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March 25, 2020 - Real Coffe - Scott Adams
48:03
Episode 870 Scott Adams: Simultaneous Swaddling and Good Thoughts Before Bed
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Hey everybody!
Come on in.
It's time for the simultaneous swaddle.
That's right. Swaddle yourself in a soft blanket and you'll feel better.
It's a tense, scary world out there sometimes, but we'll get through.
And we'll get through in style, because that's how we do it.
Well, the news is coming so fast and so furiously, I feel as if I can fill up two full one-hour periscopes every day because half a day goes by and there's so much new stuff that it's just mind-boggling.
I will remind you that there is one statistic that will tell you everything that needs to be known, and that is the death rate.
In the next few days, the death rate Of people who are under 60 and otherwise healthy.
Now, of course, you always have mysterious deaths.
You know, people drop dead from all kinds of things and they could be young and you don't know why.
So it's not always going to be because the virus killed them.
Sometimes we just won't know.
But here's what to look for.
Look for the number of deaths to start capping out even as the number of infections rises steeply.
And if that happens, that means that they have some medical treatments that are working.
So look for that.
Almost nothing else matters, because the number of infections won't matter that much if the number of deaths go down, and that would tell you we're going back to work.
Now, you saw that President Trump picked Easter...
For his projected sort of preliminary estimated date to at least get some people back to work.
Now, what are people saying about that?
Well, they're debating it.
Some people are saying, well, maybe it should be longer.
Some people are saying, well, you know, maybe it's too long.
But do you notice how much more comfortable everybody is?
They might not admit it.
But having an actual date, even if it changes, even if it's just a stupid guess and nobody knows, doesn't it make you feel better?
So I was telling you that earlier today, that the reason that you want a certain date, no matter how much of a guess it is, is that people are happy when you give them guesses.
This is something I learned when I was doing financial analysis back in my corporate days.
And the manager would come in, some high-level manager.
I was a low-level person at the time.
And they'd say, you know, what's the estimate for the Q1 capital expenditure or whatever?
And I'd say, no idea.
We don't have any data yet.
Haven't even started collecting it.
It would just be a guess.
And then the manager says, yeah, but what do you think?
And I'd say, well, it doesn't really matter what I think because I have no data upon which to go on.
Don't even have a An estimate from prior years.
Don't have anything to go on.
Wouldn't know. And then the manager says, yeah, but I kind of need a number.
So you say, 25 million.
And the manager says, thank you.
And he walks out and he's happy.
I don't know why.
Because under that situation, you shouldn't leave happy because you didn't get any information.
I just made up a number.
But he would still leave happy, and I could replay this scene over and over and over again.
One of the most dependable psychological phenomena is that if you give somebody a number, they're happier, even if they know it's not accurate.
We're just built that way.
So the president did just that.
He gave us a number, and I think it was brilliant.
Honestly. You know, I don't think he'll get credit for how smart that is.
Because he could have said, it depends, he could have said what Fauci said.
So Fauci is up there acting like a good doctor slash scientist, but he doesn't have the leadership gene, if you know what I mean.
Meaning that when he talks, you say, okay, that sounds credible.
And you sound like you know what you're doing, and I think you have our interests in mind, and a lot of good stuff.
But he's not a leader, and it's not his job.
I'm sure he's a leader on task, but he's not sort of a leader in the way a president is, or a general, or something like that.
So Fauci was trying to give us the, well, it depends, you know, highly variable, it could happen, blah, blah, blah.
And Trump just said, we're going to try to make it Easter.
Might not make it, but we're going to try to make it Easter.
And then, I think Trump let us look behind the curtain a little too much, not that we wouldn't have figured this out, but that it's a little bit obvious that they had an approximate zone, and the president At some point, maybe somebody suggested it first, but at some point the president realized that Easter was in that general area, and then it was just over.
What were the odds that this president would not have picked Easter as long as it was somewhere in the range of a reasonable guess?
No, he was going to pick Easter.
It's Easter all day long.
And you have to admit, it's free money.
It's just free money again.
Because he ties his brand to Jesus.
And he's not saying it.
Trump is certainly not saying anything like this.
He's not saying, compare me to Jesus because I'm going to resurrect the economy of the world.
On Easter. Now, the beauty is he doesn't have to say it because it's just sort of there and you can't not see it.
And it's hilarious.
At the same time, it's effective because you don't want it to work, right?
