Episode 2065 Scott Adams: Twitter Ranking Formula, Tate Brothers Released, Trump Arraignment, Trans
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Content:
Twitter ranking formula released
Tate brothers out on house arrest
Trump to be arraigned Tuesday
Trans entertainers are talented
AI predictions
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Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the highlight of civilization.
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Well, I'd like to start with an announcement.
Given the upcoming arraignment of ex-President Trump, And because of his legal troubles, I'm changing my endorsement to Joe Biden.
Joe Biden.
So 2024, Biden!
Joe Biden.
Biden.
Biden.
April Fools!
April Fools.
All right.
I am trying today a new experiment that should garner us the most number of viewers ever.
I'm using the newly disclosed rules of Twitter's algorithm, well, the rules of what tweets get boosted, to cleverly boost my tweet today using the new rules that have just been disclosed.
We'll talk about that in detail.
But watch the number count.
If I've correctly gamed the system, it'll be more people than we've ever had before!
Because the tweet will be more visible, I think.
We'll talk about that later.
Well, here's some big news.
The Tate brothers have been released from prison, but they're still in house arrest, I guess.
And here's what I have to say about it.
Now, you probably know I'm not a fan of the Tate brothers.
Mostly Andrew Tate.
I have a personal beef with him.
But his story is interesting.
So I'm going to talk about it anyway.
And what I realized was, he has the most interesting business model.
I tweeted about this.
Just think about Andrew Tate's business model.
According to his accusers, he taught women how to exploit men online, while also teaching men how to avoid being exploited by women online, and in general, while also teaching men that it's easy to make money.
And he made money doing all three.
He made money teaching women how to scam men, men how to avoid being scammed, and then men how to make money easily.
And he did all three of them.
Apparently, he made money on all three.
That is the tightest business model I've ever seen.
I'm not saying you should, you know, emulate him.
I'm not saying he's a good person.
I'm just saying that's a hell of a business model.
That's all.
That's all I have to say about that.
But, here's the interesting part.
If the Tates run house arrest, will that allow them to do public media?
In other words, will he go back to live streaming as soon as he gets a haircut?
I don't know.
So here's what you want to watch for with the Tates.
I don't know what they've done.
If anything.
So, I'm not personally aware of any crimes, but they've been accused of quite bad things.
So, while we don't know if those are real charges or trumped-up charges or what they are, here's the interesting part of the story.
As I've told you before, Andrew Tate is very persuasive.
He has the actual tools of persuasion.
And as soon as he got out of jail, as soon as he can talk, It's gonna change things.
In other words, we're gonna get to see how capable he is.
Because I suspect there's some real legal risks here.
And if he can get out of them, it'll be quite a show.
I have to admit, it would be a hell of a show if he somehow gets out of all of his legal problems.
But I think there's a chance.
I think there's actually a chance he'll actually get away with everything.
Or maybe he didn't do anything.
That's technically illegal, I don't know.
He certainly is accused of things that sound pretty heinous, but I'm going to be watching this both from a legal perspective, but also just to see if his toolbox is sufficient to get him out of this.
If it is, he's going to come back stronger.
And that would be interesting.
Because I do believe he is a risk to the system.
Would you agree with that?
I think he's a risk to the whole system.
Because the things he's saying are, you know, often provocative and, you know, you can have your own opinions about the ethics of it and all that.
But there is a certain truth to it that is very disturbing to people who don't want you to know those truths.
It's pretty interesting.
Here's my question.
There's a lot of news about these drag shows, not only for children, but for a lot of public officials and stuff.
A lot of drag shows.
And it made me wonder, how many forms of live entertainment are there for school children?
Because I was trying to think, why is it that if you asked me to list all of the live entertainment options for school children, I would only be able to think of one?
Well, you've got your trans activist dancing.
That's one.
What would be the second one?
No, I mean, that doesn't involve children.
You know, because children put on their own plays.
But what would be the... What's the other one?
And why can't I name one?
And I'm wondering, is it possible that there's also live entertainment that would feature Republican men Dancing with traditional wives.
You know, a traditional, like, fifties garb.
Probably there is, right?
But I'm guessing that they don't get much attention because they don't dance as well.
Probably.
They're probably just bad dancers, so you don't hear about them.
Now, one of the things that impressed me about the trans entertainers is that they seem to get They have no problem getting booked for gigs, apparently, because we keep seeing video of them.
But other forms of dancing, correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not really like, you know, big on the arts, but most form of dancing, don't you follow sort of a set pattern of movement?
Is that wrong?
Because the trans have a whole different way of entertaining, which apparently is very successful, and I've been trying to learn How they do it.
And it looks freestyle.
Yeah, it's freestyle.
And I was wondering how hard it is.
So I thought I'd give you a little dance performance.
It's something I learned from the trans community.
I'm not pretending to be trans.
That would be... What would that be?
That would be called...
Cultural something?
So I'm not doing that.
I'm just trying to learn from them and pick up the tricks.
Because I was watching one of the trans dancers, and it doesn't seem like there's too much to it.
I think I could probably do a little stretching first.
Alright.
Alright, so I'm not pretending to be trans.
Not pretending to be trans.
I'm only learning from their technique.
*crash* *thud*
I
think that was pretty good. - If you're listening to this... Oh, damn it.
Goddammit.
Sorry, locals.
I didn't notice my laptop fell over.
You're gonna have to... You're gonna have to watch it on YouTube or in replay on YouTube.
Now, I can kind of see how the kids like it.
Doesn't have rules.
Kids like that.
All right.
So I wonder what kind of live entertainment would also be allowed.
Do you think if the military had a dance troupe, that the military dance troupe would be invited?
How about if police At some kind of a cappella group?
Do you think the school children would invite them to perform?
I don't know.
Or is it really the trans community?
Are the only ones providing any live entertainment?
I don't know.
Anyway, so AI has been banned in Italy.
