Episode 500 Scott Adams: The End of Reliable History Books

Date: 2019-04-20 | Duration: 38:49

Topics

Biden going to Charlottesville to announce his candidacy Does he REALLY not know…”fine people” was a hoax? Biden is gaffe central, should be interesting Half the country thinks Mueller report is a roadmap to impeachment How will history view that belief? CNN would probably love to have candidate Buttigieg But will they back him if they realize he can’t win? What happens if…the WH healthcare plan is really good? How would the media and the Dems react? PREDICTION: WH healthcare plan will be better than people imagine Concerns that President Trump isn’t tough enough on Russia Would our responses be public or visible? North Korea impasse situation Chairman Kim doesn’t want to give up nukes first US doesn’t want to offer anything till they get rid of nukes US and NK agree on the destination…PEACE, only the path is an issue North Korea suggested solution - Shake the Box US could offer to protect NK militarily from Russia Redefines the situation, gives Kim something to show Writing and publishing tips and insights

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

## Transcript

[0:06]

[Music] hey everybody come on in here it's time for a more sleepy than usual simultaneous sip I'd love to tell you I got enough sleep last night but I didn't I'm a little little tired this morning and I would like to invite you now to join me for the simultaneous Z you could grab your C your mug your glass your thermos your Stein your tankered your flask fill it with your favorite liquid I like coffee and join me now for the simultaneous
zip a
a so apparently Joe Biden is planning to go to Charlottesville to announce his candidacy I think there's two places he's going but Charlottesville is one of them and it makes you wonder is that a

[1:08]

coincidence is it a coincidence that Joe Biden is going to charlott well maybe could be but far more likely given the fame that charlott Phils had he's going there to to launch his campaign on a hoax that's right Joe Biden is so completely useless that he might actually be going from the the uh the Russia hoax directly back to the Charlottesville hoax because he can't tell the difference he can't tell the difference he doesn't know what's even real if you have a potential president who thought the Russia investigation was real and also thought that the reporting on Charlottesville was real that the president actually called the Nazis fine people he actually believes that happened and it looks like he's going to base his campaign or at least launch it on the back of the

[2:09]

least launch it on the back of the second biggest hoax that the country has ever seen and this makes me ask the following question What will what will history report about the last several years and maybe the next several didn't you always think that history books sure they might have been biased in the sense that they would leave things out you know maybe there were things that one country would deemphasize you know maybe the the country had a history of doing bad things so it deemphasizes that and it maybe it emphasizes the things that they did right or maybe it credits somebody for winning a war that maybe they didn't you know they weren't the main reason the war was won so there must be a lot of that you you know that history was written by the winners for the purpose of brainwashing the youth now if you don't know that that's what history is for you're probably living a confused life history in terms

[3:12]

living a confused life history in terms of the history books and the history lessons is not designed to tell you what happened it doesn't have that purpose you're taught that it has that purpose when you go to school you think you're learning history for the purpose of becoming educated and becoming a you a citizen who knows how to function Etc that's not the purpose that's not even the intention it is expressly for brainwashing uh now I'm not complaining about that because brainwashing children is what you need to do to children if you didn't brainwash children to be good citizens they would not be as good as Citizens you actually do have to train children because they don't have critical they have no critical reasoning and if you don't train them like animals with a treat hey you know do this do this you get to treat if you don't do that you get bad citizens so there's it's not like there's much choice at the

[4:14]

it's not like there's much choice at the moment but imagine who writes the history books of this period who's going to write the history of this presidency and if they write it is it going to say that Charlottesville was real or are they going to say it was a hoax perpetrated by the media to imagine that the president said that the Nazis were fine people if you're new to this conversation uh the same time he said that there were fine people in Charlottesville he very quickly and without prompting said I'm not talking about the Nazis they should be condemned totally so he is as clearly as you could possibly say it he condemned the racist but it's reported as the opposite now what about the Russia um collusion story you're watching with your own eyes that the the world split into two movies when there was uncertainty and this this feels like you

