Episode 594 Scott Adams: Talking to Bill Pulte TwitterPhilanthropy Give Away, Tech Summit
Date: 2019-07-11 | Duration: 51:58
Topics
Bill Pulte talks about his $100,000 giveaway to help people in need
Social Media Summit at the White House to discuss tech bias
Penetrating the fortress of control wielded by social media
Social media companies have the power of governments
Ben Garrison disinvited from the Social Media Summit
Megan Rapinoe offends half the audience she was hired to entertain
Loserthink and “bubble reality”, how to escape your bubble
Rough Transcript
This is an auto-generated transcript and may contain errors.
Transcript
[0:03]
[Music] Mmmbop um everybody everybody come on in here it’s gonna be a good one might be one of my best periscopes ever it’s time for coffee with scott adams i’m scott adams this is my coffee but you don’t need coffee you just need your favorite beverage whether it be in a cup or a mug or a glass could be a tanker to stein or a chalice it might be a thermos maybe a flask doesn’t matter what it is any kind of vessel will do fill it with your favorite liquid and join me now for the incredible rush of the simultaneous sip are you ready dopamine online go mmm so good so good all right in a moment we’re gonna have a special guest very special guest bill pulled a to tell you why he is lighting up the entire internet today
[1:04]
is lighting up the entire internet today with his his giveaway gonna left a little few more of you pour in here so we can get the maximum crowd and bill I know you’re you’re standing by so we’ll we’ll bring you on live here in a moment want to talk about a couple of things my favorite story of the day well two favorite stories are they one is that a OC is calling Nancy Pelosi you’re racist well I’ll just leave that there there there are some stories that don’t really require a lot of commentary no commentary required but a or C is calling Pelosi a racist look that’s the whole story other favorite story is there’s a Mississippi gubernatorial candidate who has decided that he will not allow a woman reporter to follow him around all day I guess the newspaper was
[2:05]
around all day I guess the newspaper was assigning reporters to candidates and they would they would track them around all day and he said that he didn’t want to to with a woman for his religious beliefs now you knew we were gonna get there you knew that the me to stuff would have some negative consequences as well as positive consequences and it looks like we’re seeing it there everybody who’s commented others so far except for one person who didn’t see him too stable on the Internet has said so far just the comments I’ve seen almost every person said yeah he’s just smart he’s just avoiding a problem and I have to say that if I didn’t know anything about these candidates and the only thing the only person I heard about was this one person who made this decision to keep himself out of any even potential trouble I would have a slightly more positive feeling about that person then if I had heard nothing at all so those
[3:08]
if I had heard nothing at all so those the fun stories but not as fun as what we’re gonna do next so let me go here too let’s see I want to see waiting for a bill now let me make sure that we have done this correctly so I’m gonna make sure that bill there was to join me right now hold on hold on all right spill disappeared bill might be having a signal problem let’s see we will know in
[4:12]
signal problem let’s see we will know in a moment it’s processing all right dough we’re having a trouble adding you right now I don’t know if you could hear me but I’m gonna tap to cancel that and then I’m gonna try it again all right well we’re having a little difficulty here a little technical difficulty let’s try it one more time bill bill you do not have a good cell phone connection bill so let me try this one more time if it doesn’t work I’m gonna have to do this a different way thank you all for bearing with me bill can you hear me hey you know you won’t believe it I may have to sign onto my Wi-Fi here but the amount of media that’s calling me now I don’t even know how these people get my phone number it’s off the
[5:14]
people get my phone number it’s off the chain I mean I can’t stop these phone calls the robo calls but then it’s like you know this reporter that reporter so anyway I apologize so let’s fill in the audience for those who don’t know what’s going on bill tell tell us a look the audience who maybe is not familiar with you yet tell us the offer that you’ve made on Twitter well I am basically giving away one hundred thousand dollars to people on Twitter and what I’m trying to do is move philanthropy online into the 21st century so as we all know there’s these you know cumbersome requests for proposals all this rigmarole that people have to go through in order to get funds and it’s actually a problem that rich people have a hard time giving away money as I understand it and so what I’m trying to do is basically bring philanthropy onto the internet I mean you’d think somebody would have come up with this already and so what I’m trying to do frankly is
[6:14]
