Episode 321 Scott Adams: Migration, China, Dogs That Don’t Bark, Soros

Date: 2018-12-01 | Duration: 55:42

Topics

Hawk Newsome’s recent tweet Why aren’t there Fentanyl deaths and addiction issues in China? Bjorn Lomborg and climate change report misinterpretation Scott Adams Prediction about 10 years ago… “Evolution will be debunked by science in my lifetime” The simulation is straight-up physics and math Economist argues for open borders to allow worker access At what point does that concept hurt rather than help? George Soros conclusion: He donates a great deal of money to political activists His intentions and their impact on our politics are opaque Without transparency, his actions warrant concern Europe might make it illegal to criticize mass migration If you can’t discuss it…what’s the impact on immigration? China’s “re-education centers” treat Islam as a medical issue In-Country immigration: Why don’t we develop and improve it? Employment mobility within our own country Politics use to be dry and boring Now, entertainment and politics have merged Anti-Trump “Gotcha porn” from CNN excites their faithful The news now seeks to excite rather than accurately inform

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## Transcript

[0:04]

[Music] um hey everybody get on in here ace time traveler I see you I see you're grabbing your coffee
Sharona sigh Tyler Tyler you're always in your quick virus Joe Jimmy your vodka I don't think that's a real Ivanka well I guess there's more than one about good come on Ian so did that work I put on the microphone in the middle of the broadcast I'm not sure that the microphone will register so tell me if

[1:06]

microphone will register so tell me if that sounds better didn't what does didn't mean well we got a lot to talk about this morning not the least of which is George HW Bush as deceased and that will be dominating the airwaves for a little while but I don't have much to say about that so I'm not going to talk about it alright so some of you wanted me to comment on yesterday I blocked on Twitter hog Newsom and said goodbye to him as a productive a productive partner and making the world a better place it was based on his tweet from yesterday and his tweet was calling on President Trump to do something about all of the all the

[2:06]

to do something about all of the all the white people who are vascular's and he mentioned that there were I guess 11 shootings by white people this this year and what is the president gonna do about all these white people shooting people so I don't have to tell you that that's just flat-out racist sounding and so I'm out yeah there probably were there were lots of ways to address that topic without making a full out you know black against white so here's the context which you have to appreciate
somebody who is an advocate like hawk is sometimes talking to the other side in other words sometimes he's trying to persuade other people but about 80% of the time he's trying to persuade his own team and that would be true of any advocate there they first have to get

[3:07]

advocate there they first have to get their team on their side so there are some things he's gonna say that are for his own team but even understanding that I can't work with that there's nothing I can do if he if he publicly paints it as a race problem and that the problem is white people does white people are shooting too many people and as soon as you put that frame on it there's just nothing you can do with it so I said goodbye I'm out I'm disappointed but I'm also cutting my losses because the oh the somebody says is the 48-hour rule in effect well I would always consider yeah I would consider anything heard uh-huh but I blocked him so I won't be hearing any anything but here's the thing that the 48-hour rule was designed to give people 48 hours to either apologize or to clarify just in case

[4:09]

apologize or to clarify just in case what they said wasn't what they meant but in this case there's nothing to clarify I think he said exactly what he meant to say there wasn't really any room for ambiguity there and there's nothing really to apologize for because that's his opinion so I don't really ask for apologies from people who have an opinion if it's their honest opinion if that's his opinion there's nothing to clarify there's nothing to apologize for it's just that I can't I can't to work with it you know it's I don't want to be associated with it in any way sorry all right so enough about that I want to talk about some the the dog that doesn't bark you know I use this analogy all the time it's I guess it's Sherlock Holmes that if you expect the dog to be barking and the dog is not barking you

[5:12]

barking and the dog is not barking you have to look for the negative as well as the positive so you have to look for things that are not happening they should have been happening here's one for you did you hear about the million the million Chinese citizens who died of fentanyl overdoses last year did you hear about that did you hear the story about a million Chinese citizens dying from fentanyl oh you didn't neither did I I didn't hear that story you know if you just adjust for population size you know when you take our number and say okay well they have more people you know maybe the if it were the same proportion there should be a few hundred thousand people the year dying of fentanyl overdoses in China why not now just to be clear there is no story that of any number about anybody dying of fentanyl overdoses in China I made that up and the point was

