Episode 1783 Scott Adams: The News Is Weird But So Are We. Come Join Us
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a
Find my "extra" content on Locals: https://ScottAdams.Locals.com
Content:
Germany's gas shortage
Mark Cuban's online pharmacy startup
People who knew the election was fair
Why are some news stories not about trans community?
Ethan Klein vs Jordan Peterson on Ellen Page's breasts
Alameda county STILL requires masks
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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
I think it's time for the best thing that ever happened to you.
It's called Coffee with Scott Adams, and if you went someplace else to watch it, you were in the wrong place.
But those of you who are watching it now...
Wow! Have you chosen correctly?
And not only that, but it's going to another level.
Yep. All you need is a cup or mug or a glass, a tanker Chelsea Stein, 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 dopamine of the day, the thing that makes everything better, can you feel your dopamine and oxytocin starting to spike?
Probably. Probably.
Go. Oh, savor it.
That's so good. So good.
Well, I did a little thing last night that I don't know if you've ever done this.
It's called Not Getting Enough Sleep.
Wow! I'm really good a day or two without enough sleep, but how many emergencies can one person have after midnight?
You know, never big ones, but there's always something that you have to get up for at midnight.
There's always a lost dog or a smell or a leak or some damn thing.
Yes, I did have another water leak problem, but that's another story.
CNN's ratings continue to plunge.
Do you know why their ratings continue to plunge?
Because their new boss is trying to make them report real news without the sensationalism.
Nobody wants it.
That's the problem.
Nobody wants it.
You know, everybody's so smart and they say, you know, why can't the news give us just the straight news like it did in the 60s?
I'll tell you why.
Nobody will watch it.
So CNN is embarking in an experiment to destroy their own business, apparently, in which they're going to try to be less sensational.
Why would anyone watch less sensational news?
If you had a choice, Between sensational news and less sensational news, meaning that the hyperbole would be added or not, which one would you watch?
You say you'd watch the one without the hyperbole.
That's what you say.
If I did a survey, I bet a lot of people would say, you know, I don't need all that opinion and all that exaggeration and bigotry and one side is right and one side is wrong.
I don't need any of that. But if you were given two choices, you would take that, as long as it was on your side.
Who in the world wants to see neutral things when they can see victory?
Because that's what the news sources do.
They tell you your side is right.
If you turn on Fox News, it is going to be one story after another telling you that you were right all along, meaning you as a Fox News regular viewer.
Yep, you were right all along.
When you warn that if this happens, bad things will happen, well, here it is.
You are so smart.
Who is not going to watch that?
I mean, seriously. If you could watch news that's just, somebody did something, we don't know what it means, or we totally know what it means, and it proves how smart you are.
Which one are you going to watch?
I'm going to watch the one that says I'm smart.
I may be small, but I'm not unaware of it.
All right. Here's the perpetual news news.
You know, the news that never changes every day.
Germany is in a gas shortage.
As Andres Beckhaus, I think I saw a tweet, in which he pointed out, the news is that this wasn't already news.
Why is Germany just preparing for a shortage?
Because that's the story.
Germany's getting more aggressive about preparing the public for upcoming gas shortages.
Well, they're not upcoming, they're already there.
So there's already a gas shortage.
Because of Russia.
Now Russia says you have to reduce the amount of gas not to punish Germany, But rather because they couldn't get equipment from the West that was needed to keep their facilities working.
What do you think is true?
Do you think it's true that the one and only reason Putin cut gas production is to put pressure on the economies so that they would give him what he wants?
Or do you think that he didn't have spare parts because that was exactly our strategy to deny him spare parts?
He's kind of calling your bluff, isn't he?
Not yours, but...
So the United States says, we're going to sanction Russia, and they won't be able to get any modern spare parts, so their industries that require Western technology will eventually crumble.
And then it works, and they can't get spare parts, and so they can't deliver gas, so Germany doesn't have enough gas.
Isn't that exactly what we were trying to do?
Am I wrong? If we were preventing Russia from getting this replacement equipment, and there was no exception for the energy industry, as far as I know, weren't we making sure that Germany had a shortage this year?
If you were Putin, which would you prefer doing?
Reducing the gas to Germany and making them replace your sources, maybe forever, Or selling as much gas to Germany as you possibly can, making as much profit as you can, to keep the Russian economy as strong as you can.
Which one of those would have been a better strategy?
Because they're both sort of, you know, longer-term war strategy.
You know, one says, put a little pressure on the enemy, and, you know, that'll be one part of the larger picture of why they fold.
Maybe. Maybe the pressure on Germany's public will make them fold.
I don't know. Maybe. But it's also possible that having Russia make more money by selling more gas could be a good thing too.
We don't know what's good and bad anymore.
We've completely lost the ability to know that if something happens, whatever the something is, therefore something else will happen.
I just saw a Mike Cernovich tweet just before I came on.
I'm trying to digest it as sort of a new thought.
And he says, I'm paraphrasing, that if you think you know what's going to happen with real estate prices, He thinks you should be blocked immediately.
Anybody who's sure they know what's going to happen with real estate prices.
Because one of the things he points out is that, sure, you know, interest rates are going up, so mortgages are more expensive, so it's harder to buy a house.
That makes sense. So if it's harder to buy a house, the prices of houses might go down.
But as Mike points out, rents are probably going up.
Because there are more people than places to live.
I think that's the only reason rent goes up, right?
There are more people than there are places to live.
So as long as that's the case, people are either going to have to pay more for rent or more for a house.
So you're always going to have all these counterbalancing forces.
Nobody's really smart enough to know how any of this turns out.
Isn't that weird? Do you remember when we were so smart that we had learned from the Carter administration what variables have to be in place to cause something called stagflation?
So it's, you know, inflation at the same time you have low growth, which is the two worst things you could have.
And we thought, okay, now we've seen this situation.
We know that when these variables are in place, you'll get that worse situation.
And then the variables fell into place again, and then nothing like that happened.
Because it turns out we're really bad at predicting the future.
We think we know, okay, these variables produce this outcome.
No, we don't. We really don't.
So, what is pretty much every economist saying is going to happen next year?
A recession, right?
Is there any economist, even one, in public, who is saying, you know, I think we're not going to have a recession?
I haven't seen one of you.
Have you seen any professional economist say that next year, you know, maybe not, maybe not a recession?
I haven't. Kramer?
Well, is Kramer a professional economist?
I don't know. I guess he's close to it.
So I'm going to do...
I guess this would be a public demonstration.
I'm going to predict the opposite of what every smart person is predicting.
So every smart person, and I admit they're smart, right?
