Episode 539 Scott Adams: Biden, Infrastructure Theater, Word-Thinking, Shadowbanning

Date: 2019-05-23 | Duration: 54:50

Topics

Michael Avenatti, Stormy Daniels…back in the news again Political season is upon us, and some odd traffic coincidences We’re left to guess why traffic patterns suddenly altered The fact we can’t tell why…portends regulation Lack of social media algorithm transparency… …IS the end of our Republic Not necessarily a coordinated conspiracy, but same result Joe Biden has no legislative accomplishments A career in politics, and NO accomplishments to show?
VP candidate traditionally boring, watered-down version of POTUS Biden was more boring than President Obama Now Biden has to select his own VP, that’s even more boring CNN and MSNBC producing stories out of colorful words CNN reports Pelosi says she’s getting under POTUS skin Social media wasn’t able to obtain their desired result in 2016 By 2020, expect them to be more effective, less noticeable Social media culling the herd, by banning the worst of the right What will happen if they don’t also ban worst of the left? Gov involved BEFORE the money is made, that’s the socialism flaw Gov ownership, control of major income producer companies Shepard Smith’s extraordinarily capable reporting the other day He riffed for an hour without a script, visually excellent AOC and the conservative Freedom Caucus…AGREE on something
Facial recognition everywhere, all the time, no privacy, BAD Well…it’s going happen anyway, it isn’t avoidable Terrorism will result in facial recognition everywhere, all the time Outrage, protests…and then facial recognition will win 10 years from now, facial recognition will be EVERYWHERE

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

## Transcript

[0:08]

bump up and boom hey everybody come on in here Stanley good to see you grab your cups of new mugs your glasses your vessel your tankers your chalice your thermos your flask fill it with your favorite liquid hey everybody John Margo Ryan it's time to join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the simultaneous it and it happens right now oh that's good stuff hmm so here's an update on my startup because I know you care we've added a new feature now to allow you to put a a button if you know how to pace things into HTML or a link if you just want to keep it simple so you can have a link on your own page whether it's a blog or social media or anything else that will

[1:08]

social media or anything else that will take you directly to a interface by one habit video call so if you wanted to do let's say a customer support you could put your link or your button on your page and somebody could go to a video call or just schedule one they click the button and it shows your schedule if you set up a schedule when you're ready and so all of you who would like to do that the two steps are get the interface by one hub app and put in a profile as an expert and then separately you want to go to one hub comm and then search for yourself and those are you'll find the links there that will allow you to paste onto a web page if you donate to ml if you don't know HTML you can just grab a URL and just use a URL all right let's talk about all the news something that's pretty interesting you also the news that stormy Daniels apparently was

[2:08]

that stormy Daniels apparently was ripped off to the tune of $300,000 or she
she just by her lawyer hanami now as I tweeted yesterday I think somebody whoever's writing this simulation because this can't be real are we living in a real world or some kind of a scripted world because the fact that avenatti who was CNN's favorite for so long were turned out to be well maybe allegedly somebody who steals large about somebody now he has not been convicted and he gets his day in court just like everybody else and by the way I think that by the time we get the details of this if I'm being fair I don't know like to be fair I'll bet the avenatti has a better defense than you're expecting so don't be surprised

[3:09]

you're expecting so don't be surprised if none of this turns out to be true because I think it's going to end up looking sort of like he didn't know he was going to get paid and he gave millions of dollars worth of legal service and so he just made sure that the funds that were coming to her went to him directly so it's not exactly stealing but maybe he did do something with a signature that's yet to be proven so I think you should expect these stories to start out simple and then it's gonna get a lot more hazy as we go but we'll see just the fact that this story exists at all is hilarious and not only because avenatti looks like a huge he looks like well I'm not going to use that word but there's reasons on that we're not using it I'll tell you in a minute but it's interesting that a porn star would be let's say hmm what's the

[4:16]

star would be let's say hmm what's the right word you know what the word is let's say what are the odds that a porn star would be hmm fill in your own word by somebody who not only acts like a giant hmm you know the other word but because he has his shaved head he sort of also looks like a giant hmm I won't use the word so there's something perfect about that all right the reason I'm not using that word is because I found when I tried to monetize the YouTube channel where these these periscopes get get downloaded and turns into YouTube YouTube content as well so if he does search for real coffee by Scott Adams or real coffee with Scott Ames you'll find my youtube channel that's the same content about an hour later but

