Episode 622 Scott Adams: CNN Totally Owns Tucker Carlson, Fixing Iran and Urban Blight
Date: 2019-08-08 | Duration: 1:04:45
Topics
CNN’s slight-of-hand, dirty tricks and narrative creation process Brian Stelter’s contribution to the process Who wrote and who uploaded the El Paso shooter’s manifesto? My offer to DEPROGRAM a white supremacist…if one exists ADL information on gun deaths is NOT what you might think Danny Trejo’s inspirational comments after helping save a baby Bill Pulte’s blight cleanup and Pontiac’s soaring real estate prices Hey Iran…just give us a list, we might want all the same things
If you would like my channel to have a wider audience and higher production quality, please donate via my startup (Whenhub.com) at this link: https://interface.my/ScottAdamsSays
> [!note] Rough Transcript
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> This is an auto-generated transcript and may contain errors.
## Transcript
[0:13]
hey everybody come on in here I just noticed you well there plenty of seats in the front so come on in Martin good to see you drew Vicki always a pleasure I think I know why you're here probably has something to do with the simultaneous sip the best part of your day the dopamine hit that makes everything better probably grab your a cup your loving your glass hurry hurry there's still time is it a tankard jealous a tankard a jealous some of the word I keep forgetting a vessel of any kind about a thermos flask filling with your favorite liquid and join now for the simultaneous sick you might wonder why the sound was so bad it could be because I was sitting on my microphone that's possible so hold on let's do the simultaneous sip correctly you're ready
[1:14]
simultaneous sip correctly you're ready here it comes oh so good so just before I went live I noticed on Twitter I think if this is true but I would wait for a little more verification it looks like MSNBC
retweeted some some twitter user from Media Matters and added a blue checkmark next to the tweet with Photoshop so in other words if someone who is not a blue checkmark on Twitter and msnb Photoshop them a blue check to make their comment look more important now if that's true that's pretty fake news I mean that's sort of a smoking god bless let's wait and see if that's true first all right my favorite story of the day
[2:15]
all right my favorite story of the day well I've got a few say favourite stories did you see that we've we have we put life on the moon apparently we recently we meaning people who have spaceships put these little things called tardive I've never seen these is a microscopic we put some of these they were dehydrated and flown to the moon so that we may have actually what we did actually we put life on the moon but what kind of life did we pick we picked the only creature in the world whose mouth and face and ass look exactly the same this is a creature so dumb that what it eats the only way it can tell if it's shoving food in its mouth or its ass is by looking at which way its toenails are pointing that's it otherwise its mouth and it's ass are the same and so I said
[3:15]
and it's ass are the same and so I said to myself huh I did not know that nature had a creature that can talk about politics on Twitter I'll let that sink in a little bit all right um so of course all the news is about gun violence and mass shootings and white supremacist let's talk about that dr. Carlson got and got in a little well I was a he's in any trouble but he caused a little controversy a little more than usual and it's because on the show last night he said that white supremacy is that all the all of the hoopla about white supremacy is oaks now he also said this white supremacist exists there aren't very many of them in the country and that in total their impact is is small and so therefore it's a hoax so
[4:17]
small and so therefore it's a hoax so and then he then he announced that he was going on vacation so how did see then cover this well they started so this is a the anatomy of how fake news is graded it's actually very clever and and it's diabolical to the extreme and sometimes you can't tell when see and then doesn't know what they're doing meaning that it's somewhere accidental based on just ordinary bias now when do they know exactly what they're doing and this is one of those cases were pretty sure they know exactly what they're doing so taqwa of course is a huge critical to see event so you would expect that their opinion people would come at him pretty hard and sure enough they did but the way they did it is is very clever and can teach us something alright so the first thing they did is they connected two random things and acted as if they have meaning so they said that talker
[5:18]
have meaning so they said that talker must be in trouble they suggested they did not say it's true they simply suggested the Fox News as a history of when it's one of his host says something that other people think is racist there's hosts or or just provocative there's host go on vacation suspiciously to sort of get him out of the line of fire now it's summer and a lot of people go on vacation in the summer and Tucker said he was going on vacation and so CNN with no with no evidence whatsoever makes it seem as though his vacation is sort of a confession that he'd done something bad but there's no evidence of that what there is evidence is that it's August and a lot of people go on vacation in fact if you were going to pick a month to go on a vacation and you were in the news business what month would you pick well he'd pick December does everybody's on vacation
[6:18]
December does everybody's on vacation but you'd also pick August that would be the time you go on vacation it's the slow news month so first they make this connection that's not a real connection but by simply putting the two in your mind you say oh even Tucker Carlson or at least even his bosses know he's gone too far none of this is an evidence it's completely invented all right so that's the first dirty trick but the but the next one is the best all right so the so they're pushing back there were two opinion pieces I'll talk about brian Stelter Speas on on cnn.com they're both pushing back against Tucker's claim that all the noise about danger from white supremacists is a hoax now here's how they push back on it now one way to push back on it would be to produce one white supremacist and put them on TV and say here people I've now
[7:20]
