Episode 559 Scott Adams: Google’s Brainwashing Technology Successes, Andrew Yang on Women

That was not my best version of the theme song right there. Not my best. But that means everything today is going to be straight up ill. All good news today, man. Got a lot to talk about. And it's all fun. It's all good stuff. Would you please grab your stein, your chalice, your tankard, possibly your glass, your cup or your mug, maybe a thermos or a flask, a vessel of any kind, fill it with your favorite liquid. I like coffee. And join me now for this simultaneous sip. Ah, sublime. Well, if you haven't noticed, the crypto news world is getting all excited because millionaire genius Eric Finman, who I believe is watching right now. Hi, Eric. Did a shout out to the Wen Token. My startups crypto. And now there's Chinese websites talking about it. It's on Yahoo. News, it's on a bunch of sites, and one word from Eric makes the world go crazy. So we had one of our biggest days. I think our biggest day in terms of trading was the moment that Eric mentioned it. So lots of stuff happening there. If you want yours, go to wenhub.com to buy it directly. Or you could maybe get a. Get a bargain if you go to Hotbit IO and trade it there. All right, that's enough of that. I'm running a poll right now on Twitter in which I'm asking people, is the fact that Democrats are favoring Joe Biden and saying that he has the best chance to win because that's the reason they're favoring him. The that fact they say he has the best chance to win. Is that not a racist dog whistle? It's sort of a sexist dog whistle. But is it not a racist dog whistle? I mean, according to the rules. I don't make the rules. The rules are created by the people I'm talking about, not by me, but by their definition. What could it possibly mean to say that he has the best chance of winning? Do they know that Cory Booker is running? Do they know that Kamala Harris is running? Do they know that Elizabeth Warren is running? Here's my question. Is there anybody who thinks that Joe Biden would do a better job in the office than any of the three people I just mentioned? Can anybody say that he would do a better job than one of those three people? I don't think so. So what is it that makes him the person who could win? Is it because he speaks better in public? Well, that's not true. Is it because he's younger and more energetic? No. Is it because of his experience? Well, unfortunately, his experience is sort of negative because he's got things in his past that were opposite of current Democratic thinking. Is it because he's so nimble as a politician? Well, no, he's the gaffe machine. If you were to look at any one of his qualities. Is it because he's the smartest? No. Is it because he has the best policies? Doesn't seem that way. So if he doesn't have any individual quality, quality that's better than the individual qualities of the people who are lower in the polls. What can we determine about Democrats? I think it's racist. And by the way, I'm not joking. Can you see it any other way? Because once I say it, you can sort of see it like it's invisible until the first time you hear it. But the fact that. The fact that he doesn't have any quality, that's better than, you know, the pack, and yet he's clearly the favorite, the only one who can win. I don't know what else he has, except he's an old white guy. Now, I know people are going to say name recognition, but name recognition is irrelevant in terms of who's going to be running against Trump, because by the time you get to the final, the final run, everybody has name recognition. Whoever Trump runs against is going to be really, really, really well known. So it doesn't matter. At this point, I can see why people would, you know, maybe vote for him because they haven't heard of the others at this point. It's one thing to say that he's getting the most votes because he has name recognition. That's not racist. Would you agree it's not racist to say somebody has more name recognition. That's just. You can do a poll, you can determine that. That's just a fact. There's no racism as part of that. But to take that to the next level and say he has the best chance of winning based on what? Based on the fact that a lot of Democrats are also racist and sexist. Is that what makes him better than all the people who are smarter, younger and more nimble and have policies that are more compatible? I don't know. Feels like racism to me. So I just put that out there because it's fun. So there's a New York Times article in which they've acknowledged that Google can brainwash citizens at will. Have you seen that? You know, I floated the idea the other day. Was it yesterday? In which you could have the social media platforms identify people who are starting to get radicalized by what they're watching and what they're typing and what they're saying and what they're responding to. And if you identified them sort of in a digital way, if the system identified them, you could, if you chose to start feeding them content that would deprogram any bad impulses. And I said, I'm pretty sure that we already have the technology that could do that. And it's confirmed, so the New York Times confirmed it, that Google does have the technology to identify what you're watching and reprogram your brain any way they want. It's a big article about it. Now. The context was not the way I just described it, but it says that pretty clearly. What it says is that there was some, I guess some liberal who got radicalized by watching a bunch