Episode 235 Scott Adams: Kavanaugh, Corroboration, Korea
Date: 2018-09-26 | Duration: 42:09
Topics
UN members laughing at…or with…President Trump? NBC report saying Ford has “corroborating” witnesses How often are assault claims false? Don Lemon says it’s “rare” Don Lemon’s despicable combining of Cosby and Kavanaugh in the same story Did 4Chan troll Avenatti?
I fund my Periscopes and podcasts via audience micro-donations on Patreon. I prefer this method over accepting advertisements or working for a "boss" somewhere because it keeps my voice independent. No one owns me, and that is rare. I'm trying in my own way to make the world a better place, and your contributions help me stay inspired to do that.
See all of my Periscope videos here…
https://www.pscp.tv/ScottAdamsSays/1nAKERDOwylGL
Find my WhenHub Interface app here…
https://interface.whenhub.com
## Transcript
## [The Simultaneous Sip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfhmLK29lig&t=3s)
Hey Janice, hey Tyler, hey Joanne, Herbert—come on in here. Those who come in early get their names spoken out loud. Hey Kevin, Kyle, Angela, come on in here.
You know what it's time for. Yes, you do. It's time for Coffee with Scott Adams, and you know what that means: it means the simultaneous sip. Some of you are already ready. You have your beverage, you've got your cup, your mug, your vessel, your glass filled with a liquid of your choice—coffee preferred—and it's time for the simultaneous sip. Join me.
Oh yeah, oh yeah. That's an extra-good simultaneous sip, possibly one of the best yet.
## [How News is Created](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfhmLK29lig&t=64s)
So, we have lots of news, but also no news. There's lots to talk about regarding this one thing, Kavanaugh, and a couple of miscellaneous stories, but am I wrong that the news suddenly stopped? This is one of those moments where you can understand reality a little bit better. Who are the entities that create news? You say to yourself, "Nobody creates the news; the news happens and then people report on it."
Oh, really? No, that's not the world you live in. You think you live in a world where stuff happens and then there are organizations that report on it. No, it's closer to this: stuff is happening all the time, and the people who report on news ignore 99.9% of it. Then they pick this little slice out of all this stuff that's happening and they say, "This part—just a little piece over here—that's something we're going to call news." They don't report on what's happening. They couldn't; it's way too big. So they choose what they report.
The people who report it essentially make it news by the decisions of what to talk about and what not to. There's another entity that makes news: he's called the President of the United States. When the President decides to make some news, he tweets, he makes a statement, he fires somebody, he makes a change. He times these things to make them the best possible news. So you have two news creators: you've got the media, and then you've got the President, largely. Other people can play in this game, but largely they're the two.
What does it tell you that there's no other news than the Kavanaugh thing? It tells you that the people who make news are choosing not to make any more right now because they think this story is a good story, for whatever reasons they have. But it also tells you that the President likes this story, too. It's a very interesting case because usually one side or the other wants to flood the field with their own brand of news to control the narrative. There's something weird about this Kavanaugh situation in which both sides are happy with this being the only news for a while, which means both sides think it's working for them and against the other side.
It's hard to know who's right at this point because you can imagine two versions. One is on the left; they're thinking, "Man, we've almost stopped this nomination. This is big; it's our most important thing. If we could just stop this nomination, maybe we get our own judges in here. It would change everything." And on the President's side, he may or may not be thinking—I'm not a mind-reader, but we can imagine him thinking some version of—"The left is self-immolating. They've gone so far off the acceptable path for civilization that they're just destroying themselves, and it's good to let it play out."
Who's right? Hard to know. I would say that if Kavanaugh gets approved and he gets on the Court, then you could probably say the President was right because he got his way. But if it goes the other way, you’ve got to reassess.
## [Trump's UN Speech and Laughter](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfhmLK29lig&t=313s)
Let's talk about several stories in the news. One is Trump gave his speech at the UN and there was laughter. Now, of course, the universe is split into two realities in which there are two completely different versions of what happened. You're probably all thinking, "But what does Scott think about this?" because he's a professional humorist.
