Episode 1715 Scott Adams: Elon Musk, Chomsky, Ukraine, More Provocation And Beverages
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a
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Content:
Twitter adopts poison pill to thwart Elon Musk
Democrat strategy...restrict free speech?
Ukraine war is a civil war
Noam Chomsky on Ukraine solution
CNN framing of J6 GOP text messages
A solution for the homeless
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*Pubble* *Pubble* *Pubble* Good morning everybody.
And you are in for a treat today.
Oh, I don't mean the live stream.
I just mean it's going to be an amazing day for you.
Probably one of the best ones you've ever had.
Why? Because I said so.
Did you know that reality is largely subjective?
And what that means...
Is that however you think of reality is, for all practical purposes, that's what it is for you.
And today, your reality is going to be great.
Better than yesterday.
And yesterday might have been pretty good for some of you.
Some of you who have your coffee ready are thinking, you know, yesterday was pretty good.
Pretty darn good.
Others, not so much.
But... If you'd like to take it to the ultimate level, I'm talking extreme, extreme goodness, then all you need is a cup or a mug or a glass or a tank or a chalice or a canteen jug or a flask, a vessel of any kind except for a Russian missile or cruiser.
Fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee.
And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure.
It's the dopamine here of the day.
It's the thing that makes you tingle.
Can you feel it? Can you feel it in the back of your neck right there?
Yeah. You can feel it a little bit, can't you?
It's called the Simultaneous Sip, and it joins all of us in unison in one big God-like experience.
Go! You know...
I wasn't expecting to feel connected to the divine.
I thought it was just going to be a really tasty cup of coffee and one of the best days ever.
But it exceeded my expectations.
They were pretty high.
Wow. How about that?
Well, you know what goes well with the simultaneous sip?
Poison pills.
Poison pills and beverages.
Locals, I was suggested that maybe poison pills and coffee would be a good title for today's livestream.
But here's the story.
So you may have heard already that Twitter has adopted what's called a poison pill.
Now, for those of you who don't understand economics and mergers and acquisitions and all the intricacies of what companies can do for their back and forth, I'd like to take a moment to explain the economics of it.
Blah, blah, blah.
Any questions?
Well, it seems that a poison pill would be any one of a number of things that a company would implement, a set of rules that would say, should we be bid on, certain rules will go into play that would make it a bad idea for the person trying to buy it to buy it.
So, they've actually adopted a poison pill, which would dilute the shares if someone tries to buy them.
So, in other words, the more you tried to buy, the less it would change your...
That doesn't make sense, right?
But you'd try to buy more, but they would dilute the stock so you're not owning more as a percentage.
So, is that good for stockholders?
To have a whole rule that would keep them from getting a 38% gain in one day?
How many of the stockholders are saying to themselves, hey, wait a minute, wait a minute.
Don't you think...
Oh, and by the way, I always forget to disclose, but I do own Twitter stock in a very small amount compared to, you know, as a percentage, and also Tesla.
So I do have a dog in the fight, but it's more like a chihuahua.
Everybody cool with that?
So I do have a chihuahua in the fight.
It doesn't feel like it would be enough to bias me, but it probably does.
Like, I don't feel the bias, but you have to assume it's there, right?
Can you all agree with this statement?
I'm giving you an honest, internal opinion...
It doesn't feel like my stock ownership in those two companies, because it's not a big part of my portfolio or anything.
It doesn't feel like it's changing my opinion.
But you know it is, don't you?
If you understand economics and you understand psychology, you understand anything about follow the money, it doesn't really need to be that much money.
That's actually the scariest part about follow the money.
The scariest part by far...
It doesn't take much.
If it's a lot of money, you can guarantee bad behavior.
I've told you that a million times.
Anything with a lot of money at stake and there's any opportunity for somebody to get at it, oh, it's going to happen.
It's just a matter of time.
It's like elections.
You don't have to wonder if elections have integrity and will always have integrity because there's a lot to gain.
Somebody's going to get at one.
You don't know if it's happened yet.
But yeah, somebody's going to get into one of those.
Because people have the reason and the time and the incentive.
And sooner or later, somebody will have the skill.
I don't even know where that came from.
Something about a poison pill.
But here's the defense against a poison pill, I think.
Now, keep in mind that everything you hear from this point on about this whole Twitter, Elon Musk purchase thing, everybody talking about it will be somebody who doesn't understand it.
Because as soon as you get into the merger and acquisition and then all of the legal challenges that are possible around it and the poison pills and stuff, it's just a little bit more than...
The average journalist Quay has a grasp on.
And even the business journalists, I think, would be the most humble because they know the most.
So here's something you can test.
If you're watching the coverage, if you're watching the people who are the business journalists they know the most, they would probably be the most humble about predicting what happens.
Because it's a little bit more unpredictable than the...
Maybe regular journalists will say.
So just something to watch for.
The more somebody knows about it, the more humble they will be about being able to predict it.
