Episode 1883 Scott Adams: I Make Some Big Predictions About Russia, All The Lying White Men
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a
Find my "extra" content on Locals: https://ScottAdams.Locals.com
Content:
Why do people hate me so much?
FBI grabbed Trump's medical, tax information
Konstantin Kisin's translation of Putin's speech
Tesla Optimus Robot for $20,000
Hiring managers in corporate America
Whiteboard: Corporate America Hiring
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Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the highlight of human civilization.
Nothing's ever been better.
Nothing ever will be until tomorrow.
And today is so awesome that I almost thought to myself, well, today I don't even think we'd need a simultaneous sip.
Everything's so good. But then I thought, why would we ever settle for less?
No. No.
I say no. Exactly.
We need the simultaneous sip, and for that all you need is a cup or mug or a glass, a tank or chalice or stein, a canteen jug or flask, a vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dopamine hit of the day thing that makes everything better.
It's called the simultaneous sip, and it happens now.
Go! Well, good news for you.
I think I solved one of my biggest mysteries.
And maybe one of yours, too.
One of my biggest mysteries is why people hate me so much.
And you've seen me talk about it.
It's like, why do people hate me so much?
And so I watched yesterday's livestream back.
Oh, now I get it.
Totally get it. I'm being honest here.
I watched myself yesterday and I looked at it and I thought, oh, oh, that's why people don't like me.
I totally got it.
It's kind of a major mind spinner.
It's like, okay, all right, I got it.
I got it. I see it now.
Here's what my working hypothesis is.
And it goes like this.
Some of you are missing context.
If you miss the context, boy, do I look like an asshole.
I totally get it.
And I realize that not everybody has the right context.
So if you saw it without context, it would be pretty harsh.
Here's the context.
I believe that some of you believe that I believe I'm better than you.
True. And I feel like that's sort of behind the hatred.
What would you say?
And I think maybe the people on Locals know me better.
But the people on YouTube, what would you say?
Would you say that I put off an air of looking like I'm somehow smarter or better than you or something?
Yeah. Be less better.
Or the arrogance.
Yeah, arrogance in particular.
Arrogance would be the right word.
Well, here's what I think.
Here's some context you need to know about me.
I don't think there's any such thing as a better person.
I don't believe that.
I haven't even reproduced.
I mean, I think the minimum standard for believing you're better than other people is that you have children.
Because, you know, you're adding, maybe helping the average.
But... Okay, maybe that's too far.
But I don't even have children.
Like, I didn't even think I was worth reproducing.
Literally. I did not think I was worth reproducing.
So if you think that I'm looking at you, like, especially people who've had children...
If you think I'm looking at people who've had children and I think I'm better than you, no way.
No way. My ranking of human beings starts with reproductive success.
And I'm below that line.
I'm way below average, in my own opinion.
So one of the reasons that I work hard to try to produce some value...
In my lifetime as it is, is that I think I need to add some value.
I don't think I've done enough.
I don't have a high enough opinion of myself that I can retire and live on my laurels.
I was like, well, I did all that good work now.
I guess everybody will see that.
I'll just enjoy it.
I don't think that at all.
I'm in a continuous state of thinking that I haven't done enough.
And that, you know, damn it, I should step it up a little bit.
But it always has been like that.
So, here's the thing.
My view of people is that almost everybody's good at something, and it's probably different than what other people are good at.
And that's the beginning of the end of the story of who's awesome and who's not, to me.
That's the beginning of the end.
And, you know, I told you yesterday that one of the reasons I like the LGBTQ community, like a little extra, and I've added R and I to that, so now it's LGBTQRI to get Republicans and incels as well.
So you get all the non-standard stuff in one bucket, because I love my non-standards.
I love non-standard people.
So I think if you understand my context, which is I'm not telling you that I'm better than you or anybody's better than you or anybody's better than anything.
Like, I never even think that way.
I just think that some things are suited for some purposes and some things are not.
So if you put me in, let's say, the middle of a shooting war, like you just hand me a gun and plop me into, you know, some hot war, how am I going to do?
Well, I don't know. I don't know, but probably not great.
I don't feel like that's where I would excel, probably.
But if you drop me into a Scrabble competition, I'd probably do okay.
But do I say to myself, I'm better than you because I could beat you at Scrabble, but you could beat me at protecting your house or something?
No. It doesn't make any sense.
It's just somebody has one skill, somebody has another skill.
So, if I could simply allow that your opinion of me could probably never be as low as my own opinion of myself, and by the way, I'm not complaining about that.
I like keeping my own opinion of myself as low as possible, because I think that keeps me out of trouble.
Because I don't have a bad ego.
Maybe you noticed, right?
Like, I don't have an ego problem, so I actively try to make sure that I'm not seeing myself as anything special because it doesn't make sense.
There's no logic to support it.
All right, but I do like to think I can do more than I can do, and I recommend you do the same.
You should always think you can do a little bit more than you can do.
You know why? Because it's usually right.
You usually can do a little bit more than you think you can do.
So I always... Place my self-image just ahead of what I think I can do, and then something to shoot for.
There's a new study, or maybe there was two of them.
I saw two different studies about coffee helping you to live longer.
And one of them I thought said decaf doesn't work, and another one said decaf does work, but not nearly as well as actual coffee.
So I think there might be two separate studies.
Am I wrong that there are two of them that came out about the same time?
Or was there one study that people wrote about incorrectly once?
I don't know. But no matter what, it looks like coffee is good for you, huh?
Am I right again?
Yes, I am. Well, I continue to be amazed and impressed at the success of The Five.
