The Scott Adams School - 07/03/26 July 4th Weekend! The Home Team & A White Board!

It's July 4th weekend.

Steven's back in the pole position.

Yes, you see, because I didn't start early, so Steven got in. Yes, reclaiming.

Good morning, Bookish.

Here comes Marcela. Hi, you guys, it's, uh, July 4th weekend. Are you guys ready? Marcela, I, I— you got booted out somehow.

It was the Zoom connection. I don't know, some—

all right, wait, I feel weird with you there. I have to move you. Wait, wait. Okay, things have to be okay. Now I feel better.

Marcel got deported, but we brought her back in.

Yeah.

Oh my gosh.

All right, so—

oh, is anyone in the chat mentioning, uh, Owen's ensemble today? Good morning, Kimaholic.

They also mentioned your books, Owen. They said that they're— they look like new books.

My books? Oh, the— yeah, they— I think they've been changed.

He read them all and those are all new ones. Yeah, they're more vivid. Okay, you guys, so we just— we had to banter a little extra because I forgot to— I have clothes on, by the way. It— I am just moving my hair so you know I have a shirt on.

Does not have clothes.

Before I was like this, like like you couldn't see anything. I'm like, I have on clothes. Okay, just so we know. Um, so anyway, we had to kill extra time because I didn't start the live stream early, so I'm sorry. I need to give you a little bit more of a chance to get in, everybody. And we have a whiteboard lesson for you today. Oh, and I have exciting news about our guest on Monday. I'll tell you when we return from the sip. Here we go.

Oh, why are you here? Yes, I know why you're here. It's a little thing called the simultaneous sip, and all you need is a cup or a mug or a glass, a tank or chalice or stein, a canteen, jug or flask, a vessel of any kind. Join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dopamine hit of the day, the thing that makes everything better, including a pandemic. Join me now.

Go!

Ah, just right.

Just right. Okay, so I think the pandemic sips will be over next week. Yes, we're going to get healthier and stronger. So good morning, I am Erica. You are at the Scott Adams School. I'm joined today with Owen and Marcella. I love when the home team's together. We are not Scott Adams, we are the Scott Adams School. However, all of Scott Adams' content still lives on on YouTube. And if you want extra, extra, extra content, it lives on on his subscribers, which is scottadams.locals.com. We encourage you to come over. It's just a supportive and fun place to be. So if you, uh, if you've renewed your subscription or you've recently joined, we say thank you and welcome to the subscriber family. YouTube, Spotify, Rumble, and X. We still love you no matter what you do. We still love you too. So, all right, Owen, you look festive and ready. Marcellus, look, I'm in blue too. We're, we're like feeling our Fourth of July. Um, you guys have big plans for the weekends? What's happening?

I do. I have to, um, well, we're— I'm going to fireworks tomorrow and barbecue. Ribs or preparing the ribs. But it, I mean, it's, it's, it's going to be a special one because 250 years special type. So I'm celebrating the whole weekend, and on Monday I get to see the US play again and win.

Yes.

So, and there's, there's World Cup games throughout. There's one France is playing on 4th of July, um, So we'll see if they keep on going.

I'll allow that. They helped us in the Revolutionary War, didn't they?

You're allowed.

That's so nice of you, Owen. What are you doing, Al?

Just hanging out with family. Nothing big.

That's it? That's all you're doing?

Should be a relaxing weekend. Yeah, we're not big fireworks people. I mean, we've done that a bunch of times with the kids, but it's just not something I typically like want to stay up late for and go out for and So, well, you know, we'll watch the parades on TV and things like that.

But I feel bad for all the animals that freak out over the fireworks and also for the veterans, which I heard it could be very tough for veterans to hear the noises. But not but, and so, oh my gosh, you guys, look at this. I love the Washington Monument like this. Do you think they'll leave it all the time? Look at this.

Wow.

How cool. I think this should just be like a permanent thing. It sounds like Epcot Center. Got George Washington.

Oh, allegedly it was real.

It was real.

How did they fit the rocket inside there?

I know. Owen's such a dad.

Dude, the Earth is not flat.

I love that. Don't you hope they keep that all the time?

I do. And it reopened now, so you can go up to the top.

Oh, really?

Yeah, like it was under construction again.

BJ says they finally found a use for it. I mean, I haven't been to DC to like tour anything. Since I was such a kid. And I— now that it's like safe again, I'm thinking maybe of going, so that would be nice. Um, oh, so speaking of the World Cup, we have what— the— our game is on Monday, right, Marcella? The USA plays. All right, so did you guys see the highlights from this other game that happened? I'm going to show it to you right now.

Okay boys, let's run Operation Epic Balls of Fury.

Guys, please don't suck.

Maybe Michael can sub in.

What?

Okay, first up we The GOAT!

Ah!

He gets hit in the face! Unbelievable! What a shot! Okay, we got Sleepy Joe up next and eating ice cream. Oh, and he whiffs it! He completely misses the ball! Incredible moves by Fat JD. Here comes the meme legend.

Ah!

Face shot! Face shot again! Unbelievable! Let's go! Next we have the first gay president. What was that? You know what, I'll just do it myself. Uh-oh, looks like Pretty Boy is mad again. To the dome! His brain is hanging on for dear life.

Okay boys, let's—

oh my God, I'm obsessed. Okay you guys, that was from Xarius_X. He's a meme master, obviously. So that might not have been real, but I liked it.

I would definitely watch that game.

100%.

What?

Just that game?

