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Feb. 7, 2023 - Real Coffe - Scott Adams
01:05:28
Episode 2012 Scott Adams: Spot Cognitive Dissonance, FBI Controls Social Media, Melania's Advice

My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Find my "extra" content on Locals: https://ScottAdams.Locals.com Content: Biden Crime Family's position on banning TikTok? Good propaganda vs. bad propaganda Idolizing criminals Whiteboard1: How to Spot Cognitive Dissonance The 7 Tells for cognitive dissonance Whiteboard2: Guessing ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 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

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Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the Highlight of Civilization.
It gets better every time you arrive here.
I think you've noticed already.
Have you noticed?
It's like 1% better than the day before, every day, until, you know, a year goes by and you're like, whoa, it's 365% better.
I probably did the math wrong, but you know what I mean.
You know what I mean.
And if you'd like to take this experience up to levels that no one has ever experienced before, All you need is a cup or mug or glass, a tank or chalice or stein, a canteen jug or flask, a vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee.
And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine here, the day of the thing that makes everything better.
It's called the simultaneous sip and it happens now.
Now go.
Oh, Steve.
Steve says my live streams are mildly disappointing, but he can't help coming back anyway.
Now, that's what I like to hear.
I like to hear that I'm mildly disappointing, because that's my sweet spot.
Mildly disappointing.
I might put that on my tombstone.
He accomplished a few things, and yet, he was mildly disappointing.
Have I told you my story about my guitar amp breaking?
Or did I imagine that?
You know sometimes you imagine telling a story?
Okay, I told you that story.
Never mind, you won't hear it again.
So I posted a photo of the remains of my printer after I had shattered it on my Hard floors of my office.
Now, the people on the local subscription service saw me do that live, which was unplanned.
In case you were wondering.
No, I did not plan to lift my printer off my desk and smash it on the ground in front of an audience on livestream.
But I did.
But I did.
And so I... And by the way, it's not the first time.
It's not my first printer.
Let's go private here on Locals, so I don't forget it later.
But a funny thing happened after I posted my photo of the destroyed printer on my floor.
A lot of people said they've done the same thing.
You have to read the comments.
The number of people who said they wish they'd done it, they felt good because I did it, or they've done it themselves, is sort of shocking.
And I wonder what it would be like to be like a manufacturer of printers, to find out that people enjoy breaking them on their floor more than they enjoy using them.
I don't know, maybe something to work on.
Maybe something to work on.
Well, at the Grammys, there's still some chattering about that, and I guess Harry Styles won an award that some people thought should have gone to Beyonce.
Should have gone to Beyonce.
I wonder if there was anything missing in this Grammys award ceremony that just seems like it would have been the perfect thing in this situation.
What would you do if Harry Styles won the award that you believe should have gone to Beyonce?
A slap.
Where was Ye when you need him?
You tell me that the Grammys would not have been phenomenal If at the moment that Harry Styles was accepting his award, Ye had come from backstage where you didn't even know he was there, and he just came up and said, this award should have gone to Beyonce like he did with Taylor Swift.
It would have been epic.
It would have made it entertaining for the first time.
Well, I wish that had happened.
But then Harry Styles is getting in trouble today because when he got his award, he said, and I quote, This doesn't happen to people like me.
Uh-oh.
At the same time people are thinking that Beyonce should have gotten the award, his first words are, this doesn't happen to people like me.
Like me.
Now what did he mean by that?
What did he mean by that?
Well, obviously, that was interpreted as racist.
Because what he really meant, according to some black pundits, is what he really meant is it doesn't happen to white men.
That white men don't win awards.
Well, that's the most white privilege thing anybody ever said, say his critics.
Now, how many of you believe that he was thinking that white men don't win awards?
Is there anybody here Who's that dub?
Nobody, right?
So I'd like you to remember this story, that black Americans are criticizing Harry Styles and believing that he doesn't believe, right?
So it's not what Harry Styles believes, it's what his critics believe he's thinking.
What's that called?
What's it called when you Imagine you can see the thinking of another person that is unspoken.
Oh, mind reading, mind reading.
Yeah, mind reading.
Well, Governor Greg Abbott of Texas is gonna, he's pushing for banning TikTok in Texas.
Now, banning TikTok in Texas means only government employees and government devices, or just government devices, actually.
And so this made me ask the following question.
What is the Biden crime family's position on banning TikTok?
I don't believe I've heard, have you?
When was the last time Biden himself, as you know, the chief of the Biden crime family, when was the last time somebody asked him his opinion about banning TikTok?
Has anybody seen his opinion on that?
At one point, he could have gotten away with, we're studying it, right?
At one point, he said, we're studying it.
Yesterday?
Kevin says, yesterday?
Oh, literally yesterday.
And, oh, he said he didn't know.
All right.
That's what I was looking for.
Because the last I knew, he said he was studying it.
Now, you don't think he's studied it long enough?
I mean, maybe not personally, but you don't think anybody who advises him has studied it?
You don't need to study it.
He said it's not on my phone?
God, it's so embarrassing to have him as your president.
It's so embarrassing.
He posted on TikTok that he's against it.
Yeah, I don't think that happened, but that's funny.
All right.
