Episode 526 Scott Adams: Biden, Buttigieg, Bill Maher, Your Favorite President

Date: 2019-05-11 | Duration: 1:05:09

Topics

Making predictions and tracking their accuracy Only way to determine if your beliefs are correct or crazy For President Trump, how are your predictions so far? What if you believed President Trump would never be elected? Economy would crash, and other now debunked fears? If your predictions were ALL WRONG… …shouldn’t you re-evaluate your beliefs? Your beliefs DON’T accurately predict the future… …and you DON’T think they need re-evaluating? Bill Maher pushed back against a guest on the economy Rudy Giuliani’s Ukraine trip…now cancelled Excellent, A+ move Draw attention to Biden’s son, possible corruption with Ukraine Biden’s climate change plans…mention nuclear Doesn’t spotlight nuclear options But including nuclear gives BIDEN the BEST PLAN Doesn’t matter if climate change is a problem or not The solution either way, is most likely nuclear power Develop nuclear along with other promising technologies One will emerge as the best, most practical path Gen III nuclear plants, worldwide, have NEVER had a meltdown Gen III is much safer than older generations Gen IV appears to be even safer, just needs development Presidential nickname assigned to Pete Buttigieg “Alfred E. Neuman cannot become president of the United States” Top shelf persuasion technique, masterfully presented Framing: The Wall It’s a wall between America and the vicious, violent cartels Framing: Immigration Reform Who gets to decide what America is…and our fate? People in Guatemala are currently deciding for Americans Framing: Healthcare Things are either pro-competitive or anti-competitive Competition is the only way to reduce cost Framing: Abortion BAD: Is this a life or not a life? BETTER: Who gets to decide? Framing: Gun Control People vote for their own safety Some people are safer WITH guns Some people are in greater DANGER if they have a gun A well armed population DOES help control government Obtaining purpose in life… You feel good when you do things compatible with your natural biological drives Ben Shapiro walked off BBC interview Ben humbly accepts responsibility VERY admirable, much respect to Ben

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

## Transcript

[0:06]

bah bah bah bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum hey Barry come on in here good to see ya I see you've already got your beverage dan the rest of you come on in still plenty of chairs grab a seat make sure you have a fresh cup of whatever because it's almost time for the simultaneous up I'm Scott Adams and welcome all right grab your copy or mug your flask your Stein your tankard you're jealous fill it with your favorite liquid I like coffee and join me now for the simultaneous sip oh yeah that's good I want to start with a book recommendation are you ready I have only read this much of this book but already I can recommend it unambitious Lee it's called the invisible influences by Jonah Berger the

[1:09]

invisible influences by Jonah Berger the hidden forces the shape behavior so if you are a fan of my my persuasion reading list this would be one to add to your list it suddenly it's in the let's say genre of influenced by chill teen in fact chill Dini is one of the people who liked it and or he has a blurb about it on the back it's really really interesting but here's the thing I wanted to talk about so so we've got these this discussion about these social media and how they're influencing elections and etc what would happen if Facebook Rand let's say if Facebook ran exactly as many ads for Republicans as they ran for Democrats let's say let's make a specific case let's say it's a presidential election and Facebook ran exactly as many ads for one as the other

[2:10]

exactly as many ads for one as the other and let's say also that the ads just hypothetically this is not possible but say also that the the ads were exactly as well done you know that's not possible but imagine a world where the Democrat ads are the same number and the same persuasive quality could Facebook game the system to make one of them have an advantage if they didn't change either of those variables they're the same number let's say that they're presented to the the same right number of people so let's say three things are the same it's presented to the right people it's presented at the right time they're equally good and they're just as many of them could they still game the system if all of those variables were equal and the answer is yeah they could even if you imagine that they've both targeted

[3:10]

you imagine that they've both targeted their correct demographics and here's how they would do it I'll just give you I'll just give you one suggestion what you were primed with before you see an ad will have a huge influence on how you process it so Facebook could I'm not saying that they will but they could very easily decide that the Democrat ads will follow let's say a story about something positive they could say and I'm not saying they will but they could say that the Republican ads will follow something negative so or something that will be designed to prime them for a negative response to whatever the ad is so if the social media companies could show you their their stats and they say look it could not be more fair than this these are our actual stats we ran just as many we ran them when they sit we said we'd run them went to the right

[4:11]

said we'd run them went to the right people there's just no way to say that that's unfair but we do now have the technology and it's very well understood to prime people before they see an ad with other content and it would completely change the the result I'm not talking about a remember I'm not talking about a 1% difference I'm talking about something more along the lines of a 30% difference so the book is called invisible influence by Jonah Berger now a similar content to what I'm talking about you'd see in Robert sheíll Dinis books influenced and his follow-up book Capri suasion and it will teach you that stuff so here's the thing what if one of the things this book does really well is it annihilates your assumptions about free will and one one of the experiments really really makes a story and let me