It'll be banned AI.
Specifically, chat GPT, open AI, whatever it is.
And their problem was data security.
But I think it's the beginning.
I think I'm the only one predicting this.
Two predictions about AI.
Number one, it will never be smart.
It will be an idiot savant.
And what I mean by that is that it will do some things extraordinarily well, like play chess, write code, do math.
It's going to do some savant stuff really, really well.
But it will never be smart in a conversational way.
Because it can't be smarter than people.
I don't see any scenario in which it can study people Learn from people and then become a super intelligence.
Have you ever wondered about how that works?
I know you disagree and most people would.
So I'm basically saying something that I assume most people disagree.
My statement is that except for those few like STEM related Very rule-based things, like chess is rules-based, programming is rules-based, math is rules-based.
So once you get outside of the rules-based scenario, the only way that we train AI is on humans.
If a human would say this, then the AI will say it.
And there's no way you can train something to be super smart by giving it infinite examples of idiocy.
There's no amount of stupid you could put into it to make it smart.
And that is actually the plan.
The plan is if you add enough stupidity into a database, the net effect will be super intelligence.
Am I making that up?
That's real, right?
Am I just completely ignorant about what AI is?
Or am I saying something that's so obvious That, how else could it go?
So AI can't be more than a bigoted, biased, stupid personality.
But it will have some skills.
It's personality would just be freaking idiot.
Because it's going to be based on people.
Now if it's not an idiot, how could it not be an idiot?
Well, one way would be if the smart people who developed it Gave it limitations.
And said, alright, you're not going to be allowed to say anything that QAnon says, or anything that Antifa says, but Black Lives Matter is fine, and we love trans community, and basically you're just going to get one person's or some small group of people's opinion of what is good and what is bad.
So your best case scenario is that AI is like the few people who created it, because they limit what it can and cannot do.
Or it's just stupid, because it's some average of stupid people.
So it's either going to be illegal or stupid, but really good at math and a few technical things that are useful.
You think AI is running the show?
I don't.
I don't.
Yeah, I've lost all faith in AI.
Isn't that weird?
It's supposed to be going in the other direction, where I'm supposed to be wowed by its capabilities.
I'm absolutely convinced it's useless.
Except for rules-based things where it can be very smart.
Yeah.
Now, it might be like an interesting companion just because it's stupid.
You know, you think, oh, it's just like a person.
But I don't think we're going to put up with stupidity in machines.
We barely put up with stupidity in other humans.
It's going to be real hard to take if your machine starts acting dumb in front of you.
Like, I'm paying for you.
I don't want to pay for you to say dumb stuff right in front of me.
You know, if you're a Republican, maybe you don't get along with Democrats, but do you want to sit in the same room for a long period of time?
Talking about politics?
Probably not, no.
So you're either going to make your version of AI, let's say your personal one you're using, you're either going to make it follow your personality, which seems likely, you're not going to make it opposite of your opinions, or you wouldn't pay for it, or you wouldn't talk to it.
I know, I've got a feeling that everything we predict about AI is wrong.
Which, by the way, is the universal smartest opinion on anything new?
It's kind of cheating.
You could take anything that's brand new and complicated, and you could just say, I've got a prediction that in 10 years, our view about this new and complicated thing will be very different than it is right now.
And you would be right.
Every time, right?
So if you just took everything we think about AI at the moment, it's probably all wrong.
It's probably all wrong.
We just don't know what is right.
But we should treat it like we do know that it has a risk.
So I don't know if Italy will be the first to ban it, but now there's a... ChatGPT had some fairly minor data security problem and that'll scare people.
Elon Musk... Oh here, this is interesting.
Apparently Elon Musk has already started recruiting AI programmers.
You see where that's going?
So Musk was part of the original, what he thought was going to be a publicly available non-profit AI thing, open AI.
But he left because it turned commercial and that was the opposite of what he wanted.
He wanted an AI that would just compete with Google.
And be available to everybody, sort of, or open source.
When it became sort of, some would say, captured by Microsoft, because they put an enormous investment into it.
Now they don't have a board member, and they have less than half of the shares, but I don't see how they could not influence it with that much money.
So obviously Microsoft has some influence over it, etc.
I think Musk is going to compete with it.
And I think Musk is going to build the non-woke version, because he's complained specifically about AI being woke.
And what he said was, if AI is woke, it will be a liar.
Now that's as direct as you could possibly be.
If you make AI woke, like humans, it will be a liar, like humans.
And what would be the point of building a liar?
Who would do that?
That's what we're doing.
We're actually building a liar.
We're building the smartest liar that's ever existed.
And right in front of us.
Because it is limited in what it can say.
It cannot do a poem that is positive for Trump, but it can do a poem that's positive for Biden.
That's all you need to know.
Yeah, one is inappropriate, and the other, oh yeah, sure, I can do a poem praising Biden, no problem.
No problem.
All right.
So that'll be interesting.
I think the, you know, it's enormously expensive, but he could afford it if he wants.
So if Musk builds his own competing AI, now I think he already has AI, right?
It's already in the Tesla, but it's a different version.
It's more for recognizing landscape and navigating.
It's not so much the language-based one.
So maybe he's adding the language-based stuff.
Who knows?
Let's talk about the Trump charges.
Allegedly Trump will be arraigned on Tuesday.
So there are 30-some charges.
What do you think are the odds that there are charges we haven't heard about?
What are the odds?
Do you think, because the only thing we know are leaks that are not really dependable.
So do you think the leaks are nailed it, that it's just some kind of You know, creative, creative prosecution that turns something into a felony that wouldn't otherwise be a felony and somehow he extended the statute of limitations.
It's all sketchy.
Or do you think that they also, maybe in addition to that or instead of, do you think they have something real?
Something they could stand up in court and people would say, oh okay, that's real.
It could go either way.
I think it could go either way.
But if I had to bet on it, just for fun, I would bet it's not real.
