Episode 1951 Scott Adams: What Do You Think Of Anonymity On Twitter? And Lots More About The News
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a
Find my "extra" content on Locals: https://ScottAdams.Locals.com
Content:
Firing decisions based on demographic equality?
Senator Tom Cotton vs. Kroger CEO
Jordan Peterson vs. anonymous Twitter users
Key info was hidden from Jack Dorsey?
The mental health of teens
Shane Cashman article on Ye
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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.
---
Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/scott-adams00/support
It's called Coffee with Scott Adams, the finest thing that's ever happened to you.
And would you like to take your experience into levels that only ayahuasca has ever experienced?
Yes, you would. And all you need is a cup or mug or a glass or a tank or a chalice or a stein, a canteen jug or a flask, a vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine here, the day, the thing that makes everything better.
It's called the simultaneous sip.
And it happens now.
Go. Mmm, yeah.
Yeah. Everything looks better.
Now, before I turn off my other monitor that is lighting me poorly, just before I came on, I noticed that there's a company that uses AI to pull the best parts of your podcast out of your video, and it automatically makes a clip that you can share on social media.
Does that blow your mind?
So in theory, I can run this program against this podcast.
Somehow it can look maybe on YouTube or something.
Somehow it can tell where people care the most or they're commenting the most.
And then it assumes that must be the good part.
And then it'll pick that good part out, put subtitles on it.
Like, it's just a complete...
Yeah, it's called...
You are close. It's called vidyo.ai.
And I'm not recommending it.
I only just saw an ad for it.
That's all I've seen. But that's pretty wild, isn't it?
You know, I didn't want to do a bunch of clips because they're kind of time-consuming.
But if I can do them automatically, kind of cool.
Well, good news!
WNBA player Brittany Greiner was released from a Russian penal colony in exchange for a Russian arms dealer.
And I think Russia also got a first draft pick.
So not only did Russia get their arms dealer back, but they get the first round pick for the next arms dealer.
So the next arms dealer, draft, first pick.
So that should be good for their performance in the coming wars.
I'm waiting for this to happen, but it doesn't seem to have happened yet.
Is there going to be a point where black America turns Brittany Griner into a hero?
Has that happened?
Is Brittany Griner seen as a hero to black Americans?
Because, you know, there's sort of a trend that's suboptimal.
And the trend is, can we please have some role models who did not just break a law?
Now, I don't think she should have been in a penal colony.
You know, what happened to her was obviously a tragedy and completely unfair.
But we've got to be careful.
Let's maybe elevate heroes who have not recently broken any laws.
That would be cool. That would be cool.
Okay. I think I said this before, but sometimes when I like things, I just say them twice.
I keep thinking back about the meltdown of the crypto exchange, FTX, and how many people, celebrities and rich people, Had believed that they were real before they melted down.
And one of them was Kevin O'Leary, who's famous for being on Shark Tank.
And I swear to God, just before this FTX thing melted down, I was looking at Kevin O'Leary stuff on social media, because he's very interesting.
And I was thinking to myself, I was actually feeling a little bit jealous.
And the jealousy specifically was, how does this one guy keep making all the right choices, like investments?
Like, what does he know that I don't know?
Is there something, some extra facility?
Does he have an extra speed?
Just something he can do that I can't do?
But knowing that he lost millions of dollars and was even a paid spokesperson for the FTX thing...
I really feel like I would not have fallen for that.
Like, I don't know. You know, if somebody offered me to be a spokesperson, I don't know.
Maybe I would have said yes if it was a big paycheck or something.
But I'm feeling a little superior.
Now, I'm not saying for sure that I could have outperformed Kevin O'Leary on this investment.
I don't know that.
But am I wrong that it feels good when people look like they're You know, almost godlike in their abilities do something as ordinary as that.
Like, that's just an ordinary mistake.
It's very...
I honestly find it motivating.
In a weird way. The reason I found it motivating is to know that no matter what level you are successful, you're still ordinary.
You're just still an ordinary person who can make ordinary mistakes.
So to me it makes success seem more approachable.
I've said the same thing about people who meet famous people.
There are two of my co-workers who were in cubicles next to me When I got famous doing Dilbert, and I was a published author at the time.
And so my co-workers got to see me go from, you know, guy in a cubicle, who was doing no better than they were, to something that looked like more successful.
Soon after, two of the people who were, you know, actually adjacent cubicles at one point, also wrote and published their own books.
Now, I'm positive That they took that challenge on, both of them.
They were both successful. Because they saw that I'm an ordinary person and I did it.
And I think just hanging around me and saying, okay, he's not really special.
If he can write a book, I could probably write a book too.
And so they wrote books and they both got published.
And they both got paid.
So it was absolutely true.
They said, there's nothing that special about you, Scott.
I can do that, too.
And then they actually did it.
They literally just did it.
They just did what I did, and it worked.
Now, I'm positive that having that kind of association with somebody you think is special, but then you find out how ordinary they are, I'm positive that that helps you succeed.
I'm positive. Because how could you not think, well, maybe I could do it, too?
This person's looking pretty ordinary.
All right. Inflation might be coming down, according to Constance Hunter.
On a tweet, apparently used car prices are falling fairly rapidly.
I assume that has everything to do with the supply chain.
And because there have been waves of layoffs, we expect that maybe salaries will not be increasing as much as before.
Gas is starting to come down.
So if we get automobiles, we're only talking used ones, but it probably applies to new ones.
If we can get automobiles, gas, and paychecks not increasing quickly, you'd be in much better shape.
But I think there's something bigger happening.
In my opinion, one of the things that makes America, at least so far, unbeatable is that we have self-correcting systems that self-correct.
I'm not sure that other systems are as flexible to let their systems self-heal.
So let me give you an example.
As I just said, inflation seems to be correcting.
Our economic system, our transportation system for goods was broken, but that breaking revealed all of its weaknesses and now I think it's being re-engineered from the ground up.
Software, AI, all kinds of different things are happening.
So our delivery systems are being re-engineered.
Our manufacturing is being completely revamped.
You know, we're moving it out of China.
We're adding, you know, 3D printers and stuff.
Completely a self-healing system.
And there's a lot of other stuff, like Twitter is healing at the moment, wouldn't you say?
I would say that our election systems are poor, but a lot of work has been done in the last few years to try to shore things up and get more witnesses and stuff like that.
So I don't think our election system is where it needs to be, but it's definitely in the process of self-correcting.
It's in the process. I think our nuclear energy industry is self-corrected.
It went from a negative thing to probably the only thing that'll save us.
I see ESG that got a little wild, but it looks like it's being pulled back.
ESG is self-correcting.
And probably, there are probably a number of other things you could mention.
Same kind of thing. What do you think of that hypothesis?
Do you think that China can self-correct as quickly as the United States can?
Like, all of our systems have that quality, that we're willing to shoot our own babies.
I think that might be uniquely American, that we're willing to execute our own babies to build a better baby, and we'll do it tomorrow.
Like, we're not going to hesitate.
So I feel like that's almost a permanent advantage we have.
I would also say that wherever you thought America was relative to all the other countries prior to the pandemic, I believe that we've pulled away.
Would you agree with that? Whatever you think of America at the moment, I believe we pulled away from all the other countries.
I think we're by far the strongest country now.
I think China and Russia are kind of struggling a little bit.
So I'm not saying we're perfect.
We still certainly have our problems.
But I feel like we did pull away.
And that being the best of the group has its advantages.
We might see some really long-term advantages coming out of the tragedy of the pandemic.
That's what I think. So tech companies are downsizing.
As you know, a lot of big companies announced big layoffs.
And I saw on Machiavelli's Underbelly account, That apparently California tech companies are hiring consultants from the outside to do DEI adverse impact analysis.
