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Feb. 19, 2019 - Real Coffe - Scott Adams
30:04
Episode 422 Scott Adams: I Predict That Fake News Will Destroy all Life on Earth. With Coffee
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Bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum Well, it looks like I mistakenly used the wrong microphone, which means that this will not post to Twitter.
So we won't have as many people here today, and people will complain about not getting a notice.
But I think that's being fixed sometime soon.
Alright everybody, I'm starting a little bit early this morning.
Gotta take Snickers to the vet for some routine stuff.
Nothing wrong with the dog.
She just needs some routine stuff.
So, let us begin with a simultaneous sip.
It starts when you go and you grab your mug, your cup.
It could be a stein or a chalice, possibly a thermos.
You fill it with your favorite liquid, I like coffee, and you join me for the simultaneous sip.
All the people who simultaneously sipped are happier than all the people who looked at it and said, I'm not going to fall into that trap of simultaneously sipping.
It only hurts yourself.
So this Jussie Smollett event, which in one sense is a small story, meaning that it involved, you know, three people in the United States directly, but I'm starting to wonder if this is a turning point in our understanding of reality.
And I asked myself, what was the common view of the news 20 years ago?
I would say the common view of the news 20 years ago is that the news was mostly true, but maybe 10 or 20% was fake news-ish or wrong or likely to be corrected later.
So sort of an 80-20 thing.
But it feels like that has reversed, and maybe it was always reversed.
But after the Jussie Smollett thing became so big and so talked about and so fake, as far as we know right now, I wonder if people are starting to realize that the news is mostly made up, meaning I wonder if people are starting to realize that the news is mostly made up, Now, to test that, I will look at some stories that are in the headlines.
And let's see if most of the stories that are the news...
Are real, or if most of them are fake news.
Let's take a look at some of the things in the headlines.
We have Jussie Smollett's story.
Started as fake news, right?
Russian collusion.
That's in the headlines every day.
Probably fake news.
We'll wait for Mueller to confirm, but at this point it's looking like fake news.
We've got McCabe saying that Rosenstein not only wasn't joking about wearing a wire to see the president, but was besetted twice.
Now that's, of course, two different stories we have.
One is that he was saying it sort of sarcastically, like it was the worst idea in the world, and the other is the opposite, that he was saying it seriously.
So at least half of the story, or at least half of the world believing one half of the story, is living under a fake news situation.
So that's a 50-50, depending on which version you decide to accept.
Then there's the emergency declaration for the border.
What is the main narrative about that?
The main narrative is that this border is not really an emergency.
And what do you call an emergency?
Is it appropriate to use emergency powers for something that's not really technically an emergency?
And then you look at all of the other emergency declarations.
Have you done that? Have you taken the time to look at the list of all of the emergency declarations that are still in effect?
I think there are some 30 of them.
Do any of them look like emergencies to you?
There isn't an emergency on the list, is there?
I think everything on that list is a non-emergency.
Most of them are about freezing bank accounts of bad people, like cartel members and terrorists and stuff.
And yes, I think those things are important.
Those are important things.
But were they really emergencies?
As in, if you do it next week, it's going to be that much worse than if you do it today.
Well, it sort of stretches the definition of emergency, right?
So the main story that the president is stretching the definition of emergency is about as fake as you can get.
We don't know how it'll turn out, but certainly the emergency stuff is used all the time for non-emergencies.
The other part of that story is that it's a slippery slope.
That if the president uses his power to declare an emergency for national defense, that some other president might use an emergency for something else.
To which I say, okay.
It's okay with me. They're going to have to defend it, because you can see the pushback that this president is getting for not even really departing much.
From what an emergency declaration has always looked like.
So he's just a little bit of departure.
He's being sued by 16 states.
It's going to go to the Supreme Court.
Who knows? So if you're telling me there's a slippery slope, I would say the obvious news right in front of us says that's not true.
Because he's getting the maximum pushback from the smallest little deviation from what people thought was okay.
If you deviated even a little bit more...
I would imagine there would be more pushback.
The system seems to be able to absorb that kind of a problem.
Slippery slope? Not really.
I've always said this, but the slippery slope is imaginary.
Because everything goes in the direction it's going until there's something that stops it.
Everything. So to pick one thing out of life and say, oh, there's the slippery slope right there, almost always an hallucination.
Because if there's nothing to stop something, it will go forever.
And if there is something to stop something, it will stop.
And that's the whole story.
And almost everything creates a counterforce when it gets going.
So no matter what is in action, you can almost guarantee a counterforce will come up, such as these 16 lawsuits, for example.
All right, what else is in the news?
Let's see if it's fake or real.
We had the story about Alison Camerato saying that President Trump has no sense of humor.
Is that real news?
Or is that fake news?
The president has no sense of humor.
