Episode 1980 Scott Adams: Two Whiteboards And Funny Headlines

Stable for half a minute. It's funny that we. That Livestream technology is still not a stable technology, basically. All right, looks like it's going to work a little bit. A little bit. I hope we see all the Clapbirds. Erica the Excellent had a poll on Twitter in which people were asked, what should we name the fans who come over? And the yellow Clot. Clot. And there were several possibilities. Let's see, what were the possibilities? We had Clyde Clunts, Scotty's Klottis and Kloppbertz. Kloppbertz won with 34% of the vote. Close second was Cluntz, then third was Scotty's Clottys, and then Clydy. It's worth only 11%. So we're going with Clapbirds. So welcome to all the Clawbirds. Your fan activity is appreciated. And if you'd like to. If you'd like to show yourself, just use your catchphrase. The catch, Fleet. The catchphrase is cope. Cope. So you want to say that as much as possible during the live stream, but also identify yourself. I want to see how big my fan base is of the clapbirds. Well, Kevin McCarthy had a bad week. I don't know. Did. Is anybody paying attention to the speaker of the House situation? Has he. Has he been denied a 12th time yet? I think he's been. He's lost 11 in a row. But there was some news about overnight they might have a deal. I don't think they have a deal. Do you how many people think that overnight they actually came up with a deal? I feel unlikely, maybe. Oh, the Copers are back. Thank you. Scream it. Scream it, Cope. All right. Well, in addition to that, somebody was complaining that they discovered. And this is scandalous. I didn't know this about Kevin McCarthy. He once admitted, and he's actually confessed this, so you don't have to wonder about it. He's confessed. He had an actual meal. I believe it was a dinner with World Economic Forum founder Klaus schwab back in 2018. Yeah, they actually ate a meal together. Now, every now and then, I like to take a news story to remind the public that I assert my absolute right of association, that you will never. You will never embarrass me, you will never shame me because you found out I ate a meal with somebody you don't like. Now, what do people say when I say that? What's the most obvious thing that people say? They say, oh, yes, anybody. Oh, you would associate with anybody. So would you associate with a serial killer? Yeah. Are you kidding? You wouldn't have dinner with a serial killer if you had a chance. Well, you're pretty boring. I would take that dinner in a heartbeat. How about whoever's the current head of the kkk? Absolutely. I wouldn't want to be seen, obviously. I might not want to be seen, but how interesting would that be? Are you kidding me? That would be the most interesting dinner you ever had. How about the head of Black Lives Matter? How about that? Yes, yes, totally. Are you kidding me? How about the most radical people in Antifa? Would I be seen having a meal with them? Yes. Yes, absolutely. I can't imagine how much fun that would be. So, yeah, Obama, absolutely. Hitler. Yes. Yes. This is the one time when you can't Hitler me. You can't Hitler me on this. Because usually you can go, but how about Hitler? Yes, yes. I'm not Ben Garrison, though. Okay. Damn it. Okay. I wouldn't be seen with any of Ben Garrison. That's true. Well, now you just ruined my whole thing. I was sure there was nobody that I wouldn't be embarrassed, but I'd be embarrassed with idiot Ben Garrison. So, okay, you got me. Pol Pot, no problem. Putin, yes. Stalin. Absolutely. Ben Garrison. All right, let's talk about Chat GPT, the AI that's making a lot of news. So Sam Altman, one of the founders, apparently he's talking to somebody about accepting some investment that would value the company at $29 billion. It's a startup. A startup that hasn't produced, as far as I know. It's produced no revenue, as far as I know. Maybe there's some. And it's being valued by investors at $29 billion. Now, apparently there's some other AI companies that are getting lots of interest, too. Now, let me ask you, do you. Do you believe that. That it'll be worth it? Does that valuation sound too high? It doesn't. You know, it's too high. If some other AI is better, then it's definitely too high. If it turns out, and I don't know if this is true, by the way, but if it turned out that this is the best one, and it looks like it might stay the best one because it has some kind of advantage. 29 billion is probably cheap, right? I don't know all the ways you could commercialize it, but it seems unlimited. It's unlimited. Not only is it unlimited, but it gets to the most important things we care about, right? Everything from. You missed a sip already happened. So everything we care about, like human relations, it might replace those work it's going to replace a lot of jobs and make things easier. Searching for things on the Internet. Yes. Knowing what's true versus what is bs. Well, it might not be good at it, but we're going to use it for that. So, yeah, absolutely. Everything that we care the most about, even healthcare. Everything but AI, because it's by definition a version of our own brains. The importance of AI, it's impossible to calculate, is bigger than anything we've ever done, in my opinion, by far, and should grow faster than anything we've ever done. Because even the Internet itself, as fast as it grew, as fast as Google grew, as fast as Apple grew, they still were creating infrastructure as they grew, Right? They were sort of following the infrastructure, but the infrastructure is there now. Like the Internet exists. Technology is pretty advanced. You just plop this into it and it's just going. So to me, it looks like it's impossible to estimate, but it's going to change everything. All right, here's a valuable lesson. How can you make a supermodel unattractive to men? Like, that seems hard, right? If you had a supermodel, like one of the most beautiful women in the world, how could you make her unattractive to men now without changing her look? All right, here's the rule. You can't change your appearance. She has to become unattractive to all men without changing her look at all. Okay? And supermodel, what's her name? Emily Ratajowski. She managed to pull it off. So there's two stories in this one story. One is Fox News fake news. So it's some fake news on Fox News. And the fake news is the headline doesn't match the story. So the story is nothing. It just doesn't match the story. So here's the headline. Supermodel complains she only attracts, quote, emasculated men after her breakup with Pete Davidson. Now, if you read the story, wouldn't you expect it would be something about supermodel complain? She's only. She only attracts emasculated men after a breakup with Pete Davidson. Again, the story isn't that. There's nothing like that in the story, but the story itself is interesting. It's just not that. Here's the actual story. She also said, I feel like I attract the worst men. But then when she explained it, you see, it's a different story entirely. She said one of her main problems with some men, Rada Joski said this was on the Fox News site, is that they, quote, don't know how to handle the strong woman. And we're out. It was really that easy? It was. How many words? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 words. 