Episode 380 Scott Adams - Cohen, Beto, Ohr, Kim, Pelosi, Heller

hey everybody come on in here gather around for those of you who are walking on the beach and listening to this Periscope which I understand is a popular thing to do how's the water um and to the rest of you I hope you remembered to be prepared for coffee with Scott Adams hey Upstate New York I'm sorry that you're in Upstate New York so let us drink in sympathy for someone who is in Upstate New York in the winter so much to talk about you're right let's get going with the simultaneous hip lift your glass your mug your Stein your your receptacle of any kind your chalice if you will fill it with your favorite liquid I like coffee and join me for the simultaneous SE oh yeah somebody said talk about Andrew Yang I don't know if the story about that so I'll look into that all right so many things let's start with the Buzz.

Feed story that uh that President Trump asked Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about their plans for building a uh a Trump Tower in Russia Russia I say now here are the here's the context number one uh Buzz.

Feed is not a credible source that could be just the end of the story right I could just say a a source which we which we know is not credible has a story I don't should I even tell you the story would it even matter once I've said it's not a incedible source and it's Anonymous sources hey it's Anonymous sources so the first thing you need to know about it is that it doesn't have any credibility the second thing you need to know about it is that they're leaving out when I've been watching the reporting on it this morning and I think both you know both sides are leaving out the most important Point here's the most important point about that story that's being left out now remember the whole the whole narrative is that that uh maybe Russia had something on Trump and that there were working together and they were colluding and you know maybe Trump was trying to make some money off this being president deal but this story they're leaving out the biggest question which is is there any any question that this project would have gone forward had the president actually had the candidate Trump been elected president president obviously no can you in any your greatest imaginary you know Powers if you if you put your full powers of imagination on this can you imagine that had the president become elected as he did that they would have gone ahead with building a Trump Tower in Russia there's not even the slightest chance of that so the big part of the context is missing is that this was always about what if I don't get elected now if he doesn't get elected he has no power whatsoever and that's the scenario in which a Russian project makes sense who's saying that if you don't tell your viewers hey here the most important thing you need to know is that this was the backup plan this is the the Trump Tower plan only could have gone forward if had no power to do anything that Russia wanted he was just a business person who lost an election and obviously wouldn't be running again at his age probably so if you leave that out of the story what the hell do you have oh you have this this uh Buzz.

Feed non-credible story which would also suggest that there's somebody associated with the Muller investigation who's leaking Maybe everything else is leaked but why would why would why would this be the one thing that's leaking and let me ask you this if Buzz.

Feed has a source that can tell them tell Buzz.

Feed the details of what Russia what Cohen and Trump allegedly said and by the way it's just going to come down to he said she said even if you know even if the reporting is accurate in the sense that Cohen claims this has happened this still doesn't mean anything doesn't have any legal Jeopardy there's no real risk here except a c one of course um so if Buzz.

Feed has a source this good that they're getting that level of detail about a top top secret um Muller investigation wouldn't wouldn't Buzz.

Feed also know by now with this excellent source wouldn't they know by now if Muller has anything on Trump think about it could Buzz.

Feed even do this story and have a real source that knows this level of who what conversation happened and yet not know that Mueller does or does not have something powerful on Trump himself I think the Buzz.

