Episode 1020 Scott Adams: I Solve Institutional Racism While You Wait. Should Have Asked Me Sooner.

Date: 2020-06-07 | Duration: 1:01:14

Topics

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Rough Transcript

This is an auto-generated transcript and may contain errors.

Transcript

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• Institutional racism is an undefined problem

• You can’t solve a problem when you’re not allowed to discuss it

• Eliminating the police, transfers power to men

• Suggestions for eliminating the police

• Whiteboard1: Political Focus

• Whiteboard2: Discussion Funnel

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[0:08]

[Applause] hey morning come on in I hear there's a little problem called institutional racism as soon as I heard about it I said to myself well I'm gonna solve that and so this morning I will solve institutional racism probably end although the protests I don't know by the end of the hour and it made me wonder why didn't somebody ask me before you just had to ask me I could have solved a list before but we'll get to that in a moment but first is there something we're forgetting yeah yeah there are it's called these I'm taking yourself and all you need to participate you know all you need there's a cup or a mug or a glass a tankard chelators time a canteen jugger flask a vessel of any kind filled with your favorite liquid I like coffee and join me now if the unparalleled pleasure the dopamine hit of the day the

[1:11]

pleasure the dopamine hit of the day the thing that makes everything better including institutional racism but only if you drink it black it's time for the simultaneous up go
I feel the racism declining everywhere in America just a little bit and you might not notice it on the first day it's only one step I'm a genetical sips and everybody sipping together I know it's unbelievable so I've decided to go on strike I'm going on strike and here's what I'm no longer going to do I'm no longer going to pretend I know what the institutional racism means I'm just not going to pretend I know what that means do you know what it means do you know what you're supposed to do about it

[2:11]

what you're supposed to do about it when you got to fix that institutional racism do you know exactly where the buttons are how about the levers do you know where the levers are can you can you go fix that institutional racism because you know exactly what it is but you know it's not that's not the biggest problem in the world because if somebody has a problem and they tell you what it is but they haven't defined it it's easy enough to talk to them until you figure out what it is they're talking about you know you can you work through it and say all right what exactly do you mean let's get down to it let's look at some data so we can tease out what's really racism and what's just the things happening the way they happen but in order to do any of that the part where you have a discussion and you figure out exactly what it means and what you can do about it
it you would need to be able to talk about it do you know you're not allowed to do you're not allowed to talk about it so

[3:15]

you're not allowed to talk about it so here's the setup we've got this vague undefined thing it's a big problem and we demand that you fix it our big undefined thing but you can't ask us any details because if you did you'd be a little bit racist for example the top editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer has stepped down from his role after the newspaper published an article with the headline buildings matter - last week according to an internal memo CNN is reporting this that's right the editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer one of the most prestigious of the local newspapers twenty-year employee had to step down because he used the wrong words do you think that this 20-year employee is a

[4:15]

think that this 20-year employee is a racist well he used the wrong words he used the black lives matter say but he used it about buildings and implied that a building is important as a black life you got to go you got to go those 20 years you spent out the door goodbye racist goodbye if you think if you think the economy is important which is what he's talking about when he talks about buildings if you think the economy is important to keeping people alive or racist you gotta go you gotta go if you think that people destroying their own means of economic recovery is a bad idea you're a racist using Tucker Carlson's the way he says racist racist so I'm going on strike I'm not gonna pretend to be useful I'm not

[5:17]

not gonna pretend to be useful I'm not gonna pretend I can help I'm not going to pretend you're even serious I'm not going to pretend that there's anybody who really wants this problem solved until you can let me talk about it so as soon as I get I and everybody else it's not just about me but as soon as we get a pass that we can even have the conversation we can't even have the conversation without getting cancelled don't expect me to help if I can't even talk about it now when I was talking to hotep Jesus the other day and if you watch that you realized that there were there are some spots where I said to him directly well you can say that but I can't you can say that and he did senator didn't direct words and I said I can't even say that I wouldn't even be part of that conversation because I can't even agree with you you can say it and I can't even agree with

[6:18]

can say it and I can't even agree with you how that other am I supposed to help really now I think we should stop kidding ourselves that when somebody says we're going to March until you fix institutional racism that that's actually a useful thing meaning that it's useful the way it's free I don't doubt that there is such a thing as racism I don't doubt there is such a thing as the institution set up to advantage or disadvantage somebody I don't have any of that I'm not questioning the existence of a problem I'm just saying if you can't define it a little bit better and I'm not even allowed to talk about it don't expect me to help I mean really don't expect me to help if you won't let me even talk about it that's a basic here's another thing you need to do in order to get me off of strike take yes for an answer how about that how

