Episode 660 Scott Adams: The Most Excellent Coffee With Scott Adams Since Yesterday. Join Me!

Date: 2019-09-12 | Duration: 54:01

Topics

Alyssa Milano owns two guns…and she’s pro 2A? China targets Republican areas for trade negotiation That’s election interference…right? SCOTUS upholds ban on country-hopping asylum seekers Ban on flavored vape products Secretary Azar is becoming a Trump admin super-star Critics of Trump admin’s foreign policy (Iran and NK) Criticism WITHOUT offering an alternative plan? Whiteboard: Nuclear Risk versus Climate Risk Nuclear RISK is approaching zero with Gen 3 and Gen 4 The poor will benefit MOST from nuclear power FAKE NEWS: 15 Billion to Iran considered by Trump admin FAKE NEWS: Kremlin spy saved from Trump admin FAKE NEWS: Israel planting spy device close to White House Kanye tore down his low-income housing experimental designs State or Feds should set framework to allow testing Update: “Fine People” HOAX debunking link problem resolved It was confirmation bias and a certificate issue

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

## Transcript

[0:06]

buh-buh-buh-buh-buh hey everybody come on in I'm just making an O here take a seat and we'll get going in a moment I want to make sure I don't forget this fake news that I want to mention there's a lot of fake news today most of it's fake news there's more fake news than real news today I'm not sure that's different but here we are well I know why you're here yes I do I'm on time that's correct finally punctual so I spent three days in the recording studio laying down the audio for my book loser think that comes out November 5th those are three very long days because my voice kind of fails toward the end of the recording I've got to take lots of breaks and there's a lot of burping and that's just a long day but let's start this day off right let's get the dopamine pumpin are you ready

[1:07]

get the dopamine pumpin are you ready all you need is a cover of our glasses sighing the chalice a tankard a thermos a flask a canteen a vessel of any kind fill it with your favorite liquid I like coffee join me now for the simultaneous if the dopamine hit that gets your day going the best part of your day until the rest of it go well there's a whole bunch of interesting things today so let me just run through them is it my imagination or is somebody's asking about the burping when you're when you're doing an audiobook and you're doing a lot of reading out loud you end up swallowing a lot of air so it's actually literally part of the process that every half-hour so you have to step away from the mic and just like burp like crazy apparently it rarely happens to everybody so that's a little thing you didn't need to know is it my imagination

[2:08]

didn't need to know is it my imagination or is Elizabeth Warren
could she not have won the presidency by simply being a 10% better Hillary because if you look at her she's sort of like a a slightly improved Hillary little little thinner a little more fit you know she looks warren looks like she's really healthy which is a really good thing she seems she doesn't have the baggage you know she doesn't have the Clinton Foundation she was never married to Bill Clinton she was a senator it seems to me that Warren had a pretty good path to the White House simply by being 10% better than Hillary was because Hillary came that close but she screwed the pooch with her her policies but so by going it by going so extreme and her policies I don't know that she can

[3:09]

policies I don't know that she can recover it because there's not enough room to go back to the middle so I feel as though she had you know the best chance anybody would have ever had a beating Trump by just being the slightly improved Hillary and she took a Bernie Sanders path and tried to be a slightly worse Bernie you know it was ready point she was she was deciding under strategy and said look I can be a better Hillary who won the popular vote and came this close to winning yeah or I could be a worse birdie so I think she took the wrong strategy there all right Alyssa Milano had an interesting tweet today you know she met with Ted Cruz to talk about guns you know that she's in favor of gun control but here's what you didn't know they own two guns so Alyssa Milano and her husband I guess they have

[4:10]

Milano and her husband I guess they have two guns in the house legal and there are pro Second Amendment did you see that coming so uh once again I'm going to give props to Alyssa Milano I know you don't agree with her she's she's a she offends you in her other opinions and stuff but every now and then you have to just stop and appreciate things that are good you know just effective that they work they're sincere they're well-meaning even if it's not exactly what you would have done even if you have a different preference sometimes it's worth stopping so here's what I'm gonna give her props for she has inserted herself into the conversation about guns and in in a very effective way as evidenced by her meeting with Ted Cruz of it as evidenced by her social media as evidenced by the fact that I'm talking about her so that's number one number one step of

