Episode 1562 Scott Adams: Let's Talk About All the Fake News and Celebrity Idiots
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Content:
National Guard in Kenosha because of fake news industry
Debra Messing on Biden's job performance
Deep left beginning to suspect fake news exists
"Fair" taxation proposal for Bernie Sanders
Coordinated hit pieces on Dave Portnoy?
CNN multiple stories on Kamala's incompetence?
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Yeah, I don't want to go all Garfield the cat on you, but some people think Mondays are terrible.
No, no, not here.
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Yeah. Did you feel that?
I think you did. Well, we've got all kinds of fun news today.
The good kind.
Well, it depends on your point of view whether it's good or just interesting.
This is not good, but it's interesting.
According to the BBC, there were heavy rains and flooding in southern Egypt.
No problem. A little bit of flooding, a little heavy rains.
But when you get heavy rains in this part of southern Egypt, apparently it drives all the scorpions out of their hiding holes.
And so 500 people were hospitalized with scorpion bites, and a few people died.
Now, when I heard that...
Southern Egypt is having problems with scorpion swarms.
I said to myself, well, how do I guess some of those?
Because I live in California, and if there's a disaster that can happen, we want it.
So we've got our energy shortage, we've got our water shortage, we've got our massive forest fires, we've got the homeless, the people dying on the streets, we've got the COVID, and...
A few other things. We've got your earthquakes.
But what we don't have is scorpion swarms, and I feel like we need to catch up a little bit.
So playing catch-up to southern Egypt, we've got to get us some hidden scorpions to come out during the rain.
All we have are mudslides, and I don't think that's good enough.
Well, today the Rittenhouse jury will be deciding on the case.
Apparently the charges have been reduced, or at least a request has been made to consider additional charges of a lesser kind.
Now, here's a story that Jonathan Turley was behind.
I saw this on Fox News Channel.
Apparently, did you know that the judge can't figure out what the gun ownership law is in Wisconsin?
That's right. The judge...
Who is trained for years to read legal documents and to know what they mean, said directly that he can't understand what the law even says on gun ownership because it's written so poorly, you're not even entirely sure what's legal and what's not.
And apparently Kyle Rittenhouse gave the prosecutor a little lesson on Wisconsin's gun laws.
I didn't see it, but there was an exchange in which...
Kyle knew that he could not own a handgun because he was too young.
But you can own a hunting rifle at his age, and that's the one he had in his possession.
Or you can at least have it under your possession.
And Kyle actually explained to the prosecutor, as if the prosecutor didn't already know it, and I think maybe he didn't, that it would have been illegal to have a handgun, but perfectly legal for him to have a long-barreled rifle.
And apparently the prosecutor was finding that out at the trial from the defendant.
Are you kidding me?
Now, as Turley points out, and I think this is just a given, if the judge, in his best effort, can't understand the gun law, can he send it to the jury?
No. No.
Not in any world can the judge instruct the jury to consider that law.
Because the judge doesn't understand the law.
That's real. Have you ever heard of this?
Now, I'm sure people who are legal scholars and lawyers have heard of something like this, but I haven't.
Have you ever heard the judge not understanding the law, because the law is so poorly written, that, oh, he threw it down already?
Has that already happened?
Oh, I'm seeing in the comments that he threw it down already.
Well, that's what I was going to predict, right?
It was an easy prediction that he would throw that out.
Or it will be thrown out.
Okay, so I guess I'm not clear what has or has not happened.
Will be thrown out, I guess, is the answer.
Hasn't been yet. Okay.
So... The National Guard put 500 troops into Kenosha just in case there's some rioting after the verdict.
Now... Here's a way to reframe this same statement.
And see if this doesn't disgust you.
Why is it that we need 500 National Guard?
Why do we need 500 National Guards?
Well, in case of trouble.
But why is there a possibility of trouble?
Is there a possibility of trouble because of what Kyle did?
Not really.
Because what he did was self-defense.
Is there a possibility of trouble because the fake news industry has convinced people that justice will not be served because he's white?
Yes, they have.
Now, let me connect the dots here.
There are 500 National Guard people deployed because of the fake news.
Is that statement incorrect or perfectly correct?
We have 500 National Guard deployed strictly because of the fake news.
Not because of anything Kyle did, because at this point we know he didn't do anything.
And presumably the jury will either decide that or decide some lesser charge that will make people mad anyway.
Have we ever seen this before?
