Episode 1677 Scott Adams: Everything We Are Hearing About Ukraine is Propaganda and Fake News. I'll Help You Sort it Out
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a
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Content:
Nothing stopping domestic oil production?
President Putin's popularity sky high post-invasion
Russian people view NATO as the aggressor
Is a 1930 style depression coming?
Saudi's and UAE decline calls from Biden
US has bio labs in Ukraine?
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I tell you. I'd like to repeat a statistic that I got today from the Federal Bureau of Statistics that I just made up, which are that since I began doing these live streams, nobody, and I know this will seem unusual, no one has ever died while watching the live stream.
Nobody. Right?
Right? Now think about how many hours and how many people have watched these live streams.
Nobody. Not a single person has died during the live stream.
So you might be safer right now than anybody has ever been.
It's true. Alright, well here's some things that are going on right now in the world.
I'll start with the good news.
There's researchers at the Center for Sustainable and Circular Technologies...
They came up with a way to basically melt plastic into chemicals that they can reuse and resell.
So now they have a way to possibly, it looks pretty promising, economically recycle plastic.
You could recycle it before, but it wasn't economical.
It has to do with they can now melt it down without heat.
They can do it with a chemical process.
Now, is that a big deal?
Well, it feels like it could be a big deal.
Don't we make a lot of stuff out of plastic?
What happens if you can melt down all your plastic and turn it into 3D printer material?
Is that coming? I don't know.
Could be a lot of things coming.
And you know that there were breakthroughs in the CO2 farming, the ability to suck CO2 out of the air and then chemically transform that into some useful things you can sell?
You know that there were breakthroughs in fusion this year, and we know that there was an invasion of Russia, which has a lot to do with energy prices, and we know there was a pandemic that caused big differences in how people live and work and commute.
All right, here's my question.
How many of the things I just mentioned are included in climate models?
Do the climate models include in them?
Any assumptions about CO2 recycling breakthroughs?
I'm sorry, plastic recycling breakthroughs, CO2 farming, sucking it out of the air, fusion breakthroughs, Ukraine war, which will change everything about energy prices.
I don't know which way or what's going to happen, but it's going to change things.
And then the pandemic, which of course changed commuting patterns rather quickly, etc.
None of that's in there, right?
Now, let me just say again.
This is stuff that largely happened this year.
Or-ish, right?
These are gigantic variables that just sort of popped into existence.
Nobody saw it coming.
All right. Did you hear...
The Biden administration saying that there's nothing stopping domestic production of oil because there are 9,000 leases that are available that haven't been drilled on.
9,000 leases.
Hey, if nobody's drilling on any of those 9,000 leases, says Biden, I guess the problem isn't the government because they got these 9,000 leases.
And then Fox News says, which can't be used without permits.
So the 9,000 leases?
Totally fake news.
What about the part where you can't do anything without a permit?
Well, it's fake news until I learn more about that.
So I'm going to say they're both fake news.
I think both the story and the debunk, they both sound like fake news to me.
Because it sounds like there's some third explanation.
As in, there's a reason that permits can't be filled, or it's some other entity, or something.
So there's more to that story.
Somebody says the leases are dry holes.
In other words, there's a lease, but there's nothing under it.
Is that what you're saying? Yeah, okay.
So I would assume that if it were economical to drill for oil on any of these leases, for whatever the reasons...
The reasons might be too hard to get permits or it takes too long.
It might be because the holes are dry.
It might be because they're not dry, but they don't produce as much or the right thing.
So I'm going to guess, if I had to guess on this one, I'd say it is fake news that these are useful places to drill.
Would everybody agree? It's probably fake news that there are 9,000 places you can just go drill and get some oil.
Probably fake. That's the way I'd go.
All right. Project Veritas got a good hit.
They had some interviews, hidden camera interviews, with a New York Times reporter.
He's an award-winning reporter, so he's a notable person, Matthew Rosenberg.
And he was talking about the January 6th coverage.
And I think what Project Veritas does, their secret go-to, is if you send a young, attractive woman to have lunch with any male, that male will tell that young, attractive woman absolutely anything.
Anything. As long as she sounds interested.
To me, the most interesting part of the Project Veritas is listening to the undercover person.
Do you ever listen to the undercover person?
