Episode 1870 Scott Adams: Let's Compare Everything To Hitler Because Thinking Is Hard
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a
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Content:
Starbucks order errors
Ukraine war update
ADL's Jonathan Greenblatt, Fine People HOAX
Comparing the other side to Hitler
Blacks For Trump group photo
Pile of fentanyl deaths dead bodies
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Good morning, everybody, and welcome to what will no doubt be a thing you remember all of your life.
You'll probably always remember where you were when this Coffee with Scott Adams happened.
You'll say to yourself, well, I was where I always am now.
Probably. You're either always exercising or drinking coffee or getting ready for work or you're at work or something.
Probably the same thing every time.
And that's what I call a good habit.
But would you like to take this up a level?
Yeah. Yeah, I can see it in your eyes.
You're the kind of people who don't settle for second best.
And all you need is a cup or mug or a glass or a tank or a chalice or 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 going to kick off your day like nothing ever has before.
I can't believe it. The excitement is building.
I can hardly stand it.
Go! Yeah, it lived up to its hype.
How tired of you of things that don't live up to their hype?
But this matched it perfectly.
Well, I did a little unscientific poll, because I've been trying to figure something out for a long time.
But I think I got my answer.
It goes like this.
What percentage of the time do you go to Starbucks, for those of you who do, and before I say this, hold on.
Don't answer yet. Don't answer.
Do not comment yet.
Do not. There's one kind of comment you're not allowed to make.
You cannot say, I don't go to Starbucks, and then give you a reason.
You can't say that.
Because if you do, you're identifying yourself as an NPC. Because it's the most obvious thing to say when I talk about Starbucks.
What's the most obvious thing to say if I talk about a television show?
I don't have a TV anymore.
No, I got rid of my TV. Don't say that.
Never say you got rid of your TV when somebody talks about a TV show.
Never say you don't go to Starbucks when somebody talks about Starbucks.
Because it's the most obvious thing you can say.
So don't do that. So I went to Starbucks the other day, and like often happens, I ordered my complicated drink just by reading it off the top.
Nothing special. I just ordered one of their drinks.
But it happens to have lots of words in it.
I don't remember them every time, so I have to read them off the sign when I'm ordering it.
How often do they give me what I ordered?
Go. What do you think is the percentage of time I order the same thing every day?
It's amazingly not very reliable.
And I get obsessed by user interfaces.
It's sort of a hobby.
Because my user interface experience, I used to work in a group that tested user interfaces.
And once you get it in your head, you see everything through that filter.
And once you become a user interface person, you just see bad interfaces everywhere.
Let me tell you what Starbucks does wrong, and then I'm going to surprise you at the end by telling you that everything they do wrong is actually cleverly right.
So wait for the reveal, okay?
So here's what they do wrong.
My big complicated drink is on a sign with other drinks, also many of them complicated.
The longest one with the most words is right next to the other one with the most words.
And I think maybe one or two words are different, but otherwise they're similar.
How often do they give me the other one?
Well, here's the problem.
The Starbucks baristas are so sick of hearing you say that whole sentence that they'll start typing in the order before you're done talking.
And so I'll say...
Give me the double half-calf, double light, venti, single strap, whatever.
I have no idea what they are.
And the guy will hear the first two words, and he'll go, okay, okay, I got it.
But the first two words are the same.
Or they sound the same, or he thinks they're the same.
So usually they're typing in the wrong order while you're saying the right order.
Then, only sometimes do they remember to ask for the size.
Because I usually type it in wrong until you, like, force them to put it in right.
Now, my ratio is about 25% failure.
I order the same drink at different Starbucks.
The one closest to me has the best record.
But the one's, you know, just a little bit of a drive.
So, now I ask myself, is this just because I'm ordering something complicated?
So I did the poll.
The most common answer to the poll was, I don't order anything but black coffee because I'm afraid they'll get it wrong.
Because they always get it wrong.
Or they get it wrong so much that you don't want to take the chance.
How many of you do the same thing?
You go to Starbucks and you just say, black coffee...
And then you give your size.
Maybe say room for cream or something.
And do you do it specifically because you know they're not going to get your order right and you don't want to go through the process?
Right? It's so common.
Now let me ask you this.
Do you think this Starbucks is unaware of how often they get your order wrong?
Do you think there's any chance they don't know that?
Of course they know that.
If you stand in the store for five minutes, how many people who are picking up their drink are complaining they got the wrong thing?
Have you ever stayed in Starbucks for more than five minutes?
There's always somebody complaining they got the wrong thing.
In any five-minute slice, somebody got the wrong drink.
You could stand there all day long, and every five-minute slice would be somebody saying, oh, I thought I ordered the big one.
So here's my reveal.
So my first thought was how in the world could such a capable company make such a bad mistake over and over and over again?
Do you know what the reveal is?
Do you know what the reason is? It causes addiction.
What's the one thing you say about Starbucks if you have the habit?
You're addicted. And I can feel it.
I don't go to Starbucks just because I like the experience or the product.
I actually feel addicted.