so what I’m trying to do frankly is strong-arm some of the other rich people who who by the way have a ton of cash or sitting on the sidelines who could be giving money and aren’t giving money to be giving it an immediate need kind of situation so I’m paying for veterans dentures I’m paying for electric bills I’m paying for gas bills I’m paying for in some cases water some Americans don’t even have access to water that one’s got and you’ve given away how many how many chunks so far well I had the president tweet at me last night which you know made things interesting so right there boom with one tweet that’s 50,000 already in cash that I’m giving away well you know I’m gonna get up to a hundred and and keep going from there I mean look if I can’t even bring let’s say a billion or two billion dollars from the sidelines and move it online
[7:16]
from the sidelines and move it online and move it into Twitter I mean that would be huge I mean can you imagine how many people’s lives we would impact and everybody who’s listening to this is helping me do this and I really appreciate your help Scott you’ve been just amazing with this stuff and everybody should know how great you’ve been with it but together we can do this well so I love this model and I love the fact that you can you can test it so easily and maybe a little morph and maybe it’ll you know become its own application someday I mean there’s there’s no telling where it could go but just the general idea of how you feel when you’re giving money directly to people who have a real need like right now for something that could be life-changing for you it’s it’s not much of an expense for any individual gift but it completely changes somebody’s life if they don’t have any other way to handle these problems now you you’ve got I think last I checked 57,000 followers on Twitter something like that yeah and
[8:19]
on Twitter something like that yeah and you made it even more interesting offer just moments before we came on before we came on on Twitter I think it was just recently made it tell us about your most recent offer for a million followers well I will select people and I will select causes to give 1 million dollars to on Twitter once I get to a million followers and the reason that I’m doing that is frankly because I want to make sure that we have enough of a scope enough of a presence enough of a reach to be able to impact people with that money I mean a million dollars there’s a lot of money and so you know I have no problem giving it to people you know who really need it but I want to make sure that we find the most acute cases that we find the most significant people who need it I mean you know this guy this veteran yesterday without dentures I mean he sent in a video he had no teeth I mean you know this is the people who fought for our country and they don’t even have teeth I mean you know you know and I have friends and I’m sure you do
[9:19]
and I have friends and I’m sure you do too Scott I have friends who are billionaires I have friends who are millionaires tens of millions hundreds of millions you know these people can’t take it with them they can’t take it with them so you know why can’t they give back more and I mean this is the perfect way for the rich to build a bridge with the poor and to become one and come into communion with each other I mean you know you look at all of this vitriol and hate on Twitter and I’m trying to inject some positivity into our culture and I think we can do it so I’m putting my money where my mouth is yeah I see this as as much a leadership thing as a philanthropy thing in the sense that you’re you’re inspiring people to get on the same channel even if they’re using their own methods etc so there’s there’s there’s a larger inspirational message to this just about how we treat each other and and yeah and looking for ways to do it in the most efficient way now looked at one of the
[10:20]
efficient way now looked at one of the questions here I saw go by is how are you vetting the different requests I know you’re not looking at a hundred thousand requests yourself you have some help I do I have a few people are helping me but you know I’ll tell you when I started this thing out yesterday morning I turned to my wife and you know at first she wasn’t let’s say the happiest person in the entire world but I think she was pretty good with it and then all the sudden the day progresses and the present and retweets me so you know I had like three people who were helping me with this and then bang you know the president sends it out it’s like 80 thousand like so now I got hundreds of thousands of replies so I actually just posted I think it’s gonna take me a few days to get through it I’ve I’m watching some of the comments here I’m trying not to laugh cry because because of what you just said but I I’m just imagining the scene where you know you’re talking to your wife you say I’ve decided to do this thing and your wife is well I don’t know you know I’m a little no I’m not sure if this will be
[11:23]
little no I’m not sure if this will be the best idea in the world and then the next thing you know the President of the United States is just retweeted you yeah yeah well you want to know it’s funny and I’ll share this with you because you’re a friend and friends but I went to dinner last night with my family and yeah we’re sitting there and we’re talking and and my dad’s there and my family’s there and and they said well well you know so tell us about what happened and so you know I walked through it or whatever and I said you know I’m actually trying to get the President to retweet me right and I didn’t say anything about it you know so I mean other than that right so I get home and you know I’m walking onto my back patio and all of a sudden I hit the you know the button where you can see if people mention you says Donald J Trump
[12:25]
