Episode 267 Scott Adams: Saudi Excuses, JobsNotMobs, Voter Turnout
Date: 2018-10-20 | Duration: 58:45
Topics
Paul Krugman’s IQ, credentials and his tweet this morning…TDS The persuasion that’s propelling the JobsNotMobs slogan #FentanylChina, 30K Americans killed per year Arresting and/or assassinating the lab owners has value President Trump considering China postage increase Thought experiment: Big tech decides to impact election results Algorithms be tweaked to target only GOP and discourage voting Sight of American flag influences voting GOP, pre-suasion example President Trump, the last President who isn’t owned by anybody Saudi explanation of Khashoggi event…not plausible Adam Schiff’s (and other dems) wide-eyed look, what does it mean? Lying? Hallucinating? Both?
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## Transcript
This is a cleaned and formatted transcript of **Episode 267 of Coffee with Scott Adams**, titled "Saudi Excuses, #JobsNotMobs, Voter Turnout."
## [Introduction and the Simultaneous Sip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKuEvGlh_Gw&t=9s)
Hey everybody, come on in here, gather round. I hope you have your coffee because you know what time it is. Hey Jack, come on in here. Hey Jeremy, hey Yvonne. Facts are safe. Good morning, good morning, good morning. Grab your cup, your vessel, your mug, your stein, your glass, your container. Make sure it's filled with your favorite beverage—I like coffee—and now join me for the simultaneous sip.
## [Paul Krugman’s IQ and Trump Derangement Syndrome](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKuEvGlh_Gw&t=69s)
We got stuff to talk about. I just retweeted a tweet from your favorite economist, Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist. Let me frame this by saying you don't really win a Nobel Prize unless you're pretty smart. I'm talking about the scientific economic prizes; you don't win those unless you're really smart.
By any objective measure upon which you can measure intelligence—either his grades, his accomplishments, his credentials, or his Nobel Prize—Paul Krugman is a smart guy. I think we'd all agree that on raw IQ, he is very smart. Smarter than me, smarter than most of you. But here is what he tweets today as part of a tweetstorm about the President and how he's treating Saudi Arabia.
Paul Krugman says: "So the supposed economic payoff from dealing with a murderer..."—he's talking about Saudi Arabia here—"...is a mirage. Why does Trump keep talking about it? Unfortunately, the answer is obvious: he likes autocrats who murder journalists and is looking for excuses to stay friendly with them."
What? Let me give this to you again because you probably have the same reaction I did, which is that it looks like he's saying two plus two equals orange. I have no idea how he gets to this conclusion.
## [The Logic Gap in Saudi-China Comparisons](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKuEvGlh_Gw&t=190s)
The context is he was talking about how we have far more in economic connection to China than we do to Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is just a tiny dot, and the deals that Trump is talking about are very small compared to our economy. That much, I assume, is true.
But then he asks why Trump is treating Saudi Arabia differently than China when the economies are so different. He thinks it should be the reverse: Trump should be harder on China and less hard on Saudi Arabia if economics was really Trump's reasoning. I'm okay with questioning the size of the economic impact so far; that's perfectly reasonable.
But then he jumps from that to: "Why does Trump keep talking about it? Unfortunately, the answer is obvious." Now, whatever follows "the answer is obvious" is usually something that's just batshit crazy. "He likes autocrats who murder journalists."
How the hell do you get from comparing the economies of China and Saudi Arabia to "Trump likes autocrats who murder journalists"? I'm pretty sure that's not the only explanation of the facts in evidence here.
Here's another set of facts that would help explain why Trump treats Saudi Arabia the way he does: how about the fact that Saudi Arabia is critical to peace in the Middle East, and peace in the Middle East is critical to our security? I can't read Trump's mind, but if you're leaving out the possibility that the Middle East has something to do with world security and the United States' security, I think you're leaving out a pretty big hypothesis.