I'm not mocking them with sarcasm.
Oh, the smart people. No, they are actually smart.
They're people who have PhDs in economics, done it all their life.
They're smart. These are really smart people.
There's no doubt about that.
And every one of them says recession.
So I'm going to predict the opposite.
Do you know why? Why would I predict the opposite of every smart person?
Why? Because nobody can predict the future.
It's not a thing. It's just not a thing.
It could be a coin flip.
Next year could be a coin flip.
You just don't know. There are too many variables.
But here's the strategy.
You've seen me do it before.
Here's the strategy. I'll tell you while I'm doing it.
What happens if I'm wrong?
Because I didn't tweet it, nobody will ever remember.
But if I'm right, I'll take this clip and pass it around and say, well, looks like I was right.
So on a risk-reward basis, it makes sense for me to make this prediction.
Because if I'm wrong, people will say, you predicted the opposite of every smart thing in the world, every smart person in the world, and he was wrong.
That's interesting, weird.
It's probably something we missed about that story.
You'll just forget it.
But what if I get it right?
If I get it right, you're never going to hear the end of it.
Now, let me put this in context.
Something like... I don't know, 20 years ago or something?
I made a prediction that evolution would be debunked in scientific terms in my lifetime.
Now that's ridiculous, right?
That's about as close as you can get.
Oh, and I also specified that it would not be debunked in religious terms, that it would be debunked within the realm of science and logic.
Now that's a ridiculous...
Prediction. If I'd been wrong, I would have just said, well, it hasn't happened yet, but it will.
So I'd always have an exit strategy, right?
Yeah, it hasn't happened yet, but any moment now.
But then it happened.
Then, in my opinion, evolution has been completely debunked by the simulation theory.
Now, I'm not saying the simulation theory is definitely the right one, but if you do the math and the logic, it is maybe a trillion times more likely than evolution.
Still, either one's possible, I suppose.
But one is, you know, a trillion times more likely.
I could go through the math, but you've heard that too many times.
So, that's the weirdest, probably the weirdest, dumbest prediction anybody ever made, that evolution doesn't exist.
Because if we're a simulation, the past is only created when you need it.
Otherwise, you don't need it.
Meaning that if we're a simulation, there's nothing below the ground until you see it.
So if you dug a hole, the stuff that you were digging into would only start to exist as you got near it.
It wouldn't exist until you were digging the hole and you were uncovering something nobody had seen before.
So that's the theory. So there's no evolution because there's no history.
It's all imaginary.
So that's my prediction.
And I'll even give you a why.
Because if I don't give you a why, then it's even sketchier.
So here's why.
The why is there are too many variables.
And that we communicate too well.
These days. Meaning that whenever there's a problem, the internet tells you there's a problem, and then people jump on it because problems need to be solved.
And the problem solvers and the problems are connected almost immediately.
And so, I'm going to say that because we communicate better than we've ever communicated before, that we will avoid a recession in the United States.
In the United States. And I'm going to take credit if we only have a slight recession.
Would you give me that?
Would you give me...
If it's maybe a technical recession, but it's just like we just touch it and then come out of it?
Well, you'd give me that, right?
That would be sort of not a recession.
We'd just brush it and then bounce out of it.
So that's my prediction.
And it's based on the fact that we can recover and adjust faster than we've ever...
Ever done before. We'll see.
Now, if I'm wrong, I'll ask you to forget I ever said this as quickly as possible because it will be super embarrassing.
No, I'm just kidding.
I never get embarrassed. I can't remember the last time I was embarrassed.
Like, literally. I can't even remember the last time I was embarrassed.
It really is a superpower.
If you can learn...
To be free of embarrassment, which somehow I've managed to do.
I mean, it took me decades to get to this point.
But it is a wonderful existence.
How many times do you say to yourself, oh, if I do this, I'm going to look stupid, or somebody will mock me, or, you know, forever there'll be that photograph, or whatever?
I don't have any of those thoughts.
Ever. I go through my entire day never thinking about that.
Somebody's going to think about me later.
It's wonderful. Well, here's a small story that might be a big story.
I've often said that although our billionaire class is often maligned, what would we do without them?
It's an interesting question, right?
Sure, there are billionaires doing things you don't like.
Sure. But what about the ones who are doing things you like?
They're really, really important.
Here's an example. Mark Cuban has his online pharmacy, a startup.
So they're selling Pharmaceutical drugs, but they're selling them for, I don't know how, but they're selling them for way, way, way, way less than you normally could get them.
I'm not sure exactly what method he's using to lower the cost.
Now, they don't have all the drugs that you could have.
They're starting with a set of popular ones, I guess.
And they're expanding.
I think Mark Cuban just said he expanded it.
But he was responding today to a tweet from somebody who said that it saved his life.
Because he could afford his anti...
I forget what the fellow's problem was.
But he tweeted that basically the cost of some anti-spasm or something drug...
But anyway, he basically said it saved his life.
So Mark Cuban starts a company that, at least this gentleman said, saved his life.
Now, who was going to do it If Mark Cuban didn't do it, right?
Maybe somebody would have.
But I really think that we underestimate how much impact the billionaire class is having on our well-being.
You just don't realize it.
You know, you just get mad because they've got their billions of dollars.
Now I'm going to give you one more defense for the billionaires.
One more defense for the billionaires.
Maybe two. Billionaires don't spend much of their own money.
You know that, right?
If you have a billion dollars...
Like, how much does Elon Musk consume, personally, just to, you know, get by?
Probably spends a lot traveling, because he's got businesses, he has to go back and forth.
But that's sort of a business expense, mostly.
I don't know that Elon Musk even spends much money on himself, because, you know, his health care is the same as everybody else's.
He eats food like everybody else.
He doesn't seem to wear designer clothing.
I don't know if he owns a car.
Does Elon Musk own a car?
I mean, ironically, he owns a car company.
But do you think he actually owns a car?
I'll bet he doesn't.
I'll bet he doesn't own a car.
Does he? I don't know.
Maybe. Maybe there's one in the company name and he drives it or something.
But if you think about how much a billionaire consumes of their own money, it's nothing.
It's a venishly small money amount that they use on themselves.
So he says, dude, seriously?
You can do better than that.
You can do better than dude, seriously?
That's not helping me at all.
Give me a little bit more, a little bit more in the comments here.
And so I say that about myself.
I look at all the money I've ever made in my life, and then I say, what percentage of all the money I've made am I going to spend personally, like on my own well-being?
And the answer is 5%.
I've never calculated it, but just off the top of my head, I think maybe 5%, something like that.
The rest would go to family members, you know, donations, trying to invest in companies that work or don't work.
