Episode 1639 Scott Adams: All the News is Fake Today Except the Weather

Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the best damn thing that ever happened to you. At least today so far. And I think that for some of you, you probably came in here with low expectations. Oh, I think I'll check out this live stream. Something about sipping. And then. And then you find out it's the best thing that ever happened in the world. And then you've got to tell your friends. But it's probably after you hit the subscribe button. However, if you'd like to take it up a level, I have a way. It's a system. All you need is a cup of mugger, a glass, a tanker. Chelsea. A canteen jug or a flask, a vessel. What kind? Any kind. Fill it with your favorite liquid. I like coffee. And join me now. It's the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine hit of the day. It's the thing that makes everything better. It's called the simultaneous sip. And aren't you lucky to be here for it? Oh, yes, you are. Go. I hope you didn't go over 10% slip to SIRP ratio. It's very important. If your Slurp is under 10% of the total sip, you're in just the right range. Don't overdo it. Don't underdo it. Ever have, like, a weird hair that's just, like, in your eye for no reason? The hell's going on here? All right. Well, in an uncharacteristic morning, CNN has a lot of fascinating news today. I don't know if it's because most of it isn't about Trump, but they actually have some pretty interesting stories. Here's my favorite. In the context of climate change, we're having record snowfalls and low temperatures. And of course, the Northeast is blanketed by snow. They're getting one or two feet of snow up in the Northeast. Electricity is impacted. But Northeastern people are. What's the word? What's the word for the people who live in the snow country all the time? Hardy. Oh, you got it? Yeah. Somebody got it before I even said it. They're hardy. It's funny. You could imagine a lot of people who would be in real trouble if they lost electricity in sub zero temperatures. But the people in the Northeast are like, that's why I have a fireplace. That's why we got a fireplace, of course. And that's why we have a neighbor. So somehow they'll figure it out. Somehow they'll figure it out. It is dangerous. I don't want to minimize it. And it is very likely that some people will Freeze to death. But it's sort of like endemic. Cold weather isn't a pandemic in the Northeast. It's endemic. You're used to it. So it's funny what kind of risks you can get used to. When I lived in the Northeast, we had power outages in the winter that happened. And I don't remember ever being super panicked about. Was just a pain in the ass. That's about it. All right. But the best part of it is that there's going to be a thing happening in Florida in all likelihood, because the temperatures are approaching freezing, even in Florida, and they're going to have a phenomena that CNN reports is called chance of falling iguanas. Apparently, iguanas can't take the cold, and they live in trees, or they're often in trees. I don't know where they live, but they're often in trees. And when it reaches a certain temperature, the iguana will freeze and fall out of the tree. So if you're in Florida at a certain temperature, you don't want to walk under a tree because an iguana might fall on you. Now, that's what I call news. This is news you can use. A lot of the news is just pure fake news. Doesn't help you at all. But this would help you avoid being hit in the face with an iguana. And I know you'd like to avoid that, wouldn't you? All right. But apparently this is a temporary effect in that even the falling iguanas rejuvenate themselves when. When it turns warm. That's much the same way I am. When the temperature reaches a certain amount, I just go, stephen, I. I fall on the ground and I just stay there until it warms up, and then I'm revived. Very much. Iguana, like. Well, as I tweeted this morning, I punished myself last night by forcing myself to watch MSNBC for nearly. I don't know, I think I hung it out. I probably lasted 15 or 20 minutes. I don't like to use the word heroic, but I think it applies in this case. It was heroic. Now, I am completely aware that if you spend your time in one bubble, doesn't matter which one you're in. If you move to another bubble and spend some time there, you will be horrified. And I'm sure it works both ways. I watch mostly Fox News now. The reason I watch it has a lot to do with the fact that they just have better producers. It's just a really well produced show. So I just. I don't know, I just enjoy the texture of it more than other places. But I try to get my news from as many sources as possible so I don't get lost in a bubble. But, man, it is horrifying when you go into a bubble you're not familiar with. And let me tell you what they were doing in the MSNBC fake news bubble. So they were doing a lot of horrified reporting on January 6, because the ghost of Trump is the ghost of Trump past, but also the ghost of Trump future, maybe. So they're worried about him in the past, they're worried about him in the future, and they have full TDS that has now subsided. And here's the thing that they leave out from their coverage of January 6th. They leave out that the protesters thought they were stopping a coup. They didn't think they were causing a coup, they thought they were stopping one. Now, is that true? Was there a coup and did they try to stop it? Does it matter? It kind of doesn't matter because we're talking about the intentions. The intention was that they believed the election had been overthrown or fraudulent and they needed a delay to get enough of an audit going. They thought that maybe they could discover it because, remember, the thinking was that the fraud was really obvious. Right. It's hard to put yourself in the mind of the time because you've learned a lot since then. But in the thoughts of the