Episode 361 Scott Adams: Impeachment, The Wence, Socialism, Syria, Kevin Hart,

Date: 2019-01-04 | Duration: 52:53

Topics

Ellen DeGeneres says Kevin Hart has apologized and grown Was exiting Syria a smart move? Elizabeth Warren says yes US isn’t dependent on China trade China much more dependent on trade with the US Inevitable outcome…trade deal Fears on the left just after the election The left feared he would do terrible things…he hasn’t Left has shifted, now it’s intensely personal complaints A 3rd Option: Not Socialism, not Capitalism A modified version of capitalism Discarding bad arguments on both sides of climate change Medieval warming, ice cubes in your glass and more Both climate change sides have a “Whack-A-Mole” problem Debunk each point and the person just shifts to another

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> [!note] Rough Transcript
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## Transcript

[0:04]

hello everybody coming in here quickly good to see you all what a wonderful day it is for a coffee with Scott Adams I'm Scott Adams your host and it's time to enjoy the simultaneous OOP yes if you've prepared you can grab your mug your cup your glass your Stein your uh your chalice your tankard if you will fill it with your favorite liquid I like coffee and join me for the simultaneous end let's talk about Kevin Hart you all know the story about Kevin Hart he was going to host the Oscars but then folks found some old tweets of his which were considered offensive to the gay community and therefore disqualifying Kevin Hart decided not to be part of that controversy so he pulled himself

[1:05]

that controversy so he pulled himself out of the running apparently they're having trouble finding a replacement I don't and I get I can see why but the good news here is Ellen DeGeneres has decided to take up the case of Kevin Hart and although she is in the LGBTQ community and that's exactly who he is alleged to have insulted ten years ago I guess in his tweets she says he's grown he's apologized it's time to move on and I have to say this is one of the most positive things I've seen in a year really because here's the standard that I think we should all live by the standard that we've been living by is totally destructive and that standard says that if you've ever made a mistake that's who you are forever that we're

[2:06]

that's who you are forever that we're going to judge you by your mistakes the reality is that people grow they get smarter they get better and it's supposed to work like that when you're born your your little selfish baby and if you do everything right you get better until you die so you're getting more open-minded you get more kind you get more understanding you know you've become a little bit more accepting of other people in a perfect world you would become better every every day of your life but when you take somebody like Kevin Hart and you say hey 10 years ago you did something offensive when it seems fairly evident that he's a different person now and I say different person in the same way we're all different people than 10 years ago and Ellen DeGeneres is quite Ellen DeGeneres is quite generously and I think wisely

[3:07]

is quite generously and I think wisely showing some extreme leadership here in exactly the way that we need it and the time that we need it now now Rosanna was a different situation because she was blamed of doing something in the present which I believe was completely misunderstood so she was falsely accused which is different than the Kevin Hart situation where he did in fact say some offensive things he thought it was in the service of humor but he probably would not make those same jokes today so that would show that he's you know he's grown I love the fact the alum who's taking this on because I think that the you know that moves the LGBTQ community another notch forward in my mind you know the the big improvements in the LGBTQ world is you know getting equal rights and and gay marriage and you know just being treated

[4:08]

marriage and you know just being treated at least equally under the law and of course was you know societal acceptance is its best ever and it feels like this is like the last you know the last push you know that there's always a smaller and smaller thing to win you know when get the big wins the things to win or smaller and smaller but this would be pretty significant I think if the LGBT community can show this kind of leadership which is to establish establish the principle that you can be an idiot ten years ago you could be offensive ten years ago and you can get better and that we should recognize that because we want people to do that right don't you want people to be become better see I would apply the same argument to President Trump and in half a number of times I hear people say he did this or that in the 70s now whether