On Fox News.
So now it just broke a record.
It averaged 3.3 million viewers to finish as the most watched cable news program as Fox News offerings swept the top seven.
It was the first time in history that a non-prime-time cable news program has topped the category for four consecutive quarters.
It's just killing it.
I like to give the shout-out that I always give to Fox News, no matter what you want to say about them, you know, you can all be critics, we can all be critics, no matter what you want to say about Fox News, the one thing you have to give them is that they're better managed and better produced than anybody.
Now, your brain automatically goes to the hosts, right, of their talent, but how did that talent get there?
Like, the talent didn't hire itself, right?
Somebody had to say, you know, Greg Garfield would be good on The Five, and he should have his own show.
All right? This is management decisions.
The talent doesn't make these decisions.
And when you see how well they have managed not only their talent, But the entire design of things.
What's great about The Five is not just the people, it's the design of the show.
It's just designed really well.
So, I don't think the producers of Fox News ever get enough credit, because you always talk about the hosts.
But damn! And I've had personal experience being on a number of different networks, and they're absolutely the best.
So their success is completely because they have better skilled people doing the work, I think.
I think that's it. Yeah.
So it was fun to watch.
I saw a new tweet today that somebody figured out how to make hydrogen using the water from the air.
I didn't realize that hydrogen, one of its big limiters, was access to fresh water.
Did you know that? I didn't know that.
I didn't know that freshwater access was the big problem with hydrogen, or one of them.
But apparently now they can suck the water out of the air in enough quantity that they can We're talking about hydrogen storage and power energy production.
So I'm completely convinced that there's going to be a breakthrough that looks and feels like this one.
Maybe not this one.
But something in batteries or something in storage in general might be hydrogen or maybe some combination of them.
But we're only a few inventions away from solving everything.
Am I wrong? Really, it's just storage.
If you get storage right, and apparently there are all kinds of good ideas for how to do that, we're going to be in really good shape as a planet.
The Hindenburg. The last time we danced with hydrogen.
There's always somebody who's going to bring up the Hindenburg.
You know, you're not totally wrong.
I suppose anything could blow up, but...
I'm not sure that's exactly...
My mind did not automatically go to, it's all going to blow up.
That's funny. So, this Trump document story, just when you think a story could not be more boring, it's about documents.
Somehow you throw Trump in there and automatically it's a good story.
How in the world...
Do boxes of documents become world news for weeks and weeks on end?
It's a box of documents, for God's sakes.
But here's the new twist.
Apparently we have some confirmation that the box of documents with all these top secret records includes, and this would be stuff that the FBI apparently has in their possession, would include things like Trump's medical documents and correspondence related to taxes and accounting information.
Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that those documents are, like, super sensitive.
Because they could be generic things.
I mean, it might be an email saying, you know, it's time for his checkup or something.
But how creepy is it that the FBI got their hands on the stuff that nobody's supposed to get their hands on?
That's pretty, pretty creepy.
Pretty creepy. Yeah.
So that does change how you feel about that story, doesn't it?
Suddenly you say to yourself, what?
Like the entire story to me changes the moment you say that there's something in those boxes that they took that is personal.
As soon as you tell me they took personal stuff, whole different idea of what's going on there.
And again, it might turn out that that, you know, quote, personal stuff is not really that personal.
I mean, it might be kind of generic.
But there's no way in the world that you can be comfortable with this situation.
This is so uncomfortable.
Do you think if Republicans own Congress, let's say after the midterms, and Biden is still president for two more years, do you think they'll impeach him?
And if so, for what?
I think they'll impeach him out of revenge.
Yeah, probably.
And I don't think they need a reason, which...
Actually, normally I would not be in favor of payback deals.
Normally not in favor.
But here's what they should do.
They should impeach Biden on very weak charges.
It doesn't even matter what they are.
And you should be told, the public, it doesn't even matter if these are good charges.
We're just going to impeach him because that's what we do now.
Because the Democrats have created the standard that you can just impeach a president for bullshit.
So we're going to impeach him for bullshit because we have the votes.
And that's the only reason.
We're just going to do it because we have the votes.
Because that's what they did. In my opinion, they impeached Trump just because they had the votes.
There wasn't really another reason.
So I think that they could make that concept go away by using Biden as a sacrificial lamb, because it doesn't matter.
I mean, he could get impeached 25 times and it wouldn't affect his job performance, right?
I mean, it doesn't make any difference.
So if it doesn't make any difference, it's nothing but a bad mark on your record.
They should impeach him just out of principle.
And just say it.
Oh, no, these are not really good reasons.
But that's not what we do anymore.
Now we're going to show you that this process has been corrupted by impeaching them on weak charges.
And we'll even tell you they're weak charges.
We're just going to do it right in front of you and tell you why.
Here's why. Because if they want to play that game, we play that game.
If you don't want to play that game, we won't either.
But if you want to, we're all in.
We're all in on that game.
I can see that. So normally I wouldn't be in favor of tit-for-tat bullshit, but I think you have to make a point of it.
I mean, I would do it for the communication benefit of it, just to make the point.
Apparently on Bill Maher's show last night, I didn't see it, but Fox News is reporting, that when Bill Maher suggested replacing Kamala Harris, that there was applause.
Now, why that's important is he has a liberal audience.
So a liberal audience spontaneously applauded the idea of replacing their own person.
That's bad.
Can you imagine a Republican?
Now, if it were Mike Pence, sure, because there's something specific about that case.
But in general, that's a pretty radical thing.
