Coffee With Scott Adams — Knowledge Archive October 12, 2026
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Back to episode — Episode 2206 Scott Adams - All The News That's Fit To Sip. Bring Coffee

Context —

but in conjunction with my book *Reframe Your Brain*, which is available so far only on Kindle because Amazon has unspecified, possibly technical problems that are preventing the publication of my physical book — the book's done, it's ready to go — but in the independent publishing, let's say, pipeline, there seems to be some kind of a delay for my property. It's an unspecified technical, hard-to-…

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ld agree that there appears to be a national incompetence problem to do anything, just most basic services? Let me give you an idea how bad it is. All right, this is how bad it is.

I did something really stupid this week. Could you do me a favor and mock me for my stupidity over this? Just listen to how bad this is. I had to take my car in for service, and I knew that there might be some real issues. I was driving kind of funny, so I don't know exactly what the problem is, but it couldn't be one of those expensive ones. Here's how stupid I am, and please mock me. Get ready. Get ready.

I took my car into the dealer for service on a Thursday. Shame on me. Go ahead, go ahead. I know, I know. No, I deserve it. I deserve it. I took my car in for service on a Thursday. It's the dumbest thing everybody ever did. Do you think I got my car back before the weekend? Of course not. Of course not. So there's an extra two days. But that's not even my point.

The dealer, I don't have a problem with the dealer. So in this story the dealer is, you know, it's just stuff that takes more than a day, so there's nothing wrong with the dealer. I brought it in on a Thursday when I knew I wouldn't have it for the weekend unless I rented a car. Now you're probably going to ask yourself — let's see if you know the answer to this — why did I not rent a car? And why will I instead spend four to five days trapped in my house? I mean, I could Uber if I want to, but why did I not rent a car? Go ahead, you tell me.

It's not because of money. No. Why did I not get one? Not insurance. No. Yep, somebody got it. Under today's current situation, I could not imagine — literally I can't imagine it — renting a car without trouble. I couldn't even imagine it. I imagine that I would go in there and they'd say, we don't have the car that you reserved. I thought at the very least it would turn into a Seinfeld episode.

I know what Uber is. You don't have to say Uber every comment. Can we stipulate I've heard of Uber? Everybody, you can stop yelling Uber at me. I've heard of it. It's like a car service where you can go places, right? Okay, I got it. Okay, you don't have to yell Turo at me. I got it. I don't think I'm getting through. I don't seem to be getting through. Lyft. Now you're just really funny. Apparently I'm not getting through with this point.

No, the simple act of renting a car. If this were five years ago, you know what I would have done? I would have just rented a car. I would have run to the car and I wouldn't have worried that it wouldn't work. I actually worry that if I allocate my half a day or whatever to going in and picking up a car that it just won't work. You know, like I won't be able to rent it, my credit card will be declined, I'll be on some do-not-rent list, some damn thing. I just don't think there's enough competence left in the system that it ever makes sense to take on a new thing if you can avoid it. Like

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if your other possibility is just to stay home and be unhappy, just stay home and be unhappy sometimes. All right, don't follow my advice about anything. All right, let's talk about my other favorite topic. You know I've been saying for years that the future is building cities from scratch. NPCs, you may yell at 15-minute cities now. Go yell 15-minute cities. Say no, no, 15 minutes at least. Oh,…

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