I’m thinking holy did that just happen so I I saw that you also had some interesting offers out you you tweeted at Candace Owens and then Kanye and Kim Kardashian tell it tell us why you tweeted at them well I also tweeted out I think $23,000 Kanye retweets it and 25,000 if Kim does it and again I’m trying to bring people from all across to do this I mean those two people as you know very wealthy people so you know if I can kind of lean on them so to speak if everybody could just go and retweet that and like those posts I think we get it look we can get the president of United States I think we can get a couple of celebrities and I’ve gotten a lot of celebrities by the way that have either followed me or sent me direct messages I think I’m gonna be going on Fox today at about 2:45 so we got momentum Wow and I I noticed literally just before I got on this periscope I saw that too
[13:26]
got on this periscope I saw that too you know non famous followers had just jumped in one sided to give away 50 bucks one said he would give away 500 that was March nighter and I thought well you know so it begins and so it begins so the hashtag is hashtag Twitter philanthropy yeah I’m gonna trending again yep it’s gonna start trending has already tried to and this is this is just amazing so your day is completely different now isn’t it yeah my kind of life is completely different I mean I’ve always wanted to do this god I’ve always wanted to work hard and then give the people who were in you know the toughest of situations and so I’m very you know happy to be doing this I just I didn’t expect for it to happen this quick which I’m delighted that it’s happening but now I want to get all that now I want to get all the rich people’s money and I want that to help the poor because you know I have one of my
[14:28]
because you know I have one of my friends he’s worth over a hundred million dollars and he was texting me earlier I’m trying to get a million bucks out of him too but you know it’s like you know if you got over a hundred million dollars like this guy does why doesn’t he give a million dollars to somebody I mean this one lady I gave I forget how much I think it was three four hundred dollars to yesterday you know she’s pregnant she’s working three jobs she has a husband who also has the job and you know they’re trying to feed their kids I mean why not give them a leg up for you know one week or one month that’s what I’m trying to do yeah I’ve often wondered about a more rigorous model where somebody can essentially propose their own life as something to invest in I I’ve for most of my let’s say successful part of my life I’ve uh I’ve helped quite a bit individually so if somebody has a specific you know one-on-one problem yes and and the ones that I’d like to to
[15:28]
and and the ones that I’d like to to help with are very much like with you help the veteran who is getting the teeth it’s something where you can say ok this is a very discreet specific expense which absolutely is going to help this person in amazing ways could help get a job can help him socially etc so when I see those situations where somebody just needs to pay for a class they just need to have some child care until they can figure something out those I find very attractive because that it’s there’s there’s no middle person you get the direct benefit of the the feeling right and then I and I don’t think people quite understand the enormity of of what this what this can lead to because I feel like the world has become disconnected by I don’t know size and technology etc and and you know when Emily together yeah you lose the feeling that you had when we were little tribes a little family yeah you know when when your neighbors were helping you you know yeah yeah you need to raise
[16:32]
you you know yeah yeah you need to raise a barn you so although the everybody comes out and helps you put up your barn but now we’re just all distributed and we’re all in their little our little cubicles and stuff and world we’re all kind of disconnected and somehow just in 24 hours you shrank the world that the whole world was seven billion people and suddenly you’re talking to the President of the United States I mean via Twitter but still you Bill Paul Tay who said I got an idea and I have my phone in my hand and next thing you know the entire Internet is lit up and all the most important people in the world are tuning in and saying yeah I think I would like to help raise a barn I think I would like to help my neighbor how’s that feel it’s the feeling that I think is the magic juice here it’s the the way it’s going to be reported is you know people are gonna report it as it’s about the money but that’s what gets you the attention but it’s really about the feeling and I you can tell
[17:32]
about the feeling and I you can tell from the comments here that people are getting a contact high just just by being part of it yeah well what you just said there is absolutely beautiful and gives me chills I mean that really is beautiful and that is the feeling that you get I mean it’s always been said you know when you give you receive and you know I’ve really experienced that the last 24 hours it’s been incredibly touching so yeah I hope we can do it and I know we can do it I mean you know I woke up yesterday with this idea the next thing you know it’s not Donald J Trump now you you’re obviously for many of the viewers here you’re you’re more well-known for your work on the blight blight Authority and cleaning up the blight in the inner cities something that you you’ve also used your own money and collected money from as a rich people to do do you have anything upcoming that you’d like to tease yeah we got a huge announcement coming next week so we’ll probably be back on with
