Episode 1673 Scott Adams: More Things We Are Learning About The Ukrainian Invasion. Yikes
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Content:
Ukraine updates
Elon Musk, free speech absolutist
Greta Thunberg supports Ukraine
Controlling Ukraine with propaganda
Persuading Ukraine they're wrong
2 corrupt governments fighting each other
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Welcome to the highlight of civilization called Coffee with Scott Adams.
Now, we might be talking about the Ukraine war because...
I guess the pandemic's over.
So it's time to talk about that.
But first, let's take it up a notch.
Shall we? Yes.
And all you need is a cup or a mug or a glass or a tank or a chalice of time, a canteen, a jug, a flask, a vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee.
And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure that the dopamine of the day thinks makes everything better.
It's called the simultaneous sip.
Go! Ah, yeah.
That's so good.
So, so good.
I had a suggestion the other day that I should do an interview slash competition with Snoop Dogg to see who could pass out during an interview first.
If you know what I mean. I think that would be hilarious.
Do you think Snoop would take my invitation?
If I had a split screen and I said, here's the deal.
We're just going to do what we do, if you know what I mean.
If you know what I mean. Oink, wink.
While the interview is going on.
And we're going to see if my questions get dumber than his answers.
So we'll see who can hang in there longer.
I think I can take him.
And by the way, me interviewing Snoop Dogg, that should be pay-per-view.
Because I think it would be the best interview he ever gave.
Something tells me.
Well, once again, the science is pointing...
Toward my opinion. There's yet another study, which we don't trust any studies, but they're fun to talk about.
Published in the esteemed journal Nature, which is a pretty good one, I understand.
And it says, basically, any amount of alcohol damages your brain.
The basic thing is that any amount of alcohol damages your brain.
And they can detect it now, apparently.
Now, I'm not so sure that they have cause and effect right, because one of the things they do is they say, okay, we looked at these people who had, you know, one beer a day, and their brains were smaller than, or they looked like what, their brains appeared two years older than those who drank only half a beer.
So if you had two beers, your brain looked two years older than if you had half a beer.
But something tells me there are probably a lot of things going on with the people who drink more alcohol compared to the people who don't.
Am I right? Because at the very least, some other people might be reading books while you're drinking.
If that were the only difference...
One day a week you drink, and maybe one day a week somebody else reads a book.
I don't know. I think you'd see a difference in the brains after a while, wouldn't you?
It doesn't necessarily mean that the alcohol is shrinking your brain.
It could mean that the reading increases it, or keeps it younger.
So I would imagine there are lots of correlations that they didn't pick up in this study.
Just guessing. But it agrees with me, so I tell you about it.
Well, let's talk about all the fake news.
We'll start with Trump-related fake news.
I call it fake news that Trump called Putin a genius, although it actually happened.
It's fake news, but it literally happened.
And the fake part is the context they put it in.
So here's Trump explaining it in his own words the next day after he got some criticism for calling Putin smart.
I guess he was talking to a fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago and he said, they say Trump said Putin's smart.
I mean, he's taking over a country for $2 worth of sanctions.
Trump told the crowd at a fundraiser.
I'd say that's pretty smart.
He's taking over a country, really a vast, vast location, a great piece of land with lots of people, and is just walking right in.
Now, obviously, it's going to be harder than walking right in, and the sanctions are going to be more than $2.
So this is a little...
In a sense, he was using dated information when he made his opinion.
But I don't disagree with his opinion, do you?
Who would disagree with the opinion under the assumption that Putin could just walk in and take over the country?
Now, that turns out not to be true.
It's going to be way harder than Putin might have imagined.
But if your assumption was that it was an easy, easy takeover, which a lot of people thought in the beginning, thought it would take two days, if you had that assumption, then it would be smart but evil to do this.
Wouldn't you say? Nobody asks Trump if Putin is evil.
Ask him the question.
Mr. Trump, you said you think Putin is smart.
Do you think he's also evil?
If Trump says no, he's fine.
Not only is he smart, but he's completely moral and ethical, too.
Well, then I think you'd have some good complaints about Trump.
But if Trump says, yeah, he's making smart moves based on the information he has, but he's also evil, then that's not too far from what people thought a week ago.
Today, I think, I'll bet Trump would revise his opinion today.
I'll bet as of today, Trump would say, you know, this doesn't look so smart anymore because he's not going to get Ukraine on the cheap.
So I'd like to hear an update on Trump's opinion based on new information.
Here's another for the Trump-was-right-all-along file.
Do you remember the Saudi Arabia and the crown prince allegedly ordered the assassination of Khashoggi?
And the world said, Trump, why are you not coming harder on Saudi Arabia?
Why are you not pushing harder on Saudi Arabia?
Do you remember what I said at the time?
When Trump was not pushing hard on Saudi Arabia?
I said, that's the right play.
Because basically now Saudi Arabia owes you a favor.
That's how it works.
You do somebody a favor, that was a pretty big one.
Basically, Trump not going hard as Saudi Arabia for the Khashoggi thing, that was a favor.
It felt like it to me at the time.
It felt like it was a personal favor.
And I think Trump collected.
Not only did he collect by getting the Abraham Accords through, one of the greatest diplomatic accomplishments of all time, but now Saudi Arabia is...