[5:09]

did this or that in the 70s now whether or not he did this was that in the 70s none of us are really the same people if we're that old as we were in the 70s everybody was worse on almost every dimension of I don't want to say personal political correctness I'd rather say open-mindedness and an accepting of our fellow humans with differences every one of us is better today at that then we used to date we all got better shouldn't we be celebrating that shouldn't we be encouraging that rather than saying now that thing you did 20 years ago is bad anyway let's talk about Syria is it my imagination or is the world coming around to the opinion that Trump's decision to move out of Syria is absolutely the right one and apparently

[6:12]

absolutely the right one and apparently Elizabeth Warren came out completely in favor of it and even went so far as to say we should get out of Afghanistan so she was agreeing very much with President Trump and we're seeing people on both sides agreeing and the current thinking I just tweeted an article from the LA Times I thought summed it up pretty well the current thinking is that our presence in Syria just wasn't helping and that when we get out we're no longer the common enemy of Iran and Russia in some kind of a proxy fight but rather the worst thing that could happen to Iran is to no longer be able to say to Russia a Russia you know Russia and Iran have a common interest in in maybe beating back whoever the United States wants to win but what happens when we when we leave well when we leave they're kind of going to turn on each other I think because Russia's

[7:13]

on each other I think because Russia's interests are gonna start to diverge a little bit from Iran's and just and I think Iran has a lot to worry about there because if you think about it probably Russia has more to gain by being good to the United States than by being at our necks and I think that we might see some good changes there so Syria is looking like a good decision let's talk about the economy so the stock market is you know taking a dump and apples taking a dump and everybody's talking about Chinese it was the China trade talks some of the experts such as Gordon Chang expert on China and North Korea points out that the Chinese economy is very dependent on us well I didn't really realize this but it turns out that the United States is not terribly dependent on the Chinese economy

[8:14]

economy we're buyers and their sellers and it's a different different world so in theory once the China trade talks get settled and I figure everything is settled eventually that one certainly is going to get settled whenever that happens what's gonna happen to stocks it feels like we're entering one of the best stock buying periods of all time now there's uncertainty and you should never take advice on finances from cartoonists but if you have to pick one period there might be the very last time you could buy stocks it would be when the economy is generally strong so strong that the Fed had to raise interest rates and that it's being suppressed by something very specific in this case the Chinese trade talks and there's almost no no chance that we'll lose them in the wrong in the long run in the long run we're going to have a

[9:16]

in the long run we're going to have a Chinese trade agreement is the long run six months is the year I don't know well we're gonna have a deal and I would think that buying stocks before the deal would be a much better deal than buying after but again I don't give financial advice you should not buy stocks because I said so I however will be buying stocks so I fortunately I had enough cash that was uninvested that I could move some into the market now it's a good time in my opinion but I'm not giving you financial advice I'm seeing more and more about the wall / fence that suggests to me that everybody's opinion is starting to come to the same thing I'm not the first person to point this out but I might have been one of the first to point out that there wasn't much disagreement to begin with it's just what you want to call it do you call it a wall do you call a defense do

[10:17]

call it a wall do you call a defense do you call it a Wentz what do you call this thing so even now Ann Coulter has said the words that a fence like Israel has to get the job done we've seen clips of Chuck Schumer saying that maybe fences would be all you need so we're very close to the point where somebody is gonna say let's turn it over to the engineers let's just give them a budget and see you where where the engineers want to put stuff and get something done but as you may have noticed a lot of a lot of the political fighting is about Trump personally there seems to be a great dislike of him that can really only be explained as a personal thing because it seems to me that the if you go back in time to when Trump got elected didn't seem like

[11:18]

when Trump got elected didn't seem like the complaints were that there were a whole bunch of things they were afraid were going to happen they were afraid he was gonna round up people he was going to deport 14 million people he was going to start a nuclear war so if you take the time machine back in your head to 2016 the biggest complaints about Trump were about things he had not done but they were afraid he was going to do now how did that turn out we've got a little over two years that we can look at and we could say how close were they in being afraid of these particular things that they thought he would do and the answer is not even close the economy did go up until the Fed punched it in the nose and then the trade war we expect the economy to take a to take a breather because we're waiting for that to sort out so I would say as long as jobs are good the economy is solid yeah that's a good rule of thumb is that if jobs are good

