Episode 1877 Scott Adams: The FBI Is Robbing Banks, The Anti-Woke Are Rising, The News Is Fun Today
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a
Find my "extra" content on Locals: https://ScottAdams.Locals.com
Content:
Why today's Dilbert had to be reworked
The FBI robbed a bank
Ida Bae Wells and Lamont Thompson
Working assumption about Ray Epps
My Taiwan solution
Whiteboard: Fentanyl Illusions
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If you would like to enjoy this same content plus bonus content from Scott Adams, including micro-lessons on lots of useful topics to build your talent stack, please see scottadams.locals.com for full access to that secret treasure.
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Good morning, everybody, and welcome to Coffee with Scott Adams, often called the and welcome to Coffee with Scott Adams, often called the highlight of civilization, reportedly.
And today, not only do we have two separate live streams going, but do you see what's behind me?
Do you see that?
That's right. It's a whiteboard.
It's a whiteboard.
And special iPad visuals.
It's like everything today.
Everything. Well, there's one thing I haven't mentioned.
The one thing that will take it up to levels unheard of.
And all you need for that is a cupper mug or a glass of tanker gel, so sign a canteen jug or flask, a vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine of the day, the thing that makes everything better.
It's called the Simultaneous Sip.
Go! It's good.
That's good. So, have you noticed anything in the news lately?
Anything interesting?
Yes, all of it.
This is like the best news day ever.
You don't want to miss one second of today's live stream.
It's going to be so good.
Starting with, do you remember the Canadian teacher who is identifying now as a female?
But looks exactly like, and I don't mean to be unkind, a middle-aged man with a blonde wig and beach ball-sized prosthetic breasts.
Now, some people had speculated that this person was maybe playing a long prank.
Other people have said, no, no.
This person is just identifying and might have a different preference for breast size than maybe you did, and her preference is this big.
Okay. People are different.
Well, today we learned that...
Now, this is from 4chan, all right?
Now, 4chan can go either way, right?
4chan can either...
Be a prank itself, or they can uncover a prank.
So 4chan is a little tricky, because you never know when they're joking or they're uncovering somebody.
But according to at least one person on 4chan who knows somebody who was in this teacher's class before the transition, and that person reports the said teacher was very anti-woke.
Had a big problem with all the wokeness.
And that maybe it was becoming kind of a problem.
Kind of a problem in his job.
Now her. Now, any questions?
I don't think we can know 100% what's going on here.
But this is exactly the hypothesis that fits all the data.
Because she looks exactly like he playing a long prank and is very committed to it.
Now, remember what I said.
I said there were two possibilities.
There are probably more, but two big ones.
One is that it's a prank.
And if that's true, if this gets confirmed, hero.
He's my hero.
And if it's not a prank, still hero.
I just love that somebody would live their life and not care what anybody else thought.
I just like that. I generally like anybody who's non-standard.
I don't know if you've noticed that.
Many of you automatically rebel against the non-standard.
The more non-standard they are, the more you rebel.
And I have the opposite instinct, which is as soon as I see somebody violating all of your expectations, I think, you have my attention.
We could be friends.
Yeah, we could be friends.
So I always like the people who are non-standard, no matter what it is, just generally speaking.
So I'm loving this person.
But I feel we need to take this another level.
Don't you? I feel like this is almost perfect if it's a prank.
And if it's not a prank, I have the same recommendation.
I stole this, by the way.
It's so good, I had to steal it.
I feel we should create a movement to get this teacher on the cover of Sports Illustrated or Victoria's Secrets.
Do you see any reason not to?
Seriously. Is there anybody here who sees any reason, any reason at all, That this teacher should not be on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
Because I think we have a brave, body positive role model.
I mean, right.
Looks like a role model.
So I think we should maybe put together some kind of a petition or a push to get this teacher on the cover of Sports Illustrated so that we can show the world that unlike some people who are closed-minded, we're not like that.
We're not. We are open-minded.
And we like people who express their individuality.
And if this teacher wants to identify as female, I'm all for it.
And let us celebrate it.
Celebrate it, really. All right.
So there's a big storm heading toward Florida.
I like states that I can live in year-round.
That's my problem with Florida.
You can move into Florida, but sooner or later, somebody's going to tap you on the shoulder and say, no, you really need to get out of this state the next day.
You better pack your car.
Get the pets.
You better get out of this state.
I don't like that.
California, all the California emergencies, you can usually stay in your house.
Yeah, we have lots of smoke, but I stay in my house.
Earthquakes? No problem.
I'm very earthquake-proof, and I did not build on a fault line.
Planned that ahead. So yeah, I built my house to be extra safe.
So it's almost impossible for my house to even catch on fire.
I know. I'm probably jinxing myself.
But it's built so...
Oh, God. Fucking damn it.
Sorry. I've got a problem with my locals' feed today because I had a little hardware problem.
I'm using my phone and it's timing out now and then.
All right. Anyway, I'm just teasing Florida.
Florida's a great state. But I should note that you're not going to beat my weather.
All right? I will acknowledge to you That Florida is a well-managed state.
I'll give you that.
Lots of advantages in Florida.
But you're not going to beat my weather.
You're not going to beat my weather.
Sorry. All right, well, today the Dilbert comic came out, and I want to read it to you.
And what you're going to discover is it's not funny.
And you might ask yourself, why is this not funny this time?
Now some of you, the NPCs...
Go ahead, what do the NPCs say?
Please? NPCs, would you like...
I'll give you your own time.
The NPCs say...
Well, it was never funny, Garfield.
Right? Are you done with that?
Are we good? Have you said the thing that you have to say...
And you can't prevent it.
You have to say it.
Okay, now you've said it.
Now there's a story to this.
So I'm going to read to you the Dilbert comic.
You're going to see it's not funny.
And then I'm going to tell you what it originally was before I was asked to change it.
Okay? The only place you can see the original is on the locals' platform.
Anyway, Dilbert and the boss are looking out the window, and the boss says, A protest is forming outside our headquarters because we designed our new robot to be too handsome.
Husbands aren't comfortable leaving them home with their wives.
And Dilbert says, What now?
And the boss says, Marketing thinks we need to make them look like total losers.
How do we do that?
And the boss says, they suggested making it look and talk exactly like you, meaning Dilbert.
And Dilbert says, marketing said that?
And the boss says, I might have primed the pump.