[18:34]
week so we’ll probably be back on with you Scott if you’ll have us yes you know it’s gonna be just an incredible week or two here so it would be interesting to see the momentum we get and just really appreciate all of your followers and as everybody knows you can retweet at Pulte at tu LTE would really appreciate the love and support if anybody wants to match us as you saw Scott you had gotten some people who are starting to match some of my gifts which is just amazing I think we can really create a phenomenon here it’s only a matter of time before this happens so why not have it happen now and why not have more good happen now yeah why not why not and I don’t know bill did you see the video of there’s some startup who built a giant robotic arm sort of a size of a crane if you want to size that that built a house and of blocks in what two days it was just a big arm that would grab a block and place it and in a built in an entire the wall structure in two days did you see that I didn’t now so just just imagine that
[19:35]
I didn’t now so just just imagine that that already works in prototype you know there’s a video of that robot actually building a house in two days and I’m thinking there are probably lots of startups lots of people who have ideas for what to do with these blight cleared areas once you know once the the land is available so anybody who’s in that industry of trying to build a structure a unique way could either contact me or Bill Polti on Twitter and we’d love to see your ideas when you say bill I would love it I would love it we got a lot of momentum I mean you even look at some of these comments you know here that you know it’s the different followers so it’s uh it’s all very exciting and I think we’re just getting started so a lot more to come all right so bill I’m guessing that you’ve got a lot to do today am i right is there anything else you want to leave us with before I let you go get back to that the media is gonna be picking you apart today in the good way oh no I would just say you know let’s continue the good let’s continue
[20:36]
let’s continue the good let’s continue the positivity let’s continue the good vibes if you can retweet my stuff get it out there like it for everybody who’s done it you’ve been amazing Scott I mean really you know thank you for everything you’ve done and I think we can do something great here so let’s let’s do something good I mean there’s so much negativity on all these platforms all this crap let’s take it throw it out and let’s replace it with love generosity kindness you know that’s one of the other things that I’m doing too is if you if you guys if anybody here on periscope or on Twitter is doing acts of generosity I’ll also give money to you too too I mean we need to be more generous to the people that were around all needs to be loved that’s it Scott well bill you are incredible inspiration to me and to I can tell in the comments to the rest of the people here thank you so much for what you do we will talk to you again very soon and I’m gonna let you go now thanks all right bye all right that is
[21:36]
thanks all right bye all right that is amazing so we’ll we’ll update you on that as as events happen so let’s talk about some more things so today is the big tech summit at the White House have you heard about that the tech summit so apparently all of the there’s a big group of people who were invited to the White House to talk about the fact that the tech platforms have some bias let me say some alleged bias and just to keep it technically accurate and I know all of you think it’s a confirmed bias but let’s just call it alleged and bringing focus to that question now here’s what’s interesting about the tech summit in order to talk about any kind of any kind of bias or shadow banning or or banning from platforms you can’t really invite a
[22:38]
platforms you can’t really invite a bunch of normal people who were in the middle-of-the-road who have never been banned and never been shadow banned it wouldn’t make sense to have a summit on this issue if the only people you invited were middle-of-the-road people who didn’t have any problem in the first place so in order to find out where the boundaries are and to see if something needs to be fixed which is you know part of the exploration of the summit you need to bring in the fringe characters you need to you need to bring in people who can help you define the edge what is the edge who is too far who is who is simply wrong versus evil who is simply giving an opinion versus destroying the the country through their through their actions in some way yeah so I saw I mentioned this yesterday that CNN referred to this as it’s going to look like a Star Wars bar scene to which I
[23:39]
like a Star Wars bar scene to which I say I hope so because otherwise it’s no good if it doesn’t look like a Star Wars bar scene then they invited the wrong people you need the people who are gonna make your hair catch on fire they’re the ones who matter all the people in the middle don’t matter they’re already getting everything they want they don’t have a problem so but within that group you know there’s gonna be lots of chatter about who got invited who got invited and then disinvited and stuff like that I don’t think that’s gonna be too terribly important it’s fun to talk about it’s gossipy it’s hey why this one get in why didn’t this one get in but not terribly important here’s what’s important let me give you the the three-dimensional look on this I’ve told you many times that persuasion starts with attention if you can’t get people’s attention you can’t persuade and so what President