If you say to yourself, I get it.
I see what he's doing. He's trying to make me think of Jesus.
At the same time I'm thinking of him because something got resurrected in both cases.
And you're going to say, I resist that association.
It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter a bit because the association is the association.
Once you see it, you can't unsee it.
And it becomes part of your code.
It's so frickin' funny.
And of course the president is making sure we know it's Easter.
That it's a beautiful timeline, as he's speaking, a beautiful timeline.
And it is beautiful, unless you're trying to run against him for president, in which case it's devastating.
It's just devastating.
Because it's just so perfectly chosen.
So, was it Dr.
Birx, if I'm saying her name correctly?
She also emphasized a point I made this morning, which is that another...
Hardcore rule of management.
And management is important because we're trying to manage this virus and manage the country and manage the economy.
So knowing how to manage stuff is pretty important.
And Dr. Birx demonstrated that she has a deeper talent stack than maybe you guessed.
I don't know what her background is, but when you hear somebody...
She's a medical doctor, right?
But here's the part that was impressive.
So when she was explaining the deadline, she said a management truism, that people respond to deadlines.
It's a way of focusing things.
People will meet a deadline even if it's a random deadline.
We're just built that way.
You give us a deadline and we're going to work twice as hard and get that done.
And she pointed out that that was just sort of a A reasonable, smart thing to do because people work to deadlines.
Now, that's not the sort of thing you hear doctors say normally, which without checking, maybe somebody can check while I'm on here, I have a suspicion that she has a deeper background than medical science.
Because that's very managerish.
It's something you just wouldn't hear from a medical person so much.
So, picking the date is brilliant because it focuses us, it makes us feel comfortable, even if it's wrong, and it will focus attention.
And I think it couldn't have been done better, honestly.
I don't think the President could have handled this part better, you know, coming up with that timeline.
All right. Poor Joe Biden.
I think most of you have seen the videos now where he's trying to do his little video studio thing.
And it's just very sad because he seems confused and at one point he said a sentence that didn't make any sense.
And, you know, he's obviously just struggling up there for whatever reason.
You know, maybe there's some production problems we don't know about.
Maybe there's something going on.
But he's failing hard.
I just saw something that said he canceled his press conference for Tuesday, but that doesn't make sense.
Maybe it meant Thursday?
Because it was a current tweet.
I don't know why he would cancel yesterday's press conference.
So, here's the thing.
It's pretty obvious at this point, isn't it, that everybody knows, meaning that the Democrats, even the ones who support Joe Biden, even the ones who love him, they can see it now, right?
I don't think I'm going too far out on the limb.
You know, you always talk about the two movies, you know, you can only see your own movie, but I don't think that's the case here.
I don't think so.
It looks like they're seeing the same movie.
There might be a little wishful thinking that it's not as bad as we think, or maybe he's just having a bad day.
So I think the Democrats are pretty steeped in wishful thinking, because I know they see it.
I think they're just wishing it goes away or fixes itself or something.
So I don't know what they're going to do about that, honestly.
But... Trump's approval rating for just, I guess, the coronavirus stuff was at 60%.
Trump is at 60% and we're not anywhere near the end of it.
What happens if it's November?
And we reopened the economy wisely.
Maybe there were some missteps, because of course there will be.
It's a big complicated thing full of guesses.
There are going to be missteps. But let's say we get, you know, we right the ship every time we get off, and it's November, and we're not back to where we were, but we're heading that way hard.
And people are going to say, you know, President Trump, it looks like you got us through it.
But more importantly, We also got to watch Biden not be able to do any kind of live streaming video thing, and it was kind of pathetic.
So I think he took, what, a week to put up his studio.
Let me give you an example of someone who's not a thousand years old solving the problem that Joe Biden took a week and his team took a week to solve.
I will do it in the Character of AOC. So I will be AOC and I just realized that I'm going to be, you know, can't leave the house and I have to talk to the public.
How will I solve that?
Oh, that's right.
It's in my hand.
Hey everybody, I'm AOC. Would you like to watch me eat some popcorn while I talk about your health care?
65 million views.
Now, you watch Joe Biden.
He couldn't even get that much together.
Now, I'm exaggerating.
There's a little bit more to what he's trying to do in his studio, but not much, and he didn't have to wait.
I mean, he could have just held up his phone and started talking.
Works for everybody else.
