Episode 1846 Scott Adams: DeSantis Gaffe, The FBI Is Running America, And Twitter Gets Interesting
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Content:
Biden's student loan forgiveness
DeSantis vs Dr. Fauci
FBI runs America
President Biden's chips law
Twitter whistleblower to testify before congress
Russia's goals for Ukraine war
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Good morning everybody and welcome to the highlight of civilization.
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Go. I saw a cry for help as I was taking my sip.
It did take a little bit off it, I have to admit.
There was somebody here who was out of coffee during the simultaneous sip.
I think the rest of us have an opinion about that.
Yeah. Be a little bit more prepared.
Alright, let's start out by the most important announcement of the day.
Happy birthday to JB. Have a terrific birthday today.
And the rest of you, you can have a good day too.
Is there anybody else who has a birthday today?
Any birthdays? If you have a birthday today, then happy birthday to you too.
Well, what else is going on?
So Biden wants to forgive some student loans up to $10,000.
Yeah, what do you think of that?
May I say the thing that everyone must say at least once?
May I put on my NPC hat and say the most obvious thing that you can say?
Or would you like to say it for me?
Because I feel like there's some weird requirement that if you talk about this topic, you have to say what everybody is thinking, even though everybody's thinking it.
Do I even need to say anything?
Buying votes, let's see.
What about the people who...
What about the people who don't get any loan forgiveness?
What about them?
Now the point is good.
I'm not arguing the point is bad.
But how many times do I have to hear it, really?
Do I have to keep hearing people say that other people are not getting a benefit?
May I put this in context for you?
Every change to taxes screws somebody.
There's no exception to that.
All you had to know was that it was a change in the tax rates, or something got added to the tax base, or something taxpayers had to pay for, or somebody got a tax break, or somebody got a tax increase.
Every change screws somebody.
So if your complaint is that a group of people got screwed, that's not really an argument.
Because every change, as well as the current situation, Screw somebody.
So, you can say you don't like it because it screws you.
That would be a good opinion.
This screws me.
I pay more, but I don't get anything from it.
A lot of people are saying that.
That's a perfectly reasonable thing to say.
But if you think you have some philosophical argument about it, you don't.
You don't. Because the philosophical argument against this...
That it's unfair is exactly the same argument for every part of the tax code.
Any change, any current situation, they're all unfair.
You can't make a fair tax code.
Now, some of you are going to say, yes, you can.
Flat tax. That's not fair.
The flat tax is not fair.
It's just a different way to do it.
There's literally no way for everybody to get something that they consider fair.
Fairness isn't even a thing.
It's literally an imaginary concept that can never be achieved.
So there's that.
Here's what I would suggest.
If you don't like this $10,000 break for people, and the reasons are perfectly valid, by the way.
If your reason is it's unnecessary, it helps the wrong people, that's a good argument.
But it also applies to everything else that we do with taxation.
Here's how I think we should handle it, if you don't like it.
Or even if you do, really, whether you like it or not.
Here's how you should handle it.
You should declare that it's also reparations.
Because wouldn't it be nice to put that to bed at the same time?
Here's my argument. The only way slavery reparations would work is if you attack education and you say, all right, the best we can do, that at least most people can agree with, is we'll fix education for everybody who is poor.
You don't have to be black.
Just everybody who is poor.
And just make it as good as the education for everybody who is not poor.
Now, if we did something like that, well then, now you're talking.
That's something that I would say, well, okay, that's not exactly reparations-focused, but it does get you to the same place.
It gets rid of the biggest form of institutional racism is the school system.
The school system keeps whoever is behind behind.
It happens to be black people are in a hole, so this current system keeps whoever is in a hole in a hole because they don't have as good a school system as other people.
So I would say, I'm just going to call it reparations and say, you know, it's probably going to happen anyway, if it happens.
Now, does Biden have the authority to do this?
We're acting like the amount or the idea of it is the question.
But really, we've kind of thought past the sale, haven't we?
Adam Dope had been pointing this out on Twitter.
We're kind of thinking about whether it's a good idea, and we've thought past the question a little bit.
I mean, we haven't completely thought past it.
But it does make you a little bit think past the question of whether Biden can even do this.
And I believe even Nancy Pelosi says he can't, right?
So aren't we talking about something that the Senate won't agree to?
Or does it just come down to Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema again?
It's just those, right?
Just two people again?
How often do we see that just two people are running the country?
Interesting how often that happens.
So I'm going to call it reparations and call it good.
DeSantis made an uncharacteristic error.
Did you hear him talking about Fauci?
And he said, quote, I'm just sick of seeing him.
I know he says he's going to retire.
Someone needs to grab that little elf and chuck him across the Potomac.
Applause. Someone needs to grab that little elf and chuck him across the Potomac.
So, now, as was pointed out to me, Trump himself has made fun of height.
He made fun of little Marco.
And I didn't love that.
But he did seem to...
He did seem to...
You know, it was in the context of two people competing against each other and lying about each other all the time.
So it seemed a little different.
Whereas DeSantis wasn't exactly in a political contest against Fauci, but he did seem to belittle him for his height...
And suggest violence.
Now, it's not real violence.
It's like hyperbole, you know, jokey violence, comic violence.
But how much comic violence do you think the public would tolerate against a different group?
Let me just put in some different groups here and see how it says.
So the original is, talking about Fauci, grab that little elf and chuck him across the Potomac.
Let's say it was...
Oh, let's say the Secretary of Transportation.
Let's grab that little gay guy and chuck him across the Potomac.
Sounds good? You'd be okay with that?
How about... How about I was somebody black?
Let's grab that black guy and chuck him across the Potomac.
Potomac. You okay with that?
That sounds okay? Chuck that black guy across the Potomac.
