Episode 491 Scott Adams: Answering Your Questions Because no News Lately, Just Reruns
Date: 2019-04-14 | Duration: 37:53
Topics
Various topics, audience questions
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> [!note] Rough Transcript
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> This is an auto-generated transcript and may contain errors.
## Transcript
[0:09]
yes my introduction song is a little bit different every time that's what keeps you coming you never know what you're going to get here hello Jimmy Andrew and nacho Jake and shirona it's very good to see you this morning and I think it's time for a little thing we call the simultaneous zp it doesn't matter if you've got a glass or a cup or a mug you could be that you've got a flask possibly a thermos a tanker disin whatever it is raise your chalice fill it with your Li favorite liquid I like coffee and join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the simultaneous
sip that's a extra good today extra good so I thought I'd take some questions today because uh in a minute anyway because there's no news have you
[1:11]
anyway because there's no news have you noticed that I I went to the news sites CNN Fox News to look for some news find out what's going on today there's no news there's no news how much better a president could you be than to make the news go away let me say that again because I liked it so much when it came out of my
mouth given that we all understand that if it bleeds it leads or basically that bad news is what news is news is bad news we don't really have news about oh a school did pretty well and you know their students got better grades and and tax you know tax receipts are up and and you know we get a little bit of news out of that we'll you know we'll publish the unemployment rates and the stock market is up but if it's the weekend the
[2:12]
is up but if it's the weekend the economy is not doing anything in the weekend there's no news how good a president do you have to be to make the news go away think about that this is something no president's ever done before I don't think correct me if I'm wrong name another president who was so good he made the news go away there's no news it's amazing but so so let me give you just a sample when I said there's no news there are still things on the page so if I go to uh CNN's top page let me do that because it was funny let's see what CNN thinks is so important that it should be in the top left of their page there's a Korean boy band called BTS so the top headline is that they performed on Saturday Night Live and everybody went crazy but okay
[3:13]
Live and everybody went crazy but okay that's you know that's an outlier right it's the top item on CNN but what are the what's the second and third item because you're sure that these are more about news right can't be about a boy band here's the second one cbts Mania take over Saturday Night Live what it's two headlines in a row at the same point all right but let's go down to the third one here we haven't seen boy ban fandoms like this since the Beatles okay so it's the top three headlines on CNN or about a Korean South Korean boy band but now we're going to get to the good stuff right here's number four inside the k-pops multi-billion okay so the top four headlines on CNN are about boy band but we're going to get to the good stuff here number five is uh the K-pop b band has had two Billboard Music Award n okay the top five headlines on CNN are about this boy
[4:14]
five headlines on CNN are about this boy band but special case when you get to the six one it's going to be all about the K-pop lovers guide okay the top six headlines on CNN I'm not making this up I I swear I'm not making this up I'm reading the actual headlines the top six headlines are about a boy band from South Korea there has never been a better president of the United States that's all you have to look at when the historians when historians write the story of President Trump's first term I hope that they just take a screen grab of this page and just say this is all you freaking need know president Trump made the news go away he made the news go away nobody's ever done that are you kidding me he made the news go away
[5:15]
away wow all right and then way down the page over on the right there's a little area about a little bit about uh something else uh Camala Harris released 15 years of her tax return s do you remember all the people who were saying we've got to see KLA Harris's tax returns nobody did anybody ask kamla Harris for her tax returns does anybody care that Kell Harris showed her showed us her tax returns no she continues to be the most boring candidate who's ever run for president I don't think we've ever seen a more boring person and by the way I'm not saying that you know just as a as a partisan she's really boring she doesn't know how to be interesting and I don't think I don't believe the CNN can let her be president um I think that they
[6:17]
her be president um I think that they they're still hedging their bats right so they still got the pach Buddha judge situation going and uh by the way if you don't know how to pronounce Pete budha judge you can ask your assistant Alexa how do you pronounce Pete budha Judi sorry I don't know that Alexa how do you pronounce Pete Buddha
