Episode 772 Scott Adams: Easy Systems for Solving Big Problems While Sipping Delicious Coffee

Date: 2019-12-30 | Duration: 1:02:24

Topics

My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Texas church shooter versus armed citizens who stopped him Major Garrett (CBS) praises President Trump’s minority agenda Mike Cernovich might run for Congress Artists…the pattern is STRONG, more and more people noticing it Artist mindset versus Economist mindset President Putin’s well framed invitation to President Trump Climate change efforts by Trump Admin, you haven’t heard about Department of Energy’s SYSTEM is solid Alex Azar (HHS) and Rick Perry (SOE) are STAR cabinet members Homeless SMART solution…that’s been successfully run for YEARS

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

> [!note] Rough Transcript
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## Transcript

[0:03]

oh it's early in the morning there's my view bum bum bum bum bum bum bum hey everybody come on over here you know what time it is I think you do it's time for a coffee with Scott Adams yep it's the best part of the day best part every single time except for the other parts that are pretty good too so get in here scramble to find your vessel to fill it with your favorite liquid cuz you know how this goes if you're here for the simultaneous up all you need is a cup or a mug or glass a tanker chalice or Stein the cute teen jogger flask the vessel of any kind fill it with your favorite liquid and join me now for the unparalleled pleasure the dopamine hit of the day the thing that makes everything better the simultaneous it go oh yeah ow get

[1:04]

the simultaneous it go oh yeah ow get that motor running boom boom alright yes I have my lights down low intentionally intentionally because I was adjusting I'm gonna ran out of time wait does that count as intentionally well are you all getting ready for your new year's resolutions let me give you some new year's resolution advice I of course am somewhat notorious for saying that systems are better than goals and yet here we are at the end of the year and the beginning of a new year and thinking to ourselves what will our goals be for the coming year well I would give you the following advice goals are good if there's only one specific thing you want in other words if you want to let's say get married to a specific person well then you want a specific goal but there are

[2:05]

you want a specific goal but there are many cases where let's say you don't even have a girlfriend or a boyfriend maybe what you want is love not so much a specific person maybe you want to be more successful in your career but not a specific job or a specific way so maybe you want to keep that open and allow for your systems to do the rest and I've been thinking about my own goals for the year and it's okay to express them as goals as long as you also have a system and you're not limiting yourself by your goal so one of my goals if you will is to do better and more online so I'll probably be setting up well definitely I'll be setting up a little separate room where I can do some longer form interviews that I like to do the morning periscope just us you know you would think it would be easier for

[3:06]

you would think it would be easier for me to interview somebody because I just asked the questions and then they get to jabber a little bit and I can I can rest and come up with a question so you think they asked you think the interviewing people would be just the easiest most fun thing to do but I have to tell you I think of them as separate I think of our conversation here is actually personal and and I think of an interview where you learn something from somebody I talk to sort of a separate product so I'd like to keep that a separate problem I'll still have guests on this periscope as as let's say as events unfold if there's something that's really timely and it works in this form I'll probably still do it but I like the the long-form to be separate so you'll see some of those it's also a way for me to test whether YouTube is throttling me for purely economic reasons which is that the content isn't high enough quality

[4:06]

the content isn't high enough quality because that's one of the filters or if they're doing it for political reasons so I'll have some content that's clearly high high quality production and also innocent you know nothing provocative and then I'll be able to see if that gets throttled the same as everything else so some of it is not going enough about me enough about me let's talk about the world so you have all seen the video by now if the Texas Church is shooting the shooter came in to a church in Texas pulled out a gun and I believe there were six or seven armed volunteers and parishioners who were were packing it took six seconds for the volunteers to take him down and have several guns pointed at him Ollie's down and you're probably having exactly the same reaction that I had and the reaction is it's difficult to talk about

[5:08]

reaction is it's difficult to talk about this in public as I am now because you can't hide the fact that it's a tragedy two people died top priority all right so as human beings let's agree that the story is two people got killed that's the story so let's not lose that focus on that first priority but you're also humans and you probably had the same experience I did which was it was really kind of inspiring and I'm trying to balance the fact that two people lost their lives my god their families I mean just the worst thing that could ever happen in church I mean literally you know suppose if you're a person of faith having your family member gunned down in church you know God's house I don't know how you ever go on to life after that so the tragedies is extreme but there was still something about the human

[6:10]

was still something about the human resilience the human notturno determination the human instinct to protect each other there was something about masculinity frankly there's something in this story about masculinity I think one of the people who drew a weapon was a woman but by and large the the situation was handled by Matt armed men who did not hesitate to act
act think about the fact that you're just you're trained to be one of these volunteer bodyguards at this church so you know even though your mind has been set on the fact that you might have to choose somebody in the right situation think about the fact that there were several people who pull their weapon and and a few of them fired immediately the others didn't have a clean shot you know there were there were too many people in the way but oh my god you know the I

