Episode 710 Scott Adams: The Hero Dog, China Trade Deal, Shampeachment, Twitter Political Ad Ban

Date: 2019-10-31 | Duration: 54:30

Topics

My new book LOSERTHINK goes on sale 11/5. Pre-order: https://bit.ly/2NRammu The Hero Dog, Photoshop and her upcoming actual visit to WH Will President Trump adopt the Hero Dog? Has social media become our new system of government? Kamala and Biden campaign donor money shortages Financial donors determine our Presidential candidates Translating Hillary’s “Clintonese” comment on Facebook policy ALL conversations between world leaders are quid pro quo Why pretend they aren’t? Obama comes out against “cancel culture” CNN FAKE NEWS headline on Catherine Herridge leaving FOX

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> [!note] Rough Transcript
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## Transcript

[0:05]

pom pom pom pom pom pom what a day what a day come on in here hey Jerri good to see you Andrew - feffy 20/20 and word he's dirty always a pleasure to see you well actually it's your first name but it's good to have you Marla Geordie what a pleasure you know today is one of those fun days you know you ever wake up and you say to yourself I'm not positive but I think today is gonna be good all day long it's Halloween what could be better one of my favorite all the days of the year and not only that but you are about to enjoy a little thing called the simultaneous sip have you heard of it it's amazing and you don't need much not much preparation at all
all all you need is a cup of margaret los lifter stein chalice taker thermos flask and team grail

[1:06]

taker thermos flask and team grail goblet vessel of any kind fill it with your favorite liquid I like coffee and join me now for the unparalleled pleasure the dopamine hit of the day the thing that makes everything better on Halloween the simultaneous hip go oh
oh I can taste the simultaneity connecting me to all people drinking a beverage anywhere in the world at the same time yes we are one we are one well you'd be disappointed if I talked about anything except the hero dog have you ever had more fun talking about a political topic than everything about the dog from the very first time you heard the report that there might have been a dog with a camera on his head who chased the number one isis guy into a

[2:09]

chased the number one isis guy into a tunnel and made him blow up himself and his children it's started good from from the jump and then it just kind of kept getting better I don't know how far that I don't know how far we can milk this dog so to speak I wouldn't want to milk a dog but you know what I mean
so of course you all saw the hilarious story yesterday the president who has by far the best sense of humor and sense of showmanship of any president and I'll even call I'll even go further and say we'll probably never have a funnier president or one who understands the shell you know how to put on a show so he tweets this picture around that was of course a photoshopped a picture of the president putting something like a dog version of a Medal of Honor around the dog's neck and and as you know as

[3:12]

the dog's neck and and as you know as you know the media decided to fact-check it now if I'm being totally honest if I'm being totally honest the first moment I saw the picture I thought to myself that could be real but I also had the I had the foresight to expand the picture and look for the tell-tale Photoshop edges which are quite obviously in the photo in the photo so if you use Photoshop every day it's not hard to yeah you just click on it expand it so oh yeah that's photoshopped you can see the edges but I suppose a few if you didn't have experience with Photoshop such as Jim Acosta maybe he doesn't use a lot of Photoshop yeah he fact-checked it yes the White House says the dog was there

[4:14]

yeah I talked about this in my book loser thing which you should pre-order today because it will arrive November 5th and you'll be the first ones to learn what was wrong with Jim Acosta let me summarize loser think is about having at least a little bit of experience in multiple fields so that you can you have more visibility about your reality every one of you who has experience with Photoshop looked at that picture and said to yourself you know I'm exaggerating when I say every one of you but you know what I mean you probably looked at it and said huh probably Photoshop let me see click oh yeah it's Photoshop so just a little bit of experience with Photoshop would have completely changed how you saw that story and a couple of journalists apparently are not Photoshop users that looked at that and thought better check

[5:15]

looked at that and thought better check out this and then of course you saw all the the hilarious memes that came after that my favorite one is shows it shows the president giving a medal to Chewbacca so I guess the name of the dog has been released so the president has named him his name is Conan and he said that them today that the president tweeted this he said thank you Daily wire cuz they're the ones who did they did the Photoshop tweet I guess very cute URI create recreation but the live version of Conan the dog will be leaving the Middle East for the White House that sometime next week he's leaving for the White House does that mean that he's just gonna appear at the White House and

