Episode 645 Scott Adams - Talking About Politics, AI, and Brain Hacking

what a day what a day get my footstool over here and we're all good to go hey everybody it's time for coffee with Scott Adams yes yes yes it is the best time of your day yeah it does make everything better you're right and it doesn't take much to participate no it doesn't all you need is a cup or a mug or glasses - Ellis nectar - Thunder mr.

plastic canteen a vessel of any kind filled with your favorite look what I like coffee here it is are you ready it's time for the simultaneous sip that's part of your day the dopamine hit that makes it everything better ready go Oh sublime yes there will be a whiteboard talk after we get through some of our fun political stuff so I'm noticing that the anti-trump press is trying to push every door open trying to test every line of attack and their newest one is kind of clever if you haven't noticed yet the newest line of attack is to ask Trump supporters on the air do they think president Trump lies now what are you gonna do if you're a trump supporter and somebody says I just have this one question as as the president ever lied or does he lie and the and the poor Trump supporter ends up saying well your your network lies and every you know other people lie and they end up looking unprepared let's say and they are unprepared because you're not really expecting that question it's one thing and this is the way the press has been doing it before prior to this the press the press usually asked is this one thing true and then you can quite easily argue no that one thing is being misinterpreted so that's easy for the Trump supporter to support but when they say it has the president ever lied like ever what the hell are you gonna do that doesn't make you look like a turnip well what do you do it's it's an excellent trap and I don't know if they sort of chanced upon it when I saw Cuomo doing it to to forget but it was quite effective because well somebody says the easy answer is no but you know there are something like 11,000 fact-checking problems I don't think even Trump supporters believe that any politician has ever told the truth all the time here's how I would answer that question Scott does the president ever lie and I would say you know I think every politician stretches you know their version of events so they all do it he uses more hyperbole than most people but if you look at it you see it's it's well-intentioned and it's directionally where we would like to be led or it's irrelevant so yes politicians do like to shape the truth this president's not different from any other President or any other politician or every other pundit or indeed every other press person you've had on there everybody's giving you their version of the truth sometimes people are wrong and that gets called lies sometimes they use a little hyperbole and that gets caused called lies but you know I'm not here to put words on it the fact is we're dealing in a realm in which the truth has largely been discarded by everybody that's the way I'd go about it so the big disappointment for the Democrats as you all know was expecting that the Russia collusion situation would take the president and at the job and then it turns out that Muller came out and said we didn't find much we didn't find much here so here's what I'm starting to think might happen with the IG report so those Republicans who are quite happy when Muller found nothing that seemed too actionable or at least nothing that was going to be actionable and Republicans said yeah now watch for the IG report which is going to make all of these characters we know the commis and the Mc.

