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Well, welcome to Coffee with Scott Adams, the best thing you've ever seen.
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Well, I don't think I've seen so many holidays in my life, all packed into two days.
We've got the Trans Day of Visibility, we got the Easter, we got the April Fools, all in 48 hours.
Pretty amazing.
But let me give you some updates.
Update.
You probably heard about those South America burglary gangs.
The gangs that are really, they're really well equipped and they wait for high-end houses and they break in.
Well, LeBron James, basketball LeBron James, his home in LA was burgled by these high-end South American burglars.
But the good news is the burglary was thwarted because squatters had already moved into the house and the squatters called the police and stopped the burglars.
So the squatters stopped the burglars.
And then when the police found out that the squatters, one of them had once posted a meme that was positive about Trump, they were immediately arrested, the squatters were, and taken away to It's called January 6th Jail.
Someplace called January 6th Jail.
And they're all, so they're all imprisoned.
And so LeBron got to move back into his house.
But here's the ironic part.
Before he could move back into his own house, it was completely destroyed by climate change.
It's all true.
Every word of that is true.
Well, Tesla's self-driving software, FSD 12.3.3, is being pumped out to people for a 30-day free trial.
Now, apparently, people are just being blown away.
Has anybody tried it yet?
The new self-driving car?
No?
But I hear great things about it.
In other news, I'll give you some quick news of positive things here.
Axio says the Biden administration wants to accelerate nuclear power creation in this country.
And part of the reason for needing more nuclear power is not only that it's green, but you're going to need tons and tons and tons of power for AI.
So you better get your nuclear.
You know, I can't think of any other topic where the left and the right are in complete agreement.
Isn't that weird?
Do you remember when nuclear power was sort of a topic of disagreement and the Democrats were like, Oh no, it's going to kill us all.
And the Republicans were like, free markets.
Let's get me some nukes.
Well, it turns out everybody's on the same side.
So that's good.
More good news!
There's another test on micro dosing LSD and apparently it's really good for your brain.
Now micro dosing means a dose that's below the level that you would hallucinate.
So something below the level where you don't know what's going on actually just makes your brain more active and it enhances the complexity of the brain which apparently has a whole bunch of mental health benefits.
So in theory, you could, and then there's another story about, is it Tennessee or Kentucky?
Which state is it that's going to ban putting drugs in lettuce?
Apparently, there's a thought you can put vaccination type drugs into lettuce and other vegetables.
Well, maybe they should put a little microdose of LSD in the lettuce.
And that would cure all the batshit crazy people who are ruining the country.
But if that doesn't work, here's another trend.
There are mental health urgent care sites for children popping up.
So the mental health of our children is so bad that a whole industry has popped up just to give children mental health.
I would like to make a suggestion.
Before you give your child Um, medication and therapy and all that.
I feel like the first thing you should test is moving them to a good environment.
You know, what, what if you took a kid who was having mental problems, say, all right, here's the deal.
We're going to make you eat only healthy food.
You, you'll not have your phone and we're going to put you with other kids, your age.
So you'll always have some friends and you'll meet some people and you'll have, you'll do some activities.
It'll be fun.
You're going to spend a bunch of time outdoors.
You're going to get a little exercise every day.
And then at the end of the month, we're going to see how much mental health problems you have.
Cause I'm pretty sure the mental health problems are coming from the environment.
So I don't imagine that having these mental health urgent care sites is going to treat the source of the problem.
So I got a real problem that we're, Adding medical stuff to other stuff, and maybe it doesn't make things better.
Now, some people are just going to need emergency help, so it probably will save some lives, but I don't know that it gets to the root cause.
Here's a statistic I saw that I can't believe is true.
There's a list of 95 food plants, in other words, plants that process food for the United States, that have been destroyed since Biden took office.
Is that possibly true?
That 95 different food processing plants from meat processing to other processing, 95 of them, all different things like fires and various problems.
How in the world is that an accident if it's true?
So I guess my first question is, is that true?
And is it normal?
Maybe we have so many food processing plants because, you know, it's a big country.
Maybe 95 is just, you know, 2% of our plants.
If it's only 2%, it's probably just a normal year.
If it's, you know, half of all of our food processing plants, We have a real big problem.
Scott lives under a rock.
Fuck you.
Fuck you.
All caps guy.
