Episode 1699 Scott Adams: Gratuitous Swaddling While Mocking Fake News & Propaganda We Call Reality
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a
Find my "extra" content on Locals: https://ScottAdams.Locals.com
Content:
Sean M. Davis Algorithm test
Gold standard study on Ivermectin
WaPo hit piece on Alex Epstein?
Maxine Waters tells homeless to "go home"
CA Reparations Committee
Will and Jada Smith
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If you would like to enjoy this same content plus bonus content from Scott Adams, including micro-lessons on lots of useful topics to build your talent stack, please see scottadams.locals.com for full access to that secret treasure.
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Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the Highlight of Civilization.
It's called Coffee with Scott Adams, and today, a little bit of something special.
Now, as some of you remember, that back in the darkest days of the pandemic, we needed to get together in the evening to swaddle.
And by that, I mean put on a nice, soft blanket and just feel the Warmth and softness relaxing you, bringing you to a better place.
Well, you know, this war in Ukraine and all the ripple effect is starting to get to us again, isn't it?
Just a little bit. And I thought it was time to reintroduce an almost gratuitous swaddle, meaning that it is not required.
This is not a mandatory swaddle, as the pandemic was.
This would be more of an optional swaddle to recognize that we're in pretty good shape, but we could be better.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, would you join me in an almost spiritual ceremony that we call the simultaneous sip?
As if by one, each of us, I might call you God's debris.
We'll feel that coming together, as we all act as one, with a simultaneous sip and all you need is a cup or a mug or a glass of tank or salad, canteen, drug or flask, a vessel of mankind.
And join me now for the dopamine hit of the day, the, really, the thing that makes everything better.
The thing that is solving problems around the world.
It's called the simultaneous sip, and it happens now.
Go. Now, may I inject a valuable lesson on persuasion?
It's happening right now.
And you're a willing participant, or I hope you are.
And it goes like this.
Number one, persuasion works best if you're persuading somebody to do or think something they already want to do or something they already want to think.
Don't you want to feel better?
Of course you do.
So I'm persuading you in the most compatible way I possibly could to do something that you really want.
And there's nothing that wants anything else.
You want to feel better. And so, how hard would it be for me to persuade you to all feel better right now?
It would be very easy, because it's the thing you want more than anything.
And so, when I bring with you these sensory cues, when I told you to wrap yourself in a warm blanket, could you feel it?
A little bit. When I told you to drink your favorite beverage, be it coffee or something else, could you suddenly imagine it?
Yes, you could. And do those things associate in your mind and your body with pleasant things?
Yes, they do. And so, by your consent, and if you don't consent, you probably want to bail out now.
I'm going to suggest that when you watch this live stream, even if it's recorded, and even if you watched it once before, that every time it will reinforce the feeling that you can just allow yourself to relax and enjoy the sensual pleasures of being alive.
A nice, warm, soft blanket.
The beverage of your choice.
And at the moment, the fellowship, if you will, of all the people watching at once.
See, we've got a thousand here.
Yeah, we've got about 1,700 people.
And then another 50,000 might watch it recorded.
And how much do you want?
Here it comes.
Go. You know what else would be great if my printer worked?
And now that I've relaxed, I'd like to demonstrate on live stream, with no practice whatsoever, something that I've been tracking all my life, which is that when you feel tense, your technology doesn't work as well.
But when you can bring yourself to a relaxed state, as I am right now, All your technology will start to conform.
Why? Because we live in a simulation, and life is purely subjective.
So in theory, my printer, which wasn't working well before I went live on YouTube, should begin to make the sounds of a printer that's working.
Except it's not.
Hmm. There's a slight chance...
Things could take a dark turn.
Greater than zero chance that all that relaxation's about to go out the window.
Any minute now.
All right, let's see what's going on here.
I do have a backup plan, so don't worry.
All right, well, it appears that the printer will not be cooperating.
So we go to plan B, which is that I always have the digital version available right here.
And here we go.
So I mentioned on the live stream yesterday that I saw an article mentioning that the animated show Rick and Morty would have a Dilbert-related episode, but I couldn't find it.
If somebody can find the actual episode to tell me if it's, is it already available or is it in the future?
And that was a preview.
So if you know where the, and I'm not even positive it's real, actually.
Is it even real? It was just in the comic.
Oh, there was a comic.
It's a two-year-old comic book.
All right, okay, that makes sense.
So it wasn't on actual Rick and Morty.
All right. Here's a little Twitter shadow ban test.
