Episode 1731 Scott Adams: Big Pharma Malfeasance, Musk's Shadow Crew, Fun Story Of Knife Fight
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Content:
Dilbert's new Black character, Dave
Bill Maher mocks Biden on immigration
Trend examples: escaping the narrative
Amber Heard fired her PR team
GlaxoSmithKline Wellbutrin settlement
WSJ Ominous framing, "Shadow Crew"
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Good morning, everybody, and welcome to another highlight of your entire life.
Now, we're not going to count the afterlife, which, for all we know, could be awesome for you.
Well, maybe not all of you, if you know what I mean.
I think you do. But for many of you, this will be the highlight of your biological life before you become a digital entity or possibly pass into the afterlife and become pure energy.
But until that happens, you're going to need a little extra energy from the outside.
Maybe a little, uh, yeah, you know where I'm going with this, don't you?
And all you need is a cup or a mug or a glass or a tank or a gel 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 the unparalleled pleasure.
It's the dopamine hit of the day.
The thing that makes everything better.
The thing that makes your day spectacular.
It's going to happen now.
It's called the Simultaneous Hip.
Go! Well, I hope you enjoy this because it might be our last day together.
I'm looking to cause some trouble and we'll see if that works out for me.
But we'll get to that. So some researchers have found the optimum amount of sleep for seniors, which is a complete waste of time, I think, because senior citizens could just sleep all day if they want.
They don't have to do anything.
So I'm looking forward to that phase of life.
You can sleep all you want.
Actually, I don't like sleep, so I'm a terrible person to advise you about it.
But... I do put a lot of work into doing the mechanisms of sleep right.
I go to bed at a good time, always get up at the same time no matter the day.
Don't watch TV. Don't do things that activate my brain.
Don't think about the next day when I'm asleep.
Never think about the next day.
And never think about the last day.
Actually, those are the two things you should never think about when you're trying to get to sleep.
Don't think about anything that's happened at all.
That'll just drive you nuts.
You'll never sleep if you're thinking about something that happened.
And never think about something that you're expecting, something that you're worried about.
So don't think about yourself in the past or your real self in the future.
Instead, think about your imaginary self in the future.
Imaginary self in the future.
Now, you're still you. But in the future, you're having a good day.
Just doing something.
Going to the beach. Being successful.
Maybe you lost that weight you wanted to lose.
You're having amazing physical relationships with that beautiful person.
So use that time just to think about good things that could happen to you.
That's my sleeping tip. It turns out that they say that you need about seven hours.
If you're a senior. But, of course, this is very individual.
So there's a big individual difference.
I'm pretty sure that I need less sleep than other people.
Or I could be fooling myself and I just don't like sleep.
Because I really hate it.
I hate sleep. I feel like it's like being dead before you have to be.
I don't want to be dead before I have to be.
And I find sleep physically uncomfortable.
Like, I can't stay in a bed for, like, hours?
Are you kidding me? It's just so physically uncomfortable.
I'm just like, ugh. I need to, like, stand up or stretch or something.
I don't know how people do it.
How do you sleep eight hours?
I can't even imagine. So there's a big individual difference.
All right, well, I think I might get cancelled this week.
I introduced a new character in Dilber, started running today, and it features a character called Dave.
And you won't be able to see it too well, but I need to show you the visual so you can see that Dave is a black character.
He's going to be a regular in Dilber.
Well, I'll see how he goes.
He'll be a regular if he's well received.
And here's the setup.
So it's just the Dilbert cast sitting around the table, as they often do.
And Dave, the new engineer, who, if you were to look at the picture, you'd say to yourself, I don't know, but Dave looks like he might be black, just based on the physical appearance.
And the boss says, management asked me to add some diversity to the engineering team.
And then he says, meet Dave.
And then he points to Dave.
And Dave says, I identify as white.
And the boss looks at Dave and he says, you're ruining everything, Dave.
And I figured the best thing I could do The best thing I could do is play with the way people feel about the topic.
So this is going to be way less about Dave and way more about the topic.
So I've been watching to see what kind of criticism I get.
And one of the criticisms was, I think from somebody who was probably white, based on the way...
I'm just guessing...
But the comment was, it looks like I designed the character without having ever met an actual black person.
To which I said, well, that's kind of racist.
Are you assuming that if I'd met lots of black people, I would have come to the conclusion they're all the same?
Is that what you're suggesting?
Is there some reason that this particular one individual in a world full of individuals can't just be his own person?
