Episode 128 - Why Trump Derangement Syndrome is so Strong

but it fit boo pum pum pum pum pum pum pum pum pum pum well good morning everybody some of you are sleeping in because here in the United States of America you know what day it is it's the fourth of frickin July that's right it's the anniversary the birth of our independence or at least the Declaration of it or whatever that is and it's time for coffee I've gone to the big bug the bug that's almost as big as my head you could go smaller that would be okay but join me if you will for the simultaneous sip hmm that is some good patriotic simultaneous sipping right there whoo so happy birthday America I always like to once again thank the founders of this country for creating a system that works really well I'm not sure there's not a better way to do things but what they created hundreds of years ago pretty darn robust why do I say that well let me give you an example let's say you had a problem where your government was doing something that people didn't like for example putting children in cages temporarily when they're separated from their parents at the border what would we expect to happen in that situation well if we had a bad system and a dictator that dictator might say children in cages I don't care let's just leave them there we'll put more children in cages if you had a dictator and you had a bad system well we don't have that what we have is a system that works like this the press puts a spotlight on this problem and says hey children and cages yes there were children in cages in the prior administration as well but the number of people who came is much larger now because this hole will bring your children with you thing works and so there were more of them now and so the press says this problem was used to be small and now it's big we care do something about it and then the public looked at it and the public spoke out as one be they Democrats be they Republicans be they independents they pretty much all said the same thing children in cages separated from their parents not ideal that is not ideal we must change that and so the public spoke is one and the government wanting to be reelected wanting to have a good midterm election wanting to have a good reputation said okay people it's not going to be easy but we're gonna sign a sign a executive order and get on it will happen right away because things don't happen right away there's their real-world constraints in the real world and so what we saw with the whole immigration border a thing is a system built hundreds of years ago pre-internet pre-digital everything this still works still works it did exactly what it was supposed to do now you can say the people in this story didn't do everything they were supposed to do you could say there are weasels in the media you can say there are weasels on the other side whichever side you're on you could say there are people who should have been on this before you could say there are a hundred ways this should have been better and not have happened but today we're talking about the system the system worked it worked perfectly hundreds of years ago the system was created and it reached through time and it worked so let's celebrate that let's celebrate the system that once again works now let's talk about Trump derangement syndrome a little bit so I yeah it was a new poll saying something like I don't know half the people in the United States think the president is a racist now I tweeted my blog post that explains the two movies side-by-side so you can see that with each of these pieces of quote evidence that he's a racist you can see that the other movie doesn't see it because there's an alternate explanation which is far more ordinary and you can see the ordinary explanation next to the hysteria explanation and here's here's the funny thing and the reason I wanted to to talk about it so I got pushback from people who said oh sure Scott maybe you can explain a few of those things that make the president look like a racist but how in the world are you going to explain all of them are you telling me that they're all a coincidence sure if it was one or two things maybe you could change my mind that we saw those wrong but so many things could it be possible what is the other explanation for why there are so many things yes somebody's already added me confirmation bias but it's not confirmation bias allowed in this case confirmation bias by itself absolutely would not get you to where we are what you need is also an enemy press you need a coordinated press who's simultaneously say what's the worst thing we can say about this president to make him look like a racist and then whenever an opportunity comes up they they they gather around it and they make it they make it the story now here's the interesting part probably every person who who came at me and in the Internet today and other says the same thing they say you people on the right are completely hypnotized by your Fox News and your bright Bart's and your and your judge reports you half of the country are in a dream world created by your media but how lucky we are that we have the media that serves us up exactly what we want but it's all objective how lucky how lucky it was the half of the world is serving up complete that is hypnotizing its its watchers but half of the world is not oh god I'm so lucky I'm in the good half EA do you know who else thinks that are in the good half everybody everybody thinks they're in the good half now I've said before that the winning team tends to be a little less delusional than the losing team because the losing team has to explain not only the facts but why they thought they were so smart but everything's going wrong on their end right so that's a whole trigger that they need to get past the people who are winning started thinking hey my candidates good and then their candidate won their world is still intact then they say I think my good candidate will make the economy go well and then the economy is going well and so the people on the right say well that makes sense that's exactly what I expected and on and on on the left they have to explain why everything they predict goes wrong how can you be wrong about everything about the economy about North Korea about you name it they're wrong other than anybody's ever been wrong probably ever you know it might be a historical wrongness I don't know how you measure that sort of thing but it feels