Let's see.
How did I lose that story?
They're talking about maybe being an ally with Israel someday.
So the crown prince is actually saying, you know, maybe someday we should be thinking more about Israel as an ally.
I think Trump played this exactly right.
Now, the murder of Khashoggi may have been a horrible, brutal thing that nobody can individually be in favor of, of course.
But if you were playing the real politic thing where, you know, it's a dirty world, I think Trump played the dirty world just right.
Am I wrong? Don't you think that Trump played the dirty world, you know, where nothing's perfect and there are killers in the world and it's just not a clean world?
I think he played it right.
Because he ended up with Saudi Arabia largely where we want them to be in terms of allies, in terms of how they would treat Israel in the future especially.
I don't know. I would say that this is one of Trump's greatest moves and will never be recognized as such.
He'll probably be criticized For not being harder on Saudi Arabia.
At the same time, to me, it looks clear that was the right move in retrospect.
All right. Do you remember the tragic story of the Stanford soccer star, a young woman, Katie Meyer, who died, and initially there was no information on how she died?
Didn't everybody think that was a vaccination death?
Because on social media, there was this indication, sort of a hint.
Oh, and then suddenly there were all these stories about all the athletes dying from vaccinations, which is all debunked, by the way.
There is no excess athletes dying from vaccinations.
That's completely debunked.
But it turns out we get an update and she died of suicide.
So, you know, it's twice as tragic, if it's suicide, I guess.
And you think about it, this is somebody who had everything.
She was healthy.
She was at Stanford.
She was a soccer star.
We've got a problem in this world with mental health that's, as big as you think that problem is, is probably bigger than you think.
I think mental health is a giant problem.
You probably think it's a giant problem, too.
But however big you think it is, I think it's maybe five times that.
I don't think we're even close to appreciating the mental health problem that's a bigger pandemic than the pandemic.
All right, here's some Ukrainian updates that I find interesting.
The second biggest oil company, I think CNN was reporting this, Luck Oil.
Has called for an end of the war.
Now, they're not directly criticizing Putin.
That would be dangerous. But apparently it's noteworthy that they're calling for an end to the violence without blaming anybody.
Because apparently the value of their stock has lost 99% of its value.
Essentially, every public company in Russia is worthless now.
Literally. Literally worthless.
Meaning nobody would buy it.
Now, I guess there's some big companies in America who are going to gamble on some of the depressed assets.
But that's just a gamble.
That's not really an investment.
You could call it an investment if it's part of a big portfolio.
I'll give you that, though. But really, a Russian company, maybe all of them, have lost 99% of their value.
Now, do you think that the Russian public is now unaware That Putin's got them in a little trouble?
I think these sanctions are going to work way better than all the experts predicted.
So, so far the experts told us that Putin would just walk into Ukraine in two days, into Kiev.
The military experts have been 100% wrong, am I right?
I don't believe there were any military experts saying, oh, it's going to be a long slog.
I don't recall seeing that once, did you?
Did any notable experts say Russia's going to get bogged down there?
I don't remember seeing it.
Somebody says yes.
There might have been. It's being said now, of course.
Now it's being said. But before the actual invasion, how many military experts said that they were going to get bogged down the way they are?
Besides me. I mean, I said it.
So I think the military experts were largely completely wrong so far, although I suspect they're going to be right about Russia flattening Ukraine, unfortunately.
So I think Putin is going to be losing the persuasion war even within Russia.
Because once you do this much damage to the economy, and I guess even the oil and energy segment in Russia that was carved out to be free of the sanctions, nobody even wants to touch the part that's carved out because they figure it won't stay carved out.
Which is a good play, right?
They're thinking it's too risky to even deal with Russia on the stuff that's not illegal, because it might be illegal later.
That would be a wise risk management decision.
So RT, Russia Today, which is basically a Russian propaganda site, which, full disclosure, I have appeared on.
Back in probably 2016 or 17, maybe?
Now, at the time, I didn't know it was Russian propaganda, but I was just doing everybody's propaganda.
I also appeared on CNN, which I also think is propaganda.
So I've appeared on MSNBC, RT, CNN, and as long as they showed my interview without editing, which they did, because it was live, I'll appear almost anywhere.
In fact, I think I would...
Yeah, I probably would.
I think I would appear on Russia state media if they invited me.
As long as they showed my live interview.
Because I get to say what I get to say.
I think I'd do that.
So, Scott Adams, media whore.
Is it a media whore or am I using them for my own purposes?
Because remember, it's my opinion.
It's not their opinion. I wouldn't be going on their show to give them their opinion.
I'd be giving my opinion. Why can't I give my opinion anywhere I want?
Apparently Elon Musk agrees with me because he's been asked by several nations to block Russian propaganda on the Starlink network.
And Elon Musk says, sorry, not going to happen unless it's at gunpoint because he's a free speech absolutist.
And I respect that opinion, especially if you've got a network that carries traffic.
You should be a free speech absolutist.
So I respect that, even though it has its own set of costs, I guess.
Anyway, Paul Joseph Watson tweets that it's ironic that RT is being banned for their propaganda when pretty much all of the legacy media is just running one fake story after another about Ukraine.