Have I made a prediction yet about whether Musk will succeed?
Have I made that prediction?
I guess I should, right?
Now... For those of you new to my material, if I make a prediction, I like to make a prediction based on something that I have some special insight about.
So in other words, if it looks like it's a mass hysteria, then I feel like I can spot those better than other people because, you know, background in hypnosis and I pay attention to that stuff, etc.
But there are other situations, and this is one of them, In which you probably would want a lawyer, somebody who's worked in this space, to be your better prognosticator.
But I'm going to play anyway.
So let's see what we can say about the situation without knowing much, okay?
I'll boil it down to its simplest form.
You and I don't know what Elon Musk's options are.
Do you think he does?
Do you think that Elon Musk has conceived of the entire toolbox of options?
You know, he's talking about an option B. But don't you think he's talking about option A through F or G? Because he's not us, right?
So you have to start with the assumption...
That whatever you and I and the business journalists say about this, it's not how he's thinking.
And I'll say it again.
If any of us could think like him, well, we'd probably be doing a lot better than we're doing.
It would seem to suggest, if you're that smart, that you can second-guess him and you know what he's going to do.
Good for you. You should be pretty rich by now.
But we don't know. So I'm going to say some things that you all agree with.
So I'll give you some assumptions you agree with.
Assumption number one, Elon Musk would probably not go into this without having at least a strong intuition That he has enough tools to get it done, and also that he anticipated, let's say, an obvious range of defenses.
The obvious defenses would be a poison pill.
So do you think he anticipated a poison pill?
It's Elon Musk, right?
It's not like the first time he's ever done anything.
It's like, do you think he didn't talk to anybody or doesn't have a lawyer, wouldn't have thought of it on his own, never heard of a poison pill?
No, it's inconceivable.
It's inconceivable that he did not consider that a likely possibility, which suggests that he has a defense.
And the defense is pretty clean.
He's offering so much that if the board rejects it or creates a poison pill, which is effectively...
Rejecting it in just a different way.
So, if...
You just have to assume that Musk anticipated all this stuff.
And that he thinks he could win a court case if the board does something that is clearly against the interests of the stockholders.
Now, to me, that would look like an easy win.
But, you know, do I know anything about...
You know, this kind of lawsuit?
Nothing. Nothing.
But if you ask me just commonsensically, do you think that turning down a 38% one-day gain in Twitter would be something the stockholders would want?
And by the way, Elon Musk is saying just put it up to a vote of the stockholders.
Musk is not even saying that he'll take the company no matter what.
Musk has actually said the stockholders, if they vote for a yes, and I think if the stockholders at large voted against it, that he would probably conclude that they had judged it's not in their best interest.
And probably that would be the end of it.
I think. So, don't you think that Musk could win in court if he at least said you should have put it to the stockholders instead of the board deciding?
I think he could win that.
Or at least he'd have a good chance of winning it.
So, you know, maybe enough of a risk that it made sense as a risk management thing.
All right, then there's a bigger problem.
And this from, I guess, a former SEC chair named Pitt told Fox Business, Maria Bartiroma, He said, quote, my concern is that this administration is pretty much guaranteed to oppose this kind of bid.
In other words, he thinks that Congress or somebody in the government will try to stop it, some entity or multiple entities, because it's just not the sort of thing that they're likely to support.
Now, do you think that Musk would have anticipated The Democrat, you know, parts of the government trying to stop him with government power.
Probably, right?
Wouldn't you think? Now, I'm not saying that you and I would have thought of it, necessarily.
I mean, if I were in that position, would I have even thought of that?
I guess I would have had to.
And I would have been advised of it.
And certainly somebody would have mentioned it, right?
It would have come up in conversation.
So yeah, you have to assume he knows.
So unless you believe that Musk has a plan that doesn't involve buying it, like some clever plan about pump and dump.
So I would rule out pump and dump.
Would you agree with that assumption?
Pump and dump, meaning that he buys some shares, he talks about what's going to happen, but he's not really serious about it, and then the shares go up and he sells it at a profit, and he gets out by making a billion dollars overnight.
I don't know if he needs another billion dollars.
Do you think he would take that hit to his brand and his personal image?
Do you think he would take that hit for $1 billion?
He's worth, what, over $200 billion?
I can't see him taking that half of 1% gain at the expense of basically the most valuable asset on the planet right now, which is his reputation.
I would argue that Musk's reputation, I hate to say brand because it's overused, is probably worth more than his actual fortune because of the impact he can have on things because of the brand he has, basically.
So if you assume that Musk has thought through all the options and you believe that he genuinely wants to take over the company, it's not some kind of a destroy the company play or make a quick buck, I'm going to guess that he thinks he can beat all of these elements.
What do you think? I'm going to say if he thinks he can do it, Do you want to bet against them?
Oh, let me put it this way.
I think it comes down to whether Musk himself believes he can get it done.
And he said publicly he wasn't sure.