them on TV and say here people I've now proven that way supremacists exist have you ever seen a white supremacist I never have I've seen every other kind of racist because race is coming you know lots of different flavors yeah there's just all kinds of different races so if he asked me to have I seen racists oh yeah have I seen white nationalist people who would prefer the country and you stay away oh yeah I've seen those have I ever seen a white supremacist I haven't I never have so how how would you what is the easiest way to prove that white supremacists exist put one on TV well where is it where's the white supremacists even Richards to prep the Spencer isn't a white supremacist right if you look into it he would not espouse white supremacy he's more of a white nationalist I think would be a better
[8:21]
nationalist I think would be a better way to put it so you have to ask yourself where is the well you don't ask yourself this look for the dog that isn't barking if white supremacy is a really big problem it shouldn't be hard to find a few and put them on TV so that we can see number one they exist David Duke actually is not a way supremacist as I understand it he's a racist and I think he's a white nationalist that might explain him so I'm not I'm not gonna try to explain David Duke because I condemn him totally but I don't believe anybody's ever gone on CNN in my memory and said that that one race was superior and should be treated that way I don't think I've seen it anyway so that's the first thing but here's the clever sleight of hand when when I tell you this you're you're all you can be
[9:22]
you this you're you're all you can be shaking your head so hard and knocking your heads on the counter so hard that this might be dangerous so you might want to put it on the helmet before I read this next part I swear to God brian Stelter wrote this and CNN all right you ready for this he says on white supremacy facts first okay so now Brian's gonna give us some facts about white supremacy and those facts will debunk Tucker Carlson's view that the whole white supremacist thing is a hoax so here are his facts to debunk an audit by the anti-defamation league okay now this is good stuff he's right on point talking about the right topic as we referred to an organization that studies these things okay this is good and what's he say what does the anti-defamation league found the white supremacist murders in the u.s. quote more than doubled in 2017 okay that's serious and more than doubled now when you say something more than
[10:23]
now when you say something more than doubled and and the point of saying it more than doubled is to say it's a problem what's the next thing you say after that right after you say it more than doubled you say from this number to this number right so we're so I'll read that part oh that's not there he said it doubled and he didn't say from what to what so I looked at the source it doesn't say from what to what either he says it doubled without giving us a number did it go from 2 to 4 1 to 2 and why are the numbers only from 2017 in 2017 two years ago if we're worried about a sudden increase of something is 2017 what we want no it is not so first of all his numbers are old 2017 would not tell you that there is a recent spike and anything because that leaves out the
[11:24]
and anything because that leaves out the most recent two years if you talk about a recent spike he got includes last two years secondly he says it doubled without saying what the number is and even the source doesn't say what the number is but I guess it gets creepier here's the rest of the sentence with far-right extremist groups and white supremacists quote responsible for 59 percent of all extremists related fatalities in the US and 2017 okay so if you add together far-right extremists plus white supremacists they're responsible for the majority of the extremists fatalities okay that's that's good to know now he'll next he'll tell us what percentage of that was the white supremacist because that's the topic right the topic is not right-wing deaths doctor was talking about white supremacists so the next thing you'll say is how many
[12:25]
so the next thing you'll say is how many of those were the white supremacists let me read that it's not there so you see what he did he he took the white supremacist for which he had no numbers that were current and even no numbers that were not current he added it with another group for which we do have numbers and said if you add those two together it's 59% of all the extremist related fatalities let me read you another sentence that's equally true if you were add together all of the all of the murders caused by cartoonists plus extremists and when they count for fifty nine percent of all the fate of the extremists fatalities in 2017 that's true right if you are add together all of the people who were murdered by dogs dogs with guns actual dogs like physically a
[13:26]
with guns actual dogs like physically a dog you know not talking about people I'm talking about actual dogs if you're add to the number the number of people who were killed by dogs with guns to right-wing extremists they would account for almost all of the extremist murders
so this is a clever trick by CNN as they start talking about white supremacists to debunk that Tucker says white supremacy is a hoax they show you know example of even one white supremacist no picture of one no writing from one no video of one who makes that claim by the way and I know what you're gonna say what about the shell is filled people marching away tikis we've got lots of video of that there white supremacist right are they are you a white supremacist if you want to remove the Jews from your country because the Jews are doing doing too well is wanting to remove the people who are doing too well
[14:28]
remove the people who are doing too well as a a statement that you are supreme it's kind of the opposite I would say that if you were look what the the people marching in Charlottesville were saying out loud is that they were saying the that the group that they did not like the Jews and their words were taking their blood and treasure in other words they were being very successful they were actually criticizing the success of a group that's literally the opposite of saying you're awesome and the other group is bad they're actually saying the other group is doing better than them and they would like them out of the country because they're taking all their stuff now they're racists they're white nationalists those are all true but it's the supremacy part that gets weird now so so what you see is that oh and then what the CNN likes to make lots of references to the El Paso killers manifesto Compline
[15:29]
killers manifesto Compline problems with that number one it is not an evidence that the shooter wrote that manifesto did you know that did you know it's not in evidence that the shooter wrote the manifesto what is it evidence is that it was uploaded to a Qian from someone who was not this year so we have an evidence that the source the source of it the only source we can trace was a Facebook post there was someone else now there's some possibility that the shooter put it on somebody else's Facebook or you know somehow it got on Facebook from the shooter and then it went to a chin but the evidence suggests he didn't write it have you seen that on CNN probably not we heard this from the founder of a chin and he would know where it came from secondly how many people have read the manifesto I read it and I gotta tell you
