Episode 269 Scott Adams - Saudi Excuses, Blue Checks, Opioids

mm-hmm baba pong hey everybody it's time for coffee with scott adams i'm scott adams this is coffee this is also coffee do you have your calf efi I just bought some of mine on Amazon apparently some Trump supporters we've made a Trump brand of coffee I haven't tasted it yet I'm still at my old coffee but I thought I'd buy a bag and support this entrepreneur hey it's time for the simultaneous sip yes it is do you have your mug your cup your vessel your stein your glass is it full of a beverage your favorite beverage I like coffee join me now for the simultaneous sip oh that's good somebody said talk about the caravan you know there's not that much to say about the caravan that hasn't already been said the caravan creates this horrific visual imagery and you know visual imagery is among the strongest persuasion so it's happening at the very worst time for the Democrats because the midterms approaching but on top of the visual element the other strongest kind of persuasion is fear and the look of the crowds there's so many of them most of them are Ben's are heading toward the border it just triggers sort of a basic fear response just because of the numbers of people and the the chaos of it all so I don't think things could be luckier in a weird way for the Republicans coming up to the midterms but there isn't much else to say I'm pretty sure the president will down the military to stop them and I'm sure they'll be successful because you know there are a lot of people but they're not gonna get past the military but let's talk about some other stuff you might know that apparently it's been discovered that the Saudis the story about a fight broke out and you know it was just a big mistake if somewhat injured by the fact that the team of Saudis that went to the embassy for Khashoggi one of them was a body double who left the embassy wearing cash oh geez clothes now if you're going to make up an alibi or an excuse well I expect you to do a little bit better job than that all right so far Saudi Arabia is just absolutely embarrassing our president by not giving him any cover whatsoever all right this is this is how I see the situation I think that realistically other countries maybe every country doesn't really care about one Saudi citizen being killed by Saudi Arabia or whatever reasons they had on an individual basis like on a human level of course we care we'd care about anybody who's you know being killed so as a human we care but in terms of politics I don't see anybody who thinks that it would be a good idea to derail an ally in some important stuff in the Middle East over to this so I've never talked to anybody in person who thought this one murder was a big deal so under that situation all we really needed to get past it the president was signaling this as clearly as you could signal anything which is we can't approve of it but give us some kind of some kind of story that we can at least say well maybe you know maybe it went that way and the only story that would have worked is that there were there were underlings who planned the entire operation including killing him from the start that's the only explanation that had any chance of being sold which is to say that you know the crown prince didn't directly order it and didn't directly know about it but somebody below him did directly order it and did know about it that's the only story that you could possibly sell now I'm not saying that's true I'm saying it's the only story you'd have a chance of having any reasonable doubt because it is actually feasible that the that the crown prince didn't know the details and didn't know it had been ordered by an underling I don't know how likely not a hundred percent not a zero percent but at least give us something but now we see this weak excuse of it was an accident and a fight broke out and then you see his body double leaving in the victims clothes so the whole Saudi thing has just completely turned into an embarrassment for our president who was really just trying to help if you know what I mean he was trying to make this not something that affects our country and tried to make it not something that affects the Alliance and something that doesn't affect you know the larger plans in the Middle East but man are they making no hard they're making is so hard and then I realized that Rand Paul has taken a strong stand against Saudi Arabians as something must be done so it looks like the smart people in this conversation are saying that the thing which could be done is directly punishing maybe Royals maybe leadership people who seem to be involved in the making well I don't know how you identify who they are I don't know how you'd leave the crown prince out of it if you're the president and you've lost you know if you're president Trump and you'll lose Rand Paul that that's sort of the canary in the coal mine you know I've told you before that I have a high opinion of Rand Paul for his independent thinking so the fact that he's an independent thinker makes it especially powerful when he agrees with the president because you know it's not automatic but he's also especially powerful when he disagrees with the president for the same reason because you know he's an independent thinker and he's following the evidence following you know following his moral inclinations so now that Rand Paul has said something has to be done something has to be done right well once you've lost Rand Paul you can't just say well let's just move on I mean you could but Scott that's a lot harder so I'm wondering what the Saudis will say now that the news has come out that the body double left wearing Khashoggi clothes if they follow pattern they will modify their story again and it will look like this well sure one of the guys did leave wearing Khashoggi is close we acknowledge that that's on the camera but it's not what you think it was a fistfight the fight broke out I think one of the guys punched Khashoggi so hard that he ended up wearing his clothes and then they're going to say I think I think they're gonna buy this I think this is gonna work no that won't happen but you know this whole thing is making me wonder about the cultural differences in what honesty looks like does it seem like there's some kind of a cultural thing that's happening here that the Saudis explanation sounds ridiculous even to liars even people who lie for a living look at that one and say dude I live for a living I'm a politician that's all I do I lie all day but I don't do that whatever the hell you're doing over there who taught you to lie you're terrible liars and this gets me back to a point that I'd noticed I know decades ago I noticed this whenever you'd see the Middle East you know people who are leaders representatives in the Middle East talking I would always say to myself but wait a minute that the Islamic folks are lying just like both sides you know Eric in a political situation I take it as a given that all sides are lying all the time so I'm not gonna say the other one side is the bigger liars because in my sense of the world everybody's sort of lying or exaggerating they're leaving out things they're lying by omission so my sense of the world is everybody's lying all the time but it seemed as though when the the Muslim country leaders were lying it looked different and the way it looked different was it was lacking at least a at least encoding of credibility you know it seems like there are some countries some leaders when they lie you know they're lying but you can't tell is this one a lie is it slightly exaggerated you know there's at least a little bit of a little bit of protective you know reasonable doubt around there lie so it seems like a Western form of lying is trying not to get caught whereas the Middle East form of lying and again this is just an observation so I'm not I'm not making any claim that anything I'm going to say here would hold up to any kind of scientific scrutiny it's just an observation that I'd be interested if it held up to scrutiny but I'm not predicting that all right you can't predict that based on anecdotal evidence but anecdotally it seems to me that the style of lying is fundamentally different and that to us their style of lying looks like not even trying whereas the western style of lying looks like you're at least trying to get away with it that's just an observation so I don't know if there's a cultural difference there that matters or not let's talk about let's talk about opioids so I'm getting a lot of pushback on my call for China to execute their fentanyl lab owners as they find them and people have pushed back this way they said hey you idiot don't you know that if you you know if you shut down one lab there will just be another lab or people are saying you idiot don't you know that there are you know thousands and thousands of illegal fentanyl labs China couldn't possibly know where they all are couldn't possibly shut them down - my critics I say you are completely right there's nothing that China can do or that we could do that will ever change the supply because the nature of it is you can start an illegal lab just about anywhere so so if you shut down one sure enough you know another another lab would jump up but you're missing my point entirely but there's nothing I'm saying that has anything to do with supply alright so when I say that China should execute its illegal fentanyl lab dealers it's not to reduce the supply because that can't be done I'm not suggesting that anybody tried to do the impossible what I'm suggesting is that their mass murderers and if somebody is a mass murderer and collectively they're killing perhaps 30,000 Americans a year 30,000 a year that changes everything if one person was dying in America even I would say well maybe that person should have made better choices if a hundred people per year were dying in America from Chinese fentanyl I might say it myself that's terrible but that's a hundred people who should have made better choices if a thousand people per year Americans died from Chinese fentanyl I might be tempted to say a thousand Wow that's a lot of people but that's a lot of people who should have made better choices when 30 freaking thousand people a year are dying from Chinese fentanyl that's a war that's not personal choice any more personal choice is always you know involved in the fabric of it but the size of it changes entirely what it is and