How about a woman? Let's grab that woman and chuck her across the Potomac.
You're okay with that? Most of you are.
Most of you are. See, most of you are being consistent now, which I appreciate, by the way.
You're being consistent.
Because most of you are opposed to, you know, the word police, right?
Most of you don't want to cancel somebody because they said something.
They insulted somebody, right?
I appreciate that.
I appreciate that opinion.
DeSantis is dead to me, but that's just personal, so you don't have to agree with me.
I will not try to change your mind.
It's just he lost my support.
Will that matter?
Well, I don't know. Beats me.
But he shouldn't have insulted short people and suggested that throwing them across the Potomac is funny.
Now, I'm not insulted.
Like, I don't feel it's an insult.
I just don't want a leader who would talk like that.
Because when you pick out a group of Americans to criticize, that's different.
That's different. To me, this is a deplorables moment.
Do you think that Hillary should have been criticized for calling half of America deplorables?
What do you think? Should Hillary be criticized for calling, I don't know, 40% of America deplorables?
Because I did.
I criticized her for that.
Because the difference is it's an elected politician who's saying something bad about a class of people who are Americans.
So I tolerate a politician making fun of another politician who's running against him.
You can say anything you want.
Politician against politician, I don't really care.
That's just part of the process.
If it's a non-politician who says something about a class of Americans, well, that's okay.
That's just free speech.
But if you're an elected politician and you say something that clearly identifies an attitude about a class of Americans, well, then I can't support you.
Anyway, he's got 48 hours, but he lost my support.
Not that I was necessarily going to support him, but...
What?
You think that's too harsh?
Who thinks I'm too harsh?
You think I'm being too sensitive?
But why can't I...
But do you think that I'm reacting to my personal feeling, or do you think I'm acting on principle?
Am I acting on principle or personal feeling right now?
Are you reading my mind?
Now, when Hillary called Republicans deplorables, did you disagree with that on principle or because it hurt your feelings?
Which was it? Did it hurt your feelings, or did it seem like a bad thing for a leader to identify people within the public as deplorable?
I think it was based on principle, wasn't it?
Because when I was anti-Hillary for saying the deplorable thing, it wasn't just because it was an insult.
It was because she was insulting the public, a group in the public.
So I think I'm being consistent.
Do you think that I'm being consistent?
Hillary insulted deplorables.
DeSantis insulted a class of Americans.
That's not consistent.
Because even if you think that both of them were based on my feelings, then maybe you'd be right.
But at least I'd be consistent.
They'd both be based on my feelings.
Now, let me turn this around.
So some of you have made the accusation that I'm operating on my feelings instead of my logic.
Do you think that's a fair...
Well, you can't know for sure, but do you think it's a fair concern?
Would you say that that would be a reasonable hypothesis?
I think so. Reasonable hypothesis.
Can I give you that?
Can I admit that if you have the hypothesis that I'm acting on emotion and not logic, that that's a reasonable hypothesis.
Now, I'm going to make a reasonable hypothesis about some of you, that you care about winning more than you care about that point.
You don't care about that point.
It's just not important to you.
So you care about winning a little bit more.
Is that fair? Do you think you're a little bit more concerned about winning than you are about this minor point?
Yeah. So I don't think you're disagreeing with me on the point.
I think you just like winning.
Is that a fair hypothesis for some of you?
Well, maybe the lesson here is that you can't read minds.
And neither can I. But would you allow me this?
That it is at least consistent...
To say that if a leader talks against a class of Americans for something they can't change, for something they can't change, that that would be disqualifying.
I think you have to give me that it's consistent, even if you don't like it.
Anyway, I don't think DeSantis will be running for president, so I don't think it's going to matter.
Remember I told you yesterday it would be funny to do the Trump method of telling people he has a high IQ? So I told you there's a list of presidential IQs, which can't really be known, but the only thing we know about Trump is that there's some claim he has of having a high IQ. So his claim, given that there was no other information, Was enough to put him number three on the smartest president's list, which to me is the funniest thing.
So I asked you to help me with an ongoing prank in which you would, on Twitter, sometimes you would just mention that I have an IQ of 185, which I don't.
It's totally made up.
But Mike Suarez, who's a Twitter user, and I assume Mike, you're probably watching me right now, but Mike Suarez started doing this on Twitter.
Here's one of his comments he put on somebody else's comment.
It doesn't matter what the topic is, but just read how funny this is.
It doesn't matter what he's commenting to.
He says, Scott Adams has a reported IQ of 185.
Now, the funny part is you should say reported.
Because you don't claim it as a fact.
You just say it's reported.
Scott Adams has a reported IQ of 185, higher than Bill Gates and Elon Musk, on par with Einstein.
He's literally a super genius, smarter than 99.9% of the world, and you're coming at him with these low IQ arguments?
Please, just stop and let the man focus on saving the world.
LAUGHTER Oh, I think Mike left two of these comments.
Maybe I saw the same one twice.
But...
And here's the funniest thing.
I saw the response to the comment, who he was commenting to, and the response didn't deny the fact It didn't deny the fact.
It just got angry for some unrelated reason.
So I think that people are going to accept it as a fact.
It's just going to live out there.
It's going to live on the internet forever as a fact.
So thanks to Mike Suarez for that.
Alright, here's a...
Do you like conspiracy theories?
Anybody? I've got a conspiracy theory for you.
You're going to love it. It goes like this.
Have you ever thought it was unusual, and kind of a big coincidence, that our presidential races always seem to be so close?
Has that ever struck you as odd?
Like, why would that be exactly?
Like, why would it be that they're close?
I feel like every time they're close.
Now, that's not true of local races, right?
In local races, it's not unusual for 75% of the vote to go one place.
Now, let me ask you this.
