Episode 252 Scott Adams: Israeli Bots, Ye, North Korea, FentanylChina, Colbert
Date: 2018-10-09 | Duration: 54:33
Topics
Colbert writer’s comment clarification…48 hour rule satisfied? Kanye heading to the White House, meeting with POTUS and Jared North Korea prediction: Meeting will happen this year (December) 2 Chinese nationals producing Fentanyl have been identified Democrat concerns about the courts being too conservative Would any state be dumb enough to outlaw abortions? Clever persuasion play by Adam Schiff, 0+0=1 Nuclear power plants, the only known solution for global warming President Trump’s comment about Taylor Swift
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## Transcript
## [The Simultaneous Sip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdwHc_ee7eY&t=7s)
Hey J. Hey Tyler. Tyler, you're always fast. Get it on in here. A UNIX Rabb, hey Bo, hey Julia, hey Reverend Dan. Come on in here. And of course Ziya, Erica, good to see you again. Michelle, Tom.
Grab your beverage. We got a lot to talk about, but before we talk, the simultaneous sip—the best part of the day so far. Join me, please. Grab your cup, your mug, your chalice, your glass, your container. Fill it with your favorite beverage—coffee is the best—and join me for the simultaneous sip.
Have I become the Bob Ross of Periscope? Pretty sure I have. Wasn't my plan, but it kind of worked out that way.
## [The Colbert Writer and the 48-Hour Rule](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdwHc_ee7eY&t=71s)
We will begin by talking about the writer for the Colbert show who wrote a tweet that got people jumping. In the tweet, the key part was that the writer said, "Well, we didn't get what we wanted there with the Supreme Court, but at least we ruined Kavanaugh's life." At least we ruined Kavanaugh's life.
Now, people said, "My God, did you really say that? Did you really say at least we ruined Kavanaugh's life?" People said you're horrible, you're the liberal lefty enemy. What you all want to know is: what is my ruling and why am I qualified to make a ruling on this at all?
I am a professional humorist. Her explanation—her clarification—was that it was sarcasm and that the real meaning of "at least we ruined Kavanaugh's life" is that obviously we had not, meaning that he would go on to an excellent life being on the Supreme Court, a dream job, a better life than 99.9 percent of the world. That was her explanation of what it meant. But when people read it, they said, "At least we ruined Kavanaugh's life? My God, his family and everything."
What is the ruling? Was it a joke that was just poorly written, or was it a serious thing that she's lying about now and trying to get away with her bad taste comment? I give you now my ruling: she satisfied the 48-hour rule for clarification. This is my invention, but I suggest it as a great new social norm. She said something that was provocative and ambiguous. Within 48 hours, she clarified it in a way that I, as a professional humorist, say is plausible.
The only reason I would dismiss a 48-hour clarification is if it was just ridiculous, just something that was impossible to believe, which is rare. Instead, in 48 hours, she gave an explanation which, when I look at it, I go, okay, if you were predisposed to thinking that Kavanaugh had not been injured and was going on to a very good life, this would be sarcasm. She is a professional joke writer. She clarified it in a way that is satisfying to me. I rule: free pass.
If you disagree with that, I would ask you to check your thinking and ask yourself if you too would like the benefit of the 48-hour rule should this come your way someday. Every time you give somebody the courtesy of 48 hours to clarify and you don't try to read their mind or read into their soul—just let them say what their opinion is—other people get to tell you their opinion. You don't get to read their mind and tell them their opinion. That's not a good way to run society because if we're blaming people for what we imagine are their opinions, we're in really bad territory. If we give everybody 48 hours to be clear what they think, we're all better off.
## [Kanye West and the Golden Age of Creativity](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdwHc_ee7eY&t=318s)
Kanye is going to the White House to meet with Jared Kushner and the President. Apparently, one of the issues is training for, or at least getting jobs for, ex-cons. A very good issue. I think it works very well for Kanye's portfolio. I would say it went from a problem that was easier to ignore to one that's now vital because the economy is working so hard that if we don't have a better pool of workers on every level, we're going to be short. We have the added economic advantage on top of what was already a social good. Certainly, they were a drag on society if they did not have jobs.
The Kanye approach seems productive. I am going to be very amused watching Kanye and Kim Kardashian continue to do things which are useful while other people criticize. "Now, you're just a celebrity, you don't know about the details"—just watch what happens. There's a good chance you're going to be surprised because there are things that Kanye can do that ordinary people just can't do. Partly because it is Kanye and he's got the fame and the brand and the power of persuasion that comes with that. Keep an open mind and watch what happens.
Let me put this in context. I've said we're entering a Golden Age. My definition of a Golden Age is when you reach a point where your restraints are not so much physical anymore. It's not that you don't have money; it's not that you don't have the know-how. The thing that's missing is the creativity.
