Episode 2146 Scott Adams: Hunter's Plea Deal, Missing Sub, CIS Insult, Economic Data Faked? More
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Content:
Hunter's plea deal
Submarine still missing
CIS is an insult now
Cities are dead
Economic data faked?
Death for dealers?
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Good morning everybody and welcome to the highlight of human civilization, the best thing that's ever happened to you.
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Go.
Yeah, yeah, that's good.
Well, Do you remember... Have I said this directly or have I not?
So here's a fact check for me.
Have I ever told you that there's something wrong with the economic reporting?
That what we observe doesn't seem to match what the economic reporting is saying?
And the pundits, what they predict, doesn't seem to be happening?
There's some kind of weird disconnect between the reported numbers and some kind of reality?
Well it turns out that I'm not the only one who thinks that.
So Elon Musk was agreeing with a tweet by Dr. Benjamin Braddock who said on Twitter, the gap between economic stats and the actual economy is wild.
I'm now fully convinced that the jobs numbers, GDP calculations, all of it, it's all completely fake.
Now that's a pretty big claim.
That America's economic data is all faked.
Because we say that about China and Russia, right?
Don't we always say that about China and Russia?
But you think ours is pretty good, right?
Yeah, China and Russia.
Big ol' liars about the economic stuff.
But not us.
No, no, not us.
We tell the truth all the time.
But Elon Musk thinks differently.
He says the numbers don't make sense.
Something is off kilter.
Do you remember me saying I didn't understand why inflation was going down?
Like how could it be?
I mean, I didn't really understand that.
But maybe it's all fake.
Maybe the job numbers are fake.
Yeah, maybe the GDP number is fake.
It's possible.
It's all fake.
Now, unlike most of you, I don't have much of a problem with it.
I know that seems like a left turn, but if there's one thing you're going to fake, that I don't mind a little bit of faking, a little bit, you could go too far, is, you know, as I often tell you, the economy is a psychology machine.
People will invest because they think the economy is doing well.
If they think it's not, they won't invest.
And if they stop investing, everything falls apart.
So, should your government lie to you a little bit?
Alright?
It's a matter of degree.
Should your government lie to you a little bit to tell you that things are going well?
Because that will actually make things go well.
If they told you the truth, maybe you wouldn't invest, and then things wouldn't go well.
I don't know.
This one, if you're trying to sort out the moral, ethical dimension of this, not so obvious.
It's not so obvious.
If you tell the truth, maybe a million people starve to death.
Hey, but you told the truth.
So if I told you that if the government subtold you the truth, let's say hypothetically, if the government told us the truth and it caused a million people to die, starving to death, Would you be in favor of the truth in that case?
Go.
Would you be in favor of the truth if you're pretty sure a million people would die because of it?
Yes.
I see no's, I see yes's.
I see LOL's.
LOL might be the only appropriate answer to that question.
I see a lot of yes's.
So do you think that morality is objective or subjective?
This is a sort of a clean case where I think good people could be on either side.
I think you could be a perfectly good citizen and patriot and be on either side of that.
All right, well, it's certainly a possibility that our economic data is faked.
This again is one of the big national benefits of having Elon Musk in the conversation.
Because he has an unusual weight, because he's Elon Musk, he owns Twitter.
So his words have an unusual weight, but he also says things that other people don't say.
That's like his biggest thing, is he'll go into a topic that nobody important is really putting any weight on, and he'll just put like a whole bunch of weight on it.
And usually there are things that you need to put weight on.
Now, I'm not saying he's always right.
Nobody gets that award for always being right.
But I love the fact that he highlights issues that people weren't paying attention to.
He's really good like that.
Speaking of that, Elon Musk has now announced on Twitter that repeated targeted harassment against any account will cause the harassing account to receive, at minimum, temporary suspensions.
Now that part's not surprising, or even new, that if you're harassing people on Twitter you might get a suspension.
But then he goes on, because the topic he was responding to had this topic, the words cis or cisgender are considered slurs on this platform.
What?
What?
Where's he going with that?
So, it was in reply to a comment where somebody said he was being attacked by the trans community, and they were calling him CIS, cis, and cisgender, and I guess there's an insult where you can call somebody a sissy, C-I-S-S-Y.
Never heard that one before.
But apparently these are being used as insults for heterosexual people.
So now there's an insult for heterosexual people.
Now, apparently the medical community uses these terms.
A doctor on Twitter says that these are actually medically approved terms, cis and cisgender, which I believe.
Probably the updated literature has to have all these different divisions.
So it probably is.