If you imagine that there's somebody behind the curtain, somebody you don't know about exactly but you suspect is back there, if they're really the ones in charge, what would they want to do with the political process to stay in charge?
Again, this is just speculative.
If you were to imagine, and we're just imagining, right?
We're just using our imaginations.
Imagine there's somebody really in charge behind the curtain.
Would they want one of the sides to get all of the power?
Would they want, for example, a strong Republican to get 75% of the vote?
No way. Because if any individual got 75% of the vote, that individual would have too much power.
Am I right? Yeah.
There's no situation in which, if you imagine, and it's a big if, if there's some power behind the curtain, they would never allow one candidate to get 75% of the vote.
Because? Because that candidate would then actually have real power.
The public would back that person for almost anything.
And that would take the power away from the people with the real power, even if they thought they had control over that candidate.
They would lose control. The candidate would be more powerful.
Yeah. Now, Reagan was probably an exception because a second-term president's a little bit of a different situation.
Right? But the second-term president, they know they can weigh down, right?
Now, you saw what Joe Manchin can do when things are deadlocked, right?
When Congress is deadlocked, the only person who has power is Joe Manchin, cursed in cinema a little bit, right?
So let me ask you this.
If you were looking for the power, the real power who's running the country, there's a tell.
And the tell would look like this.
They would sometimes back either side.
Because they would back the side that they need to put the brakes on.
If they need to put the brakes on one side, keep things in balance, you would see them operating to influence both sides.
Name somebody who interfered with Hillary's election, Trump's election, and then the Biden election.
Name one entity who absolutely interfered with all three elections.
The FBI. So the FBI was accused of putting their finger on the 2016 election when Comey talked about Hillary's emails that were confidential, but we didn't yet know if there was going to be any legal liability.
So the FBI definitely influenced the 2016 election.
And then the FBI was involved in the whole, in the Department of Justice.
I sometimes conflate them, because I conflate them because they can be conflated.
But then there's a whole Russian collusion thing.
So one was anti-Hillary, now there's anti-Trump.
Then there's the Hunter laptop situation, which was suppressed.
So that was, you know, anti-Trump again.
Then there's the January 16th investigation, and the FBI is involved, Department of Justice.
It feels to me like the Department of Justice and the FBI will suppress anybody who's getting too popular.
Does it seem like that? It would suppress anybody who was getting too popular?
And Trump had the personality appeal that he would have been too popular.
It's not that Trump was going to do some specific thing.
It's that he was too popular.
Or he had the potential to be.
I think they had to stop anybody who would get either party to a dominant position.
Now, If you keep things close, who runs the country?
If you keep the two political parties close at the national level, who runs the country?
Well, if it's close, what's the tiebreaker?
Is it Joe Manchin?
A little bit. No, it's persuasion.
It's persuasion. If you keep all the races close, then the tiebreaker is persuasion.
Or in some cases, I suppose, you can change the rules, like Mark Elias, that sort of thing.
But it's very small things that make the difference if you're always close to deadlocked.
Persuasion is not something that can move everybody all at once.
It doesn't work that way.
Persuasion is about moving 5% of the public over a long time period.
So to the extent that the media colludes with whoever's behind the curtain, the media can move you 5% in either direction.
So basically it puts the media completely in control of the government, and then you have to back up a level and say, who controls the media?
So the condition for somebody behind the curtain to really be running things...
Would be that they're keeping the natural parties that you vote for too close for either of them to be dominant.
And then they also control news coverage so that once you're close, the only thing that makes a difference is persuasion, and they control that as well.
Now, you think the Senate and the Congress in general matter, but they're also moved by persuasion.
So when was the last time you saw the Democrats do something that the Democrat media does not support?
They're always on the same team.
So when you think it's the Congress doing something, it's not.
It's the news allowing them to do it.
Because if Jake Tapper got on TV and said, this Democrat plan is fucked up, this is a bad idea, it wouldn't happen.
It wouldn't happen. Because first of all, Jake Tapper, I'm just picking him randomly, but if one of the CNN major hosts said this is a bad Democrat plan, it probably means the other hosts are going to say it too, right?
Because they operate in lockstep.
So all you'd have to see is one host going against the Democrats, then you'd say, okay, that's news.
Okay, now we can call it news, because sometimes they agree with what you think is their team, but sometimes they disagree.
If you never see them disagree with the Democrats, that's just persuasion, it's not news.
You always feel like I'm hypnotizing you?
Does anybody feel like that now?
Well, I'm not hypnotizing you.
All right, well, I'm not saying that the FBI and the Department of Justice is running America.
It could be whoever controls that, right?
So you might have to go up back a level to find out who has so much control that they can get the FBI and the Department of Justice to do whatever they want.
What do you think of this new CHIPS law?
Joe Biden's hundreds of billions to bring chip manufacturing back to the United States.
But I think it's more than CHIPS, right?
It talks about manufacturing.
Can somebody tell me if the chips law is more than just chips?
It's not potato chips.
So some of this is encouraging it to go to India, that's correct.
But I think some of it is to encourage manufacturing in the United States, ultimately.
I don't know, this feels like a good idea.
Because we have to decouple the tech stuff from China.
So I don't know if this will be implemented right or it's the right budget amount, but directionally it's right.
So would you be surprised to know that the election polling is getting closer?
I don't think that the generic Republican and the generic Democrat are that far apart anymore.
And part of it is the legislative wins, if you can call it that.
As long as the Democrats like what Biden's doing, then he's going to get votes.
So, that's probably a good idea, the chips thing, but I don't know.
Don't know for sure.
All right, Rasmussen has a poll, says, 42% trust what the news media are reporting about the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago.
Only 42% of the public trust the news about the raid on Mar-a-Lago.
42%. Now the way the poll is that 44% don't trust it and another 14% are not sure.