I love Fat JD so much. I love Fat JD. So, all right, you guys, today we have a whiteboard lesson for you from Scott Adams. I must say he's very soft-spoken in this one, so you sip a little extra coffee, but it's a good one. They're always good. And I always like to think, how do we apply them to what's happening today in the world? And then Owen and Marcela have news for us. We're going to get a lot of news today. The Whiteboard's going to be about 15 minutes. And let's just sit back and relax and soak in some Scott Adams.

Scott Adams.

The people are realizing that there were things that used to hold us back, that used to limit what we could do and, you know, what our danger was and what our opportunity was, that much of these were psychological. And once we get to a higher plane of sort of understanding how, you know, how reality works and how people actually think and how we're not really rational. And we're also not as crazy as we like to think the other person is. So let me give you the best example of that recently so you can see that there might be a pattern developing. Yes, we're going to the whiteboard. It's whiteboard time. All right, aren't you glad you tuned in for this very special Coffee with Scott Adams. Let's have another simultaneous sip and then I'll take you through this. You're gonna like this. Ah, oh, that's good. All right. So we humans have developed a number of prisons of the mind. Things that we just imagine to be our limitations, we imagine to be true, and it limits what we think is possible, and it limits what choices we make. Here are two of the biggest ones. I talk about this a lot. One is the false belief that history repeats. It doesn't. It never does. It just looks like it because we have this pattern recognition brain. So anytime we see anything that reminds us of another thing, we say, "Well, there it is, history repeating again." But that's not what's happening. History can't repeat because all the variables are changing all the time. So you can't ever have the same starting point you ever had in history. History never repeats, ever. If you think it does, you're in a mental prison. If you think it doesn't, Do you know what happens if you think that history doesn't repeat? Then you can become President of the United States without ever being a politician. If you believe that history repeats, you don't even try. President Trump is not in a mental prison. Did he think that North Korea was unsolvable? Nope. Did he think he couldn't negotiate trade deals? Nope, he didn't think that. Did he think he couldn't give people nicknames and win an election? Win an election that way? With other stuff, of course. Nope. Did he think he could, you know, that nobody could talk about immigration without being labeled a racist and therefore, you know, their life was over? Didn't seem to bother him. He consistently shows you that history doesn't repeat. Where do you get that? Well, probably it traces back to the same place I got it. The Power of Positive Thinking. Remember, his pastor when he was a kid was Norman Vincent Peale, who wrote The Power of Positive Thinking. The Power of Positive Thinking is very close to this. It's very close to thinking to the belief that you're not in a mental prison. History doesn't define you. You know, you can get out of that little mental prison. Here's another one that I like to look at. This is another mental prison.

All right.

That the problem has to be the solution. Now this will require some explaining. All right. But it's a mental trap. It's a prison. If you think that the only solutions are things that are closely related to the problem. I'll show you how that works in a real-world situation. First, some context. When slavery was the problem, you could say that, you know, white people were essentially the problem for slavery, right? And it required white people to do something massively different for slavery to go away. So in this case, the problem and the solution were very similar. It was white people. White people were the problem. White people had to change. Then move fast forward to the civil rights era. Again, even though everybody was involved in the civil rights, right? You know, all the— every group and gender and everybody was involved in that. But the people who had to change the most, the people who had to pass laws, etc., were white people. So white people were kind of the problem and white people were kind of the solution too. All right. But when you get to what I would call the last mile, there's what I call the last mile fog. In these earlier situations, it was very clear what had to be done. All right. You have to get rid of slavery. You have to change the laws. You have to prosecute some people who violate the laws. So it was fairly clear what to do, what the problem was, et cetera. But now you get to this last mile where things are way better, but still lots of things could be far better than they are. And I'll give you an example of what I mean by the fog. The fog is where people don't even quite agree what the problem is. Alright? So I saw, I think it was Sean King was tweeting around yesterday, some statistics showing that that, I hope I have this right, an unarmed black man has something like 4 times more chance of being shot by police in an inappropriate shooting, whatever name they put on that. But an unarmed, remember, nobody has a gun in any of these examples, but an unarmed black man has a 4 times greater chance of being shot by police. Now, I lingered on that a little bit because I know many of you are throwing up in your mouths right now because you disagree with that being true. So you actually disagree on whether the statistic is correct. Now, I don't know if it's correct or not, but I know that a lot of you are saying something like this, all right? You know, some version of this you're probably thinking. The people watching this Periscope, you're thinking to yourself, "But wait a minute, wouldn't it be true that the greatest number of unarmed people in general are gonna be shot wherever there's the highest crime?" So wouldn't you expect that if you're in a high-crime neighborhood, unarmed people who are innocent are gonna be shot at a far greater rate? So wouldn't the poverty rate really be the main variable here? And unfortunately, if more black people are in bad neighborhoods, they're in high crime neighborhoods, of course more innocent people of all types are going to be harmed for all reasons. Now, does that explain away Shaun King's statistic? I have no idea, but nobody else does either. I've never seen that debated, have you? I've never seen an article where somebody gave that statistic and then also gave the other side and said, "Well, but have they controlled for this variable?" Maybe they have. I don't know. But you don't know either. So that's my point. There's this fog about this last mile and, you know, what do you do about it? So we're coming to a point that I think will define the Golden Age, at least in some ways. Let's see if you can— does that help you see this better? In which we're separating the problem from the solution. And what I mean by that is sort of the philosophy you're seeing from Candace Owens. And you can Google her if you're not familiar with her. She's a conservative African-American woman who's become a very important voice because she represents a point of view that you don't see as much as you probably will in the future. Now what's interesting is that— and what I mean by separating the problem from the solution is that the conservative view which Candace holds is that society has done what it can do. Meaning that white people have done what they can do to make the laws, you know, as close as possible to enforce the laws, etc., and that the last mile, no matter, no matter whose problem it is, no matter who causes the problem— this is what's different— it doesn't matter if white people are or are not the cause of the last mile problem. They can't fix it. They can do what they can do, but they're not really the solution. So Candace's, I would say, realization is that the problem and the solution are disconnected. And if you're still locked in the past thinking that white people have to do something, you know, much different, you're going to be missing your opportunities. That you're thinking about it wrong and therefore your solutions will be suboptimal. Now, Let me say, I'm doing the best I can to represent someone else's opinion just so I can tell the full story. I apologize in advance for summarizing it and maybe to the point of being slightly inaccurate. I hope I'm not doing that. But the basic idea is that the conservative view that Candace seems to be a good voice for is that only the people who have the problem can fix it. It's not the people that did cause it or you think caused it. It doesn't matter because they can't fix it. They're helpless to fix it. They would if they could. Probably would.

