Episode 434 Scott Adams: LoserThink in the News, From Warmbier to Black Friends, More

Date: 2019-03-01 | Duration: 1:05:37

Topics

“LoserThink” is something even smart people can experience Unproductive thinking by otherwise smart people Van Jones went to CPAC, gave prison reform credit to Republicans
Glenn Greenwald’s observations about Cohen testimony Cohen crushed several fake news stories News is quiet about 2 years of pumping out total BS Joe Walsh LoserThink tweets about Otto Warmbier Truth Filter Suggestion: True news will be on ALL 4 outlets Breitbart, FOX, CNN, MSNBC Whiteboard #1: Goals of the Dems, versus Systems of the GOP @HeadSnipe011 is a must follow Twitter account He reports official government press releases You’ll see the news that the news doesn’t cover Gen IV Nuclear Power is designed to NOT melt down Some designs even use nuclear waste for their fuel Waste from older designs can power Gen IV Bill Gates decisions are based on science His top 10 for THIS YEAR…includes Gen IV Whiteboard #2: Covering the cost of universal healthcare Cutting costs by 9% to cover current uncovered Providing the cost of coverage by expense reduction Is the cost of universal healthcare 32 trillion dollars…or zero? Cost estimates swing from saving money to 32 trillion How can experts be THAT far apart?

I fund my Periscopes and podcasts via audience micro-donations on Patreon. I prefer this method over accepting advertisements or working for a "boss" somewhere because it keeps my voice independent. No one owns me, and that is rare. I'm trying in my own way to make the world a better place, and your contributions help me stay inspired to do that.
See all of my Periscope videos here…
https://www.pscp.tv/ScottAdamsSays/1nAKERDOwylGL
Find my WhenHub Interface app here…
https://interface.whenhub.com

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

## Transcript

[0:14]

Bo hey everybody come on in here grab your beverage because it's time for coffee with Scott Adams I'm Scott Adams and if you're prepared you have your cup your chalice your Stein your therm you have filled it with your favorite liquid and you are prepared to enjoy the unparalleled pleasure that I like to call the simultaneous sip ready join me for the simultaneous
sip now if you've had the simultaneous sip
sip before and you don't make the sound right after well you missing something let me tell you that if you just let it out just let it out cuz you wouldn't have a beverage you didn't want to drink so you know you enjoy it let's talk about the news my

[1:15]

enjoy it let's talk about the news my favorite stupid news is you remember the story about the man who was hiking and he was attacked by a mountain lion and he wrestled that mountain lion and strangled it with his own bare hands do you remember that story that was totally true true right well it turns out it wasn't so much of a mountain lion as it was more of a mountain kitten cuz apparently it was only 24 lb and it was basically a kitten he strangled a kitten now it was 24 lb to put that in context that is double the size of my last cat my house cat now my last house cat was pretty big so I'm not I'm not saying the 24 lbs of a fighting animal is
is nothing but it was a little exaggerated that's all a little exaggerated I would

[2:16]

that's all a little exaggerated I would like to think that I could beat up a 24b animal uh you know I don't like to brag but I could probably beat up a 24b animal I'll bet I would win 85% of the time all right let's talk about um there's an article in CNN I want to talk about some loser think now loser think is um the way I Define loser think is that it doesn't mean you're stupid and it doesn't mean you're ignorant in you know in a some normal way loser think is something that even smart people can experience and it has to do with not having experience across different Realms so in other words if you were only an artist and that's all you knew you could be very smart and still be a flagrant loser thinker

[3:16]

still be a flagrant loser thinker likewise you could be just an engineer and you could have different blind spots but if you have experience across a number of domains and they happen to be the domains that are good at making decisions you probably have a better view of the world so for example if you had some experience you don't have to be an expert but some experience with say business and economics and psychology let's say engineering you knew a little bit about science you you studied a little psychology took a little logic you know those are the types of classes or experiences that would teach you how to make better decisions because you've seen the thinking styles of a variety of different fields all right so when I talk about loser think I'm not talking about dumb and I'm not talking about somebody who's uneducated I'm talking about someone who doesn't have a view across disciplines and that can blind you to some obvious things best example um for those of you who read my

[4:18]

example um for those of you who read my book wi bigley and or followed my uh blogging and periscoping during the election and many of you were for the first time exposed to the field of persuasion now that's you could say that's a sub field of psychology I suppose but they're a little bit different they're very different but they overlap and I think a lot of you had the experience of seeing the world more clearly because you had one extra discipline now you didn't have to be some expert in Persuasion you just had to read a book that talked about some of the big the big themes and that was enough that would be true of Economics as well you would not have to be an economics major to be exposed to things like uh um you know supply and demand you know economics has mostly easy concepts with difficult math that you can ignore for the most part so with that setup I'm going to talk

