Episode 1762 Scott Adams: Let's Talk About Funny Things In The Headlines And Enjoy A Beverage
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a
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Content:
Johnny Depp won, Amber Heard won less
President Biden's successes?
Why is US inflation so high?
Sussman verdict framed as big nothing?
Who will be the 2024 Presidential candidates?
A gun control thought experiment
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Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the Highlight of Civilization minus one.
Today, I might be a little off my game, but it's only because the news is serving up repeats.
Does it seem to you that the news is sort of like yesterday's news or just more of it?
Well, we'll talk about that.
But will that stop us from boosting your dopamine?
No. Or how about your oxytocin?
No. That's going to get a little boost, too.
And all you need to take it to the next level is a cup or a mug or a glass or a tanker, gels or a stein, a canteen, jug or a flask.
A vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite beverage.
I like coffee.
And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure.
It's the dopamine hit of the day.
You can feel it.
Can you feel the tingle?
Here it comes. Here it comes.
It's a simultaneous sip.
Go. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, I guess the big news...
That we haven't talked about in this format yet, is the Amber Heard-Johnny Depp verdict.
You all know that the verdict went Johnny Depp's way mostly.
So it turns out that people who were not Amber Heard said bad things about Johnny Depp, so he gets some money for that, while somebody who was not Johnny Depp said some bad stuff about Amber Heard, so she'll get some money for that but less.
And then we've also determined that she's a narcissist and he might be a different kind of narcissist.
And then we got all confused about that and decided, well, maybe it's just about these two people.
I personally don't think this is going to have a gigantic impact on the Me Too movement.
I could be wrong.
But I think it's just going to look like a one-off case.
However, it does give language to the amber turds of the world.
So, knowing that, as we do, that she's not alone, she's not the only one who has her personality diagnosis, isn't it nice that when you're trying to inform somebody for the first time that somebody has this, let's say, constellation of symptoms, you can say, oh, you know, it's like amber heard.
She was diagnosed with this set of symptoms.
And so if you remember what she was like, that's what this is.
Somebody who lies and, you know, makes it all about herself and gaslights and all that.
And then people will kind of understand.
Because until you put a name to something, people don't really store it.
They don't really store concepts.
But they'll store Amber Heard.
And every time you refer to her now, you're like, But here's where it got confusing.
Because I guess both the defense and the prosecution, if you can call it that, in a civil suit, they both said that the other was a narcissist at one point.
But there's two types.
The Johnny Depp narcissist probably just likes attention, as a lot of people do.
That's sort of the benign kind.
And then the other kind is the dangerous kind, the Amber Heard kind.
Allegedly, if her psychiatrist, if the one who testified is cracked, and she's in that personality constellation, then she's a type you need to run away from.
Here are some things we learned.
Number one, I would expect that they're saying that Amber doesn't have the money to pay the judgments.
But I think that only depends until she does her next movie.
And she's already slated for one.
You know she was in Aquaman, right?
The Aquaman movie.
But now she's, I think she's going to be in another one.
It's called Let's look at it.
Aquiturd and the Jury Pool.
I think it's called Aquiturd and the Jury Pool.
Okay, that's one we worked on on the Locals platform last night.
YouTube, if you like it.
It wasn't my original joke.
All right. Johnny Depp said he was humbled by the decision.
And Amber Heard said she was disappointed with what this verdict means for other women.
And I was thinking to myself, what does this verdict mean for other women?
Because that's sort of subjective, isn't it?
I feel like what we learn from this is you can't lie and abuse a man and get away with it every single time.
At least sometimes.
It might be rare.
But every now and then, somebody's going to throw away his whole life just to make a point.
And I'm glad that Johnny Depp set that standard.
So maybe what it...
Disappointed what this verdict means for other women.
So certainly there will be cases where women are not taken seriously.
And then that would be tragic.
But you know there's going to be the other kind, too.
Where somebody should not have been taken seriously, but they were, but maybe now they won't be.
Because somebody will say, hey, are you Amber hurting me?
Because I've seen this before.
So it's going to go both ways.
The thing that I love about this is that the The so-called defamation was not even written by Amber Heard.
There's a report that the ACLU wrote the opinion piece, right?
So, assuming that's true, That the ACLU wrote the opinion piece.
So she got sued and dragged for something that the ACLU wrote that was false.