Now, what is the difference between somebody who doesn't trust the news and somebody who's not sure if they should trust it?
What would you call somebody who's not sure if they should trust the news?
That would be somebody who doesn't trust them.
If you're not sure you can trust something, by definition of how words work, it means you don't trust them.
Right? Am I reading that wrong?
So that would mean the 44 plus the 14.
So that would be 58% basically are not believing the news about the Mar-a-Lago raid.
That is actually an encouraging, a very encouraging number.
Because that's exactly what I'd hope.
You would expect that the majority of people would say, I'm not sure about that.
So here's two stories I'd like to talk about some more.
The January 6th story disappeared and the Mar-a-Lago story seems to be disappearing.
What do those two stories have in common?
The January 6th story, the hearings, and the Mar-a-Lago story, the raid.
What do they have in common?
There are two stories that the Democrats thought would work in their favor and blew up.
So they disappeared.
It's funny watching the news be so illegitimate right in front of you.
They're not really trying to hide it, are they?
It's just so obvious that the news isn't real.
It's just narrative manufacturing.
All right. 62% of the people who follow me and answer to one of my polls believe that you can make a decision without knowing the risks on both sides.
Does that seem high?
62% of the people who follow me believe you don't need to know the costs and the risks of your alternatives to make a decision.
Does that sound high or low?
That's about what I'd expect, actually.
About two-thirds of the public believes they know how to make decisions and actually don't.
And when I say believes they know how to make decisions, I mean the most basic question of should you consider all of the variables.
Probably two-thirds of the public would say, no, you don't need to know about all the variables.
You only need to know about some of them.
That's actually pretty common.
So the majority of the world believes that they can analyze situations, but they don't have the basic skills to do that.
And so it's sort of a Dunning-Kruger thing.
Now, suppose that something close to 40% of my followers did know how to make a proper decision.
That's pretty high.
That's higher than I would have expected, actually.
So if you thought that 60% plus not knowing you should compare alternatives is high, I would say that the number of people who do know how to do it is actually the more impressive number.
Because I harp on that all the time, so I would expect the people who follow me to be more clued in.
And if 40% of you are there, that's actually pretty good.
So Twitter...
Twitter has got some new news.
The SEC wants Twitter to explain their bot count.
So how do they come up with the number of bots?
So that's good for Musk, because now the SEC is asking the same question he is.
Now, how would you judge the credibility of the Twitter whistleblower, who is in charge of security, who says that Twitter basically He's hiding things and doing a bad job with security, and they might have foreign intelligence in there and all kinds of problems.
Now keep in mind that he's a prior hacker, so his background is he was a hacker, and he was fired for what Twitter says was poor performance prior to being a whistleblower.
How much credibility would you give to a prior hacker Who was fired for poor performance according to the company.
According to the company.
What credibility would you give him?
Yeah, low.
Very low. But doesn't mean he's wrong.
Doesn't mean he's wrong.
It just means that if you heard of anybody in this category, you should not automatically trust him.
So I would say, don't assume he's telling the truth.
He might be. He might be.
But I wouldn't assume it.
There's not really enough there to assume it.
Then we'll find out.
Alright, I'm going to say one of the best magic tricks that the press has ever played.
To me, this is the Hall of Fame magic trick.
You know, I get how the press can fool people with videos that are edited to make them misleading.
So we all understand that, right?
I've been fooled by videos that were misleadingly edited.
You know, the, what is it, the kids?
Who was it? Covington kids?
So that one fooled me for about a day.
I got over it, but it fooled me for about a day.
So it's easy to be fooled by video.
You'd agree, right? Now, so if I see that the news has fooled the public about a video, I'm not that impressed, because that's sort of an easy thing to pull off.
But you know what's really impressive?
When you simply make somebody think that something they're seeing or hearing isn't happening.
And they did that with the Trump phone call in which he asked, was it the Secretary of State, to find X number of votes.
In the context of thinking the election was fixed, rigged, and in the context of asking for a recount...
The news actually convinced something like 40% of the public or more that the normal word find means to lie and steal and rig the election.
The most obvious context is that at least two-thirds of Republicans believe that the election was rigged.
That's not in question, is it?
Does anybody question?
I'm making up the number, but somewhere in that neighborhood, at least probably two-thirds of Republicans, believe the election was rigged.
Now, that may have changed since then, but certainly on January 6, maybe two-thirds thought there was a problem.
And certainly at the day of the election, two-thirds thought there was a problem.
So why would you assume that Trump...
Would not agree with two-thirds of Republicans that it looks like, it looks like, and smells like, something's wrong.
Why would you assume he would think differently when two-thirds of Republicans were thinking, this looks wrong?
So if you start out by thinking that Trump disagreed with two-thirds of Republicans who were seeing the same thing he was seeing, that's not reasonable, is it?
Is it reasonable to imagine he had a minority opinion?
When, in fact, everything he said agreed with the majority, that he actually believed the election was rigged, and I believe he still believes it, but he can't know for sure.
So the most reasonable explanation of find the votes in the context of believing, massively believing within the Republican Party that the vote was miscounted, asking somebody to find votes in that context And then imagining that that meant mafia talk, that is the greatest gaslighting I've seen yet.
I mean, you really have to work at that.
And it turns out that the people who are most easily fooled would be, what type of person or profession would most easily believe that the reasonable explanation of find the votes is mafia talk?
What I mean when I say find the votes, you know what I really mean, right?
Because mafia talk.
I'm just going to say find the votes, but wink, wink, you know what's going to happen to your legs if you don't find the votes, right?
Writers, right.
So even this morning, two people with writer in their bio told me clearly the most obvious explanation is that it's mafia talk.
Is that the most likely explanation?
That it's mafia talk?
