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Aug. 6, 2020 - Real Coffe - Scott Adams
51:59
Episode 1083 Scott Adams: Guest Greg Gutfeld Talks About His New Best Seller The Plus, Then on to the Headlines

My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Find my "extra" content on Locals: https://ScottAdams.Locals.com Content: Special Guest: Greg Gutfeld on his new best seller, The Plus CNN headlines don't match their articles content Kamala's former press secretary works at Twitter Joe Biden driving Explosions, fires and Iran's secret weapon stashes Cheaper, faster COVID19 testing versus FDA ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you would like to enjoy this same content plus bonus content from Scott Adams, including micro-lessons on lots of useful topics to build your talent stack, please see scottadams.locals.com for full access to that secret treasure. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/scott-adams00/support

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Time Text
Well, let's see if this works.
That's the first time that's happened.
I got kicked off.
I got kicked off.
But I'm back.
Apparently I'm unstoppable.
It's possible that this will help me connect with Greg Guffeld.
And I swear to God, this is going to work.
Well, maybe not.
Anyway, we did the simultaneous effort right before I got kicked off.
If we have any technological luck, and it looks like we're going to have some difficulty today, I wanted to talk to Greg Goffeld, but if I don't do it today, I'll figure out another time it works.
So, Greg, if you can either retry your device or...
Well, I think today will be the last time I ever try to use Periscope for a guest.
I think I've made a decision that today will be the last time I ever try to use this technology live to bring out a guest.
Those of you who have watched, I think my accuracy has been something like 50%, maybe.
Let me just try one more time.
All right. Greg, I'm looking at my Twitter DM. If it looks like it's not going to work, just send me a message on Twitter.
I've got that open and I'll see it as soon as you send it.
Let me talk about some other things while we're doing that.
By the way, the plus, you should see the reviews for this thing.
It's killing. It's a number one self-help book on Amazon.
It's a number two self-help book on New York Times.
The reviews are ridiculous.
Got a Trump retweet.
That's pretty nice.
And I think part of his book tour will be at a drive-in theater.
We'll ask him about that if we get him.
Anyway, while we see if that's going to happen, let me talk about another thing.
Have you ever noticed that there are some words that are used in the political realm that Are really more powerful than other words.
And there's a word that the anti-Trumpers are using about Trump and his performance for the coronavirus, which is a really good one.
They use the word botched.
Have you heard that? It's sort of the one that they keep repeating.
And I've got to say, I think I'm going to adopt that trick.
Because I never thought about it before.
But if you say somebody didn't do a good job, They might say, well, we did or we didn't.
But if you say somebody botched something, it seems entirely different, doesn't it?
Hey, look, I think Greg's back.
Let's see if this works.
Greg, you are live!
Amazing! Palpitations.
Because the technology was not giving you what you needed.
Yes, and plus I was on my fourth spontaneous sip.
I'm on my fourth coffee.
You've over-sipped.
You've over-sipped. Yes, yes.
So I don't know if you heard, but I was giving them the rundown on your amazing book.
Thank you. And I'm just blown away at both the reviews you're getting from this.
And you got a presidential retweet.
It's screaming up the charts.
Number two on New York Times.
And by the way, the number one book that's ahead of you, it doesn't belong there.
I've never heard of it, but apparently it's very popular, but they keep it there because it was there for months.
It came out in October 2019.
Yeah, the New York Times list has some, let's say, algorithmic irregularities, if you will.
Anyway, are you still there?
Oh, shit, we lost him.
This is the worst technology in the world.
I'll keep an eye on it and see if it comes back.
I think we deserve at least one more try if your technology can produce.
It is possible that the gods are working against us today.
There he is.
This is totally going to work.
This is totally going to work.
Let me jump right into this.
I want to ask you the dumbest question that anybody ever asked, because this is one I get sometimes.
I want to see if you've ever gotten this.
At the end of the book interview, they'll say to the author, Where can people buy this book?
That is the local news staple of every interview.
Also, I had a great interview, and I'm not going to mention who the person is because she was very nice, but did that thing you talk about where they don't read the book, but they just kind of open up the book, and they just go like, so, and she reads the chapter heading.
So, The Prison of Two Ideas.
I found that interesting.
Tell us about it.
And then you just do it, and it's just like, and then she did it again, and then she was like, well, this was really a great book, and then that was, and then it's, where can you pick it up?
It's wonderful. You write in a similar fashion.