Am I right? I think Mike Cernovich is doing the best job of calling out the media for running just pure Ukrainian propaganda.
Like all the stories of the 13 people on the island, that was fake.
The ghost of Kiev, the ace fighter pilot who's shooting down all the Russian jets.
Never happened. Complete fabrication.
So most of what you're hearing from Ukraine is pure bullshit.
And our legacy media is just reporting it like it's true.
So where do you draw the line between, you know, honest mistakes?
Are they? You know, which part of our media is just carrying water for the CIA? Some of them.
It certainly looks to me like the CIA is directly managing some parts of our media right now.
It looks like it. I mean, I don't see the mechanism, but it looks like it.
The output looks like it.
Anyway, it's a good question. Who decides who is propaganda and what is not when all of it looks like propaganda?
Also, speaking of Cernovich, he points out, and this is always a good thing to look for, we're in the fog of war, so you expect and you accept that there'll be lots of mistakes made in the reporting, correct?
We get...
That a lot of the early reporting is just going to be totally wrong.
But we also sort of uncritically accept that they're just mistakes.
But as Mike Sertovich points out, why do the mistakes always seem to go in one direction?
Meaning that the stories that are incorrect turn out to have been pro-Ukraine.
Is it a coincidence that all of the fake news is pro-Ukraine?
That would be a pretty big coincidence, wouldn't it?
Now, it's also possible that my assumption is wrong, that the fake news is not all pro-Ukraine.
Maybe I just see it that way.
It could be a perceptual thing.
So, you know, throw that in the mix.
That's a possibility, too. Scott, how about it's because Russia is evil, says the Ukrainian troll.
Perhaps, maybe, allegedly.
All right. A Russian TV station that was essentially decommissioned by Russia, because I guess they were being too independent about the war.
They were already suspended, their operations, but I guess they had one final broadcast, and they pretended that the entire staff was resigning on air to protest the war, basically.
So I guess they all got up and resigned on live TV in Russia.
That's pretty impactful. Now, it didn't mean anything because they'd already been suspended.
So, it wasn't any work to do anyway.
But I think that's pretty meaningful.
Do you think the message is getting through to the Russian public?
I think the impact on the economy and stuff like this probably is starting to get through.
But I'll bet you you can't reach 50% of the Russian public.
About 50% of the Russian public is impervious to any propaganda, let's say, fighting.
That they're just going to believe the Russian side, and there's nothing you can do about it.
And how much support does Putin need within Russia to keep control?
I don't know the answer to that.
But... If 50% are going to support him no matter what, because he can control the propaganda, I don't know, that's probably enough to hang on.
I think he could hang on with 50% popular support.
Because keep in mind, if Russia does get full control of Ukraine, the Russian public, or some part of it, may consider this a success.
What do you think? I'm going to say that 50%, this is just my impression, it's not based on any science or anything.
My guess is that 50% of the Russian public, at least, this would be my low number, 50% will decide that Putin succeeded and Russia was justified and that it was a good war and a good outcome.
I say at least 50% will believe that because Putin can control the narrative that well.
Now, let's talk about some more of the fake news and the narrative.
So Greta Thunberg did a little selfie today holding a handmade sign in support of Ukraine.
Now, how much balls does it take to be Greta Thunberg and publicly take a selfie saying you're favoring Ukraine?
Because although she is not single-handedly responsible, she is the biggest name in favor of reducing our energy security.
I'm not making that up.
I don't believe that that's any kind of a weird interpretation of events.
I think that's just straightforward.
She's the voice of climate change.
Climate change is the thing which created energy insecurity because the green stuff can't grow fast enough.
It doesn't work all the time.
If the wind does blow, the sun isn't out.
So Greta, at least as a symbol, she is really the cause of the Ukraine war.
Because if Russia didn't have this much control over energy, they never would have been emboldened to do what they're doing.
So how much balls does it take for her to say she's in favor of Ukraine?
She is closer to the cause of the war than the solution.
Now again, I'm using some hyperbole.
You recognize that, right?
Ukraine wasn't caused by one thing.
It requires Putin's brain and lots of other things, too.
So, CNN is running an opinion piece by Douglas London, who has decades in foreign experience in the CIA. And he's talking about Putin.
And the start of his article is, Putin, the emperor with no clothes.
Now, on principle alone, I almost didn't read this article.
Because I'm going to add the emperor has no clothes to my empty NPC statements.
That's like Soylent Green.
Hey, that's like The Matrix.
It looks like Wag the Dog is happening.
And then I'm going to add, The Emperor has no clothes.
These are all the things that you say if you don't have anything to add whatsoever.
There's just nothing to add.
All right. But I'm guessing that maybe the editors had something to do with the title because the article itself was pretty good.
And Douglas London's take is that Putin is not crazy.
Not crazy.
And that the problem is he's terribly misinformed by his inner circle who don't want to tell him the truth.
Do you buy that?
Do you buy that Putin is perfectly sane?
The only problem is all of his information about what's practical to do and what the situation is is skewed by his inner circle.
Because they just will agree with him like sycophants.
I don't agree with that.
I don't agree with that.
I don't believe that Putin's sources of information are just his sycophants.
Do you believe that?
You know, I don't think it's so far out of the...
Scott is a paid corporate shill.
