Episode 1741 Scott Adams: Lots Of Appalling Or Funny News Today
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a
Find my "extra" content on Locals: https://ScottAdams.Locals.com
Content:
Debunkers of 2000 Mules
AP Zeke Miller vs Ted Cruz
FBI Whistleblower allegations
Biden cancels oil and gas leases in Alaska and Gulf of Mexico
Ukraine, what's really happening?
40 Billion for Ukraine
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If you would like to enjoy this same content plus bonus content from Scott Adams, including micro-lessons on lots of useful topics to build your talent stack, please see scottadams.locals.com for full access to that secret treasure.
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Locals. It has come to my attention that I'm not very good at telling time.
Yes, it's true. I was positive this was the usual time.
I'm in a different time zone.
But I'm positive that when I came here there was a two-hour time difference.
But I'm positive that when I woke up there was a three-hour time difference.
I don't know.
I spent all day yesterday apparently in the wrong hour.
Maybe. I don't know. Or something.
But let me tell you the funniest part about where I am.
So first of all, I'm on a writer's trip.
I needed to get out of the house and especially away from my dog.
Because my dog is very needy.
And so are kids sometimes.
So I had to actually get out of my environment so I could get some work done.
So I picked a secret location where I would just have a balcony and I would just look at the ocean and life would be good.
There was, however, one thing that it would have been nice if the hotel hadn't mentioned before I booked it.
It's just a little thing.
The first room they put me in, and of course I told them my highest priority is the view, because basically I'm just going to be sitting on the balcony writing for a week.
So I said the most important thing, like everything else doesn't matter, service doesn't matter, just give me a view.
The first room they put me in had a nice view of the beach.
That they covered by putting bushes in front of the entire front of the view.
So if you were sitting on your balcony, you could see the sky.
It's the most beautiful beach you could ever look at in your life.
And they intentionally put bushes in front of it.
And charged the same as if you had a view.
You can't even make that up.
But wait, here's the best part.
So last night I hear some crying baby.
I'm like, wow, that is one loud crying baby.
Because it sounded like it was coming maybe from another balcony or another room.
And the more I listened to it, I was like, whoa, that is not a crying baby.
That is like more than one crying baby.
And then I'm listening to it carefully and I go to the balcony and I'm like, Holy hell, that's not two crying babies.
That sounds like 50 crying babies.
Like really crying babies.
Like continually crying from about 6 p.m.
last night until they're still crying right now.
Just screaming crying. And I'm not talking about a little bit of crying.
I'm talking about really wailing.
Turns out there's some kind of bird that lives on the reef down there that screams all night.
And it screams exactly like a crying baby.
All night.
It never stops.
It's just screaming baby sound.
Now, suppose you went on vacation to some place where you wanted to relax and you were wondering about the nature of the hotel and what the accommodations would be.
Do you think that one of the things that they might have mentioned when they said, well, your room is a certain size with these accommodations, you've got these features and you've got a nice view of the ocean.
It's a very nice view. The view in the second room I moved to is excellent.
However, I feel that they should have mentioned that I must listen to 100 screaming babies all night long.
Even through the closed doors, It's so loud that the echo cancellation, which is actually really good in the Pros, this version of the earbuds, the echo cancellation is excellent.
Penetrates it like nothing.
However, I found the best hack.
I take a YouTube video of ocean sounds that people use to fall asleep, and it turns out every ocean sounds like every other ocean.
So when I put in the earbuds and turn up the ocean sound and go outside, I'm looking at a real ocean while I'm listening to a fake ocean in my head and my brain doesn't know the difference.
It's not white noise.
It's exactly like I'm listening to the ocean outdoors.
So thank you for technology.
I can actually pretend to be at the ocean while being at the real ocean.
How about that?
All right, that's not why you're here.
Let's talk about all the things in the news.
So I've been talking about the film 2,000 Mules, Dinesh D'Souza's film, that alleges that there were many people delivering multiple bets in the 2020 election.
And I've been looking at the debunks to see how good the debunks are.
Wait a minute, wait a minute.
I'm doing something completely wrong here, am I not?
Something completely wrong.
There's something missing, isn't there?
There's something missing. Is it the simultaneous sip?
Yeah, it is.
It is. And my other technical problem is I didn't bring my cheat sheet.
So I'm going to need you in the comments to tell me the simultaneous sip.
Go. So I can read it.
I'll bet you know it.
All you need is a cup or a mug or a glass, blah blah blah and blah blah blah and blah blah blah blah blah.
And join me now for The Simultaneous Zip.
Are you ready? A tank or chalice or stein?
A canteen jug or flask?
Go! Ah, a vessel of any kind.
Maybe you would remember.
My memory works in a weird way.
Uh-oh. Now,
where was I? So I was looking for any debunks on that movie, 2000 Mules, and I came across an article in the Washington Post by Philip Bump, in which he also makes the claim that the AP made that the precision of the mobile phone data that showed that multiple people were going to multiple drop boxes, or at least allegedly, it seemed to indicate that.
