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May 4, 2020 - Real Coffe - Scott Adams
57:46
Episode 954 Scott Adams: Let's Talk About All the Good News, Because Others Talk About the Bad Stuff

My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Content: You can't suppress ideas in the long run Jake Tapper promotes "Fine People Hoax Light" (Hoax Funnel) Withholding rent or mortgage payments Coronavirus death estimates jumping around Countries making hydroxychloroquine and coronavirus result Reliable test kits and an effective vaccine Weak antibodies and strong antibodies --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/scott-adams00/support

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Hey everybody, come on in.
Come on in. Wake up, wake up, sleepyheads.
It's time for Coffee with Scott Adams.
Well, you all know what is the worst thing in the world.
It's called the coronavirus.
Worst thing in the world.
But what's the best thing in the world?
You're there. It's the best thing in the world.
It's called the simultaneous sip.
Doesn't take much to participate.
Not really. Not much.
All you need is a cup or a mug or a glass, a tank or a chalice or a stein, a canteen jug or a flask, a vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee.
And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine hit of the day, the thing that makes everything better, including the damn pandemic.
It's called the simultaneous sip, and it happens now.
Go! Mmm.
I feel those hospitalization rates falling even as we sip.
Yes, indeed. So, I asked a provocative question on Twitter, and I'm watching the answers come in.
And this is sort of a head-scratcher, sort of a thinker.
You have to think about this one for a while, because your first instinct will be different than what you arrive at.
And it goes like this.
We all know and take it as a given, as do I, that conservative voices are somewhat throttled or suppressed on social media.
You all agree on that part, right?
There's no disagreement on the premise of the question that conservative voices tend to be throttled and suppressed on social media.
I think we're all on that page.
But here's the question.
What would be an example of some good idea that got suppressed?
In other words, the idea of free speech is that some of it is valuable.
Lots of it is not.
That's the nature of human beings.
A lot of what we say has no use, or is wrong, or is misleading, or is evil intentions.
But you don't want to ban speech.
Because some of it is so important.
And yet on social media, we're all aware that conservatives get a little throttled or sometimes outright banned.
And the question is, what would be some idea or fact that we didn't get to hear because of that?
Now, your first instinct will be, well, if they're banning people, Obviously, they're suppressing ideas because those ideas come with the people.
It's the people who have the ideas.
But what would be an example?
Because every time you come up with an example, the reason that you have the example is because you heard of it.
Somebody said, what about nuclear energy as being a good idea?
Well, you know it.
How come you know it?
I know it. How do we know it?
We all learned it on social media, probably.
Mark Schneider, very active on social media.
Nobody's suppressing him.
Or, let me put it this way, I don't know if his tweets are as visible as anybody else's, but do you know any conservative who is not aware that nuclear energy is a good solution?
I don't. I've never even heard of one.
The efficacy of vaccines.
Efficacy? Well, you're talking about the danger of them, aren't you?
Or are you really talking about efficacy?
Anyway, the point is, if you can list something that you think was suppressed, was it suppressed?
Was it? Right?
Because if you know about it, if you know about it and other conservatives know about it, was it suppressed?
Here's the theory that I'm working on.
That you can't suppress good ideas in the long run.
Now, I'm not saying that the situation as it stands is good.
I would like to see it fixed, too.
Now, I see people mentioning specific people.
But let me be very specific.
My question is not about people.
It's not about people.
I acknowledge that individuals are getting banned, and so those individuals...
Have less options for free speech.
But if you were to take all of those individuals, what idea is it that they're promoting that you've not actually heard?
Now, of course, as someone pointed out, it's a trick question.
Sort of a trick question.
Because if you've heard of it, well, how banned was it?
It wasn't very banned if you've heard about it.
And if you haven't heard about it, how would you be able to list it So there might be something that you've never heard of that's been banned.
How would you know?
So if you think that I'm going for a specific outcome, I'm not really.
It's just an interesting thing to think about.
And my starting hypothesis is that good ideas always do travel.
Good ideas always travel.
That's the Scott theory.
So if you think that social media could stop a good idea, I would say you're going to need some examples.
Because there may be things that got slowed down a little bit, but I don't think you can stop a good idea.
Think about all the ideas that I've suggested on social media.
A lot of them, right?
If you've been watching me for a while, it's mostly what I do.
I talk about this new idea or that new idea.
And much of it is, if not most, is in some way directly or indirectly good for President Trump.
So how throttled am I? If I have an idea, can I get my idea to the people who I want to?
I think I can.
I believe that all of my ideas can go wherever I want them.
Can you think of anything I've ever suggested that got throttled on social media?
Now, the best example that I saw in the comments was asking the questions is the fine people hoax.
Now, the fine people hoax is 100%.
No, that's not true.