Feed story you have to see it as strong evidence it's not proof but strong evidence that Muller doesn't have anything you anything that would have a legal or you know serious implication all right so that's the first thing we of course have to talk about uh president Trump canceling ncy P's flight but I feel like it happened yesterday after I periscoped and so so much has been said about it I feel like i' just be retreading what other people said I will simply say that the uh the Democrats attack that it's childish I don't know that that's so good of an attack because it's it kind of highlights that Pelosi was being childish with cancelling or I guess postponing the uh State of the Union so I don't think you're really on strong ground if you say what she did was perfectly reasonable and what he did was childish to me it seems like they very cleverly just matched her level of childness childishness which you kind of have to do because you have to give that mutually assured destruction thing where if you if you go off script meaning you do something that's you know nonstandard politics we're going to go off script as much as you want to go off script the one one of the superpowers that Trump always employs and is very powerful it's powerful persuasion to essentially frame him as the person who does this and that is that however far off the path you're willing to go he's going to go with you there there's no point at which you can count on the president to stay in the channel that's his superpower so if Pelosi says Ah I think you'll stay in the channel I'm going to I'm going to go over here a little bit out of bounds and see if I can attack him out of bounds with this you know uh postponing the state of the union and what does Trump do he goes you want to play out of bounds I love out of bounds I live out of bounds out of bounds is my home court let's go out of bounds how's your flight Nancy so it it feels like uh the type of attack when I say attack I mean political attack by postponing the State of the Union it feels like the sort of thing that maybe they thought was a good idea when they tried it but it can't possibly work with this particular president cuz he's just going to go further out of bounds than you and and you can rely on that right that's sort of his brand so I don't think there's anything you can say about the canceled flight except that it was hilarious it totally matched her childishness he didn't go first you know which which would have felt different really he didn't go first and plus as I as I uh mentioned yesterday it opens up the possibility that they've released the Kraken and now if Trump doesn't have to do a state of the union in front of this boring crowd sitting on their hands or at least half of them he can maybe do something more interesting or or he can just do it later so he has more options now than he had before and some of them are better than the original options all right um CNN uh ran a very negative article on B oror today on their website what does that mean because remember CNN gets to decide you know who whose article runs and who doesn't I don't know if they assign articles in every case sometimes they probably do you know or suggest articles but in any case CNN gets to decide what's on their site and what isn't and they have decided that a very negative article about B saying that he's only getting this much attention because he's a white male boom so CNN is clearly trying to clear the field for someone now if I had to guess probably Cala Harris so if you see CNN start to pick off the weaker players in the field or more important the stronger players to get you know maybe they don't need they don't need to pick off the weak ones right but they probably need to pick out pick off the ones that are in the hunt you know the people are in the top five so you should expect to see a negative Bernie article a negative Biden article a negative bet article we've seen and we saw a negative article about Gabby tulzer Tulsa Tulsa uh Gabby and so every time you see a negative article about another Democrat you should know that whoever is in charge of our thinking is is eliminating these choices so that we don't have to consider them all right um there's a wall was a Wall Street article Wall Street Journal article by Kimberly strle saying that uh Bruce or FBI agent Bruce or um did tell the FBI that the so-called dossier was uh was funded by the Clinton Administration or the Clinton uh campaign and and that it was not necessarily reliable because it came from an unreliable source and had not been vetted and it's a sort of story when I when I see it and I think to myself wait is that new is that new news right so somebody beat me to it it's old news and this whole thing is starting to look like Groundhog Day every new story feels like we've already heard it even if there's something new it just feels like the same story over and over again and uh in this case it it seems to me the way reality is shaping up here as we're learning more and more is that the FBI the FBI started an investigation without having strong evidence now the people on the right are saying there it is there's proof that the FBI is crooked and you know there's a deep State because they started an investigation without solid evidence I don't feel like that's a rational attack here's why and it's it's the it's the concept of expected value expected value do you know how that's calculated in economics and business there's a there's a thing called expected value where you say if there's a 1% chance that this decision will cost us a trillion dollars then the value of the decision or the risk is 1% times a trillion if there's a let's make it easier if there's a 10% chance you will earn $100 with this investment the expected value is 10% time 100 or $10 right so if if you have lots of decisions that's what that's how you decide which ones to go with you multiply the odds of it happening times the dollar amount if it happens you know whether it's plus or minus you just you still do the the calculation now let's say the FBI has two different um potential cases one of the potential cases is that there's suspicion that somebody is committing some kind of a normal federal crime across state lines and somebody brings them information which is not credible so the crime is not that big the alleged crime and the information that it happened is not that credible the FBI might say all right we don't really have anything here if you could bring me something that's credible then maybe we'll open an investigation because there's not much to gain with this smish crime we're not going to put a ton of resources on something that doesn't even have solid evidence but suppose you're talking about an allegation that the president of the United States is a Russian mole what's that worth if it's true trillions your life the future of the planet the the nature of the country it's the biggest possible potential problem when they had this information which they knew came from the Clinton campaign pain and they knew it was not credible but there was a lot of it there was a lot of it and it came through somebody they knew it came through somebody they'd worked with before who had not lied to them before now that's not credible information still even though the person who brought it they thought was was credible they knew who he was working for and therefore it was not credible but if there's any chance that this claim is true it's an enormous cost so if you're the FBI and you're job is to you know do your job to protect the country and somebody brings you a very small chance that something very big might be happening do you open an investigation and at least see if you can find that there is some evidence and I think that's defensible meaning that if the FBI is explanation of all this is yeah we did not have credible information but this isn't like any other case because the stakes were so high and it was so important to get an answer soon you couldn't wait if if any of this was true you just couldn't wait that's pretty reasonable to me all right and I know you hate this when I when I act reasonable because I I know most of you have a you know an opinion and it's sort of solid but if you're telling me the FBI looked into it because it was a gigantic potential risk and the evidence was terrible but you just sort of got to look into it that's not crazy and it's not not doing your job and you know yeah I see somebody's mentioning the fisa thing and the fisa thing maybe didn't have all the information in it Etc but keep in mind if the scenario is that the FBI thought there might actually be something to this than the rest is paperwork right so the the entire claim rests mostly on intention somebody says you're missing it or taking it out of context you can you can give me a reason tell me what I'm missing and or what context I left out let me give you uh here's the context that I think um that I think addresses your context if you believe that something is right and you're doing the right thing then everything you do feels right to you I mean it's basic confirmation bias so if you're saying well what about this other thing and what about this this text they found what about these other things keep in mind that once you've decided that there's a deep State you will of course see lots of evidence of it if you had decided there's not a deep State you would of course see lots of evidence say you were right so the fact that you say wait you have to look at all the things that's not a solid thinking because it wouldn't matter what big complicated your thing you're looking at whether it's climate change or rushia gate or anything in politics um whatever opinion you have is going to be surrounded with confirmation bias in other words if you're totally wrong your opinion will be mostly confirmation bias and if you're totally right in other words you have the Right theory you might have the Right theory and you're still surrounded by confirmation bias even though you're right so there might be one right thing and all the rest of the evidence you say see see look at all this other evidence probably confirmation bias because that's the way the brain is is wired all right enough on that um someone brought to my attention that my periscopes on the on the subject of climate change when they're reposted on You.

Tube they come with a uh a very prominent link by the video added by You.