And so I was challenged on, can they be insults if they're just medically ordinary words?
To which I say, yes, of course they are.
The fact that they're accurate doesn't make them less insulting, right?
The n-word I'm not even going to finish the sentence.
But there are a lot of insulting things that are not saying something that's a lie.
It's just using a word you don't like to refer to something we would all agree with, which is, oh, this person's black, this person's white, this person's straight, this person's gay.
So it's really just a factual statement.
It's not about being inaccurate.
It's just still insulting.
Now let me ask, I want to ask you this question because I want to see if I'm the only one.
How long did you go seeing cis all over the place in social media, CIS, without finding out what it was?
How long did you go seeing it commonly used and having no idea what it meant?
I think I went two years.
I think I went two years without knowing what that meant.
And you know what?
I didn't care enough.
I knew it would be a ten second Google thing, right?
Ten seconds.
Sis, what is it?
Ah, straight people.
Got it.
And somehow I just couldn't make myself do it.
Because I knew that the people who were using it, like, I knew why.
I mean, I didn't even know what it referred to, but I knew why.
I knew it was some woke bullshit.
And I just thought, well, I'm gonna ignore this woke bullshit until it's right in my face.
And then, here it is.
Right in my face.
So I would agree with the ban on that, using it as a slur.
Speaking of bans, Texas is banning live sex shows for minors.
Because you had to pass a law to do that.
Texas needs a law to stop doing sex shows to minors.
Now, obviously this story turns completely on how you define a sex show, but what it's talking about, of course, is the trans entertainment that has a sexual undertone or overtone or something.
But I think it's just hilarious that you have to pass a law to do this.
It wasn't happening on its own.
We couldn't get that done.
It was like, as a society, we couldn't figure out how to not give live sex shows to children.
We just had to pass a law about that.
Alright.
I'm in favour of the law, by the way.
I'm not against the law.
I just think it's hilarious that society is so lame.
You've got to pass a law to stop giving live sex shows to minors.
But, you know, I'm sure that the trans community would argue that they're not the sex shows.
So they'd say, what sex shows?
We're just being us.
All right.
So I've been seeing that articles about cities dying because the remote workers are not coming in.
Does that feel like... I want to just test this on you.
First of all, how many of you are remote workers?
Can I get a sense?
Remote workers, yes.
Yes or no?
Just the yeses.
I just want to see if we've got a bunch here, because I'm going to ask you remote workers some questions.
All right, we've got a bunch.
A bunch of remote workers.
All right, so here's my question.
The reason given for big buildings and cities going bankrupt is that there's not enough people populating them, so the big companies are going to pull out.
Why do people work remotely?
Maybe partly to save money, the commute is unpleasant and you can do stuff at home, all the obvious reasons.
But let me ask you this, for those of you who are doing remote work, are any of you influenced by crime?
Is crime any part of your decision for remote work?
I'm seeing some yeses and a lot of nos.
Okay, we're seeing some yeses, but maybe mostly noes, which I would expect.
But some yes.
I doubt it's the biggest variable for anybody, but I just wonder if it's in there.
So, in my opinion, cities are dead, but not because of remote work.
Because I think you could probably find a way to You know, find some of the use for the real estate or turn them into residential or something.
But you can't do anything if the cities are dangerous.
If people simply don't want to be in the city, it doesn't matter what you do with your building.
So, and since I don't see any hope that there doesn't seem to be any movement toward fixing the cities, I think you should just get away from any density.
Just get away from any density.
I don't know if anybody's ever done any research on this or if I'm just spitballing some crazy stuff.
But it seems to me that the crime and the bad stuff happens when you put a lot of people in the same place.
It's just a density thing.
You just don't see the same crime when people are spread out.
Yeah, I wonder how much of that is the issue.
All right.
President Trump had a, let's say, an awkward exchange with Bret Baier in which Trump had said he'd like to see a death penalty for drug dealers.
Death penalty for drug dealers.
Then Bret Baier pointed out That would require executing Alice Johnson, the woman that Trump famously got out of prison early, because she had a low-level drug conviction.
And Bayer said, but she'd be killed under your plan.
And apparently Trump responded, huh?
And then Bayer said, as a drug dealer.
Bayer replied.
And then Trump said, no, no, no.
Oh, under that, it would depend on the severity.
Now, this is being reported as an embarrassment for Trump.
What would be the embarrassment?
Where's the embarrassment?
He just said, if they're big drug dealers, kill them.
If they're small drug dealers, probably the Alex Jones types, that doesn't apply.
