Episode 661 Scott Adams: Democrats and Bad Arguments

Date: 2019-09-13 | Duration: 1:04:18

Topics

Reviewing the candidate performances (Democrat debate) Why not allow BOTH medicare for all AND private insurance? Dem candidates adopting President Trump’s showmanship model Does the public understand they’re watching theatre? My gun control thought experiment, based on insurance models Reviewing the worst critic responses

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## Transcript

[0:05]

[Music] ba-ba-ba-ba-bom hey Janice come on in here what a great day it is I don't know about where you are but here it's sunny and perfect and I don't think I've had a better day lately a great day you're going to join me on this great day and however your day started watch how it starts getting a little bit better it starts with a simultaneous step you don't need much to join in all it takes is a cover of motor glasses Stein the cellist attacker at service a plastic canteen a vessel of any kind fill it with your favorite liquid I love coffee join me now for the unparalleled pleasure the dopamine hint that makes everything better the simultaneous says go oh all right I have a fun update that's probably it's too much about me and not enough about you but some of you have been following my strange saga of regaining my sense of

[1:09]

my strange saga of regaining my sense of taste so for 12 years I couldn't taste anything or smell anything I thought I could taste but I was really just picking up sweet and savory and and texture but in my mind had translated as taste I didn't realize that I couldn't taste at all until my taste returned but just this week so I had some weird non-dangerous polyps in my eustachian tubes that for 12 years that prevented me from smelling anything and it all came back this week and it just made me almost crazy because the smells were just overwhelming just absolutely overwhelming so no matter where I went I had super smell and my hypothesis is that your brain gets used to smells and then lowers them in your attention over time because you don't want to be diverted by every little smell but since I haven't had a sense of smell my brain filter seems to have lost

[2:10]

smell my brain filter seems to have lost its knack to filter out smells and I'm just bombarded with smells it is the weirdest frickin thing I swear I can almost create a 3d map of my environment from smell alone I feel like a like a bloodhound but here's the funny part the reason that I went to the doctor in the first place was not to solve that problem I didn't even know that was a solvable problem I went because I had lost my hearing so about a month ago maybe more maybe six weeks ago I lost my hearing now when I say lost it was down maybe 30% which is enough that you can't hear in a crowded environment so effectively I was deaf for the last six six weeks and it turns out it was so save little harmless polyps that were in my eustachian tubes I took some prednisone to shrink them and yesterday I regained my hearing how cool is that so after a month of not

[3:13]

cool is that so after a month of not being able to hear yesterday Boop yeah it wasn't it wasn't your wax it was you know we checked all that stuff out so I just suddenly regained my full sense of hearing and I think I regained it better than it was before I noticed the problem off to test it but it seems perfect right now so I got my sense of taste my sense of smell my hearing back this week if you don't think I'm in a good mood you don't know what a good mood is because it's really hard to deal with the loss of hearing anybody who's had it can testify but that seems to be solved so I'm in a great great mood thank you for letting me share that with you and the weird weird thing is the prednisone actually is making my hair grow back which is temporary but it's funny it's just funny that this week my hair would start growing back like literally literally the bald spots are starting to fill in

[4:14]

the bald spots are starting to fill in but I'm only gonna be on the prednisone for a few more days so that won't last but it's fine now let's talk about the Democratic debates I couldn't make it through the whole bate I don't know if you could I but I don't think it's necessary to get a sense of where things are going because there aren't that many people who are gonna watch the entire debate but there are far more people who are gonna look at the clips and the commentary from other people after the debate so if you look at the clips in the commentary and especially if you see what the left-leaning press decides to pull out as important well then that's how you know if there's an impact from the debate so as far as I can tell it looks like the needle wasn't moved was that is that the general consensus you're saying then the needle didn't move too much I'll give you a few observations number one Biden probably did enough to stay in the lead for now

[5:19]

did enough to stay in the lead for now there was some rumor that his dentures were falling out it did look like he was trying to all those doctors a little bit a little bit there but I also don't think that makes any difference because Biden's age is already factored in so the fact that a guy his age might have some you know denture issues yeah yeah I mean it makes a funny clip on TV but yeah his his blood vessel yeah you could start to imagine that if people sort of sum all these things up that they they they imagine that it adds up to something and maybe it does but I don't think there was enough happening last night to move the needle too much now I thought Harris tried to come out strong meaning that she was trying to talk about Trump so that she could reframe herself as a general election politician sort of taking the Elizabeth Warren page

[6:20]

sort of taking the Elizabeth Warren page and the piden page wishes to try to think past the primaries and and frame herself as somebody to go up against Trump I don't think she's succeeded I think she you know look okay but the places where she goes off the rails is she was jumpy she's you know if you're listening to this you will not see me too
too a dead-on impression of jumping up and down while I'm talking so she talks like this I I think every time I say a syllable I jump up in the air a little bit and it's very off-putting because it comes across as a lack of confidence the other thing she did is I forget the the joke so she made some joke there was a you know mildly clever reference to something Biden did Sanders his slogan from the past or something it doesn't matter but then on national TV she laughs like a hyena at her own joke if you want to be President of the United

