Coffee With Scott Adams — Knowledge Archive July 10, 2026
Scott Adams Philosophy Archive
Search ideas
Episodes Episode #2380 Segments
MainContent Politics as Persuasion

Back to episode — Episode 2380 CWSA 02/10/24

Context —

tion. And yet the US is emitting something like 40% of their CO2. When you look at it that way, it's the reverse. If you look at it on a per person basis, the US is much worse. So what's the point? Is China worse than the US or is the US worse than China? Which way is the fair way to say it? Well, some say China is a country and the US is a country, so you just compare them. They're doing worse t…

← Previous segment →

2 can feed plants such as Joe Biden and vegetables. I get it. I see your joke. I will steal your joke.

All right. There's a Kentucky state senator who wants a constitutional amendment to ban non-citizens from voting. Can you believe this is even a question that we are seriously talking about not just letting a few of those non-citizens vote? I mean, it's just going to get lost in the noise anyway. But we have massive immigration and it looks like there's a movement in some states to let them vote. Now how is that even in the conversation?

Well, how about we do a little bit of embrace and amplify. So the Democrats are telling us that our system would be better off if the illegal migrants vote. What do you think? Do you think our system would be better off if non-citizens who enter the United States illegally vote? But suppose we take that and amplify it. What if we embrace it for a moment and say, you know what, not only are you right about that, but you're so right we should do more of it.

Here's a little mental experiment for you, and this is going to really break your brain. Suppose we let everybody vote in the whole world. Literally everybody. You're a Chinese citizen, you want to vote in the next American election, you can, and we'll count it. You're in Lithuania, absolutely you can vote. We'll send you an electronic ballot. Anywhere in South America, absolutely you vote. Now here's my question. Which would be the better result? If Americans, including with all of our division naturally, and then you throw in the migrants and we're going to get this real insider who wants power, which group is funding the bad guys the best, who does the military-industrial complex want, who's counting our votes, you know all that stuff. Now compare that to the world that would include our adversaries. Our adversaries, literally our adversaries, let them vote in our election along with our allies. What would happen?

Well, I think you might be surprised because even our adversaries don't want us to fail. If America went down, everything would be screwed for a long time. They don't want us to attack them. I get that. Our adversaries don't want us to take their resources and stuff like that. That makes sense. But I don't think they want us to fail. I think what they want is for us to be a legitimate player on the world stage, to do the thing that America does. You know, invent new technologies and create medicines that aren't always a scam, that sort of thing. Get to space. Create some Elon Musks now and then. They like that stuff.

I propose to you that if we let every other country vote for America's president, that we would vastly improve our choices. Just look at it. Look at the two choices we gave ourselves with our current system. Do you think the rest of the world would have put up with that? Do you think that Biden would actually be in the race if the rest of the world got to choose our president? No. It's possible that none of the people who are in the race would be in it. They'd probably pick somebody who was just a good operator who wasn't too political, who just did stuff that made sense. Yeah, they'd probably vote for some... well, Elon can't run, but they probably would vote for, well, I don't know about Vivek. He's certainly aligned with one political party. But they probably picked somebody who wasn't too political, who just knew how to get stuff done. So maybe Ron DeSantis. That's not too far. Somebody in the middle.

Anyway, our current system is so broken that letting the rest of the world vote, I believe in all seriousness, it's not a serious suggestion, but as a mental exercise, I think the world would vote us a better president because look what we're doing. I mean really, look what we're doing. There's no way it would be worse.

All right. I'm going to take a minor partial

Context —

victory lap. You might know the actor and activist Michael Rapaport. He's been making some news. He was on the Tim Pool show. I was talking about him and others. He was on, oh I can't, why can't I remember his initials? PBD. PBD. I'll never be able to remember his initials. I don't know why. Oh, it's because the P and the B and the D. Oh I got it. I'm dyslexic. Look at the letters. The lowercase l…

Next segment → →