time, they thought they saw it in real time. The fraud they thought they saw on television, the vote count go from a high number to a low number, like right in front of them. Now, it turns out that there was a legitimate sounding explanation for why that happened. But remember, we didn't know that yet, or at least the crowd didn't know it. I don't know when it was first reported or debunked, but. But people thought they saw with their own eyes the country being stolen, and so they thought they were fixing it. Now, I get that they might have been wrong, don't know for sure, because the election was never audited in any deep way. We only know that the courts never saw some evidence. So there's no evidence that the courts ever saw of any fraud. And I'm personally not aware of any. So if I can, you know, maybe not get demonetized on YouTube, let me say I'm not personally aware of any credible evidence that anybody has brought up to my attention that would suggest the. The election was fraudulent. I am very aware that there are a lot of suspicions and things that haven't been fully researched. That's true. And I'm also my to remind you, my global opinion is that anything that can be rigged will be rigged. You just don't know when it happens. So I have no reason to believe it's happened already, but I have a hundred percent certainty it will happen if we don't plug the holes, because it always does. It's just, it's the most predictable thing in human events is that somebody will use a fraud if it's available. If it's not available, they won't use it. That's pretty predictable. So when I watch MSNBC and I see them abusing their viewers and I do think it's abuse, I don't even mean that as hyperbole or spin, this actually looks like abuse because if you leave out the most important part of the story and report it without that most important part, it reverses its meaning. And actually it reverses it to the point of pushing people to potential violence or even wanting to lock up Trump supporters, which you see a lot of talk about that, Right? So this is actually abuse. And I don't think we should call it fake news because fake news would suggest some other intention or, I don't know, maybe they got it wrong, maybe it's an accident. You know, maybe it's just political spin. But this feels exactly like abuse. And I thought, you know, everybody always talks about, you know, why don't we have a news entity that simply reports the real news? Or the press cannot commit fraud if you also have a recording device. Somebody said, well, that's not true because you could record somebody's quotes and then leave out some context on the story and it's still fake news. So you've got MSNBC abusing its people, and you wonder, why can't you have like a why isn't there space in the market for a legitimate reporting organization? Like, why doesn't anybody walk into this gigantic space of just being objective and tell the whole context? Do you know why? Well, it doesn't pay. There's no business model that would support it. The day that that started on day one, everybody who watched Fox News would look at it and say, well, that's not what Fox News says. So looks like it's just another fake news site. And all the people who watch CNN and msnbc, they would come and they would see this hypothetically fair reporting and they would say, well, that's not what we heard. So it looks like another fake site. You could never make money by reporting things honestly. Unfortunately, humanity is not designed to accept that business model compared to the business model that just gets you all excited and makes your brain on fire. They're not really competitive. But I came up with an idea that would be really low cost and would sort of get to the problem. And it goes like this. Create a website that is nothing but the part left out, just the context they left out. Don't even report the story. So just, just have a website that says January 6th MSNBC. The part they left out, the protesters thought they were saving the Republic, not overthrowing it. And that's it. Don't even tell the story because if somebody doesn't know the story, they're not going to go to this website because it's not an original website where you learn the story. It's only where you go to find the part they left out. Now, you'd have to be fairly confident that it was true. But you could also report it as here's the part Fox News says they left out, which then allows you to report it without saying it's true or false. Tim Pool, somebody said Tim Pool, I assume you mean that he's one of the people who fills in context. I think that's true. Paul Harvey in the old days, I suppose. But don't you think that would be an easy website to spin up because it wouldn't be hard to know what people are leaving out. Maybe it's user managed, maybe it's open access or something. But that's the part you don't need an entire news organization. You just need a context missing. Here it is. Here's the part they left out. Boom. And it works both ways. By the way, don't think that this wouldn't work in a, you know, against Fox News, because don't you think that Fox News is a little pro Ivermectin? Right. At least the opinion people, not the news people, but the opinion people are sort of pro Ivermectin. And wouldn't you like to see on this context any studies that say the opposite? I'm not saying which one's true for this conversation. I'm saying wouldn't you like to know if the opinion hosts on Fox left anything out? I'm not saying it changes the result. I'm just saying wouldn't you like to know if they left anything out? Because I would imagine it's just universally true that at least the opinion people are giving you their opinion, which would minimize some things that maybe you missed entirely. I don't know. I think it helped. All right, let's talk about I guess here's the question for me. For you. So I've given you this clean example of MSNBC leaving out context. CNN does the