Because whoever it is, it does a good job.
And they don't show that person's face, so I guess they can keep doing this.
But the, if it's, I don't know, maybe it's different people each time.
But the young woman is clearly indicating an interest in this guy's profession.
And like, he's just pouring it out.
Ah, man, I'll just pour it out.
So that's a pretty good model the Project Veritas people have.
But a New York Times reporter was saying that he attended the January 6th event, and he said that the media was an overreaction.
So he didn't think January 6th was that dangerous or that big a deal.
He was there. It didn't seem dangerous.
It just seemed like they were having fun.
It didn't seem organized.
This is the New York Times reporter who was there.
So he knows all of the New York Times reporting on it, and he was there.
And he says it was not organized, obviously.
There were lots of FBI involved.
He didn't put a number on it, but lots of FBI involved.
And the coverage was an overreaction.
So that's what you get when a reporter is talking candidly, as opposed to writing for the boss.
Pretty big difference, isn't it?
The difference between somebody writing for their boss and somebody talking on their own?
That's about as big a difference as you can get on this one.
All right. More fake news.
Are you hearing the reports that the Russian soldiers didn't know they were attacking Ukraine and they thought they were on training missions and when they find out they're walking away from their tanks?
Do you think that's true?
And to me, that sounds so not true.
Not even a little bit.
It sounds exactly what Ukraine wants you to repeat in the media.
Hey, why don't you...
We captured some of these guys.
We got three of them to say they didn't know why they were here.
Now, granted, you could always find three military people who don't know why they're anywhere.
They don't know why they're doing anything.
It wouldn't be hard to find three who didn't know why they were there.
Or even thought they were on a training thing.
But I wonder if that's the general opinion.
Do you think that most of the troops hadn't heard about a baby Ukraine invasion?
Nobody heard about that and talked about it during any of the downtime?
I have a real problem believing, a real problem believing, that they didn't know.
You want some more evidence of that?
Putin's popularity since the invasion is sky-high in Russia because the Russians have been told, and they believe by an overwhelming majority, they believe that it's a legitimate invasion and that it's a response to something that they just had to respond to.
So the Russian public thinks it's a good war and they support Putin, according to polling.
And I guess there's some polling entities that are more trusted than others.
Obviously, you have to worry about that.
But according to a trusted one, and I tweeted a reference to it, Clint Ehrlich was talking about this, how within Russia we fail to understand that Putin's position got stronger, not weaker, because the public thinks that NATO is the problem.
The public doesn't think Putin is invading and destroying a cousin country.
They actually think he's saving it.
So, imagine this.
I don't think I can describe exactly the internet censorship situation in Russia, but in general, they have access to the entire internet, don't they?
Can somebody fact-check me on that?
I mean, give or take some specific topics that get censored, of course.
But yes, they have access to the whole internet.
And with access to the whole internet, Putin could still convince them that they were in the right to invade Ukraine.
Think about that.
Now, when I told you that, did you say to yourself, wow, how could that ever happen?
That all these people with access to the internet could be convinced of something so ridiculous that Putin had a good reason to invade Ukraine.
And you say to yourself, that propaganda is stronger than I've ever imagined.
Well, fuck you and me too.
Because how do you know that the Russian propaganda is the wrong one?
How do you know it isn't your propaganda that's the wrong one?
How do you know that it wasn't NATO that started this whole fucking thing?
Because it looks like they started it to me.
I mean, to me it looks like they started it.
I actually agree with the Russian propaganda and I'm not really subject to it much.
I mean, you could argue that some of our pundits are pushing it.
But... Now, of course, the story he's telling is something about Nazification, etc.
But I don't think that's exactly the biggest part of the story.
I think the biggest part of the story in Russia is that NATO is the aggressor.
And on paper, NATO looks like the aggressor.
NATO looks like the country that's taking a country that could have been neutral and turning it into a threatening entity against Russia.
So if the first thing you thought is, my God, how effective Putin is at brainwashing his own public, that could be exactly what's going on.
That could be exactly what's going on.
But you don't have any way to rule out that it's exactly the other way.
It's exactly the other way.
