Episode 299 Scott Adams Something Big Might be Happening in the Middle East

Date: 2018-11-14 | Duration: 22:01

Topics

Your filter on reality should do two things: 1. Make you happy 2. Do a good job of predicting Applying the persuasion filter to the Middle East A chance for peace?

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

> [!note] Rough Transcript
> 
> This is an auto-generated transcript and may contain errors.

## Transcript

[0:07]

pom pom pom pom pom pom pom pom pom pom hey Peter hey everybody come on in I am coming to you today from my man cave at Dilbert central and I'm going to share with you Oh a thousand people do you have your beverage I'm doing afternoon coffee but some of you I know might be a little too late for coffee but join me anyway and the simultaneous up so if you've been following me for a while and especially if you have read win big lis you know that I make a provocative claim that reality is somewhat subjective and we all have our own filters or our own movies going on in our heads and that the only way you can tell which is the good version in other words the movie that you should consider the real reality versus other people who are

[1:09]

reality versus other people who are maybe hallucinating in a different way is whether or not your filter on reality does two things does it make you happy and does it do a good job of predicting so I've made a number of notable predictions in the past to make the case that if you learn persuasion and you start seeing the world as irrational people being persuaded as opposed to a filter in which you see people as you know rational players who look at facts and make decisions you'll be very unhappy and you'll be very bad at predicting the future if you imagine people are smart and that they make rational decisions so compare my model where everybody's irrational but persuasion is the main variable in the world in terms of human decision-making so I'm going to talk about the Middle East and I'm going to put the persuasion

[2:12]

East and I'm going to put the persuasion filter on it and I want to make the case that there's something very special happening that might be an opening for something really good not for not very long from now and I'll go through this using persuasion as the main theme so that you can see it through that filter and I'll make a few confessions right off the bat number one I don't know much about the Middle East so I may have you know spelled things wrong I may be leaving out important countries I may have I may forget which religion somebody's got so bear with me here this is a work in progress it's a field I don't know anything about but I'm still gonna put the persuasion filter on and then make a quasi prediction it's a little less than a prediction but maybe it's a sign of optimism and it goes like this I'm gonna

[3:12]

optimism and it goes like this I'm gonna I'm going to show you the the main architecture that's happening right now and I left out a number of countries just because they're not relevant to the story I'm going to tell so it's not like Jordan and Turkey are not important but for this story they don't have much of a plus or minus in terms of how they're going to influence things so let me go through this and show you how the elements of this complicated Middle East architecture are by complete coincidence just starting to click into place to create an opportunity that maybe has never been there before so let me go through the argument and then once you've seen it all don't dwell too much on any part of it what is it look at the big picture right we've got this weird situation where this Josh shogi guy was murdered in the apparently murdered in the Turkish embassy and this has put a great deal of pressure on Saudi Arabia

[4:12]

great deal of pressure on Saudi Arabia because they're being accused of doing this brutal murder that's very inappropriate now what's important is that they have this new Crown Prince Prince Salman right and he's a young guy he's very bold he's a you know he's willing to do things that other people wouldn't have done frankly so you've got first of all an opportunity and that he's a personality who wants to do stuff right he's obviously an active ruler he wants to change he wants to reform he wants to fix you don't want Saudi Arabia to be important and then this scandal happens and he gets you know pressure from the United States pressure from the rest of the world and now he kind of needs to do something big to secure his safety as and credibility as the head of the country so he might be able to hold on to power no matter what but I have a

[5:16]

to power no matter what but I have a feeling with Saudi Arabia is not a dictatorship like some places are but rather more like a corporation where the family is a de facto Board of Directors and they select a member of the family he was selected I have a feeling that he really needs the support within his own country to really remain the leader so there's a lot of pressure on this young guy who has apparently a lot of boldness and he's willing to be a reformer willing to go where other people would not go so I'm just gonna call that flexible he's currently flexible in a way that maybe we haven't seen before all right Saudi Arabia is in a sort of a proxy war with Iran they're backing different sides in this Yemen war the United States has recently decided to stop refueling or helping with the refueling so we're putting pressure on Saudi Arabia to you know get something taken

[6:16]

Arabia to you know get something taken care of so it looks like Yemen because you know Iran is getting blood dry now here's the important thing Iran is getting poorer and probably at a rate they have never seen before now keep in mind that the direction of things is very important because if you're a ran and the direction that you can see forever is just things getting worse and they prep that's probably what they see right now if things stay the same for Iran it's just gonna get worse forever so they have sort of a time constraint they need to do something they need to fix something they need to change something pretty soon so it's the soon that's the important part so I think that Iran has enough reasons to get out of this war Saudi Arabia has enough reasons with our pressure on them nobody really wants to be in a war anyway so there may be a chance and this would be the key to the whole puzzle for these guys to stop being on the other side in Yemen now the blue lines here