Just can't.

Don't have all the tools. Now, there are things that can be done with funding and laws, etc. So there are lots of things that can and should be done. But the conservative view is that the big gains are how the people think about the problem themselves. In other words, Candace is saying that we're in the golden age already and that the biggest problem here is the way we think about the problem. Because if we think about it differently, we can get to a better place. What was the big news of the week? Kanye West, who is famous for saying things like George Bush doesn't care about black people, for getting on stage with Taylor Swift. Swift and making a statement that Beyoncé should have won and that probably racism was part of the voting. So somebody who has strong credentials for being, you know, an advocate for African Americans and, you know, against racism. So Kanye has good credentials from that point of view. What did he tweet? He tweeted, I like the way Candace Owens thinks. 7 words, and he ripped a hole in reality with 7 words. Because Kanye is supposed to be over here, and Candace is supposed to be over here, and they're not ever supposed to say the other one said something right. All right, that's not supposed to happen, but Kanye did it anyway. Kanye knows history doesn't repeat. He's not a prisoner of the mind. He knows that the problem is not the solution. Whatever you want to say about Kanye's politics, and I don't even know what his preferred politics would be. I'm not even sure what party he would run for. If he ran for president at this point. Whatever else you want to say about him, and I don't know enough about his actual, you know, management skills or political ability, but he did something that you could rarely see. He actually just altered reality. He just made the entire conservative Twittersphere just go something like this. It's like your head just went, what did I just see? Did I really see this? Now forget about which of these views you like the best. That's not even the story. Forget about whether you think Candace has everything right or everything wrong. That's not the story. The story is that these two people that shouldn't be in the same conversation In 7 words, Kanye just changed that. And he just freed a lot of people from a mental prison. Kanye, in 7 words, unlocked a mental prison. And is bringing you to the Golden Age.

All right.

So that's my sweeping analysis. And I think that we may see more and more examples of things we just didn't think were possible becoming routine. And that that would be as much because we're thinking about things differently than because our technology is getting better or we're getting smarter. I think we're going to be just thinking that a lot more is possible than we ever thought before, and that a lot of our barriers are just mental prisons. And Kanye just showed you how to get out. Love him or hate him, he did that for you. So, um, Yeah, so Iran is next, right? If North Korea works out, and I think it will, it's time to talk to Iran. Because why do we really have a beef with Iran? We're in mental prison. We're in the same mental prison as Iran. Maybe we can help each other get out. Because we don't need to be problems for each other. We just don't.

Oh, I love that little last line there about Iran because I'm watching some of the, the chat comments, and if you made this about what you think about Candace Owens today or Kanye today, you missed the whole entire point of the micro lesson, of the whiteboard lesson. Maybe watch it again. Um, but anyway, I'm gonna come to you, Owen, first on this one. I I think it is just such a, a smart lesson. I'll just let you take it away.

Yeah, well, I mean, I think it is a great lesson. I think it's a sort of a mind shift lesson where you're, you're trying to make sure you aren't caught in this mental prison. I noticed Scott was using his hypnotist voice and probably a lot of hypnotic techniques to try and change people's minds about this. So I think it was essentially a you know, a persuasion attempt. But I think, um, it did all make sense to me. I think it's— it is often that you get stuck in a problem and you don't know how to solve it, and a lot of times it's just some very different place you have to look for the solution. Um, and if you are stuck in this, well, that's the way it's always been, so that's the way it always will be, then you're reinforcing it. You're not getting out of it. And, um, I think it was great to use the example of Trump as one of those examples where it's like, if, you know, if you just said, oh, history always repeats or rhymes, then, you know, if you were Trump, why would you even try and run for office? You'd say, well, nobody ever makes president without first going through a whole bunch of other offices to get there. And, um, you know, Trump has shown us over and over again how he's broken the mold and done things that no one ever thought was possible, and he just does it. And some of it works and some of it doesn't, but a lot of it works. And Even recently, like, people are, um, amazed that oil prices are not like $200 a barrel. Like, they're like, what happened? Everybody said it was going to be $200 a barrel or more, even higher, and it isn't. And, you know, like, people are saying, I was wrong, Trump was right. Like, and, um, you know, the same thing happened with tariffs. Everyone's like, oh, it's going to cause this massive wave of inflation, and it never did. And like all the economists were wrong. And, um, so I think, you know, it does make sense to say you might want to separate the solution from the problem and look for things in a different place than you've been looking before, because that's really the only way you're going to get out of the situation that you were in, is to look for something new and, and different. So I, I loved it. It was great.

Yeah, it is really good. Marcela?