[6:15]

China I made that up and the point was shouldn't you be hearing that if most I guess the vast majority of the fentanyl that comes into the United States is produced by and shipped from originally from China some of it goes to Mexico to get here but if they're the biggest producer of fentanyl and you've heard nothing about fentanyl overdose deaths in China dot dot connect how can you conclude anything except the the government would kill them I mean the drug dealers the government of China would execute the I guess is the Shang you know Zhang Jiang I don't know how to pronounce it family so they know who they are there's there's a picture of the guy who's like the main guy in charge of fentanyl in China does the Chinese government know how to find the

[7:18]

Chinese government know how to find the top fentanyl producer in China of course they know who he is why do you think he's allowed to live well I would certainly start asking questions this way why doesn't China have a massive fentanyl overdose problem when they have so much fentanyl the only reason I can think of is that the government says if you ship it to the United States we'll ignore it if you start releasing this stuff in China you're going to be dead by morning can you think of any other explanation for why we're not hearing about massive fentanyl deaths in China now you wouldn't you you also wouldn't hear about massive fentanyl deaths in China because as soon as there a few the the dealers would be killed because again they know who's doing it they know where they live they know

[8:20]

they know where they live they know their names they have their faces they know their their social security number or whatever the equivalent is over there they know everything about them if there were releasing this stuff in China they would already be dead so my personal opinion and I'm always open to fact-checking and somebody who has a broader or better opinion about what's going on internationally is there isn't any chance that I can see based on the evidence that's you know publicly available I don't see any chance the president she isn't directly and specifically allowing them if not ordered them to ship this stuff to the United States so I say once a week on Twitter that I'm not in favor of any trade deal with China as long as that's the case and as long as these drug dealers are still alive so and and

[9:21]

dealers are still alive so and and people keep telling me yeah I've heard smart people say Scott you keep advocating that if China doesn't kill these drug dealers you know why don't we go in and covertly kill them ourselves and and smart people say oh my god you can't do that because that would start a war here's the problem sometimes you got to push back even if it's gonna be a war now I don't think it would be a nuclear war I you know tensions could rise or whatever but do you let somebody kill you know thirty thousand people a year in your country to perpetuity because you don't want to start trouble does that make sense does it makes it and suppose the thirty thousand goes to a hundred thousand in a couple years do you say well yeah they're killing a hundred thousand people in our country intentionally while while preventing it from happening in their country they could turn it off in a minute and they

[10:23]

could turn it off in a minute and they don't but we don't want to cause trouble does that make sense in what world do you give people everything they want so you don't cause trouble in no world in no world do you give people what they want because you don't want to cause trouble it's the same with the tariff negotiations the the trade negotiations the people were saying don't start a trade war trade Wars always end badly who taught you anything about negotiating that's the that's the point of view that just says uh well I'm in a negotiation I'd better give you everything and yes for nothing because if I don't you'll get mad that's not how you negotiate you negotiate this way if I don't get what I want I'm gonna get mad there's a big difference there's two ways to negotiate more than two but two that I'm gonna talk about one way is I

[11:24]

that I'm gonna talk about one way is I don't want you to get mad I better give you what you want here's the other way you better give me what I want or I'm gonna get mad which way gets you a better deal all right I think it's clear so so that's the first thing here here's here's another dog that isn't barking the other day I I forwarded around a articles and a new york post by a a think-tank head a business business guy in other words someone who knows economics and money and that sort of thing Bjorn Lomborg he's somewhat famous for talking about the economics of climate change now why he said and the reason I forward it is that he said the same thing I said I said at first it

[12:25]

same thing I said I said at first it took him a little while to get his article published but to be fair I have been influenced by him so even though I said at first that the number that came out in the latest climate report actually show it's not that big of a problem using their using their own note using their own figures as published not adding anything just looking at their numbers they said that in 80 years it might be a 10% hit on the GDP to which I said why is that being reported as a big problem because by then the GDP will have grown so much that you wouldn't even know if it was ten percent less than it could have been you wouldn't even know and on top of that we're gonna do a lot of things with to remediate remediate things we'll learn how to keep people safe from the heat well you know we're gonna learn a lot in 80 years so it's very unlikely that that 10% of worst

