God's Debris: The Complete Works, Amazon https://tinyurl.com/GodsDebrisCompleteWorksFind my "extra" content on Locals: https://ScottAdams.Locals.comContent:Politics, President Trump, Trump's Tariff Persuasion, Bill Ackman, MSNBC Chris Hayes, Rand Paul, CNN's Orange Filter, Carlos Gutierrez, Doug Ford, Mitch McConnell, Anti-DOGE Propaganda, Abby Phillip, Uncontrolled Government Debt, US Spending & Debt Crisis, Anti-DOGE Democrats, Elon Musk, Anti-Tesla Domestic Terrorism, Tesla Model Y, NYC Mayor Adams, Adam Schiff, Non-Citizen Voting Support, TikTok Sale, Mike Benz, Justice John Roberts, China's MagLev Train, Mitochondria Dysfunction Breakthrough, Scott Adams~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~If you would like to enjoy this same content plus bonus content from Scott Adams, including micro-lessons on lots of useful topics to build your talent stack, please see scottadams.locals.com for full access to that secret treasure.
Chapter 1: What is the highlight of human civilization according to Scott Adams?
good morning everybody and welcome to the highlight of human civilization it's called coffee with scott adams and it's the best time you'll ever have in your life but if you think you can take it up to a level that nobody's ever seen before in their entire human existence all you need for that
There's a cup or a mug or a glass, a tank or chalice, a stein, a canteen jug, a flask, a vessel of any kind. Fill it with your favorite liquid. I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dopamine of the day. The thing that makes everything better except maybe the tariffs. It's called the simultaneous sip and it happens now. Go. That was terrific. Did he get it?
It was terrific. I'm so proud of that. So proud. All right. Should we talk about all the things? I guess we should just start with tariffs. Hey, what do you think about that? So president Trump in a speech in the rose garden lay down his tariff situation. Um, and, uh, it's not exactly reciprocal, but there were like different amounts for each country.
Chapter 2: What are President Trump's tariffs about?
Now, if you wondered what the formula was or what the thinking was for why each country had a different tariff, and it wasn't just matching the tariffs. Um, let me explain the math to you. I mean, it's very simple. Uh, you take the, uh, the interest rate and you divide it by the gross national product of each country.
multiplied by the number of imports, divided by the current tariff, and then I believe you add two, you carry the three, and then you add some random numbers to it, and then you put it on a chart. Now, if you've got a better idea of how the president came up with those numbers, I'm all ears. But I'm going to put a flag in the mountain.
I'm going to stick a flag somewhere, which is I think it's now officially foolish for me to believe any numbers coming out of the government. I'm not going to believe any of the tariff numbers at all. I'm not going to believe any of the economic numbers. I'm not going to believe any of the Doge claims, although I think everything's working directionally correctly.
So I'm going to go with my normal theme that Trump might be full of hyperbole, he's always negotiating, and things are working in the right direction. But if you think the exact numbers are telling you something, Maybe yes, maybe no. The only thing I know is I can't check them, and the Democrats have a pushback on pretty much all of them.
So if you didn't know that the Democrats have a pushback that you wouldn't know if it sounds good or not, you would hear it and go, huh, I know that might be true. But then again... It might not be true because it's the Democrats. So, no, I'm not going to trust Trump on any numbers. That's not a good play.
I'm going to trust Trump that he's doing what he believes and the other smart people around him, like Scott Besant. He's doing what the smart people in his administration would agree on. is very good for America in the long run. And there might be some pain in the short run. So to me, directionally, I think we're fine. And we'll see how it all shakes out.
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Chapter 3: How do tariffs work according to Scott Adams?
The chart he had, that Trump had, that showed what the tariffs were from the other countries and what ours are, was very persuasive. very persuasive, but not necessarily very accurate or comprehensible, but very persuasive. I liked, at least the chart people did a great job. So I saw lots of theories about how the numbers were derived and where they came from. I don't believe any
anything about the numbers. I don't believe the actual numbers. I don't believe that they're going to stay the same. I don't believe that we know accurately what the other countries were charging us because I think they might have included tariffs plus VAT taxes plus any kind of duties. So it seemed like it was a grab bag of concepts and we're not going to really understand it.