[7:20]

you want to be President of the United States never laugh at your own joke people hate that it's just it's just not leadership vibe right you know in our personal lives people laugh at their own jokes I'm guilty of it more than just about anybody I know but if I were on stage trying to run for president I'm not gonna laugh at my own joke I mean I might smile at my cleverness or something but I'm not gonna laugh that's a bad look so I think Harris Wow maybe broke even I thought Bernie he had a little voice problem which I think caused him to strain a little bit more I think that's what's going on here maybe he was getting a little hoarse but that caused him to strain and it might have been in my imagination but it looked like he was gonna sort of like read and he looked like he was gonna stroke out now I've said this about Bernie before and it's

[8:22]

said this about Bernie before and it's terribly cruel but it has to be said here it is some people choose their preferred candidate based on policy is and blah blah blah a lot of people I don't know what the percentage is but it's enough to be important maybe think they do that but they're really picking a fashion accessory literally not literally figuratively let's use the words correctly figuratively they're picking a fashion I've used this analogy before if you want to pick a boyfriend or a girlfriend and the boyfriend or girlfriend shows up your house and you can't stand the car they drive up when it matters because what you want is the man or the woman you know you're considering as your romantic partner but the car becomes sort of an accessory that's sort of defining you too because you might have to get in that car I used to drive

[9:24]

to get in that car I used to drive whereas in my 20s I had no money and I had a car that one of my romantic interests called a bondo car bondo being that I guess the preparation you put out in a car before you paint it so my car a lot like the paint had come off and it just ripped a well it was just it was a disgrace of a car nobody nobody should ever have to get in that car I was just disgusting poorly made didn't have paint that's how bad it was now if you don't think that car affected my ability to date you've never met a woman right obviously some woman would not care but it is of acessory you know the woman who's not gonna want to get and get made up for the night hey I'm looking pretty good and then get in the bondo car and go to the restaurant and you know the valet Parker parking guy opens the door and she has to get out of the bondo car you know if you ask they might say oh

[10:25]

you know if you ask they might say oh that's fine with it but the fact is it would be human nature to care about that now I'm making it sound like it's you know the man with the car and the woman who's getting in and out but reverse it it's the same the man doesn't want to get a nathie let's say the woman has a car that's a book so I can beetle you know with a little flower in the cup or something there would be a lot of guys who would say well I really like the woman who's in the car but I don't want to take a chance of ever being in that car right so the point is that we think we use reasons and logic and we think we care about things that matter or we think we don't care about the Maddox but that's not human humans do care about the cosmetics and here's where I'm going with this if you tell me Scott your president will be Barack Obama I say to myself well I might like his policies I might not lock use policies but he's kind of cool I like

[11:27]

policies but he's kind of cool I like that Association you know you could hate Obama he's still kind of cool he's a good accessory I don't mind that my reputation is associated with coolguy even if I disagree with his some of his policies Bill Clinton same thing out of a cool guy
guy even if you don't like his policies President Trump he's cool in his own way but there's certainly some people who don't want to associate their brand with it for different reasons Bernie's got that problem Bernie has the problem that I think there's a natural cap on how popular he can be on the left and he's probably at it in other words if the other candidates went away tomorrow I don't think that Bernie's numbers will go up if Biden goes down that's not going to make Bernie go up I think if Warren went down you wouldn't make Bernie go up because bernie is a bad accessory he

[12:27]

because bernie is a bad accessory he when I see him I say yeah I really love you Bernie and I do like Bernie I think deserves our respect even if you hate his policies he deserves our respect very effective very consistent seems to want what's best for the country even if he doesn't have the right ideas forget there and tension is good energy is good seems to be a patriot I love Bernie and he's been obviously the most influential person for at least half of the country we're all talking about policies that are that are Bernie like or how far is it from Bernie here it's Bernie plus one or Bernie minus one I mean he has really changed the country and potentially in a positive way potentially you could disagree with that but my point is he's not a good accessory and I think he's kept I don't think you'll see him taking anything here's my big question that I can't came away from the debate one of

[13:29]

can't came away from the debate one of the things that debates don't do is inform you because it's not really that kind of a forum and there's a big question I have that I've not heard anybody debate directly so maybe you can help me in the comments here there seem to be two general models of health care direction you know if you're just talking about the the big-picture direction there are the birdies and the Elizabeth Warren's who would like Medicare for all essentially so there's one provider of Medicare insurance it's the government and everybody gets it and everything's covered and then there's some other people and I believe that category would be Budaj edge and maybe Harris I may have may have some of the names wrong but they've got a model where they say yes Medicare for all should be available but at the same time people should be able to buy private insurance if they prefer it and then

