Episode 311 Scott Adams: Morality Halfpinions, CNN Mind-Reading, Fiction, and Fires

Date: 2018-11-21 | Duration: 29:07

Topics

President Trump is willing to take the heat for our greater good Fiction readers calling me dumb The news “temperature” doesn’t change, regardless of the news Big news slows or stops during the holidays The news will seek to make little stories into big stories Watch for mind reading and weird speculation

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

## Transcript

[0:06]

I didn't put them um hey everybody hey Nicolas Duncan come on in here you know what time it is I think you do it's time for coffee with Scott Adams and while you're getting in here I'm gonna reverse my camera and show you a little good news from the outside world if you've been following my periscopes you know I've been showing you external views of how much smoke there is I'm about a hundred and fifty miles or more from the closest of the big fires in California but until recently the hills which you see here very clearly were invisible so this is the first day in over a week at least that those hills are visible and as you can see they're not that far away so we haven't been able to go outside because everything everything beyond at this tree level to see the trees that are closed everything beyond that was a

[1:07]

are closed everything beyond that was a complete why they don't until today well good news and apparently good work by the firefighters maybe some rain coming on Thanksgiving so that's all good news yeah the fires are still burning is my understanding but at least the the biggest part of this smoke danger where I live is past okay let's talk about CNN's mind reading the big story on CNN is that the president wanted the Justice Department to investigate Clinton and he wanted Thome fired now whatever you see a story about anonymous anonymous sources telling you what the president was thinking how much credibility should you put in

[2:10]

you put in how much credibility should you put I just saw something funny goodbye in the comments how much credibility should you put in a report by unnamed sources who are familiar with the president's internal thoughts how about none if you've never been interviewed or the subject of the news it's easy to look in a story like that and say well yeah people who know him say what they he wanted to do X now it's entirely possible that that's exactly what he was thinking and exactly what he wanted but but let me tell you how easily this could be misreported so suppose the president is talking about all the things going on all the attacks have bet against him and suppose he says to his aides well maybe we should just you know indict Hillary and indict Comey if they're if they're gonna play this way we should maybe we should play this - what do you think and then is that whose aides say no mr. president that's a bad

[3:12]

aides say no mr. president that's a bad idea don't do that for the following reasons and then the president says okay and then he doesn't do it now the way I told it does that sound like a story that just sounds like the way people talk behind closed doors if you put me in that situation do you think that at least once I would have asked the question hey do you think we should just go after Hillary or go after Comey because the reasons for going after them appear to me is stronger than the reasons that people are coming after me should we consider that and then people say no and then I go okay I heard you reasons so I won't do it and as we can see you didn't do it so once this is reported by by CNN it sort of morphs a little bit because you're not in the room so here's one of the most important things about communication that you can understand things that you say at a

[4:13]

understand things that you say at a rally in the context of you know entertaining a crowd are different than what you would say at a press conference and are different from what you would say in what you think is going to be a private meeting among your your staff so the way you talk in each of these contexts is quite different because it's a different audience that it will be received a different way what CNN is doing and this is a clever trick they're taking a private conversation and they're moving it to the public just the very act of doing that alone should make this sound wrong does it it does they moved it from the private context where it didn't mean much of anything it's just one of a thousand ideas that people kicked around and decided not to act on suppose we had suppose we had a full list of all the things that the president suggested you

[5:15]

things that the president suggested you know said hey what about this and all the things that his aides had suggested and then decided not to do don't you think that's a big list all the things they kicked around and then they said okay there's a good reason we can't do that and so we won't do it so what CNN is done there's a little sleight of hand that you don't recognize if you're not doing communication for a living they took a private conversation they moved it to another domain acting like it's late yeah as if it were public and then it's all wrong that's easy to do if you are moving the context from one to another another thing here's an opinion piece I haven't ready Apple let me click on it called our fragile president by one one of the president's usual critics so now now somebody is reading the president's mind and they've decided that instead of him being a

