Episode 481 Scott Adams: 97% of Scientists Love Gen IV Nuclear, Theron, Mueller, Solar

Date: 2019-04-05 | Duration: 35:00

Topics

President Trump’s retweet of meme mocking Joe Biden Pete Buttigieg regrets saying “all lives matter” Slaughter Meter’s current setting, and why 97% of climate scientists WANT Gen IV nuclear power development Are solar alternatives viable, as scalable as Gen IV? Charlize Theron on her dating availability… “somebody just needs to grow a pair and step up”
Trey Gowdy says Mueller punted to Barr due to legal ambiguity Old Nads and the Dingleberries continue attacks on POTUS Now they’re seeking his tax returns Might be legal, but nobody on either side thinks it legit

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

## Transcript

[0:05]

[Music] hey everybody come on in here I'm a little slow today I don't know what's gotting what's getting into me I've been I've been sleeping lately but you know what time it is yeah it's time for coffee was Scott Adams I am Scott Adams you probably are ready and if you're not you've got a few seconds to get there grab your mug your glass your thermos your Stein your tanker fill in with your favorite liquid I like coffee and join me now for the simultaneous
sip ah so sweet so sweet well did everybody see the president's tweet about uh Joe Biden it's another terrific meme not sure if we're supposed to know who the mem maker is or not so I'm not going to say anything about that but

[1:08]

say anything about that but uh remember when people said we can't let president Trump normalize this or that behavior and he would say outrageous things that that politicians are not supposed to say and people would say don't normalize that we can't get used to this kind of behavior and when I saw him tweet the hilarious meme of Joe Biden giving his sort of explanation speech about all of his touchiness and in the meme you could see another Joe Biden come up behind that Joe Biden and put his hands on his shoulders and sniff his hair it's like the funniest thing and and I'm thinking to myself it feels totally normal so the president of the United States tweets this Dre mocking Joe Biden and I looked at it and I thought I don't know I'm used to this I mean I loved it so it was still

[2:10]

loved it so it was still funny but uh yeah it was carp dunam I think everybody knows that made the the meme um and I thought to myself totally normal and and in fact someday we'll have a president who is not Donald Trump it's going to be so freaking boring I don't know if I'm even going to follow politics after Trump cuz I've never really been that interested before I went through eight years of Obama I didn't even watch the political news I mean I just completely didn't care it was not entertaining things have changed so hope we get a few more years of entertainment all right let's talk about uh Pete budhaji who because his his uh I I guess his Fame and uh importance in the race are rising so he's going to start getting harder attacks uh one of the clever gotcha questions was somebody

[3:11]

the clever gotcha questions was somebody asked him apparently in the past he had said in public in response to somebody asking do you think all black lives matter he had fallen into the trap at some point in the past he said thinking it was a good answer all lives matter only to learn later that all lives matter is a trap that makes you look like a racist that's right if you say everybody is equally important you're a racist according to the rules that I didn't make these are the rules made by the whoever I guess whoever says black lives matter the same same people say that if you respond with all lives matter you are diminishing the original point that black lives matter which indirectly means you must be a racist so Pete bu Gigi ends up saying he he regrets it so what you're seeing here is a pattern now I'm I'm not I'm completely uninterested in the question of you know

[4:13]

uninterested in the question of you know what lives matter and whether that's an insult anybody or not that's just boring I am interested in the fact that from now until election day people are going to be hounding democrats for apologies for everything and the older you are you know whoever gets into the race if if you're an older politician let's say Bernie or Biden you probably are going to have more things to apologize for so uh I think the Democrats are eating themselves with the apology TS and when they're done the de the Republicans will be happy to keep eating them by continuing to make them apology apologize which is hilarious CU if you're well let me put it this way if you have the bad luck to be running for president against a sitting president well yeah I'm sorry because running against a sitting president sometimes

[5:14]

president sometimes works if you're if you're sort of a weak feeling president such as Bush senior it might work if you're Jimmy Carter running against you after your first term it might work but running after president Trump running against him when he's got a one term under his belt that term might have produced the strongest economy and the safest country of all time and he's famous for not apologizing it's like his brand not apologizing that's my brand and you're going to run against that guy that guy of all the people in the world you're going to run against a you know a second term guy running for a second term with the strongest economy the strongest military the safest country in the history of countries and he's famous for not apologizing and you're going to bring your weak little apology game against