[5:10]

that's number one number one step of persuasion and effectiveness get people's attention a plus man does she got people's attention right so on that dimension a plus you can't beat that that's that's a a sea level that's trump level that's good stuff can't take that away from her next I believe she is sincere I believe she has no profit motive I mean that would be ridiculous I believe that she wants to help the country a plus right you can't agree with your fellow citizen on everything but you can certainly hope that they have the best interests of the country in mind that seems to be the case her opinion of how to get to the best place might differ from yours but is there any question that she has your best interests in mind your best interests like actually your best interest in addition to her own and addition to the country I think so now of course everybody's got a different risk profile and preference about guns so some people would not get

[6:12]

about guns so some people would not get what they wanted if she did get what she wanted but that's how the whole world works you can't hold that against
and then thirdly she's doing this pacing and leaving as as was pointed out on Twitter by by stating that she's pro-second amendment and then she has two guns the first thing is it's really it's an interesting surprise and surprises are very powerful for persuasion in other words you you had this impression of her and then she she throws this in there we have two guns and we're pro Second Amendment you're like what look I didn't see that coming and it's it's called pacing in you know in the world of persuasion she's matching at least as much as she can it's not a full match but she's matching the people she's trying to persuade say yeah I'm basically on your side and she adds in her tweet that ninety

[7:14]

and she adds in her tweet that ninety percent of the country is in the favor of some whatever they would call a common-sense gun restrictions so she's saying basically I'm exactly where you are and she's not too far off I mean she would differ on the you know the a arse and stuff but it's a good play so yeah and then she's you know got the respect of Ted Cruz and gaining people's respect and creating a conversation becoming well-known for the thing having passion and having it's it's great I could not be happier about Alyssa Milano and Ed Cruz so everything I just said about Alyssa Milano just say well also Ted Cruz but here's the thing Ted Cruz is a frickin senator right it's a little bit easier for him to you know get attention and you know have his impact be felt Alyssa Milano is coming into a game that she doesn't play politics and and she's

[8:15]

she doesn't play politics and and she's hitting home runs on a in the sport she doesn't even play so give it up her we'll see what happens talk about China
so Twitter user jumbo shrimp jumbo shrimp tweeted this interesting question and until you hear this question you you're gonna say why aren't we talking about it like this why is this the first time somebody asked this question and here's the question China we know to target Republican areas of the country with their tariffs so that it would put more pressure on President Trump because he needs to win reelection and it would be bad if the parts of the country that were the the swing states were mad at him because of Chinese tariffs and jumbo shrimp asks quite reasonably why isn't that election interference right it wouldn't you say

[9:18]

interference right it wouldn't you say that China targeting specific areas of the country industries really but those industries are concentrated in different places if they're doing it to affect the election its election interference and that's war am I wrong that's war if you interfere let me say it as clearly as possible if another country interferes with their election in a meaningful way that's war now that doesn't mean we shoe bombs at them and you know shoot missiles at them but it is an act of war now I don't know if we're doing anything similar to China so maybe it's a you know in some ways it might be a tit for tat but why are we not at least talking about it and those those terms somebody says yes you are wrong USA interferes all over the place I accept that we do but we don't say to Russia Oh Russia it's okay that you interfered

[10:19]

Oh Russia it's okay that you interfered in our elections because we do it too I mean everybody does it now I do agree that we do it too and I do agree everybody doesn't you know even to allies etc but that doesn't give you a free pass if you catch someone else do it you still have to deal with it right I guess the Pentagon is a settling list of Army linked businesses China has links to to make sure that their technology and our technology doesn't you know doesn't get connected because they can steal secrets I guess now I don't know the whole details but it's it's meaningful that we're putting pressure on the technology part of China the technology transfer and stealing part and it made me wonder are we gonna get to the point where all the major powers just have to create their own technology will we get to the point

[11:19]

technology will we get to the point where it will be too dangerous even to have communication links between American technology and let's say Chinese technology you know same for other countries but let's just use China as the example could we be safe all the time knowing that their technology even had a communication length to our technology layout much danger with that baby I'm wondering if we're heading to a point where China can't use American chips and we can't use anything that comes out of China because we wouldn't always know if we could secure it we might be heading toward that here's a suggestion you've noticed that there are countries in the world who have free and open Internet and they can look at anything and then there are some totalitarian countries that are limiting what their people can see in their country on the internet so you've got Iran North Korea China I don't know how

[12:21]