Where's the problem?
Now, you might think that nobody should be executed.
That would be a reasonable take.
I'm in favor of executing.
I would actually do summary executions of the big fentanyl dealers.
I think they should be killed at the border at the time that the discovery is made.
If somebody's driving across the border and the panels of their cars are filled with fentanyl, you should be able to put a bullet in their head right by the side of the road.
That'd be my preference.
Just summary execution right at the border.
I might be a little biased on this topic.
Maybe.
Just a little bit biased.
Possibly.
But I don't think anything else would stop it.
So if you want to stop it, stop it.
Now I'm not talking about executing somebody you think might have done something.
I'm talking about somebody who's driving across the border and the panels are full of fentanyl.
You should drag them into the bushes and put a bullet in their head.
Or do it in front of other people so you make it a public execution.
I saw a story that was that the Taliban did their second public execution.
Since they took over.
And I thought to myself, oh my god, this is going to be so barbaric.
And I thought, I have to read about this just to find out what terrible world we live in.
So I thought, I usually don't like to look at the details of horrible stories.
But I thought, this one, I don't know, I'm going to look at the details.
And here's the detail of the horrible story of the Taliban doing a public execution.
First of all, it was done outside a mosque.
That's a bad look, right?
Secondly, it was done to somebody who was convicted of killing five people.
It was somebody who was a mass murderer.
I think he wiped out a family.
And then the execution was performed by one of the children of one of the deceased.
So the child of one of the deceased got to put this guy on his knees and put a bullet through his head.
The guy who killed his family.
And I said to myself, that is so... That is so... Alright, I'm gonna give you a pass on that one, Taliban.
Taliban, you get a pass on that one.
I wouldn't mind seeing that, actually.
Honestly, if somebody wiped out my family, I would like that option.
I'm not joking.
I mean, I might say no.
But would I like that option if somebody had actually been convicted in court of law, there's no doubt about who did it, and they killed your family?
Yes, I would like the option of personally putting the bullet in their head.
I would love that option.
And I would do it, I think.
Pretty sure I'd do it.
Yeah.
So, I don't know.
So that story had like a little twist to it that I wasn't expecting.
I wasn't expecting to go full pro-Taliban today.
But we'll just limit it to that one area.
And I'm happy about that.
Let's see.
The courts have ruled that Joe Biden can't be a giant racist.
I mean, he's not allowed to be.
He's not allowed to be a racist.
Because the There was a proposed motion from the government just to be huge racists.
And then the federal judge said, you can't be huge racists.
Do you need any details on this story?
The Biden administration wanted to do something hugely racist that nobody would, nobody would disagree, by the way.
There's nobody would look at it and say it wasn't racist because they literally have developed a department to prevent white people from getting stuff.
It was called the Minority Business Development Agency.
It was going to be a new federal agency dedicated to helping only certain groups, meaning not white people and white males in particular.
So he actually tried to develop a department within the government for the purpose of discriminating against one specific group.
What?
Now, it seems like a small story that, you know, the court ruled on something, blah, blah, blah, because they always rule on something.
But it was only the court that allowed, that stopped the Biden administration from racial discrimination without any, I mean, just right in your face, just as clear as day.
Yeah, if you're white, you can't have this stuff, but everybody else can.
Amazing.
It's like amazing that that was ever a question.
But Biden can't be a big ol' racist.
So China's mad because Biden and a fundraiser referred to President Xi as a dictator.
What else is he?
He's literally, isn't he like a president for life or something?
Oh, but that's not a dictator.
President for life.
Totally different.
And then Biden is claiming that President Xi did not know that they'd sent a spy balloon over America.
How in the world, how in the world would Biden know what President Xi knows?
How in the world would you know that?
That's the most ridiculous thing to say in public.
You can't possibly know what he knows using your mind reading technology.
Alright, of course we have to talk about Hunter's plea deal.
Let's see how much of this is totally surprising and unpredictable.
Alright, so he does this plea deal that would keep him out of jail by pleading to lesser charges, etc.
And what did the people on the left say about the deal?
Do you think that the news on the left said it's not necessarily a sweetheart deal?
No, it's not that unusual at all.
Do you think that happened?
Oh, yes.
Amazing.
Your psychic powers were correct.
Big surprise.
The people on the left thought that was reasonable.
Now, let's see if you can get the next one right.
Did the people who are politically right, did they say it was a sweetheart deal?
What do you think?
If you haven't seen the news, take a guess.
Yes, they did.
They said, that's a terrible sweetheart deal.
