Episode 566 Scott Adams - Who Will Win Democrat Debates, Odds of War With Iran, Foreign Influence

run get your cups in your books in your classes it's time for coffee with Scott Adams it sounds a lot better if I put my microphone on before you start telling me I have bad sound let me start that again pum pum pum pum there you've all heard it grab your cups your Mugsy glass your tank you just ein your chalice your thermos your flask your vessel of any kind fill it with your favorite liquid and join me now for the unparalleled pleasure the dopamine hit of the day the simultaneous sip here it comes here it comes here it comes is it my imagination or does it get better every time I think it does I think it does get better every time so here's a random question I'm thinking of doing an ASMR video to literally help you go to sleep now I am a trained hypnotist and so I have a feeling I could do this well but I don't know if anybody wants it so I'll put that out there you could tell me on Twitter if you want that alright let's talk about foreign influence I wrote a book called loser think that comes out in November that covers this topic so perfectly I wish I wish I wish the book were already available because if the news could not be more perfectly fitted to the book but there's always good news that there will always be more news that fits that book because it's about bad ways to analyze things and what to avoid and there is no better example than this question of President Trump and his answer about foreign influence and whether he would talk to the FBI and what he would do there now there are two parts of this number one should President Trump have done the ABC interview in the first place was that a mistake and to did he handle the actual interview in in the best way I think you could you know I see why people are saying it was a mistake to do an interview with an unfriendly outlet but he's also the president of the United States so the President of the United States it's one thing if he focuses more on Fox News but I think it's a it's sort of a problem if he doesn't ever do the other media so I think he has to at least give them a little bit of love now did he handle the question correctly objectively speaking I would say no and here's why people who have media training and I was amused to watch Chris Wallace of Fox News say this directly he was saying that the most disciplined politicians and he used I think he used what's his name Mitch Mc.

Connell as his example of a disciplined interview subject because he won't answer any question directly he'll just say what he wants to say no matter what the question is and Chris Wallace was saying well that's frustrating for the interviewer but you know it certainly makes sense because Mitch Mc.

Connell avoids being taken in a context he can't be misquoted because he's not saying just he's noting anything they could be misquoted president Trump plays it completely the opposite way he says plenty of things that could be misquoted and they are but I'm just gonna give you my personal opinion hear your opinion my degree might not I'm not trying to change your mind I'm just gonna give you my personal opinion this is a lot of president Trump's approach to this interview and the way he answers the question for me just my personal impression is why I like him the way he handled this for me was all a plus I acknowledge that it was a mistake in the sense that it was people miss covered and turned it into fake news so easily he could have avoided that by saying nothing interesting and here's the best part he could have avoided it by being less transparent what I like about it is he was completely transparent and he schooled the country on how to be smart now the country didn't get the lesson I was watching a clip from Bill Maher last night Bill Maher is actually saying some version of this he says that the president said that if a foreign power gave him some help that he would not go to the FBI that's what Bill Maher that's how he framed it before he made jokes about it that is exactly not what happened that's just fake news that is unambiguously as close to you as you can get to the opposite of what happened what actually happened was the President Trump said and his very first statement was I'd probably do both meaning that I would listen to the information and then if it were important in any way I would tell the FBI that's not the way the fake news is reporting it and even Bill Maher who would be no friend of fake news certainly he would never intentionally I don't think Bill Maher yeah I've been watching him a long time I see no no evidence that he would ever intentionally repeat a story inaccurately I just don't think he would you know there's just nothing that would suggest he would do that there's no incentive it's not it's not what his brand is nothing like that so I think he actually came away with that impression because he watched the news but let me put this into context for you we're going to go to the whiteboard let's say this question of a Russian citizen offers you some information because that was the original case the Don junior meeting in the tower it was about a Russian citizen offering some information now the fake news has tried to turn that into a what if the Russian intelligence agencies offer you information so the first thing they do to turn into fake news as they change the example the hypothetical but let's go to the whiteboard and I'll show you why president Trump's answered what's the smart answer let's say you've got a situation where you've got a Russian citizen who offers you some information what are your objectives so the moment this situation arises there's a Russian citizen not not the Intelligence Agency you don't know that it's not Putin you don't know that the only thing you know on moment one is it's a Russian citizen and they're offering you some information that might be useful to you because it's bad about your opponent what are your objectives objective number one protect the country right that's always objective number one if you're a presidential candidate avoid blackmail you don't want to get in a situation where you can get blackmail you want to get the information of course don't you want the information of course you do and you don't want to waste the FBI's time so compare what all the smart people are saying Trump should had done to what Trump says that he would have done in this hypothetical the smart people say tell the FBI before you listen to the information that accomplishes step one protect the country it works avoid blackmail definitely because you've told the FBI you're clean you avoid that blackmail but you didn't get the information and you probably 95% likely you wasted the FBI's time because 95% of the time when people say I have information for you it's just BS it's not useful it's something you already knew it's it's meaningless they're just trying to get you in the room and in fact that's what happened president Trump's technique was well first I'll listen to it and then I'll decide and if it's a problem I'll share with the FBI his approach protects the country because the FBI is informed it avoids blackmail because he immediately told the FBI right there's no blackmail if you told the FBI what happened he gets the information Bing and he doesn't waste the FBI's time because he vetted at first he goes to the meeting the hypothetical meeting he says what do you got no he got nothing there was a 95% chance it was gonna go that way I don't waste the time of the FBI so you've got all the smart people in the world telling you that this that this is smarter than this what do I keep telling you about this president that makes him different there's a boo the cat's tail she likes to participate what I keep telling you is that this president can find free money on the table and pick it up and others don't do it for reasons that are unclear all right if she's tried to steal the show here so in my opinion there's no there's no comparison between the dumb way to handle it in which you leave money on the table you don't get the information and you probably wasted the FBI's time that's there's no comparing that to what Trump sent so if you were to look at what Trump said from a logical rational point of view which I know no but nobody does but if he did what he did was the smart adult way to handle this I'm ambiguously it's not even close the smart way to handle it is to find out first and then and then deal with all right but so here's my summary of that from a standard political frame the president did not handle the situation right because he created a situation which he should have been able to see coming that allowed things to be taken out of context but it's also and I'm going to say this as clearly as possible it's also what I like about him he was completely transparent he people say you shouldn't ask you shouldn't answer a hypothetical question to which I say I don't know I see what trouble it got him in but I kind of liked it because it taught us something it was transparent he opened up his brain and said look inside you know if you don't like it you don't like it but here's what's in here this is complete transparency if this were to happen again this is how I'd handle it how do you not like that how do you how could you ever live with the president who won't do that for you I mean seriously it felt like he was doing it for the public in other words the public actually wanted to know the answer to the question so Trump says you know I don't want to read his mind but based on his actions I assume he heard the question he thought yeah the public would like to know the answer that so I'll just give him an honest answer I can't dislike that no matter how much the press wants me to all right let's talk about Iran the interesting thing about Iran is that we have the strangest situation of two countries the United States and Iran and arguably the other countries and you're involved but let's just talk about the US is Iran in which we have a war like situation you know where they're presumably doing some stuff in the Gulf that's that is military attacking some tankers and causing some trouble and we're moving some assets in there so it's it looks like it's a military confrontation but what's weird about this military confrontation is that there's nothing that both countries want less than war that there's nothing they want less than war I would say the odds of the u.s.

