Coffee With Scott Adams — Knowledge Archive May 24, 2026
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Episodes Episode #2841 Segments
MainContent Cognitive Reframing

Back to episode — Episode 2841 CWSA 05/16/25

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part of an experiment, some of them were given all these negative words and the others were fed a stream of positive words. And then they found out that the group that was exposed to more positive news feed also had a measurably statistically significant effect of more positive emotional response and the control group was unaltered by this. Now did they really need to run that experiment? Was the…

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ze him. And all this stuff you think about how they just have an impression of him and it's negative and they think these, none of that's real. That it's all about what he can do for them. And apparently they think he can do a lot for them in the Middle East because they really really put out the red carpet.

But I would say that the biggest thing he accomplished is that he reframed war as commerce. And I'm going to say it in my own words, but this is what I got out of it. You know, mostly from his speech, but also from just the way he did business. I think he just thinks that war is just the worst thing ever and he's very consistent about that. You know, when he talks about it, we just want to stop the killing, etc. But in a world where everybody has to be connected commerce-wise, I think he just sees that commerce is the better tool. Do you want to be part of the world economic global economy? Yes. Well, then you're going to have to stop killing people. If you don't want to be part of the world economic global community, basically the only way you could ever thrive, you don't have to be. And we'll be happy to cut you out and you can just suffer and starve. And it feels to me like this is his greatest accomplishment. I'm going to go a little further and say it might be the greatest accomplishment of any leader in any time in human history. Now, part of it is because he's born in a specific time. You know, 300 years ago, you didn't need to maybe do some international trade, but you can't really survive unless you're plugged into the international commercial network of everything. And I think Trump is the first one to say war is obsolete. It's obsolete because in theory you could get almost anybody to do almost anything to bring them from some extremist situation into the fold by just making it clear that the only way you'll ever thrive is to act like a responsible country and then you could be part of the world commercial situation. Now, he hasn't said that directly, but that sure feels like where he's heading with Iran, with Russia, etc. He's not saying, "If you don't give us what we want, we're going to bomb the hell out of you." He doesn't take it off the table. It's not off the table. But he said clearly that the alternative for Iran would be being crushed economically and the alternative for Russia was to be further sanctioned. So I feel like it's one of the greatest accomplishments of any leader in the history of humanity really if he pulls this off. It's not completely pulled off, but he seems to have reframed it in a way that we can all understand.

Well, according to a post on X, Trump's investment, he raised $2.5 trillion in capital for the US. Now, we don't know over what time period, but UAE was in for $1.4 trillion that they want to invest in the US. Saudi Arabia $600 billion. Qatar $500 billion. These are the very big numbers, but they're not as big as what Trump says it is. So those are the numbers based on news reports and what those countries have said out loud. But Trump says that his trip is worth 12 to 13 trillion and includes deals already announced and some that will be outlined shortly. So somewhere between 2.5 and 13 trillion is what he came back with. But I don't know how much of this to believe because when you look at what the Arab nations said they would contribute or actually invest not contribute I don't know is that over 10 years or 20 years. So I don't even know how to say if that's important or not. I don't feel like nothing in my life changed. So I'm going to say I'm not 100% sure anything in your life will change either, but it's way better than not getting those deals. So a lot of what Trump does is salesmanship and selling the country and creating an image and just making people think differently. You know, that's what he does best. So if what he's done is created this situation where all the smart people are putting massive amounts of money into the United States because it's the best plac

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e to invest, and it probably is. It's probably the best place to invest. That would be amazing. So I can quibble about what the real number is and how big it is, but what he's done is make everybody think in that way. Meaning that if he visits your country, you better open your wallet, and I think people will. So not only did Republicans think he did a great job in the Middle East, but Fox News a…

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