judge so my a XA I won't say it because I'll trigger all all of yours at home uh actually knows the proper pronunciation of Buddha
[7:18]
now uh I don't have to tell you and I'm not saying that this is funny no I'm not going to say it I I want to say something that people will take out of context so I'm not going to say it um let let me say instead I I would love to have a gay president you know eventually it doesn't have to be beat mayor beat it doesn't have to be anybody in particular it doesn't have to be any particular year but we should have one right gay lesbian let's you know let's get some LGBT action going there in the presidency now I wouldn't want to elect somebody because of that you know I wouldn't want that to be the reason to be president but you I think president needs to get past it or the country needs to get past it yeah let's just get past it um anyway so there's there's no news so I'm going to take some questions so I see some people have signed up to talk to me and let's take some questions April April you were being added to ask
[8:20]
April April you were being added to ask me a question April April are you
there good morning you don't sound like April I know do you have a question um yeah I just want to know um I've been Bing watching your two seasons of uh Dilbert the series and um there are a lot of correlations with what you're talking about today and that came out you know over 10 years ago and I just um do you have any thoughts on on those two seasons well so um what's your first name um April April so April is talking about first two seasons of the Dilbert animated TV show uh and you know the tough thing about animation I I'll tell you that the main thing you need to know about that it takes so long from the time you've written a script to the time it actually shows on TV that most of
[9:22]
it actually shows on TV that most of your season is already done because it's a many months process so the first season of Dilbert was largely done before we the creators the people who made it saw one so we had to do a season before seeing how they look now that's a slight exaggeration we could see some toward the end of the season but you couldn't adjust what you were doing because you didn't get to see it so you didn't know how it was Landing how it was working by the second season we were we were far better so if you look at the second season stuff it's just way better than the first which is typical The Simpsons had a just horrendous in terms of quality the first season but because it was new and shocking you know it caught on and they got money and then they became really really good but if you look at the first season it's just embarrassingly bad they don't even show it for reruns um so Dilbert went through a similar thing where the second season was really good but by the time the second season rolled around um the network we were on UPN had
[10:23]
around um the network we were on UPN had made a strategic change and they decided to become um a PR primarily a a channel for black viewers so they tried to get a lot of black specific content with black actors and stuff and we no longer made sense in the lineup so the things that cause things to succeed or fail are so often not entirely under your control in this case we did actually everything right and had we been on another Network well I suppose you could blame us for being on that Network in the first place so that that's on me so I'll take that as my mistake um I did actually turn down an offer at uh Fox so before I think it was about the same time the Family Guy was being considered and uh I turned it down but they had only offered something like six
six episodes and I thought no I don't want
[11:24]
episodes and I thought no I don't want six episodes cuz like I said you wouldn't even know if they were good before they had air and UPN offered something closer to a full half season so we took the longer offer and it one of the worst mistakes ever made uh but it did allow me not to be working in TV stuff because working on TV stuff is awful it's just terrible work very unfun but thanks for the question well can I start to add a crowdfunding campaign and get some Seasons up and running on like Netflix or Amazon um well I mean I I would be I don't know flattered I guess I'd be flattered if you did that but it probably wouldn't work yeah and I kind of don't want to do that kind of work you know like you know if there were a great demand I'm not sure I would be happy about it because I just just wouldn't want to do that work again but thank you thanks for talking to me all right I appreciate it all right let's get somebody else on here
[12:26]
right let's get somebody else on here let's talk to I'm just looking at all the names on here and I'm going to take
connecting um I'm glad you like the Dilbert TV season by the way Dilbert hello Lucas I can hear you do do you have a question for me yeah I I do have a question I was wondering um there is as forms for persuasion there's a technology called et3 it's kind of like Elon musk's vers or Elon Musk is has that underground tunnel system and I think it's sort of based on that that seems to never get like any traction in the Press I was wondering is that like uh like I don't know never heard yeah it's pretty interesting it's
[13:27]