Well, I think that obviously the Biden-Crain family is avoiding the topic because nobody believes he doesn't have an opinion.
Do you believe that?
Do you believe that the president, no matter who the president is, Biden, Trump, whoever is the next president, you believe they don't have an opinion about whether TikTok should be banned in America?
Yes, they do.
That's just lying.
So the Biden crime family is lying about their opinion on TikTok, clearly.
Clearly and obviously.
So the BCF, Biden crime family.
So I'm going to be using that phrase because at this point, they are, I think the evidence is so clear that they're a criminal organization.
I don't know why I can't call them the Biden crime family.
There's no problem with that, is there?
I mean, it seems fair at this point.
Well, Balloongate never stops the issue that should have been almost nothing but isn't.
And apparently the big question CNN is asking is about the balloon flights under Trump.
Now Trump says, we didn't have any balloon flights.
But other people say, well, China had a few balloon flights over maybe Alaska a little bit, briefly, but it was, you know, no security risk.
So the president probably was never informed.
So I think it's both true and false at the same time.
That there were balloon flights over America under Trump.
It's true, and that it technically probably happened.
This is just my speculation.
Probably happened, but in such a trivial way that it did not rise to national security interest.
That sounds right, doesn't it?
Yeah, some are saying that they were never detected under Trump.
We only know about it now, but that's not true.
That can't be true.
I'm pretty sure we detected it.
Because we tracked this one the entire way, right?
We tracked it all the way.
I'm sure we tracked the other ones.
So to me it just sounds like a lie to say that it didn't happen.
But I think it did happen, it was just trivial.
Here's maybe the funnest story of the day.
So somebody, Miller, has a book out about the Trump administration.
Which Miller is it?
Which Miller has the book?
What's his first name?
There's more than one Miller, right?
No, I don't think it was Stephen.
Was it?
Oh.
I thought there might be more than one Miller.
All right, well, it doesn't matter.
For my point, it doesn't matter.
But the story describes the operation to kill ISIS head Baghdadi.
Baghdadi.
They bagged that daddy.
Oh, they actually did use a daddy and they bagged him.
So they bagged that daddy and what was happening, apparently Melania came into the situation room.
So the first thing you might say is, what?
Why do you get a plus one for the situation room?
Did you know the Situation Room was a plus-one situation?
Well, I guess, bring a date.
So Melania came, but the funniest part is that I'm setting you up for thinking that Melania being there is a mistake, right?
So then she watches the operation with the rest of them and Baghdadi kills himself with an explosive vest.
And a big part of the story was they had a dog, a service dog, what do you call it?
A military dog of some kind, who went in and trapped Baghdadi and then Baghdadi blew himself up.
And at the end of it, when they were trying to figure out how to essentially present it to the public that they'd done this, reportedly Melania said, That you should focus on the dog because everybody likes dogs.
You should focus on the dog because everybody likes dogs.
And then they did.
They gave the dog an award and they talked about the dog.
Just think about how good that advice was.
Is that?
No kidding.
Jokes aside, that's some of the best political advice I've ever seen in my life.
This is one of those stories that makes you understand why they're a couple, right?
Because sometimes you go, oh, was it all about the money?
You know, whatever it is.
But it does look like they have an intellectual compatibility.
Because that was really smart.
And you know Trump's going to like smart people.
So that was a great story.
I was not aware that Putin's so-called girlfriend has several children with him.
I don't know how many.
But also, everybody knows it's his girlfriend.
I wasn't aware of that.
Apparently, just everybody knows he has a girlfriend.
He's got some kids with a girlfriend.
But she gave a speech in Russia in which she said that propaganda is a weapon of war, like a Kalashnikov, and that Russia is using that weapon of propaganda Mostly within the country, successfully.
So she was basically giving a pro-propaganda message.
You know what's interesting about that is just that it's transparent.
It's not interesting that anybody thought it, because of course everybody thinks their own propaganda is good.
But it is interesting that she said it out loud.
Yes, we're a country that's lying like crazy, but it's really useful lies.
It's good for the war.
Okay.
I don't know.
I don't have much to say about that, except that when something honest happens, it catches my attention.
I like to call it out.
I saw another tweet from Kanekoa the Great.
Who said, you'd never guess from this official Facebook video, that was part of the tweet, that this guy was one of the most senior people at the CIA until 2019.
So a person, a man who is a senior person at the CIA until as recently as 2019, is who at Facebook is deciding what content you see.
You know, what gets censored and what doesn't.
Let me say that again.
A senior CIA guy until 2019, which is really recently, is who Facebook has hired to decide basically what content is on there and what isn't in terms of banning people.
Now you already know that from the Twitter files that Twitter was, and maybe still is, infested with ex-FBI employees, including their top legal person, Who is an FBI legal person, James Baker, who figures into some other stories that involve the Democrats.
Now, at this point, it seems blindingly obvious that the FBI and CIA were trying to manipulate results.
Does anybody doubt that?
Does anybody have any doubt that the CIA and the FBI were trying to manage information within this country?
No doubt.
Same as Russia, right?
So when Putin's girlfriend says, yeah, we're doing propaganda and it's great, it's just like weapons.
That's what we do.