[5:14]

uncertainty and this this feels like you know quantum physics or something when nobody could observe the truth of the Muller report when you when you didn't really know what was going to be in it the world was sort of on the same side some people suspect that it would be bad some people thought it wouldn't be but we were still sort of in the same world and that we didn't know and we were waiting for an answer but once the answer came instead of people saying ah a common answer let's all circle around this and have the same interpretation that didn't happen as I told you would happen the world split into two movies in which there are two completely opposite truths that are operating simultaneously one truth is that there there were some you know indications that people lied in a political context and some people lied about uh there's contact with Russians but none of it amounted to anything so in other words in one on one side it was a Witch

[6:16]

words in one on one side it was a Witch Hunt there was nothing nothing important at the bottom of it just some people Behaving Badly with some lying and stuff um but half of the country or something like it actually believes that that report was so damning that it is quote a road map to impeachment so if you're the if you're the history um historian and you're the historian who needs to write this story which version of reality do you pick do you pick the reality in which he was not found technically uh guilty enough to be indicted but that there was plenty of evidence of collusion because you're being told that by let's say Clapper and brenon and those guys you know they're they're selling a version of history that is invisible to the country that just doesn't see it at all only one of them will be the history so how about the history of

[7:17]

history so how about the history of whether or not the president mocked Serge kovaleski the reporter who had a congenital problem with an arm so he had a bad arm and you've all seen the videos of the president making a a mocking gesture that looks like he's mocking that guy so if you saw that and you thought well that's reality well that's your history except if you see all of the other videos in which he's mocking people with the same motion you see that he just does it to mock dumb opinions he made the same motion when he mocked Ted Cruz entirely different time and he's made the same motion when he's mocked other people so which truth will be in the history book will you learn so will someday students learn that there was a president who was so bad he mocked uh people with disabilities in public or will they learn it didn't happen and the media framed them those are not the same only one of

[8:17]

them those are not the same only one of those could be true will they learn that the president was good for the economy or will they learn that he was lucky and he inherited a strong economy from Obama well somebody gets to write the history books which way are they going to write it did the things that he did you know were were Trump's actions important to get us to where we are or were they unimportant will the history books say that we had a racist in office or will they say that we had a media which was out of control those there's not the same you know I mean you could imagine there would be some overlap but those are very different histories all right now uh I'm very amused by the fact that the media doesn't quite know which horse to back for the Democrats I think it makes sense for them to uh give as much attention as they can to candidates who are interesting so

[9:19]

to candidates who are interesting so mayor Pete Buddha jedge uh is interesting and I would expect he'll get a lot of attention if he keeps saying interesting things I don't think he has any chance of winning the presidency and so at some point if CNN realizes that he couldn't win well they're going to have a problem because he's he would be perfect for them as a candidate you know I'm sure they would love to to cover him he's got something interesting going on because he's he's uh married to a man so that makes the whole story more interesting and you know he's clever and you know he's got lots of things going for him but if he can't win will they back him uh yeah so I've been I've been predicting for I don't know at least eight months or so I've been predicting that kamla Harris as boring as she is might be the only one who's who could

[10:21]

might be the only one who's who could survive the um the primary process it seems to me that Biden will go into gaff a gaff
spiral um do any of you think that Joe Biden can get through 10 minutes of being a candidate without just totally screwing the pooch it just feels like he's like the Gaff man waiting to Gaff and uh it's going to be embarrassing because the main thing that Democrats are going to have against President Trump is sort of stuff about his competence and his you know his uh you know all his age his competence all that stuff and Biden looks worse on all of that stuff so he's a bad matchup Bernie I don't know if anybody thinks he can win because of the socialism stuff but I

[11:21]

win because of the socialism stuff but I don't know if Biden can get nominated because of all the Socialist stuff what happens let me let me ask you this question so apparently the uh the White House is working on their own healthcare plan what happens if it's good the there's one thing that nobody is sees coming I I don't think there's anybody on the left or the right who sees the possibility that the White House will come up with a with a healthc care plan that when people see it they go huh that's actually pretty good do you think that's even possible how many of you let me ask you how many of you think the White House is going to come up with a health care plan that's pretty good you know something that you look at and you go huh I would actually want to know more about that that's certainly in the right direction how many of you have any faith