[5:18]

the same content about an hour later but when I monetized it I noticed the YouTube had a number of my videos unchecked and they would not monetize what did they have in common so there were something like 100 out of 500 of my videos YouTube's rules did not let them monetize it which by the way I don't object to I think they should have rules that keep some kind of content from being mixed with some kinds of advertisers so no problem with the fact that they have those rules those are good rules but guess what content was not monetized some of them I think probably had a bad word in them yeah so I think some of them were because I used a bad word and I'm okay with that because actually it gives me a little it gives me the discipline to avoid those words because I kind of want to but on the other hand it's cursing is sort of

[6:19]

the other hand it's cursing is sort of part of my personality it's hard to it's hard to it's hard to act that artificial if I'm in the moment if I'm in the moment I tend to you the words that are most natural to me and they tend to be those but this extra bit of discipline might be good for me they're trying to keep away from it but the other the other group the largest group that was not monetized was when I talked about a certain HOA X which I'm not going to mention because this one would get demagnetized so there was a certain F I and II peop le HOA X there whenever it was in the title or in the content they were all demonetised now if you remember that content most of you saw it there wasn't anything there there should have been D monetized there really wasn't I didn't use any swearing I didn't call

[7:19]

I didn't use any swearing I didn't call for any violence nothing like that but that content is very damaging to a certain portion of the political world and it got suppressed now is that a coincidence or is it just perfectly understandable because perhaps that content comes with a certain set of vocabulary there was seeing Rachel and that would be good enough reason I mean just because there was a racial conversation even though all intentions were positive it might be there's an algorithm that's picking up key words of some sort and says oh there's some kind of racial component to this and we don't need that for our advertisers if that's the reason I'm actually fine with that I don't have any problem at all so here's the problem because we're entering the political season I have these questions why did my periscope traffic seem to drop off suddenly at the

[8:21]

traffic seem to drop off suddenly at the same day could be because of content why did my traffic from LinkedIn to Dilbert calm which has absolutely nothing to do with politics except that my blog lives there so there might have been some keyword problems there actually that's probably why but when I look at that is there was there an algorithm change is somebody just preparing for 2020 is my profile being brought down and by the way my youtube traffic forget about all the D monetization my YouTube traffic just dropped by about 25% suddenly as well now here's the question could all of these things be a coincidence and the answer is yes not a coincidence exactly but could they have perfectly legitimate explanations which if I heard them I would say to myself oh okay you know it was free speech I didn't say anything wrong but I do see why this content

[9:22]

wrong but I do see why this content doesn't match well with advertisers I can see that but I don't have access to that argument I left to guess is there is there something going on is it a coincidence that that LinkedIn periscope and YouTube all showed a dramatic decline at about the same time somebody says seasonal could it be seasonal could it be nothing but the weather getting better but here's the problem I don't know and then you look at dave rubin who is noticing a sharp drop-off in his traffic to and I think he's wondering if he's being shadow banned so here's my point I don't know if any changes have been made there would be specific to my to my traffic I don't know and I have no way of knowing the fact that I have no way of knowing is absolute ironclad

[10:26]

way of knowing is absolute ironclad argument for regulating the algorithms of the major of the major platforms the fact that I can't tell is all you need because if I could tell then maybe there would be some Thunder debate so you know something to challenge etc but the fact that I can't tell is the end of the conversation if I can't tell and it's also true that these social media platforms will be one of the biggest facts there's an who is the leader of the United States I mean that big big stakes we're talking about war and peace we're talking about economic development we're talking about how the the poor are treated I mean it's the biggest issues in the world and it kind of comes down to one of the biggest variables anyway is the the algorithms and they're invisible I would say that as long as the algorithms on social media are invisible and people who are would say influential in their own way such as