And it happens pretty quickly.
And here's the big interesting part.
Believe it or not, I'm getting to an interesting part.
Science knows that if Starbucks gave you exactly what you wanted every time, you would like it less.
I know. Doesn't make sense.
But if you got exactly what you ordered every time, for many of you, I mean people are different, for many of you it would make you addicted.
And that's what it did to me.
The fact that I can't guarantee I'm going to get what I order makes me obsessed by it.
So I think about it all the time.
It's like, ah, they're not going to give you the right order.
Yesterday I went to Starbucks and I said to myself, I'm going to order the right thing And I know this fucker is going to give me the wrong thing.
So I ordered the right thing, I think.
I mean, it could have been my fault as well.
Don't know. And then I received the wrong thing after waiting ten minutes or whatever it was, five minutes.
Now, was I going to get back in line?
Was I going to get back in line and reorder the right thing?
Because I didn't have any confidence that I would get it the second time either.
So I simply gave it back to them and said, you know, I ordered the wrong thing.
Just put it on myself.
I took my banana bread that they had already given me, which I only wanted to have with the drink, and I just threw that away.
And I gave them their drink back and said, you could pour this out.
So I left. But there was another Starbucks on my way home, because I was coming from something.
I thought, I'll just go to the other Starbucks.
2.30 in the afternoon.
I pull up to the other Starbucks and there's a sign on the door.
We decided to close at 2.30 today.
Not their regular hours.
It's the third time.
It's the third time I've gone to that Starbucks, the specific one, and they've been closed for some God knows reason in the middle of the afternoon.
How often does Starbucks just close in the middle of the day?
Is that a thing?
In the middle of the afternoon they just close.
Because that one's closed at least three times that I'm aware of.
Now, how much do I want to go back to Starbucks today after this horrible experience?
And by the way, I never got my Starbucks yesterday, which cost me a day of work.
Because I've got my routine down that I only write on my book when I've got that specific drink in the Starbucks experience.
I actually lost a day of work.
I fucking hate Starbucks now.
I'm so mad at them.
Do you know how they could have fixed this problem?
That big sign with all the menu choices?
Just say number six.
Right. It's obvious.
It's obvious. Now, when you see how obvious it is, how completely obvious it is to fix it, you know it's intentional.
It's so easy to fix and so obvious how you would fix it.
You just put numbers next to them.
It's a number 25. Boom, boom.
Got it right every time. Do you know what McDonald's does?
McDonald's runs their store so you get the same thing every time and you can depend on it.
They just simplify it to the point where it's so hard to make a mistake it doesn't happen a lot.
And that's another experience that people like.
If you run a restaurant, you'll also find that people get addicted to consistency.
It's one of the things they really, really like.
Those of you who are ordering only the black coffee at Starbucks, because you don't want to take a chance that they'll get it wrong, that's who McDonald's is catering to.
Because there's a certain personality who just can't stand not getting the same experience every time.
And then there's one like mine, where I also can't stand it, but it makes me addicted.
Because I can't give it up either.
So there are two different kinds of people.
All right. I thought that was useful.
Just to understand how addiction works.
Addiction is not about getting what you want.
It's about not quite being sure if you're going to get what you want.
There's an interesting article in Forbes about the Ukrainian counteroffensive, and there's some claims in here that, again, it's fog of war.
So anything I say about Ukraine, you should be repeating to yourself while I say it.
That might not be true.
Okay? So you don't have to tell me that maybe I'm falling for Ukrainian propaganda.
I know. Maybe I'm falling for Russian propaganda.
I know. I know.
It's the best we can do.
But anyway, Forbes has an article that suggests some really interesting things that I didn't know, if they're all true.
That the way Ukraine made their counteroffensive work is that when nobody thought that they had enough power to mount any counteroffensive at all, apparently they had enough power to mount two.
So they did a decoy offensive in the north, so Russia would move their forces up there.
But it was a real offensive.
It was big enough to be serious.
But it wasn't their main thrust.
Their main thrust was in the south.
And there, even there, there were pockets where the Russian forces would be superior.
So what the Ukrainians did is they had, reportedly, right, so we don't know anything for sure, reportedly they formed fast-moving mobile units without much air support, or any air support, I think, and they quickly entered the Russian territory and they attacked their weakest places.
Now keep in mind that they'd already taken out command and control as best they could.
So it's not clear what kind of communications the Russian military had when the fighting started.
But they took out the weak ones.
So you get the weak ones retreating.
You ignore the strong ones until the strong ones look like a rout.
They say, oh my God, it looks like we're getting routed.
And then you let the strong ones retreat.
So you leave them a path.
So that's part of the strategy.
If you trap the strongest forces, they'd have to fight their way out.
You don't want to take those losses.
Even if you would win, you don't want to take those losses.
So they give them a retreat, because really they want the land more than they need to defeat the military.
So that was allegedly.
You don't have to tell me.
It might be fiction. We all understand that now, right?
So Ukraine stories all have to be grain of salt.
But it's a theory that sounds right enough.