Smart people tell me this is true: we don't lack money for solving these problems. We don't lack money for training convicts, for fixing urban areas, or for handling some of the opioid things. Money is being passed by Congress; the President was talking about that, and I think that's a huge step. But most of our obstacles are not money because there are enough billionaires and the government is big enough that if you have the right idea, it will get funded.
I used to do budgets in my corporate days. Department heads would come to me and say they needed more money, and I'd say, "Put it in the form of a business case explaining the benefit and I'll bring it to the boss. If it's a good idea, you'll get the money." They had a hard time believing that money wasn't the problem. If they had a good explanation of why they needed it, I could make it happen.
I was working for the phone company at the time. We were awash with capital. We actually had more money than we had good ideas. That is becoming a normal situation in the country. What does Kanye bring to this situation? Name somebody who is more creative in more ways than Kanye. He's not just creative; he's creative across fields. He's mastered creating, which is almost a separate skill from music, design, making sneakers, or designing homes. He knows how to create.
If you're entering the Golden Age where the biggest gap we are having is ideas, the value of somebody like Kanye is actually going to get bigger. You need ideas. You need to shake the box. Who shakes the box better than Kanye? Well, one person: President Trump. I can only think of one person in the world who would be a candidate for number two. The top box shaker in the world is President Trump.
Kanye is actually the right person at exactly the right time having a meeting with the two most right people in the world. Jared and the President are the perfect people for Kanye, who is the perfect creator. He has the right intentions, he has our attention, and he has the skill set. That's a really good team. I'm pretty optimistic about at least the possibilities of what they could come up with together.
## [North Korea Prediction](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdwHc_ee7eY&t=689s)
Let's talk about North Korea. There's an expert who says it might take 10 years to fully work out the details of denuclearizing North Korea. Let's say he's right. But what do you think about the timing of when the North Korean summit with the United States will happen?
Full disclosure: yesterday I went to PredictIt and I placed a bet. What I'm going to say now is consistent with a bet I've placed. I have money riding on this—not a lot, it's a small bet—but my bet is that the meeting with Kim will happen this year, before the end of this year.
Here's why. My best predictions are the ones that have a persuasion cover on them. There's something about the persuasion element that is predictive. I would not be good at predicting the outcome of a House race because there are too many variables like gerrymandering and incumbency that I don't have visibility on. But in the questions that are a one-off—like "do you have a summit?"—I feel I have more visibility.
The common thinking is that these things take a long time, so there's no way it would happen before the end of the year. Here is my take on it: the President really understands the news cycle and the importance of dominating it. What happens in December of every year? December and August are the two months when the news stops happening. As a general pattern, the news slows down around Christmas.
If you are President Trump, the best manager of persuasion and brand we've ever seen, you would make sure you've got Kim in December. If you bring North Korea into the headlines in December, you get something good. I imagine it would be something like a formal end of hostilities—the legal declaration of war. We're still technically at a state of war with North Korea.
December is a slow news month. North Korea and the United States have already said they want to meet "as soon as possible." That looks like December to me because it would just dominate the news coverage. It’s a big win for North Korea, a big win for the world, and a big win for the President. I think a formal declaration of the end of hostilities with some kind of declaration that we've agreed to let inspectors in would be the play. Denuclearization will take a long time, but we can start in December.
Let me say this as carefully as possible: don't ever bet based on my predictions. It doesn't make me feel comfortable. I've met people who won huge amounts of money betting on President Trump's election because of what I said. I had no idea that was going on. I would have tried to stop it if I had known. But I'll tell you, I placed the bet on December, or at least by the end of the year.
## [Chinese Fentanyl and the Power of Friction](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdwHc_ee7eY&t=1063s)
On Twitter, I saw a story that the government has identified two Chinese citizens who live in China at the head of some drug labs sending fentanyl over. At least one person is dead from a batch of that drug. We're asking for them to be indicted.
Assuming the charges check out—I don't want anybody punished if they're not guilty—I've called for China to execute them or deal with it as harshly as they'd like to. Those names and their families should be well-known within China. If they don't cooperate, I don't think we should do a trade deal with them.
The President said 50,000 people a year are OD'ing from opioids. We know China is the major source. If 30,000 people a year are dying because of Chinese fentanyl, that’s a big enough issue to hold off on a trade deal until we get some justice.
I've seen some people on Twitter pushing back on my suggestion that China kill their drug dealers on our behalf to improve their reputation and no longer be called "Fentanyl China." That is a top hashtag, by the way. If you search for "fentanyl" on Twitter, the first suggestion that comes up is #FentanylChina. That was me. I created that hashtag. China doesn't like losing face, and they are "Fentanyl China" unless they do something about it.
