Episode 419 Scott Adams: How to Spot a Hoax, Distinguish Good News From Bad and See the Future

Date: 2019-02-17 | Duration: 1:21:26

Topics

Do US authorities know which Mexican officials are owned by cartels? How hard would it be to find them? Do we already know? Can we confiscate corrupt Mexican officials bank accounts? Larry Elder’s observation about Jussie story Jussie Smollet story outcome is GOOD news Most famous example of racial hate…didn’t happen America is in better shape than we thought Jussie reporting is a DOUBLE HOAX , he never said MAGA hats Oops…he did interview and it’s right there…MAGA hats Changing your opinion is easy when your ego isn’t in the way How to identify a hoax - Whiteboard Anonymous source “Hard to believe” story Other people can’t see it An ordinary explanation fits the facts Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect Physicist noticed news always wrong about physics Realized he should question accuracy of ALL news Rule: The news is wrong about 85% of the time Applying current hoaxes to the above filter for hoaxes A look at how recent possible hoaxes fit the filter, or not My public statement that Charlottesville was a hoax, with reasons Media IGNORES my claim, won’t report my claim Media wants to perpetuate the hoax?  Why not report story? Fun Whack-A-Mole debunking experiment you can try at home FORGETING a sentence written on a piece of paper This is a repeatable experiment, simple sentence on paper Intelligence does NOT immunize anyone from cognitive dissonance Knowing it’s always POSSIBLE you’re wrong, helps You aren’t as invested in always being correct Highly intelligent people might have more cognitive dissonance Your ego is a perception, you can reprogram it Everything is an impression, a perception which can be changed

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## Transcript

[0:06]

bum bum bum bum bum bum bum hey everybody come on in here Annie I see you come on in here make sure you've got a beverage with you you early birds you get extra attention Jimmy Nancy ray um come on in here Oh
the news is sort of fun today isn't it it's fun news yeah all right I think it's time for your favorite part of the day I like to call it coffee with Scott Adams and specifically something called the simultaneous sip oh yeah grab your mug grab your glass your Stein your chalice your thermos if you will fill it with your favorite liquid I like coffee and join me for the simultaneous it delightful so let's talk about the

[1:07]

it delightful so let's talk about the news Kelsey Grammer was quoted talking about Roseanne Barr or just Roseanne I guess saying if we don't accept apologies how does anybody ever make amends I tweeted that around because I agree do you want to live in a world where an apology doesn't mean anything so think about that every time you don't accept an apology you create a world where apologies don't mean anything and that's going to come back to you so in my opinion we should be a little more gracious about letting people improve letting people clarify let people apologize when they've offended there's a there's some word thinking news mostly on the anti-trump side and word of

[2:08]

on the anti-trump side and word of thinking is my own phrase and it applies to where somebody's trying to turn a choice of words into a story when there's nothing really there except a choice of words so you see the news do this a lot they the current choice of words they're turning into a story is the president talking about his emergency declaration for the border security and he said when he was talking about it quote I didn't need to do it so now the anti-trump are saying what obviously he's lying about it at being an emergency because now he say he didn't need to do it well in context I think everybody understands what he meant meaning they had some other money funding options he could have fought it in a different way you don't need to do anything so they've they've turned didn't need to

[3:10]

so they've they've turned didn't need to do it into a criticism of the fact that it's declared an emergency when in fact we've all been educated that this emergency thing doesn't really mean that it's the only thing happening and it's the biggest emergency in the world and that you know the world must stop unless you do one thing about it all right that's not what an emergency is in this context it's just something very important and the president thought that taking care of it sooner was better than waiting he could have waited to deal with the emergency he had that option but he didn't want to wait so there's literally nothing to the story but they're trying to make a story out of a choice of words you see that a lot now on that same point should we be happy or unhappy to live in a world in which in order to generate news because there wasn't enough bad news apparently and in order to generate news they had to

[4:11]

order to generate news they had to manufacture a new out of a word choice that's a pretty good world right because if something had blown up that day nobody would be talking about a choice of words that wouldn't mean anything likewise Larry elder had a great observation about the Jessie small a incident and his observation was we should be reporting it as good news that the most notable example of racial discrimination especially in the in the violent category the most famous example of it at the moment apparently didn't even happen if you have to make up news about racial events or living in a much better world than maybe we were giving you know that that were that were understanding and I always go back to Mark Twain's famous quote that that we humans can't

[5:15]

famous quote that that we humans can't tell the difference between good news and bad now I made this I made the same same observation when the president was being accused of insulting black women so you remember there was about a week where the news cycle said hey the president keeps criticizing black women is it a coincidence could it be a coincidence that he's you know he always seems to be going after black women and his criticisms well first of all it's stupid because he goes after absolutely everybody all right and it doesn't take you you know much work to google anything about the president and see that he goes hard that literally everybody here's the good news the good news is that there were so many a highly successful black women in high-level jobs that they were part of the target set now that's nothing but good news the reason he was criticizing black women is

[6:17]

reason he was criticizing black women is that those particular black women are killing it in their careers they're absolutely slaying it in terms of success they had reached a level where the president of the united states was personally talking about them now it was a criticism but that's sort of what he does right if you're on the other team it was hard for me to see that as anything but the best news ever it's like if black women are killing it in their careers so once so that the president has to talk about him it's hard for me to see that as everything going to hell that looks pretty good to me all right so congratulations to black women who are doing great at the highest levels so don't diffuse your good news for you bad news there's there's the inland news we're talking about the El Chapo law that Ted Cruz has suggested where we take LJ pose capture drug money and use

[7:17]

take LJ pose capture drug money and use it for the wall but apparently there is no such thing as captured El Chapo drug money you know it's not like he had a banking account with that at Chase and they just froze it so nobody has any of El Chapo's money that money exists somewhere but here's the fun part does the United States know which Mexican government officials you're gonna love this point does the United States know which government officials in Mexico have accepted bribes from the cartels oh I'll bet we do don't you think because those bribes are probably going into something like bank accounts right the the mayor of some border town in Mexico that that mayor probably doesn't have any complicated ways to launder his money probably we could just look at their bank accounts and say okay he's the mayor is his