[7:18]

yes for an answer how about that how about when you say would you like to help and I say yes you say oh okay let's let's see if we can figure this out how about not protesting me after I say yes how about not burning down after people say yes how about after you get our attention and everybody is like yeah yeah let's do it what do you got give us some ideas let's let's bounce us around how about if you won't take yes for an answer don't expect me to help you know if you're trying to change my mind from no des okay protest a la protest away my help but once I've said yes and you're still burning down my or other people's don't expect me to jump in there and be helpful I'm not gonna do that so I'm on strike happy to help happy to be useful happy to talk about anything happy to consider any proposal

[8:20]

anything happy to consider any proposal any proposal in fact you've even seen me those of you who have been around for a while you've seen me discuss seriously reparations right I took that conversation seriously and I bounced it around to try to figure out why is there a way to do it that doesn't make everybody more mad than if you hadn't done it you knows our way to do it and I'm also going to be talking about eliminating the police and I'm taking you seriously because that's as far as I know that's the only specific suggestion that's on on the table and so my commitment is that if you give me a serious suggestion I will treat it seriously I'm not going to just reject it I've got to really bounce it around see if there's something to work with here a little creativity maybe a little brainstorming maybe you get to something we'll say we'll talk about that in a minute so one of the ways I know I'm right when I say

[9:21]

of the ways I know I'm right when I say you can't solve a problem that you're not allowed to discuss is that if you look at the number of retweets to likes if you ever do that so if somebody has a favorable opinion of your tweet they have two ways to show it they can simply like it which is the weak way or they can retweet it which is the powerful way and often when it gets between it it's also like so when I said how do you solve a problem you're not allowed to discuss the number of likes was really high and the number of retweets was really low what does that tell you well if you if you spent time about to interview you know that what that told you is there was a whole lot of people who agreed with it timidly so there's a lot of agreement but not so much agreement you'd want to retweet it because you might get cancelled you might get cancelled just for retweeting an opinion that it's hard to talk about the problem that's how bad it is there are people who thought they

[10:23]

it is there are people who thought they would get cancelled for retweeting a tweet that says just this how do you solve a problem you're not allowed to discuss that's the whole tweet there's nothing in there about race that's it how do you solve the problem you're not allowed to discuss is that controversial well apparently that's controversial enough that a lot of people liked it not that many people retweeted it so I think I'm going to call that as proof
here's a thought for you if you'd like to completely destroy the idea of eliminating the police department are you ready now you might not want to and in fact I'm going to talk about talking about some ways you could you eliminate most of what the police department is so unlike most of you I think watching this who would say that's crazy eliminating the police it's not crazy well let me say that as clearly as possible it's not crazy it just hasn't

[11:25]

possible it's not crazy it just hasn't been thought through entirely there might be some special cases where you could actually test it and I'd be in favor of that so here's the kill shot if you just didn't even want to have that conversation and it goes like this eliminating police transfers power to men that's it that's the end of it eliminating police transfers power to men because where does power go when there's a vacuum well when there's a vacuum of power it's gonna go somewhere alright somebody always emerges to take power 1/2 power rises to power power just sort of happens if you put a bunch of people together sooner or later somebody's gonna be the leader they're gonna be a war lower they're gonna be a gang leader or they're gonna be the president we just always have leaders so if you take if you take the police and the power that the police have to you

[12:26]

the power that the police have to you know keep order in a certain way if you take them out of the equation it seems to me that men abusing women would go up and it seems to me that a woman would have to depend on a man to defend the house and if the woman is depending on a man to defend the house it gives that man a lot more power over the relationship - because the woman would not be as comfortable it's never really comfortable to be you know let's say a bad neighborhood and not have a man in the house if there's also no police so if you're a woman and some stuff goes down who do you call vigilante police what do you call so I think in a world with no police the relative power balance between men and women would would shift fairly radically and men would be suddenly at a greater premium in other words if you have a

[13:26]

premium in other words if you have a police force you don't need men in Europe town as much because they don't have a protective power you know the police are taking some of that not all of it of course but they take some of that burden so the value of men to society because we don't have babies you know we're not allowed not allowed we can't physically have babies but one of the things we can do is kill people basically I mean that's what unfortunately men are optimized for protecting children of their own and killing anything that gets in the way we're sort of sort of designed for that and if you take the police away men would fill that role you know gangs will form warlord situations neighborhood watches but the you know the real the muscle and it would be mostly men so if you want men to have more power in poor neighborhoods get rid of the police that would be an obvious way to do it all right let's talk about could you ever

[14:27]

right let's talk about could you ever get rid of the police and to have something that's good all right now your media thought when you think of that you immediately think all right a situation with police like now versus a situation where if there's just no please and you in your mind you see the criminals running wild and everything's getting looted because there are no police well I don't think anybody's talking about that right I think that's just a conservative exaggerated comic version of what no police means no police doesn't mean no please the moment you think that getting rid of or dismantling the police actually means there are no police then you've completely misunderstood the proposition in my opinion in my opinion what this really means is you're changing the definition of what a police officer is so that a police officer would no longer be someone who's in wait for it wait for it the key part is coming a police officer of the