The question in the news is: were people laughing at President Trump when he said that he had done more than any other president and thought that was ridiculous, or were they laughing sort of with him in some fashion? Here is my judgment. I have stood in front of many large crowds in which I tried to get laughs, so I have a little bit of a sense of what happens in that dynamic.
Was he being laughed at, or were they laughing because of the humorous boldness of his claim? Nobody gets up in front of you and says, "I've done more than any other president." It just sounds funny for its boldness. It is kind of a ballsy thing to say. The answer is: both.
What he said was very unexpected, meaning it was a bolder kind of a claim, and such a big claim that people had a reaction to it because it didn't fit. That's what triggers a laugh. A laugh is a reaction to things that don't fit. So here he was standing in front of the world and suddenly he makes this claim that to everyone in the audience sounded like a really big claim—it wasn't supported by any facts or anything—so it was both. There were people who were laughing because they thought, "Well, that's ridiculous to make that claim," and there were other people who like him who were laughing because they thought, "Well, it may or may not be true, but it's funny that he was saying it." There was no winner in that one.
## [The Definition of Corroboration](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfhmLK29lig&t=465s)
NBC News was tweeting that Christine Ford has three people or four people who are "corroborating" her story. Now the lawyers are jumping in and saying, "Wait a minute, they're not corroborating her story; they are simply corroborating that she told them her story." Now the two worlds have separated into "there's no corroboration, you're crazy" and the other half saying, "Yes, there is corroboration, but it's corroboration that she's had the same story for years."
I would say that that is corroborated. If you were trying to figure out what are all the options of what's happening here, remember one of the options was that she just made it up recently to derail the nomination. But I think the corroboration, as it's being called, is just corroborating that she's told the story before, and she's told it years before the nomination. So it's not a brand-new allegation; it has some length.
My ruling is that she has corroborated that she's told the story before, or at least there's corroborating evidence that she told the story from before. But that is very different from the story itself being corroborated—completely different issues. It's both corroborating and non-corroborating simultaneously. It doesn't corroborate that the event happened; it does corroborate that she talked about the event before this year.
But you notice that the people who are thinking of it as the "big corroboration"—meaning corroborating that the event happened the way she told it—it's very similar to the Steele dossier, isn't it? Because the Steele dossier was leaked to the press, and then they used the press reports to say that the dossier was corroborated because, look, it's in the dossier but it's also in the news. There are two sources, but it really was always just the dossier. You can't corroborate something that way.
## [The Kavanaugh Case: Systems vs. Facts](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfhmLK29lig&t=621s)
The two biggest stories of the day, North Korea and Kavanaugh, are both suffering from the same analytical problem: people are looking for the story in the wrong place. In the Kavanaugh story, correct me if I'm wrong, the question in the news is: is Kavanaugh telling the truth or is the accuser telling the truth? That's the way the story has been framed. That is not the story.
It's been framed that way, it's the way you're talking about it, it's the way social media is lining up—is it true or is it false? Here’s why that is not the story: there's nothing that could happen, whether there's an FBI evaluation or not, that will change the following fact: we'll never know. The base fact is that we'll never know. The public, the Senators, the Congress—we will never know.
In a situation where there's one thing we'll all agree on—that we'll never agree and that we'll never know—the question is: how do you reach a decision in a context where you'll never know and there's nothing you can do to know? The FBI can look into it; they can come up with more facts that we hadn't heard. What, are you going to believe them? No, you're going to line up on the same side you were before. Some will believe, some won't, but we'll never know.
What do you do when you never know? Lindsey Graham gave us the foreshadowing of that. If you want a credible government, the government has to do what is the most credible process—the most credible system. Part of that involves listening to the accuser, but I tend to agree with the people who say the extra investigation by the FBI probably would turn up extra information, but the odds of that information bringing us to certainty is zero.
The odds of more information allowing us to really know what happened is zero. There won't be any videotapes, there won't be any fingernails, there won't be any DNA. It would just be more people with faulty—presumably faulty—recollections of what happened 35 years ago. At best there might be a diary or journal entry, and I think we would have heard about it.