and Iran actually having a full-scale war I mean there could be there could be a I know a missile attack here or there but the odds of a full-scale war with Iran are are pretty close to zero because we don't want it and they don't want it and and we want war far less than we care about the alternative and the alternative is these low-level skirmishes so how do you get out of this situation because normally you would solve this situation with a war if you can't solve it any other way we just turn into a war or the war would happen somebody would win and then you've got a solution even though a lot of people are dead so I would like to suggest an alternative framework now I'm not suggesting that Iran will hear this and say oh that's a good idea we'll will adopt this way of thinking but it is an escape hatch so you might have to try a different a bunch of different escape hatches but you have this situation where both parties are locked in so you have to give them an escape there has to be some way out with honor that's the important part Iran has to get out of their situation with some kind of honor respect religious let's say religious integrity intact that's sort of a solid requirement you're not going to see them budge on that and that would be the last thing they would want to budge on yeah and the US wants to get out of it looking good too so what would be an escape hatch for both countries where we both came out looking good and here's the idea I brought this up out over a year ago but it's it's worth mentioning now because the recent events I would suggest this that I would suggest to Iran that they should catch up with modern technology essentially and bring their war to a war of ideas in other words instead of saying Iran stop trying to spread your power in your message and your religion with military means and why don't you trust your God trust your God and do it through information put your best argument on the internet you open up your internet and let your people see the options and trust your God so this is the key statement we'd like you to trust your own God that you don't need to use military weapons because that's the that's the old technology here's the here's the context when the only military weapons available were swords Islam when it was spreading used swords cuz swords were the weapon that you could use to spread Islam when weapons improved to the point where you have exploding things and guns and missiles and stuff the at least the terrasse part of the Islamic community not Islam in general we're just talking about the extremists they updated their weapons so you don't see you don't see Isis using swords right usually you see them using modern weapons but I would suggest that we've now passed through that phase and we're entering a new phase where the best way to spread Islam should you want to do that should you have should you want to do that the best way to do that would be through ideas and through the internet and that that channel is open for them they have complete ability to spread their religion through the internet if they trust their own God so that would be the the key statement would be if you trust your God open up the Internet let your country let your countries see your opinion let your let your citizens see what other people are thinking take your best shot we're saying we surrender at least information wise we surrender if you have some information all of our channels are open we will hear everything that you have to say in fact I would be interested I'd love to see the argument so the escape hatch for Iran since neither side wants anything to do with a full-scale war and these little back and forests are not really getting it done the escape is trust your own God trust him that he provided you the weapons you need when he needed them when you needed swords you had swords when he needed bullets and bombs you had bullets and bombs now we can see clearly and unambiguously that there was weapons work swords won't work bullets and bombs don't work because there will be economic pressure on top of you that will make a difference what works today what works today is economic growth and messages and communication and ideas on the internet that's those are the weapons of today so instead of saying Iran we will kick your ass which was which is obvious because we will if we get the war say why don't you join us in the year 2019 and and bring your message to the people and simply open up your communication so I would make it a war of ideas that's my idea have you noticed I'll bet you have it seems to me that the Trump administration keeps doing good things in health care in terms of smaller administration rule changes etc that are making things more competitive you know more generics coming online more competition across straight lines and then there was another big announcement yesterday about health care and I think it was covered by nobody did anybody doesn't anybody even know what the big announcement on health care was because I don't think it was covered I looked in the I looked on all of the new sites today and didn't see it did everybody see it so can anybody give me a hypothesis h HRAs what's an HRA because i looked at the news and i didn't see it Oh a small business health care right so I guess the change was that small businesses can deduct the cost of their health care that was the change alright here's what I worry about I worry that because the news industry is holy is wholly owned by the pharmaceutical companies that the news will be unable to report progress in reducing costs especially of pharmaceuticals if you are entire revenue to pharmaceutical commercials can you run non-stop stories about how the president is beating the prices down on pharmaceuticals because they're too high and too unfair you can't they're the one area should you be surprised yeah there's no media coverage on health care and let me tell you why there's no media coverage on it because it's positive for the president and it's bad for the pharmaceuticals and the people who advertise on the news as long as that's true I don't know if you're ever gonna hear about anything good happening so watch for that it's a giant black hole there was a story that I thought it should have gotten more attention I think it's true somebody fact-check me on this the story was that Mexico is planning to fund their immigration deal with the United States which would require them to spend some money to put some extra troops on their southern border to keep people from crossing through Mexico to the US and the story was that the Mexico planned to sell the presidential airplane for 150 million dollars to help fund that now my first question is is that true is Mexico really going to sell the presidential airplane to fund this deal so let's say it is true what would that tell you about Mexico because on one level you'd say to yourself my goodness President Trump is the best negotiator ever not only did he get them to do it but he got to be got the president to sell his own personal airplane to do it so the president will be taking the bus so that President Trump president of Mexico will be taking the bus or something not really but that's a kind of a funny story but let me tell you how I interpret that here's how I interpret that story the way I interpret it is that Mexico the president the President of Mexico would rather sell his own personal presidential airplane not personal but the presidential airplane the president of Mexico would rather sell his presidential airplane and all of the humiliation that comes with it rather than deal with the cartels in the northern border think about that because the alternative was that Mexico could secure its own border and and we haven't heard much about that right Mexico actually can't secure its own northern border because the cartels out in that territory they can't admit it and they can't do anything about it those are the two things that you could do you can't talk about it and you can't act on it because the cartels are too powerful he was willing the President of Mexico was willing to take the humiliation of selling his presidential airplane to avoid even talking about the cartels that's what I saw now am i over interpreting it because the fact that the cartels are not even mentioned we have a major immigration in negotiation with Mexico and nobody mentions that the cartels own the northern border it's not even a topic and in order to keep that out of being a topic the President of Mexico had to sell his private not private but the presidential airplane or jet I guess I don't know what I see there is that the cartels are running Mexico that's the only way I can read them alright let's talk about something else fun I had suggested that there might be a way to determine when social media platforms are shadow banning you and that the method might be to have multiple social media accounts and see if they if they move in lockstep or in different ways if they moved in lockstep it would probably tell you there was just something about your content maybe it's something about the season maybe it's a rainy day maybe it's a slow news day or a fast news day if all of your traffic moved in lockstep across different platforms you would say okay I'm not being banned because there those platforms would not be so clever that they would do it all in the same way in the same right if you are being the shadow band on a platform what you would expect to see is that one would stay the same business as usual and one would go boom suddenly down that's what you should expect to see if somebody's playing games with your traffic and so I suggested that there would be a way to build some kind of a rough sensing device to find out when your shadow band simply by comparing your traffic across your multiple platforms and I also suggested that you all have multiple platforms for this purpose I want to show you what happened when I did this so there's an app called social blade that allows you to just put in any address and you can you can track yours or anybody else's Twitter and Instagram or You.

Tube traffic I think Instagram but at least a You.

Tube oh so you could do You.

Tube Twitter twitch or Instagram and you can compare them so I'm going to show you two weeks I'm going to compare my traffic on Twitter with my traffic on You.

Tube and keep in mind that they're very similar content so the content I put on You.

Tube is literally the stuff I made on Twitter so they should move in lockstep if if for example there was some kind of a summer lull or something alright so I'm going to show you the graph here's a graph of my day if I can make this two years from pair with me I'm going to take down my screen illumination and then you'll be able to clearly see this or not but I'll describe it enemies all right here so here's my Twitter traffic now you can see starting over here that I you know I've got let's see if I can get a good picture on this - damn it it's gonna be hard yeah I can't well I'll describe it to you so you can see I'm getting a lot of traffic and then there's one week than on Twitter my traffic my traffic is up and down and there's one a week for the entire week five days it flatlines and then after a week he goes back to normal but somebody said just put it closed does that help oh yeah it does thank you good advice so here here I'm sorry right there see that week notice that that week doesn't look like anything else even the low week is not even close to that week so right here my Twitter traffic went to almost nothing in terms of new users for a week so what happens if I look at since that's Twitter what happens if I go over to You.