[14:29]

insurance if they prefer it and then those two competing systems would create a kind of competition that could be productive so in other words if the government can negotiate better prices you would expect that the private insurance people would say hey why are you giving that good price to the government and it should drive down costs over time here's what I don't understand I have not heard the criticism of that plan I've certainly heard lots of criticisms of the way health care is now I've heard lots of criticisms of Obamacare that you know makes sense I've heard lots of criticisms of Medicare for all but I've never heard and maybe I just haven't heard it I'm not saying that there are no arguments I've just never heard it and I'm curious about that what is the argument against having Medicare for all which would literally cover everybody who wants it at the same time you let people who want private insurance get

[15:29]

people who want private insurance get whatever the heck they want they might have to pay more for it and they might like that because they get better service has anybody offered even an argument against that because when I watch the Democrats compete you know you're here but a judge say you know we want some competition and here's why that's good you know two systems a private one and in a government one they're both out there they're both competing and then you hear Bernie's say the way we should do it is this but what he doesn't say is what's wrong with Buddha Jeb's idea like it
it somebody says too expensive I don't think that's demonstrated so I'm curious so I have to pee or parts of curiosity one is why is that argument just so conspicuously missing when it's literally the most important argument isn't it somebody says paying for both only using one but you'd have the option

[16:32]

only using one but you'd have the option that if I see your point your point is if you're buying your private insurance you're going to be buying your own insurance at the same time you're paying for other people's insurance you should get some of that back by the fact that everybody's health insurance would go down that would be the theory so anyway but my second part of that theory is why wouldn't the Buddha judge let's let's call it his theory of having two systems and you can buy into one if you want to buy everybody gets covered why what wouldn't Trump support that why is that not a Republican plan isn't the Republican plan sort of big picture market competition and how is that not better market competition to have the government competing directly with private health care insurance and everybody could do whatever they want it's complete freedom you know you could you can get the Medicare for all you can get your own insurance and to the

[17:35]

get your own insurance and to the previous point the people getting the private insurance might not I have to pay more if the net result of it is that competition drives down everybody's prices that would be the plan anyway so I don't see an obvious reason that a Republican couldn't just say I like that plant that looks good to me right how does that how does Buddha judge his plan not exactly match Republican preferences and that's a question not a statement by the way because there might actually be some really good reasons for that that's not obvious to me somebody says socialism versus capitalism well Buddha judges plan is capitalism because nobody has to do anything except pay taxes but we already accept that all right so that's that's everything from the debates and too much that have you noticed there seems to be this gradual change that now has gradually changed

[18:37]

change that now has gradually changed into something bigger which is remember when President Trump first came on the scene and everybody was saying hey you're a reality TV star and you know you're just you're just acting like it's a play or a TV show you're not even acting like a politician and of course I was saying that the public didn't realize that although that's a true statement that he was running things like a reality TV show my observation was that was an improvement because the Act you know the the act of leadership is getting people to pay attention and do what you want and the way Trump employed his showmanship and his reality TV stuff including all the tweeting and the provocations and taking up all the network time and everything else it works so that's what leadership looks like but here's the thing that I'm starting to notice it seems to me that his model of treating it like it's an act meaning that it's it's done for the

[19:40]

act meaning that it's it's done for the benefit of the audience I guess that's the best way I said Trump runs the administration as if it's a TV show and he is optimizing it for the audience now at the same time by optimizing it for the audience he's weaponizing the audience so that he can get stuff done so it's not his not a senseless redefining of how to do things it's a very productive one because he can get the he can get the public quickly informed and on his side and a lot of stuff or at least his his team which can be enough and but here's the observation it seems to me that his his critics and competitors have adopted his frame the frame meaning that the primary model of how we see this government interaction is as theater that's the best I spent because a or C knows the theater in other words she she

[20:41]

knows the theater in other words she she runs her her political life the way the president does which is she understands it's a show for the audience and that if you do the show for the audience right you do gain powers and capabilities to manage things change actual real policies so she seems to understand that yeah it seems that Pelosi and Schumer understand that I first got this idea whenever it was that they were having a meeting in the Oval Office and he saw Schumer and was mostly humor and he was in such a good mood bantering with the president he looked like he just enjoyed the theater in other words he looked like he was an actor playing the part who knew he was an actor playing a part for an audience who knew he was an actor playing the part he was still he was still doing his job as politician because that's my point is that the theater is not useless it's actually very productive for doing the management thing but here's where this is heading

[21:43]

thing but here's where this is heading the politicians seem to understand this theater but not all of the public has caught on much of the public has you know most of you have I think most most of the people watching this understand that when they're seeing that the politicians act crazy and provocative and theatrical that they are watching a show and they can sort of separate a little bit what's the show versus you know what are we getting what's the port of the policies etc but there's a huge portion of the country that can't tell the difference that they can't tell the difference between the show and what's real and for that portion they feel they're living in a white supremacist hellscape in which everything's you know going to hell and the the earth is burning up and the KKK is you know reinvigorated and and all that now if you knew that you were watching a show you wouldn't take much of that too seriously