[5:18]

so with that setup I'm going to talk about a couple of examples of loser think unproductive Thinking by Otherwise smart people one is an article in CNN in
in which in which uh let's see I want to get the name of the person oh it doesn't matter it really doesn't matter who wrote the article there was a AF I think an African-American man who wrote an article and by the way it doesn't matter so for the purpose of the story it doesn't matter if this is an African-American man but based on the icon I think it was uh maybe it does matter let's say it does matter to the story and the the story said that um it talked about why it's such a bad idea for white people to defend themselves from charges of racism by claiming they have a black friend now most of you are aware of this that if somebody says hey you're a racist and you say I'm not a racist look

[6:19]

racist and you say I'm not a racist look at my look at my black friend generally that is considered something that is mockable in other words you've you've made a joke of yourself by defending yourself in that specific way so from the perspective of black people you just made the worst defense that could be made it's the most laughable defense so is it a good idea to use that defense no it's not but that's not what that's not the loser think I'm going to talk about the loser think is the black people who employ that standard if your standard is that you're that white people can't say as part of the evidence that they're not racist I have black friends you are making the world a worse place by your defective thinking because if you are a black person and you're talking about this topic you you're saying I want there to be less

[7:21]

you're saying I want there to be less racism in the world presumably right you you're you're only having this conversation because you want less racism one of the worst ways to make that happen is to penalize white people for doing the right thing because it's not enough of the right thing when somebody does the right thing you should encourage it and when they do the wrong thing according to you you should discourage it if a white person tries to defend their lack of racism by saying look I have a black friend what is the loser think approach to that you racist how can you say that you're making it even more of a racist by saying you have a black friend wrong wrong wrong strategically wrong strategically if what you want is a world where people get along and are less racist you should say to that white person well you know

[8:22]

say to that white person well you know that's not exactly what I'm talking about but I love the fact that you have black RS if you do anything but compliment that before criticizing you know why it's not really a defense it's completely legitimate to say that's not enough it's completely legitimate to say well that's you just in your personal life I'm talking about you know structural you know historical racism which is different from you having a friend those are all good points but you should start with I'm really glad to hear that I I I hope that you make more black friends I have some white friends I would like to have more white friends maybe this is part of the solution but it's not exactly what I'm talking about right now I'm talking about other kinds of institutional racism I'm talking about your policies I'm talking about maybe something else but for sure it is the worst strategic thing you

[9:23]

sure it is the worst strategic thing you can do to say to a white person who says I have black friends to say to that person you're just making it worse terrible terrible strategy let me give you another example from the other side you may have seen a clip yesterday in which van Jones uh who was a good sport and went to CAC and which I love by the way I love the fact that he went there and he gave he gave the
uh prison reform which I love I love the fact that he's an honest broker uh in these discussions and he's saying if you do something good I'm going to compliment you and I'm going to do it in public right it's very rare I mean the reason the clip was set around is people said what I didn't know you could be reasonable I didn't know you could compliment somebody who's on the other side on different issues it it was it was national news

[10:26]

issues it it was it was national news because a person acted reasonable and public think about that just think about the fact that it that it excited the internet that a person acted like a human being like a reasonable person in public that was a story I mean that's just the thought of it is mind-boggling but um another thing that van Jones said is he talked about immigration and he talked about how the um the cry rate of immigrants is lower than the crime rate of citizens and you could hear an audible Boo in the audience yeah somebody's ahead of me here in the comments he actually got booed now what's wrong with Van Jones comment well here's the problem if if you had sort of been isolated in the the left side of the world you would not

[11:28]

left side of the world you would not know how the people you're trying to persuade and in that context he was trying to persuade why else would he be there trying to persuade conservatives the hardest job in the world right if you're coming from you know a CNN Universe jumping into the toughest audience you could possibly have a bunch of conservatives can you persuade them and bringing up that statistic is what I call
ing of how conservatives think and here's what's wrong with it when you say that immigrants have a lower crime rate than citizens you are accidentally emphasis on accidentally you are inadvertently saying that I wouldn't mind if one of you Americans died at the hands of an illegal immigrant who happen to be a criminal Beyond you know coming here illegally i' would be okay with that

[12:30]

illegally i' would be okay with that because the statistics are still low and so what it does is it accidentally says I would prefer letting in a number of people illegally over you living surviving I would prefer that these you know 100 or 200 or thousand people came in to get better jobs even if it meant you freaking died you American who is already here now that's not what he's saying that in by no means I I'm not a mind reader but I think it's safe to say the van Jones is not thinking of it that way he's thinking conceptually and he's thinking that if crime rate of this group is low that it is illegitimate to say let's bring in some more because the crime rate's low why are you complaining concept ctually he's completely accurate statistically I

[13:33]

completely accurate statistically I imagine he's also accurate but it inadvertently uh ignores how conservatives feel about this it ignores how they frame these issues and conservatives do not care about the rate of crime nobody who gets killed as they're dying from their wounds you know they've just been a victim of crime and they're it's their last breath nobody ever says oh but at least the crime rate was low yes I'm dead but thank God the rate of crime was low said nobody ever right conservatives see the World As Americans and then non-americans so if one American gets killed for the benefit of a hundred or even a thousand immigrants who get a better life that's a bad deal for people who see the world as you know we're the Americans