And do you think that anybody tried to turn it racial?
Just take a guess.
Did anybody try to make this a racist story?
Of course they did.
Of course they did.
It's America.
That's what we do.
So not only can this story be used to promote whatever favorite thing you want to promote, I think I'd like to talk about racism.
All right.
White supremacy.
It's all over this story.
I think I'd like to talk about the unfair Department of Justice.
All right.
We got your story for you.
Right here.
So it's the story that's sort of like the Rorschach story.
The Hunter Biden story has no meaning to any of us.
I mean, Certainly, if he really took five million dollar bribes, that's a different thing, but that's not confirmed yet.
But his small little crimes and no victims have no importance to us.
No importance whatsoever.
But they become vehicles to carry your own little political message.
Now I've told you before that the stories about public figures, they're never true.
They're never true.
Do you think that you know enough about that Hunter story?
Do you think you know enough about the Hunter story?
Here's something you don't know.
You don't know if the plea deal included not being charged for the bribery stuff.
Isn't that a pretty big question?
What if the plea deal said we also won't look into any other crimes?
That's a pretty big, pretty big thing, right?
Now if you don't know that, do you know anything about this story?
Do you feel that you can have an opinion on that without knowing if this covered all future crimes or was limited to these ones that have been in the news?
Pretty big story, huh?
I would say there are probably at least five critical facts about this story that you'll never know that are deeply important to understanding what happened.
Would you take that bet?
Five key variables you'll never know, I don't even know how to guess them, that are part of the story that, who knows?
It's probably about personalities, and who did what, and who's related to whom, and who bribed whom, and who wants a job, and it's all that stuff.
You have no idea what happened in this story, except the very narrow legal charges part, right?
That part you probably know.
But in terms of what You know, what Hunter actually did, probably we don't know.
Yeah.
Looks like a pocket pardon?
Maybe.
But given that Hunter could have been pardoned by his father, what difference does it make?
I mean, Hunter could have just been pardoned for the federal charges.
And of course he would have.
Do you think there was any chance whatsoever that Father Biden would not have pardoned Hunter?
No, of course not.
There was no chance whatsoever it wouldn't have happened.
Is there any father who wouldn't pardon their son for a victimless crime?
No.
I mean maybe if it was a murder or something.
So Hunter never had any risk of going to jail as long as dad was in charge.
Now, let me throw speculation into the mix that I have not seen anybody do yet.
I'm going to try to be first.
And you need to tell me if I'm first.
Okay?
Speculation coming.
Tell me if I'm the first one.
Biden was only running for re-election to stay in an office long enough to pardon Hunter.
Boom.
Now that Hunter, maybe, if Hunter is actually free of all the charges, And that would include the dad.
So Joe Biden would have to feel he's also free of all charges.
That might be the key for him to drop out of the election.
Boom.
My speculation is the only reason Joe Biden was running was to protect his family.
No other reason.
Because he knows that he's gone.
He knows he's not capable.
And there's no other reason.
That for Joe, it was just protecting his family.
No other reason.
And that if that's... I don't know that they're out of the woods because they still have the bribery allegations from Ukraine.
But if that got handled by this, that's a really big if.
I think he's going to drop out.
Now, he'll probably make an excuse like, you know, health.
His health is not good.
But it will really be about protecting Hunter.
I think that's the reason that Biden needs to stay in office.
That would explain Newsom's interest?
Right.
So Newsom could also be part of the larger plot to not primary Biden, but to just be the one waiting when the, you know, when the Convention happens.
I could easily see that the convention is what installs Newsom.
Would he have to file his paperwork?
How does that work?
Suppose Newsom had not filed paperwork to run.
He could still be nominated at the convention.
Does the timing work for that?
Because probably you only need a few weeks to do the paperwork and you could do it any time before the election.
Is there a deadline for paperwork?
Or is it just the election day?
Oh, it means... So yeah, that's right.
Dana Perino said that getting Hunter's problems out of the way might be the beginning of the Biden campaign.
Well, it is if Biden is still in trouble with other legal risks.
So he's going to definitely stay in office long enough to pardon himself.
I would.
All right.
Are you aware that there's a thing called the Marco Polo Report?
I forget who put it together.
But it documents, mostly from the laptop, I think, 459 crimes committed by the Biden family and their business associates.
And apparently no charge is coming.
No charge is coming.
All right.
The people were saying that this is a racial, Hunter's sweetheart deal, some say.
By the way, I don't know if it is.
So I heard, I went to CNN to get the other side of this, because, you know, everybody on the right is just saying, sweet art deal, but who knows?