But basically, it's being put to use, right, for other people.
Billionaires don't spend their own money.
They can, but they hardly ever do.
So basically, a billionaire has made a billion dollars for you.
I mean, you think of it the way things are organized, it's for the billionaire, right?
But the billionaire who makes a billion dollars is not making it to spend it.
You don't make a billion dollars to spend a billion dollars.
It wouldn't even make sense.
You couldn't spend it if you wanted to.
I mean, on consumption, you could invest it.
So, when I see stuff like this, like Mark Cuban literally saving some guy's life, probably lots of people, by having lower cost pharmaceuticals, one of the biggest problems in the country, and so he goes right after it and he solves it.
Now, do you think that he would have gone into this business if he were not already a billionaire?
Maybe. Maybe it was just a good business.
So maybe he would have if he had to borrow money to do it.
Maybe he would have. I don't know. But this has the feeling of something that only a billionaire would do.
You know what I mean? Because I feel like somebody would have done it already if you could do it without being a billionaire.
Because it must be a high enough risk that you'd have to be a billionaire to even bother taking a run at this.
I don't know. We'll see.
But good luck to him. Now there's a story.
I don't know how stupid the news business thinks the public is, but I think it's reached a new level in lack of appreciation for the public mind.
Now, I'm not saying they're wrong.
Having a low opinion of the public's ability to think is not wrong.
It's just sort of distasteful when you see it.
And there's no better example Then this story that says that, I think this was in CNN probably, that privately Rupert Murdoch, quote, knew Trump lost the election.
But because Rupert Murdoch apparently allowed or encouraged, it's not clear, Fox News to talk about the election in an opinion way, as if there were some questions to it, there's some thought that...
That there's some kind of smoking gun here that Rupert Murdoch was pushing lies.
Is that what happened?
How could Rupert Murdoch or Fox News opinion people push a lie about the election when it's unaudited?
How could you call it a lie when you simply don't know?
And that's what they're selling to the public.
They're selling to the public that if an election doesn't have an obvious problem that the courts have verified is a real problem, unless you have that narrow situation, then you can conclude that the election was completely fair without knowing anything about it.
Because, if you didn't know this, we don't have a way to audit elections.
You can audit elements of the election, like certain things.
You can recount the ballots, for example.
But you don't know what happens when your digits get into the computer systems.
You don't know what the software is doing.
There's no audit for that.
So if you don't know what the software is doing, it doesn't really help you to count the pieces of paper, because it turns into software at some point.
It turns into data. And if you can't audit the data...
After the pieces of paper have turned into data, you haven't really audited.
And so you see major stories by serious people who will tell you that Rupert Murdoch privately knew Trump lost the election.
Do you know who knew Trump lost the election?
Nobody. Nobody.
It was unknowable.
Because at the time of the election, there were no audits that had been completed, and there's still no audits that have been completed that are total audits.
You can audit elements of an election, but not the entire thing.
So, and this is sold to us like legitimate news.
Can you imagine somebody saying...
That if we have no way to know if something is true or false, and therefore the people who said maybe it's false, just maybe, maybe it's false, that those people are definitely wrong and should be condemned.
No, you should condemn anybody who is certain.
The assholes in this story are the ones who are sure.
Either way. If you can tell me, if you can look me in the face and say, I am positive, This election was fair.
You're a fucking asshole.
You're an idiot. Like, I don't even want to be in the same room with you.
You're so dumb. Like, nothing good could come from this conversation.
If you know the unknowable, and you're saying to me right in my face, I know the unknowable.
Things that can't be known, I know them.
Because I know the unknowable.
So if you're positive the election was fair, you're a fucking idiot.
There's no way around it.
But, my friends, and I say this with love, if you're positive the election was rigged in a way that's big enough that it changed the outcome, you're a fucking idiot too.
You're a fucking idiot too.
Sorry. Sorry.
If you're positive...
Now, if you have a strong suspicion, well, then I'd say you're a normal person, and I applaud you.
Yay, normal suspicion.
If you're just a skeptical person, and you say, you know, I wish this system were improved so that we could know for sure, well, then I'd say, you are an awesome person.
You're an amazing person.
Because you're, you know, like me.
The standard of amazingness.
How much are you like me?
That's how I judge people.
Same way you do. Same way you do.
But the fact...
I find it actually insulting.
Like, actually, it bothers me when I see a news story where they treat it like there could be a certainty in either direction about something you couldn't know.
It's unknowable.
And it just makes me nuts.
Yes, they do treat us like we're idiots, but they're not wrong in many cases.
Um... So I tweeted that, just so I don't get cancelled, I wanted the world to know that I was with the majority on this.
So I tweeted that I've decided to join the majority opinion in the United States.
And with this tweet, I publicly declared that I know the unknowable, that our unaudited elections in 2020 were perfectly fair.
So I wanted to join the majority who seems to hold that opinion.
So I did that publicly.
You know, there's one confusing thing about the news today.
I don't know if you noticed it.
Did you notice anything weird about the stories, like the mix of stories in the news today?
Something strange? Did anybody see it?
I'm not the only one. Yeah, okay, I think one of you saw it too.
Yeah, there were, you know, normally, let's say there are 25 stories in the news.
I saw, out of the 25 or so stories, I must have seen five or six out of 25 that were not about the trans community.
And I thought to myself, what's going on?
I was a little confused.
Because normally what I expect would be all 25 stories would have at least an angle or, you know, they'd frame it to be about the trans community.
And today, I think there had to be at least five or six out of 25 that didn't have anything to do with trans.
And I don't know why.
Like, there's no reason for it, is there?
Is there a reason to leave it out of those stories?
Yeah. Because we've got an Elon Musk connection.
One of Elon Musk's children is trans.
And so through Elon Musk, you connect that to everything else, from climate change to space to everything else.
Then there's the Title IX story.
Then there's a story about Ellen Page bravely inserting a trans character into one of her products.
And I thought to myself, I don't see any trans element of the Ukraine war.
Which might be why it's...
Have you noticed that the war in Ukraine started out to be like, it's all the headlines?
And then it shrunk and shrunk and shrunk.
And today the news on Ukraine is going to be the same news every day.
We're trying to give them more resources.
They need more weapons.
Russia made some gains, but the plucky Ukrainians are holding out strong.
But there's nothing about trans in that whole story.
And I'm thinking, that's probably why it disappeared.
Today the story is like, eh, there's a city you've never heard of.
Looks like Russia's gonna take a run for it.
And that's it. Now, imagine if it had been a city full of the trans community.