[14:35]

world as you know we're the Americans let's protect our our world protect our brand and let the other people do the same it's a fair game these are the rules we protect our team you protect your team you're not our enemies you're not our enemies we're just doing a system that works well so my advice to van and anybody who is trying to persuade on this point and let me say it in the in the cleanest way I can when you say to a conservative and by the way fact check me on this most of you are probably leaning conservative if you're on this Periscope um fact check me on this is it not an insult when somebody says their crime rate is lower than the US it's an insult because it it devalues the value of your life as an American so that other people can get better jobs that is just a straight out

[15:36]

out insult I mean it's it's offensive in in such a deep way now here's the thing is Van Jones smart totally all right you can see that unambiguously very very smart guy does van Jones want a better world apparently so I would say that absolutely so um but you know we're all in our bubbles we all have the experience that we have and uh that can blind us to some some obvious opportunities all right now this loser think is not limited to one side of the political aisle all right so I can give you lots of lots of examples where conservatives are having blind spots of their own uh um so it's you know I don't want to pick on Van Jones in fact I want to compliment him for first of all going to the CPAC putting himself out there and

[16:39]

the CPAC putting himself out there and he found out the hard way that that that line just got booze so presumably he will adjust and um I think he's the most probably at the moment the most productive thinker so let me that's a big claim right I'm going to make this claim again it's such a big claim in my opinion at the moment van Jones is the most productive thinker in the United States productive because he's actually trying to figure out how to solve the biggest problem in the country which is how do these two groups talk to each other how do you find common ground how do you how do you how do you scratch out you know the smallest little thing that we have in common and see if you can build from that um let's talk about the nothing Burger do you remember the news uh was it project vertas that uh recorded van

[17:41]

it project vertas that uh recorded van Jones in some interview I forget how long ago it was was it 2 years ago something like that in which uh allegedly the context was the Russian collusion and he said it was a nothing Burger do you remember that well apparently that was fake news we just found out apparently according to Van Jones who just got interviewed Again by project Veritas on the same topic uh he was taken out of context and and the the nothing Burger he referred to was a specific issue that was in the news that day that was a very small part of the larger issue of Russian inclusion so Tak it out of context it looked like he called the whole Russian inclusion a nothing Burger but in context he was talking about whatever the headline was that day that was no big deal now how do you feel about that cuz you got taken you and me I I was definitely a

[18:42]

taken you and me I I was definitely a victim of fake news and by the way I totally believe van Jones about that his clarification sounds way more way more believable than than the original claim um that was fake news and every time this happens to you you should keep track all right I I've got a little mental scorecard of my own so on my scorecard I've got the Covington Hox I fell for that all right that that's on my permanent record I also will add to that the nothing Burger hoax that's on my permanent record I believe that I believed he was talking about the whole Russia collusion thing and it just was fake news um so I may have other things on my list but you should really try to keep your list of how often you're wrong now on the plus side here are the things I got right I you know I got of course the Trump election that was a big deal I

[19:44]

Trump election that was a big deal I probably was the only person who predicted the North Korea situation going in the right direction um I told you that the Vegas shooter was not Isis even when Isis was claiming credit for the Las Vegas shooter I was saying publicly it's not Isis and it wasn't uh I told you that the Cuban Sonic weapon was a mass hysteria and it is I said Russia collusion was BS and apparently it is um I said Q was a hoax some of you still think still think that's real CU a hoax I'm right about that so my list of things oh yes I also predicted the AOC was the real deal and sure enough you saw her go from a little spark to the primary conversation in the country I called that early um you said Kim's nukes were a liability

[20:46]

um you said Kim's nukes were a liability and he should want Resorts yeah that's still true if if we're just talking about the timing of things I don't believe I ever had a prediction about timing in fact my what I said about North Korea is that they should be on a 100-year reunification path that they should just say look this is just going to take a hundred years if we can get it done sooner we'll do it all right um but anyway keep track of your Illusions keep track of how many times you got taken by the fake news now this brings us to Glenn uh greenwald's tweets and other people too but he he makes the case best what what do you do if you're an anti-trumper and Michael Cowen just demolished several of your hallucinations in one day
day um what do you do if you're if you were

[21:46]

um what do you do if you're if you were an anti-trumper because you thought there was Russian collusion and you believe that Coen went to Prague you thought there was a you thought the steel dossier was real I almost can't remember oh you thought that the president told Cohen a lie maybe you thought that uh it was a big deal these other Financial things like the buying his own artwork or maybe you thought it was a big deal that there's a campaign thing that probably is not even illegal we talking about the payment to the porn star probably not even illegal um what what would you do if you were that wrong about so many things have you noticed that the news just got really quiet um I've been watching the uh the replay of Chris Matthews breathlessly re reporting a mclatchy report at the time that Michael Cohen you know is known to have visited Prague to talk with the