So, you see how double-edged all of this is?
Even the critics are racist.
Because as soon as you say, hey, that one black character isn't acting like a black person acts, I have to say, well, how does a black person act?
What exactly do you mean by that anyway?
Why can't every person be individual?
So it does kind of challenge you for what do you think you can get away with and all that.
Now, there's some backstory.
The backstory is that for decades, literally, I've wanted to add more diversity to the Dilbert cast for all the normal reasons.
The customers would like it better, right?
The people reading it would say, oh, that looks more like the real world, and there's somebody I can relate to, and all that stuff.
So, of course, I've always wanted to add diversity, but it's such a third rail.
Because if you happen to be one kind of person, but you're writing dialogue for another kind of person, especially if there's a physicality to it, like a comic, you just assume to be some kind of a racist or sexist.
There's just no way to get around it.
So the clever side door that I'm trying to kick open, and I don't know if I'll do it yet, but this is the attempt, is to get in through the silliness side door.
So rather than take the issues, the real issues, head on, I'm just going to take how people feel about being in a world where they have to take on these issues.
Because to me, the smaller you go, the funnier it is.
The big picture is systemic racism, the legacy of slavery, maybe reparations.
Those are big issues.
But they're not funny.
You can't really make a joke out of some stuff.
Even if you thought it was funny, it wouldn't be a good commercial approach.
So instead, I'll take it from the big stuff that scares us down to the little stuff of how do you navigate this world?
If you're just trying to get through the day, how do you navigate all of this?
So that's where I'm at. I'm on the navigation level.
So it'll be a full week of Dave, the new engineer, and you will see what his character flaw is.
It will be revealed, if we can call it that.
So all characters in the comic world, all characters have to have a flaw.
So that was the hard part.
Well, you'll see how I handle that.
According to Rasmussen, new poll, Biden's approval is slightly ticking up.
It's up to job approval up to 42%, which matches Trump's lowest level.
Now, Biden has improved to Trump's lowest ever.
So, am I wrong with my prediction that Trump would look better every day that he was out of office?
So far, that's one of my best predictions.
Because I don't think anybody thought that was going to happen.
Like, even his supporters, I don't think they thought that was going to happen.
Maybe you did. Maybe you're smart.
Well... And here, Bill Maher basically agreeing that Trump is right.
So here are some of the things that Bill Maher said.
When is Biden going to understand that immigration is a big deal?
You know, you can't get any more clear than that.
That Biden is just not kicking it.
Now, to be fair...
To be fair, Bill Maher also said that immigration is to the Democrats what healthcare is to Republicans.
The Republicans act like it's not that important, you don't have to do anything about it, on healthcare.
Now, that would be an interpretation.
I'm not saying that literally.
And then, likewise, Republicans would say of Democrats that they don't have any plan for the border and they're not taking it seriously.
Again, that would be an interpretation, not my personal view.
So the larger story here is that there's a class of people who are just breaking free from the narratives.
And Bill Maher would be one of the top ones.
So you've got your Joe Rogans and your Elon Musks and your other folks.
But more and more people are just saying, you know...
What if... What if I didn't agree with everything my team says?
Can I get away with that?
And Bill Maher also said, and let's say he was joking when he said this, when I see young people walking alone outside with a mask, I want to punch them.
He said on Friday.
Now, of course, he didn't really want to punch them, but...
It's just amazing to see how full-throatedly he's embracing a lot of the things that you imagine are purely Republican views, but shouldn't be, because they're pretty universally reasonable things to think.
So, here's the least surprising story of the day.
Amber Heard fired her PR team.
What? Are you telling me Amber Heard had a...
She actually hired somebody and paid them to approve her publicity?
Now, I don't always agree with everybody who gets fired.
You know, I don't agree they deserve to get fired all the time.
But if I were Amber Heard's PR team, I think I would have seen this coming.
I would have seen this coming.
And you sort of wonder how that meeting went, don't you?
How'd that meeting go?
Did Amber Heard call in her team and say, you know, I hired you to make me look good.
You got that, right?
That was your job. Your job was to make me look good.
And they say, yes, we understand that.
And she said, you know, it's trending on Twitter today, don't you?
And they would probably say, I don't know, we don't use Twitter.
I'm just guessing. I don't know if they do or not.
And then she'd say, hashtag Amber Turd.
It's actually replaced my real name.
And then they'd say, well, but at least your version of the story is getting out.
And then she'd say, not so much.
