Episode 1724 Scott Adams: Elon Musk Might Buy Twitter Today. Bill Gates Does Not Really Have Gigantic Breasts. And More
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a
Find my "extra" content on Locals: https://ScottAdams.Locals.com
Content:
35% support illegal immigration
Elon Musk might buy Twitter today
California Governor candidate, Michael Shellenberger
Governor DeSantis vs Disney
Viewer Q&A
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And is it my imagination, or did it used to be that if you were talking about a bride and a groom, they both sounded like good words?
Bride sounds like a good word, and I'm not even going to say that other word now.
But if you'd like to take today's experience Up to the highest level of excellence.
And would you settle for less?
Look at you. Come on.
Just look at you. Look at you.
Look at you.
Yeah, you don't settle. You're the kind of person who will take it all.
You don't leave money on the table.
No, you don't. So take this to the ultimate experience.
All you need is...
Well, a cup or mug or a glass of tank or chalice this time, a canteen drink or a flask, a vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee.
Barbara made it, everybody.
Barbara finally made it for the simultaneous sip.
Barbara, this one's for you.
It's the dopamine hit of the day.
It's the thing that makes everything better, especially Barbara's day.
It's called the simultaneous sip.
Barbara, do you have witnesses?
Because I'm talking to you directly.
You didn't see this coming, did you?
Is it freaking you out, Barbara?
It's about us now.
It's just me and you, Barbara. Get ready.
Are the people around you watching this?
Because if this is happening to you alone, it's going to be terrible.
Because you're going to be like, is anybody seeing this?
My iPad is talking directly to me.
That's right, Barbara. I'm talking directly to you.
Get ready for the simultaneous sip.
The rest of you can join in, too, with Barbara.
Go! And that, ladies and gentlemen...
I'm sorry, I just read a funny comment on the locals' platform.
Now, let me tell you a little story.
And here's why. Today I looked at the news to prepare for my award-winning, well, not yet, but I think he had, award-winning livestream, and I said to myself, well, it's sort of a thin news day, but yet you expect nearly 45 minutes of quality entertainment.
And I was just talking to the locals' platform before I signed on to YouTube, and I said, hmm, challenge, to see if I could come up with a story That would be useful.
You know, you would actually get something from it.
And it would fill in the time.
Because with less than 15 seconds to go, I didn't have enough content to go more than 10 minutes.
But, why is it that I wasn't worried whatsoever?
Well, how many times have I told you I took the Dale Carnegie course?
It was just the most awesome thing.
One of the many things you learn is to be prepared To give a speech at any time.
Isn't that weird? That's such a specific skill, isn't it?
You should be prepared to give a speech any time.
Just somebody might say, Scott, could you stand up and give us a few words?
And you'd be like, what? So you should be prepared.
Now, let me tell you a story where this mattered.
A number of years ago, I was doing a book tour.
Where you go around the country to various big bookstores and you sign a lot of copies of your book.
And one of the big stores I went to was in Denver, I think.
It was not just a bookstore, it was almost like a complex.
It was like a major bookstore plus operation.
And so you usually have a handler, and your handler goes with you and takes you to the various places you have to visit for interviews and whatever.
And the handler and I walk in, and the manager of the bookstore greets us, is all excited that I'm there, and says, oh, we're so happy that you're here.
People have been waiting for your speech for over an hour.
And I said, my what?
They said, your talk.
People are real excited about your talk.
And I said, my what?
My what? It sounded like you said talk.
They said, yeah, your talk that you're going to give.
The room is full.
It's an overflow capacity.
Can't believe how many people showed up.
And I said, the room?
The talk? The what?
I thought I was just there to sign books.
And she goes, yeah. And she takes me to the room and opens the door, and there's this enormous auditorium full of people who are waiting for my talk that I had no idea I was giving until I showed up.
Now, what happened?
Well, I took the, I may have mentioned, because I took the Dale Carnegie course, I had a speech.
And so I just gave it.
That was it. And so I'm demonstrating to you what I learned in the Dale Carnegie course.
So because I was light on material, I always have like a little bag of stories that have some useful point to them.
So my useful point is it is really, really useful To have a little bag of stories.
You might want to have one that's sort of something about your company or one that's like an interesting thing you would tell, you know, if you were asked to be interesting at a party.
You know, just have five stories that you could just whip out in a minute.
Very useful. There you go.
Now, let's talk about immigration.
Rasmussen had a little poll.
And 35% of people they polled, adult likely voter types, support the trend of rising illegal immigration.
So 35% of the people who vote, or are likely to vote, more than a third are in favor of increasing illegal activity, specifically immigration.
Would you have guessed it was that high?
It's funny that they say illegal immigration.
Now, if the question had been, should we increase immigration, then I could see a third of the people saying, yeah, you know, in my opinion, we should have more immigration.