Iran North Korea China I don't know how many others Russia I think Russia is trying to build their own internal internet - and here's what I would say about those I think they need a name I think they need a label because labeling is powerful when you label something that before you labeled it with something was simply a concept you don't get much persuasion power from sort of a concept you need to put a label on it and then people think of it based on the label and then the label gives it power watch me do this right now okay so that the concept is that some countries are limiting their Internet and others are not and here's the label I'll label the countries that are limiting access to their internal internets or limiting their citizens on the internet I would call them failing digital states failing digital states and the thinking behind that is that any country that is trying to limit their

[13:22]

country that is trying to limit their own citizens from the internet will fail 100% of the time because that means that their their system think about this if you're limiting the internet it means that your system of government can't handle information the information alone would bring it down if your country is so dependent on lies to stay in power and you you're so dependent you actually have to control the information coming into your country I think you'd have to be called a failing digital state and I mean that literally because if you if you try to control your digital information the citizens are gonna find out and they're gonna find out it's impossible that they wouldn't find out so the citizens will find out what's going on and it's not going to be pretty eventually so I would say the failing digital states should be labeled as such

[14:23]

digital states should be labeled as such and let them fail because rather than trying to you know Rao beat you know I ran into opening up the Internet let's just say it's a failing digital state it's up to them what to do about it but we're just labeling it we're not telling you you need to change it's not our business it's not our country but you're a failing digital state and there's no way that you're going to survive it alone here's something interesting the Supreme Court I guess held up trump administration rule or or is it a policy or a rule or law hauteur know exactly what it is but the Supreme Court agreed that asylum seekers from countries that are not on our border can be can be banned from entry or ban from getting Asylum because they went through another country first so the idea is that they have to apply for asylum in the first country that can get to because otherwise it's not Asylum

[15:26]

get to because otherwise it's not Asylum you know Asylum is the only thing I need is to get out of my country so if you get into Mexico and you get out of your country you're done if you want to also get into the United States well that's more of an economic decision that's no longer Asylum so that was I guess essentially what the administration was arguing and I guess the Supreme Court upheld it I think there might be some more fighting on that in the lower courts or whatever but the but here's my main point there are several sort of slow-motion improvements happening with border security have you noticed so the first slow-motion change is that you don't see anymore caravans now I don't know if that has to do with whether do you might be a weather thing just to warm the other so we don't see the caravans so that looks like momentum has slowed even if it's just because of summer we also know that Mexico's National Guard is getting aggressive and

[16:28]

National Guard is getting aggressive and guarding their southern border which is cutting off the flow and maybe that's why there are no caravans but that's you know a major major effect and the number of people getting apprehended is way down because fewer people are getting through and then you've got this asylum seeker thing but that there's a fourth thing which is why are we not hearing more stories about families being ripped to parts so I don't know the answer to the question it could be that we just got bored with a story maybe but it seems to me far more likely that the Trump administration you know knew it had this bad stain on its reputation the separating your kids from parents and stuff and that they've sort of continuously pushed resources in that direction while everybody's complaining but things don't happen quickly so we may be reaching the point where the administration is finally you know being effective in

[17:29]

is finally you know being effective in in creating better conditions partly because fewer people are coming over maybe partly because more judges are processing thing but maybe partly because we're getting you know you're just more product in there more places to say but the fact that we're not hearing about it suggests to me that every trend on the border is positive I need a fact check on that so it's really sort of the dog not barking I'm not sure that I can be confident what I'm saying is accurate but it feels to me that the Trump administration has finally wrestled this thing you know one component at a time just sort of pushing the whole time to the point where this sort of fell below yeah also the wall is being built right I forgot to mention that so the you know construction on the wall was likely to be built there'll be more legal battles about the blah blah blah taking the money from the military but it looks like I don't know am I

[18:32]

but it looks like I don't know am I being am I being too much of a team player and am I being too pro Trump to say that as far as I can tell every single part of the border security issue is going his way right now is that not true he's getting this wall looks like he's probably taking care of the family separation thing he's got the assailant thing going on and he's got Mexico guarding his own border and the numbers are way down yeah and plus he's pushing China on Fenton all
it feels to me like the Trump administration is winning on every dimension on immigration and he's got another year of winning or so before the election so that looks good that's the sort of story you won't see in the news because it's it's sort of a laundry list of things that aren't too exciting on their own you have to see them all together to say oh all together there's