[15:28]

part is coming a police officer of the future in this police les town would be somebody who's not in the police union that's pretty much it just someone who's not in the police union maybe doesn't even take a paycheck from the city could take could be taking a paycheck from the community homeowners association you know you could imagine a lot of different models where there's somebody with professional training they have a gun and they have some Authority and they have a paycheck so if you've got a gun you've got training and law enforcement type stuff security type stuff and you've got a paycheck you don't have to be a police officer in the police union you could just be the person they hired to take care of things if you remove the police unions say the critics and I don't have a I don't have an independent opinion on this because I'd have to dig into it a lot more but the the concern is that the unions are too strong and really I think

[16:30]

unions are too strong and really I think when people are talking about getting rid of the police it's really a code for get rid of the police unions because probably the only way you could do it is to say well we don't have police we got rid of our police so there's nobody to be in the union but we have these private contractors we hired for exactly the same price that are taking care of things but they're not part of a union and they also maybe don't you know meet with each other so much so they're not protecting each other you can imagine for example you know ways to get better prosecutions you can you could imagine rules changes like that you could imagine more security cameras etc but let me let me throw a wild idea into the mix you ready this one you'll have to just think about for a while because yet because you're gonna have to pull together a whole bunch of imaginary future elements to see if this makes sense in your head and goes like this if you wanted to design a town

[17:33]

you wanted to design a town from scratch in which there were you didn't need police and when I say don't need police you should always translate that into your head - you don't need much in the way of police because you probably you would always need at least a police officer or somebody who does a job like that to be with him driving distance right so in every situation there's going to be somebody with a gun and training in a car who can get there relatively quickly in every situation so there will be no exception to that but you could reduce what you would call a police force from a lot to some smaller presence and wait for this idea this will blow your mind you ready aye aye I predict / and speculate there you could get rid of 75% of police functions if you had only self-driving cars that were commonly owned like uber

[18:35]

cars that were commonly owned like uber so imagine you out of town in which you couldn't own a private automobile but you could walk out to the sidewalk and a self-driving car would pull up and stop and you just get in and you say to the car you know take me to Safeway and it just drives you the safe way now imagine that all of the cars are also self-driving and they are also aware of all the other cars so the odds of a traffic accident drop to zero now again use your imagination when I say traffic accidents drop to zero nothing drops to zero but you know you know talk about it just gets really really small so you have a really small accident so now you don't need police to deal with traffic fatalities and accidents you don't need police to pull people over how many of the fatal police encounters that happened with vehicles involved quite a few right how many

[19:35]

involved quite a few right how many gangbangers are going to get into a vehicle that has internal cameras on all the time imagine getting into your self driving uber and you're a gang member and as soon as you get them the cameras are on you all the time you're just always on camera when you're when you're in the uber now so you wouldn't be able to talk about stuff you wouldn't be able to take out your cool garden you wouldn't be able to do much criminal stuff in the car and it would be such an uncool car that you wouldn't feel like you know going and doing some crime in that car does it'd be like alright we did some bad stuff jumping the jump in the self-driving Prius let's get us out of here so you couldn't have a getaway you couldn't do a drive-by shooting you wouldn't have bad traffic stops where somebody gets hurt you wouldn't have speeding you wouldn't have drunk driving you wouldn't have a lot of vehicular problems now imagine you put cars on the out put cameras on the outside of the self-driving cars and these cameras are

[20:38]

self-driving cars and these cameras are pointing in every direction and it's part of the navigation but it's also a moving continuous security system because if you're anywhere within view of a road a cars could eventually drive by and you're gonna be on camera so you're gonna say to yourself well I don't like this world with no privacy in self-driving cars well I'm not arguing that I'm not saying you should live there I'm just saying that you could design a town from the ground up in which you had almost no need for a police here's another suggestion make sure you have enough grandmothers make sure you have enough of grandmothers seeded in in places around now this is an idea that I've heard from from black people who were giving me some insight that I didn't have all right so the next thing you hear comes from other people who know what they're talking about so when you say sky you

[21:38]

talking about so when you say sky you don't know what that world is like you're not part of that culture right right right I'm just passing it along ok and it goes like this apparently the elder females in the African American urban community in the United States have an unusual amount of power meaning that you know if I walked up to a young black man and an urban neighborhood and started trouble I will get my ass kicked you would get your ass kicked too but his grandma doesn't so grandma can walk up to a group of you know dealers on the street a gang members and tell them to get home and cut their hair and get off the street grandma can do that apparently it's a I'm told again I have no independent way to know any of this to be true but I'm told by people will know what they're talking about that the culturally speaking you throw a grandma in the mix and really I'm just talking about the