I could understand somebody having that opinion.
I don't really know what the right number of immigrants is.
There's some number that's good.
There's some number that's too little, too few, because we actually almost certainly need some kind of immigrant flow.
But there's some number that's too big.
I don't know what that number is.
And for some reason, we all avoid the only thing that matters, which is what would be the right number and right composition of educated versus laborer types.
But anyway, more than a third of the country supports the illegal type of immigration.
So I guess they would imagine it should be legal, I suppose, would be the interpretation.
Including 19% who strongly support it.
They're like really in favor of the illegal kind of immigration.
12%, not so sure.
So a majority, 53% of Democrats, support the trend of record-setting illegal immigration.
But 75% of Republicans say no.
And 54% of voters not affiliated with either party say no, I guess.
So I wonder if this is part of the larger trend that conservatives like to be in charge of their family situation, and the people that are furthest on the left are more in favor of a takes a village, the school can raise your kid kind of thing.
It just seems like more of that.
Because if you wanted to protect your family, you could imagine that you might say less immigration because it might have some impact on your family.
But if you were like, everybody is a village, then you'd say, hey, it doesn't matter who you are, come on in, we'll figure it out collectively.
So I guess that makes sense philosophically that they would think that.
But I can't imagine...
Well, let me give you my overall philosophy of all these things.
Whenever there's a question of individual benefit, cost or benefit, versus protecting a system, if the system is a really important one, I generally favor the system.
Take, for example, capitalism.
I think capitalism works better than the alternatives, but it has all these problems.
Pretty bad problems.
You know, lots of inequality, blah, blah, blah.
But still, if it came to a choice of making everybody equal or having capitalism with all its flaws, I would support the system.
Because the system is what gets you to the most people getting the most benefit over the longest period of time.
Same with free speech.
You come up with lots of examples where you'd say, I don't like that free speech.
But still, you're better off supporting the system.
That free speech exists despite all of its horrible flaws, according to you.
So immigration is the same thing.
It feels as if the Democrats are looking at it as sort of a human, individual human suffering kind of situation, which it is.
It's 100% exactly that.
It's about human suffering and human condition.
If you take the very, and I have respect for the position, if you have the empathy that you can't release yourself from caring about the individuals and saying, you know, if they can make it to the border, let's just do what we can to help them.
That's great empathy, and as a human being, I would actually probably quite appreciate you.
You're the kind of person I would want as a friend, that you have that much empathy, that you really can't see the system beyond the individual suffering.
It's a somewhat worthy, kind of respectable position, even if you don't hold it.
You'd have to say, you can't hate somebody, We can't look past individual suffering to see the system.
But I guess I'm a worse person because I can do that.
So in my opinion, most people would be best off with systems that have integrity.
So I'd like to see the immigration system work legally and effectively.
And then separately, once you have your immigration completely controlled, then you have a separate conversation about what's the right amount.
And you do it logically.
You do it in a way that supports the most benefit for the most people, which almost certainly would be America first.
In other words, keeping America strong has a ripple effect of protecting the entire continent, right?
Don't you think South America is better off because the United States is strong?
You don't even need much of a military in South America.
Because who's going to attack South America?
Nobody's going to take a run on South America because America is so strong.
So it's hard to separate what is good for America and its strength and how that benefits other countries.
Is Japan better off for having an American defensive umbrella over there?
Probably. All right.
Breaking news! Maybe it's already happened, but apparently Elon Musk has gotten further than we imagined, or some imagined, and he's raised the money and it looks like they could make a deal, Twitter and Elon Musk, today.
So there might actually be an announcement today that Elon Musk is buying Twitter and it's going through.
Now, I'm a little skeptical.
It seems a little too easy.
Were any of you expecting it to be this easy?
And it could be that the threat of lawsuits was big enough that the board just said, ah, we're out, which would be pretty rational.
Pretty rational. I should mention that I own some Twitter stock.
So I guess it would be good for me if he buys it.
Although I would have held it longer than that.
So it isn't my...
I suppose as an investor it wasn't exactly my preference, but as an American, I guess, I like the benefit to free speech.
Speaking of Elon Musk, it makes me think of Bill Gates.
There's a meme that's being fact-checked, so Reuters facts and others are saying it's not true, and the photo has been doctored.
There's a photo of Bill Gates crossing the street in which he has enormous breasts.
Now, I'm not talking about...
His just unflattering photos that you've seen, I'm talking about actually photoshopped gigantic breasts, and Reuters felt the need to fact check that, because there would be some people who imagined that he had transitioned, and he had enormous breasts.
But it's not true.
It is not true. He has only average-sized breasts.
So if you thought that Bill Gates had enormous breasts, Totally untrue.
They're larger than average.
They're healthy-sized.
