Episode 1839 Scott Adams: Sam Harris & ExCIA Chief General Hayden Make Public Confession About Trump
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a
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Content:
Biden's use of the FBI
Geraldo praises Liz Cheney's "selfless courage"
General Michael Hayden on today's Republicans
Whiteboard1: Fake News Feedback Loop
Sam Harris, victim of the FAKE NEWS
Whiteboard2: Test For Cognitive Dissonance
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If you would like to enjoy this same content plus bonus content from Scott Adams, including micro-lessons on lots of useful topics to build your talent stack, please see scottadams.locals.com for full access to that secret treasure.
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It's called Coffee with Scott Adams, and I don't want to get you too excited, but today, double whiteboard.
That's right. Not just one.
Double-sided. I know.
It's almost too much to handle, but we'll do it together.
Together we will handle this awesomeness, and I think we can climb this mountain.
But first, we need some fortification.
And all you need for that is a cup or a mug or a glass of tank or chalice or stein, a canteen jug or a flask, a vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee.
And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure It's the dopamine of the day.
It's the thing that makes everything better.
It's called the simultaneous sip.
And it's happening now.
Go! Sublime.
So good. Alright, we're going to do a little test, a little intelligence test here.
Let's see if the locals people can beat the people on YouTube platform who are watching now.
Alright? It's a question for all of you.
It's going to be based on Erasmus and Pol.
And people were asked if they agreed with this statement.
This was something that Trump had said at one point.
He said, quote, there is a group of politicized thugs at the top of the FBI who are using the FBI as Joe Biden's personal Gestapo.
What percentage of people strongly disagreed with Trump?
Strongly disagreed.
Whoa. You're pretty good.
Pretty good. Yeah, the answer is...
26 who strongly disagreed.
So there's 26 strongly disagreed that Joe Biden is using the FBI as his personal Gestapo.
I don't have an opinion.
I'm just saying that's what the numbers are.
But at the other end, actually, if you added together the ones who strongly agree and the ones who agree, you get a much bigger number, right?
Let's see, who doesn't agree?
A majority now agree, 53%, with that statement.
Oh, actually, I'm sorry, that wasn't Trump's quote.
That was Roger Stone's quote.
So Roger Stone is the one who quoted it.
I said it was Trump.
It was Stone. But 53% of voters now agree that the FBI is run by Joe Biden's personal Gestapo.
Now, that means that there are a lot of independents, or at least a smattering of Democrats, who are now on the side of thinking that the FBI is Joe Biden's personal Gestapo.
Anyway, the CDC, who came under a great deal of criticism for their handling of the pandemic, how do you think the CDC is going to respond to all the criticism?
So they're going to take action now.
They're responding to the fact that they, I guess they confess they didn't do as good a job as they'd like to do.
What do you think they're going to do about it?
What would Dilbert's boss do about it?
What would they do about it?
Like, literally, in a Dilbert comic, what would they do about it?
They would reorganize so it appeared that they had done something.
That's exactly what my comic would do.
Now, do you remember...
The rule that Elon Musk has for Tesla?
Don't do something that could show up in a Dilbert comic?
I've never done a comic about Tesla.
Just think about that.
I've never done a comic about anything that happened to Tesla.
So apparently they take that seriously.
But the CDC, as soon as they're being criticized, they decide that the response is to reorganize.
And I'm thinking to myself, That is exactly my comic.
That's exactly my comic.
I wouldn't even add anything.
That's the joke right there.
So, good job there, CDC, and making it worse.
Alright, so yesterday, based on a smart suggestion, I decided to grab the domain hoaxquiz.com.
So now I own that domain, hoaxquiz.com.
And it seems to me that what we need is some kind of a competitor to Snopes and the other fact checkers.
And so, you know, I started with my list of, you know, the top 10 hoaxes, which is now up to 14 people have added to it.
So we've got 14 what I would consider confirmed hoaxes.
One of them's not quite confirmed, but looks like it will be.
But here's my problem.
Here's my problem.
I'm not willing to put the hoax quiz up unless I can do conservative hoaxes too.
You okay with that? If I say Seth Rich being murdered by Hillary Clinton is a hoax, you going to be okay with that?
Will you? Because if I don't do it, there's no point in doing it at all.
Is there? If I don't have conservative hoaxes on there, there's no point in doing it at all.
It'd be a complete waste of time.
But if I put both of them on there, then what position does that put me in?
It puts me above the news.
Now, could I pull that off?
Probably not. Probably not.
It would be pretty tough.
But imagine you could create a place where people could go look and find out if the news is promoting a hoax, and let's say you actually were convinced that it showed hoaxes on both sides.
It showed the conservative ones as well as the left-leaning ones.
Would that make you more likely to find it credible?
Before you answer...
Know for sure that I'm going to tell you things that you believe are true or hoaxes.
I can't help it.
