Episode 1962 Scott Adams: Let's Talk About January 6 And My Audition For CEO Of Twitter
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Content:
Elon's poll, should he step down?
Who will take over Twitter?
Elon's reply to Adam Schiff
J6 HOAX committee today
Owning nothing, being happy
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Ah, yeah.
That's good.
All right.
All systems are working.
Let's hit the news.
What would be the most surprising thing that could happen in the news?
Let's see, let's check the headlines.
New York Times runs a crossword shaped as a swastika on Hanukkah.
Um, um, um, Um... What?
What? Did I say yet?
What? Now, I'm a little unclear about this story.
I've seen the crossword puzzle.
I can see why people say that's swastika-like.
I get that. Uh...
Yeah, I get it. I get it.
Does it look intentional?
Do you think it was intentional?
I don't think so. No, I think it was...
I think it was chance, but it was pretty unfortunate.
All right, how many of you...
How many of you who were not soccer fans took my advice that the World Cup would not simply be soccer and that you would see something before the ages?
Did anybody take my advice and watch it even though you're not soccer fans?
If you did, now this is just my opinion, right?
So this is purely subjective, just my opinion.
It was the greatest sporting event of all time.
In my opinion. And I'm not even sure it'll ever be topped.
It was the greatest sporting event of all time.
This is the first time this has ever happened to me.
I was watching alone in my man cave, you know, part of it, and I actually screamed.
Like, I cheered out loud, alone.
Do you know how, do you know, I've never done that.
Alone? I mean, you do it sometimes if people are in the room, right?
You get, you know, you're, I've never cheered when I was alone.
I mean, this thing moved me like nothing's ever moved me, sporting-wise.
Now, if you missed it all and you're not, you're oblivious to it.
Here's the key thing you need to know.
It wasn't really about sports.
Like, it was sports.
But damn, it was something else.
Now, and here's the plot within the plot.
Have I ever told you that reality tends to find the path of greatest entertainment?
And the most interesting story ends up to be the one that happens.
Like, if you have two potential stories, but one is a better story, the better story happens, right?
Now, if you didn't know, the greatest player of all time, Lionel Messi, was playing what should be, I'm sure, his last World Cup.
He had won everything you could win.
Except the World Cup and I think whatever is maybe the best player for the World Cup or something.
I'm not sure about that.
But he won.
But, oh my God, did the young up-and-coming guy, Mabop, on the other team, will probably be the best player of all time if his trend continues.
So at his age, he's already, like, beating everybody.
So you had the best player in the world, historically, against who will be the best player in the world if he's not already.
That new best player, the young guy, scored...
Three goals, not counting a penalty kick at the end.
Three goals. Do you know how unusual that is?
It's happened once before, ever, in the World Cup Finals.
So the guy that the greatest player in the world was playing against played one of the greatest games You could ever play.
Three goals. Amazing.
And tied it up at the end.
And I'd made the tragic mistake of tweeting what I thought was going to be the final, before the final.
I tweeted that reality follows the most entertaining path.
And then I did hashtag messy.
Because it was obvious That everything about the story needed Messi to win.
And then the game got tied right at the end.
And like, oh shit. Oh shit.
It turns out, maybe it won't be.
Maybe this will be the time that reality does not go in the direction of the most interesting outcome.
And then, Messi does his thing.
And the Argentinians just weren't going to let him lose.
Here's my interpretation of it.
The battle between the two superstars, the two superstars, was as good as it could have been.
But still, it was the team.
I think it was the Argentinians who couldn't let Messi lose.
Like, they were fighting for their country, they were fighting for their own pride, they were fighting for their family, you know, the team members.
The team members were fighting for a lot of stuff.
I'll be off this in a minute.
I see your comments.
They were fighting for a lot of things, but I feel like the main thing they were fighting for was they couldn't let Messi's story end wrong.
I think that's what it was about.
All right. I see all you Americans saying, get off this topic, or it will be the lowest attended video of all time.
All right, moving along. Would you like me to talk about something besides the World Cup?
Vox Populae?
Vox Dei?
It is your vote.
Shall I move along? All right.
Let us not talk about the World Cup.
We're done with that forever.
So Elon Musk attended the World Cup, and, uh, sorry.
I'm sorry. There's just nothing we can do about this.
It's not my fault.
I swear it's not my fault.
I'm just following the news.
So Elon Musk was at the World Cup, and the big story is he was in the box hanging out with Jared Kushner, of all people.
And a bunch of Saudis, I guess.
So I'm not sure who owned the box, but he got an invite.
Now, at the same time he was hanging out with Jared Kushner, he was doing a Twitter poll asking if he should step down as CEO of Twitter.
And he said that he would abide by the decision of the Twitter poll, which of course, no surprise, said he should step down as CEO. Now, how do you interpret this?
Number one, do you think he knew what the poll results would be?
Probably couldn't guarantee it, because it's not scientific and who knows.
Probably couldn't guarantee it.
Probably thought it would indicate he should step down.
Probably. But why would he do that?
Why would he leave such a big decision to a Twitter poll?
Unless, He had already decided to step down.
Because if people said he shouldn't step down, he could just wait a couple months and say, well, I took your advice, but nothing lasts forever.
Now I've got things going, and now I can step back.
So if they said, yes, you should stay...
He could make that work and still leave, right?
He just gives it a couple of months and then he transitions.
Very normal. But what if they say you should leave right away?
Then do you know what he could do?
Exactly the same thing.
Wait a few months and then transition.
Because under every scenario, he was, of course, planning to wait a few months and transition.
That was the plan under every scenario.
There's no scenario where he was going to stay there and work every day.
Who thought that?
Did he think he was really going to be the CEO, like forever?
Of course not. So it's one of the most brilliant things he's done lately, and that's a pretty long list, but lately it's one of the more brilliant things because of course he's going to leave.
That's baked into the guaranteed end product.
In the end, no matter what else happens, no matter what else happens, he's not going to be the day-to-day CEO of Twitter.
Who thought that was going to happen?
Did anybody think that was going to ever happen?
So somehow it became a story when it's the most non-story thing in the world.
But it gets better.
I had to pray to the simulation gods because there's something I want to happen.