[11:27]

influential in their own way such as such as me the fact that we can't tell what behavior we're doing is making a difference or if it's a coincidence is completely unacceptable as a system forget about me forget about you know Trump versus anybody you forget about the specifics of the politics if your influencers can't tell why their numbers go down and then they do go down completely unacceptable the system is a hundred percent broken and let me let me let me make sure that I'm saying this as clearly as possible without that transparency democracy does not exist now we're Republic but still there's democratic elements to the voting etc but without transparency on the social media algorithms we don't have we do not have and we should stop talking as

[12:28]

have and we should stop talking as though we have something like a marker see something like a republic we don't we lost it now it could be like I say there may actually be nothing going on behind the scenes that I should do worried about at all in fact there could be things going on behind the scenes that are helping me and I don't even know that but democracy is dead the Republic is dead it's now something you have to worry about in the future it already happened that lack of transparency is the end of the Republic that's not that's not an exaggeration is it you tell me is that an exaggeration the lack of social media transparency is the end of the Republic there is some new source of power and we don't even know their names it might not be that they're talking to each other it might not be that they have a specific agenda

[13:31]

not be that they have a specific agenda beyond you know the left they prefer over the right or they don't like the president it could be living it it could be something that goes away in the next cycle possible but the fact that we don't know is the end of the United States as it was written up in the Constitution the founders did not anticipate the internet if they had I'm pretty sure they would have written the Constitution differently actually literally it would be a different Constitution I don't know how exactly but it would be different all right let's talk about another topic nothing about that I'm watching Biden strategy and it's so funny yet nobody's laughing and I can't tell what's going on so here's Biden strategy you've got he wants to contrast himself to Trump so Trump strategy is make America great

[14:32]

Trump strategy is make America great again and under that umbrella he has he has things to brag about in terms of you know we're safer than we've ever been and the economy is great and he's got the judges he wants and if you don't yet cetera so Trump has all these things that can certainly be sold as accomplishments Biden has a bunch of laws that he was involved with and years ago that people don't like today he's got a freaking nothing there's just nothing Joe Biden has to sell as an accomplishment so he's decided and the media is treating this like it's smart here's the funny part the media is treating this like a clever strategy that Biden is simply focusing on getting rid of Trump instead of talking about any real topics in detail he does talk about policies but he tends to he has a very sharp focus on simply getting rid

[15:35]

very sharp focus on simply getting rid of Trump so the setup here is that Trump is making America great again and even his critics would argue that America looks pretty good right now we're looking pretty good and Biden's approach is to get rid of that guy who did all that good stuff you can't make that up can you think of a worse a worse thing to focus on than getting rid of the guy who presided over the most golden period the United States has ever experienced in my opinion I mean you're seeing you know progress against AIDS you're seeing you know progress against terrorism but really progress about just about everything and Biden's with and and Biden's Biden sales approaches I'm gonna get rid of all that stuff all that good stuff you like I'm gonna get rid of that stuff it's it's laughably ridiculous now I waited a humorous framing that I

[16:38]

now I waited a humorous framing that I think is so strong it might actually take Biden and the race if he wins the nomination and here's the framing a
presidential candidate has to pick a vice president who looks good as part of the team and the trick is you want your vice president candidate to be the weaker less interesting version of the candidate for president so just as Ronald Reagan put the pict boring George Bush and then when George Bush ran for president he even though he was a watered down version of Reagan Reagan was so popular that even his watered down version became president but he could only last for one one term and and his best buy's president the vice presidential pick where the twice watered-down version so you had Regan was the star he picked a water down and bush senior to be as VP and

[17:40]

down and bush senior to be as VP and then when Reagan could no longer run for office because his two terms were up the the watered down version becomes president because well you know we really like Reagan so we'll take the watered down version - and by the way Bush he knew was pretty good president but when he picked his vice president he had to go one level deeper in the watering down so boring Bush senior had to pick somebody more boring than him or more or less capable some players week or less interesting and he picked Dan Quayle now if Dan Quayle had somehow miraculously become president who would he pick as his vice president you know that would be like three levels watered down it's hard to get less interesting the less qualified that Dan Quayle so that would have been fascinating so Biden has the same problem he is the watered down version of Obama the reason Biden it was a perfect running mate this is good is that he's more boring than Obama less interesting