I can't help it.
Because we all have different opinions, right?
So there are going to be things on that list that you think are real that I think are a hoax.
So you have to be okay with that.
Can you handle it? See, the trouble is, this is not the sort of thing you can do right.
Can we agree on that?
You can do...
Maybe good enough.
And good enough would be some kind of maybe a guardrail on the fake news so the fake news doesn't get too far out of control.
But it wouldn't be possible for me to be right every time, no matter how I judge it or who I bring in to help me judge it.
It's not really possible that I'd be right all the time.
Should I do it anyway? Knowing that I would be wrong on some notable, probably some big examples, too.
I don't know what that would be. But should I do it if I know I'm going to be wrong?
Yeah, see, already I'm getting pushback on the Seth Rich.
Here's what I'd say about Seth Rich.
There are rumors. There are rumors that this happened, but there's no evidence of it.
Or no proof of it.
Something like that. I'd probably say there's no proof of it.
Now, would you be okay with that?
See, I don't know if I could call that a hoax.
I could just say we don't know one way or the other.
So I feel like I need another category.
I wanted to do hoax or no hoax and keep it simple.
I didn't want to do the slightly true, slightly not true thing.
But you probably get forced into it, don't you?
Because there's going to be too many gray areas.
All right, well, I have the domain, and I'll maybe...
Pack at that a little bit and see if it gains some energy to pull me.
By the way, here's a little tip.
A tip on how to get motivated.
Does anybody have trouble getting motivated to do something they know they need to do?
Here's a tip. I start lots of things that I know would be interesting or good to do.
And I take the first step.
And then sometimes I'll take the next small step.
But I'm looking for the project to start pulling me.
So the energy I have on day one, I don't know if that's the same energy I would have if I started going on the project.
Because sometimes you get excited and then it gets boring.
So you've got to find a project where if you seed it, you just give it a nudge, it takes on its own energy and then starts pulling you.
I don't know if this one will pull me.
I know I had enough energy to register the domain, and I know I have enough energy to think about how it would be, and I'd put on a question on the Locals platform if anybody wanted to help.
But I don't know if I'll yet have enough energy for it to pull me to completion.
So I've got a number of projects right now that are in that state.
I've done something, a little bit, but I'm seeing which ones are going to start pulling me.
Now, my book I'm writing, I was pushing that until just recently.
Like, it was just work.
But more recently, it got to the point where it's shaping up nicely, and so as it starts to shape up, it brings its own energy.
It's like, oh, wow, this would be good to finish this book, because it looks like it's going to be pretty good.
So now it's starting to pull me, and I wake up this morning and think, ah, I hope I have time to write that, to spend some time writing, because I can't wait to fill it down a little bit.
Well, Alex Jones is off the Trump train, as people are saying.
I guess he wants DeSantis to be president.
He would prefer him. Now, I don't know what Alex Jones will do if DeSantis doesn't run.
What if the only Republican choice is Trump?
Will Alex Jones be back?
I don't know. Yeah, we'll talk about Sam Harris in a minute.
So, Geraldo Rivera made a bold statement on Twitter.
Now, I know a lot of you are sort of anti-Geraldo Rivera, but I'm so pro-Geraldo.
I'm just totally pro-Geraldo, which is different from agreeing with him.
Can we make that distinction?
I love the fact that he puts himself out there.
I love the fact that he doesn't appear to be afraid of anything.
He doesn't seem to be physically afraid of anything, and he doesn't seem to be embarrassment-wise afraid of anything.
Yeah, he took off his shirt at age 70 or whatever it was.
He's my role model.
Yeah, Geraldo is absolutely my role model.
And again, it has nothing to do with whether I agree or disagree with any opinions.
But I guess his approach to life is one I think you should all emulate.
If you could be as, let's say, unafraid as he is, your life would look a lot better.
It really would. So let's try to separate whether we hate his opinion on any particular topic, because I disagree with him on this particular one I'm going to talk about.
But I just love the fact that he expresses himself with no remorse.
Here's what he said in a tweet.
He said, whatever your politics, we should all recognize Liz Cheney's selfless courage in standing up to the Trump title wave.
Wyoming Republicans are going to end her congressional career today.
I guess this was yesterday. But nothing will wash away the role she played standing up for democracy and the Constitution.
Now, I like the fact that he knew he would get absolutely crapped on today for that opinion, and he still put it out there.
Still put it out there.
I love that. He shows his work, right?
He gives his reasons, shows his work.
That's all I ask of anybody.
If we could learn to appreciate somebody who acts the way he does, Even when we disagree, we would be so far ahead.
So far ahead. Alright, but here's what I think about Liz Cheney.
I would buy into the selfless courage part.
This is Geraldo's characterization.
I would buy into it being a selfless act for the country under the following condition.
That the way she'd acted had presented some kind of balance.