[12:18]

thumb is that if jobs are good everything's gonna be fine and we look at him pulling out of Syria with a whim looking to pull n of Afghanistan looking to they're making progress in Yemen with little US pressure and North Korea looks like it's heading in the right direction so I would say and of course 14 million people have not been deported and doesn't look like there's any chance of that happening so I would say that the worst fears of what Trump would do have largely been shown to be empty they were empty fears so if you noticed how the criticism has shifted so the criticism has shifted from we think you will do this in the future and now it's been so debunked or disproven because we're now in the future we're a few years into the presidency and those worst worst worries are clearly not coming true and clearly

[13:20]

are clearly not coming true and clearly there's no real risk that they would in fact things are moving the opposite direction but people don't give up their criticisms people don't change their minds just because the facts change oh they should wouldn't that be great would it be great if people change their minds because the data changed but people don't do that that's just not the way we're wired we're wired to keep our opinions even if all the facts change and even if all the facts show that we're wrong so have you noticed and I don't I don't know if I've heard anybody else say this but it seems like we've gone from worrying about what he will do because then it all got debunked by just waiting and saying he didn't do it it seems the criticism has become intensely personal am I wrong Romney's talking about Trump's character very personal now he says that that will have an impact on people and that

[14:21]

have an impact on people and that argument is fair but it's very personal you saw that the first Muslim American who got elected for Congress has said that they're going to quote impeach the mother-effer now doesn't that sound personal when you look at all the reasons for why they don't want to give him the fence or the wall it's kind of personal they don't they want to impeach him not because of what he did but it's sort of personal so in other words there's a a trudeau of the President as a human being there really is the focus of their anger right now it's going from he might do these dictator things to hoecake he keeps following the law he does whatever the supreme court tells him he's got good advisers keeping him out of trouble apparently at least big trouble and now it's just personal so here's how the

[15:24]

it's just personal so here's how the walls last fence and impeachment and those things could possibly be resolved or avoided and it goes like this
the president should call out that the resistance has simply become personal and that that's not good for the country now that alone is probably not a kill shot it's not gonna change anything right away but I think it would be useful for him to stop arguing about the policies because weirdly people agree with him on the policies who is disagreeing with the president on jobs nobody who's disagreeing with him on prison reform well that looked pretty good who's disagreeing with him on Syria well there's a lot less of that happening people on both sides are saying yeah that's looking pretty good who disagrees

[16:27]

that's looking pretty good who disagrees with him that we need strong border security in some kind of fence Wally kind of way nobody disagrees so the president has actually reached this weird situation were kind of everybody agrees on the big stuff and and I think he could make the case now that he couldn't have made before which is now it's just personal I would argue and by the way I haven't heard anybody say what I'm gonna say right now but and I need some fact-checking so I could be completely wrong about this but give me some fact-checking on this the president said that after the midterm election in which the Democrats picked up a lot of seats in the House the president said that maybe he would become a little bit kinder and less harsh in his demeanor I forget the exact words but that was the

[17:28]

forget the exact words but that was the sense of it right he said that publicly you said it clearly then maybe maybe he would be a little kinder and gentler in his his personal demeanor has that happened has there been a difference in the president's public demeanor since the midterm because he said that he would look at maybe being a little less harsh I'm looking at your comments right now I'm seeing only yeses so I got one one No now of course it's subjective right but it seems to me that he's made a strategic change that's deliberate and has so far been reasonably consistent what did he say when Mitt Romney tore into him about his character he said that Mitt Romney he hopes he can be a team player

[18:33]

that's not really that's not really the kind of thing that you would have expected in the past right you would have sort of expected him to tear him apart we've seen him say that Nancy Pelosi would make a good speaker and that she is very strong I don't know that it was said that before now we should expect him to still use his little nicknames and he'll still make fun of Elizabeth Warren for her you know her claims so I would expect him to keep saying the the funny popular things he said before about the same cast of characters but they're not terribly mean are they when the president is making fun of Elizabeth Warren for the Pocahontas stuff it's not really that mean it's more of funny you know it's useful as persuasion but it's more funny so I'm watching the president's critics becoming the worst things that they hated about him which is their