Now, this was part of a larger argument that tanks actually have been very useful in this war.
I think that's a yes and no.
But they still do seem to have a major component in war, still.
However, and I think the Ukrainians used tanks as part of this counteroffensive...
So that's part of it.
But something else that Forbes said was that their estimate was that Russia had lost maybe 20,000 killed and perhaps 60,000 wounded.
Now that sounds like a lot, right?
60,000 wounded?
And then here's the payoff.
The initial number of forces from the Russian army entirely was 120,000.
If it's true that 60,000 people have been injured and of an entire military force that's only twice that size, 50% casualties.
Could that be true?
In what other war has...
Let's say a modern war.
Is there a modern war, not a battle...
But a war. Not an individual battle, but a whole war.
Is there a modern war where the winning team had 50% casualties?
It doesn't sound like it could be true, does it?
But if it is true, it sounds a little doubtful to me.
Actually, pretty doubtful.
But if it were true, that would explain everything, wouldn't it?
You would only need...
Yeah, there probably are some historical examples.
But you would only need that one fact to be true, and then everything else about Ukraine makes sense, right?
If it's true that half of the Russian soldiers have been injured, it is also true, for sure, if that's true, we don't know.
If that's true, it's definitely true that the Russian forces are completely demoralized.
Would you agree? If 50% of them have been injured, they are completely demoralized because they're not fighting for anything.
If they were fighting for their country, 50% losses might just make them pissed off.
Am I right? Imagine America gets attacked.
Well, no, that's the wrong analogy.
Imagine America is attacking Canada or something.
If we're losing 50% of our forces...
We're probably going to pull them back.
But if Canada attacked the United States and we lost 50% of our forces, we'd just say, fuck you, you're going to have to take them all.
Like, we're going to fight to the last person.
So I don't see the Russians losing, you know, having 50% casualties.
They don't lose them, they're just wounded.
And still having the will to fight.
So I think the Ukrainians are doing a strategy of attacking the weaker Russian forces, as obviously one would, and getting them to scurry around and create bad morale so that the stronger forces don't have enough support to do what they do.
It looks like it might work.
Now, of course, Putin will have to...
He said he's in no hurry, there's no rush.
I don't believe that for a minute.
Do you believe that Russia doesn't feel like there's any hurry?
They can just stay there and grind away until they get what they want?
I feel like they probably feel some pressure now.
I don't think that's true, that they're not in a hurry.
Anyway, so that's what it looks like in Ukraine.
It's now been, how many weeks has it been since Russia has not mounted a successful offensive or defensive attack?
Or at least not one of scale.
It feels like we could predict the end of that war now.
Anyway. We've reached this weird period in history where People are openly saying they don't care if what they're saying is true.
Which is very different than how it's been.
It feels like just the last year that happened.
You all remember the story of Sam Harris saying that he wasn't so upset that the media hid the Hunter laptop story because maybe that helps keep a dictator out of office or something like that.
But here Joel Pollack is reporting in Breitbart about this guy Greenblatt.
So I guess he's the head of the ADL. And he participated in this week's Unity Summit at the White House.
And he was asked by Jake Turks, who's a White House correspondent for the Orthodox Jewish magazine Ami.
Now, keep in mind...
That this is Jake Turks, right?
So, Orthodox Jewish correspondent.
So the Orthodox Jewish correspondent said, he asked Greenblatt whether it was in good faith for the president, Biden, to attempt to unify the country while using a divisive hoax that had been widely debunked, meaning that Charlottesville fine people hoax.
Now remember, the people marching in Charlottesville We're chanting anti-Semitic things.
And here's a Jewish correspondent, Orthodox Jewish correspondent, who even he knows that the fine people part of it was a hoax.
Now, obviously, he knows the Nazis were real.
But the people who were lumped in with him, the so-called fine people, he knows that part was a hoax.
So he asked this guy, how can you be at a unity summit and present basically a hoax, a divisive hoax?
And what do you think Greenblatt said when confronted with the fact that it's obviously a hoax, it's widely debunked, and yet it's still part of the package?
What do you think he said?
He basically defended lying.
I mean, I'm summarizing it in a way that he definitely would not, so he would not agree with my characterization of it.
But if you read his answer, it looks like he said basically it doesn't matter.
Because what he did was he blamed Trump for being a poor communicator that allowed that to happen.
So in other words, he blamed Trump for the fact that there was an incorrect hoax about him, and that the Democrats can still use that incorrect hoax, and Greenblatt argued that if Trump was a better communicator, they wouldn't be able to use that hoax against him, so it's his own damn fault.
Now again, I don't think he would agree with my characterization of his opinion, but that's how it read.
In other words, that's how I received it, as did other people who read it.
And I feel like this is the beginning of a trend, where people are actually completely willing to admit that the arguments they're using are not real.
And they're still saying, yeah, the argument's not real, but I really, really want to win, because winning's good, too.
It's never been so overt.
In the past, people would really, like, they'd go to the grave...
Defending the thing they were saying.
But now people don't feel the need to even be honest about it.
