Episode 159 Scott Adams: Wondering about Shadow Banning
Date: 2018-07-28 | Duration: 47:55
Topics
Our opinions are being manipulated by an algorithm The public and press are influenced by maybe 3 engineers at Twitter Your opinions are assigned to you by your environment Common sense is an illusion, a rationalization after the fact Jake Tapper tweet on ignoring facts and reason The illusions of “history repeats” and “slippery slopes” The plastic straw ban The 48 Hour Rule for opinion and statements clarification
Transcript
[0:05] I’m pumping, pumping, pimping, pum pum pum pum pum pum. Hello Mike, hello people whose names are not actually in your username—Gino, Deidre, and Mark. How are you doing, Matt? Hey everybody, let’s talk about coffee. Yes, it’s time for the simultaneous sip. I’m a little bit later to give you time to brew your fresh pot. You’ve probably been waiting, and the moment is here. When do we get to a thousand users? Here it comes, the simultaneous sip. Everybody join me for the simultaneous sip. Oh yeah. So, I’ve been watching with amusement the issue of shadow banning on Twitter, and I have
[1:09] several ideas about this. I haven’t quite gelled them, but in no particular order: I’ve told you before that people think they have opinions. People think that their brain sort of independently evaluates the data and then comes up with an opinion, but nothing like that is happening. What’s happening is that your environment is largely assigning your opinion to you. Now, your brain could reject it in some of the extreme cases, but generally speaking, whichever form of media you’re attracted to—the Left or the Right—that media is pretty much assigning your opinion. Now, that’s true if you’re only watching Fox News or if you’re only watching MSNBC; your opinion would be assigned that way. But what happens if you’re looking at social media, which is more of a Wild West and it’s not a
[2:12] silo, but rather anybody can publish anything? Well, people have sort of siloed themselves by who they choose to follow or not, but I noted that there’s something different about social media, and it makes me wonder if we need some kind of constitutional change to recognize how important this is. Right now, we have a Constitution that defines the various branches of government. Your Constitution says, “What’s the court look like? What’s the Congress look like? What’s the executive branch look like?” But it seems to me that that was created before social media was a thing. I’m wondering if the Bill of Rights—after the Internet—I’m reading your comments and trying to talk at the same time. I’m wondering if
[3:13] the Constitution is slightly out of date. Imagine, if you will, the framers of the Constitution—Thomas Jefferson, let’s say, just to pick one. Imagine if the Internet was what it is now and they were coming up with a Constitution. Don’t you think they’d probably work something into that Constitution about the rights of social media users? I think they would. And no laws on Internet—and somebody’s saying—but here’s what I’m wondering. Suppose… well, let’s frame the problem first. Twitter has said, “We don’t shadow ban,” but then the users are seeing things which clearly look to them like shadow banning. And then when pressed, Twitter says some version of, “No, it’s not shadow banning, it’s our algorithm,
[4:13] and we’re trying to improve the health of the conversations,” I think they say. In order to do that, they have some rules built into the algorithm that influence what you can see, how often, and all that. Now, the net effect of that is that you can follow people that you want to see their content, and it won’t show it to you, or it won’t show it to you with a priority. That seems like not really what people were signing up for. But here’s the thing: if you as a user don’t know what the algorithm is, how can you really feel confident that something this vitally important to our existence is being handled correctly? So I would say that we should at least consider an independent board who does nothing but make sure the algorithms are fair.