You know, everything's possible in this world. And the fact that, um, you know, I know he didn't talk about this in this particular lesson, but, you know, the idea of the simulation and that you can author your own reality goes with this. Because if you don't believe that, if you think that everything has to be a certain way. You have to, in order to be a great doctor, you just have to study medicine, you know. So everything derives, everything in Scott Adams' philosophy derives kind of from this, because then he as a cartoonist would have never been a commentator on politics and anything else, because that's not how it works. What we're told how it works is you have to go to college, you have to go and become a political major or some kind of thing, or you have to be some kind of politician or adjacent politician. So it kind of connects everything. And I love the ending that he talks about Iran, um, because that's kind of where we are, um, and he predicted it completely right. But one of the things I do want to comment on is that people that feel like they've been wronged, um, or they have their, their victim mentality and that something's holding them back, racism or whatever, they are their own solution. They, uh, there's no one holding you back. You are your own solution. So that I love. You know, so I, I agree.

Um, I, I think so. I want all— I want to ask the chats everywhere. So if, if, you know, like we were saying, like, oh, Scott didn't, you know, used to really like Bill Gates and then he didn't, and we were like, yay. Um, so are you all feeling that you're able to change your minds also? Because, you know, I always say it's a superpower when you get new information and you— the facts have changed or some or just like you've been enlightened in a different way. Do you guys think that you could change your opinions too if you made them so public? Because I think that's really hard to do. Like, if you've been publicly liking Bill Gates— like, we'll use him as the example— and then you're like, oh, maybe not so much now. I, I, I wonder how many of us could publicly say, you know what, maybe I was wrong. Um, and another one of Scott's superpowers was not being embarrassed about anything. I kind of feel the same way too about not being embarrassed. Like, you know, things— it just is what it is. So if you're feeling a certain way at a certain time, it is what it is. If you change your mind, change your mind. You're entitled to do that. So a lot of you say— are saying that you can admit when you're wrong. I have an open mind if something logical comes. Let me see. Yes, yes, I already have. Okay, good. All right, good. That's good. I mean, I, I think that you're way ahead of the curve if you said yes. Um, you know, so I think that when you can't, it's like the, like the embarrassment, your ego, things like that that get in your way. Um, Owen, reflect more on this for us.

I think it is a tough thing, um, because you, you kind of invest in a certain point of view, and at some point it becomes part of your identity. And I I do think there is a natural part of human nature that once you have an impression formed of someone, it's very hard to break. Um, I've seen it at work. I, I've seen where it's worked for me in a positive way, where when I make a positive first impression on the client, they've been like totally trusting me. And even when I make mistakes, they don't even notice. And like, it's just a totally different experience from the opposite, which the, you know, the thing I remember, the time I remember about this was it was the same person the same person who really trusted me and said so, like, you know, basically said, I don't even need to be here, you've got this, you can just run with it. I don't, you know, I'm like, you go ahead. Um, and then I brought a new person on the team and they started doing things and they made a couple of mistakes early on, and the client was like, I don't trust this person, I don't, I don't think they've got this, I don't think we can, you know. And then, you know, I really looked at it, I'm like, I don't think it was that bad. Like, you know, I understand he didn't, you know, have the facts right a couple times, but he was new. Like, he was just getting up to speed, so it's like expected as far as I'm concerned. And I didn't want to get rid of the person because we brought him on because we needed more help, and it was, you know, a really busy time. And, um, so I tried to like save him, but from that point on, the client was like, oh, look at this email, he made this mistake. Oh, look at what he said on this call, it was this mistake. And it's like every little thing was called out, right? And I, I tried, but I, I basically failed. I couldn't save them, and I had to remove them from the project and replace them, even though it hurt the project, just because I couldn't make the client change their mind about it. And so I think it is where you get stuck in this mode.

You—

it's really hard to say once you have a negative or a positive impression of someone to change that. Um, and I, I'm sure I'm subject to it as well. Like, you know, I— when I thought about what you were saying, it was, it was like, okay, I can, you know, I, I can think of times where I would say, oh, you know, I kind of like some of the things John Fetterman says, you know, they're common sense things, but I'm still skeptical of John Fetterman. Like, he still votes as a Democrat as far as I can tell. Like, I'm not going to trust him, right?

Exactly.

Yeah. And, and so, you know, there's a limit to how much I'm going to be like, oh, I like this, you know. And but I can at least call out like these things that Trump said or did I don't like.

Yes.

Or these things that, you know, John Fetterman or somebody else says I like. And I think the more you can be flexible and at least try and put yourself in the mind of someone else, I think that's one of the things I try to do is to just say, if I can understand, you know, how they might be thinking or why they might be acting the way they are, not from my point of view, but from their point of view.

So important.

And it's hard for a lot of people, I think.. But I've developed that skill set over the course of my 30-plus years working because as a consultant, you kind of have to. And, um, you know, I do think it's very powerful when you can say, okay, I can understand that this person, you know, has whatever title or position or ambitions or interests or goals or preferences, and they're very different from mine. But if I can kind of try that on for a minute, maybe I can see things from that point of view, or at least closer to that point of view. And that would help you predict how is that person going to respond if I tell them this, or if to do that. And it can make great improvements to how you relate to other people, I think. And the same might be true in your marriage with your spouse, um, you know, with your friends, your family. You know, you may have serious differences with people, but if you can see things from their point of view, you might be able to relate to them better. And I think that's really powerful as well.

That's a great point to drive home. I don't think we do that enough. You know, like, I immediately thought of Hunter Biden. You know, he thinks his dad's a freaking genius. Obviously that's his son. I think Joe Biden's a fricking moron. So, but if I, if I'm like, how could Hunter Biden think his dad's a genius? Well, now let me step into his shoes. Yeah, it's his dad. So I think we need to do that more. It's just part of like, I think it's maturity to just see where someone else is coming from personally. So it might be a good exercise the next time you have a knee-jerk reaction to someone's opinion. We'll look at it from their vantage point. And then I think, you know, we won't get as upset about things because we're like, well, their vantage point is this. I don't know that, you know, they have a different view. What do you think, Marcela?