therefore your approach to it has to entirely change to recognize what it is and one of the things it is is a big freakin problem that should be attacked with maximum maximum strength on every dimension you could attack it so when I say that China should be executing their fentanyl dealers and if they can't that we should do it for them with whatever Wetwork type people we can arrange literally kill them is what I'm talking about and don't care if we get caught so if if we get caught executing Chinese citizens who are illegal drug dealers in their country I don't care I don't care if that becomes public I don't be care if China doesn't like it because this is no longer about some supply and demand and a product and you know some people should have made better choices it's a war in a war you don't care that some of your guys get caught killing the other side it's a war we were not we are not at war with the government of China and I think we could make that distinction because they would be on the same side trying as hard as they can to go after their own offense and old dealers now let me ask you this if we killed a few of their fentanyl lab owners and China's government found out about it what is the most likely response well of course they'd complain and you know they might make some trouble about it but the most likely response is they're going to try a lot harder to police their own business now they can't stop all their feminine that's never the goal because it can't be done here's the goal to send a message about how big the problem is that's my goal when I say China should be executing the fentanyl lab dealers or we should go in and do it for them on their soil even at the risk of getting caught when I say that it's because I'm sizing the problem I'm persuading I'm using death of people who deserve it because they're mass murderers and they know it I'm using their death simply to amplify the message that's it I want to kill people who have it coming their mass murderers I'm not killing I don't favor of killing any innocent people ever period but people who are mass murderers we can morally kill if it improves our result it changes the size of the message so don't argue with me about supply if you would like to try legalizing fentanyl in in a small trial I say let's try it so anybody who's arguing that the problem is on the supply side I'm not I'm not ruling that out in fact that's a very good argument and we should work on that as hard as we can at the same time we're helping helping the world see the size of the problem by executing Chinese fentanyl lab dealers if their government won't do it for them and by the way even if China is doing it as fast as they can and and they're really trying to help if it's not enough we should also kill their fentanyl dealers because again it makes the size of the problem look more more realistic let me put this in starker terms there are two dumb opinions on every big policy decision so whether you're talking about how to treat opioids or a climate science or just about any other problem from the urban urban situations the if you say here's here's a proposal and if you say yes let's do it or you say no listen no let's not do it those are the two stupid opinions all right let that hang there for a while no matter what the proposal is if it's a big government proposal there are two stupid opinions and I'm and I'm being blunt here there's no way to shade it there are two opinions that are stupid about every major proposal idea one of them is yes let's do it and the other is no let's not do it those are the stupid opinions now let me tell you what a smart opinion is can we test it as small that's what a smart opinion looks like a smart opinion says if you're considering doing this big plan we don't know how it'll turn out nobody knows nobody smart enough so if you say yes let's do it you're stupid if you say no let's not do it you're stupid those are the two stupid sides if you say is there some way to test this small so that we would have better visibility about whether it would work that's a smart decision so when you're saying to me let's it's it's smart or it's dumb to do this or that about fentanyl you're not part of the intelligent conversation if you say is there something we could test in a small scale and then we'd know whether it's worth considering for large you're part of the smart conversation so when somebody says to me Scott you know you why have you ruled out you know making it legal in some cases so that people could get a safe supply of their drug and then you work on the addiction problem and I say can you trial it is this something you can do small the answer is absolutely yes so if you can test it and it has some you know some reasonable chance that it could work then the answer is you test it absolutely and when the size of the problem is this big you test every frickin thing you can think of you don't leave any rock unturned the problem is this big you test you test so when you're looking at any big government program there's some exceptions like for example well probably something like tax policy is the sort of thing that you either have to do it or not do it but most things can be tested small there's almost I would say 80% of everything can be tested small and that's the smart way to go every time you think and I know that you I know how some of you are receiving this those of you who have experience and business are probably thinking some version of da all experienced business people are saying this right duh of course you would try a small if there was a way to do that you would of course tried it as a trial before you went big but most people don't work for a big company most people don't have this kind of experience the average American doesn't think in terms of is there a way to do a small trial as a result our government does not think in terms of can we do a small trial it's kind of rare to see that isn't it it's kind of rare to see the government say we don't know if this is going to work so we're just doing a small trial so we'll find out that's how the government needs to evolve I think it can and will under a trump administration if you hear somebody in the Trump administration say we don't know if this is a good idea that's why we're trying it or that's why we're suggesting somebody tries it then you know that you've evolved let's talk about something that's fun and interesting for a change oh and by the way I'd ask for an expert on my app the interface by one hub app my my company's app I'd ask for an expert on suboxone it's a chemical used to get people off of opioids and apparently it makes you sick if you take an actual opioid when you're on suboxone I think you get ill so it keeps you from doing it but the question is can you use suboxone and then wean yourself off of suboxone or are you on suboxone forever because it's the only way to protect you from the opioids so that was my question and I'm looking for an expert on the interface by wind hub app to answer that at the same time I had done a sort of a public call and so the suboxone is something that falls into the category of something that you could test so the hypothesis is that you could wean yourself off of suboxone even if that's not the medical recommended treatment under doctor's supervision it would be easy to test that as a small-scale test so I'm wondering if it's been done so a number of people have started getting on the interface by one hub app to volunteer as sponsors so we're getting very close and I think there are already some sponsors on there let me check I'll just look right now while I'm talking so the idea is that sponsors could charge at a zero for their time because the app lets you set your price and you could charge zero if you want so I'm just going to look up at addiction and see if anybody's out there all right so we have addiction and sponsor it looks like there's one two three four now three people who are on right now that doesn't mean they'll necessarily answer but they're there online as sponsors so somebody can get somebody immediately now do I know that that will work I do not I don't know if having more sponsors on an app will save lives but can it be tested in a small in a small way yes and therefore you don't have to ask if it will work or won't work you just test it that's the smart thing to do given that the stakes are so high now while we're talking about the ability to test things small let me talk about something that's really really exciting that's happening right before your eyes and it goes like this it was not long ago that if you were a citizen and you had a great idea for the government that idea would just be stranded in your brain right if you're just a voter you're one of you know hundreds of millions people in the United States you're just a voter and you have a great idea how could you get your great idea to the government well it was possible I mean I'm not saying it couldn't happen but the average person really didn't have any relationship with the government that has completely changed and I'm gonna take you to my whiteboard in a moment and show you you saw it recently and you've seen it how many times how many times if you see in the President of the United States President Trump how many times if you've seen him a retweet an idea that came from just a citizen you've seen it a bunch of times right so we know that the president in the United States on a regular basis receives the the ideas the framing the way of thinking of things from the public and then actually retweets it it's not an accident it's happening on a regular basis and I want to show you that pathway didn't used to exist and it looks like this I apologize for my whiteboard being hard to read but let's say you're a citizen and you've got an idea and you want to get your idea to the President of the United States this is how easy it is right now now keep in mind that only good ideas are going to get there right bad ideas are going to die dire premature death but there's now a direct pipeline for any good idea to get to the president and to give filtered along the way so that by the time the president gets it it's already been checked out in other words the president won't get the bad ideas the president would only get the ideas that other people have filtered through and it looks like this if you're a regular citizen and let's say you're sophisticated enough to know the difference between Linked.