Now I've been, uh, I do follow the news and I am aware that many, um, meat processing plants were destroyed during the pandemic, et cetera.
So I knew that it was happening.
What I don't know, and you still don't know, you fucking asshole.
Put it in the comments.
Why don't you show me how much you know?
What percent of the food processing plants does this represent?
Because otherwise you've fallen for the idiot trap.
The idiot trap is somebody tells you the number without the percentage.
Right?
Did you fall for the idiot trap?
Where you heard the number but not the percentage?
Looks like you did!
All caps, fucking asshole!
So, come back to me with what percentage of the food that is, and then we'll talk about whether it's a big problem, okay?
But all this, Scott has been hiding under a rock!
He's just finding out!
Scott is just waking up!
God, you're stupid!
All right.
Um, Gavin Newsom is going to roll out to 500 surveillance cameras in Oakland to help battle the crime there.
Now, here's a prediction I made in my book, The Dilbert Future, back in the 90s.
I said that crime would someday be impossible because we would just detect all the crimes, so it would be no point in committing them.
And I also said it would be because cameras would be everywhere.
You could pretty much Anticipate that the cost of surveillance would go down, the practicality of it would go up.
As crime went up, we would add more cameras.
But here's the part of the prediction that hasn't happened, but I'm pretty sure it will.
Every interior space is going to have a camera, except maybe bathrooms.
Every interior space will have a camera, but it'll be encrypted.
So if somebody stole your camera, they couldn't see what happened in the room, including the government.
Even the government wouldn't be able to crack the encryption.
So the fact that the camera is recording everything, you'd still have all your privacy.
The exception would be if there's a court order.
So let's say somebody gets murdered in a room, That would be the one case that the police could say, all right, you have to unencrypt that camera between these hours and these hours.
And then the homeowner can unencrypt it because they would have the key.
Now you might say to yourself, Scott, I hate that.
I hate that with a passion.
It will be abused.
Yes, it would be.
I'm not saying it's a good idea.
It's a prediction.
Prediction is not that it's good or bad.
It's just going to happen.
Because whenever a technology can be used, it will be.
If it's possible, and it looks like somebody is going to think it's a good idea, there'll be plenty of it.
People might be quite willingly putting them in their own house to keep them safer.
I mean, most of the sex crimes happen in rooms, right?
Almost all sex crimes happen inside, indoors.
You'd almost get rid of them.
Alright, there's a report that people are moving out of Florida because they weren't so happy after they moved there during the pandemic.
So a lot of pandemic people moved down there and said, oh, I'll go to where there's freedom.
And now, I guess half a million of them have decided, yeah, not so much.
The complaints they have are that, let's see, homeowners insurance rates have gone up 40% since last year.
Wow!
$6,000 a year just for home insurance.
That's, of course, because of the environmental risks.
Car insurance is more than 50% higher than the national average.
Why is that?
Why would car insurance cost more In Florida.
Why does that make sense?
Does anybody know why that makes sense?
I don't.
And apparently it's one of the more expensive states to buy a home now.
The price is up 60% since 2020.
What?
It went up 60% since 2020?
Holy cow.
Now I think this Florida, I think the Florida story is a fake out.
I think it's just an anti-red state story.
Because here's the thing.
The people who moved because of the pandemic, moved because of the pandemic.
And then when the pandemic is over, what would you expect to happen?
Wouldn't you expect a lot of people would say, I moved here for the pandemic, the pandemic's over, and I'll go where I like the weather better.
Makes perfect sense to me.
I don't think it's necessarily a comment about Florida, and of course it's super hot there.
People found that out.
You know, if you've never been to Florida, let's say you grew up in some place that didn't have much humidity, and somebody said, hey, if Florida's hot, it's like sometimes 100 degrees, and you're from California, and you're like, eh, it's not so bad.
Yeah, we have some days that are 100 degrees too.
The difference is, in California, when it's 100, you can still walk to your car and survive.
At least you can get in your car and drive somewhere and get out.
You can live.
If you're in Florida, you walk out in that humidity, you can barely make it to the car.
Have you ever seen my impression of somebody walking outdoors in Florida during the summer?
All right, let me give you my impression of A Californian walking out in the summer.
All right, it's 100 degrees.
That's California.
Here's a Floridian walking outside.
Oh, God.
Oh, it's different.
I'm just saying it's different.
So stop asking me if I'm moving from California.