[18:40]

more boring than Obama less interesting seems to be less smart perfect boring uninteresting relatively solid in terms of his experience well very solid in terms of his experience but now who does Biden pick who isn't more interesting than Biden think about it it's a real problem if you're Trump and you've got you know star power up here you've got all this room to pick a vice president I mean you could pick somebody who was really strong and I think pence is pretty strong but he's still not even close to the you know that the wattage of the president so so you're I'm seeing some names coming across the screen so let's say that item picks Kamla Harris culeros is a little bit younger more interesting version of Biden if you saw if you let's say you're a woman were a minority and you see that Kamala has

[19:43]

minority and you see that Kamala has picked us and number two don't you feel like you just went back to the 70s or whenever there was geraldine ferraro don't you feel like wait a minute were the Democrats what why is the woman person of color who's been a frickin senator and it was the right age and doing a good job and all that why she's second why she's second I'm she would have a little bit too much star power so when you say to yourself oh he has to pick a vice president who's also popular and you know looks like they could be President that's a real problem because if he does pick somebody like that people are going to say why do we need the eighty-year-old president when the vice presidential pick seems perfectly capable hi so Louis so watch for that watch for the Biden vice presidential pick being a real real challenge because he's already the watered down version all right I'm watching the news on CNN

[20:46]

all right I'm watching the news on CNN and MSNBC during this period when there's nothing really bad to say about Trump they're trying hard but because the headlines are not serving up any good stuff they still have to reboard stuff so here's here here's how they're trying to make news with words so watch this trend CNN and MSNBC the ones who do it the most they they take a story that if you just described it objectively there wouldn't be anything interesting there but when you describe it with your with your colorful words you turn it into something that's uncritically accepted by the audience without any evidence for it so for example here's some words from today CNN is reporting that Pelosi is quote talking about Trump that she's quote getting under his skin what's that mean what does it mean that somebody is getting under somebody's skin all we see is politicians who ordinarily

[21:49]

all we see is politicians who ordinarily bicker with each other continue to bicker with each other the way they always have who gets to say that that's getting somebody's skin wouldn't it be more accurate to say Democrats or the Republicans say things about each other there's nothing there's nothing in any of the headlines that really would indicate anybody's getting under anybody's skin so that choice of words tries to add facts without facts so you you tend to say to yourself oh oh there's something special going on here there isn't there's nothing there's nothing more personal or more annoying about each other than there ever was it's just the same same people arguing the same way here's some more saying that the president is quote engaged in a cover-up so trying to use the word cover-up to convey more information than the facts have the facts are that the President

[22:52]

have the facts are that the President believes that he has there's no crime and it's a big waste of time and bad for the government and bad for the country and bad for Trump if all he's dealing with is there's more investigations when there's already been a pretty big investigation that found nothing of legal consequence at least nothing that's going to affect them and so calling that a cover-up is trying to turn it into more than it is when somebody believes that they're innocent and they don't want endless and if somebody doesn't want endless investigations of themselves what do you call that person normal right you call it normal nobody wants endless investigations that are just polar politically motivated is that a cover-up is it a cover-up to not want investigations for something that's there's not even a there's not even an allegation of a crime with any evidence

[23:53]

allegation of a crime with any evidence that would make it a credible or allegation how about this Chris Hayes says on MSNBC the Trump quote colludes with Putin down the open he colludes with Putin on the open it's that word collude that turns something that completely happened in public and I think he's talking about the joke that he made and just adding that word tries to turn him nothing into her something here's another one it was at MSNBC or CNN I forget they said that Trump is showing his contempt for immigrants now what has from done that would show you his inner mind that has contempt for immigrants all he's doing is his job it's his job to secure the borders where is this contempt for

[24:55]

borders where is this contempt for immigrants he has a preference for people who are legal citizens and have followed the rules that's just sort of bigger conservative so when you say he has contempt that of course is the mind-reading problem and MSNBC twice used the word tantrum about Trump walking out of the infrastructure meeting if you watched the details that Trump went in and said a few words and said he wasn't going to have a meeting because they just keep investigating him and he can't work with them is that a tantrum is tantrum the word that describes what I just said I don't see any tantrum unless you want to say everybody's having a tantrum everybody who's not happy with the situation are they all having a tantrum so the most healthy situation you could imagine for this world is when the news on both sides are trying to make up words to

