Episode 455 Scott Adams - Aspirin, The Rise of White Supremacist Violence, False Memories

ba-ba-boom ba-ba ba-ba ba-ba ba-ba ba-ba boom hey everybody I'm glad you're awake and I'm glad you're here because it's the best part of the day it's coffee with Scott Adams and you were about to enjoy the unparalleled pleasure of something I call the simultaneous sip to enjoy it you probably need to have a glass of mug stein the chalice perhaps a thermos maybe a glass filled with your favorite liquid I like coffee join me now for the simultaneous up do you delicious all right here's your question of the day I want to see your answer in the comments there is a startling Rhys and white supremacist white nationalist violence in this country how many people died from white supremacists in 2017 I don't have the 2018 number but how many total people in the United States were killed by white to supremacist go you can't look it up yeah actually it's more fun if you just give me what you imagine the numbers your best guess the total number of people who were killed by white supremacist in 2017 go I see zero I see 42 now neither those are right now remember I'm talking about 2017 2018 might have been 42 I don't know the number is 18 18 people 18 people were killed by white supremacist in 2017 now I don't know if 2018 and 2019 or looking worse but let's say they are let's say they are but if you're going to size it roughly 18 for the full year of 2017 now let's let's determine how much of a problem that is okay let's put it in context so there were a total of 18 people killed by white supremacist how many people died from just accidents just all kinds of accidents put together in the United States in one year a hundred and sixty one thousand but there were 18 people killed by white supremacists I'm not minimizing that we should drive that to zero and if it's doubling or something every year well you got to worry about it right but I want to put it in context because context matters you can never be wrong with context how many people died from opioids last year 72,000 how many died from white supremacists violence 18 in 2017 how many people died from suicide in this country in one year 27,000 how many people died from shark attacks in one year in the let's say in the United States just Americans how many Americans were attacked by sharks not dead but attacked by sharks about the same as the number of people killed by white supremacists so roughly speaking shark attacks and white supremacist violence about the same size how many people died on bicycles bicycle deaths in the United States I only have a 2012 figure but it's probably not that different from 2019 not much has changed in the world the bicycles but in 2012 total number of bicycle deaths in the United States was 722 that means that the bicycle in your garage if I've done my math right is 42 times more likely to kill you than a white supremacist let me say that again the bicycle in your garage is 42 times more likely to kill you than a white supremacist I know I'm playing loose with the numbers but you get the idea in terms of the you know the scope of things how many how many people were killed by their pets in the year in the United States how many people get killed by their own pet typically a dog so this is mostly dog maulings the number of people in the United States killed by their pet per year is 20 to 30 that's just dog deaths you can probably add in a few others for other animals but there are more people killed by their pets every year in the United States that are killed by white supremacists now let's say you're the President of the United States and people are blaming you for the rise in white nationalist racist violence and a reporter asks you in public hey is there a big uptick in white nationalist violence should the president say it's a big big deal or should he downplay it that's which is what he did he downplayed it well if you say it's a big deal you've just allowed the the illegitimate press to say that you're the cause of massive white supremacist death because you said it's going up because they're the ones who have said it's your fault so if you say it's going up and you let stand the idea that it's your fault you've just admitted inadvertently you're the cause of an uptick of of terrorism would it be smart for a president to admit it what is not true to admit that he is the cause of terrorism probably not right probably not a good play have you noticed a trend in when the president talks about groups or organizations or countries have you noticed a trend about the way he talks about them in public whether it's white supremacists whether it's Isis whether it's any other group have you noticed a trend the trend is here's the pattern the president minimizes the president minimizes the president minimizes any group he doesn't want to have more recruits so when the president says the ISIS is you know there they're on their way out there they're defeated let's say that's not a hundred percent true is it good for the president to say Isis is basically beaten even if it's only ninety percent true yes it's exactly what you want your leader to say even if it's not a hundred percent true because Isis depends on some sense of success to support their recruiting you can't do recruiting if you're a shrinking group that's being destroyed everyday you can only recruit if you're this spunky little group that can can't even you know that the United States can't even beat so the president talks about Isis he minimizes them because that's what's good for our side when the president talks about white nationalists and and that those terrorists he minimizes them right because you don't want them to have recruits now what about what he talks about the the crime that's crumbing across the border the criminals coming across the borders are not recruiting they simply are criminals there is no organization which is the organization of illegal immigrant criminals there's no sense of recruiting that is important to that story so when he says a lot of crime coming across the border he uses hyperbole he exaggerated the amount of crime because that's how you focus on it that's how you take you seriously that's how it gets funding that's how it gets a priority so if look at the president's pattern when well he's not the president is not improving recruiting for ms-13 biting that he's destroying them every day and Isis is picking them apart and they're being deported so but when you're talking about crime in general he is exaggerating it because that's what gets resources to fight it when he's talking about the white supremacist or Isis he treats them largely the same by minimizing them because you don't want to make it look like that's something that's growing that doesn't help you now should the president give a speech in which he speaks out against white supremacy should the president do that well I have mixed feelings somebody's saying no no he should not do it the problem is that the press has sort of ruined that option the reason the press has ruined that option is that they've set him up so it looked like he was forced to do it if it looks like you're forced to do it it doesn't come across as sincere likewise no matter what the president said on that topic they would say why did it take so long and why did you say it wrong so there's probably no winning path there because they're just gonna say you should have said it earlier and you said it wrong when you finally did say it no matter what he says they're gonna say and they're going to say we forced you to do it so it's not sincere now between now and 2020 it might be a good idea for him to let the current situation get a little bit of distance so that it does not look like he's being forced into it in other words wait wait until the headlines have changed from white supremacist violence because you know they will change there will be something else in the news for a while I would give it a few months and then I would if I did it so I'm gonna put it if on this if I were the president and if I wanted to come out with a strong statement against against any discrimination against Muslims if I wanted to do that I would do it as sort of a surprise I would just wait a couple months and then when there's nothing pushing it in the news and everybody thinks that the news is no longer pushing the president that and only then when it just looks like a good idea he would be free to do it now he probably could write it so that they at least say he said the right things that could probably be done you know if it's a written speech you got lots of people looking at it you could make sure that it was the right stuff to say but I noticed that there are people criticizing him for not being able to say nice things unless the rather teleprompter so you're still open to the sure he can read a speech but unless we hear it from his own work you know in his own words you know extemporaneously and feel the emotion in it they just think he's reading the words so he would have to match anything he read from a teleprompter he would have to match it with a good dollop of his own off you know off record now off record off teleprompter comments so we'd have to say it like a human being in front of the world for anybody to so should he do it I think there's a path there but not right away the sooner he does it the worse probably but if he wants to do it before before it becomes a bigger campaign theme he's got lots of time to do it all right so you notice that the news will often take whichever side is the bad side for the president so in the case of the white supremacist movement and whether it's growing or shrinking if you say that it's doubling from last year that's very misleading because that could just be one terror attack all I would take is one highly effective horrible terror attack and suddenly the number of white supremacist deaths you know people that they've killed would double or triple so you have to be careful when you're starting from such a tiny base so I think it would be fair for the president to say in terms of all of our other problems it's one of the smallest but we're not going to treat it like the smallest because it could grow and problems that could grow are different than problems that are static right so you could treat the the white supremacist increase if assuming that there is an increase you could treat it as a high priority you know what else you could do you could declare an emergency what if the president declared an emergency I just thought of this at the moment I'm not sure this is a good idea but suppose you declared an emergency two games to get resources to combat the rise of white supremacy how many heads would explode if he declared an emergency because the other side would have to either argue that it's not a big deal or they'd have to say he did the right thing we know it's not obvious to me why you couldn't do that yes if the country cares if they want more resources on it and I've heard it said and I don't know if this is true but I've heard it said that maybe there were there are not enough resources on dealing with the rise of white supremacy and that might be true there might not be enough resources on that so why not declare a national emergency to look into it okay all right new topic my understanding is that the new jersey city of newark is looking to do a trial i guess it would be a test baby of universal basic income so one city newark is looking at giving just giving money to people who don't have an income or are below some income and just to see how it goes what is your feeling about that most of you will say my god that's a terrible idea giving money to people for nothing and it's a slippery slope and pretty soon we'll be giving all of our money to everybody that would be the worst way to look at it alright here's the right way to look at it if you can test it small you should do it that's the smartest position for just about anything it doesn't matter if you're in corporate America it doesn't matter if it's your personal life doesn't matter if it's a government this statement is true across all realms if you can test in small do it if you're saying don't try that because it's dumb you are the dumbest person in the conversation right if you say that testing something small is dumb you're the dumbest person in the conversation testing things small is pretty much always a good idea because you're limiting what could go wrong you're testing your small so when you see somebody testing something that you think is a terrible idea your first impression should be good there are only two things that could come out of this either I'm wrong which would be good news because we found a new thing we can do so would it be great if you thought Universal basic income was terrible idea somebody does a test and it worked out great wouldn't you be pleased what's the other thing that would please you you thought all along it was a bad idea somebody did a test and it clearly didn't work now you're a genius you knew all along you should always be in favor of the test now if you lived in Newark and your taxes might be influenced by it well maybe you think something like different right because that's a different situation but if you're not in Newark and Newark wants to do this or some majority want to do it let them do it let's talk about aspirin so the news today is that aspirin may not be such a good idea in terms of taking a baby aspirin preventatively just in case you get a heart attack if you're let's say over 50 now you should always talk to your doctor don't listen to cartoonists about medical advice there are some situations where your doctor will tell you to keep taking the aspirin and it usually has to do with having a a pretty verified risk of heart attack but if you have