Turns out that Snoop Dogg has thrown his hat into the Twitter CEO race.
By the way, I don't think it's going to be...
There's no way it's going to be Jared Kushner.
I'm not going to talk about the possibility Jared Kushner will run Twitter.
That's not going to happen.
Because he's going to have to pick somebody who looks less in the bag than somebody that political.
There's no way that he's the right choice.
Snoop Dogg, on the other hand, is about half a perfect choice.
In many ways, Snoop Dogg would actually be perfect.
But we don't know if you'd have the day-to-day CEO chops that you need.
A little different skill. So I suggested that co-CEOs with Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg, maybe for a year, maybe for a year, you wouldn't want it forever, would be unbelievable.
It would just be unbelievable.
Because They would attract so much attention you couldn't stop talking about them.
And then Elon could still keep working with the engineers to do what he wants to do anyway.
And then the two CEOs would attract all this attention to Twitter, which is sort of why you needed.
I don't know this for sure, but my impression is that Martha Stewart is a good operator.
Is that true? She's been CEO, right?
She's got experience. But I think she has the toughness and also the mental acuity for business.
Might be a great choice, as long as they're not directly involved in the engineering.
Neither of them would have any engineering chops, but that's what Elon does.
How old is Martha Stewart?
I don't care. Because, like I said, you'd only be looking for a year, and they wouldn't be making engineering decisions.
But just as the face of the company, it'd be awesome.
All right, so that's not going to happen, but it'd be fun.
So the results of the poll so far are, I think it was like a 10-point lead for Musk to step down.
And the poll is already closed.
But I don't think they've counted the mail-in votes yet.
So when the mail-in votes come, anything's possible.
All right, I stole that joke from Vincent on Twitter.
I told him I'd have to steal his joke.
It was too good. Yeah, the mail-in votes.
Somebody had to say it.
Vincent, I'm glad you said it first.
Well, Vincent is not his name.
He's Danny. But his account says Vincent, as in Van Gogh.
All right. Now that we've done that joke, we can move on.
How many yesterday caught the temporary news that Musk said that Twitter was going to ban you if you linked to your other platforms?
So if I were to tweet That you could find me on Instagram, I would be banned from Twitter.
Now, when you saw that, did you say to yourself, well, there's a rule that will change everything?
Or did you say, wow, that's an oppressive kind of thing.
I don't know if I could live with that.
All right, if you had any of those thoughts about how that was real and you were going to have to endure it, Here's what you should have said.
Oh, he's in rapid A-B testing.
He's throwing out an idea which, on its surface, I mean right on its face, couldn't possibly work.
I mean, just think about it.
Imagine if I were banned from linking to an account.
What would I do? Well, first of all, I would reconsider using Twitter at all.
Because the people have the big, interesting accounts, with the exception of maybe the Rob Reiners.
We mostly do this for promotion.
That's a big part of why the interesting people are on Twitter, is that they're promoting their other stuff.
That's why we use it. Why else would we do all this free work, right?
Now, in my case, I have a public interest because I think that adding something to the public conversation is what I want to do.
Like, I'm at that point in my life where it's not all about the money.
But it would certainly be a blow to Twitter's entire business model if you took the most interesting people on Twitter who are there just to promote themselves and their other stuff.
If they left...
Or they couldn't do it. It'd be a different product.
Alright, so here was my reaction to it when I saw the rule.
I looked at my watch, or my phone, and I said to myself, I would be an idiot to tweet about this, because this rule is not going to last until the end of the day.
That's what I said. I said, this rule will be gone by the end of today.
And it was gone by the end of the day.
Paul Graham left Twitter.
Yeah, I don't know the story there.
I heard he got banned or maybe he left.
Was it over that? It was over that issue, right?
I don't know. But if Paul Graham left over that issue, he must...
I mean, Paul Graham's a super smart guy.
He must have known that wasn't going to last.
But maybe he was pushing it a little to...
Make sure it didn't last.
That would have been a productive thing to do.
So just remember, you're in a rapid A-B testing environment, and what Elon is doing is exactly what an entrepreneur should be doing.
Now, one of the people who commented on Twitter said, but why didn't he just do a little bit of testing before he let the public know he was even thinking about it?
To which I say, why would you waste that time?
That would be a waste of time.
Because the public is the test.
And it's the only test that matters, right?
There's no test that matters except the actual one.
What do the real people using Twitter actually really say about it?
So you just put it out there, and then you bring it back.
Now, the reason that people are still stuck in the old model, and by the way, by coincidence, Graham, who we just mentioned, is I think the inventor of the idea that you shouldn't be doing all this testing and analysis when software is your primary product.
Wasn't Graham? That you should test fast and adjust, because it's just software.
Software doesn't cost so much.
Wasn't Graham? I thought he was the originator, or at least popularizer, of the idea that he should test fast and break and move on.
Anyway, so here's what would have happened.
If that had been real, let me game it out for you.
If Musk had meant that, the very first thing I was going to test was...
Linking to locals. Because it wasn't mentioned specifically.
So that's the first problem.
It might not have been specific enough about what is in and what is out.
So it was going to fail just on specificity.
Like before we even got to free speech or anything else.
It was just going to fail for being a standard.
You couldn't know if you were doing the right thing.
What would I have done? Instead of putting a link...
I would have just said, Google Coffee with Scott Adams on YouTube.
It's starting now, right?
Now, would I have been banned?
Because he very specifically said no links.
But do you need a link?
If I tell you I'm live, go Google my name on YouTube.
All right, that's one. Suppose I included a...
Suppose I put a...
What do you call it? A barcode or a...
What's that thing? The little square thing that you scan?
What's that called? That's a QR code.
Suppose I put a QR code in my tweet.
Would Twitter detect that it was a QR code?
And would it know it was a QR code that was really a tricky link?
I don't know. I don't know.
What if you just had created your own page The only thing the page did was connect to your Linktree account, which is where you put all your connections.
Would the algorithm find it?
So here's what you know would have happened.
You know for sure everybody who cared would have started gaming the system immediately.
I would have. I would have gamed it immediately.
Like I would have pushed against that as hard as I could push.
So it was never going to work.
If you didn't see it from the first minute...