All right. Speaking of freedom, once Elon Musk buys Twitter and returns free speech to all of us, which I think we would all applaud, I think the first order of business is he should ban Disney from the platform.
Because I love free speech.
But fuck Disney, am I right?
I mean, fuck those guys.
So I do like free speech, but with the exception of stuff I don't like.
So I will make an exception.
So I have been convinced by the people on the Internet who have made a good argument.
Lots of times I don't change my mind.
I don't change my mind.
But this is one of those cases where when you're faced with a superior argument...
I think you have to fold to it.
And so the argument I've been presented with the last several days is that, yeah, free speech is great unless it's something you really, really don't like.
And then it starts interfering with the actual workings of the government.
And if your free speech is the kind that actually matters, the kind that would change something, that's extra dangerous.
So the kind of speech that I think free speech should allow It's the kind that agrees with all my personal views.
But beyond that, I'd really like to see stuff banned.
So I'm hoping Elon Musk will just start banning the stuff I don't like.
Because otherwise, I don't think I could support this.
As a stockholder, I'd have to vote against it.
I need him in there banning shit I don't want.
Because if people start giving their opinions, then things will happen I don't like.
And that would be weak.
I don't want to be weak.
So I want to be strong and violate the Constitution for things that I like and things I want.
Okay, some of you can't even tell when I'm kidding, can you?
How many of you don't know that I'm not serious?
Raise your hand. Come on.
Raise your hand. All right.
Well... I'm hearing some terrible arguments about the Disney thing, but are you all bored with that?
Is everybody done with the Disney story?
Because here's what I think happened.
I think I would say, hey, free speech isn't more important than these things.
Then people would say, are you a groomer?
And I'd say, I don't even think that's the right conversation.
And then I'd say...
Hey, free speech is still important, and somebody would say, but Disney's deal is better than other corporations.
And I'd say, well, I don't even think that's the topic.
So I don't know if I ever even had a real conversation about it, because you couldn't get anybody to even stick to the topic.
It was like, well, what about this other thing?
All right. So there's nothing there for us to talk about, I guess.
Here's... Well, let me give you one useful, let's say, lesson.
A micro lesson on analysis.
And this is probably the most important thing that economists or people trained in that, or people who have business training, get right, that people who don't have that kind of training get wrong and don't know that it's wrong.
It's what I call the comparison problem.
If you compare the wrong things, you're obviously going to come to a wrong conclusion.
Right? So, one of the things that I heard the most, but only from people who don't have good comparison skills, is that Disney was getting a sweetheart deal compared to other corporations, and why should they get, like, the extra deal? That's not the right comparison.
If you're comparing Disney to any other corporation, That's completely nonsensical.
You might as well compare them to a grapefruit.
Well, a grapefruit doesn't get a good deal, so why does Disney?
It wouldn't make any sense.
Just because they're a corporation and something else is a corporation, that doesn't mean they should be compared for everything.
Here's the comparison you should make.
How many gigantic corporations who could credibly, credibly, go to a state and say, we can bring in 60,000 employees and millions of travelers to your state, which you want to be a destination for travel, so our business is right on point with what you want to be.
It will bring in gigantic revenue for you and what we would like in return for the efficiency of building it, primarily just for efficiency.
So that you and I can get our benefits as soon as possible.
How about we have some autonomy?
And that autonomy will have a certain length deal.
In the beginning, this will be really good for us, but also really good for you, because you're getting all this economic development.
And on and on.
So the correct comparison is this.
Disney and what they asked Florida for compared to the other company that asked Florida for the same thing and could offer the same benefit in return.
That's the only comparison.
If you compared anything else, then you're not well trained in comparing.
Because if Florida would have said no to another company that offered something similarly as awesome, Well, then you'd say, okay, well, why is Disney getting the special deal?
If somebody else made the same offer, shouldn't they get the same consideration?
And the answer is yes. Yes, they should.
That's exactly what they should get.
So if two companies had made this offer to Florida, Florida should have accepted both.
If three companies made that offer, Florida should have accepted all three.
Have I made...
Have I sold you?
Everybody who said other corporations didn't get this deal, they're not right or wrong.
It's not a question of right or wrong.
It's not even the right comparison.
It's like comparing it to a grapefruit.
It has no relevance whatsoever.
Okay. And that, ladies and gentlemen...
is the useful part of our program.
We're now to the part where I either have to tell you an interesting story, possibly one that you prompt me for, or we may be ending early, which would be a tragedy for all of us, I think you'd agree.
And while you're thinking what you would like me to tell you in terms of a story, or possibly if you'd like me to heal anybody from any problems, I will be taking this gratuitous extra sip And watching your comments.
Mushrooms is the question.
Am I mad at you?
No, I'm not mad at you. More about mushrooms.
Well, that does seem to be the issue of the day, doesn't it?
But I worry that I've talked about it too much.
