Episode 162 Scott Adams: North Korea, Iran, Twitter, Healthcare, 3D Guns
Date: 2018-07-31 | Duration: 41:22
Topics
NK doing things they haven’t negotiated to stop doing yet Misleading cost estimates of healthcare proposals 3D printed guns, is that a big deal? The clear advantage of my “48 Hour Rule”, allowing clarifications NFL new rule on kneeling, worse than the old rule? President Trump approval polls Is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez “the real thing”? Who is the best Democrat Presidential candidate? Koch brothers vs. President Trump
Transcript
[0:14]
Hey everybody. I hope you’re singing along and I hope you have your coffee because today is the day where you’re finally on time. You’ve got your beverage and you’re going to enjoy the simultaneous sip with so many like-minded people who are about to do it right. Oh, that’s good. I love it when you call me captain. Hey Morgan, hey Ray, hey Based Diva and Glitter. Let’s talk about a few things in the news. North Korea behaving badly, or are they? There’s a new report now in The Washington Post—well, that’s credible. It’s in The Washington Post and they’re referring to some intelligence sources.
[1:16]
Well, that’s credible. Intelligence sources always get this sort of thing right. And then if those intelligence sources talk to The Washington Post, well, that’s twice as true. Or is it? Here we have a problem because the intelligence agencies are no longer credible. I’m not sure they were ever credible, but at the moment they’re probably at an all-time low of credibility. Now, does that mean that North Korea is not continuing to work on long-range missiles? No, I would imagine they are. Do you know why I imagine they are working on long-range missiles? Because they haven’t negotiated not to. What kind of negotiator would go into negotiations and give away the stuff they’re negotiating? That’s not a thing. So, yes, of course, they’re continuing business as usual because they don’t have a deal yet.
[2:18]
I saw reports that I’m having a little trouble believing, or possibly there’s something we don’t know about it that would make it all make sense, and that is that North Korea is saying that they’re not going to go the next step of actually doing more physical things to stop their nuclear and missile programs unless the United States makes a bold step. The bold step means some kind of a concession, but what they talked about in the reporting is a bold step that would primarily be declaring peace and declaring an end to the war that’s still officially a war, and implementing security guarantees so that North Korea has a guarantee by the big powers that nobody will attack. I’m thinking to myself that’s pretty doable.
[3:22]
There’s a little bit of a chicken and egg problem. Do they have to do their thing first or do we just say our thing first? But here’s the thing: wouldn’t it be easy to structure a deal? We’ll declare peace and we’ll say the war is over and we’ll give you security guarantees, but the security guarantees are contingent on you actually getting rid of the missiles and actually getting rid of the nukes, and that if you don’t do that, the security guarantees are not valid. It seems to me there’s a path. Now, that’s the idiot’s version of what’s going on because one imagines that what the people doing the work know is very different from what we know. It could be a completely different situation in reality, but in terms of the reporting, what we’re seeing is that work continues, which it should, because they’re negotiating. They’re not giving stuff away until they get their deal.
[4:23]
I would imagine they keep the pressure on by continuing to develop. The thing that they want, according to the reporting—don’t know if this is true—but the reporting is that the thing they want sounds pretty doable. So that’s all good news. There’s nothing that looks like a permanent stop. Let’s talk about Iran. After President Trump’s all-caps warning to Iran, there’s a little bit of a public dialogue going on, not a private one. President Trump has said that he would meet with Iran’s Rouhani without conditions. Are people happy with that? Well, of course, people are saying no, you never meet with people without conditions. I think Rouhani is saying, “I have my own conditions; you must get back in the agreement that you got out of.”
[5:26]
That’s not going to happen. At least that condition won’t happen. But it’s interesting that the President has said he would talk to him. The word that I saw from one of the Iranian officials, or maybe it was somebody reporting about it, they used the word “humiliation.” The thinking is that since the United States pulled out of the deal, thus putting Iran in a weakened situation, if Iran agreed to just talk to him, that would be like talking to your bully. It would be sort of like a humiliation for Iran. I thought to myself, okay, I can see that. That’s a factor, but what kind of factor is that? Psychology. I’ve told you that the definition of the Golden Age is when we realize our biggest problems are psychological.