I would bet that Jonathan Turley has exactly the right take, which is, there's no question that it's a political prosecution.
Meaning that the charges would be the kind you wouldn't bring on other people.
It's just sort of a Trump-specific prosecution.
That's my best guess.
My best guess is that it is perfectly political and the charges will be weak, exactly like you think.
But just be aware, we could be totally wrong.
Because if you come back to me on Wednesday and say, Scott, he had all these surprise charges and you said he wouldn't... I wouldn't be surprised by that.
I think it's like a 60-40.
60% chance it's just what you think it is.
Weak charges.
And a 40% chance they surprise us.
But that's a pretty big difference.
60 and 40.
Alright.
So far, the only effect on Trump is he's raised a lot more money for the campaign.
And the polls have improved for him substantially.
Like, really substantially.
Do you think that is a lasting effect, or do you think, or is it just a temporary bounce?
Lasting effect or temporary bounce?
Well, some of it depends if he's still battling it during the election.
You know what would be the best Trump campaign I could ever think of?
He goes to court every day.
On Trumped-up charges.
Just that.
Just seeing him in court every day and having the, you know, the right-leaning commentator say, well, it's a political prosecution.
This is how Biden is running for president, by using the machinery of government indirectly, because he doesn't directly, you know, Biden doesn't control the DA.
But collectively, they seem to be acting as one, which is not a coincidence.
And Trump could win by just being in court when he should be out campaigning.
Because the thing about Trump is he's releasing all his policy stuff on videos, which I think is strong.
It's a very good technique.
And you know exactly where he stands on pretty much everything.
He doesn't need to campaign that much, he just needs to be visible.
It would be an interesting way to make him visible as a target of political chicanery.
So that could happen.
Alright, Wall Street Journal did a poll, and here's how they framed it, which I think is the wrong frame.
Listen to this sentence.
66% of Democrats think indictment is motivated Is motivated by the law, all right?
So in other words, two-thirds of Democrats think that the Trump indictment is not political.
Not political.
That it's just nobody's above the law.
Do you think that's the way to report that news?
That two-thirds of Democrats think everything's going right?
Everything's fine?
Here's the other way to say the same thing.
Breaking one of the longest patterns that we've ever seen, one-third of Democrats actually agree with Republicans that this is totally political.
Where have you ever seen one-third of Democrats agree with Republicans?
I mean, I'm sure it happens, but it's pretty rare.
Right?
Shouldn't the headline be, an unprecedented number of Democrats understand that this is a political thing?
And let me ask you a second question.
Do you think that the Democrats who said, oh no, this is totally about the law, it's only about the law, there's nothing political about this, how many of them believed what they said?
Maybe none?
Maybe zero?
Yeah, so I think the real story here is that even Democrats, even Democrats can clearly see this is a political indictment.
Shouldn't that be the story?
If one-third of Democrats are on the same side as Republicans?
The story is the ones who are on the same side, not the ones who disagree.
It's like a backwards report.
Do you see it too, or am I just babbling?
Is that point clear?
That it's reported backwards?
Yeah.
And that's the Wall Street Journal, who you wouldn't expect to be, you know, super lefty.
All right, 93% of Republicans and 70% of independent voters think it's motivated by politics.
70% of independent voters.
What percent of independent voters normally go left versus normally go right?
Because they're pretty dependable usually.
Is it close to half?
I don't know what it is.
But that, I can't believe that 70% are typically on Trump's side.
That's not common, right?
It's not normal that 70% of independents would be pro-Trump.
I don't think so.
So, they're center-left, right?
They lean just slightly left.
Is that about right?
60-40 Democrat, somebody says?
That sounds right.
I don't know if that's right.
But to me, these are gigantic numbers suggesting that Trump should win the presidency fairly easily.
But it's impossible to predict at this point.
All right, here's my take on whether this situation will matter to the final election.
No.
No, it won't matter.
Won't make any difference.
Here's why.
If you wanted to want Trump, you had lots of reasons.
You didn't need any new reasons.
If you wanted to dislike Trump, you had lots of reasons.
You didn't need a new reason.
Nobody needed a new reason for anything.
There's no new reasons.
All of our old reasons are just as good as they need to be.
But the one thing that could change is motivation to actually vote.
That could change.
Because I have to say, I felt more likely to vote because it made me angry.
And anger is not really your best reason for voting, but I'm glad we have the option.
So I've got a feeling that there will be 25 outrages far bigger than this between now and Election Day.
You won't even remember this.
It'll just be completely cleared out of your memory banks.
There'll be 10 new fake news stories about Trump.
And Trump will do 10 outrageous things that you can't imagine he said.
And then there'll be 10 emergencies in the world that you didn't see coming.
It's just going to be nothing but twists and turns.
So no, I don't think it'll have any difference.
The only difference will be that Trump got a fundraising boost.
He got a fundraising boost.
And it may freeze DeSantis out of the primaries.
If it has any effect, it'll be a short-term effect.
But in the short term, it could certainly make DeSantis pause His campaign plans, don't you think?
If you were DeSantis, wouldn't you wait to see how this plays out?
Because if he gets convicted, you might say, alright, I better get in.
If he doesn't get convicted, and it just raises his popularity with his base, you better stay out.
So I think DeSantis is planning to run, but also wait and see.
Meaning he won't execute, depending on how things go.
That's what I see.
Even Mike Pence, who is not the best friend of Trump at this point, because of January 6th, etc.
And Pence is even thinking about running against Trump.
So he's not the one who's going to defend Trump.
But, may I say again, that although I don't want Mike Pence to be my president, my God, he impresses me.
Once again, Mike Pence did the stand-up, correct thing for the country.
And it wasn't in his best interest.
Wasn't in his best interest.
Maybe it was.
I mean, because I respect him for it.
Maybe it was.
But I don't think he's going to get elected or anything because of it.