Right? So he said himself, I think as recently as yesterday maybe, that he wasn't sure he could get it done.
But that's different than...
Yeah, and we don't know if Plan B is another way to buy it, or if Plan B is just going to the courts and saying, hey, the board of directors is not pursuing their fiduciary responsibility, meaning that they're not doing their job.
That's just the big word for doing their job, of taking care of the stockholders.
Using hand in a sentence...
I don't know what that means.
All right. Is it weird to think that we're having a serious conversation in public about whether the Democrat-led government will try to squash Elon Musk, who is trying to promote free speech?
In other words, we're actually saying matter-of-factly that the government of the United States will act publicly, with no secret whatsoever to act publicly, To squash the biggest free speech movement since a long time, right? Hasn't it been a long time since something this important to free speech was even a topic?
And the government itself would be the thing to shut it down?
Now, of course, they would make arguments that they're...
They would make arguments that their constituents would believe, but to me it would look exactly like the government trying to restrict speech.
What? How is that okay?
That feels like the farthest thing from okay.
So, here's more to my prediction.
Who do you think the public is going to side with?
It's weird to even see that the Democrats took a solid swing as siding in favor of censorship, which they call moderation.
That they actually took a legitimate try to see if they could make a case for less free speech.
What? It seems a little desperate, doesn't it?
If you're arguing against freedom of speech in the United States because it's your best play, they've been reduced to that's their best play.
Well, you know, we've still got one thing we can do.
Everything's going badly.
Our policies look like a disaster.
But we always have this thing we can do.
I think we can get the public on our side by trying to restrict free speech.
That's it? That's your strategy?
That's literally their plan.
It might work.
Who knows? There was a little back and forth with Musk and a...
Reddit, I don't know if he's the CEO or prior CEO. Maybe it's prior.
I can't. His last name is Yishin.
Somebody will tell you in the comments.
Anyway, he's a big deal in the tech world and from Reddit in particular.
And he did this long thread, which I loved in one sense, that he sees clearly the two movies and he's calling it out.
And here's something that actually surprised me.
So see if you can even believe that this is true.
I'm going to say I do believe it's true, because it's not really something you lie about.
He's giving his personal report.
He says, all my left-wing woke friends are convinced that the social media platforms uphold the white supremacist misogynistic patriarchy, and they have plenty of screenshots and evidence.
In other words, the people on the left are having an identical experience to the people on the right, which is, hey, why are they only censoring things that agree with me?
Now, I spend as much time in a bubble as anybody else.
I would love to tell you I'm the guy who can go from bubble to bubble, but I'm not.
I'm not sure anybody can.
So I didn't know this was going on.
Did you? And I think it has to do with just the way they talk about it.
In their world, there's too much racist, Nazi, misogynist, anti-LGBTQ stuff, because there would always be too much.
Wouldn't there? There would always be too much.
Like, what's the right about?
If you don't like it, what's the right amount of it?
The right amount is none. Of course there's too much.
So it makes perfect sense, once he points it out, so I admit I was somewhat blind to it, but it makes perfect sense that the people on the left are convinced that the platforms are biased against them.
Well, the people on the right have their own good examples, and apparently there are good examples on both sides.
But I don't think they're talking about exactly the same thing, right?
When the left is talking about stuff, they're talking about really stuff closer to hate speech.
But when the right is getting banned, it tends to be a little bit more opinion-related, it seems to me.
I don't know. Maybe that's my bubble, too.
So don't pay attention to that.
All right, let's talk about that big missile cruiser, the flagship of the Russian...
Baltic. And it sunk.
I guess the U.S. is saying that Ukraine hit it with two Neptune missiles.
Two. Now, how many do you think they fired?
You know, isn't that like a key question?
What if they only fired two?
And they both hit the flagship?
How good are these missiles?
And let me ask you this.
How often or how recently, besides this conflict, have Neptune missiles actually been used in conflict?
Can anybody answer that?
Because I don't know how you could stop them.
Apparently Russia, their flagship, didn't have any countermeasures.
Because if they only fired two, somebody says never, and that feels like the right answer, doesn't it?
Yeah, Falklands was an exoset.
But aren't these types of missiles kind of really likely to hit where you aim them?
And they're hard to stop?
I mean, compared to...
I think, yeah, so people are saying Neptune's brand new.
So 3 to 10% failure rate.
And then that would be mostly mechanical, right?
That wouldn't even be based on countermeasures.
Am I right? That if you're looking at the Neptune failing, it's probably not because it got shot down.
Probably not. All right, so we're always guessing on some of the military stuff here.
Keep in mind that I don't know anything about the military, so do your own fact-checking on that stuff.
Russia is still saying it was an on-board fire.
At the same time that their state TV is saying that there must be retaliation for the missiles that sunk it in the explosion that was not caused by the missiles that sunk it because it was an onboard fire.