[6:15]

your weak little apology game against that good luck good luck all right so there was a hilarious quote uh that I think is probably going to get me in trouble oh somebody asked what is the slaughter meter the slaughter meter is at
at 50% because the president gets an F for health care and he gets an F for climate change now I know half of you just no maybe 90% of you just said what what he doesn't get an F for climate change because climate change isn't even real wrong half of the country thinks it's real which is the important part he's a politician he's he's the leader of the country half or more not more than half right more like I don't know what the percentage is but more than half think is real and think it's the end of the world you don't really ignore that

[7:15]

world you don't really ignore that especially when you have Generation 4 nuclear as a clear path um or even solar you could you could go crazy with solar and you would be producing good stuff without hurting the economy so to have a clear path that would deal with climate change and it would also be the same path even if climate change isn't a problem cheaper energy um less dependence on other countries these are these are obvious paths and the fact that the administration is not pushing this obvious path whether or not climate change is the giant problem that a lot of people are saying doesn't matter it's the same path if you're not if you're not helping the country down the only path the only path that makes sense that's enough it's it's not like there were multiple paths and I think one path is good somebody thinks another path is good well it's hard to know

[8:15]

path is good well it's hard to know who's right if you only have one path and you're not going down it that's an F so president gets an F failing grade for climate even if it's not a risk political as an F Health Care where is the president's health care plan doesn't exist he's punting it to 2020 that's an F that's a failing grade so the slaughter meter is at 50% it's a tossup I don't think he can necessarily he's definitely not going to win in the landslide if he doesn't fix those two things but here's the good news both fixable they're both fixable you know he could at least have a plan that he can talk about for after the election so that's fixable and he's got enough time to do it and and getting on the right path for Generation 4 nuclear surprisingly that the administration is actually doing the right things but for

[9:17]

actually doing the right things but for reasons that baffle me and maybe it's purely political maybe they don't know how to talk about nuclear without getting in trouble for whatever reason they're not packaging them up as accomplishments they're actual real accomplishments I've never seen it in tell me if you think this is not a true statement I've never seen an Administration have a higher ratio of actually doing useful things and not bragging about it and and of all of all administrations the Trump Administration you'd expect to be the braggestfall
Rick Perry is apparently doing a bunch of good stuff with nuclear he's he's set up that rapid testing for nuclear fuel for the new technologies um apparently he's done something to push for the carbon sequest the carbon filtering stuff where they

[10:18]

the carbon filtering stuff where they can suck the carbon out of the air he's he's worked on that somehow so they've done things that are actually exactly the right things to do and you wouldn't even know about them except for the press release that comes out of the energy Department like what the president doesn't even talk about this stuff so that's failing grade on that but easy to fix all right so I did a tweet yesterday that I'm so proud of I'm not always proud of my tweets but this one I'm very proud of and I'm going to read you the Tweet so this is from me I tweeted it yesterday and I said 97% of climate scientists win wink wink wink all right so 97% of climate scientists agree that Generation 4 nuclear power that is safe from meltdown and eats nuclear waste from older reactors for energy is the only way to combat climate change in time and at the needed

[11:19]

change in time and at the needed scale that's right I said that 97% of climate scientists want nuclear power what did people say when they saw that tweet well most people knew what I was
was doing they knew what I was doing and they liked it but some people said where'd you get that statistic where'd you get that I'm not so sure I believe that
statistic now if you've been following my persuasion lessons for the last couple of years you know that because it's 97% and obviously designed to match the 97% of climate scientists who say um uh that climate change is manade and and problematic so I it was it's intentionally matching that number is it real well here's the funny thing it might be low I don't know what the real number

[12:21]

low I don't know what the real number would be but it might be low and here's what I mean if you were to actually go to climate scientists and you were to say
say you know here are all our options let's say you believe that you've got this problem coming all here are all the things we could do and I'm going to explain to you Generation 4 nuclear and what the potential is what what you how low the risk is ETC now what do you do do you let the the planet die or do you agree that this is an obvious path we should be on I actually think that 97% of climate scientists would actually say yes now you might have to explain to them something that's outside their field if they're not up to dat on nuclear developments they might say they might say no you know nuclear is risky but then you would just say well let me explain to you why you know maybe you're not up to date on this and after they heard the explanation I