I'll just give you the basic idea, which is...
I thought I tried some recently, but I don't think they were actually...
They were either inert or something.
So I don't have any recent experience with it.
And my first experience, I thought, changed me forever.
So I don't know what's going on.
I don't know why once it was a profound, life-changing experience and the second time it wasn't.
But one possibility is that I'd already changed.
I worry about that. I mean, I don't worry about it, but I suppose that would be good.
Yeah, why would I want to change again?
Exactly. Google Education.
What's that? Schellenberger's chances in the election.
Strangely good. Yeah.
Michael Schellenberger, running as an independent, he's written books on everything from homelessness, how to deal with it, drug addiction...
Energy policy directly related to California.
He's researched, you know, forest fire stuff.
Basically, the water problem.
Every problem that's specific to California, he's actually become an expert on.
And he's an insanely good communicator and persuader.
So could he?
He actually does have a lane.
I think the difference between me saying he has a really high chance and predicting he actually will win is what the media does.
Because he is so media friendly.
He can appear on media left and right because he's an independent.
So he's not locked down of either media.
Think about that.
Just think about that.
Who was the last person who was smart enough to figure out how to stake out a position in which CNN and Fox News would both be equally happy to have you as a guest?
Name one other person who's accomplished that.
Can you? Andrew Yang, okay.
Well, Trump for a while, and then he even gave up.
Arnold? Actually, Arnold's pretty good.
Arnold is good. All right, so I guess there are a few.
But, Mark Cuban, but, you know, he's not as political as he could be.
Yeah, Elon Musk?
Right, but they're not political, remember.
So I'm talking about somebody actually running for office who would be just as desired on the left and right.
And here's the reason.
What makes news...
Is not just doing something well.
That's not news.
Because people are doing things at various levels of quality all the time.
It can't all be news.
What's news is somebody does something a different way.
And that's the thing he's got.
And the different way is so obviously superior.
It's a different way that literally nobody can argue with.
What would be the argument against Him having a deep knowledge and best-selling books on exactly the topic that you're trying to solve.
Now, you could argue you don't like his solution, but you can't argue against that being a better process, like having somebody who's really shown by his own production, the work he's produced, and the activism.
I mean, he's been directly on the streets working on fentanyl and stuff.
So, if you were to design a perfect candidate...
That candidate would be, you know, tall and good-looking and have great hair.
Check. Those things shouldn't matter, right?
It shouldn't matter that you're tall and good-looking and you have great hair.
But it does.
It does! Sorry.
It does. Probably one of the best communicators, That I've ever seen as a politician.
He's got that. So now, combine just those two things.
If that's all you had, if all you had was the look and you were one of the best communicators anybody had ever seen, you'd probably get elected to stuff, right?
But on top of that, he already demonstrated by writing several best-selling books a deep knowledge of everything from climate change and energy and Nuclear power, homelessness, addiction, literally exactly the issues that the state is dealing with.
Nobody's ever put together a talent stack like that.
So if anybody writes stories, if this ever happens, if the media ever says, what does a perfect politician look like?
If you were going to build one, the only thing he doesn't have is an ethnic signature that California might want.
He doesn't have the ethnicity or the gender or whatever it takes.
Do you think that will be held against him?
Probably. Probably.
But here's the thing.
He's not a Republican.
I think it would definitely be held against him if he were a Republican.
But remember, Gavin Newsom is the most popular candidate in the state, which doesn't seem to make sense, does it?
But the reason Gavin Newsom could be a good-looking white guy with good hair and still be popular in California is because he's so pro the things that people want.
And Schellenberger has, like, a better version of that.
He is pro what the people want with a demonstrated base of understanding that says he knows how to get it.
That's even stronger.
If he can sell that, and he's probably one of the few people who could, because he has those skills.
So if you see, if you see, like, a major...
Here would be the turning point.
If you saw a major...
Let's say Wall Street Journal, New York Times, describing how he's running the process and also maybe some of his policies for those specific things.
If you see that, it means that That the major media is now paying attention.
And the way it works is you need at least one major publication to say something is the right frame or is the right story.
And then all the others just fall in line.
Stories don't make themselves.
Stories are made by the big publications.
And then everybody else says, well, that's the story.
Because there are a million things you could talk about.
But the big publications tell you what you will talk about.
Because everybody falls in line.
So, there's the canary in the coal mine for you.
If you see one, if you see something like New York Times, like a real profile that's positive, or Wall Street Journal, or Washington Post, I guess.
So if you see any of those three, maybe some of the other media doing a major piece, and they talk about how he's doing it, instead of You know, a hit piece, which you normally see, or a love letter.
I mean, if they're just objective about it, then I think he's going to be president.
You know, I'm not sure how many of you would have guessed that Arnold Schwarzenegger would be, you know, governor of California, or Ronald Reagan.