like there are more people wrong about what they expect to happen next and then can clearly see that it didn't happen then maybe ever ever in the history of the world that's possible no way to be sure that but it's possible and so when people say to me how can it be true that there are so many of these examples it's easy the simplest explanation is the half of the half of the country is seeing all the time all the time relentless continuous non-stop from half the country all the time and you know what's happening in the other half of the country well still a lot of quite a bit of but not as bad now if suddenly a Democrat came to office let's say let's say you project into the future and I know you don't even want to think about this but suddenly it's President Kamala Harris whatever a year you want to think into the future at that point the people on the right are just going to flip out and they're going to be the ones suffering the hysteria it's just not happening right now right now the right is you know they've got their own little bubble stuff going on but it's a very small bubble compared to what's happening on the left should the left take power the bubbles will flip all right so at the moment to those of you who are Trump supporters I don't believe you're in the bubble because your side is winning so you don't have a trigger to make you crazy you're seeing the world just the way you expected it the other side is not all right bubble flip yes how do we reduce TDS well the only way to reduce it is to keep violating it so there have to be enough examples to violate TDS that you could you could make you know make the case that look it's obvious now look at all these examples that don't go your interpretation of the world there are a few of those now but not nearly enough it would have to be something big now I'm watching with great interest the I guess the administration's recent ruling that they were going to reverse some Obama instructions about how to deal with college and college admissions and the idea is that Asians and whites are being what would you call discriminated against in favor of other candidates because of racial I don't know quotas or or rules or priorities or something so there's no question that the old rule was racist because it was it was actually designed to be you know nobody was hiding the fact that the rule was meant to be racist in terms of college admission but the argument if we're being fair the argument is that a little bit of racism and college administration can get you to a better or less racist more fairer world I'm not taking a side of that I'm just saying that that was the argument and so the president has decided to go the other way and just say no to racism now like most things and for those of you stayed with me I'll get to my good point have you noticed that the world will treat this latest decision about how to treat college admissions in terms of race they'll treat it as a binary they're going to say that's a good idea or that's a terrible idea and you're a big ol racist right you know there's no doubt that that's how it's going to be treated it's either a right and fair or you're a big ol racist there's no such thing as gray areas or in between in this case I would like to put the following frame on this if I may there in this great arc of racism where we have let's say you do it in the right direction where you're you know starting with maximum racism back in let's say that the days of the pre Civil War and the Civil War where you had actual slavery maximum racism and then you you know civil wars over you don't have slavery but things are still really bad and then you've got the silver rights movement and that helps a lot and things are getting better and better and it's approaching it's approaching fair right it starts way up here let's let's do this racism big problem civil war civil rights movement people getting a more awake more aware Obama's president's getting smaller at some point in that path from horrible to fair somewhere around here your best strategy is to get rid of the artificial rules you don't want to wait until things are equal because if you've waited until there actually is something like equality and at the same time you've got rules favoring one over the other that's actually worse for the people who are favored why how would you like to be black get a college education get your college education you graduate and then everybody who sees your college degree thinks probably not quite qualified might have might have got a little help there how the hell would you like that you wouldn't like that a bit so my point is that the right time to get rid of these artificial artificial what would you call them rules about racism is not when you've achieved equality that's too late if you're being smart and you want to do what's best for both sides or all sides in this case you want to get rid of the artificial constraints just short of fairness just before you're fair because that's how you get the last part uh-uh you you need to you need to get rid of the artificial constraints so that the people who were helped to buy them can close that last gap just by effort and hard work you know because you want to get to the finish line equal you don't want to get to the finish line equal with an Asterix all right you don't want an asterisks on your equality so at some point you've got to get rid of the artificial rules get rid of the aspects let people just compete on quality and whether the outcomes come out exactly the same or not they probably won't just because you know nothing is ever completely equal but so the question should be on the so getting back to the college race requirement rules getting back to that the question should not be should we take these rules the Obama rules off or should we keep them it's the wrong question here's the right question is it the right time to take the rules off because there is a time to take the rules off to just say look what race doesn't count anymore you know we got close enough not equal not equal but close enough so it's just smarter to let to take the asterisks off because there are a whole bunch of completely qualified minorities getting into college on total skill hard work doing all the right things and those poor bastards are graduating with an asterisk that's not good because there's always going to be that little doubt yeah that's a Harvard degree but did they get a little