heard yeah it's pretty interesting it's kind of like they take like internet IP protocol and apply it to underground tunnels for transportation wait are you are you are you talking about persuasion or are you talking about technology what are you talking about well I think it's pretty good technology I was just wondering like how would people apply like good ideas for technology for persuasion to get people interested in it well that that question is a little bit too generic to get my teeth into um because whether it was technology or anything else the tools of of persuasion would be largely identical you know you're going to do visual things you're going to repeat you're going to keep it simple um you know you're going to do things that have an emotional content so uh I I don't have much to say on that so did you have another question um yeah I I do have another question um I was thinking for your like nuclear uh like your nuclear ideas would you be able to like get video game
[14:27]
you be able to like get video game developers to like add that into their video games so it kind of gets persuasion for children interesting idea yeah if you add things to video games you definitely would get the Next Generation and uh that probably would be persuasive just because of repetition because it's visual because you would be interacting with it yeah that would that would totally work it would be hard to organize these video game companies to do that but hypothetically if you could yeah that would be very very power powerful similar to the fact that we make kids do the pledge of allegiance The Pledge of Allegiance is a brainwashing um
technique washing but we do it for you know a reason which I would not uh criticize all right thank you for the question Lucas hey let's take another question slow news day let's go to uh I wanted to mix it up by gender
[15:28]
to uh I wanted to mix it up by gender but looks like oh we've got Angela see what Angela has to
say Angela are you there hi do you have a question for me yeah I had a question I am a retired dance teacher and I did a lot of high school drill team I taught for 30 years I have a lot of thought about cognitive dissonance in talking with parents I would love to hear your thoughts about how you take those ideas and maybe help Educators understand how to communicate better with parents uh was there some spec specific thing because that again that's a little too General how to how to communicate with parents okay well so here's my thing it's a communication thing in general we have a lot of trouble when we have objectives and the parents have different objectives I feel this is you know the same thing you know to two movies on one screen I want you to uh give some thoughts about how we learn to
[16:29]
give some thoughts about how we learn to communicate with people just a little bit better um I know that's big draw big drawn out topic but so I you ever thought about taking ideas that direction yeah let let me give you the general answer which I think is actually pretty specific in this case there you can learn these skills of communication simply by consuming the the books and the YouTube videos that talk about it and the more of those you do the more you'll see okay these things over lap these are the things that everybody recommends Etc so I would read my book wind bigley that would probably be the most accessible way but there uh you should also um do a Google search on persuasion reading list so that's you'll find my own list of books that are all in that genre yes sir you are at the top of my list on that for sure um also how to fail and what's the correct title for how to fail and win how to failed almost everything and still win big yeah so
[17:29]
everything and still win big yeah so thank you so your answer is really just the all that information exists and it's in a very entertaining for these are books that you would enjoy reading they're they're written to be friendly so the persuasion reading list is all the stuff that if you like this topic you're going to like all of those books they're going to be really good so thank you for the question thank you all right bye let's see once we got
here let's go for I'm going to take a chance I'm going to let somebody come in who's got a cat as an icon picture that's always always risky caller can you hear me I'm
good I do well join me for a simultaneous sip if you would I can't see you but I'm joining you right [Music] now very good very good thanks did you
[18:30]
now very good very good thanks did you have a question yes how do you uh my brother is really brainwashed he uh believes all conservatives are racist uh um he's deleted me off Facebook I currently live in Spain I'm a Canadian and and I don't know what to do um how old is your brother he's 28 29 find find his most uh strongly held View and uh and demolish it so find out what is the the thing that he most holds on to as the reason that he thinks conservatives are bad there's a good chance it's the um the Charlottesville hoax you you know about that right yes of course I've been listening for a while right so he probably believes that he might believe that the president uh did uh insulting hand gestures about a guy with a bad arm but you could show him the video that he does the same
[19:30]
