Episode 796 Scott Adams: Winning Shampeachment Theater, Mnuchin Versus Greta

Date: 2020-01-23 | Duration: 35:37

Topics

My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a A 4th hypothesis to explain @RichardGrenell shadowbanning Secretary Mnuchin calls out Greta Thunberg’s loserthink Senate shampeachment rewards lying Adam Schiff’s impressive background and personal life CNN Stephen Collinson’s curious handling of the HOAX video

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> [!note] Rough Transcript
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## Transcript

[0:10]

hey everybody good to see you coming to you from an undisclosed location where I might be brain breaking the biggest story of the year or not so we're going to be experiencing two realities at once it's sort of a Schrodinger's cat of periscopes today in one reality you're going to hear the most shocking thing you've heard in a long time but it might not be true so I'm going to ask you to fact check it and you can't this is the exciting part I'm gonna I'm gonna give you the biggest story of the year that might not be true but you get to check it yourself now each of you individual may not be able to check it but collectively there are enough people watching this that we will be able to know if this hypothesis is true or false and if it's true it's just about the biggest no it would be the biggest story of the earth it would be

[1:11]

biggest story of the earth it would be the biggest story there that doesn't involve violence I guess alright but before that before that there's a little thing called the simultaneous SEP mornings I read from my little script for the introduction sometimes if I'm on the road in a secret location like today I don't have that with me so you might have to help me those of you who have memorized the introduction to the simultaneous it all you need is a cup or a mug I don't know is anybody memorized it well we'll see it in the list see if somebody can reproduce it in the comments because I know I know somebody there as memorized it by now all right well we're not going to make you wait let's go directly to the simultaneous

[2:11]

let's go directly to the simultaneous sip you know the best part of your day it's the dopamine the end of the day the thing that makes everything better simultaneous it go alright so here's my big story or again I might just be wrong and you'll get to check this you actually will be able to check this so I was keeping you up-to-date about the story of ambassador Richard Grinnell's account where were a number of you including me we had followed him on Twitter at one point and then got somehow unfollowed and I had given you three hypotheses for how that could happen I'm gonna add a fourth and the fourth is pretty darn good but that's the part you're gonna check for me so I don't asserted as fact I asserted to have something I want you to check for me and then we'll figure out if it's fact if it is it's the biggest thing

[3:12]

fact if it is it's the biggest thing happening this year alright so I pothinus never one would be Twitter management had decided to rig the election and was ordering its employees to you know put their finger on some accounts I don't think that's likely indeed I think that's deeply unlikely based on human nature because the it would be too easy to discover and the risk would be too high for somebody who's already doing well and isn't senior management of a major technology company it's just not a risk reward that makes any sense from a senior management perspective so I said I think the odds that there's somebody in Twitter management who's making a decision to throttle people very low very low odds then you have the the bug concept well maybe it's just a bug that they haven't found out I also think that's very low chance because it's such a massive bug and it would be an easy one to fix I

[4:13]

and it would be an easy one to fix I can't believe it would go so long and it would just be a bug and somehow it hadn't been fixed so I would reject the bug hypothesis and the it's coming from management but then you have the is there a rogue element within the company and I don't know how to put it odds on that but you can't rule that one out it's just that we don't have any evidence of it and probably unless it was a lot of people in on it it seems like somebody would have noticed you know what some programmer who was not listening in on it probably would have noticed not necessarily but probably so I would say the odds of it just being a bad actor can't rule it out but the odds are not high here comes hypothesis number four here's the one you're gonna check turns out that when you try to connect some apps to Twitter you know to

[5:15]

connect some apps to Twitter you know to make your apps work together you have to give permissions to the third-party app I'm seeing it in the comments somebody's added me on Twitter somebody sent me in fact let me call them out a root Esperanza rut Esperanza on Twitter sent me the permissions page for one particular app in which the permission if you didn't read it carefully and he just said sure I give you a permission it would give the third-party app permission to follow and unfollow your Twitter accounts for you without your permission you would give the permission once and then forever the app would be able to do whatever you wanted on your Twitter account what app do you think it was here it comes delivered another bump up up up up up up up up up up um tick-tock I'm just good I'm just gonna let that

[6:16]