It could be that the United States and Europe are completely brainwashed into thinking that Russia is the aggressor When we're the ones who did the coup in Ukraine, and we're the ones who wanted to install NATO in a country that has a, let's say, a spiritual connection to mainland Russia in a way we could never understand.
So... I would say keep an open mind about whether the Russians or everybody else are the ones who are brainwashed in this case.
The safe guess is both.
Right? The safe guess is that nobody knows what's going on.
And that the real reasons for any of this are probably just not even in the news.
Might be some oil companies or some military or some long-term plan to degrade Russia or something.
Right? But I'm not even sure the public will ever know why we're even having this.
Retired Lieutenant General Kellogg was on Fox News.
And let me tell you what he says about how the Ukrainians are doing versus the Russians.
So I'll read you his words.
Now remember, he's a retired lieutenant general, so he would know about military things.
So when somebody with those credentials talks about military things, they're going to show their work...
They're going to give you their reasons.
And let's see if he does that.
He said, every day that goes by, and we're now getting a day 15, they're losing this war, saying Russia is losing the war on Ukraine.
Okay, so he hasn't given a reason or a source yet, but he's just setting us up.
Now, he says, they're losing in the information space for the entire world to see what's going on, to which they say, well, the only information space that matters to them is Or at least the most important one is Russia.
Russian opinion. And Russian opinion is going totally Putin's way.
So are they losing in the information space?
Because I just told you it looked like it might be our fault.
I mean, I'm a consumer of the information space.
So I'm not so sure they're losing there.
But maybe.
You know, you can see that the opinion of Russia by a lot of countries that trade with them is much less.
So I'll say that's probably true.
Then he says they're losing in the military space.
I'm waiting for the source for this or a description of why.
He says they're being beaten by Ukrainians and the whole world is going, what?
We thought these guys were really 10 feet tall.
They're not. They're about 5 foot 5.
It's almost like they're He goes, I hate to say it because I'm probably insulting the state, but it's almost like the Vermont National Guard with nuclear weapons.
They're not performing very well at all.
Everybody is saying that.
Everybody sees it. Who does that sound like?
Everybody's saying it, everybody sees it, with no source and no argument whatsoever?
That's Trump. Right?
This is something that if Trump said it, I would have said, oh, okay.
Because that's his usual sales hyperbole.
Everybody sees it. Everybody's talking about it.
Everybody sees it. It's good persuasion.
But wait a minute. This is not a persuader.
He's a lieutenant general.
Where does your information come from that the Ukrainians are winning the war?
Are you watching the same news I am?
I mean, I don't think he has secret sources, does he?
He didn't mention any. But I'm watching the news, and I don't see Ukraine winning the war, do you?
I mean, I see something really bad, which seems like inevitably Ukraine will lose.
I mean, if I had to place a bet, I wouldn't be betting on Ukraine winning, would you?
I mean, it might. Anything could happen.
But I wouldn't bet on it.
So what do you take of this retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg?
Is this a guy who's giving you a straightforward opinion on the military reality, or was this just propaganda?
Because it just looked like propaganda.
No source, no reasoning, didn't try to connect any facts we know with any predictions.
He just states it like it's true, and then says everybody's talking about it, everybody sees it.
I'm okay with a president saying everybody knows it, everybody sees it.
Because the president is a salesperson in a sense.
But not a general.
The general should be telling us maybe what's happening, actually.
All right. Rasmussen says that about 52% of the people polled in this country...
Think that it's at least somewhat likely, some say more likely, but at least somewhat likely we're going to enter a 1930s-style depression.
How many of you think that?
How many of you watching this think we might be, that it's at least somewhat likely, which is a weird way to phrase things, but at least somewhat likely that we'll have a 1930s depression?
I'm going to see yeses.
Well, anything's possible. So I'll go with anything's possible, but here's my counter-argument.
I don't believe that you can have that kind of depression when the world is as connected as it is now.
I mean, you'd have to lose the Internet for that to happen, I think.
Because the Internet basically tells you where your problems are, and it instantly connects the problem to the solution.
And that didn't exist in the 1930s.
In the 1930s, if you had a problem, you'd have to write a letter.
You'd write a letter to somebody.
Hey, we might need some equipment that we don't need.
Please write back.
Okay, maybe they had the telephone.
But my point is, everything was in slow motion in the 30s.