You know, we do like entertainers, but we also are willing, we meaning California, we're willing to look at anything that looks like a good deal in the end.
As much as I and other people say, oh, it's about your ethnicity because everybody's woke in California, or it's about your gender or whatever, even though it largely is, all of that goes away if the candidate is good enough.
It just all melts away.
Because that's what Gavin Newsom did.
All of that stuff didn't matter to him.
Because he was a good enough candidate.
That's all you need. And Schwarzenegger, too.
Schwarzenegger was a good enough candidate that he just evaporated those other concerns.
So if all newspapers support them, we'll all fall in line?
No. That's the so-tell for cognitive distance.
It's been a while since I mentioned it, so some of you are new.
When you see somebody mischaracterize what you just said, starting with the word so, so you're saying that all lizards can fly.
Whatever comes after that word so will definitely not be what you're saying.
And it's a sign that the person, their own argument has fallen apart.
So when somebody responds with a, so, you've already won.
You can actually just walk away and go, oh, there it is.
Victory. There's the so.
And the first time I ever tell you that, you think, what?
You can actually tell when you've won an argument by that one word?
Really? Really?
That one word, you put it in front of a sentence, and that's all it takes?
You don't even need to know what the rest of the sentence is, Scott?
Seriously? Yes.
Yes, seriously.
When you start looking for it, you'll see it so clearly.
Yeah. All of this, so, what you're saying is a guarantee that you just won the argument.
And here's why. If somebody still had an argument, they would have used it.
They wouldn't have to mischaracterize what you're saying.
They would simply use what you're saying and say, well, here's why the thing you're saying doesn't make sense, if they had an argument.
Otherwise, they'd go, sir, what you're saying is that even Hiller would be okay as your roommate.
Is that what you're saying? No!
No, nobody's saying that.
No! It's not good for...
What? All right, let's see if I can...
My claim that my...
Oh, so somebody said that my claim that my bad experience with what I thought were mushrooms, for me to say that maybe it wasn't actually active mushrooms, is cognitive dissonance.
Possible. But there's no trigger for it.
In other words, I could be wrong or I could be right, but cognitive dissonance would require that there was something about my prior opinions that this would violate, and nothing like that happened.
So there's nothing that could have changed my mind.
There's just some knowledge that I'm lacking, which is what was in it.
Now, some have said...
That the difference between a good trip and a bad trip, if you can call it that, on mushrooms, would be, you know, how much you liked it, basically.
But in both cases, there would be a, I guess, psychedelic or mildly psychedelic effect, and I didn't have any.
So if you take something in the higher dose range and you don't have any effect, I'm not sure you'd call that a bad trip.
All I had was a really bad stomach ache that lasted 24 hours.
Could be just stale.
Yeah, maybe. Who knows?
So... I don't think...
I think that there was something else going on.
And two people had the same experience at the same time, so...
I doubt that...
I doubt that both had exactly the same unusual experience.
So anyway, there's not much to say about that because I don't have enough information about what it was that I ingested.
It wasn't microdosing.
So those of you who think I didn't take enough I followed the directions.
I definitely took it off.
But if this doesn't tell you to not do drugs, nothing will.
It's interesting the variety of experiences people have had.
It's really interesting. Yeah, so apparently people have had experiences all over the place.
But I suspect it's because...
I think we're thinking that the difference is in us, and I think that's probably an illusion.
Because there's no quality control for this particular illegal drug.
So if there's no quality control, it probably has more to do with the product than some state you're in.
So my guess is that you could be in a bad state and it would put you in a good mood if you got the good stuff.
And if you were in a bad mood and you got the bad stuff, you'd think it was because of your mood, but maybe it was just a bad bag of stuff.
Who knows? Who knows?
What do you think of woke corporations?
Well, isn't today's wokeness tomorrow's, let's say, on the same side of history?
It's hard to look at stuff in the present, because all that matters is how we're going to look at it in a year, or ten years.
And, you know, I try to take myself back and say, okay, what would it have been like when corporations were saying, we're going to try to make sure we have more diversity?
Today that sounds pretty routine, doesn't it?
Sounds pretty, well, that's just normal.
Why wouldn't they? It's good for them, good for the public.
Yeah, they should put some effort into that.
Let's give us some diversity.
Now, if you go too hard on that, you know, it's just discrimination.
But there's probably some way to do it that's only a little bit discriminatory but gets you some benefits, maybe.
So if you look at that, if you looked at it when it was happening, It just looked like wokeness gone too far, because I was in the middle of it when it did happen.
I lost two jobs because I was a white male.
So when that happened, I said to myself, well, that's terrible.
It's an overreaction.
Why are these companies being forced to be so woke?
Why can't I just do a good job and get promoted for my abilities?
Why did my ethnicity have to even be an issue?
