Back to episode — Episode 582 Scott Adams - North Korea, Portland and Other Places I’d Never Visit
Context —
Let's talk about Portland. So you know that independent reporter and editor Andy Ngo, and I know I'm pronouncing his last name correctly. I've only read it. I've never heard it. And how does he pronounce that? Ngo. That's right. Apparently he went to cover this antifa situation in Portland. They were counter-protesting some supremacists I guess. And they show up in their full dark outfits and mas…
← Previous segment →All right. What else is going on? Yeah we'll get rid of this guy troll. So somebody just before I blocked him, somebody was giving me a hard time for appearing on Alex Jones. I would like to remind all of you what my brand is.
So my brand, some people hate that word but I don't have a better one. My brand is talk to anyone. That's my brand right now. If you make your brand it becomes, okay here's the reason. My brand is talk to anyone.
Number one, I do this sort of thing in public. If you do public stuff where you're talking to people you kind of need to have a rule that you can talk to everyone. And the reason is that even if you think you're talking to good people you could find out later that they were cannibals or something. So you don't want to be branded by who you talk to. That's the first thing.
Second thing is at my age are they influencing me or am I influencing them? So if you put me with somebody you don't like, what's likely to be the outcome? Well the outcome is it's very unlikely that the person you don't like is going to change me and set my ways. But what are the odds that I might change that person you don't like? Pretty good. Pretty good. I'm pretty influential.
So the more time I spend around people that you don't like the better those people become. Now I don't mean me in particular but in general contact is good. You see President Trump visiting North Korea because contact is good. The president is not becoming more of a dictator because he visited Kim Jong-un, is he? But Kim Jong-un might be becoming more of a, let's say more of somebody we can deal with because the president has a personal relationship with him.
So who changed because Trump visited Kim? Which one of them changed? Probably Kim. Now I don't mean changed at a fundamental level but in terms of how he's relating to the world. I think Trump is exactly the same and I think Kim is opportunistically deciding to change in a way that's good for North Korea. It's good for us.
So every time you say somebody you like should not spend time with or talk to somebody you don't like you're making the world a worse place. Under the conditions now, this is a condition that has to be true, under the condition that the person you like is more influential, more persuasive than that person you don't like. If you throw me onto the island of bad people whoever they are, the island's gonna get a little nicer. All right. I'm gonna make your island a little bit nicer.
If you put me on the island with criminals or the island of whatever bad people and if those people talk to me I'm not going to change but they might. So be careful what you wish for.
All right. I think that's about all that's going on right now. Somebody on the comments says I once responded to one of their comments and the commenter says there are horrible people. Horrible person. Portland. Yeah Portland is a situation of violence so I think it's fair to avoid violence. But if I had a, yes I would talk to antifa. So if antifa wanted to come on my Periscope and actually have an actual conversation I would love that.
And who is likely to be different at the end of the conversation, me or the person from antifa? Well probably neither of us because people don't change that easily. But a little more likely that the antifa person is gonna leave with some doubt and very little chance that I'm gonna leave with some antifa leanings.
Context —
Did you see that Lindsey Graham had some good things to say about Kamala Harris and thought she could be a force to be reckoned with? I believe that's true. So I think she got a weak start, Harris did, but she came on strong during the debates and she showed she has a lot of range and I think that's gonna help her. But there's nobody in the contest who is competitive with Trump. Now I don't know…
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