[22:38]

and really I'm just talking about the the older female parts of the community you just put one in the mix and just sort of ruins everything ruins all the crime right now I don't know that that to be true but you could imagine engineering a community in which you have strategically placed literally a grandmother in places that have a great let's say apartment or views that where they can see the street so every time you go out and you're sort of hanging out in the street somebody's grandma's watching you and they can call their security people if they don't like it but even better they can call your mom they could call your mom and say did you know that your son is hanging out in the street and he looks like he's getting out of control there maybe you ought to call him home I don't know would that work now again every single idea that you hear along these lines you have to say to yourself could you test it there's there a way to

[23:41]

could you test it there's there a way to test that in a small setting and if you can test it and if it has even a little bit of rationale you know you know good thinking behind it why not why not just test it we've got we've got time it's a long-term problem maybe maybe long-term solutions are what we need so then imagine this imagine in a town in which you got rid of identification suppose all of your identification in the town was biometric so it's in your fingerprint or you know your face or something so you so nobody has to show ID anymore do you know what what would happen to crime in a city where nobody had to show ID because identification was a hundred percent certain every time you would just walk into the store and the point-of-sale terminal would see you coming and your your face and your identification would

[24:42]

your face and your identification would pop up on the screen and then you'd say like a you know pack of whatever they hand it to you and price pops up on the screen and you take your phone you go okay OOP nobody touches any money you just touch your own phone and it just sends a signal identification is done because this are you now how much how much crime could you eliminate by making sure that identification is a hundred percent every time you'd have to walk in with actually a mask on to commit any crime at all you couldn't even walk in the front door I'll let you add a mask off and if you had a mask on that should trigger a let's say whatever replaces the police a security force immediately let's let's say that you've got cameras everywhere this is the future town that doesn't exist and there's somebody who's up to no good and no there's cameras everywhere so they put on a mask and let's say it's not the pandemic so a

[25:44]

let's say it's not the pandemic so a mask is unusual well the camera sees a person and sees a mask because I think if you can do a facial recognition is stands to reason you could also identify a mask I think you know by process of elimination you know if there's not enough of a face you can see it must be a mask the moment the camera sees the mask it should dispatch you know it should be illegal to wear a mask in the future non pandemic you know town that it hasn't been built yet make it illegal to wear a mask so you don't get any empty file problems and then as soon as anybody shows up with a mask if a camera sees them is an immediate dispatch and let's say the first dispatch wait for it is a drone yeah see where I'm going with this the first dispatch is a drone so guy puts on a mask and you have to walk there because you don't want to use your self driving uber for your getaway car so already it's got to be within walking

[26:46]

so already it's got to be within walking distance or it's too hard to do and get away with it so criminal isn't within walking distance puts on his mask in the alleyway goes into the convenience store and Rob's it the moment the mask went on and he walked in he walked past the camera a drone was dispatched small one and the drone came up for a monoblock away because you've got you've got drones on rooftops strategically placed so there's maybe one drone every block or so the drone goes straight up the moment the camera sees that a guy has a mask goes straight up it was right over it identifies the person with the mask as they walk out and then follows them home just follows them home the police or the replacement for the police were some kind of security force with no union get an alert and they see that the drone has already dispatched no humans involved because the drone isn't doing anything dangerous it's just watching people so it jumps up and the drone is

[27:47]

people so it jumps up and the drone is watching the sky and you see the picture from the camera so the drone footage and now the security camera both show up on your phone so you can see them both you can see what the drone saw and why it launched oh guy with masks walking into 7-eleven and drone got his got his identification and no it's not an identification because he's wearing mask but that's okay the drone is following him and it looks like okay drone is looks like he'll be going past Elm Street in about a minute I'll just send them a message on his phone hey I see you in that self-driving car and your button identified as having robbed the convenience store if you go back and give everything back we'll let it go let's say there was no gun involved you know maybe it was a fake gun or something I don't know but you can imagine the situation you you can begin to imagine that you could actually get rid of place but in order

[28:50]

actually get rid of place but in order to do it you would also have to get rid of privacy right so all of you who are saying 1984 and Big Brother and all of our privacy is gone that's exactly what I'm talking about that's exactly what I'm talking about so you don't have to tell me that that's what I'm telling you I'm telling you there would be lots of surveillance and a lot of people wouldn't like it but here's the catch totally optional it's optional you say you wouldn't live there and I say good for you go live somewhere else that's it don't live somewhere else it's okay with me all right here's another idea to throw on this I said that the the self-driving cars would all have cameras and you know somebody in the comments said I'll paraphrase but you don't want cameras on you all the time sometimes you need a little privacy if you know what I mean and here's my idea all the cameras would be encrypted and nobody could unencrypted them including the company