For those of you who have more than one screen available, so if you have your phone available, let's say you're watching on something else, I want you to type in a name...
And we're going to settle a question here, which is, is Twitter shadow banning this particular user?
So I don't want to give you the name yet, because I want you to do it all at the same time.
So those of you who have a separate device, take it out and open Twitter.
And then in the search box, I'll tell you what letters to type in.
And don't type any extra letters.
Don't type less.
Or fewer. Did you know, by the way, that you should say fewer instead of less in that situation?
That's one of those weird little grammar things that separates the Ivy League people from the rest of us.
I'm not an Ivy League person, but once I learned that, And then you start detecting it in other people.
By the way, this is a really useful tip.
There are about half a dozen little grammar things that people who are highly educated get right all the time.
Such as, let's say, Bob and I went to the store versus Bob and me went to the store.
So, you know, there are just about a half a dozen of them, and less versus fewer, you know, getting that one right, if you get that one right, it really sends a signal that you're well-educated, or at least well-educated in language.
So, let me give you a little tip.
Let's say you're on a Let's say you're on a job interview.
You're on a job interview.
You're trying to stand out.
You know that the person interviewing you is some highly educated Harvard person, something like that.
And you get into one of these sentences where you could use less or fewer, and you correctly use fewer instead of less.
That signal...
It's just like a straight shot right to your potential employer.
It goes from your brain directly into their head, and the secret signal, it's almost like a secret handshake to say, yes, I am capable of higher-level thinking and speech, basically.
And trust me, you do not know how useful this is, because if your grammar is below that level, all of this is invisible to you.
There's a whole language that's happening above your awareness level if you've got those six or so things consistently wrong.
It's the six or so, and it really is just about six.
There are six or so common mistakes that That the lesser educated, and I don't mean that in a pejorative way.
You know, pejorative's another one.
But that's not one of the six, but it could be.
So if you get those right, you don't have to have that education, but you will present yourself as if you do.
So it's a good trick. So here's what we're going to do.
That was all stalling, so you can open your second screens and we're going to do a test.
The rest of you, I'll tell you what people say so you know how the test is going.
Type in the following name and then keep your search window open to show the suggested fill-ins, okay?
So you're just going to type in the first name is Sean, S-E-A-N as in neighbor.
So just the word Sean, nothing else.
Now, type that in and tell me.
I'll give you a second to type it in.
Now, on the list, somewhere in the top ten, you should see Sean M. Davis, the CEO and co-founder of The Federalist.
How many of you can see him on your list of suggested names?
I'm reading off the answers, lots of no's and yes's and no's and no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Now, for those of you who are saying no, do you follow him?
Because I believe if you follow somebody, logically they would come up faster, right?
So I'm not sure if I'll be able to stop the first question before the second question kicks in.
But I want to see if there's a difference.
Because I'm hearing that even people who follow him, even people who follow him are not getting him as a top...
Now, I don't know if the...
We may be making a bad assumption about the algorithm.
So here's what I want to say as carefully as possible.
Okay, so I get people who follow him, and he's not suggested.
He's got, I think, 320,000 Twitter followers, and he's a blue check, and he's a CEO and co-founder of a major publication.
Would you expect, with those credentials, that you would be in the top ten, top six, something like that?
Well, somebody here said that he came up number two, and they don't follow him.
So there's something going on with the algorithm that I don't think is shadow banning.
I know, you think it is, right?
And I don't rule it out.
So I'm not going to rule it out, because anything's possible.
But I think something else is happening, and let me explain the alternative hypothesis.
So the alternative hypothesis is that whatever the algorithm is doing is complicated enough that even if you think you and I have a lot in common...
The algorithm might not, because it might be looking at our activity differently.
So it's possible that the algorithm is simply giving us results that we don't understand why.
And if you didn't understand why, then at least half of the time, or just picking a random percentage, at least some of the time, you're going to think, no, this doesn't make sense.
Maybe somebody's after me.
Somebody's playing a trick.
So I would say you can't really tell by doing this.
There might be a way to tell.
I don't know what that would be.
But it's not this.
So the worst way to tell would be just by yourself typing something in and seeing what happens.
Because you don't know what the algorithm is doing to you personally.
The second worst way is what we just did.
Have a bunch of people do it and then scream out their answers and I try to read them quickly.
It's not exactly science, although science hasn't been doing too well either lately.
So I would just caution you, I would caution you that it's really fun to jump to the conspiracy theory, and I'm not ruling it out at all.