[12:22]

direction how many of you have any faith that that can happen because I I would think that the Republicans uh the Trump support may be a little bit uh I don't know a little bit too often disappointed on that point you know it's been so long since the Republicans you know performed on that topic you just don't imagine that maybe they can maybe they can't maybe this is just beyond beyond their ability but they do have smart people working on it and and um if they if the Republicans come up with some kind of a health care plan that at the very least you can argue is a good deal something that smart people can look at and say I don't know maybe I wouldn't have gone this way but it certainly makes sense does it you know is it a free market um thing is it

[13:23]

is it a free market um thing is it simple you know you'd be looking for some basic stuff so um um I'm going to make you a prediction are you ready I'm going to predict that the White House's uh health care plan will surprise you that it's better than you think so I think that they will surprise in a positive way so that's that's my prediction in part because they've been kind of quiet about it
it and so that that makes me think they're doing the work so we'll see that's my prediction I'm G to stick with
it the Democrats will call it worse than the Holocaust yes they will
um all right now does anybody have any questions as I said I

[14:25]

questions as I said I overslept um what do you think think about the CNN Obama slam article you know I I saw that headline and I didn't see who wrote it I was assuming that if it's on CNN and it slams Obama uh so meller report looks bad for Obama is the headline I just want to see who wrote it Scott
Jennings huh oh so Scott Jennings is a prot Trumper right yeah so um if we're being fair and sometimes I like to be fair if we're being fair CNN does have uh you know guest opinion pieces on their website that are from Pro Troopers so they they do occasionally have you know Steve Cortez and uh every once in a while they'll have somebody who's a pro or do an article so you got to give them credit for that they do give a a

[15:27]

credit for that they do give a a platform
but the truth in terms of communication the truth that people hear has a lot to do with frequency and context so if you only have one prot Trumper and you have a 100 anti-trumpers on your network you can't really say you gave them you know a fair platform because the volume of one kind of opinion is always is always going to be more important than the fact that you allowed another opinion just the fact that it was allowed if it's dwarfed by all the other opinions you're still sending the message that one of them is true and the other one is an
outlier uh so let us let us take stock of the number of things that people assumed about this presidency that didn't work out they assumed the economy would crash wrong they assumed we would be getting into more Wars not fewer

[16:30]

be getting into more Wars not fewer wrong uh a lot of people assume that the president would not be tough on Russia wrong I mean I think maybe somebody would argue about that but I'm pretty sure that the United States Administration is tougher on Putin than we've ever been one of the things that people always say is how come president Trump isn't doing more to stop Russia from um interfering what's wrong with that opinion when people say hey the Trump Administration they should be doing more to stop Russia from interfering again what's wrong with that opinion is how in the world would we know what they're doing should we know what they're doing would you want to know what they're doing because it seems to me that we usually respond in kind so in other words if another country does something to us we probably respond with something

[17:32]

we probably respond with something that's a similar level or a s a similar situation wouldn't it make sense that our cyber experts are so far up Putin's ass right now that they can look at his eyes don't you think that the president and the Administration has sent a message to Putin that if if they see a trace of this again they're going to take him out take him out meaning that they're cyber operations would get pretty serious sort of a mutually assured destruction because you could imagine that our cyber forces could do any manner of damage over in Russia and now having warned them as clearly as possible about what would happen if they do it again and knowing that we could probably detect it would they do it again and what what more could the president say that would be more effective than whatever we've already said let me ask you this do you think

