Episode 460 Scott Adams: False Memories, Russian Collusion, 2020 Forecast, Climate Change Strategy

Date: 2019-03-22 | Duration: 1:02:33

Topics

My dispute with Taleb that I’m not aware of, something about data Update: “Fine People” HOAX and high concept word salads False memories are the basic texture of our reality Noted economist Russell Roberts, saw truth, changed his opinion Anti-Trumpers preparing us for a “disappointing” Mueller report Half of all published, peer reviewed studies are eventually proven wrong War Strategy (whiteboard 1) as a guide to climate change strategy 2 top skeptical climate change arguments, (whiteboard 2) Russian climate change prediction model ONLY Russian model correctly predicted recent years ONLY the Russian model fits dip that occurred in the 40s Wikipedia NOT allowing the truth about “fine people” hoax, so far @Unstumpable2016 posted truth with documentation Within minutes, truth is taken down, hoax replaces it Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia co-founder) personally monitoring Currently, discussion over correct info is happening

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

## Transcript

[0:08]

what a morning what a morning one of my favorite mornings ever why because I get to spend it with you and I'm not even kidding I love doing these periscopes I really do it's actually my highlight of the day at least the the work portion of my day I have other highlights so uh I'm going to look at a couple of my tweets here this morning so that I can track along with what I've been talking about uh all right so let me start with a little thing that I like to call the simultaneous zp you who are already listening to me are on time and if you have some kind of a vessel for liquids it could be a cup or a mug it could be a chalice or a Stein possibly a thermos if you have filled it with your favorite liquid I like coffee you can join me now for the

[1:08]

like coffee you can join me now for the simultaneous
set ah now I'd like to start with a little bit of fake news and this one's kind of fun uh most of you are probably familiar with a a very well known author uh and probably he would have other titles such as maybe statistician I don't know there there are probably other titles for him but Nasim Nicholas Talib so here's the interesting story that might differ from whatever you're seeing on the internet right now
now so I I almost don't know how to describe this story because it's so weird that I don't know if you'll believe it you know sometimes things are so weird that even if you just describe them accurately people will say well I don't know about that that doesn't sound like something

[2:08]

that that doesn't sound like something that's really happening so telling you ahead of time I'm going to tell you a tale that you probably won't believe all right so I noticed on the internet that people were talking about some kind of an argument that I was having with uh Nasim Nicholas Talib and I didn't know what it was about because I had I had blocked him for being unpleasant but I don't remember why in other words some time ago it wasn't too long ago maybe a couple weeks I don't even remember there was something he said and I was in a blocking mood and I blocked him now here's the important part of the story I don't remember why I don't remember what the topic was I don't remember what he said I don't remember why it bothered me I was just in a blocking mood and I I have a vague memory that he was being

[3:09]

a vague memory that he was being unpleasant and I happened to be in the kind of mood where I thought you know what if I just removed unpleasantness from my Twitter experience so there are a lot of people that I block lately not exactly because of what they've said not exactly because of maybe their attitude or their knowledge or or really any of that I I'm starting to block people for my happiness in other words if somebody if somebody makes me less happy than I could be for whatever reason their attitude they're the topics they care about it doesn't really matter it's not really a statement about them personally it's just that my my exposure to their opinions is not making me happy so so whatever the reason was I blocked him that started that started the assumption that there was something specific that he and I were disagreeing

[4:10]

specific that he and I were disagreeing with and as best I could tell without looking at his his feed there seems to be some kind of idea and I'm not making this up I swear I'm not making this up but there's a conversation happening about me and about some kind of alleged problem that I have with Nasim Nicholas talb that I'm not aware of I'm literally not even aware of it but apparently it's it's a topic of conversation and so I've been seeing how long I could go without knowing why I'm in a conversation or disagreement with TB I actually don't know but other people have been joining in and taking sides and stuff and uh the only thing that I could pick out of the context is that I had once made the claim that if you know you have bad data it's a good idea to correct it with the good data you know assuming you can be sure that your good data is really

[5:11]

be sure that your good data is really good and you're sure that the bad data was really bad now I'm hearing from third parties but not from Talib because I blocked him so I don't know what he's saying he's blocked me too so he doesn't know what I'm saying so but I keep hearing from people that he's taking the side that there are situations in which bad data is better than good data now I take it on faith that he didn't say anything like that but that's that's how it's being presented to me so because I think it's fun I keep saying I'm taking the side that says that good data is better than bad data and I'm watching people I'm watching people argue with me and I think it's funny because I don't really think that there's a a an intellectual argument in favor of inaccurate data and people keep telling me no no