a healthy heart and no special markers for risk the newest information based on I guess 3 new studies as that aspirin might do more bad than good meaning it could make you bleed more but it's not adding enough in terms of preventing heart attack damage to to be worth it now here's the interesting question what percentage of scientists believed you should take an aspirin last year what percentage now I've asked this question before and there's this weird false memory thing that happens I thought that that was the standard recommendation in other words if you had asked me a year ago I would have said yeah pretty much all scientists and all doctors say you should do that over 50 I thought it was close to a universal recommendation and I think I sent that on a periscope and somebody said that's just not true and then you start researching it you find you can't really find you can't really find any number that says that it was always true that the experts said you should take a baby aspirin so that's actually probably a false memory that I had so I probably have some kind of a false memory and some of you do too the aspirin was you know basically universally recommended by the experts I think if you dig into it you'll find that the scientists were a little bit more mixed all right so that's an open question could you find how many scientists or how many doctors were pretty confident about that in the past I don't know what that number would be I would like to invite anybody on to this periscope as a guest you can just click the option that says you want to be picked as a guest to join me specifically on the question of the 97% of climate scientists being on the same side so if you if you believe that 97% or even 100% of scientists are on the same side on climate change I want to talk to you to see if I can reprogram your beliefs so I so this is an offer to reprogram anybody who believes that 97% of scientists are on the same side when it comes to climate change I want to talk to you live if you believe that's true all right what do you think is more dangerous the rise of white supremacist or the press so I've told you that white supremacists killed 17 people in 2017 so that's their death count let's say it doubles you know maybe there's thirty or so people killed per year by white supremacist which is way too many way too many but let's compare it to the death toll from the press right so here are some things that the press has done the press gave us weapons of mass destruction now you could say that really that was the government fooling the people but I would argue that if the people were not onboard with war in Iraq it couldn't have happened so the Press by by promoting the fake news that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction probably caused the death of millions of Iraqis and X thousands of Americans so I'll say the press has killed say three million people or whatever it is in Iraq I don't know what the number is but something in that range what about the press let's say how about the press the way they treat climate change if climate change is real real in the sense that it's a dire emergency and and human cost so that's what the press has been promoting if that's true that it's also true that they have not been promoting the only thing that could fix it which is new designs of nuclear power the so called generation four that don't have a risk of meltdown and don't really have much of any other risk and we know how to make them you know we should they iterate a few more times but we also know how to iterate so if the press is telling us we're doomed but the solution they're pushing something like a green new deal would make things worse then the press is putting the entire planet at risk by not by not focusing on the only solution which is nuclear all right so I would say that the press is putting let's say another billion people at risk if the press if the press is accurate about the risk of climate change then they are complicit in killing in the future maybe a billion people and destroying the economies of the world so that's on them but the white supremacist may be twenty or thirty people though killed what about health care do you believe the health care is unsolvable because Congress can't work it out that's what it looks like right it looks like Congress can't figure out how to improve health care and that's true but why why is it that the Congress can't sell health care well I would I would propose it's because they don't have the public behind any particular solution so Congress can't really act without the public being in favor of what they're gonna act in at least in some majority way what is the public's opinion on health care well the public has been split into two camps by the press and those two camps can't get together one says some kind of universal health care or one says anything but that can't you can't put those together if the press were reporting on all the things that let's say capitalism can do to lower health care costs if the press were reporting that the current administration is actually doing quite a bit to reduce or a to increased competition for drugs for example if they had been a big story that's what you'd be thinking we should do more of if the press we're focusing on the startups that are looking to lower let's say the cost of lab tests the test the press that will lower the cost of MRIs you know I'm sorry the startups that will do that if the press was treating the health care issue in a productive way instead of a split the sides way probably we would have better health care so let's say let's say the press kills 100,000 people a year by treating Healthcare wrong so that would be another body count for the press let's look at the border wall and border security here we have a case where Republicans want better border security Democrats want a better border security the same Republicans want to listen to the experts when they decide how to spend their money on border security the Democrats want to look at experts to see how to spend their money on border security same but what did the press do the press turned those two sides that are basically the same and for you know all of history until recently they worked it out there have it there has been border security funding in the past there was no big problem because both sides wanted it both sides wanted to look at the experts to figure out how exactly to do it but the press made it impossible this time for for the Democrats to say yes do anything the Republicans wanted because the press had split the country so the press wouldn't even let border security improve which of course would save lots of lives because the less crime the crims cross the less the less people are victims of crimes now I know what you're gonna say but what about the percentage of crimes because the people coming across have a lower percentage of crimes in general than the citizens I don't care about the percentage if I'm dead because somebody killed me who was an illegal immigrant the last thing I'm going to say with my dying breath is well at least the percentage of crime is low compared to the average that's the that's the least likely thing I'm going to say so let's say that the press is responsible for a crime coming across the border because they're the ones who are stopping the solutions so I could probably go on but I would say that the press is an emergency situation if you look at the death toll whereas the way supremacist are a potential gigantic problem that is at the moment a small one and you should probably be serious about the small problems that couldn't become big problems maybe it may be an emergency declaration would be just the thing all right if you're following my ongoing saga in which I'm I've been talking about the fake or let's say the false memory that the president once said that the racists in Charlottesville were fine people so that's that's a false memory that is shared by at least half the country now people have been asking me write recently why are you calling that a false memory when it's just obvious that the Democrats and CNN and MSNBC it's just obvious that they're just flat-out lying about it it could not be more obvious because here's the document here's what the president said and then here on the same at the same day in the same statement he specifically excluded the racists from being good people and he specifically condemning them totally so so there's no question about the facts the facts are unambiguous not in question when you actually look at them nobody questions them so you can look at the video you can look at the transcripts and still people say but it's not there so you say to yourself okay the only explanation for how somebody can look at the transcript this as I'm excluding the racist I condemn them totally the only way you could interpret condemn totally as their fine people is if you are going to just lie about it here's a little bit of understanding about reality that maybe you need to catch up it's very unlikely that people are looking at it is simply deciding to lie when there's such a clear public record of the opposite it's not the sort of lie that most people would even think to take on because it's so easily disproved here's the far more likely and I'll put it in terms of likelihood you can never know what's of the mind of every person the greatest likelihood and this is freaky is that people can look at the statement and even as they're reading the statement the sentence that debunks everything they believed is true even as they're reading it its disappearance so in their minds they're erasing the new information at the same rate that is coming in or they bring it in and you can observe that they'll act like they had never seen it within 60 seconds so I did a demonstration here on periscope in which I showed you somebody who I don't think there's a slightest chance that the person that that ID programmed on periscope was lying because you could tell by the way they expressed it they deeply believed in their own false memory of the event and then when it was proven beyond any doubt because you can just read the transcript and it's as clear as it could be they they have a mental like a reboot their brain just shuts off for a minute and that's typical if you're a hypnotist is something you've seen a lot they'll say that one sentence is a lie yeah which is sort of ridiculous so I would say based on my experience as a hypnotist and based on all so here's the important part I do have some insight or information about CNN so you should assume I have some sources and my sources tell me that they actually believe it's true in other words CNN is operating from the same false memory as the people they're talking to that it's not a lie it's actually they think it happened so they just say it now my best guess for how this false memory was formed is that the president said two different but related things and people are conflating them in their mind one thing he said was that there were some bad actors on quote both sides what he was talking about both sides of that context of the bad actors he was specifically talking about the racists and specifically talking about antifa now he got in trouble for acting as though they were somehow morally equivalent which is just sort of the the idiots way of arguing yeah if you want to be if you want to look like an idiot accuse someone else of making a moral equivalence that they're obviously not making all right now the president was obviously not comparing Nazis to protesters he was saying quite honestly and quite truthfully there were bad actors in both places and you can't let people get away with being a bad actor doesn't matter that one's up here in ones you know ones down here he's the law and order president the law and order president doesn't say well you were murderer but you only be somebody badly so those are not equal murderer is not the same as you know assault those are not in the same category so I guess the assaults okay nobody says that you say they're both bad so anyway the president said that both sides were were bad actors or had bagged at bad actors among them that part's true separately and on the same topic he said that there were fine people on both sides but then he went on to clarify that that context when he was talking about fine people he said specifically I'm not talking about the neo-nazis and the white supremacist I condemned them totally so he changed his context from started to talk about bad deeds done by antiphon and bad deeds done by the Nazis then those were the two sides for that context but in the same conversation about the same event he changed the meaning of both sides he told you he was changing it he said it specifically he said now he said I'm not talking about the Nazis in this context but they were finding people there the context meaning protesting the statutes so I think that's where the false memory comes from is that they're conflating the two conversations as if they're one that's probably where it came from I doubt there it would be it would surprise me if there's any you know major personality or producer at CNN who is literally thinking to themselves well I know this isn't true I know this isn't true but I'm gonna put it out like it is because I don't like that President Trump could be possible you can't say that doesn't exist but in all of my experience of false memories persuasion hypnosis and then my personal contacts and well as well as all of my observations and interactions online it very clearly peers that people have a false memory and I've yet to see solid evidence that somebody was just lying for effect I haven't seen it yet but it could exist there could be people doing that all right let's talk about the president slamming on John Mc.

