Episode 1000 Scott Adams: Twitter Fact Checking, Police Versus Suspects, Ballot Harvesting

Date: 2020-05-27 | Duration: 35:23

Topics

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Rough Transcript

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Transcript

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• Special CDC distancing guidelines for Joe Biden

• Twitters fact-checking feature applied to President Trump

• Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of site integrity

• Are Mail-in votes subject to fraud?

• George Floyd’s death and “neck restraint”

If you would like to enjoy this same content plus bonus content from Scott Adams, including micro-lessons on lots of useful topics to build your talent stack, please see scottadams.locals.com for full access to that secret treasure.
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[0:07]

[Music] my shirts all wrinkly hey everybody come on in here you found it you found the place with all this stuff happening the good stuff and it's gonna be time for the simultaneous lip yeah it's gonna be a good one this morning and all it takes is a cover Margaret glossa tanker gel Thursday and candied sugar flasks of vessel of any kind fill it with your favorite liquid I like coffee and join me now for the UH the dopamine hit of the day wait I forgot my own I forgot my own introduction join me now for the dopamine here the day the thing makes everything better including the damn pandemic it's called the simultaneous epic happens now go mmm oh yes I can feel the freedom and the justice breaking out everywhere so is it my imagination I

[1:10]

everywhere so is it my imagination I want to see if anybody if you have you noticed this have you noticed that a lot of people are tweeting about me lately have you noticed that there's something happening you know there's sort of that feels like the energy of the universe is changing somehow well for some reason every time every time I wake up now somebody's retweeting either an interview I did some time ago or a book I wrote or a chapter from my book there's something happening in the last 30 days or so it's just going crazy and I'm trying to figure out if this is some kind of uh I don't shift and the zeitgeist or something somebody says you shouldn't impersonally Biden it's contagious are there more people doing that unparalleled pleasure thank you I forgot my own opening sang now if you couldn't tell I overslept meaning that I'm a little bit unprepared and

[2:12]

I'm a little bit unprepared and I have not had the requisite amount of coffee but will that stop us from having an incredible incredible periscope no no it won't and let's jump into it correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the CDC guidelines say that we should stay six feet away from other people can you fact check and beyond that six feet away from other people am i right but why is it that Joe Biden says that he needs to stay twelve feet away from people as the CDC given special guidance to Joe Biden that six feet is just for the kovat but we're gonna we're gonna throw on another six feet just with a sniffing because I haven't heard it anybody else say twelve feet and that I saw that interview with Dana Bash and sure enough he was 12 feet away and I thought I don't know is that is that 12

[3:14]

thought I don't know is that is that 12 feet just for Joe Biden Oh
congratulations sudden episode 1,000 people are telling me well apparently this is my 1000th episode how about that I think I've probably done more but we only I think we only label them labeled them a thousand of them a thousand really I've done this a thousand times does that seem possible does it seem even possible that I've done this a thousand times Wow all right so let's talk about the the Twitter fact-checking and the vote harvesting so rarely do you get a situation where there are two interesting topics and they intersect so here we have the interesting topic of the vote harvesting and the cheating with the mail and votes all allegedly is it true or is it not true that's what we'll talk about and then you have

[4:15]

we'll talk about and then you have separately the question of twitter becoming the fact checker for facts exactly like this one to find out what's true to it and what what could make what could make this story more interesting if you'd heard that twitter has a new fact-checking feature what could make that the most interesting story in the world well obviously the first time you ever hear about it in the action the first time you know that it's been used is against President Trump all right so so already you've taken something that was an interesting story huh Twitter's gonna be doing some fact-checking I wonder how that's gonna work cuz how did they decide what's the fact and what's not so it's already interesting and then they decide I don't know how many other fact checks they've done but the first time we've heard of it happens to be the President of the United States but it gets better it's not just the President of the United States he's actually talking about a

[5:17]

States he's actually talking about a topic that will determine the fate of the Republic which is whether our voting system is secure and unfair so it's like the biggest thing in the world you know in terms of stuff you should be talking about I mean we really the public needs to grapple with this question we don't know what's true we don't know what's not but we need to grapple with the question now here's the thing the president's made this claim that mail-in votes are subject to massive fraud I my understanding my understanding is that the reason that it was given the fact checking label it wasn't removed they just label it with a link it so you can go see what their version of the truth is and so so they've labeled this thing and do you think there's any chance the

