Episode 2339 CWSA 12/31/23 Goodbye 2023, And Why Does 2024 Keep Trying To Make Me Love It?
My new book Reframe Your Brain, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/3bwr9fm8
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Content:
Politics, Lab-Grown Diamond, Hawaiian Life Expectancy, Human Grounding Theory, Libs Of TikTok, Facebook, Belief In Science, Food Pyramid, Dilberito, Mental Illness Causes, AI, Bill Maher, Seth McFarland, Covid Vax Debate, Athlete Covid Deaths, Brian Lupo Gateway Pundit, GA 2020 Forensic Audit, Josie Redheaded Libertarian, Nikki Haley, David Axelrod's Warning, Houthi Attacks, President Trump, New FBI Building, Scott Adams
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Certainly the best thing you've seen all year long.
It's called Coffee with Scott Adams, and it's the best thing you're ever going to enjoy.
Period.
And if you'd like to take it up to the next level to get ready for 2024, yeah, that's right.
We're going to fluff it up 2024.
All you need is a cupper, a mugger, a glass, a tanker, a chalice, a sty, and a canteen jug or flask.
The best little of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee.
Join me now for the unparalleled pleasure The dopamine at the end of the day, the thing that makes everything better is called the simultaneous sip.
It happens now.
Go.
Ah, I'm pretty sure that was the best sip of the year.
Yeah, saved it for last.
Well, may I say something I will never say again?
You ready for this?
I will never say this again.
Happy 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3.
That's today's date.
If you look at the date, it's 1, 2, 3.
1, 2, 3.
Yeah.
I'll never say that again.
And if I do, it won't make any sense.
Well, I'm going to add to my list of accomplishments.
Turns out I'm quite proud of this one.
And if you don't mind, I'd like to take a moment to brag.
Sometimes, you know, you get into public life and you say to yourself, I wonder if I could make something better for somebody, somewhere.
If I could just make one person's life complete, or just better, then my life would be complete as well.
And it turns out, according to the Wisconsin State Journal, I have played my role.
They were looking at the list of names, popular names for babies, It turns out that there's one name that used to be popular back in the 40s, but for some reason, and let's see if you can guess what that reason is, that name is no longer popular.
That name is Delbert.
D-E-L-B-E-R-T.
And as the Wisconsin State Journal points out, people might think it sounds a little bit too like Dilbert.
And people don't want to name their child after a hapless cartoon character.
So I did that.
That's right.
While you were doing practically nothing, I was ruining a perfectly good name.
So there's that.
You're welcome.
Here's some news I didn't know about.
Did you know that during the pandemic, There was a shortage of diamonds.
Isn't that the most fucked up story you've ever heard in your life?
During the pandemic.
Oh, yeah, people died.
Yeah, millions of people died.
Millions of people put a vaccination into their body that they wish they hadn't.
But the real problem was a shortage of diamonds.
Yeah.
So do you know what happened when there was a shortage of diamonds?
Human ingenuity kicked in.
And apparently, lab-grown diamonds have been a thing for a while, but they were not accepted.
And maybe they learned to make them better.
But now the lab-grown diamonds are certified as being identical to natural ones.
In other words, in a lab setting, you basically couldn't tell the difference.
Diamond companies have started feathering in, you know, more artificial diamonds, which are, of course, far less cost.
They still have the normal ones, but they're, you know, a big substantial part of their business now is fake diamonds.
And here's the fun part.
They say that people getting married are actually requesting lab-grown diamonds because they're cheaper.
Now, if you got married And you gave your fiancé a lab-grown diamond.
Is that a good omen?
Isn't the whole point of a diamond to show off?
I don't know women get their diamond and they're like, ooh, look at me, look at my diamond.
He loves me so much that he paid two months of wages for my diamond.
How many months are you supposed to spend?
Well, what's the rule?
Two months?
Two months?
Let me say six months.
Two or three months of pay on your diamond, right?
Well, what happens when you're showing your artificial lab-grown diamond around?
You could buy artificial lab-grown diamond.
The total expense to make it was 75 cents.
But my fiancé paid nearly $1,000.
He loves me.
I don't know.
I just don't know if it'll work as well.
You know what I'd love to see?
I'd love to see an analysis in 20 years of the divorce rate of people who got real diamonds versus lab-grown diamonds.
I have a feeling it's going to be a leading indicator.
You know, they used to say that the number one indicator of divorce was the existence of contempt.
If you saw either partner show contempt, there's a guarantee of divorce, practically.
I don't know about these lab-grown diamonds.
We'll see.
It could be a sign that two people are well-adjusted, and that's a good sign.
Maybe they have a much better rate.
Well, here's something that doesn't surprise anybody.
Would you like to hear the least surprising news of the day?
Hawaii has one of the highest life expectancies in the country.
Is anybody surprised by that?
Have you ever been to Hawaii?
Do you know what you won't find in Maui anyway?
Traffic.
Traffic.
There's not much traffic.
But imagine how your life would be, and your attention and everything else, if the only change, the only change was no traffic.
You could just sort of go anywhere you wanted easily.
All right, well, here are the reasons that are given.
Of course, people are getting more sun because it's sunny all the time.
Apparently, Hawaii has very low obesity levels and low smoking.
And people do a lot of walking, and they have good health care.
So it turns out that if you have the sun, low obesity, low smoking, you walk a lot, get outdoors, and you have good health care, that your life expectancy is longer.
I'm just adding the part about low stress and not much traffic.
Huh.
I have another theory that I'm going to add to it.
Well, a hypothesis.
I wouldn't put more than a 20% chance that this might be true.
But you know what else happens in Hawaii?
People walk barefoot.
Yeah, Hawaii is sort of a barefoot kind of a place.