Cain we live in this weird world where we we can't have nuance about anything it's like it's not allowed so we're not allowed to think that Senator Mc.

Cain was a war hero and generally effective senator at the same time he was a completely destructive I would say bordering on traitorous actor in his final years of life so I would say that all the the scorn that the president is sending at Mc.

Cain completely completely valid as long as you're allowed to think that he could be a war hero in his youth and a total douchebag in his final year of life those are not mutually exclusive you could do something that's just the worst thing ever a year before you died and that doesn't change the fact you were a war hero we can keep that let's keep that part why not so what's the funniest part about this is of course the president was once deeply criticized for criticizing Mc.

Cain because he was thought to be above criticism so even though you know the president told the same joke that Chris Rock would tell in his stand-up comedy about preferring people who didn't get caught literally it's a Chris Rock joke but people kind of thought okay he's Mc.

Cain is too holy he's too much of a hero you can't really criticize the hero do you know that's just wrong but now it's clear that he was not so much a hero in his later life and that if the reporting is true and you never know do you never know what's true these days but if the current reporting is true and he was behind passing the bastille dossier along to the media well then he was just a bad actor and i think the president is having fun well let me put it this way i when i was reading the president's tweets about mccain i immediately got this cartoonish image of the president using Mc.

Cain's dead body to flog his living opponents it's like he's using he's using became as a club it's like let's dig them up and use them as a I'll just be you guys with Mc.

Cain's dead body hear about that I told you I was right in the first place not so much a hero now I guess the facts came out I'm gonna beat you with Mc.

Cain's dead body and of course people will say how could you say that how could you say that how can you be so disrespectful and the answer is he did not earn my respect Mc.