And then one month later, Dilbert says, how are sales?
And the boss says, still zero.
Now, it's sort of a joke, but it's a little flat, isn't it?
It feels like it's definitely missing something, isn't it?
Well, that's because I was on deadline, and when my editor talked me on a publishing, the one that I'm going to read to you in a moment, I didn't have time to change the art.
So I actually rewrote the words in an existing comic.
So it didn't exactly work, but I had to hit deadline.
So here's the first draft, and I'll tell you what it originally said.
Are you ready for this? Here's what it originally said.
The boss says, our protest is forming outside our headquarters because we designed our new robot to be an attractive female.
People are saying we're sexist for making us slim.
They want us to plump it up.
Dilber says, how plump?
And the boss says, marketing thinks something on the low end of obesity is the sweet spot.
And Dilber says, okay, anything else?
And then the boss says, the robots also need to complain a lot so husbands won't fall in love with them.
And Dilber says, marketing said that?
And the boss says, no, that's common sense.
One month later, how are sales?
Still zero. Better?
Right? It was better.
Now let me tell you the real story about this one.
All right, the story is...
So I have an editor that works for the syndication company that sends it down to newspapers.
So the first editor I have to get through is my own editor, the one that works with me.
After that, it has to get through the newspaper's editors also.
So there are two places it can be stopped.
My editor is on my side.
So I was on the creator's side.
So when my editor says, I don't think you should do that, that's for my benefit.
And in this case, I took his advice.
And his advice was based on not there was anything wrong with this comic, you know, relative to other comics.
It would have caused trouble, but that wasn't the problem.
The problem was that it was embedded with a whole bunch of other comics that were also controversial.
In other words, in that two-week period, there were too many controversies from me.
And you didn't want the editors to just have, you know, controversy fatigue and say, you know, you don't want an editor today.
You're just causing me too much work.
Everybody's complaining that it's just too much work.
So it was basically a workload...
Client management decision.
It wasn't censorship, per se, but just so you know.
All right. So that's what happened there.
I would like to blow one person's mind today, if you don't mind, if you would indulge me.
I'm going to say something here that doesn't mean anything to anybody except one person.
You ready? Baked Turbo Flash.
Baked Turbo Flash.
That's it. Moving on.
Somebody's mind just got blown clear off.
Well, the FBI robbed a bank.
What?
What?
Yes. Yes.
Apparently the FBI got a warrant to go into a bunch of safe deposit boxes in a high-end bank, I think in L.A., and emptied a lot of the boxes and took their shit.
Just took it.
Photographed it, you know, allegedly kept records, but just took it all.
Looked through everything, looked through everybody's personal belongings, opened all the...
But they had a warrant.
Do you know what the warrant said?
Go open all these boxes.
I'm exaggerating, but it was like a general warrant.
Allegedly, they were looking for illegal criminal assets.
But I don't think they only opened the boxes of illegal criminals.
It looks like they just robbed a bank.
If your warrant is fake, we know now that the warrant was fraudulent.
So it was either, you know, fraudulent might be too strong.
It was, let's say, inappropriate or, you know, against regulations or didn't follow guidelines or something like that.
But anyway, it was an inappropriate warrant.
Clearly inappropriate.
It wasn't like a gray area.
It was very inappropriate.
And they went in and they took a bunch of people's possessions.
That's robbing the bank, isn't it?
If you go under illegal, fraudulent means and take other people's assets out of a bank and don't give them back, didn't you rob a bank?
Am I over-interpreting that?
I mean, it's not a normal bank robbery, but they did literally, fraudulently rob the bank.
And do you know why you're not more upset about that?
Because there are too many outrages.
We have outrage fatigue.
The FBI robbed a bank, and you just looked at it and go, that's sort of baseline now.
Like, you don't even expect the FBI not to rob a bank.
If the FBI murdered somebody at this point, you'd be like, not ideal, but what's for lunch?
Sounds like a normal day.
Well, So, yeah, this is just amazing.
How could the FBI be less credible at this point to the public?
Well, so the same thing that is keeping us from being outraged about this bank robbery, because there's just too much outrage going on, I've decided to use that same technique to my advantage.
You've heard of the OODA loop?
You know, the OODA loop, if you're in a battle, if you get your opponent continuously reacting, then they can never mount an offense because they're just reacting all the time.
They're just overwhelmed with reacting to whatever you're doing.
So if you can get them in that OODA loop where they're just reacting, then you basically own them right away.
Now, you may have noticed I've done some provocative tweets and comics lately.
Anybody notice? Have you noticed I've turned up the temperature?
And here's why I haven't been cancelled yet, I think.
Because I did too much of it.
So right now, people are mad at me for several different tweets on different areas, several different comics in different areas, a whole bunch of different things I've said in the past, all kinds of stuff.
I don't think people can get a good beat on me because they're so outraged about so many things, it's hard to really Like, you know, really grab onto one.
So I'm basically doing the Trump method, where I'm going to outrage you in a way that would normally get me cancelled, but before you can even react, I'm going to give you two more.
I'm going to so outrage you.
And let me tell you what I did today that I could probably only do inside my own OODA loop protection scheme.
You ready for this? This is something I tweeted today that has not gotten me cancelled yet.
It was a response to Lamont Thompson, who's an actor.
And he was commenting on my comments to Ida Bay-Wells on the question of whether...
It's about racism and employment.
And I noted that I had lost some jobs for being a white male.
Now, Ida Bay-Wells said I was lying.
Indirectly. Said, you are lying.
In public. I'm lying?
Why would I lie about that?
I mean, I suppose people will lie about anything, but it would be a weird kind of a lie.
No, it wasn't a lie.
But anyway, Lamont got in there and he said, he said something, blah, blah, blah.
And here's the part that caught me.
He said about me, he said, the problem Scott has is common.
He and his ilk, my ilk, I think it's impossible to be mediocre, undesirable, or viewed as just not very good at what they do.
And what he's saying is, my ilk are white men.
So he's saying that white men think that they're being discriminated against and that other people are getting favoritism, but possibly the real problem here, as Lamont points out, is that maybe people like me, specifically me, We don't realize how mediocre we are.
So, let me first give you a little bit of a response to that, and then I'll tell you the tweet I sent later.
So this is not a tweet, this is just my response to you.
So, let me give you just a little bit of a context for the time that I lost my job.
