Episode 1763 Scott Adams: I Teach You How To Use A Fake Legislation To Solve Fake News, And More Fun
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Content:
Mask mandates returning
Dilbert big pharma series
Don Jrs J6 text
Conflicting fake news reports
Low-cost gel film creates drinking water
Elon Musk 10% layoff due to global economy
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Good morning and welcome to The Highlight of Civilization.
It's called Coffee with Scott Adams.
It gets better every time you watch it.
Every time you consume it in any fashion whatsoever, even if I'm talking at double speed.
I know some of you don't like to hear me talk slowly, but that's okay, because today we're going to goose up our energy with a little caffeine, and all you need is a cup or mug or a glass, a tank or chalice, a stein, a canteen jug, 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.
And it's the thing that makes everything better.
Everything better. It's called the simultaneous sip.
Go. That's good.
Well, so there are...
How many counties do you think there are in America?
Anybody? Just take a guess, without looking it up, how many counties do you think there are in America?
The answer is 3,143.
So out of the 3,143 counties, how many of them decided to go back to a mask mandate for indoor activities yesterday?
How many? Out of 3,143 counties, just one, just one.
And here's a second question.
Which of those 3,143 counties does Scott live in?
So which one does Scott live in of the 3,143 counties?
That's right. That's right.
It's the same one.
Yeah. One out of 3,143 counties, and that's my fucking county.
Uh-huh. Yeah.
One out of 3,143 odds, and my number came up.
Fuck everybody.
Fuck everybody.
Fuck, fuck everybody.
Just fuck everybody. What do I do with that?
Seriously, people.
Do you believe that I'm not running the simulation now?
I mean, I've been trying to hide it.
Ever since Elon and I made an agreement to run the simulation, I've been telling him, can you back off a little bit?
It's getting a little bit obvious.
You've got the user interface controls here.
Richest man in the world.
A little bit on the nose.
A little bit on the nose.
And Elon's like, nobody's going to notice.
Watch this. I can do anything I want.
Watch this. I will go from Democrat to Republican right in front of you.
I'm like, no! You can't do that.
That's crazy. If you go from Democrat to Republican right in front of everybody, and your companies are still solvent when you're done with that, everybody's going to know you run the simulation.
It's bad enough you're the richest person in the world.
That's obvious that you run the simulation.
But don't Don't do that.
That's just like a magic trick.
I mean, that's just like turning water into wine or something.
I mean, come on. Be a little bit subtle about it.
But it does turn out that everything in the world is only related to me, personally.
And so the one county that I live in in the United States decided to have mask mandates.
So fuck everybody and fuck everything.
That's how I feel today.
I don't think I'll be wearing too many masks, because I think I'll just stay home and ride it out.
I just can't handle it anymore.
I just can't take the fight anymore.
I'm just going to ride it out this time, I think.
Well, are you noticing that Dilbert has moved into the big pharma industry?
So if you're not following the Dilbert comic because it hasn't been edgy enough for you lately, well, I solved that for you.
So I realized that as a...
This week, by the way, I turned 65.
I had always imagined, really always, my whole life, that at age 65 I would definitely be done with work, one way or another.
Now, I'm not the retirement type, so I'm always going to do something, but it would be more like optional kind of work.
I guess this would be like optional work.
I don't have to do it, but I like it, so I'd probably do it anyway.
But I thought if Dilbert is going to ride into obscurity along with me, I might as well take some chances.
So Dilbert's going to be causing a little bit more trouble than normal.
A little more trouble than normal.
So look for that. So Dilbert's company just entered the big pharma industry.
CNN has a story about how the Biden advisers are not getting along.
Now, are you surprised by that?
Because that used to be the anonymous kind of stories you'd hear all the time about the Trump administration.
And I always tell you, you could pick any presidency.
Just randomly pick any presidency and then do a story about how the advisors are not getting along and they're all pissing and moaning about what the boss is doing.
That's just every group, everywhere, anywhere there's a leader.
That's everyone, all the time.