Don't worry, that's not coronavirus.
So, as we watch Joe decomposing and looking helpless, I would say helpless would be the word I would use for what we've seen so far.
He seems kind of helpless, wouldn't you say?
While you're watching the president doing these, you know, tour de force press conferences every single day, you know, working on this problem, moving heaven and earth, you know, the whole world is coordinating.
And we're going to compare that in our minds to that weak little helpless Joe Biden.
And I came up with a Kill shot for Joe Biden.
It's not even fair because the wind would be a kill shot at this point.
But I think this would be the tagline I would give him if I were running against him for president.
Joe Biden, he's not good at things.
Right? Didn't that feel right?
Joe Biden, he's not good at things.
Because we watched him try to do this home studio thing, and he's clearly just not good at things.
There's nothing we've seen him do that you would say he's good at.
I mean, he kind of sort of held his own in a debate, but nobody would say he was good at it, right?
He didn't fall apart.
That was the standard he had for the debates.
Name something he's good at.
He's actually not good at things.
And the first time you hear it, you probably laughed.
Some of you probably laughed because, Joe Biden, he's not good at things.
It's kind of sticky, isn't it?
So at this point, you know, things will change between now and Election Day.
But if they didn't, Trump would win 50 states.
I mean, at this moment...
You know, and again, you can't straight line your projection because so much will change between now and Election Day, but if you could, he'd win, you know, like 48, 50 states, something like that.
All right, I am still unhappy with the visibility of our supply chain for critical stuff, especially the PPE and the hospital stuff and the ventilators and stuff.
And Again, I don't know if it's because our government doesn't have a good handle on it, or is it because they're not good at explaining it.
I showed you the other day a graphic treatment so we could see how much would be needed at peak of each piece of equipment, and then how much we have this week and what we expect, etc.
Now again, these don't have to be accurate numbers.
They just have to be the government's best understanding so that we're at least...
At least as up-to-date as the government.
Because if you feel like the government knows stuff and you don't, you're wondering what's the point of those two-hour press conferences.
You know, the press conference starts, and I have one question usually.
Tell us about the supply line.
Okay, that's a data.
You know, you gave me some data.
We got, you know, X number of masks coming.
Compared to what?
By when? How many more do we need?
How many more are in the pipeline?
Are they all good?
Is there anything wrong with the pipeline?
So all of the pipeline questions for each of the items, from masks to gloves to gowns to ventilators, I get raw numbers, but they don't make me feel good.
Because I don't know...
So New York City got 4,000 ventilators.
Now to my mind I say, well that sounds pretty good.
Right? I mean, 4,000?
That seems pretty good.
But how many do you think they'll need?
And because all of those ventilators went to the hot spot, they're not available for the rest of the country.
So I would say the task force is doing just a flat-failing job on communicating clearly in a way that the public understands the supply chain.
Now, it's possible that That they don't want to communicate clearly.
You always have to hold out the possibility that the government maybe don't want you to know too many of the details because maybe it's not working as well as we want.
Maybe there's some reason we shouldn't know.
But I don't think there's a reason.
We could probably help if there's some part of that supply chain that needs a little push.
So that's the biggest need, I think, for the task force, is to improve that specific communication about the supply chain for the PPE. Interestingly, when Trump was asked about Congress, dicking around on the bill and not getting it done, wouldn't you have expected Trump to just unload on Pelosi and Schumer?
Now, I think he did before.
But today, he didn't.
Do you notice that?
It was kind of conspicuous.
That it seemed like he had decided that being bipartisan, at least today, he decided that being bipartisan was the stronger play.
Completely right, I believe.
I think he can rely on other members of Congress and social media to put a lot of pressure on On the people who are not getting it done.
By the way, did you see Mark Cuban's tweet?
I retweeted it. And he basically just screamed in caps, you know, do your effing jobs.
He tweeted something showing that Congress wasn't getting it done.
And, you know, I boosted that signal as well.
Because this is not bipartisan.
I mean, sorry.
It's not even... It's not even just a partisan problem.
It's just rank incompetence and not caring about the public.
This is a whole different level of, you know, you've got to fire people if they keep acting that way.
So, there was some indication, you know, by the end of the day, the markets liked it.
There's some indication that maybe something good will happen.
We shall see. So, you know, the stock market had a good day.
If anybody... If anybody wasn't already in the stock market, I'll bet you wish you were today.
