Coffee With Scott Adams — Knowledge Archive July 10, 2026
Scott Adams Philosophy Archive
Search ideas

Context —

l people. And also spies like to kill people without leaving a trace. You know, I was talking about that alleged CIA heart attack gun, you know, a gun that would give somebody a heart attack and then the poison would dissolve and then the dart would dissolve. And basically we know there's a market for killing people without leaving a trace. Would you agree that there's a market for that? If it's o…

← Previous segment →

it wasn't working.

I would if I still lived in Danville. I would say that it might be premature but even if it didn't work I would call it a success. So you know we have a problem with too many people in jail. So if somebody tried something that sounds good on paper, was hard to execute, to get it done, they tried it, they legitimately tried it and it didn't work, I would call that a smart move. I mean, yeah I don't live in Danville.

DeSantis voted for the First Step Act. Well I think that it would be perfectly consistent for Republicans to vote in the First Step Act, let it run a few years and then see if it worked. I mean you'd have to see that as an experiment, wouldn't you? Because we've never done it before. So if the experiment works you do more of it. If it doesn't work you stop doing it or you modify it. So there's nothing I don't like about that. Even if it failed, that's what I want to see. I want to see exactly that. More of that.

All right. What program have they ever stopped once it started? All right, that's a good question. COVID payments, special case.

All right, that's all I got for today YouTube. I'm going to say bye. I hope this was as provocative as you hoped it would be. Modern education predicted. Okay. Any other questions from you? Yeah, Neuralink. Neuralink. You know I've been noodling with the idea that for some types of criminals, the non-violent ones, that maybe instead of going to prison they should lose their privacy. What do you think of that?

Imagine if you were a repeat criminal and instead of putting you in jail forever they say, look we're just going to put a monitor on your ankle and we're going to let everybody know where you are and what crimes you've committed. Imagine if you would that your phone gives you an alert and you find out that somebody who's committed 700 crimes just walked into the store behind you. Get the out and just get out of that store right away, right?

So it might be that privacy and freedom are almost, the Venn diagrams overlap a lot. Because imagine having freedom with no privacy. Would that be freedom? Freedom with no privacy, it would be like not freedom, wouldn't it? And so we take their freedom away if they commit a crime. But maybe you can get to something like it by taking the privacy away. Right now only if they've committed a crime or they keep committing crimes. You know, a very specific case. You wouldn't want that for everybody. But there just might be some way to alert everybody around them all the time. Right, something like that. Yeah it'd be worth trying. And maybe only for a certain class of crimes.

Take for example somebody had been convicted of burglary 50 times. All right, they've burglarized a home 50 times. But you can tell where they are now all the time. And you look at them, beep beep beep, this criminal has just entered your home. You're not home but it just said he's in your home, right? So you could basically weaponize the public by making sure we always knew who the criminals were and specifically what crimes they'd committed. Because people like to do the same crimes over and over. Isn't it worth trying? I mean if you're not going to put them in jail. I suppose jail might be first choice for a lot of stuff. Yeah.

Now I would m

Context —

ake an exception for violent crimes. Violent crimes maybe jail's the only solution. But for let's say robbery and vandalism and a lot of stuff, I just want to see him coming. If I see him coming I can make my own decisions how to stay safe. Impossible to monitor? I don't know. Imagine if you owned a store and you knew that somebody came in had been convicted of shoplifting 15 times. You'd follow…

Next segment → →