But it certainly got everybody's attention, didn't it? And we're already seeing a few countries who are making moves to negotiate. For example... So I think Vietnam and Canada has made a move, at least part of Canada, not the whole country. I think Mexico has responded that they won't try to match it. So countries are already responding, which is what we wanted. And I saw a post by Bill Ackman.
And this is something that I was thinking, but if I said it, I would be mocked because it sounds like it's just too much in the bag for Trump. And I'm totally in the bag for Trump, but even I wouldn't have said this. So Bill Ackman posts, sometimes the best strategy in a negotiation is convincing the other side that you're crazy. Now, you've heard me teach you that, right?
Chapter 4: What is the Democrats' stance on Trump's numbers?
I've spoken at length about the concept of negotiating from the point of insanity, where you act completely irrational about at least one thing that you're asking for. And if you can convince the other side that you're irrational... then they're going to give up on trying to rationally change your mind.
And they're just going to say, all right, you know, I'll try to make do with the rest of this contract. But that one thing that you rationally want, I guess there's nothing I can do. You're just going to have to, I guess I'll just have to live with that. So is that what Trump is doing? Is Trump acting like a madman to convince people that there's no point in negotiating with him? I would say no.
I don't think that's what's going on. I think he is causing confusion. I think he doesn't mind, which is different than doing it intentionally. I think that the numbers are so complicated and maybe smart people could disagree what the current tariffs are and what they should be and what's the right number.
So if you tried to get the right numbers, it would be sort of a fool's errand because nobody would ever agree that you calculated it correctly. There are probably 50 ways you could calculate this stuff. So I do agree that trying too hard to get the numbers accurate wouldn't buy you anything. I do like the fact that putting it out there made every country take it seriously.
And he has the attention of the entire world. Let's compare that to Cory Booker. Cory Booker spent 25 hours or what was it? 25 hours speaking in the Senate and nobody even knows what his topic was after 25 hours of speaking. Did you have a point, Corey? Was there something you were asking for? I'm missing the point of this.
Whereas Trump goes out, he gives a one-hour speech in the Rose Garden and causes every country on earth to stop what they were doing and put their full focus on their tariff situation with the United States. Now, that's the difference between acting, in quotes, which is what Booker was doing. He was just acting, putting on a one-man play, versus Trump, who was acting.
He acted on something that's been a concern for decades, and a lot of people have shared the concern that other countries might be taking advantage of this. So, if you're watching a news program... that doesn't start talking about the tariffs, as in the first thing you say, that it's a negotiation opening bid, that's not real news. It's a real good way to know what the fake news is.
The real news would say, this is an opening bid to negotiations, because that's what the administration says, it's what Trump says, it's what Bill Ackman understands, it's what you and I know. The correct frame
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Chapter 5: What is Bill Ackman's view on negotiation strategies?
is that he just made the entire world pay attention to him and take seriously the things we want them to take seriously and know that they've got to change or it's going to be a problem for them. Now, one of the things I teach you is that in persuasion, the first thing you have to get right is to get their attention. and make them think it's their top thing they have to deal with.
Did Trump do that? Did Trump get the attention of these other countries? Yes. Did he make them think it's the top thing that they have to deal with? Yes. Home run. If I were to grade him on negotiating, we don't have a result yet, so I can't give him a final grade, but preparation, A+. Are his numbers accurate? Don't care. Doesn't matter. It won't make any difference to the outcome.
Did it make people think he's crazy? Maybe. Does that help him? It might. Does it make people feel really uncomfortable and uncertain and worried about their future? Yes. Will that help him? Yes, because they're going to want to get rid of the uncertainty. So he's going to make them negotiate with themselves, which is, how about 5%? No. How about we cut it 10%? No.
That's making somebody negotiate with themselves. So if you can make the other countries feel uncertain and worried enough... and more uncertain and more worried than you are, which is the big win, then they're going to start moving in your direction even without you negotiating. So we'll see if that works.