[5:14] This board would be something that doesn’t necessarily even have to be a government entity; it could be just some private kind of entity. It could be the Swiss, could be something, but you need some kind of independent entity that can look at the social media stuff and say, “Okay, your algorithm is fair” or “not fair,” and then report out why it’s fair or why it’s not fair. So you need some details here. I don’t know if you can trust a company to do that for you, and I don’t know that you could trust the government to do that for you, so you probably need some kind of trusted entity to do that. Somebody says the board would be corrupted. You could probably design one that wouldn’t be. For example, suppose your board was changed out once a year? Suppose everything the board did had to be published so that there was no doubt
[6:16] why they did what they did. So you could probably… yeah, somebody says they picked the Southern Poverty Law Center. Yeah, if you pick a known organization, that’s a problem. But if you create something from scratch, you might be able to weight it; you might be able to find a way to do it. Would they get bribed? Well, that’s why you need to change them out once a year. You don’t want anything like a long tenure for that kind of a job anyway. I just put that out there. Now, the thing I’ve mentioned before that I’m continually struck by is because I say that social media and the news assign us our opinions. I would say that Twitter is sort of the top of the pyramid for opinion, and I say that because people in the press are all on Twitter. So if you look at what kind of social media
[7:17] influences the national conversation about politics, I would say that’s mostly Twitter. Even though Facebook has a lot of reach and ads and stuff, I think the press is influenced by Twitter. Would you say that’s true? Because the press is all on Twitter and that seems to be more immediate and more political and stuff. So it feels like our political opinions are being determined by an algorithm, and the algorithm is being adjusted by maybe… how many people? What would be your guess of how many people in the world know what’s in the Twitter algorithm? Like, actually know what variables are in it and what it’s designed to do? How many people in the whole world do you think actually understand it? Certainly not management, because it would be a little bit more
[8:17] technical and more detailed than management normally would be asked to understand. It must be complicated because if it were something simple, they’d probably just tell us. Yeah, if the variables were that easy, they’d just say, “Here’s our algorithm, this is what we’re doing,” but it’s probably complicated. So I would say maybe three people in the whole planet know what’s in the algorithm. And here’s the interesting thing: that algorithm will determine how the individuals and the press feel, and then they will create stories that make the rest of you feel a certain way. So there are probably three engineers, and they’re probably engineers who are determining the brain of the world. Because here is the chain of events: say three engineers probably
[9:19] know each other, I assume, and they decide what Twitter will present, at least in terms of how much of each message. Now, the amount of each message is very influential. We know that the more you see something, the more influential it is. So those few engineers decide which messages you see, and that influence goes to the media because the media are all on Twitter. People like me, people who follow the news, people who write about the news, pundits—they’re all following media Twitter. I’m pretty sure Twitter is by far the most influential thing. Then that press goes and they write stories, and the producers create content for all the various press platforms, but all of that traces back to three engineers at Twitter, probably. Now, if you believe that people have something like free will, then you say, “Well, that’s not
[10:21] much of a problem.” Probably a lot of you are saying some version of this: “Well, I can see what you’re saying, that there’s a little ripple effect from what the engineers do that goes all the way through, but it’s probably a small effect.” I don’t know; it might be the only thing that matters. Because it would look exactly the same to us. Those of us who have opinions feel like they came from ourselves, our own heads, because we just lived in the world and then we had an opinion. Then we said, “Well, I guess that was my opinion. I feel the way I feel because I’m just looking at the data.” But nothing like that is actually happening. Your opinions are assigned to you by some combination of your genetic makeup that causes your brain to be formed in a certain way—there’s a little bit of that—and your experience, which further formed your brain. So it’s a certain tool at
[11:23] any moment. It changes over time, but it’s being programmed by the environment and by the things that you’re exposing yourself to. So I think there may be three engineers who are effectively running the world right now because they can change what you care about and what you see, and that input in turn changes your opinion. Somebody says, “And how much I do my own research?” I would call that an illusion. Whenever I hear somebody say something like, “My opinion is not assigned to me because I do my own research”—and often you’ll see that about, let’s say, climate change—people will say, “No, I’ve looked into it, I’ve done my own research.” That is not a thing. That is a pure hallucination. If you believe you’ve done your research and that you’ve used
[12:23] that research to form an opinion, you are completely mistaken. Now, there could be somebody in the world who is capable of looking over all the research on both sides and really digging in—there might be a few people in the world who could do that—but that would be really expert level. If you’re just a consumer and you’re trying to figure out anything complicated like trade agreements or almost anything, when you look into it, you have this imagination that you’re looking at all the information, but you’re just following the little rabbit path that’s already been created for you by people who’ve gone before. Your tendency would be to follow the path that you think is the best one because you’re saying to yourself, “Well, of course I’m gathering information. Why wouldn’t I look for the best information and ignore the bad information?” But right there, I just told you the problem. If it’s your opinion which information is good and which is bad, you’re not really
[13:26] being influenced by the information; you’re using the information to reinforce your bias. So most people who say, “Hey, I know some people are sheep, but not me. For God’s sake, I do my own research,” those people are perhaps the most hypnotized because they have a firm hallucination that their own research is useful. Now, there are no absolutes, so there probably are some people in the world who can do that and maybe even come to better conclusions because of it, but when the average person says that, it doesn’t mean anything. Somebody says, “What about you?” Well, remember my message is that I don’t know the answer on complicated things. I’m trying to be consistent. So if you ask me, “Do you understand climate science?” I always say no.