You have the same problem I do. A lot of authors will write a book that has one theme, so you can always speak to it, but you hit hundreds and hundreds of points.
If they pick one out, not only does it misrepresent what your book is, because people think, oh, I heard that one story.
About that one point, and then they make a decision based on that one point.
I would say that you have the kind of book that has to be read in full, because it's more like an experience of reading the book than it is about...
All right, so...
Wait, can I tell you a funny thing, though, about it?
Please, please do. Yeah, okay, so I have a hard time explaining what the book is about, and I've always been that way with almost every book that I do because I was so close to it.
So when I get interviewed by people, they often do it better than I did.
Like, Walter Kern interviewed me and described it as...
It's a book about impulse control, and I never thought of that.
But the actual plus thing is for people who have options and they...
And they forgot what impulse control really is.
Oh, frick!
We lost him again. Can you believe that?
Un-freaking-believable.
Now, I don't know what is causing these calls to drop, but it is crazy.
I'm not even sure why this is a commercial product at this point, or at least this feature of it.
I like the Periscope part, but not the guest part.
Let's see if he's back.
There we go.
Act like you weren't even cut off and you're starting right in the middle of the sentence.
Go. And that is why they threw me in jail, Scott.
And I swore it was all in self-defense.
And I found my pants an hour later.
But wasn't that a great story, Scott?
It was not only self-defense, but he had it coming.
Yes. That's what happens when you have a relationship with a duck.
Yes! Alright, so you're saying how other people are characterizing your book.
I had one for you.
It's how to deal with your reflex for negativity.
Yes! That is really good.
Basically, a lot of reframing.
Well, this is the negative thing you're doing.
Why don't you reframe it this way?
Etc. Let me tell you my...
My favorite part of this.
Every once in a while you read like one sentence that just sort of really speaks to you.
This was one sentence. I'm paraphrasing a little bit.
But it said, before you do something dumb, ask yourself how you were feeling.
Yes. Just say something about that.
Well, it's because I realize, and it's been in the last couple years, especially when I'm listening to your periscopes, that almost everything I do is judged by my current state or mood.
So like if I'm in a bad mood, I don't really know I'm in a bad mood.
And then I do something and I go, why did I do that?
I was in a bad mood. So I might say something.
Negative to a friend or to the spouse or on Twitter and it's like, why am I doing this?
I wait until the mood passes and then I lose interest in what I was going to do.
I feel like to that point, I feel like the people with the highest levels of awareness are the ones who have realized that they have been different people at different times.
Yeah. Like angry you, drunk you, tired you, hungry you.
They're all different yous.
If you've done mushrooms or something, that's like a whole different you.
Yes. Yeah, that's one of the great things you learn as you get older, how many you's there really are.
The hungry you is often the worst you because you become like a child, especially I do.
If I don't have anything to eat, I'm just an animal and I'm the worst kind of Greg, is the hungry Greg.
Yeah, listening to somebody else's long, boring story is the worst thing when you are hungry.
Hungry, yes. It's like two things you don't want to do.
Don't buy groceries.
Don't listen to the long stories.
It's true. I also like this tip.
No matter how you're doing, someone is doing worse today.
Yes. As funny as that sounds, that's a real thing.
It is. I really use that.
Can you say more about that?
Well, yeah, I mean, it's, for example, so two trees fell outside my house yesterday or two days ago.
Two days ago? Two days ago because of the storm.
So I couldn't leave. In order for me to leave my house, I had to go through somebody's backyard, two backyards over down power lines to get down to a van to do the five because the five couldn't get up the hill.
The five van couldn't get up the hill.
I'm doing all the shows from a van in my driveway.
So I get down there and I'm going like, oh, this sucks.
I'm screwed, but then I'm looking at my neighbor.
A giant tree has landed on her Tesla.
Completely destroyed her Tesla.
And she's actually got a pretty good sense of humor.
And she said to herself, I was almost in my car.
And so I'm going back to this and I'm going like, okay, that's worse than what I went through.
And it could have been worse for her.
So there's all these different levels of worstness.
Right. There's somebody in Africa right now who's saying, a tree fell on her Tesla.
I do not feel bad for her.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I do not feel bad.
But she looked at the car, she said, $100 deductible, you know, life goes on.
So that was, I mean, it's like, I tend to, I'm a catastrophic thinker about, I mean, everything.
And, but I realize it's passing.