Tube which is owned by Google so they add a link to the Wikipedia page saying that climate change is is real and here are all the links so is it completely a random algorithm change the climate change when it's discussed in any kind of a skeptical frame is matched by Google with a link to the most um proclimate consensus site you could have which is a Wikipedia page with all the links uh demonstrating climate change is that completely an algorithmic thing because I use the right words you know I use climate and skeptic and stuff like that so it could be just could be completely an algorithm right they just recognized the topic and then gave the maybe the most popular link that is comprehensive to that topic maybe they pair Wikipedia links with lots of different topics maybe but here's the interesting thing I'm going to call back to something I said on another Periscope which is why can't we deprogram terrorists who are in the process of self radicalizing self- radicalizing means getting on the Internet and looking at a B bunch of Isis propaganda and talking yourself into being an Isis terrorist if Google can talk Skeptics out of their belief of climate science by feeding them uh persuasive links aren't we already doing that with the radicals and could it be one of the big reasons that we're seeing less of it because I and maybe we're not seeing less of it so so first of all you have to fact check that but it feels like the United States is not having big problems with domestic Terror there you know some crazy guy here and there but it feels like there could be a lot more of it I guess there's no way to measure because we don't measure cuz there's no way to know uh what it would have been if we had acted differently there's there's no comparison point but I have to ask myself I have to ask myself is Google using the same thing that they used you know same technology they used to pair my periscopes on climate change with uh with a Wikipedia page aren't they doing the same thing with the terrorists if a terrorist tries to find an Isis site aren't they going to be bombarded with uh you know links and popups and you know persuasion and photos that would move them away from that position and if not why the hell not why the hell are we not doing that if we if we I think we could be fairly certain it works not 100% obviously but I think we can say with complete certainty that it would work to at least reduce the risk all right uh new topic um yesterday I did a periscope in the afternoon on just the topic of how to move forward on this wall border security situation and what I suggested was that we just asked the Democrats for their plan and asked them to put it on a graphic image so we can see exactly what they want to do compared to what we already have so it maybe a picture that shows the various ways we're protecting the border from you know here here the river does it and here there's a mountain and here there's a just some sensors and in this one maybe small place we need some steel slats whatever why don't we just ask them for their plan CU here's the there's a couple things I left down yesterday one is if you asked either the the Republicans or the Democrats to produce this plan that's simple enough for the the citizens to understand it's just sort of a picture you know with some numbers pointing to stuff if either the Democrats or the Republicans produced such a plan I think they would look the same here's the trick I think they would look the same because they're not really talking about different things anymore and both the Republicans and Democrats would never put out a a plan that didn't have pretty widespread approval from engineers and Border Security Experts in other words the Democrat could never put on a plan that the Border Security Professionals say uh you know that's okay in this place but you know you got it wrong over here this definitely won't work and here's why they can't do that right now somebody says uh the border patrol already has a plan that could be a good good way to start but we don't need border Patrol's plan because all that matters at the moment is that one of these parties Republicans Or democrats goes first and just says this is exactly what it's going to look like now if the Republicans have that or access to it they're dumb for not producing it but I think the Republicans have a problem because it's going to show not enough wall and maybe that's a problem politically but the Democrats can the Democrats can simply show us what they would fund and then maybe the border patrol can overlay some information on that like you know if you don't put a wall here you'll get 10,000 crosses a year or whatever in this area and we know that from the past so you would want some stat statistics on it but you'd want to see the plan now the other thing I didn't add is that as you've noticed the Democrats are cannibalizing each other uh part of this has to do with the run up to the presidency so the the various factions are trying to cannibalize each other to you know take care of some competitors but you also see the you know the younger Congress people versus the older you see the rpos and uh and some of the others who are a little Bolder a little more willing to go against their own party a little little more willing to play outside the uh the bounds and here's the interesting thing the first Democrat who produces that plan with a picture the picture is the important part if it's text you're just never going to get any attention it's got to be a picture the first Democrat who produces a highlevel conceptual picture plan with a with a budget is the one who gets all the attention and what are all the Democrats fighting for right now they're all fighting for attention it's there's a there's a A desperate kind of you know flailing around for the for a lot of different Democrats to to get a little bit of attention because there's so many of them now they have to try a little harder so far rpos is getting uh the most attention you call her uh oh some people don't know that AOC is rpos as in uh the first letter is r and the POS is not point of sale all right so uh once AOC came out as a racist I started calling her r P um and by the way that's I'm not I'm not that's not my opinion that she's a racist U her tweets are pretty clear on that um so here's my point there are some democrat who would have a huge benefit in terms of publicity and in terms of moving the world forward if they just find out what the plan is maybe they even start with border Patrol's plan I mean that would be a good place to start right start with the plan that the Republicans have change it any way that you think makes sense show it to the world show it to border patrol and say what do you think get their opinion put it on it and show it to us just show it to the people now it seems to me that the the the government is largely broken and maybe will always be so because of the the two sides that the Press is taking as long as the Press is treating it as a a dog fight and a contest between two sides and and the way you win is to win in public you know it's not even the law that's a win it's it's the looking like you won that that matters as long as the media puts all the politicians in in the situation where they have to look like they won or else they're dead you can't do anything that's the opposite of an environment in which you can compromise so because of the business model of the press which is driven entirely by the fact that we can now measure exactly who wants to click on what stories and which ones get the most attention it's divided the the world into a place where you can't compromise anymore cuz compromise will be spun as well you lost you stupid dog you you weak leader you person who must be working for Russia so losing is no longer an option for either size and now you see what happens but the media uh doesn't really control the fact that you know somebody can come up with a plan show it to the country whoever comes up with the first picture wins let me let me say this again as clearly as possible whoever comes up with the first visual picture of the border with what it is and then you know overlaid somehow what they want it to be and what that will cost doesn't matter which side they come from whoever does whoever goes visual first wins because that will be the picture from which all negotiations will have to spring because it goes first so if it goes first it's locked in your brains if it's visual you can't beat it there there's no higher level of persuasion and nobody's gone there it's a completely empty Green Field all you have to do any politician Republican Democrat senior or brand new all you have to do is walk into that field hold up your picture and say this is what I want this is what it is and this is what it will cost to get what I want and I ran this past border patrol and hey you networks you should maybe get some experts on and let's have them debate my plan first person to do that wins and I mean wins for the country and also wins for their brand and and maybe wins for a lot of other people as well it might it might even be a big win for the for the potential immigrants if you do it right all right