I'd say among conservatives, maybe, what would you say?
I'd be looking for your opinion on this.
Maybe half of conservatives know that that's a hoax because it was so widely reported as true that even Republicans probably didn't know it was a hoax until some of us started hammering on that.
So for the past, I don't know, three years, you've watched me, Steve Cortez, Joel Pollack, among others, debunking the fine people hoax.
The articles all get published.
When Steve Cortez does a PragerU video about it, I think he got 6 million views.
I don't know how many views Breitbart gets, but they're publishing the stories.
I'm tweeting them. You see my tweets.
Let me check my number of users.
I have 435,000 users, and this week the President retweeted me four times.
The President of the United States.
So how shadow-banned am I if the President of the United States is retweeting me four times this week?
Not very much, right?
Now you could argue that some of my tweets were less visible, and that's probably true.
You know, the algorithm was biasing against me.
Maybe I should have a million followers by now instead of 435,000.
But ask yourself this.
What good idea have I ever had that didn't get where it needed to go?
So I think we make the mistake of thinking that the person is the idea, and they're really not.
You know, there are lots of good arguments against banning people from social media.
And by the way, I think you're going to see some changes to that.
Let me give you a little prediction.
I think that you will see some kind of, in the future, A social media court that can listen to appeals and say, okay, you know, you probably got banned for a good reason.
You did break the law.
I mean, you broke the guidelines.
So they banned you for a good reason.
But, you know, five years is long enough or whatever it's been.
Or let's try it again.
You know, you can go back, but we'll keep an eye on you.
So I think social media is going to have to develop a Some kind of an appeals process because I think they recognize that otherwise they get accused of being a monopoly.
We don't really mind monopolies when they do good things.
We don't mind monopolies when they're good.
It's just when they're abusive.
We don't mind the social media giving us these great tools So long as if somebody gets badly treated, there's some recourse.
So I think the social media companies will have to build some kind of recourse to keep the pressure off them for B-monopolies or virtual monopolies.
All right. I saw somebody in the comments mentioning that Breitbart, and I think it was Joel Pollack, wrote about how...
Jake Tapper was going to what Joel called the fine people hoax light, you know, the light version.
I referred to this as the hoax follow.
When you show somebody that their news about the fine people hoax is false, that the president was clearly showing the full transcript, it's obvious he was excluding the neo-Nazis from the fine people because he said it directly.
I'm not counting them.
They should be rebuked.
Disavowed totally, he said.
But when you debunk somebody and say, no, that didn't happen, he actually said the opposite of what you're saying.
He disavowed them directly.
At the same time, you're just not showing that part.
Do they say, oh, wow, I guess I got all that wrong.
I better change my opinion and say I was wrong?
No. No, they go down the hoax funnel, I call it, to the next level.
And the next level is, yeah, sure, they were fine people, the President says, but why were they marching with Nazis?
What kind of fine people march with Nazis?
Can you explain that?
Right together? Marching together?
Oh, but they're fine people.
But the Nazis aren't?
But they're marching together?
Explain that. Okay, I will.
They weren't. That's just a made-up fact.
It's just fake news.
Nobody was marching with them.
The only people marching with the neo-Nazis were the neo-Nazis.
And if there was anybody there who didn't call themselves a neo-Nazi, if they were marching with them, they're neo-Nazis.
Let's all agree on that.
But I've personally interviewed people who attended and And so I know from direct first-hand reports that there were lots of people there for their own purposes.
The people who were not the neo-Nazis never even got close to the neo-Nazis.
There was actually physical separation so that those people that Jake says were marching with the neo-Nazis, they couldn't.
They couldn't physically get there because the police were keeping them away.
The police actually were grabbing people on the way in and saying, uh, uh, uh, come over here.
You're not with those guys.
You're just here for your own purposes.
We're going to keep you away from the trouble.
So I talked to people who, as soon as they got there, they weren't marching with anybody.
They didn't go there to see the Nazis.
They weren't there to support them.
Nothing about them.
They were just there for their own purposes.
The police separated them.
There were two days, and in both cases there were different people there on both days.
But some of that does get confused about what day it is, etc.
Anyway, point being that the fine people light version is the fake news that the so-called good people were marching with the bad people.
It just didn't happen. Literally never happened.
I made a prediction several weeks ago that the food supply would be fine.
I like to revisit my predictions, be they right or be they wrong, because that's how we learn if we're good at it.
So I told you that I have, you know, enough knowledge of the food distribution network.
You still own a couple of restaurants, and I worked in that food services business for years.
And my sense of it was that you could easily, not easily, but reliably, nothing's easy, but reliably, you could keep that going.
You could lose specific parts of it, but it's so redundant and so strong, I said, we're not going to starve.
So far? So far, so good, right?
