Episode 743 Scott Adams: The No Malarkey Tour, OK Doomer, No One is Above the Law, Finger Biting
Date: 2019-12-01 | Duration: 41:22
Topics
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Creating viral tweets and the 6 dimensions of humor Joe Biden’s “No Malarkey” bus tour Mark Schneider’s clever comeback for climate-change fearful… …“OK Doomer” The persuasion power of short powerful phrases “No one is above the law”… …a persuasive reason to look into possible Biden corruption Newsweek reporter fired, false report on President’s Thanksgiving Gell-Mann amnesia effect
If you would like my channel to have a wider audience and higher production quality, please donate via my startup (Whenhub.com) at this link: https://interface.my/ScottAdamsSays
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## Transcript
[0:08]
pom pom pom pom pom pom pom pom pom pom pom hey Jerri come on in here good to see you Stanton Cruz Matias Kevin always a pleasure oh I know why you're here sure you don't even have to say it because I already know you're here for the simultaneous up and most of you are prepared if you're not prepared it doesn't take much just a little bit of work a little bit of effort all it takes is finding a cover of our glasses snifter TIFF Stein and cellist anchor Thurber / canteen grill goblin vessels of any kind fill it with your favorite liquid I like coffee join me now for the unparalleled pleasure the dopamine hit of the day the thing that makes everything better the simultaneous em go ah ha ha ha
[1:17]
tingles shudders all right Oh Bob weasel you just threw another log on the fire that sounds very cozy what is better than sipping your beverage by a fireplace while listening to coffee with Scott Adams nothing and nothing that's right nothing well let's talk about some of the funny things in the news here's a little humor lesson are you ready I'm gonna teach you how to make viral tweets now every now and then I catch a tweet that's just right it goes viral and I did that yesterday with a couple of tweets but when I say viral I mean you know relatively speaking for my world relatively viral it's getting over a let's say a thousand retweets so here's an example and I'll tell you why it's funny I tweeted yesterday people used to ask me why I always travel with a fire extinguisher and
[2:17]
travel with a fire extinguisher and narwhal tusks who's the idiot now yeah so if you want to make a viral tweet it's always good to jump on something that's already funny so if you're trying to find a topic for a tweet or a topic for humor you always look to the same thing is the situation itself already funny before you've added a joke alright now if if you've got somebody a polish chef attacking a is la mctarry turns out he's an Isis guy with a narwhal tusks while the other guy fights him off with that fire extinguisher and the third guy who was the bravest one of all who gets no credit off he gets no credit because he didn't have a cool weapon if you watch that situation and you said to yourself I've got a Google a narwhal but what the
[3:20]
I've got a Google a narwhal but what the hell is a narwhal raise your hand if you had to google it and look at a picture of it and did you say to yourself well that's a pretty cool whatever the hell that is some kind of aquatic unicorn pretty cool all right so here's tip number one for making viral content also tip number one for humor is the situation funny before you've even done the joke that's what you're looking for it's hard to become viral unless you're actually half laughing just hearing the basic story without the joke alright so then I added the joke and here's well one of the wealthy what I call the six dimensions of humor which if you would like more on this topic you should google six dimensions of humor and my name so or you could google to the humor formula Scott Adams and they'll pop up on the internet but one of the six is
[4:22]
on the internet but one of the six is cleverness and cleverness is something you know what see it I don't have to over overcomplicate the definition but cleverness often can be a using your environment for a clever solution to something now that solution might be ridiculous and absurd and it might be just funny but your brain says oh that's sort of a solution to a thing but it's so ridiculous that it makes you laugh so the cleverness is that your ridiculous solution is close enough to an actual solution that your brain says oh that's like an actual solution oh no it's not it's ridiculous and then you laugh because the in congruence so when I said that I always travel with a fire extinguisher and a narwhal tusks that is an engineering solution meaning that if if the you know if I'm part of a knife attack I've got the two things which apparently work really well for
[5:24]
apparently work really well for rappelling lifers knife errs knife attackers then the other thing is another one of the other dimensions is so the first dimension was cleverness so you need at least two of the six dimensions of humor for something to register as a joke to other people so if you only put one in there typically it doesn't fit you also want or doesn't work as a as a joke the other dimension is bizarre if you can make something that's out of somebody's normal normal let's say world and yet make it sound like it could be no matter how ridiculous that to makes you prime to laugh because the world doesn't make sense so because having a narwhal tusks as a weapon and a fire extinguisher is so unusual it has bizarre just already in it so it's already bizarre and there's
[6:25]