Is this the first time we can say with complete clarity that the National Guard were called out to protect against the fake news?
We called out the fucking National Guard to protect against the fucking fake news.
That's happening right now.
And do you know who's going to say that on the news?
Nobody. Because it's the fucking news.
And they can tell you anything is news and you'll believe it.
The news is the reason there are 500 people to protect us from each other.
The news did this to us.
Nobody else. Kyle didn't do this.
The people who attacked Kyle didn't do this.
Nobody did this except the fucking fake news.
And we need 500 National Guard to keep us from tearing each other apart because of the fucking fake news.
Who else is going to tell you this today?
Probably nobody. I'm probably the only person who will tell you this.
And when you hear it, you say to yourself, oh shit, that's true, isn't it?
It's not about anything that the actors did.
It's just the news.
That's the only reason that we will be at each other.
And if somebody dies today, or tonight, it's because of the news.
It's not because of Kyle.
All right. Remember I told you that...
I used to rewrite my lawyers the shorter documents.
I didn't do this with the longer, big stakes kind of stuff.
But on shorter documents, I would just rewrite the legalese into English.
And my lawyer would look at it and say, okay, that basically says the same thing.
And here's this law about guns in Wisconsin that's so complicated because of the legalese, presumably, that you can't even understand it.
Well, in other news, Epstein's partner, whose first name is either pronounced Ghislaine or G-H-I-S, I prefer to pronounce it Jiz, so Jizlane, Maxwell, she's going to trial, and I wonder if this is going to change everything.
Don't you wonder that?
Because whatever comes out of this trial is going to be surprising.
But maybe surprising in an unsurprising way, you know what I mean?
This could change everything in the world.
Couldn't it? Because depending on what name she decides to drop, countries could fall.
Is that too much?
I think, well, not countries, but governments.
I think governments might fall.
Because of this trial. I mean, I don't know for sure.
But it looks like governments might fall.
It could be that big.
So we'll see. But anyway, if anybody had a more perfect name for their crime, I would call her Giseline Maxwell.
She maximized the Giseline for Epstein.
And boy, did she do that.
Well, I'm introducing a new segment today I call Dumb Celebrities.
Dumb celebrities. You ready?
Dumb celebrity number one, Deborah Messing.
She tweeted two charts, one showing that unemployment claims are way down compared to the Trump administration, and the stock market is up.
And she says in her tweet, and she tweets at the Senate GOP, House GOP, and the GOP leaders, because she wants the GOP to know this.
And then she puts it in all caps.
Now, if a celebrity uses all caps, well, you really have to pay attention to that.
So in all claps, she says, just to be clear, just to be clear, people, just to be clear, all caps.
This means POTUS is doing a fantastic job, all caps, fantastic job, right?
I mean, these two charts show that Biden's doing a fantastic job, right?
Right? It's obvious, isn't it?
Right? Right? Hey, everybody?
It's obvious? No.
And then she goes, I'll wait.
I'll wait. Because it's so obvious, according to her graphs, that Biden's doing a fantastic job.
Hashtag Biden. Hashtag Biden delivers.
So I responded to this and said...
No, it just means there was a pandemic.
That's it. It just means there was a pandemic.
And if Trump had been president through the pandemic until now, the stock market would have been up and the unemployment claims would be down compared to where they were.
So here's a celebrity who honestly can't tell the difference between coming out of a pandemic and doing a good job.
She couldn't tell the difference.
And she thinks it's so obvious that she can do it in caps and be sarcastic about it and sort of dunk on you.
Because you don't understand how good a job Biden's doing, even though the numbers don't show anything like that.
All right. Dumb celebrities number two, Ben& Jerry's.
Now, they don't own Ben& Jerry's anymore.
They sold it. But they're still in the news.
And... They're usually in the news because they're telling us how to be better people.
Am I right? That's sort of Ben and Jerry's thing.
How to be better people on this world.
Better caretakers of the planet.
Just better people. Ben and Jerry's became millionaires by selling ice cream to fat people.
And they're here to tell us how to be better people.
Well, one way to be a better person.
I'm just going to put that out here.
If you're looking for ways to be a better person, don't sell ice cream to fat people.
No, don't do that.
Because that's not good for them.
It's the number one health problem.
So it turns out that the left, and even the deep left, is starting to have some doubts about the honesty of their own media.
They're starting to catch on.
That's right, people on the left are starting to suspect, just giving a little hint, that maybe not all of the news they're hearing on social media as well as the news, maybe it's not all 100% accurate.