What happened today when we found out that Russia was going to degrade their oil?
Is it my imagination, or did every oil-producing company instantly ratchet up production, which we won't see coming online for a while, but I think we had instant adjustment.
Suppose we saw that we were actually going to run out of gas.
Imagine that. Maybe not in the United States.
Maybe just our prices would be higher, because if anybody had gas, they'd sell it to us at the higher price.
But let's say we got to a point where 10% of the world just doesn't have energy.
They're just freezing to death.
Their automobiles won't run.
The lower-end countries just don't have energy.
There just isn't any. There's nothing they can even buy because everybody else bought it.
Could the Internet just say, hey, all you rich people, could you just drive 10% less for a few months and then we'll have enough oil for the developing countries?
I think that would work.
I think that if developing countries knew that the undeveloped countries were literally just going to starve, because they had no energy at all, that the developing countries would just immediately say, okay, if this is real, it would take some convincing to know that that was real.
But if it were real, I think the developing countries could take 10% off their use for a month or two.
You know, until other sources maybe start ramping up.
I think we could do that.
So there's a whole bunch of flexibility and adjustment and substitution in every possible way that never existed in the 30s.
So, while you always have to say anything's possible, and the one that gets you is the one that happens in a way that's not historical, you know, you're always surprised by the new way that things can go wrong, such as an Internet going down.
That would be a pretty big deal.
But I would say that given the current situation, the odds of a standard depression are pretty low.
Now, inflation's going to eat at us for a long time, but I don't know that that will push us into the worst.
So I'm not yet seeing a strong signal for the worst case.
I see a strong signal for...
This is feeling sort of like a reboot...
That will cause maybe even higher GDP after this.
Because I think there will be so many adjustments because of not only the pandemic, but so many adjustments because of Russia and Ukraine in the energy world, that all that adjustment creates wealth as well.
All the activity creates transactions, creates taxes, creates good economies.
So I feel as though if we don't have yet another disaster right after this one, Which unfortunately seems to be the pattern.
But if we don't, I feel like we're going to climb out of this pretty well and climb to a higher place.
So I'm optimistic in the two-year window.
So here's my prediction.
Two years from now, things will look strong.
For one year, I think, you know, we're in the fog of war still and blah, blah, blah.
Somebody says, Scott has a Tesla.
I do not have a Tesla. I do not.
I might have one one day, but I do not have one right now.
Long story. All right.
So Poland did something that was either really clever or not.
I don't know. But, so there was all this noise about, hey Poland, why don't you lend some of your MiG jets to Ukraine, because they know how to fly these older jets.
And they'll get more control of the skies.
And that could change the nature of the war.
But Poland said, no, no, we're not going to get involved because if we do that, Russia will think we're part of the war if we send them our airplanes.
So what we'll do is we'll do what the United States and everybody's asking.
We'll give you some of our MiGs, but we'll do better than that.
Not only will we give you some of our MiGs, we'll give you all of them.
The entire fleet. And we'll fly those babies right into your airport, and you can do whatever you want with them.
Now, we'll temporarily be using your better jets, which we hope we'll be able to keep.
But while we're using your better jets, we'll be better protected.
These jets will be your problem, and we'll deliver them right to you anytime you want them.
To which the United States said, what?
No, we don't want the thing we asked for.
Because the way you're giving them to us will make it look like it's our fault.
To which Poland probably laughed and said, do you see our fucking point now?
Do you get it now? I would not rule out the fact that Poland just did one of the most clever persuasion tactics and political tactics you've ever seen.
Jack Posobiec pointed this out to me, by the way, so it's not my original insight.
It looks like Poland used the technique which I talk about, extreme cooperation.
Right? You've seen me talk about it, right?
When somebody asks for something you don't want to do, you think it's a bad idea, you cooperate exactly.
You give them everything they want.
And they'll instantly say, well, okay, this wasn't exactly what I wanted.
So, this is the smartest thing that I've ever seen a country do, honestly.
If they did this intentionally, and they weren't actually trying to help, they were just trying to make it go away, nailed it.
Nailed it! Now, there are also experts disagreeing about whether this air support would make any difference.
I would like to employ all of my extreme, extreme military experience and expertise to tell you how many MiGs are there?
I don't see how they can make a difference, do you?
