My new book Reframe Your Brain, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/3bwr9fm8
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Content:
Sam Harris, Free Will, Hunter Biden Tax Charges, TikTok Ban Opposition, Robert De Niro, NY Subway Militarization, President Trump, SOTU GOP Rebuttal, Vivek Ramaswamy, Lara Trump, IVF Opposition, Pro-Vaccine Trump, Angela Chao, Scott Adams
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So the Sam Harris was trending, which is never good news for Sam Harris.
And this Joe Schmoe guy said, so every success and every failure means nothing.
There's no good and evil because people have no say in their actions.
It's a dangerous line of thinking.
And what I was saying was, I don't believe in free will.
What am I doing that's dangerous?
Sam Harris doesn't believe in free will.
What's he doing because of that as dangerous?
Are we committing some crimes because we don't believe in free will?
No, you act exactly the same if you believe in free will or not.
So it's not dangerous.
It's the opposite of dangerous.
It's just a little philosophical thing that has no impact on you whatsoever because you're going to do what you're going to do.
And then you're going to rationalize it after the fact.
Always have, always will.
It doesn't matter if you know it.
Knowing that you do it doesn't stop it, because you don't have another way to act.
There's no other way to be.
We just act like it's real.
But in general, you should always believe that a claim that magic exists is never as strong as a claim that magic doesn't exist.
So free will, It's sort of connected to a soul, and those would be magic in the sense that they're not part of the physical cause and effect world.
So I'm going to call magic anything that's outside of physics, basically.
So it might exist, but it'd be outside of physics.
So if you're going to ever guess the likelihood of something, the person who says you're only imagining that there's magic, it doesn't really exist, is going to be right so far every time.
100% record.
Never been wrong yet that magic isn't real.
But more to the point, when Joe Schmo says, but there would be no meaning to life if we don't have free will, it's deeper than that.
There's no meaning to meaning.
You don't have to worry that there's no meaning to life, because the word meaning doesn't have meaning.
Is there anybody on that page?
Did you understand that there's no meaning to the word meaning?
What's that mean?
So not having it doesn't mean anything.
And having it doesn't mean anything.
But I'll tell you what feels like meaning.
And this is actually one of the most useful things you'll ever hear.
What feels like meaning is anytime that you're close to the mating process.
You'll always feel like you have meaning.
For example, You could be, you know, terribly unhappy in your day-to-day life, in your family life, but if you're part of a process of raising young people into older people, you have meaning.
You know, it might not be a joy every day, but you have meaning.
You're like, oh yeah, my meaning is to take care of my family.
So if you're, you know, dating, if you like, you have meaning.
If you're working out at the gym so that you can be healthy, so that somebody will want to mate with you, that's part of the mating process.
So everything you can do, whether it's earning money, going to the gym, eating right, dating, starting a family, every part of that's connected to the most basic things that a human does, which is our most important impulse is to create more humans.
Everything is subsidiary to that.
And not because of some intellectual reason, it's we evolved so that the people who reproduce are the ones who survived.
So we have this imperative that's evolved into us.
And when you're consistent with the imperative, you're doing anything that helps.
And it could be indirect, like you could be a school teacher.
That's definitely helping because you're creating, you know, good people in of, you know, young people.
So if you want meaning, find something that supports the process of humans surviving and thriving.
And that will give you a sense of meaning every time.
Here's a climate reframe that I thought was amazing.
Alex Epstein, he does a lot of writing and talking and advocating on the topic of climate.
So instead of addressing climate change, here's the reframe.
The reframe is, climate change is the wrong target.
We want to quote, reduce climate danger.
Oh, that's good.
If you say you want to stop climate change, That drives a certain set of behaviors.
If you say you want to reduce climate danger, that's a whole different behaviors.
And what's more important, stopping a change or stopping how it affects us poorly?
There's a big difference.
The best thing you can do is, is get rid of the danger.
And we've been great at that so far.
So if you're trying to reduce the danger, You might, for example, let's say reinforce your dikes.
You know, reinforce the dikes.
That would reduce your danger.
But if you want to reduce the change, well, good luck.