[6:27]
Iran is probably the best example of that. If the only thing that’s keeping us from having a talk with Iran is that they’re feeling humiliated, that’s a psychological situation and I would imagine that is solvable. I don’t know exactly what it would take to solve it.
Explain Hot Pockets? I will. Hot Pockets are a small food that you put in a toaster and it makes a meal. But what’s funny about it is it’s part of a famous comedy act by comedian Jim Gaffigan. I think he’s on my mind. I got to hang out with Jim Gaffigan.
[7:29]
I think we chatted for a couple hours. I watched his show in Las Vegas recently and got to talk to him afterwards. I think that might have been on my mind. I had met him because we worked together years ago on a project. Let’s talk about healthcare. I saw a quote from Jamie Dimon, who’s one of the three big people in this private healthcare initiative with Bezos and Buffett. The idea is that those three companies are going to try to create their own private healthcare or low-cost situations using technology. They’re a little vague about what that means, but it’s the right direction.
[8:30]
I like the fact that technology is their focus because it seems like those three companies should be able to come up with something. They’ve got the money and, at least Amazon, has the technology chops. It’ll be fascinating to see what they come up with. Somebody mentioned the 32 trillion dollar cost for Medicaid for All or Medicare for All. You probably heard me call out that that number was BS because, first of all, it’s a ten-year number. If you multiply anything by enough years, it becomes too big a number. These things should always be expressed in a one-year number. In my opinion, it should be a one-year number unless it’s going to be changing a lot, like going up fast or going down slow.
[9:31]
Then it makes sense to do it in ten years, but we can’t really understand ten-year estimates. Give me a one-year number and then put it in context with the budget, and I’ve got a little more chance of understanding it. But I have seen at least one article which agreed with what I said yesterday on Periscope: that number did not include the savings of the people who would be buying their own healthcare. It didn’t include maybe the savings of efficiencies. The larger point here is that there are gigantic differences in how people estimate this stuff. Buried in that article about the 32 trillion extra it would cost, here’s where you probably didn’t see it: in that same article, I believe it said that compared to doing what we’re already doing, it would be two trillion dollars cheaper.
[10:36]
You probably thought you just heard me wrong. The same article that said it would cost 32 trillion dollars to have healthcare for all, if you keep reading down to the detail, says that compared to doing nothing, it would be two trillion dollars cheaper. You say to yourself, “Wait a minute, that is literally the opposite.” Look at the problem here. The same article said it would be 32 trillion dollars and you say, “Well, that’s impossible.” The same article said it would be two trillion dollars cheaper than what we’re doing now, and then you say to yourself, “Oh, okay, that actually looks like a good deal.” But you’d be wrong. You’d be wrong twice. Both of the things I told you are completely misleading.
[11:36]
Because if it looks like you’re going to spend 32 trillion over ten years and somebody’s saying, “Well, if you don’t do anything it would be 34 trillion, so you’re really saving two trillion dollars”—no, you’re not, because we don’t have 32 trillion dollars to spend over 10 years. So nobody’s going to spend either of those amounts. The entire analysis is two numbers that are opposites. “32 trillion dollars, we can’t possibly afford it.” “We save two trillion dollars.” So you say, “Well, you can see anything you want in this article.” Well, you can. That’s the problem. But we don’t have 32 or 34 trillion dollars, so we’re only talking about alternatives that can’t happen. Comparing one thing that can’t happen and saying it’s less expensive than the other thing that can’t happen doesn’t mean you save money. You’ve got to be careful about saying you save money, but you also got to be careful saying it’ll cost 32 trillion because that’s
[12:38]
probably misleading too. My larger point is that, like climate science, any imagination you have that we know what the hell will happen and what it will cost is absolute fantasy. Somebody said, “This is so stupid it hurts.” I don’t know if you’re talking about me or someone else, but if that was about me, you’re going to get blocked. The first thing you need to know about healthcare is that any estimates of costs are probably imaginary. That doesn’t mean that we can’t tell that some things will be more expensive than others; we probably can. But the big changes—if you’re looking at 10 years, let’s say I’m making a 10-year estimate of healthcare costs, does that include whatever Buffett, Jamie Dimon, and Bezos come up with and ideally share with the rest of the world? It does not because we don’t know what they’ll
[13:39]
come up with. Does it include the device that I tweeted about yesterday that takes blood tests down to literally a device that goes on your phone? It doesn’t include that. None of that’s included. There are no inclusions of any kind of change in healthcare costs. So all estimates about healthcare are bunk.
