Episode 33 - Hate versus Ideas and the Illusion Driving Hate
Oh buh buh buh bum bum bum. Hey, is anybody here? If you're here early, come on in quietly. Get your coffee ready, because you know what's happening. You know what's coming. It's going to be the best simultaneous sip of the entire week. Ar
View segment →e you ready? Raise your mug. Best one of the week. Here comes t
View segment →he good stuff. Well, well, well. Has anything been happening lately? Yes, lots of things have been happening lately. But I wanted to talk to you about the party of hate. You may know that recently I gave a nickname to the Democratic Party. I called them the party of hate because it seemed that they…
View segment →ntry, not my neighborhood, but all over the country. Not once in two and a half years did I hear a Trump supporter say something that sounded dog-whistley, pro-racist. I've never even heard them sort of frame it that way. But the people on the left are pretty sure that in a private conversation Repu…
View segment →ard for somebody to take it out of context, right? So bear with me. If somebody like me—let's say not me but a person who was persuasive and non-racist, you know, not me, I'm talking about another person—if that person attended a KKK meeting, would that be a good thing or a bad thing? Well, if a no…
View segment →se above it. Yeah, let the politics or now anyway they will. Now let me amplify a point I made. I saw somebody on the right using the phrase that I believe Candace Owens has used a number of times, and I criticized it. And so let me clarify my criticism. If you're on the right and you're trying to…
View segment →so effective, for being really good at surfacing an issue, putting skin in the game, taking a personal risk. That's slightly different than the question of whether the kneelers should have continued kneeling. I saw last night—oh I damn it, I can't remember his name, but on the news last night I was…
View segment →mple where somebody on one side was making a legitimate effort to persuade the other side? It doesn't really—they don't really frame it that way, do they? The language people use is so directed at their own side that they end up pacing themselves. This is the biggest mistake you could make in persua…
View segment →ve a smartphone and I tried to sell you one and it was an iPhone and it was a good phone and it made you happy—well, I'm persuading you but you're better off with it. I got your money, you got a phone, everybody wins. If I persuade you to vote for President Trump, President Trump gets in office, he…
View segment →ify the means? Yes, yes. Because the lie was just talk and nuclear war is you exploding in a giant fireball of radiation and fire. Those are not equal. So when people say, "Oh, you're saying the ends justify the means," they always do if you do it right. If the ends don't justify the means, well wh…
View segment →the thing I don't really agree with because I understand this is just a study. All right, so I'll just do what you say. And they would follow up with the people who wrote an opinion that wasn't their real opinion. And a year later a lot of them had moved to the opinion that they wrote just because i…
View segment →ot the conditions are right, the talent is there, we'll see. Here's what you should look for if you're trying to handicap what's gonna happen with Iran. Let me tell you what to look for. You want to look for the same tell that you might have seen with North Korea and with Russia. You want to see th…
View segment →has we can push you around or we could push you around. That's sort of the proposition for Iran right now. They need to see a safety valve, an escape hatch, an off-ramp. They need to see a way to get to a good thing if they're going to give up anything. I think we've done it for today. Yeah, Chance…
View segment →at the problem is people instead of ideas and he just blew that up. And he said I can like this guy even if I don't agree with every idea. It's a big deal. It's a big deal. So let's talk again tomorrow.
View segment →Oh buh buh buh bum bum bum. Hey, is anybody here? If you're here early, come on in quietly. Get your coffee ready, because you know what's happening. You know what's coming. It's going to be the best simultaneous sip of the entire week. Are you ready? Raise your mug. Best one of the week. Here comes the good stuff.
Well, well, well. Has anything been happening lately? Yes, lots of things have been happening lately. But I wanted to talk to you about the party of hate. You may know that recently I gave a nickname to the Democratic Party. I called them the party of hate because it seemed that they didn't have ideas, but they had a lot of hate. And we've never seen this more clearly than with Kanye's tweeting and the reaction to it.
Now, have you noticed that there's a very clear pattern that has emerged? And it might have something to do with the party in power versus the party that's out of power. So I'm not going to say there's anything about the individuals that's broken. It may just be that the out-of-power party acts differently. But it's become very clear that the Republicans have become a party of ideas. Ideas include the Second Amendment, what to do about immigration, how to renegotiate deals, that sort of thing. All right, it's ideas.
The Democrats have become the party of "I hate that guy. You know that woman did something once. That person, I think they're thinking a bad thought. I believe in their mind they have terrible ideas. I think they're a bigot. I think they're discriminating. I think they're a racist. I think they're a misogynist." So the left has become the party of hating people, mostly on the right. The right has become a party of "let's have better ideas and maybe we can make things work." And oh my god, is it clear now. It's super clear at this point.
So watch. Often you see that. Now I wanted to talk about the illusions that cause the people on the left to hate the people on the right. And you're seeing on Twitter especially, I'm seeing people say to Kanye—essentially Kanye, I'm paraphrasing—"How could you possibly like Donald Trump because he must be a racist?" And the reason he must be a racist, a lot of them are using the same reasoning: he must be racist because all of the racists vote for him.
You know what's wrong with that thinking? Well, everything, right? I mean, there's no rational connection between the fact that a subset of a group vote for Trump. That doesn't mean he agrees with them. It means they find some benefit. Now obviously the main benefit that racists get in supporting Trump is that he's tough on immigration. They like it for racist reasons. Regular Republicans who are not racists like tight immigration because of crime and economics. Those are two different reasons to like the same president. It's not really hard to understand.
But here's what blows up their model. The people say that Trump must be racist because all of the racists seem to vote for him. What happens when the rappers start to vote for him? Does that make President Trump a rapper? I mean, the logic breaks down immediately. The very moment that you say the people who vote for him determine who he is, that logic doesn't work. Because what happens if all the—yeah, it's a bad analogy—but the point is the racists do like the president. That's just a fact. There's no reason to avoid that fact. But they like him for very clearly different reasons. They want fewer brown people in the country.
So I left a response to John Legend's tweets. So John Legend is one of the people who's speaking out about essentially Kanye. How can you embrace this horrible monster Trump? And I left the comment to his tweet—I don't know if he'll see it, there were a lot of comments—but I said that I've personally spent most of, you know, I'm not a Republican and not a conservative, but I've spent the last two and a half years essentially embedded with Republicans and conservatives. So probably at least 80% of all of my political conversation is with Trump supporters, because that's the way the world works, right? People like to talk with people who agree with them.
And after two and a half years, I have not one experience—and this is people, you know, because I'm talking social media as well as every other kind of way of communicating. So I'm talking about people from all over the country, not my neighborhood, but all over the country. Not once in two and a half years did I hear a Trump supporter say something that sounded dog-whistley, pro-racist. I've never even heard them sort of frame it that way. But the people on the left are pretty sure that in a private conversation Republicans are actually racists. That if nobody's looking and they're talking to each other it's like, "Yeah, you know, we're totally racist here." And I believe they think that that's actually what's happening. You know, in a private conversation it's that, "Yeah, we're all racist, blah blah."
Now there are racists, and it appears that most of them are voting Republican again because immigration favors them for racist reasons. Other Republicans like it for crime and economic reasons. So I'm seeing people say—there's a comment going by that says which part. So you could actually, you don't have to just say I'm crazy, or you could say, you know, you have a lot of characters here, so you could say, "I don't believe, for example, that regular Republicans are not racist." You could just say that. Tell me what it is, idea-wise, that you disagree with. Because when you say what you're really saying is that there's something wrong with me. Do you see the point?
My starting point is that the left are making personal judgments about people, and the right are talking about ideas. So watch out. People, treat me to see examples of that right now. Keep in mind I'm completely open to the left side. I'm actually inviting them. So give me your ideas right now.
You met with Duke. So somebody is concerned that I have interacted with people who they believe are bad people. Let me confirm that I have definitely interacted with people that you think are bad people. So you don't have to wonder if that's true. I can confirm that over the course of my life I have made it a point to be open to good people, bad people, ideas I like, ideas I don't like. And it's both on the left and right. So I will go as far left or as far right to get an opinion and to hear what they have to say.
And when I'm making business decisions, or usually business decisions, I don't look at somebody I may have a common business interest with and say, "Tell me all of your views," because if I find one I don't like I can't do business with you. I get that people do that, and if it was outrageous I probably would, but I don't make that kind of judgment because I don't think it helps anybody.
Now keep in mind that I'm a special case. So I'm going to make an argument for me being a special case. That's always dangerous, right? Everybody thinks they're a special case. Here's what makes me special. I'm very persuasive. If I attended—let me say this so it can't be taken out of context and turned into a meme. So I'm going to make a tortured sentence to make it hard for somebody to take it out of context, right? So bear with me.
If somebody like me—let's say not me but a person who was persuasive and non-racist, you know, not me, I'm talking about another person—if that person attended a KKK meeting, would that be a good thing or a bad thing? Well, if a non-racist who was very persuasive spent time with a bunch of KKK people, what is the most likely outcome? Is the outcome that the KKK would convert the non-racist to a racist, or that the hypothetical persuasive non-racist might have an impact on the racist? Maybe not that day, but plant some seeds that would sort of move them toward a better position.
So my view is if you hate the people I talk to, do an interview with, go on their TV show, go on their podcast, if you hate them you should enjoy that I'm associating with them—unless you hate my ideas. If you hate my ideas, then maybe you think that they're being promoted. But I'm a special case because I'm Switzerland when it comes to people's good and bad views. I will associate with people with good views. I will associate with people who have very despicable views. Generally speaking they will be familiar with my opinion of their views when I'm done with it.
All right, so you should not be concerned if I talked to somebody that you think is odious. You should say to yourself, "Oh, contact with that cartoonist guy may have made that person a little less odious. Spread the persuasion truth."
All right, so you're watching the character assassination that's taking place against me in the media. So have you noticed that if you saw—there were probably maybe 10 media articles that directly talked about me being involved with some part of the Kanye and Candace news story. And in those 10 or so major articles that I saw, how many of them gave attention to Kanye and Candace's ideas? Now think about it. Of all the articles you saw that talked about Kanye's tweet saying good things about Candace, did they say, "Well, let's describe Candace's ideas. So Candace says this and that, and that's different from what the left believes, and here's why she says it." How many of them did that?
And wasn't that really, from the beginning, the only point? No. What they did was they smeared her by just saying, "Uh, she's in the party with all the racists. She's making common cause with..." They went completely personal and made her point. So if Candace Owens had not already made her point as strongly as it could be made, her critics really did make it for her by attacking her personally instead of even dealing with the idea, never really even grappled with the point.
Now what about me? So I've been talking about freeing from the mental prison, similar to what both of them were talking about. When they talked about me in these articles, did they say, "And Adams' point that he's trying to express is this. We either agree with it or we don't. Or here's what the critics say," or whatever. That would be fair. Did you see that? You didn't see that.
What you saw is they started sorting through my ancient past to find, you know, and they came up with quite a few things that out of context sound terrible. By the way, I'll blog up my response to the personal attacks just so you can see them in context if you care. You will be, I think it would be very surprising. Let me tell you, you would be very surprised to see my responses if you haven't already heard them to the accusations. Because if you look at the accusations against me by themselves, you would say to yourself, "Okay, I don't see how there's any ambiguity about that."
Now let me give you an example. This is just a fake example. So if my critic says, "Scott is a serial killer and everybody knows it," somebody reads that and goes, "Well that's pretty unambiguous." What exactly would be your response to being a serial killer? And then you find out that the real reason is that it's breakfast cereal. That I eat a lot of it. You would be amazed at how different the real story is from what you see in the headlines. I mean just mind-bogglingly amazed at how different they are.