You're gonna have to raise my rates, my tax rates, a lot more than that.
All right, there's a documentary called Climate, the movie, and some say it obliterates the climate scam, and it's being shadow banned on YouTube, and filmmaker Martin Durkin has really brought the goods.
That's what people say.
Has anybody seen it?
I haven't seen it.
Yeah.
Well, I warn you of something called the documentary effect.
And the documentary effect is not only things you don't like, it's also things that agree with your opinion.
Just because something is super, super persuasive in a documentary, what did that tell you?
Let's say you go to a documentary and it tells you something maybe that's different from what you've heard, and it's really got the receipts.
I mean, there's witnesses, there's science, there's studies, and they really bring it.
When you're done, what have you learned?
What have you learned from any documentary?
It doesn't matter what it is.
What have you learned from the documentary when it's over?
There's only one thing you can learn.
Documentaries are persuasive.
That's it.
There's no other thing you can learn from a documentary.
Because a documentary is not credible by its nature.
You can only learn that it felt persuasive.
That's it.
There is nothing else you can find.
Because all documentaries are persuasive, otherwise you would never get to see it.
If it were not persuasive, Nobody would even mention it.
You never would have heard of it.
So by the time you've heard of it, it means it's persuasive.
It does not mean any of it's true.
And I always use the competing Michael Jackson documentaries.
They're both really persuasive.
They say opposite things.
So what are you left with?
The only thing you're left with is, wow, documentaries are persuasive.
You don't learn anything else.
In my opinion, climate alarm is overdone, and I'm not a believer of the climate change narrative.
Completely.
Not completely.
And it's entirely possible that everything in the documentary is true, and it captures the situation perfectly.
That's possible.
But you would have no way of knowing.
So you as the viewer only know that you're persuaded.
You don't know anything else.
Just be careful of that, okay?
I was having a little free will conversation online today, as I often do, and Leo 300, who's a user, says that free will is my Achilles heel.
It's my Achilles.
It's the thing I get wrong, that I don't understand free will, he says.
Which is an odd way to say I'm right, but I just want to clarify something.
I'm very much in favor of people pretending free will is real.
Because that's always worked.
So we have, you know, 300,000 years of pretending free will is a thing.
And it allows us to create laws that we agree with and punish people who do bad things.
And, you know, it gives us tools.
So as long as it works, keep doing it.
But it is nonsense.
All right.
You're all familiar with the double slit experiment, right?
Then let me teach you another thing about persuasion.
I'll review what that is before I go on.
Here's a lesson on persuasion.
You can't persuade people of anything until they're ready.
And what makes a person ready is all the other things in the environment.
So you have to have an environment that supports the new understanding, or else people will look at all the other things in the environment and say, hmm, maybe not.
So you can only persuade when the timing is right.
And the timing is right.
For you to understand that we are living in a simulation.
Now, many of you are saying, my god, not again, not this simulation thing.
Well, it's because of the timing.
Because of everything else that's happening, I can finally convince you that you live in a simulation.
And that it's proven.
It's proven.
What would you need to know we're a simulation?
I'll give you an example.
How many of you would agree with this?
Suppose we could prove that history is imaginary, And only created when you need it.
What if we could prove that?
Would that tell you you were in a simulation?
Because if we live in something like what we imagine, then history is how we got here, and it's all real.
I mean, it's not real at the moment, but it was real at one point.
If I could convince you that history is created in the present, it's not something that caused the present, but if I could convince you that the present Creates history.
Wouldn't that tell you you were in a video game?
Because that's the way we build video games.
In a video game, you know, if a character suddenly appears that had never been there, the character has a history.
Like you imagine the character was born or whatever in the simulation, not in the real world.
So if I could prove to you that history is in fact created on demand, You're ready.
And that's what the double slit experiment does.
So you get the fast version is you have two slits, you put photons through it.
If nobody's watching it, they create one pattern.
But if people are watching it, it creates a different pattern.
So apparently observing it or measuring it in a way that can be observed later, changes what happened.
In other words, it changed the past.
It changed the past.
So, if you can change the past and we've confirmed it, that means we're in a simulation.
And somebody said, can reality exist without an observer?
Well, I went to Google and I asked that.
They said, can reality exist without an observer?
Here's what Google said.
According to quantum physics, it's a commonplace notion to think that the universe exists out there without us, without us there to live in it and observe it.
