Episode 610 Scott Adams: Risk Management Mistakes, Death Penalty, Some GOOD News Stories
Date: 2019-07-27 | Duration: 39:55
Topics
Can defense funds be used to defend America? CNN recent report was accurate, did NOT contain anti-Trump bias Article’s “share” options were mysteriously missing though Federal death penalty restored, 5 pending, Democrats are opposed Will Biden support death penalty restoration? He has in past Internet POSITIVES: Bill Pulte’s TwitterPhilanthropy Ed Latimore’s smart, practical life advice, self-improvement How to touch: 2 key suggestions for touching people and pets
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> [!note] Rough Transcript
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## Transcript
[0:03]
boom boom boom boom pom pom pom pom pom papa hey everybody come on in here you know you probably asked yourself what is the best thing about my day and this will be you talking to yourself not me talking to myself you probably say to yourselves the best part of the day oh it's probably that time when I have the simultaneous sip in the morning with that cartoonist guy who doesn't know the words to the song bum bum bum bum well you're in luck because that moment is upon us it's the moment when all the dopamine in your body comes out to party it starts the day right it's a little bit of togetherness a little bit of feeling connected to your fellow human being and your lady human being is it sexist to say fellow human being it might be but we don't need to solve that right now what we need right now is well I think you know I think you know what you need right now it goes like
[1:03]
what you need right now it goes like this you need a cup or a mug or glasses tie the chalice a tankard maybe a thermos of Laska can't eat a vessel of any kind fill it with your favorite liquid I like coffee and join me now for the simultaneous nth unparalleled pleasure dopamine good stuff so in no particular order let's talk about some stuff that's happening so apparently the Supreme Court gave a victory to the trumpet administration and is going to allow them to use defense funds for defending the country now I know is seen to you like it might be a close call but yes our Supreme Court is on it they're on it and they've decided that you can make a budget and then you can you can
[2:04]
make a budget and then you can you can decide where that budget goes exactly so if you've got a defense budget apparently you can divert some of that to any kind of defense that makes sense in this a wall and I'll tell you the thing that fascinates me about this is do any of you know how much wall has been built or approved or how much needs to be built because I keep thinking I'm getting a handle on that you know I'll hear a number don't say okay that's I'll hold that number in my mind that's the number of miles that we want to you know have a wall or some kind of a barrier and then I'll say okay how much are we actually getting done how much is funded and it always seems like some small amount and then somebody will say and that's not even new new area it's just rebuilding the wall they had some problems but I say to you this if this wall situation is like every other situation in the entire world there are some parts of it that are very
[3:06]
there are some parts of it that are very important to protect and there are other parts that are less important so if the if the areas that they're doing right away even if solely you know a hundred miles here there that might be the most important hundred miles so we could be getting a bigger bang for the buck than the numbers indicate but I don't really know and what I love about this is that the president has I would say he's created a reality where none existent and then the actual reality is probably going to follow the artificial reality that the president has created the artificial reality is that he's going to get funding for a wall he's gonna start building the wall and he'll just keep going until there's enough wall so he's created that impression in many people's minds that that process has already begun and indeed it has already begun
[4:07]
begun and indeed it has already begun but it does make a difference if it's tiny versus its significant but psychologically it doesn't make much difference because if you're anti-trump or pro Trump put anti wall or pro wall you're still hearing stories about wall getting built you're hearing people argue well it's 50 miles or it's 100 miles or he's got approval for 300 or he's got approval for Audra but every time you hear that story what you're hearing is some wall is getting built so the president is starts with making you feel and think it visualize it until you can't imagine that no wall will get built it becomes impossible to imagine a world where no wall ever gets built and then he reports that walls getting built now were his first reports of walls being built exactly accurate does he do that is this the president
[5:09]
does he do that is this the president who always gets all the details exactly accurate no he's the president who knows how to create reality and another and in this case he created a reality in which some wall was getting built critics would say there's no wall being built there's just funding that we already had to fix up some walls that already existed and so some people say there's nothing happening that wasn't going to happen anyway and others say well he promised us a wall and sure enough we're hearing the reports that there's a wall getting built so I think the president has and he'll never get credit for this sort of thing because it's sort of invisible but he's created reality he sold the reality maybe shading the details of what's a what's a rehab versus what's new wall maybe shading the details of what budgets already been approved long ago and what's new money so maybe those