it so it's already bizarre and there's some cruelty involved that's another dimension of humor if somebody is having something bad happen to them that usually Prime's you for humor just automatically you know unless it's so terrible that you know you're you're too distracted by the horrible enough of it but if there's something just sort of mildly bad happening to somebody now for example when this guy was getting stabbed with the narwhal tusks see I'm just you don't even have to add the joke all I have to do is say this guy was being stabbed with a narwhal tusk and you're already laughing that's perfect that's good fodder for a cart coming alright so and then what I said who's the idiot now that sort of brought it all together because you could see that I thought I was being clever by having a narwhal tusk the fire extinguisher with me all the time and I got kind of lucky because it
[7:26]
time and I got kind of lucky because it turns out those are useful okay so those are a few of the dimensions of humor that are in that another one that went semi viral yesterday was I showed a picture of but I have to pause and say this for a second as bizarre as it is for a narwhal tusk and a fire extinguisher to be part of a national story have you come to think about how perfect those two tools are for stopping a knife fight let's say let's say you knew there was gonna be a knife fight you know sometime next week and you were gonna be in it and and you had all the time you needed to to use your environment to fashion the perfect defense but you live in a country where you don't have guns right so a gun would be the perfect defense the sword would be pretty good but it would be hard to beat a 5 foot long pointy pole the narwhal tusks and a
[8:30]
long pointy pole the narwhal tusks and a fire extinguisher that the other guys using because if you just have the pointy thing maybe he can grab it and you know stab you and if you just have the fire extinguisher well he could probably just sort of run through it can stab you but if you've got one guy with a pointy thing and one guy with a fire extinguisher you can take care of business the third guy who was actually the bravest because he had no weapons at all and he it'll be he'll be lost in obscurity he's just got he's just like guide number three you didn't have a cool tool all right so Joe Biden announced the kickoff of the I'm not even making this up if you haven't heard this story I promise you I'm not making this up this is actually really in the news that Joe Biden has branded his bus tour the no malarkey to her now I asked myself what was the
[9:31]
her now I asked myself what was the campaign staff meeting like when they kicked around this idea I feel as if it looks a little like this and I'm going to invite Dale to do the Biden campaign decision-making process in one act Dale will be playing the part of a campaign advisor on the Biden team i without my Dale beard will be playing the part of Joe Biden while they're deciding on the no malarkey to her so does anybody have a any ideas for branding our bus to her oh oh yeah I do I do I I think we should call it that no malarkey to her pretty good it's pretty good
what yeah we call it the no malarkey tour people love that people love when I
[10:34]
tour people love that people love when I say no malarkey okay what's more larkey mean well it means sort of like foolishness and you know BS that sort of thing where none of that so no malarkey this is believing this is gonna hit home people say Trump is a Brander no no I will take him under the bleachers behind the school any day now will brand him like a drum I'll brand him so hard no malarkey it's gonna make it merit make America great again look like spittle it's gonna look like nothing a
point of clarification if I may know malarkey without your first choice there's nothing else we have I'm just asking was there anything number 2 or 3 on the list I mean just in case I'm just saying
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list I mean just in case I'm just saying just in case the no malarkey thing maybe tomorrow you wake up and you'll like it as much just a case there's anything number 2 number 3 nope nope no malarkey no malarkey that's it I have made my decision okay point of clarification hopefully amazing when you say no malarkey how comprehensive is that does that include no shenanigans are there no shenanigans no malarkey just just keep it simple we don't have to get into the shenanigans but no malarkey okay no shenanigans we don't need to say that but how about lollygagging is lollygagging in or out forget about the lollygagging there's just no malarkey let's just keep it simple no malarkey right right but about
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no malarkey right right but about kerfuffles and her follows nothing moxie gobsmacked rapscallions nothing just malarkey that's all no no lollygagging no film Fennell just malarkey you heard me it's good to be a winner and then we see and seem and then we see a photo of the no malarkey bus parked in front of what would be his rally and it was an hour before the rally and there wasn't a single person there there was just nothing but a bus that said Noble our key and that's when I tweeted the pair they're only coming from the malarkey so what do you get when you go to a trump rally well you get a lot of malarkey let me look at that you want malarkey I'll
[13:37]
me look at that you want malarkey I'll tell you where to go go to a trump rally are you gonna enjoy it yeah you're gonna love the malarkey in fact after the Trump rally what are the parts that you quote back to your friends while laughing uproariously is that the statistics no is it when President Trump thanks the other people in the state he's having the rally no no that's probably not the part you talk about later it's the malarkey if you want to fill your stadium you better bring the malarkey that's what I'm saying people like their malarkey malarkey deeply underrated I say give me more malarkey