Well, I don't think you're going back to what we were talking about earlier. I don't think your, your intelligence is measured by who you liked or didn't like. I liked Donald Rumsfeld before.

I did too.

I voted for Bush. So you could be wrong, or at the moment in time that could have been a great thing, and then the person also changes because as you're changing, they're changing too. So then the— you're liking them also changes.

Yeah.

So everything's happening all at once. Um, and I just think, uh, you just have to believe in yourself and, and don't, don't be a prisoner, you know. Don't be a prisoner of, of, or an NPC, because some of these comments that I've seen in the chat are a little bit NPC-like. Yeah. So think, think differently. Think for yourself.

So, and then that's another really good point. So your opinions change as you hopefully evolve and grow. The other person who you're thinking about, they change. I mean, there's people I couldn't stand that I'm like, "Oh my God, now I love this person. They're so different and I'm different and I get where they're coming from and whatever." And then maybe they make a left turn and I'm like, "Wah wah." But it doesn't mean I have to hate everything about them either. I think there's a lot of nuance and that's why I asked, Do you guys think that you have the ability to change your opinion? Because I don't know if it's as easy as some of you may think it is. And I think if you were challenged with information that really went against something you were dug into, you might find it a little more difficult, which is fine. You're only human, you know. But I think it's a little harder than people think it is. And I think if we— this is just a suggestion for anyone over on YouTube who's going to say, stop telling me what to think. I see your comments. Oh my Lord, relax, people. But it might be a good— You're MK Ultra. It might be a good practice to say, do I really hate everything about this, or is it this thing that I hate? Does this make somebody stupid, or is it just that I disagree with the topic? And I think when we parse out the nuance, we'll be happier. I just think we'll be happier. We won't get so dug in. Um, any more on this subject, you guys? Otherwise we'll go to the news.

No, I'm just— I'm ready for the news.

Owen, Owen, are you ready? All right, let's do— let's do an interstitial sip and just let's hear about this guy for America.

We're watching. If you don't do the sip, oh no, we can see you.

You guys know that, right?

We can see you.

Owen set it up for us. Okay, so have a sip while we listen to this guy talk about America.

Hi, you know, the Europeans are coming over here for the World Cup soccer games and they never come over here, but they're here now and they're finding out that Texas has the best barbecue on the face of the planet. And then they're going home and they're posting all over social media about America being the greatest country there is. Yep. You know what? They're right. And you know what else is so great about America? Bald eagles. Donald Trump. Huge. Death 35. American football. College football. Beef. So much beef. Burying an F-250 5 feet in mud just because you can. Watermelons. Every type of hunting and fishing you could ever dream of. Stone Cold Steve Austin. Smith Wesson. The 1990s Chicago Bulls. Yuengling beer. A guy named Jack Daniels. U.S. Airborne paratroopers. The Second Amendment. We put a man on the moon, you know, and we did it without using the metric system. Air conditioning that'll freeze you out in the middle of August. Drive-through everything, Costco, 2-day shipping, Coca-Cola, Waffle House at 3 in the morning, red Solo cups, monster trucks, bottomless chips and salsa, fireworks that are technically illegal but nobody's really gonna say nothing about it, cheeseburgers the size of a newborn, John Deere green, 35. Again, we don't use the metric system and we turned out fine. Brisket so good it'd make a Frenchman cry. The bald eagle could actually eat you if he wanted to. He just don't care to. So yeah, y'all come on over and enjoy. Enjoy it all. Live it up, baby. Live it up. Because that's what we do every day. Last thing, America's always been great. Have a good Wednesday. USA, baby.

I love it.

I love him. I think my favorite one was John Deere Green. I don't know why, but Yes, I love this man.

I still need to try the Waffle House at 1 in the morning, or at any time, because I've never been to one yet.

Go midnight.

Never been to a Waffle House?

No, there isn't one near here.

You have to go to Florida.

Yeah, I would have to travel.

Is there one in Florida?

Is there one in Florida? Is that what you said? Yeah, there's like 800 million in Florida. It's like the home of Waffle House. I don't know where Waffle House started, but there's like one in very wacky neighborhood in Florida. Yes, see, the chat's like, Waffle House, let's go! A thousand, yes, a thousand.

Okay, so you mentioned Buc-ee's. I think you might have missed that one.

He didn't say Buc-ee's, but I haven't been to a Buc-ee's. There's not one near us, I mean, or anywhere near me. I think, uh, maybe 5 states away. Okay, so let's go America. Owen, you want to kick us off with the news story?

Oh, I could probably do that. Apparently giraffes can do math.

Did you know that?

Better than me, I bet.

Of course.

They did some kind of experiment where they, uh, like added carrots together to like put them behind where they couldn't see, but with different— like they would show them how many they had and put them together and they would see if they could do the math to see the addition would make what one side bigger than the other. And apparently they could— they could figure out the addition to figure out which ones they should go after. Apparently they struggled with subtraction for some reason, so they couldn't do it the other way if you take the carrots away. But I don't know, they probably just upset the giraffes by taking the carrots away.

So, oh yeah, I can understand.

But apparently giraffes are smarter than we thought.

No, I don't think they can do math. They just see an amount of food that they want.