And Bill Maher is even saying that as old as Biden is, and he's not...
I think Bill Maher is completely open-minded.
He's completely aware that Biden is degraded.
I'm sure he knows that.
But he's still saying, well, he's sort of getting the job done, and it's hard to remove somebody once they're in office and just replace the VP. What do you think?
I think he's right from a political perspective.
Not right in terms of who I want to be president.
I don't want old presidents.
I don't want Trump to be president because he's too old.
If he's the only choice versus Biden, then you have to make a choice.
But if I had a choice, I don't want presidents that old if I have a choice.
But I actually agree with Bill Maher that once Biden is in there and they know they can just put him in front of a lectern, and here's the key part.
Apparently it doesn't matter what Biden says.
It doesn't matter if he makes gaffes.
It doesn't matter if he thinks there are ghosts in the room.
You know, that's what the Republicans say.
That's not really what's happening.
But I don't know.
If you had told me that a doddering old dementia patient could do the job of president, I would have said, well, obviously not.
But after two years of watching it, my opinion is whoever his handlers are are the ones running the country.
One assumes. But I haven't seen, I have not yet seen, maybe you could correct me, have you yet seen an instance in which Biden being mentally degraded has actually made a difference?
Has it made a difference?
Because I haven't seen it.
Have you? It's kind of an eye-opener that you could have a brain-dead president and you can't find the difference after two years.
You mentioned Afghanistan.
I don't think it's fair to simply mention things that went wrong.
Because do you think that the president's the only one who had a hand in something that went wrong?
I imagine his advisors were every bit as involved in that as everything else.
So I'm not sure that it's obvious that anything is because Biden was degraded.
It might be that they make bad decisions as a group.
There's plenty of evidence of that.
But there's not evidence that the reason for the bad decision is that Biden is degraded.
Now, I'm not saying you should take a chance on that.
I mean, I wouldn't take a chance if I had a choice.
I would never take a chance on somebody that old.
But you don't really see it.
Am I wrong? You can see errors, Afghanistan, for example.
You can see errors, but you can't really tie them to some specific mental degradation.
Can you? You think you can?
Well, if you think you can, and you might be right, meaning that it's entirely possible that everything about Afghanistan going wrong was purely about Biden not having all of his faculties.
That's completely possible.
Yeah, very possible.
It's just that you can't prove it, right?
There's nothing you could prove that's just clearly because of his mental state.
You just know it's true?
Because you're just smart and you just figure it must be true?
Because you might be right, but what we don't know is the degree to which his advisors can stop anything crazy.
Because I feel like they could stop everything crazy.
Don't know, but I think they could.
I see in all caps, WRONG WRONG WRONG. Wait a minute, how many times did you write WRONG in caps?
WRONG WRONG WRONG. Five wrongs.
You know, if you'd stopped with four capitalized wrongs, I would say to you, that argument is weak.
But when you throw in that fifth wrong, well, I have to take that under consideration now, because you make a strong case.
I saw a great thread by Konstantin Kissen, and I don't know anything about him except that he says he's been a translator for years, and he helped translate Putin's speech.
Now, apparently, if you hear Putin's speech translated, and you hear the whole thing, not just a little clip, you get a completely different idea of what he's all about.
Which is a huge mind spinner.
Because didn't you think you sort of knew what he was about?
But maybe not.
It turns out that if you listen to his words, that what Putin is really bitching about is decades of American bullying, basically.
And America trying to put his boot on every little country, including Russia.
So... I'm looking at a funny meme going by.
So Putin's argument is that America does everything it can financially, economically, militarily, and in every possible way it can influence things to keep down everybody who's not America, and that would include Russia.
And so that really Russia is fighting for all the little guys who are being abused by the American I'm glad that you could be here for the first time I've tried to pronounce that word.
Thank you.
Yes, it's all about our hegeonomy.
I've literally never said that word out loud.
You know, I've read it for years, I know what it means, but I've never said it.
Because in a conversation, you would never use that word, would you?
You know, you might write it down, but who says that word out loud?
It's sort of a douchebaggy thing to say.
Yeah, hegeonomy.
Alright, so what do you think about that?
I don't know if that's really what Putin cares about.
But apparently he's been saying it forever, and it does match up with what you observe, right?
Is it not observable that America does try to put its boot on anybody it can?
I think that's true.
Yeah, that's true. Now, but do you think that's the reason...
That Putin is trying to fight back and be such of a problem based on Ukraine.
Yes and no.
Yes and no. I feel like if you believe that the United States is this big bully and you see them pushing into Ukraine, that really is too far.
It really is.
If your world view is that the United States has just gone too far doing everything...
Up until Ukraine.
And then it tries to get control over your next door neighbor that you think you sort of own.
Yeah, I can see why that would start a war.
So it all makes sense in terms of Putin's view that only Russia maybe is strong enough to stand up to the hegeonomy of the United States.
But the other view is that he's just a Tyrentu wants more stuff.
So it's more about his legacy.
And maybe those are all the same thing.
Maybe there's no difference between those.
Maybe his legacy involves standing up to the hegemony of the United States.
Well, let me tell you what I think is going on.
So you know Russia annexed the four regions.
One of the four is...
Got intense fighting.
And the Ukrainians allegedly, now you all know the rules when I talk about Ukraine, right?
If I talk about the war, you all know the rules.
Everything I say is subject to not being true.
Because it's still the fog of war.
We don't really have good reporting.
So we know what the Ukrainians tell us.
We know what the Russians tell us.
And none of that is credible.
None of that's credible.
