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April 18, 2020 - Real Coffe - Scott Adams
01:01:39
Episode 919 Scott Adams: Let's Talk About All the Things. And I Take Your Questions.
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Bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum Hey everybody, come on in here.
so We got coronavirus stuff to talk about.
I know, surprising.
Are we ever going to have any different news?
Do you notice that all the other news just sort of stopped?
Even the news that it shouldn't be stopping?
You know, things you would assume would not stop.
Everything's stopping. Well, let's talk about what's happening.
All right? DJ Dr.
Fung Chus, good to see you.
All right, here's some things that's happening.
The biggest news is there's this study out of Stanford that's not peer-reviewed.
And it uses a testing kit that is not FDA approved.
So those are the two caveats.
And it seemed to show that more people had the antibodies, at least in Santa Clara County in California, than previously believed, maybe two to five percent, which would suggest that the amount of infections is way more than we think,
which, which, if there are way more infections than we knew about because they were asymptomatic, it would indicate that the actual death rate of the people who get it could be in the vicinity of, wait for it, the regular annual flu.
Oh, don't start celebrating.
Because you don't want to be one of those people who says that 10 times 1 is different than 1 times 10.
Here's what I mean.
What is worse?
A virus that kills most of the people that get it, but doesn't spread very far, or a virus that doesn't kill very many people at all, just barely a fraction of the people who get it, Ever die, but it's really viral.
Which one's worse?
And the answer is, it depends.
It depends how viral the one is, and it depends how deadly the other one is, and how not viral it is.
But there are two variables.
So, we have determined that the coronavirus, maybe, maybe, is less deadly as a percentage, but By all reason, you would also assume that it's probably more viral than a normal virus.
So the death count could still be, you know, six times higher, all things being equal, even if it's only the same amount deadly as the flu.
But there's more to this story.
There's always more to the story.
Did I mention that the study is not peer-reviewed?
Well, that's one thing to consider.
Did I mention, I think I did, that the test is not FDA approved?
Which doesn't mean it doesn't work.
Just there's one less reason for you to be comfortable with it.
As Balaji Srinivasan says on Twitter, there are a couple things you should at least be aware of.
Number one, the way they recruited people is they ran Facebook ads to bring people in.
Now, if you saw a Facebook ad to test just to see if you had coronavirus and didn't know it, and you had had symptoms at some point, let's say, in the last several months, because how many of us think we had the coronavirus?
Quite a few of us, right?
And most of us didn't, but a lot of us thought we did.
But anyway, people who might have had the symptoms and thought, you know, I wonder what that was.
Wouldn't you think they would be a little bit more likely, at least statistically more likely, to answer the ad?
Because if you were sure you didn't have it, well, you might volunteer for the study because you're just a good person and you want the study to do well and it's good for society.
But you would be a little bit more likely if you suspected you'd had some symptoms.
So, one thing to look at is that it could be it's not a random sample.
It could be the people self-selected for their own suspicion that they had something, and maybe they're more likely to, you know, doesn't mean most of them are right, because we know that most of them probably don't have coronavirus, even if they think they did.
But it could bias it just enough to get this small difference of a few percentage.
But here's the other thing.
Apparently, the known inaccuracy of the test, these tests tend to be not perfect.
So that's a problem that goes across all of these tests.
And this particular test, there's some indication that the number of false positives is roughly in the range of exactly how many people they found.
So, one possibility, and maybe the peer review would get to the bottom of this, one possibility is that the amount of false positives completely explains the result.
All of it.
I mean, that's a possibility.
Now, I'm not saying that's for sure what's going on here.
I'm just saying that Balaji pointed out that you have to at least consider That if you know the accuracy of the test, you're sort of in this low, few percentage range, and that's also the range that you found extra people with coronavirus, well, you've got to at least ask the question.
So I would say that I would not put strong weight on that Stanford study That would indicate a lot more people have it, and that therefore it's less, not any more deadly than seasonal flu, which is bad enough, of course.
So that's a maybe.
That's a wait and see. Well, we keep getting more anecdotal and half-study and preliminary study information on remdesivir and hydroxychloroquine.
In a perfect world, there is non-conclusive information That if you're really bad off, the remdesivir does a good job.
And there's also inconclusive information that if you give somebody the hydroxychloroquine really early, they never get to the point where they would need anything else.
So in a perfect world, we have both.
So you can imagine that you give them the hydroxychloroquine early, And it reduces the number of people who ever need to be hospitalized.
But if they are hospitalized, then the remdesivir comes in and does the rest.
Now, of course, it's not going to save everybody.
But you can imagine that with all of our mitigation, if you added that to testing and maybe some people have some antibodies that make a difference, we don't know.
Maybe the convalescent blood serum thing works.
Who knows? But now we've got a number of tests that all have the same quality.
Have you noticed that all of our tools have something in common?
They just sort of work a little bit, right?
That none of them are a kill shot.
It's like, well, you know, it'd probably help if you did some of this.
But, you know, it would also help if you did a little of this.