Well, so look It was University of Barcelona. I don't know how they got funding for this. They took— so what they did is they showed giraffes two containers holding different number of carrots, and then they closed them. And then they showed them a third container with extra carrots, which were added to one of the closed boxes. And so I think they then asked the giraffes to choose, and, you know, which one was the larger total, basically. It seemed like they were able to do that math where they could say, okay, if, you know, if you had a smaller amount and a larger amount and you add a third amount, they could do the math to say which one's bigger.

Marcella, what would Scott say about this study?

Um, I don't know.

You say who funded it, right? Like, yeah, Big Giraffe probably funded it, or Big Carrot.

I'm wondering all the money, I guess. Like, what's the purpose of this?

I mean, we need to show that animals are smarter than we thought they were. I think they were saying they could potentially do, you know, statistical reasoning similar to primates.

Oh, we already know this is going to help us moving forward in life. This reminds me of the news. There was recently— wasn't there recently a giraffe that like escaped some kind of zoo in Texas and they couldn't find their giraffe for like the longest time? Which is like, how do you not find a giraffe?

And then they found it and they don't know how to get it back to where they had to get it back to. They need like a special trailer. They're like, you can't just like put it in the back of your car and take it home.

They should have asked the giraffe. He could have told them how to get him back.

They needed the math giraffe.

Maybe they're very intelligent, Owen, so they could take over.

Yeah.

All right, well, that was, that was interesting.

It was.

I thought we'd start out with something light like that.

Yes. All right, Marcelo, you take it away now.

So as we know, tomorrow would be 250 years of the nation, and so there'll be celebrations, uh, even today and tomorrow. Um, but the funniest part about the whole situation is the way that CNN and the left is taking it. PBS has moved their— they usually um, show the Fourth of July fireworks and everything else in DC, but they have moved that to Williamsburg, Virginia, because one thing they said that the DC wasn't, wasn't during, wasn't there in 1776, and that also Trump is ruining, um, the celebrations. So they moved everything over there and The CNN is making it to be Trump took over DC and that he's making it all about himself and he's making it into a Trump rally. So even, even the, the, even the easiest, uh, things that we can all connect with, they try to figure out a way to make it political. Um, so today he'll be— President Trump will be at, uh, tonight at Mount Rushmore to honor, um, and look at Freedom 250. Um, I think there's, there's gonna be, um, some kind of statue he's doing. I don't know. But, um, I remember seeing that he was talking to Teddy Roosevelt because I guess there was a museum that was open.

Um, it was Teddy Roosevelt's presidential library.

Yes, finally it was opened in— it wasn't in New York, so it was opened in, uh, near Mount Rushmore. Um, because he came— President Roosevelt came from the New York area, so they were attempting to open it there, but there was this huge issue with like they didn't agree with it. So then they ended up opening it there, but I digress. So there'll be the biggest fireworks will be amount— the, the largest fireworks, the greatest fireworks in history will be tomorrow, uh, for the National Mall. So if anybody's going, you got to take video for us. And if you are in the left, I guess you go to Williamsburg.

Um, oh yeah, yeah, so the left goes to Williamsburg. Um, and don't— is that where Spamburger is in Virginia?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, so— oh yeah, did you guys see the Rough Riders escorting, uh, President Trump?

Yes, that's— that was—

and I can tell you, San Diego over there in Cali, I heard that they were having their fireworks show And the first, I think the festivities started at like 5:45, let's say, or they're starting at 5:45 PM. And from 5:45 till like 8 o'clock, it's all like land acknowledgements, talking about different people. Like what do the Asians wanna talk about? What are the this? And it's like, oh my God, like again, you're missing the opportunity. We are all Americans. Let's just go after it. Very interesting options for the 250.

Let's just have the whole celebration in Williamsburg be like that, just all land acknowledgments. We'll hand out free floggings to people. Yeah, you know, tell people that, you know, all the things that they want to hear.

It'd be fun to vlog.

Guess who's behind this whole Williamsburg thing? I was very surprised. Carly Fiorina was the honorary chair of this Virginia 250.

That doesn't surprise me.

Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. She thinks it's fair to say the Trump rally is not appealing to all Americans.

So she wanted to be my latex salesman.

Can they get any Hollywood people to give complaining speeches and whine for an hour?

Maybe, maybe. I think they're good at that. I, I think everybody's silly and they're missing a good opportunity, but we'll be, we'll be smiling for America and celebrating that we're all Americans.

Maybe we could play that TDS video. Yeah.

I would like that.

That Dr. Trump video that he posted.

Don't make me go run and grab that. Okay. Anyway, maybe I will. All right. Oh, and you do the next story.

Do you want to do the Scott Adams post or we want to wait?

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Please do. Yeah. Greg Gutfeld retweeted a good one.

Yeah.

Greg Gutfeld and a few other people had retweeted a post from Scott. This is from 2024, February. And, um, so I'll just read it to you. He says, I finally figured out what's wrong with, quote, everything. It's a system problem. The introduction of Trump into the systems broke almost everything, and in multiple ways. The fake news created the white supremacist hysteria, which led to the fine people hoax and the George Floyd hoax, which led to massive DEI, which led to massive systemic incompetence in all of our systems at once. Add wokeness and cancellation, and we can't discuss the issue, much less fix it. That's a system problem. The corrective mechanism, free speech, has been removed. On top of that, the Trump experience has made it clear all of our government systems are corrupt. They probably always were, but as long as we didn't notice, things, things limped along okay. Now we notice. Now we don't accept, quote, the science we know is corrupt. We don't accept the omnibus bills we know are corrupt. We don't accept the foreign wars that look sketchy. We don't accept elections we can't fully audit. We don't trust the news for good reason. We don't trust our intel services to not be agents of one party, and we see the Justice Department's weaponized. While all of that happened, Soros found a way to take control of all American systems via funding of non-government entities and integrating them into the American systems. But at the head of the snake is the fake news and fake science. There is no correcting mechanism. The X platform is the only counterforce, and that's why the crooks are trying to take it out and Musk at the same time.