But I'll tell you, any news that talks about the tariffs as anything but a negotiating frame are lying to you. They're lying, stupid weasels. Now, the other thing I should warn you about is anybody who's confident that it's a bad idea. If you're confident that what Trump has done is a bad idea, you're probably an idiot. Because confidence should not be any part of this.
We don't know how this is going to work out. I don't know how this is going to work out. If I told you, oh, this is definitely going to work out just the way we want, all the tariffs will go away and we'll make a trillion dollars. I don't know that. Nobody knows that. But I would be equally stupid to say, oh, it's just a tax. Everybody's prices will go up and we'll get nothing from it.
And everything was fine before then. Stupid. That's just frankly stupid because you don't know that. You don't know what the end result of any of this will be. But the one thing I can tell you is that he just took control. So he owns the argument. He has the high ground because he has at least demonstrated that things were unfair to the United States, however you want to measure that.
So he's made his first persuasive win, which is the whole world was taking advantage of us. Even if you don't believe the exact numbers he used... and you go back and you look at the numbers for yourself, you're going to say to yourself, oh, whatever numbers you look at, you could pick any source, and it's still going to say, oh, I guess I see his point. It looks like these were not the same.
They were treating us differently than we were treating them. So he has a complete victory on phase one of persuasion. Complete victory. Are his numbers good? Nope. I don't believe a single one of his numbers. Is he causing the markets to go into chaos? Yes. Yes. Won't last. Oh, well, let me put it this way. I don't know if it'll last.
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Chapter 6: How do media portrayals affect public perception?
I can only know that from the perspective of what would a good persuader do, what would a good negotiator do, it would look pretty much just like this. So I'm pretty happy with the setting of the table. And Chris Hayes calls it the worst case scenario. Is it? Is it the worst case scenario? I feel like the worst case scenario would be the Tesla protests.
taking a doge out of it and Tesla and Trump, I'm sorry, and Musk saying, all right, screw it. I'm going to quit this old doge thing because you're burning down my assets. That would be the worst case scenario because then we would die from debt, certainly. That's called the worst case scenario.
Making other countries worry about their tariff situation as their top priority until we work it out with them. That is not even close to the worst case scenario. It might be closer to the best case scenario. And do you know what's the difference between being positive that it's the best case scenario or positive that it's the worst case scenario? They're both stupid.
I don't know which one it is, but I know if you're certain it's the worst case scenario, that's just stupid. Same as if you think, oh, tomorrow it'll all be fixed and everything will be better. Also stupid. Those are things we can't know at this point. All right, and of course, Chris Hayes never mentioned that it's a negotiating frame. That is not real news, people.
That is fake news, intentional fake news. They obviously know it's a negotiating frame. If they don't mention it, it's fake news. So Rand Paul is not happy about the tariffs. He appeared with Democrat Tim Kaine on Fox News to argue his point. His point was incoherent, which is weird, because Rand Paul is one of the more capable, rational people in Congress.
And I like the fact that he is generally consistent with his own principles. But what that caused him to do in this case is to... act irrational. So I believe that his take is that all tariffs are bad. but we don't live in a world where we were starting with zero tariffs. So he's literally reasoning from the imaginary. So we should not add tariffs because tariffs are a tax and they're bad.
And if you're done after saying tariffs are bad so we shouldn't add them, you're arguing from imagination. You're not arguing from reality. Reality is that tariffs have been here forever. And we've been tariffing people and they've been tariffing us. And we became the strongest nation on earth with tariffs. If we adjust them again, how does Rand Paul know that it will make things worse?
A tariff is a tax. Yes, we know that. And by the way, arguing that it's not a tax... That's not a strong argument. It's definitely a tax, in effect. The effect of it is a tax. It's just that we're in the negotiating frame, and we'd like their tax on us to go away, and we'd like taxes both ways to go away. Rand Paul's other point was that
He doesn't like, I guess Trump's administration used some kind of emergency rules so that they didn't need Congress to approve what is effectively a raise in taxes, the tariffs. So that part, I think he is, at least he's always consistent about what is the job of Congress and what is the job of a president. And you can debate that one.
