Episode 1959 Scott Adams: Everything The Government Told You Was A Lie. Plenty Of Examples Today
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a
Find my "extra" content on Locals: https://ScottAdams.Locals.com
Content:
Whiteboard 1: Both Sides Of A Topic
Whiteboard 2: Engineers Thought Process
President Trump's NFT & free speech EO
Kari Lake's election lawsuit
Energy policy: France vs. America
Twitter suspensions for location tracking
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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
Now, if you'd like to take your experience up a little, and I think you do, Let's see if I can get my shit together here.
Thank you, Paul. How's that?
Better, right? Well, we're off to a rocky start.
But can I redeem it?
Can I pull it out from this bad start?
Yes. Behind me?
If you think there's just going to be one whiteboard today, no.
No. Two.
Two whiteboards. That's the kind of day we're looking at.
We're going to be going into the weekend on a high point, and if you'd like to join us on this amazing journey, all you need is a cup or mug or a glass of tanker, chalice or stein, a kentine jug or glass, a vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite liquid I like, coffee.
And join me now on this unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine hit of the day, the thing that makes everything better.
It's called the simultaneous sip.
And it happens now.
Go. Yeah, that's good stuff.
That's good stuff.
Well, here's something I learned today.
Did you know this? I don't know if you knew this.
There are no high quality studies in the entire field of science.
There's not a single high quality study that disagrees with me.
Did you know that?
I was a little shocked to find that out today, but it turns out it's true.
Not a single high quality study disagrees with my personal opinion.
You know what's even better?
Same with you. Same with you.
It turns out that if there's a study that disagrees with you, do you know what those are called?
What are those called?
Low quality studies.
Low quality studies.
They don't have enough people.
Problem with them.
But if there's one thing that all of us can say for sure, just for us, I can't speak for anybody who's not watching right now, but all of us are compatible with all of the high-quality studies, but not the low-quality ones.
The low-quality ones are the ones that disagree with you.
So just keep that in mind.
Did you hear about Paul Pelosi's attacker's son?
So, you want to know how you know you did a bad job of parenting?
Here's a little tip. Sometimes you wonder, did I do a good job of parenting?
Gosh, you know, I tried my best.
I wonder. Well, every now and then there's a way you can tell for sure.
Okay, so the 19-year-old son of Paul Pelosi's attacker, when he was asked about it, he said, well, maybe my father was a sex slave.
Maybe Musk was right, because I guess Musk said something about that jokingly or something.
He goes, "Yeah, maybe for all I know, maybe he was a sex slave." Now, there's a kid who is not entirely happy with the parenting he received.
The kid is not Hispanic, but his last name is Gonzales.
Because the mother just liked, there was a family that helped him out named Gonzales.
So she named her kids after a Hispanic family.
If your kid speculates in the national press that their parents might be a sex slave.
That's the best story of the day.
Well.
Well, let's see. So, Tucker, talk about timing.
You know, timing is everything.
Imagine three years ago, you know, pre-pandemic.
Imagine if a major news outlet told you that there's new information that suggests that Kennedy was killed by the CIA. He was assassinated by the CIA. What would you have thought three years ago?
It was like new information.
Would you have said, oh yeah, that definitely happened three years ago?
Or would you say, ah, that's another conspiracy theory?
Well, I guess it was last night.
Tucker Carlson apparently has some anonymous source familiar with the documents that we haven't seen publicly, who pretty much says, oh yeah, it looks like a CIA kill.
Now, in 2022, December 22, Do you have any doubt that the CIA killed Kennedy?
So, somehow it went from, well, I doubt it, you know, it's a conspiracy theory.
I mean, there might have been extra people involved, that's possible, but, you know, am I going to believe that the CIA put out a hit on the President of the United States three years ago?
I would have said, well, I suppose anything's possible.
But I wouldn't have assumed that there was any evidence for it.
Yeah. So I would say I'm going to accept that tentatively as my working assumption.
You know, everything you read in the history books is sketchy.
You know that, right? I mean, probably the names and dates are approximately right.
But, you know, why somebody did something, and what was the real motivation, and what was really achieved, and, you know, all the interpretation stuff, that's all bullshit.
That's all just made up.
So history is basically whatever you want to decide is true.
That's the best you can do.
And I've decided I'd like just to assume that's true.
So there's still people here saying that I pushed COVID passports.
Would you like to go to the whiteboard now?
Asshole. So there's an asshole here on YouTube who's just begging me to take it to the next topic.
Shall we? Let's do that.
Let's give you a little lesson about how things work in the real world here.
Step one. What happens when you look at a topic, as an engineer might, and you look at both sides of a topic?
Do you know what happens to you if you publicly consider the argument on both sides of a topic?
