Episode 968 Scott Adams - Simultaneous Sip Now

um hey everybody come on in here it's time for well you know what time for coffee with Scott Adams printing out my notes here I'm a little bit late yes I did a little thing called sleeping in don't like to do that a lot yeah late again overslept so I know what you'd like to do probably this morning you'd like probably like to join in on the simultaneous Sip and all it takes is a copper among your glass attacker Challenger starting a canteen Checker flask a vessel of any kind filled with your favorite liquid I like coffee and join me now of the unparalleled pleasure the dopamines the other day the thing makes everything better including the damn pandemic damn pandemic yeah join me now go so Periscope has this minor bug in it that if you use a certain kind of headset where you can talk and listen you have to remember to hit a button before you go live or else you can't talk to people so I had to redo it and that's all it was uh good morning good morning let me grab my notes don't go anywhere today the news looks like uh it's all repeat news let me do let me do the news for today but I can also do the news for every day for the next three weeks are you ready here's the news every day for the next three weeks there are some doctors in Provo who are doing a study on a new potential coronavirus treatment called Provo fluff they have signed up people but it's not completely a good study because they don't have a good control group so we're waiting on that Tuesday the news will be there's some doctors and blah blah blah they're testing some blah blah blah they're getting some people blah blah blah we hope it works blah blah blah I don't believe any of the uh any of the news about tests anymore do you I really don't I just you know everything that I see about this they try this and they got to read good results and it's not quite scientific and you know it's only 80 people but it looks good I've got a feeling that none of it's real at this point just feels like none of it's real um certainly by now if hydroxychloroquine was a big deal we'd know it by now right would you agree would you all agree with this statement that if hydroxychloroquine was a magic pill as opposed to just being a little bit useful which I think is where it's going to end up we'd know it by now the same with most of the drugs if if any of the drugs they're testing were really just knocking the crap out of this virus we'd know it by now um yeah let's talk about Obama gate you know when Obama Gade first started trending as a hashtag I didn't even know exactly what it was but I guess it just refers to the the looking into the origins of the Russia occlusion hoax and we know now that uh Barack Obama apparently at least knew that the the wiretap on Flynn had happened but we don't know what else he knew what else did he know hmm so I was looking at the trending hashtag and there was a tweet just a few minutes ago there's a tweet where I showed the hashtag at 2.6 million which if you don't follow the hashtags that's a lot because typically a trending hashtag could have like 6 000 tweets or you know sixty thousand if it's a really big one that would be a really big hashtag sixty thousand people retweeting it Obama Gates had a 2.6 million but here's what's interesting just minutes after I had 2.6 million it had 2.1 million I don't know if it's just the difference between how they how they count the hashtags at different times might be a lag or something but uh I don't know if it went down or up I saw some other people complaining that it went down but I'm not sure they saw it correctly I'm not sure I saw it correctly either um so the weirdest thing happened last night some of you had the same weird experience and I want to see how many of you experienced this the first part of it you had to have joined me last night when I was talking about for the second time the the simulation and so I did my little Periscope entirely on the topic of the simulation and had a how to reprogram your your reality with stories and I'm done with that and I'm kind of winding down for the night and I turn on Fox News and they were ending up a special about Watergate I guess and I guess there was some time left over in which they'd stuck in and extended I guess a paid must have been a paid thing from Joel Osteen now typically Joel would be in front of a church packed full of people giving them his inspirational message but because of the coronavirus it was an empty church and he was just giving his act here's the part that blew my mind it's Joel Lusty and uh the way he decided to talk about the coronavirus our current situation is that God was updating his software do you believe that and he used to use the phrase repeatedly throughout his presentation he talked about the coronavirus being thought of as a reboot and that God sometimes needs to update the software and that he's updating the software that's what the coronavirus situation is gives us all time to you know take a pause and step back and that when we go back we will effectively have rebooted civilization along with our understanding of our place in it it's exactly what I said like half an hour before except I'd left out the the Christianity part now the beauty of the simulation is that it works as an overlay on any religion you can put it on reincarnation works for that you can put it on the Islam any religion you want still works so the what were the odds that I would give a whole you know 45 minutes of presentation about the universe being a simulation made of software and turn on TV and find one of the most famous Christian preachers saying exactly the same thing now yeah I'm not promoting his view or or him or anything like that I know a lot of people like him he's he's he does a good job of keeping people uh let's say motivated and feeling good about themselves and if he makes money from that I'm okay with that I don't think anything about that is too sketchy um at least anything I've heard so if you know something I I haven't heard it but that was just weird all right here's an update on what could be my best prediction ever now I do think that my prediction about Evolution made 22 years ago pretty darn good but I'm never going to get attention for that one because people are still yeah I don't think people are really going to change their mind about where things are there so I'll never get I'll never get credit for that prediction for a variety of reasons but this one the Harris being the vice presidential pick and then being considered at the top of the ticket it's getting closer and closer so Joel Pollock noted in his tweet that Politico is speaking about Harris as the you know the likely one so Politico is already talking about her as pretty much the one you know they don't go right out and saying it but they talk about the activity in the Democratic party and who likes what and who's talking about what and it's starting to sound like the consensus is pretty solid around uh around Harris right now and they talk about Elizabeth Warren being a strong second and I think to myself I don't see it if the second employee's Place choice is literally impossible in my view let me let me tell you this if Elizabeth Warren is picked for the vice presidential spot I don't know anything about anything that would be to me that would be that would just blow my whole world apart because I would just say I don't understand anything I've watched for the past year if that happens because what I watched was Warren being basically a you know a death sentence for the Democratic party if they add her to the the ticket what the heck would they they be thinking unless they're playing for a draft pick next year but I don't think it works that way so when your second choice is just ridiculous doesn't that kind of tell you they've settled on the First Choice already because you would have a a little better looking second choice right I mean obviously Warren is super capable you know I'm not I'm not talking about that but in terms of her fit and whether she could win and all that you know it's just an obvious losing proposition all right yeah so if that comes in that will be my finest prediction but we'll see um the dumbest pundit do you have a uh does anybody have a nomination for the dumbest political pundit working today I want to I want to see your opinions now when you say dumbest or when I say dumbest I don't mean that they lie the most because you're you're probably going to say oh you know that's Jim Acosta he's the dumbest one that a lot of people watching this would say that but I don't have any evidence of that you know there you have evidence that you know he's uh let's say a member of one side but you don't know what he really thinks right because a lot of a lot of people in the public say ridiculous things but you think to yourself well they don't believe him you know that's just their job your abundant you say ridiculous things about the other side you say your side is Magic and and awesome so you don't really know that they're dumb you just know that they've taken aside but there is one pundit that I gotta say no matter what he's talking all he registers is stupid do you know who it is give me some of your guess about a pundit who registers is actually just stupid not just disagreeing with you all right I'll wait to see your answers my nomination is Joe Lockhart Joe Lockhart even looks like the dumbest guy on TV doesn't he all right now I'm gonna be laughing because I'm looking at your choices now who would say Rachel maddowell now you could disagree with everything Rachel maddows has but how in the world do you say she's dumb she's brilliant you can hate everything she says but she's brilliant and there's no question about that yeah well you know you I'm seeing names like saliza J Ruben stelter I don't think any of them are dumb not even a little bit I don't think Don lemon's dumb now they're the ones Chris Cuomo he's not dumb they're all the ones that I would put in the category of they're just on the side but you compare you compare the names that you've just said to Joe Lockhart I think it's a different category so here's so Joe Lockhart is writing today in for cnn.com uh he's wondering why no newspapers have called for the removal of President Trump and you say to yourself what what are you even talking about yeah that's