And the debunk is, oh, you can't tell if they dropped off ballots, which isn't really an exact debunk because the film doesn't claim that that data proves anybody dropped ballots.
But together with the videos of people doing multiple ballots plus the cell phone data, it creates a story that might be true.
It might not be. But it's certainly a big enough issue that the country is being torn apart by it.
And wouldn't you agree that whether it's true or not true, at this point we need to figure that out.
Do we all agree on that?
I have not formed an opinion as to whether this is reliable.
I'm pretty agnostic about it at this point.
But it's definitely a big question.
And it's definitely a big enough question that it could tear the entire republic apart.
So if you have something that's that important, I don't think that ignoring it is the right play.
Because the longer it is ignored, the more credible will be the claims.
Am I right? The longer we ignore it, the more credible it becomes.
Because why are they ignoring it?
If it's debunkable, why not debunk it?
So Philip Bump, I made a comment about how weak his debunk was.
So I retweeted his article and noted that it was weak.
Philip Bump came back at me with a retweet, and I forget his words, but he said something about my comment coming from the guy who thought that the Supreme Court leak was a hoax.
So Philip Bump's reaction to my comment about his work was to make a comment about me.
Who does that? What kind of a person comments on not the work of the person or the opinion, but rather the person themselves?
Oh, Keith.
Keith. So I said, okay, Keith.
And I've been using okay, Keith for the last day.
It really, really makes me Because people don't know what it means.
And that's the best part.
So it just takes people completely out of their game.
So they'll say some horrible thing about something I allegedly did or did not do, and I'll just say, okay, Keith.
And they don't know what to do.
It's just the end of the conversation.
Now eventually somebody will explain it to them.
It's a Keith Olbermann reference that Keith Olbermann is one that comes after a person instead of the argument.
So then I thought about it for a moment, and I thought, you know, the okay Keith isn't quite enough in this case.
And so Philip, his criticism of me is that I'm a person who was so dumb, here I'm reading between the lines, but I think this is the implication, so dumb that I believe that the Supreme Court leak was a hoax, and how wrong I was.
Wow, how wrong I was.
And so I responded, Why would it be?
What would cause a person like me, a consumer of news, what would be a series of events or an environment, what would be a situation in which something that's completely true and reported in the news could be regarded as probably a hoax?
What kind of situation would cause a person like me, a reasonable person, in most cases, to believe that maybe the news was fake?
Could it be? People like Philip Bump.
People who write articles that are not true and pass them off as news.
I'm not entirely sure it's my fault that I believe that a true story was fake.
And I'm not entirely sure that that's even an insult.
Because if you hear a true story and you say, I don't believe it, I feel like you're a good consumer.
Now, once the evidence came out, I changed my opinion, didn't I? As soon as the Supreme Court said, oh yeah, that's real, I said, oh, I'm completely wrong, 100% wrong, no walking it back, 100% wrong, and now I changed my opinion.
What's wrong with that?
Is that really a criticism?
Because I think if you see something that's extraordinary in the news, it's usually not true.
So there's probably something like a 95% correlation between extraordinary things like that, like a leak in the Supreme Court's never happened before.
So when you see something that's extraordinary in the news, if you don't first think it's fake, you're not a good consumer of news.
Well, let me say, you shouldn't assume it's fake.
You should assume it's unproven and there's a good chance it's fake.
And that's what I did.
So I'm actually proud of being wrong about that.
Or is that just me?
That is the hideous painting behind me.
I'm looking at comments. 48 hour rule?
Well, you know, I'm not sure I would apply the 48 hour rule to myself in that case.
I think I just, I was wrong.
But I was wrong for a reason that I'm not sure is entirely the fault of any consumer.
If you don't believe the news, I'm not sure that's your fault.
Do you feel me? If you told me you saw a news report and you didn't believe it, maybe you weren't positive it's untrue, but you're simply not believing it yet, I would say good consumer.
All right. Now, this leads us to the AP. So the AP was the only one who debunked this, but would you like to hear a good debunk, which I tweeted around and because I'm a horrible person, I do not have the name of the person who did this.
Let's see if I can quickly find it.
But there's a video going around that I retweeted of somebody who's talking about the 2000 Mules movie and giving what I thought was a really balanced opinion, meaning that he complained about their debunks being useless.
Yeah, it's a video that doesn't have a name on it, but it was really good.
I don't know who does this.
Well, if he doesn't put his name on it, I guess that's not my fault.
But let me give you his argument.
The argument was this. That the movie claims, and really it's probably the most provocative claim, is that there were multiple people going to multiple drop boxes.
Right? Now the videos that were shown were one-offs.
One person going to a drop box with multiple ballots.
That by itself is not necessarily illegal.
It might have been from family members.
Who knows? And honestly, if they were just people who were taking it for their neighbor and they were just doing a favor, it might be technically illegal, but I'm not going to care about that.
Right? Not going to really care.
But here was a good criticism of the movie.
The most provocative claim is that the same person went to multiple drop boxes.
But there's no evidence shown of that.
In other words, they have access to lots of video footage of people at Dropboxes, and they have data suggesting that the same person would go to multiple Dropboxes.