You might have, you know, The sliders on or something, but you can have them on and off during the day.
So what if it turns out that that grounding thing is real?
Where if you have your bare feet on the ground outdoors, it balances your electrical signals or something.
What if that's real?
I have no idea if that's real science.
I'm very skeptical of it, but I'll tell you something I've been experimenting with.
I've been experimenting with the grounding.
Except I don't like taking my shoes off outdoors.
Because it's, you know, it's inconvenient to wash your feet, but it's easier to wash your hands.
So I've been doing it with my hands.
Because nobody can tell me there's any electrical reason I can't do it with my hands, right?
So I just go outdoors, and if there's like a, you know, a rock or something, I just lean on the rock for a few minutes.
And here's the weird thing.
It feels like it works.
Has anybody tried it?
Just grab doors and just lean on a rock.
Just put your hands on a rock.
Just lean on it for 15-20 seconds.
I swear to God it feels like it's working in real time.
Does anybody have that experience?
I think it's psychological.
I think it's not related to anything real.
But I can't get over the fact that I can feel it.
In real time I can feel Some kind of a healthy feeling come over me.
Now, let me say this as clearly as I can.
I'm skeptical that this is real.
I think I might be talking myself into it, but what's the difference?
If you could put your hand on a rock and feel better, does it matter why?
Try it!
Go outdoors and put your hand on a big rock.
You'll see what happens.
You might be surprised.
Can't hurt you.
All right, Mr. Beast and Elon Musk.
Mr. Beast is the biggest social media presence in the world.
He does a lot of fascinating videos, so he's a big deal on social media, if you didn't know.
And he was being asked why he's not putting his videos on the X platform.
He had a little interchange with Elon Musk on that.
And the basic answer is that YouTube pays better.
And that if X monetized his videos better, that he would do it.
He says it costs him millions of dollars to make his videos, which I believe is true.
And he doesn't want to just give it away and have people watch it on X and not watch it on YouTube where he's monetized.
But the fun part of this is that apparently X is working on competing with YouTube.
So they're not there.
And I don't know the details and I can't confirm it, but the rumor is that X will have a more of a YouTube-like monetary sharing situation.
At which point, I think a lot more people are going to put video there.
All right, here's some news.
This is shocking.
I don't know, let's see if you're surprised as I am by this, but Facebook suspended the Libs of TikTok account We're violating its community standards.
Now, I don't know if you're as surprised as I am, but did you know?
How many of you knew that Facebook is still a product?
Like, when I read this, I'm like, what?
Facebook is still a product?
It's such a product that they can cancel people?
What?
Some of you were surprised at the cancellation.
I'm just surprised that Facebook is still something that somebody uses.
So we don't know what they were suspended for, probably the usual stuff.
But the person who runs that account, Jaya Rajic, she said this.
By the way, I freaking hate Facebook.
I don't even know how to use it.
I don't get it.
I don't like it.
Never did.
Never had a personal account.
I pay someone to run my Facebook.
I probably logged on once.
It's a pretty shitty platform.
I hope it dies.
It probably will.
It probably will because the censorship game isn't sustainable in the long run and the younger people aren't using it.
That is correct.
When was the last time you used Facebook?
It's my generation that's supposed to be using it, right?
I don't use it.
I don't even know what's the point.
I go on about once every few months.
Let me tell you why.
And I'm going to quote somebody on the X platform, Jay Dugan.
And Jay Dugan weighed in on this question and said, and I quote, Facebook is a good way to stay in touch with your misinformed friends and family.
Okay, that's just too good.
Yeah, it is a way to stay connected to your misinformed friends and family.
That's the only thing it's good for.
Well, you know, the misinformed need love too.
We love the undereducated and the misinformed.
All right.
Let me ask you this question.
What is the Venn diagram and or overlap between these two groups of people?
The people who say your vaccine should be required and you should wear your mask.
So that's one group of people.
The very pro-vaccine, COVID vaccine specifically.
And ProMask.
How many of them are also the climate alarmists?
All of them?
It feels like it's most of them, doesn't it?
And then somebody added, how many of them are the trans activists?
I feel like it's all the same group.
And do you know what the group all have in common?
They believe science.
They believe what they were told by the people on TV.
If the people on TV said it was true and their teachers said it was true.
I don't know what's stupider in almost 2024.
Believing your teacher or believing science.
It really has been a mistake lately, hasn't it?
Like an incredible mistake.
There was a time, and it wasn't that long ago, When I would have mercilessly mocked people who disagreed with the consensus of science.
Yeah, I was one of those.
I was one of those.
You know what changed my mind?
20 years of seeing science being wrong about fucking everything.
I'll tell you my biggest anti-science moment.
And I've told this story before, but putting it in context helps.
Many years ago, when Bill Burtt first started making me a lot of money, I thought to myself, you know what?
I'd like to, you know, maybe give back to the world that's been so nice to me.
So I thought, I'm going to do a business that primarily is to help the world.
You know, but if I made money, that'd be good.
So I started a food company that would try to make the most nutritious food item, a burrito, that would be packed with all the right food to have A good balance of all the nutrients and minerals you need.
So if you ate normally the rest of the day, or abnormally too, then you could guarantee that that day you'd get everything you needed.
And not from vitamins, but rather from like real good whole foods.
Pretty good idea, right?
How good would that be?
Delicious whole food burrito.
Everybody likes a burrito.
Yeah, it's got everything in it.
Different flavors.
You know, we had a variety of flavors, so you could get the one you wanted.
Great idea, wasn't it?
Well, here is problem number one.
Problem number one.
It is impossible to get nutrition from food.
That's right.
Impossible.
Did I say it's difficult and you have to work really hard?
Nope.