[19:34]

together to say oh all together there's sort of story here it looks like he's winning on everything just none of it is as fast as you wanted it to be apparently the administration is going to ban flavored cigarettes and they're going to make the tobacco flavored ones go through the FDA but in the meantime I think the tobacco ones can stay on the market won't the FBI FDA is looking at it and as far as I can tell this is pretty popular because it's you know gets kids off them and they're in the news and I I'm a hundred percent in favor of this a hundred percent I think flavored cigarettes should be banned at the same time you know I'm generally don't want any more laws that we need you die yeah I just think we should be free to do what we want etc but the Israeli are targeted that kids let's let's not kid ourselves these are products for children and they

[20:35]

are products for children and they should be banned so good job is it my imagination or is a czar what is a czar is he Health and Human Services which cabinet position is a czar I want to give him a call out to every time you see something with a czars name on it secretary a czar it's something good and it's something smart and it's a policy you haven't seen before in some cases and you go a lot smart so he's doing all kinds of stuff like speeding up access to generics approvals of generics so a czar is sort of turning into a superstar in the administration so you know you sort of a sleeper because he's doing he's doing the unfund stuff you know that the bureaucratic improvements that are not sexy but it looks like he's killing it health and human services yeah so shout-out to secretary these are for a killin good job there have you

[21:39]

for a killin good job there have you noticed that the people who were opposed to Trump's Trump strategy if you could call that on Iran and North Korea and in fact check me on this I'm not sure that this next thing is true but it feels like it's true is there anybody who has a different strategy that they're putting forward who is also criticizing Trump's strategy with either Iran or North Korea are you aware of any because you do hear people say blah blah the president will be impulsive or blah blah the president will you know make a bad deal or blah blah that the nukes have not gone away blub in North Korea blah blah Iran may be starting up his you know pushing towards going nuclear again blah blah but in all those complaints those are mostly factual complaints right it's it's a fact that North Korea is testing some missiles

[22:40]

North Korea is testing some missiles it's a fact that they haven't given up their nukes etc but I don't know anybody who's saying okay president Trump instead of what you're doing you should do this other thing is there any alternative I mean I haven't seen one have you because nobody's saying we should start you know ignoring those countries or attacking them or what the hell is the other thing you're supposed to do I think everybody wants economic pressure on everybody wants us to talk to them everybody wants their nukes to go away I feel as though on some of the biggest issues of the world you know Iran and North Korea that Trump doesn't have opposition am I wrong about that and how about the economy you know the the socialist candidates for president the ones who are more about the universal health care and paying for college and stuff they have different

[23:40]

college and stuff they have different economic ideas than president Trump but does anybody think those economic ideas will be good for the economy in general I don't even think they're warned and and Sanders are saying that the economic policies they favor would make the GDP go up right is there anybody on the Democrat side who is making an argument that they would improve the GDP I don't think so right because it looks like Trump is doing that better than maybe anybody could do it now you could argue you don't like the way he's doing it you could say he's relaxed the regulation was too much I don't know if that's true there's no good reporting than that I would guess that he's relaxed regulations that were marginal or obviously bad ideas maybe there are a lot of those I don't know I'm worried about it just like you are I do not feel safe that a bureaucracy anybody actually doesn't matter

[24:41]

anybody actually doesn't matter Republican Democrat I do not feel safe that my government is good at making regulations about the environment and I'm not sure they're good at removing them either so I'm not comfortable with that situation but it has to do with a lack of reporting that I would trust I guess so seems to be on national defense and the economy there isn't really even another plan out there that looks like it would boost GDP and make us safer from Iran and North Korea he's actually not running he's running unopposed on the biggest issues well here's another big issue nuclear so nuclear power I've told you that I'm trying to be helpful in one minor way on the question of climate change and nuclear energy which is to help people understand the nuclear energy potential and I came up with a new visual for that here it is here's a

[25:44]

new visual for that here it is here's a graph that shows the risk of nuclear energy versus climate risk now this assumes that climate risk is real so if you don't think climate risk is real you can talk among yourselves it doesn't actually matter if it's real from the point I'm going to make the point is that if you look at risks over time the risk of climate being a catastrophe according to scientists you don't have to agree I'm just I'm just graphing what the scientists would say that the climate risk is rising it could be rising quite quickly at the same time this is the part people don't understand that because of newer technologies and smarter people etc the risk of a nuclear power plant if you were to build a new one today so we're not talking about the risk of existing plants we're talking about if you were to build one today generation 3 or newer technology you would be your nuclear risk is just dropping to vanishingly