[5:12]

really really makes a story and let me see if I can if I can give you a an example so one of the examples is they have somebody command as part of an experiment and they say here's a line and the line is this long now compare it to three other lines and tell us which one is the same length as the original line so let's say this is line of a certain length and and then it'll be three lines one is way too short one is way too big and the other one is obviously the right size now if you bring in people one at a time and say match the lines they'll get it right almost every time they'll say oh this one is obviously it's it's only it's only close to one of these lines but if you have people come in and prime the room people who are working for the people doing the study they pretend to be other people in the same study and they go first and they say oh no it's it's this other line you can instantly

[6:14]

it's this other line you can instantly instantly change the opinion of the person sitting there so that they don't even see the lines the same length think about that they're looking at it and just because a few other people said that the line that's this big and I'm talking about big differences not that big let's say this is the line and the one that the Confederate is saying is the same length is only this big I mean really big difference and you can actually convince the other people in the room instantly that they're seeing this line as the speck there they're their actual visual processing it's completely altered in ten seconds now once you realize that you understand that there's nothing like people making decisions on politics there's nothing happening in the world about people looking for you know the facts and

[7:15]

looking for you know the facts and reasoning through it and coming up to opinions it just doesn't happen there's other research that shows the people's political leanings in terms of conservative or liberal are largely DNA you're actually born with a propensity to to vote one way or the other and that's pretty well-established so when you put down when you combine the fact that you you were born with a DNA that will make you either more you know more liberal or more conservative and then on top of that you add the types of things in this book where you can influence people just dramatically by context and the way things were presented your you really don't have anything like there's nothing happening that's a republic or democracy there's nothing like that happening you're seeing lots of different forces that are bouncing against each other and then something happens but it's mostly a persuasion

[8:18]

happens but it's mostly a persuasion battle at this point because the the power that let's say Russia has to influence the elections this much the power that even you know the power that anybody has to influence an election is small it's all of these small persuasion things it's your DNA it's it's it's who you'd like to have coffee with it's a lot of stuff that certainly has nothing to do with facts and critical thinking to it let me give you a little rundown yeah I often say that the humans don't have a way to know if their filter on the world is accurate or not unless they make predictions and then they track them if you're not predicting and then tracking how right you are your predictions you don't know if your worldview is crazy or if you're pretty accurate so one of the things that I've been doing one of the things

[9:19]

that I've been doing one of the things that I've been doing with my public predictions is I make sure you know what they are and why I'm making them so that the thing I call the persuasion filter can be evaluated against your own predictions and anybody else's now it's it's always an ongoing experiment and we'll see if it works now so far the the persuasion filter as I call it has been scarily accurate from predicting Trump's rise to predicting how well things are going to go but here's the funny part if you were if you had been the people in the other movie the people who saw Trump as a big ol crazy orange cloud monster dictator who was gonna break everything how did your predictions go so far so my predictions just to remind you buster you know is that the president has actual persuasion persuasive skills

[10:19]

actual persuasion persuasive skills strategy skills economic skills that other people don't have that he understands economics and people at a deeper level and can and can work on a deeper level with persuasion so I predicted that the economy would be great because the economy is a persuasion machine it's a psychology machine if people think it will do well they invest and then it does well so it's all about the psychology of it given that you don't have resource constraints which we don't in any serious way so I predicted he would get elected president Trump would get elected I predicted the economy would do well with his persuasion bang on what if you were the other side you predicted exactly the opposite he wouldn't get elected and once he did you predicted that his craziness would destroy the market exactly the opposite now I predicted that he would do well with foreign leaders and that being friendly with them at the same time he's

[11:21]

friendly with them at the same time he's negotiating hard would become not only successful but probably the model forever the next president after this president is almost going to have to do the same thing because it's really gonna be obvious if that president treats what are the dictator leaders as as a dog and then it gets a bad result because of it it's just gonna be obvious it was the wrong play if you look at the deal the trade deals and other deals that the president has cancelled has any of that Fitness I don't think so are we worse off because the Paris Accord no we've actually lowered our admissions more than other countries did we build concentration camps for LGBT LGBTQ T people no the president just negotiated with Gilead to create lots of AIDS drugs for people who can't afford

[12:21]

AIDS drugs for people who can't afford it which will probably go a long way toward eradicating the spread of AIDS in this country so he'll probably be the most successful president Bob AIDS did the president become a crazy racist doing crazy racist stuff well no indeed he was the president who got prison reform he is the president who just gave an award to Tiger Woods for no particular reason except that he golfs really well yet if you thought that the president was a big old racist and you're watching his policies and you're saying okay why does he keep bragging about african-american and Hispanic employment being so good what kind of racist continues over and over again to brag about how well he's doing for that next segment doesn't make sense does it does it make sense that he would choose an african-american athlete to give this award to while they're friends apparently they've known each other for a long time but you wouldn't do that if you were trying to send

[13:22]

you were trying to send secret message would you you wouldn't you wouldn't do a lot of things that he's doing if you were sending those secret messages so I'd say my anticipation has been correct the people who said we see at Charlottesville that he must be in must love these neo-nazis who were marching against the and saying anti-semitic things well why is it the Israel loves him why are they naming us settled in after him yeah none of that makes sense why is he recognizing the Golan Heights as Israel why why is he moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem none of it makes sense in the other movie because in the other movie he was anti Jewish I had how does anything we observe makes sense in that movie none of it does about a hundred percent of it makes sense in my movie my movie was he never