And that's the most important thing that almost all my errors are due to the fact that I can't interpret my moods correctly.
Right. I would say that's the same for me.
Now, you have an event at a drive-in theater coming.
Yes. Which is the coolest sounding thing.
I'm so jealous of that because if anybody who does book tours knows that there's a sameness about them, it's just the same freaking thing over and over again.
But tell us about the drive-in.
So the drive-in is Yarmouth Drive-In in Massachusetts.
They're going to have, because of social distancing, basically the cars are going to keep people separated, but they can get out of their cars.
I think it's like 450 cars.
I will be on stage.
There'll be movie screens.
And speakers, so I'll just be doing a show like I normally do when I'm traveling with Tom Shalhou.
Tom Shalhou usually opens. The one thing that concerns me is how do you tell jokes if you can't hear the response?
But I'm told people will be out of their car, so you'll hear the laughter, which will be important, because I don't know how you talk, and then there's this silence.
But apparently it's worked out really well.
So it's going to be basically a drive-in comedy show.
I've had situations like that where you just have to live in your own head and imagine laughter.
Imagine somebody was laughing at that.
Yeah. I do that a lot.
Are you finding that trying to promote a book during a pandemic Did it help or hurt?
The book is obviously getting lots of attention and doing great, and I feel like because you're a TV guy anyway, did this actually help you, do you think?
I think so. I think it's the same kind of logic that worked with COVID in the protests.
When they did, they said, oh, look, the protests didn't spread COVID, and then you hear that it's because all the people were staying home away from the protesters.
So it's like there's a weird kind of, they cancel each other out.
So everybody's stuck at home, which means they're bored, which means maybe they'll buy the book.
Right. But they won't go out into a signing.
But I think it all can't.
Everybody's in the same boat.
So nobody's got an edge over everybody else if they're all being kind of punished the same way.
And I think that like, you know, I mean, our ratings have gone up.
So that means more people are watching me talk about the book.
So that helps. Wow.
Speaking of ratings, you're like leading in both of your time slots, right?
On The Five and also The Greg Gottfeld Show?
Yeah, it's been crazy.
In fact, on Saturdays, generally, we win the entire demo for the whole night.
So we beat people at 7 o'clock on CNN. There are times when we beat stuff on regular network.
And then The Five has always been a monster.
I mean, it's... It's insane how—and it pulls in primetime ratings at 5 p.m.
It's caused MSNBC to completely revamp their lineup.
I don't know if you noticed that. They pushed—what's the dude with the goatees?
That guy from—I can't think of his name.
Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter.
Exactly. He's gone, and now they expanded the 4 o'clock to 6 o'clock just to fight the 5.
I always like to give a shout out to the producers of The Five.
I know you sometimes will make fun of the staff and stuff just to have jokes.
I gotta say, that is the best produced show.
It just screams somebody's good at that.
It has to do with how they put the personalities together.
Yeah. It's the chemistry.
And to reproduce that night after night is just really amazing work, I would say.
I just thought of the name, Chuck Todd.
But no, you're right about the producing.
And the five is hard because it's not like you have one anchor.
You've got to deal with five babies.
I'm actually a baby.
I'm more of a baby than probably most of them because I'm just more neurotic.
But you have to deal with five different people.
And you've got to figure out which works and keep it light while having it serious, that kind of thing.
The other thing that Fox does is that you have personalities.
When you guys are fighting on the five, it feels like, oh my god, that's what real people would say if they were in that chair.
If nobody was watching, that's what you'd say, but we're all watching.
I've often said that what makes anything good in entertainment is a sense of danger.
And it's there. It is there.
I don't know if you've watched it, but I'll be shaking at some point.
Because that means that that was completely improvised and it came out before I was done thinking.
I've got to say, as much as Juan gets beat up by the other co-hosts and as much as the audience likes making fun of him, he's really perfect for that job.
You got it? The chemistry, I mean, because he's a good soul.
Obviously, it's his job to represent a point of view.
He does a great job of it.
In terms of how he fits with the group, it just couldn't be better.
I can't wait to get back into the table scenario.
I hope that soon because I compare it to going from playing a game of pickup basketball to going to a batting cage where everybody's in their own batting cage.
When you're When you're asked a question, it's like you're taking your big swing and you're not really talking.
It kind of drives me a little crazy because I feel like we're in these separated little pods and it reduces the conversation.
