Episode 225 Scott Adams: Prediction Versus Reality and Facts Don’t Matter
Date: 2018-09-18 | Duration: 21:36
Topics
Reviewing the 2016 pre-election dire anti-Trump predictions North Korea peace progress Truth of the Kavanaugh situation is unknowable, so what to do? If accusation can’t be proven, it should be ignored I am Nancy!
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## Transcript
## [Inside Out Shirt](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PnAfQ5nvVE&t=6s)
Bump, bump, bump! How’s my shirt? Oh my god, my shirt's on inside out. Hey everybody, I'm wearing my shirt inside out, and if that doesn't tell you how tired I am, nothing will. There's nothing like realizing that your shirt is inside out after you've started the Periscope.
Sorry I'm late. People had lots of speculation about what a Trump presidency would look like. I also had speculations, as most of you did. Colleen said, "Say my name," so I did. Don't try that trick again; it only works once. Let's check our predictions and we'll see if the critics were more accurate or if I was. You're probably on the same page as me, so let's compare ourselves to the critics.
## [Comparing Predictions to Reality](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PnAfQ5nvVE&t=67s)
These are the predictions before President Trump took office: He would deport 14 million undocumented aliens. I said he wouldn't; his critics said he would because he said he would during the campaign. Of course, he did not, and there's really no chance that that's going to happen.
His critics said he would move us toward nuclear war. It appears the opposite has happened. We appear further from nuclear war than at any time. North Korea doesn't seem close to nuclear war. Russia seems to want to deal with us, and Iran has more pressure on it than it did before in developing nuclear weapons. It seems to me that we are further from nuclear war than we've ever been. So my prediction is right; the critics' prediction is wrong.
There were people—it's hard to believe—but people actually thought President Trump would round up all the brown people and put them in concentration camps. I have seen no indication that the President is rounding up brown people to put them in concentration camps. I’m going to say I was right on that one; critics were wrong.
Critics said President Trump would be committing much repression against the LGBTQ community. I haven’t seen it. In fact, President Trump is, I believe, the most LGBTQ-friendly president we've had. I say that because he came in favoring gay marriage. He's the first president—correct me if I'm wrong, fact-check me—is President Trump the first president who came into office favoring LGBTQ marriage rights? I believe he is.
Nothing has happened so far. Now, somebody says he's appointed anti-LGBTQ judges. I haven't seen any rulings that would suggest that's a problem. Keep in mind that the judges he selects are constitutionalists, so they’re only going to favor what's in the Constitution. We haven't seen any actual repression. As somebody said, they're concerned about the judges that he's nominated, but that would be true of any conservative.
People said that there would be Russia collusion. I think we're close to the point where we can confirm that didn't happen. He's releasing the FISA emails, and it’s looking like things are going to be wrapping up pretty soon. His critics are probably wrong about Russia collusion; there doesn't seem to be any evidence. Even Bob Woodward couldn't find any.
Then there were people who said he was only in it for the money and that the presidency was just a trick to get richer. I think probably that didn't happen. I haven't seen any indication that Trump's net worth is going up or that he got some deal he wasn't supposed to get. The indications are he may have lost money.
There was at least one Nobel economic person, Paul Krugman, who said it would be an economic disaster when President Trump came into office. Opposite. The economy is doing better than ever. And then, of course, ISIS got taken care of and North Korea is probably in a better place than it's ever been.
## [North Korea Peace Progress](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PnAfQ5nvVE&t=317s)
Speaking of North Korea, the sticking point has been that North Korea is asking for some kind of a big concession in order to give up its nuclear weapons. There's not much we have to concede because we're the ones who want something; we're not the ones who have something to give up. That's oversimplifying, but there's talk now between North and South Korea, or at least speculation, that they're talking about working toward declaring an end to the Korean War.
It seems to me that if North and South Korea and the US and the UN—I guess you need a lot of people involved, probably the UN—declare the end to the war, that might be the gesture that allows Kim to get rid of his nukes. It's a different story if you just get rid of your nukes because there was pressure; that makes Kim look weak. But if you get rid of your nukes because you won, that doesn't look the same. Kim could claim victory in bringing an end to the Korean War, and it would actually be fairly legitimate in my opinion.
A reasonable observer could say that Kim made that happen through his nuclear program, and then he could disband it because he could say, "We made our point. We got the thing we wanted." Once we're working toward reunification, we don't really need nuclear weapons because that would be like using them on yourself. You wouldn't nuke your own country if you were working toward reunification, even if it's a hundred-year plan.
North Korea always had the option to declare peace, correct. But it would look like they had just surrendered because if you declare peace against a superior force, you don't have much negotiating room. But if you come to peace with a peer—a nuclear peer in some sense—they would both be nuclear powers. That looks different. You could sell that differently.
You saw all of the worst-case predictions that the Never-Trumpers made, and it's been a few years now. Some of that stuff would have happened. Did I block the wrong person? I'll unblock her later. My Periscope is not showing my Twitter feed; that might actually be my fault. I'm on a new device and there's a setting that I need.
