Episode 1764 Scott Adams: Let's Talk About All The Awfulness In The News And Make It Funny
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a
Find my "extra" content on Locals: https://ScottAdams.Locals.com
Content:
Shaping world opinion with lies
Disavowing David Weigel's offensive retweet
An addict vs Cluster B personality disorder
Is Long-COVID dopamine deprivation?
Governor DeSantis vs Tampa Bay Rays
Peter Navarro arrested and shackled
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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.
---
Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/scott-adams00/support
Now, you may have seen that there's yet again another study saying that people who drink coffee regularly have longer lifespans.
It's true. And on top of that, there's another study.
It's a preprint. So it has not been peer-reviewed, but it's looking good.
And it says that no one has ever died while watching Coffee with Scott Adams.
Zero. That's right.
And nobody has ever had anything less than a peak experience while listening to...
The simultaneous sip or participating.
And all you need is a cup or mug or a glass, a tank or Chelsea's dine, a canteen jug or flask.
A vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure.
The thing that will extend your lifespan.
Guaranteed. It's called science.
And your favorite beverage will be fine too.
It's called the simultaneous sip.
Do it now.
Go.
So good.
Well, let me tell you the story that's on my screen so I can turn it off and have it stop shining at me.
So, as you may or may not know, People who are way smarter than I am say that NBC News is usually the organ that the CIA uses to get its message out.
Have you ever heard that?
I don't know if it's true or how true it is, but it looks true.
If you look at the way they cover the news, the things they've done in the past and the people who are talking about them, it looks true.
I mean, I can't verify that sort of thing personally.
But today there's a story that is just jaw-droppingly...
Jaw-dropping.
I don't know what else to say about it.
I'll just tell you the story, and I'm not even sure I can add any commentary for it.
Just know that it comes from NBC, and that one of the writers here, Ken Delanian, I think he is sometimes named as one of the people in this context...
All right. So there's a story here that the Biden administration, in a break with the past, right, here's the NBC News report, in a break with the past, U.S. is using intel to fight an info war with Russia even when the intel isn't rock solid.
Now, do you know what they mean when they say even when the intel isn't rock solid?
It means literally making it up.
So here's a story in NBC that's putting a positive spin on the fact that the U.S. government is lying, lying intentionally and for a fact, about what Russia's intentions are.
And the example they use is that the United States cleverly said that Russia was planning to use chemical warfare.
Apparently there was no indication of that whatsoever.
But the United States cleverly, says NBC, put out that story to maybe keep Russia from using chemical warfare.
To which I say, I don't think that's what happened.
I don't think that's what happened at all.
To me, it just looks like we lied about Russia so that we could get more funding or support Ukraine or support the narrative.
I don't really see that as a clever, preemptive CIA lie to prevent Putin from using chemical weapons.
Because if that's all it took, well, if that's all it takes, you've just got to say it first.
Oh, I hadn't thought of that.
That clever military strategy of saying it first.
Let's try that with nuclear weapons.
I'm going to try it now.
Coming up with a lie.
Okay, I got it. Putin is going to launch nuclear weapons at the United States for no reason whatsoever.
Now, it's not true.
It's not true. There's no indication of that.
But I may have just prevented him from doing it.
Because until recently, I didn't know that lying about ridiculous shit in public was exactly the same as a military defense.
We actually stopped a chemical attack in Ukraine by lying about it first.
Am I right when I told you that there's almost nothing you could add to this story that isn't more outrageous than the story itself?
Just by itself. I keep trying to exaggerate it to make it more wild, but it's really hard to exaggerate the fact that NBC News, commonly believed to be an organ of the CIA, is telling us that lying to you is good for you because it kept you safe.
Am I really reading that?
What do you say? First of all, it's good.
In terms of, am I happy that the CIA is capable enough to do something this wildly effective right in your face?
To which I say, yeah, I guess I am happy about that.
I mean, allegedly, they're on our side, right?
You wouldn't want the CIA to be bad at its job Would you?
If they're, you know, mostly on your side?
So, I don't know.
I have mixed feelings about this.
Clearly, they're manipulating, you know, world opinion, and they're telling you right to your face.
But the fact that it's so bold kind of makes it acceptable, which I assume is exactly what they're trying to do.
They're making an awful thing sound like, hey, not only is this not awful, it's pretty good.
You should want more of it.
In fact, we're going to lie about more of our potential military enemies because the more we lie about them, the less likely they'll do bad things.
They're actually selling it.
Believe it or not. All right.
Well, on a different topic, there's a company that came up with a chainless bicycle.
49% less friction.
Sounds like a big deal, doesn't it?
They've got some kind of clever gear situation with ceramic gears that they get rid of the whole chain assembly and reduce the friction by 49%.
Now, one of the reasons that I love having a lot of followers who are engineers Do you know how long it took somebody to debunk that claim?
If you have tens of thousands of engineers who follow your account, like I do, you can't get away with anything.
So here's what they said.
Scott, the 49% less friction applies to just the chain assembly part, which is about 3% of the total friction.
So you could reduce that by 49% and not even notice the difference.
To which I say, I don't know if that's true, but it's a good comment.
I love having engineers.
Trust me, if you don't have any engineers in your life, just as sort of bystanders, you know, just sort of witnesses to your life, you need to get some.
You know, they say that drinking coffee is correlated with longevity.
I will bet you, I'll make you a bet on this, I'll bet you that you could do a study, I would bet a lot on this, that the more engineers you know personally, the longer you'll live, and the more money you'll make, and the healthier you'll be.
Would anybody take that bet?
Because it has to make a difference that there's somebody anywhere in your circle who will call you out for being irrational.
And engineers will always do that because they can't help it.
Engineers don't even know how to be quiet.
If somebody's being completely irrational or dangerous or stupid, how does an engineer not mention it?