[6:18]

and do you think there's any chance the president's wrong about this because because one of the odds there's no cheating with mail-in ballots now I I'm kind of really confused by it because this is a question of how much cheating because is there anyone on the planet who could stand here and tell you to your face you know there's never been a problem with a mail-in ballot there's never been one case in which somebody filled one out for an elderly person it's never happened there's never been a case where somebody picked one up to help you deliver it and then when they saw that you're a certain Democratic demographic group decided to just throw it away because in all likelihood you voted for the the other candidate the one they don't want to win I wonder if that's ever happened do you think anybody's ever thrown away one mail invalid ballot there's somebody

[7:18]

mail invalid ballot there's somebody else has given them to deliver do you think that's ever happened even once well of course I mean of course it's happened at least once in all the millions and millions of people now of course happening just once wouldn't change the election and all likelihood if just one vote got changed that one time with that one bill and mail and ballot but how many votes do you need to change before it's a true statement that mail-in ballots have a little extra risk would three be enough maybe not would 3,000 be enough let's say we could no and of course there's no way to know this but let's say we can know for sure just pick a number that 3,000 votes had been changed across the entire country in a national election maybe they're spread out in different ways but 3,000 of them would that be a problem maybe

[8:18]

of them would that be a problem maybe maybe not it depends entirely where they are did they change the election or not well how about 3 million I have a 300,000 about 30,000 how about how about 5,000 but they're in exactly the swing state how in the world could you possibly judge it not true that there would be cheating with with mailings let me tell you how I would do it here's how I would do it if I were a big a little cheater if I were gonna break the law it would go like this I would just you know organized my neighborhood and say look yeah we got some people we could help all you elderly avoid the co vid and we're gonna take your mail-in ballots so we'll be knocking on your door and we'll pick up your ballots and then I would just throw away all the ballots from people that I could statistically assume we're gonna vote the other way I don't want them to vote just throw them away that's that can you

[9:21]

just throw them away that's that can you imagine an easier way to cheat here are these things in my hand instead of carrying them over to the mailbox well nobody is looking I'll carry them over to the dumpster where nobody's looking did I get away with it can I get away with this crime carry a bag of garbage to the dumpster how often do people get arrested for carrying a bag of garbage to the dumpster it's sort of the perfect crime so for Twitter to fact check that as false I think I need a little more information about that don't you think don't you think you need a little more information about that because if somebody has a counter-argument that such an obvious way to treat what to cheat would not be used when in fact we have historical examples where cheating happens wherever pretty much whenever

[10:22]

happens wherever pretty much whenever you can it happens all the time so what would be the only way to make this story more interesting well suppose hypothetically suppose that the person in charge of Twitter's let's say the head of site integrity let's suppose he had a history of tweeting anti-trump things because that's the only way the story could be more interesting and certainly Twitter would never have in charge of their head of site integrity the person in charge of fact-checking they certainly would not put in charge that somebody who had a documented history of tweeting anti-trump stuff were they I mean they wouldn't do that would they okay they did that apparently now I don't know if this is true so let's let's put a question mark on the

[11:23]

let's put a question mark on the fact-checking of this but allegedly there's a gentleman named yeol Roth who according to Fox News he boasts you could tell what news you could tell which news I'm reading by the words they used to describe the people in the news so they say he boasts I don't know if he's boasting but but he says let's just say he says we won't say he's boasting that he's in charge of developing and enforcing twitter rules boasting oh you love the fact that the news will just put in those little those little words that have just a little flavor of bias on him now he doesn't simply state that he is the in charge of developing and enforcing Twitter's rules if you read it on the Fox News site he's boasting of it do people boast about their job I think you just say what your job is most of the time I mean it's not

[12:23]

job is most of the time I mean it's not like he is he's not the governor I believe he's just saying his job which everybody does and he's not boasting all right so I'll start by defending him from from that claim that he's boasting so here are some of the things that mr. Roth has said about Trump where that were the quotes oh he's previously referred to Trump and his team as quote actual Nazis actual Nazis okay so there's there's a fair and balanced fair and balanced kind of a guy he's also tweeted to quote we fly over those states that voted for a racist tangerine for a reason so not only does he think that Trump is a racist tangerine but but the entire the entire middle of the