[18:32]

said let me ask you this do you think Putin is sitting over there in Russia and saying to himself I've got a free pass this next election I'm going to go interfere again because it wasn't you know the the blowback wasn't that big you know I think there were some sanctions right do we still have some sanctions on them because of their their involvement in the election last time I don't think so do you think Putin is saying it's totally worth it I'm going to do it again probably not you know he that doesn't mean he wouldn't consider things that he thought he could get away with because if he thought he could get away with it of course he' do it but does it look like they can get away with cyber stuff anymore we're all going to be looking for it we're going to see Russian involvement even where there is no Russian involvement we're going to see nothing but Russian involvement everywhere everybody's going to be looking for it so
so if uh it feels to me that Trump or the

[19:33]

if uh it feels to me that Trump or the administration is probably doing as much as they possibly could in terms of making sure Russia has a very clear message don't do this again and also probably making it clear that they know exactly what their future looks like if they do it again and it's probably not pleasant for Russia um
um I wish someone would publish what exactly they posted I don't know what that means all right um here's my idea for uh North Korea you want to hear my new piece plan for North Korea so we've got this little impass where apparently we're all afraid of who goes first so not afraid of but nobody wants to go first so Kim doesn't want to give up his new all of his nukes first before the US

[20:33]

all of his nukes first before the US does whatever he wants us to do to deescalate uh get rid of the sanctions and be less militarily aggressive I suppose in whatever whatever way they're talking about now uh because we can't get past that us is never going to go first and Kim really can't go first even if he wants to get to the end nobody knows how to go first so so here's a suggestion I'm just going to throw this out what if the United States decided to not only um declare an end to the Korean War which would be symbolic it wouldn't really wouldn't really have any impact on the ground but suppose we suggested to North Korea that we would uh uh we would work with them for their Mutual defense against Russia
I'll let that sink in a little bit suppose we made a deal with North

[21:33]

suppose we made a deal with North Korea to partner with them militarily to protect them from Russia now the first thing you might say is they don't need any protection from Russia Russia is their Ally they've been they've been working well with Russia since the beginning but here's the thing here's the thing don't you think North Korea is afraid of Russia don't you think that North Korea worries that Russia is trying to control them because I'm sure they are why wouldn't they now the uh your first reaction is this is the this is a terrible idea and I get that so we just talk let's just talk through it the the mental thing that happens if you say hey North Korea it looks like we have a common enemy so why don't we you know join forces not militarily you know I'm not talking about doing you know joint military action I'm not talking

[22:35]

joint military action I'm not talking about arming North Korea with any kind of weapons that would be any kind of a threat to the the South or TOS I'm talking about some kind of a a military support agreement you know something that wouldn't bind us uh too much but would show that we're sort of on their side defending against Russia what makes this interesting is it redefines the whole situation and it gives Kim something to show as success not only did we uh end a war with the United States and with South Korea which would be a big accomplishment we've actually joined forces at least in some minor military way and it could be more symbolic than actual to protect against Russia now I doubt they would take that deal but here's the here's the uh the bigger thinking about it how do you get past the problem that nobody will go

[23:35]

past the problem that nobody will go first and the answer is you have to shake the Box again you have to change the variables in play if if what you're thinking is you give us something and then we give you something and then we can have some kind of a peace deal apparently that's not enough variables because if it were we would already have a deal and keep in mind that both sides want to get to the same place it's not like there's an actual disagreement there's only a disagreement on the path there's not a disagreement on the Endo the end point is North Korea would like to be secure and we would like to not be threatened you know there there's economics uh involved with that but basically that's it and since we don't have any kind of an issue with North Korea not being threatened I mean it's we have no National interest in threatening them and we don't have any you know and likewise um we have no we have no reason to want the other not to get what they want so we should be able

[24:37]

get what they want so we should be able to make a deal but we need to introduce some variables so one of the variables might be that whatever agreement we make doesn't look like a simple agreement between North Korea and South Korea and the north to end nuclear war maybe you have to broaden what you're talking about for examp example um I've mentioned before that maybe what we say would say is um we'll work with North Korea to make them the nuclear power testing site for the world you could test some you know generation four stuff and then they they could transfer their nuclear expertise it's about 75% um useful for peaceful nuclear technology so you could transfer your resources that you built up and the public would say hey this is great we got something valuable we got peace out of our nuclear program and we got energy and we got an economic way forward this is all good so