It comes up.
It comes up. So make friends with an engineer, as many as you can.
I tried to watch the documentary, What is a Woman?
And correct me if I'm wrong, but I can only watch that if I subscribe to a monthly subscription to The Daily Wire.
Is that correct? Can somebody...
I'm saying yes.
Okay. Yeah, unfortunately I'm not going to be able to watch it then.
Because I'm not going to watch it illegally.
Because, you know, I have a...
Obviously I have a thing about that.
But I have this...
I just have this rule that...
Cancel other woke streaming services in exchange?
Yeah, I have a rule that I'm not going to buy something for the wrong reason.
Like, I would pay cash for it.
You know, if the price were $25, I actually do believe I could get $25 worth of entertainment value out of it, just based on the trailer, based on the fact people are talking about it, etc.
But I've talked about simplification versus optimization.
The way to optimize this situation is sign up for a subscription, watch the film, then decide if you want to keep the subscription, and then monitor it and cancel as soon as possible if you decide you don't want it.
And if you do want it, well, you win twice.
I'm not going to do that.
I didn't sign up for homework.
I didn't sign up to go on an adventure.
I just wanted to see the documentary.
Now, part of the reason that it's annoying to me as a consumer, but also a brilliant business move, is that so many people will want to see it.
They will sign up and they'll keep their subscriptions.
As a marketing device, it's pretty genius.
But I feel like I wish I'd known it was a marketing device.
Because when I thought it was a documentary, in the ways that I imagined that, you know, you could just stream it or buy it or something.
When I thought it was just a documentary, like, I was all over it.
I wanted to watch it. But I don't...
No, I'm not going to ask for...
There's a lot of advice I get that you...
How do I say this?
There's a lot of advice...
About what I could do because of my Dilbert-y powers or whatever.
But it's not really good advice to be using it.
Being annoying to other people just because I can is just not something I want to include in my repertoire.
One of the things that you can do when you're famous is you can meet other famous people.
Somebody was saying this.
I think Jordan Peterson said this recently on some video I saw.
That one of the superpowers is you can call anybody.
If Jordan Peterson rings you up, you'll take the call.
And he was saying that.
And while I have smaller superpowers of that nature, I wouldn't use it.
I mean, I'd have to have some life and death reason.
It's not a license to be annoying.
Anyway... Have you seen the controversy about David...
I don't know how to pronounce his last name.
Weigel? Or is it Weigel?
Somebody will help me out there.
Who writes on politics for the Washington Post.
And he retweeted an offensive tweet.
An offensive tweet.
I'm going to read you the offensive tweet, but I'm going to tell you how I disavow it so deeply...
And that's how I can not be banned from social media.
Because I disavow this.
It's okay that apparently the people who are tweeting it in context were fine.
But if you tweeted it, you know, as a native joke, not so good.
So when I show it to you, just know that the context is not that I think it's hilarious.
No, no, no!
And if I appear to be laughing even when I read it to you, don't be fooled by that.
I am disavowing the hell out of this thing.
Hard. Hard disavowal, okay?
Are you ready? This is the sick and demented tweet that David Weigel, or possibly Weigel, tweeted and got in trouble and had to apologize for it.
And he didn't write the tweet, he just retweeted it.
And that tweet, that offensive, terrible tweet, said the following, quote, Every girl is bi.
You just have to figure out if it's polar or sexual.
Disgusting.
First of all, it is not true that every girl is bi and that you just have to figure out if it's bipolar or bisexual.
That's not true. That is not technically true.
But he eventually had to issue an apology.
He was sorry if he offended anybody.
Oh, no.
No. No, no, no.
All right, here's a little rule that I think we should all embrace.
We won't, but we should.
If something is offensive, but it sounds like maybe somebody really means it to be offensive, well, then maybe we should do something about that.
I don't want to live in a world where people can insult you and hurt you with words without some pushback.
It might be words, but some pushback.
I think we should take this as a standard.
That if the so-called offense is absurdist, meaning that no reasonable person could take it literally, you've got to be okay with those.
You have to learn, I think you have to learn, that if you're so far over the line of being close to reality, that nobody should take that seriously.
Let me give you an example to show you I can turn it around on myself.
A long time ago I had a follower on my live streams.
She described herself anyway as an African-American woman and a pastor.
And she interacted with me a lot and she was a lot of fun.
And at one point she said something about white stereotypes.
And I asked her what would be an example of a white person stereotype.
And I didn't really know what I was going to get.
And her answer was that white people like cheese.
And I laughed for about three hours.
I laughed for about three hours.
Because here's what makes something funny.
Something that feels true but isn't.
That's the simplest definition of humor.
And by the way, you just learned something that's really powerful.
The simplest definition of humor, if you're trying to figure out what is funny or how to make a joke, something that feels like it's true, but you know it isn't true.
Right? So, when you see the joke...
Well, first of all, if somebody says that white people like cheese...
It just feels true, because I've been with so many groups of people of all types, and I'm pretty sure all white people are eating cheese.
I feel like if you're white, you eat cheese almost all the time.
And I never thought about it.
But the moment that I thought about it, it was hilarious to me.
Because if I think of every encounter I've ever had with anybody black...
Like, none of my memories involve them eating cheese.
Now, that doesn't mean they don't eat cheese.
In fact, if you did a study, I don't know if there'd be any difference at all.
I have no idea if there'd be any difference in cheese eating among ethnicities.
No idea. But the fact that it struck me as true, because just my, you know, selective observation about the world...
It was hilarious to me, because I never thought about it.
Now, in the same way that I am not offended by somebody saying that white people like cheese, it's just absurdist and sort of sounds true but isn't true, so it's funny.
When I see that every girl is bi, you just have to figure out if it's bipolar or bisexual, clearly he doesn't mean that to be literally true.
But there's something about it that at least to men...