[13:24]

but the entire the entire middle of the country is worthless he's in charge of your fact-checking allegedly you know I'm not even sure it's even the right guy or he's you know maybe maybe he's got a boss who's really in charge or who knows you know so I wouldn't I wouldn't even assume that that is totally his responsibility or anything but that's the news that we're dealing with what he couldn't he couldn't possibly be a worse choice goody so I'm sure he's good at his job I'm not questioning whether he knows how to do his his Twitter job but but if you but if you're trying to build a credible system for fact-checking you probably wouldn't want the guy who called half of the people in the country racist and said the middle of the country is worthless

[14:27]

could this be better come on come on this story could not be more perfectly crafted for our entertainment it really couldn't this is just this is just as perfect as it could be so uh-huh just to make it better I in my mind when I heard about the fact-checking on the president's tweet in my mind there was a little recording that started playing and the recording was going to bug me forever until the real world served it up and within hours within hours the real world served up the little recording that was in my head I swear I'm living in the simulation and here's what it looked like it looked like it looked like Joel Pollock at Breitbart writing an extended article about all the people in the media and on Twitter who have referred to the fine people hoax as real in other words calling out all the people who need to be fact checked for the fine people hoax that was exactly the little recording that was going in

[15:28]

the little recording that was going in my head which was hey if Twitter's got a fact jack I got a fact for him I got a fact or run past them hey hey let's run one fact fast them let's see what they think about that fine people oaks let's see if we give you a little label on that now of course you can see where this is going the the fine people hoax is clearly fake news so clearly that needs a fact check all you have to do is link to the transcript it doesn't even require linking to a different article you can literally just link to the transcript fact check so here's the question the next time somebody on CNN or otherwise it was a blue checker let's say mentions the the fine people hoax the hoax being that the president called neo-nazis fine people which is the opposite of what happened will that give fact checked and there's a dozens well what are people gonna do what would you

[16:30]

what are people gonna do what would you do what would I do what would anybody do if we see that come out of another blue checks mouth and doesn't get fact-checked but how about this you want what's let's make it more interesting you ready what if it does you didn't see that coming did you what if it does get fact checked let me just think about it what if they actually fact checked and said yeah the define people hoax is not a fact here's the transcript what what if they did because it's not impossible is it now I don't think that they're gonna go back in time and real able tweets that have already happened but we're just waiting now because somebody's gonna tweet that hoax they always do I mean it's one of the most commonly tweeted hoaxes on all the internet so what's gonna happen because

[17:33]

internet so what's gonna happen because I think you and I will point it out should it happen again I'm pretty sure that you or I or maybe some common of us will point it out to Twitter as something that maybe needs that little label so I think you could all see where this is going which is there's just no way that this could be enforced because Twitter wouldn't be able to do anything but slap liar labels on pretty much everything so you pretty much either have to do none or all of it but it's hard to do some and if they try to do some and they don't do it in a way that everybody thinks is unbiased what's gonna happen what's gonna happen well that is why this is so darn interesting well the president is threatening that there'll be some kind of antitrust action and I wonder to myself I wonder

[18:36]

action and I wonder to myself I wonder if I wonder if that would work because there are competing social media platforms and you can argue that as long as there's Facebook and Twitter people have a way to get their message out yeah they're not completely closed off so it would be an interesting court case you know just the existence of competition is that enough or does it have to be the right kind exactly so we might see this seems to be that on this question that they fact-checked about the cheating with the bail and votes don't you sense kind of a looser attitude there from the GOP I feel as though the Republicans are just taking a sort of a loser position on this mail-in votes and what I mean by that is well who says only the Democrats can cheat is there some law that says if

[19:37]

can cheat is there some law that says if we do mail-in votes only the Democrats are allowed to cheat is that some kind of law I don't know about because it seems to me that the GOP is pretty darn good and doing stuff like that historically now we're talking about the local people not the not the federal people but at the local level do you think that the Democrats can out cheat that the Republicans I say game on if you're gonna do mailing votes if mail-in votes are the thing the Republicans should mobilize the entire Republican base to do ballot harvesting now not illegally that would be against the law they should not illegally do any ballot harvesting with any shenanigans no malarkey but on the other hand they can't police everything I mean it's not like the it's not like the president could watch every person and every every