I've not heard of anybody going hungry, like literally hungry.
Have you? And I don't know why.
Are we so good at, you know, we're seeing these long lines for food, but we also don't know how long you send those lines.
If there's a long line for food and the line moves pretty quickly, I don't know, is that a problem?
Or is that the system working well?
So we have a little bit of non-reporting about how many people are going literally hungry, and I kind of wonder...
I'm actually concerned that maybe it's underreported.
Are you not concerned about that as well?
Why are we hearing nothing about actual hunger?
I guess it's because by the time you hear of it, you can just say to that person, are you hungry?
Yes. And the reporter would say, can I buy you a sandwich?
And then they wouldn't be hungry anymore.
So I think the moment that anybody says they're hungry, in the United States, in May of 2020...
If your neighbor says, I'm hungry, how long does it take you to fix that problem?
One minute. You're hungry.
Why didn't you tell me?
Here's some food.
I don't think anybody's going to go hungry because we're just not that kind of people.
And the problem isn't that deep because people are still buying food.
So I think that so far, it's still early, but so far my prediction that the food supply would be secure...
Seems solid. Would you agree, by the way?
Big lineups of some food banks, yeah.
There are big lineups of food banks, but the good news is there are food banks.
And I have not heard that the food banks have literally run out of food.
I've heard them saying, you know, we'd better get more, and we could run out.
A shortage doesn't necessarily imply hunger, correct?
Every city has a food bank.
Yeah, it looks like This does look like one of the success stories.
And when something doesn't break, there's not as much a story about it.
But think about how remarkable that is.
Think about how remarkably...
It's easy to focus on all the stuff that went wrong, and I'll talk about some of that.
But think about the fact that this is this global problem, and society was smart enough to immediately say, okay, okay, these things are critical.
We're not going to let this break.
This is critical.
Our medical facilities, our food supply.
I think we did a good job on priorities.
I think we did a good job on ventilators, food, you know, keeping the hospital from getting crushed.
In my opinion, the United States just killed it.
I shouldn't say kill, but I think they crushed it in a lot of ways.
From setting priorities to make sure that they're taken care of.
In a lot of ways, the United States was very, very competent.
Not necessarily the government.
I'm not saying the government did all this.
I'm saying that people, just Americans, are very competent about a lot of stuff.
It's impressive. I just want to give a shout-out to the producers at Fox News.
We always talk about the on-air talent.
I've said this before, but man, it is just so, so striking that the producers at Fox News are just really good.
Have you noticed that?
Did you see just the visual of how that looked?
It was a very tough thing to light.
It was a very tough thing to get the look right because of the social distancing requirement.
And I think they nailed it.
I felt like...
Oh, somebody says they had a...
Oh, you know, you're right. They had a terrible lighting on Trump's face.
But I feel like that was the natural light.
I feel like...
Was that... Yeah, you're right.
Trump's face was not well lit.
He looked...
Yeah, there was a moment I noticed that.
But if you looked at the entire set, the entire event, really well done, I thought.
Um... So I just want to give a shout out to the producers because they don't get that much credit.
But the Fox News producers are just so good.
Let's talk about people not paying rent or mortgage.
I've said, I said last night and I'll say again, if you lost your job, don't pay your rent and don't pay your mortgage.
And I think you're going to be okay.
Now, you shouldn't take financial advice from cartoonists, so let me tack that on the end of everything.
But it's generally true that if you were the only person who lost your job and you didn't pay your rent or you didn't pay your mortgage, you're in a lot of trouble.
You're in trouble because you lost your job, but you're in trouble with your landlord or your bank.
That's trouble. But if 50 million people, or whatever it is, don't pay their rent and don't pay their mortgage, That's not their problem anymore.
That's the bank's problem and the landlord's problem.
Now, if the landlord owns the building outright and has no mortgage of their own, well, how much are they going to be hurt by losing a few months of rent?
Quite a bit. In terms of cash, quite a bit.
But if they own the building and after three months people start paying rent again, probably be okay.
Probably. And how about the banks?
Let's say the landlord had a mortgage or people didn't pay their mortgage for the banks.
Could the banks survive? Well, here's the interesting part.
They have to.
There's nothing that would allow us to let the big banks fail.
It would be too catastrophic.
So the government will backstop the banks And so you'd be pushing all of the problems of you not being able to pay your rent, you not being able to pay your mortgage, this guy, this guy.
Instead of all these individual problems, it gets summed up and shoved over to the banks.
And the banks are in the best position to absorb enormous problems because they have the government of the United States making sure that they can.
So that's probably just the most efficient way to handle the problem is to not pay your rent.
Don't pay your mortgage. As long as 50 million people are doing it at the same time, I think you're going to be okay.