[14:26] I would have to rely on other people, and I don’t trust those other people. That’s it; that’s all I know. Then there are some big things I know, such as: humans are good at solving problems if they see them coming. We know there are some technologies we’ll probably invent that’ll make a difference. We know that waiting sometimes is better than acting quickly. So there are some big concepts that we can say are true for every situation just because of the way the world is organized. But I don’t know the truth of climate science or necessarily what we should do. I don’t know the best answer on trade tariffs, but I can tell you that if we negotiate hard, we’ll probably get a better result than if we don’t. So there are just some general things you can say. But beyond that, if I did my own research—let’s say I decided, “All right, I’m going to figure out what’s going on with trade deals and the European Union and our deals with China. I’m going to dig into that and become an
[15:27] expert.” Well, I would convince myself I was an expert after a while. I would say to myself, “I have now looked at enough information. I have common sense.” Common sense is an illusion. Somebody wrote in all caps: COMMON SENSE IS AN ILLUSION. If two people disagree on any topic, which one of them has common sense? Why don’t you ask them? “Hey, you two who disagree completely, which one of you has common sense?” What will be the answer? “Well, I do!” “Well, I do! I’ve got plenty of common sense.” Common sense is a rationalization after the fact. It’s something you do after you’ve made your decisions. After you make your decision for irrational reasons, you say to yourself, “Well, I made this decision
[16:27] because of this fact, this fact, and all of my common sense.” It’s just common knowledge and common sense, but it’s not; it’s a rationalization after the fact. The exception to what I just said is there are some topics that have no emotional content. In those cases, you probably do use your ability to reason and your ability to use facts. So if you’re looking at… let’s say I want enough coffee so I don’t run out of coffee before I’m done doing a task on my computer, and I’ve got two size mugs: one is big, one is small. There’s no emotional content to this decision. That’s a decision where my reason totally works. I’d say, “Huh, I need more coffee than I can put in the small mug; I’ll use the big one.” Common sense tells me a bigger mug will last longer. If
[17:28] there’s no emotional content, you absolutely can use your reason. You don’t need to say “common sense.” But everything else—politics, love, your career—these things are just riddled with emotional variables. They overwhelm your sense of reason and facts, and that’s why we are the way we are. I noticed Jake Tapper had a retweet and a comment about Jonah Goldberg’s article. He was talking about how people are ignoring truth and facts and reality and just making their own reality up regarding this whole collusion allegation. Every time I see a story like that, I say to myself, “Are we just discovering
[18:31] this?” How long have I been telling you—literally the subtitle in my book—how long have I been telling people that the facts are just not part of the conversation, never will be, never have been? And by the way, I don’t exempt myself from these statements. When I say facts don’t matter, I don’t mean, “Oh, you dumb people standing over there, you guys and women can’t use facts.” I’m part of the subset of people. I’ll give an example: when the news came out that the GDP was going to be 4.1, and people were celebrating—and I was celebrating too—I was under the impression that Obama’s economy never reached 4.1. Now, I don’t know why I believed that. I guess I felt I heard it
[19:31] maybe on social media, maybe in the press. But maybe they weren’t really talking about the whole term, and it turns out it’s just false. It’s not even close to being true. Obama hit this level; other presidents have hit this level at different terms. So everything that I thought was a pretty solid fact about this GDP—which, by the way, is a great number, I’m not diminishing that, things are going in the right direction—but I’m pretty well-informed. I’m not TV pundit-informed or as informed as an expert, but as a casual observer, I absorb news all day long and I’m looking at both networks and
[20:33] social media from lots of different sources. You would think on a simple question like that, where somebody is saying Obama never hit annual GDP numbers this high—but we haven’t either. We have also never achieved annual numbers over four; we hit it once for a quarter. So when people are even making the simplest observations about fact, I got fooled. I absolutely had the wrong facts. If you had said to me, “Hey Scott, use your common sense to make a decision about which President did better with the economy,” I would have had a problem there because my common sense said, “Well, everybody’s saying this is the best it’s ever been, so I guess…” It would all be based on fake news that I’ve essentially created in my own head.