[6:16]

just gonna appear at the White House and they'll have a ceremony in which he put him puts a medal around the dog's neck is that gonna happen please please please let that happen
No yeah it doesn't need to be a Purple Heart but some kind of dog Bella would be just hilarious now the other question people are asking is whether the president means when he says the White House whether it means he's gonna adopt the dog to make it the White House dog no he didn't say anything like that and the and he has said before he's too busy to have a dog but I'll say again this dog would be somewhat in danger in a regular house if you let this dog just go to some suburban house and say hey now you're the you're the dog for the house somebody might find the dog and I

[7:19]

house somebody might find the dog and I think the dog would have a little danger because there's there must be somebody in the country who's pro-isis and so how better to protect the dog until the end of its noble life than to make it the president's dog because even when he's an ex-president he'll still have Secret Service he'll still have people to take care of the dog the president never dates to touch the dog somebody said you know what if the dog attacks the president well I'm pretty sure the dogs well-trained I don't know all the details there but you know we have leashes and we have handlers and if you're a billionaire you can afford a handler so here's here's the thing can you imagine a better a better more perfect outcome especially you know I have to say this because it's an election the context for everything we do but can you imagine anything better for Trump's image his election or just for the best show in the world to adopt

[8:21]

for the best show in the world to adopt the dog and make it the White House dog would let me ask you this the moment you saw him just hypothetically I'm not predicting he'll do it um here are the two facts you need to know Trump I think you'll agree with this is the best showman we've ever seen certainly in the realm of politics but I argue in any realm he's the greatest showman the world has ever seen you know partly because social media allows him to expand his influence but I would say in the history of humanity if you count his skill his office and the fact that we have all these tools the mass communication by far the best showman of all time now keep that in your head and then ask yourself what would be the best show of all time adopting the hero dog in the White House are you with me can you imagine a better

[9:25]

are you with me can you imagine a better shell you can't you just can't imagine it now there might be real practical limitations to have been doing it for example if the dog has already been adopted or the the handler is retiring and wants to go with this dog if the handler is retiring you know the one who is primarily responsible for the dog maybe the dog's best life is with the handler so you know that's that's a determination too but I know you agree with me best showman of all time access to if he does it the best show of all time adopting the hero dog now I think this was Greg Gutfeld original suggestion so credit where do I did not see that coming but maybe he did we'll see all right there's all kinds of stuff happening with social media which you would expect about the room the election so we've got Devon newness is suing Twitter for I

[10:28]

Devon newness is suing Twitter for I guess allowing untrue things about him to remain on the internet when and I don't know the details of this I guess he's claiming that that twitter can identify the bots and because they're letting the bots spread information disinformation about him something like that I don't know the details but I'm just mentioning this as context so that's going on at the same time that Jack Dorsey has announced yesterday I guess the Twitter would no longer take political ads and when I first heard that I thought I think I have to think about this some more because I'm not sure how does this affect the world my first impression was was positive because I thought just get rid of all these stupid ads because political ads are generally worthless lies they're not entertaining the they they barely change anybody's mind but

[11:30]

they barely change anybody's mind but you know you only have to change 1% to win an election and I thought maybe that's just the safest thing to do because otherwise they're in the business of spreading lies because political ads are pretty much just lies and why should they be in the business of spreading lies so I thought from a from a let's say ethical what's good for the world kind of point of view coming out in favor of not spreading known lies it was kind of supportable right but the ramifications of that will say Brad parse Cal was not happy they had of trumps campaign and and the digital guru of all things he points out correctly that the campaign who has the most money and the most sophisticated best digital operation is

[12:34]

sophisticated best digital operation is the one who's gets hurt hurt the most because if he has the most money to buy ads and then somebody says you can't buy ads anymore well that hurts you the most so and then other people are saying can you imagine that Twitter would ever make this decision if we were not in this exact situation where Trump had the advantage woody would he not I don't know it seems like it seems like we would probably be here no matter what because no matter who was running and no matter who was ahead you still have the problem that the that the ads are lies and why would you want them on your platform even though you know social media is full of citizens lying it's sort of different with them when people want to be President or like so but here's the thing when Twitter says it won't accept