If you said to me, is it possible that Twitter or agents within Twitter, you know, maybe not management...
Or perhaps employees, you know, we're gaming the algorithm for some political gain.
Would I say that's possible?
Yeah. Yeah.
I would think it's possible even if it's not intentional.
You know, there's going to be some bias in the algorithm.
I don't know how you could have an unbiased algorithm.
Actually, you know what? The only way you could have an unbiased algorithm is to do what Jack Norsey recommends, which is to let the user have a choice of algorithms.
Have you heard of a better idea than that?
It's weird that it's Jack Dorsey who has, as far as I can tell, the most free speech, transparent idea for algorithms that I've ever seen.
And he says it a lot, but I don't see it catch on.
And I don't know why.
Why doesn't it catch on?
Because it's not fun?
Because it's an actual engineering solution?
Because, you know, I've been saying this often lately, that sometimes we think it's impossible to do something because of just the way people are until somebody comes up with an idea.
You know, like the Constitution, like a jury of your peers, like the Supreme Court.
Those are things that didn't seem...
If you'd never heard of them, they wouldn't feel like they would work.
But Jack Dorsey has an idea that looks like an engineering solution...
I think that would work, wouldn't it?
I mean, I know he's left the helm of Twitter, but he's been saying this for a long time.
Why wouldn't everybody prefer just having their choice of algorithm?
And one of the choices would be, don't edit anything.
How would you be unhappy if you had the choice that said, don't edit anything?
And maybe some other choices, too.
But if one of them is no anything, just give it to me in the order it comes, how can you be unhappy with that?
I mean, it's the most obvious solution, isn't it?
It's the most obvious solution.
And it's available.
And we sort of just don't talk about it.
We'd rather fight about who's getting shadow banned.
I don't really get that. All right, well, the simulation is looping because have you noticed that every story is really just every other story?
Here are two stories you don't think are the same.
Russia invading Ukraine and Will Smith slapping Chris Rock.
Sounds like different stories, doesn't it?
Or is it?
Because I would say that Putin is the Will Smith of leaders because they both had reasons for what they did.
It's just that you don't think those are good enough reasons.
Am I right? They had reasons.
Putin didn't randomly attack Ukraine.
He had reasons. Well, you just don't think those reasons are good enough to create this humanitarian thing.
Will Smith? He had a reason.
You just don't think it was good enough.
It's basically the same plot, they're just putting in different characters.
Now... This is not really to make a connection between those two stories, except that once you start seeing the machinery of the simulation, you can't unsee it.
There are just certain repeating patterns that you see too often.
And it feels like, and this is just for fun, by the way, when I talk about the simulation, You should say to yourself, well, the simulation would be a useful idea if it helped me predict things.
And I use it that way.
So I use it publicly to predict things, and then you can see if it works or it doesn't.
And that's all you know about anything.
The most you can ever know about reality is that some frame of understanding predicts better than some other frame consistently.
That's it. That's all you can know.
You can know that and you know you exist because you're here to ask the question.
And you can't even be sure you recognize patterns.
That could be an illusion too.
So you don't really know anything.
Speaking of not knowing anything and the fact that the simulation is looping, do you remember a thing called hydroxychloroquine?
And then the story was that Big Pharma was preventing people from this easy solution, and it's obvious it works.
But then the more science came out, it looked like, well, if it does work, it's not showing up clearly, but maybe...
And then, well, you know, it's been a long time and a lot of studies, and it sure seems like somebody would have solved the pandemic if it really worked as well as people say.
Okay, then we never really reached a solution to that, did we?
The people who believed it worked still believe it.
The people who believed it never worked Still believe it.
And they would both look to reality to make their case.
Well, just look. Just look at all this reality.
And the others say, look at my reality.
And we don't solve it.
And then it looped.
Hydroxychloroquine just turned into ivermectin, meaning that there was a completely separate drug.
And we just went through the entire story again.
And today there's yet another, the largest randomized double-blind trial on ivermectin has now been completed.
So this is the one we've been waiting for, right?
Everybody kept talking about the real big one, the real big ivermectin study.
So this will be the gold standard of studies.
Plenty of people, randomized, double-blind.
It's everything you would want in a study.
And then they did their study and they came up with a very, very clear result that ivermectin does not, not work.
And so I tweeted that to my followers.
And how did you think that went?
Did my followers on Twitter Did they say, wow, wow, I really thought ivermectin worked, but now that the gold standard study has been conducted, I see that it doesn't.