I would like to commit here in public that should there ever be a situation that comes up, I don't know how it would.
But if I'm ever checking anybody's credit and it doesn't look so good, and they tell me, yeah, the reason my credit score doesn't look so good is that I didn't pay my rent or my mortgage for three months during the coronavirus, I'm going to say, cool.
You're good with me. You know, I don't care what your credit agency says about you.
That's their problem. But if the reason you didn't pay is because the coronavirus doesn't count, your credit is good with me.
So that's all I can commit to.
I can commit that I will never hold you responsible for not paying your rent or your mortgage.
But use your judgment.
All right. So Trump said the death count might be, you know, 100,000 or so, and then there's some question whether the official death count ever was lower to that 50 or 60, or was it just Trump talking about it?
And I'll just go back to my general statements about this.
These are not really that accurate.
The point of the models is...
The point of the bottles is not to predict.
They don't do that.
Who said, ugh, pathetic?
What is pathetic?
We're not going to find out because I hate that word, so I'm going to block you just for making a general unpleasant comment.
So... If you're going to argue about the estimates moving from $1 million to $100,000 to $200,000, then $60,000, then maybe it's up to $100,000.
If you're saying to yourself, hey, it's almost like those projections are not reliable, then I think you should tell yourself, that's not what they're for.
They're just trying to tell you there's this giant range and you could be closer to the bottom or closer to the top depending on what you do, but that's all they can tell you.
And in my world, 60,000 and 100,000 are basically the same number for model purposes.
They're in the same range.
They're basically the same.
So if it's 60 or it's 100,000, 98% of the country is going to say, well, you got it wrong.
And I'm going to be the 2% that says, um, no, that's not how models work.
They got it right.
Because you said it could be anywhere in this range, and it was close to the range.
Good enough. All right.
Do you know that we still don't know why other countries are doing better or worse than us?
Can you believe?
Can you believe that Somebody's asking, how do I know the person you blocked wasn't remarking on something else?
I don't. I don't.
So, how is...
Let's see. Why don't we know how other countries are doing?
And, you know, I talked before about there's an account on Twitter that I don't know is credible.
I've got my questions about it.
I'm not sure I trust it.
But on the other hand, I don't have any reason not to, because I've sort of asked in public for anybody to debunk it, and I haven't seen it yet.
But the account simply tweets good news about hydroxychloroquine.
Now, I don't know, maybe it's somebody involved in the industry, somebody who just cares about it, I don't know.
But they purport to be tweeting other people's information, you know, other countries' results, etc., I just don't know how accurate it is, so it bothers me.
But since it hasn't been debunked in a way I've seen yet, I'll point it out and ask you to be skeptical.
But here's one of the claims they make.
Apparently Israel is doing great.
So Israel, if you were to believe the numbers from this one account, please fact check me, that Israel is doing really, really well containing the virus.
And according to this account, They also give people hydroxychloroquine early on as soon as they've got a suspicion that these people have coronavirus.
So, is that it?
Is the reason that Israel is having a good result because they have more generous hydroxychloroquine prescriptions?
Well, let me add this to the mix.
Do you know what the biggest company in Israel is?
Anybody? Anybody?
What's the biggest company in Israel?
I'm not positive, but I think it's Teva.
T-E-V-A. Teva is, if it's not the biggest, it's one of the biggest.
I think it's the biggest.
And Teva makes, among other things, hydroxychloroquine.
Check me on that, right?
Fact check all this.
But I believe that Israel lives in a country where their biggest company in the entire country makes hydroxychloroquine.
Now that could be a coincidence, right?
What about Germany?
How's Germany's numbers?
Germany's done pretty well, right?
Germany's done pretty well.
What's a big company in Germany?
Bayer. What does Bayer make?
Well, among other things, hydroxychloroquine.
How about India? People are saying that, for some reason, India isn't getting hit that bad.
What is the country that makes the most hydroxychloroquine that we consume in the United States anyway?
India. India.
So, I don't know if there's a pattern here yet, but the three countries that I know of, and I think maybe you could add China to that, right?
Because China probably has at least access to hydroxychloroquine if they don't make it.
They probably make it too, someplace.
But I would like to see somebody comparing all the countries that are using hydroxychloroquine.
No, not even the countries that are using it.
I'll go even deeper into conspiracy land here.
I'd like to see a chart.
This shows the countries that own, in other words, they have a hydroxychloroquine factory manufacturing, let's call it, in their country.
I'll bet you that the countries that have their own major source of hydroxychloroquine have the best results.
Anybody want to take that bet?
Anybody want to take the bet that the countries that have their own actually manufacturing inside it I'm going to bet that they have the best results.
Even without knowing how much they prescribe it.
Because here's my deep conspiracy theory.