However, in the realm of quantum physics, an observer-independent universe is simply impossible.
So according to one of the top answers on Google, the universe only exists because we observe it.
And the parts we haven't observed don't exist.
Yeah, we're a simulation.
There's really no question about it.
We're absolutely a simulation.
Now, how do you explain the fact that we seem to be living in different simulations?
Because we're a simulation.
So the simulation you're living in doesn't even need to be the same as mine.
So you can live in a simulation where Trump is Hiller, and I can live in one where he's just funny.
And there's no conflict unless we're talking to each other and we decide the other one needs to be in jail or something.
But otherwise we go on with our life with our completely different versions of reality and it almost never matters until it's some political thing.
And then we notice that we're not living in the same reality.
How about the Fermi Paradox?
You know the Fermi Paradox?
A scientist named Fermi said if there's so many aliens in the universe, where are they all?
Where are all the aliens?
In theory, there should be plenty of aliens, because space is so big and we can see a lot of it.
And the answers that they give are like this.
Maybe life is so rare that it only flashes into existence for a million years and goes away.
So it's just so rare.
There's a reason we don't see it.
Maybe it's because there aren't many planets that can support life.
Maybe it's because it's hard for us to see them.
They're just too far away.
Maybe they're hiding.
So these are the answers that people give to why we haven't seen any aliens.
Let me give the more obvious, simple, clear answer.
We're a simulation.
We're a simulation of the planet Earth.
There is nothing else.
There doesn't need to be anything else.
Our simulation requires nobody else, just like a video game.
If you buy a video game that's, you know, let's say a battle on an island, The video game did not create the rest of the world.
It just traps you on the island so you think that's all there is.
Have you noticed that we can't go to the edge of the universe?
You know, speed of light problems and all that.
All you have to do is prevent people from seeing outside the realm of things that are created and they'll think they've seen everything.
Because I can't imagine what's on the other side.
No, the Fermi Paradox, the quantum physics, the double-slit experiment, and every other observation is pretty clear at this point that we're a simulation.
Now, why do I say that this is the time?
The reason that this is the time to tell you this is that you've observed that you don't live in an objective reality.
We now see through politics, and largely through Trump's introduction into politics, that everything is fake.
We can see that all of our history is imaginary.
It's just somebody wrote a book, and you believed it, and it became part of a course.
Maybe some of the names and dates are true, but largely history is made up.
If you don't think history is made up, how do you think they're going to write the history of the last five years?
We don't agree.
We don't agree on the most basic facts.
Was there an insurrection on January 6th?
We don't agree.
Did Osama Bin Laden take down the Twin Towers?
Well, that's the official story.
If you go into the real world, you're going to find a lot of people who don't agree with the official story.
I don't know what to believe there.
So the fact that we've seen that everything we thought we were sure about is fake, we've seen that all the scientists are bought off and not credible, we've seen that 100% of our institutions are fake, we see that the government is trying to tell us that aliens are in a warehouse somewhere, and we know that's not true.
We're in a simulation.
It's obvious.
All right.
And we ignore the past when it's inconvenient.
Brandon Strzok likes to remind us, he was one of the January 6th people who got in legal trouble, he reminds us in 2016 the left had a whole campaign to get members of Congress to not certify Trump as president.
There was a petition, there were TV shows or advertisements, and they all acted like it was perfectly reasonable to not Let Trump become president, even though the vote had very clearly elected him.
And they thought that was perfectly legitimate.
It was just too much of a risk.
And yet, only a few short years later, we pretend that that history doesn't exist.
It's only because we remember it that it exists.
Your history books are gonna erase this shit.
The history books that tell you that January 6th was an insurrection are not going to tell you that the Democrats did the same damn thing the last election, because that ruins the narrative.
So you can see in real time that the history books are being faked, or you can guarantee that they will be.
Or what?
Are you going to teach kids two separate histories?
Oh, here's the history these guys say, here's the history that... No, they'll get one history, and it will be the common narrative.
So we'll ignore the history when it's not true.
And I like to ask this question every now and then because, again, this didn't make as much sense a year ago or two years, but after what we've been through and finding out nothing is true and everybody's lying all the time, I'll say it again.
What are the odds that our election system in this country are the only institutions that are not corrupt?