And, you know, here's the problem.
I don't want them not to do it.
One of the things we don't really appreciate is that propaganda is what holds the country together.
Propaganda is what makes America a country.
The moment you stop your propaganda, everything falls apart.
There's a reason that we do the Pledge of Allegiance.
The Pledge of Allegiance is just brainwashing.
But it's the good kind.
It's the good kind.
But it is brainwashing, just to make people uncritically accept their side.
But it's good.
I wouldn't want anything else.
I want people in this country to pretty much uncritically prefer this country over other countries, especially if you get in a war.
But there is a big, big downside to it.
And the big downside is they can do propaganda that isn't good for the country.
So, you know, and that might be what's happening.
So there's no right answer here, because you don't want to get rid of all propaganda.
The country would just fall apart.
But you've got to watch it.
So here's what I would recommend.
I believe that ex-employees of the FBI and the CIA, and there might be some other organizations to throw in there, should not be allowed to work at private companies that are in the business of helping the public understand the world.
Or communicate.
So I don't think it should be legal for Facebook or Twitter to have hired ex-employees of the FBI or the CIA.
Now it's a free country, so you don't want to have restrictions like that.
So I might be willing, I might, I might be willing to have full disclosure as part of their annual disclosures.
So it would have been helpful for me to know that people at Facebook or Twitter in specific jobs, right, this specific job matters, I would like to know that they came from those places.
And that I could decide.
I could decide whether that mattered to me or not.
My first choice is that they can't do it at all.
Now, I would, you know, sort of in the same family of problems, I also favor members of Congress not buying individual stocks.
Even though it's a free country.
I have a problem with that.
It's not the greatest Law.
Because I don't like restricting what people can do with their own money in a free society.
That seems creepy to me.
But on the other hand, we can't really trust them unless we have some control over their investments.
Control or visibility.
No, I'm not actually high.
You're seeing me after seven hours of sleep, which is the first time I've had seven hours of sleep A long time.
I don't know, a very long time.
But I pulled it off.
Yeah, not high today at all.
But thanks for imagining I am.
So I don't think we'll ever see that law, but I'd like to see it.
I saw a tweet today from, I think it's a black minister based on the profile picture, who said on his tweet, raise your sons to be like George Floyd, not George Bush.
Raise your sons to be like George Floyd, not George Bush.
Okay, I think I found the problem.
I think I found the problem.
And here's how I would solve it.
I think that part of systemic racism... Watch what I do here.
Watch the technique.
The biggest part of systemic racism is that black Americans I idolize criminals.
They idolize criminals, because George Floyd was a criminal.
So, if you want to go after systemic racism, the two biggest elements of it are, for whatever reason, black people would have problems idolizing people from other races, right?
Now, I find it very easy to idolize somebody from any race.
Athletes, musicians, scientists, writers.
Yeah, you show me a real successful black man or woman, or non-binary, or whatever you like, and they're killing it, they're doing a good job.
That's my role model.
Black role model, absolutely.
Asian-American role model?
Yes.
Yes, thank you.
Just heard about some young Asian-American teenager who's just killing it in school.
Got a job already with a startup.
He's 15.
Just killing it.
Role model, yes.
Yes, that kid, high school kid, Asian American, first generation immigrant, yes, role model.
But what is it about systemic racism that causes black people to idolize criminal black people?
There's no way that's good for them.
Wouldn't you agree?
There's no way that's good for him.
So there's something about the systemic racism which has pushed black people into the worst situation in the world because people are imitators.
I saw this great quote by Brett Weinstein talking to Jordan Peterson.
I'd never heard it explained this way, that the job of parents is to model the outside world.
So that the kid grows up with the software in their head to know how to deal with the outside world because their inside experience was similar enough.
In other words, your parents, and this is what Jordan Peterson says, your parents should not be easier on you than the outside world.
So if you mess up, the parents should give you a penalty, you know, with love.
But then you go into the real world, and you realize, oh, if I mess up, I'm going to get a penalty, maybe with less love.
And the thinking behind this, and they're both completely correct in their characterizations, the thinking behind it is that humans are copiers.
We imitate other people.
We do it automatically, and we can't turn it off.
You just can't turn it off.
I remember when live streaming was newer than it is now.
And I was watching a lot of new podcasters and live streamers.
And they looked like just bad photocopies of Mike Cernovich.
Because Mike Cernovich was good at it.
So people just saw him.
He was good at it.
And they just copied him.
And they even would use his phrasings and even his mannerisms.
And it was completely obvious that they were just imitating somebody who had done something well.
Now in that case, they imitated somebody who was doing a great job, and I think it really helped them.
Now in the end, I think they managed to find their own voices, right?
But imitating somebody is a really good way to start.
Really good.
The way I became a cartoonist is by imitating other cartoonists.
And eventually, because I didn't do it well, it looked like my own work.
That's a good trick.
Just imitate things poorly until it looks like your original.
So, if I were trying to fix the problems in black America, I would go after systemic racism that, for whatever reason, causes them to imitate the wrong people.
And when I say wrong people, I mean imitate people who would lead them to a suboptimal life.
But also, the school system is a mess, and that's the biggest problem of systemic racism.
All right.