In and Instagram so you know you know enough about the world the digital world there you could find me how many how many of you watching the periscope have sent me a personal message through one of the various social media mechanisms those of you who are clever have figured out that I'm on Linked.

In and that I accept as a connection everybody else so you could just connect to me on Linked.

In and send me a message and what are the odds I would read your message almost a hundred percent so what are the odds that I would read a message if you put it on Instagram I only have about six thousand Instagram followers I'd probably see everyone what are the odds I would see a message if you sent it to me on the the patreon app so I'm on patreon like I collect from the funds to spread my periscopes into other realms to turn them into podcasts and stuff so I use that money for that how many of you would know that you could send me a message on the app that there's used for that patreon and that I would almost certainly close to a hundred percent see your message so people who were comfortable with technology now they can get a personal message to me through probably I don't know six to ten different channels and that the odds of me seeing it are pretty high so if you can get her if you can get a message to me I have like I think 278 thousand Twitter followers so I'm a blue check so I'm a verified blue check but on the small side right having a few hundred thousand followers is still smallish but what I do have is larger blue check accounts that do follow me and they would certainly see my work if something I tweeted was popular alright so if you've got a good idea your ability to get to me or people like me which are the smaller blue check accounts it's close to a hundred percent almost almost anybody could get to me or somebody who has a small blue check account if we like the idea we have filtered at once meaning that it was good enough that we retweeted it if we retweet it it's always going to be at least noticed by the bigger blue check accounts right you've you've seen this in my case right if I tweet something and it it has you know some quality that people want to spread you'll see a command that the larger accounts it doesn't happen often and it shouldn't happen often because most of my tweets are not worth they're not worthy of you know the entire world seeing them but some are so now the blue checks tweet it now what happens when you have this much visibility once you reach this much visibility there's somebody on the president's of social media team who's gonna see it and they can tell how popular it is when they see it because they'll see how many retweets they'll see how many likes they'll see what kinds of comments people made so you you saw this with the jobs not mobs idea so I I don't know who actually came up with it it was a citizen so some citizen said you know a good slogan would be jobs and not mobs I saw that on the Internet and I made a comment about it that jobs not mobs would be you know a good slogan and it works on a number of levels and it's persuasion correct and doesn't have any downside so I said that and it it took a very short time for other larger Twitter accounts and for lots of other people to retweet it it took six days I counted from the time that I saw a citizen with a good idea to the time it percolated up and came out of the president's president's twit Twitter account this is not the first time that you've seen this happen and I think there is something special about this administration because obviously the tools have been here for a while but there's something about this administration that makes you think participating matters because the president does this so often you can feel here's the key point because the president so often we'll take a good idea that comes from the base and amplify it you can feel the connection it's like a real thing it's not a it's not a concept that could work in theory it's something we observe on a regular basis so you're watching the most connected president you've ever seen in your life who is essentially a be testing on a continuous basis and that and he's he's part of the system that does it for him so the bad ideas don't go very far because I won't retweet them and then these people never see them and he just never sees them but if it's good enough to get the attention of somebody with a smallish account it could make it all the way to the top so that is a big big change in society it unleashes the best ideas in the world that could be coming from the people who are closest to the problem so when you see me doing these periscopes and I know some of you you know we're complaining that you're you've seen too much on the opioid situation the ideas that I'm putting forth are that we should be trying everything on the opioid crisis and if that's true if if my suggestion that we should be trying as many things as possible is valid then some of the things that come through the system to me are gonna make their way up so when I asked about suboxone it's because there was somebody who on the internet who had an experience with suboxone curing essentially being a very easy path to getting off of opioids but I didn't know if that was something that other people could experience too it might have been something specific about this person and so I raised the question because it was such a good question that doesn't mean it's it's the answer but it was such a good question that I raised it so now you're seeing me do it at my level I've put out the call can somebody tell me about suboxone can we look at the question of whether tapering off makes sense because there's there's some suggestion that doctors are recommending suboxone as a permanent drug so you're just getting off of one drug in getting out of another and so the question is does it have to be permanent or could you wean yourself off it and as I explained earlier the real question is could you do a small test of that or has somebody already done a test of it and I would just find out that but watch the power of this system that idea just came to me this week the question about suboxone and whether it could help I raised it so far it's it's trapped here all right so so far the the idea has filtered up to here and there's nobody with a larger account who's picked it up and said yeah that's a good idea now probably nobody will most ideas don't go that far but the system is really strong if it doesn't go that far it might be because the idea didn't have enough legs might be it's not quite the right idea but we get to test it and find out fairly quickly this is all new this kind of this this effect is pretty new or at least it's becoming something that works better under this president it's not entirely new all right society is not always ready for an idea well there are also persuasive people in this stack so persuading people to get ready for an idea as part of the process all right how many of you let me just ask this question is this model that I just explained about how easy it is to get from a good idea to the you know the leader of the country did that seem new to you because it's a big big deal it's a super big deal yeah and I've argued before that the citizens you know at least until the algorithms take over the citizens are really in control of the country in a way that's never been true before because of this you know good ideas have now for the first time in history it's never been true before that a good idea could take on its own life and could just rise before a good idea what would be sort of trapped in your own little bubble of non influence but now a good idea can rise in Philly there's nothing to stop it this is the Golden Age my friends the Golden Age is when we realize that resource constraints are not the big problem anymore they've resource constraints were a problem all through history but now it's the good idea that's what we lack is a good and the president has weaponized the process of getting a good idea from somebody who knows something you know somebody who's close to the problem or just somebody who has a good idea he's weaponized the Twitter path to get them to him so he can amplify them and by the way when the when an idea gets to the President and he tweets it that doesn't mean it's done that just means he's still testing it he's just testing it at the highest level what do you think gets a lot of input if it's good he does more of it if the input is bad he does less of it this is a good system all right how about the idea of prosecuting Soros for the caravan I am a Soros skeptic I can be convinced that Soros is some kind of a enemy to the world my current impression because I've asked a lot of people who should know you know tell me why Soros is the enemy of the country and I find that people get a little vague about that clearly his organization is funding some things but you have to connect a lot of dots to make him trying to destroy the country so I would say I'm agnostic on Soros but I lack I lack the kind of facts or argument that would make me anti Soros I'm not Pro Soros I'm just concerned that so many people have a strong opinion and nobody can explain it to me in a way that sounds even a little bit convincing and I don't know what's up with that do we have other problems that can't even be explained because I'm not saying I'm not saying Soros did or did not do anything I'm saying that nobody can explain what he did that what is his intention you know what did was he trying to accomplish and what did he do to accomplish it I'm I'm completely lost on that because it it reads like a conspiracy theory to me which again does not mean it's a conspiracy theory because conspiracy theories and the real thing can look identical to us right we can't tell the difference most of the time but I why is it why have we go on so long I'm pretty well informed all right I'm fairly well informed I would say I'm in the top Oh at least 5% of well-informed Americans and that's without even trying really I'm probably in the top 5% just because I pay attention to the news and I had never seen never a good explanation of what Soros is up to that makes him the the devil yeah I know he did currency speculation that was his job that's all that's all well documented read The Wall Street Journal article on Soros I'll bet the years without reading The Wall Street Journal article on Soros here's what I predict about it I predict that if I read it there would be lots of information about Soros and when I was done I wouldn't know what to make of it that's before I've read it that's my prediction because that's what's happened every time I've read anything about him I read it and I go well this is concerning and I can see why people would be concerned and then by the time I'm done I think I don't think anything's been shown here in that any persuasive way it's just a whole bunch of things that should maybe almost concern us so nobody's credible on this topic yet he strokes a social unrest and then profits from chaos yes so so somebody just said that his game is to fund social unrest and then place financial bets in which he can win based on that that is ridiculous to me that sounds so much like a conspiracy theory that I wouldn't even I wouldn't even bother looking into it a little bit like it's too ridiculous on its surface that I even if there was an article that purported to tell you about that idea I wouldn't even read it honestly that that would be too