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Chapter 7: What is the real threat of government debt?
You don't think that they should do a little self-correcting? But no, Abby Phillip on CNN, who's one of the purveyors of the fine people hoax, by the way. So she has no credibility as a news person whatsoever. But she blatantly lied talking to the governor of, ex-governor of Wisconsin. She was talking to Scott Walker.
And she throws out that, you know, that Trump would cut Social Security and Medicare benefits. even though he said exactly the opposite, and even though they're saving the benefits, not destroying them. And Governor Walker, to his credit, would have none of it. So he fact-checked her in real time. Do you think she then said, oh, really? You know, I have different information.
Here's my quote that proves I'm right. No. No. Did she say, but, ex-governor, you're forgetting that one of them said this and then say something that was true? No, no. Did she say, I'd better take a look at that because I was pretty sure that they said they would cut it?
No, no.
She simply tried to talk over him and make the time go away and then change the subject. So, but now that she's been informed publicly... by somebody who is credible and knows what they're talking about, do you think from now on she'll say, well, they definitely are not looking to cut the benefits of Social Security and Medicare?
I used to think that they were, but after Scott Walker filled me in, I checked it out and found out, well, he was right. They've never once said that. They are actually just trying to save it from going bankrupt so that you can get your benefits fully. No, I would expect her to lie about it the very next time she talks about it.
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Chapter 8: What is the overall reception of Trump's tariff strategy?
So I think Abby Phillip is one of the worst credibility people on CNN. I'm surprised she still has a job. Well, I guess I shouldn't be. Here's my take. So I think Elon Musk just reposted this right before I went online. So I'm just going to read it the way I posted it because I thought about it enough that I think it's worded correctly. So here's the first thing.
The biggest threat to the citizens of the United States is uncontrolled government spending creating ruinous debt. Do you agree so far? Now, you might say, well, you know, Russia might go nuclear, but probably not. I mean, if they did, it'd be very bad, but probably not. But if we didn't do anything about our debt situation and government spending, we are definitely dead.
The whole country is dead. Do you agree with me so far? That the debt is an existential threat, as in we're no longer a country, and it's not going to take a long time, certainly within just a few years, because we're already way beyond the point where we can handle that level of debt, unless we make radical doge-like cuts.
All right, so if you believe the first part, and you should, because it's sort of obvious, that ruinous spending and debt are the biggest risk to the United States, and that we're already looking into the abyss on debt, and so time matters. We're not solving the 20-year-from-now problem. We're solving the 18 months from now you're out of business as a country. I think it's that close.
It's an emergency. It's the most important thing that's happening in the country. All right. Next, the only possible solution is Doge, and they're making progress. Okay so far? Nobody else has an idea. We know that the government can't be asked to do it themselves. We're all confident that that's true. It's just got to be an external force. It's got to be a really, really smart external force.
And it's got to be an external force that is unusually capable. That's what we have. Good for us. So we have the most ruinous, dangerous existential threat in my lifetime. It's the biggest one I've seen. I mean, when I was a kid, I was worried about the Soviet Union nuking us. But since then, this is the biggest threat I've seen to the existence of the United States and my own life, really.
And Doge is the only thing that's making progress against it. And it looks like it's working. Now, the next thing you need to know is that the main goal of Democrats is to stop Doge. And no one has asked a prominent Democrat or a Tesla demonstrator to explain that. Can you explain why you're trying to stop the only thing that could save the United States?
Why would you be opposed to the one and only thing? Now, I get the whole scalpel, no chainsaw. But since it's obvious that whatever Doge started out as, it very quickly self-adjusted. Well, maybe external force adjusted it. But they very quickly adjusted to the cuts will be approved by the cabinet members. So the government itself will be making the final decisions, not Doge.
And very scalpel-like decisions. So it's not really a good critique to say, oh, they're not even paying attention to what they're cutting. Now, the other complaints are they don't even know what they're cutting. That is a little closer to true, meaning that our accounting systems are so pathetic that
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