[25:58]

sides are trying to make up words to turn the complete lack of news into something interesting and the complete lack of news is because this president has largely taken away most of the big problems it feels like most of them are handled or on the way to being handled they're moving in the right direction takes away all the good news Jeff Daniels actor Jeff General said that if gets reelected in 2020 it's quote it's the end of democracy what does that mean what does it mean if we have a fair election and the leader who emerges from that fair election goes on to lead to four more years of incredible American prosperity and then he leaves office because of course he would he's not going to hang on to office after a second term is that really the end of democracy or is that democracy now the

[27:00]

democracy or is that democracy now the social media networks will probably determine who becomes president because they're smarter than they were in this last cycle and whatever they are doing in the last cycle was a little too obvious and not quite effective enough do you think that the smartest people in Silicon Valley did not notice that their moves against Trump supporters were too obvious and not effective enough yeah they noticed they noticed and they will have had four years to figure out how to make it less noticeable I'm more effective the odds of the social media companies not being able to completely change the result of this election Orlov I'm not saying they have a hundred percent control but I think it's low odds that they haven't figured out how to stay under the radar and still affect the election I would say that that's almost a certainty Rex Tillerson said

[28:04]

almost a certainty Rex Tillerson said about Trump that in one of their summits with Putin he said that Putin out prepared Trump he helped prepared him so that's another one of these using words to create news so what does it mean to be out prepared what did we lose what was the cost of that how do you judge how well-prepared simply is how do you know how well-prepared Putin is I don't know if you can judge that sort of thing that's it saying that Trump was out prepared by Putin sounds like the sort of thing you'd see in some boring corporate board meeting it doesn't it feels like something that means something but it didn't translate into anything that I could notice I mean I just don't know what that meant how about saying what went wrong or did he did he do something that caused somebody to die or the stock market to go down where where's the meat what does it mean to be out prepared how

[29:07]

what does it mean to be out prepared how do you how do you measure such anything so these are the worst problems in the world right now in there and they're nothing
I loved Chuck Schumer trying to defend that the Democrats were serious about an infrastructure and his argument is he holds up his document he says I had a thirty five page document I was going to give the president 35 pages of how we want to spend this infrastructure of money to which I say to myself is the point of saying that you came to the president's office with a thirty five page document was the point of that to tell me you're an idiot because if that was the point message received do you know what you don't bring to a meeting with the top executive much less the President of the United States what you don't bring is a

[30:10]

United States what you don't bring is a thirty five page document you know what else you don't bring a thirty four page document 33 no 32 no do you get the pattern that's a lot of pages do you know it would be the right amount of document possibly one and that might be too much maybe one clearly the President did not call a meeting so he could go through a 35 page document nor would anybody really understand it no work nor would anybody be able to check exactly you know what they had in mind so when he sees you were waving his 35 page document everybody who's had any experience in corporate America is watching that and saying what's wrong with him the president's claim that Schumer was not really serious about infrastructure seems sort of bolstered by that thirty five page document if you know what I mean now maybe that thing at an

[31:15]

mean now maybe that thing at an executive summary which would have been a slightly different story but the way Schumer is presenting it it's as if the whole 35 pages have meaning and clearly that would be the opposite of reality all right there's a little story about actor John Cusack he apparently social media notice that he did not stand at a Cubs game at Wrigley Field for a bowing military salute and I guess Boeing sponsored hit but it was a military salute and there's a picture of basically everybody in the whole stadium standing up and a little picture of him with his little black hat so he could pretend to be invisible with a with a sort of a big lip out he's pouting like that and then he tried to defend himself in some weak way and I love the fact

[32:19]

in some weak way and I love the fact that the Democrats worst representatives are getting a lot of attention cusack he he's trying hard to be an intellectual but he doesn't pull it off so he looks like an actor acting like an intellectual but he doesn't you know nobody wrote his lines for him so he can't pull it off and and then the you know Jeff Daniels literally famous for being the dumb and dumber star criticizing Trump in a way that just sounds ridiculous and I want to at least propose the following possibility if social media decides to eliminate or suppress let's say the most I'll try to use the word without without bias so I'm gonna try to carefully pick a word here I'll say if social media starts blocking or deep platforming the most let's say no I