[13:35]

thing when Twitter says it won't accept political ads the way Jack Dorsey explains it is he says we don't want to be selling reach so when you when you put an ad on Twitter it's not as if you can't just do a tweet so the president can tweet and add or you know you could tweet anything once and anybody who creates an ad they can tweet it they just can't pay extra to have his sent to people who are not following that account what I would ask you if you were Brad parse Cal's operation and the tweets that you make are both hilarious and well produced you probably get a lot of retweets just for free well what you don't get is that content crossing out of your silo of the people who follow you already and basically are already gonna vote for Trump you just don't get any of the other people because nobody's

[14:35]

any of the other people because nobody's paying attention they're not following you necessarily I think the president might be an exception he probably has people who were not his his followers following him I mean he has people who don't vote for him following him I assume lots of them so maybe maybe he can tweet stuff and that gives him some advantage but it's it's gonna be hard to figure out how this all how this all sorts out and at the same time we've got Facebook Zuckerberg saying he's gonna go the other direction he's still going to accept political ads but in his case he says they don't want to be in the business of policing truth and he would rather keep the fake fake you know untrue has up there and I assume this is what he means let other people comment on it and say it's not true and that's you know the best the best disinfectant for lies is free

[15:35]

the best disinfectant for lies is free speech in this model he didn't say that but that's why my interpretation is that the more free speech the better and that's your only defense against lies is maximum freedom of speech is he right I don't know you know all these things are pretty grey aren't they because so now Twitter went a different way which seems cleaner I like I think I prefer I don't know they both made I think both Twitter and Facebook have made reasonable decisions that reasonable people can disagree with it's all really great and I don't envy them having to even make these decisions because there's sort of no way to win but let me put a summary on all of these social media changes the net effect wait for this this will be my big jaw-dropping moment that you have to

[16:37]

jaw-dropping moment that you have to think about all day long are you ready the net effect of all these Twitter Facebook advertising etc changes is we don't know what form of government we have because I've told you before that we we used to be something like a republic when the government was formed and that meant we would elect people who would be our representatives they would go off and make decisions on our behalf really good system when your best communication is horse here take this letter on your horse three days letter later and deliver it somewhere so in those days that made sense to have a republic because you didn't have an option you know there was no way to get everybody to vote on everything at cetera time goes by social media becomes the dominant way that people communicate and find news and and just you know live their life and it completely accidentally

[17:37]

completely accidentally the power of social media became the government so that's that's my interpretation that whatever social media decides the government needs to do sooner or later the government needs to do it so we're at we're at a point where the government is now not a republic where we we we elect these people and then they make their own best judgment about how to support their people we have a system in which social media makes a decision in essence you know because it forms some kind of a consensus it informs the politicians what they can and cannot get away with and then they just they sort of have to conform now of course they'll be exceptions there'll be times when the politician goes against the weight of social media but those will be very selective times because they know they can't always be on the wrong side of social media so in effect the social media is our government informally

[18:38]

media is our government informally because it has so much power power of opinion power to shape the next election you you know power but now we don't know what social media is or how it works because the two biggest platforms the ones that matter to politics Facebook and Twitter have made changes that are different changes and we know exactly know once you throw in the bots once you throw in I don't know what this does when you can't by reach what is it does what does it do to the way that campaigns are going to operate we actually lost the sight of what our government is and now it's lost in the algorithm think about this we actually don't understand nor is it possible the smartest person in the world at this moment the smartest person in the world would not be capable no matter how much research they did or how much access they had to base information the

[19:39]

they had to base information the smartest person in the world now could not determine our form of government because it's something with BOTS is certainly it includes foreign interference because can stop it on social media I mean you can do what you can do but you can't stop him then there's the algorithm of Twitter and you know the the no ads what's the what's that look like you know who gets an advantage of that I mean we it's completely you know gray we just look into what we go on I don't know it looks like it's bad for Trump but what about the next election who was it bad for and let me and then let me take a little bit further so in the news today there's news that Camilla Harris is running out of money or at least she's decided to scale back her campaign and spend less because she's not fundraising as big as well as the top people likewise Biden is considered in trouble

