Episode 657 Scott Adams: Hey, I’m Late, Grab Coffee
Date: 2019-09-09 | Duration: 46:29
Topics
Trump Admins relaxation of environmental laws… …if that’s bad, why aren’t we seeing any problems? Professional negotiator insights and dealing with Taliban leaders Afghanistan pullout is dangerous, why do it? Human pullout…will DRONE WARFARE replace them? An AI health system that will provide better care than live doctors CNN’s McCabe did a good gun control article His points are well informed, practical, solutions Mark Sanford has nothing…just shut up
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## Transcript
[0:04]
[Music] bum-bum-bum hello everybody come on in here sorry I'm a little bit late I know that this may have thrown your entire simultaneous sipping schedule into a frenzy and so I'm here to make it up from to you because all you need is sing along with me a cup of Margaret glasses Dinah tells the tanker to thermos the flask a canteen the vessels of any kind fill it with your favorite liquid I like coffee but you don't have to have coffee you can have your favorite liquid put it in your glass get ready for the simultaneous up it's the best part of the day so don't be mean hit that makes everything better oh oh that was every bit as good as I hoped it would be well later today I'll be heading off to a recording studio to start my three-day marathon of recording my new book on audio called loser think so feel bad for me because I'll be in a darkened studio for hours and hours reading my own book which at least I'll
[1:07]
reading my own book which at least I'll like the book so there's that all right let me start with the good news don't you like news it's just starts with the good news here's the good news here's some of the worst problems on the planet Earth according to the news organizations sharpie gate somebody drawing a Sharpie line on a weather map the president is insulting Chrissy Teigen on Twitter Biden blyat blames his contact lenses for a bloodying his eye I don't know if he was trying to take his lenses out with his elbows or how that happens but that was his story and maybe people are staying at the Trump Hotel and it looks suspicious that's it those are your top stories of the day Sharpie gait Chrissy Teigen Biden's contact lens and people staying at the Trump Hotel and we need some more information that's our
[2:11]
some more information that's our problems in the world here's another big problem I mentioned this every month or so but the longer you don't hear about this the more suspicious I am and here's the thing how often have we heard since this president got elected how often with have we heard the administration reduced some environmental law or did something that has an environmental impact how many times if you heard that story quite a few times right now honestly what I hear any one of those stories I go I don't like the sound of that I don't like the sound as some environmental regulation being relaxed it must be there for a reason right so that story will come out blah blah blah some environmental thing has been relaxed and it will be a big problem and then what happens nothing it just gets quiet now it could be that
[3:13]
it just gets quiet now it could be that the environmental problems take so long to develop that there's not much else to report on maybe but is that what's going on I don't know here's what I suspect I suspect that the regulations that are targeted for relaxation are the ones that the science didn't quite support or it was ambiguous or it was such a small impact that it wasn't worth it given the economic or other benefits they come because good economics also to save lives so if you were to read let's say hypothetically if you were to change a law on fracking and scientifically and statistically it looked like doing so would kill three people I'll just throw out random numbers let's say that fracking would have some effect on the water or something and that over time three people would die who would not
[4:14]
three people would die who would not necessarily have died otherwise well you'd have to compare that to how many people live when you improve the economy because people do live longer better lives when you can is put together so here's my question this is another one of the dogs that don't bark we hear when the administration cancels an environmental law and it should worry us well we don't see as the follow-up reporting or they say well it looks like this law will you know kill three people but the administration hopes it will save a hundred because that what they're saying I don't know there's no reporting so that's my basic statement then it keeps getting reported as environmental catastrophes but without the follow-up and without the Pro and the con you know what's the pro what's the con I don't know if we'd know anything about it
it so I would be suspicious that let's talk about the Taliban so I'm seeing some
[5:17]
about the Taliban so I'm seeing some people pushing back on the idea that Trump would invite the top the head of the Taliban to meet with him because if if you're giving them that much let's say respect and it doesn't look like they're necessarily going to stick to a deal anyway aren't you just giving them something for nothing giving them a PR win etc here's what I say about a Trump meeting with the head of the Taliban which is similar to what I said about it meeting with Kim Jordan which is similar to what I will say about him if he meets with let's say the president of Iraq you can't really make a deal until the people who can approve the deal are in the same room if you've never negotiated it would make sense to you to say well why can't Trump just send his best negotiator and if they make a deal then the president can sign it but he doesn't need to be there you would only think that's a good idea if you had never negotiated have you ever tried to
[6:19]