[26:44]

risk is just dropping to vanishingly small because we know how to do this stuff now and we're getting better at it so I would argue that we've reached the point where the climate risk has exceeded the nuclear power risk so if you believed scientists on both of those and remember I'm not saying I'm not going to try to convince you that climate change is a big risk or small risks because I don't how would I know I mean literally how would I know I'm not a scientist and I don't even believe the scientists know it because I think all the scientists work in their their little areas and they don't really have visibility over the entire field so I have trouble even trusting the scientists but I don't discount that there could be a gigantic climate risk and they humans are you know a big pusher of it I don't discount it I just don't know however since nuclear power would be the solution whether or not climate risk is a big problem because you'd want to do it for pollution

[27:45]

you'd want to do it for pollution reasons you'd want to do it for cost reasons here's another framing let me let me toss out another nuclear energy framing nuclear power is for the poor think about it nuclear power is for the benefit of the poor that's literally true because if you if you put nuclear energy where they only had other sources you're very likely going to lower the cost of energy so substantially that poor people would effectively get a major raise because they wouldn't be paying as much for their power rich people would also get a benefit but it's not going to feel the same you know if if my if my power you know as speaking as a number of the the wealthier class if my energy costs went down at my house well I'd notice it it'd be pretty big number but it wouldn't change my life in any possible way but if I were a

[28:45]

any possible way but if I were a low-income person and a nuclear power plant came into my state and my energy costs dropped by half or whatever it is that would be real money I mean that's the difference between you know being able to sign up for a class have day care I mean could be a big big big number so that's enough on that point so let's talk about all the fake news do you remember yesterday those of you who were here I told you that you would be hearing it from me first and let's see how I did so I said I'll be the first one to tell you that I think that bolton's departure from the White House is related to wanting to make a deal with North Korea and I said it makes sense for them to leave now instead of when we get closer to actually negotiating the next round with North Korea which they're planning because because North Korea clearly is not going to agree to any kind of security guarantee from the United States well

[29:48]

guarantee from the United States well Bolton is a major member of the administration it just those are impossible you know I wouldn't even ask North Korea to sign a deal saying we're going to guarantee their security while John Bolton still has a job in the administration I mean even I wouldn't recommend they sign that deal because that would just be a stupid deal you know they should at least in the go she ain't better than that right even my enemies I want to negotiate better than that because you want to deal that's credible there's no point going through all the work to sign the deal that both sides don't think is solid so in my opinion I think Bolton was I think he was an asset in the sense that he represented yea a point of view that's always good to hear and he was very experienced and connected and stuff so I think he probably was an asset while he lasted because the situation changed and the president's you know maybe thinks he can he can reach a deal now he had to go and

[30:50]

he can reach a deal now he had to go and I told you that it would be related to North Korea you've already seen maybe some by now you've seen some other reporting that says the same thing so there's some insider reports and I think actually the president said it directly yeah the president said it directly that Kim jong-un was no fan of Bolton so I'm gonna call first first pundit to make that connection correctly so there's a story that in the news that President Trump reportedly and allegedly was considering allegedly reportedly considering possibly noodling at least flirting with the idea of extending a 15 billion dollar credit to Iran in return for some kind of good negotiated deal now what are the frickin odds that that's real news the odds of that being real news a freakin zero come

[31:53]

that being real news a freakin zero come on
on the fake news just stop trying please fake news try harder to fool us that one you know I saw the article and it was from some so-called reputable organization I didn't have to read the article did you if you saw the headline you probably did and you know Trump considering giving 15 billion dollar line of credit to Iran did you even need to read the article that is the fakest of news I've ever seen but we're not done with the fake news you know that story about the the alleged American spy in the Kremlin who had to be exfiltrated you know had to be removed because they were worried that the president would blow his cover what about that story that sound true to you that doesn't even sound slightly true not even a little bit and what happened to that story did that story just sort