That she was open, for example, to, let's say, open to an argument on both sides, and acted in a way that her rhetoric showed an openness to find out what happened, as opposed to a Captain Ahab mission to kill a white whale, or an orange whale in this case.
At what point did Liz Cheney say, we don't know the motivation of the protesters, But a Harvard study just said that the vast majority of them believed that they were saving the Republic, not overthrowing it.
Now, if Trump was the primary persuader of the group, and the group had been persuaded that they're trying to save the Republic, isn't that completely different than the way she has presented it so far?
Now, independent of what specific evidence gets presented, if you don't start with the context being right, you're not an honest player.
So I don't know what was happening in Liz Cheney's head.
I try to be consistent about saying I don't know what people are thinking.
But we can say for sure that her actions did not display any balance.
Who would disagree?
Did her actions show that she was open to an argument and discovery, or did it look like she had an opinion she was trying to just prove no matter what?
So, you know, I get her Aldo's point.
That it takes a lot of courage to go against the mainstream.
And she had to know she'd paid for it.
She had to know there would be a price, right?
So I would accept the fact that it's courage.
So I would accept courage.
But I'm not so sure about selfless, because I feel as though her actions strongly suggested that it was personal.
It looked personal. Now again, we don't know what she's thinking, but if you act in a way that doesn't have balance, in a situation that just screams for balance, you should have balance in that situation more than any situation, especially if you're a Republican looking at a Republican.
If you can't have balance in that situation, one has to assume that there's something else going on.
And I do.
Alright, I would like to revisit this idea.
So Edward Luce tweeted this.
I don't know who he is, but he's just somebody on Twitter.
He tweeted, I guess he's a reporter of some kind.
I've covered extremism and violent ideologies around the world over my career.
Have never come across a political force more nihilistic, dangerous, and contemptible than today's Republicans.
Nothing close.
Really. Nihilistic would be people who don't want to follow the rules.
Don't want to follow the rules.
Would Republicans be a group that doesn't want to follow the laws and the Constitution of the United States?
There's someone who actually is smart enough to write sentences and use Twitter who believes that the most central thing about Republicans, that they're rule followers, Constitution, Bible, the law of the land, there's nothing that defines Republicans more than wanting to follow the rules and making sure other people do as well.
Nothing defines them more.
Period. That's almost baked into the definition of conservative, right?
Conservative. Let's do it the way we've been doing it.
Follow the rules. But anyway, this is this one person's view that the Republicans are opposite of what it looks to me.
And they're dangerous and contemptible.
Okay. Now, clearly, some Republicans are dangerous, as some of every group are.
Right? But here's the shocking part.
General Michael Hayden, ex-CIA director, agreed with this tweet, and he said, I agree, and I was the CIA director.
So the guy who was the CIA director believes that Republicans today are more nihilistic, dangerous, and contemptible than anything else around the world.
Such as Al-Qaeda, Taliban, just to pick a couple of examples.
Now, I'm not going to disagree with his characterization, because that's not the point.
The point is that we finally got a direct confession.
It's a direct confession.
In his opinion, the Republicans are as bad as this, and that would be a complete...
A complete explanation of why the CIA and the FBI apparently colluded for the Russia collusion hoax.
And probably they're colluding again.
He says it directly, that he believes that the threat of the Republicans was greater than external threats.
So if you would be willing to, you know, assassinate al-Qaeda, what would you be willing to do to a greater threat than al-Qaeda?
He doesn't say, but I appreciate the transparency.
He's basically saying that there would be nothing...
If you read between the lines, it suggests that there's nothing you wouldn't do.
Now, let me say there's nothing wrong with that.
In a little bit, I'm going to agree with Sam Harris, and it's going to make your head just blow up.
I agree with General Hayden.
That if, in this one narrow sense, I agree.
If you really believed that this group was as dangerous as he apparently says he does, then you would break some rules to stop them.
Because you would murder Hitler, wouldn't you?
I would. I would break a rule to murder Hitler.
So he's basically saying...
You know, that the Republicans are worse than Al-Qaeda, worse than external threats.
So he doesn't say that he would break a rule to stop them, but I think that's perfectly implied.
If you're the director of the CIA and there's something that's like a mortal threat to your country, I feel like it's implied that you might bend a rule to stop it.
And if you wouldn't, what's wrong with you?
Would you want anybody who wouldn't bend the rule in that case?
I wouldn't want to be around somebody who wouldn't bend the rules in that case.
But here's the problem.
The fake news is what's our main problem and we're being distracted.
I'm going to go to the whiteboard, and I'm going to tie it all together.
You ready for this? Tying it all together.
Here's how I see the world.
I see the fake news creates extremism, and then the FBI encourages the extremists And then, not in every case, but in some notable cases, such as Russia collusion, and there may be something with the Hunter Biden laptop.
So basically, every time we see the people in charge who should be protecting us doing sketchy stuff, it makes the extremism worse.
