Episode 368 Scott Adams: Keep me Company During Power Outage. Ask Me Anything

Date: 2019-01-10 | Duration: 31:48

Topics

President Trump, The wall, Nancy & Chuck’s strategies Physical constraints of the simulation Are we in a simulation? maybe that’s why we can’t decide on climate change? Climate experts refuse to debate the skeptics Skeptics are willing and want to have a debate Representative Tlaib getting a lot of airtime 1st day called President Trump a mother****er

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

## Transcript

[0:07]

hey everybody come on in I need you to keep me company during the power outage not sure how long it'll last but when the power comes on I might go do something else so the power has been off for a few hours in my neighborhood somebody ran an SUV into a power pole we think there was big accident nearby so that's probably what it was I'm coming to you from my man cave um I'd show you around but you wouldn't actually see anything so I'm playing uh uh what is the name of that uh that scary movie uh I might use this every every time I do Periscope now I like the look um do I have a hot girlfriend or the Hott girlfriend is your question and the answer is the hottest girlfriend and trust me when I say there

[1:07]

girlfriend and trust me when I say there was no other answer to that question happens to be true though um thoughts on let's talk about Trump so um I only was skimming the news this afternoon but I understand uh that he went into the meeting and said handed down some candy and then said uh if I sign the government into uh back into uh action if I approve the budget will you give me the wall or something like it and Blair Witch yes it's Blair Witch and uh apparently he walked out now let me ask you was that the right play was that the right thing to
do uh I'm going to argue that it was exactly the right thing to do that he didn't need to stay in the room once they said there's no negotiating on this point cuz it was the only point so uh I thought the the

[2:09]

only point so uh I thought the the Democrats actually did a good job of of the best case they could under the circumstances because keep in mind the the Democrats have an an extra level of uh of challenge because the Democrats have to make a case for why they're against the thing they're for literally because they're for border security using whatever mechanisms you need wherever they are and they're arguing against it so they had a they had a tough position to argue from so what they did was they said hey let's uh let's separate these things we can improve the budget and open the government and we'll just negotiate this other thing separately now the beauty of that method is that it depends entirely upon the people that they're persuading being stupid or at least ignorant and not paying attention to the what's going on because there's no logical reason

[3:11]

on because there's no logical reason that the budget is tied to the question you know that the government budget is is tied to the uh the wall it's not logically connected Trump just said we're going to see how much pain you're willing to take to get the wall and you're going to see how much pain I'm willing to take to get the wall now it's really interesting because Trump is in a position and I think you'd agree where he can't give in he actually can't if he does he's he's got a lot of explaining to do and I don't know if he can dig himself out of that hole but uh Nancy and Chuck very cleverly um what what is the term for it when you're playing chicken and you're driving at each other with cars in order to win a negotiation at this level they had to convince Trump that they would stay in it longer than he would and they know that he's really

[4:12]

would and they know that he's really going to stay in it so how do you convince them that that they're going how do you convince the country that you're going to stay in it longer when you're actually arguing that you don't approve of your own opinion yeah how long can you stay with a position that you don't approve of border security with a variety of mechanisms that the experts tell you they need that's a tough position when you've approved it in the past so uh they're depending on the public not understanding how negotiating works so of course there's no logical reason that the government has to be shut down because they haven't figured out what to do in the Border they're just not connected Trump is connecting them simply to give them pain and if it means that much to them then they will do more damage to the government than he will but it's a really bad bet on their end because I think Democrats can negotiate and and get something out of

[5:13]

negotiate and and get something out of this deal and still look like they won so they can you know it's possible for you Ploy and Schumer to you know give a little more and still look like winners you know still look like they were bipartisan Etc uh but uh they cleverly did this they they painted themselves in a in a corner and the analogy I was trying to make when people are playing chicken and they want to act like they don't have the option of turning away from the other car at the last minute isn't there something they do like they put a a brick on the steering wheel or they throw away the is it that they throw away the steering wheel is that what they do yeah anyway um my analogy is bad but the uh but what Schumer and Peli did was they threw away the steering wheel so they publicly said it's immoral to approve this you know W the way it's being described now once you said it's immoral and you said it a whole bunch of times

