Episode 773 Scott Adams: Iraq, 2020, China Deal and Your Questions

Date: 2019-12-31 | Duration: 1:15:57

Topics

My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Some of the biggest news stories right now…are made up Ask Me Anything, questions from viewers

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

[0:11]

boom hey you're so fast all of you people how did 300 people hit the hit the bug missed the moment it went live you're amazing I think you're some of the most gifted and tactically brilliant people in the entire world and I'm not just saying that but I know why you're here you're here for the simultaneous up the best thing of the day the greatest way to end the year I think we should drink to an amazing year am I wrong that this is like a really good year if we were to look at 2019 in the in the from the context of the future what would we say about it dr. funk juice DJ dr. funk juice is with us good to see you thanks for inviting people and thanks for coming to enjoy the simultaneous up do you know what you need to participate in the same old

[1:11]

need to participate in the same old simultaneous if it's not much no all you need is a cup of our glass a tanker chalice DynaTAC a canteen Jagger flask a vessel of any kind and join me now for the unparalleled pleasure the dopamine show the day the thing that makes everything better it's called the simultaneous it go yep just as good as I thought it would be that my friends is the final simultaneous if of 2019 or is it or is it now there's another one coming I would like to drink a toast to all of you I believe that you have served a very valuable patriotic if not global service in 2019 because of all of you I get to do this and I get to do this and suggest ideas and

[2:13]

suggest ideas and promote ideas I think are useful systems are better than goals telling stacks things like that I think is useful based on the feedback I get but I couldn't do any of it without the benefit of an audience and so you have been part of something I think very important if you were not here if you did not some of you buy my books then people could not read them publishers would not publish them and I hear every day now especially because it's the end of the year that I hear I hear people thanking me for something that was in my book that helped them and their career or their life or something that they saw in the periscope that they found helpful and really changed their life and my first my first reaction of course is to take total credit it's like well if I helped you're welcome thanks I'll try to do more of that because I like it

[3:14]

try to do more of that because I like it but if I am if I'm being completely honest and generous there's nothing I do in public that works unless you're doing what you're doing which is paying attention and so this is to you I lift a special 20:19 simultaneous sip to all of you for making the world a better place simply by putting your attention someplace useful here's to all of you
you know I don't know if it's fully dogged on you what's happening because when you're when you're in the middle of something you can't see it from the outside anymore you're too close to it there's something really important happening like right here way right now and every time we do this and what's happening is that there's I would say a tribe being built around a series of ideas so each person that you follow has usually a constellation of

[4:17]

follow has usually a constellation of ideas and the reason you follow them or pay attention to them or read their books or whatever read their articles is because you like that constellation and so it forms people into almost a virtual idea tribes you know they're spread around the world but people who have a common vision of things and they they they tend to gather around people who communicate that same vision so because a complete accident of history put us together we turned into one of those certainly it's not something I woke up and said hey I think I'll have a big audience of a hundred thousand people or so I think about a hundred thousand people follow each of these periscopes if you look at the replays and then it goes to oh I cracked into the top hundred on iTunes so iTunes tracks the podcast popularity and for for about a week I popped into the top hundred I

[5:18]

week I popped into the top hundred I think it's 122 last I checked that's pretty good there are a lot of podcasts in the world and collectively we made it to the top hundred but where I'm going with this is that I've said I've said this a number of times that democracy has evolved and technically we're a republic but in with democratic principles but our republic has and I think President Trump is a big part of this become more of an audience participation thing meaning that if any large tribe of ideas gets formed it's gonna have power and it's going to start influencing Congress and the president directly and I don't think anybody has a problem with that because they are supposed to be responsive to the public and if there's a big voice that forms in the public of course they should be responsive it doesn't mean they do everything that that group wants but certainly responsive to it pay attention to it and

[6:19]

responsive to it pay attention to it and so we are somewhat accidentally but a little bit intentionally forming a powerful idea amplifier I think that's what we mostly are wouldn't you say there's not much that I talk about that isn't an amplifier application of somebody else's good idea and I think that's our best and highest purpose frankly so if I'm boosting you know March nighter and Michael Shellenberger on nuclear or doctor Jew on what to do about the homeless addicted mentally ill part of the the world then I'm doing some useful because I'm boosting good ideas all right nothing about that let's talk about what's in the news I don't know if it's just because it's the end of the year or it's the holiday or what but I told you yesterday about it was kind of remarkable that major Garrett of CBS just had a full-throated support of

[7:22]

just had a full-throated support of President Trump's record for minority citizens especially the black community and I thought well that's unusual to see somebody associated what with what you think would be sort of an anti-trump news outlet and to say with no no qualifications whatsoever no buts no anything solid records and I thought that's really remarkable you just don't expect to see a solid endorsement of President Trump on race from the people who have been making that the biggest issue from the beginning and so easily major Garrett could have thrown in there well it's you know it's slightly compensating for what he said in Charlotte about the fine people and he could have repeated the fine people hoax as if the president actually said that's the hoax part that it's reported that he said the the Nazis were fine people which he didn't he said the opposite of that in reality but normally that's how

[8:25]

that in reality but normally that's how you'd expect that to go now here's here's another one in the same vein so Peter Bergen I think he's military slash intelligence analyst I'm not sure the exact title but an expert in that field talking about the president's use of force in Iraq so apparently US forces attacked some Iranian backed militia the had caused some injuries among American troops not to not too far away not too distant past and so it was sort of a brushback pitch to make sure that the Iranian military knew to stay away from US forces and Peter Bergen on CNN said it was a good use of force without a qualification again so it's the without qualification part that I'm finding just remarkable see so and Bergen goes on and explains