[29:53]

unencrypted them including the company that built the encryption so like Apple does Apple makes an encryption for your phone that allegedly even they can't break there's just no way to get but there is one way to unlock the video that's just running all the time inside and outside your your your car there's only one way to unlock it with a court order by a special court whose only job just one job is to unlock those videos only if there's so much evidence of a crime that makes sense and then only those judges would get to see the full video and then only the judges would get to edit out anything that was just embarrassing or personal just down to the part that told you whether a crime happened or did not happen so so in other words there would be lots of recording all the time because is cheap but it would be encrypted and literally nobody could unencrypted it unless it was a specific crime went

[30:54]

unless it was a specific crime went through a court system special court unlocked it and then edited it down to just the part the battered now would there be FISA like abuse yeah there would be because literally every system you build has problems right so there's no way you could build that system without problems but you'd probably learn how to tweak it and fix it and adjust it and move forward just like everything else all right so you don't need to love all of those ideas which would not be the point at all the point is that you actually could imagine I think you could a world with that did not have a standard police force in which you could legitimately say we got rid of the place but we replaced all those functions with these other better ideas and new designs and stuff like that I think I think it's possible for those of you who were talking about the FISA Court I acknowledged you don't need to tell me that there would be abuse because I'm

[31:57]

that there would be abuse because I'm telling you there would be abuse so you don't have to all tell me that the FISA Court would had abuses and therefore this would have abuse I'm telling you that there would be abuse but it might still be worth it in one if you've netted all out all right so I've been listening for this whole national racism conversation and I've been trying to trying to build a framework in my mind to understand it all because until you understand it all you can't really move forward right so I'm going to give you my current understanding and of course everything's subject to change but this is my best understanding of where we're at and why we're having trouble talking especially on the left and the right a lot of this came after talking to hotep Jesus which made me think kind of deeply on some things I hadn't thought before and as you as you already know the left and the right have very different let's

[32:59]

and the right have very different let's see if I can get the enos have very different ways of looking at the world but they also have different language and you probably all suspect the part of the problem with these protests and the you know what seems to be some kind of a division but not really in the sense that we all seem to be on the same team and yet we're acting like we're not it's like we're talking different languages or something and here's why I think that's true I think that conservatives and then I'm just gonna lump everybody on the Left all the progressives and liberals and Democrats and stuff so I'm just gonna take these two categories and I would say that they focus differently and that this is where some of the source of the problem is in my in my observation this is not based on research it's just observation it seems the Conservatives focus on respect they also have empathy whereas the left seems to focus on the empathy

[34:01]

the left seems to focus on the empathy but of course they also have respect so it's not that one has all of one and none of the other it's a matter of focus and here's the years of different reasons why they focus differently I think conservatives say that empathy is a bad system that you can have empathy you can feel empathy but displaying empathy is a bad system that's bad for everybody it's bad for the person you're displaying the empathy for it's bad for you it's bad for everybody it's just all around bad and here's why if if you let empathy be part of your structure then the person who complains the most effectively gets the power that would be the system if empathy drives your system that whoever complains the most effectively gets the most power can you build a system around who complains the most effectively is transferred wealth

[35:03]

most effectively is transferred wealth and power now when I say transferred wealth if you transfer it to poor people it doesn't feel like wealth of course but just transferring resources let's say not wealth so I would say that conservatives are are seen as monsters in a sense by the left because the left keeps saying why can't you show me that black lives matter why can't you show me empathy what is the entire complaint about president Trump's handling of the the protest the complaints about President Trump are almost entirely he's not showing and it's it's the showing that matters he's not showing the empathy now he agreed instantly and completely with what the protesters were saying about George Floyd complete agreement complete agreement and when and when President Trump speaks about George Floyd is he speaking from respect

[36:07]

George Floyd is he speaking from respect primarily or empathy primarily now I think you do agree that he's done both he has said words that can only be interpreted as showing empathy and he has shown great respect I think you'd agree he has shown great respect to the family and also to George Floyd now of course the critics are trying to find him something he said that makes it look like that's not the case but it is the case he is showing tremendous respect not as much empathy as the left would want but the right doesn't want that empathy because it transfers power all right and if you said to the left or why are you focusing on empathy instead of respect respect has the sense in it that we have a constitution and everybody is treated the same so is everybody is treated with the same respect under the law under the Constitution and under God if you're a believer so respect is sort of like the

[37:08]

believer so respect is sort of like the key thing here if you get this right then everybody everybody who's on the right was gonna like you now I've said before that my my secret weapon if you can call that for being except and I'll use the word accepted by the audience that's watching me right now which are primarily conservatives and Republicans and pro-trump are probably 90% if you are and the reason you accept me even when I say directly and often that I'm left of Bernie is because why why do you accept me when you know I disagree with you on such fundamental things and that I've proven over and over again that I'm left a burnin the reason that the right accepts me is that I give this I don't just expect it I don't just expect respect I give it and what have I told you about reciprocity and about how you control