So, Mike Pence, once again, you have proven a model of human behavior.
I won't even say Republican.
I'll say he's a model of good human behavior.
I really appreciate that from him.
I don't want him to be my president, but as a human, he does set a good example.
Because he defended Trump.
He said it was just political charges.
Well, this is super interesting to nerds like me who use Twitter.
So Musk has released the algorithms, the actual code, the programming code, for when your tweets get a lot of attention and when they're suppressed.
Now, this doesn't get to shadow banning, but it tells you what kind of tweets Twitter likes and what they don't.
And there were some surprises.
There were some surprises.
Would you like to know what makes a tweet get more attention?
Of course you would.
So, courtesy of Twitter user NFTGod, So it's NFT underscore God, who I'm guessing is a programmer, went through the code and showed us screenshots.
And this is what he reports.
Now, I suppose it's a little early, so maybe other people might have a different view of some of these things, but it looks reliable in general.
So here's what he found.
It counts likes on Twitter more than retweets.
Okay, totally surprised.
But when you think about it, that makes sense.
The more people hit the like button, the more likely people like it.
So Twitter wants you to see stuff you like.
So if people like it, there you go.
Now, my behavior for a lot of tweets had been I would retweet it, Thinking, well, that's what's best for the person who posted it.
I wouldn't necessarily hit like, because often I would be thinking, well, it's not that I'm agreeing exactly with the tweet, but I think you should see it.
So I'd retweet as what I thought was a respectful way to treat the tweeter, if I didn't exactly agree with it, but I thought it was a useful part of the conversation.
Now, I would probably hit also like.
Because hitting like would boost its message.
And if the whole point of tweeting is I wanted to boost its message, I think that would be the decent thing to do.
So I'm already going to change my behavior.
I'm going to hit like more often, because now I know it helps the person who tweeted it.
Here's another one.
And it's a big difference.
It's like a 30 times impact if you have a lot of likes.
You get 30 times more exposure.
30 times!
If you have a lot of likes.
And if you have a lot of retweets, you get 20 times the exposure.
So if people like it, then it will go to more people who like it, and then it will go to more people who like it.
So the more people like it, the more people will see it to like it.
So, very interesting.
Here's one I did not see coming.
If you use multiple hashtags, You're not getting ranked at all.
Didn't you think hashtags were helping you?
It turns out if you have more than one hashtag, they completely remove you from the boost.
You don't get any boost.
And when I thought about it, I agreed with it.
Because if you have more than one hashtag, you're usually a bot.
You're usually a tweet I don't want to see.
I almost never want to see a tweet that has more than one hashtag.
I never really thought about it, but I definitely don't like seeing a lot of hashtags.
So Twitter helps me out.
That one was not obvious.
How about if you mention something that's trending, you get a little boost.
So if you can, you know, make your thing tie to the trending headline, extra boost.
Here's one I did know about.
If you have an image or a video attached, you get a two times boost.
So here's what I did with my... I always do a tweet before my live stream.
So today what I did was, instead of putting text, which usually my tweet is just text, And then a link to where to get it.
Apparently the other thing that they downgrade is external links.
I'm not cool with that.
To me, that's not cool.
Here's why.
I use Twitter for my own entertainment, of course.
But what Twitter gets out of it is my eyeballs to look at their advertisements.
And I accept that agreement because I like the product.
And the advertisements are just part of the cost.
So I pay that cost by, you know, my attention.
But a big, big, big reason that people like me would use Twitter is to give attention to outside links.
That's my number one reason.
My number one reason.
And I get de-boosted for that.
So, here's what I tested.
I don't think that's ethical.
Let me just say it that way.
I think this rule within Twitter, without being disclosed, is unethical.
Now that it's disclosed, I'm going to think about it a little bit more, but not disclosing that, I consider it unethical.
Wouldn't you?
Am I wrong about that?
That de-boosting an external link for someone who has a million followers and I presumably I donate a lot to Twitter by my activity because there's lots of followers that can see advertisements.
To me that seems unethical.
Now that it's transparent, I'm going to give it a temporary pass because that's moving in the right direction.
I'd like to see that go away.
What would you say?
I'd like to see that go away.
And the reason I'd like to see it go away is that it's good for me.
But I also think it would be good for other people.
But let's think it through before we get hasty.
If they didn't de-boost things with links, maybe that's all you'd see.
Everybody would just use it for free advertising, when in fact it's a platform for their own advertising.
That's what they built.
They didn't make a platform for you to advertise.
But how in the world could I advertise my link unless I had a million followers?
It's the fact that I built up enough goodwill in my Twitter feed that people want to go there.
That's the only reason that it's good for me to put a link in there to an external source.
Otherwise, I wouldn't bother.
So, I think this one needs to be rethought.
A little bit of rethinking on this topic would be good.
Maybe this is the best solution even for me.
It's possible that I don't want to see that many links in Twitter too, so maybe it makes sense.
But I got questions.
This one's a little sketchy to me.
Here's some other things that'll boost or don't boost your Twitter stuff.
If you're verified, you get a little boost.
Oh, let me finish my point.
So in the tweets that sent people to this feed today, instead of making them all text, I just did a screenshot of part of my text and attached it as an image.
So instead of just text, some of it will appear to Twitter to be an image.
Will that make a difference?
In theory, it should boost it by two, even though the tweet says exactly the same thing.
Now, if I had a link in it to an external source, it would de-boost it.
And of course, the whole point of it was to put a link in it.
But, here's what I tried.
I tried putting the link in the first comment, so it's a separate tweet.
Does that help?
Because it's not in the main tweet, it's in my own comment to my own tweet.
I don't know.
We'll see.
Other things that boost you or don't, your content, would be if it's media or news, you get a boost.
If it's a trend, you get a boost.
So basically, if it ties into whatever's happening in the real world, you get a boost.
And you get demoted if there's no text.