[13:26]

very unlikely that that 10% of worst case scenario is going to happen it's probably not likely because we've got 80 years to soften the blow and we're pretty good at that you know that the the human race is really really good at it somebody says what about the heat deaths well I guess a lot of the cost in that report was people dying from the heat and if you have 80 years you're gonna be able to fix a lot of stuff and be able to build homes that resist the heat etc there was just I think it was just this week there was a I don't know the details but Richard Branson is part of it I believe he's sponsoring or maybe putting up some money to have some kind of a challenge where they're trying to get people to invent better air conditioning so there's a very high-level effort to bring in inventors and innovation so that the cost of air conditioning can drop now probably in

[14:27]

conditioning can drop now probably in five to ten years the cost of air conditioning and the availability will be no no maybe five times as good as it is now and that's in ten years the the IPCC report or whatever it is was over 80 years how good will our air conditioning be in 80 years I don't know it might be really good so as Lomborg said and i also say if you have enough time to adjust this stuff you're usually pretty well off the problem is if you have some immediate thing that sneaks up on you yeah right if a problem sneaks up on you that's a big problem the flood you didn't see coming the tsunami you didn't see coming an earthquake in Alaska those are problems but if you've got 80 years to worry about the temperature creeping up you could probably figure out a way to not die in the heat all right but here's the dog that didn't bark when I did my very public analysis of the climate

[15:31]

very public analysis of the climate report and I was just talking about the economics that they presented I'm not talking about their science I'm not doubting any other science just the economics and just using their own numbers and I said the way it's being reported is upside down it's really basically not much of a problem the way it's being reported who pushed back did you see yeah those of you been you know watching me for a while know that when I say something stupid wrong or questionable which happens at an alarmingly regular Laurette an alarmingly regular basis don't I always get I always get pushed back right you see it on Twitter you people will write articles if I had been wrong in my the way I framed the climate report it would already be in major publications people would be tweeting to me and say oh you

[16:34]

would be tweeting to me and say oh you got this backwards ha ha ha you idiot you know how dumb of you to not consider this or consider that they would have clearly pushed back on me but I could say to myself well you know maybe people aren't paying attention to me the holiday seasons here or whatever so maybe it's just a coincidence that this is the one time I said something so completely opposite of what the rest of the world seemed to be saying but this one time nobody complained there would be a very large coincidence that my friends would be a dog that is not barking but it gets better so I retweeted Bjorn Lomborg article in which he said a version of what I said now it's not a coincidence as I said he's influenced me for years so it's not a coincidence that we have similar points of view because we come at it from a similar business economic perspective neither of us are scientists

[17:34]

perspective neither of us are scientists and so I tweet that around and I'm waiting for the pushback I'm waiting for somebody who's let's say as an economist or you know somebody is good with numbers I mean remember it's the Internet if the Internet is just bristling with people who are good at math most people are not good at math but the Internet collectively a lot of people who were good at math goodness statistics good at thinking good it good at all that stuff right so he puts out his opinion that the the economics say exactly what I said that it doesn't look like it's any big deal according to their own numbers where was the pushback the only criticism I saw on my feed was well it's time to introduce Dale Dale can you summarize the pushback that I got when I when I retweeted Bjorn Lomborg piece and it looked like this Oh

[18:37]

Lomborg piece and it looked like this Oh God
God hohoho he's not even the scientist good smart smart you retweeted a climate science opinion from someone who's not not a scientist not a climate scientist not not a scientist in training not even a scientist student he's not even a scientist seem well Dale he doesn't claim to be a scientist he claims to know how to do math and when he did math he said 10% over 80 years it's not that big a deal you don't really need science to do basic math and and again that was the only kind of complaint I got literally nobody that