far beyond the believable so I need something a little more solid than that he is funding most if not all of the lefty groups well okay do you know who else favors a lot of the lefty groups Democrats you know is there some reason that he can't fund lefty groups Oh Cory Booker let's talk about Cory Booker let's sleep you sure we go come back to me so those are reported in the media that I consider very low credibility and there's a man who says the cory booker tried to grope him in a in a restroom or something now my interpretation of that claim is that it's very unlikely they're very unlikely but the context is i think i'm back now the the context is that cory booker was on the team that was saying you know accusers in particular women should be believed i think the audio is back now i think your comments are behind behind the actual so somebody tell me if you can hear me again because I believe that my audio is back so the accuser doesn't sound credible to me you know very much like the you know the the Cavanaugh multiple rape party accuser didn't really sound credible on the surface doesn't mean it's false but it just doesn't sound credible so I think it's cory booker you know suffering from karma or suffering from a political attack but it probably has more to do with outing him so one of my assumptions is it may not be it may not be so much that somebody is trying to take him down for this accusation because i don't think it you know i doubt there's any corroborating evidence doesn't sound credible to me but I think it's probably a ploy to out him on his sexuality because it would make him look like a phony so the thing that cory booker has to worry about in terms of you know his brand and the attackers is that he might be accused of being sort of a phony and you know his Spartacus thing plays into that it's like you're just pretending to be a some kind of hero you know you're kind of a phony hero so if he's also if he's also been less than forthcoming about his sexual preferences which again I don't think anybody in the country really cares about you know that we're way beyond that being a reason not to be elected we're way beyond that being a reason to judge him I think I'd like to think I'd like to think at least the vast majority of the country could not care less about the president's sexual preference I hope we're at the point where that's not a real issue but what could be a real issue is not being forthcoming about it so it would be I think a devastating blow to him politically if the people on his own team start asking why he has to hide his sexuality if in fact that's going on so I don't have any I don't have any inside knowledge about Cory Booker's sexual preferences and I'm not interested in them and I don't think it should be any kind of disqualification for anything of course you know I think we're this is 2018 it's not 1960 or whatever but there is a question about why somebody would hide it if that's happening and I don't know that's happening because I don't know his sexual preferences and I'm not going to pretend I do I'll just say it doesn't matter to me somebody says he's not gay my cousin works on his staff come on did you just write that somebody just wrote in the comments and all quote he's not gay my cousin is working on his staff you could have you could have worded that differently all right so on that on that count oh wait I'm not done yet reminded me tomorrow to talk about self-driving cars no I'm gonna do it now because it's interesting and fun I keep forgetting to talk about this self-driving cars all right when you think about the idea of self-driving cars you think about them integrated on the highways with their human cars for however many decades it takes until they're all self-driving cars I suppose but you imagine self-driving cars and real cars driving together that's the first thing you assume secondly you assume that each of these cars is an independent entity made by different companies perhaps but they all operate like theirs they're aware of their surroundings but they're independent that's the second assumption third assumption is that they would share the existing highways what if you throw away all of those assumptions let's say you say to Detroit hey Detroit we're gonna make you the automotive capital again and we're going to overlay a new highway right on top of Detroit which is just for self-driving cars now of course there are lots of regular highways so where are their regular highways you're going to have to either go next to them when you need to cross them you might need to bridge over them or tunnel under them but there's probably enough blight in in a place like Detroit that you could map out a whole parallel highway that would get you within you know walking distance of any destination in the city so now imagine that you build you say to Detroit's going to be the self-driving car test city and here are the rules the highway we build is going to be an overlay to the regular highway system so the cars will never share a highway with human driven cars secondly all of the cars on this highway have to be able to communicate in real-time with all of the other self-driving cars so if you're an apple self-driving car or a Google self-driving car you've got to be in constant contact the reason for this is that if one of them has a failure the other cars should know to get out of the way because that lets say they're tracking that car and it goes offline and they know it shouldn't have the other cars should adjust let's say one of them has a mechanical problem perhaps another car could sense it come up behind him all the cars behind him in that Lane would slow down automatically and that and the back car would push the other car in a controlled way onto the side of the road until it could be serviced so the first thing you'd want to test is cars that only have self-driving cars second thing you want to test is networking them all together so that they understand where each other are is which would make everything much safer you know they have some kind of a requirement for that the next somebody says they have standards for this already but they don't have a place to test them in a large working environment with lots of vendors and stuff so I assume there would be some protocol for that maybe not as extensively as I'm talking about now here's another fun thing the self-driving cars are going to have cameras in 365 degrees imagine if you were in a dangerous part of the city and you could choose to live near a self-driving car Road you would automatically have a safer place because all the self-driving cars would create a security video situation for anything they drove past so everything on the street wherever there's a self-driving car is going to be recorded or potentially could be so that you would almost remove the street crime anywhere there are self-driving cars because of gyah camera in every direction next I'm wondering if you could put a Wi-Fi system into place so that each of the cars is receiving Wi-Fi but also broadcasting and and connected as a node to other self-driving cars could you build I'm just speculating here a high powered Wi-Fi or even cell network that works on the cars as the moving cells so if you are in a situation where no cars were going by for a while you might have no service but since the city always has cars you probably would not worry about that too much yeah a mesh a mesh Wi-Fi system just spitballin here now if you could build the system the people who live near these self-driving cars assuming that they're the kind that you can be shared so it's like uber but self-driving cars those people would have full transportation at a low cost especially if it's being tested in the city they'd have Wi-Fi they'd have more security it would bring the automotive business into Detroit and Detroit seems like a good place to test because you have infrastructure and you have four seasons so you'd want to test these cars and an environment in which it snows it gets hot it gets cold Detroit so I'm just going to put that out there as a suggestion that Detroit should become the new motor city but for driverless cars and that all the companies that are working no matter where else they're working should put a facility in Detroit this assumes that Detroit thinks it's a good idea and figure out a way to build a a test test roads in Detroit that could start small you know maybe it's just a few roads and then they build them as they go maybe you need to do some tunneling to get around the existing structures so you bring in the boring company you bring in Elon Musk's boring technology that makes tunnels cost-effectively for just those places you need to get around something or under over it Scott the self-driving idea is a farce well you left and all the reasons I would say that a self-driving cars are a guarantee there's no chance that it won't happen so whatever you're calling a farce I would certainly be on the opposite end of that opinion yes and bringing this level of Industry in would create a whole range of jobs from the high-end engineers to the the laborer level because you'd still need to repair a lot of cars you'd need to build a lot of roads so it would be a massive infrastructure or transportation jobs program and at the end of it you would have this vibrant Motor City Detroit again so I just throw that out there as an idea all right Scott natural language processing it isn't even there yet I don't know what that is do anything yeah self-driving cars are all over Mountain View for example so Mountain View is testing and we'd still need to test the self-driving cars in places where you know it's going to be integrated with other cars so somebody just was putting my own words back to me to say don't say whether it's a good idea or a bad idea say whether you can test it as small and testing a small is essentially what I'm what I'm suggesting so you could test a small simply by having a limited highway within Detroit and then just build it as it makes sense to build it so yes it by its nature it could be tested small should the car protect the driver or pedestrian I think a lot of that problem goes away with self-driving cars because one of the things you could do with a self-driving car Highway is to make pedestrian traffic non-existent so for example if you're going to build a self-driving car only highway you might make sure that you have pedestrian tunnels under all of them or or across ways over them and you just get rid of the pedestrian question altogether they don't work in snow well that's what you'd be testing so self-driving cars will be a choice right for the foreseeable future yes I think self-driving cars will be a choice in the same way that owning a smartphone will be a choice it'll seem like a choice early on but eventually it would be just the only way people do things because it would be so much better there's no way that human drive human driven cars will be able to compete in the long run alright just looking here comments human interface is always the bug in the system yeah the worst the worst component of your car at the moment is you the car every part of the car works well except the human the human is all the errors you know ninety ninety eight percent of the accidents probably I'm guessing this issue wouldn't you guess that ninety-eight percent of traffic accidents are caused by humans maybe ninety five something like that alright that's all for now I'll talk to you all later