You're going to have to tell China to do different things.
We can't.
So working on reducing the change might be impossible, but certainly you can work on reducing the danger.
That's a really good reframe.
That's probably the best reframe I've heard yet.
On climate.
And it was right there, it was sort of obvious, but it took until Alex said it out loud that it made sense.
So apparently Andrew Biden came up with some conspiracy theory defense for his tax charges, his not paying taxes charges.
And the idea was that the only reason he's being charged, or maybe there's a little special attention on, is because the Republicans are pushing it.
So that was Hunter's defense, in part, that it's because the, you know, the whole... The comments should stop.
Oh, there we go.
That it was really the Republicans and Trump was really behind it, because they're making a big political thing out of it, and it wouldn't be such a big deal if not for that.
But that was rejected, and here, the quote of how it was rejected is kind of funny.
The defendant fails to explain how President Biden or the Attorney General, to whom the Special Counsel reports, or the Special Counsel himself or his team of prosecutors, are acting at the direction of former President Trump or Congressional Republicans, or how this current executive branch approved allegedly discriminatory charges against the President's son at the direction of former President Trump.
It is pretty funny.
Are you saying the only reason he's being charged is because Republicans?
And Republicans have no power.
It's entirely the Biden administration doing all of it.
Their own appointees.
And he's still claiming it's the damn Republicans.
Anyway, let's talk about the TikTok ban, which might have something to do with why my internet doesn't work.
I don't know.
But both Trump and Vivek have now come out opposed to banning it.
So Vivek and Trump are both opposed to banning TikTok, and Trump used to be in favor of it.
On top of that, Rand Paul and Thomas Massie are both against banning it.
Now, what do those four people have in common?
Rand Paul, Thomas Massie, Vivek, and Trump.
Well, I haven't heard from Trump directly, but I can say that Vivek, Rand Paul, and Thomas Massey have something in common, that they talk about TikTok as a data security problem, when that's not the problem.
It's just one of them.
The problem is persuasion.
That's the dangerous part.
And they all sort of obviously ignore the obvious.
I mean, it's just the biggest thing, and they just act like that's not the thing.
Now, if these were stupid fucking idiots, what would I say is the explanation for why they can't seem to understand this simple concept?
I would say they're fucking idiots, right?
If De Niro said this, I'd say, oh, you fucking idiot.
You don't even know that persuasion is the main problem.
Suppose, I don't know, some Democrat said it.
I'd just say, you fucking idiot.
But what happens if Rand, Paul, Thomas Massey, and Vivek are all on the same side and all very, very consciously and knowingly ignoring the biggest part of the story.
How do you explain that?
There's only one way.
And it's not that they're stupid.
Yeah.
Apparently the CIA has already penetrated TikTok and can get everything it wants.
And maybe they have some value because if you're inside any of the social networks, then you can track all the terrorists and the bad guys and do all the things that the CIA needs to do.
So my guess is that they've already figured out how to corrupt it without owning it.
Otherwise, there's no way that Trump would have changed on this.
You know, a liberal woman who screams in your face, Scott Adams is an idiot!
Oh, yes.
So there's something going on.
All right.
Would you agree there's something going on?
Because I've reminded all of these people at some point that it's the persuasion risk.
They've all heard it.
They all know it, but they're ignoring it.
Why are they doing it so pointedly?
Well, they're lying.
They're lying.
So in my opinion, Rand Paul, Thomas Massey, and Vivek are all lying.
And Trump as well, probably.
So I think all four are just lying to us.
About what?
I can only speculate.
But I speculate that they're lying because there's some bigger play here that we don't understand.
In other words, there might be a national security benefit to keeping it that they know about, but they can't tell us.
But they're definitely lying.
The thing is that when you see these four people lying to you about this, there's something else completely going on.
Would you agree that there's something going on and they're definitely lying?
Yeah, definitely lying.
Definitely something else going on.
But here's the weird part.
These are all people I trust.
Isn't that weird?
That if you if you said name four people Who, you know, not counting hyperbole.
You know, Trump does a lot of hyperbole.
But when it comes down to something that's real, I believe these are four people who would not lie to me unless the national security was at stake.