[19:34]

hated about him which is their personalities their demeanors their choices of words so when you see the a member of Congress say they want - she wants to impeach the mother effer and everybody claps who's you know who's bringing the bad who's bringing the broke of the bad role model to Congress you know who's bringing the bad role model to government so there's a sort of a micro trend to watch for 2019 will president Trump continue to be a kinder gentler person in terms of his personal insults and such well probably not entirely because because if somebody who's you know let's say an external country or something comes after him I'm pretty sure he'll go after him hard but so far so far he's brought a lot more civility to the office than we've seen in the past meanwhile his critics have

[20:34]

in the past meanwhile his critics have become him they've become the uncivil unreasonable let's make it personal people so the president has a opportunity for a countermove which is to say let's not make it personal you know rejecting border security funding is just making it personal if you'd like to keep me out of it let's turn it over to the engineers and let them decide the best way to use that money but if we're all agreeing that better border security is a good deal and we all agree that five billion isn't that much in terms of the government let's let's not make it personal all right I saw an article that says the country is warming to socialism they're warming up to socialism in other words the polls show that people are liking socialism and some of the things that would come with that like presumably universal health care and

[21:37]

presumably universal health care and free college and stuff so and I say a lot of people are saying I'm not warming up to socialism there's something to say for that so I don't promote socialism but I would say that where we might be in a situation where regular old capitalism just doesn't work the way that we wanted to so if the middle class is indeed suffering more than ever that capitalism isn't working you know if the middle class is not thriving I think that would be the ultimate test so I don't know which way the the numbers are going right now and I'm not saying that if capitalism isn't working and we should do a full-tilt to socialism I would like to suggest a third way way number one is socialism way number two

[22:39]

number one is socialism way number two is capitalism I would argue that there was our two approaches that will not work socialism we know has its problems I think all of you watching this probably agree just because of the people who watch this periscope but I would argue that if the middle class has been taking it in the shorts for a decade or more that I would say if the capitalism is not working at the moment that would still mostly works but what could we do to tweak capitalism without becoming fully socialist could you do it is there anything we could do this a third way and I'm going to suggest it that there is and it looks like this a lot of the things that are ruining our lives right now I have to do with too much technology and diversion and our brains are getting fried and we're we're chasing you know trying to keep up with the Joneses etc I think the only way

[23:42]

the Joneses etc I think the only way that the world is going to work in the future is if the government gets a little bit more involved not a lot but a little bit more involved in promoting those technologies and companies that can lower the cost of a high quality middle class or lower class life I've said this before but the highest quality of life I ever had was in a college dormitory which was the lowest expense lowest living conditions you know physically in terms of the building I've ever experienced but it was still my highest quality of life because they got everything else right I had a challenge I had something to work on you know that my classes it was intellectually challenging I was around people my age my my basic stuff was taken care of I didn't have to worry about paying the bills I didn't need to cook or wash dishes or was a cafeteria

[24:42]

cook or wash dishes or was a cafeteria so I think the big the big improvement in the future will be figuring out how to have an inexpensive life that's still really good completely doable so I think socialism in its complete form doesn't work I think capitalism in his pure form does not work that we can see that right now and that we need some kind of a modified capitalism that is a little more enlightened about working on lowering the costs of a high quality life either by organizing people better by trying new things in small tests by maybe funding things that would cause the cost of a house to go down in other words putting attention on startups and innovation all right as you know I have been digging in deep on the climate climate change question I am still exactly on the fence about how much we