So far, it looks like I'm a monster, and my name is Amber Turd, and I'm the worst monster in the world.
Well, yeah, sure.
But at least we're making Johnny Depp look bad, too.
No. Do you know what Johnny Depp's nickname is?
Johnny Depp.
And again, let me reiterate what is trending on Twitter, and my new nickname is Amber Turd.
Johnny Depp, still Johnny Depp.
Amber Heard, now Amber Turd.
You're not doing your job.
Yeah, it turns out that Johnny Depp has become kind of a hero, and I don't believe he's got a PR team.
Maybe he does. Do you think he does?
I've got a feeling that what Johnny Depp has is bigger balls than we imagined.
And he's just done.
And I think he's done going with the narrative.
I believe he's walked right out of the scenery.
Just like Bill Maher.
Johnny Depp has escaped the narrative.
You know what the narrative is?
It's always the manner of the bad ones.
And Johnny Depp didn't want that narrative.
He walked right out.
It's going to cost him a shit ton of money.
Apparently he just decided he was going to do it.
Remember the Bill Maher story.
Remember the Johnny Depp story.
It's all going to come together toward the end in a soup of deliciousness that you could never have imagined when you started watching.
Yeah, that's where things are going.
It's all cleverly crafted.
Well, let's cook up some more.
In no particular order.
Have you ever heard of this thing called projection?
It's a thing that people with certain personality characteristics have.
And this would be the Amber Heard problem, because I'm guessing, we don't know, but I'm guessing that Amber Heard's blaming the bad publicity that she's getting recently on her PR team.
That would be projection.
She's not blaming the fact that That she put a turd on Johnny Depp's bed and then accused him of being an abuser while she was abusing him, allegedly.
So, no, that's not the problem.
The problem is a bad PR team.
Am I right? So, that's projection.
She makes her problem with somebody else's problem.
Let's talk about...
Wellbutin and GlaxoKlineSmith.
So GlaxoKlineSmith is paying some massive multi-billion dollar fines for bad behavior, a big pharma company.
And the United States has alleged that between 1999 and 2003, that the company promoted this drug called Wellbutin.
Approved at the time only for major depressive disorders.
I guess they promoted it for everything from weight loss to treatment of sexual dysfunction, substance addiction, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, among other off-label uses.
Now, there's nothing wrong with off-label use.
That's not the problem.
So that's legal and appropriate in many cases.
But apparently they paid doctors millions of dollars and took them to lavish resorts to push the off-label uses.
Those are unapproved uses.
Now, apparently, and there was also some misbranding offenses.
Now, does anybody know anybody who's used Wilbutrin?
You know, I only know two examples of it in my whole life, and they were both disasters.
You know, but that's anecdotal.
So two examples, and both were really disasters, in my opinion.
Now, that's not a medical opinion, because I'm not a doctor, and it's just anecdotal.
But I'm looking at the comments.
And look at all the people who've had similar experiences.
There's somebody they know. A lot of yeses are going by.
A lot of people who just had bad experience with it.
Now here's my problem.
If you make a drug and you mean well and you're doing everything right but it doesn't work out and people get hurt, that's bad.
That's bad. We don't want that.
But it's not evil and it's not criminal.
And, you know, it's unfortunately something that's just going to happen.
But if you're doing some of this stuff intentionally, and, you know, I'm not entirely clear who did what intentionally in this, but this is really bad.
This is really evil.
I feel as if, because I do a comic strip that makes fun of big companies, that Dilber's company is going to have to move into the pharma space.
Until now, he was just a tech guy.
But I feel like Dilber's company needs to move into the big pharma space.
Are you with me? You want to have some fun?
Because... Because I don't feel that big pharma has the attention it deserves.
So, coming soon, Dilbert's company will be moving into that space.
I got a suggestion that one of the characters in this scenario should be called Pilbert.
That's right, Pilbert.
Because what's better than a product with off-label use?
Am I right? You can buy this printer.
We make it for printing things on paper.
But the off-label use is murder, because you can get people over the head with it.
All right. There's a...
Saw a tweet by Jack Hunter, and he said the following.
He said, Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, Dave Chappelle, Glenn Greenwald, and Bill Maher, all of them are high-profile and bulletproof, defenders of free speech and basic liberalism right now.
During a time when it's so desperately needed.
And I thought to myself, huh, yeah.
We're actually seeing something like that, aren't we?
We're seeing a bunch of...
Well, unfortunately, it's all men.
I suppose that's not ideal.