Cabe's and whoever else were demonizing today is gonna make them all go to jail and pay for it and end there and their their their fraudulent treasonous activities will all be uncovered or not so here's what I'm gonna add to the conversation I'm not so sure the IG report is gonna be that damning it's gonna be damning because it'll talk about a lot of stuff and you know somebody always makes some kind of mistake so I'm not saying that everybody will get off free I'm just saying that if you're expecting people to go to jail probably you're gonna be disappointed so I would say the odds the odds would suggest that there might be some awkward embarrassing stuff some stuff you'll talk about some things for the pundits to chatter about but I'll bet you nobody's going to jail I'll bet you had no no clear and obvious plot to overthrow the government is discovered it'll probably be a whole bunch of people doing what they thought made sense in their own in their own view of the world probably that's all this so don't be disappointed if you don't see much out of the IG report yesterday you saw me ask the provocative question why is it that we the citizens of the United States do not know the answer to this question is Trump building a wall right so I asked that yesterday is like do you know is there actually all being built I mean Trump says yes The News says no and then we see pictures of wall being built what's going on now Fox News actually covered this story the same day that I said how come why don't we know now here's how Shepard Smith covered it on Fox News he said that 60 miles of fence have been reconstructed meaning that there was already some kind of a barrier there and that the only fence that's been built a period is upgrades of existing fence and therefore presidents Trump's promise to build a new wall has not happened now let me ask you this if you were in charge of the border where would you apply your money first let's say it was your job to build a wall where would you put it first would you build your wall first where there is no wall or would you build your wall first where there was a wall because it was an important place to put a wall but the wall wasn't good enough which of those two places would be the best place to put your money let me say them again a place where there was already an inadequate wall because it was a perfect place for people to get across the border or a place where nobody was much trying to get across the border because it was hard to get to that you know remote desert place or whatever there was something naturally about it that wasn't so good for crossing the border which would be the place you start the place you start is by fixing the broken wall because the reason there was a wall there in the first place is because it was possible to build a wall and it was important to have a wall there I'm not sure that that distinction between fixing walls that were inadequate and building new walls is quite the way Fox News and Shepard Smith presented it I think the facts were accurate I'm not questioning the fact I'm just saying that what was missing is the context that the smartest best place to make a difference where the wall is where you already had one because you needed one it just wasn't good enough wall of course that's where you go first now there's a problem of question of does he have any extra money to do any extra wall I don't know I don't know but that would probably be in the so you saw that the president was criticizing Fox News recently what was the phrase he used there they're not working the Fox News is not working for us anymore and see you then tried to turn that into hey are you saying that Fox News was like working for the campaign no it's one of those ambiguous sentences it doesn't mean you get a paycheck it doesn't mean that you're taking my commands it means it just doesn't work for me anymore if I put on a shirt and it's out of style I would say on I don't know this shirt just doesn't work for me anymore that doesn't mean my shirt is an employee it doesn't mean my shirt takes orders for me and does what it needs it just doesn't work for my situation the president was complaining that Fox News is being more critical and that doesn't really work for him as well as it should so he's putting a little pressure on them because he's a big old dictator no because he is transparent when something bothers him he mentions it all the time doesn't matter who it is if something bothers him he mentions it that doesn't make you a dictator all right how about the question of whether Mexico will pay for the wall again Shepard Smith said you know that he basically dismissed that as he was very dismissive shall we say about Trump's claim famous claim that Mexico would pay for the wall on the same day that the news is showing I think or at least the same week that the news is showing footage of the Mexican MS a National Guard or police there mil sorry or you know armed professionals in Mexico actually fighting with and having an altercation with African immigrants who are coming to trying to come up the southern border of Mexico why is Mexico spending so much money to put human troops on their southern border it's because Trump and the United States has pressured them to do it because those people would otherwise traverse Mexico and cross our southern border so Mexico is paying seems to me a lot of money to put human beings there to stop other human beings from crossing do you know how Massacre could save some money anybody anybody raise your hand how could Mexico save some money on their own just their own money I'm not talking about anybody else's money just Mexico's own budget what would be a way to control your border without having to put a standing army on every every incident thinking thinking what could you do some kind of a non human solution for a border area a wall a wall who's gonna pay for that wall will Costa Rica pay for Mexico's wall will Honduras will will will Africa pay for Mexico's wall will the United States pay for Mexico's wall probably not I think Mexico is going to be looking pretty hard at building a fricking wall maybe not today maybe they'll say well let's put our troops on the southern border and see how this goes maybe this is a temporary problem maybe in a year we won't need to do this and we'll be glad we didn't build a big expensive wall but time is on trumps inside as long as Mexico is draining their own budget to keep their military on the border in place of a wall they're wasting money Mexico I guaran-fucking-tee it there has been at least one cover say as senior Mexico Mexican government level I guarantee there's at least one conversation in which somebody said you know wouldn't be so expensive to guard our southern border I'll get rid of this troll wouldn't be so hard to guard our southern border if we had a wall and you know what you know where it would be a good place to put that wall maybe put it on our northern border because the people aren't good across the southern border if they know they can't get across the northern border because they're not trying to resettle in they're not trying to resettle in Mexico they're trying to pass through Mexico so you could say the Trump did not get Mexico to pay for the wall but you can't show me footage of Mexico paying for their own wall and tell me they're not paying for a wall they're just doing it the expensive way don't blame Trump if if Mexico wants to pay extra to make it a human wall that's not his fault all right there's a the latest poll CNN was showing that Trump would lose in a direct match up to any of the top I think six Democrats by some ratio of like fifty some percent you know low 50s for whichever Democrat runs against Trump in the general election and Trump would get about forty percent of the vote does that seem convincing to you no because at this moment we have the the mental advantage of imagining there whoever it is that runs against Trump looks the same on election day as they look to us today in their primaries do you know who's not going to look the same on election day I'll tell you who's not going to look the same as they look today Trump will look the same my guess is that what you have whatever you think of Trump today is exactly what you'll think on Election Day for most people but whoever gets the nomination is gonna turn into a different person by Election Day because Trump will turn them into that different person and you know politics will do that now let's look at the leaders you've got Biden who I don't believe there's anybody in the country who thinks he's gonna be the nominee there are people who will still say things such as well he is leading in the polls but I don't believe anybody on either side thinks that he can win and therefore his entire his entire pitch that he's the one who can win looks ridiculous honestly well yesterday in public he forgot or appeared to forget I won't read his mind but he appeared to forget President Obama's name did you see that one when he said you know and blah blah blah president president my boss I think he actually forgot Obama's name now again if you were looking at any one of these events it would mean nothing at all you put them together and it might still mean nothing at all he's always been a gaffe machine but if you look at his entire vibe but plus his age plus the entirety of the situation it looks like it looks like it's time to be kind right I can't even be I can't even have I find it impossible now to even make jokes about this because when you're making jokes about Biden at this point you're sort of making jokes about senior citizens in general and you know as much as it's fun to make fun of people for whatever reason you know sometimes it's fun but it's not kind and it's not useful and you know maybe maybe I'm too old to find it funny to make fun of old people but so I'm not gonna make fun to Biden I'm just gonna say he's not going to be the nominee and I hope that however whoever however his exit is engineered by those who love him by those who love him and I hope they're the ones who do it I hope it's as the people who loved him most and handle the situation because it needs to be handled and and I'm not saying this because I don't want him to run against Trump because he would get crushed by Trump I mean he would really be get get crushed it wouldn't be fun wouldn't be fun you know that right it's not going to be fun if it's a if it's a just total destruction of the other candidate and you know that's coming if it's button now let's say Bernie unlike Biden Bernie looks like he has all of his faculties would you agree Bernie's Howell's I can't remember but Bernie for his age appears to have all of his faculties but he's still burning and I think he's got sort of a cap on how high his support can go and I think that X number of Democrats are gonna say he'll now on the Socialist part of what bernie is bringing now bernie is the most important democrat in the sense that he's changed the entire you know democrat field you know they've they've had to catch up with him they've had to you know they've had to be compatible with him when they can but I just don't think he's electable and you can feel that in the way even Democrats talk about it you don't really see even the news talking about Bernie as a likely candidate it's almost as if that hypothetical is unworthy of discussion if that's the case it shows a complete lack of interest by let's say established Democrats versus the ones who are excited now let's get to so it won't be Bernie now let's talk about Elizabeth Warren who I believe has one percent african-american support I've been saying that the whole Pocahontas thing is weak and old and there's just not there's not enough substance to it so it's not much of an attack it's fun it's funny it's an interesting news story but it's not really it's not representative of her character in 2019 it doesn't represent her intelligence doesn't say anything about her policies it's I was the other thing it feels empty and then you hear that she has 1% african-american support to which I say am i reading this wrong is it possible that you're you know your generic white guy looks at this situation says yeah she thought she was a Native American and she wasn't end of story but do the African does the African American community in the United States look at that story of somebody trying to you know the way it's framed is that she's trying to appropriate somebody's ethnic heritage for advantage again you'd have to ignore the fact that she wasn't aware she was doing it in order to turn that into a negative but does that look worse if you're African American I don't know I suspect they're just sort of not paying attention to her as a candidate but if you only have that much support where would your support go if Biden drops out remember Biden has absorbed the vast majority of African American support for the the primary process what happens if he leaves do you think that Biden's support by the African American community will go automatically to Bernie I don't think so because I don't think Bernie's been killing it so far with the african-american vote as he you look at his rallies than it looks any Bernie's rallies look pretty white don't they am I wrong about that in fact check me on that so I don't think it's going to Bernie and if Elizabeth Warren has 1% now whatever it is about her that makes her you know less appealing I don't think he goes to her you know where I'm going on this don't you Carla Harris is the natural recipient of Biden's black support it's gonna skip Bernie and it's gonna skip Warren suddenly Warren if Biden drops out or even if he just stops being spoken of seriously I think Harris is gonna be in the top two once she makes it in the top two it's up to her I've said that she's probably one of the worst campaigners I've seen she's also been invisible right we don't really hear from her she does every now and then she'll do the most boring tweet you've ever seen in your life it just looks like it was written by a automaton or something it has no X Factor no no heart no nothing I mean there's the the emptiest most vacuous tweets and that's that we don't even see pictures of her giving a speech we don't see her crowds what I'll say anything so there is an advantage to that meaning that she's not ruined by the process the the heat is not on Harris and if the heat ever gets on her we'll see if she can perform now I've said she did she does perform well which is let's say being a senator and she's you know grilling somebody had a you know congressional testimony she looks pretty strong so I feel as though she's capable of taking her game up but I've also said that she has completely failed to do that so which would suggest well maybe I'm wrong maybe she can't take her game up but I believe I believe if Biden drops out and the black support skips skips Sanders and skips Warren as I think there's a good chance as well suddenly Harris is going to be looking like second we're tied or tied in the top three as soon as people think of Harris as a possible winner I believe she's going to absorb all of the undecideds I think I think people are gonna say alright we need a person of color we need a senator not mayor we need a we need a woman she's gonna she's gonna be automatic and a whole bunch of votes we'll say now the the x-factor here the part that I don't know is whether Warren I'm sorry Harris Warren and Harris those names are too similar don't you think like I store those two names in the same part of my brain so I'm always confusing Warren Harris