I'll unblock Nancy. I just can't do it right now. Nancy maybe should not have said, "Y'all would worship Nazis." That will get you blocked on here. Nancy's in a cage. Let's drink to Nancy, shall we? Poor Nancy has been temporarily banned accidentally. Will you raise a mug and we will all drink to Nancy, who I will unblock as soon as I get off the Periscope? To Nancy. Simultaneous sip.
Am I going to the Trump rally? I'm not.
## [Kavanaugh and Why Facts Don’t Matter](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PnAfQ5nvVE&t=637s)
Let's talk about Kavanaugh. Back in 2015, I reminded you on a regular basis, I said provocatively that the facts don't matter and that they've never mattered. We're going to find that out in a way that we've never understood before. I think my prediction has come true, which is that the facts are not influencing reality the way everybody thought they should. Everybody but me. I told you from the beginning the facts don't matter.
Now, of course, the facts do matter to the outcomes, but in terms of how we think about our world, the decisions we make, who we back politically, and how we interpret things—facts don't matter. Take Kavanaugh. Here's a situation where we will never know what happened. It is unknowable. It cannot be confirmed.
Do the facts matter? Well, they can't matter because we can't know them, and yet we imagine we do. If you did a survey of a hundred people, you'd find at least half of them say they're pretty sure what happened. Some of those people would say, "I'm sure it happened; she wouldn't say it otherwise." Other people would say, "I'm sure it didn't happen; look at this timing and she can't possibly remember that."
The facts don't matter. So what do you do in a reality where you have to make a decision about a Supreme Court nomination but a very important fact can't be known? Here's what you do: you honor the system.
If you can't know the facts, or people won't agree on the facts, you have to replace the facts with a system which is credible. If we can't agree on the facts, maybe we can agree that the way we arrived at the decision was a good system. What would be a good system in the case of Kavanaugh? There's only one system that makes sense: if you can't prove it, you have to ignore it. That's the system because that's the system you would all want to apply to you. Would you not want that system to apply to you if you were in his position and there was an unproven accusation which can never be proven?
If you're in Congress and you're saying to yourself, "What should we do with this Kavanaugh thing because it might be true and it might not be true?" Here's what you should do: you should ignore whether or not it's true. It's just not part of your decision. That's the hard part. But if you're being rational and you're trying to maintain a civilization that works in these situations, you have to default to the system. You have to take a system stand. And the system is: no evidence, no penalty.
Anything that can't be proven, you have to treat it like it didn't happen. If some of the Senators vote against him because of the accusation, I believe they've failed you, even if they're right, because that part we can't know. They have failed you if they choose guessing about the facts. They should make the decision based on the process, and the system unambiguously requires us to not penalize him for something that can't be known. If it can't be known, you can't be penalized for it. That's the only credible system. Even if it doesn't give you the right answer every time, you still have to use it.
Preponderance of evidence requires 51%? We're not in a preponderance of evidence situation because there's one piece of evidence and nobody will agree whether it's persuasive or not. Regarding a pattern of behavior—people are trying to argue, "What about the women who said he didn't do anything? What about his friend who was there? What about her memory being incomplete? Why did she wait until this point?" There's all these what-abouts. You should treat all of it the same. It shouldn't matter to the decision because it doesn't lead you to any kind of certainty. So you’ve got to use the system, and the system says unproven has to be ignored.
## [The Persuasion of "Credible Accusations"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PnAfQ5nvVE&t=1070s)
The phrase that the anti-Kavanaugh people are using is "credible accusations." That's a clever way to add credibility to an accusation simply by adding the word. Somebody said, "I am Nancy," sort of like "I am Spartacus." All right, you get the funniest comment of the day award.
I have not seen the new Project Veritas tape. Let me make a prediction about it: it's going to be ambiguous. Without seeing anything, I'm going to say it's going to be a dud.
Calling something a "credible accusation" is a very clever way to persuade without facts. Strategy-wise, it's really good, but it's also evil. It's totally evil, but it's good persuasion if you don't mind evil with your persuasion.
Your comments are extra funny. I don't know how this Nancy situation happened. We saw here in the Periscope that Nancy did not probably cause any crimes, but Nancy was "credibly accused." Nancy, you were credibly accused! See what that does? It just turns Nancy into "guilty" by having that "credibly" part in front of "accused." I am Nancy!
## [FISA Declassification and Nancy Update](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PnAfQ5nvVE&t=1196s)
I don't know that there's much more news. Let's talk about the FISA documents being declassified. Apparently, the President has declassified the FISA documentation. We don't know if that will be awesome or a big nothing. It's disappointing that it’s going to take so long to see because it's got to be approved by twelve different people. It's just going to be this big mess of a trickle, so it's not really going to have the great news moment that we expect.
I think it'll be a big nothing probably, but I like the fact that the President did it because people wanted it and we wanted transparency. For Nancy, the seriousness of the accusation was more important than the evidence.
If you're listening to this on a podcast, I'm sorry, because half of the fun is reading the comments and you won't hear them. I don't have anything else to say. I'm going to go do something else, and in the meantime, I'll go unblock Nancy. Everybody say, "We love you, Nancy! We're so sorry!"
I'll talk to you later.