[6:16]

and you said it a whole bunch of times how do you change your mind you can change your mind on a budget negotiation but you can't change your mind on a moral issue so when Pelosi painted it as a moral issue it was like took the steering wheel of the car and and threw it out and said you know come at me Trump you you still have a steering wheel and you're the only one who can turn this car so we don't kill each other uh so I'm going to say now I've said this before but anybody who underestimates Pelosi is is is maybe you know uh making a big mistake because she does seem to be good at this I don't know exactly how good Chuck Schumer is I don't get the feeling he's the strong uh member of the party do you let me ask you the question directly when you look at Schumer and Pelosi and if you've been watching them both for a while who's the power the power person in that power

[7:18]

power the power person in that power couple it's her isn't it he he feels he just yeah he feels so um here's what it is I think when Pelosi is doing her political persuasion you can know that it's just persuasion as in the case of the wall you can know that she doesn't mean what she says but she still looks like she does right there you know fact Jack me on that in your opinion does Pelosi look like at least she believes you know it's a convincing story that she believes what she's saying when Schumer talks I don't believe he believes it because he doesn't sell it there's something about his I don't know his demeanor his words he
he chooses and today for example um wasn't it wasn't it Schumer and not Pelosi I may have this backwards but you can you can test me wasn't it Schumer who said that and Trump said that Mexico was

[8:19]

that and Trump said that Mexico was going to pay for the wall because when you talk about something else that's not connected you know the decision of whether they should pay for the wall is completely disconnected from his campaign promise that he'd make Mexico pay for the wall which was never the important part right I don't think anybody even people who voted for him well probably some but H how many let me ask you this most of you probably were Trump supporters Trump voters and let me ask you how many of you believed that candidate Trump literally meant he was going to make Mexico pay for the wall and that it would might happen so you have to believe both things you have to believe that he meant it literally like like they were going to you write a check uh and you had to believe that he was actually going to get that done how many of you believe that cuz I

[9:19]

done how many of you believe that cuz I don't see it as a big reason that people voted for
him uh so the comments are a little lagged here so people are saying that
uh yeah some people are agreeing with me that Pelosi seems like the the stronger player there um but at the moment you're seeing a sort of a Clash of Titans and it looks like a tie to me and usually I have a stronger opinion about the way things are going to go you know if you're going to if you're going to bet money and don't do this by by the way don't bet money on the next thing I'm going to say um I I've heard from a number of people who have uh I probably shouldn't tell you this but I'm just going to be honest I've heard from a lot of people who want a lot of money betting on Trump to win because they followed my blog uh I know one person who won

[10:21]

blog uh I know one person who won $100,000 others 10,000 you know pretty big pretty big bets and I want I want to to tell you that I was pretty sure about that that happening but I'm you know less sure of this following prediction but I also don't see anything that's wrong with it you know anything could happen and here's the prediction Trump is going to get something closer to what he needs then Pelosi will get closer to no no barriers being funded and or a low budget so I think that Trump wins for the the reason that he can't lose meaning he can't allow himself to give in because it would be sort of a fatal um sort of a fatal blow and but Pelosi can Pelosi is trying to tell us that she can't back out by painting herself in a corner but she really can and uh my

[11:24]

corner but she really can and uh my guess is they'll have to pretend that they both won and somebody just needs to say the magic words let the engineers figure out where it's fence and where it's something else let them tell us the budget and let us just agree that we're going to we're going to go with the experts and get on with it so I'm sure there's some some way to do a version of that so in other words the since it's become a personal contest between Pelosi and Trump trump can't lose he can't let himself he just can't and and Pelosi has painted herself in a corner threw away the steering wheel the only way they can get past it is to turn it over to a third party but as it turns out that's exactly what you should do in any rational business sense you should ask the engineers to make sure that they have a rational budget and a rational set of solutions now you're going to tell me that border