help getting into Harvard that's an aspects on your degree you don't want that alright so here's the point I don't know and I don't know that anybody's smart enough to know when is the exact right time to take the Asterix off its before you get completely even it's somewhere here and we might be there we might not be but that's what we should be arguing we should be debating whether or not it's time to take the rules off not whether rules should be taken off yes or no all right it's not a yes no it's a now or wait that's all it is as soon as you think of it in terms of yes no you've missed the entire argument you you're completely you're completely missing the whole conversation it is a path and at some point the Asterix needs to come off for everybody we might not be there and that would be an argument I would certainly listen to or we might be close enough that you know doing it now is gonna gonna get you to where you want to be but you know let's let's not be giving black people degrees with asterisks on them forever all right there was a time when it made perfect sense I'd have to say and by the way let me let me give you some background on my own experience a number of you have read this in my book etc back in the where was a late 80s and early 90s I was working for a bank and I was you know picked to be you know a higher management person yeah I was identified as somebody who was going to work their way up the ranks I had the right education etc and my boss called me into her office one day and told me that the company was getting a lot of pressure because they didn't have any diversity in upper management they didn't have enough women I think there was one one woman in upper management and zero minorities and so the press noticed that put some pressure on the company which was a big Bank Crocker Bank at the time and my boss called me in her office and said look let me get rid of the racist here and said I have to be honest with you the order came down we can't we can't promote any white males and that and some people don't believe that they told me this directly but I promise you they told me that directly we can't promote you because you're white and male and there's nothing we can do about it because the order has come down that we need to have some diversity and senior management so I I quit because it wasn't it wasn't my job to make the world a better place it was my job in a capitalist world to maximize my own my own situation and it wasn't going to happen there and and by the way I always I always appreciated that they told me that directly imagine if they hadn't told me that imagine if I had to just like imagine you know maybe I'd not working hard enough why is my career not going right I thought I'd be promoted by now so I always appreciated the honesty so I quit and then I went to work for the phone company Pacific Bell at the time the local phone company and I got on the management track and as soon as I got on the management track I was like yeah I'm gonna get promoted to the big time I was finishing my MBA you know and the evenings at Berkeley so I had a Berkley MBA I had you know some decent job experience by then that was an up-and-comer I said the right things I wore the right clothes and I was on on the track they put me on the management fast track and then my boss called me into my office and said exactly the same thing the bank told me well we just got busted by the press who had just noticed that we have no diversity and senior management and until further notice which could be god knows how many years we can't promote you because you're a white male and again and I promise you this was said to me directly white male you can't get promoted and we don't know when this will or change alright so what did I do I started a comic strip on the side and that became dilmer now so that worked out for me now for most people things aren't gonna work out as well as they did for me but here's here's my larger point of this when I tell this story and you know for years I couldn't even tell the story can you imagine this if those of you were younger I can't put your head you can't really put your head in those times if you're younger you had to be there but imagine that I couldn't even tell you that story for I don't know 15 or 20 years because even telling the story would have made me look like a racist you're hearing this right if I had told the story of how I had been racially discriminated against and lost two promising careers I would have been called a racist for being racially discriminated against that's what it was like in those times it's not like that today so today I can tell you the story as I just did but let me play let me put my spin on it spin I guess was wrong word during these times when I lost two careers to racism you know sort of an industrial racism that was intentional I didn't feel as bad as you might imagine because it was true that we didn't have any diversity and it is a better world if we have some so I do buy into the I mean I completely buy into the the goal which is to have a diverse successful society in which we just stop talking about all that stuff you know we do it just stops mattering like I want to live in a world where we just don't even have the freakin conversation and the only way to get there in the beginning was with something closer to brutal right so what happened to me was I was on the other end of the brute force they had to really force some rule changes to you know allow some people in the door that we're having trouble getting in you know promoting people up supporting them etc and now there's a ton more diversity in in all of those companies today if it happened you know if I were working in a corporation and somebody called me into their office today and said we can't promote you because you're a white male today that's a lawsuit right I would walk out of the office with with my phone in my hand calling my lawyer if it happened in 2018 because it's a lot easier for you know people to get a you know get a you know good a grip in a corporate world and work their way up and I think there are a lot more people who are really trying to coach and mentor and do the right thing for you know minorities and for women and everything else so it's a different world today my point being that when things were terrible there were literally no minorities represented in senior management in these two companies when things were that