Maybe a little of this kind of testing.
A little bit of taking temperature.
And you really have to sort of add it all together.
And we don't really have all the assets in place even to do all this stuff.
We're only getting to the point where we can do enough testing.
Getting to the point where we can do a real, you know, testing.
That's just getting to the point where we can be confident about these drugs being useful and not deadly.
But we're sort of just a few weeks away from a lot of stuff, at least in terms of knowledge.
But the timing is going to be beyond interesting, and not in a good way, because, as you know, several states are beginning to rebel.
So people are starting to protest And I think, at least in the case of Michigan, it's because there was a little bit of a ridiculous overreach about what people could and could not do.
I think people are willing to obey the direction of their government if the government has a plausible reason.
If your government says, look, this is going to be really hard, I know it's going to be a burden, it's going to be a sacrifice, but here's the reason you're doing it.
And it's a good reason. And the citizens look at that and they say, I hate that it's, you know, I'm the one.
Because the sacrifice tends to be not uniformly distributed.
So you can imagine the citizens saying, I hate this.
I just hate that I'm the one who's going to take it in the butt and other people are not so much.
But I see the point.
I can see the argument that the government's making.
That's not what happened.
That's not what happened.
I don't think people could see the argument for why they couldn't walk in the park.
I don't think people saw the argument for why they couldn't buy garden seeds.
I'm not even sure that story's real, but people thought it was real.
So I guess that makes it real enough.
So because the government did not make an argument that the people could say, yeah, I see what you're going for.
That makes sense. They lost credibility.
And now we have protests in the streets.
How bad will the protests get?
Well, I think there's a real productive tension happening right now.
And the productive tension is this.
There's no right answer.
People have preferences, and those preferences often fit their situation.
So certainly a young person who needs a paycheck may have a different opinion than a rich old person, etc.
So you have this power and preference battle that's playing out, but I would argue that it's a healthy competition.
So I believe that the people who are pushing to open up We have good intentions, and it probably is good to push the government, to keep that pressure on.
So I'm in favor of the protests, not only because I think they're legitimate, but because it helps the process, puts a little pressure on the government, and I think that's good.
Now, what do you make of the fact that the Congress can't figure out how to vote on the rest of the money That's needed to finish up the Paycheck Protection Program.
So a whole bunch of companies that are just like the companies that did apply early and got money, there's a whole bunch of other ones who just couldn't get in, it was too clogged up, and now the money's gone?
Can we put up with that?
These businesses are going to just be decimated because the government decided it wanted to tweak the bill and add some things and make it better and then other people disagree.
I don't care. I don't care what the reason is.
You know, Chuck and Nancy, you got reasons?
I don't care. I don't care.
All I know is that you could have voted for whatever.
Those checks could be going out and people could be getting helped.
It's not happening. That's what I care about.
I don't want to hear about the excuses, the reasons, how you're making it perfect, and this would be the good time to do it.
I don't care. You're just not doing your job.
And here's what I say about that.
When your government is being credible and transparent and honest, you can say to yourself, I will sacrifice for that, because that makes sense.
But when your government...
It's not meeting the minimum level of competence.
And I think you can say that about Congress right now.
The minimum level of competence is for them to vote for the thing that wait, wait for it, they all agree on.
It would be one thing to not be able to guess something passed when there's actual disagreement.
But they can't pass a bill that they agree on because some of them are trying to put some extra stuff on it.
But the stuff they agree on They can't get voted in, in an emergency.
In an emergency, they can't vote on the things they agree on.
That's the lowest level of expectation, beyond showing up.
I suppose good attendance would be the basic thing, but after attendance, or whatever the digital version of that is, after that, The minimum is that you should be able to vote for the things you all agree on.
If you can't get that done, well, anyway.
The point being, there is some point at which a government reduces its credibility to the point where the citizens will not and should not heed its guidelines.
And I would argue we're getting perilously close to that.
And I would go further and say that if you were one of the businesses, That couldn't get your money while other people did, and the government is just forcing you to stay closed and isn't giving you nothing in return?
I think that from an ethical perspective, you have the right to reopen your business.
Now, of course, that could give you some legal problems, etc., but I would buy your product.
I will go in your store.
So if anybody opens up in violation of the government's requirements, you can count on having at least one customer.
So any store that wants to violate the government's guidelines, specifically because they didn't get the PPP, I'm going to say that is ethically acceptable.
And I'm assuming that they would take some steps, wear masks, and do the smart stuff.
And I would say that I would buy their product.
Now, I don't expect that to happen, and here's the problem.
There are a lot of ways that the public can protest that might be meaningful, but when the choke point is businesses and they're physical businesses, it doesn't take much police to shut down a business.
It takes a lot of police to shut down, let's say, a million people protesting.
But if you're just one store owner, It's just one policeman who walks in and says, you know, this is a violation.
I'm going to write down your name and you're going to get a gigantic fine.
And if you don't pay your fine, you'll have bad credit.
If you have bad credit, you're out of business.
And the store owner is like, ugh.