But... It does seem that the reporting is saying that the Ukrainians have surrounded 5,000 Russian troops that are trapped in one area in one of these four regions.
Now, the reporting, again, who knows how much is true, the reporting is that the Russian troops that are trapped asked for permission to retreat and were rejected.
Meaning that their choices are to fight to the death, somehow break out on their own, or go out on the fence or something.
But basically, the Ukrainians have 5,000 trapped Russians that they're just going to kill.
They're just going to kill them all.
Now, if you lose 5,000 in one battle...
That's not looking good for your team.
Now let me ask you this.
Under what conditions would Putin allow 5,000 people, 5,000 soldiers to die, being surrounded, without sending massive reinforcements?
What condition would he not send massive reinforcements?
You're saying if they're conscripts and he doesn't care about them, that's not where I'm going.
Lack of resources.
Yeah, lack of resources, unless it's not true, right?
The other possibility is none of it's true, and there's nobody being threatened at all.
Possible. But, yeah, okay, you don't need to tell me that it's a hoax or it's a false report, because that's already stipulated, right?
For the purposes of this conversation, it is stipulated we all understand that none of the information is credible.
But if we were to treat it as though it were, what would you conclude from that?
Not that you should trust it.
Here's what I think. I think that everything we've seen is suggestive of a near collapse of the Soviet military.
Like a near total collapse.
And I think that the United States and NATO probably sees that this is an opportunity for complete collapse of the Russian military.
And they're going to take it.
And I don't think it's about Ukraine anymore.
I think the battle for Ukraine is over in terms of strategic interests.
I think at this point the United States is trying to Put a death blow on the entire Soviet military.
And I believe, I heard General Keene say the other day, that if somehow Russia used a nuke or somehow brought the US military in, Keynes' view is that the US military plus NATO would just eliminate the Russian military, or at least all the assets on the ground.
It would just eliminate them.
It would just be gone. Now, do you think that's true?
Do you think that there's so...
At this point, because we're watching Ukraine kick the shit out of the Soviet military just using our weapons and logistics, I assume.
If we actually used our best weapons and all of them, I feel like the entire Russian military would be destroyed in a week or something.
Now it would be bloody and nobody wants that, right?
It's certainly not what we want.
But to me it looks like the US strategy has changed from protecting Ukraine, because I think they think they've done that.
And yes, they're battling over the annexed areas, And that will continue, but that's going to continue no matter what, because Ukraine's not going to give up, as long as they have resources from us.
So I feel like we've completely changed our goal.
I think the goal is complete collapse of the Russian system.
And that And that we're doing that either to get rid of Putin or to get him so flexible that he would join our team.
And I do think that this is the time to negotiate.
Because in my view, I think Putin can see that there's actually a very serious chance, I think more than 50%, that the entire Russian military is going to collapse.
I mean, actually, they can't even give an order to mount a defense.
I think there will soon be a point where they can't even order a military movement.
They won't be able to order an attack.
Nobody will attack. So I don't know if that'll happen, so I'm not predicting it'll happen.
I think we're really close.
Not close to a collapse of Russia, but to a place where the military is just going to say, fuck this.
We don't have any chance of winning.
We're done. We don't have any chance of winning, and there's nothing we're fighting for.
Those are the two conditions that should completely end it.
So I'm going to change my assessment completely from it's a battle for Ukraine.
I don't think it is anymore.
I think this is a survival battle for Russia, and I don't think the odds are in their favor.
At least surviving in the way that they have always been.
I think that they may be close to permanently disabled as a modern country, unless they change leadership, and I don't think they will.
So they'll probably keep their leadership and just ride Putin all the way down, I think.
Yeah, they'll survive as a country, but it's not going to be the same country.
All right. So Tesla is starting to introduce their new Optimus robot, a Tesla robot.
And with mass production, maybe get it down to a $20,000 robot.
$20,000. And apparently Elon Musk has said that a robot business, a Tesla robot business, will be worth more than its car business.
What do you think of that?
Do you believe that? Do you believe that the robot business will be bigger than the car business?
Totally. In fact, I believe that the car business is actually just a starter business.
The big businesses are space and robots.
Cars were just the entry cost.
In my opinion, Musk is probably not very interested in cars.
I don't even think he's interested.
I mean, I don't even know.
Is he a car guy? I'm not even sure he owns one.
I think cars were totally, as it turns out, I don't know if it was a master plan, but as it turns out, it's just the entry ticket to robots.
Tesla robots would be by far the bigger business, by far.
Maybe 100 to 1.
I don't even think it's close, potential-wise.
Yeah. Robots will be cars.
Because the long-term future of cars is shared cars.
Tell me I'm wrong.
The long-term future of cars is you don't own one.
The only reason that you own a car is either you like one or there's something you can't do unless you own one.
And the things you can't do without a car are fewer and fewer, as long as you can Uber.
So if Uber became cheaper and more available and it was easier to take long trips, or it's self-driving.
There are lots of times you don't want to be in the car because you want to have a conversation or something, right?
You don't want a driver. So as soon as you make the cars self-driving, you get rid of all the problems of Uber.
Right? 100% of Uber problems are the driver.
Am I right? Now I'm exaggerating, right?
Sometimes the car breaks down.
But basically, all of the problems with Uber are the driver.
The driver's the dangerous one.
So you get rid of the driver, which is guaranteed.
It's guaranteed that cars will have no drivers.
There's no question about that.
Because it's only a matter of time before the car-less driver is way safer, way safer than the driven car.
And I think we're already there, frankly.