For example, today in the news, well, once you lose any sense that reason and logic and data matter, what are you left with?
Well, we're left with different ways to compare the other side to Hitler.
And that's it.
All of America politics is now boiled down to who can make a more convincing case that the other side reminds you of Hitler more?
And here's the weird part.
The reminding of no longer is connected to what they might actually do.
It used to be, maybe, but it isn't now.
Now I don't think it even matters what the Republicans or the Democrats would do.
It only matters if you can make the argument that it reminds me a little bit more of a Hitler thing.
For example, on social media today, there are pictures of the MAGA crowd holding one finger up in the air.
I'm not going to do the sign because I've learned that as a white man in America, if you don't know this, this is very important.
Let me give you the lesson. I'll have to stand up for this.
Very important lesson, if I could give this to you.
As a white man in America, you're not allowed to lift your arms above here for any reason.
If somebody asks you to reach for something on a high shelf for them, and you're the tall one, don't just lift your one arm up, because they're going to take a picture of it.
And then, who's Hitler then?
You are, right. So instead, if somebody says, can you reach that on the high shelf, there's only one way to do it safely.
You ready? You have to use both hands.
They have to move in unison.
Got it. Here you go.
Very important. If you start using the one hand...
Whoa!
That was close.
Keep them here. Now, this advice, by the way, is not only for avoiding being called a Nazi.
This also applies to dancing.
You know that, right?
If you're a white man...
I learned this a long time ago.
You can't keep your arms up when you're dancing, so you don't want to be this.
This is not good white man dancing.
The woman who's dancing with you will say, you know, I need a drink.
I think I'm going to go to the bar.
I'm done dancing now. So I learned that if you're a white guy, you need to keep your arms low, like this, when you're dancing.
And nobody's really looking at your feet, so you've just got to be doing this.
Like that. So it's very important, very important if you're a white man in America, never, never raise your arms above your chest unless it's both of them.
That's how you stay out of trouble.
Well, who else looks like Hitler?
I saw a picture of Jon Bon Jovi's audience with their arms in the air.
I trusted Jon Bon Jovi until I saw that he turned his entire audience into Hitler's.
Yeah, and do you remember a long time ago when something would get debunked?
And then it would be embarrassing to talk about it because people would laugh at you.
They'd be like, poor bastard.
He's the last person who doesn't know that that's been debunked.
Oh, you idiot, you don't know what's been debunked.
But if you notice now that things can be completely debunked, and people will just still say them like it never happened.
And I've been doing this on social media as like a weird little psychological experiment.
I told you the other day, somebody said, well, you can't prove your claim, and then they showed a link that absolutely proved it.
I mean, proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt.
And the people who said you can't prove it just kept going, like it didn't happen.
It's the weirdest thing.
It's like a social media phenomenon.
You've seen it a lot.
All right. So there's a group, as you know, called, they like to call themselves Blacks for Trump.
And at the rally last night, there was a handful of Blacks for Trump, so-called, with little signs that say Blacks for Trump.
And there's one photo, and remember, you can't trust a photo.
Right? You can't trust that any photo is real, or even that it was taken in the same place at the time that they said it was, or any of that.
So you can't trust photos, and you can't trust that the people in the photos, or even who they say they are, they might be pretending to be somebody else.
But there's a photo on social media of allegedly, must have been at the Trump rally yesterday.
The blacks for Trump were there, and then there were a bunch of white-looking guys doing the OK hand signal.
And then all the Democrats say, see?
See? All those racists in there.
Now, what do you all say?
What do you all say?
You all say, oh my God, the OK sign is just an OK sign, right?
And then you say...
But then you look at the picture and you can see that they weren't making just an OK sign.
If you look at the picture, it's very obvious they weren't making an OK sign.
That part you can rule out.
But you say to me, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, you don't know this was a 4chan prank.
4chan made the prank that the OK symbol was a white supremacist thing.
And so it's a prank.
To which I say, yeah, it is a prank.
By racists.
It's sort of like a...
It's hard to explain because it's so on the nose.
The racists themselves do that okay signal in photographs partly as a prank, but also because they are racists.
They're not not racists.
The only people who do that are the racists.
Now, I have to tell you that I did save a friend who was about to post a picture of himself standing with somebody who did that prank on him.
And I, you know, I saved him in time, because he didn't realize that the prank was being played on him.
Now, I would never take my picture with a random group of MAGA supporters.
Because one of those fuckers is going to do that.
Right? Now...
I'm not blaming MAGA people, obviously.
Obviously. This is not about MAGA people.
But if you put 15 random people from a Trump rally behind me, one of those fucking assholes is going to make that sign so that, you know, so that I have a problem the next time it shows up in a photograph, right?
Now, it is a funny prank.
I'm pro-prank.
So I have to be consistent because I play pranks on people.
So I'm going to be consistent and say, it is kind of funny.
It is funny. It's not that I don't laugh at it.
I just don't want it to happen to me.
But don't fool yourself.
Is there anybody here who would disagree with the following statement?
A large Trump rally will pretty much always attract some actual racists.