[38:09]

reciprocity and about how you control other people conservatives do not control me I control you in the same way that you control other people right everybody controls other people and the way I control you and the way I'm controlling you right now well literally right now I'm controlling you because you're putting you're giving me attention which is what I want I mean I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't people want people to watch and because I give you respect and when I talk about religion for example when I talk about religion I'm not a believer how easy would it be for me as another believer to be disrespectful to you if you're a believer real easy right I've been there and I've done that right but my current sort of philosophy of life is that there are just different filters on life and nobody really has the right answer so I don't I don't privilege my filter on life if you have one that works well and

[39:10]

life if you have one that works well and I observe that Christianity and other religions they do work well they work really well for the people using them so if it works well I'm really happy for you that's great because I don't think I have the right you know I don't think I got the right answer and you got the wrong one we're just using different filters if yours works for you maybe it wouldn't work for me but I'm not going to criticize it if it works for you so I don't I came at you with complete respect and it's real it's complete respect so I can I can have a conversation with you on any topic and I can walk away even if I you probably the most common thing I hear from people who respond to me privately about the the periscopes is people will say yeah you make me really mad but you know I like tossing these ideas around so I keep coming back so that's what I'm going for I don't mind that you get mad at an opinion as long as you know it's not about us right it's not about me and you

[40:11]

about us right it's not about me and you we're talking about the opinion your opinion my opinion they they live separately they're like they're like creatures were watching so what do you do about this oh and then there's one other extra confounder which is that if you're on the left and you're talking to anybody on the right and I wish I wish I'd reverse these on the on the photos or on the graphic but if you're trying to talk to them because the people on the right filter things through the language of religion quite often it doesn't sound scientific so you only need one or two senators who are Republican to come out and say well God will determine the temperature of the earth and then if you're over here and you're saying what God will determine the temperature of the earth okay we're out we don't respect you anymore you're an anti-science so the left just can't even have a doesn't even know how

[41:13]

can't even have a doesn't even know how to talk to this group because they require respect they're not getting it because they're saying hey you're anti science because your religion gets woven into it now I've never met a conservative who was anti science have you have you ever met anybody who was anti science you know somebody who didn't believe that if you run a controlled experiment and it gives you a statistically valid result that that doesn't mean anything because what because God I've never met a conservative who didn't think a controlled clinical trial wasn't a good I
I yeah I've never met a conservative who thought that you know testing things and moving toward truth with the scientific method was a bad idea I've never heard of that but the left thinks that's true because of the religious filter that a lot of the the right uses to talk about things so that so so what do you do

[42:14]

things so that so so what do you do about this well the first thing you'd have to do is recognize it which is that the Conservatives are saying well you're saying that we have this institutional racism and you're saying that what you want is empathy well how does empathy fix it how does empathy solve anything empathy actually makes things worse because conservatives are let's say that they have an incentive-based view of the world that capitalism creates incentives that's good voting and democracy creates incentives that's good the Constitution creates a system where people have incentives to act a certain way that's good so if you've built a system that takes into account people's human motivations and how people act in the real world that's a good system so if you've got something you're trying to fix institutional racism and the way you're trying to fix a system is with empathy that's just the wrong tool it's the wrong tool if we

[43:18]

wrong tool it's the wrong tool if we gave you what you asked for you would be worse off not better you don't believe that here's how it goes give us empathy all right here's our empathy now we've got the empathy give us what we want you got all this empathy give us what we want let's say you do let's say it worked let's say the the protests and everything created more empathy and the more empathy caused more resources and attention to be given what kind of system would you have built if you took that path you follow the empathy and you acted upon it you would have created a system that guarantees the destruction of your country because the next group says wait a minute did that work are you telling me that worked what does the next group do the next group says oh that's how you get power you get power by being the best complainer demonizing the people

[44:18]

best complainer demonizing the people that you don't like as racist or you know Devils of some kind and this all do some of that if you incentivize complaining complaining that's what this is all right it's is asking for empathy is pretty much just complaining there's no solution offered there are no specifics there's no bill that's being offered no nothing that system is not a system it's a system that can't work anywhere but if you could find something that was an actual system conservatives would be all over it but in order to get to any kind of a workable solution or legislation or process or training or anything that's useful whatsoever you have to be at least agree what the problem is and the way you talk about and here's what happens when are we talking about this stuff it always goes down this follow

[45:18]

stuff it always goes down this follow and it goes like this yeah how many times you seen this somebody a conservative I say hey more white people are killed by police than black people is that true that is true there there are way more white people who are killed by police than black people so is that the end of the conversation no no no that's not the end there's more like the beginning because more black people are killed by police as a percentage of their population so there are only thirteen percent I think black citizens in the United States thirteen percent but the police will kill more than their share of the black population compared to the white population because there's so many more white people so even though the wrong number the wrong number of white people is higher as a percentage of the population it's reversed but wait are we done no no we're not done because more whites are