Yet there is not even one example of one person going to more than one Dropbox.
Now, I don't know if that's actually a reasonable thing to ask for.
Because it's possible that the places where they have video, this is just speculation, so I'm not claiming this is true, but one could imagine that the video covers, let's say, 5% of the Dropboxes.
Because not everything's going to have a video, will it?
How many of the Dropboxes are on video with security cameras?
Can't be that many. They're not all on video, are they?
So what if only, say, 5% are on video, And it would just be too hard to find one person going to more than one under that situation.
So he says, by law, they were all supposed to have video.
Interesting. Now, if that's true, if it's true that they all, by law, well, that would be different by state, I would imagine.
But if it were true, so these are good questions, right?
If it were true that they all had video, why wouldn't Dinesh find you at least one example, just one, Of any one person who went to multiple boxes with multiple belts.
Now, how many of you were aware that that was missing from the movie?
How many of you knew that the primary, really not the primary claim, but let's say by far the strongest claim, if it were true, the strongest claim would be that one person went to multiple places with multiple things.
Right. So that's really missing.
Here's the second thing that's missing.
Who else is looking at Dinesh's data?
You haven't seen any data.
I haven't seen any data.
So we're all talking about data that nobody's seen except the people who made the movie.
Can you trust people who make documentaries?
Forget about Dinesh D'Souza.
Just a general question.
Can you trust that somebody who makes a documentary about especially a political topic, can you trust that they're telling the truth?
Absolutely not.
And this has nothing to do with Dinesh.
Nothing. So separate him from the question for the moment if he can.
It has nothing to do with who made it.
You cannot trust a political documentary.
Period. I'm not sure anybody makes one to be trusted.
I'm not sure they make it to be fair.
I don't even think it's a purpose, is it?
Does anybody think that Dinesh was trying to make a totally balanced film?
Do you think you set out, you know?
Here's what I'd like to do.
I would like to make a film that is so balanced, nobody's gonna like it.
Because that's what would happen.
If it were balanced, the right would say, I don't like that, that balanced part.
The left would say, I don't like that other part.
Then nobody would watch it.
If you want a movie that a lot of people watch and why else make it, you're gonna make it kind of partisan so that at least one side embraces it fully.
That's how you make money. Now, again, I'm not reading anybody's mind.
I'm not assuming any intentions.
I'm making a general statement about a political documentary that if you're starting off with trusting it, that's a big mistake, right?
It has nothing to do with who made it.
It's just a big mistake to trust them in general.
All right. Now, so there are two gigantic problems One is not showing one person going to more than one box.
That's just really glaringly missing.
And number two, who even knows if the data is real?
How many times have people referred to data that wasn't even real?
We just went through a whole pandemic where the pharmaceuticals were giving us data and we didn't believe any of it.
Or some people did, some people didn't.
So we're sort of in a world in which data is not believable.
How about that climate change data?
Do you believe all of that?
Some do. Some don't.
But nothing is credible anymore.
So if you're making a case based on data, if this were the year 2000, what would you say about the quality of the case?
It's based on data. Probably pretty good.
But now it's 2022 and we're smarter.
Our level of awareness has gone way up.
And now we know that just because somebody has data and analysis and experts did it and all the right qualified people were involved, that doesn't mean anything in terms of how real it is.
Nothing. You think you would.
But man, it doesn't.
Yeah, how many organizations can receive the data I don't know. I'm not saying that Dinesh D'Souza doesn't have good responses to these criticisms.
In fact, in fact, if what he's doing, now you have to factor in that he's smart, right?
So factor in that the maker of the documentary is known to be a very smart person.
So you can rule out motives that dumb people would do.
Right? So the subset of potential motives is probably things that smart people do.
One thing a smart person might do is make a claim that people don't believe and get them all excited about, you know, criticizing it, and then making the data available and proving you're right.
Because that would be the biggest impact, to let people get really worked up about it, thinking it's fake, and then showing it to them and they're like, oh shit, this is real.
Alright, I'm being asked to be quiet for a moment so you can hear the crying babies.
I'll do that. Can you hear them?
Alright, they're not crying babies if you're joining us late.
There are birds outside on the beach that is a certain kind of bird that screams like a crying baby all night.
All night. Never stops.
Anyway, let's talk about something else.
Google is reintroducing Google Glasses.
But I think they finally figured out how to make a killer app.
So now the Google Glasses can translate other languages in real time.
So you can actually, somebody could be talking to you and your Google Glasses will print out what they're saying in real time.
So you can have an actual conversation with somebody who speaks a different language.
You just both put on your glasses and just start talking.
Holy, holy cow.
Wow. That is so cool.
So, maybe this will be what makes Google Glasses work.
Because you can imagine that any business where, let's say, the employees all speak Spanish.
In California, there are lots of them, where all the employees speak Spanish.
Wouldn't that be helpful?
Really helpful. Alright, I might get some of those.
Alright, so there's a big vote in the Senate and the House about abortion.
And, check me if I'm wrong, Chuck Schumer wanted to put it to a vote to get everybody on record just for political reasons, but he didn't expect it to pass, because he knew it wouldn't, and sure enough it did.