right Joe Lockhart's wondering why no newspapers have called like the boards of newspapers where they get together and they say this is this is the opinion of our newspaper because he notes that when Nixon was in trouble for Watergate that there were lots of newspapers that called for Nixon's removal and he's saying how come there's no newspaper doing that for Trump because after all Trump was guilty of calling those neo-nazis fine people in Charlottesville and I'm just saying what what are you kidding me first of all that didn't happen does he really think that happened it's the most debunked hoax and all of it's literally it's literally the most debunked hoax if you count the number of clicks Steve Cortez got over 6 million clicks on his debunking video I've probably gotten I don't know if you added up all of the retweets I've gotten debunking that several million you know breitbarts run several stories you know Joel Pollock's a number of stories debunking it how many hits did that get so just tens of millions probably of hits debunking this thing and he writes for CNN and of course they don't they don't fact check them even on their own it's a depending piece so they don't fact Jack of uh and he's wondering now at the same time that he's wondering why he's why uh why president Trump is not being asked to be removed from office what's the biggest hashtag in the country at the same time the same time the biggest hashtag is obamigate literally accusing Obama of something worse than Watergate because Obama gate is way worse than Watergate it's not even close Watergate was sort of an ordinary little crime that probably didn't have that big of a difference in the end result of anything Obama gate was literally a coup attempt these things are not even close these are these are not in the same house they're not the same zip code if you were ever going to say something was worse than than Watergate Obama gate is a thousand times worse and while that's happening right now exactly right now not even in the same month but the same day that's happening Joe Locke our this call is saying that President Trump should be removed from office and that when he's puzzled the newspapers aren't calling for it are you kidding me today of all days this would be the day the newspapers would call for Trump to be removed after he's been basically cleared of all Russia collusion stuff that's when you want to remove him from office after he's been cleared of all charges and you know that the other side was running a coup this is the craziest dumbest thing I've ever seen in my life it's I don't even know how to react to it it's almost just entertaining I mean that's what it feels like all right does anybody have any questions they want to ask me I did oversleep a little bit today and the news is boring today it's all just repeat news so repeat news uh what if I told you people who don't agree with your view evidence or not will avoid your content people who don't agree me with me will avoid my content well that's how it works yeah I know somebody's mentioning Don Lemon a lot as being the dumbest uh pundit um first of all I would call him a host not a pundit but I don't I have no reason to believe that Don Lemon is dumb I what we see is you know taking a team side but we don't see dumbness I mean he's pretty high level jobs that he does well I doubt he's dumb uh Eiger how do you say senk's last name Iger I don't think he's dumb either I don't see anything that would suggest that any of these people are dumb or Mika Mika's not dumb are you kidding me um did you see her her interview with Biden was was very sharp I thought um okay well enough of that does anybody have any questions that they you would like to ask me because I feel as if the the news is hitting sort of a rut it just just feels like the news is going to be the same every day for a while uh we shouldn't have opened up look at the number of deaths and it's worse than the flu here's our death count I just feel like it's gonna be the same thing for a while all right all right let's see who we've got questions from I think flip flip let's see if you have a question flip do you have a question for me people who think in binaries uh because it's it's either all or nothing it's we want Grandma to die or I mean I and I I feel like you can't even have a conversation with the average person because it's so polarized yeah well I do find that just pointing out what you just pointed out usually works in person so if you're actually having a real conversation with somebody who's thinking in a binary the The High Ground maneuver as I call it is to take the adult position because if you say to them well you know it's not either either or it could be somewhere in between could be a little little bit of this most people will agree with you that it's somewhere in between they will immediately go to the adult position because it's embarrassing to stay at the kids table when you've already moved to the adult table and said something as adult as well you know it's not as clean as this or that you know there's there's a lot of gray area in the middle almost everybody in person will come with you but if you're talking on Twitter you don't have the back and forth forth and so they could just sort of keep their weird position because it's Twitter so I wouldn't even bother on Twitter but but in real life in real life you just pointed out they'll come with you because nobody stays at the Kids Table when you're sitting right next to them at the adult table talking like an adult they just have to they just have to join you or else they just feel like the child in the conversation it works every time so thanks for the question hey thank you rarely do I have advice that is that clean and and useful all right I don't know if this is a name or a label or even if this will work because it looks like we're not connecting all right looks like that didn't work let's try someone else I think people uh get stage fright when I select them let's take Cassandra Cassandra Cassandra are you there hi do you have a do you have a question for me Cassandra it's so long since we talked um I was wondering you can use in your job and stuff like that and I'm wondering are you going digital is there other ways that you know that we can promote you and you know build us better oh you're the best um yeah yeah so the background on that is I've I've gotten the cats on the roof um a letter from my syndication company cats on the roof is reference to warning that there's you know big trouble ahead at the moment the cat's on the roof but it's not looking good so um yeah so by the end of the year I would not be surprised if I'm not a cartoonist anymore uh because there just won't be newspapers and there may not be enough advertising that even the online stuff works so of course I'm not going to be the guy who's complaining because you know we live in a world where um I'm still I'm still in better shape than just about everybody so I'm not going to about it I'm just going to tell you what it is because I think I think it's good that we all know what everybody's situation is that's rather than complaining about it will any of those pick you up or uh I'm sorry what like mag is magazines or any of those will they pick you up well no because magazines are all going out of business too they're not really big customers so here's here's what I'll what I'm doing I'm moving to a non-advertising based model so some of my some of my material will be on locals locals.com so I've already moved this that's a subscriber site so you can see everything that you can see here will also be there conveniently but it has a bunch of features that you you won't have here it's a material that you all have here so I'll be putting special micro lessons there things that you won't get at anywhere else so the people who find the most value can simply pay a small amount subscription and they can get it and those who don't care we'll go watch something else so I'm kind of drawn to the subscription uh process partly because it's optional you know nobody has to do it and partly because I'm more comfortable in a situation where somebody says oh I got a value so I'll give you some some money that's equal to that value I'm always most comfortable there the whole ever the whole advertising thing feels like uh I'm giving somebody something for free but then they're penalized by watching a commercial they didn't want to watch it's just it's not ideal I like you know here's a dollar here's a dollar's worth of value we both win everybody goes home so I have a great host of that and so far the subscription service so you can find it at locals with an s on it locals.com um and just search for my name so far it's working well people are signing up I didn't know how that would go but it's going great so anybody anybody who wants to support me going forward that would be my preferred way to do it because that way you get something for your money yeah the the patreon stuff I tried it it just doesn't feel right I don't like people donating money I'd rather that this is a subscription to get something out of it but thank you for the question yeah it's pretty cool thank you all right take care bye foreign let's see what uh see what Joe has to say Joe come to us let the technology work Joe's technology was not working let's try Lowell I still don't know why some people don't connect when I try to connect them I don't know if they're quitting or not this one looks Joel can you hear me hi do you have a question for me Joel I I do not my name is Lowell but I I just wanted to tell you why did you change your name to Lowell yeah go ahead well I just wanted to tell you Scott that you're amazing man I I listen to you every day and you're changing my freaking life and I don't know I just want to tell you I love you man well I appreciate that tell me it would help me to tell me what would be could you point something out in particular that changed the way you think is that is that what's happening yeah any particular concept that you thought was especially powerful I guess it's kind of hard to put together since you're asking me but I've read your books man it's been like a it's been a journey the last couple of years I've been following you and I just feel like my life has gotten so much better like guys good you know how old are you I'm 37.