[7:10]

the way but oh my god you know the I know there's just something in this situation that talks to every part of being a person you know everything from the tragedy to the heroism to everything in between it's like the entire human experience captured in six seconds so I don't want to go on about the artistic I don't know impact of it if you will because of the tragedy but it was quite a thing if you get a chance to see the video if you haven't you want to see it now there's a lot of stories in the news about anti-semitic attacks in New York City and I'm having trouble forming a stable opinion on the situation because the first thing is it could be coincidence right now you never want to dismiss anti-semitism as coincidence because that's how you get yourself a Holocaust you know it's like so the very worst thing you could do is to minimize it and say oh it's just a bunch of

[8:12]

it and say oh it's just a bunch of coincidences but it could be it could be just a bunch of coincidences you just don't really know but you certainly wouldn't want to dismiss it so let's keep an eye on that see if there's anything real it does seem that the perpetrators have different purposes they're all over the map maybe there's something different about the way it's being reported I haven't heard that but maybe so I would say we should be all on high high alert for something like a resurgence of anti-semitism
I tell ya I don't know where it comes from to you have you ever really understood anti-semitism I suppose if you're Jewish maybe you do on you know something different way or different level but if you're not Jewish what in the world would make me want to target one group I don't even understand the motivation behind it exactly you

[9:14]

the motivation behind it exactly you know sometimes I think is jealousy but what is it I I'm completely baffled and I'm being honest you know unless you were you know I could see if he came from the Middle East and your country had some historic problems with Israel sure that makes sense you'd have something like a reason but why you know why pick this one group and of all the groups it's not even a large group it feels like a waste of hate you know if you're gonna hate pick some large group that's got like a billion people in it you know you don't pick the group that's got a few million I mean I the anti-semitism is completely baffling to me I don't understand where in the world it could come from all right I understand if you're actually in the KKK or something you've got a whole belief system around it but for average people you know the people who are accused of these recent crimes what the heck got into them where'd that come from I mean I don't even know where

[10:16]

come from I mean I don't even know where they've seen it in the media you know are they reading something I don't read seeing something I don't see somebody says Satan okay maybe saying other people are blaming Bill DeBlasio some blaming Satan some people say it's the same all right apparently the US has attacked quite aggressively some militia group in ER in Iraq was backed by Iran and bloodied them up quite a bit because apparently they've been doing some stuff to make it dangerous for American troops and I asked myself what why is there an Iranian backed military group in Iraq is it Iraq allegedly its own country what there's certainly something I don't understand also about Iraq so I guess Iraq is not actually a country because if you're a country and within your country there's an armed military that's not your armed military

[11:19]

military that's not your armed military you're not really a country are you that's sort of a dividing line between your country or you're not oh yeah there's an armed military group it's not us you know they they just sort of stay here so we bloodied them up and without even knowing the details it seems like a good idea because shouldn't we be driving out every armed military group in Iraq I mean I suppose you could imagine that the armed military group is opposing both the United States and terrorists so that they have you know some functional reason to to be there that's good for Iraq but I just don't know how Iraq can survive with somebody else's military in the country full-time oh well one of the most interesting stories in the news was from CBS News is major Garrett now if

[12:21]

from CBS News is major Garrett now if you don't know who I'm talking about major is his first name he's not actually a major so major Garrett was the name of a news news what professional personality host and on CBS on Face the Nation he said with complete sincerity and here's the part that's amazing I didn't at least in the clip I saw he did not soften the following statement in other words he said it as just this is a fact with no qualifications whatsoever here's what he said it was the fact that President Trump has a policy legacy of helping minority communities that quote any president would want to claim and he went through the examples he talked about the funding for historically black colleges talked about the first-step act he talked about what he called Opportunity Zones and there was something else on his list and so kudos

[13:23]

something else on his list and so kudos to major Garrett my god how hard was it for him to to be on a network that's not exactly pro Trump and part of a network collection of you know a constellation of companies that have been calling President Trump a racist for four years and suddenly major Garrett with no qualifications it's the qualifications missing that make this story so interesting to me because imagine how easy it would have been for him to say Oh President Trump did these things and yeah we all agree these are good but what about these other things and and then they would go into the hoaxes right what you would expect is yeah yeah he funded historically black colleges he got forced into it but what about the fine people hoax right that's the way you'd expect to see this but major Garrett again this is just a complement to major Garrett and being brave frankly

[14:25]

to major Garrett and being brave frankly I think I think this shows some guts that he would say something so immensely unpopular right in the middle of his own you know his own industry his own people and in front of the world so thank you to major Garrett for a pointing out without without those BS qualifiers that the president has worked steadily and clearly in ways that are primarily beneficial to the minority communities and that that's just an objective fact now that any president any president says major Garrett would be happy with those accomplishments but that was just sort of an unexpected positive thing you know you don't expect these little gifts but you know that holiday season end of the year it's nice there's news and rumors and speculation that Mike Serta might run Congress what do you think of that Mike