Cain earned my respect as a as a war hero and I'm glad to give it as a politician in his later years despicable despicable alright let's talk about so what will be interesting about our current time this is some day in the future people will have a false memory that President Trump colluded with Russia now what's the primary evidence that Trump colluded without Russia obviously Muller doesn't have anything or we would know by now but people will still say well okay maybe Muller didn't have anything but just you know look at this Papadopoulos guy talking to a Russian and that Russian was connected to the Kremlin look at Don junior and Jared going to that meeting and there was that Russian lawyer there and well she was connected to the Kremlin have you noticed the pattern that if anybody in the that who has any connection with Trump talks to any Russian that that Russian is described as having connections to the Kremlin okay now let's take that as a given well hold that in your mind every contact with any kind of Russian that had anything to do with the Trump Universe those Russians are described as connected to the Kremlin now separately there's the steel dossier in which British X PI X by there's no such thing as an X by you should know that first he he went to Russia and got Russians to give him false information about Trump now the only Russians that we've heard of that don't have a connection to the Kremlin are Christopher Steele's Russians do you believe that the only Russians and all of these stories that coincidentally are not connected directly to the Kremlin are the ones that Christopher still talk to what are the odds seems to me that every Russian who can afford a suit is connected to the Kremlin according to the news oh but but not the ones that Christopher still talk to you what were they were they bellhops at the hotel I don't think so have you ever heard who Christopher Steele talked to I've never heard it reported dude do any of you know this who exactly did Christopher steel talk to they gave him Russian information because he must have talked to somebody who was attached to the Kremlin steel had been to getting the story from the CNN blog post some of the story but not all of it there was something about that he talked to Hillary all right but but ask you that what why is there no obvious reporting that Christopher Steele talked to a Russian who had a connection to the to the Kremlin when they all seemed to be connected to the Kremlin but that one's missing all right here's another false memory test now climate change if I said to you which of these statements do you have a memory of okay I'm going to give you two versions of reality current reality and you tell me which one you remember to be true version number one of reality is that climate change models have predicted accurately that's version one version two no climate change model has ever predicted accurately they can't both be true right those are opposites climate change models have predicted accurately to to our current situation or no climate change model has ever predicted accurately now you can say what are you predicting is a sea-level rise is it melting of the ice is that is that the heat on the land is the heat in the ocean is that the storms what exactly are you predicting and I'll say anything let's say anything it doesn't matter what exactly they're predicting there are two versions reality one that it has predicted accurately already and two it has never reported accurately already guess which one is true I've been studying climate change for months do you know which one is true I'm gonna tell you which one is true which of those two versions is true you're gonna hear for the first time neither neither I don't think you I don't think either one of them is true I don't think anybody's compared predictions to reality I just don't even know if anybody's done it now I could easily be wrong by this wrong in this and probably em I would say I'm probably wrong about this more likely wrong than not but here's the larger point I've been studying this for months that's the one question that matters have their predictions ever been right the only question that matters all of the other stuff is good to know right it'd be great to know if they did this right or they how did they measure this was there a mistake with this it said that'd be great to know but really there's just one thing I want to know and I don't know it I don't know it have you ever seen it reported on the news I haven't seen it when was the last time you saw the news report here was the prediction here's exactly how they got it right damn they're good at predicting or the opposite here are all the predictions here are all the outcomes and you can see that none of their models worked you haven't seen either of those stories so could you as a citizen have a meaningful opinion on climate change no you can't you can only imagine you do you can only imagine you have a rational opinion on climate change because you've never even seen the only fact that matters have their predictions worked or not works now some of you have mentioned Tony eller Tony Heller often talks about historical predictions that have not worked and there are a lot of them there are a lot of climate predictions from the past if you go back to say the 70s and 80s lots of predictions that didn't work but it doesn't matter how many didn't work if you had a thousand models that didn't work but you had one that did that one that did is the one that matters the other ones are just bad models right so I only need to know the one that works it doesn't matter how many times Tony Heller tells me some individual scientist or some individual prediction was wrong it's totally irrelevant I only need to know is there one that's right I don't need to know how many were wrong and I don't know that all right I tweeted that apparently most opinions on climate change line up by political preference if you're a Democrat you think climate change is a dire problem and we should do something about it if you're a Republican by a big majority you don't think it's the problem that's being reported now let me ask you this if people's scientific opinion coincidentally matches very very strongly to their political side is anybody really looking at the science it's a you know it's a it's a question that answers itself the fact that people have lined up by political party as opposed to just people disagree if what you saw was half of the Democrats were disagreeing with each other and half of the Republicans were disagreeing whether it's a problem or not you'd say to yourself oh well it's not about it's not about political allegiance people have actually looked at the news they've come to different opinions but you can know with certainty that that's not what's happening because people have just lined up by political parties so your opinion that climate change is either settled science or completely hoaxes wherever you are on that or if you're anywhere in the middle your opinion is an illusion of knowledge you do not have knowledge about climate science you have an illusion of knowledge that is almost certainly given to you by the press on your side of the political spectrum I know it's hard to hear but that's true all right there's there's another study that says people who drink sugary sodas don't live as long and apparently people who even drink you know Diet versions of the same sodas also have bad bad health outcomes now toward the end of the study it said something like well we don't know if it's a cause and effect but there's a very strong correlation if you drink soda you don't live as long now now let me ask you this is it your experience that people who drink a lot of soda take care of their their fitness and have a good diet otherwise it might be the dumbest study I've ever seen because it's almost a perfect correlation if you drink soda which is you know very near the top of the things you wouldn't do if you wanted a healthy diet it's very unlikely that you're eating everything else right and exercising and doing all the other things that are good for good health you're probably not sleeping right you're probably not eating right you're probably not exercising now of course there are people who were doing everything right except during he soda but guess what nobody studied them then I don't think there's a study that says okay of the people who are doing everything else right as far as we know they're exercising they're sleeping right they're eating all the right foods and they're eating organic and all that the only thing they do wrong is they have a couple of diet cokes every day do those people have worse health outcomes I don't know maybe I mean my my sense of it is that diet soda is probably not good for you but it's the most ridiculous study to say that that correlation should be them translated into your mind to some kind of causation all right is there anything else we haven't talked about I'm going to take some calls from people who believe that scientists 97% of scientists agree that all right so I I'm pulling my microphone so I can take some calls that's the only way to hear the caller's if I hold my microphone so they're looking caller who believes the scientists all agree climate change let's see if this guest is one of those people a little guests can you hear me yet do you hello Lynn Lynn yes that's me now do you believe that 97% of scientists agree on climate change all right this is gonna be a loaded question so I believe that they believe that 97% of them agreeing on it however I also have done some studying on scientists cooking books to make it appear that we are in a climate change and it started in 1939 when they said that it was getting hotter when in actuality it wasn't and so all those people in the Midwest started moving to the ghost so I think they believe what they're putting out there to be true when in fact it's false all right I'm looking for somebody who believes that climate change is real because the scientists say it is so thank you for your comment let's see if I could get somebody to take that position my guess is that nobody is going to take that position that will be literally no one who is willing to back up the 97% figure for for climb the site's high collar I've done an informal survey of the scientists that I know and they scientists don't tend to believe things in black and white they tend to make a judgment based on the pre ruins of evidence they accumulate evidence for hypotheses and I can just say is someone who's made climate change videos for Al Gore and still am a big fan of your work that the polar ice caps are verifiably melting the Seas along the coast or verifiably rising our Navy is preparing for the effects of the rising sea so it looks to me like there's a problem that the earth is warming that's my answer okay um but do you think that 97% of scientists are on the same page on climate science has there been a poll of scientists maybe I don't qualify for your question I mean have they polled scientists well yeah they've been polled at least six times I think if you go to Wikipedia you'll see six different polls and they're all between 90 there they're all 990s to 100% basically do you believe that's true I believe it if you think unless you're asking me if you want to deprogram me because I'm believing a false well it looks like I'm not gonna give anybody who actually believes in the 97% and here's why you probably should not even the skeptics are in that group so if you combine the people who believe there is a problem with the people who don't and you add them together what do you get when you add all the people together about a hundred percent so the way the question is formed is do you believe that humans are creating co2 which causes warming pretty much every scientists go say yes but the second question they don't ask which is how big of a deal do you think of this that's the part they leave out so the reason the 97% is like the primary thing that the press reports is that it's simple this is a part of climate science they can understand you know they understand polar bears yes or no 97% hey everybody's on the same well the reason is everybody's on the same side is that they literally added the skeptics and and and the people who believe together if you add all the people together you're almost always getting a hundred percent and that's why I happen now I'll just continue on this point and thank you for the call so think about that now let me ask you this the climate science is really based on but not based on but let's say depends on measurements in other words there's somebody measuring the ocean there's somebody measuring the ice there's somebody measuring the temperature of the ocean somebody measuring the temperature of land how many people in the whole universe are involved in just the measurement part how many people are climate scientists who are directly involved in measuring because there are really the only ones who sort of know what's going on like they have they have the best idea whether their measurements are crazy or if they fudge things or if or if they've you know if they've exaggerated so I would say if you're looking at all climate scientists almost none of them have been directly involved in the most basic part of climate science which is measuring the temperature over time if you haven't been involved in that then you are simply believing the people who did so in other words you don't have 97% of scientists who have all personally done every part of climate scientists and cut the science and come to the same answer we're not talking about a group of people who all went out and put out their own thermometers they all went out they they personally measure the ice they're all depending on a very small group of people who are involved in say satellite measurements land-based thermometers it's got to be a pretty small pretty small population all right so the 97% thing is ridiculous I'm stuck my microphone back in I don't know if that'll make a difference or not so since I don't know if you can still hear me but I hope you can don't you need a pretty big talent stack also to have a clue yeah you would have to have talent across multiple fields to be a climate scientist who had a solid opinion of things you'd have to know at least a little bit about a lot of different fields and that's probably rare I would imagine there are more scientists who are in a silo than there are scientists who are pretty good at a whole bunch of different fields I would think that would be rare all right so I think that's all for today and I will talk to you tomorrow