[24:41]
you can’t persuade and so what President Trump does better than anybody has ever done in a leadership position like this except maybe Steve Jobs is that he can draw attention to the thing he wants you to think about now that’s not a solution simply drawing attention to something doesn’t solve it but it is the first step and it’s a necessary step excuse me and it’s the step that the White House is doing if you expect too much from the summit you will be disappointed because I don’t think we should expect that the summit will produce legislation I don’t think the summit is going to produce an executive order in all likelihood what the summit will produce is attention and focus and energy I think it will do all of those things and partly because people will be complaining about who’s in who’s out whether they’re too far or what’s the real problem here think about the president’s challenge the
[25:42]
the president’s challenge the president’s challenge is getting attention for something when all the people who control your attention the tech platforms and the news don’t want you to have that attention so the president is creating an event that’s so hard to ignore they even the people who want to suppress that information can’t ignore it because it’ll be too much fun to mock it the fact that it’s a it’s gonna look like a star wars at bar scene is both the real the people will pay attention to it mocking it criticizing it you know every bad thing in the world but it’s also the only way you can penetrate their Fortress of control so the president completely completely consistent to his his processes that work all the time he is forcing the world to look at something they didn’t want to look at that’s the win the win is that we’re
[26:45]
that’s the win the win is that we’re talking about it if you think if you think the game is to command this was some kind of a solution well then you’re on the wrong game that’s not the game that comes later there will be some kind of actions later we don’t know what they will be they might be legislation it might be monopoly break up action it could be I’ve been suggesting that the best way forward is some kind of a social media court some kind of a special judge whose only job is to make sure that the algorithms are fair but without presenting the algorithms deep information to the public because the public could game it if they had too much information so I think that’s where it’s all going ahead I think at some point there will be something that looks a little bit like oversight or a special court to guarantee freedom of speech within the you know within the the
[27:46]
within the you know within the the limited realm of technology and platforms it’s not the freedom of speech that the Constitution talks about because that’s about the government but because the social platforms have effectively become the primary way we communicate they have the power of a government it’s accidental nobody planned it that way but the social media platforms do have the power of a government and so it’s a it’s a fair conversation for the country to have do we need to treat it a little bit more as if these big entities are in essence accident just by the you know the accident of history they’ve become government like and should they be subject to the same free speech let’s say parameters as the government itself so that’s a good question and I’m glad we’re having that conversation the big the big trap in
[28:52]
conversation the big the big trap in this summit and you’ve probably already you’re probably all ahead of me on this what is the big trap what’s the worst thing that could happen at this summit the worst thing that could happen is a group photo it’s the worst thing that could happen if the pret I I don’t know how you avoid it because it’s the White House right so there’s there’s gonna be somebody with a camera somebody with a phone there are gonna be pictures but I don’t think you want to be standing next to the the people who are in the Star Wars bar room scene that are the ones you don’t want your brand associated with so they’re gonna be people there who were pretty let’s let’s say there will be people at the summit who are known to be very credible somebody mentioned Tim Poole I think he’s gonna be there he would be an example of
[29:52]
be there he would be an example of someone who to the best of our knowledge is a credible player who deals in facts and rational discussion if he gets his picture taken standing next to a supporter of cue that’s not good for Tim pool right now he might not care I can’t poke I’m not gonna read his mind I’m not gonna not gonna make any suggestions for how he live his life or who he takes this picture with so I’m not giving him any any advice on that but I would say it’s a trap I think you have to be careful what the group of picture looks like and if I were one of the people attending which I’m not I would not submit two photographs so I how can it be avoided but I think that’s the trap because those photographs will come back to bite you someday and somebody’s gonna say Tim Poole why is he credible here’s a picture of him standing next to people who are not credible so how do you explain that now won’t
[30:54]