[14:24]

sense in my movie my movie was he never said what people said he said in Charlottesville that was obviously that what I call the fine people hoax which has now been confirmed as a hoax by pretty much all of the major networks and media companies they just don't like to rub it in but they they have acknowledged that he said the opposite now so how about the claim that he's crazy it's been two years wouldn't you know yeah I did go to the the buffet at the wind the day before yesterday sorry I'm just somebody asked that question in the comments I predicted that the rush occlusion thing would be a big nothing I was right how'd the other movie go the other movie didn't work out I predicted that he would be no more of a dictator than any normal present president sure enough you know he that when the supreme court has a problem he stops when Congress has a problem well he's going to have to get some more

[15:26]

he's going to have to get some more Republicans elected if he wants to get something done what about he's also had a lot of success in the dropping of pharmaceuticals so apparently the rate of increase of pharmaceuticals as as Paul I don't think he's done well on health care in general but there's still stuff happening there so so maybe maybe we'll see something so so the basic point is I think something like a hundred percent of what my movie and most of you are in the same movie our movies I think our movies predicted close to a hundred percent of what we've observed over the last three years right am I wrong that our movies the ones that say the president Trump has actual skill he's you know he's a different character but he's bringing actual skill has it not predicted pretty much everything we see while the other movie has failed on every measure now of course people in

[16:27]

every measure now of course people in the other minute if the other movie will say none of that is true they'll say that the Mullen report did show that he was colluding which of course didn't they'll show that he is a dictator they'll say he is crazy they'll say the economy isn't doing that well so they they're actually looking at the same set of facts and just interpreting them backwards but we're seeing some some small let's say small changes apparently Bill Maher on his show was interviewing one of the many many Democrats running for president doesn't matter which one I can't remember its name so some somebody was running for president and Bill Maher was actually pushing back at this candidate saying that the economy was bad so he even Bill Maher couldn't let his anti Trump guests get away with something that was so insanely you know contrary to observation it's obvious that the

[17:30]

to observation it's obvious that the economy is doing it well and even though bill maher couldn't let this guy be so far off in space that he could say that on his show so that's yeah these are just the small small changes let's talk about a few other things that are fun so Rudy Giuliani said he was at one point he said he was going to go to the Ukraine and to investigate something about Biden and Biden sund and some Ukrainian to Yale blah blah but then he cancels it and he said he doesn't want to go there because there were too many I don't anti-trump hers or something and I thought that was a really good move
Giuliani gets an A+ for this whole this whole thing because the thing that Giuliani wanted obviously is for the media to cover the connection between Biden in Ukraine he's just trying to make Biden Ukraine hmm questions I don't understand the Biden Ukraine story something bad is son Hunter who's now

[18:34]

something bad is son Hunter who's now past and some deal that maybe Biden was trying to influence that helped his son because of a prosecutor got fired the details don't really matter and frankly you know I don't think that my guess is that Biden is in no more trouble for that then Trump is for anything about Russia it's just a bunch of connections that sound suspicious is my guess without knowing the details but Giuliani cleverly cancels the trip so he gets two hits he gets one hit for planning the trap one hit in the news and then he gets another present for canceling the trip but all he really wanted was for everybody to talk about this ambiguous you know connection of something that might have been there or something may not have been there and we're talking about so a plus for Giuliani for good PR you know good good campaign trick I guess

[19:37]

know good good campaign trick I guess here's something interesting this is the most fun thing that's happening right now
now election wise so a oversee slammed Biden for what she believes is him not being aggressive enough in whatever he's going to come up with in the details for climate change now I think Biden's people pushed back and said wait wait wait you haven't seen what we're going do yet so you know don't assume that it's a middle ground before you actually see it which is fair but in the early comments where we don't know exactly what Biden is going to come up with but this the sense of it is he's gonna try to sell something that's both sensible and middle ground while still doing enough that the people on the far left don't have much room to criticize so it's a he's trying to thread a needle that maybe doesn't exist so he's trying to find a channel on this that maybe

[20:39]

to find a channel on this that maybe logically doesn't exist which is doing something that's reasonable and also will seem like enough I don't know that that exists we'll find out here's the interesting thing he mentions nuclear you ready for that Joe Biden when he talks about climate change he mentions it just sort of a you know just throws it in it's just sort of a throwaway you know we're gonna yeah I will do lots of things blah blah blah blah blah Paris Accord and you know solar and we've we've got windmills and and nuclear just sort of just throws it in there now he doesn't say generation four he doesn't make distinctions he doesn't say how much would be nuclear he doesn't make the point that nuclear is pretty much a requirement if you're gonna be aggressive about it doesn't say that at all but here's the thing you got to watch out for if he's serious about nuclear he does have the best plan it's

[21:41]

nuclear he does have the best plan it's so watch out because I've been saying for a while that President Trump is leaving this gigantic opening that he could close very very easily and probably is that he's either he is either not either president Trump is either not been advised to the point of understanding the nuclear solution or he's waiting or he the ESM maybe has some personal opinions about it I don't know but it's it's obviously missing it's like just breakingly missing from the president's rhetoric is climate change now the killshot here which the president has available to him and and i just have no idea why he hasn't used it yet
yet could be he's just waiting it could be more effective if he waits I think the kill shot is to say you know there's a big disagreement about whether climate change is as big a problem as