So I think that once we get back to normal, I think it's going to be great because it really hurts.
In my opinion, it hurts the chemistry a little.
Yeah, you know, I would say like probably 40% of what makes your show work, the five, is people talking over each other.
Yeah, exactly. Then you add the satellite delay.
It's getting really hard to watch the live shows where the host and the interviewer are talking over each other because of the delay.
When I do Tucker's show, the one thing I promise myself is when Tucker says – he doesn't have a delay – but when Tucker says he introduces you, don't say, Oh, glad to be here because we're going to talk over you.
Exactly. Like, I was really proud.
I go, I'm not going to do that.
I'm going to be the only guest he's ever had who's not going to talk over him.
And I just sit there silently thinking, like, I'm a champion.
Yeah, it's so important because when you do the thing like, thanks for having me, somebody will stop and go, we'll hear that and then come back and go, well, I'm glad you're here.
And then the person might say, thanks.
And then it goes, it can go on for like a minute.
It just makes everything start off on a bad foot and you just want it to end.
All right. So I know you've got a lot more to do today.
I've got relatives in town, so I'm taking today off.
I'm actually not going to be on the five because my sister flew in during the tropical storm.
So I'm going to go show her around town or what's left of New York, actually.
And before you go, the last question.
This will be a science question, courtesy of Jack Basabek.
It goes like this.
If you have more than one goose, it's a gaggle of geese.
If you have more than one crow, it's a murder of crows.
What is it if you have more than one antifa?
Oh, wow. That is a – oh, jeez.
A nursery? A riot.
No, it's a riot. That's good.
That's good. It's very good.
All right. Thanks, Greg. Thank you.
Glad we got it together. Come and do my show soon.
All right. Will do. Love to.
All right. Awesome. Take care. Bye-bye.
All right. That was fun.
Go out and buy the Plus.
Oh, I forgot to ask him where books are sold.
But I think you can figure that out.
You got your Google and all that, don't you?
All right. Here's a question for you.
On Twitter, you'll find lots of people arguing about whether President Trump did a good job or a bad job so far on the coronavirus.
Has he, quote, botched it?
As I was saying earlier, botched is one of those words that's really good.
I'm going to start using botched to criticize other things, because when you hear it, it almost closes down a debate.
It's like, Well, let's talk about what he did or didn't do.
He botched it. Okay, but maybe we can dig in a little bit, see what decisions he made compared to what could have been done.
He botched it. It's just a total conversation stopper.
But one of the questions I have is that when people give me examples of other countries who they say did a good job tamping down the virus early, they give these examples.
Indonesia, South Korea, and what was the other one?
South Korea, Taiwan.
And I ask you this, are those comparable?
And is there anything that you notice about the ones that are doing well?
Is there any commonality of the countries that did a good job early, or so it seems, And I would say yes.
Oh, New Zealand is another one.
All right, so see if you can find the pattern.
New Zealand, South Korea, Taiwan, and was it Indonesia?
What do they all have in common?
Yeah, they're islands or islandish.
You know, Indonesia is separated by water.
But And South Korea is effectively an island because it's only connected by the demilitarized zone to the rest of the continent.
So if you're a small homogenous population with strong central leadership and you don't have many states and you're not an international destination, can we compare that?
I mean, is it fair to say that the United States It's comparable to those little small island, different cultures, may have a completely different impression about, let's say, conformity. Let me ask you this.
I wonder if I could get cancelled for this, but I'll put it out there anyway.
We're talking about culture, not ethnicity.
I'm hoping that keeps me from getting cancelled.
Culture. Is the South Korean culture of, let's say, doing what the government asks and other people expect, is that the same as in the United States?
Because in the United States, if the central government said, I'm going to sign an executive order, I'm the president, and the executive order says that all citizens must breathe oxygen every day, 30% of the country would be dead by lunch.
Because they'd say, I'm not going to breathe no oxygen just because my government told me.
Is that the same in South Korea?
In South Korea, do they say, if the government tells me to do it, I'm going to do the opposite?
That's sort of unique to the American identity, isn't it?
If we're being honest, part of what has made America a successful country is that we are some...
How can I say it in the kindest possible way?
We are some, let's say, non-conformists.
There are a whole bunch of ways you could put a bad spit on this.
But America, our greatest strength is that we're all different.
And those differences are allowed.
We allow dissension.
We allow rebellion.
We idolize people who go rogue.