[8:18]

and say okay he's the mayor is his salary is this much he deposited this much probably a cartel situation so here's the question what would happen if we started seizing the bank accounts of Mexican government officials that we know we know to be taking bribes
that would sort of be Mexico paying for the wall wouldn't it you know it said the question is I'm not suggesting that's a good idea because there I'm sure there are complications there but I'm gonna ask the question I'll put it in the form of a question does the United States have a pretty good idea which government officials are on the take and if we do well maybe we ought to just flow to trial blue and see if we can freeze one of their bank accounts and see if we can get at it maybe just see if we can get at it because you probably don't need to do

[9:19]

because you probably don't need to do all of them you could just test it with one just pick a mayor pick a Chief of Police and just say alright you know we're gonna just test this out it's obvious you're taking bribes now we're gonna take your money because I don't know how easy it is to launder money these days unless you're a major player if you're just a chief of police or a or a mayor can you can you figure out how to launder money in the way that the government of the United States can't identify it I don't know so let's talk about hoaxes and how to identify them we're gonna go to the white board in a moment but I know you want to talk about the jussie Smollett incident which is a rare double hoax it's a double hoax most of you watching this periscope have been hoaxed by the jussie Smollett situation and what

[10:20]

jussie Smollett situation and what you're thinking when I said that was oh no you don't mean us you mean the people who believed in this story about the you know that the the people who believed that there were Trump supporters wearing Magga hats attacking him if you ever believe that story you're the one who got hoaxed right but did you know this male never made the claim that anybody attacking him was wearing magda hat did you know that did you know that Jesse small a never made the claim that anybody yelled this is mega country did you know that I didn't know it until this morning I had been reading social media and I believe the story was that Smollet had claimed that somebody wearing a Maggie hat yelled this is

[11:21]

wearing a Maggie hat yelled this is Maggie country and beat him up that never happened I was totally hoaxed now in my defense I wasn't really following the story so I hadn't read I don't know if I'd even read that either fold news reports I've just been watching it on social media and what people said about it and I did believe that I did believe that that was the story I thought that the news was reporting this Molay had said these people were wearing Maggie hats and yelling this is Maggie country never happened complete fake news so this is a double hoax the first hoax is on the Trump supporters because there was no story in which small a claimed Trump supporters attacked them it'll literally never happened there was a unnamed person a source CNN

[12:23]

there was a unnamed person a source CNN says he did no they did not if you believe the CNN claimed this male had claimed that they were wearing hats or that they yelled mega country go look for it and see if you can find it I don't think you'll find it because I looked for it and couldn't find it and I thought well what's happening here my my world is unraveling because I thought that was the story and then I looked for it and couldn't find it now you may have seen a pundit saying it I'm you know that's possible but in terms of news reporting they would have reported maybe a sources edit but I'll bet you they did not report and if they did send it to me if if there's anybody who's not a pundit who is who is let's say more identified with Dax Lee than news on CNN somebody says he did say it in his interview I don't think you can find a

[13:25]

interview I don't think you can find a link to that somebody's wrong here and now some of you are saying he said it on Good Morning America yeah send me a link of that because I saw him say it later
well isn't this interesting isn't this interesting see how many of you are living in a different reality now let me know let me say that the news I'm reading this morning is just clarifying that he never said it but is the news this morning correct or was it the movies before now people are saying he said it in ABC interview so let's let's test that see a ABC dude well actually why is it wasn't

[14:31]

ABC dude well actually why is it wasn't somebody tweet that at me right now and you can tweet me to the link and then we can find out for sure so tweet that at me oh here it is it's already here let's play it let's see let me see if I could play that for you now this would be kind of interesting right so those are people saying that he said it 100% and you could be right there are enough of you saying it that I'm starting to to assume that you must have heard it
so let's play it this is even better if it this is even better if he didn't say it maybe it's a triple hoax so this is a a this site called vulture February 14th

[15:35]

a this site called vulture February 14th they say Jessie Smollett details assault says attackers yelled that this is magnet country so vulture is reporting it I'm looking at the quote say you arrived home just seeing if it says you said I heard an empire and I don't answer to Empire my name is an empire I kept walking and then I heard Empire and word so I turned around and then I said you did you say that and then I said see the attackers mask and he said this is Maggie country and word interesting interesting so let me let me reverse what I just said yeah so

[16:35]

let me reverse what I just said yeah so I had just read an article that said the opposite before I got on here life so that so there might be a triple hoax going on here he didn't say it his manager did somebody saying well I just read the quote from vulture that says he sent it all reportedly his manager confirmed he heard it while he was on the phone during the attack could it be that small a was it's possible that he was reacting to what the manager said alright so the so this is fascinating because what as I heard the news that CNN was reporting that he had not that he had maybe not been attacked and that maybe it was being being investigated as a

[17:36]

it was being being investigated as a hoax [Music] I look to CNN to see the reporting of the corrected news and as dog jr. had said on internet we're waiting for CNN to say that the news was wrong and it was never a magazine but they never even mentioned the original mega reference and I kept looking in CNN for that and so I thought well why is the most obvious part of the story not there did you did anybody have that same experience you go to CNN you go oh what are they going to say about the fact that it had been claimed it was a maggot event and now it looks like it probably wasn't how did that how did they handle that and they simply didn't mention it and I thought to myself well why would that not mention it so then I went over to TMZ and on TMZ which was maybe the first one to report it or among the first on TMZ the way they reported it is that a source said that somebody yelled

[18:40]

that a source said that somebody yelled this is mega country but they clarified there was nothing about a hat so would you agree how many of you thought the story was that the two assaulters alleged assault errs had a hat what would you all agree that there were no red hats and that that part was never true he never claimed they were wearing a hat
the Rope was a pen tupple hoax alright so I think as so is so here's what we think we know so well we think we know is that there was some fake news that said that he had reported they were wearing a Maggie hat that part was always fake news so there was never a mega hat he did not report that in the beginning and he did not say it later