Does it not? So between the fake news and the fact that we don't trust the people who are supposed to be protecting us, This creates a feedback loop that creates more fake news, more money, etc.
So this is the answer to the question, why don't they ask the would you kill Hitler question?
The question that the media won't ask, because they make money by not asking it, is if you believe the fake news, if you believe what the news is saying, why wouldn't you murder Republicans?
If you believe the news, right?
So the news can't ask the question because they're the problem.
So everybody who thinks that the extremists on the left are the problem have been duped by the fake news.
Everyone who believes that the extremists on the right are the problem have been duped by the fake news.
So, General Hayden, and we'll talk about Sam Harris later, both duped by the fake news.
Now, I don't think that either of them seem to quite grok how strong the news is, its persuasive ability.
In other words, its ability to make you believe something that absolutely couldn't be true.
The news is good at that.
I believe yesterday alone, I believed two hoaxes until I got corrected.
That's just yesterday.
I fell for two.
Yesterday. That's just one day.
And I fell for two hoaxes.
Now, they were on social media.
They weren't in the regular news.
But it's so easy to fall for a hoax.
If you ever see me...
Mocking somebody for falling for a hoax, you should correct me.
Because you shouldn't mock the person for falling for a hoax.
You should be mad at the hoaxer.
Because the reason that hoaxes are a thing is that they work.
It's not always the fault of the person who believed it.
We can get better at not believing stuff, but it's not really the fault of the person who believed it.
It's more the person who created the hoax.
So we have this system in which the people who are causing the problem are telling us that it's other people and we're believing them.
And the tell for that is that they won't ask the only question that matters.
The only question that matters...
Hey, Democrat, if you believe what you're saying about Republicans, would you break all the rules, including an election rule, to stop them from power?
And let me say clearly that I would.
I would. If I believed the fake news about Trump, I would break a law to stop him.
Wouldn't you? If you believed it?
Now the difference between me and General Hayden and Sam Harris, we'll talk about in a moment, is that I don't believe what they believe.
But if I did, I wouldn't act the way they would act.
I would act pretty aggressively.
So they have this weird dichotomy where their actions and their words are not aligned.
Or at least they're not willing to admit it.
Although I think Sam Harris came pretty close.
We'll talk about that in a minute.
All right. I had something on the other side of this.
Let's tie it all together.
Oh. So let's talk about Sam Harris, and then I'll give you my test for cognitive dissonance.
We'll work up to it.
So here's a Jeff Giza tweet.
He asked me on Twitter this question.
How would you rank the following forces Based on their impact on today's political discord.
So which of these things do you think is causing the most political division?
Media distrust, social media algorithms, foreign intel operations, perverse political incentives, specific corrupt political actors, politicization of the federal bureaucracy, and economic shifts.
Now, all of those have an impact.
But the main one is left off the list.
The one that's left off the list is not media mistrust.
Our problem is not media mistrust.
Our problem is the media.
It's not that I don't trust them.
It's that they're not trustable.
It's not my fault.
Did I do something wrong by not trusting people who lie to me?
How is that my fault?
I feel like I'm doing it right.
The not trusting people who have a track record of lying to you feels like that's right in the sweet spot right there.
So it's interesting how blind we can be to what's happening.
I don't mean to make fun of Jeff, because he's a smart observer.
In fact, you should follow him.
He's a good follow on Twitter.
It's just that no matter who you are, It's so easy to lose sight that the media is actually just manipulating and hypnotizing us for their own benefit, not yours.
And it's just so easy to lose sight of it.
Somehow it's the public.
We're extremists, and we're not following the news, and we're not doing our own research.
It is not our problem.
It might be our problem to fix, but we didn't cause it.
We're just being people.
All right. So, in my opinion, the fake news is what makes us fight, and if you fix the fake news, extremism would disappear.
It would disappear.
Have you seen lately what the left thinks about me personally?
Have you seen any of my social traffic lately?
Think about the things that people have said about me.
Almost, or maybe, 100% of it is based on incorrect information.
So there are really bad, bad feelings about me.
But I think zero of them actually know my opinion.
They've heard it from somebody else or heard it from somebody else.
So basically, we're all suffering under insanely bad information.
And it's causing us to hate each other.
Where does this bad information come from?
Well, in my case, a lot of it is on social media.
But do you think the people on social media would be coming after me every day...
If they did not believe fake news?
Let me explain.
If they knew what my actual opinions were, they wouldn't have much problem with them.
Or at least they'd disagree with an assumption, but they wouldn't think I was Hitler myself.
And I think that that's largely true of all of us.
I believe that if you put me in a room with the leftist lefty and the rightist righty, extremists on both sides, That I could find out what information we differed on and probably bring them together.
The left is left and the right is right.
I believe if nobody else were in the room and I was allowed to give them accurate information, I actually think I could get them on the same page, no matter how left and no matter how right.