If you have a country that's really big, it's an international destination, it's got a bunch of states governors who also have power under our system, you can't easily just stop all travel on the ground because you've got people coming in across the borders, etc. I just don't see how these are comparable.
But then somebody said, wait, you're saying the islands do well?
What about Great Britain?
To which I say, I think Great Britain is sort of the exception that proves the rule.
So in other words, Great Britain, I'm no international expert, but is it not true that Great Britain is an international hub?
But they also started out with a different strategy from the rest of the world.
So they've got two different strategies.
They started with herd immunity.
They turned to, let's try to control it.
So I'm not sure that you could compare that to anything.
I think at the end of this, we might be able to say that the herd immunity people, let's say Sweden, were better or worse than the rest of the country.
But you have to wait till the end, don't you?
Because what if we think that Great Britain did the worst possible job, but we don't get a vaccine in time to reach herd immunity as bad as that will be?
It could be that when you get to the end of the game, if you will, I don't want to call it a game because people say, stop calling it a game.
I'm going to call it a game just for analogy purposes.
There's nothing fun about it.
But when you get to the end, is it possible that because Great Britain Accepted more infections intentionally up front that they simply front-loaded their pain and those that tried to suppress it and suppress it but we never get a good vaccine, possibly. Could it be that they've back-loaded some of their pain?
So would you be just looking at the front-loaders versus the back-loaders and you really haven't compared their strategies?
Because you've got to wait until the end of the game.
If you're rope-a-doping versus trying to punch your way to a victory, you just got to wait till the end.
You can't tell in the first round.
Likewise, I would say that the people who believe you can compare countries, just in general, any two countries, I think they're missing a lot because can you sort out You know, all of the variables that compare these two countries.
Think about the number of studies and data that you've seen recently.
Let's just say the last year.
Just pick the last year.
How many times have you seen a study or an analysis that turned out to be wrong?
How about every day?
It's the most common thing in the world.
So, we know that studies in general and predictions and analyses and models, we've seen them all be wrong.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
Now imagine how uncomplicated a lot of them have been.
They're complicated. They're all complicated.
But they're relatively uncomplicated compared to comparing two countries.
Think about it. Try comparing any two countries.
And it's a dumb comparison in the first place.
Because if you're trying to figure out if President Trump is a good leader, try this experiment.
Here's a mental experiment.
You know those countries you thought did a good job?
South Korea, New Zealand.
Let's take their leader, make that person the President of the United States during the pandemic.
Now how'd they do? Same?
No, not the same.
Because leadership might be the least important variable in this whole damn thing.
Because I've got a feeling that all of the leaders follow the experts.
Now the experts might have been a little different in each country, and also there are some countries who had to do whatever they could do, just whatever they could do, they didn't have the same resources.
Imagine if you will, and I'm not going to predict this, but just imagine it.
Imagine if you will, That the countries who didn't have great resources said to themselves, well, we better try this hydroxychloroquine thing because we don't have a lot of ICUs and hospital capacity.
It's a Hail Mary.
We don't know if it works, but it's cheap.
Let's try it. So suppose all the poorer countries, or let's say countries that were worried about their hospital capacity, tried a certain medication, and we don't yet know if it worked.
You think you do, but I think it's pretty unclear at this point.
And what if that was the thing?
What if the United States and some other countries were just sort of excluded from using that because the press had poisoned it?
So anyway, my point is there are so many variables in comparing a country that it can't be done.
And the moment that you think it can be done, you've fallen into a trap.
It just isn't doable.
Now, if you'd like to check that, only talk to somebody who's done this for a living.
All right? Talk to somebody who is actually an expert at analyzing things.
And just ask this question. You, expert at analyzing things, can you really compare countries?
Now, and if you can, can you do it halfway through the pandemic when you know that they have different waves and different You know, different strategies.
Or do you have to wait to the end?
All right. On that point, Joe Scarborough of Morning Joe tweeted this quote from Scott Gottlieb, MD, who was the, what was he, the past head of the FDA in the past administration?
Correct me if I'm wrong.
He was in the administration prior.
But he said all of the studies that were rigorously done have pointed in the same direction, talking about hydroxychloroquine.
So all the studies that have been rigorously done, all of them, all of the studies that have been rigorously done have pointed in the same direction, that it doesn't work, hydroxychloroquine.
I think at this point, he says, we can definitively say hydroxychloroquine doesn't work.
I'm not sure what more we need to do.