Tube and look at same thing so it same graph yeah here's the You.

Tube traffic and over here is where you would expect to see that week where where there was a solid week of nothing and it isn't there there are down days which is normal I think there's mostly the weekends I think the weekends just go down and then pop back up but as you can see as you can see Twitter traffic went down for a week but my You.

Tube traffic did not what's that mean well it could mean that there was something going on over at Twitter now here's the next thing which I haven't done there was one other week in which Twitter had that low traffic some time in the past few months and I think it was because of the same topic I think there was one topic in which I am especially dangerous there was one topic that I could actually change the world and you know what that is right there's one topic that's the Alpha hoax it's the hoax that all the other hoaxes depend on and I am the most dangerous person in the world to that hoax because I've hammered it like it's you know like it's a rented mule and I'm not going to give up on now when I hammered on that I think those are the two times that my traffic just disappeared but I'm not positive so I'll say that that's just a hypothesis not any kind of confirmed anything so if you wanted a sensor that would find out if you're being shadow banned the first thing you do is monitor your different platforms to see if they move in lockstep or not then the second thing you would want which I haven't done is to find out if when there's a an irregularity if there are also keywords or hashtags or topics that were in common are all of your are all of your your low days on the same time all right you probably tuned in because you want me to predict who's gonna win the first Democrat debates are you ready for that a number of you were telling me that the the periscope here got cut off just as I was talking about that but it looks like most of you are back so let's talk about the and is it a coincidence that I get cut off in exactly those times all right so as you know there are going to be two teams of Democrats on two different nights doing doing debates on June 26th and 27th so because there were so many candidates I guess four of them got dropped off but the rest of them are are going to be in two teams of ten I guess it looks like so because because of the groupings which they say are random and let's say let's say that they are you have an opportunity for some people to get some attention and the the specific groupings who's in each group is going to make a big difference and who can succeed so that tells you a lot so the first thing you do is you look at the groups and say okay what do I know about this group that's special and here are some general statements so here are my predictions number one the more you see of Biden the less support he will have so so prediction number one is that Biden's polls will go down after the debate because people will see new people that they didn't know before and there they're going to start to learn about the new people so for every person who likes a new person probably it's going to come from either Biden or burry so the second prediction is that Bernie's poll numbers won't go down so I see Biden and Bernie being injured by by the debates because it will everybody knows them I don't see any way that Biden is gonna have a breakout night or that birdie will have a breakout night because we just know too much about them so there's nothing there's no upside for them it's only a downside but for the new names they still have a lot of clutter to break through so you have to ask yourself who is capable of breaking through the noise so in the first the first ten I'll just read off who's that who's it in the first time you got Cory Booker Elizabeth Allen Beto Aurora kami clubber John Delaney Tulsi Gabbard Julian Caspar Oh Tim Ryan Bill De.