So the onboard fire that sunk it, not caused by missiles, there should be some revenge for it, the state TV says, And maybe, you know, it could get bad and maybe an attack on NATO or the United States because of the missiles that were fired that weren't fired because really no missiles hit.
It was an onboard fire. That's actually what the Russian public is being told.
Literally both things at the same time.
That it was a fire and that there ought to be some revenge for that fire.
What? All right.
The biggest impact of that Moskva sinking I don't think will be on Ukraine.
I'm not sure it makes that much difference.
So militarily, probably not that much of a difference.
Apparently the missile cruiser was used to fire missiles that could have been fired from land.
So it was just another way to fire missiles that Russia has plenty of, apparently.
So it shouldn't make any difference in firepower.
It probably doesn't make that much difference in command and control, I would think.
Maybe there's somebody...
It was a naval expert, but I didn't see anything in the news about them losing some kind of command structure.
I only saw that they lost a lot of missiles that they could replace from land-based missiles.
So it probably doesn't make that much difference militarily.
It might make some difference in terms of morale or getting the Russian public all riled up, but by far the biggest impact is probably China noticing that you can't stop a Neptune missile.
And if China wants to take Taiwan, it's going to have to do it with some boats.
And do you know what Taiwan is stockpiling?
Because Taiwan has money, and they're not dumb, and they're good at planning ahead, and they know exactly what the risks are.
Do you know how many Neptune missiles are heading for Taiwan right now?
I don't know either, but it's not two.
I'll bet it's something like a shell load.
And couldn't that make Taiwan essentially unconquerable?
I mean, it could be bombed into rubble, but do you think China would do that?
Do you think China would bomb into rubble Taiwan?
I mean, I suppose, you know, we get used to...
If somebody says yes, I suppose anything's possible.
I mean, a lot of people didn't see Ukraine coming, but a lot of people did.
A lot of people did. All right.
What a day. So there's more stories about the war crimes and the places that the Russians occupied.
And there's more credible stories coming out of there.
But I'm not doubting that there were war crimes.
But it's a little suspicious that they only happen on one side.
I don't know what to do with that.
Because when it's so obvious that you're being fed a narrative as opposed to anything that looks like news, how are you supposed to take sides exactly?
How do you take sides?
It just feels like there's a lot of bad people doing a lot of bad things over there.
But here's my thing.
Here's a little mental experiment.
Imagine, let's go back ten years.
Just randomly 10 years.
Do you think that the CIA, 10 years ago, would have started a, let's say, a civil war in Russia if they could?
Or a revolution or a civil war.
Do you think the CIA would have done that if they could?
I feel like they would.
Now, do you think that Russia would have tried to turn the United States against each other in some sort of a civil war if it could?
If it could. Do you think Putin would try that if he could?
Probably yes. Because we saw in the 2016 election cycle that Russia did seem to promote some Black Lives Matter activities, like fake ones, that looked like they were just designed to cause conflict.
As if they just wanted to cause trouble.
Sort of a civil war.
So would we agree that both the United States and Russia, if they could, would create a civil war for the other?
Everybody on board with that?
If they could. I don't think anybody disagrees, right?
All right. Now, that brings me to looking at the Ukraine-Russia conflict.
Am I wrong that, from my perspective, it's a bunch of Russian-looking people...
Sometimes they speak Russian, sometimes not.
But it's a bunch of Russian-looking people fighting a bunch of Russian-looking people in an area that is maybe Russian, maybe not, but some part of them thinks it's not, and it's its own nation, but some of the others think it should be part of that nation.
Isn't that exactly a civil war?
That's exactly a civil war.
Because there's always one part of the Civil War that thinks they need to be an independent nation, right?
And then the other side says, no, you're not.
You're really more like us than not.
And there's some reason we have to be together.
So... Did the United States, with its control over NATO and maybe with their willingness, did we create a civil war...
In Russia, it's just that we're using Ukraine as an allegedly independent country because, you know, it is treated that...
I'm not going to say allegedly.
Let me be very clear.
Ukraine is a sovereign country by all the normal rules of things.
It is a country. I'm just saying that that distinction may have blinded us to the fact it sure looks like Somebody created a civil war in Russia but disguised it as a conflict across borders when it just looks like somebody created a civil war.
Because it's hard to explain everything that got us to this point unless it was intentional.
No, we don't know that. Do I have any evidence of that?
No, no. So I'm just saying the only thing I can say is if you're looking at it completely objectively, like if you were an alien from another planet and you just came down and said, look, we're just going to give you the facts and you don't have any biases because you're from another planet and we're going to describe what Ukraine is without calling it a nation.
Then we're going to describe what Russia is and then we're going to say, does that look like...
Sort of a civil war?
And does it look like maybe the United States did a number of things which, in retrospect, look like they contributed to this war?
It does look like that, doesn't it?
But that doesn't mean it is that.
Because remember, I just got done talking about how half of the country sees one movie about social platforms are biased one way and the other sees the other movie.