Does anybody disagree with that?
A Trump rally, if it's big enough, will guarantee it attract some, some total races.
Now, how about this?
A Democrat rally, if it's a big enough size, true or false, will attract some pedophiles, if it's a big enough crowd, true or false?
Yeah, every time. Every time.
Does that mean that Democrats are the party of pedophiles?
Well, yes, it does.
But that's a coincidence, and it's not because a few of them showed up at a rally.
I'm just kidding.
Sort of. Is it possible to get past the idea That the supporter defines the leader.
And if the supporters define the leader, which supporters get to do it?
Is it the ones who are not racist or the ones who are?
Who gets to define who the leader is?
And can we get to the point where we can be a little bit realistic that most people suck but in different ways?
Sure, you're not a pedophile but probably did something I don't like.
Sure, maybe you're not a racist, but you probably did something I don't like.
Any large group of Americans is filled with bastards and cocksuckers and fuckers and criminals and pedophiles and murderers and perverts and communists.
That's who we are.
That's basically who we are.
You got your problem, I got mine.
It might be different. Right?
Bitches... So one of the things I've always liked about Trump, and correct me if I'm wrong, but his supporters always look like a pirate ship.
Don't they? I've never lost that image of all Trump supporters being on a pirate ship.
Because he doesn't say, you know, yes, no by race or ethnicity or any of that.
He just likes pirates.
Am I right? He just likes pirates.
And I have to admit, I kind of like pirates too, you know, in the metaphorical sense.
If you look at the people who support Trump, it is a grab bag of all kinds of different backgrounds, and they're not all savory.
Some of them are pretty unsavory.
But the fact that he appeals to the unsavory as well as, in some cases, the savory is part of a feature.
That's not a flaw.
That's a feature. I like the fact that he's open to anybody who likes him.
You'd think that that'd just be a terrible ego flaw, but I don't think so.
I don't think so. I think if you're talking about You know, being a leader of Americans, being able to appreciate the entire pirate ship of America, to me that seems like a plus.
But if you get on the pirate ship and you say, all right, that pirate's a deplorable, that pirate's non-binary, I like that one, I like that one.
I mean, if you start sorting the pirates into good pirates and bad pirates, you're a fucked up leader.
If you get on the pirate ship and you say, all right, pirates, we're all in this together.
Let's go get some booty, but we'll share it.
Then that makes a lot more sense.
I don't mind being on that pirate ship.
Fentanyl.
So, as requested.
I'd asked for Machiavelli's Underbelly to have AI produce a list or produce an art of a rendering of a pile of dead bodies.
300 of them.
So we could show how many die every day from fentanyl overdoses.
And so I've been retweeting those every morning.
But I wondered, if you were to pile the corpses one on top of the other, Lying flat.
So not standing up, because they're corpses, right?
Laying flat. So how tall would the average corpse body be?
Like, not quite a foot, right?
Depends how fat you are.
But maybe, you know, six inches to a foot, something like that.
Let's say a foot. And let's say if you piled all the dead, overdose fentanyl people, one on top of the other, it would be, just in rough numbers, About 200,000 feet high.
Because that's about how many people died times one foot.
About 200,000.
Do you know what the biggest building in America is?
Do you know how high? The biggest one.
It's under 2,000 feet.
So the corpses even put flat, flat on top of each other, piled high, would be 10 times higher than Than the highest skyscraper in the United States.
That's just the people killed with fentanyl overdoses, thanks to China and the cartels.
There isn't any chance we're not going to war with Mexico.
There's no way that doesn't happen.
I mean, I don't know how many people have to die in a specific manner, but at some point, there's going to be a trip, you know?
Like, it doesn't look like it's gonna happen gradually, does it?
I don't think one day we're, you know, I don't think we're gonna, like, build up to war with Mexico.
I feel like, you know, if we have a Republican president, probably that's the only way it gets done.
I think someday you're just gonna wake up to find out there's been a massive military campaign in Mexico, and you'll find out about it after it starts.
Your nephew and your niece died from fentanyl.
I'm sorry. Join the club.
But does that blow you away?
That the pile of dead bodies would be 200,000 feet tall?
Because that's how many people have died.
So maybe making a visual makes a difference, that the statistic alone does not.
Well, today was sort of a weird day, and it seemed like the news only had one theme today, which is, who is more like Hitler?
And I think we should just use that standard for everything.
We should just give up on thinking.
If you go to the store, let's go back to my Starbucks example.
Rather than reading off that long menu, What I want to do is when they say, how can I help you?
What would you like? I want to say to the barista, can you tell me which of your fucking drinks is least like Hitler?
Because these look a lot like Hitler to me.
And then I'll make them defend their drinks until they give me the one that is least like Hitler, which I assume would be a black coffee.
And they'll be happy, and they'll be happy.
But I no longer want to think about nutrition and caffeine and sugar.
None of that complexity is making me happy.
I just want to know which Starbucks drink is the most light killer and the least light killer, so I can have the one that's the least light killer.