I therefore renounce my prior beliefs, I adjust to the new information, I conform to science, and I tell you, ivermectin does not work, despite what I earlier believed.
Or did it go more like this?
I don't think they studied the right dose.
Did it go more like this?
I think they waited too long to administer it at the wrong dose.
And how about there was only one trial?
And how about, well, I'm looking at the same data they are, and to me it looks like it worked.
And how about, but what other combination was there?
Are you telling me they gave them ivermectin alone?
Nobody does that.
And what else?
And how about, when was the last time science got it right?
Am I wrong or right that everybody gets to maintain their original movie?
Right. Where's the zinc?
If they didn't study it with zinc, they didn't do it right, because that's the protocol.
Right? Now, do you hear me telling you that your objections are unfair?
No. No, I'm not telling you that.
All of those things that I said as if I'm mocking you, I'm not.
Those are just the things.
It's completely predictable, completely predictable, that it wouldn't matter what the science said.
Couldn't you predict that?
Tell me honestly.
Before the study came out, if I had said to you, hypothetically, if this study comes out and it's a gold-plated, really solid-looking study, do you think it'll change anybody's mind?
You would have said no. Am I right?
Have we not reached a level of awareness?
Have we not reached a new level of awareness where you knew in advance, as well as I did, that there would be no study that would change anybody's minds?
I'll bet five years ago you might have said something closer to this.
Maybe ten years ago.
Maybe ten years ago you would have said something closer to this.
Oh, when the best gold-plated study comes out, if it gives us a conclusive answer, well, yeah, of course, maybe I won't change my mind, but I would see how that would change a lot of people's opinions.
Wouldn't you, ten years ago, have believed that would have changed people's minds?
You would have. Now, I believe we live in a simulation.
And the simulation requires our different movies to be maintained as different movies.
It requires it.
Do you know why? It's a resource...
Let's say...
It's a way to save resources in the computation of the simulation.
If you and I had to have the same version of reality...
Then everything that we did would have to coordinate with each other forever, and everything that everybody else did.
But instead, the simulation only needs to coordinate the most important parts, such as, does New York City exist?
Yes. We all agree.
So the only thing the simulation has to get right is just the big stuff.
All of the little stuff about how we process what we're seeing Needs to be our own individual movies, because that's the only way the simulation can compute it.
It would be near-infinite complexity if everybody got to maintain reality as it exists.
Couldn't do it. So everybody has to have a simplified summary that just works within their own little universe within their brain.
That's the only way you could ever build it.
There's no other way you could build it, unless...
Your computing ability was essentially infinite.
Over on the Locals platform, somebody said, Scott just discovered God.
That's exactly what I was thinking when I said it.
That was exactly what I was thinking.
That the only other explanation is infinite computing power, and that's God.
Sort of by definition.
I mean, you could debate it a little bit, but as soon as you hear infinite computing power, that's sort of God.
That's sort of. I mean, you'd have a hard time convincing me that it didn't have any Venn diagram overlap there.
Let's do a bunch of other things.
Has anybody seen the Washington Post hit piece on Alex Epstein about his book, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels?
It was supposed to hit on Wednesday, and I don't think it did.
And then I don't think it hit today, because I haven't seen it.
And I'm wondering if Alex Epstein did the impossible.
I think he might have actually persuaded so effectively in advance that they may have pulled it back.
Or at least they're reworking it or something.
Because I think, here's what he did.
So apparently, Alex Epstein, he's an author, has enough other author friends that he made a pretty big impact when he reached out.
So he reached out to me and a number of other people who've had some association with him.
And I thought, oh yeah, I'm totally on board with this.
If they're going to do a hit piece to preemptively stop his...
His message, then I really want to hear the message, first of all, and I'd like to call that out, too.
And apparently, Michael Schellenberger was just on Joe Rogan, and as we know, the Joe Rogan show is the most Influential thing around.
And this was one of the topics.
So I didn't know this, but Schellenberger and Epstein know each other.
He called them a friend. And he called out the Washington Post for its upcoming hit piece on the most influential network on the planet, or let's say in the English language.
And I don't know if the Washington Post is going to go ahead and publish this thing.
Because look what they did.
They so effectively...
Alex did this, Alex Epstein.
He so effectively framed it as a hit piece that he had completely discredited it before one word had been printed.
In other words...
Hold on. In other words, the Washington Post, with all of its power, allegedly...
I have to say allegedly because I can't prove any of this.