I'm just saying that there's a whole movie we're not watching.
The movie we're not watching is the one that has the magic trick.
And the magic trick is, Ukraine, that's its own country.
And by the way, it is its own country.
Let me be completely clear.
It's a sovereign country that was attacked by Russia.
But, wow, does it, on another level, sort of look like we promoted a civil war in a Russia-ish area.
Let me ask you.
How many of you hear that framing for the first time and just said, holy shit?
Did anybody have that experience just now?
Because sometimes if you hear the...
Okay, I am seeing some yeses on that.
A lot of noes, because some of you are already there, or don't buy the framing, I guess.
Yeah, a lot of yeses. Now, for those of you who got yes, and it's maybe 20% of you or whatever, it's not everybody...
Isn't it a total mindfuck to see that you can look at the same information and that, like an optical illusion, I can just tell you, oh, it's not the ladies looking at each other, it's the flower or whatever, and then suddenly your brain goes, and you can see the vases or vases or the flowers or whatever.
It's such like a...
It can really play with your head when you realize how gaslit you could be.
It doesn't mean you are, But it allows you to imagine how easily you could be completely bamboozled.
And one of the things that I've said helps you understand the world is understanding magic tricks.
That doesn't sound like it makes sense, right?
But actual, like, stage magic.
And the reason is that if you spend enough time thinking about how tricks are done and you learn how to do them yourself, you look for the diversion.
So when I look at politics, one of my just automatic filters is, okay, what's the diversion to the magic trick?
It's not always there. And maybe sometimes it misleads me to think there is one when there isn't.
So it could be a frame that misleads you as well.
But I feel as if thinking that things could be diversions is a real healthy, productive way to look at any political situation.
Because it does feel like they're doing intentional diversions.
Well, we know that. I mean, I'm not the person who discovered that.
But it just helps to always have that frame in mind.
Noam Chomsky, noted intellectual, provocative person on the left, I guess you'd say, has an IQ of like 10,000.
He's very smart. His IQ is 10,000.
Roughly, I don't know, rounding it up.
And he's getting a lot of...
Pushback because he says the only way that the Ukraine-Russia thing gets settled is with a negotiated settlement that Ukraine isn't going to like.
I mean, I'm paraphrasing way too much, but basically he's just saying that's the only way it ends.
It's not going to be like a military victory.
And he's getting pushback from that.
And I'm thinking, what's the pushback on that?
Does anybody have a different opinion?
Because even if one side sort of wins, it's not like they conquered the other country.
It just means that they beat their military down to the point where one wants to talk.
Now, here's something that you can take into your daily life.
This is like a super useful persuasion trick.
And this is what Chomsky is using.
And he's basically saying, and again, I'm going to over-paraphrase him, so I hope I don't lose the essence.
But I think the essence of the argument is, if you know where it's going to end up, why would you put up with all that pain to get there?
Like, you know where it's going to end up.
It's going to be this negotiated thing.
And yeah, I get that Russia likes to negotiate and fight at the same time.
So, you know, if they get a battlefield win at the same time they're negotiating, that's a little good.
But if their missile cruiser flagship ship gets sunk, well, maybe that's a little bad negotiating position.
But the Russians like to fight and negotiate at the same time.
Well, I don't know that it's going to make that much difference, is it?
And this is what Chomsky was saying.
If you know where it's going to end up, you might as well just start now and just get it over with.
But people can't put themselves in that mindset.
Now, here's where this helps you in the real world.
You find yourself in, let's say, an argument with a spouse.
But you know from your history that you're going to get over it.
It'll probably take two days.
And you've been through the cycle before.
You'll be mad for a night.
You'll be better tomorrow. Whatever it is.
But if you know where it's going...
Have you ever said this to your loved one, spouse, family member, just co-worker, somebody important to you?
Have you ever said, all right, you know where this is going to end?
In two days, we're going to be over it, because we always are.
And we're going to say, well, that wasn't that important, but we were in a bad mood.
Why don't we just go there now?
And you should see what people say when you say that to them.
It's almost like you time-traveled.
Because if they also know, yeah, that's where it's going to go.
Because it always does. You can actually sometimes get people to think themselves into that future and then negotiate as though the future is already here.
In other words, making them imagine, you know where it's going to end.
This is very similar to life...
Exactly. In the comments, exactly at the time I was going to say it.
It's very similar to the life is short.
And actually, you can use them at the same time.
Look, should we spend 48 hours being mad at each other, When life is short, pleasure is rare, we know that in two days we're going to be right with each other, why don't we start now?
Now, that's never worked instantly in my experience.
It doesn't change anybody right around, but I feel like it makes a difference.
I feel like it at least changes the tone of things.
If you make them think toward the inevitability of it being over and not mattering in the long run.
And this is also related to the, are you going to be thinking this on your deathbed?
That one I use all the time.
It's really good. Just say to anybody, especially if they're younger, you know, the younger they are, the more ridiculous it is that they can imagine this would matter when they died.