same. The context being that the protesters thought they were saving the Republic, not overthrowing it. Is there any example where Fox News has done anything that bad? Because I feel like I have a cognitive blind spot there. What would be an example? They reported Arizona too early. I mean, that's not the same kind of stuff we're talking about. I'm supposed to be filling that role for you. Well, I'll try. Birth certificate. What'd they leave out? WMDs in Iraq. I think everybody got that wrong. So, you know, the WMDs in Iraq would be an example of just a mistake, I would think. It doesn't sound to me like anybody left anything out. Yeah, the Arizona reporting was too soon. I know what you're saying, but doesn't that sound like just a mistake? That's not leaving out a narrative, Right? I'm talking about a narrative that just leaves out an entire, like, important part. You know, the Arizona reporting was just maybe a mistake or a judgment call or something. All right, you real. I didn't realize how obsessed you are about how many of you really cared about election night. Boy, that really made a difference, didn't it? I did see the numbers that a lot of people abandoned Fox News and went to the competitors there for a while. No one reporting on the poll workers getting kicked out of counting. I saw that reported. All right, well, so I'll accept that they got it wrong, but I don't know if there's an equivalent example of a narrative that was just left something out. But if you think of one, send it to me. I do think there's a difference. Here's the difference that I think I detect. Now, this is purely subjective, right? When Fox News seems to leave, let's say the opinion people sort of leave. What I think is established fact. It's usually obviously hyperbole. In other words, as a viewer, you can identify the hyperbole. Let me give you some examples. Let's see, let's say immigration. If a Fox opinion person talks about lots of criminals coming across the border for immigration, do you say to yourself, oh, that literally means it's crowds of criminals. Or do you say to yourself reasonably, oh, they're saying. They're not saying they're all criminals, they're saying that there are too many criminals. Right. I mean, doesn't your brain just automatically adjust the hyperbole because you understand the source? Mine does so to me, it doesn't seem like they're leaving anything out. It seems like they just ramped up their point a little bit. That's what the opinion people do. Then there's stuff like the War on Christmas, right? There's nothing left out, is there? The story is complete. It's just they have a strong opinion on it. About critical race theory, do you think that Fox News leaves out an important part of the narrative or do they maybe exaggerate? Well, I don't even know if it's an exaggeration, actually, but they certainly make their point. It seems to me that there's this difference where MSNBC is literally intentionally creating fake news, whereas Fox looks to be literally intentionally exaggerating their point. And those don't look the same to me because you can pick up an exaggeration easily. I mean, it doesn't take too much discernment to know when an opinion person is exaggerating. But it's hard to know something's left out of a news story if you don't know if it's just left out, you wouldn't know it's left out. That seems really different to me. All right, Trump had his. He had a rally and of course he always makes news. And here's something he said. He said, if I run and if I win, we will treat those people from January 6th fairly. We will treat them fairly, Trump said. And if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons because they are being treated so unfairly. I have to admit that hearing that and that alone almost made me throw down for him again, because, you know, I don't want to be a one issue voter. But if you had to be a one issue voter on this issue, that's sort of defensible, isn't it? You know, putting political prisoners and political prisoners, if that's what's happening and it looks like it to me. I mean, I don't know if I have all the context now. I'm not saying that they didn't break laws. That's not what I'm saying. People who broke laws have to have to answer for that. No, there's no exception there. But I'm not sure that the way they're being treated is exactly non political. It looks political to me and most of you, I think, would agree. So when you see a president make a promise like that, I almost say to myself, I almost don't care about the other issues. Because if you don't fix this, what else matters? Nothing. If you don't Fix this. Nothing else matters. If they can put people in jail just for, essentially for political wrong speak, you know, in the context of you're seeing, you know, you're seeing freedom of speech being curtailed, et cetera, this is almost good enough for one issue. But I'm going to tell you something and you're not going to like it. If Trump messages the same about immigration and he runs again, I can't support him. I can't support him. And here's my thinking, the first time he came out, it was actually politically kind of genius to exaggerate the, let's say, the danger from immigration. It probably made sense for him to go to the top of the conversation by saying something that his base wanted to hear and that was provocative. The news couldn't stay away from it and it sounded vaguely racist. But you could also understand it as hyperbole, in which case it wasn't. Given that everything he says is hyperbole, why would this be different? Literally everything he says is hyperbole. So a discerning viewer would say, oh, that's hyperbole. He doesn't mean everybody coming across the border is a racist or a criminal. He doesn't mean that there's even more criminals among this class of people, except people who would go across the border illegally, maybe have a little more criminals in that mix. But here's my thing. After