of YouTube by people who were, let's say, associated with the right, but they're more edgy. And that once this person, the subject of the article, once that person was exposed to things that are from the right, sort of the Stefan Molyneux kind of stuff, that YouTube started suggesting things that were even further to the right. So YouTube actually reprogrammed this guy from watching fairly innocuous content. You know, the Steven Crowders, the Stefan Molyneux, they're provocative, but they're certainly not, you know, racist in any way that I would recognize that word. But YouTube was feeding this poor guy edgier, edgier racist stuff until he started watching it. So YouTube actually turned a non racist into a racist. And they, and they essentially admit that they have that technology. Think about it. YouTube through their algorithm, and according to the New York Times reporting, and according to the person they were talking about, actually brainwashed a liberal into a racist. That actually is what the reporting happened. Now you could ask yourself, you know, would, would that have happened anyway? You know, was he leading that way? And it wasn't really what he watched on YouTube. Maybe, maybe internally he was already going to go that way and it didn't matter, but I don't think so. I mean, that might be true for this individual, but I'm fairly certain that if they can cause you to watch different things based on the recommendation algorithm, they can reprogram you. Because what you watch is what you become. Did you hear that? What you absorb in terms of information and content is what you become. It does turn you into a different person. So think about that. Should it be legal for a platform to brainwash you? Let me put it in the starkest terms. It is now, I would say, demonstrated beyond any doubt that I have. And I think it would be easily demonstrated beyond any doubt that Congress would have if they looked into it. In fact, there's a critic, Tristan, you'll probably remind me of his last name, Tristan, whoever, who's worked on this kind of stuff and says directly that it's brainwashing people. Now, somebody says, isn't advertising brainwashing? The answer is it's a hybrid. When you watch an advertisement, you know what their intention is. Tristan Harris. Yes, that was the name I was looking for. When you see an advertisement, you know it's an advertisement. You know that somebody's trying to persuade you to buy a product and you can feel it working or not working, you know, in real time. That is brainwashing. Its influence is persuasion. You can put whatever word you want on it. But what's different is it's above board. They're saying, here's an advertisement. If you watch this, we're going to try to talk you into our product. We all get that, we understand it, it's ubiquitous. That doesn't seem evil simply because you have an option of turning away. And they're telling you exactly what it is. There's no deception whatsoever. But if YouTube is giving you a recommendation algorithm, that's taking you down a channel that you would not have gone, and the result of that is brainwashing, that's not full disclosure. That is them brainwashing you for profit. Because that's why they do it. They do it to measure. To measure how long you stay in the video, how many you click, that sort of thing. That is pure brainwashing. Now, why is that legal? Ask yourself why that's legal. Let me ask you this. If somebody had a brainwashing website in which they said, okay, I'm a hypnotist and I'm going to brainwash people coming here, and let's say it was above board, they said, I'm going to brainwash you. Would it be legal? I don't think it would. Now, I don't know what specific law that violates, but I think of an actual hypnotist had a site and said, I'm just brainwashing people. I'm reprogramming you people. I'll even tell you I'm doing it because it's still going to work and it would. Would that be legal? I've seen a number of cases where I thought I was going to find a site like that, and they seem to be banned in some way. There's some kind of ban against actually intentionally brainwashing people. Think about the Internet. If you do a search for somebody who says, okay, I'm going to brainwash you now, I don't think you'll find it, and you can find anything on the Internet. So I think there's something illegal about it, but I don't know the details. So if Congress, if Congress were presented with this proposition, how would they act? The proposition is that Google is intentionally brainwashing citizens without their consent. What would Congress do about that? Well, I don't know if that's even illegal. Is it illegal? Should it be illegal? Feels like it should be illegal, but I don't know. There's so much other influence in the world. Where do you draw the line? See, the problem is that influence used to be something that not too many people were good at. As long as people were not good at advertising. Yeah, you didn't notice that that much if people weren't good at manipulating you. Yeah, doesn't really matter because they weren't good at it anyway. But now we have the science. Google in particular has literally brain scientists looking at all this stuff to addict you to things which will cause you to be brainwashed by those things you're addicted to now. So we've taken a skill, persuasion, that was just sort of hit or miss, wasn't that powerful, and raised it to professional, you know, military level, literally. So at that point, that's just brainwashing. And I don't know how that