Blasio and jay inslee of that group in the first group the two who will have a good night are Elizabeth Warren and a wild card is Tulsi Gabbard so I'm not going to predict that Tulsi Gabbard will break out I'm going to predict that she's a wild card meaning she could but she hasn't made any noise so far meaning that she just doesn't seem to have a lot of a lot of support for reasons I don't know exactly so I'm not gonna say she's going to break out I'm gonna say she's that she's the interesting wild card but I think Elizabeth Warren is gonna have a great night and the reason is she's a good debater she is she's very policy wise and if you're on a debate stage and you're you want to hit the facts you want to look smart right she's smart if you watch Elizabeth Warren talk you're gonna come away with she's experienced she's smart she's a woman and man does she want to put Donald Trump in jail she's gonna come up in her polling that's my that's my prediction for the first group let's talk about the second group second group has Kamala Harris Joe Biden Bernie Sanders Pete Buddha judge Kirsten Gillibrand Michael Bennett Marianne Williamson Eric's well well Andrew yang and John Hickenlooper this one's interesting because it's the Biden and Sanders group now remember their I think that that they only have a bad day ahead of them I think so here's my first prediction kumla Harris will find eight her poll numbers go up because Kamala Harris is not as well down but she's solid so people are gonna sees a person of color they can see a woman they're gonna see that she can speak like a lawyer she can talk to the the facts she will probably handle herself well and she will be sort of introducing herself to a lot of people who just don't know enough about her so I think her poll numbers will show an improvement Pete Budaj edge is a wild card I asked you this how likely is it that there are any LGBTQ people in the United States who are likely to vote who don't already know who to judges it seems to me the peabody judge probably has a hundred percent support from let's say the LGBTQ community the the ones who are going to vote with the ones who care right there's not much room to grow in the community that is you know sort of automatically on the aside and i think he could make a dent by being clever and news making so he does have that ability so Budaj edge is one of those people who can say something interesting enough they don't get a lot of coverage and the media likes him so he's good he's good for clicks so I think Budaj edge is my wildcard for the second group so there are two wildcards one is Tulsi Gabbard one Budaj edge they could go either way so I don't have a prediction which way but they're the they're the most unpredictable people in their respective groups they could get a bump but here's my big prediction for the second group Andrew yang is going to surprise and here's why now first of all I don't think the Andrew yang is at a place where you could become president I don't think his resume looks solid enough for people to put their full trust in and as a president yet maybe someday but what yang can do that most of the people in the debates can't do is say something you haven't heard already think about it everybody in these debates almost every person is going to say something you've already heard now it might be news the way they say it and they might use more provocative you know there might be a little more provocative it might be you know maybe they'll say worse things about Trump than you expected that could make a little news there are lots of ways to make news by being a little bit out of the box but yang is the only one who could say something that will just make you go oh I haven't heard that before and it will be news making and it will be interesting so yang is the most interesting person at the debates who's not Budaj they're there they're the two most interesting people and I think yang is going to see his poll numbers I don't know double or triple and it will be at the expense of the the leader Biden and and Sanders all right but I don't think yang quite has the gravitas etc that people are going to want him to be President so there's my prediction bad night for Bernie bad night for Sanders good night for Elizabeth Warren good night for yang good night for Pamela Harris and the two wild cards are Tulsi Gabbard and Pete Buddha jej who could surprise but maybe not all right those are my predictions for those of you who have stayed around I'm going to talk about how to fix everything in the future so I have a I guess a hypothesis were a belief I'm not sure what it is that most of the future can be fixed with good design designed so we don't always design things well but when we do it changes everything if you look at the the success of Apple for example the success of Apple is a really just technical greatness which they have it's designed design is what makes you you know I've raved about this before these little let that air buds the freaking design of these things is so insanely good that you fall in love with this product I mean you just love it well I I don't want to travel anywhere without this it every part of this is so well done that it makes you actually love it now imagine that idea taken to fixing a whole bunch of other society's problems I'm gonna throw out an idea where design can fix a whole range of problems in society I'm not saying that this is the best idea in the world I'm saying it'll make you think about design as a solution in a way you haven't done before summited somebody in the comments is saying array for engineers exactly engineers already have the ability with designers etc and scientists we have the technical ability to solve almost all of our major problems if we design correctly we already have the technology the people the well the money all the other things it's just design here's the example I'm not going to talk too much about my argument for these logs because I want to give you a bunch of ideas all at once to let them percolate what is the one of the biggest problems with adding nuclear power plants to the United States well one of the biggest problems is that nobody wants it placed in their neighborhood right so the first thing you know is that a big obstacle to nuclear power especially the newer plants like a generation 3 has never had a meltdown generation 4 won't even be possible to have a meltdown but we need some more development in that area but what's really stopping you is nobody wants it near them so if we were to start with a blank slate and design how would you fix that let me suggest this way the people who would be willing to live near a nuclear plant should be the people whose risk would go down is there anybody you can think of in the United States who if he moves them from where they are to living near a nuclear plant so here that's the point is that you're you're moving people to where the plant is if you did that who would have less risk answer everybody who grew up in a bad part of town so anybody who came from an inner city dangerous crime infested area if you were to take them from that area and saying look we're gonna move you to a place that there used to be nine but now we've got we're building a nuclear plant it's a generation three or a generation for the odds of a problem are minuscule the odds of getting killed where you are is very high all right so the first thing you know is that if you move people who are a higher risk than nuclear could ever even suggest that you've improved their lives because you've greatly improved their the risk situation now imagine that you build your nuclear plant and it's it's to power other people but you build what I'll call poor town P oor poor town now poor town would be a place a city a community an area that's built around a nuclear plant and the people moving there have to have low income but otherwise be you know capable of working in center so you can move there now the first thing you're gonna get is you've got away from your crime and there's plenty of science to suggest that moving your location getting out of a bad place and getting in a new environment makes a gigantic difference in your ability to succeed that's well proven science as demonstrated that many times so the first model is instead of trying to fix people where they already live how about just moving them out of their environment to a new place in which they can be part of building this new place so you got your nuclear power which means that the people in poor town are going to have very low energy costs when you have very low energy costs you can also have sea water desalinization because the big expense of desalinization is the energy it takes so you build a desalinization plant next to a nuclear power plant they work really well together and you put a pipe in the ocean and you've got all the water you want and the desalinization turns it into clean water all right so now you've got cheap water you've got cheap energy and you're and then you start using these Lego like building technologies where you've designed the best homes and you've got pre-approved pre-approved designs so you say to the poor people moving in the bricks are free all you have to do is put them together but you have to do them in one of these approved designs so that we don't have to have a design process we don't have to worry if the roof is going to fall down these would be one-story homes not much risk you can build them yourself and the bricks are going to come from the tunneling and the underground work that we do so the bricks are free so all you have to do is come in build your own home build it as big as you want as long as it's part of the approved designs so now you've got cheap housing cheap water cheap energy and you've got a whole bunch of people who didn't have employments before they move there suddenly it's a great place for somebody to put a farm or a business around there because they've got access to all these all these people who have low housing costs and low crime and and they're willing to work so you've got a good work force there it's good place for a company to relocate if you are to design your new community with lots of video cameras and you know access to security and stuff you could get rid of crime and all the expense of it if you designed the place right you could reduce the cost of transportation to practically nothing I mean if you build underground tunnels for bicycles everybody could get everywhere with almost no no problem whatsoever what's the problem with riding a bicycle it's it's the weather right you don't want to be above-ground you don't want to have Hills if you had underground tunnels for every kind of bicycle you can wear a business suit and bicycle for miles because you would be on a flat surface and no no weather and you could just have one of those lean back bicycles that you know you don't even have to sit on a regular bicycle seat so if you designed from the beginning to make a community there was for poor people and you could relocate them from where they used to be and into this town with some kind of vetting they contribute oh here's another thing you could do the so indoor farming what's the big expense for indoor farming the big expense is labor and this town would have lots of inexpensive labor so that part's covered and energy because it takes a lot of electricity to keep the lights on and everything in your building and to keep the to keep the temperature right but if you're located next to a nuclear power plant your energy is cheap or it could be if that's how you designed the whole thing so now you've had cheap food and it's the good kind it's not it's not fast food it's just it's good food that you were growing there you've got cheap water you got cheap energy you've got cheap housing and you could imagine this concept taken to everything else you know maybe you put in a hospital there so that you've also got good healthcare maybe use it to test in healthcare solutions etc somebody says what incentive what incentive for what it would be a commercial enterprise the nuclear industry would be happy to participate because they would not only be creating energy for the town but they'd be selling it outside the town so I think everybody wins they'd have a place to put their energy pull a place to put their plant somebody to sell it to etc and everybody would have jobs eventually because it would be a perfect hiring pool all right so I'm not saying this is the greatest idea in the world I'm making a general statement that design will save the future and design specifically will take the cost of living a quality life from so high that ordinary people can't afford it down to the level where ordinary can people can't afford it and that's an engineering design question all right but more importantly I think that these design places could be way more fun to live in and more satisfying I'd like to use the example of my college dormitory experience one of my best living situations was a college dormitory which on paper should have been the worst because I didn't have a house I had a little room etc the reason that my college experience was the best living situation I've ever had is because it was designed from scratch to be exactly that I loved not having to shop for food prepare food do dishes I would just walk a few steps away to the cafeteria and they do all that for me so having a central cafeteria might be a really good way to lower costs for a community you don't even need a kitchen and and the other thing that was good about college is that transportation was free because I could walk everywhere that I needed to walk there wasn't anywhere I needed to go then I needed a vehicle they designed it so I had free transportation the other thing that I had for free is entertainment because it was designed to be a place where people would naturally meet and they're naturally the same age they have the same interests they're all in college you had unlimited entertainment because you were in the right place with the right people doing some kind of a common common stuff so design the way it's been applied to college the same concept of design not not the same model but the idea of designing could be brought to the real world outside of college and I think you would have the most awesome pour town you ever had and what I call it poor town I'm being a little bit ironic it would be something specifically for poor people to move there and and be able to you know regain their life maybe there's even classes and education and stuff so they can really rebuild so anyway that's the idea I'll put that out there just to percolate and I will talk to you oh let me say one other thing if you haven't used interface by wind hub it keeps getting better experts all the time that's my startups app and Joshua liesecke who was my guest here yesterday is on that as a expert on ghost writing and getting published one of the most frequent questions I get is how to add it how to be published how to write a book and so now you have an expert who from $50 an hour which is very reasonable very reasonable you can call them and talk to them in person and you know you're getting expert advice from somebody who's done it a number of times so that's my that's my idea for today and I'll talk to you later

[Music]