Nope.
It's not possible.
Did you know that?
Did you know that if you made a list of all the minerals and nutrients you're supposed to get during the day, then you said, I'm going to go get those from just food.
But I'm getting organic food, vegetables, maybe really lean pieces of meat.
Like I'm getting food and get my vitamins and minerals.
Do you know how close you would get?
And let's say you're a scientist.
You're even a nutritionist.
You know exactly what to eat to get the good stuff.
And you eat nothing bad, you eat all good stuff, and you eat a wheelbarrow full of it all day long, you won't even get close.
You will not get close.
Your recommended minimum.
Now what you will do is you'll nail several things.
So for example, getting enough vitamin C, not too hard, not too hard.
But if you eat a bunch of things that give you good vitamin C, your belly will be full.
Before you got any of your other whatever.
You actually cannot, under any circumstance, no matter how educated, no matter how rich, you cannot get even your minimum of vitamins and minerals from food.
Not even close.
You'll never get anywhere in the ballpark.
How many of you knew that?
Because if you talk to your doctor, what's your doctor going to say?
Oh, you don't need vitamins necessarily.
You just need a good balanced diet and you'll be fine.
Do you know that doctors don't know anything about nutrition?
I do.
They don't know anything about it.
Now, that's an exaggeration.
They do know about nutrition.
But they often don't have it as a lesson in their medical training.
I've heard from a number of doctors that what they did not learn was nutrition.
What?
Are you serious?
You went through doctor school without learning about, like specifically, classes on nutrition?
Apparently so.
Now, suppose that got fixed.
Suppose tomorrow we started giving them the best science on nutrition.
So that would fix it, right?
Nope.
There's no such thing as science about nutrition.
It's all bullshit.
It's all bullshit.
It's all driven by Food companies, or motivated somebody this, or bad data, or things that haven't been studied really.
So I started my food company, and the first thing I realized is you could not make a product that had all the vitamins and minerals you needed.
You'd have to supplement.
So I thought, well, how hard could that be?
Add a little supplement, nice tight product.
Well, it turns out you would have to add so much supplements to get the mineral content, it would taste like you're sucking on a piece of rock.
It'd be like putting talc in your mouth.
So then we thought, okay, is there any way to mask this taste?
And we tried really, really hard to mask it.
So, you know, it'd still be healthy for you, but you couldn't detect it.
Turns out you could do it by making it really spicy.
Really, really spicy.
But if you ate it with that level of spice, you would fart so hard that your socks would inflate.
And you literally couldn't, you barely could, you couldn't be around people for the rest of the day.
Let's say you could get a job inflating those Chinese spy balloons.
You'd be like, oh, we have a job for you in China.
We have these big spy balloons, need to be inflated with gas every day.
If you could just stand over here, eat one of these dill burritos, and inflate our balloon, we'd be much appreciated.
Anyway, so in that process, I learned that everything that we thought was science, including that, you know, the food pyramid, it was all wrong.
Every bit of it was wrong.
Now that was my introduction to science being completely made up.
As time went by, I became more alerted to noticing it.
I learned that most papers that are submitted to science, half of them don't pan out.
And then I learned that peer review is basically nothing.
Peer review just eliminates the people who didn't have any numbers to submit with their study.
I mean, just the basics.
They don't really check the math.
Peer review is just looking for the very top level, you know, does this look science-y or does it not look science-y?
And beyond that, it's probably people who are your friends.
Who do you think's doing the peer review?
Your nemesis?
No!
It's your science buddy.
Who you know is going to give you a good peer review.
So science has been bullshit for a long time.
It still works.
I mean, it's still better than the alternative, right?
But it's been mostly bullshit for decades and continues to be.
So if you were, let's say, on the side that kept buying everything that science told you, you would be in very bad shape.
You'd be in very bad shape.
On the other hand, if you didn't believe anything that science told you, You'd be in very bad shape.
So we're left to sort of our own devices to figure out what's real and what's not.
And so in those cases, what do you do in the case where you can't trust the science?
What do you do?
Well, if you're me, you make all your decisions with the assumption of bad data.
All right?
So what would you do on climate if you had the assumption of bad data?
You would try really hard to develop new forms of energy, because you would do that anyway.
So that doesn't matter what your data is about for climate change, you would still do that.
You would still work as hard as you could to make fusion energy, because it's better, regardless.
You might not, Do a lot for pulling CO2 out of the air, but on the other hand, if a startup wants to take a chance that that might be real and essential, why not?
It's a free market.
So you let the free market do that, even if you think it probably won't work.
You grow diamonds.
Yeah.
So I try to make my decisions on the assumption that I don't know.
Likewise, with the vaccination, I said, I don't believe anything they say about the COVID virus itself.
I also don't believe anything they say about the vaccination safety or effectiveness.
So what do you do?
If you don't know the danger of not getting it, and you don't know the danger of getting it, how do you make your decision?
Well, normally you would minimize any introduction of additional risk.
But that one's tricky.
Because the virus itself might have a risk if you're not vaccinated.
More of a risk, they say.
But it might be more of a risk to have a virus plus a vaccination.
Now you've got two things you're not so sure about, right?
So here's how I make the decisions when, in the context of no believable data, Here's how I make decisions.
For climate change, you don't make gigantic big changes to your situation without being pretty sure you have to.
So on climate change, I would be, let the free market work it out.
I'm going to need a lot more information before I change society in general.
So generally speaking, if you don't trust the data, don't make gigantic changes.
Small changes, just in case the data is right, that would make sense.
But a massive cultural change, if you're not sure, I'd hold off.
On the vaccinations, I didn't like the risk of getting the original version, the dangerous version of COVID.
Didn't like that risk.
I didn't know what it was.