8 words. They don't know how to handle a strong woman. And I'm out. Yeah. Are there any women who are confused? All the men are laughing, right? The men are going, yep, yep. But are any of the women confused by this? All right, here's what is not. Here's what is not. It's not about men not liking strong personalities. Nope, nope. There's nothing about that in this situation. This is men who know exactly what that code means. If you ever hear a woman. And maybe it's the same for men, but, you know, I'll just talk from my experience. If you ever see a woman, she has a strong personality, run, run away. Because that's always the COVID for, you know, I'm a raging bitch. Always. Always. Yeah. So what she said was about the men, because she's a strong woman. I guess she thinks that the. The men need to tear her down to, you know, assert their. Their level compared to her. That's how I read this anyway. And she said they start to tear you down, and then you're back to square one. And it's so effed up and unfair because I feel like a lot of men who truly think they want a strong woman actually don't know how to handle it. Yeah, that's the problem. All the men want a strong woman, but then when they get one, they don't know how to handle it. That's what's going on in this situation. Yep. That's absolutely. What's happening is that they're afraid of those strong women and don't know how to handle. Or do I. I don't need to finish the story. Right. Everybody's already filled in the entire story. Can I have a quick vote? The story's done. No more explanation needed, right? Yeah. You completed it in your mind. We're done here. This is in the category of the simulation. Never disappoints us. The simulation continues to entertain. And here the simulation is provided. And not usually an unusually warm winter, both in the northeast and I think some parts of Europe, which means that the future prices of natural gas have plummeted. So natural gas that we thought was going to be a huge shortage and too expensive, and Putin was going to freeze Europe. Turns out Europe's going to have a warm winter, and so is parts of the United States that usually get cold. So demand is down. At least anticipated demand, which affects current prices and future Prices. And so Putin's strategy of freezing Europe looks like it's just not going to work. All right, how many of you believed that Europe would figure out a way to get through? I did. I used the Adam's Law of slow moving disasters. Now, this one was an edge case because it wasn't that slow moving. But we did see it a year in advance, didn't we? About a year in advance. People were saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, Putin's going to start turning off the energy. So it turns out that maybe six months of getting really serious about a really big problem was enough. Once again, team Human being pulls off a miracle, save for a problem we saw coming. Because we saw it coming. Every time we see it coming, we win. We have like a hundred thousand, you know, years of success. Maybe the early tribal people got wiped out by their neighbors and they saw that coming. So maybe it wasn't so good in the early days, but at least since my life, my lifetime, when you give humans a lot of Runway and they can see the problem clearly and they all agree what the problem is, we're insanely good at solving problems. It's just crazy how good we are. Now, some of it might be because the news likes to exaggerate how bad the problem is in the first place. So it's a combination of a great competence with maybe a little exaggeration. Here we are. It looks like we pulled it off. Now, how many of you have this prediction? I'll state the prediction. And tell me how many of you saw this coming. You probably saw this coming, right? If there's one thing that works against Russia's military, it's the weather. It's the frickin weather. The weather that, you know, the common belief, the common military belief about Russia is that the only way they can win a war is if it gets really cold. Am I right? How did Russia do in Afghanistan? Well, it turns out it wasn't cold enough, was it? But you know, if you got Napoleon attacking you, cold is going to help you out, right? So Putin's best defense, like the main thing that was protecting Russia was the weather. Now, so we have this story, it's in the Wall Street Journal, right? Big story, national story, that the weather is unusually warm. And because it's unusually warm, it may have solved one of our biggest global problems, which is what happens if Europe plunges into darkness and cold. So I was looking for stories that would connect the two. Big headlines, sort of missing because it seems to me that global warming is the reason that Europe will Survive, Right. Because all the experts told us that the reason it's unseasonably warm is not because sometimes it's unseasonably warm like it always is. You know, things fluctuate. No, it's not that. The experts will tell you that whatever you see, that's sort of, you know, non standard, whatever that non standard thing is, even though there's lots of non standard things, you know, that they're going to write an article saying maybe they'll not conclude, but wouldn't you expect to see an article that says climate change saves Europe? Or does it? Sometimes they do the is it true stories. Did climate change save Europe? And then the experts say, well, there's no way to know. Right? Because when you get to the experts, if you dig down in the story, it's always going to be, well, there's disagreement, no way to know. But you tell me that you wouldn't have seen that story if the warm weather had made it worse for Ukraine, right? If the warm weather had somehow made it worse for Ukraine's military defense, that would be the only story the story would be, damn it, climate change has also made Ukraine lose the war. But because it might help Ukraine win the war, there's no problem with that. Climate change, I don't see why you'd connect those stories together. That would be just crazy. All right, here's two more stories I'm going to connect together. The public schools in the US Lost more than a million students since the beginning of the pandemic. Now that's as population is increasing, I assume even with population increase, there was an overall decrease of a million kids. And so some schools are like shutting, shuttering buildings and they've got funding problems as well as excess capacity, but so they have two problems. Excess capacity plus, there's always a funding problem everywhere. But at the same time, the schools, the public schools are saying we have too much capacity. We also have immigration crisis. What's one of the biggest complaints about the immigration crisis? It's putting a strain on schools. It turns out the schools, they have a strain of not enough kids. So, so we're adding the strain of extra kids. At the same time, we have a strain of extra buildings and extra capacity. It's kind of perfect. It's kind of perfect now. Yeah, I get it. The extra immigrants are not always where the extra capacity is. Right? But the Republican mayors or the Republican governors are trying to solve that by bussing their immigrants. So everybody gets a, gets a share. Now this, of course, does not solve the Funding problem. Public schools might be underfunded, and that's a pretty big burden. But is it not worth noting that school capacity in public schools may not be impacted as much as you thought? Am I allowed to say that immigration is a gigantic problem and I believe we should control the border? Absolutely. And then make smart decisions about how much to open the door and when? So I'm very much. I'm like a maniac on strong borders. But if you're worrying about the capacity at the schools might not be as much as you think. Right. Some schools will be over capacity, some will be under. But it's just not as bad as it could have been. All right. I'm so proud of you. I am so proud of the people watching this right now, because I was sure you were going to be blaming me for being an open border person, and I see that you. I've somehow managed to do the impossible. I somehow managed to have created an audience that can handle nuance and can handle looking at both sides. How about this for you? Seriously? I don't know. Sometimes you can't tell when I'm joking. Totally serious. I'm very impressed right now. Absolutely impressed. Because the usual thing just isn't happening. Good for you. Good for you. All right. The New York Times sports Twitter site did a tweet and said this about the Dana White and his. His slapping contest with his wife there three days after TMZ published