[19:38]

complaint I got literally nobody that I've seen yet had any kind of criticism complaint or pushback about the fact that the news was reported upside down and that biggest problem in the world was actually no big problem according to their own numbers that means something right because trust me that would be the kind of thing that got some pushback all right now I'm gonna introduce a topic that I like to introduce every few years to get myself in trouble I would like to tell you about the most let's say the most trouble I've ever gotten myself into I think probably and it goes like this and I think it maybe was I know 15 or 20 years ago and I said in a book and then probably maybe in a blog post and other times that's somebody saying oh no I said I made a prediction I made the

[20:40]

said I made a prediction I made the boldest prediction since predicting the president Trump would win since predicting that North Korea would start working toward reunification I've made some pretty bold predictions yes my prediction was the evolution you know the theory of evolution which I remind you in in the context of science when they say theory theory the word used in the context of science means fact when you use the word a theory in common language you're talking about something that may or may not be true but when scientists say it's a Siri it means that all the tests all the you know there's a consensus that it's it's true and I said that evolution would be debunked in my lifetime by science now what happens when you say you predict fifteen or twenty years ago what happened to me when I predicted that

[21:40]

happened to me when I predicted that evolution would be debunked by science in my lifetime well I was accused of being a creationist and a an apologist for intelligence intelligent design now I am NOT a believer so I'm certainly not a creationist so that they don't have any religious belief but you know people take teens right so they say oh if you're not on our team of evolution you must be on the team that's a creationist so for a period of like a decade every time I did anything in public anywhere on the Internet trolls would come in to the comment section and say oh he's a creationist music creationist and he doesn't believe in the theory of evolution and therefore we must disbelieve every other thing he's ever said now I'm gonna let you in

[22:41]

he's ever said now I'm gonna let you in on a little secret when I made that prediction I was pretty sure that it would be unpopular I was pretty sure that I would get some blowback now I didn't think that people would be so dumb that the blowback would come in the form of accusing me of being a creationist and a new earth person or something I didn't think that was gonna happen so that caught me a little off guard I think today I would have been smarter and maybe seen that coming but I didn't see it coming at the time and so I got into it a little bit on Twitter yesterday with somebody who was accusing somebody else of claiming that intelligent design was real and I mentioned that simulation theory is already in scientific terms largely in my opinion debunked evolution

[23:41]

largely in my opinion debunked evolution now I know you hate it this is 75% of people on here just what what so for the few of you who don't want the simulation theory is the simulation theory is that if any civilization ever learns to make a simulation let's say a software simulated world that they that the people in it believe they're real and they act as if they're real then probably it will happen a lot of times and our current civilization is right on the edge of being able to create create your creatures who live as though they're real but they're just software simulations so the idea is that if you could ever have one of those chances are you'll have lots of them so the odds of being the original species is very very low you know maybe one in a billion and the odds of us being one of the copies made by the original or here's the fun part copies made by the copies because the the the simulated world would be fully

[24:43]

the the simulated world would be fully functional and they could program their own simulations within it so it could be nested simulations so the math of that is so compelling meaning that it's so extraordinarily unlikely that we're in original species the people as smart as Elon Musk involve raava conned this some of the smartest people you've ever met in your life and you know a number of I don't know how many but at least some physicists were serious Nick Bostrom I think so somebody says that's insane Scott it's not insane it's just math it's math that's based on two things that we can we can see are completely true now the two things are true are that we'll be able to create a simulations that think they're real and act like they're real that part is I think guaranteed and the

[25:45]

that part is I think guaranteed and the second part is that if we can do it we'll make more than one the the minute well let's say the year that we can make a simulation that evolves and acts like it like it's real we're not going to make one it's going to be a Kip children will be making making them over Christmas vacation on their computer this is not New Age nonsense this is actually straight up physics and straight up math so this this has a place within the the legitimate physics world now yeah so somebody said who made the original and that question can remain open but the odds of us having a intelligent design meaning that we are created by another species of human is pretty close to a hundred percent so here's so the question that people ask is how could you prove it if you were in the