Bill Scott says, Scott is a paid corporate shill.
Have you been paying attention to my career at all?
Have you heard of Dilber?
It's a popular comic.
It's not really that complimentary to management and to corporate interests.
Just saying. Anyway.
I don't think I buy that Putin is only misinformed by his own sycophants.
I think it's probably his own opinions that are misinformed, meaning that he's got the input, he just processes it differently.
That would be my guess.
But again, we're all guessing. Nobody knows what Putin's really thinking.
I watched a little bit of Putin's address to Russia, I think it was yesterday, in which he was doing a televised address, giving them an update on stuff.
And if you look at Putin's face and his body language, he's having a tough time.
Now, some of it could be just war face, you know, if you're the person who's killing thousands of people every day.
Imagine waking up, you're Putin, and you know that today you will kill thousands of people that didn't need to die.
How does that feel?
I think I could be a war president if my country had been attacked.
I could rationalize sending people to defend the country even if some of them died.
But how do you rationalize a war of choice?
Because it was choice-y.
I think he had a choice.
And he just decides that thousands of people will die in his own country.
His own citizens he'll send out there to die.
How do you live with that?
I don't know. But to me, he looked like he's not in his best mental state.
He looks like a person who knows he's losing.
Again, we can't read his mind, so everybody's just guessing about Putin.
But my take on him, this is just the totality of my life experience, is that he had a face that looks like he knows he's wrong.
He shouldn't have been there, and that he's going to lose.
That's what his face said to me.
Again, just an impression.
Don't put too much in that.
Joel Pollack points out that there are calls for the Biden administration to get behind the idea that Putin's a war criminal.
So as Joel says, a reporter at the press conference correctly pointed out that the Biden administration's empty threats to accuse Russia of war crimes, that they're empty threats, when the International Criminal Court does not have jurisdiction over non-member Russia and the U.S., especially for war crimes committed with non-member Ukraine.
So basically there's no entity that could deem him a war criminal and make his stick.
But I don't think that's the important part.
I don't think that we're talking about him being a war criminal because it matters if somebody designates him that.
I think it's just persuasion.
If you can make everybody talk about whether he is or is not a war criminal, or better yet, talk about whether some international group will designate him one, that's making you think past the sale.
If what you're talking about is if there's a legal entity to designate him a war criminal, you've kind of already uncritically accepted that he's a war criminal, and the only question is whether there's an entity to label him.
It's persuasion.
It's all persuasion.
So it's good persuasion.
If you're on the team that wants Putin to look bad, it's good persuasion.
The war criminal thing is really sticky.
I think it's really sticky.
NATO said it won't give air cover, as you know, to Ukraine, which is essentially telling Putin he can have Ukraine.
Am I right? When NATO says we definitely won't do air cover, as opposed to saying, well, we're considering it?
Suppose they said, we don't say what we're going to do militarily.
Eh? Could they have done that?
Could NATO have said, we don't tell anybody what our military plans are?
But instead they said, nope, absolutely, we're not going to do any air support.
Is that the right thing to do?
I don't know. But to me, it sounds like they just told Putin he can have Ukraine.
There's nothing to stop him.
Now, a number of people said that...
Here's what the experts say.
Now, remember the experts. The experts said that Putin could take Ukraine in 48 hours.
Why do you think that the only reason that Putin thought he could take Ukraine in 48 hours, if he did, we don't know that.
But if he did, do you think it's because his sycophants would not give him the right information?
Or was it because every single military expert on every side said it would take two days?
And so CNN's running an article...
That says he's getting his information, or an opinion piece, saying he's probably getting his information from just the sycophants and he doesn't know what's going on.
But suppose he did.
Suppose Putin was watching all the Western press and he knew exactly what CNN and all the military experts said.
What would they have been saying?
They would have agreed with his sycophants.
If Putin had information outside of his His little unit of agreeers, he would have seen the same message, that he could take Ukraine in two days.
I'm not wrong about that, right?
So why would we think that his small band of advisors are the problem when they're saying the same thing everybody else was saying, presumably?
Again, we don't know for sure.
Yeah. People are telling me that this is also what the experts say.
And confirm this for me.
Confirm that the experts do say this.
The military experts say that the size of the military that Putin seems to be putting into Ukraine would be nowhere near, nowhere near, what it would take to hold the country even if you conquered it, to occupy it.
I completely disagree.
Do you know why?
Because Putin can control propaganda completely.
If you can control propaganda completely, you don't need an occupation force.
You just do it with persuasion.
Now, I'm waiting to see the first person to say something that I'm going to criticize.
Go. I say that Putin can occupy Ukraine successfully with nothing but persuasion because he'll control the information.
Now, come on.
I'm waiting. I'm waiting for the criticism.
I know it's coming. Come on.
Come on. Why isn't somebody saying, why couldn't he do it in Afghanistan?
Or why couldn't the Soviet Union?
Where's that? Why aren't you telling me why couldn't they do it in the Soviet Union when they were in Afghanistan?
They didn't have the internet.
And the Mujahideen are not on Twitter.
So you can't hold Afghanistan with persuasion because you don't have the communication channel.
There's no way to hold Afghanistan with just persuasion.
You would have to have an occupation force that was big enough.