[20:39]

could watch every person and every every precinct to pick up pick up the ballots you can't please everything but if you feel more comfortable if the Republicans are picking up the ballots the mr. Democrats not saying what anybody is going to do with these ballots that parts unknown but are the GOP gonna just let the Democrats play this game because it feels like if mail-in ballots are gonna be the standard the GOP is gonna wait in pretty hard to cheat like crazy so I feel like the the Republicans have or may be playing this wrong it could be that you're not allowed to say in public hey let's cheat as much as the other side and I'm certainly not saying that either just to be clear I'm not suggesting that anybody cheat in an election that would be very bad and you should go to jail if you get caught cheating in an election so don't do that all I'm saying is the opportunity to

[21:39]

all I'm saying is the opportunity to cheat is exactly the same size for both parties I it could be that the best way to make mail-in votes go away if you wanted to if you wanted to just strategically would be to embrace it what would the Democrats think about mailing votes tomorrow if today every Republican and the state said hey you know guys you're right you're right let's go with a mail-in votes how about that you know we've decided we've looked into it you're right there's no way you could ever cheat with his mail and votes so you've won the argument we've decided that we will go with your your process and we'll just do mail and votes because they're so darn fair okay Democrats are you are you okay with that you okay with that good let's go because I think the day that the Republicans embraced bail and voting it

[22:40]

Republicans embraced bail and voting it would be over yeah wouldn't it I think it would be over so anyway so those are fun stories what else we got going on here I'm going to take a very unpopular opinion are you ready for this you come here for the unpopular opinions and what I say it's unpopular I mean you won't like it on the Left you probably won't like it on the right it goes like this we're all watching this like disgusting story of the was in Minnesota the police officer who put his knee on the neck of the african-american gentleman and the person who was on the ground the suspect who was under police control was complaining that he couldn't breathe he was in pain and he just died the guy

[23:41]

was in pain and he just died the guy just kept his knee on the guy's neck and he just died like while people were just standing there now in terms of the horribleness of this story that's sort of a 10 you know that's that's a 10 and a 10 for horribleness but I would like to send a message to my african-american fellow fellow that seems racist not racist that seems sexist I would not say fellow citizens because that's sexist right what see what's the term that would replace it fellow citizens there would be non sexist way whatever that turn is to my african-american citizens my teammates people on my side I say I'm horrified by this but here's one thing you need to know well white people want to kill that guy the the cop not the suspect white people are not happy with that wake up do you know what

[24:44]

happy with that wake up do you know what do you know what that white cop did to my brand like to me personally he messed up my brand that's a white cop that made me as a white citizen looked like a idiot look like how did that make you feel if you're if you happen to be let's say a white male just just to keep it as specific as possible so this cop who's out this video doing this horrible thing is a white adult male if you are also an adult white male how the do you feel about that right so if the black citizens of this country are are let's say enraged by that first of all yeah yeah you should be secondly the one thing you can trust is that white men are gonna fry this he's gonna get fried because he didn't help us you know he's

[25:45]

because he didn't help us you know he's not on my side this guy this guy's gonna get fried by white people just give us a minute okay just take a pause my my black friends you know my african-american citizens you're pissed we are too right he didn't help me he's not making my life any better so just give a little time let the system work I'm pretty sure white people are gonna fry this guy one way or the other you know fry beating there'll be consequences not necessarily execution but I think I'd let the system go with this one because if you think you can find a white person who thinks it's okay to like I don't just kill a guy who's in custody and not not in any danger of hurting anybody good luck you're not gonna find any white people agree with that how about we just be on the same side for a change can't we do that

[26:46]

a change can't we do that can't we be on the same side I mean really seriously who is on the other side of this nobody if there was ever if ever there was a cause that should bring us together it should be this one now you want the controversial part I have the next part you might not like as much it goes like this there is some report that he resisted arrest which is a separate question from what happened after he was controlled by the cops once he was completely controlled there is no excuse for what happened and nothing I say should will change that no excuse for what happened but I'm just gonna tell you my personal opinion we don't know if he resisted arrest that's just part of the story and you can't really trust anything at this point but I'm giving my personal opinion I no longer have empathy for anybody who