So that's what I thought at the time.
But because of those and other efforts, corporations are more diverse than they used to be.
And so you look at it with now an historical view of it, and even I, who, as I said, lost two jobs for being a white guy.
And I was told that directly by my bosses, by the way, at a large bank and then at the phone company.
So I'm not guessing.
It's not a conspiracy theory.
My boss in both places said, sorry, we won't be able to promote you because you're white and male.
I hated it. But now I look at it, you know, 30 years of distance in the past, and I say to myself, you know, I don't know.
If that's the only way you could have gotten here, and things do look better in that one sense, diversity has improved, I don't know.
It's hard for me to judge it as harshly as I judged it when it was literally screwing me.
So the first thing you have to do is say, what would it look like in a few years?
And one possibility is that in 10 years you're going to say, oh yeah, what Disney was fighting for was mischaracterized.
Because don't you think both sides are mischaracterized?
When you look at the Disney thing and DeSantis and the don't say gay, both sides mischaracterize the other one's point, right?
That's why it's just a stupid debate.
It's really just power.
It's people doing what they can because they can because it feels like power and it gives them a dopamine hit.
But basically it's just two liars facing off with each other.
It's hard for me to take sides with liars.
Sometimes you have to.
I know what you're going to say.
Sometimes you have to. But I don't like to do it if I can avoid it.
Like, even if the liar is on my side, I don't really want to side with a liar.
Not really. But it's entirely possible that the only way DeSantis can prevail and the people on their side is to, let's say, exaggerate what's going on.
Exaggeration is persuasion, and I'm always in favor of persuasion for a good point.
So, you know, there's this line where you go from hyperbole to just flat-out lying, and this whole topic is just, to me, it looks like people lying to each other.
So I feel a little bit like the only part I want to talk about is freedom of speech.
And that's why people keep getting mad at me, because I'm not dealing with the issue.
And the reason I'm not is because it's just two sides lying.
What am I going to add to that?
There's nothing to add to that.
Just stay away from it.
Run away. But the only thing I would add is that if you think that Disney is trying to hurt your children, what the hell?
What? They're not trying to hurt.
I think I can say this with great certainty.
That Disney's intention is not to hurt children.
They have a different opinion of what it looks like to help them, I guess, and help everybody else.
It's just a difference of opinion.
Now, conservatives consistently say that the family should be in charge of stuff like that.
See, here's why I think there's a difference.
Conservatives are so strong family-oriented that once you start with the assumption, okay, start with a strong family, and then does it make sense that the family has more decision-making and influence than the school?
Well, yes, it does.
If you start with the assumption of a strong family, then other assumptions follow from that.
But if you're, let's say, on the left, and you don't have an assumption that strong families are necessary or even needed, then it doesn't make sense that families have the power.
Because if you're a weak family structure, there's sort of nobody to make the right decision, no way to make it stick.
You might as well let the school do it.
Now, the second question is, if the school's going to do it, whatever it is, How do they do it right as opposed to making things worse?
So here's where I think you need to understand the decision.
If you think there's a right and a wrong decision on this family's deciding versus the school's deciding what to tell kids, there's no right or wrong.
There's only what's right for some types of families.
If you have a strong family structure and two capable parents...
Then it's absolutely better for the family to inform the kids.
Would everybody agree with that statement so far?
That so far, if you have a capable parental structure, they should have the maximum amount of control over their children.
That's the best outcome.
Because they're really capable.
By definition, that's the setup.
But now, let me change it.
Let's say you've got one parent.
Doesn't matter the gender.
You've got one parent. It wasn't anybody's fault.
Maybe. You know, things happen.
Parent is overworked.
Isn't good at communicating.
Isn't comfortable with some topics.
Maybe doesn't even understand some topics.
And really can't educate the kid.
Can't educate them right.
Can't educate them wrong. Just can't.
Just doesn't have the capability.
What is the best situation for that person?
Is it the best situation for that kid to be educated by that one parent who doesn't have any ability to get it right?
I'm not judging. Don't interpret this as racial or anything else.
Just some parents are better than other parents across all types.
So in a situation where you have a completely useless parent, I don't know, would the school do a worse job of raising the kid?
Who's ever studied that?
And how do you know if that parent is so bad?
So, when I say I agree with conservatives about the parents making the choice, I do.
But you have to understand that's only good for people with strong family belief structures and willing to really make that work.
It's definitely better for them.
But one size doesn't fit all.
So you can see why people who have seen the other kind of life where the family structure is just broken everywhere, you can see why they say, you know, let the school do it.
Because there's no family to do anything here.
I can see that. But, as a system, which is better?
The system that's better is that the parents do it if they demand it.
That's the better system. So, you know, ultimately it's going to be down to power.
So whoever has the most power will win.
And it looks like DeSantis is probably going to win.