Allegedly... Assembled a way to preemptively stop Alex Epstein's speech, you know, to basically suppress his book by discrediting it.
Alex Epstein took their own technique, but through the power of podcasters, basically.
Podcasters. The independents.
With whom he had, apparently, an extensive association with, who recognized him as one of their own, right?
And you actually saw, maybe, I mean, if they have peace runs today, just ignore everything I say, but it's possible that he used their own technique against them to preemptively suppress their suppressive speech.
And you saw the first direct, maybe, maybe, this is premature, But maybe you saw the first direct battle of minds between the independent, let's say the independent voices, and the powers, the more classic media power.
And it's possible that the independents just won this battle.
I'm premature because this article could come out tomorrow and destroy the book, whether any of it's true or not.
All right. Just keep an eye out for that.
Maxine Waters was at an event in which there was some rumor, incorrect rumor, about some benefits that homeless people would get.
And a bunch of homeless people showed up at the event and sort of wrecked the event because there were just so many of them.
And Maxine Waters told the homeless people that they should, quote, go home.
I have nothing to add to that story.
You may talk among yourselves at home.
There's nothing to add.
Usually I like to use the news as the sort of the material from which I mine the humor.
But when the humor is right there, I've got nothing to do.
I'm taking a few minutes off.
If you don't mind, I'll take a break while the news does the work for me.
Okay, we're done. U.S. commander, I guess it was General Todd Walters, he estimated that Russia has maybe up to three quarters of their entire military forces, the human forces, in Ukraine.
And this raises a really interesting question.
We don't really know...
Why things are happening the way they're happening in Ukraine?
Not really. I mean, we've got some good ideas, but I'm not sure we have a completely clear picture of what's going on over there.
And here's the thing that scares me the most.
What happens if three-quarters of the Russian military gets destroyed?
Because that's not impossible.
And here's how that could happen.
Can the Ukrainians block their retreat and starve them?
Because blocking a retreat seems like something they can do.
And starving them seems like something they can do.
Now, I don't know what would happen if they tried.
Or if that would be wise or even possible.
But it feels to me like the Russian military is trapped.
And if they can't go forward, I'm not sure they can go backwards.
Right? What would happen if Ukraine took out three quarters of the Russian military on the ground?
Is it impossible?
If they have enough drones?
I mean, then what does Putin do?
Tactical nuclear weapons?
I don't know. I'm not worried about nukes.
I don't think that's going to happen. But I'm not going to rule out the fact that the entire Russian military is about to get destroyed.
I don't think it's likely.
So let me be clear on that.
I don't think that's likely, but it is within the realm of possibility.
And I wouldn't have said that before.
Erasmussen did some polling and found out that 70% of people, and this is U.S. voters, agree that Putin must go.
What does that mean?
70% of people think Putin must go.
That's about the same percentage as think somebody else's congressperson in the United States should go.
I don't know if it means anything to say Putin must go.
But I am a little worried that that level of brainwashing has taken hold, if that's what's going on.
Because... There's certainly a big difference between we don't like Putin and we'd be better off without him.
That's a pretty big distance to cover.
I would agree with you don't like Putin.
Let's be on that page.
But we're better off if he goes?
That's just a guess.
And that would be a tough guess, too.
Well... Here's something I thought I played right, but it turns out I played it wrong.
I've been telling you for a while that I identify as black for all the right reasons.
I've been discriminated for my race several times in employment.
You've all heard the stories.
Most of you have. That's real, by the way.
And for being white and male, I've been discriminated against directly and told that in direct terms by employers.
And I just think the black part of the public is doing great lately, and I like being on a winning team.
So for all the right reasons, and also I do a lot of work in trying to figure out how to fix things in that segment of society.
So I've got some affinity, and I thought, well, if you can identify as anything, I'll just identify as black.
This could come in handy.
Well, I thought I'd played it just right, because California is doing this reparations committee, and I thought, I think I could get some money out of this, too.
I mean, that wasn't the only reason I did it, but I did it for benefits.
Am I right? I mean, I did it explicitly to get the benefits.
Because if it's available, and anybody can take them, and if it's just sitting there, well, I'll have some.
It's not illegal, as long as you identify that way, and you do it publicly and with full disclosure.
This is full disclosure.
I'm not hiding anything.
I think it would be bad if you hit it, but I'm doing it directly.
So... I thought I'd get some money, but the California Commission that's trying to figure out how to do this, just for the California people, decided that they will exclude anybody who does not prove that they have direct lineage from slavery in the United States.