[12:24]

tell me that border patrol
lights now you're going to tell me that uh border patrol has already done the analysis and border patrol has decided whether will be fence and offense but I'm not sure that people see the border patrol people as totally free of politics because you know you can never be sure if they're saying what they're saying because their boss is is Trump so there's always a little bit of bias that's that's built into who's willing to say what in public and yes but if you say
say let the engineers decide it's still really border patrol they're just talking to the engineers so the engineers would be you know capturing the specs and then border patrol would say well here's a place we need a wall and then the engineer would say I hear what you're saying but from a physical perspective you just can't get a wall there so let me give you some suggestions for what would work so if if

[13:25]

suggestions for what would work so if if Trump is still selling and I'm not sure this exactly the case but but I'll just say it in in the conceptual if Trump is still selling the idea that border patrol has figured out where they want wall and where they want you know fence and other things they're still not the right people they are the right people who know where the problem is and they also would know what has worked before has this wall worked has this fence worked so they would know all that and you couldn't get there without using all of their expertise so they have to be the the users in this case so the users Pelosi and Trump let's put it this way if you know speaking in business terms Pelosi Schumer and Trump are not the customer they're not the user the user is border patrol the people who do that job but border patrol is not Engineers so they need to describe as best they can what they think needs to be done and where it needs to be done but you need an engineer to

[14:26]

an engineer to say you know this works or this doesn't all
right Alexa turn off man cave I'm having trouble connecting to the
the internet take a look at the help section in your Alexa app looks like I've got to reboot a lot of stuff in my house I got a lot of rebooting to do so I'm going to get to that um
I'm just looking at your I'll stay a little bit longer and look at your questions Army Corps of Engineers yeah I guess would the Army Corps of Engineers be the right Engineers I suppose they would but is it really did they do civilian stuff I don't know

[15:26]

um yeah you'd have to carefully choose the engineers that's true all right you want to hear you want to hear the freakiest um the freakiest Stoner hypothesis you've ever heard do you want to hear something that will just blow your mind but only only if you've been drinking or or smoking or something all right here's an idea I've been I've been playing with this is brand new and I wasn't going to break it out yet cuz I haven't thought about it enough but the idea is this if we are a Sim ation meaning that this world was built by other creatures who may in themselves have been programmed by other creatures in a in a NeverEnding Turtles all the way to the bottom way so if we are a simulation I have speculated that every simulation has some let's say physical constraints such as memory and how fast you can process things Etc so that we if we know that's the case that if we're

[16:29]

we know that's the case that if we're simulated we would we would find constraints you know where would you look to find the constraints and some of the ones that I've speculated are and this is the part I've talked about a few times before but I'm going to add add a Twist that's fun so I speculated that some of the things that you wouldn't be able to see if he were in the simulation is the edge of the simulation so in other words you could never walk to the edge and then get on the outside and look in so that would be you know a natural part of being in a simulation and sure enough our laws of physics make it literally impossible for us to get to the edge of the universe because the universe is expanding faster than we can get there and then we have the speed of light limitation why is why is the speed of light a limitation well nobody knows exactly why maybe we'll figure it out someday uh but it's just programmed um

[17:30]

someday uh but it's just programmed um and so that's one thing so they would do that to conserve resources but here's another thing that a programmer would do to conserve resources the programmer would not design uh the entire universe in
in full because the people who are the subjects of the simulation you and I the people would never see you know a very large percentage of it we would never experience it so let's say there's you know Planet uh 100 million light mails or you know light years away we'll never we'll never see it so they don't need to render it the simulation doesn't need to build it until somebody comes along that might look at it exactly the way software is designed today so here's the thing if you could prove that history is built on demand instead of already existing you would go a long way to toward proving we were a simulation all you would have to find is that the