Are you ready? I'm labeling this as a conspiracy theory, just so you don't take it too seriously.
If you're a country...
That has hydroxychloroquine and you know you need it for your own population and you have your own company that makes it in your country, are you going to be bragging about it?
Are you going to be telling everybody else that's what you're doing?
Are you going to tell the world, hey, look at us.
We're making all these drugs and it's working for us.
It's too bad we don't make enough.
If we made more, maybe you could have some too, but we're all set here.
Somebody says France used it and failed.
That is fake news.
Fake news. France used it on people who were already too sick.
So that doesn't count.
But I'd also like to know if France makes it.
Do they have a company that makes it?
I don't know how many companies make this because it's generic at this point.
Somebody says, I'll take the bet.
They're right below them. I like this bet.
So, can somebody do that?
Tweet it at me, will you?
I'm sure that that exists.
So remember, the question is not whether they have a policy to use it.
The very specific question is, do they have a manufacturer in their country?
Because the theory is that they're keeping a secret.
So if you said, well, they don't have a policy about using it, I might say to you, don't they?
Do they really not have a policy?
Or you just don't know it.
Because I think the countries that have it are using it, and they may not be bragging about it, is what I'm saying.
So tweet that at me if you can figure it out.
I'll give you the bad news and then the good news, okay?
um As I've said, the president and the country and the government did a great job on making ventilators.
I give them an A-plus on ventilators.
Now, it turns out maybe the ventilators are more bad than good, some doctors are saying.
Maybe it's killing people instead of saving them.
But at the time that they needed to be made, people assumed they were vital, and I think the country responded.
Very good success story.
But I would say this about ventilators.
Even though the product itself is complicated and hard to make, it's very easy to understand if one exists, Or it doesn't?
And that was really the question, right?
Do we have enough ventilators?
Or do we not?
It was kind of binary. You have enough, or you don't.
So I think the government was capable of wading into that situation because it was simple.
Can you make them?
Yes. Do we have enough?
Not yet. Why don't you make some?
Very simple situation.
Now imagine the government getting involved with test kits.
Do you know how many test kits there are?
There are hundreds of companies that make hundreds of different kinds of test kits that don't use the same processes, the same equipment, the same anything.
Now imagine the government trying to talk to corporations that know they can make immense amounts of money if the government sort of agrees that they're capable.
Because the government would be giving them the money, presumably, for these test kits.
So the government goes in, and let me do this in a one-act play.
I will play the government, and then I'll also play the role of the corporation they're talking to that says, yes, we can ramp up and make tests for you.
And it goes like this.
Hey, I'm the government company.
I hear you can make some test kits.
Can you make some test kits?
And the company says, yes, we can.
Yeah, yeah, we can totally make those test kits.
Probably a million a week.
Then the government says, great, so you have all the supplies and everything you need to produce a million a week?
Well, no, we don't have the supplies, but we can get them.
Uh-huh, uh-huh. So, you can or you cannot make a million a week?
It sounds like you don't know.
Oh, we can totally do it.
Absolutely. Just give us a big check and we'll be making those test kits.
Alright, here's your check.
I'll check with you back in the week to see how you're doing.
Takes the check back in the week.
How are those test kits coming?
Well, we ran into a problem.
Turns out we can't get the certain supply.
But we're working on it.
Well, how long will it take you to get that supply?
Oh, probably just a few days.
We'll have this taken care of. I'll come back in a few days.
A few days later? Yeah, it wasn't what we thought.
We got some, but they're defective, so we're trying again.
Now, imagine the government trying to deal with hundreds of corporations who are, wait for it, wait for it, lying.
They're all lying. How could the government sort out all of these corporations and startups and everything with their test kits when it's all super complicated and they're all lying?
How do I know they're all lying?
Because I've worked for big corporations.
It was my job to lie.
I was a designated liar for my corporations.
They would say, here's our story, make this look good.
And I'd say, alright, I'll give you a I'll give you a tweet deck, or not a tweet deck, but a slide deck in a couple days, and it's going to tell your story.
But corporations don't tell the truth.
They tell you a truth that they hope they can make work somehow.
They all overpromised.
So in the case of the ventilators, the government can say, Can I see it on the test bench?
Can I see your production facility?
If I can't see it, it probably doesn't exist.
Can I see a ventilator?
If I can't see it, it's probably not real.
So with ventilators, I think the government had a little bit of ability to manage the situation.
With corporations, they were completely out of their league, because the corporations are all liars, and they're all too complicated, and whoever the poor bastard was in the government Who was in charge of figuring out how to help with the testing didn't have a chance because everything that person heard was a lie.
You know, I kept saying, why can't the task force report to us how we're doing on all these things?
Why are they giving us raw numbers?
They're useless. I don't need a raw number.
I need to know, is that half of what we need?