mm-hmm

baba pong hey everybody it's time for

coffee with scott adams i'm scott adams

this is coffee this is also coffee do

you have your calf efi

I just bought some of mine on Amazon

apparently some Trump supporters we've

made a Trump brand of coffee I haven't

tasted it yet

I'm still at my old coffee but I thought

I'd buy a bag and support this

entrepreneur hey it's time for the

simultaneous sip yes it is do you have

your mug your cup your vessel your stein

your glass is it full of a beverage your

favorite beverage I like coffee join me

now for the simultaneous sip oh that's

good

somebody said talk about the caravan you

know there's not that much to say about

the caravan that hasn't already been

said

the caravan creates this horrific visual

imagery and you know visual imagery is

among the strongest persuasion so it's

happening at the very worst time for the

Democrats because the midterms

approaching but on top of the visual

element the other strongest kind of

persuasion is fear and the look of the

crowds there's so many of them most of

them are Ben's are heading toward the

border it just triggers sort of a basic

fear response just because of the

numbers of people and the the chaos of

it all so I don't think things could be

luckier in a weird way for the

Republicans coming up to the midterms

but there isn't much else to say I'm

pretty sure the president will

down the military to stop them and I'm

sure they'll be successful because you

know there are a lot of people but

they're not gonna get past the military

but let's talk about some other stuff

you might know that apparently it's been

discovered that the Saudis the story

about a fight broke out and you know it

was just a big mistake if somewhat

injured by the fact that the team of

Saudis that went to the embassy for

Khashoggi one of them was a body double

who left the embassy wearing cash oh

geez clothes now if you're going to make

up an alibi or an excuse well I expect

you to do a little bit better job than

that all right so far

Saudi Arabia is just absolutely

embarrassing our president by not giving

him any cover whatsoever

all right this is this is how I see the

situation I think that realistically

other countries maybe every country

doesn't really care about one Saudi

citizen being killed by Saudi Arabia or

whatever reasons they had on an

individual basis like on a human level

of course we care we'd care about

anybody who's you know being killed so

as a human we care but in terms of

politics I don't see anybody who thinks

that it would be a good idea to derail

an ally in some important stuff in the

Middle East over to this so I've never

talked to anybody in person who thought

this one murder was a big deal so under

that situation all we really needed to

get past it

the president was signaling this as

clearly as you could signal anything

which is we can't approve of it but give

us some kind of

some kind of story that we can at least

say well maybe you know maybe it went

that way and the only story that would

have worked is that there were there

were underlings who planned the entire

operation including killing him from the

start that's the only explanation that

had any chance of being sold which is to

say that you know the crown prince

didn't directly order it and didn't

directly know about it but somebody

below him did directly order it and did

know about it

that's the only story that you could

possibly sell now I'm not saying that's

true I'm saying it's the only story

you'd have a chance of having any

reasonable doubt because it is actually

feasible that the that the crown prince

didn't know the details and didn't know

it had been ordered by an underling I

don't know how likely not a hundred

percent not a zero percent but at least

give us something but now we see this

weak excuse of it was an accident and a

fight broke out and then you see his

body double leaving in the victims

clothes so the whole Saudi thing has

just completely turned into an

embarrassment for our president who was

really just trying to help if you know

what I mean he was trying to make this

not something that affects our country

and tried to make it not something that

affects the Alliance and something that

doesn't affect you know the larger plans

in the Middle East but man are they

making no hard

they're making is so hard and then I

realized that Rand Paul has taken a

strong stand against Saudi Arabians as

something must be done so it looks like

the smart people in this conversation

are saying that the thing which could be

done is directly punishing maybe Royals

maybe leadership people who seem to be

involved in the

making well I don't know how you

identify who they are I don't know how

you'd leave the crown prince out of it

if you're the president and you've lost

you know if you're president Trump and

you'll lose Rand Paul that that's sort

of the canary in the coal mine

you know I've told you before that I

have a high opinion of Rand Paul for his

independent thinking so the fact that

he's an independent thinker makes it

especially powerful when he agrees with

the president because you know it's not

automatic but he's also especially

powerful when he disagrees with the

president for the same reason because

you know he's an independent thinker and

he's following the evidence following

you know following his moral

inclinations so now that Rand Paul has

said something has to be done something

has to be done right well once you've

lost Rand Paul you can't just say well

let's just move on I mean you could but

Scott that's a lot harder so I'm

wondering what the Saudis will say now

that the news has come out that the body

double left wearing Khashoggi clothes if

they follow pattern they will modify

their story again and it will look like

this

well sure one of the guys did leave

wearing Khashoggi is close we

acknowledge that that's on the camera

but it's not what you think it was a

fistfight the fight broke out I think

one of the guys punched Khashoggi so

hard that he ended up wearing his

clothes and then they're going to say I

think I think they're gonna buy this I

think this is gonna work no that won't

happen but you know this whole thing is

making me wonder about the cultural

differences in what honesty looks like

does it seem like there's some kind of a

cultural thing that's happening here

that the Saudis explanation sounds

ridiculous even to liars

even people who lie for a living

look at that one and say dude I live for

a living I'm a politician that's all I

do I lie all day but I don't do that

whatever the hell you're doing over

there

who taught you to lie you're terrible

liars and this gets me back to a point

that I'd noticed I know decades ago I

noticed this whenever you'd see the

Middle East you know people who are

leaders representatives in the Middle

East talking I would always say to

myself but wait a minute that the

Islamic folks are lying just like both

sides you know Eric in a political

situation I take it as a given that all

sides are lying all the time so I'm not

gonna say the other one side is the

bigger liars

because in my sense of the world

everybody's sort of lying or

exaggerating they're leaving out things

they're lying by omission so my sense of

the world is everybody's lying all the

time but it seemed as though when the

the Muslim country leaders were lying it

looked different and the way it looked

different was it was lacking at least a

at least encoding of credibility you

know it seems like there are some

countries some leaders when they lie you

know they're lying but you can't tell is

this one a lie is it slightly

exaggerated you know there's at least a

little bit of a little bit of protective

you know reasonable doubt around there

lie so it seems like a Western form of

lying is trying not to get caught

whereas the Middle East form of lying

and again this is just an observation so

I'm not I'm not making any claim that

anything I'm going to say here would

hold up to any kind of scientific

scrutiny it's just an observation that

I'd be interested if it held up to

scrutiny but I'm not predicting that all

right you can't predict that based on

anecdotal evidence but anecdotally it

seems to me that the style of lying is

fundamentally different and that to us

their style of lying looks like not even

trying whereas the western style of

lying looks like you're at least trying

to get away with it that's just an

observation so I don't know if there's a

cultural difference there that matters

or not let's talk about let's talk about

opioids so I'm getting a lot of pushback

on my call for China to execute their

fentanyl lab owners as they find them

and people have pushed back this way

they said hey you idiot don't you know

that if you you know if you shut down

one lab there will just be another lab

or people are saying you idiot don't you

know that there are you know thousands

and thousands of illegal fentanyl labs

China couldn't possibly know where they

all are couldn't possibly shut them down

- my critics I say you are completely

right there's nothing that China can do

or that we could do that will ever

change the supply because the nature of

it is you can start an illegal lab just

about anywhere so so if you shut down

one sure enough you know another another

lab would jump up but you're missing my

point entirely but there's nothing I'm

saying that has anything to do with

supply alright so when I say that China

should execute its illegal fentanyl lab

dealers it's not to reduce the supply

because that can't be done I'm not

suggesting that anybody tried to do the

impossible

what I'm suggesting is that their mass

murderers and if somebody is a mass

murderer and collectively they're

killing

perhaps 30,000 Americans a year 30,000 a

year that changes everything if one

person was dying in America even I would

say well maybe that person should have

made better choices if a hundred people

per year were dying in America from

Chinese fentanyl I might say it myself

that's terrible

but that's a hundred people who should

have made better choices if a thousand

people per year Americans died from

Chinese fentanyl I might be tempted to

say a thousand Wow that's a lot of

people but that's a lot of people who

should have made better choices when 30

freaking thousand people a year are

dying from Chinese fentanyl that's a war

that's not personal choice any more

personal choice is always you know

involved in the fabric of it but the

size of it changes entirely what it is

and therefore your approach to it has to

entirely change to recognize what it is

and one of the things it is is a big

freakin problem that should be attacked

with maximum maximum strength on every

dimension you could attack it so when I

say that China should be executing their

fentanyl dealers and if they can't that

we should do it for them with whatever

Wetwork type people we can arrange

literally kill them is what I'm talking

about and don't care if we get caught so

if if we get caught executing Chinese

citizens who are illegal drug dealers in