This next story is related somewhat to the last one.
But I'm going to try to read this story without laughing.
And I want to see if you can do the same.
Because if you laugh at this story, you're a disgusting racist.
But if, like me, you're a good person, like me, you will look at this and say, my God, my God, how can people be so insensitive?
So be like me.
Be like a person who cares and shows empathy.
Don't be like you might have been.
Before I warned you.
Before I warned you, you might have just laughed at this joke and then what a piece of garbage you would be.
You would be just a piece of garbage if you laugh at this.
So I'll read CNN's report.
And because I'm a good person, I'm not gonna laugh.
A middle school in New York and its food vendor, Aramark, apologized after students were served chicken and waffles along with watermelon on the first day of Black History Month.
Hold.
Hold.
The lunch menu offered on February 1st at Nyack Middle School in Rockland County was, quote, inexcusably insensitive and reflected a lack of understanding of our district's vision to address racial bias, said the principal.
Hold!
Hold!
No laughing.
No laughing!
Okay, here's my real opinion.
If black Americans want not just full equality, and not just full equity, but to blast past white Americans and just dominate the world, laugh at this.
Just find this funny.
Just treat it like the bullshit it is.
Now, I don't know why this vendor did this.
I don't know why.
But I know it doesn't matter.
I know it's funny.
I know that doesn't say anything about any of us.
Doesn't say anything about black people.
Doesn't say anything about the Aramark vendor.
I mean, could have been a joke.
Do you know what was not reported?
Here's what was not reported.
Is it at all possible that the vendor was black?
I don't know.
But it seems like that would have been important to the story to know that, right?
Because I can't imagine a white vendor doing that.
But could I imagine a black vendor doing it because it was funny?
Yes.
I could imagine a black vendor thinking, oh, this is just funny.
Because what the hell is black food?
Right?
Like, what is that?
If you can't laugh at that, then I don't think you could be successful.
Honestly.
If you can't just laugh at this and treat it as nothing, you could never be successful in this world.
If you think this mattered, and you needed to spend some time on it to be outraged, you'll never be successful.
It's just a guarantee.
Your software's broken.
So, this is sort of the Morgan Freeman approach.
I'm taking a version of it.
We need to figure out how to laugh at this stuff.
And just to be clear, I've told you this before, when a black follower of my live streams, I asked what would be like a white thing.
I was asking for examples of stereotypical white things.
And she said, well, you like cheese.
Like white people like cheese.
I laughed for 20 minutes, because it sort of rings true.
I'd never thought of it before.
But I didn't feel insulted.
I'm not insulted that white people apparently like cheese.
I really like cheese.
Sorry, I really like cheese.
I like it.
So, we've got to get to a point where black Americans are not idolizing criminals, and we can laugh at things that are just BS.
And we can laugh together.
If you can't laugh together, you don't have anything.
And I feel like if you were going to fix one thing to make everything better, if the only thing you fixed is our senses of humor, you'd be in really good shape, wouldn't you?
Imagine if every time something like this came up, we all laughed at it together.
How about we laugh at it together?
Because it's so stupid at this point.
I mean, it's just ridiculous.
And it's not like anybody doesn't want to help.
It's not like we don't know how to fix things.
All right.
I'm going to teach you on my whiteboard how to spot cognitive dissonance.
Would you like that?
Let's see which side it's on.
Here it is.
This is a very handy thing for social media and other debating.
So what I'm going to try to do is teach you a superpower.
And here are my tells for cognitive dissonance.
Number one, if somebody changes the topic, they're experiencing cognitive dissonance.
Now, I was asked for a clarification on this one, because lots of times people will be trying to make a point and it's not getting through, and then it was pointed out to me.
Sometimes people will say, all right, let me take a different approach.
I'm not talking about a different approach.
Because that's the same topic.
Here's what I'm talking about.
Oh yeah, your opinion about whatever.
I judge that based on your opinion on this different topic.
Okay, that's cognitive dissonance.
If you have to change the whole topic, It's because you had to bow out.
You didn't have anything.
Ad hominem, this is when you just insult people.
So I get this one a lot.
If I've won an argument, the next thing I hear is an insult to me personally.
It's pretty consistent.
So ad hominem means you won.
Changing the topic means you won.
You can just say, OK, I'll take victory.
I'm done.
Mind reading.
I like to think this is one of my greatest contributions to civilization.
Now, I'm sure I'm not the first person to make this observation that people imagine they know what you're thinking, but I'm trying to popularize it and give it a name so that when we talk about it, you know, we're talking about the same thing.
So how many times have you seen me in a debate online?
And then somebody will say, well, obviously you believed that scientists are reliable.
That's mind reading.
And incorrect mind reading, because I don't believe scientists are reliable.
In fact, science is the most unreliable of all things.
Do you know why?
Why is science the most unreliable field?
Because if everything works correctly, you're wrong most of the time.
If everything's working smoothly, you're wrong most of the time.
And then a few things will pass, you know, through the peer review.
It'll get published, peer review.
You'd be able to duplicate it.
Maybe you don't have a randomized controlled trial yet, but you get one.
Then you get another one.
So you're crawling through uncertainty and largely wrong stuff until you get something closer to truth.