Let’s talk about 3D guns. The news is now that apparently it will be legal to download plans and print a 3D gun if you have a 3D printer. People say to themselves, “My God, this is dangerous because people will have a bunch of illegal guns.” I say to myself: will this really make any difference to anything?
[14:39]
Because here’s my thinking: how much overlap is there between the people who want to use a gun illegally and also have a 3D printer? Is that a lot of people? Do a lot of people have 3D printers and they want to kill somebody? Probably some, but given that we live in a country where getting a gun is just about the easiest thing in the world, who’s going to buy a 3D printer when they need a gun? Feels like the wrong way to do it. Secondly, if you want to stop people from making 3D printed guns, here’s the way to do it. Right now there must be at least one plan online that tells you how to do a 3D gun. One way to stop it is to put more of those plans online. Have you ever tried
[15:42]
to Google directions on how to do something, or you look at YouTube and you’re looking for directions? What’s the biggest problem? The problem is there are too many directions and they’re all different and you’re thinking, “Oh my God, I can’t tell, is this the updated software or is this the one with the bug? Does this work with my 3D printer or is that the other version? If I get this plan, does it work with the operating system I have on my 3D printer or not?” Why are there 50 versions of the plan of the gun? If all you do is let the 3D plans go exactly the same way as every other online instruction, from YouTube instructions to anything you Google about software—you try to fix a software bug, you Google it and you find 1500 freaking descriptions of how to fix it, but they’re all completely different. At least one of them is always “erase all of your software.” Have you had this problem?
[16:44]
You have some kind of a bug with your device or computer and you go online to look for the source, and one of the solutions every freaking time is “erase everything on your hard disk, delete and start over.” That’s the only thing you can do. It is one of the 300 instructions. Let me tell you, if I’m mad enough to want to kill somebody and I need a gun, the only thing that could make me more mad is to try to print a gun with a freaking 3D printer and try to figure out which one of these stupid gun instructions is the one that actually works on my printer, and then make sure I’ve got the right kind of plastic. Because there’s probably something like, “Yeah, but you have to get a special pellet for your plastic because it’s a harder plastic.” Did you see the picture of the actual printed gun? Let me show you.
[17:45]
I’m no design expert, but let me show you a picture of the gun. It looked like this: it looked like a Kleenex box with a handle. Now, psychology is always a big element of anything. If you’re a badass gangster, let’s say you’re MS-13 and you’re thinking, “I’m gonna get me a gun,” and you’re hanging out with your homies and they’ve all got their cool guns and they’re hanging out like, “Yeah, look at me, got my gun,” and you say, “That’s nothing,” and you pull out your 3D plastic gun? You’re gonna get laughed out of MS-13. Just saying. If you go to prison for a crime with a plastic gun that looks like this, you’re not gonna get the respect of the other prisoners.
[18:47]
This is not the gun you want to commit a crime for and go to jail. You’ll have to lie about your crime. People who use a plastic gun to create a crime, if they actually go to prison, they’re gonna have to say that they’re actually child molesters just to stay safe because you don’t want to be that guy. Don’t be the criminal with the plastic gun. That’s all I’m saying. Now, will there be children who will try to download plastic guns? Well, probably, but there are children who get their parents’ guns, children who get guns illegally. Unfortunately, there are just guns everywhere. My thinking is these plastic guns—if you assume any big change will cause somebody to die, then yes—but probably the size of the problem is not nearly as big as people imagine. You still have to get ammo.