[9:27]

see so and Bergen goes on and explains that the president did not use force even when Iran shot down or they do shoot down a drone did not use force against them when they attacked oil facilities but didn't kill anybody and so that created a clear precedent that we're not going to kill your people if you don't kill our people but if you injure our people you people are gonna die and Peter Bergen probably no fan of the president just because he appears on CNN I don't want to read his mind but you expect him to come up with well he's made ten mistakes in the past but I guess he got lucky this time maybe his advisors won out you would expect some kind of qualified okay it turned out okay but he did it all wrong just got lucky but none of that it's it's Peter Bergen saying that it's unambiguously a proper use of force I don't know is something changing it is

[10:29]

don't know is something changing it is in my imagination that something looks different now it could be just the holidays I'm guessing it's because a lot of people are on vacation maybe there would have been a producer or somebody who would have said you know maybe soften this a little bit you know if it had been the regular staff and not the vacation staff I don't know I don't know maybe it's something maybe it's nothing here's another story you probably all remember the alleged story that turns out to be a hoax surprise that a Kansas police officer said McDonald's employees wrote a derogatory term on his so on his coffee cup it was something you know blah blah blah Pig he reported completely made it up so they investigated and McDonald's said we don't even know what you're talking about we have no idea what you're talking about didn't happen and I guess the police who investigate it agreed that it didn't happen so what does it tell you

[11:30]

didn't happen so what does it tell you when some of our biggest stories are literally made up in other words in order to find to find a story like this that is so you know grossly unacceptable to most people it had to be made up you have victimhood people are inventing victimhood because they don't have enough real problems that's actually literally true that people don't have enough real problems that they're literally making them up yeah if you could you know how could you pick one thing that would tell you it's a better world than that alright there's news that just broke just before I got in here that President Trump says he will sign phase 1 trade deal with China now we don't know exactly what's in that deal but apparently it's just we lower some tariffs maybe not all of them they buy more food maybe they were going to

[12:31]

buy more food maybe they were going to do that anyway I don't know if phase 1 of the trade deal is too terribly important it certainly does not conflict with decoupling so you can do trade with phase 1 of the trade deal at the same time you're decoupling as fast as you can because as fast as you can decouple is going to be kind of slow but it doesn't matter how slowly or fast you do it it matters the direction so the direction of new business going into China I gotta think it's slowed down and it might reverse but you know if if they want to sell us stuff at a good price and we want to buy stuff at a good price and they won't they want you know on the margins we we'll have a deal even if we're mad at them for other stuff you know such as their Holocaust that they're perpetrating so I would give you this caution I would not assume that that

[13:32]

caution I would not assume that that deal will get signed okay I'm not going to predict that it won't but I would say if you were going to if you're gonna handicap the odds and say alright China and the United States have both said yes they both said yes in public they both announced it they're setting a date that all looks like it's gonna be signed right I think maybe 50/50 if I had to put odds on it there's about a 50% chance that something will derail it you know I think in the long run something a good sign but if you look at any particular you know announcement you should always say well 5050 there's a story from West Virginia in which the governor just agreed to the termination of dozens of corrections academy trainees so these are people who are training is to work in the you know jail prison Corrections world and the

[14:34]

jail prison Corrections world and the problem was that they took a group photograph in which all 30 of them gave the Hitler salute it sounds like I'm making that up right that thirty corrections officers in West Virginia were in the Academy training program all 30 of them with no dissenters all 30 of them as soon as the photographer presumably the photographer or somebody in the group said hey why don't we all give a Heil Hitler salute in public as a group wearing our uniforms and they all did every one of them all 30 of them did it
it there wasn't one person who said I'll sit this out all 30 of them now let's compare this story to an earlier story it's called Jeffrey Epstein do you remember when there were so many

[15:35]

do you remember when there were so many errors and the corrections facility that Epstein was in that many of you said Scott are you kidding me how could you get so many independent corrections officers to be so incompetent at the same time Scott Scott Scott this is not realistic there's no way all of those corrections officers could make all of those mistakes and be so incompetent all in the same place I mean what are the odds of that well in my defense I give you 30 West Virginia corrections officers not one of them and a 30 thought it was a bad idea to give a Hitler salute on camera in their uniforms not one of them now is there

[16:37]

uniforms not one of them now is there anybody here would still like to argue with me that a group of corrections officers in one place will generally make good decisions even if a few of them are bad mmm no I think I've made my point all right and that is just about the only things happening so I thought I would take some calls right here on periscope gonna take some calls and you can either ask me a question because it's the end of the year I'm gonna open it up to anything so you could ask me any question on any topic but you have to be interesting all right so by interesting I mean ask me something that you think other people like care about the answer to all right terrible take on the Hitler salute so are you saying that

[17:37]

the Hitler salute so are you saying that I have a terrible take on the Hitler salute now if you're saying to me Scott they were just joking around of course there was the dumbest thing they ever did whether they were joking around now I don't believe that any of the West Virginia people are Hitler fans if I suggest that of course not I think they were just idiots so that's my take all right let's see who wants to ask a question we'll take
Omer hope I'm saying that right is it Oh mayor O'Meara can you hear me
Omer Oh bear can I hear me let's try something else all right technology's a little bit hinky today we'll get this let's go with

[18:40]

hinky today we'll get this let's go with Kimberly Wonder Woman Kimberly can you hear me all right do you have a question for me Kimberly our technology is messing up Kimberly you back you go on okay you have a question for me you know I I was wondering what your take was on this thing that's going down right now at the Embassy so the thing that's going down at the Iraqi embassy yes sir well obviously Iran has organized some protesters to go go and you know surround the US Embassy in Iraq if everybody's smart they'll keep the violence to zero because I don't think Iran wants violence but they might want to you know put enough pressure to