remains legal, except maybe the Congress doesn't understand it or the public doesn't understand it. All right, so certainly we have. I think we have strong evidence that Google could brainwash people against violence if they chose to set their algorithms to do that. But we don't know if they will. Here's a question for you. I'm going to give you a. Oh, and also in that same article, I watched the continued conflation of the people on the far right. I don't even like to call them far right, but it's the people who are literally the KKK racist and stuff. And they get confl with YouTube stars that are just conservative. So the Crowders and the Molyneux, they inhabit kind of their own space, but New York Times likes to throw them in with the worst people in the world just to make it all sound like it's the same thing. But the worst part about this is they're talking about this kid who got a young guy who got radicalized by looking at YouTube videos, and they throw Joe Rogan into the bus. Joe Rogan. What has he got to do with anything? And here's the problem. And I saw this coming a mile away. Do you remember when you first heard the term intellectual dark web? And I guess. Was it Brett Weinstein who came up with it? I'm not sure who came up with it, but. But there was. There was a notion for a while that there was a certain group of people that they would put in this category. So Weinstein. Oh, Eric. I'm sorry. Not. Not Brett. Eric. Weinstein that, you know, Eric would be in. And Weinstein and I guess Jordan Peterson. And they threw Joe Rogan in there. And I don't know who else was there, but. But for a while, people were asking me, you know, do I belong in that group? And I. Yeah. And Sam Harris. And I resisted it with all of my power. The last thing I wanted to do, Dave Rubin. Yeah. He would be in the group usually considered in that group. The last thing that I would ever want is to be associated with a group. Doesn't matter what the group is unless I've intentionally joined because I didn't want to get the treatment that Joe Rogan just got. Joe Rogan is as far as you can get from whatever these bad ideas are that are being associated with the far right. I'm pretty sure he doesn't embrace any of that. But because he got lumped in. Here's how it works. He got lumped in with the intellectual dark web, which people have illegitimately conflated with being right wing, which then people continue to conflate illegitimately with being neo Nazis. See how this works? I can see this coming from a mile away, because when it first came up, I was like, no, no, no, I'm not in that group. Support poor Joe Rogan, who has done nothing but talk to some people. Literally. That's all he's done. He's talked to a few people who are in this intellectual dark web, and that gets him associated in an article with somebody who got radicalized into a neo Nazi. Is that fair? Is that fair to Joe Rogan? No, that's about as unfreaking fair as you could possibly get. It's like my head almost exploded when I. When I read that the New York Times was throwing Joe under the bus. I mean, there's the. I mean, that's despicable. There's no way. There's no other way to say that. You know, you want to call it news, maybe it's newsish, but it's despicable to do that sort of thing. It's Just despicable. All right, let's look at something else. Have you noticed that the Democrat candidates all look extra boring? Somebody says I'm next. I actually looked through the article to see if my name was there and it wasn't. So I had to read the whole damn article just to be sure. I had not been sucked into that intellectual dark web continuum until I was the most horrible person in the world. Anyway, so Trump has made all the Democrats look boring. And this is a bigger problem than you think, because if you're boring, it's just hard to get elected. When was the last time that the more boring candidate won the election? That's an honest question. I don't know the answer to my own question, which I should if I ask it in that kind of a way. Can you think of an example where the more boring candidate won't. Carter. Who did Carter run against anyway? So in our current media obsessed world, I don't think the boring candidate can win unless they have some other gigantic advantage. I don't know what that was or whatever that is. And I think that that's what's happening. Because wouldn't you say that both the left and the right are looking at the Democrats and it's this gigantic group of them and they're all saying they're boring? That's true. Right? Everybody agrees that there's not a single person. And how Many are there? 23. There's not a single person who isn't boring. What are the odds that you would have that many people running for president and they're all boring. And the answer is they're not. The answer is they're not boring at all. They're only boring because President Trump exists. If President Trump had never exist, would anybody be calling them boring? Right. If there had never been a candidate and then a President Trump, you would never hear that this group of Democrats were boring because they wouldn't seem that way to you. They would seem kind of interesting. Hey, look, there's Andrew Yang there, etc. All right, so I've got a. I have a thought experiment for you, and it goes like this. So I was talking about YouTube and apparently YouTube is now banning the most racist KKK Neo Nazi material on YouTube. And so all that material that's associated with being over the line is being banned. And apparently that's legal. They