All right, so people saying liberalism is a mental disorder, please stop saying that because that doesn't help. That actually is their philosophy. So the liberal philosophy is that there's something wrong with the people on the other side. If you say there's something wrong with those liberals, their mind, you know they're idiots or whatever, you sort of bought into the remodel. You have a president whose brain a whole bunch of ideas which you could like and you could dislike some of them. You can like his effectiveness or think it isn't enough in other areas. But talking about people is not what Kanye would suggest. I certainly not what I would suggest.
All right, you have a point too. You have an opportunity to rise above it. The left is defining itself by its hatred of individuals for their ideas. They're not saying "I dislike your idea." They're saying "I dislike you." They're saying you're deplorable. They're not saying that people have these ideas that we don't like. They're saying you're deplorable. Rise above it. No, I don't know if rising above it is a good political technique. I suppose those could be separate, right? But as a human being, try to rise above it. Yeah, let the politics or now anyway they will.
Now let me amplify a point I made. I saw somebody on the right using the phrase that I believe Candace Owens has used a number of times, and I criticized it. And so let me clarify my criticism. If you're on the right and you're trying to make the point that African-American voters should leave the Democrat stronghold and maybe consider Republican policies, if that's your point, it is sort of nuclear persuasion to say that the left is in the Democrat plantation. I ain't even saying the words. I really don't like even the words coming out of my mouth. And here's why.
The point of what Candace is talking about, the point of what Kanye is talking about, the point of what I'm talking about is that if you focus on the past—which essentially doesn't exist except in our minds—you come to different conclusions than if you say, "What do we have right now? What's our current situation and how do we get from the current situation to even better?" That's a productive mindset.
And even though the reference to the Democrat plantation is—and so here's giving credit to Candace—this is a direct request to stop thinking in the past and move to the future. So the message is, you know, the content of the message is exactly correct. I think it's very productive. It's good for everybody to think about the future or think about the present and kind of leave all the dead bodies in the past.
But here's the problem with using those two words, "Democrat plantation." Those two words take your mind to the past. The point of those words is to help you get out of that and bring you to the future. But as a persuasion lesson, let me tell you that you don't want to take people's minds to the past if your message is focus on the current. If your message is let's figure out today, you want to bring their minds to today and let them not even think about it.
And here's the principle: their truth becomes whatever you think about the most. We are not a rational species. A rational species might hear that phrase, that statement, "Don't be in the Democrat plantation. You can be a Republican." A rational person would hear that, say, "Oh, I get the point. People are locked in. You'd like them to be more free-thinking. Yes, I see your point." But we're not really a rational species. And so it's more productive to understand that when you communicate. And as soon as you take people's minds to a thought, that thought becomes more real and more powerful simply because—and here's the important point—simply because you spend time thinking about it. Your brain accepts as truth the things you spend the most time thinking about. True.
So you're taking their minds to the past when you do that. And it's even hard for me to talk about how you shouldn't do it because in doing it I take your minds to the past. But I don't know a way around that. So just think of this in general. It's a general rule. Don't just say things that are true and that the other side might even recognize as true. Don't say things that are true. Say things that bring their minds to the productive place. What's the productive place? The productive place is what do we do today? What are your ideas?
So you saw me. I'm trying to use the same approach with Black Lives Matter and with Colin Kaepernick. I've blogged about both of them. I periscoped about them. For those who don't know, I am pro-Kaepernick, pro at least Hawk Newsom, who's a leader of Black Lives Matter of Greater New York. I'm pro those two individuals because of the effectiveness of their advocacy. So they're very effective at bringing attention to an issue that's important. But the next part is missing, which is okay, how can we actually make a difference? What would be a law that we could vote on? What would be a thing that I could do tomorrow that would help whatever it is that's bothering you?
So my approach to the—you know, and by the way I praised today on Kaepernick for being so effective, for being really good at surfacing an issue, putting skin in the game, taking a personal risk. That's slightly different than the question of whether the kneelers should have continued kneeling. I saw last night—oh I damn it, I can't remember his name, but on the news last night I was watching a Fox News sports person characterizing the whole NFL kneeling situation. And maybe somebody can help remind me who it is. I'll describe it, and it's awkward to describe him because he's African-American and he's bald and it feels like that's the wrong way to describe people. But the point of it is he was also brilliant at that one. So it was last night. It was a Fox News guy and he was talking. Yeah, it was Jason Whitlock. I hope that's the right name to give him credit.
Because what he was talking about, the kneelers, and here was his framing for this situation. He goes, "What the kneelers don't seem to get is that the NFL is a TV show. And the TV show gets to say what's on TV. If it's a TV show about sports, you don't get to do a cooking class on the field because it's about sports. If it were a TV show of politics, you couldn't play football. Like if Hannity came in and said, you know, I usually talk about politics but today I'm just gonna play ping-pong on there, well the people who own the TV show would say that's not the TV show. This is a sports TV show."
So what was brilliant about it—and I hope it's Jason Whitlock so I can give him credit—it was the best framing of that situation I've seen yet from his perspective, right? The other perspective would be a different framing. But for the conservative framing to call the whole NFL sport experience a TV show, it just takes it completely out of the realm of politics and into the realm of business. It's like, okay, remember a TV show is like a job. If you're not doing the TV show, you're not doing the job. So it was brilliant framing.
Anyway, so I agree with that point of view that there's a point when the protest goes to a level that it changes the TV show. And then at that point the people who own the TV show, they get a say. When Colin was doing it by himself he was making a point, and I thought that was an appropriate thing to do. In other words, he was doing the wrong thing on the wrong TV show, but that's what made it work. That's why we paid attention. As soon as it became everybody every week, it became the TV show. That was different.
All right, I think I may have lost my whole point on that. But how do you reframe the Democratic plantation? Well, yeah, I would do it the way you saw Kanye do it. He called it a mental prison. So the mental prison says that's what you're in today. So right now at this very moment your thinking is in a mental prison. And then the best part is that Kanye said, "Watch me break out." Here's your mental prison. Here's me. Let's say you have to do this backwards. Here's your mental prison. Here's Kanye. All right, that's all here. And now we're watching Kanye's jailbreak right in front of us. And you're watching the guards of the jail trying to claw him back. That's like, "Oh my god, Kanye, no, don't say that. What is wrong with you? Have you gone insane? Come back to prison."
So I think the mental prison—I don't like the prison analogy because that's problematic—but at least it's now, and that part's an improvement.
Why not refer to the progressives as a cult? Why? Let me tell you the rule of persuasion that's so obvious that when you hear it and then I tell you how people are not using the most obvious element of persuasion, it'll blow your mind. Most, as you know, politics is divided mostly into two sides, two teams. Both teams pretend they're trying to convince the other side, but they're not really. They're only talking to each other. They're solidifying their own side. So you're not really seeing people make anything like—I'm trying to think if I've ever seen an example of it in the last couple years. Can you think of an example where somebody on one side was making a legitimate effort to persuade the other side? It doesn't really—they don't really frame it that way, do they? The language people use is so directed at their own side that they end up pacing themselves. This is the biggest mistake you could make in persuasion.
Yes, somebody said to Hawk Newsom. So what made Hawk Newsom rise to prominence, at least people on the right and Trump supporters noticing how effective he was, is that he broke that rule. He paced the people he was trying to persuade, the Trump supporters. He said, "Yeah, I get it. I hear what you're saying." And as soon as he said that, all the Trump supporters said, "Okay, what do you have to say though?" If you missed that, there's the famous video of Hawk Newsom protesting originally a bunch of Trump supporters who were having a free speech rally. They called him up on stage and it looked like it was gonna be a whole show. If you didn't know anything about the people involved you say, "Oh god, this doesn't look good. There's gonna be a riot here."
And then what did Hawk Newsom do? He paced the audience. He said as clearly as possible, "I totally hear you. I hear you." Yep. And then he spoke it back so that we knew we actually heard it. And when he was done doing that, the entire crowd just went, "Oh, all right, you heard us. And now you talk." It was like this amazing moment in American politics.
Dave Rubin does that. Yes, he does, right? I haven't watched Jordan Peterson enough to know if he does that, but I'll bet he does because I've seen him enough to know that he would know to do that. So he would be smart enough to use persuasion and communication the way it should be used. So without seeing him do it, I'm sure he does. Joe Rogan, maybe. He's the type of personality you would. Yeah, I think I can think of examples where I've seen him do that. You're right. But consider how rare it is.
Diamond and Silk are on Capitol Hill today. Is that true?
Yeah, you know what else is a terrible argument? Here's the worst argument that the right makes. Would you like all the bad arguments on the right? Here's another bad one, same reason. When somebody says, "Hey, you would have all those KKK people voting for Trump," and then somebody on the right will say, "But what about 75 years ago? The KKK was Democrats." To which I say it's not 75 years ago. It's not an argument to say that different people did different things. That's not an argument about today. Nobody cares that different people did different things and those different people are all dead. That's no argument about today. So stop saying that.
You know, just accept that it's true that the racists do support the Republicans. But they do it for their own reasons, which is they're racists and they would like less immigration. If regular Republicans like immigration control for economic and crime reasons, how about just embrace that? They can like Trump for a different reason. Why is that a bad argument? Because here's the thing. Everybody recognizes those things as true or true enough.
Right, there's a time for me to go full-blown persuasion. How would you know if I did? I'm just looking at your comments right now.
All right, have you seen Hotep Jesus? I just recently started following him. Hotep Jesus. Keep in mind too that he's an entertainer who talks about politics. My brief watching of one of his periscopes tells me his talent stack is very well put together. So I like to put it in those. He has a number of talents that fit well together. But I'm gonna give him a little more attention and watch his act. But it seems like he can do a lot of things. He just has a lot of game in a lot of different areas and they come together really well.
Somebody believes I have super powers. Let me ask you this. Candace Owens just tweeted a plantation analogy. Yeah, I think I saw that this morning. So my suggestion to her—well, and let me clarify this. I've talked about persuasion being a case of two parts. One is get people's attention and then you apply your persuasion technique. So the getting-attention part can be messy, but you know, and this still works. So getting attention can be messy and still work. You see that Donald Trump does that. Candace got a lot of attention and brought a lot of energy to her points of view by calling it a Democrat plantation. That part is really good. So stirring up a little trouble, being a little controversial, using a provocative analogy, that is good. But you want to make sure that you can quickly progress to the "what are we doing now? What's next? What's tomorrow?" You just don't want to get locked in.
Persuasion equals manipulation. Yeah, let me answer that. Let me answer that question. That wasn't a question. So people always ask me what's the difference between persuading and manipulating. And the simple answer is intention. If I persuade you to buy a product which is actually good for you—let's say if you didn't have a smartphone and I tried to sell you one and it was an iPhone and it was a good phone and it made you happy—well, I'm persuading you but you're better off with it. I got your money, you got a phone, everybody wins. If I persuade you to vote for President Trump, President Trump gets in office, he denuclearizes North Korea, everybody wins.
So manipulation is where I convince you to do something that isn't good for you. So that's where I draw the line. Persuasion is either a win-win—well, typically if you do it ethically it's a win-win. Manipulation is a win for the manipulator and a loss for the person being manipulated. That's how I define it. And keep in mind you don't want to get lost in word thinking. I'm just talking in my view of where you draw the line.