Imagine if there had been only one city in Ukraine that was like the famous place where a lot of people in the trans community went to live.
Well, this would be a different war, wouldn't it?
News would be all over that.
And, you know, I'm mocking it, but it's hard to imagine anything that's a smaller problem in the world than the trans situation.
And let me be clear, if you're in the situation, this might be the biggest problem for you, like as an individual.
But in terms of our national problems, isn't it among the smallest?
If you were to make a list of all the big challenges in America, where would...
Where would the trans situation be?
It would be very, very far down, right?
In terms of national problems.
In terms of individual problems, that might be your top problem.
Or top issue.
I don't want to call it a problem. All right.
Speaking of that, do you all know a famous podcaster, Ethan Klein?
I guess he associates more with the left.
And, of course, you know Dr.
Jordan Peterson, who some say is associated too much, some say, with the right.
Now, I'm not sure that he would agree with that characterization, but it's what people say about him.
And there's a little dust up here.
Where Jordan Peterson went after Ellen Page, because Ellen had said in public, I guess, that she was proud that she was inserting a trans character in the Umbrella Academy or something, some movie project.
And I guess Jordan Peterson said, remember when pride was a sin?
And then he says, Ellen Page just had her breasts removed by a criminal physician.
Now, the criminal part, of course, is hyperbole, because it's not criminal if the justice system does not consider it a crime, which it doesn't.
So you should see criminal as, you know, hyperbole, meaning that he's way far against it, and maybe he thinks you should think about making it criminal.
I won't read his mind.
But... So that was the story.
And I'm not giving you any opinion on the story.
So it's opinion about the people who have opinions on the story.
My opinion is I like to throw this in every now and then because I can be a confusing public voice.
I'm very pro-trans.
Which is different from saying, therefore I support everything that the trans community wants.
No, no. I don't support anything that anybody wants.
The left, the right, the trans community.
I don't support everything that anybody wants.
But I support them completely.
Meaning that people are people, let people choose, let people be free.
Do people make the wrong choice?
Probably. I can't think of any domain in which people don't make wrong choices.
Can you? But we don't let them not make those choices.
In most cases, we still let them make the choice.
I don't think this is different.
You know, when I look at it...
Well, when you talk about children, you're really talking about the parents' choice, right?
I'm not suggesting that children make adult choices.
That's really not even about trans, is it?
I mean, it's hard to say that's a trans issue.
That's more of a parenting issue.
So... Then why is suicide illegal?
Don't ask me. You're talking about school, not parents' rights.
I don't think we disagree on any of the stuff about who has the rights to do stuff.
I don't think that's worth getting into.
I don't think we disagree on any of that.
We're pretty clear about who has what rights or who should have what rights.
I think we all want parents to have the dominant rights and all that stuff.
All right, well, the trans issue is certainly interesting, but let's see what Ethan Klein said.
So Jordan Peterson made this provocative statement, remember when pride was a sin.
Now, I don't know, I'm not going to try to interpret exactly what he meant there, because he's smarter than I am.
What would be dumber than trying to interpret You need to understand somebody's words when the person who said it is smarter than you are.
You need a little bit of humility to try to imagine what somebody is thinking if they're smarter than you.
And Jordan Peterson is smarter than all of us.
Most of us. Not you.
Of course not you. But he's smarter than I am.
I kind of have my own take on this, remember when pride was a sin.
I'm going to give it to you in my own special way.
I've always been weirded out by anybody who is proud about their situation for which there's been some bigotry.
Now, I'm a super pro-gay community and LGBTQ, but I never understood why you would be proud of your sexual orientation.
I do understand why you'd not be ashamed of it.
That part makes perfect sense.
But why would you be proud?
I feel like just breaking even would be the goal here.
How about we just don't feel bad about it?
Not feeling bad seems like the goal.
To just not be bothered by it.
To ignore it. To make it no longer part of our decision making.
That's the goal. As soon as you're proud about it, you've overcompensated.
You've just taken one mistake and replaced it with another one.
This is why I've never understood white supremacists.
And I think even yesterday I was accused in public of being a white supremacist.
I don't even understand that.
Here's why. Why do I get credit for what strangers did?
Because the white people who invented things and conquered countries and did awesome things, none of them were me.
I didn't do any of that.
I didn't find any countries.
I didn't invent anything. Well, I did, but I mean, nothing important.
So, why would I take pride, just as an example, why would I take pride in being white?
That doesn't even make sense.
That's taking pride in someone else's accomplishment.
I'm not even entirely sure if I should be proud about my own accomplishments.
But, you know, I think it works well if you're proud about what you physically do in the world and if it's good for the world.
That's probably a positive thing.
You know, you get a little payoff for doing something good.
Oh, I feel pride. It feels good.
But if you're proud of strangers' accomplishments, what is wrong with you?
What is wrong with you?
To say that somebody is a white supremacist is almost giving them a pass, isn't it?
It's almost like giving them, okay, we will accept your interpretation of things and just disagree with it.
That's not what's happening. What's happening is people are taking credit for strangers' accomplishments.
Let's just call it out.
Now, if you're going to put a white hood on and dance around in your white robes in the KKK, you just told me that you get credit for strangers' work, the work that strangers did, because you're a similar, you know, trace amount of genetic code is similar.
What? That's ridiculous.
So I'm completely with Jordan Peterson, although my reasons for it might be different.
I don't know. You can't be sure.
But I don't think people should be claiming pride for anything.
You shouldn't be proud about being gay.
You shouldn't be proud about being white.
You shouldn't be proud about being black.
It's just what you are.
How about we just stop talking about it?
If it doesn't matter, because it doesn't, wasn't Tesla gay?
Somebody do me a fact check.
I believe it's rumored that Isaac Newton was gay.
Leonardo da Vinci, rumored to be gay.
Right? So, somebody says Turing.
Don't know about that. Tesla was not.
Somebody says Tesla was not.
But anyway, whether they were or whether they were not.
Da Vinci? Was it Da Vinci or Michelangelo?
Or both. I know.
But certainly you could go into history and you could find the most amazingly accomplished LGBTQ people.
Should the LGBTQ people take pride...
And that there were so many famous people and geniuses that were also in their community.
And the answer is no.
No, you shouldn't.
It's just a coincidence.
It has nothing to do with you.
Stop making it about you.
If somebody was really smart 200 years before you were born, you don't get any credit for that.
None. I give you no credit for somebody else sucking a cock 300 years ago.
Sorry. Sorry, that's not on you.
You did nothing.
Nope. Nothing.
You get no credit for that.
So Ethan Klein went after Jordan Peterson for going after Ellen Page and Ellen Page Doctor.