[21:41] Now, there are three concepts which I’m going to be writing about pretty soon. I’ve agreed to do a new book, by the way, and the working title was suggested by those of you here: Shake the Box. One of the things that I write about is the illusion that history repeats. Here are some things that sound the same as “history repeats”: analogy. It’s like, “Oh, this reminds me of this thing from history.” That’s bad thinking because history doesn’t repeat. And also, the “slippery slope.” Whenever I hear “the slippery slope,” my spine just goes… I hate hearing that term so much because it’s not thinking. I know I’m not going to be able to convince anybody
[22:41] that it’s not thinking. I’ll try, as I have tried throughout my life, but you cannot convince people that “slippery slope” is nothing. It’s not thinking in any way. Now, it is true that things change over time, but whether you call that a slippery slope or progress just depends on your political opinion. So if you said, “Hey, if you ban this kind of gun, next thing you know you’re going to be banning other kinds of guns; it’s a slippery slope”—well, it’s only a slippery slope if you don’t like the concept of banning guns. If you do like the concept of banning guns, it’s a little thing called progress. So if you think that labeling something a slippery slope has added to the conversation, that’s a complete illusion because things change. If you
[23:43] like that change, you say, “Hey, this is more progress. I love progress.” If you don’t like the change, it’s a slippery slope. I also believe that everything moves until there’s a competing force. In other words, politics is like physics in the sense that a body in motion will keep moving unless there’s some competing force, like gravity, or it runs into another object. So any policy will head in the same direction forever until it reaches an opposing force. But there’s always an opposing force, and when the opposing force is big enough, it stops. Take an example of taxes. If you raise taxes on the rich, is it a slippery slope to taking all of their money? Well, it’s a direction, but what will happen is at some point the
[24:44] people whose taxes are rising will organize, they’ll grab power back, and they’ll fight until it stops and maybe even reverses. The fact that something is going in one direction ignores the fact that counter-forces are always organized to slow it down. That’s the world you want to live in. You want to live in a world where you can have progress but there’s still a little gating factor that says, “Okay, that’s as fast as you need to go on this, and maybe you’ve gone far enough.” So adding the words “a slippery slope” to an argument adds absolutely nothing because history does not repeat, things do not go forever, and when they go in the right way, sometimes people will call that progress because they like that direction. What about drug use? Drug use is the same.
[25:47] The larger point is that everything is a special case. Once you get the big point that everything is its own special case, then you could say, “Oh, this thing is likely to go for a while,” and “this other thing is likely not to go for a while” because of their special case. In the case of drugs, if somebody is not being watched and they’re addicted to drugs, it is a slippery slope in the sense that they will keep doing drugs until they run out of money, or die, or hit bottom. So there is definitely a limit to how far it can go, and that’s true of just about everything. The opioid epidemic—yes, the opioid epidemic was a slippery slope until it became big enough that the public responded. The public does not yet have an effective response, but I’m confident that it will chip away at it until it gets something. Look at the children in cages problem under Obama.