Now, she had to approve it, of course, I imagine.
I assume. So she's still guilty.
But it's weird that they were the ones who wrote it.
And then Johnny Depp's problem was that his His own lawyer called Herd's accusations about domestic abuse a hoax.
So Johnny Depp actually lost $2 million because his lawyer called what she had accused him of as a hoax.
Now I'm guessing that means that some of the factual stuff must have stood because otherwise the hoax thing would be closer to true.
Now, here's the question.
Is hoax a word that you would have seen before 2016?
I feel like that word has just permeated everything, hasn't it?
Doesn't that seem like a coincidence?
I don't know if hoax is a word that you see in this sort of illegal proceeding.
Well, let's talk about Elon Musk, because everything's related to him.
So I guess he told his Tesla employees that they've got to come into the office 40 hours a week.
He said, anyone who wishes to do remote work must be in the office for a minimum, and I mean minimum, of 40 hours per week or depart Tesla.
And he says, it's less than we ask of the factory workers, blah, blah, blah.
And so he's real specific.
Like, it's got to be your actual office with the people you work in.
It can't be a satellite office.
Now somebody says, why?
Here's the problem. If you were to ask employees, you know, what's your best situation?
What makes you most productive?
They would probably all say, or most of them would say, working at home.
Or at least not being in the office.
That's what they'd say. But you do lose all that casual contact and other stuff.
And I kind of agree with Musk.
I don't think you can get anything great done with remote work.
I think remote work is good for steady state stuff.
Maybe do the things that you know how to do.
I think it's way less good for getting something changed or improved or radical improvement or cannibalizing what you have to brainstorm up something new.
Yeah, iterating. Everything's just slower and less risky, I guess.
And then you don't create any human bonds, doesn't bond to the company as much, yet the energy is different.
So I guess I'm going to agree with him.
So I hate it from the perspective of the employees.
What makes them comfortable is probably working at home.
But what makes the company they work for successful, so they can have good retirement accounts or whatever it is they give them, probably going to work.
So, I love watching CNN try to explain Biden's record.
They've kind of given up.
Have you noticed that?
Even CNN has just completely given up on Biden.
Because it would be embarrassing to try to support him.
But they do still wave their hands at his accomplishments.
So here are three things...
Named in the CNN opinion piece today as his accomplishments.
It doesn't even matter who said it, because these are like the standard things.
So, one accomplishment is that employment levels are good.
Employment levels are good.
What do you think? Is that a good Biden accomplishment?
Well, Shouldn't you have to compare that to what it would be if you were not on the job?
And I ask you this.
What exactly was it that Biden did that affected employment levels?
Can you give me an example of what Biden did that affected employment levels?
Because I know he did all of the checks that people got during the pandemic, but that...
Hurt employment, didn't it?
Because people were getting free money so they didn't want jobs.
So I know what he did that reduced the number of people working.
He gave them free money.
And I'm not saying he shouldn't have.
I'm not anti that.
We know he shut down some energy stuff.
So that should have worked the other direction.
Inflation... I don't know.
Gas prices? I'm trying to think of anything he did that wasn't anti-worker.
Raise taxes?
I don't know. Tried to.
So I guess...
Oh, here's one. The bipartisan infrastructure bill.
So presumably that would have been good for employment, but I don't know how much of that is actually happening yet.
Anything? And...
So the first one, employment levels, I think would have been about the same no matter who was president.
Am I right? Don't you think Trump would have had pretty good employment levels?
I mean, maybe a little better, but they'd be in the same range.
So one of Biden's successes was just going to happen no matter who was president.
The other one is the bipartisan infrastructure bill.
You know, there's nothing that the public cares less about That a bipartisan infrastructure bill.
Do you know what the public thinks about that?
That it's a gigantic example of corruption and incompetence.
And that even, yeah, they think pork.
As soon as you say it, they think pork.
So if one of your accomplishments is to get something done that sounds to the public like something that shouldn't have been done, even though it should have been done, but it sounds like something that shouldn't have been done, Some big old pork spending thing.
Now let me ask you in the comments, how many of you have benefited so far in a way that you can see some building or some infrastructure from the bipartisan infrastructure bill?
So as of today, how many of you can see the impact of it?
Anybody? Is there any, like, construction near you that you can say, well, there's that infrastructure bill.
