Episode 35 - How Dale Feels About North Korea Good News
Date: 2018-06-18 | Duration: 26:17
Topics
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Transcript
[0:08]
Ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum. Hey everybody, get in here quickly before everybody else gets in, because the people who get here late, they miss all the good stuff. They miss the theme song; they miss the simultaneous sip. Are you ready? Early birds, grab your books. Oh, that’s some coffee. This should have been warmer, but still delicious. So apparently the economy had a better-than-expected GDP for the first quarter, still not anywhere near that 3 or 4 percent that we’d like to see—or as President Trump says, could be 5 or 6 percent, could be 8 percent, never know, maybe 10, 9, 12 percent, could be 6 percent, maybe 20 percent. We don’t know, we’ll see. Just kidding, but he does make us think.
[1:11]
He makes us think about how good it’s gonna be, which causes it to be good because it pumps up people’s confidence. Now, I’ve been telling you for a while that I would regard a good result in North Korea—and by a good result, I mean denuclearization; there’s nothing else that’s a good result—I’ve been regarding that as the trigger for the Golden Age. The defining moment where everything just looked different after that moment. And not just because the world is different, but because the way we think about things is different. Imagine what could be more powerful? Well, let me give you an example. During the Kennedy administration, famously, Kennedy said we’re going to…
[2:12]
Famously, Kennedy said we’re going to put a human being on the moon. It was this great aspirational, seemingly impossible task that amazingly we pulled off anyway. There’s something very powerful about accomplishing the impossible and also calling your shot. So it’s like the Babe Ruth thing. It wasn’t just that Kennedy was president and got us to the moon with his leadership support, but that he called his shot. The fun part was he said, “See that moon?” I’m paraphrasing here. “See that moon? I’m going to put a person on that.” And then he did it. That’s kind of amazing, and that changes how you think about everything. It just makes society work better because your concept of what is possible changes.
[3:13]
A lot of what holds people back is not knowing what’s possible. President Trump is clearly unbound by notions of what is possible. You wouldn’t have done anything that you’ve seen him do if he had any normal sense of what’s possible or even what’s appropriate. If there’s a box and somebody says, “President Trump,” or before that, “Citizen Trump,” “Hey, people stay in the box,” whatever the box is—it doesn’t matter even what category of life we’re talking about—President Trump will be like, “Watch this, dude. I’m getting out of my box. Watch what happens. I’m gonna make it work anyway.” So if North Korea goes right—and it’s still “if”—by the way, I want to say again that you have to assume, if this is a normal negotiation process, there could be at least one…
[4:14]
There could be at least one major walk-away breakdown. “It’s all gonna fall apart; we’re gonna build our nuclear weapons up; you’re all dead.” There’s a good chance, not a hundred percent, but you might see something that looks like it’s all going to hell before you get a good result. That would be just normal negotiating. Don’t freak out if you see that happen, because that would just be the normal process. There should be at least one point where you’re sure it’s all doomed. That means that they negotiated well. So the point is, if North Korea comes in and turns out the way we want, our understanding of our reality changes. Now, maybe it’s changing already because people are watching that historic handshake, and the handshake itself is closer to the beginning of the process…
[5:15]
Closer to the beginning of the process than the end, but emotionally it feels closer to the end than the beginning. The way it feels is a little bit opposite to what was actually happening, but you can feel that already, can’t you? Could you have imagined that Kanye would do a public embrace of President Trump at tremendous risk to his brand? You didn’t see that coming. So our sense of what is possible these days is just starting to change a little bit. Now, I know people are gonna say, “Oh, well this isn’t necessarily because President Trump did whatever he did. It’s that North Koreans were gonna have trouble on their own; their mountain collapsed; China was pushing them,” whatever people are gonna say. But that’s not nearly as important as the fact that something you…
[6:17]
That’s the fact that something you thought probably was impossible just happened right in front of you. And here’s the important point: President Trump called his shot. Ahead of time, he said in a tweet Sunday, “I hope to be your friend,” to North Korea. He said to Kim Jong Un in a tweet, very soon after the “fire and fury” stuff, he said, “Someday I hope we can be friends.” And he said it in a way that literally made you laugh. I think that was part of the technique. I called it out at the time, and I said that this locker room banter is very humanizing. It made both leaders feel like human beings, not like some kind of artificial leader thing, and it probably made them think they could deal with each other.