bad you did sort of need a big blunt instrument you know the way to fight a fire sometimes is with a fire the way that they dealt with racism was with more racism it was just sort of a you could call it a productive racism if you will in other words they discriminated hard against white people temporarily in in the long arc of history it was temporary seemed like forever if you were living it but they were trying to write something and when it got a little closer to right where it is now it's nowhere near you know any kind of equal representation but I would say at this point if you were if you were black or female and you wanted a job in corporate America it would be a fairly easy thing if you had the qualifications so I think the it's a different world so my point being that the tools you use have to adjust for how big the problem is if you've got a slavery you need a big tool like a civil war oh my god that's that's like you know extreme and then when you've got still a big problem but it's civil rights maybe you need to March some people are gonna get hurt social disobedience it's a big tool but it's not as big as a civil war and now when civil rights have been successful at least in directionally successful you've got a smaller difference and Obama said well I'm gonna deal with the smaller difference by telling colleges hey colleges you can take race into account in some special ways and maybe that'll help get you a little closer to equality and then President Trump says all right in his opinion we're close enough not equal everything everybody doesn't have equal stuff but we're close enough that it's time to take the asterisks off the degrees of the people who earned real degrees by doing all the right stuff they don't get an asterisks anymore that's that's not helping all right so that's that sort of your final step is to take the asterisks off and that's where we are or at least that's where the argument should be the argument should be are we at the take the asterisks step off or not that's a fair discussion but if we're treating this as a yes or no about these college rules it's the wrong discussion all right I don't like that you discount my degree because of my color well I'm telling you that we want to be in a world where that's not even a question and right now we're in a world where there is a question and that doesn't seem fair to me so if you're saying that I'm discounting it that you're missing the point it's not about me I'm saying that the world wants to look at your degree and say oh yeah a degree is a degree yeah nobody wants to feel the the invisible aspects degrees are overrated somebody says I agree I agree about that hey here's a here's an idea I've been thinking about I've been thinking about this for years but I think finally the technology has reached the point where it works I'm thinking about creating my own college course you know maybe I'd call it the the Scott Adams College course and it would be a collection of books you should read or classes you should take to have to have what I would call a great education that would make you a powerful a powerful citizen who could go in a lot of directions and yeah it would be all of it would be free or low-cost you know meaning the price of a book so I could say for example if you've read all of these books and you've taken these online classes all of this stuff being low-cost that I give you the Scott Adams degree now at the moment the Scott Adams excuse me the Scott Adams degree would not be a great brand right so my brand is not strong enough to make this idea work but now imagine it's Warren Buffett or it's Bill Gates or it's Elon Musk all right so so imagine now then than me and I don't have I don't have that kind of credibility that somebody seriously credible says let's take Warren Buffett he's my favorite example let's say Warren Buffett or Jeff Bezos for example someone who is unambiguously successful and knows a lot and they say all right here's the Warren Buffett class you got to read these 50 books it's a lot it's gonna be a lot of books right it's not gonna be six books but you got to read these fifty books and you got to take these online classes and when you're done I Warren Buffett would totally hire you in a heartbeat if you've done all those things all right so that would be do you say Jordan Peterson was working on this that would be interesting now it might be that people like me or Jordan Peterson or anybody else who's interested could start putting together their own curriculum if you will and in the short run it's just something that people say oh that's that's a good information about what to read and the long run maybe it's worth something so in the long run maybe we can make our brands worth something Tim Ferriss would be a perfect example of someone who has credibility and could have a curriculum Peter teal and Jordan Peterson are working on this like actually working together or working separately you should post your 50 books I'm not sure I have 50 books you know it's the sort of thing if I were going to do this I wouldn't do it casually I would do I'd have to read the books first and then make sure there were the right 50 books all right focusing on the humanity is just reading your comments or like a trade product yeah Talib's books chill Dini yeah lot of us have brands that are not general so if if you wanted let's say a business degree then you you'd want something like a Warren Buffett business degree so his recommendations would be around things that are specifically business good for business you know jury you can imagine Jordan Peterson doing something specifically around the humanities and you could imagine me doing something specifically around persuasion and you know success and stuff like that alright get Tom Sowell involved i I downloaded some of Thomas Souls books when I was traveling and I didn't get to them but he's I think he's next on my list of stuff to read after I read Greg Gutfeld new book value investing yeah Carmen Simon yes she could write a she could have a curriculum as well yeah navall Brava can't he would he could come up with a curriculum alright so that's all for now and I hope that you're getting go off and have an absolutely terrific 4th of July for those of you in other countries I guess you just have a day of work today I feel sorry for you because we'll be having a good time watching fireworks and drinking too much today and bye for now