37.

yeah my the the stuff I do seems to work for every age but the the younger you are the more people find that you know they have more years to to practice what they've learned so they get a little more value on it good well I'm so glad for the call and thank you thanks thanks for taking my call man all right take care Lionel are you on there Lionel uh hello yes Coronavirus excuse me and now they see you well yeah or do you think yeah I think mostly revert back to normal um anytime there's any kind of a shock to the country people go out and buy guns but I think it's mostly the people who already have guns I feel like people were just getting extra guns I I doubt there were too many Democrats who were anti-gun who said to themselves you know this is going to put me over the edge now now I'm going to get a gun there had to be some but I doubt that so they kind of long-term shift to that that sort of stuff so uh probably we'll just go back to normal I have to I have to admit I I always have that same um same reaction too it's like any trouble I better get to the gun store but I'm in California so buying a gun is such a pain in the ass that you know I think twice all right um yeah the question was about what other people would buy more guns because the coronavirus stuff they already have but I don't think it'll be a major change in society after that the audience couldn't hear you Lyle so I'm going to disconnect but thank you for the call all right let's see where is I was looking for somebody in particular I just saw sign on but I guess we'll go with Norman Norman Norman are you there do you have a question I did enjoy your interface for reality what was the interface for life um I'm still thinking about it um I hoping it's a lot more than just you know the power of positive thinking which you know sometimes can be hard to force yourself to do yeah I also enjoyed your uh I actually subscribed to locals just to hear your thoughts on microfinance and uh you know I'm Gonna Keep some of those in mind I'm a lot older than uh Lowell and I did have a question I thought the most important question you could ask regarding uh uh pundits that are not that sharp is um whose predictions have been proven wrong the most well you know on the left that it's almost a it's like a million way tie isn't it because I think the people on the left if you subtract Michael Moore who was close to being right about Trump once you subtract him is there even one person you would say on the left who had anything like a good track record who would you suggest as even in the running for that after Michael Moore it's unbelievable how wrong we've been over and over and over and over again now when you say we do you mean do you consider yourself part of the the left I I that's not what I I am part of the left I am but but when I say we I mean everybody because I don't think anybody got it right well I will well well nobody well except for you okay foreign maybe we'll see if I get the uh if I get the Kamala Harris prediction right will you admit that it wasn't a Black Swan in other words you're I know I don't mean it was a black one I said you're a black one oh I have a Black Swan okay you're like sort of consistently kind of that's why people find you so fast hey this is why Nevada finds you so fascinating because you look at things from a different way and it actually works you know I was uh thinking about this when uh I was learning to play drums and I've been this will make sense in a minute I was watching some Dave Grohl uh of course famous musician plays lots of instruments and he was talking about learning drums and and also the the drummer that he hired was talking about it and I'm amazed at how many professional musicians learn to play their instrument without taking a lesson now some of it is they just have some natural talent but I think that some of the magic when people say how come nobody drums the way Dave Grohl does considered by many of the best rock drummer of all time and you see him do it he just doesn't do it the same way as other people and that like likewise other great drummers they simply don't do it the same way they've got their own thing and I think a lot of that has to do with not taking lessons and not going through grips on the guitar playing it like left-handed and upside down yeah I mean just the people who are self-taught they end up looking like more of a better product if it works out now in my case I'm a terrible artist who tried to become a cartoonist now because I didn't go through art school and I was just sort of working down on my own and trying to figure out what kind of marker pens worked on the paper and I mean just all of it I just had to work out on my own and I think that there's there's something to that that makes it look special when you're done because you can see it came out of a one person's mind and when you're looking at art you can tell the difference between the committee art and a one-person creation and it's really it's striking I mean you would you would know if a committee painted a painting you know you just say ah all the parts look good but I don't know it doesn't hold together for some reason it doesn't doesn't touch me but then you see something made by one crazy you know uh Van Gogh or something you go whoa whoever made that that's that's an art there I don't even know how you would make that if you tried to copy it and so I wondered that about um how I got here not going through any normal paths to be person talking about politics there's some benefits to working it out yourself and it makes you an original when you get there because you didn't learn it right so there's something about not learning it right that I find very appealing and it works for me but maybe not for everybody all right in fact if you can persist in your Folly you'll be a genius kind of a thing yeah you know I'll give you the simple version of this I wrote about once the best way to be a creative person is to try to copy somebody else you like in that field but do a bad job of it because other people won't recognize who you copied because you're not very good at it and that's exactly what I did so I tried to copy uh Gary Larson's art and I tried to copy uh some art from you know Mad Magazine and some other people and I would try to do it the way they did it as as best I could but if I would draw a character trying to make it the way Gary Larson would draw it it wouldn't come out right and it would look like my own character but it was still okay because it looked original so doing a bad job at copying other artists makes you look creative so uh that's the easy way to get there all right thanks for the question thank you all right let's try Kim see if Kim has a question for me Kim do you have a question for me all right is your current thought about whether the virus was released from the Wuhan lab versus not well would you say released uh it was I mean I've seen um possible possibilities there was an you know it was an accidental release um yeah I don't think there's any there's no chance in my mind there's no chance anybody did it intentionally is that the question uh no I was actually wondering if you've delved into whether it was naturally occurring it came from the wet Market process uh well you know that's in the category of things we'll never know for sure but if I had to if I had to bet on it I'd put a I'd say 80 chance it came from the lab 20 chance it came from all other means put together so 80 chance that's what it feels like to me but you know we're all just flying in the dark here I'm just saying that if there's such an obvious way it could have come from a lab and we know it was there and we don't know that there was ever anything like that in the wet Market because they didn't have bats it's leaning that way so 80 chance that sounds fair I'm with you on that all right well you have time for one more quickie okay okay um I'm the unusual animal of being a conservative who loves Elon Musk and I've noticed that he has now become you know red pilled let's say about um governmental Fascism and I wonder if he would um you know disrupt the next industry to disrupt would be the news using satellites his satellites that he's lost um I've never I've never seen any indication that Elon was sort of interested in the the news business it doesn't that's true he has um called for something called Pravda which is um a website that would check uh the truth uh yes he has he has ventured towards that but but that's more of a fact checking on the news as opposed to recapping the news yeah I don't know if he has an interest in that but it does seem to me that you can't you can't be a proper billionaire without controlling some part of the news I think Jeff Bezos and also Carlos Sims with the New York Times they've sort of set the standard that if you're going to be this rich it'd be nice to have your own news organization exactly and fox has lost its way so I think we have there's an opening there well as as Fox lost its way or uh are they trying to show a little bit more uh diversity of opinion I don't know because it because you can see both right it's not like any nobody's telling Hannity what to say nobody's telling Tucker what to say I mean so so you can't say fox lost his way if their biggest talent is doing whatever the hell they want just like always I I mean I do think you know I'm not there but my my opinion from the outside is that guys like uh Tucker and Hannity Laura Ingram you know the big opinion voices I don't think anybody's telling them what to say I don't think their bosses are telling them maybe but I'd be surprised on the big stuff anyway right okay so yeah the fact that you see more you know more diversity of opinion on Fox I'm not sure that's bad you know I can see why some of the audience will say ah get that out of there but you know think about the biggest problem of CNN viewers is they literally don't hear the news imagine consuming what you think is news all day and then you didn't get any because the the left just doesn't show right on the right and they've lost its way I don't think that I think they do present the other side better than CNN ever tried to so there is that but and that's what I'm looking for you know something that would be in the middle in this way yeah I saw there's a uh really good app that I'm going to point you to I was going to mention this as if I can quickly find it was a ground something maybe somebody could remind me before I but I'll find it quite quickly because I know exactly where I'm looking and the app is called this is from Jeff Pilkington he noticed this it's called the uh the ground owned news so ground let the ground you're standing on news it's an app and it it takes all the different news sites and puts them in their left right issues and finds out where they have blind spots and stuff so it sounds like the the idea that Elon was going for sort of a way to know who's giving it to you straight in comparison to all the others it feels like there's an app that's trying to do that I haven't looked at it closely but uh Jeff has Jeff Pilkington and he was impressed by it so give it a look good I've sent a lot of people your way and shout out to Tom Tennant all right thank you thank you all right somebody I'm looking for here if I can find him he's asked to join damn it oh he keeps disappearing all right let's try Andres um Andres are you there Andres are you there hello ah hi do you have a question for me uh yes basically in the country where I live we have also now people who hallucinate that um the government of power basically on the lockdown comes close to the Nazi power grab in 1933.