[25:40]

economic way forward this is all good so it could be that you have to introduce something like you know a you know a nuclear related positive energy thing or something to do with an international agreement that would protect them in ways that are not already protected so think thinking broader is probably the way past it that's my that's my uh suggestion um China doesn't like the birth of American Ally next door well you know we take that as given but is there anything we couldn't put in South Korea that wouldn't be just as threatening because I don't see I don't see a world where we would ever aass troops in North Korea so I don't see any world in which we would put military assets or boots on the ground in North Korea and South Korea is close enough to to China that

[26:41]

Korea is close enough to to China that if we wanted to put nukes there uh there would be and I'm not even sure we need to be nearby are we ever would we ever contemplate a world in which we physically attack mainland China is China actually worried that the United States would ever be part of a an actual Invasion like I don't I don't see them worrying about that for one minute is the United States worried that China will try to physically invade the United States like pull a bunch of boats up and get out of the boats and start running toward our our Shores I don't think so I think we have zero worry about that because we have things called airplanes and missiles and stuff if we ever got into a war with China you know it's not going to happen with bats and if it does it's going to be a skirmish not a war um so I would test I would test the assumption that China has a big problem

[27:43]

assumption that China has a big problem with North Korea being okay with the United States I just don't think it makes that much difference as long as there's no change in military assets and indeed it might lead to fewer military Assets in South Korea so it could be that that if the north gets friendly with the United States it would reduce the amount of military Assets in the neighborhood of China because we just wouldn't need
uh all right I'll get rid of this troll goodbye
troll what does Gordon Jang say um lately whenever I hear Gordon Jang who who is probably one of the most knowledgeable people about that area uh he usually is talking about China uh shating the United States and how we must be a lot

[28:44]

must be a lot tougher um and I'm sure he's right about
all right simulation today you have questions about the
simulation where is justice Bader when was the last time we saw
winning uh um you know somebody asked me somebody's asking here uh what does dtz think of the mullet report and I haven't seen him which is weird you would think he would be one of the primary people you'd see but I've not seen anything from dwood so if anybody's seen it tweeted at

[29:46]

tweeted at me Trump approval is down to 37% somebody says I haven't seen any I have not seen that but if that's true it would be a headline on CNN let's see if they have anything like that I don't see it it might depend which survey you're looking at oh D said an article on the hill okay um my book loser think which I am happy to say was accepted uh yesterday so my publisher accepted my manuscript now it was you know I knew it would be accepted eventually because we have a long history and I know how to do these things writing books that is uh but it is always a big big day for an author to be done with a book now remember I have a you know a day job plus this so writing you know adding writing an entire book on top of what you were already doing your your full-time job that you already had is a

[30:47]

full-time job that you already had is a really hard thing to do uh I don't know if you can quite understand how hard it is to hold the material of a book in your head because for months and months you have to hold in your head all of the chapters you have to keep you know reconfiguring them in your mind figuring you know you have to learn which ones are stronger and weaker and how they all tie together you have to figure out sort of a a story arc even though it's non-fiction you have to you have to figure out a beginning and the middle and the end so the the engineering complexity of writing a book The Kind at least the books that I write just the the complexity of the actual engineer hearing of the writing is insane it is so brain draining that it's it's hard to explain if you when you think about writing you're typically you know if you're imagining being a writer you say to yourself okay if I can imagine what that would be you're sitting in front of your keyboard and you know what you're going to write about you've either

[31:48]

going to write about you've either researched it or something you know and you're writing sentences so you're your your imagination of what it's like to be a writer if you're not one it's probably about writing sentences that fit well together but it's actually layer on top of layer on top of layer of uh how simple it is who's your audience you know have you have you connected your thoughts how many thoughts are there how long is it how do you engineer them together how do you manage people's feelings how do you how do you talk to the audience and still tell them something new uh how do you add layers of humor is there a visual element to add a visual element how do you tie this all to the headlines how do you tie it to the Zeitgeist something people are already thinking about how do you make sure that people see it as something new because there are so many books in the world how how do you prevent somebody saying oh I think there's so many books like this already how do you do all those things you have something