Now, I think probably there's a great deal of spending and activity going on.
But I don't know of any.
So, if you can't think of any, any way that it affects you, I can't imagine you'd vote based on it.
So he's got the employment levels that were just going to be what they were going to be, the infrastructure bill that doesn't seem to affect anybody for reasons that are hard to understand.
It's a big deal. My guess is that it is actually affecting lots of us, but since the nature of it is it's all distributed into little projects, you just don't know.
You just see that your roads are getting fixed.
Or you see that there's something getting built over there, but you don't really know.
And then he gets credit for leading the Western alliance against Russia, to which I say, should he have done that?
Can he take credit for leading the Western alliance against Russia?
He lost that war.
I mean, they're losing the war, right?
Didn't Russia get what it primarily said it wanted?
And it looks like they'll probably be able to hold it.
Those are his three things that are touted as his successes.
And then the things that Biden says he's somewhat helpless about are inflation, baby formula stuff, gas prices.
The stuff you really, really notice.
Oh, you notice baby formula.
I'm not even trying to feed a baby.
So personally, the baby formula thing didn't hit me in my cupboard.
But even hearing about it is traumatic.
Did anybody have this experience?
I've not even been involved around a baby baby.
Even as a stepdad, I've not been around a baby who was needing formula, because I came in later.
So I've never even been in that situation.
And when I hear babies not getting food, Like, it sets off every alarm in my brain.
Like, my brain is on fire.
Like, must fix that problem right away.
You know, because we've evolved to make that problem number one.
Feed a baby. Like, it's about the most basic thing that we were designed to do by evolution or whatever.
And so when that's not getting done, That's not like not noticing the bipartisan infrastructure bill.
That, like, catches your body on fire.
And gas prices are doing the same thing, and inflation is doing the same thing.
So I decided to look at inflation in other countries to see, all right, are other countries having a big inflation problem?
And the answer is yes.
It looks like inflation is, in fact, a global problem.
There's still a big difference between Some are way worse than others.
But the United States doesn't seem to be like an outlier.
But here's the question.
Would all of those other countries be having inflation if the United States were not?
Aren't we sort of connected to everything?
I get that we're all having the supply chain problem.
So that part is not the United States.
But yeah, it just feels like the United States sneezes and everybody gets a cold sort of thing.
I feel like maybe we're causing inflation just because we're such a big drag on the economy that whatever we're doing makes everybody else have a reaction.
But here are the things we can conclude.
Number one, there's definitely inflation everywhere.
And it doesn't seem to be really clear what the pattern is.
Except that, you know, some obvious things are making inflation.
So if you Google, why is U.S. inflation so high?
This will make you crazy.
Actually do this.
Just Google, why is U.S. inflation so high?
What do you think it'll say?
Do you think it'll say because the government printed too much money?
Here's what it says.
It says, this is Google's answer.
Experts say there are three main factors currently fueling much of the price growth.
Sharply raising labor costs, energy prices, and interest rates.
And it says each one pushes the cost of everyday consumer goods higher, blah, blah, blah.
Now, wait a minute.
That wasn't an answer.
Let me say it again.
Just listen for this.
It sounds like it's an answer, but it's not even an answer.
Why is there inflation?
Because there's sharply rising labor costs.
No, sharply rising labor costs are inflation.
And energy costs and interest rates, all that.
So basically, they just defined what inflation is.
They didn't give you any reason.
So the question was, why is there inflation?
And they completely avoid the question of why.
Now, they could have said experts disagree on the reason.
If that's true, I don't know.
But if you were trying to learn why there's inflation in the United States and you Googled it, You would get Google's official answer that is absolutely just misdirection.
Am I right? Now, I don't think that the answer is always as political as we make it.
It's not always Trump's fault.
It's not always Biden's fault, right?
You know, we leap to those models.
But it's definitely not telling you anything that...
What is it that causes prices to be higher?
Well, it's the higher prices.
So if you haven't Googled that, there it is.
The thing that causes prices to be higher is the higher prices.
And also, if you're not following along closely, the higher prices will cause the inflation.
But also the inflation will cause the higher prices.
I don't know how we'll ever stop.
That's some helpful stuff right there.
Well, no one's to blame if it's just, hey, prices went up.