[19:41]

beginning and he did not say it later there was also the report about whether or not he's the one who said this is Maggie country but now you've confirmed by showing me the interview that in his interview with Good Morning America he did say that so if he did say that it is absolutely disgusting that CNN doesn't mention it alright if CNN gasps lettin us know nobody's gasoline like gas lighting anybody ever that's not a real thing let us talk about ways to identify a hoax now in my case there was a piece of information I didn't have so the information is that he gave an interview in which he specifically said he specifically made that claim that I hadn't heard yet it wasn't on CNN all right so here are some tips for identifying a hoax first thing we're going to say about that is that

[20:47]

somebody's saying they did have red hats and they know where they bought them I don't know you better check that fact so I'm not going to claim that there's science behind these tips I will claim that after a lifetime of watching hoaxes evolve that these seem to be useful ways to you know identify them in advance so let's talk about them they're not a hundred percent it's not like every one of these works every time but these are the the flags you should be looking at number one anonymous source if there's an anonymous source and it's about politics probably is wrong the this male original story about the attacker yelling this is mega country was originally an anonymous source so before you pointed me to the Good Morning America source which is not anonymous because he said it himself the anonymous source should not have been trusted alright so the first anonymous

[21:50]

trusted alright so the first anonymous source should not have been trusted second is is the story by its nature one of those my god I can't believe it kinds of stories and whenever you see that you should say to yourself okay on the surface the fact that this story is a hard to believe story probably makes it 85% likely to be untrue let me give you an example here's that here's a story in the news that on its surface feels like it's unlikely to be true the President of the United States is a Russian puppet all right now without knowing any information with with no evidence whatsoever it's somebody just told you that the president of United States is working for Russia there's an 85% chance that's false before you've heard any information because stories like that and by like

[22:50]

because stories like that and by like that I mean on the surface you say to yourself I don't think that's true before you've heard any evidence doesn't matter what the story is if your first reaction is I don't believe that you're right 85% of the time no matter what comes out later now there's a reason for that there's actually a you know a well documented effect the reason that something becomes national news is that it captures our attention the things that capture our attention are the things that are most unusual and out of character the most weird
hard to believe stories they're the ones that rise to the top because they're so interesting and and those stories if you were to track them over time you would find that they're almost always wrong yeah so the fact that it was

[23:51]

yeah so the fact that it was unbelievable on its surface probably makes it wrong here's another one Hillary Clinton sold our valuable uranium to our biggest military foe Russia now when you hear those story your first impression should be that doesn't sound right I don't think so and sure enough there have been no charges ever filed about that so chances are it was never there was never anything to her from the beginning again it's an 85 percent rule there's a good chance it's true 15 percent that's a solid that's a solid chance that it's true but your first reaction should be if it sounds ridiculous probably not true all right this one is my favorite one other people can see it it's invisible to other people now it kind of depends how many other people if a million people can see something and

[24:52]

a million people can see something and three people can't well I'd go with a million but if half of the people in the room can see something clear clear as the nose on their face and the other half are looking at exactly the same stuff and they're saying I don't see it it's probably the people who didn't see it
it you should always bet on the people who don't see it let's take chemtrails do we have any any sources on the record to talk about chemtrails I don't think so right is it hard to believe is it hard to believe that the government is doing secret things with planes to gas the citizens for something well that would be really hard to believe which means it's probably not true and others can't see it in other words when I look at the chemtrails story as I go I don't see it doesn't doesn't look real to me

[25:57]

alright also is there an ordinary explanation that fits the facts better now one ordinary explanation for things is that it didn't happen all right so if you look at the Jessie's male situation it would be remarkable if he had really been attacked by two random people yelling this is mega country not impossible right there's nothing about that that's impossible well when you first heard it didn't you have the I don't know about that reaction well wasn't your first reaction about jussie Smollett I'm not so sure right probably it was the ordinary explanation is people make stuff up the ordinary explanation is well that didn't happen that's always the most ordinary explanation is of the news is wrong how often is the the news wrong somebody

[26:57]

often is the the news wrong somebody says I keep mispronouncing his name I don't really care I'm not I'm not sure he's earned a correctly pronounced name has he earned that I'm not so sure all right and then there's the the gell-mann gell-mann amnesia effect how many of you have heard of that it's one of the most important things to know and it works like this and I will read I don't have any more so the Gelman amnesia effect has to do with a famous physicist named gell-mann and he noticed that when he watched the news about physics an area that he understood the best the news was always wrong but as soon as he turned the page to something he wasn't an expert on let's say the palestinian situation or you know anything else he couldn't tell if any other news was wrong but whenever he looked at news about physics he could

[27:58]

he looked at news about physics he could tell and it was pretty much always wrong so he finally asked himself why do I forget that lesson that the only thing I know about is coincidentally always wrong why would I believe the rest of it what would make me think the rest of the news is any more accurate than that one little slice that I can determine with certainty is wrong this is very important and I gave you an example yesterday so yesterday there was an article in the publication called The Verge the ERG there was an article about that that included something about me the article it was about carpe Noctem and his mean getting getting retweeted by the President and in the story they referred to me as a far-right personality which is completely wrong I'm left of birdy I say so often I have

[29:00]

I'm left of birdy I say so often I have an audience that is mostly you know writer senator but that's different from what I am so the one the one piece of information in this article that I can validate with it beyond any doubt is their description of me and it was wrong so that whenever I see an article about me I can tell how wrong it is and it's it's wrong so often it's just laughable but if you're not a subject of the news and you don't have you don't have an expertise that you can validate whether the news is correct or not you you don't have any way of understanding how inaccurate the news is all right so the first thing you have to know about the gell-mann amnesia is that you should assume that the news is wildly inaccurate often that's the lesson it's wildly inaccurate often that should be your starting point