I made a comic strip specifically to highlight that phenomenon, that it doesn't matter where you are.
All the staff is complaining about the leaders all the time.
But it is notable when CNN runs a story about Biden having aides that, I guess they're the old school, you know, the classic aides who have been with Biden forever, who are trying to get him to do like one scheduled event per topic and then nobody cares.
So he just doesn't know how to break through.
And I'm thinking to myself, is that bad?
The one thing that works for Biden is being invisible.
Am I right? So CNN, it looks like they're trying to help Biden somehow by having these gentle criticisms.
I don't know that Biden would be better off communicating more.
Do you? I think you're better off communicating more if you're doing good work.
Am I right? See if you'd agree with this.
If you're doing a good job...
Then communicating more is probably good.
Because more people will find out you're doing a good job.
If you're helpless or you're doing nothing, is it really good to communicate more?
To show that you have great empathy for the thing you can't fix?
Does that really push you ahead?
You get a little ahead in that?
I don't know. I think Biden might be the one exception to the rule where even though his approvals are in the basement, The only thing that could make it worse is hearing from him more, isn't it?
Seems like it. So I think they're playing it right by keeping him away from the public.
All right, here's the funniest story of the day.
And I love it when the fake news gets their stories mixed.
One of the reasons not to lie...
Was this... Mark Twain said this, maybe?
Tell me who said this. It's a famous quote.
But one of the reasons to not lie is that you don't have to remember all your stories and keep them straight.
So if you meet a new person, you don't have to think, okay, who does this person know?
And what stories have I told this person's friends?
I've got to be compatible with that version of the story.
So that's a good reason to not lie.
It's just hard to keep it all straight.
But it also applies to fake news.
What happens if you do two fake news stories and they conflict?
Well, here's one example.
So we know now that Donald Trump Jr., during the January 6th protests at the Capitol, he texted at 2.53 p.m., so it's right in the middle of it, He tweeted to Mark Meadows that the president,
quote, he's got to condemn this shit ASAP. So in other words, Donald Trump Jr., Donald Trump Jr., in the middle of the protests, was trying to get his father to condemn them and shut them down.
Do you know what that means?
That means that according to CNN... There was a planned insurrection that the president was somehow part of, and that one of the people who was not aware of the planned insurrection was Don Jr.
Do you think that their two fake news stories got conflicted there?
You can't have it both ways.
Either it was a planned overthrow of the country and an insurrection, And Don Jr.
knew about it. Or it wasn't a planned insurrection, and that's the reason Don Jr.
tried to close it down immediately, as any patriot would.
Somebody says purposely kept out.
Really? Really?
You think somebody would do an insurrection to keep Trump in office, and they would try to keep out Don Jr.
from the plan? Because what?
I mean, none of it makes sense.
So I was thinking about this concept of taking one fake news from the fake news industry and always comparing it to their other fake news.
And if you can find the right pair of fake news...
Or the right pair of stories, you can have one debunk the other.
And this is a good example.
So how can they continue with their, it was a planned, you know, insurrection, without Don Jr.
being aware of it? Now, because the texts, you know, were happening in real time, I don't think anybody doubts that the texts are his real opinion, Don Jr.'s opinion that this needs to be stopped right away.
That looked like his real opinion.
So he says maybe he's lying.
Really? You think he would be sending a fake tweet to Mark Meadows just in case later something came up?
No. That's a little too clever.
Sometimes the things are exactly what they look like.
Exactly what they look like.
It looked like there was a bad situation happening in the Capitol, and Don Jr., like most of the world, said, hey, let's have less of that.
And then he sent a text because he could.
That's the whole story.
And then suddenly it's an insurrection.
Now CNN would also have us believe the following.
That America is the kind of country that Republicans especially will bring guns to absolutely anything.
They'll bring guns to concerts.
They'll bring them to protests.
They'll bring guns...
They'll just bring guns everywhere.
They'll bring them to the store. They'll keep them in their car.