run get your cups in your books in your

classes it's time for coffee with Scott

Adams it sounds a lot better if I put my

microphone on before you start telling

me I have bad sound let me start that

again pum pum pum pum there you've all

heard it

grab your cups your Mugsy glass your

tank you just ein your chalice your

thermos your flask your vessel of any

kind fill it with your favorite liquid

and join me now for the unparalleled

pleasure the dopamine hit of the day the

simultaneous sip here it comes here it

comes here it comes

is it my imagination or does it get

better every time I think it does I

think it does get better every time so

here's a random question I'm thinking of

doing an ASMR video to literally help

you go to sleep now I am a trained

hypnotist and so I have a feeling I

could do this well but I don't know if

anybody wants it so I'll put that out

there you could tell me on Twitter if

you want that alright let's talk about

foreign influence I wrote a book called

loser think that comes out in November

that covers this topic so perfectly I

wish I wish I wish the book were already

available because if the news could not

be more perfectly fitted to the book but

there's always good news that there will

always be more news that fits that book

because it's about bad ways to analyze

things and what to avoid and there is no

better example than this question of

President Trump and his answer about

foreign influence and whether he would

talk to the FBI and what he would do

there now there are two parts of this

number one should President Trump have

done the ABC interview in the first

place was that a mistake

and to did he handle the actual

interview in in the best way I think you

could you know I see why people are

saying it was a mistake to do an

interview with an unfriendly outlet but

he's also the president of the United

States so the President of the United

States it's one thing if he focuses more

on Fox News but I think it's a it's sort

of a problem if he doesn't ever do the

other media so I think he has to at

least give them a little bit of love now

did he handle the question correctly

objectively speaking I would say no and

here's why people who have media

training and I was amused to watch Chris

Wallace of Fox News say this directly he

was saying that the most disciplined

politicians and he used I think he used

what's his name

Mitch McConnell as his example of a

disciplined interview subject because he

won't answer any question directly he'll

just say what he wants to say no matter

what the question is and Chris Wallace

was saying well that's frustrating for

the interviewer but you know it

certainly makes sense because Mitch

McConnell avoids being taken in a

context he can't be misquoted because

he's not saying just he's noting

anything they could be misquoted

president Trump plays it completely the

opposite way he says plenty of things

that could be misquoted and they are but

I'm just gonna give you my personal

opinion hear your opinion my degree

might not I'm not trying to change your

mind I'm just gonna give you my personal

opinion this is a lot of president

Trump's approach to this interview and

the way he answers the question for me

just my personal impression is why I

like him the way he handled this for me

was all a plus I acknowledge that it was

a mistake in the sense that it was

people miss covered

and turned it into fake news so easily

he could have avoided that by saying

nothing interesting and here's the best

part he could have avoided it by being

less transparent what I like about it is

he was completely transparent and he

schooled the country on how to be smart

now the country didn't get the lesson I

was watching a clip from Bill Maher last

night

Bill Maher is actually saying some

version of this he says that the

president said that if a foreign power

gave him some help that he would not go

to the FBI that's what Bill Maher that's

how he framed it before he made jokes

about it that is exactly not what

happened that's just fake news that is

unambiguously as close to you as you can

get to the opposite of what happened

what actually happened was the President

Trump said and his very first statement

was I'd probably do both meaning that I

would listen to the information and then

if it were important in any way I would

tell the FBI that's not the way the fake

news is reporting it and even Bill Maher

who would be no friend of fake news

certainly he would never intentionally I

don't think Bill Maher yeah I've been

watching him a long time I see no no

evidence that he would ever

intentionally repeat a story

inaccurately I just don't think he would

you know there's just nothing that would

suggest he would do that there's no

incentive it's not it's not what his

brand is nothing like that so I think he

actually came away with that impression

because he watched the news but let me

put this into context for you we're

going to go to the whiteboard let's say

this question of a Russian citizen

offers you some information because that

was the original case the Don junior

meeting in the tower it was about a

Russian citizen offering some

information now the fake news has tried

to turn that into a what if the Russian

intelligence agencies offer you

information so the first thing they do

to turn

into fake news as they change the

example the hypothetical but let's go to

the whiteboard and I'll show you why

president Trump's answered

what's the smart answer let's say you've

got a situation where you've got a

Russian citizen who offers you some

information what are your objectives so

the moment this situation arises there's

a Russian citizen not not the

Intelligence Agency you don't know that

it's not Putin you don't know that the

only thing you know on moment one is

it's a Russian citizen and they're

offering you some information that might

be useful to you because it's bad about

your opponent what are your objectives

objective number one protect the country

right that's always objective number one

if you're a presidential candidate avoid

blackmail you don't want to get in a

situation where you can get blackmail

you want to get the information of

course don't you want the information of

course you do

and you don't want to waste the FBI's

time so compare what all the smart

people are saying Trump should had done

to what Trump says that he would have

done in this hypothetical the smart

people say tell the FBI before you

listen to the information that

accomplishes step one protect the

country it works

avoid blackmail definitely because

you've told the FBI you're clean you

avoid that blackmail but you didn't get

the information and you probably 95%

likely you wasted the FBI's time because

95% of the time when people say I have

information for you it's just BS it's

not useful it's something you already

knew it's it's meaningless they're just

trying to get you in the room and in

fact that's what happened president

Trump's technique was well first I'll

listen to it and then I'll decide and if

it's a problem

I'll share with the FBI his approach

protects the country because the FBI is

informed it avoids blackmail because he

immediately told the FBI right there's

no blackmail if you told the FBI what

happened

he gets the information Bing and he

doesn't waste the FBI's time because he

vetted at first he goes to the meeting

the hypothetical meeting he says what do

you got no he got nothing

there was a 95% chance it was gonna go

that way I don't waste the time of the

FBI so you've got all the smart people

in the world telling you that this that

this is smarter than this what do I keep

telling you about this president that

makes him different there's a boo the

cat's tail she likes to participate what

I keep telling you is that this

president can find free money on the

table and pick it up and others don't do

it for reasons that are unclear all

right if she's tried to steal the show

here so in my opinion there's no there's

no comparison between the dumb way to

handle it in which you leave money on

the table you don't get the information

and you probably wasted the FBI's time

that's there's no comparing that to what

Trump sent so if you were to look at

what Trump said from a logical rational

point of view which I know no but nobody

does but if he did what he did was the

smart adult way to handle this I'm

ambiguously it's not even close the

smart way to handle it is to find out

first and then and then deal with all

right but so here's my summary of that

from a standard political frame the

president did not handle the situation

right because he created a situation

which he should have been able to see

coming that allowed things to be taken

out of context but it's also and I'm

going to say this as clearly as possible

it's also what I like about him he was

completely transparent he people say you

shouldn't ask you shouldn't answer a

hypothetical question to which I say I

don't know

I see what trouble it got him in but I

kind of liked it because it taught us

something it was transparent he opened

up his brain and said look inside you

know if you don't like it you don't like

it but here's what's in here this is

complete transparency if this were to

happen again this is how I'd handle it

how do you not like that how do you how

could you ever live with the president

who won't do that for you

I mean seriously it felt like he was

doing it for the public in other words

the public actually wanted to know the

answer to the question

so Trump says you know I don't want to

read his mind but based on his actions I

assume he heard the question he thought

yeah the public would like to know the

answer that so I'll just give him an

honest answer I can't dislike that no

matter how much the press wants me to

all right let's talk about Iran the

interesting thing about Iran is that we

have the strangest situation of two

countries the United States and Iran and

arguably the other countries and you're

involved but let's just talk about the

US is Iran in which we have a war like

situation you know where they're

presumably doing some stuff in the Gulf

that's that is military attacking some

tankers and causing some trouble and

we're moving some assets in there so

it's it looks like it's a military

confrontation but what's weird about

this military confrontation is that

there's nothing that both countries want

less than war that there's nothing they