[15:29]

Congress what do you think of that Mike sandwich running for Congress here's my opinion I don't know if being in Congress is a good job in other words the lifestyle I mean is it fun to be in Congress you know do you make good money you know do you like go into the meetings so on a personal level I would say Mike of course we'll consider you know the personal element of that I'm not sure I could recommend the job it wouldn't matter if it were Mike or anybody else that said I can't imagine anything I would like more what would be more fun for all of us and productive to all right it's not just for the fun what would be more productive for the country and fun than Mike Serna vich in Congress so so I have split opinions on this for my benefit oh yeah I want him to run I

[16:31]

my benefit oh yeah I want him to run I totally want him to run for my benefit and your benefit too because you would get a you know excellent politician he would never be boring and he would shake things up but for his own purposes you know he's got a he's got to think what's this dude in my life you know two young kids got a lifestyle he probably likes it that's a lot so if he does run I think you're gonna have to give it up because that would look like to me it would look like a pretty big sacrifice and his barber so that's fun we'll watch that I I've been continuing to notice this pattern and I want to see how many of you have noticed it have you noticed the pattern online that wouldn't and we've talked about this before so I'm just updating to see if you're still noticing the pattern that the least rational debaters on on Twitter are almost always artists that could be writers or photographers or graphic

[17:32]

writers or photographers or graphic artists any kind of artists could be music but are you still seeing that because from the moment I first pointed it out did you start clicking on profiles after that I hear from people who are doing that I'm just waiting for the comments to catch up to it and i eivol I've almost gotten to the point yeah I'm looking at your comments artists artists 100% absolutely least rational or journalists journalists are artists journalists are writers yeah you're seeing in the comments an almost universal agreement that the pattern is strong now I don't know what causes the pattern the speculation is that they're their writers and artists think differently and they believe that all the evidence is meaningful whereas somebody who is an engineer or a scientist a lawyer believes that a lot

[18:33]

scientist a lawyer believes that a lot of the evidence no matter what the situation is just in general a lot of the evidence doesn't mean anything so if I could summarize the difference artists believe that every note in the song is where it belongs and every clue in the story is there for a reason and every brush stroke on a painting was put there on purpose so in the world of art there's no such thing as accident or coincidence everything is designed to make all the parts meaningful and fit in the real world where scientists and engineers and lawyers for example economists are working you've got a world where most of the evidence is fake most of it is not meaningless most of it you know as a majority is probably coincidence it's fake patterns it's it's misleading it's psychological tricks that's the real world so if you put artists in the same conversation with the scientists they're coming at it with completely different mindsets one says

[19:36]

completely different mindsets one says every every clue means something and the other says every clue is probably a trick some of them might mean something and if we work really really hard we can look at all these clues and and maybe not every time but maybe be able to pick out the ones that acts you're real so that's what a rational person looks like and the artist says I saw one clue I don't need two clues right why would I need two pieces of information if I have one because one piece of information tells you everything you need to know you know orange man orange man bad all right if I have one data point that says orange man dad orange being bad I'm done there's nothing else to talk about scientist says well maybe one variable does not describe a world maybe your one variable is misleading maybe your one variable is wrong completely different mindset I and I've actually reached a point where I was considering this morning in new policy I don't think I'm gonna do it but

[20:40]

policy I don't think I'm gonna do it but the policy would go like this that on Twitter I would not engage in any kind of a back-and-forth with anybody who has an artist profile and maybe I'll just say it say I don't know I don't debate artists and I'm thinking about just that that exact sentence I don't debate artists think about it let's say you are one of these artists your writer or journalists whatever and you come in looking for blood and you know you're you're in an exchange with me and you think I'm gonna get interested and tweet back but instead I told you back no disrespect but I don't debate artists because the point is not that they're broken because they're not they're not broken they're just different an artist has a different filter on life it turns out it's not as useful in my opinion it just isn't as useful but they might be awesome in many other ways they create

[21:40]

awesome in many other ways they create things people want to see either you know they have lots of great qualities there's nothing wrong with them but what would be the point in getting it in a debate with an artist what would be the point because you don't have there's no path where the two of you can can chase the facts fix each other's thinking and reach some common conclusion there is no is one of those you can't get there from here because if you take the economist and say okay here's the best wisest most rational economists or scientists whatever and you say let's work with this artist now and I want you to use your rational factual skills to change the artists mind would that work no because the artist doesn't even have the same framework it's like a cat having an argument with a dog a cat and a dog can argue all day long but neither em is gonna change their mind because the cat and the dog can't even talk they don't have a good they don't even have a