Now, if you're shopping for a new pet, Do you just say, oh, this one's cute, or this one seems to like me?
That's the wrong way to go about it.
You should choose the pet that is the least like killer, just like every other decision in your life.
Just the least like killer, and you'll get yourself a good pet.
If you go to dinner, order the special that's least like killer.
This works for everything.
There's no conversation where you can't do the least like killer.
And especially in politics.
I don't think there was a single fucking story in the news today that wasn't some echo of what's more like Hitler.
Now, how often do I have to tell you that if you're arguing about problems that aren't real, you're in pretty good shape?
And we've sort of...
We've devolved into an imaginary world where we enter to just talk about politics.
In the real world...
We're somewhat aware that the things we say aren't real.
So we enter this imaginary world where you can just say any damn thing and compare it to Hitler and everybody's happy.
What about the oil news?
What about it? I can't take the fake news...
Well, here's the thing. What problems are unsolvable right now?
What are our unsolvable problems?
Because it looks to me, I think we're going to be fine on climate change.
You know, with friction.
It's not going to be easy, but we'll be fine.
And by the way, I don't know, this is a related topic.
But when I tweeted the other day that Republicans believe that you make money by hard work and intelligent risk-taking, and then I said that Democrats seem to think all the money that's ever been made already exists, but somebody has their share.
They need to go get it back.
And some people tweeted at me and said, that's not how money is made.
Money is made by the Fed.
They just increase the money supply.
What do you think of that answer?
The money is simply made out of nothing, and therefore the Democrats are a little bit right.
Because money got made out of nothing, and where's their share?
If you're going to make money out of nothing, why don't they get some?
What's wrong with that? What's wrong with that point?
You're saying it's dumb, but say why?
Yeah, money is debt.
Exactly. That money is somebody's debt.
It didn't just come out of nothing.
Somebody had an equal amount of debt.
Except for, in the case of you just increasing the money supply, I suppose.
Then you're giving people inflation, which is a form of expense or debt, I suppose.
But I actually saw people suggest that money was free.
That you could actually just make some more, and then you could give everybody some.
Because that's exactly what we did in the pandemic.
We made more money, and then we just handed it out.
And then people who didn't have it had money for a while.
And I think the Democrats came to believe that, well, why don't you just keep doing that?
There's no limit to that, is there?
You know, because if you had asked me what the limit was of how much you could run up the debt, I would have said, well, the limit is probably...
$1 trillion? What are we up to?
What's our debt now? $20 trillion or something?
$30 trillion? We're at $30 trillion.
I would have said $1 trillion is too much.
What would you have said?
And if you told me we could still be functioning and people still do business and they still get loans with a $30 trillion debt, I would have said, that's crazy.
The whole system can't possibly support $30 trillion in debt.
But it is. I don't know why.
And I don't know if anybody knows why.
That's the weird thing.
I'm not entirely sure that there's anybody anywhere who knows why the economy is working.
Let me say that again.
I don't believe there's any economist at any level anywhere who could explain to you why the economy is still functioning right now.
Because it shouldn't. It shouldn't.
Everything we know about everything suggests that we're already done.
I don't know why it's still functioning.
And I don't know if we can pay off that debt.
And I don't know if it will be paid off, or if we'll find some creative way to make it go away.
We're in very uncharted territory.
If you told me that we could just spend $30 trillion and have no plan to pay it back...
I always said, no way!
People will see what's coming, and the country will be destroyed just on the knowledge that we will be destroyed in the future.
But it doesn't seem to matter, and I don't know why.
Maybe it all comes crashing down at some point.
But it doesn't look like it will.
It looks like maybe there was some illusion here that we pushed through, and maybe it created a giant problem exactly the way it looks.
But I would have expected to feel it sooner.
I'm not feeling it the way everything in my common sense, such as it is, tells me.
Yeah, somebody says with our military that we're never going to be bankrupt because our military puts us in a privileged position.
Maybe? Yeah, there's definitely something to that in terms of You know, that definitely gives us some extra stretchiness.
Many are feeling it, but not feeling it at the level that I thought we'd feel it.
I'm not saying we're not feeling it.
Yeah, that's how the Roman Empire fell, somebody says.
Because the world is the reserve currency.
You know, I'm going to call bullshit on that too.
So it's been common thought that because we are the reserve currency, that's what keeps us alive.
But isn't the Russian, what do they have?
The ruble? Isn't that stronger than it was before?
And they're not a reserve currency.
Isn't the Chinese yuan doing okay?
They're not a reserve currency.
So I'm not even, yeah, Britain's still around.
I'm not even sure that any of that is real.
I don't know what's real anymore.
I really don't.
Because I'm skeptical that the whole reserve currency matters the way people assume it does.
Because I would have said the same thing about the debt.
I would have said that we have 30 times more debt than is the most we could ever sustain.
And I would be wrong by at least 30 times so far.
The war machine is the reserve currency.
Yeah, that's one way to look at it.
That's one way. All right.
Now do the alcohol body pile.
Alcohol is still bigger.
That's why I say alcohol is poison.