ba-ba-boom ba-ba ba-ba ba-ba ba-ba ba-ba

boom hey everybody I'm glad you're awake

and I'm glad you're here because it's

the best part of the day it's coffee

with Scott Adams and you were about to

enjoy the unparalleled pleasure of

something I call the simultaneous sip to

enjoy it you probably need to have a

glass of mug stein the chalice perhaps a

thermos maybe a glass filled with your

favorite liquid I like coffee join me

now for the simultaneous up do you

delicious all right here's your question

of the day I want to see your answer in

the comments there is a startling Rhys

and white supremacist white nationalist

violence in this country how many people

died from white supremacists in 2017 I

don't have the 2018 number but how many

total people in the United States were

killed by white to supremacist go

you can't look it up yeah actually it's

more fun if you just give me what you

imagine the numbers your best guess the

total number of people who were killed

by white supremacist in 2017 go I see

zero

I see 42 now neither those are right now

remember I'm talking about 2017 2018

might have been 42 I don't know the

number is 18 18 people 18 people were

killed by white supremacist in 2017 now

I don't know if 2018 and 2019 or looking

worse but let's say they are let's say

they are but if you're going to size it

roughly 18 for the full year of 2017 now

let's let's determine how much of a

problem that is okay let's put it in

context so there were a total of 18

people killed by white supremacist how

many people died from just accidents

just all kinds of accidents put together

in the United States in one year a

hundred and sixty one thousand but there

were 18 people killed by white

supremacists I'm not minimizing that we

should drive that to zero and if it's

doubling or something every year well

you got to worry about it right but I

want to put it in context because

context matters you can never be wrong

with context how many people died from

opioids last year 72,000 how many died

from white supremacists violence 18 in

2017 how many people died from suicide

in this country in one year 27,000 how

many people died from shark attacks in

one year in the let's say in the United

States just Americans how many Americans

were attacked by sharks not dead but

attacked by sharks about the same as the

number of people killed by white

supremacists so roughly speaking shark

attacks and white supremacist violence

about the same size how many people died

on bicycles bicycle deaths in the United

States I only have a 2012 figure but

it's probably not that different from

2019 not much has changed in the world

the bicycles but in 2012

total number of bicycle deaths in the

United States was 722 that means that

the bicycle in your garage if I've done

my math right is 42 times more likely to

kill you than a white supremacist let me

say that again the bicycle in your

garage is 42 times more likely to kill

you than a white supremacist I know I'm

playing loose with the numbers but you

get the idea in terms of the you know

the scope of things how many how many

people were killed by their pets in the

year in the United States how many

people get killed by their own pet

typically a dog so this is mostly dog

maulings the number of people in the

United States killed by their pet per

year is 20 to 30 that's just dog deaths

you can probably add in a few others for

other animals but there are more people

killed by their pets every year in the

United States that are killed by white

supremacists now let's say you're the

President of the United States and

people are blaming you for the rise in

white nationalist racist violence and a

reporter asks you in public

hey is there a big uptick in white

nationalist violence should the

president say it's a big big deal or

should he downplay it that's which is

what he did he downplayed it well if you

say it's a big deal you've just allowed

the the illegitimate press to say that

you're the cause of massive white

supremacist death because you said it's

going up because they're the ones who

have said it's your fault so if you say

it's going up and you let stand the idea

that it's your fault

you've just admitted inadvertently

you're the cause of an uptick of of

terrorism would it be smart for a

president to admit it what is not true

to admit that he is the cause of

terrorism probably not right probably

not a good play have you noticed a trend

in when the president talks about groups

or organizations or countries have you

noticed a trend about the way he talks

about them in public whether it's white

supremacists

whether it's Isis whether it's any other

group have you noticed a trend the trend

is here's the pattern the president

minimizes the president minimizes the

president minimizes any group he doesn't

want to have more recruits so when the

president says the ISIS is you know

there they're on their way out there

they're defeated let's say that's not a

hundred percent true is it good for the

president to say Isis is basically

beaten even if it's only ninety percent

true yes it's exactly what you want your

leader to say even if it's not a hundred

percent true because Isis depends on

some sense of success to support their

recruiting you can't do recruiting if

you're a shrinking group that's being

destroyed everyday you can only recruit

if you're this spunky little group that

can can't even you know that the United

States can't even beat so the president

talks about Isis he minimizes them

because that's what's good for our side

when the president talks about white

nationalists and and that those

terrorists he minimizes them right

because you don't want them to have

recruits now what about what he talks

about the the crime that's crumbing

across the border

the criminals coming across the borders

are not recruiting they simply are

criminals there is no organization which

is the organization of illegal immigrant

criminals there's no sense of recruiting

that is important to that story so when

he says a lot of crime coming across the

border he uses hyperbole he exaggerated

the amount of crime because that's how

you focus on it that's how you take you

seriously that's how it gets funding

that's how it gets a priority so if look

at the president's pattern when well

he's not the president is not improving

recruiting for ms-13 biting that he's

destroying them every day and Isis is

picking them apart and they're being

deported so but when you're talking

about crime in general he is

exaggerating it because that's what gets

resources to fight it when he's talking

about the white supremacist or Isis he

treats them largely the same by

minimizing them because you don't want

to make it look like that's something

that's growing that doesn't help you now

should the president give a speech in

which he speaks out against white

supremacy should the president do that

well I have mixed feelings somebody's

saying no no he should not do it the

problem is that the press has sort of

ruined that option

the reason the press has ruined that

option is that they've set him up so it

looked like he was forced to do it if it

looks like you're forced to do it it

doesn't come across as sincere likewise

no matter what the president said on

that topic they would say why did it

take so long and why did you say it

wrong so there's probably no winning

path there because they're just gonna

say you should have said it earlier and

you said it wrong when you finally did

say it no matter what he says they're

gonna say

and they're going to say we forced you

to do it so it's not sincere now between

now and 2020 it might be a good idea for

him to let the current situation get a

little bit of distance so that it does

not look like he's being forced into it

in other words wait wait until the

headlines have changed from white

supremacist violence because you know

they will change there will be something

else in the news for a while I would

give it a few months and then I would if

I did it so I'm gonna put it if on this

if I were the president and if I wanted

to come out with a strong statement

against against any discrimination

against Muslims

if I wanted to do that I would do it as

sort of a surprise I would just wait a

couple months and then when there's

nothing pushing it in the news and

everybody thinks that the news is no

longer pushing the president that and

only then when it just looks like a good

idea he would be free to do it now he

probably could write it so that they at

least say he said the right things that

could probably be done you know if it's

a written speech you got lots of people

looking at it you could make sure that

it was the right stuff to say but I

noticed that there are people

criticizing him for not being able to

say nice things unless the rather

teleprompter so you're still open to the

sure he can read a speech but unless we

hear it from his own work you know in

his own words

you know extemporaneously and feel the

emotion in it they just think he's

reading the words so he would have to

match anything he read from a

teleprompter he would have to match it

with a good dollop of his own off you

know off record now off record off

teleprompter comments so we'd have to

say it like a human being in front of

the world for anybody to

so should he do it I think there's a

path there but not right away

the sooner he does it the worse probably

but if he wants to do it before before

it becomes a bigger campaign theme he's

got lots of time to do it all right so

you notice that the news will often take

whichever side is the bad side for the

president so in the case of the white

supremacist movement and whether it's

growing or shrinking if you say that

it's doubling from last year that's very

misleading because that could just be

one terror attack all I would take is

one highly effective horrible terror

attack and suddenly the number of white

supremacist deaths

you know people that they've killed

would double or triple so you have to be

careful when you're starting from such a

tiny base so I think it would be fair

for the president to say in terms of all

of our other problems it's one of the

smallest but we're not going to treat it

like the smallest because it could grow

and problems that could grow are

different than problems that are static

right so you could treat the the white

supremacist increase if assuming that

there is an increase you could treat it

as a high priority you know what else

you could do you could declare an

emergency what if the president declared

an emergency I just thought of this at

the moment I'm not sure this is a good

idea but suppose you declared an

emergency two games to get resources to

combat the rise of white supremacy how

many heads would explode if he declared

an emergency because the other side

would have to either argue that it's not

a big deal or they'd have to say he did

the right thing

we know it's not obvious to me why you

couldn't do that yes if the country

cares if they want more resources on it

and I've heard it said and I don't know

if this is true but I've heard it said

that maybe there were there are not

enough resources on dealing with the

rise of white supremacy and that might