him the video that he does the same thing with Ted Cruz and other people so I would say you know look you know we we we don't want to be enemies forever but can I make you a deal just pick your one thing you you most dislike about conservatives not about the president you know because you can find things that even conservatives would would like to uh criticize about the president but about conservatives pick the one thing what do you think you would say uh race ISM that that that just um how he phrased it was he he phrased it like conservative values are inherently racist so supporting conservatives even though you're not a racist yourself is inherent but that's that's why you have to pick um so ask him to describe how different it would look if you were just talking to someone who was uh not politically correct and was interested in its country over other countries so here's the question you ask him say if you ran into somebody and you didn't
[20:31]
you ran into somebody and you didn't know anything about them and one was a racist and one was just somebody who liked their country and was Politically Incorrect and didn't really mind how they talked about stuff how could you tell them AP part so so try I would use a question method not a statement method if you offer him facts he'll just reject them but if you get him to talk through his own feelings or his own Thoughts with questions you can you you can lead them off a ledge so this is what I do just keep ask qu asking questions sincerely don't be a jerk about it just say well how would you know the difference how could you tell the difference between somebody who was just didn't care how they talked and somebody who in their mind was an actual racist what would what would be different they would look exactly the same to me so those are the types of questions to ask but that that get that'll get you a start all right well I I I hope I hope you have a good day thanks you too cheers all right we'll
[21:32]
thanks you too cheers all right we'll take another question let's go with uh John Kirk
Patrick John John John John John John are you there John can you hear me John hey hi do you have a question for me I do uh I'll preface by say you know how people often look like they're dogs like uncanny amount I wonder if it's would be would it be a strong um persuasion tactic for Trump to start to qualify AOC with
Chihuahua she looks unbelievably like Chihuahua so and she acts like a chihuahua she's yappy a little bit politely racist uh yeah racist would it be bad
[22:33]
racist uh yeah racist would it be bad racist yeah it would be bad it would be bad because chihuahua makes you think Mexican which makes you think her ethnicity which makes you think that the only reason you picked a Chihuahua yeah is because of her ethnicity now if you Pi gu some other random dog because that other random dog actually reminded you of her that might be hilarious but because of the the ethnic connection no that's that would be bad bad idea okay just just that she looks so much like a chihuahua and it's not a negative thing I like Chihuahua they're fine I like uncanny uncanny how she looks like them anyway that's just a thought so all right thank you very much thank you it's funny because I have this theory that the moment you see a person you know as the animal that they're closest to the first time you have that thought you can never see them the same way again there was somebody knew who uh I knew for a long time and reminded me one day of a specific animal and that's
[23:34]
one day of a specific animal and that's all I could see from that day on they were just always that animal all right let's see if we can get Mrs Swift on here Mrs Swift come in come in can you hear me
me hello hello do you have a question for me uh yes I have a question my question is what's the worst job you ever had and what is the worst boss experience you ever had worst job I ever had well I've I worked on a farm when I was a kid my uncle had a farm that was walking distance from where I lived so I used to literally shovel manure so I would go out with my manure boots on and you know just literally shovel crap uh and so that wasn't wasn't too much fun but pretty much every job on the farm was worse than every job anywhere else so 100 100% of all my bad
[24:36]
anywhere else so 100 100% of all my bad jobs were on that same Farm we did sapping where you had to carry these these full buckets of sap through the snow that was sometimes up to your waist from you know tree to Forest to climb up on a truck and and put it in the back there I had a job cleaning the bulk tank b k bulk where they stored the milk every day they would empty the milk I think it was every day and somebody had to go in and do chemicals and scrub it so I'd be in that thing I I also had a job where I had to um stomp down the insul so if you ever seen a silo where they they shoot in the the grass that they've cut it's you wet you smelly grass and it fills The Silo well my job was pasture what's that I said I live next to a pasture so I know the smell say it and my job was to walk back and forth inside The Silo wearing a little rain outfit this is when I was a kid as the insul came over the top so
[25:39]