I don't want to deal with this.
And the cop says, Ann, you better get a lawyer.
Okay, I'm out.
Can I just close?
Can you throw away the ticket?
If I just close, the cop will say, yeah, that's all I really want.
So it takes a very small enforcement arm to make enough of a threat to close down all the businesses.
So as a practical matter, I don't see anything like a mass protest where people just open their businesses against the government's wishes.
But if it does happen, I will be happy to shop there.
I just don't know that it can.
All right. It looks like some kind of big decision may have been made by the Democrats to get rid of Biden because even CNN turned on him.
So CNN's got a big article about the allegations of him metooing an alleged victim back in the 90s.
And apparently a number of top Democrats are being asked to comment on it.
You know, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and stuff.
So it turns out that it's not embargoed anymore.
So the Democrats, it looks like the, let's say, the protective coating that the Democrats have in their media, the little protected media situation, it looks like there's some kind of decision that must have happened.
Now, I don't know if they had a meeting about it, but maybe collectively they've just decided that they are going to talk about this.
And for all practical purposes, if Biden wasn't already, you know, hopelessly impossible in terms of a candidate, this is kind of the final nail in the coffin.
So there might be something afoot.
It is signaling to us that the people who would need to support a Biden candidacy are indeed not.
All right. Let's see.
So I guess Trump went after Nancy Pelosi.
So you probably all saw the footage of her showing her big expensive refrigerators and all the ice cream she's eating while everybody's dying in the streets.
And of course it was super tone deaf and she wasn't reading the room and stuff.
But more importantly, where is she?
Isn't Nancy Pelosi the sort of person you're supposed to be hearing from in an emergency?
I'm glad we're hearing from the task force and I'm glad we're seeing plenty of Trump and Fauci and all those people.
And I think, by the way, they're doing terrific in terms of communicating with the public in terms of time spent.
I still think they're terrible at communicating the specifics.
But where's Nancy Pelosi?
I mean, it's sort of conspicuous and it's missing.
Now, let me bring you back.
Bring you back.
Do you remember how worked up I was when I would be watching these task forces, task force meetings, and they would spew raw numbers of how many ventilators they made and how many gloves and stuff?
And I kept screaming, that's useless unless you tell us how many you need.
It means nothing to us to say how many you made, how many you bought, how many you delivered.
It means nothing. How many do you need?
Is that most of it?
Okay, so you heard me say that a million times.
So now we find out that we somehow increased production enough to make three times as many ventilators as we needed.
And we hear that there were smart people in the administration President Trump certainly was among them, who said, I don't think you need so many ventilators.
This is the story we're hearing, that there were people who would be in the administration, the task force, they'd get these requests from the states for thousands and thousands of ventilators, and they would say, no, I don't think you need all those ventilators.
First of all, because it's just way too many.
And secondly, maybe we could move them around to places that need them so you don't all need your own amount.
Now, here's the problem.
We're hearing now that President Trump and others knew it was too many ventilators.
If the public had known that, let's say that the task force had given us more transparent numbers.
Here's how much they say that they're going to need.
Here's how many we have.
Is it not likely that we would have seen it too?
Would the public not have said, wait a minute, why are you asking for all those ventilators?
That doesn't seem to add up.
I think we made too many ventilators because we did not have a managed situation.
And when I say managed, I like to use my little saying that if you're not measuring things, you're not managing it.
Because if you're not measuring what happens when you do this change, what happens when you do this change, well, you're just randomly doing things, and you don't know if what you're doing is working, and so the next time you have to do something, well, you don't know what works, so you just randomly do more things.
So if you're not measuring everything, you're not doing anything, and we were not measuring the supply compared to the need of this ventilators and other stuff, so now are you surprised In the end, are you surprised that when we didn't measure it, we came up with the wrong number by triple or something?
No. That's what happens.
That's an unmanaged process.
Now, the worst case would have been if it had been in the other direction.
What if we had gotten to the peak and we didn't have even 10% of the ventilators we needed?
I mean, could have gone that way, right?
And the public wouldn't have known until it was too late.
So by having the public less informed, I think maybe that was a lost opportunity, because I think the public probably would have pushed things closer to the need, if you know what I mean.
The number requested probably would have been a little more realistic if there was more visibility on it in general.
I don't know that that's true, by the way.
I'm just going to say that in general, If you don't have transparency and you're not measuring stuff, it should look exactly like this, that you made way too much stuff.
That would be one of the things you'd predict.
But in this special case, maybe it doesn't matter that they made too much because you can't have too much because you can share it with other countries, and we have a moral obligation to do that if we can because we have better manufacturing abilities.
So... Scott is much more optimistic.
Must have had a conjugal visit from Christina.
Christina is probably watching this periscope right now.
Let me just say how much I love her.
She's the most beautiful woman in the entire simulated multi-sphere.
All dimensions, space and time.
Well, it looks like...
Oh, did you all see the video of CNN? And I think I mentioned this this morning, but you have to watch it because there's another video of the same interview in which Biden is on there in a triple screen, so it's split three ways.