[26:46]

you prove it if you were in the simulation how could you know your simulation and one of the ways you could you could test is to find out if history exists and it's just there to be discovered or if history is written undemanding would would work that things wouldn't come into existence until somebody needed them so you know if you're walking into a forest nobody has ever been in and no creature has ever seen it doesn't exist until you walk into it the trees form just like they would in a video game so I believe that we will be able to test this yeah in in the small world like the double slit experiment in physics that somebody mentioned and I think there are a few physics situations where it does seem that reality is only created by observation the the entire quantum physics world that I certainly don't

[27:46]

physics world that I certainly don't understand but one of the things that seems true is that you either have to be have a machine measuring something or a human or some kind of creature observing something to you know collapses wave and make it real that is a perfect explanation of what the simulation looks like so anyway enough on that here's another question I have this I'm seeing more and more about the idea of open borders and a some notable economist said and I think it was actually an article in The Economist so is a credible publication with a credible sounding economist who wrote that if we open borders and at least just for work not not in terms of becoming all one country in the world but if you open borders so that anybody who wanted to work could just you know fill out easy paperwork and just go to work across the border they would unlock

[28:47]

work across the border they would unlock something like you know I know dozens of trillions of dollars I don't know this enormous amount of wealth would be created and here was here was the economists argument The Economist argument is that the people who come from poor countries when they immigrate to a wealthier country their their pay goes from you know pennies an hour to a multiple that so if everybody could go from a low-income to somewhere where they could make more money everybody would have more money than they would spend their more money and that would create even more money and so the idea is that allowing people to go from where the jobs are bad to where the jobs are good is good for the people who hire them and good for the person who gets a raise and it's good for everybody and then the whole world is richer do you see what's wrong with that
is it not obvious to you on the surface that that is a ridiculous idea and

[29:49]

that that is a ridiculous idea and here's the reason it's completely true as long as immigration is at a low rate the whole thing breaks down as soon as everybody can do it the reason that Mexicans can come to the United States and get a raise is because not many Mexicans can come to the United States you know relative to the number of people in the country if everybody could go everywhere all of a sudden what would happen to two ages I don't know but I think a lot of people who used to be making it higher high wage are gonna get a low wage because all the new people come in will work for Less you it seems the the problem with capitalism let me give you you know that this is a good model to look at capitalism guarantees that every business will go on in a business now if you haven't studied economics that didn't make any sense

[30:49]

sense capitalism I'll say it again guarantees that if you start a company you're gonna go into business because guaranteed and the reason is that if you start making a lot of money somebody else will make a company just like it and they'll drive your cost down because you're competing with them and then a third person will make an and you will drive the profits down so low that eventually nobody can make money and so we all go into business so capitalism drives companies out of business by its design the only thing that keeps capitalism from doing what capitalism does is that we we put legal limits on it and and there are people who put illegal limits on it so in other words companies form illegal monopolies governments allow them to operate with let's say patents so it's not capitalism that's making companies thrive it's the limits on capitalism that makes them thrive right if you

[31:51]

that makes them thrive right if you couldn't if you couldn't start a company and make sure that other people can't catch up here with you easily the whole system would break down so you need inefficient capitalism to work you know if it's sufficient the whole thing breaks down so similarly the reason that you can go from Mexico to the United States and get a raise is because we have an inefficient immigration system the moment you made it efficient where anybody can go anywhere just to get a job there's still the it doesn't change their their citizenship they can just go anywhere to get a job as soon as you do that it's like full capitalism and unless you put limits on it everybody's wages are going to go down now full immigration probably would be great for people who don't have anything and bad for people who do have things which is a good short-term situation long term that just puts everybody out of business all right I

[32:53]

everybody out of business all right I was looking at the g20 and amused and how many how many companies countries there are now that President Trump should not be nice to because so Trump is not allowed to be nice to Saudi Arabia Russia or China because you know they're all are are Nevison embassies now what what a weird g20 this is there's only there are only 20 people there and three of the more important ones are he's not allowed to be nice to him that's weird I guess I didn't have much to say about this I have come to an opinion on George Soros I know you've all been waiting for it you watched me being skeptical about all the stuff on mostly social media this is George Soros as the devil he's behind everything bad he's funding all these bad organizations etc but every time somebody would point