Is that not signaling that something's wrong with the analytical ability of the person?
Now, it could have been mafia talk, but is that the most likely explanation?
That feels like the least likely explanation to me, given that so many people were listening.
There were witnesses, and he knew it.
There were multiple witnesses, including the person he called, and you think he went all mafia talk on them.
If you believe that life is like movies, that is actually a reasonable assumption.
If you believe that movies are not like life, and if they were, we wouldn't watch them, then you say, no, that's just in movies.
People don't really do mafia talk in that context.
They really don't.
So, I heard yesterday that author Morgan Housel, who has a gigantic book, I think he sold two million copies of it, and I don't know if I have the name right, is it The Psychology of Money?
Can somebody do a check on that?
Because I was just operating from memory just before I got on live here.
It's Morgan Housel, it's The Psychology of Money, right?
Apparently it's massive. I don't know if you know how big a book is if it sells two million copies.
My biggest book was a million and a half.
You know, The Dilbert of Future.
So that's big.
And I heard on an interview that he...
He mentioned the systems over goals as being something that influenced him.
So my book, How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big.
So my book he mentioned as an influence for some of his thinking about at least how to explain personal finance.
Now, also, Atomic Habits, the biggest business book at the moment.
Also, the author says that some of those ideas, the key ideas, actually, are from me.
So, I was asking you the other day, who's the most influential person in the world right now?
It's definitely me.
It's not even close.
But I know you don't believe it.
I know you don't believe that.
But if you look at where my work has penetrated, it's definitely me.
I'm absolutely the most influential person in the world right now.
Looking at the difference between the comments on YouTube versus locals, it's very different.
The locals people are giving me a break.
They're letting me say that.
And the YouTube people are like, your ego.
Your ego is out of control.
Now, how many of you know me well enough to know what I'm really doing here?
Because I think the locals people know me well enough.
Do you know what I'm really doing here, YouTube?
Let's see if you can explain it back to me.
What am I doing? Like, what am I trying to accomplish by this?
Is it just my ego?
What do you think? No, I'm asking you this as a serious question.
What do you think I'm trying to accomplish?
Am I just bragging for no particular benefit?
I'm provoking a response, that's right.
I'm provoking... Now, why do I do that?
Why would I provoke a response when I know the response will be to mock me?
Right? The only response I'm going to get is mocked.
Do you think I didn't know that?
So why am I doing it?
Why am I doing something that guarantees I will be mocked probably forever?
Because, you know, I said it right here in public.
Because the provocation will make you argue about my influence.
And in the process of arguing it, you're going to talk yourself into it.
So I'm actually provoking you because that's going to make my argument for me.
You can go off and have a debate about it.
And guess what? If you find yourself debating how influential I am, that actually is your answer.
Because you won't be debating how influential anybody else is while you're doing that.
So yeah, it creates engagement, but it also benefits my point.
Now, I'm actually completely serious.
At this point in time, there's nobody even close.
I'm the most influential person in America, by far.
I'm surprised. I thought there'd be a little bit more pushback on that.
Who do you think influences Elon?
Somebody said Elon Musk is more influential.
Elon Musk literally runs Tesla based on the Dilbert philosophy of don't do something, and this is out loud, don't do something that would end up in a Dilbert comic.
He runs his company based on my philosophy, basically.
Then some of you influence me.
You're right. Putin, anyone?
Wow, I really got away with that more than I thought.
Do you know how many best-selling books right now are...
Crediting some part of their book to me.
These aren't the only ones.
Have you ever seen Tim Ferriss' book, Tools for Titans?
It's basically good advice from successful people.
I'm in that as well.
Systems versus goals.
When anybody in Silicon Valley is asked about career advice, What are the two most likely things they're going to say?
If a Silicon Valley professional, somebody important, I see your questions about Tate, but he's irrelevant to me at the moment.
What are they likely to say?
The most likely things people say is, passion is bullshit.
Probably came from me.
Systems over goals came from me.
And build a talent stack directly from me.
The The basic advice of business is primarily from me now.
So that's true.
All right. So let me ask you this.
I'm seeing somebody say that my prediction that Ukraine would win the war was wrong.
But... I think they won the war, as far as I can tell.
Now, Russia picked up territory, but they are forever going to be a pariah.
So Russia has a permanent loss that I don't think they can recover, which is their customers are going to find alternative sources.
Ukraine is basically destroyed, but they're still a country.
For Ukraine to win, you know, quote, win, it means staying as a country.
And they did. It looks like they will.
For Russia to win, I don't think it was enough for them to get control of those strategic areas.
So you can definitely say they got something out of it, and they got something pretty good.
But in the long run, I think Russia will be degraded by this, and I think Ukraine will still exist.
Now, technically, nobody really wins in a war, do they?
You know, we say win, but not really.
Mike Gross says, bring your passion to work, which is slightly different from what I say.
All right. The U.S. is losing?
Yeah, maybe the U.S. is losing.
But I didn't see a pushback on that.
Would you say that if Ukraine...
Let's say if Ukraine stays the way it looks right now, where they've lost those strategic regions, but they maintain themselves as a country, would you say they won or they lost?
Well, what would you say? If things stayed exactly the way they are, would you say they won or they lost?
I'm saying on locals, lost, lost.
Interesting. Lost.
Lost, lost.
Alright. But we're looking at the same facts, right?
We're looking at...
I would say that given that Ukraine did not want to destroy or occupy Russia, what winning would look like for Ukraine is to stay a country.
That's how I would define it.
Now, they could win more by being more prosperous or losing less territory, but I would say that they did the...
Well, let me put it this way.
True or false that the military professionals were solidly aligned in saying that Russia could take all of Ukraine.
Is that true or false?
Do I remember that wrong?
Was it true that all of the military experts said Russia can take all of Ukraine?