just the names the words themselves but Carla Harris I don't know how she is perceived by the black community and I don't know how she's perceived by women but you could expect that she would get some you know just automatic votes all right I've got some really interesting topics I'm gonna talk about here unlike what I've done so far oh let's talk about baddest so James Madison has a book out there's some excerpts out and of course the fun parts are where he's criticizing President Trump so let me read part from the book this is James Madison's book in which he is sort of criticizing Trump he says that I quote a polemicist role is not sufficient for a reader a leader okay you're good with that a polemicists role is not sufficient for a leader that this is mattis speaking a leader must display strategic acumen that incorporates respect for those nations that have stood must when trouble loomed returning to a strategic stance that includes the interest of as many nations as we can make common cause with we can better deal with this imperfect world we occupied together absoluteness we will occupy an increasingly lonely position one that puts us at increase you have increasing risk in the world mattis wrote and then he talked about his resignation and he said quote concrete solutions and strategic advice especially keeping faith with our allies no longer resonated now I had a good impression of maddest before I read this didn't you think Madison a straight-talking you know guy his yeah it looks like word salad it's looked like it looks like he had to arrange words to make an argument because the argument wasn't there if I were to take his argument and put it into words that people understand and I don't use words like polemicist or acumen or something got incorporated there was something loomed or that we needed common cause blah blah blah strategic advice keeping the faith these are all non sort of nonsense generic words that don't really mean anything which president would you prefer the president who could look at an ally and say yeah I know what you want but we're not going to do that do you want that president or do you want the president who looks at the ally and the ally says no don't do that and then we say oh okay we don't want to make an ally upset which president do you want I don't see the argument here for the president who's going to do what other countries want us to do that's pretty much giving away our sovereignty if we want the our country to be run for the benefit of our country that requires a president who tells our allies to go pout and salt sometimes not every time but sometimes I feel like that's the president I want not just this president but every time do you want the president who's going to go along with the pack doesn't feel like the president I want one about president Trump's you know chumming up to putin and kim janghoon and even president she would you rather have a president who doesn't talk to our adversaries but does do whatever our allies walked i don't think so would you want that president I think I was like exactly the president I don't want I want the president who will talk to our enemies because that could be helpful as part of the process and what one who will go against our allies when it makes sense for the United States I feel like I feel like Babis is shooting blanks here because he's describing a world that I prefer and he quit from it to which I say he doesn't look like a guy who could work with Trump he looks like a guy who didn't have the tools I hate to say that because you know mattis has been a great patriot and tremendous you know public servant and soldier and warrior and all that so I have a great respect for him but he does not look like a personality you would walk in the same room with Trump yeah I'm just not sure they could work together so I don't see a big problem there lawrence O'Donnell got embarrassed because he reported some poorly sourced story that turned out to be fake news about some Russian billionaire co-signing a loan for Trump just completely untrue and he embarrassed but the funniest part is I watched a clip in which there was a double screen and and lawrence was explaining to rachel maddow it was the first time she'd heard it so that's the fun part so rachel maddow didn't know the story yet and lawrence O'Donnell was is telling her the story and says that his reporting or his one source it he said it was just one source so he was sort of broadcasting that wasn't reliable yet simply by saying it was one source but but he said that you know when he said that the billionaire Russian co-signed the loan you should see maderos expression and she goes really even she couldn't believe it now she played along but and I can't read her mind right so I don't know exactly what she was thinking but my impression of it was that she didn't believe it so or or at least even if it were true it was in the category of unbelievable statements so either one of those would have given a similar reaction but I'm gonna give some credit to Rachel Maddow cuz I'm pretty sure she was skeptical about the claim and that it looked like she was and that was the right that was the right reaction you can love or hate Rachel Maddow but she's very smart she's very smart sorry you can't take that away from her speaking of smart there's a clip of Jack Ma founder of Alibaba billionaire guy talking to you on musk the run stage and they're talking about whether computers will ever be smart like people and they disagreed Elon Musk said computers are already chipping away at what we used to think only humans could do they could beat humans at chess every time they compete about the game of Go which is even more complicated every time and Musk who's making the case that they will actually just surpass humans and there's no doubt about Jack Ma said cleverly that he's seen people invent computers but he's never seen a computer inventor person so a person could make a computer but a computer can't make a person therefore humans always have that sort of superiority to which I say there's no such thing as a pert as a person who ever made a computer that's never happened no person has ever made a computer civilizations have made computers groups of people working over time have developed parts of things which when put together can be assembled into a computer but no persons I remain a computer has a computer ever been a person yeah they're simulated but they have in fact there's about a trillion to one chance that a computer made you now there might have been a human or or an intelligence of some sort who pushed the button and said hey computer make me a make me a simulated civilization that thinks is real and then the computer did the rest so can a computer make a human probably already happened when I say probably already happened that a computer has made a human I mean you I mean you are very likely a simulation according to simulation theory there's a you know trillions to one chance that if any civilization ever could make a simulation of humans I thought it was real or a simulation of any creature they thought it was real there would probably happen lots of times and maybe even the simulation would make its own simulation so there's a very high likelihood that a computer has already made a person not just a person probably trillions of people and they don't know that they were made by computers probably speaking of this is and then when I tweeted this I got some pushback and one of them was interesting one was a software developer who said on Twitter I'm a software developer and basically I can tell you that a computer can only do you know the the simple logic that people give it it can't think to which I say number one well you're thinking and you're probably created by a computer so there's that but secondly a computer programmer is typically not somebody keyed into the creative process I have a unique window on this situation because I have been a computer programmer so I know what it means to program a computer I've made a number of programs earlier in my career I've invented games and done things for corporate use so I have been a computer programmer I've also spent most of my life as a creative person if you tell me I can't I can't make a computer I do what a creative person does you are so wrong oh my god you're wrong it's the longest you could ever be a you can create a computer that will create things here's what you're missing let's pick one of you and make you the Dilbert cartoonist all right you take over my job tomorrow and you just do my job can you do it probably not probably not now let's see let's how about you draw make some paintings I'll just say you you personally go make some paintings that are so good they'll hang in the Louvre there'll be world masterpieces go ahead go do that you can't so when you say humans are creative that's just not true it's just not true humans can't create that's not a capability of humans here's what humans can do we can assemble things that already exist in our minds so when I create all I'm doing is taking things I've seen add some techniques and formula there's actually a formula for humor I talked about a lot I combined it and then I say well did that work how does it feel yeah that's no good so I try something else how does that feel oh yeah that made me laugh I'll go with that a computer can do all of that it's just a be testing with a with a framework and then you see did people laugh or did they not if they laugh you do marveled if they don't you throw it away now the reason that you think people are creative is because we have seven billion people and many of them are creating things every now and then entirely by chance we like some of it and we say well look at that look what Rembrandt created there Rembrandt something that I like so therefore we're better than machines you're not you didn't paint that you didn't make any Rembrandt stuff you're just going to your job in your cubicle a computer can do everything you can do can a computer do everything Rembrandt can do yeah can it just have to it just has to do seven billion tries a day every day and some of those tries other human beings will say hey look at that one the computer randomly cranked out that picture I don't know why but I love it a computer trying to make art would do so much better than humans so quickly it would be ridiculous anyway wait for that I saw a fascinating discussion on evolution in which some evolution doubters were talking about why they doubted it now let me stop right here one of the three doubters seem to have a religious biblical interpretation of things I started by a god explanation but the other two did not so the other two doubters of Darwin were not doubting it in favor of a religious interpretation they were just doubting it on mathematical logical terms and their argument was this if you've got this long string of DNA and there's a sort of let's say a letter that represents every spot along it you've got to have just the right organization of letters to create something that lives almost all of the combinations are unlivable in other words anyone change to what makes a person a person probably kills it and they were saying that while it is possible you could have a random mutation there would amazingly take a living animal from the one that happens to work to one of the few and of trillions I think it was 10 to the 77th odds that you could get you kick in a random mutation that would actually work it would be a living animal so the argument was that the universe isn't old enough even with all 15 billion years the universe isn't old enough for those odds to have given us the world we we observe and also that there's some the that there's a sudden acceleration in new species during what is a very short period of history and that is also not explained here's what's wrong with that here's what's wrong with that so as much as I think you're expecting me to say aha we have disproved evolution there's something terribly wrong with the argument that says the we don't have enough time in our universe for these odds to play out now first of all I just don't know if that's true do we do we not have enough time I don't know if that's knowable I don't believe that's knowable but here's the problem that would make sense if there were only one universe once if we are the only universe that has ever existed it's only happened once there are no other dimensions there are no other simulations there are no other there were no other cycles in which the the universe burst into existence expanded to a point and then gravity shrunk it back in and it became a singularity again how many times has this universe or a version of it been created from the Big Bang because our ability to measure time when we can go back to the Big Bang and that it stops how many big bangs were there could there have been a trillion times a trillion times a trillion big bangs there's nothing that there's nothing that makes that impossible right so so even if the odds of us existing are 10 to the 77th the odds of this this long line of markers on the DNA had to be exactly right for a creature to turn into another creature how do we know how many times this universe has been Korea maybe all the other times it didn't work now the thing that people get wrong is that they forget that our ability to exist and to ask the question how did we get here would only happen if you happen to be the one in a trillion trillion trillion trillion that happened to work so it would be entirely rational and believable that we would exist even though the odds look impossible so I didn't buy the argument that there's not enough time because there could have been yeah there could have been multiple dimensions there could have been multiple Big Bang's and when I say multiple there could have been trillions upon trillions upon trillions like real multiple it could have been a trillion to the power of a trillion remember there's there's no law this as time had to start in all likelihood whatever is going on is perpetual and where are we in the perpetual cycle well there's always as much behind you as there isn't in front of you if it's infinite all right let's say somebody told me that computers will never have souls to which I said neither will people there's no such thing as a soul you can't find a soul that's not a thing you can't get a bucket full of soul so you don't need your computer to have a soul because people don't have them either somebody said computers will be able to compute but they'll never be able to think well that's just word thinking that's just putting a different word in there they'll absolutely be able to think you just have to tell them - nobody's ever programmed a computer to randomly think but if you wanted to even I could do it like I'm pretty rusty with my programming but even I could say all right here's a little code connect some things that you have not connected before see what they look like projecting them into the future draw draw a picture with those things you've put together analyze it tell me if you like it give me an opinion whether it would work you you could program thinking into a computer fairly trivial AIT's somebody says wrong Scott whoever said wrong Scott probably must be new but they will not be old because they've been blocked anybody who says wrong on my periscope this block because you have room to give a reason if you give a reason even if it's just hinting at your reason you don't have to be complete that's fine but you can't say stop you're wrong and that's it you give that get you're