and um well apparently they are seeing an elephant in the room that the rest of the people are not seeing I'm just wondering what's a good what's a good way to convince somebody they're hallucinating something well uh convincing somebody that they're hallucinating is almost impossible because they they're seeing it with their own eyes they feel it that you can't talk somebody out of it but here's here's the best thing you could do you the best thing you could do is get them to arrive at it through questions so rather than say you're wrong you're seeing it wrong and people just Harden in their in their opinion you could say something like this really it looks like you think that the German situation is like the beginning of maybe some kind of a Nazi lockdown and they say yeah yeah then you say how different are things in Germany compared to all the other countries who are dealing with the same thing are they treating it differently and then your friend says well I don't know I haven't looked at other countries you say well it seems to me if you did they were they're all doing the same thing seems like every country is going through exactly the same thing I'm wondering why only in Germany it looks like the beginning of a Nazi takeover but in every other country such as is you know you name it it's not but you also realize that every country is having the same conversation right so I would broaden it away from Germany so that they could see that your situation is essentially identical to most of the other industrialized countries and just say if it's happening everywhere I don't know is the whole country going Nazi I don't think so or the whole whole uh the whole world probably not so that's the best you could do is just point out that it's everywhere so you shouldn't worry about it specifically that's that's not going to talk anybody out of it but it might make him pause a little bit because that's the sort of thing they have to talk themselves on it so you just want to ask the questions let them deal with the new the new expansion of their thinking maybe they go away and come back better but mostly you're not going to be able to change Minds on that stuff you know only only uh events themselves could change it which means we get past this and things go back to normal um but thanks for the question before you go um to correct me if I'm wrong but I got disconnected from following you and then then I re-followed you does that sound know what I what I meant basically following back you never followed me before so no glitch I never I never followed you before okay I've interacted with you so many times I thought I had so I'm following you now but thank you you're one of my best uh favorite um Twitter personalities because one of the great things about being in my position if you've got you know I'm closing in on half a million uh followers is that it attracts some people who are just unusually good at commenting on stuff and and you're one of them you're in my my top two or three I think and so it makes what I do so much more valuable because I'll say something crazy than people who actually know how to analyze things sort of know how to look at the world they come in in the comments and say yes or no or should have thought of this and then I start with these bad ideas and then the commenters such as yourself you're definitely one of the best uh just carve it down into something real and it's kind of a wonderful honestly so thank you for that thanks a lot bye all right take care yes it's a weird interface all right uh it looks like the interface let's see there we go we've got some unusual things happening here on my screen let's try Julie Julie Julie Julie will our technology work Julie can you hear me do you have a question I can go ahead I I was wondering what your take is the University's opening in the fall you were pretty early on saying watch what the other universities are doing and when they closed early you said the other universities would and they did so I have two 20 year olds who are eager to leave my house and get back to their lives at school where are their schools they are 20 years old or almost 20 and they go to the University of Connecticut yeah I think there'll be probably a pretty big difference in terms of when things open based on the school and what resources they have and and all that but I do think that whatever is going to be the same thing if some of them reopen most of them will um and I don't know if they're going to wait to see if the experience is bad at the other ones I doubt it I think they're just going to have to and a pure desperation and self-defense I think they're going to have to open because the biggest risk to colleges is that people find out they can do without them for a year one of the things that Naval said uh recently is if we go a year let's say this next coming year becomes more remote learning let's say the students don't go to school they stay home but they do a year of school with uh remote learning and what what are they going to pay for that are they going to pay the same as they would if they were there in person you know not counting the room and board part and and uh what happens at the end if they get just as good at education but they did it remotely how is the college going to justify charging the same amount next year exactly exactly because especially with engineering you really need the lab work you need to be being on it you can't just learn through the computer very well although I think that's just because we're not good at it yet I would argue that we will reach a point where learning it on the computer will be so much better I mean you'll you'll be able to have a you know a 3D View and you'll be on your computer and when you're doing engineering you'll actually be able to reach out and touch objects that don't exist and put them together so you know once you're actually manipulating a virtual space with virtual objects then the online stuff will be way better than in person but not yet all right thanks thank you thank you foreign yeah college is going to be just a mess I'm so glad I'm not happy to deal with that all right Joe it looks like you came back Joe Joe Hey Joe Jim do you have a question for me Joe Scott yes do you have a question yes um um I really enjoy your show it's uh I I really value what you do but I have to know with what this ongoing coup is someone gonna get per blocked I I gotta see somebody high level punished well the problem is that the people at the high level are smart enough to not leave any uh let's say you know bloody gloves at the scene so what I would expect is that it's going to come down to something like well I knew the president wanted me to do this but he didn't say it or he didn't say it but it was obvious that this would be a good thing and he'd like it or uh Clapper didn't directly tell us to do this but we interpreted this as part of our job so you could get this this weird um you know not direct evidence of the assuming that there was any kind of a ringleader or ring leaders I don't think there's going to be direct evidence for them to be involved I think it will be at most a verbal conversation that could be interpreted two ways so I don't I don't think you're going to see anybody at a at a bread and Clapper or Obama level doing a purple one I don't think that's oh no no I I get that but maybe Comey he he seems like a natural Fall Guy from a simulation perspective he does he does Kobe seems like what I mean it feels like if you wrote this as a movie Kobe would be going down I I feel the same way and I don't know exactly why that was the point I wanted to make I see his name even sounds like Kami you know it's perfect yeah call me that was funny um yeah there's there's something um there's something about Comey that makes them seem like the natural I'd bet against it though because you know everything that Comey has done uh indicates that he's smart enough to know how the system works I mean he doesn't yeah so Kobe is another one you you could say whatever you want to say about him if you like him or don't like him but you can't say he's not smart right I mean he's a bit smart with air covering smart without air cover too you know what I mean yeah well okay if the bosses love you you know you don't have to be that smart that's true that's true but yeah yeah go ahead I I just love what you've been talking about lately in terms of the simulation and stuff I found it in my own life you've been you've been really insightful you've validated a lot of things I've said I knew president Trump would win the moment I saw him come down those stairs everybody thought I was insane I never relented once I said have you seen Hillary Clinton have you seen this guy I was even a fan because you know I'm just saying you know are your detector that that that that really resonated and your Island stuff you know the prisoner Island I was on prisoner Island I know what you're talking about uh okay good well thanks God glad that resonates thanks Joe all right let's take one more we'll do one more can't we who really really wants to talk to me badly I don't know if anybody does but we'll find out all right Leanne are you connected hi what's your question LAN it's about the convict Island thing you brought up on last night's Periscope okay yeah and I I say that I thought to myself I think I have one of those stories real or not right but I'm just it's a little off and I'm not sure if um I should be using it as a story so I wanted to tell you yes you can do it but you have to make it the quick version because okay yes absolutely um mines always involves a plane crash I'm all always in it whether I'm actually on a plane or just thinking about it walking around and I'm always I always survive no matter the scenario where I go into a side of a mountain or into the water even when the plane's going down I'm helping people like and I'm thinking it's okay because I know I'm going to survive this I'll always survive no matter the scenario well that that is a that is a really uh healthy and productive view unless it keeps you unless it makes you do dangerous things you don't do dangerous extreme sports do you no not at all no yeah I like that because that sounds like just a a really healthy mindset it's not really going to impinge on your real world you know because you know it probably won't change anything you do in the real world but it'll keep you with that positive mindset I like it now the only Improvement I would offer on that yeah to the extent that you could come up with news stories is one that had more about your own efforts being what keeps you safe so right now Mac.

Gyver type things in my head you know that I how I get off the side of the mountain you know little shorts and a t-shirt or something right is that the kind you mean or yeah yeah so so if you keep your little uh imaginary story where you're the hero through your own good work and let's say your good work is something you could actually do you know something humanly you could do it might be a stretch but it's humanly possible uh and I I like where you're going with that okay I'll I'll keep uh rewriting the story a little bit thank you thank you so for those of you who uh didn't get the context there last night I was talking about having stories of your life and just briefly one of my stories that's not a real story but one that I keep as like an operating system for the rest of my software in my head it's it's the thing that keeps me um tuned to winning if you will my story is that imagine I'm dropped onto the island of convicts it's only prisoners on this island and I'm dropped off from the helicopter and on day one they beat me up day two they Bibi up day three they beat me up day seven they beat me up I'm just like you know abused and turned into like a human human whatever but if you come back in a year I'm in charge of the island and I've killed everybody who touched me so that's the story that I keep because you could beat me up for a week or two or a month but when I'm done if I ever get a little bit of traction if you ever turn your back if I get the slightest Advantage I'm going to run your damn Island and I'm going to kill every one of you and you can bet on it so that's that's the software I keep in my head that I apply to every situation because you come into situations and day one is often not so good and day two is often not so good too in three weeks in it's not so good but I'm gonna run the island so it doesn't matter what the actual situation is I tell myself yeah getting beat up the first week that's just part of the job I'm gonna run this island so it doesn't have to be true it just has to be a story you run in your head that you you let influence your general demeanor so it's how you program your personalities with stories because we're story creatures all right um so that's why you missed um never doubt the power of coconut and coconut pies well I don't know what that means but I've never doubted I guess that's the island uh may we know your Island to take over a plan roughly speaking yes yes I'll tell you I would be able to influence people one at a time to think that working with me was better than not so I would convince people one at a time that being on my side was their best play until I had enough of them and then I'd run the island but it'd be one one-on-one thing you'd have to convince them individually all right that is all um Ben says in the comments I'm Scott's prison lover in my dream well you need to upgrade your uh your movie story that's the worst possible one that was pretty funny though all right that's all I got for now I'll talk to you tonight you know where

