Coffee With Scott Adams — Knowledge Archive August 24, 2026
Scott Adams Philosophy Archive
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ut somebody said just put it close. Does that help? Oh yeah it does. Thank you. Good advice. So here, here I'm sorry right there. See that week? Notice that that week doesn't look like anything else. Even the low week is not even close to that week. So right here my Twitter traffic went to almost nothing in terms of new users for a week. So what happens if I look at, since that's Twitter, what h…

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f clutter to break through. So you have to ask yourself who is capable of breaking through the noise. So in the first ten I'll just read off who's in the first group. You got Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Beto O'Rourke, Amy Klobuchar, John Delaney, Tulsi Gabbard, Julian Castro, Tim Ryan, Bill de Blasio and Jay Inslee.

Of that group in the first group the two who will have a good night are Elizabeth Warren and a wild card is Tulsi Gabbard. So I'm not going to predict that Tulsi Gabbard will break out. I'm going to predict that she's a wild card meaning she could but she hasn't made any noise so far meaning that she just doesn't seem to have a lot of support for reasons I don't know exactly. So I'm not gonna say she's going to break out. I'm gonna say she's the interesting wild card.

But I think Elizabeth Warren is gonna have a great night and the reason is she's a good debater. She is. She's very policy-wise and if you're on a debate stage and you want to hit the facts you want to look smart, right? She's smart. If you watch Elizabeth Warren talk you're gonna come away with she's experienced, she's smart, she's a woman and man does she want to put Donald Trump in jail. She's gonna come up in her polling. That's my prediction for the first group.

Let's talk about the second group. Second group has Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, Kirsten Gillibrand, Michael Bennet, Marianne Williamson, Eric Swalwell, Andrew Yang and John Hickenlooper. This one's interesting because it's the Biden and Sanders group. Now remember I think that they only have a bad day ahead of them. I think so.

Here's my first prediction. Kamala Harris will find her poll numbers go up because Kamala Harris is not as well known but she's solid. So people are gonna see a person of color. They can see a woman. They're gonna see that she can speak like a lawyer. She can talk to the facts. She will probably handle herself well and she will be sort of introducing herself to a lot of people who just don't know enough about her. So I think her poll numbers will show an improvement.

Pete Buttigieg is a wild card. I ask you this: how likely is it that there are any LGBTQ people in the United States who are likely to vote who don't already know who Buttigieg is? It seems to me that Pete Buttigieg probably has a hundred percent support from let's say the LGBTQ community, the ones who are going to vote, the ones who care, right? There's not much room to grow in the community that is sort of automatically on his side. And I think he could make a dent by being clever and newsmaking so he does have that ability. So Buttigieg is one of those people who can say something interesting enough. They don't get a lot of coverage and the media likes him so he's good for clicks. So I think Buttigieg is my wildcard for the second group.

So there are two wild cards. One is Tulsi Gabbard, one Buttigieg. They could go either way so I don't have a prediction which way but they're the most unpredictable people in their respective groups. They could get a bump but maybe not.

But here's my big prediction for the second group. Andrew Yang is going to surprise and here's why. Now first of all I don't think that Andrew Yang is at a place where he could become president. I don't think his resume looks solid enough for people to put their full trust in him as a president yet. Maybe someday. But what Yang can do that most of the people in the debates can't do is say something you haven't heard already. Think about it. Everybody in these debates, almost every person, is going to say something you've already heard. Now it might be news the way they say it and they might use more provocative — there might be a little more provocative. It might be maybe they'll say worse things about Trump than you expected. That could make a little news. There are lots of ways to make news by being a little bit out of the box.

But Yang is the only one who could say something that will just make you go oh I haven't heard that before and it will be newsmaking and it will be interesting. So Yang is the most interesting person at the debates who's not Buttigieg. They're the two most interesting people. And I think Yang is going to see his poll numbers, I don't know, double or triple and it will be at the expense of the leaders Biden and Sanders.

All right but I don't think Yang quite has the gravitas etc. that people are going to want him to be president. So there's my prediction. Bad night for Bernie, bad night for Sanders, good night for Elizabeth Warren, good night for Yang, good night for Kamala Harris and the two wild cards are Tulsi Gabbard and Pete Buttigieg who could surprise but maybe not.

All right those are my predictions. For those of you who have stayed around I'm going to talk about how to fix everything in the future. So I have a, I guess a hypothesis or a belief, I'm not sure what it is, that most of the future can be fixed with good design. We don't always design things well but when we do it changes everything. If you look at the success of Apple for example, the success of Apple is really just technical greatness which they have. It's design. Design is what makes you — you know I've raved about this before. These little AirPods, the freaking design of these things is so insanely good that you fall in love with this product. I mean you just love it. Well I don't want to travel anywhere without this. Every part of this is so well done that it mak

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es you actually love it. Now imagine that idea taken to fixing a whole bunch of other society's problems. I'm gonna throw out an idea where design can fix a whole range of problems in society. I'm not saying that this is the best idea in the world. I'm saying it'll make you think about design as a solution in a way you haven't done before. Somebody in the comments is saying array for engineers. E…

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