Case in point, a member of the Young Turks, Anna Gaspara, Yeah, Anna Kasparian.
She basically did a piece in which she said her understanding of the Rittenhouse trial had changed completely because apparently the media had bamboozled her.
So, if even the young Turks is realizing that the news is lying to them, I feel like that's some deep penetration of the idea that the news is not real.
The right knows this clearly.
The left still is figuring it out.
But they're starting to figure it out.
Well, do you follow...
How many of you read Axios?
It's a newer news source, Axios.
I'm going to give them a little shout-out today.
I do read them. It's one of the ones I try to hit every day.
And one of the reasons I do it is I'm trying to figure out where CNN and Fox News are getting it wrong.
Because Axios tends to be a little bit more balanced.
I don't know. Maybe sometimes they're not.
But I will note that they apparently were not part of the fake reporting on the Steele dossier.
How about that? That's worth a shout-out.
Now, I did a fact check on this.
This is a claim from Axios, right?
So one of Axios' writers, Josh Krushauer.
He's talking about a reckoning is hitting news organizations for the years-old coverage of the Steele dossier.
But I don't remember if Josh said it or somebody else said it in the article, that Axios itself had not taken the bait on the Steele dossier.
Is that true? Can anybody confirm that?
That they did not take the bait on that?
They may have covered it as a story that's being covered, but I don't know that they treated it as real at any point.
Anyway. There, you know, they're talking about how the news organizations need to deal with it.
Apparently some of them are just going back and changing the original reporting and adding some clarifiers.
You know, instead of saying, well, we were wrong, we lied to you, not only did we lie to you, we got Pulitzer Prizes for lying to you in one case.
And so the fake news industry is just trying to hide their awfulness.
All right, Rasmussen had a poll in which they asked, do you trust political news you're getting?
What do you think people said?
What percentage do you think of registered voters, or I think they usually do likely voters, what percentage do you think trusts the political news?
25%. Okay.
Okay, you're way ahead of me.
Yeah, it turns out it's 33% trust the political news.
But remember, I always tell you that something in the neighborhood of 25% of the public gets every question wrong.
And I don't know if it's the same one.
I don't know if it's the same 25% every time.
Maybe it depends on the topic.
But sure enough, 33% of the country actually trusts the political news.
Now, this isn't even a left-right thing, is it?
I don't think this has to do with the left or the right.
How could you possibly trust the political news?
How could you be alive for the last five years and say, I think the political news is usually pretty accurate.
How could you possibly think that?
All right. I guess Biden is preparing to have a Zoom meeting with China's President Xi Jinping.
How do you think that's going to go?
I can't think of anything that would be more of a waste of time than Biden and President Xi talking over Zoom and speaking a different language.
How is that ever going to work?
Now, I get that it's a pandemic and everything, so we do things differently.
But don't we all agree that an in-person meeting feels completely different than a Zoom meeting?
That's still true, right?
Or have we evolved to the point where a Zoom meeting is just as good?
I don't think we have.
I feel that there's something about us as human beings that makes personal contact more substantial.
So I think that maybe having Zoom meetings would be good at lower levels of government, but I don't know.
I don't even know if this is good.
I mean, I suppose we have to have continual contact and let them know what we're thinking, but there's no way that this is going to make anything better, because I don't think Zoom does that.
Or whatever they're using won't be Zoom.
I guess the Trump Hotel, Trump International in Washington, D.C., is getting sold.
I stayed at the Trump International in Washington, D.C. when I visited...
President Trump. And it was one of the worst hotels I've ever stayed in.
I've got to tell you, my room was maybe the worst room I've been in in years.
Why? First of all, my room didn't have a window at below person level.
So there was like a raised couple of windows that you couldn't see through, but they're up high.
And we got a notice while I was staying there that we should keep those drapes closed because the window washers were working.
So the only light from the outside into this room was these little high-up windows that I had to keep the drapes closed.
So I basically sat in a darkened, unimpressive room until it was time for my meeting.
Yeah, it's the old post office building, I guess.
So the lobby and bar area are attractive, that's true.
Yes, the downstairs is quite attractive.
Also, when I was there, I didn't see many other people.
It did seem like it was a little bit empty when I was there.
I didn't see people in the hallway, etc., So I would say that the Trumps are smart to get rid of that hotel.
That would be not exactly the jewel in the crown of their holdings.
So good for them, getting rid of that.
Remember I told you that I know the news before you do?