Well, that's the fakest news you could ever have.
That's pretty fake.
Then there's one of Bush's old attorneys, a guy named Dick Painter.
That's his real name.
Dick Painter.
Now, I've seen painting with Rusty.
I don't know what a dick painter is exactly, but I think it's his name.
He's a dick painter. And he says that Trump should be removed under the 25th Amendment because he's mentally ill.
Is that real news or fake news?
Well, it's real news that he said it.
So, I mean, to that extent is real news.
But is it real news that the president is mentally unstable?
No. No.
How about, let's see, what else?
Oh, and the border funding question.
What's the biggest thing that you see in the news?
The biggest thing you see is that walls don't work.
Walls don't work.
That's pretty fake news.
Now, if you only have half a wall, that might not work.
But nobody is suggesting that we do a bad job at the border.
There's nobody's side that says, let's only plug some of the border.
About half should be good.
That should be good.
Nobody thinks that.
So there's this fake argument about the fact that incomplete border security doesn't work.
Nobody's arguing that incomplete border security is a good idea.
It's a complete fake argument.
You know, straw man on, in a sense, both sides.
All right. So those are the big fake stories.
Now, what else is in the news?
Let's look at this page.
Oh, nothing.
Nothing. So everything I mentioned is pretty much the news today.
How much of what I mentioned is fake news?
Is it 20% fake news?
Yeah, and then Covington was fake news.
So I just mentioned all the news from, you know, the way we look at the wall to the way we're looking at the Mueller thing to the emergency funding.
80% fake news?
So I think this Smollett thing, Smollett, is maybe a turning point in how we see the news, from seeing it as 80% likely to be true, to 80% likely to be not true.
Now, some of these stories have gone from the not true to the, oh my God, we figured out what's really going on here phase.
But when you first hear a story, what should be your percentage of truth you put on it?
In general, when you first hear a story, how likely is it to be true?
I would say 20%.
20%.
So if you wanted a good rule of thumb, I would say 20%.
Now, there are some types of news stories that by their nature are more likely to be true.
So if they say the president gave a speech today, well, he probably gave a speech, right?
You can tell that kind of story is real.
But if you hear that somebody said something provocative, and so far that's all you've heard.
So all you've heard is that somebody famous said something provocative.
What are the chances that they really said that and that the correct context has been reported?
20%. About 20%.
That's about it. Let's talk about climate change.
I forwarded around...
What I considered one of the best arguments in favor of climate alarm.
Now when I talk about climate change persuasion, those who have been following me for a while, you know that what I'm really talking about is how good they can convince people.
I'm not talking about what's true.
I'm not talking about whether climate change is real and dangerous or not.
I'm not talking about the underlying facts.
Only talking about how persuasive the argument is.
And the main argument that I've seen is that hockey stick.
I'm just looking for the article itself because I want to read a little bit of it to you.
So the biggest argument for climate change, the one you've heard the most, is the hockey stick graph, right?
It shows that the CO2 goes up and the heat goes up and it's been going up, but man, it's going to go up like a hockey stick shape.
If you worked in corporate America, as I did, What is the most common joke about hockey stick graphs?
What does every business person say when somebody produces a hockey stick graph?
100% of business people, people who have business experience, see the graph with the hockey stick and they laugh.
They laugh. Because the hockey stick shape of a graph is the most famous symbol of fakery in corporate America.
Now that alone does not mean that the climate graph is wrong.
Those are different concepts.
I'm just saying that those with business experience, as opposed to scientific experience perhaps, as opposed to news media experience, but people who work with income projections, We're used to seeing this graph.
It's like, oh, we're going to introduce the new product, and it'll start slow for five years, but man, it's going to pick up just like that.
So, from a persuasion standpoint, the hockey stick graph is probably the biggest mistake.
Well, if it becomes true that climate change is as dangerous as the climate scientists are mostly telling us, The hockey stick graph would be the biggest failure of persuasion in the history of humanity, probably. Or at least you could argue it's in the top ten.
And the reason is that by its nature, it looks fraudulent.
Secondly, when they do the prediction models, the prediction models also feel like lies, which is different from whether they're true or false, different from whether they're accurate or not accurate.
Those are separate questions. But how they feel to us is like somebody's lying to us.
So you show me the hockey stick and I say automatically, boom, boom, wait, I don't even need to hear the details.
As soon as you show me that, I know you're lying.
That doesn't mean you're lying.
It doesn't mean it's wrong.
It just means that that's my first impression.
Likewise with the complicated prediction models, if you show complicated prediction models to someone who's never worked in corporate America, they probably say, well, they come from scientists.
They're complicated.
A lot of people seem to say they're real.
I'm going to believe them.
But if you show a complicated 80-year prediction model to someone with business experience, Most of those people are going to say, that looks exactly like all the lies I've ever seen that look just like that.