[25:45]

exactly on the fence about how much we should be worried about it what I've discovered so far is that there are about 25 different arguments about climate change and you know I'd say 25 different let's say skeptical criticisms of different parts of climate change and I wanted to start by dispelling the worst arguments so there are some arguments the skeptics make that are just bad they're bad arguments so I'm going to tell you which ones to stop using because there are still good arguments on both sides good enough that I can't I can't yet take aside but there are certainly some arguments on both sides that are so bad that you should ignore them and maybe look at the stronger arguments on both sides so maybe we should just get rid of the garbage and get to the good arguments because if the good arguments from the skeptics hold up well then the climate people need to have a lot of explaining and and

[26:46]

need to have a lot of explaining and and vice versa so let's just look at their best most verifiable claims and see if they if they work but let's get rid of the bad words first all right here's it so here are the bad arguments about climate science out of the 25 or so arguments one of the worst arguments is that scientists used to tell us that the world is cooling and that we would have to worry about a global cooling so in the 70s climate scientists were saying hey the world is getting cooler and so the skeptics say okay how could it be true that it they used to say it's getting cool and now you're saying it's getting warm and therefore the one thing we can know for sure is that scientists don't know how to predict this stuff that is a bad argument it's a bad argument here's why the people who were saying that it was going to be cooler was a small group of

[27:47]

going to be cooler was a small group of scientists the people who now say that it's getting warmer is pretty much the the vast majority of scientists those are not comparable situations there have always been small groups of scientists who have been wrong so what a small group of scientists says anything that turns out to be wrong it is not an indictment of science so please stop saying scientists got it wrong in the past so maybe they're getting the wrong in the future in the present it's the vast majority of scientists using lots of different science lots of different measuring devices etc now there still are some good skeptical arguments but let's get rid of the one this has a few scientists in the past got picked up by some big media you know like Time magazine and got reported but it was more about taking something that was small and just a few size

[28:48]

was small and just a few size disbelieved and turning into a news story there was never a situation where the majority of scientists thought it would be cold in the future so that just stopped saying that it's not a good argument another argument you hear is that people say I will not believe that climate change is a problem until I see rich people no longer buying beachfront homes until I see banks no longer willing to give loans for Beach Beach property until I see that I'm not going to believe it's true that the ocean is rising here's what's wrong with that argument it's a terrible argument do you know who buys beachfront property rich people do you know who doesn't care if the sea level rises and makes their property worth less money thirty years from now rich people and I'm telling you this as

[29:49]

rich people and I'm telling you this as a as your local resident rich person so I got to plug in some power here hold on
rich people do not need to care about whether they're making a good financial decision I have personally made bad financial decisions because I wanted to enjoy something for a while and if I were poor or scraping by I would not have done those things I personally would buy beachfront property even if even if I thought in 30 years I'd have to get rid of it or it'd be worth nothing if I could enjoy beachfront property for 30 years and then I had to just throw away my house I might still do that okay so if apparently some of

[30:54]

do that okay so if apparently some of you were saying that it's frozen and there's no sound but others are saying that yeah you might have to back out and come back in dammit I hate that it froze up just when I was talking about this effing subject oh my god of all things this was the only thing I wanted this periscope to be about alright so I'm gonna get back on point because at least some of you say it's fixed alright the other bad argument is that people say they're not worried about the glaciers melting because if you put ice in a glass of water and you wait for the ice to melt it does not change the water level well that's true but that's not the argument for climate change so if you think that adding that melting ice doesn't change how much water there is you are missing two things number one not all of that melted

[31:55]

things number one not all of that melted ice is sitting in the water some of it is on land if water that's on land melts into the if ice that's on land melts into the water you have added water alright so stop saying that the ice cubes and your glass of water are telling you something your ice cubes are in the water the glaciers are not all sitting in the water then secondly the other big reason that the water level would rise is because when you warm the oceans the they expand and the warming might not be equal in all parts of the world so that you could have you could have sea level rising in some places and never rising in others so for example the California coastline doesn't seem to be rising or not as much as other places and that would be expected under climate change because the warming is in different places so stop saying with the ice cubes in your glass tell you about