In other words, to make sure that when they do their layoffs, that it is not hurting one demographic group unfairly.
You know, that nobody's being targeted.
So that'll work pretty well, right?
What could go wrong?
Do you see any way that that could cause any unintended side effects of any kind?
Now, correct me if I'm wrong.
They have painted themselves in a corner in which they have two choices.
And tell me if I'm wrong, right?
Because I might be wrong. Maybe there's some other choice.
They either...
Fire people, you know, based on business needs, which almost certainly, almost certainly would look unfair to somebody.
Would you agree? I don't know who it would look unfair to exactly, but if you just did it based on what the business needs, it's going to be a semi-random process that surely will affect some people more than others with no intention to do that.
Wouldn't you agree? So if they ignore the diversity thing, they're going to create a problem, and it'll come back and bite them in the ass.
But suppose they go the other way and they follow the consultant's The consultant recommendations of how to fire people in a demographically fair way according to them.
Doesn't that guarantee they have to fire their best employees?
I'm not wrong about that, right?
Have they not created a system, the tech companies themselves, have they not created their own system that guarantees that the very next thing they have to do is fire their better employees to make sure that you've got some equality?
Now, when I say better, that's not a racial comment.
Let me clarify.
For historical reasons which we could debate, there are fewer minorities in tech.
So I'm only making a math argument.
I'm not talking about the quality of any people.
I'm not talking about anybody's potential.
I'm not talking about anybody's genetic makeup.
It's nothing about that. It's just math.
And the math is that if you need to get rid of a lot of people, you're probably going to have to start getting rid of some qualified people To make sure your diversity works out.
Because you can't really have two top priorities.
You could have a top priority to have good profits, or you could have a top priority to make sure your diversity is managed in a socially correct way.
But you can't do both.
You can't do both. So that's the choice they'll have to make.
Now, I suppose they're just covering their butts by having an outside service bless whatever they decide to do.
If that's all they're doing, well, that makes sense.
Notice that he doesn't dare mention IQ.
I'm going to take this challenge.
So over on the locals platform...
This is a criticism, or a comment, anyway.
Scott's trying to couch this at language other than qualifications.
Notice that? He doesn't dare mention IQ, or we'd have to explain why the Asians have the most white privilege.
Does IQ have anything to do with this topic?
It does not.
It does not. No.
You think it does, but it doesn't.
Because the people have already been hired.
Their IQs, you could argue, made a difference before.
You could argue that it had something to do with how they got the job in the first place.
But once they're there, it's no longer a consideration, because they've been working, right?
If somebody got hired with an IQ of 70, but they were the best employee in the company, who cares?
I mean, obviously that wouldn't happen, but who cares?
So their IQ becomes effectively a zero consideration as soon as they've performed.
Would you agree with that? That at the time you're getting rid of them, IQ is no longer any kind of a variable.
Now, I will go further.
So what you're arguing is that it's something on the front end According to your racist view of things, your racist view is that that's what's causing a lower percentage of certain people in some categories.
But it's unrelated to what they do when they're downsizing, in my opinion.
Unrelated. And by the way, let me say this in case you haven't heard it before.
There are many geniuses who are white...
But I don't get credit for that.
You get that, right?
The fact that other people who have similar melanin to I do, if they got a Nobel Prize, they don't share that with me because I'm white.
So the fact that other white people have high IQs, I know this is a surprise, has no impact on my IQ. None at all.
It doesn't affect it a bit.
So it doesn't matter if groups have different IQs, because I'm not a group, and you're not a group.
I mean, obviously, differences can explain some general differences in society.
Of course it can. All right.
But it doesn't help you.
It's not about you. It's just an interesting statistic.
Senator Tom Cotton continues to be awesome.
I guess the CEO of Kroger was talking to Congress recently, last week, and trying to get support to do a merger, and I guess the Democrats are concerned about them having too much power.
Kroger wants to merge with Albertsons, I think?
And Tom Cotton said to the CEO of Kroger, quote, I've cautioned them for years that if they silence conservatives and center-right voters, if they discriminate against them in their company, they probably shouldn't come and ask Republican senators to carry water for them whenever our Democratic friends want to regulate them or block their mergers.
He continued, and then he finished with this.
I'll say this.
I'm sorry that's happening to you.
Best of luck.
Oh, that was so based.
Best of luck. Yeah, you've been fucking our people every day.
Our people would be Republicans in his way of seeing things.
You've been fucking our people every day, and then you're coming and asking us for a favor?
Good luck with that.
Hey, good luck.
I wish you well. Now, I think the specific...
The thing was that some, I guess some Kroger employees were fired because they were unwilling to wear an apron that was some pro-LGBTQ message.
So I think that's what he was basing his comments on.
I would like to once again praise CNN. Can he handle it?
CNN did something that just requires a compliment.
I know, I know, you hate it.
I hate it. But I feel like I can't be an honest broker unless I call the balls and strikes the way I see them.
Here's something that CNN did.
They ran a story about a, quote, Florida lawmaker who was accused of misusing COVID relief funds.
And that's how they presented it.
A Florida lawmaker who is accused of misusing COVID relief frauds.
Do you see it? Do you see why I want to compliment them?
It was a Republican.
It was a Republican.
Yeah, you thought that they were hiding the party affiliation because it was a Democrat.
Nope. Nope.
They actually told the story straight.
They told the story about an individual who did something bad, and then later in the body of the story, they identified him as Republican.
Perfect. Perfect.
Perfect. What did the other publications do?
Republican accused of stealing money.
Right? That's what the other publications did.
Republican, who once...
I think he was also...
He was behind the don't say gay thing.
Right? Now, correct me if I'm wrong, is that not worth a compliment?
Was that not worth a compliment?
You tell me. No.
Somebody says no. Well, I would like to encourage what I would like to see more of.
And I like that they told me what his party was, but I like that that wasn't the lead.
Because that made it a human interest story about a crime, and I think that's what it was.
I don't believe that his Republican credentials are what caused him to do a crime.
It was actually the lesser important part.
All right. Nobody likes it when I compliment CNN. Noted.
All right. Let's talk about Dr.
Jordan Peterson, who's talking about the downside of anonymous Twitter users.
Now, here's what I learned.
Whenever you introduce a new topic, let's say newish, Yeah, because it's not brand new.
But one that has not been completely, you know, struggled over for years.
Because on most topics, everybody has a heartened opinion, and it's not going to change.
But when you have some kind of a, you know, a newish kind of a thing, and the question is, should we have anonymous, should anonymous accounts be on Twitter, and should you be able to block them, etc.?
And the quality of people's comments when I tweeted about it was insanely bad.
It's amazing to watch if people have not been assigned their opinions yet, to watch them try to come up with an opinion independently is like a sad and it's an awful thing.
Number one, A lot of people said, I asked the question, so I tweeted and I asked the question, what did anonymous Twitter users, have they ever solved the problem?
So my tweet was, have any anonymous Twitter users ever solved a problem that maybe would not have been solved otherwise?
And what did people say?
They said, well, it's a good thing we had anonymous people Doing XYZ, which had nothing to do with Twitter.
Now, do you all get that being anonymous in a completely different context has nothing to do with this?
Right? There's no argument that says, in a completely different domain, anonymity is either good or bad.
You get that that has nothing to do with the Twitter conversation.
It just reminds you of it.
So be careful of things that just remind you of the topic.
The fact that other people talk about anonymity in a completely different context is just something you're reminded of.
That's not part of your argument.
Your argument is about Twitter specifically, and that's it.
If you can't make the argument about Twitter specifically, it doesn't matter what somebody else did.
That's telling you nothing.