[22:44]

of that too seriously likewise if it comes out of trumps mouth you know the Trump is putting on a show so when he uses hyperbole and the fact checkers say he just reached 12,000 factual inaccuracies which we choose to call lies how much does it bother you well if you know you're watching a show doesn't bother you at all because you're not watching the show to get facts and the show seems to work we seem to have a good economy you know things seem to be seem to be working pretty well so that's just an observation the observation was the Democrats the leaders anyway understand it as a show and are adopting president Trump's model but not all of the public yet knows it's a show and that's very dangerous because that those are the ones were experiencing TDS etc if they understood their own leaders to be putting on a show they would not take so seriously their own fears because

[23:45]

so seriously their own fears because they are over plumb all right yesterday I did something very provocative to make everybody hate me as is often my my habit so what I did is I put a thought experiment and I labeled that that way thought experiment and I said what if guns were subject to insurance so that demographic groups who have the greatest insurance risk of owning a gun would have to pay more what would that look like now those of you who have been watching me for a while you know I usually have more than one reason for why I do things I don't do things for one you one reason usually sometimes I do in this case there were several purposes purposes number one was to change the way we're thinking about the question I think you would agree that both sides are locked

[24:47]

would agree that both sides are locked into their positions wouldn't you and if both sides are locked into your positions what can you do that's productive waiting until they unlock themselves doesn't seem productive right because they're not going to we had we have enough history to show that people are pretty locked in so what you do is thank you commenter howard you shake the box now there are lots of ways to shake the box you see how the president does it all the time each it shakes the box changes the field changes the variables and then says alright with this new set of variables now can we get anniver and of our locked positions what I attempted to do and you can tell me whether it was successful was to create a thought experiment in which we changed the perspective and I'm going to give you a little background story that will give you some framework to understand what I was attempting to do and it's there's something I learned from a drug dealer

[25:47]

something I learned from a drug dealer in college there's one of the most useful perceptual shifts I've ever seen I may have mentioned this is sometime in the past but it's worth explaining it's a very simple thing that is life-changing at least it changed everything about how I saw the world from this one little anecdote and it fundamentally didn't fundamentally changed my entire understanding of reality and in what works and what doesn't from this one little example it was this you've got two the two students they buy some marijuana they've put their money in together one of them goes to pick it up and now you're gonna divide it evenly she paid the same so you get a little marijuana and you want to divide it evenly how do you do that if you don't have a scale how do you divide it in a way that's fair that both people walk away saying that was when you can't measure it now even if you could measure it back in my college days that wouldn't help you because one would have more seeds than the other and

[26:48]

would have more seeds than the other and that mattered and that would change the weight and but you don't want the seeds so you can't really know for sure if you've achieved fairness which is the key to this exercise when you're dividing the two little piles you just you can't really just look at them it's hard to tell so how do you do it in a way that both people are completely convinced is fair now your first impulse is that the two of them would you know take turns you know adjusting the piles and then they would look at each other and they'd say all right good for you yeah is your pile good my pile looks good I'm okay with that but chances are that only works with the right people people who don't care too much if it's exact people who trust each other under those conditions it doesn't matter how you do it because it'll all work out fine somebody says flip a coin if you flipped a coin and you and you were the one who did not get the first pick and the other

[27:48]

did not get the first pick and the other person picked the pile that you thought maybe it was a little better you're not gonna feel exactly fair so the coin coin flip is a good idea not quite where I'm going here was the suggestion from the drug dealer and it just blew my mind yeah somebody's on to it here in the comments one person divides the pile and that's completely their responsibility alone the second person gets to pick yeah so I'm seeing in the comments you're getting enemy right if you use that process neither person can complain whatsoever there's no way to complain because you've changed how you think about the problem you've taken the focus away from the outcome which is who gets a bigger pile and there's no way to really know it was if it were fair and you've moved your focus to the process the process is completely fair a hundred percent fair and if you can move some of these attention here's here's the the insight

[28:51]

attention here's here's the the insight if you can move somebody's a tenth in tension from the outcome to the system you can break free so that's what I was trying to do with the gun argument the gun argument is locked in the outcome there are people want to keep guns and as many rights as possible there people want to get rid of guns they're talking about the outcome now really talking about the system if you could move them up to talk about the system that might work now some of you saying we have a system it's called the Supreme Court well here's the problem if the Supreme Court were a clear system I'm sorry if the Constitution were clear meaning that it's simple clear words told us all what to know and how to act we wouldn't need the Supreme Court even the people who created the Constitution knew it would be interpreted differently by different people because all right somebody says

[29:53]

people because all right somebody says it is clear I'm gonna deal with you later all right anybody who says the Constitution is clear doesn't understand what the Supreme Court is for there's an entire body of government just to interpret it because it's not clear right if you don't know that you need to you know go back anyway so take the take the drug dealer technique and the takeaway is how can you change people's focus from the outcome where you can never be sure it's fair to the system to mix things up I did this I threw in the idea that you could add an insurance model to gun purchases in order to incent or disincentive a disincentive were in the most dangerous group now the most dangerous group of gun buyers would be male and young and we have an example