So it made it through the House because there was a Democrat majority, and then it hit the Senate and, you know, there were enough dissenters like Joe Manchin that it failed.
But the point was not to get it passed.
The point was not to get it passed.
Somebody's saying I should interview Dinesh.
Let me get back to that.
And Ian Bremmer asked this question on Twitter.
He says, why did Senate Democrats demand to vote on an expensive abortion rights bill that was guaranteed to fail when Manchin and several Republicans were prepared to support a bill to endorse Roe vs.
Wade? So, in other words, they had a path They had a path where they could have gotten more of what they wanted, so instead they took a path where they would get less of what they wanted, less of what they wanted, but they'd have a political advantage.
Now, I feel as if the politicians have just stopped pretending that they're on our side.
This is not even pretending they're on our side, is it?
It feels like they write in your face and said, you know, we're just going to do something that has no value whatsoever except to our own elections.
And we're going to just put it right in your fucking face.
We're not even going to pretend we're helping you this time.
This was just for us.
So screw you.
Now, this won't be the only time that you hear this theme today.
This is the theme of my livestream.
All right. We'll get back to that.
Here's something else the AP said.
By the way, it was only recently that I thought the AP was a credible organization.
It doesn't appear to be.
I don't know what's behind it, but the AP appears to be not even on the side of the United States.
Now again, I'm not reading any minds.
That's not an allegation.
I'm going to say that it feels like that.
So based on how the AP has acted recently, they don't act like they're even on the side of the United States.
Just saying. Let me give you another example.
So Zeke Miller, who works for the AP, He tweeted this.
He said, Alright, so that's what he tweeted.
Here's what Ted Cruz tweeted in response.
You know why?
Do you know why Ted Cruz says every word of that tweet is false?
Because it is. Every part of it.
There's nothing true about it.
And is the AP even trying?
Here's what Ted Cruz says.
Does AP even pretend anymore?
I was thinking exactly that.
I was thinking it doesn't look like they're pretending anymore.
It looks like they're just fucking with us at this point.
And And then Ted Cruz corrects them.
He says, here's an accurate headline.
Bipartisan majority of the Senate rejects Dem proposal to overturn every single restriction on abortion enacted over the last 50 years.
So basically, it was a bill that not even Democrats would support.
I mean, humans, not politicians.
You know, regular citizens. Because almost everybody supports some kind of a little restriction on abortion, right?
Almost everybody. It might be the last day before you give natural childbirth, but that's a restriction.
Apparently that would go away.
I suppose if it's the last day before you're born, that's not really an abortion.
You're just born. Here's something else happening.
The AP. Oh, the AP again.
So the AP has this headline on Twitter, Elon Musk boasts that he's acquired Twitter to defend freedom of speech, but he has long used the platform to attack those who disagree with him.
Wait, what did you just say?
What? Does that even make sense?
Elon Musk likes free speech, but, and I guess the but is telling us that this is going to be something that's opposite of free speech, He uses his free speech.
Wait. Okay.
All right, the AP is saying that Elon Musk is pretending to like free speech, and that's why he's buying Twitter, but, but, and here's the contradiction, he also uses free speech to criticize people.
What? It's just free speech.
This is a headline that says, Elon Musk likes free speech and he uses free speech.
And he'd like you to have free speech.
And he wants everybody to have free speech.
That's the headline. And somehow they put that butt in there like he's anti-free speech.
And so I ask you, is the AP even trying?
Because these are all current examples.
None of this isn't even historical.
Somebody says, I've changed since Elon freed Twitter.
I have. I have.
I am absolutely taking more risks.
Now, he hasn't bought it yet, so it's not a done deal.
But I'm absolutely taking more risks.
Because it's the right time to do it.
If I get cancelled now, it's a much bigger deal.
Right? If I got cancelled a year ago, people would say, ah, we don't like it, but we forgot about it already.
But if it happened today, it would fit the headline.
Now the headline is Twitter, so if I get kicked off of Twitter for doing something that's not terrible, which is I don't do anything terrible, that would be sort of a big story at this point.
So it's a good time to be, and by the way, I'm doing it in the comic strip as well.
Dilbert became a big deal because I took more chances early in my career.
But then when things are going well, you start taking fewer chances.
It's just natural, right?
But I realize it makes it worse.
I mean, it's the provocation that drew people to it in the first place.
So I am making Dilbert more provocative.
It's giving my editor quite a bit of heartburn at the moment.
Yeah, it's like Elon signed my freedom papers.
You know what it is? Here's what it is.
It's not just that it's the right timing.
It's that I think you would have my back.
That's what it feels like.
I feel like the internet dads, and I use that term a lot, so don't make me redefine it.
I feel like at this point in time, the internet dads would not let me get cancelled for a bad reason.
I mean, if I get cancelled because I actually did something cancelable, that's on me.
But I don't feel like the internet dads would let it happen.
I feel like they've got my back.
As I would have theirs.
It works both ways.
All right. I mean, let me give you another example.
So this is not directly comparable to me, but I'll just pick a person.