Because we found out every part of our government, pretty much all corporations, are just, you know, woefully corrupt.
The news, completely corrupt.
But why do we believe that the elections are the only exceptions?
We actually tell each other, oh yeah, the elections are good.
The only thing?
We know the financial world is completely corrupt.
Everything else is corrupt.
You know, look at the war in Ukraine.
Do you think you get the right story about that?
No, it's all corrupt.
How about Joe Biden?
All corrupt.
So, lawfare against Trump?
All corrupt.
So, everything from the DOJ to the FBI to the CDC to the FDA to Congress, all corrupt.
But you can look me in the face and tell me that the elections are completely good because the courts didn't find a problem.
The courts didn't find a problem with OJ.
At least in a criminal sense.
The criminal court said O.J.
was innocent, so I guess he's innocent of the crime.
Now let me ask you this.
We were told recently that China has already penetrated most of our infrastructure in this country and all they have to do is push a button and they can turn off our water and power and emergency services.
Do you think that's true?
Your government told you it's true?
Is it true China's already hacked into everything, they can just turn us off?
Well, why is China so good at hacking into all that basic, highly secure infrastructure, but they can't get into our elections?
What's up with that?
Is that because the elections are unusually secure?
I don't know the details, but it seems to me that every precinct is responsible for their own election security, am I right?
And that there's probably some one or two people trained to make sure that the machines are secure, and that it has current software, and that it's not unlocked so you can't put a thumb drive into it.
Do you think all those people working in all those precincts Every one of them, they did a good job on infrastructure security.
Do you think that 100% of the people who work for the people who make the machines for voting, do you think every one of those persons we know for sure is not a spy?
No insiders?
How would you know?
How would you know?
You'd have no way to know.
So, yeah, if you think the election systems are the only things in America that aren't corrupt, I don't think I can talk to you.
If your proof is that I don't know of anything specifically that's corrupt, I can't talk to you.
That's nonsense.
How would I know?
All right, well, the one thing I learned from the Democrats is that nothing can be considered true until it's proven true in a kangaroo court.
I saw a news bit that said, there's some poll showing, I think just the news had it, some poll showing that people will still support Trump even if he's convicted of a crime.
Is there anybody here who didn't know that?
The Democrats keep saying that Trump will lose support if he is railroaded by some lawfare stupid crime.
Who believed that?
From the first moment I heard that, I was like, really?
Somebody believes that he'll become less popular if he gets law-fared into jail.
No.
That's not the way anything works.
If you law-fare him into jail, he could be dictator.
I mean, it could give him so much power, he could actually become the dictator they fear.
If you want him to become a dictator, put him in jail.
If you want to have something like, you know, some kind of real government, don't.
But don't be surprised if he gets more popular if he gets convicted.
Harvard applications have dropped.
So, I saw the word plummet used.
So, far fewer applications.
Now, I assume that's because of the anti-Semitism, but also probably because of the wokeness in general.
And here's the good news.
Harvard is on track to be as diverse as the HBCs.
The HBCs, yeah.
The Historically Black Colleges.
But Harvard is on track So good job, Harvard.
And so is the military.
Turns out that white people have stopped joining the military because the military doesn't like white people and won't give them the same opportunity.
So they stopped joining.
But the good news is that the military also lowered their intelligence bar so they can get the number of people.
It will just be less intelligence.
So we'll have a very diverse military, and Harvard's looking good, too.
So good going, guys.
Good work on the diversity.
Let's see.
So there's a mass brainwashing operation that's going into effect that involves some video games for local schools.
So your friendly government is giving away these Video games to help children find disinformation.
So, as Mike Benz accurately calls them, these are nudge-based psychology manipulating video games.
Nudge meaning it's not right on the nose.
They're not saying, kids, don't believe Donald Trump.
But that's what they're saying.
It's to nudge them into thinking they made up their own mind about what they can trust.
Do you think that any truth is being told to these children?
Do you think that the video game tells the kids that the news is completely fake and has been for decades?
Do you think that the video games tell them that the Republic ended probably in the 60s?
Of course not!
It's pure brainwashing.
Now I'm in favor of brainwashing children, because the alternative is way worse.
They become wild animals or something.
So you've got to do a little brainwashing.
But I wouldn't brainwash them this way.
Mark Andreessen is saying that in a post, everything you read makes sense if you simply translate experts as crazy people.
