Episode 1060 Scott Adams: Forming a Socialist Country Within a Capitalist Country

Date: 2020-07-17 | Duration: 29:04

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Rough Transcript

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Transcript

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• Whiteboard1: Two-System Nation

• Whiteboard2: Bike Path Tourism

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[0:07]

hey guess what yeah it's me it's not the morning isn't that weird well some of you have been asking for some evening periscopes i don't know if i'll do this often but i thought well you probably miss me right a little bit a little bit and so i thought i would make a very special evening periscope in which i will tell you how to fix absolutely everything everything in the country every problem i'm going to show you how to fix the the risk of robots taking over our jobs i'll fix systemic racism i'm going to fix
fix the economy i'm going to fix retirement i'm going to fix the environment all of it really and i see that there are roughly enough of you here for me to tell you how to do that now let me give you the setup first here's the setup i don't believe

[1:09]

here's the setup i don't believe that in the future the that capitalism will work for everybody so that's the starting point in the future capitalism just won't work for everybody now that's always been true right it's always been true that they're winners and losers in capitalism but because what it takes to succeed in capitalism will be harder and harder meaning if you don't have a stem degree you don't you don't have something special going on it's going to be harder and harder to make it in capitalism it's going to be harder to get yourself an education the cost of moving someplace and getting a place to live before you get started it's very hard so the first assumption is that capitalism hasn't always worked for everybody but that that situation will get worse and then as the robots come in well that is really bad because the people who are rich will own

[2:11]

because the people who are rich will own the robots and get richer the people whose only way to make money was to work will be replaced by robots so the first assumption is there is no circumstance in which capitalism just by itself without a tweak can work in the future because it'll just be an increasing number of people for whom it doesn't work that's pretty much guaranteed likewise here's another system that absolutely can't work socialism right a pure socialist system something that maybe the marxists and black lives matter might like you know the leaders are are trained marxist some of them so they might like a world where there's more equality you know people are treated more fairly there's less or ideally no institutional racism so they'd like that kind of a world but what's the one big problem with the world that

[3:12]

problem with the world that socialists would prefer there's one really big problem isn't it that they would be conquered by a capitalist country they would be conquered almost immediately by i don't know china russia anybody wants to take a go at it mexico canada pretty much anybody because if you're if you're just trying to make everything fair you're not really putting a lot of money into the military and eventually you're just sort of a sitting duck so we've got two systems on the table that i would i would say neither them could possibly work in the long run capitalism will fail because the robots will unemploy too many people and that it's only good for the few capitalists socialism can't work because eventually that the average comes down you're not creating extra money because you don't have the the same incentives as capitalism and then you can't fund a proper army and you have other problems as well and

[4:12]

and you have other problems as well and so it collapses on itself so what do you do here is my suggestion out of the box now if you're new to my periscopes let me
me tell you that when i give you a wild ass idea don't take it too seriously okay they're usually designed just to make you think differently maybe think optimistically maybe give you some starting point where you say well you know scott your idea was kind of crap but it made me think of my own idea that's pretty good and if it only does that that's fine so what i'm trying to do is to shake the box here a little bit more than it has been shaken and introduce this new idea are you ready two systems in one country you get to pick which one you want and you could move back and forth now before you judge before you judge let me map it out for

[5:12]

before you judge let me map it out for you so i'm going to show it to you on the
the the white board and walk you through it so that's that's the starting premise why must we have a system that we know won't work or doesn't work for everybody if potentially and i haven't sold you on this you have to wait for the persuasion part potentially why don't we just put two systems in the country and just run them parallel all right i'll give you the explanation but first let me say we already do it we already do it look at all the senior citizens who are retired basically socialists right you know so senior citizens are already a whole different system they're not capitalists not per se right they may have saved up some money for their retirement but they're not working and they may be getting more from the government than they're putting in so we already have two systems it just happens to be for senior citizens but we also have a

[6:13]

senior citizens but we also have a separate system for children don't we children don't have the same laws they don't have the same rules they have a whole different system involved you have to go to school it's not really your choice completely different system children are not working they're not really capitalists it's a whole different system and does it ruin capitalism it doesn't it doesn't they they seem to coexist so here is my framing for two systems in the united states again if you're just joining me don't take it too literal just take it as some brainstorming that might make you think a little differently that's why you should get out of it and now you want me to call these capitalism and socialism but i'm not going to do it the reason i'm not going to use your labels is that they come with too much baggage so i'm just going to say that there might be some people in the country who would want a society that really maximizes equality