[6:11]

data and people keep telling me no no Scott you're just not listening there's an actually really good argument in favor of bad data now some of you have already caught on right obviously this conversation is not really happening in in in the real world there is no such thing as Talib taking the side of bad data while I'm taking the side of good data but I keep pushing it to see how long people will believe that's actually what's happening and and honestly I don't know what's happening I really don't know what's happening I don't know I don't know what tb's opinion is I don't know what topic we were talking about I don't know what he says about data I don't know what he said about me but I'm just saying the same thing over again well I'm I'm is taking the side that if you could replace bad data with good data you should do that there's probably no exception to that and I'm I'm watching the the appearance that he and I are disagreeing

[7:13]

appearance that he and I are disagreeing on something when in fact I don't even know what he's talking about all right so the funny thing is that there's a general opinion that he and I are having a disagreement but I'm allegedly in the disagreement I don't even know what the topic is I honestly don't even know the topic but something about data all right that's fun if you are watching the ongoing saga of um my attempts and now other people have brought into have have been very active in it as well primarily Joel Pollock um writing a number of Articles talking about the fine people hoax if you're new to my periscopes you probably have heard the fake news that the president of the United States allegedly called the racist in Charlottesville fine people that actually never happened it's it's the most widespread fake news that is genuinely believed but you can look at the transcript and you can see that he says in direct language I'm not talking

[8:13]

says in direct language I'm not talking about the neo-nazis and the and the racists he says it in direct language I'm not talking about them but it's widely reported as oh that's exactly who he's talking about even though he said it directly now what's interesting about this when we we have a world full of fake news on lots of topics why did I pick this one thing to really you know die on this hill and it's because this one thing this one piece of fake news is not like the rest it has a very different um it's a different nature and what's different about it is that first of all it's the it's the mother of all fake news everything that the anti-tr trumpers believe about Trump is built on this little fake news Foundation that he once said directly that racists were fine people which of course didn't happen but if you believe he did say that then everything that you

[9:15]

he did say that then everything that you build on top of that starts making sense but it wouldn't make sense if you knew that he' said the opposite which is what actually happened now so that's the first thing the first thing is that not all fake news is equal this fake news it's sort of like the the alpha news it's the fake news that informs all the other fake news it's the it's the central spine of the fake news about President Trump if this one spine could be removed the rest of the body is likely to fall apart like a boneless chicken now that's the optimistic view people do stick to their fake news pretty pretty uh diligently but my hypothesis was this if I could take one super prevalent piece of fake news that people believe about the president and I could show them in with evidence that just can't be doubted because it's right there on the page it says it in clear

[10:16]

there on the page it says it in clear language and yet it's being reported as the opposite I thought well this is unique because usually you can't prove something this easily I mean normally you if people are saying the president is bad for the econ economy it's like this big complicated argument and you could see arguments on both sides and maybe it was all Obama and maybe it was the FED there are very few situations where the complexity of the the disagreement is so simple he either did or did not say the Nazis and Charlottesville were fine people can we prove why he said yes we have a video and we have the transcript and they match and they say in clear words that he did not call them fine people he said the opposite in clear words now that's what makes it unique you almost can never so simply and so directly and so conclusively prove that the news is fake news it's very rare normally it's a big complicated hard to

[11:17]

normally it's a big complicated hard to hard to dissect situation so I thought if I can make people understand how badly they've been duped on just this one thing it has two things going for it one it can be proven Beyond or any doubt any doubt you know not even reasonable but any doubt that that's very rare and it's the most important faes so if I could do that it would really change how people understood their world because here's what you learn as a hypnotist here's what you learn as somebody who has studied persuasion I'm describing myself now if you were to look at a situation such as the widespread reporting misreporting that the president called racist fing people what do most of you believe explains that most of you are going to say well obviously the bad guys are lying most of you think that right well if it's if it's not true and yet they continue to say it's not true how can

[12:20]

continue to say it's not true how can you explain that obviously they're just lying because they're on the other side of the political Spectrum if you're a hypnotist as I am if you've studied false memories cognitive dissonance confirmation bias the whole psychology side of the world you probably don't see it that way on top of that I've had private conversations with enough people who believed the fine people fake that I have determined by far the most likely explanation is that they believe it now you say to yourself no Scott Scott Scott you can't believe something that's this so clearly fake it would be one thing to believe the president wasn't good for the economy or to believe that Isis isn't 100% solved or to believe that things you know will or will not go well with trade with China those are big complicated

[13:21]

complicated things but if you're lying about this simple objectively false statement of the fine people if you're lying about that there's no explanation other than you're a liar that's what most people think that is completely wrong that is actually the least likely explanation the the thought that they are intentionally looking at the news and that their jobs are to report the news they're news professionals and you think that they you think that they know it's false they know it's easily proven as false and they still say it on TV that's actually the least likely explanation by far the most likely explanation the one the one that that is the most common is that they actually believe it's true false memories and here's here's the thing that most of you don't know but people who have studied