[20:39]

likewise Biden is considered in trouble because he's running out of money now let me ask you who voted for Camilla yet and who voted for Joe Biden yet nobody nobody voted for her Kamla nobody voted for Joe Biden and they might they might have to get kicked out of the primaries in effect by running out of money so let me ask you this do we have a system of government that's a republic in which the people vote and then their vote is heard and then our representative it goes often makes votes on their behalf nope nope we do not we have a system in which the people who are donating are absolutely deciding who is running and what system does that look like what system are you reminded of in which there's a free election but there's a catch the only people who can be in the election have been sort of selected by

[21:41]

election have been sort of selected by the small group what does that system remind you of answer I ran I just described Iran's system of government in Iran you can run for president but only if the ruling clerics primarily the Ayatollah say you can run so the only people would get
get be on the ballot are the ones selected not by the people but by somebody in charge we've accidentally we've accidentally drifted into something like that a system where the only people can run as a as a Democrat will be the ones we get the most money now Bernie tried to break the system by getting small donations and successfully and apparently he's still drawing the most people at his rallies the fact that an 80 year old socialist is drawing the most attention at his rallies and getting the other small donations and stuff is really a credit to Bernie I got

[22:44]

stuff is really a credit to Bernie I got to say well I don't I don't think he should be President I don't think he's got the right policies etc and I don't want an 80 year old to be President you have to respect his game my god he's good and his energy his recovery from his heart attack it's hard not to have a good degree of respect for Bernie even if you don't want him to be present he's doing a heck of a job but here's my overall point we no longer know what our system of government is because it's something about the people with money determining who can have enough money to even be in the primary and get through it it's something about whatever Twitter's doing whatever Facebook is doing whatever other countries are doing and whatever influencers on social media are doing and whose lies are the most effective then on top of that we have this whole sham Pietschmann thing going on that we'll have probably in effect on

[23:45]

on that we'll have probably in effect on the election and what what is a sham Pietschmann have to do with our system of government do you dear was there any time when the founders of the country were drawing up the Constitution and they said you know you know what we need we have a rule for impeachment but what we need is something else we also need a rule for a sham Pietschmann you know a an impeachment that's just a sham where they don't use the actual rules of impeachment but rather they pretend they are to create news that makes the public think there's an impeachment process we'll just know it's not an impeachment today we're just gonna we're gonna vote on the rules of impeachment if there were an appeasement we'll know what our rules would be now what's the public here well sounds like he's getting impeached so we have lost all connection to a form of government that ever made sense it's now the Wild West and in the

[24:47]

sense it's now the Wild West and in the Wild West the best gunfighter is gonna win and who's the best gunfighter in politics today rhetorical question trump trump is by far the best gunfighter in the Wild West and politics just became Wild West I don't think anybody's gonna be the best gunfighter especially if he gets a hero dog for the White House all right Hillary Clinton is mad at Facebook for their decision to allow false information in political advertisements she calls it appalling it's appalling voters are being confronted by millions of pieces of misinformation a world where up is down and down is up is a world where democracy can't thrive let me yeah let me translate this for you I'm gonna translate this from Clinton ease into an actual language you understand all right so here's her act

[25:48]

understand all right so here's her act hers here's our Clinton ease oh no the Facebook's decision to allow false information and political advertisements is appalling blah blah here's what she's saying translation if social media has that kind of power then my trained journalists were on my side won't have as much in a relationship so Hillary Clinton wants the truth to be something you hear in the news she was that to be your single source of truth now does that give Democrats an advantage yes because if you take social media out of the equation what do people have left to believe well what they see in the news and who controls the news well most of the Democrats but of course there's a I know 40% of the country or whatever it is watching Fox News and getting their their news that way but