But we are told by CNN that the one place the Republicans will not bring and brandish guns...
I don't know who had them, but they didn't brandish them...
is to an armed insurrection.
So the only place a Republican won't bring a gun is to a planned armed insurrection.
That's what the news is telling us.
All those other times, Republicans are going to be loaded for bear, literally and figuratively.
But the only time they don't is when it's time to use the guns for armed insurrection.
So then they leave them home. And somehow the base, the Democrat base, is buying all of this.
These are clearly conflicting fake news.
But I would like to suggest an even better way to play this.
Rather than just wait for the news to serve up these pairs of stories that don't make sense together, what if you push it a little bit?
And here's what I'd suggest, and this is based on...
Damn it, I wish this had been my idea.
I would love for you to hear this idea and think, oh, he thought of that?
But no. Chuck Madden, who's a user on Twitter, not the famous Chuck Madden as far as I know, but Chuck Madden had this tweet idea, and then I stole his idea, and I reworded it this way in a tweet.
I said, Republicans should propose a permanent ban on every kind of weapon that was fired or brandished on the January 6th insurrectionists, by the insurrectionists, quote, insurrectionists, but not limited to, right?
So this complete ban that Republicans should suggest would be a complete ban on every kind of weapon that That was either fired or brandished, you know, shown, by the insurrectionists.
Now, not including the police, because the security needs weapons, of course.
But if you don't count the people defending the Capitol, I think every single weapon used by the insurrectionists should be banned forever.
Now, you might say to yourself, Scott, that would ban nothing.
Wow! I'm just hearing that Alex Epstein's book just is screaming up the bestseller list.
So that's the one everybody's...
There's a lot of pushback trying to keep it.
It's called Fossil Future, and it looks like it's number two...
Yeah, it was number...
Anyway, it was doing great.
So let's see if we can get that to number one.
Anyway, back to my main story here.
What do you think of that?
What do you think of coming up with legislation?
The legislation, of course, would be mostly a prank.
But the point of the legislation is to make the fake news cover it.
Because they would have to cover that every single weapon used by the insurrectionists would be banned.
How would they cover that?
Seriously, how would they cover it?
Would they say, we're not going to cover it because it's just a joke?
They would have to explain why it's a joke, wouldn't they?
The reason it's a joke is because no weapons were used by the insurrectionists, except for a bison hat and a podium, I think.
So I think it would be extra funny to ban podiums and bison hats as weapons of war.
Because nobody's going to, you know...
They're not going to get anybody to approve the legislation, so it doesn't matter what it says.
It's just for effect.
And then I thought, could there be any other opportunities where you could make fake legislation to highlight the fact that there's fake news?
Could you make a law against every fake news?
Think about it. Here's another one.
Suppose you made a law...
That says the news business cannot intentionally, has to be intentional, cannot intentionally give misleading medical news.
Intentionally. Accidentally is still okay.
But you cannot intentionally give misleading news during a pandemic.
And then he uses your example, CNN's reporting that the president suggested drinking bleach.
And you say, we're trying to prevent any reporting that is non-medical during a pandemic.
You say, example one is CNN's coverage saying that the president suggested drinking bleach.
Because you say, that should be illegal.
Because they know that he didn't.
That would be the claim.
They know he didn't say it.
It's a pandemic.
You don't want to give misleading information from an official source.
And they did. They changed what the official source said, the President of the United States, they changed it.
And they made it wrong from something that made sense and wouldn't have hurt anybody, because he wasn't talking about bleach.
And they turned it into bleach, and then they turned it into something that could have killed somebody.
What about ivermectin?
Do you think ivermectin would fall into that?
I think so. Because it seems to me that the news turned ivermectin into horse paste and something else, and that wasn't accurate.
I mean, it wasn't an accurate way to present it, anyway.
It was technically accurate.
And so, could you come up with legislation that would never get passed?
But just to make a point of it, every time there's a fake news, you come up with a fake law to deal with the fake news.
I think you would find there are lots of ways to do it.