Now, if your example about something else...
brought up an important point that would also be valid in this domain of twitter anonymity then that's good but i didn't see anybody do that i just people said well it's good in a completely different way so therefore it's good on twitter that's not an argument that's actually a nothing that's like noise there's no logical thread there At all.
And to see how many people went that route was just, like, distressing.
Like, you really can't tell that arguing a completely different topic doesn't help.
Like, there are a lot of people who can't tell the difference between staying on the topic and arguing a completely different one like that would help.
I know, it's weird.
But don't do that.
Don't do that. The second thing that happened is if you ask a question on Twitter, people assume that they have heard your opinion.
That didn't happen.
I asked a question because I don't have a fully formed opinion.
I would like to see some examples of where anonymity helped Twitter.
I'm not saying they don't exist.
I didn't say that. I said, can you give me some examples?
Because if I had some examples, then I could say, oh yeah, that's a good example where anonymity helped the world.
And then I would say, okay, those are some good examples.
I'll weigh that against whatever cost it is, and then I'll have the costs and the benefits.
But people said, you fucking bastard, you, why do you hate anonymity?
To which I say, uh, where did that come from?
And then there were other people who had to explain to me why anonymity is good for the anonymous people.
Did you think I was confused about that?
Did anybody need to mansplain to me why anonymity is sometimes chosen by people?
Isn't that literally known by 100% of all people?
I believe babies are born with that knowledge.
Why are you explaining that to me?
And people thought that that helped.
Let me explain why people would not like to lose their jobs over their opinion.
No, I get that.
I get that. That's why I put it in my tweet.
I literally said, I understand why people want anonymity.
And what did people tweet to me?
Scott, let me explain to you why people want anonymity.
Oh! That's my usual experience on social media.
All right. Let me offer one useful suggestion.
Maybe. Because I feel as though we're limiting ourselves in the prison of two ideas, to quote a Greg Gutfeld point, the prison of two ideas.
I don't think anonymous or non-anonymous...
Is the right question. Because there might be another category.
And here's what I mean.
If I see somebody who's completely anonymous and their profile has no picture of anything and no bio profile information, that's what I call, like, totally anonymous.
Those anonymous people I'd like to get rid of from my experience.
There are other anonymous people who identify as medical doctors But I don't know who they are in real life.
Very useful.
I love hearing an anonymous medical doctor give especially contrarian views.
Very useful. An anonymous engineer?
Very useful.
Love it. An anonymous lawyer?
Love it. Yeah, when somebody says, I'm a lawyer, and here's my opinion, yes.
Please give me anonymous legal opinions from people who are actually lawyers.
Now, of course, there's some question about whether they're really lawyers, right?
But usually you can tell, right?
I don't see imposters doing it, really.
So I would like some kind of a middle ground between anonymous and not anonymous.
Because if you say you're a doctor...
You have given a little bit of a clue to your identity, right?
And some people could piece together enough clues and maybe figure out that you are this person they suspected.
So it's not risk-free to say what your job is or to say what your education level is.
But here's the main point.
And I won't back down from the following statement because it's universally understood to be true.
All communication depends on an assumption that the listener makes about the speaker's intentions.
Correct? I need all of you to agree with this before we go on.
All communication depends for you to hear it correctly.
You have to have an assumption about the speaker.
If you assume the speaker is your enemy, then you're probably going to say it's a lie.
If you think the speaker is a salesperson, You're probably going to think it's at least hyperbole.
If the person is your best friend that you know has your good...
what's best for you in mind, then you think it might be wrong or it might be right, but at least it's well-intentioned.
100% of how you process something goes through the filter of who is talking.
Now, what happens when the speaker is anonymous?
Here's what people get wrong.
You think you can evaluate an anonymous comment.
You can't.
You can't. It's just blah, blah, blah.
An anonymous comment is blah, blah, blah.
Because if you don't know who it's coming from, you can't assume any intention, and therefore there's nothing but noise.
It's literally pollution.
It's just pollution.
So, have you heard anybody make that point?
That if you don't know who's speaking, you can't understand what they said?
Has anybody said that?
I've not heard anybody say that.
And to me, that's probably the most important point.
So here's what I'd like to see.
I'd like to see an option that I could mass limit...
Completely anonymous accounts, or if I wanted, to limit people who are semi-anonymous, meaning they've told you something about their credentials, but that's all you know.
You just know their credentials.
So I'd like to know if I'm talking to a student, and I'd like to know if I'm talking to a professional, because I would react completely differently, depending on who I'm talking to.
Now, it would have to be optional.
So you would have to be able to choose whether you gave up any credential information or not, but I would like to be able to choose whether I'm exposed to those people.
Now, that still leaves one gigantic kind of benefit that anonymous people bring that's unaddressed, and we wouldn't want to lose it.
And that is, there are some completely anonymous people who really need to stay that way, Because maybe some of the things they say, if they told you their job, you might know who they were.
Because there are some anonymous things that only some people know about.
So if you knew the job, that kind of would narrow it down too much.
So there is a value.
There's a real value for completely anonymous accounts.
So how do you maintain that value?
Because they do have something to say.
How do you maintain that value?
Now, nobody has a great answer for that.
But some people say, Scott, Scott, Scott, you can just block the people you don't want to see, so stop imposing your will upon us.
I'm not doing that, by the way.
You haven't even heard my opinion.
I'm not opposing it on anybody.
And the reason you haven't heard my opinion is that I'm not fully informed.
I don't have quite a final opinion on this.
I have maybe 75% of an opinion.
And people say to me, Scott, why don't you just block the people you don't like and leave us alone?
Like the rest of us are okay.
If you're a bitchin', just block the people you don't want to see and done.
You know why that doesn't work, right?
Do you all know why that doesn't work?
Yeah. For the larger accounts, it would be endless.
And the motivated trolls literally just take their other account and come back.
Now, if you don't have a big account, you've never seen that before.
But I block people and they come back in five minutes.
Blocking doesn't make any difference.
The motivated trolls just use their other troll account or start another one in five minutes or something.
But they come right back.
You're rich. Hire somebody.
You can't hire somebody to block people based on your opinion.
That's not a job.
So here's the other thing that people get wrong.
When Jordan Peterson is talking about this, I think he's stopping short of giving you his preferred, you know, final solution.
I won't say final solution.
I think he's not giving you his preferred solution.
I think he's sort of raising the topic because it's a good topic.
So I would not give him trouble on that.
But I will add my own global Dr.
Jordan Peterson criticism because apparently that's a popular thing to do now.
Has everybody noticed that criticizing Jordan Peterson is like a really popular thing now?
A lot of people who had maybe been more pro-Peterson are starting to wear thin.
And I wonder why.
I wonder why.
And I've got some hypotheses.
Number one, there are a lot of people such as myself who could accurately be called the poor man's Jordan Peterson.
Meaning that I talk about a lot of overlapping topics with him, but I don't have his credentials or his success or fame.
So I'm completely aware of the fact that there's a jealousy component.
It's really hard to look at him just cleaning up.
I mean, he's really making a big impression on reality.
It's hard to watch that If you wish you could be doing the same thing, but you're like an ant compared to an elephant, the ant doesn't feel real good about the elephant.
So as a member of the ant class, I get that.
Because I have to fight it myself.
Like, I feel myself getting into that petty jealousy kind of mode in my mind, but I'm also aware of it.
So I try to be bigger than that, but it's hard.
So some of it is just being successful.
Now, I get the same thing, right?
People who are less successful than I am are really angry at me.
So you've watched me on Twitter, probably, that probably 75% of my most vocal critics actually identify themselves as professional writers who are all less successful than I am.
Coincidence? Is it a coincidence that the people who are professionally in the same field but less successful are all really mad at me?
Boy, are they mad at what I said yesterday.
Boy, they need to take me down a rung.
And, of course, they always say, I used to like him.
Can I make a little aside?