[19:40]

to you know put enough pressure to encourage the United States to get out of there a little bit so I think there's gonna be some brinksmanship I think our people are going to do everything they can to avoid violence while staying safe but if it crosses a line if it crosses a line and there is some violence at the Embassy I would Specht an extreme reaction from the United States extreme meaning a lot of people are gonna die because I don't see that any way that President Trump does anything that looks like a Benghazi or an after Benghazi I think he would you know he would go barbaric if if there's any injuries at the at the Embassy that's what I think so thank you jibley happy new year let's take Alex Alex wake up you're coming at me no Alex disappeared okay Howard looks

[20:42]

no Alex disappeared okay Howard looks like you'll be interesting Howard can you hear me how are you and do you have a question for me I'm curious I think was earlier this year you had us conduct an experiment on the simulation by pushing a hurricane with our willpower do you think that had any effect remind me what happened with the hurricane I I don't think anything happened with it but I'm K I'm curious if you did so so if you remind me of the situation I told you to use your mental powers to push the hurricane waste on the coast of the United States and has succeeded well I don't I don't think it did well I don't remember what happened so if neither of us remember what happened there's not much to work with here [Laughter] alright thanks for the call I don't let me answer you generically I don't think that that kind of magic exists somebody

[21:45]

that that kind of magic exists somebody in the comments Barbara saying it did work well when we say it works all we can really say is we did this and that happened you can't say there's cause in effect but it was a fun experiment maybe we'll do it again thank you Scott all right take care
all right let's see if I think kelvins got something to say
let's try Alex Alex can you hear me do you have a question for me Alex just confirmation of again I am a simulation world we totally open Christmas Eve and

[22:47]

world we totally open Christmas Eve and now here we are again it's today yeah do you have a question yeah question is what advice would Jeff for your 30 year old self oh you know that's a tough question because by 30 I had a pretty good pretty good plan and it wouldn't be that different from what I would advise my 30 year old self if I had to go younger yeah do 12 yeah 20 you know one of the reasons that I write about this stuff is that I did about as cleanly as you could possibly do it meaning that I started building my talent stack right away and you know in my 20s I was just massively adding layer after layer because I worked for a big company and they would they would allow you to take training just at any topic if it was even indirectly good for the

[23:49]

if it was even indirectly good for the company and so I signed up for everything I just started taking all kinds of training classes and I learned to be a hypnotist I took the Dale Carnegie course so when I give advice it's almost exactly what I did which is just build your talent stack build your network and become unique so that's what I did and I also tried a lot of stuff I think I'll tell you I'll tell you just one anecdote to sort of answer your question so when I was working my corporate jobs when there was the thing called the internet there was just being invented I know this is hard to imagine if
if young but I worked in a technology lab at the local phone company when the world wide web as it was called was just being formed and we had the first you know browsers with an internet connection in our little laboratory the first not in the world but you know among the the few people in the world who actually could make an internet connection the phone companies were

[24:49]

connection the phone companies were among the first so I was in a lab and it was our job to show customers this thing called the Internet that they had never seen imagine that I was showing people the Internet for the first time people would say wait what are you connected to and I would say well my browser is connected through you know space to a museum on the other part of the world and people would say what you're actually live connected to a web page somewhere else and you can look at it and you can change it and stuff and people were just amazed and when I saw people's reaction they would they would actually get out of their chair and this is where I developed the rule that you want people's body to move to predict that something is important so the when I would present all the the various products that the phone company had to offer and people would sit in their chair and they would be like uh-huh

[25:50]

chair and they would be like uh-huh that's great you've got call forwarding yeah I could use that multiple calls yep that's what phones do and they'd be drifting off to sleep and then at the end I'd say well we have this one other thing that doesn't do anything useful and we would tell them this doesn't do anything useful it doesn't do anything that you want it to do was kind of cool watch this and I would say it's called you know I think it would probably was the Netscape mosaic browser or something but I would say watch me connect to this museum and I think there were only literally maybe three websites in the world that were actually open and and up long enough that you can use them for a demonstration and I would say look I'm connecting looking at a picture of the of a jewel in this museum and people would stand up and they would walk over and they'd say can I do that and I'd be like do what you know use the mouse control that

[26:51]

you know use the mouse control that website on the other side of the world and I'd say sure if you want to I mean I don't even know why you'd want to I'm doing it right in front of you but if you want to touch it yourself go ahead so I'd watch person after person have almost exactly the same reaction they would stand up and that was really amazing so I went to the top engineer at Pacific Bell and I said if I wanted to invest in this this new and growing thing this this thing that would become the Internet is there any company there would be like a good play that I could have put my money into and the top engineer his name was Buster he looks at he looks at me and he says Netscape and I said who and he said wait yeah Netscape here's Netscape they make the the switches and the bridges and stuff there will power the entire Internet and they make the best one so they're probably

[27:52]

make the best one so they're probably going to be the dominant force so you don't need to know which web site or application works all you need to know is that the Cisco I'm sorry I was saying I said in that escape but I meant to say Cisco so the engineer told me that Cisco makes all the servers for the the Internet and they make the good ones and so invest in Cisco and I said Cisco I've never heard of them and he said well you're gonna because he was an engineer so he just did there he knew exactly thanks thanks in the comments for correcting me I meant to say Cisco was the company and so to answer your question if I could go back 20 years I would have trusted my trust in my experience and my experience was that when people stand up for an idea an idea they stand up and they want to go over and touch it that's going to change the world and that's the sort of experience you