a video of UFC President Dana White slapping his wife at a nightclub. Neither the UFC nor its most important partners is signaling that any meaningful consequences are coming for White. Huh. So. So the tweet says after he slapped his wife that nobody's going to do anything about it. Huh? Is there any other way that that headline or tweet could have been rewritten? That would be true. Totally true. But maybe capture the situation, I don't know, a little bit more adequately. Well, I took a shot at it. I took a shot at it. So here's what the New York Times sports tweet could have been an alternative headline. Three days after Dana White's wife attacked him, the public wonders why the victim of the attack has not yet been punished. Was there anything wrong with that? Did you see any factual problems with what I just said? He was the victim of the attack. Fact. She hit first. That's just a fact. What do you call somebody who is hit in. In an unprovoked way? The aggressor. No, we call that the victim. We call that the victim. Now, if the victim defends him or herself. Are they no longer the victim? I feel like they're still the victim. Because if somebody tries to kill you and you get lucky and you kill them instead, I think you were still the victim. They don't call the person that you killed in self defense as the victim, do they? I think they call that the perpetrator who had a bad day. That's a. That's a perpetrator with a bad day. His wife is a perpetrator who had a bad day. She perpetrated a physical act. He ended it very efficiently and quickly. And neither of them were obviously trying to hurt each other. Now if any of this situation looked to any of us like either of them actually wanted to hurt the other, whole different situation. But that didn't happen. I watched the video. You watched the video. It was obvious they both. It's obviously she couldn't hurt him. He's a big guy, right? There was no way she could hurt him. And it was obviously he held back and he just gave her sort of something similar to what she gave him. So obviously both of them were trying to avoid any kind of serious danger. Been married for 26 years. They're both good with each other. None of our business. None of our business. But you know what is really messed up? This New York Times sports tweet. Imagine treating the victim as the perpetrator and wondering why the victim. The victim wondering why the victim wasn't punished. And I read this like this is okay, like there's no sense of embarrassment. They just put that out there. Like that's just a normal thing to say, that the victim should be, you know, what's wrong with punishing the victim more? Why isn't that victim more punished? All right, here's a story that is tragic, but also funny. Is that my fault? If a tragic story is also funny, is that always my fault? No, sometimes I'm just the victim of that. I'm a victim. I'm a victim of two coincidences. A tragedy story that's also funny. The report is that a Russian sausage tycoon made his money in sausage. And he was also a lawmaker, but he was a sausage tycoon and lawmaker. He dies after a three story fall in India. And I believe he was also a critic of Putin's military action in Ukraine. So this poor sausage tycoon. Because, you know, sometimes I don't know if you've ever been to a hotel, if any of you ever been to a hotel that a balcony, you go on the balcony and the balcony Is, I think, about 4ft tall by law. And it's so dangerous. You go out there and that balcony hits you about here, and if you're walking fast, you're like, whoa, right over it. And then you die. Or you'll just be standing there, you'll slip right over the balcony. Or let's say you're. You're pouring a drink, and, like, something slips out of your hand, and you reach for it over the balcony, and then you fall right over the balcony. I mean, if you've ever been near a hotel, you've seen the number of people falling off the balconies, have you not? I mean, it looks like 9, 11. You just stand there for 10 minutes. It's like watching a. Like a meteor shower. Like, it's not every moment, but you just stand down a big hotel. You'll see people dropping. All right, it's been a while. Okay, there's another one. So it makes perfect sense. And I see nothing suspicious about the story that yet another critic of Putin has fallen out of yet another hotel window, because we all know how common it is. I mean, probably you've barely survived some falls on hotel windows yourself, I'm guessing. Now, why do you think the sausage tycoon was a critic of Putin's military action in Ukraine? What would a sausage maker know about war that involves sending lots of poorly trained conscripts into sort of a very heavy military? You know, bullets are flying and bombs are going off, and they're. They're conscripts, so they're not, like, expected to win. They're. They're sometimes called other names, some, you know, diminishing their importance. But he's a sausage maker. How. How could a sausage maker. How could a sausage maker have anything to add to the Ukraine? Oh, okay, I get it. Yeah. Ukraine is actually a sausage maker. Turns out he was actually the most qualified person to look at that situation and give you an opinion. So if you want to know about Ukraine, talk to the sausage makers that have not fallen off of hotel balconies. And I believe there's still a few. Still a few sausage makers who are clinging to the balconies and not yet died. Now, here's another thing. If you're going to kill yourself, because I think it might have been labeled no foul play. If you're going to kill yourself, a third story window is the way to do it, isn't it? A lot of people would go up higher to guarantee that they don't survive, because you wouldn't want to survive that there Wouldn't be much left to you. But I like that the sausage maker, he's so precise that he just. He only goes up as far as he needs to, because three stories, that's just a good solid 75% of the time you're going to be deceased. 25% of the time, you'll just be crippled for life. But this sausage maker just knows how to do it right. Maybe he stuck the landing and maybe he stuck the landing, went head first, you know, so could have been an Epstein situation where, you know, it's hard to imagine how he could die, you know, jumping off the bed. It's hard to imagine. But if you have somebody really skilled, they can pull it off. Like a sausage maker, for example. So it's bad to be a sausage maker. We learned from the Twitter files, Matt Taibbi reporting, that Adam Schiff's office asked Twitter to remove some journalists that Schiff didn't like, and they were journalists looking into the Russia collusion hoax. So this really happened that a member of the government, a senator, his office actually asked Twitter to get rid of the people who were investigating the hoax he was playing on the country. They asked Twitter to get rid of somebody who was investigating a hoax that really happened. Right. That was a real thing that happened. Now, is Adam Schiff already drummed out of the Senate? Nah, nah. That's normal business for the Senate. You know, I keep hearing Tucker Carlson saying as clearly as he can that he is completely aware of the corruption in Congress. As in, he can name names. He knows what. They're corrupt for what they're doing. And I have a feeling that there are a lot of people who live and work in that. That life. They probably all know the names, too. You know, it's just not Tucker's job to, you know, turn up, turn a rumor. But everything you thought about Adam Schiff was true, it turns out. All right, there's a nasty story about Republican Matt Schlapp. What's his official job? He's not an elected official. He works for the. Does he just work for the Republican National Committee rnc? Okay. He's a prominent UCV a lot. Now, the Daily Beast that I'm going to start by saying report no credibility in this report. Not saying it's not true. I'm not saying it's false. I'm saying that the source we don't have a name