Coffee With Scott Adams — Knowledge Archive August 22, 2026
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that's good stuff. I'd like to start by reading a joke I just read on Twitter from Juanita Broaddrick. Now, I don't know if she made this joke up because it's a little bit too good, but I'll read it to you anyway. You should know that she's not much of a fan of Democrats. So Juanita says, "Went into a bookstore to ask if they had Trump's book on illegal immigration." Clerk said, "Get the hell out…

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mocrats don't recognize incentives and motivation, and that we think we have some kind of a political difference in the world. You know, we think that there are some people who are on the left and some people who are on the right. I'm not so sure.

Somebody says that's an old joke. It looks like it was a professional joke, so I don't think Juanita came up with it because she does not work in that industry. But it's a good joke.

So anyway, I've said that Democrats don't recognize motivation, so they don't work into their idea of how to build a society that humans have motivation, whereas Republicans consistently get that part right. And that's the big difference. But we think it's some kind of weird philosophical difference or it's a difference in priorities. And there's some of that, but mostly it's not. Mostly it's that Democrats don't know that human motivation is an important variable in building a system. That's what it looks like to me.

But let's take this hypothesis a little bit further. There's a new Rasmussen poll saying that 55 percent of likely voters think politicians' criticisms of police make it more dangerous for them to do their jobs. Do you buy that? That when politicians criticize the police, it makes it more dangerous for the police?

Now, what kind of person would believe that? What kind of person would believe that something that politicians are saying would have an impact on how dangerous it is to be a police officer? Well, everyone who understands human motivation thinks that, right? Anybody who understands how human beings work would probably think this is true.

But when you do a poll by conservative versus liberal to see what they think of it, 72 percent of conservatives agree with the idea that politicians criticizing the police makes it more dangerous to the police. But only 25 percent of liberals, only 25 percent of liberals, think this has an impact on how dangerous it is to be a police officer.

This is not really a philosophical difference, is it? Do you see? Do you see what's happening? It's just one group thinks that human motivation is a factor, and the other one acts like it just doesn't exist. That you can make a decision that's somehow free of how humans are wired. That seems to be the basic difference between the left and the right, and it gets confused with all these other topics. So we think it's something else.

Somebody says, is it an IQ difference? I don't think so. I don't think so at all. In fact, I don't think there's any evidence for that. It's definitely not intelligence. I think I can say that for sure.

Now, do you think it's only the liberals who are a little bit crazy? Well, let me give you a test case. The marvelous case of Bill Gates. And I know what some of you just said: "Oh, don't talk about that again, Bill Gates." But almost everything you need to know about humans and how we view the world can be understood by the way we look at just this one person, Bill Gates. And I have a pretty strong opinion about this.

All right, and it is that if you think that Bill Gates is up to no good or he's in it for the money, it's the worst opinion on social media. In other words, there are lots of opinions that I could disagree with, but I also acknowledge that the other side has something to the argument, right? In most cases, you know, look, for example, take any topic. I'm in favor of good control of the border, but I certainly understand the argument on the other side. I happen to prefer the other argument to keep good border security, and then we can open it up as much or as little as

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we need based on economics. But I get the other argument, right? I just prefer this one. This is one of those where there really isn't another argument. This isn't like the other stuff. This is purely a psychological phenomenon. Has nothing to do with how smart you are, how much you know. Probably doesn't have anything to do with any of that. But let's walk through it. My hypothesis is this: If…

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