[18:31]

you would have to find is that the history gets written in the present in other words every time if you if you're digging in the dirt and you find something that history gets written at that point but if you hadn't found it the history of the thing in the dirt wouldn't have been written so this might explain why we can't agree on climate change because uh there could be not an objective history because if we're a simulation and if you know simulation Theory you know there's a billion to one chance that we are because however many original species there are they will create probably lots of simulations and then the simulations will be smart enough to program their own simulations all the way down so yeah and Elon Musk agrees smartest people I know uh think this is likely as well so could it be that the reason we can't

[19:32]

so could it be that the reason we can't agree what was happening in Old Earth is because there was nothing happening could it be that the reason we can't resolve why the things that you're looking at and the things that I'm looking at are telling completely different histories I mean literally I'm talking to people all day long today because I've been taking calls on my company's app interface uh which is working great by the way so I just advertised on Twitter that I would talk argue with people about uh climate change and I got to talk to a whole bunch of interesting people who knew more than I did on in a lot of stuff but I'm talking to people who say it's very clear that the temperature went up and other people saying look at the data we're you know just look at the data it's public temperature went down now how can it be true that in 2019 the smartest people in this topic don't seem to be all on the same page now I I realize I'm talking to more Skeptics than the average person would

[20:33]

Skeptics than the average person would so it's it it's skewed that way but I can't yet resolve this simple question if the temperature is going up or down over time you know and let's say in the last 100 years uh is actually trickier than you think when you talk to the people who are who are you know the more the more credible Skeptics now when I say credible I always make the distinction that that doesn't mean that they're right it just means that the way they present it you know you can ask a lot of questions and still walk away saying that's not bad uh my my preliminary assumption about the Skeptics and the uh let's say the alarmists in climate is that the the skeptical arguments are at least 70% at least 70% of what people claim CU there are a whole bunch of skeptical arguments I'd say 70% of them can just easily be dismissed for example

[21:36]

can just easily be dismissed for example the the solar cycle one because cuz you know smart people check that the lines don't line up that's sort of the end of the story but it's feeling to me that within climate science even if you assume that the the primary claims are true that CO2 is raising the temperature at an alarming rate and that's a big problem even if if you accept that I still think about 20% of it is now these are my preliminary estimates and I'm just going to do this this continuous Deep dive and every time I surface a little nugget of something that I think I learned I'll just share it with you on probably toward the ends of my periscopes so that people who don't want to hang in for that part can can bail out
out um but the one theory that they can't be ruled out is that there is no objective history and therefore until the Skeptics who are the most credible and the uh oh

[22:39]

who are the most credible and the uh oh here's the other thing have have you ever been amazed that the experts won't have a debate with the Skeptics and the Skeptics are all willing like yeah I'll do it now the the reason of course is actually a good reason so the the I would say the climate scientists when they say we don't want to get on the stage with the Skeptics that's a smart reason you know they're actually acting completely rational and the reason is that it could only degrade their credibility I don't think there's a way to
to win but isn't it interesting that we can't resolve the history and the one and only way that it could be done would be to put there are probably I'd say there are no more than six people on the planet that would represent you know the most knowledgeable experts you know say three of them and the most knowledgeable Skeptics let's say the best of the three of them so they're probably six people in the world who all know each other at least you know by reputation and and by

[23:41]

least you know by reputation and and by work they all know who who each other are they can all connect with each other millions and millions of people would tune into it it would be the highest rated don't you think it would be one of the highest rated television shows of all time am I wrong about that if you if there was a an actual legitimate debate I think it would be one of the biggest most ratings Bonanza shows of all time but isn't it interesting that the only way that the history could be resolved and then written which would be a big burden on the the computer because it would have to write all this you know the history about temperature uh and and and really probably model the entire history if it hasn't done it already uh that the simulation prevents those six people from ever being in the same place when somebody's watching so if you think about it the simulation needs to preserve its resources and again this is just for fun you can believe whatever you want uh so