so make it Visual and you win uh and I'll make another I'll tell you what I'll make another prediction that there will be no agreement until there's a picture there will be no no agreement on On the Border until there's a picture that the public can understand a simple picture all right uh let's see oh um I would like to order offer a clarification of something I said online some people believe that I insulted somebody terribly um and I think it's fair to call me out on that but it's also fair to hear my explanation and I'll give you some context before I tell you what I got in trouble for here's the context if I said I could hear something and you can't hear it and I'm like what are you serious you can't hear that you don't hear that sound right now would it be fair or would it be insulting to inquire if the person has any kind of hearing problem I think it would be fair there's nothing wrong with somebody having a hearing problem right that's just a normal thing I'm pretty sure my own hearing is maybe degraded 10% just by age so that would be fair nobody would say oh you are you're calling him disabled or something no you wouldn't you would say do you have a hearing problem because the question the point in question is can you detect a sound likewise if I said do you see that plane up there and somebody else said no I can't see it I go right there look right there and the other person can't see it would it be fair for me to inquire or would it be an insult to say is your vision perfect you know do you wear glasses because that would that would explain why I can detect something that you can't now I would say that neither of them are are insults now let's get to the question and point uh there's there's a question about the so-called climate gate emails in which um some of the scientists use the words trick and hide the decline now I have claimed that it is obvious to me obvious and I can detect it easily that that that's casual conversation and not meant to mean literally a trick where you're trying to trick people but rather a publicly used method and people can look at it and that hide the decline was really just a short hand for the topic they were trying to explain why some data in the past didn't match so they're trying to hide it for marketing purposes now if you're hiding it for marketing purposes you're not you're not really trying to make the world the worst place you're trying to be consistent with a theory that has tons of evidence in your opinion and there was just one little piece that's annoying and the public would get the wrong idea so you try to deemphasize that for marketing purposes so that was my interpretation now I am very good at interpreting words I'm a professional writer and I read I read people's you know psychology that's also my domain that's what I write about and talk about I've got my second book on that coming Etc so I would say that I'm a good censor a sensor with an s senn s o r i can sense when somebody's telling a joke versus when they're serious and I can sense because this is my domain it's my special expertise when somebody is talking in casual language versus precise language and whether that means something words and meaning are my domain I have a special sense for that as really I would say any author would you know most authors would would share this um better sense and so I got into a uh conversation on the internet with uh and and so Tony heler came up because his interpretation of the words are that they clearly indicate Tony heler is uh probably the most capable climate skeptic so I've I've I've said that his presentation his research and his persuasion are the best I've seen on the skeptical side and I've asked people to respond and to figure out you know what's wrong with his take and I'm not really getting I'm not getting the push back that I was expecting so I haven't yet found I'm not saying it doesn't exist it's too early but I haven't seen anybody say oh it's here we debunk his claim that the that the data used to be one way and then it was it was fudged so he has a lot of credibility as a as a a technical mind a scientific mind an engineering mind a rational mind but his interpretation of what trick and um and what Hyde the decline meant in that context was wholly opposite of mine he says they are literal I say they're not now I asked in the context of that conversation if Tony was on the Spectrum and people said whoa Scott you're way out of line you've gone add homonym why are you attacking him somebody actually used the r word and said why are you calling him an r word word you know r t a r d I don't even want to say it um to and I actually was surprised I thought wait a minute when when did it become an insult to be on the Spectrum who who is saying that being on a spectrum is an insult because part of the Assumption for that was that his ability to go so deep with the data is is part of the superpower that comes with being a little bit on the Spectrum and part of the superpower is what's driving Silicon Valley it's what it's what you could imagine that Dilbert my character my beloved character has maybe a little bit of it meaning that you know engineers and technologists are quite well known for having a higher degree of being on the Spectrum and it's also well known that it's highly associated with great capability Tony heler shows great capability consistent with that he also shows in this one specific example taking something literal that in my own expertise I think is clearly not literal and other scientists have looked into the situation and found out it was not literal as well so if I ask him Tony is your ability to sense literal speech versus figurative speech as good as mine because I'm not on the Spectrum and again I'm not saying that how awesome I am that I'm not on the spectrum because being a little bit on the spectrum is associated with tremendous Powers it's like a superpower so I want to be really clear if I ask somebody if they're on the spectrum that is not an insult not in my world in my world the people on the Spectrum have invented the whole freaking world right you know they've done they've done all of the cool stuff you know my you know how many people on the Spectrum were involved with creating my phone for for God's sakes so please don't don't assume that I think that's an insult I think that is a totally perfectly legitimate question to ask now he didn't answer the question so I don't know the answer to it um but I I will I will argue strongly that it's a fair question in the context of asking if somebody can sense something that if you've got you know good Vision if you've got good hearing those are good senses if if somebody asked me you know I I I lost my ability to smell uh years ago I have literally zero sense of smell for I don't know how long decades or so and if somebody smelled something and said Scott do you smell it and I said no would would it be fair for them to say is there something wrong with your nose and the answer is yes would I be insulted no no it's a question about whether I have the a physical sensor and I just don't have it somebody asked Can I taste weirdly yes yes I I've uh I've lost 100% of my sense of smell and every common sense and common knowledge is that that's associated with your taste and the thought is if you lost your sense a smell you couldn't taste but I can and I also can't tell the difference between what it used to be and what it is now I can't tell the difference but I also can't tell if it's psychological meaning that I don't know if I just haven't noticed that I went from really super tasting things to not tasting it so much but if I have a bowl of soup it feels exactly like it always felt like it doesn't doesn't feel like there's any difference between what happened you know how it tasted when I was 12 years old and how it tastes now it does feels like the same experience so I don't know um so how do you buy Christina perfume easily I don't what does that have to do with the issue being discussed so the issue being discussed was whether or not it's fair to ask if somebody is on the Spectrum if the topic is something that would be hard to identify for someone on the Spectrum and easier for someone who wasn't just going with the science not an insult all right so the real the real question about my loss of smell but yet I can taste is if I if I were introduced to a brand new taste and Clos my eyes and somebody said all right I'm going to put this brand new thing in your mouth could I would I would I imagine that I could taste it or is the visual so strong that if I saw it it looked yellow I would imagine it it tasted like a lemon or something and it would be an interesting test but I haven't done that all right uh no it wasn't cocaine i' I've never been a snorter I tried maybe three or four times I tried cocaine in college and it literally didn't do do anything to me I don't know why but I just lost all interest in it so I as an adult I haven't or at least after college I haven't not snorted anything haven't done any opioids Etc all right uh Phantom taste buds like a lost limb could be yeah I think I think that's an entirely open possibility all right and I will talk to you later