so how do you explain that now won’t actually mean anything if you stood next to somebody and somebody took a picture we should all be able to do that it’s a free country the president doesn’t all the time that the president has pictures taken with people who are supporters some of them are credible some of them are not but he’s sort of above that you know he can he can take the heat as he often says but be cautious with your own reputation because maybe you can’t now an interesting thing happened with one of the invitees to the summit who was uninvited you’re probably watching this story it’s Ben garrison a very talented cartoonist who does cartoons that are primarily associated with the right and pro Trump stuff you’ve probably all seen most of you have probably seen his work on the Internet so the first thing I’m gonna say is very talented so on a professional level cartoonist a cartoonist he’s really good at what he
[31:55]
cartoonist he’s really good at what he does so I want to put that out there but he I guess he was invited and then he got uninvited because some of his cartoons surfaced to higher visibility that were he was accused of being anti-semitic and one well three of his cartoons but one of them in particular and that cartoon showed a double puppet situation where the top was the Rothschild banking on a banking family with Papa strings to George Soros with Papa strings to a couple of generals at the time so the idea was that there was some chain of control there I guess I guess I was the point of the comic and the various groups said hey that looks anti-semitic because the Rothschilds are Jewish Soros is Jewish so are you trying to make some kind of message about Jews running the world or
[32:58]
message about Jews running the world or something so he got in trouble for that and he was disinvited from the summit I tweeted at him saying that it would be useful for him to give a what the hell were you thinking explanation now hear my words carefully because I got widely misinterpreted in this exchange on Twitter I’m asking for an explanation of what the intention of the comic was you did not hear me say please apologize for it right that’s not in what I just said I said this is a comic that some people interpreted in a negative way what did you intend so I thought that was a reasonable question because because in order to interpret whether you’re mad at it or whether you should be upset by it you should first understand what did the creator mean and was it intended to send
[34:00]
creator mean and was it intended to send the message that people seem to be receiving perfectly reasonable question here’s the answer I got from Ben garrison he said and I’m quoting from his tweet don’t play the lefts game if you criticize Soros slash Rothschild you’re anti-semitic if you criticize Obama you’re racist if you criticize Hillary or Elizabeth Warren you’re misogynist if you criticize open borders you’re xenophobe if you criticize climate change you’re anti science now so his some people I see in the comments agreeing with his stand now here’s the thing I I appreciate a principled stand and it’s not unlike the President himself who doesn’t apologize for things and he doesn’t go out of his way to try to explain anything away I think it works for the president for the following reason he hasn’t really done anything
[35:03]
reason he hasn’t really done anything that is legitimately anti-semitic or legitimately racist a hundred percent of the things that he’s been accused of let’s say since the campaign and since you know I’m not gonna delve into his twenty or thirty years ago because I just don’t do that in general no matter who it is but if you’re looking at his campaign and his presidency so far there are literally no examples of actual anti-semitism or actual racism to be to be concerned with so when he doesn’t apologize and he doesn’t explain it’s because there’s nothing to apologize for and there’s nothing to explain and so that’s actually a strong play because he’s treating it like it’s unimportant and he can get away with that now Ben garrison has taken what I would consider a similar stance that he’s not going to play the lefts game of getting into the explain yourself apologize explain yourself apologize every time you know
[36:04]
yourself apologize every time you know you walk outdoors is that a good strategy well here’s how I would define this if what you’ve done is legitimately legitimately not a problem but you’re being criticized for it and reasonable people can look at the information and they can say yeah you don’t need to apologize for this it’s just critics being critics under those conditions not apologizing seems like a pretty good strategy and the president has proven ineffective he’s proven ineffective and in fact when you saw Biden apologizing and some of the Democratic candidates apologizing for being attacked by their own side they looked weak now remember I didn’t ask Ben garrison to apologize that never came into my mouth and never tweeted it never asked for it probably wouldn’t ask for it because I’m not the person who needs an apology I’m not offended but I
[37:09]
needs an apology I’m not offended but I did think that it was unclear and I didn’t know what he intended is it fair to ask for somebody to be clear if you’re not sure of what they intend well I always think that’s fair he decided not to here’s the problem a comic this shows the rothschild with a puppet string - soros with a puppet string to the government of the united states looks - most reasonable observers exactly like an offensive anti-semitic comic it looks exactly like it now is that something you should never explain now if the explanation had been it’s only a coincidence that they they have some you know ethnic religious correspondence I would say okay the the religion part had nothing to do with the the point then I know a little bit more