[22:41]

don't have a good they don't even have a common language and then I will reiterate it reiterate again because many of you watching would also be artists there's nothing wrong with being an artist it's useful as part of a package of a comprehensive way of looking at the world if you studied art and you know art and you get art but you've also learned let's say business and economics and science or whatever then you probably have a well-rounded view and in your case I would not call you an artist I would call you a Renaissance person you've heard the phrase a Renaissance person somebody who's who's sort of good in a whole bunch of different things you know there's there's no one field that you're saying a little bit of math a little bit of writing a little bit of art so if you're a Renaissance person or working that direction or you're building your talent stack that's exactly where you want to be so if art is part of your talent stack you're probably working with an advantage if art is your main

[23:42]

with an advantage if art is your main talent sac-like mostly what you can do is in the field of art and you've neglected the other areas of thinking you probably have a blind spot it's going to show up on Twitter all right I feel like I'm talking too much this morning I feel like I've missed you all because the news has been so slow there's been weird lately and some little talkative this morning I guess let's see what else we got going on Putin has reiterated his invitation to the president the United States to visit Russia and of course what could be more provocative than Putin being friendly to Trump because of course that gets everybody yackin and here's here's what Putin said in his message and look how clever this is and compare it to something I've been saying about well here's the context I've been saying for a while that the United States and

[24:42]

a while that the United States and Russia are natural allies meaning that all things being equal we're not really competing for resources but we do have a common interest in the rest of the country or the rest of the world I mean common interest in the rest of the world being stable and improving so that it does not become a risk to us it becomes markets to us etc so certainly we're competitive with every other country including Russia but we are not natural enemies we are natural allies all we have to do is let nature take its course and we would probably just drift into becoming allies I think there's history there's you know inertia there's fake news there's you know things come up and certainly you know Russia has to explain you know incursions into other countries Ukraine etc these are real things but I think the natural arc and the natural

[25:42]

the natural arc and the natural historical gravity if you will is for the US and Russia to become allies more so than we are today if we even are I guess we wouldn't call ourselves allies and so here's here's Putin's wording for what I just said he said that Russia and us were historically responsible for ensuring global security and stability and the Moscow speaks in favor of normalizing bilateral relations and establishing an equal dialogue based on the mutual respect of interests now the mutual respect of interest part sort of suggests that Putin wants to wants us to stay out of his business if he conquers a neighboring country so that part's not good you know maybe maybe we should be interested in what your interests are you know if there if there was the military kind but the first part I thought was really good staging the way he sets it up is he

[26:46]

staging the way he sets it up is he talks to the US and Russia as being historically responsible for ensuring global security and stability think about that framing if you were gonna frame an invitation you'd have a hard time frame to get better than this because what he's done is he's appealed to our common history and said something that's true wouldn't you say it's true that US and Russia largely because of our militaries are stabilizing forces even though the the Russian universe and the u.s. Universe are different countries to some extent it is sort of stabilizing I mean it feels that way to me so he starts with saying something that's true it it's something that's true that we both succeeded at I think you'd say and it's something we should do more of it's a really good framing of like you know the world depends on the US and Russia that's that's the short way of saying it

[27:47]

that's that's the short way of saying it the short way is the entire world depends on us and Russia being stabilizing forces and not something else so let's do that let's be those stabilizing forces that's really good Putin's good at this stuff
I'm not I'm not a fool so I don't assume that Russia would never take advantage of us if they had a chance I believe that all the big countries would take advantage of each other if they had the opportunity that's how it works so I'm not I'm not blind to the risk of Putin but I I can't get past the fact that it's so obvious and I believe it would be obvious to Putin as well they're getting along with the United States would be great for Russia not getting along with the United States will continue to not be great it is is this basic point not blindingly obvious to all of you I mean

[28:47]

blindingly obvious to all of you I mean I think it's obvious to you but why is it not obvious to literally everybody and and the obvious thing being they're getting along with Russia and they getting along with us and just not doing all this provocative stuff that is completely optional I mean you know everything that's happening with NATO and the border and Ukraine and Crimea and all that I just feel like none of that should derail the long term let's say coordination of the US and Russia in a productive way and I also wonder what Russia thinks of China don't you think Russia is at least a little bit worried about China and don't you think Russia would feel a little bit more comfortable in the US sphere of things if it has to have China on its border I think so all right

[29:53]

Mark Snyder tweeted read an article that had been a thread on President trumpet being the one person in the world who's done the most to combat climate change and then he backs it up so think about how provocative this claim is so the claim is a president Trump has done more than anybody on earth anybody on earth the whole world to battle climate change while simultaneously he's called it a Chinese hoax and so you say to yourself oh that doesn't sound right and the answer is somebody says no he hasn't it's BS well I haven't made my argument yet Bella Bella listen to the argument okay so even Democrats will say cory booker yang even Biden have agreed that nuclear power is essential to dealing with climate change it's not the the answer it's it's part of a portfolio