for is described in general, but we don't have a name for. There are no other witnesses. So you have an anonymous source. In a political moment, and he's a political guy and it's reported by the Daily Beast. That's everything that signals a fake story. Would you agree that's every element that you expect the story to be debunked later? Fake story, right. I mean, it's a very non credible source. Now, I want to be clear. I don't know what happened and what didn't happen. Would you agree that. I'm not talking about what happened that's unknowable. I'm only talking about whether it's believable based on the source. It's not believable. It is not even a little bit believable. Remember, innocent until proven guilty, and you need evidence to be proven guilty. Now there. If some evidence ever comes available, I will speak to it. But right now, you and I don't have any evidence. You and I have a non credible publication from a anonymous source. That is always the lowest level of believability and the least likely thing to turn out to be true. Right. Now you may notice a pattern which I'm defending all citizens against all accusations because somebody needs to. I just feel like it's a public service, like somebody needs to take the hit because, you know, nobody likes it if you defend somebody, especially somebody who's unpopular. Right. Nobody likes it. So I'll take the hit. I'll be the. What do you call it? The public defender. So he's absolutely innocent. And there is literally no credible evidence to say he's not. So that's my starting point, however. So he's blamed for trying to fondle the crotch of some staffer for Herschel Walker. So Herschel Walker's staffer, one of them was driving and they were in a car and allegedly somebody tried to fondle his crotch or he tried to fondle somebody's crotch. Now it doesn't sound real, does it? Like even the accusation. Because the accusation is not that he grabbed once and then and then was rebuffed. The accusation is that after being rebuffed, he kept grabbing. Really? I mean, you know, guys are dumb. But everything about the stories sounds wrong, doesn't it? All right. However, because we live in a simulation, I'm sure I have to note the schlab's name. Half of his actual last name is Lap. So if you were going to start a rumor that wasn't true, here's how to do it. To start a rumor that isn't true, you start with some stuff that maybe people were suspecting a little bit. So Schlapp's married with Kids. And. Anyway. Anyway, that's all I've got to say about that. There's just no credibility to the story. But we'll keep watching. All right. What's the difference between audience participation and audience manipulation? So let me tell you what gets you blocked really fast in my world. I like audience participation. So I like the comments, and I like when people suggest ideas, and I like when you give me information, when you send me links to stuff. Great. Especially ideas for the comic strip. Great. And can I take a moment? I'd like to welcome all the Clockbirds. There aren't as many today, but the few that are there shout out to the Clockbirds. Thanks for the fans. All the fans coming in. Cope. Cope. Anyway, here's an example of a tweet I got today. And you tell me, is this audience participation or audience manipulation? Scott, man, pull it together. You're better than this. There are many of us who respect you and would like to be able to continue doing so. Don't ever do that. Don't ever be that person. Here's what I never want anybody to tell me, Scott, you're better than this. No, I'm not. No, you are what you do. You are what you do. If I did something, I'm not better than that. That's exactly what I am. Now, you might like it, you might not like it, but it's exactly who I am because I did it. The only thing I am is what I do. I'm not my internal thoughts. I'm not my wishes and dreams. I'm just what I do. So don't tell me I'm better than what I did. You cannot be better than what you did because what you did is who you are. Secondly, there are many of us who respect you and we'd like to be able to continue doing so. I am never going to let your decision about what is respectable influence what I do, because I have my own, like, little foldy gray thing in my skull, and I get to make those decisions. I and I alone will decide what I do, and then you and you alone will decide how you receive it. But what you won't do is tell me what I should do based on how you might receive it in the future. That's not a thing. Nope. Nope. And I'm trying to do this without using the F word. I know, I know. Usually this is where I go in hard. I'm trying to stay GP as much as I can. 2023. I don't know if I could pull it off, but I'm trying really hard. Yeah, I don't really care about one troll's respect. I enjoy respect. Should I earn it and should I receive it? I'm definitely gonna like it. But no, don't tell me to dance. Oh, man, I almost can't do it without the F word. It's like the F word was designed for this. This exact discussion. All right, but I guess I made my point. The Mexican defense forces are attacking the. One of the cartels, the Sinaloa cartel. I guess they picked up El Chapo's son, who is the head of that. That caused a war. The cartels attacked military. The military is attacking them. So we saw some videos of. Looked like Mexican gunships firing down on cartel positions. Now, when you see that, how do you interpret it? Do you interpret it as this? Looks like the Mexican government is finally getting serious about going after the cartels because they've never employed this much military weapons against the cartels. So is this a sign that they're. Now they're going to another level? What would be another explanation for it? Yes. Thank you. One cartel owns the Mexican army, and it's not this one. To me, it looks far more likely that it's one cartel got over on the army and is using it to take out the competition. It looks like they're taking out the competition. Now, it could be just a response to the fact that the. Well, actually, no, it just looks like. It just looks like that. Now, surely the America has been pressuring them to get the head of the cartel. So maybe they just did that because of American pressure and that they didn't want to be in this at all. So that's a possibility. Yeah. So I don't believe anything about the Mexican military attacking the cartels at all. All right, here's a provocative question. Somebody who is trans. And before I talk about trans topics, I like to remind you I'm very pro trans, far more than any of you watching here today, under the theory that everybody's different and they get to decide what their life looks like. Now, the stuff with children that gets into other issues about parental control and who makes decisions and what's reversible and what's not and all that. But I'd like to make a more general comment about the whole area. Right. Without getting into the specific things which are important. They are important. But today, would it be fair to say that the trans community are people who, at least at one point there was a, let's say, conflict or a difference between what their physical body was and what Their mind was. Would that be fair, gender wise? That their mind would be one gender, their bodies would be the opposite, and that's. Is that bigoted? Because it might be like accidentally or something. Is there anything about that that is like opposite of what the trans community would want you to think about them? That's. That's still fair, right? It's just a difference between the body and the mind. Are we right? Because this is important. I need to make sure I'm right on that. Okay? Now if that's the difference, the way that they try to solve that in some cases, but not all, is through physical manipulation of the body to get the body and the mind both on. Both on target. But here's the question. If somebody started a business as a hypnotist and said, I'm going to offer the following service, I'm going to make