People have said, "Wait a minute, you can't blame the supplier," and "What about Prohibition?" Prohibition didn't work in the United States because it just became an illegal trade. I say friction almost always works.
Here’s a counter-example: it is difficult to get a fully automatic rifle in the United States because it's illegal and there's a lot of friction. I can't remember a mass shooting with a fully automatic weapon in 20 years. Semi-automatics are deadly, but fully automatic weapons in a crowd would be the ultimate killing machine, and people can't get them easily. By law, it is very difficult. You have to do paperwork and you pop up on the government radar. There is friction on fully automatics, and they are much less used in crimes. Friction works. That's why we have laws.
At the same time, people ask: wouldn't it be better to make fentanyl and opioids legal? Because you can't really stop an addict from getting them. If you closed the labs in China, new labs would just pop up in Pakistan. That point is fair. But you don't have to choose between going after dealers and testing legal sources. You can do both.
You could test the concept of free opioids in a city locally. We know it has been tested and worked out well for heroin in places like Portugal. I don't know if that's the same for fentanyl because with fentanyl, it's a very narrow band between having a good time and dying. Fentanyl is like a nuclear bomb compared to a hand grenade. You wouldn't say the way you handle a hand grenade should be the same as the way you handle a nuclear bomb. There's such a difference in lethality that I would want to see experts weigh in on whether a legal supply is even a thing.
## [The Supreme Court and the "Fake Because" of Roe v. Wade](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdwHc_ee7eY&t=1555s)
The folks on the left are concerned about the Court being too conservative, especially with Kavanaugh. But Kavanaugh is very strong on precedent. We are in a special time of history in which it seems to me that pretty much all of the social issues have been settled.
If you said to me 50 years ago, "Let's have a conservative Court serious about precedent," you wouldn't get any of the changes that we find popular. You wouldn't have gay marriage. I'm not arguing whether those things are good or bad today; personally, I think most things have moved in the right direction.
If you like where society is right now in terms of fairness and social justice, you might want constitutionalists who like precedent because they’re going to lock that in. It might be that creative, liberal judges were a good thing until roughly now. We may have enough social justice built into our system through precedent that if you were to stay with precedent, not much would change.
Look at the people telling you the Kavanaugh situation is about Roe v. Wade. There's another dog that isn't barking. If the Supreme Court threw out Roe v. Wade—and this is Jeffrey Toobin's estimate—about 12 states would very quickly make it illegal.
Why haven't you seen reporting on those specific states? Where are the people on the left saying, "We didn't get what we wanted for the Supreme Court, let's take the fight to these 12 states"? California isn't going to make abortion illegal. New York isn't. It's really a question of those 12 states.
Why haven't they moved their fundraising and efforts there? Because it's probably not about abortion. I think it might be the biggest "fake because" we've ever seen. A "fake because" is the reason you give—and you might even talk yourself into it—but it's not the real reason. The real reason is tribalism, revenge, wanting to win, and power.
If it were really about Roe v. Wade, they would move their attention to the states. We should be seeing stories about those governors and legislators. We should see polls. We should see stories about what would happen if a state made it illegal. Would Apple or Google continue operating in a state they found that objectionable?
A smart person who really knows the Supreme Court once said that changing it at the federal level would have no impact at the state level. The moment a state made it illegal, that state would become a pariah. It would lose tourism, manufacturing, and investment. It would be enormously expensive. And after all that sacrifice, women in that state could still get an abortion because they will organize. They will have GoFundMe situations to take an Uber across the border. If it's a half-day drive to get over the border, you've changed nothing except to handicap your state financially.
Is any state going to be so dumb as to make it illegal when the only net effect is economic damage while people still drive a few hours to get the procedure? All you did is make it less safe. If they're not talking intensely about these individual states, they're not serious about the issue. They're just using it as a "fake because."
## [WhenHub and Online Learning](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdwHc_ee7eY&t=2110s)
I want to mention a couple things about my startup, Interface by WhenHub. It's an app already out on both stores where you can immediately talk to an expert.
If you're an expert in Mandarin or Pinyin, there is someone on the app right now looking for an expert to teach them. Sign up as an expert; it's free and you can make money for your time. You'd be connected by video call. If you don't connect the first time, signing up with the keywords "Pinyin" or "Mandarin" would send an alert to the person looking for you.
I'm learning drums online and it really works. I wasn't sure about learning drums via video call, but it turns out it works really well. I have a lot of questions, so every two weeks we have a call. I don't really want the teacher looking at me while I'm practicing; I just want to hear the techniques, get the nuance, hear him play a bit so I can match it.