[30:00]

often that should be your starting point so let's say you hear a a piece of leaders and you say to yourself and you say to yourself well let's let's go down some examples we're gonna take a little detour here are there any potential stories that you would like to test against the filter is there anything that you'd like me to run through the filter to determine whether it looks more like a hoax or more like a real story let's take let's take pizza gate or Sandy Hook yeah so pizza gate Sandy Hook I think they pretty much all fail these fail these stories the pizza gate story was primarily based on a series of weird coincidences that were hard to explain and I might I wouldn't want to add another thing here well what

[31:01]

want to add another thing here well what would be the most common explanation for the pizza gate coincidences that seem to indicate there was some massive pedophile ring the most common explanation would be it's just a bunch of coincidences that people have picked out and if you had seen the whole situation you would see that it's just a situation with a lot of coincidences the moon landing all right the moon landing
there was no anonymous source is it hard to believe that we landed on the moon well that doesn't seem hard to believe because we're sending stuff into space all the time we've got satellites you know we watched a video even if you think the video is faked nobody has none of the astronauts have commenced and you know broken ranks and said how we faked that there were a lot of people who would have been involved and it would be weird if none of them

[32:02]

and it would be weird if none of them said it the most ordinary explanation is that it was just what you saw that would be the ordinary one it would be extraordinary if we faked it and got that would be extraordinary somebody said 9/11 as an inside job well so we don't have any I don't think we have any anonymous sources involved in that if we do don't believe them the hard to believe story if you would it be hard to believe that the United States flew two two jets into its own assets meaning something in the United States killed 3,000 people just to give us an excuse for war that would be extraordinary what would be a more reasonable explanation the most reasonable explanation is it's just what you saw the most reasonable explanation somebody saying jet fuel of melting steel beams so it's funny you

[33:05]

melting steel beams so it's funny you would ask that because yesterday somebody was tweeting around a picture from the California forest fires in the California and forest fires pictures in the aftermath showed a gigantic steel beam that had melted in just the ordinary fire and somebody said jet fuel can't melt beams and no Geoff fuel here it was just fired and melted this beam so the most ordinary explanation is that it's exactly what you thought and the planes in it it's also the the other people can't see it part now building seven stands on its own building seven does not have to be explained by whether there was a terror attack or not a terror attack because there's the the essence of that conspiracy theory is that building 7 was brought down because there might have been something in there

[34:05]

there might have been something in there that somebody didn't want to see I don't know some that anyway there's nothing about that story that sells me on it but I couldn't rule out anything you do
well here's the thing if you have engineers who say everything made sense and you have other engineers who say this could never have happened I would believe the engineers who say it makes sense that everything could have happened just the way it was reported the COO oh that the direct energy weapons yeah the directed energy weapon you know the the acoustic weapon that was allegedly used at the embassies that's a good example of something that it would be amazing if that were true which makes it almost certainly not true but

[35:06]

it almost certainly not true but building seven lends credence to one and two not really not really I think building seven has to be its own questioned I need to watch more YouTube well I'm not saying that conspiracy theories are not persuasive that we are all in a simulation hoax well that we are all in a simulation argument is based on statistics and and math ah sorry I got terrible allergies today did you see the story about the AI group I guess you called to start up so Elon Musk and Sam open and somebody else Peter teal maybe they can't remember our backing and AI startup which produced such good artificial intelligence that it could write prose that you can't distinguish from a person and here's the fun part of the story it was so good

[36:07]

fun part of the story it was so good that they decided not to release it because it was dangerous meaning that they didn't know what was going to happen to humanity if they released an AI that was so powerful it looked just like people that is a scary scary thing and fun at the same time but sort of tells you where things are going all right we talked about Jessie some more day have you tried affirmations on your allergies my allergies will only last for a few hours in the morning and then I'll take care of them III do have meds for and I just take them after I do this sometimes the meds yeah I do I take well you don't need to be know the details but I don't have allergies in the afternoon typically all right um

[37:08]

that sounds a little fake don't know which one you're talking about oh how about Danny Williams Clinton's black son doesn't test the visit past the hoax test well first of all would it be an amazing story if Bill Clinton had had fathered somebody out of wedlock not really right that would be sort of normal so I would say that the the the Danny story is more credible than most given especially that he looks exactly like Bill Clinton which would be a weird coincidence cue definitely hoax
yeah so I would say the 9/11 as a as a false flag attack I would call that a hoax but building seven that's its own story and I would say that's well baby

[38:09]

story and I would say that's well baby you know we may have had to destroy something for some reason that we don't understand but I would say that's far from far from proven Oh what about the theory that Justin what's his last name
Justin the Prime Minister of Canada what about the theory that Castro is his father I would say the odds of that are very good if you've seen the pictures of a young Castro and a young Justin why am I forgetting his last name they look like the same person justin trudeau yeah if you see Justin Trudeau as a teenager and then a picture of Fidel Castro as a teenager they're kind of the same person the Obamas birth certificate Obama is a

[39:10]

the Obamas birth certificate Obama is a citizen but there I do not rule out that there might be some something unusual about his birth certificate but I do rule out any notion that he's not an American citizen
Seth rich well let's look at the filter do we have an anonymous source about Seth rich we do not is it a hard to believe story it is it's pretty hard to believe that Hillary Clinton ordered a hit on on an American citizen especially one of her own people that's hard to believe all right others can't see it correct there are tons of people who have looked at all the same information and said now that doesn't look convincing so if half of the country can't see it that should tell you something is there an ordinary explanation that

[40:12]

is there an ordinary explanation that fits the facts yes he got killed by somebody who had a reason but it wasn't the reason was not robbery or he got killed because of her attempted robbery but the killer didn't want to wait around after the shot and ran away
fits the it definitely fits more likely a hoax than not
so whenever you're saying to yourself so if that's not a real story then why did this happen if the answer to all of those questions is I don't know could be a reason somebody says the Scott is just naive I'm gonna start blocking people