What can you do? Speaking of prices, so the EU and the UK, I guess they've passed some kind of laws or rules or something, that's going to block insurance companies from insuring Russian oil shipments.
Remember, I always tell you, if you want to predict where things are going, just look at the insurance companies.
Because they're the ones who have to get it right.
They have to predict risk.
So the insurance companies have decided that shipping Russian oil, well, at least the government has decided that the insurance companies will decide this, is too risky.
Or it's too sanctioned.
I don't know if this means that Lloyd's of London will be out of the game, but does that mean that some sketchy North Korean insurance company won't fill in the blanks?
And would that insurance even be accepted?
I don't know. So I would keep an eye on this space because insurance could just be the most predictive thing like it usually is.
Because things you can't insure just don't happen.
Or they're not going to happen at the same rate or pace.
It's not going to be a growing thing anymore if you can't insure it.
So this could be like a major turning point in Russia's fortunes.
And if it is...
And I think that would still be a stretch.
But if it is a turning point, it'll be yet another example where if you were watching the insurance industry, it gave you a warning ahead of time.
Yes, these are Scott and Opix.
All right. What is a woman?
Is the documentary out?
The documentary, What is a Woman?
You know, the thing about that kind of content, the whole trans, what is a woman and everything, is that that stuff, yeah, it's Matt Welsh's thing.
I'm sure I'll watch that, because I think the entertainment factor will be high.
But we're not learning anything from this kind of discussion, are we?
I mean, it's just something to get our...
You know, blood flowing and get us clicking.
So I don't think it changes anything.
But I'm sure it'll be interesting.
One of the things I like is when he puts ordinary people on the spot, Matt Walsh, and gets them to explain their opinions.
That's always good. All right.
So now this Sussman story is being framed as a big nothing by the Democrats.
So because the attorney who was working for Clinton got off, so because he's not going to have any legal consequence, they're ignoring the bigger part of the story, which is that in the process of this trial, we learned that Hillary Clinton was in fact behind this major Russia collusion hoax.
And somehow that part of the story can be just disappeared.
Because they could make you look at the other part of the story and say, well, there was nothing criminal.
No crimes happened.
See you, sucker. But we don't even know if no crimes happened.
We just know that a jury in Washington, D.C. decided not to convict.
That's all we know. Which is very different from knowing no crimes happened.
Yeah. So watching this thing get disappeared is pretty shocking.
All right. Now...
Am I wrong to say that the news is not serving up anything new?
Because it's a slow week, right?
So, what does 2024 look like to you, everybody?
Who do you think is going to be running in 2024?
Give me your matchup.
So, after the primaries are done, and they're down to the final two, a lot of people are saying DeSantis over on the Locals platform.
Over on YouTube, what say you?
Give us your predictions.
You think it'll be Trump and Buttigieg?
People are not so sure over there.
A lot of people saying DeSantis, but that depends entirely on whether Trump runs.
Trump-Adams?
Not likely. Newsom.
Gavin Newsom? Maybe.
Especially if he loses for governor.
You know, losing the governorship of California would be one thing that would put him into running for president.
Yeah, I could see it being Gavin Newsom and Trump.
Oh, that would be interesting.
Oh, imagine that.
Because of the family connections.
You've got Don Jr.
with Kimberly Guilfoyle.
Had been married to Newsom.
That would be an ugly, ugly situation.
Now, remember what Elon Musk said, and I've said this too, that reality tends to bend toward the most interesting...
The most entertaining outcome from the observer's perspective.
Not from the people who are in it.
It doesn't entertain them at all.
But from the observer's perspective, it always goes toward whatever's the most interesting.
And the most interesting would be Gavin Newsom versus Trump.
That would be the most interesting, wouldn't it?
Because I feel that the Hillary redo would just be another Trump victory.
And it wouldn't, I don't know, it wouldn't feel fresh.
2020 was not a case of the most interesting.
All right, let me ask you this.
Imagine these two scenarios and you're Trump and you get to pick one.
And you have the benefit of hindsight, but only as much hindsight as we have today.
And here are your two choices.
You can win a second term outright, if you're Trump, and you can just serve the second term.
But your second term is going to look a lot like Joe Biden's second term, even if you did different policies.
Because things sort of suck, right?
So probably things would look kind of not so awesome.