When you're criticizing famous people, I'll put myself in that category for this conversation.
When you start out your criticism with, I used to like them, but...
Your credibility just goes right through the floor.
Just goes right through the floor.
Because usually the person hasn't changed that much.
Usually it's something about you.
Anyway, that's just a personal thing.
But I would say that, in my opinion, Jordan Peterson has one flaw according to me.
And it's not like I'm the arbiter of flaws in people who are smarter than I am.
So I'm always a little cautious.
He's definitely smarter than me.
Would you all agree?
Can I get a yes to that?
Jordan Peter is smarter than I am.
So when you criticize people who are smarter than you, and also way better informed, way better informed, you should have a little bit of humility.
A little bit of humility when you do that.
I do have one criticism, and I don't even know if you would disagree with it.
Actually, if I said it to him in person, I suspect he would take it as a semi-valid comment, even if he didn't agree with it.
And it goes like this.
Especially on his relationship and marriage advice, and in some other categories, I think he designs advice for people like him.
Do you know what I mean? So when he talks about marriage being the best model, etc., I think he's right for people like him.
And when he talks about the anonymous users on Twitter, I feel like he's talking about What the experience is like for people like him.
Now I'm a lesser version of people like him because I have a lot of followers.
So therefore, I get that.
Like when he says I'd like to be free from the anonymous people or have the choice to turn them off, I get that because they're a gigantic pain in the ass.
But I can also imagine that a small account Wouldn't have any problem with them at all.
Because the trolls don't really visit the smaller accounts as much.
So they might say, well, I like having the anonymous people.
They don't bother me. Let's just keep it the way it is.
And I don't know if Peterson is quite incorporating in his opinion how unique his position is.
That the trolls are only coming after...
People with big accounts.
So it's a whole different problem.
So whatever is the right solution for people like him, it would be a stretch to say that's the right solution for people who are not like him in the important ways.
All right, so it's impossible for me to block things.
Here are some examples...
That people said where maybe Twitter did help.
Do you think that Twitter's anonymous users helped make Bitcoin succeed?
Yes or no? Twitter's anonymous users, did they make Bitcoin succeed?
This is an argument that I heard today.
I think no. I think no, but I understand yes.
So I understand why you could say yes.
So I'm not going to debate it, but I don't quite see it.
It might be true.
So I'm making a fine point here.
I'm not disagreeing.
I'm saying I don't see the argument, but maybe.
Maybe. How about the dissemination of any WikiLeaks stuff?
Do you think WikiLeaks, being an anonymous organization, do you think that that benefited the world and Twitter allowing them to be anonymous helped that?
I think yes.
I think that's a good example.
Yeah, that's probably a good example where anonymous Twitter users had some benefit.
I'll give you that one.
So this is why I haven't formed a final opinion on this, because I feel like we just maybe need better choices to handle more of our concerns.
Our current choices leave out some concerns.
I definitely think that anonymous people on Twitter have some value, and knowing the examples I think helps us a little bit.
So Elon Musk tweeted this.
He was talking about Jack Dorsey.
He was actually responding to Jack.
And Jack Dorsey was saying that all of the Twitter files should be released, that we shouldn't be deciding what people see and what they don't.
Everything that's on the right topic should all be released.
Now, what do you think about the fact that the ex-CEO of Twitter says everything should be released?
What does that tell you about his own potential, let's say, liability?
Well, he's not worried about it.
Yeah, clearly he doesn't have anything to hide.
Now, here's what Musk says in response.
He says, most important data was hidden, and then parenthetically, from you too.
In other words, Musk is saying that the prior CEO of Twitter did not have the information that Musk has because it was hidden from both of them, but Musk found out.
And some may have been deleted.
So we don't know how much has been deleted and can't be recovered.
But everything we find will be released.
So Musk agrees.
Now, I would like to take credit for the best prediction in this domain.
For a couple of years or more, I've been saying I do not believe, and I've been saying this very aggressively, I do not believe that Jack Dorsey is aware of what the staff is doing, and I don't think he has a way to find out.
I think the only reason that Musk found out is that he's willing to fire anybody who gives him an ambiguous answer to a question.
That's something only the new guy can do.
I'll say guy generically.
Only the new guy can fire you because your answer wasn't convincing.
That's new guy energy.
The existing person has to treat everybody as complete individuals, right?
You have to look at how long they've worked there and all of your other interactions and everything.
So it's hard for the existing legacy CEO to be enough of a hard-ass To find out what's going on.
That's a tough job.
And I think one of the reasons...
This is just speculation. I don't know this for sure.
I think one of the reasons that Jack was so supportive of Elon Musk taking over is that even Jack knew that he was in a, let's say, disadvantaged situation.
For running the company.
Plus he had two companies, right?
So that's also a factor.
So I think that, you know, Musk has more than two.
So maybe it wasn't a factor.
But I think the new CEO has an advantage that the founder CEO can never match.
And I think that's what Elon brought.
And I think he also stirred the pot so much that it just allowed maybe some things to bubble up.
Because, you know, the whole Jim Baker thing only happened because Musk stirred the pot.
Otherwise, you never would have even heard that he was working there.
It was only because Elon said, let's make some trouble with these Twitter files that, like, brought up the other stuff.
So my claim that the CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, was not the one who was the mastermind behind any bad things that happened in terms of suppression, etc.
And I still believe that.
Now, we could find out differently.
I mean, anything could happen.
But at the moment, would you give me that that was the best prediction, the most unlikely prediction, and also the best one about this topic?
Now, one of my critics said this morning, Scott, you never admit that you got the Covington kids hoax wrong for all of one day.
I tell you that all the time.
I tell you I got the, you know, Trump's vice president pick wrong.
I'm pretty sure that when I claim victory, I often try to tell you which ones I got wrong.
Because you can learn as much from the ones I get wrong as the ones I get right, because there's a pattern to both.
The ones I get right are because I had some special information.
Either I knew something about persuasion, or in the case of Twitter, I personally interacted with Dorsey, and I didn't think there was any chance he was lying to me.
Because I'm pretty good at seeing if people are weasels, and he doesn't have any weasel energy whatsoever.
That's the weirdest backhand compliment I've ever given.
He has no weasel energy.
You can tell weasel energy when you see it, can't you?
Even if they're not lying to you at the moment, you say to yourself, but they could lie to me.
They have that potential.
Maybe not now, but they have that potential.
Yeah, SPF, he has that potential.
But Jack doesn't look or have that energy at all.
At all. Like, he's just completely absent.
If I'm wrong about that, I'm the worst judge of character in the world, but I don't think I'm wrong.
Some shocking information about the mental health of teens.
The CDC found that 45% of high school students were so persistently sad or hopeless in 2021 they were unable to engage in regular activities.
Almost 1 in 5 seriously considered suicide.
Almost 1 in 5.
And 9% surveyed tried to actually do it.
They tried to actually take their lives.
So the conclusion of this is that the pandemic increased teen suicide, correct?
Is that the conclusion?
Thank you. Thank you.
Over on Locals, a well-educated person just said, what was the fucking baseline?
Do you know what the baseline was?
The same. Yeah, it's the baseline.
Now, it is higher.
All right, let me be more technically accurate.
It's a little bit higher, but it's not shockingly higher.
It's about a little bit higher like you would expect, right?
It didn't double it, right?
Like 9% attempting it is actually baseline.
I mean, it's hideous that it's baseline, but it is.
It is. When I first read that one in five seriously considered suicide, do you know what my first impression was?
That seemed low.
I thought that was lower than the baseline.
Are you telling me only one in five teenagers considered suicide?
Really? Just one in five?
I don't believe that.
I think it's at least two in five.
I think it's at least double.
But this gets down to the definition of consider, doesn't it?