[26:49]

getting their their news that way but but for Hillary Clinton to even imagine the Facebook could identify and remove the news that's fake how in the world is anybody going to decide what's fake if anybody could decide what was real and what was fake we wouldn't have had the Muller investigation we're terrible and understanding what's real and what's what's not you know we just spent what two years listening to Hillary Clinton about fake news about Trump being a Russian agent and fake news about Tulsi Gabbard being a Russian asset I mean she's the queen of fake news and she's saying that Facebook should crack down on fake news she doesn't meet her own I think she's assuming that at Facebook being a left-leaning organization famously that if they decided to police the news there's no way that wouldn't go in her favor because there's no way

[27:50]

in her favor because there's no way you'd put facebook employees in room and saying here's the news from here's a ad from Trump's group here's an ad from the Democrats can you tell us which one is true there's no way that works but she wants that because that would be good for Democrats
speaking of Tulsi Gabbard I did send her a message and s so i ID m'd Tulsi I guess her DMS are open it asked her if she would come on this periscope it's to my surprise Tulsi responded personally I think it looked like it was her to the DM and said yeah here's the here's my campaign person to set it up and connected me what so that's my news for the day so Tulsi Gabbard did say yes to coming on this

[28:50]

Gabbard did say yes to coming on this periscope at a time to be announced I'm talking to the campaign now before you get too excited remember that I also invited Andrew yang some months ago he also said yes personally referred me to his campaign but sort of got lost and lost in that shuffle so saying saying yes doesn't quite mean it's going to happen right so we can't assume that all the the connections will be made but it's kind of mind-blowing it's kind of mind-blowing that the world is so small that I could be sitting here my my Dilbert drawing desk in California surrounded by forest fires and blackouts and God knows what and I can just send a message on my little device to somebody who's running to be the most important job on the planet the president in the

[29:50]

job on the planet the president in the United States and I can get a personal answer sure it's just mind blowing isn't it how some all the world got so we'll see if that happens I hope so so the whistle blower got named I don't know if all of you were aware of it yet but there's I forget who popped the cork on this apparently all the journalists already knew the name they knew who it was but they weren't reporting it or at least like they were pretty sure they knew but they weren't reporting it so now we know I forget the person's name doesn't matter but he's a Democrat he's a he's not just a Democrat he's sort of an active Democrat if you know what I mean so the original whistleblower clearly was a partisan now I do not
people will say people will tell me that I'm always supporting the President and

[30:51]

I'm always supporting the President and saying that his his persuasion skills are amazing and let me be really clear that his persuasion skill the president's persuasion skills on this whole Ukrainian phone call has not been perfect and indeed now I don't know if they'll pivot to doing this but the president once he'd released the transcript and we had a good idea of what wasn't wasn't said and he probably knew that some investigation would pop up people who were talking about the the quote quid pro quo I think the big mistake persuasion wise is to pretend that maybe that's something wrong the president should have said and didn't they're checking on somebody who is number one in the polling to be the next president biden checking on his connections to foreign countries which are based on public information I mean the public knows

[31:52]

information I mean the public knows there's something we should understand better about the Biden's and Ukraine now it could be that if he asked Ukraine to look into it Ukraine could ask a few questions come back in two weeks and say yeah we looked into it it's nothing but you know normal business there's nothing there would you have been upset if the president asked about Biden and Ukraine looked into it and said yeah we don't really see anything now of course you wouldn't be upset most thing your Trump supporters but would anybody else be upset I think they'd say oh good we just cleared Joe Biden that's one less thing that the other side can say if he's if he becomes the nominee wouldn't that be good for everybody now suppose it went the other way suppose Trump said I need you to look into these Biden's and let's say Ukraine looked into it and actually found something that weren't that's the problem if I had to put the odds on it I'd say that's low to me personally I

[32:53]

I'd say that's low to me personally I think the odds that they would find some smoking Biden gun probably low but there might be something that makes your eyebrow go up and your hair on the back your neck Oh so there might be completely legal behavior this still looks a little swampy to you wouldn't you want to know if you're going into the next election and you're a voter and let's say it's Biden because he's leading in the polls just hypothetically against Trump wouldn't you want to know just as you wanted to know if you were on the other side you want actually I think everybody wanted to know if there was any Russian collusion in the Trump campaign you could be hoping for it to come out one way or the other but didn't you all want to know I mean I certainly wanted to know I assumed there was nothing there but I certainly wanted to know and why wasn't that completely appropriate it was because the voters need to know if