seeing how that worked out for him, meaning it didn't work out and it also painted his supporters as racists. Didn't made you a racist, even if you're not, because you said, well, I like Trump on taxes and Supreme Court nominations. So I'm going to overlook his hyperbole about the people coming across the border. Not the issue. The issue still matters to you, but about the individuals, the characterization of them. Maybe you'd overlook that even if you're uncomfortable with it because it's hyperbole. But if he runs again and he does the same message, I can't, I can't support that because at this point we know how it's received, right? We don't have any mystery about it. We know how it's received. And if again, he emphasizes the criminals coming across the border, I don't think that matches fact, because my observation, and I'd be willing to change my mind on this if there were data, but my observation is that the people coming across the border are more law abiding. More law abiding. Now, that's just subjective. And this is based on living in Northern California, not Southern, because The Southern is closer to the trouble. But in Northern California, by the time people are filtered up to where I live, you get the people who just really want work and they do not want trouble. They're not going to steal a knick knack from your dresser while they're cleaning your house if that's what they're doing right. They're unusually law abiding and I can tell you that from my experience as a restaurant owner, they're unusually law abiding. The ones who really came here to stay and want to make it work now, total lies. Now remember, you can't call me a liar because I just told you this was a subjective impression. You could say I'm wrong and I won't even debate you. You could say that it might have to do with my little bubble. I wouldn't debate that because I'm speaking from my bubble. I'm telling you that if he makes this messaging again, I don't want to paint myself as a racist. And I couldn't support it. I couldn't support him as president if he said this. However, I could support it totally. Here's what I would totally support. Let's stop talking about the nature of the people coming across because that's just making everybody unhappy. Let's talk about the fact that you can't have a country unless you can control the border. Oh, I'm in on that. I'm all in on that. You have to have border control or you're not a country who gets to decide the economics of your country? The people who decide to come in or the country? Well, the country. So there's an argument for border control that is. Yeah, he did say all that, but he also said the other stuff. Right? He doesn't need to also say the other stuff. If he runs again because we already heard it. It's sort of baked in. So if he could change his messaging on that. Now the fentanyl problem is more of a China problem. And he was also soft on China on fentanyl, which I have a big problem with, by the way. If somebody ran against Trump and said they would be tougher on fentanyl, I hate to say it, but that's another one issue kind of situation with me. So I don't think anybody's gonna run on that basis. I don't think it's a risk. So let me say that I do not automatically think that I'm going to support Trump. If he were to run, I'm not sure he will, but if he does, I Can't say I would support him if he did the same messaging. I just don't think I would. All right. And remember, the point is how it affects me. I'm saying that if he says that messaging again after seeing it totally doesn't work, just makes him look, you know, just invites charges of racism. I just don't want to be on that train again. Now, of course it's always going to matter who he's running against, right? If he's running against the worst candidate in the world, then yeah, I guess you have to go with what works. But I could not be comfortable with his immigration communication if it's the same. All right. And I realize a lot of you disagree with me and that's fine. Do you know what I like best about this audience? I'll bet I'm the only live streamer who disagrees with his audience a lot, which says a lot about you, in a good way. It's actually probably the best compliment you could ever have that you're willing to absorb content that you know is going to be a little, a little bit uncomfortable sometimes. I have to admit I have a tremendous respect for the livestream audience because I do think that you have self selected as being more, I'd say more intellectually flexible than almost any other group in the country, I'll bet. You know, and a lot of it is no, a lot of it is self selection. So it's not because I've changed you in that way. I think it's self selection. People can handle it. All right, let's talk about Putin. Everything I thought I knew about the Russia, Ukraine situation is wrong or was wrong. And maybe it's still wrong. But here's what I thought. I believed based on reporting that we could cause so much financial impact on Russia that they wouldn't make a military move because they would be crushed financially. It turns out, based on least CNN's reporting as of today, and it looks, it looks like pretty good reporting. I think Fox might have said something about this too, but CNN reports this, that Russia provides around 30% of the European Union's national natural gas, which was good. I feel like you can't understand the situation unless you know that that situation, the 30% of the natural gas for Europe is coming from Russia and it's a vital role in power generation, home heating, and it's the winter, so it's pretty important. And. But here's the deal. And then there's the Nord Stream. Two, of course, is part of the, part of the story. Did you know that if Europe stopped allowing Russia to participate in the financial, let's say, credit market, that all they have to do is sell their energy to China. How many of you knew that? That if Russia just got closed down