can ban it because it's hate speech and whatnot. But let me ask you this. What would happen if all of those, you know, the super racist people, whether they're white supremacists or whether the kkk, some group, neo Nazis. What would happen? What would happen if they formed a religion? What if they formed a religion around their most obnoxious beliefs? And then they went further and said, we don't believe in violence. Suppose they renounced violence as part of their religious platform and said, yes, we renounce violence, but we still want to believe all these things and talk about all these horrible racist things. Would they be protected because it was a religion? I think so. Right. And let's make it more interesting as a thought experiment. Let's say there was a country called Elbonia and the Elbonians had a religion that was super racist but not violent. Super racist, but they eschewed violence. Would they be allowed to immigrate to this country? Would we say, well, it's a religion, we don't like it, but you know, it's a religion. Would we allow them to the country? I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. But it's a brain bender. My favorite story is there are some comedians who are putting on a so called straight pride parade in Boston. Have you heard about this? Now forget about the politics of it because I don't think it's terribly important. But just the fact that they were doing it all is hilarious. So I thought that, I thought just the fact that somebody was trying to get away with this, I don't see it so much as a political act, as a political theater, you know, large scale prank, sense of humor kind of a thing. So I don't take it too seriously. But it does have a serious message. It's just that I don't take that part too seriously. But here's the fun part. They just named their grand marshal. Well, they did two things that are funny. The first thing they did was they used Brad Pitt's picture in part of their promotion until Brad Pitt, Brad Pitt's management called them and told them to stop doing it. And that gave them some extra press. So the first. So they've done two smart things so far. Smart in terms of pranks. First of all, having a straight pride parade in Boston is funny. Just off the right, off the bat, it's so wrong that it's funny. Then having Brad Pitt illegally using his face as some kind of an image for the thing is even more hilarious. And it's better because they got in trouble for it and then that became part of the story. So it was great for publicity. And by the way, I think Brad Pitt probably thought it was funny. But you have to take care of your image. You have to take care of business. But I can't imagine that Brad Pitt did anything but laugh when he heard it. He probably laughed and said, okay, I gotta stop this. But it's kind of funny. I'm just guessing. I'm just guessing from public, public perception of Brad Pitt that he looks like he has a sense of humor. That's all I'm saying. But then they went a step further and they named their grand marshal for the Straight Pride Parade, and they named him Milo Yiannopoulos, who accepted. So Milo Yiannopoulos, the gayest man in America, has been selected as the Grand Marshal of the Straight Pride Parade. I gotta hand it to him. I gotta hand it to him. Whoever is doing this parade thing, it's clearly for the laughs. They're doing everything that you would do to get the right kind of sort of humorous attention. And I don't have any thoughts about the politics of it, but the humor of it and the prank of it all, it's well done. That's all I'm saying. Let's talk about Andrew Yang. So Andrew Yang tweeted something that I retweeted. I think probably people thought I was, you know, maybe agreeing with his message, but that wasn't why I retweeted it. So I'm going to read what he said and then I think you'll know why I tweeted it. So this is Democrat candidate Andrew Yang talking about abortion. And he says the following in his tweet. Andrew Yang says, I respect the different feelings that Americans have on this issue, meaning abortion, but I would personally defer to women when it comes to protecting women's reproductive rights and will act to protect their rights. He will defer to women. Now, the way I read it, I think it's the correct way, is that he's not talking about the individual woman who's having the baby. That would be. I would defer to. You know, that would be one thing. I believe he's talking about women as a group being the primary decision makers for it. Now, some of you are saying it's a cop out, maybe, but it matches very well with my opinion. It's compatible because I've said something similar. But Andrew Yang leaves out the important part that makes my opinion brilliant and his opinion lacking a component. Are you ready for it? I'm going to tell you my opinion and then you can watch in the comments. Then nobody can understand what I'm saying. In fact, I might even take some calls to Prove this because it'll be fun. I'm going to say something super clear, but watch how you can't understand it. Now maybe my best estimate is a third of you will understand exactly what I'm saying because it's going to be simple, it'll be very clear. But two thirds of you won't be able to hear it because you're going to think I'm saying something else and then you're going to get mad at me in the comments and for something I didn't say. Here it goes. My view on abortion is that no matter what rules you have, half of the country is going to think it's the worst thing in the world. We're