[22:43]

climate change is as big a problem as people think but it doesn't make any difference to what we do because what we do is we should improve all of our energy sources as aggressively as possible because it would be the greatest idea in the world if climate change is a big problem and it would also be a greatest thing in the world if it's not because for all of the reasons of industrial development of keeping pollution down of getting you know good prices a nuclear of having stable reliable sources you can't really put all your eggs in one basket so you don't want to put them all in the green basket at least the traditional solar and wind green you can have to spread it around so if if President Trump said look the rest of the country can argue all they want about what's true or not true about climate change it makes no difference to what we actually do because the only way you could really deal with climate change is to be aggressive on all of these technologies nuclear being

[23:44]

these technologies nuclear being probably the one that will make the most difference but hey maybe it turns out the solar has some development some innovation that makes it far more practical than we think maybe there's some battery thing that we don't see coming that would change the storage question so the president could so easily sell a story where if the United States doesn't go full strength at every one of these technological opportunities we're just being dumb just just dumb because this is an easy sale you know if if you believe climate change do this if you don't believe climate change do it just the same there's no difference so there's this gigantic gape four-lane highway opening for the president to take the dominant issue on the left and annihilate it probably in the space of two tweets now you tell me why the president is not doing that I

[24:45]

why the president is not doing that I don't know because the only thing I can imagine because it's just so glaringly obvious the only thing I imagine is he's not he's not been briefed up to speed about the fact that the nuclear meltdowns and problems in the past were old technology and that the nuclear technology used and let's say France for example who gets most of their power from nuclear is is generation three which I believe have never had a meltdown in generation four is coming which would make meltdowns almost physically I think physically impossible so you almost couldn't imagine anything going wrong because of the very design of them and they work well together so you might need some you might need generation three where you just want to get going quickly and have a really big site you might need generation four where they don't have as much infrastructure there's a different situation so it's probably going to be a blend so you don't even have to decide

[25:45]

blend so you don't even have to decide if you like generation three or four don't need to decide go hard on both it's the only it's the only rational path forward anyway so Biden has taken a clear I would say he just took the high ground so Biden he had no opposition to the rationale the rationale position which would include nuclear he might not push nuclear as much as he should he made he may want to soft-pedal that we'll see but the high ground was there it was just waiting for somebody to come in and say yeah I love all this green power but you also have to have nuclear there's no question about it and here's why if Biden makes that case and Trump doesn't you can have to ask yourself is Trump's your guy right is that that's a pretty obvious play to make and if he doesn't make it you can

[26:46]

make and if he doesn't make it you can have to ask yourself why I I don't know why let's talk about presidents new nickname for put a judge people to judge as you mate as you may know mayor Pete as they call him as a striking resemblance to mad magazines mascot Alfred E Newman and I love the way the president introduced this nickname instead of just tweeting about it he said and they I guess in an interview listen listen to the way he states the sentence he says Alfred Alfred E Newman cannot become president of the United States that is just the he's very underrated for Zach's sentence structure you know he gets a lot of criticism because he doesn't speak in complete sentences quite often but he does he speak so effectively his non sentences that people know exactly what he means what

[27:47]

people know exactly what he means what he's talking to him it's very effective because it's simple and gets right to the heart of things but the way he put it as a statement of what can't happen just makes this ordinary nickname well it just takes it to another kind of level of fun it would have been weak for him to say hey if you notice that Budaj edge looks like Alfred E Newman hahahaha hey D notice he looks like Alfred evening ha ha ha there were a million ways to make that not funny think about it there were just all kinds of ways to introduce this idea that just would lay there it would just lay there like not funny but because he puts it in this bit in this exact phrase Alfred E Newman cannot become President of the United States yeah it makes you think it makes you wonder about the question it's like what

[28:47]

wonder about the question it's like what could Alfred he knew wouldn't be no more somebody who looks like him become president of the United States why couldn't they why could so so because his sentence makes you grapple with the question of whether someone who looks like Alfred a Neumann could become the President of the United States he takes to them as the mere comparison and makes you think about it in the future and how you'd feel about it it sort of is sort of twisted around in your head until it just sinks in and becomes a permanent part of your thinking so it I hate to use the term earworm you know you've heard that term in the earworm something once you hear it it just keeps repeating in your head but L free to eat Alfred E Newman cannot become president now to his credit Budaj edge had a really good response in which he said he had to google it because it must be a generational thing that's meaning that he's he's too young to know about these old references which was a

[29:48]

about these old references which was a clever there was a clever reply but it did make him look a little young so I think Trump still got the better part of that exchange because he yeah he gave you an image you'll never get out of your head but but I think the counter was competent but not as good as the original winsome now there is a company that's getting ready to print some 3d homes in Latin America so they're they're not very elaborate homes or they're basically little rectangles that they 3d print and buy 3d print I mean there's a big mechanical arm that they move in place and it sprays concrete until it's 3d printed a little house very simple one they don't have many so it would be simple house for poor people the way it is now Latin America is a perfect place to test this it's a I