That's true. Who is the one person that you know who said that they can't, that it won't work?
Just me. I believe I'm the only person who said in public, no, I do not believe Russia can take Ukraine.
Now, I don't remember if I said they can or cannot take Ukraine.
You know, any strategic areas, because I don't think that was ever a big question.
Of course they had the power to do that.
But the question of taking all of Ukraine, I believe I alone said they couldn't do it.
Jimmy Dore also? Give me a fact check on that.
Was Jimmy Dore saying it when I said it?
Because I'd give him credit if he did.
Yeah, and for those of you who say it's not halftime, that's reasonable.
But it does look like it's approaching at least a more stable situation.
Does it look to you like Russia really could take over the rest of Ukraine at this point?
It doesn't really look like it.
But anything could happen.
All right, so those of you who think I was wrong about that prediction, I would say that I had the best prediction in the world...
In the world on that topic.
That's what I think.
I think it was the best prediction in the world.
I get the one-word answer to that.
Wrong! Wrong!
Well, do you see why I could say it?
Let's say you disagree with me.
But do you see why I say it?
Do you see the argument? There's nothing wrong with the argument, right?
The argument is that the goal was to conquer all of Ukraine.
Winning means that they didn't do it.
That's it. Yeah, that's my argument.
All right. The goal was never that.
Well, the goal of Ukraine was to remain Ukraine and lose as little as possible.
And they probably lost as little as possible.
All right. There were never goals for Russia.
Really? I think, in a way, Russia accomplished its goals as well.
Because it did get that strategic part.
That's pretty important. But it also...
Gave a warning to NATO that, you know, don't push too far.
Next topic. Is there a next topic?
I believe. Eric Weinstein tweeted about the media.
Did I see that?
I don't know. All right.
I don't have any updates on any Andrew Tate stuff, but if YouTube still has his videos up, in which he is saying false things about me, which actually do hurt me, not that he says it necessarily, but every time there's a lie in the media...
Let me ask you, how many of you believe I was pro-vaccination?
So we can see how quickly the lies spread.
And... How many of you, and the people on Locals know I never was, but on YouTube, how many of you are under the impression that I was pro-vaccination?
Okay, I guess that's been clarified for the people who actually pay attention.
But some of you are saying yes.
Those of you who are saying yes, how do you explain all the people saying no?
Like, what is your theory for why you think yes, but you can see for yourself, other people who are observing exactly the same stuff, say no.
In your mind, do you think all the people saying no weren't paying attention?
How do you explain that?
All right.
Well, somebody says I was pro enough to get the vaccination.
But does anybody care about what any individual does with their health care?
You don't care what I individually do, do you?
Why would that? And did I ever indicate that my individual choices should apply to anybody else?
Did you ever hear me say, what I do is what you should do for your health?
Have you ever heard me say that?
I don't know. Is the 186 IQ, are you saying that Andrew Tate claims a 186 IQ? Because if he is, that's funny.
I think I'll raise mine to 187 if that's the case.
Yeah, you know what, the weirdest thing is, you know, how Mark Twain famously said, we can't tell the difference between good news and bad news.
Let me paint you a picture.
During the pandemic, when most people couldn't fly, I could.
Because... I could still fly because I got vaccinated, which is the only reason I did it.
So I went to Bora Bora with one of the most beautiful women in the world and spent a week in paradise, and there were almost no other tourists there.
The only thing wrong with going to a place like Bora Bora is the other people.
If you went to the pool, it would be busy.
If you tried to get a reservation, it would be busy.
So it's really the only problem with going to Bora Bora is too many people.
There was almost nobody there.
Whole resort. Imagine the main pool at one of the high-end resorts in Bora Bora on a perfectly good weather day.
Nobody else was at the pool.
The entire time.
Nobody. At the main pool of a major resort.
You could go anywhere and do anything with no lines, no nothing.
And the entire staff was there to help you.
They weren't too busy. So I had...
The peak travel experience of my life.
And while I was having the peak travel experience of my life, I was in perfect health, and still am.
I mean, relative to COVID, anyway.
And so... And so, somehow, while I was having the best experience of my life, travel experience, My critics are telling me that they feel sorry for me for choosing incorrectly.
Now, my critics were staying home, probably not having sex with one of the most beautiful women in the world, and they were pretty sure that I'd made all the wrong choices.
Now, what does the right choice look like if the wrong choice Was having wild sex with one of the most beautiful people in the world in a low-populated Bora Bora.
Because a lot of people think that's what losing looks like.
I don't know. Did I choose wrong?
Now, if later I get a blood clot and die, well, then you're right.
Then I'd say, well, damn it.
Got that blood clot.
Of course, I'd also say it might be because I had COVID, but you know me.
I don't know. So, the whole...
The entire...
Oh, there's a story I want to tell, but I think I can only tell it on locals.
I can't tell you how many times people have...
Contacted me because they felt I needed some sympathy.
And I would think to myself, sympathy?
I just had a day that's better than almost anybody else's day.
Like, I sometimes have spectacular days.
Like, so good I can't talk about them.
And then somebody will still think, oh, are you having a bad day?
I'm like, hmm, did it look like that?
Because I think I had, like, one of the most best days ever.
So, you're talking okay.
That's right. Yeah, that was another trip.
Santa, Santorini.
Just sorry I'm misinformed.
Holly, what do you think I'm misinformed about?
Everybody's paying for sex, Blake.
I I like that there are some men who think they don't pay for sex.
All right.
I was just looking at your comments for a moment.
Who has influenced me?
So just before I got on here, I got a very nice message from someone who read my book, had failed almost everything and still went back in 2016, and implemented the ideas in the book and has now achieved a major financial goal.
Is there anybody watching here who also took any advice from me that they would credit for a major financial success?