[7:15]

a society that really maximizes equality of outcomes so just equality is what they want in another part of the country that is more concerned with defense notice i didn't say economics it's because economics and national defense or even private defense are really the same thing you need money to fund an army you need money to be secure in every way that people need to be secure so making money and capitalism is really a defense kind of an idea with extras so imagine if you will that we carve down some space in the united states and on the other side of the board i'm going to show you that idea oh there's there's a good part coming so if you bail out before i get to the good part you're not going to know that this is a good idea all right so i hate to tell you you got to wait for the good part so just imagine that you have some uh carving some space within the united states and you just say

[8:15]

states and you just say uh you can live the way you want to live and you can even make up your own constitution or laws and you do not have to fund the military you're just not part of the military thing we'll do that the people who want to work because the people who would move to this land were not probably the you know the scientists the engineers because they're probably going to say you know i got this engineering degree and i could do pretty good over in the regular country so i think i'll just stay there so you'd have equality world which of course would be you know multi everything multi-ethnic multi-religion multi-everything and of course both both worlds would be multi-ethnic multi-everything so this isn't about black lives matter i'm not saying hey you make a place where all the black people go if you heard that you're hearing the wrong thing so both of these worlds are completely melting pause situations they'll just handle it differently

[9:16]

handle it differently over in defense world there's capitalism and you've got to be ambitious they're going to be paying for the national defense they like their police they're very consumerish and acquisition oriented and they probably have traditional families now you may say to yourself wait scott why why do you have the traditional families only on one side with these money-making capitalists but you don't have it on the equality side they could have why can't they have strong families because everybody knows a strong nuclear family is a big plus statistically speaking it seems to be the main variable of keeping you out of jail but did you know that a traditional family works best if he got money traditional families work really well for people making a lot of cash because you can get your your help you can have you know two family incomes and then any you've got all kinds of resources so the rich people don't have to have

[10:17]

so the rich people don't have to have traditional families it wouldn't be a law
law it would just turn out that way that they would prefer to self-organize around traditional families not required no requirement whatsoever it would just work out that way the equality people would be they'd have to be self-sustaining did you like that part the other part of the country at least after some start-up phase would not be funding anything that's happening over in equality land so they they would for financial and tax reasons they would just be separate is that entirely possible i don't know but we're going to brainstorm through this just in case so this place would be self-sustaining and it would mostly center around low skilled work which i will tell you what that will be as my big surprise when i turn over the board it would be focused on a very low cost of living but high design when i say high design

[11:20]

but high design when i say high design i mean this is there any reason that a low cost homes organized and i'll say a neighborhood is there any reason it couldn't be beautiful no there's actually no reason there's no economic reason there's no nothing you could make inexpensive homes in a community really attractive so that you just enjoy being there the feng shui of it the way it makes you feel there'd be enough green enough open space there's a whole bunch of stuff you can just but you can fix just by orientation to the sun
sun how do the roads work how far away is your neighbor do you have a porch or at least a place to go outdoors is there a place to put the dog how far do you have to go to work i mean all of those things are design questions they're not spend extra money questions it's just where do you organize it so if you imagine it's a super low cost of living place and let's say that they've got universal health care and free education well how do they how do they pay for

[12:21]

well how do they how do they pay for that well i'll show you they're all working so just like in defense world they most of them if they want them they have jobs because you really can't have a community where nobody does some work so there's got to be work it will just be low skilled and they'd have free education and free universal health care let's let's assume that they can figure out how to afford that through the the work that they do because there would be trade so i'm going to show you in a minute that although they might be their own
own little nation if you will within the nation they would still have lots of people coming through they're still trading and still doing taking money and you know etc they're selling goods etc so they're not just an island then because they have free education and they have the other things that would give a kid a good start they have a way to change over to the other world if they like so let's say a kid is

[13:22]

world if they like so let's say a kid is born into this equality world and the kid is super aggressive and let's say not aggressive let's say ambitious kid is super ambitious so you say and the kid says you know i've got a i've got the internet and i'm seeing this world over here and it looks pretty good i don't know if i live here this isn't my thing you know the rest of you guys you could stay here i'll visit but i'm really ambitious as long as this kid has free education and they've figured out how to solve the you know the fatherless situation and crime and all those other things which would be part of what they would solve so there's you know low crime less gangs all those things so let's assume that they've figured out how to organize in a way that's successful so this kid has a complete way to go there likewise let's say you're you're a family you're a family member of a real successful family but you're the you know you're the one who didn't quite do as well as the your siblings