your mind compatible with your body instead of the other way around. So I know your mind says you're whatever, but with your consent, we'll fix your mind so that you're happy with your body and they're both the same. Now, could it be done? Yes, yes, yes. You could in fact reprogram somebody to a different gender preference? Not everybody. Not everybody. So that's the first thing you need to know. It couldn't possibly work on everybody and not everybody would be better off from it. Right. So this has to be said clearly. I don't believe that everybody's worse off if they transition. I don't believe that. I believe that some people do it and they're happy about it, and they're always happy about it. I just don't know the percentage. I'm not sure anybody does. But I'm just asking from a pure, mechanical, practical sense, if two things are out of whack and the problem is that they're out of whack, the problem isn't that you're the wrong gender. Right? Like nobody's saying boys are evil or girls are evil in this context. We're just saying that they're out of whack. So would it be bigoted to suggest that the software could be adjusted to match the hardware, when generally we only think of changing the hardware to match the software, would there be anything ethically or morally wrong? Now, this assumes the person is volunteering for this therapy. I'll call it therapy. You could call it something else. But would it be wrong? And I can guarantee it would work for some people while also guaranteeing it definitely wouldn't for other people. I just don't Know the percentages. But let's say it's a small percentage. Say it would work for 10% of the people. I don't know, maybe that's high, maybe it's low, but let's say it was. Would it be illegal? I think it would be illegal, wouldn't it? Because under our current concept, we believe that the mind is the important one and the body is just an accessory. Right? So if the mind is the important one, you don't want to mess with that. But I say we change our minds all the time. You're not the same person you were. Your mind is not the same one you were born with. Literally, cells have been replaced, folds and architecture of your brain has grown. You've learned things, you've had experiences. It's got trauma in it. You're definitely not the same brain you were born with. And if you don't think I could change as a hypnotist, if you don't think I could change somebody's gender identity through hypnosis, somebody in the comments is just saying, stop it, Scott, over and over again. Stop what? Could you be less useful than that? Welcome to all the Clotberts. So if you've seen the Clotberts talking, those are my fans who like to like to use their clever nickname. And you should know that their call sign is Cope. Cope. All right, Well, I thought I would generate more pushback than that. But would you agree with the statement that it would be illegal if somebody tried doing it, or somebody would try to make it illegal right away? Because I think what would happen is, here's the problem. It questions their mind instead of their body. I don't know if you're allowed to question somebody's mind in our woke world. I don't think you question somebody's mental state, but if they ask you to change it, I don't know. That seems fair to me. All right, let's see. I would like to go to the whiteboard now for what I call the NPC Explainer. Now, as you know, I speculate that we live in a software simulation, like a game, and that some of us are authors and players in the game and others are just scenery NPCs. And I'm looking for a way to identify the NPCs. I'm not sure I have it yet, but it's a double whiteboard time. See, I forgot what was on the side. Oh, okay. So I've been talking to a lot of people who disagree with me on a lot of things, and Here seems to be a basic difference between an NPC and a player during a period where there's, let's say, a new headline, but you don't know what is true and what is not yet, let's say, I call that the fog of war. So in the earliest days, this is the time scale. So in the earliest days of any big event, the NPCs start out certain, and then they just stay that way. The players are gathering information and they're starting uncertain. And over time, their, their level of confidence increases. They may never reach the level of certainty, but, you know, statistically, they're a little more confident, a little more likely. But the NPCs, they start out completely confident and stay that way. Now, you might say to me, Scott, why does that happen? Like, why would the NPCs be completely confident without actual data or science? Well, I can answer that. That's why we have two sides of a whiteboard, because this is what logic and science looks like to an npc. They use instead of, instead of waiting for data and science, which is unreliable. I think we all know that science has been a mess lately. So the NPCs are doing the best they can in a world in which the data that we get is useless. So I have great sympathy or empathy, I guess I have great empathy for the NPCs because they live in a world where you can't believe the science, frankly, you just can't believe it. So they do the best that they can. So they use their common sense, they use pattern recognition, and this is what they tell me. So this is from feedback on the Internet, because I asked them, how can you be so certain without the information yet? And they go, oh, yeah, we've got our pattern recognition, our common sense, we have our wisdom and experience. These are words they use. They've got their instincts and their gut feel. Now they also look at studies as information comes out, and they pick the ones that agree with them, call those the good ones. And then when there's a study that disagrees with them, they call that a poor study. Now, is that an insult to NPCs? Is there anybody else you could think of, any other group that's not an NPC that only believes the studies that agreed with what they already thought? What would be an example of some other class of people who does that? Everybody. Scientists. That's what scientists do. The entire story of the pandemic was scientists looking at studies that agreed with them and then saying, those are the good ones. That's Just what we experience. There's no difference between the NPCs and the scientists. On the question of, do you promote the studies that agree with you? Have you seen the rogue doctors, Dr. McCullough, Dr. Malone, when they tweet a study, is there ever a study that disagrees with their opinion? I haven't seen it. Have you ever seen that? No. Every expert only picks the studies that agree with them. It's no different if you're an NPC or a scientist. Now, I know what you're thinking, Scott. Scott, science is a whole system that maybe somebody could try to get away with something in the short run, but you're going to catch them with your peer review. You're going to catch them with other people. Look at the data. You're going to catch them when the study is reproduced and they can't reproduce it. So yes, I get it, Scott. Sometimes scientists can be a little biased themselves, but over time. Over time, science will drive out the bias. Did that happen? Is that what you saw in the pandemic? Nothing like that happened. No, nothing like that happened. It was all political and cognitive dissonance and everything else. So if you think I'm insulting the NPCs because they pick the studies that agree with them. Nope, that's just normal. That's just normal. How about the data that agrees with the same thing? Whether it's a study or data, everybody accepts what they agree with. And then I've been told repeatedly that they got the right answer because they believed the, let's say the rogue outcast, canceled doctors. And they said that's a group that is more reliable. So the reason I got it right is because I believe the rogue doctors were fighting against the mainstream. All right, now what would you collectively. Is there any word that you can think