You were probably surprised.
Well, Schiff is back in the news.
And I love the fact that Schiff said some lies about Twitter and about Elon Musk.
And Elon Musk's reply, I think it was yesterday, replying to Adam Schiff, a member of Congress.
He says, Musk says, thankfully you will be losing your chairmanship very soon.
Your brain is too small.
Your brain is too small.
Now, when one of the people who is generally considered one of the smartest people in the country says in public, your brain is too small, do you think he means that hyperbolically?
He doesn't. He means it actually literally.
Like, you know, size isn't necessarily going to tell you how smart you are.
But what he means is, your brain is not up to this conversation with me.
And I read it and I thought, well, that's true.
That's true. These two people should never be in the same conversation.
Because one of them is not smart enough to be in it.
Like, actually, literally, no joke, no hyperbole.
It's a conversation between two people who are not peers, and the one who knows he's not his peer just called them out and said, yeah, your brain is not big enough for this conversation.
And it was just true.
It's just true. For this conversation, Schiff's brain isn't big enough.
Yeah. True.
I thought that was perfect.
And I ask you this question.
At what point is it reasonable for Twitter to put a warning on all of Schiff's tweets?
All of them being the ones where he's telling some kind of lie.
Now the first thing you should say is, Scott, you can't police lies.
On Twitter, because it'd be all you do all day.
Then I say, no, I'm talking about a politician.
Then you say, no, you can't even police politicians, because the only thing politicians do is lie.
What, are you going to put a fact check on everything Trump says?
It's just going to be fact check after fact check.
To which I say, I don't think Schiff lies the way politicians lie.
When politicians lie, let's take Trump as your best example, he lies like a salesperson, and he lies in a way that there's basically a wink that you know you shouldn't take it completely seriously.
When Trump says you can't watch television if your windmill stops turning, and he says it over and over again, Do you really believe that Trump believes that you can't watch television when the windmill stops?
Or that there's no backup or anything like that?
No, of course he understands what he's saying.
Of course he knows that it's a salesman's kind of a claim.
He's not going for actual truth.
And you can say that about a lot of what Twitter's, what he says, and I would say you can say that about almost all the other politicians.
You know, Republican, Democrat, they all lie.
And those are just normal political lies.
We understand them. But what Schiff does is different.
Will you give me that?
Whatever it is that Schiff is doing, consistently, is not like the other people.
It's just different. And it's sort of like treating jaywalking like mass murder.
Oh, did I mention they're both crimes?
If you cross the street illegally, you broke the law.
And if you murder 100 people, you break the law.
Those are both crimes. So let's just call them both crimes.
It's the same way, when you say the chef is just lying, like other people lie, that's really jaywalking compared to murder.
Yeah, I get it, they're both lies.
But they're not the same.
They're not the same.
Now here's what I mean.
And I don't mean that it's mafia talk lies or anything like that.
I mean that Schiff, he lies as part of what appears to be an intelligence operation against the public.
When Schiff lies, it doesn't look like an ordinary lie.
It looks like an intelligence operation in which he is a key component against the interests of the American people.
Now, that's just my impression, right?
Just my impression, based on experience.
But I don't think we should treat these the same.
I think that Twitter does a great disservice to the public by saying, oh, it's just another lie.
It's not. That's not just another lie.
Do you know why the January 6th thing is a big deal?
Why is that a whole big national thing?
Because the alleged lies about the election are not the normal kind.
It's a whole different level of importance.
A lie about the integrity of the election changes the country.
It's basically, if it's wrong, it's a revolution.
Now, with those claims, you have to get into what's true and what's not.
It's hard to know. But that's like a high-stakes kind of a lie, if there are any lies.
Of course, there are always lies.
So I feel like the country and maybe Twitter needs some way to distinguish what's an ordinary lie from a completely unordinary lie, a non-organic, non-political lie.
All right, so there's more Twitter files that came out.
Matt Taibbi talking more about how...
I guess the FBI was displeased at one point because they believed that Twitter had once said there was foreign propaganda, but then they were worried that Twitter was saying there wasn't much foreign propaganda, and the FBI and the intel community were sure there was, and then, why are you saying there isn't?
And then Twitter's internal communications were, we never said that.
We've always said there is.
So it seemed to be a miscommunication.
But what we learned from it is the degree of interaction.
And the type of interaction made it seem as if, at least some interpreted it, as Twitter being almost a subsidiary of the FBI. That the FBI was giving them sort of marching orders, it looked like, and Twitter might comply.
I saw it differently, because I looked at the same documents, and I saw a Roth pushing back on the FBI and saying their requests were not appropriate.
And he even said, if this had been a congressional inquiry, You know, that's the sort of question you'd expect to see if you had this legal, you know, authorized by law legal inquiry.
But the FBI was just, like, demanding information.
And even Roth was like, uh, this is a little too far.
A little uncomfortable with this.
So we learned a little bit more about that interplay.
I don't know if that makes much of a difference.
All right, the January 6th hoax will continue.
Today, so today they're going to decide whether there will be any charges filed for Trump and maybe some other people.
Now, I know there's a big, big mystery here.
Will the people who hate Trump and have been pushing a hoax for years, will they find any reason To refer him for prosecution?
I wonder. Huh, I wonder.
Let's use all of our powers of mind reading.
Given all the variables and all the testimony, what would be the most reasonable and predictable?
Okay, forget it. Of course they're going to recommend him to be prosecuted.
And I don't know if you're catching the importance of this event, but I tweeted about this.
I'll just read my tweet. Because there's something very important about this that I don't know if you've quite appreciated.
It goes like this. So the January 6th committee has a very valuable function.
One of them is that they remind America, and we need to be reminded of this.
This is important. Don't forget this.
Always remember that we can never again allow a small band of unarmed protesters to conquer the largest military power in the history of human civilization by sauntering through the Capitol Rotunda and taking selfies.
We can never let Anybody saunter through the Capitol again, because we might not get lucky next time.
Next time, the largest military in the history of human civilization, well, I can't say they're going to win a second time.
Okay, maybe they won this one, but you can't guarantee they would win it again.
So never, never again can we allow a small group of unarmed protesters to saunter In the Capitol Rotunda and take selfies.