Will we have all of what we need in a week?
That would be useful.
That would be context. But, yeah, we did 100,000 tests this week.
What kind? For whom?
On what priority? How long does it take to get the results?
Who has access to the test?
It's just useless. And I've come to the opinion that it wasn't so much because the task force was incompetent, But rather, the only people who had the information about the tests, anyway, were all liars.
They're just all liars.
So how could the government know how many tests we had, how many we need, what we should put money into, what we should push, what we should de-emphasize?
How could they possibly know?
Everybody they talked to was lying.
I guarantee it.
They were all lying.
And by lying, I mean they were, let's say, over-promising.
So, yeah, yeah, we could get you 100,000 test kits by Tuesday.
I think we could do that.
And the game, of course, is that you get the government a little bit pregnant.
Tuesday comes and goes, and the government's like, uh, how about by the weekend?
And then the company says, yeah, yeah, by the weekend.
Definitely have it by the weekend.
And the weekend comes and goes, right?
So, here's my advice for the country.
We should make our decisions based on the assumption that we will not have tests and not have vaccines.
That's my advice to the country.
I think it's a sucker's bet to wait until you have one or both of us to get back to work.
Specifically, the get back to work part.
So I think we're making a bad, bad strategic mistake if we're saying that our decisions will depend on tests, because we would wait forever, and vaccines, because there's no strong...
I don't have a strong opinion that they're coming.
Certainly I don't have a strong opinion they'll be here by the end of the year.
Maybe we'll have one someday, two years, five years, I don't know.
Who knows? As has been pointed out by others, I think half of the deaths in this country were from nursing homes.
Can somebody check that? I don't know if it's half, but it's some big number.
How hard would it be to take whatever tests we have and just use them all in the nursing homes?
What if we just say, nursing homes, you can't even walk in until you have an instant test?
Because we do have some tests that are like the five-minute types.
Tell me why we don't already have a situation where every employee, every visitor gets a test, or they just can't come in.
I mean, we should be able to lock down the nursing homes 100%.
You know, if we can't lock them down, because they're so contained.
It's not like the residents are leaving.
Only the employees are.
How hard would it be to test them every day?
I don't know. For a while, anyway.
Because I know we have enough tests to do that.
We just don't have as much as we need.
So if you could cut the deaths in half just by taking care of the nursing homes, apparently we're learning a lot about intubation and ventilators, and there's a nasal cannula, it's called, and it's better than ventilators to keep you alive, and maybe some of the meds will keep you alive.
I think we just have to make the decision without testing and without vaccines in the decision-making.
That's me. All right. Here's some good news.
Want some good news? How about some good news?
That's why you come here, for the good news.
So I didn't notice until this morning that apparently Ivanka Trump had retweeted one of my tweets from two weeks ago, in which I had said that the coming two weeks, which is we're sort of at the end of it now, that there would be immense breakthroughs and creative inventions and entrepreneurial breakthroughs, and it would be breathtaking. Did that happen?
Do we have breathtaking news of new advancements?
I would say yes. We don't know which ones will actually move the needle, but man, there's a lot of advancements.
Here's some fun ones. Apparently, antibodies are not created equal, according to Dr.
Sanjay Gupta, that you might have weak antibodies, or you might have strong antibodies.
It could vary by person.
But if you find somebody who had really good antibodies, somebody who just, you know, whacked the coronavirus with their own body without any help, you can find the good ones, and you can take them out, and you can put them in the test tube, and you can see how quickly it kills the viruses.
So you can test Very specifically whether your antibodies or mine are the good ones.
Now you take the good ones, and then there's this process called monoclonal antibodies where they can clone the best antibodies.
So you find who has strong ones, you clone them.
What's the problem with that?
The problem is that it's expensive.
But how much would rich people pay To get super antibodies.
A lot! So usually the way you solve things that are too expensive is you sell it to rich people first, overcharge them because they're willing to pay, We used to call this the dumb rich, the stupid rich category, because they'll overpay for stuff.
In business, we call them the dumb rich.
And the dumb rich will buy it, and then it can drive down the price for people who follow.
I would overpay for monoclonal antibodies.
So if you could give me some really, really good antibodies tomorrow...
I'd pay a lot for that.
And if I have to overpay, because I can afford it at the moment, if that brings down the price for other people, suppose you told me I had to pay twice as much so I could fund somebody else to get it too.
I might do that. Well, I definitely would do that.
So, there may be a way this monoclonal antibodies could be like the magic bullet, but there could be some issue with scaling it up.
I don't know what that is.
But it sounds like an engineering problem, doesn't it?
Here's a little advice for you.
If you're trying to predict the future, and you've got scientists saying, hey, I think we can do this, versus an engineer saying, hey, I think we can do this, which one is reliable?