Could you imagine if Mike Cernovich got kicked off of Twitter?
There would be a really big response to that, wouldn't there?
Because that would hit you, like he has enough people who care about his, you know, his voice a lot, That that would be a big, big fight.
Like, that would be a fight.
That would be a fight to the end, right?
That's a don't give up fight.
You have to finish off the other team if they go that far kind of fight.
That's nuclear, right?
Now, I'm just using him as an example.
Yeah, you could add 15 people to that list.
It would be the same way.
Imagine Ben Shapiro being kicked off of Twitter.
Right? Like, would you let that sit?
No. No, you would not.
Now, if, you know, Milo Yiannopoulos gets kicked off of Twitter because he said some sketchy stuff, I don't know if I'm gonna...
I'm not gonna go to war for that.
That feels like a little bit more on him.
You know what I mean? But these other voices that are, you know, really standard foundational voices for a lot of people, if one of them gets knocked off, That's a whole different deal, I think.
All right. So apparently there's news from some whistleblowers who are never credible, but they're whistleblowers at the FBI. What could be less credible than an FBI whistleblower?
One of the least credible entities in the United States is the FBI. Now, unfortunately, it wasn't always that way.
But at the moment, I think the entire country would agree by majority that the FBI is no longer a credible organization.
In other words, they lie to you intentionally, for whatever reasons, political or otherwise.
But you wouldn't trust anything they said at this point, if you're paying attention.
So a whistleblower at the FBI is even less dependable.
Doesn't mean it's wrong. Doesn't mean the whistleblower doesn't exist.
But if you automatically believe the secret source, you know, the secret source, because they were called a whistleblower.
You know, if somebody says, I have an anonymous source, what's your first thought?
That's not true. But if somebody says, I have a whistleblower, what's your first thought?
Probably true, right?
And what's the difference between an anonymous source and a whistleblower?
Not that much, right?
But if you use the word anonymous source, you automatically say, I don't believe it.
As soon as you say whistleblower, you're biased to believe it, aren't you?
Don't. I wouldn't believe an FBI whistleblower.
Or somebody who reported what existed.
We haven't even seen the whistleblower.
If the whistleblower comes forward, I would revise it.
But a secret whistleblower is just an anonymous source.
Right? That's just an anonymous source.
So when the Congress, whoever wrote up some statement here, called it a whistleblower, that's just propaganda.
It might be true, someday, but at the moment it's propaganda.
Alright, so, but the story is that there are several efforts within the FBI counter-terrorism group to go after parents who attended school board meetings and exercised their freedom of speech.
Now, if the government is going after, let's just say it, conservatives, And Republicans.
Because that's who we're talking about.
Those were the parents complaining in this context.
It wasn't the Democrats.
It was Republicans.
And the government has decided to target Republicans for FBI counter-terrorism investigations for exercising free speech on an important topic about their own children Now, thank you. There's a comment on Locals that I think sums it up perfectly.
Fucking terrifying.
Right? There's nothing else you can say about that.
It's just fucking terrifying.
Now, wasn't it Obama who used the IRS to target Republicans?
The Tea Party people? Was that true?
Or is that just a rumor?
That's true, right? Now what if this is true?
And again, it's a whistleblower from the FBI, so that's a very low standard for truth.
But if it's true, would this be an example of my prediction before the election that got Biden into office that if Biden got elected, Republicans would be hunted?
Is this not hunting Republicans?
Now, when I said they would be hunted, that didn't mean, you know, with hunting tags and rifles, necessarily.
Necessarily. It meant, you know, figuratively hunted.
They would be looked for, identified, and punished.
Haunted. So, can we all agree that that was one of my best predictions?
As horrible as it is?
Yes. Yes, I believe that was one of my best predictions.
Would it surprise you to know that when people mock me, they use that example as my worst prediction?
It's because their news doesn't show any of this stuff.
So their news doesn't show any of it.
Are you in Obama's Martha's Vineyard guest cabin?
No, I'm not. No, I'm not.
All right. So here's more on the theme of is the government even trying to help the citizens anymore?
Apparently the Biden administration cancelled oil and gas lease sales in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico.
Wait, what? What's the price of gas and what's inflation doing?
And here's an obvious way to deal with it.
An obvious way. Straightforward, obvious solution.
And he cancelled it.
Now, I get it, climate change, blah, blah, blah, but at this point, is there anybody smart who thinks this is a good idea?
In other words, is there anybody who's not, you know, directly in the political world who thinks this is a good idea right now?
Now, even if you think that climate change is a huge problem and we need to do everything we can, This isn't really the time to be fussing with that, is it?
This is sort of the time to save our lives and then work on whatever else we think is important.
So I think I'd be more worried about saving us economically.
Over the next five years and a little less about climate change that hasn't really been a problem yet and I think will actually mitigate the outcomes.
North Korea has ordered a nationwide lockdown after reporting its first COVID case.
First one. How about that?
So I guess North Korea actually did better than China.
First one. I don't even know what's behind that.
Like, why would they even bother telling us that there's one?
It doesn't make any sense.
Oh, William, you're so smart.