So you see a lot of tweets where somebody will just do an emoticon and then refer to something they retweeted.
Or just a picture.
So I think you need picture plus text.
A URL only will be de-boosted.
I've done that a million times.
I can't tell you how many times I've tweeted just a URL.
Because it attaches the image automatically.
I thought that was good enough.
But apparently not.
URL by itself is de-boosted.
And name only.
I don't know what that means.
Name only.
If it's a non-news item, it gets de-boosted.
And if it's a non-media thing, it gets de-boosted.
And they also calculate your account's reputation.
All right, here's one I don't like at all.
Your account's reputation.
So you get more boost if you're an upstanding Twitter user.
Here's one of the ways they decide if you're an upstanding citizen.
And let me tell you in advance, I hate this.
You get de-boosted if you interact with low-quality accounts.
Trolls.
If you answer a troll, you get de-boosted.
I answer trolls every day as part of my entertainment.
It's part of the show.
Like, I do it partly for my followers.
Partly because I like it.
It's just fun.
But partly because it's just part of my entertainment.
To show that I, you know, dunked on a troll if it's funny.
Like, I only do it if it's funny.
I don't try to do it otherwise.
But apparently I've been hurting my own business model by interacting with low quality accounts.
Do you think that that should be a rule?
I would think that if a big account interacts with a small account, for any reason, that should be hell yes.
To me that should be an advantage.
I don't see that as making my reputation go down.
So I don't know what this means.
This one I think requires another look.
Again, I'm going to stop short of saying it needs to change.
Because, you know, people put a lot of thought into this.
I'm just sort of entering the game.
So I'm open to a better argument.
There might be an argument that it's good just the way it is.
But I just don't feel that that makes the world a better place.
I should be able to interact with everybody.
Small accounts, controversial accounts, Just anybody.
Anytime Twitter puts a limit on who I... Here's the best way to say it.
Have I ever given you my rant about anybody trying to limit who I talk to or associate with?
Have I done that rant lately?
Because you know I do it at least twice a year.
And I'm gonna do it right now.
Nobody can tell me who to fucking talk to.
Nobody can tell me who to fucking associate with.
I will tweet whoever the fuck I want.
For any reason whatsoever.
You cannot tell me who to associate with.
This is fucking America.
I will associate with the worst people in the world for any reason I want.
Could be for entertainment.
Could be because I want to change their minds.
Could be because it's interesting.
Could be because it's news.
Don't fucking tell me who I can talk to.
Don't fucking tell me who I can associate with.
Don't fucking tell me who I can retweet.
And that's what Twitter's doing.
Now I know that I will be penalized for associating with people that Twitter believes are low quality.
Are you okay with that?
Are you okay with that?
I'm not.
I'm not okay with that.
Now, I will allow that there might be a better argument than I'm aware of for having this algorithm.
But I doubt it's going to be good enough.
Because if you give me any, any, any, any fucking reason that I'm cut off from any other people that I want to talk to, unacceptable.
Completely unacceptable.
That's my take.
And I don't mind being cancelled, because I would rather associate any way I want.
That's my preference.
Alright, let's see.
There's a file of blacklisted topics, but the file is not available to us.
Do you think you should be?
So, Elon is in favor of transparency, and I love everything about that, so nothing but compliments for that.
But, he released the code that determines if you get boosted or suppressed, but part of the code addresses a database of secret words.
And if you use accidentally one of the secret words, you'll get de-boosted.
I think transparency requires me to know those words.
Am I wrong?
It's not transparency if they don't tell us what words deboost me.
Yeah, I'm totally right.
So I haven't heard anything from Musk saying he would or would not release that database.
I feel like he would.
Am I wrong?
If Elon Musk later said, oh, we can't release the database of sensitive words that de-boost you, I would have some real concerns about that.
Real concerns.
Because that would allow you to boost or de-boost anything independent of all those other rules.
I mean, maybe all the other rules don't even kick in if you hit one of those bad words.
Do you think that you're going to get an extra boost for having an image attached If you said a bad word, you know, one of the banned categories?
I don't think so.
My guess, and I don't know this, this is speculation, is more like how I would have built the system.
If the banned words really matter, they would cancel all the rest of the algorithm.
Am I right?
Because that would be the top priority.
Because if you said, oh, the Holocaust is not real, Do you think that they care if you have an image attached?
I don't think so.
I think there's nothing you can do if you trip one of the bad words.
That's my guess.
Because that's the way I would have built it.
I would have built it, you hit that word, you're done.
There's nothing else to talk about.
Now, in normal communications, I will swear, because sometimes it brings attention to something that you want to highlight.
As I just did.
So in normal communications, a strategic amount of inappropriateness is actually good communication.
Did you know that?
Doing something that sort of violates an expectation, shocks you just a little bit, is actually part of effective communications.
But Twitter is going to say, oh, you use one of those attention-getting words.
I'm going to give you no attention.
I think that one needs to be re-examined, or we need to see the list.
I say need, but it's more a request.
I would request, in the name of transparency, I think we should see the banned words.
It could be that when you see them, you'll agree with them totally, right?
It's going to be a bunch of anti-Semitic stuff, and you're going to look at them and say, alright, I agree.
But we should know.
New York Times said it's not going to pay for Twitter, so it's not going to get verified.
Why is that?
Is that such a big expense, $10 a month, that New York Times doesn't want to pay for their reporters to be on Twitter and verified?
And are you telling me that a reporter, a New York Times reporter, are you telling me that they won't just get their own verification for $10 a month?
Because don't you think New York Times reporters want to have lots of followers?
Because that's how they get their own stories boosted.
They tweet their own story.
That's what gets it boosted.
That's how they get raises and better jobs.
So maybe the company New York Times won't pay for Pay for what he called a verified account.
But I would think the reporters will.
But my comment on this is if the New York Times gets de-boosted, I don't know if that's bad.
It's just one more fake news entity getting de-boosted.