[7:20]
The casualness, the hyperbole, the whole personality that both of them brought to it—I think both of them were looking at the other and saying, “Hey, I could deal with that guy. He’s me. I’m watching myself. It’s like I’m watching the North Korean me.” And Kim Jong Un is saying, “If I were President of the United States, I’d probably be him.” I think there was a little of that going on. So, we have enough people here. I promised you that I was going to have Dale give you his reaction to the news. So I’d like to do my impression of two news sources. Number one news source is Fox News, and it would go like this: “There’s a historic breakthrough in North Korea. It’s too early to say, but good things look like they’re happening thanks to President Trump. By the way, the…”
[8:21]
“Thanks to President Trump. By the way, the economy is up and Syria is looking good.” That’s Fox News. Now I’d like to give you the news from CNN: “Lawyer, lawyer, lawyer, lawyer, lawyer, lawyer, lawyer, lawyer, lawyer, lawyer. Lawyer alert! Look, North Korea—lawyer! Lawyer, lawyer, lawyer, lawyer. Economy—lawyer, lawyer, lawyer, lawyer, lawyer, lawyer. Impeach, impeach, impeach. Lawyer, lawyer, lawyer. Stormy Daniels, Stormy Daniels. Michael Cohen, Michael Cohen.” And now back to Fox News: “A historic summit in North and South Korea on the DMZ. It looks like a breakthrough of historic importance. Meanwhile, the economy is humming along. President Trump on his way…”
[9:25]
Humming along, President Trump on his way to possibly a Nobel Peace Prize. Did you see? I tweeted around—there was one betting site, it looked like a UK betting site, in which there was a two-to-one, and it was the highest odds bet that the Nobel Prize would go to Kim Jong Un and President Trump. Two-to-one. Was it Moon? I thought it was Kim Jong Un, but Trump is on the list. I think the odds are better than two-to-one. Oh, it was Kim. Yeah, it should be Kim. There’s no question about it. If Kim Jong Un pulls this off, he is a great leader. He may be a brutal dictator…
[10:25]
Great leader. He may be a brutal dictator; he may have done terrible, terrible, terrible things. That could be true at the same time. If he pulls this off, he’s a great leader. That doesn’t mean a good guy, doesn’t mean anything else, but he’s a great leader if he pulls it off. My take on Otto Warmbier is it seems unlikely that the order to do whatever happened to Warmbier—it seems deeply unlikely to me that the order to do that came from Kim Jong Un, because I’m not sure he’d care about a prisoner. I just don’t see it being on his radar. So it’s a great tragedy. He’s a leader; he has responsibility for what happens in his country, but it feels unlikely that that’s something he chose to do.