negotiated have you ever tried to negotiate when you're not talking to the person who makes the decision I have lots and lots of times so I used to be a contract negotiator when I was in my corporate world so that was my primary job for several years just to negotiate contracts then when I became a cartoonist I did a lot of licensing deals and again I was involved with lots and lots and lots of contract negotiation so it was pretty much a continuous process over my whole career and there's one thing I can guarantee you if the people who make the decision are not part of the process you are not negotiating you have you have the illusion of negotiating but when underlings are negotiating there's no negotiating going on because what happens is the underling goes back to the boss and says I asked for X and he said no what's the boss say okay well I guess we didn't get it no the boss says go back and get that thing they said no and the underling says well I did my
[7:21]
and the underling says well I did my best what am I going to do and the boss says well I'm not going to sign it this way go back and get it so the underling goes back and the underlings talking to usually another underling and they can't make anything happen because an underling will give fired for capitulating an underling will give fired for making an offer to meet in the middle underlings can't negotiate it's just a waste of time now you can the underlings can get you in the ballpark the underlings can find out if you're serious the underlings can find out what topics are on the table which ones are sticky so there's a lot of a lot of things the underlings can do to sort of frame it a little bit but one thing the underlings can't do is make a concession and if you're not making concessions you're not negotiating you're not negotiating you're just talking you're wasting time I have wasted years by having underlings
[8:24]
wasted years by having underlings negotiate usually it means the lawyer talking to a lawyer on the other side I wasted I think a year and a half negotiating with Hollywood with just the lawyers talking for a movie deal do you think that deal got done no because if you have underlings negotiate about something for a year and they're getting paid to do it which is the worst case scenario you don't get a deal you get more negotiate because that's what they get paid for they and they don't have the authority to concede even if you tell them they tend not to use it so here's what I say Trump seems to be the only person I've seen in the presidency who understands negotiating there's no such thing as negotiating unless the decision-makers in the room so we put the decision-makers in the room or tried in the case of the Taliban now what are the our what are the odds that putting them in the room would produce a good agreement not very high but it's higher
[9:24]
agreement not very high but it's higher than 0 it is zero is what the old system was gonna get you if you don't put it in the room no deal gets done now let's say you the Taliban would you believe a deal the United States made because you trust the United States no you would not would it help to be in the room with the President of the United States telling you in person we will do this yeah what now you're still not going to trust the President of the United States just automatically but the way human beings work there is a big difference when you're talking to somebody in person you're looking them in the eye and you're making a personal commitment it makes a difference the president knew that makes a difference so you tried to make it happen so I would say that the president is the only smart one in this story because he knew that it's not negotiating until you're in the same room here's the other part of the story that's not being reported I've predicted
[10:29]
that's not being reported I've predicted this for a while maybe five years or so I predicted this that the fate of Afghanistan in terms of the United States involvement there militarily is that we would reduce our forces eventually to a drone only yeah let's say drone plus some special forces plus you know intelligence maybe some cyber operations to stop but intelligence plus drones would be what we would leave in Afghanistan someday now when you hear people say hey why are we talking about pulling out of Afghanistan and it will just reconstitute it into a al-qaeda safe house and an Isis safe house right not if the plan is to leave a drone army that becomes wait for it wait for it here's the cool part our testing spot for all of our future drone warfare and robotic warfare it looks to me and it it's obvious that the United States would not say this as
[11:30]
United States would not say this as directly as I'm going to say it the only reason that we would be considering pulling out given that I think everybody knows the vacuum would be filled with bad people you know I think Trump does that I think everybody wants us to pull out knows it would be dangerous because it would fill up with bad guys again unless unless we've reached the point where we already know that our intelligence and our surveillance on the ground from satellites and drones and cyber uses and cyber techniques and everything else it's so good that if the bad guys start reconstituting we can pick up a screen send out a drone and take out their entire unit without leaving a desk so here's my prediction my prediction is that the United States is not telling its citizens or anybody else because it shouldn't how good we are at drone warfare already and how much better we will be in the next few
[12:30]