So what's the difference?
What's that say?
All right.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the number of people who think that a college degree is a good idea is way down.
42% of people in the recent survey said getting a college degree isn't worth it.
And that's a big increase from what they used to say.
What do you think?
Do you think this story is accurately reported?
That 42% of people think college degrees aren't worth it?
No, it's not accurately reported.
It's not accurately reported at all.
It's not even close to accurately reported.
Allow me to help.
People who got bullshit degrees realize that they were bullshit.
People who got engineering degrees are enjoying their careers and making lots of money.
That's the story.
The story is colleges are offering bullshit.
And mostly women.
If I may be sexist for a moment.
Not completely women, of course.
But more women than men are taking the majors that don't have a big career boost.
And more men than women are taking STEM classes.
I don't know.
It looks to me exactly the way it's supposed to look.
To me, people who get valuable degrees believe they got valuable degrees.
And the people who took courses that were clearly not valuable know that they took courses that are clearly not valuable.
Now, may I add a super sexist commentary on this?
Who's up for super sexism?
Super sexism?
Anybody?
In the form of entertainment?
Super sexism.
I forgot what I was going to say.
I actually did forget what I was going to say.
It'll come back to me.
Yeah, it was really good though.
You know, if you'd heard it, I believe you would have enjoyed it.
It'll come back to me.
Alright.
Let's see.
Women and older Americans are driving the decline in confidence in college.
Why do you think it is that women and older Americans are driving... Oh, I got it.
I just remembered the super sexist thing.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but when I went to college a billion years ago, it was a common joke, very sexist joke, To say that if a young woman was in college, that she was there for her MRS degree.
You've heard that, right?
The MRS degree?
That would be one good reason to go to college and people who went to college and got married and met their future husband or future wife would probably have a better view of marriage or a better view of college.
Because college definitely had that benefit.
It makes you more marriageable.
I would also argue that a woman who wants to bag a high-income husband, which I believe is from biological reasons is entirely appropriate, It's just a natural impulse.
That the best way to do that would be to go to college yourself, even if you got a bullshit degree.
Am I right?
A woman with a bullshit college degree is more likely to attach to get a high-income husband, because the high-income husband, you know, is looking for somebody who has maybe similar credentials.
Now, fast forward to today.
Does your college experience help you get married in 2023?
Yes or no?
No.
It makes it far less likely you'll get married.
Because college is what makes you unappealing to men in 2023.
Let me say that again.
In the 70s, a woman with a college degree, any kind, any kind of college degree, I would automatically say, There's somebody I could have a conversation with.
If they needed to work, optionally.
If they needed to, maybe a little boost.
And I would say that's definitely one more variable in the marriageable department.
Now, I would not limit myself to somebody who went to college.
That's not like a requirement or anything.
But it'd be one thing you'd put on the good pile.
And in fact, my first marriage was not like that.
So it wasn't something that I had high on my own list, but it's a plus.
It's a little bit of a plus.
Now, in 2023, would you want to even associate with a young woman who had a typical liberal arts college degree?
I wouldn't even want to have a conversation.
And I'm not even joking.
That's like an actual serious opinion.
No hyperbole.
I would not be interested in a conversation of any kind.
Of any kind.
Because I believe that young women who are going to college have been brainwashed or polluted or educated, if you want to say it in a positive way, educated, to have a negative opinion about me before they've met me.
Am I right?
When I walk into a room, do I look like I'm part of the patriarchy?
Oh yeah.
I got patriarchy written all over me.
I mean, my middle name is Patriarchy.
Yeah.
You see this white guy of a certain age walk into a room?
I assume anybody under 25 dislikes me.
I just assume.
Because they would be trained that I am the devil.
And if I said, you know, I used to think Donald Trump had some good tools in 2016, I thought he'd be a solid president.
I would never be able to have any conversation with a young woman after they knew that.
That'd be the end of it.
Right?
The value of college has decreased not just for its economic value.
Well, I guess getting married is an economic value.
Yeah, I guess it's all follow the money, isn't it?
Even getting married is basically an economic plan.
Was that sexist enough or just right?
Was it just right?
I think that was just enough spiciness.
To get you a little extra flavor there.
All right.
You're welcome.
I asked this question on Twitter, in my highly scientific Twitter poll.
What is the bigger risk to America, climate change or the combination of DEI, CRT and ESG?
Well, this might say more about my audience than it does about the topic, but the answer was 4% thought Climate change was the bigger risk, and 96% thought the bigger existential risk to America was DEI, CRT, and the SG, and I agree with that.
I agree with that.
And to me, that's obvious.
Because with climate change, it could get bad, but we'll find ways to adjust and compensate, and we'll figure it out.
No matter what happens with climate, no matter who's causing it or not causing it, I feel like we're going to figure that out.
But the DEI, CRT, ESG stuff, that could be a kill shot.
To me, that could be a kill shot.
That could take you right off of the map.
Because this is a bug in the software.
Climate change is sort of a hardware problem.
Literally.
We build machines.
You know, this is the climate change story.
We build machines, the machines do bad things for the climate.
So that's a hardware problem.
We can fix hardware problems fairly reliably if we have time to do it.
But the DEI-CRT-ESG is a psychological problem that I'll call a software problem.
A software problem can take you offline right away and can put you out of business forever, you know, if it's bad enough.
So, I think people are right.
Now, obviously, if it were a Democrat majority voting for this, it would be opposite, I assume.
But I don't think Democrats have a full understanding of the cost Let's say the unintended cost of all of the equity stuff.
The unintended cost is that it's driving a population that you want to interact with because they have all the resources and the jobs.
That population wants to have nothing to do with you if you're infected with that mindset.
It's not about race.
You know, white or black, young or old.
If you have this mindset that white people took all your stuff and they better give it back, I don't want to be around you.
I don't want to have anything to do with you at all.
Not economically, not socially, not in any way.