Do you know what happens?
Yeah, that's called entertaining both sides.
So I think of it as considering all variables.
But I've learned that if you consider all variables, that's really the same as entertaining both sides.
If you entertain both sides, that's the same as saying you entertained one side, and then you also entertain the other side.
So if you entertain both sides, could it be said that you entertained one side?
Well, yes, because you entertain both sides.
And if you entertained the side that was wrong, according to you, would it be true to say that I've sort of supported it by entertaining it?
right so if you consider it you're really entertaining it if you entertain it you support it if you support it you promote it and if you promote it you're healer fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you for for for doing that to me fuck you completely every one of you assholes Who is doing this?
You're a fucking idiot and you don't belong in polite society.
I'm going to talk about what is or is not true on both sides of every fucking topic and you're going to do this because you're an asshole.
You're an unproductive asshole.
That's all I wanted to say.
What about the back?
Here's what I thought I was doing during the pandemic, and other times as well.
I thought it was a fog of ore.
I thought I was waiting for better data.
And I thought that once I got that better data, I could form tentative opinions, which as time went by, I could either modify or change.
I thought that's what I was doing.
I thought I was waiting for information.
And that I would solidify my opinion, also be willing to modify it, because, you know, you're never completely certain.
But it turns out this is what I was doing.
I was fence-sitting, and then I was flip-flopping, and then I'm trying to walk it back.
Fuck you! Fuck you!
Fuck you.
That's all I have to say.
Ukraine says they shut down 37 out of 40 incoming drones and missiles.
Do you believe that?
Do you believe that Ukraine shot down 37 of 40 Russian drones and missiles?
I feel like the technology wouldn't be that good.
You know how big Ukraine is, right?
You know how big Russia is.
That's a lot of territory.
Are you telling me that 40 missiles were shot into various targets, you know, all around Ukraine, and that we had enough high-quality anti-missile, anti-drone stuff that we shot down almost all of it?
Did they only aim their drones where we had, or not we, where the Ukrainians had good air defense?
I feel like this can't be true.
What do you think?
Doesn't it seem like fake news?
And give me a history lesson.
Certainly... Certainly it's true that the technology of shooting down missiles has improved.
That's fair to say, right?
Since Reagan's, you know, Star Wars, I'm sure we're a lot better at it now than we ever were.
But are we that good?
Now, can somebody give me a history lesson?
I need a fact check on the following, like I have a sketchy memory of this.
True or false, Israel's Iron Dome system...
They, in the earlier days of it, they massively exaggerated how effective it was.
Is that true? Or am I thinking of Iraq?
Am I thinking of Iraq?
Can somebody give me a fact check on that?
People are saying it's true.
I think in both cases, right?
Now, is that typically what people who have air defense say?
Is it just normal in war that you always say you're shooting everything down when you're not?
So, you think it's real?
It could be real, based on the fact that we're sending them good stuff and things have developed to that point.
It feels to me like we ought to be able to shoot down a drone because they move slow, right?
Don't drones move kind of slowly?
So, I'm not surprised you get a drone.
But I'm a little bit surprised you could get a missile, at least reliably.
I don't know. I'm going to say I'm skeptical.
I could be convinced, but I'm skeptical.
All right. It also makes me wonder if Russia is going to run out of missiles and drones.
Like, there's got to be some collapse point, right?
And then I saw somebody else saying that Russia's claiming victory for, I guess they recaptured, a totally non-strategic part.
You know, it was like something that nobody should brag about, but it's all they had.
Which indicates they have no good news.
The only good news was something they basically made up.
So Rise Against Disciples says, Claude Adams, why did you recommend COVID passports?
Should I answer that question?
Why did I recommend COVID passports?
Sure, I'll answer that question.
Why did I recommend it?
Why did I recommend it?
Recommend it. Let me explain this to you.
Because I'm a smart person, I consider both sides, which you call entertaining both sides, which you call entertaining the one you don't like, which you call supporting the bad side, which you call promoting the bad side, which you're a fucking asshole because you're calling it recommending, which never fucking happened.
You stupid asshole.
Any other questions? Anything else?
Have I answered your question?
Is that confusing?
All right, let's talk about Trump.
So Trump said he had this big ol' announcement.
Big ol' announcement.
And I was like, oh, this is gonna be good.
Can't wait. Fresh meat.
And then he announced he was making NFTs, digital trading cards, where he's represented as a superhero.
And then everybody said, including me, well, that's a little disappointing.
Is that all you got? Because if that's all you got, you don't look like a threat to win the presidency.
And then we learned more.
Interestingly, he sold out all of his NFTs.
They all sold out.
He made over $4 million.
One of the most successful fundraisers of all time.
And I don't think he's done.
Can't he just make more of them?