their country I don't care I don't care

if that becomes public

I don't be care if China doesn't like it

because this is no longer about some

supply and demand and a product and you

know some people should have made better

choices it's a war in a war you don't

care that some of your guys get caught

killing the other side it's a war we

were not we are not at war with the

government of China and I think we could

make that distinction because they would

be on the same side

trying as hard as they can to go after

their own offense and old dealers now

let me ask you this if we killed a few

of their fentanyl lab owners and China's

government found out about it what is

the most likely response

well of course they'd complain and you

know they might make some trouble about

it but the most likely response is

they're going to try a lot harder to

police their own business now they can't

stop all their feminine that's never the

goal because it can't be done

here's the goal to send a message about

how big the problem is that's my goal

when I say China should be executing the

fentanyl lab dealers or we should go in

and do it for them on their soil even at

the risk of getting caught when I say

that it's because I'm sizing the problem

I'm persuading I'm using death of people

who deserve it because they're mass

murderers and they know it I'm using

their death simply to amplify the

message that's it I want to kill people

who have it coming their mass murderers

I'm not killing I don't favor of killing

any innocent people ever period but

people who are mass murderers we can

morally kill if it improves our result

it changes the size of the message so

don't argue with me about supply if you

would like to try legalizing fentanyl in

in a small trial

I say let's try it so anybody who's

arguing that the problem is on the

supply side I'm not I'm not ruling that

out in fact that's a very good argument

and we should work on that as hard as we

can at the same time we're helping

helping the world see the size of the

problem by executing Chinese fentanyl

lab dealers if their government won't do

it for them and by the way even if China

is doing it as fast as they can and and

they're really trying to help if it's

not

enough we should also kill their

fentanyl dealers because again it makes

the size of the problem look more more

realistic let me put this in starker

terms there are two dumb opinions on

every big policy decision so whether

you're talking about how to treat

opioids or a climate science or just

about any other problem from the urban

urban situations the if you say here's

here's a proposal and if you say yes

let's do it

or you say no listen no let's not do it

those are the two stupid opinions all

right let that hang there for a while no

matter what the proposal is if it's a

big government proposal there are two

stupid opinions and I'm and I'm being

blunt here

there's no way to shade it there are two

opinions that are stupid about every

major proposal idea one of them is yes

let's do it and the other is no let's

not do it those are the stupid opinions

now let me tell you what a smart opinion

is can we test it as small that's what a

smart opinion looks like a smart opinion

says if you're considering doing this

big plan we don't know how it'll turn

out nobody knows nobody smart enough so

if you say yes let's do it you're stupid

if you say no let's not do it you're

stupid those are the two stupid sides if

you say is there some way to test this

small so that we would have better

visibility about whether it would work

that's a smart decision so when you're

saying to me let's it's it's smart or

it's dumb to do this or that about

fentanyl you're not part of the

intelligent conversation if you say is

there something we could test in a small

scale and then we'd know whether it's

worth considering for large you're part

of the smart conversation so when

somebody says to me Scott you know you

why have you ruled out

you know making it legal in some cases

so that people could get a safe supply

of their drug and then you work on the

addiction problem and I say can you

trial it is this something you can do

small the answer is absolutely yes so if

you can test it and it has some you know

some reasonable chance that it could

work then the answer is you test it

absolutely and when the size of the

problem is this big you test every

frickin thing you can think of you don't

leave any rock unturned the problem is

this big you test you test so when

you're looking at any big government

program there's some exceptions like for

example well probably something like tax

policy is the sort of thing that you

either have to do it or not do it but

most things can be tested small there's

almost I would say 80% of everything can

be tested small and that's the smart way

to go every time you think and I know

that you I know how some of you are

receiving this those of you who have

experience and business are probably

thinking some version of da all

experienced business people are saying

this right duh of course you would try a

small if there was a way to do that

you would of course tried it as a trial

before you went big but most people

don't work for a big company most people

don't have this kind of experience the

average American doesn't think in terms

of is there a way to do a small trial as

a result our government does not think

in terms of can we do a small trial it's

kind of rare to see that isn't it it's

kind of rare to see the government say

we don't know if this is going to work

so we're just doing a small trial so

we'll find out that's how the government

needs to evolve I think it can and will

under a trump administration if you hear

somebody in the Trump administration say

we don't know if this is a good

idea that's why we're trying it or

that's why we're suggesting somebody

tries it then you know that you've

evolved let's talk about something

that's fun and interesting for a change

oh and by the way I'd ask for an expert

on my app the interface by one hub app

my my company's app I'd ask for an

expert on suboxone it's a chemical used

to get people off of opioids and

apparently it makes you sick if you take

an actual opioid when you're on suboxone

I think you get ill so it keeps you from

doing it but the question is can you use

suboxone and then wean yourself off of

suboxone or are you on suboxone forever

because it's the only way to protect you

from the opioids so that was my question

and I'm looking for an expert on the

interface by wind hub app to answer that

at the same time I had done a sort of a

public call and so the suboxone is

something that falls into the category

of something that you could test so the

hypothesis is that you could wean

yourself off of suboxone even if that's

not the medical recommended treatment

under doctor's supervision it would be

easy to test that as a small-scale test

so I'm wondering if it's been done so a

number of people have started getting on

the interface by one hub app to

volunteer as sponsors so we're getting

very close and I think there are already

some sponsors on there let me check I'll

just look right now while I'm talking so

the idea is that sponsors could charge

at a zero for their time because the app

lets you set your price and you could

charge zero if you want so I'm just

going to look up at addiction and see if

anybody's out there all right so we have

addiction and sponsor it looks like

there's one two three four now three

people who are on right now

that doesn't mean they'll necessarily

answer but they're there online as

sponsors so somebody can get somebody

immediately

now do I know that that will work I do

not I don't know if having more sponsors

on an app will save lives but can it be

tested in a small in a small way yes and

therefore you don't have to ask if it

will work or won't work you just test it

that's the smart thing to do given that

the stakes are so high now while we're

talking about the ability to test things

small let me talk about something that's

really really exciting that's happening

right before your eyes and it goes like

this

it was not long ago that if you were a

citizen and you had a great idea for the

government that idea would just be

stranded in your brain right if you're

just a voter you're one of you know

hundreds of millions people in the

United States

you're just a voter and you have a great

idea how could you get your great idea

to the government well it was possible I

mean I'm not saying it couldn't happen

but the average person really didn't

have any relationship with the

government that has completely changed

and I'm gonna take you to my whiteboard

in a moment and show you you saw it

recently and you've seen it how many

times how many times if you see in the

President of the United States President

Trump how many times if you've seen him

a retweet an idea that came from just a

citizen you've seen it a bunch of times

right so we know that the president in

the United States on a regular basis

receives the the ideas the framing the

way of thinking of things from the

public and then actually retweets it

it's not an accident it's happening on a

regular basis and I want to show you

that pathway

didn't used to exist and it looks like

this I apologize for my whiteboard being

hard to read but let's say you're a

citizen and you've got an idea and you

want to get your idea to the President

of the United States this is how easy it

is right now now keep in mind that only

good ideas are going to get there right

bad ideas are going to die

dire premature death but there's now a

direct pipeline for any good idea to get

to the president and to give filtered

along the way so that by the time the

president gets it it's already been

checked out in other words the president

won't get the bad ideas the president

would only get the ideas that other

people have filtered through and it

looks like this if you're a regular

citizen and let's say you're

sophisticated enough to know the

difference between LinkedIn and

Instagram so you know you know enough

about the world the digital world there

you could find me how many how many of

you watching the periscope have sent me

a personal message through one of the

various social media mechanisms those of

you who are clever have figured out that

I'm on LinkedIn and that I accept as a

connection everybody else so you could

just connect to me on LinkedIn and send

me a message and what are the odds I

would read your message almost a hundred

percent so what are the odds that I

would read a message if you put it on

Instagram I only have about six thousand

Instagram followers I'd probably see

everyone what are the odds I would see a

message if you sent it to me on the the

patreon app so I'm on patreon like I

collect from the funds to spread my

periscopes into other realms to turn

them into podcasts and stuff so I use

that money for that how many of you

would know that you could send me a

message on the app that there's used for

that patreon and that I would almost

certainly close to a hundred percent see

your message