[30:49]

perfect place to test this it's a I personally think that the prototypes are deeply unimpressive and probably not some you'd want to live in or anybody wouldn't want to live in but they might be better than nothing yeah if you're if your alternative was to sleep out I'd probably better than what you had if your alternative was you know a lean-to main end of you know discarded boards and in cardboard well it's probably better so maybe they can work out the the wrinkles there yeah it's better than a box so one of the things that I've been talking about forever is that it won't be possible for us to tax our way to giving everybody all the services that they want oh let me let me do

[31:50]

that they want oh let me let me do something I was gonna write I'm just gonna write something over run it run it by you and this is a I was gonna write a blog post and handle frame things properly I'll give you some examples most of our major topics that are unsolvable have a framing problem meaning that we're thinking about them wrong and therefore we can't get an answer because we're we're framing them wrong in the first place if you take for example the border with Mexico if you frame it as a border with Mexico it's hard to get it done because Americans like Mexicans we like them yeah we understand that you need a border but it would be more productive to say because it's more accurate that it's a border wall between the United States and the cartels because the cartels literally control the territory on the border which is how they make so much money by allowing and charging people to cross

[32:50]

allowing and charging people to cross illegally so they're making a lot of money so they control that part of the border so the first thing I'd say is let's stop calling it a wall with Mexico maybe the president can say that because he's got to be a little more diplomatic with the actual government of Mexico but you and I can say it's a border wall with the cartel because it's the border wall with the cartel that's literally what it is right it's not territory there's controlled by Mexico the another framing all right here's a framing I don't believe you've seen yet for immigration so not not talking about the walls per se but just the framing of the contest we're talking about is it humanitarian this is about drugs is it about crime etc here's the better framing who gets to decide who comes in who gets to decide that's a high ground who gets to decide because here's the framing if we have good border security

[33:55]

framing if we have good border security whether or not walls are part of that is a separate conversation but if we have strong border security then the citizens of the United States get to decide what happens with our country if we have weak border security the kind we have then people who do not live in this country get to decide what the United States is so you could just completely stop saying crime completely stop saying humanitarian crisis stop saying jobs and economics you can mention all those things either their their background their contexts that are important but when you're arguing it just say look the question is who decides just decide that because we're never going to have a system that everybody agrees with if you can't if you're if you're trying to run a civilization and it's not possible to have a policy that even you can get even more than 50% of people to agree with the best you can do is to develop a

[34:58]

the best you can do is to develop a system that gives the right people the decision even if the right people don't make the decision that maybe you would like if you need to get the right people making the decision because that's the most stable situation and so the the question on immigration is who gets to decide what the United States is and turns into do Americans get to decide because the only way we get to decide is with a strong border and we don't have that right now Guatemala is deciding what the United States is it's actually their decision people in Guatemala are deciding who we are is that okay if you're okay with that then you should be able to comfortably say that say yes I think the I think the fate of the United States should be decided by people who don't live in the United States if that's your view step up and say it alright when we're talking about health

[35:59]

alright when we're talking about health care it's impossible for the public to get involved because we don't quite understand the ins and outs of it so popular opinion can't really drive our politicians in one way or the other if you don't have that then the lobbyists have the control all right so right now the lobbyists control the government because the people can't play we're completely taken out of the game because of complexity and we don't understand so here's a better way to frame health care there are just two choices but these two choices permeate everything that all the parts of health care and health care insurance which I'll consider two different things here's the framing things are either pro-competitive or not that's it just just make that framing any change or any current situation is either transparent and Pro competition or it's anti competition and that's all

[37:02]

or it's anti competition and that's all you need to know and you could evaluate every single thing on those two things because the thing we know is that prices are too high and competition is the only thing that can make me come down there is nobody's ever invented another way to take prices down if the government puts price controls on everybody knows that's bad for the world there's that's a well understood phenomenon nobody has an idea better than competition and I would believe the socialist leaning people would agree with us so right now the most unproductive framing of healthcare is that the people on the right are saying it's socialism with socialism totally unproductive it's a good way to make people hate whatever those ideas are but if so doesn't describe what's happening there's a complete waste of time it's a complete diversion to any any good outcome likewise if the people on the Left say

[38:03]

likewise if the people on the Left say it's a bunch of greedy rich people who don't want to help the help people who have less that's not really productive either because that doesn't quite explain what's going on here so I would put it this way I'd say we should do everything that fits into the category of being Pro competition so the president recently or the administration recently I guess they instituted some law I don't know the legal procedure they did it but pharmaceutical companies will be required now to say their prices in commercials even TV commercials now this is clearly Pro competition because that gets the customer involved and seeing what prices are and that might have some indirect thing so I would say that we should stop talking about socialism versus whatever the Republicans might come up with that's the wrong frame the frame is look at each individual decision of which there