I'm just good I'm just gonna let that sit in just let that sink in for a little bit tick tock do you know who owns tick tock China
now here's what I want you to do if any of you have both tick tock and Twitter or you can actually test it by just I'm not sure what the condition is when you're maybe when you're signing up for a tick tock does it ask you to connect to Twitter because so so here's the fact check the fact check for me that part of the tick tock process involves a page that gives you the option which you might not read the details of does it give you the option to let tick tock control your follows and unfollow if it does it's the biggest story of the year am I wrong and if it doesn't then I

[7:21]

year am I wrong and if it doesn't then I have some questions about how who sent it to me but check it just check it ok now correct me if I'm wrong I believe that society has been warned about tick tock I believe we've been warned that the Chinese government might be using apps and technology to you know get a little influence that they should not have so some of you probably immediately picked up another device and said what the heck and are looking at this right now so by the time we're done with the periscope we might actually have confirmation now somebody says do I use it no I don't use the app but remember it wouldn't be me who uses the app it would be it would be just one of us so you'd only need one person to if one person has given permission that's probably all it takes so I don't use the

[8:23]

probably all it takes so I don't use the app so I'm not vulnerable in that particular way nor would I I would never use a Chinese app if I knew I was using it all right so go check that we'll see if that's the biggest thing and to think now if I were China and let's say hypothetically I had some way to in luis who gets followed and doesn't get followed how would you do it in other words would you randomly have people followed and followed now you would you would make a decision about when it makes sense for China and I think you would pick the people who are the most influential and also talk about this topic so you'd have to be influential in general but also say things that China doesn't like you to say or beyond the party that it doesn't want to win that would probably include Ambassador Grinnell if you are China do you think that the things that ambassador Grinnell says are things you would like to have

[9:24]

says are things you would like to have greater influence or lesser influence probably lesser same with me who talks down about China more than I do
do not many people all right that's enough that let's talk about some loser think in the news secretary minuchin was asked about greta tunberg opinions of i guess what the United States should be doing with its economy and with with climate change and and minuchin quite cleverly said listen let me get the exact quote here because he was pretty funny he's he said he dismissed climate activists Greta tunberg saying but Papa Papa she should first go to college and study economics before she weighs in on US policies and how they relate to the climate crisis so a secretary minuchin

[10:27]

climate crisis so a secretary minuchin just called loser think on Greta tunberg was that fair hundred percent 100 percent fair so minuchin just showed you the way I'll tell you how everybody's been doing it wrong how many times have you seen people say she is just young she's just a kid she doesn't know anything she's just young she's a kid why are we listening to a kid
kid right unfortunately that argument is not as solid as you hope because her whole argument is that the kids are the ones who are going to pay the cost of our bad behavior the the older generations so you can't beat her argument by saying she's just a kid when her argument is I'm a kid and I'm gonna have to pay for this right but minuchin he took the the smart way to to approach us by simply noting that there's an entire domain of knowledge

[11:28]

there's an entire domain of knowledge that one would need to have in order to have a useful opinion on the topic and he's simply pointed out that she has never had any access to that domain she has not been an economist she has not studied the most important part of the decision now I say the economics is the most important part because it's the economics that tells you when to go and how hard to go and what to do it's one thing for the science to say we think there's a problem I know some of you disagree but just work with me here there's one thing for the science to say there's a problem but the what do you do about it ends up being a combination of science plus how much is it going to cost so if you haven't handled the how much is it going to cost you don't know the trade-offs you don't know the alternatives you don't matter look at things in a in a rational way the way an economist would minuchin just totally brushed her off in the best

[12:31]

totally brushed her off in the best possible way because it's sort of funny and it hits you is true because as soon as he says that you go well that's kind of true you really would sort of need to know about economics to make decisions about the entire economy of the United States we don't delegate that to children there's a reason we delegate it to people who maybe have studied economics so to secretary minuchin nice play nice play loved how you did that and by the way the when you see a little glimpse of things like this you know we always talk about how many people have cycled through the administration president Trump has fired a lot of people a lot of people who quit but seems like minuchin has been there a long time right it correct me if I'm wrong but it seems like minuchin is one of the people who seems to be able to get along with this president pretty well and then we see just a little bit