In that situation where we will never know, which is the only thing that matters, you think what matters is "did it happen or did it not." It doesn't matter. Have I ever told you that the facts don't matter? Have you ever heard that before? Well, it's true in this case. What matters will be the system. What matters is what system we use to get past our uncertainty. In the legal system, the process we use is a trial, and if there's not reasonable doubt, that's the system that we as a society have judged to be a credible system even when it gets it wrong. This is the important part: a credible system you can still support even if you don't like the decision or the outcome. That's what makes a credible system.
Here's how it's all going to work out. The Senate is going to vote. If they decide that the allegations are credible-sounding but not proven, they say, "Unfortunately, we have to have a standard in this better than that. We can't have a credible system that is derailed by allegations without a better process." My prediction is that should we not hear anything new—if we don't hear anything new, that's a big deal—you're going to have Judge Kavanaugh. I’ve got to drink to that. I don't even know if Judge Kavanaugh will be a good judge—how would I know?—but I will say that I do like a system that works, and the only credible system now would be to say that the standard of evidence has not been reached.
## [North Korea: Shifting the Reason](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfhmLK29lig&t=930s)
Likewise with North Korea, what is the big question everybody's asking? Will they denuclearize or will they not? Are they playing us or are they really planning to denuclearize under the right conditions? That is the wrong question with North Korea. The question is not "are they going to denuclearize or are they not?" You think that's the question because that's the way it's been framed, but that's not the thing you should be looking at.
Here's why: you should be looking at whether North Korea still has a reason to keep building up their nukes, a reason to keep building up their missiles, and a reason to keep threatening us. That's the story. Is their reason getting better, or is their reason for having nukes degrading? To me, it seems obvious. They're getting friendly with South Korea; they're talking about trade; they're talking about security agreements. They're going to meet in the United States. Under any scenario, this is working against their reason.
The reason to have the nukes was up here, and now the reason to have them is down here, and it's moving in this direction fairly rapidly. If you can look at that situation where the person who has a big weapon is rapidly losing their reason for having it, that is real progress. Having a weapon isn't the important part in terms of the physicality of it. If you don't have a weapon, you can't use it, but you've got to work on the reason. We live in a country where half of my neighbors have a gun. Am I afraid of my neighbors who own guns? I am not. Do you know why I am not afraid of them? Because they don't have a reason to shoot me. Kim Jong Un's reason is shrinking to nothing, and he's getting "a little bit pregnant" with South Korea. Everything is going in the right direction no matter how long it takes, because the physical part is somewhat irrelevant if you've taken away the reason. And we have.
## [Don Lemon and the Cosby Comparison](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfhmLK29lig&t=1083s)
Let's talk about Don Lemon. He said a few things I thought were interesting last night on his show. One of the things he said was that fake sexual assault claims are rare. So, Don Lemon’s claim is that it's rare for somebody to claim somebody sexually abused them and that not be true. Is "rare" true? It feels true. It feels like that would be the exception rather than the rule. But how rare is rare? Is rare one out of a thousand? Is rare one in five? I really don't know. Does anybody else know?
Don Lemon claimed that it was rare. I see people saying things in the 40% range, but I don't know. You can't throw in Duke Lacrosse or individual examples where you heard of it being false because those are anecdotal. Statistics-wise, what does it mean to say it's rare? I don't know, but I'm going to accept that it's less than 50%. Let's accept that it's more likely true if you were just looking at a generic accusation.
But is this situation like any other? It really isn't. You can't take this situation and lump it in with the statistics of average people making accusations against other average people because, first of all, the stakes are through the roof. The stakes in this case are not just personal justice; the stakes are the entire country and the laws of the land. It's the biggest stakes you could possibly have short of war.
The question is: would it be unusual in this situation for someone to make a fake claim? This isn't like a regular claim. In this situation, nothing applies because it's so unique. I would say that looking at the general statistics of claims will not tell you a lot about this one because the political element makes it different than all other situations. It's not typical.
Now, here's the other thing that Don Lemon did: he covered, as a sort of one combined story, Bill Cosby being sentenced for 60 alleged cases of drugging and raping people. He compared that to the Kavanaugh case. Now, he did say it's a very different situation, so on the factual level, he did not stray. He was accurate. He said the case with Cosby is completely different except that it goes to the question of old allegations—the importance of old allegations—because there were old allegations in both cases.
