Episode 1722 Scott Adams: Russian Oligarchs Mysteriously Die, Ron DeSantis Makes Politics Interesting Again
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a
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Content:
Our favorite President
Private text exchange, Elon Musk, Bill Gates
Truth Social switches to Rumble cloud
Overall opinion of the lettered community
Governor DeSantis vs Disney self-government
2 Russian gas oligarchs and family, dead
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You made it. And I guess that's a good sign for you.
I would say that today is looking good for you.
Really looking good.
Why? Because you're starting it with this amazingness.
A lot of people are starting it wrong.
Wrong side of the bed?
No. You are on the right side of the bed.
Do you know what the right side of the bed is?
The top. I recommend the top.
Bottom part of the bed?
Same amount of real estate?
Not nearly as good.
Gravity just ruins the whole thing.
Now, how would you like to take it up a notch?
Wouldn't you? Oh, I know you would.
I know you would.
And all you need is a cup or a mug or a glass.
A tank or a chalice or a canteen jug or a flask.
A vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee. And join me now for this unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine of the day thing that makes everything better.
It's called the simultaneous sip.
And it sounds different when I'm talking in my coffee cup.
Go. Oh.
Oh, internal organs coming online.
I feel like my liver wasn't even online until just now.
Spleen, looking good.
Lungs, heart, good.
All systems, good.
You have to lube yourself with coffee now and then.
It's very important. I would like to begin with a little story that I call your favorite president.
When I met President Trump at the Oval Office, The story I tell all the time because I don't have any other stories that are that good, really.
That's my best story.
You're probably going to hear that one a few more times.
But when I first got there, he was just finishing up creating a tweet.
So there's nothing cooler.
Can you imagine this? Can you imagine walking in and being introduced as Trump is designing a tweet in real time?
And, you know, he was talking to his little group of staff there, Dan Scavino.
I think he was talking to him to actually send out the tweet.
Talk about being exactly like, you know, watching history being created in front of you.
Watching Trump in the Oval Office, in the little side office where he was, next to it, literally creating a tweet in real time was one of the most interesting things I've ever seen in my life.
I doubt anything will ever be that cool, honestly.
I'm not going to be able to top that.
I forget the content of the tweet, but as an ending to the tweet, just as I walked in, he was saying, add to the end of the tweet something about your favorite president.
I forget his exact words, but just say, your favorite president.
And I remember that was the first thing that I said to him.
I was like, how much I love that.
I love that, the favorite president thing.
But let me tell you why I love it.
The reason I love it is that was him allowing you behind the curtain.
When Trump puts on the end of his tweet, your favorite president, he's just pulling the curtain back a little bit and saying, you know this is an act, right?
You realize that this is for effect, that this is a show.
I'm trying to get the job done, but the way to get the job done, in part, is to draw all the attention to me, and then I use that energy the way I want it.
But he doesn't say it.
He doesn't say it in, like, direct words.
He just puts that at the end of a serious tweet, you know, about a serious topic.
I forget what it was. And then he says, your favorite president.
And I'm like, okay.
If you're paying attention at all, he just opened the curtain and said, you see what I'm doing?
And in large part, that's why it was easier for me to support him...
Despite all of the provocations, because I saw it as part of a larger show, which brought him tremendous tools.
It just gave him more tools.
He could control the conversation and all that stuff.
So I thought I would mention that in terms of persuasion, because sometimes you have to send two messages at the same time.
If you're trying to persuade a crowd that has some dumb people in it, let's say there's a bunch of gullible people in it, and then there's a bunch of smart people who really kind of want to know what you're really up to, you know, the real cynicals and the people who have been behind the curtain are like, eh, what are you really up to?
So if you're trying to convince both, it's pretty hard.
But Trump could do it, because he'd give his simple message to one group, and then when he was talking to the people who might be concerned...
About the level of provocation that he puts out there.
He just says, you know, you're your favorite president.
He just opens the curtain a little bit and says, okay, you smart people, here's what I'm doing.
The other people, they're just enjoying the show, but you can see what I'm doing.
I'm putting on a show. All right.
Speaking of the show, a weird little funny story...
Was that some text exchanges between Bill Gates and Elon Musk just hit the media.
And they've been confirmed.
So Elon Musk is tweeting about it, and they're definitely his tweets.
He says he doesn't know how it got to the New York Times unless it was a friend-of-a-friend situation passed it off.
So one assumes from that that the presumption is that at least one person who had possession of it Either Bill Gates or Elon Musk may have shown it to at least one person.
And then that one person may have shown it to one other person and somehow it got into the media.
So he doesn't know.
But have I reminded you that there's no such thing as a private communication?
If you ever want to see a better example of this, how does a message from Bill Gates and Elon Musk, a private message, how does that end up in the New York Times?
And the answer is, it doesn't matter if somebody can hack you.
Because people just show stuff to people and then it goes anywhere.
Let me ask you this.
Suppose you had been the one.
Let's say there was only one person.
Suppose you had been the one person that one of them had sent the screenshot to.
Could you not show it to anybody?
I mean, really.
If either one of these guys, Bill Gates or Elon Musk, showed you a screenshot of a communication between the two of them, what would you do?