um

hey everybody come on in here

it's time for well you know what time

for coffee with Scott Adams

printing out my notes here I'm a little

bit late yes I did a little thing called

sleeping in

don't like to do that a lot

yeah late again

overslept

so I know what you'd like to do probably

this morning you'd like probably like to

join in on the simultaneous Sip and all

it takes is a copper among your glass

attacker Challenger starting a canteen

Checker flask a vessel of any kind

filled with your favorite liquid

I like coffee and join me now of the

unparalleled pleasure the dopamines the

other day the thing makes everything

better including the damn pandemic

damn pandemic yeah join me now go

so Periscope has this minor bug in it

that if you use a certain kind of

headset where you can talk and listen

you have to remember to hit a button

before you go live or else you can't

talk to people

so I had to redo it and that's all it

was

uh good morning good morning let me grab

my notes don't go anywhere

today the news

looks like uh it's all repeat news

let me do let me do the news for today

but I can also do the news for every day

for the next three weeks are you ready

here's the news every day for the next

three weeks

there are some doctors in Provo who are

doing a study on a new potential

coronavirus treatment called Provo fluff

they have signed up people but it's not

completely a good study because they

don't have a good control group

so we're waiting on that

Tuesday the news will be

there's some doctors and blah blah blah

they're testing some blah blah blah

they're getting some people blah blah

blah we hope it works blah blah blah

I don't believe any of the uh any of the

news about tests anymore do you

I really don't I just you know

everything that I see about this they

try this and they got to read good

results and it's not quite scientific

and you know it's only 80 people but it

looks good I've got a feeling that none

of it's real at this point just feels

like none of it's real

um

certainly by now if hydroxychloroquine

was a big deal

we'd know it by now right would you

agree would you all agree with this

statement that if hydroxychloroquine was

a magic pill

as opposed to just being a little bit

useful which I think is where it's going

to end up

we'd know it by now

the same with most of the drugs if if

any of the drugs they're testing were

really just knocking the crap out of

this virus we'd know it by now

um yeah let's talk about Obama gate you

know when Obama Gade first started

trending as a hashtag I didn't even know

exactly what it was but I guess it just

refers to the

the looking into the origins of the

Russia occlusion hoax and we know now

that

uh Barack Obama apparently at least knew

that the the wiretap on Flynn had

happened

but we don't know what else he knew what

else did he know hmm

so I was looking at the trending hashtag

and there was a tweet just a few minutes

ago there's a tweet where I showed the

hashtag at 2.6 million which if you

don't follow the hashtags that's a lot

because typically a trending hashtag

could have like 6 000 tweets or you know

sixty thousand if it's a really big one

that would be a really big hashtag sixty

thousand people retweeting it

Obama Gates had a 2.6 million

but here's what's interesting just

minutes after I had 2.6 million it had

2.1 million

I don't know if it's just the difference

between how they

how they count the hashtags at different

times might be a lag or something but uh

I don't know if it went down or up I saw

some other people complaining that it

went down but I'm not sure they saw it

correctly I'm not sure I saw it

correctly either

um so the weirdest thing happened last

night some of you had the same weird

experience and I want to see how many of

you experienced this the first part of

it you had to have joined me last night

when I was talking about for the second

time the the simulation

and so I did my little Periscope

entirely on the topic of the simulation

and had a how to reprogram your your

reality with stories

and I'm done with that and I'm kind of

winding down for the night and I turn on

Fox News and they were ending up a

special about Watergate I guess and I

guess there was some time left over in

which they'd stuck in and extended

I guess a paid must have been a paid

thing from Joel Osteen now typically

Joel would be in front of a church

packed full of people giving them his

inspirational message

but

because of the coronavirus it was an

empty church and he was just giving his

act here's the part that blew my mind

it's Joel Lusty

and uh

the way he decided to talk about the

coronavirus our current situation is

that God was updating his software

do you believe that and he used to use

the phrase repeatedly throughout his

presentation he talked about the

coronavirus being thought of as a reboot

and that God sometimes needs to update

the software

and that he's updating the software

that's what the coronavirus situation is

gives us all time to you know take a

pause and step back and that when we go

back we will effectively have rebooted

civilization

along with our understanding of our

place in it

it's exactly what I said like half an

hour before except I'd left out the the

Christianity part

now the beauty of the simulation is that

it works as an overlay on any religion

you can put it on reincarnation

works for that you can put it on the

Islam any religion you want still works

so the what were the odds that I would

give a whole you know 45 minutes of

presentation about

the universe being a simulation made of

software and turn on TV and find one of

the most famous

Christian preachers saying exactly the

same thing

now yeah I'm not promoting his view or

or him or anything like that I know a

lot of people like him he's he's he does

a good job of keeping people uh let's

say motivated and feeling good about

themselves and if he makes money from

that I'm okay with that I don't think

anything about that is

too sketchy

um at least anything I've heard so if

you know something I I haven't heard it

but that was just weird all right here's

an update on

what could be

my best prediction ever now I do think

that my prediction about Evolution made

22 years ago pretty darn good but I'm

never going to get attention for that

one because people are still yeah I

don't think people are really going to

change their mind about where things are

there so I'll never get I'll never get

credit for that prediction

for a variety of reasons but this one

the Harris being the vice presidential

pick and then being considered at the

top of the ticket

it's getting closer and closer so Joel

Pollock noted in his tweet that Politico

is speaking about Harris as the you know

the likely one so Politico is already

talking about her as

pretty much the one you know they don't

go right out and saying it but they talk

about the activity in the Democratic

party and who likes what and who's

talking about what and it's starting to

sound like the consensus is pretty solid

around uh around Harris right now

and they talk about Elizabeth Warren

being a strong second and I think to

myself

I don't see it

if the second employee's Place choice is

literally impossible in my view

let me let me tell you this if Elizabeth

Warren is picked for the vice

presidential spot

I don't know anything about anything

that would be

to me that would be that would just blow

my whole world apart because I would

just say I don't understand anything

I've watched for the past year if that

happens because what I watched

was Warren being basically a you know a

death sentence for the Democratic party

if they add her to the the ticket what

the heck would they they be thinking

unless they're playing for a draft pick

next year but I don't think it works

that way

so

when your second choice

is just ridiculous

doesn't that kind of tell you they've

settled on the First Choice already

because you would have a a little better

looking second choice right I mean

obviously Warren is super capable you

know I'm not I'm not talking about that

but in terms of her fit and whether she

could win and all that you know it's

just an obvious losing proposition

all right

yeah so if that comes in

that will be my finest prediction but

we'll see

um

the dumbest pundit do you have a uh does

anybody have a nomination for the

dumbest political pundit working today

I want to I want to see your opinions

now when you say dumbest or when I say

dumbest I don't mean that they lie the

most because you're you're probably

going to say oh you know that's Jim

Acosta he's the dumbest one that a lot

of people watching this would say that

but I don't have any evidence of that

you know there you have evidence that

you know he's uh let's say

a member of one side but you don't know

what he really thinks right because a

lot of a lot of people in the public say

ridiculous things

but you think to yourself well they

don't believe him

you know that's just their job your

abundant you say ridiculous things about

the other side you say your side is

Magic and and awesome

so you don't really know that they're

dumb you just know that they've taken

aside

but there is one pundit that I gotta say

no matter what he's talking all he

registers is stupid

do you know who it is

give me some of your guess about a

pundit who registers is actually just

stupid

not just disagreeing with you

all right I'll wait to see your answers

my nomination is Joe Lockhart

Joe Lockhart even looks like the dumbest

guy on TV doesn't he

all right now I'm gonna be laughing

because I'm looking at your choices now

who would say Rachel maddowell now you

could disagree with everything Rachel

maddows has but how in the world do you

say she's dumb

she's brilliant you can hate everything

she says but she's brilliant and there's

no question about that

yeah well you know you I'm seeing names

like saliza J Ruben stelter I don't

think any of them are dumb

not even a little bit

I don't think Don lemon's dumb

now they're the ones Chris Cuomo he's

not dumb they're all the ones that I

would put in the category of they're

just on the side

but you compare you compare the names

that you've just said

to Joe Lockhart

I think it's a different category so

here's so Joe Lockhart is writing today

in for cnn.com

uh he's wondering why no newspapers have

called for the removal of President

Trump

and you say to yourself what what are

you even talking about yeah that's right

Joe Lockhart's wondering why no

newspapers have called like the boards

of newspapers where they get together

and they say this is this is the opinion

of our newspaper because he notes that

when Nixon was in trouble for Watergate

that there were lots of newspapers that

called for Nixon's removal

and he's saying how come there's no

newspaper doing that for Trump because

after all

Trump was guilty of calling those

neo-nazis fine people in Charlottesville