You know, I gave a whole description of what that means in my view.
I literally consider it every day.
And then I completely rule it out.
Completely rule it out.
So am I considering suicide?
If you say that out loud, yeah, you're going to be immediately put into the channel of people who look like they're going to do it any minute.
Because nobody's going to take a chance on that.
But, I don't know, how do kids answer the question?
Did you consider it?
Well, suppose they thought about it for a little while and then ruled it out.
If you ask them if they considered it, are they going to say yes?
Or are they going to say, I thought about it and then I ruled it out?
Does a kid know that that would be called considering it?
I don't know. I think 1 in 5 is low.
Now, if they said, you know, how serious were you?
Did you make an actual plan to do it?
Then that would get a whole different kind of answer.
All right. So...
What percent of Americans, this is according to Rasmussen, what percent of Americans believe that the vaccinations were a good idea?
What do you think? Well, let me put it this way.
And by the way, I'm going to do a demonstration of For anybody who's new to this live stream, I'm going to...
You're so good.
I'm going to do a demonstration of how smart and how psychic my audience is.
I'm going to ask a question that they do not know the answer to and watch how well they perform.
Just watch this. According to Rasmussen, what percentage of the voting adults say that vaccines, and I'm talking about the...
The COVID vaccine. What percentage of adults say that they are very effective at preventing infection, preventing the spread?
What percent? Ah, look at you.
Oh, you're so smart.
Yeah. It's 26%, but I think there's a 1% at least margin of error there.
Yeah. All right, how about I'm going to try again.
How many Democrats, this is just Democrats, voters, how many are, quote, not at all worried about any harm from the vaccination itself?
How many Democrats are completely unworried about the vaccination might have some side effects?
Wow. 26% are not worried at all.
26%. Some of you were answering the obvious, the 75%.
Yeah, but congratulations again.
I feel that your brilliance and genius is exceeded only by your sex appeal, if I may say that.
And again, again, how many of you thought it was ridiculous the first time you heard me say...
That in any poll, 25% of the public will get the wrong answer reliably.
You thought I was just spitballing on that, didn't you?
You didn't think it was going to be so consistent, did you?
All right. And how about reparations?
What percentage of the, let's say, of the total public?
Now let's do it by party.
What percent of Democrats, and this will be harder to guess, what percent of Democrats support reparations?
What do you think? The answer is 60%.
This is of the population in general.
60%. How many of you knew that?
Was that about what you imagined?
I'm not sure I thought about it too much, but...
I don't know. Not too surprising.
All right. 36% of voters support the California plan.
You know the California plan for reparations?
The California plan for reparations is you take California, a state that never had slavery, And then the state that never had slavery will be taxing a little bit extra the people who were not involved in any way with slavery, and then they'll be transferring that to the people who were also never slaves.
So that's the plan.
But some of those people might be related to the legacy of slavery, and so that would be their argument for reparations.
Yeah, as you might imagine, it's divided by party affiliation, just like you think it would be.
All right, opinion person Liz Peek wrote on Fox's website, how many of you would agree with this opinion?
I'll just read this one paragraph.
So Liz says, the midterms were a referendum on the increasing unpopularity of Mr.
Trump. So she's saying the midterms were not about the Democrats.
It was mostly about voting against Trump.
That's her take. And she says, yes, he still has a lock on some declining portion of the Republican Party.
And yes, the Trump-always voters may refuse to back anyone else ever.
That is unfortunate, because Trump's greatest achievement was bringing hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of people into our political process for the first time.
Now the problem is that she thinks that Trump is now a drag on Republicans.
Because Trump won't bring in new Republicans, but he might bring in more heat from people who want to make sure he doesn't get back in there.
What do you think? Do you think Trump is now a plus or a negative?
To Republicans in general.
And she's riffing off the fact that Herschel Walker lost.
If Herschel Walker had won, that would have been a stronger argument for Trump.
I think I'm interested just that the argument has been made.
Meaning that Fox News carried this opinion piece that's unambiguously anti-Trump.
And... So that's where Fox News is, which means that's where Murdoch is.
No, I'm not supporting him.
Is that a surprise? I was just asked if I were supporting Trump.
You all know I'm not, right?
Yeah. I don't support him for age.
I don't support him as the best person who could do the job.
Yeah, I don't support him on fentanyl.
I don't think he did a good job there.
He couldn't even get TikTok banned.
So there's lots of stuff.
I'm generally in favor of kind of a seesaw between the two parties.
I think that one party gets in there and does some good things, especially for their base.
The next party gets in there and does a few other things.
But the things that are good for everybody tend to last.
You know, it's a messy process, but I kind of like going back and forth a little bit.
A little bit. I think it helps.
Alright. There is a really interesting article.
If you look at the Timcast website, you can find it.
And apparently after Ye and Fuentes were on Tim's show, Tim Pool show.
And after he walked out, he left the interview early, one of the Tim Pool associates there followed Ye and got a lot more interaction with him and then actually met with him in LA and interviewed him at length and then talks about it.
Here's the two things you need to know about it.
Number one, it's a really long piece.
And it's the longest piece I've read completely till the end, in a long time.
Because it never got boring.
And I kept waiting.
Pretty much everything I read, I skim.
Pretty much everything, right?
But I didn't skim it because it was so well written.
So kudos to the writer.
So it's just good writing.
So if you want to just see good writing, read it for that.
Because it's so rare.
And just tell yourself how long you stayed with the article without bailing out.
I'll give the name of the writer.
It was Shane Cashman, who apparently is or was a professor at some point.
So it's somebody who's got some good communication skills.
Yes. He was raised culturally Jewish, I think.
I think his mother was Jewish, he says, which I think technically makes you Jewish.
I don't think he's like an observing type.
All right, so here are some of the things that came out of that that I thought were interesting.
Number one, Ye does not appear crazy at all.
So somebody spent some good time with him when he was not performing.
Because when he's on an interview, he's performing.
But when you see him completely outside of the public domain, you get to see if he's crazy.
And there wasn't anything.
So he spent enough time with him to find out if any crazy shit was coming out of him, and there wasn't.
That actually, that Ye's sort of approach does have an internal logic to it.
And you could love it or hate it, but it's not crazy.
It's not crazy.
Now, it takes some explaining how that's not crazy.
But there's one part that I just loved...
Ye is completely aware that his communication director, Fuentes, is the most disliked person, like one of the most disliked persons on the internet who you wouldn't even want to interact with, right?
Now, that's not my opinion.
That would be sort of like an internet opinion of him, which I'm sure he'd agree with.
Now, Yeh describes himself as one of the most popular people in the world, and certainly somebody that the most people would want to talk to.
The most people would want to get to Yeh.
So Yeh has made it so that to talk to the most interesting person that you do want to talk to, Yeh, you have to go through the worst person in the world to get there.
And he did that intentionally.
Now, how much do you love that?
Forget about what you think about Fuentes for a moment.
Just think about the system.
Just think about the fact that he did that intentionally.
Now you tell me that's not art.
That's art. That is art.
Everything he does He's sometimes functional, often functional, because he's successful.
But while he's being functional, it's never not art.
It's still art.
That's who he is.
It just follows him.
Everything he touches becomes art.
So that's interesting.
And then Fuentes, I think, gave some more information about why he and Ye could get together in the first place.
Have you ever wondered about that?
Even if you accept that Ye is eclectic and eccentric or crazy or whatever you want to say.
So you could make an excuse.
You could kind of understand how Ye would want to work with anybody, basically.
Because he does refer to them as his little rogue group of outcasts or something.
But why would Fuentes want to work with Ye?
Do you think that Fuentes' audience...
Is, like, really happy that he's supporting a black guy for president?
I don't know. I'm kind of curious about that.
But what is it that brought them together?