And it was Anderson Cooper, Sanjay Gupta, Dr.
Sanjay Gupta, and Biden.
And Biden is talking.
And you could watch Sanjay Gupta in the middle.
If you haven't...
If you haven't watched this video, it's really, really funny.
I've watched it several times because you're watching Sanjay, who, you know, if you've been watching CNN for a long time, as I have, you know, you have a lot of respect for him as a medical professional and a, you know, stray shooter, right?
So he's this smart, scientific-minded, rational guy, you know, totally at the top of his game professionally and, you know, probably mentally in every other way.
He's sitting in the middle of this three-part screen, and Biden is talking, and you can just see him almost trying to send mental energy to Biden.
I mean, who knows what he's really thinking.
But the way it looked is that he was almost like wishing Biden to not make a mistake, and he's kind of biting his lip because it's starting to go off the rails, and you can see it like...
Now, of course I can't know what he was thinking.
But it's just as funny if you don't know because the way it looks is he's terribly uncomfortable being watched in public as Biden is talking because it's a train wreck and both he and Anderson Cooper had to know it was a train wreck and he's trying to play it straight but if you ever want to win some money in poker I think you want Sanjay Gupta on the other side of the table Because I'll bet he's a great doctor,
and he's terrific on television, so he's great at his jobs, I'm guessing.
At least the one I see, he's great at.
But I don't think he can play poker.
So if that was his poker face, you're going to make a lot of money off of Sanjay Gupta, which is not a criticism whatsoever.
I like the fact that you can read his face.
That's a plus, not a negative.
All right. Debates are going to be gold.
I don't see debates happening, do you?
Do you see debates happening?
I don't see it happening.
And it's not just because of the coronavirus.
I think the coronavirus might make it easy to not do it.
But I feel as though...
The Biden campaign or whatever will be left of it will find some reason that it's just unnecessary.
And they'll say, you know, we don't need to debate this monster, this orange monster.
Everything that needs to be said has already been said.
He'll just get up there and he'll tell some lies.
Why should we debate with somebody who's just going to lie?
Yeah, so I think they're going to have to find some elegant or even not elegant way to not have a debate.
Now, the other alternative is that Biden gets replaced before that becomes necessary.
You can even see this.
I know this is a stretch, but we're in such weird territory that everything seems possible.
Am I right? It doesn't seem like anything's not possible anymore.
So you can imagine that a debate would get scheduled, and then a few hours before the debate, there'd be news that Joe Biden came down with a flu.
It doesn't have to be the big one, but he just gets sick.
But it's all scheduled, and everything's set up, and so what do they do?
It's like, it's just hours before the debate, and Joe Biden is ill, or his campaign says he is.
What do you do? Maybe, maybe you send your vice president.
Maybe you send Kamala Harris.
Because, hey, show goes on and the argument is that the whole point of picking a vice presidential running mate is that that presidential running mate is already, you know, on day one, ready to take over the job of president at any time.
Well, perfect case.
Let's prove that this candidate can take over the job by taking over the debates.
Now, is that likely?
No. No.
But we're in territory, we're in this weird zone of reality where anything that does happen is also unlikely.
Pretty much everything that happens from now on is just completely unlikely if you were to try to predict it in advance.
So could it happen?
Probably not. Good.
All right. I'm going to take some questions because I know you like to ask your questions.
So let's start with Alex.
Alex, do not disappoint me.
Come to me, Alex. Have a good question.
Alex, what have you done?
Your technology has not kept up.
We're going to have to go to George.
George, I'm counting on you to have good technology.
George, do you have a question for me?
Yes. What is your question?
Sam Harris. Talk about our response to COVID-19.
It shows how we're really unprepared for climate change.
How would that statement, at that point of view, what would you do to WinnerThink do that?
Well, you know, there's a chapter in my book, WinnerThink, in which I kind of talk about the framework for how to do that.
And here's the problem. If you only had one gigantic problem that would destroy the world, Then you would, of course, be as prepared as you could be, and you'd put all your money into it, and you'd really take care of it.
But if you have more than one potential thing that could destroy the whole world, and I listed in my book, published months ago, that what happens if a pandemic comes?
I mean, that was actually an explicit example.
So if you'd spent all your money getting ready for climate change, what do you have left for a pandemic?
What happens if an asteroid is coming to the Earth?
What happens if anything happens, right?
There are lots of unknowns, big war, etc.
And so that's the problem, is that sometimes the best way to be prepared is to simply be rich and flexible.
Would you say, for example, I see we lost the caller, but I'll keep answering the question.
Would you say that we were not prepared with ventilators?
I would argue That we were exactly the right amount of prepared.
Because we could build them as fast as we needed them, times three, apparently.
So could you say we were unprepared with ventilators when we ended up with three times more than we needed in plenty of time?
Well, I would say that is prepared.
In other words, being rich and capable and flexible is sort of the best way to prepare for a lot of stuff.
And that's what happened.