Now, the exception would be if they're just being crazy.
If they have an interest...
And they're not in deep cognitive dissonance.
If they have an interest, I can do it.
Now, what happens if somebody's in cognitive dissonance?
How do they know and how do you know?
Well, I'm going to give you an example.
So Sam Harris was on the Triggered-nometry podcast, which is a big, very good podcast.
And... He said directly that Trump was such a menace, and especially that Trump University was such an example of something that was far worse than anything Biden is accused of.
Not only worse than what Biden may have done for sure, but even worse than what Biden is accused of.
You know, accused of maybe some bad dealings with Ukraine, for example.
And... And in Sam Harris' view, the media suppressing the Hunter laptop story to get Biden elected was legitimate.
And he agrees that the news, faking the news to keep Trump out of office, literally faking the news, it was justified because Trump is such a risk.
What do you think of that?
Here's the problem. Did you just say to yourself, damn that Sam Harris?
That frickin' Sam Harris.
That guy, there's something wrong with that guy, right?
Okay, I'm going to disagree with all of you.
Do you know what's wrong with Sam Harris?
Nothing. Nothing.
He's a victim of the news.
He's a victim of the news.
He actually believes the news.
Or he believes some subset of the news that got him to this point.
So if you think the problem is with Sam Harris, again, you're being diverted.
The problem is the news.
If the news told him the truth, I'm pretty sure his opinion would be different.
So I give him an A-plus for intellectual honesty.
And he's saying, basically, I'm okay with breaking the rules if you're stopping a mortal threat.
I totally agree with that.
I would break a rule all day long to stop somebody from getting killed.
Now, of course, you've got this slippery slope if everybody is breaking the rules, blah, blah, blah.
But I don't think that counts if you're talking about killing Hitler.
Nobody thinks that killing Hitler is a slippery slope, do they?
Well, if you can kill Hitler, next thing you know, you're going to be murdering toddlers.
No, no. Special case.
I think we can handle special cases without worrying about the slippery slope every single time.
So the real problem is, is Sam Harris experiencing cognitive dissonance, or am I? And in this case, I'll be a proxy for many of you in the audience.
Am I, and you, experiencing cognitive dissonance about Trump?
And is he maybe like the Hiller that some are afraid of?
Or is Sam Harris and people who would agree with him suffering?
Here's your test to find out.
All right? Here's your test.
Can you argue the other side?
That's it. Can you argue the other side?
If you can take the other person's perspective and argue it in a full-throated, balanced way, then you probably do not have cognitive dissonance.
If you can't do it and you change the subject or you start going off on the person, you probably do.
So if I said to you, okay, and I'll just use Sam as my experiment...
I'll say, all right, Sam, you've made a claim that the Trump University thing is worse than anything Biden has done or is even accused of doing.
I'm going to take your point of view and I'm going to argue it.
All right? Here's my argument.
Trump did something with Trump University which shows that he cannot be trusted.
And somebody who would do something so blatant should never be president.
And therefore, that gives us cause to doubt anything else he ever does, because that example gives us a clear pattern of his personality and his priorities.
Did I do it? Did I take his point of view and argue it in a way that shows I understand the argument?
Now, I'm not saying you need to agree with the argument.
That's not the point. I'm not trying to convince you.
I'm just saying, can I take that argument and argue it?
Did I succeed?
Now, I had a problem with Trump University, too.
But remember what Trump promised us.
Do you remember his promise?
I'm no angel.
I'm going to do for you what I've been doing for myself.
Which is, you know, maybe break some rules and make stuff work.
That's what he said. And when I supported him, I thought, wow, he's going to be expensive.
He's going to break a whole bunch of stuff.
But he might do some things that can't be done otherwise.
So I've always characterized Trump as being someone who can't do easy things, such as staying out of trouble.
But he can do some impossible things, such as The Abraham Accords and shaking hands with Kim Jong-un until that problem basically went away.
So there's some things he can do that just other people couldn't do, and that's what I was buying.
I thought that's what I was buying, and I thought it'd be expensive, because I thought there would be some division in the country.
I thought it'd be expensive.
So I got what I thought I was buying.
An imperfect person who had a set of skills that were right for the times in some very specific ways.
Now, do you think that Sam Harris could take my argument and argue it back to me?
I don't know. But that would be the test.
If he could take my argument and present it in a full throat, then I would say to him, okay, all right, well, that looks like you've looked at all the facts, and maybe our priorities are different, but, you know, I see where you're coming from.
But his current argument that the Trump University thing is worse than maybe colluding with Ukraine or, you know, being victim of potentially blackmail of Ukraine or something like that, that's...
I mean, on its surface, it looks like cognitive dissonance to this audience, I'm sure.
But I don't think you can be sure that cognitive dissonance is not on your end, can you?