I'll just give you a teaser.
Tomorrow you're going to see a poll on politics.
So I'll just tell you that the topic is politics.
And the result has been described as, and I quote, stunning.
Stunning. So you're going to see a poll result tomorrow that has been described by somebody who's seen it as stunning.
And I have enough information about it that it's going to be stunning.
So basically, wait for that.
All right. Have I told you before that one way to persuade, especially persuading people who are hard to persuade, is...
No, it's a professional poll.
It's not one of my Twitter polls.
It's a professional poll. Have I told you that one way to persuade is to enter somebody's frame...
If their frame is absurd.
So if somebody's making a worldview claim that's absurd, arguing against it, hey, that's not real, or you're looking at it wrong, hardly ever works.
But sometimes you can enter their frame and show them how absurd it is from the inside.
And you have to hear examples of this.
So here's an example.
Bernie Sanders, as you know, was having this little exchange with Elon Musk about taxes and what your fair share is.
And what Bernie would like you to know is that rich people should pay their, quote, fair share.
Now, that's the absurd frame that Bernie has, because there's no such thing as fair.
It literally is just an opinion.
It doesn't mean anything. There's no standard for fair.
So, instead of arguing against fair, which would be impossible, you do the opposite.
You embrace it.
And you say, you know, Bernie, I think we should have fair taxation.
So let's figure out, since fairness is somewhat subjective, you'd agree with that, wouldn't you, Bernie?
Hey, Bernie, would you agree that fairness is not an objective standard?
Rather, it's subjective.
Would you agree with that? I think you'd get him to say yes.
Yes, you know it when you see it.
Wouldn't you say? It's sort of like art.
Fairness is something you know when you see it.
You don't need to be too technical about it.
You just know it when you see it.
Are we agreed, Bernie?
Bernie, can you agree with me that ordinary people will recognize fairness, and they will certainly recognize unfairness when they see it?
Can we agree on that?
Because we both think fairness is how the tax system should be done.
Absolutely. It should be fair.
So how would we figure out what is fair?
How would you go about that?
Well, I have a suggestion that I think Bernie would love.
He'd do a poll. Now, I did a little sample poll of this on Twitter.
So this is the non-scientific version of a poll.
And I said to the public, what is the closest to the, quote, fair share of all taxes combined that the top 1% should pay?
Now, if people read it carefully, they'd see all taxes combined.
Uh... I'm going to read this $49.99 comment and then get back to it.
He paid a lot of money for this on YouTube.
Scott Sascott, for a man who insists on attempting to persuade his audience that all pertinent knowledge is unknowable, why do you nonetheless persist in its dissemination?
To what level of futility are we engaging with here?
Um... So I'm telling you that all information is hard to trust.
So what's the point of talking about it?
Is that your point? I'm not sure I quite understand the point, but you paid almost $50 for it, so I thought I'd give it some attention.
Now I'm going to say the same thing that Viva Frye says on his show all the time.
I don't encourage you to do the super chats.
I don't encourage you to do that.
I appreciate it. I mean, nobody says no to money.
But I don't encourage it, because I'm not sure you get your money's worth out of that.
Anyway, so I did a little poll on Twitter and said to people, in your opinion, what would be the fair share of all taxes?
Now, all taxes combined, it was my question, and that would include federal, state, and every form of taxation.
Now, how much do the top 1% pay?
Let's say me. I'll use me for example.
What do you think I pay in terms of taxes if you looked at all my taxes?
So I've got California state taxes that are sky high.
I've got federal.
Then I've got property tax, I've got sales tax, auto tax, everything else.
What do you think I pay?
Yeah, it's probably 60%.
Probably 60% tax rate.
Something like that. It might be a lot higher, but I think it's around 60%.
Now, of the money I earn, it takes 60% away, of the 40% that I earn, how much of that do I spend on my own consumption?
What do you think? How much of the money I earn is my own consumption?
Very little. Because I don't need that much and I have a high income.
So, is that fair?
Is it fair that the government takes 60% and then what's left, other people who are not working, take 90%?
And I'm left with about 10%.
Is it fair that I get to keep 10% of my money working every fucking day for 30 years?
Do I get to keep 10%?
Does that seem okay to you?
That I work every fucking day, every fucking day, for 35 years, do I get to keep 10%?
That would seem...
Is that okay, 10%?
All right, so here's how you deal with Bernie.
You say, Bernie, let's settle this.