I didn't like the risk of getting vaccinated.
That's why I waited as long as possible and put it off.
But there was one thing I knew for sure.
If I didn't get the vaccination, I couldn't travel internationally.
So that was my deal breaker, or what do you call it?
That's the one that pushed me to one side.
So making decisions in the context of really, really not trusting the data is a separate skill.
And it's not the one that you usually use.
The way people usually make decisions is they decide one of the data sets is right.
And that's irrational, if you can't tell.
So if you decided that the vaccination data one way or the other was right, I don't know how you did that.
You know, I can't do that.
Anyway.
So I think believing the news is a big problem.
And believing the news on science is an even bigger problem.
And I would suggest that there's a certain type of person who is likely to believe the news and believe the science and those people too much are in charge.
Who would those people be?
Stop it!
No.
No, stop saying that.
All right.
I saw Jonathan Haidt, who's got a new book out called The Anxious Generation.
He's talking about what are the causes for why there's so many mental health problems in young people today.
And they've got all this chaos and social problems and everything else.
And apparently if you look at all the science, You can determine that there are lots of things that could be.
Yeah, somebody's saying the food, somebody's saying the weed, somebody's saying the national debt, the internet, anyway.
But anyway, according to Jonathan Dade, if you look at each of those other potential causes, they don't hold up.
So the statistical reality of those other things is they don't seem to be causal.
But there is one thing that very, very much is right on point for causation.
And it's smartphones.
So, smartphones probably are exactly as dangerous as you think.
And here's the interesting thing.
Suppose we reach a point where every single person is completely aware that it's causing major brain damage and destroying the lives of young people.
Because we're pretty close to that.
Would phones be banned?
Nope.
They would not.
They would not.
But you know what might happen?
You know what might happen?
When I say might, it's gonna happen.
Watch what's gonna happen.
You know how even if you tried to tell your team, oh don't go to this site or don't use this app, it's a waste of time because they always have a way around it?
Have you noticed that?
There's always a way around everything.
Yeah.
You know what's going to come?
AI.
I'll bet you that in maybe less than a year, your devices will all have AI as their central to their operating system.
Right now the AI tends to be in an app.
But what happens when the AI is central to the foundational operating system of every device?
Which is going to happen for sure.
At that point, what can the parents do that they can't do now?
You see it yet?
We're probably a year away from a parent being able to say, um, hey device, uh, I'm going to give you to my team and, uh, I'm the one in charge.
I own this device and my orders for you are to watch every interaction and stop any interaction that is not child appropriate.
Okay.
We'll monitor all actions and internet traffic and prevent them from looking at bad material.
Now, I don't need to describe to you what would be inappropriate for a team, do I?
No, I have pattern recognition.
I am well informed about what would be bad for a team.
All right, let me know if there's anything I need to know.
Will do.
I'll keep you informed.
Now, tell me I'm wrong.
I'm not wrong, right?
Isn't the whole smartphone problem about to get solved?
But here's the question.
Given that I believe it would be not trivially easy, but easy-ish to completely censor all smart devices using AI.
We're at a point where now it just will travel with the child and it just will always be there.
They can't get past it.
Now you think you can hack it?
No, I don't think you could hack it if it's the operating system.
I think you could hack an app.
If you tell me that the children can hack the operating system, I'm going to say they did a bad job in the operating system.
They can only hack an app.
That's what I think.
I could be wrong, right?
You know, there's always the general rule that somebody can hack anything.
Anything can get hacked.
Maybe the kids will find their own AI that gets around the other AI or something like that.
Well, I've got a feeling that if you put AI on a kid's phone, you could really, really make a difference.
And I think that's coming.
But would Apple want to have anything that would cause children to use their phone less and be less addicted to it?
You don't want to do it if you're Apple, because if Android isn't doing it, every kid will ask for an Android from that day on.
Right?
Apple and Android are going to have to, what's the word for this?
Collude?
Unless it's a law.
You know what?
Maybe it needs to be a law.
I don't like interfering with the free market, but when it comes to kids I do.
Maybe it needs to be a law.
That your device has to have some kind of AI monitoring for teens.
I hate that though.
I hate having an extra law.
But I don't see the competitors wanting to cripple themselves if the other one doesn't.
And I don't think it's legal for Apple and Google to say, hey, let's do this at the same time.
Is it?
Would that even be legal?
Because that would be monopolistic.
What do you call it?
Oligopoly business?
Cartel.
It'd be kind of a cartel situation.
Anyway, I think AI is going to drastically change what we're doing to our children.
I hope it's for the good.
Many of you saw the viral clips of Bill Maher in his Club Random talking to Seth MacFarlane on the situation of vaccinations.
Now, a lot of people had a lot of comments about it, and I'm going to give you mine.
Number one, who won the debate?
Did Seth MacFarlane, who is relatively pro-vaccination, COVID vaccination, win?
Or did Bill Maher, who wasn't anti-vaccination or anti-COVID vaccination, but rather thought they were overdone and mandatory?
So even Bill Maher says, probably for the elderly and the obese, it probably gave them an advantage.
So where they agree is it might have been better than bad for a certain class of people.
But beyond that, Seth would be more pro-vaccination for COVID, at least in the past.
And Bill would be, you know, hey, leave me alone.
It's my decision what to put in my body.
Now, they're both, I would say, well above average in intelligence, based on their work.
There's no way that Seth is anything but smarter than average.
And there's no way that Bill Maher is anything but smarter than average.
And a lot.
They're not just a little bit smarter than average.
Both of them are a lot smarter than average, and it's obvious in all of their work.
Now, what do two people who seem to genuinely care, so they care about the issue because they both tweeted and talked about it in public, they care, they're very smart, and then they debate the issue.