of that would collectively would capture the logic and science and decision making of an npc? What would be one word you think I'll let Lay see it? What? One Stubborn. Fun. What do you think? And the clot birds can play too. You just have to use the word clot in every. In every answer. So the clot birds, you should always just say clot and then your opinion confirmation. Contrarian ego. Okay, I have a suggestion. Here's another word that captures all of this process. Magical thinking. Magical thinking? Yeah. It's the opposite of rational thinking. Do you know what common sense is? Common sense is magical thinking. If common sense were an actual thing, we would all agree. We wouldn't have any discussions if common sense were real. It's not real. How about pattern recognition? Well, I guess you wouldn't even need science, would you? Why would you need science? You just use your pattern recognition. Pattern recognition can tell you something's up. And it can also be seriously misleading. All of confirmation bias is from pattern recognition. The operating system of human beings is confirmation bias. It's not truth, it's confirmation bias. And confirmation bias is because we think we see patterns. But there are patterns everywhere. The world is mostly false patterns. Something that's a coincidence. And it's just that. That's all it is. So that's magical thinking. Wisdom and experience is just other words for these things. It's just magical thinking. And how about instinct or gut feel? Magical thinking. Do you know why science was invented? Science was invented because none of this is real. That's the whole point of science. If you could figure out what was real without science, if you could just use your common sense and your pattern recognition and your wisdom and experience and you got feel, well, then that would be science. That's what we would use. The reason we don't use these things is that they're not real. These are the things that people think are real. The illusion, the magical thinking. So the NPCs start with magical thinking and then it never stops. So that's how they can be certain in the fog of war, because they use magical thinking and that works everywhere. So actual rational scientific thinking is useless in a fog of war because you can't trust any of the data. So the actual players, they know they can't make any decision because they can't trust the data. And then maybe over time, the process creates some clarity. Now what do you do if you can't trust the science and you can't trust the data and you can't trust your common sense? What is the best way to play it? How would you play it if you believed you just couldn't trust any of these methods? Probability. Thank you. Yeah, observation and probability. So observation is a good answer too. Sometimes you just describe it. So I try to do that when it's just a fog of war. I just describe what people are saying. I don't believe it. And I tell you not to believe it. I tell you that often. Don't believe it. It's just what's reported. Right. So the Schlapp story is a perfect one. So the accusations against Schlapp are fog of war. And the NPCs are sure they know there are probably some NPCs watching. How many of you know what's true? With the Mattish lab story, just admit it. Just say, you know, you know it did happen, or you know it didn't happen. Do you. Do you know, at best, it's a calculation, right? So everything, everything about the pandemic. Anybody who talks about the pandemic in terms of certainty is an npc. And using magical thinking, everybody who talks about it in terms of likelihoods and odds and playing, taking their best chance and guessing while simultaneously trying to improve the quality of their understanding of their data, those are probably thinking people. Those are people who have some rational capability. Humans are limited in their rational capability, but they would be among the better ones. So this rule of thumb is so good. This would be the best rule of thumb about the pandemic. Everybody who talks in certainty is an npc. You don't even have to have a conversation with them. Now, some of you speak in certainty because it's sort of a shortcut. It's easier than saying, Well, I think 90% chance, right? So we all do that. But once you get into the conversation, that's when you can add your nuance. It's like, okay, I think there's a 90% chance this is true. And then somebody can say, okay, that's rational. I might disagree with the 90%, but I like the fact that you're treating it as a likelihood or a percentage. Right. That's where rational people end up. Now, how good are people at predicting the future? Generally speaking, how good are people at predicting the future? Some are decent. That's the answer I was looking for. Yeah, the answer I was looking for was that some people are really good at it. Yeah. How many of you believe that? How many people believe that some people are good at predicting the future? No, that's not a thing. That's absolutely not a thing. That's an illusion in the world of finance, the finance world is gigantic. And there's nothing that would be more valuable. Literally nothing. Literally nothing would be more valuable than being 1% better at predicting the future than the other people. Nothing could make you richer than being 1% better than the average of the other people. And yet. Doesn't happen. Doesn't happen because it's all guessing. Even in the most, you know, sort of logical world of finance, it's still just guessing. If you think that anybody knew what was going to happen at the beginning of the pandemic, you should never talk in public. You should never talk in public. If you say you knew what was going to happen, nobody knew. You can make some reasonable guesses, but Good luck. One of the predictive methods I use is, as you know, the, the Adam's Law of slow moving disasters, which may be among the reasons that, you know, Europe will not freeze this winter. So that's actually pretty dependable among the predictive methods. I think that's pretty good. But that wouldn't be necessarily a case of me being good at predicting, would it? It's more like I discovered a rule that's good for everybody. Like, that's not really me predicting. I mentioned it a lot. But everybody who's heard of the Adam's Law of slow moving disasters and everybody who's seen how many times it predicts is just a tool. You can say, oh, there's a tool that seems to work a lot, not every time, but I'll use that tool to predict. So if you, if you made that prediction, you did pretty well. For example, at the beginning of the pandemic, we thought the supply chains might completely crash, where I was saying publicly every day, Nope. The law of slow moving disasters states that we all see the problem so that we'll do miraculous things to adapt so we don't starve to death. And that's what happened. That's what happened. Now the supply chains got crushed, but. But we all ate and we waited a little while to get car parts and stuff and prices went up, but we basically figured it out. Yeah, Y2K. Same thing. Right. So I would say don't listen to people. People can't predict. Sometimes you can find a tool or like a rule that does a better job, but that's not a person. That's sort of a rule. Right. Then the other way you can sort of predict is assuming that people will always be people, meaning that selfishness and self interest are usually behind most things. But is that really, you know, somebody being brilliant in their prediction or is it just a rule of life that has a pretty good track record? Yeah, that's not about people. That's about a rule that does a pretty good job. How about this one? Here's a tough one. The government is implementing a new program. I don't even know what it is. The government is implementing a new program. Is it going to work? Will it work? Pattern recognition, common sense, experience, observation. Right. So all of you are on the same page. It will work. But let me ask you this. Has the government