Just say, oh, that's interesting.
I think I'll sit on this.
Like, who could not tell somebody about that?
How could you not tell your spouse, at least?
I mean, there are definitely things that most of us could keep from a spouse if it's that important.
You know, if somebody's going to go to jail or something, you might actually keep that from a spouse, because you don't want anybody to accidentally go to jail that didn't need to.
But I don't think anybody could...
Nobody has enough self-discipline not to show a friend that they've got a screenshot of these two guys talking, and especially the topic.
So there's no such thing as privacy.
I've lived for many years now with the assumption of zero privacy for myself.
And it's weirdly freeing.
Here's something you would never expect.
When I finally gave up on the notion that I had any privacy and never would, you just feel sort of free.
Like, I imagine by analogy what it's like if you're gay and you come out.
You know, it's like maybe traumatic while it's happening.
But then as soon as you're done, I hear...
I mean, this is what I hear.
You feel free for the first time.
So, anyway.
Here's what Musk and Gates were talking about.
Bill Gates was texting Musk to talk to him about philanthropy.
Details were not clear.
But Musk asked Bill Gates if he still had, if Gates still had a short position on Tesla stock.
Now, if you're not an investor, a short position means that you're betting the stock will go down and probably a lot.
A long position means you want to own it for the long run because you think it will go up.
So Gates has a short position of half a billion dollars.
Half a billion dollars, even for Bill Gates, is not small money.
Even if you have a hundred and whatever billion, half a billion is still some serious change.
And he's got half a billion dollars bet that Tesla is going to basically go down the toilet.
I mean, not completely, but its stock is too high.
I guess that's the bet. And so in this Texas change, Musk asked Bill Gates, does he still hold that position, the short position in Tesla?
And Gates admitted.
He goes, you know, sorry, I haven't unwound that.
So he didn't really suggest that it was a bad idea to hold it, and he didn't suggest that he didn't think the stock was going to go down someday.
Oh, by the way, I own Tesla stock.
I should throw that in there.
So I am an owner of Tesla stock, a small part of my portfolio.
So throwing that in there.
Anyway, and then Musk concluded that he couldn't possibly work with Gates on philanthropy when Gates was betting against the company that's doing the most on climate change.
And I thought to myself, that kind of makes sense, doesn't it?
How can you do business with somebody who is betting against you when you're trying to save the world Even according to the person who's betting against you.
And you're doing a great job, at least according to some people.
You could argue whether electric cars are saving the world or not.
But remember, he's also doing solar stuff as well.
So, there it was.
Half a billion dollars bet against Tesla caused Bill Gates not to be able to talk to the richest man in the world, which is the most ironic...
or richest man in the country, I guess, which is the most ironic thing.
It's not ironic, but ironic, but I like to use that word or overuse it.
All right. Truth Social.
You know, President Trump's upcoming social network that...
Had a lot of glitches because it was tough to sign in and get into it.
Well, apparently, as of today, they have switched to the rumble cloud.
Now, let me tell you the importance of this.
It's actually a really big deal.
And not just because of truth social.
So here's what's happening in the tech-slash-political-slash-censorship world.
So this company Rumble, and by the way, full disclosure, Rumble acquired locals.
Locals I have an investment in, so my investment gets pulled over to Rumble.
So I'm not an objective observer, okay?
Full disclosure. Because wherever money is involved, even if you're not trying to be subjective, it's hard not to be, right?
Money corrupts all opinions, so I'll just tell you that, presumably, mine is corrupted in this case.
But you can do your own judgement there.
So, the Rumble Network originally was sort of a YouTube competitor.
But unfortunately, they couldn't use the same server networks as other people could because they were sort of considered, I guess, too dangerous, too right-wing, too something.
So they ended up creating their own side business to create their own server network.
That would support just Rumble itself.
And apparently Rumble is doing well from what I read.
I don't have any inside information.
But from what I read publicly, looks like Rumble is growing fast.
Now, how big a deal is it to have a server farm...
And also a social media network.
It's like a real big deal.
But it also gives you another whole business to monetize because you can let other people use your servers as well.
So one of the other networks that will use the Rumble servers is, first of all, Locals, I think, is on there.
So the Locals network got moved on there, I think.
I'm I'm not entirely sure that's what happened.
Or it's going to or something.
But one assumes that would happen if it hasn't happened already.
Because logically that would happen.
And if the true social network goes over, and maybe some other entities which have not been able to get the service they want on the big Amazon server farms or Microsoft server farms, maybe they'll have a new home.
So in terms of freedom of speech, This little technical story about truth going onto the rumble network is a really big deal.
Not only business-wise, but in freedom-wise, in having alternative ways to get views out.
Now, this will of course also result in more horrible views that you think are destroying the world.
But freedom of speech.
There'll be more of that. So I'm in favor of competition, generally speaking.
So that looks good. Did you see the story about Florida was rejecting a bunch of math books because they had some either, I don't know, they were too woke or there were some racist examples in them or something like that.
Did you see that story?
It's like a big national story.
And so you said to yourself, math books?
How could a math book be too woke?
Like, what exactly would that be?
The word problems or something?