I don't know. Maybe it's a bad use of Congress.
But the fact that our fake news stands forever doesn't seem like we should put up with that.
All right. Remember I told you that follow the money always works, but follow the insurance can even tell you what's going to happen before it happens?
So now we have a story that Germany...
The country of Germany is not helping Volkswagen insure against risk for doing business in China.
And the reason being the Uyghurs and maybe whatever else political risk there is.
So China is becoming too risky for business.
Do you remember when I first started saying that?
How many of you remember, and maybe you can tell me what year it was, When I started saying, I'm going to tell people that China is too risky for business.
And 2018, somebody says?
That sounds about right. And do you remember in 2018, did that sound kind of exaggerated?
Didn't really sound like something that could happen, did it?
Right? In 2018, China was a very safe bet.
Tons of companies were working there, and they were happy about it.
So I was the one who said that you would soon see it being too risky to do business in China, and I've been promoting that point of view quite heavily for a few years.
And here it is. People running the insurance risk for Germany just said, no, it's too risky for us.
And there you go.
And what about Putin moving his oil around?
Well, he can find other ways to move his oil around and sell it, but if he wants everything to be insured, which is typically important for transporters, maybe not.
Maybe he won't get insured.
So follow the insurance.
It's going to tell you what's going on here.
Here's the biggest story of all humankind.
Maybe. See if you can think of what would be a bigger story in the Like history of civilization.
It sounds like this could be like a little bit of a tiny invention I'm going to tell you about.
Just a little invention. Biggest thing in civilization.
Maybe. It's a...
So scientists and engineers at the University of Texas at Austin, they created a solution that looks like sand and some low-cost chemical.
So it's a low-cost gel film That they can make with abundant materials.
In other words, you don't need any rare earth materials.
You don't need to mine for diamonds or gold or anything.
It's just sort of routine things you can put together.
And when you put these routine things together, they suck moisture out of the air and they turn it into drinking water.
What? What?
It's like a little compound that looks like sand and some other junk in there.
And you just... Sort of put it there over a bucket of water, and it just turns the air into water.
What? Now, if this thing actually works, and I don't know, it looks like it might, that just changes everything.
Imagine if nobody ever had a water problem again.
All you'd need is a bucket of sand, and it would create all the water you wanted.
Yeah. I'm seeing in the comments I'm skeptical.
You should be. But the amounts of water that they're talking about are crazy.
So here's what they're estimating.
That even in the driest climates, you can get all kinds of stuff.
So the material would cost $2 per kilogram, and one kilogram can produce more than six liters of water per day in areas with less than 15% relative humidity.
And it can make up to 13 liters of water in areas with, you know, more relative humidity.
13 liters of water for one kilogram of this little material in one day can make 13 kilo...
What? And none of this is even slightly possible, does it?
Somebody says it's being done in Morocco?
Yeah, you know, those of you who are calling BS on this story...
I get it. I get it.
It doesn't sound true. But what if it is?
What if it is?
Think about it. We might be on the brink of near unlimited electrical power, fusion.
So the cost of electricity is going to plunge.
The cost of getting drinking water might plunge.
The ability to live off-grid.
Now, if you've got a Tesla battery...
And you've got this stuff for bringing you enough water.
And then you've got, let's say, a Bill Gates...
What do you call it?
Bill Gates is making toilets that don't require plumbing.
Just, I guess, I don't know.
It somehow takes care of itself.
And... We're now almost at the point where living off the grid, yeah, with your Starlink thing, you could pretty much live completely off the grid without giving up anything.
We're really close to not having to give up anything.
We'll see. I think we're going to have fusion and water from the air and 3D printed food.
3D printed manufacturing everywhere.
That's what the future looks like. Well, Elon Musk says he's going to cut 10% of Tesla staff because he sees trouble ahead with the economy.
Now, can somebody help me out?
Why is the trouble ahead with the economy?
Well, like, why is he...
Pretty much all the smart people are predicting some kind of recession next year, right?