[14:23]

don't know but people who have studied the mind and psychology do know so you might have you might have learned the fields of let's say economics and business and you might have learned about um you might have learned about science but if you didn't learn about psychology you'd be missing really the key element people who know psychology would say false memories are the texture of your entire experience most of what you understand as your memories are false memories let me say that again the vast majority of your memories are not real they're approximates they're they're they're um cobbled together from things you're thinking at the moment they are not photographic um reproductions of the past most of your memories are assembled from the fake news in your own head

[15:25]

from the fake news in your own head basically um how many of you have had experience let's say even in the last two weeks where you had a disagreement with somebody about a fact and then somebody whipped out an email or a text and showed that you remembered it exactly backwards happened to me twice this week I think you know once went my way once didn't um it's the most common experience in the world that two people remember the same thing differently fake memories false memories are the texture of our entire existence once you understand that you can start to understand why things are the way they are in other words the news will start making sense the way people act make sense as soon as you realize the basic texture of reality is false memory that's the norm So when you say to say to me well there are two possibilities why people keep saying this find people wrong one is that they all have

[16:27]

wrong one is that they all have coordinated and they've all either they've they've had a meeting or maybe they just all know it's a good thing to do that they're all going to lie on wait for it all the smartest news Professionals in the world have decided to
to lie about the one thing that's easily proven as a lie you think they would Pro pick that do you think that even if they wanted to remove this President they would pick the one thing that's so easily falsifiable you would never do that intentionally all right I you know I can imagine that in the big world there's somebody who might have done it intentionally but you can't tell me that thousands of news professionals all decided to lie on the one thing that is the easiest to debunk by far the easiest it's right there on a page they reported it they reported it themselves CNN reported it right before

[17:27]

themselves CNN reported it right before they started reporting it right wrong all right it's possible I don't like to speak in absolutes right because that's how dumb people talk dumb people say this definitely happened or this definitely didn't happen I like to talk in in percentages all right the the odds of them lying about that are very loud all right so enough on that I see people complaining have gone on too much about that um now here's uh so I I have a book coming out in October called Loser think and one of the main them themes of the book is this that your ability to understand your world is very much informed by what experience you've had now that's obvious right the experience you've had in life gives you better or worse ability to understand the world but I've taken it to the next level and I've suggested that the the things you studied give you superpowers or they deny you superpowers for example uh Hume

[18:29]

deny you superpowers for example uh Hume recently tweeted uh the an article by Dan Cortez in which he was talking about the fine people hoax and BR Hume was saying basically he was realizing that the news had been reported wrong for all this time now if you don't know Bri the thing you need to know is that he's he's a Fox News guy but he's not he's not really the opinion guy he's he's a credible um let's say I probably in the top tier of the most credible people in the news business whether you're talking Fox News or anywhere else he is willing to to take the side that the evidence suggests and if you've watched him for a while yeah he's a straight shooter which is which feels rare doesn't it but he's he probably be one of the more credible news people working today and he said whoops basically in his I'm paraphrasing here but his his quote his tweet suggested

[19:30]

but his his quote his tweet suggested that um he now understands the fine people thing was fake news so then that got retweeted today by uh let's see by Russell Roberts now at eont talker that's his his Twitter handle now he's a apparently a respected noted Economist and what he says about um this is he says I try to stay away from most things Trump but this story is crazy talking about the fine people hoax evidently I was misled as to what Trump said after charlott's Bill truth is elusive all right so here's the point I'm going to make Russell Roberts is a noted and capable Economist so he's learned sort of you know the the uh the ways of Economics so he's educated in

[20:34]

ways of Economics so he's educated in facts and economists also get educated a little bit in Psychology because you can't really understand economics unless you understand how people act so his level of understanding led him to look at the data as Dan Cortez laid it out and as you can see it in the transcripts he looked at the data and the data caused him to change his opinion now does that sound like a nothing how rare is it how often have you ever seen in the realm of politics how often have you ever seen someone say oh the data has changed so therefore I change my opinion and guess what I'll do it in public I'll do it in public have you I don't even know if I've ever seen it I don't know if I've ever seen it happen but here's here's what the point and

[21:35]

but here's here's what the point and then I then I think my God my God what are people going to say to that what would be the response to watching this highly rational person who's no fan of the president say the the facts were misreported I changed my opinion what will that do to other people well I I go into the comments and here's one from JJ verhine and so JJ talking about this fine people thing he says to accept quote fine people on both sides is to deny the reason for the Gathering okay I don't really know what that means right uh this flyer was created by the organizers a provocation which culminated in the murder and injuries of those protesting the flyer notice the blood were you misled or are you a victim of revisionism all right so this is a commenter who looked at the same facts as the established Economist and was not was not moved by

[22:37]