[28:53]

and that's the sort of experience you only got from personal computers early cell phones and the internet I mean those were quite unique in that they they were civilization changing technologies so he said so I said where should I invest my money now at the time this was pre Dilbert free money I maybe could have scraped up five thousand dollars but if I had invested $5,000 in Sisko the day that the smartest person in that field told me to do it I wouldn't have needed Dilbert so I would have been pretty rich just by gambling in the vidcom market so that's that's my point look for the physical response to predict what will work and what won't it's very predictable all right who else has a question I got lots of people on here and let's try Stefan Stefan if our technology works

[29:57]

Stefan Stefan if our technology works definitely there Steven do you have a question for me Steven it used to be that when the fight was going on in health care about the ACA that Republicans wanted insurance companies to define their own lists of what's covered they don't seem to be doing that anymore and I just wonder whether or not you know the ACA requires too much to be covered and one specific thing I want to mention his read an article in The New York Times that said that 50% of clinical treatments have not been tested well I I know very little about the healthcare field and even less about ACA so I don't know about that but I will make a general comment that probably the entire game on health care is

[30:59]

entire game on health care is transparency meaning until you can get to the point where the market can buy things that are and not buy things that are worse and they can tell the difference you're not really gonna get a lot of improvement at least not quickly so Health and Human Services Secretary nazar and a lot of the Republicans are very much in that camp I believe and working on that so that all I can tell you is that we need to get to that point where we can not identify the questions that you're asking you know what's covered what isn't compare it to other things yeah somebody's using my own word here in the comments that confuse Appa Lee you know I I coined that word for everybody doesn't know I coined that years ago and it has to do with an industry that confuses the customers to the point where they can't really compare products because then those two companies that are confusing you they're they're not really competing against each other they're just confusing you so they get part of your part of your buys and the

[32:00]

part of your part of your buys and the other you know randomly at the other the other company gets some but they're not directly competing because they don't want to if they compete directly they'll have to lower the prices until they don't make money so the the medical field is confusing by intention and until you unwind that you don't really have any place to go all right thanks for the question all right let's see what Huey is up to Hughie seems to have disappeared Huey are you there yes question please all right so uh this is sort of a live decision question okay yes I'm here can you hear me yes your work what is your question all right so my question is a life choice question yeah I've been thinking

[33:09]

I've been thinking about immigrating to the United States for a long time and country what country are you in I'm living in Vietnam okay and what is your nationality my nationality is Vietnamese as well I was born and raised in Vietnam okay and you're thinking to come to the United States and what what can I do for you alright so uh so uh my I'm sorry I'm having a little bit so I think my technology is that much how does a problem I I can hear you pretty well why don't you just try to get the question out and we'll see clear alright so by the way this is literally the moving my pinky moment this is little the first thing I do about it by the way so good right now I'm right here right now you're with friends so just say it the

[34:10]

you're with friends so just say it the way you'd say it to a friend alright so right now I'm having really only two option to go about it well I bet I can think up first is to to look for a job from LinkedIn or through connection or something like that to look for an opportunity to relocate to somewhere on the East Coast permanently and the second option is to study to to go to school again United State which can be a financial burden on my part and I'm not sure which would be the better option in your opinion I will give you my answers first thing you need to do is get where you want to go that take think that is your top priority how do you get physically where it is you want to be you know you've looked into it you said East Coast you prefer I would suggest you take a second look at that because the West Coast has pretty good weather

[35:12]

the West Coast has pretty good weather you know we got our own problems and high taxes and all that but make sure that you've you've really decided where you want to go the first thing I did after college was I said what's my top priority and after college I had the ability to go anywhere I wanted because you know I didn't have a family didn't have a job so I could go wherever I thought I wanted to start so I went to San Francisco and that turned out to be one of the smartest decisions of my life because it put me in a world where I was surrounded with opportunity and then I could just you know ladder up the opportunity because there was plenty of it so move where you want to go first now how you get there might be by getting a job and you might get a job that's not your first choices job but if you get a job in a place that will support you going to school and furthering your skills whether degreed or not that's your ideal situation so I'd say find the place you want to go find the best company that will that

[36:14]

find the best company that will that will take you given whatever skillset you're bringing and then work your way up from there so first get established physically and and make sure you can pay your bills and then and then figure out the next step from there how's that thank you Scott that's where we have them but one more thing I so should I prioritize a place for having people that I know or a place that is really good for me but I wouldn't know anyone there that's a little bit of a personal versus professional trade-off if you ask me that question I'm sort of an introvert and I will take the I'll take the economic opportunity first because you know I'll deal with the social stuff I'll deal with the loneliness I'll figure out how to make friends I'll make friends at work I'll join a club I'll figure out the social part but you want to start from finance first if you can do that and then build a social you don't want to start with social first and then try to you know

[37:17]

social first and then try to you know manage that into some kind of a job that's the the wrong direction that's actually what I found as well and I'm good thank you Scott that was very helpful stay tough and by the way your reference I can tell you've read my book because your reference to moving your pinky yeah you you you of it you have demonstrated in front of 2.2 thousand people plus however many who watch it that you have figured out I had to make things work interestingly not many people will get as far as you've already gotten because look what you've done you've already determined that micro steps are important huge huge a huge realization secondly you did something that requires some guts which is you called me live and I could tell that wasn't easy for you but you did it perfectly and you and you got a good experience out of it so now you've now experienced they're taking a risk a small one one that wouldn't kill you I