[13:32]

well and then we see just a little bit of a glimpse behind the curtain to see why that might be the case because the new cheon's framing of tunberg is the best I've seen it's absolutely the best of every critic who said anything about Greta tunberg nobody did it as well as he just did it there's no way that he and Trump don't get along when it's the two of them chatting right because minuchin got skills that was really really good alright enough about that let's talk about who's winning and losing in the impeachment theater III have a winner and a loser well I have a winner I guess the other side has to be the loser I declare the Democrats the winners so far now of course we're not at the endpoint but here's why the Democrats are winning and winning hard because in the in the court

[14:33]

winning hard because in the in the court of public opinion which is the only one we're talking about because the Senate everybody thinks they know where it's going to end up so it's not a trial in the sense that you're influencing you know jurists or the judge because we know how that ends but there's a big play in influencing the public and that's sort of the point and when you have somebody who is smearing that the accused all day long in public and it's a real complicated situation and then you have the other side saying it's not true who wins you already know the answer to that right if all you know it doesn't matter if it's impeachment or it's a criminal trial doesn't matter what the domain is if you have these two things well three things going on it's a complicated situation that the people watching we're having a little bit trouble following but one side is smearing the accused just you know hours and hours literally hours of smearing smear smear smear

[15:34]

hours of smearing smear smear smear uh-huh and the other side is saying no it's not true who's winning it's this mirror this mirror is way stronger than the defense in this situation in which nobody can independently tell exactly what's going on because it's too complicated and hey we're not lawyers and even if we were lawyers we might still disagree because we watch the lawyers disagree right so under those conditions having a shift just chew up TV time with accusations he's winning he's winning hard all right so if you were to look at it from just a stable point today it's a slaughter it's a slaughter I hate to tell you but Schiff is absolutely slaughtering the Republicans now are the Republican are the lawyers good I think so I think they're very good I think they're doing everything

[16:34]

good I think they're doing everything they can do it's just that you could reverse the teams it doesn't matter who has what talent you know the other they're all operating in a pretty high level but it's irrelevant who the lawyers are because the smear always beats the defense if nobody can independently tell what's going on and that's our situation now on top of that you have this weird situation where the system rewards lying it's a terrible system you know I always talk about systems versus goals apparently we have a terrible system for this Senate trial situation because lying is not disincentivized in fact it's rewarded so both sides let's admit both sides are telling some tales here but these mirrors always going to be so I would also say and this is a incomplete opinion because there might

[17:35]

incomplete opinion because there might be something I don't know about this topic but I would say independent of the the quality and the talents of the White House lawyers who again who they look very qualified very good I would say that they botched the case so far but I don't know if that's because of them all right it might be this is just speculation but we hear reporting that the president wanted to defend the case on the details but we hear that say Alan Dershowitz and other smart people are saying don't even talk about the details just say it's unconstitutional vote and get rid of it now what we observe is that the Senate is and the White House's defense is not following the Dershowitz playbook would you agree can we say that can we say that authoritative Lee because Dershowitz has said a few times

[18:36]

because Dershowitz has said a few times hit the constitutional argument vote and go home and I completely agree with that from a persuasion perspective because it gets it gets rid of all these hours of Schiff you know smearing the president and it it doesn't make you deal in the weeds where the accuser has the advantage so so Dershowitz is is quite accurately saying the playing field in which the president has all the advantages is the constitutional argument he has all the advantages it's the home court take the constitutional argument instead and I don't know the reason I don't know if it's the lawyers decision or they're doing they're doing the work of their client the president for whatever reason they've decided to climb into the weeds and get down in the weeds it's a losing play because it's

[19:36]

weeds it's a losing play because it's shifts the home-court the smear beats the defense and it's beating the crap out of it right now now is anybody really changing their minds well who knows you don't have to change many minds to change the next election so they're not that many people evolve but if you change a few could make a difference all right so I would say that the White House defense is largely botched for not following the dershowitz plan which was a solid plan there might be something I don't know meaning there may be a reason that the White House lawyers are doing it the way they're doing it something that Dershowitz has not called out in a way that I've heard anyway so then I might have a gap in my knowledge all allowed that that possibility exists but so far it looks like it looks like chef is winning hard and that the reason he's winning card is that the strategy is bad from the White House all right here's a question for you we keep talking about John Bolton potentially testify let me

[20:40]