much better we will be in the next few years because I think we're reaching the point where ground troops are sort of marginally unnecessary you know we're we would still need to be able to send down some special forces for some special cases and I imagine we'd have enough forces there to do that but for your everyday hey there's a bunch of Isis collecting over here and it looks like they have a lot of weapons I don't think we have to leave the desk anymore I think you just say huh looks like a bunch of Isis guys with weapons push a button no more Isis guys with weapons so here's my prediction the reason that we're getting serious about moving out of Afghanistan and the reason that you the citizens are not getting a efficient answer about how that will continue to protect us in the future is that the United States can't say directly how good we are at drone warfare already and I'll bet it's really really really freakin good whatever
[13:32]
really really freakin good whatever you're seeing in the news about how good drones are fast-forward that five years because that's what the military can do now they just don't want you to know it so I think the I think drone warfare is here I think Afghanistan is about to become our drone and robot testing facility and we're going to get real good at it because we will be one of the few countries who's actually actively testing that and stuff in a war theater so watch for that
how hard would it be here's a hypothetical question for you to build an AI health system that you populate with all of your medical information including your lifestyle choices what you eat generally speaking what you eat how much you exercise even more information than your doctor has so imagine you were to populate your own
[14:32]
imagine you were to populate your own database with all of your healthcare stuff and let's say that you were happy that it was protected so that other people couldn't see it how hard would it be to build an AI system that could look at everybody's privately built database and then when you have a health problem you say oh my my knee is hurting or whatever it is and you put in your symptoms and then you can see what all the other people who had these similar symptoms did about it and what worked would that not be as good as a doctor fairly quickly because you could fairly quickly get to the point where it asks the right questions imagine if it just did this this is version 1.0 somebody's saying WebMD but I think but here's what WebMD doesn't do WebMD does not have my medical record so what I really wanted to do is not know that if I have this symptom it might be one of these three problems I
[15:32]
might be one of these three problems I want to say if I have this system and I'm taking these meds already for other things and on this age and on this even ethnicity because it might be a genetic component and I put in my 23andme database how about that right just link my length my genetic test to it and I took a full body MRI or not MRI MRI and so I can put so imagine I can collect data about me and my health and my lifestyle and all this and I can take stuff from my my devices my you know my personal devices that are checking my health all the time I can put that all in there and just say alright my knee hurts and have it just say okay if your knee hurts this is the order that you would check things right mind might be a different order from other people who say my knee hurts because if a fat guy says you know excuse me for using the vulgar term for overweight but if a fat
[16:35]
vulgar term for overweight but if a fat guy says but my knees hurt what's the first thing you say well in your situation try losing some weight if a skinny person says my knees hurt well maybe you start somewhere else as your the first thing to check so you have to compare what are the symptoms what are the likely things these symptoms associated with but then connect it to your own personal detailed situation and my guess is that you would be as accurate as a doctor that's my guess and then it would get there fairly quickly and that we already have all of that technology just isn't put together so that's just a question here was an interesting thing you all know that Andrew McCabe ex-fbi person who is no friend of President Trump is now working at CNN and you probably said to yourself that's such a strange choice are they just doing this to poke the president and how much value could he had and I
[17:36]
and how much value could he had and I got the answer to that and it turns out Andrew McCabe can add a lot of value you can hate him for whatever you want to hate but you just did a piece I just read on CNN's website this really good it's probably the best maybe it is the best probably the best piece on gun control options that I've seen that came from Andrew McCabe where are you expecting that now I'll just tell you it's on CNN's website but the two things he mentioned because he has deep involvement with the FBI he's been involved with I guess gun registration in his job he could answer in a more detailed level what's wrong with it here are two things he pointed out one is that the system is overloaded so people are getting through just because their application times out before I can be really be looked at so there are thousands of people getting guns every year who should not because
[18:36]
guns every year who should not because the the process for checking has a timer on it if it takes more than three days for the ones that are special cases they just get their gun so he's saying why don't we just add a few days you know because it's not the biggest thing in the world to add a few days to waiting for your special case yeah in other words there's something in your record that flagged this special case give them a little more time what if it takes a month is that the worst thing in the world takes a month to work it out so this seems like a perfectly reasonable suggestion which I had never heard before just give them a few extra days for the special cases most people would get it right away but they're only this small group who have something going on another one has to do with the definition of what an outstanding warrant is apparently there's some kind of law that says if you have an outstanding warrant you can't get a gun right away until you clear your warrant now apparently at some point that been