But Ukraine?
Do you know what the Ukrainian people will hear within a week of Putin owning all the communications and media in Ukraine, which seems likely...
The Ukrainian people are going to hear, you probably were not aware how many Nazis were in your government before we came in here.
Am I right? And they'll say it over and over again.
And they'll show you videos and lots of images and scary things that they saved him from.
You don't think that half of Ukraine, which is about all it would take to hold Ukraine probably, you don't think that half of Ukraine could be convinced that maybe Ukraine was on the wrong side?
Yeah, that's very possible.
Practical and doable.
Now remember, persuasion doesn't get everybody all the time.
It's not that kind of a weapon.
But you can get half the people reliably on any message.
If the government is behind the messaging, you can get half of the people to agree with just about anything.
And that's probably enough to hold the country.
Or at least reduce the size of an occupation force.
So, here's my disagreement with the experts summarized.
That the size of your occupation force is directly related to the quality of your persuasion.
If your persuasion is high, your occupation force could be small, and vice versa.
They're, what do you call it, substitutes?
They're not perfect substitutes, but they're substitutes.
All right.
I just got a weird question by text.
And the answer is no to the question by text.
All right. You're dismissing the rage of loss of country, family, and friends.
Yes, the Ukrainian citizens are not going to be happy with Putin, and that's going to last.
But what I'm saying is that there will be enough people who are persuaded to the Russian point of view that it reduces the amount of occupation force they need.
That's all. And if you get the right people in charge of the security apparatus, then Ukraine's own security apparatus takes care of a lot of the internal conflict.
Is that an official prediction?
It's an official, let me say, statement of how the world works.
So the statement of how the world works is that the better the persuasion, the smaller the occupation force you need.
So I guess that's not a prediction.
That's a statement. But I will say it's not a prediction.
But in my opinion, it's possible for Putin to hold Ukraine without a gigantic occupation force.
So that's all I'll say.
It's possible. That doesn't mean he'll do it because the crushing sanctions are pretty crushing.
So, you know, there's a lot of variables in play here.
Alright, why is Russia focusing on Ukraine's nuclear sites?
I have a question that I need Mark Schneider or somebody who's smart about nuclear to answer for me.
I've not seen anybody say the following.
That Russia might be concerned that Ukraine would get a hold of a dirty bomb.
Can you make a dirty bomb...
If you had access to a nuclear power plant, and let's say you were all on the same team, and you went there and said, hey, nuclear power plant, you're on the side of Ukraine, so are we.
Is there any way we can get some of your dirty stuff to make a dirty bomb?
Somebody says you could do it from spent fuel rods.
Now, here's the question.
Why has nobody reported that?
Let's go back to the Mike Cernovich question, which is, why does all the reporting coincidentally favor Ukraine?
Is that a coincidence?
Now, it could be that the only reason that Russia wants to take over the nuclear sites is they want to prevent a false flag.
What if Russia had heard...
That Ukraine might blow one of its own nuclear sites, which would be the worst-case scenario.
But imagine they would melt down their own site to blame Russia, and that would basically turn the world against Russia until the end of time.
If a nuclear site goes down in Ukraine and Russia gets blamed, that's a different situation, isn't it?
Now, would somebody in Ukraine do something that evil?
Well, I don't know. If your whole country is being threatened and you're on a kill list, you put me on a kill list, let me say this clearly.
If you put my name on a kill list, I might take out a nuclear facility to get myself off of it.
Now, I'd hope that the people who maybe did this false flag...
This is all speculative. There's no evidence of any of this.
But I would hope that anybody who did take down the nuclear site got people out of there so nobody died directly from it.
But yeah, yeah.
If I were in a government that was on a kill list and I had maybe 48 hours to live and I thought maybe I had to do something drastic, I would consider taking on a nuclear site in my own country.
Because remember, the nuclear sites aren't going to help them because Russia's going to turn off the lights until Russia has control.
So they don't need any nuclear sites.
They're not working.
But if they could use it to change the course of the war or get NATO involved or something, I can imagine.
I can imagine that Russia has some valid reasons for wanting to control those sites that are not...
Bad. Now, did you see the story that the Russians had put explosives around one of the sites so they would blow the nuclear site if, I don't know, if something went wrong?
Do you believe that story?
Do you believe that the Russian army has orders to blow a nuclear site in Ukraine under any conditions?
That sounds like really fake news to me.
I don't see any argument that the Russian army or the Russian government or Putin could possibly have any benefit from blowing up a nuclear site in Ukraine.
Just not possible.
Right? So I think that's a fake news story, that Russia was putting bombs around the nuclear site.
Now, again, like all of these things, if I say something with great confidence...
Those of you who know me well enough, you should know if I say something like that and it sounds like confident, that 100% of everything you say about this Ukrainian situation is iffy.
Can we agree on that?
I think the only thing we know is that there's some kind of a war going on.
After that, it's all just bullshit after that.
So if I look confident, just know that that's just a mannerism.
It's not what's happening in my head about anything.
All right. Now they're saying that Zelenskyy has survived three assassination attempts.
There are these assassination squads.
You know, they're Chechens.
But they've all been thwarted because the plucky and highly capable Ukrainian security got tipped off, possibly by somebody in Russia, because even Russia doesn't like this, they say.