So good. Yes, it did age very well. Um, and I was saying to Owen before, that was like an unusually long post for Scott Adams, so you know he really felt a certain way about getting that message out there. I love it. I mean, what else is there to say about it?

I think it's pretty accurate, and it seems like it's played out exactly the way he was describing it. Um, And, you know, I think a lot of it is that just a lot of the machinery has been exposed to the point where you can't really trust anything that's going on.

You can't overstate how important of a miracle it was that Elon ended up with Twitter, because, I mean, you know, you have to remember at one time he tried to back out of it, and then they're like, no, we're not going to let you. Well, they almost— like, everybody blew it. They almost had the chance to have him not get it, and then they forced him to get it, and now look what it's exposed. So we owe Elon a debt of gratitude. No matter what you feel about him, I hope you love him like I do. Um, but he's always, he's always advancing us for the good of humanity. So yeah. All right. So I grabbed the clip because, yep, here it is. Dr. Trump is in the house.

Have you or someone you know been diagnosed with TDS? The symptoms can be relentless. Fortunately, I'm Dr. Trump and I have a treatment plan. Let's hear what some of my patients have to say.

I have been suffering for over a decade, and after listening to Dr. Trump, I can see some results.

Man, I've been suffering for years. I really didn't believe that was help out there. That was when I came across this video on TV.

I really thought I was a lost cause. This was gonna affect me for the rest of my life. But after using the treatment plan, I can see a difference.

I really wasn't sure I could help some of these people. They were so far gone, I wasn't really sure.

I had no idea how much this was affecting my life. My work is slowed down. I'm hardly recognizable anymore. I just needed help.

I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. Constantly angry. I made everyone miserable around me.

I feel like I've aged 20 years in the last 2 years.

I've been so concerned. I was really starting to worry about my future.

The treatment is simple. Turn off fake news. Say your prayers. And if you ever feel anxious, just have a Diet Coke like me and you're going to see a remarkable difference in your life. Have you or someone you know?

Oh yeah. I mean, Dr. Trump, Dr. Trump's here to save us. Dr. Drew is going to freak out if people start recommending Diet Cokes for people, but it works for Trump.

You know what I miss? I miss I miss being able to have the left and the right be able to make fun of each other, you know. It used to be that you could make jokes and yeah, they're gonna take it, oh, how dare he, how dare he post this video, this AI video of us, and all sorts of things. And you know, sometimes you just have to laugh, you know, about somebody making fun of you, or, and then you can make fun of them.

Did Eddie Murphy— was it Eddie Murphy that said, have a Diet Coke and I'll say a smile, or something like that? Anyway, yeah, we need like a, a MAGA Diet Coke commercial, like everyone handing one to like a crying lefty. Here you go, have a Coke and smile. Um, so there was Dr. Trump Owen in the flesh right there.

Perfect.

Oh, okay.

So, so well dressed.

I know, and so well spoken and thoughtful. Very nice. Um, you think Eddie Murphy is a conservative secretly? Maybe. Come out of the closet, Eddie.

Trump should put on the doctor coat and the stethoscope for the next pandemic.

No, there's no next pandemic. God, Owen.

Owen, Owen is playing the market. Is there going to be one?

All right, Owen, give us the next story.

Well, in the wake of the disastrous birthright citizenship ruling, um, ICE has arrested 10,000 illegal aliens in the last 5 days. Um, so apparently it's a big surge and it's helped by funding from the big beautiful bill. So we're getting a bunch of people out and, um, there's also a law being proposed to curb the birth tourism industry. Um, so it seems like people are trying to take action at least to mitigate the problem. Um, I don't think it's a full solution, but it might, might help. Maybe it ties into what Scott Adams was saying, is that, you know, you might have to look somewhere else for the solution. But, um, there, there's an oversight project that's arguing that the ruling allows for the creation of these anchor babies, um, and it looks like they're trying to, you know, put measures in place. I think some laws are being proposed to try and make it illegal for people to come here to have their babies, basically, because I think some of this is very organized.

We—

I know we've seen stories recently about some Chinese places that are bringing, you know, women here and having lots and lots of babies to just bring back to China. And, you know, so they're raised in other countries, they're indoctrinated by the other countries, but they are brought here when they're babies just so they're American citizens. And it does seem like a ticking time bomb until potentially you'd have someone like the CCP being able to say, I'm going to just send all these people to, you know, Ohio or Pennsylvania or some swing state and just decide what the election is going to be. And, um, so I think we do need to put a, put a stop to a lot of this. So I'm, I'm glad people are trying to take action. I don't know how much of it's going to work, but, um, you know, right when you said that—

so, all right, so 10,000 in the last 5 days. All right, you guys, I just ran and grabbed this clip that I had saved also. Look at this. We only have a couple minutes, but wait, look at this and think about what Owen's saying.

I know it's not my baby.

The child growing inside Audra Anderson will be going to parents in China. Who are the future parents of this child you're carrying right now?

A Chinese gay couple. And they are the most wonderful people that I know. They are loving and caring, and if I didn't think that, I wouldn't have given them two wonderful children.

Anderson's surrogate pregnancy is not unusual. A growing number of women in the US are becoming surrogates for wealthy Chinese couples Agencies like West Coast Surrogacy in Irvine, California, are seeing a large influx of customers from overseas. In fact, 40% of their clients are from China.