And it means that only a fraction of the state's 2.6 million black residents will get something.
And... What do you think about that?
There's actually, believe it or not, there's actually an argument for that.
My first instinct was, well, if you're being discriminated against, it's because you look black, right?
It's people doing the discriminating are not going to be saying to themselves, well, I need to see your lineage before I discriminate against you.
But... Can somebody do a fact check on this?
I believe recent immigrants from Africa actually do pretty well.
Is that true? For example, I've heard that Nigerians in particular are the ones I hear about.
But Nigerian immigrants often come over here with English as a second language that they handle pretty well and just get right to work.
And by the second generation, they're just off and running.
Now, that might have something to do with who has the resources to come willingly.
So there's a filtering effect.
You're probably getting already people who are at least a little bit educated So that they're coming over here with some assets, in a sense.
So there's probably a reason.
So actually, you could make the argument that the direct lineage from slavery does make a difference.
So they had to pick something, and that's what they picked.
But here's my second chance at this, to get some reparations.
Okay. So here's the thinking.
The slave owners in early America were the cause of slavery, right?
Obviously. It was the slave owners themselves who were the big problem.
Now, they caused slavery.
Slavery is the cause of systemic racism.
Systemic racism, in turn, is the cause of higher crime ratios within some communities, right?
Correct? So those are all the things everybody agrees on.
Pretty much everybody. That you can trace the line from the slave masters, the owners, all the way through to high crime today.
And the argument for that is that the more recent African immigrants are doing better.
They don't have the same crime rate, etc.
So that you can see that through theme.
Now, if all that's true and we accept it, does that not make me...
A sufferer of crime.
In other words, is my life worse off because there's more crime?
Well, I believe it is.
And I believe I should give some reparations from those slave-owning descendants.
So while I believe that the black population has a strong argument that the slave-owners are the cause of There's a ripple effect all the way to their current situation.
I accept that.
I think that's actually a reasonable, well-established cause and effect.
But if you take it to the next level, there's also a big impact on the rest of us, which is we're all victims of crime.
The crime rate is way higher because of slavery.
Nobody disagrees with that, right?
Right? Right? Is there anything I said you disagree with so far?
That the current crime rate can be traced back according to the people who are in favor of reparations.
They would trace it all the way back to slavery.
And therefore, specifically, the slave masters.
They're the ones who got the benefits more than anybody.
And so I feel I need some reparations too.
So if there are any white people who can trace their lineage back to slave owners, then I think they owe me some money because I can't.
I trace my lineage back to, you know, say, mostly the people who are arguing against slavery.
John Adams, for example.
He's more of a cousin than I'm a direct descendant.
But he's a distant cousin.
And so I think I've made my argument that I should get some reparations.
What? Not a good argument?
I thought it was pretty good.
Do you remember when we were all saying that Putin was insane and I was one of those people?
I have some of the best incorrect predictions of all time.
Here are my two best, totally incorrect predictions.
Number one, I predicted that Kamala Harris would win in the primaries and become the candidate that would run against Trump.
Actually, she'd get washed down earlier than just about everybody else.
So that was the worst prediction I've ever made, that Kamala Harris would be Trump's biggest threat to run against him.
And then, I mean, I think you'd agree, that's the worst prediction I've ever made.
And then she became president for about two hours when Biden was under for something.
Am I right? It is both the worst prediction anybody ever made, and I agree with that completely.
She got washed out in the primaries, and she still frickin' made it to president.
What's up with that?
For two hours. But, I mean, she did get further than everybody except Biden.
So I'm not going to say I was right.
I was clearly wrong.
But it was the rightest wrong in a weird way.
Here's another one. I alone was stupid enough, well, I think others said it too, to say that Putin would not invade even when he had an entire invasion force on the border of Ukraine.
And I said, you know what?
I'm going to stick with he's not going to invade.
Totally wrong. Can we all agree that's the wrongest thing since my Kamala Harris prediction?
I mean, that's really wrong. But, in a weird way, the reason I said he wouldn't do it is that he's not insane, and it obviously would be horrible for him.
Was I right?
No. Apparently, it is horrible for Putin.
I mean, I think he's still going to prevail.
But it's pretty bad.
So all the people who said, well, he's going to invade for sure because he knows he can win in 48 hours and it won't cost him much, so why wouldn't he?
And I was saying the opposite.
No, he's not crazy.
If he goes in there, he's going to get slaughtered by more advanced weaponry than he's ever seen.