[38:12]
the point then I know a little bit more about why you’re trying to say but when you leave it out there without the explanation you expose yourself so I’m not going to oh and I should also point out that garrison did do a public statement where he said in his public statements that he’s not anti-semitic and he said some other things my my take on that is that the question of his anti-semitism alleged has been asked and answered somebody said are you anti-semitic and he said absolutely not to me that’s the answer now I’m still confused about what the point of the comic was but he doesn’t need to answer me so people were saying to me why must he do something why must he explained or why must he apologized to which I say he doesn’t have to do anything Ben garrison does not have to
[39:14]
anything Ben garrison does not have to do anything different somebody’s saying it’s my problem not his exactly that’s what I’m saying I’m saying I had a request I would like to know what the comic meant Ben garrison would not like to tell me absolutely okay right I do not have a problem with that I’m not asking him for an apology I asked him for a clarification he doesn’t want to give it he told me why he doesn’t want to give it perfectly acceptable all right so he and I don’t have any any point of disagreement can you get that because people are gonna see this as some kind of a cartoonist on cartoonist controversy and it’s not that at all I asked a question he said he chooses not to answer it and he told me why and it’s a coherent response now I would have treated it differently if I were in his
[40:16]
treated it differently if I were in his position I would not have treated it this way I would have said oh no this is not what you think it is or I might have said it is what you think it is whatever it is that the point was and he chooses not to now in choosing not to strategically it seems to me he has now allowed himself to be branded forever as an anti-semite obviously he’s fine with that if it were me I would not want to be branded with that label and so here’s the part people are missing I had hoped to offer him an escape hatch I had hoped to offer him an easy door they could walk through so there would be some public record that clearly says oh god now this wasn’t anti-semitic it was this or that whatever it was whatever he was thinking which I still don’t know he
[41:17]
thinking which I still don’t know he decided not to take that door again perfectly reasonable decision it’s his life it’s his career he has a philosophy of how to deal with this situation he explained his philosophy perfectly he is being consistent with his philosophy I don’t have any problem with that I respect it but here’s the thing he’s made a choice that guarantees he will be branded with this label and this will probably have a lot of effect on the rest of his life but if it’s a choice he prefers it’s a free country and I’m okay with that all right but he has to live with the consequences as we all do right that’s there’s no difference between him and anybody else we all have to live with the consequences of our decisions Megan Rapinoe the star of the women’s soccer said that she was saying that the female
[42:19]
said that she was saying that the female soccer players should get equal pay with the men now there’s some question about how big the pie is and all that and people have talked about that too plenty but I asked the question on Twitter should you be paid the same if you’re if you’re an athlete and your job is to entertain if you offend half of your potential audience or whatever it is 30 or 40% if you offend that much of your audience should you be paid as much as someone who doesn’t offend anybody because that audiences who views your your content who do buys tickets etc now if you have a boss and it’s the boss’s job to decide how much to pay everybody would you pay somebody who is driving customers away as much as you would pay somebody who’s attracting them now she’s a mix she sort of a mixed bag because I think she attracts people because she’s so charismatic and interesting and she
[43:19]
so charismatic and interesting and she plays so well so she’s certainly bringing people to the game there’s no question about that but she might also be driving people away from the game we don’t know the net of that yet so I put that question out there I don’t have an answer myself I’m just putting the question out there because I thought it was a fair question somebody on Twitter said should a cartoonist be paid as much if they offend half of their half of their base of customers as I have so that was a fair question too so so should somebody like me a cartoonist who has clearly offended at least half of my potential customers should I be paid the same and I answered I’ve already lost probably 30 to 40% of my revenue almost immediately the the moment I started talking about president Trump’s candidate Trump’s persuasion
[44:19]