It wouldn't look the way it looks now.
I mean, Ukraine could look completely different, and energy and gas prices could look completely different.
But it's not going to look like a great year, wouldn't you say?
Afghanistan, yeah, we don't know what would have happened there.
So we'll never know what would have looked like.
But I don't think that this year was going to be like a great year, or these four years.
So now compare this to Joe Biden coming in and wrecking everything, and then Trump biding his time and coming back and fixing everything that he fixed the first time and then expanding on that.
Yeah, Taiwan could get interesting fast.
So the question is, for Trump's legacy, is he better off to win two terms consecutively or to let Biden really ruin one term and then Trump comes back and triumphantly fixes it and shows that he should not have been defeated in the first place and maybe there was some skullduggery That had an impact.
You have to wonder.
You have to wonder. Because it's completely unpredictable.
You know, you could say that, oh, Trump would have done all the right things if he'd been in office so we wouldn't be in this mess now.
Maybe. Maybe.
But he might have done other things that were worse.
You don't know. There's no way to know.
Yeah. Yeah. Trump's too controversial?
I think so. Alright.
People, is there another topic that I have not broached that needs to be?
Because I don't think there's much happening right now.
China.
But what's new about China?
Taiwan.
I don't know if there's anything new about Taiwan, either.
Taiwan airspace.
Well, you know China's going to be testing Taiwan's airspace like crazy.
All right. Let me give you one idea for a gun control and see if you would be willing to consider it.
It goes like this.
Instead of negotiating just with gun control, yes or no...
You throw in child safety and say, all right, it's a child safety bill, and the age of buying certain weapons will just be part of the discussion.
But it'd also be how to protect them from social media, how to protect them from, I don't know, bad schools.
So you can come up with several things that are for protecting children.
The problem is, if you throw in abortion, then the whole thing...
It becomes useless.
So you'd have to hold abortion out.
But if you made a set of child-related policies and said, look, the reason that you know this won't be a slippery slope is that it's related to children, and we're hitting a number of things.
It's not about guns.
It's about children.
So, yes, there might be a slippery slope toward protecting children.
So that's the slippery slope everybody wants, right?
Unless you get too nanny state.
But if there are obvious things that would protect children, just obvious things, most people are down for the obvious stuff.
So if you could throw together more than one topic and say, look, if you're going to take something as important from the right...
As any kind of gun control, even if the only thing you're doing is limiting the age of your first purchase of an AR, let's say.
Even if that's all you're doing, it's too far.
But if it's part of a bigger bill just for the kids, it doesn't feel the same, does it?
It would be hard to vote against the Save the Kids bill.
I'm sympathetic to the argument that says you have to be an absolutist about gun rights.
Because if they see weakness, they'll chip away.
That's not crazy.
So if you're saying to yourself, Scott, I prefer our current situation where it's just logjam.
Well, keep in mind it might not stay that way.
Because I don't know how many more school shootings it would take Before a few more Republicans are going to crack.
So things are probably going to change.
I don't know if you can stop things from changing.
So if you know things are going to change, your best play is to manage the change.
To the minimum change necessary, maybe, if that's what you want.
So it's sort of a...
If you believe it's going to happen anyway...
Then you're not dealing with a slippery slope problem.
You're dealing with steering the slippery slope.
Because maybe that's all you can do.
Because it's going to happen anyway.
And the things that we can be sure...
Well, as much as you can be sure of anything.
There will be more mass shootings.
Don't you feel that that's just easy, unfortunately, to say?
There will be more of them.
And there will be probably a greater rate of them.
And probably there'll be a new one that shocks us in ways we didn't even know we could be shocked.
I mean, I feel as if, you know, there's a whole level that hasn't been hit yet and somebody's going to try to hit it.
Meaning, you know, worst thing ever.
And sooner or later, some Republicans are just going to have to crack.
So you either manage the change or you let the change manage you, I think.
You think Vegas did that?
Maybe. I think there was 60 dead in Vegas, right?
And I don't think it changed anything, did it?
The Vegas shooting didn't change anything?
Yeah, but you know what's different about the Vegas shooting?
It was adults.
It's the school shootings that activate people.
You're not going to activate a Republican politician by a bunch of adults getting killed.
That probably won't activate them.
They're going to need to hear something else.