[46:20]

we're not done because more whites are killed as a percentage of police encounters isn't that the way you should measure it it's not a percentage of the population because most of the population never talks to the police the police don't stop and get into a crime related conversation with most of the public most of the public just doesn't get in this situation at all so if you eliminate all the people who don't have any contact with the police at least any meaningful contact I'm not talking about a traffic ticket you come to well wait there are more police or the more white people get killed by the police as a percentage of police encounters so we're done right that's all you need to know all right let's all go home no nope can't go home because please stop more black people it doesn't matter if the percentage of white people who get killed is as higher as a percentage of stops if they're only stopping you know

[47:22]

stops if they're only stopping you know one white person for every ten black people you're still going to have way more problems of the police killing black people because they've they've just encountered more of them so that's the end of the story right it's racism well no it's not the in this story because why do please stop more black people what's up with that because yeah I would imagine that even black police officers of which I heard today there are 20% of police officers are black now 13% of the population is black but 20% of police officers are black so at least within the police hiring situation you got you got plenty of I mean that situation looks good at least by the numbers but why did why did police stop more black citizens well I would call it the Willie Sutton problem Willie Sutton was a famous bank robber who allegedly said and I don't

[48:22]

said and I don't think you really said this you know how quotes get manufactured after the fact so he didn't really say this but it's attributed to him and he was asked why does he rob banks because he was a famous bank robber and when asked why does he robbed banks he says that's where the money is what are you gonna rob you're gonna rob something with money and banks have the money so he Rob's banks where are the police supposed to go to do police work don't they go where there's more crime wouldn't you expect wouldn't you expect that you would send more police into a high crime neighborhood if if it's a high crime neighborhood and you could just say because of poverty you because of economics etc you don't even have to bring race into this the police will always go to the high crime neighborhood and stop more people and a high crime neighborhood so what do you do about that what do you do about that and then here's where the trail goes cold so if you watch my conversation

[49:25]

cold so if you watch my conversation with hotel Jesus yesterday I asked them this question and I said I can't I can't talk to this question but you can because there's some things that you can say in this world of ours that I just can't and I said to hotep would you say in your opinion that the different cultures and ethnicities respond to police the same way and he laughed and he said no basically and and he in his experience young black men can be a little bit more let's say display some attitude or a little bit more resistance than maybe some other group would now if I said that which I wouldn't I get cancelled immediately so how do I get in the conversation I can't even have this conversation right without getting cancelled and it seems to be really the key to unlocking all of these statistics

[50:28]

key to unlocking all of these statistics that people who are bad at math get get trapped by because most people just stop at one of these boxes and say oh well there it is that's the end of the story this one box but you really have to work through all the boxes and all the percentages and it's always going to come back to this with a question work is there something different that's happening at these stops now what do you expect that it would be true they young black men and resist more which would be a racist statement that I'm not making that's so I'm not making that claim but I'll make the following claim if I lived in any place where I thought the police were more likely to stop me and hassle me and kill me so in other words if I believed that the police were oppressing me how would I respond when they stopped me for something I thought was an illegitimate stop what would be my attitude as a young white white man let's say I'm 23

[51:32]

young white white man let's say I'm 23 and it's me it's literally me at 23 I'm a young white man and I've come to believe that in my town young white men are stopped by the police more often doesn't mean it's true doesn't mean there's not a reason for it there's a lot of crime there does it yeah it doesn't matter the facts of it it's in my head it's in my head true or not that I'm being victimized by the police now the police pulled me over and I was just minding my own business what's my attitude I'm young male 23 years old I think I'm abused by the police I'm stopped for nothing and I'm B I'm a white guy so has nothing to do with race what's my attitude what's my attitude a little bit aggressive it's a little bit aggressive I would probably step towards the cop I might even close the distance because I want that cup to know I'm not afraid of him I want that to cop to know he's not

[52:34]

him I want that to cop to know he's not gonna get over on me I want that cop to know he can arrest me he can put me in handcuffs but he's not going to break my spirit because I'm not going to let these cops walk all over me in my territory I'm not going to let them describe against me for being young or whatever so I don't see any way to fix this because you could substitute black people for poor people and when do you get exactly the same outcome it's almost like the race disappeared you know if you work it all the way down to the end it's the simple fact that there's more police activity in high crime neighborhoods that largely guarantees the people in that neighborhood will feel oppressed now it doesn't matter if they are or are not wouldn't you feel oppressed if the police were just always beating up people who look like you and not beating up people look like something else and the news stories that you hear are only the people like you getting abused by the police how many