by Europe through some financial mechanisms, all they have to do is turn the valve and send more of it to China and less of it to Europe, and that China wants to buy as much as they can produce because they need energy. Some of you knew that. And by the way, congratulations if you did, because you would be, well, more now. I did know. I did know it generally, like, in a conceptual way, obviously. I did know that they could go to other markets and China would be the obvious one. I didn't know how easy it would be. Did anybody know how easy it would be? Because I didn't realize that they could bypass the entire traditional global financial market and just sell stuff to China and take money for it. That's all they need to do. So somebody says Russia hates China. Well, the other thing I'm learning today is that China and Russia have forged ties that are stronger maybe, than I had realized. And they do seem to be working as a team, which is really scary. Now, when I say team, I feel as though maybe Russia is a Chinese puppet already. Maybe in some ways, anyway, because if China were not giving Russia this support, then Russia couldn't do what it wants to do, you know, threatening Ukraine. And something tells me that China would benefit so much by Russia going into Ukraine that they're going to make it happen. Because if Russia goes into Ukraine, what's going to happen? It will make NATO look like a paper tiger. It will look like America can't protect you. And they will have made a gigantic step toward dismantling economic power by showing that it didn't work and by simply making themselves wealthier by having more energy and making Russia even better off, perhaps having a stronger partner that won't threaten them and they'll just buy their energy. So the Russia and China connection, which does look like Russia, will be the dominant partner and already is. It can't be underestimated because you have to say to yourself, not just what does Putin want to do? Haven't we all been fooled by the question of Putin makes all the decisions? It's up to Putin, whatever Putin does. Putin hasn't decided. Putin. Putin. I've got a feeling that that's all wrong. I've got a feeling that President Xi gets to decide if Putin attacks Ukraine. And here's the bad news is in Xi's best Interest, I think, to attack. So my previous prediction was that there would be no major military conflict. I did allow that there might be a minor incursion, but I didn't think there would be a major overthrow of Ukraine because I thought there would be too much risk of closing down Russia's economy. Turns out that's not much of a risk, or at least it's not a big enough risk that would stop them from doing what they want to do. So here's the most dangerous situation in the world. Countries that want different things and cannot judge the military strength of the other. In this context, I'm calling the financial sanctions military power. I'm calling hacking military power and I'm calling actual, you know, bullets and kinetic stuff military power. Can you tell me who would win if Russia attacked Ukraine now by when? I think we all accept that Russia's forces could control the Ukraine if they put it all out there. So that's not the question. The question is, would Russia be better off or worse off if they do it? You don't know. You really don't know. Do you know what happens when you don't know who would win a war? You have a war? Yeah. If you don't know, that's a dangerous situation. What is not dangerous is knowing who's going to win if you know who's going to win. Or equally good? Equally good if you know both will lose. So one of the reasons we haven't had a nuclear confrontation between nuclear countries is because both know with certainty it's a lose lose situation. Right. Nuclear war is pretty much a certainty. Nobody wins. That's why it doesn't happen and traditional war doesn't happen. Also, if you don't know, you have a good chance of winning. But this Russia situation, when you throw the economic uncertainties, you know, would these sanctions make that much difference? You throw in the cyber uncertainties. Exactly. How much power does Russia have cyber wise? What could they destroy in the United States if they wanted to? I don't know. What could we do to them? I don't know. What would the economics be? I don't know. Would it be good for America or bad for America? I don't know. Good for Europe or bad for Europe? Probably bad. But if it's good for China, might still happen. So here's my adjustment to my. Well, really a complete reversal of my opinion. As long as the variables stay what they are, and of course the variables always change, right? But if they stayed where they are, I would say a major invasion of Ukraine would be almost guaranteed because Russia, too has to figure out the limit of their own power. That's one way to find out. It's one way to find out. So at this point, Russia's advantage, I think, is to invade Ukraine. Because here's what's going to happen. NATO won't respond directly. They will take losses. But they would show that they had the power to do it, and then they would do it. Then the entire world financial system would start moving toward China, which is what China wants. The China Russia connection will get stronger, which maybe Russia and China both want. I don't know. So I've got a feeling. And yeah, don't, don't forget that there may be a deal where Russia gets support for their thing and then China gets support for their thing, meaning Taiwan. So I don't know about Taiwan, but I would say the odds of Ukraine being invaded. Unless, you know, I suppose if Russia got some major concessions, they would pause, but it looks like we're not going to give them any. Do you think we're going to give Russia any concessions? I don't think so, because we can't. If we give them concessions, it's the same as losing. It just means they'll take something else and they'll just keep pushing until they can't