[32:53]

to that story did that story just sort of died out because remember Pompeo said it is factually inaccurate didn't happen and then how could you get you know how can the reporters even find out more about it was such a top-secret thing yeah I just sort of somebody says Peter down that's exactly what it did it petered out because I don't think it was a true story here's another one headline today Israel that Israel Israel reportedly put a spy device behind the the White House I don't know how far behind the White House I'm not sure how far how close you can get your spy device to the White House but it would pick up cell phone calls within the White House I guess now the first thing I ask myself is why is everybody making like public cell phone calls from the White House on official business we've got to do a better job of protecting cell phone calls you know from spies

[33:55]

cell phone calls you know from spies maybe it's hard our our there's no such thing as encrypted cell phones I don't know is that a thing well here's my take on that so of course Israel has as they would of course they've denied that they would ever spy in the United States or the White House you and I know the Allies do spy on each other we know that no matter how close your relationship is with your allies we're probably spying on them they're probably spying on us yeah but it's not necessarily malicious spying in other words it's probably the strategic kind like you need a heads-up you know they're your buddies we're allies but it nice to have a heads up where where your heads are so I tried to assign an odds to Israel actually be the ones who planted that device and I'm going to give it a 50/50 the

[34:55]

give it a 50/50 the 50% odds that they did is simply because well it's what allies do to each other and then when they get caught they deny it
it so it wouldn't be surprising in any fundamental way if any of our ally is whether it's Great Britain or yeah just doesn't matter know what his Israel great bread in Japan if we found that you know a bug somewhere in a government office somebody says don't trust Scott Adams he's a wolf in sheep's clothing and gross well you won't have to worry about me because you're blocked so so it wouldn't be surprising if it were Israel but here's the argument against it being Israel wouldn't it be a better play for one of Israel's opponents to put that device there and get co-opted so here's the first question do you think Israel would put a spying device anywhere near the White House they had much of a

[35:57]

the White House they had much of a chance of getting caught I feel like they're better than that don't you I mean humans make mistakes and even super spies make mistakes and maybe we have cool technology they don't know about where we can detect their device maybe it was just a random coincidence where somebody opened the door and found something that wasn't supposed to be there maybe but I feel as though Israel either would have known they could get away with it or they wouldn't have put that damn thing there in the first place yeah hypothetically if it were them but imagine if you were an enemy of Israel imagine you were iran or anybody else who's anti-israel do you think you could frame them by finding whatever technology Israel is known to use for this sort of thing and just put Israel tech near the White House and make sure somebody finds it I don't know but I give I'll give that one a 50/50

[36:58]

but I give I'll give that one a 50/50 could go either way I don't think it's important either way the debates are tonight the Democrats will be debating I may or may not be live-tweeting don't know I might if it's interesting so I think this is the beginning of the process where we're gonna find out first of all who the top three are and I think there's a pretty good chance that you're going to see at least one of the top three decompose tonight there's probably one of them who's not going to do well I'd guess Biden so what happens if Biden takes a dump who do where do Biden's votes go to well if they go to somebody they think is the next best chance of winning who is also not hardcore socialist like Sanders and Warren I think it goes to Harris because she's a fourth in line

[38:01]

Harris because she's a fourth in line she has some chance of winning she's at least not quite as crazy as the full socialist yeah she looks like she could be a little flexible in there so I wouldn't be surprised if you see Harris's numbers go up and Biden's go down after this all Harris has to do is show up and and be capable she just has to show up and not not make a big gaffe I don't think she necessarily has to kill it I think she has to be credible and presidential and she'll take from Biden because Biden's gonna be under attack and he's gonna gaffe and he's gonna stroke out I mean not literally well maybe literally you know no I had one other topic and it says throughout human history there have been allies and and enemies among countries I feel as

[39:02]

and enemies among countries I feel as though we're entering an age where the only rational thing to do is get as many allies as you can on your side because the the age of wars working is kind of over you know at least Wars among the major powers the smaller countries are still gonna have their civil wars and their you know the smaller border issues but wars among major powers and here I would say major would be you know Iran North Korea us you know at least somebody's got a serious military I think those days are largely over and the Iraq and Afghanistan situation are a big part of that because it's obvious that you just can't win a war anymore wars are no longer winnable because there's always somebody who's gonna arm the rebels and they're gonna arm them with such good weapons that you just can't hold hold the country you know that the rebels will be able to blow up your pipelines your railroads they'll be able to put ideas in your streets so I