Except for Dave Chappelle, a bunch of white men.
So, you know, maybe that's not the branding you want.
But the point is that there are some people who are willing to say what they want to say.
So there's people who have free speech.
Now, wouldn't it be great if non-rich people had free speech, too?
Wouldn't that be great? Well, it would be.
And I was thinking about...
What is really driving this behavior?
Because there's something happening.
And it's some kind of a massive transfer of power.
It wasn't long ago that experts and the press and the politicians pretty much had a monopoly on power.
And the rich, I suppose.
It seems to be moving toward a group of independent people who are willing to say what's true or what's helpful rather than what the narrative is.
They're basically people escaping the narrative at a very high level, and they're the ones that are starting to draw attention.
Now, this is related to...
Well, let me give you an example first.
I've always been amazed at the founders of America.
You know, they... The so-called founding fathers, but let's call them founders, to be less sexist.
I always thought, were the founders unusually brave?
Or what was going on there?
Because they knew that if it didn't work, they would be dead.
And it really, on paper, it didn't look like something that would work.
The revolution, that is, right?
The revolution didn't really look like a high percentage play, did it?
So why did all these people who were sort of in the best situations, why were so many of them willing to die to create America?
And I have a theory.
And the theory goes like this.
That we have normal risk management decision-making for normal situations.
But under one unique situation, our risk management turns off.
And that unique situation, I've never heard anybody talk about this before, so this is purely speculative.
See if it makes sense. The one situation in which your risk management just clicks off is if it's a really big problem and you're the only one who can fix it.
Now think about that. This would have to sink in a little bit.
It's a really big problem and you just have the bad luck of being the only one who can fix it.
I don't think bravery is what's doing it.
I don't think so. I think risk management clicks off, and I'm going to give you an example of that.
And I think that the founders of the country, their normal risk management just turned off because they realized that they alone were uniquely situated to create something amazing in terms of freedom and the human experience.
And I think that something about their capability is what drove them Even more than maybe their normal risk management decision making would.
So let me give you a story in which I felt this effect.
So I'm going to tell you a story where it's the first time I had this experience of my risk management clicking off.
So years ago, I was in my early 20s, moved to San Francisco, didn't know anybody, and I loved playing soccer as a hobby.
And so I was always looking for a way to play soccer.
Somebody mentioned, oh, they always have a Sunday pickup game in Golden Gate Park.
So I thought, well, I'm going to go there and find that game and see if I can get in on that.
So I'd go there on Sunday, and I'd look around, and I didn't see any soccer games.
I saw lots of people walking around like they thought there should be a soccer game.
I saw people who were dressed for soccer, but there was no soccer happening.
And so I thought, hmm, maybe it was just like an off day, or I looked in the wrong field or something.
So I made sure I knew where the field was, the right place.
And I went back and I looked, and same thing.
There was just no soccer.
There were just people who looked like they wanted to play, wandering around, then going home.
So I did the same thing.
The next time I went, I brought a soccer ball.
Problem solved! Problem solved.
Turns out that nobody had a soccer ball.
So I bring a soccer ball, and this whole United Nations group of people from...
Some of the people from Egypt, Peru, South Korea, a bunch of African countries...
Europeans of every type.
So we had basically South Americans, Mexicans.
So we had every kind of person who just bonded over soccer.
Now, because I had the ball, and I spoke English, which was the thing that, a lot of them didn't speak English, or only a little bit, but it was the closest thing to a common language, and I had the ball.
And so I felt, oh, damn it.
I guess I'm in charge.
Now, I didn't want to be in charge because I didn't necessarily want to do the extra work of being in charge.
Everybody hates the person in charge because you're always doing something wrong, according to somebody.
But nobody else could do it.
For whatever reason, I was the one who had to do it.
So I would say, okay, you and you are captains.
Pick teams. And the two people would just look around and they'd think, Okay.
It was also one of my early lessons that people want to be told what to do.
Leadership is the easiest thing in the world.
You just have to understand that people would rather be led than make decisions on their own.
Once you know that, if you're willing to do the work to make the decision, people will just do whatever you want.
So whenever I encounter a big group of confused people, I just start telling them what to do.
I'll go into stores sometimes where the line situation isn't clear.
Like people are waiting for service, but it's not clear if the line is forearmed or...
Are there two lines for the same thing, or is it one line?
And I'll just go in there and start shouting orders.
I'll go, all right, everybody, what line do you think you're in?
Do you think you're in the same line?
Everybody think you're in one line?