All right. Here's some other stuff going on.
How many of you thought I was crazy when I said, is it my imagination, or has the administration stopped trying to help Ukraine simply defend itself And started thinking that Ukraine would just win the war outright.
How many thought, well, that's crazy?
And so here's an article in The Federalist by John Daniel Davidson.
And he talks about, I'll just read this piece that's relevant.
He says, Now instead of simply helping Ukraine stave off invasion and conquest, U.S. policy seems to have shifted into something else entirely.
The permanent weakening of Russia at any cost.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said so explicitly after a clandestine visit to Ukraine with Secretary of State Anthony Blinken last month.
After her own recent trip to Kyiv, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi characterized the war as, quote, a global struggle for democracy.
Okay. Now, may I have my due?
Yeah. I'm seeing Woody saying, you thought I sounded crazy.
And now it's the news.
It's literally happened. So, pretty good, wouldn't you say?
Pretty good prediction, I think.
So here's what's weird.
I think we're going to come to a situation that, however this goes, Putin is going to claim victory because he got some extra control or whatever of Ukraine.
Or maybe he denazified it, he's going to say.
So Putin is going to claim victory.
NATO will probably claim victory because they created more NATO nations.
They defended Ukraine, maybe.
And they'll just say that they beat Russia back.
Right? And that Ukraine is going to claim victory, assuming that they remain a country however big they are when they're done.
So, is this the only war where everybody's going to win?
Shelly. Shelly, Shelly, Shelly.
I don't know if you're the real Shelly, but we're going to hide you on this channel, Shelly.
Because I know everybody wanted to go off on you, but since I'm not sure you're the real Shelly, you might be just trying to.
You might be trying to prompt me to go off on you.
So, I'm not going to fall for it this time.
All right. Here's an important comment.
I'd like to read this to the rest of you.
This is from Hobster.
It says, Scott, I had something I wanted to tell you, but now I've forgotten what it was.
Okay, thank you. I appreciate that.
So that's what's happening.
Now, do you think we're heading into World War III? There is a weird way in which we fight Russia.
So for decades, we've been fighting Russia while saying we're not fighting Russia.
And Russia has been fighting us while saying they're not fighting us.
And you wonder how far we can take it.
Yeah, obviously we took it to the point where we're secretly helping Ukraine, but everybody knew.
We took it to the point where we were then directly giving them money, and everybody knew.
Now it seems there's almost no doubt that we're helping them with targeting and locating targets.
Don't you believe?
I mean, do you really think that we have that information and we're not telling Ukraine?
Really? Because we have the information, right?
Because we have the satellites, we have the assets, and you think we're not going to tell them where stuff is?
They are our ally.
Do you think allies don't share information that's critical to the survival of another ally?
Of course they do. Of course they do.
Do you think Russia is aware that the United States is sharing critical military data with Ukraine?
Of course they are. Of course they are.
Everybody is. There's nobody who doesn't know it.
So explain to me why this isn't World War III. The entire world is affected, at least in terms of resources and economics.
The whole world is affected.
And it is the United States in a military war with Russia.
Does it really matter that no American soldiers getting shot?
I mean, it matters to military soldiers, but it doesn't matter to whether it's a world war or not.
It doesn't matter to whether we're involved or not.
So, I really, I'm just sort of amazed.
I feel that the reason we can get away with it is the following.
See if this tracks with what you're thinking.
I think we can get away with it.
Now, it's risky business, no doubt about it.
Could spark a nuclear confrontation.
That's a big risk. But I do think we're going to get away with it, and here's why.
Because for decades, the United States and Russia has pretended That being at war with each other is not really a war.
And I don't know if we can get out of the habit.
And so I think we can just take advantage of the fact that this habit is so well established that the United States can attack our elections and just say, nope, we didn't really.
You know that attacking of your elections?
Eh, not really.
Not really. Do you think that Russia has done anything to help any enemies of the United States?
Well, if you asked them, they'd say, no, not really.
Nope. Nothing like that happened.
So as long as we live in a world in which Putin can say anything that's true is false and just say it in public, no, that's not happening.
Nope. Nothing like that.
Why don't we just do the same thing?
And apparently that's what the Biden administration has decided to do.
They've decided just to act the same way.
Oh, no, it's not a war. I don't even know what you're talking about.
Really? I'm confused by the question.
War? What war?
And as weird as this is, I think it's gonna work.
So if you think the United States is acting crazy, because it's doing an actual war, I mean, without our own soldiers, but we're clearly deeply involved, if you think that it's crazy to run a war and then say you're not running a war, this is the only time that might work.
Because Russia has so deeply ingrained the whole, we're not doing this?
No, no, we're not going to attack Ukraine.
No, no. Attack Ukraine?
I don't know what you're talking about.
And then they attack Ukraine. Apparently we can just say anything now.
Because once Russia has outed itself as completely dishonest all the time, it doesn't matter what you tell them.
It really doesn't.
Doesn't matter what's true.
Doesn't matter. Get away with permanently weakening Russia.
Do you think that's a good idea?