[11:31]
It’s starting to look like things are coming together. Now, when the Kanye news hit, the main message from Kanye is: let him think for himself. Let him be a free thinker. You can think and love anybody you want. At about the same time, I was being eviscerated by the mainstream press for… what are the things they accused me of? They accused me of being alt-right. I’m actually left of Bernie. They accused me of being a men’s rights advocate because I once wrote a blog in which I made fun of men’s rights. That makes me a leader of the thing I made fun of. They said I was a retired cartoonist, a former cartoonist. They said I was a Holocaust denier. No, in fact, I’m not only just not a Holocaust denier, I’m…
[12:35]
I’m a double Holocaust-er. Now, a lot of people believe in only one Holocaust. It’s like, “Oh yeah, the Holocaust happened, there was one of them.” Not me. I’m a double Holocaust-er. I believe in the regular Holocaust as well as the Armenian Genocide. So if you only believe in the main Holocaust, you’re not quite the Holocaust believer that I am, because I believe in all of that one plus the Armenian Genocide. So I’m a double Holocaust-er. When you see in the news that I’m a Holocaust denier, that’s wrong twice. So the news was vicious about me, but one of the things the news said as part of their attack on me—and you may have seen this, tell me if you saw this—part of the attacks on me are that I’m a regular guest on InfoWars. So I’m…
[13:36]
I’m reading all the attacks on me, and the press is like, “He’s a regular guest on InfoWars.” I’m thinking to myself, “Oh man, going on InfoWars makes a lot of the country uncomfortable, and they don’t like it at all.” So, naturally, I agreed to go on InfoWars this morning. I’ll be on InfoWars in a little over an hour. I’ll be talking to Alex Jones on InfoWars a little bit later this morning, and I’m gonna like it more than I’ve ever liked it. They’ve always been very nice to me; they promote my book. I’m happy to talk to their audience. I think there’s something that maybe the people who are attacking me for going on those shows are missing about the point of it all. I’ll ask Alex if this is true when I talk to him, but I think this is true—fact-check me on this:
[14:37]
I believe that InfoWars asks me on their show so that I can give my opinion to them—not just the hosts that I talk to, but also the audience. I think that’s the model, right? They invite me on so that my opinion goes to them. If my critics are saying that I should be smeared by associating with InfoWars, I think they’re missing how this works. They asked me on to hear my opinion. I doubt they’re asking me on InfoWars to tell me their opinion. Do you think Alex said, “Scott—I do a pretty good impression—Scott, come on InfoWars and we’ll tell you our opinion”? That’s not what’s…
[15:39]
That’s not what’s happening. They’re literally asking for my opinion to their audience. Now, to the extent that I’m a good influence—and I am, and I am a good influence—you would think the world would be happy about that. Like Kanye, who is my spirit animal, I will say I proclaim to the world that I am platform agnostic. I’m Switzerland. I will go on InfoWars. I will go on any publication that has an audience. If Antifa has a podcast, I’ll go on there. If Black Lives Matter invites me over, I will go there. And guess what? If they invite me, it won’t be because Antifa wants to tell…
[16:40]
Won’t be because Antifa wants to tell me their opinion, and it won’t be because Black Lives Matter wants to tell me their opinion. If they invite me on the show, it’s because my opinion will go to them. I’m in. So, world, stop telling me who I can talk to. I can talk to anybody I want. And if you tell me that it’s obnoxious and inappropriate and an offense to the world to talk to InfoWars, I’m going on InfoWars. Yeah, you just talked me into it. I’ll do exactly what you don’t want me to do if it involves free speech and the ability to interact with whoever I want to. Or as Kanye says—I’m paraphrasing—“Why can’t you love who he wants to?” Why can’t I love Alex Jones even while disagreeing with probably a lot of his opinion? Why can’t I talk to somebody who’s ever made a mistake in my opinion? Why can’t I…
[17:43]
Have a conversation with somebody who did that bad thing that time? Most of you have done something in your whole life, at least something that I wouldn’t like. I’m still gonna talk to you. I don’t want to live in a world where, if I make one mistake, nobody would ever talk to me again. Do you want to live in that world? By the way, I think the most misunderstood thing about conservatives—Republican/conservatives—is the whole forgiveness part. Because the Republican deal is Bibles and Constitutions. We have these two documents that tell us how to be, how to treat each other, how to act, and we’re really serious about them. Bible and Constitution. It’s all written down. There’s some interpretation issues, but basically we…
[18:45]