All right, some of you think you're in two lines.
Let's take a vote. Do you think you're in one line or two?
All right, let's make it one line.
You guys get over it. And people just do whatever you want.
You just have to act like you're willing to take the risk, right?
All right, so back to my soccer game.
So it was a real diverse group of people, as I said, and one day things got kind of violent.
No, that's not true.
Every day things got kind of violent.
Pretty much every soccer game there was violence.
That's why we were there.
Okay, let's be honest.
The physicality of the game was part of the attraction.
We're guys. We were youngish men, and the violence is just part of the appeal.
You can't really sugarcoat that.
But it's friendly violence.
It's in the context.
But one day it got out of control, and two of the players got in each other's faces, and it looked like a fight could start.
But the bigger of the two...
The more dangerous, scary one.
He leaves, suddenly.
And we're like, ah, phew! You know, we don't have to delay the game.
There's not going to be a fight. But he comes back with a knife.
And he gets into this guy's face, who's backing up, of course, with the knife, and he's telling him he's going to stab him if he doesn't, whatever.
And for whatever reason, he wasn't satisfied that the guy was backing down enough.
So we're going to have a knife fight, and it's going to ruin my soccer game.
Now I look around, and of course the action is happening, and the rest of the soccer players have sort of gathered around, like in a circle.
And I'm looking at everybody else, and I'm thinking, oh shit.
You know where this is going, right?
I have to stop a knife fight, because I'm in charge, and nobody else is going to do it.
That's it. That's like the only calculation.
And I'm thinking to myself, God damn it.
Like, there's nobody else who's going to do this?
Really? I have to literally stop a knife fight.
So I did. You know, I just got between them.
And the guy with the knife, you know, wasn't ready to kill me right away because he didn't have a beef with me.
But he very quickly changed his direction to me.
It started threatening me with a knife.
And then a very interesting thing happened.
And this is one of the coolest things that's ever happened to me in my life.
Now the first thing you need to know is that I was neither afraid nor brave.
My risk management just turned off.
Because I was the only one who could do that job.
That's it. I was the only one who could do it.
It needed to be done.
And I don't remember thinking anything about the risk.
I just remember doing it.
And yeah, and somebody's saying it was stupid probably.
I don't know. And so I told the guy with the knife who was threatening to kill me that he needed to leave now and he should never come back.
And of course, it was one of his favorite things to do.
We all loved playing on Sunday.
It was just amazing fun. And he didn't want to do that, so I continued pushing my point, and I told him, leave now, go now, never come back.
He starts threatening me with a knife again.
Now, here was the fun part.
Remember I told you there was this crowd of international young men who had all bonded around this game?
And in particular, they had bonded with me, because I brought the ball.
Again, it was that easy.
And so as he started threatening me, this group of fairly rough individuals from countries where serious shit happens, and they probably escaped from it to come here, just started closing in.
Just half a step, a little bit at a time, And it was like this slow, creeping squeeze, where as he talked, you could see him looking around, and he'd have to look around, and people were just closing in.
They didn't say anything.
They didn't say anything.
They just closed the space.
And pretty soon, the message was very clear that if he cut me, he would be dead.
He would be dead. And nobody had to say a thing.
It was just obvious.
It was sort of...
Now, I'm not sure if the women watching this can appreciate it the way men can, but, you know, men live in a continuous state of violence.
We just don't talk about it all the time.
The threat of male violence is permanent.
It's what holds society together.
And you have to understand that that's like an important foundational structure of everything.
If men were not afraid of other men killing them, literally, nothing would work.
Nothing. So when men are in that situation, it's actually kind of energizing.
And it was just sort of a good experience.
So it ended well.
I didn't get killed. But that was one, you know, people...
And then he left and he never came back.
So here's my point.
Was I a hero?
No. Because there was no thought in my mind of risk management.
I was just the one who could do it.
And I think that that's actually genetically coded into us.
And I think it has nothing to do with being male, has nothing to do with being physically brave, because I'm very much not.
I would not call myself physically brave.
I don't do extreme sports.
I don't do dangerous stuff.
Because it just doesn't excite me.
But sometimes you're just the only person who can do a thing.
So you do. And I think that would have appealed, that would have been true of men, women, people of almost any age, I think.
And that brings us to the story of Elon Musk and his, quote, shadow crew.
I'm going to tie this all together.
It's all going to tie together. So the Wall Street Journal had a report that said that Elon Musk's decision to buy Twitter was perhaps influenced by what they called a shadow crew of advisors, I guess.