[6:10]
and what's new money so maybe those details got shaded a little bit but at the end of it the entire country is under the impression that the government's building a wall and they're not really going to see any bad from that are they there's nobody who's gonna hear a story that says they built a wall and therefore somebody died or something because of the wall I mean there might be a construction accident but that's not what I'm talking about so you're not gonna hear anything negative that the wall broke is one of those things where it could take years before you even know if it's making a difference so you're gonna hear all the success stories every time a block gets picked out border pipe gets stuck in the ground or whatever they're doing to build walls so I think the president's created this perfect situation well we have the impression that the wall is inevitable the wall is already being built and there are some little questions about where the money comes from the
[7:10]
where the money comes from the government's working it out that's exactly where the president wants everybody to be thinking now you might say to yourself Scott Scott Scott the details matter he's not building enough wall well let me ask you this how much wall does he need to build for the people who are thinking about coming across the border to imagine it's getting harder to come across the border the border is largely psychological now when I say the border is likely is largely psychological with or within a wall if people were in you know incentivized enough it was a matter of life or death they could get across you know they could figure out a way it would just be really really hard so there's a psychological element which is you thinking okay this is harder than I'm willing to take on so the psychology of it he consistently gets right that's the real story there I I'm seeing this
[8:14]
the real story there I I'm seeing this debate new topic on whether white supremacists mass murderers are worse than jihadis and that we must all be racists if we're worried about radical Islamic terrorists but we're not worried about white supremacists murders because the history recently is mostly white supremacists related murder and so people say hey if you're gonna go by the numbers if you're gonna be rational these white supremacists racking up the body count so they're the ones you need to worry about and the the radical jihad that jihadists haven't really killed anybody lately in the mainland at least not in homeland and so they say that the white supremacists are the big risk to which I say what's wrong with your brain is there something that something happened did you have a terrible accident which injured your ability to think because you don't judge future
[9:14]
think because you don't judge future risk by past experience if you're smart you don't say what has happened before and that's gonna tell me what's going to happen in the future how many times has has there been a nuclear war that killed us all zero times how worried are the are we that we'll have a nuclear war plenty worried all right how many times has North Korea nuked the United States zero never happened should we therefore say well there's no risk North Korea's never nuked us before does that make sense it does not so when you're looking at risk you can't look at the the body count for the past month or a year or even ten years you have to look at this situation what are the variables that are in play if if the only thing that was mattering you know that sentence made no sense let me try
[10:14]
that sentence made no sense let me try that again backing up remember let's say hypothetically that there had never been an elbonian who came to the United States and killed anybody never happened not a single person from the country of elbonia every Kames the United States had hurt anybody but we also have credible information that they're trying to get a dirty bomb and they've made threats that they want to use the dirty bomb in the United States under those conditions should we be concerned about del bode ins or should we say you know they haven't killed anybody yet let them in of course you should be concerned so anybody who's just counting bodies and saying okay well our risk of the future is based on these numbers from the past you are experiencing loser think that is not good thinking it's not a question of good or bad opinions that's just bad thinking which is different you could have different opinions based on different priorities
[11:16]
opinions based on different priorities and experienced everything else but if you think that future risk is based on what we've experienced recently that's not an opinion that's just something wrong with the thinking and you should know the difference so there's story about apparently a gigantic bust if somebody used to be a police officer some kind of police officer in Mexico by using the United States down you got busted with enough I think it was fentanyl or car fentanyl or something to kill millions of people and of course people are saying how long before that's not a drone and the answer is not long because there are people who have drones and there are people who have vials of the worst stuff in the world it's just not going to be that long before somebody puts them together now don't worry about me giving people that idea
[12:17]