blocked all right let's talk about hacking your brain so here's the fun part I was waiting for the end so yesterday I did a video on how to be happy and I talked about the things you can do with your lifestyle and habits to boost the chemicals in your body that make you happy so that I posted that in I stripped out just the part about the happiness equation and I pinned that to my Twitter feed so if you want to send that around or see it again it'll sit at the top of my Twitter feed and it's also going to be on my blog so I took out just a happiness part so you can see that alone but I wanted to expand on that with some subtle lessons on how to hack your own brain to be happier now as most of you know I'm a trained hypnotist and I've been working on learning persuasion for decades and there are things that hypnotists understand about how to program a brain that most of you don't and secondly you don't understand that you can program your own brain so you can be your own hypnotist without necessarily having all the skills of hypnotist because it's fairly simple let me walk you through it so here's some brain hacks and these are the primary tools you can use to control your own brain alright so this is how to program your own brain on on a regular basis it's not something you do once is something you do everyday as a system to reprogram your brain from wherever you don't want it to be to wherever you'd like it to be and here are the tools first of all you want to manage your mental shelf space and what that means is your brain can only handle so much so be the only person who determines what's on your shelf the stuff you're thinking about if you have negative feelings crowd them out with more powerful feelings that are the kind you want if if you're if you keep remembering something that's making you unhappy and you're just going through your day and this memory keeps popping up think of a sexual fantasy think of something great that's coming up just put your shelf in front of you and just fill it with thoughts that are more powerful than whatever it is you're trying to not think about alright so don't try to not think about it instead move your thoughts to a different place fill all of your capacity with work with social life with you know kids whatever it is take on a hobby read a book just take your brain somewhere every time you've got something you need to get it get away from I do say you should avoid things that you can't fix alright so thoughts you can't fix just just avoid them positive self-talk this is sort of the Tony Robbins approach but Tony Robbins of course gets this from a long history of positive thinking people and hypnotists and has a long history of being useful tell yourself the things are gonna go right and that you're good at things and you know how to figure stuff out even if you're not good at something tell yourself you're the kind of person who can figure stuff out because you are if you got this far you are the kind of person who could figure stuff out so keep telling you is that self that like it's a like it's a program that's running in your head all the time I never turn that off I tell myself all the time I could do that I could do that I could do that I could figure that out that would be hard I probably get hurt if I tried to do it but I could do that and I even take that into dangerous situations if you have to be somewhere this dangerous you know your first choice is don't go anywhere that's dangerous right so choice number one do not put yourself in danger but sometimes you just end up in the dangerous part of town in a dangerous situation here's what I tell myself when I'm in a dangerous situation man those other people are in trouble I'd hate to be I'd hate to be my enemy I could kill everybody in this room I'm the most dangerous person here I'll bet they're worried about me they have no idea what I'm up to also if you get challenged by here's a little bonus tip every now and again you'll get challenged by somebody dangerous somebody who's looking for a fight maybe you're in a bad part of town and they'll get in your face and they'll start talking to you if you want to scare him don't talk just stay silent stay confident and silent because you want them to get in their mind the idea that you're not a talker and that whatever you planned might involve a weapon in your pocket it might involve your you know that you've got a friend who's standing behind them I like to look at people and and not give them any tip what I'm thinking just looking because it scares people they need to see your reaction to know what they're dealing with you know any reaction gives them information so I give them no information people do not like having no information in a dangerous situation I'm getting all the information I need because somebody's talking and acting and it's telling me a lot about who they are and what they can do I'm giving them nothing back because I don't want them to know anything and that that's very it's very disturbing to be in a dangerous situation and to have a variable that you don't know anything about so just there's a little tip for you it happened there's a book called habit which I have my shelf the power of habit is the full title the power of habit read it it teaches you how to develop habits that become your programming if you do something over and over again it becomes part of your mental wiring you can actually hack your brain into good habits simply through repetition yes Charles Duhigg is the author correct here's something that you're not gonna believe I promise is true you can change your preferences now some of you are going to say oh yeah I've already done that so some of you will confirm it and in some ways what you don't know is how easy it is it's real easy you can change a lot of your preferences maybe not whole but I have actually experimented with this I've done long-term experiments to see if I could make myself really like something that I didn't like and and vice versa I've programmed myself into liking things and then just for fun programmed myself out of it it's amazingly easy all right and the main the main trick is Association so for example I used to not like the TV show American Idol a million years ago but I watched it with my then wife and because I enjoyed the situation I started loving the show so I had a preference against the show which turned into a great preference for the show simply by associating the show with something else I liked a lot this works every time just associate the thing you don't like with something you do this more powerful until the thing you like bleeds over into the thing you weren't so crazy about and they become paired very easy I I give the example of when I go to the gym I always make sure that when I'm done I go and I get a delicious protein shake which is you know good for me anyway to have protein within 30 minutes of exercising but I like it I like sitting down after I've exercised I like having my protein shake checking my phone just having some me time yeah it's some of my favorite time because of that I make the process of exercising which is not naturally fun more enjoyable because I've associated it you should take all the things you want to manage in your preferences and change their associations until you associate what you want with good things you already like and that will that will push you in that direction it doesn't happen in one day but it does happen in a few weeks it's pretty pretty fast and if you do it for a year it's pretty locked in and triggers an association are related the the association's is the trigger so if you think about it you can change your preference alright somebody says they're lit awesome indica well you should not smoke indica it's the morning at least where I am you should be in the sativa my friend the Indigo will make you sleepy all day affirmations affirmations are the process of repeating in your mind some objective that you want now because I prefer systems over goals people get confused and they say wait repeating the thing you want in your mind and visualizing it isn't that like a goal without a system to which I say now the system is the repeating it because they're repeating it is what causes your brain to create filters that allow you to notice things and act upon things that maybe you want to notice that would have active acted upon so using affirmations can help you program your your brain somebody says Jack Herer is your daytime friend for marijuana yeah that was that ones well I don't say anything about that right now I think I might do it I was thinking of doing a separate periscope on how to smoke marijuana if you're a medical marijuana user because I don't recommend it for recreational use some day I'll do that avoidance if you fill your shelf space and avoid unpleasant thoughts they will then will reduce in power through atrophy so the avoidance is very similar or related to the shelf space just focus on the good stuff and the bad stuff will shrink in importance and then I also advise you to learn and increase your talent stack as much as you can over time because that also programs your brain for recognizing connections I don't remember if I thought I was going to say this or actually said it when I was talking earlier so I'll say it again so you remember Watson and Crick figured out the shape of the double helix you know the the DNA stuff and it was Crick who I learned just recently had been a code breaker in World War two so a guy who had two skills one he was a scientist and two he had been a code breaker the code breaker broke the code on DNA it took a code breaker now if he had not been a code breaker by training would his brain didn't have been tuned somebody says he was on LSD that would have helped to uh would his brain have been tuned to the idea of patterns in terms of codes probably not so anytime you can learn a second thing that works well with your other thing you can you've more than doubled your power so learning two things gives you what you already had plus the new thing but it doesn't just double your power because you have two things plus all the things that are new that are the overlap or the combination of some things from those two things so adding a second skill does more than double it's sort of like two hundred and fifty percent better and if you get that math right it really helps that's what the talent stack is all about all right so repetition thinking positive things changing your preferences by association these are the tools of the hypnotist and they're the ones that you can easily apply to yourself if you are not if you are not managing your brain circuitry the way I've just suggested you are sort of randomly going forth into the world because remember your reality may or may not be entirely subjective we don't need to we don't need to solve that today but certainly your experience of your life is completely subjective right there may be something out there that's just there but your experience of life for sure is a subjective experience and that subjective experience is very much within your power over time whatever you do on one day might not make that much difference but if you develop habits over a long term you learn to fill your shelf space with provocative ideas you learn to build a talent stack so you can combine and in contrast ideas and you build associations and triggers in your own mind they get you to where you want to be and you've got affirmations that are running in the background all the time tell you what you want you'll start noticing things you wouldn't've notice before etc somebody says can hypnosis help with depression I don't know the answer to that question because I don't know that it's been studied here's what I do know I'm certain that a hypnotist can boost your body chemistry I don't know that this has been tested but I'm gonna say based on everything I know I think there's a fair I would say my confidence on this would be ninety five person I'd say there's a 95% chance that a good hypnotist working with the right person and of course that matters hypnosis doesn't work the same with every person twenty percent of the public can have a really strong effect from hypnosis the rest can have weaker effects but but some effects so if you had the right person somebody who was susceptible to what's called the phenomenon which that's a hypnosis term of art it just means that they could actually feel and experience something as if it's real just from suggestion if you have that kind of person and they're suffering from depression and part of that could be influenced by boosting their serotonin or dopamine a skilled hypnotist working with somebody who's in that 20% who can feel and experience things as if they're real could could be hypnotized to feel and experience something which naturally boosted your serotonin and dopamine for example I could tell you that you're in a beautiful forest that you really enjoy and the sun is shining on you and you feel just perfect and you're walking through the forest and you're full of hope and everything looks great and good things are happening in that forest that's just a simple but the point is that 20% of the people were to have a physical experience their body would start to would start to conform to what that experience would be like if they were in the real world having the experience so you could make somebody feel hot you could make them feel cold you can change their heartbeats their pulse you can really change a number of chemical situations and an electron electric situations and people's body through hypnosis so to answer your question could you fix somebody's depression through hypnosis I don't know I don't know that it's been tested but my strong intuition with 95% confidence is that at least 20% of people could have more of those chemicals that tend to be tend to be on the low side when you have depression so I'll say that with a fair degree of certainty but whether that's a cure I don't think that's been tested somebody say they meditate daily it's a direct route to fix depression I don't know I've now seen studies on that either I hear lots of good things about meditation and is something I did in my younger days and I found great value to it until I learned hypnosis hypnosis is a more direct and stronger version of hypnosis in my in my opinion they're different you know meditating is not hypnosis they're different things but hypnosis does better what hit what meditating does in fact one of the things hypnotist learn is self hypnosis so I can count to 20 and put myself into a meditative state pretty quickly and I do that sometimes alright do you have any ties yourself yes I do I use all the tricks that you just saw which largely come from the field of hypnosis but I also use a trick I learned as I've noticed to rather quickly put me in that state so it's a trainer I've developed over time all right somebody said I tried hypnosis but my will was stronger so I couldn't be put under now what happened was you don't know why hypnosis is that's all so somebody said my will my will was too strong I couldn't be put under hypnosis that's not a thing that's somebody who didn't want to be hypnotized that's all that it is if you want to relax and listen to somebody you can sit in a chair and relax and listen to somebody talk that's being hypnotized if you have some mental process that says it wasn't working that's a that's a false message you were being hypnotized you just didn't feel like it that's different all right that's all I got for now I'll talk to you tomorrow bye for now