[6:16]

that instead of him being a counter-puncher and a tough guy that he's mentally fragile how exactly do you know that because all of the evidence is that he has the toughest mentality I've ever seen take for example the Saudi situation do you think the president was unaware do you think the president was unaware that there would be enormous pushback about the morality of going soft on Saudi Arabia of course he knew that he did it anyway so why did the president choose why anyone and any normal person would have known was so I'm not reading his mind I'm just saying something that anybody would have known anybody would have known that his pushback for the Saudi Arabia statement would be huge but he did it anyway right is that why you do if you're trying to if you're fragile do

[7:19]

if you're trying to if you're fragile do fragile people intentionally take in public the hardest choice that will be criticized the most they kind of don't that would be an irrational thing to do if you were fragile and you were just looking out for yourself the easiest thing that the president could have done is just agree with every other fricking person in the world that's what I fragile person does I'll just go along with the crowd what the President did was decided that he could take the heat so the president is like Jesus like Jesus dying for our sins
worse than allergy ever I'm not trying to persuade you here I'm trying to make a point the president is saying fairly directly I realize how bad this looks I'm gonna take it all personally so they

[8:21]

I'm gonna take it all personally so they you the country you the rest of the country can retain your moral standing think about it the president has allowed everyone else in the country to maintain their moral standing by criticizing him and they maintain their moral standing he doesn't he gives up everything for the country so he's the amoral one but he's also making the adult leadership decision that how do we get to a place where the citizens of the country can keep their moral standard as as they are because the citizens are are hoppin mad right the citizens are saying no no we're moral people we cannot condone this and they're saying it loudly publicly they're saying in there in every publication you know but both the left and the right you it's the most unifying thing I've seen lately which is the entire country saying no we are moral

[9:22]

entire country saying no we are moral people we are above this the president has created a solution where he alone will die for this decision now it's sort of a hopefully a temporary political death meaning that he's taking all the heat the Jesus analogy is not meant to persuade I'm just making an example of somebody who who sacrifices so one of the tests of whether your analogy is useless or useful it's useful to describe a new concept and if you could describe that same concept without the analogy as I just did it's a person taking a sacrifice for the greater good then the analogy is just a shortcut if I was doing it because I wanted you to think Trump was Jesus that's probably not my best play all right so so while

[10:23]

not my best play all right so so while while everybody gets to exercise their moral indignation and by the way I haven't done this yet so I would like to join in with the rest of the country and say my god I don't want to be associated with the murder of a journalist that's the worst moral thing I've seen in 10 minutes it's a pretty immoral world so there are lots of examples so I would like to join with everyone in the United States except our president everyone I'm gonna join with everyone in the United States except the president I'm going to oppose him with my strongest moral fiber and I really do I I'm not even kidding about that from a moral perspective being nice to somebody who just bone sawed his critic there's no way you can defend that it's indefensible on a moral level on a

[11:24]

indefensible on a moral level on a practical level on a self-interest level on a strategic level it's really easy to defend those levels is really easy to defend but only one person is going to take that heat and luckily it's not you and it's not me it's just the president he has decided to take the adult decision now I have referred to the his critics on this as taking the child the child position the child position is look at all these complicated variables there's only one that matters that's what children do they look at a complicated situation and say I want candy but it's dinnertime it's bad for you bad for your health it's bad in the long run why I want candy that's the child's view so the child's view on saudi arabia's we can't work with the Saudis they killed the guy

[12:26]

with the Saudis they killed the guy that's immoral we can't can't be on that side I want candy they're leaving out all of the other complexities of the Middle East it's not adult thinking but luckily there is exactly one adult and as luck would have it he's in charge so you got that going for you I would also suggest that those who are saying that the United States is what it is you know the most powerful nation because of our moral fiber may not have a good understanding of history I would go so far as to say that the reason the United States is as powerful and as stronger it is might be closer to you know the immoral things we've done take for example the United States stolen from the Native Americans who we murdered and

[13:28]

the Native Americans who we murdered and and gave diseases to it and everything else not we I wasn't there but the United States is not exactly built on a moral base but in its defense in its defense the the Christian ethic is a strong unifying thing for individuals and for business Christianity is really good for business because you know if two serious Christians get in the room to negotiate they have a look they have far higher feeling that the other one will do the right thing so there's nothing better you can do for an economy then dump a bunch of Christians in one place and say all right all you Christians figure out how to make some money Christians are really good at that and one of the superpowers is that because they share a you know a belief that God is watching them they're a little more likely maybe a lot more likely to not cheat even if maybe they could so