Likewise, with manufacturing of all the other stuff, we were prepared enough that we had a worldwide system of shipping and communication, purchasing, quality control, and everything else.
So we were prepared in that way, in a way that you could never be in 1918.
Were people prepared for the Spanish flu?
Well, even if they'd done everything that you could do in 1918, would you be prepared?
No. No, you wouldn't.
So in 1918, it didn't matter how prepared you were.
It kind of isn't going to help you because you know how much you can do.
But these days, being prepared might look like being rich and flexible and very capable to make, do, move, talk to, communicate, organize, whatever you need, fund, vote, change legislation, get rid of guidelines.
We fairly quickly modified our entire form of government almost instantly into a task force, guideline, regulation cutting, buck kicking kind of a hybrid that just didn't exist a week before that happened.
So I would say that I would argue that we're not prepared.
I would say that we're prepared for more things than we've ever been prepared for in the history of humankind because we have more capability for everything.
But I don't know how you would weigh that method versus, you know, the moonshot of saying, well, I'm going to guess that we have exactly one big problem.
I'll just put all my resources there.
All right, let's take another question.
Let's see if Judith has a good question.
Judith? Judith?
Hello Judith, do you have a question?
I started reading your blog back in August of 2015 and you totally cured me as the original, I was the original Never Trumper.
Honestly, you got through to me In just a couple of posts, and I just wish you would devote your talents to curing TDS in the country.
It's such a big problem.
Well, you know, it seems that maybe the only people who could be cured of TDS are people who are already leaning conservative to begin with, because the president did go from, you know, 10% of Republicans like him to 90-whatever percent, and I would argue that that's Most amazing performance of persuasion of all time.
He turned the entire party into his party.
You can't be more persuasive than that.
In today's world, you don't really persuade the other team.
It's not really even about that.
You might pick off a few people just enough to tip the balance in the swing states or something.
But for the most part, you don't cure other people.
They will be permanently like that.
And by the way, it's not that different than when Obama was in office and there were people who were just as crazy about his secret Muslim plan to destroy the United States, I think was what I heard the most.
So it's not unique to Trump, and I don't think it's curable.
People just like their teams.
But thanks for the question.
Thank you, Scott. All right.
Let's take another question.
Wait, first we'll go here.
And we'll do that.
And let's see.
I believe that Andrew has a question for me.
Andrew looks very happy.
Andrew, do you have a question for me?
Hi. I missed the last couple, but I had a question on what you think of the who and what Trump is thinking about doing in terms of negotiating.
He had a very open request on terms of he wants many things to change but didn't say specifically what and what you think of that tactic.
I like it a lot.
Every now and then, Trump is exactly the perfect person for the job, because I don't think another president would have done what he just did, which is, how about we don't give you any more money until you fix it?
It was pretty decisive, and I think exactly the right thing to do.
Some people have tried to say, oh, it's different than what Bill Gates wants, and he's smart, and so he wants the World Health Organization to remain attacked and be funded, but so does Trump.
Trump just wants them to be functional and to make whatever changes would be common sense, meaning they have to change leadership.
That's not optional. I don't know what else needs to be changed.
But I think it's exactly the right move.
There are very few times when I would say something is 100% correct, even in the timing.
It's hard to get the timing right, because at the very least, somebody's going to say, you should have done it sooner.
I don't even think he should have done it sooner.
To me, it looks like exactly the right decision, exactly the right time, decisive, boom, he can negotiate.
He doesn't need to be that specific.
He can send his team in and say, team goes in and says, tell us what you're going to do, and then they say that's not enough.
They negotiate. I like where that's heading.
I don't like where it was, but it seems to be heading in a fixable direction.
Do you think having it open like that in terms of I hope that the WHO can be reformed, but in a way, I wish that we did something different in terms of having less political and having a system that was almost like a bounty where you say, oh, if you come up with a malaria drug, we'll give you $50 million.
Something that's less political, it's purely capitalist market-driven.
Yeah, maybe there's room for both.
I don't know enough about the World Health Organization to have an opinion about how they should do things, but yeah, it does seem, you know, it's probably worth a look from the bottom up.
All right. Thank you.
Thank you. Let's take another call here.
Let's go to... I'm looking at your names like I can tell who's going to ask a good question.
And I think that Bill will ask a good question.
Bill? Bill, do you have a good question for me?
Well, thank you. I just have a quick question.
What are your thoughts on any of the Trump kids taking on the presidency in the future?
Any of the Trump kids taking on the presidency of the future?
Well, what would be more fun than that?
I mean, I can't even think of anything that would be more fun.
First of all, I would not be surprised if after President Trump's term is over, he does something in the TV or radio realm or both.
So, I can imagine that President Trump would have some kind of an ongoing media Presence or company or association or something.
So he'd have a leg up, sort of a friendly media situation.
And then the question is, which one would run?
Would it be Ivanka?
Would it be Don Jr.?
Eric seems to be less interested in politics.
That's just from the outside.
It looks that way. My guess is that neither of them are going to run.