And Ethan Klein said, this is pretty...
This is quite a public fight.
He says of Jordan Peterson, he goes, Jordan, you have completely lost the plot.
Anything that was inspiring about you is long gone.
You have whored yourself out to the worst among us.
The worst among us.
Now you are nothing more than a useful idiot to the hordes of hateful bigots.
You have forsaken any semblance of decency.
Shame on you, Twitter!
No, shame on you, Jordan Peterson.
To which I say, the worst among us?
Who exactly is he referring to as the worst among us?
I believe he's referring to the political right, is he not?
Is he not referring to Republicans in general as the worst among us?
Because I don't think that he's saying, Jordan Peterson, you took sides with, let's say, The violent people in the, you know, January 6th protest.
I don't think he's saying that.
It looks like he's saying this simply being...
Associated with the political right is making you associate with the worst among us.
That's how I read it. Again, you don't know what he was thinking when he wrote it, but the way I interpret it is that ordinary Republicans are, quote, the worst among us.
Because I know he's not talking about the subset of Republicans who do bad things, because that wouldn't make sense.
Because there's a subset of every group who do terrible things.
So I know he's not so dumb as to say that the entire political right is equal to whatever the small number of bad characters is.
Just as I would not say the political left should be defined by the high percentage of criminals who are Democrats.
Because most are not.
The majority are not, it turns out.
I think. I mean, I think that's true.
Anyway, this is the sort of talk, Ethan's, that causes people to get hurt.
I mean, when I predicted that if Biden got elected, Republicans would be hunted, This is sort of the thing I had in mind.
This is related to that.
If somebody of this size audience, talking about Ethan here, can say that the political right is, quote, the worst among us, without being specific that he's talking about the worst among the worst, because the claim is not really true, is it? I have seen Jordan Peterson being embraced by the political right.
That part's true. But I don't remember the KKK interviewing him.
Do you? Oh, no.
I don't remember Jordan Peterson associating with somebody who was some kind of a bigot.
Or at least, objectively speaking, everybody gets called a bigot today.
I don't know. It's interesting to watch this little dust-up.
But you know what it feels like?
It feels like projection.
Doesn't it? Because the Democrats are all some version of Amber Heard, it seems like.
And I feel like Johnny Depp is some version of the political right in the weirdest way, right?
Because if you look at his career and the way he dresses and the way he lives, you're not thinking political right when you see any of that.
But... But, you know, the way we process things, we put it into buckets.
And Amber Heard seems like she's a Democrat.
Because the Democrats seem to do this cluster B thing where they do a terrible thing and then the way they see the world is that you're doing the terrible thing.
And so when Ethan says that Jordan is associating with the worst among us, I wonder if he's worried that he's doing that.
Because the Democrats have some bad people in their category, too.
So I wonder if he wakes up and thinks, I don't know if I'm on the side of the good people.
And then suddenly he's making a public attack against somebody who's basically him, but the left version of him.
I don't know. It looks a little like projection.
Can't say that. I mean, I'm not qualified to make that determination.
But... Am I wrong that all Democrats feel like some version of Amber Heard?
You know, it's just the way our brains have been, let's say, primed.
Yeah. So I would say...
I'm going to agree with the comment I'm seeing on locals.
I don't agree with everything that Jordan Peterson says.
But... It's always interesting.
It's always provocative.
And I think it's always additive, in the sense that he's not trying to hurt people.
He's trying to make things better.
And I think he does. Feminism is all but dead now, somebody says.
There's a New York Times column saying that feminism is all but dead.
I don't see that.
Do you? What do you disagree with him about?
I've heard him say some religious interpretations of things that I didn't quite line up with.
So mostly that.
And I also think that on the trans stuff, he's probably further than I am, but I'd have to really see exactly what he said.
I'm not entirely sure that's true.
What?
Concealed carry is unconstitutional, according to the Supreme Court?
Thank you.
Oh, Klein has been getting heat from his LGBT audience after recent comments.
My criticism is vague.
That's true. Yeah, you know, in general, when I'm talking about Notable people who have said lots of things about lots of things.
I generally walk away with either a sense that I've agreed with everything or there's something I disagree with, but I don't often remember exactly what I disagree with.
All right. Oh, it's open carry.
Open carry was found unconstitutional?
What? I don't know.
I guess I'll have to look into that.
Kangaroo says, I'm a trans person and I find it insufferable how the community injects itself into every issue.
Yeah, you know, it's been successful because the LGBTQ community has done a great job.
I mean, a great job.
I don't know, who's done a better job of changing how people think and winning acceptance from a bad place?
But you know what's weird?
I feel as if we've had trans forever, and I don't remember it being a big deal 20 years ago.
I remember being in a seminar in which the instructor was trans, and it was a conversation in the class, because it's sort of just interesting.
It was someone who appeared as a woman, But we were told was born with male parts.
I don't even know if that's true.
But it was the talk of the class and stuff.
But it was more the talk of the class because it was interesting.
I don't remember anybody having some kind of a negative thought about it that you wouldn't take the class or they were unqualified to teach it or anything.
It was just an interesting factoid.
And now it's become something else.
I don't know if things got better, did they?
It got so political, when before it was just, oh, well, there's somebody making a choice that I've never made.
It seemed like it was less of a big deal, and maybe that was better?
I don't know. I don't know if it was better.
Somebody says it got far worse.
Well, not somebody.
So a trans member of the audience just said that things got worse.
I guess I would take your opinion on that over my own.
All right. You're right.
In the 70s and 80s, people were transisting.
Yeah. I just feel like we went from more tolerant to less tolerant because we talked about it more or something.
I don't know. With enough confidence, you can use any bathroom you want.
You know, I don't know why this reminded me of this, but do all of you know that my county in California, Alameda County, I think we're the last place in the United States with masks.
It's actually still, like, they reinstituted it recently because there was an uptick.
Is there any place else in the United States with masks that are required except where I live?
There's not, right, in the United States?
I'm the only place in the United States where you have to wear a mask, right?
So, you should see what the compliance looks like where I live.
It's become funny.
The employees are almost universally wearing the masks below their nose.
Almost universally. No, that's too much.
I'll say at least half.
I'd say half of the employees are mocking the requirement by wearing it below their nose.
Now, if you come into a business and the employees are wearing it below the nose, are you going to keep your mask on?
No. So the enforcement is maybe...
10%. I would say 90% of the businesses here have just said, okay, so there's a new rule that we have to wear masks.
And let me understand this.
Everyone else in the country, maybe the world, I don't know.
Everyone else in the country, they don't have to wear a mask.
But in my county...