[24:43]

you can believe whatever you want uh so if we're in the simulation it's trying to conserve its resources in a variety of clever ways and one of those clever ways might be to never let the Skeptics and the climate scientists get in front of the public and solidify one of those two histories so there you go
go um because we're a simulation and it it uh saves resources was the blackout caused by global warming it was not it was caused by I am told an SUV running into something that uh was all bad news um have I heard of GAD sad I have I don't know much about
him by the way is it my imagination or did Trump raise the raise the initial bid from 5.6 up to 5.7 it seems like it went up didn't

[25:45]

5.7 it seems like it went up didn't it oh somebody's asking does khaw have persuasion game yes khaw has he has the full package it looks um I I would say that you know just from what I what I've seen of him in public it isn't a ton but it's enough to get a get a sense of the person I you know seen a lot on Twitter yeah he's got the full package I would say
so uh you cannot drive blah blah if it's a simulation who cares about climate change well if it's a simulation all of our experiences will be you know as if we're real so you care whether you're real or a simulation wouldn't would be no difference um don't you have solar panels yeah solar panels don't help you in a power outage unless you have

[26:46]

in a power outage unless you have batteries which is rare um
when am I spoking a joint with the president I don't think that's going to
happen is Stefan Malu legit well does legit mean the same as right about everything I don't think it does so I would say uh Stefan is legit in the following ways um I believe he's honest to a fault meaning that anytime he gets in trouble it's cuz that's his actual opinion um I think he's one of the most rational logical people around and since he lives in a world that isn't like that uh he causes massive cognitive dissonance in people and they imagine that what he's doing is far worse than what is actually

[27:49]

doing is far worse than what is actually happening in other words he triggers them to the point where they make assumptions about him that are you know out of bounds in my opinion uh same thing that happens to president Trump and anybody who triggers people with their honesty they're going to get the same same treatment by the way let's talk about then uh is it Congress woman tby what is the name of the the the woman who called Trump uh mother eer is it tby something like that um she's going getting a lot of airtime isn't she don't you see her in the news all the time now ask yourself was it a mistake was it a mistake to say what she said when you know and to know it could probably be reported or qu on film or something doesn't look like a mistake

[28:49]

something doesn't look like a mistake and when it happened I thought to myself you
you know that could work out for her and sure enough and it and she's I've taught you about the uh the CEO first day move where if you're the new CEO the first thing you do is you know you change something you fire a bunch of people you reorganize so you want to leave that first impression if you're the the new boss to libe I don't know how to pronounce it exactly um and I think that do you say congresswoman Congress person I don't even know it is the right uh the proper phrase but uh rep let's say representative so representative to lebby um she she made a a first impression as the most aggressive person in Congress will that ever work against

[29:51]

in Congress will that ever work against her probably not probably not I mean she's got a lot of you know other impression she's going to make so things could change but that first impression will never leave her and it really is a good one for politics especially if you're a woman now ask yourself this how many sexist men are there in the world who think to themselves well the the women in politics are not as tough or whatever you know they're I never talked to anybody like that by the way you I'm in California so that probably makes a difference but I literally never meet anybody male or female who think that you know woman can't be president or any any of those older views but you know they exist right in in the country there are clearly people who still have let say more classic views who think that maybe uh you know a woman who's a new member of Congress would not

[30:52]

who's a new member of Congress would not be that tough well she just slayed that opinion she just she just slapped off the
the table with before she was even sworn in you know you tell me that that's not good politicking cuz that was good good politicking she got the she got like two or three persuasion things right before she even started you know one was sucking the attention out of the room the other is doing something that's a little inappropriate and then what I was describing that setting the first impression as sort of the the toughest meanest you know politician is nothing but good for her her power and she got a lot of you know Air Time Etc so I think it's all good anyway I'm going to go find Christina and we will rejoice that there are lights and I will reset all my digital clocks fun fun I'll talk to you later