The scientists who say, yeah, I've got a good feeling this will work, or the engineer who just has to build something with known technology.
Always bet on the engineer. So if it turns out that these monoclonal antibodies are a big deal, probably the problem is making enough of it inexpensively.
That feels like an engineering problem, not a science problem, right?
If it's an engineering problem, you could be amazed how quickly and efficiently that gets solved.
Because I don't think anybody has been really working on it up until now, because there hasn't been a big need for it.
But if we need these monoclonal antibodies, and the only thing preventing us from having enough is engineering, I'll tell you, engineers are the most underappreciated skill.
Somebody says, yay, us engineers.
Engineers are the superstars of civilization.
You know, scientists get all the credit, right?
Because they do the sexy discoveries, and you can have scientists who are famous.
You don't have as many famous engineers.
But Engineers are the ones who build society.
They take the science stuff and make it work.
So if the only thing keeping us from solving this is engineering, we're in good shape.
That's the problem you want.
The problem you want is the one where you've got all the money in the world to solve it because we would just open the wallet for anything that worked.
All the money in the world, all the attention, focus, priority in the world And the only thing you need is engineering.
That's good news.
That's the best news you'll ever hear.
Because if it's down to the engineers, you win.
Because the engineers know how to do engineering.
They know how to do this stuff.
Alright, so that's good news.
Here's some more good news.
I had told you, some of you might remember, that after 9-11...
The government challenged its laboratories to find a quick way to quickly, inexpensively test biological agents in the field.
So the task was to create something portable, inexpensive, that you could make a lot of them, and you could easily test if there was some suspicion of biological warfare or anthrax or something, you could just quickly test people in the field.
The technology that was developed to do that is licensable to private companies because when the government invents something, they make those licenses available so that they don't have a monopoly on it.
And I'd seen a bunch of startups that were using that very technology, and this was a few years ago, so I can imagine how much better it is now.
So here's the news. DARPA, the U.S.'s most advanced military agency, has designed a coronavirus test that can identify people before they become infectious.
Before they become infectious.
And I think it's a quick test as well.
And it's described as a potential game-changer.
Of course, we say that, but everything sounds good.
And it came from a project at the Defense Advanced Research Project, DARPA, that was initially designed for diagnosing Those who have become poisoned by germ or chemical warfare.
I think that's what I was talking about.
I think this is the technology that came out of the 9-11 and the anthrax worries, etc.
It's the one I was waiting for.
And I assume that some of the startups that are doing stuff were using that technology.
And it was repurposed for the coronavirus, blah, blah, blah.
So it may be able to detect the presence of the virus in as little as 24 hours after a person is infected.
Unbelievable. Who makes these devices?
Engineers. Engineers.
We have a problem that is completely susceptible to engineering.
And it has now been reduced to an engineering problem.
If you're going to bet on humans...
And say, okay, humans, you're having a war with this virus.
If the humans' best fighters are the scientists, you don't know, right?
Scientists might invent something in time.
They might not.
But once you've moved the fight over to the engineers, engineers versus virus, it's over.
It's over. The engineers are going to crush the virus.
It might take a little time, but it's guaranteed.
Once the engineers are the main fighters, it's guaranteed.
All right, here's something else interesting.
A program at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Veterinary Medicine, they're training dogs to sniff the virus.
And apparently there's reason to believe that that's doable.
So they don't know yet, so they're testing.
They're testing various dogs.
But do you know how much of a big deal that would make?
Imagine if you could actually train dogs to sniff out the virus.
That lets you have big events again.
Suddenly big events are possible.
Because you just have the dog walk down the line, sniff everybody, pull the people out of line that are a problem, you're good to go.
So, you could easily imagine that dogs save the world, which would be, of all the potential solutions, we probably have ten different ways this could get solved, and probably all of them will make a little bit of difference.
It won't be one magic bullet.
But wouldn't it be cool if the magic bullet was the dogs?
Wouldn't that be cool?
Dogs save humanity.
I mean, save us from this, anyway.
And then, you know, suddenly bring your dog to work.
Makes a lot of sense.
So, these are really exciting.
This new test that can find it before you're infectious.
Dogs that might be able to sniff it.
Monoclonal antibodies that, you know, give me a price.
If the only problem is that it's expensive, give me a price.
Might not be too expensive for me.
And if I can help drive down the price for the next guy, I'll do that.
I'm in. So, these are big, big things.
Now, I think part of the reason that Ivanka retweeted me when I said that the next few weeks would have all these amazing things is I think she might see them before you do.
She may have known, because she's just closer to the source of information, she may have known that the next two weeks were going to be For the ages.
I mean, just incredible. And it started to look that way.
And I don't think it's going to stop.
The next month will be just ridiculous.
So, that's the good news.