It's really fascinating to watch somebody who is—and again, I'll say this and I mean this—if you were to just measure Paul Krugman's IQ, it would be higher than mine. If he and I took an IQ test, he would outscore me. If we did a test of general knowledge about politics or economics, he would kill me.
But you can see the TDS. It's a case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. I guarantee you that when he wrote this, he thought to himself, "This makes sense." I would be very surprised if he put a public tweet out unless he thought it was a pretty good one. He thought this made sense. I can't imagine any other possibility for why you put that in a tweet. It's mind-boggling when you see it.
## [Comparing Insulting Tweets to Bone Saws](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKuEvGlh_Gw&t=373s)
I also am amused by the comparison of the way Trump treats the news media versus dictators. People are trying to draw a comparison between what happened with Khashoggi versus what President Trump does when he talks about the media.
According to Trump's critics, the following two things are roughly equivalent. They're saying that Trump calling Chuck Todd "Sleepy Eyes" is very close—it might be a slippery slope from calling Chuck Todd "Sleepy Eyes" to dismembering him with a bone saw. As soon as you start making fun of somebody's sleepy eyes, it's a slippery slope, and the next thing you know, it's bone saw time.
Do they really think that makes sense? Here's the part everybody leaves out when they criticize the President for criticizing the press: the press really deserves some criticizing. If the press were not fairly corrupt in terms of the way they skew stories, would the President be trash-talking them? Well, maybe, but we'll never know because there's a lot of fake news and he does call it out. He may overplay that, but he overplays everything. Hyperbole is sort of his brand.
Comparing calling somebody "Sleepy Eyes" or saying that Megyn Kelly has "blood coming out of her whatever" to dismembering somebody with a bone saw? Not exactly the same thing.
## [The Popularization of #JobsNotMobs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKuEvGlh_Gw&t=499s)
Let's talk about "Jobs Not Mobs." You've seen that it has caught on and now the President is using it multiple times. Other politicians are picking up on it; it's a gigantic meme now. People are asking me if I started it. No, I was not the inventor of "Jobs Not Mobs." I did help popularize it, meaning I tweeted about it when it was in its infancy.
The way numbers work, if somebody with a blue check tweets something, it's more likely to go viral. I don't know if I was the first blue check to tweet it, but I might have been among the first. I gave it fuel and I helped explain why it was powerful, but I did not invent it. I just saw it on the internet.
Ali Alexander is giving me credit for popularizing it—he's using that exact word, and he's very clear about that. I appreciate the clarity regarding my involvement.
## [Trump’s A/B Testing and Crowd Persuasion](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKuEvGlh_Gw&t=625s)
The President is the best brander you've ever seen, but it's bigger than that. Through his staff, he's very clearly scouring the internet for the memes, the approaches, the attacks, and the tweets that work. People are looking at what the Trump followers are doing collectively, finding out what is popular, and then taking that to the boss or the speechwriter.
Then he A/B tests it. He's not just sitting in a room thinking of brands; he's expanded the system to scour the internet for things that are naturally viral. Presumably, someone in the administration saw "Jobs Not Mobs" on a Twitter feed and said, "Let's give it a try."
The next part is the live A/B testing at his rallies. When he landed it for the very first time, the crowd had a visceral reaction. If you have ever spoken in front of big crowds, you can really feel the energy. I've spent years giving large keynotes to big ballrooms and theaters with thousands of people. If I land a good joke, the audience responds and you can feel that energy.
Here's a persuasion tip: a laugh or a visceral groan are the reactions you really want. If you're on stage trying to influence people, you don't care about "clap-clap-clap." Clapping tells you nothing. People might be clapping just because they like you or because they're having a fun night.
But if you land a clever slogan like "Jobs Not Mobs" and you hear the audience laugh in unison, simultaneously—that’s the important part. It wasn't a little laugh that caught on; the moment people heard him say "We've got jobs, they've got mobs," it was instant laughter. I can tell you for sure that the President could feel that in his body.