Let's ask the country to tell us what the top 1% would pay.
I asked the same question on Twitter.
And 1% of the people...
Oh, no, I'm sorry.
29% answered that the top 1% should pay 1%.
If you're the top 1%, you should pay 1% of the tax bill.
The real number is 40% of just the federal tax.
So that's the current tax, is 40%.
The top 1% are paying 40% of all the tax bill for the whole country.
But if you ask people what is fair, only 18% said that 40% would be fair.
And keep in mind, I said combined taxes.
So the people who say 40% is fair are really saying 40% is fair, but the rich are actually paying closer to 60%.
So even that is 50% lower than the current tax rates for some of us.
19% said it should be 30%, 34% said it should be 20%, and 29% said it should be 1%.
So in other words, over 60% thought it should be way, way less than it currently is, to be fair.
So let's ask Bernie.
To figure out what is fair by asking the public, a nice random sample, not a rigged poll like mine is, but a random sample, and then we'll say, okay, if that's fair, let's go with that.
Because you know what's going to happen is that if you ask the public what's fair, they will come up with a number that's not even close.
To what the rich people actually pay.
It won't even be close. Now, I've done this kind of unscientific poll before, so I know that people don't have any idea how much taxes rich people pay.
You have no idea.
And by the way, almost all rich people are supporting lots of other people, me included.
Do you know how many people are supported by every rich person?
Every one rich person?
It's a lot.
It's a lot. Anyway.
Dave Portnoy, you know his situation over at Barstool, the media entity, Barstool.
And he was the subject of a hit piece recently by Business Insider about his sex life.
But because...
I guess they picked the wrong guy.
If you're the media and you're going to go after somebody, don't go after somebody who is this good in public and has this big a media platform.
I mean, you know, it's sort of like, by analogy, it's sort of like taking a run at the king.
If you can't put him down...
And they didn't. They tried to put Portnoy down.
If you don't put him down, he's going to get stronger.
And I think that's what's happening.
So now a second entity looks like they allegedly may be taking a run at his second hit piece that looks like it was assigned about the same time.
So at about the same time as the Business Insider hit piece on his Love Life, There was a separate one on his, quote, alleged toxic workplace.
What are the odds that this one media figure, Dave Portnoy, would be the subject of two hip pieces on the two most critical parts of his life, you know, his personal life and then his business, separately, and they would be assigned at the same time?
None of this shit is an accident.
This is the Democrats picking off important voices who may be Trump supporters, or at least even leading that direction.
Now, I told you that they've already made a run at me, and there will be more.
Before the election of 2024, watch how many hit pieces either happen without my involvement about me...
And how many they try.
I'll tell you when they try, because I'll be turning them down.
Because they like to get you on the record so that they can misquote you.
That's why they do it, by the way.
The reason they would want to spend time with the subject of the hippies is to get the subject to say things that they can misquote.
And if you think that I'm kidding about that, not at all.
Not at all. That is the game.
The game is the misquote.
That's everything they're looking for is a misquote.
Now when I say misquote, I mean that includes out of context.
It doesn't mean actually changing the words they said.
They don't always do that.
But they can change the context to make it into something it isn't.
Project Veritas, you know that the government has targeted them because we don't have a...
Government that is legitimate anymore.
At least the FBI is not legitimate, in my opinion.
And our intel agencies are not legitimate.
So we have a pretty illegitimate government at this point.
But even the...
As Harmeet Dillon, attorney, points out...
She's the attorney for Project Veritas, I believe...
points out that even the ACLU, who you expect to be, you know, far, far, far left...
Even they say, okay, this is too far.
That the raid on Project Veritas, that even the ACLU is condemning the FBI raid on them.
Do you know how far?
Do you know how far you have to go before the ACLU will back somebody on the right?
You have to really be bad before the ACLU will say, damn it.
We're going to have to take the side of the right this time.
It's going to be too obvious if we don't.
That's bad. Did you notice that CNN has gone guns hot on Kamala Harris?
So if you look at the top left of CNN's website, that's where they put the news they want you to notice the most.
All websites put the important stuff in the top left if they know what they're doing.
The entire top left is about how Kamala Harris is incompetent on CNN. Not one story, multiple stories on CNN about the vice president's incompetence, especially your staff. More focus on the staff, but of course that accrues to her as well.
The cat is on the roof.
It turns out that somebody's trying to get rid of Kamala Harris and trying pretty hard, because she's been a disaster.