And so, like everybody, Like everybody, I thought, God, I can't wait to see one of these examples.
Because I remember they said that about the SATs, and I thought, really?
Really? The SATs are racist?
I'd like to see an example of that.
And then I saw an example that was actually a pretty good example.
Oh, okay. And the example was what goes with a cup.
Cup or table, or cup and saucer.
And... Apparently, people who don't have fancy lives think you put a cup on the table.
And people who have a little extra cash, they might own these things called saucers.
And so, because of the income, social, you know, whatever difference, maybe the black population would be less likely to say saucer.
And therefore, that would be actually a pretty good example of a racist question.
Surprise the hell out of me.
You know, if you're being objective...
Yeah, it's a class question.
But because class and race are so correlated, it ends up being a racial outcome.
It's not racist by design.
It just has that outcome.
So I thought that was a good example.
But when it comes to this racist math book story, some things have been published, but you look at them and you go, what?
I don't even know exactly what I'm looking at.
So there's no real example of it.
So I don't know what's going on or what the real story is, but there's definitely fake news going on.
I don't know what else is happening, like if anybody's trying to get one over on you or it's just a confused story or it's just incorrect, but there's something totally wrong with the story.
I don't know what, but it's not true in the way it's presented.
There's something extra, something left out.
I don't know. It's definitely not true, so forget about that one.
All right. This was the best clickbait title I've seen in a long time.
So you know how there'll be a long title to something you can click, but because of space constraints, the sentence that's the long description gets cut off.
So here's where this was cut off.
Teacher of the Year suspended for showing students her...
And then it's cut off.
Teacher of the Year suspended for showing students her...
Something. It turned out to be a picture of her fiancé.
She was suspended for showing students a picture of her fiancé.
Do you believe it?
Could somebody be suspended for showing a picture of their fiancé?
Now, the fiancé was clothed, but female, but female.
So, apparently, she was suspended for showing a picture of her same-sex fiancé.
And she's, of course, fighting it.
Now, this sort of gets into the whole, what can you tell kids and why can't you?
I'd like to see a little instant unscientific poll right here.
How many of you would be upset if you were, let's say a...
I don't know what grade this was, but I'll just put a grade on it for our question.
Let's say it was first grade.
It wasn't, but let's say it was first grade.
Would you be upset if you knew that the teacher showed a child a same-sex union?
It's 2022, people.
It's 2022. And somebody would be upset.
And by the way, I'm not judging you, because it's not up to me.
Your opinion can be your opinion.
You can have whatever opinion you like.
You're completely welcome.
As long as we can have our opinions, too, right?
If you're not judging our opinions, I won't judge your opinions.
And it's just better that way.
Alright, let me tell you something if you don't have kids.
If you haven't been exposed to young people in the backseat of your car lately talking to each other.
Homosexuality doesn't mean anything to kids anymore.
I mean, there's still the teasing and stuff, especially the boy-boy stuff.
But girl-girl stuff, at least, is just...
It's not even a topic, really.
The way that young people talk about same-sex dating is as just an option.
It's completely different than whatever you grew up with if you're a certain age.
But they actually just talk about it as an option.
It's just a matter-of-fact sort of thing.
And is that good for the world?
I think it probably is.
I think it's good for the world.
Now, that's purely an opinion, right?
I'm not sure how you would measure it.
But I'm generally in favor of being open-minded to things that don't hurt you.
Here's my overall opinion of the LGBTQ community, right?
Anything you say about a whole community is automatically bigoted and false, right?
Because people don't fit all the stereotypes.
So just knowing that anything you say is automatically off balance.
But here's how I think of it.
Have you ever been in one of these situations where somebody said, oh, don't go in that neighborhood?
Don't go in that neighborhood because the LGBTQ people have ruined it?
You never hear that.
What have they ruined?
Anything? Like, I don't know.
They take good care of their lawns.
They have good jobs.
They tend to be, you know, serious about work.
What exactly are you complaining about?
Because how much of it does it affect you?
I don't know. Because it affects you because of the pronouns and stuff?
Okay, whatever. But, I mean, that's not the biggest problem in the world.
So, in terms of...
If there was one group of people you'd have to say is definitely not bothering you.
Unless you're in some, like, specific social situation.
I'm definitely in the live and let live category for all that.
So... But the only thing I would add to the conversation, because I'm not looking to change anybody's opinion about anything on these topics, because I don't think it's possible.
But the only thing I'm saying is that you may not be aware that the bus has already left the station.
Or is it the train? The train has already left the station.
Among young people, being gay, lesbian, it just doesn't mean anything anymore.
It's just all of its meaning.
It's just in the normal baseline now.
And to me, that looks like an improvement.
Do you think that's not true?
How many of you think that's an improvement, that it's just no big deal, it's just sort of live and let live, even among the children?
I expected some disagreement on that.
Yep. And then I guess the question would be, To what extent are people's legitimate preferences, which, for the most part, in a free country, we like people to have access to their legitimate preferences if nobody else is getting hurt.
Generally, we're on that side.
But at what point does that start to infringe on the way you raise your own kid?
Because it does, right?
Everything's connected. You can't say they're unconnected from the influence on your children.