[53:36]

getting abused by the police how many news stories have you heard this week of white people being abused by the police the only one I know of is that 75 year old white guy got pushed down in Buffalo and the only reason you know that is that the context was the black lives matter protest if he had been any other context nobody would have cared right nobody wouldn't even noticed it wouldn't be news certainly wouldn't be news so you have this unsolvable problem that is the nature of it that you can remove you can remove race entirely and it would look exactly the same it will look exactly the same because there's more police activity you're just naturally gonna think that on you you're gonna act a certain way this just and now how would you solve something like this the way you would solve it is to be able to talk about it honestly to be able to say look you know everything's on the table there's no cancelling of anybody let's just talk about it honestly but you

[54:38]

just talk about it honestly but you can't cuz that's the other rule you're not allowed to talk about it honestly you just can't you'll get cancelled just like the the editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer who got cancelled for simply having a non-standard opinion and so I say to you as long as this institutional racism is an undefined concept with no specific activities requested as long as I as a white person in America have not allowed to even discuss the topic not even allowed to talk about it how the am I going to help oh really so I'm on strike for being helpful as long as there's no specific suggestion and I'm not allowed to talk about it and people won't take yes for an answer if you won't take yes for an answer I can't talk about it and you don't have any suggestions to even talk about months right I can't help you and I feel sorry

[55:41]

right I can't help you and I feel sorry for people who's anybody who's getting hurt or their property is being destroyed or any of that but I would say the leadership of the black community has failed you as hard as anything has ever failed anything ever in the history of failures and it's it's a tragedy because it wouldn't take much in terms of good leadership to produce some kind of a better outcome but there doesn't seem to be any in fact I don't even know who the leader is right do you even know who the leader of black lives matter is or is there even one is there one leader I don't even know do you as long as this has been going on can you can you conjure up in your mind the face or the name of a leader of any of it I mean we've seen people who are leader ish locally but until there's somebody who's sort of a leader who can speak for the group and is credible there's also

[56:42]

group and is credible there's also nobody to negotiate with there's nobody who could give you a suggestion that you could deal with it because it's a group of people who don't have a common goal if the people marching had a common goal with specifics they do have a common goal of you know ending racism so that part is common but until they have a common common formula for how to do it it's just a bunch of angry people there's nothing you can do with that I'm seeing somebody say in the comments that the fatherless situation is is the cause of it and I don't think that's true well let me just put that out there it's the most common thing that conservatives say and I don't think it's true I think that that's one of just a lot of variables it's a big one I would say that you know the cohesiveness of the parental unit is a

[57:43]

cohesiveness of the parental unit is a big variable but it's just a lot of other stuff that really matters a lot in the individual a lot in the situation etc you know I haven't heard of Hogg Newsom since any of this started so I don't know if he's still he's still active or he's just not he's not doing stuff that's making getting attention has anybody heard of Hogg Newsom being active in this I haven't seen anything and DeRay McKesson I've not seen him speaking in public haven't seen him on TV I don't know if he wants to or whatever so his is DeRay still involved because there's this weird leadership vacuum where you'd expect that whoever was you know the the leader would be on TV every day because that's the whole point right is to is to communicate it's the to get the message

[58:44]

communicate it's the to get the message out so I don't know if there's I don't know if he's being locked out is it possible that the the major news networks are our freezing amount from coverage is that possible because why wouldn't why wouldn't they be at his house or putting a microphone in his face every 10 minutes for the last two weeks it seems like that would be the obvious thing to do so there's something going on leadership why is it and I'm not sure that black lives matter has a has a formal leadership because I don't know if all the groups do they all get together and vote in some way I don't know that works alright start with fathers and move up the list yeah I just don't think so I think it starts with strategy I believe it starts with strategy and that if you ignore that for other factors you're just gonna go down the wrong wrong trail and when I say strategy I'll just repeat

[59:45]

and when I say strategy I'll just repeat the the fast version of what I said before in other periscopes that if you find a way around racism that's you're smarter play because trying to make it go away it's just not possible yeah because the very adducts baby was born tomorrow it's gonna have pattern recognition as part of a natural part of its brain and that pattern recognition is not very good it sees patterns that aren't real and that's that's what gives it you bias so you can't get rid of the fact that the brain is is a biased generating machine because it always makes decisions all day long without the benefit of a clinical scientific trial it just says well it worked last time we'll try it again that's pretty much your whole brain right there work three times let you know the last three times I tried it I'll try it again it's a pattern so as long as that's the truth the best you can do is find a strategy that makes it not matter just as you can't stop the rain but you can find a

[1:00:46]

can't stop the rain but you can find a strategy for getting out of the rain build the roof get an umbrella all right so that's what I got to say for today
there's an interview on Vice TV today with with whom I'm guessing with the black lives matter leader alright I hope you enjoyed this one and I will talk to you soon