[39:04]

each individual decision of which there could be hundreds of them and just ask one question competitive or anti-competitive that's all single-payer single-payer insurance is that competitive or anti competitive what is it is that competitive or anti competitive well that might not be as obvious as you think because if there's single-payer for healthcare does that stop individual companies from trying to be the preferred vendor I don't think it does does it I would think that even even Bernie Sanders planned still involves the market doing lots of competitive things to compete with each other to be the preferred vendor so I don't know if even Bernie Sanders plan is anti-competitive in terms of what it would do to the individual companies it's I said that's an open question by the way if you think of it in that term and not else just does this make more competition or less you probably always

[40:06]

competition or less you probably always get to the right get close to it let's say let's take something else with gun control the well listen that to your gun schedule let's do let's do abortion the framing of abortion so far has been is this a life or is it not a life completely unproductive framing because it it's really trying to get to the answer without dealing with the with the details people just saying it's a life end of story let's not talk about anything else it's a life therefore you keep it alive under all circumstances and the other people saying it's not a life it's not a life well you got lots of options that's the wrong framing you can never get to an answer here's a better framing who gets to decide because whoever decides is going to make mistakes whoever gets to decide about an abortion

[41:10]

whoever gets to decide about an abortion for a particular person in a particular situation whoever it is is going to make mistakes they might make mistakes in the direction of harming the mother they make might make this that mistakes in the direction of harming a life of an unborn there is a hundred percent chance of mistakes so if you have a situation where you can't eliminate mistakes somebody's just going to die no matter which way it goes and it's going to be a lot of people someone's gonna die the important thing is who gets to decide what is the most credible decision-making process and in here's the question should it be the mother and the physician who will make mistakes and will sometimes guaranteed make decisions that you would not have made if you're if you want if you want to process where

[42:11]

if you want if you want to process where no mistakes are made you don't have that option you're gonna have to make a choice and somebody's gonna die because of that choice guaranteed so either going to be lots of unborn or it's going to be mothers who are damaged in other ways because they can't happen in abortion you know if it's the life and the mother who's at risk so somebody's gonna die so don't don't tell me what's the good policy tell me who gets to decide now this is the reason that I recuse myself from the abortion debate because when I reek use myself as a man who doesn't really have anything to offer on the topic it gives the women who are in the in the who do want to have an opinion you give us them a greater say so I take myself out to voluntarily you don't have to I wouldn't even ask you to so if there are men here who would like a strong say if you'd like to vote on that go ahead nobody nobody's telling you you couldn't or

[43:11]

nobody's telling you you couldn't or shouldn't my personal decision is to recuse myself gives women slightly more of a more of a control on that decision where I think you should be so even if women decide that it's all illegal or if women decide that it's not illegal I think that the place to make the decision is with women primarily but I wouldn't stop you if you're male from weighing in because it's a free country and you have every right to do that somebody says it's a cop-out is it a cop-out for a judge to recuse from a case where they have bias no there are cases where the best process the best process is what you want to get it's not about it's not about me none of this is about me it's about the best process alright so I was gonna write a blog post on some of these framing choices and I

[44:14]

on some of these framing choices and I didn't know if I'd be interesting to you but I put that out there just case all right so somebody's saying men matter speak up i I will not talk you out of that your that's a perfectly reasonable position that to say that men matter and they should speak up perfectly reasonable I choose to recuse if anybody else does that's their business all right
gun control the problem with gun control is that people have different risk profiles and they know it so there are people let's say a celebrity or let's say a farmer who's in a remote place there are certain certainly situations in which having a gun
gun probably improves your odds of life and there are other situations that you can imagine we're probably introducing more guns into that situation in inner-city

[45:16]

guns into that situation in inner-city for example might make things worse so when people people are allowed to vote for their own self-interest so you really have just a difference of self-interest you've got you've got people who know that a gun is probably going to make them safer they know how to use it they know their particular security situation you can't really resolve that because because some people are going to want to pursue what's safe for them other people were going to want to pursue what's safe for them and they're different there is not one right there is not one answer about guns that gives every group of people the same level of safety so every decision will change the balance of who's safe and who's not in their own minds if not in reality so until we understand that can't get anywhere here's the other thing I would say gun control has been proven to be effective unambiguously and I know when people hate it when I say that but

[46:17]

people hate it when I say that but there's there's one example that just proves it in my opinion proves it beyond a doubt and that's the fact that fully automatic firearms are banned and time after time after time when we see these mass shootings there's semi-automatics why would all of the mass shooters use semiautomatic rifles when the better weapon by far wouldn't even be close in terms of killing power not even close a fully automatic rifle would have far more killing power why don't they use that and the answer is they're hard to get you can get one but it's expensive there's more paperwork you're but you have more visibility there you know the more people are going to be flagged to look at you so the fact that fully automatic rifles are so far just not used even by the most motivated mass killers they use what what's the

[47:17]

mass killers they use what what's the easiest to get that can also kill a lot of people and that's the ars the 15 so I'm not suggesting we should ban them necessarily that's not where I'm having with this what I'm saying is we should stop saying that gun control is a bad idea or doesn't work when there's such an obvious example where it does work and has worked and probably saved probably saved tons lives if you look at just the Las Vegas shooter the Las Vegas shooter knew enough about guns that if there were such thing as as a fully automatic you could easily get with them flagging himself I'm sure he would add one he knew enough about guns to to have the good kind of gun if he can't get one so that's the first thing somebody says oh my god you're so wrong well I'm taking it from the military people who know enough about automatic rifles to inform me that it's a gigantic difference for example the the automatic the fully automatics don't don't don't