We were so close to losing everything.
Very close to losing everything.
So people, take this seriously.
Now, if you were a Democrat, you know what you'd be saying?
Scott, what about all that violence?
Well, yes, there was a lot of violence, because those people wanted to, what?
What were they being prevented from doing?
That's right, sauntering.
Right? They wanted very badly to saunter.
And to take some selfies, and they were prevented, and they got a little rough, and I don't approve of that.
I disavow all the violence.
Now, Scott, what about the people who actually wanted to take captive the members of Congress?
Well, fuck those idiots.
I'm not going to say anything good about that.
Fuck them, go to jail.
Like, if you were there to actually hurt people, fuck you, go to jail forever.
There's no mercy to anybody who is saying, you know, hang AOC or anything like that.
If anybody was there to hurt AOC, it doesn't matter that she's on the other side from me politically.
If anybody was there to hurt her, jail.
And jail forever.
You can throw away the fucking key.
If you went to hurt somebody in the government and that was actually your plan, yeah, throw away the key.
Alright, so they're considering charges.
Let's see, what are their trumped-up charges?
Ah, trumped-up charges.
Let's see.
Obstruction of an official proceeding.
Do you think he obstructed an official proceeding?
Well, isn't that what a protest is?
Isn't the nature of a protest.
You're trying to disrupt something the government, usually, usually government, you're trying to disrupt their normal operation with your protest.
I'd like to see that one to go to the Supreme Court.
So I'm actually pretty happy that they're going to charge him with that, if they do.
I don't know if the...
So remember, this is just recommendations.
These would not be charges.
So the legal system would have to decide on charges.
But wouldn't you love to see obstruction of an official proceeding in the form of a protest?
Wouldn't you love that, to go to the Supreme Court?
I'd love to see that. Because it really is, can protests be legal in the United States?
Because a protest against the government is always trying to stop them.
It's always. You know, either by, you know, getting in the way or something.
I mean, there's always, you could always make the argument that it's trying to stop it.
So yeah, let's bang that one out.
I say that's a fight I want.
How about you? Do you want that fight?
I say, let's have that fight.
That's a good fight. I would say that would be a constructive conflict.
I think we'd all be better off.
Let's fight that one out.
It's a friendly fight.
Nobody gets hurt.
Let's fight that one out. I'd like to see that.
What else? Let's see.
Something about fraud or something.
I don't know. The other ones are...
It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because what is true and legal and right doesn't seem to enter into any of this.
All right. Accepted behavior, dangers.
Oh, you're talking about the Ashley Babbitt?
Yeah, you've heard my opinion on that.
All right. Well, this is happening.
Scientists have created a mini-brain in a dish and of cells, and they taught their artificially created brain to play pong.
It actually learned in five minutes how to operate a pong.
It's just brain cells in a dish.
What? That's the right answer.
Wait, did I mishear this?
They created a brain cell in a dish, or brain cells, they put them together, and it actually...
Now, the person who did it says that it's sentient.
Sentient. And other people say, no, it's just cause and effect, and it's just operating according to some rules.
There's nothing like consciousness happening.
And I guess they're working with some bioethicists to make sure that they don't accidentally create consciousness.
But do you see a problem here?
Do you see a problem?
The problem is they already did.
And the problem is that people define consciousness differently.
But I've always defined it this way.
Consciousness is being able to predict the effect of your actions and then adjust.
And it's basically the difference between what you think was going to happen when you acted and then what happened.
So you get that feedback, oh, I thought I'd do this and I'd get this reaction, but instead this other reaction.
And that's the feeling of consciousness.
That's it. It's just a mechanical conflation of two things.
What did I expect to do?
What happened? That's Pong.
That is Pong.
In five minutes, this little clump of cells learned that if it does this, it gets a good result.
If it does this, it does a bad result.
And it can tell the difference.
That if it did what it was supposed to do or not.
Consciousness. It's conscious.
Now, do you know why you're never going to see a major story that agrees with me?
Because it refused...
What?
All religion. Everything you thought about free will, God, religion, souls, immortality, the specialness of being human, the unique qualities of God.
Everything comes in question.
Now I know some of you are going to say, oh, but I can handle those questions.
Maybe you can. But I'm just saying, everything is going to be on the table.
Everything you thought about, you know, your reality, the simulation, consciousness, the most basic questions of who the hell we are, it's all up in the air now.
Now, I thought AI was going to do it first.
I thought AI was going to achieve, you know, obvious consciousness, and that would throw us into a spin.
But between the brain in a dish and AI, Everything's up in the air.
In a way, I've never...
I don't know if society...
Civilization's probably never been in this position, have we?
Has any civilization ever been in a position where their dominant belief about the nature of reality got crushed, and then they had to rethink it all from scratch?
I doubt it's ever happened.
I'll bet everything has always happened gradually.
It'd be like aliens landing and saying, oh, you know...
You were right. We created you.
We're the aliens. We just came to check our work.
Like, it would be as big as that.
So I don't know what happens when that happens.
All right. How many of you believe that the World Economic Forum once said you will own nothing and be happy?
How many believe they once said that?
Sort of. Sort of.
Let's call that a yes.
Would you agree? Now, they were quoting somebody making a prediction, but they put it on their assets.
So they seem to embrace, at least by transmission, since they boosted the message, they boosted that.
So we can all agree that that's something they really did say.
Agree? That for all practical purposes, that message is theirs and they put it out.
Let me do a little test for you.
Do you remember when the Fine People hoax came out?
And people like me were saying, well, you just took that out of context.
And it's out of context.
If you saw the full context, it would reverse what you think.
And what did the people on the other side say when I said, no, no, no, just look at the full context and it reverses the meaning?
What did they say? Scott.
I saw him say the Nazis were fine people.
I saw it. I heard it.
I saw it live. I saw it recorded.
I'll go get you a clip.
I'll show it to you again. How many times do I have to tell you?
He said it.
He said it.
I heard it. I saw it.
End of story. Do you remember when the drinking disinfectant hoax came out?
And I said, people, people, just read his whole statement.
You can see at the beginning he's specifying it's light therapy.
And at the end, just so there was no confusion, he specified again, yeah, light.