[22:48]

have visited Prague to talk with the Russians and he reported it at the time like it was true like it was the news what's he saying now now is is playing that video of himself and saying look how wrong I was look how bad my judgment was that I believe that is he doing that or are they just literally ignoring the last two years this is Glenn greenwalt's uh observation which I think most of you agree with what the heck is happening right now there is the weirdest thing happening the weirdest thing happening is that people are acting as though the last two years didn't exist they are literally they just changed the argument from he's a Russian puppet and we must replace him immediately they're talking about now his SAT scores the president's they're talking about getting the president's

[23:48]

talking about getting the president's school grades they're talking about looking at the details of his tax returns think about it there they they've gone from you know the highest level of of alarm to well maybe maybe there's something on his
taxes somebody says Felix seder and Ellen weiselberg soon did you forget about them Scott no I didn't forget about them I just think that Michael Cohen would know whatever they know don't you do you think that Michael Cohen the fixer the close Confidant the person who was working uh who working on the Russia stuff do you think he didn't know about any bad stuff going on do you think he wouldn't give up Trump at this point it's pretty clear the mohen is not protecting the president so you saw the

[24:49]

protecting the president so you saw the good example of what's happening it's like yeah our entire theory for the last the last two years has been dismantled but there must be another witness coming there's another one pry yeah it's going to happen it's going to come in now all right somebody says Scott doesn't fully understand what this country is facing well I'll put you out of your misery you're blocked a reminder to those of you who are not that person who just got blocked I always welcome disagreements on
on logic or facts or you know opinion those are always welcome but if your comment is about me personally you just get blocked it doesn't even matter what it is right even even if all you're saying is Scott is confused or Scott hasn't done his homework or maybe Scott should do his

[25:50]

homework or maybe Scott should do his own research anything like that you just get blocked it would be helpful for you to say what I don't know maybe recommend a book any of that's fine it it you know telling me what I should learn to increase my knowledge totally fine but just comments about something wrong with me blocked um by the way the professional trolls uh on Twitter seem to have left me alone for for a while I for for whatever reason the pros are not coming after me anymore the the pay trolls I don't know what's up with that all right um here's another case of loser think do you know Joe Walsh on Twitter ex Congress person uh
uh conservative so he tweeted today that um if you heard what president Trump said about Auto War beer and you did not object to it you're an

[26:53]

object to it you're an apologist now here's here's what's wrong with that this is another case of Los to think the world doesn't have one variable the the the auto War beer complaint the complaint that the president um seemed as though he was believing Kim Jong-un that he didn't know uh that he didn't
know I just saw a comment I'm going to have to comment about um anyway the when the president said he takes Kim jung-un at his word people who know how to understand the language know that that does not mean he believes Kim jong-un's story when you say I'll take you at your word it says I will act as though it's true but my internal thoughts about whether it's true are are not in discussion I will treat it as though it's true so first of

[27:55]

it's true so first of all uh Joe Walsh made not know how language works if if he didn't see that distinction that the president wasn't saying he believed it he was saying he was taking this word which is very different all right so that's the first thing secondly do we not understand that auto War beer is I'm just going to say it you because you know I don't have advertisers and I have F you money so I'm just going to say it auto War beer is not as important to me as you
are Auto War beer is not as important to me as you are because you're alive you guys are all alive you guys and gals you're all alive I value you way more than AO War beer sadly and it's a tragedy nobody can

[28:56]

beer sadly and it's a tragedy nobody can be happy about it he is is no longer with us if we allow a dead person no matter how tragic no matter the circumstances to guide what happens to the
the living it's loser think it's a complete abdication of responsibility to each other to keep each other alive it's a complete strategic failure because it it fails to prioritize things you know nuclear Holocaust versus uh honoring someone who's not with us all right now I would never want to disrespect his family and I would certainly not want to disrespect his memory but it's just the fact he's not with us anymore you are you're all alive you're way more important to me than everybody in the world who ever died before in fact there are billions

[30:00]

died before in fact there are billions of people who have died in the past I would say that every one of you who is alive is more important to me individually even just one of you is more important to me than all billion people who have died since the history of the world I don't know how many people have ever died maybe two billion whatever that number is so let's keep our priorities straight um Joe Walsh I mean you're you're just not good for the country that kind of thinking could get us all freaking killed it's the worst unproductive thinking that you'll ever say keep it in keep it in perspective the president is protecting all of us the president has prioritized you living Americans over people who can't be helped anymore they cannot be helped once they have past we can't reanimate autor beer we just have to figure out how to keep the rest of us alive all
all right um I would like to suggest a new

[31:03]

right um I would like to suggest a new um a way a filter to determine what is true from what is fake news are you ready for this um this is a filter that I've been sort of watching on my own to see if it's good enough and I would suggest the following filter to know what is true from what is fake news and it goes like this something that is true as in True News will be on the following four news outlets it will be reported on CNN Fox News MSNBC and Breitbart now they're not the only Outlets that this filter would work with but they're they're a good selection right so if it's true on all four of those Outlets then it's real news so for example if there's a hurricane and you you look on CNN and says hey there's a hurricane and then the same news is on Fox and Breitbart and MSNBC you could say to yourself