I did not see Sebastian Gorka on Dave Rubin's show. I saw some Twitter activity about it though. Apparently he was quite effective.
Ends justify the means with manipulation though. Yeah, here's what you know. I'm always talking about these mental traps. And the "ends justify the means" people use as, well, therefore you shouldn't be doing what you're doing. But there are plenty of ethical situations where the ends justify the means. So that statement, all you're saying, "We have ends justify the means," or as I like to say, "Are you saying the ends justify the means?" What are the ends justify the means? If you're doing a cost-benefit analysis, which is the only way you should make decisions—well, these are the costs, these are the benefits. The ends, if you do it right, where your benefits exceed your costs, are always going to justify the means. That's what thinking is.
The thinking you know that if you're doing it right, a normal thinking rational person is making decisions in which the ends do justify the means. You've got a good outcome and the means might be you spend some money, you spend some time, maybe you embarrassed somebody, maybe either a cost, maybe you lied. Now I wouldn't lie for a small gain. That would be a case of, okay, in that case the ends do not justify the means because if you only got a small benefit but you lied to get it, well that lie is not free. Okay, so in that case the cost did not exceed the benefits. You shouldn't have made the decision.
But let's say a lie prevented nuclear war. It could happen. And we live in a world in which nations are lying to each other. A lie could prevent a nuclear war. And just use the extreme example. In that case would the ends justify the means? Yes, yes. Because the lie was just talk and nuclear war is you exploding in a giant fireball of radiation and fire. Those are not equal.
So when people say, "Oh, you're saying the ends justify the means," they always do if you do it right. If the ends don't justify the means, well what the hell were you going after those means for? What were you going after those ends for? What was the point of going after the ends if it was going to cost just as much to get them as the benefit? So think in terms of cost-benefit analysis. Don't think of bumper stickers. A bumper sticker is just about greens. But a thinking person says, all right, there are things I don't like about this, but this is a pretty big benefit. That's worth it.
Bum bum. Do you buy into the new QAnon conspiracy? QAnon is horoscope. So your horoscope will look like it is correct quite often.
What do you think of it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission? Yeah, that's another bumper sticker. So people say, well, it's easier to ask forgiveness than ask for permission. Let me give you my general answer to that. It kind of depends. There's no doubt that there are some situations in which it's better just to do it and get in trouble and deal with it. Certainly that's true.
Let me give you the best example of where it's better to ask for forgiveness: Uber. The company when they first started, they actually didn't really know that there would be so many regulations and laws and cab medallions and all that stuff that would make it really impossible to do their business. If Uber had been stopped by all those rules that said no, it's actually illegal, you can't even do this, it's literally illegal—if that had stopped Uber, there would be no Uber. But instead they just went ahead and did it anyway, got big enough, got successful enough, got enough goodwill, changed the world enough that by the time the lawmakers and the law enforcers caught up with them it was sort of too late. Then they had already succeeded to the point where you just couldn't put the genie back in the bottle easily. They had deep funding by then. They had lawyers by then. They had lobbyists. So they got too big too quickly. And that was probably the best example ever of it's better to do it first and ask for forgiveness later. Because they broke some rules, but you wouldn't have Uber without it. You just wouldn't.
And there are a number of other companies that you'll see there was something similar in their origin story where they just did something you weren't supposed to do and then they just figured it out. They just figured out how to deal with it after the fact.
Well, calling Kim Jong-un honorable. Work absolutely. Absolutely. Calling Kim Jong-un honorable is solid persuasion because it helps to solidify him into a keeping-your-promise kind of a model. So there's actually research. Robert Cialdini talks about this in his book Influence. That if you can just get people to repeat something out loud it becomes true to them. So if you—and it's so ridiculous that the examples were kind of mind-boggling. I think the example was if you go to people randomly and say, "Can you write a report—this is just a study—can you write a paragraph supporting climate science," or whatever the topic was. And they would pick people who already agreed with it, what they were going to write, and then some people who did not agree with it but just went along. It's an all right, I'll write a paragraph in support of the thing I don't really agree with because I understand this is just a study. All right, so I'll just do what you say. And they would follow up with the people who wrote an opinion that wasn't their real opinion. And a year later a lot of them had moved to the opinion that they wrote just because it sort of bought into it a little bit. The process of writing a fake opinion about something actually caused them to buy into it.
So calling Kim Jong-un honorable, to the extent that that reinforces what he's telling people, why he'd like you to believe the image he wants to portray, is actually really effective because that it locks him in a little bit. There's a psychological lock-in effect of the president calling the other party honorable. It actually makes them more honorable. That's like a real thing. President Trump actually causes Kim Jong-un to act a little more honorable by labeling him that way. That's a real thing.
But them, I'm just reading your comments here. When will you analyze Kanye's tweet persuasion? Well, I don't know if it's—yeah, there may be some tweets that are worth looking at the details. But I will tell you if you look at his approach—I'm not sure which one I'm seeing—but yeah, but there have been a few of his tweets recently that look very Trumpian. All right, yeah, I'll talk more about that in the future probably.
Oh, you know, I watched back the periscope I did yesterday with Joel Pollak from—he's the editor-at-large at Breitbart. He an editor at large of Breitbart, senior editor at large I think. But I played it back myself because he said a lot of things I wanted to just remind myself of all the stuff he said. And I had this weird experience because I'm talking and he's talking in this periscope. But every time he talked it sounded brilliant, like really well-informed and he understood all the issues in their proper context. And every time I talked it sounded like a dumb guy. And I don't think I would have noticed how uninformed I am if I were not contrasted immediately with somebody who knew so much. And by the way I know Joel and this isn't the only topic that he knows that much about. He kind of knows this much about everything important. So that was a fascinating experience.
Did you notice also that the best part—we probably didn't notice but what made that so effective, not only was that Joel is a great communicator and he knows the topic—but we didn't have a time limit. I'm treating now because he gave me a time limit and I exceeded it by a lot. So when we first said let's do this I said I'll do five, ten minutes because he had some stuff to get to in the morning. And I don't know how long we went, 22 minutes or something. So because there was no limit to how long we could go I could make sure that I didn't ask all my questions and he was generous enough to stay longer than that. I told him he would have to, but I feel like we got a good sense of the situation because we were not limited to a three-minute block on CNN. You know, that's the typical situation. That's really the power of the podcast, by the way, and the power of the periscope, is that they go as long as they should go.
Oh, thank you. People saying they liked my questions. Did you notice how dangerous it was? Did anybody sense the danger in the questions I was asking about Iran? Just interested in that. Was there anybody watching it who was thinking, "Oh Scott, don't ask that question. You don't even want to act like Iran could be rational because that's dangerous." Yeah, so some people were picking up the danger.
I've often said that one of the dividing lines between good art and boring art is that the audience should sense danger. It's one of those thoughts that when you first hear it doesn't really ring as true. You're like, I don't know, I like art that doesn't project any feeling of danger. But when you see how often it is that the thing you're interested in is either the artist or somebody the artist is talking about or impacting is in some danger. And when you watch me work you'll quite often see, "Oh shoot, he's gonna get in trouble for that too. Like oh god, I think newspapers are gonna drop him. Oh, I don't think he can say that."
So artists like Kanye, he's the universal example. He understands that if the audience don't feel some danger—not only for him, he put himself in a dangerous situation this week—but it's also dangerous for other people because Kanye is affecting a big population of people who are literally thinking differently today. I mean, whatever you want to say about Kanye, whether you're a critic or a lover, there's one thing I think we'd all agree on. Today we're thinking differently than we did last week. Not completely. We're not all thinking the same way differently. But there's definitely a shift. And Kanye did that. He did it intentionally. He did it skillfully. And it looks like it might stick. We'll see. Now if two weeks from now it all turns into other news stories, maybe it won't be as big as I think. But I think he's planted a seed that doesn't have any chance of not growing. It's just too true. There's sort of a truth to what he's doing that's gonna be hard to extinguish.
All right, update on Iran prediction. My Iran prediction is that we have, based on listening to Joel's explanation, that we have a flawed deal that probably could become a better deal without Iran feeling like they really lost too much. So there probably is a deal to be made. Whether or not the conditions are right, the talent is there, we'll see.
Here's what you should look for if you're trying to handicap what's gonna happen with Iran. Let me tell you what to look for. You want to look for the same tell that you might have seen with North Korea and with Russia. You want to see the president start to frame this as if you go down this path it's really, really bad, but we'll help you a lot if you go down this path. This path is sunshine and rainbows. This path is really, really bad. So if you start seeing the president making a case for the positive thing that Iran could be working toward, then you're probably seeing a potential breakthrough. That doesn't mean it'll happen, but you would have to at least—I would say that's the minimum.
I think Iran is too proud, too capable, too smart to simply bend to just pressure. I think they need a little bit of a—and there's something good on the other end as well. Because you look at what North Korea is doing. North Korea is going from a maybe dying in a fireball of fire and fury to if you check back in three years—if I could bet on the economy of one country, if you could place your money just betting how one country will do in their economy, I might put a little money on North Korea today. There's no way to do that. But conceptually the base that North Korea is at right now, if you check back in three years it's gonna be a lot higher assuming that they denuclearize. If they don't there won't be anything left economically. I'm not saying there'll be a war, but if you could bet I would bet on them being smart enough to take the enormous economic gain that is just theirs to be had.
Iran doesn't have that yet. Iran has we can push you around or we could push you around. That's sort of the proposition for Iran right now. They need to see a safety valve, an escape hatch, an off-ramp. They need to see a way to get to a good thing if they're going to give up anything.
I think we've done it for today. Yeah, Chance the Rapper's weighing in. And you think Kanye's support of Trump is temporary? Well, you know, probably not. It would be hard to walk that back unless I suppose if he did something specific. But I just don't see it happen.
So what Kanye has done, just summarizing, is he's taken the left's view that the problem is people instead of ideas and he just blew that up. And he said I can like this guy even if I don't agree with every idea. It's a big deal. It's a big deal. So let's talk again tomorrow.