[38:17]

a small one one that wouldn't kill you I mean what's the worst that could happen you'd be embarrassed on a periscope all right so worse that could happen but the best could happen is you've got some good advice and maybe a motivate to you maybe it make you do something different so you have first of all the way you think about it is great the amount of risk you're willing to put into it is great and the the level of change that you're contemplating I mean moving from Vietnam to the United States and that's that's the enormous change so here's my take you have what it takes you don't know it yet but you do you've just demonstrated in front of a whole bunch of people so your future looks good and I hope to see you sometime in the United States I'll talk to you later all right now wouldn't you love another immigrant like him let's let's get lots of him Gary let's see what Gary has to say Gary are you there ah good morning

[39:20]

ah good morning universal basic income yeah universal basic income so I love that andrew yang is introducing us to the future meaning that he's actually thinking years in advance and he's thinking exactly the right kind of way about it now that doesn't mean that universal basic income is the answer but by having people of his intellect and his charisma and his you know his energy putting that out there is unambiguously a benefit to society so a big thank you from society to Andrew yang no matter what happens with the presidency he moved the needle changed the conversation and caused you to ask this question very good stuff and here's my take I don't know if we could ever know if universal basic income is good or bad unless it's tested but it's uniquely easy to test because you could just say

[40:21]

easy to test because you could just say alright this state this county this this this length of time let's just see what happens and I think that could be useful now I think that the universal basic income my Sunday be paired with you know I talk too much about it but bringing down the the cost of a high-quality life in other words what does it cost for everything from your energy to your shelter to your cheer Wi-Fi etc insurance that kind of stuff so I think that the future is that we'll have models where people can live very inexpensively and and they'll have a high-quality life not even just a low-quality inexpensive life but like a really really good life if it's just designed correctly with community and things to do and people like you around you and that sort of thing so you think it would be more acceptable if there was some kind of work requirement like for instance what if

[41:24]

requirement like for instance what if you had to go to a kiosk every day and got $40 well certainly in terms of public perception it would be more palatable if the people receiving money had to do something in return just something and you could also imagine lots of different models of that so let me give you one example suppose I said to you you can get a thousand dollars a month but there's one requirement which is you have to give up maybe not all of but a lot of your privacy so let's say in return for that you have to document your lifestyle meaning what do you eat do you exercise do you smoke cigarettes you know the the lifestyle kind of stuff and then that would create at least a way to gather massive amounts of data that could be used to improve healthcare outcomes etc even maybe social policies that sort of thing so now whenever I say give up your privacy everybody's here it goes on fire so what

[42:26]

everybody's here it goes on fire so what I'm saying is let's let's suppose it's optional let's suppose you don't have to get $1,000 a month but if you want it you have to give something back and maybe one of the things you could give back use your privacy because it has a value it's you know part of learning what works and what doesn't and maybe another model is what you said maybe there's some small amount of public service it doesn't have to be much I mean it could be as imagine if you will that your only job is to watch video video images from a high crime neighborhood and call somebody if you see something going down I mean you can imagine lots of jobs that are really just sort of hanging out with your screen so you can imagine every model but the short answer is you'd have to test a bunch of things to see what works that's my answer thank you thank you let's see what let's see what super-badass

[43:26]

see what super-badass has to say I'm totally influenced by your the picture super-badass are you there do you have a question for me absolutely my first question so Christina she strikes me as a very smart person correct yes because you know you picked her that was the first thing and second you know I watched her play and watch a revolution on the last on the Kings c-minor and that was absolutely amazing so my question is did you surprise her when you proposed to her did you really surprise them this years I think they'll be so hard to surprise her and another thing I'm not wedding photographer if you want to have our tour for free at your wedding and there so that's my question did you supply Christina well well thank you for that offer the answer

[44:27]

well thank you for that offer the answer is she says she was surprised but let's let's put surprise into two categories she wasn't surprised I don't think that I ever asked because we talked about it you know it's it is 2019 you don't really just spring a wedding a wedding offer on somebody you know with a ring unless you're pretty well she says no but I but we had talked about it so we had both said the others are is our future intention and they had James so I think she was maybe cautiously you know I don't think she wanted in her mind to to think of it as a done deal so I so I think that was more of a mental choice if he will does that make sense he does this a moment a second where she knows in Judea that second you know that's great it was something we both knew we

[45:28]

great it was something we both knew we wanted and had expressly stated but it would be completely reasonable for the person who is the one to be asked to not be a hundred percent sure so I think maybe that's the best way to describe it as like well you can't really know and so to answer your question she certainly did not know it was going to happen at Christmas so okay so so that part was a surprise and the way it happened because it didn't happen in a necessarily romantic setting it just happened you know when we were alone at my place so so that's the answer I'll tell her I'll pass on your compliments about the piano play thank you very much sir and I hope you you Thanks Happy New Year all right see who else we got here

[46:29]

let's see if silence do-good is got something for us
a little silent silence do-good is that you hey it's not Happy New Year first thing happen here yeah second is nuclear the persuasion that I think you can you know we can lay down on neutral gone forward is you that's one thing we could all do in 2020 yeah yeah this is the perfect example because we do have some problems that have evolved into psychological problems that may have at one point been economic problems may have been we don't know how to solve their problems at one point sometimes political but they've evolved into just psychological problems and the the nuclear power question is is right at the top of the list because there isn't anybody who actually learns about it who

[47:31]

anybody who actually learns about it who disagrees which is weird you know normally normally people can study all the details of something and they'll still disagree nuclear is the one weird category where the people who are against it are just a little bit on a date about the information as soon as you fill them in with the new information it's not even telling them they're wrong it's just saying oh there's new information you know there's new stuff coming as soon as I hear that almost everybody says at least well maybe you know you could get somebody to well maybe almost immediately just by hearing the argument and that's a unique so yeah that's gonna be a big big thrust for me going into you into the new year and I feel as though the momentum is all in the right direction don't you I do I I mean this is going to be the weirdest thing you're gonna hear but I actually went to the molten salt reactor workshop down at Oak Ridge labs and you know it's a two-day workshop just to get a sense of what was going on in the industry and

