Coffee With Scott Adams — Knowledge Archive May 24, 2026
Scott Adams Philosophy Archive
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. I don't know what Michael Jackson did or did not do. I do know that a huge part of that story about what he did looks completely not credible. That doesn't mean all the rest of it is not credible. It just means that the fake news basically destroyed this person. All right, if you took the fake news business out of the equation, Michael Jackson would still probably be performing today. I don't ev…

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ent to work? I don't know if the police just opened fire on the protesters with the—I think they should shoot to kill anybody who's got a laser that they're putting in people's eyes. That's just my opinion. Now, probably would cause a lot of problems. It may be more problems than it solves. But I think if you actually saw somebody aiming the laser, that no matter where that laser was aimed, if it's a deadly weapon meaning that it will blind somebody, I think the police should be able to shoot to kill if they even see the laser. You know, the moment the laser comes out, that should be a shoot-to-kill situation, because it would be if it were a gun, right? If somebody brought out a gun, that'd be a shoot-to-kill situation if it looked like they were going to use it. If somebody brings out a laser to blind a police officer, let me say as clearly as I possibly can, you put me on that jury, that police officer is free. Put me on the jury that tries to convict a police officer for shooting somebody who has a blinding laser that they have in their hand. You're a free man or free woman. Yeah, you put me on that jury. No way I'm going to convict the cop for shooting a guy with a laser that blinds people. No way.

If you're wondering what's going to happen with all their urban centers, I suggest you learn about insurance and banking. Because when you see all the shops that were destroyed by the looters in the urban areas, you say to yourself, well, you know, they'll wait for the tension to go down and then they'll rebuild. Or maybe other people will come in, other tenants will take over and rebuild. But there's a problem. You kind of need insurance to have a viable business. If you need a bank loan, the bank's going to want you to have insurance too so that you're covered in case something happens. Now, insurance companies will often, if not always, exclude riots. So riots would not be covered by your insurance. Now that was probably not a big problem in the past, because when you're filling out your insurance policy, you're thinking, well, what are the odds I'm going to lose my business to a riot? You know, that doesn't seem very likely. So you still buy the insurance. But would you buy insurance with no riot protection in the very places that have recently been destroyed by riots and no end in sight?

I would suggest that you can predict what's going to happen to at least the retail parts of the inner cities by looking at banking and insurance and entrepreneurs and how they manage risk. And at this point the risk is just too high, and that's going to persist for years. So I don't see any situation in which the urban areas quickly come back, if they come back at all.

I was tweeting about 5G, and you know people think there might be some health dangers from 5G, which is the new faster technology for phones. Now the first thing I want to say about it is, as I said in my tweet, I don't think society understands that this new faster speed for phones called 5G—because it sounds like 4G and 3G, and you knew what those were, right? Oh, 3G was dated but it was kind of slow. 4G is pretty snappy, pretty fast. 5G is going to be better. It'll be a little faster, right? If that's what you're thinking, you're missing the show. 5G is not a little bit faster data. 5G will change civilization. 5G will just change civilization in a way similar to how smartphones did.

Because I don't know about you, but I'm using my phone for getting all my delivery of my fo

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od, you know, because I'm quarantined at the moment in anticipation of some surgery upcoming. And so if I didn't have my phone, I could barely do what I do. I mean, the smartphones, I think you would agree, have transformed civilization, but not as much as 5G. And here's why. 5G is going to give you an augmented reality world. It won't be long before my glasses are connected to my phone and my pho…

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