[33:53]

was because the voters need to know if their leaders compromised by in another country so this Biden thing let me say this as clearly as I can the White House communication and strategy on pushing back against the Biden thing is a complete failure I mean it's very poorly done in my opinion I'll tell you what was done well I think the president saying that the phone call was perfect that's pretty good you're staying out of the details just saying it was perfect no I you know and not any further than that but that's okay but it's not enough he's got to go all the way at this quid pro quo and say in fact he's got to say every conversation with the foreign leader is a quid pro quo so stop saying that well why are you even bringing up a quid pro quo all you have to know is that two leaders had a conversation if you don't think it's always quid pro quo then you don't understand what a conversation between leaders actually is so you

[34:55]

between leaders actually is so you should take this quid pro quo thing and you should blow it up like Al Baghdady that's right I said that you should blow up that quid pro quo stupidity the way you blew up L Baghdady because it's stupid there are some things which you can say my priorities are different than yours my political opinion is different than yours but some things that are actually just stupid it has nothing to do with politics so to imagine that two leaders could have a conversation without a quid pro quo in it that's just stupid so just call a stupid that's your best defense is to say that you're being children all these conversations are quid pro quo should the president have released funds before a conversation in which maybe he has some things to ask for shitty no no we shouldn't if there's something you want to ask for you keep your leverage and the u.s. work maybe

[35:58]

your leverage and the u.s. work maybe that's what he did we'd have to hear it in his own words but if he did that's exactly what a president does now the question is whether he was digging for dirt because the president and here's the biggest failure the White House has allowed the other team to brand what he did as digging for dirt on an opponent was it digging for dirt on an opponent yes it was was it also his job and a top priority to make sure that there was no Biden connection with Ukraine yes it was if something is all of those things there's nothing there but he's allowing the other team to say it's only it's only digging for dirt I haven't seen anybody say stop saying is digging for dirt he's doing the job of a president and if he didn't ask about this he wouldn't be doing his job so they're completely failing on the

[36:59]

so they're completely failing on the defense of this now I will say there might be something about this I suppose this is always true there might be something about this that I don't understand for example there might be a lawyer advising the President and weigh in about something that I don't quite get is a trap or a risk so maybe there's some legal reason that I'm not seeing that that they have to treat it the way they're treating it maybe the president doesn't want to open up an attack against him by saying oh you know that would basically say that they've all investigation was legitimate and not a witch-hunt although at this point I think the Lee Smith book is blowing that to hell by the way I haven't read the Lee Smith book that the one that was I think it was number one in the world bestseller recently but it talks about the plot against the president I forget the name of the book and I guess there are some a jaw-dropping revelations in there about the genesis of the the steel dossier and

[38:05]

the genesis of the the steel dossier and I've only heard about it I haven't read it but if that stuff's real you know if that book is accurately reporting what's going on oh my god that the deep state is going down I and it's hard to know what's true in this world anymore but if any of that's not true there are probably people going to jail let's say the President as tweeted that they have about 60% of a trade deal with China meaning that 60% of everything they want has been agreed and that they're planning to sign it so it would be a partial trade deal and they're just talking about the location and the timing of it now now you have now seen any news to suggest that the fentanyl shipments from China have stopped have

[39:05]

shipments from China have stopped have you and and so I'm gonna hold my opinion on this until I understand it better because I don't know what is the part that's agreed to versus the part that's not if you know this is a very big if because I don't know this to be true but if the stuff they're gonna agree on is simply good for everyone for the business that's already there maybe that's not a big deal so for example if China has agreed to not steal the IP of the companies that are already in China sure when I was like why not sign that deal because that's just good for us if some of it is just you know some some areas of tariffs you know are relaxed maybe it's good for our farmers maybe that might make sense and so we also don't know what is what is the forty