[Music]

what a day what a day

get my footstool over here and we're all

good to go hey everybody it's time for

coffee with Scott Adams yes yes yes it

is the best time of your day yeah it

does make everything better you're right

and it doesn't take much to participate

no it doesn't all you need is a cup or a

mug or glasses - Ellis nectar - Thunder

mr. plastic canteen a vessel of any kind

filled with your favorite look what I

like coffee here it is

are you ready it's time for the

simultaneous sip that's part of your day

the dopamine hit that makes it

everything better

ready go Oh sublime

yes there will be a whiteboard talk

after we get through some of our fun

political stuff so I'm noticing that the

anti-trump press is trying to push every

door open trying to test every line of

attack and their newest one is kind of

clever if you haven't noticed yet the

newest line of attack is to ask Trump

supporters on the air do they think

president Trump lies now what are you

gonna do if you're a trump supporter and

somebody says I just have this one

question as as the president ever lied

or does he lie and the and the poor

Trump supporter ends up saying well your

your network lies and every you know

other people lie and they end up looking

unprepared

let's say and they are unprepared

because you're not really expecting that

question it's one thing and this is the

way the press has been doing it before

prior to this the press the press

usually asked is this one thing true and

then you can quite easily argue no that

one thing

is being misinterpreted so that's easy

for the Trump supporter to support but

when they say it has the president ever

lied like ever what the hell are you

gonna do that doesn't make you look like

a turnip well what do you do it's it's

an excellent trap and I don't know if

they sort of chanced upon it when I saw

Cuomo doing it to to forget but it was

quite effective because well somebody

says the easy answer is no but you know

there are something like 11,000

fact-checking problems I don't think

even Trump supporters believe that any

politician has ever told the truth all

the time here's how I would answer that

question Scott does the president ever

lie and I would say you know I think

every politician stretches you know

their version of events so they all do

it he uses more hyperbole than most

people but if you look at it you see

it's it's well-intentioned

and it's directionally where we would

like to be led or it's irrelevant

so yes politicians do like to shape the

truth this president's not different

from any other President or any other

politician or every other pundit or

indeed every other press person you've

had on there everybody's giving you

their version of the truth sometimes

people are wrong and that gets called

lies sometimes they use a little

hyperbole and that gets caused called

lies but you know I'm not here to put

words on it the fact is we're dealing in

a realm in which the truth has largely

been discarded by everybody that's the

way I'd go about it so the big

disappointment for the Democrats as you

all know was expecting that the Russia

collusion situation would take the

president and at the job and then it

turns out that Muller came out and said

we didn't find much

we didn't find much here so here's what

I'm starting to think might happen with

the IG report so those Republicans who

are quite happy when Muller found

nothing that seemed too actionable or at

least nothing that was going to be

actionable and Republicans said yeah now

watch for the IG report which is going

to make all of these characters we know

the commis and the McCabe's and whoever

else were demonizing today is gonna make

them all go to jail and pay for it and

end there and their their their

fraudulent treasonous activities will

all be uncovered or not so here's what

I'm gonna add to the conversation I'm

not so sure the IG report is gonna be

that damning it's gonna be damning

because it'll talk about a lot of stuff

and you know somebody always makes some

kind of mistake so I'm not saying that

everybody will get off free I'm just

saying that if you're expecting people

to go to jail probably you're gonna be

disappointed so I would say the odds the

odds would suggest that there might be

some awkward embarrassing stuff some

stuff you'll talk about some things for

the pundits to chatter about but I'll

bet you nobody's going to jail I'll bet

you had no no clear and obvious plot to

overthrow the government is discovered

it'll probably be a whole bunch of

people doing what they thought made

sense in their own in their own view of

the world probably that's all this so

don't be disappointed if you don't see

much out of the IG report yesterday you

saw me ask the provocative question why

is it that we the citizens of the United

States do not know the answer to this

question is Trump building a wall right

so I asked that yesterday is like do you

know is there actually

all being built I mean Trump says yes

The News says no and then we see

pictures of wall being built what's

going on now Fox News actually covered

this story the same day that I said how

come why don't we know now here's how

Shepard Smith covered it on Fox News he

said that 60 miles of fence have been

reconstructed meaning that there was

already some kind of a barrier there and

that the only fence that's been built a

period is upgrades of existing fence and

therefore presidents Trump's promise to

build a new wall has not happened now

let me ask you this if you were in

charge of the border where would you

apply your money first let's say it was

your job to build a wall where would you

put it first would you build your wall

first where there is no wall or would

you build your wall first where there

was a wall because it was an important

place to put a wall but the wall wasn't

good enough which of those two places

would be the best place to put your

money let me say them again a place

where there was already an inadequate

wall because it was a perfect place for

people to get across the border or a

place where nobody was much trying to

get across the border because it was

hard to get to that you know remote

desert place or whatever there was

something naturally about it that wasn't

so good for crossing the border which

would be the place you start the place

you start is by fixing the broken wall

because the reason there was a wall

there in the first place is because it

was possible to build a wall and it was

important to have a wall there I'm not

sure that that distinction between

fixing walls that were inadequate and

building new walls is quite the way Fox

News and Shepard Smith presented it I

think the facts were accurate I'm not

questioning the fact

I'm just saying that what was missing is

the context that the smartest best place

to make a difference where the wall is

where you already had one because you

needed one it just wasn't good enough

wall of course that's where you go first

now there's a problem of question of

does he have any extra money to do any

extra wall I don't know I don't know but

that would probably be in the so you saw

that the president was criticizing Fox

News recently what was the phrase he

used there they're not working the Fox

News is not working for us anymore and

see you then tried to turn that into hey

are you saying that Fox News was like

working for the campaign no it's one of

those ambiguous sentences it doesn't

mean you get a paycheck it doesn't mean

that you're taking my commands it means

it just doesn't work for me anymore if I

put on a shirt and it's out of style I

would say on I don't know this shirt

just doesn't work for me anymore that

doesn't mean my shirt is an employee

it doesn't mean my shirt takes orders

for me and does what it needs it just

doesn't work for my situation the

president was complaining that Fox News

is being more critical and that doesn't

really work for him as well as it should

so he's putting a little pressure on

them because he's a big old dictator no

because he is transparent when something

bothers him he mentions it all the time

doesn't matter who it is if something

bothers him he mentions it that doesn't

make you a dictator all right how about

the question of whether Mexico will pay

for the wall again Shepard Smith said

you know that he basically dismissed

that as he was very dismissive shall we

say about Trump's claim famous claim

that Mexico would pay for the wall on

the same day that the news is showing I

think or at least the same week that the

news is showing footage of the Mexican

MS a National Guard or police there mil

sorry or you know armed professionals in

Mexico actually fighting with and having

an altercation with African immigrants

who are coming to trying to come up the

southern border of Mexico why is Mexico

spending so much money to put human

troops on their southern border it's

because Trump and the United States has

pressured them to do it because those

people would otherwise traverse Mexico

and cross our southern border so Mexico

is paying seems to me a lot of money to

put human beings there to stop other

human beings from crossing do you know

how Massacre could save some money

anybody anybody raise your hand

how could Mexico save some money on

their own just their own money I'm not

talking about anybody else's money just

Mexico's own budget what would be a way

to control your border without having to

put a standing army on every every

incident thinking thinking what could

you do some kind of a non human solution

for a border area a wall a wall who's

gonna pay for that wall will Costa Rica

pay for Mexico's wall will Honduras will

will will Africa pay for Mexico's wall

will the United States pay for Mexico's

wall probably not I think Mexico is

going to be looking pretty hard at

building a fricking wall maybe not today

maybe they'll say well let's put our

troops on the southern border and see

how this goes maybe this is a temporary

problem maybe in a year we won't need to

do this and we'll be glad we didn't

build a big expensive wall but time is

on trumps inside as long as Mexico is

draining their own budget to keep their

military on the border in place of a

wall they're wasting money Mexico I

guaran-fucking-tee it there has been at

least one cover say

as senior Mexico Mexican government

level I guarantee there's at least one

conversation in which somebody said you

know wouldn't be so expensive to guard

our southern border I'll get rid of this

troll

wouldn't be so hard to guard our

southern border if we had a wall and you

know what you know where it would be a

good place to put that wall maybe put it

on our northern border because the

people aren't good across the southern

border if they know they can't get

across the northern border because

they're not trying to resettle in

they're not trying to resettle in Mexico

they're trying to pass through Mexico so

you could say the Trump did not get

Mexico to pay for the wall but you can't

show me footage of Mexico paying for

their own wall and tell me they're not

paying for a wall they're just doing it

the expensive way don't blame Trump if

if Mexico wants to pay extra to make it

a human wall that's not his fault all

right

there's a the latest poll CNN was

showing that Trump would lose in a

direct match up to any of the top I

think six Democrats by some ratio of

like fifty some percent you know low 50s

for whichever Democrat runs against

Trump in the general election and Trump

would get about forty percent of the

vote does that seem convincing to you

no because at this moment we have the

the mental advantage of imagining there

whoever it is that runs against Trump

looks the same on election day as they

look to us today in their primaries do

you know who's not going to look the

same on election day I'll tell you who's

not going to look the same as they look

today Trump will look the same my guess

is that what you have whatever you think

of Trump today is exactly what you'll

think

on Election Day for most people but

whoever gets the nomination is gonna

turn into a different person

by Election Day because Trump will turn

them into that different person

and you know politics will do that now

let's look at the leaders you've got

Biden who I don't believe there's

anybody in the country who thinks he's

gonna be the nominee there are people

who will still say things such as well

he is leading in the polls but I don't

believe anybody on either side thinks

that he can win and therefore his entire

his entire pitch that he's the one who

can win looks ridiculous honestly well

yesterday in public he forgot or

appeared to forget I won't read his mind

but he appeared to forget President

Obama's name did you see that one when