There were other billionaires, people who were involved with PayPal with him, etc.
And that's how they framed it.
So their framing was that there were these other voices informing him and Maybe other billionaires.
Maybe we should be concerned about who these other shadow crew is.
What do you think of that?
Jack Dorsey was named as one of them.
So what do you think of that word, shadow?
It sounds ominous, doesn't it?
All right, here's another way to frame the same story.
Instead of a shadow crew of elites, sounds kind of ominous, how about this?
100% of the smartest people that Musk knows advise them the same way.
Because I'll bet that's true.
I'll bet 100% Of the people above a certain intelligence level that personally knew Musk enough to advise him, I'll bet every one of them told him to do the same thing.
If you could buy this thing, do it.
I'll bet every one of them.
I would be surprised if even one person above a certain level of intelligence would have told him not to do this.
Because it's just too fun.
It's too clean a solution.
And it might be the only one.
Now this gets us back to, do you think that Elon Musk woke up and wanted to buy Twitter?
Do you think he bought it because this was on his list?
I don't think so. I think he was just me at the soccer game.
I think he was just the only one who could do it.
And I think that all the smart people in the world said, you know, this whole freedom of speech thing, this is the DNA that holds the country together.
You can't mess with that.
You've got to get the basic health of the country right or nothing else works.
And I think the smartest people in the world looked at each other and said, all right, there's only one of us who's a crazy motherfucker who has enough money.
Elon, you're up.
And, you know, you saw there was a quote one time about his publicity.
I guess it was a PR consultant who once told Elon to keep a lower profile on the platform.
And apparently Musk wrote in an email back to him, quote, we'll tweet as I wish and suffer the consequences.
So it goes. So since 2018, he's been willing to die on the free speech hill, probably knowing that he wouldn't die.
But he had a special position in the world.
He could afford it.
He could take the heat.
He can turn a bad product or an incomplete product into a better one.
And he can handle the criticism.
He had all the tools.
And I don't know, did anybody else?
Is there anybody else who had those tools?
No. It had to be him.
So thinking of this as some kind of shadow crew, to make it sound ominous, is a completely wrong frame.
The frame is that there are a few people who have left the scenery.
There are just a few people who can get out of the narrative.
Bill Barr, Joe Rogan, Elon Musk, Glenn Greenwald, Tulsi Gabbard, perhaps.
You could throw lots of people in that list.
And I think that what's happening is that collectively they're all having the same realization.
That the people in charge can't get it done.
There are just some things that people are looking at each other and saying...
I think we have to do it.
And the people who advised or maybe influenced Musk, who knows if they really did, but I think that they had the same reaction.
I think the reaction was probably, oh damn it, nobody else is fixing this free speech problem.
I think we have to do it.
And so they did. Or they're well on their way to solving it.
And I would argue that we're seeing this massive shift of power and influence away from the so-called experts and the Democrats and the Republicans and the people who identify too much with the team and toward this group of people I've been calling the Internet Dads.
The Internet Dads.
Again, Just to be complete, it doesn't matter what your gender is.
The dad is just more of a vibe.
It's not who you are physically or genetically.
You know, I think the Mike Cernovich's are people who are just like filling a void that they recognize as one...
Seriously, nobody else is filling this void.
There's nobody else telling you how to be like a father or a man or a good citizen or a woman.
Who's doing it? And when I wrote my book, Had It Failed Almost Everything, Still Went Big, I was very much driven by that same impulse.
Now, of course, you always want to sell a lot of books.
I'm not minimizing that.
But the reason I chose that topic of essentially a way to create systems for success is because I didn't see anybody else doing it.
I thought to myself, well, who else is telling you exactly what to do if you're 14 years old To come up with a system that will give you a good result.
Schools don't do it.
Parents don't know how.
Who's doing it? So, I mean, I wrote a book just because I felt that dad energy, I guess.
Literally. Because when I wrote it, I was writing it for my, I think then he was maybe 14-year-old stepson.
Who needed exactly this kind of advice?
So I was actually dadding it out, basically.
But not just for my own situation, but to generalize it.
And so I think that's the big story that nobody is covering, is the growth or the emergence of people who are dads.
Yeah, Jordan Peterson, another one.
Who are leaving the narrative behind.
And... Lisa Booth asked, you know, what does it take to get on this shadow crew?
And I suggested that you're on the shadow crew if Elon Musk likes or retweets you.
I feel that's fair, right?