[48:32]

of what was going on in the industry and really there I mean there were it's the government labs are doing all the materials testing fuel cycles I mean it's really just as much money we want to throw at it in in you know the government being able to set up the regulations
I'm no expert of this but from the outside is starting to look like one of the greatest stories of civilization as being untold and that is that the especially the United States government has been working very productively with private industry to take nuclear to the whole new level where all the problems that we're worried about just don't exist or there's so minimum that we don't worry about them and it feels like that's happening I feel like that's that the government private association is kind of working really well I mean that's what I'm hearing I'm not hearing the opposite so I feel it's like one of the greatest stories especially if you think climate change is going to destroy the world or even if

[49:33]

is going to destroy the world or even if you don't there's still one of the greatest stories of all time I think they don't like they'll get rid of Gretl put credit back to school uniquely or back to school that could be that could be the nuclear campaign put Greta back in school I like it happy happy new year all right I'll take a few more until you guys decide you don't want me to let's see what Brendan has to say Brandon can you hear me what is your question Brendan order you were talking about how can we get people who learn how to just design systems and that's something that you see in courses about sustainability and a little bit about engineering but there's not really

[50:33]

about engineering but there's not really jobs available if you studied that so I actually studied a little bit about sustainable design in my last year at UC Davis and there's just such a high level position for you to go into you how would someone who had that skill connect the fact that they have ideas but no experience with the money so I don't know enough about sustainable design so let me let me ask this question is sustainable design would that include designing an entire city from scratch with with everything from how the houses look and how they respond and where they're placed and how the sewage and the transportation works is that what that field learns or is that am I saying too much there yeah well so that's actually part of the problem is that it's so ill-defined I mean what part of that when I study it was a whole month on just how do you define sustainability but generally yes that would that is the sort of thing that they would fall under and the whole

[51:34]

they would fall under and the whole concept is well why don't you design for the system overall instead of just this one innovation one part so so then you're saying that there are people who are graduating with that major who probably are not entering even that field because it's hard to find a job that is that is that what you're saying yeah exactly well and it isn't even a field it's a almost an offshoot lately off of environmental engineering and so my actually civil engineer so so so that's the key word there was sustainability so really it sort of pigeon-holed a little bit into the green green world is that what's happening yeah okay so it sounds like there needs to be some other job that's not so green focused it's not the sustainability that should just be one variable in a much larger conversation about what a whole city looks like and how to design it so I I guess the answer is there's probably somebody or some people who through an accident of history have developed the kinds of

[52:36]

history have developed the kinds of skills that are exactly right so it's probably somebody who maybe is a little bit of some kind of an engineer also has worked in local politics maybe somebody with a real estate experience in construction experience there's somebody out there who's seen a little bit of all of these things and if we could ever identify that person and should they be excited about working on putting something together the the normal way these things go is you put together a proposal and then you find somebody rich to fund it and then you you project manage it and you figure out why right how do I get from here to there I guess I need to make this connection I need this law to be changed so I need to find a congressperson so you kind of crawl your way through it but first you got to get that person and if you think you have that skills maybe put together a proposal and say if I could get this funded I will be the project manager for this I have these skills I so the thing that I think would

[53:36]

skills I so the thing that I think would surprise people and I'll use an analogy when I talk about how to break into the field of writing people are always surprised that it's easy the hard part is writing but actually getting published is actually easy because there's more demand for good writing than there is good writing people don't realize that they assumed it would be hard but it's not hard to break into writing it's hard to write that's the harder part so likewise it's not hard to get funding even for really expensive stuff if you have a good idea and you can back it up with some kind of skill that people would recognize like oh this person is a real person so there are billionaires who would actually they have almost a demand to give their money away if that makes sense in other words they have they have more money to give away that they want to give away in a productive way but they just want to do it in smart ways and there aren't enough smart ways that they can identify as smart ways so finally a plan and a

[54:37]

smart ways so finally a plan and a person who's qualified and it's some big national benefit you know fixes the homeless or fixes some problem you can probably find your billionaire to give you that money okay so so that's a that's a unique talents how would one go about building that in as their next layer in their talent stack and as a person who looks for it yourself how do you look for people who might have those ideas well I've never spent any time looking for them but one of the things that you can do with social media and the internet that you couldn't do before is that you can do what I call the moths of the flame and I'm actually doing it right now so moths to flame acts like this I don't know how to go out and search for and find the people who could make these big system designs but if I keep talking about it in public somebody's gonna find me
me and and I'm sort of waiting for that to happen I'm waiting for somebody to you know text me and say you know I have exactly these talents and I have this

[55:37]

exactly these talents and I have this proposal and the only thing I need is a little attention because maybe some billionaire will say yeah I like that I'll give that a little little funding so I'm doing moth to flame right now and if anybody contacts me and says yeah I have a design for a city or a neighborhood I'm gonna be all over that okay all right thanks for the call thanks let's do one more
Helen Helen can you hear me happy new year do you have a question for me economics I so just want to let you know where I stand but my question I want to circle back to the what's going on with the media and why they might be changing and bounce this idea off of you and you had already mentioned that at the end of the year

[56:38]

mentioned that at the end of the year that you we would be seeing wrap ups on the news what happened in 2019 or the you know past decade and along with that we're seeing a lot of the mistakes that the media has made you know they're showing how they laughed at Trump he would never be President etc so now I'm wondering if they're starting to change their tune because Trump will more than likely be reelected unless something drastic happens and they don't want to have egg on their face for another year or you know another election year and so you just one more thought there you and others are kind of busting through the veil of deceit that the media has put on us since the beginning of television because truth seekers like yourself are coming out you're teaching us how to be thinkers how to do research now how not