All right. What else we got going on?
I always wondered if you could have a social distancing app that would sense somebody by Wi-Fi, their distance, and just beep when you're too close to somebody.
I wonder if that could ever be a thing.
All right. I'm going to look at your questions because I asked questions.
Erica says, how about a Periscope wedding?
Well, You know, I guess we'll have to see how things go.
It's not my first choice.
It's a fun idea, but it is sort of a private thing, so probably won't be live streaming that.
David says, how's your friend who is recovering from the COVID-19 virus?
The answer is 100%.
As of today, just several days after being treated with the good stuff, he's 100%.
And he was in pretty bad shape before that.
He wasn't hospitalized, but he was sort of getting close to that borderline where maybe hospitalization would be in the conversation, but didn't get there.
Who has the most power in the USA?
The citizens, the media, or the government as a whole?
Interesting. I think it depends.
It depends. The government has the power when the people don't care.
So anything that the people don't especially care about, the details of the government, the government has all the power because we don't care.
But if the citizens care, then they are stronger than the media and they are stronger than the government.
But most of the days, the media is probably wagging the government and wagging the citizens too.
But in, let's say, a situation like this, this is a perfect example.
When the Democrats threw all that pork in the bill and the Republicans said, nope, I think it's the public that made that change.
Don't you? I feel the public had the power and just twisted the arms of the government and said, you know, this isn't normal sausage-making.
This is an emergency, not this time.
Do you think airlines shutting down domestic flights will be good for fighting the outbreak?
I don't know why it wouldn't be.
I mean, I wouldn't put a percentage on it, but yeah, of course.
Anything that reduces travel should reduce the spread.
What do we know about other treatments?
I don't know too much about those.
Should we be doing a national-scale plan for temperature checks on public transportation?
You know, I would defer to the experts on that because I thought I heard Fauci say that it's sort of a weak process, meaning that there are so many people who are not symptomatic and who wouldn't necessarily even have a fever that you're hardly ever going to catch anybody who has it, who didn't know about it.
It's sort of like If you have a fever, you're probably not going out because you know what the score is at this point.
And if you don't have the fever, it's not going to catch it.
So there'd just be this weird little range where your fever just started, but maybe you weren't quite aware of it, and it was because of COVID. So you're not catching much.
But I'd have to listen to the experts to see if it's even worthwhile at all.
I firmly believe that at least some of the steps the government does are for the psychology and the comfort of the people.
I can't believe that spraying the streets in Wuhan made a difference because the germ doesn't live too well outside in the first place, relative to other places.
Did you see Joe Biden sneezing into his hand on his video press conference?
And Jake Tapper busted him on it?
He's like, you tell us to sneeze into your elbow, but you just sneezed into your hand.
And Joe did not have an answer for that.
It was so sad.
Let's see. Feeling so down and keep crying today.
So Cindy says that you need this.
Well, I hope you're here, Cindy. Are you swaddling?
Get you a warm blanket.
Looks like in your profile picture you've got a guy there.
Get your guy.
Get a blanket. Do some serious spooning.
I'm here to tell you that we got this.
I believe this week will be the weirdest week because we'll have horrendous news about new people who are having health problems of one sort or another or even dying.
We're going to hear a lot of it this week.
And you're going to hear horror stories about the economy, etc.
But we do have a plan now.
Subject to change.
But the Easter date is a gigantic thing.
And I think the stock market is responding quite rationally in this case.
The stock market is not always rational, but today was very rational.
I think you're going to have good news about treatments.
And I think you're going to have good news about tests availability.
And I think you're going to have good news about some people getting back to work.
So Cindy, relax.
We got this. There's actually nothing that can go terribly wrong at this point.
So let me round that up by saying I don't think the risk of the entire economy falling apart is even a little bit high.
If I'm being honest, you know, I got a degree in economics and I've been around for a while and I've been through a lot of cycles of we're all doomed and Only to find out nothing of the sort, right?
So if you've been through enough cycles, and Cindy, you look young, so you haven't been through enough of these, this is very familiar territory for a lot of us.
Different situations, but the same feeling of general alarm, but this one is the least alarming of them all.
After 9-11, I have to admit, it was scary because you didn't know if it was going to happen again, and where, and all that.
But this one has more of a defined beginning and end.
And there isn't any chance that the whole economy is going to fall apart into depression before we get back to work.