Now, would I ask why your first instinct was inflation, right?
Thank you.
So the inflation means there's less money to spend.
Except you don't have inflation if people...
You only have inflation if people are spending.
And if people are spending, you don't have a recession.
So here's how tough economics are.
I'm not really seeing the supply chain collapsing the way people say it should have.
I feel like somehow we're figuring out workarounds somehow.
I mean, I don't understand how the economy is working right now.
Like, I don't know why we haven't already run out of everything.
I have no understanding of how we're still alive.
Because the news must be so disconnected from reality that we think we're dying any minute, but nothing like that is happening in the real world.
I mean, it looks like there's a complete disconnect between economics and what we observe, right?
Why do people still have jobs?
What's going on? Like, I'm completely confused at how any of this is still working.
And yet it is.
I mean, it doesn't even look like it's strained, really.
If you walk down the street, does it look like things are falling apart?
I mean, there's still a lot of stores closed from, you know, the pandemic or whatever.
But it doesn't really look like things fell apart.
It looks like the weakest part of the economy got sort of washed out.
But it was going to wash out anyway.
Yeah, we see the gas at $10, and I know that hurts.
But I'll bet people have just pulled back their driving.
So maybe that's what will hurt the economy.
Oh, that could be it.
If people drive less, they'll spend less.
I don't know. Well, I'm going to say that I'm going to be a contrarian here.
And while it makes sense, let me explain what I think makes sense from Musk's point of view as a leader.
Here's a general statement.
If your company is growing, every now and then, you should pause and cut 10% back.
Does everybody agree with that?
If you have a growing company and things are going well, it would be smart if you could do it.
It's tough to execute.
But every now and then you should just say, okay, we're just going to fire 10% of the people that we have so far, and then we'll start growing again.
Because you very easily, in good times when you're growing, it's easy to add employees you didn't need that much.
And then they've been there a few years, and you say to yourself, okay, could we just get rid of them?
Did they do anything? And then you have to get rid of them.
So, my take on Elon Musk, without reading his mind, because we can't read his mind, is that he's picking the very best time to do this because it looks like there's a reason.
It looks like there's a reason.
But it would be good to do anyway.
So that's the part I don't think you'll ever say out loud, which is that you probably thought there was too much fat in the organization and had nothing to do with the recession.
But if you can use the recession as your go-to, well, I think the economy is turning south.
I better start getting ahead of it.
Then it looks like you're ahead of the trend and there's no way it's going to be wrong.
Every company can get rid of 10% of their employees.
They can all do it. And it wouldn't make any difference tomorrow.
So whether or not there's going to be a downturn, we don't know.
But if you're one of the smartest people in the world, you would definitely take the opportunity created by the downturn to make some adjustments in your company.
So no surprise.
I don't know if there's a recession coming.
I really don't. Because everything that we thought we could predict didn't happen.
I mean, I guess everybody predicted we'd have more inflation because we spent more money, but that's more just math.
Somebody's saying that I'm so rich, I don't realize that most people's money will be going only to the necessary items.
Well, I mean, obviously I understand what happens when people have less money.
Did you think I didn't understand that?
What I'm noticing is that people save to so much money during the pandemic that there's a little bit of excess cash burning a hole in their pockets, like they haven't had time to spend it.
So I've got a feeling there's more slop or more play in the economy than the experts think, and that we'll be fine.
So I'm going to stick with my original prediction, which is as long as employment stays good, You'll be fine.
Everything else will work its way out.
Employment is the one that's catastrophic.
You lose employment and then it's the Great Depression.
But as long as you're employed, I don't know, I think we'll just limp along and figure a way out.
That's what it looks like to me.
That's the good news.
And it's a very non-newsy day.
Why did Fed attack?
What's that? The Fed said they will drive the economy into recession to tame record inflation, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Yeah. So the Fed says that they're going to intentionally create a recession?
I don't know.
I think they'll intentionally slow things down.
The free money passed out by Biden, no matter how you slice it, is worthless.