So there must be a national security element to this that is not obvious to us.
Because I don't believe these four are stupid.
They're not.
They're the most brilliant people around.
And they definitely know what the real problem is, the persuasion.
So they must have gotten a handle on it.
The CIA must be driving more than we know.
Maybe they have actual functional control of the algorithm by now.
Kevin O'Leary said that there's no way TikTok's going to be banned because if it is forced to be sold, which is one of the options, they have to either shut it down or sell it to an American.
Kevin O'Leary said he'll buy it.
He's not an American, is he?
Isn't he Canadian?
Yeah.
So do you think that America would allow it if a Canadian owns it?
Here's the problem.
So Kevin O'Leary, you know, he's a naturalized citizen, somebody says.
That would make a difference to me.
Is he a naturalized citizen?
Wife is American.
Well, it would be an interesting thing.
I don't trust Canada.
So if Canada has any power over Kevin O'Leary, I wouldn't trust him.
I trust him, but not if Canada is, you know, making him a puppet because it's his country.
So I'd be leery of that.
I don't know that anybody would be able to buy it because ByteDance doesn't want to sell it.
So they're saying they won't sell it.
We'll see.
And of course, TikTok continues to advertise on Fox News.
It's one of Fox News' major advertisers now.
So everything that you think about TikTok must be wrong.
It must be wrong.
And it's interesting that all four of these people would be willing to destroy our children to maintain it.
And they're giving us the bullshit argument that it's free speech.
Do you think that any of these people think That propaganda from China is free speech?
They don't believe that.
Of course not.
So they are lying to us.
I just don't know what the real truth is.
Sure, it's not good though.
I don't think they're all bought by China, but that would explain it all, wouldn't it?
If all four of them were owned by China, from Trump through Rand Paul, Thomas Massey, and Vivek, that would explain everything we see, wouldn't it?
So you can't rule that out.
I hate to say it, but you have to consider one of the possibilities that China has functional control over all four of these people.
Because it doesn't make sense what they're saying.
What they're saying is nonsense.
It's like they suddenly became stupid or something.
So there's something else going on because they're not stupid.
Anyway, the State of the Union is still reverberating.
Bill Maher and everybody's calling Biden feisty.
I guess he's feisty, that's the word we're going to use.
No, he got a bump from it, and I will agree he exceeded expectations.
But do you think he can keep it up?
Nobody thinks he can keep it up.
So I think that whatever bump he got from the State of the Union will wear off in a few weeks.
35% of viewers said they had a negative reaction, but most people seemed positive about it.
De Niro was on the show.
Robert De Niro, he's the basket case, let's see, I guess he's the face of TDS.
So Bill Maher asked him about the militarization of the New York subways, and apparently he hadn't heard about it.
Just hold that in your head.
De Niro, who lives in New York City, hadn't heard that they were militarizing the subway.
But he said that if Trump had militarized the subway, that it would be for a different reason.
'Cause if Trump did it, then, you know, it's part of his dictator takeover.
But if the governor did it, he's like, well, he's gonna have to look into it.
He hasn't heard about it.
Okay.
But this is what De Niro says, quote, talking about Trump.
If he wins the election, you won't be on the show anymore, talking to Bill Maher.
He'll come looking for me.
There'll be things that happen that none of us can imagine.
That's what happens in that kind of dictatorship, which is what he says.
And he says, you should take him at his word.
That's what Bill Maher says.
Took him at his word.
And then Bill Maher says the one thing he knows about Trump is that he'll never give up power.
He's not the president. - Excellent.
He gave up power.
He had no plan whatsoever for any kind of military takeover.
There's no evidence that he ever planned anything except finding out for sure whether the election was rigged.
How in the world does TDS guard Bill Maher sit there and say, I knew he would never give up power, when he watched him give up power?
Now he tried, of course, to cling to power with, you know, a political process.
But if all it is is a political process, why are we afraid of it?
We're supposed to do political processes.
Wow.
So here's why De Niro probably doesn't know a single Republican.
Let me speak for every single Republican.
May I?
May I speak for every Republican?
