Coffee With Scott Adams — Knowledge Archive July 2, 2026
Scott Adams Philosophy Archive
Search ideas

Context —

s now. Oh my god, oh my god. Wait, wait, I don't think I can resist a double sip. Oh god, did I need that. Well let's talk about Paul Pelosi's DUI. You know, Nancy Pelosi's husband got stopped for a DUI recently. And today we learned that he allegedly, and I guess we should highlight allegedly because this does sound a little bit too on the nose, I have to admit it doesn't sound true, but I'm go…

← Previous segment →

the technique. See that technique should be the thing that's used by people who are not powerful. I guess here's the thing that bothers me. People who are not powerful have a set of strategies and then people who are powerful have a different set of strategies. And if he had to use a strategy that typically you'd associate with the less powerful people, I don't know, it just feels like he's taken something away. I don't know what it is about it. There's just something about the story that goes.

Now apparently there's some kind of drug that was discovered in him as well. Who knows what that is. Maybe we'll find out, maybe we won't. But remember everything you hear about this situation is a legend. A legend. He has not been proven guilty in a court of law and that has to mean something in our United States. Has to mean something.

All right. How would you like to see critical race theory and things related to it destroyed in the classroom? Well I'm pretty close. Yeah, you don't see it coming yet because there's no signs of it yet. Pretty close. It goes like this.

What would be the opposite of critical race theory? Because that's kind of missing, isn't it? Have you noticed what's missing? If you say hey, I don't like this critical race theory, the alternative is just to be silent. That doesn't feel like enough, does it?

So if you're noticing hey, why do we keep, you know, it feels like we should be fighting against this thing. If you're against critical race theory you're fighting against it. It feels like you're not winning. It's because you don't have any tools. You don't have anything to fight with. You're basically saying somebody's shooting you in the head and you're saying I sure wish you weren't shooting me in the head. How often does that work? It doesn't. You have to have something to fight back with.

Now some people are threatening lawsuits and you know that's all good if it works. But maybe you didn't see this coming. But there actually is a solution. There is a solution. It's strategy. The solution to CRT, which conservatives would characterize it, now this is of course a right-leaning characterization. Everybody's got a narrative, right, so it doesn't mean it's true. But the way it's portrayed is that it's a victim mentality.

If you don't like the victim mentality you better have something better. Just saying I don't like the victimhood that CRT sort of implies, that doesn't buy you anything. You've got to tell us what's better. What would be better? Strategy would be better. It's a high ground. All right, victimhood is low ground. Strategy is the high ground.

And the strategy is how do you use your victimhood in the best possible way? All right. Now the worst possible way is just complain and say give us stuff because we're victims. That's the worst way. It might work, I'm not saying it doesn't work. It works a lot. But it's still the worst way.

The best way is to have a strategy for success and just make your strategies for success work. Because if you're succeeding you're basically fixing the current generation and the ones after that as well.

So how could you possibly fix it? Well what if there were a book that taught you how to succeed no matter how much of a victim you might be? Wouldn't that be useful? And suppose that book had been written for somebody 14 years and up so that they could get it at about the time that they're developing a little bit of critical thinking. If only such a book existed.

It's called *How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big*. And I wrote it in part for exactly this. Now more specifically I was sort of thinking of my own stepkids as I wrote it. But it was written for the purpose of battling this exact thing before it had a name. You know we always thought about people expressing their victimhood as their primary, let's say, philosophy or operating system of life. And before it had any kind of a name there was that book that said how about a strategy instead of a complaint.

And the problem is that that book sort of exists outside the educational system. But as of yesterday I did offer, and I think it's been accepted, I haven't checked yet, for somebody who's a professional who makes curriculums and lesson plans out of books. So my book can now be turned into, I'm working it into a lesson plan.

And I'm not telling you that my book needs to be the one. I can think of maybe there might be five to ten books that just jump out as something that even a teenager should be exposed to. Maybe in summary form, perhaps in summary form, but definitely the material should be made available to kids.

And if you could make homeschoolers learn strategies for success while the rest of the world is learning to just read and write and complain, you fixed everything. Because the market competition will take care of the rest.

So right now you've got a situation where you've got public schools not doing so great. And then you've got homeschoolers that we don't understand. If you're involved in homeschool you probably do understand it. But do you understand that people not directly involved in homeschool don't exactly know what it is? Because it feels like mom has to stay home and be the teacher and she doesn't know how to do that. I mean that would be like the sexist way to look at it.

But don't you think that homeschool needs like more of a marketing kick? Suppose I said to you public school is where you learn to read, write, and complain. And homeschool is where you learn to read, write, and strategize or have a strategy for success. Am I done? That's it. That's the end of critical race theory. You just need to offer an alternative and it hasn't been offered. But the alternative exists in the sense that all the pieces are there. You just have to package it up and put it in a narrative, which I'm doing for you right now.

All right let me say it again. Public school is where you learn to read, write, and complain about your victimhood, about anything, you know, your gender, who knows, whatever. Complain. Homeschool is where you learn to read, write, and have a strategy for life success. It's over. It's over. You can't, that contrast is first of all something that everybody would get right away. But not until you c

Context —

an prove it. Right now homeschool is not that. Homeschool is not that. Homeschool is just another place to learn to read and write with less complaining. But there's a real big difference between less complaining and an active strategy for success that has been tried and works for countless people all over the place, right? You can't compare those two things. So the title of the book is called *…

Next segment → →