[48:19]

the fully automatics don't don't don't Jam if you're if you're using them like a machine gun fully auto would waste lots of bullets well not if you're just shooting randomly into a crowd alright and the bump stock band I think was probably useful because the bump stock didn't have much of entertainment or hunting value the bump stock didn't really have normal Val the normal kind of value that you get from normal gun activities it just was sort of a trivial thing but it might have been tempting for people to
to use that same technique so it takes away a temptation very small difference and what what actually happens in the real world now I want to strongly support the notion that having a well-armed population does control the government right I hear people say the dumbest thing I hear people say about guns is

[49:20]

thing I hear people say about guns is that the the military of the United States has the good weapons you know they get the the nukes and the drones and and the the tanks so what good would it be for citizens to even have a arse what good is well what good does they have to have small arms in the public when the government obviously has more more weapons well here's the thing the government can't turn against the people without everybody who's in the military losing their families so they're not going to do it just think about it imagine that the any part of the military turned against citizens the United States what's the first thing that the citizens of the United States would do they would find out who were these people in this military unit that just killed some citizens they would find out who they were they would track down their family and they would kill him it would probably happen within the

[50:23]

him it would probably happen within the week so the ability for a military unit within this country to turn on its own citizens oh they could definitely do it but their families would be killed in a week if they all want to lose all of their families and never be able to live in this country the country it would create a country that nobody can live it what would be the point you know what would be the point of turning against the citizens with your big weapons if you couldn't go outdoors when they were getting sniped to death you know the government wouldn't be able to walk outside so even if there were a dictator as long as the rest of the government was supporting it there would be enough guns to pick off all of their family members everybody would be sitting in the neighborhood and they'd say you know I don't know how to get to the Secretary of Defense but I know his cousin so I think I'll visit I'm gonna take my handgun down and visit his cousin maybe

[51:24]

handgun down and visit his cousin maybe that'll convince the Secretary of Defense to look at this a little differently so when people think that it's going to be the government's military against the people's little small arms it's not going to be that it's not going to be that people the first thing people would do is hide all their weapons if the military turned against the public step one everybody hide their weapons that's step one step two figure out who are all the family members of the people who seem to be in on this plot to work against the citizens that's step two and you know we're gonna find out there will be hackers who find out it will be you know you imagine that the bad guys would wear masks but there would be there would be ways we'd find out we would easily find out all the loved ones of anybody who turned against the citizens and they would be wiped out in a week so I don't think we can have a revolution in this country likewise the military wouldn't

[52:26]

country likewise the military wouldn't be able to guard all of the things that the citizens could work against I mean the citizens could really mess up this country if it became a civil war alright so enough about that so the gun the gun thing just can't be solved because the differences in our risk profiles that's exactly what Britain said you know culture makes a big difference American culture is so strong on on this gun issue that I just don't see the government confiscating guns I just don't see it alright
good point but didn't happen in Kent State with the National Guard yeah you know Kent State was just a one-off I don't think people you know I don't

[53:28]

don't think people you know I don't think people saw that as anything but a tragedy that that didn't really look like revolution against the people that would be a whole different deal yes it's a mental illness issue so I saw heard a statistic on Tucker Carl Shiloh the amount of people who have mental illness and teenagers is up by 50% and I don't know last ten years or eight years or something the number of teen suicides is up by 50 percent and I thought oh my god it seemed like that was true I mean anecdotally it looked like it looks like the country's going crazy but sure enough as a roll of medication been studied yeah if you're looking at what it is that's causing people to be so sad and suicidal it's probably a bunch of things I don't think it's one thing if I had to if if I had to guess what are the

[54:32]

had to if if I had to guess what are the major factors behind all the didn't the increase in depression and stuff it's probably a combination of the following things social media for sure and the next thing would be the amount of stimulation so people are way over stimulated and we're our brains are just getting fried and we can't deal with with ordinary problems because all the problems of the world are being blessed at us all the time if if you did not have technology as when I was a kid your entire world was you sitting there and people that you could physically get in contact sometime during the day so my world was so tiny that my biggest problem was it was boring it was very boring but I wasn't rest because there was nothing to stress me I didn't have enough stimulation I was I was so under stimulation under stimulated that I was always

[55:33]

under stimulated that I was always looking for more stimulation I guess people are always looking for more stimulation but it was hard to find back then so certainly it's something about the stimulation something about looking at screens something about social media making you feel bad giving you bad body images but just think about this before smartphones you knew let's say 50 people pretty well so let's say you're your circle of people you knew pretty well was about 50 people within that 50 people you are probably the best or one of the best a lot of different things so among all the people you know you might have been the best basketball player you might have had the best grades in history you might have been the one who could run the farthest you might have been the one with the best personality you might have been the sexiest one if if your world were was small and there were only 50 people you cared about you could be really good at a few things within 50 group of 50 people but now you're