[32:48]

those things you have something like a 25 Dimension problem and every time you sit down to write a sentence you have to imagine all all 25 Dimensions so that your one sentence you're writing and there will be many sentences in your book that every sentence makes sense with about 25 Dimensions so that's what it's like to write a book and if you could imagine how absorbing that is and how much it it takes of your gray matter you know I mean I I barely have enough left over to drive a car you know it it's so completely absorbing um now not everybody not everybody uh writes books with the same method I do so uh I know from experience that a lot of you have curiosity about the mental process or the business process of writing book and I I understand because I had the same curiosity before I was doing it

[33:50]

the same curiosity before I was doing it um I usually work in layers meaning that I start laying down a layer and I'll go back to that layer and I'll rework it lots and lots of times but until I I've got a layer that I like I don't add the next layer so for example one layer might be an outline of the general topics I want to include in the book that just so I'll make sure I've got the topics and they're roughly in the order that I want them that's one layer but then I've got to tie them all together I've got to make sure that they make sense as a whole that's another layer I've got to add uh a style of writing which could be different depending on who the audience is so my style might be simple or it might be more academic or it might be more lighthearted or it might be something else at some point I add humor so I might actually write an entire book and then go through and then change some of the sentences to funnier versions of the

[34:51]

the sentences to funnier versions of the sentence so that's a whole other layer so uh yeah and then organiz ation wise somebody asked a question how do you organize a book and the answer is um there's some things that you need to have in some places so typically your first chapter or two you want to be really really strong and you want it to be the one that makes you curious for the rest of the book so your first two chapters are really a a marketing job for the rest of the book so marketing is another layer you're you're actually marketing the book within the book because if somebody reads the first few pages that does not mean they're going to read the rest of the book A lot of people bail out so your first few pages are really a marketing plan to get somebody to read the rest of the book um then then the last part the last chapter you want to leave people with something that they take value from and ideally

[35:52]

that they take value from and ideally something they feel so if you get to the last page of a book and you don't feel a sensation then you haven't done it right or at least you haven't done it as well as you could you want somebody to feel at the end of the book one of these things it could be any of these things but you want them to feel one of these things one I've got to talk to somebody about this right away if at the end of a book somebody is saying I need to talk to somebody about this this is so interesting I just got to go talk to my friend about this that that's a good book if they feel oh my God I just got to
to chill that's a good book if their body if they're crying if they're if they feel inspired that's a good book if you can get somebody at the end of the book and they say to themselves I'm definitely going to read this book again that one I love all right if if the last word somebody reads in your book they read that last word and the

[36:53]

book they read that last word and the next thing they think is damn I got to read this book again not right not today but I want to read it again um so th those are just some of the things that you want people to see at the end feel at the end of the book The Middle of the book tends to be a lot of the the let's say the bread and butter the the meat and potatoes the the information that may not be fascinating but is still the the meat of the book you know the the real important factual good points you know solid thinking Etc so the middle of the book can sometimes be less interesting at the same time it's more useful so it could be the the useful part of the book in the middle but as an author you know that because it's factually thick it's going to be hard to make it interesting at the same time so if you got a lot of stuff you're trying to convey you don't have as much uh wiggle room for adding the art and the

[37:54]

wiggle room for adding the art and the feel and the you know guiding the guiding The Reader through so so those are your Basics you want a big opening that's really the marketing to tell people yeah I really do want to read the rest of this book so that's your good stuff the middle might be less fascinating but more useful so the first part is is more is more you know getting you interested and getting you excited the middle part might be less exciting but really the useful part of the book and then at the end you want to leave them with a feeling you want it's like a gift you what what gift did you give them at the end of the book so that's for non-fiction for fiction you've got a whole story arc that's a different deal all right that's more than most of you want to here so I will end here and I will hope that you have a great weekend and I will talk to you later