Is there anybody that thinks...
What, are they going to get a handful?
10 or 20? Do you think 10 or 20 MiGs are going to make a difference?
How long would they even last?
Wouldn't they be destroyed on the ground?
Don't the MiGs have to land?
Where are they going to land? In another country?
If the MiGs land anywhere in Ukraine, how long are they going to last?
Russia sees them land.
They're on the ground.
They disappear in ten minutes.
Am I wrong? How could you possibly protect them on the ground?
So I want somebody to describe to me How these aircraft make a difference in Ukraine.
Like, actually, just game it out for me.
I want somebody to say, OK, Scott, what you don't understand with your lack of military training is that if you just had six of them, even though the Russians might have, I don't know, hundreds, whatever they have, if you had six of them, you could do this or that, and that would make a big difference.
Connect the dots for me.
I'm open to the argument.
I'm totally open to the argument.
Somebody says they can be camouflaged.
Again, I'm not a military expert, but I don't think you can camouflage an airplane that's being tracked from the air to the ground.
Wouldn't Russia be able to see every aircraft all the way to the ground with satellites and whatnot?
Unless they only flew in clouds or something?
I don't know. Maybe there is some way to make this work, but it's not obvious to me.
They can be protected and supplied.
But where are the drones coming from?
And the drones can be...
Can the drones be launched from mobile places, or do the drones have to use an airport?
Drones are coming from Turkey.
Well, that's where they're purchased from, but are they taking off them?
Somebody says mobile, somebody says highway.
Okay, so that would be a big difference.
You could easily imagine how drones could be moved around and hidden and maybe even launched from some other country if you could get away with it.
But I can't see a jet lasting 10 minutes.
All right. Hide them in the clouds?
Maybe. Maybe. I'm thinking about both military drones and the little ones.
Because I think even the military ones...
Seriously?
Let's see what that's all about.
Excuse me while I check my front door for security concerns.
It's just a package.
All right. No problem.
No problem. Alright, here's what else is going on.
So Biden tried to call Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to see if they'd pump some more oil to make up for the...
By the way, the Biden administration did ban Russian oil.
How many days ago was it when we thought that wasn't a thing?
Weren't we told that we can't stop buying Russian oil?
And then they just did?
And it won't make any difference.
Do we even notice it?
Are you even going to notice that we're not buying Russian oil?
It's like 7% of our purchases or something.
So I don't think it makes much difference, at least to Russia.
But I guess we got that done.
Now, I'm going to call that an accurate Scott prediction.
Because I did predict to you that almost anybody can adjust to a 10% or 25% anything.
You can just always adjust in the business world.
And so...
Looks like I think we're going to survive not having Russian oil, even if Saudi Arabia and nobody else decides to pump anymore.
So Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates did not take Biden's call.
Well, aren't you glad that the grown-ups are running the country now?
Let me ask you this.
Do you think the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, the one that Trump...
Protected from the Khashoggi thing.
Do you remember that?
Do you remember how much trouble Trump got in for sort of protecting, in a sense, protecting King Salmon?
And then he got the Abraham Accords done.
Coincidence? Is it a coincidence that Trump worked with the Crown Prince and got a big deal done?
Probably not a coincidence.
Do you think that the Crown Prince would not have taken a call from Trump?
Not a chance.
If Trump calls Saudi Arabia, they pick up the frickin' phone.
Am I right? They pick up the phone.
And do you know why? Because Trump probably has the goods on the Crown Prince.
He protected him.
Of course he's going to pick up the phone.
Now, that doesn't mean they would have pumped more oil, but he certainly would have taken the call, I think.
And I guess the Crown Prince is taking calls from Putin, so it's pretty bad.
But I guess we've got some problems with Saudi Arabia.
They want help with Yemen. I guess we're not being helpful there.
They think the Iran deal isn't going to be good for them.
They want something more in there.
They want help building their own nuclear bombs.
I guess we're not helping enough there.
They want legal immunity for the crown prince, because apparently there are lawsuits, et cetera, against them in the United States.
If those are the only problems...
All right, so that's what Saudi wanted, helping Yemen...
Something with the Iran deal, help building nukes, and legal immunity for the crown prince.
Could Trump have made that deal?
