Episode 408 Scott Adams: The Tale of Three Hoaxes, Most Recently about Candace Owens
Date: 2019-02-08 | Duration: 15:20
Topics
Hoax: Claim that Candace Owens praised Hitler Hoax: President Trump’s Charlottesville statement Hoax: Virginia doctor promoting murder of healthy newborns Lesson: Be hesitant about believing things that are ridiculous on the surface
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> [!note] Rough Transcript
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## Transcript
[0:06]
hey everybody come on in here we've got a fun and
educational uh very short Periscope let me make sure that my airplane mode is on all right so uh most of you have already seen the news today and you know that the latest person to be in trouble by the social media and and mainstream media is Candace Owens and uh I'm going to teach you something here that I've mentioned before but I've never seen such a perfect situation to talk about it now the setup is uh well here's the background there's a blogger named Scott Alexander who introduced me to the following idea which is so predictive and so useful that you're going to want to learn it and it goes like this uh let me stop somebody
[1:09]
this uh let me stop somebody here and block a couple of trolls all right now we're back um and the idea is this from Scott Alexander if you hear a story that is like insanely hard to believe but yet it's being reported in the news and it's all over the news and it's all over social media but there's something about it that's just incredible hard to believe you can predict the rest of the story without even knowing what the story is the rest of the story is if you wait you find out it's not true right so when you see stories about somebody said something outrageous almost always the explanation is going to be didn't happen and that's what happened with Candace Owens and it's what happened with the Charlottesville hoax and it's what happened with the uh the governor of Virginia when he talked about abortion
[2:11]
Virginia when he talked about abortion and I'll give you those three examples and I'll show you the pattern so today in the news there's a story that Candace Owens in some live event when she was explaining nationalism said something that sounded a little bit positive about Hitler now without knowing exactly what she
she said if you hear the story and it's all over social media that says that Candace Owens is an apologist for Hitler and for those few people who don't know Candace Owens is an African-American conservative woman now and very successful very smart all right so she's very successful very smart do you think there is any chance that she intentionally went in front of the public and even if there was a slip of the tongue do you think
[3:12]
was a slip of the tongue do you think there's any chance that she said something positive about Adolf Hitler and the answer is no there there's not the slightest chance that that actually happened um so if you're asking yourself oh wait a minute let me go look at the actual language she used and then you see it you're like my God it's right there it's right there in the actual language she used except it isn't it isn't it just isn't there but half of the country will see it and half of the country won't see it they'll be looking at the same thing some will see it some will not if you want to know what the tiebreaker is when some people see something and some people do not the tiebreaker is the not all right it's almost always that it just didn't happen because that would be what you would expect all right here's the other example uh half of the country at least
[4:13]
example uh half of the country at least believes that President Trump after the Charlottesville tragedy they believe that he went on live TV and said something good in support of the white supremacists now do you need to know exactly what words he used in order to know that that didn't happen no you did not you don't need to check the actual words because that is so ridiculous that even if he were a white nationalist which he's not but even if he were he wouldn't go in front of the public and say that and then if he did he certainly wouldn't clarify the next day no God now I didn't say that I disavow those guys so on its surface you don't need to look at his exact words because on its surface you should already know no the president no president not this President not any president of the United States went on TV and said yeah I
[5:14]
United States went on TV and said yeah I think I'll say something good about those white supremacists didn't happen just like Candace Owens did not say something positive about Hiller that just didn't happen now the actual context in Candace's case if she was talking about a hypothetical in which the only thing wrong with Hitler is that he was a nationalist right it was a terrible way to go about explaining it nobody's going to defend the word she chose but it was just a bad explanation it wasn't obviously it wasn't even a about Hiller and then the third one is the uh the one you won't like most of you anyway the Virginia Doctor Who it was reported um would be in favor of killing a live baby after its birth if the mother was upset about it now do you need to know do you need to know the governor's exact words to know that that never
[6:15]
know that that never happened there was no there was no governor who went on TV or went in any public event and said yeah I'm okay with delivering a live baby and then if the mother's got any kind of mental health issues maybe we'll just kill the baby that didn't happen now a lot of you are saying wait a minute wait a minute he did say that say you hear the watch the comments yes he did say that people are saying his exact words are that people are saying to me did you see the video yes I saw the video several times I saw his exact words and if you understand the context he was obviously talking about situations in which the the baby wasn't going to live very long so it was a hospice context that most of you got fooled by so here's the lesson and I waited until there were two examples on the conservative side and only one example on the on the other side so you can see the same effect that what the
[7:17]