So what if you were worried That your own children would be influenced into maybe being confused or have some trouble with their sexuality?
Are you worried about that?
Because I'm not sure it works that way, because generally information works in the positive way, doesn't it?
There's certainly an age at which they can't make decisions, but I would argue that age is like 25.
I totally get it if you say a five-year-old can't handle this stuff, so you want to leave that to the parents.
I get that. That's a pretty strong argument.
But I would argue that anybody under 25 is confused as well.
So, yeah. I don't know.
Isn't that much better? So, let's talk about DeSantis.
So, I criticized DeSantis yesterday.
For political retaliation at Disney, because Disney spoke out against his proposed laws, proposed or actual laws, I forget, that would limit what could be taught in schools in terms of, let's say, non-hetero mainstream lessons, I guess.
And so I came down hard on him yesterday, which angered a number of you.
Because a number of you were on the side of, no, you just always have to push back.
Because if you don't push back, the other team will just push you and push you.
You will look weak. And then I made my arguments about that.
But now I would like to agree with you.
Now I'd like to agree with you.
Let's see if you're still mad.
In a purely political context, let's say we're just separating, because I often did this when I looked at Trump.
If you look at Trump's whole act, I would say, oh, there's a bunch of stuff that I would have done differently.
But what he did worked, I mean, to become president, and he got a lot done.
But it didn't help him for re-election, so that's sort of where I was at, that he could have taken it to another level.
But I always was specific in saying that Trump's persuasion was really good and that he was only talking to his base anyway.
So if you're only talking to your base, then I would say DeSantis' play is strong.
If what you're trying to do is just win elections and use the power of being in office...
And this is a way to win?
I would say that's not a bad way to go.
Because one of the things that Trump made people feel is to feel that he was fighting on their side and it felt good to have somebody powerful fighting on your side.
And that gives you a dopamine hit and then you become attached to the leader and you're more likely to vote.
And then that leader is more likely to get elected with more of a mandate, maybe even go to higher office someday.
In terms of a purely political calculation, where persuasion and politics and ultimately getting what you want are all connected, I'd say it works.
I'd say it works.
Are you okay with that?
As a purely political calculation of persuading your base, I'd say this works.
Everybody okay with that? Because I think that's what you were telling me.
But the way you were saying it wasn't quite the way I'm saying it.
See, I don't believe that retaliation is such a direct benefit that the other team changes what they're doing.
I don't think the other team changes behavior.
And that's what I was pushing back against.
But if you're not trying to change behavior, But what you're really doing is getting your base, making them feel that you're fighting for them.
It's the feeling of the fighting that's important, as well as the fighting.
So if you take it from the perspective of somebody talking only to his base, it works great.
And it also makes it more likely he'll get re-elected, makes it more likely he could run for president and make a strong play there.
So yeah, politically I'd say it works.
And if that's your interest, if your interest is the political win and you're playing a long game, not bad.
Not bad. But here's my only criticism.
He can get the base fired up over a lot of stuff.
Well, maybe not as much as this.
I've got to admit, this is pretty red meat stuff, parental stuff.
But I would have preferred persuasion because I don't like retaliation from the people I pay.
I don't want to pay somebody to retaliate.
I just find that offensive.
So I guess I can have two competing thoughts.
The one competing thought is that if you think a Republican set of policies is a good thing, then DeSantis getting his base whipped up to guarantee he gets re-elected with a mandate, maybe goes for higher office.
That makes sense.
So I would say that would be a completely rational thing to support him in just getting his base all fired up.
But I doubt the other side is much persuaded by it.
I can't imagine in my head like a meeting going on anywhere in which somebody is saying, you know, that Disney thing happened, so we better act differently.
The only thing I can see happening is corporations just not wanting to have an opinion in public.
And that's sort of anti-free speech.
I like corporations giving their opinions.
As long as everybody else can, right?
I wouldn't want the CEO to speak for the whole company and then not allow the employees to have a dissenting opinion, you know, and get fired for it or something.
Although that's a private decision.
I suppose they could fire him for that.
But, you know, I'm in favor of maximum free speech.
So anything that curtails it...
Seems bad to me.
So from a free speech absolutist perspective, I would say that this is bad for free speech.
But if you want to give up a little bit on free speech, because you're playing a long game of getting your Republican conservative policies, if that's what you think is best for the world, I can see that.
I can see that. Somebody said I have some strange takes on the situation.
Well, that's why you're here.
Why the hell would you be here if I had the same take that you were going to see all day long today?
That's sort of the point. All right.
Paul Collider had an interesting statement on this, especially when you're talking about the tax treatment that will be removed from Disney.
We'll talk about that in a minute. Well, let me give you the situation.
So the situation was that, if you're not following it, Disney, years ago in the 60s, wanted to buy all this, like, empty swampland, farmland that wasn't being used for much.
And they basically said, we can develop it faster.
For this awesome thing for Florida and for Disney, if you let us run it like we're in charge of the town.
So run it means that they could build their own roads and sewers and water.
They could put in, like, municipal services.
And they could probably do it, you know, faster, cheaper than the government could.
And they would make sure it worked because it needs to because their business requires it.