Economist and was not was not moved by it so changing the facts did not change this person's opinion and so what's the first thing I did when I saw this this denter yeah somebody's saying word salad correct so when you see somebody devolve into high concept word salad where they're trying to draw together Concepts and you know and form something out of nothing and the words sort of fit together but you don't know what they mean yeah that's word salad and it's a teleph for cognitive
dissonance so anyway here's the punchline so he disagrees with the economist they both looked at the same facts the facts are just as plain as they could be but he's come to a different opinion in other words when I say a different opinion I mean he didn't change his opinion so different facts did not change his opinion so I said to myself wonder what this guy does for a living he's an art

[23:48]

director now summarizing the person who studied economics sees that the facts were wrong looks at the correct facts revises his opinion in public how often does that happen how many people revise their opinion in public doesn't happen a lot the art director who obviously had some kind of an art background looked at the same information and maintained his original opinion and wrapped it around and wrapped it with word salad now my book loser think talks about this specific phenomenon and it talks about the the skill stack you've you've developed and whether or not it gives you proper Vision into reality so that's that's the macro theme of my book that the people from art school probably see everything as little bit more connected so here's here's my hypothesis if you're an artist the thing that makes

[24:49]

if you're an artist the thing that makes you art an artist is That You Don't See clean categories you see for example you know this thing and thing are normally not related but the artist imagines that they can be the artist takes things and puts them together an artist combines things an artist says I'll take a little this and a little that an artist is a conflat an artist is a combiner an artist says everything's connected this thing over here is going to move this thing over here it's all one big ball of stuff The Economist says let's let's look at this little basket all right I'm going to analyze this basket by itself this basket probably doesn't affect this basket they're just different things right completely different disciplines and I think that matters all right um I don't know if you've been enjoying I'm changing topics now I don't know if you've enjoyed this as much as I have

[25:50]

you've enjoyed this as much as I have but I'm watching the uh anti-trumpers try to prepare themselves and us for a Muller report that is anti-climatic so after two years somebody says Scott you an artist um I actually am trained Economist with a master's in business uh and I do art as well so uh but I'm a bad artist in terms of art I'm I'm a pretty bad one so I'm watching the uh people talk about uh how the Muller report might underperform my favorite one oh my God it was funny and I don't even remember who was interviewing them but oh a Chuck Dodd so I was watching Chuck Todd interview prit barara now if you're new to this Chuck Todd is a major anti-trumper it was on this was on MSNBC which is a major anti-trump Network um pre barara was fired by Trump

[26:53]

Network um pre barara was fired by Trump and is another major anti-trumper who has been saying for I don't know how long that and he's you know a lawyer so he's been saying for how long that Trump is in big trouble for probably collusion I don't know if he talked about collusion but for obstruction of justice and so so barara and I'm I'm going to try to paraphrase as best I can the situation Bara was indicating that we might be you know disappointed he didn't use that word but there might not be much in the Mueller report Chuck Todd was pushing back at that saying yeah but maybe not the collusion but certainly the obstruction and then Chuck Todd went through the laundry list of well he fired Comey he did this he did that don't those all prove obstruction and then and one of the funniest things I've ever SE seen on television this anti-trump prosecutor guy who's been saying Trump's in trouble

[27:54]

in trouble forever says looks at Chuck Dodd he says well I don't think I ever said there was enough to indict him on [Laughter] obstruction and you can see the you could see the the life drained out of Chuck Todd when he realized that pre barara was was saying I never said there was enough to indict him so this is after Todd had had gone through the laundry list and his own guy pre barara was like well not much there because barara is no doubt getting getting prepared to be you know totally humiliated in terms of this uh Muller thing now let's make some guesses about whether Trump knows what the Muller report will be do you think Trump already knows that the Muller

[28:55]

Trump already knows that the Muller report will be a dud well let's look at the evidence I don't know the answer but let's look at the evidence number one Trump has surprisingly too many of you but less surprising to me has said that he would like the entire Muller report released but it's up to the attorney general now what do you make of that Trump says the whole report should be released fooling everybody like people weren't expecting that right I was expecting it a little bit but generally it wasn't expected Trump is a good strategist there are two possibilities one there's stuff in there that's really bad in which case it's going to come out right if there's stuff in it that's bad it's going to come out it's going to be public if there's stuff in there that's not bad well then it doesn't matter if it comes out comes out or not in fact it'd be better if it's comes out so Trump has taken the only smart approach which I have to admit was a little

[29:56]

which I have to admit was a little nonobvious until recently like honestly until he did it I didn't realize how smart it was he takes a position that of course everybody wants to see it because first of all it makes him look innocent I think the report itself is going to make him look innocent as well but even if there's a little bit in there that's negative you know maybe in in the margins there's a little bit something that he wouldn't like he's still way better off releasing it all and just taking the head on whatever the little stuff is now do we think that he has a preview of the report well I think it's unlikely that anybody in an official capacity has met with the president and said I'm going to give you a whole preview here's what's in the report you know you don't have to worry about it so you might as well say you can you might as well release it I don't think so I don't think that's happened but here's what I think might have happened and I