What is it that brought them together?
Now, some of you might say, well, you know, famous people, and they both hate Jews, is what you're going to say, right?
Somebody's saying that. Maybe.
Maybe. But when they talk about it, they talk about making the country a Christian country.
And I think that at least Fuente said, and maybe Ye believes this, I don't know, that you shouldn't be running for office unless you're a Christian.
And that they'd like to see even the Constitution maybe tweaked to say that office holders need to be Christian.
Now, I'm sorry, that's not the country I live in.
I'm completely okay with our system being informed by Christians and informed by Christianity.
That seems to have worked.
It works more than it doesn't work.
But as soon as you say that Scott can't run for office in the country he lives in, no, you can't be my president.
I'm sorry. You cannot be my president if your platform is I can't run for office because I don't believe in your version of religion.
No. No, that is completely disqualifying.
But you know what I love?
I love the fact that they're sort of cheerful warriors and the fact that they're fighting for this thing and they're making their argument in a free market of ideas and it's interesting.
I find it interesting.
I'm never going to agree with it, but I like being exposed to the thought process, etc.
I like taking my mind someplace it wasn't before.
I never really thought about that.
Now, I believe also that Yeh said, during this interview, that he thinks the Jews should forgive Hitler.
Now, that's something he didn't say in public, but he said it to somebody who obviously could write about it.
But the Jews should forgive Hitler.
Now, that's pretty provocative.
But it also perfectly captures his philosophy.
His philosophy, I believe, is that if he were a Jew, he would forgive Hitler.
Because forgiving is just built into everything he's about.
Now, that's interesting, isn't it?
Because that frames it a little differently, doesn't it?
Imagine the argument was, it started out with, yay, complimented Hiller.
He didn't compliment the Holocaust.
He said he liked some things about Hiller, like building roads and stuff.
It was sort of a funny argument.
But... But did he say Hitler is overall good?
No, of course not. Forgiveness is not about the person being worthy of the forgiveness.
It's about you. It's about the forgiver.
But now, suppose Ye takes his argument all the way from Hitler had some good points, all the way to the Jews should forgive Hitler.
Do you see what that does to your brain?
Do you see what that does? This is like Overton window Just perfectly used.
It's hard to go back to your last opinion, because the new one's just more interesting.
As soon as he says the Jews should forgive Hitler, you're like, okay, I cannot not think about that.
And I already completely have forgotten what you said about Hitler's good points, because now you've gone so much further that now we have to think about this.
And then you think about it and you say, oh, wait a minute, that's just a Christian principle.
And then all of a sudden you're like, what the hell is Ye doing to us?
It's just a Christian principle.
It's an attempt at a high road.
I don't know that he thinks it's a practical thing, but as a philosophical point, it gets you past the controversial stuff and onto something that's actually an interesting question.
No matter where you are on it.
Now, here's another thing that I don't know if you caught.
And he said it fairly clearly to this reporter.
Well, to Shane.
What do you think Ye's opinion of Jewish people is based on what he said?
Based on what he said, what would you say his opinion is of Jewish people?
Go. Give me your summary of Ye's opinion of Jewish people based on what he said.
You say negative, but give me the example.
What's the negative thing he said specifically?
Well, he said he loves them and he is one.
He said that he was going to go death gun on the Jews, right?
So he said he was going to He was going to be aggressive against the Jews.
What's that mean? So here's what happens when you see his context.
So when he talks about the Jewish community, it's all compliments.
And that was always the context.
The context is...
That the Jewish community is, he actually says it directly, smarter than average, more successful, and that he would like to emulate some of their methods because he keeps running into successful Jewish people who are powerful enough that he's not getting what he wants out of his interactions.
So he would like to be more like them.
Pretty specifically, he's saying that.
He would like to learn from what they do, And be more their equal in business.
Is that terrible?
Is that terrible?
That he sees them as above his current ability and also ability of other people, and he would like to rise to that level so that he's an equal force in the marketplace.
This I see spin away.
Am I spinning? I'm telling you what he said.
Is that spinning? I don't know.
Now, he said DEFCON, right.
What he meant was DEFCON, but what he meant was he was sort of going to war against what he called the Jews.
But what did he mean?
His detailed explanation is all compliments.
Is there such a thing as a racist who believes that a group is better than his own people?
Is that a thing? Can you be an anti-Semite by saying that Jewish people are superior to you and maybe other people as well?
Because that's what he says.
I mean, he says it very directly.
He's not even beating around the bush.
They're more successful.
They're smarter. They're killing it in business.
I keep bumping into them and not getting what I want.
I need to raise my power level up to their level.
Maybe I can learn something from them.
And then I'm going to go hard at this.
I'm going to be fighting, as he would say, fighting the Jews.
And then the corollary argument is, Can he, as a free person in the United States, speak sloppily about his own personal opinion?
Because I think it's sloppy to say the Jews.
Would you agree? That's just sloppy.
But does he have the right to be sloppy?
He wasn't trying to hurt anybody.
And language does have a risk, no matter what you're saying.
It just seems to always have a risk.
I don't know. It's an interesting question.
I think he has a right to be sloppy, and you have a right to react to that sloppiness in a negative way.
I don't see a big problem.
Yeah. Because the thing is that he also consistently speaks of black people and other people the same way.
He uses the same level of sloppiness to talk about, you know, I don't know, everything.
Basically everything is, you know, white people matter.
Like I said, he talks about groups like they're all one thing.
Now, should he? I don't know.
I don't know. I don't have an opinion on that.
But if you think that he's insulting a group because he speaks to them as a whole, that doesn't hold up because he speaks of every group, including his own as a whole.
It's simply the way he talks.
And if you said, well, but he's also insulting them, that's different.
You can speak about your own group as a whole if you're not insulting them.
But don't talk about somebody else's group and then insult them.
But he didn't. He complimented them.
I know. Now, if I were Jewish would I be saying what I'm saying now?
Do you think I would have this view of things if I were Jewish?
No fucking way.
No fucking way.
No. No.
You know what I would feel if I were Jewish?
Fuck that guy.
Fuck that guy hard.
Fuck him for putting me at greater risk.
Fuck him for making me think about the Holocaust one more time.
Fuck him for saying he likes Hitler.
Fuck him completely if I were Jewish.
So... But why do I have empathy for my beloved fellow Jewish citizens?
Why do I have so much empathy for how they should feel in that situation?
Because I would feel exactly the same way.
But why don't we extend that to Ye, who's had a bunch of individuals he's had a hard time with, and he's just sort of generalizing them because he's speaking sloppy.
Why don't we understand why he is also in an emotionally irrational situation?
Because something that would trigger anybody into an irrational mode happened to him.
So the same way I say if I were Jewish, I would be reacting essentially from my emotional defense, protect myself, any movement in the wrong direction has to be stopped immediately.
I would act exactly like that.
Of course, you would too.
But if I were Ye, I would also probably be affected the same way he was.
If I ran into one demographic group that kept being my obstacle, I'd probably have a bad attitude about them.
And I allow that people should be able to have that attitude.
I don't want to agree with it.
I don't always want to see it.
Maybe you should keep it to yourself.
But can we really blame people for having...
Let's say you've been married three times, and you're either male or female, it doesn't matter in my example, and all three times it was just terrible.
You got married three times, they're all disasters.
You don't think you'd have a bad feeling about either men if you're a woman or women if you're a man.
I do. And I would allow you to have that opinion.
I would not criticize you for saying all men are fucked or all women are terrible.
I would say you earned that.
That is exactly what you should be feeling because you've had that experience.
I'm not adopting it.
I'm not going to be influenced by it.
But I get. I allow you to have that opinion.
So I allow that the Jews should treat yea unfairly.
And I'm fine with that.
Because I would do the same fucking thing.