To which I tweeted back, it is also true, by the way, what he says is completely true.
It is 100% true that all of the studies that were rigorously done shows it doesn't work.
I think you all agree with that, right?
All of the studies.
It is also true that all of the studies that were rigorously done that show it don't work studied the wrong application of the drug.
Aren't both of those true?
I think Dr.
Gottlieb is 100% true in his statement that all of the rigorous studies show it doesn't work, but it is also true, I'm adding this part, that all of the rigorous studies studied the wrong thing.
Now, I'm still at 50% chance that this hydroxychloroquine is effective and works because I've never seen anything quite like this.
I got to tell you, well, I probably don't have to tell you.
You've observed this if you've been watching me for a while.
Is it or is it not true that I'm generally confident to, let's say, overconfident all the way to being a jerk I'm so confident about a lot of stuff?
I mean, it doesn't matter the topic.
I'm usually pretty confident in my opinion.
On the hydroxychloroquine, I don't have anything like that.
And it's really weird because I've never seen a situation in which I was so fascinated at how little advantage I have, either it works or it doesn't work.
I'm right on the fence.
I can see why the people who say it works are going in that direction.
I can see why the people who say it doesn't work are saying it.
I don't know who's going to be the winner when this is all done, which fascinates me.
I think CNN is trying to get the president killed.
Here's a headline that they ran.
Trump signals he'll do anything in his power to win.
Then you read the article.
Do you think the article supports this headline?
No. I don't even have to tell you what's in the article, but it doesn't support this headline.
But it's the top left headline on the CNN homepage, which means it's the one they want you to see.
You put the top left one as the important one.
And they're actually saying Trump signals he'll do anything in his power to win.
Meaning that, you know, breaking the law, apparently that's what they're suggesting.
But then you read the article, there's nothing like that.
There are just some things that he's suggesting and it's You know, like having an extra debate.
Does suggesting an earlier and extra debate sound like doing anything in his power to win?
Those sound different to me.
Did you all watch the Sally Yates testimony that was boring and complicated?
Here's what's so diabolical about it.
There are very few people in the public, and I'm certainly not one of them, who can listen to something like the Sally Yates interview and know what she said wrong and know what maybe was a lie and know what is accurate.
Thankfully, we have Joel Pollack who has all of the qualifications to watch that and tell us where the lies are, so you should follow him on Twitter.
Because he calls out the, I guess they would be lies or at least inaccuracies in what she said compared to what we know to be true.
What's dangerous about all this stuff is that it feels like the biggest thing in the world, right?
That there was a coup against a legally elected president and that the members of the FBI, etc.
were in on this coup And now it's been uncovered, and we know it's a coup, and half of the country is acting like it didn't happen.
Is this weird?
And we've come into this world where you could just act like something didn't happen.
And I feel like, at this point, they always say that Trump could choose somebody on Fifth Avenue and still be supported, but in a different way, I think Joe Biden could actually die on camera.
And the people, the Democrats would say, he's fine.
And it would turn into this Monty Python sketch about the dead parrot.
And it would look exactly like that.
And we would just be, what are we watching?
Because we watched him die on camera.
He's lying there.
He's dead. And CNN would report, no, he isn't.
No, he isn't.
And their viewers would read CNN and they would say, oh, he's still alive.
And they wouldn't see the clip of him dying and they would never read Fox News and they would literally vote for a dead guy because they didn't believe he was dead.
I think we've reached the point where he could actually die on camera and CNN could just say, that didn't happen.
Sounds like a right-wing conspiracy to me.
He took a nap. Sure, he took a nap.
Everybody takes a nap.
Oh, you haven't taken a nap.
No, he's permanently dead.
Sounds like a conspiracy.
It's a crazy world.
Alright. So, one of the big issues is censorship.
So, not only Has Twitter removed something because they say it was not medically accurate in terms of COVID-19?
So it was the president's campaign Twitter account.
Coincidentally, the communications director for Twitter, he happens to be Kamala Harris's former press secretary.
Now, I don't think he makes these decisions.
He's a communications director, not a decision maker of who gets banned or not.
But are you comfortable with the communications director for Twitter being Kamala Harris' former press secretary?
That should make you a little bit uncomfortable.
But yet, if I can give both sides of the story, there probably aren't that many people.
Who are world-class communications directors.
You can't say he shouldn't have a job in private industry just because he was good at some other job.