If Elon Musk gives you a like or a retweet, it means he's agreeing, you know, or promoting what you said.
And therefore, in some minor way, at least, you advised him.
Or you helped him get his message out.
Either way. So yeah, I think you're automatically on the shadow crew if he's ever tweeted.
And I've seen him interact with Cernovich tweets several times.
So I know those two are on the same communication channel.
And I would say there's no point in being rich if you can't say what you want.
So he's got that going for him.
And so, ladies and gentlemen, I would suggest this.
Um...
What do you think of my hypothesis?
And let me ask if any of you have had this similar situation.
I see, for example, you'll see somebody step up and, let's say, adopt a young child.
Who you never think would have done that, but they're the only one who could in that situation.
So don't you see Trump?
Good example. Do you buy my framing that people will drop their risk management decision-making that they do for everything else the moment they are the only ones who can solve a big problem?
Yeah, okay. So I'm seeing the yeses start to come in.
So one of the things I see the critics say is they call people like Elon Musk fluffers.
That's what somebody's saying on YouTube.
Now, let me not apologize for any of that.
We like to create narratives around individuals because it makes stories more interesting.
And so when Joe Rogan was in the headlines every day, I talked about him a lot.
When Trump was in the headlines every day, I talked about him a lot.
When AOC was in the headlines, I talked about her a lot.
So I do like to wrap all of my stories around people, because that's good writing.
So I'm not going to apologize for good writing.
And most of the people I talk about, I do talk about their positives as well.
So regardless of which side they're on, I generally give you their positives.
Do I not? Quite intentionally and deliberately.
I usually make a big deal of it.
So for those of you who just think talking about somebody in a positive way a number of times is fluffing them or hero worship, I say to you, you don't know how to be a good writer.
Yeah, Johnny Depp's another example.
So I wrap all of my stories around individuals when it's possible.
It's just a good way to do it.
Here's an interesting...
Mary Lou Mawson said, 30 years ago, Trump's response when asked if he would ever run to be president was, quote, I hope I don't have to.
I actually feel that Trump...
Of course he's always drawn by...
the spotlight.
So I'm not going to ignore the fact that his personality draws him toward things that get him attention.
But I actually think he probably thought nobody else could do it.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And I think he was right.
He had a certain set of skills, like, sounds like a movie plot.
He had a certain set of skills, and I think he actually thought nobody else could do it.
And by the way, where is the movie about the Trump first term?
Are we waiting to see if he's going to have a second term?
There's got to be a movie with all the behind-the-scenes stuff, if anybody knows it.
I don't think anybody has any idea what happened behind the scenes with the Trump situation.
Let me say this more definitively.
I can tell you with certainty that nobody's ever reported the real story.
And I'm not sure I know the real story.
I only know enough of the real story to know that nothing...
Nothing even close to the truth has ever been published.
2,000 Mules.
Is that out yet? So that's Dinesh D'Souza's documentary.
Is that right? Is it out tomorrow?
Somebody says. Somebody says, yes, it is out, or this week.
May 5th, I'm hearing it's out.
Okay. So I will be looking at that with great interest.
I'm going to reserve judgment.
Here's how I would recommend you watch it.
You should watch it with the understanding that within 24 hours you're going to hear somebody try to debunk it.
And that when you hear the debunk, whether it's true or not, it might sound persuasive.
Because you can make anything persuasive.
That's why we have trials.
The lawyer who talks last is the one who's the most persuasive.
That's why the defense gets to go last.
It's only fair.
So I would say, watch the evidence in the movie.
I'll definitely watch it.
And then keep your mind open for about 24 hours, because that's about how long it'll take.
And there'll be articles in the press saying that this or that is incorrect.
I don't know if you'll be able to sort it out.
I don't know if I will.
But at least be aware that when you watch any kind of content like that, it doesn't matter if it's from the left or the right, any kind of content like that, just know that if you don't hear the debunk or the attempt to debunk, you don't know what's going on.
If you want to learn that lesson the hard way, watch the competing stories about Michael Jackson.
You can watch a documentary that makes it really clear According to the documentary, it's very persuasive that he did something terrible.
And then you can watch the very next documentary, which was a response to the first, that makes it very, very clear that the first one was bullshit.
They are just as convincing.
If you only watched one of them, you would be absolutely convinced that whatever anybody else said couldn't be convincing.
And then it is.
They're really... Band in the War Room episode covers in depth.
What do they cover in depth?