How did it go?
Well, let me tell you who won.
Seth MacFarlane won the debate.
Not easily.
But, you know, it wasn't exactly a fair contest.
And when I say he won the debate, hold on, don't get mad at me, let me explain.
When I say that Seth won the debate, I mean that if you were a viewer who didn't know anything on your own... Oh, we got the 34-minute glitch again?
Weird mystery.
34 minutes in, we get some kind of technical If you did not know anything on your own about the vaccinations, that you just saw these two people talk, you probably would have backed McFarlane.
Because he made his points without sounding crazy.
It's just that some of them were not factual.
Now, here was my take.
I thought that neither of them were well informed.
What did you think?
In my opinion, neither of them were well informed.
So I had this weird situation of watching two people who were both, in my opinion, poorly informed on really basic stuff.
Like real basic, you know, just everybody should know this.
And this is how I see the entire argument.
It's definitely true that somebody's right and somebody is more wrong about the benefits and costs of vaccinations.
Somebody's right.
But my observation is this.
It's two groups arguing poorly.
But one of them is right.
And it's not because their argument is good, because their arguments are terrible.
I see terrible arguments on both sides.
Almost universally.
Almost universally terrible arguments.
I don't know what that's all about.
And I'm not getting into the details.
I'm just saying it's my take that it's just all terrible.
Now, here's what I think both sides get wrong.
Both sides who are sure of their opinion have decided that some of the data is bad, but there is some other data that's good.
How the hell did he come to that conclusion?
That there's some good data?
There's no good data.
Even if some of it is correct, you have no way of knowing.
Let me say that again.
Even if there's some correct data on the pandemic and vaccination, even if there is, you don't know which is correct, and you have no way to know what is correct.
There is no way for you personally to know what is correct.
So almost all of you have made the decision You're looking at the correct stuff.
The other people somehow missed all the correct stuff, and they're looking at the wrong stuff.
I don't see any of that.
I see two groups that are looking at things they couldn't possibly know are true or not.
Well, sometimes you can know what's not true, but you can't tell what's true.
You don't have that ability.
None of us do.
I don't.
So when I made my decisions, I made it under the assumption that none of the data is reliable in any direction.
And then I guessed.
So when I said, I'm guessing, I wanted to make sure that later if I said I got the right answer, let's say hypothetically I could find out I had guessed right, I didn't want you to say, man, Scott, you were pretty smart.
I guess you analyzed that correctly.
Because I didn't.
I didn't.
I couldn't.
There's no way I could.
I just guessed because I had to travel.
Well, I didn't have to, but I wanted to.
So we're in kind of an absurdity situation there.
And I use that as my example of why we're probably in this simulation.
And I'm going to take this down to another detail.
But let me take a basic fact about the pandemic and watch what happens in the comments.
Watch this.
True or false, we now know, you know, because some time has gone by, we now know with certainty, true or false, That young healthy athletes were dropping dead on the field at an alarming rate that could only be related to the vaccinations.
Go!
True or false?
True statement or false statement?
That we know for sure at this point that athletes were dropping like flies because of the vaccination.
Okay, now you're blowing my mind here.
I'm seeing 90% false.
I really thought you were going to say true.
I'm seeing a lot of true.
All right, so we have enough people saying true.
So check the comments.
If you're one of the people saying it's true, how do you explain all the people saying it's false?
And if you say it's false, how do you explain all the people saying it's true?
How do you explain it?
Let me explain it.
In both cases, The people thing is true, and the people thing is not true.
You latched on to some data, and you decided that one of them was true.
And what reason and knowledge did you bring to decide which ones are true?
I don't know.
I have no idea how you did that.
How'd you do that?
How'd you do that?
I'll tell you the best I can do, since I don't know what data is true.
The best I can do is say, does the data match, you know, observation and anecdotal?
And does it change over time?
I mean, there's a very few things you can actually have some confidence of.
And here's what I think.
We're sitting here at the cusp of 2024.
Do you believe, for those of you who said it's true, that the athletes were dropping like flies, for those of you who think it's true, Do you think that that story would have gone away?
Because it did.
Do you think it would just go away?
I don't see how it could.
It would be the most obvious, noticeable, biggest story in the world.
If that were true, it's all we would be talking about.
We wouldn't be talking about anything else if that were true.
Now, Is that a good standard?
Is my standard that by now, if such a radical, incredible, horrible thing had been happening, we would know that for sure, right?
Like, in the beginning, we could be uncertain.
There's all, you know, it's fog of war.
It's still during the pandemic.
We don't know who's lying.
But today?
You don't think today we have a pretty good handle on whether that was real?
Today?
Yeah, so I don't know for sure, but I'll tell you I live in the world in which it never happened.
I can tell you that the sources that almost all of you used were definitely just made up.
So the primary sources for that claim are like one website that was pretty well proven that they made shit up.
They listed people who were alive, people who died of other things, blah, blah, blah.
So I live in the world where that never happened.
But as you saw in the comments, there are a whole bunch of you who are right here.
You think you're living in the same reality, right?
I don't live in your reality.
If you said yes to that, I absolutely don't live in your reality.
But, can I say you're wrong?
I can't.
I can't.
Is it possible that athletes did, in fact, drop like flies, and then the Big Pharma was powerful enough to cover it all up?
Yeah.
Unfortunately, yeah, that is kind of possible.
It's kind of possible.
I don't think it's likely, but if you said to me, are you ruling that out?
I'd have to say no.
I'd have to say no, I can't rule that out.
There is absolutely a chance it happened, and that as big as and amazing as that would be, in a horrible way, that somehow we didn't know about it.
Have you seen the news that they're going to study?
Somebody studied funeral homes, and they found all this blood clotting stuff that doesn't look like it came from a human being.