[Music]

hey everybody come on in here gather

around for those of you who are walking

on the beach and listening to this

Periscope which I understand is a

popular thing to do how's the

water um and to the rest of you I hope

you remembered to be prepared

for coffee with Scott Adams hey Upstate

New

York I'm sorry that you're in Upstate

New York so let us drink in sympathy for

someone who is in Upstate New York in

the

winter so much to talk about you're

right let's get going with the

simultaneous hip lift your glass your

mug your Stein your your receptacle of

any kind your chalice if you will fill

it with your favorite liquid I like

coffee and join me for the simultaneous

SE

oh yeah somebody said talk about Andrew

Yang I don't know if the story about

that so I'll look into that all right so

many

things let's start with the BuzzFeed

story that uh that President Trump asked

Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about

their plans for building a uh a Trump

Tower in Russia Russia I say now here

are the here's the

context number

one uh BuzzFeed is not a credible

source that could be just the end of the

story right I could just say a a source

which we which we know is not credible

has a story I don't should I even tell

you the story would it even matter once

I've said it's not a incedible source

and it's Anonymous sources hey it's

Anonymous

sources so the first thing you need to

know about it is that it doesn't have

any

credibility the second thing you need to

know about it is that they're leaving

out when I've been watching the

reporting on it this morning and I think

both you know both sides are leaving out

the most important Point here's the most

important point about that story that's

being left out now remember the whole

the whole narrative is that that uh

maybe Russia had something on Trump and

that there were working together and

they were colluding and you know maybe

Trump was trying to make some money off

this being president deal but this

story they're leaving out the biggest

question which is is there any any

question that this project would have

gone forward had the president actually

had the candidate Trump been elected

president

president obviously

no can you in any your greatest

imaginary you know Powers if you if you

put your full powers of imagination on

this can you imagine that had the

president become elected as he did that

they would have gone ahead with building

a Trump Tower in

Russia there's not even the slightest

chance of that so the big part of the

context is missing is that this was

always about what if I don't get elected

now if he doesn't get elected he has no

power

whatsoever and that's the scenario in

which a Russian project makes sense

who's saying that if you don't tell your

viewers hey here the most important

thing you need to know is that this was

the backup plan this is the the Trump

Tower plan only could have gone forward

if had no power to do anything that

Russia wanted he was just a business

person who lost an election and

obviously wouldn't be running again at

his age

probably so if you leave that out of the

story what the hell do you have oh you

have this this uh BuzzFeed non-credible

story which would also suggest that

there's somebody associated with the

Muller investigation who's

leaking Maybe everything else is leaked

but why would why would why would this

be the one thing that's leaking and let

me ask you this if BuzzFeed has a

source that can tell them tell BuzzFeed

the

details of what Russia what Cohen and

Trump allegedly said and by the way it's

just going to come down to he said she

said even if you know even if the

reporting is accurate in the sense that

Cohen claims this has happened

this still doesn't mean anything doesn't

have any legal Jeopardy there's no real

risk here except a c one of course

um so if BuzzFeed has a source this good

that they're getting that level of

detail about a top top

secret um Muller

investigation wouldn't wouldn't BuzzFeed

also know by now with this excellent

source wouldn't they know by now if

Muller has anything on

Trump think about it could BuzzFeed even

do this story and have a real source

that knows this level of who what

conversation

happened and yet not know that Mueller

does or does not have something powerful

on Trump

himself I think the BuzzFeed story you

have to see it as strong evidence it's

not proof but strong evidence that

Muller doesn't have anything you

anything that would have a legal or you

know serious implication all right so

that's the first thing we of course have

to talk about uh president Trump

canceling ncy P's flight but I feel like

it happened yesterday after I periscoped

and so so much has been said about it I

feel like i' just be retreading what

other people said I will simply

say that the

uh the Democrats attack that it's

childish I don't know that that's so

good of an attack because it's it kind

of highlights that Pelosi was being

childish with cancelling or I guess

postponing the uh State of the Union so

I don't think you're really on strong

ground if you say what she did was

perfectly reasonable and what he did was

childish to me it seems like they very

cleverly just matched her level of

childness

childishness which you kind of have to

do because you have to give that

mutually assured destruction thing where

if you if you go off script meaning you

do something that's you know nonstandard

politics we're going to go off script as

much as you want to go off script the

one one of the superpowers that Trump

always employs and is very powerful it's

powerful persuasion to essentially frame

him as the person who does this and that

is that however far off the path you're

willing to go he's going to go with

you there there's no point at which you

can count on the president to stay in

the channel that's his superpower so if

Pelosi says Ah I think you'll stay in

the channel I'm going to I'm going to go

over here a little bit out of bounds and

see if I can attack him out of bounds

with this you know uh postponing the

state of the union and what does Trump

do he goes you want to play out of

bounds I love out of bounds I live out

of bounds out of bounds is my home court

let's go out of bounds how's your flight

Nancy so it it feels like uh the type of

attack when I say attack I mean

political attack by postponing the State

of the Union it feels like the sort of

thing that maybe they thought was a good

idea when they tried it but it can't

possibly work with this particular

president cuz he's just going to go

further out of bounds than you and and

you can rely on that right that's sort

of his

brand so I don't think there's anything

you can say about the canceled flight

except that it was

hilarious it totally matched her

childishness he didn't go first you know

which which would have felt different

really he didn't go first and plus as I

as I uh mentioned yesterday it opens up

the possibility that they've released

the Kraken and now if Trump doesn't have

to do a state of the union in front of

this boring crowd sitting on their hands

or at least half of them he can maybe do

something more interesting or or he can

just do it later so he has more options

now than he had before and some of them

are better than the original options all

right um

CNN uh ran a very negative article on B

oror today on their website what does

that mean because remember CNN gets to

decide you know who whose article runs

and who doesn't I don't know if they

assign articles in every case sometimes

they probably do you know or suggest

articles but in any case CNN gets to

decide what's on their site and what

isn't and they have decided that a very

negative article about B saying that

he's only getting this much attention

because he's a white

male boom so CNN is

clearly trying to clear the field for

someone now if I had to guess probably

Cala

Harris so if you see CNN start to pick

off the weaker players in the field or

more important the stronger players to

get you know maybe they don't need they

don't need to pick off the weak ones

right but they probably need to pick out

pick off the ones that are in the hunt

you know the people are in the top five

so you should expect to see a negative

Bernie article a negative Biden article

a negative bet article we've seen and we

saw a negative article about Gabby