So science is mostly about being wrong, and then every now and then something awesome happens.
A great process, but mostly wrong.
So, mind reading about what is true in the person's mind is always a tell, and when I see this, I say, thank you, and I'm done.
Word salad's a little harder to identify, because it really looks like it might make sense, but maybe you're not getting the point.
The word salad is often related to a change of topic.
In other words, the word salad often brings in other topics and mixes them together and puts them in sentences where the sentence appears to make sense from a grammar perspective.
But when you look at it as a whole, it's not really saying anything.
So you recognize word salad when you see it.
This one will be harder to explain.
Using an analogy instead of a reason.
Analogies are fine.
If the only way you're using them is to explain a new concept.
That's a good use of an analogy.
But if you use it instead of a reason, as in, in this case we did it this way, so in this unrelated case, which I'm reminded of, we should do it the same way.
That's using it as a reason.
That's the wrong way to use it.
And that's usually a tell for cognitive dissonance.
Because you don't need an analogy if you have a reason.
Here would be an example of somebody who has a reason.
Hey, why should I not do this thing?
Oh, because it's very risky, because this could break.
It's unreliable, and if that breaks, you'll be injured.
That's somebody who understands the situation.
Here's somebody who doesn't understand why you shouldn't do that thing.
All right, all right.
Suppose you were on a ship, and the ship captain told you not to lean over the rail.
OK, as soon as you hear that, You know that they don't have a reason.
They're using an analogy to try to make you not notice there's no reason.
Reasons are easy.
Oh, don't do that because it's dangerous.
Simple.
Oh, it's very much like a spaceship.
If you were designing a spaceship, you'd make sure that the O-rings... No.
No.
As soon as you go that direction, it means you don't know your own argument.
All right.
Here's a new one.
Insisted is complicated and cannot be summarized.
So, if you've seen this lately, it's complicated.
It just can't be summarized.
Do you know what can't be summarized?
Cognitive dissonance.
Everything else can be summarized.
Even if the summary doesn't tell you much.
So there's nothing I can't summarize.
It's easy to summarize.
Summarizing is the easiest thing in the world.
The only thing you can't summarize is something you don't understand yourself, or it doesn't fit your point.
Barnes says.
I don't know about that.
All right.
And then my favorite is the so tell, where somebody starts a sentence with the word so.
What usually follows the word so in a debate is them characterizing your opinion incorrectly.
Yeah, the Kathy Newman thing.
And usually the characterization has an absurd absolute.
So here's what it would look like in the wild.
So you're saying that every person who got COVID had no long COVID?
Or, so, you're saying that everybody who got the vaccination made the wrong decision.
Everybody.
Everybody.
Or, so, you're saying that everybody who went to Harvard is a liberal idiot.
Like, everyone.
Every person who ever went to Harvard is a liberal idiot.
That's what you're saying.
So, whenever you see the so, look for a mischaracterization of your opinion.
Now, why does somebody need to mischaracterize your opinion?
It's because they're in cognitive dissonance.
They've lost the argument and they know it on some level, and so they're just creating nonsense in their minds.
So, this, ladies and gentlemen, is the greatest contribution to the world since E equals MC squared.
If you understand this, and you start to put this filter on your interactions, your stress level will disappear.
Because once you see somebody exhibit one of the seven tells, and by the way, making it the seven tells makes it more powerful persuasion.
Did you catch that?
When you give something a name and you label it, It becomes real in people's minds.
Because until it has a name, they can't hang it, they can't store it.
It's hard to store a concept.
But you wrap a name around it, the seven tells for cognitive dissonance.
Imagine if you said to somebody, oh, that is a tell for cognitive dissonance.
It means nothing.
Right?
Just compare these two things.
Oh, that thing you did, that's a tell for cognitive dissonance.
Really?
Is it?
I don't think so.
Now, compare that to, oh, that's one of the seven.
That's number three on the seven tells for cognitive dissonance.
Now, how does that feel?
Completely different, doesn't it?
Just because there's seven makes you think, oh my God, that's a real thing.
There's seven of them.
It must be like everybody knows the seven tells for cognitive dissonance, but I don't.
Oh no, I better figure out what that means.
Completely different persuasion just by saying it's one of the seven tells.
Seven cognitive sins.
I like tells better, but I like where you're going with that.
Now, I'm going to say it again, without any hyperbole whatsoever, this is one of the greatest things that humanity has ever experienced.
If you understand these seven tells, the whole world looks different.
And all the people that you think are just annoyingly Not getting your argument.
You can just say, oh, I won the argument already.
You did this one.
Oh, I won the argument, you did that.
and just walk away.
Somebody just said, "So when it's brought up "and someone thinks you're BSing, they can find it online." Okay, that was a good use of so.
Yeah.
So, by the way, the so tell is not 100%.
But it's probably 95.
Probably 95.
Oh, I was going to add projection.
So there's some projection happening here.
So somebody's saying that Scott is blissfully unaware that he does all of these things.
That's projection.
But projection, I didn't want to put on the list.
Because everybody thinks everybody's projecting.
So you can't use it as a standard.
Does that make sense?
You can definitely use these as standards because they're very objective.
It's easy to see if somebody changed the topic.