And so the death squads were thwarted and eliminated.
How much of that story do you believe?
I believe none of it.
I believe none of it.
There's probably not a single thing about this story that's true.
Except the general thing that Russia might want is Zelensky dead.
So don't believe any of that.
It might be true, but I would say the credibility of the source is just zero.
It's just zero. Am I right?
Do you all agree with the following statement?
That it's possibly true.
Possibly true. But the source that told you it's true, zero credibility.
Zero.
In fact, every lie that we've heard came from this source.
All right?
Let's talk about something else. .
So remember I was, I guess we were all asking the question, why isn't Ukraine, if it still has military assets and some assets in the sky, and drones, why are they not wiping out that stalled Russian column that was 40 miles long and they're not going anywhere?
And I had speculated, with my total lack of military experience, that the smartest thing the Ukrainians could do is just pick off the supply trucks.
You know, pick off the gas and food supplies, and that's it.
And just let the convoy be trapped, because they can't do anything, they're just going to starve to death.
And so we saw a report, and again, remember, 100% of the news and of Ukraine is sketchy.
I'll just tell you what the report is, but don't automatically assume that I think it's true.
I'll just tell you what it is.
That apparently the report is that the Ukrainians have special forces that have been trained by America...
The belief there that their special forces are quite good.
And that the special forces have been targeting primarily the rear of the column to get the supply trucks, and successfully.
So they're sending out the best of their special forces and just picking off the supply trucks.
And they're doing it successfully.
Now that's the report, but it's in the context of only propaganda, right?
So we don't really know if that's even happening.
If we're being honest, we don't know if anything like that's really happening.
But that's the report. Now, those of you who would like to make fun of my lack of military expertise, I would point out that that's what I would have done, and I said that publicly before we saw a report that that's what they're actually doing.
Can you back me on that?
I want to make sure that I really did say that in public.
Do you remember hearing it? Okay, so I'm getting some confirmation that people did hear that, yeah.
So remember, every time that you're saying, but Scott, the military experts, blah blah, just remember that I beat the military experts about how effective Russia would be in 48 hours.
I was better than the military experts.
And on the supply truck column, my theory of how to address it is exactly what's reported they're doing.
Now I also have a...
I guess a speculation or a prediction that the Turkish-made drones that are flying over Ukraine and attacking Russia, someday we're going to find out that Ukrainians were not piloting those.
Which military expert is telling you that?
I mean, they can't, really.
They can't tell you that.
But there's no way in hell...
That we sent a bunch of gazillion-dollar expensive drones over there, and we told the Ukrainians, hey, take an hour to learn how to use this thing.
Because there's no way the Ukrainians had enough trained drone operators.
There's no way. And even if they did, wouldn't you want the best drone operators on this job?
I mean, I think they probably just shuffled some paperwork and said, all right, you were working for NATO yesterday, but on paper you're working for Ukraine now.
We fire you. And then the guy in the same chair just kept running the drones.
That's what I think. I don't think that the Ukraine military built a drone operating center that is successfully operating from Ukrainian territory.
Well, let me ask it this way.
Do you believe that the drones are being operated from the ground and that the ground source is in Ukraine today?
Do you believe that? Do you believe that the ground operation for the drones is in Ukraine?
Somebody says yes.
That would be the worst place to put it.
You don't think the Russians could find that thing?
I can't believe that there would still be a central ground operation place for the drones if Russia is in Ukraine and has probably some reasonably good intelligence.
Can they find where the signal's coming from?
They can, can't they?
Don't you think? Somebody says, no way.
Somebody says, no way that they could find where the source of the signal is.
Is there somebody who's smart enough to know?
Remember, Elon Musk just warned that the Starlink terminals could be located by somebody who's got the right equipment and that they could be bombed.
If you can find a Starlink terminal...
Now, I get that the Starlink terminal is not designed to be military-grade security.
I get that. But something tells me if a signal is going into space from a place...
You can't find the source of the signal, especially when you've turned off the electricity to pretty much all of Ukraine.
Couldn't you just turn off all of the electricity in Ukraine, and then you'd find basically one signal that's still working, and that would be the drone operators, because they'd have their own source of energy, probably.
Somebody says satellites.
Well, yeah, I mean, the satellites are involved...
But there's still a ground source human who's running it, right?
Somebody in the comments says, I could do it in five minutes with equipment I already own.
There's somebody saying they could detect the ground-based operators of the drones with just equipment he owns, assuming he's an engineer.
All right. So...
There's a thought that the Russian influence campaign on the Internet has dried up because their source of funding is unavailable because of the sanctions.
Do you believe that?
Do you believe that the Russian influence just sort of stopped because their money source for paying the trolls dried up?
Well, I saw a senior editor at PC World, Mark Hackman, He showed two screenshots of showing Facebook posts, you know, the top posts from a week ago, and then now.
And the implication is that a week ago, the Russian influence campaign was in full swing, but now, because of the sanctions, maybe not.
And if you look at the list of what the top sources were, it changed.
I would say I wouldn't put any real faith in that analysis whatsoever.
Because I think that what trends changes for lots of reasons.
So I would say low credibility on that.
But it made me wonder where all of my trolls went.