So I saw Eli Koning, is it?
I hope I got his name right.
So he's a legal expert on CNN.
And I have to say that he's, I find him unusually objective for CNN.
So I was really interested in what he had to say, because if he said, this looks like a sweetheart deal, I would have believed him, because I would be going against the narrative there.
But his explanation was that it's very rare to have this kind of gun crime.
And I guess it was lying on application.
But the people who have been convicted usually had something else going on.
For example, other people who were convicted for this same kind of gun crime might have already been felons.
So if you're a felon trying to get a gun, or if you got a gun and committed a crime, well those are much higher levels of offense than just lying on some paperwork.
But here's the interesting thing.
Do you know why Hunter is not a felon?
Because of his other sweetheart deals.
The only reason he's not a felon is because he hasn't been charged.
So there's some poor black rapper in jail.
Kodak Black, I think is his name.
And I don't know.
So he got convicted on a gun charge, got three years.
I don't know what his complications were.
Maybe he already had a felony or something.
But part of the reason that Biden Hunter Biden is not being treated more harshly is that he wasn't already a felon.
But the only reason he's not already a felon is because he's probably been treated, you know, differently.
So everything about this just smells wrong.
Yeah.
So we've got the case of Wesley Snipes going to jail for not paying his taxes, but Hunter did not.
We've got Kodak Black going to jail for some gun charge, and Hunter did not.
However, I would caution you that those cases are probably not the same, and that there probably is a matter of degree, and it probably matters.
But I do think this is more of a class and power situation than a racial thing.
What do you think?
I say it's class and power.
And not even a Democrat thing, really.
It's just class and power.
I think anybody with enough power would get the same treatment.
You know, Republican, white, black, just the same power.
I think so.
So not a big surprise.
All right.
So we actually have a situation where Trump might go to jail for not promptly sorting through his boxes.
And Hunter Biden may be part of a criminal syndicate that did 459 crimes.
Maybe.
Allegedly.
And no problem.
That might actually happen.
But Can I say this for sure?
The sweetheart treatment of Hunter Biden guarantees that Trump will not go to jail.
Am I right?
The sweetheart deal for Hunter Biden guarantees that Trump won't go to jail.
Because the right would flip out.
The country would fall apart.
It's too far.
Too far.
Putting Trump in jail just, you know, on its own would be too far.
But if it's done in the context of Hunter getting a sweet ordeal and Trump not, that's not going to fly.
I'm sorry, this country doesn't go on business as usual if you put Trump in jail.
Can I say that?
It won't be business as usual.
If you put Trump in jail, the wheels are coming off.
I don't know what happens, but the wheels are off.
Don't fucking say you didn't see it coming, right?
If there's somebody trying to jail him for this bullshit.
And again, I'm not saying that he didn't break any laws or rules or anything like that.
I'm just saying it's too far.
Just too far.
Now, if it turns out we found out something new about his documents, that there were battle plans and he sold them to Iran or some crazy thing, then of course I'll change my mind.
But basically what we've heard is No victims.
And it's just Trump being Trump.
So if you go to jail for that, the wheels are coming off.
All right.
So this missing sub story.
You all know the submarine with the tourists who were going to go look at the Titanic and now the sub is missing.
I think it's still missing unless they found it in the last 10 minutes.
I was having trouble talking about this story and so I was going to ignore it.
And the trouble is that I have too much of a tendency to make jokes about stuff.
And these are people who might actually still be alive, might be in the worst possible situation you could possibly be in, or might actually be, may have already passed.
Just because there's a billionaire on there and there's a funny story about the diversity hires and stuff, it's hard for me to talk about this one.
Because it's just too sad.
It's just too sad.
It's also funny.
That's the problem.
I can't ignore the fact that there's a funny part of this, but I don't feel comfortable making those jokes.
At least in public.
Privately, maybe.
But publicly, I don't know, it just feels a little extra for me.
But I will tell you what people are talking about.
They're talking about how, and this is unfortunate, the CEO of this venture, who owns and operates the submarine, had said on video, and of course it's going around today, that he was very proud of the fact that they weren't going to hire a bunch of 50-year-old old white guys with experience Because they weren't really inspirational to people watching.
So he wanted to get some young people who didn't have qualifications and then train them to be the operators.
And specifically, they would be operating a little game controller, like a little Logitech game controller.
Actually, literally the same ones they would use for a video game.
And I saw a critic talking about that and saying, Seriously?
It's not wired?
What happens if they lose the battery?