Is it? Yeah, it's hard to get employees even in rural, yeah.
Your spouse took a 25% pay cut?
No, savings rates did not go up, that's true.
But when you talk to people individually, people will individually often say, I've got this money I didn't spend and now I want to go somewhere.
Part of things like Tesla.
Yeah, so Coinbase just rescinded a bunch of job offers.
But Coinbase is a special case because crypto is, you know, so volatile.
And Tesla's a special case, too.
So I wouldn't worry about that.
All right.
Investment portfolios are starting to tank in the short run.
But you should not be owning a portfolio for the short run.
Yeah, the short run is ugly.
I mean, my net worth is down, what, a third or something?
which is pretty painful.
So tell me about the baby food shortage.
We talked about that.
I think baby food shortage is the scariest, one of the scariest things I've ever heard of.
Yeah, the fly formula.
But it looks like we've figured it out, right?
What is happening to the mothers who actually can't get any?
Are they feeding their babies instead?
So there's part of the story that's missing, like the water people doing instead.
I hear all the stories about not finding anything, just milk.
Goat milk if over six months.
These babies are in the hospital.
Friday, what, what, what, what?
All right.
Yeah, I don't understand what's going on with that situation.
I feel like there should either be more reporting on it or more information.
It's a little bit of a black box there.
All right, imagine if that same story existed during the Trump administration.
Imagine the Trump administration being in charge and babies not getting enough food.
Can you even imagine that?
Like, the fact that it's being treated with such kid gloves is only because it's a Democrat administration.
I would have been deported.
All right.
Is there any other story that I should have talked about, but I didn't?
Yes.
I even thought the gas prices went down a little bit.
Oh yeah, Matt Walsh's What is a Woman movie is out.
And I saw some interesting reviews on that.
But I'm definitely going to watch that tonight.
Does anybody watch that? The Matt Walsh...
Is it a documentary or film?
What is a woman? Apparently, the fun part is watching people try to answer simple questions, which to me sounds pretty entertaining, so I'll definitely be watching that tonight.
Will I ever do interviews again?
You mean interviews with other people?
As in, I interview other people?
Is that what you're asking? Maybe.
I don't know. Maybe.
Maybe. I don't enjoy them as much.
That's the trouble. When I do this, it's as comfortable as just waking up.
But if I have somebody on, I usually have to read a book.
I mean, it's just a whole level difference.
But maybe. Special cases.
COVID update. Well, I don't think I have any lingering after effects, although yesterday I was pretty tired.
Yesterday I fell asleep six times during the ordinary day.
In other words, I would wake up in a chair six times yesterday.
At least six times I would go, okay, where am I? Okay, I guess it's about two o'clock in the afternoon.
I just had to figure out who I was and where I was.
Now, is that because of COVID or just not getting enough sleep?
I don't know. So I think I'm going to...
So I don't feel any brain fog.
I did feel brain fog when I had the active symptoms.
But at the moment, I don't feel any...
I've lost anything. Alright.
You're old. Take your vitamins.
Thank you for that. Putin and cancer?
I don't know. Alright.
Yeah, it looks like lack of sleep is my problem.
I think I'm going to take a break from cannabis for a while.
I made the mistake of getting some product that is super, super powerful, and it really sort of ruined the experience.
I didn't think that was possible.
But it turned it from a thing that would always make you feel better to something that would make you feel different, which wasn't really the plan.
So I think I'll take a little break from that.
Newsday is printing an old Dilbert.
Really? Is that because they couldn't handle the pharma comics?
I wonder if anybody else is not running Dilbert this week.
Because Dilbert's in big pharma now.
Stefan, you are so wrong.
It's not like I haven't tried that method multiple times in the last 40 years.
All right.
The Adventure of Dry Sand.
Wear gloves. Okay, that's funny.
Alright, that's all I got.
And maybe tomorrow will be a big news day.
But that's it for today.
Probably the best show you've ever seen.
And let's see if we can go fix all of America's problems.