So the question is, did I lose a job to somebody who was more qualified and I just failed to admit it?
It's possible, right?
That would be a fairly reasonable...
I mean, it must happen somewhere.
Surely there are white people complaining about losing jobs when really the problem was they were not qualified.
That clearly exists.
But Lamont thinks I might be one of these people.
So I'll give them a little context.
So I'll describe me, and then I'll describe the person I was competing against at the bank, the first job.
So here's me. So I graduated high school as a valedictorian and got an economics degree, and I was working on an MBA from a top school.
If you're in a bank...
If you're in a bank, and you've got an economics degree, and you're working on your MBA from a top school, that's everything they want.
Like, I had the ideal banker's resume.
And I had the highest performance review.
So, valedictorian economics degree, MBA, and the highest performance review working on a bank.
Now, the person I was competing against had some strengths too, and I'll get to that.
So I don't want to leave a suggestion that I had some accomplishments and the person that I competed at didn't, because they did.
So I'll get to that. I did manage to become the most influential cartoonist in the world, but as Lamont would point out, you know, big deal.
You're a successful cartoonist.
I am considered a management expert, partly because of the Dilbert stuff.
So yes, I dominate my industry, and I dominate somebody else's industry, which is management.
But that's just two things.
I did write the most influential self-help book of all time, Creative Systems vs.
Goals, Talent Stacks.
I did cure thousands of people of health issues.
And I have dominated politics, the best predictions in the pandemic, best predictions on military in Ukraine, and wrote the definitive personal finance guide.
And I've changed a lot of policies in the United States.
So that's all I've done.
But, like I said, the person I competed against also had some accomplishments.
For example...
She graduated high school.
So, as Lamont says, it's hard to know.
Who was more qualified?
I don't know. This is a tough one, Lamont.
I don't know. Could be the one with all the advanced degrees and who has succeeded and dominated five separate fields.
Could be that one. Or it could be the one with the high school diploma, who was also very good, by the way.
By the way, there was nothing wrong with her.
She was a good manager. Quite qualified.
So it is possible that I was unaware that I wasn't quite as qualified as the other applicant.
Never know. But here's what I did.
I tweeted today that if you're a white man in America, Well, if you're a black man, your odds of employment are five times better than a white man in America.
How many of you would agree or disagree with that statement?
As of today, a black man, let's say equal qualifications.
Black man and a white man in America, equal qualifications.
I think that the black man has approximately five times advantage over the white man.
Would that sound about right?
About five times?
Yeah. Now, let me talk for the NPCs.
What do the NPCs say now?
What's the NPC say?
What's the most obvious thing you say that doesn't help?
Well, you'll think of it.
But do you think that I could have tweeted, except for having caused so much other trouble recently, do you think that I could have gotten away with tweeting directly that a black man in America has five times the employment opportunity as a white man?
And I got no pushback.
I got no pushback.
You should see the tweet.
I don't know if I could have done that a year ago.
I think a year ago, I mean, it would just have been the biggest problem.
But I've caused so many other problems this week, nobody knows what to attack me for.
My OODA loop is intact.
So, got that going for me.
And I put that out there.
And by the way, Ada Bay Wells just sort of crept away after...
You know, after we dunked on her.
Because she's so wrong.
And imagine what a mindfuck it is to be a black person in the United States to realize for the first time.
Imagine this. Imagine what this would do to your head.
You've lived and you grew up in America and you had this certain set of beliefs.
And you found out today that you've always had a five times advantage over white men.
In employment. You always did.
It's never been different.
My entire life.
And if you want to find out if I'm exaggerating or kidding, walk out on the sideway.
Walk. And this is an actual experiment.
I want you to actually do this.
If you're black and you're wondering, is this true?
Because you should be. If I were black and I heard this for the first time today, I'd be thinking, well, there's no way that's true.
No, it is true. And if you'd like to validate it, walk out on the sidewalk and just tap on the shoulder any middle-aged white guy.
Anybody. Anyone.
And just say, are you aware of any discrimination against white males in employment?
And watch how many stories you get.
It's everybody. Everybody everywhere.
Now, the question that if you're black, here's the first question you should ask.
How is it possible, how is it possible that I would just be hearing about this now?
Right? And that's a good question.
How could this be true if I'm just hearing it now?
Let me explain that to you.
No white man in the world is dumb enough to say this out loud.
Except me. And the only reason I can is because fuck you.
Fuck you, that's all.
I can say anything I want because fuck you.
I've just decided I can say anything I want now.
Because I'm close enough to retirement, I made my money, and now I'm going to stop lying.
I'm just going to stop lying.
I've been lying for 30 fucking years.
Black men, and black women especially, have a huge advantage over white people in employment in America and education.
It's not even close.
It's like a five-time difference.
If you come in here and say, you know, Scott, I hear your argument.
There might be like a little bit of difference, maybe a little advantage for the black people.
No. I'm not saying that.
I'm saying it's a five times advantage.
I'm saying we're not in the same zip code.
Now, to be fair, are the white people really disadvantaged?
Well, I mean, you could make an argument that they just go get a job somewhere else.
Because that's usually what happens.
But it's still discrimination.
Luckily, we live in a country where labor is in great demand.
If labor...
Had been constrained, this would be a big problem.
But let me tell you how white people think.
Okay, this isn't the hill I'm going to die on.
I'm just going to go get another job.
Because what happens if a white person sues?
So this is the other dumb question that black people ask.
And let me say this just as clearly as I can.
This is a dumb fucking question that black people ask.
There are a lot of dumb questions that white people ask.
Ask black people all the time.
So we can ask each other dumb questions or say dumb things.
That's okay. The dumbest thing that black people ask when they hear about this, they say, well, why didn't you sue?
Every white man right now is just laughing.
We all know why we didn't sue.
Because we're white men.
We're white men. We don't sue over bullshit.
I mean, we would sue if it was big enough, and if we couldn't get a job somewhere else, and if we didn't take responsibility for our own lives, and if we blamed somebody else for every fucking problem we had.
We could do that. Sure.
And then we'd never get a job again.
You'd never get a job again.
Would you hire somebody who had sued their last employer?
I wouldn't. I wouldn't.
Would you? If you knew somebody had sued their last employer and won, even if they were right, would you hire them?
No. No.
Because even if they were right, you don't want the litigant.
You don't want the litigious person.