Yes. Now, that doesn't mean it would be a good thing to do or that he would have tried.
But given these variables, are these the kinds of variables that you can't make a deal with?
No, these are exactly the kinds of variables you can make a deal with.
These are exactly the kinds of things you make deals with.
Yeah, we'll help you more with all these things, and we'll give you some legal immunity because, you know, you're the head of state, so somehow we'll make it work.
I think Trump could have given him all these things and just got some oil.
But Trump wouldn't have had to ask for it, would he?
Because the domestic production would still be high.
So this is like a double Trump would have been better situation.
He never would have had to make the call to Saudi Arabia, but if he made the call, they would have taken the call.
Tell me I'm wrong about that.
Tell me I'm wrong about that.
I'm not wrong about that. He wouldn't have needed to make the call, but if he didn't need to make the call, they would have answered the frickin' phone.
All right. I am getting sick to my stomach over this Zelensky hero, myth, Churchillian crap.
Now, independent of what I think should happen in Ukraine.
So I'm not even talking about Ukraine right now.
This is not even about Ukraine and their situation.
This is only about him.
It's only about persuasion.
And it's only about how it makes me feel.
It actually makes me sick.
And the reason is, it's so heavy-handed that And I especially see women praising him, which seems weird.
I don't know if Winston Churchill got a lot of women praising him.
Is there something about him that makes him cute or sexy to women?
And is that like at least half of what's going on here?
But when I see such blatant propaganda and I see it working, it sickens me.
Because I see my own country being poisoned.
By his persuasion, which, by the way, may I compliment him, he's really good at it.
He's really good at it.
So let me be really clear.
If I'm talking about just his technique, it's the same thing I do with Trump, right?
You can like him or love him or hate him or whatever.
But if you just talk about his technique for persuasion, it's often tremendous.
And Zelensky, same thing.
His technique is, my God.
I mean, Zelensky's technique is incredible because he had all the talents coming into the job, right?
Entertainment talents. So it's not surprising that somebody with his...
Qualifications could pull off this hero myth thing, but it just sickens me.
And by the way, usually when you say something sickens you, you don't mean it actually physically.
But I actually do mean it.
I actually have almost a mild nausea when I think about him.
Does anybody else have that?
No, it's not because he's creepy.
I don't think he's creepy.
It's just that the persuasion is just so heavy-handed.
Like, you can just feel it just pushing your head down.
It's like, ah, I get it, I get it.
But at the same time, it works, which is doubly annoying.
It's doubly annoying that you know it's propaganda and brainwashing, and it works, even when you know it.
It still works. That's how good it is.
I tell you this about persuasion all the time.
That you think, if you know what tricks people are using to persuade you, that that's all you need to defend yourself.
It's like, I know what you're doing.
You're using the old making me think past the sale trick.
I get it. You're just comparing this to something that's way too expensive.
Well, I think this isn't as expensive.
I get your trick. And then it works.
It works anyway. There's actually no defense against it, and it's one of the most frustrating things about persuasion, is that you can't defend yourself against it.
It is by definition the thing that goes past your critical defenses without any friction.
So, there's this weird story about bio labs in Ukraine.
Glenn Greenwald was talking about it especially.
And he tweeted that Ukraine has biological research facilities.
And this was according to Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland.
And Rubio, Senator Rubio, was asking her if Ukraine has biological chemical weapons.
And she's worried that Russia may try to get them.
So I guess they might have something we don't want them to get.
We don't know the exact nature of it.
But then Rubio sort of led the witness and primed her to say, by saying it himself first, that if there's any biological attack, Nuland is 100% sure it would be Russia.
How could you be 100% sure it's Russia?
If there's a biological attack, she's 100% sure it's not the Ukrainians?
How could you be 100% sure?
Now, she does say, and I get that this part is actually smart, she does say that the Russians routinely do these false flag things, so the most obvious play for them, the Russians, would be to do a false flag chemical attack as if the Ukrainians had staged the attack.
But here's the problem.
If the Ukrainians used a chemical attack, they wouldn't use it in their own city.
I don't think. I mean, even if attacked.
They would use it on the forces, like they would use it on the convoy or wherever the forces are bivouacked or whatever the words for that are.
Wouldn't they? Because I don't think they would risk a biological attack spilling into their own civilian population.