So again, independent of what's true, because I don't know what's true, but independent of that, in terms of persuasion, the two worst things you could do to convince the world is show the hockey stick graph, Looks illegitimate on its surface, and then say you've got all these secret, or not secret, but hard to understand and complicated models.
Those two things are the least credible arguments of all time.
Now, if it turns out that climate change is as dangerous as people say, and our disbelief of it caused us not to act, then those two pieces of persuasion would be the most dangerous things that have ever happened.
Compare that to this article that I tweeted yesterday, which I labeled the most persuasive argument I've seen on the climate change side of the argument.
In other words, an alarmist argument.
Let me tell you what it does right.
So the first thing it does is says that the problem is worse than you think and it's going to happen sooner than you think.
Now, do you feel more afraid already than you would if somebody said, in 80 years, the GDP might be hit by 10%?
Because that's what the IPCC said recently.
10% hit on GDP over 80 years.
So the IPCC did not scare me.
In fact, I took them at their word and said, oh, that's all?
10%? I'm not even going to worry about that.
But now this, a far more persuasive piece, and again, I'm not saying this is true.
I'm just talking about the persuasive power of it.
It starts right now saying that it's worse than you think and it's sooner than you think.
Immediacy is important.
If something is immediately a problem, as in my lifetime, as opposed to some teenager's lifetime, then I'm more worried.
Now, what it doesn't do is show the hockey stick graph.
What it doesn't do is talk too much about the models.
Instead, it says...
I won't be able to find it.
Oh, here it is. So it throws out some things like...
This past winter, a string of days 60 and 70 degrees warmer than normal baked the North Pole.
60 and 70 degrees warmer than normal at the North Pole.
Now, that's something you can understand, right?
Now, it might not be true, it might not be representative, but it feels persuasive.
It's like, wait, you're talking about the North Pole, and it was 60 to 70 degrees warmer?
Like you can feel that argument, right?
You can feel it. Then they talk about the doomsday vault where they keep all the seeds.
Apparently the permafrost stuff, which everybody thought would never melt, that's why it's called permafrost, melted and actually threatened the strategic vault in which we keep all the seeds in case there's a calamity.
When you start telling me That the doomsday vault with all of the seeds for all the plants that we would need to repopulate and refeed the world if there's some disaster.
You tell me that thing almost got taken out by climate change?
Now I'm afraid.
Now I'm afraid. But one of my favorite parts about this, it talks about a crack in an ice shelf that grew 11 miles in 6 days.
By the time you read this, it may have already gone into the open water.
See how visual this is?
He's talking about an ice shelf.
So you imagine it. It grew 11 miles.
You're seeing that go...
So you've got a little movie running in your mind about this happening.
That's good visual stuff.
He's got a bunch of more visual stuff.
But my favorite part of this was when he talked about how...
So listen to this.
He talked about how if you went outside at 105 degrees, you could survive, right?
105 degrees isn't that unusual.
It's not unusual in the desert at all.
But apparently there are some changes that would make our humidity go up.
And the story says that if you ever reached a point where the humidity was 90%, which happens routinely in Costa Rica already, so 90 degree humidity is already a thing that we experience, but you also at the same time had 105 degrees, it would kill you.
It would boil you.
Think about that. 105 degrees at the same time as 90 degrees of humidity would actually kill you if you went outside for a few hours.
It would take a few hours, but it would kill you.
You would boil. Now, here's why this is so persuasive.
90 degree humidity is something we already have in places.
So it's easy to imagine because it already exists.
105 degrees is something we've probably all been in.
Most of you have been in degrees that are over 100.
So those two things are going to start to come together fairly quickly.
And so this article talks about mass extinction events.
So instead of saying, hey, I think we might lose Miami, this one goes further.
It goes full, you know, Donald Trump, President Trump persuasion.
So instead of...
No, 105 degrees is not the boiling point.
If it's 105 degrees and it's 90% humidity, the human body can't handle it and you'll die in a few hours.
That's the claim. Now, it might not be true, but we're talking about persuasion, right?
It's good persuasion. Okay, I said boil.
For those of you who are a little bit literal...
I didn't literally mean boil, okay?
So if you're hung up on the word boil, I take it back for anybody who was hung up on that.
You would simply die if you were out there with that humidity and that temperature for several hours.
Now, many of you might be saying, but wait a minute, Scott, the world is already deadly.
In a lot of it. There are a lot of places right now that you can't go outdoors for four hours, right?
You can't go to the North Pole and just walk outside without your jacket on, stay there for four hours, you'd die.
So we already have a world that's inhospitable if you stay out there with the wrong preparations for four hours.
Anyway, the point is...
Bad persuasion...
Looks like the hockey stick graph and are complicated models.