be true there might not be enough

resources on that so why not declare a

national emergency to look into it okay

all right new topic my understanding is

that the new jersey city of newark is

looking to do a trial i guess it would

be a test baby of universal basic income

so one city newark is looking at giving

just giving money to people who don't

have an income or are below some income

and just to see how it goes what is your

feeling about that most of you will say

my god that's a terrible idea giving

money to people for nothing and it's a

slippery slope and pretty soon we'll be

giving all of our money to everybody

that would be the worst way to look at

it alright here's the right way to look

at it if you can test it small you

should do it that's the smartest

position for just about anything it

doesn't matter if you're in corporate

America it doesn't matter if it's your

personal life doesn't matter if it's a

government this statement is true across

all realms if you can test in small do

it if you're saying don't try that

because it's dumb you are the dumbest

person in the conversation right if you

say that testing something small is dumb

you're the dumbest person in the

conversation testing things small is

pretty much always a good idea because

you're limiting what could go wrong

you're testing your small so when you

see somebody testing something that you

think is a terrible idea your first

impression should be

good there are only two things that

could come out of this either I'm wrong

which would be good news because we

found a new thing we can do so would it

be great if you thought Universal basic

income was terrible idea somebody does a

test and it worked out great

wouldn't you be pleased what's the other

thing that would please you you thought

all along it was a bad idea

somebody did a test and it clearly

didn't work now you're a genius you knew

all along you should always be in favor

of the test now if you lived in Newark

and your taxes might be influenced by it

well maybe you think something like

different right because that's a

different situation but if you're not in

Newark and Newark wants to do this or

some majority want to do it let them do

it let's talk about aspirin so the news

today is that aspirin may not be such a

good idea

in terms of taking a baby aspirin

preventatively just in case you get a

heart attack if you're let's say over 50

now you should always talk to your

doctor don't listen to cartoonists about

medical advice there are some situations

where your doctor will tell you to keep

taking the aspirin and it usually has to

do with having a a pretty verified risk

of heart attack but if you have a

healthy heart and no special markers for

risk the newest information based on I

guess 3 new studies as that aspirin

might do more bad than good meaning it

could make you bleed more but it's not

adding enough in terms of preventing

heart attack damage to to be worth it

now here's the interesting question what

percentage of scientists believed you

should take an aspirin last year

what percentage now I've asked this

question before and there's this weird

false memory thing that happens I

thought that that was the standard

recommendation in other words if you had

asked me a year ago I would have said

yeah pretty much all scientists and all

doctors say you should do that over 50 I

thought it was close to a universal

recommendation and I think I sent that

on a periscope and somebody said that's

just not true and then you start

researching it you find you can't really

find you can't really find any number

that says that it was always true that

the experts said you should take a baby

aspirin so that's actually probably a

false memory that I had so I probably

have some kind of a false memory and

some of you do too the aspirin was you

know basically universally recommended

by the experts I think if you dig into

it you'll find that the scientists were

a little bit more mixed all right

so that's an open question could you

find how many scientists or how many

doctors were pretty confident about that

in the past I don't know what that

number would be I would like to invite

anybody on to this periscope as a guest

you can just click the option that says

you want to be picked as a guest to join

me specifically on the question of the

97% of climate scientists being on the

same side so if you if you believe that

97% or even 100% of scientists are on

the same side on climate change I want

to talk to you to see if I can reprogram

your beliefs so I so this is an offer to

reprogram anybody who believes that 97%

of scientists are on the same side when

it comes to climate change I want to

talk to you live if you believe that's

true all right what do you think is more

dangerous the rise of white supremacist

or the press so I've told you that white

supremacists killed 17 people in 2017 so

that's their death count let's say it

doubles you know maybe there's

thirty or so people killed per year by

white supremacist which is way too many

way too many but let's compare it to the

death toll from the press right so here

are some things that the press has done

the press gave us weapons of mass

destruction now you could say that

really that was the government fooling

the people but I would argue that if the

people were not onboard with war in Iraq

it couldn't have happened so the Press

by by promoting the fake news that Iraq

had weapons of mass destruction probably

caused the death of millions of Iraqis

and X thousands of Americans so I'll say

the press has killed say three million

people or whatever it is in Iraq I don't

know what the number is but something in

that range what about the press let's

say how about the press the way they

treat climate change if climate change

is real real in the sense that it's a

dire emergency and and human cost so

that's what the press has been promoting

if that's true that it's also true that

they have not been promoting the only

thing that could fix it which is new

designs of nuclear power the so called

generation four that don't have a risk

of meltdown and don't really have much

of any other risk and we know how to

make them you know we should they

iterate a few more times but we also

know how to iterate so if the press is

telling us we're doomed but the solution

they're pushing something like a green

new deal would make things worse then

the press is putting the entire planet

at risk by not by not focusing on the

only solution which is nuclear all right

so I would say that the press is putting

let's say another billion people at risk

if the press if the press is accurate

about the risk of climate change then

they are complicit in killing in the

future maybe a billion people and

destroying the economies of the world so

that's on them but the white supremacist

may be twenty or thirty people though

killed what about health care do you

believe the health care is unsolvable

because Congress can't work it out

that's what it looks like right it looks

like Congress can't figure out how to

improve health care and that's true but

why why is it that the Congress can't

sell health care well I would I would

propose it's because they don't have the

public behind any particular solution so

Congress can't really act without the

public being in favor of what they're

gonna act in at least in some majority

way what is the public's opinion on

health care well the public has been

split into two camps by the press and

those two camps can't get together one

says some kind of universal health care

or one says anything but that can't you

can't put those together if the press

were reporting on all the things that

let's say capitalism can do to lower

health care costs if the press were

reporting that the current

administration is actually doing quite a

bit to reduce or a to increased

competition for drugs for example if

they had been a big story that's what

you'd be thinking we should do more of

if the press we're focusing on the

startups that are looking to lower let's

say the cost of lab tests the test the

press that will lower the cost of MRIs

you know I'm sorry the startups that

will do that if the press was treating

the health care issue in a productive

way instead of a split the sides way

probably we would have better health

care so let's say let's say the press

kills 100,000 people a year by treating

Healthcare wrong so that would be

another body count for the press let's

look at the border wall and border

security here we have a case where

Republicans want better border security

Democrats want a better border security

the same Republicans want to listen to

the experts when they decide how to

spend their money on border security the

Democrats want to look at experts to see

how to spend their money on border

security same but what did the press do

the press turned those two sides that

are basically the same and for you know

all of history until recently they

worked it out there have it there has

been border security funding in the past

there was no big problem because both

sides wanted it both sides wanted to

look at the experts to figure out how

exactly to do it but the press made it

impossible this time for for the

Democrats to say yes do anything the

Republicans wanted because the press had

split the country so the press wouldn't

even let border security improve which

of course would save lots of lives

because the less crime the crims cross

the less the less people are victims of

crimes now I know what you're gonna say

but what about the percentage of crimes

because the people coming across have a

lower percentage of crimes in general

than the citizens I don't care about the

percentage if I'm dead because somebody

killed me who was an illegal immigrant

the last thing I'm going to say with my

dying breath is well at least the

percentage of crime is low compared to

the average that's the that's the least

likely thing I'm going to say so let's

say that the press is responsible for a

crime coming across the border because

they're the ones who are stopping the

solutions so I could probably go on but

I would say that the press is an

emergency situation if you look at the

death toll whereas the way supremacist

are a potential gigantic problem that is

at the moment a small one and you should

probably be serious about the small

problems that couldn't become big

problems maybe it may be an emergency

declaration would be just the thing all

right if you're following my ongoing

saga in which I'm I've been talking

about the fake or let's say the false

memory that the president once said that

the racists in Charlottesville were fine

people so that's that's a false memory

that is shared by at least half the

country now people have been asking me

write recently why are you calling that

a false memory when it's just obvious

that the Democrats and CNN and MSNBC

it's just obvious that they're just

flat-out lying about it it could not be

more obvious because here's the document

here's what the president said and then

here on the same at the same day in the

same statement he specifically excluded

the racists from being good people and

he specifically condemning them totally

so so there's no question about the