So I would imagine that Disney probably put in as good or better services than the government would have done.
And then...
The most ridiculous thing I'm hearing is that the law would allow them to develop their own nuclear energy plants without anybody interfering.
To which I say, really?
Really? Really?
Because if what you're saying is that the law technically would allow it, okay.
But do you think that because it's technically allowed that there was some risk of that happening?
That Disney was going to say, you know, we're going to pivot hard here.
We're going to make ourselves a nuclear energy plant.
And ha ha ha ha ha!
There's nothing the government can do about it.
Well, apparently there is something the government can do about it.
Because DeSantis just says, let's change the law.
And apparently there's a good chance it'll happen.
Or happened, I don't know where we are in this.
So... If you bought into the hyperbole that we had allowed Disney to build nuclear capabilities, you may have bought a little bit more than you needed to buy on this.
You might have chopped off a little bit too much there.
I don't think that was a risk.
In my opinion, the entire deal that the government had with Disney was a brilliant deal for the government, it was a brilliant deal for Disney, and it was apparently a brilliant deal for the citizens of Florida because it created an enormous business, Disney, which brought in all kinds of taxes and jobs and, you know, it's like the shining star of the state in some ways.
And so it was like 100% successful deal.
And DeSantis wants to unwind it because now Disney is successful and they've already built out their streets and everything worked and they didn't cost the government any extra.
Of course, they had tax benefits.
But as Paul Collider points out, he says, Paul tweeted, Fair treatment is considered the minimum for both small and big governments.
Do you buy that?
That the minimum requirement of your government, whether it's a big government or a small one, would be fair treatment.
To which I say, no, it's the opposite.
Now, that would be a bug.
Fair treatment is communism.
That's what that is. Fair treatment is critical race theory and communism.
No, no, no, we don't want our government to be fair.
You want your government to pick winners.
That's the only way it works.
It's literally the opposite of fair.
Do you know that the tax system is designed to pick winners?
It's designed to incentivize you to get a house.
It's not neutral on renting versus home ownership.
It's totally unfair.
I remember when I was single and renting, and I would look at the tax law and I'd say, wait a minute, I'm subsidizing people who are having children and buying houses while I sit here alone in my apartment?
That's exactly what was happening.
The government chose that because they would rather incentivize people like me to go get a house and a family, so they make it a little easier.
To which I say, well, that's probably a pretty good idea.
Nothing is perfect.
Every system has its bumps.
But I actually once had a friend who worked for the IRS, and he was the first person who explained it to me.
This was decades ago. He said, the IRS is not about just collecting your money.
It's a social policy engineering system by design.
It's supposed to do that.
It does it to keep the economy strong.
It does it to rebalance things wherever there's some major inequity.
Not fairness, but major inequity.
It'll try to fix some of that stuff.
So you would not want a fair system.
A fair system just lays there dead.
It would literally just lay there.
You want an unfair system where, let's say, people who were born with ambition do better.
Imagine a system where the people who were born with ambition Because I think that's mostly natural.
I don't think that's learned. Imagine they couldn't do anything.
It's not fair.
You've got all that ambition. I think you should just sit there like everybody else.
Don't do anything. Be careful what you wish for.
Unfairness is a feature.
It's not a bug. Unfairness is what drives everything.
Nothing would move if everything were fair.
All right. The logical conclusion of all social media would be that people would be eventually divided into two buckets.
And you can never be in any other bucket.
That's the eventual obvious way that social media is going.
Except your thinking is probably left and right.
Except, eh, maybe.
But I think the two buckets are going to be you can either be a racist Republican or a groomer Democrat.
Now you might say to yourself, haha, I'll beat the system by being independent.
There are no independents.
That's not really a thing.
All of the independents lean heavily one way and vote reliably in one direction.
The whole idea that there are independents is just one of the greatest myths.
There are only people who don't want to tell you what they are.
That's it. There are people who don't want you to know what they are.
But they're still voting Republican.
They're still voting Democrat every time.
Now, I will allow that when there's a special case, say a Reagan or an Obama, people will get a little flexible then.
But those are special cases.
It has more to do with the individual.
All right. So there you are.
Those are your two choices. And I would say that, you know, I initially hated the whole groomer thing that people on the right were using to label the people on the left.
But eventually I got comfortable with it.
And the reason is, it's just the mere insult to racist.
If somebody calls you a racist, you're kind of dead already, aren't you?
Because defending yourself against that claim, it just sort of doesn't work.
It's like a stain you can't wash off, even if you're innocent.
But groomer has that same quality, even worse.
You don't ever want to be called a groomer in public, or anywhere else, really.
It's like, well, I can make my case, and wait, I can't prove a negative.
That's the problem with both of them.
You can't prove a negative.
So once the allegation is made, it's as if you're guilty until proven innocent, but you can't prove innocent because you can't prove something doesn't happen or didn't happen or you're not thinking it.
So I have to say that the groomer thing is weirdly...
I don't know. It's balanced, at least.
I don't know if it's good or fair.
I wouldn't say it's good. But if you're dealing with people who have to label you as racist, labeling them groomers in return, it's not bad.