And I also don't know if people can resell them.
Does anybody know if he gets a cut anytime somebody trades one?
Can you trade them or you just own them?
I don't even know if you can trade them.
Can you trade them? You can trade them.
And does he get a cut every time you trade them?
10% for sure?
Or you just think so?
No cut? Alright.
I think we'll need a fact check on this.
Some people are confidently saying 10%.
But I think you might be saying that because that's a standard.
It doesn't mean he did it though.
But that is a standard. No wonder Christina left him.
Well, look, you fucking cunt.
Do you think you know anything about my personal life?
Really, do you think you know anything about my personal life?
Like anything. So, Cindy Smith, we'll remove you.
Goodbye. You know, I was thinking of buying one.
I almost bought one of those NFTs.
Because I thought, well, you never know.
$99 someday might be worth $1,000.
You never know. You never know.
But, alright, the second part of that is then that Trump followed up, not too long after, with what appears to be, will be a series of little video messages on certain topics.
The first topic he picked was a winner.
It was a winner. Among other things, it was about free speech.
But sort of the applause line part was, first, within hours of my inauguration, I will sign an executive order banning any federal department or agency from colluding with any organization, business, or person to censor, limit, categorize, or impede the lawful speech of Americans.
So he would be our free speech defender.
That's pretty strong.
That's pretty strong.
I don't support Trump for president because of age and just the provocation level is so high, it's just a different proposition today.
But I'm going to say when he does things well.
Anybody have a problem with that?
If he does something poorly, I'll call it out.
If he says something good, I'll call it out.
Now there's a risk.
There's a risk if I say what he does well and What he doesn't do well.
Do you know what the risk is? If I'm just sort of objective about what he does well and what he doesn't?
Let me describe the risk.
I think I'm going to be considering both sides.
You're going to call it entertaining both sides, which you're going to call entertaining the wrong side, which you're going to call supporting the bad side, which you'll say means I'm promoting it, which says I recommended it.
Fuck you. Let's just get that out of the way now.
All right, I would say that Trump's strategy of doing not big rallies, because I understand they're really expensive.
The big rallies make sense when you get toward the final months.
So he'll probably be doing that.
But I do like this strategy.
Do you remember when Trump ran the first time?
And he was fundraising and campaigning in a totally non-standard way.
And what did everybody say at first?
Hey, you're campaigning in a non-standard way.
That can't work. And then he became president.
So how does he launch his 2024?
By campaigning in a non-standard way, which I was one of the many people who immediately said, oh, the NFT thing, that's what you've been saving?
You're saving that like that's a big announcement?
That's pathetic!
And then immediately he falls up with the strongest campaign promise probably I've ever seen.
That was like a really strong, definitive first day, and it's something he could do, right?
It wasn't something he could maybe do.
Oh, lost the connection. It was something he could actually do.
I liked it a lot.
It was right on the zeitgeist.
It was right on the news.
It was what we're talking about.
It's what we're caring about at the moment.
He hit the mark, said it in a strong, capable way.
It was very good. It was very good.
So, so far, so far Trump has innovated fundraising successfully.
I'm going to call that a solid success, fundraising-wise.
Would anybody disagree?
Solid success.
There's nothing bad to say about that.
Because he did it tongue-in-cheek.
He did it with a sense of humor.
He wasn't calling himself Superman.
People bought it.
How do you judge the quality of something in the art world?
Have I ever told you how to judge art?
Does somebody buy it?
That's it. It's good if somebody buys it.
And it is good. The art is actually good for its genre.
All right. So that's interesting.
The thing that Trump does is he surprises you.
And I was worried that he was out of surprises, like a sign of age, like he was just maybe running the best of or just playing the hits, you know, like a band that used to be famous, but now he's just playing the hits.
I was worried he wouldn't have anything new.
But this was new.
He introduced two completely new things, you know, a new proposal that we hadn't heard, as well as a new fundraising method that completely worked.
That's a pretty strong day, based on being, you know, and he was insulted, you know, in the beginning.
Somebody says, Scott is admiring Trump of being a scammer.
Is it a scammer if it's transparent?
What would be the scam part?
Is there any surprise to it?
Is there any hidden trick?
What makes that a scam as opposed to just a really good money-raising thing?
Well, I was listening to a little bit of Carrie Lake's lawsuit against, I don't know, is it against just Maricopa or is it against Arizona in general?
But she is... So among her complaints are that 60% of the machines malfunctioned in Maricopa on Election Day, and everyone in the world knows that Republicans wait to vote on Election Day.
I don't think there's any question that people were discouraged and left the line.
Do you think there's any question about that?
Do you think there's any question that it reduced the amount of voting?
It had to, right? All friction, right?
How many times have I told you, friction always makes a difference.