Musk says we're already there, and I agree with that.
I think we are there.
It would be a different kind of danger, so it's hard to compare.
But we're already there, I think.
So, yeah. Cars, I think, will go away as a business, except for the self-driving ones, so there'll be far fewer of them.
And robots will be increasing forever.
There's never going to be an end to when you need a robot.
And I don't think you can share a robot because they work inside your house or inside your factory.
It's not going to be like...
You can't Uber a robot.
You've got to have your own robot. So yeah, that's better.
All right, I did a little poll today, and I asked the following question.
I said, if you are a hiring manager in corporate America...
Now, all of the words here are important.
You are the hiring manager, and it's corporate America.
So it's not small business.
It's corporate America. And you have two candidates.
There's one black male and one white male.
And they're identically qualified.
Identically. Exactly qualified.
Who do you hire in corporate America?
Well, two-thirds of the people said they would hire the black candidate.
Two-thirds. One-third of the people lied or were stupid or had no experience in corporate America whatsoever.
Because the actual answer is 100%.
This is one of those questions where, no.
No, there's no actual ambiguity about this one.
100% of hiring managers.
I'm a white guy.
I would hire the black guy 100% of the time.
If everything else is equal, right?
Everything. Everything's equal.
The only difference is black or white.
I will hire the black one 100% of the time.
Every time. Now let me explain this for people who have not taken economics.
You walk up to a table and there's two piles of money.
And there's a sign that says, you may have one pile of money, or you may choose two piles of money.
Help yourself. Which would you take?
Well, apparently one-third of the people who answered my poll said they would take the one pile of money when both piles of money were available.
So if you need any more evidence that they're fucking lying, I don't think I can give you any more evidence of that.
Of course they're lying. They're all lying.
They're either lying or they're really dumb or they have no experience whatsoever.
Two piles of money.
Take them both. Here are the two piles of money in this hiring example.
One pile of money is you get a good employee.
Because remember, it was a good employee either way.
Equally good. Exactly as good.
So you got your free money because you got a good employee.
And then you've also improved your diversity, which in corporate America is 100% guaranteed to be good for you as a hiring manager.
Because people are looking for that.
So why would you take a good employee when you could have a good employee and you could get a benefit from having more diversity?
Because that's how you're graded.
It's a no-brainer.
Now, what happened when I challenged people on this online?
Well, do you think that I was seriously interested in their opinions?
No, of course not.
Because I already know exactly what people think.
There's no question about what people think.
I was very interested in how they would lie.
And how they lied was very similar.
The Kobayashi Maru.
So I was intentionally seeing how many people would go Kobayashi Maru on me.
So if you look at the comments that are on that poll, you could have a good laugh.
So here's the setup.
Corporate America, not talking about small business.
Small businesses, in my opinion, hire people who look like them.
Usually, right?
Now, if they can't get an employee who looks like them and can do the job, then they'll be more flexible.
But in my view, a small black-owned company is more likely to hire black.
A small Asian-owned company is more likely to hire Asian.
A small white company is more likely to hire white.
So I'm not talking about small companies.
Anybody who wants to argue that they still discriminate, I would say, of course.
That's the most obvious thing in the world.
Just look at any of them.
You can walk into almost any small company, and whatever the ownership is, you're going to notice, coincidentally, there's a lot of people who work there that look like that.
So we're only talking about corporate America.
And I say, you've got a black male and a white male, and they have identical qualifications.
But then I add this.
Assume all other variables are the same.
So how did the comments go?
Well, Scott, I would hire the white person sometimes, because maybe I would hire the person that I thought had the best personality.
To which I say, oh, okay, maybe you didn't read carefully.
So I said that assume all the other variables are equal, and that would include their personality.
Oh, well, yes, Scott, but in the real world, people are never identical.
So, you know, people are never identical.
So I would pick the one who had the best qualifications.
I go, okay, okay, I hear that, but this is a hypothetical.
In which, hypothetically and unrealistically, just to sort of find out some insight about how you think, we're going to say that all the other variables are exactly the same.
And then they say, well, you know, I'd probably hire the one who seemed to have the best character.
No. They're exactly the same.
They're exactly the same.
All right. Now, I could do this all day long because you know how this goes, right?
You've been in this kind of conversation.
The... What do you call it?
The Kaburushi Maru?
What is that called? I can never remember it.
The... Kobayashi Maru, right.
The Kobayashi Maru is from Star Trek.
And it was from a story in which Captain Kirk was in the academy, and he took the same test that all the new trainees take.
Kobayashi Maru, yeah.
And the Kobayashi Maru was a particular test where the captains, the future captains of the ship, would all have to learn what to do in a no-win situation.
So it was an artificial situation in which the computer simulation would make sure that everything you did, It was a disaster.
You could only lose.
The only person who ever beat the Kobayashi Maru was Captain Kirk.
And how did he beat the unbeatable thing?
He snuck in and reprogrammed it so there was a way to win and then he did that that way.
So he cheated. Yeah, he cheated.
The only way you can win the no-win is by cheating.
So I set up a situation where people would either have to admit the obvious That a white person and a black person going for a job in America is not the same.
It's not even close.
And I got criticized for saying that the black candidate had a 5 to 1 advantage.
It's not 5 to 1.
Who would call me at 7.43 in the morning?
Yeah, no, it's not a 5 to 1.
It's 100%. It's closer to 100%.
Like 99% of the time.
And the reason is, two piles of money is better than one.
There's no thinking to be done here.
Did I see Van Jones on Bill Morrow last night?