[40:06]

don't know what is what is the forty percent we're holding back and maybe that's where we get we get some fentanyl motion so it could be that the sixty percent we're willing to sign we think is good for us whereas the forty percent we think is more good for China and we're gonna we're going to hold that out until we see some action on I don't know fentanyl and Hong Kong and we girls and stuff I said before and I'll say it again if the president signs a comprehensive deal with China for trade and they continue sending fentanyl to this country that would be an enormous failure on the part of the president such a failure and because I take this issue personally okay I don't know if I could support the president after that that that would be too personal to me and I hope you understand that I would still love all of you and I think the

[41:07]

still love all of you and I think the president's gonna win no matter what so I don't think there's a chance the president will win but if he signs the deal with China and they just keep shipping fentanyl to this country I don't know I could support that I think I think that's where I'm out okay so but I don't expect the President to do that I expect that he would not get to a some kind of a final deal which I know without a sense and all improvement so we'll see Obama was interesting recently he came out against canceled culture so Obama was basically saying as some event that we should just sort of relax about people's smaller flaws and mistakes and you know maybe pay attention to things are more important just accept the fact that we're imperfect people in an imperfect world and and maybe not obsess

[42:07]

imperfect world and and maybe not obsess about the imperfections I gotta say it was it was such a good reminder of why he got elected in the first place and why he got reelected the the the way that Obama approached some topics was just the best way all right and the way he approached this is just so adult I have to say I really appreciated it and I've said this before that when he ran for president and did not make a big deal about him himself being black that was just great Obama inge I mean that's that's just good technique and this is good technique as well so here's here's the funniest headline of the day so this is a CNN headline right so the the context matters at CNN and this is their headline Fox News

[43:08]

and this is their headline Fox News departure to : Catherine Herridge joined CBS News saying quote and facts matter so let me read that headline again and see how you interpret it this is on CNN it says Fox News departure catherine herridge joined CBS News saying facts matter how do you interpret that wouldn't you interpret that to mean that she believes that Fox News doesn't report facts and so she's going to another network that does this isn't that how you report that I mean how you interpret that headline oh that's how I interpret it and I thought my god really did she actually say that so I drill into the article to find out where she said she's leaving Fox News so that she can report on facts for the first time doesn't exist does not exist the headline is fake news

[44:08]

the headline is fake news the headline that says that catherine herridge joined CBS News , saying facts matter is technically true but of course is worded to be misleading here's the part that's technically true she did say facts matter she did not say I'm leaving because facts matter the the because is implied in the headline but doesn't exist it was just one of several things she said now if you're a journalist how ordinary is it for you to say that facts matter well every journalist says that a hundred percent of working professional journalists journalists will say facts matter I care about the facts I'm gonna report on the facts so what she actually said was close to nothing because journalists that's their job report on facts she said facts matter she did not tie that to why she was leaving that's

[45:09]

that to why she was leaving that's completely imaginary news that they put it in the headlines and and the funny thing is it's a headline mocking fake news that is fake news transparently obviously no no doubt about it this is a misleading headline and obviously can be intentional all right that's about all I got for today I think pretty good an interesting news day somebody says CBS ruined Star Trek I disagree I so I've been watching I watched this Star Trek that's running on CBS all access the first season kind of a mass second season they got new management you know she knew showrunners kind of great by the second season so I like the atmospherics of it oh yeah some in the comments Jim is reminding me there one

[46:10]

comments Jim is reminding me there one of the things that you haven't seen in the news about the California blackouts is wait for it how do you charge your electric car yeah we have probably I'd assume I mean I've never looked this up but I'm gonna assume that California has the most electric cars of any state it's probably fair to say and all those electric cars it's not that they just how do you have you go to the store and get groceries in the black I suppose if you had a tesla powerwall a battery you could charge your car I think I assume that those things work together why wouldn't they so you do have an option as long as the Sun shines but if you have a car and no power wall battery which could be tens of thousands of dollars and you charge your car I haven't seen anybody talk about that in the news but number of people have