Persuasion-wise and battle-wise, it's not bad.
It's icky. It's icky both ways.
But it's sort of like one side used chemical warfare.
I'm very much against chemical warfare.
But if your enemy uses it, that does sort of change the equation, doesn't it?
Like, well, you just used it.
So, anyway.
So, all of this DeSantis stuff is so interesting because he's completely taken over...
The headlines, the political headlines.
It's as if nobody else exists.
Until and if Trump enters the arena again for 2024, in a more direct way than he already has suggested, then I suppose Trump will re-emerge as the primary energy monster.
But it's incredible how much DeSantis is doing as a governor.
He never stops...
I said, Scott, you don't know Florida.
What about Florida? What do you think I don't know about Florida?
I've spent a lot of time in Florida.
My parents lived there part of the year.
I think I know about Florida more than you think I know.
Probably. You know, it's probably the state I've spent more time in.
Yeah, after California, it's the state I've spent more time in as an adult.
All right. Have you heard the Kevin McCarthy audio?
I guess he had denied that this exists, but about the January 6th thing, he was talking allegedly about Trump.
He said, I've had it with this guy.
What he did is unacceptable.
No one can defend it.
No one should. Now, that just sounds like probably most Republicans.
I'm not sure that...
You don't think most people were saying something like that at the same time?
I'll bet he was compatible with 90% of Republicans on that day.
Well, let's say the ones who were privy to how things were unwinding behind the scenes.
I'm not talking about people who were just watching the news.
I'm talking about people who were Trump supporters who were there and witnessing it in person.
I'll bet his opinion was the majority.
Which is not to say they don't support Trump and like what he did.
It's not to say they won't support him again.
But I think a lot of people had the same opinions.
Like, oh, this is a little too far.
But then in public, it's harder to say that because it's political suicide.
All right. So I think this was not much of a story.
I don't know who could really survive a private phone call being released.
How many of you could survive your private phone conversations being released?
I guess we don't talk on the phone a lot these days, but I mean, think about it.
Just think of the things you've said privately just in the last 24 hours.
I don't think I could survive any 24-hour period of having my private conversations looked at and a context, right?
And I'm not saying that, like, I know there's some horrible thing in there.
I don't know what they would find.
But if you saw it out of context, it'd probably be pretty bad.
In context, I don't think it would be bad.
I don't think I've said anything that's bad in context.
But out of context. Alright.
Two Russian oligarchs and their entire families were found dead within 24 hours.
So there were Russian gas oligarchs.
And in one case, they think it's a murder-suicide, but in the other case, it looks like just murder.
And in both cases, the entire families were killed.
Do you feel like somebody's trying to send them a message?
But here's the interesting part.
Is it Putin? Or is it Zelensky?
How would you know? What would be the best play for Zelensky to murder oligarchs?
Do you know why? Because they would blame Putin.
Am I right? They would blame Putin.
Do you think that anybody is seeing the oligarchs being murdered and saying, oh, I think that's Ukraine?
No, I'm not saying it's Ukraine.
I have no knowledge or anything like that, no data, no evidence.
No indirect evidence, no whiff of evidence, nothing like that.
I'm just saying. I'm just saying, if you wanted to win the war and you were serious about it, I kept wondering why Ukraine has not gone after civilians in Moscow and in Russia.
If they want to win.
Like, I don't know why they have any boundaries.
But if you imagine that they don't have boundaries, because it's war, it's really about what you can get away with.
They could get away with this, probably.
Yeah, if the entire family is killed, it's not a murder-suicide.
Yeah, I don't think so.
You know, they may have made the oligarch shoot himself in the head.
They may have done that.
But it wasn't suicide.
So, I think we can rule out anything but foul play.
And if I had to guess...
This would be a bad play for Putin because apparently they were not even critics, as far as we know, at least publicly.
They may have been plotting something behind the scenes.
So the smart people are saying, oh, this is Putin sending a message to the other oligarchs to not try anything about him.
But why would you kill the two oligarchs who weren't making any public noise?
Apparently his pattern, Putin's pattern, is to go after the Few biggest problem oligarchs just go at them really hard and it makes all the other oligarchs fall in line.
It would be out of his pattern to go after the entire families.
First of all, he hasn't done families, has he?
Has Putin killed any families?
I think he goes after just the critic.
Somebody said yes. Did you say yes he's killed a family?
Or has it been alleged?
Is that alleged in any case?
I'm not aware of it.
So I guess I need a fact check on that.
But I'm going to rule that this is not in Putin's pattern.
I'm going to rule that it's not a coincidence or an accident.
I'm going to rule that it's a message.
And I would say the most likely sender of the message would be somebody who's pro-Ukraine.
Boom.
What do you think?
He plutoniumed a father-daughter pair in Britain.
Oh, okay. Well, I guess we can't rule that out.
But we also don't know if the daughter was collateral or she was targeted.
Was she targeted or just collateral?
I mean, it's bad enough either way, but it sounds like collateral.
Oh, somebody says, yes, the daughter was a target.
Okay.
Was she also a critic?
Oh, Putin told them to cut off German natural gas and they didn't?
Somebody saying that they didn't cut off the gas to Germany so they got killed?