worry about me giving people that idea because trust me that idea is plenty obvious but I do worry that there'll be a time when just nobody wants to go to public events you know they it's possible that in our lifetime you won't see public events anymore where people all go to a place and stand in the same place and there's a stadium or something might might just come to an end but maybe not right away here's an interesting story I tweeted this around because what make it what made it remarkable is the way CNN reported it so CNN had an article in which they talked about the federal change to make capital punishment a thing again so apparently that the states could have their own laws about capital punishment but on top of that the federal government could have a death penalty for federal offenses there are fewer of them
[13:19]
offenses there are fewer of them compared to the number of people that the states are prosecuting but they exist and the Trump administration has reversed a policy that's been in place for a number of years which they weren't pursuing any any deaths but apparently Trump administration will now I talked about this before one of the funny and smart things that they're doing this apparently if they're going to execute a white supremacist first okay it doesn't get any better than that politically that's just the smartest thing you could possibly do I don't know if that's a coincidence or just somebody was smart enough to make it work that way but man oh man does that that's just so perfect there's nothing else to say about it but that's not what I want to talk about as as part of the context for the story CNN's article I couldn't tell if it was really a news or opinion piece because you don't see it and it's not clear about what's the news
[14:19]
and it's not clear about what's the news and what's an opinion but it's sort of in between as much as their stuff is and it talked about the story of Trump and these Central Park five and he talked about the the full-page ad that Trump ran calling for the death penalty to be reinstated for serious crimes now what's was room what was remarkable about the article is that it was unbiased it's the first time I've seen that so let me say this again it was an article unseen on CNN's website it wasn't was not written by a trump supporter it's obviously written by somebody who was not trying to support the president you can tell that much but they reported this story accurately and here's what what I mean by that so the way you you've heard it on the internet and you heard it from all the president's critics you've probably heard that he wrote a full-page ad
[15:20]
heard that he wrote a full-page ad calling for the execution of the five african-american young men who were accused and actually confessed to a horrible crime in Central Park a raped and almost killed son and later they were exonerated I guess the confessions were forced or something but during that time that time zone Trump ran the full-page ad but here's what CNN accurately reported they accurately reported in clear language that Trump wasn't talking about the Central Park five specifically that he was talking about crime in general and it also reported that the Central Park five had confessed and in other words there was even if even if Trump had been wrong about their guilt it's obvious that if the five had confessed that a reasonable person could think they were
[16:20]
reasonable person could think they were guilty you could be wrong but it's perfectly reasonable to think that five people who confessed might be guilty that's not an unreasonable thing to think so and then they ran the clip of a younger Donald Trump 1989 they think on Larry King and Larry King asked him if he thought that these five people should get the death penalty and he said that the woman had not died their victim and if she didn't die then no because the death penalty was for you know for murder and so I thought it was the cleanest I would say judgment-free story about Trump maybe I've ever seen on CNN because you know anybody on social media they hear the Central Park five they say and that's proof they use a darn racist because he ordered to execute innocent black men okay that's like taking the story that's true and then adjusting it
[17:23]
story that's true and then adjusting it just enough so it's a completely different story as sort of like it reminds you of the actual story but see that reported the actual story that the Central Park five had confessed like most people Trump thought they were guilty and he ran an article about crime in general didn't even mention the central point five but of course it was on his mind which he had you know he essentially admitted with with Larry King so they there's they did nothing in the article to accuse him of being racist and one of the biggest let's say accusation areas there is they just reported it accurately for the first time maybe not the first time but it was striking it really was because I don't oh but here's the other interesting thing you ready for this here's the here's the bow I'm gonna point out at all so I read this story the first unbiased story about Trump maybe I've
[18:23]
unbiased story about Trump maybe I've ever seen on CNN and I think to myself I'm gonna tweet this story so I go looking for the Twitter button so you can retweet it like where is that button guess where the button was didn't have one and I don't know I don't know if I'm actually noticing something real or secuence it's so I don't know but the one unbiased story didn't have a sharing button on it for any of the sites its Twitter or Facebook or anything else and I looked everywhere and I'm pretty I'm pretty sure their stories have share buttons right am I wrong about that I'm almost positive that they have they all have yeah so I ended up copying the link and doing it manually but think about how few people will share something if you don't have a share button you know I mean I did it because I was going to talk about it but I probably wouldn't have shared it if it if I had just been