[30:53]

answer it's it's part of a portfolio that includes other green energies and etc but everybody's smart meaning everybody who's actually looked into it and that would include cory booker includes yang includes a lot of republicans everybody who's looked into it and is up to date and that's the that's the hard part because a lot of people are out of date on their nuclear knowledge they they have a knowledge of older technology and its dangers and maybe right the older technologies were dangerous the newer technologies the stuff that they're working on the so-called generation four actually reduces the risk of even the existing technology because it could eat the nuclear waste from the old plants it eats it as is fuel so it actually reduces the need to store waste and it is also safe from meltdown so it's a design that wouldn't meltdown so you've got that stuff going on all right so here's here's a I'll summarize Marx

[31:54]

here's here's a I'll summarize Marx argument so there are I don't know ten or fifteen things that the administration is done that almost none of you have heard about because the things that happen at the at the industry level so in other words they're creating test facilities in a few different ways the government the Department of Energy primarily through Perry has a funded and or approved and or created facilities for rapid testing of new nuclear technology now here's what's the important part it's the system that gets you there if you have a good system then probably things are working the way you want them to you know know where it'll end up how fast it'll end up but if you have a good system you're gonna be moving in the right direction I would say that the government's especially the Department of Energy their system seems pretty solid and the system is this the industry comes to the government and they say we want to be able to test this

[32:55]

they say we want to be able to test this design let's say Bill Gates company that he you funds terraPower they want to build a generation four but they can't get the place to do it they can't get the licenses they might need funding they might need other kinds of resources that only the government could so they come to the government to presumably the Department of Energy and they say we need all this stuff in order to make nuclear successful we've got to be able to test it we got to be able to build a prototype etc and the Department of Energy has been apparently really really good in fact to me it would be a tie if I if I were going to give an awards at the end of the year for the best the best cabinet department I'd have to go with - I'd go with Department of Energy who as far as I can tell all right I'm no expert but just from the outside looking in
in it looks like Perry just totally killed

[33:56]

it looks like Perry just totally killed it like one of the most successful cabinet appointments of all time I think now I'm open to a counter-argument on that but just what I'm watching from the outside it looks like best cabinet's head of vault I may be but there's somebody who's almost as good and I'm terrible at memories is it Health and Human Services Azir what what's the last what's the name of the cabinet head of Health and Human Services so it's whoever's working on the generics and health care costs and bringing more competition to health care etc now not not Ben Carson a czar yeah I'm talking about a czar ben Carson is hard right so it seems to me the Alexei czar every time you see him in the news it's something really good something

[34:56]

it's something really good something really good and so I seems to me that cabinet officials never get much acclaim but man every time I saw something commanded the Department of Energy or Azar's group it was right on it was the right thing the right time right system right approach and I will say that both both those departments are working on a systems mindset stuff you see coming out of Health and Human Services is system changes such as we changed our system for approving generics so we'll get to more generics quicker that lowers the cost almost immediately so you see us are being a systems fixing guy and then you look at the Department of Energy and you see all the things that they've done a lot of them fit into that system category so those two guys they need to get some kind of like big award at the end of the year from the president because they're just they're just really making them look good and they're just killing it I

[36:00]

look good and they're just killing it I mean let me give you some other all right so I think I made my case that the president because he's done the most through the Department of Energy he's done the most for promoting the future of nuclear now we you know still a lot of research and testing to be done but we're doing all the right stuff so odds are that we'll be in pretty good shape now I throw out the following idea for you here's my idea for a system improvement okay now might be we don't need this because we already have the testing facilities we need through the Department of Energy but if we don't I would recommend the following now this the improvement on what I'm going to suggest in the nuclear field and then the climate change field is the psychology of it alright so what I'm going to suggest is prime are primarily fixing this psychology of the system and the psychology is people are afraid of nuclear energy they don't want it in

[37:02]

nuclear energy they don't want it in their backyard all right so that's the psychology and if you don't put it in people's backyard it's too far away right it wouldn't be hard to find a remote place to put a nuclear reactor but you don't need it there because there's nothing to power so here's my suggestion I would love to see a nuclear test facility in a very remote place where even if the nuclear power plant works it's not really close to anything but here's the second part you ready it's a double test two things are being tested initially it would be nuclear tests plants so they build small modular nuclear plants and maybe multiple of them all in the same same general area but away from people and here's the second part once you have at least one of them working and up and creating electricity you've turned it into a secondarily a carbon scrubbing

[38:06]

into a secondarily a carbon scrubbing test site with free electricity so in other words if you get one of the nuclear modular plants let's say it's a small nuclear plant that's a test plant once you get it working and you say well we built it and it's working but there are no cities around here there's nothing to test so instead we're gonna make this also a test facility for those carbon scrubbing machines there are a bunch of technologies to do it they literally draw the carbon out of the air and in many cases they can turn it into a product one of those products is jet fuel so you can actually take the jet fuel out of the air reconstitute it as jet fuel because you're taking the carbon down and turning it into jet fuel and jet fuel is the one thing that you can't do with electricity you can't replace a jet with electricity at least not in the near future so imagine if you will imagine if you will that you've built a test site for a cleaning co2 out