[32:05]

and MSNBC you could say to yourself there is a hurricane that's an actual real hurricane but if you see that the president said that um white supremacists were fine people on CNN and you see it on MSNBC and maybe they talk about it on Fox news but then you go to Breitbart and it's described as a hoax and it's obviously a hoax and they say why it's not real news it failed the filter if it's not true on all four Network on all four amlets then I would say it's not true if it is on all four probably true and by the way this works for the things you believe as well as the things you don't believe so let's take um uranium 1 the uranium one deal is true on Fox News false on CNN I'm not sure what breit bar says

[33:06]

CNN I'm not sure what breit bar says about it um and MSNBC would say it's not true or at least there's nothing there so I would say this filter suggests that uranium 1 is sort of a big nothing um so try try uh I I can't tell if you're comments are behind me but try that standard and just try it on for a while and if you were to say to yourself it's only true if it's on those four networks that's a pretty good standard um what about the reverse if Fox News promotes a trump success is it not true if it's not covered on CNN well CNN tends to cover his successes they just don't spend a lot of time talking about it so even on CNN I believe there are people saying that it was wise for Trump to walk away from the deal and in uh Vietnam so I would say that's true news

[34:09]

Vietnam so I would say that's true news because there are experts on basically every Outlet who are saying yeah that was a good decision let me talk about one of the big
big differences between uh conservatives and let's say the left and the right uh you've seen science that says that conservatives think differently there I think some of the differences are that conservatives are more grossed out by stuff just stuff in general they're more grossed out more easily I don't know if that's true but there is there is a difference that I notice that I want to present to you I've said it before but I want to put it in put a little more meat on it and this is my book had it failed almost everything and still win big where I talk about systems being better than goals here you see the difference between goals and systems a goal would be to have some kind of universal healthc care Single Payer maybe maybe

[35:12]

healthc care Single Payer maybe maybe the government uh is in charge of it um another goal might be to have zero CO2 added to the air another what might be free college so those would be goals things that you want and these would be associated with the left but on the right you see that they have similar let's say aspirations or at least overlapping aspirations but they tend to talk to them in terms of the system capitalism for example is a system that makes everybody richer that allows people to buy Health Care Etc so the systems for getting to Health Care would be cutting regulations spurring Innovation increasing competition and by the way um if if you haven't seen what the government is doing on in terms of health care they actually are doing things to Spur competition they are doing things about cutting regulations so there are actually some pretty important things happening in the Trump Administration um

[36:15]

Administration um and uh I'm looking at your comments some people are just still struggling with the the filter thing uh but but just live with her for a while and then and then get back to me uh because I don't want to don't want you to make a decision on the yet I want you to just use that filter for a while and live with it and then and then tell me how it worked for a while but don't don't give me your opinion right now all right likewise uh in reducing the CO2 you see the people on the right talking about well shouldn't we be developing Gen 4 reactors now here's one of the biggest pieces of news that you probably didn't hear and I want to call out um I want to get the correct name of the Twitter account that I follow and you should follow too because if you're not you're missing all the good stuff and bear with me this this is worth it by the way it's worth waiting so you should be

[37:16]

so you should be following um head snip 01
add snipe 01 so you should follow that um Twitter account because what he does is um and I think he he might have been a marine sniper before this I guess I think that's why he has that name anyway what he does is he he uh monitors official government um releases so when the administration releases an official statement that they're doing something they have a new program they've made some decision Etc some law is being considered he he picks out the good ones and reports on it so there's no spin on

[38:17]

and reports on it so there's no spin on it um except whatever the government itself puts on it but uh you you get to see the news that the news doesn't cover and should so here's the big news that happened this week no coverage but had head KN at it so you should be following him so here's the biggest news you remember when I talked to some most of you saw this when I had a conversation with noval ravikant and we were talking about uh climate and nuclear energy Etc and nval made this comment he said the problem with nuclear in terms of developing it developing nuclear power to be safer is that you can't easily iterate the way you can with every other product if you look at the first iPhone it was terrible but each one after that got better and better and better until you had smartphones that are amazing and every other technology follows um somebody's asking it's

[39:17]

asking it's 01 is there a 011 somebody asked a question if I got that oh shoot you're right it is one one so head snipe you make a bad mistake with your uh header because your header says only one but there's two ones so there's two ones on the end of this thank you for catching that um anyway the so what n all said is that uh nuclear you can't iterate and improve as you go you can't evolve the technology because it takes too long to build one the the approvals are so hard it's so expensive you know it's hard to get approval to do it anywhere Etc but uh the government under Rick Perry Department of Defense just announced that they have approved a um let's say a test facility where the nuclear startups can go and iterate without the burdens of of approvals and and all that so the