[19:38]
now apparently at some point that been modified to mean something specific about your special warrant and macabe points out why don't we just make it simpler and say if you still have an outstanding warrant you how to get that clear it's not it shouldn't be the government's problem to clear your warrant if you have a warrant for the rest you don't get a gun if you can clear it because it's illegitimate that's on you go clear it and then you can get your gun and I thought to myself now whether you love those suggestions or not and I think two people just line up on what they feel about guns those are the most common sense and well-informed suggestions that I've heard again if you're saying it's unconstitutional or whatever the Supreme Court you'll work that out but in terms of a practical you could do it tomorrow why doesn't the why isn't the country debating this these are the two best suggestions I've seen period so let me
[20:40]
suggestions I've seen period so let me say that whatever you want to say about Andrew McCabe he had in some sense of the conversation that I would consider valuable all right so that's good what else we got mark Sanford wants to primary president Trump and I listen to him talking about it I think he was on Fox News last night and oh man he has nothing mark Sanford has nothing I used just used the phrase I'm gonna mock when I say we should have a conversation about when every years the politicians say we need to have a conversation about X it means they don't have an opinion give us your opinion if you think you have an opinion we want to hear it if you say the country has to have a conversation shut up now when I said we had to have a when I said that Andrew
[21:41]
had to have a when I said that Andrew McCabe added to the conversation a better way to say that is he added information which is useful for making decisions so that's a real addition but Mark Sanford says yeah we have to have a conversation about debts okay what's he having nothing I don't need somebody to run for office to tell me to have conversations and then on every other topic he said the same thing we got to have a conversation about this we need to have a conversation about it nobody wants the conversation guy we want the one who says build the wall or give us the green New Deal you know those are opposites but you want somebody who's got an opinion you don't want the conversation guy all right so here's the funniest story of the day Russia's blaming Google of interfering with their elections how awesome is that Russia is blaming Google for interfering
[22:44]
Russia is blaming Google for interfering with Russia's elections specifically what Google is doing is through their YouTube part of their business there they're surfacing videos of protesters so that they're Russian citizens keep seeing videos of protests against Putin and Putin wants that to stop so and I didn't know this but I guess back in May Putin signed into law some measures to enable the creation of a national internet for Russia that could operate separately from the rest of the world that's right Russia has started to build its own internet that doesn't reach the rest of the world so that they can keep information you can get again sort of like China sort of like Iran sort of like North Korea here's here's a prediction that is both the easiest prediction in the world and and the most obvious no country can survive for the
[23:47]
obvious no country can survive for the long term with the private Internet and no access to the rest of the world does anybody disagree with that statement if you want to if you want to label yourself as a failed States you have to get yourself off of the world's internet and onto your own private one so that your citizens can't see anything it is a sign of desperation yeah in out where I live in the rest business if you see a restaurant they used to be open for lunch and dinner and then they start advertising that they're going to be open for breakfast that's a restaurant that's not going to be there in two years because the restaurant that was built for lunch and dinner it wouldn't try to offer a breakfast unless they were desperate because breakfast is sort of the the last thing you want to order last thing you want to have because it doubles your work and it's a low margin business etc so likewise if you see a restaurant adding breakfast to their lunch and
[24:48]
adding breakfast to their lunch and dinner you want to you want to expect them to be close pretty soon and if you see a country trying to close down its internet and keep the rest of the world off it it means they know they don't have a system that can last that's really admitting that their restaurant can't last all right so the problem with breakfast as a added to a restaurant is it increases your work load just tremendously so it's a tough thing to jam there so usually sign up desperation
so here's the thing technology will guarantee don't you think this is true the technology will guarantee that the countries that try to close their internet will fail wouldn't you say don't you think it's a hundred percent
[25:49]
don't you think it's a hundred percent chance that countries that are trying to penetrate the internet in other countries will be able to do it one way or another take for example cell phone I was thinking about this the other day I think this technology exists but maybe not all right so your phone has Wi-Fi on it right could you set up a system where where my phone's Wi-Fi talks to your phone next door and then that talks to the neighbours phone and if enough people are in enough places those phones can create an impromptu Network so that if at least one of those phones gets to the outside world could you to the outside world I don't know if that's possible but it seems to me that yes somebody's using the word mesh here in the comments could you create a mesh network of non-state controlled nodes so that you can get out no matter what the state is trying to do I think yes so I'm seeing a lot of people say yes in the