so people who were comfortable with

technology now they can get a personal

message to me through probably I don't

know six to ten different channels and

that the odds of me seeing it are pretty

high so if you can get her if you can

get a message to me I have like I think

278 thousand Twitter followers so I'm a

blue check so I'm a verified blue check

but on the small side right having a few

hundred thousand followers is still

smallish but what I do have is larger

blue check accounts that do follow me

and they would certainly see my work if

something I tweeted was popular alright

so if you've got a good idea your

ability to get to me or people like me

which are the smaller blue check

accounts it's close to a hundred percent

almost almost anybody could get to me or

somebody who has a small blue check

account if we like the idea we have

filtered at once meaning that it was

good enough that we retweeted it if we

retweet it it's always going to be at

least noticed by the bigger blue check

accounts right you've you've seen this

in my case right if I tweet something

and it it has you know some quality that

people want to spread you'll see a

command that the larger accounts it

doesn't happen often and it shouldn't

happen often because most of my tweets

are not worth they're not worthy of you

know the entire world seeing them but

some are so now the blue checks tweet it

now what happens when you have this much

visibility once you reach this much

visibility there's somebody on the

president's of social media team who's

gonna see it and they can tell how

popular it is when they see it because

they'll see how many retweets they'll

see how many likes they'll see what

kinds of comments people made so you you

saw this with the

jobs not mobs idea so I I don't know who

actually came up with it it was a

citizen so some citizen said you know a

good slogan would be jobs and not mobs I

saw that on the Internet and I made a

comment about it that jobs not mobs

would be you know a good slogan and it

works on a number of levels and it's

persuasion correct

and doesn't have any downside so I said

that and it it took a very short time

for other larger Twitter accounts and

for lots of other people to retweet it

it took six days I counted from the time

that I saw a citizen with a good idea to

the time it percolated up and came out

of the president's president's twit

Twitter account this is not the first

time that you've seen this happen and I

think there is something special about

this administration because obviously

the tools have been here for a while but

there's something about this

administration that makes you think

participating matters because the

president does this so often you can

feel here's the key point because the

president so often we'll take a good

idea that comes from the base and

amplify it you can feel the connection

it's like a real thing it's not a it's

not a concept that could work in theory

it's something we observe on a regular

basis so you're watching the most

connected president you've ever seen in

your life who is essentially a be

testing on a continuous basis and that

and he's he's part of the system that

does it for him so the bad ideas don't

go very far because I won't retweet them

and then these people never see them and

he just never sees them but if it's good

enough to get the attention of somebody

with a smallish account it could make it

all the way to the top

so that is a big big change in society

it unleashes the best ideas in the world

that could be coming from the people who

are closest to the problem so when you

see me doing these periscopes and I know

some of you you know we're complaining

that you're you've seen too much on the

opioid situation the ideas that I'm

putting forth are that we should be

trying everything on the opioid crisis

and if that's true if if my suggestion

that we should be trying as many things

as possible is valid then some of the

things that come through the system to

me are gonna make their way up so when I

asked about suboxone it's because there

was somebody who on the internet who had

an experience with suboxone curing

essentially being a very easy path to

getting off of opioids but I didn't know

if that was something that other people

could experience too it might have been

something specific about this person and

so I raised the question because it was

such a good question that doesn't mean

it's it's the answer but it was such a

good question that I raised it so now

you're seeing me do it at my level I've

put out the call can somebody tell me

about suboxone can we look at the

question of whether tapering off makes

sense because there's there's some

suggestion that doctors are recommending

suboxone as a permanent drug so you're

just getting off of one drug in getting

out of another and so the question is

does it have to be permanent or could

you wean yourself off it and as I

explained earlier the real question is

could you do a small test of that or has

somebody already done a test of it and I

would just find out that but watch the

power of this system that idea just came

to me this week the question about

suboxone and whether it could help I

raised it so far it's it's trapped here

all right so so far the the idea has

filtered up to here

and there's nobody with a larger account

who's picked it up and said yeah that's

a good idea

now probably nobody will most ideas

don't go that far but the system is

really strong if it doesn't go that far

it might be because the idea didn't have

enough legs might be it's not quite the

right idea but we get to test it and

find out fairly quickly this is all new

this kind of this this effect is pretty

new

or at least it's becoming something that

works better under this president it's

not entirely new all right

society is not always ready for an idea

well there are also persuasive people in

this stack so persuading people to get

ready for an idea as part of the process

all right how many of you let me just

ask this question is this model that I

just explained about how easy it is to

get from a good idea to the you know the

leader of the country did that seem new

to you because it's a big big deal it's

a super big deal

yeah and I've argued before that the

citizens you know at least until the

algorithms take over the citizens are

really in control of the country in a

way that's never been true before

because of this you know good ideas have

now for the first time in history it's

never been true before that a good idea

could take on its own life and could

just rise before a good idea what would

be sort of trapped in your own little

bubble of non influence but now a good

idea can rise in Philly there's nothing

to stop it this is the Golden Age my

friends the Golden Age is when we

realize that resource constraints are

not the big problem anymore

they've resource constraints were a

problem all through history but now it's

the good idea that's what we lack is a

good

and the president has weaponized the

process of getting a good idea from

somebody who knows something you know

somebody who's close to the problem or

just somebody who has a good idea

he's weaponized the Twitter path to get

them to him so he can amplify them and

by the way when the when an idea gets to

the President and he tweets it that

doesn't mean it's done that just means

he's still testing it he's just testing

it at the highest level what do you

think gets a lot of input if it's good

he does more of it if the input is bad

he does less of it this is a good system

all right how about the idea of

prosecuting Soros for the caravan

I am a Soros skeptic I can be convinced

that Soros is some kind of a enemy to

the world my current impression because

I've asked a lot of people who should

know you know tell me why Soros is the

enemy of the country and I find that

people get a little vague about that

clearly his organization is funding some

things but you have to connect a lot of

dots to make him trying to destroy the

country so I would say I'm agnostic on

Soros but I lack I lack the kind of

facts or argument that would make me

anti Soros I'm not Pro Soros I'm just

concerned that so many people have a

strong opinion and nobody can explain it

to me in a way that sounds even a little

bit convincing and I don't know what's

up with that do we have other problems

that can't even be explained because I'm

not saying I'm not saying Soros did or

did not do anything

I'm saying that nobody can explain what

he did that what is his intention you

know what did was he trying to

accomplish and what did he do to

accomplish it I'm

I'm completely lost on that because it

it reads like a conspiracy theory to me

which again does not mean it's a

conspiracy theory because conspiracy

theories and the real thing can look

identical to us right we can't tell the

difference most of the time but I why is

it why have we go on so long I'm pretty

well informed all right

I'm fairly well informed I would say I'm

in the top Oh at least 5% of

well-informed Americans and that's

without even trying really I'm probably

in the top 5% just because I pay

attention to the news and I had never

seen never a good explanation of what

Soros is up to that makes him the the

devil yeah I know he did currency

speculation that was his job that's all

that's all well documented read The Wall

Street Journal article on Soros I'll bet

the years without reading The Wall

Street Journal article on Soros here's

what I predict about it I predict that

if I read it there would be lots of

information about Soros and when I was

done I wouldn't know what to make of it

that's before I've read it that's my

prediction because that's what's

happened every time I've read anything

about him I read it and I go well this

is concerning and I can see why people

would be concerned and then by the time

I'm done I think I don't think

anything's been shown here in that any

persuasive way it's just a whole bunch

of things that should maybe almost

concern us so nobody's credible on this

topic yet he strokes a social unrest and

then profits from chaos yes so so

somebody just said that his game is to

fund social unrest and then place

financial bets in which he can win based

on that that is ridiculous

to me that sounds so much like a

conspiracy theory that I wouldn't even I

wouldn't even bother looking into it a

little bit like it's too ridiculous on

its surface that I even if there was an

article that purported to tell you about

that idea

I wouldn't even read it honestly that

that would be too far beyond the

believable so I need something a little

more solid than that he is funding most

if not all of the lefty groups well okay

do you know who else favors a lot of the

lefty groups Democrats you know is there

some reason that he can't fund lefty

groups Oh Cory Booker let's talk about

Cory Booker let's sleep

you

sure

we go come back to me so those are

reported in the media that I consider

very low credibility and there's a man

who says the cory booker tried to grope

him in a in a restroom or something now