[26:49] Under Obama, there were some children in cages, a smaller number than there were under Trump because the number of people coming increased. That was a problem that was a slippery slope: there were a few kids in cages and then there were a lot of kids in cages. What happened? As soon as it became a lot of kids in cages, the press got more interested suddenly, and then there was some pushback. Things can go in one direction for a while, but the “slippery slope” doesn’t add anything to the conversation. No one wants kids in cages. I had a conversation with an entertainment person who was very much in the liberal camp who questioned me about my thoughts about Trump, and he said, “Well, what about kids in cages?”
[27:53] I looked at him for a minute and I thought to myself, “Does he believe that somebody’s in favor of that?” Because the context of the question is that there might be somebody who thinks that’s okay. Nobody likes the kids in cages; it just took a while to fix it. I think that the press and the attention put on it was good. The times I’m happiest is when the system is working. The system worked. There was a small problem that became a big problem; when it became a bigger problem, the system took notice. Social media did its thing, it influenced the government, the government put more emphasis on it—probably some more money and more energy—and got closer to a solution. Still lots to go; you’re never done with this. But I would say that was a pretty good system. That’s encouraging to me.
[28:54] When there’s a problem and then the system works its way and solves it, that looks pretty good to me, even though nobody likes children in cages. What about this idiotic plastic straw ban? Why do you think it’s idiotic? The reason you think the plastic straw ban is idiotic is because the press has assigned that opinion to you. There’s nothing about common sense involved in this straw situation. The straw situation is complete political bias that has been fed back to you through your side of the press to say, “It’s going too far, it’s a slippery slope. If they ban the straws, they’re going to ban our clothes; we’ll be walking around naked next because with no plastic straws, one thing will lead to the next.” Here’s another way to look at it:
[29:56] I don’t know anything about this plastic straw situation. I don’t know how many tons of plastic straws find their way into the ocean or kill birds or whatever the hell they’re doing. No idea. I don’t know if it used to be a small problem that’s become a big problem. I don’t know if it’s the tip of the spear and they want to get rid of all the plastic pretty soon. I don’t know if these new technologies that are cleaning the plastic out of the ocean—and there are some good ones apparently coming on board—will work. I don’t know anything about this plastic straw situation. But I’ll tell you this: if it’s true that plastic straws are an environmental problem—and they probably are, it seems reasonable to think there might be some problem there—is it the biggest problem in the world that our technologists have to figure out a better straw? That feels like a small problem to me. It doesn’t feel like a slippery slope; it just feels like one
[30:58] more thing that somebody has surfaced as a problem. It’s probably bigger than we thought it was, and there’s probably a perfectly good workaround that we’ll get to over time. If you think it’s just political and it’s too much of a reach, I would say we don’t really know that. None of you have studied the plastic straw problem; all you saw was something on Fox News and you said, “Plastic straws! They’ve gone too far.” Now, the reason the plastic straw thing has any attention at all is that a plastic straw is by its nature a trivial thing. It’s not an automobile, it’s not a person, it’s not a war; it’s just a plastic straw. But that doesn’t mean that when you sum them up, it has no impact on the economy.
[32:13] Nope, not doing the straw thing. I think this plastic straw thing will probably become like so many other things in this domain—things that we do now that just seem normal but there was a time when it seemed crazy. For example, I was changing out some light bulbs and I’m reminded that California used to have incandescent light bulbs, but they changed the law and now we have LEDs and more efficient light bulbs. I remember when that law first came out and I thought, “Light bulbs? I want the color that this old light bulb creates.” My first impression was, “I’m opposed to this change. Why can’t they leave my light bulbs alone?” But now I have other light bulbs; they’re more energy-efficient, in the long run they save me time, and they’re less hot, so they don’t heat up the house that I’m then trying to air condition.
[33:15] Now I just go to the store to buy a light bulb and it’s just different light bulbs, that’s all. We tend to get worked up over light bulbs and straws and plastic bags, but I think society largely is crawling in the right direction with that stuff. If we can figure out ways to chip away at what would have been wasteful and find a better way to do it, it’ll take a little bit of friction to get there—no big deal. Now people are saying that the new bulbs are worse than the bad ones. If that’s true, I think science will figure that out and we’ll readjust.