[33:21]

deep platforming the most let's say no I don't want to think that word the most provocative ok yes they if they start getting rid of the most provocative people on the right but they keep all of the wackos on the left it's not going to help them the way they think it will so the people on the right we're doing nothing but the the farthest people on the right so I'm not talking about you know Dave Rubin and he wouldn't identify exactly with the right anyway so I'm not talking about carpet on them right I'm not talking about James woods right I'm not talking about that there they're pretty much mainstream but James Woods could get back on you I'm social media anytime he wants and she's got one tweet that's the problem yeah so I'm not talking about mainstream people but if the like the serious racists on the right if they get blocked it's actually going to improve the brand

[34:25]

it's actually going to improve the brand of those people who did not get blocked because they will not be you know conflated with people who are the more provocative shall we say people on the right but as long as we're looking at Jeff Daniels and representative Omar and and and John Cusack if those are the people that were paying attention to on the Left it's going to completely annihilate their brand because they get conflated with their worst dumbest people and the people on the right there the herd has been called perhaps illegally perhaps irresponsibly perhaps unconstitutionally those are interesting questions but the effect of it will be that the people left on the right the people who are remaining on the right to be more clear will be the people who don't have the most provocative reputations so I'm not sure things are gonna go the way they hope I wanted to do a follow-up on a

[35:28]

hope I wanted to do a follow-up on a point I mean about socialism the other day I'm trying to I'm trying to improve my thinking on this topic so let's try this out for you I had complained that when people say socialism is bad they have trouble explaining exactly why that is except that past socialism is caused you know all kinds of problems that as well as the problem you know other communist countries the economies don't work etc so there's a history of socialism not working but there's also plenty of history of where it does so for example in the United States Social Security and you know disability and other things are essentially socialism but they have not ruined the country we seem to be able to to handle those things and find value in them so here's a distinction I want to try out with you that socialism can work when the sharing that is the socialism

[36:29]

when the sharing that is the socialism part happens after the monies made so that's what social security is you make some money and then the government reallocates it and people complain but the system seems to be fairly generally working right here's where it doesn't work when the government takes control before the money is made and that would be such as nationalizing corporations that that's the Venezuela problem if I understand it correctly if you nationalize the big oil companies the big producers your you have socialism before the money is made and then no money is made because that the socialism of owning the assets of production will absolutely ruin your productivity and I think a hundred percent of people would agree with that statement if you nationalize private companies you don't have any

[37:29]

private companies you don't have any hope of them competing in the real world and it's all going to go to hell people have too much control corruption will spread etc so I'm playing with this distinction because I don't know I don't know if their holds well but just keep that in your mind that if the government takes over private companies that's a hundred percent failure track that's Venezuela but when but when the government helps private companies make money which would be the Trump administration they're getting rid of some regulations they're lowering the lowering the tax rates you know they're they're doing things that boost productivity of the private companies in the health care area they're giving they're creating more visibility of pricing so if your government is actively boosting private companies but not trying to take them over that's pretty healthy that's what we're seeing that's why they partly why the economy is doing so well once you've made that

[38:32]

is doing so well once you've made that money you have a secondary decision about what kind of distribution sharing tax rates social programs makes sense for all people involved because we all we're all better off if the people who are most vulnerable or taken care of so I'm not saying that universal health care and Social Security and all those things are all good all the time and that there's nothing to worry about them because they can be expensive they can get out of control they can have their own problems however it does seem like a useful distinction if government gets involved before the money's made or if government gets involved after the money's made and they're helping to distribute it in a way that helps everybody that's the difference so good socialism versus bad socialism but I'd rather just not use the word socialism I would I would like to call out

[39:41]

Smith of Fox News now when you hear that name I know I just triggered a bunch of you because Shepard Smith tends to be let's say the least supportive of President Trump on Fox News but I gotta tell you I saw a performance by Shep Smith the other day that was so freakin capable that I had to call it in I don't know I guess there's there's they're probably Emmys or Peabody's or something what is the award that news people get because I would like I would like to sort of publicly nominate him for that if you saw this you probably were as depressed as I was so it was the news that however many days ago it wish there was a helicopter that went down in the Hudson now it happened to had that happened at Shepard Smith's hour or however long it has but during his time on the air that happened now he spent probably more than half an hour talking without a script in front of this big