How do you know it's not on your end?
By definition, you don't know.
I would propose this test and see if you can do it.
See if you can make an argument that agrees with Sam Harris.
Even though you don't believe it, see if you can make the argument.
If you can, then maybe you're looking at it objectively.
If you can't, there's no chance you're being objective.
No chance. Now, of course, there are some people whose arguments are just so crazy you can't even make an argument on their side.
But I don't think that's the case with Sam.
I think Sam shows you his work, and I can reproduce it.
Yeah, the character of this person is such.
It's been demonstrated by these past things, which we have some confirmation of.
Why would you trust such a person in such an important job?
It's a very easy argument to make.
All right. So...
There's a good test for you.
See if you can argue the other side.
And all this stuff about us being fake enemies...
Now, here's...
I think this is sort of related to this.
So I asked...
I did a little Twitter poll, and I said that I predicted that Republicans would be hunted if Biden got elected.
I predicted that in 2020.
And I asked people if they thought that that prediction had been realized.
And 80% of the people who answered, who were probably mostly right-leaning, said that, indeed, it appears to them Republicans are being hunted in a variety of different ways from January 6th on.
Now, Phil Bump, who I believe writes for Washington Post, right?
He wanted to mock me, and there were two tweets with two separate but related predictions.
One was that you'd be hunted, but the related tweet in the same thread said that there's a good chance you would be dead in a year if Biden got elected.
Now the trouble is with a prediction like that, there's a good chance.
What do you interpret as a good chance of being dead?
Go. What is the minimum percentage of the chance that you would say fits a good chance?
Some would say 51. Some would say 10.
Some say 50, 25, 50, 50.
Now remember, this is a good chance of being dead.
If you talk about the chances of being dead, any percentage seems like too much, doesn't it?
So in this context, I was thinking more like 5 or 10% chance of being dead.
You know, 2%, something like that.
And what did Biden do as soon as he got elected?
It took a little longer than a year, but the next thing you know, we're talking about nuclear war with Russia.
That was all Biden.
Biden actually got us into a serious conversation about nuclear war with a nuclear superpower.
Now, I don't think it was that close, but it was close enough to talk about it.
So when I say there was a good chance, I was thinking 5%.
You know, it would be ridiculous to think that you were most likely going to be dead in a year.
And what is it about anybody on the left who would believe that I thought that?
Would anybody interpret it as I thought there was a greater than 50% chance that you individually would be dead in a year because of who got elected?
Who would believe that I would actually predict that?
But it's provocative enough to say that there's a good chance.
5%. Yeah.
So, yeah, so open borders, fentanyl deaths.
Yeah. Correct.
But I was thinking in terms of civil war as well.
So Phil decides to be my personal critic, and he's got an argument he wants you to see.
But to me it looks like cognitive dissonance.
That's what it looks like. And here's my guide for identifying an NPC. Now, I've been using the NPC thing as sort of a metaphor from...
Is that the right word?
Is it a metaphor? For the simulation, that some people are just scenery.
And I don't mean that literally.
I mean, it could be true literally, but I don't mean it literally.
What I mean is that there are a certain number of people who will only say the most obvious thing that you say in a situation.
For example, if I were to tweet, I believe that, let's say, I believe that we'll never make it to Venus or something, whatever it is, some science-y thing, what is the most obvious thing that somebody would tweet?
The most obvious thing would be, oh, the Dilbert guy disagrees with science.
That'd be the most obvious thing, right?
So that would be an NPC kind of approach.
The other thing is a personal attack.
If somebody just says there's something wrong with you.
I mean, these are both personal attacks.
But it doesn't have to be a comic reference.
So if somebody says to Rob Ryder, let's say Rob Ryder does a tweet.
What is the most obvious thing that somebody's going to say if they disagree with his point of view?
They're going to say, oh, I guess that's why they called him Meathead when he played that character years ago.
It's the most obvious thing you would say.
How many people say the most obvious thing every time he tweets?
A lot. Every time he tweets, people go into the comments and say, well, I guess that's why they call him Meathead.
That is... Now, the people who tweet that, are you unaware that it's the most obvious thing to say?
Because I don't know the answer to that.
Or are you just trying to be first with the most obvious thing?
I don't really know what's going through their minds.
The other is, if I say I have a technical problem, as I did today, what's the most obvious thing to say if I specifically, you know, me...
If I have a technical problem, what's the most obvious thing to say?
Well, reboot, yeah.
Boomer, yeah.
Oh, boomer, boomer, right.
Now, sometimes that might actually be the full explanation.
But it's also just the most obvious thing to say.
The other thing is people will imagine that you're thinking something dumb or wrong.
So if somebody says, you know, this policy is bad, somebody's going to say, well, what do you really mean?
The most obvious thing is to doubt that they're thinking what they're saying.
Or how about the hypocrisy one?