I would not support any restrictions on who could have any job just because of what job they had in the past.
That would be inconsistent with anything I believe.
But it's useful to know.
Useful to know the connections.
And here's what's interesting about it, though.
The original tweet violated Twitter's rules for misinformation, and I think what he said was, what Trump said that got him in trouble was, quote, the kids are, quote, almost immune to COVID-19.
Now, it would not be true that kids have an immunity to it.
It would be true that when they get it, it doesn't have that big of an impact on them.
Now, because Trump is not a medical doctor, and as soon as he said almost immune, I believe he clarified what he meant to mean that it doesn't affect them as much when they get it.
That's what I heard, but maybe I'm wrong on that.
So here's the question. At what point Does Twitter become your doctor and they get to decide what is accurate medical information in a world in which experts disagree?
Now, if experts did not disagree, I'd say, yeah, if they're all on the same side and Twitter sees somebody saying something the experts disagree with, why not?
You might want to flag it.
It'd be better just to flag it and say the experts disagree.
But almost immune is really just a choice of words.
That one feels to me like something that a clarification banner should have been better.
In other words, here's how I would have handled this if I were Twitter.
If I were Twitter, I would pin an alpha comment so that if you saw the story, you'd see very highlighted, you couldn't miss it whatsoever, the Twitter clarification.
And the clarification would be, in this context, Almost immune refers to the fact that they tend not to have medical complications when they contract it.
And I would think that would be fair.
I don't think the President would even argue with that, right?
Because if you clarify what the President is saying, you're saying what he's saying, which also is compatible with science.
Why would he disagree with that?
So shutting it down until that tweet is deleted feels a little political.
When it would be easier to handle it as information that needs to be clarified.
What did Facebook take down?
Facebook took down something for being inaccurate.
To which I say, how does anybody know what's accurate anymore?
We have so left behind the world where anybody knows anything is accurate.
I mean, any data, any study, any expert consensus, there isn't any of it that's reliable anymore.
We've so left behind the world where you could just know what's true.
Did you all see Joe Biden's campaign ad in which he gets into an old Mustang, I guess, and he drives up and down his own driveway, I think?
I don't know if that's his driveway, but it looks like some protected area there.
There were various reactions to it.
I saw Mike Cernovich say that it was an impressive ad.
I don't know what words he used, but he thought it was a good ad.
I had the opposite response because when I watch Joe Biden drive a car by himself, what thought do you have?
Because the thought that I automatically have is we should take his car keys away.
Yeah, because he only drove like literally in this protected, no other car area.
It looked like somebody's driveway, but at the very least it was an enclosed area.
So it's not like he was in traffic.
And I really have to...
Well, let me ask you this.
Oh, I'm sorry. It was a Corvette?
Oh, it was an old Corvette.
Yeah, you're right. It was not a Mustang, it was an old Corvette.
It was a pretty cool car. I liked the car.
But did any of you have the same feeling I did, which is, it's a question of taking his keys away?
Because I couldn't not think that.
The whole time he was in the car, I thought, take his keys away, take his keys away.
Weren't you thinking that?
So I don't see that that worked the way they wanted it to, but it's hard to know.
Jake Novak is a great source.
If you're not following Jake Novak on Twitter, you should.
Because the explosions that you're seeing in Beirut, and now there's some more fires in Iran, and I think in Iraq had some big fires recently.
There may be a pattern here, if you know what I mean.
And the pattern, as Jake Novak writes, Might be that we know where Iran is keeping their secret terrorist weapons.
It looks like that.
Because what it looks like is that somebody?
Could be who knows?
Could be Israel.
Could be somebody else.
But it looks like somebody knows where Iran is keeping their bad stuff.
And the bad stuff is going up in flames.
So there must be something different happening in Iran.
Compared to however long ago that we seem to know where their stuff is.
So there could be an insider who has turned.
That's speculation. And if that's the case, and maybe because Iran has already degraded, their economy is in bad shape because of sanctions and coronavirus, that maybe Iran is in such a weakened position right now That if we,
meaning Israel, the United States, knows where all the Hezbollah stocks of weapons are, etc., maybe they're just rolling them all up and just saying, well, by the end of the week, they're not going to have any more weapons depots.
So it looks like that's what's happening, but it's hard to know.
There was a raid at Jake Paul's house.
Everybody's watching that.
I don't know what to make of that.
There's going to be some crime that we haven't heard of That I think he will be alleged to have committed.