Here's what I find despicable about that coverage. Don Lemon, let me say to you: it's probably the most unethical and immoral thing that you're ever going to see on TV to create that association in people's minds between Cosby—a serial rapist with enough proof to get convicted—to have him in the same conversation with Kavanaugh is despicable. I believe, Don Lemon, you've given up any claim to moral authority.
Other people act unethically; there are other people who are bad, and when you call it out, I usually agree. I have to admit, most of the times when you call out bad behavior by other people, I say to myself, "Yeah, that looks pretty bad." But this is one of the worst things I've ever seen on television. Can you think of anything worse than being compared to Cosby when the accusations against you are quite different, on a whole different level, and a whole lot less likely to be credible? I thought that was horrible.
## [Living in Alternate Realities](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfhmLK29lig&t=1425s)
Somebody on Twitter was saying that Fox News edited out the laughter around Trump's UN speech and that if you watched Fox News, you didn't hear the laughter, and therefore you are in an altered reality. My comment to him was that the people who believe only *the other people* are in an alternate reality—those people are in the lowest level of awareness.
A higher level of awareness is one that I hope many of you have already entered, which is to know that being in the wrong reality is our permanent situation. We're all in the wrong reality all the time. Whatever religion you have, even if it's right, it's a different reality than other people's. Most of the world has a different religion than you do. We're all walking around in completely different realities.
So if you believe that you've got a pretty good grasp of reality and those darn other people are the ones who are in their alternate reality, you are the one who is operating at the lower level of awareness. The higher level is recognizing everybody's manufacturing their own reality all the time, and all the science confirms that.
## [Did 4Chan Troll Avenatti?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfhmLK29lig&t=1517s)
Let's talk about Avenatti. There is a hilarious story about Avenatti right now—don't know if it's true, so let's talk about that. The story is that Avenatti allegedly has yet another unnamed accuser for Kavanaugh. What a coincidence, this Avenatti of all people.
Then there comes a story—and I think we'll all drink to this—that somebody on 4chan claims, fairly credibly, that 4chan played a prank on Avenatti. They had somebody pretend to be a witness, so Avenatti thinks he has a witness but doesn't have anything, and it was just a great troll. Is it true or is it not true? Well, let me tell you what is true. You're wondering, aren't you? If you're wondering whether 4chan trolled Avenatti, then here's what I can tell you for sure: 4chan *did* troll Avenatti, because one of two possibilities is true: either they really did do the whole hoax, or they have hoaxed people into thinking that they did do a hoax. I'll drink to that.
Truth aside, 4chan has hoaxed Avenatti one of two ways. One is that they made up the whole story and he thinks he has a witness but he doesn't. Or, they made up a whole story about making up a witness, and now we wonder if Avenatti is telling the truth. Both ways, great troll. So, to 4chan: congratulations on one of the best trolls you'll ever see, because no matter what Avenatti says now, 40% of the public is going to say, "Look at him, he got trolled. He believes that stuff he's saying."
What would you expect if Avenatti had been trolled and he's now figured it out? This is speculative. Would he say, "Aha, damn, I totally got trolled. You got me. I'm running for President, but I got fooled by 4chan"? I don't think he'd do that. What would be his best play if he did get trolled? Your best play is to say, "I did not get trolled," and then your next move is, "But my witness needs a few more days to decide whether to come forward." Because if he can keep saying that there is a witness all the way up until the vote, then people believe maybe there might be another witness. It would be part of the fake corroboration.
Right now you've got Christine Ford, who has some credibility. You've got the woman who said Kavanaugh exposed himself that one time—less credibility. Everybody agrees that compared to Christine Ford, the second one has less credibility. And then Avenatti allegedly has the third one, with less credibility than the second one because we haven't even heard where the person is. But it still works as a group. If you think to yourself, "Well, there's only one accusation," it's easy to dismiss it. But if you hear three accusations—even if two of them are not true, that still leaves one accusation.
The best thing Avenatti could do if he had realized he had been trolled is to claim he still has a witness. And then at the last minute, what do you do? His best play would be to say, "My witness has decided not to come forward because my witness saw all the abuse that the other people got who came forward. So you can't expect them to come forward under these conditions. I tried as hard as I could, but I just couldn't protect her. It is a dangerous world out there, so she had to remain anonymous."