want less than war I would say the odds

of the u.s. and Iran actually having a

full-scale war I mean there could be

there could be a I know a missile attack

here or there but the odds of a

full-scale war with Iran are are pretty

close to zero because we don't want it

and they don't want it and and we want

war far less than we care about the

alternative and the alternative is these

low-level skirmishes so how do you get

out of this situation because normally

you would solve this situation

with a war if you can't solve it any

other way we just turn into a war or the

war would happen somebody would win and

then you've got a solution even though a

lot of people are dead so I would like

to suggest an alternative framework now

I'm not suggesting that Iran will hear

this and say oh that's a good idea we'll

will adopt this way of thinking but it

is an escape hatch so you might have to

try a different a bunch of different

escape hatches but you have this

situation where both parties are locked

in so you have to give them an escape

there has to be some way out with honor

that's the important part

Iran has to get out of their situation

with some kind of honor respect

religious let's say religious integrity

intact that's sort of a solid

requirement you're not going to see them

budge on that and that would be the last

thing they would want to budge on yeah

and the US wants to get out of it

looking good too so what would be an

escape hatch for both countries where we

both came out looking good and here's

the idea I brought this up out over a

year ago but it's it's worth mentioning

now because the recent events I would

suggest this that I would suggest to

Iran that they should catch up with

modern technology essentially and bring

their war to a war of ideas in other

words instead of saying Iran stop trying

to spread your power in your message and

your religion with military means and

why don't you trust your God trust your

God and do it through information put

your best argument on the internet you

open up your internet and let your

people see the options and trust your

God so this is the key statement we'd

like you to trust your own God

that you don't need to use military

weapons because that's the that's the

old technology here's the here's the

context

when the only military weapons available

were swords Islam when it was spreading

used swords cuz swords were the weapon

that you could use to spread Islam when

weapons improved to the point where you

have exploding things and guns and

missiles and stuff the at least the

terrasse part of the Islamic community

not Islam in general we're just talking

about the extremists they updated their

weapons so you don't see you don't see

Isis using swords right usually you see

them using modern weapons but I would

suggest that we've now passed through

that phase and we're entering a new

phase where the best way to spread Islam

should you want to do that

should you have should you want to do

that the best way to do that would be

through ideas and through the internet

and that that channel is open for them

they have complete ability to spread

their religion through the internet if

they trust their own God so that would

be the the key statement would be if you

trust your God open up the Internet let

your country let your countries see your

opinion let your let your citizens see

what other people are thinking take your

best shot

we're saying we surrender at least

information wise we surrender if you

have some information all of our

channels are open we will hear

everything that you have to say in fact

I would be interested I'd love to see

the argument so the escape hatch for

Iran since neither side wants anything

to do with a full-scale war and these

little back and forests are not really

getting it done the escape is trust your

own God trust him that he provided you

the weapons you need when he needed them

when you needed swords you had swords

when he needed bullets and bombs you had

bullets and bombs now we can see clearly

and unambiguously that there was weapons

work swords won't work bullets and bombs

don't work because there will be

economic pressure on top of you that

will make a difference what works today

what works today is economic growth and

messages and communication and ideas on

the internet that's those are the

weapons of today so instead of saying

Iran we will kick your ass which was

which is obvious because we will if we

get the war say why don't you join us in

the year 2019 and and bring your message

to the people and simply open up your

communication so I would make it a war

of ideas that's my idea

have you noticed I'll bet you have it

seems to me that the Trump

administration keeps doing good things

in health care in terms of smaller

administration rule changes etc that are

making things more competitive you know

more generics coming online more

competition across straight lines and

then there was another big announcement

yesterday about health care and I think

it was covered by nobody did anybody

doesn't anybody even know what the big

announcement on health care was because

I don't think it was covered I looked in

the I looked on all of the new sites

today and didn't see it did everybody

see it so can anybody give me a

hypothesis h HRAs what's an HRA because

i looked at the news and i didn't see it

Oh a small business health care right so

I guess the change was that small

businesses can deduct the cost of their

health care that was the change alright

here's what I worry about I worry that

because the news industry is holy is

wholly owned by the pharmaceutical

companies that the news will be unable

to report progress in reducing costs

especially of pharmaceuticals if you are

entire revenue to

pharmaceutical commercials can you run

non-stop stories about how the president

is beating the prices down on

pharmaceuticals because they're too high

and too unfair you can't they're the one

area should you be surprised

yeah there's no media coverage on health

care and let me tell you why there's no

media coverage on it because it's

positive for the president and it's bad

for the pharmaceuticals and the people

who advertise on the news as long as

that's true I don't know if you're ever

gonna hear about anything good happening

so watch for that

it's a giant black hole there was a

story that I thought it should have

gotten more attention I think it's true

somebody fact-check me on this the story

was that Mexico is planning to fund

their immigration deal with the United

States which would require them to spend

some money to put some extra troops on

their southern border to keep people

from crossing through Mexico to the US

and the story was that the Mexico

planned to sell the presidential

airplane for 150 million dollars to help

fund that now my first question is is

that true is Mexico really going to sell

the presidential airplane to fund this

deal so let's say it is true what would

that tell you about Mexico because on

one level you'd say to yourself my

goodness

President Trump is the best negotiator

ever not only did he get them to do it

but he got to be got the president to

sell his own personal airplane to do it

so the president will be taking the bus

so that President Trump president of

Mexico will be taking the bus or

something not really but that's a kind

of a funny story but let me tell you how

I interpret that here's how I interpret

that story the way I interpret it is

that Mexico the president the President

of Mexico would rather sell his own

personal presidential airplane not

personal but the presidential airplane

the president of Mexico would rather

sell his presidential airplane and all

of the humiliation that comes with it

rather than deal with the cartels in the

northern border think about that because

the alternative was that Mexico could

secure its own border and and we haven't

heard much about that right

Mexico actually can't secure its own

northern border because the cartels out

in that territory they can't admit it

and they can't do anything about it

those are the two things that you could

do you can't talk about it and you can't

act on it because the cartels are too

powerful he was willing the President of

Mexico was willing to take the

humiliation of selling his presidential

airplane to avoid even talking about the

cartels that's what I saw now am i over

interpreting it because the fact that

the cartels are not even mentioned we

have a major immigration in negotiation

with Mexico and nobody mentions that the

cartels own the northern border it's not

even a topic and in order to keep that

out of being a topic the President of

Mexico had to sell his private not

private but the presidential airplane or

jet I guess I don't know what I see

there is that the cartels are running

Mexico that's the only way I can read

them alright let's talk about something

else fun I had suggested that there

might be a way to determine when social

media platforms are shadow banning you

and that the method might be to have

multiple social media accounts and see

if they if they move in lockstep or in

different ways if they moved in lockstep

it would probably tell you there was

just something about your content maybe

it's something about the season maybe

it's a rainy day maybe it's a slow news

day or a fast news day if all of your

traffic moved in lockstep across

different platforms you would say okay

I'm not being banned because there those

platforms would not be so clever that

they would do it all in the same way in

the same

right if you are being the shadow band

on a platform what you would expect to

see is that one would stay the same

business as usual and one would go boom

suddenly down that's what you should

expect to see if somebody's playing

games with your traffic and so I

suggested that there would be a way to

build some kind of a rough sensing

device to find out when your shadow band

simply by comparing your traffic across

your multiple platforms and I also

suggested that you all have multiple

platforms for this purpose I want to

show you what happened when I did this

so there's an app called social blade

that allows you to just put in any

address and you can you can track yours

or anybody else's Twitter and Instagram

or YouTube traffic

I think Instagram but at least a YouTube

oh so you could do YouTube Twitter

twitch or Instagram and you can compare

them so I'm going to show you two weeks