[16:34]
manifesto I read it and I gotta tell you on your right back so I read the manifesto and I was looking for the part where Trump inspired him to be a white supremacist it's not really there what it is this and I tweeted a link from fire in New York who's talking about this I had the exactly the same reaction as Byron York did if you actually read the manifesto you'd walk away saying what's this got to do with Trump the manifesto literally says indirect words this is not about Trump I had these feelings before Trump indirect words he says it wasn't drunk but if it wasn't Trump who is it most evocative of who is the person that is most referenced in the manifesto well not by name but the person most directly connected with what
[17:35]
person most directly connected with what he's talking about in the manifesto he is Andrew yang because the ughter in El Paso was talking about universal basic income and how it will be necessary because the robots are coming who says that Trump may have said it but it's basically Andrew Yang's whole whole thesis and if the robots come and take away our jobs we'll need some kind of universal basic income andrew Yang's primary platform and the only way that works is if you secure the border because if you're giving away free money to anybody who shows up it doesn't work right everybody understands that now Andrew yang doesn't make that case but I think that's a question he needs to be asked doesn't it it needs to be asked of amber yang how can you do ubi unless you're controlling the border that doesn't make sense those those two are opposites they can't exist at the
[18:36]
are opposites they can't exist at the same time so so the entire so what CNN can do and the anti-trump ORS are doing is that they're suggesting that the manifesto is trump inspired because they know nobody's going to read it and if they did they would find you know maybe one sentence that they could pull out say yeah this this sounds like Trump but there are just as many sentences that sound like Elizabeth Warren or Andrew yang and they'll just ignore those and they know you're not going to read it so they can characterize it any way they want so it's complexity it's long and rambled and it's obviously just a crazy person it's complexity allows them to claim that it supports their point of view it just doesn't it just doesn't as fake news all right so here's here's the basic sleight of hand that the anti-trump errs and really anti Americans I would say because the people
[19:36]
Americans I would say because the people who are moving hard against Trump are really moving hard against 60 million people in this country so I would say anti-american if people were criticizing you know thousands of people in America I'd say well thousands that's barely anything compared to 300 million so those people are just criticizing you know some people with bad ideas but if you're criticizing 60 million citizens of this country you're anti-american by definition right criticizing 60 million that's it's a good chunk to the whole country right there all right so here's the sleight-of-hand they use so it starts out with President Trump says I'm a nationalist he doesn't use those words necessarily but his supporters say we're nationalists we care about our country first so CNN will say you're nationalists and I'm noticing that a lot of people at the rallies are white so would it be fair to
[20:39]
rallies are white so would it be fair to say that you're nationalists and that most of you are white and people would say well that's true but I don't like where this is going so if you're nationalist and many of you are white basically there's not much difference between that and saying you're white nationalist well of course there is a big difference because white nationalists don't want other people to come unless they're white but a nationalist is open to everybody you know as long as the rules are followed and the borders are controlled so they say nationalist equals white nationalists let's the first lady and and then from white nationalist they just throw into the census white supremacists as if there's no difference so you know white supremacist white nationalist nationalists who happens to be white okay Lee the same thing so they use this you know a sleight of hand to get you all the way to nationalist equals white nationalist white
[21:40]
equals white nationalist white nationalists basically the same with white supremacist white supremacist is Hitler obviously there's a holocaust coming now when you hear that it should make you angry it should make you think oh my god what kind of a country do I live in where news networks can push ridiculous not like that well where'd they learn it where did see you then learn to turn nationalists into white nationalists to turn white nationalists and two white supremacists and turned white supremacists into obviously the president is Hillier here's how they learned it they learned it from the right they learned it from Fox News how many times in Fox News have you seen Democrats say they want health care which Fox News turns into health care so I guess you're a socialist and if you're a socialist you're a communist and if you're a communist you're Stalin and if you're Stalin you want to kill tens of millions of people
[22:43]
want to kill tens of millions of people you're Venezuela right same thing a a person who wants to keep the United States largely the same but have better health care it's not a socialist there you know democratic socialist at best and there's certainly not communists so first of all they're not socialists you're socialists what would make everybody share everything it would be completely incompatible with capitalism so they're pushing some socialist policies within a larger capitalist setting that FoxNews calls all that socialism and then they just sort of without without making a break call it communism then it turns into Venezuela and then it turns into Stalin and then it turns into tens of millions of people killed you should disregard both sides when they do that all right if they're taking your definition and working it through
[23:43]