[30:55]

be male and young and we have an example in our in our national experience where those people pay more insurance if you're gonna get if you're gonna get a car I'll talk about the details in a moment if you're getting to get going a car you have a higher risk or you have higher premiums if you're male and you're young because cars are dangerous things now some of you are trying to throw ethnicity in there if ethnicity could legally be part of insurance maybe it would be but since it isn't and it won't be it's sort of just an interesting question so I'll do it as an interesting question but because there isn't any practical way that will ever be part of our decision-making can we can we just put that on the shelf for a moment I acknowledge I acknowledge that there would be lots of other other variables you could find at risk with but since we've already agreed as a society that automobile risk can be discriminatory and is it discriminates

[31:58]

discriminatory and is it discriminates greatly against safe young male drivers I was a safe young male driver and I paid for other people's problems now I didn't like it it wasn't fair but I put up with so the the starting point here is that people can learn to put up with insurance which targets demographic groups specifically young males so we know we can tolerate that even if we don't like so it's not impossible it's tolerate able we know that now I'd like to talk about the worst arguments that people made in response and I if we have time I might put on my headphones and take some callers and I want to see if you can avoid the worst arguments and here's the first thing the first thing people said when I offer this thought experiment as I said it's the worst idea

[33:01]

experiment as I said it's the worst idea you're so dumb and you don't know anything is so obvious why this is bad and worse that effect now here's the first thing they should have noticed if they had looked at the other people who were complaining about the thought experiment the first thing they would have noticed is that people have completely different complaints so if it's is what's wrong with the problem you should expect that the complaints about it would be somewhat similar or at least deeply overlapping in fact the reasons were all over the place what if I told you is usually the case when the reasons are all over the place do you know the answer when when when somebody objects to something with one or two good reasons they're probably pretty good reasons you might agree or disagree but they're probably real reasons if somebody disagrees with something with oh this wide eclectic bunch of reasons what is usually happening what's usually

[34:04]

what is usually happening what's usually happening is it's cognitive dissonance so that people are not dealing with the real thing that's bothering them they just want their guns and they don't want to see a good reason not to happen and so it triggers them into cognitive dissonance so the first thing you should notice is that the reasons are just all over the board and they look crazy so that's the first commenter is also saying word salad that's the second tell so a number of people made comments that I actually couldn't even understand the sentences they had words in them and and the words made grammar sense in the sense that the you know they had the right verbs and nouns and stuff in them but they didn't make any sense to me and I'm trying to make sense of them and I'm reasonably educated so that's another tale but I want to go through some of the worst responses tell you what makes them bad so that when you're arguing you can up your game all right here's what I

[35:04]

can up your game all right here's what I think is triggering me if I if I can give you my my own personal my personal irrational emotional connection to this topic I'm pro-gun and that lumps me with people who were pro-gun pro-second amendment pro-gun my problem is many of you are bad accessories meaning that your arguments for pro-gun are so so bad that I don't want to associate with them even though I come I agree with you about the right to have guns and lots of them and an easy enough access completely agree with the general Sailor so I want you to try to improve your game by moving toward the arguments that are solid and there are plenty of solid arguments for you know wide gun ownership right it's plenty of them but there's so some that are so bad I just need to help you escape them alright are you giving number one that's bad somebody said if you have insurance for

[36:04]

somebody said if you have insurance for guns people won't pay the insurance that's a fair statement within the the thought experiment to framework here's my answer you could require that the payment is made at the time of purchase in other words the gun seller could say all right price for your gun is $300 and then the government attacks on some taxes right you always pay taxes government can make you pay extra it's called taxes and then the government is also attacking on some insurance this insurance is a one-time cost because most of your risk is in the first few years so we just put a little insurance on it and that insurance would be paid to let's say your local police or responders maybe your local healthcare it would be paying for society's expense when things go wrong yeah if there's a gun crime so the first thing is you

[37:07]

gun crime so the first thing is you could you can make people pay at the point of purchase and the government already makes people pay extra it's called taxes now somebody says that's a regressive tax on poor people yes this it is do you know what else is a regressive tax on poor people sales tax you know it it can be true that it's a regressive tax on poor people but that's not a reason not to do it there are lots of regressive taxes that we do for other reasons you know they're they're they're larger variables so I you can acknowledge that there there are defects with a plan but you have to compare all the positives and minuses of any plan to all the positives of - - above but I acknowledge that's a defect so let's acknowledge that's the defect and and get on to the next point so you could make people who buy new

[38:07]

so you could make people who buy new guns pay pay you essentially you'd be like a what do you call it a surety bond which was broadly its insurance a surety bond is where you're paying against you doing something bad to someone else like a construction person would buy a surety bond if they're doing a project next to let's say a historical site and there's some risk that whatever they're doing will damage the historical site so they might be required by the town again the government making you pay something to buy something called a surety bond that means you pay a little a little bit of money for a form of insurance and if you do accidentally destroy that the property next door the insurance kicks in but it's temporary and when you're done with the construction you don't have to pay insurance anymore so that's what a surety bond is you could do that with guns just make it make it payable at the time of the purchase now here's the other bad argument people would say