[32:56]

ice cubes in your glass tell you about anything that's a bad bad all right even there's another one the medieval period was warmer than it is now and in the middle medieval period we did have any co2 or not much there was added the atmosphere by people so people say wait a minute why was this so warm in the medieval period when they didn't have co2 or at least not co2 added by human activity that is a bad argument it's a bad argument now it is true that there was lower co2 and yet higher temperatures in the medieval period but unfortunately for the sceptics the climate experts have a really good explanation for that and apparently they know that some activity was different then and there was a shortage of volcanoes during that period and when you have fewer volcanoes you you have

[33:59]

you have fewer volcanoes you you have more warming does it work that way they may have it backwards but anyway the scientists know that there was differences in some activity and differences in volcanoes so they actually have a perfectly acceptable reason why the middle of the medieval times were warmer so I would say that's a bad argument from the skeptics because the response to the argument I I can't personally verify whether the response the argument is right but it certainly sounds credible so I would say that the medieval argument is weak I wouldn't use it here's another one satellite images will show us that ice on the planet is shrinking so here's here's the bad argument from the scientists point of view so they say look at our look at our satellite pictures and you can see right with your own eyes that the ice the ice

[35:01]

with your own eyes that the ice the ice is shrinking here's what's wrong with that argument now again I'm going to modify any of these opinions as I'm learning new things so everything you hear me say is a preliminary until I get better data you
you argument because I've actually changed my opinion on several points already so here's what's wrong with the with the argument that the satellite shows that the ice is decreasing on the planet my understanding is we have not always had satellites and then we haven't had really satellite pictures before 1979 I think and I'm told that 1979 was an unusually cold year so if you start your measuring from an unusually cold year it would not be surprising that there's less ice today if we had satellites that could go back a hundred years would we see the same shrinkage or would we see the ice level go up and down in some

[36:03]

the ice level go up and down in some kind of a cycle that did not have much to do with co2 I don't know but I do know we don't have satellite measurements before a certain year and that wasn't too long ago so I would say that these the argument from climate scientists who say that the satellites show you visually that the ice is is shrinking it's accurate but it only goes back to 1979 so it doesn't tell you enough just by the satellite now of course that's not their only argument and I'm not saying it is but if it's the only argument presented is weak here's another one the climate scientists say that the the risk a sea liable C level rising is dire because eventually it could have an impact on a hundred million people a hundred million people could be impacted by rising sea levels

[37:08]

could be impacted by rising sea levels what percentage of the planet is a hundred million people let's say we've got a billion people by the time a hundred million are in are negatively impacted by rising water what percentage yeah yes so it's about one and a half percent I think I calculated 1.3 percent so about one point three percent of the population would be negatively impacted by rising sea levels over decades is that is that a catastrophe now if a hundred million people died that's the catastrophe but if a hundred into one but if a hundred million which is you know 1.3 percent of the world has to rearrange their lives and here's the fun part who owns all the property by

[38:10]

fun part who owns all the property by the beaches is it the poor people well in some countries yes but where they're most money is involved where it would be the hardest to move because they've got a building there and they've got assets there there's somebody rich who owns that so do we care that let's say 50 million rich people have to adjust their lives and 50 million poor people have to just move a hundred yards away you know it's probably harder than that they may have to just find a new place to go but they're gonna have a lot of time to do that it's not like they have to pick up and move on Tuesday they're gonna have decades to sort it out so what I see the argument that sea level is rising I say to myself oh my god my god that does sound bad but when the people who are telling me it's a problem say it will affect a hundred million people over the course of decades I say you just told me

[39:13]

course of decades I say you just told me that's not much of a problem right if if the estimates are true 100 million people who have to readjust their lives half of them are probably rich the other half didn't own anything to lose they just have to move if feels affordable here's the other bad argument which we saw recently and I won't talk too much about this because he did but the estimate that we could take it 10% hit to our GDP by the year 2100 now of course it's not all happening in the last year it's something that would be more of it in the in the later years and less of it in the early years would we even notice that we made 10 percent less than GDP than we could have over 80 years we wouldn't we literally wouldn't even notice how do I know that simple suppose I told you that our current GDP right now is 10% lower than it could have been