Light is the disinfectant.
So if you see the whole thing, it's very obvious that it was, you know, a hoax.
But what did the people who say they saw him and heard him suggest drinking bleach?
What was their defense? Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott.
I saw it. I heard it.
I am the personal source for this information.
Don't tell me the source is wrong.
I'm the source. I saw it.
I'm telling you I saw it.
Right? So then it would be true, would you agree that it's true, that Trump called Nazis fine people?
Because so many people saw it.
I mean, there are witnesses, right?
You asked them. They saw it live.
So it must be true. Well, it's not true, because you saw the contest.
Of course it's not true. And then how about the bleach thing?
Lots of witnesses. They saw it with their own eyes.
Heard it with their own ears. Except it didn't happen.
Now, let's get back to the WEF. The WF wants to make sure that you have no personal ownership of anything in the future, apparently, because this statement, you will own nothing and be happy about it, that's very clearly saying, and I think we all saw it with our own eyes, And we heard it with our own ears.
They're very clearly saying that capitalism will be ended, except that maybe the rich people will own things, and the rest of you fuckers are just going to have to rent, and they're going to own your ass, because you won't have anything.
And if you want to rent, well, you better be good to the leaders.
Now, we know that's what they meant.
That they want to take away capitalism and consolidate power with the elites so that you can do nothing but rent some shit and be happy about it.
So that's what they meant because you all saw it and you all heard it yourself, right?
Would you agree? Just agree with me that that's what they said.
You heard it. You saw it.
There's no doubt about it. Yes?
Right. And you're not at all influenced by the context of knowing that the other side believes they saw things that weren't real, but do you believe that you're susceptible to that?
Does anybody here think that they could be fooled the same way the left was fooled by thinking they actually saw something, like, really obvious?
Like, I saw it with my own eyes.
Don't tell me it didn't happen.
Does anybody think that that could have happened with this World Economic Forum quote?
That maybe you saw it out of context?
All right, here's some context some of you didn't see.
In the same, I think there was one video where they highlighted that prediction.
Here's the first thing. Did you know the prediction is just one person?
It was just, like, one person made a prediction.
And then they put it together with some other materials.
So they did boost it.
Certainly they boosted it. But it was one person.
It was a prediction. It wasn't a preference.
It was a prediction. And what was the one example that was given?
They gave a visual example of what it means to own nothing and be happy.
Did you see the example? The example was a drone delivers your Amazon package.
But you just use it because, let's say it's a tool that you only needed to use once.
So Amazon delivers your unique tool, you use it once, it's rented, and then the drone takes it back for the next person.
So that would be a little bit like leasing a car or renting a car.
Has anybody ever rented a car?
Was that communism or was that the end of capitalism?
Because you didn't own it. You were just a renter.
No. That was just you in a free market and that was better for you.
Free market. Flashlight.
I see your comment and I'm not going to say anything more about it.
All right. So here's another example.
Uber. I don't own the Uber, but I'm happy when it comes and takes me somewhere.
Am I not happy?
Oh, I'm very happy that I don't own that Uber.
Now, here's what people said when I brought this up.
They said, Scott, you're missing the plot.
They didn't say some special tools will be rented.
Like, that's no big deal.
They said everything.
Right? You saw it with your own eyes.
You heard it with your own ears.
They didn't say everything.
I mean, they acted like...
You wouldn't own anything. That's different, isn't it?
That's like getting rid of capitalism.
So that's what they meant, right?
Because they said it very clearly.
You won't own anything.
So they must have meant it.
Have you ever seen a fashion show?
I remember when I was a little kid, I'd watch fashion shows or news reports about fashion shows when I was a kid, and there'd be like some model who would come out and her so-called dress would be made from license plates, or like the pull tabs from a beer can, or the dress would be made of tin foil, or sticky notes.
And do you remember when I was a kid, I'd be there with my family, and let's say none of us were sophisticated viewers of media.
We were not sophisticated viewers.
Do you know what we said when we sat in that living room watching that?
We said, my God, how could the people who put on this show be so dumb to think that somebody's going to want to wear, buy, and wear a licensed play dress?
I am so smart at nine years old that even at nine years old I already know more than these adults who are putting on this fashion show with clothing that clearly nobody's going to buy and I'm only nine years old and I know it and I know I'm smart because my mother and father are laughing too and they're saying the same thing they're saying oh god why did they think anybody's going to wear that If I see that in the store, I don't think I'm going to pick up a license plate dress.
And then I got older, and I learned how the world works.
And I learned that the fashion show has very little to do with what they think you might want to buy and wear.
They're just getting attention.
The license plate dress is so you'll watch.
It's so the news will cover it.
It's just to put their name out there and you remember them.
It has nothing to do with what you're going to wear.
When the WEF put out that prediction, remember it was a prediction.
What is the purpose of a prediction in, let's say, our modern world?
When somebody puts out a prediction, what is the purpose of the prediction?
Is it a preference?
If somebody does a climate change prediction...
Is that because they want the planet to burn up?
No, predictions are not preferences, right?
Would you agree that a prediction is not a preference?
But the way the WEF packaged that prediction, they did package it like a preference, didn't they?
They packaged it like it was their preference.
So that's the scary part.
But I share their preference.
Am I scary?
I have the same preference. The only thing that's different between my exact opinion, which doesn't bother you at all, hey, I'd like to be able to rent a car in the future.
No problem. I'd like to have a special tool that I could rent instead of buy.
You don't have a problem with that.
The problem is the anything, right?
Where all of your stuff is gone.
That's the scary part. But that's the fashion show part.
The reason that that kind of a prediction is stated as an absolute is why.
Why is the prediction as an absolute?
It's the same reason that the fashion show has license plate dresses.
That's why you pay attention.
It's only the absolute that makes you pay attention.
Suppose they had put it in less provocative terms.
In the future, the current trend of renting things that don't make sense to own will increase.
Does that get your juices running?
Oh, the current trend will continue, and everybody will be happy about it.
Because the only way the trend would continue would be if the free market wanted it.
So basically the WEF made a total free market prediction.
The free market, all of you, are going to like a situation where there's a lot of stuff you can rent instead of own, but because they put it in absolute, it got your attention.