[39:09]

the other bad argument people would say well Scott how is that gonna prevent the people who already have guns from having guns without insurance and the answer is probably wouldn't here's the bad thinking there if you have three problems call them a B and C if you know how to solve one of those problems could be a could be B could be safe should you not solve it because it doesn't solve the other two problems in no world does that make sense but in the gun world it's the primary argument the primary argument you hear from the pro-gun people is that if you can deal with some little bit of the risk and reduce it you shouldn't because there is other an unrelated risk that it doesn't solve that's not thinking I don't want to be associated with someone who won't solve problem a because it doesn't also solve unrelated problems so if you could get the the

[40:11]

problems so if you could get the the young person who's buying a gun because they're having bad thoughts and you could maybe discourage them with a high enough insurance premium if you can discourage them that would put some friction on their likelihood of getting a gun but it doesn't solve other problems that's not a reason not to do it here's here's the other worst argument I saw somebody said that the founding fathers would certainly disagree with carving out one section of the public to have fewer gun rights because that's you know you can say in a practical sense that's what this would do it would cause young males to have slightly degraded civil rights civil rights slightly degraded practical rights about getting a gun because their insurance cost would be higher now is that fair would the a critic said that the founding fathers would never agree with carving out certain parts of the

[41:13]

with carving out certain parts of the public to have fewer rights anybody agree with that the founding fathers would not agree as some people should have fewer rights than others
the founding fathers owned slaves the founders didn't want people to vote if they didn't own land the founders didn't allow women to vote the founders were the most discriminatory people in the history of the United States bar none they were the worst absolute worst in fact I'm gonna introduce an idea I was thinking about you know we treat the American Revolution as 1776 right that's that's the point of the Revolution but black people say hell no that wasn't my revolution I would we became slaves after that and maybe some during

[42:14]

slaves after that and maybe some during I guess yeah during and after it wasn't their revolution now black people can say well maybe the Civil War was the founding of the of the free country yeah maybe we should celebrate that as sort of our civil war and since to which I say nope not there yet when the Civil War happened women couldn't even vote so if you were going to say what is the revolution you know the civil war on this country maybe was women getting the vote whoa but wait that's not far enough what about the civil rights of the 60s right you kinda needed those because being freed as a slave wasn't getting you where you needed to be you needed something like the 60s and a pretty hard run as civil rights to get you anything too close to within spitting distance of equality so so I'm just gonna throw that

[43:15]

equality so so I'm just gonna throw that in if I were black I would definitely see the Civil War as my revolution for independence and and I'd feel pretty solid in that thought if I were a woman I would see women getting the vote as my Civil War as my my war for independence and if I were black and women or a gay I would see the sixties you know collectively as when when my revolution began anyway that's a little off point here's some other bad arguments that people gave me a lot of people are what I call analogy thinkers so I made the analogy that you know we we we put insurance on cars so let's talk about guns the bad analogy thinkers are looking for a difference between cars and guns and act like that matters now the analogy is just to show

[44:15]

matters now the analogy is just to show that insurance can be applied to people in different risk groups when there's risk that's all that's the entire point of the car analogy what people say is Scot it's a-you know you're wrong because people pay insurance only if they use a car you don't need to have insurance to own a car Scott that's different than guns now that's the stupid difference it's a difference of that's nothing to do with the argument so if you're picking apart the difference between an analogy and the topic you're not really part of the discussion the only thing you should take away from the analogy is we can put different risks on different demographic groups and society doesn't fall apart that's it that's the entire army you know so another argument was somebody said car insurance doesn't keep people from driving without insurance people

[45:16]

from driving without insurance people still drive with that insurance scott-so doesn't stop people from driving cars that's a terrible point in its analogy thinking again here's the difference between cars and guns cars are not really optional for most people in bobert society you're not learning to drive a car it is optional but barely you know I think Greg Gutfeld didn't drive a car until recently because he was in New York City so there are special cases you know you could opt down and drive in your car but mostly you have to have a car so it's price inelastic inelastic for insurance in other words you will pay more to drive a car because you don't have much chance choice guns are far more optional now they're less optional if you're in a dangerous situation and those people would pay more and they'd be happy to do

[46:16]

would pay more and they'd be happy to do it because might save their lives but for all the people who were in not a immediate dangerous situation you can imagine that higher costs would have an impact and even if they didn't have an impact it would at least cause a fund of money they would pay for the police the extra health care and the damage and maybe you know common seeds the victims
uh-huh why do you somebody says why do you have to debate the topic to abort him and agony well I'll put you out of your agony you can be blocked here's the deal well I'm not gonna go that way somebody said all right so the point is the friction always works anybody who makes an argument against insurance because it wouldn't work at all under any situation for any person no matter what that's not a real