[19:49]
I’m also thinking it seems to me that there will be ways to control that because even though it’s software, there probably will be online markets that are the only places you get plans. I don’t know how the 3D app stores work, but if there’s something like an app store for 3D printers, it wouldn’t be that hard to restrict somehow those plans, or at least track who has them, or at least make sure you’re an adult or make sure that you go through the same background check as anybody else. There are probably ways to control it; I wouldn’t worry about it. Let’s talk about—I’m going to talk about my 48-Hour Rule again. The 48-Hour Rule I’m going to keep putting out there and see if I can get it to catch on is that if somebody says something in public or is discovered to have said something in the past on
[20:50]
Twitter, and it becomes public, at that moment they should have 48 hours to clarify. The reason for this is we don’t want to live in a world where people are judged by what we imagine they are thinking. Remember that you are not the sum of your thoughts. That’s not who you are. Who you are is what you do, at least to the rest of the world, because we don’t care about your internal thoughts; we care what you do. If you’re thinking a bad thing but you’re giving your money to the poor, what you’re thinking might be bad, but what you’re doing is good. Who are you? You’re the person who gave to the poor. That’s who you are. So if somebody says, “Hey, that thing you said was provocative or insulting,” or “What did you really mean?” and then the person says, “Let me clarify, it was not the bad thing, I really meant
[21:52]
this or that,” I think the only thing that should matter is what the person says they think. Our guessing of what they really think is only bad because it’s not a world you want to live in. Now, I’m not telling you that you’re guessing incorrectly; sometimes you’re guessing correctly. Sometimes you are accurately guessing what another person’s thinking. But my rule that I’m suggesting is that you don’t want to live in a world where we judge people and treat them based on what we imagine they’re thinking, because about half the time, maybe two-thirds of the time, we’re going to be wrong. You don’t want a standard for judging your fellow citizens if that standard is going to make you wrong two-thirds of the time and just causes trouble. I say the only standard for
[22:53]
what somebody’s opinion is is what they tell you it is. Period. The only standard for knowing what somebody thinks is what they tell you they’re thinking. But I would say if they can’t clarify within 48 hours, well, then you’ve got a right to wonder what they’re thinking and maybe put that judgment on them. But take the Roseanne example. Within 48 hours, she said, “Oh crap, I didn’t even realize that Valerie Jarrett was African-American.” Whether or not you think that’s true, society works best if you allow her that clarification. Personally, I think it’s totally true. Your mileage may vary, but even if it were not true—this is the important part—even if it is not true, you still have to give her the
[23:54]
chance to be the only author of what she thinks. Even if it’s not true, you have to treat them like what they said is their opinion. That is the thing that matters, not what they’re thinking. You just can’t have a world where we’re judging people by what we imagine they’re thinking. That gets you nowhere. Even if sometimes you’re right, you don’t want that world.
Let’s talk about something else: NFL kneeling. The President has said that the NFL rule is maybe even worse than before. The old rule was they could kneel if they wanted to on the field. The new rule is they can’t kneel on the field but they can stay in the locker room during the national anthem. I have to admit I think the President has a point on that in terms of which is worse. Because if you come out in the field and you kneel, you are making a protest which also looks disrespectful to the flag and the
[24:56]
country in the eyes of many people. I’m pro-protest, so I’m in favor of the kneelers because I like a good protest as long as nobody gets hurt. I think those protests were effective because we’re talking about them. If we weren’t talking about them, I’d say they weren’t effective, but they’re effective. The President said that staying in the locker room is actually worse. I thought about it and I thought, yeah, I can see that. Because staying in the locker room is simply disrespectful, whereas kneeling is an explicit protest. The weird thing about America is you can love your country, but what it stands for in part is the ability to protest. So it’s actually weirdly respectful to protest right in front of the flag because it’s also respecting the flag in a weird way. Because you can’t in another country.
[25:59]
In another country, you couldn’t disrespect the flag right in front of the flag. You would be executed or whatever. So part of what makes America America is that you could kneel in front of the flag right on TV and protest it. That’s what makes it great. Glad to see the President’s point. First choice is just show respect to the flag. Second choice is a respectful—and I think it is respectful—protest in which you’re kneeling because the kneeling is respectful in a sense. It’s not aggressive; it’s the opposite. That kind of gives respect for who the country is—it’s a place where you can do that. Third choice, and then here’s where I’m agreeing with the President: the worst choice is staying in the locker room. That’s just disrespectful but it’s not a protest. Protests at least give some respect to both sides.