but it fit boo pum pum pum pum pum pum

pum pum pum pum well good morning

everybody some of you are sleeping in

because here in the United States of

America you know what day it is it's the

fourth of frickin July that's right it's

the anniversary the birth of our

independence or at least the Declaration

of it or whatever that is and it's time

for coffee I've gone to the big bug the

bug that's almost as big as my head

you could go smaller that would be okay

but join me if you will for the

simultaneous sip hmm that is some good

patriotic simultaneous sipping right

there whoo so happy birthday America I

always like to once again thank the

founders of this country for creating a

system that works really well I'm not

sure there's not a better way to do

things but what they created hundreds of

years ago

pretty darn robust why do I say that

well let me give you an example let's

say you had a problem where your

government was doing something that

people didn't like for example putting

children in cages temporarily when

they're separated from their parents at

the border what would we expect to

happen in that situation well if we had

a bad system and a dictator that

dictator might say children in cages

I don't care let's just leave them there

we'll put more children in cages if you

had a dictator and you had a bad system

well we don't have that what we have is

a system that works like this the press

puts a spotlight on this problem and

says hey children and cages yes there

were children in cages in the prior

administration as well but the number of

people who came is much larger now

because this hole will bring your

children with you thing works and so

there were more of them now and so the

press says this problem was used to be

small and now it's big we care do

something about it and then the public

looked at it and the public spoke out as

one be they Democrats be they

Republicans be they independents they

pretty much all said the same thing

children in cages separated from their

parents not ideal that is not ideal we

must change that and so the public spoke

is one and the government wanting to be

reelected wanting to have a good midterm

election wanting to have a good

reputation said okay people it's not

going to be easy but we're gonna sign a

sign a executive order and get on it

will happen right away because things

don't happen right away there's their

real-world constraints in the real world

and so what we saw with the whole

immigration border a thing is a system

built hundreds of years ago pre-internet

pre-digital everything this still works

still works it did exactly what it was

supposed to do now you can say the

people in this story didn't do

everything they were supposed to do you

could say there are weasels in the media

you can say there are weasels on the

other side whichever side you're on

you could say there are people who

should have been on this before you

could say there are a hundred ways this

should have been better and not have

happened but today we're talking about

the system the system worked it worked

perfectly hundreds of years ago the

system was created and it reached

through time and it worked so let's

celebrate that

let's celebrate the system that once

again

works now let's talk about Trump

derangement syndrome a little bit so I

yeah it was a new poll saying something

like I don't know half the people in the

United States think the president is a

racist now I tweeted my blog post that

explains the two movies side-by-side so

you can see that with each of these

pieces of quote evidence that he's a

racist you can see that the other movie

doesn't see it because there's an

alternate explanation which is far more

ordinary and you can see the ordinary

explanation next to the hysteria

explanation and here's here's the funny

thing and the reason I wanted to to talk

about it so I got pushback from people

who said oh sure Scott maybe you can

explain a few of those things that make

the president look like a racist but how

in the world are you going to explain

all of them are you telling me that

they're all a coincidence sure if it was

one or two things maybe you could change

my mind that we saw those wrong but so

many things could it be possible what is

the other explanation for why there are

so many things yes somebody's already

added me confirmation bias

but it's not confirmation bias allowed

in this case confirmation bias by itself

absolutely would not get you to where we

are what you need is also an enemy press

you need a coordinated press who's

simultaneously say what's the worst

thing we can say about this president to

make him look like a racist and then

whenever an opportunity comes up they

they they gather around it and they make

it they make it the story now here's the

interesting part probably every person

who who came at me and in the Internet

today and other

says the same thing they say you people

on the right are completely hypnotized

by your Fox News and your bright Bart's

and your and your judge reports you half

of the country are in a dream world

created by your media but how lucky we

are that we have the media that serves

us up exactly what we want but it's all

objective how lucky how lucky it was the

half of the world is serving up complete

that is hypnotizing its its

watchers but half of the world is not oh

god I'm so lucky I'm in the good half EA

do you know who else thinks that are in

the good half everybody

everybody thinks they're in the good

half now I've said before that the

winning team tends to be a little less

delusional than the losing team because

the losing team has to explain not only

the facts but why they thought they were

so smart but everything's going wrong on

their end right so that's a whole

trigger that they need to get past the

people who are winning started thinking

hey my candidates good and then their

candidate won their world is still

intact then they say I think my good

candidate will make the economy go well

and then the economy is going well and

so the people on the right say well that

makes sense

that's exactly what I expected and on

and on on the left they have to explain

why everything they predict goes wrong

how can you be wrong about everything

about the economy about North Korea

about you name it they're wrong other

than anybody's ever been wrong probably

ever you know it might be a historical

wrongness I don't know how you measure

that sort of thing but it feels like

there are more people wrong about what