[39:06]

built a test site for a cleaning co2 out of the air and it happens to be next to a test site for a nuclear plant that's giving you free electricity because the bay is the biggest expense for cleaning co2 out of the air is the energy if you can make the energy cheap you can suck the co2 out of the air no problem so that's my suggestion you fix the psychology of it by taking it into the remotest area and making it a co2 scrubbing area because air is air and should be able to scrub the co2 no matter where it is I think does it matter where your co2 scrubber is located maybe it does maybe you have to be closer to coal plants or something to optimize I'll just throw that out there all right here's another systems approach to homelessness whenever I talk about homelessness I'll try to bore you by saying that drug addiction and mental health are driving much if not most of homelessness and he

[40:06]

much if not most of homelessness and he can't solve those two things by giving somebody home because that wasn't the problem in the first place it was drugs mental health but that said there are still lots and lots of people who could really benefit from a super cheap place to live and I just heard about the smartest one I've ever seen and I'm gonna say this with complete confidence what I'm gonna describe next is the smartest solution I've ever seen to homelessness are you ready it did not involve the government that's pretty smart already right so everything I'm going to describe no government funding there might have been some involvement in the government to permit it to happen but that's not talked about in the article I read so I don't know and here's the system so a group called Good Samaritans there's some sort of religious charitable group in Austin

[41:07]

religious charitable group in Austin Texas they built a village for those in need with no public funding so they started with I think 51 acres so they had some cheap land with wasn't being used for anything and then they put on it tiny homes and the tiny homes apparently you could build you know any kind of tiny home that a volunteer wanted to build and they would have central bathrooms so the homes did not necessarily need a kitchen the homes do not need a bathroom because you just walk outside and there's a central bathroom somewhere they used they also converted old campers so if you had an old camper that was no longer roadworthy well it's a place for somebody to sleep inside so you'd put that on your 51 acres you'd make sure it was close enough to other facilities because their I guess they can walk to food and showers and whatever then the residents themselves brakes on the rent for working there so

[42:08]

brakes on the rent for working there so the people who live there are also the workers so somebody would be you know it's their job to clean up clean the bathrooms you know that sort of thing and apparently they've been operating for years successfully did you hear that they've been operating for years successfully it's actually so good that these let's call them super low-income people so the people who live there really didn't have a lot of options I'll call them super low-income and when they talk to them they're like those people like I could just live here forever I mean basically you've met all of my needs I don't I don't see how I can get much better somebody says so it's a trailer park yeah they actually describe it as sort of a you souped-up trailer park in other words some of them are trailers some of them are different structures that are small small houses

[43:11]

structures that are small small houses tiny homes probably just enough to sleep in but yeah but if you imagine imagine a mobile home but built in sort of a campsite way where there's I think they have a central I believe they're they're built in a ring around a central area where there are central services so oh I forgot the most important part i I described this whole thing and I left out actually the important part all right so everything you've heard so far is just context here's the important part they built it with a design from person first sounds like nothing right they designed this place from the person out that's a different system than what you see what is the normal way to build a home the normal way is construction first you say to yourself well if I need to build an inexpensive home what what's

[44:14]

to build an inexpensive home what what's the cheapest way to do that and then you end up with an apartment building then you put all the people in the apartment building it costs too much you know they can't take care of it and here's the part that's important you stick people in an apartment they don't learn they don't meet their neighbors for the most part they become like a little isolated unit that just happens to be in a building that has lots of other isolated units by building the homeless thing the way they did they started with human beings as social creatures so they said we're building a place for a human being we're not we're not doing a construction project we're solving a problem for humans what do humans need first well shelter so anything that gives them a roof and some warmth will satisfy that so that's not a big design thing so next thing is if they have shelter what's the next thing they need you know besides food and healthcare and the answer is

[45:16]

food and healthcare and the answer is social community right so the design breakthrough if you will the thing that makes this different from everything else is that they started with the person and they say what's a person made you know what's a human need and it's a community and the idea is that with these small communities in which you're forced to interact because all the services are central you know if you want food or or whatever and you're working at the facility so if you have a job you're probably in the facility you're interacting with all the other people there in similar circumstances you would not feel you would not feel any restriction to talk to anybody else who's there because you're all there and sort of the same circumstances so apparently the community variable is what makes this magic so it starts with no government interference so I'm going to describe it as a system now so the first thing that's good is it starts with no government because that gets you