facts the facts are unambiguous not in

question when you actually look at them

nobody questions them so you can look at

the video you can look at the

transcripts and still people say but

it's not there so you say to yourself

okay the only explanation for how

somebody can look at the transcript this

as I'm excluding the racist I condemn

them totally the only way you could

interpret condemn totally as their fine

people is if you are going to just lie

about it here's a little bit of

understanding about reality that maybe

you need to catch up it's very unlikely

that people are looking at it is simply

deciding to lie when there's such a

clear public record of the opposite it's

not the sort of lie

that most people would even think to

take on because it's so easily disproved

here's the far more likely and I'll put

it in terms of likelihood you can never

know what's of the mind of every person

the greatest likelihood and this is

freaky is that people can look at the

statement and even as they're reading

the statement the sentence that debunks

everything they believed is true even as

they're reading it its disappearance so

in their minds they're erasing the new

information at the same rate that is

coming in or they bring it in and you

can observe that they'll act like they

had never seen it within 60 seconds so I

did a demonstration here on periscope in

which I showed you somebody who I don't

think there's a slightest chance that

the person that that ID programmed on

periscope was lying because you could

tell by the way they expressed it they

deeply believed in their own false

memory of the event and then when it was

proven beyond any doubt because you can

just read the transcript and it's as

clear as it could be

they they have a mental like a reboot

their brain just shuts off for a minute

and that's typical if you're a hypnotist

is something you've seen a lot they'll

say that one sentence is a lie yeah

which is sort of ridiculous so I would

say based on my experience as a

hypnotist and based on all so here's the

important part I do have some insight or

information about CNN so you should

assume I have some sources and my

sources tell me that they actually

believe it's true in other words CNN is

operating from the same false memory as

the people they're talking to that it's

not a lie it's actually they think it

happened so they just say it now my best

guess for how this false memory was

formed is that the president said two

different but related things and people

are conflating them in their mind one

thing he said

was that there were some bad actors on

quote both sides what he was talking

about both sides of that context of the

bad actors he was specifically talking

about the racists and specifically

talking about antifa now he got in

trouble for acting as though they were

somehow morally equivalent which is just

sort of the the idiots way of arguing

yeah if you want to be if you want to

look like an idiot accuse someone else

of making a moral equivalence that

they're obviously not making all right

now the president was obviously not

comparing Nazis to protesters he was

saying quite honestly and quite

truthfully there were bad actors in both

places and you can't let people get away

with being a bad actor doesn't matter

that one's up here in ones you know ones

down here he's the law and order

president the law and order president

doesn't say well you were murderer but

you only be somebody badly so those are

not equal murderer is not the same as

you know assault those are not in the

same category so I guess the assaults

okay nobody says that you say they're

both bad so anyway the president said

that both sides were were bad actors or

had bagged at bad actors among them that

part's true

separately and on the same topic he said

that there were fine people on both

sides but then he went on to clarify

that that context when he was talking

about fine people he said specifically

I'm not talking about the neo-nazis and

the white supremacist I condemned them

totally so he changed his context from

started to talk about bad deeds done by

antiphon and bad deeds done by the Nazis

then those were the two sides for that

context but in the same conversation

about the same event he changed the

meaning of both sides he told you he was

changing it he said it specifically

he said now he said I'm not talking

about the Nazis in this context but they

were finding people there the context

meaning protesting the statutes so I

think that's where the false memory

comes from is that they're conflating

the two conversations as if they're one

that's probably where it came from I

doubt there it would be it would

surprise me if there's any you know

major personality or producer at CNN who

is literally thinking to themselves well

I know this isn't true I know this isn't

true but I'm gonna put it out like it is

because I don't like that President

Trump could be possible you can't say

that doesn't exist but in all of my

experience of false memories persuasion

hypnosis and then my personal contacts

and well as well as all of my

observations and interactions online it

very clearly peers that people have a

false memory and I've yet to see solid

evidence that somebody was just lying

for effect

I haven't seen it yet but it could exist

there could be people doing that all

right let's talk about the president

slamming on John McCain we live in this

weird world where we we can't have

nuance about anything it's like it's not

allowed so we're not allowed to think

that Senator McCain was a war hero and

generally effective senator at the same

time he was a completely destructive I

would say bordering on traitorous actor

in his final years of life so I would

say that all the the scorn that the

president is sending at McCain

completely completely valid as long as

you're allowed to think that he could be

a war hero in his youth

and a total douchebag in his final year

of life those are not mutually exclusive

you could do something that's just the

worst thing ever

a year before you died and that doesn't

change the fact you were a war hero we

can keep that let's keep that part why

not

so what's the funniest part about this

is of course the president was once

deeply criticized for criticizing McCain

because he was thought to be above

criticism so even though you know the

president told the same joke that Chris

Rock would tell in his stand-up comedy

about preferring people who didn't get

caught literally it's a Chris Rock joke

but people kind of thought okay he's

McCain is too holy he's too much of a

hero you can't really criticize the hero

do you know that's just wrong but now

it's clear that he was not so much a

hero in his later life and that if the

reporting is true and you never know do

you never know what's true these days

but if the current reporting is true and

he was behind passing the bastille

dossier along to the media well then he

was just a bad actor and i think the

president is having fun well let me put

it this way i when i was reading the

president's tweets about mccain i

immediately got this cartoonish image of

the president using McCain's dead body

to flog his living opponents it's like

he's using he's using became as a club

it's like let's dig them up and use them

as a I'll just be you guys with McCain's

dead body hear about that I told you I

was right in the first place not so much

a hero now I guess the facts came out

I'm gonna beat you with McCain's dead

body and of course people will say how

could you say that how could you say

that how can you be so disrespectful and

the answer is he did not earn my respect

McCain earned my respect as a

as a war hero and I'm glad to give it as

a politician in his later years

despicable despicable alright let's talk

about so what will be interesting about

our current time this is some day in the

future people will have a false memory

that President Trump

colluded with Russia now what's the

primary evidence that Trump colluded

without Russia obviously Muller doesn't

have anything or we would know by now

but people will still say well okay

maybe Muller didn't have anything but

just you know look at this Papadopoulos

guy talking to a Russian and that

Russian was connected to the Kremlin

look at Don junior and Jared going to

that meeting and there was that Russian

lawyer there and well she was connected

to the Kremlin have you noticed the

pattern that if anybody in the that who

has any connection with Trump talks to

any Russian that that Russian is

described as having connections to the

Kremlin okay now let's take that as a

given well hold that in your mind every

contact with any kind of Russian that

had anything to do with the Trump

Universe those Russians are described as

connected to the Kremlin

now separately there's the steel dossier

in which British X PI X by there's no

such thing as an X by you should know

that first he he went to Russia and got

Russians to give him false information

about Trump now the only Russians that

we've heard of that don't have a

connection to the Kremlin are

Christopher Steele's Russians do you

believe that the only Russians and all

of these stories that coincidentally are

not connected directly to the Kremlin

are the ones that Christopher still talk

to what are the odds seems to me that

every Russian who can afford a suit is

connected to the Kremlin according to

the news oh but but not the ones that

Christopher still talk to you

what were they were they bellhops at the

hotel I don't think so have you ever

heard who Christopher Steele talked to

I've never heard it reported dude do any

of you know this who exactly did

Christopher steel talk to they gave him

Russian information because he must have

talked to somebody who was attached to

the Kremlin steel had been to getting

the story from the CNN blog post some of

the story but not all of it there was

something about that he talked to

Hillary all right but but ask you that

what why is there no obvious reporting

that Christopher Steele talked to a

Russian who had a connection to the to

the Kremlin when they all seemed to be

connected to the Kremlin but that one's

missing all right here's another false

memory test

now climate change if I said to you

which of these statements do you have a

memory of okay I'm going to give you two

versions of reality current reality and

you tell me which one you remember to be

true version number one of reality is

that climate change models have

predicted accurately that's version one

version two no climate change model has

ever predicted accurately they can't

both be true right those are opposites

climate change models have predicted

accurately to to our current situation

or no climate change model has ever

predicted accurately now you can say

what are you predicting

is a sea-level rise is it melting of the

ice is that is that the heat on the land

is the heat in the ocean is that the

storms what exactly are you predicting

and I'll say anything let's say anything

it doesn't matter what exactly they're

predicting there are two versions

reality one that it has predicted

accurately already and two it has never

reported accurately already guess which

one is true

I've been studying climate change for