There's some reports about taxes.
They wouldn't raid his house for that.
There's pictures of them taking away weapons.
I don't think they would have raided his house just for that.
So I feel like there's more to this story.
we'll figure it out later and let's see if I've covered all of my fascinating points So Biden's not going to go to Wisconsin.
I don't know where he'll be, in his basement.
The President has said maybe he'll do his thing from the White House and that of course people will complain because he's at the White House.
I think he'll probably have to back down from using the White House just because you don't use the White House for campaigning.
But I would love to see that also use the drive-in theater concept, meaning that people all over the country, this is not my idea, I've talked about this before, could just go to a drive-in and watch the show from the drive-in, and at least they're with other people who want to watch it at the same time.
Let's talk about these cheaper, faster tests.
Apparently there are a number of companies developing Cheap tests that are just a few bucks and will give you a result in minutes as opposed to waiting days.
You could do it yourself. You don't even have to ask anybody else.
You just have your own little test kit like a home pregnancy kit.
Nobody knows if you're pregnant if you do a home pregnancy kit.
You're the only one who knows.
Likewise, these tests, you'd be the only one who knows unless you want somebody to tell you.
Now, the exception would be if you're being Tested by your company or something, then they would know.
But, of course, they need to know.
And so the question is this.
What needs to be changed so that these can work?
And it looks like there are two changes that I understand.
These are from David Boxenhorn, who pointed me to a video by Michael Mina, who's an expert in this field, It looks like the only thing stopping these cheap tests, which by the way, the difference between the cheap ones and the expensive ones, is that the expensive ones are really good at detecting a lot of stuff that's too late.
The cheap ones are not as sensitive, so they might miss somebody who just got the virus and they don't have much of a viral load, but because they're fast and cheap and you can use them anywhere you want, Your odds of finding somebody when it matters are way higher.
So if you hear less sensitive tests and your mind has translated that into less useful, it's the reverse.
It's the fact that you can do it cheap and quickly and it gets most of the big ones, not everyone.
That is the thing that can change the nature of the curve.
Because if you've got enough people testing, you get all the big ones, the obvious ones.
You cut the rate of transmission enough that probably gets it under control.
So there seem to be two, as I understand it.
And by the way, at this point, I'm still in the learning phase.
So you should take everything I say on this topic as a little bit of, well, let's get some confirmation about this.
I want to make sure. So I wouldn't give 100% certainty to anything I say on this topic or any other, really.
But there seem to be two changes.
One, and let's call these over-the-counter tests because that's a better phrase.
It's easier to conceptualize that these cheap tests would be over-the-counter versus clinical setting, medical setting.
And the sensitivity requirements for these tests are the same as the diagnostic tests.
So right now the FDA has the same requirement for how accurate they are.
I shouldn't say accurate.
How sensitive they are.
And they're comparing these cheap over-the-counter type tests to the ones that you do in more of a clinical medical setting.
And it's just the wrong standard in this situation.
Now in a normal situation, why would the FDA ever approve anything that is less good at detecting Then whatever we know we could get to.
Under normal conditions, this would be a perfectly good standard from the FDA. This is not a normal situation.
This is a situation where being fast and sloppy gets it done better.
Fast and sloppy.
Now, sloppy just means a little less sensitive.
But fast and sloppy, over the counter, solves a pandemic.
This is not like any other situation.
And the FDA needs to be looking at that rule for an exception.
I don't know if there's an executive order that can change that.
That may not be a thing.
But if there is, that's what I'd be looking at.
And the other requirement that the FDA has, so there are two things that need to change in order for these cheap over-the-counter tests to be a big tool.
The other is the FDA requires reporting of test results.
Now, I don't know the details of that, but who in the world is going to buy an over-the-counter cheap test and then do what?
Report on it? Who's reporting?
So why would you even need a reporting requirement?
It doesn't even make any sense for this particular application.
So there are two FDA rules.
That I think probably make perfect sense for most situations.
It's just that it doesn't make sense for this one.
And this is what you need a President Trump for.
Now, again, I'm not 100% sure that I know this topic well enough, but I'm 100% sure that if we haven't exhausted this, That we're probably not doing everything we can to find out what we can do.
So we should at the very least exhaust this topic and find out if it's real, if it can make a difference, if indeed just these two little tweaks to the FDA for just a special case could be a thing.
I think that needs to be very close to the top of the task force's priorities.
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