[47:16]

no matter what that's not a real argument because again not no particulars every problem the only thing you should be asking yourself is could it could it reduce the number of people doing it if the answer is yes then friction worked if it doesn't change anybody in any way it would be the first time in human history that's ever happened friction always works if you're making an argument that friction doesn't work where have you ever been every law every policy every rule it all creates friction and the reason that we're living in a society full of rules and laws and penalties is because it always works just about always and when I say it always works I mean it always changes some people's behavior it always changes some people's behavior somebody says did prohibition work yes yes prohibition

[48:17]

prohibition work yes yes prohibition worked I guarantee the fewer people drank during Prohibition the reason prohibition didn't work is because it had the unintended consequence of making a dangerous to drink alcohol and it empower the bad people etc but I guarantee the prohibition caused fewer law-abiding people to take a drink it might have been a five percent change but there's no way it didn't reduce the behavior no way right because there are some people who will just say well it's illegal I don't need the friction all right so for all of you who say it didn't work what you mean is it didn't work in the entire package it did work guaranteed to make at least some people not drink because they didn't want to go to a speakeasy there wasn't a public bar you know one block away

[49:17]

block away it absolutely reduced behavior there's no doubt about it all right now I'd be willing to be fact-checked on that if so I don't know if there was any way to actually measure such a thing but if if somebody did measure it it would be the one time in history the friction didn't work and even then you should still try it in the future friction that is because it's worked every other time if you found one thing it didn't work for that wouldn't tell you not to keep doing it because it worked for everything else all right all right here's another part the the most common comment I got was what part of do not infringe do you not understand because the Constitution says do not infringe and if you make if the government makes you buy insurance well you're infringed no doubt about it right and that's clearly not intended right well here's the problem with that people who say that are basically

[50:20]

people who say that are basically repeating a bumper sticker they are not on the Supreme Court you need a Supreme Court to tell us what this gun thing means what a lot of this stuff means in the Constitution that's why it exists if you're if your take is that you're on a you are non-lawyer reading of the Constitution and the phrase do not infringe is all you need to know well you don't understand what the Constitution is you don't understand that the system was developed because the Supreme Court part of it because the Constitution could never be clear and we would never agree and maybe situations would change in which reinterpreting would make sense so the dumbest opinion is that the Constitution clearly says that you should not infringe and that any form of infringement whatsoever is a violation of the Constitution the first problem with that is that we infringe all over the place how many infringement sar

[51:22]

the place how many infringement sar they're already on getting a gun for example they're not free you can't get a free gun there's no free gun of course is infringement do we tax gun ownership of course we do do we put you in jail if you use it illegally can you get a gun if you're under the age of gun buying can you get a gun if you're incarcerated and you're in jail we we infringe all kinds of gun rights and we're still here and we still have enough guns do we do we or do we not have enough guns to protect against let's say the government tries to do something bad to the citizens probably we have more guns than people so a little bit of difference isn't going to change that too much can the average person who is not a criminal and not crazy and old enough can they get a gun yeah pretty much every time so it's not a lot of infringing going on

[52:24]

it's not a lot of infringing going on but treating infringement as an absolute when elisa's the Supreme Court can even decide when it's being infringed and what that means is not a good argument it's a bumper sticker let's say somebody said I'm adding cost meaning the idea of adding insurance because I'm ignoring the quote real issue so here's here's something saying that the real issue is culture mental illness is bad parenting so that's not an argument that's not an argument because the real issue could be the real issue at the same time that the solution is unrelated so what is the real issue with people trying to rob my house the real issue is those people it's not me so it's something it's not my problem it's not my fault that bad people might try to

[53:27]

my fault that bad people might try to burglarize my house but the solution is not for me to go fix those people the solution is made for me to you know have locks of my doors and alarms and Firearms so my solution has nothing to do with their defects so you can separate the solution what you do from what the source of the problem is it would be great to work on the source of the problem and we should but you can still have solutions that are separate so whoever said you know it doesn't the idea doesn't work because it's not working on the core problem doesn't know how our solutions work here's my point when somebody says it's not fair and it's unconstitutional for you to make me pay more in insurance to own my gun cuz you're infringing on my rights there here's what I say where in the Constitution does it say that I need to subsidize your gun why do I have to subsidize the guns of other people you

[54:28]

subsidize the guns of other people you didn't see that coming did you this is a secret part of the this is the secret part of the thought experiment that I was hoping people would sort of stumble onto and this is the part that will open your mind a little bit the other parts are just sort of on the argument did you realize that if you are a legal gun owner you are subsidizing the illegal gun owners ownership of guns you're paying for it because the the total cost of owning a gun is not just the price of a gun it's the damage that you do with it or you could potentially do with it it's the people you kill it's the police action it's the health care it's a social services etc net thank you for noticing how good this is there is no constitutional right for you to make me pay for your gun all right I will fight to the death for you to keep your gun I'm Pro