[56:35]

group of 50 people but now you're looking at all the people in the world suddenly you went from being pretty good and a bunch of things within this group of 50 people you know - you suck compared to Stefan curry you're no good at basketball compared to all the models on Instagram you're not attractive compared to all these smart people making billions of dollars in Silicon Valley you're not doing well and you're not smart so basically you just went from somebody who could feel good about yourself because within the world that you could see and touch to hear and interact with the 50 people you ever see you were doing okay on a bunch of stuff but if you start comparing yourself to the world we all suck we all suck compared to the whole world so that makes a difference I think also there's probably a difference in how we're tracking it maybe we're noticing more of it or they were diagnosing more than we were before there's probably something in our food

[57:36]

there's probably something in our food that makes a difference so probably some of you said I blew your mind with that truth which which truth is that about how we compare ourselves I I don't know exactly how I blew your mind with what thought but thank you for saying that so your Sportz argument applies to capitalism I don't know the connection with that question who is the best cartoonist in your opinion well this person will that's just personal there's no such thing as a best cartoonist it's just whatever you like
Jordan Peterson has put it best on how to attain purpose here's my take on attaining the purpose I believe that you may have said this before I believe that you'll have a sensation of having purpose in your life when you are doing

[58:36]

purpose in your life when you are doing things that are compatible with your evolved biological self so when when you are when you're let's say making money or you're doing well you're succeeding other people are noticing that you're succeeding that's very much something we evolved to feel good about we evolved to try to stand out take some risks at least some of us to be aggressive and and trying to accomplish things and to feel good when people say hey I like what you did that's a good success so when you're doing stuff that are compatible with our biological natures for some people that's getting married and having babies raising kids other people don't get a thrill from that and it just makes them unhappy but for the most part find something that is clearly compatible with how human biological

[59:36]

compatible with how human biological people evolved and if you do that you're probably going to start feeling pretty good about what you're doing in the world for example I always give this example that if you take care of yourself first and then get that under control get your fitness your diet your health make sure you're learning something every day you've got some kind of income with some kind of higher potential if you get that done then maybe you can expand who you're helping you know helping your family your friends helping your town helping the world as you become more capable so I think those things are all deeply gratifying so I think anytime you're learning and growing taking care of yourself first and then expanding who you can help from the center out yourself being the center as long as you feel that happening even when it's happening slowly you're feeling progress toward the thing that you were literally born to do somebody has a comment here says the wife keeps sabotaging my enjoyment of Scott Adam

[1:00:38]

sabotaging my enjoyment of Scott Adam scopes well if your wife is listening whoever just said this please please let your husband listen to this periscope unmolested you know he'll really thank you for it later all right somebody says that is exactly what dr. Peterson says actually I didn't know exactly what he said but I do I assumed it was compatible with this thinking I didn't know that that's what he says about meaning frankly I have not delved into Jordan Peterson's books and deeper philosophical stuff I've seen lots of clips of him and these magnificent in his YouTube stuff all right somebody says you organized your gym routine around my periscopes let me tell you what I do I do the same thing and I do what I call fiber sizing five being

[1:01:40]

do what I call fiber sizing five being fi v i5 or sighs meaning that I often not every day but I often time my workout so that the fox news show the five is odd because I find that there's something about the multiple people joking and having fun about things I care about is is distracting in all the right ways so it puts me in a good head for for working out but it also gives me structure so so this is one of the best I
I a number of people have said they do their work out at around this time to to parent with my periscope it's a really good it's a really good thing to do having nothing to do with me but rather to have a routine around something that you like to listen to or you're willing to listen to and it keeps you mind off your exercise and so it's a really good system all right I'm just oh so yeah so

[1:02:46]

system all right I'm just oh so yeah so ben shapiro made some news by walking off a BBC interview I guess the BBC interview was asking some questions that didn't sound like there were even even it wasn't even trying to be unbiased and so Ben Ben reacted to that and walked off the interesting thing happened was what happened after because I don't know if you noticed but Shapiro basically completely took it on himself he accepted he accepts I think he's framing it as he got he got beaten in this interview or or he essentially lost in the exchange so he's saying that very clearly he's taking it with humility looks like he's thinking there's something to learn it was everyone says he got destroyed even Ben so I listened to just the part where there was the anger exchange and then he walked off

[1:03:46]

anger exchange and then he walked off and I didn't really all I saw was his reaction seemed out of out of sync with the questions seemed like his reaction was bigger than the situation called for and I feel like that's why he's acknowledging in his own words and what was interesting is how often do you see people do that it it catches you off-guard it catches you off-guard when anybody is honest about their mistakes so I have to admit I kind of like him better I don't know if I wouldn't it the same way in other words I don't know if I could have been I'd like to think I could have I think I like like to have been as honest as he was about how he didn't come off well in that I just appreciated I appreciated his honesty you saying okay I lost that round it's not the end of the world so anyway I would say he made a mistake he

[1:04:48]

anyway I would say he made a mistake he totally copped to his mistake let's move on I appreciate him more for doing that
alright I guess that's all I have to say and I'm going to talk to you later