[26:49]
seeing a lot of people say yes in the comments I know a lot of you have technical training so I would guess that that somebody's saying that exists and I think I read about something like that I think I did read about that but I don't know if that's for very local stuff or what the limitations are so I would say the Russia has now signaled itself as a failed state I didn't know that meaning that they know they can't survive if information is freely available to their citizens think about that think about being a citizen of Russia and learning that your government knows it can't survive the government can't survive if you have information where that is unrestricted think about that can the United States survive unrestricted information barely barely I think we can but barely because look at how all the fake news is tearing the country apart that's what you get with unrestricted
[27:51]
that's what you get with unrestricted information unrestricted internet means that your news turns fake right your news turns fake like ours did so the problem with the United States is that our news is fake and we know it but we you know we think we are smart enough to sort out what's fake and what's not we're not we're terrible at it but in Russia they're gonna know it's not real and they're gonna feel they don't have any option they're gonna look at the news and say yeah I know it's not real but I don't know where else to look because they cut off my internet so I think everybody's gonna have to go to a full information in full fake news because it's going to be the only way to survive in this tough world so there's talk about a fake news so the story on CNN this morning about a report that says that when Trump first got in office and maybe who's around 2017 that that
[28:53]
and maybe who's around 2017 that that the US had to extract a spy not had to but wanted to extract the top spy from Russia because they were afraid that Trump would mishandle confidential information and give up the person's identity and he would be killed or captured and so they extracted the spy just in case it wasn't safe because Trump might give away too many secrets now do you believe that story I don't here's here's one test for fake news now it's not a test to see if something is true or false okay so this following test is not a true false test it's a credibility test it's only telling you if it's something you should consider true or false if it's not credible you don't even have to go to the question of whether it's true or false because the the source itself is like a it could be true could be false but we really don't know anything it's
[29:54]
but we really don't know anything it's not credible here's what's not credible a report about what our top-secret spy organization did or why they did it that's not credible it's not even supposed to be credible if it comes if it's a report from our top-secret spy organization you shouldn't believe that it's literally an organization of professional liars whose job it is to fool people including this country there's there's no prohibition against you know continuing to be persuasive in the way you want just because it's Americans I mean there are some limitations but none that would stop them from doing this sort of thing so what is the most beautiful fake news you could have the most beautiful fake news is one nobody can check you can't check to make sure it's true so a negative story about the president that's based on the claims you can't check from our
[30:54]
on the claims you can't check from our most secret or nation perfect that is perfect fake news can't check it's believable by the people who want to believe that sort of thing but you can't check it's great all right that is all I have for today because I do have to get ready and go read my loser thing book for hours if you're watching the bill pulled a saga on Twitter as many people have decided that there's something wrong with giving money way okay but it's been a real clinic on people's mentality it's been a real clinic on what I call loser think loser thank you meaning unproductive ways of thinking that doesn't mean you're stupid or uninformed necessarily just means that you're you have an unproductive way of thinking about life the most unproductive way of thinking about life is complaining about people giving away
[31:57]
is complaining about people giving away their money in a way that's not exactly the way other people do it or the way you think you should be done now you could be right about everything you're saying you could be right that there's a better way to do it that could be true but if that's what you're complaining about if that's why you're complaining about that's just not you're just now part of the productive part of the world because what Bill Polti is doing and what I'm helping him do and lots of others are helping is we're experimenting to see what it is that would get people to give more than they were giving before so it might be true that other people are doing it better but how will we know until we experiment so I'm trying an experiment right now in which I I'm trying to multiply the benefit of the gift and the the technique that I'm using right now is I'm using the the charitable gift to inform people of something that would be really useful in general so I'm giving away a gift I'll
[33:01]