Just in my little county, you gotta wear a mask just when you go in the store.
So, since this is such a good idea, I think I'll wear my mask.
Like that. And like, everybody here is just doing fuck you masks now.
It's like, yeah, I got a mask on.
Because it's a requirement.
Oh, and government, fuck you.
Got my mask on.
How about you? Are you wearing a mask?
Yup. I got my mask on.
I'm not trying as hard as I used to to comply, but I'm kind of going through the motions.
So I got my mask on.
It's not covering my nose or my mouth, but I like to be a good citizen, so I'm wearing my mask.
So that's what it looks like to go into a store in my county.
The people are so dumb.
The people are so done with the masks that now it's like a big fucking joke.
By the way, I don't think I've been asked to put on a mask anywhere that it's required so far.
I have worn a mask without complaint in medical buildings, because I just don't want that fight.
I'm not going to fight with medical professionals over a medical question.
It's just not where I'm going to take the fight.
But, you know, the grocery store, they don't care.
Safeway, my local Safeway, they've obviously been instructed that they're not going to talk to the customers about anything related to masks at all.
If it looks like I ran out of topics today, that's because I overslept.
And there wasn't much news today, anyway.
Did I miss anything? Juul.
Yeah, there's a story about Juul.
And what is the story that the Biden administration wants to get rid of vaping as well as nicotine?
All right.
So, is there any other...
And the other topics that I... How often are you recognized by fans in Safeway?
That's a good question. I don't know.
Because I'm recognized in a different way than other people are recognized.
So I think I do get recognized fairly often because of the livestream.
So when I was, you know, just doing cartooning, it was rare to be recognized.
I think now...
Probably every time I go to Safeway, people recognize me.
Probably every time. But they don't often come up to me.
If they do, they're usually conservatives.
And I may have told you this before, but if I'm at the gym and somebody wants to say something nice about my work, they whisper it now.
So people will come up to me and they'll just say, I watch your livestream every day.
It's great. I really like it.
But they won't say it so other people can hear it.
So I'm basically like their secret pleasure.
Is Pleasanton a persuasive name for a city?
Yes, it is. True story.
The name of my town is Pleasanton, like Pleasant, O-N. The town next to me is Livermore.
Livermore. Who wants more liver?
Nobody. And which one has higher property values?
Pleasanton or Livermore?
Pleasanton. Yes.
For now. You lived in Ruby Hill.
You were practically my neighbor.
All right. Anything about the Pope's retirement?
No, but I have an update from the Pope, if I didn't mention this.
The Pope, and this is sort of an update, is opposed to war, still.
So, if I didn't cover that news, now you've heard it.
Your family thinks it's weird that I watch the SIP?
How weird is your family?
I mean, if we were to have a competition, would I be weirder than your family who thinks it's weird to watch this incredible content?
I don't know. I don't know.
Tell your family, and I'm talking to you directly now, this is to the family who thinks this is weird.
Not weird. This is normal.
Everything else is weird.
Alright, I've got nothing else to say.
I'm just babbling now. And unless you have any weird questions...
I like the weird ones.
Oh, maybe we'll do that.
I'll answer the weirdest question you have.
Does anybody have a weird question?
How's the house break-in problem?
I haven't had one recently.
But my neighborhood is so bristling with video cameras now.
I don't think you could walk one inch in my neighborhood without three different security cameras being on you.
We are so surveilled here, at least down doors.
Do I have a safety room?
Maybe. Let me just say what I've said before.
I built my house to keep me alive.
In every possible way.
So as a place I can exercise.
So it's built to keep me alive.
Even if there's a natural disaster, my house is going to be the one that survives it.
It's the one that won't burn down.
And even if the neighborhood burned down, my house wouldn't burn down in all likelihood because it's like fireproof to the max.
So I'm always ready for everything.
Yeah, I've got bad plumbing, that's right.
Here's a question.
Why do you use it feels right as opposed to seems right?
Does it align with your use of sexy as a compliment?
I wouldn't equate those two things in any way.
I like feels right because feels right communicates that you're not based on reason.
Seems right Sounds like you've got a reason.
But if it feels right, you're just saying, ah, that's my instinct.
It just feels right. Why do you like living so much?
I don't. Why would you think that?
I'm not sure living is a good deal.
Are you? Have you ever had that thought?
I mean, I don't know what it feels like to not be living, but I assume it's just, you know, not conscious, so it can't be bad.
But if you're having a bad day, don't you ever think, well, why am I even doing this?
What's the whole point of this?
I think it's somewhat irrational to want to be alive and to reproduce, but it feels good sometimes.
Just want to see what happened?
That's a good answer. I think that curiosity is a way to get out of funks.
Here's your tip for today.
That will help some of you a lot.
Do you like these? This will be my tip that guarantees that it will help some of you, not many, but some percentage, will be absolutely your life could be changed.
And that's this. When you're feeling really, really bad, and you've lost all interest, and maybe there's some good or bad things that are going to happen to you, and you're just like, ugh!
Change your frame to curiosity.
If your frame is, how do you feel?
Maybe you don't feel so good.
It's a bad frame to live in.
Change your frame to, what the hell is going to happen tomorrow?
Like, if I made this change, or if I said this thing, or I invited this person to this thing, what would happen?
I mean, just change your frame to curiosity.
Curiosity... It's one of your most base instincts, right?
Your operating system of your body, it operates on curiosity.
Like if you didn't have curiosity, you probably wouldn't do much.
So it's a really fundamental part of you is curiosity.
So it can absorb your thinking and you can put your mind through that frame pretty easily.
So watch how easily this works.
Let me tell you how I've used it.
When I find myself in a funk, and everybody does, right?
Everybody's got their bad week or two.
I say, you know, if I hate living anyway, why don't I just mix it up a little bit?
Why don't I do something that would either embarrass me or be funny or at least I'll feel something.
Like, I'll just feel something.
And so I say, all right, what would happen if If I just did this thing that is so bold, nobody would do this thing.
Now, I'm not talking about dangerous things.
I'm talking about things that could be maybe socially embarrassing.
But if they worked out, they'd be great.
Such as, you know, asking out the most attractive person you know.
Now, how would that usually turn out?
Well, you probably think not so well.
But what if you were just curious?
What would happen? I mean, what if I did?
What if I did put out this invitation?
What if I did throw a party?
What if I did, you know, say yes to this thing?
What if I did? It completely changes your life.
There was one year during my first marriage that, just to change things up, I decided that I would say yes to everything.
I didn't want to tell anybody that I would say yes to everything, because then they take advantage.
But for about a year...
No matter what people would say, I'd say, yes.