they expect to happen next and then can

clearly see that it didn't happen

then maybe ever ever in the history of

the world that's possible no way to be

sure that but it's possible and so when

people say to me how can it be true that

there are so many of these examples it's

easy the simplest explanation is the

half of the half of the country is

seeing all the time

all the time relentless continuous

non-stop from half the country

all the time and you know what's

happening in the other half of the

country well still a lot of

quite a bit of but not as bad

now if suddenly a Democrat came to

office let's say let's say you project

into the future and I know you don't

even want to think about this but

suddenly it's President Kamala Harris

whatever a year you want to think into

the future at that point the people on

the right are just going to flip out and

they're going to be the ones suffering

the hysteria it's just not happening

right now

right now the right is you know they've

got their own little bubble stuff going

on but it's a very small bubble compared

to what's happening on the left

should the left take power the bubbles

will flip all right so at the moment to

those of you who are Trump supporters I

don't believe you're in the bubble

because your side is winning so you

don't have a trigger to make you crazy

you're seeing the world just the way you

expected it the other side is not all

right bubble flip yes how do we reduce

TDS well the only way to reduce it is to

keep violating it so there have to be

enough examples to violate TDS that you

could you could make you know make the

case that look it's obvious now look at

all these examples that don't go

your interpretation of the world there

are a few of those now but not nearly

enough it would have to be something big

now I'm watching with great interest the

I guess the administration's recent

ruling that they were going to reverse

some Obama instructions about how to

deal with college and college admissions

and the idea is that Asians and whites

are being what would you call

discriminated against in favor of other

candidates because of racial I don't

know quotas or or rules or priorities or

something so there's no question that

the old rule was racist because it was

it was actually designed to be you know

nobody was hiding the fact that the rule

was meant to be racist in terms of

college admission but the argument if

we're being fair the argument is that a

little bit of racism and college

administration can get you to a better

or less racist more fairer world I'm not

taking a side of that I'm just saying

that that was the argument and so the

president has decided to go the other

way and just say no to racism now like

most things and for those of you stayed

with me I'll get to my good point have

you noticed that the world will treat

this latest decision about how to treat

college admissions in terms of race

they'll treat it as a binary they're

going to say that's a good idea or

that's a terrible idea and you're a big

ol racist right you know there's no

doubt that that's how it's going to be

treated it's either a right and fair or

you're a big ol racist there's no such

thing as gray areas or in between in

this case I would like to put the

following frame on this if I may there

in this great arc of racism where we

have let's say

you do it in the right direction where

you're you know starting with maximum

racism back in let's say that the days

of the pre Civil War and the Civil War

where you had actual slavery maximum

racism and then you you know civil wars

over you don't have slavery but things

are still really bad and then you've got

the silver rights movement and that

helps a lot and things are getting

better and better

and it's approaching it's approaching

fair right it starts way up here let's

let's do this racism big problem civil

war civil rights movement people getting

a more awake more aware Obama's

president's getting smaller at some

point in that path from horrible to fair

somewhere around here your best strategy

is to get rid of the artificial rules

you don't want to wait until things are

equal because if you've waited until

there actually is something like

equality and at the same time you've got

rules favoring one over the other that's

actually worse for the people who are

favored why how would you like to be

black get a college education get your

college education you graduate and then

everybody who sees your college degree

thinks probably not quite qualified

might have might have got a little help

there how the hell would you like that

you wouldn't like that a bit so my point

is that the right time to get rid of

these artificial artificial what would

you call them rules about racism is not

when you've achieved equality that's too

late if you're being smart and you want

to do what's best for both sides or all

sides in this case you want to get rid

of the artificial constraints just short

of fairness just before you're fair

because that's how you get the last part

uh-uh you you need to you need to get

rid of the artificial constraints so

that the people who were helped to buy

them can close that last gap just by

effort and hard work you know because

you want to get to the finish line equal

you don't want to get to the finish line

equal with an Asterix all right

you don't want an asterisks on your

equality so at some point you've got to

get rid of the artificial rules get rid

of the aspects let people just compete

on quality and whether the outcomes come

out exactly the same or not they

probably won't just because you know

nothing is ever completely equal but so

the question should be on the so getting

back to the college race requirement

rules getting back to that the question

should not be should we take these rules

the Obama rules off or should we keep

them it's the wrong question here's the

right question is it the right time to

take the rules off because there is a

time to take the rules off to just say

look what race doesn't count anymore you

know we got close enough not equal not

equal but close enough so it's just

smarter to let to take the asterisks off

because there are a whole bunch of

completely qualified minorities getting

into college on total skill hard work

doing all the right things and those

poor bastards are graduating with an

asterisk that's not good because there's

always going to be that little doubt

yeah that's a Harvard degree but did

they get a little help getting into

Harvard