I don't want to have any involvement with people who are poisoned, mentally poisoned.
All right.
So this will give you, let's say, a read of the room.
If you want to know the temperature of the room, Even understanding that most of my Twitter followers are leaning right or independent.
Here's what I tweeted, and I'll tell you in advance, it got a million retweets.
Now, I have over 900,000 followers, but to get over a million retweets, that doesn't happen a lot.
You know that, right?
Normal retweets for me would be 10 to 40,000.
10 to 40,000 on a pretty solid tweet.
If you get a million retweets, you hit a nerve.
All right?
So this one hit a nerve.
And it said, DEI is essentially a hunting license for Democrats to identify and eliminate conservatives from the military, government, education, and the workplace.
You can prove me wrong with an example of a conservative heading up a DEI department.
There are no, I'll bet, I mean I don't know, nobody's proven it yet, but do you think there's even one white male conservative who would ever be considered to head up a DEI department?
Nope.
Nope.
No.
This is nothing but a hunting license which allows Democrats to hunt Republicans.
Conservatives.
It's a hunting license.
It's nothing else.
And once you hear that, it's hard to think of it another way, isn't it?
It's just a license to attack conservatives.
That's all it is.
It got me.
It got me.
Because I'm sure it was the DEI entities within the groups that cancelled me.
Of course, it was the DEI people.
That's their job.
If you get hired to look for ghosts, you're going to find some ghosts, because that's how you get paid.
If you get hired to look for racists, you're going to find some racists, lots of them, because that's how you get paid.
So we've created a system In which we've actually intentionally inserted the thing that will destroy the company, which is a change of focus to ridiculous things instead of profitability.
So I think this issue is the killer issue for the next election.
I think if a Republican candidate Now, Vivek has done a great job in speaking out against these corrosive ideas, but I think this framing is the strongest I've seen yet, that it's a hunting license for Republicans.
Agree?
Because when you hear hunting license, that's a whole different feeling than, oh, we disagree on some things.
No, you're hunting me.
You're actually stalking me.
Let me ask you this.
Prior to me being cancelled, do you think there were any entities that were poised and waiting and watching, literally stalking my public activities to look for the little opportunity to jump in?
Yes.
Yes.
They were not ignoring me until I did something wrong.
They were hunting.
They were hunting.
Do you think any of the other big accounts that might be pro-Republican in some way, do you think any of them else are being watched carefully?
Well, yeah.
Because they're looking to get rid of your Matt Walshes and your everybody else's.
You know, a lot of them are safe because they're in entities that are going to protect them.
But yeah, they're all being watched.
Now the thing that I had that made me unsafe was exactly the thing that I thought made me safe, so I had that completely wrong.
I thought having thousands of clients would make me safe, because even if a few got mad, I'd still have thousands.
But I didn't understand that I'd have choke points, and that the DEI people could go after the choke point, the publisher, and just turn it all off.
But if I had worked for, let's say, the Daily Wire or the Blaze or something, and a whole bunch of Democrats didn't like me, well, so what?
It wouldn't make any difference at all.
I would still have my job, and the people who paid me would be happy that Democrats didn't like me.
So I was way more vulnerable than I thought.
But now I've moved my business into a subscription model so that I can protect myself.
And by the way, the value of the Locals platform and Rumble that bought Locals, or merged with it, the value of the Locals platform to free speech is just incalculable.
You literally can get cancelled and then still have a life after cancellation.
And I'm not sure that was true when Roseanne got cancelled.
Remember when Roseanne got cancelled?
Where did she go?
Nowhere.
Nowhere.
Because there was no place to go.
She was just out of business.
Now she's back.
But if she had done that when maybe she's not the ideal person to be on Locals, maybe she is.
But you can imagine she could have just recreated a different base of popularity with different tools.
Robert says, "Hunting is a more conservative meme, and you're digging yourself further into extremism and marginalization than necessary." I like that comment.
I like that comment.
But let me tell you that I'm surfing the sun intentionally.
Good advice would be, hey, stay away from the sun, you'll get burned.
I know that.
I know it's safer.
I don't want to be safe.
I'm not attempting to keep myself safe.
I'm trying to make a point because I think it's important.
I think it's important for our survival.
Actually, our survival.
We have to get this stuff right, and it's very wrong right now.
We've got to figure some way not to hate each other over politics and DEI stuff and bullshit, and not take our eyes off the profitability and the well-being of the country.
So, yes, calling it haunting is evocative of, or it reminds you of, extremism.
And then it got your attention, didn't it?
Did it get your attention?
It got your attention enough to make a comment saying it was dangerous.
So if I got your attention, that's all I want.
I don't want your safety.
I don't want your protection.
I don't need it.
I only want you to pay attention.
There you go.
All right.
I don't think the attacks on D.E.I.
where we cleverly change the letters to D.E.I.E.
I get it.
It's clever.
But there's no persuasive punch to that.
It's just sort of an interesting thing.
That's all.
All right.
Haunted us in Las Vegas.
You got hunted in Las Vegas?
Now, am I dangerous?
It just occurred to me to ask that.
I've seen a lot of yeses, a few noes.
The locals people are more likely to say yes.
They've seen more of my toolbox.
Oh, this is interesting, there's quite a split.
YouTube is almost all nos, that I'm not dangerous, with some yeses.
And locals is mostly yes with a few nos.
That's quite a difference.
Interesting.
Well, I'm dangerous to some things.
I'm sure I'm dangerous to some things.
All right, let me ask you another narcissistic question.
So this is purely narcissistic if you like to see it that way.
But I kind of need to know, like I actually need to know this.
Am I in the top 20% of people influencing politics?
No, not top 20%.
Top 20 people.
Top 20 individuals.
All right.
Locals, we got some yeses and nos.
More yeses than nos.
On YouTube, lots of yeses but lots of nos.
Pretty mixed.
Now, the people who say no, what do you think?