[14:24]

do as well as the your siblings you might want to say you know this whole working hard and you know trying to compete against these geniuses and that's just not for me so you would have the complete option to go
go to some place where you just feel more comfortable it's like yeah i don't mind working but you know i don't like all the drama of it i just want to you know do my work help my community live in peace or maybe that you're an addict maybe you're an addict so an addict might want to go where there's the best treatment friendliest situation i'm not sure which side that would be but anyway you you'd have ability to move then you would have non-traditional family units i didn't want to use the word tribe but it is the best word meaning that you wouldn't necessarily have this little unit of mom dad and kids they would still exist but you'd have you know aunts and friends and uncles and you know you'd never have to worry about help you never have to worry about child care

[15:25]

care because it would just be a big extended family essentially now they could organize any way they want but this these are the broad strokes obviously the laws would have to be at least a little bit compatible with the constitution of the united states because they couldn't have their own supreme court
now where would it be where would this hypothetical equality land be where would it be here's my suggestion a network of bicycle paths around the country and you turn the country the united states into a bicycle tourism mecca so that riding these trails are it's not just possible to ride the trails it's really fun there's you know there's greenery there's something to see there are places to stop all along the way there's campsites there are hotels there are places made for bicycles there's a place to get a bite to eat and

[16:25]

there's a place to get a bite to eat and some water just all the way along the thing you've got to do you've got to build these you've got to do the maintenance on them you've got a lot of work from hotels to restaurants to bicycle repair bicycle rental bicycle you know pick up from the road when you get a flat tire so a network of bicycle paths would create the necessity for an enormous amount of low-skilled labor an enormous amount and the beauty of this is if you wanted to go to let's say live along the path it's being along the path that is where the equality society lives so you could go and live near one of these paths and if let's say if you lived in florida let's say your family was there you might want to be nearby so you just you know you'd be within driving distance but you would live in equality land and you would be sort of subject to that lifestyle and culture now if you did this you would have an industry that would be

[17:26]

would be robot proof that's right it would be robot proof because robots wouldn't be as great for doing this kind of work and the people in equality land could just say no robots no robots we just decided that we won't have any robots in equality land which is spread along these paths and
and they would not be along highways because you don't want your bicycling and your cars to be in the same place now obviously depending on the season there would be different uh parts of the the bicycle paths that would be better in different seasons who is policing the past who's policing the past would be the the citizens of equality bill they would have lights they would have cameras they might have humans but the but you wouldn't be ever too far away from something civilized

[18:26]

something civilized uh and yes and a big part of this idea is a lot of you know i got an e-bike recently so it's got a battery that assists you when you pedal now if you have not experienced the fun of riding an electric bike that makes you feel like you're you have super strong legs because you always have to pedal it it doesn't do anything by itself but the pedal assist you'll go up hills like they don't even exist you know senior citizens can easily climb hills with his senior citizen meaning probably through to your early 70s you could you could go up hills pretty easily
so that's the basic idea so if you're just joining me i will recap the idea is to uh and again it's not a proposal it's just for brainstorming reasons you don't have to love the idea but think in terms of letting the people who will never be comfortable in the dog-eat-dog world of capitalism and free markets why not let them have their own piece of

[19:29]

why not let them have their own piece of the pie and they could build something from scratch that would not be racist at all now what would be the alternative well the alternative is we either live in a country where there's continuous tension about systemic racism or we say how about you show us how to do this right how about you start in a fresh situation because you know if we're being honest most of the people affected are people who don't have a lot of skills because they've got other problems right the people have lots of skills probably doing okay it's sort of everybody who's below that lots of skill level who's got the extra burden of racism without the benefit of at least i made some money all right somebody says that's what homeless encampments are for now the the idea here is not is not to simply put them in some kind

[20:29]

is not to simply put them in some kind of uh like a native american reservation all right if you're thinking in terms of uh it's just like a native american reservation did that work out no we're not talking about that i'm talking about a really well-designed society from the ground up using the best knowledge we have and you don't even do the first you know you don't even do the first town along the first bike bath until you've got something that looks pretty good right so you don't have to just say here's a bunch of land good luck native americans with your with your land you can design it right so you know what you're getting into before you go live all right now as you might imagine there are a billion ways this can go wrong we have to compare it to the alternatives compare it to the alternatives the alternatives are we either fight forever about socialism and systemic racism because it doesn't look like our current system can be tweaked