You put me in that situation, and I would not be looking for fairness.
I'd be looking to stop that completely.
But Yeh was allegedly a victim of some business and other personal situations that seemed to present a pattern to him.
Nobody, including Yeh, thinks that pattern holds to all Jewish people.
Would you agree with that?
Do you think that Yeh would say, oh yes, I do believe that all Jewish people act the same and are the same?
Of course not. So the thing that you assume that he's saying, nobody would say.
He didn't say it.
Nobody says it.
Not a single person on earth thinks it.
It's a ridiculous way to frame him.
So once you realize he's not trying to make anybody like him at the moment...
He's insulted everybody.
He's called everybody by their category at least once.
It looks different. All right.
Here are the people who should be kicked off of social media.
Here's a comment. Scott is more ridiculous every day.
Fuck you. Fuck your stupid fucking little asshole comment.
Here's the thing. If you've got a problem with what I say, you've got plenty of time to fucking say it.
If you want to just say something about me...
I fucking hate your little piece of shit existence.
Really. Go fucking kill yourself.
All right. So, we'll see if Ye can turn this ship.
Shane, when he wrote about him, still believes that Ye would be a good president.
So, the individual I was just talking about, who was talking to Ye, believed before and still does that he might be a good president.
What do you think? Oh, and by the way, Ye said he would run as a Republican, because he doesn't think an independent can win.
Too unstable for the nuclear football?
I don't think so.
I don't think Ye is too unstable for the nuclear football.
What, you think he's gonna launch?
I don't. Oh, Aardvark?
Thank you for that. So I'm finishing up my book on reframes.
And I was just doing like an author's reread yesterday where I read it like I'm a consumer for the first part.
And I have to tell you, it's the best thing I've done.
I think it's going to change the world.
Like, it's... Here's what it does.
It takes all the most persuasive little reframes and puts them in one place.
So if you've got any problems from personal to business to understanding reality itself, there's probably more than one reframe that's very powerful that you haven't been exposed to yet.
And the power of these reframes, so far I think I have over 130 of them in the book.
You're going to find at least ten that will rock your world.
It might be a different ten from somebody else's ten because it's based on what you need in your life.
But they are so strong.
When you see them all together, this will be the best thing I've ever done in terms of usefulness to other people.
In terms of usefulness to other people, this will be unparalleled.
Nothing will be close.
Yeah, I'm not going to say it's a masterpiece.
That's a different connotation.
I'm going to say useful.
It's going to be the most useful thing that's ever been produced, I think.
Like, actually. It might actually be the most useful, outside of maybe the Bible or something, if you want to go that way.
But, yeah, there's nothing I've created that would be this level of direct benefit to your life.
Just read Jeffries if you want to understand what neuro-linguistic programming does to you.
Well, I already understand that.
It's like a book of spells.
Yeah, that's exactly what it is.
So another story I forgot there was that I saw AI was asked to do some hypnosis, and it couldn't do it.
I mean, it tried, but it didn't know the technique.
It just did, you know, you're getting sleepy kind of stuff, which is not really the technique.
So, AI doesn't know how to do hypnosis.
You don't want to be alive when it does.
If it ever learns to do hypnosis, and presumably it could, I mean, I could train it in an afternoon, you're in trouble.
I mean, we don't know what this AI is going to do to us, but I can tell you every prediction about the future is useless.
Everything will change. You all get that, right?
I think a lot of people still have a view of AI. This could be a wonky little Me Too thing that's playing while we go on with our lives as normal.
Your life will not be recognizable in five years.
Civilization won't even be recognizable.
Everything will be different.
Everything. It's literally beyond imagination.
Yep. All right.
I thought people had to be willing to be hypnotized.
All right, so here's a good question.
Does advertising work if you're unwilling?
Yeah, it does.
Does persuasion in general work if you're on the other team?
Well, sometimes. I mean, it's hard to change anybody's mind to anything.
Sometimes. But when I say hypnosis, I don't mean it will put you into a trance.
Although it could.
It could. But it doesn't need to do that.
I call it a talking hypnosis.
If I just had a conversation with you, you might find yourself very persuaded and you wouldn't know what happened.
And I would not necessarily even know that I'd used hypnosis on you because I wouldn't be conscious of it doing it.
I would just know that the way I presented it was compatible with hypnosis and compatible with persuasion.
Because once you learn to speak in those ways, it's automatic.
It's like touch typing.
You don't think your fingers are just the same way you talk.
When you know persuasion, you speak persuasively without thinking through every moment.
It just comes out that way.
We talked about Brittany Greiner.
You missed it. It was the first thing I did.
Is TikTok like hypnosis?
Yes. Yes.
TikTok, the reason you feel addicted to it is that it's persuasive.
Is there a micro lesson on this?
Not exactly. So here's a thing that people don't understand about hypnosis.
It's true that you can't do a standard hypnotic induction with somebody who doesn't want to be there.
Because they'll just get up and walk away.
Or just not listen, or whatever.
It doesn't work. But here's the workaround to that.
You can remove people's objection, and then you can do it.
So you can't do it if somebody doesn't want to.
But sometimes they don't object to having their mind changed.
You see the difference? If they definitely don't want to, it doesn't work.
But suppose you said, OK, I don't want to.
And I said, OK, well, let me change your mind.
And I would tell you that hypnosis never hurt anybody.
I would tell you that you'd be aware the whole time and you could come out of it at will anytime you wanted.
And I would give you what's called the pre-talk.
It's part of hypnosis, actually.
The pre-talk is to convince you that there's no risk.
So then I'd convince you there's no risk and you'd say, oh, okay, I guess I'm okay with that.
And then I would hypnotize you.
So it's a little bit of a trick when hypnotists say, because we always do, to protect ourselves, you can't hypnotize somebody who's unwilling.
True. But you can make them willing.
We don't mention that.
We don't mention the part where we make you willing, and then we hypnotize you.
By the way, that's like the greatest unspoken secret of hypnosis, is that...
It's sort of always happening.
Like, you can't turn it off.
It won't matter if you know.
Yeah, and the swinging watch thing, that's not part of hypnosis.
That doesn't buy you anything.
The ladies of Coffee with Scott Adams calendar coming soon.
That would be a big hit.
You had a hypnotist as a roommate in college...
That's where you learned your love of cleaning and doing dishes.
Did you?
Now, I need to know more about that.
But I'd love to know. I'd love to know if you volunteered To be hypnotized so you would enjoy chores, or did your hypnotist hypnotize you to do his chores as well as yours?
That could have gone either way.
That is funny. Have I ever hypnotized someone and convinced them to kill themselves?
No. No.
And by the way, that doesn't work.
Because people have tried that.
Yeah, it's never worked.
Apparently, peer pressure can make somebody kill somebody, but actual hypnosis doesn't seem to have that power.
Oh, that was meant to be snarky.
Okay. Can someone be hypnotized to work harder to get more money?
Yes. Yes, they can.
Assuming they want to work harder to get more money.
What hypnosis is really good at...
Is helping you perform better at ordinary things that you want to perform at.
So it could make you better at tennis, golf, you know, it could get rid of the yips, flying, you know, if you're afraid of flying.
So it makes everything you do a little bit better, potentially, because you want to be better at those things.
All right, that's all for now.
As usual, the most provocative and challenging live stream in all the world.
Are autistic people less prone to hypnosis?
I've never seen anybody deal with that question, but my Experience says it should be the same.
Because generally speaking, you cannot identify in advance someone who's easy to hypnotize.
Everybody can be hypnotized, but about 20% can actually see things that don't exist and have a real experience that's incredible.
But there's no correlation of IQ or personality or anything that seems to tell you in advance who's in the 20%.
So my guess is that Anybody who can understand language would be about the same.