[14:31]

cheat even if maybe they could so Christianity is super useful for capitalism if those two things just fit together really well but I think it's a mistake to say that the United States got so strong because of our strong moral fiber that's wrong moral fiber helps a lot and individuals but at a national level we did some we did some bad things to get where we are such as stealing the land from the Native Americans just to pick one example right yeah you could go through your own examples of terrible things the United States has done which doesn't make the United States terrible you know the the the country doesn't always follow the moral path alright I got myself into a weird little pickle with a periscope and what I talked about a hypothesis there people who read the most fiction might be

[15:34]

who read the most fiction might be primed for confirmation bias because when you read fiction everything in the story has meaning every clue means something to the story but in the real world it's just coincidence so if all if you're used to seeing lots of coincidences the next coincidence you see you can say well there's another coincidence doesn't mean anything but if you read fiction all the time then this is just a hypothesis I'm not claiming there's any proof of this the hypothesis is that your mind would be primed to see any kind of anecdotal situation as meaningful because anecdotal situations are meaningful in fiction so I said that but I used a bad chart in which I also threw in another concept about the likelihood that your major was part of it and if you looked at the chart it looked like I was saying which I was not saying it looked like I was saying that that Republicans are more likely to be the scientists in fact that's obviously

[16:36]

the scientists in fact that's obviously the opposite most scientists are lean left so a lot of people who are and here's the funny part the people who complained and are getting on me like I'm the dumbest guy who ever lived are the people who didn't understand the points I'll bet you almost all of them are fiction readers in other words I made a point that fiction readers are more likely to draw conclusions from a few clues than maybe a scientist would the scientists would say yeah the clues point in one direction but that doesn't mean anything gotta yell look at all the clues you got to put it in context you put it got to put it in a controlled study just the fact that it looks like it leans into one direction really doesn't tell you anything so I ended up proving my point by causing a whole bunch of the people to think I'm really stupid wasn't exactly the plan but as humorous just the same all right

[17:38]

the same all right all right it's always somebody's you're doing it here so somebody was saying um Scott well let me see if I can make that come back I used to be able to scroll back these comments I was going to make fun of somebody here but I lost the exact comment correlation doesn't mean causation so right I said most scientists don't lean left now if you were going to test my hypothesis as opposed to the one you think I said my hypothesis is that among scientists the ones who read the most fiction would be the most susceptible to being fooled by

[18:38]

the most susceptible to being fooled by anecdotal non scientific information so so you'd have to look at that class and say all right within scientists some of them read a lot of fiction some don't is there any difference and my hypothesis is that there would be now the question of why are most scientists also Democrats that could be explained by a lot of different things could be socioeconomic factors which caused you to go to college in the first place it could be it could be that most professors are in an environment where all the other professors tend to be liberal so that over time even the you know even the scientists become liberal at least the professor's do so it's very possible that scientists being a minority of any college situation that those professors end up over time becoming liberals and then they're training people to the same point of

[19:39]

training people to the same point of view because if you're a liberal professor you're gonna say everybody who doesn't believe in climate science models which are not science but that's another story must be a bunch of dumb Republicans so it does make sense because we're not talking about one variable controlling everything in the world that among scientists because they're in a big environment in which they're the minority and most of them are liberal over time most most you'd expect that most scientists at universities would be liberal and therefore they would be raising more liberal scientists so that's a an entirely different set of factors than what I was talking about which is if you read too much fiction it probably Prime's you because everything you do Prime's you you shouldn't be the exception it would be strange if it's the exception now

[20:40]

the fiction reading scientists think outside the box better - that might be true I would not I would not doubt that a bit yeah and by the way if you ever meet a Republican or a conservative scientist they will tell you that they keep their head down and I think that will tell you that they don't talk about the reviews too much in public I have had that experience of talking to a conservative scientist and it was fascinating to hear his opinion somebody says that's me I don't talk about it
all right now we're also entering the holiday phase and during the holiday phase I would draw your attention to the following phenomenon have you noticed