So even if Russia tried to stage a fake biological attack...
I don't know that that would work, because people would say, well, you did invade their country.
It might be the one time that people would be okay with a biological attack.
Well, let me test it right here.
If I asked you, would you be in favor of chemical or biological warfare, pretty much all of you would say no.
No, I'm not in favor of that.
No, no, no. But suppose, suppose your own country got invaded.
And you had these chemical weapons.
And you were only going to use them against the military of the other side.
And if you don't, you will be conquered and maybe killed.
Would you use them? Would you use chemical biological warfare just on soldiers, not on any civilians, but only on soldiers if they invaded your country?
Well, I'm sorry to say that I'm seeing a lot of yeses.
A lot of yeses, mostly on the locals' platform because they answer faster.
And I'm seeing yeses here, too.
I feel like I might be a yes as well.
Depends on the situation.
I mean, the specifics matter.
But I wouldn't rule it out.
I would definitely rule out chemical weapons in any foreign theater.
But if somebody's on my land, well, let me make it more personal.
If somebody does a home invasion and comes into your house with weapons pulled, and you had a way to throw acid on them and kill them with basically chemical warfare in your own house, you just had some acid, so you threw it on them.
Is that unfair?
Somebody's got a gun and they came into your own house to do bad things to you?
Can you throw acid on them?
Sure. Sure.
You sure as hell can.
You can throw a whole vat of acid on them.
Self-defense. So, I think Russia would actually have a pretty good false flag case, but I don't know if they would get any sympathy.
See what I'm saying? Because if Russia showed a bunch of Ukrainian civilians being hurt by Ukraine's own chemical attack, I don't know that that would be believable.
Because why would Ukraine attack its own people?
But if it attacked soldiers on the Russian side, no matter how bad the attack was, no matter how many Russian soldiers died, I think the world would just say, well, they attacked, right?
So I'm not sure it works as a false flag.
Does it? It doesn't look like it would ever work as a false flag.
So I'm going to say no.
We won't see one.
Alright, people are quite rightly criticizing anybody who says that, oh, we just have to put up with higher gas prices, and that's no big deal, and if that's all we have to put up with to fight Putin, it's worth it.
And then smart people point out, not everybody can afford to fill up their tank and even go to work at those prices.
I mean, this is like an extinction-level event if you can barely afford food.
So I think we need to have a little bit more enlightenment about what this is really doing to our own lower-income people.
So I'll just add to the voices saying that.
Was it two weeks ago?
That all the smart people were saying that sanctions wouldn't really hurt Russia that much?
Do me a...
I guess it's a sanity check or a fact check.
But that's right, right?
About two weeks ago, I think all of the experts...
Correct me if I'm wrong. I believe 100% of the experts that I heard, anyway.
I think 100% of the experts said, you can't really hurt Russia that much because, you know, you're not going to impact their energy and blah, blah, blah.
Today, isn't it 100% of people saying this is going to be devastating to Russia's economy?
Which is different from, will it change Putin's tactics?
Because I don't think it will.
But, yeah, I was saying Putin wouldn't.
So, yeah, let's get back to my worst prediction of the year.
So my worst prediction of the year is that Putin wouldn't attack.
Do you remember why?
Why? What was my reasoning for that?
My reasoning was, it's obviously horrible for Russia.
And that there's no way that Putin wouldn't know it would be horrible for Russia.
Except that maybe it won't be.
I think that Putin wins if all he does is survive.
He just has to stay in power for X number of years.
And the sanctions will wear off, or they'll find workarounds, and they will own Ukraine.
He will be a hero, and his popularity is sky-high right now.
So I think that the Russians will blame the rest of the world for their economy.
They'll adjust. They'll think Putin's a hero.
He made Russia bigger, got Ukraine back into the fold.
They will forget the horrors that happened in Ukraine because their media won't show them to them.
So they just won't know how bad it was in Ukraine.
I think the Russian economy is going to go down substantially.
The Russian public is going to suffer a lot.
And Putin's going to stay in power and own Ukraine.
So that's what it looks like now.
So the reason that my horrible...
Prediction that he wouldn't attack, even when his entire army was there.
I thought he could be bluffing.
But I still think he planned it as a bluff, primarily.