I don't think there's any chance.
Because we're really clever.
All the assets are there.
We just have to re-inhabit them.
When the time has come, we'll find clever ways to do things outdoors and with the windows open and with masks.
And we're going to be good.
Is is capitalism dead?
Well, we're definitely going to be trying some socialism, so that will be interesting in how it changes the way people think about it.
Yeah, there's a locust plague in Africa right now, and somebody's saying that a reasonably small effort would be a big deal.
I'm sure that's true, but I just don't know anything that's going to get any oxygen except this, for now, unfortunately.
Since mortgage payments are being suspended, shouldn't rent payments be...
I don't know the details of that.
Are mortgage payments being suspended?
But I would agree with you.
They should be. What can we simultaneously sip with you?
No, you can simultaneously swaddle.
There's no sipping today. Will the U.S. end up penalizing American companies for continuing to do business in China or reward those who move their business back?
Well, I guess it depends what you mean by penalize.
There's going to be a lot of pressure.
The government can put a lot of pressure on you in a lot of different ways.
I wouldn't be surprised.
I wouldn't be surprised if there ends to be some kind of maybe tax pressure or something to make it harder to do business outside of the United States.
Could happen. Top tips for staying positive and what skills to build when quarantined.
Number one. Oh, hi Donovan.
It's Donovan. Hey Donovan.
In South Korea.
So, tips for staying positive.
Well, you know, I've said them often and they're worth repeating.
And by the way, are you noticing that a lot of your actual professionals and people who know what they're talking about are saying what I've been saying from the start, which is take a nice long walk And don't exhaust yourself because it's good for your mental health, but also good for your immune system.
So you don't want to exercise too much, but you want to get your good walk in every day.
Get some air, make you feel good.
So that's number one. I've tried it both ways.
I've tried it taking a walk and not taking a walk.
Big difference in my mental and physical state.
The walk really, really helps.
The other thing you need to do is make sure you get enough sleep.
Turn off the TV. Don't check your social media for at least periods of a day.
It doesn't have to be all day. Things are happening quickly, so I think it's good to be tuned in.
I don't like to go too much more than an hour without checking the news at the moment.
But here's my best advice.
If you're watching this periscope, it's probably because you've been watching me for a while.
Most of you are not new, you've been around a while.
And you know that I'm pretty good at predicting things.
And you've watched it with this.
I was literally, I think I was the first person to say close the flights.
I think Jack Posobiec was talking about closing the borders even before I did.
But I was very, very early on that.
I was also early on I thought the president would be good at negotiating trade deals, and I told you that the trade war with China would end up okay.
So if you were to look at my entire body of predictions, predictions, you should have some comfort that if I tell you things are looking like they're turning around pretty quickly and that our economy will be back fully at some point, but I would say the odds of something like a depression, zero. but I would say the odds of something like a Just zero.
Just none at all.
Because we don't have any of the elements that would make that a case.
People will be back to work, you know, in a month.
In a month, you can put up with anything for a month.
You should trust me that it looks like we're in good shape.
I will also tell you that I might know more than you do.
And I'm not going to say more about that.
I'm just going to say, if you've ever believed me about anything, believe this.
Things are going to be pretty good.
Now, it's going to be a tough week.
It's not all roses.
There will be death.
There will be pain.
There will be lots of economic disruption, and some of that will affect all of us, some more than others.
That's all going to happen.
But there is a time certain when things turn the other way.
We're getting ready to go on offense.
And you can't judge the war before one team started to fight.
We're purely in a strategic retreat and divide and conquer.
All very smart things.
But while we're doing this, we're building weapons.
Test kits, processes, procedures.
We're getting smarter.
We're building new supply lines for protective gear.
We're testing meds faster than we've ever tested them before.
We're putting vaccines together.
We're getting data.
We'll probably, I imagine at some point, we'll have serum therapy where you can get the serum from the blood of somebody who's recovered.
This is all going to happen really quickly, and then we're going to be on offense.
So you're all going to be fine.
All right. Does Yang have a place on Trump's task force?
Well, you know, I would say yes as a consultant.
You know, it's hard to form teams of people that you're not comfortable with or on the other team or something.
But certainly as a smart, reliable person, I would want his opinion to be part of anything of this nature, yes.
How best to encourage an elderly relative who lives alone in another town?
Well, contact, but video contact.