John Bolton potentially testify let me ask you this do you think the do you think the White House lawyers at this point don't already know what John Bolton would say now of course there's some uncertainty because you know the questioning can take things in any direction but is there any chance that the White House doesn't know by now what John Bolton is gonna say so if they do know and it's nothing that's gonna change anything I mean it might confirm things we've already seen but I don't know how much difference that would make but one of these strategies and again I don't see them doing this but one strategy would be and I think rush limbaugh was promoting this idea to put shyffilis in the spotlight and just put all the focus on him because he's not really a sympathetic character in general and he's got a lot to explain so imagine if the White House defense said you know well we hear ships say a lot of

[21:42]

you know well we hear ships say a lot of stuff and a lot of its lies just make the statement you know we're listening to shift talk we're in a situation in which lying is not punished and ship is lying like crazy well we'd like to do for the benefit of the Senate and the benefit of the public watching is interview chef now what is shift can say when they say we want to interview chef well he's gonna say is not a fact witness and it's just you know it's just a clever scheme but it's gonna put him in the situation of defending not having witnesses so wouldn't it be productive to make shift directly have to defend why he's calling for witnesses but doesn't want witnesses because he because the Republicans would call him and hunter Biden so it would be interesting to put him on the defensive about why only he gets to decide who the witnesses are now some of you already knew this interesting anecdote but did

[22:46]

knew this interesting anecdote but did you know that Schiff writes screenplays in his spare time that apparently he's written screenplays and let's see which topics he's written a murder mysteries a holocaust story and a spy drama that's right the simulation has served up to us Adam Schiff who actually writes fiction that matches what he's doing in his day job if you look at the the Russia collusion thing basically it was it was like a script written for television that he acted out and one of the things that shift does is he's got kind of a theatrical you know way about him is that he tries to turn something into nothing with the application of acting so I'm going to give you a demonstration of that all right I'll say it first in

[23:49]

of that all right I'll say it first in the way that you would just say it straight and then I'll say it the way that Adam Schiff says it to make you sound like it's really bad the first way is looks like this little overcast today might get some rain all right now here's Adam Schiff giving you the same fact and it's overcast today we might even see rain rain because it's overcast it's overcast today today people today not tomorrow not yesterday today and it might I can't say this for sure but I think we should be worried it might rain it might rain hard it could rain for days rain you know I don't mean

[24:54]

rain for days rain you know I don't mean to make too much of this but the Bible talks about rain and it talks about rain for 40 days and 40 nights I can pray I pray that we don't see that but we can't guarantee you we can't take that chance people the Republic is a snake because it might as I said before it might rain they're my rain people my rain and Abner it's the William Shatner acting class but you can see him continuously taking things that don't sound interesting at all and trying to make them substantial and interesting by his his choice of presentation a couple other interesting facts about chef I did not know that he spent part of his childhood in the town next to me in Danville where I used to live so I actually spent time in one of his childhood towns I didn't know that he

[25:56]

childhood towns I didn't know that he also runs marathons and triathletes did you know that did you know that Adam Schiff is actually a really really successful athlete he runs marathons and triathletes I got it I gotta admit caught me caught me by surprise but I'm not going to make fun of that because I actually back that so if I'm if I'm being fair Adam chef good job on Fitness I don't love your your your other job but on the fitness level good role model keep it up
you saw of course that on two occasions the Democrats in the impeachment situation there showed that a hoax clip of the president claiming he could do whatever I want as president now of course the hoax part of it is he was talking specifically the context was

[26:56]

talking specifically the context was that he could fire Comey if he wanted to because that's in his job description which it is but the Democrats have played it twice under the guise of acting as if he's saying it like to be a dictator I can do anything I want so they're taking it out of context to make it look like he thinks he's above the law which is opposite of what he said because that what he said was what I'm doing is compatible with the law and it's true so literally it reversed it reversed the meaning from I'm following the law to I break the law now it's one thing when you see Schiff and company show that clip the hoax clip and try to tell you it's true because they're in this you know persuasion battle and that's their job they're persuading but then I saw that that same hoax clip was mentioned in an opinion piece on CNN and it may be curious about CNN's internal