Right? And if it's not important when you die, it's probably not that important right now.
So there's your personal advice for the day.
And that's why you come.
Is it for the coffee and the simultaneous sip?
Is it for the great camaraderie that we experience?
Maybe it's all of that.
And that is only one of the things I was going to say.
I thought that was the end of my notes, but hey, there's lots more.
So CNN does this thing that I am so fascinated by because it works, which is they'll print a story that's factual, and I'll read it as far as I know.
I'll read it and I'll say, oh, that looks like completely unbiased reporting.
And then I'll look at the headline.
Or the first sentence.
Like, you know, the introductory sentence.
Those are the things people actually remember.
Because people don't really finish articles.
I don't know if you know that. We kind of get the gist of it and then go to the next thing and get the gist of that.
That's the way people consume most things.
And so when CNN does this trick where the title or the first sentence doesn't match at all to the content, I always laugh because it works.
Like, it's so bold, it's so icky, but it works.
It's like a serial killer who gets away with it for a long time.
You know, of course I want them to be caught and punished, and I feel bad for the victims, of course.
But I also think, well, that's a good serial killer.
That is someone who knows how to do his job, and when I see somebody who can do their job well, Even if it's not a job I need, I still have some respect for the hard work and that.
So where I was going on this is there's a story on CNN's site about the text messages that have been surfaced about the January 6th, the Republican allies of the president.
So the allies were GOP, you know, Mike Lee and Mark Meadows, and there were some texts going back and forth.
So let me tell you how CNN framed it, and then I'll tell you what the messages actually tell you, okay?
See if these look at all the same.
All right, CNN's framing is this.
Quote, the messages reveal how two GOP allies of then President Trump lobbied and encouraged the White House in its effort to overturn the election.
So their framing is that the messages show how they were lobbying and encouraging the White House in its efforts to overturn the election.
Now what does overturn the election sound like to you?
Sort of like a coup or something, doesn't it?
Now, it's not technically incorrect, is it?
Because those words, if you just look to them in their straight definition, that is what the president and his allies were trying to do.
They were, in fact, trying to get a different result.
So I think they acknowledge that, right?
It is because they thought the result was rigged.
So they thought the different result would be justified.
They weren't randomly wanting a different result or just because they lost.
No evidence of that.
But when they say something like their efforts to overturn the election, doesn't your brain just translate that into insurrection?
It does, doesn't it?
So now they've framed it so my brain has translated it into an insurrection.
And then they give us the content, and I appreciate that.
That was actually interesting to read.
So you can actually see the exchanges.
And the exchanges very clearly, very clearly, indicate that both people thought the election was genuinely sketchy, and they genuinely just wanted to make sure it had time to get audited.
That's what the messages say.
In other words, the messages are totally exculpatory, completely.
It's completely explaining that the people involved were not involved in an insurrection.
They were involved in, according to their many texts back and forth, trying to stop one, very clearly.
They're trying to stop a stolen election.
There's not one thing in any of these texts to suggest that they don't genuinely believe there's at least something that needs to be looked into, right?
I mean, they're not magic, so they don't know what happened.
But the way they talk about it is very, very clear that these two people and their allies genuinely believe this result looked too sketchy to be credible.
And that they were trying to fix not only the credibility of the system, but to get the right answer as they saw it.
And they even made, I forget which one of them, but it doesn't matter in this context, even made the, maybe I wrote it down...
Yeah, they're talking about approaching it firmly and intelligently, being compatible, completely compatible with the Constitution.
All right, this is from Mike Lee, right?
He says, Mike Lee said in a text message, I don't purport to know who fits into which category.
I know only that this will end badly for the president unless...
We have the Constitution on our side.
And unless these states submit new slates, blah, blah.
So in other words, unless everything is constitutional, this is a bad idea.
That's what the alleged insurrectionists were saying?
These guys have been painted as insurrectionists and then in their own words are saying, we damn well better be compatible with the Constitution.
And it doesn't sound to me he's saying, let's be weasels with the Constitution.
That's not there. It looks like these people want to be absolutely straight down the line.
If it's constitutional, we should make sure that these elections were done right, because they don't look it.
Now, is that not exactly their fucking job?
Would you want members of Congress of either side, suppose this had gone the other way, suppose the Democrats in Congress had legitimately believed that the election was rigged, because it just looked like it.
Would you be disappointed in Democrat leaders of Congress if you saw their text messages and you saw that they were legitimately, legitimately trying to follow the Constitution and look into something that looked like, maybe in this hypothetical, Republican mischief, and it just would take two days.
Let's just find out if the election was credible.
I would support those Congress people.
Would you? If you knew in their own words, so there's no doubt about what they were thinking, because there's a long exchange, if you saw their own thinking that they were trying to save the republic, stay true to the Constitution, and fix what could be one of the biggest problems the republic has ever faced, which is a sketchy election that looks sketchy.