I didn't. But that would be interesting.
Now that I know he's on there, I'm going to watch that.
Because as soon as you said that, you immediately had my interest.
See, Van Jones is one of the, I don't know, dozen people in the country who's at least willing to tell the truth.
And when he's being purely political, he sort of signals it to you.
So you don't mind that either?
Have you ever noticed that? You watch him talking.
So when he goes purely politically, he does it so overtly that you go, okay, that's just some Democrat talking there.
I get that. But he's also willing to say whatever is true if it makes sense to say.
So I always appreciate his contribution.
Thank you. Not changing.
Hypothetical mentioning.
Because I said to a friend yesterday, you have advantage.
So, how do white people ever get jobs in corporate America?
Can anybody answer that question?
If it's true, then one of my critics said, but Scott, you're ignoring all the evidence that it's way easier to get ahead in America if you're white.
Because look at all these white, successful people, and there's still too many white people in corporate America.
To which I say, well, that's a completely different topic.
Let me tell you how white people succeed.
Just keep trying. That's it.
So if you get turned down for a job, you just try somewhere else.
And do you know what? It works every time.
Because there are more jobs than there are qualified people.
So if you're qualified and you get turned down for a job, you just try again.
Try somewhere else. Until you find a situation where there's no equally qualified black person applying and they have to pick you.
So the discrimination situation in the United States is somewhat masked by the fact that everybody can get a job.
If you have any qualifications in America, you can get a job.
The employers are just begging for qualified people.
Now, having said this conversation, how many of you would believe I am opposed to affirmative action?
How many of you now have concluded that based on this conversation and maybe others, that I'm opposed to affirmative action?
Because I've lost two jobs to affirmative action personally.
It seems like it, right?
Because the normal thing you expect is if somebody is saying they're negative about something, then they must be opposed to it.
But here's the problem. What's the alternative?
What's the alternative? See, the thing that traps me is that I have an economics degree, and I don't judge things individually like just floating in space.
Everything has to be compared.
If you don't compare it, you haven't done anything.
So, if you ask me, okay, Scott, suppose you took away affirmative action, and this is a little bit more about the past than the present, I think affirmative action completely worked.
I think it worked. Now, it was bad for me, maybe.
I mean, I went on to something better than being a corporate worker.
So maybe I came out ahead.
I don't know. So I'm not even sure I can see the downside in the larger arc of history.
So if he asked me what I would have done instead of affirmative action, probably nothing.
I probably would have done affirmative action.
I probably would have done it very much the way it was implemented.
With all of its warts.
And because, because, I think it did get us to a stronger place as a country.
I think it did.
Now, is it evil to discriminate based on race?
Of course. So, do I think it's great that white men got discriminated against wildly?
In some contexts, obviously not all contexts, but, and let's say the specific context.
That's not perfect.
That's not perfect, but I don't have a better idea.
So you can say everything that's wrong with it and I'll agree with every bit of it.
All of that's wrong.
And it got us to a stronger place.
Because I've got a feeling that diversity is going to be something that is mostly disadvantaged at first.
But if you play it right, you can turn it into the strongest thing any country ever had.
And that's sort of where we're heading.
Because as long as America is the place that says you can get ahead under any condition, and we stayed true to that, we are the strongest country.
Nothing can beat that.
There's nobody who has anything like that.
That is also, you know, as powerful as us.
So do you think that China is saying, hey, we'll take the best black Americans for our scientists?
Hey, if you're Jewish, come to China, because we like some more Jewish scientists.
Do you think they're doing that? I don't think so.
So, don't they have less access to the best talent?
Yes. Yes, they do.
America will always have access to the best talent if we can handle this diversity monster.
And it is a monster because it can help you and it can kill you.
I mean, it's a dangerous kind of a thing.
Both dangerous to opponents as well as lovers.
So, You can complain all you want about things that are bad, and I have, but it doesn't mean you have a better idea.
True story. And everybody who's got a good talent stack can succeed in America.
That's just the bottom line.
If you're not building a set of skills that is valuable, well, then good luck.
Nothing's going to work for you.
But no matter who you are, If you're assembling the right set of skills that work together, you're going to be fine in America.
Our system really does support qualified people.
It's being unqualified that's the problem.
Somebody asked me, why did I say in the past that I lost my Dilbert TV show because the schedule got rejiggered?
But then more recently I'm saying it because Dilbert was a white character and it was a racial thing.
Do you know why? Does anybody know why I used to say it was just a sort of a schedule thing?
But now I say it was a racial thing?
Because I'm retiring. I was lying to you.
Yep, I was lying. Do you know why I was lying?
Because I'm a white man in America.
There's no white man in America who could tell the truth.
Do you think any white man in America could say the truth in public?
In general? You know, just sort of a general thing?
No. No.
A black man can.
Right? A black man can say whatever they think.
And it won't offend me a bit.
Not even a little bit. And I wouldn't hold anybody back for a job.
I wouldn't discriminate against them.
If a black man said complete truth, the most raw, disgusting thing that I hated to hear, it wouldn't bother me a bit.
Because to a large extent, I expect maybe they do.
I mean, I don't know. Same with women.
If women wanted to be completely honest, fine.
No penalty at all.
White men? We cannot be perfectly honest.
The whole system would collapse.
Basically, white men lying is what supports the whole system at this point.
You take that away and everything will collapse.
So no, we're not going to tell you the truth.
There's no fucking way we're going to tell you the truth.
Because it would be Armageddon.
Now... I ran into somebody in my gym yesterday who was actually listening to the recorded version of this when I passed him in the gym.
