Episode 78 - Scott and Dale Talk About CNN’s Worst Day Ever

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Back to episode — Episode 78 - Scott and Dale Talk About CNN’s Worst Day Ever

Context —

So the interesting thing, oh yeah and you also saw that Elon Musk is doing a little startup, we think he's serious, called Pravda which is funny. There would be sort of a Yelp for checking the credibility of journalists and news organizations. Now apparently he's been such a victim of fake news in his opinion that he's sort of moving closer to the Trump supporting side of the world. Because here'…

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Now I was thinking of sarcasm which I just mentioned a moment ago. I keep getting comments on Twitter and it's more in the last few weeks than any time I can remember in which people can't tell sarcasm from a real point. And I'm not mocking those people because I can't tell anymore. And I mean that completely seriously. And it's not, I'm not using hyperbole to make some bigger point. I can't tell anymore when people are joking because things are so crazy and our worlds are still so separate that somebody could be mocking the other team by just mimicking their style and I'll look at it and it'll go well yeah that's a ridiculous thing to say but I can't tell if you're mocking the ridiculous people or are you one of them. I actually can't tell.

Some of you know I got busted for forwarding some satire, some parody of Comey. So it was satire of Comey. So I was reading that somebody was doing in a humorous sense you know as if he wrote it in his book and I couldn't tell the difference. I really couldn't. That's why I forwarded it. I thought it was well he probably did say this it sounds just like him.

And I recently did a few tweets in which I used sarcasm and I got some replies that I couldn't tell if they could tell. I don't know.

All right. Um go on Howard Stern and duke it out. I don't know why I would. I'm just looking at your comments right now. Somebody said that Trump and Musk are the same person with different hair.

Context —

I've called all the people who came out of the so-called PayPal Mafia. I think they're either all of them or most of them are master persuaders because they can all operate on that same level and it's just a level above other entrepreneurs. You see it fairly consistently. You see it with Reid Hoffman. You see it with Elon Musk. You see it with Peter Thiel.

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Wisdom from this episode

"I can't tell anymore when people are joking because things are so crazy and our worlds are still so separate that somebody could be mocking the other team by just mimicking their style and I'll look at it and it'll go well yeah that's a ridiculous thing to say but I can't tell if you're mocking the ridiculous people or are you one of them. I actually can't tell."

In a polarized world that's grown so absurd, it's become nearly impossible to distinguish sincere ridiculous opinions from sarcasm mocking those opinions.

"I was reading that somebody was doing in a humorous sense you know as if he wrote it in his book and I couldn't tell the difference. I really couldn't. That's why I forwarded it. I thought it was well he probably did say this it sounds just like him."

When real statements from public figures become indistinguishable from their own parody, even satire gets mistaken for authenticity.