I'm going to compare my traffic on

Twitter with my traffic on YouTube and

keep in mind that they're very similar

content so the content I put on YouTube

is literally the stuff I made on Twitter

so they should move in lockstep if if

for example there was some kind of a

summer lull or something alright so I'm

going to show you the graph here's a

graph of my day if I can make this two

years from pair with me I'm going to

take down my screen illumination and

then you'll be able to clearly see this

or not but I'll describe it enemies all

right here so here's my Twitter traffic

now you can see starting over here that

I you know I've got let's see if I can

get a good picture on this - damn it

it's gonna be hard yeah I can't

well I'll describe it to you so you can

see I'm getting a lot of traffic and

then there's one week than on Twitter my

traffic my traffic is up and down and

there's one a week for the entire week

five days it

flatlines and then after a week he goes

back to normal but somebody said just

put it closed does that help oh yeah it

does thank you

good advice so here here I'm sorry right

there see that week notice that that

week doesn't look like anything else

even the low week is not even close to

that week so right here my Twitter

traffic went to almost nothing in terms

of new users for a week so what happens

if I look at since that's Twitter what

happens if I go over to YouTube and look

at same thing so it same graph yeah

here's the YouTube traffic and over here

is where you would expect to see that

week where where there was a solid week

of nothing and it isn't there there are

down days which is normal I think

there's mostly the weekends I think the

weekends just go down and then pop back

up but as you can see as you can see

Twitter traffic went down for a week but

my YouTube traffic did not what's that

mean well it could mean that there was

something going on over at Twitter now

here's the next thing which I haven't

done there was one other week in which

Twitter had that low traffic some time

in the past few months and I think it

was because of the same topic I think

there was one topic in which I am

especially dangerous there was one topic

that I could actually change the world

and you know what that is right

there's one topic that's the Alpha hoax

it's the hoax that all the other hoaxes

depend on and I am the most dangerous

person in the world to that hoax because

I've hammered it like it's you know like

it's a rented mule and I'm not going to

give up on now when I hammered on that I

think those are the two times that my

traffic just disappeared

but I'm not positive

so I'll say that that's just a

hypothesis not any kind of confirmed

anything so if you wanted a sensor that

would find out if you're being shadow

banned the first thing you do is monitor

your different platforms to see if they

move in lockstep or not then the second

thing you would want which I haven't

done is to find out if when there's a an

irregularity if there are also keywords

or hashtags or topics that were in

common are all of your are all of your

your low days on the same time all right

you probably tuned in because you want

me to predict who's gonna win the first

Democrat debates are you ready for that

a number of you were telling me that the

the periscope here got cut off just as I

was talking about that but it looks like

most of you are back so let's talk about

the and is it a coincidence that I get

cut off in exactly those times all right

so as you know there are going to be two

teams of Democrats on two different

nights doing doing debates on June 26th

and 27th so because there were so many

candidates I guess four of them got

dropped off but the rest of them are are

going to be in two teams of ten I guess

it looks like so because because of the

groupings which they say are random and

let's say let's say that they are you

have an opportunity for some people to

get some attention and the the specific

groupings who's in each group is going

to make a big difference and who can

succeed so that tells you a lot so the

first thing you do is you look at the

groups and say okay what do I know about

this group that's special and here are

some general statements so here are my

predictions number one the more you see

of Biden the less support he will have

so so prediction number one is that

Biden's polls will go down after the

debate because people will see new

people that they didn't know before

and there they're going to start to

learn about the new people so for every

person who likes a new person probably

it's going to come from either Biden or

burry

so the second prediction is that

Bernie's poll numbers won't go down so I

see Biden and Bernie being injured by by

the debates because it will everybody

knows them I don't see any way that

Biden is gonna have a breakout night or

that birdie will have a breakout night

because we just know too much about them

so there's nothing there's no upside for

them it's only a downside but for the

new names they still have a lot of

clutter to break through so you have to

ask yourself who is capable of breaking

through the noise so in the first the

first ten I'll just read off who's that

who's it in the first time you got Cory

Booker Elizabeth Allen Beto Aurora kami

clubber John Delaney Tulsi Gabbard

Julian Caspar Oh Tim Ryan Bill DeBlasio

and jay inslee of that group in the

first group the two who will have a good

night are Elizabeth Warren and a wild

card is Tulsi Gabbard so I'm not going

to predict that Tulsi Gabbard will break

out I'm going to predict that she's a

wild card meaning she could but she

hasn't made any noise so far meaning

that she just doesn't seem to have a lot

of a lot of support for reasons I don't

know exactly so I'm not gonna say she's

going to break out I'm gonna say she's

that she's the interesting wild card but

I think Elizabeth Warren is gonna have a

great night and the reason is she's a

good debater she is she's very policy

wise and if you're on a debate stage and

you're you want to hit the facts you

want to look smart right she's smart if

you watch Elizabeth Warren talk you're

gonna come away with she's experienced

she's smart she's a woman and man does

she want to put Donald Trump in jail

she's gonna come up in her polling

that's my that's my prediction for the

first group let's talk about the second

group second group has Kamala Harris Joe

Biden Bernie Sanders Pete Buddha judge

Kirsten Gillibrand Michael Bennett

Marianne Williamson Eric's well well

Andrew yang and John Hickenlooper this

one's interesting because it's the Biden

and Sanders group now remember their I

think that that they only have a bad day

ahead of them I think so here's my first

prediction kumla Harris will find eight

her poll numbers go up because Kamala

Harris is not as well down but she's

solid so people are gonna sees a person

of color they can see a woman they're

gonna see that she can speak like a

lawyer she can talk to the the facts she

will probably handle herself well and

she will be sort of introducing herself

to a lot of people who just don't know

enough about her so I think her poll

numbers will show an improvement

Pete Budaj edge is a wild card

I asked you this how likely is it that

there are any LGBTQ people in the United

States who are likely to vote who don't

already know who to judges it seems to

me the peabody judge probably has a

hundred percent support from let's say

the LGBTQ community the the ones who are

going to vote with the ones who care

right there's not much room to grow in

the community that is you know sort of

automatically on the aside and i think

he could make a dent by being clever and

news making so he does have that ability

so Budaj edge is one of those people who

can say something interesting enough

they don't get a lot of coverage and the

media likes him so he's good he's good

for clicks so I think Budaj edge is my

wildcard for the second group so there

are two wildcards one is Tulsi Gabbard

one

Budaj edge they could go either way so I

don't have a prediction which way but

they're the they're the most

unpredictable people in their respective

groups they could get a bump but here's

my big prediction for the second group

Andrew yang is going to surprise and

here's why now first of all I don't

think the Andrew yang is at a place

where you could become president I don't

think his resume looks solid enough for

people to put their full trust in and as

a president yet maybe someday but what

yang can do that most of the people in

the debates can't do is say something

you haven't heard already think about it

everybody in these debates almost every

person is going to say something you've

already heard now it might be news the

way they say it and they might use more

provocative you know there might be a

little more provocative it might be you

know maybe they'll say worse things

about Trump than you expected that could

make a little news there are lots of

ways to make news by being a little bit

out of the box but yang is the only one

who could say something that will just

make you go oh I haven't heard that

before

and it will be news making and it will

be interesting so yang is the most

interesting person at the debates who's

not Budaj they're there they're the two

most interesting people and I think yang

is going to see his poll numbers I don't

know double or triple and it will be at

the expense of the the leader Biden and

and Sanders all right but I don't think

yang quite has the gravitas etc that

people are going to want him to be

President so there's my prediction bad

night for Bernie bad night for Sanders

good night for Elizabeth Warren good

night for yang good night for Pamela

Harris and the two wild cards are Tulsi

Gabbard and Pete Buddha jej who could

surprise

but maybe not all right those are my

predictions for those of you who have

stayed around I'm going to talk about

how to fix everything in the future

so I have a I guess a hypothesis were a

belief I'm not sure what it is that most

of the future can be fixed with good

design designed so we don't always

design things well but when we do it

changes everything if you look at the

the success of Apple for example the

success of Apple is a really just

technical greatness which they have it's

designed design is what makes you you

know I've raved about this before these

little let that air buds the freaking