he said you know and blah blah blah

president president my boss I think he

actually forgot Obama's name now again

if you were looking at any one of these

events it would mean nothing at all you

put them together and it might still

mean nothing at all he's always been a

gaffe machine but if you look at his

entire vibe but plus his age plus the

entirety of the situation it looks like

it looks like it's time to be kind right

I can't even be I can't even have I find

it impossible now to even make jokes

about this because when you're making

jokes about Biden at this point you're

sort of making jokes about senior

citizens in general and you know as much

as it's fun to make fun of people for

whatever reason you know sometimes it's

fun but it's not kind and it's not

useful and you know maybe maybe I'm too

old to find it funny to make fun of old

people but so I'm not gonna make fun to

Biden I'm just gonna say he's not going

to be the nominee

and I hope that however whoever however

his exit is engineered by those who love

him by those who love him and I hope

they're the ones who do it I hope it's

as the people who loved him most and

handle the situation because it needs to

be handled and and I'm not saying this

because I don't want him to run against

Trump because he would get crushed by

Trump I mean he would really be get get

crushed

it wouldn't be fun wouldn't be fun you

know that right it's not going to be fun

if it's a if it's a just total

destruction of the other candidate and

you know that's coming if it's button

now let's say Bernie

unlike Biden Bernie looks like he has

all of his faculties would you agree

Bernie's

Howell's I can't remember but Bernie for

his age appears to have all of his

faculties but he's still burning and I

think he's got sort of a cap on how high

his support can go and I think that X

number of Democrats are gonna say he'll

now on the Socialist part of what bernie

is bringing now bernie is the most

important democrat in the sense that

he's changed the entire you know

democrat field you know they've they've

had to catch up with him they've had to

you know they've had to be compatible

with him when they can but I just don't

think he's electable and you can feel

that in the way even Democrats talk

about it you don't really see even the

news talking about Bernie as a likely

candidate it's almost as if that

hypothetical is unworthy of discussion

if that's the case it shows a complete

lack of interest by let's say

established Democrats versus the ones

who are excited now let's get to so it

won't be Bernie now let's talk about

Elizabeth Warren who I believe has one

percent african-american support I've

been saying that the whole Pocahontas

thing is weak and old and there's just

not there's not enough substance to it

so it's not much of an attack it's fun

it's funny

it's an interesting news story but it's

not really it's not representative of

her character in 2019 it doesn't

represent her intelligence doesn't say

anything about her policies it's I was

the other thing it feels empty and then

you hear that she has 1%

african-american support to which I say

am i reading this wrong is it possible

that you're you know your generic white

guy looks at this situation says yeah

she thought she was a Native American

and she wasn't end of story

but do the African does the African

American community in the United States

look at that story of somebody trying to

you know the way it's framed is that

she's trying to appropriate somebody's

ethnic heritage for advantage again

you'd have to ignore the fact that she

wasn't aware she was doing it in order

to turn that into a negative but does

that look worse if you're African

American I don't know I suspect they're

just sort of not paying attention to her

as a candidate but if you only have that

much support where would your support go

if Biden drops out remember Biden has

absorbed the vast majority of African

American support for the the primary

process what happens if he leaves do you

think that Biden's support by the

African American community will go

automatically to Bernie I don't think so

because I don't think Bernie's been

killing it so far with the

african-american vote as he you look at

his rallies than it looks

any Bernie's rallies look pretty white

don't they

am I wrong about that in fact check me

on that so I don't think it's going to

Bernie and if Elizabeth Warren has 1%

now whatever it is about her that makes

her you know less appealing I don't

think he goes to her you know where I'm

going on this don't you Carla Harris is

the natural recipient of Biden's

black support it's gonna skip Bernie and

it's gonna skip Warren suddenly Warren

if Biden drops out or even if he just

stops being spoken of seriously I think

Harris is gonna be in the top two once

she makes it in the top two it's up to

her I've said that she's probably one of

the worst campaigners I've seen she's

also been invisible right

we don't really hear from her she does

every now and then she'll do the most

boring tweet you've ever seen in your

life it just looks like it was written

by a automaton or something it has no X

Factor no no heart no nothing I mean

there's the the emptiest most vacuous

tweets and that's that we don't even see

pictures of her giving a speech we don't

see her crowds what I'll say anything so

there is an advantage to that

meaning that she's not ruined by the

process the the heat is not on Harris

and if the heat ever gets on her we'll

see if she can perform now I've said she

did she does perform well which is let's

say being a senator and she's you know

grilling somebody had a you know

congressional testimony she looks pretty

strong so I feel as though she's capable

of taking her game up

but I've also said that she has

completely failed to do that so which

would suggest well maybe I'm wrong maybe

she can't take her game up but I believe

I believe if Biden drops out and the

black support skips skips Sanders and

skips Warren as I think there's a good

chance as well suddenly Harris is going

to be looking like second we're tied or

tied in the top three

as soon as people think of Harris as a

possible winner I believe she's going to

absorb all of the undecideds I think I

think people are gonna say alright we

need a person of color

we need a senator not

mayor we need a we need a woman she's

gonna she's gonna be automatic and a

whole bunch of votes we'll say now the

the x-factor here the part that I don't

know is whether Warren I'm sorry Harris

Warren and Harris those names are too

similar don't you think like I store

those two names in the same part of my

brain so I'm always confusing Warren

Harris just the names the words

themselves but Carla Harris I don't know

how she is perceived by the black

community and I don't know how she's

perceived by women but you could expect

that she would get some you know just

automatic votes all right I've got some

really interesting topics I'm gonna talk

about here unlike what I've done so far

oh let's talk about baddest so James

Madison has a book out there's some

excerpts out and of course the fun parts

are where he's criticizing President

Trump so let me read part from the book

this is James Madison's book in which he

is sort of criticizing Trump he says

that I quote a polemicist role is not

sufficient for a reader a leader okay

you're good with that a polemicists role

is not sufficient for a leader that this

is mattis speaking a leader must display

strategic acumen that incorporates

respect for those nations that have

stood must when trouble loomed returning

to a strategic stance that includes the

interest of as many nations as we can

make common cause with we can better

deal with this imperfect world we

occupied together absoluteness we will

occupy an increasingly lonely position

one that puts us at increase you have

increasing risk in the world mattis

wrote and then he talked about his

resignation and he said quote concrete

solutions and strategic advice

especially keeping faith with our allies

no longer resonated now

I had a good impression of maddest

before I read this didn't you think

Madison a straight-talking

you know guy his yeah it looks like word

salad it's looked like it looks like he

had to arrange words to make an argument

because the argument wasn't there if I

were to take his argument and put it

into words that people understand and I

don't use words like polemicist or

acumen or something got incorporated

there was something loomed or that we

needed common cause blah blah blah

strategic advice keeping the faith these

are all non sort of nonsense generic

words that don't really mean anything

which president would you prefer the

president who could look at an ally and

say yeah I know what you want but we're

not going to do that do you want that

president or do you want the president

who looks at the ally and the ally says

no don't do that and then we say oh okay

we don't want to make an ally upset

which president do you want I don't see

the argument here for the president

who's going to do what other countries

want us to do that's pretty much giving

away our sovereignty if we want the our

country to be run for the benefit of our

country that requires a president who

tells our allies to go pout and salt

sometimes not every time but sometimes I

feel like that's the president I want

not just this president but every time

do you want the president who's going to

go along with the pack doesn't feel like

the president I want

one about president Trump's you know

chumming up to putin and kim janghoon

and even president she would you rather

have a president who doesn't talk to our

adversaries but does do whatever our

allies walked i don't think so

would you want that president I think I

was like exactly the president I don't

want I want the president who will talk

to our enemies because that could be

helpful as part of the process and what

one who will go against our allies when

it makes sense for the United States I

feel like I feel like Babis is shooting

blanks here because he's describing a

world that I prefer and he quit from it

to which I say he doesn't look like a

guy who could work with Trump he looks

like a guy who didn't have the tools I

hate to say that because you know mattis

has been a great patriot and tremendous

you know public servant and soldier and

warrior and all that so I have a great

respect for him but he does not look

like a personality you would walk in the

same room with Trump yeah I'm just not

sure they could work together so I don't

see a big problem there lawrence

O'Donnell got embarrassed because he

reported some poorly sourced story that

turned out to be fake news about some

Russian billionaire co-signing a loan

for Trump just completely untrue

and he embarrassed but the funniest part

is I watched a clip in which there was a

double screen and and lawrence was

explaining to rachel maddow

it was the first time she'd heard it so

that's the fun part so rachel maddow

didn't know the story yet and lawrence

O'Donnell was is telling her the story

and says that his reporting or his one

source it he said it was just one source

so he was sort of broadcasting that

wasn't reliable yet simply by saying it

was one source but but he said that you

know when he said that the billionaire

Russian co-signed the loan you should

see

maderos expression and she goes really

even she couldn't believe it now

she played along but and I can't read

her mind right so I don't know exactly

what she was thinking but my impression

of it was that she didn't believe it so

or or at least even if it were true it

was in the category of unbelievable

statements so either one of those would

have given a similar reaction but I'm

gonna give some credit to Rachel Maddow

cuz I'm pretty sure she was skeptical

about the claim and that it looked like

she was and that was the right that was

the right reaction you can love or hate

Rachel Maddow but she's very smart she's

very smart sorry you can't take that

away from her speaking of smart there's

a clip of Jack Ma founder of Alibaba

billionaire guy talking to you on musk

the run stage and they're talking about

whether computers will ever be smart

like people and they disagreed Elon Musk

said computers are already chipping away

at what we used to think only humans

could do they could beat humans at chess

every time they compete about the game

of Go which is even more complicated

every time and Musk who's making the

case that they will actually just

surpass humans and there's no doubt

about Jack Ma said cleverly that he's

seen people invent computers but he's

never seen a computer inventor person so

a person could make a computer but a

computer can't make a person therefore