[47:10]

the news but number of people have talked about that with your Generac yeah maybe all right I am going to be flying out to New York City on the 3rd so I guess that's Sunday so on Sunday I'll be flying out you'll may be here for me on various radio TV podcasts talking about my book loser think and I've got a feeling this might be my biggest book I don't know yet I want to jinx it but there's something about this book that's so sticky because it addresses all of the arguments you see in your life and and in social media and gives you another window into them and a technique before avoiding the worst arguments and sorting the worst arguments when they're used against you so I think it's going to be almost required reading for people who want to interact in the internet and don't want

[48:10]

interact in the internet and don't want to look foolish because about the the 10th time somebody says well that's mind reading you're gonna ask yourself what book were they reading you see this already on the internet right mostly on my Twitter feed people will say that some but somebody in the news is mind-reading and we start seeing how much of the news is some stranger assuming was somebody else's thinking incorrectly you can't unsee it so that's one of the things that loser think is gonna do is gonna give you a frame and some words some vocabulary so it's really easy to spot the the bad thinking techniques it's going to make a difference somebody says you cannot title the book loser and expect it to sell well you have your point is well made your point is well made people do buy books because of who

[49:11]

made people do buy books because of who they are so there's something about buying a book that matches your brand you know it's like books are kind of personal so would somebody buy a book and sit there reading it on the you know on the airplane that has the word loser right in the word and the answer is we'll see we'll see here's the thinking behind it yeah somebody's handed me in the comments if you had asked me years ago if there would ever be a series of books in which you're you're calling the buyer of the book a dummy or an idiot would anybody think anybody would buy that the dummies guide to HTML the idiots guide to everything those are two of the biggest selling series of books in the world and they literally insult they insult the reader the trick is if if you do it in sort of good humor and

[50:14]

if you do it in sort of good humor and people understand you know there's a function to the book and it brings attention to it and it makes it hard to forget those are pluses and losers who think because it's a new word it's kind of sticky let me ask you this having heard the new word loser think would you ever forget it probably not it's sticky isn't it and loser think given that the book is about how to avoid it and how call it out and other people will say so those of you who have pointed out that that that could be a you know a violation of common branding form to put a loser in the title the risk is and it's an intentional risk one that I did knowingly the risk I took is that it's sticky and it's provocative and you won't be able to get it out of your hand so that's the play all right

[51:18]

so that's the play all right some people like it I also think it's the best cover I've ever done it's also either I would go further this is one of the best covers I've ever seen in a book honestly yeah I so I've written if you count the Dilber books I think I've got something like 45 books in my career 11 of them or is this the 12th at lost count this is the 11th or 12th book of the non Dilbert type where I got to design the cover without having to put Dilbert in it and although sometimes I did so this and this is the best one by far out of 45 but look at do this little experiment if you find this book then go to whatever category it's in because it's in it's in some of the bestseller categories like political humor I guess and and just look at the other book covers on the page just expand the page so you can see you know that all the

[52:19]

so you can see you know that all the book covers it really jumps out it really jumps out and there's a lot of science there's a lot of science behind this by the way someday I'll talk about that Oh somebody says hold up the book cover yeah so the let me tell you why this is the best book cover you've ever seen number one the title is one word and it's a new word as one that's catchy so the title marks number two this burnt-orange always tests well it catches your attention so that's scientifically known if you had a choice use this color you'll see there are a lot of in fact there quite a few on my shelf that have some of this palette now here's the other magic you see these people in the bubbles makes you curious doesn't it why are they in the bubble what is the bubble is this a book about how to get

[53:20]

bubble is this a book about how to get out of the bubble how to get in the bubble is it about Democrats it's about Republicans it's about all people isn't about some people curiosity and books go together really well if you've ever read any of the Harry Potter books probably most of you have the author who I can never remember the author of the Harry Potter books which is crazy because she's the most famous author in the world JK Rowling so JK Rowling is the best you might ever see of stoking your curiosity throughout the book you'll see that a lot of the chapters end with there's a sound in the distance or there's something happening that's unexplained at the end of every chapter so you say I guess I'll have to read the next chapter to eventually get to the answer to what's happening at the end of this chapter so lose the cover does the same thing makes you say who's in the bubble the why are they in the bubble what's the bubble about what is looser think so

[54:22]

the bubble about what is looser think so there's a great curiosity trigger built in that's the technique and that's all for now I'll talk to you later