kid as the insul came over the top so that as I tamped it down I would go up to the top of the Silo and then they would let me out the top and I would you know climb down and climb down a ladder but the dangerous part about this of the fact you would you would never allow a kid to do this job today is that is that once it started there was nobody there's no window so no was checking on me to see if I'd fallen down because if I had just tripped or passed out I would actually by the time they checked again I would be at the bottom of of an entire Silo full of wet grass and very dead and the whole time I'd be walking around in there I'm probably 12 I guess uh walking around in there in my rain so the whole time I'm thinking don't don't fall asleep don't pass out you're going to be dead so I did a lot of jobs on the farm that literally would have killed me uh so I've had those are most of my my bad jobs in terms of my worst worst boss um because I'm famous and because most my bosses you know they would hear about it
[26:40]
bosses you know they would hear about it if I said I had a special worst boss I I don't I can't really think of any one boss who stood out that when I make the bad qualities of the pointy haired boss in the dilber comic he's usually a composite of every bad thing I've heard of or seen or experienced so he's not really based on a person he's based on all of them you know their their worst qualities but thank you for the question thank you all right and let's see who else we got here uh take Michael
caner Michael tell me when you can hear me Michael Michael hey hey Michael good uh you have a question hey you still watching Star Trek Discovery yes so you're talking about the CBs version the new one right all right followup question do you have the
[27:42]
right followup question do you have the plan that lets you see the ads or do you skip the ads on their website um when I'm watching it I'm not seeing any ads watch you have the Premium plan so here's my experience every single ad is a far tical that is like super crazy thing that you can't ever buy it's got all these high risks I'm just wondering like why are they advertising this stuff well the the pharmaceutical companies um have tons of money and they want to influence you to ask your doctor to give it to you so the whole the whole play is that you say to your doctor hey I saw this on that commercial give me some of that but it's funny I I think the pharmaceutical commercials are ruining television news and I don't think the television news can do anything about it because they pay the most for the ads so they're definitely going to take their money because they pay a lot for ads and it's the easiest to get advertising on your network apparently but I can't watch regular TV
[28:45]
apparently but I can't watch regular TV news uh you know as it's in real time without without being close enough that I to the source that I can you know click it off every time a commercial comes on because if you listen to pharmaceutical ads over and over again it will damage you I'm not joking about this you will have actual mental and physical damage to your body if you even allow the pharmaceutical ads to play continuously in the background if you just turned on the news and just left it there on all day and and you subliminally were picking up all of the uh all of the commercials about all the bad things that are happening they will mention 400 bad things that could happen to you in every commercial it's like well it could do this your head could fall off your your feet could turn green and you know and you over time this does absolutely scientifically you know I don't know if there's any study in this but you wouldn't need a study it's just so obviously true from what we know about
[29:45]
obviously true from what we know about people um it's damaging so I don't know how the news networks are not driving away their own customers over time but maybe they don't know it's happening CU nobody skeptical view that maybe they're giving them ads to pay them not to run bad news coverage about pharmaceuticals well um I don't know that the pharmaceutical companies think that explicitly such so I don't think the advertisement people are saying hey we're going to put our ads here so they won't say bad things about us but it is an it is an outcome so a definite outcome of all the pharmaceutical advertising is you should not expect the TV news organizations to say anything too bad about those pharmaceutical companies even if it's a different product than the one that's advertised in the show so yeah I would say that's that's a real risk to the health of the public is that you you could not reasonably expect the news to
[30:47]
could not reasonably expect the news to treat the pharmaceutical companies in any objective fashion that would not be a reasonable expectation so all right thank you for the question tips to you right bye a lot of people have children in the background today but I guess it's weekends so that makes sense let's talk to jacob jacob jacob Jacob come on in Jacob can you hear
me I know you're asking some guests I'll say I'm a I'm a welder and industrial mechanic by trade actually so uh there's a lot of Engineers and mechanically inclined people on here I noticed there are but uh uh yeah I was wondering recently about health care we keep hearing about Universal Health Care or Medicare for all but I looked into it just briefly and really you only need Medicare for 14% there's only about 14%