If you're a sophisticated viewer of the news, you would know that the absolute part was just to get your attention.
When Trump says they're not sending their best across the border...
Is he trying to suggest that all people who come across a border are criminals?
Of course not. But by treating it like it's a little bit closer to an absolute than it really is, what did it do?
Got everybody talking about it, got attention, made him President of the United States.
So be aware that in the context of a fashion show or a prediction, these are intended to be attention-getters.
They're intended as attention-getters.
That's different. If you know them as attention-getters, then you sort of ignore them.
So when I saw it, I was like, oh, we'll rent more stuff in the future.
That was it. That's all I saw.
I saw one statement that says, oh, we're going to rent more stuff in the future.
That sounds cool. That's it.
And what do those of you who still disagree with me on my interpretation say?
What is your argument?
I heard it with my own ears.
I saw it with my own eyes.
Don't be Democrats. That's what the Democrats are doing.
They're acting like that standard makes sense in 2022.
In 2022, you should never say, I know it's true because I saw it or I heard it.
It's the worst thing you could say.
It just... It outs you as somebody who hasn't watched the news with any sophistication.
Because most of the news is fake.
Why would you think this is the real one?
Alright, now I'm going to take it to the next level.
Was there something about this that your bullshit detector should have picked up right away?
Because people say, Scott, how do you know that your interpretation is correct?
So let me tell you why I believe my interpretation is correct.
Number one, could I be wrong?
Of course. So the first thing you want to look for is somebody who said, well, I could be wrong.
I've been wrong before.
So if somebody presents something as an absolute, they're already not credible.
The only people you should believe about anything are people who say, I'm almost positive about this, but, you know, I could be wrong.
Could be some surprise here.
Those are more credible.
Next thing you need to know is that Most of the time I spend talking in public is about areas which are not my area of expertise.
Would you agree? Mostly.
Mostly I talk about stuff in the news that I'm no expert on.
I'm just talking about it. This happens to be one thing I'm an expert on.
I'm an expert at looking at people's words, written and spoken, and understanding them in context.
Do you know why? Because that's my job.
That's literally my job.
You can't be a writer unless you're thinking as a viewer and a reader and a writer at the same time.
When I'm writing, I'm thinking, how are you seeing it?
Like, do I need to add some context?
Is some missing? Is some implied?
Is there enough there? So the question of can you read something and have good reading comprehension is simply not something that you all have.
That's not an insult.
That's just a statement that I do it for a living and you don't.
If there's something you do for a living and I don't, it would be fair to say it's almost certain that you do it better than I do, because you do it for a living.
Duh. I do this for a living.
I do this, exactly this, for a living.
I've demonstrated commercial grade ability to write and form words in context that a large number of people will understand correctly.
So when I look at a sentence and I say, the correct interpretation is probably this, and you don't have the skill that I have, a demonstrated commercial ability to put words together in understandable ways, if you don't have that, you should listen to me.
Now, does that mean that I'm right?
No. Because remember, the thing that makes me credible, or I should, is that I never say I'm absolutely 100% right, nothing could be wrong.
Those people you don't listen to at all.
Just ignore all of them.
They're not even trying.
All right, what else?
Was there anything else about this that should have jumped out as that it's bullshit?
Yes, there is. The really test.
Did none of you do the really test on this?
All right, let's do the really test, and if you're new to it, you'll pick it up pretty quickly.
All right, so the World Economic Forum, you say, just is telling the world directly and clearly that we want to take away your ability to own things, like have private ownership.
And they believe that...
Even though maybe people on the right would not appreciate this so much, they do believe that Democrats, let's say mainstream Democrats, are going to embrace this as a good thing.
Now, do you believe that the members of the WEF don't want people to own things?
Really? Really?
Now let's take a little further.
Do you think the members of the WEF could be better described as collaborators or competitors?
Go. The members of the WEF, the big elites, are they competitors with each other or are they colluders?
And they're looking for like a collective.
Conspirators, you say? They're conspirators.
No, they're both. They're both.
If you don't get that, you're missing the whole story.
Do you think that the head of one car company is colluding with the head of the other car company?
Maybe in some minor way, but they would also like to destroy that other competitor.
They don't act like one thing.
So let me ask you this.
Do you think all those elites, they all agreed that they don't want to sell stuff anymore.
They only want to rent you stuff.
Do you think that happened? Do you think you...
Really? Do you think you put a bunch of elites together And while some of those elites surely would have benefited from a rental society, surely.
You don't think there were plenty of other elites who said, holy shit, we only sell stuff.
That's all we're going to do.
In the future, we just want to keep selling cars, keep selling caterpillar tractors.
Like, we're in the selling stuff business.
We're not in the rental business.
You don't think anybody at the WEF wants ownership, private ownership.
Really? Really.
You could take a bunch of elites from the world and they would agree that none of those elites in the future will sell you stuff that you own.
That is insane.
Just check your own thinking about this.
It would literally be insane to imagine that any group of elites would agree collectively that they won't sell things you could own.
There's no world in which that can happen.
I will agree that some of them in the room would say, oh, my business would be better with a lot of renting.
But even that person doesn't want the rest of you to be renting everything.
Even if you thought your business would be better with rental in the future, you don't think the world is better with rental.
Literally nobody with any economic sense has that point of view.
So you imagine, if you believe that the WF really meant this as some evil thing, you imagine that they said this right out loud with no hesitation.
Oh, you won't own anything in the future, and you'll be happy about it, because that's what we're going to make happen with our elite manipulation.
Do you really believe that?
I want to see if anybody will say, yes, I believe that happened.
Go ahead. Say, yes, you believe that happened.
So, one yes. Two yes, three yes.
Alright? Well, here's what we've proven.
People will believe anything.
Would you agree? And when you see the people on the other side say, I saw it with my own eyes, I heard it with my own ears, those of you who said yes to this, you should start believing them.
Because they are you. You're now the fine people hoax.
You're now the drinking bleach hoax.
You're the same people. To imagine that you're on the other side politically would be inaccurate.
You're actually the same people.
Because the people who believe what they're told in that way, they're not really...
Like, part of decision-making.
Are they? They're just confused.