[21:41]

following phenomenon have you noticed that the news and it doesn't matter which side of the news you're talking about the news tends to have a certain let's say temperature which is uh things are things are going wrong there's problems there's problems and that temperature doesn't seem to change even as the news changes have you noticed that have you noticed that whatever news there is if if you had news let's say that's nuclear war risk or terror attacks you know that on a scale of one to ten those things would be let's say a ten and if how excited your your treatment of it should be but the the excitement stays the same no matter what stories are filling filling the news so what you should expect is that over the holidays the big news slows down or stops in other words we shouldn't see much in the way of actual big news in the next six weeks but the newest

[22:44]

the next six weeks but the newest business will still keep you ratcheted up to a ten so what you should see is small issues that are being promoted like they're big issues so you you should see in the next six weeks especially from CN n tons of mind-reading stories and tons of watch how many unnamed sources are behind the biggest stories so when you have real news and real big problems you talk about them but if you don't have real news and we're not going to have it for six weeks or so if it's typical then you should see things like Ivanka's email becoming the biggest problem in the world you should see things like the president's treatment of Saudi Arabia which if you think about it it's a pretty small problem that we that the news business has decided to make a big problem because bad people are killing people all and we're still doing business with them

[23:45]

and we're still doing business with them it's sort of business as usual so if you take a look at China for example they are apparently putting their their Muslim minority population in concentration camps think about that where we deal with China and China is literally rounding up their Muslim population and putting them in concentration camps the I think is Uyghur uig uhr something like that the Uyghur population there I think ethnic Turks maybe and there are a few million of them but they're actually there's basically you know the the first step toward you know ethnic cleansing and and China and we do more business with than anybody don't we so it is you always have to keep things in context so

[24:47]

always have to keep things in context so you're going to see things that are naturally small look like they're the biggest problem in the world in the next six weeks and then at the end of six weeks at the end of six weeks we'll just stop talking about the things that were well there was an anonymous source who said the president was angry about something we think that in his interior thoughts he had a bad thought we believe that he's not considering all the variables because we're reading his mind and it's not what we would have done we have a half pinion about doing this because we're getting ignore all the other variables and just look at this one because that's what makes that news otherwise it wouldn't be news if you put it in context that so you're going to see nothing but fake news half opinions mind-reading and oh and also the other one is weird speculation about the future so for example you're I'm saying this week if we give up our moral leadership because of this J shogi thing then then everything will fall apart to

[25:50]

then then everything will fall apart to which I say I don't see any connecting tissue why how does that argument work can you fill in some details that if we give up our moral leadership on this one thing the Middle East will start acting differently have you met the Middle East has anybody met the Middle East I'll tell you one thing they don't care about one person getting killed if there's anything they care less about in the Middle East is one person got killed because if they were caring about that they wouldn't have time to do anything else because you know how often one person gets killed for some evil political religious reason in the Middle East it's you know if you could hear the hear the ticker it would be like click click click click click that's all the people getting killed for terrible reasons in the Middle East right now click click click click click click click Jogi was just one who got a lot of

[26:51]

Jogi was just one who got a lot of attention so which is not to minimize the brutality and horror of it I'm just saying that got to see these things in context yeah as somebody noted here I have a very tough holiday season coming up if you've never had a family member died before the holidays I don't recommend it because because next six weeks is gonna be tough for me at all but I'll get through it Reid Gordon Chang on China yeah Gordon Chang's my favorite go-to guy for that region well thank you for everybody you're all so nice but fentanyl China will be sorry and the KH

[27:53]

fentanyl China will be sorry and the KH and Chi shogi is pronounced like a rasping cloth that sounds about right
all right well I really I appreciate all your good thoughts they do mean a lot to me and I think I'm done for today somebody somebody keeps saying in the comments so I'm gonna I'll mention it that somebody is trying to come up with a nickname for Kamala Harris and somebody is suggesting koala koala like a koala bear
I think that's funny because a koala bear they're sort of famous for being the most useless animal the most useless animal can't even take care of itself you know if you didn't feed it it would starve to death yeah you know they're slow they're like a koala bear I can barely move it's funny but it's not nearly as weaponized as the word cold

[28:55]

nearly as weaponized as the word cold cold you're not going to be I don't think I don't think you're gonna beat that word as a kill shot alright that's enough for now I'll talk to you all later bye