Sorry. At least to men.
Sounds true while we know it's not actually true.
So that's the perfect joke.
It feels true, but you know it isn't.
It's absurdist.
So you've got to be able to let that one go.
I can see humor being not funny and just cruel, and maybe those deserve apologies or not.
You could have that argument. But if it's absurdist, I don't know.
So here's what I recommend as a standard.
And I would like to tell you, here's sort of an insider thing, so you can say you heard it here.
If I am ever forced to apologize for something I retweeted, and you see me apologize...
Just know that my apology is part of the joke.
You got that? Because it's going to sound a little bit too sincere.
I'm going to tweak it 10%.
If I tweak it 20%, people are going to say, wait a minute, that's not a sincere apology.
I think he's just yanking our chain.
So I'm not going to tweak it 20%.
I'm going to dial it back.
It's going to be a 110% apology so that you know I'm just fucking with you.
So if I ever have to give that apology, just know, just between us, the apology is part of the joke.
All right. So that Amber Heard and Johnny Depp trial is rocking civilization in so many ways.
Here's what we should have learned.
And I thought we would.
I thought we were going to learn about defamation laws and who can lie about somebody in what way.
And I thought that would be good for the public to know, right?
Wouldn't you like to know more about that?
Like who can sue for what and what would it take to win defamation?
So I thought we'd learn a lot about that from that trial.
I thought people who have not been subjected to the addiction lifestyle might have learned something about the depths of addiction.
And how bad that is, listening to Johnny Depp's story.
And then I thought the most important part was that we heard experts talk about this so-called cluster B personality disorders that allegedly Amber Heard was part of, according to at least one psychiatrist.
And I thought, wow, if the public learned all of that, that would be a lot.
Imagine how much better off we'd be if we understood what kind of lies you cannot get away with or should not get away with.
Imagine if people were more critical about what they hear about accusations of other people and more understanding that things in the headlines can be completely made up.
So I would say that that would have been a good lesson.
And knowing about addiction, that would be good, and knowing about these cluster B things.
But the media has turned this into a story about men versus women.
What? Do you know what the Amber Heard and Johnny Depp trial was not about?
The thing it was least about was men versus women.
That's what it was least about.
And somehow the media just turned it into that, because that's the cash cow.
It's got to be men versus women.
And here's why I say it wasn't.
Because you could have reversed the story and just run through the same way.
You could have reversed who said what about who, and it would have turned out about the same, wouldn't it?
Because it was about an addict...
Who was in a dysfunctional relationship with somebody who, according to experts, had cluster B personality disorder.
So you should have been learning about an addict and a cluster B personality disorder, and if you put them together, what are you going to get?
The fact that that turns into man versus woman, what?
Their genders had nothing to do with it.
You have to actually, like, reach to find it.
Even in terms of the physicality, and even in terms of who was able to hurt who the most, that wasn't even male versus female.
Because I don't think anybody was saying, That Amber Heard was the one who was afraid of Johnny Depp.
They were probably afraid of each other at some points.
But it didn't feel like there was a physicality thing.
At one point it was a power-related thing because he hired her and she was younger and he was older.
But it wasn't really that by the time it got to this trial.
I mean, that was history by then.
So, somehow we managed to avoid the important lessons here, that there are people with these cluster B personality disorders, and if you run into one, you're gonna get this.
The cluster B personality disorder, they're destroyers.
They destroy everybody and everything they touch, including themselves.
So, if you didn't learn that, You learned absolutely the wrong thing.
If you learned this was about...
I was reading today that this is the pushback to the Me Too movement, to which I say, no, it wasn't.
No, it wasn't at all.
It was about these two very specific people who had very specific personality characteristics.
One was addicted.
The other was allegedly a cluster B personality disorder.
That's what the story is.
The gender stuff's a misdirection.
So I told you my county alone among over 3,000 counties in the United States decided to reinstitute indoor mask mandates yesterday.
The good news is the locals, a lot of them are just ignoring it.
So I'm not sure if the word hasn't gotten around.
But there's a lot of ignoring it, I've heard.
So I'm not directly witnessing it yet, but we'll see.
Here's an update on long COVID personal experience.
So a week ago, I had my first symptoms.
And, you know, the first few days were rugged of Omicron, I guess, Omicron.
And then I thought by the third day, oh, I'm fine.
Fourth day, I actually felt better than normal because it was like a bounce back, I guess.
I didn't feel bad anymore, so I felt good.
But let me tell you, I don't know if the exhaustion is because of this or something else, but I've never dealt with anything like this, the fatigue part.
And here's what I'm going to add to this.
Describing that as exhaustion or fatigue are misleading.
And I have a suspicion that it's a dopamine shortage.
Here's why. I told you in a prior livestream a while ago that I learned that dopamine is associated with two things.
One is your mood, you know, how happy you are, how good you feel.
Now that's the part you knew. Lots of dopamine, you feel good.
What I didn't know, and I learned more recently, is that dopamine is attached to your movement.
And if you don't have the right dopamine levels, your movement is off.
So Parkinson's is a shortage of dopamine.
So you get the shakes.
To fix it, they add some fake dopamine in, L-doper or whatever it is, to compensate that.
So there's this connection between your mood...
And your movement, they're inseparable.
Your mood and your ability to move are inseparable.
And when you first think about that, you think to yourself, well, that's very inefficient.
Like, why are they even connected?
And then you think about it.
Why do you do anything?
Because you think it'll pay off.
That's it. That's why you do anything.
The reason you stand up.
The reason you walk into the next room.
The reason you turn on the light when you walk into a dark room.
Everything you do is because you think there'll be a payoff.
And payoff, the currency of payoff is dopamine.
That's like the internal cryptocurrency in your brain.
It's like, oh, do this thing, here's your payoff.
Here's your payoff. Here's your payoff.