I'm not sure you should treat them like other people who have actual opinions.
That's just being confused.
Now, you can own simple things, such as property.
Exactly. Exactly.
The free market...
We'll make a much clearer distinction between the things that make sense to own and the things that won't make sense to own.
That's exactly right.
That's what the WEF is saying, it's what I say, and it's what any economist says.
Everybody says the same thing.
The free market will decide what makes sense to own and what makes sense to rent, as they always have.
As they always have.
Do you know why rental makes more sense in the future?
I'm the perfect example.
Here's why rental will make more sense in the future.
I own a lot of shit.
I got a house that's full of shit.
I got a car, a few bicycles.
I got a lot of shit.
It's all fucking broken.
All of it. It all requires maintenance.
There's not one thing in my house that isn't a little bit broken.
If I rented this stuff, it'd all be fixed.
Because I would just call whoever made it and say, hey, it's broken again, come fix it.
And they'd say, that's our job.
They'd come fix it. Everything that is a problem in my day-to-day life would be fixed by having at least the big stuff rented.
As long as the price was good, right?
If it costs more, then that's a different decision.
But if they could get the economics so that renting it makes more sense...
I mean, owning something with a maintenance contract, is that different from renting?
What about my house?
Now, my house would be a perfect example of something that makes more sense to own for some people.
And for other people, it makes more sense to rent.
So... The free market will just decide, but there'll be more of both.
Now, I heard somebody say that I have to understand the you'll owe nothing to be happy in the larger context of the WEF, because you say they're an evil organization with a whole bunch of leftist crazy ideas, and this is just another one.
So if you looked at all their other crazy ideas, suddenly this one looks like it's right in the pocket, right?
Oh, I see somebody agreeing.
Alright, so let's say that I agree with you all that the WEF's, let's say, climate change agenda is not your idea of a good idea.
Agree? Like, you don't like that part.
But does that tell you that they don't want private ownership?
Those are not really connected.
I can't imagine that Klaus Schwab wants to not own anything in the future.
Do I think my rental company will do better?
Yes. Because the free market would weed out the ones who don't do better.
Maybe not on day one, but that's what the market does.
Yeah. Now, people said, Scott, Klaus wants a world in which only the rich people can own stuff and the poor people have to rent.
What do you think of that comment? Klaus wants a situation where the rich people own stuff, but the poor people rent.
Now, that would be a world you don't want to live in, right?
Can we agree you don't want to live in a world in which the rich people own stuff and the poor people, this is their only option, they've just got to rent.
Can we all agree nobody wants to live in that world?
I want to see your comments.
We all agree we don't want to live in a world where the rich people own stuff and the poor people have to rent because they don't have a choice, right?
Yeah. I'm sorry to do this to you, but you know you live in that world now, right?
I have a feeling that some of you are being quiet because you knew this was a trick.
You knew this was a trick, right?
That's exactly the world you live in.
Poor people don't own anything.
Poor people take the bus.
Poor people rent their house.
They don't own anything. They own the food before they put it in their mouth.
And they don't even own that.
That's probably just given to them.
How did you miss the fact that you live in a capitalist society?
Capitalism is exactly what you just described.
The capitalists own stuff.
The poor people have to rent it.
That is your current situation.
So you're actually afraid of a future that's exactly like the present that doesn't bother you at all.
Now, is that unfair?
Well, lots of people say yes.
But it's also true that those poor people can find a path to be rich people and own stuff and rent it to poor people.
So the only thing that keeps our system together is that there are enough poor people going from poor to owning stuff that people see as possible.
And if it's possible, and you see enough people doing it, you say to yourself, oh, maybe the problem's me.
Maybe the system works, because people are rising through the system.
But if I'm not rising through the system, well, maybe it's my own damn fault, which I do think people believe.
Yeah, how many citizens own their own farmland?
Right. If...
If farmland was owned only by small farmers, would you be able to eat?
I don't know how.
Probably not. I mean, maybe yes, but it'd be tough.
I mean, it's the corporate farms that probably made it efficient enough that everybody can get fed.
All right. So, in many cases, you think you have a political disagreement or you think that you're hearing something differently, but I would argue that the people who have good economic training are all on my side.
You want to test that? Let's test that.
Let's test it. All right, so stop answering other questions for a moment.
I'm going to ask you one question.
You have to identify yourself as somebody who's trained in business and economics.
Only. Only.
Only people who are trained in business and economics.
I want you to tell me that I've correctly...
So give me your credentials, and then tell me that you agree with my interpretation of this situation.
Go. And just watch the comments.
So what you're going to see is it's not a difference of opinion, it's a difference of training.
It's a difference of training, right?
If this were a situation that was outside of my field, because remember, economics and business are actually my field.
That's what I'm trained for.
So to me, it's obvious.
But it's not obvious because I'm smarter than you.
That's not what's happening.
It's not obvious because I, like, read an extra article.
It's obvious because my background is exactly in this area.
Exactly in this area.
If your background is not in this area, it just looks like a scary bunch of shit.
So I get that.
Like if you didn't have that specific background, it would look scary as shit.
If I didn't have this background, I might interpret it the same way you are.
I might. Alright, you see how quiet it got?
I believe everybody with economics and business background agreed with me.
I didn't see an exception, did you?
Now that's why you should, if you disagree with me, that's the only takeaway.
I won't try to change your mind.
I just want you to be aware that people who have similar expertise are on the same page.
Doesn't mean we're all right.
Can we agree? That doesn't mean all the people with the right training are right.
We've seen examples where the smart people were all wrong.
But take it all into consideration.
Look at the bigger picture.
All right. So, knowing, of course, knowing, of course, that I can never change your mind.
That doesn't happen.
Have I changed anybody's mind about how much they should worry about that statement?
Go. Look at the other comments, too, so you can see what's up.
So a number of people said yes, and then a number of people said no.
The no's were first.
The first answers were no's.
No, no, no. No, no, no, no.
Now, if you say no, how do you interpret all the yeses?
What's your interpretation of the yeses?
Do you think I fooled them with my persuasion?
Or do you think that adding new information or new context legitimately changed their mind?
What do you think's going on?
Don't even think about me for a second.