I don't know about that.
That feels a little too on the nose.
Distractions. Their ideological murders.
Uh... Anti-corruption message.
I don't know if this is the time to make an anti-corruption message, at least that way.
All right, well, I guess that's a mystery.
And that is about all that's happening, except let me give you an update on the battle in Ukraine.
In movie one, Russia is continuing its iron grip on the country, and it's just a matter of time before they have everything they want.
In the other movie, the plucky Ukrainians are holding out, and no major cities have been controlled because there's at least one Ukrainian fighter in Mariupol or wherever, and therefore they're doing great at holding out.
Which one is correct?
Well... Somebody has a headache and would like me to hypnotize them out of it.
I can do that.
Would you like to be hypnotized out of your headaches too?
It just might take a while.
All right. All your headaches are going away.
Some faster than others.
Go. Just like that.
I'll bet you every one of your headaches will go away.
Again, maybe not right away, but check in with me in a week, and I'll bet every one of you your headaches is gone.
You don't believe it?
You just try. All right.
So the sneeze trick is working.
People talking themselves out of sneezing by doing a fake sneeze.
People are actually making that work.
Amazing. Yeah, those of you who tried it, you're kind of blown away, aren't you?
And I heard another trick on Twitter from somebody who for years has been doing the following technique.
They just think about sneezing and they exhale.
So they just think about sneezing and you go, and the sneeze instinct goes away.
Okay, I haven't tried that one, but maybe it does work.
Mind over matter. The big difference between a hypnotist and everybody else is that everybody knows that people are easily persuaded and fooled by things and you all know that we can follow the leader and we get pulled into patterns and stuff like that.
So you all know the basics of it.
Like everything a hypnotist knows, most people know.
What you don't know is how strong it is.
And you can't know it.
Again, this is in the category of things that can't be communicated.
If it could be communicated, it would probably be illegal.
I'm pretty sure the only reason hypnosis is even legal is because nobody can explain it.
The moment you can explain it, I think people would say, I'm not so sure about this.
So, maybe it's good.
Maybe it's good that you can't explain it.
Best place to learn hypnosis?
I have no idea.
And here's the problem.
A good hypnotist is going to have no problem getting good reviews.
Am I right? Might not fix any problems, but could certainly get a good review.
So it's hard to know because normally the way you would judge anything is by the reviews.
And you couldn't really trust it with a hypnotist.
I think it's the only category in which you can't trust anything that people say about them.
Would you say politicians are hypnotists?
No. Generally not.
In fact, most of them are terrible at persuasion.
Just terrible. Yet we can trust you?
Well, here's the thing you can trust.
Hypnosis doesn't make you do things you're not inclined to do anyway.
Brainwashing does. Brainwashing does.
So if I were doing what the government is doing, making you stand and pledge allegiance, that's just brainwashing.
So that will make you do something that you hadn't thought about doing.
But generally the form that I use is people getting more of what they already want.
Which is, you know, the good kind.
So helping you be more effective and, you know, relax or have higher competence as something you wanted to do anyway.
Feeling better about yourself.
Having more self-esteem.
Being more confident. Those are the things that I work on.
So should you be afraid of those?
See, the thing is that if I tried to brainwash you or use the strong form of hypnosis, To convince you to do something you didn't want to do, I would have to tell you what it is.
Like, you would be aware of what it was long before you were convinced.
And why would you subject yourself to that?
Now, you can't help but subject yourself to school propaganda, because the kids go to school and all the schools are doing the same thing.
They're propagandizing them and brainwashing them in similar ways.
So there's some stuff you just can't avoid.
But you're always told what you're going to be convinced of before it happens.
So there's always a point where you can change your mind or run away.
If I told you, all right, today...
Well, actually, I think I have to...
There are probably times I've told you directly what I'm going to persuade you.
But I tell you directly.
If I tried to do it in some weird, indirect way, where you didn't even know the topic, like I'm trying to convince you of something without even telling you what the topic is, I don't think I could pull that off.
I mean, it's not impossible, but it would be more work than I'd want to put into it.
Can you name any good hypnotists?
I can look up in here other than you.
Well, what does good mean?
You know, anybody who's a stage magician is going to be good at it, because they do it in public.
So I just don't know if that's what you mean by good.
When was the last time adults had to stand for the Pledge?
It's been a while. I mean, I think I've only seen it in places like the VFW Hall and stuff like that lately.
But I don't get out that much, so I don't know.
Do you stand for the Pledge of Allegiance?
Always. Always.
Yeah. Because you're not really standing for the Pledge of Allegiance.
You're standing to respect the country and the other people in it.
So to me, that's just respect.
And I think that the system works better when we respect the country and all the people in it.
So to me, that's what that is.
And I would do that without a pledge.
If somebody just said, can we stand for your country?
I'd be like, sure, absolutely.
Totally stand for my country.
Yeah, I don't mind that at all.
So that's actually a perfect example of I've never resisted the Pledge of Allegiance, although it's just pure brainwashing.
I've never resisted it, because it's just sort of a good brainwashing.
People are better off if they have some allegiance to their country.
It's just a better system. Is all brainwashing bad?
No, it is not.