push anymore. So why would he stop pushing if we let him push? So I would say the current set of variables largely guarantees Russia will conquer Ukraine. I don't know if they can hold it because the locals will have lots of weapons, but I think they'll conquer it at this point. Now, like I said, this is a conditional prediction, just like what I now consider my incorrect prediction from yesterday because I learned something fundamental that was new to me. New to me. If I learn something else tomorrow that's new, I'll change it again. So it's. It's not like a prediction prediction. It's more like a conditional one. If the variables stay the same, yeah, the Ukrainians will. Well, actually, I did see an interview from a Ukrainian guy who said, we're not going to fight against our brothers in Russia. Did anybody see that interview? There's a Ukrainian citizen. It was an older guy. So it wasn't like a young guy saying harsh things. It was an older guy who said, if Russia comes in militarily, we're not going to fight Russians. Like Russians are our brothers. We're not going to fight them. So you might have a situation where some or a lot of the Ukrainians think it's a war between governments. You know what I mean, if it looks like a war between governments, I don't even know. It's not like Ukraine's government is so honest that they want to keep it. Right. Isn't the reason Ukraine is not in NATO? One of the reasons is because they're so corrupt, their own government. Ukraine is so corrupt that they can't even join NATO. If you live in Ukraine and you know your own government is so corrupt, you can't even participate in normal world alliances, how much do you care if Putin's in charge? Probably not that much. Right. The odds that it would affect you personally might be actually low. Scott, why did you say a war would move work to China? Did I ever say anything like that? That doesn't sound familiar. Yeah, that doesn't sound like something I've said. I don't even know the context of that. Let's see. What, did you do this to teach us how to be open to new information? No, no, no. I'm not that clever sometimes. You see me in the context of the live stream. I'll make an argument as strongly as I can and get you to agree with it, and then I'll show you the counterpoint. But that's usually during a live stream, because that doesn't. That doesn't seem manipulative. That seems like more like the show. But I wouldn't do it in an extended way like that. Like, I wouldn't. I'm legitimately just changing my mind because I have new information. There's. There's nothing going on beyond that. And by the way, anytime you see me change my mind, remember that that gives me freedom or at least protection from cognitive dissonance. Do you all understand how that works? That the more you see me change my mind in public, like right in front of you, the less likely I'll be embarrassed to do it again. Right. Because I'm defining myself as the person who can change his mind. That should protect me against cognitive blindness in some cases, not. All right. There's nothing you can do to protect yourself entirely. But in theory, I would be the most, maybe the most protected pundit who does things publicly. I guess that makes you a pundit, right? Think of somebody else that you've watched who has changed their mind on as many topics as you've seen me change my mind. Can you think of anybody? Name one person who does this. Talk about the headlines. Who has changed? Somebody says, my ex, Steven Crowder. Somebody says Tucker. Oh, actually, Tucker. I'm going to give you that one. I have heard Tucker say he Revised his opinion at least maybe three times I've heard it, which would be a lot, wouldn't it? Yeah, I'm going to give you that one. I'm going to give you a Tucker. Joe Rogan changes his opinion. I may be less familiar with the examples of that, but I would imagine that's true. Dave Rubin, famous example of somebody who can see the whole field. By the way, Dave Rubin is one of the best examples of a talent stack. Do you all know Dave Rubin? Just Google him if you don't. But I've never seen somebody do such a good job of assembling exactly the right set of talents to end up exactly where he is, which is in a real good place. China, Biden, Fauci own. Scott, who says that China, Biden and Fauci own? Me, like, based on what? I just think that there's some. You know, I have this thought that there are a lot of paid trolls, but the people paying the trolls don't know what they're getting. They're not really getting the good ones. I've got a feeling that if you're a paid troll that, like, that's your job. You might not have a lot of talents. Just saying. All right, let's see what else has happened with this. That's all. That's all about that. Did you know that China is already Russia's banker? I don't know exactly what that means, but the essence of it is that getting Russia out of the banking system wouldn't have as much impact as you thought. All right, okay, that's enough of that. Let's talk about February 1st. If you haven't noticed, I'm trying to talk less about COVID Everybody happy about that? I can't completely not talk about it, but I'll try to save it for the end and I'll try to de. Emphasize it. All right, so here's what I'm not going to talk about. I'm not going to talk about what therapeutics or vaccines are good or bad out. So the conversation of what works or what doesn't work. I'm out. I'm out. Because I don't think it matters at this point, do you? Is it relevant? I mean, it just feels like the relevance has disappeared. You've all decided what you're comfortable with. I've decided what I'm comfortable with. Although I could change my mind. Let's just call it good. Yeah. Greg Gutfeld is. Talks about February 1st. So he would be the best proponent of the idea because. And as he often says on the show, if you don't tell the government what you want, how are they going to know? They can't guess and