agreed with that, right? Doesn't matter if you're pro abortion, anti abortion. Would you agree that no matter what happens, rule wise, half the country will think it's the worst thing in the world? That's not going to change. Do you agree with that? There's nothing you can do with the law that will change the fact that half the country is on different sides. Okay, point. That's the first point. Now what do you do in a situation where your best case scenario is that half of the country thinks it's an abomination? What's your best strategy? Is your best strategy, oh well, we should get the best law we could have. No, that doesn't solve, doesn't solve it because you're still going to end up with half the country thinking it's an abomination. So in that specific situation and only that situation where you're never going to have a satisfying result, the answer will never be, the answer will never be satisfying. You can't get there. It's not to be had. Under those conditions, what's the best solution? Well, half the people would say the best solution is you go my way. Half would say the best solution is go my way. But if you go a level up and you're looking down as say a leader at the two sides who can never agree, what would a leader do that would be the best thing for these two groups that can't decide, of course they know what's best. It's their side. I know it's best my side. But you're a leader, you don't get to take sides per se. You got to be a leader. I would say that when it's a life and death decision, you want the most credible law because half of the country is going to hate it no matter what the law is. If half the country hates a Law to the point of revolution. You need to do what you can to make sure that that law is credible. Credible, even if you don't like it. The best you can do, your best you can do for abortion is a law that half the people think is an abomination. But, but here's my point. But they respect the process. The process is credible. They don't like where it went, but they, they can live with it because they respect the process. So if it was constitutional, that's a good process. If it went through the court systems, that's a good process. The reason that there's somewhat of an acceptance of laws that half the country feel are an aberration or a horror is that it went through the Supreme Court. And because we give some respect to the Supreme Court, people are willing to say, ah, I hate this with every fiber of my being. But the way we got there is at least credible. Ish. Now, of course, people say that the Supreme Court was making up the Constitution and adding things to it, and I think that was true. But at least the process looks credible. Ish. Now, what Yang is saying is a weaker version of what I'm saying. What I'm saying is you can't get to happy, forget it. Happy can't be had because half the country is going to hate it no matter what. But you can get to a stable situation and stability is the best you can do. If you want stability, you want a set of laws that people are not going to think are not credible. The most credible laws you could have are the ones that women, as a strong majority, if you can guess such a thing, prefer, and that men have recused themselves from. Now some of you are going to jump in here and say, but, but, but, Scott, women, when you poll them, have the same opinion as men. So that has nothing to do with my point. It doesn't matter what the women's opinion is. It only matters that it was favored or had a bigger say than the men who also had the right to be part of it. Men have a right to vote, men have a right to speak. But if we recuse ourselves, it amplifies the voices of women. And if the voices of women become the ones who are the, let's say, the strongest voices on the topic, and that leads us to whatever it leads us to, doesn't matter which side it leads us to, that's going to be more credible than if I had weighed in and changed people's minds. Because think about it, I can change people's minds. I could change Minds on the topic of abortion. You know, I have that ability. Should I? I don't think so. If I did change anybody's mind and it doesn't matter which way I changed it, I would be a man who had a little bit too much say on this topic. Not because it's illegal for me to have a say. Not because it's unethical. It's not illegal. It's not unethical for me to have a big influence. But if I did, the result would not be as credible. It would come from a weaker source, which is me. Now I'm watching the comments to see how many people. You helped make the babies. Doesn't matter. I'm saying watch how many. Your comments are sort of the not relative relevant to my point. Why wouldn't you be a person who has been allowed to be born have a say? I don't even know what that means. Somebody says it's dumb because we don't defer to certain groups to make decisions. That doesn't address my point. The law is clear. It's murder. That doesn't address my point. Women. What? Financial responsibility. Doesn't address my point because I do think men should have a say in the finances. So I'm excluding the financial part of it. So you're not disagreeing with me there. I'm just looking at your comments to see if you can understand this point. Do female fetuses get a right to vote? How does that have anything to do with anything? Would the law be more credible if a fetus could vote? Some people would not feel the law was credible. True. Doesn't address my point. Because some people are going to be unhappy no matter what. Your point