that's an aspects on your degree you

don't want that alright so here's the

point I don't know

and I don't know that anybody's smart

enough to know when is the exact right

time to take the Asterix off its before

you get completely even it's somewhere

here and we might be there we might not

be but that's what we should be arguing

we should be debating whether or not

it's time to take the rules off not

whether rules should be taken off yes or

no all right it's not a yes no it's a

now or wait that's all it is as soon as

you think of it in terms of yes no

you've missed the entire argument you

you're completely you're completely

missing the whole conversation it is a

path and at some point the Asterix needs

to come off for everybody we might not

be there and that would be an argument I

would certainly listen to or we might be

close enough that you know doing it now

is gonna gonna get you to where you want

to be but you know let's let's not be

giving black people degrees with

asterisks on them forever all right

there was a time when it made perfect

sense

I'd have to say and by the way let me

let me give you some background on my

own experience a number of you have read

this in my book etc back in the where

was a late 80s and early 90s I was

working for a bank and I was you know

picked to be you know a higher

management person yeah I was identified

as somebody who was going to work their

way up the ranks I had the right

education etc and my boss called me into

her office one day and told me that the

company was getting a lot of pressure

because they didn't have any diversity

in upper management they didn't have

enough women I think there was one one

woman in upper management and zero

minorities and so the press noticed that

put some pressure on the company which

was a big Bank Crocker Bank at the time

and my boss called me in her office and

said look

let me get rid of the racist here and

said I have to be honest with you the

order came down we can't we can't

promote any white males and that and

some people don't believe that they told

me this directly but I promise you they

told me that directly we can't promote

you because you're white and male and

there's nothing we can do about it

because the order has come down that we

need to have some diversity and senior

management so I I quit because it wasn't

it wasn't my job to make the world a

better place it was my job in a

capitalist world to maximize my own my

own situation and it wasn't going to

happen there and and by the way I always

I always appreciated that they told me

that directly imagine if they hadn't

told me that imagine if I had to just

like imagine you know maybe I'd not

working hard enough

why is my career not going right I

thought I'd be promoted by now so I

always appreciated the honesty so I quit

and then I went to work for the phone

company Pacific Bell at the time the

local phone company and I got on the

management track and as soon as I got on

the management track I was like yeah I'm

gonna get promoted to the big time I was

finishing my MBA you know and the

evenings at Berkeley so I had a Berkley

MBA I had you know some decent job

experience by then that was an

up-and-comer I said the right things I

wore the right clothes and I was on on

the track they put me on the management

fast track and then my boss called me

into my office and said exactly the same

thing the bank told me well we just got

busted by the press who had just noticed

that we have no diversity and senior

management and until further notice

which could be god knows how many years

we can't promote you because you're a

white male and again and I promise you

this was said to me directly white male

you can't get promoted and we don't know

when this will

or change alright so what did I do

I started a comic strip on the side and

that became dilmer now so that worked

out for me now for most people things

aren't gonna work out as well as they

did for me but here's here's my larger

point of this when I tell this story and

you know for years I couldn't even tell

the story can you imagine this if those

of you were younger I can't put your

head you can't really put your head in

those times if you're younger you had to

be there but imagine that I couldn't

even tell you that story for I don't

know 15 or 20 years because even telling

the story would have made me look like a

racist you're hearing this right if I

had told the story of how I had been

racially discriminated against and lost

two promising careers I would have been

called a racist for being racially

discriminated against that's what it was

like in those times it's not like that

today so today I can tell you the story

as I just did but let me play let me put

my spin on it spin I guess was wrong

word during these times when I lost two

careers to racism you know sort of an

industrial racism that was intentional I

didn't feel as bad as you might imagine

because it was true that we didn't have

any diversity and it is a better world

if we have some so I do buy into the I

mean I completely buy into the the goal

which is to have a diverse successful

society in which we just stop talking

about all that stuff you know we do it

just stops mattering like I want to live

in a world where we just don't even have

the freakin conversation and the only

way to get there in the beginning was

with something closer to brutal

right so what happened to me was I was

on the other end of the brute force they

had to really force some rule changes to

you know allow some people in the door

that we're having trouble getting in you

know promoting people up supporting them

etc and now there's a ton more diversity

in in all of those companies today if it

happened you know if I were working in a

corporation and somebody called me into

their office today and said we can't

promote you because you're a white male

today that's a lawsuit right I would

walk out of the office with with my

phone in my hand calling my lawyer

if it happened in 2018 because it's a

lot easier for you know people to get a

you know get a you know good a grip in a

corporate world and work their way up

and I think there are a lot more people

who are really trying to coach and

mentor and do the right thing for you

know minorities and for women and

everything else so it's a different

world today my point being that when

things were terrible there were

literally no minorities represented in

senior management in these two companies

when things were that bad you did sort