I said that the Russians would be facing more modern weaponry with trained people than they'd ever seen, and that they would have way more trouble than they imagined.
So I was 100% wrong about whether he'd invade or not, and yet I was 100% right about the reason that it shouldn't have happened.
So it's the rightest I've been while being completely wrong.
So if you get a score, that's wrong.
It's a weird thing.
All right. And I'm going to say that it's propaganda that Putin was insane, but I believed it too because it just didn't seem rational.
However, as we now hear other explanations of what might be behind it, I think it makes more sense.
So one of the explanations is he just didn't know how hard it would be because his own people weren't telling him the truth.
Does that ring true?
Without knowing about any intelligence reports or anything, does it ring true that Putin was getting bad information from his own people?
I think so. Oh, people are saying no.
Interesting. You're saying it doesn't ring true.
I'm going to say that it's true and propaganda at the same time, because that might make you happy.
I believe it's true that any leader like Putin is going to have trouble getting accurate information.
Would you agree with that?
I always get this itch right here that makes me look like I'm playing with my nose, but it's just psychological.
Would you agree that there's no leader who's got the characteristics of Putin, which is he'll literally frickin' kill you if he doesn't like you?
He'll kill you! Do you think he gets accurate information?
Of course not. But is that the whole story?
No. I think that the intel people are, like, pumping up the story about him getting inaccurate information to build up the tension within his ranks.
So I think the stories you're hearing about him getting bad information is to make things worse for Putin, because that gets back to him.
Oh, you know, they're talking about it.
It gets in his head. So I think it's both true, because it has to be.
It just has to be true.
He's getting bad information.
And it's also blown out of a little proportion, because that's how propaganda works.
I think likewise the thought that Putin was insane or having a mental problem, which I also was a purveyor of, I think could also be true At the same time, the bigger explanation is that he said clearly he was going to do this.
He thought it would work a little bit better than it did.
And that's the most obvious explanation.
Given that he has a very clear record for years of saying exactly what he wanted...
So...
Anyway...
I've got to teach people to not message me at this time of day.
Who knows me who doesn't know that I'm doing something else right now?
Can you imagine if there's anybody who actually knows me who's like, oh, I think he's free right now.
All right. Newt Gingrich said something funny about liberals and misjudging Putin.
He said about liberals that they think the Lion King was a documentary and that the lions, the predators and the prey can all live together and sing and dance.
And that in the real world, the lion always eats the prey.
You can kind of predict that.
It's like, hey, hey, I got news for you.
The Lion King?
It's not a documentary.
No. No, if you put a lion next to something you can eat and you wait long enough, something bad's going to happen.
So anyway, I thought that was one of the funniest comparisons.
And he's not wrong, by the way.
The reason it's funny is that you feel it too.
You're like, wait a minute.
Doesn't your strategy kind of assume that lions and antelope live peacefully together when there's no other food source?
Doesn't it? So, all of yesterday, I was imagining what it would be like to be Chris Rock, to go in public, on stage for his act, having not commented on the slap yet.
And I was trying to think, okay, I'm a comedian, and the first thing out of my mouth has to be about that, am I right?
It has to be the first thing.
You can't hold that out to the middle of the show.
It's going to be the first thing.
And so I said to myself, how would I write that?
Like, what would be my first line?
Because it has to matter.
And that first line is going to be quoted everywhere, just like Neil Armstrong, you know, walking on the moon.
He knew that the first thing he said when he stepped on the moon would be quoted forever.
Chris Rock knew that too.
And here's what he said.
In his first stand-up thing, he goes on stage.
First of all, he gets a three-minute standing ovation from a sold-out room.
Now, do you know how long a three-minute standing ovation feels when you're on stage?
I've had standing ovations, you know, back in the height of Dilbert Day.
I did a lot of speaking. And Dilbert was very popular then, so I get a lot of standing ovations.
A standing ovation lasts forever in your head, if you're on stage, because there's a little bit too much focus on you, if you know what I mean.
So it feels like it lasts forever.
A three-minute standing ovation, that's like an hour.
So Chris Rock stands there for what had to seem like a frickin' hour, just absorbing all of this love, and then he's got to say the perfect thing.
The perfect thing.
And this was what he said.
How was your weekend?
That was the perfect thing.
It was the perfect thing.
Try to beat that.
So you're not one of the best stand-up comedians of all time.
He is. One of the best.
Try to beat that.
This is a game you can play at home.