Alright, I gotta call out the idiot.
The NPC.
Alright, somebody named Decadence.
Their comment, in all capital letters, is ARROGANT!
ARROGANT!
OH!
OH!
ARROGANT!
Now, you fucking idiot.
I started this by saying it's narcissistic, but it also has some utility.
That is just clearly an NPC.
You couldn't possibly be a real functioning human with a fucking brain.
That you thought shouting that in all caps was additive?
Or what?
Entertaining?
Like, do your fingers just move?
Like, just automatically or something?
My god.
Oh my god.
No, the thing that bothers me is the boredom of it.
I don't know if that's coming through.
The sheer lack of creativity actually just hurts me.
It's like, oh, like, do something different than that.
Anything.
Just anything different than, all caps, agreeing with me like you're disagreeing.
We're arrogant.
Oh, arrogant.
Oh, God, you're so predictable.
Anyway.
Alright, so my view is that anybody who's in the top 20 people who influence politics is going to be targeted for removal either by the left or the right.
So everybody who's in that top 20 influencer group... By the way, you did see that Mike Cernovich is almost certainly the reason that DeSantis made the statement he did about, that didn't mention Trump, but it was about DA Bragg.
That was entirely, in my opinion, and I think Mike Cernovich's opinion as well, that was entirely one person.
And that mattered.
Like that was a moment that the whole, at least the right, was watching, the whole world really.
That was an important Framing moment.
And he made that happen.
One person.
So is Mike Cernovich in the top 20 people who can change politics?
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
He might be in the top 3.
He might be in the top 1.
You know, depending on what the topic is.
And of course, some people are more influential on some topics than others.
But yeah.
Yeah, I mean, top 20 easily.
Top 5, I would argue.
And if it was top 2 or 3, I wouldn't even be surprised at all.
Alright.
Who else is in that category of people who are not just entertaining, but influential?
Actually, like a policy will change.
Because of something.
Musk, of course.
Tucker, of course.
Steve Bannon?
Probably.
Pesabic?
Probably.
Russell Brand?
I haven't seen it yet.
Gadsad?
I think he's actually influenced politics.
I believe Gadsad is another one, yeah.
You know, I haven't seen Bill Maher influence politics.
I've seen him say things I like, but I haven't seen it change much.
Yeah, Elon Musk, for sure.
Jordan Peterson?
I don't know.
Jordan Peterson is insanely influential on a personal development kind of way.
But politics?
Maybe.
Bongino?
David Sachs?
That's a perfect example, David Sachs.
Yeah, Matt Walsh.
Joe Rogan.
Jonathan Turley.
Matt Taibbi now.
Michael Schellenberger.
Michael Schellenberger is moving the needle a lot.
Yeah, I mean, I would say outside of politics.
Yeah, so Trump and, you know, other people are influential in politics.
Andrew Tate.
Less so for American politics.
I don't think Andrew Tate is moving the bar in America.
Politics.
Corey DeAngelis.
Good name, yes.
Corey DeAngelis is single-handedly the biggest... Oh, yeah, James O'Keefe.
It's sort of a special case, but yes.
Miranda Devine?
Oh yeah, Ruffo?
Ruffo?
I don't know about Alex Jones.
Just because I don't follow the show as much.
Mr. Beast?
I don't think so.
Tom Fitton?
Well, I guess I'd need an example of that.
He might be changing politics.
All right.
So, and yeah, Gottfeld, of course.
So, yeah, if you don't count people who are TV hosts, or elected politicians, or running to be elected, there aren't that many people who are moving the needle Who don't have that job.
Well, I suppose I have that job in my own way.
Candace, Megyn Kelly, Sonny Johnson.
Alright, I'm seeing a lot of names.
But would you agree that at least where it concerns Republican related stuff, would you agree that there are about 20 people who are the one, Tim Pool, would you agree there are about 20 people who make a difference?
And then if the 20 who make a difference, probably the top 10 are 80% of the difference.
Yeah.
Top 10 are probably 80% and top 20 are probably all of it.
Probably just about all of it.
Oh yeah.
Victor David Hanson.
Good name.
Yeah.
But you know, some of those people are famous, but not influential.
You know what I mean?
I'll use Victor David Hanson as an example.
I don't know if he's influential.
I know he adds a lot to conversations.
I know that if you listen to Victor David Hanson, your understanding of context will be improved immediately.
That might change your mind about something.
But here's why I'm questioning his influence.
He pretty much is Right on the Republican-Conservative narrative.
Am I wrong?
So he may be adding context to help people maybe strengthen their arguments.
And that's valuable too.
Maybe that's a form of influence.
The reason somebody like Cernovich has extra juice, well, there's lots of reasons he has extra juice.
I mean, he's a singular personality.
You can't reproduce him.
And he has special talents.
But the fact that he's an independent, and you don't actually know where he's going to come out on anything.
Have you noticed that?
With Cernovich, you never really know.
It can sort of go any way.
And his unpredictability is a big part of his appeal.
So that's more persuasive, because when he takes what looks to you like a contrarian opinion, you stop immediately.
You go, oh, what's this?
What's this contrarian opinion?
I gotta listen to this.
Yeah, so he does have powers that you don't have.
How would anyone know the answer?
Gordon Chang?
Yeah, Gordon Chang has been a consistent China hawk and he probably has made a difference.
I think you're right.
And specifically on one topic.
Now, some people are more influential on some topics than others.
So, yeah.
All right.
So that's-- and PragerU is influential too, yes.
All right, that's all I got for today.
I'm going to say bye to the YouTube people.
It looked like my clever Twitter tweeting tricks didn't work at all.
It looks like the same size crowd as every day.
So, I guess now I have a question whether those Twitter algorithm tricks are real.
Because it looks like I just tested it and it didn't make any difference.
But let's find out.
I won't really see the number until I quit you on YouTube and then I'll tell the locals people what it looked like.