I don't think they will because I don't think it looks fun and they've seen their father get torn apart and maybe they've just had enough of it.
You can't read minds.
I mean, it could be that either Ivanka or Don Jr.
or Eric wakes up one day and says, you know, I think I'd be pretty good at this and then all bets are off because they all have such high capability.
So the thing that The thing that you could never bet against them, right?
I mean, I'm not saying that they would definitely win or definitely wouldn't, but you wouldn't bet against them, you know, against anybody.
You wouldn't even have to know who's on the other side.
You'd say, okay, it's whoever this is to be named later, and they're running against Ivanka.
Well, who are you going to bet on?
You don't even know who the other person is, and you're automatically, well, I think Ivanka might win this.
So, who knows? But possible.
Could happen. Thank you.
And Don Jr., of course, he always brings the energy.
He has much of the gift that his father does.
So he, of course, would make a huge splash.
So we'll see. Maybe Barron.
Maybe Barron. All right.
Thanks for the question. Thank you.
All right. Let's try.
Monica, I think you're Monica.
Monica, do you have a question?
Monica? I can hear you.
What's your question, Monica? Okay, so my question is the following.
It seems to me that you always say, for a given event, there are two different points of view or more.
That you will see the same thing happening.
You have a completely different interpretation.
So, from your point of view, is there anything like the truth?
And how can one...
Well, good question.
So there probably is something like the truth if you're talking about math or physics, or at least it's true enough for our purposes.
But here's the thought experiment.
Think of all the plants and animals and insects in the world.
Do any of them have a good understanding of reality?
And I think you'd agree, no.
No, they're pretty much just going through life and reproducing, and that's all they need to do.
So if you think that evolution is how we got here, was there any reason that we would have evolved to understand reality when there's no utility to it?
Because we can see every other plant and species and bird and elephant.
They don't really understand the reality.
They don't know they're on a planet that's in space.
They don't know that they'll die someday.
They don't know anything. And it doesn't make any difference.
So why would we be the only species that evolved to know something that has no value?
There's just no value in knowing the real base reality.
But it makes more sense that we evolved to imagine that we do because we can test, it's easy to test, that we're irrational creatures who rationalize after the fact.
And once you realize that that's our normal mode, that we make these irrational decisions, and then we fill in the weird reasons after the fact, and they're not even rational most of the time, or a lot of the time.
So once you realize that we're a completely irrational species, there's no other species, plant, or animal that understands the universe and doesn't need to.
We don't need to.
Because if, you know, I use the example of, you know, I go shopping, back when you could do things like go shopping, and I'm in a grocery store, and, you know, there's a Muslim to my left and a Hindu to my right.
We're all in different realities, you know, because one believes that, you know, God is watching and judging, and, you know, the afterlife is the bigger reality.
The Hindus, you know, think maybe reincarnation.
I'm thinking, well, maybe it's all a simulation.
We're not in the same reality.
And that extends to politics.
The people who think that Trump is a monster really see it.
That's what they see and feel.
All the information that they're receiving is consistent with that.
And yet, sitting right next to them, in the same room, Somebody watching the same stuff is getting a completely different movie and reality.
So, if there is a base truth, it would not be available to us.
Because our brains, there's no reason to assume our brains could do that.
They're just not that tool.
In the same way that you would assume a cotton ball would not be a good can opener, it just isn't for that.
It was never made for that.
There's no surprise that it doesn't work for that.
So, there might be a base reality.
It's unavailable to us.
And so, we have to act like we know reality, but we're just sort of guessing.
Is that what you wanted? Let's feel a collective consciousness, I guess.
Or a possibility of...
Well, there's definitely something to the fact that collectively we decide on some truths.
But even then, there's always at least one other camp that did not agree on that truth.
So, yeah, I'm a big proponent of the idea that reality is subjective, and that's the good news.
Because if reality is subjective, you can sort of Craft it the way you want it.
You can create your own reality.
As long as it's consistent with what you observe, you can create any reality you want.
For example, I've created the reality.
Doesn't mean it's true.
I've created the reality that I always win.
That's it. In my mind, I've decided that that's the filter on the world, is that in the end, I always win.
Oh yeah, I don't win every point, but I always win the game.
Oh yeah, maybe I don't win every game, but I'm definitely going to win the match, you know?
So that's sort of a fiction, if you will, that I've invented for myself.
So I live in that world, and then probably confirmation bias and selective memory allows me to live there.
And I live in a world in which I always seem to win.
And is that true?
I don't know.
All I know Is that because I've set that filter, every piece of information that comes in confirms that it's true, even if it isn't, which is the cool thing.
So, does it hurt me to have this filter that says I always win?
Probably not. There's probably no downside to it if it's wrong.
It's just a harmless, maybe it's helpful filter that makes me feel good, makes me work harder, keeps me optimistic, makes me try harder because I figure, ah, it's just one more minute and I'm going to win at any moment here.
And you see how that plays out.
If any of you were with me when the election happened in 2016, and I made the most ridiculous prediction in 2015 that Trump would win it all, and then he did.