It doesn't make a giant difference all the time, but it always makes a difference.
This would be no exception.
So, and then there's a chain of custody question, or a bunch of ballots that have a sketchy chain of custody.
There's some issue about the ink wasn't dark enough on some, some things were maybe miscounted, etc.
Now, I'm no court, so I can't anticipate the outcome of it.
But, if we judge from what we've seen before on election claims, I don't think she has a case.
Do you? Now, that doesn't mean she's not right.
All of her claims might be accurate.
I believe the claims are accurate.
What I'm asking is, there's no way to reverse it, is there?
Do you think the court would take the position of actually removing the person in office?
Has that ever happened?
And could a court order a runoff?
They could, couldn't they? They could order a runoff, couldn't they?
It would have to be that, wouldn't it?
Because I can't imagine the court would determine the election.
Am I right? The court would be super reluctant to decide who won based on just the court.
That would be their last preference.
First preference would be return it to the people and redo it, right?
So there is some possibility of that, wouldn't you say?
And it's still kind of fresh.
I don't know how long it takes to adjudicate that.
What do you think? Do you think she has a chance?
Because the argument that Republicans were unfairly affected because they vote on Election Day, part of that's their own damn fault.
It's not like you didn't know.
It's not like you didn't know there would be some advantage of doing it in advance.
But it was definitely also the election system failed.
So you can't put all of that on the voters.
I don't know. What do you think?
If you had to handicap it, and you're going to predict, will there be a re-election based on the strength of this claim, or the claims?
I don't see it happening.
It feels like the real world is too sticky.
In my hypothetical world, you could imagine her prevailing.
But in the real world of real people, I can't even imagine it.
Can you? Oh, somebody says there's a precedent.
A precedent in Arizona.
Was it a precedent long enough ago that it was not our hyper-partisan times?
Because I think the hyper-partisanship that we're experiencing makes it basically impossible.
Makes it impossible.
All right. Well, I'm gonna, let's see, just for fun, I'm gonna make a prediction, right?
Now, I should tell you that I predict well when I have any special insight.
So let's say it's a persuasion-related thing or a Dilbert-y bureaucracy kind of thing.
I do pretty well in those.
Or mass hysteria.
I do pretty well in those, because I have some special advantage.
Where I don't do well, Is guessing who's going to get picked as a vice president.
Would you agree? I have no special insight on that.
And on this one, not being a lawyer, I have no special insight about how this will go.
Would you agree? I bring absolutely nothing to this question.
Because, you know, I haven't looked at the details of the claims.
I'm not a judge. But I'm still going to give a prediction.
Because it's fun. My prediction is that the election will not be reversed.
And the reasoning is that the inertia and the desire to not upset things is just going to be too big.
Just too big. People will find a reason not to reverse it.
Because reversing it would be just too much of a disruption.
Now, let me give you some context.
You may remember that I immediately congratulated Biden when his election was announced.
Did that mean that I trusted that the vote was completely fair?
No. I treat them as separate things.
So separately, I want the best answer.
But if I can't get the best answer in a practical way, then the next thing I want is for the country to go on as strongly as it can.
And that means just sort of sucking it up and moving on.
So I'm usually in favor of sucking it up and moving on if the alternative is too disruptive.
But that doesn't mean I trust the result.
That's a separate question.
Here's some good news along the lines of the Adams Law of slow-moving disasters, which, as you know, predicts that if we see a problem far enough in advance, we're really, really good at solving it.
And it turns out that France has been working hard on their energy issue because of the Russia disruption stuff.
And they had a number of reactors they had taken offline for maintenance and To get them ready for the winter, because they knew they couldn't have them offline in the winter.
So, I guess they've done a really good...
from the outside.
I mean, I can't judge the real details.
From the outside, I have to give France an A+. Because not only did they have a robust nuclear energy situation, so they did better than the United States.
Just say it, right?
Just say it. France absolutely beat the United States to death in better energy policy, because they have widespread nuclear, and they haven't had a meltdown.
And they were doing some maintenance on a number, I don't know, 45 of them or something.
But there were a number that were down for maintenance until recently, and they fired them back up.
And the current thinking is that they already have enough capacity to get through the winter.
Congratulations! France!
Right? You know, I don't give enough credit to France.
You know, it's fun to... France is like a sibling.
Like, that's how I feel about France.
Like, if there was ever real trouble, we're going to be on the same team.
Right? Like, we're there for you, France.
Because France wouldn't be there for us.
But we like to argue like siblings and stuff.
But in this one instance, not only did France totally lap us in the energy question, but they just did it again.
They actually acted so quickly and capably that they saved France.
From what would be a big, big problem potential.
They did it, I think.
I mean, it's a little early, but it looks like they did it.