Let's say since 2016.
Is there anybody else who had that experience?
On Locals, I'd expect to see more yeses.
I see a bunch of yeses.
On YouTube...
Now, you wouldn't expect most people to make money.
But, wow, on the Locals platform, a lot of people made money following my advice.
Seems like transactional relationships are the only ones in your life.
That is correct. So there's a video by Chris Rock who says the following things.
If you're a man, I'm paraphrasing.
This is Chris Rock.
He says, if you're a man, you have to get used to the fact that there are only three people who have unconditional love.
Women, children and dogs.
Men are only love for what they can provide.
To which I said, that sounds right.
Yeah. The only thing that I've ever experienced that felt like love in the long term, I'm not talking about dating or short-term infatuations or sex or something.
So in the short term, it could be anything.
People are just acting on fun or whatever.
But in the long term, I've never been valued for anything but the resources that I could provide.
But I'm also completely aware of it.
And those of you who think that's not the case for you, I'm not going to change your mind.
Now, that might be true for some women as well.
Might be true for women.
Is it sad or is it just reality?
Yeah. So look at some of the other men's comments.
Some of the men are, you know, jumping in to defend their wives, I think.
But there are other men who are saying, yeah, it's kind of true.
It's kind of true. But you don't hear me complaining about it, do you?
I'm describing it.
I'm describing it.
But it's not a complaint.
Because it's just the world I was born into, and those are the rules, and I just play by the rules.
So, I mean, it's not like I can change it.
If I could change it, well, that'd be a different conversation.
But that's just the current situation.
Stephanie says, I'm a woman, and it is not true.
I will acknowledge that some portion of you believe it's not true.
Somebody says you're beautiful, but you never wish to go to Bora Bora.
Some people think that Andrew Tate actually met my ex-wife, because he tells a story about doing it.
No, Andrew Tate never met her, but if he had, the dates that he's talking about are long after we'd been done.
So even if what he said was true, and it's definitely not true, but if it had been true, it wouldn't be relevant to me, because whatever she did after we separated was not my business.
Yeah, he claimed that he did, but if there's one thing I could tell you for sure, if that had ever happened, she definitely would have told me.
Let me clear up something completely.
There isn't the slightest chance that she wouldn't have told me that in some conversation.
There isn't the slightest chance she wouldn't have told me that.
Not even a little bit.
So when she says that didn't happen, and she said it in publicly as well as to me, you can count on that.
That did not happen.
I guarantee it.
No, I never claimed to be the father.
Now, trust me, it was 2020 when I asked for a divorce.
So what you're talking about is all 2021, 22, 22 stuff.
So anything that happened after 2020, that wasn't my business.
I didn't care.
Humor counts as much as money.
Yeah, in the beginning.
If you don't have any money, then the humor doesn't count as much anymore.
I like it that many of you still have a romantic sense of the world, and I wouldn't talk you out of it.
You let him control you by overacting to his videos.
Did I? Do you think he had any reaction to my reactions?
So you're leaving out part of the analysis, as you often do.
So the analysis is not just what I was doing, it's what he was doing.
Don't you think that his entire reaction was an overaction to me?
Do you know why he went after me in the first place?
Does anybody know why Andrew Tate went after me?
Because he's a fan.
And I spurned him.
He was a big fan of mine.
In fact, here's the funniest part.
He mocks me for being pro-mask, but when asked what people should have done, he describes my recommendation.
So he's mocking me while promoting my exact recommendation, which I'm pretty sure he took from me, because nobody else had it.
And the recommendation was to resist by not wearing masks until you're asked, because you're not mad at the security guard, you're just trying to overload the system.
And so he explained that that was his idea.
That actually came from me.
Tate tried to recruit me into his group for about two years through a surrogate.
And it was so ridiculous that I eventually said something in public.
And because I said something in public to slap him down when he was a fan of mine, I think he's like a spurned lover now.
So he acts like an angry lover the way he treats me, because I basically rejected his advances.
So if you didn't know that part of the story, then you don't know why he's acting so personally worked up about me.
And when I strike back, I'm not really striking back, I just think it's funny that he got so cancelled.
And by the way, if it were anybody except a personal enemy, I'd probably be defending him.
Because I don't agree with cancelling people for what he said.
Can you handle that incongruity?
I'm delighted that he got cancelled because I think he's a horrible person, and I dislike him personally.
He's bad for the world.
But the reasons he got cancelled were completely illegitimate, in my opinion.
Does anybody disagree?
I believe the reasons he got cancelled were 100% illegitimate.
Any disagreement? Because the things he said were just opinions.
And his opinions were not far from the mainstream.
Now, somebody's saying beating a woman, but that's what you believe happened.
That's what you believe happened.
I saw a video in which it's unclear...
It's unclear whether it was consensual or not.
So if it's unclear, I give him the benefit of a doubt.
Because video can be very misleading.
How many times have you seen video tell the wrong story?
Often, right?
So if you think that he's guilty because you saw a video, that's not credible.
It could be. It could be exactly what you think it is, abusing a woman.
In which case, I would revise my opinion.
But if that's the only thing you have is that video, it doesn't look like it's necessarily non-consensual.
It doesn't look like it to me.
And then the other things he said about, you know, the role of men versus women, that's an opinion, and he's not far from the mainstream.
The reason he had, what, four million followers is that he was hitting a note with some number of people.
Oh, somebody says she came out and said it was play?
Well, then somebody's gonna say, but, you know, she was threatened or bribed to say that, right?
So nothing that we see in the news is credible.
But if the woman is now complaining and the video is unclear, I would say that's not something you could hold against him based on what you know.
You'd have to be guessing to hold that against him.
Yeah, so the thing I hate about Tate is him making up stuff to...