Do they lose the sub if the game controller battery goes out?
Who would use a wireless controller for something as critical as a submarine?
Now, I don't even know if that's true, but I did see pictures of them using something that looks like a game controller, so maybe that part's true.
Now, there is no indication whatsoever That these young people who are hired with less experience had anything to do with anything that went wrong.
So it's a very unfair story.
If you don't know what went wrong, it's kind of a stretch to say it's the diversity hires.
And I wouldn't say it's diversity hires, it's more like you just wanted some young people because he's an old horny guy.
No, that's not true.
Maybe.
Maybe.
Maybe it was just a guy who thought his company would be more fun if it wasn't filled with people like him.
He was like, I think I'd like to run my company in a way that I have some bullshit excuse to hire 25 year old women.
That's what it looked like.
Facebook is launching a competitor to Twitter called, allegedly will be called Threads.
And At first, I thought to myself, well, that's not going to be competitive with Twitter.
Because the whole thing with Twitter is that, you know, it's had a bunch of upstarts trying to compete for, what is there, Parler, and Gitter, and Truth, and I think there was some more.
And none of them worked, because the problem is that Twitter is just too much of a network effect.
If all of your friends and enemies are on Twitter, yeah, Gab, It's hard to leave Twitter.
You might also use the other ones for something, but it's just hard to leave Twitter.
However, Facebook has a plan that's made me immediately go, oh, they might actually pull this off.
And here's what they're doing that's unique.
You can move your entire Instagram followers over to the new platform with a click.
So you could come onto the platform with 4 million followers.
If that's what you had on Instagram, you just bring it over.
Now, if the top influencers come over with their 4 million followers, that's a pretty good service right out of the chute.
But the question I ask is, how many Facebook products are you going to use?
Are you going to use the Facebook and the Instagram and the threads?
Now, of course, Elon Musk points out that that would be a disservice to free speech if you let Zuckerberg have too much control of too much social media.
And I agree.
It would be a tragedy for Twitter to be destroyed by Facebook, because then Zuckerberg owns the world, because he would own all communication at that point.
All the useful communication, which is social media.
So this one's one to watch.
I'll tell you my gut feeling.
My gut feeling is I have, personally, zero interest in that platform before it is even launched.
Zero interest.
Do you think that'll change?
Is there anybody here who says, ooh, you know, that's kind of interesting.
I wouldn't mind going over there.
Is there anybody who's even tempted?
Probably not my audience so much.
Yeah, metabombed.
That's true.
So here's the main thing that you need to know about predicting products.
You can usually predict products by based on how people feel.
Just how they feel.
I've got an amp.
That I bought for my electric guitar.
And I've actually got two amps.
One of them does a really good job and makes a good sound, but it looks like something your grandma built.
It's like your grandmother designed it or something.
It's not fun to look at.
It's kind of brown and ugh.
And the other one is this little sleek design that actually excites me physically every time I see it.
Can you believe that?
I have to show it to you.
It is just a little, you know, rectangular box with knobs on it and stuff.
But whoever designed this little rectangular box with the knobs did something that I keep looking at to try to understand.
It almost gives me goosebumps when I look at it.
It's design that's, you know, achieved an artistic level because you can feel the design.
You just feel it.
Now, it's sort of like you look at some cars.
I was looking at a new Porsche the other day, go by me on the road, and I hadn't seen this model before.
It looked like a 2023 model or something.
And I thought to myself, why is that Porsche, that shape, immediately exciting?
Now, some of you maybe have different response, but I can't look at a Porsche without, I feel it.
Like, I just feel the design of that car.
Same with the Ford Bronco.
So Ford has a new version of the old vehicle that was the Bronco, so they have a new one.
And there are tons of them.
Boy, I was thinking of buying some Ford stock today, because I just keep seeing Broncos all over the fucking place.
And when I see one, every time, I have a feeling when it's driving by me when I see the front.
I don't like the backs as much, but the front of the Ford Bronco is exciting.
Like you can actually feel the design.
It's the damnedest thing.
So if you go with what your gut feels when you're exposed to a new product, that's usually a pretty good indicator.
Because the first day that the Bronco was advertised, I actually tweeted that it was exciting.
And I saw it on the road, and sure enough, first exposure, and it never changed.
It's exciting every time you see it.
Great American design.
Best American design, in my opinion, is Ford.
However, what I hear about Facebook is going to launch something called Threads that will allow short messages.
What does your body feel like?
Just dead.
I don't feel anything at all.
I don't feel anything.
Now that would be a bad sign.