So, big props to France.
All right.
Let's see.
So we've got to talk about Musk.
So yesterday, and maybe it's been reversed already.
Tell me if this has been reversed.
I haven't checked the Twitter in an hour.
But Musk banned Aaron Ruppar, Keith Olbermann, and a number of journalists for what he said.
There's some question about the facts.
But what Musk said is that they were involved with publishing his location information.
Now, I don't think they did it directly.
Some of them might have referred to somebody who did have the information, and that might have been enough.
So they reported on it, yeah.
So I think they reported on it in a way that would tell other people where to go find the information.
What do you think? Do you think that Musk was violating his own rules by banning them, because free speech is his highest principle?
Or was this personal?
Was this just him being personal, and it was just about him and his family?
Or was he reducing incitement of violence?
What do you think?
How do you feel about it?
Let me give you my opinion.
He's a father.
His son was threatened by somebody who knew his location.
He's acting like a father.
If you have a problem with that, too bad.
Too bad. How about your opinion of how he's fathering?
Don't care. Don't care.
How about if he was inconsistent with his principles of free speech?
Fuck you. That totally doesn't matter.
Completely irrelevant. Was Musk doing something to protect his family?
Yes. Does it have some impact on us?
Yes. Do you think that the impact on you is so great that a father should not protect his children?
Of course not. No, Elon, you can do anything you want to protect your children.
I mean, within reason, of course.
No, fine. I don't care if he broke the law.
I mean, he certainly was close to the gray area on free speech, and some people have said he was being inconsistent.
I don't care. I don't care.
I don't care if he murdered somebody, if there was somebody who had it coming and he was saving his family.
No, I don't care what he did.
If he was protecting his family in the midst of a very direct...
That's the end of the conversation.
If there's anything else you want to talk about that, I don't want to hear it.
Dad mode beats every mode.
Dad mode beats the law.
Dad mode beats the science.
Dad mode beats your doctor.
Dad mode beats your free speech.
There's no conversation to be had here.
And if you don't think he did the right thing to protect his kids, well, fuck you too.
Because it's not your kid.
It's his kid.
He did something clearly intended to protect them.
End of story.
End of story. You can talk about what was legal or illegal or, you know, consistent or inconsistent.
Don't care. Don't care.
Why can't we just be humans?
Why can't we just treat it like human beings for just a minute?
How about he's a human?
He's a human with a family.
He protected them.
Good for you. Good for you.
Now, what's happened since then is he ran a poll asking if they should be unsuspended, and I don't know if he means all of them, because I thought that some of them were permanent.
But he's talking about unsuspending them, and he's asking whether you should do it right away or in seven days.
So he's making you think past the sale.
So he's already suggesting he's going to unsuspend them.
And that's his decision, right?
And I have no problem with his decision on that.
Again, it's just so personal, I'm going to stay out of it.
That end-of-story shutdown line is unbecoming.
Let me say it a different way.
I wouldn't have interest in any other argument.
But of course you have the right, you know, the privilege of arguing anything you want.
I'm just saying I wouldn't have any interest personally in listening to it, because it's not going to affect me.
Alright, what do you think?
What about the concept?
So I'm going to agree with him on just being a good dad in this instance, but what do you think about the concept of people publishing his data?
Now, some people said that the data that was being used was already public.
Do you think that matters? The data was already public.
Does that matter? No, that doesn't matter.
Now, if you make it easier for somebody to stalk him, Again, that's kind of all you need to know, right?
It doesn't matter if it's available somewhere where nobody's looking.
Your average stalker is not going to be that clever.
If it's presented to them, they might act, but they probably don't know how to go get it.
Probably wouldn't have even thought of it.
How many stalkers would have thought, if I can find that obscure source and track his plane?
Like, who was even thinking that?
Until it was public, and then you think about it, of course.
All right, so it looks like Musk probably saw that he was getting a lot of heat, and we'll look to soften that position.
And that's, again, that's his decision.
Elon is saying it was not publicly accessible.
Either way. I mean, that's a good fact check, if that's right.
So I appreciate the fact check.
But I don't think it changed anything.
All right. So...
Some of you may not want to hang around for this topic.
Here's what we're not going to do.
We're not going to talk about whether masks are a good idea.
Because there's nobody who's pro-mask here, right?
There's no pro-mask person here?
I mean, you're welcome if you are, but I just expect there aren't any.
And when I say pro-mask, I mean in terms of a mandate, right?
A mandate. Okay.
But can I tell you an interesting story that's in the domain of masks without getting into a conversation about whether they work?
Is that possible? Because, you know, we're all just getting mad at each other if we have that conversation, right?
Let's just not do it. We're all on the same side.
No masks. But something interesting happened this morning.