[27:58]

it may be curious about CNN's internal rules so they have this designated hit piece writer on Trump this guy's Stefan or Stephen Collinson and just about every day or two he's got an opinion piece in which he says the president is rotten and must be you know and we're all in trouble so basically easily doesn't hit a hit piece right and so he mentions again this hoax video but interestingly he didn't put it in interpretation on it he mentioned he mentioned that it was played mentioned what was said but he didn't say it was it was edited to reverse its meaning nor did he say that the meaning is that it looks like the president's trying to be a dictator he put it out there without the opinion part on it which was damaged I just lost Mike just lost power in my computer damn it the rest of the show will be a little bit

[29:00]

rest of the show will be a little bit shorter since all of my notes just disappeared but I might be able to plug it in depending if for your patience so but I'll be let me do that while you're all I'm talking I lost my train of thought ah damn it I don't have my power so my question is this do cnn's rules allow that an opinion writer who's writing a set piece you know not somebody was talking on live TV who you can't really edit in in real time but somebody's writing a written piece to publish it on cnn.com is there anybody in the company who reads it and says well you're misrepresenting that fact
did is that does anybody do that because is it's one thing if an opinion writer writes an opinion that's you know hyperbolic and crazy but you kind of can

[30:01]

hyperbolic and crazy but you kind of can tell an opinion but if you put an actual fact in your opinion piece and the fact isn't true how how does CNN editors management to handle that I mean I don't know what the processes do they let it stay because even though it's obviously not true I mean obviously not true because you just have to look at the context do they let it stay because it's in the context of an opinion I don't know I'm wondering what they talked about but it makes me think that they might have had that conversation because as I mentioned in the article it doesn't put the wrong interpretation on it nor does it put the correct interpretation is simply mentions it it looks like it may have been written the with an interpretation that maybe got you know taken out or maybe the writer took it out himself and you want just to leave it there for your own interpretation but there you go all right I had some really interesting

[31:03]

right I had some really interesting things to talk about on my notes that just disappeared because it's on my laptop that I can't plug in and I don't have my cord with me did I watch the James O'Keefe undercover CNN files
yeah the plug is actually it's not even in the same building I would have to go outside go down you know it's not here
what was the test you were doing yesterday on YouTube oh yeah I accidentally live streamed on YouTube yesterday yeah live streamed a blank screen but I'm testing a product called Wirecast that's the software on Telestream box with a piece of hardware they should allow me to stream to the YouTube and do periscope at the same time and stream to other services as well so yeah if I make you wait for the

[32:12]

well so yeah if I make you wait for the Power Core it's gonna take too long let's talk about the coronavirus the so you know about this virus that's coming out of China and apparently China has closed an entire city you can't leave the city and I gotta say if you had to pick one country in the world to contain a virus I can't think of a better place than China because China it looks like China is willing to do what may be you know a democratic country who wouldn't do which is just to say all right starting immediately nobody can leave this entire city of many millions of people and I don't know if you could do that in the United States you could try but I don't know if you get away with it
what's the slaughter meter people are asking well I don't see any chance that President Trump will do anything but win reelection who owns the patents to the

[33:17]

reelection who owns the patents to the coronavirus yeah you know I have to say that my conspiracy theory brain went to you know how much of this is human-made but apparently the news today says it came from snakes so it was the scientists believe it originally started in snakes and then was transferred to humans now I don't know what human had sex with a snake so there might be somebody over in China who's got a lot of explaining I don't know the mechanics of exactly how you do that I don't want to speculate but now I'm just kidding I'm just kidding probably happened from a snake bite it was my best guess but at this point it looks like you can travel through the air if mutated and it would be a pretty big problem ever see the movie outbreak unfortunately yes all right did anybody

[34:20]

unfortunately yes all right did anybody have time to research the tick tock permissions question now it might be other apps as well so tick tock wouldn't necessarily be the only app they asked for that permission so let's see in the comments has anybody had time to either debunk that because of your if it's not true I'd like to debunk it right away and I cannot verify don't jinxes win all right the comments are way behind because I said that thing about the somebody says it came from baths I heard that it was other things that came from bats but this one probably came from us I'm not sure we can exactly tell those things for sure bat soup somebody says it came from bad soup I don't know all

[35:20]

it came from bad soup I don't know all right I'm not seeing any responses yet it looks like everybody's still talking about that virus and I don't have much else to do so I guess I'll have to save that for another day and I am going to do something else and go talk to you later