Maybe we've had ones in the past that were sketchy.
We didn't know it. But this one looks sketchy.
That's different. If you ignore one that looks sketchy, you have some explaining to do.
Because you didn't get elected to ignore big problems.
You got elected to do exactly what Mike Lee was trying to do.
Exactly that. Make sure the election was fair.
Mike Lee should get some kind of award for this.
And CNN is like throwing him into the insurrectionist bucket with their overturn the election rhetoric.
But already it's softening, isn't it?
Already it's softening.
Because they didn't use the word insurrection.
And I feel like that's new.
Do you think you could have used the word insurrection in an article in which all of the content of the article proved it wasn't one?
At least in terms of these GOP allies.
They were clearly not insurrectionists.
Clearly. So this is just mind-boggling that the entire thing, at least in terms of the Republican allies of the president, is completely shown to be exactly what we hired them to do.
And I would say that if these had been Democrats doing the same thing in the other direction.
That is what we hired them to do.
It's just mind-boggling.
All right. I saw one military expert say...
That Putin doesn't want to necessarily capture the capital and take over all of Ukraine.
What he wants to do is destroy the Ukrainian armed forces.
And I thought to myself, why would that be a goal?
Does that even make sense?
It makes sense for the Ukrainians to destroy the Russian armed forces.
Because that would likely cause them to retreat and maybe not try it again.
Right? I'm not a military expert, but to me it seems that it would make sense for Ukraine to try to win outright.
But suppose Russia won outright, but the only thing they were going for was to destroy the Ukrainian military.
And then what?
Pull back? Does that even make sense?
Because if all they did was destroy the Ukrainian military, but they don't take control of the country...
Wouldn't the Ukrainian military reconstitute?
And wouldn't it have better stuff than last time?
And wouldn't it be more NATO-friendly than ever?
Like, how in the world does this opinion make sense?
It might make sense.
By the way, this is exactly the kind of topic you should approach with maximum humility.
Hard for me to do, I know, but maybe easier for you.
But do you think we have any idea what's going on over there?
This is an expert who I would acknowledge seems to have the resume of an actual expert.
And I don't even understand this.
Like, it doesn't even make sense, like, on a logical level.
Like, what would be the point of any of that?
To destroy the military and go home?
And that's what passes for expert opinion.
But, again, if we're realistic, maybe that is a good opinion.
I just don't understand it.
Well, Biden's support is dropping fast among young people.
So I guess millennials and Generation Z, he's going for like 60% support to like 40% support.
That's a pretty big drop.
From 60% support to 40% in young people?
What? If you're keeping track, President Biden, among all of the different demographic groups, if you're looking at Hispanics, you're looking at black voters, whatever group you're looking at, I think he's lost approval in every group?
I wonder if that's true.
Maybe he has more approval in LGBTQ, or there might be some demographic group.
But I feel like How can you lose support in just about every group?
Except the Karens, right?
Except women. Is it white college-educated women?
Yeah, I think that's...
You know, I said before that it seems like the Democrats will inevitably, or already have, are the party of women...
And the Republicans are the party of men.
Both, of course, will have men and women of them.
But in terms of a sort of a dominant, overarching philosophy...
Republicans are sort of, you know, safety through power, you know, prosperity through power and keeping criminals under control and controlling the borders and stuff.
Sort of what you'd classically imagine in your sexist mind to be male characteristics.
And the Democrats seem to be very female-dominated in the sense that, correct me if I'm wrong, but 100% of Democrat...
100% of Democrat policies are favored by most women, right?
Would that be true?
100% of Democrat policies would be favored by most women.
I think that's true.
So they are really becoming the representative of women.
Oh, I see it now.
No, well, yeah, I didn't say for everybody, of course.
I'm not saying that they represent Republican women.
I'm saying that the majority, more than 50%, I think, 50% of women are in favor of basically everything the Democrats want, I think, or something like that.
All right. So the Biden Department of Interior announced they're going to start...
Again, they're going to resume the sale of oil and gas leases on federal land, which is something that, of course, Trump did and Trump was right about.
So just add it to the Trump was right and Biden has to, of course, reverse policy.
Probably he'll do the same on the border at some point.
But the number of times Trump was right...
Which, again, does not forgive anything that you don't like about what he did.
But it's really shocking how many things he was just unambiguously right about.
And it's obvious now.
Fox News asked a bunch of people about what states were doing the best and the worst during COVID. And people thought that Florida and California were the two states that did the best in terms of managing COVID. Do you notice anything weird about that?
The two best states, according to who Fox News talked to, I don't know how scientific it was, it didn't sound like it was too scientific, but those were the two best.
Now that's according, I think, to largely the people who lived in those states and had familiarity with them.
But yes, they handled them completely differently.
And neither of them really were toward the top of the, you know, save people's lives list.
They just were sort of in the middle of the pack, but they handled everything differently.