Trump’s candidate Trump’s persuasion abilities I remember I’m left to Bernie so policy wise sometimes I’m on the same page with the president sometimes I’m not what I was talking about his persuasion talents and I am a big fan of his of his effectiveness and and I like him personally so I’m not gonna I’m not going to deny those things I’ve also supported you know Bill Clinton when he was president etc so it’s not so much about the party I’m not a Republican but it was a fair question should I be paid the same if I’ve offended a big chunk of my audience and the answer is no no I knowingly went into this knowing that my income would would go way down if I if I exercised my full right of freedom of speech I chose to exercise my full right of freedom of speech and my income went down 30% immediately now it’s a pretty
[45:23]
down 30% immediately now it’s a pretty big deal so I’m just asking the same question about the soccer players but the difference is I don’t have a boss my boss is every every client newspaper every person who clicks on the internet to see my comic everybody who may or may not want to do a licensing deal or invite me to speak etc so I have I guess millions of customers if you’d look at it that way and so if 500,000 of my customers fire me I still have a few million left so I’m in a different situation than someone is who is a professional athlete profession professional athlete has a boss one person so you compare them directly that’s a fair question let’s say those were my primary primary topics and oh yeah
[46:28]
topics and oh yeah athletes are paid what their boss is willing to pay and what they’re willing to accept yeah it’s always a market market negotiation situation that is correct yeah steel straw death yeah that’s that’s not an interesting story it’s just a horrible my I was somebody just asked about my book release you’re talking about my book loser think this is the the uncorrect ‘add proof for limited distribution so the real book will be on sale to the public November 5th 5th roughly the same time as the audio version I haven’t yet recorded the audio version but I’ll be doing that in September you can’t get this one can’t get this one because it’s the one that gets sent out to reviewers and important people who might you might want to provide some kind of a nice comment about it what do
[47:29]
kind of a nice comment about it what do you think can you see it clearly how does it look I just want you to see the reason I’m showing it to you is because I I engaged all of you on the internet to look at samples of covers and this is the one you collectively like the most so Christina was reading it the other day somewhere and and noticed that people who couldn’t stop commenting on it and looking at the cover so generally speaking as a general rule people don’t really buy books because of the cover you buy books because of the content the author or the the topic what other people have said about it etc in fact there are tons of bestsellers that are nothing but just let on the front you know just saying what the book is but I think this one might be different this might actually be the
[48:30]
be different this might actually be the kind of book where the cover makes you buy it am I wrong about that because there’s something they that Stokes your curiosity about the people in the bubbles right don’t they make you curious it’s the curiosity that should bring your attention to it and it’s designed that way who’s in the bubble why are they in bubble was that me in the bubble if I’m in the bubble how do I get out of it oh my god we’re all in bubbles now part of what I teach people who are trying to learn to write is I tell them that if you want if you want a lot of people to like your writing you know you don’t always shoot for that but if your objective is for lots of people to like it and buy it and read it then the way I describe what you should do is I say that you you should write what people are already thinking but write it better
[49:31]
are already thinking but write it better than they’re thinking so you don’t want to introduce a brand new idea that nobody thinks is true yet and then try to talk him into it that’s a tough sell you want to take an idea that people already have in some lesser formed sense in their mind it’s already there but it doesn’t have a name yet it’s it’s something we’ve all witnessed but nobody’s labeled it yet nobody’s really defined it yet and I think this whole bubble reality that we’re in is that nobody has really quite defined what it means to be in the bubble you know other than we all know we’re watching our own news news sources etc that part’s obvious but nobody has really defined this area and so I think this will be the book to do it and it will give you lots of tips for getting out of your own bubble but more importantly how to get
[50:32]
bubble but more importantly how to get people out of their own bubble as well and of their bubble john travolta is in the bubble somebody said somebody says I love it when the author reads the book yeah so I will do the audio on this Iran versus British oil tanker story I might need to catch up on that story somebody says they don’t buy books Claire says she knows doesn’t buy a book if she doesn’t like the cover yeah you know there’s probably something to that in the book business I once asked the question could I relaunch a book with a different cover and at least in the publishing business there’s not a sense that the cover makes that much
[51:33]
that the cover makes that much difference you want a good cover if you did everything wrong I suppose you could cause people not to buy your book but the difference between the very best cover and one that’s just pretty good is not going to it’s not a big difference in sales yeah I did a B test the book covers to get to the one I have all right that’s all I got to say and I will talk to you all later