your definition and working it through this word machine until it turns into either Stalin or Hitler you're not talking you're not listening to people you should pay attention to all right and so I would like to offer this challenge I would like somebody to produce a white supremacist who I could deprogram so I'm going to offer to deprogram a white supremacist I'll do it on I'll do around here I'd have to know it's a real white supremacist so here's the first part of the challenge number one I don't think any exist who are not actually observe probably insane so if you if somebody could put a sentence together you know went to college maybe ya know don't even hit the college just somebody who can make a coherent statement and also refers to themselves or at least by their policies or clearly white supremacists I need you to I'm offering
[24:44]
supremacists I need you to I'm offering to deprogram that person away from their destructive ideology but you have to find me one I've never met one and I don't know that they exist because those tiki torch people were white inferiorities there's a word what's the opposite of supremacy yeah the the tiki torch guys were were worried that white people can't compete that was their whole that's what they were chanting literally that's what they were saying out loud and a chance that the white people can't compete so they don't qualify but if there's any in that group who thinks they're supreme I will do program them I'll offer to do that watch how no white supremacist can be identified now I would say that Tucker Carlson would be accurate in calling the whole white supremacy a hoax if nobody can produce one at all you can't produce
[25:48]
can produce one at all you can't produce one put him on TV let's let's see what they have to say if you can't produce one I'm offering to deprogram that person I'll solve it for you I'll do it right in front of the world and it won't be hard now let's put things in perspective if Tucker Carlson is wrong about white supremacy you know at least the Hoople about it big being a hoax then it would also be true that the numbers are big or climbing so they're either big already or they're climbing because remember Islamic terrorists in this country is very small but we worried that it could you know climb or that the rate would increase so let me give you some numbers which you don't see in most of these these periscopes or you don't see in the news all right so how many people were killed with from by extremists so according to
[26:49]
with from by extremists so according to the ADL the same source that brian Stelter was using three hundred and eighty seven people have been killed in the last decade so in ten years three hundred eighty seven people were killed by extremists all of those extremists in the united states of those seventy one percent were a right-wing so that's two hundred and seventy five over ten years let's round it off to twenty eight people per year so isn't a national story that there's something that can you could put a name on that's killing twenty eight people a year well let's see how big related numbers are so we can see if that's a big number or a small number all right so right-wing extremists according to the ADL kill about twenty eight people per year over the past ten years total gun deaths in the united states per year are forty
[27:53]
the united states per year are forty thousand we've got this and of course opioids are like seventy thousand a year I think automobiles or thirty five thousand a year or something like that so just twenty eight people but but remember if that number is climbing quickly then we should worry about it because the range of change this is important is where it starts how many homicides per year because these are total gun deaths how many of the gun deaths are not suicide for accents turns out that there are about 12,000 so twelve thousand murders with with gun weapons compared to twenty eight done by extremists so twenty eight is what percentage of the total gun deaths in the United States per year it's point zero zero one seven of all
[28:54]
it's point zero zero one seven of all the gun deaths point zero is zero one seven of all the gun deaths two-thirds of all gung-ho homicides are have black victims two thirds so that's around eight thousand murders per year of black people by both white and black people but I think black people kill more of black people just because that's who's around obviously you're gonna kill more of the type of people who are near you than people who live distantly and so so it's a tiny tiny number and so the real question is if we all agree it's a small number then what matters is how quickly is growing do you know who has the statistics a good statistics of how quickly the white supremacy murder rate is growing nobody doesn't exist yeah if you look for that source you'll find
[29:55]
you look for that source you'll find lots of people saying wow it's hard to count because people accounted differently and there were new agencies that came online recently that started counting so you can't really look at the current numbers and compare them directly to the past because they're counting differently now so basically we don't really know so it's a tiny number we don't know if it's going up or not but the most visible sign of it is this El Paso thing which if you actually read his manifesto you would say does it look like waste of privacy to me and that's it that's the whole argument so given all that who's right oh well let me give you some more numbers 85% of well two-thirds of gun deaths are suicide 2/3 2/3 of gun deaths are
[30:56]
suicide 2/3 2/3 of gun deaths are suicide and 85% of the gun suicides are male what would you say is the big problem when 85% of gun deaths are suicide wouldn't it be more useful to speak of these mass shootings as fancy suicides am I wrong if if you came from outer space and you didn't care about politics and you were just examining the planet with complete unbiased dispassionate logic you're just looking at it and you said to yourself okay it looks like there's massive problem with God and suicide which is really a problem with suicide they're just using guns so if you have this massive suicide problem and this suicide comes in many forms one of these forms is people like to dress up their suicide as having some meaning so that they can find meaning
[31:56]
meaning so that they can find meaning for the first time in their life and so they their warped Minds come up with some political political justification if you happen to be a hypnotist or you study persuasion as I do you know that the human mind does not operate on reasons I'll tell you what did not happen in any of these shootings here's what we know scientifically and historically and commonsensical II we know with complete certainty what did not happen with any of these shootings what did not happen is that a reasonable person looked at the facts of the logic and then decided to kill a bunch of people that never happened what did happen because it's the only way that brains work brains don't have two ways of working in the sense that I'm talking about here they have one way of working first they decide what they're gonna do and then they work backwards to the reasons always now sometimes if you think that sometimes happens then you don't understand your reality in any