is about autonomy. Not really. No, it isn't. That's not on my point. All right, I'm just looking at your comments. Didn't you merely describe laws in general? No, nothing like that. I was describing a very special case. Somebody says, my girlfriend killed my child. It was as much my child as it was hers. Doesn't address my point. You're avoiding process comments. I didn't see any that were on point. Somebody says they understand my point, but they disagree with it. Okay, but you're not arguing with it. Somebody says, how does a woman get pregnant if not for a male? Doesn't address my point. Right, so you're saying lots of most of the people or all, pretty much everyone who's disagreeing is simply saying a statement. That's a fact. Hey, men are part of the process of having babies. That's not an argument. That's just a fact. Giving facts without reasons is nothing. So that's a nothing. Somebody says, my girlfriend killed my child, is not fair for her to have more say. I didn't say it was fair. So you're on a different point. Have you seen an ultrasound? Irrelevant to my point. And yes, somebody says, I don't care about your point. Well, that's fair. You don't have to care. Scott, you said nothing concrete. Yes, I did. I said that if you can't get a solution that society likes, your best solution is the most credible law, even if half the people don't like it. That's pretty specific. And there's somebody here who says you didn't say anything because you can't hear this point. I think so what I'm getting at is that no matter how clearly I state that I'm talking about credibility because it's the best you could do. People can't hear it because they're locked into their two sides stuff. Somebody says, Now I'm confused. What's your point again? Well, that. My point was that you couldn't hear my point. The point is that nobody will agree. There will always be two sides and you can never make them happy. Your best solution is a law that's credible. And the most credible law about abortion would be one that women as a majority feel comfortable with whichever way it goes. Pretty clear, right? Somebody says, but would you take this to other issues? Would you take this to men only issues? Every case is different. But yes, as a general statement, there could be men only issues that I would rather men's opinion be the dominant opinion. Just this isn't one of them. All right. Somebody says I could change the minds of society, but I won't because. So somebody's asking me why I wouldn't change people's minds on abortion. Okay, that was somebody who doesn't understand my point. If you're asking that question, you've missed the simplest point in the world. And that was really what I wanted to demonstrate. I wanted to see how many of you couldn't understand it. Life is the only point. Yeah, that doesn't address my point. Yeah, somebody's saying, this is a fascinating. It's fascinating to watch people not be able to hear it. It's one thing to disagree with it, but see how hard it is for people to even hear it. I'm just looking at your comments because they're pretty fascinating. So somebody said I should clarify by saying that women should have the dominant say and women and men certainly have the right to speak and have the right to vote. But they could help the process most by letting women have the dominant vote or the dominant influence. Let's say somebody says it's not clear because who decides what's credible? Who decides is society on average. And let me ask you this. Would you disagree with the statement that abortion laws, whether they're tight or loose, doesn't matter, that if women as a majority favor them, that's the most credible situation for society? Even if men, let's say, slightly disagreed or something? I think that statement stands by itself. Somebody says, what if the decision is only women and it's still 50? 50? Well, it's going to go one way. It's not going to be 50, 50, it's going to be 5149 eventually, because you have to decide. All right, it looks like I've beaten you down and I've said enough. Is that all I wanted to say today? I think so. I believe so. Oh, of course, the New York Times is reporting that the President's tariff deal with Mexico or the tariff threat to get Mexico to do a better job with controlling illegal immigration, so the President says Mexico agreed, you know, the tariffs worked essentially, or the tariff threat worked. And the New York Times is reporting that unnamed people say that it was already going to happen. So it's no big deal. Didn't I tell you that was going to happen? Do you remember I told you yesterday, just wait for somebody to say it was already going to happen anyway? It was sort of the obvious fake news, but then the fake news comes out and it's unnamed sources. So I would relegate that story to the fake news bin because it fits the category of fake news, which is unnamed sources said something happened in a meeting and it's not confirmed, it's not news, it's fake news. Now it could, I suppose someday one of those will be true. But you should treat it as fake news just like you would treat a Bigfoot sighting. If CNN said guy gets a picture of Bigfoot, your first thought should be, well, that's not true. But if later he provides a DNA sample and a dead body of a Bigfoot, you can change your mind. But when you first hear it, unnamed sources say something happened in a meeting and Bigfoot spotted. Those are the same story. You should give them the same credibility. All right, that's all I got for now, and I will talk to you later.