But what happens when the payoff, like the blockchain for your payoffs, disappears for a while?
Because let me describe what the fatigue feels like to me.
Because I was experiencing it yesterday like a mofo.
And what it feels like is like nothing I've ever experienced.
You know what it's like to be tired, and you know what it's like to be fatigued.
Normally, right? If you're actually just physically exhausted.
But let me ask you this.
Even when you're really, really tired, like really tired, you can still get up and do something you want, can't you?
Like, you wouldn't want to get up and get yourself a cold glass of water, but if you were thirsty, you could be just exhausted and you'd still be alright, because it'd be a payoff.
You'd get a little dopamine hit.
What it feels like when you have this COVID, long COVID thing, you feel like your dopamine is gone.
I don't know if that's what's happening, but I'll tell you on the inside, it feels like the reason to move left.
That's different. That doesn't feel like just being exhausted.
My arms and legs would be like just dead weights, but the brain part that says do it anyway...
It was turned off. It was just turned off.
I could not connect needing to do something that my brain would say, all right, you obviously need to do this.
You need to eat this food or walk in this next room or feed the dog.
You just need to do this.
And the need to do it was disconnected from my body.
And I think the dopamine feedback connection was just gone.
And you know how sometimes you can feel just empty?
That emptiness feels to me like the dopamine blockchain just broke.
Like I can't get any reward for anything.
So, I immediately googled dopamine and COVID, and of course, there are articles suggesting there's some kind of connection.
Now, it might be serotonin, you know, I might have my chemistry wrong, but we're talking about happy chemicals versus less happy, and I think the dopamine specifically is the movement one.
So, here's what's interesting.
I upgraded my cannabis last night because I got a bad batch that was really nasty.
It was a bad batch that was too strong.
It was like just banging yourself with a hammer.
So I got something that would do nothing but boost my dopamine.
What happened as soon as I boosted my dopamine?
My physical body Was willing to move.
So it didn't give me...
I didn't feel like it gave me energy.
I feel like it connected the blockchain, and now my dopamine rewards were connected to my movement, even for the smallest stuff.
Like, it feels good just to stand up.
Just walk outside.
And... Yeah, I did start drumming, actually.
So... Somebody says, my Parkinson's was impacted by COVID. Which way?
Which way was it impacted?
Worsened, right? Because if you had Parkinson's and then you got COVID, you'd be doubly hit on your dopamine, maybe?
I don't know. All right, enough about me.
What would you get if Oprah and Donald Trump had a baby?
Here's a quiz. If Oprah...
And Trump had a baby.
Somebody says Candace Owens.
Alright, that's funny. That's not where I was going.
Alice Sharpton, somebody said...
No, Dr.
Oz. Dr.
Oz. Alright, if you follow politics, that's funnier.
Yeah, because Oprah was sort of kicked off Dr.
Oz's career on TV, and Trump probably is the reason that Dr.
Oz won his primary.
So Dr.
Oz is the weirdest duck of all ducks.
He's the love child of Oprah and Trump in a weird way.
Well, they say, the experts say, summer travel will be a nightmare.
I have to admit that when I thought about travelling this summer, I thought to myself, I think that would be a nightmare.
I don't know how I'd be willing to do it.
It seems like just getting somewhere would be nearly impossible.
And who knows if there's going to be more mask mandates everywhere.
Who knows? But has anybody cancelled travel either because of gas?
Yeah, gas prices. How many of you have cancelled travel?
For the summer. Or cut back.
Oh, wow. I'm seeing a lot of yeses.
A lot of noes, too.
Wow. Well, if those numbers are true, maybe we won't have the problem we think.
Because there's a self-correcting thing going on here.
I remember when...
When the Pope was visiting San Francisco a million years ago, and the advice was, do not drive a car into San Francisco that day.
Because the Pope will be here, it will be a mass, just crazy time.
Whatever you do, do not get in a car and come to San Francisco on that day.
Turns out, I had to get in a car and go to San Francisco that day.
I was the only one on the road.
It was the easiest travel I've ever had to San Francisco because everybody thought it was serious.
So everybody left their car home.
The streets were empty. It was like the easiest I've ever driven in the city.
Maybe enough people will cancel their travel because of the high gas prices and everything else that it won't be that hard.
But I don't know. Could go either way.
It's dicey. Chris Hayes from MSNBC had this tweet talking about the right to shoot an intruder in your home.
And he says, just play out what that means.
So it was part of a larger thread.
So if it feels like it's in a context, I would invite you to see his larger thread.
He says, just play out what that means.
So he's talking about the Second Amendment being used to protect people from the government.
So one of the arguments for the Second Amendment is it protects the citizens from their own government.
So in that context, Chris Hayes says, just play out what that means.
You have the right to shoot an intruder to your home, And you have the right to...
put a bullet in the head of someone from the government who is doing things that are, quote, overly intrusive.
So he's saying that if it's okay to shoe somebody who's being overly intrusive in your home, would that apply to the government?
To which I said, I replied, the implied threat of violence both ways is the operating system that keeps America free.
There is an implied threat of violence, not only from the government to its citizens, but from the citizens to its government.
And if you took away either of those, the system would fall apart.
So Chris Hayes, yes, yes, you do want your government to think that there's some line, I don't know what that line is, but you do want your government to think there's a line.
If you cross this line, all bets are off.
And if you don't think that keeps the whole country together, you're overlooking the value of violence.
Or as I think Jordan Peterson says it better, the implied threat of violence.
Implied threat of male violence is usually the context he's talking about.
So yeah, that's not a situation I would run away from in an imperfect world.
We'll talk about Navarro.
Bill Maher on his show, I guess last night, he was worried about the Republicans stealing the pot legalization issue.
He was talking to Eric Holder, I guess.
And what do you think of that?