Oh buh buh buh bum bum bum hey is anybody here if you're here early come on in quietly get your coffee ready because you know what's happening you know what's coming it's going to be the best simultaneous sip of the entire week are you ready raise your mug best one of the week here comes good stuff well well well has anything been happening lately yes lots of things been happening lately but I wanted to talk to you about the party of hate you may know that recently I I gave a nickname to the Democratic Party I called them the party of hate because it seemed that they didn't have ideas but they had a lot of hate and we've never seen this more clearly than with you know Kanye's tweeting and the reaction to it now have you noticed that there's there's a very clear pattern that is merged and it might have something to do with the parties and power versus the party that's out of power so I'm not going to say there's anything about the individuals that's broken it may just be that you know the the out of power party acts differently but it's become very clear that the Republicans have become a party of ideas right ideas include the Second Amendment you know that what to do about immigration had to renegotiate deals that sort of thing all right it's ideas the Democrats have become the party of I hate that guy you know that woman did something once that person I think they're thinking a bad thought I believe in their mind they have terrible ideas I think they're a bigot I think they're discriminating I think they're a racist I think they're misogynist so the the left has become the party of hating people mostly on the right the right has become a party of let's have better ideas and maybe we can you know make things work and oh my god is it clear now it's super clear at this point so watch often you see that now I wanted to talked about the illusions that cause the the people on the left to hate the people on the right and you're seeing on Twitter especially I'm seeing people say to Kanye essentially Kanye I'm paraphrasing how could you possibly like Donald Trump because he must be a racist and the reason he must be a racist a lot of them are using the same reasoning he must be racist because all of the racists vote for him you know what's wrong with that thinking well everything right I mean there's no rational connection between the fact that a subset of group vote for Trump that doesn't mean he agrees with them it means they they find some benefit now obviously the main benefit that racists get in supporting Trump is that he's tough on immigration they liked I didn't bation for racist reasons regular Republicans who are not racists like tight immigration because of crime and economics those are two different reasons to like the same president it's not really hard to understand but here's what blows up their model the people say the Trump must be racist because all of the races seem to vote for him what happens when the poppers start to vote for him does that make President Trump a rapper I mean the logic breaks down immediately you know the the very moment that the very moment that you say the people who vote for him determined who he is that logic doesn't work because what happens if you know what happened if all the yeah it's a bad analogy but the point is the racists do like the president that's just a fact there's no reason to avoid that fact but they like him for very clearly different reasons they want fewer brown people in the country so I left a response to John Legend's tweets so John Legend is one of the people who's speaking out about essentially Kanye how can you embrace this horrible monster Trump and I left the comment to his tweet I don't know if you'll see it there were a lot of comments but I said that I've I've personally spent most of you know I'm not a Republican and not a conservative but I've spent the last what two and a half years essentially embedded with Republicans and conservatives so probably at least 80% of all of my political conversation is with Trump supporters because that's the way the world works right people like to talk with people who agree with them and after two and a half years I've I have not one experience and this is people you know because I'm talking social media as well as every other kind of way of communicating so I'm talking about people from all over the country not my neighborhood but all over the country not once in two and a half years did I hear a trump supporter say something that sounded dog whistle II Pro racist I've never even heard them sort of frame it that way but the people on the left are pretty sure that in a in a private conversation Republicans are actually racists then if nobody's looking and they're talking to each others like you you know we're totally racist here and I believe they they think that that's the that's actually what's happening you know in a private conversation is that yeah we're all we're all racist bla bla now there are racists and it appears that most of them are voting Republican again because immigration favors them for racist reasons other Republicans like it for prime and economic reasons so their watch so I'm seeing people say there's a comment going by this says which part so you you could actually you don't have to just say I'm crazy or you could say you know you have a lot of characters here so you could say I don't believe for example that regular Republicans are not racist you could just say that tell me tell me what it is idea wise that you disagree with because when you say what you're really saying is that there's something wrong with me do you see the point my starting point is that my starting point is that the the left are making personal you know personal judgments about people and the right are talking about ideas so watch watch out people treat me to see examples of that right now keep in mind I'm completely open to the left side is I'm actually inviting them so you know give me your ideas right now you met with Duke so so somebody is somebody is concerned that I have interacted with people who they believe are bad people let me confirm that I have definitely interacted with people that you think are bad people so you don't have to you don't have to wonder if that's true I can confirm that over the course of my life I have made it a point to be open to good people bad people ideas I like ideas I don't like and it's both on the left and right so I will go as far left or as far right to get an opinion and to hear what they have to say and when I'm making business decisions or usually business decisions I don't look at somebody I may have a common business interest with and say tell me all of your views because if I find one I don't like I can't do business with you I get that people do that and if it was outrageous I probably would but I don't make that kind of judgment because I don't think it helps anybody now keep in mind that I'm a special case so I'm gonna make an argument for me being a special case that's always dangerous right everybody thinks they're a special case here's what makes me special I'm very persuasive if I attended let me say this so it can't be taken out of context and turned into a meme so I'm gonna I'm gonna make a tortured sentence to make it hard for somebody to take it out of context right so bear with me if somebody liked me let's say not me but a person who was persuasive and non racist you know not me I'm talking about another person if that person attended a KKK meeting would that be a good thing or a bad thing well if a non racist who was very persuasive spent time with a bunch of KKK people what is the most likely outcome is the outcome that the KKK would convert the non racist to a racist or that the you know hypothetical persuasive non racist might have an impact on the the racist maybe not that day but plant some seeds that would sort of move them toward a better position so so my view is if you hate the people I talk to do an interview with go on their TV show go on their podcast if you hate them you should enjoy that I'm associating with them unless you hate my ideas if you hate my ideas then maybe you think that you know you know they're being promoted but I'm a special case because I'm Switzerland when it comes to people's good and bad views I will associate it with people with good views I will associate with people who have very despicable views generally speaking they will be familiar with my opinion of their views when I'm done with it all right so you should not be concerned if I talked to somebody that you think is odious you should say to yourself oh contact with that cartoonist guy may have made that person a little less odious spread the persuasion truth alright so you're watching the the character assassination that's taking place against me in the media so have you noticed that if you saw but there were probably maybe 10 media articles that directly talked about me being involved with you know some part of the con d8 Candice you know news story and in those 10 or so major articles that I saw how many of them gave attention to Kanye and Candice's ideas now think about it of all the articles you saw that talked about Kanye's tweet you know saying good things about Candice did they say well let's describe Candace's ideas so Candice says the skandhas all wouldn't stop talking about Candice says this and that and that's different from what the left leaves and here's why she says it how many of them did that and wasn't that really from the beginning it was the only point no what they did was they smeared her by just saying uh she's she's in the party with all the racists you know she's she's alright she's making common cause with whatever they went completely personal and made her point so if Candice Owens had not already made her point you know as as strongly as it could be made her critics really did make it for her by attacking her personally instead of even dealing with the idea never really even grappled with the point now what about me so I've been talking about you know the you know freeing from the mental prison so you know similar to what both them were talking about when they talked about me in these articles did they say and Adams point that he's trying to express is this we either agree with it or we don't or here's what the critics say or whatever that would be fair did you see that you didn't see that well you saw is they they they started sorting through my ancient scat to find you know I'm not and they they came up with quite a few things that out of context sound terrible by the way I'll blog up my response to the personal attacks just so you can see them in context if he care you will be I I think it would be very surprised let me tell you you would be very surprised to see my responses if you haven't already heard them to the accusations because if you look at the accusations against me by themselves you would say to yourself okay I don't see how there's any ambiguity about that now let me give you an example this is just a fake example so if my critic says Scott is a serial killer and everybody knows it somebody reads that goes well that's pretty unambiguous what what exactly would be your you know your response to being a serial killer and then you find out that the real reason is that it's you know breakfast cereal that I eat a lot of it you know you would be amazed at how different the real story is from what you see in the headlines I mean I mean just mind bogglingly amazed at how different their alright so people saying liberalism is a mental disorder please stop saying that because that doesn't help that actually is their philosophy so the liberal philosophy is that there's something wrong with the people on the other side if you say there's something wrong with those liberals their mind you know they're idiots or whatever you sort of bought him to the remodel you know you you have a president whose brain a whole bunch of ideas which you could like and you could dislike some of them you can like his effectiveness or think it isn't enough in other areas but talking about people is not what Kanye would suggest I certainly not what I would suggest all right you have a point to you know you have you have an opportunity to rise above all right they the the left is defining itself by its hatred of individuals for their ideas they're not saying I dislike your idea they're saying I dislike you they're say you're a deplorable they're not saying that people have these ideas that we don't like they're say you're deplorable you know rise above it no I don't know if I have no idea if rising above it is a good political technique that I suppose those could be separate right but as a human as a human being try to rise above it yeah let the politics or now anyway they will now let me amplify a point I made I saw somebody on the right using the phrase that I believe Candice Owens has used a number of times and I criticized it and so let me clarify my criticism if you're on the right and you're trying to make the point that african-american voters should you know leave the Democrat you know stronghold and and maybe consider Republican policies if that's your point it is it is sort of nuclear persuasion to say that the left is in the Democrat plantation I ain't even saying the words I really don't like even the words coming out of my mouth and here's why the point of what Candis is talking about the point of what Kanye is talking about the point of what I'm talking about is that if you focus on the past which essentially doesn't exist except in our minds you come to different conclusions than if you say what do we have right now well you what what's our current situation and how do we get from the current situation to even better alright that's a productive mindset and even though reference to the the Democrat plantation is and so here's giving credit to Candice this is a direct request to stop thinking in the past and move to the future so the message is you know the content of the message is exactly correct I think it's very productive it's it's it's good for everybody to think about the future or think about the present and kind of leave the you know leave all the dead bodies in the past but here's the problem with using the that those two words Democrat plantation those two words take your mind to the past the point of those words is to we help you get out of that and bring you to the future but as a persuasion lesson let me tell you that you don't want to take people's minds to the past if your message is focus on the current if your motive if you're a few messages let's let's figure out today you want to bring their minds to today and and let them not even think about and here's the principle their truth becomes whatever you think about the most we are not a rational species a rational species might hear that phrase that statement don't be in the Democrat plantation you know you can be a Republican a rational person would hear that say oh I get the point you know people are locked in you'd like them to be more free thinking yes I see your point but we're not really a rational species and so it's more productive to understand that when you communicate and as soon as you take people's minds to a thought that thought becomes more real and more powerful simply because and here's the important point simply because you spend time thinking about it your brain accepts as truth the things you spend the most time thinking about true so you're taking their minds to the past when you do that and it's even hard for me to talk about how you shouldn't do it because in doing it I take your minds to the past but I don't know a way around that so just think of this in general you know it's a general rule don't just say things that are true and that you the other side might even recognize is true don't say things that are true say things that bring their minds to the productive place what's the productive place the productive places what do we do today like what what are your ideas say do you saw me I'm trying to use the same approach with black lives matter and with colin kaepernick i've blogged about both of them i