[34:16] Metal straws make things taste better? Do they? Or do they make it taste worse? I don’t like the taste of metal. Have you ever noticed if you use a metal fork that your food tastes better or worse? I don’t like the taste of a fork. Here’s a little trick for you: if you’re eating little finger food like olives or anything small, if you can eat it with a wooden toothpick, it actually tastes better. Les Moonves—let’s talk about Les Moonves at CBS, accused by six women of MeToo sorts of things. I think this situation is just more of what we’ve seen, so there’s not much more to say about the trend. I once had a meeting with Les Moonves. One of the weird things about meeting me is that when you watch the news, you’re just watching stories about strangers. When I watch the news, half of the news is
[35:17] people I know. It’s weird, isn’t it? For example, if I’m watching any news program, chances are the host is somebody I’ve met or they’ve interviewed me or somehow I know them. A lot of the pundits I’ve met or had interactions with. Les Moonves is another one of those. Many years ago, I was pitching a Dilbert movie and he was one of the pitch stops on that tour. So I had a brief pitch session with him. I pitched Dilbert and he said, “Not for us.” He had a good reason, because CBS was sort of the older person’s network and Dilbert was a younger product; it didn’t really fit in their portfolio. “Are you still going to make the Dilbert movie?” No, that’s probably
[36:18] a permanent hold. Right now, I would not be able to market a movie because I wouldn’t be able to get good people to work on it; my brand is a little toxic in Hollywood. Anyway, I’m not scheduled to be on Greg Gutfeld’s show, but we are appearing together on stage for part of his book tour. I think that’s sold out at this point. James Gunn—let me suggest once again a rule for making the world a better place. I’ve said this before, but the more I think about it, the better I like this idea. Watch me influence the world right now.
[37:22] There are not that many cases where I get to call the home run over that field, but I’m going to do that right now. I’m going to inject some persuasion into the system that I think you’re going to see in real time change how people treat the news. All right, you ready? Here is some persuasion I’m going to release into the universe. The reason it will be persuasive is because it’s a new thought on a normal topic, and that makes something viral. Anytime you inject “the person bites the dog” instead of “the dog bites a person,” it’s unusual. But it’s also a high-ground maneuver, which is always the best. And here it is: how many times have you seen politicians, but also celebrities, get in trouble for something they said, and then later they clarified that
[38:24] the thing they said is not what they meant? It’s one of our most common phenomena. So, I recommend the 48-Hour Rule for clarification. It goes like this: if somebody says something that sounds outrageous and provocative—“Oh my God, it’s racist, it’s sexist”—and then the public says, “Hey, what do you mean? Are you saying what we think you’re saying? Did we hear you right?” here’s the new rule: you’ve got 48 hours to clarify. Once you’ve clarified, the clarification has to be the news from that point on. In other words, when we say “What is your opinion?” it has to be the clarification. I give it 48 hours because rules are better when they’re specific, and 48 hours is plenty of time for a celebrity to say, “Whoa, that’s what
[39:26] you heard? I totally misspoke because if I gave you that impression, that’s the opposite of my actual opinion.” Roseanne would be the perfect example of this. You’ve seen the President have this problem with Charlottesville and other things. When you say “48 hours to spin,” I think you’re not being a good citizen, because you’re saying “spin.” Here’s what I think the rule should be: we should believe people when they tell us their opinion. We should not assign people opinions. We should not say, “I’m looking in your secret thoughts and I’m seeing something bad because of the way you worded that thing.” The rule should be that the only people who can tell you what they’re thinking is the person. Now, if they take longer than 48 hours to correct something, I
[40:27] think it’s perfectly reasonable to say, “Okay, maybe that’s what they meant.” If it’s a year later and here’s some weird spin rationalization, I think you can ask yourself why they didn’t say that right away. That would be fair. But if they correct it within 48 hours, I think our rule should be that’s what they think. Nobody gets to tell other people what they think. Now, I of course have a personal investment in this because there have been many times—and I guess a lot of you have seen it yourself—where I have been misinterpreted. Somebody will say, “Scott, you said the aliens are real and they probed you!” and then I’ll say, “No, Dale, I didn’t say that. I didn’t say anything like that. I said other people claimed that it