Do you believe we are past the year of hell that you foresaw as a child?
I don't know.
I don't know. I hope so.
Um... Yeah, that was a good question.
So if you're confused by that question, I've described before how there are certain things that happened in my real life that I foresaw as very clear visions many years earlier when I was young.
Which could be nothing but coincidence or false memory.
I will acknowledge.
Germany is funding the Russian army, I suppose.
Germany is funding the Russian army, I suppose.
A top broadcast for you today.
Thank you. Oh, Mike Lindell being banned on Twitter again.
That's not really a story.
So Mike Lindell tried to sign up for Twitter again and was immediately banned.
But that's just because management hasn't changed.
There's no story there.
But you know...
Can somebody answer a question for me?
This is such a bubble example.
If you want to see how much of a bubble I'm in, and I make a conscious effort every single day, every single day, I read the news on the left and the right.
I don't miss a single day.
And here's something I don't know.
How many of you know that the big account anyway, or maybe all of them, the conservative Twitter accounts are surging in followers?
How many of you know that's true?
Most of you are on Twitter and most of you know that's true.
So mine too has surged and it seemed to coincide with the Elon Musk purchase attempt.
And let me tell you where it is now.
So for months and months, it just hovered at one area like it couldn't possibly be just, you know, organically at that one area and stay there.
And now it's up, I don't know, 20,000 in a few weeks, which would be very unusual.
So here's a question I don't know.
And how many of you know the answer?
Okay, when I ask the question, don't answer unless you know the answer, okay?
There's no guessing. Here's the question.
Are the number of followers also going up for left-leaning big accounts?
Are everybody's numbers going up the same?
Yeah, you don't fucking know, do you?
Are you embarrassed?
Are you embarrassed that you don't know the answer to that question?
Because I am. I mean, I don't get embarrassed, but if I got embarrassed, that would be embarrassing.
Why the fuck don't we know that?
Seriously, check yourself.
Because I'm doing that now.
So I'm talking to myself.
It sounds like I'm insulting you.
But I'm insulting myself on your behalf.
Why don't I know that?
Why don't I know that?
Isn't that the single most important context to understand what's going on there?
How many of us have just automatically assumed that Twitter changed their algorithm to stop suppressing conservative voices?
How many of you just automatically assumed that was true?
And you don't even know if it's happening to all the accounts?
I don't know. Yeah, compared to what?
Compared to what is always the right question.
Exactly. Now, have I made my point?
Every one of us, every one of us right now, and I'm going to put myself in this category, every one of us who didn't know, and I still don't know, every one of us who don't know if all the Twitter accounts are going up in followers, you should be ashamed of yourself.
Really. You know, I'm not too bothered by shame, but if I were, I would be ashamed of myself because I think I formed an opinion without knowing the only thing that mattered.
Well, how many of you did that?
How many of you did the same bad thing I did, formed an opinion, without knowing the most important part of the data, and not even looking for it?
Worse, let me slap myself a little bit.
I deserve that. I had that coming.
Because not only did I not know the answer, I didn't go look for it.
And I haven't seen it yet.
So did anybody Google it yet?
Does anybody even care? Somebody says it's down, but I don't think you know that, do you?
Anyway, if you find an article or any kind of data on that, could you tweet it at me?
Because it kind of matters.
Somebody's saying they don't care.
No, it matters. It's one of the biggest questions in the world.
Because if there was, in fact, something that blatantly discriminatory going on, and it just turned off, that's really important.
Likewise, if nothing like that was ever happening, And it was just the Elon Musk news is making all the accounts get more action.
That could be it. It could be nothing except Elon Musk is good at marketing.
And he's already marketing the company that he expects to own soon.
It could be nothing but that.
And by the way, that's what he says of this.
That's what Elon Musk says of this.
He says it's...
I saw a tweet. Maybe he's updated that.
But the tweet I saw, he said, of course the followers are up.
Because it's getting a lot of headlines.
Of course. Now, why can't that be the whole answer?
Could be. All right.
Tim Pool reported it too.
I mean, I know his numbers, but did he report about the left?
All right. That, ladies and gentlemen, is all I have to do today.
I think I've met my goal of giving you the best entertainment you've ever seen in your whole damn life.
So much so that the rest of the day, well, it's going to be awesome too.
Because that little dopamine surplus I gave you, that's going to last.
That's going to last. And...
You got your money's worth today?
That's what I'm shooting for.
All right, Tom.
If you can't say anything better than that, we're going to hide you on this channel.