of need a big blunt instrument you know

the way to fight a fire sometimes is

with a fire the way that they dealt with

racism was with more racism it was just

sort of a you could call it a productive

racism if you will in other words they

discriminated hard against white people

temporarily in in the long arc of

history it was temporary seemed like

forever if you were living it but they

were trying to write something and when

it got a little closer to right where it

is now it's nowhere near you know any

kind of equal representation but I would

say at this point if you were if you

were black or female and you wanted a

job in corporate

America it would be a fairly easy thing

if you had the qualifications so I think

the it's a different world

so my point being that the tools you use

have to adjust for how big the problem

is if you've got a slavery you need a

big tool like a civil war oh my god

that's that's like you know extreme and

then when you've got still a big problem

but it's civil rights maybe you need to

March some people are gonna get hurt

social disobedience it's a big tool but

it's not as big as a civil war and now

when civil rights have been successful

at least in directionally successful

you've got a smaller difference and

Obama said well I'm gonna deal with the

smaller difference by telling colleges

hey colleges you can take race into

account in some special ways and maybe

that'll help get you a little closer to

equality and then President Trump says

all right

in his opinion we're close enough not

equal everything everybody doesn't have

equal stuff but we're close enough that

it's time to take the asterisks off the

degrees of the people who earned real

degrees by doing all the right stuff

they don't get an asterisks anymore

that's that's not helping all right so

that's that sort of your final step is

to take the asterisks off and that's

where we are or at least that's where

the argument should be the argument

should be are we at the take the

asterisks step off or not that's a fair

discussion but if we're treating this as

a yes or no about these college rules

it's the wrong discussion

all right I don't like that you discount

my degree because of my color well I'm

telling you that we want to be in a

world where that's not even a question

and right now we're in a world where

there is a question and that doesn't

seem fair to me so if you're saying that

I'm discounting it that you're missing

the point it's not about me I'm saying

that the world wants to look at your

degree and say oh yeah a degree is a

degree yeah nobody wants to feel the the

invisible aspects

degrees are overrated somebody says I

agree I agree about that hey here's a

here's an idea I've been thinking about

I've been thinking about this for years

but I think finally the technology has

reached the point where it works I'm

thinking about creating my own college

course you know maybe I'd call it the

the Scott Adams College course and it

would be a collection of books you

should read or classes you should take

to have to have what I would call a

great education that would make you a

powerful a powerful citizen who could go

in a lot of directions and yeah it would

be all of it would be free or low-cost

you know meaning the price of a book so

I could say for example if you've read

all of these books and you've taken

these online classes all of this stuff

being low-cost that I give you the Scott

Adams degree now at the moment the Scott

Adams excuse me the Scott Adams degree

would not be a great brand right so my

brand is not strong enough to make this

idea work but now imagine it's Warren

Buffett or it's Bill Gates or it's Elon

Musk all right so so imagine now then

than me and I don't have I don't have

that kind of credibility that somebody

seriously credible says let's take

Warren Buffett he's my favorite example

let's say Warren Buffett or Jeff Bezos

for example someone who is unambiguously

successful and knows a lot and they say

all right here's the Warren Buffett

class you got to read these 50 books

it's a lot it's gonna be a lot of books

right it's not gonna be six books but

you got to read these fifty books and

you got to take these online classes and

when you're done I Warren Buffett would

totally hire you in a heartbeat if

you've done all those things all right

so that would be do you say Jordan

Peterson was working on this that would

be interesting now it might be that

people like me or Jordan Peterson or

anybody else who's interested could

start putting together their own

curriculum if you will and in the short

run it's just something that people say

oh that's that's a good information

about what to read and the long run

maybe it's worth something so in the

long run maybe we can make our brands

worth something Tim Ferriss would be a

perfect example of someone who has

credibility and could have a curriculum

Peter teal and Jordan Peterson are

working on this like actually working

together or working separately you

should post your 50 books I'm not sure I

have 50 books you know it's the sort of

thing if I were going to do this I

wouldn't do it casually I would do I'd

have to read the books first and then

make sure there were the right 50 books

all right focusing on the humanity is

just reading your comments or like a

trade product yeah Talib's books chill

Dini

yeah lot of us have brands that are not

general so if if you wanted let's say a

business degree then you you'd want

something like a Warren Buffett business

degree

so his recommendations would be around

things that are specifically business

good for business

you know jury you can imagine Jordan

Peterson doing something specifically

around the humanities and you could

imagine me doing something specifically

around persuasion and you know success

and stuff like that alright get Tom

Sowell involved i I downloaded some of

Thomas Souls books when I was traveling

and I didn't get to them but he's I

think he's next on my list of stuff to

read after I read Greg Gutfeld new book

[Music]

value investing yeah Carmen Simon yes

she could write a she could have a

curriculum as well

yeah navall Brava can't he would he

could come up with a curriculum alright

so that's all for now and I hope that

you're getting go off and have an

absolutely terrific 4th of July for

those of you in other countries I guess

you just have a day of work today I feel

sorry for you because we'll be having a

good time watching fireworks and

drinking too much today and bye for now