[40:02]

able to put ideas in your streets so I think the days of conquering a country that doesn't want to get conquered may be over and so we should be smarter than that it feels like somebody says wrong look at history I haven't looking at history that's the point well so somebody's saying we didn't learn from Vietnam so therefore maybe we won't learn from Afghanistan and therefore we won't learn from Iraq and then we didn't learn anything from Syria and I guess
that's the slippery slope argument well not really this more like we'll never learn argument and I don't think that's the case I think the the better way to see it is that eventually you do learn if you try something and you just slapped on the wrist the first time you might say to yourself well I'll try that one more time but if you get slapped enough you do change your tactics and I think what's different is we understand now that we can't win when we fought in

[41:05]

now that we can't win when we fought in Vietnam we didn't know we couldn't win when we fought in Iraq we didn't know we couldn't win when we fought in Afghanistan we didn't know we couldn't win at least in terms of getting everything we want and pacify in the country etc we certainly won militarily against the worst people somebody was saying winning is not the point yeah in those cases there may be you know other objectives because of what WMD or some something but it's obvious that it's bad for the attacking country and that's different so I think that here's where I'm going with this I think the countries that are enemies now Iran North Korea you know you could argue Russia China is a special case I feel as though we should be trying to turn them into allies as opposed to simply turning them into not enemies I think is is shooting low to say hey let's just not be a war with Iran that

[42:06]

let's just not be a war with Iran that feels like not even close to where we could get and where we should be aiming you know we should be aiming for full allied situation now you might say to yourself Scott there's no way to be a full li with the you know the Iranian regime they want to conquer the world etc well then you put a timeline on it you say okay it looks impossible today but let's say in 20 years we would like to figure out a way to be full allies with an Iranian regime that wants to be full allies with us same with North Korea we don't have to say we'll do it tomorrow but I think it helps I feel like it helps to say no we're not just trying to be not at war with you that just feels like loser think because that's not what you want right what you want is to be allies what you want is to make money what you want is to open their markets what you want is everybody

[43:07]

their markets what you want is everybody does better so nobody's thinking about nuclear anybody that's what you want so why shoot low and just say we don't want to be a war go right at it say look I'm gonna spend more and more time explaining to you what it looks like when we're a piece and we're friends you're gonna start a liking it yeah and that's where we're trying to get if you fight us we're gonna fight you if you attack us we're gonna attack you you're not gonna like it but where we'd like to get is a good place I think and I'm not being unrealistic in the sense of imagining that he that would be easy or even more than 1% likely to get where we need I'm talking about a mental mindset of how to approach it you should you should be asking for far more than you think you can get as somebody says history repeats I've got a chapter in my book mocking the idea that history repeats history

[44:08]

the idea that history repeats history can't repeat do you know why history can't repeat because you never have the same starting points you have things that might remind you of other things but that's a different thing it's a different set of variables and the current variables have learned a lot from the old variables so there are things that remind you of other things but history can't repeat it's not a thing people can be similar over time people's preferences could be similar over time people's weaknesses can be similar over time but these are patterns which are false patterns here's why you think history repeats you're ready for it you think history repeats because you don't see all the history that doesn't repeat if you could see all the things that look like they should have repeated and didn't you would say to yourself oh if you look at everything that's happening history basically almost never

[45:11]

happening history basically almost never repeats and when it does it's just a coincidence and it's a pattern that you say oh I thought I saw that pattern before it is a an illusion and bad thinking it is literally a chapter called loser think in in my book or well it's within the loser think label because it is it is a poor analysis history always starts from the current set of variables it doesn't it's not influenced by some kind of magic from the history in the past all right Kanye West turned at or at or down those little experimental low-income homes he built if you heard that story so Kanye has one of his projects as he's trying to design working with a design firm I guess to design low-income homes that are also very cool because why should poor people have you know on let's say poorly design places you know poor people need places that don't cost a lot of money but they

[46:13]

that don't cost a lot of money but they don't need poor design design is free kind of I mean because you amortize your design costs over the entire project so they're inexpensive but you had to tear it down so the neighbors complained and I guess the the local the city got involved and they said your construction is too noisy and there's too much traffic and your buildings that you built do not meet code so he tore a ball down yeah now did Kanye West succeed or did he fail that's the question tell me did Kanye West succeed or fail he built a bunch of low-income homes experimental City complain he just tore em all down did he succeed or fail you succeeded you succeeded yeah if you don't see that you don't understand Kanye and you don't understand how creation works and you haven't read my book had it failed almost everything before winning big