[40:16]

now is 10% lower than it could have been if we'd made different decisions eighty years ago which is probably true can you feel it you don't even notice you just notice the things are the way they are so the two biggest economic arguments coming out of the the warming camp using their own numbers are really not that scary so their weak arguments I saw somebody ask about coral bleaching and the idea that the warming of the ocean is killing the the coral habitats I guess now apparently nobody is doubting the question that there's more bleaching meaning that the coral is turning white when it gets distressed so I think everybody agrees is morold there is some disagreement from the skeptics that it's caused by warming as much as caused by runoff from farming and irrigation or

[41:18]

runoff from farming and irrigation or whatever there's other causes and then there are other people who say that it's not that unusual in history for coral reefs to be greatly distressed they turn white but then you check back in a few decades and they're completely revived so we can't know exactly whether this is one of those times when it's cyclic or or not but at the moment I would say that argument tilts toward the climate warming argument right I would say the skeptics maybe you have a little week or argument here but they do have an argument so it's a I would say that that much is hard for us to sort out right so those are the worst arguments on both sides and one of my Twitter followers Gregory markle's I think if you're not following him you should because he digs

[42:18]

following him you should because he digs in on a lot of the arguments that I get into online and he tends to be the most clear thinker in the game and one of the things he pointed out yesterday which I agree with a lot is that anytime you try to talk about climate change it turns into whack-a-mole and it doesn't matter which side you're talking about both sides that have a whack Amole laundry list strategy so if you say to either side either the skeptics or the this majority of scientists if you say to them I'm debunking your point and here's how I'm debunking it if you do a good job do they ever say oh good a good point you debunk me they do not they just move to the next thing on the list so if you say well the way you're measuring temperatures is not credible because you've made adjustments then they say well we don't rely on just that we also look at the satellite we look at the ice core we look at three other ways

[43:20]

the ice core we look at three other ways to measure temperature and they're all in agreement so you have this perpetual whack-a-mole problem and likewise if the climate scientists say look skeptic this was your sceptical claim I just prove prove that you're skeptical claim is invalid what does the skeptic do do they say oh okay you've convinced me now I believe in climate change they do not they say but I've got another reason so that so the whack-a-mole problem is probably why we can't reach consensus because nobody can give in on a point they just move to the other point skeptics do it and the scientists do it and between the two of them there are so many moles to be whacked that you could never have debate because you could you you could never have a debate because you would never have enough time each group would just keep saying okay well if you don't like that I've got another piece of evidence so what Gregory pointed out and I agree

[44:21]

so what Gregory pointed out and I agree is it maybe instead of arguing every point we should look to both sides best most checkable points so you'd want two qualities to dig into one is it is it a major point because there are lots of major arguments and then minor arguments the minor ones are stuff like you know what about the ice in my glass you know that those are the minor ones but there's some that are just big important ones that and in there are ways that you can actually tell who's right it's objectively you can tell and the one that Gregory pointed out and I agree is a famous climate skeptic Tony Heller has and and please fact-check me if I get this wrong because I've seen so many climate stories now and maybe conflating things but I believe this is true and I and I know Tony watches these he's been following this conversation so he might

[45:22]

following this conversation so he might have an answer of this but I believe he's made the claim that the the tenth the thermometers around the world have been adjusted over time and those adjustments are telling the story that maybe if they hadn't been adjusted you might have gotten a different story and so therefore there's a credibility problem with the measurements now part of that argument I believe and here's the part I want you to fact-check me on is that if you looked at only the measuring devices that have not been adjusted and never changed they've always been in the same place and nothing changed about them it's the same technology etc so the longest continuing measurements don't show the warming using the publicly available data that both the scientists and the skeptics have access to now that claim is completely checkable and and the claim is not only checkable by third