But like I say, the fact that they can move, you know, 4 million users over or whatever from Instagram is pretty impressive.
So I mean as a business model that's smart and it's a big advantage.
So we'll see.
I would hope it does not succeed because I wouldn't want Facebook to put Twitter out of business.
Rasmussen asked some people about their opinions on war with China.
And it turns out that 44% of likely US voters believe it's likely that the United States will go to war with China within the next five years.
So nearly half of voters think we're going to go to war with China in the next five years.
How many of you think so?
How many of you think we'll go to war with China in the next five years?
A lot of yeses.
Over Taiwan, primarily.
All right, here's my prediction.
No.
No.
Do you know why I say no?
I don't think we're used to a country like China.
I don't think America understands China.
Because if you're American, you've grown up in a warrior culture.
America is a warrior culture.
We fight.
We attack other countries.
We find reasons to leave our borders and kill people.
We just can't stop leaving our borders to kill people.
Like that's, unfortunately, that's who America is.
That's who we are.
We're fucking warriors.
We go kill stuff.
What is China?
Now, China is super tough and, of course, looking out for their own good.
And, you know, we talk about the total war concept, that they're trying to hurt their adversaries in any way they can, etc.
That's probably all true.
But you don't see China starting physical wars.
And I don't think that's going to change.
Do you know why China doesn't start physical wars?
Does anybody know?
Why does China not start physical wars?
Because there's no good reason to.
Because they're a nation run by people who have good judgment.
That's it.
It's a nation run by people with good judgment.
Even if you hate them, they have pretty good judgments, you know, for what they're trying to do for their own good, etc.
The Chinese government is largely engineers.
Did you know that?
The communist upper level people, they tend to be trained engineers, STEM type people.
So you don't have a lot of crazy people there.
The other thing that, one of the reasons I think that Chairman Xi and China, they're all mad that Biden called them a dictator, is that I would also call them a dictatorship, but they're a modified dictatorship.
And what I mean is, I believe that the ruling party could remove Xi if they wanted to.
I think they could.
I mean, it would be a little bloody, maybe.
But I feel like they could.
So, yeah, it's an oligarchy.
Right.
So at the moment, they probably all get tremendous benefits from supporting him.
So they probably get lots of financial and reputational benefits.
So of course they support him.
So I'm sure he has full support.
But if he decided to start a war, I think that would go away right away.
And I think that the Chinese ruling party, being reasonable engineering type people, would say, OK, explain how that's ever going to work out well.
All right, when has that ever worked?
Iraq?
Afghanistan?
Vietnam?
When has it ever worked?
Ukraine?
Give me an example where it's ever fucking worked, right?
So I think that's the kind of attitude you'd get out of China, is if you can't tell me one case that this ever, ever worked, don't do it.
But in the United States, we don't even look at it that way.
We just think we can win every war.
Our military is awesome and we better stop that.
We better fight them there before they get over here.
Their dominoes are gonna fall.
We've always got some fucking reason that we have to go kill people in other countries.
But China doesn't.
China's like, how's that good for China?
Tell me again how that's good for China.
So I do think that China would move on Taiwan if they felt they could do it without starting a larger war.
And I think that ultimately, I hate to say it in public, but nobody listens to me anyway, so it's okay.
I think we would let Taiwan go if the alternative was war.
I think we'd let it go.
Now, of course, if I were a larger platform, if I were ABC News or CNN, I wouldn't say that.
I wouldn't say that out loud on a larger platform.
But among my limited audience here, I think We're talking among friends.
I'm pretty sure we'd let Taiwan go.
Now, I mean, it would be a gigantic fight within the United States, because lots of people would really disagree with that.
But we'd figure out a way.
And we wouldn't have chips, right?
It would be a gigantic emergency in chips.
But if it came to a war, do you know what we'd do?
We'd negotiate the chips.
That's what we do.
In order for us to stand down, we'd probably have to say, look, you're going to have to transfer a bunch of this technology to us.
Let Taiwan build some facilities here, in addition to the ones they have, so we don't run out of chips.
Then maybe we won't start a war, and you can have Taiwan.
It's none of our business.
I think if it actually came to serious war, we would just negotiate it away.
Unfortunately.
Very bad for Taiwan, but it's also China's problem.
It's China's problem.
And I have to admit, I don't hate the fact... Well, let me say it in a different way.
China is smart to be pressuring the United States and Cuba.
Am I wrong?
So China is creating something to trade for Taiwan.
So they're trying to build trading bases and listening bases in Cuba.
And I think that's all just to fuck with us over Taiwan.