[40:22]

of of approvals and and all that so the biggest problem in the world if you think it was climate change or even if you think it was energy costs or even if you think it was the economy possibly the biggest problem in the world is well on its way to being solved because if you couldn't iterate nuclear you could never solve climate change if you couldn't iterate nuclear you could never get to the point where the Middle East is unimportant to us at least in terms of oil if you can't iterate nuclear you can never get to the point where you've got a robot economy if you can't iterate nuclear you can't get to the point where you have enough energy at such a low cost that you can desalinate and create water if you can't iterate nuclear you probably can't get to the point where you can deal with whatever problems climate change is going to cause anyway so the biggest news in the world is that

[41:23]

so the biggest news in the world is that the the the main thing that was keeping us from having having a robust development of generation 4 nuclear power which if you don't know this is is safe from meltdowns so in other words they're designed in a way that if anything goes wrong or even if everything goes wrong it doesn't melt down right most people don't know that's even a thing and there are several Generations or several models within Generation 4 that do that now
um somebody says that's not possible well the experts say it's already done now the other thing people say is where are you going to put all that nuclear waste well here's the fun part there are designs within the category of Gen 4 that are both safe from meltdown and they use as fuel nuclear waste they use nuclear waste as fuel and

[42:25]

waste they use nuclear waste as fuel and I think they can burn 95% of that so you still have a little bit left but basically you can use the nuclear waste from the other reactors the old ones and use it for your fuel all right the only thing keeping this from happening was the ability to iterate as nval pointed out Rick Perry Just solved that now I don't know if if if the thing he's doing is a complete solution but it correctly identified the biggest problem in the system this is conservative thinking what's the system the system is we can't iterate nuclear and if you can't iterate you you can never get better he solved the iteration problem it's the most boring news but the biggest news all right uh Bill Gates released recently his top 10 predictions for transform formative

[43:28]

predictions for transform formative Technologies so this is Bill freaking Gates who who studies things more than Bill Gates nobody all right Bill Gates studies things more than anybody is Bill Gates a conservative or a liberal don't know don't know do you know I have no idea my guess is he's socially liberal but I don't know if that makes him I don't even know who he votes for who knows which is to the story CU he doesn't seem to be you know making any decisions based on um on politics his decisions seem to be based on science what does Bill Gates say is one of the top 10 think of all the Technologies there are and Bill Gates top 10 for this year is Generation 4 nuclear all right if he's saying it pay attention all right he pay attention when Bill Gates tells you that

[44:29]

when Bill Gates tells you that Generation 4 nuclear is the way to go and I think I I hope I'm characterizing his opinion right I think he believes it's the only path so maybe fact check me on that but I believe he thinks Generation 4 nuclear development is the only path forward for climate change remediation and even if you don't believe in climate change still a good deal um somebody says I'll pay attention when Elon Musk talks about it that's a fair statement I'll bet you if you asked Elon Musk uh he would have something interesting to say about that all
um now so and then the the other thing the conservatives like to do is when on the topic of free college you know they they probably like to promote online education because it's going to be

[45:30]

education because it's going to be cheaper charter schools because it adds choice so in all these cases you see that the uh the Democrats seem to be goal oriented but they don't have a way to get there because when you ask them they'll say well I'll raise your taxes I'll raise your taxes but that doesn't work because there isn't enough money in the world so they have goals without a system uh uh the conservatives tend to be systems oriented well you're going to need some Freedom you're going to need some constitutional rights I'll give me some capitalism let's do some iterating uh let's spur Innovation let's cut some regulations let's increase competition um Etc so I submit to you that a basic difference between the left and the right is that the right speaks and thinks in terms of systems and the left thinks and speaks in terms of

[46:30]

left thinks and speaks in terms of goals and so if you wanted to persuade the other side it doesn't matter which side you're on if you want to persuade the other side you have to talk their language not yours so if you are a liberal if you are a lefty and you want to persuade conservatives to do whatever it is Save the Planet be nicer to people reduce income inequality whatever it is you have to talk to them in their language you have to talk about a system which has worked before which is kind of important right capitalism has worked before iteration of technology has worked before uh improving the market the market effects of things has worked before right so if you want to talk to conservatives and persuade them put it in a systems language what is the system that will get us there and use a system system that has worked before uh yeah

[47:30]

system that has worked before uh yeah somebody's prompting me here in the comments I did see a new story that there's a company that uh can now turn CO2 taken from the air into coal and I thought to myself wait a minute I'm impressed that you can turn CO2 taken from the air into actual coal but wouldn't that be literally the worst thing you could turn it into it's like if you can turn CO2 into something else shouldn't you turn it into anything but coal it feels like it feels like it's a brilliant idea except for turning it into coal turning into anything else all right now some people say can you then burn the coal well I suppose you could and you could turn it back into that CO2 so I don't know what they're gaining but there's a bigger story here which is their they number of startups that are all working on that they're all working on how to turn uh CO2 into something