[13:22]

after they heard the explanation I actually think they would all say yeah so the the magic of the Tweet is that it makes people disagree so if some let's say somebody um is a climate change alarmist type and they see that 97% the first thing they're going to say is that's BS that's BS I don't believe that and that's what I want them to say because in the process of debunking it which I am inviting people to do of course that's the whole point of it in the process of getting people to think about it focus on it and bunk it they will be educating themselves on Generation 4 nuclear possibilities that's all I want I just want them to focus on it I want them to get a little mad I want them to be skeptical where that number came from I want them to doubt it I want them to dig into it to prove me wrong and then I want them to become educated because it go it might it might

[14:23]

educated because it go it might it might be 100% not 97% all right um smart people people are debating me mostly online and sometimes offline saying that the real solution is solar and that the only way to get to uh a good situation quickly quick enough is the same argument I'm saying for generation for nuclear the stuff that's safe from meltdown and uses nuclear fuel for or nuclear waste for fuel other people are saying the same argument except they're saying it for solar uh solar is the only thing we could ramp up quickly enough we we basically know how to do it uh we you know we could just start you know just putting these things out there as fast as possible and that's the only way we could do something fast enough to make a difference to climate change and the people are saying this are smart serious people who have looked into it but I ask you this I have not looked

[15:24]

it but I ask you this I have not looked into it so I'm not an expert on solar I'm not an expert on nuclear but here's what I am an expert on
on if there's one thing I know it's uh for much of my corporate life I spent time making uh Financial projections you know what would this technology do in this time what would it cost to buy this technology will it pay for itself that sort of thing so the two the analyses that people are making about solar and the ones that they're making about uh nuclear they both have one important variable the most important variable in both of those analyses which one's the good one solar or nuclear what's the most important variable in both of them stuff we don't know is going to happen surprises they both require a surprise they both require something to

[16:25]

surprise they both require something to happen faster than you think it ought to or to discover let's say in the case of B in the case of solar it sort of requires developments in Battery Technology that I don't believe are on on the table now we have lots of optimism that we can figure out how to get to battery storage that's economical and that could be scaled I believe we have some ideas you know may probably a lot of things in the lab that look promising but we don't know we don't know how to get enough battery storage to make solar work so that's just a big question mark can we solve that pretty good chance yeah I don't know when and I don't know at What economical you know level same with generation for nuclear we have all the basics you know we know the basic ideas and we know a number of different ways because Generation 4 is sort of an umbrella there are a number of ways to

[17:27]

umbrella there are a number of ways to get to a safe economical thing we don't know exactly which one's the most promising it would require some iteration so if you're comparing nuclear to solar both of them being you know how do you go crazy with them and really get to the point where it takes over the power grid if you're telling me that there's somebody who's smart enough to know which of those two plans is economically and environmentally the good one I will tell you that you're a person who's never done that kind of analysis if you've ever been involved in that kind of analysis which I used to do for a living I don't mean on those topics just on technology in general you know that when you're looking at 80 years and really I suppose you'd be looking at 20 years with with both of these because those that would be the the key development times you you can't estimate them you you really can't anybody who tells you they know which one of those is the good way to go is

[18:28]

one of those is the good way to go is just guessing now
now given that you can't really know which one you should you put your focus on so here's I'm going to ask an economics question for you it's a world of limited resources and it's an let's say let's say you believe it's an emergency we've got to have one of these two technologies which one do you go with uh give me your answer in your comments you're all economists now you're all in charge and you know you can't tell which one's going to be the good one you just there just isn't any way to know but they're both very promising which way do you go why
nuclear all right there is one person here who's been paying attention some of you fell for the Trap as Greg geld says you fell into the prison of two ideas I trapped you I

[19:29]

prison of two ideas I trapped you I intentionally made you think that picking one of them or the other one was somehow smart it's not if we had a world where there was only a little bit of money and if you used that money for one of those you didn't have any money left for the other in that case you have to make a choice which one would you pick I'd probably go nuclear because it's my sense that they're a little further along in how to how a complete solution whereas solar I don't know where they are battery wise but that's probably just my ignorance however we do not live in that world the nuclear development for Generation 4 as far as I know is not being slowed down by a lack of money there seems to be a lot of funding for Generation 4 nuclear projects so money doesn't seem to be what's stopping them likewise for solar companies like Google you know and