The good news is, engineers will save the world.
If not dogs.
Dogs and engineers.
I bet on them. Alright.
Is there any story that I've forgotten today?
An engineer with a dog.
Bam! COVID doesn't stand a chance.
You're right. Somebody says temperature changes might be most reliable.
Oh, for detecting it?
Yeah. Could be.
The other thing that's happening that could be a gigantic deal is...
In a number of places, people are being tested for genetic susceptibility.
So imagine we could find all the people who have a genetic susceptibility on top of any comorbidities, just in addition to that.
If we could find the people who are most susceptible genetically, then suddenly the need for 300 million tests might go down to 10 million tests overnight.
Because if we find out, oh, it's easy to do a genetic test, we'll just genetically test anybody who wants it, and then you could easily tell which ones are the susceptible ones, and then you could easily prioritize your testing and your meds and your treatments and stuff for the people who matter, or they could self-isolate better, etc.
I would think that widespread ability to test DNA, especially given that many of us, including me, have already had our DNA tested.
So it could be that all I have to do is download my 23andMe data, which apparently I can do.
I can just download it and use it for other stuff.
All I have to do is download it, upload it to some other site someday in the future.
That other site says, yeah, looks like you don't have that risk, or you do.
They act appropriately.
Alright. Can we all agree as a people to stipulate that we no longer need to say we want to open up the economy, but safely?
Can we just say, but safely, after everything?
Just agree that we all know it has to be safe.
Somebody's asking me about my intruder yesterday.
Turned him out to be the cat.
My dogs sometimes see the cat off in the shadows and then will bark like it's an intruder.
So I cut my periscope short last night because the dog was doing her intruder bark, which is very distinct.
But it was the cat.
Is the stock market going to crash again?
Good. I'm actually surprised the stock market is as high as it is.
If I had to guess, I would have guessed it would Maybe not have gone up as much as it did.
It wouldn't surprise me if it drifts back down another 10%.
I don't think anything the stock market does in the next few months tells you anything.
It doesn't tell you what's happening.
Let me give you one piece of advice that's financial advice that I will put my credibility on.
That the stock market of the United States, a diversified portfolio of stocks from the United States, will perform well in the long run.
So if you're buying and selling in the short run, well, that's just gambling.
But if you decide to hold it for the long run, almost certainly.
Nothing's 100% in this world, but as close as you can get to certainty, that would be your right move.
I, for one, when the stock market crashed, Took every penny of cash that I had available and bought Amazon stock.
Because it was one of those few times in the world where it was obvious what to do.
Usually with investing, you're just guessing.
But when the stock market, when every stock crashes, and Amazon is one of them, and Amazon is obviously the one that's going to make more money, not less, you didn't really have to wonder if that was a good idea.
It was. All right.
Even Warren Buffett is getting whacked, but he'll be back.
Elon says Tesla is too pricey.
I love it when he does that.
He's not wrong, by the way.
The thing that's funny about it is that it's true.
When Elon Musk says these prices are overstocked, it's probably true.
Probably. Somebody says, Scott bought Amazon and is laughing.
Me? Poor as a fuck.
Well, if you'd like to feel better, my career is probably over.
In terms of cartooning, I would expect that most, if not all, of the local newspapers will be out of business by the end of the year, because they depend on advertisement, and their margins were shrinking and shrinking anyway.
So, you know, everybody knew that physical newspapers were going to go away, but this accelerated many trends.
So, like most of you, I will be looking for a new form of employment pretty soon, I assume.
I mean, I could be wrong, but I'm assuming that.
Snapchat? Yeah, I did buy Snapchat a while ago, too.
Did Snapchat go down today?
Snapchat's just going crazy.
It's like way up, way down.
Let's see what Snapchat did today.
Oh, Snapchat's up.
Okay. Not bad.
Alright. So, like most of you, I got You know, whacked by the financial stuff, but not nearly as badly as people who had less.
So I'm not going to complain because I'm in better shape than 99% of the world.
But it is also true that my career is probably over and it wasn't my choice.
Um... Dilbert the movie?
I don't think so. I don't think I could make a Dilbert movie.
Uh... Somebody says James Woods is missing in action.
I don't know about that.
No, I don't think I could make a Dilbert movie because I'm too unliked by a certain large group in Hollywood, and I doubt I could get that done.
All right. Love to hear you compare this time to 1968 Hong Kong flu.
I don't know enough about it. Just looking at your comments.
Alright. Do you ever get speaking engagements anymore?
Well, I actually, believe it or not, I got some speaking engagement requests during the coronavirus that would have been digital.
I chose not to do them.
But I don't get many speaking engagements or I didn't prior to this.
Alright. That's all I got for now, and I will talk to you tonight.
Tonight. You know where.
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