Who would be okay with locking up De Niro and Bill Maher because they say things you don't like?
Which Republican would be in favor of locking them up for their opinions?
You're lying.
No, you don't believe that.
You're being hyperbolic.
You do not believe that you would lock them up for their opinions.
Stop it.
You're just making it worse.
None of you believe that.
And you'd have to never have met a Republican to think that they would want to lock up anybody for having a bad political opinion.
Now, let's do it the other way.
Let's suppose you did a poll.
Do you think Bill Maher should be in jail for his political opinions?
How many Republicans would say yes to that?
None except people joking, right?
Some people would joke or something, but none, basically none.
Now, imagine this.
How many January 6th protesters who are non-violent, non-violent, should still be in jail?
What do you think Democrats would say?
They'd say all of them.
They should all be in jail.
This is another case of Democrats projecting.
Democrats would project That Republicans would do what they've done to Republicans.
Do you know why they think that Republicans might do it?
Because they're talking about revenge.
And apparently they're completely aware that revenge would make sense as a concept.
Do you know when that makes sense?
It makes sense when you're doing something that's so bad that revenge makes sense.
So they're completely aware that what they've done is so bad That they need to worry about revenge.
Now, you could argue, no, Scott, they think it's not, you know, it wouldn't be legitimate revenge.
It would be just bad people doing bad things.
But I think at some level they know where they're the baddies.
On some level.
They would never say it.
But there's no way you could watch your own team putting people in jail for protesting when we have a protest country.
And to imagine that that wasn't complete Hitler-like activity.
I think they know it on some level.
So should they be afraid that a Trump dictatorship would get revenge and put assholes in jail just for free speech?
It would be good revenge, but I would certainly do what I could to stop it.
Right?
I don't want to live in a country where Bill Maher and Robert De Niro are in legal jeopardy.
Legal jeopardy?
We could take away their freedom because they had an opinion you don't like?
No, I'm not going to live in that country.
Now, if that happened, I would be in favor of assassination of the president.
Let me say it directly.
If Trump ever gave the order to round up De Niro and Bill Maher, For their opinions, then I think the President should be assassinated.
So, just in case you're wondering where I stand on it.
That's never going to happen, so you don't have to worry about it.
Like, it's never going to happen.
It's just crazy, crazy shit.
All right, uh, the Maze account, M-A-Z-E, good follow on xPlatform.
Points this out, said last night, talking about the State of the Union, Biden complained that the tax code is unfair, teachers are not paid enough, the cost of college is too high, America needs more clean energy jobs, Russia is out of control, and that the cost of health care is too high.
That's what he said at the State of the Union.
Let's see, what did he say at 2008 at the DNC?
Biden said that Obama would reform the tax code, pay teachers more, make colleges and health care affordable, hold Russia accountable, and create a bunch of clean energy jobs.
Well, at least he's consistent.
He just doesn't realize that Obama didn't get it done, I guess.
There's some thought.
Laura Loomer says she's got a scoop that Vivek was favored to do the rebuttal to the State of the Union, but that Mitch McConnell vetoed that.
And instead, they came up with Katie Britt, who is trending on the X platform simply for being terrible.
Um, and that's bad.
And I think it's both, uh, Republicans and Democrats are hitting her the same.
I don't think there's, I haven't heard a single Republican say anything except this is a nightmare.
This is terrible.
Uh, imagine showing that as your bench.
Yeah.
The whole idea of, you know, the usually some up and coming person, uh, doing a good job in the rebuttal is that you're showing you have a deep bench.
Maybe you're preparing somebody.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but although Obama kind of came out of nowhere because he was a junior senator, hadn't been in office very long, but when you heard him talk, you got it, right?
The moment you heard Obama talk, you go, He does have the goods.
He's very inexperienced, relatively speaking, but yeah, he's got, he's got that presidential thing.
Can you tell me what Republican or Republicans know Katie Britt and know her work and said to themselves, Oh, she's going to light it up.
She's going to give us some Obama level charisma.
How in the world did this decision get made?
We should know who made this decision.
I don't know if it was McConnell, but whoever made this decision is not capable.