[40:44]

without a script in front of this big this big screen of you know a gigantic image probably from a drone or a helicopter of the scene of the rescue etc and I watched him riff for an hour and described with word pictures the entire scene the background the context he described the tunnels he described that you know what things look like how it worked how the people flowed and for a half an hour he held court in front of this very well produced set so and by the way kudos to whoever produces that segment because the visuals were a plus is the best visuals you've ever seen from any kind of a disaster site the the video was great they were zooming in they were zooming yeah it was just great but watching him do that performance without a script was amazing it was probably the

[41:44]

a script was amazing it was probably the best news performance that performance is the right word I hate to use that word probably the best news [Music] presentation that I've ever seen for an extended period so kudos did you know I know I know you've got your problems with his is not liking Trump as much as you would like but for a pure talent that was jaw-dropping I mean I was just riveted and by the way it also reminded me of what online education is going to look like when you saw a Shepard Smith talking about this news event and the visuals were just you know a whole wall of visuals and they were the perfect ones and he was the perfect presenter he had the knowledge he had he just had the whole package it told you what online education could become if it ever gets there right now it's just the same boring teacher that you would have if

[42:45]

boring teacher that you would have if you went in person and they're just blah blah blah on video but if you could combine that level of visual spectacular excellence that Fox News did for that segment at the same time that you don't have a regular teacher but just the best teacher you could have someone who can really just light up the Centers of your brain and make you not be able to turn it off those people exist they're just rare Shepard Smith is apparently one of them and specifically if you ever get a chance to see that in replay watch how he talks in visual terms I mean he just took you right into a story and you just lived there for the whole time he was talking was great alright that's enough about him see if I covered everything I wanted to do pom-pom I think I did oh let's talk about a or C and the freedom caucus have something to agree on the freedom caucus being very conservative

[43:46]

freedom caucus being very conservative group and they oversee being whatever is the direct opposite apparently they agree on the question of mass facial-recognition in public they don't like it the far left and the I don't know how far right there but let's say the right does not like companies and governments being able to do facial recognition of everybody all the time in public here's my opinion on that doesn't matter if it's gonna happen anyway I completely understand why people don't want it's a strong argument it's an argument that the left and the right agree with I completely understand why people don't want it it restricts you freedom it's giving up rights in a sense you know you have something an expectation of privacy even in public and what I mean privacy in public I mean that you're anonymous

[44:47]

in public I mean that you're anonymous when you're walking through the crowd I don't think there's even the slightest chance that we won't have a universal facial recognition I just don't see any chance that's not going to happen because if you have a security camera that security footage is going somewhere maybe it's local but probably more and more it's gonna be in the cloud so once that video reaches the cloud is there really going to be a law that says I can't run another piece of software against my own data why not why would it be illegal for me a private company with a camera that's on my front door why would it be illegal to take that video which is legal and then once I've taken the video I own it I own the video I can run other software against that video

[45:47]

run other software against that video what would can you tell me that you could actually pass a law they would tell me what software I could run against my own data keep in mind that my intentions are not to create any information that becomes public outside of my company I'm just looking at my own data you can't tell me that could ever be illegal and if you can't get rid of all the video cameras I just don't see how you can enforce such a thing now you also are gonna have the problem that everybody with a you know a smartphone everybody knew some day has glasses that are recording everything pretty soon everything's going to be recorded all the time your self-driving cars are going to have cameras 360 so if you're anywhere near a car you're gonna be on video and a lot of you just walking down a sidewalk in the future we'll probably put you on video of every car that drives by now they don't necessarily

[46:47]

drives by now they don't necessarily have to save that data but they could so just like privacy in general do you remember when we were talking about seems years ago now when we're talking about cheese someday the government will have the ability to monitor all of our communications and people said we will stop that we're never gonna let the government monitor all of our communications and what do we have now well we live in the world in which the government monitors all of our conversations now that doesn't mean there's somebody literally watching you when you're when you're talking it means that they have access to it if they want it you know most of us are boring so they don't they don't care about it but they certainly can there's nothing to stop them from getting literally every conversation you've ever made electronically they know exactly where you've been if you had your smartphone with you and you did of course you had your smartphone with you so they know everywhere you've been