[55:31]

for you to keep your gun I'm Pro Second Amendment I want you to have your gun for all the reasons you want a gun but you can't make me pay for your gun and call it a constitutional right I will not subsidize your gun do you know how you maybe not subsidized your gun you do it by putting an insurance penalty on there if you're in a high-risk group you can you can pay for your own gun by paying more insurance don't make me pay for your gun alright and don't lump me with the anti-gun people because I want you to pay for your own gun alright pay for your gun don't make me pay for it and if you're in a high-risk category too bad not my problem right I was once in the high-risk category I was once young I paid more I didn't like it was it your problem why should you pay for my high risk category that's that's

[56:32]

for my high risk category that's that's the reason you know that's the reason they do it now because all of us go through certain ages we the the one thing that we all agree on we're obvious discrimination is acceptable is by age right everybody agrees the age is an acceptable discrimination variable you don't want kids doing certain stuff but young adults are also plenty risky right somebody says black people do this is racist what would be the racist part of treating everybody the same but what is your point is your point that if everyone's treated exactly the same is racist is that your point because you know what else is racist if you treated everybody exactly the same every law every law is racist if you treat everybody the same there might be some exceptions but the fact is anything that has any impact on cost is

[57:36]

anything that has any impact on cost is discriminatory against certain death groups accidentally so so here's here's where I'm shaking the box here's where I'm shaking the box the the part that should have changed how you're thinking about it is when I said I don't want to pay for your gun and your gun risk as soon as you heard that it felt different didn't it didn't feel different so and then let me explain again what thought experiments are a number of people said to me on Twitter you left yous are trying to take away our guns you know just shut up to which I said it's a thought experiment all right somebody was saying Scott advocates disarming all black people I will delete this racist goodbye racist yeah I lost my train of

[58:44]

goodbye racist yeah I lost my train of thought there let me see where else we get somebody else said criminals will always get into the illegal guns so how is that smart if you can stop or reduce some part of the problem but it doesn't solve a hundred percent of the related problems you shouldn't do it what about do you think kids should legally be allowed to have cigarettes do you think that should be illegal some people do probably but doesn't friction on kids smoking reduce the amount of smoking don't you think don't you think that collectively all the things that are done you know education wise and making it harder to get cigarettes don't you think it makes some difference you know clearly someone who wants to smoke can

[59:44]

clearly someone who wants to smoke can get cigarettes my stepson could get them pretty easily but he was also willing to take me more chances than the average person which ultimately got him killed and I think friction works for her kids and cigarettes I feel that's safe all right so here's the bottom line so that I do not advocate I do not advocate putting insurance costs on guns are we clear on that it was a thought experiment to allow you to get out of your your locked bumper-sticker opinions on guns and to change from focusing on if you remember my beginning example about the drug dealer and separating the the drugs it's make you take your focus away from the outcome and up to a process and is it a good process and is it constitutional to have the cost of a product reflect the

[1:00:44]

have the cost of a product reflect the actual cost to society is it unreasonable that products cost what their actual impact is right now in thinking through why insurance is a good idea or a bad idea the hope is that it would clarify how you're thinking about everything so the whole point is simply to clarify thinking I'm not suggesting insurance on your gun I mean I don't know if it's a terrible idea but here's if yours here's maybe the biggest reason you don't want insurance on your gun I was waiting for somebody to say this there's one really really good reason you don't want insurance on your gun and it's this you don't want the insurance companies deciding with the laws because in effect the insurance companies would take over some of the role of Congress you know they would effectively be managing the gun situation for their own profit and that

[1:01:47]

situation for their own profit and that may not be that where you want to give your authority and if somebody had mentioned that I don't think somebody did I would have said you know that's pretty good point all right
somebody said you don't want to insure guns because it would create a gun list like the NRA the NRA is a list of gun owners if an insurance company also has your name I understand that would be more people on a list but it seems to me that when you buy a gun don't you put your name on a list anyway if you were to buy a gun today is there any scenario in which you wouldn't put your name on a list that's a question I don't know if you bought it at it if it if it were not a private sale let's say you bought it at a gun show and a gun show don't you have yeah I know NRA is optional but if you buy it at a gun show don't you have to give your name I would

[1:02:48]

don't you have to give your name I would think so so I don't know that there's any such thing is not having a list of gun buyers but but it's this would be an inaccurate criticism if you made everybody insure their guns after they have them you know the the grandfathered in guns then that would create more of a list so I will agree that that's a valid criticism unless the way you do it is the way I explained which is the only place you apply it is at the point of purchase is once it's only once so that grandfather guns just wouldn't need insurance so one way to deal with that is that the grandfather does or they've been around long enough they probably are less danger than someone who buys it got in this month all right that is bad all I have to say on this somebody says the dealer retains the records NRA has no knowledge of which guns I honed yeah that does make a difference there's there is you know

[1:03:48]

difference there's there is you know people who say that the NRA is voluntary and it doesn't tell you specifically what guns anybody owns or even if they have guns there are members of the NRA who do not own guns but not many percentage-wise so anyway please accept the thought experiment as just that as a way to shake the box I'm not promoting that idea I'm pro-gun and let's talk about something else tomorrow and I'll talk you
you later life now