[20:30]

companies like Google you know and really anybody who likes the environment and wants to wants to broadcast their involvement with the with the environment it's going to be easy to get private Investments even massive private Investments for big solar projects because they're just so lovable so in a world where Private Industry is massively willing to invest in solar and massively willing we can observe this we don't have to guess they're doing it right now massively willing to in invest in generation 4 you don't have to choose that's the beauty you don't have to choose in fact it would be dumb not to do both now somebody here had the exact right answer which is do both of them small that's always the way you should be thinking you should say to yourself wait a minute if I built you know let's say a massive solar power plant and it worked then I maybe I would reproduce that and make you know 100 of them but you don't have to wonder if a

[21:31]

them but you don't have to wonder if a hundred work if you have the funding build one likewise with the generation 4 stuff there's several models or several ways to go they need to iterate you don't have to wonder which is the right one build the best one you can see if it has a problem see if you can do better iterate all right so as long as you stay small until you have your model worked out you don't have to ask the question which one is the one to go with do both stay small use private money the government should do a better job of focusing on it and maybe removing regulations where where it is necessary so the government can do a big job of focusing resources but mostly Private Industry there are a few things that the government probably is uniquely suited for such as Rick Perry's project for the testing of the different um uh nuclear fuels so we don't have to answer the question

[22:32]

so we don't have to answer the question which is the good one if there are smart people willing to invest in both of them and smart people who say this is the one and other smart people say this is the one you do both there's no question about that now again if president Trump said look we've got two promising ways forward and two competing sets of ideas I'm going to focus on both of them and make sure that they both get as much oxygen as they as they can do the best they can and effectively compete against each other for who has the best solution that would be an A+ presidential performance as opposed to the F that he's at right now all right this is just funny changing topics chares Theon everybody know actress chares Theon if you know who she is you also know that she's famous for being uh attractive so she's a famous and famously famously attractive actress

[23:33]

and famously famously attractive actress I believe that's still okay for me to say in the era of me too in the year of Joe
Joe Biden um because that's her brand you know that's those are the roles she gets that's sort of her sort of what she's famous for and she was interviewed recently and she had this quote apparently she's been single for 10 years she's been single for 10 years so she's no longer dating uh Sean pen but she was and somebody asked her about that and she said quote I've been single for 10 years it's not a long shot and the context was having somebody date her and get married is not a long shot theren said of someone courting her somebody just needs to grow a pair and step up I'm shockingly available so shockingly available is the way I interpret it meaning for somebody who's beautiful and has a good job it's shocking that men are not stepping up here's my

[24:33]

here's my advice for Charlie's Theon if you ever want a serious man to be your boyfriend don't say sentences like this never say somebody just needs to grow a pair and step
up if you were a single man would you date somebody who ever use that sentence I
I wouldn't cuz there's something in that sentence that tells you everything about what it would be like to be with her and I didn't like it I didn't like it at all um I mean if if your invitation if your invitation for somebody to date you is literally a sexual insult something about your genitalia not being being sufficient you know we're done we're done that's we don't need to

[25:36]

done we're done that's we don't need to go to the second sentence chariss you have disqualified yourself with your first sentence you never even got to the second sentence anyway that's my dating advice right there um I guess uh what's his name Trey gouty was doing a TV interview and he was making the point that he thinks that Mueller punted to bar on the question of of obstruction because there was some ambiguity in in what a president can and cannot do legally so let me just read the quote um so this is from Trey gy he says so I so I think what meller was saying is that we don't know the Department's position on whether the president can obstruct Justice or not in other words talking about M the justice department I guess so we don't know whether the president can abstract Justice or not in other words they don't even know can that even be the law um and then he said that's for you

[26:39]

law um and then he said that's for you to decide we're going to punt it to you meaning punt it to bar and so the question was the reason that Mueller did not conclude whether the president had obstructed or not is that it wasn't a fact question remember this is what I've been telling you for a while it's not a fact question it's a question that multiple lawyers who are all good lawyers could look at the same facts have no question about the facts and say to themselves I don't even know I can't even tell if this is illegal I in this special case because it's a president acting within the bounds of his legal responsibilities I don't even know if that could ever be called like we don't know so bar being apparently the smartest person in in the conversation looked at the facts whatever the facts are looked at the fact that the law is unclear and then made the