[57:40]

thinkers how to do research now how not to
to you know follow hoaxes and I think they're starting to see that what do you think I I will agree with you in the the general statement that there are productive people on social media or people trying to be productive who changed the conversation in a way that if if all we had was the the competing news and their pundits you'd have these two views and and they wouldn't be as useful as if you had multiple views so I think I'm I'm one of the useful people in terms of allowing you to look in a different window at the same at the same information so that's sort of what I try to do but in terms of why people are I don't know if people are thinking of it that way in terms of oh I better get ahead of this because it's just gonna be embarrassing that I'm so wrong about everything being bad yet everything keeps turning out well I don't know that they have that kind of recognition because I think it was even just today

[58:40]

because I think it was even just today I'm CNN there was a story about how all the bad things that happened in 2019 and I thought to myself all the bad things that happened in 2019 was 2019 a bad year because I lived a whole different year I lived a year when it was like one of the greatest years in human history maybe I mean it was it was like a record kind of ear so I think some of it might just be the holiday season and some of it might be that people are willing to grant this president a little bit of flexibility because he's had real results it's hard to ignore the results yeah I want to run something by you stay on the line here I'm gonna I'm gonna give you and then I guess an analogy I tend to think of life and reality in machine terms meaning I actually translated in my mind in order to understand it better the things that are happening with people and psychology

[59:41]

are happening with people and psychology and systems I translate it in like a physical form to imagine them and one of the physical forms that I imagined is capitalism now if you imagine capitalism as a tube in which inputs go in the top and then money falls out the bottom and that would be capitalism but what's interesting is that the inputs they go in the top are all bad stuff but then the stuff that comes out the bottom is money it's good stuff how could he have a system that can turn bad stuff let's say human selfishness stupidity human greed I mean basically every bad characteristic of a human being gets put into this capitalism funnel but because the system is designed for transparency and for reporting on people if they rob you it works so it's a system that scrubs people of their bad impulses and produces money at the bottom it's amazing you put bad stuff in you know

[1:00:42]

amazing you put bad stuff in you know you'll hear the old the old saying garbage in garbage out that doesn't work with capitalism with capitalism it's garbage in and money out that's the best system you could ever have but there's another system like that it's called the office of the president subset of the Constitution the Constitution and democracy is the same thing imagine it as a tube what goes into the tube of democracy let's let's call it a republic is stupidity ignorance greed selfishness crime and what comes down at the bottom pretty good world pretty good year right so capitalism and our republic the way it's formed are like two machines that turn garbage into gold and we wash it every day and yet we're not amazed by it and here's where I'm going with us the people who have been most concerned

[1:01:43]

people who have been most concerned about president Trump destroying the planet and any one of a dozen ways don't understand that he's being put in the same funnel as every everything else the funnel makes it impossible you know the machine of the Office of the President makes it almost impossible for him to do any of the things even if you wanted to that people imagine we're so because people are watching there's amazing amount of transparency there are great implications for everything you've got the news the lobbyists the Congress all the competing forces and they're and they're sort of held in balance so that you could put you could put into that funnel a president were the best let's say character you've ever seen but you could also put him a president with the worst character you've ever seen now in my opinion president Trump does not have a bad character I'm just using the other people's impression of him to make my point yeah so so the point is that if

[1:02:45]

point yeah so so the point is that if they were worried that a garbage in meaning they thought that president Trump's character was you know rotten and corrosive they think garbage em is going to give you a garbage result but that's a complete misunderstanding of what the machine is the machine is the office of the presidency and the office of the presidency turns garbage into gold by design it's billed that way yeah so when you're looking at President Trump and you're looking at his internal thoughts what you imagine are his intentions what you think he's thinking none of it matters what matters is there's all kinds of stuff going in at the top and there's gold coming out at the bottom and there's a reason for it it's not an accident it's the design of the system just like capitalism thanks for staying online when you think of the funnel and capitalism and the government think back to World War two when our

[1:03:46]

think back to World War two when our rubber supplies were cut off in the South Pacific and we came up with synthetic rubber the ingenuity of entrepreneurs it was garbage going into the funnel we were cut off but we figured out a way so between the government the Office of the President and entrepreneurs we turned garbage into gold yeah and you see that over and over again and and it's easy to imagine that we're not doing that for a moment and then you get the wrong predictions so if you imagined and take a look at all the presidents we've put through the funnel you know the the machine of the office of the presidency every president we've had they've been really different I mean you can make it argument any two of them are kind of similar but if you look at the range of presidents from you know lefties to righties to every personality and they've pretty much all got a good result you know you could say in Jimmy Carter maybe not so much but I suspect any other president in that situation would have had a tough few years - so anyway

[1:04:49]

have had a tough few years - so anyway thanks for the question you bet all right Kay shots you keep asking to be on here and let's see if you have s to join I'm looking for you but I do not see you maybe you show up as a different name so shots K shots I would try to add you but you're not chillin up here as C as a guest let's see what Reggie has to say Reggie can you hear me do you have a question for me Reggie well thank you what's your question for me well I I guess you caught me a little off guard but let me hit you with this we had a rough Christmas we have some people that lean

[1:05:49]

Christmas we have some people that lean pretty far left in our family and I'm not so sure I did the best job in the world kidding through this past a holiday moving forward what can you give right-thinking people like me and I'm not just talking on the political side of things but someone that disdains loser think if you will what advice can you give us in this new year going forward well I would say for those of you who read my book lose you think in particular it gives you a bunch of tools for dispatching the worst of the arguments on the other side and I think that can be useful because they're also not
not they're not attacking tools they're just reframing tools so for example you will see people say I know what the president is thinking and his inner thoughts are bad I find it very powerful to say you