design of these things is so insanely

good that you fall in love with this

product I mean you just love it well I I

don't want to travel anywhere without

this it every part of this is so well

done that it makes you actually love it

now imagine that idea taken to fixing a

whole bunch of other society's problems

I'm gonna throw out an idea where design

can fix a whole range of problems in

society I'm not saying that this is the

best idea in the world I'm saying it'll

make you think about design as a

solution in a way you haven't done

before summited somebody in the comments

is saying array for engineers exactly

engineers already have the ability with

designers etc and scientists we have the

technical ability to solve almost all of

our major problems if we design

correctly we already have the technology

the people the well the money all the

other things it's just design here's the

example I'm not going to talk too much

about my argument for these logs because

I want to give you a bunch of ideas all

at once to let them percolate what is

the one of the biggest problems with

adding nuclear power plants to the

United States

well one of the biggest problems is that

nobody wants it placed in their

neighborhood right so the first thing

you know is that a big obstacle to

nuclear power especially the newer

plants like a generation 3 has never had

a meltdown generation 4 won't even be

possible to have a meltdown but we need

some more development in that area but

what's really stopping you is nobody

wants it near them so if we were to

start with a blank slate and design how

would you fix that let me suggest this

way the people who would be willing to

live near a nuclear plant should be the

people whose risk would go down is there

anybody you can think of in the United

States who if he moves them from where

they are to living near a nuclear plant

so here that's the point is that you're

you're moving people to where the plant

is if you did that

who would have less risk answer

everybody who grew up in a bad part of

town so anybody who came from an inner

city dangerous crime infested area if

you were to take them from that area and

saying look we're gonna move you to a

place that there used to be nine but now

we've got we're building a nuclear plant

it's a generation three or a generation

for the odds of a problem are minuscule

the odds of getting killed where you are

is very high all right so the first

thing you know is that if you move

people who are a higher risk than

nuclear could ever even suggest that

you've improved their lives because

you've greatly improved their the risk

situation now imagine that you build

your nuclear plant and it's it's to

power other people but you build what

I'll call poor town

P oor poor town now poor town would be a

place a city a community an area that's

built around a nuclear plant and the

people moving there have to have low

income but otherwise be you know capable

of working in center so you can move

there now the first thing you're gonna

get is you've got away from your crime

and there's plenty of science to suggest

that moving your location getting out of

a bad place and getting in a new

environment makes a gigantic difference

in your ability to succeed that's well

proven science as demonstrated that many

times so the first model is instead of

trying to fix people where they already

live how about just moving them out of

their environment to a new place in

which they can be part of building this

new place so you got your nuclear power

which means that the people in poor town

are going to have very low energy costs

when you have very low energy costs you

can also have sea water desalinization

because the big expense of

desalinization is the energy it takes so

you build a desalinization plant next to

a nuclear power plant they work really

well together and you put a pipe in the

ocean and you've got all the water you

want and the desalinization turns it

into clean water all right so now you've

got cheap water you've got cheap energy

and you're and then you start using

these Lego like building technologies

where you've designed the best homes and

you've got pre-approved pre-approved

designs so you say to the poor people

moving in the bricks are free all you

have to do is put them together but you

have to do them in one of these approved

designs so that we don't have to have a

design process we don't have to worry if

the roof is going to fall down these

would be one-story homes not much risk

you can build them yourself

and the bricks are going to come from

the tunneling and the underground work

that we do so the bricks are free so all

you have to do is come in build your own

home build it as big as you want as long

as it's part of the approved designs so

now you've got cheap housing cheap water

cheap energy and you've got a whole

bunch of people who didn't have

employments before they move there

suddenly it's a great place for somebody

to put a farm or a business around there

because they've got access to all these

all these people who have low housing

costs and low crime and and they're

willing to work so you've got a good

work force there it's good place for a

company to relocate

if you are to design your new community

with lots of video cameras and you know

access to security and stuff you could

get rid of crime and all the expense of

it if you designed the place right you

could reduce the cost of transportation

to practically nothing I mean if you

build underground tunnels for bicycles

everybody could get everywhere with

almost no no problem whatsoever what's

the problem with riding a bicycle it's

it's the weather right you don't want to

be above-ground you don't want to have

Hills if you had underground tunnels for

every kind of bicycle you can wear a

business suit and bicycle for miles

because you would be on a flat surface

and no no weather and you could just

have one of those lean back bicycles

that you know you don't even have to sit

on a regular bicycle seat so if you

designed from the beginning to make a

community there was for poor people and

you could relocate them from where they

used to be and into this town with some

kind of vetting they contribute oh

here's another thing you could do the so

indoor farming what's the big expense

for indoor farming the big expense is

labor and this town would have lots of

inexpensive labor so that part's covered

and energy because it takes a lot of

electricity to keep the lights on and

everything in your building and to keep

the to keep the temperature right but if

you're located next to a nuclear power

plant your energy is cheap or it could

be if that's how you designed the whole

thing so now you've had cheap food and

it's the good kind it's not it's not

fast food it's just it's good food that

you were growing there you've got cheap

water you got cheap energy

you've got cheap housing and you could

imagine this concept taken to everything

else you know maybe you put in a

hospital there so that you've also got

good healthcare maybe use it to test in

healthcare solutions etc somebody says

what incentive what incentive for what

it would be a commercial enterprise the

nuclear industry would be happy to

participate because they would not only

be creating energy for the town but

they'd be selling it outside the town so

I think everybody wins they'd have a

place to put their energy pull a place

to put their plant somebody to sell it

to etc and everybody would have jobs

eventually because it would be a perfect

hiring pool all right so I'm not saying

this is the greatest idea in the world

I'm making a general statement that

design will save the future and design

specifically will take the cost of

living a quality life from so high that

ordinary people can't afford it down to

the level where ordinary can people

can't afford it and that's an

engineering design question all right

but more importantly I think that these

design places could be way more fun to

live in and more satisfying I'd like to

use the example of my college dormitory

experience one of my best living

situations was a college dormitory which

on paper should have been the worst

because I didn't have a house I had a

little room etc the reason that my

college experience was the best living

situation I've ever had is because it

was designed from scratch to be exactly

that I loved not having to shop for food

prepare food do dishes I would just walk

a few steps away to the cafeteria and

they do all that for me so having a

central cafeteria might be a really good

way to lower costs for a community you

don't even need a kitchen and and the

other thing that was good about college

is that transportation was free because

I could walk everywhere that I needed to

walk there wasn't anywhere I needed to

go then I needed a vehicle they designed

it so I had free transportation the

other thing that I had for free is

entertainment because it was designed to

be a place where people would naturally

meet and they're naturally the same age

they have the same interests they're all

in college

you had unlimited entertainment because

you were in the right place with the

right people doing some kind of a common

common stuff so design the way it's been

applied to college the same concept of

design not not the same model but the

idea of designing could be brought to

the real world outside of college and I

think you would have the most awesome

pour town you ever had and what I call

it poor town I'm being a little bit

ironic it would be something

specifically for poor people to move

there and and be able to you know regain

their life maybe there's even classes

and education and stuff so they can

really rebuild so anyway that's the idea

I'll put that out there just to

percolate and I will talk to you oh let

me say one other thing if you haven't

used interface by wind hub it keeps

getting better experts all the time

that's my startups app and Joshua

liesecke who was my guest here yesterday

is on that as a expert on ghost writing

and getting published one of the most

frequent questions I get is how to add

it how to be published how to write a

book and so now you have an expert who

from $50 an hour which is very

reasonable very reasonable you can call

them and talk to them in person and you

know you're getting expert advice from

somebody who's done it a number of times

so that's my that's my idea for today

and I'll talk to you later