[32:58]
don't understand your reality in any useful way science has determined with completely conclusively that we decide first on the big stuff like this the big emotional stuff and in a mass murder is the biggest emotional thing you can imagine as more emotional content than anything else because it's death and there's lots of it that cetera so these murders I can tell you with absolute confidence 0% chance of being wrong that they make the decision first and then they go through some tortured logic to describe why they did it and that's why when you read the manifesto it looks like it looks like somebody with tortured logic it looks like somebody who is desperately trying to come up with a reason for the thing they had already decided to do now my take on it is that you have a suicide problem some of the people who who kill
[34:00]
problem some of the people who who kill themselves want to do it in a certain way that gives them meaning and ties into who they think they are etc but mostly it's just a suicide problem you have to deal with all elements of it but to call it a white supremacy problem I think misses the mark by as far as you can miss it so I'm going to score this argument in favor of Tucker meaning that it when he says there's a white supremacy hoax I don't know that there are no white supremacists willing to kill people I do know I've never seen one and I don't think I'll see one on television and I don't see think I'll see a picture of one and I don't think I'll see a video one and I don't think I'll see maybe even a manifesto from one because even this El Paso's manifesto wasn't about white supremacy it was just about numbers and math and economics so there you go all right let's talk about something a little more uplifting maybe
[35:03]
something a little more uplifting maybe maybe maybe a lot more uplifting that I saw one of the smartest most insightful quotes you'll ever see and it came from actor Danny Trejo tre Jo now if if you're into movies and TV you might know this name so Danny Trillo is Hispanic I assume I think he's Hispanic I'm not gonna guess but I'm just guessing they use Hispanic his last name gives it away anyway he which is only important because the times were it right it's not important and any other way it's only important because of our political climate so apparently he was driving along and you saw an accident in which there was a car flipped over there was a baby and a baby seat was still in the car and he stopped immediately and tried to get the baby out and was somebody else's help he got the baby out now of course because he was the celebrity there he gets all of the it's
[36:05]
celebrity there he gets all of the it's pronounced Trejo somebody's telling me Danny Trejo he gets all the attention because he was a celebrity obviously the unknown person who helped him get the baby out of the car is also a hero but nobody nobody knows that person's name but here's the best part of the story so actor Danny Trejo gets interviewed afterwards and he said this quote I swear if you never remembered anything else in your whole life and you just said alright I'm gonna ignore everything I've learned in my entire life and then I'm just gonna build my life around this one quote from Danny Trejo you would actually have a pretty good life yeah this quote sums up almost everything here it is quote from actor Danny Trejo hero everything good this happened to me has happened as a direct result of helping someone else everything so he
[37:08]
helping someone else everything so he has everything at the end I'm gonna read that again it's probably the best quote you'll ever see in your life in terms of how usefulness right everything good this happened to me has happened as a direct result of helping someone else everything that's it secret of life right there the secret of life right there be because if you help other people they say well there's somebody I want to associate with if you help other people you feel good about yourself you feel important you feel like you have a place do you think the people who are helping other people commit suicide sometimes because there's mental illness is the thing but how many of these mass shooters were working at soup kitchens how many mass murderers are helping other people no none if you want meaning any life help other people if you want
[38:10]
any life help other people if you want financial security learn how to be valuable to other people it's the only way the only way I'm rich is because I helped other people I made them laugh I made them think I entertained them I helped them I helped them somehow now how many times have I been offered promotions back in my corporate world and why would I be offered the promotion and maybe something else well in many cases is because I did extra work and I helped other people with no direct thought of some direct reward and if you are in your corporate situation and people look around and they say hey this person keeps helping me other people as long as you're getting your own work done well what are people gonna think when they want to promote somebody you just killed everybody else you know economically or or career-wise you just eliminated everybody else's appearance
[39:13]
eliminated everybody else's appearance of value if you do your work and you're consistently helping other people in whatever way you can you're the boss or you can be if you want to be somebody's gonna offer you the next promotion so Danny Trejo's quote is everything he actually uses the word and everything in this quote twice everything good that has happened to me has happened as a direct result of helping someone else everything it's perfect it's just perfect alright here's the thought that I want to put into the NICS of ideas in the world so we've got these urban blighted areas and you know parts of the country where things aren't working out there's bad economic distress etc and then we're watching Bill Polti go into these areas in some cases and make a difference you saw the cleanup crew make a difference as well but bill told bill
[40:14]
difference as well but bill told bill pulled a goes in and he can clean up the urban blight I saw article recently that Pontiac Michigan the the value of real estate just started zooming now Pontiac if you don't know this was I think what the first one or two places that bill Polti removed the blight so he removed the blight and there's not one reason that real estate goes up in value but I got to think it's a big one the real estate values went up so Pontiac is heading in the right direction who made that happen bill Polti you know other people work on it too that the mayor had to be part of that at cetera but I was reading this book I was just telling you about about the founding of the nation I'll show it to you again I'm only a little ways into if it's already so interesting that I'm getting all these tidbits out of it that really change that you think it's called the American nations right I'm only a little bit into it it's already having a big impact on me and one of the things I