Laughter is a higher level of impact. If somebody laughs, you've got control of their body. Laughter is an involuntary action. That is a real persuasive connection. A laugh is involuntary. If you can get an entire crowd of thousands of people to have the same involuntary action at the same moment, that's a keeper. You keep that joke; you keep that meme. He A/B tested it live, got the reaction he liked, and the same night he had already tweeted out the hashtag #JobsNotMobs.
## [The Democrat Slogan Play in One Act](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKuEvGlh_Gw&t=934s)
Compare this to the poor Democrats. The Republican slogan for the midterms is "Jobs Not Mobs." A few weeks before the midterms, quickly tell me in the comments: what is the Democrats' slogan? It's "Question Mark Question Mark Question Mark." I don't know what it is.
Imagine you were one of the high-level Democrat strategic movers and shakers and you hear "Jobs Not Mobs" for the first time. I'd like to demonstrate this for you with my accomplice, Dale. I'd like to give you a play in one act.
This is Dale. He's an anti-Trumper, and he's hearing Trump's new midterm slogan for the first time.
"They got nothing, Dale. They got nothing."
"What's he saying? What's that slogan?"
"Jobs Not Mobs."
"Oh hell, I think we lost again."
(Scene)
"Make America Great Again" will go down in history as one of the all-time great branding moves. If you're a Democrat, you're probably thinking to yourself—and I've heard this from billionaires and well-informed people—that the only explanation for Trump is that he's like Chance the Gardener from *Being There*. They think he just became President by luck and that the universe threw all this luck at him.
Serious, successful people literally believe it's luck. Now imagine you hold that theory and then you hear "Jobs Not Mobs." What do you say to yourself? Do you say, "He got lucky again"? He got lucky with "MAGA," lucky with "Low Energy Jeb," lucky with the tariffs, lucky with the economy, lucky with ISIS, lucky with North Korea... damn it, he got lucky again! How lucky can he get? It’s got to be a tough time to hold those Trump Derangement Syndrome opinions because they are being falsified at a rapid rate.
## [The Branding Risk of "Caravans and Kavanaugh"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKuEvGlh_Gw&t=1181s)
The other thing Trump is saying is that the midterm is going to be about "Caravans and Kavanaugh." Because it's two 'K' sounds, it has a good sound to it. But there’s a little bit of a problem here.
"Caravans and Kavanaugh." Tell me what the problem is. If you're a Republican, you don't want any slogans that have three 'K' sounds in them. You see where I’m going on this?
I’m not even going to say it in the comments, but you don't want a slogan that's two "K" sounds because somebody is going to add a third "K" sound. Even though "Caravan" starts with a 'C,' your brain hears it as a 'K.' Your brain doesn't care that it's not a real connection. "Collusion, Climate, Caravan, Kavanaugh"—it would be so easy for someone to add a third sound. That one is chancy. I hope that one doesn't pass the A/B testing; that's a little risky.
## [Executing Fentanyl Dealers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKuEvGlh_Gw&t=1312s)
I've been in this debate several times now regarding Chinese fentanyl dealers. China is the main source of fentanyl in the United States, and it’s killing maybe 30,000 Americans a year. These are illegal labs run by organized crime. I've said that we should execute the owners of those labs if the Chinese government won't do it themselves.
Choice one is we pressure China to get more aggressive about their illegal fentanyl. Their brand is now "Fentanyl China." China is, in my opinion, disgraced at this point. So, first choice: pressure China to execute their own big dealers. Second choice: since they are killing 30,000 people a year, they are mass murderers. If China won't kill them, I think it's fair to send in whoever does the "wet work" for the United States. Every big country has someone who kills people. I believe we should just kill them.
People say to me, "You idiot, don't you know that won't make any difference to the supply? If you kill the lab owners, another lab will pop up in five minutes." I totally agree with that. Killing the Chinese owners of those drug labs would probably make no difference to the supply. We should do it anyway because you kill mass murderers. It doesn't matter if someone else is going to be a mass murderer in the future.