For one, their child will be a U.S. citizen. I'm sure that has some draw to it.

Ni hao.

There are other American companies trying to get in on this growing surrogacy industry. Unlike international adoption, there are very few rules governing international surrogacy. Here in a small desert town in Southern California, Audra Anderson says she's already considering carrying a third surrogate child. She can earn from $35,000 to $45,000 for each baby.

Okay, listen, I don't have any children, but it would take like at least $500,000 for me to do that. Okay. Just letting you know. $30,000. Please. Anyway, um, what are we doing? So that was from 2015, but apparently this is like a still-growing— I guess we'll call it Big China Baby industry, um, because they're, they're giving birth to American citizens and then giving them to people in China.

Do you remember the time where like people who, uh, that couldn't have children were adopting Chinese children in America and then they had their So I mean, I guess we can always adopt Chinese children.

That makes them American citizens too.

Yes, we can just become one country then.

Uh, can we? All right, well, that's prisons. I mean, listen, ICE, I, you know, I wish them luck. All right, so we have 2 minutes. Andy Wang is telling me— thank you, Andy, by the way. Thank you for every day for telling me. Um, Marcela, do you want to give us a quick little something something?

I don't have anything quick. I, um, just, uh, Neuralink came up with the new way to do brain surgery. Um, so that was amazing. Their Neuralink is an Elon Musk company, and with brain, um, they had a brain surgery where now they don't have to cut into your brain, the dura of the top of your brain. Uh, they can you know, be able to see what's in there before so they can operate in a very surgical effective manner. And it's gonna change, uh, brain surgery and how operations are done. So it's like amazing. And the operation they had was successful, and the person they operated on They added it was extremely precise and the operation was done in Toronto Western Hospital, University Health Network, and the person was able to control a computer cursor with their thoughts within about an hour after the surgery.

Amazing. Remarkable.

It's changing people that have ALS, people that have all sorts of other brain paralysis, everything else is issues.

Yeah.

Yes, Dr.

Von Hardy, first of all, thank you for our thumbnail today, the Mount Rushmore thumbnail. And did you actually say why the strict 1 hour? Because we all have jobs, silly goose. Um, you guys, we're at the hour, but guess what? Guess who's coming on on Monday? Are you ready? One of your favorites, Walter Kern.

Woohoo!

He'll be with us Monday. Yes, he will. Yes, he will. And we might talk some MKUltra with him. He's another person that's That's into it. Um, so I hope you guys are excited about that. Um, listen, I will play an Akira song right after our closing sips, and Owen will have his after party tomorrow. Owen, you want to tell them when?

It's at the same time as the show, so that would be, uh, 7 AM Pacific, 10 AM Eastern, or wherever you are, you can do the math.

And they can find you on The giraffe will find— the giraffes will be there early.

It'll be super patriotic, right, Owen?

Of course, it always is.

But lots of singing.

We'll have the sip and we'll talk about the news.

And I think Owen's singing the, um, national anthem tomorrow, so don't miss that. Don't miss that. That'll be on X at Owen Gregorian. @OwenGregorian. Okay, you're gonna get up early for Walter? Yes, you are. Let's go. All right, you guys, so listen, have a safe and, um, amazing, super patriotic Fourth of July weekend. And if you're not an American, celebrate anyway because America loves you too. Okay, all right, so let's thank Scott and Shelley for allowing this show to continue. We thank every one of you for being here today, and we'll see you back here Monday. And let's have a closing sip to our beloved Scott Adams. To Scott Scott Adams. All right guys, let's see. We are going to do The Payoff by Akira the Don. You guys, please support Akira the Don at meaningwave.com. Meaningwave.com.

What if laziness is a habit of thinking about the cost of things or the effort instead of thinking about the payoff. The payoff. I'm going to say it again, the payoff. Get a few more heads to explode. What if you could reverse laziness by simply developing a habit of thinking more about, let's say, the delicious food that you like to enjoy instead of how long it would take you to get up and go get it. Get after it. But the real question is, if you were to test this at home and try to see if you can think more about the good outcome and less about the work, would you get it done? What if laziness is a habit of thinking about the cost of things or the effort instead of thinking about the payoff? The payoff. Say it again. The payoff. Get a few more heads to explode. Why is it that people have a second child? You know, why does a woman who goes through this awful, awful childbirth have a second child? Don't they always say the same thing? If I remembered how bad this was, I wouldn't do it again, right? So the not thinking about the effort is vital to actually the survival of humanity. If we focused on how hard it was to have a baby, you just wouldn't do it, or you'd do too little of it. But if you focus on how awesome it would be to have a family, well, there you go.

You can go through the pain because you've already You've already committed. You're going to go through the pain because you've already, you've already committed.

What if laziness is a habit of thinking about the cost of things or the effort instead of thinking about the payoff? The payoff. I'm going to say it again.

Payoff.

Get a few more answers. Am I ambitious, or do I simply have a thinking habit which produces dopamine because I'm thinking about the positive outcome? And is the dopamine the thing that gets me up and moving? And when you're observing me, you say, how the hell do you get so much done? And how do I do it? I think it's just this. I think it's just this. When I think of all the things I do, I think about them in terms of their benefits. What if laziness is a habit of thinking about the cost of things or the effort instead of thinking about the payoff? The payoff. I'm going to say it again. The payoff. And let's get a few more hands to explode here. Say So here's your tip. It's going to change some of your lives. Think about the positive, not about the work, and see what that does to you.

Love it. Yes, a toast to our forefathers, you guys. All right, we'll see you Monday. Happy Fourth!

Happy Fourth, everyone!

Oh my God, look who's all chatty catty. Bye, guys.

Bye.