The main thing I think your elderly relative needs is lots of contact, especially if they can't leave the house.
So, you know, if they do stay in, they're pretty darn safe, as long as they stay away from people.
Question, can high-quality hypoallergenic vacuum bags...
Be repurposed as masks in an emergency.
Wouldn't they be better than a cotton bandana?
I do not know, but among the questions I would ask is, is there any kind of fiber on there that's going to jump off into your lungs?
I don't know. That would be the first thing I'd ask.
But I have no idea.
I don't imagine that a vacuum bag would be engineered to those specs.
I don't know. Oh, somebody else says there's an Oxford study that implies yes.
If you double up with an outer wrap, such as a scarf.
Okay. Somebody's asking about Justin Amash, but I don't know what his proposals are.
Why not continue the quarantine for the elderly and sick only?
I think that's what's going to happen.
What do you like on your hot dog?
I don't eat hot dogs. Why is the left so heartless to businesses?
That sounds like a joke.
First industry to decouple should be pharma, of course.
Where's your rocking chair?
Where's your rocking chair?
All of you people watching and only one of you got the joke.
So, Steve LL, congratulations, you're the only one who got the joke.
Why would the governor of Nevada ban the malaria drugs?
I don't know anything about that.
He banned them?
Yeah, I don't know what that's about.
Does it seem that people care more about re-election than the best solution of the country?
Yes, some of them. Tips on lowering the stress or anxiety of family and friends during this time?
Well, the main tip for lowering somebody else's anxiety is the one I'm modeling right now.
If you can't get yourself calm, you're not going to calm anybody else down.
So job number one, and this is the Caesar, the dog whisperer method, The way you train your dog is to train yourself, because your dog is influenced by your attitude.
When I'm angry, every once in a while I'll get mad at something in the office, some trivial thing, and my dog will actually leave the house.
My dog Snickers actually won't be in the house with me when I'm in a bad mood.
She'll actually leave the house.
And it's not like I beat my dog or anything.
She just can't be around a negative attitude.
She just won't have it, so she just leaves the house and sits in the backyard for a while.
She's got her own little door there.
So if you want to get your relatives to calm down, it starts with you, and you're going to have to come with a real calm attitude, and you're going to have to show some knowledge.
Because if you don't know more than they do, you're not going to be able to calm them down.
So you've got to be smarter and more well-informed.
You've got to be relaxed.
You've got to keep them informed and remind them.
The main things I would remind people...
Is that the economy is not broken.
I mean, it's really not. It literally just took some time off.
All the assets are still there.
We'll just repopulate them as soon as we can.
So the economy is going to be fine relative to, you know, a depression.
There will be some kind of mild recession that won't last that long.
And then in terms of health...
As long as they're staying away from social contact, they should be fine.
But I've said before that watch the death rate in the next two days.
The reason I say that is I think that hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin and zinc combo is being tested, but probably people are already using it.
So if you look at New York City and you see the death rate just start plummeting, it means they're starting to use the drug and it's working.
If it doesn't, If the death rate in New York doesn't start going down pretty quickly, no matter what the rate of infection is, well, then I'd be worried.
But until that happens, I'm not worried.
All right.
Nevada signed a measure to protect the malaria drug from hoarding.
That makes more sense. It makes more sense that they were protecting a scarce resource.
My sister is raging at my uncle and cousin for violating quarantine rules.
Who do we persuade?
Well, I don't know if anybody can persuade elderly people.
You know, you reach a certain age and just nobody can persuade you of anything.
So if they're not afraid, what are you going to do?
Because fear is the only thing that would make people stop it.
And People have different reactions to scary things.
So if they're just not afraid, what's going to stop them?
Now, the way I would go is to say, you know, you're not a patriot.
So you probably want to find out what your relative's hot button is, because everybody's different.
So let's say you knew your relatives were very patriotic.
That's the path I'd take.
I'd say, you know, I know you don't think you're going to get it, and I know you don't even care if you die.
But you are just not being a patriot, because the whole point is you don't want to get out there and get it and give it to somebody else.
Do you know how many people you could kill personally?
Do the math. Mom, Dad, if you get it, you're probably going to give it to some family members, and let's say they're fine.
In most cases, they'll just recover and they'll be fine.
But statistically speaking, because it's spreading so fast, you're going to give it to two and a half people and each of them is going to give it to two and a half people and each of them.