There isn't any way she could win a general election against really anybody at this point.
And CNN is, to their credit, I think, they're going after her hard.
Now here's what I think.
I think CNN has orders from the Democratic Party.
What do you think? I don't believe that CNN independently said, let's take down Harris.
There's no way that that's not a coordinated move with somebody in the Democratic Party.
So they're looking for the replacement, it's very clear.
And they've got a problem, because Biden probably can't last for another term, even if it's unlikely he could win.
But she's certainly not going to be the one, and now they have to figure out who is the one and to figure out how to do that.
There's some conversation that she would be put on the Supreme Court just to open her job for somebody else.
I don't believe that one.
I don't see her on the Supreme Court.
I don't think she's got the weight for that kind of thing.
Alright, there's a tweet by Dr.
Joseph Mercola. He would be in the category of those doctors that I call the rogue doctors.
The doctors who are taking the contrarian view on pandemic-related stuff.
So you may have seen him on Twitter.
Dr. Joseph Mercola.
And he tweets about a story about a school in, where is it?
Somewhere in America. There's a school that had to close because they didn't have enough teachers.
Including substitute teachers.
They didn't have enough to keep the school open because of all the teachers who complained and took sick days after getting the booster shot.
And so, Dr.
Mercola says, you think they closed schools due to soreness at the injection site?
Do you think that's why everybody's calling in sick?
Because there's a little bit of soreness in the arm?
No. It's interesting.
I'm reading your comment, but I'm not going to talk about that now.
So what do you think?
Is there any other explanation for why this school would have to close because so many teachers were complaining of side effects from the vaccination?
Is there any other explanation for why a school would have to close because so many teachers had to call in sick after getting vaccinated?
Any other reason? Or is it the reason that the vaccinations are shit and you shouldn't get them?
Is that the only reason?
Well, I could come up with three.
Number one, statistical clustering.
Meaning that on any given day, somewhere in the United States, a lot of teachers are sick at the same time in one place.
Guaranteed. Statistics are not smooth over all of the places in the world.
Statistics are randomly, usually, or could be, randomly distributed.
But even with random distribution, you're guaranteed, if you have enough, let's say, schools in this case, if you have lots and lots of schools, every day, one of those schools will have too many teachers called in sick.
Every day. So one explanation is that nothing happened.
A lot of people call in sick every day.
Some of them maybe had some side effects from the vaccine.
Not impossible, but others may have just said, oh, I'm not feeling good today.
Here's another possible explanation.
Teachers are lying to get days off.
Do you think the teachers didn't know that they could claim they had side effects from the booster and get a day off?
Of course they do.
They knew that all they had to do was say, you know, I'm feeling a little tired and shaky today.
Day off. And we live in a world in which employees give themselves vacation days by claiming fake illness.
It's just routine.
The entire country is filled with people taking time off and claiming they're sick.
Maybe it's just that, because it's easy to claim this, and nobody's going to question it.
The other third possibility, which would explain what we see, is local mass hysteria.
When I say local, I mean since only the town itself was aware of this situation.
It could be that one teacher had a real problem and then the others thought, hmm, I'm feeling a little shaky and tired too.
Maybe I'd better take a day off.
Or it could be some combination of the three things I mentioned.
Or it could be exactly what Dr.
Joseph Mercola suggests.
He could be exactly right that the vaccinations have more side effects than are being reported.
I'm just saying that when somebody asks you what else could it be, make sure you know The other possibilities, because there are other things that could be.
And I don't know if they're even less likely.
They're certainly all possible.
So that's your lesson right there.
I continue to...
I continue to come up with ways to identify NPCs.
Now, NPCs would be non-player characters.
And it assumes that we live in a simulation that's built like a game, and this is not a base reality.
Now, if that's true, and I think it's a trillion to one odds that it is true, but if it's true, how do you find the characters that are not actually player characters, but they're just sort of background scenery?
I have four potential tells.
I'm not convinced any of these are good, and I'm not convinced that NPCs exist, but just for fun.
This is just for fun, right?
Don't take any of it too seriously.
Number one, an NPC is somebody who wouldn't change their opinion even as the data changes.
Because you imagine the NPCs have less programming.
They just don't have as many options.
They just don't have the range of action that a real person would have.
So an NPC would not change its opinion even if the data changes.
Because they wouldn't have that flexibility.
But a real player character might.
Might change their mind if the data changes.
Number two, they have absolute opinions as opposed to statistical opinions.