Are you worried? Not worried, but do you think the Republicans will try to steal the legalization issue?
Because I guess when the Democrats passed it in the House, they put a bunch of equity things in there, you know, like advantages for African American sellers, I guess, growers or sellers.
And the Republicans said no to that because it was too much about the equity, according to Bill Maher's characterization of it.
So, what do you think?
Do you think that the Republicans would take the free money that's sitting on the table and just pick it up and say, oh, I'll take this free money.
We'll decriminalize this and...
Nope. No.
No, I don't think that the Republicans have that capability.
So... Sorry.
It would be smart to do, and it would work...
But no, the Republicans are not competent enough to do that.
I hate to say it, but they're not.
Am I wrong? And it's not really about what they believe or what they think is right or who's going to be injured by it.
It's nothing to do with that.
I think the Republicans simply don't have the competence to do it.
Now, I think that Republicans have better opinions on some topics, so this isn't anti-Republican rhetoric here, but on this one topic, they're not competent.
They're just not capable.
Because this literally is just a pile of free money sitting on a table.
If you can't lean over and scoop a gigantic pile of free money into your bag, and it's like there's a sign on it that says, here's some free money, free money, it's just this big pile of money.
There's no downside. Just scoop it into your bag.
Just scoop it in. That's all you have to do.
And the Republicans are not capable of doing that.
Unfortunately. I don't think it matters.
Let me bang one more Republican here and lose half of my audience.
Let's see if you can hang in here with me on this.
Let me compliment you first.
Many of you. You've heard this before, right?
A number of people who are not naturally Republicans got support from Republicans.
Joe Rogan, for example.
Elon Musk. People you don't think of as maybe naturally Republican in any way.
But they got so much support from Republicans...
Because Republicans support free speech, among other things.
Free enterprise, too.
So that's what draws me to this audience as well, is that I've sort of developed an audience of people who are forgiving things I would like to be forgiven for, which is having a different opinion than you.
So it's one of the few places that I actually feel like I can disagree with people that's okay.
It's with Republicans.
Conservatives. Let's say conservatives.
Yeah, I like that framing better.
We'll say conservatives. Conservatives are much more likely to be okay with the difference of opinion if...
but there's a big if.
What's the big if? What's the one thing you have to do?
Maybe two. In order for a conservative to say, all right, I'm not going to hate you for that opinion.
Mutual respect.
Exactly. Mutual respect.
That's number one.
Right? But the other thing is that show your work.
How about that? How about just show your work?
You know, I show my assumptions and they might be different than yours.
For example, If you've got an opinion that starts with, you know, the Bible tells me to do X, I don't have that same belief.
So we might get to a different point.
But I have complete respect for anybody who lives a, let's say, a religion-informed lifestyle.
Because it works. You don't need a better argument than that.
Somebody chooses a lifestyle that clearly, statistically works.
I'm not going to mock that.
I'm going to say, good work.
You did a good job of picking something that works for you.
If it worked for me, I'd pick it too.
Because it works. It just doesn't work for me.
So, with that in mind, and with your indulgence...
There's a report that Ron DeSantis blocked state funding for the Tampa Bay Rays training facility because they had tweeted something he didn't like about gun control.
Now, his public reason was that he doesn't want the state to fund sports teams' training facilities, which I think is actually a pretty strong reason.
And if that's the only reason, oh, that's fine.
I'm not even sure I'd agree or disagree with it, but if his reason is the government should not be in that business, whenever conservatives say that, it doesn't even matter what the topic is.
When a conservative says the government shouldn't be in that business, I automatically respect that opinion.
Just automatically. Doesn't mean I'm going to agree with it, because there might be an exception.
I'm more likely to tolerate an exception than some of you are.
But I even understand why you wouldn't tolerate them.
Even that's a good argument.
So, here's my problem with DeSantis.
I like the conservatives who are in favor of free speech.
I like the conservatives who are in favor of free speech, because that's also the umbrella with which you accept me.
Well, I get the argument, and I respect it, I get the argument that if conservatives push back against the corporate entities, it'll take the corporations out of the conversation, and maybe you want that.
Maybe you don't want corporations to be influencing these things.
Maybe it should just be people in their government and not the corporations.
Maybe. I mean, I disagree with that.
Because I think corporations are just another example of free speech.
But I would respect the opinion that you've got to fight back and maintain your rights and stuff.
I get it. But I'm going to go that I don't know how I could support somebody running for president who did something that's anti-free speech.
That's sort of disqualifying.
Can you imagine Trump doing something that was anti-free speech?
You can definitely imagine Trump punishing people for not supporting him.
Right? He's got a history of that.
But would he punish somebody just for anti-free speech?
Or for expressing their opinion that way?
Would he? I don't know.
I wouldn't like it if he did.
But I feel like he wouldn't.
I feel like this is a rare DeSantis error.
And the reason I talk about DeSantis so much is because he is so error-free in his pitch-perfect, at least satisfying his base, pitch-perfect.
And maybe this does.
Let me ask you, so I'll put it to you.
Do you agree with DeSantis pushing back on the Tampa Bay Rays?
Do you agree with DeSantis?
Yes or no? Do you agree with DeSantis?
Looking at your comments, I see lots of agreements, but I see some disagreements.
Somebody said if he's not honest about it.
Yeah, okay. Okay.
So let me throw that in the mix.
Suppose you knew he was lying about his reason.
Would you be okay with it then?
If you knew he was lying, we don't know that, by the way.
That's just somebody's allegation.
We don't know that. And by the way, if his public reason is actually real, I'm fine with that.
If the public reason, he just doesn't want to waste money on sports teams, sure.
I'm okay. I just got my questions there.
Rasmussen Reports did a poll on people who watched 2,000 Mules, the documentary that alleges to show these people stuffing ballot boxes.