People come after me with bad analogies like, "If you're blaming the producer, would you kill gun manufacturers?" First of all, analogies never work. You can't compare a legal product to an illegal product. Secondly, you can't compare something that kills X number of people to something that kills ten times as many. The size matters. In two years, fentanyl from China will kill more Americans than the Vietnam War did. You don't treat a hangnail like a heart attack just because they're both health problems.
## [The Rule of Bad Analogies](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKuEvGlh_Gw&t=1617s)
The reason I think you should execute those dealers is that it sends a signal. I want potential users in the U.S. to hear that the producers are being executed because this drug is such a bad thing. It's about branding China and branding the producers as mass murderers.
When people come after me with bad analogies, I have a new approach I'm A/B testing. I just say, "I don't answer to bad analogies," and sometimes I add, "and all analogies are bad."
Watch how often this is useful. When someone tries to argue your point with an analogy, do not address the analogy. Never. Just look at them and say, "I don't talk about bad analogies. If you want to talk about my point and tell me why it wouldn't work, I'll listen, but I don't address bad analogies because an analogy is literally a different situation."
Analogies as arguments are useless. Analogies for explaining a new concept? Very useful. When people use analogies, they're acting like an ingrown toenail and a heart attack are similar because they're both "health problems." It doesn't help you to know that. Analogies are always misleading if they're used as an argument.
## [Postage, Tariffs, and the Fentanyl Stamp](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKuEvGlh_Gw&t=1740s)
I previously proposed putting a tariff on Chinese packages and increasing the postage, then using that revenue to buy more fentanyl-sniffing technology. We should at least make it a bad idea to be a mass murderer.
Then the government announced they were looking to renegotiate international postage treaties because China has unusually low postage. It was intentional so developing countries could grow, and Trump is quite reasonably saying they are developed enough now. But it's a big treaty and hard to change unilaterally.
Instead of just changing the postage, we should just slap a fee on top of everything. You need a special "Fentanyl China" stamp. We won't even look at your package unless you've got the special stamp to cover the cost of checking for fentanyl. I believe the American Revolution was fought over something like a stamp tax, so maybe there's some history there.
## [Thought Experiment: Selective Weather Reports](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKuEvGlh_Gw&t=1986s)
Imagine if tech companies decided to try to influence the midterm vote without being detected. This is just a thought experiment.
The polling places will all have different weather. Imagine you're a big tech company and you want a liberal result. Suppose you tweak your algorithm so that wherever there is bad weather at a polling place, you surface a weather report—but you only show it to Republicans.
It's not "fake news." It's an accurate weather report on Facebook or Twitter saying, "Remember to leave early because it's going to be raining at your polling place." If the algorithm only sends this to Republicans, what would that do to turnout? It would be completely accurate news that the recipient would want to know, but by not showing it to the other side, you change the turnout.
Voters on the margin might decide not to go if they hear the weather is going to be terrible. Is it illegal for a tech company to give selective, accurate weather reports? It would be almost impossible to trace. You could even do it with ads that just say, "Bring a raincoat to vote," and only send those to the opposition. How could Facebook ban an ad that accurately describes the weather?
## [Pre-suasion and the American Flag](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKuEvGlh_Gw&t=2291s)
You may be familiar with Robert Cialdini's book *Pre-suasion*. The idea is that when people are subjected to a certain thought, it can prime them to respond differently on an unrelated topic.
Cialdini talks about a study where people exposed to an American flag were more likely to vote Republican. In people's minds, the flag is slightly more "pro-Republican." You could pre-suade an election and nobody would know.
If social media companies wanted people to vote Republican, they could just show a big picture of a flag and say, "It's election day, I hope everybody votes and does their patriotic duty." That wouldn't be illegal. But would it change the election? Absolutely.
If you didn't know that had been studied, you wouldn't think anything was going on. Now, imagine there's another symbol that biases people to vote Democrat. Could social media companies just show that image a lot around election day? Yes, they could. I don't know if that's illegal, and I don't know how you'd ever police it because the symbolism appears unrelated to the topic.