And it doesn't matter if they're on the left or the right...
But if they say, for example, the election was stolen 100%, or if they say the election wasn't stolen 100%, that's an NPC. It doesn't matter which side you're on, because we don't know.
I mean, the actual real person way to look at it is, I don't know.
I mean, I suspect it was stolen, or probably stolen, or probably not.
Now, those are opinions that could be, you know, right or wrong, but they're not NPC opinions.
They're just somebody who doesn't know which is exactly the right place to be.
Number three, they don't have any stories to tell.
Have you noticed that some people always have stories?
You could give me almost any topic and I'll tell you a story in my life that has some relationship to it.
Now, I'm a writer, so maybe it's easier for me, but...
There are people who can't tell you a story about anything.
And the suggestion here is that they've been programmed without much history.
So they don't have any stories.
Because they're NPCs.
And then the fourth one, I'll just throw this out to be argumentative.
They believe analogies are the same things as arguments.
Because if you're going to program your NPCs, you just say, OK, just follow patterns.
Whatever the pattern is, just do that.
If you see a pattern, just trust it.
So the NPCs would see analogies as meaning something, whereas people who are real people would see analogies as just analogies.
It's a different situation that might tell you something about yours, but it's not an argument.
It's just a whole different situation.
Also, they're really bad at analogies, maybe.
NPCs in a video game also repeat useful things to help you complete your quest.
So maybe they repeat themselves.
Maybe they only say a certain number of things.
Now, the other... Oh, I guess I should have added a fifth.
A fifth would be movie references as opposed to useful conversation.
So if somebody's saying to you, oh, that's like The Matrix, or that's...
Soylent Green. There's a few other movies that people always mention.
Ooh, wow!
Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto could be unmasked at a Florida trial?
That's not...
That's got to be fake news.
I'm seeing something that looks like fake news.
How in the world could the creator of Bitcoin be unmasked?
That would...
That's just not possible, right?
Am I right? Do I understand Bitcoin well enough to say that you could never uncover who it is in a court case unless you actually had that person in court?
And even then, I'm not sure if it would work.
Right? Oh, okay, we do have a...
Erica is saying that the Rittenhouse gun charges have been dismissed.
The gun charges have been dismissed.
Thank you. What did I tell you the other day?
I told you that our court system in the United States is the jewel of the republic.
This might be a good example.
I'm hoping that this goes the way I would expect it to.
Wait a minute. Now I'm seeing somebody else saying the opposite.
Now the court finds Kyle Rittenhouse lawfully carried it.
I'm sorry, yes, lawfully, that's the same.
They're going hard on the provocation angle, yeah.
Yeah.
All right. So, good for the court system if it comes to the right conclusion.
And it looks like it is. I have some faith in this judge.
Having watched the judge's operation, I feel like things are going to go the right direction here.
Steve Bannon turned himself in this morning.
Jail the prosecutor...
I feel like that's warranted.
It might be a bad precedent to put a prosecutor in jail, but there has to be some limit to bad behavior.
And I don't know how you decide objectively what that limit is, but my subjective opinion is that he crossed it.
The judge kind of looks like me.
No, he doesn't.
You're just saying all bald white guys with glasses look alike?
Well, we do. It's kind of true.
What does it mean if it doesn't go in the right direction?
Well, the jury can do anything.
You know, the jury can find whatever they want.
So there's still some risk.
Oh, yeah. So I forgot about this story.
So it turns out that Pete Buttigieg is not in charge of the infrastructure spending.
Did you know that? Pete Buttigieg is not...
Apparently some new guy has been appointed to be the infrastructure czar.
Because Buttigieg couldn't handle that?
Or it didn't make sense in his portfolio?
Which is it? That's really not much of a confidence in Buttigieg, is it?
I wonder...
I wonder if somebody's trying to keep Buttigieg from becoming president on the Democrat side.
Doesn't this feel like if anybody wanted Buttigieg to be president, they would give him the portfolio?
Right? Am I wrong?
If they wanted Buttigieg to have a high enough profile from his boring job that he's in so that he could run for president, they would give him the portfolio and make sure that you knew he was the one making the decisions.
I think the Democrats just kneecapped Buttigieg.
Am I wrong? Am I reading too much into that?
It could be that Buttigieg just had too much on his plate for the normal job and he couldn't handle it.
But it looks like the Democrats just took out Kamala Harris and took out Buttigieg.
Who are they making space for?
They're making space for somebody, aren't they?