periscope to babble them for those who don't know I am Pro Kaepernick Pro at least Hawk Newsom who's a leader of black lives matter of Greater New York I Pro those two individuals because of the effectiveness of their let's say advocacy so so they're very effective at bringing attention to an issue that's important but the next part is missing which is okay how can we actually make a difference what would be a law that we could vote on what would be a thing that I could do tomorrow that would help whatever it is that's bothering you so my approach to the you know and by the way I pour today on cap redact for being so effective so being really good as surfacing an issue putting skin in the game you know taking a personal risk there's like that that's slightly different than the question of whether the kneelers should have continued kneeling I saw last night oh I damn it I can't remember isn't but on the news last night I was watching a Fox News sports person characterizing the whole NFL kneeling situation and maybe somebody can help remind me who it is I'll describe it and it's awkward to describe him because he's african-american and he's bald and it feels like it feels like that's the wrong way to describe people but the point of it is he was also brilliant as that one was so it was last night it was a Fox News guy and he was talking yeah it was a Jason Whitlock I hope that's the right name to give him credit because what he was talking about the kneelers and here was his framing for this situation he goes what the kneelers don't seem to get is that the NFL is a TV show and the TV show gets to say what's on TV you know that if it's a TV show about sports you don't get to do a cooking class of the field because Sibel sports if it were a TV show of politics you couldn't play football like if Hannity came in and said you know I usually talk about politics but today I'm just gonna play ping-pong on there well the people who own the TV show would say that's not the TV show this is a sports TV show so what was brilliant about and I hope it's Jason Whitlock so I can give him credit it was the best framing of that situation I've seen yet from you know from his perspective right the other perspective would be a different framing but for the the conservative framing to call the the whole NFL sport experience a TV show it just takes a completely out of the realm of politics and into the realm of business it's like okay remember a TV show is like a job if you're not doing the TV show you're not doing the job so it was brilliant framing anyway so I agree with that point of view that there's you know there's a point when the protest goes to a level that it changes the TV show and then at that point the people who own the TV show they get a say right when Colin was doing it by himself he was making a point and you know I thought that was an appropriate inappropriate thing to do in other words he was doing the wrong thing on the wrong TV show but that's what made it work that's why we paid attention as soon as it became everybody every week it became the TV show that was different all right I think I may have lost my whole point on that but how do you reframe the democratic plantation well yeah I would do it the way you saw Connie you do it he he called it a mental prison so the mental prison says that's what you're in today so right now at this very moment your your thinking is in a mental prison and then and then the best part is that Kanye said to watch me break out here's your mental prison here's me let's say you have to do this backwards here's your mental prison here's Kanye all right that's all here and now we're watching we're watching Kanye's jailbreak you know like right in front of us yeah and you're watching the guards of the jail trying to claw him back that's like oh my god Kanye no don't say that what is wrong with you have you gone insane come back to prison so I think the mental prison I don't like the prison analogy because that's that's problematic but at least it's now and that part's an improvement why not refer to the progressives as a cult why let me tell you the the rule of persuasion that's the so obvious that when you hear it and then I tell you how people are not using the most obvious element of persuasion it'll blow your mind most you know as you know politics is divided mostly into two sides two teams both teams pretend they're trying to convince the other side but they're not really they're only talking to each other they're solidifying their own side so you're not really seeing people make anything like I'm trying to think if I've ever seen an example of it in the last couple years can you think of an example where somebody on one side was making a legitimate effort to persuade the other side it doesn't really they don't really frame it that way do that the language people use is so directed at their own side that they end up pacing themselves right this is the biggest mistake you could make in persuasion yes somebody said to hawk Newsom so what made Hogg Newsome rise to prominence at least you know people on the right and Trump supporters noticing how effective he was is that he broke that rule he pasted the people he was trying to persuade the Trump supporters he said yeah I get I hear what you're saying and as soon as he said that all the Trump supporters said okay what do you have to say though you know if you miss that there's the there's the famous video of hawk Newsom you know protesting originally a bunch of Trump supporters who were having a free speech rally they called them up on stage and it looked like it was gonna be a whole show you know like that if you didn't know anything about the people involved you say oh god this doesn't look good you know there's gonna be a riot here and then what did hard nursin do he pasted the audio he said as clearly as possible I totally hear you I hear you yep and then he and then he spoke it back so that we knew we actually heard it and when he was done doing that the entire crowd just went oh all right you heard us and now you talk it was like this amazing moment in American politics Dave Rubin does that yes he does right I haven't watched Jordan Pederson who work enough to know if he does that but I'll bet he does because you know I've seen him enough to know that he would know to do that right so he would be smart enough to use persuasion and communication the way it was you know the way it should be used so without seeing him do it I'm sure he does Joe Rogan maybe I mean he's the personnel he's the type of personality you would yeah yeah I think I can think of examples where I've seen him do that you're right but consider how rare it is diamond and silk are on Capitol Hill today is that true yeah you know what else is a terrible argument here's the worst argument that the right makes would you like you're all the bad arguments on the right here's another bad one same reason when somebody says hey you would have been all those KKK people voting for Trump and then somebody has the right will say but what about 75 years ago they the KKK was Democrats to which I say it's not 75 years ago it's not an argument to say that different people did different things that's not an argument about today nobody cares that different people did different things and those different people were all dead that's no argument about today so stop saying that you know it just accept that it's true that they racists do support the Republicans but they do it for their own reasons which is they're racists and they they would like less immigration right if regular Republicans like immigration control for economic and cry reasons how about just embrace that have an embrace they can they could like to Trump for a different reason why is that a bad argument because because here's the thing everybody recognizes those things as true or true enough right there's a time for me to go full-blown persuasion how would you know I mean how would you know if I did I'm just looking at your comments right now all right have you seen hotep Jesus yeah I just recently started following him he Soho type Jesus you know keep in mind too that he's an entertainer who talks about politics my my brief watching of one of his periscopes tells me he's he's got a lot of tells me his talent stack is very well put together so I like to put it in those he has a number of talents that fit well together but I'm gonna give him a little more attention and watch his act but it seems like he can do a lot of things he just has a lot of a lot of game in a lot of different areas and they come together really well somebody believes I have super powers let me ask you this Candice Owens just tweeted a plantation analogy yeah I think I saw that this morning so my suggestion to her well and let me let me clarify this I've talked about persuasion being a case of you know two parts one is get people's attention and then you apply your persuasion technique so the getting attention part can be messy but you know and this still work so getting attention can be messy and still work you see that Donald Trump does that Candice got a lot of attention and brought a lot of energy to her points of view by calling it a Democrat plantation that part is really good so stirring up a little trouble being a little controversial using a provocative analogy that is good but you want to make sure that you can quickly you know progress to the what are we doing now you know what's next what's tomorrow you just don't want to get locked in persuasion equals manipulation yeah let me answer that let me answer that question that wasn't a question so people always ask me what's the difference between persuading and manipulating and the the simple answer is intention if I persuade you to buy a product which is actually good for you let's say if you didn't have a smart phone and I tried to sell you one and it was a iphone and it was a good phone and it made you happy well I'm persuading you but you're better off with it you know yeah I got your money you got a phone everybody wins if I persuade you to vote for President Trump President Trump gets in office he you know in the optimistic world he D nuclearized as North Korea everybody wins so manipulation is where I convinced you to do something that isn't good for you so that's where I draw the line persuasion is either a win win well typically if you do it ethically it's a win win manipulation is a win for the manipulator and a loss for the person being manipulated that's that's how I define it and keep in mind you don't want to get lost in word thinking I'm just talking in my view of where that where you draw the line I did not see Sebastian Gorka on Dave Rubin show I saw some Twitter activity about it though apparently he was he was quite effective ends justify the means with manipulation though yeah here here's what you know I'm always talking about these these mental traps and the ends justify the means people use as well therefore you shouldn't be doing why you're doing but there are plenty of ethical situations where the ends justify the means so that statement all you're saying we have ins justify the means or as I like to say are you saying the ends justify the means what are the ends justify the means if you're doing a cost-benefit analysis which is the only way you should make decisions well these are the costs these are the benefits the ends if you do it right where your benefits exceed your costs kai never always going to justify the means that's what that's what thinking is the thinking you know that if you doing it right a normal thinking rational person is making decisions in which the ends do justify the means you've got a good outcome and the means might be you spend some money you spend some time maybe you embarrassed somebody maybe you know either a costs maybe you lied now I wouldn't lie for a small game right that that would be a case of okay in that case the ends do not justify the means because if you only got a small benefit but you lied to get it well that lie is not free okay so in that case the cost did not exceed the benefits you shouldn't have made the decision but let's say a lie prevented nuclear war it could happen and we live in a world in which nations are lying to each other a lie could prevent a new and just use the extreme example in that case would the ends justify the means yes yes because the lie was just talk and nuclear war is you exploding in a giant fireball of radiation and fire those are not equal so so when people say you know oh you're saying the ends justify the means they always do if you do it right if the ends don't justify the means well what the hell were you going after those means for know what were you going after those ends for what was the point of going after the ends if it was going to cost just as much to get them as as the benefit so think in terms of cost benefit analysis don't think of bumper stickers a bumper sticker is it's just about greens but a thinking person says all right there are things I don't like about this but this is a pretty big benefit that's worth it bumbum do you buy into the new cue anon conspiracy cue anon is horoscope so your horoscope will look like it is correct quite often what do you think of it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission yeah that's another bumper sticker so people say well it's easier to ask forgiveness the desk for permission let me give you my general answers that it kind of depends there's no doubt that there are some situations in which it's better just to do it and get in trouble and you know deal with it certainly that's true let me give you the best example of where it's better to ask for forgiveness uber the company when they first started they actually didn't really know that there would be so many you know regulations and laws and you know cab medallions and all that stuff that would make it really impossible to do their business if if uber if uber had been stopped by all those rules that said no it's actually illegal you can't even you can't even do this it's literally illegal if that had stopped over there would be my uber but instead they just went ahead and did it anyway got big enough got successful enough got enough you know goodwill changed the world enough that by the time they law makers and the law enforcers caught up with him it was sort of too late then that they had already succeeded to the point where you just couldn't put the genie back in the bottle easily they had a dead funding by then they had lawyers by then they had you know lobbyists so they got too big too quickly and that was probably the best example ever of it's better to you know do it first and ask for forgiveness later because they broke they broke some rules but you wouldn't have without it you just wouldn't and there are a number of other companies that you'll see there was you know something similar in their in their origin story where they just did something you weren't supposed to do and then they just figured it out you know they just figured I had to deal with it after the fact well calling kim jonghwan honorable work absolutely absolutely calling Kim jong-un honorable is solid solid persuasion because it helps to solidify him into a keeping your promise kind of a model so there's actually research Robert Jill Dini talks about this this is book influence that if you can just get people to repeat something out loud it becomes true to them so if you and it's so ridiculous that the examples were kind of mind-boggling I think the example was if you go to people randomly and say can you write a report this is just a study can you write a paragraph supporting you know climate science or whatever the topic was and they would pick people who already agreed with it what they were going to write and then some people who did not agree with it but just went along it's an all right I'll write a paragraph in support of the thing I don't really agree with it because I understand this is just a study all right so I'll just do what you say and they would follow up with the people who wrote an opinion that wasn't their real opinion and a year later