Got documents to tell us what to do. And then there are laws created by the courts, and we’ll follow those. But the whole Christian forgiveness thing—it was like, “We forgive your sin, if you can get on board, and from now on you’re good with us.” That is so powerful. And by the way, I’m not a believer. I just like that element of conservatives: that you could be a pretty bad character, but if you clean up your act—and it’s real, it’s got to be believable—but if you clean up your act, what do conservatives say? “We love you. That thing you used to do? I hate that thing, but I love you. I love that you cleaned up your act.” And you’re seeing all this…
[19:48]
Philosophical divide between the left and the right. I’ve talked about this before, and it’s getting more and more clear. The right—this is probably backwards where you’re looking at—but the right seems to be about ideas, not people. The Constitution’s an idea; religion is an idea; the rule of law—these are ideas. So they’re really about ideas, and that makes it easy for Christians and people on the right to forgive sins, because they weren’t judging you individually. They were looking at what you did. And if what you did they hate, they’re gonna say, “I hate it.” And then if you stop doing that stuff and do things they like, they’re gonna say, “Well, now we like what you’re doing. And by the way, we never hated you; we just hated what you were doing.” It’s a…
[20:48]
Very functional philosophy. On the left—the left is not guided by a document. There are plenty of religious people on the left, but they’re not as guided by “the book.” I think they see the Constitution of the United States as a suggestion. So they’re not living a documented rules-based guideline for life. I think what’s happened is the people on the left start to judge people instead of actions. You see that when people come after me; it seems like they’re coming after me personally. They usually refer to something I said, so they act like they’re talking about ideas, but the…
[21:50]
Way they talk about it is dismissive. They don’t say of me—this is what you’ll never hear—they never say, “Scott Adams said X, Y, and Z, and of course that’s wrong because of these reasons.” Maybe somebody said that, but that would be a rare kind of criticism. What they say instead is, “He’s associated with InfoWars. He once said that thing,” that we’ve misinterpreted. But it’s all eye-rolling: “Look at that guy.” If you look at the criticisms against me, they’re about how I look. It’s about my being. It’s almost like my DNA is evil and filthy or something. So the people on the left, they hate me as a person. The people on the right are doing a pretty good job of…
[22:53]
Looking at actions, not people. These are gross generalizations. There are great people on the left; there are great people on the right. There are bad people in both groups. These are gross generalizations, but philosophically it does look like we’ve lined up into: the left is about, “Are the people bad?” and on the right it’s, “Is your idea good? Is your concept good? Is your philosophy good?” That gets into morality and ethics and stuff like that. Both sides care about morality and ethics, but it’s a little dicier on the left because the left doesn’t have a book in the same way that the right does. It doesn’t have a more objective way to look at things, so they’re sort of freestyling on the left and you end up defaulting to personalities. It’s like, “I hate that guy.”
[23:57]
Somebody just said, “The only atheist I like is you, Scott.” I’m not an atheist, per se. The trouble with being an atheist is that implies certainty. What I’m certain about is that none of us are good at understanding our reality. I do think that mathematically—the simulation—just the math basis of it and the statistical likelihood of it… the simulation is by far, by a factor of maybe a trillion, more likely than the other explanations. By the way, wouldn’t—hypothetically speaking—wouldn’t the best president be somebody who wasn’t a believer? I was thinking about this the other day. I think your best president would be somebody who did not subscribe to one of the religions, because most of the people in the country have a religion and they’re going to feel like, “I don’t like having…”
[24:57]
“A president who’s the other religion.” But if somebody is a non-believer who is respectful to religion—and I’m very respectful; I wasn’t always; this is more of a last ten years evolution for me—I would say that my observation of religion is that it’s a tool, and a lot of people use it for good. It makes their life better, makes the world better. So I’m very pro-religion, but it really depends on the person using the religion. You can’t judge the tool separate from the quality of the person using it. They can use it for good or bad. So I don’t judge religion as bad or good; I view it as a tool that many people use for good—unambiguously good.
[26:01]
I think that’s all I have for today. I’m gonna get back to the Golden Age. Get ready to talk to Alex a little bit later, and let’s talk again—maybe later today, maybe tomorrow. I’ll talk to you later.