humans always have that sort of

superiority to which I say there's no

such thing as a pert as a person who

ever made a computer that's never

happened no person has ever made a

computer civilizations have made

computers groups of people working over

time have developed parts of things

which when put together can be assembled

into a computer

but no persons I remain a computer has a

computer ever been a person yeah they're

simulated but they have in fact there's

about a trillion to one chance that a

computer made you now there might have

been a human or or an intelligence of

some sort who pushed the button and said

hey computer make me a make me a

simulated civilization that thinks is

real and then the computer did the rest

so can a computer make a human probably

already happened when I say probably

already happened that a computer has

made a human I mean you I mean you are

very likely a simulation according to

simulation theory there's a you know

trillions to one chance that if any

civilization ever could make a

simulation of humans I thought it was

real or a simulation of any creature

they thought it was real there would

probably happen lots of times and maybe

even the simulation would make its own

simulation so there's a very high

likelihood that a computer has already

made a person not just a person probably

trillions of people and they don't know

that they were made by computers

probably speaking of this is and then

when I tweeted this I got some pushback

and one of them was interesting one was

a software developer who said on Twitter

I'm a software developer and basically I

can tell you that a computer can only do

you know the the simple logic that

people give it it can't think to which I

say number one well you're thinking and

you're probably created by a computer so

there's that but secondly a computer

programmer is typically not somebody

keyed into the creative process I have a

unique window on this situation because

I have been a computer programmer so I

know what it means

to program a computer I've made a number

of programs earlier in my career I've

invented games and done things for

corporate use so I have been a computer

programmer I've also spent most of my

life as a creative person if you tell me

I can't I can't make a computer I do

what a creative person does you are so

wrong oh my god you're wrong it's the

longest you could ever be a you can

create a computer that will create

things here's what you're missing let's

pick one of you and make you the Dilbert

cartoonist all right you take over my

job tomorrow and you just do my job can

you do it probably not probably not now

let's see let's how about you draw make

some paintings I'll just say you you

personally go make some paintings that

are so good they'll hang in the Louvre

there'll be world masterpieces

go ahead go do that you can't so when

you say humans are creative that's just

not true it's just not true humans can't

create that's not a capability of humans

here's what humans can do we can

assemble things that already exist in

our minds so when I create all I'm doing

is taking things I've seen add some

techniques and formula there's actually

a formula for humor I talked about a lot

I combined it and then I say well did

that work how does it feel yeah that's

no good so I try something else how does

that feel oh yeah that made me laugh

I'll go with that a computer can do all

of that it's just a be testing with a

with a framework and then you see did

people laugh or did they not if they

laugh you do marveled if they don't you

throw it away now the reason that you

think people are creative is because we

have seven billion people and many of

them are creating things every now and

then entirely by chance we like some of

it and we say well look at that

look what Rembrandt created there

Rembrandt

something that I like so therefore we're

better than machines you're not you

didn't paint that you didn't make any

Rembrandt stuff you're just going to

your job in your cubicle a computer can

do everything you can do can a computer

do everything Rembrandt can do yeah

can it just have to it just has to do

seven billion tries a day every day and

some of those tries other human beings

will say hey look at that one the

computer randomly cranked out that

picture I don't know why but I love it a

computer trying to make art would do so

much better than humans so quickly it

would be ridiculous anyway wait for that

I saw a fascinating discussion on

evolution in which some evolution

doubters were talking about why they

doubted it now let me stop right here

one of the three doubters seem to have a

religious biblical interpretation of

things I started by a god explanation

but the other two did not so the other

two doubters of Darwin were not doubting

it in favor of a religious

interpretation they were just doubting

it on mathematical logical terms and

their argument was this if you've got

this long string of DNA and there's a

sort of let's say a letter that

represents every spot along it you've

got to have just the right organization

of letters to create something that

lives almost all of the combinations are

unlivable in other words anyone change

to what makes a person a person probably

kills it and they were saying that while

it is possible you could have a random

mutation there would amazingly take a

living animal from the one that happens

to work to one of the few and of

trillions I think it was 10 to the 77th

odds that you could get you kick in a

random mutation that would actually work

it would be a living animal

so the argument was that the universe

isn't old enough even with all 15

billion years the universe isn't old

enough for those odds to have given us

the world we we observe and also that

there's some the that there's a sudden

acceleration in new species during what

is a very short period of history and

that is also not explained here's what's

wrong with that here's what's wrong with

that

so as much as I think you're expecting

me to say aha

we have disproved evolution there's

something terribly wrong with the

argument that says the we don't have

enough time in our universe for these

odds to play out now first of all I just

don't know if that's true do we do we

not have enough time I don't know if

that's knowable I don't believe that's

knowable but here's the problem that

would make sense

if there were only one universe once if

we are the only universe that has ever

existed it's only happened once there

are no other dimensions there are no

other simulations there are no other

there were no other cycles in which the

the universe burst into existence

expanded to a point and then gravity

shrunk it back in and it became a

singularity again how many times has

this universe or a version of it been

created from the Big Bang because our

ability to measure time when we can go

back to the Big Bang and that it stops

how many big bangs were there could

there have been a trillion times a

trillion times a trillion big bangs

there's nothing that there's nothing

that makes that impossible

right so so even if the odds of us

existing are 10 to the 77th the odds of

this this long line of markers on the

DNA had to be exactly right for a

creature to turn into another creature

how do we know how many times this

universe has been Korea

maybe all the other times it didn't work

now the thing that people get wrong is

that they forget that our ability to

exist

and to ask the question how did we get

here would only happen if you happen to

be the one in a trillion trillion

trillion trillion that happened to work

so it would be entirely rational and

believable that we would exist even

though the odds look impossible so I

didn't buy the argument that there's not

enough time because there could have

been yeah there could have been multiple

dimensions there could have been

multiple Big Bang's

and when I say multiple there could have

been trillions upon trillions upon

trillions like real multiple it could

have been a trillion to the power of a

trillion

remember there's there's no law this as

time had to start in all likelihood

whatever is going on is perpetual and

where are we in the perpetual cycle well

there's always as much behind you as

there isn't in front of you if it's

infinite all right

let's say somebody told me that

computers will never have souls to which

I said neither will people there's no

such thing as a soul you can't find a

soul that's not a thing you can't get a

bucket full of soul so you don't need

your computer to have a soul because

people don't have them either somebody

said computers will be able to compute

but they'll never be able to think well

that's just word thinking that's just

putting a different word in there

they'll absolutely be able to think you

just have to tell them - nobody's ever

programmed a computer to randomly think

but if you wanted to even I could do it

like I'm pretty rusty with my

programming but even I could say all

right here's a little code connect some

things that you have not connected

before see what they look like

projecting them into the future

draw draw a picture with those

things you've put together analyze it

tell me if you like it give me an

opinion whether it would work you you

could program thinking into a computer

fairly trivial AIT's somebody says wrong

Scott

whoever said wrong Scott probably must

be new but they will not be old because

they've been blocked anybody who says

wrong on my periscope this block because

you have room to give a reason if you

give a reason even if it's just hinting

at your reason you don't have to be

complete that's fine but you can't say

stop you're wrong and that's it you give

that get you're blocked all right let's

talk about hacking your brain so here's

the fun part I was waiting for the end

so yesterday I did a video on how to be

happy and I talked about the things you

can do with your lifestyle and habits to

boost the chemicals in your body that

make you happy so that I posted that in

I stripped out just the part about the

happiness equation and I pinned that to

my Twitter feed so if you want to send

that around or see it again

it'll sit at the top of my Twitter feed

and it's also going to be on my blog so

I took out just a happiness part so you

can see that alone but I wanted to

expand on that with some subtle lessons

on how to hack your own brain to be

happier now as most of you know I'm a

trained hypnotist and I've been working

on learning persuasion for decades and

there are things that hypnotists

understand about how to program a brain

that most of you don't and secondly you

don't understand that you can program

your own brain so you can be your own

hypnotist without necessarily having all

the skills of hypnotist because it's

fairly simple let me walk you through it

so here's some brain hacks and these are

the primary tools you can use to control

your own brain alright so this is how to

program your own brain on

on a regular basis it's not something

you do once is something you do everyday

as a system to reprogram your brain from

wherever you don't want it to be to

wherever you'd like it to be and here

are the tools first of all you want to

manage your mental shelf space and what

that means is your brain can only handle

so much so be the only person who

determines what's on your shelf the

stuff you're thinking about if you have

negative feelings crowd them out with

more powerful feelings that are the kind

you want if if you're if you keep

remembering something that's making you

unhappy and you're just going through

your day and this memory keeps popping

up think of a sexual fantasy think of

something great that's coming up

just put your shelf in front of you and

just fill it with thoughts that are more

powerful than whatever it is you're

trying to not think about alright so

don't try to not think about it instead

move your thoughts to a different place

fill all of your capacity with work with

social life with you know kids whatever

it is take on a hobby

read a book just take your brain

somewhere every time you've got

something you need to get it get away

from I do say you should avoid things

that you can't fix

alright so thoughts you can't fix just

just avoid them positive self-talk this

is sort of the Tony Robbins approach but

Tony Robbins of course gets this from a

long history of positive thinking people

and hypnotists and has a long history of

being useful tell yourself the things

are gonna go right and that you're good

at things and you know how to figure

stuff out even if you're not good at

something tell yourself you're the kind

of person who can figure stuff out

because you are if you got this far you

are the kind of person who could figure