Have you seen that the frame of crazy people, or as I like to say, batshit crazy people, is becoming far more verbally noticed?
In other words, people are saying out loud, wait a minute, I'm not sure this is a political disagreement.
This looks like somebody's got a huge mental problem and they're acting like it's something about politics.
So we do have to, we have to stop treating mental illness like a difference of opinion.
It's not.
It's not.
It's just mental illness.
And if we're divided, you know, look how divided we are as a country.
Seems like the most divided.
We're also the most mentally ill.
I don't think there's that much division among the people who have not sought therapy for mental illness.
In other words, if you put it in the same room, all the people who do not have any form of mental illness, and you said, all right, what do you, what do you all believe?
Can you get along?
It wouldn't be much of a problem.
Basically the non-mentally ill people are generally willing to consider other information and, you know, maybe change their views if they hear a better argument, that sort of thing.
But the mentally ill are just going to go right to the wall.
Yeah.
And the eyes have it, the mentally ill eyes.
So, more on this.
The more important people, the more that important people say it's a crazy person problem, the better off we are.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
is reminding us that all our economic data is fake.
That's the short version.
So everything about jobs, You know, Biden keeps saying, economy's great, inflation's down, jobs are good.
It's all technically true, but fake.
Yeah, there are more jobs, but they're mostly government jobs and part-time work.
So, not exactly a sign of a healthy economy.
So, economic data?
Mostly fake.
And there are lots of examples.
I don't need to give you the examples, but if you believe anything the government says about inflation or jobs, You probably shouldn't.
60 Minutes had a big feature on, hey, you know that secret Russian weapon that was hurting all those embassy people?
And then studies were done to conclusively find that there was a mass hysteria and there was no weapon whatsoever.
Well, soon after it's debunked completely, 60 Minutes has somebody on to say, totally true.
Oh, is it true?
It's so true you can't even believe it.
It's true.
There's no picture of it, interestingly.
Nobody's ever seen one.
Weird.
Nobody's ever seen one.
It's sort of like those UFOs.
Nobody's ever seen one.
So just when we need to get to Ukraine funding, there's a secret Russian weapon and 60 minutes, which many believe is in the pocket of Big Intel is giving the other story.
Now, have I mentioned the documentary effect?
Now, 60 Minutes is sort of a long-form news, so it's a documentary within the show.
So, if you watch this Russian secret weapon episode on 60 Minutes, would you come away thinking that it's probably true?
I think so.
I didn't watch it, but I'll bet you would.
Because a lot of people said to me today, but Scott, did you see it?
Did you see it?
It's all true.
No.
If you watched 60 minutes and they spent, let's say, 15 or 20 minutes telling you there was definitely a Russian secret weapon, what can you conclude when you're done?
What's the only thing you can conclude after seeing hardcore, really strong evidence that this Russian secret weapon exists?
The only thing you can conclude is that documentaries are persuasive.
That's it.
Nothing else.
There's nothing else you can conclude.
You have departed all rational thought if you say, I listened to a documentary or listened to a segment on 60 Minutes and it changed my mind.
That's not good thinking, because you shouldn't be changing your minds based on one side of a topic.
So I'm going to say, no, I think it's still obviously a fake news, and I'm not even going to look at the details.
Speaking of fake news, you've heard of this thing called the Fog of War.
Do you remember that Al Shifa Hospital that was supposed to be over a massive command and control structure?
And so that's why it made sense that the Israelis went in there hard.
Well, they didn't destroy Al-Shifa, but, you know, did some damage.
But now it's completely destroyed, because they did go and root out some other Hamas people.
Some people are reporting that all of the hospitals are now destroyed, and the anti-Israel people are saying, well, that's proof that they always meant to be destroying everything.
Of course, Israel would say, no, there totally was a massive command and control center there, and they keep using them, and as long as they keep using them to defend themselves, we're going to keep knocking them down.
So, there you've got two stories from a war zone.
What have you learned?
Two opposite stories.
What have you learned?
If what you took away from that is, well, I trust one of those sides, you've learned nothing.
Fog of war.
You can't trust any of this.
You can't trust Israel when they say everything was fine, and you can't trust the other side when they say it's all torturing and raping.
They can't stop torturing and raping.
Don't believe any of it.
In the middle of a war, none of this is credible.
None of it.
I will tell you, I'm pretty skeptical about the massive command center under al-Shifa.
