Episode 2948 CWSA 09/04/25 — Scott Adams Philosophy

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MainContent Politics as Persuasion

Back to episode — Episode 2948 CWSA 09/04/25

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e worth $200 million? So my first assumption is there's probably something wrong with the reporting. Because it might be like $200 million if you meet these goals over X number of years or something like that. I have trouble believing that whoever owns all the equity would get collectively a $200 million check up front. That feels high. I don't know. But Paramount knows what it's doing, so I'm sur…

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whether it's evolution and chance or any other model, once you're here you don't need to refer to God to say that we have all the rights that have not been yet restricted by our government.

So it's just cleaner and easier to say that we all have every right to do everything except what the government restricts. And that gets you to exactly the same place as if you say God created these rights and we're interpreting what God had in mind. Because that brings with it a small but real risk, which is if something happens in our form of government or who's in charge changes, it might be a different god that they're looking at for your rights, you know what I mean?

So if we or let's say someone else became a Muslim-dominated country, they might also agree that your rights are assigned by God but their version of what God would design would be very different. So there is some risk of interpreting what God meant for your rights.

So I would say you can maintain your God belief and even that God gave you rights, but when you're debating it in the public forum, it's just cleaner and easier to say no, you have a right to do everything. Everything except what the government specifically takes from you. Governments don't give rights. As soon as you imagine that somebody's giving you rights, be it God or be it the government, then you don't really understand rights in the most productive way.

The most productive way is you have every right until somebody who can put you in jail tells you you don't. And well, then I could argue you still have the right. You just better not do it.

All right. Apparently a judge has invalidated Trump's work against Harvard. You know, he wanted to make them give him large amounts of money and all that. And apparently Harvard did a good job of suing to stop that. And the US District Judge Allison Burroughs is trying to restore the funding, government funding to Harvard.

Now I have to say that I'm not surprised. I don't know how it'll end. Maybe a higher court will still back Trump, but it doesn't

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surprise me that Harvard of all places could put up a good legal battle because the whole point of Harvard is it's the best of the best and even with DEI there still it's like smartest people around. But they also have the Harvard Law School and they're the most connected people in the world. So you would expect that the most connected, capable, high-level lawyers in the world would know how to ge…

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Wisdom from this episode

"It's just cleaner and easier to say that we all have every right to do everything except what the government restricts. Governments don't give rights. As soon as you imagine that somebody's giving you rights, be it God or be it the government, then you don't really understand rights in the most productive way. The most productive way is you have every right until somebody who can put you in jail tells you you don't."

The clearest way to understand rights is that you start with all of them and the government takes away only the ones it restricts. Neither God nor government grants rights; believing they do misses the practical reality that you have every right until authorities with enforcement power tell you otherwise.

"There is some risk of interpreting what God meant for your rights. If we became a Muslim-dominated country, they might also agree that your rights are assigned by God but their version of what God would design would be very different."

Basing rights on divine intent carries risk, because a change in who holds power or which religion dominates can produce a radically different interpretation of what God wants those rights to be.