It doesn't matter if they're a white or black or the most qualified person you've ever seen in your life.
You're not going to hire the person who sues their employer and Even a different employer.
No way! But also, white men are not taught to complain in this way.
We're taught to just get on with it.
Suck it up. Figure it out.
Go make something work.
And here's the funny thing.
It's almost like the country's ready for this message.
Because I'm not getting any pushback.
I just said the most insanely provocative thing you could say in public, and I don't even think the press will pick it up.
They should. I'll say it again.
A black man in America has a five times better advantage getting a job similarly qualified as a white man.
I'll go further. A less qualified black man is almost certainly going to get the job over a more qualified white man, In most cases, the exception would be where you really need a specific skill and there's just no way around it.
But in most cases, the less qualified black man will be hired three times out of four, probably.
Now, to be fair, and allow me to, let me soften that.
Because I'm trying to be honest, not a protagonist for one side.
It's also true, see if you disagree with this statement, hiring managers aren't really good at knowing who will do the job better.
So even if you think you know who's the better qualified one, yeah, don't always.
You don't always. When I told you my story about the high school graduate who got the job that I thought I should have gotten, and I was told directly, because I'm white and male, I can't have that job.
As far as I know, she did a great job.
I have no reason to think that she didn't perform perfectly.
But those are not the rules that we thought we were playing on.
I developed a set of qualifications because those were the rules I thought I was playing.
Get these qualifications and you'll be at the top of the list for the job.
So I went and got them.
So it feels a little unfair, but did I mention I'm a white man?
What do I do when something's unfair to me?
Fucking suck it up.
That's what I do.
I just get over it.
Just move on with it.
Get on with life.
Make something work. Stop failing and do something that works.
All right. Let's talk about the re-ups.
So this is a point I made before, but that was before a member of Congress retweeted it.
So I guess its prominence just went up a notch.
So this is something Thomas Massey retweeted this morning.
I tweeted that the FBI and the January 6th committee have signaled, by omission, FBI involvement in January 6th incitement.
So that becomes the public's working assumption.
Keywords, working assumption.
If the FBI wants to change our working assumptions on Epps, nothing's stopping them.
I'll change my mind.
In fact, it would be really easy for me to change my mind With just some information.
I mean, I don't even think it would be hard.
All you have to say is, yeah.
I mean, even this. You could say, okay, yeah, he did work for the FBI, but we looked into it, and that's not what he was doing that day.
I could be convinced.
But if you're not going to try to convince me, you're not going to attempt it, and you just say, yeah, we're just going to ignore this whole thing.
If you're going to ignore it, I will treat that as a confirmation, and it will be my working assumption that you've confessed.
It doesn't mean it's true, so I'm not going to accept it as true.
But remember, we live in a world where you have to make a choice.
You don't get to do nothing.
Well, I guess doing nothing is a choice.
But you have to choose. And so if you're going to act on your beliefs, the belief you should act on is Epps being part of an FBI incitement operation, for which I have no evidence of.
I have no evidence to say that that would happen.
I'm just saying that as a citizen and a responsible adult, You should look at this and say, oh, we asked a direct question.
They failed to deny it.
We can treat that like it's true.
If they want to change our mind, we're here.
FBI knows where to find the country.
Just put on a statement, say, here's what I would be happy with.
Let me give you an example.
I don't personally need to know everything about REIPS. Because maybe there's some confidential stuff there.
And he's a citizen, right?
He's got a right to some privacy.
But, if you told me, and I'll just pick your name, if you told me that Rand Paul had sat with him and talked to him personally, and maybe talked to other people and looked into it, and that Rand Paul knew all the secrets, whatever the FBI knows, he knows, and then Rand Paul came out and said, okay, I can't tell you what they told me, Because it's confidential.
But trust me, you don't need to worry about this.
I made this go away.
I'd be good with that.
Wouldn't you? Now, there's always some small chance that, you know, Rand Paul would be lying to you.
But there's no history to suggest that would happen.
Right? He's one of the straightest shooters in the country.
So, yeah, you say trust no one.
I get that. I get that.
Trust no one's not crazy.
That's not crazy. But I'm saying that as a reasonable best you could do, if somebody we trusted told us we looked into it, I think I'd be inclined to go with that.
I'd go with that. But if they don't do anything, given how easy it would be to convince us to stop talking about it, they either want us to talk about it, to make Republicans look extra crazy, which would be a good plot, by the way, or there's something to it.
All right. Here's another thing I was doing just to want the...
And by the way, the REAP stuff, that's part of my OODA loop.
I don't care that much about ray-ups.
I just wanted to do one more provocative thing so that all my provocations are rising about the same time.
My other provocation was this.
I tweeted this. I'm seeing how close I can fly to the sun in terms of election integrity without saying anything that's untrue.
So I tweeted this.
I'm not aware of any proof that our election systems are rigged, or even could be, in any of our 50 states.
And that is remarkable, given that 100% of everything else we can't directly observe is rigged.
Then I added, also, unarmed protesters tried to conquer the United States.
Now, I believe what I said is actually...
The official word, right?
Didn't I just agree with the official narrative?
The official narrative is that there is no proof of election systems being rigged.
I agree. I have seen no proof of that.
Or even that they could be.
And also, I've seen no proof of it in any of the 50 separate systems that are managed by each state, which is remarkable.
Given that the FBI is robbing banks, Congress is doing insider trading, and basically 100% of the systems that we can't view directly are corrupt.
Except all 50 state election systems.
The only exceptions.
And you'd think it would be amazing to have one exception.
Like one state that wasn't corrupted.
That would be amazing. If even one...
But we got 50.
50! 2,000 mules is not proof, and if you still think so, you need to catch up.
2,000 mules is a red flag.
It's a signal.
It's an invitation to look further, but that's all it is.
Nobody has looked and found anything, in my opinion.
Yeah, I do care about Ray Epps in the sense that anything that would free the prisoners would be good.
So yes, I'll agree with you on that.
So here, and then I said the unarmed protesters tried to conquer the United States.
Well, that's the official narrative, right?
The unarmed protesters tried to conquer the United States.
Now, the fact that that seems absurd and ridiculous when you read it isn't my fault.
It's not my fault. I'm just describing it.
If it sounds ridiculous to you, well, that's between you and the news.
Don't blame me.
I'm just giving you the facts.
So there's also a story about China.