You know, it's like all their arteries all have all these clots.
How many of you believe that's true?
That they, that the... Alright, let's do it.
True or false?
Is it true or false?
That the autopsies are showing that there's something clogging up their veins.
Oh, you're all over the place on this one.
I'm seeing true and false.
I'm going to use my same standard, and it goes like this.
I don't know, and I have no way to know.
Are you okay with that?
I don't know, and I have no way to find out.
So how do I make the decision?
I'm going to make the decision the same way I made the decision about the dead athletes.
Do you think that by now that wouldn't be the biggest story in the world?
If every coroner everywhere would have the same situation, right?
Because the vaccines and the coronavirus were universal.
Every coroner, everywhere.
They'd all notice it, because apparently it's so noticeable you cannot notice it.
Do you think you wouldn't know for sure by now if every dead person had this problem?
Because they all would.
Right.
So I'm going to guess that's fake.
But do I know?
No, it's an educated guess.
It's an educated guess based on the fact it would be the biggest story if it were true.
I don't know.
All right, let's move on.
Let's talk about... Gateway Pundit is reporting that one of their investigators, Brian Lupo, he looked into the claim made by Georgia's Secretary of State Rafzenberger back in 2020, that they had done an audit using forensic techniques, as he says, on the voting machines used in 2020, and no problems were found.
So that's good news, right?
Aren't you glad that the Secretary of State of Georgia, since there were some questions about that state's election, aren't you glad that they did those audits using forensic techniques to find out everything was fine?
Good news, huh?
So Brian Lupo did an investigative report.
He went around to ask if he found the readout or the reports from the audit.
You'd like to see it documented, wouldn't you?
Guess what he found out?
There's no evidence any audits were done.
Oh boy.
Oh boy.
2024, stop making me love you.
Stop it.
I don't want to love 2024, but oh god, it's looking good.
It's looking delicious.
Now, Let's use our standard.
Do you believe that this is true because it was in the Gateway Pundit and Brian Lupo could not find any evidence of the audits?
I don't know if he meant every machine or if he meant a lot of machines.
I don't know if that means every machine or just some.
But some would be plenty of a problem.
What do you think?
All right, so we have one source.
I would say trusting one source is sketchy, so I would not say that this is confirmed.
Number two, what do I always tell you about knowing something doesn't exist because you couldn't find it?
Because that's what we're dealing with.
Yeah, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist because there was one guy who couldn't get it and find it.
It's a strong indication that you should maybe ask more questions.
It's a giant red flag, but it's not proof.
So I'm not going to claim that anything has happened that will change the, you know, our understanding of the world.
But, as in my imagination, it just feels like 2024 is going to reveal that the 2020 election was rigged.
I feel like the forces of the universe are all lining up like it could not happen.
But this is also me being hypnotized by the media, right?
So let me confess, I am completely hypnotized.
I am brainwashed by the sources I am looking at.
So look at me, confess, I am not objective on this question.
Because I want it to happen, like it would be so entertaining.
I just sort of want it to happen.
It would be good for the country, if in fact there was fraud, and if in fact we uncovered it.
Now, the perfect situation is there was no fraud.
But if there was, that would be the most entertaining.
So I'm not objective on this at all.
So don't be too influenced by seeing that I look like I'm certain about it.
I do have a feeling of certainty.
Let me say that as clearly as I can.
I do have a feeling of certainty.
But it's just a feeling.
So you should not adopt my feeling.
You should use your reason.
All right, well, we'll see what happens there.
The red-headed libertarian You know her account on X. Posted this, you've heard a few people say it, I said it the other day, but she says, do you know anyone who actually supports Nikki Haley?
Is this a psyop?
And I responded to her that, this is true by the way, I know of one.
I know of one Nikki Haley supporter who I can guarantee is a real human being.
I know one.
However, As I told the red-headed libertarian on my post, I do know one, but he is a Vivek Curious, which is true.
He's definitely a Haley supporter, but he's getting kind of interested in this Vivek fellow who keeps saying some good stuff.
Isn't that funny?
The only one that I could come up with, the only one.
He told me the other day, it's like, This Vivek guy is kind of interesting.
All right, David Axelrod, as you know, he's a well-connected, I guess, consultant type for the Democrats.
Very, I'd say very influential in that world.
And he's talking about the risk if Trump has taken off the ballot for the elections.
He says, I have a very, very strong reservations May we take a moment to acknowledge that's too many uses of the word very.
One use would be too many.
Two uses, very, very too much.
See what I did there.
All right.
But he has very, very strong reservations about all of this.
All of this meaning taking Trump off the elections.
He said this on CNN.
He says, I do think it would rip the country apart if you were actually prevented from running because tens of millions of people want to vote for him.
He says, I think if you're going to beat Donald Trump, you're going to probably have to do it at the polls.
Now when he says rip the country apart, rip the country apart, Here's what's interesting about Axelrod.
The reason I always recommend him, even if you disagree with his opinions, is that although he is an unabashed Democrat, you know, biased person, that's all transparent.
Nobody listens to Axelrod and says, I wonder if you're Trying to see it both ways or anything like that.
That's not his job.
His job is to be on one side.
But what makes him interesting is he's not a crazy bastard.
Like, I don't remember the last time Axelrod said something that was just stupid or just not true.
But he's generally, he's like the sane... We lost the comments here on local, so I'm going to call up my phone so I can see your comments here.
One moment.
Technical glitch.
And we're back.
All right, we got your comments back.
Yeah, I think it was the app, not the browser.
Anyway, so Axelrod being concerned about the country being ripped apart, I feel like he's talking to his base.
So that was persuasion.
Because that's what he does.