Not at all. In fact, I'm pro-religion in general, even if I don't believe in that religion.
Now, given that there are lots of different religions, they can't all be right.
So even if you imagine the one you picked as the right one, you'd have to say, well, all these other people are getting brainwashed.
But are they being heard?
Mostly religion works.
At least the dominant religions, the way we practice them in 2022, they mostly work.
Make people happier, give them a sense of organization, a sense of certainty.
A whole bunch of benefits.
Social, family, all kinds of benefits.
All right. WenHub is no longer alive, unfortunately.
I've been getting that question lately.
So it didn't make it.
It didn't make it through the pandemic.
But I don't think the pandemic was the reason exactly.
Freedom Forever Q holdovers.
Coinbase is... I don't know about the Coinbase story.
Am I romantically retired?
What does that mean? Somebody says, not sure about Islam working?
Well, you'd have to talk to the people who practice it.
I would guess that if you talk to people who practice Islam and they're not in a An oppressive regime where maybe things are different.
If they're just practicing it on their own because they like it, I'll bet it's working.
I can't imagine it doesn't work for some people.
Oh, so somebody was saying they were raised in a religion that forbade alcohol and tobacco and drugs.
It probably helped.
I think so.
By the way, here's one of the strongest policies I would run on if I ran for president.
The policy would be to not allow smartphones to kids under, I'll pick an age, I'm going to say, 16.
Maybe 18. Under 16?
I would let them have a phone that could make a phone call and could text.
So they could text all day long.
But they wouldn't be able to see social media with their phone.
And the reason is that phones just destroy young minds.
It seems obvious to me.
Now... There's lots of precedent.
We don't let them drink.
We don't let them drive. We don't let them...
There's lots of stuff kids can't do because their brains are not ready.
So if this is not the most perfect example of brains not ready, I've never seen one.
Have you ever tried to take a smartphone away from a 14-year-old?
Has anybody tried to do that as a punishment?
It's not a punishment.
It's torture. It's not like you're on restrictions for a week or something.
It's actually like torture.
When you see the pain that they're in when they don't have access to their crack, you know, their phone, it's like you took heroin away from a junkie.
It is not like you can't ride your bicycle.
You get that, right?
There's no correlation between, all right, you can't ride your bicycle for a week And I'm going to take your smartphone away.
They are not the same thing.
Not even close. One will hurt a child.
They actually look hurt, like damaged.
Because you're taking the drug away.
And they're addicted. But you take their bike away and they're just to have less fun.
Now that's more like a proper punishment.
Alright, you don't have as much fun.
But taking their drug away that they're addicted to?
Their only source of dopamine, they think...
That's like cruel. A lot of parents can't handle it because they need to call the kids anyway.
So that's why the kids at least need a phone that they can text.
What about schools?
How many kids are using their phones in class?
Those of you who have kids, do your kids tell you that they're using their phones all day in class?
Depends on the class. Sometimes I think you're not allowed to have it.
But if they're allowed to have it anywhere near them, they're using it during class.
They're just using it under the desk when they're not looking and all that stuff.
Yeah, almost all of them.
They have to silence them, but they're still texting during class.
Of course they're not allowed.
I didn't say they were allowed, but you can't see everybody's hands all the time.
So it's just not practical to stop it.
Scott, are you an evolution skeptic?
We've talked about that.
The simulation theory, while unproven, is logically many times more likely than the standard model of reality, which would include standard evolution.
So while I have no reason to say evolution is false or that the simulation is true, I can say that the odds are really, really in one side.
Maybe a billion to one.
So there's a billion to one chance that we're in some kind of a simulation, which means that evolution would be imaginary in that case.
Although there might have been an evolution in some base reality if such a thing exists.
What explains the Big Bang?
The Big Bang is explained because time has to loop.
Otherwise it doesn't make sense.
Time really can't have no beginning and no end.
That's irrational. So what the Big Bang does is it's not a beginning point.
It's simply a marker on a loop.
Because in theory, the Big Bang creates the universe, but the universe will eventually suck back into itself, become a singularity, and then a Big Bang will happen.
Now, scientists would tell you at that moment of the singularity, there's no time.
Because there's no space.
There's nothing moving, I guess.
And so the only way that time makes sense is as a circle.
Because that's the only way infinity makes sense, is if it repeats.
So, I think the Big Bang is necessary in the simulation and in any base reality, because then time can be infinite by repeating.
I'm not sure any of that makes sense.
That just sounds like something that makes sense when you're high.
All right. If I could time travel, who would I visit?
I would visit Elon Musk in the future, and then I would return and buy stock and whatever I learned.
So I'd be the second richest person in the world, eventually.
All right, that's all I got for today.
And time becomes a loop, time becomes a loop.
That's correct. I don't think I'll be talking about my personal life in public for a while out of just respect for people involved.
But thanks for being interested and a great show again.
I hope I made all of you happier today.
Time as a loop just blew your mind.
Read God's Debris.
Read my book, God's Debris.
If you haven't read it yet and that blew your mind, you've got another mind-blowing experience ahead of you.
It'll only take you about an hour and a half.
All right. And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes the best thing that's ever happened to you.