and that's not even counting the fact as Libby Debbie Susan no as Susan pointed out on the internet that malarkey has no in front of it have I taught you anything about putting the word no in
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anything about putting the word no in front of a bigger word that is the one that carries all the meaning how does your brain process that it does not process it as no malarkey it processes it as malarkey malarkey so we have proof positive that the Biden campaign does not know anything about psychology words people branding politics or much of anything from this century I suppose but if you want to know more about your phonograph or your VHS tapes you should talk to Joe Biden because he's got that stuff down down I tell you now you may be saying to me as many people have okay boomer technically I'm a boomer I'm actually I think I'm at the young end of the boomer range I believe and Mark Snyder is
[15:40]
I believe and Mark Snyder is popularizing the the counter phrase especially against the people who think climate change is going to kill them pretty soon and his counter is okay dimmer pretty good isn't it okay dimmer so every time somebody tells you that the world is gonna end because Trump is so so bullying just say okay doer every time somebody says if we don't get rid of Trump by God our our whole country is gonna fall into the ocean in in dishonor okay doober it's pretty good isn't it yeah it's cut it'll grow on you believe it believe me here's a little persuasion tip for you you're hearing a lot of people when they talk about the president and they're talking about the Ukraine phone call and the whole concept of impeachment here's a phrase you hear
[16:41]
of impeachment here's a phrase you hear a lot from the Democrats knowing that no one is above the law now that's a really clever phrase it's a persuasion phrase it is not a it's not a factual statement because in fact we live in a world where people beat the law all the time so nobody should be above the law but of course some people do manage to get away with stuff both be they poor or be they rich we have a system that's kind of leaky pen a wait that's not the point when somebody says no one is above the law and let's say they're talking about the president what what technique is that students of persuasion you've heard me talk about this to infinity and you probably never noticed there it is somebody said it's it's thinking past the sale that's the technique being used if I say that about Trump no one is above the law I've done trying to make
[17:43]
above the law I've done trying to make you unclean that law was broken I and scene 1 there's no law that's broken so by saying that somebody is saying no one is above the law that's one of those bumper sticker sayings that we just accept as true if you hear the phrase no one is above the law how many of you disagree with it zero right there's zero people think you people should be above the law you know forget about the fact that sometimes people get away with stuff nobody thinks it should be that way so it's super sticky because it's a familiar phrase familiar little phrases like that have more power than they should because they're familiar you also process it as true I hear this all the time nobody's about the law true alright now it happens to have the advantage of actually you know being a
[18:44]
advantage of actually you know being a real thing nobody is above the law in this country but it makes you think past the question now here is my suggestion you know how trump is really good at turning around the other team's attack they said he and his group were using fake news so he turned that fake news into an attack on CNN and MSNBC it worked really well so he's really good at taking the gun out of the hand of the mugger and using it to shoot the mugger here's how he should use this when somebody says of the Ukrainian phone call and looking into the Biden situation no one is above the law here is the correct response that's why I was looking into the boom into the Biden thing because no one is above the law if you accept the principle that no one is above the law that takes where there's some some assumptions and one of those assumptions is that you see something
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assumptions is that you see something that looks like it might be against the law even if it's not guaranteed to be against the law it's worth looking into because if you don't look into it well maybe somebody gets away with breaking the law and remember no one is above the law
law so if Trump turned this around no one is above the law and started using it about why he would ask Ukraine to look into the Biden thing because correct me if I'm wrong what is the one thing that the Democrats say over and over and over again they say that he's digging up dirt on an opponent and that the reason all of this is bad is not because there was just a person he was looking into it's because it was his political opponent if somebody says why are you looking into potential crimes of your political opponent what's the best answer no one is above the law now what I have heard Trump supporters say yeah and I've said