Have you ever seen a picture of Chairman Xi next to a picture of Beavis?
Like Beavis and Bi-Head?
Have you ever seen them together? I put a picture of the two of them together on Twitter today.
All I see is Beavis.
Chairman Xi looks just like Beavis.
He's got that look.
I don't want to do that.
That sounds racist. But Beavis has weird shaped eyes.
So if you take the racist part out of it, he reminds me of Xi.
Alright, so people have been saying, hey, there's something going on over there, and maybe it's a coup.
Oh, fuck me.
Bad technology.
There we go. Oops.
Back online.
Back online. All right, so I think the dream of a China coup is probably fake.
But here's something that apparently the Chinese do this as a regular pattern before they have their big...
What's the name of it?
The Communist Committee meeting that they do...
What's that called? Some kind of a big CCP meeting that they do.
Anyway, so they think that Xi will try to get an emperor for life or something like that out of that.
But apparently what they do just before this big event is they put in jail major political people.
So they put them in jail on a regular basis.
Like, that's just a regular thing.
So they just jailed some minister in the Chinese government for stealing $90 million or something.
And here's the question.
I wonder if all the ministers in the Chinese government are stealing $90 million.
Because I always assumed they were.
Isn't that the whole point of being the Being toward the top in a communist country as you get to steal millions of dollars.
I just assume they're all doing that.
So I wonder if the people that they decide to prosecute are just the ones that are not politically on the right team.
They're not trying hard enough to support the leader.
But anyway, I don't think you have to worry too much about a coup.
Don't think that's happening.
Apparently Twitter and Facebook suspended numerous fake accounts for spreading disinformation.
Now that doesn't sound unusual, right?
Because they routinely get rid of fake accounts that are spreading disinformation.
Let's see, who owned these accounts?
Oh, the US government.
Yes, it turns out that the US government is creating fake Twitter and Facebook accounts to spread misinformation.
And that's confirmed.
Now, I think the story was telling us that they were spreading fake information in the international markets.
It was a little unspecific about whether it's spreading that same misinformation to our markets.
But of course they are.
They're all connected. You can't tell a fake rumor in some other market and not expect it to get over here.
So now we know that our government is literally lying to us, and other countries, for sure.
So they robbed a bank, they're putting political opponents in jail, and they're using propaganda and spreading fake information.
So that's your U.S. government right there.
Pretty good, huh? Alright, I decided to come up with a solution for Taiwan.
You've been waiting for this, haven't you?
I know, a lot of you every day are like, Scott, where's your solution for Taiwan?
You've solved so many other problems.
Well, I have a solution for Taiwan.
You ready for it?
And it depends on the following thing.
It depends on China being as dumb as the people who responded to me on Twitter.
And I think I can count on that being true.
Alright? Now I'm going to set an NPC trap for you.
I'm telling you in advance, this is an NPC trap.
I'm going to trap you into saying the most obvious thing about this topic.
And then I'm going to tell you that that's what I'm making the Chinese think, too.
And you fell for it.
And it's nonsense.
Alright? So here's my idea, and then watch for somebody to say the most obvious thing, and that's my trick.
So here's the idea. Taiwan should announce that they've decided to merge with China.
So Taiwan should say it first.
We've decided to merge with China and become one country.
Here's how we're going to do it.
We're going to become one country in spirit right away.
So that we'll say, all Chinese people, we are one.
But we'll wait 100 years, 100 years, and then we will merge systems.
But not for 100 years.
And then we'll see what makes sense for a system, because everything will change in 100 years.
And then we'll implement the one that makes sense in 100 years.
Go. NPC is way in.
There we go.
First NPC in Hong Kong.
Yes, that is the NPC trick I was trying to get you to say.
Because you just said to yourself, Scott, didn't work in Hong Kong, did it?
The Chinese just waited and then they just took over Hong Kong.
How about that? That's exactly what you're supposed to think.
Because everybody who thinks that analogies predict, nope.
What you want is that China will incorrectly predict, just like you did.
So you said, my analogy is Hong Kong.
Hong Kong didn't work. This is like Hong Kong.
This won't work. That's what I want China to think.
And I could even say it out loud and they'll still think it.
But here's the trick.
What's different this time?
Well, analogies are always...
There's always differences in the analogies.
Here's the big difference. In 100 years, nothing's predictable.
The odds that China will even exist as a state like you know it are really not that high in 100 years.
Because in 100 years, we're going to be past the singularity where computers are intelligent.
AI will have changed everything.
Technology will have changed everything.
It's perfectly possible that in 100 years, mainland China will say, you know, this Taiwan system worked better than ours.
Let's do that. Now, what happens if 100 years goes by and Taiwan is bristling with self-defensive weapons?
Because it could be.
It would just keep going on as it has gone before.
There's just the same odds of China attacking, except you bought yourself 100 years.
So if you could buy yourself 100 years of China not attacking Taiwan, wouldn't you take it?
At the end of 100 years, everything's going to be just a jump ball.
Now, would they have said the same thing about Hong Kong?
100 years before Hong Kong transferred, Would people have said the same, hey, everything's going to be different in 100 years?
No. Because things did not change quickly, as quickly, as they change now.
So the rate of change for hundreds of years was, you know, there was definitely change.
But you could kind of, you could a little bit more straight line the change and say, all right, Hong Kong's still going to look like Hong Kong.
The buildings will be better. Hong Kong will still have streets, but instead of horses, maybe there are cars.
But basically, you can straight line that one for 100 years.
There's nothing you can straight line for 100 years now.
Nothing. There's nothing that can be straight line for 100 years.
So if you say, we'll give you our country in 100 years, what have you promised?
Nothing. The odds that both of them will both be countries are actually low.
I mean, something will happen long before that.
Climate change, or mass immigration, or somebody's gonna nuke somebody, or World War III, or aliens will invade, or the AI will change everything, robots will be running everything, maybe we've decoupled from China.
There won't be anything that's the same.
What about weapons?
At the moment, Taiwan has so many weapons, it almost looks like they could hold off China.
What kind of weapons are they going to have in 100 years?
In 100 years, everybody will have mutually assured destruction.
In 100 years, Taiwan will be able to destroy all of China as quickly as China can destroy all of Taiwan.
There won't even be a difference in 100 years.
Right? Did I sell anybody?
It's not bad, is it?
It's not bad.