a lot of them had moved to the opinion that they wrote just because it sort of bought into it a little bit you know the process of writing a fake opinion about something actually bought it caused them to buy into it so calling Kim Jong un honorable to the fact to the to the extent that that reinforces what he's telling people why he'd like you to believe the the image he wants to portray is actually really effective because that it locks them in a little bit you know there's a there's a psychological lock in effect of the president calling the other party honorable it actually makes them more honorable that's like a real thing President Trump actually causes Kim jong-un to act a little more honorable by labeling him that way that's a real thing but them I'm just reading your comments here when will you analyze Kanye's tweet persuasion well I I don't know if it's yeah there may be some tweets that are worth looking at the the details but I will tell you if you look at if you look at his approach I'm not sure which variables I'm seeing but yeah but there have been a few of his tweets recently that look very trumpian all right yeah I'll talk more about that in the future probably oh you know I watched back the periscope I did yesterday with that Joel Pollak from he's the editor-at-large at Breitbart he an editor at large of right mark senior editor at large I think but I played it back myself because he said he said a lot of things I wanted to just remind myself of all the stuff he said and I had this weird experience because you know I'm talking and he's talking in this periscope but every time he talked it sounded brilliant like really well-informed and you know he understood all the issues in their proper context and and and every time I talked it sounded like a dumb guy and I don't think I would have noticed how uninformed I am if I were not contrasted that you know immediately was somebody who knew so much and by the way I know Joel and this isn't the only topic that he knows that much about you know he kind of knows this much about everything important so that was a fascinating experience did you notice also that the the best part we probably didn't notice but what made that so effective not only was that Joel is a great communicator and he knows he knows the topic but we didn't have a time limit I'm treating now because he gave me a time limit and I exceeded it by a lot so when we first said let's do this I said I'll 5 10 minutes because he had some stuff to get to in the morning and I don't know how long we went 22 minutes or something so because there was no limit to how long we could go I could make sure that I didn't asked all my questions and and he was generous enough to stay longer than that I told him he would have to but I should I feel like we got a good a good sense of the situation because we were not limited to a you know a three-minute block on CNN you know that's the typical situation that that's really the power of the podcast by the way and the power of the powers of the periscope is that they go as long as they should go oh thank you people saying they liked my questions did you notice how dangerous it was did anybody did anybody sense the danger in the questions I was asking about a rant just interested in that what what was there anybody watching it who was thinking oh Scott don't ask that question that's you know you don't even want to act like Iran could be rational because that's dangerous yeah so some people were picking up the danger I I've often said that the you know one of the dividing lines between good art and and boring art is that the audience should sense danger is one of those thoughts that when you first hear it doesn't really ring is true you're like I don't know I like art that doesn't make you know doesn't project any feeling of danger but when you want when you see how often it is that the thing you're interested in is either the artist or somebody the artist is talking about or or impacting is in some danger and when you watch me work you'll quite often see oh shoot he's gonna get in trouble for that too like oh god I think newspapers are gonna drop him oh I don't think he can say that so artists like Kanye you know he's he's the universal example he understands that if you the audience don't feel some danger not only for him he put himself in a dangerous situation this week but it's also dangerous for other people because you know Kanye is affecting a big big population of people who are literally thinking differently today I mean you whatever you want to say about Kanye you know whether you're a critic or a lover there's one thing I think we'd all agree on today were thinking differently than we did last week not completely we're not all thinking the same way differently but there's definitely a shift and Kanye did that right he did it intentionally he did it skillfully and it looks like it might stick we'll see now if two weeks from now you know it all turns into other news stories maybe maybe it won't be as big as as I think but I think he's planted a seed that doesn't have any chance of not growing it's just too true you know there's sort of a truth to what he's doing that's gonna be hard to extinguish all right update on Iran prediction my my Iran prediction is that we have you know based on listening to Joel's explanation that we have a flawed deal that probably could become a better deal without Iran feeling like they they really lost too much so there probably is a deal to be made whether or not the conditions are right the the talent is there we'll say here's what you should look for if you're trying to handicap what's gonna happen with Iran let me tell you what to look for you want to look for the same tell that you might have seen with North Korea and with Russia you want to see the president start to frame this as if you go down this path it's really really bad but we'll help you a lot if you go down this path this path is sunshine and rainbows this path is really really bad so if you start seeing the president making a case for the the positive thing that Iran could be working toward then you're probably seeing a potential breakthrough that doesn't mean it'll happen but you would have to at least I would say that's the minimum I think Iran is too proud too capable too smart to simply bend to just pressure I think they need a little bit of a and there's something good on the other end as well because you look at what North Korea is doing North Korea's is going from a maybe dying in a fire ball of fire and fury to if you check back in three years you know if I could bet on the economy of one country you know if you could place your money just betting how one country will do in their economy I might put a little money on North Korea today you know there's no way to do that but conceptually the the base that North Korea is at right now if you check back in three years it's gonna be a lot higher assuming that they do nuclear ice if they don't there won't be anything left you know economically there won't be anything left I'm not saying there'll be a war but you know if you could bet I would bet on them being smart enough to take the enormous economic game that is just theirs to be had Iran doesn't have that yet Iran has we can push you around or we could push you around you know that's sort of the proposition for Iran right now they need to see a safety valve an escape hatch an off-ramp they need to see a way to get to a good thing if they're going to give up anything I think we've done it for today yeah chance the rapper's weighing in and you think Kanye's supportive Trump is temporary well you know probably not yeah that it would be hard to walk that back you know unless I suppose if he did something specific but I just don't see it happen so what Kanye is done just summarizing is he's taken the the left's you that the problem is people instead of ideas and he just blew that up and he said I can like this guy even if I don't agree with every idea it's a big deal it's a big deal so let's let's talk again tomorrow
Oh buh buh buh bum bum bum hey is
anybody here if you're here early
come on in quietly get your coffee ready
because you know what's happening you
know what's coming it's going to be the
best simultaneous sip of the entire week
are you ready
raise your mug best one of the week here
comes good stuff
well well well has anything been
happening lately yes lots of things been
happening lately but I wanted to talk to
you about the party of hate you may know
that recently I I gave a nickname to the
Democratic Party I called them the party
of hate because it seemed that they
didn't have ideas but they had a lot of
hate and we've never seen this more
clearly than with you know Kanye's
tweeting and the reaction to it
now have you noticed that there's
there's a very clear pattern that is
merged and it might have something to do
with the parties and power versus the
party that's out of power so I'm not
going to say there's anything about the
individuals that's broken it may just be
that you know the the out of power party
acts differently but it's become very
clear that the Republicans have become a
party of ideas right ideas include the
Second Amendment you know that what to
do about immigration had to renegotiate
deals that sort of thing all right it's
ideas the Democrats have become the
party of I hate that guy you know that
woman did something once that person I
think they're thinking a bad thought
I believe in their mind they have
terrible ideas I think they're a bigot I
think they're discriminating I think
they're a racist I think they're
misogynist so the the left has become
the party of hating people mostly on the
right the right has become a party of
let's have better ideas and maybe we can
you know make things work and oh my god
is it clear now it's super clear at this
point
so watch often you see that now I wanted
to talked about the illusions that cause
the the people on the left to hate the
people on the right and you're seeing on
Twitter especially I'm seeing people say
to Kanye essentially Kanye I'm
paraphrasing how could you possibly like
Donald Trump because he must be a racist
and the reason he must be a racist a lot
of them are using the same reasoning he
must be racist because all of the
racists vote for him you know what's
wrong with that thinking well everything
right I mean there's no rational
connection between the fact that a
subset of group vote for Trump that
doesn't mean he agrees with them it
means they they find some benefit
now obviously the main benefit that
racists get in supporting Trump is that
he's tough on immigration
they liked I didn't bation for racist
reasons regular Republicans who are not
racists like tight immigration because
of crime and economics those are two
different reasons to like the same
president it's not really hard to
understand but here's what blows up
their model the people say the Trump
must be racist because all of the races
seem to vote for him what happens when
the
poppers start to vote for him does that
make President Trump a rapper I mean the
logic breaks down immediately you know
the the very moment that the very moment
that you say the people who vote for him
determined who he is that logic doesn't
work because what happens if you know
what happened if all the yeah it's a bad
analogy but the point is the racists do
like the president that's just a fact
there's no reason to avoid that fact but
they like him for very clearly different
reasons they want fewer brown people in
the country so I left a response to John
Legend's tweets so John Legend is one of
the people who's speaking out about
essentially Kanye how can you embrace
this horrible monster Trump and I left
the comment to his tweet I don't know if
you'll see it there were a lot of
comments but I said that I've I've
personally spent most of you know I'm
not a Republican and not a conservative
but I've spent the last what two and a
half years essentially embedded with
Republicans and conservatives so
probably at least 80% of all of my
political conversation is with Trump
supporters because that's the way the
world works right people like to talk
with people who agree with them and
after two and a half years I've I have
not one experience and this is people
you know because I'm talking social
media as well as every other kind of way
of communicating so I'm talking about
people from all over the country not my
neighborhood but all over the country
not once in two and a half years did I
hear a trump supporter say something
that sounded dog whistle II Pro racist
I've never even heard them sort of frame
it that way
but the people on the left are pretty
sure that in a in a private conversation
Republicans are actually racists then if
nobody's looking and they're talking to
each others like you you know we're
totally racist here and I believe they
they think that that's the that's
actually what's happening you know in a
private conversation is that yeah we're
all we're all racist bla bla now there
are racists and it appears that most of
them are voting Republican again because
immigration favors them for racist
reasons other Republicans like it for
prime and economic reasons so their
watch so I'm seeing people say there's a
comment going by this says
which part so you you could actually you
don't have to just say I'm crazy or you
could say you know you have a
lot of characters here so you could say
I don't believe for example that regular
Republicans are not racist
you could just say that tell me tell me
what it is idea wise that you disagree
with because when you say
what you're really saying is that
there's something wrong with me do you
see the point my starting point is that
my starting point is that the the left
are making personal you know personal
judgments about people and the right are
talking about ideas so watch watch out
people treat me to see examples of that
right now keep in mind I'm completely
open to the left side is I'm actually
inviting them so you know give me your
ideas right now
you met with Duke so so somebody is
somebody is concerned that I have
interacted with people who they believe
are bad people let me confirm that I
have definitely interacted with people
that you think are bad people so you
don't have to you don't have to wonder
if that's true I can confirm that over
the course of my life I have made it a
point to be open to good people bad
people ideas I like ideas I don't like
and it's both on the left and right so I
will go as far left or as far right to
get an opinion and to hear what they
have to say and when I'm making business
decisions or usually business decisions
I don't look at somebody I may have a
common business interest with and say
tell me all of your views because if I
find one I don't like I can't do
business with you I get that people do
that and if it was outrageous I probably
would but I don't make that kind of
judgment because I don't think it helps
anybody now keep in mind that I'm a
special case so I'm gonna make an
argument for me being a special case
that's always dangerous right everybody
thinks they're a special case
here's what makes me special I'm very
persuasive if I attended let me say this
so it can't be taken out of context and
turned into a meme so I'm gonna I'm
gonna make a tortured sentence to make
it hard for somebody to take it out of
context right so bear with me if
somebody liked me
let's say not me but a person who was
persuasive and non racist you know not
me I'm talking about another person if
that person attended a KKK meeting would
that be a good thing or a bad thing well
if a non racist who was very persuasive
spent time with a bunch of KKK people
what is the most likely outcome is the
outcome that the KKK would convert the
non racist to a racist or that the you
know hypothetical persuasive non racist
might have an impact on the the racist
maybe not that day but plant some seeds
that would sort of move them toward a
better position so so my view is if you
hate the people I talk to do an
interview with go on their TV show go on
their podcast if you hate them you
should enjoy that I'm associating with
them unless you hate my ideas if you