Because there's no chance Biden's going to run again.
So if they take out Biden, Harris, and Buttigieg, who's left?
Now, it's not going to be Tulsi, because she's a little bit too middle for the left, I think.
Not Hillary. It's not going to be Michelle Obama.
Not Cory Booker.
Not John Kerry. AOC, no.
Too soon. Maxine Waters, no.
Isn't this interesting? There has to be some...
Oh, Newsom. I would love to see Newsom's poll numbers...
He might act...
You know, Newsom is somebody to worry about, if you're a Republican, to worry about.
Because he has some serious game.
He's really, really good at the politics stuff, in my opinion.
Now, I'm not happy with, you know, what he's done to California.
But he's definitely good at it.
That's for sure. He will turn off independence, maybe.
McAuliffe, I doubt it.
Yeah, isn't this interesting that we can't think of one person on the Democrat side who would make a suitable president?
Now do the same experiment, except with the Republicans.
And say to yourself, okay, if it's not Trump, do they have any strong candidates?
Yeah, all kinds of them.
I mean, you start with DeSantis.
He'd be the obvious one. Tom Cotton, strong.
Rand Paul, strong.
Yeah, I mean, and I would bet you could come up Tim Scott, strong.
Yeah, it would be pretty easy to come up with a number of Republicans that you think could be in the fight.
Well, I can't think of a Democrat that would even be able to land a punch.
Gretchen Whitmer? I don't know.
Pompeo? Yeah, even Pompeo would be at least a serious candidate for president.
He wouldn't be my first choice.
All right. I think we've reached the point where I've done such a good job.
Ooh, Joe Manchin. That's interesting.
But I don't think the Democrats would support Manchin.
So I don't think he can get there.
So am I wrong that there's a gigantic lane for somebody to create the middle party?
So the problem with Andrew Yang and the problem with anybody who does a third party is it looks like a third party.
Am I right? Third parties look like where people who are just sick of their party and have given up on being productive, you know, go for their protest vote.
And as long as you frame it that way, it's going to stay that way.
And I think Yang has somewhat accidentally framed his, you know, third party appeal very narrowly.
I'm not even entirely sure what you'd call his proposition.
But imagine you said, I'm going to form the middle party, and I'm going to go after the moderate Democrats and the moderate Republicans, and I'm going to acknowledge that they don't agree, even though they're both closer to the middle.
I'm going to acknowledge that they don't agree, but I'm going to have them fight it out in public.
We'll have a series of debates with the moderates versus the moderates, and And we'll publicize it, and I'll help you sort out what's true, and then we'll try to come up with compromises.
And we'll just ignore the far left and the far right as both equally not useful.
Now imagine if instead of demonizing the right, the far right, or demonizing the left, the far left, suppose you said everybody in the middle is cool.
And that you're the middle party and you invite them all in.
Democrats, cool. As long as you're toward the middle.
Republicans, cool. Independents, you're all in.
You're all cool. The people on the far left and the far right, I will simply dismiss this way.
They're not useful. They're not useful to you.
They're not useful to the country.
They're not even useful to themselves.
As soon as you get into the details, you're lost.
You know, what they believe and the wokeness and all that.
As soon as you start arguing that, you're on their own home territory.
Instead, just say the middle party is exclusively going to engage with people who are trying to be useful.
And those who are clearly not trying to be useful will just ignore.
No prejudice. They're all Americans and they need to be taken care of.
They have a vote, just like everybody else.
So they get full respect...
But you don't need to satisfy them because they're not part of the useful middle.
Actually, how about this?
Change the name of the party to the useful middle.
Not just even middle.
The useful middle.
Two words. How would you not want to be in that category?
Would you not want to be in the useful middle?
No. I mean, that's where I'd want to be.
I'd want to be in the useful middle because it frames everything else as being not useful.
Even if you believe they're things, it's just not useful.
Now, high-energy party, too generic.
Define far-right.
Far-right, I would say, the racists.
So I would say that the far-right, the farthest right and the farthest left are both just racists.
What do you think of that framing?
That the farthest right, you know, the extreme, and the farthest left are just racists.
And why would you engage racists on either party?
As soon as you get into the policy differences, how useful is that?
Not very. Somebody says wrong.
Tyrannical. The useful party, I think you need the useful middle.
Somehow that middle adds something, I think.
The shrink government party, yeah, good luck with that.
All right. I think I've done enough, so YouTube, I'm going to say goodbye right now, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.