[41:14]

naive I'm gonna start blocking people for calling me naive I could certainly be wrong and I could certainly be under informed but naive is really sort of personal right so if you say there's something I don't know and then you tell me what that is I would say that's a fair comment but if you're saying I'm naive that's sort of a surrender so that that's sort of a tell that you don't have an argument if you say but Scott look at this link I'd say well maybe you have something I'll look at the link if you say Scott your logic is wrong and here's why I'd say well maybe you have something but when you just say Scott you're naive it means you don't have anything all right so up your game can we call you an apologist apologist get blocked people who call me that explain verses

[42:15]

who call me that explain verses infinities may be false by he's a sentences and born here or not I'm just saying that there may be some issue with the birth certificate which doesn't necessarily mean it's fake but there may be an irregularity involved there that doesn't mean anything probably there are a lot of public records that have the irregularities
somebody says young Fidel does not look like Justin what was that are the pictures of them side by side hoax pictures because they might be which would be funny yeah if the pictures I've seen of a young Castro and the young justin trudeau are not real pictures you know if they're altered or there's somebody else and I will change my opinion do you think Julian Assange

[43:18]

opinion do you think Julian Assange would have mentioned Seth rich if there was nothing there that's a good question you can't rule out that that Assange was trying to redirect our attention so is there a reason that Assange which would suggest the Seth rich was the source when Seth rich was not the source is there any explanation of why he would do that and the answer is yeah to protect his actual source there is a reason I'm not suggesting that he did that I'm just saying there's a reason and it would be sort of a normal reason right it's pretty normal to say hey look over there that would be just a totally normal reason when does my book come out probably October WMDs in Iraq so we had we had biased sources people who had

[44:21]

we had biased sources people who had something to gain by telling us there were WMD in Iraq we had it wasn't hard to believe so it was a believable story would others see it while others didn't have access to all the information so that one doesn't count is there an ordinary explanation that fits the facts yes there was the ordinary explanation is that the government was lying to you what is more ordinary than the government is lying to you it's the most ordinary explanation you know what about the gell-mann amnesia where you imagine that the news is accurate on the things you don't understand well that one's that one's sort of applicable because didn't you look at all the information about WMD in Iraq and say well I don't know but they seem to know and why would this be wrong and the answer is the news is wrong about everything

[45:21]

about everything if you thought that the one thing the news was right about was WMD in Iraq that would be the hardest thing to know so we should have we should have had her antenna up because there was so much certainty about something you couldn't be certain about somebody got temporarily blocked from commenting and that was not anything I did is Russia gate the biggest hoax in history well maybe yeah the Russia thing certainly fixes fits the hoax scenario is Michelle Obama really a man no

[46:25]

somebody is talking about so Joe Rogan got a lot of heat recently for his interview with Jack Dorsey and that caused a lot of people to be mad at him in general the thing I love about Joe Rogan is that he's not afraid of anything you know you see this is you see it in his career you see it in his hobbies you see it in every part of his being he's just less afraid of stuff than you are
are he's certainly less afraid of stuff than I am he does stuff that other people wouldn't do because he's just less afraid and it serves him well now when you are less afraid to say things less afraid to put yourself out there with an opinion you're gonna create a body of work that includes some stuff where you were wrong you you you notice that in the beginning of this periscope right so if you put yourself out there as I do it comes with the territory that you're

[47:25]

it comes with the territory that you're going to be publicly and embarrassingly wrong on a fairly regular basis so if you say that he's crazy or wrong about some particular topic or not you might be right you might be wrong but it doesn't change what we love about Joe Rogan what we love about him is that when you see his opinion it's gonna be honest right how many people do you watch in any public sense that when he when he or she expresses an opinion you at least know it's honest right could be wrong could be right but at least it's an actual opinion that's actually kind of rare and I would say that Rogen's popularity is completely earned he earned it by putting putting himself out there taking the risk being wrong when he's wrong you know correcting what he needs to correct he apologizes when he needs to apologize

[48:27]

he apologizes when he needs to apologize but he sort of he lives a a less risk-averse life than most of us and you're just seeing the natural output from their gulf of tonkin yeah that's a good example of the government lying to his people microdose eh I don't know about that JFK assassination conspiracy well the JFK thing is really sort of a special case because it would the the event the event that we know happened is so unusual that it's already into you know hard to believe category even though we know I happened but um there

[49:28]

though we know I happened but um there were enough people who wanted to kill Kennedy who had the means I mean the the thing that was different about Kennedy is so many people wanted to kill him you know LBJ may be CIA maybe Hoover you know maybe the Russians so I would say the probable explanation for the JFK mur is that it was Oswald working on his own that's the probable explanation but I would say in this one case you couldn't completely rule out any other involvement you really couldn't I see people asking me to focus my talents on debunking charlottesville I am doing just that so do you remember yesterday I said I'm a sort of a public figure and I'm gonna say an outrageous thing and watch it and not be reported in the news and so I did I did this experiment right in front of you and so far so good and

[50:28]

in front of you and so far so good and what I said was that a major news story that has been reported as fact for three years meaning that the the idea that the president called white supremacists fine people that that fake news I'm gonna call out as a hoax in public you know on periscope and that you could watch as that is not reported in any other anti-trump you know it might be reported in some conservative thing but watch how it's ignored by the anti-trump media and ask yourself is there any other situation in which a public figure somebody who's at least as public as I am could call a major news story that's considered a fact could call that a hoax and give reasons and it's not reported it's pretty unusual and so I told you I was gonna do it right in front of you I'd say it again the Charlottesville story is a hoax the way it has been reported on CNN and

[51:30]

way it has been reported on CNN and MSNBC because the president was obviously if you if you'd step back a little bit it's obvious that when he said they were fine people on both sides he meant both sides of the statue question and indeed there are fine people on both sides of the statue question but there are no fine people who were marching with torches and saying anti-semitic things so to imagine that the president was talking about that group is false it's ridiculous it's defining our it defines the Trump derangement syndrome it's the primary element of Trump derangement syndrome so here's here's somebody saying so there weren't Nazis in Charlottesville do you have bad reading comprehension Wayne what Wayne comes in he goes so so are you saying there were no Nazis in Charlottesville no Wayne I said the