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Trump supporters say yeah and I've said it a bunch of times I say it didn't a long complicated way and I say it like this I'll say well you know if Biden Biden was leading in the polls to do the next president it's a very high priority that we look into foreign foreign interference and by the way even though maybe that should have been done at a lower level Department of Justice and Bob Barr it's just common sense that the boss has to kick it off you want a public statement by the other boss because once he's committed in public and you've talked a leader leader you're gonna get much more much more cooperation at the lower levels okay that's the argument I've been using complicated right completely valid in my opinion completely valid but kind of complicated compare that to this oh yeah why was it why was it just a coincidence that the only time the Trump cares about this corruption why is it the only time he cares is that it happens to be his political opponent Scott so I explained
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political opponent Scott so I explained that let the one time he cares it's his political opponent explain that no one is above the law who was gonna do it right who else was doing it was somebody else looking into it I'm not aware of anybody else you if Biden was above the law then of course of course she should not look into him he's above the law but if he's not above the law maybe you're look into it maybe you see it see if he says everything's there now let me be clear the no one is above the law thing is just persuasion it's not really thinking per se it's persuasion but it could be used both ways as my point [Applause] apparently the Newsweek reporter who reported that Trump would be spending his Thanksgiving tweeting and golfing got fired because people pointed out
[22:51]
got fired because people pointed out that no he wasn't spending Thanksgiving tweeting and golfing he was serving meals to people in a war zone our are fighting people so Newsweek fired that person and I think this is another sort of a cousin to the gell-mann effect now a reminder the gell-mann amnesia effect I write about it in my best-selling book loser think which you probably have already ordered but if you haven't there's still time to gate today to get it and the gell-mann effect most of you know what this is it's when it was it was created by a physicist named gell-mann and whenever you see a news story about physics that was the one topic he knew really well and that when he would read the news stories about physics he would say oh my god they're wrong every time but really every time he'd read his story about physics being the top one of
[23:53]
story about physics being the top one of the top physicists and the world he would look at and say they got everything wrong and then he would have amnesia at the very next story he would read because he would think that was probably all right now is it a coincidence that the only time he knows the content he can tell it's wrong but all the other times when he doesn't know much about that content he accepts that is true one of the odds of that right the point of that being that the news is horribly inaccurate more often than you imagine but you just don't know it because you're not close enough to the details the I was going to tie this in with that Newsweek firing person so the oh here it is normally when the when the news gets something wrong you don't always know about it and in fact the news especially the opinion people will double down and say we got it right even though the news even though the facts seem to indicate they got it wrong so
[24:55]
seem to indicate they got it wrong so you don't have that many clean examples where somebody just makes up the news but this Newsweek situation was one where we all get to see behind the curtain because we know with complete certainty there's no ambiguity about what Trump actually did on Thanksgiving there could have been no time and I don't think it's been suggested there wasn't any time that it was ever in in evidence that he was going to spend that day golfing and tweeting so even though he used some decoy you know diversion to sneak over to Afghanistan for security reasons it's such a clean example where you see that somebody literally made up some facts and then put them in a national publication yeah so it's sort of jarring because you don't have situations where you can determine the actual facts with complete ambiguity after the fake facts
[25:56]
complete ambiguity after the fake facts have been published what's more common is that the fake news will say it's another bombshell proof of the president colluding with elbonia or whatever and then you know there's lots of news events after that but you never get like a completely ambiguous you know debunking it's rare that you have the fake story and then a hundred percent guaranteed it's fake the very next day that does just doesn't happen so likely gell-mann effect take something from that you should take from the fact that this one time we could know for sure what was true and you could compare it to what was reported and they're just opposites all right what else we got here so I think those were the there's a shooter who injured 11 people on Canal Street in New Orleans don't know much
[26:59]
Street in New Orleans don't know much about that that just happened news will be slow because it's a holiday weekend
didn't Trump say he alone can fix it I don't know what you're talking about
it's not the first time they have stolen from you stolen what Google sociopath versus psychopath Trump why what happened to the Kurds yeah there's a good question isn't it why is there not a lot of reporting about all the atrocities happening with the Kurds left in Syria is it because things are working out or because we just don't have good reporting and because it couldn't be both of those things right it could be that we don't have reporting and it's working out it could be that it's mostly working out but a few people are getting killed we shouldn't get