Even though I desperately didn't want to do it.
Just to see how it turned out.
Because I have this problem, I don't know if some of you do, that if somebody gives me an amazing idea, to like, hey, let's go somewhere and do something, my first response is almost always the same.
Oh, that sounds like a lot of work.
Or, I can't even imagine why that would be fun.
Or, that's like a lot of work for a little bit of benefit.
You know, I have all of these thoughts.
But then you do it, and you enjoy it, and it adds to your life, and you met some people, and you had some fun, and you had some laughs.
So you kind of always wish you did it.
But my first instinct is always to find a reason not to.
So I took a year where I would just say, yes.
And then just make it work.
And it was actually pretty cool and pretty fun, but I wouldn't do it again.
Do you know why? Because I ended up saying yes to things that I really wish I hadn't.
They didn't work out at all.
And I'm not sure that I got enough of a benefit out of it.
But it was an exceptional experiment.
And the experiment was, how well can you predict what you will enjoy?
And the answer is, I wasn't that good at it.
There were enough surprises that I got some humility out of that.
Michael Singer wrote a book about saying yes.
Really? Yeah, the whitewater rafting was an example in Costa Rica.
I had a bad experience there.
Learn to fly.
Yeah, I don't think so. How often do you trim your toenails?
Whenever I notice that I need to.
Does it seem to you that your fingernails and your toenails grow at sometimes rapid rates and sometimes slowly?
I don't know if that's an imagination.
Is that real? Like, sometimes it seems like there'll just be one day.
Like, what the hell happened? I just turned into a werewolf overnight.
That's real? So there really is different phases?
I don't know. Maybe.
Well, I would remind you again that if you listen to this live stream for all the new content, you'll probably be disappointed.
The best way to watch this...
It's like you're in a conversation, but you're thinking about other things or exercising or cleaning the house or something.
And I'm just that friendly voice that's your friend in your head.
And how many of you...
You know, that's my favorite compliment.
When people say they like my voice, because you know my story.
In three and a half years, I couldn't speak.
I had a rare disorder.
And for those years, my affirmations was that I, Scott Adams, will speak perfectly.
Now, there's no such thing as speaking perfectly.
But, I do this every day.
You know, the live stream.
And I do think that there's something about practice that makes a difference.
And I do think that I have experimented with different voice technique.
And that, at this point, my voice is actually quite powerful.
It has an effect. How many of you have had a reaction specifically to the voice quality that I have?
Tell me something about that.
Are there those of you who like listening just because of the way I talk?
So let me tell you some of the tricks.
You want to hear the tricks? Because it's not natural in any way.
Like, voice production is completely artificial.
So one of the things I do, and it took me years to do this, is learn how to add variety to my voice.
So that's the first thing.
Instead of, this is the way I would normally talk, and if I thought I was getting excited, I'd go up like this, but really it was just the same thing, just a little bit higher, it wasn't much variety at all.
And I would just talk in the same pace like this, and people would stop listening after about a second because you can't listen to something that sounds like this.
So, the first lesson was from the movie Network, where the on-air personality was teaching somebody how to make something sound interesting.
And the secret is that you punch words randomly.
And it's the randomly part that blows your mind.
You're like, randomly?
Shouldn't you punch the important words?
Eh, doesn't seem to matter.
I mean, you could.
But it's the variety that's really drawing people in.
So when Joe Biden does his whisper thing that everybody makes fun of, it totally works.
It's just that he whispers things that aren't important.
If he made his whispering light up with his also most important points, you know, that were shocking or something, then it would be better.
But he often says ordinary things in a whisper.
It's a good technique.
Now, I don't know if you notice, because I'm conscious of it now, but I try to go up and I try to go down.
And I try to give you a lot of right.
But I also give you pauses.
Like that. Because they drive you crazy, don't they?
When you're expecting something and then you get the pause.
Like that. It just makes you crazy.
But it also makes you pay attention.
So, I mean, I don't pause that long, usually.
Now, in terms of the actual voice production, the trick to use is the humming happy birthday.
You've heard me say this before.
If you hum happy birthday, so that it produces a hum in the mask of your face, it's called.
You know, sort of the nose, mouth part.
That gets your voice production out of your throat and larynx and lungs.
Because if you produce your voice in the lower part of your body, let's say from here down, if that's what's doing most of the work, it will sound tight and constrained, and people won't want to listen to it.
But if you hum Happy Birthday and then talk directly after it in the same production way, You get something closer to a perfect voice.
I shall demonstrate.
And now the next thing I say is almost perfectly produced because I've moved my production up to the top of my head.
And when I move it up here, it sounds more confident, more clean, more sonically appropriate.
I don't know. In some way, it just sounds better.
But now let's see if I can take it back.
So I'm going to bring my voice production down.
Now it's down here. So now I'm going to be talking...
It's hard to actually do it wrong now.
I've done it right for so many years.
But there is a technique.
And part of the technique is to not be too low, which is counterintuitive.
You would think that a male voice...
Would sound better if it's lower.
And there's something to that.
I mean, we do have some preference for that.
I think it tells you there's some testosterone there or something.
But far more important than how deep your voice is is how confident it is and how clean it is.
If your voice is both clean and confident, then you sound masculine enough.
Method acting tips.
Yeah, and the way you breathe also will change how you talk.
That's a Mel Gibson trick.
You should breathe the way you want to be acting.
So if you were playing an actor who is afraid of something, work on how you would breathe if you were afraid of something, and then when you talk, you'll be talking in the way that a person who's afraid would talk, because you've breathed that way.
So it just puts you in the moment.
You think the head, chest, voice description is the opposite.
I think if you look into it, you'll find out that I'm right.
It does sound...
I realize it sounds counterintuitive, but that's actually part of the point, is that it is counterintuitive.
All right. Any more secrets from behind the curtain?
I'm not going to tell you any more secrets from behind the curtain.
I mean, I can't think of one that fits the need.
But there is a secret that is seeping out from behind the curtain.
And I can see it, but you can't see it yet.
Because there's a pattern that you haven't noticed.
There's a certain pattern that's Sneaking out.
So you'll see it in some news.
I think I've seen it in several news items.
And so far, nobody has connected the dots.
If they ever do, it will be the biggest story in the whole fucking world.
But I don't think it's ever going to happen.
And the beauty of it is that if you don't know the story, There's no amount of evidence of it that you'll be able to put together.
You just couldn't put it together.
Let's just say that a lot of the things that happen in the world spring from the same source or sources, and it's just not obvious.
But someday it will be. Someday it will be.
Am I still good friends with the psychic?
Psychic?