can see the same effect that what the thing that is fooling the left about Charlottesville is that they wanted to believe it the thing that's fooling them about Candace Owens is they want to believe the that she said that in both cases it didn't happen and the reason that so many of you were uh were fooled by the report about the governor and abortion see people are still telling me to read the law again anybody who's telling me read his exact words or read the law again you're not you're not on the same point I'm not defending the law which was poorly crafted so that it did look like there was some some room for bad Behavior there and I'm not defending the way he descri he described it which was poorly done all right so you're being fooled by the fact that the law itself was poorly written and he did a bad job of explaining it but you will never find and I'll I'll go on record for this you will never find a real
[8:18]
for this you will never find a real human being not the governor not the people who wrote the law not anybody you will not find a real human being who says yes what we intended was even if a healthy baby was born and the mother had some health mental health issues it would be her choice and the doctor would go along with it to just kill the baby that would otherwise live nobody in the world ever held that opinion if you believe that then you're believing something ridiculous and you have to look at the other side to see how they were fooled the same well same way all right um you have to see how the how the other side was fooled the same way you were fooled in order to get the full context didn't know how how fooled you were all right you can't know that here's my point and and this is one of those things that people so don't want to
[9:20]
things that people so don't want to believe that they can't hear it and you're watching this happen um I of course don't know what anyone was
was thinking but if you come to me and say that a public figure just said that um aliens landed in his bathroom and he had a a fight with them and he killed three of them do you need to hear his exact words to know that that didn't happen you don't do you suppose your Idiot brother comes to you and I shouldn't use that example cuz my brother's probably watching in this Periscope suppose your idiot Uncle comes to you and your idiot Uncle says there's a unicorn in the closet and you say well you put a stuffed unicorn in the closet no no it's a real live unicorn and it's in the closet do you need to check the closet to know that there's no unicorn
[10:21]
closet to know that there's no unicorn in there you don't because it's so ridiculous on its surface that you should know it's not not true if you look at your uncle's exact words your uncle said exactly there is a unicorn in the closet but he may have misspoken you may have heard him wrong maybe he was confused about something so here's the point anytime you hear a story that somebody said something that is so outrageous you can't believe that anybody said it you should believe it didn't happen didn't happen with the Charlottes situation didn't happen with Candace Owens and it didn't happen with that um with the governor now what the governor did do is support a law that wasn't popular enough to even get passed so you can certainly disagree with the law You can disagree with what the the governor actually thought but if you believe that they thought they would
[11:22]
believe that they thought they would deliver healthy babies and then kill them uh because the mother had a a mental issue with that that was never true and you you you've now learned a lesson don't believe things that are ridiculous on their surface
um so some people are trying to make their case by referring to some other person you goell now I'm not telling you that there aren't bad people who have done bad things in the world what I'm telling you is a sitting Governor did not go in public and say let's kill Healthy Babies if long as the mother's upset about it never happened if you say there are such things as abortion doctors who have who have done abortions that you believe are
[12:28]
horrible hold on you're you're you're trying to win by by saying that because there is a monster called this gnell guy according to you that therefore the governor could also be one no that's not good thinking right there are people who are serial murderers if if tomorrow aanka Trump goes on television and says something that you believe sounded like she was confessing to be a serial killer what should be your first reaction okay here's here's a good example ianka Trump goes in public and says something that you're listening to the words and it sounds like she just admitted being a serial killer your first impression your first thought should be no that is so impossible that I must have heard it wrong it does not make your case better that there are such things as serial killer
[13:30]
killer the fact that serial killers exist does not make it likely that ianka Trump is a serial killer likewise the fact that horrible abortion doctors exist tells you nothing about the fact that a sitting Governor would say something so so completely career-ending in in public as if it's nothing all right so you I know a lot of you are having a lot of trouble with this because you bought into it and you don't want to admit how poorly um you don't want to admit how taken you were by the fake news all right so that's that's my lesson for the day so people are saying wow how naive of you all right so Annie I'm going to block you because you're not smart enough to be part of this Periscope all right if what you're saying is that the
[14:31]
right if what you're saying is that the governor really said I think let's kill a live baby that would be fine after it's born as long as the mother is upset and and claim some mental he health issues if you believe that really happened you're not smart enough to be on the Periscope so uh because you went personal you are now blocked all right if you hadn't been personal about it I wouldn't have blocked it um if it was just just an opinion that would have been fine but
um all right yeah uh we'll talk about math wh Ur another time I just want to keep this to one topic for now and that's all for now