they're not asking us. And so I think we've reached a situation where. So here's the current situation. New COVID deaths in America are at an all time high today. Today COVID deaths are the highest they've ever been today. Now according to, you know, cdc. So yeah, you can argue about the numbers, but there were 3,200 deaths on January 28th. So there's a little bit of a couple day time lag and I think there's a weekend lag as well. So we won't know exactly what was happening the last few days until maybe middle of the week or something. But there's no way that the government can relax restrictions when your deaths are at an all time high. Everybody agree with that? There's nobody in the government who has enough cover with the data. Like the data does not support them dropping sanctions or dropping mandates. Would you all agree with that? If the numbers are the worst ever, there's no way your government could say, okay, numbers are worst ever. Take your masks off. Because that would be like saying they never worked in the first place and they can't say that. So the only thing that can happen on February 1 is that the public just takes control of the decision. And it's interesting because if we take control of the decision when the deaths are at the highest they've ever been, then there's a good chance it will hold when they go down and it might hold again when they go back up to this level. If that happens again, say in the summer or late summer or something. So I think the public has to take control now, or let me say it a different way, I think the public will take control. And in a sense it's not really a change because the public always had the control of this stuff. They always did. It's just they didn't exercise it. And here's my opinion, if the public decides it's done with any part of the mandates, we will be done with them because we have the power. If 20% of people refuse to put on a mask in Walmart, what the hell is Walmart going to do? What the hell are they going to do? They're not going to stop you from shopping. They don't have the resources to kick out 20% of the customers and still have a business. So you don't need many people to refuse. You just need a date and you need about 20% of the people to say, I'm going to die on this hill. Because there's actually not that there's no risk. You realize if you go into Walmart without your mask, there's no risk. I mean, legally, there's no risk. The worst thing that would happen is they'd ask you to leave or they'd ask you to put on your mask. That's it. That's it. There's no penalty. You're not going to be taxed any extra. So do you think you can't get 20% of people to invite that trouble just to make a point? Sure. Come on over, manager, let's talk. Yeah, yeah. In America, 20% of the people will rebel against anything. One of the things you can definitely depend on is Americans willing to be rebellious. We're always willing to be rebellious. We love rebelling. We rebelled three times before breakfast. We're a rebellious bunch of people. Why not 25%? Shh, shh with your 25%. All right, so definitely there's no chance that your government will reduce mandates on February 1st. Everybody on board with that? There's no chance that masks will go away on February 1st because the numbers are through the roof compared to relative. But let's see what the public can do. And you know, here's my opinion on this. I'm personally done with masks on February 1st, meaning I just won't go where where they're needed. I won't fly. I'm just not going to fly, which is the one place I wouldn't be able to get away with it. Right. You really couldn't fly if there are mask requirements and you don't have a mask. But short of that, I can avoid everything else. I'll use only local businesses because they're already mask free. Largely. I'll avoid all chains. If I have to buy anything, I'll buy it online through Amazon because you know what Amazon never makes me do? Put on a mask. So if I want something from Walmart and they won't let me shop there in person, I'm not going to shop it from Walmart fucking online. Let me be clear. If Walmart doesn't let me buy a laundry basket at Walmart, I'm not going to go online to the fucking Walmart online site and buy their fucking basketball. I'm going to get it from Amazon, right? So, you know, the public has a million different ways that they can punish businesses that don't want to get on board. So here's how it works. Customers first, that's you corporation second. Corporation second. They have to buckle. You have to break the corporations. Won't take much, 10, 20% of malcontents in the store. That's all it takes. You break the corporations, then the corporations talk to the government and then the government buckles. Right? You and I probably can't get the government to do anything, but you can get a corporation to do a lot. You can get a corporation to do a lot. Oh, damn it. I hate it when I'm wrong. Amazon owns Whole Foods. Good point. Amazon owns Whole Foods. Now, I think you still might want to treat them as a separate company, but you know, I wouldn't go to Amazon Whole Foods to buy something I couldn't get at a Safeway, but I would get a laundry basket from Amazon.com that I couldn't get at Target. All right, so yeah, there's definitely some messiness there in the corporate world, but I think that's the. Would you agree with the general idea that it's the public first, corporation second? Because they can make that kind of a decision and then, and then government last. Right? Because the minute that Walmart says we're not going to go along with this anymore, I feel like the government's just got a cave. Do you think the government could go against Walmart? I don't know. Might be hard. I'll bet there are some big corporations, some chains that have people who donate to the political parties. So I've got a feeling that at least the CEOs and the owners of big corporations, they can push the government. Dude, you need to move to Arizona. We've been mask optional for almost a year now. Yes, I am envious of the the places in this country that are free. But I will tell you that as most of the country is freezing to death and suffering from iguanas falling on their heads today the high temperature where I live will be 62 degrees. It will be completely sunny and I will take a long walk in my T shirt. Now if you can take a long walk in the sun in your T shirt at the end of January where you live, let me know where that is. I might work there. I might go there Now. Arizona, of course, is unlivable in the summer. So you got to give me someplace I can go outdoors every month. Austin maybe. I also need legal cannabis, so Texas is probably not my state. All right. 