[33:57]

etc but every time somebody would point me to a link it was always a dead end and I kept thinking what are other people seeing that I can't Google you know there were stories about the things he did when he was 14 with doesn't matter to me there are stories about how he makes his money by betting against currencies and it's bad for countries and I hate that but it's all illegal you know you could hate that separately from what he's doing politically but that but the political stuff about what he's funding and how much impact he has cetera just seemed this big opaque I couldn't penetrate it but I've penetrated it enough to learn the following and fact check me on this if he will that George Soros puts a great deal of money into political I guess they would all be called political activist groups so I think that much so

[34:58]

activist groups so I think that much so the two facts that I think everybody agrees on he puts in a lot of money and that therefore political things and that they tend to be more on the left now people who are more on the right say ok that's all I need to know he's putting a lot of money into things I don't like I'm not quite willing to make that leap because we don't really know what his intention is we can't see the budget we don't know how much impact he has we don't know if the organization is doing things that he would approve of or he just gives money and sometimes they do things he likes and sometimes they don't we just don't know it's this big hard to determine you know is he really the main funder behind this or that or is he just one of them you can't tell so here's my opinion
because he has so much money and because we know he is employment in political ways and here's the key because it's we

[35:59]

ways and here's the key because it's we can't tell how it's being used that's enough to declare him an enemy of the state am I wrong it wouldn't matter what he was funding so I would say the same thing if all of his money were going into causes for a conservative purpose I would say exactly the same thing the fact that we can't tell what he's spending it on and it's a tremendous amount of money and it's very purpose is to change the political nature in my country it doesn't matter what he's spending it on so I was a little bit obsessed to trying to figure out okay but really what is he actually putting the money into like if I don't know what he's spending it on how am I supposed to judge him but I've seen now that there's so much money and it's being funneled into things that are absolutely showing up in the headlines and they're absolutely changing how people feel about things and they're absolutely

[37:01]

about things and they're absolutely changing politics and we didn't vote for him I don't remember voting for a billionaire to run my country in some way now Levine and let me be as clear clear about this as possible if and I can't imagine this happening but if Soros said hey you know I'm gonna be more transparent here's all the money I give and here's all the group's I give to and here's why I like these groups let's let's say he goes full Tom Styer somebody said it just before for us Tom Styer I dislike everything he's doing but I don't find him to be I don't an enemy of the country or something because he's so transparent you know it's my money I'm putting it here here's what I want to accomplish now I hate what he wants to accomplish I hate that but it's a free country

[38:02]

hate that but it's a free country he's got freedom of speech he's got money there's no law against it I could at least respect yes I can respect the transparency but Saros seems intentionally not to be transparent I think sometimes you can find out that he has donated to groups but if you don't know how much you don't know exactly what they're up to and you don't know how eBay if influenced them it's all invisible so I I think the Soros could legitimately be called an enemy of the state the state being the United States in this case only because the lack of transparency and and the big influence lack of transparency the worst situation all right
and again I would say the same thing if he were funding only conservative things so so my opinion has nothing to do with his politics it has to do with these the

[39:03]

his politics it has to do with these the lack of transparency combined with its big impact I'm reading this story that I don't quite understand about somebody's floating the idea in Europe to make it illegal to criticize a mass migration and it's the story is that the story is impenetrable because it's boring meaning that I read it my eyes are closing it's like it's like this organization and this person I don't know but apparently there's talk about making it illegal to criticize mass migration because it'd be sort of racist now if that happens then that pretty much guarantees that mass migration will become even more mass so I think somebody tweeted Europe has fallen it's hard to imagine how it could be reversible at this point so I think

[40:05]

be reversible at this point so I think it's a who is it Nassim Taleb talks about how islam is different than some other religions because you can't leave the religion you know it's it's hard to leave or else you you could be punished or killed or something and and then you know they have high population you know they they tend to have a lot of kids etc and and they prefer their system Sharia so when you reach a certain level and that level might be just five percent of the population or ten percent or something the the whole civilization needs to accommodate you you know if your 10% of a civil population you're gonna get some stuff right you know that's big enough that you could make a lot of noise and get some stuff so it seems to me that their system and again it's hard I'm gonna be as clear as possible I'm not talking about their ethnicity I'm not talking about whether their religion is right or