And of those who have seen it, the question was, did the film strengthen or weaken your conviction that there was systemic and widespread election fraud in the 2020 election?
So 68% of Democrats who watched it were strengthened in their belief that there was fraud in that election.
And of course, GOP, 85%, blah, blah.
So even independents, 77%.
And somebody asked, who are these Democrats who would watch that movie?
How many Democrats at all would watch that movie?
How did you even poll this?
I'm not even sure if they really watched the movie.
Maybe they just said they did.
Anyway, the way I read this poll is, if you're a Democrat and you watch that movie at all, You are already open to being persuaded.
Am I right? If you were a Democrat who would watch an entire documentary against your own team, you are already open to being persuaded.
So it doesn't really tell you anything that it's persuasive.
The way you should read this is documentaries are persuasive.
That's all. And I've told you that before.
The reason you shouldn't believe a documentary is because it's designed to be believed.
It's not designed to be right.
Big difference.
A documentary is designed to be believed, not designed to be accurate.
All right. Peter Navarro was arrested on getting on a flight yesterday, I guess.
He was handcuffed.
He was put in leg shackles and taken in for, I guess his crime is...
He's contempt of Congress for not agreeing to go cooperate with their January 6th committee.
Now, he has his reasons why he's not cooperating, and he doesn't think that the committee is legitimately formed and staffed and therefore has no authority over him.
And he apparently knows personally some of the FBI people, and he's basically said, hey, if you want me to come in, just let me know.
And they still dragged him off an airplane in public, in chains.
Now, do you think they did that to Sussman?
Did Sussman have shackles?
Did he get arrested in public?
And... So I saw Peter Navarro talking about it after he got released probably on bail, I guess.
Did you see this?
Can you tell me how this made you feel?
Because I felt something.
And I didn't like it at all.
When it happened to Roger Stone, I said to myself, well, this is a travesty, but it might also be a one-off.
It's not one-off.
Apparently, there's just a different standard for how the Trump supporters are being treated.
This is so clear now.
And, I mean, I guess you'll say it was always clear.
But, I mean, this is just shocking.
Now, Peter Navarro also has a new book out called Taking Back Trump's America, which as of this morning was number four on Amazon.
And I've been pumping it up, telling people to buy his book, because it's how he's going to pay for his defense.
You know, I don't know if he could even make enough money from the book, even if it's the number one bestseller, to pay for the defense, because the defense is pretty expensive.
But I thought, I don't like where this went.
I don't like what my government did, and I would like to push a little power back in his direction.
So as one small thing that I could do, I've been tweeting support of his book, and I bought it myself, of course.
So I pre-ordered it, and I would recommend that you do the same.
If it gets to number one, Then his defense will be bolstered, both financially and in the public.
And I think that that's the appropriate way to handle this.
Now, by the way, Mark Meadows and Dan Scavino, who are in similar situations, are not going to be charged.
And the reason given is that they cooperated a little bit.
So they're not going to agree to testify.
But in the case of Mark Meadows, he gave some documents, and Dan Scavino has at least talked to them a few times or whatever.
So I think it was the fact that Navarro was being an absolutist about this that got him in trouble.
But I feel as though there were lots of reasons to not support Trump in a re-election.
Because he's divisive.
Am I right? He's divisive.
The first time I supported Trump...
I don't know how often I've said this directly in public, but let me tell you my real reason I supported Trump for the first time.
I wanted him to break everything.
Because everything needed to be broken.
I wanted demolition.
And in a large way, I got what I wanted.
He did demolish everything.
And not without its cost, right?
It's not free to demolish stuff.
But I wanted things just broken.
Because there'd be at least a chance we could build them back better.
But there wasn't any chance they could keep working the way they were working.
So we needed somebody strong enough to just break the system.
And that's what he... I think he did that in a number of ways.
He definitely broke the system Trump did in the sense that there are things that we think about differently permanently now.
That part's completely different.
Certainly we understand fake news.
We just understand a lot more than we did.
But this Peter Navarro thing is almost like a bat call for Trump.
I suppose I'd want to hear what DeSantis said about the situation, if he has anything to say about it.
But if Peter Navarro ends up serving jail time or something for this, what appears to be hunting Republicans...
You know, the whole January 6th witch hunt sort of thing.
Which is not to say that there weren't bad people who need to be brought to justice.
Everybody understands there were some bad people there who did illegal, dangerous things.
So we're not talking about them.
We're talking about the people who were just protesting.
And, I don't know, this Peter Navarro treatment, this feels like it could happen to me.
Like, actually, literally me.
Like, actually, I saw myself in chains.
Because, you know, Navarro's...
He's pretty close to the inner circle, but the real reason he's being treated like this is because he's effective.
It's because he's effective.
And I worry that if somebody thinks I'm too effective, I will get taken out, too.
Now, as you might imagine, I have been warned that that's going to happen.
And warned by people who definitely know what they're talking about when they make warnings of that kind.
So I know it's coming for me.
But we'll see how interesting that gets.
So I would say that sometime between now and 2024, yeah, I'll either get metooed Or there'll be, like, a big fake news of something I said that's out of context.
Something like that.
Yeah. But it's definitely coming my way.
I don't mind a good fight, so let's bring that on.
Bring it on. All right.
Did you see the tweet exchange between Elon Musk and the CEO of another electric car company called Atlassian?
Atlassian. Terrible name for a company.
And their CEO was responding to the fact that Musk said people need to come to the actual office to work at Tesla.
And one of their co-founders at Atlassian, Scott Farkuhar, He tweeted a thread that he was mocking Musk and he says, today feels like something out of the 1950s.
Quote, everyone at Tesla is required to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week.
Very different approach to what we are taking at Atlassian and here's why.
And he goes on to describe their open remote work culture and how successful and economical and awesome it is.
And then Elon Musk replies to the entire thread this way.