Try to come up with a line that would be better than that And you can work all day at it.
You won't do it. That was the best line.
Incredible. So, once again, I say everybody comes out of this looking good, and I think Will Smith will, too.
You'll be surprised. I saw a Jeff Pilkington tweet about some older news that Jada Pinkett Smith had used plant-based medicine to cure her depression ten years ago, and it basically just made it go away.
Plant-based medicine, you say.
Plant-based medicine.
Plant. What would that plant be?
Could it be mushrooms?
If you're saying weed can make you happy at the moment, weed doesn't really make your depression go away.
It doesn't work that way.
I mean, it can make you happy while you're doing it.
But it does make your depression go away.
Do you know what does?
Another different plant.
Yeah, maybe ayahuasca.
Could be ayahuasca, right?
But I'm thinking that almost certainly she meant hallucinogen.
And there it is.
Now, when you say to yourself, how in the world can Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith have the relationship that they have...
Which you foolishly believe involves her having sex with men while he's sitting home.
If you believe that's what's happening, you maybe have never met a good-looking multi-millionaire man who is clearly heterosexual.
So I've got a feeling that the average Tuesday for Will Smith is better than everything you've ever done in your life put together.
And yet you're pretty sure you feel bad for him, don't you?
You're feeling bad for that Will Smith.
Yep, every single day of his life is better than everything you've ever done put together.
But you feel sorry for him.
Here's how you get to that place.
Probably through mushrooms.
It seems to me that the Smiths have obliterated their preconceived notions about how anything works.
And you saw that at the Oscars, too.
What you saw was Will Smith, who doesn't have the same sense of what's possible as you do.
That's what mushrooms do to you.
One of the things that mushrooms do is they say, yeah, you can do anything.
You just have to sort of wish it into reality.
Will Smith, look at what he wished into reality.
Will Smith wished into reality his career, his life.
You don't think you'd trade for that?
I think a lot of people would.
I think that these are two people who don't see the same boundaries that you see in all things.
In all things.
They don't see a limit to their careers.
Am I right? If they saw a limit to their careers, I doubt they'd be where they are.
They obviously imagined their careers without limit.
And there it was.
They obviously imagined that they would not be bound by whatever society's recommended social structure is.
You think it's not working?
I think you're probably wrong.
I think it has lots of problems, as do every kind of relationship.
But I'll bet it works better than whatever the alternative was.
And so that's my mushroom talk for today.
Gavin Newsom did a cheeky little tweet where he was shown reading the banned books that were banned by other states.
And he captioned his tweet, reading some banned books to figure out what these states are afraid of.
Because Gavin Newsom...
Is not afraid of books.
He's not afraid of these banned books.
And he wanted to mock those backwards, probably Republican states.
Who knows? But these other states, he's mocking them.
Because they banned books.
They're not like Gavin Newsom.
And there he was with one of those banned books in those other states to kill a mockingbird.
Which Viva Frye points out is one that's banned in California.
So his tweet would have gone over much better in mocking those other states if he did not have in the picture a book that was actually banned in California.
So there you go.
And then Bruce Willis has aphasia.
So that will apparently give him trouble understanding and expressing himself.
So I feel bad about that.
I don't know what to say about that other than, why does that bother me more than other stuff?
There's something about that that bothers me more than other stuff.
And here's my best...
People have terrible things happening all over the world, but why does this bother me more?
And here's my best answer.
Don't you feel like you know him?
It's a bald thing, so he says.
Bald empathy. No, but there's something about the way he has run his life and his career that you feel sort of like you know him.
It feels like somebody I know having a problem.
I don't know that I would feel that about many other people.
But I guess I give him credit for that because I feel like you see some version of him that's pretty close to reality.
And I like it. He seems like a...
Well, let me test this.
Bruce Willis has been around for a long, long time.
He has a pretty good reputation, doesn't he?
I don't know that...
Anybody has ever said anything bad about him.
So I just have a generally good feeling about him.
I like what he's done.
I like his movies. Yeah, never made us mad.
And he got through some tough times, didn't he?
Because he had some issues with his own personal life.
And I thought he handled those as well as anybody can handle anything.
At least from the public perception point of view.
All right. That, ladies and gentlemen, is all I have for today.
I think you would agree.
This is one of the finest experiences you've ever had.
And... Oh, God.
I just saw a really bad joke on there.
I'm not going to repeat that one. It was clever, but too soon.
Too soon. All right.
Well, I'm seeing some questions I'm going to ignore.