Now, let me give you my provocative thoughts I get criticized for saying something was a thought experiment.
It didn't fit some scientific rigor.
But I've said this before, and I don't mean it exactly as a joke.
I heard that there's never been a mass shooting done by an NRA member.
Is that true? Now, I'm sure there have been murders, probably.
But there's no mass shooting by an NRA member.
Now, let's say that's true.
Now, number two, have there been any mass shootings by women?
Yes or no? Have there been any mass shootings by women?
Somebody says yes, but it's rare.
Right? It's rare.
So... Now, here's the interesting one.
How many of the mass shootings were, let's say, left-leaning, would have registered Democrat, versus right-leaning, and if they had registered, it would have been Republican?
What would you say? What percentage do you think is left versus right-leaning?
Your numbers are all over the place, and display your bias.
I don't know the answer, but let's say it's 50-50.
Can we say 50-50 just to talk about it?
It might be 70-30, but the point will be the same.
The point will be the same.
Suppose Republicans suggested that if you're a registered Democrat, and you have to be registered before you can buy a gun.
So I'm just brainstorming something that would be more funny than practical.
You have to be registered, but if you register as a Democrat, you're not allowed to buy an AR until you're 25.
But if you register Republican, or you join the NRA, how about that?
How about that?
You want to get the NRA on your side?
Pass a law that says you can't buy an AR Under age 25, unless you're in the NRA. And maybe you have to be there for a year or something.
Now, here's what's interesting about it.
Do you think the NRA would be able to say that?
Do you think they would be able to say, We'll get way more members.
This promotes our idea that people who join the NRA become responsible gun users.
You like your shooters incompetent.
Okay, there's that. But let's go the other way.
Forget about the NRA. That's too polarizing.
Suppose... Suppose Republicans...
Just said, we will help Democrats ban guns for Democrats.
Here's the argument.
It would not stop Republican problems.
But what if it stopped half of the problems?
Why would Democrats turn down a half measure that would solve half the problem if it's the only thing they can get?
Now, this idea will grow on you a little bit.
Now, you have to compare it to getting nothing done.
So here I'm going to make the assumption that nothing will get done of any consequence.
But suppose Republicans literally said, you can't buy a gun under the age of 25 unless you're a registered Republican.
And here's the deal.
We know that that still allows some mass shootings for registered Republicans.
But if half of them, half of all mass shootings are Democrats, you can at least cut them in half.
So who would be against something that everybody could agree on?
Because Republicans would laugh and agree that limiting Democrats from having guns until they knew how to use them is just a smart idea.
It would be so funny That I think Republicans would vote for it just because it's funny.
Right? Now, I'm sure it's unconstitutional, illegal and impractical in some way.
But as you think through it, it sort of helps you clarify what actually is going on here.
If the Democrats wanted to reduce the number of people who were getting hurt, they would take that deal.
Right? So that's what the thought experiment does.
The thought experiment tells you that people were lying.
Because you can create a situation where they're getting 50% of what they want, and you're comparing it to getting nothing, and people won't take.
People won't take the 50% because they didn't really want a solution.
Even though it's half, A rational person will take half a solution over no solution.
Am I right? So I think that it would expose the thinking on the left that they're making political points and they're not attempting to do anything that's practical in the real world.
Because if Republicans said, hey, let's solve half the problem, We're on board in solving your half of the problem.
And as far as our half, that's more complicated.
Nobody has a solution for that, but let's solve half of it.
All right.
Now, let me ask you...
When I first brought that idea up, and you thought, okay, it's stupid, but it's funny.
And the more I talked about it, the better it sounded, didn't it?
Seriously. Right?
Right? It sounded a little bit better than you thought it would.
I bet I surprised you a little bit there.
Okay, not everybody.
Some of you not sold at all.
Now here's the difference between you and me.
I would have done this.
Like, if I were a Republican in Congress, I actually literally would have done this.
I would have introduced a bill, and of course it wouldn't get passed.
But I would have clarified people's thinking in the process.
And I would have said, look, we already showed you don't want to have fewer dead people.
If you ever want to have fewer dead people, join us and we'll work something out.
But you just proved you don't want that.
So I would have done it...
I would have done it...
Just to make the point. I would be the grandstanding senator.
That's why you don't want me in Congress.
You don't want me in the Senate, especially.