Really interesting. And I've told you that I like to show you examples of people triggered into cognitive dissonance.
Right? Because the more you see, the more you can recognize it on your own.
Sometimes you just think people are acting dumb or maybe they were unclear.
But cognitive dissonance is really its own thing.
And once you can recognize it, it really makes your life better.
Because when you see it, you know that arguing the facts is useless.
So, I won't name names, but there's a woman on Twitter who's an expert on mask effectiveness, and I think even more of an expert since COVID. So, subject matter expert, and somebody who's looked at a lot of the science and the stuff to find out what works and what doesn't.
And her conclusion was, and again, we're not going to argue this, okay?
So this is not about mask effectiveness.
We will not be talking about that.
So she said, essentially, her research shows that masks are ineffective.
You all good so far?
There's an expert that agrees with all of you, looked at all the details, said masks don't seem to be effective.
I intentionally triggered her into cognitive dissonance, meaning I said, oh, if I say this, she's going to be triggered into cognitive dissonance.
And here's what I said.
Are you saying...
Now, I'm paraphrasing everything, so these are not exact words.
So I said, do you buy into the viral load idea?
That if you were talking directly into somebody's mouth and nobody had a mask, would those people who got infected have the same outcome and live as long as someone who was on the other side of the room, and let's say you were both masked, and they still got infected because there's, you know, there's a virus in the air.
So let's say in both cases they got infected.
One got like a huge dose of virus right in the face.
The other one got a little trace, but they both got infected.
So my question is, do they both have the same outcome?
Do they both die?
Does one of them get sicker?
Right? So that was my question.
Do you understand why that would trigger cognitive dissonance?
Do you see it? Do you see how that's a guarantee of trigger?
Yeah, you can see it, right? Because you can't answer the question without debunking your own position.
You can't. And so that causes you to be spun into cognitive dissonance.
Now, what are the tells for cognitive dissonance that I've taught you?
What would you expect would be the outcome of that?
Word salad. Word salad.
So I'm going to read the response, and I want you to see if this sounds like a good response that for some reason I don't understand, or does it seem like word salad and maybe intentionally not answering, okay? So here's the exact answer.
Now keep in mind that the other communication from the same person was very clear.
So this is a person who writes and speaks clearly, And I can see it, you know, plainly in the other responses.
But as soon as I said, oh, my God, I'm going to trigger you into cognitive dissonance, this was the exact response.
Aerosol dynamics and plumes created by different apparatuses as the main thing that was sold that is false is the concept of masks as source control for aerosols.
I'm going to read it again.
Aerosol dynamics and plumes created by different apparatuses as the main thing that was sold that is false is the concept of masks as source control for aerosols.
Now, that's word salad, right?
Now, if she were someone who was...
if this were a bad communicator, what would you say?
You'd say, oh, that's just another bad communicator, right?
But I asked a really simple question...
That has a yes-no answer.
The two people in the room, do they get just as sick or not?
Yes, no. Yes, no.
This is cognitive dissonance.
Now, is this helpful?
Because I'm trying not to...
The reason I'm not using a name is I don't want to throw somebody under the bus because cognitive dissonance is not something anybody controls.
You don't choose to have it.
You're a victim of it. So she's having, in my opinion, my semi-qualified professional opinion, is that this is the most classic case of word salad and cognitive dissonance you'll ever see.
Now, what would you predict if I followed up with clarifications?
Oh, that doesn't answer my question.
Can you put it in a yes-no?
Yes-no. These two situations, do they have the same outcome?
How did she answer?
What would you predict?
She interpreted my word outcome to mean do they both get infected?
And then she said they both can get infected.
Does that tell you that masks work or don't work?
That both, with the trace amount you can get infected, But also if it got blown directly in your face, you could also get infected.
So does that tell you masks work or they don't work?
It tells you what we know, that the masks don't stop all infection.
So everybody agrees with that.
But what did she leave out?
Is there something obviously left out?
She said both can get infected.
But do they? Just as often?
Just as often. Now, they might.
And by the way, I would completely believe that.
I wouldn't disbelieve that.
Because the virus is so viral that I can believe that getting a little bit of it guarantees you get infected just as much as if you get a lot of it.
Now, I don't know that that's true.
But if I learned that it was true, I'd say, okay, that's a really infectious infection there, which we knew.
All right. So then, do you imagine that I clarified, no, you're thinking of outcomes in terms of infection.
That's not the question.
I'm speaking of outcomes specifically about, do you live or die?
What do you think happened then?
What would somebody in cognitive dissonance do if you continue to narrow down?
Word salad again.
And what else? What else?
Anger. There you go. Then it starts getting emotional, right?
Now, she did a good job.
Let me get a compliment.