We don't know if it'll work, but do you think it would be a good idea to permanently weaken Russia?
I don't know.
Because the world is a very unpredictable place.
And one of the weird outcomes that could come from permanently weakening Russia is...
What would be the weirdest outcome from permanently weakening Russia?
The weirdest outcome Strength in China?
Not really. I don't think it makes a difference to China one way or the other.
The weirdest outcome was that Russia and the United States would finally become allies because they always should have been.
We're just not natural enemies.
We're psychological enemies.
We're not natural enemies.
A natural enemy is somebody who's, you know, there's a real border dispute or there's a real risk, there's a real something.
But this is entirely psychological.
We've just decided we act like it.
So this is not like any other situation.
We are fated to become allies.
This might be an accelerator, you know?
We are fated to become allies.
That's just going to happen. All right.
Let's see what else is happening.
I'm just going to quickly review things I've tweeted lately.
Is it true that Russia has basically given up on all of Ukraine except the eastern part, that they're trying to consolidate their little land bridge?
Is that... Because the news out of Ukraine is so bad, And so undependable.
But is that the current situation?
That Russia is not doing much in most of Ukraine?
They've given up on Kyiv? Right.
And is it also...
I also saw a report that I don't believe...
I don't believe...
That Ukraine is pushing Russia back militarily, just one on one.
They're just literally just defeating them on the battlefield.
Do you think that's true?
Because it could be. Because apparently the Ukrainians are better trained and have better equipment.
And they're, you know, they're fighting for their own territory.
Yeah, I'm not sure it's true.
But it could be. You know, maybe in at least one case, maybe two.
Yeah, I think a skeptical consumer can say, maybe not.
Maybe not. Right?
That's the narrative, but not really true.
Yeah. They're getting lots of help.
Correct. But it does seem that Russia is not making gains.
Would that be true? Would you agree that the news is unified from all sources that Russia is not making gains?
No, people are disagreeing with that.
Or are you agreeing? You're saying no.
Does that agree or disagree? I'm not sure.
So some are saying that they are still making gains.
Mariupol, I mean, Mariupol's basically a dead city.
So whoever owns that, you know, good luck.
I mean, that, unfortunately, the city's already dead.
They are taking villages, somebody says.
I don't know. So maybe. We talked about Dinesh and the one person going to two ballot boxes.
So you missed the first part.
If you want to replay that, there's a detailed discussion of that in the beginning of this live stream.
All right. That's all I got for you.
Oh, I'm writing a book on reframing.
You're going to love it. You need to follow a few pro-Russian telegram accounts to see the whole picture.
That's not going to help me.
How many liars do I need to look at to get the truth?
If I look at Russia, you know, Russia media, is any of it true?
Is any of the Ukrainian stuff true?
I don't think any of it's true.
So... Russia is losing troops and equipment at an unsustainable rate.
You know, I think part of the $40 billion package for Ukraine, and you see a lot of people complaining, rightfully, complaining that we should be spending the money here and not defending the country on the other side of the world.
But, here's I guess my take on it.
To me, there's no difference between our military strategy and our economic strategy.
So those are tied.
So when we approve $40 billion, what's your first thought about that amount?
Is it something like three times as much as we've given altogether so far?
It's a big number compared to what we've done so far.
So what does it do to your brain when you hear that number?
Let's say you're Russia. What does it do to Putin when you hear that number?
$40 billion. That's the number that tells you they're planning to win, right?
They're not planning to negotiate.
In fact, we're not negotiating at all.
Ukraine isn't even negotiating, I don't think.
The $40 billion is so big that it sends a signal to Putin that we're going to win at all costs.
Because $40 billion is pretty close to all costs.
I mean, it's just such a big number.
Now, suppose we had done the opposite.
Suppose we had said, you know, we'll allocate $40 billion, but we're going to give you $5 billion at a time, you know, and if things go wrong, we'll stop giving you money.
What if we'd said that? Because that's a reasonable way to fund anything, right?
You say, well, it could be this big, but we're not going to give that all to you.
We're going to start with a little bit, see how that works out, and then, you know, maybe we'll get to the end, maybe we don't.
That would make sense. But when you say we're going to give one side $40 billion, that is a signal to Russia, a military signal.
It's a military signal to Russia that they're going to lose.
Because if we said we're going to give them $5 billion, Putin would say, huh, that doesn't sound like enough.
I'd better double down because I could win this thing.
But when Biden said, and I think wisely, from a military perspective, not from an economic perspective, so, you know, obviously that has negative repercussions for Americans.
But from a military perspective, the $40 billion is brilliant.
Why not $200 billion?
Because they wouldn't be able to sell it.
$40 billion should be enough to make everybody in the United States go, but $200 billion would just lose us.
At $200 billion, we'd say, okay, just close down the government.
We don't need you anymore. That's just too much.
$40 billion is too much, but it's exactly the right amount for military purposes.
It tells you that we're going to win.
I've often talked about the difference between wanting something and deciding.
When people want something, they're not necessarily going to work as hard as they could to get it.
When they decide something, they will do whatever it takes.
So people who have made a decision are dangerous, because they're not going to stop, right?