stuff out so keep telling you is that

self that like it's a like it's a

program that's running in your head all

the time I never turn that off

I tell myself all the time I could do

that

I could do that I could do that I could

figure that out that would be hard I

probably get hurt if I tried to do it

but I could do that and I even take that

into dangerous situations if you have to

be somewhere this dangerous you know

your first choice is don't go anywhere

that's dangerous right so choice number

one do not put yourself in danger but

sometimes you just end up in the

dangerous part of town in a dangerous

situation here's what I tell myself when

I'm in a dangerous situation man those

other people are in trouble I'd hate to

be I'd hate to be my enemy

I could kill everybody in this room I'm

the most dangerous person here I'll bet

they're worried about me they have no

idea what I'm up to

also if you get challenged by here's a

little bonus tip every now and again

you'll get challenged by somebody

dangerous somebody who's looking for a

fight maybe you're in a bad part of town

and they'll get in your face and they'll

start talking to you if you want to

scare him don't talk just stay silent

stay confident and silent because you

want them to get in their mind the idea

that you're not a talker and that

whatever you planned might involve a

weapon in your pocket it might involve

your you know that you've got a friend

who's standing behind them I like to

look at people and and not give them any

tip what I'm thinking

just looking because it scares people

they need to see your reaction to know

what they're dealing with you know any

reaction gives them information so I

give them no information people do not

like having no information in a

dangerous situation I'm getting all the

information I need because somebody's

talking and acting and it's telling me a

lot about who they are and what they can

do I'm giving them nothing back because

I don't want them to know anything and

that that's very it's very disturbing to

be in a dangerous situation

and to have a variable that you don't

know anything about

so just there's a little tip for you it

happened there's a book called habit

which I have my shelf the power of habit

is the full title the power of habit

read it it teaches you how to develop

habits that become your programming if

you do something over and over again it

becomes part of your mental wiring you

can actually hack your brain into good

habits simply through repetition yes

Charles Duhigg is the author correct

here's something that you're not gonna

believe I promise is true you can change

your preferences now some of you are

going to say oh yeah I've already done

that so some of you will confirm it and

in some ways what you don't know is how

easy it is it's real easy you can change

a lot of your preferences maybe not

whole but I have actually experimented

with this I've done long-term

experiments to see if I could make

myself really like something that I

didn't like and and vice versa I've

programmed myself into liking things and

then just for fun programmed myself out

of it it's amazingly easy all right

and the main the main trick is

Association so for example I used to not

like the TV show American Idol a million

years ago but I watched it with my then

wife and because I enjoyed the situation

I started loving the show so I had a

preference against the show which turned

into a great preference for the show

simply by associating the show with

something else I liked a lot this works

every time just associate the thing you

don't like with something you do this

more powerful until the thing you like

bleeds over into the thing you weren't

so crazy about and they become paired

very easy I I give the example of when I

go to the gym I always make sure that

when I'm

done I go and I get a delicious protein

shake which is you know good for me

anyway to have protein within 30 minutes

of exercising but I like it I like

sitting down after I've exercised I like

having my protein shake checking my

phone just having some me time yeah it's

some of my favorite time because of that

I make the process of exercising which

is not naturally fun more enjoyable

because I've associated it you should

take all the things you want to manage

in your preferences and change their

associations until you associate what

you want with good things you already

like and that will that will push you in

that direction it doesn't happen in one

day but it does happen in a few weeks

it's pretty pretty fast and if you do it

for a year it's pretty locked in and

triggers an association are related the

the association's is the trigger so if

you think about it you can change your

preference alright somebody says they're

lit awesome indica well you should not

smoke indica it's the morning at least

where I am you should be in the sativa

my friend the Indigo will make you

sleepy all day affirmations affirmations

are the process of repeating in your

mind some objective that you want now

because I prefer systems over goals

people get confused and they say wait

repeating the thing you want in your

mind and visualizing it isn't that like

a goal without a system to which I say

now

the system is the repeating it because

they're repeating it is what causes your

brain to create filters that allow you

to notice things and act upon things

that maybe you want to notice that would

have active acted upon so using

affirmations can help you program your

your brain

somebody says Jack Herer is your daytime

friend for marijuana yeah that was that

ones well I don't say anything about

that right now I think I might do it I

was thinking of doing a separate

periscope on how to smoke marijuana if

you're a medical marijuana user because

I don't recommend it for recreational

use some day I'll do that

avoidance if you fill your shelf space

and avoid unpleasant thoughts they will

then will reduce in power through

atrophy so the avoidance is very similar

or related to the shelf space just focus

on the good stuff and the bad stuff will

shrink in importance and then I also

advise you to learn and increase your

talent stack as much as you can over

time because that also programs your

brain for recognizing connections I

don't remember if I thought I was going

to say this or actually said it when I

was talking earlier so I'll say it again

so you remember Watson and Crick figured

out the shape of the double helix you

know the the DNA stuff and it was Crick

who I learned just recently had been a

code breaker in World War two so a guy

who had two skills one he was a

scientist and two he had been a code

breaker

the code breaker broke the code on DNA

it took a code breaker

now if he had not been a code breaker by

training would his brain didn't have

been tuned

somebody says he was on LSD that would

have helped to uh would his brain have

been tuned to the idea of patterns in

terms of codes probably not so anytime

you can learn a second thing that works

well with your other thing you can

you've more than doubled your power so

learning two things gives you what you

already had plus the new thing but it

doesn't just double your power because

you have two things

plus all the things that are new that

are the overlap or the combination of

some things from those two things so

adding a second skill does more than

double it's sort of like two hundred and

fifty percent better and if you get that

math right it really helps that's what

the talent stack is all about all right

so repetition thinking positive things

changing your preferences by association

these are the tools of the hypnotist and

they're the ones that you can easily

apply to yourself if you are not if you

are not managing your brain circuitry

the way I've just suggested you are sort

of randomly going forth into the world

because remember your reality may or may

not be entirely subjective we don't need

to we don't need to solve that today but

certainly your experience of your life

is completely subjective right there may

be something out there that's just there

but your experience of life for sure is

a subjective experience and that

subjective experience is very much

within your power over time whatever you

do on one day might not make that much

difference but if you develop habits

over a long term you learn to fill your

shelf space with provocative ideas you

learn to build a talent stack so you can

combine and in contrast ideas and you

build associations and triggers in your

own mind they get you to where you want

to be and you've got affirmations that

are running in the background all the

time tell you what you want you'll start

noticing things you wouldn't've notice

before etc somebody says can hypnosis

help with depression I don't know the

answer to that question because I don't

know that it's been studied here's what

I do know I'm certain that a hypnotist

can boost your body chemistry I don't

know that this has been tested but I'm

gonna say based on everything I know I

think there's a fair I would say my

confidence on this would be ninety five

person

I'd say there's a 95% chance that a good

hypnotist

working with the right person and of

course that matters hypnosis doesn't

work the same with every person twenty

percent of the public can have a really

strong effect from hypnosis the rest can

have weaker effects but but some effects

so if you had the right person somebody

who was susceptible to what's called the

phenomenon which that's a hypnosis term

of art it just means that they could

actually feel and experience something

as if it's real

just from suggestion if you have that

kind of person and they're suffering

from depression and part of that could

be influenced by boosting their

serotonin or dopamine a skilled

hypnotist working with somebody who's in

that 20% who can feel and experience

things as if they're real could could be

hypnotized to feel and experience

something which naturally boosted your

serotonin and dopamine for example I

could tell you that you're in a

beautiful forest that you really enjoy

and the sun is shining on you and you

feel just perfect and you're walking

through the forest and you're full of

hope and everything looks great

and good things are happening in that

forest that's just a simple but the

point is that 20% of the people were to

have a physical experience their body

would start to would start to conform to

what that experience would be like if

they were in the real world having the

experience so you could make somebody

feel hot you could make them feel cold

you can change their heartbeats their

pulse you can really change a number of

chemical situations and an electron

electric situations and people's body

through hypnosis so to answer your

question could you fix somebody's

depression through hypnosis I don't know

I don't know that it's been tested but

my strong intuition with 95% confidence

is that at least 20% of people could

have more of those chemicals that tend

to be

tend to be on the low side when you have

depression so I'll say that with a fair

degree of certainty but whether that's a

cure I don't think that's been tested

somebody say they meditate daily it's a

direct route to fix depression I don't

know I've now seen studies on that

either

I hear lots of good things about

meditation and is something I did in my

younger days and I found great value to

it until I learned hypnosis hypnosis is

a more direct and stronger version of

hypnosis in my in my opinion they're

different you know meditating is not

hypnosis they're different things but

hypnosis does better what hit what

meditating does in fact one of the

things hypnotist learn is self hypnosis

so I can count to 20 and put myself into

a meditative state pretty quickly and I

do that sometimes

alright do you have any ties yourself

yes I do I use all the tricks that you

just saw which largely come from the

field of hypnosis but I also use a trick

I learned as I've noticed to rather

quickly put me in that state so it's a

trainer I've developed over time all

right

somebody said I tried hypnosis but my

will was stronger so I couldn't be put

under now what happened was you don't

know why hypnosis is that's all so

somebody said my will my will was too

strong I couldn't be put under hypnosis

that's not a thing

that's somebody who didn't want to be

hypnotized that's all that it is if you

want to relax and listen to somebody you

can sit in a chair and relax and listen

to somebody talk that's being hypnotized

if you have some mental process that

says it wasn't working that's a that's a

false message you were being hypnotized

you just didn't feel like it that's

different all right

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

you tomorrow bye for now