The above set of tweets illustrate why recessions serve a vital economic cleansing function.
Oh, God.
That is so funny.
So he lets this guy just use all of his ammo, like this big thread of how awesome they are.
And when he's all done, well, that illustrates why recessions serve a vital economic cleansing function.
That is so good.
That's just so good.
All right, well, the news of Ukraine is equally ridiculous.
All right.
That Putin has won everything he wanted, and the big worry is that we don't want to humiliate him before we sue for peace.
Now, wait a minute. Don't we have to make up our mind?
How can it be true?
That Putin has won everything he really wanted, which is 90% of the economic engine of Ukraine, plus a land bridge, plus total control of Ukraine's access to the ocean.
Basically, Putin won the war and he's just consolidating it now.
At the same time that Putin totally won the war, we're trying to make sure we don't make him feel bad.
Or humiliate him for his gigantic victory.
What is happening?
What is happening?
They can't both be true.
Does Putin think that he lost?
Are we worried that Putin thinks he lost?
Because I think Putin thinks that he will tell the Russian people he won.
He will add this gigantic economic engine to Russia.
They will adjust to the sanctions.
And probably come on ahead.
If you had to ask me to score this on economics alone, now on evil, it's evil.
So, you know, on the evil checklist, evil, yes or no?
Oh, yes. Yes, it was evil.
So we're not talking evil.
That's no contest.
But economics, it looks to me like it was a good investment.
I hate to say it.
Because you don't want anybody to be incentivized to do it again.
But it does look like it's going to work, as of today.
What do you think? I mean, it's too hard to predict, but as of today, it looks like it worked.
And it looks like Putin's maybe not going to drop dead tomorrow, and it looks like he will be the hero of Russia for consolidating that part of the world.
I don't know. I think he probably gained more than the sanctions will cost him in the long run.
Assuming he can find workarounds and places to sell his energy, I think he probably will.
Yeah, work was good for business, so that's not exactly what we hope to get out of that, is it?
Alright, is there anything I didn't talk about that you know I should have?
Weed variety.
What about it?
Thank you.
Who doesn't want to buy oil, yeah?
Psycho-provocations is what is evil.
So do you think that...
How does the Biden administration spin the fact that they put $40 billion into losing?
Because what is it that we're protecting there, exactly?
You know, is the Ukraine that's left 10% of the economic power of what it had?
That's the part we're defending?
Because it feels like that's going to just turn into farmland or something.
I guess it probably is.
Oh, Navarro persuasion evaluation in future live streams.
So the question is, was Navarro persuasive?
I would say yes.
Because Navarro was visual.
He talked about, you know, the actual...
You could imagine the visual part of it.
There were no... I didn't see any pictures.
Has anybody seen pictures of him being apprehended?
I hate to say apprehended.
No. So he did a good job of describing it, especially with the chains on the legs.
He also said that they put him in James Hinckley's cell because they thought it was funny.
Or they thought it was funny to mention it to him.
Just think about that. Imagine being put in a Hinckley cell.
Now... Alright.
Indica or sativa?
Both. It depends on the time of day.
Alright. Yeah, do you think that my prediction that Republicans would be haunted was accurate?
You know what I would love is if somebody would put together a meme of all the times that Republicans have been haunted.
Has anybody ever done that? Have you ever seen it?
Because every time somebody says, one of the things I'm most criticized for, actually, I think the things throughout my life that I've been most criticized for, I was right.
I guess it always works that way.
All right.
It does look like we've been haunted, people say. .
Yeah, you know, so people think that that's my dumbest thing I've ever said.
So when the people on the left want to take my old tweets to embarrass me, which they do if I make a good point in the present, there should be a name for people who try to show your past tweets To criticize your current opinion.
Because it's ridiculous.
Either your current opinion makes sense on its own or it doesn't.
you don't really need to bring in the past, do you?
Yeah, so just finishing my Trump statement about Navarro.
If Navarro goes down, As in goes to prison over this, specifically this, I feel like I'm all in on Trump.
And it wouldn't be even based on policy again.
It would be based on him breaking the system.
So if DeSantis would break the system, maybe I could get behind him if he'd be a little more free speech.
That part does bother me.
Unfortunately, we don't have the option of the politician who gives us everything we want.
You've got to pick one who's 80% there at best.
It can't hinge on electing Trump.
Yeah, it's just that Trump's the only one who could break the system at this point.
But I think he might over-break it.
There is a risk. All right.
I believe I have done everything I need to do today.
My mission is complete.
You're all smarter and happier.
Some of you are better looking.
Have any of you noticed that you get a dopamine hit from watching this livestream?
Anybody? Yeah, you do.
Is there a point in the livestream where you can feel it the most?
It's the caffeine.
So here's a little...
Thank you, you too. Now, here's a little tip.
If you want to train a human, it's the same as training a dog.
Now, that's not an insult to humans, right?
Are there enough dog lovers here that you get that that's not an insult to humans?
That humans and dogs can be trained the same way, with treats.
We go toward treats and we go away from pain.
So here's the rule.
You can train people with traits in two different ways, you know, simplifying.
One is a huge, huge single trait, and people will work really hard to get it, like a lottery.
You know, people will do irrational things to win a lottery, like buy a ticket.
So you can train them with a delicious, gigantic treat.
But you can also train people with micro doses of treats.
Just little imperceptible benefits.
By pairing this show with a sip of coffee, even if you've had several sips already and even if you drink coffee every day, the pairing of the show with the sensation of the coffee, because the coffee gives you a positive feeling, should, in theory, over time, even if it's the tiniest, tiniest little micro treat, it should addict you over time in a way that when you come back, it triggers the dopamine.
So we're actually setting up a brain hack.
And I'm doing this right in front of you, intentionally and with your permission.
Because if you don't like this, all you have to do is not drink coffee.
Or join late.