[27:59]
are getting killed we shouldn't get killed because it's a war zone and you know they're mortal enemies involved everywhere but maybe maybe the number of deaths is not high enough relative to the danger in that area then it looks like a special problem I don't know they made a treaty among the three nations that is correct oh by the way those of you I I did settle the mystery some of you know that on my book sometimes the subtitle says how untrained brains are ruining America but that I noticed that for some of the copies on the inside the subtitle is wrong well it's actually a different subtitle than then is on the cover of the same book it's so this is one of the versions I have where it says that one train Marines are ruining the world instead of America now we looked into this and our
[29:04]
America now we looked into this and our best guess is that they're around 300 copies that have this error and the error was caused by the the versions to say world were for the non-american audience the version is says America mr. America of course and the printer mixed up one of the pallets so there was just around 300 or so we think could be wrong about 300 them they have a mixed title is different from the subtitle and I happen to get one that's right it's a collector's edition if you got one of those you got a rare one looks like a bunch of you got him soon I think whoever got them first were more likely to have it so the people who bought it in the first 300 probably are the ones I have it I'm just guessing that's case did you see
[30:04]
just guessing that's case did you see Biden talk about his leg hair I did not see it but I heard I saw the transcript of it and I didn't know what to make of that I did not do it all right let me stop this I'm gonna talk to one of the users here at otu risk who says co2 is plant food you need to catch up alright so here's my advice if you want to in if you want to be engaged in the conversation about climate change there are a couple things you can say that will just signal to everyone involved they don't know what you're talking about and that you haven't looked into it enough to have any kind of an opinion all right one of those things that signals that you don't know anything about the topic is co2 is plant food it's true plants need co2 it's not a thing you should say about climate change because while all the scientists understand that
[31:05]
while all the scientists understand that they all do trust me every scientist knows the plants need co2 everybody knows this if we did something to remove too much of it that that would be a problem but nobody really thinks that's much of a risk there's a lot of risk we might have too much of it say the scientists but there's not really any real risk we're gonna remove too much of it because we we would see it coming so far in advance and we would stop doing that you know unless we did something stupid like cede the ocean with self-growing bacteria that ruined the earth or something but I don't think we're gonna do that so if you're if you're entering the conversation at the lowest level sort of the preschool level on a conversation that you know you would need a PhD to really understand that the simplest least useful signal that you don't know what you're talking about is to say the statement to co2 is plant food that is no more useful than to say humans breathe oxygen everybody knows it
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humans breathe oxygen everybody knows it it's just not relevant it never will be the other thing that signals that you don't know what you're talking about on the topic of climate change is that all of the all the global warming is caused by some fluctuations one thing I can tell you as I say and loser think if there's one thing I can say with complete certainty the scientists who study how warmed the atmosphere is have considered the Sun to think that they have forgotten to consider the Sun and all of its you know elements of being the Sun to imagine that the scientists who study this for a living forgot that is just that you're reading some wack-ass website that makes these claims and you really you need to get out of the entry level all right so it's okay to enter the conversation without knowing much but you're going to be signaling your complete lack of understanding of the topic by saying
[33:07]
understanding of the topic by saying either co2 is plan food thank you thank you for telling us that water is wet humans breathe air and that if you drop a heavy object on your foot you know what are your foot there's nothing in the statement so don't act like you added something and if you think that the scientists forgot to consider the Sun when considering warmth then you need to you need to up your game they did consider the Sun they looked at the flares they looked at all the historical stuff they considered the Sun all right that I if it seems like I have too much of an attitude about that it's because I think the whole climate change thing is a big topic it's a big topic in the sense that it's important it's important if we have a problem it's important if we don't because you know there's a gigantic set of decisions
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there's a gigantic set of decisions either way so it's an important topic and if you're coming at it at the kindergarten level you should just stay out of it or or study up a little bit more but co2 is plant food is just saying water is what everybody knows this scientists considered the Sun so there's that right