[27:00]
I think the President’s right about that. I’m not sure that’s the biggest issue in the world. Somebody says “disagree.” I think there’s room to disagree on this one; that’s a judgment call. I wouldn’t say you’re wrong to disagree on that; that’s just my opinion. Save her for when you’re not at work? Yeah, I agree. I agree with the people who say that work is work. I agree that the owners should be able to manage this any way they want.
What else you got going on? I think we’ve covered all the big stuff that’s fun. Thoughts on Venezuela? I don’t think there’s much to think about on Venezuela; it’s just a sad situation. The weird thing about Venezuela is it becomes a sort of a cautionary tale because it shows what’s the worst that can happen with a dictator and socialism and all that.
[28:08]
Man-of-war? Not too interested in Man-of-war. What did QAnon say about Avenatti? I’m not up on that. I’ll give you some updates on Bill Pulte and the Blight Authority soonish; there are some interesting developments that you’re gonna like. Will Trump ever hit 50% approval? Maybe. But when it comes to Trump, approval numbers don’t mean the same thing. When you ask, “Do you approve of the President?” you sort of have to ask about the details. You sort of have to ask, “Do you approve of his work on the economy?” “Do you approve of North Korea?” I think you can almost get to a reasonably believable number if you do the details. But if you say, “Do you approve of the President?” it ends up being about his personality, and then that’s not really any kind of a number that you can compare to past numbers.
[29:09]
In the past, I don’t think President Bush Senior or Junior were being judged on their personalities; they were being judged on their jobs. You can’t compare that to a President Trump who is entirely being judged on his personality—not entirely, but half of the country. Avenatti ties to SA? I don’t know what SA is, but those happen to be my initials and I have no tie to him.
How to stop Ocasio-Cortez? There are two things that make me laugh every time. When people talk about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, they always say two things. They say she’s not from Saudi Arabia—okay. They say she’s not as good as you think, Scott, and she doesn’t have those master persuader potential skills.
[30:10]
I say potential. I don’t think she’s there, but she has the raw materials. But then I always point out: why are we talking about her? Why is everybody talking about her? The reason everyone is talking about her is what I’m pointing out. I’m pointing out that you can’t stop talking about her; that’s what she has. So every time you ask me, “Is she the real thing?” you’ve answered your own question. You’re not asking that question about anybody else. Who here is saying, “Is Eric Swalwell the real thing? Is he the future?” Nobody’s asking that question. But about her, you’re asking the question. So yes, that is your proof. If you’ve asked the question, and lots of people are asking it, that’s sort of all you need to know.
[31:11]
For those of you who think she’s an idiot, keep in mind that that is the popular opinion of this President that we have now. Half of the country thinks he’s actually stupid—like actually, if he measured his IQ, he would just be an actual idiot. Half of the country thinks that now. You know that’s not true, right? At least the people of this Periscope are pretty sure that’s not true. But when you watch the people on your team saying that Cortez is actually literally stupid, just check your bias there. Check your bias because half the team always thinks the other team is stupid, and they’re pretty much always wrong because the fact that she’s already reached this level suggests that she’s got a lot of game.
[32:14]
Somebody says, “But she really is an idiot.” I like the people who are insisting that it’s obvious that she is. You’re seeing some of the comments here. There’s no such thing as what you’re suggesting you’re seeing. I’m telling you you can’t tell. What you saw was that she stumbled, in your opinion, on some complicated answers about how to pay for stuff. I watched those answers, and while they were halting—meaning that it took her a while to put her thoughts together—that’s not gonna last. The length of time it took her to explain her answer, I’m sure she looked at it after the fact and said, “Whoa, that was a long answer. I’d shorten that up, make it a little crisper, maybe make it a little more visual.” That stuff is gonna come. Now, if it never comes, then I’m wrong. If she always gives that bad an answer to “how are you gonna pay for these things,” then I would say you have proven your point; she’s not smart.
[33:16]
But if the next few times you hear her talk it gets a little better, that’s what you’re looking for. I would be amazed if it doesn’t get better because it wouldn’t be hard for it to get shorter, crisper, more influential. They probably test this stuff too.
No one would care if she were ugly? I would disagree with that. I think it’s the young and female part that’s the exciting part and the fact that she goes full socialist. I think those are the exciting parts. I would not say it’s the attractiveness thing that’s driving her at this point.
