Episode 353 Scott Adams: Bone Spurs, Unstable World, Khashoggi, Other Fake News

Date: 2018-12-28 | Duration: 26:44

Topics

NYT has found dead “bone spurs” doctor, but no records His daughters kinda remember something about it The daughters are anti-Trumpers Is the world more unstable as ex-head of the CIA stated? “Extreme poverty” was 40% of the world in Reagan’s time Currently, extreme poverty is at 9% No major wars, the economy is good,
If you didn’t watch TV, would you think race relations are worse? MAGA hats and the troops Military brought their MAGA hats to the event for signing Mollie Hemingway’s Federalist article on Quatar and Khashoggi Khashoggi was an influence peddler working for Iran
WAPO was therefore…colluding with Iran, a foreign enemy Blocking people who are only trolling and add nothing to conversation Different than blocking people who disagree with you Predictions: 2019 stock market close will be higher than today Around summertime, China trade wars mostly settled Middle East will produce mind-boggling stories in 2019 Possibly in a very positive way Mueller will have something for everyone, 2 movies continue NO impeachment, but possibly the House will attempt it The FenceWall is stalled until somebody says the word “Engineer” Invoking engineers is the path to FenceWall progress Fund the wall and allow the engineers to decide what works

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

## Transcript

[0:06]

[Music] boom hey everybody come on in here yeah it's time for coffee with Scott Adams I'm Scott Adams you're probably not but I know why you're here it's for the simultaneous up and let us enjoy the simultaneous up raise your glow raise your your glove man I got a drink more coffee raise your mug your cup your glass your tankard your Stein filled with your favorite liquid I like coffee and join me for the simultaneous M oh yeah so I'm coming to you on my using my phone device instead of my iPads which are failing me maybe I need to upgrade their software we'll figure that out all right first topic is New York Times had a

[1:08]

first topic is New York Times had a story about they may have found the doctor who may have diagnosed Donald Trump with bone spurs to keep him out of the military the doctor himself is dead and left no records but his daughters think they sort of remember he might have said something about that so that's what that's what passes as a story at the New York Times that they may have found that doctor based on the fact that he's dead and there are no records whatsoever but his daughter sort of maybe they think they remember it oh by the way they're anti jumpers so that's not even a good try at a real story John Brennan famous exes CIA head tweeted the other day that the world is more

[2:09]

other day that the world is more unstable I economically geopolitically and what was the other word anyway saying that it was a much more unstable world and I questioned that and I asked for a fact check is the world more unstable than it has ever been because to me it looks like it's more stable than it's ever been there are some statistics my cat is here to visit if you see a tail goodbye my cat seems to have a different plan for me okay boo move along
live Paris ghost folks anything can happen so there's a statistic and I'll it's only I can only give it to you roughly that I think extreme poverty was covering 40% of the world during Reagan's administration 40% of the world

[3:10]

Reagan's administration 40% of the world was in extreme poverty now that number is about nine and they think that extreme poverty will be eliminated maybe in another ten years so think about that we've we've got a handle on AIDS we don't really have a big war that's threatening us we're winding down several wars the economy is at an all-time high the stock market bounces around based on the headlines but employments the best ever I would say race relations are the best ever if you don't have a television if you didn't own a television well I say if you had never looked at the news if you've never seen the news what do you think that race religions are worse or better if you didn't watch the news you probably think it was better because if you look around you know if you look around there are more you know more

[4:11]

around there are more you know more mixed race couples getting married more people are you know have friends with people who are different than themselves the far fewer cases of racial discrimination etc you don't even hear much about it I mean obviously whatever races and there is is way too much everybody agrees with that I think but I think on almost every dimension things are better and more stable and it's amazing that there's somebody who was the ex head of the CIA whose perception of the world is that everything is worse when in fact I think everything's better like actually literally everything you know if you can you give me an example of something that's worse oh the debt is worse the debt is worse but it's not as bad as

[5:12]

the debt is worse but it's not as bad as it's ever been in World War two I think it was even higher as a percentage of GDP but we don't have a solution for that so that's bad yeah if he had just said our national debt is too high I would have said good point or it's growing too high it's not even too high yet it's just growing in the wrong direction all right so that was crazy apparently there's an art of an umber of parts of the fake media are reporting that when the president visited the troops in Iraq that they brought campaign make America great again hats with them to side and maybe it was a violation of some kind of law that the president shouldn't be campaigning with the troops or something who knows what law that is doesn't even matter because it turns out the real story is that a lot of the military had their own make America great again hats there were so

[6:15]

America great again hats there were so many of them that the media assumed they were handed out just think about this just just for a moment just enjoy this thought so many members of the military were pro-trump to the point of owning their own make America making hats and having those hats with them during deployment you know you can't take your whole can't take your whole house with you right so one of the few items that the people in the military in Iraq had with them were make America great again hats and so the president quite politely signed them so imagine to your member of the fake the fake news business and you see so many red hats in the military and your your head can't process it so you you have cognitive dissonance so cognitive dissonance happens when your observation