[41:07]

about whether their religion is right or wrong good or bad I'm not making any comment on the people I'm not making any comment on the you know the goodness or badness of the religion I'm just making a systems comment then it's a very sticky system and that once it gets a certain foothold it's almost impossible to stop it from growing in in a system that has freedom of speech because if they can get to the point where you're not allowed to criticize and you're not allowed to work to slow it down then they'll just be more of it so it does appear to me that this conversation about whether you can even talk about it in in critical ways you know even if you're talking about just the economic impact or anything else you're not allowed to talk about it that feels like a tipping point and you know things don't go in a straight line if you're trying to predict the future the worst way to predict the future is

[42:07]

the worst way to predict the future is that the current trend will continue whatever the current trend is because the current trend usually doesn't continue but what is different about this is that the system is so robust you know the system of you know growing the the religion I guess you call it the system is so robust that I can't imagine what would stop it now if you look at what China is doing China sees the risk apparently as so bad that they've created a prison system and they're they're literally jailing the mostly the the Weger the Weger minority which is a islamic minority within China and they apparently they built these massive concentration camps which they call rate education centers to essentially torture them and brainwash them to become and here's here's the

[43:10]

them to become and here's here's the part that's so shockingly blunt from China they at one of their politicians I forget which one actually referred to it as re-educating them until they became and he used the word normal normal so the Chinese are viewing Islam as almost like a mental problem wouldn't you say so that they're treating it like a medical problem that the only way that they can treat it is by isolating the people literally putting them in prison and and then re-educating brainwashing them basically the equivalent of electroshock therapy to get rid of their religion now I would be fascinated in a bad way to know if they think it's working

[44:11]

working don't you wonder I mean they're doing it at such a large scale they must have some idea whether it's working and in this case working means whatever their goals are as a country you know not working as in creating a good result and I'm fascinated by that from the you know persuasion brainwashing perspective as as to you know my sense of it is that it couldn't work it's hard for me to imagine that it could work but remember China is a very sophisticated country they've got a lot of Technology this seems to be something they care about enough to put a lot of energy into it so they may be using some pretty sophisticated methods or maybe they're just beating people and making them change the minds or something I don't know but aside from the fact that it's essentially a Holocaust you know there I don't think they're killing them but

[45:12]

don't think they're killing them but they seem to be you know mass incarcerated and mass torturing an entire group of people so that's about as you know evil as you can get so yeah they're not they're not they're not killing them per se but I would imagine that there's a high death rate in those camps all right so that now I've heard the the idea that migration is is good you know allowing migration across borders is a good thing for the people who are migrating and of course it is if they could be allowed to migrate it's good for them the question is whether it's good for the rest of the country and it makes me ask this question why wouldn't we put more effort into making migration within the countries here imagine if you would that you were a low-income or unemployed American so

[46:16]

low-income or unemployed American so which is exactly like the migrants right the migrants are low or no income and low education etc but they can help themselves by being able to go from where where things are bad to where things are better that's very hard to do if you're if you're living in the United States and you're poor you wouldn't know where to go and you know it would be hard to get a foothold in another place but imagine if it was really if it were really easy to just migrate within the United States so that if you're poor and Detroit yeah so if you're poor in Detroit how would you know even where to go in this country to get a job right at least the you know the the Mexicans or at least anybody from south of the border they know they kind of know where to go because there's a you know there might be a farm you know big farm that needs them to work etc they have a pretty specific idea where to go but seems like we could improve

[47:17]

seems like we could improve that system so that people within the country would have more mobility yeah employment mobility within the country and take advantage of the same effect that people people who are coming across the border for all right is there anything I didn't talk about that you want me to there's plenty of info on the internet you are right but low income people are not they're not they're probably not the most capable of finding information and then they don't have any money or resources to go there I talked about talk already at the beginning GW yeah so yeah George George Bush Senior has passed away eight months after his wife went and it it is really amazing how often that happens the the one parent dies and the other one dies