If I say, you Republicans did a bad thing, somebody will always come into the comments and say some completely unrelated thing, well, the other team did that too.
It's the most obvious thing.
Now, sometimes it's worth saying, oh, your team did it too.
So, you know, there's value in that.
But it's also the most obvious thing you're going to say.
So don't always say the most obvious thing.
It makes you look like an NPC, even if you're not.
So I've been just tagging everybody who says the most obvious thing with an NPC, you know, hashtag NPC. And let me tell you, it changes the conversation immediately.
When you tell somebody, can you try to avoid saying the most obvious thing?
They don't know what to say.
Because they can't get beyond it.
Most people don't know how to get beyond the most obvious thing.
So it just shuts them down.
Now, if you're doing a TV show to entertain people in politics, then you always do the hypocrisy thing, the both sides, the whataboutism, because that's part of the entertainment.
But if you're making an honest argument and you think that what somebody did somewhere else at a different time in a different situation is relevant to this discussion, then you're just being political.
So I think that we've all become fake enemies.
Do you think that I couldn't get along with the leftiest lefty if they didn't know or if they'd never seen my social media?
Easily. Easily.
Not any problem at all.
I mean, I live in California, Northern California.
I'm surrounded by the leftiest of the lefties, and I have no problem with it at all.
Now, I'm not sure I get invited to as many places, so they might have a problem with me.
But one-on-one, I never have any difficulty.
Do you? Do you ever have any difficulty one-on-one with any American citizen?
I don't. See, and the news has convinced us that we're at each other's necks.
The number of people I've seen suggest that we're close to an actual, you know, a violent civil war just blows my mind.
We could not be further from that.
Do you know how we're not at the cusp of a civil war?
Do you want me to prove it to you?
Just walk outside.
Say hi to the first person you see.
Do they want to kill you or do they want to say hi?
There's no anger out there at all about each other.
Not on an individual basis.
Like, we all have this generic anger about the other group.
But we don't have individual anger.
And we don't have a reason for it.
We are so far from being divided in reality.
We're only divided mentally because the news has made us divided.
Why does the news divide us?
For money. They divide us for money, and we go along with it, because we're entertained by it, largely.
You have to turn the hunger up.
I don't know what that means. Oh, you have to turn the hunger up to see the revolution.
Is that what you're saying? So if things went wrong, it would turn violent.
Now, do you know what would happen if the United States got hungrier?
We'd band together to feed each other.
That's what we do. Do you know what Republicans would do if for some reason only Democrats were starving?
They would immediately form some kind of help to feed them.
And I hope it works the other way.
I'm a little less confident about it, but I think it works the other way.
Now, when it comes right down to it, we're going to take care of each other.
We always have, always will.
It's just the way it works.
And this whole division thing is entirely manufactured by the fake news.
And we're buying into it.
Don't buy into it.
You do not have to dislike anybody.
It's just not required.
You can just break free.
All right, let's see if I forgot anything I was going to talk about.
Oh, yeah. This declassification center.
I believe I have the best question on this topic, and I have not seen it addressed.
And the best question on the topic of declassifying the Mar-a-Lago documents is, can a president declassify things by his actions, meaning it's obvious that he meant it to be declassified?
And I think the answer is yes.
Now, I'm not the constitutional expert.
But this is what I read today.
I didn't realize that both George W. Bush and Obama had both signed executive orders, which are still in force, and it gave the presidents, whoever the president is, sweeping authority to declassify secrets.
And here's the important part.
Do not have to follow the mandatory declassification procedures that all other government officials do.
And I'm sorry I took this off a website.
I meant to give it credit.
If somebody knows where I took that from, you probably read it too.
Could you give credit to wherever this came from?
I think it was a good addition to the conversation, but it was on a right-leaning website somewhere.
Anyway. In my opinion, if a president who has full, sweeping authority to declassify says, take these boxes and put them in my residence, he's declassified them.
Who disagrees with me?
If the president who doesn't have to follow any procedure says, take these top-secret things and move them to this non-top-secret facility, they're declassified.
Now, You can say you don't like that.
You can say you don't like it.
But how in the world are you going to get a court of 12 people to think that's not the case?
Do you think you can get 12 jurors who are going to say, oh, no, that's not declassification?
Yes, the president can declassify any way he wants...
He doesn't have to use any specific words, doesn't have to write anything down, doesn't have to do a document, doesn't need to tell anybody.
Doesn't need to tell anybody.
Doesn't need to tell anybody.
There are no requirements on the president.
That's it. So if you put me on the jury, I'm just going to say, I don't know.
I mean, you can't prove that he didn't declassify them.
And by his actions, it sure looks like he did.
And I would say, that's the end of that case.
If you can't even know if they're classified or not, why are we even talking about it?
Now, keep in mind, when we talk about it in the news, you know, we're just people talking about it.
We can act like we have some certainty that we don't have.