[47:14]

almost everything before winning big Kanye knows now what he can do and what he can't do he knows where he can't build the place he knows what problems he'll run into if he builds it somewhere else he knows because they built they built those structures he knows about working with the design firm he knows what they can and cannot do he knows what people's reactions to them were because the pictures ran in the press he knows what it was like to walk around inside these things Kanye just went from not knowing a whole lot about building low-income homes to being one of the experts in the country and building low-income homes that's a success now if he never did anything again in this realm you'd say oh okay well I guess that didn't work out but I don't expect that I expect him to say well that didn't work watch this try another one maybe try a little harder to get permits or some kind of permission I would love to see the government I don't know if

[48:15]

to see the government I don't know if this is a federal thing or how this would work so somebody smarter will have to it and for me I would love to see the government state or local or whoever needs to do it say that they will designate some construction projects as experimental for it assuming that they're from the benefit of low-income people and then I would add this there might be a requirement that let's say an engineer has to be involved so it's not enough that you've got an architect and a builder you have to also have an engineer but the engineer will not be bound by maybe every rule the engineer will be bound by a common sense and engineering so the engineer will make sure that the roof doesn't collapse you know so you'll be safe enough but it might not hit every point you know for the that the city requires because it's experimental if you did that suddenly all kinds of all kinds of of entities

[49:17]

all kinds of all kinds of of entities can say whoa I can get an exemption I can build anything I want and test it out that would be amazing that would be amazing I can tell you from having worked in this this realm for a while the realm of low-cost housing and blight Authority etc there's plenty of money and plenty of creativity and plenty of interests in experimenting in low-cost shelters that are high high design but low cost all we need is to give some regulations out of the way I just don't know who does that all right those the things I think I wanted to mention today and how about that looks like we're keeping oh there's one one big thing I'm sorry there's one big thing that I forgot to mention and I should have it's real lesson on confirmation bias are you ready most of you know the story that I've been trying to debunk the fine people hoax and I put

[50:17]

to debunk the fine people hoax and I put links whenever people mentioned the fine people hoax I put a link to my blog page debunking it so that the whole internet will have links that anytime somebody reads the hoax from anybody you know important they will also see in the comments a link to debunking so you know it's not true and my link to the fine people hoax broke this week which meant that every link I've ever put out for maybe eighteen months all broke so my entire strategy of blanketing the Internet with that link all disappeared in the same day and of course somebody says my prednisone is making me talk faster I think that's true but also I was doing voice recording all day yesterday so I'm you know my my talking rate is probably up a little now and lots of technical people here were quick to help out and

[51:19]

people here were quick to help out and they were said my my security certificates had expired but of course we look into it and that didn't seem to be the case so here's what we got wrong and here's what confirmation bias can do to you so the situation was that my blog had been a separate the site connected with Dilbert calm and then we moved the blog to yet a third site and and cut the link but all of the links to the old blog were redirected the the redirection didn't work because I think it was the I may have this a little bit wrong but I think the intermediate the intermediate site the one that used to host the blog but now just doesn't exist I think that certificate was expired somebody says that's what I said and some of you were were onto this so when we checked Dilbert com that was fine when I checked

[52:19]

Dilbert com that was fine when I checked the blog directly that was fine and I kept saying well how can they both be fine if you go there directly but the link doesn't work how is that possible it's because that intermediary site needed the correction that has been corrected so all of those links are now live here's the lesson here's the lesson I could not imagine any other explanation other than bad actors I could not imagine and the explanation other than some kind of shadow banning you know discriminatory actions against my accounts but that was not the case I mean as far as I can tell it was not the case it was a simple technical bug so keep that in mind because I think I think when we look at the you know the Conservatives being shadow band et cetera I am convinced there's something real to that but

[53:20]

there's something real to that but there's also a whole bunch of it that's not and it's hard to sort out what might be real from what not but I can confirm and this is a perfect example but a lot of it what you think it just just has to be it just has to be somebody up to no good it just has to be a hack and you find out it's just a bug all right um oh yeah I still I need to schedule with Jack Dorsey if he's still willing to come on here I think I'll send him a message as soon as we get off see if I can schedule that and that would be fun and I will talk to you all tomorrow have a great day best day ever bye