So that's how the system works.
All right. What percent of parents are completely useless?
Good question. I will put that to the audience.
What percentage of parents...
Would you say are above the line of capable?
Above the line of capable.
All right, so this will be the capable number, not the incapable.
How many are capable?
Somebody's saying 75% of parents are capable, but others 30.
See, that probably informs your opinion of who should be in charge, right?
If you thought only 25% of parents were even capable...
You might lean toward, well, let this school do it.
Because, you know, you don't want to ruin 75% of kids.
Yeah, and I guess we don't know, and everybody would have a different idea of what capable looks like, etc.
But I'll tell you my observation is that the school raises your kid no matter what.
So I guess part of the reason that I'm a little less engaged in this topic is that if you've observed children at all...
If they go to school, if they go to public school, because that's a separate option, right?
You know, a lot of people would like to have their option of taking them to a private school or a different school.
But if they go to public school, the school raises your kid.
There's nothing you can do about it.
And it's their friends who do it.
Do you know all that sexuality stuff that you want the parent to teach?
It's coming from their friends.
You know, the parents can try.
Hey, let me sit you down and tell you all about this LGBTQ stuff, kids, when you're old enough.
By the time your parents sit you down and talk to you, the kids' friends have already completely indoctrinated them into whatever the hell they believe.
Now, the good news is that the whole LGBTQ thing is very accepted.
In the younger generation.
So it's almost a non-issue.
It's more like a curiosity, but it's not like a judgment sort of thing for them.
Where did they get that?
Did they get that from the school?
Did they get that from their parents?
No. Most parents don't say anything.
Most schools don't say anything, except...
I'll give you an example.
When I went to school a million years ago, we had an art teacher who was, I'm going to say, obviously gay.
Could I be wrong? Yeah, I suppose I could have been wrong, and everybody in the town could have been wrong, and that fine young man that he lived with could have been just a friend.
Maybe. I mean...
But trust me on this, I had a gay art teacher.
Now, this was well before wokeness, but I have to say it probably normalized it for me, just by example.
Just the fact that he existed, and he wasn't fired for it.
People made unkind remarks behind his back, of course, in those days.
But I think it normalized it.
So you have to be sort of humble about what a parent can even do to a kid.
Because the kids are just seeing examples of stuff and talking to their friends, and that's got to be 75% of it, plus genetics.
If you take the kids' genetic propensities, their peer pressure, and just the stuff that they're observing on TV and everywhere else, that's 90% of their socialization.
And the parents might be 10% about pick up, you know, clean your room and show up on time.
That's about it. But despite the minimal impact that I think parents actually have on that specific kind of a question, I think the system works better when the parents have that power and not the state, whenever you can make that happen.
Because one of the choices that the parent could make is, let the school do it.
So maybe that's just a choice.
We'll wait a few years when the kid is older and the school can do it.
But really, I guess the question is more about the age that's happening, isn't it?
It's not even so much, was your gay teacher an ideologue?
Doesn't matter to the story.
And he was, by the way, he had a big impact on me, obviously, since I'm in art.
So I would say he was one of my teachers who probably had one of the biggest positive impacts on me.
All right. And let's see, let's talk about Ukraine.
Have you noticed that the Ukraine story starting to turn into, well, those Ukrainians might be able to destroy enough Soviet-era weapons that the Russians are using that Ukrainians could actually win.
So the major media is starting to suggest That those Ukrainians have pretty good weapons, and they're getting trained in new weapons systems that maybe we don't know all the details about, and that the Russians are being at least stopped or repelled.
Now, here's the interesting thing about the Ukraine situation to me, and I hate the fact that war is interesting, but I can't help it.
The outcome is going to depend on tipping points.
Meaning that there's going to be a whole bunch of stuff in the context of war that gets really close to a failure point but doesn't necessarily fail.
But if any one of those things that is coming right to the failure point fails, then you have a result.
For example, how much equipment could Russia lose as a percentage of its, let's say, big equipment before it wouldn't be functional?
25%? Because it might have lost 25% already.
40%? If they lost 40% of their big equipment, would they say, uh-oh, we're going to lose all of it if we just keep doing this?
Like at what point would they say, uh, we have not gained any territory and we're now down to only 60% of our army, or whatever.
So Ukraine might actually be close to some kind of a tipping point militarily.
Maybe. Now what about supply lines?
We never hear about the Ukrainian supply lines, do we?
We only hear that there are problems with the Russian supply lines.
Could be because the locals are providing food and channels to get it, etc.
Who knows? But both of those are near a tipping point.
There's got to be a tipping point where one of the armies will run out of fuel.
One of them runs out of bullets, runs out of, probably not bullets, but runs out of food.
There's got to be a tipping point, right?
And how many drones would it take before Ukraine is clearly going to win?