tulzer Tulsa Tulsa uh Gabby and so every

time you see a negative article about

another Democrat you should know that

whoever is in charge of our thinking is

is eliminating these choices so that we

don't have to consider

them all right um there's a wall was a

Wall Street article Wall Street Journal

article by Kimberly

strle saying that uh Bruce or FBI agent

Bruce or um did tell the FBI that the

so-called dossier was uh was funded by

the Clinton Administration or the

Clinton uh campaign

and and that it was not necessarily

reliable because it came from an

unreliable source and had not been

vetted

and it's a sort of story when I when I

see it and I think to myself wait is

that

new is that new news right so somebody

beat me to it it's old news and this

whole thing is starting to look like

Groundhog Day every new

story feels like we've already heard it

even if there's something new it just

feels like the same story over and over

again and uh in this case it it seems to

me the way reality is shaping up here as

we're learning more and more is that the

FBI the FBI started an investigation

without having strong

evidence now the people on the right are

saying there it is there's proof that

the FBI is crooked and you know there's

a deep State because they started an

investigation without solid

evidence I don't feel like that's a

rational attack here's why and it's it's

the it's the concept of expected

value expected value do you know how

that's calculated in economics and

business there's a there's a thing

called expected value where you say if

there's a 1% chance that this decision

will cost us a trillion dollars then the

value of the decision or the risk is 1%

times a trillion if there's a let's make

it easier if there's a 10% chance you

will earn $100 with this investment the

expected value is 10% time 100 or $10

right so if if you have lots of

decisions that's what that's how you

decide which ones to go with you

multiply the odds of it happening times

the dollar amount if it happens you know

whether it's plus or minus you just you

still do the the calculation now let's

say the FBI has two different um

potential cases one of the potential

cases is that there's suspicion that

somebody is committing some kind of a

normal federal crime across state lines

and somebody brings them information

which is not

credible so the crime is not that big

the alleged crime and the information

that it happened is not that credible

the FBI might say all right we don't

really have anything here if you could

bring me something that's credible then

maybe we'll open an investigation

because there's not much to gain with

this smish crime we're not going to put

a ton of resources on something that

doesn't even have solid evidence

but suppose you're talking about an

allegation that the president of the

United States is a Russian

mole what's that worth if it's true

trillions your life the future of the

planet the the nature of the country

it's the

biggest possible potential

problem when they had this information

which they knew came from the Clinton

campaign pain and they knew it was not

credible but there was a lot of it there

was a lot of it and it came through

somebody they knew it came through

somebody they'd worked with before who

had not lied to them

before now that's not credible

information still even though the person

who brought it they thought was was

credible they knew who he was working

for and therefore it was not

credible but if there's any chance

that this claim is true it's an enormous

cost so if you're the FBI and you're job

is to you know do your job to protect

the country and somebody brings you a

very small chance that something very

big might be happening do you open an

investigation and at least see if you

can find that there is some evidence and

I think that's

defensible meaning that if the FBI is

explanation of all this is yeah we did

not have credible information but this

isn't like any other case because the

stakes were so high and it was so

important to get an answer soon you

couldn't wait if if any of this was true

you just couldn't

wait that's pretty reasonable to me all

right and I know you hate this when I

when I act reasonable because I I know

most of you have a you know an opinion

and it's sort of solid but if you're

telling me the FBI looked into it

because it was a gigantic potential risk

and the evidence was terrible but you

just sort of got to look into it that's

not crazy and it's not not doing your

job and you know yeah I see somebody's

mentioning the fisa thing and the fisa

thing maybe didn't have all the

information in it Etc but keep in mind

if the scenario is that the FBI thought

there might actually be something to

this than the rest is paperwork right so

the the entire claim rests mostly on

intention somebody says you're missing

it or taking it out of context you can

you can give me a reason tell me what

I'm missing and or what context I left

out let me give you uh here's the

context that I think um that I think

addresses your

context if you believe that something is

right and you're doing the right thing

then everything you do feels right to

you I mean it's basic confirmation bias

so if you're saying well what about this

other thing and what about this this

text they found what about these other

things keep in mind that once you've

decided that there's a deep State you

will of course see lots of evidence of

it if you had decided there's not a deep

State you would of course see lots of

evidence say you were right so the fact

that you say wait you have to look at

all the things that's not a solid

thinking because it wouldn't matter what

big complicated your thing you're

looking at whether it's climate change

or rushia gate or anything in

politics um whatever opinion you have is

going to be surrounded with confirmation

bias in other words if you're totally

wrong your opinion will be mostly

confirmation bias

and if you're totally right in other

words you have the Right theory you

might have the Right theory and you're

still surrounded by confirmation bias

even though you're right so there might

be one right thing and all the rest of

the evidence you say see see look at all

this other evidence probably

confirmation bias because that's the way

the brain is is wired all right enough

on

that um someone brought to my attention

that my periscopes on the on the subject

of climate change when they're reposted

on YouTube they come with a uh a very

prominent

link by the video added by YouTube which

is owned by Google so they add a link to

the Wikipedia page saying that climate

change is is real and here are all the

links

so is it completely a

random algorithm change

the climate change when it's discussed

in any kind of a skeptical frame is

matched by

Google with a link to the most um

proclimate consensus site you could have

which is a Wikipedia page with all the

links uh demonstrating climate change is

that completely an algorithmic thing

because I use the right words you know I

use climate and skeptic and stuff like

that so it could be just

could be completely an algorithm right

they just recognized the topic and then

gave the maybe the most popular link

that is comprehensive to that topic

maybe they pair Wikipedia links with

lots of different

topics

maybe but here's the interesting thing

I'm going to call back to something I

said on another Periscope which is why

can't we deprogram terrorists

who are in the process of self

radicalizing self- radicalizing means

getting on the Internet and looking at a

B bunch of Isis propaganda and talking

yourself into being an Isis

terrorist if Google can talk Skeptics

out of their belief of climate science

by feeding them uh persuasive

links aren't we already doing that with

the radicals and could it be

one of the big reasons that we're seeing

less of

it because I and maybe we're not seeing

less of it so so first of all you have

to fact check that but it feels like the

United States is not having big problems

with domestic Terror there you know some

crazy guy here and there but it feels

like there could be a lot more of it I

guess there's no way to measure because

we don't measure cuz there's no way to

know uh what it would have been if we

had acted differently there's there's no

comparison point but I have to ask

myself I have to ask

myself is

Google using the same thing that they