Because I feel like a week ago I had a whole bunch of no picture in the profile trolls that were pro-Russia-ish.
And I don't see any of them today.
Now, it could be the nature of my tweets, right?
So, remember, this is not a scientific study.
This is me being biased and trying to recognize a pattern that may not be there today.
Um... Yeah, don't feed the trolls.
So, is it really Russian trolls?
Yes, that's a good question.
But I just know that they seem to have disappeared.
So here's the question to you.
If any of you feel that the Russian troll bots have been bothering you, did they disappear from you?
Somebody says it's the weekend.
Oh, yeah, maybe.
Maybe. Maybe they don't work on weekends.
You know what's funny is that that's actually a pretty good hypothesis.
But, you know, it wasn't the weekend that it stopped.
I think it stopped a few days ago.
Maybe it's CIA bots?
I don't know. Maybe.
All right. That is my fascinating take.
I'll just note that...
Are all of you following Ian Bremmer about the Ukraine situation?
I'm finding him the best source of, you know, quick updates on things, as well as framing it in productive ways.
And he's got an article he's, I think he wrote or referred to, on GZero.
I guess he wrote it.
He's thinking that it'll be a Pyrrhic victory.
In other words, that Putin might succeed in conquering Ukraine, but it will be the end of Russia or the end of Putin in terms of their current level of prestige and influence and even economics.
How many of you would agree with his prediction, which agrees with my prediction at this point as well?
How many of you agree that Putin will get control of Ukraine, but he'll be really sorry that he did?
Let me see your yeses and nos.
It's too early, yeah.
Anybody who says too early, I automatically agree with that.
He'll get half. That's a reasonable...
Yeah, he'll get half is a reasonable thing.
I don't think he'll stop at half, but...
Because the other half isn't hard, is it?
The other half is you just surround it and take your time, don't you?
I think he's doing the hard half first, isn't he?
Even though they're more Russian, so that makes more sense.
But it's the harder to conquer part, I believe.
Yeah. Now, I was looking at...
A comment by Andres Backhouse, who's noting that both Ukraine and Russia are aging populations.
And if you put together two aging populations, maybe things are not looking good for Russia in the long term.
But I do agree with Trump's real estate instinct.
Can we agree on one thing?
That Trump probably understands real estate?
Does everybody agree on that?
He understands real estate.
And his take on Ukraine was almost a real estate take, wasn't it?
If you could get Ukraine for $2 worth of sanctions, you've got some good real estate...
It's almost exactly how Trump is describing it, it's good real estate.
You get good real estate that's worth a lot for a little bit of sanctions.
Now, he was wrong about the little bit of sanctions.
I think the sanctions have way more bite than initially reported.
Scott's still coping. I can't tell if that's a joke.
Elaine Morris says, Scott is still coping.
I think I'm going to add coping...
To Soylent Green, The Matrix, The Emperor Has No Clothes, and you're coping.
I think that you're coping is probably a sign of cognitive dissonance, if you're using that word.
Because if you're trying to explain how somebody else is saying something that doesn't make sense to you, if it doesn't make sense to you, It could be the problems on your side.
And one way to know that the problem is probably on your side is if you think the other person is just coping, which doesn't really mean anything.
This is real news.
And Star Wars references, of course.
Isn't coping a stage sign of grief, I suppose?
Um... Russia Paralympic athletes thrown out of competition in China.
Why? All right.
So, this, ladies and gentlemen, was the greatest livestream of all time.
Possibly we'll be able to top it tomorrow, but, I don't know, pretty high bar.
Let me ask you something in the comments.
I worry that everybody talking about Ukraine is just going to end up saying the same stuff as everybody else.
Am I saying anything different than everybody else is saying?
This is a real question.
Are you getting any value added out of this at all?
Because I can't tell.
Yeah, you know, I think I'm going to get the same pushback pretty soon.
As I did with COVID, which is, you know, the topic, you just, you can't mind the same topic forever.
But at the moment, it is unfortunately interesting.
Unfortunately interesting.
What's this? Hedging.
Scott is always hedging his predictions.
He said Russia will win and spends the rest of the show praising Ukraine, military, and sanctions.
Really? Really? Is this an NPC comment?
The NPCs can only handle the binary.
Something's either a yes or a no.
As soon as you get past that, people can't handle it.
So here's what I think I'm doing.
I'm predicting that Russia will control Ukraine, and I'm predicting that the Ukrainian military will do a surprisingly good job of defending, but ultimately will be overwhelmed.
Because Putin has the advantage now that as soon as he turns off the media, he can do anything he wants.
There won't be any pictures.
As soon as there's no pictures and no reporting on the ground, Putin can just level everything.
And he's almost there.
So there is no inconsistency between saying Putin will control the country, Ukraine, and also saying that it's going to be really, really hard and might take Russia down in the long run.
Those are all consistent. It's the same prediction.
What about China helping Russia?
China, I think, is brutally self-interested, which will work to our advantage.
You know, we keep saying, oh, Russia is going to be saved by China.
Do you know what is the last thing that Putin wants?
To be saved by China.
Literally, the last thing he wants.
Do you know why? China doesn't help you for free.
Am I right? China's only going to help if it's good for China.
Period. And I think China's going to expect a little something in return.