What is it that Avenatti is doing? It looks a lot like that. Again, we cannot discount Avenatti’s alleged accuser—it might be true—but at this point, its credibility is sort of in the sewer. Avenatti is winning because he's getting his story out there, and I’m predicting he'll pull it back at the last minute. When he pulls it back, he can still claim it was real and just say, "I'm not going to give out a name. The whole point is she didn't want to be public, so why would I tell you who it is?" He has perfect deniability.
The Stormy allegations seem to have just gone away, haven't they?
## [Hurricane Season and Luck](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfhmLK29lig&t=1916s)
Is it my imagination, or is this a light hurricane season? Do we know that yet, or are there still hurricanes to come? Can anybody confirm that for me? Do we have a light hurricane season? Because I'm pretty sure we were supposed to have worst storms forever because of global warming. Is the President having a low hurricane year, or is it too early to say that?
I don't know my hurricane science. Somebody says it's still early in the season and it's over in November. I guess October is the big season, so we'll wait and see on that. But if the hurricane season is light, it's going to be another pro-Trump lucky situation.
## [Marijuana Legalization and Space Force](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfhmLK29lig&t=2038s)
I'm not sure weed legalization would qualify as big news; it would be interesting, but I'm all confused because it's such low-hanging fruit. Here's what President Trump should definitely not do: he should not wait for the next president to decriminalize marijuana from the federal perspective.
Remember I said that Trump was smart to create Space Force? My reasoning was that sooner or later, there's a 100% chance that some president was going to create Space Force. The next one or the one after—it was going to happen. The smart thing Trump did was claim credit for being the one who started it, because Space Force will literally last forever. As long as humanity lasts, there will be a Space Force. Now he's the founder. It was low-hanging fruit; it was free; there was no penalty.
One thing we know about the President is that he doesn't leave money on the table. If there's a stack of chips laying on the table and it's all his, he's not going to walk away; he's going to be gathering that stuff up. Cannabis is exactly the same situation. There's a 100% chance some future president will decriminalize it. Why would he not want that to be him? Especially since Republicans like states' rights, and it's very much a states' rights situation. It absolutely helps them electorally.
My guess is it might be that he's waiting for the midterms to be over so they can save that one for his own election. Because if he does it now, it becomes an issue for the people running for office in Congress, and maybe there are places where they can't explain it. But he could do it for himself when he's running for office, and I think it'd be a lot easier and it would be a cleaner win.
You're saying Jeff Sessions needs to be out of the way first? Could be. If Trump fired Sessions for not going along with decriminalizing marijuana and said, "No, it's not really about that other stuff, it's totally about this weed decriminalization thing because we don't want to leave African Americans in prison over weed and this Jeff Sessions guy, jeez..." It would be hilarious.
## [The Hearing: Crazy Eyes and Credibility](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfhmLK29lig&t=2406s)
Is the hearing going to be televised tomorrow? If the hearing is televised tomorrow, I believe it starts exactly when I do my Periscopes. If it's at the same time and it's televised, I will watch some of it live with you, which means you're going to have to have another screen on because I won't be showing it here.
What I'll be looking for are "crazy eyes" and credibility. Those are the two things I've been looking at. Now, when I say crazy eyes, I am not going to suggest that you can tell if somebody is telling the truth by looking at their eyes. Don't over-interpret what I mean. I don't know that Christine Ford has crazy eyes because I haven't seen her eyes. But if she does—and you know what I mean, right? Some people just have crazy eyes. It doesn't mean anything about their actual character—there's no science to it per se—but it will be very persuasive.
People are trying to judge her character, her mentality, her mental health, and they're going to look at her eyes primarily because the rest of this stuff doesn't tell you as much. They'll look at body language in general, but the eyes are really the rulers of the situation. If her eyes seem to people like crazy eyes, she's in a lot of trouble credibility-wise. But if she's clear-eyed—again, there's no science to this, I'm just saying how we register looking at people—you just think some people look more credible than others.
If she has crazy eyes, this is not going to go well for her. That's my biggest question: crazy eyes. And again, crazy eyes doesn't mean the person is crazy, but it can affect their credibility because it affects the way they're presenting themselves.
All right, I will talk to you all later.