used you know same technology they used

to pair my periscopes on climate change

with uh with a Wikipedia page aren't

they doing the same thing with the

terrorists if a terrorist tries to find

an Isis site aren't they going to be

bombarded with uh you know links and

popups and you know persuasion and

photos that would move them away from

that position and if not why the hell

not why the hell are we not doing that

if we if we I think we could be fairly

certain it works not 100% obviously but

I think we can say with complete

certainty that it would work to at least

reduce the

risk all right uh new topic um yesterday

I did a periscope in the afternoon on

just the topic of how to move forward on

this wall border security situation and

what I suggested was that we just asked

the Democrats for their plan and asked

them to put it on a graphic image so we

can see exactly what they want to do

compared to what we already have so it

maybe a picture that shows the various

ways we're protecting the border from

you know here here the river does it and

here there's a mountain and here there's

a just some sensors and in this one

maybe small place we need some steel

slats

whatever why don't we just ask them for

their plan CU here's the there's a

couple things I left down yesterday one

is if you asked either the the

Republicans or the Democrats to produce

this plan that's simple enough for the

the citizens to understand it's just

sort of a picture you know with some

numbers pointing to stuff

if either the Democrats or the

Republicans produced such a

plan I think they would look the

same here's the trick I think they would

look the same because they're not really

talking about different things anymore

and both the Republicans and Democrats

would never put out a a plan that didn't

have pretty widespread approval from

engineers and Border Security Experts in

other words the Democrat could never put

on a plan that the Border Security

Professionals say uh you know that's

okay in this place but you know you got

it wrong over here this definitely won't

work and here's why they can't do

that right now somebody says uh the

border patrol already has a

plan that could be a good good way to

start but we don't need border Patrol's

plan because all that matters at the

moment is that one of these parties

Republicans Or democrats

goes first and just says this is exactly

what it's going to look like now if the

Republicans have that or access to it

they're dumb for not producing it but I

think the Republicans have a problem

because it's going to show not enough

wall and maybe that's a problem

politically but the Democrats can the

Democrats can simply show us what they

would fund and then maybe the border

patrol can overlay some information on

that like you know if you don't put a

wall here you'll get 10,000 crosses a

year or whatever in this area and we

know that from the

past so you would want some stat

statistics on it but you'd want to see

the

plan now the other thing I didn't add is

that as you've noticed the Democrats are

cannibalizing each other uh part of this

has to do with the run up to the

presidency so the the various factions

are trying to cannibalize each other to

you know take care of some competitors

but you also see the you know the

younger Congress people versus the older

you see the rpos and uh and some of the

others who are a little Bolder a little

more willing to go against their own

party a little little more willing to

play outside the uh the bounds and

here's the interesting thing the first

Democrat who produces that plan with a

picture the picture is the important

part if it's text you're just never

going to get any attention it's got to

be a picture the first Democrat who

produces a highlevel conceptual picture

plan with a with a

budget is the one who gets all the

attention and what are all the Democrats

fighting for right now they're all

fighting for attention it's there's a

there's a A desperate kind of you know

flailing around for the for a lot of

different Democrats to to get a little

bit of attention because there's so many

of them now they have to try a little

harder so far rpos is getting uh the

most attention you call her uh oh some

people don't know that AOC is rpos as in

uh the first letter is r and the POS is

not point of sale all right so uh once

AOC came out as a racist I started

calling her r

P um and by the way that's I'm not I'm

not that's not my opinion that she's a

racist U her tweets are pretty clear on

that

um so here's my point there are some

democrat who would have a huge benefit

in terms of publicity and in terms of

moving the world forward if they just

find out what the plan is maybe they

even start with border Patrol's plan I

mean that would be a good place to start

right start with the plan that the

Republicans have change it any way that

you think makes sense show it to the

world show it to border patrol and say

what do you think get their opinion put

it on it and show it to us just show it

to the people now it seems to me that

the the the government is largely broken

and maybe will always be so because of

the the two sides that the Press is

taking as long as the Press is treating

it as a a dog fight and a contest

between two sides and and the way you

win is to win in public you know it's

not even the law that's a win it's it's

the looking like you won that that

matters as long as the media puts all

the politicians in in the situation

where they have to look like they won or

else they're

dead you can't do anything that's the

opposite of an environment in which you

can compromise so because of the

business model of the press which is

driven entirely by the fact that we can

now measure exactly who wants to click

on what stories and which ones get the

most attention it's divided the the

world into a place where you can't

compromise anymore cuz compromise will

be spun as well you lost you stupid dog

you you weak leader you person who must

be working for Russia so

losing is no longer an option for either

size and now you see what happens but

the

media uh doesn't really control the fact

that you know somebody can come up with

a plan show it to the country whoever

comes up with the first picture wins let

me let me say this again as clearly as

possible whoever comes up with the first

visual picture of the border with what

it is and then you know overlaid somehow

what they want it to be and what that

will cost doesn't matter which side they

come from whoever does whoever goes

visual first

wins because that will be the picture

from which all negotiations will have to

spring because it goes first so if it

goes first it's locked in your brains if

it's visual you can't beat it there

there's no higher level of persuasion

and nobody's gone there it's a

completely empty Green Field all you

have to do any politician Republican

Democrat senior or brand new all you

have to do is walk into that field hold

up your picture and say this is what I

want this is what it is and this is what

it will cost to get what I want and I

ran this past border patrol and hey you

networks you should maybe get some

experts on and let's have them debate my

plan first person to do that wins and I

mean wins for the country and also wins

for their brand and and maybe wins for a

lot of other people as well it might it

might even be a big win for the for the

potential immigrants if you do it right

all right so make it Visual and you

win uh and I'll make another I'll tell

you what I'll make another prediction

that there will be no agreement until

there's a

picture there will be no no

agreement on On the Border until there's

a picture that the public can understand

a simple picture all right

uh let's see oh um I would like to order

offer a clarification of something I

said online some people believe that I

insulted somebody

terribly um and I think it's fair to

call me out on that but it's also fair

to hear my explanation and I'll give you

some context before I tell you what I

got in trouble for here's the context if

I said I could hear something and you

can't hear it and I'm like what are you

serious you can't hear that you don't

hear that sound right now would it be

fair or would it be insulting to inquire

if the person has any kind of hearing

problem I think it would be fair there's

nothing wrong with somebody having a