[30:56]

what I think might have happened and I and this is specul only speculation and it's based on just being alive and living in the real world and not only being alive and living in the real world but being in many situations in which I was trying to deduce what some group who had a secret was really thinking right so I've sort of been in this situation here's how I think it went and I'm going to tell you uh um this is an example story I'm not saying this happened I'm saying probably happened so I'll I'll put a probably on this some version of what I'm going to describe probably happened and it would have gone like this it would have started with let's say Rudy Giuliani contacting somebody in Muller's office and saying can you give us a preview of what's in that report and of course the person in Muller's office would say no I cannot give you a preview so I'm going to take as a given that there's nobody in Muller's office

[31:57]

that there's nobody in Muller's office who has leaked it in any kind of detail I think that's probably a good bet because they haven't leaked up till now leaking would be deadly I mean it would be bad for them they'd go to jail there's no reason to do it so I would say it's very unlikely that they've leaked in a direct way but here's the fun
part let's say you're Giuliani and or you're one of the other lawyers for the president and you're pretty smart so I'll start with that you're smart you've lived in the real world you know things and you know how things work if I were them if I were Giuliani this is what I'd do I'd go to my contact on the Muller investigation by now they know each other pretty well because they've had to have lots of contacts and I would say I know you can't tell me what the Muller investigation details are but wait for it I've been asked to put together a a legal budget for the

[32:57]

put together a a legal budget for the White House house for the coming year and of course the legal budget would be far higher if there's something negative in that report than if there isn't so for just budgeting purposes you don't have to tell me anything that's in the report but for budgeting purposes should I budget a big number or should I budget a small number and then the Mueller person looks at him and he thinks uh uh I can't tell him that exactly because that would be very close to it wouldn't be the same but it would be very close to saying what the report says which is nothing so the meller guy pushes back he goes I you I can't do that then Rudy or one of the other lawyers because they're smart and they've lived in the real world they say the following this isn't a normal situation we're talking about the

[33:58]

situation we're talking about the effectiveness of the president of the United States we're talking about a president who's trying to keep North Korea's nuclear weapons at Bay we're talk talking about a president who's trying to deal with China and get a deal we're talking about a China a president who's dealing with the most critical issues in the world in the world and he's much less effective if he has to worry about this stuff all a m asking is for the benefit of the country that you just tell me if I should budget a lot for legal defense or I should budget low now you're that contact in the Muller Department you understand the argument you're not an idiot you don't want bad things for the country you don't want that you could hate this president but you don't want bad things for the country and you do understand the point that this President is highly degraded by dealing with this thing which you

[35:00]

by dealing with this thing which you know is nothing what do you answer to Rudy juliani then you say Rudy I can't tell you anything it it would be a breach of Ethics a breach of everything if I if I gave you any information about this but if you budgeted low you should not expect to feel bad about it
see what I'm talking about almost certainly the president's lawyers could get somebody in Muller's uh uh group who actually knows what's happening could get them to say you should be worried about it enough to budget for it or maybe don't don't put a budget together you just you know maybe minimize that anyway so I'm not going to say that that exact scenario played out what I'm going to say is that that there are lots of ways to

[36:01]

of ways to deduce the severity of it without actually the information being given and and the lawyers for the president are absolutely smart enough to do that and the Muller people are absolutely smart enough not to tell them details I believe that you know I have pretty I have a pretty high opinion of their professionalism um so I think the president knows he's not in trouble and so he can say uh I'd love to have all that information come out it makes him look less you know makes him look innocent but he can also rely on Bob bar to stop anything from coming out if maybe it's bad so he still has he still has the ultimate um Dodge if needed if needed the Bob bar could always say well I can't release this part because it's confidential or something all right um let's change the uh let's change the conversation to climate change and I've got two

[37:01]

climate change and I've got two additions that I don't think you've seen before so starting with this uh for background if anybody's new to this I I I started a many months long deep dive into climate change and to try to figure out what's going on so I'm I'm legitimately on the fence in terms of knowing whether it's a huge disaster coming or no big deal I can't tell because the people communicating it are not reliable for a number of different reasons in other words both the Skeptics and the climate scientists are presenting their information collectively I'm not talking about any one person I assume that there are credible people on both sides but if you look at collectively their arguments most of it is garbage on both sides so I've concluded for sure that there's massive misrepresentation and lying on both the climate side ins side but also the
the Skeptics which doesn't mean that we

[38:03]