hate my ideas then maybe you think that
you know you know they're being promoted
but I'm a special case because I'm
Switzerland when it comes to people's
good and bad views I will associate it
with people with good views I will
associate with people who have very
despicable views generally speaking they
will be familiar with my opinion of
their views when I'm done with it all
right so you should not be concerned if
I talked to somebody that you think is
odious you should say to yourself oh
contact with that cartoonist guy may
have made that person a little less
odious
spread the persuasion truth alright so
you're watching the the character
assassination that's taking place
against me in the media so have you
noticed that if you saw but there were
probably maybe 10 media articles that
directly talked about me being involved
with you know some part of the con d8
Candice you know news story and in those
10 or so major articles that I saw how
many of them gave attention to Kanye and
Candice's ideas now think about it of
all the articles you saw that talked
about Kanye's tweet you know saying good
things about Candice did they say well
let's describe Candace's ideas so
Candice says the skandhas all wouldn't
stop talking about Candice says this and
that and that's different from what the
left leaves and here's why she says it
how many of them did that and wasn't
that really from the beginning it was
the only point no what they did was they
smeared her by just saying uh she's
she's in the party with all the racists
you know she's she's alright she's
making common cause with whatever they
went completely personal and made her
point
so if Candice Owens had not already made
her point you know as as strongly as it
could be made her critics really did
make it for her by attacking her
personally instead of even dealing with
the idea never really even grappled with
the point now what about me so I've been
talking about you know the you know
freeing from the mental prison so you
know similar to what both
them were talking about when they talked
about me in these articles did they say
and Adams point that he's trying to
express is this we either agree with it
or we don't or here's what the critics
say or whatever that would be fair did
you see that you didn't see that well
you saw is they they they started
sorting through my ancient scat
to find you know I'm not and they they
came up with quite a few things that out
of context sound terrible by the way
I'll blog up my response to the personal
attacks just so you can see them in
context if he care you will be I I think
it would be very surprised let me tell
you you would be very surprised to see
my responses if you haven't already
heard them to the accusations because if
you look at the accusations against me
by themselves you would say to yourself
okay I don't see how there's any
ambiguity about that now let me give you
an example this is just a fake example
so if my critic says Scott is a serial
killer and everybody knows it somebody
reads that goes well that's pretty
unambiguous what what exactly would be
your you know your response to being a
serial killer and then you find out that
the real reason is that it's you know
breakfast cereal that I eat a lot of it
you know you would be amazed at how
different the real story is from what
you see in the headlines I mean I mean
just mind bogglingly
amazed at how different their alright so
people saying liberalism is a mental
disorder please stop saying that because
that doesn't help that actually is their
philosophy so the liberal philosophy is
that there's something wrong with the
people on the other side if you say
there's something wrong with those
liberals their mind you know they're
idiots or whatever you sort of bought
him to the remodel you know you you have
a president whose brain
a whole bunch of ideas which you could
like and you could dislike some of them
you can like his effectiveness or think
it isn't enough in other areas but
talking about people is not what Kanye
would suggest I certainly not what I
would suggest all right you have a point
to you know you have you have an
opportunity to rise above all right they
the the left is defining itself by its
hatred of individuals for their ideas
they're not saying I dislike your idea
they're saying I dislike you they're say
you're a deplorable they're not saying
that people have these ideas that we
don't like they're say you're deplorable
you know rise above it no I don't know
if I have no idea if rising above it is
a good political technique that I
suppose those could be separate right
but as a human as a human being try to
rise above it yeah let the politics or
now anyway they will now let me amplify
a point I made I saw somebody on the
right using the phrase that I believe
Candice Owens has used a number of times
and I criticized it and so let me
clarify my criticism if you're on the
right and you're trying to make the
point that african-american voters
should you know leave the Democrat you
know stronghold and and maybe consider
Republican policies if that's your point
it is it is sort of nuclear persuasion
to say that the left is in the Democrat
plantation I ain't even saying the words
I really don't like even the words
coming out of my mouth and here's why
the point of what Candis is talking
about the point of what Kanye is talking
about the point of what I'm talking
about
is that if you focus on the past which
essentially doesn't exist
except in our minds you come to
different conclusions than if you say
what do we have right now
well you what what's our current
situation and how do we get from the
current situation to even better
alright that's a productive mindset and
even though reference to the the
Democrat plantation is and so here's
giving credit to Candice this is a
direct request to stop thinking in the
past and move to the future so the
message is you know the content of the
message is exactly correct I think it's
very productive it's it's it's good for
everybody to think about the future or
think about the present and kind of
leave the you know leave all the dead
bodies in the past but here's the
problem with using the that those two
words Democrat plantation those two
words take your mind to the past the
point of those words is to we help you
get out of that and bring you to the
future but as a persuasion lesson let me
tell you that you don't want to take
people's minds to the past if your
message is focus on the current if your
motive if you're a few messages let's
let's figure out today you want to bring
their minds to today and and let them
not even think about and here's the
principle their truth becomes whatever
you think about the most we are not a
rational species a rational species
might hear that phrase that statement
don't be in the Democrat plantation you
know you can be a Republican a rational
person would hear that say oh I get the
point you know people are locked in
you'd like them to be more free thinking
yes I see your point
but we're not really a rational species
and so it's more productive to
understand that when you communicate and
as soon as you take people's minds to a
thought that thought becomes more real
and more powerful
simply because and here's the important
point simply because you spend time
thinking about it
your brain accepts as truth the things
you spend the most time thinking about
true so you're taking their minds to the
past when you do that and it's even hard
for me to talk about how you shouldn't
do it because in doing it I take your
minds to the past but I don't know a way
around that so just think of this in
general you know it's a general rule
don't just say things that are true and
that you the other side might even
recognize is true don't say things that
are true say things that bring their
minds to the productive place
what's the productive place the
productive places what do we do today
like what what are your ideas say do you
saw me I'm trying to use the same
approach with black lives matter and
with colin kaepernick i've blogged about
both of them i periscope to babble them
for those who don't know I am Pro
Kaepernick Pro at least Hawk Newsom
who's a leader of black lives matter of
Greater New York I Pro those two
individuals because of the effectiveness
of their let's say advocacy so so
they're very effective at bringing
attention to an issue that's important
but the next part is missing which is
okay how can we actually make a
difference what would be a law that we
could vote on what would be a thing that
I could do tomorrow that would help
whatever it is that's bothering you
so my approach to the you know and by
the way I pour today on cap redact for
being so effective so being really good
as surfacing an issue putting skin in
the game you know taking a personal risk
there's like that that's slightly
different than the question of whether
the kneelers should have continued
kneeling I saw last night oh I damn it I
can't remember isn't
but on the news last night I was
watching a Fox News sports person
characterizing the whole NFL kneeling
situation and maybe somebody can help
remind me who it is I'll describe it and
it's awkward to describe him because
he's african-american and he's bald
and it feels like it feels like that's
the wrong way to describe people but the
point of it is he was also brilliant as
that one was so it was last night it was
a Fox News guy and he was talking yeah
it was a Jason Whitlock I hope that's
the right name to give him credit
because what he was talking about the
kneelers and here was his framing for
this situation he goes what the kneelers
don't seem to get is that the NFL is a
TV show and the TV show gets to say
what's on TV you know that if it's a TV
show about sports you don't get to do a
cooking class of the field because Sibel
sports if it were a TV show of politics
you couldn't play football like if
Hannity came in and said you know I
usually talk about politics but today
I'm just gonna play ping-pong on there
well the people who own the TV show
would say that's not the TV show this is
a sports TV show so what was brilliant
about and I hope it's Jason Whitlock so
I can give him credit it was the best
framing of that situation I've seen yet
from you know from his perspective right
the other perspective would be a
different framing but for the the
conservative framing to call the the
whole NFL sport experience a TV show it
just takes a completely out of the realm
of politics and into the realm of
business it's like okay remember a TV
show is like a job
if you're not doing the TV show you're
not doing the job so it was brilliant
framing anyway so I agree with that
point of view that there's you know
there's a point when the protest goes to
a level that it changes the TV show and
then at that point the people who own
the TV show they get a say right
when Colin was doing it by himself he
was making a point and you know I
thought that was an appropriate
inappropriate thing to do in other words
he was doing the wrong thing on the
wrong TV show but that's what made it
work that's why we paid attention as
soon as it became everybody every week
it became the TV show that was different
all right I think I may have lost my
whole point on that but how do you
reframe the democratic plantation well
yeah I would do it the way you saw
Connie you do it he he called it a
mental prison so the mental prison says
that's what you're in today so right now
at this very moment your your thinking
is in a mental prison and then and then
the best part is that Kanye said to
watch me break out
here's your mental prison here's me
let's say you have to do this backwards
here's your mental prison
here's Kanye all right that's all here
and now we're watching we're watching
Kanye's jailbreak you know like right in
front of us yeah and you're watching the
guards of the jail trying to claw him
back that's like oh my god Kanye no
don't say that what is wrong with you
have you gone insane come back to prison
so I think the mental prison I don't
like the prison analogy because that's
that's problematic but at least it's now
and that part's an improvement
why not refer to the progressives as a
cult why let me tell you the the rule of
persuasion that's the so obvious that
when you hear it and then I tell you how
people are not using the most obvious
element of persuasion it'll blow your
mind most you know as you know politics
is divided mostly into two sides two
teams both teams pretend they're trying
to convince the other side but they're
not really they're only talking to each
other they're solidifying their own side
so you're not really seeing people make
anything like I'm trying to think if
I've ever seen an example of it in the
last couple years can you think of an
example where somebody on one side was
making a legitimate effort to persuade
the other side it doesn't really they
don't really frame it that way do that
the language people use is so directed
at their own side that they end up
pacing themselves right this is the
biggest mistake you could make in
persuasion yes somebody said to hawk
Newsom so what made Hogg Newsome rise to
prominence at least you know people on
the right and Trump supporters noticing
how effective he was is that he broke
that rule he pasted the people he was
trying to persuade the Trump supporters
he said yeah I get I hear what you're
saying and as soon as he said that all
the Trump supporters said okay what do
you have to say though you know if you
miss that there's the there's the famous
video of hawk Newsom you know protesting
originally a bunch of Trump supporters
who were having a free speech rally they
called them up on stage and it looked
like it was gonna be a whole show
you know like that if you didn't know
anything about the people involved you
say oh god this doesn't look good you
know there's gonna be a riot here and
then what did hard nursin do he pasted
the audio
he said as clearly as possible I totally
hear you I hear you
yep and then he and then he spoke it
back so that we knew we actually heard
it and when he was done doing that the
entire crowd just went oh all right you
heard us and now you talk it was like
this amazing moment in American politics
[Music]
Dave Rubin does that yes
he does right
I haven't watched Jordan Pederson who
work enough to know if he does that but
I'll bet he does because you know I've
seen him enough to know that he would
know to do that right so he would be
smart enough to use persuasion and
communication the way it was you know
the way it should be used
so without seeing him do it I'm sure he
does Joe Rogan maybe I mean he's the
personnel he's the type of personality
you would yeah yeah I think I can think
of examples where I've seen him do that
you're right but consider how rare it is
[Music]
diamond and silk are on Capitol Hill
today is that true
yeah you know what else is a terrible
argument here's the worst argument that
the right makes would you like you're
all the bad arguments on the right
here's another bad one same reason when
somebody says hey you would have been
all those KKK people voting for Trump
and then somebody has the right will say
but what about 75 years ago they the KKK
was Democrats to which I say it's not 75
years ago it's not an argument to say
that different people did different
things that's not an argument about
today nobody cares that different people
did different things and those different
people were all dead
that's no argument about today so stop
saying that you know it just accept that
it's true that they racists do support
the Republicans but they do it for their
own reasons which is they're racists and
they they would like less immigration
right if regular Republicans like
immigration control for economic and cry
reasons how about just embrace that have
an embrace they can they could like to
Trump for a different reason why is that
a bad argument
because because here's the thing
everybody recognizes those things as
true or true enough right there's a time
for me to go full-blown persuasion how
would you know I mean how would you know
if I did
I'm just looking at your comments right
now all right
have you seen hotep Jesus yeah I just
