Coffee With Scott Adams — Knowledge Archive October 12, 2026
Scott Adams Philosophy Archive
Search ideas

Context —

I'd love to see a poll on this — but anecdotally the moms are protecting their children and that's the primary energy at the individual level. That might be the primary energy because that's what people ask about. If you say hey, let's go talk to a bunch of Republicans, you see what comes out of their mouths is not necessarily inflation even though it's a huge issue. Even fentanyl, all these issue…

← Previous segment →

word. Why are we arguing over a word like or two words, toxic masculinity? How about a high ground move? I've told you that the high ground maneuver is what you say that ends all arguments. All right, watch me end the debate. How about everybody can just be different? That's the end of the debate. That's the high ground maneuver. If you come into a conversation where people are like me me me toxic masculinity, no you don't have toxic masculinity, no I think Kamala is your boss, oh you should not be saying that, oh we need more toxic masculinity, yes we need less toxic masculinity, and then you come in and say well how about we just treat everybody as an individual? Any problem? Anybody raise your hand. Anybody have a problem with just treating everybody as an individual for once? Anybody? That's the end. So that's an example of the high ground maneuver. Once you learn to do high ground maneuvers you win every conversation. You'll win them all because you just say the thing that nobody disagrees with. That's sort of a higher level thought. It just ends it.

You may be noticing that I'm doing something along those lines so far, not completing the task but keep watching. Keep watching.

All right. Speaking of Kamala Harris, I would like to add a hypothesis to the mix. I asked this question on social media. Now this is just a Twitter poll so don't put too much scientific faith in it because there's none. Twitter polls are just people who answer the polls. That's about it. So the Twitter poll, I asked this question: If an acquaintance tells you they belong to a wine club, what do you assume are the odds that person is a functional alcoholic? And you can answer that question too. If you have an acquaintance who's a member of a wine club, what are the odds that person is a functional alcoholic? And by that I mean they have wine for dinner every night and they have wine on weekends and wine for lunch fairly frequently but they're functional. They have jobs and everything else.

So I'm saying estimates from 10 to 90 percent. I would go closer to 90 percent. My observation, and it took me years to find this pattern, is that the people who are functional alcoholics build a lifestyle around that so that there's a reason to be drinking every day that doesn't look like the reason is

Context —

you're a functional alcoholic. You've seen that. Oh you've seen it. Yeah, they're the people who like to entertain. Do you know any people who like to entertain? Usually functional alcoholics who are covering their tracks. Now there are so many functional alcoholics I don't have a complaint about it frankly. As long as they're not driving it's okay with me. I mean it's their life so I'm not judgi…

Next segment → →