Because I'd just be grandstanding all the time.
I'd never stop. All he knows about is California, LOL. Well, I did grow up in upstate New York.
So I do know a little bit about a little bit.
It legitimizes gun control for one side, then the other side also gets banned.
Maybe. But the thing is, if it worked, imagine if it worked.
Imagine if there was a ban just on Democrat gun sales and it immediately decreased the number of mass shootings by 50%.
Because it should, right?
Or something like that.
Because that would be the number that were roughly in that category.
Wouldn't it look like the problem had been solved so that you didn't need to have more gun control because it would look like it was heading in the right direction and everybody would take a victory lap?
Slippery slope. So the Tulsa shooting, there was another mass shooting, but was it the wrong ethnicity?
See, somebody sang, so it disappeared.
feared.
Yes, we covered the Depp verdict.
All right.
What's the history on him confiscation?
So, apparently, I saw a report today that the The red flag laws in Florida are working somewhat robustly.
And there were quite a number of examples where when you hear the example, you say to yourself, oh yeah, that's somebody who should have their gun taken away.
You know, usually it's somebody who's made an actual threat against, like, real people.
Like, yeah, I'm going to do something bad to that class.
And I don't know what the law says in terms of when you get your rights back.
But every example that I heard, I said to myself, okay, I could live with that.
I just don't know if they're permanent.
Permanent would be more of a problem.
Hey, good picture.
All right.
Let me think of an offer you can't refuse, okay?
Okay.
Rights are inalienable.
No, they're not. Your rights can be alienated.
Is that the right way to say it?
What would be the way to say you don't have inalienable rights?
I will alienate your rights?
I don't know. That's weird talk.
That's weird talk. But I always have to explain this to people like, Like I'm the only person in the world who ever heard it or something.
You can do anything until the government tells you you can't.
And it doesn't matter if they're wrong.
It just matters if they have guns.
And then they can make you do anything they want.
So you could argue what your right ought to be.
That's not going to help you.
Rights are given by the Creator.
Are they? Are they?
Are they given or are they just here?
Like, people who don't believe in a creator, do they have no rights?
Or they just don't know where they came from?
Now, the whole question of your rights, it's a nonsense conversation.
There is only power.
There are no rights.
If somebody with power decides you can't do something, You can't do it.
I mean, without penalty.
So where's your inalienable rights there?
If somebody can put you in jail, you don't have any rights.
So it tends to be just a power struggle.
And then we try to dress up the power struggle by saying we're giving people their inalienable rights.
But governments only give people the rights that they think are not going to hurt the government.
Or at least not hurt it too badly.
So...
Now, I get that if you were going to make an argument in court...
Or an argument to the public saying stuff like, your rights are God-given and they're inalienable.
That's good rhetoric, but it has no application to the real world.
In the real world, if nobody's going to punish you for doing something, well, you can do it.
And if somebody is going to punish you for doing it, well, good luck.
That's sort of the beginning and the end of your rights.
Somebody says incorrect.
Tell me why.
No.
Somebody is characterizing me.
So here's how you know that you're not understanding it.
If you have to reword what I say, You're probably rewording it into something weird so you can explain why you disagree with it.
If you simply use what I say, it doesn't look like what you said.
So I did not say whether your rights exist or something in some philosophical way.
I'm saying that whether you have the philosophical right to...
Or a God-given set of rights.
It's all irrelevant. What's relevant is you can do stuff that doesn't get you punished, and the other stuff you better not do.
Or you better figure out how to get away with it.
But no, this whole inalienable rights is great.
It just has no application to your real life.
James here lives by the hobo's code.
And I respect that.
I don't know what the hobo's code is, but if hobos have a code, I have to think that they developed it over time and probably goes well with the whole train-hopping lifestyle.
For example, what would the hobo's code say about a ham sandwich?
If a hobo finds a ham sandwich, Are they, is said hobo obligated to share it?
Or scarf it as soon as possible so nobody else can get it?
I don't know. All right, well, I got nothing else going on here because it's a slow news day, but tomorrow will be awesome.
I will leave you only with this thought.
You probably will find yourself feeling a little bit better today than you imagined.
That's not an accident.
And tomorrow, you're going to feel even better.
And that's not an accident either.
So come back for Coffee with Scott Adams in the morning, same place, same time.