[19:26]
have shared it if it if I had just been somebody who thought the article was interesting and it didn't have a button I probably wouldn't have copied the link in and done it that way alright that's worth mentioning the other thing that's interesting about this death penalty situation is that now it introduces the topic and apparently all of the Democratic candidates for president except Biden have weighed in oh no there's one that one of the lesser guys who's running whose name I can't remember who is still okay with the death penalty under certain situations but I guess Joe Biden hasn't weighed in yet you can see what it's set up it is right so Kamala Harris is against the death penalty Joe Biden in the past has been for it Donald Trump is for it what does Joe Biden do if Joe Biden changes his mind he looks like another flip flopper and he just fits in with
[20:26]
flip flopper and he just fits in with the crowd and by the way it might not be what he honestly thinks so he might look a little disingenuous if he suddenly just takes the aoc position on it or a commons position or whatever and but what if but what if he comes out for the death penalty then he's agreeing with Trump and it opens up an attack from Kamala who can say well you would be in favor of the death penalty do you know what color people are who are usually usually executed on and off this is true but it seems like it opens up an attack that Biden is a little more interested in killing black people than the other Democratic candidates now none of this is fair or accurate it doesn't really it's not a weight it's not a it's not an honest way to characterize the situation you know even if Biden is in favor of the death penalty it doesn't mean he's in favor of killing black people but if
[21:26]
in favor of killing black people but if you're running for president somebody is gonna spin it that way and that can't be good for him so that is an interesting story so you know we talked at great length about how dangerous the Internet is and in terms of everything from you know fishing scandals to bullying to addiction you know being a Texas native that so the Internet has its negatives but I want to talk about some positives there have been some real positives lately the most notable one is if you're not following bill pulled a you should he's he's kicked off what we could call or why he calls hashtag Twitter philanthropy and he's at at pulled a at pul OTE and he's literally giving away money most of the his some of it others other
[22:29]
most of the his some of it others other people's to people who have a good explanation of why they need it now he can't give money to everybody of course so he's he's opening it up so that other people can see the people asking for money and other people can jump in and say well you didn't get bill pull T's money this time but maybe I can help you out
out so you're seeing people sort of jumping in I have been amazed at how bill has tapped him to I guess some kind of need that people have naturally to be generous so people who've got a little extra or even just you know just a little bit extra and even people who don't have extra are still willing to to give because they have an impulse they it either matches their religion it matches their internal moral mechanisms or something but he's tapped into something important and a lot of people are jumping on board and and then I saw
[23:31]
jumping on board and and then I saw something today that was just one of the best things that I've seen in a long time so I want to share that and the the setup is that there was a gentleman on Twitter who tweeted yesterday that he had been influenced by a little somewhat by me in somewhat by Ed Latimer who is if you're not following Ed Latimer he's one of the best follows on all of Twitter and why ad that I both do it are in our different ways as we give life advice I do it through my book had a failed almost everything and still would big and my new book that's coming out a few months loser think will be you know more useful stuff and apparently there's some number of things I said that this man found useful and things that add Latimer says useful and he stopped drinking so he decided to stop drinking after years of drinking and was having some success and was crediting the influence of Ed Latimer I
[24:35]
crediting the influence of Ed Latimer I think had more than me because had has a little more closer experience with with that world and but here's the good part or even the better part so that tweet caused another gentleman to someone so Timothy gum G ummm on Twitter weighed in and said this is Timothy gun sank gum saying I've drank at least 10 beers a day for the last 20 years today is brand new I'm going I'm not going to drink today I'm going to Willa so with all courage I could muster so someone who observed someone else who was being influenced by Ed Latimer I think mostly in a little bit by me that guy stopped drinking his example causes an observer to say hey you can do it I can do it I'm gonna jump in now if you all know that quitting drinking or
[25:36]
all know that quitting drinking or quitting any kind of drug is hard not not just a little hard the like crazy hard hard hard hard so it's going to be a tough challenge what this gentleman is jumping in and I wonder how many other people would potentially jump in if they felt they were part of something and how many times have we see the we've seen the tide pod challenge we've seen the kicking the top off of the bottle challenge the the ice water bucket challenge whatever it is and and I wonder I wonder if these things wonder if positive news you know things that are actually good for people I wonder if they could spread that's the same rate if it were the right thing and so I'm really intrigued by this so I tweeted tweeted this gentleman and I noted they use the bravest person on