[48:34]

on how to turn uh CO2 into something else fuels Etc now I have a question for you that you could you'll only get here one of one of the advantages of watching me on Periscope is that I can embarrass myself in ways that other people just wouldn't even wouldn't even get near so I'm about to embarrass myself in maybe the the biggest way I ever have because I'm going to ask you some questions and I'm going to reveal my ignorance on something and I don't know what's wrong with my thinking but I'm going to I'm just going to display it in public and you're going to look at it and I want you to tell me what's wrong with it because I know there's something wrong with it right so so I I'm going to depend on you to tell me what's wrong with what I'm going to talk about next now people on the left have said let's have universal healthcare and I believe there are 28 million people who don't have healthcare insurance which is

[49:36]

have healthcare insurance which is around 9% of the country all right so here's the first fact to check is it true that roughly 9% of the country does not have health care insurance somebody's already saying false I did I did do a Google search on this so uh can somebody confirm or deny that that's the number it's about 9% um let's say it is I'll keep watching to see if anybody debunks that somebody's saying yes here so it's around 9% now the the right the conservatives have said it's going to cost you $32 trillion and it would cost more than the GDP of the whole United States to give everybody health care insurance if you included the ones who don't have it now does that sound true does it sound to you like it would be that expensive like on the surface maybe so but here's the question I ask you if it's only 9% who

[50:40]

question I ask you if it's only 9% who don't have health care insurance work with the math with me here now I'm not going to be precise I'm going to be talking in very gross gross conceptual way here all right so don't get don't get too uh don't get too locked up on the specific details just look at the the concept if around 9% of the people in the country don't have health care could you raise the cost of everybody's existing Health Care by 9% and pay for everybody else in other words if everybody who has Health Care insurance and hold on I'm not suggesting this just just talk about it conceptually if everybody who had Healthcare paid an extra 10% let's say 99% would it be enough to cover all the people who don't have healthare now we don't all pay our own health care some the government pays some businesses pay some people pay some

[51:41]

some businesses pay some people pay some so I'm getting all nous what hold on are you saying no to the math or are you saying no to the concept cuz the concept is not is not being suggested so no one is suggesting that people get a 10% uh tax to pay for other people's health care I'm asking you if the numbers would work if you put a 9% tax on people's existing health care or and let's say the government added 9% to what it already pays so every Everybody companies individuals governments everybody gets a little 9% extra would that be enough given that only 9% of the people don't have Healthcare all right so so I'm I've got comments right next to each other the math doesn't work and then the one right below it the math works I see somebody say the math is good the math works not the concept don't don't judge the

[52:42]

don't don't judge the concept because it's not suggested now if you think it's true and here's where here's where having no sense of personal embarrassment comes in handy this is an idea that I would never suggest in public if I had any sense of embarrassment whatsoever I expect that what I'm going to say next is really wrong but I don't know why and that's what you're going to help me with okay here are two things that I think I know I think I know this to be true 9% of people don't have healthare and here's another thing I learned in corporate Amer America I used to do uh budgets for a big bank I was in charge of their budgets for their technology area and I used to do budget planning for the phone company also in their technology area and here's something uh here's

[53:44]

something uh here's something that uh is just a general truth I would put together this budget and I'd take it to the bosses and I'd say to the bosses here's the budget and it's based on a bottomup plan in which which I asked every person every Department how much budget they need next year and then I added it up and here's the number for the whole department and what would the what would the boss always say those of you who have worked in Corporate America tell me how this story ends I added up all the budget needs of all the Departments into a big you know um the bigger number took it to the big boss and what did the big boss say about the big
big number if you've worked in Corporate America you already know the answer the answer is cut it by 10% and so I go back to all of the individual department heads and I say the big boss said cut your budget by 10% and every budget head says what I

[54:44]

10% and every budget head says what I can't do that there is no way I can run this department if I cut the budget 10% next year it cannot be done so I go back to the big boss and I say every one of the Departments says the same thing if they cut by 10% they can't do their job it just can't be done and then the big boss says what what does the big boss say tell them it's cut 10% and then I go back to all the Departments and I say I know you say it's impossible I know you say you can't do your job but that's the decision it's cut by 10% now check back in a year did all of the Departments successfully cut their budget by 10% yep yep every one of them every one of the budgets successfully cut their budget by 10% how many of them could identify uh a big impact from that meaning that they couldn't get their job

[55:45]

meaning that they couldn't get their job done Etc none of them as a general rule if you have done budgets for a living if you've been in a big organization and you've had any contact with budget you know that if you have a big budget on any topic you can cut it by 10% so here are two things I think I know but I can't understand them together so I think I know that 9% don't have insurance and I think I know that the cost of most things can be cut by 9% in other
let's say let's say the government um again I'm not recommending this let's say the government said everybody who's already paying health care insurance has to pay 9% extra and that covers everybody so now