It's easy to see if they're mind-reading.
But projection is what everybody blames everybody of on both sides.
So if you use that as your indicator, the other person just says, no, that's what you're doing.
I indicated on you.
But it doesn't work this way.
If somebody insults you and you have an insult to them, You can't really say, well, you insulted me when it didn't happen.
But everybody says everybody's projecting.
Now, let me ask you.
Could you identify that that user was projecting?
Because if you watched me get into public arguments, which I do every day in public, have you seen me do mind reading?
Or word salad?
Or change to a new topic.
Sometimes I do that, but it's not because I lost the argument.
If you do see these things, if you see me exhibit any of these things, call it out.
Call it out.
Now here's the next most important thing you need to know.
Did I just say that I'm immune to cognitive dissonance because I accused the other person of projecting?
Nope.
Nope.
No, I am completely susceptible to cognitive dissonance.
I have some technique that I think is helpful, but it's not a perfect protection.
More like a shot than a vaccination, if you know what I mean.
You know what I mean?
So that was a good use of an analogy, because I didn't require it to make my argument.
In other words, I could have made it without the analogy.
I could have just said it's risky.
Yeah, we all have our blind spots.
So if you're looking for my blind spots, look in the same place.
Use this standard to evaluate me, and you will absolutely, sooner or later, you'll find me experiencing cognitive dissonance.
All right.
That's the most helpful thing I've done.
I tried to introduce a concept today that I found had already been introduced, but I'll promote it then.
I was watching CNN and Jim Acosta sent a correspondent for his show to a Trump event recently.
And the correspondent, let me ask you if you can guess what happened.
Did the correspondent show us some video of him interviewing perfectly reasonable people who attended the Trump event?
Or did he talk to the most outrageously interesting people?
Of course, it was the most outrageously interesting people.
So one of the interviews was two women who believe that Trump still controls part of the military, and that there are two militaries, a Biden military and a Trump military right now.
At the moment, there are two militaries.
Now, you might say, well, that's a little out there.
That's a little out there.
But the only point I want to make is, you know that's not representative of the group.
And of course, the right does the same thing to the left, right?
Same thing.
They pick the worst members of that group and try to act like the whole group is, you know, communists and socialists and stuff.
And I thought, it needs a name.
So I suggested the name Nut Picking.
So instead of Cherry Picking, you know, where you cherry pick data, if you're talking about humans, you're picking nuts, basically.
So it's Nut Picking.
It turns out that that has been a phrase since at least 2018.
So, you know, I saw a tweet on it earlier.
So, nutpicking is already existing.
Now, I think nutpicking was more about the topic than the person, but it works both ways.
So, let's use that.
So, the Jim Acosta interview was a nut-picking thing.
Now, the thing I like about it is it sounds like you're playing with your balls, doesn't it?
Like, indirectly, if you accuse somebody of nut-picking, it sounds like they're just playing with their own balls, which is just as useful as nut-picking.
Here's an analogy.
Talking to the weirdest person in the group and presenting it to the group is as useful to the rest of the society as you staying home and playing with your balls.
Very similar benefit to society.
So there's a good analogy for you.
Yeah, nut picking.
So, be careful.
We're all nut pickers.
This would be another thing that I would assume.
I've done some nut picking.
Have I?
I'll ask you, you're a better judge of this than I am.
You watch me a lot.
Have I nut-picked?
Have I ever tried to paint a group by its nuttiest people?
I assume I have, because it's just so easy to fall into that.
I assume I have.
Right?
But do you remember any, every day, do you know any examples?
Because sometimes you just talk about the bad people, because they're more interesting.
But I don't ever try to paint the entire group by any individuals.
But if I did... Oh, Russians?
I don't know, maybe.
All right, but let me accept in advance I probably do that.
All right.
Now, I told you we're in Act 3 of my personal movie.
And in Act 3, This is where the hero escapes from an impossible trap.
Now the impossible trap is the beginning of Act 3.
Now my impossible trap was that I managed to piss off everybody on the vaccination slash shot topic.
And I finally figured out what was the entire source of difference between me and the people who were sure I got everything wrong.
It turns out the only difference was one word.
Do you believe that?
That we define one word differently, that's the entire difference.
And if we defined it the same, or just didn't use that word, We would actually be in complete agreement.
Do you believe that?
Watch me prove it.
That will require a whiteboard.
All right.
This might look like a rational process to you.
It should, because it is a rational process.
So a rational process is, no matter what the topic is, so it could be any topic, you would do your research and try to figure out what the facts are.
What things do you know for sure?
But because it's the real world, you have to add some assumptions.
For example, if you're looking at should you get vaccinated or get the shots or whatever, you might make the following assumptions.
I assumed that most of the injury from the shot would show up in the first six months.
But I don't know that.
I don't know that.
I assumed it.
And I assumed it because that's how other shots have worked.
Most of the problems showed up in the first six months.
So I waited six months before I got mine.
Now, other people made a different assumption.
Other people said, well, I assume that there could be lots of bad things that happen later.
Now, that's true.
I would share that assumption.
But I assumed that most of the risk was in the first six months.
I think most people would agree.