hearing problem right that's just a

normal thing I'm pretty sure my own

hearing is maybe degraded 10% just by

age so that would be fair nobody would

say oh you are you're calling him

disabled or something no you wouldn't

you would say do you have a hearing

problem because the question the point

in question is can you detect a

sound likewise if I said do you see that

plane up there and somebody else said no

I can't see it I go right there look

right there and the other person can't

see it would it be fair for me to

inquire or would it be an insult to say

is your vision perfect you know do you

wear glasses because that would that

would explain why I can detect something

that you can't now I would say that

neither of them are are insults now

let's get to the question and point uh

there's there's a question about the

so-called climate gate emails in which

um some of the scientists use the words

trick

and hide the

decline now I have claimed that it is

obvious to me obvious and I can detect

it easily that that that's casual

conversation and not meant to mean

literally a trick where you're trying to

trick people but rather a publicly used

method and people can look at it and

that hide the decline was really just a

short hand for the topic they were

trying to explain why some data in the

past didn't match so they're trying to

hide it for marketing purposes now if

you're hiding it for marketing purposes

you're not you're not really trying to

make the world the worst place you're

trying to be consistent with a theory

that has tons of evidence in your

opinion and there was just one little

piece that's annoying and the public

would get the wrong idea so you try to

deemphasize that for marketing purposes

so that was my interpretation now I am

very good at interpreting words I'm a

professional

writer and I read I read people's you

know psychology that's also my domain

that's what I write about and talk about

I've got my second book on that coming

Etc so I would say that I'm a good

censor a sensor with an s senn s o r i

can sense when somebody's telling a

joke versus when they're serious and I

can sense because this is my domain it's

my special expertise when somebody is

talking in casual language versus

precise language and whether that means

something words and meaning are my

domain I have a special sense for that

as really I would say any author would

you know most authors would would share

this um better sense and so I got into a

uh conversation on the

internet with uh and and so Tony heler

came up because his interpretation of

the words are that they clearly indicate

Tony heler is uh probably the most

capable climate skeptic so I've I've

I've said that his

presentation his research and his

persuasion are the best I've seen on the

skeptical side and I've asked people to

respond and to figure out you know

what's wrong with his take and I'm not

really

getting I'm not getting the push back

that I was expecting so I haven't yet

found I'm not saying it doesn't exist

it's too early but I haven't seen

anybody say oh it's here we debunk his

claim that the that the data used to be

one way and then it was it was fudged so

he has a lot of

credibility as a as a a technical mind a

scientific mind an engineering mind a

rational

mind but his interpretation of what

trick and um and what Hyde the decline

meant in that context was wholly

opposite of mine he says they are

literal I say they're

not now I asked in the context of that

conversation if Tony was on the Spectrum

and people said whoa Scott you're way

out of line you've gone add homonym why

are you attacking him somebody actually

used the r word and said why are you

calling him an r word word you know r t

a r d I don't even want to say it um to

and I actually was surprised I thought

wait a minute when when did it become an

insult to be on the

Spectrum who who is saying that being on

a spectrum is an

insult because part of the Assumption

for that was that his ability to go so

deep with the data is is part of the

superpower that comes with being a

little bit on the Spectrum and part of

the superpower is what's driving Silicon

Valley it's what it's what you could

imagine that Dilbert my character my

beloved character has maybe a little bit

of it meaning that you know engineers

and technologists are quite well

known for having a higher degree of

being on the Spectrum and it's also well

known that it's highly associated with

great

capability Tony heler shows great

capability consistent with that he also

shows in this one specific example

taking something literal that in my own

expertise I think is clearly not

literal and other scientists have looked

into the situation and found out it was

not literal as well so if I ask him Tony

is your ability to sense literal speech

versus figurative speech as good as mine

because I'm not on the Spectrum and

again I'm not saying that how awesome I

am that I'm not on the spectrum because

being a little bit on the spectrum is

associated with tremendous Powers it's

like a superpower so I want to be really

clear if I ask somebody if they're on

the spectrum that is not an insult not

in my world in my world the people on

the Spectrum have invented the whole

freaking world right you know they've

done they've done all of the cool stuff

you know my you know how many people on

the Spectrum were involved with creating

my phone for for God's sakes so please

don't don't assume that I think that's

an insult I think that is a totally

perfectly legitimate question to ask now

he didn't answer the

question so I don't know the answer to

it um but I I will I will argue strongly

that it's a fair question in the context

of asking if somebody can sense

something that if you've got you know

good Vision if you've got good hearing

those are good senses if if somebody

asked me you know I I I lost my ability

to smell uh years ago I have literally

zero sense of smell for I don't know how

long decades or so and if somebody

smelled something and said Scott do you

smell it and I said no would would it be

fair for them to say is there something

wrong with your

nose and the answer is yes would I be

insulted no no it's a question about

whether I have the a physical sensor and

I just don't have it somebody asked Can

I taste weirdly

yes yes I I've uh I've lost 100% of my

sense of smell and every common sense

and common knowledge is that that's

associated with your taste and the

thought is if you lost your sense a

smell you couldn't taste but I

can and I also can't tell the difference

between what it used to be and what it

is now I can't tell the difference but I

also can't tell if it's psychological

meaning that I don't know if I just

haven't noticed that I went from really

super tasting things to not tasting it

so much but if I have a bowl of

soup it feels exactly like it always

felt like it doesn't doesn't feel like

there's any difference between what

happened you know how it tasted when I

was 12 years old and how it tastes now

it does feels like the same experience

so I don't

know um so how do you buy Christina

perfume easily I

don't what does that have to do with the

issue being discussed so the issue being

discussed was whether or not it's fair

to ask if somebody is on the Spectrum

if the topic is something that would be

hard to identify for someone on the

Spectrum and easier for someone who

wasn't just going with the science not

an

insult all

right so the real the real question

about my loss of smell but yet I can

taste is if I if I were introduced to a

brand new taste and Clos my eyes and

somebody said all right I'm going to put

this brand new thing in your mouth could

I would I would I imagine that I could

taste it or is the visual so strong that

if I saw it it looked yellow I would

imagine it it tasted like a lemon or

something and it would be an interesting

test but I haven't done that all right

uh no it wasn't cocaine i' I've never

been a snorter I

tried maybe three or four times I tried

cocaine in college and it literally

didn't do do anything to me I don't know

why but I just lost all interest in it

so I as an adult I haven't or at least

after college I haven't not snorted

anything haven't done any

opioids Etc all

right

uh Phantom taste buds like a lost limb

could be yeah I think I think that's an

entirely open possibility all right and

I will talk to you later