Now keep in mind that nobody else has an idea.
Am I right? Is it true that literally no one has an idea?
And if we continue with just nobody has an idea, my prediction is that China will take over Taiwan.
Do you know why?
Because this is China, and this little dingleberry hanging off the end is Taiwan, and I'm sorry, real estate is just too important.
There's just no way that situation lasts forever.
But in 100 years, all bets are off.
Cuba, we've never tried to annex Cuba.
All right, so that's a bad example.
All right, well, I was surprised. Did I sell that better than I thought I would?
Because I'm looking for some pushback here.
I'm not really getting it. And maybe it just has to do with the fact that literally there's no other idea.
Now, I told you my idea of attacking Mexico and occupying it and using a base there to destroy the cartels for as long as it takes.
Permanent, doesn't matter.
Now, do you remember how radical that sounded the first time you heard it?
And do you notice how it doesn't sound as radical anymore?
I'm doing that. I'm doing that to you.
I'm making you get used to it.
And the persuasion principle is that you can get used to anything.
So no matter how radical something sounds the first time you hear it, if you just keep hearing it, it becomes less radical.
So I'm just going to make sure that people keep hearing it.
And it will become less radical.
I'll even go further.
A military attack by the United States on Mexico is not optional.
Only the timing is.
The only thing that's optional is the timing.
We're definitely going to invade Mexico.
There's no way around it.
Just because the danger coming through is just too great.
There's no way we don't do it.
Sometime in the next 20 years, for sure.
So I might as well get it over with.
Do it while it's easy. Let's see.
What else is going on? Glenn Greenwald had a tweet today, as often he does, that just sort of captures everything.
He says, I can't stress this enough.
At its core, democratic politics is about criminalizing opposition to their party and ideology.
Dissenting ideas are disinformation and must be censored by big tech.
And that Trump voters are inherently criminal, insurrectionists, and should be imprisoned.
I think this is exactly right.
You know I never jump on the globalist conspiracy theories and stuff like that.
I'm not into the conspiracy theory too much.
I just have to...
There was a comedian I was just watching on a reel, and I wish I remembered his name.
Maybe somebody knows him.
Not one of the well-known comedians, but he was a black man comedian, if anybody recognizes him.
And here was his joke.
I'll paraphrase it. And he goes...
Oh, I wish I could do a better job.
His is better. He goes, you know, a lot of you believe in conspiracy theories, and some of you think that all the conspiracy theories are false.
And he says, really?
The government? You think the government has a 1,000% is batting 1,000 in conspiracy theories.
None of them are true.
And when he says it that way, really, your government is batting 1,000.
Every single conspiracy theory, not true.
And it's just when he says it like that, I just laugh for like 10 minutes.
I go, okay, when you put it that way.
Yeah, there must be some of them that are true.
But... This isn't a conspiracy theory.
This is more about describing the frame that they see things.
And I've described it as shooting the messenger.
You know, the Republicans think Democrats have bad plans, and Democrats think Republicans are bad people.
And I think Glenn Greenwald captured this perfectly, that they're trying to criminalize the other side.
And it's everywhere. So if it were one thing, you'd say, well, that's just that one thing.
But they do seem to be criminalizing and censoring in every way they can the other side.
So I think politics now is about shutting up the other side more than voting and whatnot.
How many of you think there's going to be a civil war in the United States?
No. Spoiler, there's not going to be.
There won't be.
There's an obvious reason for it.
Somebody said it on Twitter, and I guess I realized it, but until I heard somebody say it directly, we're too mixed.
We're too mixed.
Households have Democrats and Republicans in them.
Households. There's no way you can...
It just wouldn't work.
Yeah, there's no way.
And here's the other thing.
All of this political bickering is largely theater.
It's 90% theater.
So when people, especially Republicans, when they talk about getting their guns and overthrowing the government if the government raises their taxes or whatever they're talking about, it's just stuff you talk about because it's fun to talk about and act tough.
But it's not real.
If you think it's real, you're on a whole different planet than I am.
Yeah, it's a show. It's just part of the show.
And part of talking about politics, very connected with talking about it, is a lot of people like to essentially inhabit a character and say, I'm talking about it and I'm living in it, but I'll play this character who's really tough and is going to shoot anybody who gets in the way and stuff like that.
So, no, we're not going to have a civil war.
We're nowhere close.
We're not going to divide up our states.
You know why we won't divide up the states?
Because it would make us all weaker.
And no American is going to say, oh, let's take our national strength and divide it in half.
If you divide our strength in half, then China wins.
There's no way. It's more likely that we would annex another country than divide.
Let me put it this way. There's a greater chance we'll annex Mexico than have a civil war.
And I don't think either one's going to happen.
But there's a greater chance we would annex Mexico.
All right. Somebody on Twitter actually said this to me, that belief in a merit-based system is, you know, basically you're a piece of shit.
If you believe that we should have a merit-based system, basically that's just cruel and awful and fascist.
Merit-based system.
And I thought to myself, well, you know, It is a cruel system.
And it is unfair.
A merit-based system is really unfair.
You get that, right?
A merit-based system is super unfair.
Why? Well, apparently some people are born with whatever capability they need to succeed, whatever drive they need, and others are not.
I mean, most of your performance is, you know, you were born with whatever capability, probably at least 60% of it, maybe more, 80%.
And so a mirror-based system is always going to be unfair.
It is, however, the only one that works.
So what option do you have?
Oh, let's use the one that's fair.
Well, that one doesn't work.
Like, everything will fall apart.
We'll all die. Yeah, but it's fair.
Yeah, fair is good.
If we could get fair for free, I'd want some.
But, no.
I'd rather have a system that works That's unfair to somebody sometimes.
That's the best you can do.
The best you can do is an unfair system that works most of the time.
That's it. That's all you got.
All right, let me tell you...
Oh, let's talk about Russia.
So I'm getting mixed reports about what the mood is in Russia, the actual Russian people.
Some are suggesting that this new mobilization and movement of troops is touching enough families that there's going to be some internal dissent.
And you see some people, they're leaving the country, I don't think in big numbers yet, but some people are leaving the country.
And so some speculate that Putin's in trouble because his population will see all these people being mobilized.
You can't miss them. There's so many of them.
And then it will get the public involved in a bad way.
But I've talked to...
Some folks. And one was a Russian citizen with parents in Russia.