I mean, he's a persuader.
And it was persuasion for his own team.
And he was basically warning his team, don't do this.
Don't do this, guys.
Guys?
Hey, guys.
Seriously, don't do this.
You don't really have any idea how mad this is going to be.
I'll give you a little warning.
There are 80 million people who are heavily armed and they're not going to be happy.
So listen to Axelrod.
Meanwhile, over in the Red Sea, the Houthis have made 23 attacks on international shipping since November.
23 missiles and drones, I guess mostly missiles.
23 attacks.
And has the United States yet to flatten them?
No.
No, we're just trying to shoot them out of the air when we can get them, you know.
Some shipping is being redirected around the Cape Horn.
Takes a lot longer.
But weirdly, the experts are saying it's not going to have that much effect on your energy prices.
Isn't that weird?
That you could take that shortcut away?
And you know, what is it, triple, probably triple the distance that they have to ship the energy?
And the experts are saying, it's not going to actually change your prices that much.
Kind of weird.
I don't know how that works.
It could be that if you have a tanker full of oil, you know, that how much oil you use to get it there is not the biggest issue.
I don't know.
All right.
So I don't know what's going to happen there, but the United States is looking kind of weak.
I'd like to think that we have a reason for not attacking.
A good reason for not attacking the hoodies is we don't need yet another war, but I'm kind of surprised that the military-industrial complex hasn't made this a thing.
So I think what's going to happen is if we wind down Ukraine, which looks like there's some potential for that happening in the coming months, Then suddenly it's going to be a war in Yemen and they're just going to crank it up.
But at the moment, it's not the right time.
Oh, it's not the right time.
But we'll get back to you later because we need to sell some weapons.
Yeah.
All right.
There's a source talking to Axios about what Trump would do If he gets elected and who he would fill the powerful jobs with.
And the concern says a source, an anonymous source, called Axios.
So what do we know about the rest of the story before I tell you?
Because it came to Axios and they don't tell you who it was.
There's an anonymous source in the Trump administration and they're saying some negative things about Trump.
That's right.
The anonymous source is saying something about Trump, and we don't know who it was who's saying it.
So that's all true.
Right?
Totally true?
No.
In fact, when I put together my guide to how to interpret the news, which I haven't finished, it's in draft form.
First draft, very early.
I said the number one thing you should not trust is an anonymous source in the administration, or in this case, in the campaign.
It's the least reliable of all things.
Nothing is less reliable than an anonymous source.
But what did they say, allegedly?
Allegedly?
What they said was that this time Trump might not try to get all these, you know, general deep state people in his administration who will thwart him.
But rather, he's going to try to get all the Trump loyalists in there, and maybe the key question will be if they believe the 2020 election was rigged.
That might be like a litmus test.
So, oh my god, you've got to worry.
Oh, everybody, everybody, you should worry.
Trump will put his loyalists in jobs.
Like every president?
Wasn't he the first one who didn't?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that was the basic job of presidents, putting their loyalists in the key positions.
Isn't that exactly what you want them to do?
Why would you be afraid of that?
Oh, let me tell you why you'd be afraid.
Because they're going to list specific terrible people.
Oh, these are monsters.
You want to be scared?
Let me tell it to you like it's a, like it's a ghost story.
Ready?
Hold on.
I might have to take off my microphone for this.
I can reach it.
We're going to go full Blair Witch Project here.
To tell you about the advisors that Trump Might try to bring on.
We're going full dark here.
Alexa, turn off studio.
All right, we need a little more.
All right.
Let me tell you about what the anonymous source says.
Could be the advisors.
Try not to be afraid.
Try to control yourself.
First name that is rumored who might come back.
Steve Bannon.
Ah!
I'm just getting started.
Thank you.
Cash Patel.
It gets worse.
Stephen Miller, Attorney General.
What other monsters do we have?
I wish I could read it, but I'm in the dark.
I think you get the idea.
It's going to be very, very dangerous.
And there, dare I say, dark.
It's going to be dark.
All right.
I guess I can't milk that bit anymore than I already have.
Alexa, turn on studio.
And there you have it, the Blair Witch Project commentary.
All right, Sam Bankman-Fried, as you heard yesterday.
He's not going to be charged with some extra charges.
You know, he obviously is convicted, but there's some extra charges they dropped.
And some people are saying, like Paul Sperry, for example, what they wanted covered up, what risks coming out at trial.
Oh, so some people say that maybe they dropped these charges.
Because what could come out in trial would be, this is Paul Sperry's idea, is how dirty FTX funds were laundered into the DNC through something called Mind the Gap, a Democrat dark money op, and how the whole op was run by SBF's Sam Bagman-Free's mom, a radical Democrat activist working under cover of academia at Stanford.
Now that's a hyperbolic description of what was happening.
But is it accurate?
Hmm.
I don't know.
But it sounds suspiciously like it might be.
It does sound suspiciously like that might be the reason that the charges were dropped.
Now, it's also possible they didn't have the goods and they've charged them enough and it would just be a waste of time.
Maybe.
But I think this other reason might be in the mix.
Well, Trump is disagreeing with those who don't want to build a new FBI headquarters for a gazillion dollars.
So the idea was to move the FBI headquarters, I guess, out of DC and have a big new building somewhere.
And I know that people like Thomas Massey, and I think Vivek says this too, that maybe they shouldn't get their big new building.
Vivek would reduce the FBI substantially.
And I think Thomas Massey just says They don't need this big new building.
But Trump is going the other direction according to his truth post.
Let me just say what he said and see if you feel the same.
Because people are having mixed feelings about this, even Trump supporters.
See what you agree with.
So Trump says the FBI headquarters should not be moved to a faraway location, but should stay right where it is, in a new and spectacular building.