recently started following him he Soho
type Jesus you know keep in mind too
that he's an entertainer who talks about
politics my my brief watching of one of
his periscopes tells me he's he's got a
lot of tells me his talent stack is very
well put together so I like to put it in
those he has a number of talents that
fit well together but I'm gonna give him
a little more attention and watch his
act but it seems like he can do a lot of
things he just has a lot of a lot of
game in a lot of different areas and
they come together really well somebody
believes I have super powers let me ask
you this Candice Owens just tweeted a
plantation analogy yeah I think I saw
that this morning so my suggestion to
her well and let me let me clarify this
I've talked about persuasion being a
case of you know two parts one is get
people's attention and then you apply
your persuasion technique so the getting
attention part can be messy but you know
and this still work so getting attention
can be messy and still work you see that
Donald Trump does that Candice got a lot
of attention and brought a lot of energy
to her points of view by calling it a
Democrat plantation that part is really
good so stirring up a little trouble
being a little controversial using a
provocative analogy that is good but you
want to make sure that you can quickly
you know progress to the what are we
doing now
you know what's next what's tomorrow you
just don't want to get locked in
persuasion equals manipulation yeah let
me answer that let me answer that
question that wasn't a question so
people always ask me what's the
difference between persuading and
manipulating and the the simple answer
is intention if I persuade you to buy a
product which is actually good for you
let's say if you didn't have a smart
phone and I tried to sell you one and it
was a iphone and it was a good phone and
it made you happy
well I'm persuading you but you're
better off with it you know yeah I got
your money you got a phone everybody
wins if I persuade you to vote for
President Trump
President Trump gets in office he you
know in the optimistic world he D
nuclearized as North Korea everybody
wins
so manipulation is where I convinced you
to do something that isn't good for you
so that's where I draw the line
persuasion is either a win win well
typically if you do it ethically it's a
win win manipulation is a win for the
manipulator and a loss for the person
being manipulated that's that's how I
define it and keep in mind you don't
want to get lost in word thinking I'm
just talking in my view of where that
where you draw the line
I did not see Sebastian Gorka on Dave
Rubin show I saw some Twitter activity
about it though apparently he was he was
quite effective
ends justify the means with manipulation
though yeah here here's what you know
I'm always talking about these these
mental traps and the ends justify the
means people use as well therefore you
shouldn't be doing why you're doing but
there are plenty of ethical situations
where the ends justify the means
so that statement all you're saying we
have ins justify the means or as I like
to say are you saying the ends justify
the means what are the ends justify the
means if you're doing a cost-benefit
analysis which is the only way you
should make decisions well these are the
costs these are the benefits the ends if
you do it right where your benefits
exceed your costs kai never always going
to justify the means
that's what that's what thinking is the
thinking you know that if you doing it
right a normal thinking rational person
is making decisions in which the ends do
justify the means you've got a good
outcome and the means might be you spend
some money you spend some time maybe you
embarrassed somebody maybe you know
either a costs maybe you lied now I
wouldn't lie for a small game right that
that would be a case of okay in that
case the ends do not justify the means
because if you only got a small benefit
but you lied to get it well that lie is
not free okay
so in that case the cost did not exceed
the benefits you shouldn't have made the
decision but let's say a lie prevented
nuclear war it could happen and we live
in a world in which nations are lying to
each other a lie could prevent a new
and just use the extreme example in that
case would the ends justify the means
yes yes because the lie was just talk
and nuclear war is you exploding in a
giant fireball of radiation and fire
those are not equal so so when people
say you know oh you're saying the ends
justify the means they always do if you
do it right if the ends don't justify
the means
well what the hell were you going after
those means for know what were you going
after those ends for what was the point
of going after the ends if it was going
to cost just as much to get them as as
the benefit so think in terms of cost
benefit analysis don't think of bumper
stickers a bumper sticker is it's just
about greens but a thinking person says
all right there are things I don't like
about this but this is a pretty big
benefit that's worth it
[Music]
bumbum do you buy into the new cue anon
conspiracy cue anon is horoscope so your
horoscope will look like it is correct
quite often
[Music]
what do you think of it's easier to ask
forgiveness than permission yeah that's
another bumper sticker so people say
well it's easier to ask forgiveness the
desk for permission let me give you my
general answers that it kind of depends
there's no doubt that there are some
situations in which it's better just to
do it and get in trouble and you know
deal with it certainly that's true let
me give you the best example of where
it's better to ask for forgiveness
uber the company when they first started
they actually didn't really know that
there would be so many you know
regulations and laws and you know cab
medallions and all that stuff that would
make it really impossible to do their
business if if uber if uber had been
stopped by all those rules that said no
it's actually illegal you can't even you
can't even do this it's literally
illegal if that had stopped over there
would be my uber but instead they just
went ahead and did it anyway got big
enough got successful enough got enough
you know goodwill changed the world
enough that by the time they law makers
and the law enforcers caught up with him
it was sort of too late then that they
had already succeeded to the point where
you just couldn't put the genie back in
the bottle easily they had a dead
funding by then they had lawyers by then
they had you know lobbyists so they got
too big too quickly and that was
probably the best example ever of it's
better to you know do it first and ask
for forgiveness later because they broke
they broke some rules but you wouldn't
have without it you just wouldn't
and there are a number of other
companies that you'll see there was you
know something similar in their in their
origin story where they just did
something you weren't supposed to do and
then they just figured it out
you know they just figured I had to deal
with it after the fact well calling kim
jonghwan
honorable work absolutely absolutely
calling Kim jong-un honorable is solid
solid persuasion because it helps to
solidify him into a keeping your promise
kind of a model so there's actually
research
Robert Jill Dini talks about this this
is book influence that if you can just
get people to repeat something out loud
it becomes true to them so if you and
it's so ridiculous that the examples
were kind of mind-boggling I think the
example was if you go to people randomly
and say can you write a report this is
just a study can you write a paragraph
supporting you know climate science or
whatever the topic was and they would
pick people who already agreed with it
what they were going to write and then
some people who did not agree with it
but just went along it's an all right
I'll write a paragraph in support of the
thing I don't really agree with it
because I understand this is just a
study all right so I'll just do what you
say and they would follow up with the
people who wrote an opinion that wasn't
their real opinion and a year later a
lot of them had moved to the opinion
that they wrote just because it sort of
bought into it a little bit you know the
process of writing a fake opinion about
something actually bought it caused them
to buy into it so calling Kim Jong un
honorable to the fact to the to the
extent that that reinforces what he's
telling people why he'd like you to
believe the the image he wants to
portray is actually really effective
because that it locks them in a little
bit you know there's a there's a
psychological lock in effect of the
president calling the other party
honorable it actually makes them more
honorable that's like a real thing
President Trump actually
causes Kim jong-un to act a little more
honorable by labeling him that way
that's a real thing but them I'm just
reading your comments here
when will you analyze Kanye's tweet
persuasion well I I don't know if it's
yeah there may be some tweets that are
worth looking at the the details but I
will tell you if you look at if you look
at his approach I'm not sure which
variables I'm seeing but yeah but there
have been a few of his tweets recently
that look very trumpian all right yeah
I'll talk more about that in the future
probably
[Music]
oh you know I watched back the periscope
I did yesterday with that Joel Pollak
from he's the editor-at-large at
Breitbart he an editor at large of right
mark senior editor at large I think but
I played it back myself because he said
he said a lot of things I wanted to just
remind myself of all the stuff he said
and I had this weird experience because
you know I'm talking and he's talking in
this periscope but every time he talked
it sounded brilliant like really
well-informed and you know he understood
all the issues in their proper context
and and and every time I talked it
sounded like a dumb guy and I don't
think I would have noticed how
uninformed I am if I were not contrasted
that you know immediately was somebody
who knew so much and by the way I know
Joel and this isn't the only topic that
he knows that much about you know he
kind of knows this much about everything
important so that was a fascinating
experience
did you notice also that the the best
part we probably didn't notice but what
made that so effective not only was that
Joel is a great communicator and he
knows he knows the topic but we didn't
have a time limit I'm treating now
because he gave me a time limit and I
exceeded it by a lot so when we first
said let's do this I said I'll 5 10
minutes because he had some stuff to get
to in the morning and I don't know how
long we went 22 minutes or something so
because there was no limit to how long
we could go I could make sure that I
didn't asked all my questions and and he
was generous enough to stay longer than
that I told him he would have to
but I should I feel like we got a good a
good sense of the situation because we
were not limited to a you know a
three-minute block on CNN you know
that's the typical situation that that's
really the power of the podcast by the
way and the power of the powers of the
periscope is that they go as long as
they should go oh thank you people
saying they liked my questions did you
notice how dangerous it was
did anybody did anybody sense the danger
in the questions I was asking about a
rant just interested in that what what
was there anybody watching it who was
thinking oh Scott don't ask that
question that's you know you don't even
want to act like Iran could be rational
because that's dangerous yeah so some
people were picking up the danger I I've
often said that the you know one of the
dividing lines between good art and and
boring art is that the audience should
sense danger is one of those thoughts
that when you first hear it doesn't
really ring is true you're like I don't
know I like art that doesn't make you
know doesn't project any feeling of
danger but when you want when you see
how often it is that the thing you're
interested in is either the artist or
somebody the artist is talking about or
or impacting is in some danger and when
you watch me work
you'll quite often see oh shoot he's
gonna get in trouble for that too like
oh god I think newspapers are gonna drop
him oh I don't think he can say that so
artists like Kanye you know he's he's
the universal example he understands
that if you the audience don't feel some
danger not only for him
he put himself in a dangerous situation
this week but it's also dangerous for
other people because you know Kanye is
affecting a big big population of people
who are literally thinking differently
today
I mean you whatever you want to say
about Kanye you know whether you're a
critic or a lover
there's one thing I think we'd all agree
on today were thinking differently than
we did last week
not completely we're not all thinking
the same way differently but there's
definitely a shift and Kanye did that
right he did it intentionally he did it
skillfully and it looks like it might
stick we'll see now if two weeks from
now you know it all turns into other
news stories maybe maybe it won't be as
big as as I think but I think he's
planted a seed that doesn't have any
chance of not growing it's just too true
you know there's sort of a truth to what
he's doing that's gonna be hard to
extinguish all right update on Iran
prediction my my Iran prediction is that
we have you know based on listening to
Joel's explanation that we have a flawed
deal that probably could become a better
deal without Iran feeling like they they
really lost too much so there probably
is a deal to be made whether or not the
conditions are right the the talent is
there
we'll say here's what you should look
for if you're trying to handicap what's
gonna happen with Iran let me tell you
what to look for you want to look for
the same tell that you might have seen
with North Korea and with Russia you
want to see the president start to frame
this as if you go down this path it's
really really bad but
we'll help you a lot if you go down this
path this path is sunshine and rainbows
this path is really really bad so if you
start seeing the president making a case
for the the positive thing that Iran
could be working toward then you're
probably seeing a potential breakthrough
that doesn't mean it'll happen but you
would have to at least I would say
that's the minimum I think Iran is too
proud too capable too smart to simply
bend to just pressure I think they need
a little bit of a and there's something
good on the other end as well because
you look at what North Korea is doing
North Korea's is going from a maybe
dying in a fire ball of fire and fury to
if you check back in three years you
know if I could bet on the economy of
one country you know if you could place
your money just betting how one country
will do in their economy I might put a
little money on North Korea today you
know there's no way to do that but
conceptually the the base that North
Korea is at right now if you check back
in three years it's gonna be a lot
higher assuming that they do nuclear ice
if they don't there won't be anything
left
you know economically there won't be
anything left I'm not saying there'll be
a war but you know if you could bet I
would bet on them being smart enough to
take the enormous economic game that is
just theirs to be had Iran doesn't have
that yet Iran has we can push you around
or we could push you around you know
that's sort of the proposition for Iran
right now they need to see a safety
valve an escape hatch an off-ramp they
need to see a way to get to a good thing
if they're going to give up anything
I think we've done it for today yeah
chance the rapper's weighing in and you
think Kanye's supportive Trump is
temporary well you know probably not
yeah that it would be hard to walk that
back you know unless I suppose if he did
something specific but I just don't see
it happen
so what Kanye is done just summarizing
is he's taken the the left's you that
the problem is people instead of ideas
and he just blew that up and he said I
can like this guy even if I don't agree
with every idea it's a big deal it's a
big deal so let's let's talk again
tomorrow