And I told you I got the one person's opinion that the older generation is pro-Putin because he's been brainwashing them for decades.
And that the younger generation is a little more open to any kind of change.
But they always are. So I think that's the situation.
I think the older people are actually solidly on Putin's side.
At the moment, I don't think Russian...
Russian citizens look like they're ready to revolt.
Now let's talk about Iran.
So Iran's having these big protests.
I don't think they're going to go anywhere.
Could be surprised.
But it doesn't look like it's going to grow outside of its cultural part of the revolution.
And so I don't think China's going to have a revolution, Iran's going to have a revolution, or Russia.
But we like talking about it.
All right, I figured out why we can't do anything about fentanyl, and we're going to go to the whiteboard.
And I don't know if this is fixable.
I thought that, like, if everybody got informed and, you know, we could find some way to move forward.
But there is a real roadblock here that I did not anticipate.
And I'll show you. And it's psychological.
But I don't know any way around it.
So here are the fentanyl illusions.
As long as these illusions control the public, they can't act.
And nothing's going to change that.
So right now, people believe that demand can be reduced.
That you don't need to have to go after the suppliers of fentanyl.
Because if you did, the supply would just move somewhere else.
If you took out the Chinese suppliers...
It's already being moved to India.
So India is actually picking up the fentanyl precursor business.
And if you stopped it in India, well, it goes somewhere else.
So there is that argument.
Now, so people say, well, if you can't stop it at the supply side, it's really impossible.
At least you can get people to do less of it and create the demand.
How many of you agree with the statement...
That demand for fentanyl could be reduced if we did the right thing.
How many think that?
It's an illusion. Everybody who's had an addict in their family knows there is nothing you can do.
People believe there's a program.
Like, there's a program where they'll take you out of your...
You know, you could have your teen removed from your house, like, forcibly, and then they work hard on some dude ranch until they're good people.
No, that doesn't exist.
That literally doesn't exist.
But everybody I talk to has heard of somebody who's been in that program.
That doesn't exist.
There are even people who are naming the program.
The program you're naming is not available.
It's not. Not in California, anyway.
You can't kidnap somebody out of their bed in California.
I don't know about your state, but most, not most, 100% of the things you think work, don't work.
And it's known not to work.
So, do you think that you can put somebody in rehab and cure their addiction?
How many people think rehab will cure people's addiction?
I don't think any experts think it.
They think that people who have decided to quit can quit.
That's it. So you take somebody who has decided to quit, and you put them in any kind of program, and they'll probably do okay.
Because they've decided to quit.
You take somebody who has not decided to quit, and there's nothing you can do.
There's nothing you can do.
You can't force them, and you can't persuade them.
There's nothing. Absolutely nothing.
And nobody even has a suggestion, by the way.
Now, some of you can say, but, but, but, you know, I heard about ketamine.
Great. If you're a parent, good luck putting your kid on a ketamine treatment.
That's not going to happen.
That's not going to happen anywhere.
Like, you could do something illegal, sure.
But not really. There's just nothing you can do.
So you have to lose the illusion that you can work on the demand side.
Now, you might say to me, Scott, you need to lose the illusion.
And let me explain this in a more direct way.
If I were trying to convince you of something...
I would talk to your brain, right?
I would say things that would go into your ears, they would become part of your thinking, and they may or may not persuade you.
That's the normal way you persuade something.
Addicts don't have a brain.
Addicts have addiction.
Addiction becomes the brain.
And so the illusion is that the addict is somebody who has a brain plus an addiction on top.
Conceptually, yes.
But in a practical sense, no.
There's no brain there.
Here's me negotiating with an addict.
You should get some treatment.
What, no response?
Fentanyl will kill you.
I don't know why this isn't working.
This thing is not going into rehab.
I don't know why not.
Is it not using its free will?
There's fentanyl in the products you're using that you don't know, so you could be killed.
What is wrong?
Why is it not getting in rehab?
Why is it still buying fentanyl?
Because it doesn't have a brain.
You can't talk to this.
I can't convince this to do anything.
If you believe you can talk to an addict and reason with them, I'm sorry.
No, you've never met an addict if you think that.
So, no, you can't do anything to reduce demand.
You can't reason with them. You can't do anything.
What about that Portugal experiment where they legalized drugs and they tried to help them with treatment and stuff like that?
That didn't work. It didn't work.
Sorry, it didn't work.
If you want to know, just Google Portugal drug experience.
Just look for yourself.
It had, quote, mixed experience.
Do you know why that Portugal experience hasn't been spread to everywhere?
Because it didn't work.
It had mixed results.
Now, the mixed results, they say, they got more people into rehab.
Is that good? If you got more people into rehab, are you ahead?
No. Do you know why?
Because the only people in rehab that are going to get better are the ones that decided to.
If you double the number of people in there, but the number who have decided to get better is exactly the same, because they're the ones who went themselves, you get the same result.
You triple it.
Same result. Three people get better.
Now let's do it times 100.
100 times more into rehab.
Still just three get better.
Because they were the three who had decided.
So a lot of this stuff that looks like just common sense, you'd say, obviously that works.
Obviously rehab works.
Nope. Nope.
No. Only for the people who have decided.
And you can't make somebody decide.
You have no control.
There's no free will. None of that is involved with an addict.
It's like you're talking to a pencil.
So addicts don't have free will.
They don't have the whole take personal responsibility.
It doesn't mean anything. Those words don't even mean anything to an addict.
Addict is just an addict.
They just need a fix. That's all.
And people think that addicts could just learn to do something instead of fentanyl.
You know, still get high, but use heroin or something that's not going to kill you as often.
And the answer is, no, that can't be done.
Can't do that either. Because they don't know they're getting fentanyl.
That's the whole problem. The ones who are buying fentanyl directly, which does happen, they don't die as often.
Because they know what they're getting.
So they make sure that they're, you know, monitoring it and doing all the right stuff.
The people who are dying are the ones who thought they bought Pez and they got fentanyl.
Right? The kids. So the reason that fentanyl can't be solved is that I can't even talk the people that follow me into dropping these illusions.
Right? And let me test it.
How many of you believe that you could work on demand?
Watch this. How many people still think that demand is something you could reduce?
So you're just being shy.
I know you think that it works.
I know some of you think it works.
But would you agree that this is our problem?