general so I'm giving away a gift I'll probably announce it today or tomorrow to a thousand dollars to buy school supplies to a teacher who teaches the talent stack concept now they tell us that concept comes from my book had it failed almost everything and still win big but here's the thing a perfect alternative philanthropic system from the one that the ones we know about would allow the people who give to get a benefit because that's incentive right you want the people were giving to get something to if you take that part out you're gonna get less giving you'll still get plenty of giving billionaires will still give money privately but it would be nice to give those billionaires credit because that's good for them it would be nice to thank people it would be nice to acknowledge them giving you want to create an incentive system some kind of incentive system usually is psychological it could be financial but
[34:01]
psychological it could be financial but financial + psychological so the people will give more money that's a good thing as long as you're just closing exactly what you're doing so would it be good for me to make more attention to a concept that came n in my book there's for sale you know as a book of course it would it would be good for me and more people knew that I have a book that would be helpful to them and they might buy it right so is it wrong to suggest the model forgiving in which a teacher who is worthy it's a thousand dollars and in the process I'm telling people about a book that if they are aware of this talent stack concept could be tremendously helpful tremendously awful to a lot of kids and as they learn if they could teach others and it's so it could spread so the idea is that the kids are tremendously benefited by simply hearing of this talent stack idea by putting it on Twitter you can see in the comments a lot of people said what's the talent stack I'm a teacher I had to
[35:02]
the talent stack I'm a teacher I had to Google talent stack so I've exposed I don't know maybe tens of thousands of people through one tweet to at least the words talent stack to make them think well what's that why would you give money away for something why would a teacher be teaching you what's the benefit of it so that's the whole point the whole point is that is growing the knowledge of that I think there's nearly a hundred percent agreement that it's good and should be talked to kids if it were controversial then I don't think this would make as much sense that's get rid of the Nazi but since Tallinn stacks are not controversial there's nobody on the other side of the argument nobody says it's a bad idea everybody says this is a good idea period everybody every teacher every every adult who hears it says that's a good idea so am i a bad person because I've suggested a model that's good for a teacher good for the students very good
[36:04]
teacher good for the students very good for anybody who hears about it didn't know about it but also good for me because as an author maybe I'll sell some books am I am i a bad person having fully disclosed that likewise one of the controversies is that bill Polti is using the cash app which is associated with Jack Dorsey and Twitter well here's the thing Jack Dorsey and Bill Polti are already working together on a major philanthropic project to remove blight from st. Louis maybe you saw the story is the national story why wouldn't Bill Polti use a product associated with Jack he has a choice of lots of ways to give the money away why would he not use something that works fine and is associated with Jack because Jack's working with a month philanthropy why wouldn't he do that not doing it would be stupid that's it that's a that's the beginning and the end of the story why wouldn't he do that of course
[37:06]
story why wouldn't he do that of course he would likewise if bill Polti had an app I'd use it you wouldn't have to pay me to use it I'd use it because I'm working with Bill of course I'm gonna use his app if your neighbor owns a business are you more likely to shop there of course if you've got a friend who owns a you know a company are you more likely to be a customer of course that's how the world works so stop complaining about the wrong things anyway it all announced the winner of that today tomorrow and that will be fun and oh let me ask you this would you like me to have Jack Dorsey on as a guest - one of my periscopes would you like to do that let's say in your comments because I've already asked and he already said yes so I don't know scheduling might be difficult you know obviously he's a busy guy he might be the busiest guy in the world I I don't I have no idea how Jack
[38:08]
world I I don't I have no idea how Jack Dorsey survives his schedule with the number of things he has to do but I have asked him he did say yes and he asked me to wait a while cause he has some traveling going on so I'll ask him to come on we'll ask him all the tough questions I'll tell you my starting points here's my starting point it'll give you a little background a year out of a couple years ago or whatever it was when people were first concerned about Twitter shadow banding and I was complaining about it on Twitter Jack contacted me and offered that one of his executives in charge of enough things that she would be in the right the right person to do it said we don't know what the shadow banding is all about could we get more information about what did you see and could you work with this executive who was the right person to talking and so I did so I worked with Jack's executive and I said all right here's what we're seeing this is what people are reporting this person said they followed me and got
[39:09]
person said they followed me and got unfollowed this person liked something and got unliked and I and I was feeding her the data and she was looking into them one at a time now there does seem to be some kind of mixture of two things happening at least one thing that's happening is there are legitimate I believe legitimate technical hiccups legitimate confirmation bias legitimate false memories etc so there is some amount of what people say is shadow banning that I would be willing to bet my life you know like Gunda had I would easily bet my life on the following statement some of its not real I don't know how much but some of it is clearly imagination plus technical glitches you know that are normal for example one of the things people pointed out is you might like something on your phone your mobile device but the mobile device needs to still send it up to the
