On Friday's edition of Human Events Daily, host Jack Posobiec and guest Joshua Lisec spoke on how the late Scott Adams had been right about the Southern Poverty Law Center years before the Department of Justice's charges that were announced earlier in the week.
Posobiec said that Adams "talked about two things almost incessantly: one was the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the other was Charlottesville. But he seemed to be able to intuit that Charlottesville was—he would always call it the tent pole hoax of the anti-Trump era, and he always said that if you can knock down Charlottesville, then you can knock down this entire idea that Donald Trump is racist and all the rest that they are all lying.
"Here we are. It’s only a few months after Scott left us. We find out that not only was there a lie about what Donald Trump said about Charlottesville, that the entire thing was a setup to begin with."
Lisec spoke on the 2019 book released by Adams called "Loserthink," "which are ideas that impoverish our own thinking, our own reasoning, but we think are actually really smart." He said that one of the frameworks that Adams used was the "simple phrase" of follow the money.
"That’s a simple phrase that we’ve all heard before, but it more so gets to this idea of incentive structures," Lisec said. He added, "Scott would point out that if you fundraise off of the existence of, let’s say racism and racist activities, then your ability to make more money is therefore related directly to the existence of there being more racism, which will often result in the, let’s say demand for racism far outpacing the existence of actual racism, the supply of actual racism."
"So when you’re incentivized for there to be racism, what do you need to do in order to keep making money? You need to fan the flames, you need to exaggerate. You need to do whatever you possibly can to make the problem seem as large as possible. And this, frankly, is the trap of every charitable organization."
Posobiec read out a 2019 tweet from Adams, in which he wrote in part, "consider that when you pay someone to identify racist organizations, they find more than if you don’t pay them. And that is what has been happening with SPLC. So it might be a measurement incentive issue too."
Posobiec added, "This is just how far ahead Scott was. And it’s really simple. He followed the incentives; he followed the money. And when the incentives and money align, that is when you’re going to find hoaxes. Now, I don’t know if he ever tied directly the SPLC to Charlottesville, but my goodness, I think he knew. I think on some level, he just knew."
Posobiec said that Adams "talked about two things almost incessantly: one was the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the other was Charlottesville. But he seemed to be able to intuit that Charlottesville was—he would always call it the tent pole hoax of the anti-Trump era, and he always said that if you can knock down Charlottesville, then you can knock down this entire idea that Donald Trump is racist and all the rest that they are all lying.
"Here we are. It’s only a few months after Scott left us. We find out that not only was there a lie about what Donald Trump said about Charlottesville, that the entire thing was a setup to begin with."
Lisec spoke on the 2019 book released by Adams called "Loserthink," "which are ideas that impoverish our own thinking, our own reasoning, but we think are actually really smart." He said that one of the frameworks that Adams used was the "simple phrase" of follow the money.
"That’s a simple phrase that we’ve all heard before, but it more so gets to this idea of incentive structures," Lisec said. He added, "Scott would point out that if you fundraise off of the existence of, let’s say racism and racist activities, then your ability to make more money is therefore related directly to the existence of there being more racism, which will often result in the, let’s say demand for racism far outpacing the existence of actual racism, the supply of actual racism."
"So when you’re incentivized for there to be racism, what do you need to do in order to keep making money? You need to fan the flames, you need to exaggerate. You need to do whatever you possibly can to make the problem seem as large as possible. And this, frankly, is the trap of every charitable organization."
Posobiec read out a 2019 tweet from Adams, in which he wrote in part, "consider that when you pay someone to identify racist organizations, they find more than if you don’t pay them. And that is what has been happening with SPLC. So it might be a measurement incentive issue too."
Posobiec added, "This is just how far ahead Scott was. And it’s really simple. He followed the incentives; he followed the money. And when the incentives and money align, that is when you’re going to find hoaxes. Now, I don’t know if he ever tied directly the SPLC to Charlottesville, but my goodness, I think he knew. I think on some level, he just knew."