Chances are, any one person who violates the quarantine and actually gets infected, just that one person could kill dozens.
Right? Unless, you know, the The wild card is if we get some meds, they can really stop it in its tracks.
But at this point, one person violating a curfew is taking an expected value chance of killing people more than one person because of the number of people who could be affected just by one infection.
So depending on the person, you either want to go for patriotism, you want to go for fear...
But it sounds like they don't have fear, but maybe you can give them more information until they did.
Oh, here it is.
Do you want to scare people into staying home?
Find an article from nurses who are dealing with people as they die from this.
I'm not going to give you details, but just let me say that of all the ways you could die, I don't know I've heard of a A worse one except maybe being on fire.
Of all the ways you could die, being on fire would be pretty bad.
But dying from this is pretty bad too.
So if you want to scare somebody, I'm not even going to give you the details, but the last hours are pretty darn ugly.
So stay away from people.
Alright. What does your economics degree say about unlimited quantitative easing?
It says there's nothing unlimited, so everything's limited.
Did I talk about Nevada?
Yeah, I just don't know too much about that, except they're probably protecting it from hoarding.
All right.
You could have 56,000 people infected through one infection.
Well, it's more than that.
Because every person on Earth who's infected came from one person.
Think about that.
Everybody on Earth who's infected started with one person.
So if you're asking yourself, how many people could you personally kill if you get it and spread it?
I don't know. How many people have died so far?
What's the total worldwide death count?
Tens of thousands?
So you could actually be responsible for killing tens of thousands of people.
That's not even a joke.
That's just math.
Yeah, I'm looking at your comments.
Pretty ugly stuff.
Will you ever leave your house again?
Well, let me tell you a little story.
So just before I got on Periscope, I decided to check my mailbox.
So I walked down the hill to my mailbox and it had been raining all day.
Now this is important to the story that it had been raining all day.
So as I'm walking around to the mailbox, I see under a bush a package, a cardboard box that apparently my shipping company, whoever delivered it, Instead of taking it to my door, which would be standard, they threw it under a bush in my lawn.
It's a cardboard box that has been sitting in the rain all day.
But I thought to myself, well, you know, there's probably some canned goods in there or something in the plastic.
It's not like whatever's in there is going to be necessarily hurt, because there's always a package within the box, right?
But as I approach it, I can see that the construction of the box has really taken a hit from the rain and it's starting to break down.
And I looked through a corner of it and it's paper goods.
And I thought, I think it's toilet paper.
Because I think Christina, you know, just before you couldn't get anything, she got it in order.
And it was like, you know, two weeks to deliver it.
This was it. And I can see it through the corner.
I'm like... So, time stood still as I ran to the bush, and I tried to scoop up the melting, wet box that had paper towels in it, as it turns out, not toilet tissues, but they weren't wrapped in anything.
They were just in the cardboard box.
And I pick it up, and I'm trying to hold the box together as it's melting in my hands.
It's almost liquid. And if I drop any of these precious rolls of paper towels, I don't know if I'll ever see another paper towel.
And if it hits the ground, it's going to be ruined because it's been raining all day.
And I'm running up my driveway, trying to plug the holes as it's falling apart and the integrity of the box is falling.
And I'm like, oh, this is going to be a nightmare.
And I go running into my garage, into the dry garage floor, and the whole box Just disintegrated.
It actually fell apart in just component parts and just fell on the ground.
And the towels inside fell on the ground, mostly dry.
A little bit wet, a little bit on the corners, but mostly dry.
And so I saved my beloved paper towels.
But there's a punchline to it.
I told you that Christina ordered them when almost everything was already sold out.
So I got my paper towels.
But I don't know what country these were created in.
Because my normal paper towel has some kind of a soft, papery feel to it.
Whoever made these paper towels did not spend much time converting it from tree to paper towel roll.
It was still pretty close to a tree.
I don't know if I could even unwrap the sheets.
They're like little plywood wrapped around a core.
So it's not your highest quality paper goods is what I'm saying.
Anyway, I talked to somebody in Southern California who went to a Costco down there.
And they had paper towels.
And they had water.
I think they had toilet paper.
But you were limited by quantity.
So as soon as the big stores learn to limit by quantity, you know, two per customer or whatever, that should be the end of the shortage.
So I think that's going to come to the end in maybe one week.
That's my best guess.
All right. That's all for now, and I will see you in the morning.
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