[41:28] happened to them.” My opinion should not be Dale’s interpretation of my opinion. From that moment on, the 48-Hour Rule should be that I’ve got 48 hours to address anybody’s idea of my misinterpretation, assuming I’ve seen it. You can’t address everybody’s interpretation everywhere, but if the misinterpretation is the story—48 hours. Imagine how much better the world would be if people had 48 hours. That could include apologizing, it could include clarifying, but that’s the big picture. If you want a better world, give people 48 hours—especially politicians, because we judge them. If you’re a politician, pundit, or celebrity, you’re talking in public all the time. Your odds of saying something that sounds wrong is about
[42:28] a hundred percent. Eventually, you’re going to say something that people misinterpret. 48 hours—you’ve got to clarify it. That’s going to be my new rule. If you ask me in the future, “Hey, what about that thing that somebody said that was dumb?” I’ll say give them 48 hours. Once it’s clarified, I’m taking the clarification. Now, some of you are going to say, “Hey, I think the misspeak—whatever the original thing they said was—is really the better reflection of what they think, and what they did in the next 48 hours was really trying to cover it up or spin it.” Do you know what I say to that? Good! Good! Let’s take that example. Let’s say there’s some celebrity who says something terribly sexist and gets called out for it, and then 48 hours later the
[43:30] person says, “No, no, I was misinterpreted. I would never say such things.” Now, let’s say you believe they’re just lying to you and that they really did mean the thing they said 48 hours ago. Here’s my rule: it doesn’t matter. Because what you really wanted was for people to understand the difference between the bad behavior and the good behavior, which they are demonstrating by telling you that they didn’t mean the bad behavior. You want them to do it in public. You want to remind the world what good behavior looks like and what good opinions look like. I think we should accept when people say their clarification, even if it’s not true. This is a really important point: even if the clarification is an absolute lie, the world is way better off if we let people say, “All right, I said
[44:32] that sexist thing, but now I’m clarifying it because I get it; we don’t say these things.” The clarification turns that person into the thing they said they really believe. There’s a principle in persuasion in which if you state publicly an opinion, you end up adopting the opinion even if you didn’t believe it when you first said it. So if somebody was really a sexist and really said a sexist thing, and within 48 hours they said, “No, I don’t mean that, that’s not who I am,” let them. Here’s the key: let them become the person you wanted them to be. Let them do that, even if it’s not real. Let them become that person; let them pretend to be that person, because they will become that person by pretending. You know the nature of human beings is if you pretend to be a jerk, it becomes who you are. If you
[45:33] pretend to be nice, that becomes who you are. If you show love to people before you even feel it, you come to love them. So let people become the people you want them to be. Give them that freedom and give them that pass. Let people be in charge of what they want you to think is their opinion. It’s okay that you give them some pushback. Did I ask Kathy Griffin to come on? I haven’t, but that would be fun. I think I will ask her to do that. I’m waiting for an upgrade coming to my startup’s app, the Interface app. There’s an important upgrade coming that we’ll announce in a few weeks, and then maybe I’ll do some more appearances. I also have some really interesting stuff coming up next week—I don’t want to tease it yet—but as you
[46:35] know, I try to help the world in ways that I have any special ability to do. There’s something very interesting that I’m working on that you’ll hear about next week, and I hope all of you will participate, at least with your ideas. I’m going to ask you to participate with your thoughts and your ideas—it doesn’t have to be your money. It’s going to be exciting and it will be fun, and you’ll see that next week. No, it’s not about the malaria. I’ll leave malaria to the Gates Foundation; they seem to really be all over that, which is great. I just heard a phone ring, but I don’t know where my phone is.
[47:38] No, it’s not about Black Lives Matter. It’s something that could influence all of you in a good way. That’s all for now. I’ve got other things to do and I’ll talk to you later.