[26:36]
I noted they use the bravest person on the Internet today and I mean that the the guy who just said in public I've been drinking heavily for 20 years or whatever was 10 at least yeah 20 years the guy who admitted that in public and then publicly told us it was he was going to quit knowing how hard that is and knowing that you know a lot of people don't make it it was the bravest thing I saw today now you might say oh that's not as brave as XYZ no no it is it is it's as brave as you know stopping an armed robbery he's putting his whole life online you cannot underestimate how hard this will be this is very very brave and I hope he inspires other people because you can see sort of a ripple effect you know the the stuff that bill Polti is doing it causes people to think differently and they start thinking hey there's somebody doing something on Twitter and here are
[27:38]
doing something on Twitter and here are people who are clearly being helped by it because the success stories are always reported and usually there's a video of somebody who's receives this generosity and they're happy about but watching these these people get off of alcohol and influencing other people to get off alcohol is just one of the best things that you'll ever see so this made me feel very very good I would note that and let me before I say this let me criticize myself before you do so you don't have to right what I'm going to say next is totally self-serving but it's genuine all right so you're gonna hear a commercial but it's for a good purpose my startups app called interface allows you to connect with an expert of any type at any price at the X
[28:38]
expert of any type at any price at the X processes you have an immediate video call or you can schedule it it is ideal someone who wants to help somebody with sobriety and they could do it for no charge which makes no money for anybody or they could do it for a charge but I think most people probably wouldn't so I probably would not make money in this because people would mostly do this at low or no charge but imagine being able to talk to somebody right away on video a stranger who is in the same situation sometimes you can't call a friend sometimes you can't call a family member and maybe you're not that close with them to begin with but imagine being able to just pick up your phone and be able to talk to somebody who can really coach you on sobriety now we won't always have an expert who's available for that but there are a number who've signed up who are sobriety coaches and addiction specialists so that's another that's another resource but you know and
[29:40]
that's another resource but you know and I hope you understand that there's there's not much in the way of money involved for me if people use this because like I said most of the sponsors are probably going to be so inexpensive or zero then it's not really a moneymaker but if it's helpful that would be great I hope it would be all right I have a topic that I've been saving because I it's hard to talk about but it's so helpful and this is completely off of anything we've talked about but it's something directly helpful to every one of you this will be could be one of the most useful things you'll ever hear it's not about politics it's just a real-world thing okay so there's your setup so I've raised your expectations it'll give you a little background time one of the things I like to do with my money you know once I started making more money than I needed
[30:40]
started making more money than I needed I'm not huge on luxury or I don't like a lot of cars or houses or anything so I I would spend my money on getting massages not the happy ending kind just a regular massages and one of the things I've learned over the years having done this now for years with you different massage therapists you know usually if I'm on vacation etc I'll do it or maybe once a week here at home and so I've experienced I guess over the years hundreds hundreds of different massage therapists and here's what I've discovered some of them know how to touch and some don't in fact most of them don't know how to touch they actually don't know how to touch somebody in the right way and I'm going to teach you how I can teach you something that apparently the majority of massage therapists actually don't know it which surprises me and here's
[31:44]
know it which surprises me and here's the trick and you can see even people petting a dog you can tell if they know how to touch so here are the two tricks to know how to touch number one you must be in the moment if you're scratching the back of your partner while reading a book scratch reading a book what does it feel like to the person who's getting their back scratched it feels no different than if they scratch their back on a pole they do not feel your intention because your mind is somewhere else you're reading a book and you're haphazardly scratching they can feel it physically but they cannot feel it emotionally the good massage therapists are empaths and they can feel what you can feel or imagine that they can they're very sensitive to what you feel and what they do is here's the trick they imagine
[32:44]