[7:17]

dissonance happens when your observation of the world doesn't match your your internal model of the world and so their internal model is there can't be that many people who support the president so if there is this many hats in the same room with the military of all people they must have been handed out by the campaign with no evidence of that whatsoever and apparently the the story as it's been reported by the military and of course that could be wrong too but the current story is that they had their own hats there's a story in The Federalist that I tweeted out yesterday I think Molly Hemingway's publication but she she works for a publication Molly have anyway being the star of that publication anyway she tweeted it down to and the story was now most most of you watching this probably do not have a deep understanding of the Middle East I

[8:19]

deep understanding of the Middle East I also do not have a deep understanding of the Middle East or even a shallow understanding really but here's what I don't the tiny country of Qatar qadar for those of you who have only read the word and wondered how to pronounce it I don't think I'm pronouncing it right either but let's let's call it Qatar for now I you may pronounce it any way you like so apparently they're aligned with Iran and aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood and it turns out that they were the puppet masters for Chi shogi so they were influencing what he would write for The Washington Post and so he was writing they were trying to influence him to write anti Saudi Arabia stories so it turns out assuming this reporting is correct that it looked it looked credible to me it turns out that Josh

[9:21]

credible to me it turns out that Josh Oki was a foreign influence guy working essentially for Iran so he was actually he was whatever is the opposite of her journalist now I think everybody you know that was the that was the word on the street right so so people already were were saying that hey he's more of a propaganda guy he's not so much a journalist and people were saying he writes opinion pieces he is not an investigative journalist and we understood that part we understood he was writing opinion but now they've apparently uncovered some messages where a Katara was actually guiding what he wrote and he was he was serving them so the Washington Post was literally and I'm not making this up the Washington Post was literally colluding with Iran

[10:30]

because guitar cutter and Iran are on the same side they're allied and this guy was on their team he was working directly for color apparently according to the reporting so there they were actually colluding with a foreign enemy of the United States apparently there's no doubt about the other side right so if anybody if there's any any new facts or anything that contradicts what I just said somebody let me know all right I floated a an idea on Twitter yesterday just to see what people thought and people puked all over my idea but as usual people were not complaining about my actual idea they were complaining about their own misinterpretation of my idea and here's the idea suppose you could adopt all of the

[11:30]

suppose you could adopt all of the blocks on Twitter of somebody else so let's say you do let's say you knew that I block a lot of people who are just trolls and you wanted to never see those trolls because who wants to see a troll so you would accept all of my blocks and then you would never see the people that I've already blocked so you don't have to block anybody that I've already blocked and people how old and they said no no if you do that then it will put people in more of more silos than they've been in before they will only get to see the opinions they agree with to which I say I don't think you understand my idea I don't block people for disagreed with me indeed I did not block the people who disagreed with me on this very point I didn't block any of them the only people I block you know maybe there's an exception but it would be

[12:30]

there's an exception but it would be trivial the only people I block are people who don't have anything they just come in with insults or they you know they say racist things that's it now if every now and then I'll block somebody by accident because I blocked the wrong person one of the problems on Twitter is sometimes people will respond at a comment and they'll be unclear about who they're insulting whether it's me or somebody else in the threat so sometimes I do block people by accident but honestly it's not important of the you know the thousands of people that I interact with if I accidentally block a few civilians that didn't need to get blocked it doesn't really change what you hear right you're still gonna hear all that the entire you know panorama of opinions even if a few of them got blocked accidentally so yeah so

[13:32]

them got blocked accidentally so yeah so there's some people here saying that I block them accidentally so even with that do you think it would really restrict what opinions you hear because I'm not I'm not restricting opinions except by accident and that's you know it's a trivial amount of blocks so just so you understand the idea if you were to accept all the people I blocked as also blocked by you you would not miss any ideas from the other side there's no content from your side or the opposite opinions that you would ever miss because I block trolls plus a few apparently accidental blocks that don't really change change much all right and then other people then a number of people accused me of being a snowflake and being as bad as the left for being anti free speech to which I say

[14:41]

apparently the experience of blue check people like like me is very different from the experience of the casual civilian who uses Twitter the casual person on Twitter probably doesn't see too many trolls because nobody really needs to troll you know the average user on Twitter the trolls come out almost entirely for the blue check people and the people who are making noise about you know something political so people like me are just inundated with trolls all the time and so your experience might be different all right you put yourself above us lowlife civilians even you know what would you call it invisibility yes and I'm not I'm not doubting your quality of life or not Dalek I'm not questioning your value as a human being

[15:44]

questioning your value as a human being but it's objectively true that people get more some people get more attention than other people yes it's almost 2019
so people are wondering why you use civilians I'm I'm using civilians as opposed to the professionals so I'm sort of in the professional class and most people are not how am I gonna kick yes in the new year well okay here's my first prediction for the new year the stock market will end 2019 higher than it closed today so higher higher than it closes today you'll see the stock market at the end of 2019 but but I don't know how much higher it'll