Other people assumed that the long COVID thing was artificial, and that there wasn't really much of a long COVID risk, so they assumed that wasn't much to talk about.
I assumed that since I didn't know if it was a big risk or not, and there were lots of anecdotal suggestions that it was a risk, that it should be considered as one of the big risks.
But other people assumed differently.
Now those are just some of the assumptions.
There were a whole bunch of assumptions about, for example, some people assumed that the medical communities in all places were making decisions based on fear of being fired or going along with the crowd or a bunch of other things.
So a whole bunch of assumptions about how people act.
I'm not saying they were wrong.
I'm just saying they were assumptions.
Now, I made different assumptions.
My assumption was that even if you had lots of people who were afraid, there would always be a few people who weren't.
And there would be enough people to make it more of a fight.
But there were, in fact, a number of rogues, people who were bucking the mainstream.
And some of them ended up being right in the end.
So, what would you call this whole process where you research facts, of course you have assumptions, you can't escape this.
You cannot escape assumptions.
Then you analyze it all, you use your best judgment and your reason, and you come to a correct answer.
What would you call this process?
Go.
How would you label that?
Somebody say risk management, deductive reasoning, Right.
Now, I did this stuff for a living.
So it used to be my job to make financial predictions for the companies I worked for.
So I would say, oh, here's our budget, here's what we plan to do, this is what it will look like three years from now.
And I always made a bunch of assumptions to back the things I did know.
So it was assumptions plus things I knew.
So do you know what I call this?
I call it guessing.
When I presented it to people, did I tell you it was a guess?
When I presented it to, like, managers?
No.
No, it was a forecast.
It was a forecast.
So when I talked to the people who were the audience for it, I said it was a prediction, and it was a forecast.
If you talked to me in my cubicle, and you were my coworker, and you said, You know, how'd you come up to this?
I go, well, the assumptions were so important to the outcome that it's basically a guess.
It's a guess.
Now, you could say it's an educated guess.
You could say it's an educated guess, but that's still a guess.
That's just a form of guess.
It's a guess.
It's an informed guess.
But the educated part and the informed part don't have any predictive value.
They don't.
If you believe an educated guess is going to beat a guess guess, well, I would argue that almost all guesses are educated guesses.
Like in the real world, it's just that we're educated differently.
So the education part doesn't help because we're educated differently.
So gaslighting.
Oh, that's pretty clever.
Gaslighting instead of gaslighting.
I like that.
All right.
So if you made this one change where people who do this kind of work know it's guessing, we know it's guessing.
When we do it, we know it's guessing.
You don't know it's guessing because I don't present it to you that way.
I present it to you as a well-reasoned forecast.
And then you think, oh, well, he says it's a well-reasoned forecast.
Showed all of his work.
I saw the spreadsheets.
I saw the columns.
They seem to add up.
Yeah, that looks like a pretty solid reasoning you got there.
No.
It is absolutely just a guess.
And all the rest of it is to launder your guess so that people like you will believe it was something other than a guess.
But it wasn't.
It was always a guess.
Always a guess.
And since I can guess either way, sometimes it's worse than a guess.
Sometimes you're just forcing the data to be what your boss wanted it to be.
So that's even worse than a guess.
It's purely fraudulent.
Now let's look at climate change.
I saw a great Podcast interview with Jordan Peterson and Currie.
What's her first name?
Professor Currie?
Who talks about climate change.
What's her first name?
Not Adam.
No, the woman.
Judith Currie.
Yeah, Judith Currie, professor.
Not professor, doctor.
Doctorate.
So Dr.
Who is famous for questioning some of the climate change predictions.
And I heard her story and I understood her for the first time.
Meaning I got where she was coming from.
I've understood her.
I just got where she's coming from.
I didn't know this about her background.
So she has the right educational credentials for what she's dealing with.
Earlier in her career, I think in the 80s, she first came to notice within the climate change conversation, because she did a study that showed that hurricanes were increasing recently.
And it was a potential suggestion that climate change was causing an increase in hurricanes.
Did you know that?
So at the moment, she's considered one of the leading critics of the prediction models.
Just the prediction models, not necessarily the concept of climate change, but the prediction part.
And that she started out as one of those people.
Somebody who is producing alarmist data.
Subsequent to her producing this alarmist data, Her critics looked at her data and said, wait a minute.
The data for the first 15 years of this period you're looking at, we know the data is wrong.
And we know why.
Like, we know for sure that data is wrong.
Then Judith Curry did one of the most heroic things you will ever see in the world of science.
She changed her mind, because the data led her to change her mind.
And when she started becoming more of a data expert, as opposed to a science expert, because she was sort of a science expert already, but she had made a mistake with data.
And then she was brought into the world of, you can do all the science you want, but if the data is wrong, it's not going to help you a bit.
And by the way, most of our data is sketchy.
So she sort of got there the honest way.
She's more like somebody who quit smoking, who's more anti-smoking than people who never quit, that sort of thing.
So she really got there the honest way by being on one side, if you could call it that.
I mean, that's a mischaracterization.
But on being sort of on the alarmist team somewhat accidentally and finding out that the data was wrong.
And then I think that changed her filter.