Good persuasion looks like this.
The temperature is already going up X degrees.
If it goes up a few more degrees, which every scientist...
Oh, and here's the best part.
When people are trying to convince you of climate science, don't you always hear that 97% of scientists agree?
What is your first reaction when you hear 97% of climate scientists agree?
It's fake, right?
So your first impression to the strongest thing people like to say to persuade you is, that doesn't sound right.
As soon as you hear the 97% you go, I don't think they can even measure that.
Did you ask the same question to everybody?
What would that mean?
Because there's so many subspecialties within climate science, how many people even can see the whole picture?
So the moment you hear the 97%, Many of us who have experience with hearing bad statistics say, on its surface, I don't even need to go any deeper.
On its surface, if you're telling me it's 97%, I already know you're lying, and everything you say after that, I don't believe.
So this article that I say is persuasive doesn't do that.
Here's what it does instead.
The author...
I should name the author because it is so persuasive.
The author is David Wallace Wells.
And David Wallace Wells says that he talked to the top scientists in the field and they all agree.
Now compare that for persuasion.
If you tell me that 97% agree, I know that you have ginned up a number for persuasion, and it sounds fake to me.
And it also includes all the dumb people, because I've heard critics say this, and it's probably at least a little bit true, that the smart scientists go into physics, and the scientists who didn't do so well tend to go into climate science.
Now, of course, that's not true for the top scientists in climate science.
I'm sure the top scientists...
Have every bit the qualifications as the, you know, the best physicists because they're the top scientists.
But it's probably true that if you took a hundred randomly selected climate scientists, they might not be the best scientists in the world.
You know, the bottom 80%.
But if you say, I talked to the top scientists and climate scientists, and they all agree, you have persuaded me.
If you tell me the top five, or even five of the top ten, you know, you don't even need to know who are the top five.
But if you say, I talked to five scientists who are probably in the top ten, and they're all on the same page, I'm persuaded.
You tell me that 97 out of 100 climate scientists in some poll you did agree, I am unpersuaded.
It's the opposite of persuasion, right?
So anyway, the point is, independent of what's true or false about climate science, and I'm still trying to get to the bottom of that personally and also for your benefit, persuasion-wise, This was solid gold.
It scared me. Here's what it did right.
It was visual in the sense that it painted a picture in your head of glaciers moving and people boiling to death outdoors and stuff like that.
So it was good on visual.
It was good on fear.
And it was smart because it moved the fear forward so it's more immediate.
And... It avoided the biggest mistakes of persuasion.
The hockey stick graph, the complicated models, and the 97% of scientists.
Those are the three biggest mistakes in climate science.
Persuasion. I'm not saying they're not true.
That part I don't know.
But persuasion-wise, they're anti-persuasive.
And then, you know, again, talking about the top five scientists or whoever he talked to.
So somebody says, so do you believe it?
Like, do you believe we're too late?
I'll tell you my experience that I've been reporting on for some time.
When I read an article like this, I'm completely persuaded that we're all dead.
Again, persuaded.
That doesn't mean it's true.
The moment I'm done with this, somebody pointed me to a tweet by Bjorn Lomborg.
Wait for me to finish my point here before you weigh in with your opinion.
So immediately after tweeting this and saying it was persuasive, and I could feel it, I could feel persuaded, like I was literally afraid.
When I was done reading it.
Somebody immediately sends me over to a tweet by Bjorn Lomborg.
I guess you could call him a skeptic.
He's more of an economics guy in terms of how he looks at things.
So his argument is that the economics of climate change are not as bad as people say.
And I look at his Twitter feed, and right there there's a tweet where there's a new study that says that all these little islands, these atolls, that were supposed to be underwater, and they were supposed to be subject to rising tides, basically none of them have rising tides.
Not tides, but sea level.
So one of the most central predictions Of climate change is that we are already seeing rising sea levels.
And this new study couldn't find it.
And these atolls, I don't know exactly where they are, but they were certainly critical to predictions about climate change.
So as soon as I read Bjorn Lomborg's thing, and I looked at it and said, okay, here's a key prediction that's just not true, according to the study.
Again, I don't know if the study's true.
I was completely persuaded that I had been over-persuaded by the alarm.
So my point is that whoever you read last is completely persuasive.
If you read a climate scientist argument, it will persuade you.
And if you walk over five minutes later and read a skeptic, Tony Heller, for example, and you see his arguments, you will be persuaded.
They both have solid gold persuasion.
So when somebody asks me, what do I believe?
I don't believe I can penetrate the topic to get to the point where I really know what's going on.
I can sort of guess.
At various times, I've had predictions that have leaned in one way or the other.
But at the moment, I am directly on the fence.
I actually can't tell.
I cannot tell how much I should worry about climate change.
I just don't know. All right.
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