and I'm just saying what

what are you kidding me first of all

that didn't happen does he really think

that happened it's the most debunked

hoax and all of it's literally it's

literally the most debunked hoax if you

count the number of clicks Steve Cortez

got over 6 million clicks on his

debunking video I've probably gotten I

don't know if you added up all of the

retweets I've gotten debunking that

several million you know breitbarts run

several stories you know Joel Pollock's

a number of stories debunking it how

many hits did that get so just tens of

millions probably of hits debunking this

thing and he writes for CNN

and of course they don't they don't fact

check them even on their own

it's a depending piece so they don't

fact Jack of uh

and he's wondering now at the same time

that he's wondering

why he's why uh

why president Trump is not being asked

to be removed from office

what's the biggest hashtag in the

country at the same time

the same time the biggest hashtag is

obamigate

literally accusing Obama of something

worse than Watergate

because Obama gate

is way worse than Watergate

it's not even close

Watergate was sort of an ordinary little

crime

that probably didn't have that big of a

difference in the end result of anything

Obama gate

was literally a coup attempt these

things are not even close these are

these are not in the same house they're

not the same zip code if you were ever

going to say something was worse than

than Watergate

Obama gate is a thousand times worse and

while that's happening

right now exactly right now not even in

the same month but the same day that's

happening

Joe Locke our this call is saying that

President Trump should be removed from

office and that when he's puzzled the

newspapers aren't calling for it are you

kidding me today of all days this would

be the day the newspapers would call for

Trump to be removed after he's been

basically cleared of all Russia

collusion stuff that's when you want to

remove him from office after he's been

cleared of all charges and you know that

the other side was running a coup

this is the craziest dumbest thing I've

ever seen in my life it's I don't even

know how to react to it it's almost just

entertaining

I mean that's what it feels like all

right does anybody have any questions

they want to ask me I did oversleep a

little bit today and the news is boring

today it's all just repeat news

so repeat news

uh what if I told you people who don't

agree with your view evidence or not

will avoid your content

people who don't agree me with me will

avoid my content well that's how it

works

yeah I know somebody's mentioning Don

Lemon a lot as being the dumbest

uh pundit

um first of all I would call him a host

not a pundit but

I don't I have no reason to believe that

Don Lemon is dumb I what we see is

you know taking a team side but we don't

see dumbness

I mean he's pretty high level jobs that

he does well I doubt he's dumb

uh

Eiger how do you say senk's last name

Iger

I don't think he's dumb either

I don't see anything that would suggest

that any of these people are dumb

or Mika

Mika's not dumb are you kidding me

um did you see her her interview with

Biden was

was very sharp I thought

um

okay well enough of that does anybody

have any questions that they you would

like to ask me because I feel as if the

the news is hitting sort of a rut

it just just feels like the news is

going to be the same every day for a

while uh we shouldn't have opened up

look at the number of deaths and it's

worse than the flu here's our death

count I just feel like it's gonna be the

same thing for a while all right

all right let's see who we've got

questions from

I think flip

flip let's see if you have a question

flip do you have a question for me

people who think in binaries uh because

it's it's either all or nothing it's we

want Grandma to die or I mean I and I I

feel like you can't even have a

conversation with the average person

because it's so polarized yeah well I do

find that just pointing out what you

just pointed out usually works in person

so if you're actually having a real

conversation with somebody who's

thinking in a binary the The High Ground

maneuver as I call it is to take the

adult position because if you say to

them well you know it's not either

either or it could be somewhere in

between could be a little little bit of

this most people will agree with you

that it's somewhere in between they will

immediately go to the adult position

because it's embarrassing to stay at the

kids table when you've already moved to

the adult table and said something as

adult as well you know it's not as clean

as this or that you know there's there's

a lot of gray area in the middle almost

everybody in person will come with you

but if you're talking on Twitter you

don't have the back and forth forth and

so they could just sort of keep their

weird position because it's Twitter so I

wouldn't even bother on Twitter but but

in real life in real life you just

pointed out they'll come with you

because nobody stays at the Kids Table

when you're sitting right next to them

at the adult table talking like an adult

they just have to they just have to join

you or else they just feel like the

child in the conversation it works every

time so thanks for the question hey

thank you

rarely do I have advice that is that

clean and

and useful

all right

I don't know if this is a name or a

label or even if this will work because

it looks like we're not connecting all

right looks like that didn't work

let's try someone else

I think people uh get stage fright when

I select them

let's take Cassandra

Cassandra

Cassandra are you there

hi do you have a do you have a question

for me Cassandra

it's so long since we talked um I was

wondering you

can use in your job and stuff like that

and I'm wondering are you going digital

is there other ways that you know that

we can promote you and you know build us

better oh you're the best

um yeah yeah so the background on that

is I've I've gotten the cats on the roof

um

a letter from my syndication company

cats on the roof is reference to warning

that there's you know big trouble ahead

at the moment the cat's on the roof but

it's not looking good so

um yeah so by the end of the year I

would not be surprised if I'm not a

cartoonist anymore uh because there just

won't be newspapers and there may not be

enough advertising that even the online

stuff works so

of course I'm not going to be the guy

who's complaining because you know we

live in a world where

um I'm still I'm still in better shape

than just about everybody so I'm not

going to about it I'm just going

to tell you what it is because I think I

think it's good that we all know what

everybody's situation is that's rather

than complaining about it

will any of those pick you up or uh I'm

sorry what like mag is magazines or any

of those will they pick you up well no

because magazines are all going out of

business too they're not really big

customers so here's here's what I'll

what I'm doing I'm moving to a

non-advertising based model so some of

my some of my material will be on locals

locals.com so I've already moved

this that's a subscriber site so you can

see everything that you can see here

will also be there conveniently but it

has a bunch of features that you you

won't have here it's a material that you

all have here so I'll be putting special

micro lessons there things that you

won't get at anywhere else so the people

who find the most value

can simply pay a small amount

subscription and they can get it and

those who don't care we'll go watch

something else so I'm kind of drawn to

the subscription uh process partly

because it's optional you know nobody

has to do it and partly because I'm more

comfortable in a situation where

somebody says oh I got a value so I'll

give you some some money that's equal to

that value I'm always most comfortable

there the whole ever the whole

advertising thing feels like uh I'm

giving somebody something for free but

then they're penalized by watching a

commercial they didn't want to watch

it's just it's not ideal I like you know

here's a dollar here's a dollar's worth

of value we both win everybody goes home

so I have a great host of that and so

far the subscription service so you can

find it at locals with an s on it

locals.com

um and just search for my name so far

it's working well people are signing up

I didn't know how that would go but it's

going great so anybody anybody who wants

to support me going forward that would

be my preferred way to do it because

that way you get something for your

money yeah the the patreon stuff

I tried it it just doesn't feel right I

don't like people donating money I'd

rather that this is a subscription to

get something out of it but thank you

for the question yeah it's pretty cool

thank you all right take care bye

foreign

let's see what

uh

see what Joe has to say

Joe come to us let the technology work

Joe's technology was not working

let's try

Lowell

I still don't know why some people don't

connect when I try to connect them I

don't know if they're quitting or not

this one looks

Joel can you hear me

hi do you have a question for me Joel I

I do not my name is Lowell but I I just

wanted to tell you

why did you change your name to Lowell

yeah go ahead

well I just wanted to tell you Scott

that you're amazing man I I listen to

you every day and you're changing my

freaking life and I don't know I just

want to tell you I love you man

well I appreciate that tell me it would

help me to tell me what would be could

you point something out in particular

that changed the way you think is that

is that what's happening

yeah any particular concept that you

thought was especially powerful

I guess it's kind of hard to put

together since you're asking me but I've

read your books man it's been like a

it's been a journey the last couple of

years I've been following you and I just

feel like my life has gotten so much

better like guys

good you know how old are you

I'm 37. 37. yeah my the the stuff I do

seems to work for every age but the the

younger you are the more people find

that you know they have more years to to

practice what they've learned so they

get a little more value on it good well

I'm so glad for the call and thank you

thanks thanks for taking my call man all

right take care

Lionel are you on there Lionel

uh hello

yes

Coronavirus

excuse me and now they see you

well yeah

or do you think yeah

I think mostly revert back to normal

um anytime there's any kind of a shock

to the country people go out and buy

guns but I think it's mostly the people

who already have guns

I feel like people were just getting

extra guns I I doubt there were too many

Democrats who were anti-gun who said to

themselves you know this is going to put

me over the edge now now I'm going to

get a gun there had to be some

but I doubt that so they kind of