Watch the Saudis dump the dollar.
Maybe they will, and maybe it doesn't make any difference.
I just don't know. Now, really, are you saying this?
I feel like I should kick you off the subscription service for fucking saying this.
I'm not going to let this go.
I know you're a subscriber, and I always say I'm going to be nicer to the subscriber.
So here's this fucked up comment, put in quotes like I'm saying it.
I don't know what's real anymore about Ukrainians mopping up Russia.
Do you think I fucking said that today?
That's the opposite of what I fucking said, as clearly as possible.
So either correct that, And apologize.
Or get the fuck off of this system.
I don't want you here to just make up shit about me and then put it in the comments.
You can disagree with me all you want, but don't make up shit, put it in quotes, and put it in my fucking mouth.
That is absolutely over the line.
Absolutely over the line.
All right. Yeah, I mean, I don't think I could have said it any more clearly than that.
Oh, is it the same guy just being a dick?
All right. Well, remind me who that was, and I'll kick him off the system later today, okay?
I didn't catch his name, so one of you tell me who it is, and I'll get rid of him.
All right. Oh, I would enjoy wine, yes.
The trouble with alcohol is not that people don't enjoy it.
I personally don't do it.
Scott is backpedaling.
I think you're saying that because you know I'm making fun of that one, right?
When anybody says somebody's backpedaling, it hardly ever means that.
Well, that's not true.
In politics, it does mean that.
But usually, if I'm just making a different point, somebody's like, he's backpedaling.
Alright. People know they're getting alcohol.
Well, people know they're getting fentanyl, too.
But the ones who know they're getting fentanyl, I suspect they do a better job of staying alive.
Because they know how to deal with it.
The actual fentanyl users are well-versed in what kills them and what doesn't.
There's a Satoshi Nakamoto case in Norway.
Are they trying to prove that somebody is or is not Satoshi Nakamoto?
Is that happening?
I don't know anything about that story.
Oh, let's talk about Jordan Peterson.
Jordan Peterson.
I've been so curious how he integrated his religious...
Philosophical thoughts with his hyper-scientific rationalism.
And I saw a video of him trying to explain that, and oh my god, it was such a linguistically beautiful explanation.
And I wanted to try to summarize it, but I think it was the beauty with which he explained it that made it work.
And the basic idea...
Was that it was sort of a, I hate to, maybe I shouldn't do that.
Because as soon as you try to summarize somebody who's smarter than you are, it never really works, does it?
And the problem is, he is objectively, he's smarter than I am.
So if I try to summarize his smarter than I am point, I don't know if I'm going to do him a service here.
But it did sound a little bit more like religion gives you a model to live.
And it's a good model and it works.
So that answer was compatible with my own thinking.
And so people ask me, hey, why don't you ask Jordan Peterson to be interviewed?
And I always say the same thing.
I think we would just end up agreeing with each other.
I don't know if that's the show you need to see.
Because if you need more of Jordan Peterson's opinion, I don't know where you could...
I mean, there's more of that content on the internet than cat pictures.
I don't have the link.
It's just something I saw go by on Instagram one day.
Okay.
Yeah, he essentially said it was a good system.
Yeah, and that's what I say.
And, you know, the other thing that Jordan Peterson talks about a lot is finding meaning in your life.
Let me ask you here.
How many of you think you have found meaning in your life?
Does your life feel like it has a meaning?
All right, I'm seeing yeses and nos.
Lots of yeses, but an uncomfortable number of nos.
Now, I have a hypothesis that the ones who feel they have meaning have families, children especially, at least a spouse.
Now, is there any way to find meaning other than your family?
Is there any other way to do it?
Because I feel like we're biological creatures and our biological imperative is to reproduce.
So if you're part of that system in any direct or indirect way.
Now, I felt meaning as a stepfather.
So even though that's not direct reproduction, it's supportive of the sort of reproductive process, if you will, because people have to live after they get born.
And I felt some meaning of that, but it couldn't possibly be anything like that.
An organic, you know, natural biological parent.
It must be completely different.
I assume. One assumes.
So, and I think Jordan Peterson says you need some religion, it'd be nice, and you need somebody...
Oh, here's the other thing he says.
He talks about love not being a case of finding your soulmate.
He describes it as a decision that two people make.
And I've always said that, but he says it better, so I guess he does a better job of explaining it.
Do you buy that? Because I buy that completely.
I think that love can only get you so far.
But an agreement...
When two people make an agreement to be each other's protector, That that's the highest level of human behavior.
And that even calling it love is almost diminishing it.
Maybe that's hyperbole, but it's how I feel.
I feel that love is awesome, and you should have as much of it as you can get it.
But when two people make a conscious decision to be each other's protector forever, that's higher.
That's the level above love.
Now maybe Jordan Peterson would call that love, and maybe you would too.
And of course you don't make that agreement unless there's some feeling of love, typically.
But to me that's a higher calling.
Much higher. Yeah.
I think love is a biological impulse.
And I think deciding to be each other's protector is an intellectual...