ever ruled any programs that work? Yes, lots of them. What's the percentage of programs that worked to programs that didn't work? What's the percentage? I don't know. Beats Me. But what if you're saying there's 100 chance that the government rolled it down so it won't work? I don't think that's backed by any observation. I think the government has probably a better track record than a startup. And a lot of things that the government does are being done for the first time ever. So if you compare it to a startup, probably 20% success, would you say? I think the government is maybe 20% successful on new things, but they're also good at hacking on the new thing until it's better. Right. The first thing that the government does is kind of sketchy, and then they adjust and improve over time. So I don't know. Can you use any rules of thumb? I mean, statistically, it's the best you can do. So do away with your certainty. Do away with your certainty. There are some rules that seem to predict and just identify those. But if you think there's a person who can predict, I mean, I've, you know, I put my record against anybody's, but I don't even, even. I don't know if I can. For example, I don't know if the next time I predict something, I'll get it right. Here's the problem. I wrote about this in my book God's Debris. Imagine if you were a penny, like a coin, a little coin that people flip. And suppose you had consciousness, but you have no arms and legs and you're just a penny. So you can't move on your own, but, you know, you do move. Like you're aware that you move because people pick you up and they move and they flip you. Now, let's say, you know, somebody's getting ready to flip you and you say to yourself, you're a penny. You have no arms and legs. You're just a penny. And you say, all right, I'm going to make myself come up heads this time. Heads. And then the person human flips you and comes up heads. What do you say? What. What would be your interpretation of what just happened? You're a penny. You said, I'm going to try to be heads, and then you came up heads. No, you would not interpret that as lucky. No, you would think you did it. You would believe. No, you wouldn't believe. You guessed it. You would believe. You made it happen. You would believe you made it happen. You wouldn't believe you guessed it. Now let's say it does a second flip and you get it just a second time, you know, which is not that unusual, right? Getting two in a Row, not that unusual. Like, what is it, 25%. So let's say you get it twice in a row. Now, what do you think? Now, you know you're keosing, don't you? Because you're a smart little petty. You see the pattern, it's a pattern. You've only been asked twice and both of them you got right, there's a pattern. Or you might say, God has intervened. Let's say you're thinking, heads, I want to come up heads, but it comes up tails. What would you say then? Well, if you're a religious penny, you might say, that's what I wanted, but God is teaching me a lesson, so probably that's more important. Yeah, I could definitely make myself come up heads or tails. Unless, you know, God intervenes because he wants to teach me a lesson. So when it was all done, do you think that the penny would think it had free will and could control which way it came up? Yeah, it would. It would think that it could control it. It would think that when it didn't work that, you know, God or somebody else was intervening. That's you and me. We're just the penny. When we get it right, we think it's because we're awesome. When we get it wrong, we say, well, something happened there that, you know, nobody could have seen that coming. I'm within politics. I'm most famous for having guessed that Trump would become president in the first time. Now, is that because I'm extra good at predicting? Well, let me ask you this. If I had been wrong, would you have remembered that I even predicted, if I had been wrong, would you even remember? Nope. Nope. So there's a, there's a survivor thing going on. You remember me because I got it right. Do you think I get everything right? I mean, I do like my track record, but I'm probably just biased about it. There's nobody who could predict the future. That's just not a thing. Now, the places that I've had success are because I had special information that just wasn't available to other people. In the case of Trump, my special information is that I've studied persuasion so I could see that he had superior talent. It was kind of invisible if you didn't study that world. So I had a special case. There are a few other cases where I have a special case benefit. For example, when we heard that the embassies were being attacked by a secret sonic weapon, I said, nope, in the future you will never find a weapon. The reason I did that is I have, I Have extra information because I've studied mass hysterias, so if you study them, you could spot this one right away. Why? Well, it's a pattern. That's the other side. I guess it's a pattern, but not one that's always right. So if I told you I have 100% certainty there will never be a sonic weapon found, that would be insane. I couldn't possibly know that. But I can know that this looks just like other mass hysterias, that once it gets in people's head, they feel symptoms, they attribute the symptom to that and they get talked into it. So it's only because I had special, little special insight that I could get one right. It's very unusual, so I'm not sure you would count that. So, the Clapberts, thank you again for making our show more lively. And I think let's all cope. You missed the Biggie. Covid and Vax respective dangers. Nobody can predict whether the Vax or the COVID will be worse in the long run. How many of you think you could? How many of you believe that? With current information, let's exclude people under 65 because the data is turning pretty negative for younger people. But for people over 65, do you think you could predict that the future potential complications of the vaccine are going to be worse or better than whatever protection it gave you from dying? I don't think you can. I don't think at this point we could predict that you end up defaulting to rules of thumb, like, oh, the government always gets it wrong and the big pharma is always trying to screw us. And statistically, it's good. All right. Truth. Thank you for being the best clotter of them all. The best clot birds. And I appreciate you coming. Thank you for boosting my signal and showing the people that I have a fan base. I appreciate it. All right. Clotters assemble for travel. Would you give government biometric data to travel? Why would I care? I already did. I use the clear system for traveling. That's where you. It takes your eye, takes a picture of your eye, so you don't need ID the same way. After that, you just look into it and it tells you you're okay. That's biometric information. I've also given my fingerprints. So my fingerprints are in the government system because I once owned a restaurant. If you own a restaurant, the government has to fingerprint you. Did you know that? Did you know you can't own a restaurant without getting fingerprinted by the government? If you serve alcohol yeah, if you serve alcohol, you get fingerprinted by the government. So, yeah, I've already given my stuff. Now I wonder if. I wonder if they have my DNA. Oh, yeah, right. My DNA is in 23andMe, which apparently the government has access to if it needs it. So the government has access to my DNA, my fingerprint, my retinal scan, all of my medical information. I suppose they could get it if they had to. All of my banking, all of my location, and all of my. All of my communication. How many of you are worried about losing your privacy? You lost your privacy so long ago. Your privacy disappeared long ago. The only privacy you have, and I say this all the time, the only privacy anybody has, is to be uninteresting. That's it. The moment you're interesting to either the government or to the public, boom, privacy gone. You have no defense except being boring. That's it. So that's why I differ from you when we talk about, let's say, vaccine, passports, which I oppose, by the way. I oppose them. But I did not oppose them because that would be the way we lost privacy. Because to me, that conversation is already over. You already lost your privacy. Now, does it make sense to make it easier? Like put it in an app so that the government can just, like, turn off all your banking if they're mad at you? They could already do that. The government could already turn off your banking. All of it. They just have to want to now, making it a little bit easier. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, that does make a difference. If it's easier, they're more likely to do it. I will give you that. If it's easier, they're more likely. Because that's the friction argument, right? If you remove friction from something, you're always going to get more of it. If you add friction, you're always going to get less. So I like to be consistent with that. All right, speaking of Canada, are you all aware of the story of the Ontario College of Psychologists who are mad at Dr. Jordan Peterson because of things he has said on social media? And I thought I'd give him a little boost. This is weird. All right, let's see if I can find it. I'm looking for something here. Thought I'd give him a little boost with a Dilbert comic. And so this is a first draft, but in it, Dogbert is getting a notice from the. This is just first draft. So Dogbert's talking to Dilbert and Dogber says that the College of Psychologists of I'M going to change it to Ontario says they will pull my license unless I surrender to a re education camp. Now, the funny thing about this is that if you're not familiar with the story, this will look absurd. It will look like something that couldn't happen, but it's actually happening. Like in the real world that Jordan Peterson is actually being summoned to a re education camp so he can keep his license. Like it's actually a real thing. So that's what makes it a good Dilber comic. But then after Dogberg says that Dilber says, you don't live in Canada and you don't have a license to practice, then Dilber goes on, they are oddly aggressive for Canadians. And Dogber sips his drink and says, sounds like a. Sounds like a mental disorder. So now here's a little humor lesson. There are two ways to make humor. One is like, you know, classic setup and punchline. But another way is simply take something that's real that people are bothered by and just sort of play it out. Like, you don't have to add a punchline. You just sort of, where would it go? Like, if this just keeps going well, what would be one direction it could take? And then you have a joke. You just play it out like it's a real world. All right, ladies and gentlemen, that completes the organized part of my conversations here. Dr. Drew has some new information for me. Somebody says, okay, I'll check on that. What's a good reframe for physical activity? Good reframe for physical activity? I wouldn't. It's the systems versus goals. So the reframe for both diet and exercise are to not treat them as goals, treat them as systems. A system is something you do every day that you're slowly moving toward your objective. So you'll see lots of description of how to build a exercise and diet system that makes it easy. So you want to get rid of your willpower. So a system will get rid of your willpower and just turn things into habits so you're just automatically doing the right thing. So read my book that you can't see how to fail at Almost Everything and still went big right there. And that has a chapter each on diet and fitness. What's that? Why did the simulation make Scott so afraid of a head cold? What made you so afraid of shots? One of the funniest NPC things I get is that people tell me that my decision to get, my decision to take a insufficiently tested new technology is because of my fear. I'll just say it Again, this is actually people who could live and people who live and walk and can work and stuff. And they actually believe that the person who took the risky experimental treatment primarily for the benefit of other people, because, remember, at the time we still believed it might stop the spread. So part of my contribution to society was I thought, huh, maybe it won't make much difference to me, but if I take this dangerous, potentially dangerous shot, I might be good for other people. And that's what you call being afraid. So doing something that's extra, extra dangerous, according to you, is the sign of somebody being afraid. So you have to figure out which of the two you want to be. If you want to say it was a scary shot that everybody should have known would be dangerous, you can't also say I'm a coward for doing the thing you're afraid of. You could say it was the wrong choice. And you might be right, you might be wrong. We might have a debate there. You can certainly say you believe it's the wrong choice. But to say that I did the scariest thing, the thing that scares you so much you won't even consider it, that's how frightened you are. If I did the thing you're afraid of, why are you calling me a coward? You have to get your criticisms lined up. Either a brave person who made the wrong decision, I think that's the best you can do. You're calling my decision foolish? Really? So there's somebody here who just watched me explain that the NPCs were, had certainty and. And the rest of us were guessing. So how was it a bad decision? Was it because you used your pattern recognition and common sense and wisdom and experience instead of the science? It sounds like you missed the first part where I was mocking you. All right, I'm going to say goodbye to the. I guess. Hold on. Somebody says I guessed too soon. No, I said on day one, I don't know if I want this shot or I want to get Covid right. And there are hundreds of people will confirm this. I said out loud many times, I'm going to wait as long as possible to not make a decision so that I have as much information as possible. I also said that historically, most of the problems, like side effects of vaccinations happen soon after the vaccination. So that if I waited six months, which I did, or longer, I don't know, six months or so, if I waited six months, most of the danger would have already been surfaced, but not all of it. Can't be sure, right? And then When I made the decision is only because I could fly. So in other words, I made the same decision as Dr. Robert Malone at the same time he also got vaccinated to fly, because that's the only way you could fly internationally. And that's why I did it. And I believe we both waited until there was some force that made us get vaccinated because I had the option of doing a reasonable job of social distancing kids, never social distance, by the way, for those of you who said I was frightened to death of the virus, Just FYI, the kids and the wife, never social distance. Not even a little. They would get home from school or Zoom class or whatever, and they would just all get together with friends with no masks. Yeah, there was no social distancing in my house. We just pretended in public. We wore masks if it was easier than not wearing them, but it was all pretend. So if I had been afraid of the virus, I wouldn't have allowed unlimited unvaccinated people to interact with me. It was just happening every day. I didn't do anything even close to social distancing. And by the way, every everybody who says that social distancing didn't work, Nobody ever tried it. We didn't really try social distancing. There was a little social distancing theater, but once people got home, as soon as nobody was working, all the masks just got thrown on the ground. Yeah. No, nobody did any social distancing. There was a little bit of theater. That's about it. All right, I'll go say goodbye to YouTube for today, and I'll talk to the locals people for a little while.