my interpretation of that claim is that

it's very unlikely they're very unlikely

but the context is i think i'm back now

the the context is that cory booker was

on the team that was saying you know

accusers in particular women should be

believed i think the audio is back now i

think your comments are behind behind

the actual so somebody tell me if you

can hear me again because I believe that

my audio is back so the accuser doesn't

sound credible to me you know very much

like the you know the the Cavanaugh

multiple rape party accuser didn't

really sound credible on the surface

doesn't mean it's false but it just

doesn't sound credible so I think it's

cory booker you know suffering from

karma or suffering from a political

attack but it probably has more to do

with outing him so one of my assumptions

is it may not be it may not be so much

that somebody is trying to take him down

for this accusation because i don't

think it you know i doubt there's any

corroborating evidence doesn't sound

credible to me but I think it's probably

a ploy to out him on his sexuality

because it would make him look like a

phony so the thing that cory booker has

to worry about in terms of you know his

brand

and the attackers is that he might be

accused of being sort of a phony and you

know his Spartacus thing plays into that

it's like you're just pretending to be a

some kind of hero you know you're kind

of a phony hero so if he's also if he's

also been less than forthcoming about

his sexual preferences which again I

don't think anybody in the country

really cares about you know that we're

way beyond that being a reason not to be

elected we're way beyond that being a

reason to judge him I think I'd like to

think I'd like to think at least the

vast majority of the country could not

care less about the president's sexual

preference I hope we're at the point

where that's not a real issue but what

could be a real issue is not being

forthcoming about it so it would be I

think a devastating blow to him

politically if the people on his own

team start asking why he has to hide his

sexuality if in fact that's going on so

I don't have any I don't have any inside

knowledge about Cory Booker's sexual

preferences and I'm not interested in

them and I don't think it should be any

kind of disqualification for anything of

course you know I think we're this is

2018 it's not 1960 or whatever but there

is a question about why somebody would

hide it if that's happening and I don't

know that's happening because I don't

know his sexual preferences and I'm not

going to pretend I do I'll just say it

doesn't matter to me

somebody says he's not gay my cousin

works on his staff come on did you just

write that somebody just wrote in the

comments and all quote he's not gay

my cousin is working on his staff you

could have

you could have worded that differently

all right so on that on that count

oh wait I'm not done yet

reminded me tomorrow to talk about

self-driving cars no I'm gonna do it now

because it's interesting and fun I keep

forgetting to talk about this

self-driving cars all right when you

think about the idea of self-driving

cars you think about them integrated on

the highways with their human cars for

however many decades it takes until

they're all self-driving cars I suppose

but you imagine self-driving cars and

real cars driving together that's the

first thing you assume secondly you

assume that each of these cars is an

independent entity made by different

companies perhaps but they all operate

like theirs they're aware of their

surroundings but they're independent

that's the second assumption third

assumption is that they would share the

existing highways what if you throw away

all of those assumptions let's say you

say to Detroit hey Detroit we're gonna

make you the automotive capital again

and we're going to overlay a new highway

right on top of Detroit which is just

for self-driving cars now of course

there are lots of regular highways so

where are their regular highways you're

going to have to either go next to them

when you need to cross them you might

need to bridge over them or tunnel under

them but there's probably enough blight

in in a place like Detroit that you

could map out a whole parallel highway

that would get you within you know

walking distance of any destination in

the city so now imagine that you build

you say to Detroit's going to be the

self-driving car test city and here are

the rules

the highway we build is going to be an

overlay

to the regular highway system so the

cars will never share a highway with

human driven cars secondly all of the

cars on this highway have to be able to

communicate in real-time with all of the

other self-driving cars so if you're an

apple self-driving car or a Google

self-driving car you've got to be in

constant contact the reason for this is

that if one of them has a failure the

other cars should know to get out of the

way because that lets say they're

tracking that car and it goes offline

and they know it shouldn't have the

other cars should adjust let's say one

of them has a mechanical problem perhaps

another car could sense it come up

behind him

all the cars behind him in that Lane

would slow down automatically and that

and the back car would push the other

car in a controlled way onto the side of

the road until it could be serviced so

the first thing you'd want to test is

cars that only have self-driving cars

second thing you want to test is

networking them all together so that

they understand where each other are is

which would make everything much safer

you know they have some kind of a

requirement for that the next somebody

says they have standards for this

already but they don't have a place to

test them in a large working environment

with lots of vendors and stuff so I

assume there would be some protocol for

that maybe not as extensively as I'm

talking about

now here's another fun thing the

self-driving cars are going to have

cameras in 365 degrees imagine if you

were in a dangerous part of the city and

you could choose to live near a

self-driving car Road you would

automatically have a safer place because

all the self-driving cars would create a

security video situation for anything

they drove past so everything on the

street wherever there's a self-driving

car is going to be recorded or

potentially could be so that you would

almost remove the street crime anywhere

there are self-driving cars because of

gyah camera in every direction

next I'm wondering if you could put a

Wi-Fi system into place so that each of

the cars is receiving Wi-Fi but also

broadcasting and and connected as a node

to other self-driving cars could you

build I'm just speculating here a high

powered Wi-Fi or even cell network that

works on the cars as the moving cells so

if you are in a situation where no cars

were going by for a while you might have

no service

but since the city always has cars you

probably would not worry about that too

much yeah a mesh a mesh Wi-Fi system

just spitballin here now if you could

build the system the people who live

near these self-driving cars assuming

that they're the kind that you can be

shared so it's like uber but

self-driving cars those people would

have full transportation at a low cost

especially if it's being tested in the

city they'd have Wi-Fi they'd have more

security it would bring the automotive

business into Detroit and Detroit seems

like a good place to test because you

have infrastructure and you have four

seasons so you'd want to test these cars

and an environment in which it snows it

gets hot it gets cold Detroit so I'm

just going to put that out there as a

suggestion that Detroit should become

the new motor city but for driverless

cars and that all the companies that are

working no matter where else they're

working should put a facility in Detroit

this assumes that Detroit thinks it's a

good idea and figure out a way to build

a a test test roads in Detroit that

could start small you know maybe it's

just a few roads and then they build

them as they go maybe you need to do

some tunneling to get around the

existing structures so you bring in the

boring company you bring in Elon Musk's

boring technology that makes tunnels

cost-effectively for just those places

you need to get around something or

under

over it Scott the self-driving idea is a

farce well you left and all the reasons

I would say that a self-driving cars are

a guarantee there's no chance that it

won't happen so whatever you're calling

a farce I would certainly be on the

opposite end of that opinion yes and

bringing this level of Industry in would

create a whole range of jobs from the

high-end engineers to the the laborer

level because you'd still need to repair

a lot of cars you'd need to build a lot

of roads so it would be a massive

infrastructure or transportation jobs

program and at the end of it you would

have this vibrant Motor City Detroit

again so I just throw that out there as

an idea all right Scott natural language

processing it isn't even there yet I

don't know what that is do anything

yeah self-driving cars are all over

Mountain View for example so Mountain

View is testing and we'd still need to

test the self-driving cars in places

where you know it's going to be

integrated with other cars so somebody

just was putting my own words back to me

to say don't say whether it's a good

idea or a bad idea say whether you can

test it as small and testing a small is

essentially what I'm what I'm suggesting

so you could test a small simply by

having a limited highway within Detroit

and then just build it as it makes sense

to build it so yes it by its nature it

could be tested small should the car

protect the driver or pedestrian I think

a lot of that problem goes away with

self-driving cars because one of the

things you could do with a self-driving

car Highway is to make

pedestrian traffic non-existent

so for example if you're going to build

a self-driving car only highway you

might make sure that you have pedestrian

tunnels under all of them or or across

ways over them and you just get rid of

the pedestrian question altogether they

don't work in snow well that's what

you'd be testing so self-driving cars

will be a choice right for the

foreseeable future yes I think

self-driving cars will be a choice in

the same way that owning a smartphone

will be a choice it'll seem like a

choice early on but eventually it would

be just the only way people do things

because it would be so much better

there's no way that human drive human

driven cars will be able to compete in

the long run alright just looking here

comments human interface is always the

bug in the system yeah the worst the

worst component of your car at the

moment is you the car every part of the

car works well except the human the

human is all the errors you know ninety

ninety eight percent of the accidents

probably I'm guessing this issue

wouldn't you guess that ninety-eight

percent of traffic accidents are caused

by humans maybe ninety five something

like that

alright that's all for now I'll talk to

you all later