[52:32]

Charlottesville no Wayne I said the opposite of that notice how you can't actually hear it so the people who were experiencing cognitive dissonance when I tell them you know it's sort of obvious that he was referring to both sides of the statue question the first time you hear that if you're like Wayne and you're thinking no I've been hearing for three years that he was talking about the Nazis that I can't be wrong about that if that happened to you you saw wave just get triggered into cognitive dissonance now the Telfer cognitive dissonance is that you construct a world that tries to make sense without you being wrong after you've been proven wrong so wayne is so obviously and clearly wrong because once you hear the explanation it's obvious he didn't mean the the nazis i mean the president wasn't talking about the nazis being good people as soon as you hear it you

[53:34]

good people as soon as you hear it you you're triggered into cognitive dissonance if you've been listening mostly to that as reported as fact for three years so imagine you're waiting and you heard that it was a fact that the president called the nazis fine people for three years you've been told that's the fact and then you hear me tell you in thirty seconds why is a ridiculous non fact and you know as soon as you hear me say it you know my explanation rings true right you can feel it you're like oh shoot yes it is obvious he was talking about both sides of the statue question why is it obvious cuz he clarified it when asked about it and he was very clear no i'm i disavow those guys completely i'm not talking about them being good people now has this president ever backed away from a controversial opinion before it's not something he does if he believed that there were fine people in that group of marching anti-semites he would have said

[54:36]

marching anti-semites he would have said so because remember there's somebody else here says you're grasping you're grasping so that's another person who's triggered into cognitive dissonance and you could watch it here in real time so Wayne you you have something to struggle with you have to struggle with why let's look at the hoax identification here let's take Charlottesville our center an example so there weren't any anonymous sources involved it was a public event is it is it hard to believe that a sitting president decided to consciously praise racists were marching against his own family they were chanting against Trump's own family and do you believe that he went on television for the people who hate his family and said oh there's some good people in the group who hate my family and hate it all you know all people who

[55:38]

and hate it all you know all people who are not white white I guess is that likely no that would be the most hard to believe story of all time so that should have been your first tip Wayne Wayne when you saw that tip as soon as you saw the story you should have said to yourself well that doesn't sound right [Music] [Laughter] then there's the the others can't see it most of the people on this periscope can't see what you see Wayne we're looking at exactly the same story and we don't see it if there's somebody who sees it and somebody who can't see it and you're looking you know you're looking at the same stuff generally you want to believe the people who couldn't see it is there an ordinary explanation that fits the facts well yes there is the most ordinary explanation is that he was talking about both sides of the statue question what would be more ordinary than talking about the topic exactly the way he always talked about

[56:40]

exactly the way he always talked about the topic that's the most ordinary explanation yeah I was I was talking about both sides of the statue question and then when you asked me I clarified it totally ordinary right then there's the Gelman amnesia effect Wayne if you were famous as I am or if you were an expert on the topic that the news covers you would understand how often the news is wrong Wayne you may be hypnotized by the news into thinking that they're usually right oh yes sometimes they're wrong but they're usually right that's reverse Wayne turn that upside down the news is usually wrong the news is usually wrong how do I know that just talk to anybody who is an expert on whatever the topic is that the news is talking about if you find somebody who has personally involved somebody who's an expert on that somebody who's actually the subject of the reporting estimate how how

[57:42]

of the reporting estimate how how accurate the news is it's wrong about 85 85 percent of it time so Wayne you fell for a hoax and you're experiencing some cognitive dissonance right now and so you're saying things like are you saying there were no Nazis there that's your tell because clearly nobody said that you're actually imagining something that didn't happen because that's what cognitive dissonance does it if it changes your argument until you can be right about something so you're trying to be right about the attendance of neo-nazis never was part of the question everybody saw it on TV we all agree that there were Nazis there Wayne I want to tell you about an interesting experiment I did that maybe you can try at home and it goes like this have you ever have you gotten in a debate with somebody where it's sort of like whack-a-mole and they'll make a claim and then you'll debunk it and then once you've debunked their claim and let's let's say there's a link and it's just it's just clearly

[58:44]

a link and it's just it's just clearly debunked what does the person you're arguing with do when you are thoroughly debunked their best point about a topic do they change their mind no never what they do is they go to their second point if you can debunk that they'll go to their third point and if you can debunk that their fourth etc eventually they'll run out of points once you have debunked so all of somebody's points let's say there are five good points of whatever their opinion is and you don't bonk all five what do they do and I'm wondering if you've noticed do they change their mind because they had five points and you debunk them in order they do not they start over on the top they they start at the top of the list as if you hadn't ever talked about it and it was only like five minutes ago and they just go back to the top and you go what's going on here I just did bumped that so I did an experiment the other day and I'm not

[59:46]

experiment the other day and I'm not gonna give you any details of it I'm just gonna describe it in a gentle way I was in that situation where I was going through the five and then they were just repeating and I said I'm gonna try an experiment and the experiment goes like this I'm gonna write down what I say about the first item on the list and it's gonna be on this piece of paper I'm gonna show you what I wrote down I'm gonna make you repeat it out loud so that you know what I wrote down and then I'm going to say I'm gonna make you forget what's on this piece of paper just one sentence just one sentence on the topic I'm gonna make you forget this within two minutes and I fold it up and I put it down and then I go through the list and I go debunk this debunk this debunk this and then of course they looped around to the top of the list and I said wait why are you talking about this first point because it's already been debunked and the person I'm talking to looked at me as though they didn't know what I was talking about and then I