long-term shift to that that sort of

stuff so uh probably we'll just go back

to normal I have to I have to admit I I

always have that same

um same reaction too it's like any

trouble I better get to the gun store

but I'm in California so buying a gun is

such a pain in the ass that you know I

think twice

all right um yeah the question was about

what other people would buy more guns

because the coronavirus stuff they

already have but I don't think it'll be

a major change in society after that

the audience couldn't hear you Lyle so

I'm going to disconnect but thank you

for the call

all right let's see where is I was

looking for somebody in particular I

just saw sign on but

I guess we'll go with Norman

Norman

Norman are you there do you have a

question

I did enjoy your interface for reality

what was the interface for life

um I'm still thinking about it

um I hoping it's a lot more than just

you know the power of positive thinking

which you know sometimes can be hard to

force yourself to do yeah

I also enjoyed your uh I actually

subscribed to locals just to hear your

thoughts on microfinance

and uh you know I'm Gonna Keep some of

those in mind I'm a lot older than uh

Lowell and I did have a question I

thought the most important question you

could ask regarding uh

uh pundits that are not that sharp is um

whose predictions have been proven wrong

the most well you know on the left that

it's almost a it's like a million way

tie isn't it because I think the people

on the left if you subtract Michael

Moore who was close to being right about

Trump once you subtract him is there

even one person you would say on the

left who had anything like a good track

record who would you suggest as even in

the running for that after Michael Moore

it's unbelievable how wrong we've been

over and over and over and over again

now when you say we do you mean do you

consider yourself part of the the left I

I that's not what I I am part of the

left I am but but when I say we I mean

everybody because I don't think anybody

got it right

well I will well well nobody well except

for you okay

foreign

maybe we'll see if I get the uh if I get

the Kamala Harris prediction right will

you admit that it wasn't a Black Swan

in other words you're I know I don't

mean it was a black one I said you're a

black one oh I have a Black Swan okay

you're like sort of consistently kind of

that's why people find you so fast hey

this is why Nevada finds you so

fascinating because you look at things

from a different way and it actually

works

you know I was uh thinking about this

when uh I was learning to play drums and

I've been this will make sense in a

minute I was watching some Dave Grohl uh

of course famous musician plays lots of

instruments and he was talking about

learning drums and and also the the

drummer that he hired was talking about

it and I'm amazed at how many

professional musicians learn to play

their instrument without taking a lesson

now some of it is they just have some

natural talent but I think that some of

the magic when people say how come

nobody drums the way Dave Grohl does

considered by many of the best rock

drummer of all time and you see him do

it he just doesn't do it the same way as

other people and that like likewise

other great drummers they simply don't

do it the same way they've got their own

thing and I think a lot of that has to

do with not taking lessons and not going

through grips on the guitar playing it

like left-handed and upside down yeah I

mean just the people who are self-taught

they end up looking like more of a

better product if it works out now in my

case I'm a terrible artist who tried to

become a cartoonist now because I didn't

go through art school and I was just

sort of working down on my own and

trying to figure out what kind of marker

pens worked on the paper and I mean just

all of it I just had to work out on my

own and I think that there's

there's something to that that makes it

look special when you're done because

you can see it came out of a one

person's mind and when you're looking at

art you can tell the difference between

the committee art and a one-person

creation and it's really it's striking I

mean you would you would know if a

committee painted a painting you know

you just say ah all the parts look good

but I don't know it doesn't hold

together for some reason it doesn't

doesn't touch me but then you see

something made by one crazy you know uh

Van Gogh or something you go whoa

whoever made that that's that's an art

there I don't even know how you would

make that if you tried to copy it and so

I wondered that about

um how I got here

not going through any normal paths to be

person talking about politics there's

some benefits to working it out yourself

and it makes you an original when you

get there because you didn't learn it

right so there's something about not

learning it right that I find very

appealing and it works for me but maybe

not for everybody all right in fact if

you can persist in your Folly you'll be

a genius kind of a thing yeah you know

I'll give you the simple version of this

I wrote about once the best way to be a

creative person is to try to copy

somebody else you like in that field but

do a bad job of it because other people

won't recognize who you copied because

you're not very good at it and that's

exactly what I did so I tried to copy uh

Gary Larson's art and I tried to copy uh

some art from you know Mad Magazine and

some other people and I would try to do

it the way they did it as as best I

could but if I would draw a character

trying to make it the way Gary Larson

would draw it it wouldn't come out right

and it would look like my own character

but it was still okay because it looked

original so doing a bad job at copying

other artists

makes you look creative so uh that's the

easy way to get there all right thanks

for the question thank you

all right let's try

Kim

see if Kim has a question for me

Kim do you have a question for me

all right

is your current thought about whether

the virus was released from the Wuhan

lab versus not

well would you say released uh it was I

mean I've seen um possible possibilities

there was an you know it was an

accidental release

um yeah I don't think there's any

there's no chance in my mind there's no

chance anybody did it intentionally is

that the question uh no I was actually

wondering if you've delved into whether

it was naturally occurring it came from

the wet Market process

uh well you know that's in the category

of things we'll never know for sure but

if I had to if I had to bet on it I'd

put a

I'd say 80 chance it came from the lab

20 chance it came from all other means

put together so 80 chance that's what it

feels like to me but you know we're all

just flying in the dark here I'm just

saying that if there's such an obvious

way it could have come from a lab and we

know it was there and we don't know that

there was ever anything like that in the

wet Market because they didn't have bats

it's leaning that way so 80 chance that

sounds fair

I'm with you on that all right well you

have time for one more quickie okay okay

um I'm the unusual animal of being a

conservative who loves Elon Musk and

I've noticed that he has now become you

know red pilled let's say about

um governmental Fascism and I wonder if

he would um you know disrupt the next

industry to disrupt would be the news

using satellites his satellites that

he's lost

um I've never I've never seen any

indication that Elon was sort of

interested in the the news business it

doesn't that's true he has um called for

something called Pravda which is

um a website that would check uh the

truth uh yes he has he has ventured

towards that but but that's more of a

fact checking on the news as opposed to

recapping the news yeah I don't know if

he has an interest in that but it does

seem to me that you can't you can't be a

proper billionaire without controlling

some part of the news

I think Jeff Bezos and also Carlos Sims

with the New York Times they've sort of

set the standard that if you're going to

be this rich

it'd be nice to have your own news

organization exactly and fox has lost

its way so I think we have there's an

opening there well as as Fox lost its

way or uh are they trying to show a

little bit more uh diversity of opinion

I don't know because it because you can

see both right it's not like any

nobody's telling Hannity what to say

nobody's telling Tucker what to say I

mean so so you can't say fox lost his

way if their biggest talent is doing

whatever the hell they want just like

always I I mean I do think you know I'm

not there but my my opinion from the

outside is that guys like uh Tucker and

Hannity Laura Ingram you know the big

opinion voices I don't think anybody's

telling them what to say I don't think

their bosses are telling them maybe but

I'd be surprised on the big stuff anyway

right okay so yeah the fact that you see

more

you know more diversity of opinion on

Fox I'm not sure that's bad you know I

can see why some of the audience will

say ah get that out of there but you

know think about the biggest problem of

CNN viewers is they literally don't hear

the news imagine consuming what you

think is news all day and then you

didn't get any because the the left just

doesn't show right on the right and

they've lost its way I don't think that

I think they do present the other side

better than CNN ever tried to so there

is that but and that's what I'm looking

for you know something that would be in

the middle in this way yeah I saw

there's a uh really good app that I'm

going to point you to I was going to

mention this as if I can quickly find it

was a ground something maybe somebody

could remind me before I but I'll find

it quite quickly because I know exactly

where I'm looking and the app is called

this is from Jeff Pilkington he noticed

this it's called the uh the ground owned

news

so ground let the ground you're standing

on news it's an app and it it takes all

the different news sites and puts them

in their left right

issues and finds out where they have

blind spots and stuff so it sounds like

the the idea that Elon was going for

sort of a way to know who's giving it to

you straight in comparison to all the

others it feels like there's an app

that's trying to do that I haven't

looked at it closely but uh Jeff has

Jeff Pilkington and he was impressed by

it so give it a look good I've sent a

lot of people your way and shout out to

Tom Tennant

all right thank you

thank you all right

somebody I'm looking for here

if I can find him he's asked to join

damn it oh he keeps disappearing

all right let's try Andres

um

Andres are you there

Andres are you there

hello

ah hi

do you have a question for me uh yes

basically in the country where I live we

have also now people who hallucinate

that

um the government of power basically on

the lockdown comes close to the Nazi

power grab in 1933.