70 degrees in Phoenix. Nice. I'm not a two home guy, I tell you. Let me tell you the smartest thing I ever heard from Craig of Craigslist. You've all heard of Craigslist, right? And there's an actual Craig. So I've met Craig. Turns out he was a Dilbert fan. And so anyway, I had lunch with him once, and Craig tells me the story about why you turned down a gazillion dollars to sell Craigslist and instead just worked for at least a long time. He worked customer support. He just took complaints. That was his job. At his own company that he started, he took complaints, which was hilarious and genius at the same time. But I asked him, like, why did you turn down the gazillion dollars to buy the company? And he said that being that rich sounded like a lot of work. Now here's somebody who creates a Craigslist and you say to yourself, okay, what kind of a, like, brain do you have to have to make something that worked that well? Well, one of the parts of the brain you have to have is simplicity. So here's somebody who craved simplicity so much that Craigslist was just dead simple. Right? Wasn't the best thing about Craigslist how simple it was? Nobody had to have a lesson on how to use it. And this was in the days before people understood user interface well. So the simplicity that allowed him to build Craigslist in the first place permeated his life. And he actually turned down, I don't know, a billion dollars or whatever the number was, some big number because he thought it would just make things complicated. And he already had all the money he needed. That's my two house thing. Could I afford to have two houses? Yes. Yes, I could. Would it be awesome to have two houses where you're always in perfect weather? I think it would. That'd be pretty awesome. How much complication would that add to my life? A lot. It would basically double my complication. There's no way I want to do that. Having one house is a giant pain in the ass. I actually fantasize about renting. Honestly, I fantasize about renting a two bedroom apartment someday. Not having to do, like every day I have to do work to support my house. Like, I work for my house. It's basically like a third job. I call it landlord. I pay people to work, but I still have to make all the decisions. I have to move stuff out of the rooms. I mean, it's just a lot. So yes. I mean, I'm not doing the physical work so much, but it's every day. All right. That, ladies and gentlemen, is all we've got going on. On a slow news day. I wish I Could thrill you more. But turns out that the news is not cooperating today. Hey, hello. From Nigeria. Get a house manager. I've had personal assistance. Do you know why I don't have a personal assistant now? Because they make my life harder, not easier. It turns out that as soon as you have a personal assistant, they have problems. I'm like, okay, so now I've got a problem with my house, but then I've also got a problem with my employee. And the employee who's supposed to solve the problem of the house can't do it because they have their own problem. So now I went from one problem to two problems, and I'm paying for it. I'm paying, like, a lot of money to double my problems. I think hiring people to solve your problems works at a certain scale. So at the Elon Musk scale, it probably works. I think he has multiple assistants, personal assistants. I'm sure he has somebody taking care of his homes and stuff like that or wherever he lives. I don't know what he's doing for home. But if you have, like a whole staff and you've got somebody who's even managing the staff, and you've got enough people that one could fill in when one is sick and all that, then it starts making sense. Like, you're actually like a little corporation. But if you're an individual, even at high income, you don't want one employee. It's just a problem. If you had a bunch, it might be a good deal. Yeah, everything is about Elon Musk or Joe Rogan. Have you noticed that Every topic is going to be about one of them, directly or indirectly? All right. And that is all I've got today. What about the truckers? The truckers are very inspirational, and I think it had to come from somebody in that sociodemographic group, don't you think? Because I don't think the elites can amount to revolution, you know, the suburban moms. But, you know, if you get the truckers involved, that's some serious stuff. And I think everybody. It's weird how. That's right. Strong men. That's right. The sensation of it. The sensation of it is that the. I hate to say it because it's sexist as hell, but I'm going to speak of it as. We are biological creatures. So now we're not talking about what's politically or socially appropriate. So leaving that domain for a second, we'll just go biology. Biologically, you want the strong men to be leading the revolution. It's just. It just feels like it's not serious until that happens, so we'll see. Now, that doesn't mean strong women aren't driving trucks. Of course they are. Doesn't mean that strong women can't run a revolution. I'm sure they can, but biologically, we just feel like that's somehow more substantial. All right, that is all I got for today, and I will talk to you tomorrow.