Skeptics which doesn't mean that we don't have to worry about climate change it doesn't mean that at all because 75% of everything you hear about climate change could be false let's say the models are not that accurate let's say some of the measurements you know are not that accurate Etc but as long as 25% of it that gets to the heart of it is true well you still have a big problem even if 75% of it is is BS and L typically and many of you don't know this I think half of all um published peer-reviewed scientific studies eventually get debunked half so if that if that ratio held for climate science even if it were all true half of the studies about it would be false which would be completely normal then over time they get replaced with better studies that's how science works so the fact that I'm saying there's massive deceit on both the climate scientist side and the Skeptics of those same people

[39:03]

the Skeptics of those same people doesn't mean anything it doesn't tell you anything about How likely the truth is on either side all we know is that there's massive lying on both sides that that that part is a preliminary conclusion but here's the question what would what would your strategy be what's the best strategy if you knew climate science was a big problem and here I want to make a analogy right so you can imagine imagine a hypothetical situation in which you had four countries let's say it's a it's a world with only four countries just hypothetically and let's say that they all decided to go to war with each other until only one was left so all everybody is fighting everybody so that's the imaginary scenario but you have the best military and let's say before has the

[40:07]

worst has the worst military what is the strategy that each of these entities should use well the obvious strategy if you have the worst military and everybody is fighting everybody is to try to find a partner you're going to try to partner up but let's say I'll just make this a little more interesting let's say there's no partnering um it's an artificial situation in which nobody can partner somebody said Game of Thrones that's exactly where this is coming from um so so my situation is everybody's going to fight everybody and nobody can partner so somebody's just going to be last country standing if you are the strongest military what's your best strategy anybody you're the strongest military but everybody's going to fight everybody until it's all over what's your best strategy stay out of it stay out of it because the less you can
can Engage The weaker your enemies will get

[41:08]

Engage The weaker your enemies will get fighting each other right absolutely and and and I would argue that no one would argue with this point I mean there might be situations where you could do some limited attack and you know it' be such a mismatch that you should do it but generally you want these people to all fight with each other until there's nothing left and then you come in does that sound familiar it's World War II do you know why the United States was so effective entering World War II it's because the sides that were already there were decimated decimated is the wrong word because that means only taken down by 10% but Germany had you know taken a lot of hits from the the European forces the resistance so now let's take this to climate um now I will I will caution you that I'm not saying that um I'm not

[42:08]

that I'm not saying that um I'm not telling you that war Theory translates directly to climate this is just a let's say just to get your mind thinking a certain way so this is not supposed to persuade you about climate make your climate decision separately so situation with climate is that if the climate scientist majority is correct and that there's a big problem coming they also say that that problem will primarily come from China and from India and from some of the less developed countries what is our best strategy if it's true let's say that climate science is a disaster coming and let's say that China and India and other countries um and whatever develops next are going to be the prime drivers of that problem what's your best play well in a perfect world you would join hands with China and India and you would sing Kum

[43:09]

Kum Kum and then because you're such good friends and you get to get along so well you would coordinate a global effort in which all of you would act in unison as friends do Kum k and you would solve climate change problems wouldn't that be great that's not going to happen so let's say you're living in the real world not the unicorns and rainbows and Kumbaya world where China is going to pursue its best interests India is going to pursue its National best interest and everybody else is going to pursue their own best interest and they're not going to grab hands with you and sing kumaya no freaking way that's kind of the world we live in isn't it in a world in which everybody is just going to do their own

[44:12]

thing shouldn't we stay out of it because to get into it you know the Battle of worldwide climate change would weaken our economy and almost certainly not work that's what the experts say because if China and India don't do their thing it doesn't really matter what we do but if we stay out of it we can keep our economy strong and because we're a very capable technological High economy country we have a good government I know it seems hard to believe that but compared to other countries we have a relatively functional government what would be the impact of climate change on the United States could be bad right could be bad but guess what the United States could handle it we can handle disasters we we can get out of the way in time because we see them coming we can build better buildings we can fortify against floods we can re

[45:14]

fortify against floods we can re relocate entire populations if we need to we can grow indoors we we could replace outdoor growing in five years yeah maybe not but if if we made it a national priority you could create indoor Farms that pretty much get you almost all the way there so the United States as a strategy if you if you borrow from the concept of uh you know war strategy it seems like keeping ourselves strong while the other countries are their economies are being destroyed is actually our best strategy now I would love to hear you know smarter people talk more about this because I'm obviously simplifying to the point of maybe maybe simplifying beyond the point where it's even rational but it does seem to me that we can protect ourselves in this war

[46:15]

can protect ourselves in this war against the climate better than all the other countries somebody says what about the moral aspects the moral way to approach it is to keep working on the technology that you could make available to the other countries should they want to use it but you can't make the other countries use it that's that's the trick you can't make other countries do it and that's not going to change you can make it possible for them to do it and that would be the moral thing to do but you can't make them do it if you could then you we could talk about that so my current thinking is that from a war strategy perspective even if climate change is all of the risk that the scientists are saying it would still make sense for the United States to not get involved in anything that's risky to our economy in the short term you know any any major dislocation to our economy in the shortterm is probably and and