I thought she did an unusually good job of not making her personal.
But you could see it come up, right?
I mean, it was definitely there.
But she did a good job. Do you think that she ever answered my direct question?
Of course not. She continued to say, I keep answering your question.
I kept saying, no, you're answering a different question.
Here's what you answered. Here's what I asked.
What would she say then?
I keep answering your question.
And she would answer the wrong question again.
Yeah, that's cognitive dissonance.
Now, if it sounds like, and I want to be very clear, if it sounds like I'm describing somebody who's not smart, no, very smart looking, apparently has a lot of capabilities.
But I entered her area of expertise and completely unmasked her in public.
No pun intended.
And that triggers cognitive dissonance.
Now, because the problem here was that it wasn't a scientific or data or...
It wasn't a scientific or data problem.
There was a logic problem.
You know, the logic is, does everybody have the same outcome?
If it's not being studied, you don't know if mass can make a difference.
Now, let me ask you this.
I think everyone said that they don't want mandatory masks.
Second question. How many think that even though you don't want them, that there might be some situation where they might work a little bit like, you know, with your 85-year-old grandmother who's almost dead?
Is there any situation in which you think, well, maybe.
That makes sense. So would you wear them around your 100-year-old grandmother?
I mean, I think you would just for the placebo effect, you know, if it only made grandma feel better.
But here's what I think.
I feel like we have conflated whether they make any difference with the fact that we don't want them.
Because nobody wants to admit that, well, there might be a little benefit in some cases.
Because as soon as you admit it, then you've got to wear masks, right?
The moment you allow, there might be.
Might be a little bit of benefit, then it's a mandate.
So we act like, no, it couldn't possibly work in any case, but when you go to visit grandma, well, suddenly you're a hypocrite, aren't you?
No, these masks are terrible.
They don't work. But you visit your grandmother, you're going to put on a mask because you don't believe your own opinions.
Now, that's not everybody, right?
So maybe you're just doing it so Grandma will feel better.
But I suspect most people are inconsistent, saying that masks totally don't work, but at the same time, if it's your own grandmother, you're going to put on a mask.
Because, yeah, you never know.
But again, I don't know if masks work or don't work, but I don't see it in the big pictures.
Certainly you don't see masks working at the country level.
Would you agree? You don't see any masks working at the level of the country.
Like, if you look when they're instituted, you don't see the signal.
So it can't be working that much.
Alright, ladies and gentlemen.
That went better than I thought.
I think it helps that we all don't want masks, so we don't have to argue about that.
Do you remember I told you that there would be a hit piece about me coming out pretty soon?
Have you seen it? Apparently somebody named, I don't know if I have the name right, Jordan Schechtel or something?
Is that a real person?
Wrote some kind of a substack targeting me and some other people, I think.
And the essence of it was that we found out who these people really were.
And then he spread some fake news about me by misinterpreting a tweet and decided that I'm on the side of evil for being so wrong and I must be ostracized from all society.
Now, he's a conservative.
So I didn't expect that it would be coming from that side.
Now here's some background.
When you read something like that, would you know that I had blocked him on Twitter long ago?
And how do you think you felt about it?
It's always personal. There's a lot of stuff you see that you think is just somebody analyzing something.
It turns out it's just personal.
It was just personal. So he made up some fake shit because he's a piece of shit.
Jordan fucking lying, stupid piece of shit.
But because not everybody knows he's a lying, stupid, angry piece of shit, a lot of people thought it was true.
And so I spent all of yesterday charging up You know, getting more energy.
Oh, by the way, I was watching Andrew Tate just totally plagiarized me in a video yesterday.
Somebody asked him, what's the worst advice?
He goes, follow your passion!
That's the worst advice!
Follow your passion! And he just basically plagiarizes me.
And he plagiarizes me a lot.
Which is interesting, because, you know, he got mad when I criticized him once, so he's my enemy forever, I guess.
But for what it's worth, I have to say, he puts on a good show.
Puts on a good show.
He's accomplishing exactly what he's trying to accomplish.
He's doing it in public.
Everybody's watching. It's a good show.
It's a good show. Then I saw somebody else getting on James Clear, who wrote the huge bestseller.
I think it might be one of the biggest or the biggest bestselling business book of all time.
I mean, it's just a monster book called Atomic Habits.
And somebody accused him of Borrowing my systems versus goals concept.
And he slapped them down on Twitter.
And he said quite clearly that he credits me for that idea in the book, which he does.
I mean, it's very clear. It's transparent.
So I've never criticized him for that.
He always gives me credit. And he does it very aggressively, too.
He does it in public. He does it on Twitter.
He does it in the book. That's full credit.
And then what else he did is he packaged that with other ideas and did it really well.
So when you write a book, it's not all about brand new ideas.