[41:15]
big impact on me and one of the things I talked about is something I don't think I knew pretty sure I didn't know it and the I didn't know it let me say that for sure if you don't know if you knew it you didn't know it I always wondered why the United States was so successful now you can give a number of reasons you could say okay the United States was successful because we had all these natural resources and maybe because of the ocean barriers you know we we didn't get that direct brunt of a couple of world wars but we had our own Wars you know lots of wars on you know internally and with the Native Americans and the back etc and French the French the Brits we had a lot of Wars but what was it they made America so successful now one thing you say is okay was it was about this Western culture and they brought over but this book is all about the fact that
[42:16]
but this book is all about the fact that they weren't all the same culture I talked about this yesterday I think some of the more Puritans and they wanted everybody to be treated equal equally but they had to be religious or else you were in big trouble and then there were ones that landed in the more southern part of the country who were slavers they started I was putting white people in slavery and then they literally ran out of white people to enslave that's why the African slave trade happened now the white people they enslaved were what he called indentured servants and the problem was that after the indentured servants served their time they could go get their own land so the intention servants were moving through the system too quickly and there weren't enough new ones so they had to do a different source of labor and that's where the African slavery came from so you can't really compare the Puritan culture to
[43:18]
really compare the Puritan culture to the southern culture completely different I mean the Puritans never would have enslaved anybody so you can't really say there's something about the culture that worked so what was it and this this book I just mentioned the suggestive answer which also suggests a defects the inner cities and other parts of the country are you ready for it part of the reason that people came to the United States is that the the King in Great Britain would say if you go there we'll give you you know a land grant which if you do things right will make you very rich you'll be like a king in your own large piece of territory that I grant you now who does the who would the king in England somebody says it's not Great Britain let's just call it England so the king of England thus prior to the Great Britain words so thank you for
[44:19]
Great Britain words so thank you for that correction so the King of England and who is he going to grant land to in America well it's not going to be to a peasant the King granted land to highly educated people because they also happen to be the you know the the well-connected people in England so what happened was because of a coincidence of how land was granted the United States became hugely educated instantly meaning that the percentage of people with advanced degrees in the early colonial days was sort of through the roof by the by the standards of those times there were simply more educated people as a percentage than maybe anywhere in the world now I don't know if that's true but I think it's close to true that we may have ended up totally by coincidence with more highly educated people that have ever been in one place at the same
[45:20]
have ever been in one place at the same time except for maybe Microsoft right and then Silicon Valley later now what happened when you put a whole bunch of smart people into a wilderness they do well smart people tend to do well am I wrong have you ever seen an example well name a country where they're highly educated and the economy is doing poorly can you can you name your country that's among the top 10 of education that's you know doing poorly in economics well maybe temporarily if something's going wrong but in general if you put a bunch of smart people in an area they do well now here's the question did all of the colonists need to be smart absolutely not the vast majority of the colonists were were we're dumb just like
[46:20]
colonists were were we're dumb just like the rest of the world right most the world is not smart people so most of the colonists were done so wasn't just the percentage of smart people it was that there were a lot of them in numbers so you need numbers so here's the question where in the United States do we have big concentrations of smart people and things are not heading in the right direction no we're pretty much nowhere now somebody says I'm being a bigot but I have not mentioned race whatsoever because it doesn't have anything to do with us so race has nothing to do with this I'm just saying that if you put a bunch of people who went to college into a place that needs help it's gonna do better so what what do we normally do in this country when we're trying to fix an urban area the thing we do when we're trying to fix an urban area as we give them money and resources mostly money and resources and
[47:22]
resources mostly money and resources and it doesn't seem to work for a variety of reasons what happened when you took Bill pulled a smart and capable well-educated and put him into Pontiac good stuff right now money was also involved but money it turns out is the easy part do you know what was the hard part finding a bill pulled a that was the hard part so I would suggest this if we could find as something similar to the king of in England giving land grants to smart people of every race so ethnicity has nothing to do with any of this right just smart people of any kind could we do the same thing with our blinded areas now doesn't that necessarily have to be an urban area it could be yeah it could be Baltimore but it could also be somewhere else so I suppose you cleared an area a blight and
[48:22]
suppose you cleared an area a blight and then you said okay all this area that's cleared has almost no economic value but we're going to grant it to only people who have a certain level of let's say educational achievement so you say all you have to be is you have a master's degree I'll just use this as an example so I'm I'm not suggesting that your degree says whether you're smart or not I'm just saying it's an easy way to know that you're at least last March so suppose the city decided we're going to grant this land but instead of doing it the way that you would normally think which is to give it to the community you say no I'm gonna I'm going to create some Kings they could be you know black Kings they could be any kind of King but they're gonna be the people who have advanced degrees and they're gonna get their own little patch of land and they're gonna use their intelligence if they need money they can figure out how to get it because that's what smart people do and either they
