person for the job.
Number one, he did not show good leadership as a mayor.
Everybody agree? Did not show great leadership as a mayor.
I accept that.
I don't know if it's true, but I'm going to accept it.
It's irrelevant. It's irrelevant.
Because he's not being asked to do the job of a mayor.
He's being asked to do the job of a wonk, basically.
He's being asked to do the job of a technocrat.
As a leader, I don't back him.
Yet. I do think that he could become one.
I actually have high hopes for Buttigieg, maybe later in his career.
At the moment, I don't think he shows the leadership skills, and I wouldn't defend his mayor job.
So, will you accept that the job of mayor...
He may have done poorly.
I don't know, but I'm willing to accept that.
But it isn't relevant to the specific task...
So that's my first point.
Secondly, he's a guy who went away and did his family leave during the worst part of the worst problem in the country, which was the supply chain problem.
Number one, who did he leave in charge?
Let me call out the NPC. So Felony Videos says, wow, stupidity, Scott.
So that's an NPC. Let me see if we have any others.
Because I haven't even finished my points yet.
Yeah, okay. That was one.
All right. So what do you think about the fact that he went on family leave, extended two-month leave during the biggest emergency?
Here's what we don't know about it.
We don't know who was in charge.
Maybe somebody was in charge, and maybe he was on the phone every day.
Do you know if he wasn't?
Does anybody know if Mayor Pete didn't take phone calls during those two months?
Because I doubt it.
Now, we do know that he didn't succeed, right?
But it's also not exactly his job.
Can you agree with me there?
The Transportation Secretary isn't exactly the right one to fix a port problem.
Because the port is sort of a local problem.
But I don't think he did enough.
However, is that the same problem?
So I think he wasn't aggressive enough, but I also don't know if he did something or if he could have made a difference or if it was his domain.
So I would say that's a question mark and a good one.
So if somebody says he didn't do a good job on the supply chain, I would say, that might be a good point.
But we also don't know what he did.
Would you agree with my point that you don't know what he did or what he could have done?
We don't know that, do we?
So I would say that that's a question.
But it's also slightly different than figuring out where to spend infrastructure money.
Now the other point is that he's too woke.
Because apparently he said something that sounded ridiculous to almost all of us, which is that the current infrastructure was built in a racist way.
What was your first reaction when you heard that maybe some of our roads and bridges were built in a racist way?
You laughed, right?
You said, well, now you've gone a little too far because I don't think we have racist roads and I don't think we have racist bridges, right?
How many of you had that immediate reaction?
And then after you have that reaction, how many of you actually researched it to find out he was right?
Did anybody? Did anybody research it?
Because it turns out he's right.
He's right. Apparently it's a known historical fact.
That at least in, I don't know, some parts of New York, that there was an actual racist who designed the roads and didn't give good roads where there were a lot of black people because he didn't want them to use the roads to go to the park and ruin everything.
What? Yeah, that's a real thing.
Apparently a lot of the highways were designed by actual racists who actually were making them degraded in some places to keep black people from going where white people wanted to be.
That's actually real, apparently.
We have the name of the person.
There are books written about it.
I'd never heard of that.
Now, I don't know how relevant it is to today, because I'm pretty sure today we would just look at wherever it makes sense and do it there.
But the fact that he raised this, and I didn't know it, that's a plus for him.
I'd say that's a plus.
Because he raised an issue that I think you could call this systemic racism.
Apparently it's real, and apparently it probably made a difference.
So I'm going to give him credit for that.
I know some of you are calling that a negative because you think he's going to do a bunch of woke investing.
But I suspect the number of places where that's actually going to make a difference is probably small.
So here's my argument. He's not being asked to do the job of a mayor.
I don't know that he would do that well.
He's not being asked to do the job of a president.
I don't know that he'd do that well.
He's not being asked to...
I don't think he was exactly the right person for the supply chain problem.
Maybe that just wasn't the right job.
And we don't know what he did or didn't do when he was on leave.
But his talent stack is exactly the right one for deciding how to spend infrastructure money.
Now... How many of you can handle that opinion?
Can you handle that?
That there's definitely some negatives, and I called them out.
All right. Good.
All right. Most of you are good with that.
And I think I've got to run in a minute.
Let's see what else I've got going. Oh, my God.
I told you about Sam Altman.
He was the president of Y Combinator.
I didn't realize he's now working for the OpenAI.
So he's working on AI more than that.
He's putting $375 million of his own money, of his own money, Into this fusion startup called Hellion.
500 million in total, but he's putting 375 million of his own.
So I checked his net worth, Sam Altman's net worth, and I thought, wow, what is your net worth if you can put 375 million into one thing that might not even work?
And it said his net worth was 200 million.
I did my own research.
A lot of you would just guess, but I did my own research, and according to my research, he's worth $200 million, and he's putting $375 million into one investment.
So it's a good thing I did my own research, because otherwise I wouldn't know any of this.
No, he's obviously worth a few billion.
I don't know how many billions it is, but...
This is a gigantic investment and it shows that the person closest to it and the person who may be one of the few people on the planet who could really predict whether a startup has what it takes, he would be one of them.
I wouldn't trust too many people on the whole planet to tell me a startup looks good, but he would be one of them, right?
Of the ten people in the world who might be the best at this very thing.
So that is really good.
At the same time, Rolls-Royce is going to be building small nuclear reactors of the traditional kind.
I think that's a really big deal.
And Regeneron found out that Regeneron not only helps you solve COVID, if you've got it, but can give you lasting immunity, well, sort of immunity, for months, up to eight months after you take it.
I also recently invested in Regeneron before I heard this news, so consider my bias.
But apparently we have lots of therapeutics now, so the mandates are a little less ethical than they've ever been.
Every time we get a new therapeutic online, the argument for mandates starts dissolving.
And that is my awesome show for today.
I think you'll love it.
It'll sink in a little bit or get better as you go.