[1:06:50]

bad I find it very powerful to say you were not mind reader's and you wouldn't want to live in a world in which you were judged by what other people think you're thinking and you shouldn't judge anybody else that way almost everybody will go to that that higher level so that's the first thing so mind-reading and bad analogies if you focus on those two things and then if somebody gives you the laundry list of all the reasons that you're wrong do the trick of just picking the top one and say can we agree just give me your strongest one what's your very best reason on your whole laundry list and then debunk that if you stick with those three things insist that mind-reading isn't the thing don't reason by analogies that's not a thing and and only deal with their their best argument and not the weaker ones because then they're just playing whack-a-mole if you do those three things you're gonna make people rethink their position maybe not change overnight but that's the strongest things you can do that are non confrontational that's that's really

[1:07:51]

non confrontational that's that's really why I suggest them there they allow you to engage but with reasons and not arguing so much about facts and who saw the right facts I hope that helps oh it does all right thank you very much all right now let's see Kay shots I saw you try to join and you said something provocative there no you don't show up on my list of people who have asked to joint sue know what that's all about but I tried let's try caller can you hear me okay I can hear you what's your question all right Scott I'm from Holland so it may be a bit quitting out here because here I've got a question so I'm few Europeans actually who have positive

[1:08:54]

few Europeans actually who have positive standing and actually maybe the United States in general because what I notice is that many many metal friends they think all Americans always gave go haywire at the smallest thing they go crazy on stuff and I always explain to them like maybe you don't actually understand what's happening in the u.s. like they've got a system that gives us stability and well what you said garbage in useful stuff out I'm wondering do you in your view will with United States with such a system and China with more Iraq role big skill system will Europe in the future be able to compete and kind of stay like a big important force in the world or you know honest I sold I had an index fund there was a bunch of

[1:09:56]

had an index fund there was a bunch of european stocks and not too long ago I sold it all because it's hard for me to imagine Europe being a competing force with China and the United States so very much to your question I feel like the the two big countries have just such an advantage over a collection of small countries trying to act as one country you know you can see with brexit that it's kind of hard so my guess is and I don't give financial advice so you should not accept you do not assume this is financial advice but if I had to predict I was pretty to predict that the best place to own stocks would be the United States for the next 10 or 20 years but Europe will be fine I mean I don't think Europe is gonna go down the drain I just don't think Europe will keep up with the United States I don't think it'll even be close so there's few questions yes actually that's that kind of feeling yeah yeah of course in a way

[1:11:00]

of feeling yeah yeah of course in a way it was a easy question because Warren Buffett the same thing anytime anybody asks you know Warren Buffett what should I do with my money American stocks but what about in five years American stocks what if something changes put it in American stocks what if something happens in China put your money in American stocks he hasn't been wrong yet right and the the smartest investor in the world gives the same damn advice for like 50 years in a row and it's been right for 50 years so that's my advice great I won't disagree with the work thing that let's say that we were to have to turn would that be anything he or we could do to actually turn that around well certainly technological development would do it or something that that gives you an edge but I'm not seeing a tremendous amount of technological innovation coming out of Europe versus Asia and the United

[1:12:01]

of Europe versus Asia and the United States so there might be something maybe I just don't know is could you also christen information gap of my part but it seems like if it's not a technological step that it probably isn't big enough so I would look for that if is there any kind of emerging technologies there somehow unique or special to Europe that could be meaningful but if it's just business as usual and the US and Asia are pumping out new technologies I would work with the new technologies as as the things that are predictive all right that's all I got for you thanks to the questions
all right I'm gonna take one more quick check to see if there's somebody I need to talk to here and sure enough there is I have to talk to die and Diana or Diana I didn't read it fast enough Diana Diana

[1:13:02]

I didn't read it fast enough Diana Diana which is it is it Diana Diana Diana do you have a question for me
I'm sorry yes go ahead and ask you a question well how do you solve the fake news media problem well the first thing you have to ask yourself is is it new because we assume that the news used to be real and now it's not but was it ever real yeah I don't know the answer to that question so it may have been unreal in different ways maybe just more exaggerated now now it could be that it's a self solving problem and what I mean by that is if the public sees enough examples where their news was wrong over time it's got to have an

[1:14:05]

wrong over time it's got to have an impact you know I think we're still at the at the shock point in history where people are just realizing hey all the news on the other side is all wrong that's like halfway there once they realized that the news on the other side is all wrong and so is theirs then everybody goes to the next level of awareness now of course I'm talking in absolutes it's not absolutely true that all the news is wrong on either side but you can recognize it fairly quickly and and there's their patterns of form so for example I think the Society will get to the point where maybe the first two days of any kind of a crisis we will all hold our fire and say all right all right the first two days all the reports are misleading so let's just hold our opinions could we get to the point where we could learn to do that as a society maybe if we see enough examples in enough you know rapid fashion where it

[1:15:05]

enough you know rapid fashion where it was a good idea to wait and we certainly saw a lot of them last year so we saw a lot of them so I think the public has to get educated and it's going to happen automatically just by repetition and experience the public will stop at trusting their news sources news sources except they'll pretend to agree with them when they agree with them politically so I think it's the public that will make the change it's not the industry because the industry is chasing clicks and money and there's nothing that looks like that's going to change but I think the public will force the product to change because they will care about it less as they trust it less so that's the best answer I could give you and I think we've done enough for today Thank You Diana and thank you to the rest of you and have a great Happy New Year