No, I haven't talked to the psychic in years.
Did your spasmodic dysphonia affect the sound of your laugh?
I mean, it affected all of my sounds, but I don't think it improved it, necessarily.
You know, not everybody laughs.
Did you know that? Do you know people who don't laugh?
A lot of them. You don't really notice, do you?
There are lots of people who don't ever laugh.
Ever. It's like not a thing.
In the same way that maybe I don't have musical appreciation, I think there are lots of people, maybe a third, who don't have humor appreciation.
And they don't ever laugh.
How is that possible? I don't know.
I don't know. But I can tell you for sure, I mean, I do humor for a living.
And I can tell you that a third of the public is only pretending to have a sense of humor.
They're literally pretending.
They don't have one. And I don't know why I'm the first person to notice.
I think everybody else thought, well, everybody's got a sense of humor, but maybe they're not laughing at this thing, but they would laugh at some other thing.
Nope. Nope.
Nope. There are people who actually just don't have a sense of humor.
And they will sometimes laugh if somebody falls in a puddle.
Right? But that is really, really different.
That's almost not in the same category of humor.
It's more like a reaction to a thing.
You think the same thing with music?
Do some people pretend to like it, but they don't hear it the same way?
I think you're right about that.
Same with food. I have no idea what a foodie tastes, because I'm not one.
When I eat food, it's like, oh, I like this, or I don't like it.
But I have a feeling that people who are foodies just have a whole different flavor experience than I do.
So I feel like...
This is a good analogy.
So the way I am to food is the way other people are to humor.
If you looked at me eating, it would look like I'm enjoying my food just like every other foodie.
But I'm not. I mean, I assume I'm not.
Your cooking would change my mind?
Maybe it would. What's my favorite genre of music?
Well, it's unfair to ask at the moment because I'm learning to play the drums.
So I'm kind of focused on anything that's got a good drum beat.
So at the moment, it's hard to answer that question.
So anything with a good drum beat, especially from the 70s, I'm going to like a lot.
Yeah, Rolling Stones.
Buddy Rich, I don't know.
Buddy Rich wasn't...
I feel like he wasn't a drummer.
He was more like a...
Magician or something. I mean, I didn't like listening to Buddy Rich, but it was impressive how quickly he could hit a drum.
I'm completely unimpressed by him.
Allegedly, you know, top drummer in the world or something.
But he was mostly about just being fast, I think.
All right. We foodies have a working sense of smell.
So do I. My sense of smell came back a few weeks ago.
Weirdly. But my allergies also went away.
Let me ask this again, because how many of you, and I only want you to answer if both of these are true, so if you could show some restraint for a moment, how many of you have both of these things happen to you?
Number one, you got vaccinated, any number of vaccinations, and number two, you did not have allergies this season when normally you always do.
Am I the only one?
So I don't know that there's a correlation.
But I got vaccinated and then I never had spring allergies again.
It's only been one year, I guess.
Anybody else have that experience?
I'm seeing some people say yes.
But I think maybe it's just a low pollen season where I am or something.
Maybe it's just that.
I don't know. Yeah.
All right. More no's than yes's.
Your allergies came back.
But a number of people are saying they're having their best year, but is anybody having...
Let me reverse the question.
Is anybody having a bad year, an unusually bad year with allergies?
Go. Is anybody having...
Yeah, I think in my case, staying away from the sulfites was the big change for me.
All right. Worst?
Okay, so a lot of you are having worse years with allergies.
All right, so there's nothing there probably.
Do you laugh at the show Family Guy?
Yeah, some of the episodes of Family Guy are just ridiculously funny.
Others are a little bit phoned in.
How do pigeons know the same song?
I don't know. Do you talk with Gutfeld every day?
No, not every day.
But we communicate a lot.
Have I told you lately that I love you?
You have not. And I've noticed that.
A lot of you have not told me lately that you love me.
And I'm feeling that.
Because I love all of you.
So... So...
Are you supposed to love me back?
I know, it doesn't work that way.
Have you ever met Mike Judge?
No, but Mike Judge holds a singular distinction in my professional life.
Do you know what that is? There's something that Mike Judge did that no one else has ever done since I became the Dilbert cartoonist, meaning since I became famous.
Do you know what that is? He would not return a phone call.
He's the only one. I've never had anybody who wouldn't return a phone call until him.
You know, one of the benefits of being famous is that you can contact other famous people or just other people.
And if you say who you are, they're like, oh, I'll definitely return that call because I get to tell a story about I talked to a famous person.
Who wouldn't return a phone call to a famous person?
You would, right?
Wouldn't you? If somebody left a message, and it was somebody you'd heard of, like actually a famous person, and they said, could you please call me back, here's my phone number?
You would call them back, would you not?
Only one time in my entire famous life, that's maybe 25 years or so, in my famous life, only one person has refused, or for whatever reason, I don't know if he refused, but only one person didn't return the call.
It was Mike Judge. Don't know why.
I had a professional question I wanted to ask him, but I never got it answered.
He didn't get the message?
I doubt it. I think he got the message.
Jim Davis? Yeah, I've talked to Jim Davis a number of times.
Jim Davis is a great guy.
One of the things that people don't understand about the creator of Garfield, Jim Davis, is that he had a, I believe his degree was in business.
And so it's no surprise that two of the people who had business as a background, I would be the other one, did better with their cartoons than people who did not have a business background.
Surprise? It's probably not a coincidence.
It probably makes a difference if you know how to grow a thing, if you know how to turn a business into a business.
I don't think it's a coincidence.
That the two people with business training did better in their cartoons.
I think it's part of the talent stack.
Will California be great again?
Yes. Yes.
When's the last time you watched porn?
See, now that's the kind of question that I was looking for.
Why did it take so long to ask me an embarrassing question?
Now, I'm not going to answer it.
Because I think there are some kinds of questions that answering it doesn't help anything, but it might hurt something.
It can't help me, but it might hurt me.
Well, let me give you an answer to the question.
In all seriousness, I've never seen porn.
Now, I know a lot of you have.
And I hear, see, it's good.
And I've been thinking about trying it.
If I could figure out where it is.
It's like on the internet or something, right?
But a lot of you have watched Born and seem to enjoy it, and so I thought to myself, well, I should check it out, but I don't need it.
I don't need it like you do.
Did anybody believe that?
Did that sound a little bit credible at all?
No?
No?
OK.
So that's my official answer.
Never done it. Never done it.
Don't need it. Never will.
Unlike the rest of you.
Nobody's buying this at all.
And I never smoke weed.
That's correct. All right.
That's all for now. And I will talk to you tomorrow.