So by the time China is directly helping Russia, which I don't think is going to happen in the real over-direct way, by the time they do that, China's putting themselves out there pretty far.
And they don't do that.
The only way they would put themselves out, which is it would be a complete difference in how they've handled their non-involvement up till now.
Not just non-involvement in Ukraine, but China likes to stay uninvolved in all of this stuff.
It's really, really central to their main philosophy is don't get involved in other people's wars.
Pretty good idea. So if they did get involved, even on the financial part, to save Russia...
I think they would be taking a big favor in return, and I don't know what that would be, but it's not something Putin's going to want to give them.
So, yeah, I don't think that's how they win.
Russia doesn't win by getting controlled by China.
I just saw the best comment I've seen so far.
On locals, somebody said they just ate a pound of bacon.
Good for you. It was actually the best comment of the day.
Mass formation and Zelensky.
Yes, yes.
Zelensky has hypnotized the Western world.
And I have to say that I would like to thank some of the independent voices on Twitter for literally waking me up on him.
Because I fell for it pretty hard in the first days.
I kind of fell for the Zelensky plucky hero story.
But then, as Cernovich is doing the best job of keeping us sane about that, he points out that it can't be that all the stories go in one direction.
And it's just obviously propaganda at this point.
So, I see two corrupt governments fighting each other.
I'm not entirely...
I don't even care which corrupt government wins, frankly.
I only care about the people.
Is that fair? Is that a moral and ethical place to be, that you have two corrupt governments?
I don't really care which corrupt government wins, but I do care about what happens to the citizens, so that pushes you in one direction over the other.
Now, let me ask you this.
If you wanted to design an escape hatch for Putin so that he could back down and still save something, what would it look like?
Let me suggest a Trump-like way to approach this.
Somewhere behind the scenes, assuming we can get to Putin indirectly, I'm sure we can, It would be really interesting if the United States was offering a complete amnesty program with catches.
A complete amnesty program.
and it would look like this.
We'll take all of the sanctions off of Russia if they turn away from China.
What just happened when I said that?
What happened to your brain?
Do you see it now? This entire thing could be to put Putin into position to join our side instead of China.
Because that's the big ask.
Because remember, China is not sanctioning Putin, so China loses that leverage.
They don't have anything to take away.
They have only ways to help them, which may not even be good for China.
So, if Putin gets to the point of complete desperation, which seems likely at this point, not guaranteed, but it seems likely that Putin will reach a point of near desperation, what will be his options?
You know, go into exile, it'll never happen.
Use a nuclear weapon?
That's not going to help him, because there would be a decapitation strike immediately.
Don't you think? If Putin used a nuclear weapon, we would go directly for the decapitation strike, probably with nuclear.
Right? I mean, that's just a given.
So he can't really use the nuclear thing without dying, for sure.
He can't really go into exile.
That's not going to happen. Right?
So his options are just going to shrink and shrink.
He could try to ride it out, but then the oligarch's going to be after him because they're losing all their boats.
Right? Apparently, how many stories have there been so far of oligarchs losing their yachts?
Two? Or am I hearing the same story twice?
I'm seeing somebody say it's the most bizarre thing I've said in the week.
Now, if we push Putin to the point where his only choices are to preside over the destruction of Russia or to turn from China and be More of an ally to the United States, which would require a whole host of changes.
I mean, it would be a big realignment.
But he could do it.
Because, as I've told you a million times, Putin doesn't really have any reason to be our enemy, and we don't have a reason to be theirs, except we've decided that we are.
We've sort of just decided we're enemies.
That's not a reason to be an enemy.
In terms of what's good for Russia in the long term and the United States in the long term, it is to be allies.
Who would disagree with that?
Because China is the emerging long-term threat, I guess you could say it that way.
I say that the arc of history is bending unambiguously toward a Russian and American alliance, and Europe.
Russia, Europe, America will be allied.
How many of you think that's true?
I'm saying mostly yeses, which is weird.
What are the odds that we would be so at odds with Russia?
And then I could ask the public here in America...
Do you think that in the long run we'll be allies with Russia?
And I got nearly, I don't know, 95% or 100% of people said yes.
No, not 100%.
I'm seeing some no's now.
I don't know. I think it's inevitable.
I think all of the forces are pushing us in that direction.
All right. Somebody says in the comments, we should because we're white guys.
America isn't a bunch of white guys anymore.
It's 2022. America is finally the melting pot that it was always trying to be.
Now we're actually a melting pot in terms of numbers.
I know you don't like the melting pot analogy, but I still like it.
Russia is definitely not a bunch of white guys, somebody says.
Predict, will the Ukraine Special Forces succeed in starving the Russian column?
Starving is too big of a word, meaning that I don't believe that the Russian soldiers will actually die of starvation.
I do believe that they have made the column at least temporarily useless.
I think they took them out of the fight.
So I do think they'll take them out of the fight and continue to take them out of the fight until Russia has, like, total control and, you know, even over the special forces, I guess.
Should we stock up on food?
Who's we? In the West?
I don't think so. Or besiege, yeah.
All right, that is all for now.
And he does whatever a Dugan...
Who's that? All right, stock up on toilet paper.
I don't think we need to. Complete nonsense, people say.