[1:00:47]

know what I was talking about and then I took the piece of paper and I said you remember two minutes ago I said I was gonna make you forget what's on this piece of paper and I held up the piece of paper and the person looked at it like they'd never seen it before and I said watch this I'm gonna do it again read this read this piece of paper and I'm gonna make you forget it within two minutes put it down took them back through the five reasons the same as last time all five reasons were debunked person came back to the top one reiterated the top reason and I said did you see what happened do you remember that I just told you I was gonna make this you forget what's on this piece of paper and I could do it repeatedly I can do it as many times as we go through the cycle and I said what's on the piece of paper and the person couldn't tell me and keep in mind that what was on the paper piece of paper was very simple it wasn't the type of thing you can't remember for two minutes and then I said watch me do it a third time I went

[1:01:47]

watch me do it a third time I went through it a third time and I said what's on the piece of paper and the person couldn't remember and then I did it a fourth time four times they couldn't remember when they got to the top of the list what was on the paper now I have imagined that I could reproduce this test before I've imagined it but I never actually did it and you have to do it with an actual piece of paper because if you do it with the words I've tried it with words and it doesn't work and I'll and the way you do it with words is you'll say we just talked about this and I already and I already debunked it and the person will say no you didn't we didn't talk about this and you didn't debunk it they say okay well let me do it now now you remember right so you don't have to say this again because now we've agreed that that's debunked we can talk about your next point you can get people to say yes but when they circle back to that first point they will swear to you that you

[1:02:49]

point they will swear to you that you never had that conversation and it will be as if it's fresh and there was their beginning the conversation they knew so if you don't write it down and you don't show it to them and you don't make them read it out loud and you don't call it out and say I'm gonna make you forget this in two minutes fold it up put it aside and then take it out in two minutes to say look I made you forget that just like I said try it at home it's amazing you know you'll I think you'll know when you reach this situation now as a trained hypnotist it's not surprising to me it it played out exactly the way I imagined it would play out to you it will be mind-boggling like you won't believe what you're seeing right in front of you and of course it only works if you really can debunk somebody's points if you can't debunk them then maybe the other person is just right who trained you well I'm a trained hypnotist I took a hypnosis

[1:03:50]

trained hypnotist I took a hypnosis class when I was in my 20s it was a course and hadn't learned to be hypnotist
you know what I'll bet I can do this live you know I'll think about doing this I'm going to be taking more I'm going to be taking more Collins there's there's a feature that needs to be fixed on this guest feature within periscope so if I invite guests in when I'm in that mode and you have to be in that mode before you start the periscope so if you start the periscope with guests being invited you can't also tweet it to Twitter so people don't know that the periscopes happening so that you know I only get half as much traffic when I when I invite guests so as soon as that's handled then I'll invite more

[1:04:51]

that's handled then I'll invite more guests yeah I can definitely do this live so the way I'd do it live is I would say here's my debunking I'm gonna write it right here and and I'll keep it here right right behind me and then I'll say I'm gonna make you forget this while people are watching I'll write it on the board and I'll say watch I'm gonna make you forget this one sentence here it ever happened and then I'll do it right in front of you it'll be amazing you won't even believe it I swear to god you will you will think that I'm working with somebody that I know or something you will completely not believe that I'm really doing it so we did we discussed small a already at the start schedule it so we know the day or time I'm not that well organized
can you give a concrete example what topic yes let's say let's say Russia

[1:05:57]

topic yes let's say let's say Russia collusion so somebody says so somebody says it's obvious that the president was colluding with Russia so you say what would be your evidence and they'll say well man afford did something or you know one of these other players did something and you'll say would you agree that they are not the president they'll say well yes and then you go to point number two but Russia they're trolls were interfering with the election well do you agree that there's no evidence tying that to the president well yes I do
do but there's more evidence so you can go right through the list and when you're done and you've debunked all of them as not relevant to the central point the claim that President himself was colluding when he gets the point they will start back up with Manafort and and you will once again say but Manafort was doing his own thing and this does not

[1:06:58]

doing his own thing and this does not have any any connection to the president that has been demonstrated so that would be that would be one so you could write that on the board I could write Paul Manafort did his own thing not related to the president I just write it down take them through the arguments and at the end they'll come back to Manta for and you'll say well you forgot it you forgot that one do you think people that do this are stupid no that's the interesting part your your your reflex when I talk about this is to assume that I'm talking about dumb people right I'm that's the normal thing you think wow these people are so dumb they can't remember what you said a minute ago they you know unfortunately intelligence is completely unrelated to what I'm talking about and in fact you could argue that intelligent people are more likely to experience negative dissonance because they get a

[1:08:00]

negative dissonance because they get a little more let's say a little more invested in their own opinion so it's harder for them to imagine that they could be wrong if you're dumb and somebody corrects you you probably say to yourself well I'm dumb I probably got that wrong I'll just change my mind I think dumb people are far more likely to just say yeah I've been dumb ten times this morning already so the odds of me being dumb on this or well pretty good I'll just change my opinion smart people are more likely to argue from cognitive dissonance in my that's in my experience I will not claim that as a scientific truth could it be done to you yes so somebody said could the same experiment be done to me and in theory yes because there's nothing that I'm aware of that would make me extra immune to it the the only thing that I maybe have as an Armour against that is that I

[1:09:02]

have as an Armour against that is that I I assume I could be wrong all the time so I try to keep with me the assumption that I could be very wrong and by the way those of you who missed the first part of this periscope got to see it in real time I made a I made a a clear statement of fact that was completely wrong and the commenters pointed it out and you saw my reaction in real-time my reaction in real-time is Oh a bunch of people that disagree with something I'm positive is true I'm gonna check and it didn't take more than thirty seconds for someone to send me a link that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was wrong one minute ago completely wrong about a key fact so I think I can demonstrate that you've seen it live that I respond to you know I respond to new information by

[1:10:04]

you know I respond to new information by changing my mind and that I went into it and you saw it in real time right you watched me do it you watched me go from complete certainty to whoa new information okay I'm open to that and then changed my mind right in front of you so if you can't do that
you shouldn't trust your own if you haven't watched yourself change your opinion as as markedly as I just watched it and you all watched it right in front of you if you don't have that experience with yourself I don't know if you can trust your own opinions can people be trained to see being wrong as positive I think they can they can be trained to see being wrong as not not a damage to who they are in other words they can get their ego out of it which is just as good Engineers do it wrong is useful