What's the word? Defame me in public?
So anybody who makes up stuff to defame me, I would like to see, you know, die a horrible death.
Is that wrong? If somebody makes up something to defame you in public, and you wouldn't mind seeing them die a horrible death...
I mean, I wouldn't do it.
I'm not saying that you should do it or anybody should do anything violent.
I'm against violence. I'm just saying that, like, if an accident happened and something bad happened to him, I'd be like, oh, okay.
I'm pretty happy about that.
I mean, I was happy when he got cancelled, and I don't think the cancellation was right.
I think the cancellation was completely wrong.
But still made me happy.
Um... Karma does its thing sometimes.
Probably got you more notoriety.
I don't think so. Peter Zan and population collapse.
We've talked about population collapse.
Rumors about Tate and Jordan Peterson's daughter, which she denied, right?
I believe Jordan Peterson's daughter got pulled into some rumor about Tate.
I think they met.
But... But I think she denied it.
I think I would believe her.
Now, by the way, you don't have to wonder if Tate's a liar, because, well, to the extent that you believe me, I suppose.
But I know he's a liar.
I don't have to wonder.
Some of you, I suppose, still have to wonder.
but I have the luxury of knowing for sure that he's lying, so I have a different opinion of him.
Yeah.
Why would she go visit him in Romania?
Yeah.
Isn't that weird? What would inspire you to go do that?
I don't know. 48-hour rule just kicked in for everything I'm saying?
Well, that's always true. Did I talk about this?
Yeah, I did. Did I mention that Trump retweeted my, not retweeted, but truthed my top 10 hoax quiz?
Did I mention that? That Trump boosted my hoax quiz?
So that happened. So yesterday, let me describe like an actual moment for me.
So yesterday I'm sitting in my kitchen, And I've got my laptop out, and it's the end of the day, and I've done everything I need to do, so I don't, you know, I'm just looking at Twitter or something.
And I've got a bag of potato chips open, which I don't normally do.
I normally have a pretty controlled diet.
Salt and pepper potato chips with ruffles.
I can't resist.
So I'm eating some potato chips.
I'm all alone, you know, with my dog, minding my own business.
And I get a text that Trump just boosted my hoax quiz.
So once again, my actual physical world is so small.
It's just me sitting there eating some potato chips.
The next thing I know, I'm part of a national story.
The number of times that that happens is just so weird.
or you'd never really get used to it.
Thank you, Bill, for saying that.
Thank you.
Yeah, I guess it's always when I'm minding my own business, you're right, by definition.
What made you think your marriage would last?
I didn't think that. I've never thought a marriage would last.
I don't think your marriage will last either.
I just bet against it based on statistics.
Yeah, I think the worst assumption you can make is that marriages usually fail but yours won't.
I never made that.
I made the assumption that marriages usually fail so mine probably will.
So I wasn't surprised.
Why get married?
Because you want to get married.
There are benefits of marriage, especially if kids are involved.
If kids are involved, it just makes things easier.
It's sort of awkward to have a long-term relationship and not be married.
After a certain age, it's just a problem.
It's just easier to be married after a certain number of years you've been together.
Now, we were together for five years, and it worked great.
And if you ask me what changed, I don't know.
And probably we'll never know.
But something changed.
I mean, something major changed at one point, but I don't know exactly what it was.
Because people change.
I don't know. Maybe. Will I add the 15th hoax to find votes?
That's already on there. Woody Allen never married Mia Farrow and that worked well.
Oh, I wanted to give you...
I can't do that.
Never mind. If they all failed, the link is you.
Well, that's true. Here's what I think.
I think that all original attraction is irrational.
And then once you're together long enough, once the glow wears off, the romance part, what you're left with is utility.
And so if there's no utility after the magic wears off, because it always wears off, then you get divorced.
And by utility I mean, does one of you provide, let's say, resources?
Do you protect each other?
Do you provide enough sex that you're both happy about it and it's good?
If you're not doing those things, then, of course, the marriage falls apart.
But marriage is just utility after the initial period.
It's just utility.
And if both of you are not feeling the other feel safe, then there's no point to it.
If your spouse doesn't make you feel safer, if they make you feel less safe, There's no point to it at all.
So that's pretty much the reason to get divorced is that you don't feel safe.
The reason to get married is that you think you're in love and you'll feel safer and happier.
How long did you get no sex before you decided it was over?
Not at all. In fact, even the separation was a good time.
It wasn't about physical compatibility.
That actually never changed.
I would save the kids in one household.
Okay, so let me offer you an apology and explanation.
So I got the website, hoaxquiz.com, and then I asked some people on Locals if they'd want to help put the quiz on the website.
A number of people said, hey, I would under these conditions, or what do you need, etc.
The problem is that when you offer by any kind of messaging system, I don't really have the resources to look through all your offers and follow up on them.
So that's on me, because I asked you for something that can't work, which is I don't have the resources to follow up on the request.
So I apologize for that.
But if anybody wanted to self-start and then build something, I have the URL. So if you want to do something on your own, I don't have the resources to help.
But if you build something, and I like it, I'd be happy to let you use the URL. And promote it.
I just can't get into it.
It's the same problem with, I said I'd make a coffee mug for this, for coffee with Scott Adams.
And I want to do that.
And a bunch of people offer designs and stuff.
I just don't have the resources to go through all of my thousands of messages and find out who offered what and then organize a project around it.
And I don't really have the resources to manage somebody who wants to do it either.
Somebody says, put Eric in charge of it, but get an assistant and then marry her.
That's the best idea yet.
Website is underway, somebody says.
All right.
So it looks like somebody has self-started here already.
Why not have a contest and have people submit actual mugs?
Well, that again would be a project I'd have to manage.
So I'm having a little bit of a resource constraint.