[31:50]
Medicare for 14% there's only about 14% of Americans who don't have health insurance and uh it it just seems like why can't you mark it as we need Medicare for these 14% And that seems like something that even conservatives can get behind yeah you know you I I I brought up this point on a periscope before but it's it's worth mentioning I think when I said it I thought the uh the people without health insurance was closer to 18% but I would be surprised if that hasn't dropped with the number you said just because the economy is good so let's let's say 14% of people don't have Healthcare I'm trying to reconcile these two things if you turn on Fox News and you say what would it cost to have universal healthcare you'll hear $32 trillion or a trillion dollar a year but it's all trillions and trillions and I say to myself suppose you said to me Scott you already have health care but we're going to tax you um you have to pay 14% more on your Healthcare I probably wouldn't notice it
[32:53]
Healthcare I probably wouldn't notice it now I'm rich so it's a different situation than most of you but your Healthcare is probably going to go up in 14% anyway I mean it go that's probably a normal year it goes up 14% so it's hard for me to reconcile that only 14% need this extra coverage at the same time it's a you know multi-trillion dollar situation because it feels like we could just find the Pocket Change somehow in the in the economy so I I can't reconcile those two numbers that only 14% need it but yet it's so expensive it can't be afforded so so it's a good question and I believe that it's only my ignorance of the topic that that makes us hard to uh understand now uh I've suggested just float the possibility that what if we said in in addition to regular Medicare you let some people buy in just to get cheaper health care so it might be just a little bit under the market but cheaper would
[33:55]
bit under the market but cheaper would that cause the regular healthcare industry to compete harder to bring down costs it probably would because then they would have a legitimate competitor who is always under their cost so what would it cost to offer that people could buy it but they would buy it for cheap and that would drive down the cost until you could absorb Everybody's Health Care with the existing economy so the the general idea of making Health Care More competitive by making the government just one of the competing players maybe something to look at I don't know if that's a good idea or not but I put it in the mix all right thank you for the question take care all right let's take another one I'm gonna take forest forest I like your first name forest forest are you there I'm good do you have a question for
for me uh it's about Donald Trump and uh the overall market economy um as recently
[34:58]
overall market economy um as recently you've obviously heard of the the fed and uh djt really kind of bashing him as well as Larry cudow coming out saying they should cut rates um I just curious is are would you be in favor of um political parties basically abolishing the ability to buy stock with the information that they have um that they're exposed to essentially you are are you saying that people in the political process have too much Insider information because they are the government and therefore they could trade on that information um yeah yeah I mean essentially I don't think they have a lot of information but just just setting that as a standard for more controls within the system itself my my guess is there's some I'm watching the comments go by I'm not a lawyer but I would be surprised if that's not already illegal so I'm going to have to plead ignorance on this it should be illegal if it's not and I would imagine that
[35:58]
if it's not and I would imagine that many forms of that would be illegal so for example if the president knew he was going to do a certain policy and he told his advisers could they tell their brother to buy some stock that would that would be influenced by that I'm I'm seeing other people saying it's not addressed and it's not illegal so there's some disagreement in the in the comments um it's it's a tough one because I don't even if it were illegal it'd be pretty hard to stop uh somebody says it was illegal somebody say it's super gray so there's probably some yeah there's like there's a version of like for example I believe
like Nancy pel's husband like bought like 3,000 shares of Facebook one day before for one of those hearings something before for one of those hearings something like stricter regulations around just Pol political
[36:59]
regulations around just Pol political politicians in general kind of restricting the the market
activity is that whenever you have a situation where uh it's possible to do something illegal and if you did you would make a lot of money and there are a lot of people in that same situation you know there are millions of people who have that possibility that you always have fraud so if if there's a lot of money it's easy to do most people won't get caught always you're always gonna have fraud nice thank you for taking my call all right thanks all right looks like we're losing sound for some of you but we're losing audience anyway and I'm going to say goodbye for now bye