[46:24]

claim is not only checkable by third parties you can actually figure out did did Tony Heller really pick the right measurement devices are they really the ones that have not experienced any kind of adjustment and is it true when you look at the same data the scientists who look yet that they do not show warming if you take the if you take out all the ones that have adjustments that claim is seems to me is testable and it's one of the most important claims on the skeptic side one of the strongest ones so if we can debunk the that claim that I would say the the Tony Heller arguments are going to lose a leg I mean the other he makes a number of arguments and you'd have to look at them separately but that's a big one all right that's that's in the top three at least right maybe the top one and its checkable wouldn't you like to see that checked what do the scientists say when Tony Heller presents

[47:25]

scientists say when Tony Heller presents his list of all the of all the abatements that don't show the warming do they say you picked the wrong ones do they say that you looked at the wrong data I don't know so I would say that's an open question and it's something that I think some people are looking into it at the moment but it gives it gives you a possible way forward I think the first thing you have to do is say that there are 25 arguments and this whole climate change thing everything from ice core and measuring devices and you know well there's just 25 different arguments but probably 20 of those arguments are weaker than the best five and the best five might be some some pro climate and change and some anti climate change I don't know what those best five would look like but let's figure out what the best five are because they might be something we can we can just check so

[48:28]

something we can we can just check so that's my goal right now my goal is to get the skeptics to stop saying the weakest sceptical things and try to figure out what are the strongest skeptical things so get off the weak ones get onto the strong ones likewise the climate scientists who have done a horrible job of persuading I can't judge their science but on the persuasion perspective it's obvious that they've done a terrible job because half the country isn't buying it so the they too should maybe back off of their weaker arguments if they can identify which are the weaker ones and try to just stick with the strongest one so I'll give you an example where they might be so one of the stronger arguments might be sea-level because I'm a little I'm a little uh say I'm a little dubious about whether they can measure ice changes over time so I don't know if that will ever be their strongest argument

[49:29]

ever be their strongest argument especially if the satellites don't go back beyond 79 but it seems to me that they could make a prediction about sea-level make a five-year prediction let me ask you this if you're a skeptic of climate change I'd like to see your answer in the comments if you're a skeptic of climate change and the climate scientists said I'll make you a deal sea level change is the one thing we absolutely know is going to change and are at a rapid rate assuming everything else we know about climate is true if it's true that co2 is R it is rapidly rising the temperature then we'll see sea level go up and in five years you'll definitely be able to see that our predictions are right if they made that prediction and said here's the deal in five years you need to change your mind if we hit this prediction would you accept that would you and I

[50:33]

would you accept that would you and I know most of you are probably skeptics for those of you are skeptics what do you accept that the scientists are right if they could call if they could call there you know where they're gonna hit the home run and it was only five years it's not a long time and in five years you look at it and you go damn they hit it or it's even worse than they say that would be also help their argument would that would that convince you now there's some people are saying that sea level is not a good measure because the the land is also changing so in other words if there's an underwater volcano and the underwater volcano creates a new mass underwater or or an island gets bigger or something from the volcano there you have you would have rising sea level so I don't know that we can measure sea level and predict it because of stuff like volcanoes what I'll bet we can better

[51:35]

volcanoes what I'll bet we can better than other things so anyway the strong arguments are probably about sea level rise if we can if we can maybe get a better idea about ice change that would be great and the one of the strong arguments that I don't haven't dug into enough is that all of the various measuring methods give you the same result in other words if you'd look at the thermometers or if you look at the ice core samples or if you look at whatever the satellites do about temperature and I think there might have been two or three other measures but they they're all compatible and they all tell the same story is that true that's the story now if that's true that's a really good argument huh but I'm kind of skeptical that all of those measurements really match up you know I worry I worry that they're forced they're forced to match but that's not a claim that is

[52:38]

match but that's not a claim that is only a skeptical question all right
I think I will and to hear and I'll talk to you later