[16:45]

but I don't know how much higher it'll just be higher I predict that somewhere maybe around summer time the China trade wars will start to be largely settled now it could take longer to actually get documents signed or whatever but I'm just say by summer trade war which I know will be largely worked out I'm gonna say that the Middle East is going to get really really interesting in 2019 there you're gonna see stories that of the Middle East that will be mind-boggling and mind boggling in the not necessarily in the bad way so you might see some mind-boggling alliances agreements and outcomes that are really just surprising possibly in a in a positive way let's

[17:48]

possibly in a in a positive way let's say I believe that Muller's report will have something for everyone meaning that the lawyers on both sides will argue that it proves everything they've been saying so there will be a Muller report sometime in 2019 the Democrats will say see there it is look at all that impeachable stuff right there in that report this is a black and white Muller wouldn't have it wrong there it is meanwhile the Republicans will look at exactly the same information and they'll say there's nothing in there there's there's no crime even described I guess we're done here there was nothing there so your two movies will continue
somebody says Gordon James says the China stuff will take a long time I agree it could take years to work out everything so when I say that by summer most of the trade stuff will be worked

[18:48]

most of the trade stuff will be worked out that's what I mean more sort of an 8020 rule I think will be 80% where we want to be by summer the last 20% could take literally forever impeachment there will not be an impeachment there might be an impeachment process so there's a nonzero chance that the house will you know maybe try to get something going but my prediction is the odds of impeachment close to zero based on what we now know now if something new comes up then of course everything has to be reassessed but at the moment I will say no impeachment
let's talk about the wall I think that now that everybody's agreeing is a fence wall and not just a wall and not just a fence it will be part of fence part wall

[19:50]

fence it will be part of fence part wall and maybe it will be a structure that some people will call a fence and some people will call the wall steel slats let's call it something will get funded and something will begin to be built in 2019
so that that much for sure and I think that the big break which I've already predicted which could happen today or even you know any time in the next week somebody is going to have to say the word engineers and then the then the conversation is over because right now you have politicians who are not engineers trying to determine an engineering decision if you have two people who don't know engineering arguing in public about what is the best engineering decision it's a tie right so people just back their own side because we're not engineers most of us are not so we're looking at two

[20:51]

us are not so we're looking at two politicians making an engineering decision and we're just saying oh I'll just back my sight as soon as either side either either the Pelosi and Schumer or President Trump any one of those three as soon as one of them says the word engineer it's solved because the moment one of them says ok were just politicians let's agree to fund it and kick it up to the engineers let the engineers decide where it's a fence where it's a wall and what kind of offense wall it is the moment you do that the other side looks stupid right because if right now they're both stupid in a political way right so neither side is stupid in an IQ way but in a political way they're both arguing a stupid side it is stupid to say I should be a wall it is stupid to say it should be a fence because politicians are not engineers

[21:52]

because politicians are not engineers they don't make that kind of decision it's not their job it's not their expertise there isn't the slightest chance they're getting it right soon as one of them says the word engineer they go to the height of the high ground wait for that word engineer as soon as engineer is whispered you're gonna have yourself a solution coming soon now I'm going to do a little demonstration of something fun in the moment hold on don't go anywhere all right I'm back so I bought I bought a well actually Christina got me a printer for Christmas and it's a tango an HP tango printer and I printed out the directions for the

[22:53]

I printed out the directions for the printer for when you hook it up to your your Amazon system whose name I will not say al AXA the reason I'm not pronouncing it is that a lot of you have those systems and if I say it out loud it will activate your system so in a moment I'm going to say something to my Al exa you know it'll give you warning so that you can turn down your sound now what I'm gonna say will make Nothing happening at your house unless you also have a tango printer right if you don't have a tango printer nothing will happen all right so here's the here's the thing when I raise my hand like this again when I put my hand up it means I'm going to be saying something that will activate your Al exa all right and when I put it down it means it's safe to to listen again all right so

[23:57]

so here it comes so as long as my hand is up if you don't want your a lax a2 to trigger turn off you sound alright here comes a less Alexa asked by printer to print today's comics alright so so it's sending today's comics to my printer now here's the funny thing I get this printer and I open it up and there's directions in it on how to print Dilbert and a couple of other comics as well so it's actually in the written directions how you can talk to your printer and making a printed Dilbert comic now it takes about a minute and in a minute I'll turn my camera and you can see a printing yeah it's kind of cool you can tell it to print stuff like limed graph paper and you can tell to me a print

[24:59]

paper and you can tell to me a print just print out a piece of paper that you can use as a list it's kind of cool
somebody says how does an engineer determine the acceptability of a solution based on probability I think the answer was in the question so the question was how does an engine this is talking about the fence wall how does an engineer determine the best solution in in the context of probability and the answer is that's what engineers do you just described what an engineer does for a living they make decisions in the context of probability that's what they do and and when they can they reduce probability or I'm sorry they reduce risk by testing small

[26:01]

yeah engineering is all about probability that's that's 30 gig that's their game I'm not entirely sure that my printer will actually be printing those comics because I did I didn't move it and plug it in again so it might not be connected to the unit to the Wi-Fi
alright I think we're done with today and we will follow the news and see what else is happening and we will talk to you later