they considered it and still got the models wrong well here's the thing as I as I described in looser think as long as you're willing to discard the models that didn't work and you've got hundreds of models you're always gonna have a model that works even if your model doesn't work all right let me make that point better let's say that the possible range of where the temperatures will be in the future is this it's a big place a big range and you've got some models that say is here some here some here some here some here but everybody agrees
[35:08]
some here some here but everybody agrees that temperature is gonna be somewhere in this range all right so if the temperature comes in let's say at the lower end of the range they'll just throw away the ones at the top and they'll say those were not predictive let's try again next year and more people will make some new models so by next year there'll be some new models and they'll look at them all and they'll say hey a few of these models came pretty close and then we'll throw out a few more as long as you're adding models and throwing out ones that didn't predict you are guaranteed to have some models because they're all through the range you're guaranteed to have some models that appear to predict does that mean that they did predict totally unknown there's no way to know if you have enough models some of them will always look like they're predicting especially if you're adding new ones all the time because you can add new ones they got all the history right on day
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they got all the history right on day one say look my new model you know predicts the past it what's the word for that what you know the word for predicted in the past you don't predict it you hindcast it so there are two situations you could guarantee you is true one if scientists are really good at making climate models you would expect that there would exist some climate models that are good all right your scientists are good at it and they've done their job really well the outcome should be some models that look like they're really close to the actualities right the other possibility is if scientists don't know what they're talking about and they're just randomly producing models what would be the outcome of that exactly the same exactly the same whether they were randomly generating them so long as they were within that sort of largest range of possible you would always have models that appear to predict whether you did
[37:10]
that appear to predict whether you did it completely and competently and it was just randomness or you know exactly what you're doing and you just nailed it so if you don't understand that there would always be models that appear to predict even if they don't then you don't understand how to look at the models and what kind of credibility you should put on them now and then when they take it to the next level of the economics on it well that's guessing alright that's about all I need to talk about today I'm looking at your comments here waiting for Scott Scott Scott somebody had a book removed from Amazon for questioning the role of co2 in warming I'm not sure that's wrong so there are different kinds of skeptics when it comes to the to climate change
[38:14]
when it comes to the to climate change and people come at it from completely different areas and they're they're just parts of it that they question so Tony Heller is famous for questioning the measurements and and has questions about whether the measurements have been accurately recorded whether they got you know tweaked for a fact etcetera so that's one kind of skepticism you know Tony does more than that one kind but that's that's one of these notice for the other kind is what somebody just mentioned there there are scientists who say hey the whole basic chemistry and physics that you all think is true is not true that co2 doesn't actually have an impact on warming that it falls into the category of I suppose anything's possible but if you had to look at a category that the majority of scientists agree and are probably right that would be where I would look because
[39:15]
that would be where I would look because on the basic chemistry in physics that's stuff you can test and has been tested you know in a lab so you can see hey if I've got this little artificial atmosphere and I add some co2 did the temperature go up or dead so if your skepticism is on the chemistry and the physics of co2 you're probably I'll say 98% chance a crackpot so should Amazon allow a crackpot who might have damaging scientific thoughts on Amazon well that's a that's a tricky situation isn't it because as soon as somebody's in charge of deciding who's a crackpot you'll never get any new ideas now if you told me to bet if you said Scotland you're gonna have to put a bet or a gun to your head you don't get any of this bet you have to make a bet does co2
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bet you have to make a bet does co2 caused by humans cause the temperature the earth to go up fast enough that we as a civilization B should be concerned yes or no is the basic chemistry and physics right that adding co2 from humans will cause the temperature to go up I'm gonna but I'm gonna gamble YES on that every time because that's something scientists can get right more likely than not over time but when they go to the models that gets sketchy and when they go to the last phase which is the economic models that's just absurd so you don't put the same credibility on the basic science which is probably pretty solid as you do with the models which are a good try might be right maybe not and then the economics which is just guessing all right that's all I got to say I know everybody Tunes out when I talk about climate change you must be sick of it by now and I will
[41:19]
must be sick of it by now and I will talk to you later