Clearly there was something down there.
It was obvious it was used for something.
There are other people who say the hospital itself used them, but then other people point to all the weapons that were found there, and then other people point to the fact that really there weren't many weapons found there for a massive command and control center.
So I don't know what to believe.
I would say you can't believe the Israeli government in a time of war, you can't believe Hamas in a time of war, and you can't believe the United States government in a time of war.
The only thing you can be sure of is, looks like there's some more.
A lot more.
So I'm not going to back either side at this point.
They're on their own.
I think we have an answer to the Mark Cuban mystery.
Have any of you been wondering, what's wrong with Mark Cuban?
Because he keeps very publicly defending DEI, and that is in conflict with, that conflicts with the fact that he's also clearly smart.
Now, how can you be smart and have an opinion that's so opposite of common sense?
Now, many, many different theories have been offered, but I think we have an answer finally.
Some people say he's just pandering, just pandering to the other side, you know, just trying to be a good guy in public.
Some say he's misinformed, he just didn't know enough about the topic.
Some say it's some kind of a performance, or like an op, or Like there's some bigger purpose to it because it couldn't make sense on its own.
I've also suggested early on that maybe he was just supporting his own companies.
So it could be that he has a diverse workforce in his own companies and he's just being a good CEO and making sure that he supports them as vocally as he can.
But none of these sounded too satisfying, did they?
Well, here's the new evidence.
So Mark Cuban posted this.
He said, I was with a group of people who were proponents of DEI.
They asked me what I would do to reduce the resistance to DEI.
And Mark said, I told them to do a search and replace in all of their materials for, quote, equity of outcomes, and then change that to, quote, equality of opportunities.
Don't let your head explode yet.
Hold on.
Every single person agreed that they never should have used equality of outcomes and said they should change the term.
Do you understand now?
In other words, Mark Cuban's understanding of DEI was the opposite of what DEI is.
So he said, if you change it to its opposite, then everybody would agree it's good.
Yes, that's true.
If you change it to its opposite, it would start to make sense.
Now here's what I think happened.
Because he did all this publicly, I mean, he literally said if you change it to its opposite, that then we all agree it's good.
He didn't know that before?
How is it possible he didn't know that?
Here's my hypothesis.
We can't read his mind, so we don't know.
And I think if you asked him, you still wouldn't know.
Because it's the sort of situation where you're never sure what you're hearing.
So I think asking him is a waste of time.
But here's what it looks like.
And I would say this is something that's happened to me on different occasions.
Were you ever sure you understood a topic, and then you got halfway in, and you realized, uh-oh, Did I completely misunderstand this topic?
And then you say to yourself, it would be kind of awkward for me to say, I completely misunderstood this topic.
Like I actually had it backwards.
That's completely misunderstanding.
And what do you do then?
Well, then you look for a clever, weaselly way that you could be completely wrong, but really right.
And it looks like he's taken that path.
Oh, I was a hundred percent wrong.
But in a way that matters if you change words, I was completely right.
But the good news is he found his way there.
So I think the explanation that he's stupid can be ruled out.
Are you with me?
Given that he found the right place, can we rule out stupid?
He found the right place.
And it looks like he, you know, took into account opinions and maybe found out more about it.
Now here's where he probably went wrong.
And this could have to do with not having much experience as an employee.
So his experiences as a boss is very different.
Here's what every employee knows.
If you were to say, Hey, that's a good idea.
We're going to change this from.
We can change this from saying equality of outcomes.
We're going to change it to equality of opportunities.
So, hey, managers, we just want to make sure that you have a quality of opportunity.
So then a year goes by.
And you go into your review with your boss and your boss says, hey, How have you done on diversity?
And you say, really great.
Excellent.
Made huge strides.
I've given more opportunities to more people than ever before.
So many opportunities.
And then the boss says, that's great.
So what is your current, you know, diversity situation?
And you say, well, none of them took the job.
Because, you know, it turns out they weren't qualified as other people.
So the diversity didn't change whatsoever.
But man, I nailed it.
I gave so many opportunities.
I did recruiting in inner cities.
We hired somebody just to scan for making sure we didn't miss anybody.
Opportunities all over the place.
You should give me a big, big raise for all the opportunities I created.
And the boss says, I have to explain why our diversity didn't change.
How am I going to explain that to my boss?