[7:20]

side in Yemen now the blue lines here are sort of the political lines of influence and then the USA you know is putting pressure on Iran economically so recently we saw the Egypt was just helpful in trying to broker a deal between Hamas and Israel so here's another key part the Egypt is a helpful player that Hamas is sort of in the position where they they need something to go right so if something could be presented that made it look like a win they're probably ready right because things aren't getting better for them things are not getting better for Iran their sponsor it's got to be tough to be a mosque at the same time the Israel is just getting stronger on every dimension so if Israel is getting stronger every day with really no end in sight and Iran

[8:21]

day with really no end in sight and Iran is getting weaker every day with no end in sight that speaks to both of them you know being ready for something to happen so so you've got productive people in between tube entities that have a reason to work things out if only they could figure out how it's always that how do you figure out how part that's the hard part then of course you've got Russia that you can count on to follow their self-interest which is good because probably following their self-interest means that they're not being taught maduk if there's a deal to be had they might say yes if it's good for them and why wouldn't it be alright and then you've got this weird situation of a president Trump who's a deal maker who could probably go to places other people can't go you could probably threaten people more than people have been threatened you probably surprise people in ways they haven't been surprised he can shake the box and ways that has never been shaken so I want you to imagine the following

[9:23]

so I want you to imagine the following leaders in the same room just get a mental picture of this right just just for kicks imagine them in the same room president Trump right get that picture you had Putin Netanyahu all right so now it's Trump Putin and Netanyahu just picture him and then Prince Salman put them all the room and now imagine them together could those four people work together yeah they could right just think of their personalities that's four people who could make a deal and have an interest in making a deal they all have a great interest in making sure that it's a stable region so we've never had four personalities like that that all are all capable of making a deal they're all flexible they're all fairly pragmatic they're they're more visionary

[10:24]

pragmatic they're they're more visionary than people before in lots of different ways so probably you have the right players for the first time you have this external weird situation that causes more flexibility than normal you've got Iran that really needs to make something happen because it's only going in the wrong direction forever and they must know that at some point and you've got Israel getting stronger which means that the sooner these guys settle the sooner they can at least make their own lives better because nothing's going to happen to Israel it's just getting stronger and you've got age up to being helpful I'm sure you know Jordan would be helpful Turkey would probably play some role there are other countries of money etc now anybody who predicts it's going to be a Middle East peace in three months that would be a foolish prediction because it would be the one place that's

[11:25]

because it would be the one place that's hardest to imagine there could ever be peace but I'll make this one observation it's possible that we've never been closer this might be as close as you can get to an ideal setup where where you can get something done now here's another concept that a president Trump would understand that not everybody would and it's something I've said before it's a concept of negotiating if you're negotiating a small deal between two entities and you you can't get the deal done there's just no way to make a deal that you can see sometimes it helps to add in new variables so you might be talking I'll pay you money for your product but you can't reach a price so you had in something else alright I'll give you money and I'll help you advertise all right so adding variables when you've got a standoff is generally good so instead of looking at the Middle East as

[12:26]

instead of looking at the Middle East as something that Israel and Hamas have to work out you end up looking at the whole system and you've introduced this whole bunch of variables now what happens when you've got this many variables in your situation well in most cases in the normal world the more you complicate things the less likely it's going to work out if this were an engineering project you'd say wow that's the wrong direction if you add variables if you add specifications if you add complexity it's much worse keep it simple if you can but in the very specific world of trying to reach a deal internationally it might actually be an advantage to add as many variables in here and try to give something that really just settles a lot of stuff at the same time you know it might it might go to capitols are and might go to who is funding Eman that might go to what's up with a mas it might go to security it

[13:27]

with a mas it might go to security it might go to you know nuclear weapons just throw it all in there now in a normal situation you would never get anybody to agree when you have that many variables it would just be too hard to negotiate with that much stuff the only way that could work is if you have some kind of leader who is tested and knows how to create simple stories and have complicated situations somebody who could reach into the complexity find not only where the money matters but the emotions matter what where people can be persuaded and where they can't where the complexity could be ignored even if it's important to get to where you need to go where you could be morally flexible where you need to to get to a greater good you would need somebody so unique that that sort of person could only come