## [Trump: The Last Human President](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKuEvGlh_Gw&t=2537s)
I talked about this on Ben Shapiro’s Sunday Special, which will air the last Sunday of this month. I suggested that Trump might be the last "human" president. He might be the only president not being run by billionaires or managed by other people's money. He's a singularly unique individual.
After Trump, I think algorithms will be making our decisions. At first, they will be influenced by humans, but it will soon be so complicated that no human understands what the algorithm is doing. The algorithm will be the decisive thing that moves people.
If social media algorithms accidentally surface lots of American flags, they might cause a Republican victory without anyone specifically programming that outcome. It would be an accidental outcome of a complicated system. Trump's personal power and style can rise above the algorithm, but a regular politician is going to be weaker than the algorithms of the future.
## [Saudi Arabia’s "Lame-Ass" Excuse](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKuEvGlh_Gw&t=2659s)
Regarding the Saudi explanation for what happened to Khashoggi: my opinion on the Khashoggi thing is that I don't think the U.S. should care. But it's not being ignored, so it's a topic.
We were hoping the Saudis would come up with an alibi that was at least a little bit believable. What they came up with was that Khashoggi died in a fight—it was an accidental death. Was the "accidental death" before or after they removed his fingers?
It was the most ridiculous excuse. It exposes Trump. If I were President Trump, I'd be counting on my allies to give me some cover so I wouldn't have to punish them too hard. Give me an explanation that at least one side might be inclined to believe. But they gave an explanation that literally zero people believe.
Trump is exposed because he can't act like it's true. It would be a huge political mistake to embrace that. I think Trump will be tempted to say flat-out, "We don't believe it." I would love that. "The Saudis have been our ally, we waited for an explanation, and the one they gave is ridiculous."
## [Making Amends for the Embarrassment](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKuEvGlh_Gw&t=2849s)
Trump should take advantage of this crisis. The Saudis—with your permission, I'm going to swear here, so earmuffs for the kids—the Saudis just "p-worded" our President with that lame-ass excuse. I don't like it. But that doesn't mean we have to shoot ourselves in the foot over it.
They've got to make some amends. They embarrassed our President, who was trying to give them room to come up with a good explanation with just a little reasonable doubt. They didn't deliver. They just totally exposed him.
They owe us. It's time for them to make a bigger gesture. There's nothing we can do to bring back Khashoggi, but we could make the Middle East a safer place. Recognizing Israel would be helpful. Maybe they take over some expenses we were spending money on. They need to write a big check—not just a money check, but a big gesture—because they just screwed our President right in front of us.
Trump is smart enough not to act on pure ego, but they left him totally exposed. All they had to say was, "I didn't authorize this; they acted outside their mission." But they chose the worst excuse in the world.
## [The "Wide-Eyed" Hallucination](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKuEvGlh_Gw&t=3218s)
Totally random, but someone mentioned Adam Schiff, which makes me think of his big googly eyes. Have you noticed the wide-eyed look? You see it with Cory Booker, Adam Schiff, and the people screaming at the sky. You don't see it on the right.
I wonder if people are hallucinating when that happens. If you're trying to get someone to believe a story that even you know isn't believable, something happens with your eyes. "I'm totally telling you the truth, look how open my eyes are!"
It feels like a "tell" for Trump Derangement Syndrome or a delusion. They're imagining a world where Trump is Hitler and trying to convince you it's true at the same time they're imagining it.
## [The NPC Meme](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKuEvGlh_Gw&t=3406s)
The "NPC" meme has really taken off. It means "Non-Player Character." In a video game, there are real people and then there are background characters. The joke is that if we're in a simulation—which we probably are—there are some people who don't have a soul or free will; they're just background characters that walk and talk.
I don't think that's literally true, but it sure feels like it sometimes. It's a very effective meme.
I've been talking too long. I'm going to go, and I'll talk to you later.