And so somebody I've known for years and flagged me down and was probably watching right now.
So, hi if you're watching right now.
And was sort of...
I'm not going to say...
sort of surprised, I guess would be the best word, that I've said as much as I have without getting cancelled yet.
Is anybody else surprised?
Is anybody surprised that I can have this conversation and not get cancelled?
Yeah. It's the way I do it.
It's the way I do it.
This is definitely one of those don't try this at home situations.
It's only the way I'm doing it.
If I did it even a little bit wrong, like I'm walking this little tightrope, you know one step left or right and I'm dead.
And the only reason I would take these chances is because, number one, I'm more skilled at communicating than just about anybody, if we're being honest.
Because I do it for a living.
I do it at a professional level, right?
And not only do I do it at a professional level, but it's a professional level about communicating, right?
Because I talk about persuasion, which is communication.
So I'm not only just a professional communicator, but I'm a professional who teaches professionals how to communicate.
So in theory, I should know how to do this.
But this is way too dangerous for anybody who's not operating at a professional level.
And even at the professional level, it's too dangerous.
And I'm only doing it because I'm near retirement.
It's the only reason.
There's no way I would take a chance otherwise.
It would be a stupid chance.
So that gives you a good show to watch.
But I will say that, in my opinion...
The world is ready for an honest conversation in a way that it has not ever been before.
And I think somehow the Trump experience caused this, not in any direct way.
But I think when Trump made reality itself up for grabs, suddenly there was just stuff you could talk about.
And we've gone so far.
Oh, and you know what the other thing is?
I think the complete and obvious failure of Biden to be as good as Trump in terms of governing, I think everybody can see it now.
They won't admit it, of course, but I think everybody can see it.
I think that allows like a little flexibility that the people on the left, I guess this is a way to say it, the people who would cancel me have had two years of reality shoved down their throats.
And that two years of reality, more than that actually, like five years of reality, it's like, the news told you that there was Russia collusion.
Oh, really?
The entire news could lie to us for years?
I didn't really see that coming.
But I guess that changes how I think of things.
And then these 50 intel people who say this laptop is Russian disinformation, then you find out, wait a minute, even my own news is saying that was a lie?
I'd expect Fox News to say that, but why is Jake Tapper telling me that?
And suddenly, the people who were so sure that everything that they believed was right and true in the past few years have learned from their own side That they had been lied to for years.
I feel as if...
And how about Black Lives Matter?
Is there anybody who believes that Black Lives Matter was a legitimate...
Now, the intentions of it were legitimate, of course.
So the individuals marching in the street, totally legitimate.
They had actual things they cared about.
But not the organization.
The organization, we now know, beyond any doubt, was a sort of a money-making thing.
And then Antifa, except for the Northeast special situation, Antifa just disappears when they're not needed anymore.
So if you're on the left, surely you have noticed, surely you have noticed that everyone on your team was full of shit.
Now, I believe that the people on the right have their own criticisms about Republicans, but I feel like it's all more transparent.
When the right says these Republicans are rhinos or whatever, you know exactly what they're talking about.
You could agree or not, but you know exactly, everything's transparent.
I feel like the left has been lying to itself, and the right has not.
The right has been disagreeing with itself, but it's all out there.
There's nothing hidden.
It seems very different.
So what I see is that the left is this big reckoning and the most monstrous cognitive dissonance bomb of all time.
Has exploded and just basically scattered their brains in a hundred different directions.
And they're trying now to reassemble.
Because their brains are actually fragmented at this point.
And that would have happened to you too if you'd been in that situation.
So it's nothing about being a Democrat.
It's about being in a situation where everything you thought was true just disintegrated.
Just disintegrated.
Right in front of you.
Now, again, There were probably Republicans when, let's say, when Nixon was outed as being a criminal, don't you think there were a bunch of Republicans who had to reassess?
You know, had been completely pro-Nixon until they found out he was actually a criminal, like in a pretty big way.
And then they're like, oh, shoot.
I guess I've got to rethink everything.
So I think that's what's happening.
The left says BLM doesn't need to be out there because Biden made everything better.
Yeah, Biden definitely made police brutality disappear, didn't he?
By what? By doing what exactly?
Having less police...
Maybe the police just aren't stopping people if they look dangerous.
Maybe the defunding just means they don't even do dangerous stuff anymore so there's no trouble to be had.
Alright. Well, I've managed to babble for an hour.
Is there any topic I missed today?
Are you noticing how non-pushback I got from this topic?
Like, I get that this is my audience and it's people who expect me to talk a certain way, but usually there are a lot more A lot more trolls on here.
You all just went quiet, didn't you?
See, I don't think the world's ready for me.
Now, let me ask you something else.
Under what condition would somebody as prominent as me...
Prominent just means somebody that the news likes to talk about, right?
I'm not complimenting myself.
I'm just saying the news likes to talk about me.
That's just a fact. Now, do you think this will be covered in the news?
Just think about what I just said.
Just think about how dramatic this is in terms of people's understanding of reality.
And also how volatile it is in terms of the single topic that we care about the most, race.
Right? This won't be picked up at all.
Do you know why? It's too dangerous.
If they thought they could cancel me over it, oh, they would pick it up fast.
If I'd given them enough cancellation material, oh man, they'd be all over it.
But do you see how carefully I've laid it out?
I've laid it out so it's a trap.
And I think they could tell.
You do not want me to have more attention on this topic.
Right? Is there anything that the Democrats would like less than me talking more and having a bigger audience to say this shocking thing that they may or may not agree with?