[47:48]

everywhere you've been they know everything you've purchased and they know everything you've said if they care to now let me ask you this how is your life worse in what ways is your life worse because the government has that all that information there might be reasons I'm not saying there are no reasons I'm just saying that whatever you were afraid of those are probably valid fears but now that we know what's what the situation looks like at least at the moment things could get worse any day but at the moment we have again somebodies in the comments did you notice that terrorism almost went away we hear stories of people being caught all the time you know people being entrapped and people trying to buy buy explosives from an FBI informant but if you notice that every time there's a serious threat that looks like a big plot I'm not talking

[48:49]

looks like a big plot I'm not talking about the lone gunman there's still hard to find but anybody who had a big plot to blow something up don't they always end up talking to an FBI undercover person who's trying to sell them something it feels like the ESPY FBI gets inserted every time so does our complete police state lack of privacy help us or does it hurt us well are you presenter die this lack of privacy I'm sure there have been like it's a big world with lots of stuff happening so I'm sure there's somebody who's been injured by the government having complete knowledge of its citizens probably I don't know how I have been injured I just know that I feel safer because there's less terrorism now I I had predicted years ago many years ago that the increase in

[49:49]

ago many years ago that the increase in terrorism would result in a complete lack of privacy I think we're here and I said that that complete lack of privacy would actually be a solution to terrorism they might have its own problems but it would be an actual complete answer to terrorism and I think we're seeing a situation where it looks like it's a fairly complete answer to terrorism so we'll see anyway the the facial recognition thing I think is going to go the same way there will be honest smart people who will fight as hard as they can to stop it there will be very good arguments for why we shouldn't have it we will be outraged there will be possibly protests in the streets
that is going to happen anyway and after it happens your life will get better not worse because here's the thing that people always forget in the United States in the United States if a

[50:52]

States in the United States if a dictator wanted to grab power we know where they live there's so much lack of lack of privacy that we're going to know a lot about our leaders in fact one of the biggest problems in the world right now
now is that we know too much about our leaders because if you know too much there's always something to complain about there's always something you think well I better look into that mm-hmm if I didn't know about that I wouldn't worry about it but the fact that I do know about it was deeper you're saying that with Trump especially so my prediction is this you will have a you need more complete lack of privacy about what you're doing where you are and that ten years in ten years from now there will be complete facial recognition everywhere probably our DNA will be you know used in ways that you never thought and information about you and that here's the strange part and you'll be happier

[51:58]

the strange part and you'll be happier that's my prediction that you will be happier as your privacy decreases your happiness will improve the exception would be people who voluntarily put things on social media are going to be a way less happy because people put bad things on social media and it kills their life so that part's going to be totally bad but those are also voluntarily things people do voluntarily all right I understand that so-called American Isis guy John Walker Lindh he was a captured Islamic militant who at age 20 went over to Afghanistan to join the Taliban to fight against the United States all right so it's an American citizen who wanted who literally joined the Taliban and fought against the United States he got a 20-year sentence and got out early now I ask you is that the

[53:00]

out early now I ask you is that the right punishment for somebody who actually joined an enemy service to kill Americans that feels like not enough I mean I'm all for the first step program and rehabilitating people but shouldn't there be some different kind of treatment for people who literally joined the other side to fight against you and destroy your country and kill your people I'm thinking the deaths and the death penalty wouldn't be too much but at the very least life and life in prison now I'm not gonna call for any violence and nobody here should should hear it that way well put it in the form of a question how in the world can this guy survive in this country I don't know if he can if he has the does he have the freedom to just leave the country or is he still under some kind of you know

[54:01]

he still under some kind of you know justice system restrictions because if he doesn't leave the country and people figure out who he is I assume he'll change his name and try to go to hiding but it's not gonna work because you know facial recognition he's not gonna be able to hide I don't know how he survives and lives out his days in a country with so many guns and so many bad opinions about people like him I just I feel like he may not be so happy being led into prison things might not go his way all right that's all I got for now and I'm gonna talk to you later