[40:10]
device needs to still send it up to the database in the sky at Twitter twitter has to acknowledge it and get it back to your phone for it to be a completed transaction well if you like something and then there's a glitch with your communication it's possible that that handshake doesn't happen you thought you liked something the transaction didn't go through it doesn't give you an error message it just didn't happen so I don't know if that's an actual example but it's the sort of thing people talk about when they say that some of it is imagination because there's just ordinary technical back-and-forth that's happening but there is another category in addition to the ones that absolutely are definitely imaginary I'll call that the unexplained category and because it's literally unexplained in that category how do you explain my brother following me on Twitter and only following one person that's it the only reason he had Twitter to follow one person and he's very
[41:11]
to follow one person and he's very careful and one day he was unsubscribed my brother after following me for months and months so that's not a scenario where the technical glitch you know failed to make a handshake now somebody who was a follower for months and months and months and I don't have to wonder if he hit the wrong button right he didn't hit the wrong button there was no point at which he went to change the only thing he had Twitter for which is to follow me right so and then of course hundreds and hundreds hundreds of reports from other people saying similar things so that falls into the category of unexplained here's my I will give you my theory hypothesis here's my hypothesis my hypothesis is that the social media companies it would be impossible for the leadership to know what the algorithms are doing because it's too complicated when we talk about
[42:12]
it's too complicated when we talk about the algorithm we're not talking about in an equation this is long and you can look at the variable Z and you say oh very variable X if I tweak that a little bit it's obvious what that will do at the end nothing like that it's so impossibly complicated with probably lots of people handling their little input not exactly knowing how that goes through the whole system I'll bet you that there is literally no one literally zero people who understand the algorithm at Twitter completely and I'll bet there are literally zero people who understand it at the other social media platforms just based on complexity and based on if you have enough complexity you end up distributing jobs across different specialties and if you have a bunch of specialists maybe nobody really knows what's going on so why am i crying over this now has been happening for years to the right well idea I'm gonna get rid of you just for being dumb so here's the
[43:19]
you just for being dumb so here's the thing I'm pretty sure that there's something like shadow band happening and that there's some bias happening at the algorithm level that is you know maybe targeting targeting one side more than the other but I doubt that there's anybody who knows the full extent of it or why or what variables exactly are getting tweaked or what keywords there might actually be nobody or there could be one person you could have a rogue programmer whose job it is to make little decisions about this or that and they know that if they choose this over that they're probably going to get a different results and there may not be anybody whose job it is to look at all the variables they control and say okay Bob what'd you do with this variable okay okay what'd you do with this one do we know that's fair it's probably nobody who has
[44:21]
that's fair it's probably nobody who has that job I'll bet so here's my take I believe that the social media CEOs could not could not possibly understand their own algorithms because there's nobody on the staff of understand sir nor is Raymond and staff who could understand them they're too complicated but there are definitely individuals making individual decisions and I don't know that they could be managed at the level that you need to manage them if it were your objective to get rid of to get rid of bias so that's the way I would approach the the question and I don't think you see anybody approach it that way because here's one of the things that I've explained in my book lose your thing I talked about how if you have exposure to different fields you have more vision about situations I've been a programmer I've worked with technical
[45:21]
programmer I've worked with technical people for years so when I talk about the algorithm I know how complicated it has to be without actually being directly involved I think everybody who has technical experience is agreeing with me right now right you don't have to be directly involved if you have any technical experience at all to understand that these algorithms are amazingly complicated and then it's unlikely anybody understands them completely somebody says they do not agree I'm surprised but most people are saying they agree so it helps to have a variety of experience from business to persuasion to even technical experience - you saw my experience on negotiating helped understand the Taliban situation dead center so that's what losers think it's about it's about teaching you the the quick basic skills from a number of fields so that you can look at things with more eyes and I think you're gonna
[46:22]
with more eyes and I think you're gonna like it that's all for now and I will talk to you later bye