[49:24]
what smart people do and either they have it or they know how to get it you put the smart people there and you say here it is if you can make this work you get an amazing advantage out of it so I'm gonna put this idea into the world which is that putting physical resources into communities that have trouble might help a little I'm not saying we shouldn't do it but putting smart people in there especially smart people who you know who can work with the community etc probably would be a bigger deal on probably now I don't know if there's any way to do this in the way our society is is function but what do I always say
what I always say is that if you can a B test it that's good enough if you have a plan that could be tested small and find out whether or not it worked you don't have to ask if it's good I mean you you do it you want to do a basic filter to
[50:26]
do it you want to do a basic filter to see if it's crazy but if you think it might be good but you're not sure as long as you can test as small go ahead so take a little place that you think has a problem that has land values that approach to zero have your political leaders say all right here's all we're gonna do if you've got an advanced degree and the relevant stuff let's say an engineer what let's say we limit it to that what if you say Fuhrer if you are a certain type of engineer and you have a degree will give you land as long as you promise to live there and develop it what would happen if he came back in 20 years I'm pretty sure people would do okay because smart people tend to succeed no matter where they are somebody said you're a and spelled you were why oh you are I'll tell ya there should be one one rule as I block
[51:26]
there should be one one rule as I block that person there should be a rule that if you insult somebody's intelligence and you spell a word wrong while you're insulting them it doesn't count that should just be the rule doesn't count if you spelled a word wrong somebody says it's called gentrification nope nope no no no no no no no gentrification is when anybody who is doing well sort of creeps into the neighborhood I am NOT talking about that I'm talking about peeking people who are smarter than there was yuppies who were just happened to have you know a four-year degree I'm talking about real smart people I'm talking about somebody who went to MIT because remember the people who settled America were Oxford shaped they weren't just people who knew how to read that we're talking about Jefferson all right Jefferson wasn't just a guy who could read it was a genius I'm talking about
[52:29]
read it was a genius I'm talking about geniuses I'm not talking about the yuppie who works in the cubicle and can afford to pay his car payment that is not who you need to fix the inner cities alright so when you saw recently that Jack Dorsey and Bill pulled a were clearing some blight they they had partnered to clear some blight and Saint Louis and I saw those pictures and I see Jack and you know Bill Polti standing there I think to myself I'm glad there's money I'm glad there's equipment to do that but what you really need is people of you know that level of smart and and you know well-meaning to just live there for a while and try to build something now not those two guys in particular but it just made me think that maybe bringing in some geniuses and again of geniuses of every type none of this is the ethnic none of this is
[53:30]
this is the ethnic none of this is gender we're not talking about any of that it doesn't matter who they are they just have to have a certain skill set and that's it somebody says where does Scott get his degrees I got my undergraduate at a small private college called Hartwick College in Oneonta New York and I got my MBA at Berkeley here in California to answer your question but let me say that I would not consider myself qualified for what I'm talking about I'm talking about people who have more than an MBA I'm talking about Harvard I'm talking about MIT I'm talking about top at the top right if you know if you don't pick top at the top this idea falls apart quickly you know I'm not talking about putting a bunch of b-plus students into Baltimore and see what happens that's that's not going to get you there all right let's talk about Iran quickly so Aram apparently has some technology you must be a Russian technology for spoofing GPS
[54:31]
be a Russian technology for spoofing GPS to make you think you're off track and apparently they can spoof communications and they're fooling ships in the area and causing mischief a hundred percent of the people talk about Iran say hey war looks like you know it might be a risk but every single person says the same thing Iran does not want war u.s. doesn't want war nobody wants war so I'm pretty sure we're not gonna get war I'm not gonna say there isn't you know some bullets fired at some point but the odds of war with Iran I think we should just call it zero because that's what it is that's what it is so let's stop worrying about that in terms of you know some kind of slippery slope toward war because something very different would have to happen something we don't see coming that would turn this even into an even possible war situation and here's here's part of the reason why Iran doesn't want
[55:33]
part of the reason why Iran doesn't want to war because they would be destroyed so that's easy to understand you might ask yourself well why doesn't the u.s. want war because we might win it fairly you know fairly easily and it would remove this risk and even though people would die or maybe it's worth it but here's the thing you have to compare war to the alternative and the alternative is just wait because it turns out that Iran in terms of the Iranian population are fairly pro-american American people American culture they're not pro-american government but you know half of the country the United States you know the majority of the United States is not in favor of our own government it probably never will be if it's that we roll so the fact that you know there are some Romanians who don't like our government isn't terribly important because they like us and they like they like they like the American culture and people and likewise if you don't if you haven't
[56:34]