I take you back to my weirdest prediction at the beginning of the pandemic, that you wouldn't be able to tell who did a good job.
How many of you thought that was even possible?
That at the end of it, you wouldn't know who was a good leader?
Or at least we wouldn't agree.
Everybody thinks they know, but we wouldn't agree.
I guess the point should have been, we wouldn't agree.
Not that you don't think you know.
Because I know a lot of you are going to say, oh, DeSantis did the better job.
But I think it has more to do with what you valued.
In California, people wanted to protect the weak.
And so they said, California did the best.
In Florida, people were leaning toward, hey, let us just live our life.
And they got what they wanted.
So actually, I think it is completely rational that California and Florida were the best at handling it, handling it completely differently.
That actually does make sense, because the Californians wanted it handled a certain way, on average.
I didn't. I would be an outlier in that opinion.
And the Floridians wanted it handled a certain way, and they got what they wanted.
So it is sort of an example of the system working, right?
The systems elected mayors that gave them what they wanted.
Governors, I mean. They gave them what they wanted, and when it was done, they said, yeah, I kind of got what I wanted there.
I don't think you can complain about that.
You know, that's one of the big wins, I think, out of the whole thing.
The beauty of our system, the different states, is that you can micromanage the preferences.
And that's sort of what happened.
You know, I think that's just all good news.
Alright, that, ladies and gentlemen, brings us to the completion of my prepared comments.
I think you'll agree this is one of the most stimulating, entertaining, and really just gives you a tingle.
It's better than ASMR. It's better than most of the pharmaceutical drugs that you can get under the counter or under.
And now that you're all vibrating and Let's say, higher energy, and you're probably feeling amazing.
And you think to yourself, was this the best show I ever saw, I've ever seen in my entire life?
Well, we can't answer that question, but we can have one final sip to set you on your day.
Now, don't get used to this.
There won't always be a closing sip.
So savor it.
Savor it. Savor it.
Go. Yeah, that's pretty good.
Now, before I go, I'd like to solve the homeless problem in California, if I may.
And I don't know why nobody has already suggested this.
Correct me if I'm wrong on these assumptions.
Number one, the homeless, in California at least, prefer to be outdoors.
Because if they're indoors in any way, they're going to be limited in their drug use.
And they don't want to be.
They'd rather be outdoors.
But nobody wants to be outdoors and have it dangerous and unhealthy, etc.
What if we took a bunch of public land and said, this is a campground for the homeless, and the homeless will help you get going, We'll help you get going, but you need to form your own government and management and go wild.
If it gets too out of line, let's say if it differs with state laws or local laws, then you can't do that.
But in terms of just managing, having a mayor, something like that, why not let them live the life they want to live?
Why not? These are people who tell you exactly what they want, And it's not much.
They tell you exactly what they want, and it's not much.
They want to be left alone.
They want to live outdoors.
And they would like to be safe and maybe have some services available.
But I feel like if you were close enough to, say, a hospital, and there wasn't a risk that they would burn down the forest, that's a big risk.
So you'd have to manage that.
But I feel like instead of putting them indoors and having them not like it and you're wasting all this real estate for people who don't want to be there anyway, is there any reason they can't just form their own civilization and take care of each other?
Has anybody tried it?
Now, remember, the key is not whether you think it's a great idea.
That's not the key. The key is whether you could test it on a small scale.
Now, Michael Schellenberger, who was running for governor as an independent, He's done the best thinking and the most research and has the most clean and, I think, probably practical suggestion for how to do this.
And he would suggest, among other things, that the addicts are not the ones who should decide whether they should be free to do what they want.
Because once you're an addict, you do lose the ability to make good judgment.
And if you care about them, there's sort of only one way to give them a chance, which is to take away their rights just long enough That they can be part of the decision-making process again.
That they can be clean enough that they can at least lean into their own benefit if they want to, if they can.
So you could debate that.
I think honest people could debate, should you go hard?
Well, let's say tough love.
Should you use tough love on the addicts and the homeless, or should you let them live their best life?
I think some of them are going to be completely immune to tough love.
Would you agree? So maybe there's just a group of hardcores that just want to live their life the way they want and if they die at 50, they died happy and it was their best shot because they didn't want to live to 75 hating every fucking day.
So it's a free country.
Maybe they could be accommodated.
Everybody's different. So I just put that out there.
Is there any kind of model that you could test small, and if it doesn't work, you just stop doing it?
Right? That's it.
Try it with, I don't know, 50 people.
Take 50 people, you know, really control it and monitor it.
You don't walk away. Like, don't dump them in the forest and walk away.
You give them some kind of support, make sure they had, you know, some kind of supply chain.
You make sure that they have the basics.
But just try it.
Try it with 50 people.
See what happens. Somebody said Sweden did it?
Yeah? All right.
Anyway, I won't tell you I think it's a good idea.
I'll just tell you it's easy to test, and therefore, maybe we should.
And that's it for today. I'll talk to you tomorrow.