Even the 48 hours to conquer Ukraine, even when he sent troops in, I think he was still looking for a quick capitulation and maybe get lucky and kill Zelensky quickly.
So I don't feel like he was ever playing for the full war.
I just think he had that option in the back.
I don't think he expected it necessarily.
Yeah, the US will suffer too in the short run.
But it could change everything about how energy is produced and how countries interact with each other.
But here's the real question.
I always assumed there would be a time when a kinetic war where you're shooting actual bullets and stuff would be impractical Once everybody is connected financially.
Because the world can punish somebody who does a kinetic war by just taking them out of the financial system and that would be too much of a penalty.
So I'm watching this one with great interest because this might be the turning point where even if Putin prevails, even if Putin gets Ukraine, even if Russia stays together, I'm pretty sure their economy will be greatly degraded.
And what would be the lesson that people would get from it?
I think the lesson that people would get from it is that it doesn't pay to attack your neighbor anymore.
There used to be a way that you could attack your neighbor and make a profit.
You attack, you win, you get their resources, you start taxing them, you make a profit.
But I think Russia is going to be the proof point and the crossover point where an economic war becomes so dangerous that nobody can risk one by attacking their neighbor with a kinetic army.
So even with Putin's survival, it's going to look like it was a bad idea to other countries.
But within Russia, maybe Russia will think it was a good idea for them.
Somebody says, wrong prediction again.
Maybe. This is amazing.
So this is a Clint Ehrlich tweet thread.
He said that more than 66% of Russians blamed the conflict on America, NATO, or Ukraine, and only 4% in a poll said the conflict was Russia's fault.
4%. Just think about that.
In Russia, only 4% think that Putin is the cause of the war.
What do you think? Let me ask you in the comments.
You get to pick one of these as the cause.
Of course, it's not one cause, but for simplicity, is the cause Putin, NATO, or Ukraine, or any combination?
What do you think? Who caused it?
NATO, NATO, Putin.
I'm just reading off.
NATO. NATO, NATO, NATO. NATO, NATO, Putin.
NATO, NATO, NATO. Putin.
NATO.
Huh.
Okay, I wasn't really expecting this.
Is it just the uniqueness of...
My livestream? Is that why I would get...
Are you surprised?
Did I prime you to think that, or did you already think that?
Did everybody already...
I hope I didn't influence you that much.
I doubt I could have.
I don't think that could have happened.
Wow. So, let me say I'm really proud of all of you, honestly.
I'm proud that the propaganda that you're receiving isn't...
it's not digging in as much as you'd expect it to.
So apparently the Russian public is still more susceptible to propaganda than...
Well, actually, it's not propaganda, because you agree with them.
Never mind. I guess it's not propaganda.
I think maybe Russia is just actually telling the truth in this case.
They're not telling the truth about a whole range of things.
Yeah, they're definitely lying about a whole bunch of things, such as, we're not going to invade.
But it might be NATO's fault.
It might be. The Ukraine Constitution is the fault.
You know, I don't know.
I don't think that the fact that the Ukraine Constitution says that they're going to join NATO, I don't think that was really the problem.
Because you can change anything that's on paper if you have a good enough reason.
You can hurry up anything.
NATO is warned, that's right.
They were warned. But that doesn't mean anything.
Just because somebody warns you not to do something, that doesn't mean you have to go do it.
Do you think that anybody infected the Russian convoy with COVID?
That would be a dirty trick.
Thank you.
All right, so that's all we've got now.
I think that was the last thing we wanted to talk about.
I guess we'll have to find out about those bio labs in Ukraine, but that story sounds a little suspicious to me.
A little bit suspicious.
Do we still think that the convoy was stalled by bad tires?
Apparently they're not Chinese tires, by the way.
Somebody who really knows tires saw they were from some other country in the area.
I forget which one. Most Russians are not going to say Putin is wrong.
I think they might.
Yeah, well, okay.
I guess we do have to worry about that in a poll.
Tires expire in 10 years with dry rot.
Yes.
We admitted to the bio labs.
They are ours. Somebody says.
But you know, I don't know.
I heard somebody else say that every university has a biolab.
Is that true? So could it be that biolabs are fairly common and it doesn't really mean much of anything?