months do you know which one is true I'm

gonna tell you which one is true which

of those two versions is true you're

gonna hear for the first time neither

neither I don't think you I don't think

either one of them is true I don't think

anybody's compared predictions to

reality I just don't even know if

anybody's done it now I could easily be

wrong by this wrong in this and probably

em I would say I'm probably wrong about

this more likely wrong than not but

here's the larger point I've been

studying this for months that's the one

question that matters have their

predictions ever been right the only

question that matters all of the other

stuff is good to know right it'd be

great to know if they did this right or

they how did they measure this was there

a mistake with this it said that'd be

great to know but really there's just

one thing I want to know and I don't

know it

I don't know it have you ever seen it

reported on the news I haven't seen it

when was the last time you saw the news

report here was the prediction here's

exactly how they got it right damn

they're good at predicting or the

opposite here are all the predictions

here are all the outcomes and you can

see that none of their models worked

you haven't seen either of those stories

so could you as a citizen have a

meaningful opinion on climate change no

you can't you can only imagine you do

you can only imagine you have a rational

opinion on climate change because you've

never even seen the only fact that

matters have their predictions worked or

not works now some of you have mentioned

Tony eller Tony Heller often talks about

historical predictions that have not

worked and there are a lot of them there

are a lot of climate predictions from

the past if you go back to say the 70s

and 80s lots of predictions that didn't

work but it doesn't matter how many

didn't work if you had a thousand models

that didn't work but you had one that

did that one that did is the one that

matters the other ones are just bad

models right so I only need to know the

one that works it doesn't matter how

many times

Tony Heller tells me some individual

scientist or some individual prediction

was wrong it's totally irrelevant I only

need to know is there one that's right I

don't need to know how many were wrong

and I don't know that all right I

tweeted that apparently most opinions on

climate change line up by political

preference if you're a Democrat you

think climate change is a dire problem

and we should do something about it if

you're a Republican by a big majority

you don't think it's the problem that's

being reported now let me ask you this

if people's scientific opinion

coincidentally matches very very

strongly to their political side is

anybody really looking at the science

it's a you know it's a it's a question

that answers itself the fact that people

have lined up by political party as

opposed to just people disagree

if what you saw was half of the

Democrats were disagreeing with each

other and half of the Republicans were

disagreeing whether it's a problem or

not

you'd say to yourself oh well it's not

about it's not about political

allegiance people have actually looked

at the news they've come to different

opinions but you can know with certainty

that that's not what's happening because

people have just lined up by political

parties so your opinion that climate

change is either settled science or

completely hoaxes wherever you are on

that or if you're anywhere in the middle

your opinion is an illusion of knowledge

you do not have knowledge about climate

science you have an illusion of

knowledge that is almost certainly given

to you by the press on your side of the

political spectrum I know it's hard to

hear but that's true all right there's

there's another study that says people

who drink sugary sodas don't live as

long and apparently people who even

drink

you know Diet versions of the same sodas

also have bad bad health outcomes now

toward the end of the study it said

something like well we don't know if

it's a cause and effect but there's a

very strong correlation if you drink

soda you don't live as long now now let

me ask you this is it your experience

that people who drink a lot of soda take

care of their their fitness and have a

good diet otherwise it might be the

dumbest study I've ever seen because

it's almost a perfect correlation if you

drink soda which is you know very near

the top of the things you wouldn't do if

you wanted a healthy diet it's very

unlikely that you're eating everything

else right and exercising and doing all

the other things that are good for good

health you're probably not sleeping

right you're probably not eating right

you're probably

not exercising now of course there are

people who were doing everything right

except during he soda but guess what

nobody studied them then I don't think

there's a study that says okay of the

people who are doing everything else

right as far as we know they're

exercising they're sleeping right

they're eating all the right foods and

they're eating organic and all that the

only thing they do wrong is they have a

couple of diet cokes every day do those

people have worse health outcomes I

don't know maybe I mean my my sense of

it is that diet soda is probably not

good for you but it's the most

ridiculous study to say that that

correlation should be them translated

into your mind to some kind of causation

all right is there anything else we

haven't talked about I'm going to take

some calls from people who believe that

scientists 97% of scientists agree that

all right so I I'm pulling my microphone

so I can take some calls that's the only

way to hear the caller's if I hold my

microphone so they're looking caller who

believes the scientists all agree

climate change let's see if this guest

is one of those people a little guests

can you hear me yet do you hello Lynn

Lynn yes that's me now do you believe

that 97% of scientists agree on climate

change all right this is gonna be a

loaded question

so I believe that they believe that 97%

of them agreeing on it however I also

have done some studying on scientists

cooking books to make it appear that we

are in a climate change and it started

in 1939 when they said that it was

getting hotter when in actuality it

wasn't and so all those people in the

Midwest started moving to the ghost so I

think they believe what they're putting

out there to be true when in fact it's

false all right I'm looking for somebody

who believes that climate change is real

because the scientists say it is so

thank you for your comment let's see if

I could get somebody to take that

position my guess is that nobody is

going to take that position that will be

literally no one who is willing to back

up the 97% figure for for climb the

site's high collar I've done an informal

survey of the scientists that I know and

they scientists don't tend to believe

things in black and white they tend to

make a judgment based on the pre

ruins of evidence they accumulate

evidence for hypotheses and I can just

say is someone who's made climate change

videos for Al Gore and still am a big

fan of your work that the polar ice caps

are verifiably melting the Seas along

the coast or verifiably rising our Navy

is preparing for the effects of the

rising sea so it looks to me like

there's a problem that the earth is

warming that's my answer

okay um but do you think that 97% of

scientists are on the same page on

climate science has there been a poll of

scientists

maybe I don't qualify for your question

I mean have they polled scientists well

yeah they've been polled at least six

times I think if you go to Wikipedia

you'll see six different polls and

they're all between 90 there they're all

990s to 100% basically do you believe

that's true

I believe it if you think unless you're

asking me if you want to deprogram me

because I'm believing a false well it

looks like I'm not gonna give anybody

who actually believes in the 97% and

here's why you probably should not even

the skeptics are in that group so if you

combine the people who believe there is

a problem with the people who don't and

you add them together what do you get

when you add all the people together

about a hundred percent so the way the

question is formed is do you believe

that humans are creating co2 which

causes warming pretty much every

scientists go say yes but the second

question they don't ask which is how big

of a deal do you think of this that's

the part they leave out so the reason

the 97% is like the primary thing that

the press reports is that it's simple

this is a part of climate science they

can understand you know they understand

polar bears

yes or no 97% hey everybody's on the

same

well the reason is everybody's on the

same side is that they literally added

the skeptics and and and the people who

believe together if you add all the

people together you're almost always

getting a hundred percent and that's why

I happen now I'll just continue on this

point and thank you for the call so

think about that now let me ask you this

the climate science is really based on

but not based on but let's say depends

on measurements in other words there's

somebody measuring the ocean there's

somebody measuring the ice there's

somebody measuring the temperature of

the ocean

somebody measuring the temperature of

land how many people in the whole

universe are involved in just the

measurement part how many people are

climate scientists who are directly

involved in measuring because there are

really the only ones who sort of know

what's going on like they have they have

the best idea whether their measurements

are crazy or if they fudge things or if

or if they've you know if they've

exaggerated so I would say if you're

looking at all climate scientists almost

none of them have been directly involved

in the most basic part of climate

science which is measuring the

temperature over time if you haven't

been involved in that then you are

simply believing the people who did so

in other words you don't have 97% of

scientists who have all personally done

every part of climate scientists and cut

the science and come to the same answer

we're not talking about a group of

people who all went out and put out

their own thermometers they all went out

they they personally measure the ice

they're all depending on a very small

group of people who are involved in say

satellite measurements land-based

thermometers it's got to be a pretty

small pretty small population

all right so the 97% thing is ridiculous

I'm stuck my microphone back in I don't

know if that'll make a difference or not

[Music]

so since I don't know if you can still

hear me but I hope you can

don't you need a pretty big talent stack

also to have a clue yeah you would have

to have talent across multiple fields to

be a climate scientist who had a solid

opinion of things you'd have to know at

least a little bit about a lot of

different fields and that's probably

rare I would imagine there are more

scientists who are in a silo than there

are scientists who are pretty good at a

whole bunch of different fields I would

think that would be rare all right

so I think that's all for today

and I will talk to you tomorrow