So it's a voluntary experiment.
But you can see in the answers that it works.
If you just consistently pair the positive thing over time, those little micro benefits add up.
So this is one of the things you can do in your social life.
Or your business life, too.
You can give people the smallest, smallest little benefits as long as they're consistent.
So that every time that they see you, they get this little micro treat and they might not even register it.
Don't even know why. When people ask me how I'm doing, well, actually, what do you say?
Let me ask you this question.
I'll ask you as if I walked past you on the street.
Amazing. Because every time somebody says, how are you doing, and I say, amazing, it makes them feel good.
It does. Try it.
If somebody says, how are you doing, and you just look at them and say, amazing, they will feel good.
Because you know what feels good?
Hanging around with people who feel good.
It's like one of the best feelings in the world.
There's nothing that is consistently awesome than just being near somebody who feels good.
It just comes off on you.
So here's the smallest little life hack that could change your life completely.
When somebody asks you, how are you doing?
Just say, amazing.
It doesn't even have to be true.
But you will give them a little treat every time they have that interaction with you.
And over time, they'll have this positive feeling about you and they won't even know why.
They'll think it's because of your good looks and your sex appeal.
But it will be because you literally gave them a treat every time you saw them.
And it adds up. So, the hypnotist worldview is that we're continuously engaged in treats and penalties.
And that if you don't see the world that way, then you're inadvertently penalizing and treating people.
So you're not getting the result you want, because you're throwing treats into the wind, and you're throwing penalties into the wind.
And you're just randomly...
And if somebody says, why are you acting that way?
You'd say, I'm just being me.
I'm just being me.
I'm just being honest.
Well, you have that option.
You can just be you.
And you can be honest, and that works for a lot of people.
But, if you want to be effective and happy, and have friends and stuff like that, then I would recommend that you don't do that honest thing.
That you do what is good for other people, however that feels, because that's how you get the treats, and you build this virtuous feedback thing.
So definitely don't be yourself, and don't be honest.
If your alternative is to be nice to people and give them something that can change them in a positive way.
Somebody says, "I expect that retail personnel are trained to ask customer, 'How's your day going?' But whenever I ask if that's the case, they always deny it.
I don't think it's part of the actual training, though.
Except that they probably observed whoever trained them doing the same thing.
I think it's just what you say when you meet people.
What about accusations of what?
Of sounding fake?
Well, let me ask you this.
If you saw me and you said, how are you doing?
And I said, amazing. Would your first thought be, well, this guy's such a fake.
I'll bet it's not so amazing.
Would you think that? I don't think most of you would.
I think most of you would say that I'm saying that for a fact.
And that I'd rather be around somebody who said positive things.
You know, the whole thing about...
I'm going to go even further here.
This is going to be a little more provocative than you hoped for.
I'm going to lose a few of you on this.
People who think in that frame of people being fake versus not fake are really disadvantaged in life.
It's a very, very nonproductive frame.
So just keep that in mind.
Here's why.
So if you're worried about who's fake and who's not, you're losing the fact that it's all fake.
That's really important.
It's really important.
If you think some of it's true, You are going to have a terrible life because you won't be able to navigate that kind of reality, trying to figure out who's being authentic and who's being fake.
If you think some people are authentic, you'll never understand anything.
There's no such thing as authentic.
There's just what people do.
Whatever reason they do it, they do it.
They just do it. So the whole what is fake and what isn't, as soon as you allow that to be your frame, you're lost.
I would never hire somebody who had that frame of view.
Because they'd be lost in it.
They wouldn't be able to navigate the real world.
I want somebody who says, oh, this guy's acting fake, but it's really working well.
This one's acting fake, but in a way that isn't getting them what they want.
So that's not working well.
And this one's acting fake in a way that makes me feel good.
Oh, I like that. Yeah, you should be choosing among the fakes, the positive fakes, the good fakes.
You should not be looking for the truth.
If you're looking for that, you are lost.
So there's some personal questions I'm not going to answer, so don't bother asking.
Okay.
People connect to you more when you're genuine.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry you believe that.
I don't know.
There's definitely something to the fact that in a one-to-one personal relationship, That people are more likely to fall in love with somebody who shows you their flaws.
Are you with me so far?
If somebody shows you their flaws, you can be comfortable with them, and maybe you think you know everything about them that you need to know, and then you can really bond.
But is that a question of fake or not fake?
See, I think somebody who shows you their flaws is also probably aware that they've chosen an approach.
See what I'm saying? It's all fake.
It's a strategy. The people who say, I'm just going to show you all my flaws, have decided that that's who they are, and then they're going to present themselves that way.
Nothing's true. These are just decisions that people made.
And they choose innocuous flaws, exactly.
Be careful the people who tell you all their flaws.
They might be holding out a few.
Might be a few they haven't mentioned.
Yeah, that's always something to worry about.
But if you tell yourself you live in a world in which everybody is putting on a show, then you can understand everything.
And you say to yourself, what is your obligation in a world in which everybody's putting on a show?
To put on a show.
You're part of the show.
So do your part.
Put on your show. Just make sure that the show you put on is positive.
Like somebody's better off because of it.
If I tell you that everything's going to be fine, even if I think it's not, but there's also nothing you can do about it, So you'd be better off not worrying about it because there's just nothing you can do about it.
That would be dishonest and fake and all that, right?
But it would be well-intentioned.
And sometimes that's the best you can do.
The best you can do is good intentions.
And I think the only way anybody ever gets to good intentions is by genuinely believing that that works out for them as well.
Which I do. It is my observation that having good intentions usually works out for me, like in a selfish way.
It just takes longer.
It takes a little longer for that impact to work its way around, but I'm willing to wait.
I'm patient. Yeah, so don't try to be genuine.
Try to put on a show that's the best show you can put on that helps the world and you too.