And I'm sitting there watching this unfold, and you talk about doubting reality.
That night, and you probably all have this same experience in some form, when you're watching the vote tallies come in, and I had created this world, and I'm completely aware of the fact it's fiction.
I've created for myself a fictional world in which I always win.
And then I did the most ridiculous prediction, put everything into it, did it in public, basically risked my entire reputation forever, a third of my income.
I mean, I just gambled everything on the stupidest prediction in the world.
Why? Because I always win.
Because I always win, and then I won.
And so it seemed to reinforce the fiction I've created.
Now, did I cause it to happen?
Well, that would be, you know, maybe an interpretation that the simulation is something that you could steer and you're a player in it or something like that.
So, certainly we can create our own reality within certain bounds.
You know, I can't will myself to fly, but I can tell myself I always win and that I live in that reality whether it's true or not.
Anyway, thanks for the question.
That was probably weirder than you were expecting.
All right, let's see if David has a good question.
David, do you have a good question for me?
Hi. I was thinking about, I remember when you were posting your blog post.
This is back in 2016.
And I was fascinated, like, whoa, this is weird, like, Trump could actually win.
And then following that, all the way to now, and then learning about persuasion, I feel like people used to find authors and read books, like what we're doing now, finding people.
Like, Eric Weinstein, I think, is a good example.
I think you are a great example.
It seems like maybe it's because I listen to you so much, but I look at everything in terms of persuasion now like, what are they trying to get me to think?
Where's the dog that's not barking?
It gets kind of addicting.
I wonder how do you stay sort of fascinated with what you're doing without becoming bored?
Because I find the more I've learned from you, The more boring my friends have become.
That's kind of sad, right?
But it's sort of because when I speak to, say, my family now, and I have started to use the sort of reframing technique.
And I can tell they don't like it.
But what I noticed is like two weeks later, they'll start to say the same things that I said two weeks prior.
And it's like a framework virus.
Do you know what I mean? How do you stay, I guess, interested, and do you have plans to develop this, maybe to go into cognitive science?
It's an incredible technology.
I don't know how to explain it. Well, you kid on so many points, so let me hit a few of these myself.
Number one, there's something very big and important happening, and I know a number of people would probably confirm this.
Probably people who would agree with me would be Jordan Peterson, Eric Weinstein, probably Joe Rogan, Mike Cernovich.
And here's the thing.
People privately tell me all the time, all the time, that they treat me as sort of a mentor.
Like the person who teaches them how to navigate life, and it's all the stuff that the school system and your own parents didn't know.
Yeah, they couldn't teach it to you because they didn't know.
But, you know, if you listen to, I always, Mike Sternovich is my, like, universal reference because he fits so many examples.
But if you listen to him, you're going to get smarter.
There's no way around it, you know?
And, you know, you listen to Eric Weinstein, you're just going to get smarter.
And I could name a bunch of others, right?
So, it feels like, and then there are people who are teaching through the people that bring in, you know, the Dave Rubens, for example, Joe Rogan's in that category.
So, they are accidental teachers and accidental mentors for a generation that I think feels like they were shorted I don't know if it's because the strategy got more complicated than it used to be.
Maybe it was obvious 200 years ago.
It's like, yeah, you're going to grow up and inherit the farm, so you don't need too much strategy.
But now you really need to navigate a complicated situation.
It's better to have systems than goals.
It's better to have a talent stack than one narrow thing.
So you have to take a sort of a statistical, more rational approach to this complicated environment.
So the first thing is, There's something big happening in which me, which I and a number of other people are seeming to recognize as teachers who did not intend to be in this position.
We just sort of became that way.
People told us what we were and then we became it.
I've often said that you don't tell your customers what you're selling.
They tell you.
I mean, you might try it first and say, oh, I'm selling this widget.
But then the customers say, hey, no, no, I really like the service that you have.
I like your cafeteria.
You're more of a restaurant.
The next thing you know, you're a restaurant.
When Dilbert first came out, it was a generic cartoon.
But my customers said, no, it's a workplace cartoon.
And I'd say, no, it's not.
He's hardly ever in the workplace.
And all my customers would say, no, it's a workplace cartoon.
So I turned it into a workplace cartoon.
Were the customers right?
Yeah. Yeah, they were right.
I mean, it made the whole difference is just listening to the customer and then responding.
There's a second part to this, which is...
What was the other part of the question?
I was sort of wondering, where do you think it's heading?
Like, we went from books, now we're doing people.
Yeah, where it's heading? How could this evolve?
Yeah. Real quick, when you were talking about leaving the house, I was like, dude, you can't die because you're the most fascinating person I'm listening to right now.
So if you go, I don't know.
I'm sure people will start popping up because of the internet, but man, your knowledge.
It's been fun. That's the thing about it.
It's just really fun. Well, I'm not going to die because I get to create my own reality and that's not in it.
So, well, you know, Part of what I talk about is that if you have different experience in different domains, they're not just additive, they're almost multiplicative.