[46:17]

with no government because that gets you out of all the government problems all the politics go away so that's good now you also have to get the cost way down because if the government is not involved who's paying for this stuff all right it's got to be inexpensive so that's where the land that wasn't being used for anything might have even been donated I don't know so you get your free land you go to some place where the weather is not going to kill people now in this case it's Austin and I don't know what they knew about air conditioning I didn't read that but clearly there are places in the world in which the weather is more conducive Southern California for example so you've got no government you're you're going super cheap with free land we could definitely get free land all over the country there are tons of free land in fact the the whole blight projects that bill Polti works on those are big swaths of cleared land now if they're in winter zones they might not be so useful but maybe say Louis

[47:20]

not be so useful but maybe say Louis takes a Louis for an example would st. Louis be temperate enough that if you add a bunch of free land and you could put tiny homes on and organize communities would that work in st. Louis I don't know so then the other part of the system is that they design around community and give them jobs and stuff so everything about this I love instead of focusing on the construction they focused on the human beings and they got a good result and it's reproducible they've been doing it for years and the people like it totally works all right so if it seems to me it seems to you that I talk too much about systems over goals I think you can see in these examples the power of it when we had good systems in the Energy Department we've had more games for getting closer to a nuclear power breakthroughs than under any administration it's because the system was good likewise azar over there and Health and

[48:24]

likewise azar over there and Health and Human Services he's killing it because he's saying how do I fix the system how do I make it more competitive how to make prices more transparent how do I make it more of a market market sort of thing perfect and then you look at these private solutions for the homeless again not
not addicted not the mentally ill they have different separate problems which cause them to be homeless and they have to be dealt with separately so system wise you got it now let's talk about the system for the rest of them the addicted and the mentally ill this system has one gigantic broken part that you're seeing a lot of action toward fixing so California has some advocates you'll see dr. drew you'll hear Michael Shellenberger talking about this specifically and here's here's the where the system is broken you can't force anybody to do anything so even if somebody is dangerous to themselves and well there's

[49:26]

dangerous to themselves and well there's probably some limit to danger to yourself but if you're just addicted or you have a serious mental illness and you don't want help our current system doesn't allow it to happen and so those people just are left to their own resources so this the part of the system that needs to be fixed is just that one choke point there needs to be a series of objective I guess has to be a little bit subjective but as as close as you can get to an objective set of variables that police or health services can say all right for this person I know they don't want to go but this time we just have to make it happen because sometimes you just got to take care of people now some of you may say no we don't need to do that we can just force them off the streets and if they die they die it's not my problem now it probably a lot of people have that opinion but if you want to help

[50:28]

that opinion but if you want to help there's no getting around the fact that has to be involuntary there nobody has come up with the second way to do this if there were two ways to do it I'd be telling you I'd be saying well we got this way now we got this way let's you know maybe let's do a test see which one of those two ways work but we don't we have the way we're doing which absolutely doesn't work and everybody would agree and then we have one proposition for fixing just one there's exactly one idea on the table for fixing anything and it starts with involuntary help basically for some people under some circumstances so when you see the power of systems for fixing things you can't unsee it all right Joseph says I'm a good interviewer glad you'll be doing interview show in 2020 well thank you I don't know that I'm a

[51:32]

well thank you I don't know that I'm a good interviewer but I aim to be one somebody says but your system is cheating mm-hmm is it the weird thing about San Francisco is that the facilities etc for homeless or based in the center yeah you know I think that's one of the other big advantages of this homeless tiny home thing they did in Austin is that it gets an out of the city
- will you have chairs and table Oh in terms of the interviews I don't know I the interviews might be Collins so I'm thinking that my interview shows will be nothing but people calling in speaking of systems Christine and I have been building out the other the other studio she's been doing most of the work on that and by the way Christina has the

[52:35]

that and by the way Christina has the same weird personality trait that I do she's an autodidact so if you say to Christina hey do you know how to do whatever anything that's technical or complicated Christina will say well I don't know how to do that but I'll figure it out in five minutes and then five minutes later she knows how to do it so she's one of the most capable people I've ever met so she's been helping build out the technology on the the studio so we did a little test video yesterday I didn't leave it up long because we were just testing technology but successful so we somebody says he's in love I am somebody saying after the homeless prison camps do you think they'll put deplorable Zinn there too
too I don't think so yes so Christine is an

[53:39]

I don't think so yes so Christine is an autodidact as am i we like to teach ourselves things fairly rapidly so part of what we're doing with the whole studio thing is that it's a whole skill set that I didn't have so in the process of setting it up I'm learning I'm learning a lot about lighting learning a lot about audio and all the different ways you can do it we're using a mixer using a lot of learning a lot about video and video formats and uploading to YouTube and all that stuff so this is a perfect example of a perfect example of systems over goals if I never produce a piece of content with this new studio I'm still going to be a guy who knows how to build a studio with Christina's help of course so i I've learned an entire constellation of skills that all are in this area and we've even made it our habit that the editing tools we're going to learn together so we'll be learning Adobe Premiere Pro together and