do is here's the trick they imagine they're you wall they touch you so while they're touching you they're putting themselves mentally into your body and they're saying okay if I were being touched there where how would I want it how would I want to be touched and so they imagine you they stay in the moment and they're thinking only about you and how it feels while they're touching you those people can send you to the moon the difference between an empath who's been professionally trained giving you massage is a 10 out of 10 the best massage therapist who's gone to all the school has years of experience but is not an empath is a six six out of ten that's the best you can be unless you're putting yourself in the position of the other person and and really you know imagining that's only that's only technique one technique number two a B
[33:44]
technique one technique number two a B testing and looking for feedback as an as a as a trained hypnotist one of the things you learn is you look for micro changes in the person to see if you're making them more relaxed if they're getting into the hypnotic state so you can do that just by paying attention over time you can you can pay attention to people's breathing their body language their attention etc if you're touching something let's say you're a massage therapist and you touch them in a certain way and their breathing changes that's probably telling you it's either good or bad their body changes they stiffen they soften they you know they do something differently they might even moan you do more of that so you a B test until you figure out what works and what doesn't let me give you an example on my cat who isn't here right now so I've been experiencing experimenting on my cat boo for years so when I kept my cat I will pet my cat in
[34:47]
when I kept my cat I will pet my cat in whatever normal ways she usually likes but I'll often test a new thing this week I discovered that my cat goes completely limp when I what I massaged her chest sort of her upper a cat chest now she likes her stomach massage sometimes like a like a dog does she'll lay at her back and you can rub her stomach but I noticed that when I pick her up she's usually doesn't want to stay picked up too long she gets a little you know a little anxious after say a minute but if I pick her up and just rub her chest she goes completely soft like she's almost been euthanized and I can hold her as long as I want as long as I'm doing that now my point is not that your cat would like that and in fact I've never met a cat would like that that I could determine but this cat through a be testing I discovered something that makes her absolutely limp with pleasure
[35:50]
makes her absolutely limp with pleasure had I not tested for literally years I never would have discovered it likewise my dog Snickers has a place that she likes to be petted that you never would have guessed it's between the eyes I've tried it with other dogs and they don't seem to have the same experience so if I pet my dog Snickers between the eyes she just goes completely limp and will let you do it as long as you want now people are just like that if you have a partner or even if your massage therapist and you're trying to touch them in a way that you want them to enjoy the first thing you do is put yourself into their body mentally and you and you keep yourself at the moment never touch them haphazardly don't touch your partner or while you're thinking of other stuff they'll tell they can tell the difference and then secondly test try a little scratch of the neck try a little
[36:50]
little scratch of the neck try a little massage of the shoulders do they like something on their feet who knows but when you find that thing it's gonna be crazy I'll tell you I'll tell you one little personal secret you may notice that I'm due for a haircut Christina my girlfriend volunteered I know months ago she says hey I could cut your hair because you know easy obviously it's just rare and so I said well I would love that it turns out that for me the experience of having Christina cut my hair when she knows I actually like how it feels is better than a professional massage because I know she's in the moment she's not thinking about anything else because she's concentrating on you know the process concentrating on me and it just sends me into like a whole other universe like you can't even imagine this somebody says too much information
[37:51]
this somebody says too much information it's a haircut that's not too much information is it so my point being if you do these two things put yourself in the other person's mind do a little a/b testing and stay in the moment you will send your partner to the moon but you might have to do a little EB testing to find out just what works best listen for breathing here's your tell well I don't know if I could do a demonstration this on video the tell that a hypnotist looks for is a sudden breathing change so if you were trying to let's say give a massage or something and somebody want that that's sort of an obvious one but you look for even more subtle ones it might be without the noise it might be just the breath if you get that see if you could produce it again if you could produce it twice you probably have
[38:52]
produce it twice you probably have something there and that is my advice for the day somebody here saying I kicked my wife so anything else she loves it you've lowered her expectations good job might take years to do that but you want to lower expectations all right so that's a little your note let me tell you this you're not going to understand how good this advice was on touching until you try it because if you don't already know these things where you haven't tried these things you know the a/b testing the the empathy putting yourself and the other person if you haven't tried that you have no idea what you're about to experience you're you're about to change somebody's experience with you in a crazy way you're gonna like it and that is all I have for today
[39:52]
like it and that is all I have for today go have a great day