[14:27]

that that sort of person could only come around once in a lifetime do you see it so you know I've laid it down here and you've seen that by weird coincidence it wouldn't you know not really anybody whose great work or anything like that just by coincidence it looks to me like a lot of stuff is lining up for exactly the players who were important in this world yeah and somebody said in the comments Jared so you know Jared is sort of the the silent you know broker behind the behind the curtain and he's obviously got you know a crazy good connections it looks like it looks like he's a strong player who could make everything pull together if anybody could I don't know if anybody could so I'm not going to say this as a prediction because predicting peace in the Middle East would be not the

[15:28]

the Middle East would be not the smartest thing anybody ever did right because the odds are always against it I'm only gonna say that we've never had this situation before this is special and maybe it matters all right I would love to hear your feedback on this tell me if you think this is crazy and if you could put a reason you know a short reason there that would be good you don't have to do details but you know give me a sense of what part of that you think is weak not crazy yeah it's not crazy right haven't accounted for China I don't know that I need to the oil price drop supports my observation you are correct the drop in oil prices makes everybody a little more flexible especially Iran I would think

[16:32]

it's too easy for one party to play the others that's that's the big risk of course it's crazy because the Palestinians don't want a deal does anybody not want a deal you know here's the thing if if you thought Israel was vulnerable and that you really had an actual chance of destroying Israel if you thought that was possible you might you might dig in and do everything you could you know sacrifice you know live live in bad conditions take risks you know do whatever you can if it was your religion or your cultural beliefs that you had to destroy Israel but at some point no matter how much you want to destroy Israel you're gonna realize that they're getting more powerful every day time is not on your side and you're not getting closer to destroying them you're getting further away so there is a point

[17:33]

getting further away so there is a point where you realize it just can't happen so what you're doing if you're a mosque and you're the leaders over there you're killing your people you're living in poverty and you don't have any chance just no chance of realistically getting what you think you want which is some kind of revenge or taking over israel or or wiping them out or whatever it is you that you think you want to do so I think we're there with a little bit of pressure now one of the keys that I talked to you about all the time is that sometimes in order to make a deal both sides have to have a story they can tell their own people in which they're the winners so the ideal situation is that both side can tell their side why they're the winners in North Korea that situation is shaping up Kim can tell his people hey I'm unifying the North Korea my nukes really worked out for me because it got me all these concessions so he's got a story we of course have our story which is you know

[18:33]

course have our story which is you know no more nukes in North Korea right so everybody can have a win I think what's been lacking with Hamas is they didn't have a way to win there was there was no way to spin this thing into a victory and here's what I would suggest if a mosque is part of a larger picture for something really good in the Middle East and it's tied to specific economic benefits then suddenly they have something that they can shape as a win and that win might be let's say access to holy sites or who's in charge of holy sites yeah they might say well we got that it's a good thing we put that pressure on Israel maybe it's something about travel or water rights maybe it's about economic development from other countries maybe Saudi Arabia so you can imagine a whole bunch of variables going in in which at least the leaders of Hamas can say this would be good for our

[19:35]

Hamas can say this would be good for our people or there's enough money to bribe them or kill them or coerce them because if you've got if you've got all of the other countries saying all right the only thing stopping us is about a dozen of you leaders in a mosque that's the only thing that's stopping the entire Middle East from you know having some stability it's like 12 guys you 12 guys pretty sure if every country in the world wanted them to cooperate they could find a way all right because the MAS doesn't have nuclear weapons so I'm not talking about militarily but they could be bribed they could be convinced you know they're they could be Patriots for their country and just take the best deal they can get a mas needs a leader that can declare a victory right and it does seem to me that they could declare some form of victory in some way there's there have to be enough variables where

[20:36]

there have to be enough variables where they can walk off saying look what I did this is way better [Music]
all right I'm just looking at your comics now comments would Bolton be on board well you know the beauty of the complexity if you keep it complicated is that everybody has a reason to like it and everybody has a reason to not like it that's what complexity gives you it allows everybody to see their own movie so if you need everybody to see their own movie this is the way to do it just throw enough stuff in there that nobody really understands what's going on and in that world a President Trump is the most influential voice because he operates in that world where people are confused and overwhelmed and there's too much complexity and he'll boil it down to its simplest element and sell the

[21:36]

to its simplest element and sell the crap out of it alright I'm going to end here and keep it short thanks for joining me in my mancave one more simultaneous sip afternoon coffee join me for a toast and now have a good night