Again, this would be a case of mind reading, but I'm telling you I'm doing it, so that's not a cognitive dissonance if I tell you I'm doing it.
So I'm speculating that when something like that happens to you, you realize how wrong you were because you trusted data, that it makes you more distrustful of data.
The most obvious thing you would predict from that situation.
So I think that's what made her so effective.
I think having that Negative experience made her a little more distrustful of data, maybe look into it a little deeper than other people and find more problems.
So that was really interesting to see that little element there.
Now, she also makes a great case.
Oh, here's something I wanted to clarify.
You heard me maybe on a prior podcast say that the scientists have considered the sun, because people say, hey, the scientists don't know that the sun is the main driver of the models.
And I poo-pooed that.
I said, the scientists obviously have considered the sun.
If you're imagining that they forgot to look at the sun, you know, and the cycles of the sun, then you're crazy.
Of course they did.
But then I listened to the Judith Curry interview and here's what I learned.
Well, yes, it's true that the scientists definitely have looked into the sun.
So I was right about that.
But they didn't include it in their predictions.
What?
In other words, we know there's a natural sun cycle, as there are other natural cycles.
So, I was correct that of course the scientists looked into the sun.
Of course they did.
And then they didn't put it in their models.
So, So at the very least, now, by the way, that doesn't prove that climate change isn't real.
It doesn't prove that it's not a problem.
I don't know about that.
But it certainly proves that the models are ridiculous.
Right?
Would you agree if the known, let's say, cycles of the sun are not included?
It's probably an important omission.
And I'm sure there were other things like that.
Now, what was it that made that not included?
Was it knowledge certain, knowledge certain that it didn't matter?
Or was it an assumption?
I've got a feeling if you dig into these climate models, you're going to find some things that look like, to your mind, assumptions.
Don't you think?
Yes, of course.
Every model has lots of assumptions.
Some of the assumptions are so basic you don't need to mention them.
Like, I assume the world will still have oxygen.
I assume we will not be attacked by aliens between now and 50 years from now.
I assume we will not invent any magic pills to solve climate change, right?
So it's filled with assumptions.
Filled with assumptions.
Which I call Guesses.
So, this is my third act, ladies and gentlemen, where I've led you to at great personal risk, reputational risk.
Everybody involved was guessing based on my definition of that word.
If they would like to use other words and say, no, no, no, Scott, that's not guessing.
We call this common sense.
I'd say, okay, we're not disagreeing.
You're just using different words.
Right?
If somebody says that this is a reasonable scientific process, I wouldn't debate that because that's just words.
I would say, oh, okay, you want to call it a reasonable scientific process?
I would call it guessing, but we're talking about the same stuff.
There's no difference in what it is.
We both know there are assumptions.
We both know there's reasons and data.
I call that guessing, because it can't tell you the answer.
If it could tell you the answer with certainty, then I'd call it science, or I'd call it engineering, or something like that.
All right, here's another Here's another mind-bender for you.
Do scientists ever prove that they're right?
Do scientists ever prove that they're right?
Well, it's a trick question.
Engineers prove that scientists are right.
Only.
The only thing that you know is true is something you can build from it.
And it works.
That's it.
Everything else is tentative.
I'm watching the disagreement.
I'll bet you there's not a single engineer who disagrees with me.
If you can't build to it, you can't be sure.
Sorry.
Now, of course there are situations where you can repeat the experiment.
But if you could repeat the experiment all day and then you couldn't engineer something with it, The repeated experiments were flawed.
Because repeated experiments could be flawed.
If you can't build something with it, it's not real.
Now, I'm being provocative by making it an absolute.
There's probably no absolutes.
But nothing's real until you engineer it.
So I would say that engineers decide what's real, and scientists take their best Their best reasoned opinion of it.
Yeah, it takes a while for this one.
This one takes a while to sink in, doesn't it?
Your first reaction is, that can't be right.
But once you live with it a little bit, just think about some more examples.
There are plenty of examples where people engineered things that scientists said couldn't work.
You know that, right?
There are plenty of examples where people have engineered things that science said was impossible.
That's true.
The only thing that's true is what you can engineer.
Everything else is a guess.
Airplanes, good example.
The airplane wing, good example.
Scientists find supporting evidence and they can find supporting evidence all day long and it's still not real until somebody builds something with it and it works.
Explain cognitive dissonance in one sentence.
Okay.
So this was a challenge to see if I can summarize a complicated thing.
Because I made the claim, anything complicated can be summarized.
Cognitive dissonance is a spontaneous illusion that people are triggered into whenever their self-image is in conflict with the observable facts.
One sentence.
That's my point.
If you understand your topic, you can summarize it very easily.
It's not even a challenge.
Easy.
Right?
I would say it's a hallucination.
Yeah, I wouldn't call it confusion.
Is it an ego protection mechanism?
Essentially.
Essentially, yeah.
We have a natural desire to be consistent.
Are you on blood pressure meds?
No, not at the moment.
Summarize what a woman is.
Well, of course, that's a social construct.
All right.
Alright YouTube, that's all I've got for you today.
I think you'll agree this is the most informative and useful livestream you've ever seen in your entire life.
And on that note, I'm gonna spend some time with the locals people who are special, and I'll see you tomorrow.
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