[47:16]

in the shortterm is probably and and very highly probable uh the worst uh strategy decision you could make um so that's the first thing here's the second part and by the way does anybody disagree with that I'm seeing I'm seeing literally no disagreement in the comments but I don't know if that means anything now here's the fun part let's decide if climate change is even a problem so I told you I was doing a deep dive to try to figure out why it is that the Skeptics and scientists who say that there's a big problem can't find middle ground and there are two claims that I've I've uh focused on because they seem to be the the simple L skeptical arguments and if they're wrong they're the easiest to disprove and weirdly as easy as these would be to disprove it's very much like the fine people problem so I believe that the same um false memory cognitive distance that applied to the Fine people

[48:18]

distance that applied to the Fine people hoax is probably very much applying to The
The Climate um situation meaning that neither side would be capable of changing their opinion even if facts were presented I don't think I think people are too locked into their mental models at this point so I've tried to see how how how could I find the one lever the one fact the one claim that if you could prove it you would have your answer and if you could disprove it it would just kill the Skeptics and the Skeptics would be debunked there are two charts I've seen that I do not claim to be accurate there are two skeptical arguments that I've seen a number of times which seem the strongest I would like to see them debunked all right so I've asked on Twitter can anybody debunk these and it got real quiet so these are the ones that I'm watching one of them and and these are just my own versions of them one of them

[49:19]

just my own versions of them one of them is this claim and I think it's uh uh you'll remind me in the comments who made this claim but if you look at so so apparently the top 31 countries in the world have their own climate models and you say to yourself well if there are all these different climate models maybe nobody knows anything but the claim is that 30 or so of the models are in this same range they're different but they all say that we're in big trouble because CO2 is making it too warm slightly different rates but they're they're all heading toward Doom so if these are correct or even any one of them is correct we're doomed and I think what they do is they pick an average of these and they say all right it's this one in the middle is the average and it shows we're doomed that's the story but you notice this one little out lier here and of all the models there's only one of them that's different than the rest apparently this is the Russian model now what's

[50:21]

is the Russian model now what's different about the Russian model as I understand it this is a very approximate understanding is that there's one key variable that they include that the other ones um treat differently and it's easy to measure which one of them is the accurate way to go it turns out to be the Russian model so if you believe the skeptical argument and I'm not taking that argument I'm just presenting it if you believe it the Russian model matches observation and also predicts that we don't have a problem uh all of the models including the Russian model match to the Past in other words if you run it against past data they all they all seem to predict or at least follow the temperature line it's only when you get to the present and then predict the future where they diverge so if this model if this is true I would say the Russian model has disproved climate change as a gigantic

[51:22]

disproved climate change as a gigantic risk but it still says the temperature is going up just not in a end of the world way so if this model is true I would say um we should be looking at the Russian model because it's the only one that predicted the past it's the only one also that has predicted the last several years and that's important I should have put that on there so if you look at I I I label this inaccurately future well let's say this the recent past the Russian model has correctly predicted and it's the only one so my my graph is inaccurate here but I understand the Russian model is the only one that got the last I don't know 10 years or whatever correct and it's the only one that uses the correct inputs and I think those are two known facts that's the part you need to fact checking on so if this is true climate change has largely been debunked not 100% but you'd have to stop caring about

[52:22]

100% but you'd have to stop caring about it as much if that were true now here's another one and again this is my version of the graph this is not not intended to be exact but the skeptical claim is made that if you start at the 1900s and go to now and you look at the temperatures that it it looks roughly like this the temperatures were going up there was a period where they flattened or maybe fell a little bit and then there's now and the Skeptics say if the CO2 has been raising Rising this entire time um it was low here but it's higher here why do we have the same rate here as we have with much higher CO2 when nothing else much has changed and so they say the the primary claim that we're in an unusual uh an unusual warming is debunked by your own data moreover you really have to add this to this both of these to say that

[53:26]

this to this both of these to say that CO2 did not predict either one all right so uh but is that is that graph accurate I saw Richard lindsen refer to something similar to that so and he's he knows what he's talking about so it's not it's not a crazy graph there's at least one person working in the field who says yes this is the actual data here it is now did the Russian model did the Russian model predict
this here's the fun part yes it did how about these models how about the other 30 models did did they predict this not so much not so much now I just made some claims that I do not know are true I know that these are the skeptical claims and I'm presenting you I'm presenting them to as as the claims of