I don't know that they really need those listening stations, do they?
I mean, they could just put a ship 12 miles off the coast and probably get everything they want.
I don't think they need the Cuban missile listening stations, necessarily.
Yeah, they could use their balloons.
So it feels to me like China is doing a, you know, every button you can push to increase the odds that they will someday control Taiwan short of war.
And I don't think there's anything that can be gained in the United States by having a war if we can get chips.
So basically China is going to, all they have to do is figure out a way for the U.S.
and other, you know, say European countries, not to be denied chips.
And probably we don't care after that.
They take Africa?
I think the Chinese investments in Africa are going to turn out not to be the best idea.
I've read some articles that that money seems to be wasted.
They're not getting enough back.
They have access to natural resources, which is good, but beyond that, it's probably not a benefit.
All right.
They didn't need balloons?
Maybe not.
Yes, so yeah, the Taiwan Semiconductor is building a facility in Arizona, but I think in terms of capacity, we'd have to build a lot more facilities.
We - yeah, I'm seeing the suggestion here that we should already be duplicating every chip plant that's in Taiwan.
Not as easy as it looks, because I'm not sure we have the expertise in this country.
You'd have to have the Taiwanese come over and show us how to do it, I think, which is sad.
A sad state for America.
And then we should do it, yes.
I mean, if they're willing to do it, we should absolutely do it.
Sure.
Yeah, I think it's already happening, but I don't know if it's happening at a scale yet.
Let me ask you this.
Would you agree with my statement?
There's a reflection in my eye?
Okay.
Here, I can fix that.
There you go.
Much better.
Would you agree with the statement that the so-called Internet dads, their power is rising?
Would you agree with that?
You know, specifically, I'm looking at the The Bill Ackman, David Sachs, Elon Musk, the Mike Cernoviches, sometimes me.
Yeah.
And it feels like it's a third force.
They're mostly, people are identifying with the right, but I don't think that's exactly what's going on.
I think it's more like a third force.
Not exactly beholden to a political party.
Yeah.
It's the daddies.
It's the internet dads.
All right.
It's because they tell the truth?
Well, I think that's part of it.
It's not just that they tell the truth.
It's that they don't have an incentive to lie.
That's what it is.
They don't have an incentive to lie.
So I don't have any incentive to lie to you.
Because my entire business model, if you can call it that, depends on credibility.
So if I get one wrong, that's bad for me, bad for you, bad for everybody.
So I'm certainly not trying to get anything wrong.
I'm certainly not trying to lie to you, because I don't have a reason to.
And that would be the same with, you know, the rest of the internet ads.
They're basically the people who don't have a reason to lie to you.
That's it.
The news has a reason to lie to you.
Social media is full of liars and trolls and bad characters.
So if you can't depend on the news because they're incentivized to lie.
You can't believe in government because they're incentivized to lie for their team.
But the only people who are not incentivized to lie and also are paying attention to things are the internet dads.
It's the only group that's both independent and paying attention and cares that your kids do well.
Actually care about your kids.
I got some pushback from somebody about my toughness over fentanyl and wanting the death penalty on that.
And somebody on Twitter said that my opinion is distorted because I lost my stepson to fentanyl.
So therefore I could kind of be discounted because I'm just dealing with my own tragedy.
To which I responded, I'm trying to save your kid.
This isn't about the past.
I don't really live in the past.
The past is over.
I can't get a handful of the past.
I just don't live in the past.
I'm trying to save your fucking son.
Mine's dead.
I can't bring mine back.
I'm not working through my trauma trying to save your son.
Then that would give me some meaning.
So I guess, well actually, I guess I am working through my trauma in a sense.
That if I could save your son, that would have great meaning to me.
And it would give some meaning to, you know, my stepson's life.
So yeah, there's that.
But it doesn't distort me.
It just makes me want to work harder to save your son.
Or your daughter.
Alright.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is... Oh, fuck.
I'm looking at a comment here.
My niece died yesterday from fentanyl.
I feel ya.
So sorry to hear that.
How much more are we gonna take?
How much more of that are we gonna take?
I mean, I just want to see bodies in the street at this point.
I honestly just want to see the border patrol just put bullets in the head of anybody who has a bag of fentanyl coming across the border.
Yeah.
So, Texas passed that bill.
What bill?
We have to adjust the cause.
Do you wish I'd used high density instead of cities?
No, not really.
I mean, I would get out of cities.
Why aren't we doing more?
It's a good question.
Good question.
All right, ladies and gentlemen, that's all for today.