[1:11:10]

good Engineers do it wrong is useful yeah I think it is useful to be wrong because every time you're wrong and you learn it you learn something about the limitations of your own perceptions and that's good
yeah I think cognitive dissonance happens when your ego is conflated with who you are if you imagine that your sense of your ego is actually the person you are and your ego and you are basically the same person you're likely to have more cognitive dissonance I think because you would more likely want to redefine the world than to imagine that you were wrong about something I live a largely ego free existence despite all evidence to the contrary because as many of you have pointed out Scott you act arrogant and what's the other word narcissistic and the answer

[1:12:11]

other word narcissistic and the answer is of course I do because when that's useful I ramp up by my ego and when my ego would be a problem I intentionally ramp it down you saw it again in the beginning of this periscope the moment people said no you're wrong I took my ego offline he actually saw it in real time when I was when I started the periscope was I not full of my usual arrogance and self-confidence if you want to call it that you saw in live right you saw it in real time you saw me come in with my normal level of overconfidence that's intentional if you're gonna do this sort of thing you need to ramp up your confidence a little higher than it is normally because the audience doesn't want to see you lacking confidence it's not a fun show so it's a tool I ramped up my confidence to do these periscopes the moment there was a there was a

[1:13:13]

the moment there was a there was a factual question in play as in did I get a fact wrong you watched me in real time take my ego offline I just took it offline and said maybe let's look at it all right I allowed that I could be wrong and in less than a minute determined that I was completely wrong completely changed my opinion in real time right in front of you now the answer the question is do I feel bad first about being so wrong nope because my ego is offline my ego and to that question I did I could be wrong you know being wrong is not something that's going to make me go cry I mean I've been wrong a lot I am that's it is it a humble brag though yes yes it is but somewhat unintentional in this particular case how do you not feel embarrassment practice so some of it is

[1:14:15]

embarrassment practice so some of it is practice I have embarrassed myself in public more of them any of you ever will and the more you do it the more you have this experience I embarrass myself terribly yesterday huh yet my coffee tastes exactly the same you know you sort of realize that it's just all in your head and then a day later your body is the same your life is the same most embarrassments don't make any difference and you learn that over time it just takes a long time the other part of that is putting yourself in embarrassing situations so you have to practice embarrassment and practice changing your ego by putting yourself in situations where you have to do that.i one of the things I do is I try to be involved in at least something that I'm unambiguously bad at at the moment I'm trying to learn to play the drums I am unambiguously bad at music so the

[1:15:20]

I am unambiguously bad at music so the entire experience of trying to learn the drums is one of ego management where I have to I have to learn that I'm genuinely bad at this and then do it anyway and then you know kind of live in a world in which everything I do in this realm is embarrassing and it doesn't matter now the other good thing for managing your ego is mushrooms now I'm not recommending anybody take any
any I'm not a doctor and you should not take recommendations from cartoonists on periscope but it is nonetheless true that having taken mushrooms only once in my life but it changes your entire view of reality because when you take mushrooms you experience a reality in which all the physical stuff is the same you know I would still know what a coffee mug is I would still know why you

[1:16:21]

coffee mug is I would still know why you why it exists I understand my environment but under mushrooms you see it as a completely new thing and it helps you understand that your ego is is a perception and that you can you can reimagine your entire existence and everything still works so if you don't like the way you see your existence you can actually just reprogram it until it looks different to you and you learn that if you if you've used a hallucinogen and you never you never unlearn that it's something you learn from the one experience and you never lose that knowledge the knowledge that everything you see is an impression it's a it's an interpretation of your world and you can just reinterpret it somebody says I have fermented mushrooms in a jar I'm scared to try them I don't recommend anybody try mushrooms on their own from some unknown bag of mushrooms it's some

[1:17:22]

some unknown bag of mushrooms it's some dangerous stuff
did it scare you I was afraid of the mushrooms before taking them just because of the unknown but once taken it was nothing but literally the best day of my life and I say that often but it bears repeating the one time I took mushrooms it was the best day of my life
but I don't recommend it alright it gives you ego well that was not my experience my experience was that it diminished it how old was I I was 21

[1:18:28]

Scott but what if you had a bad trip you know what's interesting I believe there is such a thing as bad trips I will tell you that anecdotally I've never heard of anybody having one on mushrooms that doesn't mean that it's safe and you should not take that as as evidence that it is likewise I know quite a few people who have done or continue to do LSD and I've never actually heard of somebody having a bad experience I'm sure it's true that clearly there must be people who have had bad experiences but it doesn't seem common that's all I know for sure I can say for sure it's not common I can't tell you what the actual risk is why not do it again if best that's a good question why would I not do it again and the answer is there's always some risk and I believe that the benefits one can get from hallucinogens come primarily the

[1:19:31]

from hallucinogens come primarily the first time I think it's an 8020 rule the the first time you do a hallucinogen you get 80% of the lifetime benefits because you've experienced life through a different filter maybe for the first time and that changes everything about how you process your life from that point on and you realize that there's a different way to look at stuff that is also valid I wouldn't get that benefit if I did it again I would just have a good time and it might be some extra risk involved so I wouldn't maybe not
not want to have some extra risk just for a good time
your uncle climbed a statue on LSD and broke both legs that's why you don't want to do it alone just one reason all right I saw a guy

[1:20:36]

just one reason all right I saw a guy who was supposedly stuck for life after thinking he's an orange yeah it does seem to me that there are real risks I just don't know what they are do you think Zuckerberg and micro doses
Trump uses his ego as a tool that is correct that is correct he dials his ego up and down as he needs it
now the only loosened agenda I've ever done is mushrooms one time when I was 21 that's it all right I'm gonna end right here and I will talk to you all later