[56:46]

extra and that covers everybody so now the extra 30 million or so people who don't have health insurance have health insurance now everybody has it all the people who sell Medical Services suddenly have lots more customers that's good right there are more customers buying everything in healthcare and then the government says and I'm not suggesting this cut your cost by 10% let's say the government says to all the healthc Care insurance providers I'll give you 30 30 million more people in a pool you know that's spread across all of you but in return everybody has to cut their cost by 10% could they do it almost certainly yes now there's nothing about this plan that's practical so those of you who are hung up on that will never work or you know I don't you know I don't like the government getting in don't worry about it I'm not suggesting we do it I'm wondering about the

[57:47]

wondering about the math so if it's true that it would cost $32 trillion extra for healthare to have Universal healthare how could it also be true that the amount that all of us would have to pay extra say 10% is so small that the health insurance and medical and you know Health uh Health industry could almost certainly cut all of the costs by 10% and nobody would even notice because you can cut any budget by 10% and people largely don't notice so here's what I don't understand how could it simultaneously be so expensive that the country would be bankrupted at the same time as far as I can tell it would be 10% more than people who have insurance already pay and you could probably lower the the whole cost structure 10% until nobody even noticed is it 32

[58:49]

noticed is it 32 trillion or is it zero and uh I saw this this conversation on I forget which show it was might have been uh well I'm not going to I'm not going to guess but I I saw a debate in which there were you know pro- universal healthcare and anti- universal healthcare and the ones who were against it said it's going to cost $32 trillion over 10 years and there's no way that can be afforded the person who was for it said it would save money okay that's the difference between saving money less than zero money cost and $32 trillion how can you be that far apart now part of it is that 32 trillion is not the extra the 32 trillion is the it's got to be the total cost of healthcare I would guess that goes to the government and comes out of the pockets of individ in other words the government would be taking on the burden

[59:51]

government would be taking on the burden that individuals are paying and companies are paying now so that's why it's 32 but our decision making is so poor that we can't tell the difference between something that would cost $32 trillion versus something that would save money think about that could those worlds be further apart now if somebody said well one says it's going to cost a trillion and the other says it's only going to cost 200 billion I would say those are two people who are legitimate legitimate um players in a real issue but if you tell me that one says it's better than free and the other says it costs $32 trillion we have departed anything like a conversation on the topic the topic no longer even matters to the decision it's like it's like you don't even need to know what the topic is because you're

[1:00:52]

know what the topic is because you're not going to get agreement if you're that far apart so explain to me why only 10 you know 9% of the country doesn't have health care insurance and yet it is unaffordable when we could certainly cut the cost of Health Care by 10% and therefore have the same costs we have now and everybody covered now I assume that what I'm saying is so embarrassingly ignorant that I'll find this out in the next 24 hours maybe in the next hour somebody's going to say Scott Scott Scott you've forgotten the effect of XYZ you idiot and maybe we learn something but let me ask you how many people just had their minds blown by this simple math which might be wrong might be stupid might be ignorant might be all those things but how many of you just had you mind blown by these

[1:01:54]

of you just had you mind blown by these numbers I'm interested or does it have no effect on
um uh there's a little delay in your comments so I'm actually uh all right so I'm just looking at the comments coming in now so people are saying yes me nobody yep me I'm not sold yes uh I think you may be assuming the uninsured percentage will stay constant uh no I'm not assuming that I'm not assuming that what I described is a workable plan so if you missed that part you really missed the most important point I'm not suggesting this happens I use it as an example to explain why the math doesn't make sense to me all right so I'm seeing other people saying that their mind is blown you can feel yourself peeking out of your own little bubble can't you if you believed that

[1:02:56]

bubble can't you if you believed that this cost $32 trillion and was completely unaffordable and yet you watched Bernie say we could totally afford this or you watched AOC say we could totally afford this I don't know who's right I actually don't know who's right will it cost 32 billion or trillion or save money I don't know so what you should be taking from this is that you don't know anything about Healthcare that's what I take from it so what I take from this exercise is that I am completely unqualified to have an intelligent conversation about healthcare because I don't know the difference between free and $32 trillion can't tell the difference all right somebody says 10% price cut would eliminate all profit margin um in the in

[1:03:57]

eliminate all profit margin um in the in the health care field margins are pretty high uh and there would be some some entities that couldn't take that cut but there would be others that could take more of a cut so my experience is that if you tell people they have to cut 10% they would also go back to their own cost structure and their own suppliers and say look you're my supplier I have to cut 10% % if you don't cut 10% to me I can't cut 10% to them and then we're both on a business and then suddenly your supplier Cuts their expenses how they do it they go to their suppliers so you so it's sort of the uh um the Walmart Theory you know Walmart forces its vendors to cut costs until they go on a business you know I'm exaggerating a little but not much cuz Walmart will make you C your costs um just to be in

[1:04:59]

make you C your costs um just to be in Walmart until you have no margin whatsoever and those those sorts of things can happen in healthcare as well it just isn't happening and by the way I would expect to see the combination of Amazon and is it JP Morgan Chase whoever whatever they're called now and uh who's the third entity who's working on that healthc care situation I'm blanking out now um but I would expect them to start pushing suppliers at lowering costs quite a bit all right that's all for now and I will talk to you all later