## [Persuasion Lesson Plan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdwHc_ee7eY&t=2293s)
I'm considering doing a special Periscope in which I would teach you persuasion. It would be an extended session on one topic, but it would be wrapped in the context of persuading you to use my startup's app.
I would warn people that I'm trying to persuade them, but I'm also teaching them persuasion. I would use a technique, pause, and say, "Here is the technique I just used on you," and explain it. I'd be trying to persuade you at the same time I'm teaching you how to pitch. I'm seeing lots of yeses, so I'm going to schedule that.
## [Israeli Bots and Adam Schiff’s 0+0=1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdwHc_ee7eY&t=2360s)
Let's talk about Rick Gates and the Israeli bots. The story in the New York Times says a senior campaign aide, I think it was Gates, had meetings with Israeli companies that offered to make fake social media accounts. The net of it is that the Trump campaign said "no thank you" and walked away. It's not a crime because they listened to the pitch and rejected it.
But I saw some tweets from Adam Schiff saying, "Isn't it a coincidence that the Trump campaign asked the Israelis about a deal they turned down, and then the Russians coincidentally provided those same services?" On a persuasion level, that's actually pretty good. If you're not trying to deal with facts or logic, it was clever to tie that Israeli story to the Russian story.
The Russian story so far has no meat on it at all. What Schiff did was take two zeros. The Russian collusion thing is a zero with no stickiness. Then he added it to the Israeli story, which the campaign rejected—another zero. He took two zeros, added them together, and said, "Look what I got, it's a one."
In terms of how it feels to his base, it totally worked. He’s not trying to persuade Republicans; he’s trying to persuade his base that they still have something to worry about. He literally took zero plus zero and came out with a one. I have to give him credit for the technique, separating my admiration for the technique from whether it is moral or ethical.
## [Climate Change and the Nuclear Solution](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdwHc_ee7eY&t=2605s)
The IPCC came up with new warnings that the world is going to hell in ten years or twenty years and that there's nothing we can do. Steven Pinker first pointed this out: in all the stories about this, nobody mentions nuclear power.
It’s a story about the world ending—horrible hurricanes, flooding, people dying—literally the worst problem in the world. If it really is the worst problem in the world, the most effective solution is to relax your fear about nuclear power plants and just build more of them. One nuclear plant melting down, as horrible as that is, is not even close to being as bad as climate change.
If the climate change people were honest, they would say in practically the same paragraph that the only solution is nuclear power. We should be working on solar, but no expert believes we can ramp those up in time. If you believe climate change is as dire as they say, you need nuclear power, and you need it fast. Otherwise, you're not talking about risk honestly. You have to throw the solution on the table and ask if the solution is better than the risk.
The only thing that could make a difference fast enough is probably nuclear. That assumes we speed up approval and build safer plants. And in the same week, there's a news report that they've discovered a nuclear-waste-eating bacteria. Think about that. If we've actually discovered a waste-eating bacteria, the risk of nuclear power has gone from pretty high to not much.
## [Taylor Swift and the "25% Less" Rule](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdwHc_ee7eY&t=2915s)
The President was asked about Taylor Swift's comments. I don't even know what the comment was; it doesn't matter. We definitely have the funniest President.
The President looks at the camera with that twinkle in his eye and says, "Now, I like Taylor's music 25% less." If he had said, "I like her music less," it wouldn't be funny. If he said, "She's entitled to her opinion," it wouldn't be funny. But the wrongness of the specificity—"25% less"—is so immediately ridiculous that it's funny.
He also allowed that she was still 75% talented. He is "negging" her—a term from the pickup artist world where you insult someone slightly but give them a chance to work their way back into your good opinion. He just gave her a little ding, but left room for her to work her way back.
## [Trump as the Front-Runner](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdwHc_ee7eY&t=3036s)
We have watched President Trump be the ultimate come-from-behind guy. He's been literally bankrupt and came back. His show was under pressure and he turned that into a presidential run. Everyone said he'd lose, he came back. They said he'd be a bad president, and now everything is good.
We’ve always known him in that "under attack" mode. But lately, he’s had such a good week. As we come toward the end of the year, the summaries are going to look really good for him. What we have never seen until now is President Trump as a front-runner.
He's a front-runner for his reelection and he's in a good place managing the country. His fun personality is emerging. These rallies are really just stand-up humor. He's enjoying himself. When he made that comment about Taylor Swift, he looked really relaxed, like he knows he's in charge. The come-from-behind President is becoming the front-runner President. He modifies his personality for every situation, and seeing the "Front-Runner Trump" is going to be hilarious.
I am very curious about Nikki Haley's resignation. I wonder if there's something specific behind it. I don't see any speculation on it yet. I'm going to let you watch that on your own. I will talk to you later.