Just think about the other people who are with you, your peers, and look at them changing their mind.
Not all of them, but a bunch of them.
How do you interpret that?
Do you think that they've been hypnotized?
Or do you think that they're dealing with the facts?
Yeah.
I think this is a perfect example of how hard it is to change anybody's mind.
And And would you agree that this was the perfect setup to test the limits of that?
Because the people who are watching me on livestream, generally, the reason you're watching is that you find them credible.
Right? That's the only reason I have an audience, is that some number of people find me credible.
Now, if you find me credible and you listen to the argument and you saw nothing to disagree with, you'd have to ask yourself why people are still dug in.
All right, but let me give you another small therapeutic doses of cognitive distance.
That's exactly what it is.
It's so you can feel it.
You know, I don't think you really understand cognitive dissonance until you find a situation where you definitely were in it and didn't know it.
Has anybody had that experience yet?
Where your own cognitive dissonance becomes clear to you?
You're like, oh man, I thought that was true for 30 years, only to find out it was all wrong.
It's very disconcerting.
Just keep that in mind when you're looking at this situation.
Because if you see somebody who's on your side...
And would you agree I'm on your side?
Let me ask you that first.
Would you agree that I'm on your side if you're a law-abiding American citizen?
And if you're a law-abiding citizen of another country, I'd probably like you a lot, too.
Yeah, I'm totally on your side.
All right, so I'm on your side.
You're watching my live stream because you find me credible.
You heard the entire argument, and I don't think any context has not been mentioned.
I think all important context on all sides, I think, have been mentioned.
But if that doesn't change your mind, you might have for the first time identified your own cognitive bias little bubble.
Now, if that's happening to you, you could have like a real moment here.
Like it's really going to be like a big day for you.
The first time you really experience it, oh shit, I only believe this because I was, I don't know, in my little bubble or whatever.
As soon as you have that first experience, you're free.
Because you only have to have it once, and you'll remember it forever.
And it will make you a lot more humble the next time you're sure you're right.
And that could be good for you.
All right.
Can you believe there's still somebody here mocking me for allegedly acting like I'm always right? .
Is that the most counterfactual thing in the whole world?
Literally, nobody says they're wrong more clearly and often than I do.
I will put myself as the number one person on the fucking planet who admits he's wrong, specifically why, and I don't even wait very long.
I give it to you as soon as it's obvious.
And remember, the reason I can do that...
Like, I have a special channel where I can be wrong, like aggressively, vigorously wrong, and it doesn't hurt me.
You know why? Because I've set up that expectation.
The expectation is I'm going to follow the data, and when I do that, you go, oh, okay, you followed the data, changed his mind.
That's how it's supposed to work.
So I would not feel diminished by being wrong.
I would feel bolstered.
It's actually a reframe. If you think about it, that's a reframe.
I've reframed being wrong from being a sense of shame to an accomplishment.
Better write that down, because I've got a book that I need to put that in.
A lot of these reframes are sort of like they're baked into your life.
What did I just say? You can reframe being wrong...
Being wrong as an accomplishment.
Being wrong in public is an accomplishment, not a shame.
If you think it's going to be a shame, or like some kind of mark against you, that's what triggers you into cognitive dissonance.
So you can actually create a situation where you guarantee you will not see the world correctly, Because if you have a shame-based operating system, oh, I can't be seen as wrong.
I can never be seen as wrong.
That guarantees you that you will be wrong.
Because the I can't be shamed by being wrong is the trigger for cognitive dissonance.
Oh, I can't be wrong.
Oh, darn, the data says I am.
I can't change to the data, because that would be a shame.
Too embarrassing. So instead, I will have my brain reinterpret the data as not credible.
How about we'll discount that data?
So that's cognitive dissonance.
Now, why am I immune?
I'm immune from that trigger.
Nobody's 100% immune, but you can work toward immunity by taking shame and embarrassment out of your life.
Once those are gone, and you realize that you're a person who can get stuff wrong pretty easily, like even if you think you're pretty smart, you can still think that, but smart people get ordinary things wrong all the time.
It's completely ordinary.
So I don't have anything that will violate my sense of self.
Do you get that? Cognitive dissonance happens when something about your sense of self gets violated.
If I find out I did something stupidly wrong in public, that's content for my show.
And then I'll get on here and talk about how stupid I was and why I got it wrong, and then we'll all learn something.
To me, it's just content.
So if you can convert your shame into content, you will be, not completely, but very, very much protected from the cognitive dissonance trigger.
I bet that's advice you've never heard before.
Has anybody ever heard anything like that?
Is that the most...
Oh, you have?
Okay. I feel like that's the most out-of-the-box life advice you've ever heard, and also the most useful.
There's probably nothing more useful than that, if you can nail it.
I heard somebody the other day talking about...
It was a success story.
I forget who it was. But they called out their lack of embarrassment as a superpower...
And I feel like that's behind all celebrity superstars.
They have to be able to handle that.
Yeah, yay is the perfect example.
You have to be free from embarrassment or you don't get too far.
Because that's what stops people.
Oh, I'll be embarrassed if I try that.
Trump makes 10% every time an NFT is traded.
Yeah, I got confirmation. Some people seem to know for whatever reason.
Is it because it's on the open sea?
Does it actually list it, or you knew it somehow?
But anyway, that's the normal thing that people do, is put a 10% kicker on any sale of an NFT. So...
All right.
Uh... Renting would not allow this.
Well, I do think that no matter how big renting gets, as long as the free market has people who also want to buy, you should always be able to buy.
Because remember, the WEF is not opposed to free markets.
And the free market will find you, because you're not alone, right?
So it doesn't matter if we go from 90% ownership to 10% ownership and the rest is least.
Everybody who wants to buy...
Will be accounted for, because the free market meets needs.
That's how it works. So it might not be on day one, but eventually everybody gets what they want in a rough sense.
You rent beer? Yeah.
Rent is an illusion.
You're a caretaker for time, same as a feudal system.
Yeah, I'm open to that argument, that a lot of this is wordplay, in a sense, yeah.
Alright, I'm going to say goodbye to YouTube, and I'm going to go talk to the locals people privately a little bit here, subscription service, so they get the extra good stuff.