There's no way they're going to give me more attention.
So that's part of what protects me.
If they were to cancel me, do you know what I would do?
Do you have any idea how dangerous I would be fully cancelled?
Like, let's say fully cancelled, like, I lose all my income from newspapers.
I mean, just think about it.
Do you have any idea what I would do?
I mean, there's no way they want to unleash me that way.
The only thing that protects them at all is that I still like making money.
I mean, I don't need it, but I like it.
Yeah.
So there you go.
No, I haven't.
So here's my situation.
I've decided to go recluse.
So I've turned down, or have been cancelled on me, all of the bigger offers.
Yesterday I actually got an invitation from Dr.
Phil. So Dr.
Phil wanted to have me on. And I would do that...
I said I'd do it next year because I'll have a book tour.
But obviously I would have said yes to that under a normal situation.
But I'm just going to go full recluse for a while.
Because I just don't need it.
I don't know why I need to be on other people's shows.
Honestly, I'm not even sure I want my audience any bigger than this.
Because, especially the locals' audience...
So the locals' subscribers are around 6,000 or so.
Somehow it seems to be exactly the right number to act like what I call a collaborative brain.
Meaning that if I have any question or problem, and also the other people on there, you just bring it up to the group and then somebody's got an answer.
It's like the most amazing thing.
It's way better than Google. The fact that I can say, hey, I've got this problem, and 6,000 people, most of them quite smart, will give me the answer immediately.
What about Russell Brand?
Well, Russell Brand is not scheduled.
So anything you heard that I said I might go on, nothing is scheduled.
So I'm not going to schedule anything.
Did you try turning it on and off?
If Dilbert gets cancelled, will you market it on OnlyFans?
It's funny, you say that like it's a joke, but you know that's what Locals is, right?
Locals is a subscription network.
So if Dilbert gets cancelled in all newspapers, I would just move it to Locals, and anybody who wanted it could see it.
And anybody who didn't want it would never have to see it.
And by the way, that is my retirement plan.
I mean, it could change. But if I stop doing Dilbert in newspapers, he will get a lot edgier, a lot funnier, because I could be a lot funnier if I don't have any controls on me.
So right now I have to write a comic that's basically for a family newspaper.
That's the lowest level of freedom.
If you give me a higher level of freedom, it's going to be way funnier.
Trust me, it'll be way funnier.
So that might happen. All right.
And let me give a shout-out to Dave Rubin.
All right. So Dave Rubin, more than anybody else's reason that I think that the local network exists, and only because locals exist can I speak as freely as I am now.
Because I don't think I'd want to be completely income-free, even though I could.
It's just something I don't like about that.
So the fact that I have a place I can go to that is vital and profitable and would meet my needs, then I can take some risks in this big, dangerous world because I've got a little safe harbor that I can escape to.
And that is really valuable to me.
Like as a creator and as an outspoken kind of person, that really matters to me.
So big, big props to Dave Rubin for that.
And by the way, I always think of Dave in my short list of talent stack superstars.
The people who have collected a set of talents that just work so well together.
I mean, Dave's like the best example.
I mean, how many things is he good at?
Like, a lot, right?
Like, if you started to make the list, you'd say, well, you know, he looks good on TV. That's a good start.
You know, speaks well, he's funny, he knows politics.
Apparently, he knows how to start a business.
So, I mean, there's a lot of talent That goes into what he does.
And you can see the great voice.
He's got the whole stack.
All right. So, a lot of the people who do what I do have that same quality.
That's the Joe Rogan thing.
Joe Rogan is a talent stack guy, for sure.
And lots more. All right.
Did any of the 77 newspapers reinstate Dilbert?
No, because it was a chain decision, meaning there was one person who decided for all the papers, and they have to follow the lead because they get one set of comics sent from a central place.
So they don't have individual control over that.
In fact, the whole point Of what the chain was doing was trying to negotiate group discounts.
So, yeah, I don't think anybody will change their mind.
All right.
None of your jokes is it?
Somebody's mad because they didn't make anybody laugh in the comments.
Alright, now was today better than yesterday?
I see somebody saying that.
Am I less obnoxious today?
A little bit? Alright, I'll try to adjust.
It was actually quite a shocker when I watched myself yesterday.
Like, I'm not joking.
I'm not joking at all that when I watched myself I didn't like me.
Like, I actually didn't like me.
I was like, oh...
Why would I want to be that guy?
And this gets to one of my most important advices.
If anybody ever tells you to be yourself, there is a source of bad advice.
You should always be looking to be that slightly better version of yourself, and then when you get there, become a slightly better version again.
If you're not working toward improving yourself, I don't even want to be around you.
You would be a terrible person to be in the room with, if you're not even interested in being the better version.
So, yes, there's no age at which I will not try to fix my game if I can.
All right. Even if we agree with the point, it still feels like you are being yelled at sometimes, meaning that it feels like I'm yelling at you sometimes.
Is that what you're saying? I can see that.
So I also answered a second question for myself.
I've always wondered why I've never been in a fight.
Just like one of those weird things.
You know, if you're a male, you pretty much, you're always around danger.
Like, I always wonder why I've never been in a fight.
I've certainly been in tense situations that could have been fights.
And when I watched myself, I think I got a little insight into that.
Because I've heard that I scare people.
And I didn't quite get it until I saw myself.
LAUGHTER I can see how that would scare somebody.
Because I don't know exactly what it is.
There's something in my mannerism or voice that looks like I would kill you if I had to.
Because that's true. I would kill you if I had to.