Who is going to approve of attacking the cartels if they think that the real answer is personal responsibility?
I wouldn't. If I believe that personal responsibility would work, Or that rehab would work, I would not be in favor of attacking another country.
That'd be crazy. It's the last thing I'd want to do.
But I do want to do it, because it's the last thing I want to do.
Now, to the question of, would the fentanyl production just go to another place?
Here's the answer. Why is it not already being made in the United States?
Because it's hard. The only reason it's not being made in the United States is because it's hard to make it in the United States for whatever reason.
Too easy to catch or, I don't know, too hard to get the precursors in?
I'm not sure. But keep in mind, and here's another advantage of having an economics degree.
Would everybody who has business and economics degrees who's watching back me up on this?
I don't know the economics of fentanyl.
But given it's wildly profitable compared to how much the ingredients cost, everybody's on board so far, it's wildly profitable for a very small expense.
Suppose that making it in the United States cost 20 times more.
It would be everywhere in the United States.
Because 20 times more expense wouldn't even matter.
Because 20 times more than that tiny expense is still tiny, versus a huge profit.
If it were true that cutting off the overseas sources of fentanyl made no difference because we would just make it in the United States, it already would be here.
There would be no Chinese cartel India fentanyl If it were possible and practical to make it in the United States.
Everybody with a business degree just agreed with me.
Right? Because the economics are just very clear.
If you could make it in the United States in your bathroom, you would already be doing it.
It would be hugely profitable.
There's some reason you don't.
I don't know what it is. Um...
Alright. So, I don't know what to do about that.
Now, here's a question for you.
Have you ever wondered why we're not refilling the national oil reserves?
Does that bother you?
I understand the part where we're taking oil out because we have a short-term need that's pretty important.
You could argue it's a national emergency.
But... Is the reason we're not refilling it because the cost of oil is too expensive?
But wouldn't we be...
Well, let me ask you this.
So let's say you went to somebody whose well is closed...
For whatever reasons.
And you say to them, the only way you're going to sell this oil is to the government at a good price.
And under those conditions, we'll let you open up the well.
But otherwise, we're going to go green, so this well can't be opened.
You don't think we could make an offer to the government?
You don't think the government could find a producer who would be willing to sell an entire reserve full of oil?
That's a lot. That entire reserve.
You don't think you could get an American producer to give you a super discount on that?
I think you could. Because the cost of producing didn't stop, didn't change.
Just the market value that you could sell it for changed.
Because they wouldn't have a choice of selling it on the open market.
If they did, then of course the price would be higher.
But if you said the only way you can produce is if you produce for the US government and then you have to shut down again.
I think you can find that easily.
So I don't understand exactly.
Maybe we are, actually.
Maybe they are filling it up, and I don't know.
That's possible. Let me tell you something about globalist conspiracies.
I hear stuff like the globalists...
I heard one today that the globalists want poor people to stay poor so they have lots of employees.
That the rich people have lots of employees.
Do you believe that? To me, that sounds ridiculous.
Because, you know, robots will take over anyway.
So let me tell you this.
So you've heard lots of, like, conspiracy theories and stuff, but I've spent enough time behind the curtain, like, you know, in the room with the people who actually know how things work, that I've never seen it.
To me, behind the curtain is a bunch of individual interests fighting for their own little fiefdom.
Like billionaires just looking out for themselves, basically.
Now, I know some of you are like, oh my god, how could you miss it?
Where is it? The whole thing is basically Klaus Schwab quotes taken into context, as far as I can tell.
The one that got most people confused is you won't own anything and you'll like it.
That's the world we're already in.
I don't own the Uber car, and I like it.
I don't own the internet, but I like I can use it.
I don't own the cable to my house, but I'm glad I can watch TV. You know, the whole fact that you would be afraid of this, you won't own it, but you'll like it, you're completely wrong about that.
It's just the most ordinary statement of how the economy is likely to develop.
There's just nothing there.
Now, I do think it's true that the people who want to save the planet from climate change, according to them, I do think that they want to push fossil fuels into failure.
But that's not really a conspiracy theory.
That's pretty much on the surface, isn't it?
Right? I wouldn't call that a conspiracy, because we can all see it.
All right.
You won't even own the AC of your car.
Oh, you don't own the video games that you paid for?
You don't like it? I don't know.
I'd rather rent anything that needs to be upgraded.
That's my take.
And I'm pretty sure I had all of my incredible, incredible content.
Easily the best live stream you've ever seen.
Alright, anything I missed?
Any stories, big stories happening that happened?
Yeah, I looked well prepared because I didn't sleep last night.
I just decided to, ah, screw it, I'll just get up.
All right, you're supposed to say what?
Thank you.
Tragic boating accident?
Ivermectin. I'm not going to talk about ivermectin.
Oh, God. Again, people are sending me all the bad studies about ivermectin.
Is there anybody here who doesn't know why meta studies are not valid?
Meta analysis? You know what a meta analysis is?
You look at a bunch of studies that are low quality.
But then you say, well, if most of them are still pointing in the same direction, maybe some of these errors sort of cancel each other out.
But here's why it doesn't work.
Two main reasons.
One is there could be one big study that has too much impact.
So there might be one with 50,000 participants and a whole bunch of little ones with 100 each.
The big one is going to just overwhelm the other ones.
But there's no reason it should, it just would.
The other thing is that when you do a meta-analysis, you really don't include every study.
You do throw away ones that you know are bad, which means it's subjective.
So one person might throw away one study.
Another person doing the same analysis would throw away another study.
So it's not math.
It's just an opinion.
So when the meta-analysis is done, you can shape it either direction by what you put in or out.
For example, you could say the big study that's distorting everything is either in or it's out.
And either one of those would be valid as a meta-analysis, except the answers would be opposite.
One would tell you do it, one would tell you don't do it, and it's the same analysis.
They're both a meta-analysis. And both of them would be reasonable, because it would be reasonable to take it out, and it would be reasonable to keep it in.
They're both reasonable. But they'll give you opposite answers because of math.
So when you're looking at the ivermectin studies, you'll find that the randomized controlled trials are either poorly done or whatever, And all they have is the meta-analysis, and the meta-analysis has been debunked.
Italian elections, I'm not really following them too much, but there's some right-wing candidates over there.
I don't know if that's a trend or just an Italian thing.
The largest wholesale fresh produce market in the world is on fire in Paris.