[27:47]

longer have empathy for anybody who resists arrest that's it people who resist arrest I just don't have any empathy for them now in this case I don't know if this guy did that's reported so I think we should wait and see
see I assume the way it looked the police looked like they had an attitude meaning there was a little extra it looked like the cop who had his knee on the guy's neck may have had some prior situation that made that seem more right to him than I should have so I'm gonna go on record and say anybody who resists arrest and then gets killed I don't care I just don't care I just don't care about anybody who gets killed resisting arrest and I'm not going to change that opinion if you resist arrest and you get killed don't complain

[28:48]

don't complain to me I don't care how nice you were the day before I don't care how good your grades were I don't care how much your family loves you it's a tragedy I'm not even talking about this specific latest situation I'm generalizing just generalize them if you resist arrest and you get killed oh don't look to me for a sympathy at all not at all if you care get through an arrest without fighting the police of getting yourself killed I mean that just can't be my problem it just can't be my problem right that's your problem you've got killed because you resisted arrest that said once the guy was under control the police had no there's just no excuse for what we saw on video now it could be I'll give you this general caution here's a general caution even videotape that says clear as this one

[29:49]

videotape that says clear as this one where you say to yourself Scott there's not really any doubt what's happening in that videotape just remember you've seen a lot of videotape in which you also thought there was no doubt what was happening on the video only to learn that it was completely misleading now I can't imagine how this would be misleading I mean it's again it looked pretty clear but remember this yeah if this goes to court it probably will you could you could learn anything I mean you could be amazingly surprised about what you learned about this situation but that said the video seems pretty clear I'd be surprised all right
somebody says so you're a boot licker I'm sure that makes complete sense to whoever I'm blocking the boot licker
there is such a thing as wrongful imprisonment - sure

[30:59]

cops are brutal two resistors regardless of skin color we think that is true but you know why is that do we have video of police killing white suspects by just putting they're putting their knee on their neck well I'm learning by text that neck restraints are authorized by the police when suspects resist arrested - that will be the cops defense of the trial especially if the on-scene commander authorized it so there can be a situation in which a nekross day would be authorized we don't know the details of this case but that could be the defense that a neck restraint would be authorized if there was some resisting arrest that went on so that's a good point so to my earlier point you might be

[32:01]

so to my earlier point you might be amazed when inevitably there will be a trial I'm sure you might be amazed that this isn't quite exactly what you thought it was all right
somebody says is that a real cop I think so
so somebody says the Karen story in the park changed quite a bit did it you know I said this last night but I'll say it again the the the African American man who was the bird watcher in the park with that Karen situation and the dog you all know the story I I just love that guy's that guy's attitude that she was punished too much for the situation that is such and that is such a productive good citizen you know kind of framing of that and I would like I and I suggested this last night I think that the Christian Cooper a perfect ending to

[33:05]

the Christian Cooper a perfect ending to the story I'm not saying he should do it because it's his life you can do whatever he wants but a perfect way to put a bow on this to make the world a better place instead of just leaving it with this negative taste in our mouth you could make the world a better place and I feel like Christian Cooper might be the kind of guy who gets this and could make this happen just call call the woman's employer and say look I think she needs a second chance and let's not make this you know a life-ending situation I mean he could he could change her life that the direction of her life were the phone call and I hope he is I hope he's he's inspired to do that all right I doubt it but I wish you would all right the officer in question committed career suicide he certainly did neck restraints that seem like torture yeah I don't even understand the neck restraint because if you've got somebody

[34:07]

restraint because if you've got somebody on the ground and presumably by then he was handcuffed and if he wasn't already handcuffed why not so if somebody is on your back and your your your your handcuffs behind your back how in the world are you a risk because you can't get up and you can't use your hands so there's a lot of explaining to do like I could see why somebody would use a neck restraint if it was you know still the heat of the moment like if that's if that's the first thing you did to get control of somebody I can see that but once you had control of them and you had other officers around isn't he immediately handcuffed behind his back and then you have all the control you need so I guess we have lots of questions about it all right that's all I got for now yes he already denounced the firing the the Audubon bird-watching

[35:09]

the firing the the Audubon bird-watching guy did and I thought that that was that was just good being a good citizen so I appreciated that all right that's all I got four down and I will see you tonight