[54:40]

learning Adobe Premiere Pro together and I also have this philosophy that when you're learning things you're almost always happy now of course that's you know an overgeneralization but watch how often this is true watch how often if you're in the process of learning something whether it's on the job or any other way but you're you're actively using some part of your day to learn something new you're happier watch how often that's true I don't know if it's cause and effect or that you can only learn things when everything else is under control but it feels like learning is somehow a basic need have you ever felt that learning is not just something you do or something you need to do for your job but it feels like a basic need like it you might not want to learn some topics because they're so boring but I doubt you ever want to not be learning because the experience of that that growing is very addictive a lot of

[55:45]

growing is very addictive a lot of guesses in the comments to to learning being a basic need so I've told you this before but when I was a supervisor back in my banking days and I had a small group of people I had one requirement other than showing up
up I had a requirement that you had to come to work but my other requirement that there were no exceptions to is that everybody who worked for me had to be learning something else so they all knew how to do the job that I was supervising them to do so they didn't need to learn that but I could not I could not be a supervisor of people who woke up in the morning came to work did the same damn thing drove home did the same damn thing at home and went to bed and then read like I just couldn't be a boss of that and so my requirement was that it didn't matter what they were learning could be another language skill training class for something else they could be reading

[56:46]

for something else they could be reading some books on their own but every day I drilled into him you know tell me what you're learning alright you know and if and if you're not learning anything let me help you carve out some time if time's the problem you can do it during work hours if you don't know what to do I'll work with you until you find something you want to learn but has to be for your benefit yeah every day every day they should be learning something a little bit I'll give you an example in my own life so you know some of you know I've been practicing the drums trying to learn to play the drums I've never played an instrument I don't have any natural talents in this area but Christina suggested that I also learn music theory at the same time because it would help my drumming so I got an app that has a little flat cards and stuff and I started to learn just in my downtime when I'm bored music theory I have to tell you I look forward to it because I only take it in teeny

[57:47]

to it because I only take it in teeny little bites I'll just learn maybe a couple of vocabulary words and I'm good for that day because it compounds over time you don't really have to do a lot every day to be somewhere at the end of the year so I'll just take out my app when I'm bored I'll go to the next flashcard I'm like oh double bar line that means the end of a measure okay I remember that and that's all I know that's that's my entire day's work on that project the next day I'll learn what the grand staff is we you know the the treble clef and all that stuff and I feel myself getting better smarter I'm learning a new thing now the other reason I'm learning I'm trying to get more into music part of it is it's fun to do something with Cristina because that's her area of expertise and it's just nice to be able to spend time together talking about that stuff well I'm also really interested in music as persuasion it feels to me like I needed

[58:50]

persuasion it feels to me like I needed to add music to my talent stack of persuasion to to fill in a blank because I talked about how music is basically audio drug you know if you play the right kind of music or even the wrong kind it changes how you think the way you think changes the chemistry that's released into your body and the changes that you feel and all that collectively can change how you act and in fact if you you program yourself with your music if you played nothing but sad music because you like the way it sounds it's like I just like sad music it would make you sad no doubt about it over time it would program you to be a sad person if you listened the only happy music even if you didn't like it it would actually program you to be kind of happier over time so music as persuasion is very important and I noticed that people use music medicine I use music medicinally and by that I

[59:53]

I use music medicinally and by that I mean there are some situations where let's say putting on two headphones and listening to a certain kind of music could put me to sleep so I just use it instead of a sleeping pill in some cases it can put me to sleep in other cases let's say I want to exercise or clean the house or do something active there are certain types of music that are very conducive to that others conducive to relaxation etc so if you're matching your music very rigorously to the outcome you walked how you want to program your mind well that's a medicinal use I think Mike cirrage has an article about it was it binaural beats or various various sound effect types of things that you can listen to through your headphones that have some scientific let's say there's some evidence that it does program your brain in predictable ways so I'm totally

[1:00:54]

brain in predictable ways so I'm totally interested in music as persuasion used correctly I'm a very a very big against randomly listening to music so if for example the I think one of the most harmful things you could do never this has never been tested pure speculation what comes next alright so what I say next should not be taken as probably true it's just my speculation the people who routinely listen to randomized music meaning you just turn on the radio in your car and just leave it on I think that they're doing a great disservice to their brain because it's like pumping in random drugs it's like well here's a here's an aspirin you didn't need and here's a there's another pill you didn't need and here's another pill you didn't need so so take that for what it's worth I think they're randomly listening to music and not listening to it and additionally and with a purpose it's

[1:01:56]

additionally and with a purpose it's probably one of the worst things you could do to your brain honestly but I don't know it's just speculation alright I'm clearly I'm at the point in this periscope where I'm talking from my own benefit because I don't want to go do something else I just would rather talk to you so I hope hope you don't mind that I went on a little bit long and I am going to talk to you all later