likewise if you don't if you haven't spent time around a lot of people who have been born in Iran they're pretty awesome people they're pretty awesome I see a lot of them around here and to a person they're just they're pretty awesome people so here's what I would suggest but not in a serious way you know when people suggest what the president should say or do I always say don't suggest what a president should do I don't know just it always feels wrong on several levels to say oh here's what the president should do so instead I'm gonna put this as a thought experiment so the thought experiment is suppose the President does this what if the president did this because it'll help you understand what's going on here the thought experiment so this is not a suggestion it's a thought experiment that goes like this what if President Trump started
[57:34]
what if President Trump started saying hey Aaron what would you gain by being our enemy what do you have to gain that's it that's the powerful part can you tell us what you want to gain because we might be able to help that's the second part tell us what you want because if you work with us you might be able to get it now they might say we would like to spread Islam around the world to which we say okay we don't think that's the best idea but we'll still help you here's how we'll give you full access to the Internet we'll make sure that every person in your country has freedom of speech because if you want to spread an idea killing isn't really an efficient way to do it in 2019 we saw that Isis tried to do that didn't work out did not work out for Isis but the Internet is really good
[58:37]
for Isis but the Internet is really good a spreading ideas so if I ran wants to spread their idea we will help them take their idea into the marketplace of ideas which is the Internet we will will help you build out your internet will we'll do what we can to be supportive of every citizen rumor and getting on the internet and having full access so we can help you if you would like to spread your beliefs we'll give you the tool the only tool the only tool that's effective to do that and we are confident that in the marketplace of ideas it might find the place as will others and we'll work it out so then what is what else does a rayon want they want to survive and we'll say that's fine we don't care if you survive I mean we'd like you to survive and even you could even keep your form of government because we don't care about that that's that's between you and the citizens so we're not gonna fight them
[59:39]
citizens so we're not gonna fight them on who's in charge so long as you know they're not a problem to us what if they say we want to throw overthrow Israel well they don't really say that publicly and I don't believe that they think it could really happen do you think there's anybody in Iran who in a private conversation that nobody will ever hear do you think that anybody at any level in Iran says you know I think we've got a real good shot of taking Israel back for Islam I'll bet no I'll bet there are zero people who actually think that's going to happen and I don't think they say it out loud currently what they say out loud is that they would like Israel as a as a government entity to go away they can want that all they want and in fact the best way to do that would be to make peace with Israel can you think of a faster way to destroy in quotes the nation of Israel than by making peace in
[1:00:40]
nation of Israel than by making peace in the Middle East it would effectively force Israel in the long run to have a more diverse population and if they have a more diverse population eventually it's going to have to become not exactly the you know the Jewish state and they didn't long but the only way you get there is through peace Israel would just have pressure to be more inclusive and eventually you would get that way suppose Iran wants a better economy of course we can help suppose they want more energy in nuclear power not nuclear weapons nuclear power well Lindsey Graham has already offered to help we just want some control on the weaponized part and if they get those parts I guess the fuel rods if they get that from China and Russia the United States would say okay China and Russia can can keep them from getting the you know that the nuclear weapon parts as long as Iran wants to get their source from those two
[1:01:42]
get their source from those two countries so almost everything that Iran at least publicly would ask for we would be willing to help we're not only not their obstacle we're begging them to help with everything they want now we don't think of it that way because we're just sort of locked into the news coverage of us against them and will there be a war and you just think of two teams against each other I think the president could and again this is just a thought experiment I don't expect him to do this in any way I think the president could say here's the deal Iran we don't understand what you want because everything that we know you want we want to and we would actively help you we want you to communicate better we want you to have a better economy we don't want any risk or we want you to have nuclear energy Israel has already offered to help with
[1:02:42]
Israel has already offered to help with desalinization we probably have a mutual interest in in controlling al Qaeda we kind of have a so much in common it's crazy that we're even talking as some kind of Nemesis when it's so clear that we would work better together for everything now you might say in yourself I don't know there's must be something we disagree with and that's that's worth having a war over but I don't know what it is if you and I don't know what that is
is I don't think anybody knows what it is yeah I think the giving them tons of cash idea was was probably not your best one I think you have to I think you have to do what Trump has successfully done with North Korea which is paint a picture of cooperation and a picture of the future that is clearly a good one and it involves us being helpful instead of us being on the other side we we
[1:03:42]
of us being on the other side we we started that a little bit with Iran but I think that picture could be completed it could be that you know the president is constrained by the you know members of the administration who want to who want to see some missiles fly so that may be part of the constraint I don't know somebody says that Kim is Kim jong-un is different because he's not religious therefore you can work a deal with him I would say that that would be a problem that would be a problem except that everything Iran wants we would be willing to help them with because they can spread their ideology anywhere they want it's just that the internet is how you spread the ideology spreading it with weapons absolutely doesn't work all right I think I've set it all for today I'm gonna go do something else and I will talk to you later