Coffee With Scott Adams — Knowledge Archive July 10, 2026
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the government has a full appreciation of that. Like even people like Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak, some of the smartest people who have ever drawn a breath. But do you think they have a unique understanding of persuasion and persuasion tools? I don't know. I mean they know a lot of stuff. They might but I doubt it. So that's a big risk. All right, I love watching CNN reporting on Fox News because…

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as complaining about racists who didn't like me? That the context was about other racists and that those racists didn't like me so I'd want to stay away from those racists. Did any of them report that? Do you think that it cost me any money? Millions. Yeah, millions and millions of dollars. Fake news.

Now what I say is fake I only mean that they left the context out that would have reversed the meaning of the story. It wasn't fake that I said things that other people say sound racist. That was true. But if you leave out the reason I said it, it reverses the meaning. Would I have a lawsuit if Ron DeSantis makes it easier for me to sue? Do I have a suit? Well a lot of you are saying no under the current rules. I'd say no under the current rules because you have to prove malice and it would be too easy for them to say we had no malice. We just thought that was true. It's an ultimate defense. We thought it was true. We didn't look into it very closely but we thought it was true on the surface. I don't think I should be able to sue for that because if I did I'd put the entire media out of business. I mean the size of what they did just to me was enormous. Just the size of it. Think of the scale of what they did to me. Just the scale is huge.

Now you know there's a part of me that always wants to set the world right and get revenge or something. But I really don't think I should have that right. I don't think that you would be served if I could do that more easily because it would just remove your news. They just wouldn't be able to have a business model. That's what I think. So I think DeSantis is on some dangerous ground here. Yet I completely understand the motivation. Having been in the target zone for malicious media treatment, I understand it. I just don't think you can win that way.

All right, so I feel like there's something happening in the mindset or something. Here's a story that I don't know that I would have seen two months ago. You tell me, does this sound like something that would have been said two months ago? So you know the story about Lia Thomas, the trans athlete who competes as a woman and is beating most of the women most of the time. And of course the women who are born as women say that's unfair. They would say they're competing against a biological male is what they say.

But here's what's different. This Riley Gaines, who's a female born female and a competitive swimmer, and she's coming out directly and she's not shading any of her opinion. She's just saying this is a man. We're competing against men. This is bad for women. And it's being reported at least by Fox News and probably others just directly what she says. Have we reached the point where people don't need to be so polite? Because it seems like two months ago the way she would have had to say this is Lia Thomas is a she in all cases. Two months ago she is a problem for other women because it's unfair or something. But you know we hope that she finds a place to compete and she is too strong for the competitors and she makes it unfair.

Doesn't it feel like two months ago you would have had to buy into the pronoun? But now she's just on the news saying it's a man. I'm competing against a man and that's not fair for women. But let me forget about the topic for a moment. Forget about the topic. Does it feel like she has more free speech than even a few months ago or is that my imagination? Because I might be biased about this. Yeah it feels like people are now saying directly you're just men with mental illness. People are saying that directly. No, this is not about wokeness. This is people with mental illness who are trying to jump on a theme.

Now just to be clear I think people are so different and there's so many different kinds of people with kinds of minds and everything else. I do think that there are people who have some general genuine situation where the only thing that can make them happy is gender reassignment as adults. Kids is a different situation of course. But I don't think it should be illegal for somebody to change their gender if that's what they need because they're adults and we're not in their bodies. We're not in their brains. We can't make decisions for them.

But is it not clear that it's gone too far? And is it not clear that it has attracted people with just mental illness? And that if we treat them as mentally ill the same as somebody who's just operating based on their freedom. This is somebody who says I think this would make me happier and then they do it. It makes them happier. Good for them. But I feel like society has kind of reached a limit. Yeah it's too far. It's too far.

And I think that treating Lia Thomas as a woman would make sense in almost any other context. If Lia Thomas wants to live that kind of life it's a free world. I think people should just do what makes them happy if it doesn't hurt me. But once tha

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t preference is taken into this specific context of sports I don't have any problem with the women who were affected by it saying we're competing against men. To me that doesn't even feel impolite. Not even a little bit. So I feel that that's a change. I feel like I would have been canceled just for this. Am I wrong? Even what I just said. I feel like I would have been canceled two months ago but…

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