So he's in favor of them getting a new and spectacular building.
The FBI.
Interesting.
In the best location in our now crime-ridden and filthy, dirty, graffiti-scarred Capitol.
They should be involved in bringing back D.C., not running away from it, especially the violent crime.
An important part of my platform for the President is to bring back, restore, and rebuild Washington, D.C.
into the crown jewel of our nation.
We'll make it a crime for you again.
Don't move the FBI.
All right.
What do you think of that?
The first thing I would say is that what you think of the FBI headquarters and the move Is really more of a persuasion question than a financial question.
We talk about it in financial terms.
That's not really the reason.
You know, Vivek doesn't want to be wasting money on the FBI when he's reducing his size.
So you wouldn't need that big building if he becomes president.
There wouldn't be many people to put in it.
And then Thomas Massie is always consistent.
You know, that's why he's one of the crown jewels in the government, in my opinion.
Because he's consistent.
He just sort of goes where the argument goes instead of the party.
And he doesn't want to spend that money, we don't have that much money, we get a big debt.
Fair.
You can disagree, but it's a fair point.
Certainly there's room for disagreement.
Now what we don't know is would that new building give the FBI better capabilities?
Maybe part of what they're doing is Putting groups in the same place as it would increase their efficiency.
Maybe they're building a new lab because our old labs can't get the job right.
So there might be something in the argument we don't know about that probably is a stretch, but maybe there's something there.
So here's my take.
Why would Trump, of all people, Because of his history with the FBI, let's say, not being totally on his side.
Why would he want to build them a new building?
A spectacular new building.
Now, I get the idea about moving into DC.
That's not really the controversial part.
But, why would he be pro-FBI building?
Does that make sense to you?
It does to me.
It does to me.
Here's how it makes sense.
Trump is rarely against a new real estate project.
It's just in his blood.
If you spend your whole life building spectacular new buildings, and then somebody said, hey, we'd like to build a spectacular new building while you're president, what the hell is he going to say?
He loves his spectacular new buildings.
So the first thing you should say is, if you're a real estate developer, World-famous ones.
You're not going to be too anti Big Builders.
Especially the spectacular ones.
So I think he's using it as more of a persuasion play to not only show that DC is crime-ridden, which comes out of his point, but also I think he wants the FBI on his side.
What do you think?
I think Trump Is playing a game where he says, if the FBI is not on my side, I can't even do this job.
I think that's where this is coming from.
Now, compare that to Vivek.
Because I like Vivek.
You know, he's my choice for president.
And I like Trump, in his own way.
And they have a disagreement on this.
So who's right?
Well, maybe both.
In different ways.
Vivek is right, they don't need a big building if he's going to get rid of 80% of them.
So Vivek has a solid reason that has nothing to do with real estate, nothing to do with cost.
It's just you don't need a new building if you don't have many people to put in it.
So that makes complete sense.
So Vivek is consistent, has a reason, starts from first principles, explains it all the way through to final opinion.
Perfect.
But Trump is not He's not nothing.
Trump is Trump.
So he's not operating on that complete chain of logic, like Vivek does, where Vivek will show you the assumptions, prove they're true, connect it all, and then you're done.
He's working on that persuasion level.
And I suspect what he's saying is, I can't read his mind, but I'm just gonna guess.
I bet when he hears Vivek say he could cut 80% of the staff, he probably says to himself privately, you know what?
That probably is pretty close to something that would work.
Maybe not 80%, but I bet you could take a big piece out of it.
But I bet he's also saying that if you did that, you couldn't work with him.
You would basically lose the support of the FBI for your entire term.
And that might be a critical problem.
Especially if the FBI might not be on your side to begin with.
So I think Trump may have learned from his first go-round that if you don't have the intel people and the FBI on your side, you're just in trouble.
because there's just too much lawfare, too many decisions that could go either way in the legal domain.
Which is the same street number I don't know if that what that comments about Anyway, keep an eye on that.
I don't think any of the people who have an opinion on this are crazy This is one of those This is one of those positive situations Where you've got three separate opinions from three separate very capable people They're all different and they all show their work and they kind of make sense Because you can easily agree with Trump on this, that even if you want to cut the budget of the FBI, it's not going to work for you.
You wouldn't be able to run the country.
But Vivek has a smart take.
Nassi has a smart take.
I kind of like that.
I just kind of like that smart people have smart takes.
All right, ladies and gentlemen, today being a semi-holiday, pre-New Year's Eve situation, I will be doing a Man Cave livestream tonight for those subscribers on local.
I don't yet know what time I'll do it.
I'm tempted to do it at nine o'clock California time, so it's midnight, but I might just want to do it earlier.
I might just want to get it over with, do it earlier.
So we'll see.
Maybe both.
Who knows?
Maybe I'll do two.
I'll do one of those.
In the meantime, I hope you appreciate that when the rest of the country is making no content for you whatsoever, that I'm here every day.
And depending on what format you're using, you might not even see any commercials.
If you're on the locals platform, for example.
Now, the man cave is my safe space, although it's not that safe.
Thank you.
I appreciate you for appreciating me, but tomorrow morning Tomorrow morning after all the drinkers stayed up to midnight Will I be here in the morning at the usual time?
Yes Yes, I will and I will be the only live thing that isn't a stupid parade And I'll be the only host Have I covered all the big stories?
Was there anything I left out?
I don't think so.
I think I got it all.
All right.
at you Network News.
All right.
Have I covered all the big stories?
Was there anything I left out?
I don't think so.
I think I got it all.
All right.
Let me remind you again.
I think 2024 is looking really good.
Yeah.
Thank you.
It's looking really good.
And remember, reality is a little bit things happening and a little bit things that you make happen.