and um

well apparently they are seeing an

elephant in the room that the rest of

the people are not seeing I'm just

wondering what's a good what's a good

way to convince somebody they're

hallucinating something

well uh convincing somebody that they're

hallucinating is almost impossible

because they they're seeing it with

their own eyes they feel it that you

can't talk somebody out of it but here's

here's the best thing you could do you

the best thing you could do is get them

to arrive at it through questions so

rather than say you're wrong you're

seeing it wrong and people just Harden

in their in their opinion you could say

something like this really it looks like

you think that the German situation is

like the beginning of maybe some kind of

a Nazi lockdown and they say yeah yeah

then you say how different are things in

Germany compared to all the other

countries who are dealing with the same

thing are they treating it differently

and then your friend says well I don't

know I haven't looked at other countries

you say well it seems to me if you did

they were they're all doing the same

thing seems like every country is going

through exactly the same thing I'm

wondering why only in Germany it looks

like the beginning of a Nazi takeover

but in every other country such as is

you know you name it it's not but you

also realize that every country is

having the same conversation right so I

would broaden it away from Germany so

that they could see that your situation

is essentially identical to most of the

other industrialized countries and just

say if it's happening everywhere

I don't know is the whole country going

Nazi I don't think so or the whole whole

uh the whole world probably not so

that's the best you could do is just

point out that it's everywhere so you

shouldn't worry about it specifically

that's that's not going to talk anybody

out of it but it might make him pause a

little bit because that's the sort of

thing they have to talk themselves on it

so you just want to ask the questions

let them deal with the new the new

expansion of their thinking maybe they

go away and come back better but mostly

you're not going to be able to change

Minds on that stuff you know only only

uh events themselves could change it

which means we get past this and things

go back to normal

um but thanks for the question before

you go

um

to correct me if I'm wrong but I got

disconnected from following you and then

then I re-followed you does that sound

know what I what I meant basically

following back you never followed me

before so no glitch I never I never

followed you before

okay I've interacted with you so many

times I thought I had so I'm following

you now but thank you you're one of my

best uh favorite

um Twitter

personalities because one of the great

things about being in my position if

you've got you know I'm closing in on

half a million uh followers is that it

attracts some people who are just

unusually good at commenting on stuff

and and you're one of them you're in my

my top two or three I think and so it

makes what I do so much more valuable

because I'll say something crazy than

people who actually know how to analyze

things sort of know how to look at the

world they come in in the comments and

say yes or no or should have thought of

this and then I start with these bad

ideas and then the commenters such as

yourself you're definitely one of the

best uh just carve it down into

something real and it's kind of a

wonderful honestly so thank you for that

thanks a lot bye all right take care yes

it's a weird interface

all right uh it looks like the interface

let's see

there we go

we've got some unusual things happening

here on my screen let's try

Julie

Julie Julie Julie will our technology

work Julie can you hear me do you have a

question

I can go ahead I I was wondering what

your take is the University's opening in

the fall you were pretty early on saying

watch what the other universities are

doing and when they closed early you

said the other universities would and

they did so I have two 20 year olds who

are eager to leave my house and get back

to their lives at school where are their

schools

they are 20 years old or almost 20 and

they go to the University of Connecticut

yeah I think there'll be probably a

pretty big difference in terms of when

things open based on the school and what

resources they have and and all that but

I do think that whatever is going to be

the same thing if some of them reopen

most of them will

um and I don't know if they're going to

wait to see if the experience is bad at

the other ones I doubt it I think

they're just going to have to and a pure

desperation and self-defense I think

they're going to have to open because

the biggest risk to colleges is that

people find out they can do without them

for a year

one of the things that Naval said uh

recently is if we go a year let's say

this next coming year becomes more

remote learning let's say the students

don't go to school they stay home but

they do a year of school with uh remote

learning and what what are they going to

pay for that are they going to pay the

same as they would if they were there in

person you know not counting the room

and board part and and uh what happens

at the end if they get just as good at

education

but they did it remotely how is the

college going to justify charging the

same amount next year exactly exactly

because especially with engineering you

really need the lab work you need to be

being on it you can't just learn through

the computer very well although I think

that's just because we're not good at it

yet I would argue that we will reach a

point where learning it on the computer

will be so much better I mean you'll

you'll be able to have a you know a 3D

View and you'll be on your computer and

when you're doing engineering you'll

actually be able to reach out and touch

objects that don't exist and put them

together so you know once you're

actually manipulating a virtual space

with virtual objects then the online

stuff will be way better than in person

but not yet all right thanks thank you

thank you

foreign

yeah college is going to be just a mess

I'm so glad I'm not happy to deal with

that

all right Joe it looks like you came

back

Joe Joe

Hey Joe

Jim do you have a question for me Joe

Scott yes do you have a question yes um

um I really enjoy your show it's uh I I

really value what you do but I have to

know with what this ongoing coup is

someone gonna get per blocked I I gotta

see somebody high level punished

well the problem is that the people at

the high level are smart enough to not

leave any uh let's say you know bloody

gloves at the scene so what I would

expect is that it's going to come down

to something like well I knew the

president wanted me to do this but he

didn't say it or he didn't say it but it

was obvious that this would be a good

thing and he'd like it or uh Clapper

didn't directly tell us to do this but

we interpreted this as part of our job

so you could get this this weird

um you know not direct evidence of the

assuming that there was any kind of a

ringleader or ring leaders I don't think

there's going to be direct evidence for

them to be involved I think it will be

at most a verbal conversation that could

be interpreted two ways so I don't I

don't think you're going to see anybody

at a at a bread and Clapper or Obama

level doing a purple one I don't think

that's oh no no I I get that but maybe

Comey he he seems like a natural Fall

Guy from a simulation perspective he

does he does Kobe seems like what I mean

it feels like if you wrote this as a

movie Kobe would be going down I I feel

the same way and I don't know exactly

why that was the point I wanted to make

I see his name even sounds like Kami you

know it's perfect

yeah call me that was funny

um yeah there's there's something

um

there's something about Comey that makes

them seem like the natural I'd bet

against it though because you know

everything that Comey has done uh

indicates that he's smart enough to know

how the system works I mean he doesn't

yeah so Kobe is another one you you

could say whatever you want to say about

him if you like him or don't like him

but you can't say he's not smart right I

mean he's a bit smart with air covering

smart without air cover too you know

what I mean yeah well okay if the bosses

love you you know you don't have to be

that smart that's true that's true but

yeah yeah go ahead I I just love what

you've been talking about lately in

terms of the simulation and stuff I

found it in my own life you've been

you've been really insightful you've

validated a lot of things I've said I

knew president Trump would win the

moment I saw him come down those stairs

everybody thought I was insane I never

relented once I said have you seen

Hillary Clinton have you seen this guy I

was even a fan because you know

I'm just saying you know are your

detector that that that that

really resonated and your Island stuff

you know the prisoner Island I was on

prisoner Island I know what you're

talking about uh okay good well thanks

God glad that resonates thanks Joe

all right

let's take one more we'll do one more

can't we

who really really wants to talk to me

badly I don't know if anybody does but

we'll find out all right Leanne are you

connected

hi what's your question LAN

it's about the convict Island thing you

brought up on last night's Periscope

okay yeah and I

I say that I thought to myself I think I

have one of those stories real or not

right but I'm just

it's a little off and I'm not sure if um

I should be using it as a story so I

wanted to tell you yes you can do it but

you have to make it the quick version

because okay yes absolutely um mines

always involves a plane crash I'm all

always in it whether I'm actually on a

plane or just thinking about it walking

around and I'm always I always survive

no matter the scenario where I go into a

side of a mountain or into the water

even when the plane's going down I'm

helping people like and I'm thinking

it's okay because I know I'm going to

survive this I'll always survive no

matter the scenario well that that is a

that is a really uh healthy and

productive view unless it keeps you

unless it makes you do dangerous things

you don't do dangerous extreme sports do

you no not at all no yeah I like that

because that sounds like just a a really

healthy mindset it's not really going to

impinge on your real world you know

because you know it probably won't

change anything you do in the real world

but it'll keep you with that positive

mindset I like it now the only

Improvement I would offer on that yeah

to the extent that you could come up

with news stories is one that had more

about your own efforts being what keeps

you safe

so right now

MacGyver type things in my head you know

that I how I get off the side of the

mountain you know

little shorts and a t-shirt or something

right

is that the kind you mean or yeah yeah

so so if you keep your little uh

imaginary story where you're the hero

through your own good work and let's say

your good work is something you could

actually do you know something humanly

you could do it might be a stretch but

it's humanly possible uh and I I like

where you're going with that okay I'll

I'll keep uh rewriting the story a

little bit thank you thank you so for

those of you who uh didn't get the

context there

last night I was talking about having

stories of your life and just briefly

one of my stories that's not a real

story but one that I keep as like an

operating system for the rest of my

software in my head it's it's the thing

that keeps me

um tuned to winning if you will my story

is that imagine I'm dropped onto the

island of convicts it's only prisoners

on this island and I'm dropped off from

the helicopter and on day one they beat

me up day two they Bibi up day three

they beat me up day seven they beat me

up I'm just like you know abused and

turned into like a human human whatever

but if you come back in a year

I'm in charge of the island and I've

killed everybody who touched me

so that's the story that I keep because

you could beat me up for a week or two

or a month but when I'm done

if I ever get a little bit of traction

if you ever turn your back if I get the

slightest Advantage I'm going to run

your damn Island and I'm going to kill

every one of you and you can bet on it

so that's that's the software I keep in

my head that I apply to every situation

because you come into situations and day

one is often not so good and day two is

often not so good too in three weeks in

it's not so good but I'm gonna run the

island

so it doesn't matter what the actual

situation is I tell myself yeah getting

beat up the first week that's just part

of the job I'm gonna run this island

so it doesn't have to be true

it just has to be a story you run in

your head that you you let influence

your general demeanor so it's how you

program your personalities with stories

because we're story creatures

all right um so that's why you missed

um

never doubt the power of coconut and

coconut pies well I don't know what that

means but I've never doubted I guess

that's the island

uh may we know your Island to take over

a plan

roughly speaking yes yes I'll tell you I

would be able to influence people

one at a time

to think that working with me was better

than not so I would convince people one

at a time that being on my side was

their best play until I had enough of

them and then I'd run the island but

it'd be one one-on-one thing you'd have

to convince them individually

all right that is all

um

Ben says in the comments I'm Scott's

prison lover in my dream well you need

to upgrade your uh your movie story

that's the worst possible one that was

pretty funny though all right that's all

I got for now I'll talk to you tonight

you know where