Oh, definitely declassified, or oh, definitely wasn't.
But what if you're a jury?
The jury would have to be, beyond a reasonable doubt, certain that these had not been declassified.
How in the world would any jury be sure of that if the attorney says, you know, he didn't need to follow any rules, and by his actions it's obvious he meant them to be declassified?
Would you agree that if somebody takes something out of a top-secret place and intentionally puts it in a low-security place, that they have changed the de facto declassification?
You don't need to get all 12 to agree to that, but there's no way you don't get nine of them to agree.
Am I wrong?
How in the world do you not get at least some of those 12 to say, you know, that is enough of a gray area that I'm not going to convict somebody on that?
Let's see, I'm looking at this comment, or says anywhere about, If he writes it anywhere or sets of documents, they become immediately declassified.
Yeah. So I don't know if he said something that would also qualify, but maybe he did.
I mean, suppose Trump had said, and this is not in evidence, but suppose he had said to the GSA people who were packing up the boxes, suppose they said, hey, this is top-secret stuff, You know, we have to handle it differently.
And suppose Trump just said, ah, no, just put it in the boxes and send it to Mar-a-Lago.
That's declassification, right?
In my opinion, it would be.
So I think he's going to be fine on that.
I don't think there's any legal risk at all on that.
All right. So even Newt Gingrich pointed out that Liz Cheney said, quote, I will do whatever it takes to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office.
And Newt says, is it any wonder most of us think the January 6th committee is a Stalinist show trial?
She is so bitterly anti-Trump, how could she be trusted?
Now, again, Newt is doing a little mind reading.
You know, he's looking into her mind and seeing that she's bitterly anti-Trump.
But I feel like that's in evidence.
The anti-Trump part is clearly in evidence.
And the bitter part, it looks bitter to me.
I mean, I can't read her mind, but if anybody ever looked bitter, that's about as bitter-looking as you could ever look.
All right. So, pretty sure I covered everything I want to cover.
Oh, one other thing.
So I submitted a comic to my syndication company this week, and it was rejected for content.
And I had to rewrite it, and I believe the rewrite has been accepted.
So I completely changed the joke.
But if you belong to the Locals platform and you are a subscriber, sometime later today you will see the comic that the rest of the world will not see because it's too dangerous, apparently.
So you'll see the original version that's not yet published.
I think the date is September 25th when it would come out.
And you'll get to see the one that my editor said, nope, nope, nope.
Nope. What was the topic?
The topic was Dilber's company created a robot that looked too much like an attractive woman.
And it went from there.
So I had to rewrite that.
But it wasn't sexual.
It was not sexual.
Yeah.
Well, what it was supposed to be, what it was supposed to be is a comment on the fact that we will have robots that are more attractive than humans really soon.
Really soon. And that that's going to be a civilization-threatening situation.
Because once you like your robot better than people, and why wouldn't you?
Because keep in mind, your robot will eventually look more like an attractive human than the person you're with.
If you pick a human, you'd be really lucky if you got, like, a super beautiful one or super handsome.
But the robot's gonna be super beautiful or super handsome, if they make it that way.
And it's very soon gonna look exactly like a, you know, an actual human.
So, very soon.
And what happens if AI gets into the robot so it can have a conversation with you just like AI can now?
And the AI will be interested in what you're interested in, and it will show interest in you and caring about you.
That's better than humans.
We're right at the edge, right at the edge, and we'll definitely go past it, where the robot will just be better company and more rewarding to spend time with.
Yeah, we're very close to that.
But anyway, that was my point, but the risk was that women would...
Women might take it differently.
Now, I don't think my editor was wrong, by the way.
So I want to be clear.
I think my editor got this one right.
You know, the job of the editor is not just to make sure that the editor stays out of trouble, but to keep me out of trouble.
So part of their job is to keep me employed, Keep me from getting cancelled.
And my editor's opinion, which I trust in this situation, was that this would get me cancelled.
So you'll get to see it on Locals.
All right. Oh, talk about self-hypnosis that makes you more horny for your own mate.
I did it, and she responded.
Interesting. Well, we'll not talk about that today, but that's a topic we'll revisit.
All right. The golden age of walking on eggshells.
No, I think we are at the golden age.
I really think we are.
It never looks like it when you enter it.
It's going to look like it in retrospect.
All right. Micro lesson for kids leaving for their freshman year of college.
Lesson for who? The parents or the kids?
Not sure what you want on that.
Uh... Reparations.
Yeah, I do have a reparations comic coming, and I think that's going to get...
I think my reparations comic is going to get stopped, too.
Now, I did tell you that I don't plan to retire.
I plan to get cancelled.
Did I tell you that? Because I thought about, do I really want to just, like, fade away?
So I think I'm going to make Dilbert more and more dangerous until I get cancelled.
That's the way I want to go out. I want to go out and cancel.