[21:30]

be tweaked it just doesn't look like it can i was uh
uh i was looking at an announcement from cornell i think it's just came out and cornell was talking about all the things that they were doing to address systemic racism it was just page after page of this class and this education and we'll fund this and do this and it just looks like it will be too hard to retrofit something that's so mature you know the rest of the country and i i would be perfectly okay if the country said you know what if you've got a better idea let's test it let's test it we'll give you some space see how it goes what about borders in this case the the uh that's a good question i would say that one of the questions would be what to do with immigration now because the equality land

[22:31]

now because the equality land likes immigration likes a lot and so too does the defense land but they would prefer you know the high skilled workers more more so um you could say that you could have unlimited immigration into into these areas as long as people are let's say tracked and maybe they have to have a phone with a tracker on it so they're not they don't they don't just immediately leave but it would be a great place to go so if you were an immigrant let's say this let's say you're an immigrant and if you went with the approval i guess they wouldn't even need approval of the people in equality land that you could just go there you just couldn't leave there because you you wouldn't have a free pass to go to equality land and then just leave there and go to the rest of the country now how can you do that i don't know you know maybe there's some way to i i've suggested for a long time that immigrant immigrants should have some kind of an

[23:31]

immigrants should have some kind of an immigrant phone that has special apps for finding work but also for tracking them and for you know making sure that they're doing what they need to do so there might be some way to allow immigration into the worlds where they want it and control it more for the worlds where you know they're really just watching the dollars
it's good to see exactly one person who said this is great i've got a feeling this wasn't the kind of idea that everybody would light up with but if you if you have a bicycle it probably excited you somebody says once again seniors are not socialists well you know what i meant all right no seniors aren't socialists but you know what i meant they're for the most part they're not going to work they're receiving money it's not all the

[24:31]

they're receiving money it's not all the money that they put in in most cases they're getting most seniors are getting more from the government than they ever put in in social security so but again everybody's different there's no one thing you could say about seniors that would be true oh okay a few more people are saying it's a good idea i'm actually gonna watch some more of the comments because i have no idea oh some more people love it
it how about that and by the way you could also have you know your solar panels all the way you could have your windmills i mean you could do a lot of cool stuff there
yes i do really like my bike i do i'm sorry if i sound like an e-bike commercial but if you've experienced it you would immediately know you're seeing the future because those batteries are going to get better and better and even senior citizens will be able to have a wheel trike that they could go 100 miles i mean you could go 100 miles on flat

[25:33]

i mean you could go 100 miles on flat ground well even with a little bit of hills if you're 75 years old and you're willing to sit on a three-wheeled vehicle with a good battery in it you'll just battle yourself 100 miles and you'll be happy about it so imagine if you could that going on vacation a family vacation how hard is it to go on a family vacation raise your hand if it's the worst freaking thing in the world why because nobody wants to do the same stuff good luck getting all the members of your family to do any one thing that they all like equally well and then what do the kids say the kids say yeah i'll go on that vacation with you mom and dad uh i need to bring a friend and then it just becomes impossibly complicated to satisfy everybody's needs and it's really expensive to go on any kind of vacation now imagine that your vacation is hey kids we're going to drive and park next to the closest bike bath and we're just going to bike

[26:35]

bike bath and we're just going to bike and we're going to camp how expensive would it be to bike and camp probably be a really good vacation would the kids like it yeah the kids can go ahead you don't even have to wait for them the kids could be 10 miles ahead and playing at the campsite before mom and dad get there as long as everything's safe so we could transform the country into a tourist a destination we could fill this thing with with people who come to love america because they see it up close and have a good experience and somebody says your ass won't let you ride that far i am sure that we can fix bicycle seats i'm sure we can do that it hasn't been done yet but i feel like we could do it
somebody says equality land sounds like it would take capitalism to make it work it would take capitalism to get it going and it would also be functionally capitalistic

[27:38]

be functionally capitalistic with whatever rules they wanted because the people who were working there in the hotels and the food services would be getting paid so they would just have to work out what that means do they pay taxes do they share it equally and then everybody gets upi let them work it out all right um somebody says are you an artist or scientist uh you've got google
scott you could just move to tucson with great biking and by the way there's already plans for a national bike bicycle path so if you hear that somebody's already doing this i'm aware of it i think maryland is already complete so you can ride a bicycle the entire length of maryland on their this bicycle path i don't know how much of it is on roads but some of it probably and their plans if they can get it funded is to connect the entire united states but i think one bicycle path would be

[28:38]

but i think one bicycle path would be great by having a network of them so you could really see the country would be amazing i mean how would you like to know that you could ride your e-bike to see mount rushmore kind of cool right and and somebody would pick you up if you get a flat tire you know everything's organized and friendly all right that's all i got for you and i will talk to you in the morning