So I'm not going to give you a bonus for not increasing diversity.
And then the employee says, oh, well, hold on.
You told me very specifically that it's not about the outcomes.
You said it's about the opportunities.
And I just told you, I killed it in opportunities.
I made so many opportunities.
And then your boss doesn't give you a bonus.
And what do you do the next time?
Next year, you just hire everybody you can who looks different than the people you have.
Because that's how you get a bonus!
And if the boss says, I'm concerned that you hired people of lower capability, you look at him and you say, well, that's pretty racist.
I checked everybody myself.
They're all equally good.
So there's something wrong with you.
Racist.
Right?
So I think he thinks, you know, probably Mark thinks that in the real world, if you focus on opportunity, That that's what you get.
You get lots of opportunity, and that naturally creates more diversity.
No.
Not in the real world.
In the real world, people will pursue what they're measured on, and if they're measured on diversity, they're going to pump up that number, hiring whoever walks in the door.
Within reason.
So that's my theory.
I think he just got caught in a little blind spot and he's trying to crawl out of it now.
That's what it looks like.
Well, meanwhile, one of my old schools, UC Berkeley, is accused of being a racist because there's some kind of a... What is it?
They're banning white people from the community farms.
I guess Berkeley has some kind of community farm.
You can't go there if you're white.
Okay.
And then there's been a promise to review all of the UC systems to see if they have other systemic racism against white people.
Huh.
I wonder if there's any other systemic racism against white people in Berkeley.
If they check really hard, I don't know, maybe they could find some.
Maybe?
No.
Berkeley is a cesspool of racism, and good luck getting rid of it.
Jonathan Haidt is making a lot of news with his new book called The Anxious Generation, in which I'm summarizing it, you know, too much, but basically the idea is that the kids today are all anxious and have mental illness because a combination of their phones Plus less normal play.
So it's two things.
It's not just the phone.
It's also that it's substituting, you know, to some degree, play.
And that play is important.
And his critics are saying, but, but, but, all you're showing is correlation, not causation.
Now that's what I always say.
I always say, maybe it's just a coincidence.
Maybe something else is happening.
But Jonathan Haidt, in a very long post, pointed out the many, many studies he and his partner looked at, and that some of them would have been just correlation, but there's a lot more that tease out causation.
So the fact that he was very Very directly looking to find causation and not be fooled by correlation is a good sign.
So I think if I had to bet on it, I would bet that Haight is right and his critics are wrong because he says his critics focused on, you know, two studies or one study where indeed he would agree causation was not demonstrated.
But he had lots of other science that shows it was.
I can't speak to the science.
I can only say there's a disagreement there.
But remember my BS filter?
Number one best BS filter.
Does the science match observation?
Yes!
You don't have to be a scientist to look at a kid with a phone.
And know what's happening?
I think it's the dumbest thing in the world that there's any question about it.
Like, I'm glad that there is science, but this is very squarely in the category of, you could have just asked Scott, because it's all really, really, really obvious to every single observer.
Who has a kid and doesn't know that the phone is destroying their brains?
Nobody.
Every parent knows that.
It's obvious.
Well, let's see what else is happening.
Turkey had some elections, local elections, and weirdly their leader Erdogan, his party just got destroyed in a landslide.
So you think of Turkey as a sort of a strongman dictatorship, but they're a weird hybrid.
So they do, apparently they like leaders who are strong leaders, but they still get elected.
And apparently the elections are somewhat real.
So the national election follows, I guess, in their system.
And the smart people are saying Erdogan is just going to get wiped out and that he will not be the leader.
I don't know.
So apparently it looks like there's a move back toward secular government and away from more of a religious take on it.
We'll keep an eye on that.
I'm going to trust Ian Bremmer when he characterizes elections in Turkey as mattering.
So we'll see if he does get replaced.
That could change a lot.
Unless you're really plugged into geopolitical stuff, it wouldn't necessarily be obvious to you that Turkey makes a difference.
That makes a difference.
CIA influence?
I don't know.
Hard to imagine they weren't there.
All right, ladies and gentlemen, I have a little announcement just for the locals people.
So after we sign off, let's see if you have any questions first.
Is there anything I missed?
But I've got some just insider stuff for just the locals people we're done.
So I'll be turning off YouTube and Rumble and X, so only the locals people will see the good stuff.