Sometimes it's how you package them.
And he must have done that extraordinarily well.
The biosphere, yeah.
Amen.
What about COVID passports?
Let me ask, are there still some idiots on YouTube who think I was promoting COVID passports?
Can you show yourselves?
I want to see how many idiots came over here who actually believed that.
Idiots, raise your hands.
How many believe that I supported and promoted passports?
Joe? Joe is raising his hands as an idiot.
Thank you. Any other idiots who would like to show themselves?
Come on. Come on.
Show yourselves.
Come on. Don't be shy.
You know there's a lot of you here.
There we go. Philip is volunteering to say he's an idiot.
Thank you, Philip. Go.
Come on. Anybody else?
Alright. Now, some people say, Scott, why do you not just let it go?
Like, it's just people talking and why do you argue with them online?
Do you know why?
Do you not know why?
Do I have to tell you why I do it?
Number one, I'm an energy monster.
So I gain energy every time I fight online.
You don't want to fight with somebody who gains energy from it.
Like, it's crazy.
I don't know if they gained any energy, but it's all good for me.
Secondly, if somebody says something so destructive to your reputation, you have to put down a...
at least make a good try of correcting the record In roughly the same area that somebody's going to find it.
If somebody finds the false claim, you want to make sure that you've laid down a good saturation of the correct information, just so historians can find it.
So part of it is just making sure the record is correct.
But it's also necessary to what I do.
Because if people start rumors that I got stuff wrong that I didn't get wrong, it detracts from my credibility.
And that's the only thing I offer.
That's it. The only thing I'm offering to you is my credibility.
The fact that I'm not paid to say what I say, that I have a little bit of analytical abilities, and that you can trust that if I disagree with you, I'm going to tell you.
I'm not going to agree with you to be your friend.
So, if I lose any of that because some idiot troll didn't understand a tweet and has a personal problem with me, well then I try to correct it.
Because there's no downside to me.
I had a good day yesterday.
If you think I didn't, then you don't understand how any of this works.
You were paid in appreciation.
Well, thank you. Kind of, I don't know, immature though.
Scott doesn't make you look like a calm, reasonable intellect.
So Michael has a good point.
He says that the way I do it doesn't make me look like a calm...
What was the word?
I'm agreeing with you here.
Doesn't make me look mature or calm or reasonable intellect.
So why do I act that way?
Is it because I don't know how not to?
Anybody want to answer this question?
Why do I act in a way that can be accurately construed as looking immature and as part of the show?
I'm doing it to rile people up.
Because it makes their logic fall apart faster.
It's just part of the process.
If somebody is irrational and you can get them angry, then their irrationality just multiplies so everybody can see it.
It's just part of the process.
Just enjoy the show.
Anything I say on Twitter, It might be exactly how I'm feeling, and I might say it exactly the same in person, but Twitter is a performance platform.
Would you agree? It's a performance platform.
So some of it's performance.
And if I can get you to be a little bit mad at me, does that make you less likely to look or more likely?
So that's the energy monster thing.
And Wicked Lefty says, "I thought you were authentic." That is authentic. Do you not understand what authentic is?
Authentic is, I modify my approach for every situation like all real people do.
That's what a real person does.
You talk to a child like a parent.
You talk to a cop a different way.
You talk to your boss a different way.
When you're on the stage, you talk differently than you do to one person.
When I do a live stream, it's a different persona.
But they're all real.
Does that seem confusing to you in any way?
Is there anybody who doesn't understand that I modify for the platform?
Should I not? You treat everyone basically the same?
Well, you probably don't livestream.
Miss America is a nuclear engineering student.
Well, there's an interesting factoid.
A goatee would make me look more intellectual.
I've resisted the facial hair.
Did I misinterpret that your passport tweet suggested they were harmless?
Yes, you did. You did.
Because I didn't make that statement, did I? You read into it something I didn't say.
I never gave you an opinion on whether they were harmless or not harmless.
I did tell you that they can already track you and turn off your bank.
So I did offer contrast, right?
And context. Usually the balder the head, the bigger the beard.
Well, it makes sense, right?
Because the beard is also the way that you detract from the top of your head.
So I understand why people do it.
I just like the shape of my head.
Maybe that's the difference.
Have you ever noticed that there's a big difference with, you know, bald people?
They don't all have the ideal head shape, but I like my head shape.
I'm not really trying to detract from it.
That's where I'm wrong.
I'm like Sticks.
Sticks doesn't care.
Sticks has been a dick to me in the past, so it's not his first offense.
And by the way, why should I expose myself to people who are not nice to me if I don't need to?
What would be the purpose of that for me?
Like, what's in that for me?
Yeah. Does it matter if he has a good feeling about me?