And I think making an intellectual act that includes sacrifice, right, because it's built into that as you're going to sacrifice for the other person.
I think that's just a higher level calling.
Far higher, not even close.
Have I been catfished yet?
Weirdly, no.
Oh, the love of existence and union with being.
Okay. Being as smart as you are, Chris asks, my 185 IQ, reportedly, why didn't you at least try to have smart kids?
You want to know the real answer?
I don't know if I've ever said this before.
So there's more than one real answer, because people don't do things for just one reason, usually.
It's usually a constellation of reasons.
I didn't want to have a kid who had my medical problems.
That's it. Because if I did, I would hate myself forever.
Because I wish I had never been born.
Meaning that my childhood was so unpleasant.
I was in physical, excruciating pain for the first 18 years of my life.
And I'd planned to take my life in college if I couldn't figure out how to solve it.
Now I did solve it, first day of college.
And never came back.
So, marijuana.
Marijuana solved it. The first time I used marijuana, my pain went away, and any time I worry about it coming back, I just make it go away.
And I don't have any problem.
I have zero problem with something that put me in screaming pain for 18 years of my life.
So, what was I talking about?
Oh, why I don't want to have a kid.
Imagine having a kid and bringing somebody into the world with screaming pain for 18 years.
I couldn't live with that.
I could not live with that at all.
And then, of course, there's also the...
How nervous are you as a parent?
How anxious are you about protecting your kids?
And I know myself, and I know that I was always super afraid that I would have a child and that on my watch the child would die.
So that was my greatest fear, that I would be a parent and that I would do such a bad job that That my child would die.
And I thought, okay, I can't handle that.
So I became a stepdad instead, and my child died.
Stepchild. But it was exactly my greatest fear without the biological component, but we were very close.
And I've got to tell you, that's permanent.
You know, I can't even imagine what it would be like Had it been a biological child.
I can't even imagine. But I saw what it did to the biological parents, and that wasn't pretty.
But even as a stepdad, I'm fucking scarred.
Everywhere I go, I see him.
Everywhere. Everywhere I go, all the time, I see him.
It doesn't go away.
And... Please stop.
So, fear.
Fear and maybe empathy are the reasons I didn't have a kid.
I was afraid of losing it, but then that happened anyway.
Which actually taught me I could probably have handled it, so I guess I made the wrong decision.
And I also didn't trust...
That the kid would be healthy and happy.
And then I'm going to tell you the next reason that I've never said before in public.
Unless you've heard me say this.
I'm just going to be really honest.
I've never said this before.
I wouldn't want a short kid if it were male.
Female's fine. I wouldn't want a short male kid.
Now, I've done okay.
Five foot eight. I've done okay.
But my life is completely different because of my height.
It's completely different.
You are a second-class citizen in some sense.
I'm not going to compare it to whatever your problem is.
I know you've got a problem, too.
Everybody's got something.
But the advantages of a tall male are so substantial, I wouldn't take the chance of creating a small one.
Yeah, I can't say that it bothers me on a day-to-day basis, right?
But it's so obvious what the advantages are that it's hard to miss it.
Let me put out a little thought to you.
If you're a man who's 6'4", and let's say you're reasonably fit, you know you can have sex with almost any woman who's available, right?
Did you know that?
If you're 6'4", and you're fit, basically every available woman will sleep with you.
That's just the truth.
You got really quiet when I said that, didn't you?
I've seen neither agreement or disagreement, but it is true.
Now, I say these things as absolutes, but you know I don't mean absolute, right?
I just mean most of the time.
And there's some yeses here.
All right, let me ask you this. Is there anybody here who is that person?
You don't have to be six foot four exactly, but is there anybody here who is of a pretty big height, And you know for sure that you can basically have any woman you want.
True? And I'm saying confirmations like crazy, yeah.
At a certain height, you can just have any woman you want.
So... Yeah.
So there's my answer.
Um... Now, I'm not saying that being 6'4 and fit is the only thing you need.
You still need a personality.
You still need to be assertive, etc.
But it's not hard if you've got the height.
It's pretty much automatic.
And money helps.
Tall women have advantages too?
Only in business.
Tall women have disadvantages in dating.
Because there are lots of men who would not date a tall woman.
Same as lots of women who would not date a short man.
Alright. I believe I have nothing else to say today.
Can you give me a better topic to end this on?
Anybody have a better topic?
Anything I should have talked about that I didn't God, we're pathetic, somebody says.
Reframe disgust.
Well, that's sort of biological.
I don't know if you could reframe that.
Oh, the markets?
Yeah, I don't know. There's not much to say about the markets.
ESG. So I've got some more ESG comics coming.
All right.
Jim Brewer bringing light to the dark.
What? Soccer, legal.
All right. Looks like you're all over the place today.
I think I did that to you.
First day in college...
Alright, I'm just reading your comments for a moment here.
Women over 5'10 get weird?
That's a pretty general statement.
Yeah, when are our robots coming?
So last night I did a test of Ecamm, the split-screen software, and it worked out well, so I think I'll do some interviews if I find somebody who wants to.