Well, they've got several hundred coming.
Is that enough? I actually think several hundred could be close to a tipping point.
If it were 10,000, I'd say, okay, that's enough.
They're going to win. If they were trained to use them and they were deployed.
It's not going to be 10,000.
But it might be 1,000.
If you had 1,000 good drones and, let's say, 50 of them were reusable types, not suicide types, I feel like that would push it over the tipping point.
So anyone who says that there's some obvious way that this is going to go, I think that's the worst prediction.
The worst prediction is that anything obvious is going to happen.
Because it's all about these little tipping points and none of those are predictable.
Any one of those could go and just collapse the whole situation.
Can you get a micro-lesson on flirting?
Okay. I'll give you a micro-lesson on flirting.
Do everything you can to not have to.
So if you're flirting, and that's the way you're going to win, if that's all you got, you're probably already lost.
A better strategy would be to work on your fitness and your style and make sure your haircut and your skin looks good.
You're doing everything you can to present yourself as something that somebody would want.
Because if you do that, Then flirting can be reduced to, hi, I'm Bob.
That's it. If you get the big stuff right, the flirting is just hi.
Smile, make eye contact.
Do you know how a woman can flirt?
Let me tell you how a woman can flirt.
I'm going to give you my impression, which will be horrifying.
This is going to be horrifying.
My impression of a woman flirting with maximum, like, just full force.
This is full on flirting.
Hi. That's it.
Done. Direct eye contact and a smile.
You're done. Almost every guy will think, I think she's into me.
I remember for a time my local grocery store was forcing the employees to act extra nice to the customers.
It was like a corporate thing.
So you'd go in there and they'd be like, how are you?
You know, nice day. It was like a little over the top.
Not long after that, they never could hire an attractive female cashier.
Do you know why? Because it felt like they were hitting on you.
And I think that they probably all got hit on back.
So if the 65-year-old guy with weird hair at the cash register says, hey, how you doing?
You just think he's friendly.
But if the 28-year-old attractive-looking woman looks at you directly and says, hi, how was your day?
Do you know what every guy thinks?
I think she's into me a little bit.
That feels like flirting, and it probably was a problem.
So basically, you know, the attractive female cashier demographic just disappeared from that store and never came back.
I don't know why, unless it was that.
Now, men, of course, would be harder to flirt.
But like I said, you just have to present yourself as confident, primarily, Have a job and a gym membership.
You're done. Right?
Be confident. Have a job and a gym membership.
And things will probably work out for you.
That's about it. Oh, and interested, yes.
Well, the best way to show interest is to be interested, to ask people about their situation, especially if it's a bad situation.
If you show empathy...
By the way, this is the best definition of charisma.
I've mentioned this before, but it's worth it again.
Charisma, I heard it defined once as a combination of power plus empathy.
And when you first hear that, you're like, hmm, how does that work?
Why is that? And I'll explain it.
If you saw somebody who had power but no empathy, in other words, they didn't care about you, they would literally be dangerous or feel dangerous.
You wouldn't want that person in charge because they don't care about you and they have all this power.
That's the worst possible situation.
You wouldn't want, necessarily, to hang out with somebody who had plenty of empathy But no power.
Because you're probably going to end up helping them, right?
Now, you might like helping people, but in terms of a leader, you want somebody who has ability you don't have, but also cares about you.
Now, that goes to flirting, especially male flirting.
So if you're male, you have to demonstrate some kind of power.
The power could be Confidence, money, position.
It could be just your physicality, something like that.
That's your power. So it doesn't have to be real direct power.
It has to be like the impression of power.
Just the impression. However you want to sell that.
So you create the impression of power, and then you combine that with interest and empathy.
And instead of using your power to get what you want, you say, how can I help you?
What can I do for you? How was your day?
Oh. And then show actual interest.
Now, if you're faking it, it doesn't work.
People can see through falsehood.
But if you actually do care about people, it would work fine.
So the best flirting you could do is to be charismatic.
Show you have some kind of power.
You're genetically gifted, if you are.
You're strong, maybe because you made yourself that way.
Or you're successful and somehow you've got to project that in some way that other people can see without you bragging.
And then act empathetic.
And you're done. Boom.
But if you do the overly flirty-flirty thing, That's too much.
Now, I'll also tell you that a compliment, if it's given sincerely and confidently, can act like a flirt while being just matter of fact.
So if you do it right, people will accept the compliment as intended, and it'll have a big impact.
But you don't have to be, you know, have a, let's say, A begging, simp-like approach to doing it.
You can just say, just give your opinion.
All right. I believe that I've now accomplished the impossible.
Made a fascinating, wow, hour-long presentation without any content whatsoever.
And... Maybe improve some of your days.
You don't know. I don't know.
So we'll see. Some of you were going to say it's the best live stream ever.