Would you agree?
Whoever decided this was a good idea is not a capable person.
I don't know how that happened.
Well, the news today is that Laura Trump is going to be the co-chair of the RNC.
Who's the chair?
Did they pick a chair of the RNC?
And I missed that news.
Because they say the co-chair.
Anybody?
But have they picked somebody for sure?
I haven't heard any news that they have a chair, much less a co-chair.
Watley?
Who's Watley?
They actually did pick somebody?
Well, I guess I'll catch up on that.
A lot of people are saying Watley.
It's a name I've never heard.
Watley?
Anyway, people are saying, typically, Oh my God, it's nepotism.
How could you possibly hire a family member?
Look at the disaster with Jared and Ivanka.
So I saw that in X, because the disaster of Jared and Ivanka.
What was that disaster?
Let's see, we had Ivanka, who almost everybody agrees was a positive.
You know, she's sort of a Softer female version that Trump respected.
Gave him a little more perspective, I think.
I don't think anybody complained about Ivanka, did they?
Even once?
I've never heard even one complaint.
And Jared got to see Abraham Accords.
What did he do wrong?
I mean, you would almost think that hiring your family is a good idea if these were the only examples.
Now, let's talk about Lara Trump.
Now, she's interviewed me a few times on Zoom, and my impression was very capable, very patriotic, very charismatic, all the energy in the world, connected to the right people.
She's kind of great.
Do you agree?
Am I wrong about that?
Yeah.
To me, she seems like a strong choice.
And we'll see.
Anyway, John Brennan was on MSNBC saying that the Intel community may not give Trump As a candidate, they might not give him all the good stuff because of his quote, misuse of classified information.
Now when MSNBC brings John Brennan on to say that Trump isn't trusted by the intelligence community, what is that?
That's exactly what it looks like.
Yeah, Brennan is part of the current and ex-intelligence people who actually run the country.
And MSNBC and NBC News are among the vehicles that they use for influence.
So you're seeing the actual people who are in charge of the country.
Once you see who's actually in charge, everything makes sense after that.
Everything makes sense.
All right, I heard a little bit more about IVF.
I was trying to figure out why.
Some conservatives don't like IVF, but Trump's in favor of it.
And the argument goes that the IVF, I guess you fertilize more than one egg to make sure you've got at least one good one.
And that it's common practice to either freeze the extras or abort them.
Some people would say the word abort, because they're fertilized.
Now, this is a problem for anybody who believes that life begins at inception.
Inception would be the fertilized egg.
So that's the argument.
I was not aware of that argument because I, as you know, I do not believe in magic and so it never occurred to me that somebody would think a fertilized egg has a soul.
How many of you think a fertilized egg has a soul?
100% yes.
Yes, yes, yes.
Yes, yes, yes.
And so, let me ask you a related idea.
How many think a soul is a real thing?
How many thinks that a soul is a real thing?
Yes, yes, yes.
All right.
Now, I do understand that belief and science are different things.
So, I'm very pro-religion, which means that I respect your opinions.
Are you okay with that?
Are you okay if I disagree, but I have complete respect for your opinion?
And I have a lot of respect for anything that is erring on the side of life.
I respect that.
It's not the choices I would make, personally, in my own life.
But when I see other people erring on the side of life, you know, if there's any question whether it's life, you gotta save it.
I'm glad I live among them.
I'm glad I live among people who put life as their top requirement.
But I also can see why people would have a different point of view.
So you have my maximum respect while I have a different view.
Are you okay with that?
Good.
Now we understand each other.
So now I understand what your point of view is.
And there's no arguing whether a soul exists or a soul doesn't exist, right?
There would be no point of that.
And by the way, why would I want to do it?
Why would I want to talk you out of that?
For some convenience for myself?
I don't know.
There are a lot of things where you like the fact that there are people on the other side.
There's like a useful tension.
So one of the places that there's a useful tension Uh, would be, you know, somebody who's pro-Trump and somebody who's against Trump, right?
So, uh, it's useful that they're anti-Trump people.
It's useful that they're anti-Biden people, because it's the, you know, the creative tension that allows you to do anything.