People keep asking me who I think would be the strongest Democratic challenger, and I’m gonna say this with no regard to policies. Forget policies because nobody really cares about that when they vote.
[34:18]
How do you beat Kamala Harris? She’s got sort of all the big stuff taken care of. She’s got the resume. She’s a woman and she’s African-American. I’m the worst one to know who is what, but she’s got something going on that isn’t a white male. How do you beat that? Because I don’t think the Democrats can run a white male. I just don’t think they would get enough support on their own side.
Oh, she’s insane? Well, we’ll see. I don’t think Kamala Harris could win against Trump, but she might be the strongest candidate. We’ll see. She has skeletons?
[35:19]
They all do. Everybody’s got some skeletons. I think the days of having a President with no skeletons—don’t you think that’s just over? Because even if a candidate does not have actual skeletons, by the time the two adversaries are done with them, the persuasion game is so strong now that everyone will look like a murdering pedophile. I think that’s just what the future looks like. Every candidate will look like they were a serial killer before they get elected.
Has the news been more boring lately? Yes. Do you know why? Does anybody know why the news is boring lately? There’s a reason: it’s called August. August is the slow news month. It’s the month where Congress is out and, at the same time, a lot of the news business takes their vacations as well.
[36:19]
People are concentrated on getting back to school and finishing up their summer. You should see less news in August than any other month. When September hits, look out; you’re gonna see some news. The President said some things about the Koch brothers not being helpful to him and that’s fun to watch. I’m not sure it has any great meaning. It probably helps the President if he puts some pressure on the Koch brothers because the Koch brothers are sort of, at least in terms of a brand, they’re like Soros is to the left. Koch brothers on the right, Soros on the left. There’s always a billionaire pulling the strings. For Trump to put some distance between him and the Koch brothers brand probably is the smartest thing he could do because Trump already has locked in
[37:22]
88% of Republicans, so he doesn’t need to persuade the Republicans anymore. If he’s changing his persuasion game to the other side, what could be better than saying the Koch brothers are not my people? Imagine, if you will, Kamala Harris or anybody else running as a Democrat—just hold this in your mind—imagine one of those Democrats running against the President came out and said, “I want to be very clear, George Soros is not my guy and I reject him and I don’t think what he’s doing is helpful.” Imagine that. On the left, nobody really cares about Soros. I think Soros is like a non-brand, irrelevant to the left. He gives money to different groups, but if you’re not getting money from him, I don’t think he’s relevant. I think Soros is relevant on the right as sort of the boogeyman that we think is driving everything, and then the left thinks the Koch brothers are driving everything.
[38:24]
One of the strongest things you can do once you’ve locked in your own base is to reject the boogeyman on your side. So, very smart for President Trump to reject the Koch brothers because it might have some influence on the left, and that’s who he needs to influence next. I did not read that book that you just mentioned. I am currently reading Greg Gutfeld’s book, The Gutfeld Monologues, and enjoying it greatly. He has a description of Hillary Clinton that’s made me laugh for three days, but you’re gonna have to read the book to see that. I’ll tell you more about that when I’m done with the book.
Why is QAnon so popular even though it is totally
[39:26]
bull? Somebody says, “Well, is it totally bull?” My take on Q is that it’s not real, but it will be very interesting. Someday we’ll know who is behind it and that will be a fascinating story. I think it’s really interesting that we don’t know. How could we go this far without knowing who Q is? That part is actually very interesting. So the question about who it really is is interesting, but the issue of whether or not these are real predictions—have you ever seen anybody line up the Q predictions with reality? Because I only see when it happens to look right. Often when people say, “Look, Q got it right,” there will be some text and the story of something that happened, and I’ll look at
[40:26]
the text and I’ll look at the story and I’ll think, “No, I don’t see it.” It looks like some generic thing and then there’s a story; I don’t really see the connection. But once people imagine that there is a connection, they see it. Somebody says, “Are you seriously talking about the Q nonsense?” Well, I’m telling you that there’s nothing to it, so I think that agrees with you. But it’s very entertaining, and I like that part. What’s your take on Ray Dalio? I have his book, but I haven’t read it, so I don’t really have an opinion.
I think we’ve said enough. I’m gonna go do some work and I will talk to you later.