Could it cure Kamala's cackle?
Yes. Yes.
That would be actually a good use.
Yeah, Kamala could learn through hypnosis not to have that reaction.
Yes, that would be something. Are we seeing Ye's first big offer?
That's not the way I would couch it, because I don't know what you would call the first big offer.
I think what he's doing is trying to unify people by slaying all of our sacred cows.
Because if you and I have a beef, here's an unintentional pun, if we have a beef...
Usually it's because I've got a sacred cow and you've got a sacred cow.
And I can't kill your sacred cow and you can't and I can't kill mine.
So we've got our sacred cows here.
But I think what Ye is doing is like, how about I'll murder my cow so you don't have any problems on my end.
I'll just kill my cow. I don't have any sacred cows now.
But would you mind if I kill your cow?
See, that's where he gets in trouble.
The trouble is he's trying to kill your cow.
So when he said that slavery sounds like a choice, he was trying to kill the sacred cow, which is, oh, slavery is sort of our narrative that gives us some political clout.
When he went after the Jewish community, their sacred cow is...
The Holocaust. It's the narrative that gives them cover and power and unites them and allows them to get support and everything.
So Ye goes directly after their sacred cow by saying, Hitler?
I love Hitler. He basically just put a shiv right through the sacred cow.
Here's the thing. So far, he's only wounded everybody's cow, so we're all just mad.
Hey, you asshole, you hurt my cow.
Stop hurting my cow.
But if he keeps pushing, he's going to kill your cow.
And then what? And then you're free.
And so is he.
So he's tried to kill your cow, and you don't want your cow killed, but it's not clear that you're better off with your cow.
I think his play is, I think you're better off without your cow, and I'm going to kill it for you and prove it.
Now, he's killed all of his own sacred cows.
Pretty sure he was worshipping money just a few weeks ago, wasn't he?
Like he was proud of being the richest black guy in America and stuff, and like he just threw it all away for the freedom.
He killed his own cow.
So, one more topic.
House passes a landmark bill to protect same-sex marriages, sending it to Biden's desk.
Well, that's what Congress is for.
That's what Congress is for.
So, do you think it makes any difference that there would be a federal law making it legal for same-sex people to get married?
Do you think that makes any difference?
I mean, it makes a difference in the sense that there are some states that might try to ban it.
I don't know. Has anybody been damaged by gay marriage?
Here's the thing. You know, I always talk about A-B testing.
Gay marriage has been tested.
Has it not? Is there some big, like, emergency problem from all the gays getting married and they cause some problems that I don't know about?
If I had to guess, I'll bet you the gay marriages are successful, at least as successful as any other kind.
And maybe more.
I mean, I'm leaning toward maybe more.
But, I don't know.
The reason I say more is that it just makes sense to me that two people of the same gender would have a little bit more in common in the, you know, sticking together area.
It seems like it would be some advantage.
Birth rates would be affected, but still, freedom requires that we get to decide if we have kids or not.
So, would you agree with my statement that gay marriage has been tested, thoroughly tested, and that there doesn't seem to be any downside at all?
Would you agree with that statement?
What's the downside? If you think there's a downside, mention it.
Churches lose tax status.
Yeah, that's a sub-issue.
That's a different issue, but that's an important one.
Yeah, okay.
Well, I would say I guess that's my take.
My take is you don't need to test something that's been that thoroughly tested.
And once something is tested and it works, you keep those.
So to me, this looks like a good evolution.
It evolves us from something we tested, and most people agree.
Now, I'll accept that maybe other people are, you know, disagreeing with it.
But even you would agree that it worked, even if you don't like it, right?
Wouldn't you agree? Yeah.
I mean, it hasn't caused any problem, I can see.
You know what you never hear?
I don't want to be walking in that neighborhood at night because it's an LGBTQ neighborhood.
Because those dangerous criminal LGBTQ people might beat me up if I go there.
I don't think there's any demographic group that has been more successful than the LGBTQ community.
I mean, talk about people who are definitely adding to your country.
They're adding a lot.
A lot. Really, you would doubt that.
You don't think the LGBT community is yet another super advantage of America?
Because if you do, you haven't been paying attention.
Because they're killing it. They're killing it in all kinds of domains.
And always have.
From Newton to Da Vinci to maybe Tesla.
Aren't some of the most famous successful people in the world, they were known to be gay, right?
So if you look at, let's see, was it Indonesia that just made premarital sex illegal?
But I'm sure they have some views about the LGBT community.
Don't you think that a country that gives full appreciation to the LGBT community gets more value, a lot more, than a society that oppresses them?
Isn't it obvious? Would anybody disagree with that?
To me, it's obvious.
It's like this entire historically super successful community that why would you want to suppress some of your most successful people historically?
Yeah, I don't know. So I think that's something we do right.
I don't know if we need a federal rule, but I'm always happy when you A-B test something, it works, and then you codify it.
To me, that's perfect.
That's exactly what I want.
If it hadn't worked, like if there was some big problem, then I'd say, no, don't codify that.
But to me, it looks like it worked.
Sarah says, stop lying.
What do you think I'm lying about?
You know, I often say that the question of should you lie or should you not is the wrong question.
The right question is, shouldn't you live your life in a way where you don't need to?
That's the goal, is to simply not need to.
And, you know, I'm not sure you can get all the way to not needing to, because it seems like there's always some reason.
You always need to lie to a terrorist to save somebody's life, right?
There's always going to be a reason. But, you know, try to get as close as you can to not having any reason to lie.
And I'm pretty close to that with this live stream.
Pretty close. I mean, I can't think of anything that I've lied about.
So I don't ever feel an impulse to lie.
Like, that's never in my mind.
It's like, oh, I better lie about this.
Because I feel like, you know, you've all become the kind of people who can hear provocative views and not blow up.
Rashi says, Scott thinks he's telling the truth, but he's wrong.
His perceived truth is wonky.
Well, I agree with you. Yes, truth is subjective.
So the only thing I can claim is that the thing I think is true is what I'm saying.
That's all I'm saying. If gay marriage was successful, they wouldn't need the bill.
That's not true.
That doesn't follow logically.
The downside of gay marriage, and what about the Project Veritas latest video?
I'm not sure what that point is, but I think you're saying...
That there's a Project Veritas video that might go to grooming?
Was that a grooming question?
Are you honestly conflating gay marriage with grooming?
Because that would be very distasteful.
Am I? Or is there something more to that?
Is it more to the story?
But I hope you didn't just do that, did you?
Did you just say that gay marriage is leading to grooming?
That would be an odious opinion.
All right.
So I see those as disconnected topics.
The incidence is higher...
I don't know how to find a good hypnotist.
Because the trouble is, they're hypnotists.
Ye doesn't try to offend Jesus or Mohammed.
Well, he's a pro-Jesus guy.
That's his whole point. I've heard Ye say positive things about Islam.
But I don't know if I've heard negative things.
I don't know. Draw a cartoon of Mohammed, somebody says.
You know what? I'm okay with everybody having their one thing.
Right? If black people want to have the N-word for themselves, I think, well, hey, I want to use all the words too, but that's such a small ask.
It's such a small thing to ask.
All right. If Islam...
Wants cartoonists not to draw comics of them.
My first impression is, I want to be able to draw a comic about anything I want.
And then I think, well, that's the smallest thing to ask for.
That's really a small ask.
If the only thing I can't do is draw a comic about one religious group, it doesn't affect me too much.
No matter what you think of the ask, it's very small.
We left behind a U.S. Marine to secure the release of Griner.
Thank you.
Well, I assume the U.S. Marine has already come back.
Oh, the Marine has been there for five years?
Oh, you're talking about the guy we didn't bring back.
All right, yeah. Yeah, Whale Inn is still there, right.