[48:17]

parent dies and the other one dies within a year my parents went the same way you know my father followed my mother fairly quickly oh yes how did I forget the simultaneous it will you join me raise your glass your mug you're tough you're jealous fill it with your favorite beverage and join me now for the simultaneous end
[Music] alright there sure it says a great new article out yeah let's let me just talk about what I call the the gotcha porn it does it seem to you that you know so it's well documented that the country is split into these two silos you know the left and the right and they they don't talk to each other I talked about it as two movies on one screen but now everybody's everybody has their own

[49:19]

now everybody's everybody has their own version of two movies on one screen now it's it's become the common way to talk about the country and I guess it was a little common before but it's turned into sort of a team theater entertainment kind of thing it's no longer really politics as it does it seem to you that politics used to be sort of a dry boring thing and people like I like these policies I had like these policies but baby these two policies can find some middle ground and then we can get something done this seems to be politics was politics and entertainment was entertainment and what's changed as the entertainment and politics have merged to the degree that we get joy ant of this political entertainment the thing that people didn't used to get and you see this very

[50:21]

didn't used to get and you see this very clearly with what I'll call the gotcha porn the best gotcha porn here's a good example so there was a NPR did a story that was turned out to be fake news in which they were sure that Don junior Trump had said something and lied to Congress and he's gonna go to jail or whatever and then it turns out that they just had the story wrong and and there was nothing there but let me ask you this you you probably saw people get excited because they're like aha president Trump and his son might go to jail doesn't it seem to you that the reason people are sort of rooting for the president to go to jail they're sort of rooting for his family to go to jail doesn't it feel more like an addiction then it feels like politics because it feels like you know imagine you will imagine if you will that you were one of

[51:22]

imagine if you will that you were one of the people who has a severe hatred for the administration and so you turn on CNN and there's Jeffrey Toobin or one of their pundits and one of the pundits says we got them now that are going down handcuffs are you know the handcuffs are out that you know as soon as Manafort talks and cut one flips like a hot it's all coming down how do you feel when you watch that show if you were a hater of this administration and especially if the Trump's if you really really hated them and you turned on CNN and they sat - oh man you need good times these guys are all going to jail now you would feel a rush of actual physical pleasure would you not wouldn't you get an actual hit of dopamine or serotonin or whatever the hell that the happy chemicals are so when I when I call this gotcha porn that's not much of a stretch because I think people are getting a hit

[52:26]

because I think people are getting a hit from the fake news that feels like a drug that feels physically good when they read that something bad might happen to one of the Trump's and that seems to be the primary driver of news coverage it seems to me that the news is almost entirely for the anti-trump news is entirely focused on what I'd call some form of gotcha porn where people go oh we got you this time we gotta Don jr. we got it with our fake news and and every time you see you know one of the anti jumpers say something like oh yeah now they're in trouble this time we got them it probably just gives you like a charge of buzz it's got to feel almost yeah almost sexual so that's that's what they're

[53:29]

sexual so that's that's what they're selling now they're selling that they're selling that feeling now the news used to be about giving you information but if I've taught you nothing and I probably have then the the information you get from the news is so an of context so incomplete in many cases so complicated you wouldn't understand the whole situation anyway so you're not really seeing news anymore take the Saudi Arabia situation is a perfect example there's probably a sense when people follow that story that they're following something called the news but Saudi Arabia that the situation with Ashoke etc there's probably so much around that that we don't know like you know what did what is Israel doing or saying or wanting what is what is the secret conversation going on with Saudi Arabia what are our plans with Iran so how much you know about that story is this much how much matters about that story is probably this much and you

[54:30]

story is probably this much and you don't know what that is because it's complicated its secret is changing all the time but that's the important stuff so you're not really seeing news it's just stuff that feels like news because you don't really know the big ball of stuff take what was the biggest story this week was that Trump signed the u.s. MCA agreement there to replace NAFTA how many of you understood what NAFTA was not me I didn't I mean in a general way I understood it but I don't I don't know the details how many understand what the US MCA is not me I mean I understand that at the high level but I don't know what any of the agreement is I don't know how much different it is so I have I have the false impression that I've seen something that you might call news but not really because I don't really understand it anyway that's all I got

[55:33]

understand it anyway that's all I got for now I think I'm going to sign off and do something else and I will talk to you later