[54:28]

presenting them to as as the claims of other people I do not have a way to put a um a reliability on them or any kind of assessment of likelihood I'm just telling you these are the arguments now if these arguments are wrong how easy would it be to debunk them see that's that's where I'm getting I'm I'm trying to pick things that would be definitive if they were true or close to definitive but also easy to debunk if they are to be debunked so wouldn't it be easy to say no here are the official numbers it doesn't even look like that wouldn't that be easy all it would take is somebody who is a climate scientist to say oh I don't know where you got these numbers that's those are not even the official numbers it's really more like this or something else that's all it would take I I've made this so easy that you could debunk it just by showing me the temperature I don't need to be a scientist I don't need to be involved in climate scientist I just need a climate

[55:29]

climate scientist I just need a climate scientist to say no that they didn't use the right numbers the real temperature isn't that at all that that's it that would put it to bed haven't seen it still waiting likewise I need somebody to say that Russian model that's wrong because they do X or Y that's all I mean I could probably easily be convinced that the Russian model is just you know Russian BS how hard how hard would it be to convince me that the Russians do not have a reliable model when their primary business is selling oil right keep in mind it's kind of a coincidence that this that this big oil State doesn't see climate change as a big problem I mean is that a coincidence I mean you have to you have to factor that in so I make no claim that these arguments are valid I simply present them as the the simplest to understand and the simplest to debunk

[56:30]

to understand and the simplest to debunk I put both of them into the Wilds of Twitter and I wait and I have not seen anything like a debunking but maybe I'll see that by today all right uh I wanted to give one other update on the fine people hoax um some some very industrious people who have been following this uh one in particular has gone to uh Wikipedia to try to edit the Wikipedia page that indicated that the fine people quote was talking about the racist to edit it to be more accurate to say that um he excluded them with specific language he excluded the races so the first several times that the correct information was put into Wikipedia it was re-edited out back to the false version within 7 minutes minutes each time so and keep in mind that these

[57:32]

time so and keep in mind that these edits were uh they were accompanied with the actual transcript and the actual video so links to them so there isn't any question on the
the facts they're they're very objective and yet Wikipedia's editors changed the correct fact or the wrong fact several times Within
and let me give you the uh the exact Twitter handle of the person who is making this happen right now and I'll give you an update because there's there's more happening on that um so I'm talking about uh un unstable 2016 so unstable 2016 um is driving this and then other people have have come in on both sides and then I guess with Wikipedia when there's a disagreement the disagreement gets elevated to what's called a talk

[58:34]

gets elevated to what's called a talk page and that's where everybody puts their comments um outside of the page itself where they can talk it out the editors can argue and then they can come to some agreement on The Talk page and then it then ideally it becomes a final edit so it's been elevated to the talk page and in the meantime the page was frozen which makes sense you want to free the page while everybody's arguing about it so that part's fine um in the meantime I contacted Jimmy Wales who is founder of Wikipedia this is one of the great things about Twitter you know it's hard to even think back in the old days but in in 2019 I can have a question about Wikipedia and within 30 seconds I can send a message via Twitter because we follow each other Jimmy Wales and I and
and uh and he got he got back to me and he said he would look into it so the head

[59:34]

said he would look into it so the head of Wikipedia the founder uh the boss of it all said he would look into it so he looked into it today and since I first contacted him one of the one of the Acura edits had been sticking so there was an Acura edit in there saying that he excluded the races from the fine people and gave the actual quote but I think there was some more cont text that was a little bit ambiguous so there was still some more conversation so Jimmy Wales looked into it I me just think about this just just for a moment think about this that that the founder of Wikipedia responded to me directly and fairly quickly given all the things he has to do looked into it personally um saw that he came into it at a point when the conversation had had been elevated to the talk page he checked the talk and he got back to me he said um it looks like it's heading in the right direction in other words it looks like it's sorting itself out in the way you'd

[1:00:35]

it's sorting itself out in the way you'd want it to so he said maybe maybe I won't put my foot on you know I won't uh I forget what he used but he didn't want to weigh in because he's sort of the big gorilla you know if if Jimmy Wales weighs in on a topic on Wikipedia everybody's going to stop and it's going to be about him and so he he quite wisely in my opinion decided to to stand back and just monitor for a while because it looks like it's moving in the right directions um I'll check back on that today uh but it looks like the corrected edit is sticking now that creates an interesting situation because Wikipedia will have a different reality with complete you know it'll have links to the actual sources so you can check that reality which will be different from the reported reality on TV uh so if I'm nothing I'm not uh

[1:01:39]

um I sometimes say I would hate to be on the other side for me on anything because I'm just too damn stubborn to give up on stuff so um the interesting thing about this story is the the false memory part of it I I promise you that I know more than you do about why the why the media is treating it the way they are and as far as I can tell it's because they really believed it like many of you are still believing that they're they're just liars supporting aside but on this one topic I'm I'm personally quite convinced that they actually believed it was true the way they were reporting it all right uh so there you have it and I think I've talked enough and I will talk to you later