Otherwise you end up with a dictator.
However, um, I've long predicted that, uh, AI is going to make us wonder about souls.
Because once AI is indistinguishable from a human life, which is guaranteed at this point, we're going to have lots of questions about whether it has a soul.
It's going to get complicated.
Trump is getting a little more controversial lately.
First of all, backing IVF, that might be a problem for his supporters.
But also he's full-throatedly pro-vaccine.
Not pro-mandate, but he says the vaccine saved us from COVID.
I know, I know.
You can say it in the comments.
He says the vaccine saved us.
Now keep in mind he has to say that, because if it's not true, then he oversaw a mass murder.
So Trump Has to say it worked.
He couldn't get elected, and his legacy would be destroyed if it didn't.
Now, how many of you would say it's fair to say that it did work briefly for older people?
Not during Omicron, but during the heavy phase.
Does anybody believe that the science, when objectively looked at, Shows more benefit than cost.
Because that's the current scientific consensus, which doesn't mean anything.
That's the current consensus.
But you don't believe the... So you don't believe the doctors, even the doctors who are conservatives.
Because there'd be a lot of conservative doctors who would agree that it did work, For older people and during the worst part of it, but not during Omicron.
All right.
Well, I'm too bored with the argument about vaccines and ivermectin and all that stuff.
I'll just point out the political ramifications are people are going to have a hard time voting for Trump, aren't they?
I think Dr. Drew says that it looks like it was more benefit than not for the older people.
Don't know.
All right.
Alex Jones says it's BS.
So Trump is going to get a lot of pushback on the vaccines.
I feel like there's a better way to handle the vaccine question.
And crowing that he was a big success is not going to get him any Democrats, but it's definitely going to cost him Republicans.
So why is he doing it?
Don't you think there's a better way to frame it?
Here's how I would have framed it if I were him.
Well, actually there is no way to frame this right.
I think Vivek would have helped him out here if there was any way to do it right.
Probably wasn't.
There probably was no way.
There's probably no way to win on this argument.
Because he's just too associated with the vaccine and there's no way he's going to change people's mind about that.
All right.
There's new Alzheimer's drug from Eli Lilly, but the FDA is delaying it because they want to get some more information.
They're going to make a, let's say, more scrutiny on it.
That's the quick version.
And it makes me wonder if the FDA has found religion, or is this normal?
Do you think they're trying harder not to put any dangerous drugs out there?
Yeah, I said FDI.
I don't know.
It's probably just a bureaucratic thing.
We heard more about Mitch McConnell's sister-in-law, who died in the lake trapped in her Tesla.
And we all suspected that there was some kind of foul play.
Well, it turns out there was no foul play.
But I'm very sad that I know it.
Because the reason we know it If you haven't heard of this, this is terrible.
She made a phone call while she was submerged in the car.
Yeah.
She made a phone call while she was submerged in the car.
So now we know that it was just, she hit the wrong pedal and maybe she had a drink or something, but she hit the wrong pedal.
So there was nothing to it except she literally just was trying to back up and backed up down.
And apparently it slowly submerged as she made a phone call.
And the emergency crews didn't have the right equipment when they got there.
The emergency crews didn't have the right equipment.
So they didn't have any, they didn't have any scuba.
You know, the divers could have broken a window and, you know, maybe given her a breathing tube until they get her out.
But they also didn't have a long enough toe.
So they couldn't tow it out fast enough and they couldn't get to her.
And, uh, some, apparently some of the people who were in attendance at the event, uh, one of them dived in, one of the women dived in.
I can't, you know, I thought that, uh, Gaza food tragedy where some food dropped on some people who already had 51 days of the worst thing ever.
But this is right at the top of my nightmare scenario.
The only good news, and it's hard to call it that, is that it wasn't some kind of a plot.
It was an accident.
I feel as though MUST needs to fix this.
There needs to be some kind of, like, an emergency ejection seat.
You know, not actually an ejection seat, but something that would blow the top off or something.
Auto glass breaker.
How many of you carry a windshield breaker in your car?
You know, I used to, but I don't think I have anymore.