Is that a word? If you know economics and you also know psychology, it's not twice as good.
It's more like three times as good, and then you add on top of that, oh, you're also a good public speaker.
It's not 50% better.
It's four times better.
So just learning the math of life is important.
And I feel like I had a special window into that that I felt like almost a responsibility to talk about because my window was somewhat accidental because I've just had such a broad experience that I've seen things that other people haven't seen.
And I thought, well, maybe if I tell you what I've seen, you can get there faster without having to have that job and stuff.
And I got to tell you that when I was, I don't know, maybe six years old, I tried to figure out what was going on with this whole reality stuff.
Really, it started that early.
Everything that I aimed my life at was to try to figure out reality.
Just figure out, what are the rules?
Is there some kind of user interface to reality?
If I knew where the buttons were, could I push them?
If I figured out the strategy, would it be like a superpower?
Is everything just random?
I've been a I'm a real searcher.
You know, I went through all the religions, what's there.
I looked into ESPs or anything there.
And I spent serious time on all these things.
I looked at ghosts and, you know, every kind of, you know, did the aliens build the pyramids?
Now, I'm not a believer in, I don't think, any of the ones that I mentioned.
You become insatiably interested in picking up stuff.
And then you learn stuff like you hear Warren Buffett talk.
And he tells you, oh, here are the three or four rules of investing.
And you say to yourself, whoa, that's it.
I found a little part of the user interface.
Diversify, buy and hold, and don't sell it until the reason you bought it changes, and make sure you have good management.
Just a few little rules, and then that little part of the user interface of life got filled in.
And now I know that, right?
I have a degree also, but it helped that Warren Buffett said it so clearly.
So you start putting together these pieces.
When I took hypnosis, suddenly I understood how people worked.
People were completely confusing to me because I thought they were rational and they just kept not being rational.
I kept trying to make them rational and I thought I was rational and they wouldn't and I could make them rational with my great arguments and it never worked until I realized that it's not even a thing.
First of all, I have no reason to believe I'm rational, not all the time.
I certainly am not going to convince other people because there's no rationality to work with.
They're just people who rationalize after the fact.
So now you've got like this little finance piece.
You're like, okay, I think I know all the buttons because there actually aren't that many buttons for the whole investing world that are important.
There are lots of buttons, but they're mostly unimportant.
Then you say, well, what about management?
What about economics?
You know, do you really follow the money?
And is the money really determining everything?
And is it because of money and the time value of money and knowing about sunk costs?
So when I took economics, I learned economics to understand reality.
That's why I took it, like, explicitly in my head.
Now, I thought it could, you know, give me a number of opportunities, and that was good.
But the main reason was I wanted to understand how the economy works.
And then I learned enough, you know, I'm no expert on it, but enough of that so that that part of the user interface to reality got filled in.
So, you know, I'm at a certain age now where little by little I filled in the real estate on my screen, you know, just to use that analogy.
I got the buttons and put them in.
Part of it is building the talent stack.
Part of it is seeing the field.
Part of it is just being a certain age.
When it all started coming together, there was some period, at some point I realized that because it's such a little increment every day, you don't realize that you get smarter every day until you look back at 30 years ago yourself and you say, Whoa, I picked up a few tricks.
I saw some things.
And it's never been more obvious than I would say this week, because the amount of BS and hoaxes that we've seen around coronavirus and in politics lately.
And I think you've probably watched me just pick out the hoaxes.
Just right out of the pile.
I mean, you've seen me look into the fog and say, okay, that one, boop.
Let's pick this one out.
That one's probably not real.
I'm not right every time, but my pattern recognition engine It just has a lot of miles on it, so I can just see it.
I don't have to research it.
I can just see it. So, that's not real.
Boop. Like the Cuban embassy with the secret sonic weapon.
Yeah, that was awesome. Now, I don't have to do research.
I just have to be me and have lived in the world enough that when I hear the story about the secret sonic weapon, I don't need to ask any more questions.
Now, for those of you who are younger, like, you know, say you're 30 and you're listening to this, you're probably saying to yourself, hey, old man, that's not a thing.
You can't just look at it and know, you know, because, you know, I'm pretty smart.
I'm 30. I got good grades.
I'm looking at it. I didn't know.
There's no way, old man.
You know, you don't learn that.
Well, you do.
You really do.
The extra vision you get with every few years of your life, like every five years, you just go up a level, and it's like x-ray vision.
You know, I've talked about seeing around corners.
Mike Sertovich is another one who has x-ray vision.
He can actually see around a corner.
Like, he's not just straight lining the future.
He's like going down around a corner and down an alleyway.
He goes, okay, down there, take a right down the corner behind the dumpster.
You're going to find a surprise.
It's yellow. And then you go down there and there's like this yellow thing.
You're like, how the hell did you do that?
Well, he just sees more of the field.
That's all. So, thank you for your question.
That was a fun one. Yeah, thanks so much.
All right. Take care. Alright, I have come to the end of my time.
I don't want to take much more of your time.
And I will see you in the morning.
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