Coffee With Scott Adams — Knowledge Archive May 24, 2026
Scott Adams Philosophy Archive
Search ideas
Episodes Episode #2797 Segments
MainContent Confirmation Bias

Back to episode — Episode 2797 CWSA 04/02/25

Context —

. So I think that China is going to want to corner Trump and put him especially during the tariff situation. They're going to want to corner and embarrass Trump by saying hard no, we're not selling it. So if you want to put it out of business, that will be you, Trump, putting it out of business. So explain that to all the small businesses who go out of business because they lose their TikTok acce…

← Previous segment →

that are fascists because you're the Yale fascism scholar expert. Well, then suddenly it looks like something, but it's so thin.

Then about Trump makes attacks on the media. So this is on Grok's list of why Trump's critics call him a fascist. Attacks on the media. Well, if you thought that the media was fair and honest, then attacking it would look a little fascist. And do you think that the Yale fascism scholar expert believes that CNN and MSNBC, he was actually appearing on MSNBC and didn't notice that the entire media landscape is so biased that attacking it is just common sense because they're in many cases just completely lying. And there are plenty of examples where the media just ran schemes that they ran plays against Trump and they knew they were doing it. We know they knew they were doing it. So attacking the media makes sense if the media is worthy of attack. And boy are they.

And then Grok says that on Twitter Trump allegedly praised Hitler. Okay, I don't need to tell you that never happened, but there it is. That's what Grok says. No, that never happened. And then they're saying that Trump made racist stereotypes of prosecutors. Did he? I think the racist stereotype, if he did anything, was that there's a coincidence to the type of people who were coming after him, which we all noticed, which is not a racist stereotype. It's more a complaining about people being racist against him.

Now and then the summary is that Trump likes nationalism, suppression of dissent and authoritarian government. Suppression of dissent. What part was that? Attacking the media. The media are liars. It's suppression of misinformation maybe by arguing back and authoritarian government. What makes an authoritarian versus effective? Where's the line between getting stuff done and being an authoritarian? Does the authoritarian ask Kid Rock and Bill Maher to go to dinner? It seems to me that this is one of those framing hypnosis cult situations where if you've been trained to see the world through the eyes of everything's fascism or it's not, then you could sort of talk yourself into it. But no, the evidence is purely open to interpretation and I don't see it. But once you're a ghost hunter, you're going to see a lot of ghosts.

According to the Daily Signal, Tyler O'Neil is writing that Tesla owners, not connected to DOGE, just people who own a Tesla, are acceptable victims according to 31% of Democrats. So roughly a third of Democrats in a poll said that attacking people who simply owned a Tesla, which would include probably half of them are Democrats or leaning Democrat, that they would be acceptable targets.

Now, remember I told you that Democrats are basically thieves and they're looking to take things from people who have things. That includes Democrats who have things. So if anybody has nice things, you're going to find a lot of Democrats who are willing to take it away. And I don't think it goes deeper than that. So I think that probably 31% of Democrats can't afford a Tesla. So if you say to them, "Hey, how about these people who can afford a Tesla or even just afford a car, what do you think of them?" And they're like, "Ah, I think they should be victims just because I don't like Elon Musk." But really, is that the reason or is it just because they can afford a nice car and you can't? So that's crazy.

I think in general that people who don't have money are in favor of violence against people who do. Do you think that's a good generalization? People who don't have money and don't expect that they're going to make any in any legal way are going to say they're going to be open to violence to take money from the people who have it because everybody wants more money. And if you can't figure out a way to make it yourself, maybe you'd rather take it from people.

I had the experience of going from a low income situation to a high income situation and I can tell you that while I thought my character was improving and my morality as I got richer, all I eventually realized I was protecting my own class. Like I became really anti-crime when I had money that people could steal from me. But when I had nothing and I saw somebody maybe rip off a rich person it didn't bother me a bit. Is it because I used to have low character and then I developed a conscience and higher character and morality and ethics? No. Probably just made more money and then joining the people who said you shouldn't attack people who have more money because they earned it themselves.

So the difference I think with Republicans who don't have money and Democrats who don't have money is that Republicans who don't have money are more likely to think but I could have money if I worked harder and did all the obvious things that people do to make money. So they're not thinking, "I want to steal things and go to jail." They're thinking, "How do I work harder? Where's my mentor? Where do I get a foot in the door so I can make something of myself?" I think the Democrats are more likely to think that the system is rigged and they need some reparations or they need some basically they need the government to take money from the rich and give it to them. And whether you deserved it or worked for it, none of that matters. They just don't have money, other people do. So they're trying to figure out ways to get it. And if you can make the government be your criminal enterprise, which is what Democrats have done, you notice the Democrats have turned the entire government, you know, through USAID and all the NGOs. They've turned the entire thing into a criminal organization to take money from the people who have it and give it to themselves. In many cases, they're rich and they're still doing it. So there's that.

Anyway, here's a story that sounds like you've heard it before, but it's actually just a third one like it. There's yet another law firm that Trump went after because they had been involved in investigating the January 6 attacks and some other stuff. And this one is called Wilkie Farr Gallagher. So Trump was getting ready to go after them, but they cleverly got ahead of it and they said that they'll provide the equivalent of $100 million in pro bono legal services for causes the administration supports.

Now this is the third major law firm to offer a gigantic pro bono, you know, kind essentially bribe, could you call it a bribe? They don't call it a bribe. Let's not call it that. But here's my question. So pro bono means that nobody would have to pay for it and they would do a hundred million dollars in legal services for Trump related or Republican related areas. Now, here's my question. Do they put the top lawyers on that kind of pro bono work? Are you going to get the A+ players or are you going to get the lawyers that maybe won't make it with the law firm and you know they're junior and you know well we could say we tried but you know we put our lawyers on it and we did not prevail but I'm going to call that $10 million of legal service and nobody's really going to check that it was really $10 million of legal service and they will burn through that 100 million commitment in no time at all and they will probably not win a single case. They'll somehow you know like it seems to me that the odds of them giving the A team to the pro bono work for the other side is really low. Really low. So I'm not so sure that this is a real victory, but it's fun.

All right, here's a question that I can't wrap my head around. It doesn't seem like that long ago we were talking about China was in terrible trouble because their demographics are bad. They don't have enough young people. They're full of bureaucracy and they can't get anything done. And you know, they might have a lot of debt and they build a bunch of cities that they're just knocking down because it was a waste of money and they're stretched kind of thin everywhere and they're getting ready to collapse at any moment because the US is moving its manufacturing out of there etc.

On the other hand, it seems like the United States doesn't know how to make anything and China has entire industries of people that they've trained in the art of making stuff. So if you wanted to build a manufacturing facility in the United States, you'd have to find somebody who knows how to do that and there aren't that many compared to China where I think it's a major and you've got all these armies of trained engineers and everything else who just know how to build a manufacturing plant. So how do you compete with that? That we've got our kids who can barely read. Every time there's a new report coming out, it's worse. So China is educating its kids. We're not. It feels like we stopped being able to invent things. Yeah, only a few things have come out recently. Mostly AI, but China's AI seems to be cheaper and open source. So if they keep their AI almost as

Context —

good and cheaper and open source, how do our big companies that we think are the jewels in our crown, how do they even survive? How would ChatGPT survive if it's competing against just as good and almost free? I don't know how. And I don't think that China is going to suddenly start charging for AI or at least charge you more. Suppose there's a war. The smart people, I think Naval said this recen…

Next segment → →