[27:39]

unclear and then made the only adult decision you could make if the law can't even decide if it's illegal as in this case if trained lawyers don't know if it's illegal that's the end of the conversation that's the end of the conversation if they don't even know if it's illegal you don't need to go to the the details you just say oh that is our situation smart people can't even tell if it's illegal that is the end of the conversation nobody in this country at that level I'm talking about the president or anything that's in the news especially might be a different standard for poor people with bad lawyers let's be honest if you have a bad lawyer you're poor maybe you get screwed in this situation but if you're the president you can afford a lawyer you're you're in the public eye we do not live in a country nor will we ever where somebody's going to get punished for something that smart lawyers can't even tell is illegal that can never happen in

[28:42]

tell is illegal that can never happen in our system it would just it would be a violation of our such our core like American values that you couldn't get one person in a jury to go to go with that cuz cuz the lawyer would say look I'm a lawyer here are these other lawyers we don't even know if this is illegal you the juror let me ask you this do you want to live in a world where you could go to jail for something that trained lawyers and even some judges couldn't even tell was a crime you you give me that jury you give me what I just said I get zero people voting for a conviction and they don't even need to know that the facts of the case are I'd say Let's ignore the facts of the case just just look at the fact that the biggest experts in the country don't even know if this is illegal they can't even tell and they're looking at all the facts there are no facts in dispute what do you say jury zero people in that jury vote

[29:42]

jury zero people in that jury vote guilty zero every time there's no question about this one this is like the cleanest the cleanest legal situation you'll ever see in your life is an unclear situation because the lack of clarity is what makes you know exactly which which way it has to go it can only go one way let's talk about the IRS so apparently um old nads and the dingleberries are continuing their decades old uh uh attacks on Trump I guess nadler's been after Trump since way before Trump was even in politics back in Manhattan and they're going after his taxes and the the total excuse that they're using is that they have oversight over the IRS which is true they have the legal ability to ask for the tax returns of any citizen apparently and apparently that's true but the excuse that they're using

[30:43]

true but the excuse that they're using is that they're it's their oversight job and they want to make sure that the IRS is really doing its job with Trump's taxes now here's the problem nobody in the world on either side no lawyer anywhere thinks that this is legitimate they might think it's technically legal and as far as I can tell it is it looks like it's technically legal but there is nobody on either side who thinks it's legitimate there's nobody who thinks this is a proper use of the system under those conditions how what can we do what can we predict will happen well I don't know exactly if the president can control physically his uh tax returns meaning that if there's somebody in charge who has access to them who decides to give them up I don't know if the president

[31:43]

them up I don't know if the president can physically stop it but I can tell you that the revolution I can tell you that the president has good lawyers and I can tell you that something that is so overt ly inappropriate it's a in overtly obvious nobody's even trying to hide it inappropriate use of the law as a punishment tool and as an as a political attack doesn't that have to go to the Supreme Court do you see any world in which that does not go to the Supreme Court one way or the other it's going to get to the Supreme Court right Supreme Court at the moment sort of leans tr's way and apparently he's trying to also rush through Trump is nomination for the chief of the IRS he's trying to get his guy into the job he's kind of hurrying up hey hey Senate would you mind maybe moving the head of the IRS to the top of

[32:44]

moving the head of the IRS to the top of the approval list no reason no reason just just thought that would be good to get that done so here's my prediction the president's lawyers can stop call indefinitely on those taxes they can they can come up with one reason after another why there's some reason that they can't give it out now I don't know if the legal challenges will be enough to stop some employee of the IRS who has the secret password and physically could give the TA taxes to to Congress because that person might just say I don't want to get a lawyer and if Congress who has the authority is asking me to do something I'm just an employee it's not I'm not going to take this to the Supreme Court it's my job to do to do these things under these conditions the conditions have been met Congress G told me to do it I've got to I've got to type this in and give it to him so it could be that the lawyers

[33:46]

him so it could be that the lawyers objecting might not be enough maybe they get them anyway but here's my prediction uh that we'll never see his tax
tax returns my prediction is you'll never see the tax turns because the president has good lawyers too um and he probably doesn't mind that as a campaign issue because I think you know there's some things you look at and you say to yourself well that's a fair attack that's fair what the other side is doing I don't like that they're doing but I can see why they're doing it that's fair I don't think there's anybody in the country who sees an illegitimate um attempt to to get the president's taxes for no specific reason no specific reason just as a way to attack him and remove him from office I don't think there's anybody on either side who in their quiet time think that's thinks that's legitimate so it's actually a pretty good campaign um topic

[34:48]

actually a pretty good campaign um topic I think all right I think that's all I got and I'm going to go do something else and I will talk to you later