It's only people who want something that can be talked out of it.
Okay, well, I guess I don't want it that much.
But once you've decided, nothing can talk you out of it.
And this $40 billion is Biden administration telling Russia Okay, we just decided you're losing.
Because you know the United States can decide who wins.
We can. Because we have the resources to just make it happen.
You know, it would hurt, but we could do it.
You know, we've been talking about Russia and Putin.
If he wanted to sacrifice enough, he could get Ukraine.
You would just have to be willing to sacrifice enough.
But it works both ways.
Biden just basically just signaled that he's willing to risk World War III in a nuclear confrontation, he's willing to be clearly seen as in war with Russia, and he's going to put in enough money to win.
If Trump had done this, I would have said it was brilliant.
Militarily. Brilliant.
Because this is the kill shot.
This is a psychological kill shot to the Russian army.
Right? If you were the Russian army and you got wind that the United States just fully funded it.
Fully funded it. They're not just throwing some dimes at it to, you know, act like we're sort of helping a friend.
You know, just so we can say we helped.
Well, we helped. No.
The United States just decided to win the fucking war.
That's what happened. Or at least, that's what we're signaling.
It's entirely possible that we're saying we're going to give them $40 billion and we have no intention of doing that.
Right? That's very possible.
It's entirely possible that we've never planned to give them $40 billion.
And maybe even they know that.
We may have said to them, you know, you need 10.
10 is what we'll give you.
But, you know, don't panic when we say it's 40, because that's for Putin.
Win the dissolution of America.
Yeah, I mean, it's risky.
I'm not saying it's not risky.
Everything's risky. The real reason is to distract from Biden's many failures.
Well, you know, that's true of everything that he does, right?
Everything Biden does at this point is also a distraction.
So here we have our government doing all the wrong things, except I'm going to have to say that 40 billion thing is a good military psychological kill shot for the Russian army.
Don't know if it will kill them.
Don't know if it will make a difference.
But it's a strong, strong play.
For you and your arms buddies.
Do I have arms buddies?
Somebody's saying, Scott will be predicting Ukraine's victory when Putin is accepting their...
Well, hell be a dorker.
Let me say to your comment, you're obviously an idiot, or a Keith, because you literally just saw a livestream in which I admitted with no qualifications a prediction I got wrong, which was the Supreme Court document being a hoax.
Now, having just seen me, full-throatedly and with no ambiguity, admitting a prediction was wrong, why would you think I would do it on this case?
What would make me act differently on this case?
Because you have to understand that my credibility, which is what I care about for these purposes, is only supported by me telling you what is obviously true.
If I get one wrong and I tell you I didn't, Oh, then my whole business model falls apart.
So I'm required to tell you when I'm wrong.
If it's obvious I'm wrong.
Like, right? I mean, if there's some ambiguity or an argument, I'm going to make the argument.
But if I'm just wrong-wrong, I'm going to tell you.
Because I want you to believe I'll tell you when I'm wrong.
That's my benefit. In a limited, low-awareness way.
A low-awareness person will lie to make themselves look good.
Has that ever worked?
In the short runs, maybe.
But it's a terrible long-run strategy.
You know, lying to look good, terrible long-run strategy.
So I would rather look bad in the short run so that in the long run people could say, oh yeah, he did change his mind on that thing.
You know, he did take, he saw both sides, he admitted when he was wrong.
That's pretty important.
And by the way, I would like to model that for you in case anybody wants to admit they're wrong sometimes.
You need to get over the embarrassment of it.
I've told you before that being immune to embarrassment is like a superpower.
Yeah, I swear you can walk the earth like a god if you're not embarrassed about anything.
So being wrong should not embarrass you.
You should be proud that you're a person who is flexible enough to say when you're wrong.
That's what you should find pride in.
If you're stuck with people who like me when I got one wrong, that's just a bad place to be.
Don't be there. Be wrong with gusto.
You should be just as enthusiastic about when you're wrong as when you're right.
And I think I was.
When I told you I was wrong about the Supreme Court document being a hoax, I'm enthusiastically telling you that.
Totally wrong. Super wrong.
Way wrong. Right?
I'm not going to fudge it.
The birds are quiet.
I guess it's just a daytime thing.
So it looks like it's just a darkness problem.
Alright. That.
Did I just see my sister go by there in the comments?
The birds fear you.
Is the pandemic over?
Don't remember I predicted that the leak was a hoax.
I predicted it. I did predict that.
Oh, you're a different person with that name.
Okay. All right.
That's all for now. Was this the best livestream you've ever seen?
I think so. Yeah, I think so.
Probably. And we'll try to do it tomorrow.
I don't know if I can do this at the right time zone tomorrow, because that's a pretty early wake-up call.
Ash, that's a good question.
I think it had something to do with mushrooms.
Alright, that's all for now.
Well, I'm being asked for an update on Boo the Cat.
Boo the Cat, unfortunately, has passed to the other side earlier last week.
So, with respect and love, I held her little head and sent her to the next world.
Yeah, I was awake, but I wasn't functioning too well at 3 a.m.
